Chris J Mears

Mac OS X Terminal Aliases

Chris — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:49:48 +0000

Partly because I wanted to post more and partly because I transfer computers a lot and I figure a blog is as good place as any to share my thoughts with, well, myself.

Here’s a list of aliases I’ve collected over the times searching the Internet (note: so far, not so many, but that’ll change as I keep finding more).

To be put in ~/.bash_profile:

alias ls=’ls -aFhlG’
alias ll=’ls -l’
alias search=grep
alias ..=’cd ..’
alias …=’cd ../..’
alias bake=’/opt/local/apache2/htdocs/cake/cake/console/cake bake’
alias cake=’cd /opt/local/apache2/htdocs/cake’

If anyone wants more detailed explanation of any or all of these, or if you’d like to know what in the bejesus I’m even talking about, post a comment.

Oh, and I would also happily welcome further suggestions too.

Breaking through the mental block

Chris — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:16:42 +0000

Motivation is a fascinating thing. Sometimes you have it, other times it’s no where to be found.

I started writing a blog to inspire me, and others, with any random thoughts and ideas that came to mind. Then I realized that I haven’t actually written anything in a very long time. Like all skills, writing takes practice. Practice makes perfect, but to a perfectionist like me, it’s hard to sit down and write when what’s coming out is pure crap.

In fact, the most inspirational piece I’ve heard is from Ira Glass (This American Life), on the subject of sucking. Though the topic is on storytelling, his message is very universal for beginners: you’re going to suck, deal with it and overcome by putting in the effort.

Some other things that I also found helpful are:

Read Whining, Blue Smoke & the Mechanics of Getting Unstuck
Make a list of “inspiration” tagged items in delicious or your preferred bookmarking platform. Here’s mine.

Song of the Week - Sebastien Grainger and The Mountains I Hate My Friends

Chris — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:25:09 +0000

Sebastien Grainger and The Mountains I Hate My Friends from Self Titled (2008)

I don’t actually hate my friends, but I dig this song.

Song of the Week - Animal Collective Summertime Clothes

Chris — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:00:47 +0000

Animal Collective Summertime Clothes from Merriweather Post Pavillion (Domino 2009)

In all honesty, like most of my now favorite albums, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” took me several listens to get into. While we’re on the subject of honesty, I got into Animal Collective pretty late in the game. Starting with “Strawberry Jam” I loved the noise, screaming, and psychedelic electronic instrumentation that was filling my ears! Alas, I find out that was a very odd album for Animal Collective and the newer album gets back to its roots. This isn’t a bad thing, just was a bit disappointing and slowed my appreciation. However, after the 3rd or 4th listen, I started to get hooked. My Girls is easily a favorite. However, this weeks song, Summertime Clothes, just makes me happy to think about all of those summertime clothes we’ll be enjoying soon. Oh, if only it weren’t still March.

Song of the Week - Chad VanGaalen Willow Tree

Chris — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:00:04 +0000

Chad VanGaalen Willow Tree from the album “Soft Airplane” (2008)

Though riddled with dark lyrical undertones, I absolutely love the vibrato of Chad VanGallen’s voice throughout very vivid depictions of hallucinations throughout “Soft Airplanes.” Willow Tree is a simplistic and beautiful song that I’ve had in my head for quite some time. Just can’t shake the chorus despite feeling embarrassed by the morbid lyrics.

Sidenote

I want to start a tradition of posting songs that are in my head. Maybe sometimes I’ll have a playlist of songs.

I’m also always looking for new music, so feel free to post some suggestions in the comments below.

Setting Themes for Terminal in Mac OS X

Chris — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:24:22 +0000

After spending way too long using a plain black and white color scheme in Terminal and being unimpressed with the theme options under Terminal > Preferences… > Settings Tab, I decided to do a little bit of searching to remedy the situation.

I ran across Todd Werth’s IR_Black Terminal theme, which seemed to be very easy on the eyes. Actually, at the time of this writing, Todd Werth’s theme is the only theme I’ve found.

Steps for setting a theme for Mac OS X Terminal

Download and install SIMBL
Download and install TerminalColors Bundle
Download and install Todd Werth’s IR_Black theme

Note: This article assumes you know your way around Mac OS X, can install programs, and are comfortable manipulate files. Should you need extra help, please contact me or post a comment below and I’ll go into finer detail.

13 Most Beautiful … Music by Dean & Britta for Andy Warhol Screen Tests

Chris — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:15:49 +0000

This evening, I attended the San Francisco Film Society’s 13 Most Beautiful… during which indie-pop icons Dean & Britta performed live songs to rarely seen screen testings by Andy Warhol. During these 4 minute screen tests, frequenters of The Factory are filmed without sound and without speaking. Since these films are in slow motion, the scenes were only about 2 and a quarter minutes.The subjects just remain still, react to an emotion, or just do what they would normally be doing at that particular moment in time.

