Kyle's Blog

Too Early to Think About SXSW?

2009-01-26T15:58:00.002-06:00

Paul Lamere from Sun Labs constructed this great mashup for SXSW. He took the list of artists that have been announced and created a pages with their bios, youtube videos, flickr photos and links to last.fm. I need to figure out a way to carve a block of time out to digest it all.

Marriage

2008-12-12T13:26:00.004-06:00

I talked to the founder of Youth Launch last night and he shared with me the secret to a successful marriage.

A couple years into his marriage, things were not going well. He and his wife were fighting all the time and he didn't see how it would last another year.

They lived across the street from the couple who created the Curious George books. The husband did the art and the wife did the writing. The husband was a quiet easy going guy, while the wife could be very strong willed and difficult.

One day he mentioned that he and his wife were having a difficult time and asked the husband how he and his wife had been able to be happy for so long given his wife's strong personality.

To which the husband said, "I make the important decisions, and I let her make the rest...and over the last 40 years there haven't been any important decisions."

Wilderness - (k)no(w)here

2008-11-17T00:34:00.002-06:00

The Wilderness are one of my favorite bands from one of my favorite labels Jagjaguwar. It's impossible for me to be objective about Wilderness because I think they speak to me and only me. No one else can understand them like I do. To listen to them and appreciate them is to feel this way.

Objectively, their sound is reminiscent of PIL Second Edition. It can be discordant, challenging and emotive. Yet their sound to me is emotive and powerful, fresh and provocative. It requires repeated listening to the entirety. Though it's broken up into 8 songs, it's one piece. The crinkly crisp guitar, plodding bass and drum, emotive vocals build until the 6th and 7th tracks where the ugly and beauty become transcendent.

The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead

2008-11-16T22:55:00.005-06:00

Talking to Ben tonight he suggested I start blogging about the CDs I'm listening to. I'm amazed at how much great music has been put out this year. In years past, I've put out end of year best of lists without much detail about why a particular CD is on the list. The lists were self indulgent memory queues for me to reminisce about what I was listening to at a given time without any context for anyone else. Here's an attempt to put some context around the music I find special.

The Helio Sequence has been one such band for me since I first saw them open for Ugly Casanova at the Parrish. Benjamin played drums like an octopus with a flailing tongue and Brandon played wonderfully fuzzy guitar and screamed lyrics all the while their electronic loops filled in the spaces between their notes.

Their first three CD's followed a similar formula which I thoroughly enjoyed. Keep Your Eyes Ahead is a departure from their previous work. I read that Brandon had some issues with losing his voice and even having to relearn how to sing prior to Keep Your Eyes Ahead. The result is a more mature if mellower sound.

The first song Lately is the most beautiful post break up song I've heard. Most of the songs deal with the theme of solitary happiness. There is a richness to the songs now which grows from their maturity as musicians and song writers.

Trip to Ft. Lauderdale

2008-10-20T22:58:00.002-05:00

Day 1

Early morning flight. Needed to be up at 5:30 to catch 6:50 flight. Glad I didn’t decide to stay up through to flight time. The two hours of sleep made me almost functional.
Enjoyed listening to the guy with the aisle seat say, “Please not here, please not here…” under his breath every time a new person walked on the plane. It worked! The seat between us was empty for the AUS to DFW leg of the trip.
Slept the whole way from AUS to DFW and from DFW to FTL. I could’ve snored and farted the whole way, I have no idea.
Lady next to me when I sat down for the DFW to FTL leg had her barding passes and passport in some pocket thing around her neck, which reminded me of being in elementary school and having notes pinned to my jacked by my teacher to bring home.
First stop in Ft. Lauderdale is Kelly’s Landing for lobster rolls. Kelly’s gets all their lobster flown in from Maine and the lobster rolls are delicious. But Tim and I let the car salesman next to us talk us into the hot lobster roll. It was good but now I’m going to need to come back and make sure that the cold version isn’t better.
Watched 2nd half of UT vs OK game at Tim’s house. Big win for UT, it would launch them to a #1 ranking and I’d get to hear how overrated the Big 12 is all week. They’re just hurting because of the depths Miami has fallen.
After UT game, we go to a bar Tim’s friend Timmy Hagen works at. This place is full of old school drinkers. It’s around 3:30 a couple of the regulars are already hammered. Timmy Hagen is having trouble watching USC, his favorite team, because people keep asking him to put the Miami game on all the TV’s around the bar so that they can see it without having to readjust their seats. He’s actually kinda pissed about it.
Checked out the Ft. Lauderdale downtown area. A couple bars have live music. One plays covers the other original work. The Whore House reminds me of Room 710 but with less metal.

Day 2

Miami Dolphins play early game and Dallas play late afternoon game. Going to be on couch all day. This is cool with me, still catching up from fri/sat.
Tim lives in a predominantly gay part of town. Great for property values. Every time we drive around the neighborhood and there are two guys walking together, he points out this fact.
We go to pick up a couple things at the grocery store. Tim says something like, “See what I mean?” and granted there did appear to be a lot of male couples shopping. When I said, “They probably think we’re gay.” He tells me to “go stand over there.”
Watched a couple movies Foot Fist Way and Leatherheads. I would recommend not seeing either one. Yup one big couch day.

Day 3

Listening to a lot smooth jazz this week. This is what Tim listens too. Bands like Steeley Dan and Boz Scaggs. Trying hard to let it all sink in, figure out the rhythms of this town. Every time I come to Florida whether I’m with Tim or not this is what’s playing. I suspect that the record distribution companies haven’t been down this way since 1984.
Took a long walk on the beach. These would end up being my favorite times on the trip. There are tons of empty condos along the shore, some of them halted in the middle of construction. The economic downturn hit here about two years ago. It’s odd when I was down 3 or 4 years ago, the place was booming out of control, looking back it’s reminiscent of the tech stocks in the late 90s.
Lots of jelly fish on the beach. They look like inflated ziplock bags. Glad no one got stung so I’d have to pee on them, not into that kinda stuff.
Stopped at The Parrot after walking on the beach. When Tim first moved to Ft. Lauderdale in the 70s this is where he made his living, albeit not a great one, by playing darts for money. He mentions that collecting became much easier once he started partnering with this big guy known to have a temper.
Monday is league bowling night. Pretty interesting crowd. Tim will blame me for ruining his perfect game (he started with 6 strikes) because I was talking to Deidra on the phone outside the bowling alley. He was worried because I hadn’t returned with his beer.
After bowling, back to Tim’s house for Monday night football and baseball playoff game. There would be a lot of sports watching this trip. I think I may have had my fill of sports for a while.

Day 4

After Tim’s daily ritual of oatmeal, coffee and reading the newspaper front to back (this took up most of Sunday), we head out to the beach again. Winds are really strong out of the northeast which is creating big waves and there are lots of surfers out.
We stop in at a place called Sly Foxes, which strangely enough is an Irish pub. End up bumping in to JR and this other friend JR who’ve know Tim for almost 30+ years.
Getting back to the house after eating out, there is a blue crab running around his parking lot. Tim laughs at me chasing it around sideways trying to get a picture.

Day 5

Late start, stop by a bar called The Dive. Ivan is working, JR shows up. I think they’re following us J. Lady at bar is there celebrating her wedding anniversary alone. Tells us that she’s having an affair with some guy who claims to have been Mike Schmidts backup in the 80s. I can’t find anything about the back up using the kindle’s internet capabilities.
Went out to the pier, I looked in a couple shops for something to bring back for Deidra, but it’s all crap.
Stop in to see Timmy Hagen who is working at a different bar tonight. Meet a Scotsman who likes to play golf (go figure).

Day 6

Highlight is that stone crabs are back in season. They can only be harvested from Oct 15th through March 15th, so the one we eat at Old Florida are as fresh as can be. Delicious!

Day 7

Wishing the lady next to me on the flight from FTL to DFW will stop putting perfume on every 30 minutes. I showered that day, so I don’t think it was me…hmm…I did have oysters and red beans and rice for lunch before the flight. Maybe that was why.

Have You Ever Been Pulled Over For A Speeding Ticket?

2008-08-02T01:38:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately in my teens and twenties I got pulled over several times for speeding. Hopefully, you don't know the routine as well as I do. Cruising along. Listening to music. Talking to a friend. And then flashing lights behind you. The scramble to figure out where the cop came from and why he's behind you. Maybe you're in the fast lane and you pull over hoping that he's trying to get around you. But no, he follows you into the other lane. You become hyper alert, try to recreate the last 10 minutes. "Was I speeding?", "Was I riding that guy to closely?", "Is my signal working?", "Are my tags expired?", "Does god hate me?".

The first time it happens, you slam on the brakes and skid onto the shoulder, or stop in the middle of the street. After a being pulled over a couple times, you're calmer about it, find an offramp, a parking lot, any place without cars whizzing by a couple feet from your door. Ideally, you find some place where you aren't exposed to the embarrassment of having every car drive by and look at you. Where the riders are conjuring up all the horrible things you could've possibly done to merit being pulled over by the police. "Was he running from the law?", "Did the cop have his hand on his gun?", "I bet he's a wanted felon.", "He's a criminal if I've ever seen one!" or even "Sweet! I'm so glad that isn't me."

The cop always walks up and asks, "license and registration" and then "Do you know how fast you were going?" At this point, all you want to do is get out of whatever the cop is accusing you of doing. You think that if you admit to being a couple miles over the speed limit that the cop will recognize your honesty and let you go, so you say, "68" when the speed limit is 65, regardless of if you were going 85. At that point you've admitted to breaking the law. The cop has everything he needs even without the radar gun to give you a ticket

Kevin sent me this link, where a Virginia law school professor makes a compelling argument giving 8 reasons why you should NEVER TELL THE POLICE ANYTHING. It doesn't matter if you are completely innocent, under no circumstances should you say anything to the police without an attorney present.

http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2008/07/eight-reasons-even-innocent-shouldnt.html

There's a stigma against pleading the fifth. It's assumed that the person pleading it has something to hide. The second clip in the link above is of an officer of 20 years describing the tactics used to get confessions. I was extremely surprised to discover what could be determined to be incriminating.

2008-04-22T14:00:00.002-05:00

Memory, Learning, Sleep, Repeat

Do you ever think about all those college class you took, made good grades on the tests, and now can barely remember what the class was about? Today I came across a fascinating article on memory retention in Wired. A lot of psychological studies show that repetitions over variable intervals are required for retention. Which falls under the maxim "use it or lose it". According to the article the key is to trigger the memory recall at the point just before the memory is forgotten.

The article is about Piotr Wozniak who's worked for decades on an application called SuperMemo which attempts to remind you of these nuggets of information at that point right before it's been forgotten.

The SuperMemo site has a ton of information on factors that affect learning, including one of the most in depth articles on how sleep affects learning I've read.

