On my way to the airport where I'll fly out to Chicago, then drive up to Wisconsin to spend the weekend drinking, swimming, drinking, fishing, drinking, grilling, and drinking. One of the problems (features?) with the lake house is its lack of a computer, so no weekend blogging.
My phone works fine up there, so feel free to text message me while I'm up there. See you all later...
Another interesting cooking technique: Cooking with Lava.
Against my better judgement, I think I like this recipe for Bill Macon's Salt Steak.
Maybe I'll have to give that a shot this weekend...
My racquetball partner cancelled... Anybody in the Kansas City area up for some tennis tonight? Send me a message on my phone....
Hey, an old college friend of mine just recently put on an exhibition that got a mention in McSweeney's.
It's good to hear you're doing well, Bridget.
New Tom Robbins May 1, 2003.
Crap, that's nine months away...
The darker side of your favorite video game characters.
It was a slow night at Harry's tonight. I didn't feel like staying out late, so I got there earlier than I normally do, and the place was somewhat empty. I ended up at the bar, and spent some time talking to a guy there that went to Bonnaroo. He ran down a list of folks that are going to be coming to town in the near future, and pointed out a couple that I didn't know were heading through.
It turns out he runs a website for the Central Plains Jamband Society. It looks like a good regional resource... The calendar certainly has more events listed than Jambase does for this area. I was even able to clue him in to the Drums and Tuba shows coming up here next month. Cool.
I like Harry's. I always meet good people out there...
An always excellent read is the Economics Reporting Review run weekly at TomPaine.com. (Found via Robot Wisdom) A sample:
The RecessionGeorge W.'s Worst Fear: A W-Shaped Recession
Edmund L. Andrews
The New York Times, August 22, 2002, Page A14This article examines the possibility that the economy will slip back into a recession, and the resulting political fallout. At one point, it reports that most forecasters do not consider a double-dip recession likely. It is worth noting that most forecasters also didn't anticipate the first dip of the recession.
Thank you for financing global terror.
Are you a fan of the Green Bay Packers, but don't live in the great state of Wisconsin? Need to know where to go to be with like minded fans?
Well, then the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Packer Sports Bar List is for you, whether you're in Kansas, Texas, or Thailand.
Why the Wisconsin list, though?
No, you're not hallucinating, you read that right.
NPR surprised the hell out of me yesterday during All Things Considered. The host Robert Siegel questioned Adel al-Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Saudi Prince Abdullah about the Saudi ambassador's visit to Bush's ranch, and about a possible war on Iraq. Robert actually mentioned to al-Jubeir that one of the reasons people float for Saudi opposition to a war with Iraq is that a democratic government in the Middle East would make the Saudi monarchy look even worse in comparison. When al-Jubeir tried to brush off such criticism as ridiculous, Robert didn't back down and continued to press the question.
I wish there was a transcript available, but definitely give a listen if you get a chance. You don't hear this kind of good stuff out of NPR much these days.
but certainly can't let the site stagnate like this. That would just be unacceptable.
I had a stupid dream over the weekend.
I had the worst breakfast food ever this morning. Of course I should have known better, but I stopped at the QuikTrip this morning for coffee and while I was there I decided to grab some food. They had something called a "Texas Biscuit w/ Sausage". They also had normal biscuits with sausage, but the Texas biscuit was a bit bigger. I thought that was what the Texas referred to. So I unwrap it and take a bite. I am very surprised that rather than a sausage patty, the biscuit has a layer of sausage gravy in it. It did not taste good. Who the hell buys breakfast at a gas station anyway?
My roommate is currently in Cleveland looking for new apartments, so I'll have Fort Awesome to myself in a couple of weeks. Anybody looking for a roommate?
I thought about heading over to Lawrence to catch Blues Traveler last night, but decided against it. That's $25 (plus whatever I would have spent on beer) that I didn't spend, and I beat three more missions on Grand Theft Auto III. Now I have to kill the leader of the Japanese Mafia and make it look like it was the Colombians who did it. The Yakuza is heavily armed, and they seem to be able to blow up my truck no matter what I do. Well, I guess I'll be at it again tonight.
For a bit, at least. I think I'm going to head out to Harry's tonight. It is Wednesday night, and I haven't been out there in a while.
Wisconsin this weekend. I fly to Chicago Friday afternoon, and am back in town Monday evening. No phone line or computer at the lake house, so no weekend blogging from up there. Of course, weekend blogging has been rare even when I'm back in KC these days. Too busy sleeping.
I just received a text message from Ahman Green. He would like to request more carries from Brett Favre. I'd pass along the message, but honestly I'd rather have him throw a lot to Javon Walker. But Ahman Green carries are good too...
So you got that, Brett?
Well, not really, but they did run a report about mixed reaction to the Ad Council's Freedom PSAs this morning.
I guess The Simpsons is losing its punch, or maybe it's just an effect of the current ad slump, but my daily re-runs of The Simpsons have been showing more and more PSAs these days. I saw an ad a couple of days ago that had me somewhat flummoxed. You can watch the ad here.
It starts with a shot of a young man walking into a library. He approaches the counter and hands the librarian a slip of paper. She reads the slip of paper and says, "I'm sorry son, this book isn't available any more." Two men in dark suits come in the entrance and menacingly approach the patron. The librarian points them to him and he is apparently going to be arrested.
At this point, I was thinking this was going to be a Democratic campaign ad, or maybe something for the ACLU referring to some of the more odious provisions of the recently passed Patriot Act. Nope. This is part of the Ad Council's Campaign For Freedom, a PSA campaign reminding us what we're fighting for. I guess the implication is that we should be thankful that this doesn't happen here. Of course, it seems that law enforcement sure wishes it did.
