Ryan j Budke

If any of my audience happens to find themself in London this Thursday night (January 29th), you should definitely check out my friend Lisa’s art show. It’s going to be held at the Take Courage Gallery (address below). This show is actually the second in a series of three, and the following description is actually from the first show, but no matter what she does, it’s going to kick ass. If you want to check out some of her other work, Lisa has a few pieces up on her MySpace page. I’ll find some and put them up.

MAKEOVER SOLUTION MEANS EVOLUTION
Lisa Slominski and Roisin Byrne’s work attempts to address the new
economics of self – presentation and the contemporary shift in the
stylistic evolution of labour. Their work is interested in how labor
today is ‘performed’ through the development of image and persona; in
as much as it is demonstrated through skills, expertise and the
performance of the worker’s or in this case, an artist’s ‘persona’ has
now become an essential component in the overall production of
business.

BOOK LAUNCH
FALL IN THEATRE: A 24 HOUR PERFORMANCE
Publication of Fall-in-Theatre I, a 24 hour performance with nineteen artists.

Take Courage Gallery
Upstairs, Amersham Arms
388 New Cross Road
London SE14 6TY

http://www.takecourage.co.uk/
http://www.fallintheatre.com/

Along with the podcasts and audiobooks I’ve been listening to lately, I’ve stumbled onto a lot of good music from all over the place.

First up is a guy that some people may have heard of, Lupe Fiasco. He’s relatively new but has been getting a lot of airplay with his song Superstar, off of his second album Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor. His first album, The Cool, is a little less polished, but that may appeal to some. If you think rap is dead or stagnate, definitely check him out. My favorite song of his is Pressure which I’ve embedded below.

Next up is someone that I just found via Perez Hilton today. Her name is Nicole Atkins, and besides a solo act, she also fronts Nicole Atkins & The Sea. 2006 was Regina Spektor, 2007 was Feist’s year, and I think this is Nicole Atkins is 2008’s indy hippie acoustic chick. Brooklyn’s On Fire is below is a fun chorus-y jig and below for your enjoyment.

Finally is a swedish mc named Adam Tensta. I freaking love his album It’s A Tensta Thing. His rap is a little bit heavier than Lupe Fiasco’s, but it’s cut by being laid on top of some really great electronic beats. If you’re a fan of early 90’s rap or techno (two great tastes that taste great together?) definitely give him a try. I dare you to not bop your head listening to My Cool below.

That’s all I’ve got right now, but if you know of anyone that I should give a listen to, let me know. I’ve been checking out Mr. Rojas’ RCRD LBL from time to time, but I desperately wish they would start a podcast or featured mp3 feed so I could have it download into iTunes.

Tags: adam tensta, lupe fiasco, nicole atkins, new music, rcrd lbl

I killed the daily Twitter summaries on here, I doubt anyone will really mind though, they were just cluttering up the site and everyone’s feeds. So, just in case anyone wants to find my Twitter updates, either look to the right side of the site under What I’m Doing… or directly on Twitter.

Also, this is my first post from Qumana (I have no idea how that’s pronounced), a stand alone blogging utility for Mac. It’s pretty nice, and I’m liking not having to open yet another tab in Firefox just to blog. Very slick. If you know of any similar tools that you think I should try, let me know.

Tags: twitter, ryan j budke, qumana

• Saturday night, and i’m working on contracts for AOL #
• "No, they’re puppeteers dickhead" http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/d70b5a11cb #
• At Mahalo HQ for some Royal Rumble action #

• I’ve won the Ukraine, but at what cost to those tiny digital men… #
• off to Hollywood for some grub and Rambo #

• Just got done with The World’s Fastest Indian, not bad, but not as memorable as I was hoping #
• Just finished the first episode of Breaking Bad… thanks @wilw for the recommendation, it was 10 kinds of awesome #
• Funny if you’re an interweb junkie: http://tinyurl.com/2fpgj6 #
• just finished High Fidelity for the unknownth time, still as awesome #

• Mind your own business chump. http://tinyurl.com/39goyu #
• @jasoncalacanis must be having prostate problems… everything is "taking the piss out of him" today #
• best part of running in rain is the warm shower that follows #

• I wonder if a bad bootleg version of Cloverfield would cancel out the shaky cam… #
• Apparently iChat crashed a few hours back… it was so wonderfully quiet my brain tricked me into not noticing #
• Angry Ken just got knocked out by a girl in Wii Boxing. Life, complete. #

So Digg is apparently having just a few issues at the moment in how its top users have felt they’ve been treated. A topic that I think deserves a long hard look. We’ve had similar situations at Propeller (formerly Netscape), and they’re never easy, but we always came out a much stronger and richer site because of it. Personally, I don’t like Digg’s behind the scenes methods, I think that leads to a very us against them mentality. It’s also naive to think that any completely open and social site could survive without an editorial layer. There’s always going to be spam, there’s always going to be questionable content, and there’s always going to be a need to combat those things. The major difference is that at Propeller, we put those parts of the site on display. That way you not only have a more direct means of reporting problems, and thus helping the site to grow, but also someone that can be held accountable when it’s not living up to your standards.

I’d like to invite anyone from Digg that’s feeling “disenfranchised” to come and spend some time at Propeller for a few days. Not only that, but if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get a hold of me directly either via email (Ryan@propeller.com) or IM (Ryan45209). I’m not trying to “steal” users from Digg in doing this (some of our paid employees are among Digg’s top users, and I read the site everyday), I just want the guys and gals who feel like they’ve been put out by Digg to know that there are other venues who may appreciate them more.

Again, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

…has already passed, and hopefully you didn’t even notice. Blue Monday is normally the fourth Monday of the year, and has been scientifically proven to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s when the holiday buzz for most people has completely worn off, when you end up getting your first couple of bills from the holiday spending, the weather’s shitty, your new year’s resolutions have fallen to pieces, you don’t see a lot of people and those that you do are going through the exact same hell as you.

While I’ve definitely felt that slump in years past, I’ve found myself in such good habits this year that I didn’t even notice. Work has been going great, and we’re getting ready to unleash some real awesomeness at Propeller. I’ve been sticking to my personal resolutions like glue. I’ve lost a few pounds, am eating much better, going to the gym everyday. I haven’t felt this healthy in years. I gave up a couple of personal vices that I thought were going to be brutal, but haven’t looked back on. I’ve found myself developing habits that I enjoy even though I considered them extremely tedious before.

Hopefully everyone else’s years thus far are holding as much potential.