Added a PayPal Donations Link

This is somewhat off topic on this blog, but I spent some time this evening with a friend getting a "donations" button setup at Atheists of Utah. The link will take you to a PayPal page where you can show your support for secularism in Utah. I know it's nothing big really, but I'm still a little bit excited to have done it nonetheless. Now, I just need to get us signed up for the Amazon Associates program.

TiddlyWiki, The Coolest Web App Since Sliced Bread

A friend of mine pointed out TiddlyWiki to me a year or so ago. And, I played with it and immediately was in love with it. It's hard to explain, but it is a javascript based dynamic web page that let's you create Tiddlers. Tiddlers can be blog entries, articles, lists, anything really. It's use of CSS and Javascript make it a web app that feels like a desktop app. Click on a Tiddler and it zooms open. Close it and it zooms shut. Your entire wiki is stored in a single .html file.

The idea is that you can keep your TiddlyWiki on a USB keychain drive and port it with you from computer to computer. The problem I have with that, is that I don't like to take my keychain drive with me everywhere I go. Also, I'm still a Palm PDA addict and I like having my information at my fingertips on a portable computer rather than in a keychain drive that requires a computer to access it. I'm still struggling to find the balance between what I want on my PDA (i.e. the information that is totally personal) and that which I want to put on the web.

However, I recently discovered that there is a plugin for TiddlyWiki that allows you to quickly and easily upload your TiddlyWiki to a webserver. It requires that you are able to run either PHP or Ruby scripts on your server, but once you upload the script file to your server and then install the plugins available at BidiXTW, then you can simply update your wiki on your keychain drive and click upload to publish it to your webspace. This is awesome.

I'll still be trying to determine what info I want in my Palm and what info I want to post on the web, but for those things that I think should go online, I'm going to be using TiddlyWiki.

Now, if someone would just make a Palm conduit that could keep Palm OS Memos synced to a TiddlyWiki file...

One final note. If you don't want to have to keep your TiddlyWiki on a keychain drive, there's a really spiffy new site, TiddlySpot that will let you setup your own hosted TiddlyWiki in about 10 seconds (seriously, that's all it takes).

What Google Can't Search For

No, it's not happiness. I actually think Google can locate that for you.

It's, and pay attention, simply this "$|".

Yep, that's a dollar sign followed by a pipe symbol. Go ahead, try and google for that. Unless they fix it after I've posted this on January 12, 2007 @ 1:50 PM MT it will produce absolutely no results.

Now, I know, normally that's no so stupendous and hardly blog worthy. There are plenty of search terms you can think of that will produce no results. However, searching for "$|" doesn't even return the normal page that says something like:

Your search - "google better not find this exact phrase anywhere on the web, argh" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

• Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
• Try different keywords.
• Try more general keywords.

It simply returns nothing, no error, no explanation. It's weird. And, blogworthy.

Found A Cool Little Windows App Today

It's not as cool as the network locations management built into OS X, but it'll make having to use Windows at work all day long suck just a little bit less- Network Change TCP/IP. Also, it's not the most imaginitive name in the world, but it is free and the source code is available (but you'd have to have a copy of VB6 to use it).

Why I Hate and Don't Care About DRM

DRM, or Digital Rights Management is one of the many scourges of the current state of the internet and battles over intellectual property. It's why I don't regularly buy tracks from Apple's iTunes Music Store even though I live in a household with 2 iPods and 3 Macintosh computers running iTunes. I just hate the idea of paying for something that may someday for reasons beyond my control just suddenly refuse to work any more.

Who knows? Maybe one day, like in the wet dreams of all those Windows fanboy idiots that think that Microsoft is actually innovative and don't realize just how much more badly their DOS 8.x PCs would suck if Microsoft hadn't had Apple to copy, Apple will go out of business. Or maybe for some unforseen legal reason due to legislation or licensing with the music business, Apple will stop making iTunes or they will release an update that doesn't support songs sold now under their current Fair Play technology (read the license agreement, I'm sure you've already agreed that they can basically do anything and that you have no guarantees whatsoever) and maybe then one day in the not too distant future all those billions of encrypted, copied protected songs that people have been buying from the iTunes Music Store will simply become unplayable? Or, mabye there will be some complicated, illegal or quasi-legal and messy process people have to go through to unencrypt their songs to be able to use them again. All the vinyl afficionados of the world will be laughing at the rest of us on that day.

