Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog

Five minutes ago, I'm resting on the couch, nursing a pinched nerve in my neck; I have my laptop open for scanning Twitter, political blogs, and Metafilter to catch impressions on the debate.

I hear a female voice coming from the TV - Countdown with Keith Olbermann was on but I had zoned out. My brain identified it quickly as Andrea Mitchell, and I carried on.

And then I stopped to consider: I can identify political commentators without visuals.

Somebody, please, save me.

They're going to throw a lever and detach the tower-cable's clip, and the man in sockless Banfis will free-fall for what'll seem forever, until the crane's cable's slack is taken up and the line takes his weight and goes tight behind him and swings him way out over the grounds to the south, his arc's upward half almost as high as the tower was, and then he'll fall all over again, back, and get caught and swung the other way, back and forth, the man prone at the arc's trough and seeming to stand at either apex, swinging back and forth and erect and prone against a rare-meat sunset.

And just as the crane's cab's blond reaches for his lever and the crowd mightily inhales, just then, I lose my nerve, in my very last moment at the Fair - I recall my childhood's serial nightmare of being swung or whipped in an arc that threatens to come full circle - and I decline to be part of this, even as witness - and I find, again, in extremis, access to childhood's other worst nightmare, the only sure way to obliterate all; and the sun and sky and plummeting Yuppie go out like a light.

David Foster Wallace was found dead in his home Friday evening. He had apparently hung himself; I suppose given the above, one could consider it ironic. One familiar with his work could also be glad he didn't stick his head in a microwave.

DFW has always remained high on my list of favorite authors, largely thanks to the book for which I've named this post. Now seems like an appropriate time to read it, and his sprawling opus, one more time.

I am utterly entranced by the Gwinnett Daily Post's multimedia feature on the Waffle House Wedding. The photography, the audio...I can't not keep watching it.

(via Dave Cameron)

We live in an accelerated world. Culture, as it stands today, values immediacy and repetition over things like finesse or nuance. Stories are quickly beaten dead by our media; memes can run through the internet within a mere day.

I realize that even with a significant amount of time left, people around me are already fatigued with the 2008 US Election. I cannot fault them; I, too, tire of the incessant punditry and echo chamber madness that constitutes political dialog anymore. My rallying cry at this point is "Is it December yet?".

But I think we all realize how important this election is - possibly the most important in the last 20 years. A country as damaged as ours will be shaped significantly by the next administration.

I like to think that my readers are reasonable people, who can debate the issues without resorting to partisan mudslinging. So in the spirit of trying to have a sane dialog - friends, who are you voting for on October 21st: kitten, or newborn?

A kitten president? That's change I can believe in.

(You can watch more Kitten vs. Newborn 08 coverage on Superdeluxe. Tip of the hat to Steven Cento.)

It has been six days now, living in our new apartment, and my senses are adjusting.

Living on the coast of Upper New York Bay alone has been a tremendous change. Rather than walking past sleepy row houses and run down businesses, I'm greeted with the (what other word is there?) majestic lower Manhattan skyline. It is an awe-inspiring view to take in, both in the morning as I wake up and in the evening as I trek home along the promenade.

My nose is no longer plagued by the sweet tang of packing tape or the sharp wood of fresh cardboard. Most of the boxes have been unpacked, our belongings now lodged in their semi-permanent locations. The new paint smell is fading fast with every cycle of fan or air conditioning.

My hands are no longer spotted with the scars and pains that come from cam locks, wooden dowels, and allen wrenches. Some assembly required is the Great Lie of our time, or at the very least, the understatement of the century. Regardless, the five pieces of furniture we assembled are functioning well.

My ears are dealing with even more quiet. While I had always pegged Astoria as quiet, even with a major road just outside our window, Jersey City completely re-calibrates my hearing. The roads are largely free of cars, with only the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail providing the occasional gentle screech around the corners.

We are cooking in earnest again. Small steps for the time being, but already we are starting to dig into cookbooks long forgotten. My desire to start a food blog is climbing steadily, despite fully knowing the difficulty I have in even keeping this one blog sufficiently active.

