Ben at Random

Tron Legacy Comic-Con TRAILER in HD! VFX Test for 2009 Movie

mindpirate — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:13:17 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6jfm0hq0bk

ooooo I'm excited

TDP at the 9:30 Club Saturday 7/18/09

mindpirate — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:38:58 GMT

Howdy folks!
Don't forget that the band is playing at the 9:30 club on Saturday. If you have not gotten your tickets yet you can get them here. http://www.thedreamscapesproject.com/tickets/
Get yours before noon tomorrow or they don't count for us. If you were thinking about coming, now is the time to grab those tickets.
The doors open at 6 and we go on at 6:45 followed by emmet swimming. That's right I said emmet swimming. Come on out and have some fun. Hope to see you there!

Carbon Fibre Cello

mindpirate — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:53:20 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uzsAa606u0

God I want one. If I only had the money. But here is how this is made.

Steeldrivers

mindpirate — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:56:49 GMT

Back in April I mentioned a band called the Steeldrivers. Here is an opportunity to check them out if you have not already.

Midnight Train to Memphis

Playing For Change: Song Around the World "Stand By Me"

mindpirate — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:02:01 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM

Merlefest

mindpirate — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:58:02 GMT

I would love to tell you all about every detail of Merlefest, but lets be honest. I don't have the time of the writing ability to do it justice. We had an incredible time. Amy caught the bug, and has come home with a beautiful Eastman Mandolin. I came home with a Strum Stick. It's a great little instrument. Designed for beginners it has a great sound, and it's really just fun to play. We saw lots of great bands, but we seem to always find a group that we really connect with. This year the group was The Steeldrivers. They put on an incredible show. Their music is dark and driving, but simple, and not flashy. Chris Stapleton's voice is haunting and has stuck with me since the first of the 3 times we saw them over the festival. Their songwriting is just incredible. I picked up their debut CD, but there is a live album too that I'm regretting not picking up, since it is only available at their shows. I guess I'm just going to have to go see them live again in order to pick it up.

If you want to know more details about the Festival you can check it out here. Also here is a really good write up about the events of this Merlefest.

Absinthe: What’s it all about? - Episode #658

mindpirate — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:07:12 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npbIUizrVCs

For all my Absinthe drinkers out there

A Girl's Gotta Trim the Hedges: Hilarious Schick Commerci...

mindpirate — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:15:56 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTodm5C75IA

with Audio this is NSFW. Check it out when you get home.

Have you seen Bottle Shock?

mindpirate — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:43:36 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYs0kblXToA

Bottle Shock is a film that tells the story of the events that led up to the Judgement of Paris. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Sunday night while having Dinner with the wife, we watched this film. I started out thinking that I was going to learn lots of great things about wine when we sat down to watch it. It was not that kind of movie at all. This is a great feel good movie. It's just a good story. Based on a true one at that. There are some really beautiful shots of California, that made me really excited to be going there in a few months. The soundtrack for the film is great too. The film is similar to the movie Sideways but instead of being about wine drinkers, it focused on wine makers and the events surrounding the Judgement of Paris.

Short little description:
Steven Spurrier, played by Alan Rickman, a Brittish Sommelier runs a wine school/shop in Paris. It's pointed out to Spurrier that he runs a wine education shop that has no customers and his supply is 90% French wines. How can he teach people about different wines and how to expand their palate if all he has is french wine. He develops a plan to help his business, and introduce wines from other parts of the world to Paris. His plan includes a blind tasting, with top judges.

Spurrier travels to Napa Valley in search of wines for his tasting. Wines from the U.S. are looked at as being pretty bad and not up to snuff when it comes to the French. Spurrier is surprised by what he finds. He brings home what he believes are the best wines from Napa and squares them off against top French wines. This simple story line is decorated with personal stories and journeys of the people involved.

Seek this movie out.. Watch and enjoy

Getting Ready for Merlefest

mindpirate — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:55:10 GMT

Lack of internet yesterday kept me from posting this then, so I'll do it now.

I managed to spend a decent amount of time working with my dobro this weekend. I have been playing for a while, and have even had the pleasure of taking a lesson from Mike Auldridge, the famous Dobro player from The Seldom Scene. It has been hard for me though, since I don't really have the time to sit and practice for as long as I would like every day. With Merlefest around the corner, I want to be as ready as I can to hang out at all the Jamming tents. There is a serious lack of educational material for the dobro readily available. Don't get me wrong Mel Bay has some great books. Thanks to Hopespun Video for making some great material with superstars like Cindy Cashdollar, Jerry Douglas, and Rob Ickes.

There just are not any teachers in the area. Mike Auldridge is an amazing teacher, and he is not too far away in Maryland, but with my normal schedule with the band, and his touring, recording, schedule make it hard to work something out. Plus it's not cheap to pay $100 a lesson, although the lesson with Mike is well worth it.

