Colbert is absolute gold

You must check out this video of Stephen Colbert boxing newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- using custom Mii avatars on Nintendo's Wii Sports boxing:




If for some reason the YouTube video does not show up, click here. Colbert puts more thought and effort into his show than almost anyone I've seen.

For a moment there...

I thought Google was forcing Blogger users to switch to "the new version of Blogger." The above image is what I saw at 6:51p tonight when I tried to view my blog. I saw the same error message for my friend Chad's blog, also on Blogger. All seems ok now, but Google sure does want us to switch as the first thing a user sees in the current Blogger dashboard is a "Your new version of Blogger is ready!" message and a prompt to make the switch.

I haven't done it yet because there were issues with the new version such as not being able to edit the HTML code, but apparently all of the original features of the old Blogger are now included plus some new ones like labels for posts, dynamic serving (no more "republishing" for each new post and pages are dynamically served from a database instead of a static HTML page) and more site feed options like the ability to have RSS feeds for comments. Cool stuff for sure, but for now I'll keep up with the Known Issues for Blogger in Beta blog and stay where I am.

UPDATE: Well, there's the answer, straight from the Blogger Status page:














No details, but it has been fixed. Apparently if I had been using the new version of Blogger I would have been unaffected.

Harrumph!

Amazing argument for not going in to work

The cost of driving to and from work can be measured by more than just dollars per gallon. Until I saw this post on the blog of an attorney who works from home I had not seen just why it can make so much sense to work from home. The key concept here is opportunity cost, the value of the next most valuable alternative forgone in favor of the choice made. After computing the formula there really is no argument.

In the example the author references, a couple has bought a house that requires a 1.5 hour commute each way and being skilled technology workers they earn $100 per hour. From his post, here's the formula and how it works out:

(Commute time * Productivity per hour) * Days Commuting per year

(3 * 100) * 230 = 69K

Based on similar formulas I calculated the following numbers:

• Yearly opportunity cost - $69,000
  
• Lifetime (30 years) opportunity Cost - $2,070,000
  
• 8-hour work days spent commuting per year - 86.25
  
• Lifetime (30 years) work days commuting - 2587.5
  
• Number of work years spent commuting - 11.25

That’s right! They will spend the equivalent of 11.25 work years driving to and from work. I defined a work year as 230 8-hour days.

Even if you're just one person earning $50 per hour and commuting only half an hour each way, that's (1*50)230 = $11,500 per year, $345,000 over your work lifetime! I don't know about you, but that would give a tremendous boost to my IRA/401k/life insurance.

Plus, the person in my example with a more modest commute would have the equivalent of an extra 28.75 eight-hour work days each year and 862.5 eight-hour work days over 30 years, adding a total of 3.75 work years if commuting was eliminated from the day. If nothing else such a reclaimed opportunity cost could help relieve some billable-hour pressure. Pretty cool.

This one's for you, Eric.

Yes, you.

Voting Accomplished

Remember to vote today, if you haven't already. Polls are open until 8p.

For those who want a quick reference for the Sacramento area:

Sacramento News & Review's recommendations; and

Sacramento Bee's endorsements.

Popcorn & This Old House

It really doesn't get any better. I am at the midpoint of the This Old House hour where the work on the project house for this week has been documented and we are about to begin the Ask This Old House portion of the show. This week, TOH did some serious work on their project house in East Boston, consisting of demolition in the kitchen involving asbestos-tainted floor removal, knocking down a wall, and replacement of a sewer pipe that had become clogged with the roots of a nearby tree. They actually had the city come in with a backhoe to dig up the sidewalk and dig down to the sewer main to replace a section of pipe that had been compromised and clogged with roots. The backhoe operator was, as they said in the show, friggin' surgical. He pulled up a three-foot square section of sidewalk in one piece and put it right in the dumpster still in one piece.

If this doesn't excite you as much as it does me, maybe you don't appreciate circular saws, sledgehammers, 6-mil plastic liner, hepa-filtered exhaust fans and triple-chambered isolation tunnels. Oh, and I'm eating popcorn that is goooood! This is my specialty snack and just can't be beaten. First, I pop my corn old school, you might say, popping kernels in hot oil right in a saucepan -- no microwave for me. With the popped kernels still piping hot, I add Jolly Time Buttery Seasoning, which just makes it simply heavenly. It's like friggin' bacon. I can't give enough praise.