Buttons adjusted quickly; already he has caused substantial reconfiguration of one area of the apartment. He has since returned to his normal self, sleeping on his favorite chair and being very excitable about his morning kibble. He continues to assert his innocence in all matters curious.

Like so many things in my life, move-in is a rolling process, never quite finishing. Some boxes never get unpacked; some items find comfortable places but are never touched again. But already, everything is in the right enough for the new apartment to feel like home.

I've come to realize that I tend to be very terse when writing about life changes. While I'm happy to gush about job changes or anecdotes, things going on in my personal life feel almost less relevant.

But that, obviously, is ridiculous.

This is my last post from our apartment in Astoria; tomorrow around noon, I must drag the cable modem back to Time Warner and terminate my service. Friday afternoon brings movers, and movers will bring us to Jersey City. I should be back on line by Friday night, but this post officially closes the book on our five years in Queens.

The top question I've been fielding for the last month is "Why Jersey City?". The explanation is long-winded. Bear with me:

Since September of 2003, we have been in the same apartment in Astoria, Queens. Like many apartments, it was full of pros and cons, almost always linked together. It has a gorgeous entranceway; it was the basement of a private house. It is in a quiet neighborhood; it is thirteen blocks from the subway. All utilities are included in our rent; because our windows are at the ground level (and thus have security bars), there is no air conditioning. We have our own entrance; delivery-men frequently could not find us. We have no lease, so we can leave at any time; we have no lease, so some maintenance issues took a long time to get fixed.

That "no lease" condition caused one more anomaly: our rent hasn't gone up in the five years, either. So while our incomes have gone up and up, our core living costs have not. This may not sound like a bad thing - hell, it actually sounds fantastic on paper. But in practice, this left us with an increasing margin of disposable income, leading to a sort of lifestyle that I'll readily admit has not been healthy or practical.

The search for a new place actually started in 2004. But we frequently ran into depressing conditions and shady brokers, as is the way of NYC real estate. After an eternity of off-and-on searching, we spent a Saturday in Jersey City visiting a few buildings. The neighborhood grabbed us, so very clean and quiet. The closeness to Manhattan struck us: ten minutes instead of half an hour - we'd be closer to the city. And ultimately, it was falling in love with an apartment that gave us seemingly everything we were looking for.

So we pounced on it, literally 10 minutes before another group had asked to put in an application for the same apartment. It's a significant step-up in rent, and the utilities are no longer free, but both Katie and I agree we're ready for a change. It's time we started putting our money into our living conditions rather than DVDs and vinyl toys.

It's time we grew up, at least a little.

As excited as I am about getting a fresh start in a new place, in a new building, I'm also more than a little sad.

I could not have wished for a more unique neighborhood to have started my experiences of NYC than the north end of Astoria. I cannot state this enough. If you ever find yourself considering moving to NYC, do not overlook it.

I will miss it immensely. I will miss the people: our landlords, a sweet older Spanish couple who knew very little English but were always happy to see us. Their daughter and her family, our primary contacts and always telling us not to worry about things. Our neighbors, a sweet old lady across the street and her grown-up kids, who all still lived within the same block.

I will miss the businesses where we became regulars: the local independent game store, the laundromat, the salon.

I will miss the food: such great restaurants, many of which I've tried to do justice to with loving blog posts. Astoria, despite the Greek reputation, is an evenly distributed melting pot. There is fantastic pizza, great Italian, decent Japanese, authentic Mexican, tasty Chinese, and a wide range of Middle Eastern at your disposal.

I will miss Martha's Country Bakery like you would not believe.

I will miss the religion. I am not observant by any stretch, but along our walk to the train, a Greek Orthodox church could be found one block away from a mosque, and there were frequent street festivals or celebrations at one or the other. No hate, no animosity, just religions co-existing.

I will miss the N/W being my way home. Yes, the MTA is a bitter pill to swallow, but when the N or W were running properly, they were the best line in the city. They run straight through the heart of town, down through Brooklyn, all the way to my beloved Coney Island.

I will miss the shared experiences. In our time here, we experienced a week-long blackout, a flood, and a transit strike. Massive heartaches, all, but they brought us closer together with those around us.

