Daily Archives: 2011/08/05

Video Fridays: Other Lives

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I’m pretty excited about a band I just discovered, thanks to KEXP.org (a truly great Seattle public radio station, with loads of archived music — audio and video — available for streaming on their website).

Anyway, it’s no secret that I adore one band from Oklahoma, The Flaming Lips, evident by the fact that I’ve written 17 posts in which they are either mentioned or the main subject, but now I can add another Sooner State group to my list of faves, from Stillwater, OK: Other Lives.

KEXP aptly describes Other Lives as orchestral pop, and they just happen to be my favorite kind of orchestra; with keyboards, bass, drums, guitar, harmonium, xylophone, trumpet, cello, and, yes, deer antlers with bells on them. (I don’t think Mozart composed nearly enough concertos for these ensembles.)

There’s videos for five songs performed live in-studio on the KEXP website, so be sure to check them all out when you have a chance.

In the meantime, this one was my favorite, the title track of their second album: Tamer Animals.

Stuff We Don’t Need: Sip & Sniff Coffee Lids

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It’s been quite some time since I did a Stuff We Don’t Need installment, for reasons I can’t quite explain. I come across stuff we don’t need all the time, but for some reason this one really jumped out at me today.

While I get the idea behind the to-go coffee lid you see here to the right…

Via Gizmodo:

Coffee from your favorite donut shop has a problem. It doesn’t taste as good as it should because the lid traps in the wonderful aroma. Taste is 95% smell, so you’re really missing out.

Mint Urban Technologies has a solution for this sensory shortcoming. It’s designed the Aroma Lid, a new cover that’s infused with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. When you take a sip, you smell and taste a wonderful, full-bodied brew.

…I look at this thing and I think:

  • What a waste of technology! You sip and sniff for, what?, 15 minutes, and then the lid is off to a landfill?!
  • Speaking of waste, if this was a reusable lid for a reusable coffee mug or cup I’d be more open to the idea. I’m as opposed to single-use coffee cups as I am to single-use shopping bags (post 1 and post 2 on the subject of the latter).
  • Apropos my recent post on the Slow Bicycle Movement, perhaps the real solution to the odorless coffee problem is for us to slow down and smell the coffee, to simply plan an extra 15-30 minutes into our days, when we can sit with our hot java in a reusable cup without a lid, and breathe in all that roasted bean goodness as we consume our go juice…and then go.