Turntable.fm is a great, cute way to learn about new music and chat at the same time. I’ve been on it since July 2011 and it’s connected me to so many awesome music-lovers. My main room is “Orange Bear Party Indie” (OBPI), and we’re mostly all connected via multiple social networks. We even share music via DropBox, and have video chats via Google+ from time to time. Plus, I dated one of them for a while! Now I’ll tell you a little story about how Turntable.fm led me to be part of a SXSW showcase…

Around the beginning of March, I found myself in the “Intel DJ Battle” room after the actual battle was over, just chatting with random people (and a few friends) about SXSW and how I lived in Austin. Then a little window popped up. It was a private message from the user BeatZada, who is Ali Danali, the founder/programmer of BigShot DJ.

He asked me to fill an empty spot in his LIVE Turntable.fm DJ Battle, which promoted his product. It would be like a regular Turntable.fm battle, but also LIVE on stage using real laptops (as opposed to cartoon ones) during SXSW on March 14th. I was so happy, but had to break it to him that I didn’t have a wristband or badge this year. He said that didn’t matter because I would get a free Artist Wristband!

I was pretty stunned, and had no idea how to feel about it. I know that Turntable.fm DJ Battles are based on voting. The DJ who receives the most “Awesomes” wins, so I was sure to tweet about it immediately.

The next day, I saw that Ali emailed all of us. Being the curious kitty that I am, I decided to Google them to see who I was up against. Then my heart SANK when I found out they were all real, legitimate DJs! The kind that actually spin records, and/or digitally mix tracks!! I was FLOORED! I could not stop crying. How embarrassing! How horrifying! I had no idea I was going to be some random nobody among actual talent! I finally contacted Ali and told him I had to bow out.

But he wouldn’t let me!

He said he believed in me, that I had good music taste, and I would be representing the average Turntable.fm user. So after much deliberation (and trust me, I tried really hard to back out), I eventually decided to embrace it. How embarrassing could losing to real DJs actually be? A friend assured me that the worst it could be was 2 hours of embarrassment, and the whole rest of SXSW to enjoy with a free wristband!

So I delved in. I made a Facebook Event and invited about 200 of my friends and family. I put the URL to the battle room in it and explained that all they’d have to do is hit “Awesome” when my tracks played. I also tweeted the event in case I missed anyone. Meanwhile, I researched lots of fun mashups to play and built my “artillery”. An OBPI friend even sent me a headband she modified with “Orange Bear” ears/antennae just like the Turntable.fm avatar!

T-minus 24hrs til the battle, I stood in a line which I never thought I’d find myself: The Artist Check-in line! So surreal. I wasn’t even planning on having a badge or wristband this year, and this just fell into my lap. Or onto my wrist, rather.

The next day, I put on my favorite sun dress and Orange Bear ears, grabbed my laptop, and went down to the Austin Convention Center to meet my doom in Ballroom G. At least by this point, I was OKAY with meeting my doom. I could definitely withstand 2hrs of doom and 4 more days of SXSW magic!

My opponents and I lined up on a long table on the stage with our laptops, while stage-hands below plugged things in for us. From left to right, the DJs were Johnny Monsoon, Johnny Bravvo, The Jane Doze, MandaPop, and DJ Fndmntl. There was a huge screen stage-right, which showed a projection of the fully packed online battle room. The Jane Doze were two beautiful NYC babes, one in a sweater and one in a leather jacket (all bundled up for the brisk Texas weather). They have a strong online following, which they summoned with a single tweet.

Ballroom G had maybe fifty people scattered all around. Maybe less. Very calm people, sitting in chairs, looking at their phones. Hardly bobbing their heads to the powerfully loud music that was blasting. But the online room was packed with bobbing avatar heads and plenty of chatter! I was amazed by how many people showed up for little ol’ me! It felt like an elementary recital where I dressed as some sort of musical bear! Speckled in the crowd were long-time friends, high school friends, co-workers, my MOM, people I’d JUST MET, and friends who were out at SXSW on their iPhones! It was really something special for me.

My opponents chose to upload their own original mixes, rather than existing tracks in the Turntable.fm database. Johnny Monsoon was up against The Jane Doze first. The girls kept saying, “Antlers up!” to their fans (like how Lady Gaga says, “Paws up!” to her fans/”monsters”). Needless to say, The Jane Doze won the first round. Then it was Johnny Bravvo against me. We battled, and to my delight, I won the second round!

Honestly, just looking at the chatroom, it was mostly The Jane Doze or MandaPop fans. I was beginning to wonder if the other DJs even told anyone they were in a battle… Were they just hoping their fr3sh skillz would help them in a votes-based contest? I’m pretty sure a few of them were completely new to Turntable.fm and had no idea how to use it. They seemed to treat the event as if it were any other “gig”.

DJ Fndmntl was up against the first round’s winner, The Jane Doze. And OHH surprise, the girls won again. Great. So since I won the second round, I had to go against The freakin’ Jane Doze. *Sigh* They “antlers-upped” and played their fun mashups. I played fun mashups, too, but my fans were no match to their fans. So The Jane Doze were the BigShot DJ winners.

