Fun toys of the month, the Korg Mini-Kaoss, Korg Kaossilator, and the Korg DS-10 Nintendo DS analog. Way too much fun.

The Presedents of the United States of America have a newish album on AmieStreet. If you love the Presidents, then the album is worth the 5 (or so) bucks.

AmieStreet sells artist-friendly, DRM-free, download-as-many-times-as-you-want music online. Pricing is pretty cool too: all albums start at $0/song, increasing as the songs sell and are recommended–and you can even make a few bucks recommending new music yourself.

I bought a few BNL live albums (and one of their new studio projects) before they were popular for less than a dollar. I’ve also found a lot of great independent music, have earned more than $5 in AmieStreet credits now, and purchased more than 30 albums for $25. A few of my favorite new artists so far:

• The Powerless, a band that rocks somewhere between Tool and WhiteStripes
• White Hot Knife, another new-rock band
• Towncrier, a gamier U2 folk-rock band
• The Blue Jackets, a new-rock punk band somewhere between the Ramones and Pistols (but fresher)
• Breakestra, some top-dog funk
• The Mighty Imperials, another swingin’ funk/soul group
• Jets Overhead, a great, laid-back folk-rock sound
• The Dead Trees, a really fresh, raw folk-rock band with some slick vocals
• Some Velvet Morning, a single’s-only band that sounds a bit like The Killers

Canada rules! Check out Amie Street, an independent Canadian online music store - sans DRM. They charge based on popularity, with a better revenue model for artists.  In ten minutes I found a dozen new and interesting artists, all worth paying $.20-.98 per song to.

[stars: 3] Moulin Rouge. A strange, hip, intense, and almost-great musical (and much better after a few beer). The movie reminded me a lot of Bohemian Rapsody, a meaningless pop opera that somehow reflected a hidden depth of emotion. Yes it’s pop shill, but it’s well-performed with a few nuggets of real meaning if you’re willing to listen.

[stars: 5] Weezer discography. I found their entire collection at a garage sale over the holidays and I fully enjoyed every track. I wasn’t expecting much after their disappointing second album, but they found their grove and laid it down song after song in their unique style.

Courtney Love does the math, or Why you shouldn’t shed any tears for the music industry. Not just the math, but she points out that the real pirates are the labels themselves.

Are your users stuck in “P” mode? This is an essay about how many users never escape the auto mode of their tools. The thing is that I don’t think auto is bad: using a tool is far less about the petty details than it is about just using it. A good “auto” mode beats a highly programmable device any day. Just look at the iPod, it’s all about the music, not the damned settings.

This morning I rediscovered music. It’s not that I haven’t been around music for the last few years, and it’s not like I haven’t tried to enjoy it. I’ve tried. I’ve sat and listened to dozens of albums. I’ve listened casually to the radio and mpeg streams online. But nothing worked, and I put music on a shelf somewhere in my mind like so many other things I used to enjoy.

It’s scary too, the slow erosion of my passions. It seems to be an inevitable movement towards what I don’t want to become. A dead developer, a yuppy, unartistic and uninterested. I saw it happen to my dad, and I’ve seen it happen to dozens of friends and developers. These jobs, the cubicles, and our damned machines kill us. We have to fight to survive, and there’s not much room left for our sanity.

It’s not like I haven’t enjoyed any music in the last few years. I just haven’t enjoyed it in that way that changes me. It used to be that I’d pop on a favorite album, put on the headphones, and find myself in a different universe. At the end it I would be a different person, excited about life again. Anything worth doing is like this in some way or another, like writing software, writing, painting, climbing to the top of something in nature: these things excite the mind.

So this morning I was listening to some mp3s at a reasonable volume in my office at work. I was uninspired. I was unmotivated. I was reading the same old emails, reading the same old shit news. The code in front of me was still the worst code I’ve ever had to work with, and I still don’t have the balls to rewrite it (damn the consequences).

Then I remembered the headphones hidden behind my monitor. I slid them on, pushed up the volume, and listened. No, I enjoyed. Music through crappy speakers at reasonable volumes is a fucking waste of oscillation. But, music through my studio style headphones at entirely unreasonable volumes, now that’s fun. It’s fucking brilliant.

Good, loud music has this extreme effect on me, like a sort of reset. It injects the artistry of another set of souls into my being. It interrupts my world, my train of thought, and can bump me out of my rut. It makes me think, “maybe I’ll paint tonight,” or, “you know, I think it’s time to go for a long hike.” It reminds me of possibility, shifting my focus from the stuff that gets in the way of my passion daily. It’s a good thing.

How does work become slavery? It isn’t: we choose it to be so. We let ourselves die. We forget what we love, and we forget to do more of it. Fuck this requirements document. Fuck this terrible code. Fuck the people who don’t have a clue. I can do amazing things when I remember that the shit is only a problem if I roll around and embrace it. So I’ll get off my ass, get out of this rut, and enjoy my time here.