Halley reports "Angelina Jolie No Date Tonight". Now there is a job I would have no problem volunteering for.
February 2004 Archives
Saturday night, a bunch of us gathered over to my buddy Don's house for a farewell. He's moving out of town after many months of unemployment and the future not looking bright. So, the party started at Don's and then we headed over to Harper's Ferry to see The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
I'd never seen DDBB, but had heard good things. Three guys got up on the stage and started playing. I was confused for a moment, as I thought this may have been the whole band. Moments later, the rest of the band joined them on stage and the fun began.
The show was great. They played a lot of what I assume were their own songs or maybe some New Orleans standards. Later in the set, we got some covers I knew including "Use Me" and "Superstitious". Overall, lots of fun. The band seemed to be just having a blast up there.
I've thrown a bunch of pics up on my moblog, though they came out super SMALL as I had the camera on Low Res instead of Hi Res.
Argh. My server got totally hosed this morning. Of course, I was running out the door and had to leave it down all day. It's back up and running now, hopefully for a while. Have I mentioned lately I really need a new server?
I did some rather minor site updating just now. First off, I FINALLY updated my blog roll. It was rather out of date. Over 300 links on it now (no wonder my aggregator is never caught up).
Also, I added links on the bottom for RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom Feeds.
CNN.com - Kevin Smith to do 'Green Hornet' film - Feb. 19, 2004
Sweet! Though, I am a day late on this due to News Askew STILL not understanding what an RSS feed is. Should be interesting to see what Kevin does with an action movie. He answered a lot of questions already on News Askew.
Also, Jersey Girl is coming out March 26th now. Must mark my calendar for that. Oh wait! That's the weekend stalker girl is supoosed to be in town, we'll definitely have to go.
RIAA sued under gang laws | CNET News.com
A New Jersey woman, one of the hundreds of people accused of copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America, has countersued the big record labels, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal antiracketeering act.
Excellent. People finally fighting back using the law.
Acquisitions to Boost HP's Utility Computing
(I'll try not to make this sound like too much of a commercial)
I find it amusing that legacy hardware vendors like HP, IBM, Sun continue to think that the utility computing dream is going to be achieved by throwing software at it. Legacy hardware is not designed for utility computing, it's designed to be seperate systems that run individual tasks. Adding a layer of software just adds a layer of complexity which makes things even harder to manage. The whole point of utility computing is to make things easier. Making the computer a resource takes a different design than the machines out there today. The problem is these companies cannot cannibalize their current desktop and server markets by developing new technologies, they need to try and layer their current products in with a new scheme and it just won't work.
The Egenera platform was built specifically for the data center and is perfectly suited for utility computing. It's built in to the product, not something that is just layered on top of existing computers.
OK, I've definitely spent too much time with my marketing folks, so I will stop now. Yes, I work for Egenera.
I've been thinking about this for a long time and just never gotten around to posting it, so here goes.
So, a few months ago, I was looking on Lukas's LivePhish (not the official site, but a message board) that one of the recent shows was at bt.etree.org. I looked at this site and was amazed. People were posting all sorts of show from jam bands (and some others) up on the Internet. I always knew there was a trading community in the area of concert taping, but didn't really realize it had moved to the Internet as much as it had. Especially with high quality recordings being so huge, I would think it would be very hard to move the data around. This is the first piece where BitTorrent comes in.
BitTorrent allows a person to upload the data to a couple of users. As the peers get the data, they then are able to upload data to other users. It basically begins to weave a web of peer to peer data that can quickly disperse the load on one person's Internet connection to many people. This can expand quickly and have lots of people able to get the data quickly. This makes sending out shows much easier for the initial taper of the show.
So, why would I call this the ultimate hippie application? Well, it's based on the same principles a lot of hippies tend to follow. It's all about sharing and helping out. People are getting something from the one taper, but then are trying to help out everyone else by allowing people to download pieces from them. You could almost call it digital karma. You help people out and the next time around, if they get to the show before you, they will help you out. It all comes back in the end. I know this from experience, I actually had a show that I had yet to finish downloading and a quick message to the board and someone opened up a window and I was able to finish downloading the show. In turn, I always leave windows open after I finish downloading so others can continue to get good music from me.
