Great new issue of Ammo Magazine!

So I’m back using Last.fm… after a 6-month-one-man-protest… I still think it’s discriminating to charge everyone but the UK, USA and Germany, for using their radio. But anyway… I’m back because I missed the recommendations.

I had Fink in my iTunes wish list for some time, but never got around to download it. This week it popped up in my recommendations, so I decided to give it a listen. At first his music sounds like your typical “guitar picking singer-songwriter”, but you can clearly hear it comes a long way. Fink used to make ambient trip-hop beats (which I totally recommend as well), but for some reason decided to chance course after 6 years. I think his music is fantastic, but I don’t expect any less from the Ninja Tune label. If you want to start somewhere, I would try his latest album Sort Of Revolution.

Next on in my recommendation list is Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I’ve actually heard their hit single, Heads Will Roll, on the radio a couple of times, but it never got stuck in my head. Until now. The band consists out of 3 people, where Karen Orzolek is responsible for the vocals, who I also heard singing on the soundtrack of Where The Wild Things Are.

Last one, for now, is Beach House. I don’t actually know them from Last.fm, but it was recommended by Marmushka. It’s an American band playing indie dream pop, whatever that means, but it sounds great. A good place to start is their latest album Teen Dream.

Update: Oh, in case you want to “friend” me on Last.fm, you can search for KiddoMono (dumb username I know, but I’m stuck with it now).

I should also make another mixtape, and I love making it for someone else, but… Well… Let’s just leave it with “I don’t have the time anyway”.

If you are on Flickr, have you used Flickr Galleries? It’s pretty fun to create your own sets with other people’s photos. Since the feature came out, I’ve been searching for photos to put in a gallery, and today I have my first one finished. I have 2 more in progress, and some ideas for the future.

This is one is called True. It’s about real beauty and real photography. They have soft lighting and soft colours. What I like in these photos is that they feel like home. Yet, none of models are really showing their faces. So the photos still have a certain mystique around them.

Take a look at the gallery. Hope you like it.

I’m planning to create a soundtrack with this. But I guess that will take me some time… Maybe later.

Thanks to a promotion of my operator, I had a very good deal on my first Android mobile phone. I have it for a few days now, and I must say, I’m pretty excited about it. iPhones are probably still more popular (read “hyped”) at the moment, but I’m sure Android phones will catch up soon. So I’m now the proud owner of a HTC Magic. It has Android 1.5 installed. (It’s a fairly old model, still need to look up if I can upgrade.)

The main reason why I wanted an Android phone, is because I’m using a lot of Google services. And it’s pretty easy to keep using them on the road with an Android phone. In the past, I’ve always been trying out different ways to sync my mobile phone (Nokia, Sony Ericsson) with my Google contacts and calendar, but all the applications out there didn’t really do the job for me. Because Android is developed by Google, this is no longer a problem. When you first switch on the phone, it asks for your Google login credentials, and voila, everything is in sync immediately. (Just be sure you’re on a Wifi network, it starts to download a whole lot of data.)

At work I have a few colleagues with Android phones, and Mr Capo was so kind to direct me to a few awesome applications. At the moment my favourite apps are:

• Barcode Scanner: you can scan products to find more info on the web, it also scans QR codes.
• FxCamera: some fun camera effects (Toy camera, Polaroid, …).
• Twitdroid: to keep up with the tweets of my peeps.
• Battery Indicator: gives you an exact percentage of the status of your battery.
• 3G Watchdog: to keep track of your data bandwidth.
• You also want to install some widgets to switch on/off your Wifi, Bleutooth, GPS and display brightness. Comes in handy for quick access.
• And for fun: Facebook, Android LightSaber, FingerPaint, Sketch-a-Etch, …

There are some apps I’ve installed, but which I haven’t used yet. Stuff like Layar, Evernote, Andrometer, …

Then, because I’m a fan of Flickr and Tumblr, I was looking for apps for these services. But I couldn’t find anything in the Marketplace! After some searching and researching on the web, I installed BucketUpload. This would allow to upload photos to Flickr. But, I didn’t get it working… I also discovered aTumble to easily upload stuff to Tumblr. But because it’s a paid application, it is not yet available in the Belgium Marketplace. Yes that’s right, it seems that Google is slow on rolling out the markets for selling applications. That totally sucks! Because I am willing to pay for this app. And what’s the point of a Marketplace, if you can’t buy anything? I found this page on Google Help explaining a bit more. Of course our neighbours are in an advantage again. In the Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK, you can buy apps through the Marketplace. But again, Belgium is not on the list. If your operator is not in this list, you will have to wait. How long? Who knows.

You see, I told you I wouldn’t wait too long for the next update. :P

Two weeks ago, I got a call from a friend who had an extra ticket for Grizzly Bear. I didn’t really know them, but the songs on their MySpace page sounded very good, and everyone I asked about it told me it was a great band. And they were right, their set here in Brussels was absolutely amazing! So thanks again, Gijs!

They are touring through Europe, together with St. Vincent. A one-woman-band which is definitely as good as Grizzly Bear. You should check out her album Marry Me.

Then, my friend started talking about The XX. Okay, never heard of them either. Yes I know, shame on me. Because they are the best! It’s one of those albums you can put on repeat the whole day. I you haven’t heard it yet, do it now!

Wow. It seems that I haven’t updated my blog for more than a month. I’ll never become rich and famous that way. :(
Anyway… What happened in the meantime?

At Alley we started our second expo with El Neoray, Vagabundos, Daspasfunky and Botlek. Definitely something you need to come and check out! I really enjoy this new expo, and I hope you will too. We expanded our shop with some new items (and new stuff is still coming in). And we even launched a new website! So you see, we’ve been very busy!

GizMag is still going strong with an average of more than 6000 downloads per PDF issue now. Even though the time I could spend on it was limited, I managed to keep updating the website with fresh links during the past 2 months. At the moment I am working on a new PDF issue. And I have some plans for something totally new, but I’m not sure about the details yet. So more on that later. From now on, I think I won’t be updating this blog with much GizMag news. So you’ll need to visit the website and my Tumblr for updates.

For all the cool stuff I’ve been doing at Nascom, I forward you to the company blog. Most of the awesome stuff ends up there anyway! :)

I promise I won’t wait too long for the next blog entry this time…

Received a package today!

Super awesome issue of Ammo! Check out GizMag for more info.

Thanks Dave!

I haven’t been updating all my websites a lot lately. But I guess you all know why. We (that is Debora, Daan and me) have been working hard to get our gallery, Alley, ready. And now the first week has passed, and everything is getting back to normal.

But this first week has been really great. We had a lot of people coming in every day, and they even bought some stuff. :) You can find some pictures of the grand opening on our Flickr page.

Beside from the awesome artists in our first expo, you can also find some super-duper stuff in our shop! We have cool T-shirts from Dead! Serious Clothing, Jelmer, Dieter Van Der Ougstraete and PlayRoll, paper toys from Dolly Oblong, handmade bunnies from Mr Lapin, and so much more. We add new stuff all the time, so keep watching the website!

If you haven’t visited us, you can find us on the Demerstraat 78 in Hasselt (BE). We are open from Monday to Saturday, from 12h to 18h. And also every first Sunday of the month. So drop by if you have the chance. I will be there in the weekends and on Monday.