That's why I still mostly buy CDs (and almost always used, can't stand the prices of new CDs) and then rip them to AAC files myself. However, I had this experience last Friday that changed my thinking on this a bit. For some weird reason, I really wanted to hear some early Japan. And, I mean early Japan- I wanted one of their butt shaking glam rock releases from 1978. It was a desire that verged on a need. It was the kind of hunger that if it was sexual could do damage to one's marital fidelity. I thought about driving over to a local CD shop to look for a used copy and realized that what I wanted was probably not going to be found used. I thought about looking for a new copy and again realized that I probably wouldn't find it and if I did, I did not want to pay $16.99 or $18.99 for a 30 year old recording that should by all rights cost $7.99 or less.

So, I checked on line. I checked with the Russians (www.allofmp3.com) and with the iTunes Music Store. Now, allofmp3.com has Japan's 1978 release "Adolescent Sex" and it would have only cost around $1.70 or so to buy from them as 192Kbs AAC files with no DRM. As far as I can tell, buying from these folks, while insanely cheap in dollars is a fair price in rubles and is also legal under international copyright law. However, I could not log in. And, as I've explained I REALLY wanted, no, NEEDED to hear this album. Well, the iTunes Music Store has it too. It's $9.90 for 128Kbps AAC files that have DRM.

So, reluctantly at first and then with gusto and about 3 clicks of the track pad on my iBook the files were happily depositing themselves into my iTunes music library and with much less effort than it takes to download from the russkies. Within minutes I was happily listening to David Sylvian's nasaly snarl on songs like "Wish You Were Black" and that killer riff with the siren noise that just amuses me so at the beginning of "Lovers On Main Street". But, then, no sooner than I had started enjoying my new purchase those thoughts about how I wanted the DRM off of these tracks started nagging at me. Just knowing that those restrictions were there was lessening my enjoyment of my newly purchased music.

So, I decided to download JHymn. JHymn is a piece of freeware that I'd read about a while ago that removes DRM from music purchased from iTMS (iTunes Music Store). I read the directions on the web page and then downloaded and attempted to run it. After a few clicks here and there and letting it connect to the iTMS to download my keys, I thought I was in business, but it could not convert my DRM'ed tracks to non-DRM'ed. I started to do some reading and discovered that with the release of iTunes 6, Apple had broken JHymn. I was about to give up and then it dawned on me- why not just do the easy thing, burn the tracks to an audio CD and then re-rip them? This has been the dirty little secret with the iTMS store since the beginning. I had even tried this a few years ago to see how an AAC file purchased from iTMS would sound when converted to an MP3 in this manner. I remember that the MP3 sounded fine, but maybe a little (what I would describe for lack of a better term) "flat". But, if you didn't have the original to compare it to, you would probably never notice.

So, I burned "Adolescent Sex" to an audio CD and then I ripped the audio CD to 192Kbps AAC files and started comparing. I put on my overpriced Philips headphones and turned the volume up and started listening as intently as I could to the originals and the new DRM-less files. I went back and forth between several tracks about a dozen times and I could not hear any difference. Then, I thought, what about 128Kbps AAC files? So, I re-imported one track from the audio CD as a 128Kbps AAC and compared it to the other two versions of the same track- again, I could not tell the difference. That settled it, I threw away the 192Kbps files and re-imported the entire CD at the same bitrate and format as the DRM'ed tracks.

So, I transferred the non-DRM'ed, re-imported tracks from my iBook to the eMac that is the central music repository in the household and imported them into the iTunes library on that machine and cranked up the glam rock through the house stereo. It sounded great. I made a decision right then and there to put any other files that I've purchased (there are very few) from iTMS through this same process and to never again have DRM'ed tracks in my collection.

So, yes I hate DRM, but now I'm not worried about buying them because I believe that burning them to an audio CD and then re-importing them in the same format with the same bit rate will not result in any discernible quality loss. So, I may occasionally buy music from iTMS a bit more often, as long as Apple doesn't rain on my parade by removing this method of getting rid of the DRM.

Allmusic.com Reviews: Two and a Half Stars

Allmusic.com is a great encyclopedia of music. As an information resource for looking up artist and band discographies and song writing credits, I would rate them 3.5 stars out of 4. They miss half a star for not doing a good job of keeping the discographies current.

However, their album review content is not so good. For that, I would only give them 2.5 stars out of 4.

