This is Hi-Fi

So a couple weeks ago, I bought a HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) to try and take a more intelligent approach towards exercise. It also serves the alternative purposes of motivating me to exercise more since I can see my progress, as well as the guilt factor of blowing a bunch of cash on something.

I finally got around to using it for an actual workout yesterday, and it's fantastic. Not only could it track my progress throughout the entire workout, it comes with a bunch of built-in reports that show things like time spent in each target HR. Cool stuff.

From the gadget perspective it's also great because it has a nifty upload/download mechanism that works by making noise. It works like an old school modem via a microphone on your computer.

Now I've got the additional incentive of getting to play with a cool toy. =)

In the last couple months, I've lost 2 notches on my belt. I also stepped on the scale this morning and it said 161.5 for a second before changing it's mind to 162. I think I need to start eating more...

Tonight was a night of many firsts. This was the first open stage concert that I've attended (crowd on all sides). This was my first concert with a rotating stage (maybe it's par for the course for open stage concerts). This was my first concert from box seats (I've been in box seats for a Chicago Bulls game). This was also my first Metallica concert.

Wow. This was the best concert that I've ever went to. Period. Energy levels were crazy high. The crowd was engaged. The band was awesome. The pyrotechnics, lights and special effects were great. The sound guys did a terrific job. I'm sure that my words don't even come close to describing how awesome it was. Up till now, the highest energy concert that I had attended was No Doubt, and this absolutely blew it away. Not even in the same zip code. Not even in the same time zone. Not even in the same hemisphere.

Going in, I wasn't a huge fan of special effects and lighting at concerts. It's usually sorta random and unnecessary. This time, the lights and special effects were absolutely incredible. For example, when they played One, they setup pyrotechnics in such a way that it looked like there were helicopters firing missiles, as well as machine gun fire and explosions every where. For all of the songs, the lights were timed very closely to the music. It was almost as if they had tapped into a spectrum analyzer the way that Media Player and WinAmp visualizers work. For most of the songs, the lighting was also completely different to match the mood/tempo of the song. Simply incredible.

I actually made the mistake of forgetting my earplugs, but we had box seats so we weren't right on top of the stage. The sound guys did a bang up job. My only 2 complaints are pretty minor. The bass wasn't quite as tight as the level of Audiophile's stereo. On The Four Horseman, you couldn't make out the double bass drum hits that sound like hoofbeats. They also could have used a tad more vocals in the mix, but overall it was excellent. Considering how diverse and powerful their music can be, this was no small feat.

After Godsmack and before Metallica hit the stage, a couple of the other people in the box mentioned that there was a girl, 2 boxes away, sitting all by herself. Being the helpful soul that I am, I went on over to invite her to come watch the concert from our box. As it turns out, she was part of the security detail and was there to make sure that nobody climbed into that box. Oh well. At least I got props from the others in our box for having some balls. I thought about going back over to ask for her number after the concert, but she was gone by the time that we were leaving.

The opener, Godsmack, was pretty good. I've never seen multiple drummers from the same band on the stage at once. However, I almost felt like giving them the old school Metallica treatment just for kicks. Back in the day, Metallica fans would stand with their back to the opening acts and simply give them the finger until they left the stage. How dedicated was that?

So I just got back from a first date. This was actually my first ever blind date, too. her claim about not having access to a digital camera actually seemed plausible. I showed up about 2 min late and I didn't see anyone waiting, so I took advantage of the outside seating and started reading. Me being the moron that I am, didn't think to look INSIDE. It was probably 15 minutes until she thought I was either a no show and walked out, or she noticed me sitting outside. Not a good way to start. We ended up talking for about 2 hours or so, and neither of us seemed in a hurry to run away. It wasn't until we left that I realized that we hadn't actually made physical contact. No handshake, hug, or anything else. She did specifically say she'd like to see me again and confirmed that I had her phone number, so I guess that can't be bad, right?

So do I wait 3 days to call?

Oh and btw, she's a total cutie. =)

So I went to lunch with a co-worker of mine, and I couldn't help but be disgusted when I saw the shoes that a woman was wearing. What the hell is happening to me? Must not be metrosexual. Must not be metrosexual. Must not be metrosexual.

It's been 3 years since that fateful day where I was awoken by my friends' phone calls waking me up after about 2-3 hours of sleep. I can't even describe the way I felt. After playing Counter-strike all night while basking in the joys of unemployment, this was a rude awakening. After staring blankly at the TV for several hours and unsuccessfully trying to make a few phone calls, I went back to playing CS. I was helpless. I used to play as the terrorists, since they seemed to have a more interesting assortment of weapons, and the concept of actual terrorists was so foreign to me. After that day, I've always played as the counter-terrorists.

