November 2007 Archives

Stefan Janowski - 360 Flip [YouTube]

So I'm completely and stupidly geeked out this morning but for an entirely good reason -- last night was the first time I've landed a 360 Flip on a skateboard in about eight years. EIGHT. YEARS. And my board didn't even break.

It was freezing cold last night when I got out on my skateboard, but after about 10 minutes of pushing around and warming my muscles up, my sweatshirt and hat were both off and I was cruising around the Logan Square park making much more noise than the neighbors would be used to at 10:30pm. It felt fantastic, though. It felt exactly like that feeling I forgot; skateboarding in the Chicago cold. I basically grew up on skating outdoors and it was a great feeling to bring back that the activity as I once knew it. The way your lungs feel. The way your ears get cold. The way your nose is running profusely but you don't really care.

After skating some of the best parts I've ever seen (down in Arizona), my interest level is a million percent peaked. I need to be able to trick out the next time I go down there. And I can't wait.

A week ago I saw the Menomena show at the Metro with John, Rachelle, and some friends from work. The show was quite good. Somebody uploaded video to YouTube of two different songs that night -- Twenty Cell Revolt and Rotten Hell. Check it out.

The Kinks - Animal Farm [video]

While I was in Arizona, I took part in a very familiar activity for most of my downtime hanging out at my brother's apartment -- watching skate videos. The latest in the collection was Inhabitants, the new video from Habitat Skateboards. In the video, I believe Stefan Janowski skates to this song by The Kinks. Everyone immediately connected to the song in the way that the skate part made you psyched that you're watching a pro do their thing.

My brother's roommate went out and bought the CD the next day.

Okay -- this is pretty cool. It's call Evolve, a new product by Griffin Technology. They're wireless, they're selling for $299, and it looks pretty sleek and sexy. Kudos on the design, and here's to hoping you have a quality product on your hands. Gizmodo seemed to be on the fence about whether or not they thought it was worth the money.

(via John)

I ordered a couple posters recently from a very cool site I stumbled upon a while back called The Poster List. I was psyched when they finally showed up and I was even more psyched when I saw the thank-you note inside handwritten from one of the man behind-the-scenes, Adam (probably the owner).

It's the little touches that really make a difference in customer service. We did a thing like this at FeedBurner that I really enjoyed; whenever a user wanted us to send them a sticker, we asked them to send an envelope and we would return a sticker with a small thank-you written out on our business cards. It was an ingenious way to reach out, circle back, and pow-wow with some of your "fans," the actual users of your product / web app / service / whatever.

I watched a fantastic panel at SXSW 2006 called "Customer Service is the New Marketing," featuring a discussion between the brains behind Flickr, Zappos, 30 Boxes, and Satisfaction Unlimited (with a blog post to match). It was enjoyable discussion to watch and it's good to see that many companies are taking a rather successful approach by listening and responding to the needs of their customers and users. After all, they're the ones using the product and they're one to wish it could be better to make their lives easier. Every and all companies should work like hell to honor that. The customer is always right, but not really.

At any rate, check out The Poster List. It's cool.

I'm flying home from Arizona today after a week with my brother and his crew of skateboarding buddies. It was exactly what the doctor ordered for me, figuratively speaking of course. I had a lot of fun and I was proud to be representing the late 90's skateboarding scene, something that these guys have long since surpassed without thinking much about it. Everyone said my wheels were huge, bro.

More from me today between flights. Hope everyone had a killer holiday because I know I did.

How to Kickflip [YouTube]

I landed a kickflip yesterday while working on some of my flatland tricks in Logan Square. I only had about a half hour in me before my muscles started to spasm but I'm working up to spending more time out there. It felt really good to land one of these and ride away, though. I was psyched.

Come one, come all -- but only if you're RSVP'd -- to TECH cocktail in Chicago tonight. FeedBurner will be representing in full force, er, I mean Google. And no, Ron May, I'm not interested in talking about anything. And no, everyone else, I can't help you find a job at Google. I can't handle that sort of pressure right now.

It should be a lot of fun as these things usually are not, and I hope I can put up with the mass of folks for longer than I usually can. After about five minutes of awkward conversation with anyone tends to stress me, and that's usually my cue to move on. Luckily I have a spot to hit right up the street; Menomena is playing at the Metro and it's fixin' to be a fantastic show. Those guys rule.

See you there.

Look at me. I have a FeedBurner moleskin. And it's red.

The blog's been quite quiet, which inevitably means that I've been pretty busy lately. Things have been pretty good, though. I made some money while I was out in Vegas and Live Music Blog has been getting some serious love lately.

More soon.

NPR just launched a nicely overhauled music site at npr.org/music. It's quite nice. Kudos to them for getting their content together and packaging it into a super user-friendly format.

And perhaps the best part of the whole relaunch is music blog called Monitor Mix, featuring the stylings of Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney. Her first three posts have been great so far and the comments are really exploding with folks totally digging on her writing and her blog in general. Much like myself.

I think of The Ramones as a starter band, one you have to know, one you have to love, one you have to discover in order for them to lead you elsewhere. But then you go further away and sometimes you forget to ever go back. You find post-punk, you listen to Wire, Gang of Four, The Slits, you find reggae and dub. Then you embrace classic rock, first ironically, maybe at a karaoke bar, and then for real. F*ck this straight-forward punk sh*t, give me prog and wanky solos and post-rock, and soon nothing is valid that comes in under five minutes. When friends or prospective dates ask you your musical tastes, you can't just say, "The Stones" or "The Clash", you have to say the name of the last Ethiopiques CD you bought, or you mention Captain Beefheart, Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, Candi Staton, Bert Jansch, Thirteenth Floor Elevators, a side project of Wilco but not actually Wilco, the list goes on and on. Really? Really these are our favorite bands? The ones that got us out of bed in the morning on a sunless day?

Check it out.

Logan Square | Chicago, IL