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I finally got around to posting photos from the last year or so. I went sailing on the bay nearly a year ago. Dennis threw a great party just after Thanksgiving in Chicago. I was using my iPhone for more than just phone calls. I had a great time seeing about 75 friends in Champaign. I went sailing on the bay, again. I saw a Cubs game at Wrigley. I was a tourist in my home town. I grew a beard and cut it off. #
This one made me laugh out loud. The oil companies are scared?!? They have consistently been making more profit, quarter after quarter, more than any company ever, as long as Bush has been President. Hmm, now that I write that down, maybe they should be scared. Their benevolent servant and his puppet master are going to be out of office in less than six months. Makes me wonder if his other constituency the defense industry is also scared.
I had a link to here to a YouTube of a late night cable funny person talking about how the iPhone can kill you. Viacom, in all of its smartness, took the link down. Therefore, I will just mention they have no clue. #
Here's some cool stuff that developers now have at their disposal with Safari on iPhone. Personally I find it really cool. Be sure to check out the video if you aren't reading this on an iPhone. The take home point is that is just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No native code or plugins whatsoever! #
I got some old Stereolab albums as used CDs yesterday! I'm so happy to have Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Refried Ectoplasm: Switched On, Vol. 2 literally at my fingertips! I have both of these in double albums; the first is clear yellow vinyl with embedded sparkles, and the second is a green-ish clear vinyl. These albums must be listened to loud. I think I might have first gotten into these guys around 1993 or so, maybe 1994. I remember the first time I heard of them was a Chicago Tribune article (I assume by Greg Kot) that I know I cut out and saved. My bet is the clipping is somewhere in my basement. The article was something about their first tour of the U.S., but they weren't taking along their signature array of analog synthesizers and organs. I didn't have cable then (and not until a brief and shameful period in about 2003). I had no idea that Stereolab had videos. It's wonderful just to see how beautiful Laetita is. Wow And Flutter. Ping Pong. Cybele's Reverie. The Free Design. The Noise of Carpet. Miss Modular. Jenny Ondioline.
They don't typically wear capes. But yes, their lyrics are about 50/50 French and mostly socialist. I think I'd also have to give them the "best backup vocals for an indie band" award. #
I went on a 45 mile bike ride with 10 friends yesterday up in Marin. We started in Fairfax, up and over Sir Francis Drake to Olema, south on US 1 to the Bolinas exit, and then up and over a killer kill in the sun at noon, quickly down the other side in the shade to Alpine Dam, and then back to Fairfax. Afterwards we ate and drank at Aram and Mary's. I slept well, and woke up feeling so relaxed today.
If I was really cool, I'd post a Google Map of the route, but I didn't figure out how to do it in 15 minutes in Google Maps (and Google Earth), so tough. I also took some videos of the ride with a cool camera mounted to my handlebars. I will be posting that and other pictures someday. I think it's been over a year since I've posted any pictures, for crying out loud. #
They didn't all wear all black this time (just the singer). David & I rode down on our bikes in the cold (it is summer after all!), after debating it a little too long. The drummer for The Sermon plays David's old kit, so we went to check it out.
This year I've been feeling like I haven't been seeing shows of bands I don't know. This was why I was ready to see Feist without knowing her, as well as The Hold Steady. I think I had read about them on Pitchfork, and all I remember is that they were supposed to be like classic rock. Well I'd say that this band writes anthems. They seem to be about messed up people that the singer has known (I assume they are personal songs). Lots of mentions about getting high, as well as a shout out to 7 Seconds. The band has very dedicated fans. I think Jennifer & I were the only people in the place who didn't know all of the sing along choruses (chorii?). The singer was sufficiently dorky. The lead guitarist's glasses and haircut reminded me of pictures of my former Uncle Al from 1975 (it's the tattoos that broke the spell). It was hotter than hell in there, so we didn't stay for the encore. I'm sure people sang along to more songs I've never heard. We were both surprised a band we hadn't heard had so many fans! They were good though.
Daring Fireball: "WebKit improved a lot between iPhone 1.1.4 and 2.0.0." #
I was invited to this show the day before by my friend Arshad. I hadn't listened to Feist before. I'd actually say I'd never heard her, but people told me I must have seen the iPod ad. Looking it up now, I remember the commercial. So this was one of those pleasantly surprising shows where I go not knowing anything (well, I did listen to 4 songs on her myspace page), and I wind up having a great time. The opener was also Canadian, super energetic, and had great poppy songs. They conveniently hung signs with the song's title for each song. It took awhile for Feist to come on stage. Once she did, she popped up behind a screen, and sang a song in profile a cappella. The effect was to make her look like a shadow puppet, foreshadowing of the effects for the rest of the show. I like her voice and I like her songs. The shadow puppets light show was pretty darn cool. There were two women at some sort of a light table creating scenes that would be projected behind the stage. They get lots of points in my book for being out in the open so that we could wonder how they did it, and also be very impressed that it wasn't computer animation. Feist was also quite funny. She'd interject comments and jokes into her lyrics. Once she said someone's iPod was freaking her out with all of its wild colors (I assume it was some iPhone with an application from the App Store). At the end of the song she apologized, saying something about really liking iPods. At another point she was taking requests from, or just chatting with the audience up front. We could only hear her, of course. During this she said "Someone just invoked Canada in a negative way. Security! Security!" Very funny. Then another time someone was talking so loud on a cellphone we could hear her up near the back of the seated area. Feist sang through her acoustic piano song during an encore about how annoying Ms. Cell Phone was. At the end of the song, she apologized to the audience for ruining a song, but added how great Ms. Chatty must be feeling now. Frankly, I liked her frankness, and her show.
While talking with Benjamin on Sunday, he mentioned he's moved 28 times in his life. Here's my list.
Funny things: I still have the leases from 1992 onwards. The entire year for the apartment on Green St. in Urbana was $3180! Suffice to say, that number does not equal a year nowadays. I have just as many homes as moves, since I moved back into my parents' house for a year. That's longer than I thought I had moved back there. #
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