Howard Stern free for 2 days on internet radio

Sorry for the short notice on this one, but for all of you who have not heard Stern's show since he began on Sirius satellite radio here is your chance to check it out for free. Beginning 12a Eastern on Wednesday, October 25 through 11:59p Eastern Thursday, October 27, anyone who signs up for a free trial userid and password at sirius.com can listen to the Howard 100 and 101 channels via internet radio during that two day period.

I don't believe you have to download the Howard Stern-branded media player to listen to it as Sirius pops up its own browser window to play internet audio streams. In fact I recommend you don't download the HS player because you'll have to go through the rigamarole of signing up for a login on howardstern.com, download and install the player, deal with another password and you apparently have to have a Windows-based machine to use it.

I know, "waaaaaaahhhhh" you'll say, "I have to sign up and download another program, waaaaaaahhhhh." The Sirius thing works fine.

The schedule is on Stern's web page.

Some great stuff is in store in addition to Stern's regular radio show, including a new half-hour radio sitcom written and directed by Simpson's co-creator Sam Simon, a replay of the Top 10 Bits of all Time which was originally aired on Sirius over the Labor Day weekend (this includes material from Stern's KROC show, uncensored), and on Thursday a roast of Stern's producer, Gary Dell'Abate.

The roast alone should be worth signing up for this. The Howard Stern Show has almost single-handedly revived the roast comedy format since its move to Sirius, and if you have liked what Comedy Central has done with the Pamela Anderson and William Shatner roasts, you will love this. Stern has hosted at least three other roasts on his show and they have all of the kinks worked out of the format as well as having a great group of comedians who are just brutal and ruthless, exactly how a roast should be.

This free promotion is not to be confused with the similar offer for HowardTV's iNDEMAND 1 cent preview taking place November 3 through 5, which is only available if your local cable provider runs HowardTV on its iNDEMAND service. Howard's pay-per-view show is much like the show he used to have on E! except this one is uncensored. Hence, the charge of 1 cent. I'm not sure why the audio version of his show can be offered for free and the video version costs one cent, but I'm sure the Internet has something to do with it. Oh, and uncensored nudity.

For those unfamiliar, there is no doubt Stern's show can sometimes be juvenile and vulgar, but it's also very often funny and provides an intelligent and alternative perspective, different from the whitewash of mainstream media. Give it a shot.

Related posts: Stern still has it; Stern's 60 Minutes interview; Howard's first Sirius broadcast;

Gamespot: Afterhours event in SF

Thanks to my friend Rita who put me and my friend Shawn on "the list" to get in, I went to this last Saturday night. It was pretty cool, and free. It was a small-scale videogaming event somewhat like PAX or a consumer-oriented E3. Unfortunately neither one of us remembered to bring his camera, so you'll have to savor my descriptive prose as a tasty substitute.

There were lots of different booths with groups of consoles set up by various developers to show off new or upcoming games. Surprisingly, about half of what was available was for the PC, so that platform is certainly not dead yet even in the face of the enormous popularity of console gaming. I saw the new Guitar Hero II for PS2 in action, and for the 360, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Dead or Alive Extreme 2 and Lost Planet, among others. The list of all the games available is here. I only mention DOA Extreme 2 because it was really funny how obvious it is that a) it was developed by guys, for guys and b) that game has the most advanced "boob physics" anywhere. Every single movement the girls made onscreen resulted in a generous sloshing of their chestal regions, and the several "minigames" (Butt Bumper, Beach Flag Grab and Tug of War come to mind) were obviously created to emphasize this type of action.

I was hoping they would have a hands-on demo available for the Nintendo Wii, but I don't recall seeing Nintendo or any developers of upcoming Wii games anywhere at the show. Apparently there was an onstage demo by a Sega producer and one of the GameSpot guys later in the night of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, but we had already left by that time. There is video of that demo on the After Hours web site under the heading "Hour by Hour" and the video "The Future is Now - 7pm." Super Monkey Ball starts at 41:20 and shows how movements of the Wii remote translate into gameplay. Wii will certainly redefine interactivity when it comes to videogame control.

