Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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new toys

Old skool.
I don’t think I’ve ever been late for work simply because I “slept in.” Until this morning, that is. The first thing that I noticed on waking was the amount of sunshine poking through the slats of the blinds. Something wasn’t right. Grabbing for my cellphone on the windowsill, the clock said 8:45am. Crap… somehow I missed the alarm. At first, I jumped out of bed in a rush, flying around the room. Then I realized, there’s no reason to rush. I took my shower, did my morning hygiene stuff, emptied the cat’s litter and took off. Getting to work at 9:30am sure makes the day more tolerable. Maybe I’ll make that my regular thing.

The tissue-paper toilet seat guards hanging above the commode at work are called “Life Guard.” Is my life really at stake here?

I don’t know if anyone actually ever notices whats on rotation in my Winamp over there in the sidebar – but if so, you may have noticed I’ve been listening to some different stuff the last couple days. Old NIN? Skinny Puppy? What the hell is all that? I don’t care what people say about Skinny Puppy, Rabies and Too Dark Park were landmark albums during my brief industrial phase. Along with NIN, Frontline Assembly, Nitzer Ebb, and of course Ministry… they sustained the dark, gritty, beatlust that my 10th grade ears so craved. I can remember one brief embarrassing month (maybe not even a full month, who knows) where my standard-issue uniform consisted of shin-length black shorts, black socks, black steel-toed shoes, and black t-shirts. It’s a wonder I didn’t wear eyeliner and dye my hair. I guess sunlight-blocking visqueen velcroed to my windows and patchouli incense isn’t too far off.

After my rant yesterday about my wireless woes, I decided to try another brick-and-mortar store today to see if I’d have different results (y’know, kinda like getting a second doctor’s opinion or something). While the 2nd store did have some more promising Cingular rate plans, they still couldn’t look the other way on the $18 migration fee. So on a suggestion from a friend at work and as a last resort, I called the sales department. Turns out, I was able to negotiate a killer deal over the phone with their corporate sales department (previously, with AT&T, we got some decent discounts through work, and some apparently carried over to Cingular). In the end, I scored two Nokia 6230s (one for me and one for the Mrs.) for $150, what they wanted to charge me for a single phone in-store. On top of that, our monthly rate when down by a buck under the new Cingular plan, and we got 100 additional minutes plus rollover. Not bad.

The new phone is what I’m excited about though. Not only is it slightly smaller than my current phone, it’s got camera and video functionality (a first for me, as I’ve always valued the reception over the frills). In addition, it’s got a built-in MP3 player. The really cool thing though, is that both the camera and MP3 player utilize memory on a removable MMC (multimedia card) – and you can currently get them in 2GB sizes (and I was just there, I wish I’d known). That means, in addition to my first video/camera phone I’ve also just scored a 2GB portable MP3 player. Nokia touts a 10hr battery life for MP3 playback, but extra batteries are only $20… so I could always buy a backup for long trips if I find the actual performance to be less. The only slightly-less-than-awesome thing I could find to pick on is the fact that the camera is only 640×480, whereas some of the more recent phones have 1MP+ offerings.

Goodnite.

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mincing words


Having TiVo is great, but it’s also an unexpected obligation. When you’ve got 20hrs of programming sitting on a hard drive – you feel somewhat bound to watch it. I liken this desire to “clear” the TiVo to a Scientologist’s yen to “clear” their soul of sticky body thetans. But rather than cash-money, which Scientologists use to rid themselves of thetans implanted into their soul 75 million years ago when the evil intergalactic overlord Xenu exploded an H-bomb in a volcano on the planet Teegeeack, TiVo owners are obliged to waste their time by “clearing” the many hours of CSI, OC, Desperate Housewives, and Daily Shows from their hard drives. Luckily, these shows were not “implanted” into our hard drives by evil space aliens – they were, in fact, chosen by us! TiVo owners, hear me now: Only you can liberate yourselves from the hours and hours of Aqua Teens and Family Guys, only you have the power! Drop that remote, cancel those season passes, free your time from the bonds of PVR. Oh, hang on, I gotta go – I got an episode of Dateline to watch where they talk about BTK… peace out.