Here's a case in point. On a review of Catherine Wheel's "Happy Days", the reviewer worries that fans of the bands first two releases would be confused by and unappreciative of the harder sound of this one and gives the ablum a 2.5 star rating. The first two albums are rated 3.5 stars.

This theme, of penalizing bands for daring to change their sound and explore new territory is consistent throughout the reviews on allmusic.com. However, it's a ridiculous and lazy tactic in a music reviewer. Fans often appreciate bold changes in direction in sound from artists. Critics often review things that they themselves have no interest in. Consistently assuming that a new sound from a band will just disappoint long time fans is a just a convenient way for the reviewer to not really listen to or think about the music they are reviewing.

Also, allmusic.com is not Rolling Stone circa 197x. They are not the single editorial voice of rock music with limited print resources, this is the day and age of the internet. They shouldn't hire one self important rock critic to write two paragraphs about an album.

No, what they should do instead (and no, I'm not gonna suggest a public free-for-all like amazon.com) is to run two reviews of each album. One critical (i.e. critical as in negative) and one gushing, but hopefully well written and insightful, fan review for each release.

They should also drop the star ratings. Star ratings are insanely meaningless. If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as I believe Elvis Costello once said, then a star rating for an album is like the response you got from friends in grade school- "I like it because it's good."

By the way, "Happy Days" is a modern rock classic by a band that felt comfortable blending the textured atmospherics of their first release with the catchy rock of their 2nd release and threw in some thinking man's heavy metal for good measure. I've yet to meet a Catherine Wheel fan who didn't love it and find it liberating and refreshing. So, stick that you up your lazy college boy wannabe critic arse, Mr. Kellman.

OS X Software Worth Investigating

• VoodooPad Lite - Like a personal wiki on your mac. The non-lite version alllows export to html so your personal wiki could be published as static pages. What the developer needs to do to get me to buy the full version is provide palm syncing.
  

Software I Need to Investigate

• FreeMind - Mind mapping software written in Java.
  

Ah, Google What Hast Thine Adsense Wrought?

I like how all the ads on this page are now for patriotic music. I guess we don't have to worry about the computers taking over anytime soon seeing as how they are too stupid to actually figger out that my post is not necessarily endorsing patriotic music.

Listen to the Verses

So, I'm sitting in Rice Eccles Stadium last night following the Real vs. Metro Stars game. I'm watching the 4th of July fireworks and there is music playing in the stadium over the P.A. system. At first, they're just playing crappy pop songs, most of which I don't know the names of. Then, they play Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American". People were actually singing along. Although, I think I heard a fair amount of laughter too. But, then they start playing Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA". So, I'm no Springsteen fan, but I do know enough about the song to know that it is not a patriotic anthem. Of course, the problem is, that you're not gonna understand that if all you do is listen to the chorus of Bruce belting out "BORN in the U - S - A!" But, I guess that's not really a problem because I think we live in a nation where a large portion of the people only listen to the chorus, the sound bite, the talking point, or the bumper sticker. So, this morning, I went and looked up the lyrics to "Born in the USA":


Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.

Addicted to War

I just finished reading a "Addicted to War" by Joel Andreas. You can (and should) order a copy, read it, and then give it to a friend to read. I'd already been intorduced to some of the ideas that are in this book when I read Noam Chomsky's "Understanding Power", however "Addicted to War" is a much more approachable and concise way (it's in comic book format and it's only 77 pages) to learn about the problems that the United State's military/industrial complex causes. Problems that you and I, our children, and their children will be dealing with in very real ways.

I found the pieces about the antiwar efforts of the vietnam era particularly interesting. As someone who was born in 1972 and then raised during Reagan's version of the Cold War, I had never learned just how strong the antiwar movement had once been. It's depressing to think that by 1991, George H. W. Bush was able to declare the "vietnam syndrome" kicked as he was invading Iraq and sending our men and women out into harm's way. Something he had never required of his own children.

As someone who marched against the war in Iraq right here in the heavily pro-Republican, pro-Bush, and therefore pro-war Utah, I'm taking solace in the fact that these days, even here, I'm hearing more and more people lament the war and even hinting that they regret having voted for Bush.

