People I'm told I look like

I'm told often and without hesitation about who my visage reminds people of. This is a running list of celebrities I've been likened to.

Shortcuts for archiving Apple Music playlists

I’m sort of a nut about metadata and archiving my digital stuff. I also like lists and enjoy listening to music. It’s all of those things that led me to my ongoing bi-monthly playlist project, where I collect...

2018: A Year In Review

It’s been a really busy year here, but now that it’s come to an end, I’m finding it difficult to recap. 2017 saw less creative output than 2016 and that trend has continued in some ways and completely reversed in others. Let’s break it all down.

My Favorite Things 2018: Everything

My lists are all short this year and I have a long holiday break to enjoy, so I’m going to combine this year’s My Favorite Things posts into one. I hope that’s cool. Music I gave fewer...

Chat Sematary: The Dead Zone (1979)

Jacob Tender joins to discuss The Dead Zone, which happens to be the only Stephen King book that he's read so far.

New Music: Old Best Friend - "Anna"

Old Best Friend has a new record coming out in February of this new year. The lead single from that record is called “Anna” and it premiered yesterday on Chorus.fm [https://chorus.fm/features/exclusive/old-best-friend-anna-song-premiere/]. Old Best Friend...

David Lowery Q&A on Letterboxd

Directory David Lowery is promoting his new film The Old Man & the Gun, which has been getting great reviews. In the process however, he is beginning to realize that maybe it’s his last one that he will be remembered...

Reading List: 'A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships'

Perhaps the only event bigger than Christmas worth celebrating this year is the release of The 1975's latest album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, which dropped on Friday. I've been enjoying the album a lot. So much so that...

The MV Podcast: Revisiting The Beatles (Help!)

Part 5 of our Revisiting The Beatles series dives into Help!, their August 1965 release. We discuss how the band’s rising fame seeps into their songwriting, Chris gets a crash course on “Paul is Dead,” and we continue building our Beatles Perfect LP.

Welcome To Geekdom 100: Pixar Shorts

Jacob Tender returns to the podcast to discuss a whole bunch of Pixar shorts and celebrate our 100th episode!

Design Process: Medina County Fall Foliage Tour

The Fall Foliage Committee in Medina County, OH asked for a refresh of their logo that was originally made in the ‘80s and never properly digitized. The group made do with the modern equivalent of a thumbnail jpeg for decades....

Podcast Recommendation: The Undersiders

A new podcasting publisher has popped up called Engle [https://www.anotherengle.com/] and their first show is a hit. The Undersiders is a series about the intersections between the burgeoning hip-hop movement and the sale of drugs at mass....

The MV Podcast 205: My Dear Podcast,

Episode 205 of The Modern Vinyl Podcast takes on The Weeknd’s new release (NOT EP), “My Dear Melancholy,.” Chris and Mike, along with special guest Jacob Tender (Bantha Fodder), discuss where the EP belongs in the Abel Tesfaye story, along with misogynistic trends in his writing.

Will Ferrell Interviews Joaquin Phoenix for Interview Magazine

Interview Magazine either gave Will Ferrell the opportunity to interview Joaquin Phoenix or Joaquin Phoenix the opportunity to be interviewed by Will Ferrell. > FERRELL: I love everything. I was recently thinking about your role in Gladiator [2000], which is a...

Wedding Hits With A Same-Sex Twist

In a new EP [https://www.universal-love.com/] titled Universal Love, six classic love songs have been reimagined to be more inclusive. > As marriage has become more inclusive, it seems like it’s time the music we use to celebrate...

Purevolume to Shut Down

Jason at Chorus.fm noticed [https://chorus.fm/news/purevolume-to-shut-down/] today that PureVolume will be shutting down at the end of the month. According to a pop-up on the site's homepage, folks with songs hosted there "will have until April...

This Artist Turned iTunes's Terms and Conditions into a Graphic Novel

From Vice [https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/this-artist-turned-ituness-terms-and-conditions-into-a-graphic-novel/59272bc3911b31c30fae9859] : > Artist Robert Sikoryak is obsessed with transforming works everyone "should" read—from 'Anna Karenina' to 'War and Peace'—into digestible graphic novels. Now he's turned his attention to iTunes's...

What Would Happen if a Nuclear Bomb Went Off in Your Town?

This simulator [https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/interactive/bomb-blast/] from Outrider shows you just how far the disastrous effects of a nuclear explosion would reach if such a bomb was dropped in your zip code. Earlier this month, Vladmir Putin boasted...

It's Time for an RSS Revival

I've been an RSS user for many years now and as my interest in reading and writing waxes and wanes, my reliance on it does also.

Friday releases: The Weeknd, Bohnes, Punchline, Kacey Musgraves

There's plenty of great music out this weekend. Here's what I'd recommend: The Weeknd - My Dear Melencholy The Weeknd dropped a new EP tonight. The biggest surprise wasn't 6 new tracks with just two days notice, but the throwback...

What to Do if Your Favorite Indie Band Goes Mainstream

Jon Plester at McSweeney's [https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/what-to-do-if-your-favorite-indie-band-goes-mainstream] : > Option 1 Denounce their entire catalog. Declare them corporate shills, forever dead in your eyes. Option 2 Continue to listen to them, but only their self-released albums from before they...

Inside Spike Jonze’s Apple Ad

Adweek has a really neat look [http://www.adweek.com/creativity/this-look-inside-spike-jonzes-apple-ad-is-as-fascinating-as-the-film-itself/] behind the scenes of Spike Jonze's ad for the Apple HomePod starring FKA Twigs and new music by Anderson .Paak. Incredibly, all of the wall movements were shot...

System Fonts in CSS

Craig Hockenberry [https://furbo.org/2018/03/28/system-fonts-in-css/]: > This whole process has been fascinating for me to watch. What started as a simple idea ended up being discussed and implemented by dozens of talented engineers. The result is a...

Hungry

I haven't been writing much lately. I haven't been reading much lately either. I haven't been sleeping well lately and it's not because of the squirrels in our attic or the pretzel-like configuration my partner, my dog, and I make when we tuck in for the night.

BF 27: Young, Dumb, and Rebel Scum

Back again for a look at the Solo teaser trailers. > In the twenty-seventh episode of Bantha Fodder, Mike and Jacob take a "quick" look at the Han Solo teasers aired during the Super Bowl. Find the show on Twitter [http:...

2017: A Year In Review

Over the past few days I’ve been reviewing my creative output year over year from 2016 to now. 2017 was marked with some major moments in my life, the results of which are hopeful but remain to be seen. Let’s break it all down.

My Favorite Things 2017: Music

Variable Bitrate has been on a hiatus for the past year, which has taken some of the pressure off of listening to new music, which naturally means I listen to more new music.

My Favorite Things 2017: Movies

In 2017, I made good on my promise to watch more movies than I did in 2016. In total, I watched 167 movies.

My Favorite Things 2017: Television

As I did last year, I spent far too much time watching television. The top of the year was spent binging Bob’s Burgers and Archer with Mae. We caught the new episodes of both Sherlock and Doctor Who. On...

My Favorite Things 2017: Games

In 2016, I made an effort to play more games. Battlefront and Firewatch were must-plays. This year, the PS4 has been relegated almost entirely to “expensive BluRay player” status. This spring I got my hands on a Nintendo Switch and...

BF 26: Things That I Buy: A Holiday Special

In 2013 A friend introduced me to Old Best Friends [http://obf.wtf]’s ‘Keep In Touch,’ an EP that changed my world. Over the next year Mike Comite and I became friends. In 2015, we started a podcast called...