You wanna know what really burns me? I’ve had AT&T as my wireless carrier for nigh on five years now. Recently, they were bought out by Cingular. No big deal really… as I didn’t see any changes other than the neon above the local AT&T store. Then today, I decide it’s time for a new phone, as mine’s getting real old-‘n’-busted looking. So, I go down to the AT&T Cingular store to have a peek. I perused the offerings, and decided on a cool little Nokia cameraphone with video and bluetooth capabilities. Talking to the rep, he mentioned that no more phones were being sold under AT&T plans: all new phones are Cingular. No problem, I’ll just switch over to Cingular – I mean they bought AT&T so it was inevitable anyway. That means I have to switch my wife’s phone too, which is under the same account. Again, no biggie… let’s do it. Wait… the only Cingular plan that’s close to my current AT&T plan costs $10 more per month. That sucks. But here’s what really bugged me: there’s an $18 charge per phone to “migrate” the service from AT&T to Cingular.

Let me get this straight: Cingular buys AT&T, makes it so any new/upgraded phone bought by a former AT&T customer has to be bought under a Cingular account, and then charges me $18 for the compulsory switch. Is that legal? To me, it sounds like Cingular is passing off the cost of acquiring AT&T onto their customers. For AT&T customers, every phone in the store costs $18 more than it does for an existing Cingular or new customer. I might expect some kind of migration fee were I really choosing to switch providers… but I have no choice here. I did ask the rep how long I could keep my AT&T phones/plans, and he said indefinitely. While that’s some small comfort, since I like my cheaper AT&T plan better than anything Cingular offers, there will come a day when I want to or have to get a new phone. I tried to rationalize this by equating it to a hypothetical situation in which AT&T just ceased to exist or went out of business, but realized I’d then be the same as any no-wireless-havin’ Joe off the street – and wouldn’t have to pay a fee to “migrate” from anything. Monopolizing punks.

I can remember in college, being quite the little pirate wannabe. I would horde illegal copies of applications, serial number and key generators, program patches, etc. I think going to work for a high tech company made me realize that I didn’t want to steal software anymore. So, I bought what I needed, and went freeware/open-source for everything else. I don’t have a single piece of pirated software on my machines anymore, I even got legit copies of Windows. I’m also a lot less forgiving of other forms of piracy: I pay for my DirecTV and go to the movie theater. For some reason though, I still download music like it was the college heyday of Napster free-music love. I don’t know why my late-blooming morality hasn’t extended to MP3s, there’s really no explanation I have. I mean, I’ve tried in the past to justify the habit by the concert revenue and at-show CD sales I generate for the artists – but my plain-out stealing outpaces the the money I give back at the ticket counter. I dunno, maybe it’s my last bastion of reckless youth.

It’s not like I haven’t ever filled the music industry’s coffers… I own thousands of CDs which I bought with my own hard-earned cash. But nowadays the only CDs I buy are at concerts, where, for some reason, I’ve got the idea that more of the money actually goes into the artists’ pocket (a regular philanthropist, ain’t I?). Beyond that, I continue to download new music and listen without guilt. What is that? I can justify it in some ways, like if I’ve actually purchased the music at some point – perhaps in another form of media. I think that, once I’ve paid for the right to listen to something, I should be able to listen to it whenever and however I want – even if that means downloading a copy of it. As for the stealing of music I’ve never owned… I’m at a loss to describe how I justify it. Perhaps my conscious will eventually catch up with me, and I’ll sign up for iTunes or something.

I get my haircut at a place at a local place in town that only has two Singaporean employees working it’s eight chairs. It’s usually not that busy, which I like because I can get in and out quickly. My regular guy doesn’t speak too much English, and never remembers what number guard to use on my fade. In the past, he’s made the comment, “not much to cut” while trimming up the top. He also tends to mix up his method every once in a while, to keep my on my toes. He’ll clip the top with scissors sometimes, using the traditional knuckle-and-comb method; other times he wont even use scissors, just use a comb and the clippers. Today I realized, if you take these things together, they makes a strong case for my regular dude being a bad barber. Then, while I was sitting in the chair for my clip today, the guy actually burped into my hair. Offering no apology, he just kept on trimming. The guy burped onto my head. As I was leaving, I noticed that the pen they had chained to the counter was actually a stolen from some hotel. I guess when your sole qualifications for a barber are fast and cheap, it should come as no surprise that your $15 gets you a pretty ghetto experience.

