Philadesigns

Yards Brewery Tour

philadesigns — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:44:06 +0000

After many years of enjoying Yards beer, Melissa and I, and a few other Fishtown friends, headed to the Yards Brewing Company to take a tour. If you live in Fishtown or Northern Liberties, set a Saturday aside and WALK to this delight!

Located on Delaware Avenue in the 19123, Yards is technically in Northern Liberties. Politics aside, the split-up from their previous location in Fishtown that spawned the Philadelphia Brewing Company was nothing but a win-win situation for locals that enjoy quality brews.

Tours are held every Saturday at Noon, 1:00 pm, 2:00 pm, and 3:00 pm, and last approximately 45 minutes. A few cups of whatever they want to offer are provided for free, but that’s about it. The Tasting Room dishes out beer for $5 a pint, as well as serving up what looked like some great pub lunch dishes. If you want to just hang in the Tasting Room, it’s open until 7:00 pm.

Our tour guide, Toby, was practically a standup comedian working at Yards. Very funny guy with many “asides”, cracks on attendees, and any guy that can make fun of himself and laugh at himself is always good by me.

Definitely swing by Yards some Saturday afternoon and sample something new. I checked out their barley wine, Old Bartholomew, which I had never even heard of. Meanwhile, my favorite Yards beer remains the Thomas Jefferson Ale.

Shipping area…Bad photo, I know.

Tasting Room winding down…It was quite hectic in there upon arrival…Seats were hard to find.

The locale of Yards Brewery used to be a skate / bike park, and this is a remnant of that.

Tumblr vs. Posterous

philadesigns — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:41:48 +0000

So, after experimenting with two free services, Tumblr and Posterous, I’ve decided that I’m a Tumblr guy. I already have Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and Flickr accounts, as well as a WordPress blog, and everything is accessible from my Philadesigns personal site. So, why the hell would I even need a Tumblr?!

Well, the answer is: “I don’t.” But, at the same time, it’s nice to have a place that puts all 5 of those above mentioned social networking and content storage services in one continuous “lifestream”. A stream of life…a never ending posting delight, that is until you do eventually die and stop posting. But, that’s a whole different story, and there’s services for that as well. Yes, people acutally back up their tweets with services such as TweetBackup.com.

Posterous

Posterous is not a lifestream. It only allows you to post on Posterous. You can’t even import your blog to it. But what you can do is post to all of your favorite social media outlets via the @posterous email services. They have a boomarklet as well that allows you to easily comment on a web page, post it to your Posterous and external blog, and have it posted immediately. But they toss in loads of HTML break tags, extra divs, and it’s a formatting nightmare, especially when posting to an external blog.

The one thing about Posterous that I find absolutely ridiculous is that there’s no way to delete your account. I would love to delete my half-ass account, but how to do so is not documented on Posterous.com, it’s not in the account settings, and loads of people on forums are questioning the same thing.

Tumblr

Tumblr allows you to import up to 5 different RSS feeds into your stream of content. I currently have it set up to display my most recent:

Flickr photos
Delicious links
Tweets
Blog posts
YouTube videos

Other great features of Tumblr include:

iPhone App (free)
Loads of preset themes that can be customized
Ability to add more pages and have them instantly appear in the navigation
Beautiful and easy to use interface
Custom domain setup
Audio posts — just call the number and report the scene!
Oh, and if you don’t like Tumblr, you can actually delete the account

Plugiator

philadesigns — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:52:47 +0000

via youtube.com

I recently picked up a Plugiator, a table top synthesizer from Use Audio. For the price, the value is amazing, coming equipped with 8 synth modules each with 100 tones. This obviously isn’t for synth purists, but if you’re looking for loads of sounds without breaking the bank, and you want to use a MIDI controller, than the Plugiator is a great space-saving deal.

The Plugiator comes equipped with the following plugins:

Minimax
Lightwave
B4000
Vocodizer (if you have a mic, this is great)
Prodyssey
Pro-12
Fmagia
Drums & Bass

The Chorus, Delay Time, and Delay Wet / Dry can all be tweaked on the fly. Other effects included depend on the specified tone. Cutoff, resonance, contour, attack, emphasis, gains, and more are all labeled on the console for easy tweaking. (The knobs also automatically synced up to my M-Audio Axiom MIDI Controller as well, so that was a nice bonus.)

As for sound quality, some of them flat out suck. But there are many gems that make the Plugiator worth it. Polyphony, like every other musical attribute, depends on the sound. All of them include notes to span the 61-key Axiom, so play range is not limited.

If you’re looking for organ sounds, Hammond B3 wannabe sounds etc., this is great. I didn’t come across any ideal Fender Rhodes sounds, which was a let down. Piano sounds are also nowhere to be found on the Plugiator, but that is expected with a synth.

If you play live and are sick of fiddling with a laptop to trigger sounds, this might be an ideal solution for you. You can store up to 10 of your favorite sounds on the front console, which is nice.

