Weekend Roundup

Gallery, Meta, Music

Well, now that it’s officially over, I must say that was a really excellent weekend that even the amazonian weather couldn’t dampen. It got started strong on Friday with a little car dancing, good food, a sarcastic ATM, and a trampoline.

Saturday got a late start, and it turned out the gig I was looking forward to got rained out. However I did get to meet some new people out in Spring Valley and had a wonderful homemade dinner. There are pictures too but someone *cough*Sarah*cough* absconded with my digital camera, so I’ll have to wait to see if any of them came out. Also got to help someone with their computer, which is always a good feeling. Sometimes I have bad streaks where people seem to come to me with the strangest problems that I really don’t have a clue how to take care of. Then I drove through the rain to hear “the group Mike sings with,” otherwise known as Lager Rhythms. The show was really technically excellent and entertaining, and I got to sit by Christine which was excellent because I got the feeling we both had been similarly exposed to Schoolhouse Rock, we were cracking up at the same times. Afterward I tagged along with Kathy, Elaine and Kenny, Hanna, Robert, and the blog-less Joe and Mandy to a neat place called Catbirds, where they had really excellent music. They were playing really classic jazz stuff, mostly stuff I had heard before but a few gems that were new to me, including one I know was Ella Fitzgerald but I forgot to ask the DJ what album it was off of. Our relatively large group was seated outside, which was fine for the cool weather but a little inconvenient once it started pouring again. I’d like to see them some more but unfortunately I won’t be able to make it out to the Renaissance Festival next weekend because of HPUG. However, if you are going to be in town though, be sure to check out the meeting at 1 PM next Saturday because we’re going to have almost every kind of Treo known to man and a ton of cool Bluetooth gadgets that Jason is bringing.

Where does that leave Sunday? Recovering. And it’s already almost four in the morning!

Tweak Tweak

Gallery, Music, Tech

Well a little bird whispered in my ear that Google was starting its monthly crawl again, the major one, not just the update one, and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to tweak some of the more egregious errors on this site. The URL system throughout the site is now more consistent, and the header stuff has been optimized a bit. TODO: fix login system, jazzquotes, add “new photos” thing, update MTCurly.

Don’t Give Them Any Ideas

Humor

RIAA Wants Background Checks on CD-RW Buyers

“I was alarmed when I heard that children had the ability to burn CDs right on their computers,” said Senator Strom Thurmond, “We’ve tried to educate parents on the dangers of children playing with fire, and now these death merchants sell them that ability in a shiny metal box.” Other Senators voiced their concerns about the possible violations of privacy in the proposed legislation, but since it was called the Copyright Patriotism Act they are unable to oppose it.

Performance Today

Music

For those of you who may be interesting, I’m playing a big band gig today at 2:00 PM at Saint Christopher Episcopal Church at 1656 Blalock. I think it’s some sort of festival or something, so it should be fun. We’re doing an interesting alto feature called “Harlem Nocturne” which yours truly will be playing. Sorry for the short notice though! I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday.

Happy Hallowe’en

Gallery, Meta

Matt and CatI hope everyone has a safe and pleasant night. In honor of the night I coerced my lovely black cat Helza for a brief (she doesn’t like being held long) photoshoot. She was more interested in looking around than looking at the camera, so here’s what came out. Besides, would this be a blog without at least one cat picture? Her full name is Helza Poppins, which we named her because when she first joined our household she would hide behind everything and jump out when you least expect it. I’ve seen some pretty interesting costumes today, and of course the decorations are always fun.

Pun-A-Day #19

Humor

In the 1900s an English town had fallen on really hard times. For decades its primary industry had been its textile mills, but now the mills were all closed and unemployment was at an all-time high. Desperate, the town’s mayor looked frantically around for other industries to invigorate the economy. He found that there was a man in Germany who was looking for someone to take over his thriving hunting-dog breeding business. The man had made a fortune raising the animals and was willing to unload it for a fraction of its value so he could retire with his new wife. The mayor used his influence to have all the mills converted to kennels and all of the dogs transported to his town. Employment skyrocketed and the town prospered! Everyone was happy, even though, sometimes—especially on the nights with a full moon—the animals got a little noisy, keeping some residents awake. They just sighed and said, “The mills are alive with the hounds of Munich.”

Tired

Software

I took a long rest earlier because I had a terrible migraine. Why am I so tired now? Too tired to read, too tired to talk, and too tired to work on the code I wanted to get to this evening. I think it’s time to try that sleep thing out again.