One poignant quote from the article, "By graphing the acquisition of knowledge in SuperMemo, [Wozniak] has realized that in a single lifetime one can acquire only a few million new items. This is the absolute limit on intellectual achievement defined by death."

SXSW 2008 Showlist

2008-03-11T17:06:00.002-05:00

Time once again for my list of SXSW bands that I'd like to see. The bands in bold are the ones that are "must see" shows for me. There isn't a lot of separation between the bands for me. There are a lot that I like quite a bit, but not many that I'm rabid about at this point. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the bands I really really want to see are playing at midnight on Friday. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm sure it'll boil down to who I've seen at day shows already.

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

[X] 08:00PM Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 08:00PM Simian Mobile Disco (Antone's)
[X] 08:00PM The Upsidedown (Cedar Door)
[X] 08:00PM Best Fwends (Habana Calle 6)
[X] 09:00PM Bruce Robison (Pangaea)
[X] 09:00PM Sunburned Hand of the Man (The Thirsty Nickel)
[X] 10:00PM Mahjongg (Emo's IV Lounge)
[X] 10:00PM Tiger! Tiger! (Light Bar)
[X] 10:00PM Peter Moren (The Parish)
[X] 10:00PM Kid Beyond (Prague)
[X] 10:00PM Wax Fang (Maggie Mae's)
[X] 10:00PM Faceless Werewolves (Beauty Bar)
[X] 10:50PM Be Your Own Pet (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 11:00PM Walter Meego (The Parish)
[X] 11:00PM Sons & Daughters (Antone's)
[X] 11:00PM Camp X-Ray (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 11:00PM The Clutters (Light Bar)
[X] 11:00PM The Slits (Elysium)
[X] 11:00PM Okkervil River feat. Roky Erickson (Austin Music Hall)
[X] 11:00PM Kaki King (Club de Ville)
[X] 11:30PM Yeasayer (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 12:00AM The Kills (Antone's)
[X] 12:00AM R.E.M. (Stubb's)
[X] 12:00AM The Dodos (Mohawk Patio)
[X] 12:00AM Alabama3 (acoustic) (Latitude 30)
[X] 12:00AM White Ghost Shivers (The Rio)
[X] 12:00AM The Black Angels (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
[X] 12:00AM Witch (Bourbon Rocks)
[X] 12:30AM Simian Mobile Disco (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 01:00AM The Blow (Emo's IV Lounge)
[X] 01:00AM The Black Keys (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 01:00AM The Lemonheads (Emo's Annex)
[X] 01:00AM Mr. Lewis & The Funeral 5 (Light Bar)
[X] 01:00AM Dark Meat (Spiro's)
[X] 01:00AM Gorch Fock (Room 710)
[X] 01:00AM Dan Deacon + Jimmy Joe Roche's Ultimate Reality (Emo's Jr)
[X] 01:00AM Shwayze (Bourbon Rocks Patio) :)
[X] 01:00AM Gram Rabbit (Volume)
[X] 01:00AM Die! Die! Die! (Wave)
[X] 01:00AM Parts & Labor (Habana Calle 6)

Thursday, 13 March 2008

[X] 08:00PM Jens Lekman (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 08:30PM White Hinterland (Mohawk)
[X] 09:00PM Tia Carrera (Light Bar)
[X] 09:00PM Bisc1 (Scoot Inn)
[X] 09:30PM Yo La Tengo (Austin Music Hall)
[X] 09:45PM Working For A Nuclear Free City (Beauty Bar Backyard)
[X] 10:30PM Jim Bianco (The Parish)
[X] 10:30PM The Whip (Club de Ville)
[X] 10:50PM Kaki King (18th Floor at Hilton Garden Inn)
[X] 11:00PM Genghis Tron (Emo's Annex)
[X] 11:00PM My Morning Jacket (Austin Music Hall)
[X] 11:30PM Shout Out Out Out Out (Beauty Bar Backyard)
[X] 11:30PM Dark Meat (Vice)
[X] 11:40PM The Presidents of The United States of America (Cedar Door)
[X] 11:45PM The English Beat (Smokin' Music presented by Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company)
[X] 12:00AM DeVotchKa (Cedar Street Courtyard)
[X] 12:00AM The s.i.g.i.t (BD Riley's)
[X] 12:00AM Jens Lekman (Mohawk Patio)
[X] 12:00AM Danielia Cotton (Opal Divine's Freehouse)
[X] 12:00AM Perry Farrell (Pangaea)
[X] 12:30AM Parts & Labor (Mohawk)
[X] 12:45AM Ghislain Poirier (Elysium)
[X] 12:45AM Old 97's (Stubb's)
[X] 12:45AM The Dollyrots (Club de Ville)
[X] 01:00AM The Wombats (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
[X] 01:00AM The Octopus Project (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 01:00AM Blood On The Wall (Room 710)
[X] 01:00AM Billy Bragg (Cedar Street Courtyard)
[X] 01:00AM Yeasayer (Emo's IV Lounge)
[X] 01:00AM Bedroom Walls (Wave)
[X] 01:00AM Holy Fuck (Wave Rooftop)
[X] 01:00AM No Age (Habana Annex Backyard)
[X] 01:00AM Black Mountain (Mohawk Patio)
[X] 01:00AM Darker My Love (BD Riley's)
[X] 01:15AM Dizzee Rascal (Scoot Inn)

Friday, 14 March 2008

[X] 08:00PM Lykke Li (Ninety Proof Lounge)
[X] 08:00PM Foxy Shazam (Scoot Inn)
[X] 08:45PM Crystal Castles (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 09:00PM The Dodos (Emo's Jr)
[X] 09:00PM The Chevelles (BD Riley's)
[X] 09:00PM The Builders and The Butchers (Club de Ville)
[X] 09:00PM Black Helicopter (Mohawk Patio)
[X] 09:30PM Pissed Jeans (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
[X] 10:00PM Land of Talk (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 10:00PM Castledoor (Buffalo Billiards)
[X] 10:00PM X (SXSW Live (The Bat Bar) Austin Convention Center)
[X] 10:30PM Handsome Furs (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
[X] 11:00PM Shout Out Louds (The Parish)
[X] 11:00PM Slim Cessna's Auto Club (Emo's Jr)
[X] 11:00PM Vampire Weekend (Antone's)
[X] 11:00PM Lykke Li (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
[X] 11:00PM Lions (Emo's Annex)
[X] 11:00PM Golden Arm Trio (St David's Church)
[X] 11:00PM Fanfarlo (Wave Rooftop)
[X] 11:00PM Be Your Own Pet (Mohawk Patio)
[X] 11:30PM The Helio Sequence (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
(After midnight, Saturday morning)
[X] 12:00AM Tapes 'n Tapes (Cedar Door)
[X] 12:00AM The Vines (Pangaea)
[X] 12:00AM A Place To Bury Strangers (Wave Rooftop)
[X] 12:00AM The Whip (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
[X] 12:00AM DeVotchKa (Antone's)
[X] 12:00AM White Rabbits (Club de Ville)
[X] 12:20AM HEALTH (Flamingo Cantina)
[X] 12:30AM No Age (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
[X] 12:30AM Moby (Vice)
[X] 12:30AM Sunburned Hand of the Man (Mohawk)
[X] 12:45AM Thurston Moore w/ Band (Mohawk Patio)
[X] 01:00AM N.E.R.D. (Stubb's)
[X] 01:00AM Blitzen Trapper (Bourbon Rocks)
[X] 01:00AM The English Beat (Momo's)
[X] 01:00AM Destroyer (The Parish)
[X] 01:00AM Nada Surf (Cedar Door)
[X] 01:00AM Robyn (Pangaea)
[X] 01:00AM Atlas Sound (Prague)
[X] 01:00AM Sybris (Maggie Mae's Gibson Room)
[X] 01:00AM White Denim (Club de Ville)
[X] 01:00AM Cheveu (Spiro's)
[X] 01:10AM The Unsane (Scoot Inn)

Saturday, 15 March 2008

[X] 07:00PM Sons & Daughters (SXSW Live (The Bat Bar) Austin Convention Center)
[X] 07:30PM Jandek (Central Presbyterian Church)
[X] 08:00PM Ice Cube (Auditorium Shores Stage (Lady Bird Lake))
[X] 09:00PM Vivian Girls (Mohawk)
[X] 09:00PM Ha Ha Tonka (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 09:00PM Care Bears on Fire (Lamberts Patio)
[X] 10:00PM Maps & Atlases (Emo's IV Lounge)
[X] 10:00PM Nada Surf (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
[X] 10:30PM The Ugly Beats (Soho Lounge)
[X] 11:20PM Cheveu (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
[X] 12:00AM Videohippos (Emo's Jr)
[X] 12:00AM Los Campesinos! (The Parish)
[X] 12:00AM Alabama3 (acoustic) (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 12:00AM A Place To Bury Strangers (Cedar Street Courtyard)
[X] 12:00AM Cassettes Won't Listen (Lamberts Patio)
[X] 12:00AM Clockcleaner (Scoot Inn)
[X] 12:00AM Crystal Castles (Wave Rooftop)
[X] 12:10AM The Slits (Bourbon Rocks Patio)
[X] 12:30AM X (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 01:00AM Rootz Underground (Flamingo Cantina)
[X] 01:00AM Black Moth Super Rainbow (The Thirsty Nickel)
[X] 01:00AM MSTRKRFT (Vice)
[X] 01:00AM White Denim (Habana Calle 6 Patio)
[X] 01:00AM British Sea Power (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
[X] 01:00AM Jason Forrest (Scoot Inn Inside Stage)

Blog for South By Southwest

2008-02-27T16:22:00.002-06:00

With two weeks to go, I set up a blog solely for SXSW 2008. Ideally it'll be a collaborative site with entries from several people.

I set it up because I wanted a way to have lists of youtube videos where friends could rate videos and leave comments. In preparing for SXSW, I'm finding that videos of live performances give me the best sense for how a band will perform. I looked at using shared youtube playlists but friends video ratings get lost in the thousands of other people rating the same videos. There is a similar issue with youtube comments.

I also wanted a place to consolidate all the great information culled from the many other SXSW blogs. Check it out.

Tapes n Tapes Video

2008-02-21T00:30:00.003-06:00

Hey Josh, here's that Tapes n Tapes video from blogotheque I was talking about.

SXSW 2008

2008-02-09T14:18:00.000-06:00

South by Southwest has released the initial list of bands playing this year. There are over 1500 so far. To help keep up with all the day parties, bands and news I've been following the following sites:

www.donewaiting.com is a great site for all SXSW news.
www.musicdaily.org has been posting a video per day of artists playing SXSW.
In years past, http://newmusictipsheet.com has had the most comprehensive list of day shows I saw.
The austinist has ongoing SWSW coverage.
For the English perspective check out showburner.com.
ShowListAustin is another great site for day show info.

At some point soon, I hope to have a good size list of bands to see.

