If it's not Raven, it's crap...

Oh damn, 2014... if only I had realized that my outrage had much more room to grow and fester. Around two years ago, I started (and then proceeded to not complete) the series "Becoming German" Read "Becoming German #1" Read "Becoming German #2" After getting Mr. Mayor's invitation, I gave myself a couple of years to really think about it (after all, my current passport doesn't expire until 2018). What ever could happen? That $400 U.S. renunciation fee wasn't going anywhere. I'd reached the highest level of foreign residency in Germany that one can acquire (aside from the EU Blue Card). I just needed to square away the language requirements and take a 33 question test.  Riiight?! Welll.... turns out... not long after I wrote parts #1 and #2 (literally a month after part #2) the fee jumped up from $400 to give up U.S. citizenship to $2,350. Hallelujah... I didn't realize the price change until last year, however. And to

The next-to-last radio show of the year is probably my favorite of the year. For my birthday this year, I received a Numark Mixtrack Pro 3 controller, which -- despite the "pro" in the name -- is a pretty basic, low-end DJ controller. But it's compact, pretty simple to use, and suits my purposes just fine (i.e. making mixes for radio & Mixcloud). I shelled out for the full version of Serato for nearly 50% off during a sale weekend and that allows me to record mixes very easily right in the program.  At first I was only noticing a marginal difference in the quality of my mixes and nearly no difference in the amount of show production time. However, as the year went on, I spent some time making shorter mixes and getting the hang of it, I could actually hear an improvement (and I spent less time re-recording stuff).  It's by no means perfect. I still need to work on balancing levels during transitions and maybe throw in some more creative transitions as well, bu