There are certainly things I won't miss: the older men who think misogyny is not only a right but a responsibility; the smell of piss in the summer; the endless construction for the last three years by Amtrak; the sound of trucks bottoming out on the road not 10 feet from our windows.

But the negatives will fade from my memory soon. Astoria has been my home for five years, longer in my developed mind than any other home I've had save my parent's house in Trumansburg. This is the first long-term home I've had that we have directly been responsible for. My memories of New York City will forever be shaped by this strange nook in the corner of Queens. I look forward to returning in the future not as a resident, but as a visitor, and seeing it with fresh eyes once again.

Farewell, Astoria. Thank you for everything.

Everyone has a story,
like a string of invisible Christmas lights
wound into the heart.
And every story has a story
that hides inside its own labyrinth.
The past has a story
as wide and as deep as the world.
Every word has a story
and every stone.

- "A Story", Malena Mörling

Thursday night, we were playing Rock Band, and she was giggling again.

"What?" I asked between a break in the lyrics.

"Nothing, nothing!" Katie smirked as she kept banging on the drums.

But I knew what it was: my vocals were coming through too loudly, and they sounded ridiculous. A quick visit to the controller and my vocals were muted behind the lead vocals, allowing me to avoid being mocked for the time being.

I am one of the first to admit that I don't have a fantastic singing voice. But strangely, I find music games in which I have to (or can) sing - Rock Band, Singstar, and to a lesser extent Karaoke Revolution - way more compelling than those where I'm pushing buttons on a plastic guitar or spinning a plastic turntable.

I think it comes down to translating your knowledge into the game play. If you know a song, then singing it doesn't require a complicated interface and mechanics to "play" the song. But guitars, drums, and samplers have to be translated into something that can be brought into the home. Even if you know the guitar part to Say It Ain't So cold, you couldn't play the Expert Guitar on Rock Band without looking at the screen.

The proof of my bias is in the DLC receipts: in the 3 months the US Singstore has been open, I have purchased 47 songs for the PS3 version of Singstar. In the 9 months that Rock Band has been available, I've purchased a mere 39 songs.

The Cycle Of Games And Music

There's a feedback loop affecting what games I buy and what bands I listen to that I've been meaning to write about, and this post is probably the best spot for it.

I am more likely to buy a game with songs I know and enjoy. This isn't to say an entirely unknown music game is out of the question (particularly for me), but for games with licensed music, recognition plays a significant factor in my desire to purchase. I have skipped over the recent Guitar Hero: Aerosmith primarily (but not solely) because the bulk of the song list are songs I don't know or don't have interest playing.

Meanwhile, if I discover songs through these games, I am quite likely to start an interest in the band.

This effect isn't limited to music games - traditional games certainly have impacted my musical tastes, ranging from the GTA series (most recently "Oi Oi Oi" by Boys Noize) to Burnout ("Cities In Dust" by Junkie XL) to The Go! Team (all the Little Big Planet trailers didn't hurt my love of "Get It Together").

But the effect is more pronounced with music games because the song is your playing field. And no game has made this more true than beatmania IIDX: songs related to the series make up over 10% of my music collection.

Rock Band introduced me to Coheed & Cambria and Flyleaf, and finally sparked a solid interest in The Strokes, The Hives, and Queens Of The Stone Age.

Singstar has introduced me to Kasabian, The Bees, and most noticeably for the context of this story, Hot Chip.

Hot Chip illustrates this point very well, actually. I had seen the hype train pulling into the station a year ago, and dabbling in their music didn't do anything for me at the time. But when Over And Over appeared on the Singstore - giving me a very selective 30 second clip - I came around, and bought the song. Then I picked up the album the song came from and I have a general admiration for their stuff.

The music industry would be smart to continue exploiting this feedback loop. The sales benefits have been documented, and it's a fairly effortless way to grow your fan base and make money at the same time.

(As it turns out, Over And Over is smack dab on my vocal range - I don't have to shift octaves or strain my voice to hit the notes. Soon, it became one of my standards while playing Singstar. It's near Katie's range, but she has issues on a few sections; she much prefers the female part from DJ Bobo's "Vampires Are Alive".)