Tom Waits – Orphans

philadesigns — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:59:56 +0000

via youtube.com

I’ve been catching up on my Tom Waits lately, whose music I’ve seemed to have taken a sabbatical from, with the purchase of the 2006 triple-album “Orphans”. All kinds of great sounds and stylings on here, some spoken word, rockabilly, down & out blues, gristly bourbon soaked heartache, and even some industrial sounds that would make Trent Reznor jealous. “Lie To Me”, featured in this video, is one of the more uplifting songs on “Orphans”, albeit tongue-in-cheek.

Tame Impala

philadesigns — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:40:47 +0000

via youtube.com

Recently picked up an EP from Tame Impala, and have been listening to the songs non-stop on my iPhone. Excellent “psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock music” from Australia.

These guys are obviously influenced by late 60s British bands, even in the way that the songs are recorded. If you dig Cream and the more heavier Beatles songs, you’ll most likely dig these guys. Excellent harmonies as well, and the drummer’s vocals are mic’d as well, so they mean business.

Phillies Looking Tough

philadesigns — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:27:32 +0000

via nbcphiladelphia.com

The photos revealed by NBC Philadelphia of the Phillies show a determined and pissed-off team looking for revenge, aside from a slight grin in Moyer’s face. With a the lens focused on the eyes, the team looks fierce!

Super Mario Bros Wii

philadesigns — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:17:03 +0000

Back in the mid-80s, I played a lot of video games on the first NES: Nintendo Entertainment System. Like most people, one of my favorites was Super Mario Bros. Amazingly, 25 years later, I still love playing the game. After getting a Wii this past Christmas, one of the first things Melissa and I did was purchase the old school NES game for $5 and had it downloaded to the Wii. There’s something relaxing about playing an old game that is always challenging, and the old secrets of the game come rushing back upon maneuvering Mario about.

The new Super Mario Bros. Wii has the same feel of the classic 2D side-scroller of the 80s, but of course with much improved graphics and sound from the original version. Again, you are traversing 8 new worlds and can “power up” with mushrooms, fireball flowers, and the invincibility stars. But there’s some other way cool new features such as powering up with an ice-thrower that freezes enemies, slipping into a penquin suit to easily maneuver ice, wearing a spinning cap to fly through the air, and also shrink to an even smaller mini-Mario for tight spots — oh, and you can ride Mario’s buddy Yoshi around and have him eat enemies, sucking them down with his tongue.

The familiar theme songs are highly polished, and it’s almost fun listening to the music and sounds of even the most struggling board. Once you enter a new world, you can save your game as well. I can go on and on about this game. There’s loads of mysteries in it. Hidden vines, hidden pipes to go down, hidden bricks to bash with your head. It’s all there. My wife killed a tortoise once and she gained 30-some lives!

So, if you’re into the original 2D version, you’re going to dig this game big time, and the controls are set up the same, so you’ll be ready to go. And if you don’t know what to do, the game indicates what controller actions you should perform to do something new, such as pick up a barrel and toss it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The only thing that is tough about the game is playing with multiple people at the same time. You can have four people play simultaneously, but you can easily kill each other as well. Bumping into each other, accidentally bouncing off each other’s heads etc. can get very annoying and make it difficult to progress.

Holy Martyrs Reunion

philadesigns — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:01:40 +0000

This past January, Greg Lester and I came up with the idea of having a “grade school” reunion. For us, it was the Holy Martyrs 8th Grade Class of 1988. We had a relatively small class back then, of approximately 25 people, and only 9 of us could make it. But, we really didn’t give much notice, and are planning on doing another one soon, possibly this Thanksgiving.

Below is a photos of us, partying it up at the Oreland Inn, in good ole Oreland, PA — home of Holy Martyrs as well as two homes that I lived in as a child. I’m looking forward to exploring my old digs there this spring.

Photo by: Tim Thornton

Enchantment Under The Sea

philadesigns — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:14:14 +0000

After spending the afternoon catching up with my old friend, Brad, who was visiting from out of town, we all headed to Philebrity’s Enchantment Under The Sea Dance at 2424 Studios. Since it’s walkable, it was doable, as our street, Memphis Street, was shut down due to dangerous jagged ice that was making cars slide off the rode into parked cars. As of the next morning, the ice was still bad, and a garbage truck slammed into a parked Audi.

Melissa darts towards the camera.

PBR was plentiful…until they ran out.

Blood Feathers…the band…good stuff.

Melissa and I…The punch was the way to go.

Melissa

Brad and Melissa walking down the 2nd Street El stop.

More Snow Action

philadesigns — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:46:48 +0000

Are you sick of snow photos and posts about this? I almost am… After it snowed all day 2/10/10, I had some serious cabin fever and went to lunch at Johnny Brenda’s with Melissa. Here are some photos from the walk down.

Welcome to Fishtown! Stop and smell the roses.

Memphis Street Faux Plow Job

Can’t get more simpler than this sign.

Girard Street, facing “City Center”, as Chef Ramsay likes to say.

Melissa and the Fishtown Market

Melissa walks down Columbia Avenue

Trash Can Eyes

Updated! With Even More Snow Action

Here’s a little clip of Melissa and I walking around the brunt of the storm. We didn’t make it far because it was just too cold to tolerate and our gear was getting wet.

Click here to view the embedded video.