Can Vegans Eat Human Cheese?

2008-02-09T14:10:00.000-06:00

I would probably see a movie if they're in it

2008-01-20T20:19:00.001-06:00

Johnny Depp
Will Ferrill
Javier Bardem
Owen Wilson
Benicio del Torro
Scarlette Johannsen
Bill Murry
Parker Posey
Daniel Day Lewis
Gary Oldman
Tim Roth
Tommy Lee Jones
Edward Norton
Christian Bale
Phillip Seymore Hoffman
Jeff Bridges
John Tuturo

I won't see a movie if they're in it

2008-01-20T19:45:00.000-06:00

They may have had a good movie before but if I see a preview today with them staring, I'm not going. In no particular order:

John Travolta
Keenu Reeves
Robin Williams
Al Pacino
Tom Hanks
Madonna
Mariah Carey
Martin Lawrence
Tim Allen
Hilliary Swank
Molly Shannon
Steven Segal
Jackie Chan (if produced in US)
Drew Barrymore
Ben Affleck
Jennifer Lopez
The Rock
Emilio Estevez
Lou Diamond Philips
Dane Cook
David Schwimer
The Cory's
Kevin Costner

My 20 Favorite CDs of 2007

2007-12-24T09:36:00.000-06:00

A lot of great music came out this year. Here are a couple lists of what I liked and didn't like this year.

Deerhunter - Cryptograms
The National - Boxer
A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers
Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
Battles - Mirrored
Carribou - Andorra
The Field - From Here We go to Sublime
Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Spirit If
Pela - Anytown Graffiti
The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
!!! - Myth Takes
St. Vincent - Marry Me
Apparat - Walls
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
M.I.A. - Kala
The White Stripes - Icky Thump
Peter, Bjorn and John - Writers Block
Rob Crow - Living Well
Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs

Recent purchases that are on several end of year lists, in order of how much I think I might end up liking them.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
Burial - Untrue
Holy Fuck - LP
Band of Horses - Cease To Begin
No Age - Wierdo Rippers
Los Campesinos! - Sticking Fingers into Sockets
Stars of the Lid - and Their Refinement of the Decline
Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worst Nightmare
Feist - The Reminder
Okkervil River - The Stage Names
Liars - Liars
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Nina Nastasia & Jim White - You Follow Me
Justice - t

Not as great as I'd hoped they'd be - This list is in order of how much I liked the CD compared to how much I thought I'd like it before I bought it. So if I was really excited about a CD and then it sucked it would be ranked at that top of the list. If it was a CD that some friends recommended and I bought it and didn't care for it, then I had lower expectations so it's ranked lower. In the case of Amon Tobin, it's a good CD but my expectations for him are completely unrealistic.

Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Blonde Redhead - 23
Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens
Interpol - Our Love to Admire
Amon Tobin - Foley Room

Be sure to check for typo's

2007-11-20T09:33:00.000-06:00

The title is from a slide in a power point presentation on the topic of giving presentations.

Damn Rainbow Pinwheel!

2007-10-06T14:50:00.001-05:00

I bought one of the new 160 Gb classic iPods after I got back from Ireland. I like the iPod itself as it's a 2 revision upgrade over my old 60 Gb iPod. The additional disk space and the ability to play movies were the compelling reasons for the upgrade. However, the iTunes integration with it is complete shit. I have 9400 songs on the iPod and everything I try to do is mind numbingly slow. Trying to create a playlist can take half an hour, god forbid you have to edit track information. I have no idea what the issue is. I've updated iTunes and installed the iPod update. That damn processing/thinking pinwheel is driving me batty.

Counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry and back to Dublin

2007-09-17T12:26:00.000-05:00

I finally have internet access again. We're at the airport hotel in Dublin getting ready to head back home early tomorrow morning. The only news I've heard from the states is that Dallas is 2-0, UT is 3-0 and OJ is back in jail, all good news. Hopefully nothing big has happened over the past 2 weeks.

I didn't jot down as many comments the last couple days, probably due to the constant drinking and traveling. Here's what I got:

More Clare

After 7 days, doing laundry has finally become a desperate matter. Drove from Milltown to Killrush about 45 minutes for the nearest laundromat. At least that's what we thought, I don't think Ireland has laundromats, but there are places that will launder and fold your cloths, which is even better. This means that we have 3 hours to kill in Killrush a town of probably less than 3,000. Of course Killrush is an adorable "irish looking" town, like they all are. I think 3 different older gentlemen crossed the street to say, "hello" to my Aunt Patty, kinda welcoming and creepy at the same time.
Dolphins frequent the waters near Killrush, which would explain how I learned from a statue by the bay that dolphins when they give birth have a pair of midwives that bring the newborn dolphin up to the surface, carried on their noses, for it's first breath otherwise it will die. Sometimes I think the Irish are constantly fucking with me.
One morning, I climbed the rocks in the small cove near the hotel. Around 11:3o in the morning the tide is almost completely out and the water recedes from a huge rock formation that is much like a finger extending from the coast into the middle of the small bay. I was able to walk out on the rocks for about 2oo yards and check out all the tide pools full of small fish, sea anemones and muscles in the rock hallows. The whole time the waves crashed on either side of this narrow rock peninsula. This may have been my favorite hour in Ireland.
Clare, the owner of the Spanish Armada is the best hostess I've ever encountered. She has a knack for telling a story that she's probably told a thousand times as though it's for the first time.
In the pictures I have on my flickr page, there are pictures of a ruin near the Armada hotel. It was a hotel build in the early 1900s. After WWII there was a tax in Ireland on any structure that had a roof. So they took the roof off. I wouldn't recommend doing this with your home.

County Limerick

Had lunch in a refurbished old castle. The food and service was really good. As a general rule the service in Ireland sucks ass. The waiters and waitresses, even in the fine dining establishments, wouldn't know how to refill your water much less open a bottle of wine. What was kinda funny was that our waitress was from Ennis, Ireland but had what seemed to be an affected British accent. It think it might be because most of the old mansions were built by the English land owners and some of that mystique lingers on.
My great great grandfather on my fathers side comes from the Parish of Oola in county Limerick. We'd heard a couple stories of people looking for their ancestors in Ireland, they typically go like this, "I met this _____ who went to ______ looking for his relatives. He steps into this bus/pub/church mentions that he's from American and looking for his relatives. Then _______ says, 'why you look just like ______.' The person is then reunited with his family and spends 3 or 4 days with them catching up on everything that has happened over the past 100-150 years." This didn't happen to us. We went to a couple cemeteries, and there are tons of Ryans. In fact, there are so many Ryans in this area that the different Ryan families have nicknames. If you don't know your ancestor's nickname you're pretty much out of luck, because they're all named James, Patrick, John or Tim. Everyone was still very helpful in this possibly impossible endeavor.
While we were waiting for the heritage foundation to tell us that they can't trace us down our ancestors because of there being so many possibilities, we stopped in another Ryan pub. We met Michael Ryan, owner of the pub, who was really nice. He told me how most Americans really don't like living in Ireland; because the towns are really small like 2,000 to 5,000. This means that people can be pretty closed to strangers, but then once they get to know you, they're all in your business.
While we were in the County of Limerick we stayed at the Dundrum Hotel. My dad really liked the golfing on the grounds. He hopes to bring some of his buddies back to Ireland for a golfing tour. I found the accommodations lacking. I felt like I was sleeping on the original mattress and pillows from when the manor was built, but the owner Austin Crowe is one super cool dude.
There was this wedding party going on the last night we were there. We didn't see much of it. I was in one of the bars in the manor and the bartender mentioned that the bar was closing down at 1:00 to reopen in the basement, to stay open until 4:00. I'm still cursing Tim for the Jameson shots and myself for the vodka/red bulls earlier in the evening that helped to convince me that staying up and crashing an Irish wedding party at 2 in the morning would be a great idea. It started out at 2 with a all-day-drinking-Neddie arguing with me about how Bush and by extension I were essentially fuckers. Took about half an hour to enlighten all-day-drinking-Neddie about my leftist political leanings. It doesn't matter, next thing I know he's singing some songs about the black and tans. I really couldn't understand what he was talking about most of the time. He kept calling me a "Republican" but wouldn't tell me if he meant US or IRA, damn we were drunk. Then the rest of the wedding party shows up and I don't really remember the rest. At least I didn't get the shit beat out of me.
The next day in Limerick was rough.

County Kerry

On the way to Dingle in County Kerry we kept seeing all these pennants on cars for Kerry and Cork, all we knew was that there was an important game between them, but had no idea what game it was.
Football could be the most misinterpreted word in the world. For instance, what we call soccer is also called football in the rest of the world. Yet, other parts of the world could call rugby, football, and then there is Gaelic football which is like a combination of soccer, rugby and volleyball.
At one point, I felt like I kinda knew what was going on with Rugy. My dad and I'd seen a couple games on TV, Ireland and South Africa looked like they were good, we were even starting to talk to people about the games in Clare and Limerick. That's how good we were assimilating. It's Saturday, and we meet our first rude Irishman, a bartender in a pub. We thought we'd drop a little rugby knowledge on this bartender by asking if they would be playing the rugby game of Ireland vs Ukraine on TV. To which he replies "we won't be supportin' that!" Plus some other obviously American guy asks for a martini and he asks what that is, as if he'd never heard of it, calling it some "American drink". Tim says, " I can see why they have a bouncer outside."
After watching Kerry play Cork in their game, I finally realized that there was Gaelic football, I think this might be what the bartender "supported". Damn there are so many types of football.
Owna outside a bar in Dingle says that "Kyle" is "Colum" in Irish.
When we tell a cabbie in Dublin where we're from he replies with "Walk the plank", cockney rhyming slang for yank. He also turns off the meter to show us a round tower.

Random

My power converter makes a buzzing sound when I plug in my laptop. This concerns me.
With the flipped up collars, all the young kids here look look like they're the cool/bad kids from a John Hughes film. Is this coming back or is it just now hitting Ireland?
I think the best possibly part about traveling is the perpetually clean bathroom.