Andy Wilderotter sucks balls. Goodnight.

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travellin’ man

Your cocktail namesake does you well.
Asky at last. Somewhere over the Pacific en-route to Tokyo. My eight-hour laptop battery is holding up well. If you haven’t guessed, this paragraph was written on Friday. And man, I’m lucky to be on this plane right now. Turns out, my flight into San Francisco was delayed by 2hrs. Luckily, the ticket agent put me on standby for an earlier flight – which Wayne and I had showed up early enough to make (being that it had also been delayed). Wayne (remember Wayne? I’ve been to Taiwan with him before) actually got ticketed on the earlier flight – but I only made the standby list. Turns out, there were thirty people on the list, and if I missed my flight into SF, there wasn’t another flight leaving for Taiwan until the next day.

The gate agent told me there was no way I’d make it to San Fran in time to make the flight to Taiwan. Brainstorming, Wayne suggested that I still had enough time (barely) to rent a car and drive to San Fran in time to make the flight. So, I started moving towards the Hertz center – calling and reserving a car on the cellphone at the same time. Just as the agent was reciting my rental car confirmation number, Wayne called after me from back near the gate – and motioned for me to run. I ran, still on the phone with Hertz. Turns out, I was second on the standby list – the first two names were 200k+ skymile holders, who’d not answered when called. Musta been my lucky day. I was the absolute last person on the plane – but managed to make the Tokyo connection in San Fran with time to spare. Someone must’ve wanted me here.

When I got on the plane, the flight attendants did their standard safety mime, going over where everything is and how to use it. They have those fake lifevests, which look real but are just yellow fabric with the little pull-inflators for demonstration purpose. I was thinking, how utterly crappy would it be to go down in an ocean plane crash, miraculously survive, go to pull the inflate-tabs on your lifevest – and look down in horror to see the words “demo only” printed on the thing. It could happen, they look just like the real thing, they just aren’t. Yeah, that would definitely suck.

At the San Francisco airport, Wayne and I sat down in the international terminal to make use of the too-expensive wireless internet and send some mail. Right next to use were two ATM-looking machines with big “Department of Homeland Security” seals on them. The screen was showing a video of someone inserting their passport into a reader-slot, and right next to the passport reader was a thumbprint scanner. A large sign next to the machine explained how to scan your passport, and put your thumb on the glass to digitize a fingerprint. The machines, called US-VISIT, were so intriguing to me that I snapped some pictures, and even tried to scan my own passport to see what happened. Check it:



Welcome to the United States, please submit three strands of hair and a urine sample.

Hard to read, but it shows how to give left and right fingerprints , and pose for the picture.


How to insert your passport.

Yay! I’m not on the watchlist!

Once I made the plane, the trip was relatively uneventful. I sat next to a young Marine who was returning from leave. He reminded me of my brother so much, and we immediately struck up a conversation – becoming drinking buddies for the remainder of the flight. About 8hrs in, I managed to spill a completely full bloody mary all over my laptop, chair, shoes, and pants. I turned the laptop upside-down and watched tomato juice and vodka pour out from between the keys, then retreated to the bathroom looking like I’d been shot in the groin. Luckily, I was able to wash off all the stains, and by the end of the flight the only clue that my khakis had been covered with tomato juice was the funny smell following me around. And, as you may have guessed – the laptop also survived it’s dousing. Wayne, my new jarhead friend, and myself spent the last few hours to Tokyo standing in the exit aisle drinking Kirins… kind of like some strange in-flight tailgate party, an airborne version of the King of the Hill alley-scene opener. We were “shushed” by the attendants no fewer than three times, but luckily they didn’t kick us off the plane into the sea.

