This thing is massive. Over 100-pounds massive. But you would expect nothing less for a $30,000 lens.

Be sure to check out its Amazon page and read the hilarious, sarcastic reviews left by people, as well as pictures supposedly taken with the lens.

On a serious note, I am curious to look at a few photos actually taken with the lens. It must have an insane range.

Designing

Typically if I’m designing I’m listening to ‘creative’ music. Typically these are the songs that would get me the weirdest looks by people if they were around. Admittedly, a lot of this music is weird but that’s exactly why I choose to listen to it: it’s different. When I’m designing I’m obviously trying to think creatively and flowing. Metaphorically, I enjoy the creative, flowing avant-gardé nature of the music, but also appreciate the underlying structure which typically adheres to the rules of music. This is exactly the way good design is! Refreshing, flowing, and different, but while adhering to the standards of design—both social and natural laws such as line-width and -height.

Typically when I get an album that inspires me, I stick to it for a while until it doesn’t. For a while this was The White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan, which is still a monumental album in its rawness. For a while it was Jack White’s other band The Raconteurs and their second album. It truly depends on my mood at the time but others I’ve listened to while designing: Chevelle, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, The Derek Trucks Band (check out their new album Already Free now), Evanescence, Five for Fighting, Hootie & the Blowfish, James Morrison, Jamie Cullum (this is a relatively new find for me), John Mayer, Kings of Leon, and even Tenacious D.

Coding

Writing code is another story. Arguably, the process of writing code is typically not as creative as designing, assuming you are coding an existing design. Coding is often simply repetitive tasks. Music I listen to during this phase of development typically reflects this. Often I’ll listen to music that, though sometimes repetitive, has a driving force that “pushes” me along. Examples include: NIN’s Ghosts albums, Blue Man Group (haha, yes), Deftones, Kasabian, The Killers, Rage Against the Machine, She Wants Revenge, and System of a Down. You’ll notice most of these are “heavier” than the ones I listen to while coding. Quite literally, I need that extra drive to fuel long, boring coding spells.

Feedback

What about you? What inspires you to creativity, or pushes you to develop your work?

I’ve received a couple suggestions via Skribit but I’ve yet to act on any of them—something that will be fixed shortly. In the meantime, be sure to make some post suggestions by using the Skribit tab on the right. You don’t need an account to suggest topics.

This kinda reminds me of the movie Final Destination, where the main character has a vision that his plane will crash and gets off the plane at the last second with several of his friends. The plane crashes just as it had in his vision, except he and his friends survive. As the rest of the movie pans out, his friends slowly die in strange accidents in the order they would have died on the plane. The idea of the movie is that you can’t cheat death. If the universe decides it’s time for you to die, you will die.

I just thought it was odd.

http://batteriesfeelincluded.blogspot.com/2009/05/309.html

On August’s website he has a page dedicated to his new book The Variant. The book is currently available in PDF form from his website or in Kindle format for your Amazon Kindle of Kindle for iPhone/iPod. The best part: the entire book is 99 cents.

From Amazon’s description of the book:

“After 35 years working at the Central Library, Vincent Lewis has perfected the art of unremarkability. But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he’s forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he’s been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.”

I am currently reading the book myself but already I have to say it’s very interesting. Much like one of his movies, it maintains a mysterious element where you’re not sure what, but you’re sure something just doesn’t seem right—like you’re missing a very big piece of the puzzle and you’re dying to put it together.

You can read a generous 15-page free preview of the book on his website here. Check it out, if you like it, pay that buck and finish a great story.

It was extremely easy to list my books—all I had to type in was the ISBN and it knew everything about my book—and they were listed in just minutes. Amazon shows you their prices for the book, as well as other individual sellers’ prices to help you decide how much you want to sell yours for.

Within two hours I got an e-mail from Amazon informing me my Calculus book had just sold and I should ship now—the money was already in my Amazon Payments account. The only complaint I have about the whole process is Amazon’s high fee for using the service. I listed my book for $85 and in the end I received $73.90. Not that bad but still.

All in all I’d give Amazon Marketplace a pretty high ranking. It’s almost too easy. I barely had to do anything but list it and ship it. If you’ve got a few extra textbooks (or anything, really) laying around you want to get rid of quick, Amazon Marketplace is a good place to do just that. You’ll need an Amazon account but who doesn’t have one these days?

What other places online would you recommend to college students for selling textbooks?

Although the album has been out a few years now I’ve only recently gotten around to obtaining it because I’ve been trying to manage my money more effectively and get some things out of the way. That being said, I’m sorry I waited—this album is worth every penny.

The album isn’t the typical Counting Crows live album such as Across the Wire or the live disk of the August and Everything After re-issue. Those albums feature the typical early Counting Crows set with songs like Mr. Jones, Anna Begins, and Sullivan Street. The setlist of this album is a matured one that breaks free from their earliest successes and embraces not where they came from, but where they’ve managed to go.

