19 March 2013

Mesospheric

Listening to: Music for Ants, "You Just Made Yourself Available: The Breakup Songs Mix."

 Can you believe it, I've only gone karaoke twice this year. That number usually represents how many times I used to go per week. Last night, after a bit of soju served in a watermelon, we went to Duet 35, which is located just outside K-Town.

On the list of things that make a great karaoke place, Duet 35 had most of them: open till dawn, relatively cheap, BYOB and food, reliable sound system, mood lighting, great song selection. Repeat, great song selection.

We'd been searching for "Thinkin Bout You" forever and there it was. Sure there weren't many other Frank Ocean songs, but "Thinkin Bout You" was there! Now if we could just find a place with the rest of Channel Orange, I would never go anywhere else. I was also stunned to see that they had Patti Rothberg's "Inside," a track that I didn't think anyone else knew, much less had transferred to karaoke status. I picked up Between the 1 and the 9 at a Wherehouse during senior year of high school and had it on repeat forever. Even then I knew it wasn't the best but I enjoyed it regardless.

I was also impressed that they had Lianne La Havas ("Elusive"), a few tracks off Foster the People's Torches, Joe's "I Wanna Know," and so much new stuff I couldn't identify most of the artists. It hit me hard that I am way aged out of the new release pages. Sad day, sad day. But if you're wondering, it's possible to almost do the entire 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged album, which if it were to happen, would make me automatic BFFs with anyone who could successfully pull off a convincing Natalie Merchant. Additionally, next time back to Duet 35, my friend JMZ and I are destined to perform "Frontin'." Don't wanna sound full of myself or rude...

Duet 35 also had the real videos to some of the songs, most notably all Mariah and Christina Aguilera tracks -- please see Exhibit A. And the karaoke video for Gilligan's Island was straight up Sweded, with a child sitting in a bathtub and D-rate actors as the Professor and Mary Anne, etc. Overall, when we stumbled out of there at half past four in the morning, I was ready to do some more singing/screeching. Last karaoke related thing: While Duet 35 had a lot of indie tracks, they did not have any Tegan & Sara, which is just fine because T&S are the coolest and provided the world with their own instrumental for "Closer" and a karaoke version just for me! Okay, everyone else too.

Big life changes I've been pondering: What to do with email greetings and sign offs. I've one of those people who always has a greeting and an outro. Typically it's just "hey" and entirely superfluous but it feels weird not to do it. And I like to sign off with something too. But after reading this Slate article about the obsolescence of sign offs, I think I should give no sign ons and sign offs policy a go. Please don't be offended if I now sound curt in my emails, I just want to be a part of a movement.

And after a month of waiting, I finally got the Mailbox iPhone app. I don't need another email application, as almost all my email is done on my laptop, but I wanted to see what the hype was all about. What could possibly be worth signing up for that had 600,000+ people in line ahead of me? So far Mailbox is decidedly not life changing but it is certainly smooth and easy to use. One day I hope to get important enough to use it to achieve Inbox Zero. Right now I don't have to deal with hundreds of emails a day, much less a thousand.

Also, the other night, I ate firefly squid. They are from Toyama Bay in Japan and look like this. Unfortunately we did not glow afterwards, as that effect would probably have cost more than a few dollars per squid. I'm not generally into novelty eating but I'll make an exception for things that light up. What other foods could I eat that contain bioluminescence?