I think for some grunge died the day Walmart started selling flannels and ripped jeans. For others it was the day bands like Silverchair blew up among middle-schoolers like myself at the time. For me… it was today. Anyone that knows me well knows I love 90’s alternative rock. It had a significant impact on me as a musician. I’ve been keeping it alive in my friend circles for as long as I can remember. Here are the two big recent events that drove the final nail inches deep into the coffin. Goodbye my love.

1. Chris Cornell the lead singer of Soundgarden (my favorite grunge band with currently no dead members) is working with Timbaland and it doesn’t sound grand. Checkout the thirty second clip of ‘Long Gone‘ and hear for yourself. As Stereogum wrote, the title of the song describes his career better than the music itself. The track ‘Watch Out’ sounds like a Gnarls Barkley rip. Chris Cornell successfully growing in a genre like this really seems like a bit of a stretch.
2. Scott Weiland (the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots) can’t sing anymore. I know it’s debatable whether or not STP is considered a true grunge band, but here’s how I see it. They carried that early/mid 90’s alternative sound through the late 90’s mainstream while the others were dropping. And man, were they tight. It appears that drugs have ruined yet another great musician.

People who purchase fixies (especially cycling newbs) genuinely get more into bikes. They understand how to better repair them and ride more often. The hype around fixies kind of reminds me of the 1960’s VW bus craze. The buses were inexpensive (especially when purchased used) and really easy to learn and fix up. Many people (mostly hippies) knew how to take apart the engines and find replacement parts. Like fixies, the buses had their own specialized purpose which is what caused them to standout. They could hold a bunch of people and allowed for cooking or sleeping unlike the average car of the era. Like the VW bus, fixies teach the ‘hip’ how to repair and better operate their main form of transportation.

As we cut back on fossil fuels and watch bikes roll back into the limelight, I’m having fun seeing friends getting passionate about their bikes. I still don’t own one; maybe I’ll give in soon. Wondering if  single-gear bikes are stolen less often than multi-gear? Are thieves turned off by them due to the learning curve behind riding them?

Here are some real world ‘group communication‘ examples I’ve contributed:

• Comment (Describing my feelings to a specific person)
• Response (To a friend who had asked about my lunch plans)

And here are some ‘personal publishing‘ Tweets:

• Local theater review (An attempt to provide value-added content for friends)
• Self expression (I’m a huge Nirvana fan and therefore thought Spain’s TRL was actually good)

Remember that these two forms of communication aren’t by any means new to the internet (mIRC, BB’s etc.). By definition, there are shifts in trends and fads. This all makes me wonder as the spammers crawl in, will Twitter be used more for communities or publishing? My gut sense says the latter as it generally serves up higher grade content.

They had to be…

1. Very supportive as well as comfortable
2. Work well for walking and/or running as needed
3. Colorful and unique
4. Cheap

Considering ‘cheap’ was at the bottom of the list, I chose the New Balance 991. Considering ‘colorful and unique’ was just above ‘cheap’, I selected the green ones. That day I ordered six pairs from an outlet store in Chicago and haven’t looked back since. Ever seen anyone else with these shoes? I love ‘em.

All of a sudden our weekends were filled with long smelly car rides and frigid ice rinks. Of course there were benefits; lessons in teamwork and discipline etc. I think it was really smart of my parents to encourage the competition and camaraderie provided in the sport. I was really lucky.

Last week my father was celebrated for providing the same opportunity to other Tennessee youth. They named the local high school hockey trophy after him; I’m really proud. And who knows, maybe I’ll use ‘Hine Cup’ as my next band name.

Congrats pops!

As of two weeks ago I became a Mac user. I’m starting to realize this machine really works for both basic and advanced users. The OS provides tools that my grandparents, my engineering buds and everyone in between would enjoy thoroughly. It’s just simpler.

Here’s a picture I took of myself and Greg Hine while showing off Photo Booth.

When I’m in a good mood , I try keep in mind that ‘not so good times’ may be on the horizon.

As you may recall I attended the first Startup Weekend in Boulder just last July. A group of over 50 people created VoSnap, an application that allows friends to quickly vote on things. Even though the product didn’t launch on time, the weekend was great and I made friends. This time around, for whatever it’s worth, the Washington DC team was able to get their product launched by Sunday night.

HolaNeighbor.com allows neighbors to better organize their physical locale. Want to borrow a cup of sugar? Need to set the date for your next block party? Maybe it can help. The developers really did well considering the time constraint. Their code even looked clean. I was proud of the user experience team for not limiting their creativity around feature sets while properly monitoring feasibility. It can be tough working in an environment filled with Alpha personalities. DC seemed to somehow make it gel. Being published in the Washington Post was the cherry on top of an already excellent weekend.

The Westword on the other hand brought me down a bit. I’m not used to such harsh words. All in all I realized the writer doesn’t really bring up the music at all, and that’s what we’re all about. We throttle hard towards tight grooves, not so much towards stage antics. In the end, I’m still smiling.

Mint.com allows everyday folk to connect to their personal banks, pull down their transaction information and see ways to save money. It also shows spending statistics just like Dad’s old Quicken 95. With over 3000 banks available for the pulling, Mint.com has already reported on over two billion dollars to 50,000 plus users.

It’s a good site. It looks great and the information is useful. Thanks to Mint I found out that I could be making (saving?) hundreds more in interest if I rolled my good ol’ savings account over to eTrade. Done. I’ve also found that I’m eating lunch out a lot less after staring at those web 2.0 pie graphs each morning. Man I spend a lot on lunch.

I wish Mint.com would send me an SMS when I hit a specified dollar amount for a certain category (such as restaurants) in a given month. They have something very close to this, but I want even more control.

UPDATE: I’m using Mint.com less and less. A bit time consuming to manually categorize each transaction.

I purchased EloiseDurham.com in case her parents would like to blog about her early development. One day we will hand the domain name off to her.

“Cynthia Hine has joined The Hylant Group, a full-service insurance brokerage, as vice president in its new Nashville office. She is a member of the large accounts practice and the medical risk practice. Hine, a licensed attorney and nurse practitioner, has a strong legal background and extensive health-care experience. She is responsible for business development, strategic planning, and coordinating client service focusing on the health-care industry and medical service provider needs.”

Congrats moms!