What I was most interested in, and what I was unexpectedly drawn to, was taking a gander at the playable PS3s. It was an interesting setup: each console was connected to a huge black box behind the monitor that was about the size of two VCRs laid one in front of the other (you can see it in this video). Apparently these were test (dev?) kits, and indeed the consoles had "TEST" printed right on top of them just beneath the PLAYSTATION 3 moniker in the Spider Man (see #55) font.

The console is physically huge, easily bigger than the original Xbox. Visually it's not appealing -- it seems to be a model of a domed stadium with a cheap, glossy, curved roof. Predictably the beast felt pretty heavy and plenty of hot air was being pushed out of its exhaust vents. The controller was unexpectedly light, but felt sturdy enough. To my knowledge none of the games demoed there utilized the tilt feature of the "Sixaxis" controller. The games available for play on PS3 were Full Auto 2: Battlelines, Ridge Racer 7 and Gundam Crossfire.

I played Full Auto 2 and watched the other two and while the graphics were pretty, I could see no real difference from current 360 games. Gameplay of Full Auto 2 was also no different from any other racing game I've already played. All of these games were very "arcadey," making no attempt to feel realistic, and in my opinion did not really show off the capabilities of the PS3. I suppose it says something about the power and potential of PS3 that its first generation games look as good as second generation 360 games, but by the same token an equivalent graphical appearance is no reason to choose PS3 over the 360 this holiday season, particularly when the 360 will be available on the shelves at most stores and for hundreds of dollars less than PS3.

There were also a number of "viewing only" demoes in separate rooms that were pretty cool. We saw presentations of Sid Meier's Railroads! and Bioshock. The cool thing about these was that members of each game's respective development staff were there and could answer questions and explain features and what they are trying to achieve with their games. No juicy inside stuff here, but Railroads! did crash on Windows while we were watching. Bioshock looked nice and had some creative combat ideas involving genetic mutation, but it's a good thing it won't release until 2007 because still needed some polish on keeping its framerate up during busy battles.

Thanks again for the hookup, Rita.

Caveman with tennis racket in the airport: the music

You know you like it. It's catchy, poppy and elevator-esque.

I found the answer in a forum post here. It's Royksopp's "Remind Me" (Radio Edit).

RealMedia sample is at the artist's web site, (click the band name, then "Discography" on the popup and then Remind Me / So Easy) and the commercial is on You Tube. Royksopp's label is astralwerks Records, and provides a Windows Media version (bigger, better version) of the commercial.

Analysis of Star Wars as "entertainment"

I've read John Scalzi's Whatever blog on and off for probably a year. He's a professional writer with fiction and nonfiction books to his credit, among many other things. He's also the Chief Entertainment Media Critic for Official US Playstation Magazine -- who knew? His fiction is mainly sci fi stuff, and an online discussion of science fiction and "entertainment" spurred quite an explosion of prose on his part in today's post.

It's quite long at 7 "Page Down"s till one reaches the end, but it doesn't feel like 7 "Page Down"s because it's structured well, is interesting and entertaining and is also just plain right. The meat of the post is that Star Wars as an entity, as a series of movies and as a mythology, is merely a vehicle for George Lucas to entertain himself. Since entertainment as a concept involves caring about and engaging an audience there is no way Star Wars can be considered entertainment.

It's all in the post: Joseph Campbell, mythology, incredible special effects, bad dialogue, the occasional acclaimed actors. You really should go read it. I'm a huge Star Wars fan and haven't wanted to admit the weaknesses of Episodes I, II and III, but there they are in all of their shame, pointed out to me and now undeniable. He gives reprieve to Episodes IV and V because they occurred at the right time in cinematic sci fi history, and were actually well-written (i.e., not by Lucas), respectively.

Then keep up with Whatever for awhile. In addition to sci fi he writes about politics, current events, goings-on with his family and occasionally, writing itself. His insight is sharp and writing clear and concise. He also actively participates in comments discussions. You'll like it.

Artie Lange on NPR's "Fresh Air"

Artie was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air this morning. Interestingly, Gross said she and the producers of her show are Howard Stern listeners and think Stern uses the radio medium in an innovative way. She could have said "genius," but I'll have to listen back once the mp3 is posted on NPR's site at 3p eastern today.

