Kick-starting life in another flat

By Ananda Mahto | Published: October 3, 2006

So, after threats of moving being necessary to take care of the termites at our flat, and the electrical problems we had, and after which, our woodwork wasn’t even fixed after several months had passed, Amy and I decided that it was time to actually act on our threat and find a new flat. Basically, despite really liking our flat, it sucked to have to make threats any time that we needed to get something fixed.

We gave our two months notice and soft of half-heartedly started to look for a place. At about the same time, one of our co-workers was going to be moving out of her flat. Her flat was nice, though not quite as nice, and it was also in a great location. Still, we didn’t want to just jump at the first thing that came our way; we told her that we were interested, but that we still wanted to look around a bit. Honestly, though, things just weren’t really showing up….

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Posted in (all categories), (non) fiction, Humor, India | 1 Comment

Slow news month….

By Ananda Mahto | Published: September 28, 2006

Man, where has September gone? I don’t quite know what happened this month, but it certainly flew by.

Well, a lot has actually happened. For starters, I turned 28 towards the beginning of the month—and Amy and I got to celebrate our four-year wedding-proposal anniversary. My website design for the Centre for Micro Finance where I work was finally approved, and along with it I had to create a little “user-guide” for all the people who will be using it. I installed another photo-gallery on my website for the research associates at the CMF to start using so that there can be a lot of cool pictures from all around India. I’ve finished another class (and am actually already halfway through the one I’m currently in). I’ve moved into a new flat in a different part of Chennai.

So, no, I guess it hasn’t been a slow news month. I’ve just been slow in reporting what’s going on.

Oh yeah…. And I’ve added yet another subsection to my website…. And I’ve changed the photo gallery installation that I had from Gallery to Gallery2. I’m not sure which I like better. They’re both good—just different.

Posted in (all categories), Geekiness, General News, Pictures, Website | Leave a comment

The Fruit of the Original Sin

By Ananda Mahto | Published: September 14, 2006
Fruit of the Original Sin
The Fruit of the Original Sin

I’m not too sure what to say about this release. It is one of the more random things that I ran across in G’pa’s record collection. Over the years it has totally grown on me, and as far as artsy compilations go, I really enjoy this one.

Not a perfect transfer. There are a couple of places where the record sticks and there are a few pops and scratches, but I’ve grown quite fond of them…. As with the other stuff so far, I wasn’t patient enough to separate the tracks. Read more for the complete track-listing.

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Posted in (all categories), Compilations, Music, So sue me already, Vinyl-to-mp3 | 2 Comments

Madhya Pradesh

By Ananda Mahto | Published: August 30, 2006

Amy went to Madhya Pradesh and one of her co-workers took a video of an MFI group meeting. The video itself was pretty unusable because of an extremely unsteady hand. But, the song this group sings to start off their meeting was pretty cool, so I thought I’d use it in the background of a few pictures Amy took.

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John Bender – Pop Surgery

By Ananda Mahto | Published: August 15, 2006
John Bender - Pop Surgery
John Bender—Pop Surgery

Well, judging by the number of downloads of the first John Bender album that I posted, I figured I would go ahead and post the other LP that I have. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything else by him… but if someone else does, please pass it on. I’d be more than happy to use my web-space and put it online if you’re in the sharing mood too….

Coming maybe next month… The Fruit of the Original Sin—a pretty cool artsy compilation from maybe the early 1980s with bands like DNA, The Durutti Column, and the French Impressionists and a lot of even more artsy poetry/spoken word stuff from people like Winston Tong (of Tuxedomoon) and W. S. Burroughs….

As before, comments/feedback are much appreciated and help me decide whether I should bother doing this type of stuff….

Posted in (all categories), Electronic, Music, So sue me already, Vinyl-to-mp3 | 2 Comments

Art! Look at all the pretty colors….

By Ananda Mahto | Published: August 10, 2006

Google now lets you embed a gallery into your blogposts!