It's not a great way to head into the July 4th weekend- re-visiting the idea that, contrary to what they taught me in elementary shool, America has not always stood for freedom and democracy in the world. It makes me think of lines from that great Aztec Camera song "Good Morning Britain":

"The past is steeped in shame
but, tomorrow's fair game.
For a life that's fit for living
Good morning Britain"

Yeah, so it's not about the United States, but I think the sentiment still applies. When I'm watching the fireworks tomorrow night, I'll be thinking of ways to take advantage of the fact that 'tomorrow's fair game.'

Why Am I Such A Lazy Blogger?

Seriously, I should have no problem writing something everyday. I'm an opinionated bastard and I see and hear about stuff everyday that the world needs to hear my perspective on!

Of course, there's the persistent problem that people are too stupid, too wrapped up in their own ways of thinking, or just completely so out of sync with my wisdom that I'm constantly casting pearls before swine.

Also, the full time job, the wife, the kids, the video games, the internet porn, cd collecting, movie watching, etc- they just seem to get in the way of blogging too. So, if you've somehow become addicted to all the treasures of wisdom that I so infrequently dish up here, please accept my apologies for the infrequency of my posts. Please know that I think about blogging everyday, and I do it for you.

I'm thinking about it when I'm coaching my daughter's soccer team. As I scream my lungs out at these 8 and 9 year old kids to play their positions, look for passes, and to (goddamnit) be more aggressive in attacking the ball, I'm thinking of the things I should be sharing you with you, my loyal but small audience.

I'm thinking about it when some insane moron in an SUV almost kills me on my little red Vespa. God, I hate cars. I wish for the day when I can live in an environment where I can either walk or take public transit wherever I need to go.

I think about stuff to write every time I watch the Daily Show. I really wanted to write a scathing review of Meat Beat Manifesto last week after they played here. I really wanted each and everyone of you to know just how badly they sucked. I guess that's the chance you take when you go just to see what they sound like because allmusic.com mentioned how they used to be part of a loose political cooperative with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Consolidated. After 30 minutes of vocal-less techno-industrial beats, the cleverly cute, but now monotonous collage of old movie and tv images just didn't cut it anymore. I wanted to hear some clever political vocals, not just see scenes from Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill mixed in with weird old sci-fi films. I said goodbye to my friends, walked out into the Salt Lake night and rode my little red Vespa amongst all the Suburbans and H-2s that were trying to kill me and that I wanted to kill.

iBook Camping for a PETA Zealot

Is there any point to using a computer without the internet?

What can you still do on a computer when not connected to the net?

Wordprocessing
Spreadsheets
Home Finances
Graphic Design
Digital Photography
Digital Music (if you want to manually type in all of the song titles when importing from a CD)
Programming

Spotlight makes a lousy application launcher because it doesn’t focus on applications first and it results list jumps around too much while it is finalizing the results. QuickSilver makes a much better application launcher.

Am I a total geek for taking my iBook camping? I really just wanted to see if there was any wireless out here in the great outdoors. The closest town is 20 miles away. It’s a place called Richfield, UT. I drove there last night to get a few items. I used the self check out at Albertson’s. The busy body who works the self check out says, about the cage free eggs I’m buying, “A clear package. I’ve never seen an egg package like that.”

I’m thinking, ‘Really? You only work here. Take a walk around once in a while.’

Then she says, “At that price, I guess I won’t be buying those. That’s a lot for eggs.”

Finally, I turn around and say, “It’s because they’re cage free...”

“Oh, so the eggs have never been in cages?”

“No, the hens. The hens aren’t raised in cages.”

“Oh, so does that make them like organic and all natural.”

“Sort of, but it’s really more about buying cruelty free eggs. Have you ever seen the conditions that caged hens are kept in? It’s not very pretty.”

This was sort of the end of the conversation. She made some remark about not having ever seen how hens are raised but that her hens run about and think they are in charge of things at her place. And, really, good for her if she’s keeping hens in an environment where they aren’t locked up in cages and so she probably doesn’t buy store bought eggs and therefore the $3.60 I was paying for eggs from cage free, vegetarian fed hens seemed a bit outrageous to her. But really, that wasn’t just it, the moment I said, ‘cruelty free’ in regards to how hens are raised she started to turn away. Once she knew that my paying more for the eggs was not just out of a desire to have all natural or organic eggs but, that I was actually concerned with whether or not hens are treated cruelly or not, she wanted to instantly distance herself from me.

