Drunkest cities in the US

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

Planetarium Hell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key commands to control the ITunes Visualiser settings.

Living in small spaces

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?