jamming to Miles

Although the weather is cold and the ice is still covering the concrete, I went out jogging. To be more accurate, I was out to listen to Ornette Coleman’s Sound Grammar the winner of Pulitzer Prize for music. That way I don’t have to feel guilty lounging in my bed. It turned out that I wasn’t the only fool out in the park early in the cold-ass morning. There were a couple hand-in-hand strolling as well as a man walking his dog. Whenever I see someone walks his dog with a bag on his hand, I can’t help but wonder what if the dog has diarrhea. How would he pick that shit up? As much as I like dogs, just thinking about that makes me not wanting to have them.

I didn’t quite understand why people love dogs so much I until I lived with them. Back when I first started working for Vassar, one of my roommates was a basketball coach assistant and he had two dogs. Even though he always kept them in his room, the dogs knew when I was coming home. They would bark until I opened the door. When I let them out they would run straight into the kitchen for there favorite meals: leftover Chinese takeouts. I always had to left half of a portion for them or I had to buy some for them. My roommate usually came home really late and when there was a game, he would ask to take them out for a walk. I didn’t know what I was suppose to do, so I took them straight into the bush so that they could do whatever they had to do while I was praying no one would walk by.

I remember the first few days they barked at me, but once we’re cool, they just jumped on the couch next to me and fell asleep while I watched TV. Thinking of them once in a while makes me want to have dog, but thinking of curbing after them and all the work to devote to, I still am not ready.

Rakim’s “It’s Nothing.” Still a great MC.

No snow here, just rain.

The new issue of GWSB News is up.

Eric Karjaluoto:

For hardcore designers, “does it work?” is the one question that must be obsessed over. Really, this should be the case for any designer anyways; not whether it looks cool, and not if it can win awards. Hardcore design is about taking away the cute, fluffy stuff, and concentrating on what is actually accomplished.

Ben Ratliff eulogizes Teo Macero:

Helping to build Miles Davis albums like “Bitches Brew,” “In a Silent Way” and “Get Up With It,” Mr. Macero (pronounced TEE-oh mah-SEH-roh) used techniques partly inspired by composers like Edgard Varèse, who had been using tape-editing and electronic effects to help shape the music. Such techniques were then new to jazz and have largely remained separate from it since. But the electric-jazz albums he helped Davis create — especially “Bitches Brew,” which remains one of the best-selling albums by a jazz artist — have deeper echoes in almost 40 years of experimental pop, like work by Can, Brian Eno and Radiohead.

mocking up the homepage http://business.gwu.edu/

Finished the biweekly newsletter

A nifty little tool for writing quick css font properties.