County Clare (continued)

2007-09-12T16:16:00.000-05:00

More whatevers:

The Aran isles are made up of four islands the smallest and closest to the Irish mainland is Innismeer. This is the island we visited. The people of the Aran Isles are fluent in Irish. It's been their primary language since Cromwell in the 17th century, when many Irish fled to the islands. Today many Irish send there kids to the islands for the summer to learn the Irish language. They stay with families where they learn Irish through immersion.
I didn't find the locals to be particularly friendly toward the tourists, but I'm sure it gets old when four boats a day unload a fresh batch of people, especially in a region with so few people. By nature of living on an island for much of your life with 3oo people (max) you probably don't have gregarious tendencies.
There were so many rocks on Innismeer that they'd stack them into walls just to get them out of the way. So it looks like there are crazy mazes all over the island. Check my flickr pages to see what I'm talking about. They would also mix layers of sand and seaweed on top of rocks to create fertile soil in order to be self sufficient.
On the island there was this one church which was completely submerged by sand. You can still see into the church by looking through the roof. The site has become a cemetary which is at the same level as the church. It was pretty odd.
Day 4 still no snakes.
We got a flat tire on the way back from the Aran Isles to Spanish Point. No spare in the trunk. Took three hours to get a replacement car. But it turned out to be pretty cool because we met this wonderful man Mike Wolf (just now realized that Josh has a friend from San Marcus with the same name) who was originally from England who lived across the highway from where we parked. He was extremely helpful. There were three stangers, probably cussing across the street, on this very quiet stretch of highway, and he looked up taxis and check on us several times to make sure everything was ok. He showed Patty and I his conservatory and even gave me a copy of the Webb Society Deep-Sky Observer's Handbook Volume 9 that he put together in his spare time over 4 years. I will find his email address someday and send him a thank you message.
Where we stopped with the flat tire was next to a field with a lot of cows. Mike told us this story of how the owner bought this special breed of bull from France that was particularly mean. It was so mean it broke the owner's ribs when he first approached it. So he called in the vet whose ankle he broke. The owner ended up having to call in the Irish military to take down the bull because he couldn't seem to take it down himself. Now that's one mean ass bull.
Haven't seen a single big box store here. Haven't missed them. Unrelated thought, it's not easy to find bottled water here.
I fucked up and left my windows open with the light on in my hotel room. When I got back several hours later, I had hundreds of tiny flying insects waiting in the room for me. Fortunately, I was told earlier in the night that Ireland doesn't have any mosquitoes, because if it, did I'd probably have West Nile virus right now. After living in a state where just about any creature could kill you, it's comforting to be in a land without any poisonous critters...not sure how much I believe this...
The rumors are true, people like to drink here.
Bands I can't stop listening to on this trip:

Pela
The Twilight Sad
Apparat
St. Vincent
Oh, and Enya since she seems to be playing everywhere we go.

County Clare

2007-09-11T11:48:00.000-05:00

On Sunday my dad, aunt Patty and I drove from Dublin to Spanish Point in County Clare. Here are my notes from the last couple days.

Driving.

The scenery along N7 which runs east-west across Ireland looks a lot like upstate New York. I can see why so many Irish settled there.
On the drive Patty filled us in on an article she read in the paper on "Stab City" aka Limerick. Apparently there is quite a bit of violent crime.
I thought I might die a gruesome death several times riding down R474. Tim did a great job of driving, but the roads are as narrow as the car we're driving. There was one bridge that would only allow one car through at a time. A couple times I suggested "Get in the middle" of the bridge. Finally, I could see this stone wall coming at me so I shouted "Get in the middle!" Thankfully Tim obliged.

Notes about County Clare.

We're staying at the Burke Armada hotel which is named after the Spanish Armada. The hotel is owned by Clare Burke, who's family has lived in County Clare for as far back as she knows. The hotel is named after the Spanish Armada which fought the English off the coast.
Clare's husband John opened the Armada as a small pub in the late 60's. Over time they added a little bit here and a little bit there. Now it's a huge hotel with over 100 rooms and a new addition starting later this year.
Clare was surprised when I asked about boxties, they're like potato crepes. I guess they haven't been made in a couple generations. I had some a Fado's in Austin, they're very tasty.
It's been wonderful sleeping with the windows open, letting in the cool ocean breeze and listening to the waves crashing on the shore.
In Doolin I ordered a cafe americano and asked for it in a to-go cup. The guy served it in a coffee cup. I asked if he has any cups I could use while I'm wandering around the town and he said, "That's the problem with you americans, you're always wandering." I think the tourist season is wearing on him a bit.
I found a map with Oola on it, this is the town where my great great grandfather came from. Tim was saying that it's kinda of far away from where we were and I said, "it's about an hour away. We've been waiting three generations to get there. It's not too far."
Riding the front upper deck of the ferry to Inisheer, Tim says, "Look out there's rainbows coming at us." Right before the splash hits our faces.
Priest I was talking to on the ferry, "You can't tell an Irishman what to do." Explaining why Ireland had stopped mandatory Irish in the schools. Irish is still taught in the better schools, so parents are putting their kids in those schools. But when it was forced on everyone it was a different story.
More to come....

Day 2 in Dublin

2007-09-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

No internet access the past couple days. Here's the run down of the last day in Dublin. By the way, I've been posting pictures of the trip on flicker

Here are observations I jotted down while wandering around:

It's impossible to get a cup o' joe. The only option most places is cafe americano which is espresso with hot water. Other places just have instant coffee.
There are a ton people from other countries in Dublin. This impression could be the result of only spending time at the tourist spots.
45 pounds per year for 9000 years. This is the sweetheart deal Guinness has for 60 acres in downtown. My dad mentions that the properties in the newspaper are going for anywhere from 500,000 Euros to over a million for modest sized homes.
My cell doesn't work in Europe because it's CDMA. So I haven't had it with me for the last couple days. Sometimes I think I that feel the vibration of it going off in my pocket, like an itch amputees get on their missing limbs.
Finally found fresh brewed coffee. It comes in the irish coffee at the Jameson's distillery.
The Guinness brewery has the best view of downtown Dublin. There aren't any tall buildings in Dublin. So the 7th story bar towers over the rest of the city. All the walls of the bar are glass so you have a 360 degree view of the surrounding area.
The river Lifey is pronounced like "lift" not "life".

Quotes from Dublin:

"It's like sheep porn." Comment after looking at a rack of post cards containing hundreds of pictures of sheep.
"What team do you play for?" by my aunt Patty. The Celtic games were taking place in Dublin the weekend we were there, so we saw lots of people in different jerseys. Patty asked this question of the girls below, who we found out were going to a 72 hour dj festival, which I regrettably missed.

"Don't worry, it'd cost me too much if I hit you." - Taxi driver to Tim after he jumped away from his car, because Tim got a little nervous.
"Took the smile right off your face, didn't I?" - Dublin tour bus driver. We were running up as he closed the door and drove 10 feet. The he opened the door and let us on.

4,694 Miles Later

2007-09-07T15:46:00.000-05:00

I'm about to finish my first day in Dublin. I think I feel right now how Sammy must feel most of the time. I've had approximately 2 bad hours of sleep the past two days. Woke up at 7am Wed to finish packing and get to the airport. Had a 5 hour layover in Newark. The layover wasn't bad, since my dad hooked me up with a Continental Presidents Club card and I had the free drink hookup. The flight for Dublin left at 10pm EST, landed at Dublin airport at 10am local time. It was impossible to get comfortable enough to sleep for long on the plane.

In this sleep deprived state, we now get to drive from the airport to the hotel. I'm really glad Tim was driving. But it was pretty funny when he got in to back up the car and was sitting on the wrong side. I must admit that riding on the other side of the road is pretty intense.

I notice that I bump into people while walking here all the time. You know how when people are walking in opposite directions back home how everyone gravitates to the right side of the sidewalk or door? Well here it's the opposite, just like the driving. It's really hard to rewire myself to dodge by going to the left.

All I wanted to do was sleep when I got to the hotel this morning, but every jet lag suggestions site says to force yourself to stay up and go to sleep at the regular local time. So we ended up taking a train into downtown Dublin and took a site seeing tour bus around the city. Which would have seemed lame to me two days ago, but it was about all I could handle in my sleep deprived state. Now I'm thinking it was a good idea, because we know were everything is and got more ideas on what to go see and do tomorrow.

My Aunt Patty can't stop mentioning how Irish everyone looks. It is kinda weird, in that everyone has similar features to me, my dad and my aunt, which is different from about every place I've been outside of upstate New York. Another thing that's cool is most of the people here are paler than I am. I don't know that I've ever experienced this. Except for the time I delivered pizza to 3 african-american albinos who shared and apartment in Denton. But that was freaky, this is cool.

White is the New Beige

2007-09-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

Has anyone else noticed that Apple has moved away from white devices? With the new iPods there isn't a single white option. The new iMac has taken on a brushed aluminum over the previous white. The MacBook is one of the last with the white option. I remember when it came out the black MacBooks were priced $200 more just because they were black. This may have signaled the end of Apple's sparked white molded plastic electronics movement.

I give it 10 years before retro white devices make a comeback.

ps About the new iPods, couldn't they have made a touch iPod with a hard drive? 16 Gb doesn't cut it.

Emerald Isle

2007-09-05T22:40:00.000-05:00

I'm finally packed for my first overseas trip to Ireland. Many thanks to Molly for suggesting the compression bags, because of them I have tons of room to stash a bottle or two of Jameson's in it for the return trip. Also thanks to Mary and Sammy for their recommendations on where to go and what to do.

I'm meeting up with my dad and aunt Patty in the Continental Airlines presidents lounge in Newark tomorrow where we leave for Dublin. My layover is for four hours, so I should be sleeping pretty well on the flight.

We'll be in Dublin for a couple days before heading to County Clare. From there I have no idea where we're going, but I'm sure we'll cross a pub or two. Our hope is to track down more info on where my great great grandfather came from, we know the general area from his gravestone in Keeseville, New York but we don't know anything about his parents, siblings or other relatives.

With any luck, I'll find free wireless while I'm there and be able to post pictures of the trip and be able to maintain a bit of a travel blog.

And Now Something Really Sweet

2007-08-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

NINJAS!!!

One of my earlier posts on this blog three years ago was devoted to ninjas. Incredibly they're no less cool now than they were then. But it's only been recently that people have begun to uncover how ninjas work.

In Case You're Looking For Me This Month ...

2007-04-09T14:03:00.000-05:00

I'll be at Emos.

13th - Die! Die! Die!
14th - Sebadoh with original lineup
18th - Deerhunter with the Pony's and Brightblack Morning Light
20th - Parts and Labor
21st - Tapes N Tapes
27th - Sunset Rubdown

Can the body take that many Sparkleberries?

SXSW 2007 Show Reviews

2007-03-18T15:11:00.000-05:00

Here are some short notes on the bands I saw this past week. Most of them written after drinking for hours.

Wednesday

Prototypes - Looks like they have garages in France too.
Menomena - Fire sound guy at Beauty Bar. Sammy says, "Boring. Pussy rock."
Black Angels - Incredible percussion. Dark guitar riffs. Moody vocals. Check!
Hogpig - Can I get a little metal, please?
Blacklist - Drummer wearing a leather jacket? Too busy looking cool not being good.
Lilly Allen - Live dancehall with full band. Damn she's sassy.
The Comas - Why the fuck am I back at the Beauty Bar?
Rob Crowe - Love his voice, wish I could catch the lyrics.
Die! Die! Die! - Please don't take my knee out. I think I'll need that later
Blonde Redhead - Would sound much better at home with the lights out.
Schwazy - schweet slacker rap and there's enough crack (butt) here for everyone.