But ya know what that meant? I WON SECOND PLACE! :) I was so sure I’d fail miserably, and I completely surprised myself! Sure, it may have just been dumb luck that the others were bad at rounding up people, but so what? I was really proud, and I learned a lot about myself from all this.

Thanks to all who supported me, consoled me during my freak-outs, and sent good vibes in lieu of absence! I’m very happy with how it all turned out. Pon de Floor, Anyway.

Current Mood: Excited

I actually got to chat with Dan Stiles during Flatstock at SXSW a couple of weeks ago. I told him how there’s a Shutterstock copycat out there with the same birds as his Feist poster (see my old post about this), and he told me that sometimes he has to involve expensive lawyers in matters like those.

I was pretty sad I didn’t get to see Mike Budai this year. But at least I ended up getting a pretty good haul. Pictured above are posters for/of: Pavement, Cults, Yeasayer, bad breath ghosts, Donkey Kong sprite kaleidoscope, and Origin of the Species. The “bad breath ghosts” & Yeasayer are in my cubicle at my new job! :) And I plan to give “Origin of the Species” to my BFF’s 3yr old for his birthday.

Current Mood: Fine

• Step One: Connecting your Google+ to your Twitter

  In my search, I found a lot of very bad ways to connect these accounts. One was to make a special Google+ circle for just Facebook and another for just Twitter, using special respective email addresses, but there was a ridiculously small character limit. It’s pointless! Another was to use a Chrome Extension, but simplicity is still the goal. It must be easy and universal—any browser; any device.

  The best way I’ve found is by using ManageFlitter. You just fill in your Google+ account URL (the original kind with all the numbers), then sign in using your Twitter account, and it connects them for you. So now when you post from Google+, it also goes to your Twitter.

• Step Two: Connecting your Twitter to your Facebook

  The second and last step is to make your tweets go straight to Facebook. Go to Twitter on Facebook and just follow the simple instructions. If you’ve already been doing this, then you’re done! Be sure to check your Applications in Facebook for anything that might interfere with this new change. You’ll never have to physically post to Facebook again (aside from commenting/Liking, and adding photos to albums).

• You must use the 140 character limit

  Since Twitter has the tiniest character limit of all three of these networks, we have to keep that limit in mind when posting. If you try to send more than 140 characters from Google+ to Twitter, what will appear in your Twitter feed is a few words and a Google link! People without Google+ will not see the content.

  My method (whether on a computer or on my phone) is to perfect my post in Twitter, to make sure it’s under 140 characters, then copy/paste that into Google+. It’s just how it must be done for now, til Google+ gets a character counter.

• Your Google+ post must be Public

  You can have your Twitter & Facebook locked down, but the only way Google+ will let any posts be cross-posted is if you are sharing Publicly. So any posts that are directed to specific Circles will not be cross-posted.

• You have to be a link Nazi

  There are lots of little opportunities for this method to backfire and give nothing but a Google link. Be sure to keep your links super small as often as possible (using TinyURL.com). And no matter what link you use, you must ALWAYS hit the little “X” at the top right of the Preview that appears… Otherwise your post will be Google-ized. :\

• You have to simplify your way of posting photos

  If you don’t mind a Google link coming up for when you post pics from your Google+ albums, then go right ahead. I personally haven’t gotten used to sending people to my Google+, because I think it requires Google+ membership. My one-off mobile pics are posted to TwitPic.com and I just paste that link into Google+ manually. For posting an entire album of photos, I post them to Flickr and paste the set link into Google+ manually.

Current Mood: Awake

I haven’t painted in 2 years! Yay inspiration!

Current Mood: Loving

 
Turntable.fm came around at the same time Google+ was introduced as a better alternate and obvious future replacement of Facebook. And perhaps only coincidentally, many Google Chrome extensions were being made to enhance the Turntable.fm experience. So after years of using Firefox and a week of using Turntable.fm, I finally made the switch from Firefox to Chrome. It’s free, has tons of great extensions that are constantly being created and added, and has the same renegade open-source flair of Firefox, but with less of a memory footprint.

As a graphic/web designer who is always at a computer, I am most concerned with satiating my obsession with Turntable.fm while remaining productive at my desk job. The goal is to hide the page at all times, because it’s difficult to justify a cartoon rave that looks like a time-waster game as a legitimate way to listen to music. With these Chrome extensions, you can get work done while enjoying the music, and seem active to other participants:

• Go to a bigger room. It just isn’t possible to chat and be productive. So it would be best to go into a room with 20+ people so you aren’t really expected to chat.
• Get Auto Awesome. It lives in your bookmarklet toolbar. When you go to a room, you right-click your actual Awesome button in the room, select “Inspect Element”, and copy that first quoted portion of the highlighted text. Then paste it into the Auto Awesome field. So now when a song comes on, it hits Awesome for you auto-magically! This lets people know you’re present and digging the music. “But how do I hit Lame, Manda?!” Oh I’ll feed you, baby birds.
• Get Turntabler. This is a little button next to the address field of the browser window. You click it and it offers thumbs up/down, add to queue, mute, and song info; no matter what tab you’re on! So while Auto Awesome is going, and you hear a song you dislike, you just hit the thumbs down and it changes your Awesome vote to a Lame.