I find this sort of behavior over and over again among people in this culture. I know many people who eat animals on a daily basis and wear animal skins or buy furnishings made out of animal hides and part of why they do this is because it is easily available to them and another part of why they do it is because they have convinced themselves that the animals are well treated while they are alive and that they are probably even slaughtered in a quick and relatively painless manner. I think on some level they know these things aren’t true but, they consciously choose ignorance even though information is available to show them otherwise. I think they do this because they know that once they give up their self imposed veil of ignorance they might have to give up their comfortable laziness and habitual consumption of animal products because they would then realize what they already really know and are just pretending to be ignorant of, that the animals they consume are raised and slaughtered in abject misery and cruelty and that by buying the products and continuing the eating habits that they have they are actually responsible for the abuse of these poor creatures.

I have a coworker who is an active mormon and (I don’t know why, I shouldn’t) I always tease him about having a “word of wisdom problem”. The “word of wisdom” is the term that mormons use to identify a particular revelation that god supposedly gave to Joseph Smith in the 1800’s that outlines a health code that mormons should follow. Among other things that it says, it basically says that god would be very pleased if people only ate animals when no other food sources were available. It says that mormons should eat meat sparingly. Amazingly, mormons have focused on a few other parts of this health code, like the call to abstain from tobacco and alcohol but, they just ignore the call the only eat meat in times of famine or in the winter (when plant based foods might have been scarce in the 1800’s). Even though basically all of the mormons I have ever known eat meat centered diets, they tell themselves that they “eat meat sparingly.” It’s odd how “sparingly” and “2 - 3 times daily” can be congruous in their minds.

Anyway, this coworker of mine was recently proffering the argument that a chicken could serve no other purpose than to be a meal for him. He was asking, what other purpose could it serve and saying that chickens were created by god to be food for men. So, I asked him if even if that was true, did all the chickens he ate have to live lives of misery and be slaughtered in painful and cruel ways before they got to his plate? I offered to show him videos of how modern chickens are raised and slaughtered. His response? He said he didn’t want to see it and he didn’t want to know about it.

Much like the woman at the checkout at Albertson’s, once the subject of being concerned about how animals are treated came up, he no longer wanted to pursue the conversation. He had no desire to know the real effects of his dietary choices, particularly if it meant that the choices he’s so used to making on a daily (yet, somehow “sparingly”) basis are actually causing pain suffering in innocent creatures.

Sundance, Slamdance, & the Freedom Cinema Festival (Part 2)

It was a bit hectic getting the kids to my parent's place and then getting back to Park City, finding a parking space, and getting to the mall by 3:00 PM for the screening of Michael Franti's "I Know I'm Not Alone". I think that because they were so late to announce these extra screenings, not enough people knew about it. The room where the screening was being held was only half full.

Michael's film is really moving. It probably deserves its own write-up. As a side note, my ass hurt from the plastic folding chair in the screening room.

After the film, we visited the book store at the Freedom Cinema Festival. I heard that Keith Knight, the author of the brilliantly funny "K Chronicles" comic, was wandering around and that it would be possible to get him to sign one of his books. So, I bought a book and a CD by his band "The Marginal Prophets". I was told to just look for a black guy wandering around as there were not many. This did not prove to be true after awhile, and I didn't want to just walk up to all of them and say, "I see that you're black. Are you possibly Keith Knight?"

So, after we'd left and had dinner, we went back to just lounge in the book store. I walked up to the table and said, "Hey, I'm still trying to find Keith Knight."

And, this guy looks at me and says, "Are you puttin' me on? I'm Keith Knight."

To which I replied, "Cool. I really like your comic. I bought your book and I was wondering if you would sign it."

And he did. He noticed my Oakland BART pass t-shirt and thought that maybe I was from the bay area (which a lot of people did, turns out that many of the people involved with the Freedom Cinema Festival are from the bay area. I honestly didn't know that when I chose that t-shirt). He was really nice and told me to look for him later and that he would take Liz and I into the VIP area for some wine. Well, now, I was faced with a dilemma; should I go to the movie for which I had free tickets, or should I buy tickets for the Marginal Prophets. I talked it over with Liz and we decided to get some tickets to see Keith's band seeing as he was such a nice fella and all.

So, after we got tickets and decided to go into the room where the music was (same room that Franti had played in the day before), Keith comes up to me and says, "You wanna go get some wine?"

We're about halfway there and he notices that Liz isn't in tow and says, "Your wife, she doesn't like wine?"

To which I reply, "She doesn't really drink. Besides she has all of our gear."

