PM Update 007: Redesign Imminent.

What up fam.

I realize that I've been AWOL from Perpetual Mixtape for a number of months. This is mostly due to things slowing down and becoming static in my personal life; I lost a creative spark toward the beginning of the year and I'm just now getting it back. Thus my posts dried up, and would have been boring had I actually published any of them anyway.

Things may be turning around soon for me, so I expect to be putting in more effort with this website in the upcoming weeks. One thing I definitely want to do is purchase my own domain name -- having had some kind of journal on the Web for over a decade, you think I'd have one by now -- and completely redesign the site. It's become stagnant for me, and my recent overhaul really didn't generate the interest and creative burst from my brain that I thought it would. Ah well.

I've actually got a rather busy July ahead, but look for some new content soon! In the meantime, this will probably become a mini-photo blog as I've been keeping up on my Sunday Seven series.

Hope I haven't kept anyone waiting too long.

PM Update 006: New Colors & Layout.

Decided to tweak the blog design a little bit. It's had the same basic layout for about two years now so it was time to make some changes.

• Color scheme is much brighter.
  
  
• Width has been increased to accomomdate larger photos and video.
  
  
• Recent Tracks from my last.fm and Hype Machine accounts have been removed to declutter the sidebar (which has been moved to the right).
  
  
• Links to my other public online accounts have been moved from the footer to the sidebar.

I'm gonna try branching out and following more blogs in an effort to bring a bit more traffic to Perpetual Mixtape. I have been very inconsistent with updating over the past few months due to "life happening" so hopefully more eyeballs looking at my content will inspire me to up the quality of my posts.

I've also been kicking around the idea of focusing more on an overall topic for the blog. Historically I've been writing about whatever's on my mind, but obviously that's hit/miss regarding frequency and reader interest. Anyway it's an intriguing idea but will take some time to flesh out.

PM Update 004: Most Recent Tracks.

Over the past week or so I joined two music sites to further supplement my already-ravenous appetite for music. You'll find links to my most recent tracks played on The Hype Machine and last.fm (yeaaah I know I'm extremely late on the second one, no excuses) in the sidebar. These are an excellent representation of what I'm listening to currently, since I've fallen off on posting regular Heavy Rotation entries. I've also added links to my profiles on both sites to the bottom of the page. Clicky clicky.

Enjoy the music. Any recommendations?

PM Update 003: Slight Layout Changes.

In an effort to better integrate this blog with my other Web accounts, I made a couple of minor layout changes:

• I've moved the Perpetual Mixtape-related links from the sidebar to the top of the page.
  
  
• There's now an updated Twitter mini-feed on the sidebar.
  
  
• A few of the most recent photos I've uploaded to Flickr are showcased on the sidebar. (Sunday Seven posts will still be featured weekly.)
  
  
• Links to Facebook, SoundClick Bandcamp, et al. have moved to the footer at the bottom of the page.
  

I might be putting up some more things on the sidebar but that remains to be seen. Nevertheless I like how it's looking so far -- a slightly new look to bring in 2010.

PM Update 002: Slowing Down.

If you've been a regular reader of Perpetual Mixtape, you may have noticed that I haven't been posting as often lately. This is mostly due to academics taking priority over most other things. That, and I'm making a concentrated effort to get more sleep. My decreased output will probably continue for about four more weeks as my semester wraps up, and then I'll get back to a more regular posting schedule in mid-December. Until then, expect to find fresh material a about couple of times a week here for now. (Sunday Seven however will continue as a weekly feature, as it's turned out to be a great visual chronicling tool.)

I'll have more stuff up soon.

Sunday Seven 001: 2009 Sep 06.

Now that I've started posting somewhat regularly again, I'd like to implement some recurring themed entries.   I've already (just) started with Heavy Rotation, a series of reaction pieces about my current favorite music.  These are posted whenever I have the time to write up something halfway intelligent about why I like an artist or album, and not just "OMG this track is sick!!"  So, the Heavy Rotation posts are slow in coming.  It should be no secret to anyone who knows me that I love music though, so I'd like to try branching off in another direction to provide a little balance.

I really don't consider myself a "photographer"; like most people I snap away on my little Sony digicam and store them on the computer where the vast majority of the shots languish until the end of days.  But I would like to start chronicling aspects of my daily life and publishing them up here on PM.  These will strive to be visual records of something I did that day that was of personal significance (however mundane it might seem to the rest of you).  So I came up with a concept that will hopefully inspire me to post on a regular basis.

Sunday Seven will be a new feature here on Perpetual Mixtape.  Every Sunday evening, I will post a series of seven snapshots taken over the past week, accompanied by a seven-word caption for each photo.  Ideally I'll have one photo represent each day of the week, but it won't be necessarily so (which might change as this project evolves, but I wanted an unstructured format to begin with).  With that, here's the first series.  Enjoy.


Regretfully, I have yet to do this


These contain photographs of hope or despair


Responsible for that sudden, nasty metallic taste


In other words, be careful. Hot glass


Sub sandwich in hand, I took this


A ghetto attempt at time-lapse photography


Potential for a very good dinner. Really

PM Update 001: Table Of Contents.

The sidebar has a new Table Of Contents link! You can get a complete listing of all my posts from there for easy searching and sorting. I had to break out my rusty Javascript skills and modify this hack to make it look more attractive and user-friendly.

Email me at rangamboa [at] gmail if you want one on your blog and need some help implementing it.

About PM.

The name of this blog was inspired by the fact that there are always songs floating through my head, blending and chopping themselves up into crazy mashed-up remixes. My thoughts are the same way: free-flowing and mostly random, but somehow interconnected.

Perpetual Mixtape is my attempt to give structure and voice to those thoughts and share them with you. In an effort to write more consistently, I plan on updating on weekday mornings, and late Sundays. Most of my entries will deal with personal topics (work, love, life, stress, family, etc.) with the occasional post on stuff that interests or inspires me, mostly having to do with music, photography, art, modern design and culture in general. For a full sortable listing of posts, check out the Table Of Contents.

Please don't hesitate to comment or email me -- I appreciate the feedback. Thanks for reading!

Ran Gamboa
rangamboa [at] gmail [dot] com

Microphone Check One Two One Two.

Okay, so my Vox account is dead. I found myself making that blog more complicated than it needed to be, so I decided -- once again -- to start from scratch on this platform (but thanks Vox, it sincerely was a good run). Why Blogger? Because it's highly customizable, meaning I don't have to have crap on it that I don't want and I have a greater degree of freedom to arrange the design to my preferences. I'll have to flex my amateur HTML skills to see what I can remember. (I haven't done any coding in a few years.)

Anyhow, Perpetual Mixtape was the name of my long-defunct Xanga blog, so I'm continuing it here. In the spirit of the old site, I'll be writing about personal topics with the occasional post on culture, film, music and general design. I'm also planning on putting up some video blogs as well, but we'll see how time-intensive that is, so that's up in the air at this point.

Have a great weekend, and welcome to Perpetual Mixtape!

Table Of Contents.

Mousing over each post title will display an excerpt. Clicking on the Post Title and Post Date column headers will sort the Table of Contents accordingly. Clicking on a specific label will redisplay the Table of Contents with posts tagged with that label only.