I took a couple pictures. Please note that I had my hand slapped by some lady despite the fact that I didn’t have my flash on and my screen was dimmed. So, these photos were taken under duress like a real journalistic photographer :)

Edie Sedgwick

Dennis Hopper

Canadian Album Releases 2009

Chris — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:11:48 +0000

Canadian indie album releases for the first half of 2009:

Jan 20 - AC Newman Get Guilty (Last Gang)
Jan 20 - Brent Randall & his Pinecones We Were Strangers… In Paddington Green! (Just Friends)
Jan 27 - Geoff Berner Klezmer Mongrels (Jericho Beach)
Jan 27 - Final Fantasy Plays To Please (Blocks)
Jan 27 - Hannah Georgas The Beat Stuff (Upper Management)
Jan 27 - In-Flight Safety We Are An Empire, My Dear (Night Danger)
Jan 27 - Andrew Vincent Rotten Pear (Kelp)

Feb 3 - Jon-Rae Fletcher Oh, Maria (weewerk)
Feb 3 - Jenn Grant Echoes (Six Shooter)
Feb 3 - Hylozoists - L’lle De Sept Villes (Outside)
Feb 3 - Woodpigeon Treasure Library Canada (Boompa)
Feb 10 - Hot Panda Hot Volcano… Bloody Volcano! (Mint)
Feb 10 - K’Naan Troubador (Octone)
Feb 10 - Malajube Labyrinthes (Dare To Care)
Feb 10 - Smothered In Hugs The Healing Power Of Injury (Collagen Rock)
Feb 14 - Charles Spearin (Broken Social Scene) The Happiness Project - (Arts and Crafts)
Feb 17 - Montag Hibernation (Paper Bag)
Feb 17 - Portico First Neighbours (Copper Spine)
Feb 24 - Howie Beck How To Fall Down In Public (13 Clouds)
Feb 24 - Gentleman Reg Jet Black (Arts and Crafts)
Feb 24 - Shout Out Out Out Out Reintegration Time (Six Shooter)
Mar 10 - Attack In Black Years (By One Thousand Fingertips) (Dine Alone)
Mar 10 - Bell Orchestre As Seen Through Windows (Arts and Crafts)
Mar 10 - Handsome Furs Face Control (Sub-Pop)
Mar 10 - Josh Reichmann Oracle Band Crazy Power (Paperbag)
Mar 15 - Bob Wiseman In Her Dream: Bob Wiseman Sings Wrench Tuttle (Blocks)
Mar 17 - MSTRKRFT Fist of God (Last Gang)
March 24 - Julie Doiron I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day (Endearing)
Mar 24 - The Joel Plaskett Emergency 3 (Maple Music)
Mar 24 - Swan Lake Enemy Mine (Sonic Unyon)
March 31 - The Danks Are You Afraid Of The Danks? (Collagen Rock)
Mar 31 - Great Lake Swimmers Lost Channels (Nettwerk)
Mar 31 - Ohbijou Beacons (self released)
Mar 31 - Thunderheist (tba) (Big Dada)
Apr 1 - Chris Page Date With A Smoke Machine (Kelp)
Apr 7 - D-Sisive Let The Children Die (Urbnet)
Apr 7 - Melissa McClelland Victoria Day (Six Shooter)
April 21 - Barzin Notes To Absent Lovers (Monotreme)
Apr 28 - Immaculate Machine High On Jackson’s Bong (Mint)
May 5 - Apostle of Hustle Eats Darkness (Arts and Crafts)
May 26 - Grand Analog Metropolis Is Burning (Urbnet)
Jun 1 - The Awkward Stage The Music of Mordor… And Beyond! (Mint)
Unscheduled and untitled but coming soon: Metric.

Stolen from CBC Radio 3

Best of Canadian Independent Music vol. 2

Chris — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:03:28 +0000

Album Art by Brynn Harris

Welcome to the 2nd volume of my Best of Canadian Independent music mix. Compiled each year, this mix contains my favorite tracks from the top Canadian independent artists.

You can download the mix in a variety of formats. However, I recommend the iTunes Optimized version.

Enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments!

Best of Canada 2008: O! Canada!: iTunes Optimized (79MB, Chapters included, M4A format); MP3 Zipped (97MB)

Track list after the jump.

Track List (links open song in an audio player)

iTunes Rating System for Album People

Chris — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:56:51 +0000

After I started to get very weird songs pop up in my “4-stars and up” Party Shuffle playlist, I decided to embark on a more stream-lined iTunes song rating system.

Here is my proposal:

No stars: This song is unrated and needs to be put in a smart playlist to be rated, even if they’re all 3 star ratings. This is a fire sale people. Everything. Must. Go! (out of that unrated smart playlist!)
1 star: Denotes a supreme dislike for the song that immediate deletion would not be totally uncalled for.
2 stars: This song is a’ight. Not the most inspirational piece of music, but not worth deleting either, if it flows with the rest of the album.
3 stars: This is a good song. Not the best, but you would be indifferent about it showing up once in a while during a shuffle. And hey, you wouldn’t be totally against bumping it up to 4 stars if it revealed a glimmer of potential to get stuck in your head.
4 stars: This song is great! Not only wouldn’t you mind hearing it in a shuffle of all songs in your library, but you’d be happy when it came on! Not only that, it warrants a place in your “Best of Artist” and “Best of Album” smart playlists.
5 stars: OMG! O-M-G! You love what’s happening to your ears right now! It’s, like, amazing and you can’t get enough. In fact, this is a song you want to share with everyone when you get the chance!

Add any additional thoughts or suggestions in the comments.