I kinda think that is the moment he decided I was a dork. But lest you think my geekery skills run low, I managed to impress him even more. We're in the VIP area and I pour myself a glass of what turned out to be some really good Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and I attempt to make small talk.

I asked him how long he'd been doing his comic. I was drawing a blank. I'd forgotten that I started reading it in 1999. I said I'd only noticed it a couple of years ago. He told me that the Salt Lake City Weekly was one of the first news weeklies to start carrying it and it was in 1997.

I asked him how long he'd been doing the band. I don't remember what he said. I then asked if it'd been the same group of people the whole time. For some reason, I think that's precisely when he knew just what kind of dweeb I am. He said that he and the other rapper were the only two original members and then he took off and left me in the VIP area.

The wine was good, so I hung around to drink another glass and then headed back into the show. Liz wondered where I had been, but didn't mind watching our junk without me.

After two glasses of wine, I found myself dancing to the Marginal Prophets. There were probably less than 20 people at this show, but it was really fun none the less. At one point, Keith says, "Hi. We're the Marginal Prophets and we've been together for 27 years and we've had 138 members."

Buzzed and dancing as I was, I couldn't stop laughing about this for most of their set.

After they finished playing, I watched a bit of the next band "Zion I", but then I needed to go rest so I went to hang in the book store some more. I ended up talking to a gentleman who goes to Jazz Vespers at my church (First Unitarian of SLC) and then to a woman who was there to show her documentary film. Of course, I didn't know this when we first started chatting. I was telling her about what it's like to be a liberal and an ex-Mormon in Utah. I asked her what she was doing here and I was expecting her to say that she came to see films or that she was a volunteer. I don't know why, I guess I make too many assumptions. Anyway, that's when she told me about her film, "Professional Revolutionary: The Life of Saul Wellmann." I'm genuinely interested in seeing her film, I'm hoping that PBS picks it up and that my local affiliate broadcasts it.

So, Zion I were finished and a DJ was spinning and Liz was tired of dancing and ready to go home. I decided I couldn't leave without telling Keith how funny I thought his comment was. So, I led Liz into the VIP lounge. We just walked in like we knew what we were doing. I found Keith and told him that I couldn't help but think that what he said was in direct reference to the dorky fanboy questions I'd been asking him earlier and that I totally loved him making a joke about it. He was really nice and asked us to stick around and have some more drinks and talk with people.

I poured myself some more of the good Cabernet and set up camp on a couch in the corner and started chatting with a guy who was already sitting there. It turned out to be the bassist for the Marginal Prophets.

I asked him if he had played on the "Dead Hippie Bootleg" and he said that he had, so I asked him to sign it. I think he doesn't get asked to sign Marginal Prophets CDs very often 'cause he seemed a bit surprised. But, he was really cool about it and he signed it for me.

So, that's about it. We hung out and talked for until things started to break up. Keith came over at one point to rescue his bassist from me and we ended up doing a shot of Jim Beam and then they left and then Liz and I left.

All in all though, I really liked what I saw at the Freedom Cinema Festival and I'm making a resolution to actually plan to be there next year instead of just ending up there by accident.

Sundance, Slamdance, & the Freedom Cinema Festival (Part One)

Sunday morning. Everything is a bit of a blur. Even though I've spent most of my life in Salt Lake City, I've never been any kind of a Sundance festival attendee. I've only been to one screening at Sundance. It was the U.S. premier of Jackie Chan's "Rumble In The Bronx". That was in 1996. Liz was about 6 months pregnant with Elise at the time and we stood out in the cold for something like two hours in order to get standby tickets for the sold out show. Jackie came to the screening to introduce the film which made the effort we put in getting to the screening more worth it considering that "Rumble In The Bronx" is not really his best work. Technically, that is still the only Sundance screening I've been to. I saw two films in Park City this weekend, but one of them was a Slamdance screening and the other one was a Freedom Cinema Festival screening.

I wasn't intending to spend 3 days in Park City during the Sundance festival. I only meant to see the Michael Franti concert that Liz got free tickets to. I knew it would be a late night, so I arranged to take a vacation day on Friday. The Michael Franti show was really good if a bit too loud and about an hour too long considering that I'd gone to work an hour and a half early that morning so that I could get off early and get to Park City well in advance of the gig. At that show, I ran into a new friend from church and she hooked me up with two tickets to another Michael Franti show the next day. This first show was sponsored by Slamdance and the tickets she got me were for another performance for the Freedom Cinema Festival.