All Points Vocal

A day after our Rock Band session, as our last hurrah before packing - and a well-timed first hurrah for Jersey City - we took ourselves to All Points West for a day of music and relaxation. Our new apartment building is quite close to Liberty State Park, making it a very significant day - one week forward, and this would be our new neighborhood.

Due to timing of the ferry, we missed The Go! Team's set; after watching a few songs by The Duke Spirit, we wandered into Sony's tents. The next band we cared about wouldn't be on for over two hours, so we played Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (solid if not spectacular), Buzz: Quiz TV (just as fun as I expected), and Little Big Planet (which will get its own post).

We had avoided the Singstar section of the tent because it wasn't new and thrilling to us, but then we heard: they were going to have a competition starting shortly. With prizes - first place would get 4 VIP wristbands for the duration of the weekend.

Katie, in the hopes of finding something to do, went to sign us up. Knowing my vocal limitations, I wasn't quite as jazzed. Soon she brought over the song list - we had to pick one song, and one song only. Staring me in the face was Over And Over.

We ended up going second. Katie frequently jokes that I'm so serious about Singstar that I shut my eyes when I sing; it just happens naturally. Perhaps I was trying to ignore that I suddenly had about 75 people watching me - rain had driven a mob of people into the tent. Perhaps I was trying to stop my arms from falling asleep from the tension of public performance. Perhaps I was trying to hear the music over all the other noise.

When the song ended, I had just under 9600 points. The maximum for any song in Singstar is 10000.

For the next hour, I enjoyed the contest. There were lots of good singers, a few not-so-good singers, and a couple of obnoxious guys beatboxing. Radiohead's Creep was picked about 7 times - given that Radiohead was headlining the show, I shouldn't have been surprised.

Every semi-good player caused Katie to go into a minor panic attack; I was frequently told "We're in trouble" when someone would be doing reasonably well. Years of beatmania have allowed me to eyeball time remaining versus score and estimate performance; I spent 45 minutes trying to calm her down. Sony's staff kept entering more people; I wandered back to the LBP tent.

5 minutes into my game, my phone buzzed. "Last person! Get back here now!"

Minutes later, I was holding four VIP wristbands, much to the confusion of the other players. Most of them hadn't seen me sing.

In the 25 years I've been gaming, this is the first time I've ever won a formal competition. Out of all the games to win a tangible prize for, it's the one where I have to sing. The irony is palpable.

We gave one to another player who had chatted us up during the contest; the other eventually found its way to an exhausted Kathryn Yu who was running from photo pit to photo pit.

While I never would have paid for entrance to the VIP area, I can't say the wristbands weren't welcome. Avoiding the food lines, having access to proper seating, and an air conditioned tent all made the remainder of the day that much more enjoyable.

The remainder of the night? Underworld did a good set (albeit limited due to sunlight and their set length limit); Girl Talk tore the roof off the secondary stage, and Radiohead were everything I had hoped. We made it home by midnight and collapsed.

Encore

Not long after we got the wristbands, we sat right on the waterfront, eating pulled pork and slaw from Famous Dave's, with a fantastic view of the Statue Of Liberty and lower Manhattan. I sighed happily and smirked at Katie.

"What?" she asked.

"You realize you can't make fun of my singing anymore."

It hadn't even been a full day since we were playing Rock Band and I was muting myself. She smiled and sighed, knowing she had lost the war.

"I know. Believe me, I know."

Twenty-four hours can make all the difference in the world.

It's been just over two years since I started using iUseThis, a neat web tool for tracking OS X apps you use. A social network for software junkies, I suppose.

As part of iPhoneDevCamp, Marcus and Arne have launched an iPhone-centric version of the site, allowing people to track and comment on their iPhone apps.

This is one of those things that I didn't realize I was missing until I saw it. While the App Store does have plenty of methods of app feedback (user reviews, popularity ratings), it does tend to be a bit low on the signal to noise ratio. IUseThis works better, with a del.icio.us or Digg like method of popularity. The more people that mark they use an app, the higher it goes.

You can find my app list on my profile.

(Before anyone starts marveling as to the number of apps I have purchased: dumping five years of spare change into an iTunes gift certificate via Coinstar makes all the difference in the world.)