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Archives for December 2001
A Generation Y Mantra
A Generation Y Mantra from The Contra Code:
“up up down down left right left right B A start”
A Grave(s) Decision
Erin and I finally picked out a new tea kettle. We bought the classic yuppie-deco Michael Graves designed Alessi model with the little red plastic bird whistle. You know what the best part is?
The store sold us a spare bird.
X-Mas in Chicago
Erin and I returned from Chicago last night around seven. Despite our worn-out condition, we decided to partake of a grand dinner on the town. After much deliberation we settled on Galileo. The veal ravioli was incredible, as was the venison (although the squash sauce wasn’t really my style). Great restaurant.
Christmas was a blast this year. Angela flew in from Paris so the whole family was together. It was fun being able to show Erin the essential attributes of a Doland family Christmas. Even my Amazon wishlist was pretty much cleaned-off.
I received the following gifts of note:
- A ceramic Colonel Sanders bobble-head doll and a Norelco electric shaver from Erin
- A bottle of Chanel ?goïste after-shave, as well as a cat-puppet washcloth and a French Jazz CD from Angela.
- A small stained glass piece to hang in the window from Katie
- Numerous shirts and sweaters from Brooks Brothers from the parents and my grandma
- Several books from Santa
- The second season of The Sopranos on DVD from Santa
- The Switched-On Boxed Set by
WalterWendy Carlos from my Uncle Bill
All in all, quite a good take. Wouldn’t you say?
I downloaded the DivX codec as well as a few films from Kazaa just to see what the quality was like. The movies were encoded at 640 pixels by 272 pixels and the compression worked out to about 6MB per minute. It’s not exactly like DVD but it’s a hell of a lot better than VHS. I can actually imagine watching movies encoded with it.
Now if I could just find versions of the movies I want that aren’t in Swedish or Korean.
Stalkers
So yesterday I check my mail and there’s an envelope with the following return address:
National Hog Jawls Producers Ass. 1 Hog Heaven Place Washington, DC 20009
Due to the nature of the address, I naturally assume that this letter might somehow be related to my newfound level of public notoriety. What could this be? Upon opening the letter I find four sheets of paper, which are nothing but printouts of these.
It feels good to be a target of the animal rights wackos. I’m going to have a pulled pork sandwich to celebrate.
CVS (The Kind That Doesn’t Suck)
This weekend I’ve been toying with the idea of migrating most of my sites to CVS in order to create some semblance of version control. It should be interesting to see what hangups I run into.
The little woman and I were mentioned in Phil McCombs column in today’s Washington Post. Cute piece, despite a few factual errors:
- They switched our hometowns. Erin’s from Topeka and I’m from Northbrook.
- My band wasn’t playing at the bar when we met. We had just finished practice.
- Erin’s middle initial is not “R.”
I would however like to note for the record that The Washington Post called me a “romantic.”
Stephen’s Last Night in Town
Last night was Steve’s last night out on the town before leaving for a new job in Phoenix at The Barry Goldwater Institute. We were all at the Brickskellar and at the end of the evening James, the bass player from my band, was seated at a Ms. Pac-Man machine. After an evening of respectable drinking he was still able to sit there intently, with beer clenched in hand, and effortlessly come within striking distance of 100,000 points off of one shiny quarter. It was an act of sheer virtuosity.
Which brings me to my question: Why the hell is he going to law school? Why not just make a career of hustling people at games of Ms. Pac-Man.
In other news, it had to happen sooner or later.
Supply and Demand
I pray that this is a joke.
It Used To Fit On A Floppy
Way back in the day I used Opera as my browser. In fact, I even purchased a license for versions 3.X. Eventually I stopped using the program for some valid reason that I have long since forgotten. So yesterday I decided to download the free ad-supported version of Opera 6.0. I feel like a born-again christian.
- You can turn off popup windows, or set them to open in the background
- You can turn off image loading
- You can set the browser to automatically reload pages at specified time intervals
Brother, I have seen the light!
The Genius of Zeppelin
Excuse me for a moment while I talk out of my ass. You should note for the record that I am not claiming to be an ethnomusicologist.
It seems that most British rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s fall somewhere on a continuum in regard to their primary influences. Many bands looked to American Blues and R&B for their early inspiration (The Beatles, The Stones, The Yardbirds, Cream). Other bands drew heavily on the folk music of their own country (Pentangle, Jethro Tull).
Zeppelin was great because they managed to produce music that fit perfectly into both of these categories.
Or maybe it was the viking lyrics and doubleneck guitars?
Modern Edison
Like they said in the Think Different ad campaign:
I need a Segway.
Werner at the Birchmere
Erin and I went to see Susan Werner yesterday at the Birchmere in Alexandria. It was an absolutely amazing show.
Erin Mckeown was the opening act. She walked onto the stage and after strapping on a Gretsch archtop proceeded to demonstrate that she was a totally badass jazz guitarist…with an amazing voice. During Susan Werner’s set both musicians kicked out the best cover of “Here Comes the Sun” that I have ever heard.
As Dave Reaboi would say: totally sick show.
