Best Shittiest Beer Fest 2008!

BSBF 2008: Arriving a little later this year, but arriving nonetheless. For those of you new to the game, the goal is to find the BEST shittiest beer (not the worst) through two rounds of blind taste testing. We'll also just be enjoying a day in the park, rain or shine.

I encourage you to leave a comment below with a beer-to-bring of your choice. Doing so will help prevent people from bringing duplicates. But if you just want to show up, that's all dandy as well.

All necessary info should be in the above flier - just click the image to enlarge it.

Introducing: "d.J"

Those that know me well will know that I've long reserved a special place in my musical archive for electronic music, particularly of the "progressive house" and "IDM" genres. Ironically, it is the primal nature of this music that resonates so well with me, seducing my mind into a comfortable interregnum somewhere between hypnosis and concentration. Maybe it's the organic melodies juxtaposed to mathematical pulses, or the way in which a good deejay cajoles this music into a story complete with characters, plots, climaxes, and resolutions...

or maybe I just kinda like this music for some reason, whether I'm writing grants, dropping out of school, darting down 21st Street, biking, or falling asleep (and let's not forget the time when this girl was over and she thought I was trying to get some sort of "dance party" ploy going on with her or something...really? I honestly just listen to this stuff!).

Anyway, after years of mentally composing bad-ass mixes in my head, I finally acquired some deejay software, Ableton Live, that will allow the tangible emergence of an alter ego: "d.J" -- the "Batman" to my guitar-strumming Bruce Wayne. Together with the wave analysis program, Audacity, i have clumsily completed my first bona fide deejay mix, aptly titled Rain+Shadows (yes, the title is a pun, hence the "+"). The tracks and the track order were tediously selected to reflect the pensive, yet fecund mood of Portland, Oregon in early spring...and perhaps one too many late-night walkabouts along Skyline Drive. Rain+Shadows begins in the gloss of 12:00 AM moonlight and finales with the punch of a 7:00 AM sunrise. Further, I'm a sucker for sexy bass lines, and, well, this mix flatters that fancy. There are, however, some problems with the mix, namely that it's too quiet. I haven't yet figured out how to increase the volume without clipping, despite trying compression of all sorts and sizes. That said, there are a few mixouts that I'm very pleased with given my neophyte attempt, such as the transition between "Wuthering Heights" and "Itajai Vibes"...fun with the high pass filter!

Rain+Shadows (...which almost sounds like a deodorant or something...) is free for you to download by clicking below; all the tracks were properly purchased. And in case you're unfamiliar with the protocol, the tracks are to be played successively without interruption, so make sure you set iTunes (if that's what you use) to "Gapless Album" in the info settings for the album. The files are in AAC format; the artwork, including my "I can't believe that turned out with my shitty camera" photo of a lunar elcipse, is JPEG files.

You can download Rain+Shadows Part I HERE --> You have to click the arrow to the right to download properly!

Post Script: if you happen to like Rain+Shadows (Part I), Part II will be out soon.