They certainly could have picked a better subject for that particular PSA. I'm getting less and less willing to compromise on civil rights issues, particularly when all the security agencies seem to be exhibiting nothing but gross incompetence. I think it's going to affect my vote this November. We have the Justice Department wasting their time trying to prosecute file swappers while the FBI can't be bothered to investigate promising leads.
That last one in particular deserves a close look. A guy who runs porn sites receives lists of domain names that are about to expire and come up for registration. He then registers the domain name and points it to his porn sites to make some money. Normally this is not an activity I approve of, but one day the domain "alneda.com" came up on his list. He noticted that this site was a message board frequented by islamic militants and Al Qaeda members and sympathisers. Having hijacked the domain name, he quickly called the FBI in the hopes that they could set up a decoy site and collect information on the users that post to the site. Well, predictably enough he got the run around, and the window of opportunity closed when the users of the website realized it had been compromised and moved on somewhere else.
Sorry, but at first I was willing to look the other way while Ashcroft rolled back the bill of rights. Things are different now, and I figured some compromise was necessary. But they're not fighting this war. Apparently all this government is interested in doing is shutting down techno concerts, making it easier for the RIAA to hack my computer, and taking away my lighter at the airport. (You think that increases security? Not when I have to deal with all the jackasses at the airport and then I can't even light a *$#^& cigarette when and if I finally arrive at my destination.)
Bah... I get frustrated. I think I need to come up with a list of bills and issues and submit a questionaire to whoever's running for my House seat asking them their position on them. Any suggestions, folks?
I've still never gotten around to setting up my Cafe Press store so I can sell Gimpysoft.com shirts, mugs, hats and license plate frames, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong direction.
I wonder how much it would cost to get these guys to print me up some Gimpysoft.com condoms... (Those links probably not safe for work...)
Forget that hack Sam Raimi, I want my Spider-Man movies from Doc Ock. (Video on the HTML or Flash pages. Have broadband or die.)
So I was in Borders looking for a book I was going to review for Blogcritics which should have been on a shelf near the music section. They're playing their standard light jazz, when my ear perks up. I know that song... It turns out that it was none other than Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" off of my all-time favorite album OK Computer. I immediately forget about the book and rush to the counter to find out what CD they're playing.
Well, it turns out it's a new release by jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. I was a band geek in high school and played in the jazz band, so I've always liked jazz, but never listened much. I went on a little Miles Davis kick earlier this year, but that's about as far as I've gone. I figured I'd give this CD a shot. For some reason, that particular Borders didn't have the disc, but after hitting a couple other stores, I was able to track down a copy, and immediately stuck it in my CD player for the drive home, fast forwarding to Paranoid Android on track 5.
If you've heard OK Computer, you know that this song starts out a bit quiet. Brad plays the melody quietly on the piano while a percussionist brushes a snare drum. I'm enjoying it, until this thought occurs to me: Good god, I've just willingly purchased Elevator Music.
Obviously I had forgotten where that song goes... After the melodic opening, the percussion changes from the brushed snare drum to a cacophonous beating on what might be tin pans. Brad opens up on piano and wails through the second movement of the piece. That winds down and Brad is left alone on the piano again. This third movement is pastoral, an almost classical sounding piano piece. It winds down to the end of the song where it breaks open again for the wild final riffs. Excellent, excellent.
That song was about as perfect an introduction to the rest of the album as there could be. I rewound to listen to the rest, and he's all over the place. The piano is central, but other tracks are driving piano augmented by some light horns ("Franklin Avenue" for example), almost metal sounding distorted piano on "Sabbath" (not my favorite, but interesting), and the very light and familiar sounding opening track "When It Rains".
On the more experimental side of the album is the fast and chaotic "Free Willy". A speedy free-form drum beat plays while Brad on piano and Larry Grenadier on bass trade fast riffs. "Alvarado" is a bit free-form as well, featuring almost tribal sounding percussion and a rolling piano melody, sometimes dissonant piano melody. Like the opening track, Alvarado plays around a melody that I'm sure I've heard before, but just can't place. Both are originals, though.
I've never really listened to much of The Beatles, so I don't really recognize the two Beatles interpretations "Dear Prudence" and "Mother Nature's Son", but they work well with the rest of the album.
I've made impulse buys of albums because they were or included re-interpretations of music I otherwise liked, and I've almost always been disappointed. (The techno version of Dark Side of the Moon by Out of Phase springs immediately to mind. Ugh.) I am not in the least disappointed with this purchase.
I need to find some new places to go to lunch...
Wow, I posted a lot yesterday.
That ought to hold the little SOBs
What?
(As James Lileks said, there's a Simpsons quote for any occasion.)
With as common a name as I have, I'm happy to finally show up on the first page of a Google search for Ryan Olson.
I'm still in the bottom half of their "G" weblog category.
Among the Jam Bands I listen to, there is a community of tapers. Most of these bands allow their shows to be taped, and people invest huge sums of money in recording equipment to tape the shows, then trade shows with each other. In order to facilitate these trades, they will keep track of the set list for each show. Set lists usually look something like this setlist from a Steve Kimock Band show I saw in Fayetteville a couple of years ago:
Set 1: Severe Tire Damage > Mr. Broadway > Severe Tire Damage, Whack, Soul Roach, Rainbow’s Cadillac, BermSet 2: Tongue & Groove, Jump Back, Manic Depression > Rollin’ and Tumblin’, Potato Head, Golden Road
The commas show that a song actually stopped, and the next song started. The carets denote that the song went into a solo and turned into another song. In the case of Set 1, Severe Tire Damage transitioned into Mr. Broadway, then came back to Severe Tire Damage to finish.