Even though Liz is the bigger Franti fan, she couldn't really attend the Friday afternoon show due to the fact that she does childcare on Friday afternoons for some friends of ours who are teachers. (The kids in our school district get out early on Fridays, but most teachers have to work Friday afternoons.) So, I found a friend to head back up for the next Franti gig. If Thursday night's Slamdance performance was good/great then this show was amazing. There were only about 50 or 60 people in this really small room that looked out onto the Park City main street. We sat on the floor (at Michael's request) and he and his friend Jay played a really great sounding, quiet, yet energetic set. They sat on stools in front of the wall of windows that looked out onto the January afternoon sunlight and clouds. They played for just over an hour. The best part for me, both nights, but particularly for the Friday afternoon show, was a cover of New Order's "Age of Consent". When Michael asked if there were any New Order fans present, nobody spoke up. I meant to, but my throat wasn't working at that point. But, I did my best to sing along.

So, after the gig, my friend and I wanted to get into Michael's film about his trip to Baghdad, Palestine, & Israel in June of 2004. It's called "I Know I'm Not Alone". So, we headed out of the mall and across main street and down the hill a bit to the Slamdance box office. Of course, the film was sold out. So, we decided to buy tickets to the last Slamdance screening of the festival for a Belgian film called "Ellektra". "Ellektra" was pretty good up until the too happy ending. I was even working up the courage to tell the director what my thoughts on this until he basically intimated to the audience that he had had to lighten up his script in order to get financing for his film.

Now, we were in the mood to try and catch more films. A quick trip up to the Egyptian theatre, and we were informed that all Sundance screenings were sold out. We didn't investigate the option to purchase standby tickets. I only stood in line for 2 hours in 1996 because I really wanted to see Jackie's U.S. premier. I have no idea what played at Sundance this year and being that uninformed wasn't going to motivate me to stand in line like that again.

We headed back to the Freedom Cinema Festival. The only other film they had that evening that we could still get into was about victims of sexual abuse. It's that I'm not interested, or that I don't care, I just wasn't in the mood for something that heavy right then. But, lo and behold, they just announced that they're gonna screen "I Know I'm Not Alone" on Saturday at 3:00 pm. I called Liz to see if I should buy tickets right then and there, and while I was on the phone with her, a woman, who I believe is the director, gave me tickets to her film "I Pledge Allegiance". A few more phone calls to see if mom & dad will take the kids another night, a crazy trip to somehow get some cash out of my overdrawn checking account, and I had tickets to the 3:00 PM "I Know I'm Not Alone" and the 9:30 PM "I Pledge Allegiance" for the next day.

With no more films to see for the evening, Sam and I decided to head to Wild Oats for some food that is more reasonably priced that what you can get on main street during Sundance in Park City. We got to Sundance about 5 minutes before they closed so, since I had been talking up the black bean veggie burger at the Desert Edge Pub & Brewery we decided to just high tail it back down to the valley and get some of those.

Yesterday. Liz made us pancakes. Yay! I coerced Elise and Ian into helping clear the breakfast dishes. All four of us folded the clean clothes in the house and put them away. The kids "cleaned" their rooms. And then, we took them to grandma & grandpa's to spend the night. And, I have to go pick them up in 30 minutes, so this is gonna have to be a two parter...

Switched to Dvorak, Switched Back to Qwerty

There's a discussion on Slashdot today about a new keyboard that only has 53 keys that are arranged in alphabetical order. Of course, this has people going at it again about Dvorak vs. Qwerty. I chimed in to the discussion with the following:

I used to do phone support for a now defunct brand of PCs. This was circa 1997/1998. The job was mind numbingly boring. I'd heard how great Dvorak was supposed to be. I saved a Dvorak keyboard layout in my home directory and I would configure the machines I logged into with it and I started logging my calls typing with the Dvorak layout. It took me about 6 weeks to be able to type Dvorak as easily as I had done Qwerty, and the new challenge of trying to keep up with my work load with the new keyboard layout helped stave off some of the incessant boredom. I honestly didn't notice any difference in my speed, comfort level, etc. What I did notice was that when I used a computer that I couldn't easily switch to Dvorak, I was back to being a hunt and peck typist. This turned out to be a major PITA. Finally, I gave up and switched back to Qwerty. It took me longer to relearn Qwerty than it did to learn Dvorak, but in the end, it was worth it as I could now use 100% of keyboards I came across. I'm willing to go against the grain in a lot of ways. I'm a Mac user, a vegetarian, an agnostic, and bleeding heart liberal, but the fight against Qwerty keyboard layouts was a cause that turned out to just not be worth it. Too little return on investment for the effort involved.

