Community Next Conference

I just got back from a Community Next conference at Level 3. I only got 4 hours of sleep because I had to transport myself to LA by 9am to get to this conference. It was well worth it (besides the fact that the free Red Bulls kept me awake). I got to listen to a lot of really innovative people speak and I had a chance to personally talk to people with great ideas who are on the bleeding edge of technology and the Internet.

I chatted with Aza Raskin, founder of Songza and co-founder of Humanized. Aza, a huge proponent of interface simplicity, posed some incredibly unique solutions to unnecessary complexity in various types of web interfaces. Mozilla acquired Humanized recently and Aza told me he works next to Firefox developers and expects to potentially influence some big changes in Firefox's interface.

I also got a chance to talk with Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit (and drawer of the alien). I asked Alexis what types of problems the Reddit team has been thinking of in order to help users sift through the enormous variety of content of the website. Alexis said they have tried a lot of things but told me to be on the lookout for big changes to Reddit at the beginning of this summer that may combat this problem.

I took a bus back and on the way we passed hundreds of zombies walking down the sidewalk of Sunset Boulevard. Some of them banged on the windows of our bus. They did not eat any of our brains. I also had to be escorted through some gates on the way to my room because hundreds of kids were lined up to see some Nickelodeon screening and the path to my room was blocked off. Today was successful.

Space is potent

Monday Japanese dinner. Tuesday delicious Russian dinner + Schwarzenegger. Wednesday 4th of July Party (lots of dessert). Thursday Los Angeles for a day with Taylor. Saw Denexxel, Kat, Frances, Amy, and Heather. We went to *Amoeba Records* and I bought the Anticon sampler album. Lunch was In N Out. Indian food + Diddy Reise was dinner. Friday Indian Food with dad. Saturday Fun. Sunday Work.

What's in a week?

I see a red door and I like it the way it is

I came back to San Diego at 4pm on Friday, just in time to see graduation. I only had a few hours of sleep the night before so I was very tired all of Friday. After sleeping in late on Saturday I went to my older sister's house with my dad. My dad's family and friends held a surprise birthday party for him.

Sunday was a long day. I went paint balling at Camp Pendleton with George, Brian, and about thirty Russians. My thighs hurt whenever I sat down or stood up after this. As I was driving home Eric txted me to ask if I wanted to go to a Sage Francis concert. I ended up going with him even though I was exhausted. Eric's friend Ross drove. As we were standing in line Buddy Wakefield came out looking for a beatboxer for his act. He ended up taking Ross inside and Ross beatboxed for him. Buddy was amazing. He is not a hip-hop artist but he is far from your average poet.

Alias came out after Buddy. Alias rapped very quickly but always stayed on time with his background music. It's strange how rap-oriented he is live and yet his released music seems to be completely electronic. Buck 65 followed Alias. I would categorize his sound at the concert as folk hip-hop. The first beat he played made me think he would break straight into a country song.

Sage Francis was not necessarily my favorite musically but he was definitely the most entertaining to watch. Some of the stuff he did was pretty disgusting. He was fairly interactive with the audience, as were all the performers. That show was definitely worth going to.

My current list of artists/bands to look into:

• Alias
  
• Aphex Twin / AFX
• Ben Gibbard
  
• Buck 65
• Buddy Wakefield
• Johnathan Rice
• Rilo Kiley
  
• Sage Francis / Non-Prophets

Is this the city of angels or demons?

This year has been a good one. I've enjoyed my classes very much overall and I'm looking forward to my classes next year. Here's a quick rundown of the last three quarters. First quarter I went to Monster Massive, a huge rave, with John, Brian, Paul, and Jawon. I pulled my first all-nighter before a class first quarter, although I didn't really need to. I also met most of the friends I have now. Winter quarter was fun break from classes. I'm glad I'm on the quarter system. Winter and spring quarter were really fun. I've been getting a lot of work done also. I took my floor to The Rocky Horror Picture Show for a floor program during winter quarter. That was really fun. I went to a Hellogoodbye concert, a Muse concert, and a Ben Gibbard concert this quarter. I really like it up here, but it will be nice to be home during the summer. I'll probably be trying to put a lot of time into learning and working on projects this summer.


The Ben Gibbard concert I went to a few weeks ago was really different than most concerts I've been to in the past year. It was a small fairly venue here on campus. Johnathan Rice was the first opening act. I liked him so much I bought his EP. Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley was there to sing one song with him. All three of the performers that night acted very intimately with the audience. Ben Gibbard played songs from his solo albums, songs by Death Cab For Cutie, songs by The Postal Service, and some cover songs. Jenny Lewis came out on stage for The Postal Service song Nothing Better. Gibbard said he had never had the chance to sing that song live before. This is because Jenny Lewis sang half of the original song with him.

There's a lot of me inside you

I haven't posted in a while... as usual. Spring Break was really fun... that was a while ago. We made lemon ice cream one night at Paul's. I mixed cream, sugar, and lemon, and a very slight amount of vanilla extract. I kept putting more and more in as I decided what it needed more of and how much we would actually make. After dinner Paul took out the liquid nitrogen and poured some in the metal container the ingredients were in while stirring. The result was a dip-n-dots like substance that was firmer on the outside and melted very easily like traditional ice cream. I think it was the best ice cream I've ever had. Although I could just be biased because it was lemon.

I went to a Muse concert about two weeks ago. I had nearly the worst seats in the whole place, but it was still worth it. Our view was very obstructed but I could still see the awesome effects they had. There were stars on a black background for starlight, large tubes full of light, confetti thrown by the singer himself while playing the piano, and large inflatable balls that bounced over the crowd for another song. The concert started with Knight's of Cydonia, the last track on their new album, and ended with Take a Bow, the first track on the album. I'm glad they played their cover of "Feelin' Good."