Checked in at the hotel, washed my greasy face and hair and brushed my teeth, then headed for Henry’s Bar. Tracy wasn’t working – but the guy behind the bar remembered me, and immediately picked up the phone to call someone. My mandarin is pretty rusty, but I did hear my name, and Tracy’s nickname for me: Davey. After hanging up, he admitted he called her to tell her I’d arrived. The poor girl much get so much crap. Later, we walked to a foreigner’s-favorite watering hole around the corner and met up with some drunken Australians and sheltering-from-the-rain Swedes. In the spirit of international relations, as Wayne so eloquently put it, we stayed and had a round or two with the gentlemen. Eventually, I ended up chatting with a young guy from Taiwan, only to find out that we not only went to college together – we had the same Microprocessor Design class. What a trip… halfway around the world and chatting about a shared college professor and your alma-mater’s football record.

Now seems like as good a time as any to post a picture of Debbie Gibson taken off the TV while watching Taiwanese MTV (whose logo is apparently differentiated from that of American MTV by the addition of a chicken):

While on the subject of tunes, this Ratatat album is busy marking this trip for me. Its wordlessness makes for the perfect travel-soundtrack… allowing whatever’s in my head to be the narration. Listening to the breakdown in El Pico right now, bobbing my head while looking out over the dirty sprawl of Taipei. Man… changing subjects… WordPress is so awesome. Being able to log on to my site like this and type out an entry wherever in the world I may be. So neat.

Man this laptop reeks of spicy tomato. Ugh. Until tomorrow.

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rolled newspaper to the snout

Woosh.
T-to-the-eye, W-to-the-on. I’m packin’, I’m launderin’, and I’m checkin’ items off my “stuff to do before I go to Taiwan” list. Makin’ sure my PJ64 Zelda savegame is still there from the last plane ride out, I figure I can pick up where I left off last time. Yesterday was crunch day, the last day to get my junk done before being a world removed for the next week. I’m happy to say I managed to get it all done… even if it was a 6:30pm squeaker. Not bad, really, when your “late” days at work mean getting home in time for the OC.

The other night I had the strangest dream. I was out in the living room, watching TV and typing on the laptop. All of the sudden, I got a terrible urge to use the restroom. All sounds plausible so far, but for some reason, I chose to go right ahead and use the bathroom (#2 mind you) right there on the carpet at the bottom of the couch. Yeah, I know… Anyway, after finishing up, I realized what I’d done. My only thought was, “Oh no, Sharaun is gonna be so mad.” I either woke up or lost the dream right after I set about cleaning up the mess I’d made. It’s dreams like that (well, not really like that, since I’ve never, ever, ever, had a dream quite like that before) that make me wanna own one of those dream-interpretation books. I mean, something like that has to mean something.

Last night I downloaded an album by a group called Ratatat. I’d vaguely remembered seeing them reviewed on PF, but I grabbed it more for the name than anything (I do that a lot). Turns out it’s primarily “electronic” music, an overused generalized genre that can presumably include everything from Depeche Mode to Autechre. If you know me, you know I’m not the world’s #1 “electronica” fan… so much of it is just the same old 4:4 “fairgrounds” techno crap, and much of it is plain boring to me. Anyway, Ratatat is good! Not techno-goes-mainstream Fat of the Land good, or underground-enough-to-be-OK Crystal Method good… genuinely good. Indie-rock sensibilities with a beat good. There are guitars here, varied percussions and timings, actual progressive themes… far from the Cheat’s lightswitch rave stuff. I dunno, sometimes I think timing has a lot to do with how much I dig an album. I could’ve downloaded this two weeks ago and hated it, but I got it last night and am really digging it. If you’re into stealing music, check it out.

Good morning folks, figured I’d log on and finish this thing just before I head out for the airport. Once again it’s raining out, and it doesn’t look like I’ll get much of a change in the land of bird-flu. I think it’s rained at least one day every time I’ve been to there. And now it’s time to shut down and begin the journey.

Looks like my refferrer spam hack is working for other people, which is awesome – glad I can help. Until Taiwan-Tuesday or America-Monday… see ya.