Good News Kids, I Made Condi Rice

I've been trying to make a joke about Condoleeza Rice's name. I know
it's not nice and that she's probably a decent person in her personal
life, but as a public figure, she's a terrible person and totally
deserves it.

This is the best I've come up with so far, and it's not very good:

Parent: Good news kids! I made Condi Rice for dinner!

Kids: Condi Rice? What's Condi Rice?

Parent: It's a brown rice that is nearly indistinguishable from white
rice.

See, I told you, it's not that good. Still, I'm thinking there's a good
joke possible from her name.

Why Does Anyone Even Put Up With MS Windows?

I'm sitting here, working on a friend's computer. I worked on this computer about a year ago. At the time, they were infected with some viruses. We were able to get the viruses removed, install MS Windows security updates, put on a current antivirus system and firewall and basically get their system to operate somewhat stably again.

Here it is, a year later, and they've let their subscription for new virus definitions lapse. They have another virus, the firewall they installed is completely intrusive and pops up windows asking about every little thing that happens, and so I'm attempting to remove this new virus as well as installing adware/spyware removal tools. I've already wasted about 2 hours of my life trying to nurse another sick Windows PC back to health.

Why do people put up with this? I've never understood it. I've been using Macs in my personal life and working with PCs since 1992 or 1993. In all that time, I've never been able to figure out why most people choose to buy a computer running a Microsoft OS. Microsoft's operating systems have sucked since then and they never seem to get any better. And, the only reason that I can see that most people do this, is that they want to be like the majority of people.

There's this great quote that is attributed to Mark Twain, that says, "When you find yourself in agreement with the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

There's a lot of wisdom in that statement. Notice that Twain isn't necessarily saying that the majority is always wrong, he's saying that the majority is almost always wrong. Sadly, the majority is definitely wrong when it comes the blind adherence to buying computers that run Microsoft Windows.

Best Signature Line Yet

I saw this today on a Linux discussion board:

"The day Microsoft stops producing products that don't suck, is the day they start making vacuum cleaners."

It took me a second to realize what it was saying and then when I did, I laughed so loudly that my co-workers thought I'd lost it. But, then I read it to them. It took them a second too and then they couldn't stop laughing.

I printed this slogan on a 1/2 sheet of paper and hung it up on my wall of pictures at my desk. I want this on a t-shirt. I realize that it's a harsh statement and also a bit of hyperbole, but it's also hilarious and cathartic too(especially if you work in IT support and deal with their products constantly like I do).

to:dad,

This evening, after I'd sent her to her room until she could stop the absolute torrent of a tantrum she was having, my daughter slid a note written on a 3x5 index card out from under her door.

On one side it said, "to:dad." On the other, it read:

to:dad,

if you don't
want me to run
away. then you
will have to
give me a small spoon
full of beans.


Now, you have to understand what she meant by this. I wasn't depriving her of beans, I had given her too many and she wanted only "a small spoonful."

Notes like these have become a new trend for Elise. So, I decided to engage her in this new medium. I wrote her the following note back:

To Elise (whom I love very much),

Temper tantrums and emotional outbursts are not the best way to get what you want in this world. Whether it’s not wanting so many refried beans, or whether or not you get an apple bar for breakfast, staying calm and being willing to discuss things will get you a lot farther in life than screaming, yelling, and tantrums.

I hope you will decide to calm down and that you will be able to discuss this morning and this evening’s events with me without becoming so angry. But, if you decide not to calm down and if you decide to run away, please remember that if you are having the same problems with your new family, it may be because you still need to learn how to calm down.

Love,

Russ, Your Dad


I printed this, signed it, and gave it to her when she finally came out of her room. (Mostly because I had just finished it then.)

She read it with hesitation and surprise that I'd writter her a note back. Then she looked at me with this jaded look in her eyes and just dropped it on the floor. It was like she was saying, 'that is so lame dad. I'm the one who writes the notes and you people are the ones who read them.'

She's only 8. What am I gonna do when she's 16?