Every year Google does something funny for my birthday. Everyone thinks it’s for April Fool’s day, but I know Google knows everything about me, including my birthday & what color socks I am wearing today. It stands to reason that they know of my love of video games as well, and this year they made this!

Hilarious. They even made 8 bit versions of street view, complete with little avatar.

Here is a taste:

This was a particularly awesome weekend for me. It was partly trip down memory lane, partly a new adventure, and partly an earache. A quick chance to play music with people I had never collaborated with, but who were pretty instrumental in my musical makeup.

If you can, hop in the DeLorean and let’s get up to 88. The story goes like this:

In the year 1997 or 1998, I went to a music festival in Muncie, Indiana. At this music festival were many many bands. Among these insane bands was one called Zao, an intense metal band that looked a lot like this:

Behind this festival (the same festival where I first bore witness to the amazing guitar prowess of Jared Southwick) was a pale guy with tattoos named Jonathon Newby. Throughout my years at Ball State University, Newby and I would cross paths and see each other at shows, many of them featuring awesome bands he brought to town. Quite a few times brought Zao through as they toured.

I had a few chances between 2000 and 2002 to play with Zao while in Mara’Akate, and had met Russ in passing, and shared gear on occasion. Zao was an incredible band, and full of good guys. Basically we would show up, say hi, all freak out and get back on the road.

A decade later, and Russ is still crushing it in Zao. Evidence:

In short, it was really great to play with these guys, two guys that I never thought I’d have an opportunity to make music with, let along geek out about cameras, movies, and 90s Nickelodeon shows with.

Thanks guys, let’s do it again soon. Now I’m heading back to the future.

This is the first video I've created with my new GoPro Hero 2 HD. Essentially I set up the camera on the window with the suction mount while my son and his cousins played on a Sunday afternoon. I dropped the footage in, sped it up, dropped in a generic iMovie jingle, and this little gem popped out. I like it and I hope you do too.

This one has the unique pleasure of being one of the first shorts I enjoyed with the Vimeo app on my AppleTV.

Some seriously great stuff from some seriously great guys in Bloomington.

We played a few shows with Transistor Transistor on that tour, and I’d be remiss to not include their set from the same show as well.

I have to say it is impressive, I love the look, and I love the piece, but the ending left me feeling a little strange. Of course, that is probably the point.

I was fortunate enough to hear Neil Gaiman talk in Indianapolis, and it was enchanting, to say the least. I just backed this KickStarter project, and I recommend all fans of either artist do the same. For one dollar you can get a recording of the shows!

The used bin youtube review:

Seriously though, it is pretty awesome.