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top 500

Friday; the week's sunset.
As the sun slips out of sight on my Thursday night, I’m sitting at the computer listening to tunes with a full belly. When I got home, the fridge beckoned – Sharaun’s famous cornbread – leftover from the days of cornbread past. And even though I’m supposed to be at Pat’s in less than an hour for a BBQ – I’m full-up. Owell, such is the life of a shameless glutton. Today went fine, once again not terribly taxing – which I rather like. It was another mild sunny day in Northern CA, and my drive home was particularly liberating to my work-shackled mind. I put on the Black Keys’ “When the Lights Go Out,” which is about as good a driving song as there ever was, cracked the window and slipped on my shades – y’know, start the end of my day in style.

Remember my paragraph yesterday about my writing process? I mentioned something about how I wish people could actually see me type an entry in real time, so they could get some idea what a labor of love sounds familiar really is to me. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might actually be a cool idea. So, I did it. Click here to watch me “type” (more like bang out) the preceding paragraph – technology is so cool, right? (Oh, and if you can figure it out, just hit the somewhat camouflaged “play” button near the top of your screen.)

But, enough with the novelty… to the cream filling.

I’m not much of a doomsayer. I’ve never proclaimed the nighness of the end or paraded on the street wearing a sandwich board and handing out “repent now” pamphlets; but you’d have to be blind and deaf to not have noticed the foreboding undertones in recent world media. Rice, Cheney, Ashcroft, all currently beating around the war chest with Iran, who may or may not have nukes; Korea’s got nukes and doesn’t want to play in the global non-proliferation sandbox with everyone else. While it’s not a full-on proclamation of impending calamity – it is disconcerting to me.

Over the small time I’ve labored in my chosen career, I’ve gained more confidence with each passing year. An interesting side-effect, however, of me becoming more confident at work – is the fact that I’ve also become more confident about what I don’t know, and letting people know it. I mean, when I was starting, I always wanted to tell someone that I thought I could do whatever they were asking – regardless of whether or not I really thought I could, I could always learn later. I felt I should always tell people I “got it,” when a lot of times I was nowhere near “getting it.” As I’ve grown more confident about what I do know, and and what I do get – I’ve lost a lot of that fear of looking stupid, and replaced it with honesty about not knowing. I knew all along that admitting ignorance is the easiest way to fix ignorance, but I was too eager to impress.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but way back when, Rolling Stone magazine released an issue that summed up their idea of the “Top 500 Albums of All Time.” I remember when it came out, because Kyle told me about. I can remember him talking about flipping out over the fact that no matter which album he got from the list – he liked it. Specifically, I remember him getting into some Roxy Music and Talking Heads albums (and, if I’m remembering right, a Big Star album too). I had always admired his tastes in music, they were much more flexible than mine (my mind would often get “closed” onto a certain sound/genre, blinding me to new stuff). I thought his idea to use the list as a diving board into new music was brilliant. Since then, Rolling Stone has made the list available online – and I stop by from time to time to see where I stand. Y’know, how many of the albums I’ve given a proper listen, how many I agree or disagree about, that kinda thing.

One album that always bugged me, mostly because of the incredible praise it always seemed to garner, was the Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society. As I studied my rock music history, I read countless fawning reviews of the LP, and noticed it had the received re-release treatment (“deluxe,” “extended,” and “remastered”) several times – the canonical release clocking in at 3 CDs worth of material. Despite its acclaim, I’d never really been able to “get” the album. Recently though, I managed to score the 3 disc set I mentioned above. And, after several listens, I’m ready to agree that this is a great effort. If you’re period-piece-phobic, this is not for you – it absolutely bleeds 60s. You may get a kick out of recognizing the track “Picture Book” from a recent HP commercial (the cool one with all the frame/photo effects). I won’t heap any praise on top of the precariously large mound already bestowed on the album – but I will say that I can finally see what everyone’s on about. And, if you’re interested in hearing the 255th best album of all time, and getting a healthy dose of late-60s musicana at the same time – check it out.

Enough cream filling, back to the novelty.

A narcissistic look back over some sounds familiar hard data and personal favorites.

One of my all-time favorites, the “you can’t fake your way” entry.
The satanic flier.
Like the commentary on Papa’s passing, and the McRib.
The last paragraph makes this one.
Hammertime.
Rock in the ear.

