Or, if you would like to view the pictures as a Holiday Card, you can check out this link:

http://www.cooliris.com/card/holiday/2009/J9R6FMVN

Happy Holidays!

“It’s been a long time since 22…”

So, the purpose of this post is two-fold:

1) Continue my running theme of songs that mention the number 23

2) Showcase the awesomeness of the Cooliris Embed Wall

So, in regards to #1: Tonight is an exciting night for everyone involved with Vevo – the music video “premium” content provider. Imagine the Hulu or YouTube music videos. Now, artists and record labels can have complete control over the content that they provide to users – quality, timing, advertising, you name it. These people have been doing it for awhile as a YouTube Partner, but the Vevo launch makes it even more official, and gives them the control that YouTube wouldn’t. I for one am excited to see that Vevo will be linked to from YouTube, so it’s not like I have to be on two different sites at the same time. Many artists have Vevo specific channels, such as johnmayerVEVO. Which is what brings me to the song lyric at the beginning! It comes from his song “Who Says”, which I really like and first heard driving home late at night over Thanksgiving. The video paints a cool picture of what I imagine his life to be like in NYC. People can have very different paths of life, can’t they? Anyway, enjoy the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZwVjys2bQI

Second, I would like to take the opportunity to showcase an awesome new feature of the Cooliris Embed wall that was just released today. Using Cooliris Express, users can now embed Cooliris walls on even MORE sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and WordPress! Pretty awesome. I have already showed it off to friends on Facebook, and now is my chance to do so on WordPress. To create this wall I simply went to http://cooliris.com/express, customized the wall I wanted to create, generated the WordPress code, and pasted it into this post! It’s as simple as that. I really recommend you give it a try.

Enjoy John Mayer’s VEVO channel, displayed for you here on my WordPress blog. (Next post)

“Honey I know you’re bright, you’re blinding with apathy
Your body’s a ministry
But darlin if you’re 18, I’m 23…”

I only know a few people who might be able to identify these lyrics – probably because they’re from a under-appreciated band called The Damnwells. The song is called “You Don’t Have to Like Me to Love Me”, and comes from their album Air Stereo.

I first saw them perform when opening up for the The Fray at The Warfield in San Francisco my sophomore year of college (2006). I had never heard them before, but the first thing I did after the show was go to the merch booth and buy their album. And I’m really glad I did. It quickly became one of my favorite albums, especially because the band wasn’t super mainstream.

Well anyway, I promised that I would continue my mention of songs that have “23″ lyrics in them. This one is especially cool because most rap songs only talk about Michael Jordan when using 23, but this one actually is referring to the age. And, I too am dating a younger girl (even though she’s 20, not 18 – love you babe).

Surprisingly there aren’t any YouTube videos of the song (don’t know what their stance on Copyright is) but here is a live performance of the song, followed by my other favorites off the album:

“You Don’t Have to Like Me to Love Me (Live)”

“Golden Days (Live with The Fray)”

“Sell the Lie” – {to a Sarah Marshall music video – only one of my favorite movies OF ALL TIME (shouts to Kanye)}

Citizen journalism is fascinating to me – people being “on the ground” whenever anything “interesting” happens. However, I have been intrigued by some recent articles that ponder why humans choose to immediately reach for their video cameras in some cases rather than following the human code – helping others. Regardless, I am interested in what this means for the way in which our society interacts, so I finally got a Flip HD for my 23rd birthday. So far I love it! It is very easy to use, shoots great quality, and has allowed me to capture some pretty cool memories. If you wanna check one out, head on over to Amazon.
Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black)

One week ago, I entered into what some friends have called the “Old” stage of my life. While I disagree (my girlfriend says that men don’t reach their prime til 28…), it doesn’t change the fact that my age is at least a pretty cool number to be associated with. Being a basketball fan, I am obviously stoked about anything related to MJ/The King.

