A Vote for “None of the Above”

none-of-the-above-brewsters-millions

When I was a child, one of the movies that seemed to run fairly regularly on TV was Brewster’s Millions, a story about a man (Monty Brewster) who inherits $300 million, but only if he spends $30 million by the end of 30 days. In the story, Brewster spends his money in many creative ways, desperately trying to shed 30 million dollars. One of these methods is running for the office of New York City Mayor. He has no intention of becoming the mayor, so he rallies votes for “None of the Above”. Continue reading →

Costco-style Pecan Pie Recipe

Orion and pecan pieI love Pecan Pie!! I love Costco Pecan Pie!! For years, it was a tradition on my birthday in November to pickup a giant Costco pecan pie and share it with my pecan-loving friends and family. Costco broke that tradition by moving their bake schedule a week later to after my birthday.

In dramatic fashion, I let Costco know what I thought. It has been fruitless.

My wife now bakes the pecan pies in our house, and we don’t have to wait for Costco to decide that “it’s time” to make them. We can have them all year long. Who else thinks it’s stupid that pecan pie is seasonal? Like it doesn’t taste good in June? Come on!

Anyway, it’s really easy to make Costco-style pecan pie. First off you need some Karo Corn Syrup or whatever corn syrup substitute you use. We use straight-up corn syrup and we’re not afraid of it. As long as you don’t live off of it it’s not going to hurt you (moderation, friends). Continue reading →

Remember when SunChips bags were deafeningly loud?

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SunChips are delicious. This is an opinion that I share with many. I’m grateful that SunChips exist. They contribute to society. But remember when they tried to contribute to ecology?

In 2008, SunChips tried to be the first snack maker to save the planet by using biodegradable, compostable bags. These bags would fully breakdown within 14 weeks of being in a compost pile.

The idea was, SunChips would win the “green” war by packaging their delicious chips in bags that would biodegrade significantly faster than traditional chip bags. “Smart move”, we would all think years later. Except that “No!!!”. America wasn’t ready for a planet-friendly chip bag yet. Instead of accepting this forward-thinking plan, Americans collectively vetoed the new SunChips bags and demanded the return of the old bags. But why? Continue reading →

I remixed the Xbox “Rare Achievement” sound effect into a song

Last week, Major Nelson released the “rare achievement sound effect” (the sound that triggers in an Xbox game when you unlock an achievement that 10% or less of players have unlocked). Upon hearing it, I noticed a layer of musicality. I chose to challenge myself to remix the rare achievement sound effect into a song using only the raw audio as a source. This meant no synths and no other samples.

Every instrument in my remix, called “A Rare Achievement”, is created using the rare achievement sound effect and a ton of effects. I used Ableton Live 9 and Native Instruments’ Kontakt sampler. I chopped the main achievement sound into little bits and found the parts that sounded the best to be drums (kick, snare, hats, crash, ride) and made a beat. Then I sampled a portion to be the “bass” instrument. From there I added different parts and tried to compose it like an electronic music track.

If you’d like to download it, you can do that here.
A Rare Achievement