I have stumbled across some online lessons, and I have had great success with them.

Here are the two that have helped me the most
Bluegrass College
A great site offering songs. Learn to play some popular tunes on Banjo, Mandolin, Guitar, Fiddle, and Dobro. If you want to learn great versions of great tunes, this is the place to come. The individual songs are taught by some great famous players. When you download the "lesson" it comes with videos of the song being played by the instructor at different tempos, and backing tracks for you to play along with at different tempos, notes about the song, and the sheet music/tab. No technique info here.

Lessons with Troy
This guy is GREAT! Lessons are cheap, and packed to the gills with info. He gives very detailed instruction on technique, and songs. Quick to respond to question emails.

Good weekend, wish it were longer

mindpirate — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:30:07 GMT

Good Weekend. Got some little stuff done around the house. Had a good show out at Dogfish Head in Gaithersburg on Saturday night. Managed to spend some time on my Dobro. Got to go for a Bike Ride with Amy on Friday, and then spent some time with friends Friday night.

There was a lot I wanted to do but just didn't get around to it. Getting caught up with the stuff I need/want to do on the weekends makes my week go smoother. . It's harder for me to think clearly and be productive during the week if I don't do all the stuff I want to do. It's hard for me to relax too. I get too caught up in everything I need/want to get done, and can't settle down. Sometimes it just unbearable and I can't sleep. Luckily that was not the case this weekend. Although I did not get everything done, I finished everything that I felt had to be done before I could start the week. Hopefully I can get caught up this week and be stuck with way too much to do next this weekend. I just won't have time.

We have shows at Fat Tuesday's In Fairfax on Friday, and at Andy's in Chestertown MD on Saturday. Friday should be an awesome show, and I'm looking forward to it. Saturday will be good too. The last time we played Andy's it was nice and layed back, and we had a good time.

Looking for an excuse to join the wine club

mindpirate — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:32:26 GMT

So at band practice on Tuesday night, Keith brought us a bottle of wine that one of his co-workers had given him. Turned out that his co-worked had made this wine from a kit. Not bad! Jeremy and I tried to figure out what varietal it was, and we settled on Merlot, but who knows. It could have been anything.

I have been tempted for a while to sign up for a Wine of the Month Club. One of the reasons I have held off is that I don't want to blow all the money I would spend on wine in one place, and then have to wait for it to arrive. Most of the wine clubs are pretty expensive, and will basically kill the wine budget. I like having the ability to run out and grab a bottle when I need one. The quick stop off at the Wine shop on the way to a friends, or whatever. Not having the cash would put a damper on that. Yes there are usually bottles in the wine fridge, but most of those are being aged, or saved for something specific.

I have been thinking about it more and more lately and I have been looking at the Wine Club and it's different Levels at The Wine Library
Mainly because the price ranges are right, and I can get just one bottle, or two, and still have money to run out and get something if I want. I'm a fan of Gary V and Wine Library TV. Why not help support the guy who both informs me and entertains me. It can be hard to spend more than $20 on a wine that they are not sure they are going to like in today's economy. Not without a recommendation anyway. Really I just have to convince myself to spend the money and do it. I have been watching Gary V's VLOG for years, and I have read his book. I have even met the guy and have pretty much come to trust that he is genuine and really just wants people to enjoy themselves and have a good time with wine. The wines that he has recommended I have enjoyed so why not go for it.

Anyone out there a member of a wine club, that they would recommend? Have any thoughts on trying one out? Leave a comment

Chinese Bluegrass (REDGRASS): Red Chamber紅庭, Jaybirds

mindpirate — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:22:54 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LALgWz0xc0

My little music project

mindpirate — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:56:00 GMT

My dad hit me up last week and asked if I could Arrange some music for him. Turns out that the Scout Master for the Boy Scout troop my dad works with is leaving and he had written a little tune on his Dulcimer. Some of the boys wanted to play the song for him at his retirement ceremony. It's a nice little tune, and since it' my dad asking, I decided to take on the job. Nothing major, I'm not giving it a grand re-write. I have gone through and given the melody to different instruments, and written harmonies so that everyone can play together. Bad news is that the guitar players, and the bass guitar players only read tab, so I do have to go out and tab out those parts. Should not talk too long. Once I do that, I'm all finished.

I'm enjoying writing this stuff out. It's not something I have a need to do all that often. I do plan to write out all of my parts for the band's music as soon as I'm done with this little project. But that will take much longer.

This is just something musical I'm working on this week. How about you? Are you working on anything artistic this week?

Jip Jip/Aerators

mindpirate — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:01:08 GMT

Thanks to some great friends, I ended getting several bottles of wine for my birthday. Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of enjoying these bottles, but One in particular stood out.

