Saturday, September 25, 2004

For anyone who cares, I've added an RSS feed to the blog (see "XML" button to your left). If you have no idea what the heck that is, don't worry about it - just ignore it. I didn't really know what it was either until Lex started bugging me because mine went away when I switched from blogger.com to rolling my own blog. I finally read up on it a little and downloaded FeedReader, a freebie RSS/Atom reader that is very simple to use. So if you know what to do with the feed, go for it. If you don't, go on to the next post and wish Kel a happy birthday...

Everybody say "Happy Birthday" to Kelly - - who's mumbledy-mumble years old today!  And yes, she is indeed sporting a very cool Trogdor the Burninator t-shirt!

Friday, September 24, 2004

If you're not doing anything Sunday, get over to my part of the world and check out the Carrboro Music Festival. Hell, even if you do have plans, change 'em and come on over! It'll be worth your while. Where else can you wander around a three or four block area and hear a singer-songwriter playing on the front porch here, a hip-hop artist in the driveway a couple of doors down, a bluegrass band playing on a restaurant patio around the corner and some Western swing on the lawn in front of the natural foods co-op? Uh, and did I mention that it's free?

Some of the folks I enjoyed last year are back, including my buddy Greg Bower and Brown Mountain Lights, following the Tim Stambaugh Band, both on the "main stage" in front of Weaver Street Market. I'm not a huge blues fan and even less a fan of "inspirational" music, but Will McFarlane (formerly of Muscle Shoals) rocked my socks off and he's back too. There are lots of people that I want to see - part of the problem with these events is that there are often 3 or 4 different groups that you want to see playing at once. You can either plan out your logistics and hope all the stages keep to their schedule or you can just say screw it and wander around 'til something sounds good. I try to do a little of both - right now my schedule looks something like this:

1:00 - wander around

2:00 - Music Loft for the Second String Band (progressive bluegrass & folk)

2:30 - Music Explorium for Milagro Saints (soulful folk rock)

3:00 - stay put for Bill and Libby Hicks - Bill was one of the original Red Clay Ramblers

3:30 - stroll over to Weaver Street Market to catch the end of Tim Stambaugh's set

4:00 - stick around for Brown Mountain Lights

5:00 - too many damn choices - probably get a bite to eat and wander some more

6:00 - get over to Temple Ball for Gael Warning (Celtic/world beat)

6:30 - depending on how good (or not) Gael Warning is, head over to Tyler's for the Pinkslips (hard-edged female rock)

At this point, it'll be decision time. If I've biked in, I'll head for home before dark. If I drove to the park'n'ride, I'll want to go get the car and maybe come back and spend the rest of the evening between Cat's Cradle, Tyler's and Temple Ball. Or decide that I've reached sensory overload and head for home with the car stereo off, listening to the echoes of dozens of performers from the afternoon.

Man, I love it here!

Thursday, September 23, 2004

First week at new job.  Too tired to blog (or, apparently, to type in complete sentences).  Same company, same account - very different job responsibilities (some of which are still not yet defined).  Back to having budget responsibility (yuck!).  Everybody trying to get to the top of my priority list.  Makes brain hurt.  Makes me sound like D. P. Gumby and wear a handkerchief on my head.

Life was much less stressful when I had this job on South Blvd. in Charlotte the summer of '76.  Sure it was hot as shit and I spent most of the money I made on Gatorade to keep from dehydrating, but when I was done, I was done.  And occasionally Dad would take me over to the deli in the next block for one of the most awesomest corned beef sandwiches I'd ever had.  But mostly I just didn't have to think a whole lot - just wave and try not to wander into traffic.

It was a little sad to see that IBC, home of Dolly Madison Zingers and donut gems (the coconut ones RAWK!) and later Hostess Twinkies and Ho-Hos, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (the photo above, of course, was me standing in front of a Dolly Madison storefront, in case you were wondering).  Sure the stuff'll rot your teeth and put the pounds on you, but what self-respecting geek hasn't spent most of his adolescent and then adult life (assuming you can tell those two phases apart) living off raspberry Zingers, Lance Nipchees and Mountain Dew?  Hell, I was in nerd nirvana that summer, now that I think about it, standing in front of a store devoted to chocolate fried pies and Honey Buns and right down the road was the main plant for Lance snack crackers!  Think I'll run down to the corner and pick me up a sleeve of Van-o-lunch right now!