Some of the site I like to visit on a normal basis are Sharing The Groove Message Board, bt.etree.org and recently Live Music Archive at the Internet Archive. If you are a fan of live music, these are definitely some places you should check out and as one of the sites is named, Share the Groove!
Went to the Orpheum on Friday to see OAR (Of A Revolution) and Robert Randolph and the Family Band with Don. I was there to see Randolph, but it seems like OAR was definitely the favored band. The supposed schedule was OAR to open and Randolph to end the show the second night, so we figured we had lots of time. We met up early at the bar and then headed over to The Times to see Greg for a while.
We got to the Orpheum right around 8. The entranceway was packed with youngins. I would have to say the average age was 19 or so. Don and I grabbed some water and reached our seats as Randolph hit the strage. Guess all the reports of him going on second were wrong. Glad we didn't wait too long to get to the show. Randolph put on a great set. Shake Your Hips had the normal girls on stage, which I was unsure they could pull off at the Orpheum. A bunch of covers too. Purple Haze, Good Times, Bad Times and Billie Jean. Good set, but I definitely miss some of the older stuff like The March and I Don't Know What You Come To Do.
During the break, I headed out to smoke. More notice that it was a damn young crowd. Came back in and OAR started a few minutes later. I really didn't know OAR at all. They were definitely pretty good. I definitely think some of my friends could be this band if they just got away from some of the pop stuff. They had a Dave Matthews with more reggae vibe. I definitely enjoyed them. They covered Sunday Bloody Sunday, which sounded pretty damn sweet. We left during Crazy Game of Poker (I think). We missed Randolph joining them on stage (I would have been really annoyed if I missed it the night before with a Fool in the Rain closer with both bands).
Definitely a good show overall. I wish I could find someone who recorded both bands on Friday. I got a copy of OAR from Thursday which is pretty cool. I may download some more of their stuff to see if I can get more of a feel for them. Oh yeah, and I need the set list for Friday for Randolph.
Oh yeah, this is my first post trying out BloGTK, let's see how it works.
Back again, Geddy's Back, Tell Some Friends.
Rush announced dates for their 30th Anniversary Tour today. August 12th here in Boston.
Can someone explain to me why MT supplies an Atom feed with full articles, but the default for RSS and RDF are still summaries? Very annoying.
I really don't get the Nation. Somehow this one trade has made people think that they were going to easily beat the Yankees to we have no chance and the evil empire has struck again. If _ONE_ player is going to make a team so great, WHY have the Rangers been buried in the bottom half of the standings the last few years? Yes, he is good, but I don't think he is good enough for people to be this nervous. The Yankees have a VERY lacking pitching staff this year. Even if they get Maddux (which seems to be suffering from conflicting report syndrome right now), they still have a VERY weak pitching staff. They lost _THREE_ of their best starters. Getting one 38 year old guy to replace those three is not going to do it. People just need to CHILL out and enjoy the amazing team the Red Sox have put together this year and not worry about the one or two guys the Yankees have picked up. Think about all the names they have lost: Andy Pettitte, David Wells, Roger Clemens, Nick Johnson, Alfonso Soriano. And don't forget Boone with the injury. Their staff is a bit disceminated, I don't think the suicide watch needs to begin just yet.
Rather hard getting going at work after a 4 day weekend (I took Friday as a vacation day). My brain just doesn't want to get moving.
Throwing the setlist up here (finally), so I have it stored somewhere.
Billie Jean
Going In The Right Direction
Shake Your Hips
Problems
Nobody
Love & Happiness *1
Good Times Bad Times
Soul Refreshing
Squeeze
Purple Haze
I Need More Love
ENCORE:
Happy Trails Tuscaloosa
Why Should I Feel Lonely
*1 - with Leela James on vocals
Robert Randolph's "I need more love" is the background music for Bravo's commercial for the Independent Spirit Awards.
Blog for America : Guest Blogger Marc Chadwick: DFA's Duct Tape | February 16, 2004
Marc is actually a friend of mine (Orkut and Friendster can prove that). He talks a bit about what the IT group at DFA does. Neat to see someone I know pretty well getting some attention, as he usually is very behind the scenes.