The 2007 Jip Jip Rocks Shiraz was solid. Scores an 90 in my book. Lots of fruit, but not fake and over the top. Smooth and pretty well balanced. Good for just drinking, but It would go real well with a burger or maybe a meat lovers pizza.

Should you be decanting your wine? Yes! Do you always have the time to let a bottle decant as long as it should? No

Here is a great solution to the problem. Pick up a wine aerator. They are cheap and do the same thing as decanting but just one glass at a time. There are two that I am familiar with. The first is the Metrokane Rabbit Wine Shower Decanter Funnel. A great little device was designed to help aerate your wine as you poured it into your decanter, but it does the same thing straight into the glass. The Second and my favorite so far is the Vinturi. This bad boy does an incredible job of infusing just the right amount of air into your glass of wine. Every time I have used it I have seen a huge difference in the smoothness, and flavors of my wine. It really just allows the wine to taste like it was supposed to.

Leave a comment and let me know if you decant, aerate, or do nothing at all. I'm curious to see.

Could not make up my mind

mindpirate — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:16:01 GMT

I was not sure which of these images to share today. Since I could not make up my mind. You get both

"the most important folk group to emerge from Boston since the early 60's"(Boston Globe)

mindpirate — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:36:19 GMT

I have been a fan of Crooked Still for a while, mainly because of cellist Rushad Eggleston. He was the first to my knowledge to bring cello to Bluegrass. Eggleston left Crooked still shortly after seeing them perform in 2007. I'm happy to report that the band is still alive and awesome. I recently heard some of their new album " Still Crooked" and it brings as much energy and fun as their past two albums did.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to introduce you to a group that I have a lot of respect for. Check them out at www.crookedstill.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day

mindpirate — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:15:25 GMT

Since it is St. Patrick's Day, I thought I would pass along the chance to win a little gift. My brothers blog, is quite amusing, and it's his 100th post give away. He is having a giveaway contest for his readers. A Teavana gift card or a Best Buy gift card are the prizes. Interested in either? Go check it out Laughing Soul.

Cookology Wine Class

mindpirate — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:24:28 GMT

For my birthday my parents gave me two tickets to the Wine 101 Class over at Cookology at Dulles Mall. The class was scheduled for Thursday March 12th. I got a phone call from mom on Thursday telling me that Cookology had called her (because she bought the tickets) and canceled the class. I called them to find out what was going on, and they did not have any details as to why the class was canceled, but let me know that we could attend at a later date, etc... I was really pissed off, because it had already taken my parents, Amy, and the band a while to figure out when to get the class, and this just made it worse knowing that things may be thrown into scheduling chaos yet again.
As busy as our schedule is rescheduling something can be pain, just because we are always running around with different things.

Cookology did not know when the class was being rescheduled yet, so I was not able to reschedule at that time.
Because the band schedule has been fluxing lately emails went out yesterday discussing what days to practice this week. My only comment was that since Thursday is my magic meeting, I would prefer to not practice on Thursday night. So we basically decided to practice on good old Monday and Wednesday.

I called Cookology today to see if they had rescheduled the class yet, and sure enough they have rescheduled for this Thursday. I'll have to miss my magic meeting, to do it, but thats not a huge deal.

I have to say I was really excited about this class and still am, but they told me that since last week they have made some changes to the format of the class, and changed the name, because they thought Wine 101 sounded too much like work. They also upped the price because now it includes more wine than before. We don't have to pay the difference in cost since they canceled, and made the change. I know the place is new, but they have already canceled one class, and completely revamped the class from one week to the next. Sounds a little sketchy to me.

Chuck E Cheese's, where a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings can be kids.

mindpirate — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:20:20 GMT

So for my birthday, my wife, family, and friends threw me a Transformers Birthday Party at Chuck E Cheese. My brother picked me up at the house to drive me to the unknown party location. We Walked into Chuck E Cheese and in the party area in the back were about 20 of my friends. We ate Pizza off of transformers plates and drank beer. I even had a little Transformers ribbon that they made me wear that said Hero of the Day.

We all got some tokens and played video games, and Ski Ball, and everything else they had there. Michelle and Kim made me a cello cake, that was both awesome to look at, and tasted great. After cake and presents we all ran around playing games for a while longer.

For those of you who are wondering how on earth there was an adult birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. We did have some kids with us. Several of my friends have little ones, so that made everything OK.

There were some great moments watching Jeremy and Kevin play an Epic round at the hunting game. Better yet watching Keith and Dan ride a virtual roller coaster. I have to say that watching my parents play Mario Cart together, with my mom going the wrong way pretty much the whole time, was more than amusing.

There is something really cool about being an "Adult" and being able to just play. The party was definitely More than meets the eye.