The cool thing about this interview is that Gross asks mostly about Artie, his life and progression as a comic and actor. She took the interview seriously, unlike most mainstream media figures who treat anything related to Stern as mere "entertainment," purely "offensive" or a circus freakshow that only appeals to the most crude and base listener. The local NPR affiliate host announced this interview at 7:30 this morning and said that while she "would never listen to Stern," NPR would play an interview Artie Lange, a member of Stern's show. Typical.

They talked about how Artie came to be a part of Stern's show, what he does to prep for the show and the fact that the show acts as a kind of therapy for Artie. They talked a bit about Artie's beginnings on Mad TV, mentioned his movies such as Dirty Work, Lost & Found, The Bachelor, Old School, Elf, and now Beer League.

Artie talked about his desire to only "do the funny stuff" in movies but that with movies like The Bachelor and his most recent movie Beer League he realized that doing other non-funny parts (like creating a believable romantic interest) help develop the characters and allow the funny stuff to work better for the audience.

Gross asked about the death of Artie's father and Artie's response gave tremendous insight into his motivations and addictive behavior. Artie even discussed things I hadn't heard him say on Stern, like bombing at his first try at standup comedy and then not trying again until four years later after his father had died. There was also some discussion of Artie's "waaaah" bit on the show and Artie said the death of his father "was his waaaah."

It was refreshing (hello, Fresh Air) to hear Lange being taken seriously in a major media interview, and the approximately 30 minute piece is well worth listening to.

Why Howard Stern's interviews rule

Howard -- "What do you do?"

Guest Jessica in studio -- "I'm an independent contractor, a courier."

Howard -- "What's that, like, a pigeon?"

-From 9/13/06 show

Feedburner initiated

Thanks to an entry on the McWilliams' World blog I am trying feedburner to manage my RSS feed. I'm not sure whether those of you who subscribe and use feed aggregators will have to resubscribe, but I think Blogger still sends out the standard RSS and Atom feeds. I'll be experimenting with the feedburner syndication "chicklets" as it calls them (the little graphics one clicks on to subscribe to a feed) so some things in the right margin may be reordered or changed, but that's it.

Feedburner allows its members to monitor how many people are subscribers to their feeds, among other things. I love tracking my visitor stats, so these additional numbers will feed my hunger for more data.

Linux distro suggestions request

I know a number of you out there use some distribution of Linux, so I need some advice and information. I'm a big fan of open source software and the general idea and ethic behind it, so I am finally going to make the jump and do an installation to see if I can accomodate all of my computing needs with a fully open source Microsoft-independent PC. Just using Firefox isn't cutting it anymore, and my hard drive with Win2000 is nearing death, so I figure now is a good time for a new hard drive and new OS.

My question is which Linux distribution would you recommend for a first-time Linux user? I know there are legion, but based on your experience what do you think?

There are a myriad of questions you will want to know about my PC hardware and computing preferences before advising me, so I'll try to list below all of the relevant information.

Computing preferences:
Software: Fairly basic needs including word processing, spreadsheet, web browsing, email, mp3, video, pdf, photo editing. Ability to interoperate with MS Office may be a necessity for work.

Hardware: Wireless, wireless, wireless.

Me: I'm an intermediate computer user, able to build a PC and troubleshoot most hardware and software problems. I'm not a coder, but I am familiar with programming structure and logic and take technical issues as a fun challenge.

PC hardware:

• MSI motherboard, K7T Turbo Limited Edition w/RAID (using onboard sound)
• AMD Athlon 1133 MHz
• 512 MB RAM
• ATI Radeon 7500 AGP, 64 MB, AGP
• Intel Pro/100S PCI network adapter
• D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G510 wireless PCI network adapter
• EIDE hard drives
• Philips PCRW404 CD-RW400
• Generic EIDE CD drive, 48x
• Generic 3.5" floppy drive

I also may try to make an older PC more useful with Linux:

• ASUS motherboard, VX97
• Intel 200 MHz MMX
• 48 MB RAM (non-matching SIMM modules)
• SoundBlaster AWE 32 (?) sound card
• ELSA Victory Erazor, 4MB, PCI (thanks, Mish! that was a killer upgrade.)
• Hauppauge! WinTV card (not a deal-killer if this is not Linux-compatible -- does the "Win" in the name automatically disqualify it? :-P)
• Kingston PCI network adapter
• EIDE hard drive
• Generic EIDE CD drive, 4x (?)
• Generic 3.5" floppy drive

