Music Exposure: free songs that don't suck

Here's some singles that I happen to like - mostly in the "adult contemporary" genre. Your own take on their suckatude may vary. Song titles link to legal* MP3 downloads.

"Crystal Frontier (widescreen version)" by Calexico - could be a soundtrack on a south of the border movie.
"Quicksilver" by Abbie Huxley - Not sure who this sounds like, but me like.
"Loosen Your Hold" by South - so good it's scary, also try "Colours In Waves". Who are these guys? Sounds like Stone Roses.
"Benefits of Lying With Your Friend" by The Apples in Stereo - Retro psychedelic indie pop.
"Summer Sun" by Koop - jazzy happy fun song.
"She" by Round 2 - another garage band you'd swear you've heard before but haven't.
"Clementalisque" by Peter Adams - great garage band song. Also try "Listen Harmony". This band will go places.
"Once Around the Block" by Badly Drawn Boy. Also check out "The Shining (Avalanches Mix)"
"The Hook" by Stephen Malkmus - a pirate song.
"The Staunton Lick" by Lemon Jelly - kitschy tune.
"Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinane - not my favorite song of his, but it's free. Also try similar sounding The Killers "Somebody Told Me".
"Daydream in Blue" by I Monster - If you love Nick Drake you'll either love or hate this (he-he).

Mellow
"Waltz #2" by Elliot Smith - of course you know who he is, right!? Anyway here's a demo.
"Swingset Chain" by Loquat - excellent songwriting stuff in this one.
"Stand" by Sci-Fi Lullaby - sounds like ... um, you know ... that guy.
"Firefly" by Greta Gaines
"Summer Wine" by Evan Dando and Sabrina Brooke
"Lion's Mane" by Iron & Wine - not sure if link is copyright kosher, check for yourself.
Camera Obscura - if you like Belle & Sebastian you may like this.
"Photobooth" by Death Cab for Cutie - decent stuff, but I like artist Sea & Cake better.
"Two Stones In My Pocket" by Neil Halstead - quiet guitar song, ala Nick Drake.

Some other things to check out
Ambulance Ltd. - esp. "Antidote", sounds like Marroon5/Kara's Flowers.
Snow Patrol - lots of good stuff, esp. "Run", "Ways and Means" and "Ask Me How I Am"
Pinback - anything by them.
Manu Chao - esp. "Bongo Bong", "Le Vent Nous Portera" and "Le Rendez-Vous"
The Delgados - esp. "All You Need is Hate" and "Coming In From The Cold"
The Shins - now that they're popular you have no excuses not to know.
"Duvet" by Boa - folksy, appeared in the anime series "Lain".
Jamie Cullum - hoppin jazz piano, I like his version of Hendrix's "Wind Cries Mary", and "Twentysomething"
"Bees and Butterflies" by Girls In Hawaii - sounds like Radiohead.

OddbAlls OUt
"Witchi Tai To" by Future Pilot AKA - This song always reminds me of the Rugrats cartoon.
"Geppetto" by Optiganally Yours - answers that age old question, what did Pinocchio's dad do while stuck in that whale?
"Next Time" by Little Wings - another oddie but funny.
... and if you like try these bands: 'Dogs Die In Hot Cars' or 'Of Montreal'

*As far as I can tell these sites look official, but IANAL. Don't shoot the messenger.

Photos: Firefly, Spider, Dragonfly

A batch of macros from the past week and this weekend.


Firefly: at least I think this is a firefly, or a related insect. Lucked out with him crawling along some tall wet grass. Edited in Photoshop.


Spider with Prey: found this under the window ledge outside the office.


Dragonfly: on an apple tree blossom in the backyard.

Photos: Tiger Beetles

Tiger Beetles: These guys looked like flies on the river beach, until I bent down for a closer look. I love the look of these, and boy can they move. Luckily they where a bit ... um, distracted.

Surplus Property from OSU

Here's a handy site (OSU Surplus) for you Corvallis area bargin hunters and junk collectors. I know OSU has "used sales" but they also put stuff on eBay with the option of local pickup. Great if you need the odd office supply and don't need it new. Just be sure to check out any electronics in person, just because it turns on doesn't mean it'll work.