In some ways, this provided me an opportunity to remember not to forget the little things. On the anniversary in 2002, I spent a bunch of time trying to reconnect with some friends that I had lost touch with. For that I am grateful, as I feel as though my life has been somewhat enriched. For everything else, I'm not the least bit grateful.

Osama, we will find you, whereever you are. Retribution will be served. When I was a kid we worried a little bit about the Cold War, but we were largely safe. You made this generation of children feel unsafe and vulnerable. You will pay.

So I open up my email and I got a 'wink' on Match.com from a 34 yr old woman with 2 kids. What's up with that?

ACL Festival started today. Saw Sheryl Crow closing out the evening. I was going to write a synopsis of what I saw, but it's 1AM already, so I think all the writeups will have to wait until after ACL is over.

I realized today that I'm never buying Heinz ketchup, ever again. Interpret that however you wish. =)

3 days, 8 stages, and a lot of music later, the Austin City Limits Music Festival has come to a close. For the third year running, I walked away with some new musicians that I wanted to see, some cool pictures, and some fond memories.

Highlights from Day 1:
Henry Butler - Gospel/jazzy piano goodness. I guess it makes sense that a man without sight would spend time making his ears happy. 3.5/5
Terri Hendrix - Only caught about 10 min, but it was pretty good stuff. Her song Monopoly is pretty catchy:
"There ain't no clear channel
clear channel its clear to see
One choice takes the voice
Away from you and away from me"
I'll have to hear more some time. 3/5
Patty Griffin - As always, she was fantastic. 4/5
Sheryl Crow - An awesome set from what was probably the biggest superstar at the whole festival. I hope my significant other has her legs when she's that age. Lance did not make an appearance though. 4.5/5

Day 2 Highlights:
Ray LaMontagna - The poor guy is from Maine and he was dying out there in the heat. Great voice. In my opinion, the biggest sleeper of the show. 4.5/5.
Trish Murphy - I know it's silly to see local acts, but I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to see her if it wasn't here. I'll have to check her out again. Possibly at "Braless Night" every THU at Ego's where she performs with Kacy Crowley and Renee Woodward. Hopefully, I can figure out where that venue is. Best lyric of the festival:
"The trouble with trouble is... it starts out as fun" 4/5

Day 3:
Patrice Pike - Another local act. =) The music was good too. Oh yeah, her backup vocalist was totally cute, too. I'll be seeing more of her in the future. Apparently her old band, Sister Seven, is getting back together, too. Good stuff. 4/5
Ben Kweller - I think this kid is 20. Played piano, guitar, and sang. Can't really describe it, but he was DAMN good. Probably the 2nd biggest surprise of the whole festival. 4.5/5
Drive-By Truckers - "Momma ran off with a trucker...". Need I say more? Last year, they were by far the highlight of the festival for me. They came in and played a blistering set while we got rained on, and they just rocked. While some of the songs off their new album were a bit mellow for what I expected, they did not disappoint. I'll have to make sure I find the right albums to buy, as their discography has about 9000 CDs in it. 4/5

Sadly, this year also resulted in two high-profile disappointments.
I hadn't really known about The Pixies other than their name. I had borrowed some CDs from a friend earlier in the week, and enjoyed listening to them, but their live performance was quite disappointing. Stoic and largely stationary, their performance was practically devoid of energy. The first half of the first song seemed to have some energy, but I think that all came from the crowd. After about 20 minutes, I turned to one of my festival buddies and asked, "is it just me or are they just really uninspired?". She concurred, and we headed back to the other side of the park for Trey Anastasio's 2nd set.

The other act that failed to meet expectations was Cake, but it was not their fault. By the time I had left Modeski Martin & Wood to see Cake, the crowd had already formed. Despite fighting through 1/3 of the way through the crowd, I still couldn't hear them. The back half of the crowd was alternately chanting, "Louder" and "Turn it up". After about 20 min, I gave up and headed home. Not the greatest way to end the weekend, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Well, after spending about 2 hours at Waterloo Records, I'm about $50 poorer in cash and about $50 richer in musical assets. Of course this also means that I haven't had enough time to go through all of my pictures from California or ACL yet. Procrastination be me. Here is a preview of one of my favorite Trish Murphy pics, though:

Those that know me well, know that I am pretty anti file-sharing, because I don't think the primary users of things like Napster, Kazaa, and Bit Torrent have any intentions other than getting stuff for free. My stance has always been that I hate the RIAA and I choose to spend my dollars (or not) in order to try and influence their practices. I flat out refuse to knowingly steal in order to provide myself with free benefits or added convenience. I don't think it's my choice to make. So here I was, at Waterloo Records, holding Charlotte Martin's CD in my hands. I had heard her at the Chicks with Attitude concert in SF, and I really loved her music. Then it hits me. I notice all sorts of anti-piracy text on the packaging, but most importantly the long blurb about the copy protection used on the disc. I'm all for stopping piracy, but copy protection is not the answer. Making a backup copy, or a 2nd copy for personal use is well within my rights as "Fair Use". The copy protection schemes that they use are a huge hassle, generally degrade the media in either durability or fidelity, and are a flat out inconvenience.

