PianoWow

Something about a band that is over 83% female, from Brazil, and has such a playful, unique sound, just hit me right away, on several levels.  On one level, as a musician, their music has a somewhat popular appeal, but is not too simple to be a turn off to someone like me.  On another level, they are very unique, and the appeal of being different (and proud of it! the first track, C.S.S. Suxxx, is so arrogant) reaches me on a philosophical level.  On an entirely unrelated level, the women in this band are sexy without even trying. Yeah I’m a guy, and I said it.  Jon Harper, their drummer, is a lucky man.

I found out about this band when two different friends of mine recommended the band Hot Chip to me.  I looked up their stuff on iTunes, and previewed most of their tracks.  None of it really grabbed me.  I was on one of their albums, and noticed the “Listeners Also Bought” section and noticed a single by CSS.  Intrigued, I discovered a pretty cool band.  So while I wasn’t all that impressed by Hot Chip, I found CSS irresistible.  I browsed their albums, and finally decided on the International version of Cansei de Ser Sexy, which is what CSS stands for.

Cansei de Ser Sexy is Portugese for “tired of being sexy,” which was another appeal.  The band named themselves after an alleged quote from Beyonce, who said she was tired of having to be sexy all the time.  I never considered myself sexy.  But I am familiar with the concept of living up to an expectation, and the same expectation, over and over again.  I had fleeting, very minor, fame as a jazz pianist in a single city. When people recognized me, at first it was flattering, and I loved every minute of it.  But, it grew to be a burden.  I wondered how I was perceived by people who didn’t know me.  I wonder what they expected of me, if anything.  The people that did know me expected me to always be ready to play something for them.

I’m sitting here laughing at myself, because of course this problem is very low on the list of problems I have had in my life, and yet I’m writing about it.  I’m not even sure I could call it a problem.  But this band and this album took me back to those days.

I’ll have fun rocking to this album and all its 80s-era synthesized pop.

Balance: $16.08

Days Remaining: 11

An addicting PopCap flash game turned iPhone game that will most likely prove to be my latest iPhone game addiction.  I haven’t been playing many games on my iPhone, and were really just taking up space, so uninstalled all my games recently.  This app should prove to drain my battery more quickly, should I become addicted.

I like this style of tower defense type game.  While the multiple-queue style (as opposed to the free open area where enemies can end up walking at any angle) is somewhat simplified, it does have some interesting strategical differences to the open version.  Towers placed in different queues have no effect on enemies on all the others.

Something else I liked was the theme.  Zombies are always fun.  And carnivorous plants rock.  The animations, sounds, and music add a lot to the enjoyability.

This was an easy decision, prompted by the recommendation of a friend.  I will enjoy wasting time playing this app, when I get some spare moments.

Balance: $26.07

Days Remaining: 12

So there I was, thinking my severely media-handicapped iPhone 3G would never be able to record video.  Apple has a history of not approving apps that record video.  But, today I discover iVideoCamera, an app that does exactly that.  I just recorded my first video with this app.

The quality was not that great, which was expected.  Apple didn’t build video recording capability into this phone for a reason.  The video size was 200×160 by default, which is the low quality option.  The frame rate was low, but the frames themselves were fairly good.  I imagined the video being much worse than it ended up being.   When I switched to the high quality mode, the frame rate didn’t seem to drop all that much, but the resolution became 400×320.  The aspect ratio, on both low quality and high quality, 5:4, is unusual for video, but I suppose it could be cropped.   I wish I could choose between 4:3 and 16:9, which is more standard for video.

Some of the sharing features were pretty cool.  Upload directly to many websites, email, save to picture library.  One option I really loved is the ability to share over the network.  I was able to download the video I recorded over WiFi much faster than if I had emailed the video to myself.  This would allow me to copy the file to my Mac, edit it, and upload to youtube very easily, without all the fuss of syncing my iPhone with my Mac or emailing the video file to myself and downloading from there.

The effects button looks like an eject button, which I thought was weird.  I’m not all that interested in the effects, because iMovie or Final Cut will allow me to do that faster after I’ve copied the video over to my computer.

For $0.99, I believe this app will be one of the best values of all the apps I have bought in this mission.  I will be using this quite a lot, I’m sure.

Balance: $29.24

Days Remaining: 13

Looks like I’m going to need to spend more money more quickly, if I’m to meet my deadline.

First I bought Geocaches Near Me, for $0.99.  This is a ridiculously simple app that simply linked to a website with my current GPS location.  The website would provide a list, based on the coordinates, of the closest geocaches in the area.  This was a disappointment, but still helped me find my first geocache.  I was able to realize that I liked geocaching.

So I bought a more expensive, more full featured app, from the same website: Geocaching, for $9.99.  This was much more interesting.  It had an interactive map, and location-aware directions to the nearest geocache, in real time.  My second trip didn’t prove to be successful, but it was still fun.  I think part of my problem was that I went after dark.  I’ll keep trying, probably only during the day.

Balance: $30.29

Days Remaining: 15