One site I have recently learned about is gapingvoid. Hugh, the author of the site, write comics (which he also sells as the back of business cards) that are just HILARIOUS. He throws away the political correctness and just says what's on his mind and it turns out to produce some HILARIOUS comics. You should definitely check it out.
2004 Bonnaroo Confirmed Artists:
The Dead
Dave Matthews & Friends
Bob Dylan
Trey Anastasio
Willie Nelson
David Byrne
Primus
Wilco
Burning Spear
String Cheese Incident
Ani DiFranco
moe.
Gov't Mule
Los Lobos
Galactic
Yo La Tengo
Femi Kuti
Medeski Martin & Wood
Gomez
Yonder Mountain String Band
Damien Rice
North Mississippi Allstars Hill Country Review
Beth Orton
My Morning Jacket
Gillian Welch
The Del McCoury Band
Taj Mahal
Sam Bush Band
Vida Blue feat. the Spam Allstars
Los Lonely Boys
Grandaddy
Kings of Leon
Bill Laswell's Material
Soulive
Neko Case
Calexico
Leftover Salmon
Cut Chemist
Chris Robinson & New Earth Mud
Umphrey's McGee
Maroon5
The Black Keys
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra
The Bad Plus
Marc Broussard
Donovan Frankenreiter
Blue Merle
DROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!! I think I may have to get over my fear of company and go enjoy this.
Tickets for the 2004 Bonnaroo Music Festival will go on sale Saturday, February 21st at 10:00 AM Eastern Time through http://www.bonnaroo.com
Dave whipped up a hack while at etech to search the blog cosmos for product links, well, more specifically Amazon product links. The output can be seen at Technorati: Top Products, with context. Looks cool. WIsh I could get an RSS feed, but I guess that may be part of the whole paid membership to technorati. Will have to look in to this some other time. Neat stuff though.
Joe Trippi has started a blog called Change for America. Seems pretty interesting so far. Seems much more like a first person account than Blog for America ever did. Hopefully he keeps it up.
Microsoft Confirms Source Code Leaked Over Internet
This really bothers me. I would assume a lot of this has been out there for a while, but now that pretty much anyone can get their hands on it, how quickly are new virii, hacks, etc going to come out? I would guess in a couple of weeks after people have had some time to really analyze the code, we are going to see some major hacks coming about. Hopefully enough white hats get a copy of this that they can find the bugs and report them to MS quickly. The only worry there is that the latest "critical" patch from MS was on a bug that was reported to them over 6 months ago.
The only good thing that could come out of this is people taking the time to comb through the source and really get all the problems out of MS Operating Systems, since even with all their programmers they can't seem to do it themselves.
Hmm, another worry here. Was this code "leaked" in an attempt to let MS to start suing Linux users claiming their code is now in Linux? That's an interesting one. Seems as if SCO's lawsuit is quickly going down the tubes and since it was backed by MS (yes, not officially, but giving SCO a million for licensing fees was supporting the case), maybe MS is trying to get in to the fray themselves.
Spongebob is not a contraceptive
Argh. I just spent 2 hours downloading something for it to lock up with just over a minute left saying it didn't have enough space left in /tmp. Don't you think some programmer somewhere would make the program smart enough to check the temporary file location BEFORE starting a huge download, rather than killing the download with a couple of megs left? And of course, it can't restart the download, so now I have to wait another 2 hours for this damn thing to download.
After seeing this picture, my first thought was Xeni should have played Tank Girl.
Bravo is playing Fatal Attraction on Valentine's Day.
It seems like the West Wing is finally getting back to a working formula. The last 2 episodes have focused more on the staff and gotten the focus off the president. They seem to be adding the humor back in as well (Danny leaving the "Bawk bawk bawk" message). It's nice to see such a good show which flailed for a bit after losing Sorkin starting to get back to the great show it used to be and hopefully will continue to be.
ESPN.com - NCB - St. John's: Program suspension an option
More bad news for my team. I wrote a couple of days ago about not realizing how far the team had gone downhill. Now, the university says it may suspend the basketball program all together. It's sad to see the team be lost because of the stupidity and bad judgement of some of its members. With the team as decimated as it is, it would probably be hard to have a good season next year anyway, but I think suspending the team hurts the university and its students as much as it does its athletics.
