::Wondering Mind::

I just had an epiphany: my life now revolves around batteries!

My iphone is my ultimate tool! I’m constantly making sure that it is charged so that I don’t run out of power and fall off the grid or can’t access my information.
My macbook pro is my other tool of choice! god forbid i forget my power cable at home as it would spell tragedy… I never got the 7 hours advertised battery life, more like 4 hours under moderate/heavy use.
My camera has also been an essential part of my armada since beijingdaze.com took off: I have documented almost every meal I’ve had and every show I’ve gone to. No camera = no post most of the time.
Now, for the new addition, my e bike: Battery life is now dictating where I go and how fast i get there most of the time! If I’m out, I literally have to stop and pull the 29kg battery out, go home and then recharge the damn thing before i can use the scooter again.

oil dependency? I don’t think so…

(yes, I know oil is used to get electricity yaddi yadda.. it’s still battery life as far as I am concerned)

my oh my! how the mighty have fallen! I remember roaming around the Southeast United States on my Yamaha virago, racing clouds and trucks and what not! Now, I have joined the ranks of e-bike riders in Beijing with my very own Yamaha Metis Max…. more on this puppy after I’ve spent extra time riding it around!

how about that?

I’ve mentioned Beijing Daze quite a few times on here recently and for cause: It’s keeping me busy and distracted but it’s also giving me the opportunity to somewhat get back into the music scene after a long time of absence.

Over the past year, it’s give me the motivation to get away from “expat” Beijing and rediscover parts of the city that i had ignored in favor of the general bar scenes. I’ve also managed to get to know quite a few amazing/great persons hanging out til the wee hours of the morning talking music.

Meeting these musicians comes with benefits, one of which being the ability to secure a shitload of songs that i can share with my readers with absolutely no strings attached. so if you care about live music or want to hear some of what’s brewing in the Beijing music scene, head on over to http://beijingdaze.com/category/freeloading/ and get yourself those mp3 while they’re still up.

there’s rock, bluegrass, country, reggae, etc…. the list goes on with more goodies on the way!! merry christmas!

Been a while but no worries, i’m still around! I think blogging over at BeijingDaze is taking up most of my disposable time but fear not… u still get some pieces of my wondering mind!

Right now, it’s crunch time with preps on the way for the world cup! yeas, yours truly managed to secure tickets to a few games and i’m planning to have a blast! So far, I’m scheduled to catch Germany-Serbia, Germany-Ghana as well as a round of 16th game between 1H and 2G… how about that?

There is a bit of doubt though because I’m hitting South Africa in their winter and that is a word i don’t really want to hear about for another few months considering we just came out of the winter-that-never-ends in Beijing with temperatures flirting with the 0 Celsius in April.

Nevertheless, the prospects of going back to what has become one of my favorite countries is quite thrilling. I get to spend loads of time hanging out with a person i care deeply about/for and also visit parts of the country i have not seen like Port Elizabeth.

here’s one toworld cup fever baby!

A good friend of mine suggested a few weeks back that a few of us get together and do an old fashioned music swap. It would be a great opportunity to bring together a dozen people around the globe and discover new exciting music ( or remember why we’re not listening to a particular artist/type)

The rules were simple, pick at the most 25 songs that represent your journey through life!

yeah, simple my ass!!! How am i supposed to sift through an entire itunes catalog with songs in over 10 languages and decide on the 25 that changed my life or represented milestones? tricky tricky!

The first go netted a little over 100 songs. Thing is, these were 100 songs that i love, not songs that meant something in particular. That wasn’t gonna cut it! I deleted that playlist and started over with a new criteria: The song had to bring back a memory, good or bad! This process netted about 45 songs that I managed to work down to 25 but it wasn’t easy! The result actually surprised me… certain names are on there while others i expected to make the cut were nowhere near!

Here is what came out:

The front cover is a picture i took a few week ago at the Black Sand Beach in Langkawi, Malaysia. I couldn’t get it out of my head for a while and kept drifting back to it whenever i thought about a cover for this mix. At first, I couldn’t think of a way to connect the water, sand, music and all. Of course, I could just put it all together just like that but I wanted the whole thing to flow. One late night sipping rum, I got the right inspiration and that’s what came out of it. I absorb music the way sand absorbs water… it comes in and becomes part of who/what I am.

The back cover is a bit of funky idea on its own, I d be curious to see if anyone figures it out