I’ve finally found my bum-ass a place to live! Fairfax, CA in beautiful Marin County. Im going to give you all some good reasons to visit:

1. Fog, what fog?

2. My street turns to dirt in 1/4 of a mile from my house with several trailheads.

3. We have a hottub.

4. Good mountain biking trails.

5. Good people

6. Close to S.F

Great place, hardly as many yuppies as the rest of Marin co.  I’m pretty exciting to finally have  a place to rest my head, get some momentum, and become established. See ya out there!

Anyone that can explain this picture to me gets $2

First, let me share with you some music that others have shared with me. I have not posted music for a very long time and this is just completely different.

Gotta thank Fitch for this one. Some good real music with a little bit of synth to make it nice and cracky. Self titled album is really good.

Broken Bells – The High Road

Heres from Andrea (as usual) Black River Killer by Blitzen Trapper, natives of this here fine state. I’m a sucker for music with a good story.

Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer

Here is a really cool art installation:

Check it out. That was 3 media types in one blog post, all having absolutely nothing to do with eachother. I love the internet.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a movie based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, is a terrific movie starring some clever animals. In particular, the red fox is portrayed as a sly and ingenious thief. A thieving fox is a pretty common theme in literature and this movie made me curious if the red fox really does have a case of kleptomania as big as we give it credit for.

In many cultures, the fox has become a symbol of trickery and slyness. In traditional Japanese culture, the fox is a sacred animal. In the west, attitudes towards the animal tend to be less enthusiastic. Fox hunting was still a sport in the UK until just a few years ago, when it became illegal but obviously not stopped. Farmers in particular hate the animal. Most of this reputation probably comes from poultry farmers who’s livestock are particularly attractive meals for a fox. I found a great site with tips on how to keep foxes out of your chicken coop. Here are a few:

Make the entrance to a shed with sharp zig zags which only a chicken can manouver around. Bare in mind the length of a fox and fix angles of 180 degrees that a fox can’t contort his body to.

Hang human hair around the pen at six feet intervals. They don’t like the smell apparently. Use ladies tight’s or fine netting.

Urinate at regular intervals around the pen. This is you marking your territory. (Watch the stinging nettles – I found this out to my cost !!!)

THINK FOX.
How can I get in ?, how can I get out ?, Look for all possiblities.

Chickens are not the only things that foxes love to steal. It seems like the fox loves to take whatever it can get its mouth around. Foxes in urban environments have been known to steal everything from purses and cell phones to cameras and golf balls. I don’t think this strange behavior has any explanation but it makes for some extremely amusing youtube videos.

Instant classic: a fox that loves to steal golf balls off the course.

Here is a totally fearless fox:

Saved the best for last! You are not human if this video does not make you smile.

The fox is likeable because it has such an innate personality. They are just so cool, and this fox knows it:

Im not entirely sure what I just watched. But I like it. From the artist’s description:

Syn Emergence is a project which examines my own associative relationships between sound, form and space.

The project is constructed according to a range of specific sonic and spatial scale rule sets (micro, component, meso and macro) which I designed as part of a cross-disciplinary notation/cartographic system.

Syn Emergence from RICH BEVAN on Vimeo.

Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? Eko, a traffic light concept by Damjan Stanković that counts down the time until the light changes.  According to his description the benefits of the light include: Less fuel consumption because drivers can turn off their engine as they wait for the light to change. Less stress, you should be free to text message if you know the light wont change for another minute. What he forgot to mention was the huge benefit it would give to cyclists. Knowing when a light will change can mean not slamming on the brakes at the last minute at yellows, as well as saving energy from slowing down unnecessarily at reds about to turn green.

Very good stuff.

The Innards

There is a really cool kit made by Future Kit that will allow you to pretty easily make your own LED VU meter. The kit comes with 15 leds, the PC board, all the components and a little bit of solder. The solder that comes with the kit is pretty big so I just used my own 60/40 rosin core solder from Radioshack. You have to attach your own power supply and the kit accepts 9 – 12v. I didnt want a huge AAx8 power supply so I just stuck with a 9v battery at the expense of slightly dimmer LEDs. It stays in the box with velcro.  I wanted the whole thing to be something I could easily carry around (party trick!) so I decided to place mine in a box. Project boxes from Radioshack work well, they are fairly cheap and the material is easy to cut. One thing to watch out for the is the microphone – it has no leads. You have to solder wires on to the solder pads on the back of the mic. Be very careful, if any of the solder drips and touches anything else on the mic it will short out the circuit.

You can order one from Bakatronics:

http://www.bakatronics.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=410

Here is a video of the thing in action:

You love music, and you are impressed by flashy lights. Put them together and you have entertainment for hours. Peter Menich has created quite possibly be the best musical visualization ever created. Watch thousands of particles move to the sweet sounds of the piano:

Can I have this as a winamp visualization please?