Steven den Beste has been posting quite a bit lately, and I've been missing a lot of his posts just because they're so long I don't really think I have time to read them all. It's amazing how he can take so many topics and incorporate them into a coherent essay. I guess I'd have to denote today's latest post like this:
CDMA Cell Phone Encoding > engineering for fault tolerance > distributed computing > the hive mind of ant colonies > election systems > signal-to-noise filtering of the electorate > Transnational Progressivism > Kyoto and the International Criminal Court.
This guy is amazing...
Yesterday I got home from work and decided to go for a run. On my way out, I stumbled upon an impromptu block meeting in front of the hedges that the neighborhood association had decided to dig up on the island in my cul-de-sac. Apparently, these hedges had become receptacles for beer bottles and the like on many streets in this neighborhood (not our street, mind you) so they decided to dig them all up. It's kind of upsetting since that's where the rabbits live. I think some of them live in the brush in my back yard, so they won't be entirely gone, but it's upsetting nonetheless.
Before I could manage to get out on my run, my next door neighbor invited me out for some drinks at a Mexican restaurant a friend of his owns. I didn't have anything better to do, so I headed out. My neighbors are a mid-fifties couple with grandchildren. They're pretty cool folks. They make it down to the Caribbean a couple of times a year, and they have pictures of them hanging out with Jimmy Buffet. Good people. The restaurant was packed, but they were complaining it was a slow night. I drank a couple of beers, and was talking to a girl at the bar, but they absolutely insisted that I join them for dinner, and more or less physically dragged me away from her. That was too bad, but the food was pretty good.
Tonight is International Blog Meetup day, but neither the Lawrence crew or the KC crew had enough folks RSVP to have it happen, so we informally agreed to meet over at a coffee bar in Lawrence. I met Mike and his partner (whose name I've already forgotten... I'm horrible with that), and we waited around for Juby for a while, then we headed over to a pan-asian type place for dinner. I've already forgotten the name of the place (Zen Blue? I don't think that's right), but it was very good. It's a brand new place on Massachusetts, I think it opened up last Wednesday. They were out of a lot of things on the menu, but I guess you've got to expect that when a place first opens. It was packed, but I really enjoyed my ginger chicken. I should have tried the Pho... I think I'll grab that next time I'm over in Lawrence.
It was fun, though. They're good guys, both computer professionals. We talked a bit about Kansas politics, about Lawrence, about the potential of a Hooters Airline, and a bit about our blogs. Too bad we couldn't get more folks out, but it was good to meet Mike and talk shop for a bit. I'll take any excuse to visit Lawrence...
I guess it's close to bedtime now, though. At work, my department is re-shuffling the cube farm. I'm one of maybe six or so people in my area that isn't moving, so I'm going to be in at work tomorrow and Saturday while everybody else takes a long weekend. No big deal, though. I do have some stuff I'd like to get done, so maybe I'll get it done this week instead of next. Regardless, I'd like to get in nice and early tomorrow so I can get out a bit early to play racquetball at 5:00. It's been about six weeks since I've played with my partner from work, and I've been looking forward to it. I've actually been running a bit, but I find it difficult to bring myself to go the gym when I don't have a scheduled appointment to meet someone there.
Back on it tomorrow, though. Since we are playing early, maybe I will be able to pop in for a game or two of Age of Empires tomorrow night. Ah, my exciting life.
Western style secular democracy is eventually going to take over the Middle East. We're just at a point where we've been forced to give them a nudge in that direction. It seems that that's going to involve military action now. Just as important as the apparently necessary military action is sowing the seeds of consumerism and a love for the trappings of a secular democracy in the youth of the middle east. (My friend's "Bomb 'em with Nikes" doctrine.)
NPR's All Things Considered had an excellent report today on the Voice of America's Radio Sawa. (Audio should be available later this evening.) Hiring a former producer of Casey Casem's Weekly Top 40, they replaced their talk-only format with a mix of Arabic and American pop music, interspersed with hourly news reports.
Get them hooked on the entertainment, and they'll come around to the rest eventually...
My Perl Shirt is just about worn out, and I've been needing a new T-Shirt to guarantee that I remain single for the forseeable future.
Well, thank you Fark for pointing me to errorwear, where you can purchase a vast assortment of T-shirts depicting your favorite error messages. Choose from shirts such as the Blue Screen of Death (Win 95/98, NT4 and Win2000 flavors), 404 not found (IIS and Apache flavors), along with various errors from video games.
Most of the shirts are available in baby doll versions, and the "403 forbidden" is available exclusively as a baby doll.
If you're not particularly interested in shopping for their shirts, you may enjoy the slightly naughty T-Shirt Model section. But you just want to shop for some new clothes, right?
The Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" boxer short.
Found on Little Green Footballs: I skipped over the article on his site at first, because I thought it was old news referring to the suit by 9/11 survivors against Saudi Arabian business interestes, but I just read it wrong. The actual headline was:
Saudis Plan To Sue US Over Sept. 11.
Found on Fark: Hey, did you know that the Al Qaeda dog gassing video is a fake planted by the US government to drum up support for a war with Iraq?
This announcement brought to you by the good people at What Really Happened, the same folks who claimed that no plane ever actually hit the Pentagon.
Sorry guys, skepticism is almost always a good idea, but have you ever read that story about the boy who cried wolf?