Speaking of bargin sites, here's a another I had in my old Explohorror bookmarks (yay, firefox!): Nifty News & Deals

Adobe & Macromedia to merge

For anyone in an industry that uses graphics and interactivity this is big news. Not sure if it's good news - that'll depend on which products "Adomedia" ends up putting all their efforts into: Freehand vs. Illustrator, Dreamweaver vs. Go Live. Plus, I'm betting on a wave of 1st generation merger bloat in the brower plug-in dept. Ugh. Well this wasn't unexpected I guess.

Photos: Bug's World

A batch of macro photos from this weekend.


Catterpillar: These guys are all over the Finley Wildlife marsh area. I have no idea what they turn into, but I liked the mist on this one.


Tent Caterpillars: found a small collective of these guys on a thorn bush next to the marsh. Finley Wildlife near Corvallis.


Ladybug: yet another close-up macro of this common beetle.


Tiny Butterfly: These guys are all over the garden. Not sure if they're pests or what.


Earwig: A real pest, but they also eat snail and slug eggs, or so sez the wife. They do pinch.

Photos: Oregon Gardens

Flower: bleeding hearts.


Topiary: Dead ones are more interesting than fluffy green ones. I've also done some editing on this one to add some moody spookiness: gradient in sky, blurred layer set to multiply, dodging & burning, etc.


Desktop Wallpaper: "Digital Plant" (1024 x 768 pixels)
Other sizes available: 1280, 1600, 1920 widescreen
And yes, it's supposed to look like that.


Desktop Wallpaper: "Hidden Spider" (1024 x 768 pixels)
Other sizes available: 1280, 1600, 1920 widescreen

UPDATE: Due to bandwidth leaches from myspace raising my site costs I've had to remove wallpaper files.

How To: Quality B&W Photos

Here's a quick tutorial on getting the best black and white image from your digital photos: tone control + less noise than grayscale or Lab methods.

First of all ALWAYS shoot in color. I know cameras have B&W settings, don't use it - you can never get the color back if you change your mind.

This Tutorial is written using Photoshop CS, but you can do most of this in Photoshop 7 or Elements.

1. On the Layers window, choose the Adjustment Layers icon (circle with two halves), and pick Selective Color from the pop-up menu. When the next window appears, just click OK (we'll change those settings later).




2. Click on the Adjustment Layers icon again, but this time pick Channel Mixer from the menu. Set all 3 sliders to equal about 100 (I'm lazy and just type in 33). Don't forget to check Monochrome at the bottom. Click OK to close.



3. Now we're ready to fine tune our new B&W. Double-click the Selective Color Layer and play with the sliders for each color. If you push the colors too far image noise (speckles) will show up so be careful. Greens are the worst for this. When you're done click OK to close.



You're Done!

Extras. But, adjustment layers have the added benefit of masks, the white box to the right of each layer icon. Think of these as layer stencils. White is opaque, black is transparent. Soooo ... you can do anything to a mask you can do to your image: paint on it, select areas and fill, blur, adjust curves or levels, sky's the limit!

Here I've done a quick selective color reveal. The channel Mixer layer is the one that turns the image B&W, so by painting on it's mask I can reveal the layers below. If I paint with gray or lighten the mask the reveal becomes less visible.



Why Work Non-destructively?
Once you edit an image and save you're stuck with it unless you want to repeat all your steps. By using adjustment layers and masks you can do quite a bit without ever altering your base image. This is very useful when you decide to make changes or variations of the same image.

The exception to this is dodging/burning and effects filters. Although even these can be done on duplicate layers, just in case.

Robo Geek Out

They're everywhere! Robots and mecha abound.

Robots are listening
Robots can dance (! 6mb .wmv video) and swim
Mecha are real
And I'm a robot (best for last)

Finley Wildlife Photos

Photos posted today are from a previous trip to the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge. During the fall time I like to take the long route home and drive through that area. Over a past weekend I went looking for the famed rough skinned newt, some of which are very poisonous.

Rough skinned newt floating near the pond surface. Colors and contrast fixed in photoshop. Taken with a zoom lens.

Rough skinned newt in the tiny stream along the woodpecker trail, Finley Wildlife Refuge.

Some kind of frog or newt egg mass. Heavily edited in Photoshop to get these colors and contrast, but the star highlight was part of the image (I think a high f-stop may cause that).

Large water beetle resting on a twig above the water. Taken with a 50mm prime (fixed lens) with several macro rings stacked on the end.

Water strider on the pond. This was taken with a 300mm zoom lens. I found that shooting into the sun really helps show the surface of the water (but also makes seeing what you're doing more difficut).

Wolf spider resting on a floating leaf.