So, what do I do? It's time to put up or shut up.

It went back on the shelf.

Saddened, I took my other purchases with me to the checkout and went on home. Thankfully, I found out that the copy protection scheme used on her CD is the crappy MediaMax CD3 scheme that is easily circumvented. On one hand, I'm annoyed that they'll likely collect royalties for their faulty software. On the other hand, I can get what I want, with no hassles. I'll probably go back to Waterloo and buy it tomorrow. Hooray for the internet.

This experience annoyed me enough that I'm going to do some research on copy protection schemes and keep a little cheat sheet with me, so I remember which ones are actual annoyances and which ones are non-issues. Stay tuned for more.

During the weekend, I was thinking about why I don't like music from Modeski, Martin, and Wood or Trey Anastasio, despite the fact that they're clearly excellent musicians. Certain people clearly enjoy it and can groove to it, but it just doesn't resonate with me. While driving to work on Monday morning, it hit me. Their music has no melody. From wordiq:

"In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. However, this succession must contain change of some kind and be perceived as a single entity (possibly gestalt) to be called a melody. Most specifically this includes patterns of changing pitches and durations, while most generally it includes any interacting patterns of changing events or quality."

I was discussing this with someone that was insisting that a melody existed or that it was very similar to jazz, which is very improvisational. However, I just can't agree with that. I listen to plenty of Miles Davis and Coltrane (among others), and I can definitely pick out what I consider a melody. I guess a way to simplify this, is to state that a melody is something that I can hum. The aforementioned humming should then be potentially identifiable as the song itself (assuming a certain proficiency in humming). With MMW and Trey A, I don't believe that is the case. Note that this says nothing about the presence or lack of rhythm or harmony.

Clearly this is opinion on a topic with lots of gray area. I'm also not making any qualitative statements about the music. I can certainly hum a Celine Dion song, but that doesn't mean I like it. However, I'm happy that I can finally put into words what I've felt about music for a long time.

I think it's for this same reason that I can generally enjoy percussion, Blue Man Group, jazz, techno, and industrial. It also explains why I can't really get into acid or trance. It's probably time that I read some books or take some music theory classes to solidify my terminology. I'd probably enjoy the music that much more.

P.S. I discussed this same topic with a co-worker that is both a musician and generally music-knowledgable. It's interesting to note that he had the same assessment of MMW and Trey A. I think his words were something like, "I can't get into it. They just sorta noodle." He didn't really agree or disagree with me about the melody thing, but I think we both knew what the other person was trying to convey.

Ooh! New Lisa Loeb CD!

Apparently she ditched Dweezil, so she's on the market too! =) Go sexy librarian glasses!

I wish I could say that I was this creative when I was in college. Unfortunately, I wasn't as talented as these two enterprising lads:

Entrepreneur #1

Entrepreneur #2

Thx to uurf and Jane Galt for the links...

My compadre and I hit Waterloo Records last night. I picked up Charlotte Martin and the new Patti Griffin. Charlotte's disc did not disappoint. I wouldn't call her a copy cat, but the Tori Amos influences are pretty clear.

After the 2nd day in a row of blowing some hard earned cash at Waterloo, we headed down to see Braless Night with Trish Murphy, Kacy Crowley, and Rene Woodward. This is the first time we had been there, so I don't know if this part of their shtick, but Trish and Kacy started off the show by harassing Rene for actually showing up with support. So about 30 minutes into the show, she pulled the bra removal out the side maneuver. It wasn't alluring or trashy, per se, but it was definitely comical and amusing.

Now call me crazy, but if you're at a venue with a live band, it's standard practice to keep your voices down to a level where they can actually be heard. At one point, this group of really loud people come in and sit down. They were loud enough that Kacy actually made a little song out of it. I can't remember exactly how it went, but it was something like:

We've got a little competition...
Those people in the back...
They're talking so loud...
And they don't even seem to notice...

Maybe you had to be there...