Real quick... I would like to register a complaint about two driving behaviors that I find most odious.
1. When a road is badly backed up, I normally will not pull into an intersection if I am not able to drive through the intersection. Nobody likes to be the jackass holding up cross traffic when the light changes. However, this does not give you morons waiting to make a right in cross traffic the right to make your turn. You have a red light, I have a green light, and that opening in traffic is MINE. You're ruining it for the rest of us, as I've found myself less likely to keep the intersection clear.
2. I use my turn signals. (I know, silly me...) When I see an opening in a lane I need to change into, I will turn on my signal and begin to make the lane change. Apparently many drivers interpret my turn signal as a sign that they are not following the car in front of them closely enough, and immediately jam on the accelerator.
If these behaviors are practiced by you, please adjust your driving habits. When I am King, you will be first against the wall.
Well, neither the Kansas City nor the Lawrence Blog Meetups got enough RSVPs to happen. So it sounds like there's going to be an informal coffee session in Lawrence with the few that wanted to go... I'll be there, along with Mike and Juby (perhaps).
I need to start going out for coffee more often. It's cheaper than beer, and no matter how much you drink, you can legally drive home. There's only the unfortunate problem of getting to sleep.
But sleep is for the weak, anyway.
Fucknut drug-warrior Bob Barr is done, and friend to terrorists everywhere Cynthia McKinney looks like she's on her way out too...
Rock on...
Via memepool: Floyd in a (probably not officially endorsed) democratic campaign commercial. (Flash with sound)
Vote Democratic... Maybe you can pretend that we're not as sold out to corporations as the Republicans...
Man, Mike Silverman is on a roll today. He's apparently having squirrel problems, and is considering the many ways of dealing with the situation.
American-style...Figure out who the squirrels' head honcho is, and start referring to him as the leader of a animal Axis of Evil, which includes squirrels, mosquitoes, and grackles. Use precision bombing with high-tech cayenne pepper missiles to kill squirrels wherever they hide. Utilize animal proxy allies, such as foxes in effort to take out squirrels located in rugged aras of the garden. Plusses: will defeat the squirrels with minimum bloodshed. Minuses: Foxes may turn out to be as bad as squirrels, collateral damage from cayenne pepper may kill innocent animals and earn a dressing-down from Robert Fisk.Israeli-style...Re-occupy the garden areas and cut down the home trees of any squirrels caught digging in the garden, while simultaneously expanding the amount of garden space in the yard. However, squirrels do not limit themselves to attacking just the garden, but frequently cross over the "green line" into the yard proper where they continously dig holes and murder innocent blades of grass. Plusses: No trees mean no more squirrels. Minuses: Condemnation from Amnesty International.
Be sure to check out the site for the rest...
Via Mike Silverman: The Advocate is currently running a poll. The question: "Do you think that there is a connection between support for gay and lesbian rights and support for Palestinian rights?"
The responses? "What are you, on crack?"
If you can see this, then it looks like the DNS changes have made it to you and you're seeing Gimpysoft.com on its new internet service. Welcome! The transition was painless, and now I guess it's time to head back to work.
Kansas City blog meetup is scheduled for this Wednesday, but so far we only have two RSVPs. I got an email from a Lawrence blogger yesterday, and they're running a bit short as well. If you plan on attending, be sure to head over to their site and RSVP. Otherwise, I'll just have to go to Harry's again on Wednesday night...
This site will once again go dark this afternoon when Everest shows up to install my new cable and internet service.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and hope to be serving your needs once again by the late afternoon. If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service at custserv@gimpysoft.com. Thank you for your patience.
On my way to Fayetteville. See you all at Chester's tonight...
I think I'm going to go catch a Royals game sometime in the next week or so.
I guess I'd better... After August 30 I vow to never go to or watch a game, or pay the most minute amount of attention to Major League Baseball.
Thank God football season starts soon.
Three stories. One via Slashdot, one via Fark and one sent to me by a reader signing himself only as "A Willing Servant To Our Future Robot Masters." Individually, each story is frightening on its own merits. Taken together, they paint a grim portrait of the future of humanity.
I present you the evidence:
Robot Teaches Itself Flying Skills in Three Hours
South Africans Build Robotic Lawnmower
From the third story:
Sharkey said: "Since the experiment went live in March they have all learned a significant amount and are becoming more intelligent by the day but the fact that it had ability to navigate itself out of the building and along the concrete floor to the gates has surprised us all."And he added: "But there's no need to worry, as although they can escape they are perfectly harmless and won't be taking over just yet."
God help us all.
Drums & Tuba has announced their fall tour dates. I'm going to get several shots at them... Lawrence, KS September 26, Fayetteville, AR September 28, and Kansas City on October 1. I think I'll definitely be hitting Lawrence and KC. Maybe that would be a good excuse to head down to Fayetteville again...
But Big Smith in Fayetteville this weekend. I have a friend coming to stay with me Saturday night, so I won't be able to stay for Saturday night's show, but I guess that gives me a bit more incentive to try to catch the Happy Hour set tomorrow night. That'll be some mighty fast drivin'.
Kansas City based Vanguard Airlines recently declared bankrupcy, throwing thousands in Kansas City out of work. A judge gave the OK for Vanguard to continue talks with other investors interested in buying the failed airline.
Top prospect is Atlanta businessman Robert H. Brooks, chairman of the Hooters restaurant chain. A radio report I heard this morning said that if Hooters Air takes over Vanguard, there could be a name change. I was a bit groggy, but I think I also heard them say something to the effect of "other obvious possible changes to the airline's service could not be discounted."
