This isn’t actually a fight between the two, but a reflection on two bands with similar longevity. I saw Seven Mary Three last night and it was a bit sad.
The band put on a pretty good show but the audience wasn’t really into it. The audience didn’t sing along to almost anything, they didn’t move almost at all.
videos:
Rake’s Song | Wolf Like Me | banter | See Line Woman
pics:
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The night after my favorite band played was another show. I’d not heard anything by The Minstrel Periods before, but due to the magic of facebook I did at least know that Kate Haugan was involved. Read the rest of this entry »
videos:
Sonoran Hope and Madness | Mercy | Jack vs Jose | American Girl
the setlist:
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Sully joined me at the cost of being wrecked (sleepwise) the next day. Read the rest of this entry »
vids:
A Masters in Reverse Psychology | Steam Rising | Spring Break of 1899 | Steal Away
pics:
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I went alone, but I got to visit with Mike Pratte and Sarah Garber before. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been pretty busy as of late, but not doing too much.
A birthday party coincided with a snow storm in March, it provided some good photo ops.
An example photo:
Interesting time in my life. A couple of friends have moved away (Chaar to StL, Dawn Beck to SKorea). My solo oddjobs have run a bit thin, but I’ve not been doing much to land clients of late. I’d like to take a vacation to somewhere. I had a number of things I was going to gripe about over here, can’t think of anything. That happens with high frequency as of late.
Last Thursday went to a Q&A thing with a group called Quixotic. The interviewer was terrible (trying to get some good practice before heading to some sort of local morning show). I think the first question was something like: “(to Quixotic) Every time I talk to any of you I’m very humbled. (to us) These are the most creative people you’ll ever meet! (to them) What is the source of your creativity?”
The best guy at talking into the mic of the crew wasn’t thinking clearly, that when he turned to look at the slides that he was facing away from the mic he was holding. Considering the group has such a tech savvy undertone it also confounded me that they didn’t have a laptop facing the presenters so they could see what slide they were on. Also, considering the group has a lighting element during performances, it was odd that they didn’t think to cut the house lights before showing stuff from projectors.
Other considerations: have mic stands ready and pre-tested for audience questions. This would make it so the mics would work when needed (as the one I was handed didn’t seem to be on, other than the light indicating power). The hostess had no clue when people had questions and it was a fairly bashful audience, so she’d often chain up her fairly inane, complimentary questions. It would’ve been sad if after each answer she asked for audience questions and was met with silence. A mic stand would’ve taken away that need.
I felt bad for the costume design lady. New to the group and clearly not cozy in front of a crowd she stood as a case study for discomfort. She’d bring the mic near her lips, start talking and her wrist would grow limp causing the mic to slowly drop one way, she’d rotate her head in the direction opposite. The result was not really hearing almost anything she had to say. Eventually she ignored the audience and spoke directly to the hostess. Once her turn was over she folded in on herself. Her arms crossed. Her hands probably serpentined around her body and pressed against her back.
I took a video of a mini-performance they did. It was a bit grainy so I don’t know that they’d appreciate me posting it anywhere. They might though. Art people are hard to read…
I think this has been one of my longer gaps between posts in the history of me blogging. So many things I could talk about here, or so few. Too much to be comprehensive. I’ll just throw out some random stuff.
I’m pretty comfortable in my contract gig, but I don’t know if I want to be. By this point this is what I’ve done as a lawyer (that I can think of):
I can do more, and likely will. I enjoyed doing pretty much all of the above. I find the prospect of going solo both exciting and terrifying. Money is already a bit wonky, I can surely imagine things getting very tight. But they could go the other way, too.
Things I’ve enjoyed lately:
Really, overall things have been alright. Not too crazy, or exciting or interesting, but alright. I’ve been watching tv, working out, working, playing video games, eating out, debating, reading, seeing movies. But I want to do more, whatever that would be. I need a vacation, but don’t know if I can afford one. Maybe I should do something to make it so I can afford to…
I’ve found myself running out of things to say lately, which is odd. Chaar moved away (to StLou), Dawn Beck is moving away (to S.Korea). It seems as things change, so should I.