Thursday

Andrew Bird - Whistling, violin, xylophone and harmonica are not typical components of music I like, but this was great.
Pete Townsend - Solo acoustic rendition of a song off quadraphenia. He's been doing this for 45+ years, wow!
Kid Beyond - Spot on beatbox remix of Nine Inch Nails song, incredible!
The Shys - Only song I liked was the sample from SXSW site.
Bob Mould - Solo acoustic. Is there anyone better than him and Rob Crowe at crafting a bitter sweet pop song?
Cold War Kids - Best show of SXSW at this point. Start with 4 people on stage end with 30.
Don Caballero - Not doing it for me.
Jesu - The sound guy really likes bass. Can't hear any of the guitar, which is what I came for.
These Arms Are Snakes - I just moshed myself sober.

Friday

Breast Feeders - Sharing a garage with the Prototypes. Best tambourine player ever!
Thurston Moore - It's a feedback party and you're invited. Set list = 1 song.
Clem Snide - Please something good happen to this man. If not, I'll continue to enjoy the music his misery creates.
Perry Ferrell's Satellite Party - Nice shiny pants. Steve keeps saying "Kill me now!"
Yuppie Pricks - Hummer in My Hummer, an instant classic.
The Clutter - Always great straight up Rock & Roll.
Ariel Pink - Why, oh why did I have to see this show?

Saturday

Pink Nasty - CD is good, no advantage in hearing the songs live.
7 Shot Screamers - Ooops forgot that every rock-a-billy song sounds the same.
Walter Meego - Wish I'd gotten here earlier, good electronic pop.
The Parlor Mob - Singer has a picture of Robert Plant on his bedroom wall.
Danielia Cotton - Little black girl rocked my world. Back in Black finale, magnificent!
Marnie Stern - I really hate it when bands start 15 minutes late. Josh reports that badge line at Stubbs is around the block for Stooges.
Kid Koala - Amazing, spins 3 records without headphones.
Amon Tobin - One of the best shows I've ever seen! I felt like I was in one of the crowd scenes from It's All Gone Pete Tong. Encore with Kid Koala was insane, speed metal scratches with Tobins big beats, oh so crunchy, I think this is what the big bang sounded like.

SXSW 2007

2007-03-11T22:52:00.000-05:00

Well I starting to feel pretty good about the upcoming SXSW. I spent a couple weeks listening to over 700 songs from different bands that are playing this year. There are almost 1800 bands playing showcases this year.

Here's my list of bands that to check out. There no way I'll be able to see everything, so I've highlighted the ones I can't miss.

Wednesday, 14 March 2007

08:00PM Chris Letcher (Red 7)
08:00PM The Diffs (Redrum)
08:15PM iLiKETRAiNS (Emo's Jr)
08:30PM the Comas (Beauty Bar Patio)
09:00PM Rubicks (Co-op Bar)
09:00PM Hogpig (Bourbon Rocks)
09:00PM Imperial Teen (Antone's)
09:45PM Blacklist (Elysium)
10:00PM The Dansettes (Continental Club)
10:45PM The Twilight Sad (Mohawk Patio)
11:00PM Lily Allen (Stubb's)
11:15PM Calla (Emo's Jr)
11:20PM The Faceless Werewolves (Beerland)
11:45PM Rob Crow (Mohawk Patio)
12:00AM Experimental Aircraft (Blender Balcony at the Ritz)
12:00AM All the Saints (Lambert's)
12:00AM Holy Fuck (Beauty Bar)
12:00AM Damien Dempsey (Copa)
12:00AM mothercoat (Latitude 30)
12:00AM The Sammies (Light Bar)
12:00AM Manic (Bourbon Rocks)
12:15AM Die! Die! Die! (Habana Calle 6 Patio)
12:30AM Peter, Bjorn and John (La Zona Rosa)
12:45AM Blonde Redhead (Emo's Main Room)
01:00AM Black Moth Super Rainbow (Blender Balcony at the Ritz)
01:00AM KTU (Pohjonen, Gunn, Mastelotto) (Uncle Flirty's Loft)
01:00AM Bermuda Triangle (Co-op Bar)
01:00AM The Wombats (Friends)
01:00AM Les Savy Fav (Red Eyed Fly)
01:00AM Special Guests from Austin TX (Antone's)

Thursday, 15 March 2007

06:00PM Rachel Fuller w/ Special Guests (La Zona Rosa)
08:00PM Errors (Karma Lounge)
08:00PM Ana Laan (Visions)
08:00PM Kid Beyond (Elysium)
08:00PM The Cinematics (Flamingo Cantina)
08:30PM The Shys (Exodus)
08:30PM The Besnard Lakes (Mohawk Patio)
09:00PM Young Widows (Lambert's)
09:00PM Bob Mould (Buffalo Billiards)
09:30PM Jim Bianco (The Parish)
09:40PM Bisc1 (Spiro's)
10:00PM Cut Off Your Hands (Co-op Bar)
10:00PM Cold War Kids (La Zona Rosa)
10:00PM Bang Bang Bang (Opal Divine's Freehouse)
10:00PM Special Guest (Eternal)
10:30PM Shout Out Out Out Out (Beauty Bar Patio)
11:00PM Champion (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
11:00PM Fujiya & Miyagi (Karma Lounge)
11:00PM The Octopus Project (Emo's Main Room)
11:00PM The Dears (Stubb's)
11:00PM David Vandervelde (Mohawk)
11:00PM MuteMath (Dirty Dog Bar)
11:00PM Lionheart Brothers (Emo's Jr)
11:00PM Architecture in Helsinki (La Zona Rosa)
11:00PM Panthers (Flamingo Cantina)
11:00PM Don Caballero (Room 710)
11:15PM Ocelot (Beauty Bar)
11:30PM Land Of Talk (Maggie Mae's)
11:30PM JESU (Emo's Annex)
11:40PM Air Traffic (The Rio)
12:00AM RWAKE (Room 710)
12:00AM DATAROCK (Emo's Jr)
12:00AM Deerhunter (Soho Lounge)
12:00AM Ghostland Observatory (La Zona Rosa)
12:00AM Bloc Party (Stubb's)
12:00AM Amy Winehouse (Eternal)
12:00AM Fucked Up (Lambert's)
12:00AM Special Guest (Karma Lounge)
12:15AM Shitdisco (Beauty Bar Patio)
12:30AM Vashti Bunyan (Central Presbyterian Church)
12:45AM Okkervil River (Mohawk Patio)
01:00AM Fair to Midland (Eternal)
01:00AM Asobi Seksu (The Parish II)
01:00AM Menomena (Buffalo Billiards)
01:00AM Voxtrot (Emo's Main Room)
01:00AM Pop Levi (The Ale House)
01:00AM These Arms Are Snakes (Lambert's)
01:00AM Special Guests (Habana Calle 6)

Friday, 16 March 2007

01:00PM The Buzzcocks (SXSW Live Austin Convention Center)
07:45PM Public Enemy (SXSW Dew Music Festival at Town Lake)
08:00PM Thurston Moore Instrumental (Mohawk)
08:00PM Cities (Dirty Dog Bar)
08:00PM Special Guests (Club de Ville)
09:00PM Adrienne Pierce (Light Bar)
09:00PM Clem Snide (Buffalo Billiards)
09:00PM Peter, Bjorn and John (SXSW Live Austin Convention Center)
09:30PM Andrew Bird (Stubb's)
09:30PM Smut Peddlers (Emo's Jr)
09:30PM Sybris (Red Eyed Fly)
10:00PM Ane Brun (18th Floor at Hilton Garden Inn)
10:00PM Six Parts Seven (Maggie Mae's)
10:30PM Perry Farrell's Satellite Party (Stubb's)
11:00PM Yuppie Pricks (Habana Calle 6)
11:00PM The Black Angels (Antone's)
11:00PM Los Abandoned (The Rio)
11:00PM Clockcleaner (Exodus)
11:20PM Bedroom Walls (Club One 15)
11:30PM Daedelus (Zero Degrees)
11:30PM Badly Drawn Boy (Stubb's)
11:30PM Thurston Moore Songz plus special guest (Mohawk Patio)
11:40PM Hoodoo Gurus (Blender Bar at the Ritz)
11:45PM Special Guest (La Zona Rosa)
12:00AM The Clutters (Habana Calle 6)
12:00AM Apostle of Hustle (Habana Calle 6 Annex)
12:45AM The Walkmen (Emo's Annex)
12:45AM The Good, The Bad & The Queen (Stubb's)
01:00AM The Ettes (Whisky Bar)
01:00AM The Emeralds (Elysium)
01:00AM Ariel Pink (The Ale House)
01:00AM Beach House (The Tap Room at Six)
01:00AM Sasquatch (Room 710)
01:00AM The Woggles (Habana Calle 6)
01:00AM Special Guests (Habana Calle 6 Annex)

Saturday, 17 March 2007

02:00PM Gallows (SXSW Dew Music Festival at Town Lake)
07:30PM Special Guest (Whisky Bar)
08:00PM 7 Shot Screamers (Dirty Dog Bar)
08:00PM Pink Nasty (Elysium)
08:00PM Buzzcocks (Emo's Main Room)
08:00PM Walter Meego (Exodus)
08:00PM Mastodon (SXSW Dew Music Festival at Town Lake)
09:00PM Danielia Cotton (The Ale House)
09:00PM The Parlor Mob (Bourbon Rocks)
09:00PM Mew (La Zona Rosa)
09:00PM Honky (Dirty Dog Bar)
09:00PM The Berg Sans Nipple (Elysium)
09:00PM Jello Biafra (spoken word) (The Parish II)
09:15PM Electric Apricot featuring Les Claypool (Opal Divine's Freehouse)
09:15PM Meat Puppets (Emo's Main Room)
09:40PM ANAVAN (Emo's Jr)
10:00PM Golem (Habana Calle 6 Annex)
10:00PM Metro Riots (Lambert's)
10:00PM Tia Carrera (Red 7)
10:00PM Marnie Stern (Emo's IV Lounge)
10:00PM Kings of Leon (Stubb's)
10:00PM The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello solo acoustic) (Central Presbyterian Church)
11:00PM Bang Gang (Elysium)
11:00PM Lions (Bourbon Rocks)
11:10PM Lesbians On Ecstasy (Exodus)
11:10PM Ryno (Zero Degrees)
11:30PM Detroit Cobras (Red Eyed Fly)
12:00AM Lab Partners (Lambert's)
12:00AM Lions In The Street (Club de Ville)
12:00AM Au Revoir Simone (Copa)
12:00AM Prototypes (Exodus)
12:00AM The Presidents of the United States of America (Maggie Mae's Rooftop)
12:15AM Amon Tobin (The Parish)
12:30AM The Stooges (Stubb's)
12:30AM Special Guests (Cedar Street Courtyard)
12:30AM Special Guests (Emo's Annex)
01:00AM Gorch Fock (Red 7)
01:00AM Special Guests (Room 710)

My 20 Best CDs of 2006

2006-12-26T07:56:00.000-06:00

Passover - Black Angels
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet
Broken Boy Soldiers - Raconteurs
The Campfire Headphase - Boards of Canada
Stay Afraid - Parts & Labor
Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Shut Up I Am Dreaming - Sunset Rubdown
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood - Neko Case
The Loon - Tapes 'n Tapes
Vessel States - Wilderness
A Life Less Lived - The Gothic Boxed Set
Silent Shout - The Knife
Garden Ruin - Calexico
Bang Bang Rock & Roll - Art Brut
Rather Ripped - Sonic Youth
Show Your Bones -Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
Everything All The Time - Band of Horses

CDs I still need to check out from 2006:

Built To Spill - You In Reverse
LCD Sound System - 45:33
TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Beck - The Information
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light
Swan Lake - Beast Moans
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Balad of the Broken Seas
Converge - No Heroes
The Futureheads: News & Tributes

T-Mobile Phishing

2006-11-26T17:53:00.000-06:00

I got a couple calls today from people claiming to be from T-Mobile using a restricted phone number. They said that I'm delinquent on a $156 bill from 2004 and that they were going to report it to a credit collections company.