Hope hope...
I believe it was you who recommended the Sleepytime Extra tea with Valerian Root. That stuff rules... I'm usually sleepy halfway through the cup...
I think I've discovered something about car repair. When you have an annoying but non-dangerous car repair that you're putting off because you don't want to spend the money to have it fixed, the longer you put off the repair, the less expensive the repair will be when you finally do get around to getting it fixed or buying parts to fix it.
My last car was a Saturn SC2. After a trip to New Orleans I spent the night sleeping at a rest stop on the way back to Arkansas. I was sleeping in the reclined drivers seat, but there was a cooler behind the seat. I bent the frame of the seat, but was able to bend it back into shape. As I continued to drive the car, it continued to bend, and I continued to bend it back until metal fatigue finally won and the frame broke.
Did I choose then to fix it? Of course not. That's going to be like $1000, right? No, I just kept driving the car with the back of the seat kind of loose. Eventually, the jagged piece of metal poked through the seat cover and began jabbing me in the kidney. Did I choose then to fix it? No... I didn't have a grand to spend back then. I chose instead to wrap a T-Shirt around the jagged metal edge and kind of lean forward off the seat.
Friends would drive this car occasionally. It eventually earned the nickname "The Abdominizer". This was because when you drove it, you'd be holding yourself off of the seat back, and when you got out, you'd feel like you had been doing sit-ups. So finally I broke down and went to the Saturn dealership. They looked at it and told me that what I needed was a new seat frame. They ordered it, and for $75, I had the part I needed to fix the car.
Did I choose to fix it then? Of course not. I think the brand new seat frame lived in my apartment for another three months after I bought it. My roommate and I graduated from school, and he was heading off to Dallas to take a job. The day before he left, he noticed the seat frame and said we should try to fix it. It took a bit of work to get the seat back off, but after about two hours I had a working seat again. Time elapsed from when I first bent the seat until I fixed it? I think it was about a year and a half.
Then about a year later, I bought my Camry. Back in February or so I took it in to have some work done. When I got it back, the driver's side door handle was cracked. I didn't really make the connection that it was cracked when I got it back from that repair shop until a while later, so I didn't take it back and bitch. About a month after that, I took it into a Jiffy Lube. When I got it back from them, they had broken the handle off entirely. I did complain about that, but they claimed that it was off when I brought it in. This of course was a complete lie, but it also would have been a lie for me to say that it was in perfect condition when I brought it to them. So I didn't push it.
Instead, I've been driving around for the last three months and rolling down the window to use the outside door handle every time I need to get out of the car. I recently took the car in for some brake work. I guess I should have warned them about the door handle, but I figured out the rolling down the window trick in about 30 seconds after realizing the handle wasn't there, and I assumed they would too. Instead, they apparently jammed a screwdriver into the nub of the handle and shattered and shredded it in the process. Again, they didn't really destroy anything that wasn't already fucked, so I didn't complain much. (My brakes still are shuddering, and I'm approaching the 1000 mile suggested break in period, so I think I will be bitching about that.)
Anyway, the shatterred nub was the final straw, so last weekend I went to the Toyota dealership to get a new part. $33. Took me about forty minutes to fix it.
I now have a working car, though. And I vow to stop being lazy from this day forward. Guess I'd better do those dishes... Kind of tired, though...
I can never finish anything I start. A friend is moving from Houston to Chicago, and will be stopping here for the night tomorrow. So I decided to do some long overdue housecleaning. I got as far as vacuuming up to the guest bedroom where they'll be sleeping when I got a bit distracted. The wall switch in the guest bedroom hasn't worked since I replaced outlets in that room when I first moved in. Apparently if you want switched outlets to work, you have to break off a little tab to make the top and bottom switches be on a different circuit. So I decided to take this opportunity to fix that.
So I grabbed a beer and had my roommate tell me when I had hit the right breaker for that room. Beer and electrical work.... It's a winning combination! I took all the outlets out and broke off the tabs. I think I even knew this as I was doing it, but I broke off outlets that didn't have a red top wire. I guess those had to be connected, because now there is only power to one half of one of the outlets, and no power at all to my roommate's room. I'll have to try to fix it tomorrow after I can run to Home Depot to get more outlets to replace the ones I've destroyed. Hopefully I won't come home to a smoking pit tomorrow after work.
Gimpysoft.com's tips for delaying much needed housework:
1. When doing dishes, run water so hot that you can't put your hands in it for an hour and a half. By the time the water's cooled down, you will have forgotten you need to do dishes!
2. TV is your friend. You can watch TV, right? You'll just rush out and clean frantically during commercial breaks. Anyway, it's hard to get any work done when you have a two hour block of Simpsons -> Simpsons -> That 70's Show -> Simpsons.
3. Blog. If you're not feeling motivated enough to blog, read other people's blogs.
4. Smoke. (Yes, off the wagon again...) It takes five minutes, which is acceptable for a break, but after you're done, you will have forgotten what it was you were doing, and you can go back to watching TV.
5. Try to come up with mildly amusing lists for your blog.
OK, I think I'm about done with this now. Have a good day, folks.
Well, we've got a lovely thunderstrom outside. Plenty of lightning, but it's making it a bit tough to sleep. I hope the pepper plants like the rain, we certainly need it out here.
Looks like it's just about past me, so I guess I'll try to get some sleep again. Looking at the weather, it looks like there's another cell on the way, and my rough estimate looking at an animated weather map says that that'll be passing over us just about when I head in to work in a couple of hours. It also looks like it may just miss us to the south, though. Oh well, back to sleep, I suppose.
