Hey friends. I've been playing with video a bit lately. Got myself the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, a Digital SLR camera with great HD video capture. Here's some footage I shot of one of my favourite bands, Surprise Me Mr. Davis.

This was shot using a Canon 24-70mm 2.8L lens. The audio was captured with the built-in mic on the 5DMII until I switched to the Azden High-performance(SMX-10) Stereo Condenser Microphone a couple of songs into the recording. I was truly blown away by the quality of the video from that little camera. Those of you from Staunton might recognize the lead singer (Nathan Moore).

Working with some downtempo ideas.

• Get ripped, with a six pack and mega-arms. I'm tired of filling the lanky nerd and flimsy vegan stereotypes.
• Get a skateboard, learn to ride it marginally well.
• Endure a public feat of strength—maybe a half-marathon.
• Move downtown and have a great place for friends and I to launch downtown adventures from.
• Actually lay down a track. I have the equipment and no excuse not to create great musical content.

Several months ago, I sold my car. Not only did I sell it; I resolved not to buy a new one. My new means of transportation would be a bicycle and the city buses. This decision was inspired by a coworker of mine (Sam) who once did the same thing. I carefully weighed the pros and cons of this:

Pros

• It's cheaper (even if I spent 18 USD/mo on a bus pass, and 100 USD in occasional taxi rides, not paying for car insurance, parking, and gas easily tipped the scale)
• I'd get more excersize.

While sitting in a small vegan eatery in São Paulo, I came across some Brazillian lads who claimed to be mega film-buffs in town for a film fest. At some point during the conversation I told them to list for me a top-5 list of Brazillian films. They wrote the following on a napkin for me:

1. O Céu de Suely-2006 (imdb)
2. Macunaíma-1969 (imdb)
3. O Corpo-1991 (imdb)

I got a little tired of waiting for Nokia's iPhone killer, the N97 and settled on HTC's G1 (The Google Phone) yesterday. Some notes...

The Good

• Touchable, Wide or Narrow Screen
• Tons of good free apps out there including a great Last.FM App
• Mostly Open Platform
• Good web browser
• Powerful enough to run Flash, such as the YouTube player

The Bad

• Short Battery Life

Went to a Grimy Styles show on Friday night. There was an Austin trip-hop band that opened for them called Ohn. Thought they were pretty cool, and that I'd share them with you. Last.fm has a few of their tracks if you want to check them out.

My fellow ravers, electroboys, and electrogirls of Austin, look what's in store for us as Spring unfolds...

A new year, a new president, and a new justinarthur.com. I finally decided to move my website onto a real content management system, Drupal. I hope you like it. The motif still needs a little work. I hope to keep you updated about my life here.