For the most part, I didn’t recognize the songs. A Counting Crows purist might scoff at me for that, but I’ve only really dug into the band’s music over the past year—and generally starting from the latest album and going backward.

Rain King. The album starts off with Rain King, a classic Counting Crows song. However, this isn’t anywhere near the original song from their first album—it’s better. I’ve always thought the original had too much going on in it at once, and other live versions I’ve heard of it were even more overbearing. The main problem I have with those versions is the music—particularly the overdriven organ!—generally overpowers his vocals in emphasis, and you miss the lyrics—which are very nice. The version of Rain King on this album is very close to the acoustic version featured on Across the Wire, and is really a pleasure to listen to.

Richard Manuel Is Dead. The second song in the set is Richard Manuel Is Dead, which is actually a different name for the same song If I Could Give All My Love off their album Hard Candy. Although this song is a little heavier than the opening song before it, it’s still relatively easy listening.

Catapult. For most of this song the focus is entirely on Duritz’ vocals—which are particularly strong—but in the latter half the tempo and volume picks up quite a bit. It’s still listenable, though, and features some pretty great guitar work.

Goodnight, L.A. Although this isn’t my favorite version of the song, the version of Goodnight, L.A. featured on this album is very nice. I’m a big fan of the lighter, piano-driven songs by Counting Crows. Duritz excels in these songs because of the sheer amount of feeling and emotion he can express vocally. The lyrics to this song are particularly moving to me, as I can relate (though I don’t live in L.A.—yet!). I especially love the line “It seems like the daylight is coming / And no one is watching but me”. Absolutely killer.

Four White Stallions. Possibly my absolute favorite song on the album, and also one I’d never heard before. Though it’s a lot louder than the track before it, it gets all the right moments right, especially the spine chilling moment where he sings “There’s nothing left of me and her / Nothing more than a heart still at war.” Gets me every time.

Omaha. I’ve never really liked Omaha in any form of it. Your opinion may vary, but I’ve just never really been a fan of it. The version on this album is not too much different from the others you’d hear on their other albums.

Miami. Something about this song really gets me moving. I think it’s the pace of it and really nice guitar work. Very much worth a listen!

Hazy. A classic Duritz piano piece much akin to Raining in Baltimore. My guess is this is the break in the set for the band and Duritz had to throw in a quick, quiet piece to keep the audience mesmerized. And he does just that, very, very well.

Good Time. Hazy is followed by a very good, but different song. The thing that most stands out to me in this song, probably because I’m a guitar player, is the phenomenal guitarwork. While the guitarwork is reserved to certain moments, when there is a guitar moment it is powerful and performed very well. I imagine I’ll be trying to cobble together the right effects to achieve the guitar’s tone for quite a while.

St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream. Much like Omaha, I’ve never really been a big fan of this song. Again, I’m not sure why, it just doesn’t appeal to me very much. Again, your opinion may vary.

Perfect Blue Buildings. A classic Counting Crows song—one I don’t mind if they play to death. There’s nothing really spectacular about this version over any other live version—they’re all worth checking out.

Hangin’ Around. Wow is a pretty good word to use here. This particular version of the song has some amazing, but different piano work. I imagine it’s not Duritz himself playing (not his style) but it certainly is interesting. In certain moments it’s actually just stylistic, rhythmic banging on the piano.

Goodnight Elizabeth. Another classic Counting Crows song, but executed very, very well. In this particular version, the song becomes an anthem, with several moments of the crowd singing “Goodnight Elizabeth” while Duritz looks on. As the song winds down, it gets a typical Duritz treatment—improvised lyric changes. Of all Counting Crows songs, this song is probably the one that receives that treatment the most. Considering how good he is at it, I don’t mind at all.

Hard Candy. Another song from their album of the same name. Again, not really a favorite of mine but the version on this album is still pretty good. Though very loud, it breaks well into the last song of the set (and my favorite).

Holiday in Spain. Another great piano song with great vocals. As I said before, Duritz excels at this type of song because of the amount of emotion he’s capable of expressing vocally. Apparently the crowd shares my opinion because halfway through it there is a brief pause in the music and the audience goes wild. Duritz has to wait and shush them so he can finish playing the song.

Conclusion

So there you have it, Counting Crows’ New Amsterdam: Live At Heineken Music Hall album. Overall I’d give it a 5/5 despite the few tracks I didn’t like—the others are just that good! Be sure to check out the album on Amazon.

Bye, folks.

So let’s some this up: On America’s Got Talent, two out of three judges aren’t even American, and not all of the contestants are even American.

My best guess is Hollywood is taking advantage of Americans’ patriotic spirit to draw more viewers into their show. It’s not about “America’s Talent” at all.