Blogcritics launches tomorrow. My review of "Gig" is going to be included. Rock. Details for the launch can be found at Eric Olsen's site here.
When launched, the site will live at Blogcritics.com, but there's just a web hosting place holder there for now.
Update: 8/13/2002 3:26AM - The site is now live. check it out.
According to Instapundit Watch, I'm now a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
I always find it amusing when people take things too seriously. With this site, that would be when you take anything I say seriously... When quoting my site, he even left out the punch line, such as it was.
Well, there's a form over there on the right now where you can send a text message to my phone. Now you can bug me even when I'm not home. Some messages don't seem to go through, particularly if the email address is very long. It should work for just about every real email address, and it works if you leave your email blank.
I'll be out late tonight, so message me if you get a chance. Have fun...
When my friend from Arkansas was in town last weekend, he found a new game show on the Game Show Network. In Friend or Foe, three teams of two answer questions to build up a bank account. As rounds end, teams are eliminated. When a team is eliminated, they play a little version of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Each member of the team chooses "Friend" or "Foe". If both players choose friend, they split their bank account. If one chooses foe and the other chooses friend, the foe takes the entire account. If both choose foe, they both go home empty handed. It seems like a pretty cool game...
And did I mention that it's hosted by Kennedy? She's so cool... I want to be on the show.
Big Smith
Gig
May Apple Records
Big Smith is a self-described hillbilly band out of Springfield, Missouri. The band is all family, consisting of brothers Mark and Jody Bilyeu, their cousins Jay and Mike Williamson, and cousin Rik Thomas. These guys have been playing together their whole lives, and it shows in their musical ability. Though each band member has an instrument they specialize in, during a live show they'll trade instruments to re-work their instrumentation for a different sound. Instruments they use include mandolin (primarily Jody Bilyeu), acoustic guitar (primarily Mark Bilyeu), upright and electric bass (Mike Williamson), and washboard and drums (Jay Williamson). Various songs also make use of mouthbow, harmonica, sousaphone and trombone.
"Gig" is the band's third release, the eagerly anticipated live recording. Their two previous albums "Big Smith" and "Big Rock" were solid studio recordings, consisting of a mix of traditional tunes and the bands often quirky original compositions. Gig includes tunes from the studio albums, along with crowd-pleasing favorites that hadn't been recorded before.
The traditional tunes range from gospel tunes such as "Rich Man's Poor" to murder ballads such as "Darlin' Corey" and "Willow Garden". Some of the best times I've had at Big Smith shows were dancing to their fast instrumental hoedown numbers, so I was very pleased with the inclusion of tunes like "Old Joe Clark" and "Tongue in Groove". Both of these start somewhat slow, and build in tempo until you're just about ready to collapse.
The band displays their often twisted sense of humor on songs like "Die Dead Die", the story of a man taking a drive through the cemetery to "tilt back the stones so the dead can see them good." My favorite line from that song is the closing "In certain Asian countries the dead are more benign, but in the western hemisphere, they're a pain in the behind. Die dead die, too much living to be done..." I don't gather that Jody Bilyeu is a particularly religious man, and the second song on the second disk is a quick number called "His Eye Is On The Baptist." On it, he croons "I'm a Southern Baptist, and I'm much better than you." The second verse is done with an almost They Might Be Giants-esque echo effect, and is just hilarious.
Some of the treats on this live collection are the different arrangements of tracks from their studio albums. When "Bareback Riding" is played live, Mark Bilyeu always plays an extended acoustic guitar solo in the middle, and he doesn't ever hold anything back. I've seen him break strings during this song more times than I can count. The energy of this tune is captured well on this disc.
As a bonus, each disk includes video shot for a TV special the band did earlier this year. The first disk includes footage of their "12 Inch 3 Speed Oscillating Fan" and the second disc includes video of a live performance of "Trash". This is cool, but my only complaint is that since they are video, you can't listen to these two favorites in a normal CD player. However, it's a good thing that we finally have a recording of their cover of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" as the closing track on the second disc.
"Gig" is an excellent sampling of what you can expect to hear at a live Big Smith show, and as good an introduction to the band as any of their studio albums. The album can be purchased at the May Apple Records website. Though they've been playing regionally around Missouri and Arkansas for years, they're starting to get more and more out of their area. Check their dates and go see them every chance you get.
Update: 8/13/2002 3:17AM - An alert reader points out to me that "Rich Man's Poor" is not actually a traditional gospel song, but a Jody Bilyeu original. A testament to their songwriting ability, that is... They had me fooled.
Went to a housewarming party for my racquetball partner last night. She's a reporter, and there were a lot of cool television folks out at the party. One of the guys there was an older guy. His job at the station is to listen to police scanners to figure out where to send news crews. He was quite a character. He told many stories, most of which I will not repeat here. One started like this:
"So she says she wants to do something a little freaky. So we head over to a 7-11, and I buy a plastic drop cloth and a candy bar." I won't continue with this story... Anyway, I spent most of my time at the party outside (it was a beautiful night) and listening to this guy's stories. He seemed a bit unbalanced, but had some great stories to tell. All the folks from the station say he does seem a bit crazy, but never misses a thing on the scanners.
But we got home fairly late and I had a dream that I remembered for once.
I guess I'm going to a ballroom dancing competition today. A friend of mine from Arkansas is up there competing with some friends of his. We'll have to get out for a beer at some point today... I haven't seen this guy for a while.
Eh, but I think I need to go hit the gym now. That breakfast late last night was too damn big...