I called T-Mobile directly to verify their claim and was told that I left everything in good standing (I've been with Verizon for the last couple years). After I called T-Mobile, the "collections" people called back. Fortunately, I didn't give them any personal information on the earlier calls. Once I told them that I cleared everything with T-Mobile and that I wouldn't give them any information, they immediately hung up.

Thought of the Day

2006-10-12T11:06:00.000-05:00

Web sites are like digital toilet paper.

Drunkest cities in the US

2006-09-08T13:27:00.000-05:00

Here's a Forbes article on the drunkest cities in the US. Austin's #4 before I moved here it was #10.

Planetarium Hell

2006-08-25T08:52:00.001-05:00

Pluto was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet earlier today by the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union.

In other planetary news, did you know that there is a movement to change the pronounciation of Uranus? Instead of y-rns prudish Jr High teachers are pronouncing it yr-ns. Nothing they can do about the Sperm whale.

SoCo Seems To Be Moving My Way

2006-08-18T20:09:00.000-05:00

I was driving down Congress yesterday and noticed what looked to be a big development project breaking ground. Ramona said she thought it was going to be the site of some new lofts. Well she's right, it's going to be the home of the SoCo Lofts. Do they have to look like a warehouse?

When I bought my house earlier this year, I admit to harboring fantasies of all my favorite SoCo shops uprooting and planting themselves right around Hills Cafe. Maybe rent would become so expensive that Vulcan Video, Jo's Coffee and Ecowise would have to move a couple miles south closer to me.

I'm already pretty lucky to have Hills Cafe, Ruta Maya, El Borrego del Orro, Opal Divine, Amy's and Crowne less than a mile away. If only some of it would cross 290 to my side of Congress.

A Saturday

2006-04-08T22:15:00.000-05:00

Started by heading out to a cafe called Subeez, a trendy yet cool cafe/bar with a goth theme. Ate a delicious thai salmon sandwich on a baguet with chili mayo, I'll be going back.

While walking to buy tickets see Wilderness and Pinback at a nearby record store, realized that there are some really big freakin' birds here. I think one mistook my head as a furry rabbit and swooped in pretty damn close. Downtown Vancouver is surrounded on 3 sides by water so I guess I can expect to see some pretty big sea birds flying around.

Found out about the Sasquatch! Music Festival, which is happening over Memorial Day weekend. Line up includes: Nine Inch Nails, Bauhaus, Trail of Dead, Shins, Neko Case, Flaming Lips, Beck, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the Arctic Monkeys, and those are just the bands that I gotta see. Probably won't be able to make it, because of prior commitments that weekend.

Decided to check out Robson Street which is about a two mile stretch full of all kinds of shops. After walking up and down Robson, I find it to be just like an outdoor mall complete with Gap, Express and Payless Shoe store with added bonus of bars.

While walking down the street, I saw two skinny white kids; who watched too much "Yo MTV Raps", or whatever the equivalent is maybe it's all MTV programming now, screwing around with this scrawny semi-toothless homeless looking guy who had a bike (the bike makes me think maybe not homeless, but everything else about it was pure hobo). The hobo calls out skinny M&M# 1 and says, "Come on man just you and me", this was repeated about 5 or 6 times. The two decide something along the lines of "uh oh this guy's serious", back down a bit, then chuck a drink at hobo's bike and start rapidly walking off. Apparently, they forgot that our hero has a bicycle, as they are walking away, he rides by and pops skinny M&M #1 really good along the side of the face, not an easy thing to do with a sidewalk full of people. As our hero is riding off into the sunset, the two give chase. As they are racing after him though, their baggy pants drop off their asses almost to their knees. By this time, because the pant malfunction, our hero has exacted his vengeance and has gotten away. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Here's another Vancouver picture. Anne says this is a tulip tree.

Oh, and here's a picture of Josh in a baby seat.

Late SXSW Recap

2006-03-29T00:33:00.000-06:00

The best shows I saw at SXSW in chronological order:

Sleater Kinney
Gorch Fock
Bright Channel
Lesbians on ecstasy
Art Brut
Sereena Maneesh
The Black Angels
Art Brut (not as good second time around)
The Go! Team
Beastie Boys (Had the feel of a spontaneous unrehearsed show, fucking incredible)
Hurrah Torpedo
Tapes & Tapes
Darker My Love (along with Lesbians on ecstasy the greatest unexpected surprise)
Subways
Arctic Monkeys
Neko Case

Watched Old Boy. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. It's got everything - humor, vengeance, martial arts, angry hero wielding a claw hammer, plot twists galore, mystery, and a little love story (for the ladies).

Ugly American

2006-03-29T00:00:00.000-06:00

It's the simple things where you realize, "shit! This isn't Texas any more." Picking up a couple thing at the market on the corner, I stopped at the deli and asked for a 1/4 pound of potato salad. Getting a quizzical look from the attendant, I thought, "hmm, maybe that's too small a portion of potato salad." So I instead I changed my order and said "just make it a small container." As she's filling the container, it dawns on me, "Damned metric system!"

Here's a picture from outside the office building where I work. It was dark and I didn't have a tripod, but you can almost see the lights on the ski slope.

Right after taking that picture, while walking to the train station a rat scurried across my path. Vancouver's got everything!

Still haven't had the chance to ask a thick accented native to read aloud:

A boot
A boat
about

Curious to see how different they all sound.

I lost my profession composure the other day when Sean, who I work with, was talking on the phone as said with dreadful seriousness, "Did you take a dump this morning?" I could be 100 and still snicker at hearing that phrase.

Vancouver

2006-03-27T00:08:00.000-06:00

Well I've been in Vacouver almost a week now. I think I've almost finally caught up on sleep after an great swsw followed immediately by a long flight up here that left me leaving immigration at 2:30 a.m. local time. I'm staying in a furnished apartment downtown while I work at the Telus office. The picture is the view out the window of my living room at night.

My first day here was quite challenging. I had to wake up early in the morning after my late arrival to meet with my leasing agent. Signed the rental agreement. Got my bags from the hotel to taxi to the new apt. Once I'd loaded everything into the new apt, it was time to take a train to work. Only one problem, I didn't have any Canadian money. Tried an ATM but it rejected my bank card. Fortunately, I was able to buy tickets with a credit card. I later found out that some ATMs will work with my bank card while many won't, depends upon the banking network they use.

Everything has been pretty cool here so far. Spent the weekend wandering around the neighborhood to see what sort of stuff is close: Tons of restaurants, beauty salons, clothing stores, trendy furniture stores, a whole strip of XXX shops, bars, grocery stores. Looks like there won't be any need for me to get a car, everything I need is within a couple blocks.

I finally talked to Verizon to switch my plan to one that includes Canada, so I can stop answering my cell phone with "Hey! I'm in Vancouver and this call is international and roaming! Make it snappy!"

Saw my first person shooting up on the street today. They were tearing up caution tape from a building site and using it to tie off. Read something in the paper here where the police have been cracking down on people fixing in public, I guess it's against the law. The heroin addicts have a park designated for doing their dirty business but the crack addicts feel like they are being descriminated against because they don't have the option of hanging out in a park, so they get busted more frequently by the police, crazy city, but I kinda like it. Especially, when I'm reading in the paper up here about how TABC in Texas can bust you for being drunk in a bar. I wonder what the criteria is for drunk. Is it the same as the legal limit for driving? What's next? Are they going to go to parties and anyone but the hosts who are drunk get busted?

New House

2006-01-27T16:14:00.000-06:00

I've been looking for a house the past couple months, and going back and forth on whether to buy or continue to rent. It's a trick to find a decent, inexpensive house in Austin close to downtown. Well I think I've found the perfect place for my first home. Here's a little tour if you're interested.

Airfoil

2005-12-19T10:25:00.000-06:00

I have an Airport Express with airtunes. It's a wireless router, that has an audio connection that you can use to stream audio from iTunes to your stereo. Unfortunately the way it's designed you can only use iTunes to send music to the Airport Express.

I've been trying for a while to figure out a way to stream RealAudio to the Airport, so that I can listen to KVRX during the day when they only broadcast over the net. Airfoil is an app I found today that will let you broadcast audio from any application on your Mac to your Airport. If you have an Airport Express, it opens up a lot more options for what you can stream to your stereo.

Music List

2005-11-22T11:17:00.000-06:00

Some exceptionsal new CD's I've been listening to lately:

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Howl
Blood on the Wall - Awesomer
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
The National - Alligator
The Octopus Project - One Ten Hundred Thousand Million
Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh
The Wilderness - Wilderness
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

Some old CD's I've recently discovered

Blind Melon - Soup
Elliot Smith - Everything
The Verve - A Storm in Heaven

Looking for a new job

2005-09-26T15:39:00.000-05:00

The lease for Verio's Austin office space is finally up October 31st. Upper management has decided to close the office and has given everyone who works here until the 31st to find a new job. Some people may have the option to stay with Verio and work from home after the 31st, but I don't think anyone is willing to give up their severance package to do that.

I posted my resume on Dice last week to see if I'd get much interest. I'm willing to relocate to another city because I'm not sure how many jobs there are in Austin for J2EE developers who have specialization in BEA WebLogic app servers. Since I'm willing to relocate, I've received a lot of interest from cities in the NYC, VA, NJ and LA areas. I believe that head hunters like to look for people from cities with a low cost of living and transplant them with minimal salary increases to cities with higher costs of living. It can be very difficult to determine an equivalent salary in different metropolitan area fortunately I discovered this salary calculator to give me a hand.

Salary.com's calculator may be better than the previous one. I evaluates salary ranges for a give position in different metro areas.