The most visited post (by far) is my account of the Pac Man underlay artwork (linked from my Pac Man pages). The second most visited is the poop story (which makes sense according to some search analysis I’ve mentioned before). And the bronze (surprisingly) goes to my religion-statistics rant. There are 329 posts total. 181 posts contain the word “anyway.” 157 posts contain the word “Sharaun.” 141 posts contain the word “hate.” 140 posts contain the word “love.” 60 posts contain the word “god.” 19 posts contain the word “sex.”

Well, that should about do it for the week. It’s 11pm, I just pulled the garbage to the curb, and I’m about ready to settle in for a good night’s rest. Sharaun and I decided that when we wake up Saturday morning, we’ll just fill the truck with gas and strike out into the Sierras looking for a nice place to Valentine (used here as a verb). The element of the unknown makes it sound kinda fun, I’m sure we’ll be around Tahoe… but where we end up I have no idea.

And with that ask your leave and wish you a good weekend. ‘Night.

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cussing in church

Curse like one.
Several paragraphs, some well thought-out and written with care, some written fast without much style – every single one about something different. Taken together though, I think it stands as one of the better entries I’ve done in a while. You be the judge.

A much better day, a return to normalcy: meetings, e-mails, phone calls; no clenched teeth or fevered concentration. Instead bracing myself against the stormy seas of imagined deadlines, I was able to loose myself from the mast and enjoy the slow rollers of a normal workday. I like it that way, actually. With a little spare time to refresh CNN in between meetings and keep up with what’s going on outside the cubicle. Speaking of the cubicle, I had the chance last night to chat with a guy who does electrical work for new construction – wiring, etc. We hadn’t yet got around to what I do for a living when he mentioned that he “…couldn’t stand to be inside all day, stuck in front of a computer.” There’s something to that, y’know, although I’m not entirely sure I’d like to be inside walls or crawling on rafters all day either. For the job-satisfaction to money ratio, I like what I’m doing better than anything else that’s immediately available to me. And, to me, that’s enough to keep me happy. And everyone knows, happiness is what counts.

Taiwan is looming. I’ll be doing a return appearance as a speaker at a conference I actually attended last year. Funny thing is, I presented twice at the conference last year – my first appearance being what I remember as my worst public appearance ever (you can read about my post-presentation shame in my entry that day). I can recall the feeling like it was yesterday, and I’ve made it a point to not get myself into the same situation this year. This year, I am a master of the material… and I have enough “extra” info to expound if necessary or answer tough questions. If pre-conference confidence is an indicator of pending success, I’ll do 100 times better this year than last. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever given such a stinker as that single hour last year… it pains me to recall it.

I think it would be cool to build a simple plugin for Winamp that keeps track of the songs you play, and can then analyze time-defined chunks of the logs to see what mood you are/were in. AMG has all of its music organized into “mood” categories, and although I’ve never really used that information, if the classification is decent it’d be interesting to use their data to see what “mood” my last-week’s or last-month’s playlist said I was in. For instance, today I got a blues-itch, and started at Muddy Waters’ Fathers and Sons, after which I moved onto the guitar-god-rife White Boy Blues, and am currently listening to the Allman Brothers’ Brothers and Sisters. Using album-level for mood granularity, AMG’s mood-classifications tell me that I’m feeling both “earthy” and “passionate.” I like that, actually. I’m feeling rather passionate today, I mean… look at the figuratives I used in that opening paragraph… if that ain’t passion…

The other day, Pat and I were talking about how we write. The nature of the discussion was work-related, as we were saying what perfectionists/revisionists we both are when it comes to writing. It’s true, before I send an e-mail (especially if it’s an “important” one), I read and re-read and then re-re-read it again. I often decide to change the structure of my sentences as I type, reorganizing or rewording to better communicate what I want to say. Finally, when I’m satisfied with my missive, I fire it off and immediately click over to my “Sent” box and re-read the thing again. It’s a habit, or perhaps an OCD manifestation, I dunno. For me, it’s not limited to e-mail, it’s writing in general. And that’s what Pat was saying, he was wondering how I manage to write every day when I’m so picky about how things sound, how they come out. I just do it; and believe me, it takes time. I can tell you though, that I think everyone would get a good laugh if they could watch one of my entries be typed in real time… with all the backspacing, word-looking-up, organizing and re-organizing, etc. It’s a messy process.

