Up beats, stoned beats, mellow beats, noisy beats, catchy beats, eclectic beats, grungy beats, thrashing beats, classic beats, riffed beats, drum beats, twangy beats…Music. It’s what inspires us, drives us, keeps us going in the best of times, as well as those that have us wishing we had salvia divinorum to turn back the hands of time (ask Bryce for details on that one).

Last.Fm is not MySpace, not LiveJournal, barely a blog. It’s a (insert press kit tagline here) Social Music Revolution.

How do you become a card-carrying socialist music member? Well, it’s as simple as frying up a rattlesnake (as Micah about that one). Download the program to your computer (a mere minute-you can last THAT long!) then start listening to your tunes. Last.FM uploads each track real time to your page, and within hours, it starts generating a weekly and overall Top Artists (and Tracks) list according to your listening habits.

It gives you music recommendations based on your listening habits. Other users can pass by and throw one at you. It has a calendar that lets you know what shows are coming to your parts of the map. And so on.

It’s a global network. And to a music lover, it’s comparable to a groupie’s pair of panties after following the Stones on a World Tour.

Keep an eye on what is moving us here in the current moment. DeptofEnergy’s Last.FM page.

This is what we had over the weekend. Take “a skiled ZA technician” my wife. That’s why she whips up this shit up. At some point I’m gonna get out of this design thing and fall back on her “ZA skills”. Build a place to get a martini and get a pizza while waiting. Nothing out there right now?

How ’bout that part of the world where bombs have no brand allegiance? Where Russian roulette is stepping outside your door? Its crazy to think that such a place exist but it does. Sitting in traffic on a rainy day is fucking paradise in comparison. So insane props go out to this French artist for what he’s doing in the Middle East ˆ in the mix ˆ between Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The thinking behind the project goes like this: “Let’s take goofy ass mug shots of Palestinians, print huge black and white photos and paste them all over Israeli turf.” “Yeah, we’ll do it vice versa too.”

You have to take a minute with this. March 4th was when Palestine got tagged and earlier this week (March 7th) it was Israel’s turn.

Was coming down from riding the other weekend and coming through North Bend and noticed that the truck stop has changed hands or organs. Does anyone take into consideration at corporate what a huge TA sign will mean to truckers? The designer must have been elated to work with famous alphabet characters. Given the TA connotation he could have came up with something more monumental, like maybe the Grand Tetons silhouette behind it… who knows.

Welcome again everyone to the weekly Skip report. Coming at ya from Seattle where we are having a typical Seattle dreary and rainy day but its not cold and that’s a good thing. Well this week on the Skip report I would like to congratulate the man we all call Styk for his first year anniversary here at Utility Inc. Styk is our main man in the 2D design dept. which we call the Dept. of Energy (DOE). Styk all by himself has added the three C’s to Utility Inc. — character, charisma and class. The group of people that he brought with him are pretty neat too. Styk is such a fantastic person that its really hard to put into words. He means a lot to us here at Utility Inc.

But as you know if you’ve been checking out the Skip report I’ve always said that seeing is believing. Well, now I’m saying that statistics speak for themselves.

Since Styk came we’ve won two prestigious awards — one is the NASFM “Fixture of the Year Award” for Ducati Bicycle and the other is “Most Innovative Display ” for the Report installation at the WSA tradeshow. So now maybe that’ll give you all some kind of idea why we’re so ecstatic about having Styk with us. And guess what, we’ve only just begun.

Well now lets go see what the rest of our people are working on. Hey here’s Bill and Tony in the paint department. Bill says their working on signs for the Cloudveil stores — which are looking damn good I might say. Now lets go see whats happening in our assembly dept. Hey Dave “whats going on?” Well Dave says they’re straightening and cleaning up — and that they are getting ready for four containers to get here from the Cloudveil and Woolrich stores. And like always, they are throwing down so they will be ready.

As for me today, I’ll be going around getting in where I fit in. Well that its for the Skip report this week but be sure to stay tuned cause we got many more fabulous creations for ya. Like I said people, we’ve only just begun. So thank you for tuning into the weekly Skip report. Stay safe out there and see ya’ll next week. Peace.
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CORRECTION: Let’s really give props to the proper people, (try saying that 10 times.) For the Ducati fixture, Bryce and Randy teamed up in design and engineering to kill it on that one. Bryce, Luke, Ryan and Jake pulled together on the Report installation to transform a rather boring hotel room into a work of art. - Styk

Hi, welcome again everyone to the weekly Skip Report! Well, let me tell you what kind of day we’re having today in Seattle. Well, today is a typical Seattle day, cold and rainy. The kind of weather we’re use to in Seattle.

Well, today I will be introducing you to a few more people that make up this fantastic company we call Utility Inc. I’m going to go over to our assembly department. Hey look here, its Marco and Angel (A.K.A. Fabio and Horacio) all having fun working together. They say today they are working on assembling signs for the Mountain Khakis. Oh hey, I see Dave who is the head man in our assembly department. I met Dave when I first started at Utility Inc. and believe me he is one of the nicest persons you could ever meet. Dave is also working on Mountain Khakis today. He’s working along with Ellis his lead man and in the very back we have Steve and Bill working on some more parts to the Mountain Khakis signs.

And like I’ve said before, our peoples here are talented in many ways. Steve and Bill, well they are also talented musicians with their own CD out named the “Skin Before the Art” and its available at Napster and ITunes. And it’s currently being played on the air in Seattle at 104.9 FM the”Monkey”. So when you get some time check them out their good! Steve says buy a CD. Well that rounds out our assembly department which I must say is the hardest working assembly department I’ve ever worked with.

Their just another fabulous group that works here at Utility. Oh yeah, I hope you checked out the pictures of our Cloudveil store, Steve Sullivan telling us how much he appreciated the magnificent job we done on the Cloudveil store for Jackson Hole. And let me tell you, that really makes us feel good!
Well I’m back in the woodshop now and today we’re working on the set for the Report photo shoot in New York. So stay tuned to the Skip Report to see the new creations that will be coming in the future. Remember everything we built has never been seen before. So I guess you could call us Creators. And that’s why we love our work so much. So remember seeing is believing! Well, that’s it for the Skip Report this week. Stay safe, see you next week, and thank you for checking out the Skip Report. See ya, Skip.

Its starting to feel a whole lot like spring has sprung…or has it? The mashed potatoes & peanut butter was super fun. I reckon there are a few more pow surprises to come in march.
Get up, get out and get some!