If I can resurrect my laptop with a new hard drive I will also convert it to Linux:

• IBM i1452; (Lenovo link)
• Celeron 366 MHz
• 64 MB RAM
• 56K Lucent onboard winmodem, but two PCMCIA slots available for a network card
• CD/DVD drive, 2x
  

What I have found so far:
Reading up on the subject, I have found Eric S. Raymond's web page to be inspiring generally about the open source movement, and he made the suggestion of finding a local Linux user group to help with a first-time installation by a Linux newbie. The nearest active one to me is the Linux User Group of Davis and wouldn't you know it, they have Linux installfests.

On distros in particular, SUSE was recommended to me long ago (pre-Novell) by a techie whose opinion I respect, but things may have changed since SUSE was bought out. I've also thought about Fedora Core since it was developed by the ubiquitous Red Hat which I assume makes it more likely to have wide hardware support and consistent technical support. Lastly I've considered Ubuntu, mainly because one of my friends has installed it, it seems to have a small footprint and is pretty much the hot new thing right now.

I haven't decided on a desktop environment yet. The general consensus seems to be "try them and use whatever you like best," so based on what I've read I'll start with KDE.

Ok, go!

Microsoft's Live Drive for Vista -- how about supporting the Xbox Live service?

Free online storage is a good idea -- it's convenient and, well, free.

With readily available upgrade options, free online storage is also less of a concern for PC users than for console gamers. I haven't heard yet whether Microsoft plans to integrate its Xbox Live service into Live Drive, but I bet it would be much appreciated by gamers.

Think of the ability to store game saves, trailers or demos online. This frees up local hard drive space on the console, plus would allow for a place to save these things for transfer back to the console in the event the console hard drive needs replacement or is at some future point upgraded with a larger capacity.

Sounds good to me.

Boycott Beerfest, go see Artie Lange's Beer League

I know little about "Beerfest" beyond the inane TV ads and the movie's weak tagline, "From the comic geniuses who brought you the phenomenon 'Super Troopers.'"

Phenomenon? Phenomenon? Super Troopers is something you jump to late at night on basic cable inbetween segments of Talk Soup or the World Darts Championship on BBC Sport. When the best tagline you can come up with to promote your new movie actually promotes another movie you made five years ago, you can bet there was a problem selling this one to the studios.

What I know about Artie Lange's Beer League is that Artie Lange wrote the script, plays the lead character, and he also happens to be funny as hell as a full-time member of The Howard Stern Show on Sirius satellite radio.

Beerfest opens this Friday, but I have no plans to see it. There is no doubt I'm biased against Beerfest because I love Artie on The Howard Stern Show, but I like to support people whose talent I admire. The open nature of the Stern show and Artie's humor and storytelling ability on that show make me feel like I actually know him, so this is also about loyalty. Artie Lange's Beer League opens for limited release on September 15 with wider release soon after.

For gcal users, click on this button to add this event:




Related links: gcal beta; Create your own gcal event buttons

Another move, another wireless network to administer...

So as of Tuesday morning, 8/1/2006, at 12:30a I am now a resident of Elk Grove. The move was fairly painless, at least in the physical sense, as far as moves go. One large 15-foot truckload of "the big stuff" and three smaller trips in my pickup took care of it. No matter what I intend there is always the rush of the last day. Believe it or not, on July 31, the day I had to be out of my apartment, I returned the 15-foot truck, made one trip to the new place in my pickup, returned the utility dolly and moving blankets I had rented, had two fillings done at the dentist and returned my high-speed internet modem and cables to the main Comcast office, all before cleaning the entire apartment and making one final trip to the new place. I spent a lot of time driving and listened to most of that day's Howard Stern show three times as it replayed throughout the day on Howard 100.

One of the first tasks I like to accomplish once moved into a new place is to establish my connection to The Great Intertron. In this case, broadband access was already in place, so I merely had to set up my PC and Xbox.

Or so I thought.

I am sharing a condo with two other people I have lived with before, and when I moved to Fair Oaks almost two years ago I left my wireless router with them because it was time for a new one for me. So now I'm back and need to utilize this router once again. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that 802.11b is so 2003.