So I write this silly little one-off post before heading out to grab a beer last night. Apparently Glenn gets word of it, and I'm linked on Instapundit. Between 11:14PM last night and now, I've had more traffic to my silly website than I did all last month.
Thanks Instapundit!
By the way, when you're linked by Slashdot and your server is killed, you've been Slashdotted. What's the term for getting a link from Instapundit? Instapunditted? Glenned? Reynoldsified? Glenn seems to use the term "slashdotted" in a more general sense. Is that common use? I just don't know...
Also, as a University of Arkansas alumnus, is it OK for me to feel good about getting a link from a Tennessee Volunteer?
I was just listening to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit on the Hugh Hewitt show on some LA talk radio station.
I have these moments every once in a while where I feel like I'm living in the not-too-distant future, living in Kansas City, listening to an LA radio station personality interviewing a Tennessee Law Professor I know from his Web Site.
Then I look around and realize I'm sitting in my basement. I think I'm going to go out and drink a beer and talk to women now. I'll catch you later.
For the last couple of months, one of the most popular search phrases getting people to this site has been "Bonnaroo Aerial Photos". I've been looking for them myself, and the official site has finally posted some.
You can find them here. Good God. That's a lot of people.
Well, over a day since I've "quit" smoking. My last was at 8:04 PM on Monday, August 7, 2002. The inevitable weight gain is beginning already. I'll be going to the gym tonight to try to stave off as much as I can.
So far, it's going all right, but I still haven't gotten to the point where I don't think about smoking. Little things make me think it's time to go have a cigarette. Just got back from lunch, just got home from work, etc. There were even a couple of times last night when I got off the computer and walked upstairs looking for my cigarettes.
Eh... $4.30 a pack is too damn much, so it's certainly about time I quit. Smokes have now officially doubled in price since I started.
I've worked tech support before, so I really do hate to get snooty with tech support folks. But I was absolutely convinced that this problem was not with anything on my side of the cable modem. The folks at Roadrunner have repeatedly said that they won't provide support for LANs, but the problem is that I was only allowed one IP address. Those are coming from them.
Blah blah blah... Long story short, I finally managed to badger them enough to get someone on the line who checked my account's history. In fact, when my cable rates were lowered last week they re-provisioned the internet service, and I ended up with a plan that only allowed one IP address. They fixed it and I was back running in two minutes.
Rock. Now I'm almost going to feel bad when I cancel their service and sign up with Everest in a couple of weeks.
Almost.
That'll show me to register Libertarian... I swear that when I registered to vote the web site said that your chosen party affiliation did not affect who you could vote for in primary elections. If I had known that it did, I certainly would have registered Republican rather than LP.
Unfortunately, I am registered LP, and therefore cannot vote in the very important Republican primary today. I just hope that all the psycho conservatives don't win their respective offices, because that would force me to vote for a Democrat. I've never done it before, but Shallenburger winning the nomination for governor would definitely force me to.
Anyway, if you showed more foresight than me and still have a chance to vote in the Kansas Republican primary, please head out and do so. I'd suggest:
Governor: Bob Knight/Kent Glasscock
Attorney General: David Adkins
Insurance Commissioner: Sandy Praeger
Treasurer: Lynn Jenkins
This page has a lot of information about all the races and information about where you need to go to vote.
If I sound extra bitchy right now, it's probably a combination of these three factors:
Upset stomach from a QuikTrip Chicken Biscuit
No phone
No internet connection at home
No cigarettes since last night at 8:04PM
I shouldn't even say that I'm quitting, but I am in fact officially trying now.
Also, besides the network problems, I am currently without a phone. When I moved into the house, I didn't put a land line in, instead choosing to make my cell phone my primary phone. After the unfortunate incident with the fish tank, that phone is now out of commission. I think that somebody says something about eggs and baskets, but I can't really remember how it goes.
Anyway, it's going to take up to five business days for my new phone to get out here, so I can't make any phone calls until then. Last night I got home from work and started trying to figure out what the problem with my network was. One of the first steps I took was to switch the network cards between the two machines. I was then immediately bitten by Microsoft's fascist licensing policies.
My (legitimately purchased, I might add) copy of Windows XP then thought it had been installed on a new computer and had to re-activate itself with Microsoft. I'm having network problems, so it couldn't activate that way. I have no phone, so I couldn't call to activate over the phone. Long story short, I was locked out of my computer for four hours until my roommate got home and I could borrow his phone because I had the gall to change my network card. This pissed me off more than a little bit. If I'm going to be treated like a software pirate by Microsoft when I am in fact not, maybe I should just stop paying for their crap.
I'm still having some sort of network problems at home, but I am currently choosing to leave my web server running at home. I can only seem to get one IP address... If I turn both my computers off, whichever one I start first will get an address and work normally, the second will time out trying to contact Roadrunner's DHCP server. I am convinced that the problem is with them, and I'm assuming that something is misconfigured so that I'm only allowed to get one IP address behind my cable modem instead of the five I'm supposed to be able to get. Unfortunately, they won't troubleshoot more than one machine, and since it consistently works with one machine, they think everything's fine.
At least Everest is going to be offerring me service in about two weeks. They're currently digging up my back yard, and I should be able to switch soon. Can't wait.
Until then I only get internet access with one of my two machines. Since at Gimpysoft.com it's all about you, the reader, I'll be leaving this machine on and doing my web surfing with lynx and checking my email with pine. Man, the things I put up with for you. Honestly, I don't know why I bother sometimes.
