h.i.e.p. karma

Mood: Um... hungry

Well, actually yesterday was my birthday but I was too busy to post in my blog. Since you know, my blog's been a well of activity lately! *sarcasm*

Turned 37. Woop-tee-doo. So for my birthday I bought myself a nice new Mac mini - the lowest model: 1gb ram, 120gb hard drive. The mini will be replacing my current server, a 3+ year old 2.6ghz P4 Windows machine. It's still using AGP graphics - that's how old it is. I will be upgrading the ram to 4gb and the hard drive to hopefully something bigger (I have a few 2.5" laptop drives lying around that I think are bigger than 120gb). It will be nice to finally get rid of the old server. It was loud and hot.

I actually had a very nice birthday yesterday. It's nice having people recognize you're getting one year closer to death! I had a very nice dinner! Sea bass and Caesar salad. Yumm @ Vito.

Geek moments:
Last night I got my alts to level 60! A prot paladin and a beast mastery hunter. In about 2.5 weeks. You can thank Blizzard's Refer-A-Friend program for that. It's very very nice.

This is a modified recipe that I got from my mom, who got it from the L.A. Times several months ago...

Ingredients

1 9"x13" glass (Pyrex) pan
1 large roasting pan, 1" clearance on all sides of the glass baking pan when placed in the roasting pan

Sugar coating
2-3 tablespoons orange juice
3/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of water

Flan
5 eggs
1 standard can of condensed milk
1 standard can of evaporated milk
1 cup of milk (I usually use lowfat)
3+ tablespoons of vanilla extract
2+ tablespoons of amaretto (I don't have any so I use rum... haha)

Directions
Sugar coating:
In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil the sugar + water + orange juice. The orange juice will give the flan sugar coating a slight citrus-y flavor. Boil constantly until the sugar mixture is a medium brown (caramelizes). This is the most tedious part of the entire process actually... will probably take 20+ minutes for the sugar to caramelize. Pour immediately onto glass pan and coat the bottom with it. Let the glass baking dish cool to room temperature if you can.

Flan base:
Heat oven to 300 degrees.
In a mixing bowl, mix together the eggs. Then whisk in condensed, evaporated, and regular milk. Whisk in the amaretto and then the vanilla. Pour into the baking dish.

Place the dish inside a large roasting pan. The pan should be filled with enough hot water to be at half-height of the glass dish. Place dish and pan into oven and bake for 1.5 - 2 hours; until a knife inserted at center comes out clean. Remove flan from water bath and allow to cool, then place in the fridge. Helps to keep in fridge overnight before serving.

Mood: Yay?

Happy New Year everyone! I know I haven't been updating my blog in a loooong time. My excuse: work and WoW. Lots and lots of WoW. I have a level 80 Death Knight now. Hehe.

So what did I do when the bell rung 12? Playing WoW. (In particular, leveling up mining. So painful...) Yes I have no shame...

Mood: Eh.. it's Monday, what do you expect?

I smell BBQ... except it was at 9:30am this morning... a Monday.

Oh wait just the yearly fires in the Valley.

Mood: Solemn

Michael Crichton passed away several days ago from cancer. It's a sad loss. Interestingly enough he played a tiny part in my life.

Many years ago while I was in college I made a small little Macintosh shareware game called "Concentroids from Planet X". Yes, a pretty lame name. It was basically a "memory" game, with customizable tile dimensions. I asked for $5 donations. I think I ended up getting around $300 total from it (not bad if you think about it).

One day I received a large somewhat-anonymous yellow package. I opened it up, and it was this book:



"Cool", I thought. Then I opened up the book and I saw this:



In Michael Crichton's handwriting, he wrote:

To Hiep Dam -
With best wishes from an admirer of "Concentroids"!

I thought that was extremely cool. And I still do. Way better than any kind of monetary compensation. Thank you, Michael. That book is something I will always cherish... Rest in peace.

Mood: Anxious

History. Today. Wow.

Who will be our new overlord?

Mood: Proud

It only took 4 years.