Sort of…. I was hoping for something more in the way of a mini-gallery that can show up, but instead, it just shows the front cover of the photo gallery as a link to the public gallery at picasa.google.com which, in turn, is part of the beta-testing of Picasa 2 from Google. Still, you can just click through using the preview and get into the regular photo gallery section where you can get full sized images of the pictures. There are other cool features like downloading the full albums and so on.

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Posted in (all categories), 2657 Productions, Pictures, Website | Leave a comment

The disappointing autorickshaw cartels…

By Ananda Mahto | Published: July 30, 2006
Can't we just be friends?
Can’t we just be friends?

…and my decision to hold my own auto strike….

Chennai is somewhat famous for their autorickshaws, but not necessarily in a good way. The drivers here are notorious for overcharging for the shortest of rides, so, Amy and I have been doing some research into the situation. It has been a process that has been going on the entire time that we have been in Chennai and one that has been recently affected by a change in the price of petrol.

When Amy first moved into our apartment, she was paying the men at the auto stand near our house Rs. 20 for a ride to work. After doing this for a little while, she tried getting a ride from the street and found that Rs. 15 was the “normal price” and that it was usually quite easy to get an auto to take her at that rate. Still, the men at the auto stand, perhaps accustomed to the Rs. 20 that he had been paying all along, refused to budge on their price.

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Mark Lane – Who’s Really Listening

By Ananda Mahto | Published: July 30, 2006
Mark Lane - Who's Really Listening
Mark Lane—Who’s Really Listening?

Among the mass of records in my grandfather’s music library, there was a record by Mark Lane with a relatively local address (I was in Santa Barbara, the record label was in Ventura—just a half hour away). I thought I would check it out and see what it was all about, and it turned out to be some pretty cool electronic minimalism….

Anyway, a friend of mine told me that he has at least heard that this recording has been re-released, but even so, it seems to be a bit of a rarity, so if you do listen to this and end up liking it, see if you can hunt down the re-release too. I’m sure it’s worth it.

To my knowledge, Mark Lane has made a few more recordings, but I’ve never heard any of them, so I can’t attest to their quality, but this mini-LP is overall pretty good.

Posted in (all categories), Electronic, Music, So sue me already, Vinyl-to-mp3 | Leave a comment

School news….

By Ananda Mahto | Published: July 24, 2006
WebQuest screencap
A little too patriotic looking for me, but I’m still happy with it.

Well, I’m now halfway through my master’s degree. Six classes more to go and I’ll be done. My most recent class was pretty interesting. It was a class on curriculum design, and during the class, we looked at different (broader) views and definitions of curriculum.

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John Bender – Plaster Falling

By Ananda Mahto | Published: July 12, 2006
John Bender - Plaster Falling
Sealed in latex for your protection.

This post represents the first installment of old out-of-print vinyl-to-mp3 downloads being put online. I figured that I would start with John Bender, because back when I had my list of mp3s online, he was one of the most requested artist.

And who blames people for asking! The records have long been out of print and are fetching stupid prices that go well above $200 for a copy. I do sort of keep my eyes open for whether it has been reissued or not, but at the moment, it doesn’t seem like it, so I’m thinking of starting a series of postings which will put some of my out-of-print collection online (that which I have with me, of course—I left most of it behind in the States)

This record is overall a pretty cool early electronic record. I don’t know if John Bender actually influenced any current electronic artists, but you can certainly hear that he was doing some pretty cool stuff in the late 1970s and early 1980s that still sort of stands up well today….

These recordings were taken from vinyl and went straight to my HiMD recorder in the high-quality setting. I didn’t bother split up the tracks, but if you go to my Vinyl to HiMD collection and view Disc 7, you can get an the track listing and a small version of the cover.

Anyway, here are the downloads:

Posted in (all categories), Electronic, Music, So sue me already, Vinyl-to-mp3 | 7 Comments