Thanks you all so much for the Happy birthday wished by email, and Facebook, and Myspace, and for coming out and celebrating with me last night. I can't wait to do something like this again.

As soon as I get the pictures from other people, I will be sharing them

Cookology

mindpirate — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:03:39 GMT

On Saturday night Amy and I decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. There was about an hour wait, so while we were waiting we strolled through Dulles Town Center. While doing this we stumbled across Cookology. http://www.cookologyonline.com/ We had seen ads for this and that it was coming soon, but were not aware it had opened.

Several times Amy and I have talked about taking a cooking class. Nothing real serious, just something to do for fun together. We walked in to see what it was all about. It's pretty simple. You sign up for a class, and you learn to make whatever dish is being offered. The cool thing is that they also have wine education classes. This looks like something we could get into. I'm sure it's something simple, and is probably used more to educate people on wines that cookology has deals with, but it could be fun none the less.

I would love to take a more advanced class on wine, something where you learn to identify flavors and aromas. It has been fun trying to do that on my own, but it would be lots of fun to "train my palate" more officially.

Mike Marshall On Mandocello

mindpirate — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:18:34 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAMe9pZwogY

I would love one of these. They are hard to find, and the few that I have found are either really crappy, or incredibly expensive.

Tuned the same as a cello but do not have the the same octave range. Amy and I have talked about getting me one for my birthday, but they really are very expensive. We found one that we may be able to get, but it would hinder our current financial plans.

Mike Marshall is an incredible mando player, and this video is only a small sample of his playing, but it demonstrates the instrument really well.

Hope you enjoy it.

What to ask for

mindpirate — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:02:25 GMT

So next week is my birthday, and for the last few days I have been getting emails, and phone calls from family and friends about what I want for my birthday. I keep an ongoing list of stuff I want, that way I don't have too many impulse buys. If I see something I want, I just put it on that list, and when I have some money floating around I pick up stuff on the list. The list is full of stuff like CD's and DVD's and random magic, and music stuff.

Amy and my folks say that just giving them this list is not appropriate for this birthday. They say that I should get something bigger and memorable or whatever. I have no clue what to ask for. I tend to just get what I want when I want it, or close to when I want it anyway. I just got a new computer, and I bought the big $$$ magic stuff with xmas money.

Really what am I supposed to ask for?

The Long Road Home

mindpirate — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:52:17 GMT

So it was great weekend. The badn went down to NC to do some recording. In an attempt to get more done we stayed late on Sunday night. We knew about the impending weather and how bad things were getting in VA, but I had to get home for work on Monday anyway. Justin had come down with me to take some pictures of us in studio, so at least I was not going to be driving home by myself.

What should have been a 4 1/2 to 5 hour drive ended up taking 9 hours. The roads were fine and visibility was pretty good, till we got about an hour into the trip. From that point on I don't think we went any faster than 40 MPH. The roads were terrible, and we seemed to be the only ones headed North. We saw plenty of people heading south, and that side of the highway seemed well traveled enough that the cars were not having much trouble. It was hours before we saw anyone traveling north with us.

Once we ran into other people driving we tried to get in line with every snow plow, salt truck, and Semi we could find to make things more tolerable. Basically the roads sucked, visibility sucked and getting home was going to take forever. We hit some traffic in Richmond when we got there, but nothing too bad. Justin counted the cars that had slid off the road into ditches, and counted tipped over Semi trucks, and busses.

In order to take a break and just stop for a few minutes, we pulled off at a rest stop just north of Kings Dominion. Just our luck we stopped at the only Rest Stop without power. The place was dark and the restrooms were closed, but they had port o johns out for people to use. After a quick break and a 5 minute conversation with the guy who had been called in on his day off to work the powerless rest stop we were back on the road. Things were looking good, until we hit Fredericksburg. It was slow travel but now we hit Monday morning rush hour traffic. It was this part of the trip that added the most time. We were basically bumper to bumper either sitting still or going really slow all the way home.

I pulled into the house at 9:48 Monday morning. I was already late for work. Gordon had called me a little earlier to see how my drive was and when I got home. He had just started his trip. Telling him I had not gotten home yet sucked.

I should have stayed overnight in NC but I just had to get home for work. Lucky for me when I called my client to let them know that I was late and would be there as soon as I could they ended up being closed for the day. I called my boss to let him know that my client was closed, and that I would not be reporting to my alternate location.

Thanks to Lani and Caitlin for sending us riddles, and pictures, and road condition updates to help keep us awake and sane. Thanks to Justin for keeping me staying awake and keeping me laughing, and for being the best car DJ ever.

Xavier Rudd

mindpirate — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:22:49 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Szkj_TCeo

I thought this was pretty cool, and felt like sharing.