One pretty easy, one a little rougher, one quite difficult.
a. At least triple my income from my legal odd jobs. In 2008 I did quite a few legal odd jobs and was offered some that I didn’t pursue. Additionally, I way undercharged for my services from time to time. I wasn’t sure what to bill or where to find out, I set a price on my time and estimated how much of my time would be lost to various jobs. This could go pretty bad when I based how much time would be taken on past experience and was way off…
b. Set a ‘fun budget.’ I’ve been fairly reckless in my spending since becoming a lawyer. My bank account doesn’t get horrifically low and my credit card doesn’t become to encumbered but now I’m staring down the barrell of a mean tax bill in April. If I showed a little more restraint I’d not have much anxiety marching into the tax season. I plan to set a budget for my frivilous spending and with success I should have no fear going into April 2010…
c. Find myself sitting in a chair, working at someplace that might be a step toward ‘career’ instead of ‘job.’ Whether it be firm, solo or government I want to make some progress in the professional world. The odd jobs help me feel like I’m not stagnating and provide plenty of satisfaction and at times deserved respect. The economy is not in a great place and I’m grateful to be working an average of 40+ hours a week every week for all of 2008, but I want to step up. I’d like to have the security of being an associate at a firm or an employee of the government, getting paid holidays, sick days, vacation, insurance and at least a bit of hope of advancement at the place I work. Or on the flip side, I’d be fine with the flexibility of being a full-blown solo practitioner. Again, I find it immensely satisfying to help someone through their problems and there is such a wide variety of work to be done. Right now I have the skills and exeperience to do this one, I just don’t have the client base or a proper flow of business…
iTunes comments are very nearly worthless. They are worse than most other such comments.
While sifting through the comments for iTunes Originals: Staind I felt pretty sure that none of the 18 reviewers had purchased the product. One reviewer gave it 1 out of 5 because they didn’t like the recent album Staind released, they even wrote the review about that album, not the iTunes Originals one. Another reviewer gave it 1 of 5 because they didn’t like the genre. On the flip side you have people giving the album 5 of 5 because they are fans of the band. You’ll see a review or two saying that if you like this band, you’ll probably like Braintree.
Good for a popcorn flick.
Eh for a Guy Ritchie flick.
It was fun while it was happening, worth talking about after (far moreso than typical popcorn flicks). I don’t have a problem with Ritchie goofing around with the same Brit crime building blocks that he used for his other movies (sans Swept Away). He plays around with the same elements (synopsized early in RocknRolla: “there are many coincidences in the world of criminals”). He has a few eccentricities that get to play out (an interesting pair of dance scenes, an innovative chase scene, a very Ritchie take on sex scenes).
Read the rest of this entry »
The App store…
When updates are available the password is required, but I have a mean password that would be rough to type into the phone. Why password to update when update is free? iTunes on the computer shows the number of app updates available, however it doesn’t show which apps have updates pending so I have to look to the phone and type into the computer.
Crashing…
Safari crashes all the time and I’ve heard that Opera can’t come to play. More stable Safari would be great. Flash support would be nice, too. Apps that access the internet are also crashing, at a less alarming rate. Strangely crashing often happens when no data is being loaded, when reading a static page on the NYT app. Why so unstable?
The ‘end call’ button…
It seems to not be very sensitive. I suppose you don’t want to be accidentally hanging up, but when leaving messages it’d be nice to be confident that I’ve hung up when I’m done talking.
The iPod’s forgetfulness…
I play video podcasts on my iPhone. The blue dot goes away (it’s been watched). More often than not by the time I get home to sync the thing and the blue dot has returned. Similarly I have smart playlists where songs fall off if they’ve been played recently
Caching/history…
I would be all for donating 1GB of my iPhone’s storage to caching/history data. I would like the phone to have a better memory of the sites that I visit that I haven’t bookmarked and for certain pages to be cached fully to reduce loading times.
Contacts…
When I’ve hit phone and I hit ‘contacts’ I’d appreciate if perhaps the results would only include entries with phone numbers.
Facebook app…
When somebody comments on someone’s status, I want to be able to respond to their comment, not just view the profile of the person who commented.