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06.30.06 Remember my busted up 4G ipod? Well, about three or four weeks ago, I ran across this link on digg and figured, "why not?" I was considering buying a new hard drive to replace the dead one, so I had to crack the case anyway. Well, it turns out to have worked. Unplugging and reseating the cable appears to be the AED of the ipod world. So now my beloved brick is back! And I couldn't be happier. (Except of course if I had somehow scored a free 5G video ipod instead. Then I might be happier.) # 06.28.06 San Francisco City Supes want to fine you for not putting your garbage cans away. If you (or your children) fail to bring the trash cans in from the curb and into a garage or other enclosure, you could be fined $100-500 per infraction. It's beautification run wild!! Could this be the same group of City Supervisors who argued whether or public urination should be banned only three years ago? Nope, Matt Gonzales is gone. Smash the state!! # I got the chance last Friday to hear some of the new Radiohead tracks live, when the band played the first of two shows at Berkeley's delightful Greek amphitheater. Nick, Evan, Steven and I met up to get to the venue "early" with hopes of getting a good seat. Unfortunately, I underestimated the continued voracity of the average Radiohead fan (increased of course because this is a small tour in smaller venues, weeding out more casual fans). We arrived an hour before gates opened and moved to the back of a very long line. Luckily, they started letting people in early, and we were able to get seats in the riser section of the theater (with a perfect view, if still a little far back). At this point, I've seen Radiohead five times. Six if you count the run-in. I'm pretty well set. I didn't need to see this show. But considering that the band was playing such a great venue, and playing new, unreleased songs, I felt like it would be worth the effort. They do this (short tour, smaller venues), whenever they're between albums, working out new material. But usually these tours are Europe only, with 1 or 2 North American shows. Regardless, this would have to rank as my second favorite show (behind the first show I saw, from the 6th row). It's also an interesting time to see the band when you consider Thom Yorke's new forthcoming solo material. The Thom solo album is much closer to the Kid A/Amnesiac era of music, with the heavy, dark synth work. At the same time, the band's new songs are getting rockier and rockier. Still not regular, radio rock 'n roll, but lots of guitars, the trademark fuzz and feedback; lots of big, involved analog sound. It's almost as if Thom was imposing the bleeps and bloops on the band, who are free now that he's channeled the electronic urges into another avenue. Which, in the end, is good, because as much as I love those two seminal works, I can't imagine a layered, looped synth future being particularly satisfying for a 5 man rock band. The other thing that happened on this tour was that I saw, for the first time, the perfectly clear split between "Early Radiohead" and "Late Radiohead." I know this sounds stupid to say. But hearing Street Sprit (a beautiful, beautiful song) immediately following I Might Be Wrong, it really sunk in that they would never ever write a song like that again. Don't get me wrong; I love the new stuff. 15 Step is huge, Arpeggi is beautiful, and Videotape is stunning. All of them are great (ok, I don't love 4 Minute Warning). But as a band, they've moved away from the layered-but-straightforward beauty of their earlier works. And Thom Yorke has stopped writing straightforward lyrics. Or rather, good english lyrics. His words are beautiful, but they're so much more obtuse than they used to be. They've become not lyrics but vocals-as-instrumentation, his voice transformed into just another instrument. It's like Cocteau Twins, except tolerable. The best moment in the whole show came during Like Spinning Plates which was arguably the moment when the music, the lights, and the drifting fog that had been rolling over the top of the amphitheater all night came together in a moment of perfect beauty. Really, as impressive as ever before. # Carbon Fund will invest donations to offset pollution using renewable energy, reforestation, etc. For as little as $99 you can offset your complete carbon footprint for 1 year. For only $50 you can offset the pollution your mega-sized SUV (mark!) for a year. Seems pretty reasonable to me. Now if only some of us with connections to large corporations (like car manufacturers, hmm) could convince them to do something like this. # 06.27.06 Today is a sad, sad, sad day: Sleater-Kinney is breaking up. Indefinite hiatus is actually what they're calling it, but either way, it's a really bummer moment. I'm just glad I got to see them rock out at Coachella. # Remind me to tell you about my Gay Pride weekend, in which I saw Radiohead and Neko Case. Mind blowing. # 06.22.06 Positive or negative thoughts on T-Mobile as a cellular provider? How's the coverage? Service? Dropped calls? The plans look better than my current Cingular options, especially when bundled with Internet services. # 06.14.06 While I have absolutely no use for this program whatsoever, it's a really great example of a great satisfaction of a previously unthought of desire. Share a video file in real time over the internet, from any stored location with any other user, including text and voice chat? It's a totally interesting idea. # 06.08.06 I'm going camping this weekend, but if you're in town, check out the Hush Hush on Saturday night. Great DJ who's going to be remixing the new, unreleased Thom Yorke album. What, you haven't heard it? Pobre cito. Update: I'm back from Yosemite and about to go dunk myself in a bathtub of calamine. Check out the pictures. # 06.06.06 New mp3, from the new, as of yet unreleased TV On The Radio album. It's brilliant. I didn't love their debut LP (liked, didn't love) but this one is a thing of fuzzed-out, quirky, beauty. I'm posting "Playhouses" which I think it one of the easier tracks on the album, but there are others that I might love more. Be sure to check out "I Was A Lover" and "Blues From Down Here" — both are big, monstrous tracks that are best consumed loudly and in an enclosed space, like a car or big can headphones. # I'm going to totally copy a wonderful Curbed post here:
# Did you vote? # 06.05.06 Will Google release a web-based AJAX spreadsheet application tomorrow? As everyone is pointing out, it would nicely compliment the recently aquired writely application (not yet a Google branded app however). But, as Ars Technica points out in the article I liked, most people who use spreadsheets are using them to process data that they might not be keen on saving to the web. I've long pined for a small, fast, simple web-based (or really, mac based) Excel alternative myself. Could a web-based spreadsheet app be even mildly successful? Hard to say. Then again, it sure would be convenient for use in an always-on-internet thin-client world. Probably on a tablet computer, while cruising around in a flying car. Update: looks like it's totally true. Update 2: I just tried it out and it's not half bad. I mean, I don't know when I would have occasion to write a spreadsheet on the web, but if I did, I wouldn't be endlessly frustrated by the process. There's no charting/graphing function, and I'm sure they don't support the totally magical VLookup function, but for a basic spreadsheet app, it does everything I might want. I wish there was a desktop version. # 06.01.06 Anybody care to recommend a pair of good inner ear headphones? I usually have the in-ear apple headphones but they typically last 6-9 months and I'm tired of replacing. I'm also tired of pushing them back into my ear when I run (once I start sweating, they slide out). I was thinking of those earphones with the wrap-around arms. Any recommendations? # « May 2006 | archive index | July 2006 » built with movabletype |
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