Last night sivvyswraith and I drove to Northampton, where we saw Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. The show was great, though it was a bit disturbing when Ted repeatedly smashed his forehead on the microphone during the encore.

The opening act was Apollo Sunshine, who I'd seen on a few schedules but never heard. They were pretty good, and when they announced ( Read more... )

An Important Message appeared on my television screen:
( Read more... )

In a distinct fuck you to his fans, Ben Folds and Epic have released Songs for Silverman as a "DualDisc" instead of a standard Compact Disc. The DualDisc is a "normal" (but non-conformant) CD on one side and a DVD on the other. Because it's thicker than a standard CD, it doesn't work in some drives, including the slot-loading drives on my ( Read more... )

From about the second grade until two or three years ago, writing was the most painful intellectual task I could imagine. When I started doing computer science, I discovered it's only so much like pulling teeth when I couldn't care less about the subject matter.

I finished the last large task for my job today, which means I'm mostly free for at ( Read more... )

I received a package from my grandmother earlier in the week, but I waited until today to open it. She sent me a scarf!

This may seem cliched or at least unremarkable, but that's because you don't know my grandmother. I'd never seen her knit until the last time I was in San Diego, in December. She was working on a scarf, so I asked her if she'd ( Read more... )

"My mother often refers to you as one of the few non-loser boys I dated prior to my husband." -Ex-girlfriend Lori, who is now married and just bought a house

My PowerBook died on September 14. I know this because that's the date on the last message downloaded by my mailer. I noticed only a month ago that my Big Lebowski DVD (the only DVD I've ever bought) was missing.

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to put a real effort into fixing the Mac, only to discover that my power cord was missing. I ( Read more... )

I miss pizza. I had pizza last week or maybe the week before, but that was good pizza. I have fond memories of enjoying bad pizza-memories that for some reason I want to recapture, but can't, having since tasted better pizza. Bad pizza doesn't do it for me now, but good pizza can't take its place.

Maybe I'm just hungry.

sivvyswraith informs me that there's a port in northeast Oklahoma on the Verdigris River, Tulsa Port of Catoosa. If that weren't cool enough already, the Arkansas River Historical Society has this:


( Read more... )

Spaten's "Optimator" doppelbock is a lot better than Paulaner's "Salvator" doppelbock. On the other hand, Paulaner's hefeweizen beats Spaten's (or Franziskaner's, I guess). In case, you know, you also like German beer.

In other news, it looks like the Republicans might not get around to ending Social Security this year. It's only the day after ( Read more... )