Smoking Ordinance

2005-08-29T09:11:00.000-05:00

The smoking ordinance goes into effect this Thursday. The ordinance restricts smoking within 15 feet of the door. I'm curious to see how that's going to work on 6th st. and Red River when the bars are stacked one on top of the other. Will there be yellow lines drawn on the sidewalk indicating that it's safe to smoke after that point?

Interestingly, there are some place left where you can still drink and smoke in Austin after the ordinance goes into effect. Here's the list:

The current city smoking ordinance permits smoking in bars and some restaurants. The smoking ban that will go into effect on Thursday restricts smoking to bingo halls, fraternal organizations and only this handful of Austin restaurants that have special filtration systems:

IHOP No. 1421, 707 E. Cesar Chavez St.
Trudy's, 8820 Burnet Road
Bennigan's, 13995 U.S. 183 North
Cool River, 4001 West Parmer Lane
Hooters, 13701 U.S. 183 North
Shoal Creek Saloon, 909 N. Lamar Blvd.
Trudy's, 4141 Capital of Texas Highway (Loop 360)
Iron Cactus, 10001 Stonelake Blvd.

Guess I'll be seeing everyon at Shoal Creek Saloon! :)

ITunes Visualizer

2005-07-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

Key commands to control the ITunes Visualiser settings.

Living in small spaces

2005-06-02T09:25:00.000-05:00

About a year ago I started becoming interested in living in smaller spaces. My current little 1/1 is a test to this interest ;-). I think the typical trade off of living in a smaller space is sacrificing living area to be in a more livable area. It's a way to live in or near downtown, a way to stay out of the suburbs with their commute, chain restaurants, strip malls and tiny tree in the front yard slightly off center.

Living in a smaller space does require a shift. Any pack rat tendencies need to be addressed. For me the great part is purging crap that I've moved around for years and rarely used. When you're pressed for space the decision becomes easier on whether to keep that sweater you've worn once in the last 4 years. Also, it requires creativity when figuring out where things go, and how to optimize the little space you have to work with.

Here's a fun article from the statesman on the art of small living. I loved the pictures of some creative space saving solutions.

I like my tiny house. I like figuring out how to make what I have work better in the little space that I have. I like it much better than living in a place that's much bigger than I need and trying to fill the space to make it feel lived in.

Secret UK Memo on Iraq

2005-05-18T13:07:00.000-05:00

A memo from July 23, 2002 detailing the US plans to invade Iraq has been published on several UK sites. Some highlights:

"The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections."

Hmmm, could the war in Iraq have been politically motivated, designed to stir up wartime patriotic passions right before the election in hope of winning a few more congressional seats?

The main point that jumps out, is that there was a very weak case for war against Iraq and that the Bush administration was left with a plan of trying to provoke Saddam in order to mobilize against Iraq.

Nothing really new here, just nice getting that reinforcement in knowing that I was right all along.

SXSW Followup II

2005-04-20T14:35:00.000-05:00

I went over the bands I'd tagged "must see" a couple days ago. The following is a list of shows I had resonably high expectations for that fell flat.

* Echo Base Soundsystem - I had such high hopes for these guys after being the drummer's neighbor for a couple months last year. It was wall-to-wall white boy dreads. For future reference this is not a sign that the show is going to be great. The group of us left soon after I detected "noodling".

* Twinemen - The two other guys from Morphine were in this band. They were so entertaining, I spent most of the show watching some guy sleep through all the racket and talking to some french dude about cheese.

* Fatboy Slim - He DJ'd the whole set, not playing any of his music. The show had a rave feel to it, but it was outside at Stubbs and there weren't any drugs.

* Aqualung - These guys weren't on my list, but I had to endure them in order to see Bloc Party a show later. Not good. Surrounded by old people making out. Snuck off to a corner and listened to my ipod.

* Bleach 03 - Josh and I kicked things off the day before SXSW by going to Bleach 03's CD release party. This 3 piece comprised of cute little japanese girls fucking blew me away. Easily the hardest METAL show I saw the whole week. They were so good we decide to see their showcase at the whisky bar. The whisky bar doesn't have a stage so these cute little japanese girls are set up on the floor, surrounded by wall of guys 6'3" and taller. The only way to see anything was to look at the view screen on a camcorder held by a guy standing on a bar stool.

Dallas vs Houston

2005-04-20T14:22:00.000-05:00

Dallas plays Houston in the first round of the NBA playoffs that begin this weekend and I think Dallas is going to win. Even though they lost the last two games during the regular season to the Rockets, both losses were before Avery Johnson took over as coach.

The last game they played on March 6th Dallas lost 90 - 69. Dallas was missing Nowitzki, Finley and Dampier.

The game on January 12 Dallas lost 124 - 114. Dallas was missing Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels. McGrady had a big game, and I'm sure Howard would have slowed him down some. Plus Nelson was coaching and only gave Dampier 19 minutes.

The big issue for Houston will be that Juwan Howard is out for the rest of the season. He played Nowitzki pretty well defensively and had enough offensive game to keep Dirk honest on defense. Houston doesn't have anyone who is going to be able to keep up with Dirk or Van Horn.

At center, I think that Dampier, Bradley and Henderson will be fine against Ming.

At point guard, Bobby Sura is a legitimate triple double threat. Jason Terry and Devin Harris are extremely quick and play great defense. I'm not sure who has the advantage here.

Shooting guard, Wesley and Barry for Houston, Finley, Stackhouse and Daniels for Dallas. Big advantage for Dallas.

Small forward - McGrady vs. Howard. Howard should guard McGrady as well as anyone can. But Tracy will still have big games.

Dallas has so much more size than Houston and that they should own the paint, as long as they can stop Houstons 3 point shooting, I think they have a great chance of advancing to the next round of the playoffs.

SXSW Followup

2005-04-15T17:32:00.000-05:00

I think I've finally recovered from South by Southwest. Out of the must see bands from my last post, I was able to check out:

* The Octopus Project - Local band, these guys/gal are great, will see again and again.

* Mono - Instrumental band out of Japan, think wall of sound/sonic landscapes, beautiful.

* Holy Fuck - Crazy ass band out of Toronto. Very experimental. Loved every second of it. Donated a glow stick to the main sound creator so he could read his tiny little casio.

* LCD Sound System - Line was around the block for hours before the show. M.I.A played 2 hours before them, there was now way to get into that show.

* The Kills - Saw them at a day show at the Red Eye Fly. Think "What would happen if Peter Murphy and Siouxsie Sioux decided to form a two piece band". The best show of SXSW.

* Viva K - Not a very strong show. The band was good but vocal were lacking.

* Bloc Party - Ended up seeing these guys 3 times. All three shows were really good, I like the last show at the Vice Party best, probably because of the free Sparks. I can see myself being really annoyed by them 6 months from now, but today I'm hooked.

* Calexico - I've seen the a couple times before and the shows ranked up there with some of the best I've ever seen. But the day show at Emos was weak. They were having sound problems and lacked the energy I've come to expect.

SXSW Schedule

2005-03-15T16:32:00.000-06:00

Here's the list of bands I'm interested in seeing this SXSW:

My must sees are:

The Octopus Project
Mono
Holy Fuck
LCD Sound System
The Kills
Viva K
Bloc Party
Calexico

Wednesday, 16 March 2005
[X] 05:59PM Eugene Mirman (Emo's Jr.)
[X] 08:00PM Robyn Hitchcock (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 09:00PM Jetscreamer (Friends)
[X] 09:00PM We Are Scientists (Hard Rock Cafe)
[X] 09:00PM Trespassers William (Copa)
[X] 09:45PM America is Waiting (Hard Rock Cafe)
[X] 10:00PM The Chapters (Blender Balcony at The Ritz)
[X] 10:00PM This Microwave World (Chuggin' Monkey)
[X] 10:00PM Mike Doughty (Buffalo Billiards)
[X] 11:00PM The Octopus Project (The Velvet Spade Patio)
[X] 11:00PM Midlake (Friends)
[X] 11:00PM The Winks (Beerland)
[X] 11:00PM Appogee (The Velvet Spade)
[X] 11:00PM Echo Base Soundsystem (Flamingo Cantina)
[X] 11:00PM The Thermals (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 11:00PM Modey Lemon (Club de Ville)
[X] 11:00PM La Tia Carrera (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 12:00AM Areola 51 (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 12:00AM The Album Leaf (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 12:00AM Twinemen (Blender Bar at The Ritz)
[X] 01:00AM Laika & The Cosmonauts (The Drink)
[X] 01:00AM The Zom Zoms (Chuggin' Monkey)
[X] 01:00AM Hella (Emo's Jr.)
[X] 01:00AM Migas (The Jackalope)
[X] 01:00AM Mono (Eternal)
[X] 01:00AM Sleater-Kinney (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 01:00AM Canoe (Blender Balcony at The Ritz)
[X] 01:00AM The Wrens (The Parish)

Thursday, 17 March 2005
[X] 08:00PM NickNack (Zero Degrees)
[X] 08:00PM Film School (Buffalo Billiards)
[X] 09:30PM Veronica Lipgloss & The Evil Eyes (Emo's Jr.)
[X] 10:00PM The Deathray Davies (Room 710)
[X] 10:00PM Holy Fuck (The Velvet Spade)
[X] 10:00PM Robyn Hitchcock (Blender Balcony at The Ritz)
[X] 11:00PM The Soundtrack Of Our Lives (Austin Music Hall)
[X] 11:00PM MXPX (Emo's Annex)
[X] 11:00PM M.I.A. (Elysium)
[X] 11:00PM The Futureheads (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 11:15PM Graham Coxon (Stubb's)
[X] 11:30PM Silver (Maggie Mae's)
[X] 12:00AM Open Hand (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 12:00AM Hot Hot Heat (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 12:15AM The Earlies (Maggie Mae's)
[X] 12:15AM Robert Plant and Strange Sensation (Austin Music Hall)
[X] 12:30AM Fatboy Slim (Stubb's)
[X] 01:00AM Single Frame (Co-op Bar)
[X] 01:00AM Magnapop (Lava Lounge Patio)
[X] 01:00AM Flametrick Subs w/ Satan's Cheerleaders (The Jackalope)
[X] 01:00AM LCD Soundsystem (Elysium)

Friday, 18 March 2005
[X] 10:00PM The Kills (Emo's Main Room)
[X] 10:00PM Bloc Party (Stubb's)
[X] 10:30PM Robyn Hitchcock (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 11:00PM The Go! Team (Buffalo Billiards)
[X] 11:00PM Noodles (Caribbean Lights)
[X] 11:00PM Ash (Eternal)
[X] 11:00PM Viva K (Pecan St. Ale House)
[X] 12:00AM BLEACH03 (Whisky Bar)
[X] 12:00AM Porn (featuring Billy Anderson, Dale Crover & Tim Moss) (Room 710)
[X] 12:00AM Mommy and Daddy (Blender Balcony at The Ritz)
[X] 12:00AM The Woggles (Club de Ville)
[X] 12:00AM The Frames (Antone's)
[X] 12:30AM Spoon (La Zona Rosa)
[X] 01:00AM Shonen Knife (Elysium)
[X] 01:00AM Centro-matic (Maggie Mae's)
[X] 01:00AM Calexico (Antone's)
[X] 01:15AM Guitar Wolf (Beerland)

Saturday, 19 March 2005

[X] 08:00PM Yuppie Pricks (The Jackalope)
[X] 08:00PM Tia Carrera (Whisky Bar)
[X] 08:00PM Apostle of Hustle (Momo's)
[X] 09:00PM The Meat Purveyors (The Parish)
[X] 09:00PM Montag (Copa)
[X] 10:00PM Million Dollar Marxists (Beerland)
[X] 12:00AM Dark Fog (Whisky Bar)
[X] 01:00AM Ambulance Ltd (Exodus)
[X] 01:00AM Nada Surf (Red Eyed Fly)
[X] 01:15AM MF Doom (Emo's Main Room)

Coachella Festival

2005-02-09T12:30:00.000-06:00

Just as I'm starting to get excited about the 2005 South by Southwest, I come across this Coachella Valley Music Festival. It's like they're cherry picking from my high school tape collection with the likes of: Bauhaus, Gang of Four, New Order, Cocteau Twins, Mercury Rev and Nine Inch Nails. Then they throw in some newer favorites like: Pinback, Arcade Fire, M83, Four Tet, Chemical Brothers, Snow Patrol, Weezer and Prodigy.