I remember when I first started going to church with Sharaun. Coming from an established history as a drinker, drugger, and all-around foul-mouth… I was the antithesis of a good young Christian lad. People who honestly believed that swearing one swear or beering one beer might keep them from their God amazed me. During that part of my life, Sharaun and I were pretty involved with the church, and I had many occasion to be alone in the building… setting up this or working on that. And sometimes, when I was all alone in some dark storeroom, where my only companions were Sunday School supplies and Bible-times stage-props, I would give God my own little test. I’d say a big, fat, sinful word; think a big, fat, sinful thought; purposely entertain big, fat, sinful doubts I had. I’d “sin,” in the house of God, I’d deliberately do the things that I couldn’t believe people thought would incur the wrath of God. Just words, out loud and willful. And who would have known – the didn’t bring the Lord sweeping down to cleanse his temple of the scourge that was my open defiance.

If you couldn’t tell, I wasn’t able to think of a graceful exit from my “cussing in church” piece – so I just stopped writing. So, to change subjects… Because the quote seemed important, and also to test my new “quoted text” style, here’s a rather ominous-sounding one from Dr. Rice herself:

I believe that everybody is telling the Iranians that they are going to have to live up to their international obligations or next steps are in the offing. Everybody understands what next steps means.

Yeah, now that looks good. There’s probably a far simpler way to implement it using CSS, font colors and sizes, but I chose to go the old-fashioned route and used transparent GIFs and html “align” tags. I may not be the most cutting edge web developer, but I get the look I’m after most of the time. It probably renders as complete nonsense in anything other than IE, who knows.

And I’ll leave you with that. Goodnight.

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grow old with me

Hear here.
It’s late, and, like always, I write this paragraph last, so all the stuff below sounds like it mysteriously predates whatever I say here. I usually try and make this intro paragraph as time-neutral as possible, since it can get confusing reading sequential paragraphs that are really chronological. But, tonight I wanted to talk about how late is is right now – and how I don’t know why I’m even up right now… I guess I got too wrapped up in fiddling with the databases (read on). So, the “last nights” and whatnot are all confusing… it’s all the same day really. Enjoy.

Last night, I did some quick modifications to my StatTraq plugin which stops it from adding known referrer spam links to the database. I realize a solution using .htaccess is more robust – blocking referrer spam from my entire domain – but I could never get .htaccess to work right. So, I made some rough hacks to my stattraq.php file that tell the plugin to ignore spam referrers based on keywords; they never make it into the database. I didn’t make it pretty, meaning you have to go in and add new keywords to the actual stattraq.php file when you want to update the block list. I borrowed the base keyword list from a post at Caveat Lector, and it seems to work pretty well using wannabrowser to test. I also created an SQL statement that can be run from phpMyAdmin and will do row deletes based on the same referrer spam keywords, cleaning up the stattraq table a bit and making my statistics relevant again. Referrer spam is the ultimate annoyance to me, so I’m ecstatic that I’ve made some progress at blocking it.

From the music department: With memories of liking their stuff on an old Bright Eyes split, and Ben’s recent recommendation, I picked up the new Ambulance Ltd. LP. It’s really good. There’s one song on there that I absolutely love, track 3, “Anecdote.” With a Beatlesesque whimsy and uber-catchy hook – I must have listened to it on repeat for an hour at work yesterday. Great plodding beat that makes me think of a trotting horse… good for working as it somehow implies steady forward progress. You can check out the song here, as well as every other song on the album for that matter.

