Teh FUTAR is HERE

Last night, I was Messenger Chatting with Paul Sebastien: He was at his desk in Seattle, me in my living room in Edina. Suddenly we saw that Caesar was available for chat, and added him in. He was in an airplane over northern Canada coming back from Finland.

And the three of us used this miraculous technology in a way that would have made Alexander Graham Bell proud:

I believe the subjects were Whiskey, Stewardesses, Poo, Puppies, and Poo.

Welcome to the future.

In the Studio

Here's a promotional picture of me in my studio. We took it for our Adoption photo album... Note the spartan environment.
Revision of The Metro is done. I'm still on the fence about whether I'm doing Love Plus One, Life in Tokyo, or something... else...

Reasons I Hate Caesar

1. He can play guitar and bass and sing AND play keys and produce. He makes me look lazy. Who does he think he is... Prince? Jesus.

2. He got to go to Helsinki on the company dime in Business Class, and got WIFI on the airplane. When I went to Tokyo in Bidness Class, there was no freaking WIFI. He had to one-up me.

3. He will have in-laws in Japan by next year, and will have an endless supply of Hibiki Whiskey if he so desires.

4. He is taller than I am. AND I AM TALL.

That's enough for me.

In the iPod

Can't get enough of Boards of Canada's new one - The Campfire Headphase. Totally BOC, but with some new elements. They didn't go get Bjork to sing or anything. They kind of discover guitars on this, but process them in such a way as they sound vaguely like they were recorded on a portable cassette deck in 1975. In the attic.

Also, Saint Etienne have come back in a big way for me. Sarah Cracknell is the new Julie London, as far as I'm concerned. Sweetly singing songs of heartbreak.

Jimmy out.

The Platypus Railroad Dream

This was a dream I had in July 2002: Documented for posterity and
blogged for all to see.

I was at Stanford University, staying in a dorm room run by the guys
who run the AppleTurns website. I was in trouble because I had answered the phone incorrectly, and was on my way to class.

Out a window in the courtyard, I saw a man with a bear-sized platypus on a leash. The platypus was actually very bear-like and was strangely feral. But it was undoubtedly a platypus.

I entered my classroom, and was excited to find that the Platypus was destined for a visit! Our professor told us about the great Platypus Line of trains, which are powered by the gaseous emissions of Giant Platypuses.
These are the finest trains in the world, our professor told us.

The man with the Platypus came to the classroom door, and I saw he was dressed in a Casey Jones-like engineer outfit. The Platypus paced angrily outside.

The Engineer pointed at the Professor and declared that the Professor was not a professor at all, but rather was a disgraced Platypus train engineer himself, who had been drummed out of the industry for getting "high"
off of the Platypus fumes.

Our professor confessed that this was indeed the truth, and that he had only invited the Platypus to join us in hopes of getting a contact high, to remember his old days.

And then I woke up.

A Fantastic Invention

I had a pair of corduroy pants rigged up so that whenever they "whiff" from friction, it creates a minor electrostatic circuit that powers a series of LEDs that spell "whiff whiff" down my legs. I did this so that deaf people could also enjoy my corduroy slacks.

And then to help the blind, every time the LEDs light, a synthesized "whiff whiff" is activated on my pant-leg based MP3 player. This is just in case the whiff whiff from the actual pant leg is not "optimal" - the MP3 is the platonic ideal of corduroy rubbing corduroy.

I don't actually like to wear corduroy however, so I have created a version of the 1970's Lee Jeans testing robots what simply moves it's legs as I walk. So it wears the pants, really.

But it's pretty cool. You should see it.