Monday, a friend turned me onto a really innovative, unique electronic rock group Ghost Observatory. Awesome stuff. Funk, rock electronic and synth all rolled up and laid out nicely. So far I’ve tuned into two of their albums, Robotique Majestique and Paparazzi Lightning.

They are my new addiction while I’m at work (don’t worry caffeine, you’ll always be my number one addiction) that I just can’t seen to stop listening to. I came to watch one of their music videos on YouTube and realized I’ve seen them preform before on Austin City Limits (yes, PBS). Anyway, great stuff. Give em a listen. Here’s the video.

One of my most anticipated films of the year is the Coen brother’s new film Burn After Reading. The Coens directed last year’s best picture No Country for Old Men, and they are responsible for The Big Lebowski, Blood Simple and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, some of my favorite films.

Here’s the synopsis:

This new dark-spy comedy stars Academy Award nominee John Malkovich as an ousted CIA official, whose memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) intent on exploiting their find. Also featuring George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Richard Jenkins.

The (hilarious) red band trailer can be found here on Slashfilm.com. Can’t go wrong when you give John Malkovich a hatchet.

Apart from it being in the running to be one of the best films of the year, it also has a really well designed poster. Very spy-like with a flavor of communist Russia which makes sense with the espionage theme of the movie. Also some great custom typography.

Its been awhile since I’ve made an update to this blog, mostly due to my other little side project, Helpmepaymyloans.com. Writing 3 to 4 posts a week has really soaked up all my extra time. But recently I’ve had some time to think. I like writing for Helpmepaymyloans but I love design. So I’m cutting back my time on HMPML so as to put more time into other projects I’d like to take on. And of course NFi. *wink* I’ll still be doing HMPML but my writing time will be drastically scaled back.

So what’s been going on in the last month? Well, NFi is in full force; rebranding and redesigning the website from the ground up. Work is pouring in at a steady rate. Big stuff. Apart from NFi I have a few sites that I’m working on. I’ll have updates on those as soon as they start finishing up.

As for stuff I want to work on: this blog’s redesign is on the top of the list. I have a few mockups but its been such awhile that I want to revisit them and tweak them a bit before I start building it out. By the way, Wordpress 2.5 gets a thumbs up. Also look for updates to the portfolio. Lotsa new stuff to put up. And I’d like to redesign HMPML too.

New illustration. Red theme. Available in 2 convenient desktop sizes. Let me know what you think in the comments!

1280×1024, 1024×768

Wow. What a weekend. Tech, geeks, alcohol and conversation mixed this weekend in an awesome event called BarCamp. If you don’t already know what its about, find out here.

The weekend started a lot earlier than normal for me. I usually roll out of bed about 1pm on Saturday so I had to get up a bit earlier than usually to get there but the registration time of 10am. And I had a talk so I wanted to get there even earlier. I headed to our (NFi’s) office to prep my note cards (which I didn’t even use) for my 11.30am talk time. I caught a couple talks then I was up. I thought it went well. Altogether, a good time. Here’s my presentation.

A lot of good talks. To mention just a few that stood out: Dan Kinchen on Creating a Central Florida Tech Association, Erik Hersman on Using Social Media in a Time of Crisis, Gregg Pollack’s Rant on the Community and Greg Rollett’s Music, Media, & Money.

The Izea after party on Dev Day was also a blast. Open bar, music and enough video games to keep someone busy for days. I met a lot of great people and had a great time.

Media Day was also just as fun as the first day, although it had a smaller turnout. Many of the presentations centered around social media, blogging and new media. I also did an impromptu talk on my blog, Helpmepaymyloans.com.

Big thanks to everyone of who helped put on BarCamp and all the sponsors (including NFi). It was a great time and I will definitely be attending the next.

BarCamp is set to take over Wall St. in downtown Orlando next weekend. This time the community tech event will be spaced out over 2 days: April 5th, Dev Day and April 6th Media Day.

BarCampOrlando is a community building event which happens twice a year to brings together people from different backgrounds to share and learn from each other. There will be people who know Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, and other technologies coming together for Dev Day, and there will be people who know film, music, photography, graphic design, podcasting, and even other new Media coming together for Media Day

I’m looking forward to the weekend. I’ll be attending both days where I’m sure I’ll hear some great talks. My company, NFi Studios, will be sponsoring the event along with the community’s top technology businesses. Check out the BarCamp Orlando website for more info.

I installed Safari 3.1 a few hours ago and didn’t really think much of it. Then I came upon an article that gave a rundown of the new features that Apple has packed into the new version. I went back to Safari and I’m very impressed at what Apple has done. Read the rest of this entry »

I finally got around to watching Wes Anderson’s latest, The Darjeeling Limited. I’m a big fan of all of Anderson’s work - Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, and Bottle Rocket. One of my favorite films, The Royal Tenebaums, is also one of his films. So I was surprised when The Darjeeling Limited didn’t live up to my expectations. Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend I attended BarCamp and the Future of Web Apps conference, both in Miami. I had a blast to say the least. Here is a recap of the weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes I’ll be attending BarCamp Miami and the Future of Web Apps Conference in Miami this weekend. I’m really excited to be going! I’ve never been to Miami before so I’m kinda expecting something along the lines of Vice City and Scarface. But since I’ll be at a tech conference, instead of Al Pacino holding a machine gun, he’ll be holding an iPhone or talking on a bluetooth headset. Read the rest of this entry »