UPDATE: Looks like the university is now denying the report, which I guess is good news.
Halley asks why people don't give sheets for Valentine's Day? My thought would be that they are almost too suggestive. A woman would assume you are just thinking about her in terms of sex rather than love if you gave her sheets. I guess people do give lingerie which probably conveys the same message, but at least lingerie makes a woman feel sexy, so I think the argument there is different.
Chris says he'll have all the details out on Thursday for Gnomedex 4, but this may be enough of a reason for me to go. Though, I'm not sure the organizers of the event would be geared up for my drinking habits :)
CNN.com - MTV consigns racy videos to late-night - Feb. 10, 2004
This is all getting a bit ridiculous.
Just read this over at ESPN.com.
I've followed SJU since I was very young. It's my Mom's Alma Mater, so it was ingrained in to my head from an early age that they were the team to cheer for.
We had great sesason tickets for many years. The Red Storm (formerly Redmen) are probably one of the teams I have seen play most. I even worked as a ball boy at Alumni Hall for a season.
Since moving to Boston, I have lost some touch with the team. I will follow them here and there, but unless they are doing some more than just being mediocre, I don't spend too much time following them.
I knew things were not great with them this season. I noticed on My Yahoo that they were losing to teams that shouldn't have been early on in the season. I also heard about Jarvis being fired. But, since then, I really have sort of just stopped paying attention. That became very clear after reading this article. I didn't realize the program had gone this far downhill. Players getting suspend and thrown off the team, drug charges, late night adventures to strip clubs, nothing at all good for a college basketball team (yes, that was me qualifying). It sad to see a team with so much tradition having this many problems. Hopefully they can finish this season without total shame and then spend a lot of time getting this team back to what it is known for next season.
Egenera Inc. Names Robert M. Dutkowsky Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
The company I work for announced our new CEO today.
So, I was watching Spun this evening. It was pretty much a Requiem for a Dream rip off, but ok, I guess. Not as totally freaky as Requiem, but still showing the bad things that happen when you do drugs.
But, to my point. I was watching and in the opening credits, a song starts playing. I'm listening to this song and I know the lyrics, but am sure it's a cover. Then the chorus kicks in, "Six, Six, Six the number of the beast". Holy Shit! It's Iron Maiden. It's an acoustic slow tempo version of The Number of the Beast done by Billy Corgan. I so need to get my hands on this. From looking around Amazon it looks like it is on a Zwan import single. Going to have to pick that up.
I have to say, I really enjoy when a band does a cover very different then the original. It breathes new life in to the song. Just doing something like sounds exactly the same, but with a different band behind it is ok, but nothing special. Hearing someone take a good song and make it their own and have it still come out really good is awesome.
From Phish.com:
PHISH will play three shows at the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas on April 15, 16 and 17. These dates will be Phish's only shows before the summer.
Vegas Baby? Vegas? Who wants to fly me out? I may have to go to this, well, if I can figure out the cash.
Looks like some interesting stuff thus far.
This week really can not get any worse. First, the whole jacket incident puts me in a completely foul mood, which I have been having a losing fight getting out of. Now, I check voice mail from a call I ignored last night to find out my great aunt passed away yesterday. This really has not been a good week for me. And it's only fucking Wednesday.
Last night's unpleasantness has left me in a rather foul mood all day. I called the bar this afternoon and no luck. So, now its mid-winter and I have no winter jacket. This is going to be oh so fun. Argh.
So, yesterday was a great day. Great win for the Pats. Afterwards, some of us heae to Fenueil Hall to join in the celebration. We hung out for a bit and then hit the bars. Well, the one way to ruin a great night? Walking away from your jacket for about a minute, asking a friend to watch it, and still having someone walk up and walk off with it. I'm RATHER unhappy about this at this point. I'm just hoping someone realized the err of their ways and is a nice enough person to return the jacket to the bar they grabbed it in and not just leave it somewhere else. Gonna call the bar this afternoon and see if anyone has returned it. Otherwise, I need to go buy a new winter coat. Something that REALLY was not in the budget right now.