It is a bad idea to hold your phone between your ear and shoulder and talk while cleaning out your fish tank.
On a completely unrelated note, if I know you I no longer have your phone number. Would you mind emailing it to me?
So I said my friend from Arkansas is in town this weekend. He's sleeping on the couch, and hasn't seen any lights flip just yet. If you're here in the middle of the night, please head over to the control panel and flip some lights. Since he is on the couch, the living room lamps would be an excellent choice...
A friend from Arkansas is up this weekend hanging out. We drove around the plaza/westport area last night looking for a place to get a beer, and finally found a place on Westport road, but a bit west of where I normally go. It seemed OK, but kind of slow. Lots of beautiful women in there, though. Besides the bartender, he and I were about the only guys in there.
Today, we headed over to Lawrence to play some disc golf. It's pretty damn hot outside, and I think my friend burned worse than I did. If it's not too bad, we'll probably head out to Lawrence this evening, otherwise he may head back to Arkansas.
I suppose I shouldn't bitch... There are plenty of bands playing around here that I haven't seen, but music has been a bit slow lately. It's been a while since there's been a show locally that I've wanted to catch. I think I'm going to head over to Columbia tomorrow evening to catch Bela Fleck, but I'll need to call the venue to see how long they expect the show to go. I don't particularly want to get home at 3:30AM and have to make it to work on Monday.
Ugh, but did I mention it's hot outside? I need a shower if we're going to do anything tonight. I think I'm going to get to that shortly. In the meantime, I think I'll just sit in my nicely air-conditioned house for a while.
I guess I'm not nearly the outdoorsman I wish I was...
Well Eric Olsen has moved forward with his idea of a clearinghouse for Blogger music critics. He's registered blogcritics.com, and hopes to launch the site next friday. I guess tonight would be a good time to re-do that review of Big Smith's "Gig" CD, as he's asking for contributions from bloggers interested in the project. And I made the cut!
Details can be found here.
It amazes me sometimes that people will spend $30 on a domain name, then do something like this with it. (Headphones suggested)
Of course, I shouldn't talk. I've owned deadblogs.com for almost four months now, and have yet to do anything with it. Anybody want me to point it to your list of dead blogs?
I do have to admit that I am happy with both my digital cable and cable modem service from Time Warner. The quality of their service is outstanding. However, another provider, Everest Communications is moving into my neighborhood, and I'm going to switch. There are two reasons for this:
I initially told them I would switch when they notified me that they were installing in my neighborhood. They quoted me a price for the same cable service (digital tier + lots of HBOs) and better internet service (3M downstream as opposed to Roadrunner's 768k) that was $40/month cheaper than Time Warner charged me.
Time Warner has since reduced prices to undercut Everest. But only in my neighborhood... Other friends of mine who are on Time Warner didn't get the same offer. Time Warner actually raised my cable/internet rates about four months ago, before Everest had announced they'd be moving in. I think it's fairly obvious that they will gladly gouge their customers when they're the only gig in town. So I'll pay the extra $5/month to go with Everest. They're based in Kansas City, too. God knows we need to keep somebody hiring around here.
Yet another reason to ditch Time Warner: If your home is flooded, and all your earthly possessions are destroyed, they'll charge you $300 for your destroyed cable box. Fuckers...
I'll bet you $200 you can't eat a whole jar of extra hot horseradish.
Well, our cards night went a little longer than it normally does, so I didn't really get headed out to the coffee shop until around 9:00 or so. There was some road construction going on where three highways feed into one, and the construction had traffic down to one lane. I had Bonnaroo flashbacks as I sat in dead stop traffic for over an hour. Finally I got through that traffic and got headed north.
After stopping for some cash, I found 55th St. I went several blocks east of there, and eventually got close. About then, my fuel light came on, and I didn't know where the hell I was. I was in a rich-looking residential neighborhood, with not a gas station in sight. I decided to veer off and find fuel immediately rather than run out of gas in a part of town that I don't know. Finally I did find fuel, and got back to 55th St.
I found the 300 block. There were a bunch of galleries, some furniture stores, and a restaraunt, but not Mankiatos. I popped into the restaraunt and had a beer, and asked them if there was a coffee shop around there. I didn't have the name of the place, only the address, but they pointed me up the street to a shop near the school that was open late. I did find the place they were pointing me to, but it was Muddy's, not Mankiatos. I stopped in for an espresso anyway. This actually seemed like kind of a cool place. The cars all had band stickers on them, many that I didn't recognize, and some that I did. A lot of Radiohead stickers. The place was populated with the alternative types that I so wish I fit in with.
However, since I don't fit in with them, I resumed my quest to find Mankiatos. Since I didn't know the name of the place, I called my friend at ps-ef.com. He wasn't home, but got home about five minutes later and called me back. I got him to look up the place, and I did have the address right. Armed with the name of the place, I called information and got an address. It's actually at 7019 Oak St., about six blocks or so south. I drove by the place three times before finally locating it, obviously closed.
Much like you should never trust a skinny cook, you should never trust a coffee shop that's closed before 11:00. They didn't have hours posted on the door, so I guess I'll call tomorrow and find out if they're even going to be open at the time we're supposed to meet. I heard that the Lawrence Meetup folks got to a restaraunt just as it was closing last week. I'll definitely let the Meetup folks know that the address they have is wrong.
So I headed home, stopping at Rusty's for a quick beer on the way. I ran into my old Wednesday night drinking crew and hung out with them for a bit. It was getting late though, so I headed home. I'll try to check out The Java Daily tomorrow or Friday. For now though, it's bedtime for me.
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