You understand.

The only problem with connecting to this router was that it was encrypted and...

wait for it...



here it comes...



they had lost the admin password and no longer had the WEP key written down.

Oh, joy.

Being determined as I am, I set up my Xbox first and tried to connect just to see what would happen, and was presented with the discouraging message Not connected. No surprise.

Once my PC was set up I tried logging in with "admin | password" and then "admin | 1234," but to no avail. Using my roommate's laptop which contained the mysterious WEP key I brought up the router's support page on the web and proceeded to do the "restore to factory default" procedure. All went fairly smoothly, although I had to tell the laptop not to power down the network card (wired) when running on battery power and set up a new network connection and then reboot the cable modem and router several times before everything started working.

I did the usual practical precautions of changing all of the router's defaults and also generated a new WEP key. Perfect.

Xbox (no, not a 360 yet!) connects painlessly despite entering a 128-bit WEP key with a gamepad, with a signal strength varying from "Good" to "Very good." The network bridge sits on top of my TV at a decent height and the signal only has to go through a couple of walls.

PC connects, but at only a 40 - 50% signal strength. I could establish a connection with the router but for some reason it would not assign an IP address to my PC, so I could not even login to the router itself. The PC, and correspondingly the wireless NIC antenna, sits near the floor and the signal goes through the same two walls as the route to the Xbox, but there is another computer (the laptop in the next room), many books and a closet full of stuff also in the way. For whatever reason, the signal sucked. Elevating the router two rooms away helped quite a bit with a boost to about 70% signal strength, but I had the router on top of a tall box right next to one roommate's laptop which wasn't really practical.

So today I bought a high-gain antenna for my PC's wireless NIC. This is an extremely simple solution to weak or distant wireless signals. It also turns out that regular consumer stores like Best Buy and Circuit City don't carry this type of item. I could have ordered online but dammit I needed this today, and ended up at the all-powerful Fry's Electronics and they had everything I had found online and more. I ended up buying an AirLink ASB-10MA, primarily because it had the best price-to-gain ratio. I also considered the D-Link ANT24-0700 and also just a remote antenna stand from Linksys to give my regular antenna more height. The AirLink was $18 while the D-Link unit was $34 and the Linksys stand by itself without a high-gain antenna was $25 (high-gain antenna sold separately at another $35!).

I don't pretend to understand the concept of antenna gain, but the AirLink model provides +10dBi of gain while the Linksys antenna provides +7dBi and D-Link offers two varieties at +4dBi and +7dBi, so when in doubt more is better, right? After scanning that article on antenna gain it is apparent that these manufacturers are fudging the true and actual gain a bit by using a theoretical baseline (really, don't ask -- I just look these things up as I need them. I can't explain them), but what am I really going to do about it?

The antenna boosts my reception to almost 75% (varies), but the speed is also noticeably improved and the signal is definitely more consistent. With my original antenna and the router elevated the throughput was only about 1 Mbps and the router connection would drop regularly. Now it appears to jump up to the full 11 Mbps potential of 802.11b and has remained connected since I plugged it in this afternoon. The only complaint I have about this antenna is the short length of the connecting cable -- it's only 100 cm. 1 meter, or about 3 feet. Online reviews at newegg.com revealed this is a common complaint about these high-gain antennas. The D-Link and Linksys items have 1.5 m cables. I have a rather large shelf that sits on my desktop, so I had to place several empty keyboard and modem boxes under my PC to raise it to a height that would allow the antenna to sit on the top shelf.

So all is well now with a consistent, albeit wireless, umbilical cord to this electronic wonderland. It remains to be seen how my Xbox Live connection will perform. I haven't played in months and I'm truly itching to see how it does.

[Additional info]: I just removed a decorative metal tin (duh!) from in front of the new antenna and the signal strength jumped to 85%.

Carson Daly is a genius

Okay, before you call me a nutball, listen up:

I've never given his show a chance because I think he's a complete moron and a horrible latenight TV host. Tonight I happened to catch the beginning of his show because Conan ran right up to the last minute and Carson's show began immediately.

Carson did a few ok jokes, but the genius is that he knows when to stop his opening monologue. His interviewing "skills" are atrocious, and generally he's a boring guy on TV, but he certainly knows when to quit.