That was the last time I made a mix. A lot of things have changed since then, including how I made the mix. The mixes I did then were on a computer using Tracktor DJ Studio. As such I had it beatmatch my tracks for me. I also used undoes and tons of reload/saves to get the transitions right and "perfect".

So I made a new mix last night. I'm quite proud of this mix because 1) I beatmatched the tracks by ear myself, and 2) it was all done live - no undoes.

Having said that it did take me 3 takes to get the mix at a level that was acceptable to me. The first one I did in the afternoon while I was simultaneously suffering from a hideous allergy attack. Not fun. I ended up having two transitions that didn't go well that I was pretty unhappy with. So I decided to redo it later that evening and halfway through I tanked it and the program I was using to record the mix crashed. Third time was a charm though! There were still a few shaky transitions but not bad for a first-time by-ear mix! Enjoy!!!

The mix info and main download link:
Acoustic Vision - Freemasons' Disco In The House Mix
(2008, 68 minutes, 128kbps)
Main Download Site (mixeeba)
Alternate Download Site 1 (divShare)
Alternate Download Site 2 (zshare)



Tracklist:
1) Freemasons - Love On My Mind (Club Mix)
2) Freemasons feat Katherine Ellis - When You Touch Me (2008 Club Mix)
3) Freemasons - Rain Down Love (Walken Extended Mix)
4) Freemasons feat Bailey Tzuke - Uninvited (Club Mix)
5) Kylie Minogue - The One (Freemasons Vocal Club Mix)
6) Marvin Gaye - Heard It Through The Grapevine (Freemasons Mix)
7) Freemasons - Nothing But A Heartache (Club Mix)
8) Moby - Disco Lies (Freemasons Club Mix)
9) Alibi vs Rockefeller - Sexual Healing (Freemasons Vocal Mix)
11) Beyonce - Green Light (Freemasons Remix)
12) Shakira & Beyonce - Beautiful Liar (Freemasons Club Mix)



Here's the .cue listing for anyone that uses cue files:


TITLE "Freemasons Disco In The House Mix [October 2008]"
PERFORMER "Acoustic Vision"
FILE "Acoustic Vision - Freemasons Disco In The House Mix.mp3" MP3
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Love On My Mind (Club Mix) [2005]"
PERFORMER "Freemasons"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "When You Touch Me [2008]"
PERFORMER "Freemasons feat Katherin Ellis"
INDEX 01 07:24:30
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "Rain Down Love (Walken Extended Mix) [2006]"
PERFORMER "Freemasons"
INDEX 01 13:05:00
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "Uninvited (Club Mix) [2007]"
PERFORMER "Freemasons feat Bailey Tzuke"
INDEX 01 18:03:00
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "The One (Freemasons Vocal Club Mix) [2008]"
PERFORMER "Kylie Minogue"
INDEX 01 24:22:00
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Heard It Through The Grapevine (Freemasons Mix)"
PERFORMER "Marvin Gaye"
INDEX 01 32:01:00
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "Nothing But A Heartache (Club Mix) [2007]"
PERFORMER "Freemasons"
INDEX 01 38:08:20
TRACK 08 AUDIO
TITLE "Disco Lies (Freemasons Club Mix) [2008]"
PERFORMER "Moby"
INDEX 01 43:53:00
TRACK 09 AUDIO
TITLE "Sexual Healing (Freemasons Vocal Mix) [2007]"
PERFORMER "Alibi vs Rockefeller"
INDEX 01 52:03:00
TRACK 10 AUDIO
TITLE "Green Light (Freemasons Remix) [2008]"
PERFORMER "Beyonce"
INDEX 01 59:17:00
TRACK 11 AUDIO
TITLE "Beautiful Liar (Freemasons Club Remix) [2008]"
PERFORMER "Shakira & Beyonce"
INDEX 01 62:15:00

Mood: None? Shrug

Yesterday the big pre-Wrath patch for WoW came out, 3.0.2. It even had a name, "Echoes of Doom". Ooooh. (Sarcasm here).
There were lots of changes in the patch, so I logged in to check them out. It was the first time I had played WoW since I went on a WoW sabbatical in the beginning of August. That's over 2 months ago. For some reason it seems a lot longer. WoW was taking up too much of my time and I wanted to use more of that time to work out and get in shape, as well as get back into bedroom DJing.