Here are other great ways I enhance my Turntable.fm experience:

• Get Turntable Scrobbler. This allows Last.fm to scrobble what you listen to in Turntable.fm. Easy install, just follow the instructions. In case you aren’t aware, Last.fm keeps track of what you listen to and allows you to connect with other people with similar music tastes. It’s also great documentation of your own music growth.
• Get Turntable Extended. This adds a few extra features to Turntable.fm. The most beneficial features to me are Playlists (for organizing your queue into genres), and Room Users (for when you’re in a packed room and want to see who all is in there).

Sooo let’s not talk about how ironic it is that I wrote this at work.

Current Mood: Dorky

(click to zoom)

Last night was my friend Casey’s aforementioned June-O-ween party and I ended up being a unicorn after all! Not a My Little Pony, mind you; but a magical, majestic unicorn! Of course in true proCRAFTstination form, I did all this within three hours before the party. Went to Party City for the rainbow “punk rocker” wig, bunny ears, and feather boa; then to Target for a princess party hat, pipe-cleaners, and white clothes. For the horn I cut up & tightened the party hat and used silver pipe-cleaner for the detail. Cut off the bunny ears from their headband, shortened them, then sewed them back on. Looped the feather boa through the back belt loop of my shorts, and tied the ribbons from the party hat around it. Bam! I will be at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans this Halloween, so I guess this counts as my only Halloween costume of the year. It’s about time I made a unicorn costume though. Seriously.

Current Mood: Dorky

Current Mood: Angry

• January 7, 2011: Less talk, more do. Show your work using both sides of the paper if needed.
• March 2, 2011: Look at the synchronicities & patterns in your life. You brought them there. They’re yours to study & change. Why ignore them? #lifelesson
• March 2, 2011: Cliché excuses ≠ accepting responsibility for one’s own actions.
• March 9, 2011: Choosing to fear what “could” happen is setting yourself up for it to become a reality. Stop fearing what hasn’t happened or it WILL happen!
• April 14, 2011: Knowing you’re “able”, or thinking you “would if you had to”, doesn’t propel you. Present evidence & move onto the next thing.
• April 17, 2011: Entertainment is important in life, but there is more genuine enjoyment through participation. Engage. Involve. … Evolve
• April 20, 2011: Hoarders let go of what they “can’t let go of” by letting other crap accumulate over it.
• April 27, 2011: “I mean what I say” shows integrity, and “I say what I mean” shows authenticity. Strive for both.

Current Mood: Pensive

Current Mood: Silly

• Real job: I feel pretty lucky everyday realizing this job chose me and how much I like being a part of such a great company.
• Driving a hybrid: I think my car is smaller, but I swear I have more room and pay half as much for gas!
• Movie night Thursdays: My roomie and I go over to my friend’s place and watch an old, foreign, and/or inspiring movie together.
• Work band: I sing with pals from work and we perform at our work events. Practicing is always more fun than actually performing, but I love having an outlet for something I really enjoy.
• EFT every 3 weeks: My therapist has helped upgrade my thinking in so many ways, and opened my eyes to things that were right in the middle of my face.
• More Crafting: I am finally tackling little projects I set aside a long time ago!
• Sewing: I’ve owned a sewing machine for 4yrs and finally took sewing classes! I’m officially now a seamstress! So far I’ve made a drawstring bag, a pillow with zipper & piping, a complicated purse with inner lining & magnetic closure, and a stuffed animal! *beam*
• Cooking: It turns out, all you hafta do is DO it! I’m no longer purchasing Lean Cuisines. I now purchase salad stuff for lunches, and raw meat & frozen veggies for dinners. I am also gonna do Christmas dinner this year with my mom & sis! :)
• Yoga: I admit I totally fell off the wagon a few months into this year. But now that my company moved directly next door to this big awesome gym, AND have gym reimbursement, there’s no excuse!
• Lasik surgery: No more plastic apparatus on my face that always obstructs my daily life somehow and makes people associate me with Tina Fey!
• “Female parts” recovery: I had stuff to worry about before in that department, but now I don’t. And that is awesome!
• Privatized online networks: I decided I don’t want people I’m not connected to, to read my day-to-day thoughts. I used to be an over-sharer online, and I’m trying to learn how to be sensibly mysterious.

Think about some of the things you’ve always said you “can’t” or “don’t” do, and decide to change your story. I used to always say I don’t cook (or sew or sing in a band or have good eyes). Well. Now I do. There’s no reason to remain a prisoner of the past, when you could make a choice to be a pioneer of the future!

Current Mood: Awake