However, being an even bigger music fan, I wanted to connect my age to some lyrics that have referenced this wonderful number. (This could be a year long venture mind you) So, in Part I, we arrive at the song responsible for the title of this series, Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got”, off of Kingdom Come. Check the video below after the lyrics:

Shots of patron now she’s in a zone
I ain’t talking about the 2-3
Mami in the zone like the homie 2-3
Jordan or James
Makes no difference boo I’m ballin the same
I am the Mike Jordan of recording
You might want to fallback from recording

Mike Posner is making some big noise in the music scene recently. Firsthand, I know that his name has spread through word of mouth on our college campus. Mike, whoever the music fanatics are that you’re reaching first, they’re spreading the word about your music quite nicely.

I was first introduced to Mike on a blog called YouShouldKnowThisByNow – who may know him personally, cuz they were posting his stuff before it was even out there it seemed like. The first piece of work I heard of his was featured on his first mixtape – Mike Posner & The Brain Trust. The song was a sick remix of Beyonce’s Halo. The blog had a video of Mike composing the beat, which was dope. Then I expected him to throw in Beyonce’s vocals to make for a cool mix. But then Mike gets in the booth and lays down the vocals, too! Needless to say, I was impressed.

Halo and Drug Dealer Girl were getting some play in my iTunes for awhile, but after awhile the Posner name faded out of my mind. Until the mixtape actually dropped. First listen through, I was floored by Still Not Over You. Being a Colorado boy, I absolutely love The Fray. As soon as Mike’s song came on during my first listen, I couldn’t believe it. Not only did it sound amazing, but the lyrics were something plenty of people can relate to.

Fast foward to now. Mike’s latest mixtape, One Foot Out The Door, is now mainstream party music, at least at my college. I have been particularly obsessed with his song “You Don’t Have to Leave”, which is featured in his mini webisodes online. Here it is, for your musical enjoyment.

Sadly, the song I am most pumped about wasn’t on the mixtape. And rightfully so. This song is gonna be so dope that it would be silly not to make money off of it. (To be honest I’m surprised You Don’t Have to Leave was included as well – this song is dope. Makes me optimistic for the quality of his album release) Below is a live version, you can see for yourself. My favorite part is when you can hear someone in the crowd go “If nobody in hip-hop listens to Mike Posner, he’s still gonna make millions” followed by “This song is a club HIT.” Bahahah.

Mike, keep doing your thing. And by the way, if you dropped Please Don’t Go on iTunes tomorrow, I would pay for it in an instant. Release that single homie!

With the recent success of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 I thought it was only fitting to connect one of the tracks to my personal situation.

How does it apply? Well, this week marks the start of a new journey for me professionally – I have joined the Cooliris team, after spending a very enjoyable 4 months with Mozilla. I definitely learned a lot and am grateful to everyone there who helped me succeed.

Back to the music – “On to the Next One ft. Swizz Beatz” is fire. Definitely one of the best tracks on the album. As for me, well the title says it all. On to the Next One I go…where I’ll stop, man I don’t know, so let’s go…

I want to make sure that something that I am testing out actually worked.

Thanks!

I am very proud to say that the Mozilla Creative Collective is live! Today, Mozilla released the Creative Collective to the public, after months of brainstorming, story-boarding, and hard work.

The Mozilla Creative Collective is open to anyone – artist or not! There is a place for everyone to contribute to the Collective, which is very much in line with the open communities that we have built in the past.

How can you get involved?
Go to http://creative.mozilla.org and get started by creative a profile for yourself. Then, dive into the Creative Collective by checking out all of the cool art that has already been posted to the site! Become a “Fan” of the artists you like, and definitely feel free to comment on pieces of artwork you find particularly interesting.

Then, when you are ready, upload your own artwork to the site! We are looking for graphic designs related to the Mozilla ideals of openness, innovation, and participation.

If you join the Collective within the first week after launch, you will earn a limited time “Founder” badge, to be proudly displayed on your profile for everyone to see.

We can’t wait to see what amazing pieces of art our community is able to create; so come join us!

http://creative.mozilla.org
creative@mozilla.com