Some people have gadar. Some people don't. I'm pretty sure I've got smoker-dar. We're out at this bar yesterday, and since my buddy is buying the round (well all of the rounds), I elect myself to be beer bitch. I head up to the bar and this woman gives me the come hither finger. She's pretty cute, so I go on over and see what she wants. So she starts flirting with me and I start getting this really bad vibe, and I can't put my finger on it. She's got a nice body, she's tall, and she's clearly friendly. What could be wrong? I dunno, but I grab our beers and head back to our chairs. 5 min later, I see her light up. AHA! She's a smoker.

I had the exact same experience last Halloween. I was out at a party and a cutie came up to me, but something was off. 10 min after are conversation, she lit up as well.

Now if only I could pick up on the cues for mentally unstable women, I'd be set.

(DISCLAIMER: It's 3am and I've had 5 drinks tonight)

Just drove myself home (so I'm reasonably sober) from a friend's birthday party. For the 2nd time in 3 days, I had a random woman come up to me, run her hand along my cheek, and shower me with compliments on my physical appearance. For the 2nd time in 3 days, the source of affection was a smoker. For the 2nd time in 3 days, I was relatively unreceptive. In the grand scheme of things, I spent a larger portion of the evening flirting with someone else (the nanny). However, as I drove home, I found myself with a stronger emotional attachment to smokey Our last exchange went something like this:

Her: Ooh they're playing Depeche Mode.
Me: Is it? I guess it is.
Her: We should go dance to Depeche Mode.
Me: I never really got into Depeche Mode.
Her: What is wrong with the guys in this town? ***storms off***

I knew exactly what she was doing (I'm not THAT dense), but I didn't reciprocate. I don't know why. I wanted to stop her from storming off, but for some reason I didn't. More or less immediately afterwards, I caught up with my ex-coworker and the nanny that I had spent half the night flirting with to tell them that I was leaving, enjoyed speaking with them, etc. I looked around for smokey for a couple minutes (probably 45 seconds), before I gave up and went home.

I kept feeling as though I owed her an apology. I feel like she deserved to be told that she was cute, attractive, great, and everything else. The very first thing she said to me while she ran her fingers across my face was that I had great skin and was clearly a non-smoker that couldn't provide the light that she was looking for. I wanted to return the compliment and mention something along the lines of how she's going to ruin her good looks by smoking that crap, but I didn't. I'm still trying to mentally process why I did what I did and why I feel the way that I do. In the grand scheme of things, she deserves props for putting herself out there and making herself vulnerable. If I believe in my no-smoking criteria, why does this matter to me?

Then I was too damn distracted to ask the nanny for her number. I just gave her a hug and said goodbye.

I guess I do suck at this.

The unknown is almost always more dangerous than the known. When someone says they want to vote for John Kerry, that's one thing. When someone says they want to vote for "Anybody but Bush", that's an entirely different and completely irrational point of view. Exhibit A for my case is the Miami Dolphins. For the last couple years, Jay Fiedler has undergone constant criticism, despite the fact that he has been the starting quarterback for a winning team. This year, he got benched in game 1, and A.J. Feeley has thrown for 2 TDs and 5 INTs. In his defense, Feeley isn't the only one that isn't playing to his potential. However, it's absurd that the Dolphins didn't make a play for any one of the legitimately solid QBs that were available. Mark Brunell, John Kitna, Kurt Warner, Vinnie Testaverde, Jeff Garcia, etc. Not only that, they went after A.J. Feeley instead of one of the young QBs that has superstar potential: Rivers, Manning, Henson, etc.

And don't even get me started on the offensive line...

So as most of you already know, I consider myself to be a fairly music-centric person. I didn't have the greatest day today, and I turned to my music collection for therapy. I think I generally listen to too much melancholy stuff that is good for easing my nerves when I'm annoyed or angry, but it's not so great when I'm feeling down. I started with some Aimee Mann, looking for the song that Trish Murphy sang last week, but since I've got about 5 CDs that it could be on, and I don't know her songs that well, I ditched it for some Kylie Minogue. With the volume at 31 and a nice big glass of Sambuca in hand, I'm gonna let blondie wash my problems away.

I saw a preview for the new movie Closer, and they had the following blurb:

If you believe in love at first sight...
...you never stop looking

I dunno. Food for thought.

Monica is out since she's turning 35 soon, but maybe it'll strike again with someone a wee bit younger and more accessible...

Interesting article on "Smart Growth" at Asymmetrical Information.

"his calculations show that when compared with the social costs of transit systems (like taxpayer subsidies and noise from buses), the car is at least twice as cheap per passenger mile as transit"

I still think increasing automobile efficiency and nuclear power are the best ways to improve the pollution situation. Congress ought to just suck it up and push the CAFE standards, and bump up fossil fuel costs (not just gasoline taxes).