Guess I wasn't too tired to blog after all...

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

The original Star Wars trilogy was finally released on DVD yesterday.  Only of course it's a far cry from the original.  Lucas has mucked about with it a number of times over the intervening years until the current versions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi sometimes bear little resemblance to the originals.  I should state here for the record that, while not exactly a Star Wars geek, I'm very much a huge fan of the Star Wars cosmos - much more than I am the Star Trek universe.  I remember seeing the teaser trailer months before the movie came out and it became really the first movie I remember really anticipating its release.  My then-girlfriend Lori Lands and I saw the very first showing of Star Wars in Charlotte at the Charlottetown Mall Cinemas - as we came out, we saw the line wrapped around the theater and way down the street.  I left for Governor's School a couple of weeks later and there were freaks there that had already seen it a dozen times or more - I managed to catch it at least 7 or 8 times during its first run.

I am decidedly not a fan of the changes Lucas has introduced over the years.  For someone who claims to have made the movies as his version of the 30's serials like Flash Gordon or Commando Cody, he seems to have missed that people loved them at the time for what they were and loved them 30 years later in part because of the cheesy special effects.  Twenty years from now, our kids'll be watching The Matrix on the late show and digging the story while laughing at the FX - that's the way it should be.  Continuing to redo the effects (and worse, continuing to change the story - like introducing Hayden Christensen digitally into the original trilogy and changing the Emperor to look like Senator Palpatine in the prequels and don't get me started on the whole "Greedo shot first" fiasco) denies whole generations of the opportunity to see it as we saw it.  Lucas' answer to that?  Basically, if we want to see "crap", we should pull out our VHS tapes.

So naturally I'm boycotting the DVDs until Lucas agrees to put out the unfucked-with originals.

What, are you fucking kidding me?  Of course I bought them - while I wasn't waiting there for the store to open, I did get my ass over to Circuit City before they closed last night and, while I've been very busy with work and things around here, I've at least made it through A New Hope and through a lot of the extras disk.  A pristine, digital, messed-with copy is still better than nothing.  And Lucas isn't entirely wrong - I do have the final unmessed-with version of the trilogy on videotape.  It was the last release he did before the "Special Edition" - a Christmas present from JennySlash - and I love 'em and will continue to watch them from time to time despite having gotten the DVDs.  Just like sometimes I want to see the theatrical version of Lord of the Rings and sometimes I want the extended version - it's good to have choices.  I just wish Lucas would give us choices in the DVD format.

Monday, September 20, 2004

Dad was ready to pay up the $5 we bet after last week's loss, but now he's not so sure.  Certainly a much better effort from the defense this week (My God, they actually caused turnovers!) but they still gave up almost 400 yards.  It was nice to see the offense overcome a couple of turnovers themselves as well as McGill's ankle sprain and still put some points on the board.  I'm just not worried about the offense, particularly with Jacque Lewis and Ronnie McGill taking some pressure off of Durant.  They're going to score some points, but they'll continue to give up turnovers unless the defense keeps the team ahead like they did Saturday.  Apparently the extra full-contact practice helped and Bunting is doing the same thing this week, so hopefully it will prove itself against Louisville.

Bottom line is that they're a surprising (to me, at least) 2-1 after a 21 point win at home.  I couldn't be happier!  And I'll gladly pay Dad his $5 if they win 7 games this year.  But that means beating Duke and Wake Forest and winning 3 out of their other 6, against the likes of Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech from the expanded conference and Louisville and Utah from outside.  Pretty brutal schedule.  I predicted 3-8 - I'd love to see them 5-6 - I still think the chance of 7-4 is pretty damn slim.

Note to Wolfpack fans:  Ha Ha!