I can remember buying blank tapes in bricks of ten and twenty from Wal Mart. Not the razor-thin 120min “Wal-Dub” brand, but 90min Maxells or TDKs. It would have been middle school… 7th, 8th, 9th grade even. I’d always been a fan of music, but meeting Kyle expanded my listening canon exponentially. He was into all kinds of music, and his dad would mail him huge boxes of tapes every couple of months. He got me hooked in no time, I was constantly borrowing his tapes so I could make copies of my own. His dad had a varied taste, so we got exposed to a lot of good music. I remember being so proud when I had over 100 tapes, then 200, and eventually tapes got pretty uncool right around ~300. I hand-labeled them, sometimes laboriously, drawing pictures or getting artistic. Sometimes Kyle’d have to tell me to “relax” because he hadn’t even had the chance to listen to stuff before I wanted to take it all and mass-dub it. That’s when this monster was born in me. My hording problem continues to this day, although now one 90min tape takes up roughly 200MB on a disk instead of half and inch on a shelf.

One time I had a thought, that you can map the phases of a growing kid’s life to the Beatles’ musical evolution. Well, OK, at least, it kinda worked for me when I thought of it.

You’ve got the “first four”… which I’d equate with the “innocent” times growing up… before you’re troubled by much… when things are simple and easy. There’s a formula for everything here, and you don’t stray from it much at all – it works and it’s comfortable, and you know nothing else. It’s a carefree time, remembered fondly.

Round about 10 or 11, you’re suddenly a little more world-aware. Not everything comes on a plate, you’re starting to have non-standard thoughts. This is your “Help!” phase. You’re maturing, slowly but surely… there’s something different under the surface here, something very non “first four.”

Enter age 12… the last pre-teen year. You’re hearing and seeing things you’ve never imagined, absorbing information faster than ever. You’re impressionable, you’re thinking more about relationships and have become more introspective. Welcome to your “Rubber Soul,” where you’ve taken a complete right-turn and have now established that there really is something very different going on with you.

Years 13-14, your “Revolver.” You are now worldly, you’ve got some street-smarts, you’re experimenting with some very unconventional ideas. It’s obvious now to anyone with ears that you have changed. You are far beyond the innocence of the first four, you’ve distanced yourself from the am-I-or-aren’t-I phase. Here and there are subtle hints of what’s to come… a revolution under the surface.

15-17; holy crap you dropped the hammer, the throttle is wide open. You’re at the apex of your coming of age and you’re squeezing every last drop of excitement and newness out of the world. In this, your “Sgt. Pepper” phase, you’re brain is wide open to anything… and it’s obvious to all. Filled with wonder, over-indulgence, and reckless invincibility. Nothing will ever be like this for you again. You are unstoppable, you are high on life, every second of every day is bursting with some kind of feeling, good or bad.

You’re 18-19, “legal.” The insanity of your Pepper years has waned as the independent forces in you become more evident. You’re less about me-me-me. Welcome to your “White Album.” The forces that have been swirling in turmoil within you for the last few years are beginning to gel. Some might see this as “going soft,” but it’s actually the first real time you’ve been able to take stock of the emotional person you’re becoming. You’re taking the threads which you’ve been busy growing and finally weaving them into something. As such you may seem more many-sided than ever, but it’s the breaking down before integration.

19-24 years old. The “Let It Be” times are uncertain, tumultuous. There may be infighting withing you, as you realize you’ve been doing this for quite a while. It’s almost time to grow up and part ways with the activities of youth. You’re paying bills, on your own, dealing with people like you’ve never had to before. At times you party like you have no responsibilities… at times you’re serious. Your friends have the same cycles but not necessarily at the same times. The youth of your “first four” seems far off, and you’re sad for it at times. Things are just too complicated… you find yourself wishing for a return to the “first four” days, and may even indulge in silly nostalgic “reliving” activities.

25-30. Welcome to adulthood. You’ve made the transition and your “Abbey Road” swansong is a perfect mixture of newfound confidence in maturity and owing nod to the things that came before. The end of youth isn’t ugly, or bitter; you’re doing some of the best work of your life. You bid a fond farewell to youth, but it’s obvious you still know how to enjoy youthful fun. You’re not reliving youth out of yearning anymore, the learnings of your youth are a part of you and evident in what you’re creating. Enjoy it, because after this it’s only Wings and Yoko.

Well, I guess that’s it. I spent entirely too much time on that Beatles thing. Check it. Goodnight.