I ended up playing for about 2 1/2 hours. I'm not sure how much more I'll play but I need to be careful not to let it cut into my other activities...

Mood: Eh?

I had a pretty busy weekend... just doing stuff.

I finally learned how to tie a... tie. I figured it was about time I learned how to do this myself, even though I rarely use ties (currently that is... I plan to use ties more casually in the future). I had my dad teach me today. It wasn't that bad to learn actually. I got it down after about 10 minutes of practice. It's still not perfect but it's workable. Turns out my dad taught me how to tie a Windsor knot.

I'm getting noticeably better (and faster) at beatmatching! I'm quite excited. I think in two or three weeks I should be able to record my own DJ sets without any major embarrassing train wrecks. Up til today, I was doing pure trance tracks. This afternoon I did a set of house tracks (I just found the Freemasons... omg these guys are the shiz! These guys have a distinct disco flavor to their house tracks. I can thank Hype Machine for finding these guys). The house set went pretty well. Only one or two really bad train wrecks as I couldn't beatmatch the tracks in time. And they all matched in key... frankly because they were all Freemasons tracks! I must say... I love disco house.

Update: Some Freemason videos:

This one is a remix of a Beyonce / Shakira song "Beautiful Liar":


An original title (actually an Alanis Morrisette song) "Uninvited":


Did my usual walk to Westwood Park today and restarted my gym workout (I had been sidelined for two weeks with this cold/cough... and I still have a slight lingering cough).

I thoroughly cleaned my shower today. Frankly, it was nasty. All this grime accumulated in it and it was definitely time to clean that sucker out. Ajax + bristle brush are your friends.

I went back to Coffee Bean this weekend. I hadn't had coffee since August, when I came back from Vegas and rebooted my workout regimen. I had a drink yesterday *and* a drink today. I feel so guilty....

I bought some RiteLite LED Spotlights from Bed Bath and Beyond for my DJ rig. They were $10 a pop but with those 10,000 20% coupons they send you... about $9 after taxes. They're pretty neat and I'm going to mount one to the desk that I DJ on. As for the other spotlight I'm going to have it point to and illuminate the mini-disco ball I have. YES. I have a mini-disco ball! Don't be a hater.

Mood: Sickly.

Being sick sucks. I've had this cold/cough since Tuesday. I THINK I'm getting better but it's been really slow progress. I already took a sick day on Wednesday and I'm seriously tempted to take another sick day tomorrow. I guess I'll see how it goes when I wake up on Monday.

Grrr.

Mood: Wistful

What do you eat a boiled egg with? Just by itself?

I use salt + pepper as a seasoning... I partially dip the boiled egg in the salt and pepper and take a bite. It's pretty good... try it sometime!

I wonder if this is a Vietnamese thing...

Mood: Incredulous

Yesterday I did my laundry. Exciting, I know.

I also happened to forget that I had put my iPhone earbuds in my workout shorts and promptly washed and dried them. Guess what? THEY STILL WORK!! Everything - the audio, the playback control... I'm impressed, to say the least.

Just don't try this with your earbuds.

Mood: Choonin'

I've recently discovered Lady Gaga, a very talented 22-year old singer.

This is a particularly catchy tune ("Boys Boys Boys") from her debut album "The Fame":



(Just because I like this song does not imply anything about my um... orientation. )

The album comes out in late October in the states...

Mood: Highly amused.

Mood: Happy

After tooling around on Hype Machine, I stumbled across a German band that I'm finding to be a true gem... Polarkreis 18.

From the DATA SAPIENS blog you can check out a remix of Polarkreis18's "Allein Allein" (by Nephew).

The translated blog entry (from Google) doesn't make much sense (of course):

"Nephew has remixed Polarkreis 18 and the result has been quite good. Semi-electronic, mentioned in Unga Bunga and given a game of love of the Black Spejdere - as I can see, has been a lot of P3-laws and now it's your turn to give it the same."


EDIT/UPDATE:
Found a Youtube vid of this song... it's not a real video, but at least you can check out the song directly here...