If you're not a funny guy, knowing the moment to go out on top with a great joke somebody else wrote is genius in my book.

Almost another month...

Things should be settling down now, as the temp job is pretty much over. The purpose of the project was to prepare data in a legacy system for upload to a new software application on the client's server which should happen tonight and tomorrow morning. Today was the last full day of work and next week will be just a few days of cleanup to fix things that didn't upload properly.

No more 12 hour days, 60+ hour weeks, at least for awhile.

Just a post to let you know I'm still alive.

Oh, and I'll be moving at the end of the month to the other side of town. The suburban mecca of Elk Grove is calling. A friend of mine has a new condo with a room available, so I'll be saving on rent and helping him with the mortgage.

Good times.

TV can be good

Last weekend I caught an episode of Austin City Limits that kicked ass. Apparently it was a replay from 2003, but it was great. Jason Mraz first, then Fountains of Wayne. Mraz has a cool freeform style and the audience was full of girls -- he really plays it up to the ladies. At first I didn't know who Fountains of Wayne was, but then they played their insanely catchy song Stacy's Mom and I instantly recognized them. The other song of theirs that was great is Great Future in Sales.

Another episode that played right after that was also from 2003 and featured John Mayer with guest appearances by Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan's band Double Trouble. I'd seen this one before, but if you don't know about Mayer's blues roots you owe it to yourself to check him out. He plays that Stratocaster and gets a killer tone, both clean and dirty. He makes the craziest faces when he sings, but damn he sounds good. He played Empty Arms (Vaughan's song) with Double Trouble and Leave My Little Girl Alone (written by Guy, I believe) with Double Trouble and Buddy Guy and, wow, he nails those songs.

Buddy Guy is one of those legends of blues that has only recently begun to collect the acclaim he has been due. He was hugely influential, in the same league as Albert King, B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. Do a google search, find these guys' music and learn your roots, boys and girls.

Double Trouble still plays without Vaughan, most recently on record as Storyville. Storyville has a great blues style definitely influenced by Vaughan, but updated and a bit more radio-friendly. The band seems defunct unfortunately, as I can't even find a web site for them. I have two of their CDs, A Piece of Your Soul and Dog Years. Both excellent, though I've now lost the CD of A Piece of Your Soul for the second time and have to buy it again.

Ok, time to grab a beer and go play some Guitar Hero!

Related posts: Guitar Hero Madness; Gaming slumber antidote

Again with the delays...

Alright, this is ridiculous -- a friggin' month?!

Lots has been on my mind, work has been busy, blah, blah, blah.

Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh, I have a job and think too much so I can't update my blog, waaaaaaahhhhhhh.

It's true I've been working three to four 12-hour days a week for about the last month, plus one day on the weekends, which isn't necessarily bad (please, argue with me on this point), but what sucks is it's a temp job, not in the field I'm trained for, and working overtime is the only thing that makes the money decent.

And by decent I mean I can get by. My bills are paid but there's no extras. Not that I need extras, but extras can be what makes things fun -- an Xbox360, playing on Live with friends, actually hanging out in the same physical space with friends, reading. Lately I've hesitated to even consider myself a gamer since I haven't been on Live in probably four or five months and hardly play other games. One of my friends on Live who lives in New York actually called me on the phone today to see what I was up to. Man, that's bad.

Hey, hey, come back -- I didn't mean to dump on you, I've just had a lot going on lately. I just needed to vent a bit. I think the worst is over. That, and it's past 10:30 and I have to go to bed so I can be up at 5 to be at my job by 7. This whole work-for-money-so-you-can-spend-it thing sucks.

On a positive gaming note, Guitar Hero has begun to pull me out of my gaming slumber. The past three nights I've been on that thing, playing those songs. That game is the most fun I've had playing videogames in years. I'm just now getting the hang of the hammer-ons and pull-offs with those fret buttons. It's very satisfying when you can make it work.

I felt I just had to post tonight to break myself out of my non-posting habit. I see that my friends edoo and C-had have been updating very nicely in my absence. E and C, if you want a fun party game, the next time we get together I can bring "GH" -- I have two guitar peripherals and we will duel. I guarantee you will be hooked.