Anyone feel like a California road trip at the end of April?

Dates in MS SQL Server

2005-01-24T01:42:00.000-06:00

Coming from Oracle, dates give me all kinds of trouble in MS SQL Server. Thing just don't work the way I want them too. Fortunately, Gary Larson has a really nice overview on how to work with dates in SQL Server.

Thoughts from the middle seat on a crowded flight

2005-01-09T14:48:00.000-06:00

"Glad I'm not claustrophobic...am I?"

Introducing Kyle Ryan

2004-11-03T14:38:00.000-06:00

I went to the courthouse today and changed my last name to Ryan. Making me Kyle Thomas Ryan. I think changing the name legally was the easy part, not looking forward to updating everything else, like drivers license, social security card, passport, credit cards, phone, electic service.....

Feels good to drop that Edbauer albatross. It's the most annoying name to have to explain to someone over the phone.

"What's your last name?"

"Edbauer."

"Bauer?"

"No it's one word Edbauer kinda like the store Eddie Bauer without the die in it"

"Can you spell it please?"

"E-D-B-A-"

"E-D-D"

"No. E as in edward, D as in david, B as in bobby, a as in apple, U-E-R"

"Oh, like Eddie Bauer! are you related?"

"No."

Sweet! Kerry is going to win!

2004-11-01T10:12:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the Green Bay Packers, Kerry is going to win the presidential election. Since 1936, the winnner of the last Washington Redskin's home game before the presidential election has predicted the winner.

Lunar Eclipse Tomorrow

2004-10-26T14:24:00.000-05:00

If you are out and about tomorrow night you might check out the lunar eclipse. There won't be another for 2 years. Prime viewing time here in Austin will be around 10.

Only in Texas

2004-10-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

Judge throws party to hand down life term

Export ASP.NET DataGrid to Excel

2004-09-27T13:04:00.000-05:00

Here's another site for josh
Export ASP.NET DataGrid to Excel.

No more football for Kyle

2004-09-26T19:18:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning I met up with Bryan and his friends to play flag football. I was excited about it, going so far as to buy a pair of cleats so that I could showcase my skills. My first offensive drive I made a sweet catch reaching across my body for a 30 yard gain. On my second defensive drive I was playing exclusively on the line as a pass rusher.

On the second defensive drive my cleats got caught on someone's shoe laces twisting my ankle and I felt it pop. I tried walking it off and hung in for couple more plays before deciding that the pain in my ankle wasn't going to get any better, in fact it was getting worse. After 4 to 5 hours of icing the ankle, I was still in excruciating pain walking around the apartment.

I decided to go to the emergency room, to convince myself that it was just a sprain, and everything would be fine in a couple days. I went to South Austin Hospital over on Ben White and 1st. Unfortunately, they're doing a lot of construction and parking is two blocks away from the entrance. Fortunately, I found a short term parking spot right in front of the main entrance. I limp into the hospital every step more painful than the last. The nurse at the front desk asks if I want to use a wheel chair. My initial reaction is to shrug off the offer and tough it out, after all it's just a sprain right? Fortunately, she convinces me to take the wheel chair offer. Little did I realize that the front entrance is at the opposite end of the hospital from the emergency room.

Anyway, X-Rays were taken of my right ankle and I have a fractured talus, which is right above the bone that make up your heel. The fracture is nondisplaced so it shouldn't require surgery. However, I do have this big ass boot that I need to wear. Also, the emergency room doctor recommended that I see an orthopedist this week.

I should have known better. Seems like every time I play football I end up with some sort of injury, like a strained knee, twisted ankle even broken hand. I figured, hell it's just flag football what could possibly happen? Well now I know. So that's it, no more football for me unless it's on my XBox.

More programming sites

2004-09-23T13:58:00.000-05:00

A great guide on how to write unmaintainable code http://mindprod.com/unmain.html. I like the idea of using a baby book for ideas on variable names.

Here's a great resource from Microsoft on their recommended design patterns for .NET. I imagine that Josh is the only person I know who might be interested in this.

Sending Email Unsing .NET

2004-09-22T09:08:00.000-05:00

Here's a great site on using smtpmail in C# http://www.systemwebmail.com/default.aspx. I came across it while looking for a way to authenticate the smtp connection to a mail server, but there's a ton of other useful info specific to System.Web.Mail.

Anyone want a gmail account

2004-09-02T17:20:00.000-05:00

Looks like I can invite 6 friends to get a free gmail account with 1 gig of space. If you're interested let me know and I'll send you an invite.

Maybe Dampier is OK

2004-08-26T13:01:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to warm up to the idea of Dampier and the new Mavericks team. If Dampier has Avery Johnson's stamp of approval then the guy's alright with me. Still I think their success will come down to whether Nelson can coach a legit center who plays in the low post. I'm not sure that he can.

Bill Simmons "The Sports Guy" to the rescue.

2004-08-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

It's been two months since the NBA finals finished and it's two months before next season starts. Trying times for a rabid basketball fan. After barely getting by on scraps of NBA news (like trade rumors and box scores from the olympics) the sports guy comes through with some methodone for the NBA addict, four days and 59 hours of NBA classics, including 27 hours of the Basketball Jesus himself.

I'm sure I'll watch a couple hours throughout the weekend, but I have a tough time getting into replays of games. Even taping a game, then watching it later, when I have no idea what the outcome was, doesn't have the same magic as watching the game live.

What are the Mavericks Doing?

2004-08-22T22:52:00.000-05:00

Looks like the Dallas Mavericks are poised to trade Christian Laetner, Eduardo Najera and a first round pick for Erick (not a typo) Dampier, Dan Dickau and Evan Eschmeyer. At first glance it seems like a good deal for Dallas except fot getting Even Eschmeyer back, that guy is completely worthless. How do you end up with this guy, not once but twice? It's not like they loved his skills the first time around.

I must admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for the Gonzaga alum, which doesn't mean necessarily that I think he can play in the NBA. Dampier is obviously the jewel of the trade for Dallas. He has legitimate size for a center, will bang underneath and grab rebounds. However, I tend to agree with the sports writers who think his 12 point 12 rebounds per game last year was directly related to this being a contract summer for him. His stats tend to show marked improvement before he's due to sign a new contract.

This trade seems like a desperation move on Dallas' part to placate the reporters and sports talk show hosts, who keep pointing to the lack of a legitimate center as blocking the Mavericks from greater success in the playoffs. This past offseason they've aquired 5 new centers (Booth, DJ, Dampier, Evan, and the next big white stiff Podkolzin). None of them are particularly skilled players. I don't see Don Nelson utilizing any of the centers they've assembled effectively. His tendency is to prefer playing 5 smaller skilled players than a traditional NBA starting 5. Which makes me think that Dampier essentially takes Fortson's spot on the bench this year.

I have trouble believing that Dallas will make the playoffs this year. They've lost Nash, Jamison, Walker and Najera while picking up Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse and Erick Dampier. While I like Terry and think that he will be a better perimeter defender than Nash was, I can't picture the Terry and Nowitzki pick-and-roll being anywere near close to the pick and roll perfection Nash and Nowitzki had going. Jamison settled in great a sixth man last year even winning the sixth man award. No way in hell do I see Stackhouse being happy with a bench role. I predict him to have received the locker room cancer award by the end of year.

At least they still have Marquis Daniels, Josh Howard, Dirk and Finley. And I do like the additions of Jason Terry and Devon Harris. With any luck they will still be fun to watch.

REAL Ultimate Power!!! - The Book

2004-08-19T17:08:00.000-05:00

I was cleaning up my bookmarks and decided to check out this old favorite The Official Ninja Webpage: REAL Ultimate Power!!!!. Looks like Robert Hamburger, the creater of REAL Ultimate Power, has written a book on Ninjas. The comments about the book on Amazon are hilarious.

Here's a little sample:

Better than the Bible, August 18, 2004

If Jesus read this before the last supper, he would have flipped out, flew across the table and chopped off Judas' head! That would be sweet. I could be in the sequal to The Passion. And by sweet, of course, I mean totally awesome.

I Almost Saw a Pit Tonight

2004-08-19T02:54:00.000-05:00

I went to room 710 tonight for a potluck of metal. Today the potluck turned up blood of the patriots. This was pretty much a stereotypical death metal band, with the thoaty devil like vocals. You had the typical Austinites getting into it and showing the old devil horns hand signal. At one point they started a mock mosh circle pit, which I must admit was fun to see. But it never amounted to anything. Which made me think that I haven't really seen/been in a pit in Austin besides one for some ska band with a drunk Josh.

It seems weird to me that in my younger punk days a pit was pretty much a natural thing. We would get so worked by the music that we were compelled to pogo around and slam into our best friend or whoever else was around.

What ever happened to moshing? Is it that the bands I chose to see nowadays don't lend themselves to it? It not cool any more and thought of as a joke like raising your lighter in the air or flashing the "metal" hand signal?

Lame first post

2004-08-17T02:53:00.000-05:00

Seems like everyone has a blog, so I figured that I may as well have one too. After looking around at different blogging software that stored the posts in the local file system or a user managed database, I decided to try out blogger. Thinking that the odds on losing all my posts would be less likely, since I won't be jacking with the database. Also, changing blog software would require differently formatted posts, requiring either a data conversion, or losing everything created with the old blog software.