white stripes concert review...

It was a good concert, all in all. I wish I hadn't seen the "Blackpool Nights" DVD... I would like to have been a little more surprised by the tone of the live shows. The mix of songs was good. The live "arrangements" (if you can call them that) were good. The "sound" was about as good as you could hope for / expect... given the fact that the band consists of essentially a really distorted guitar and a bass drum.

There were more than a few screw-ups, musically... and not just the Jimmy-Page like sloppiness, which is part of his "technique"... A few places where Jack's fingers were in the wrong place... and a missed cue by Meg which earned her a positively withering look from Jack. But the interplay between the two if them is really nice, most of the time. It seems really loose... the way he cues her on all the accents. He even chokes her cymbals for her sometimes, which I think is really... cute? I dunno... it amuses me.

I have to say I can do without the thing where he just unstraps his guitar and drops it on the floor between songs... letting it feedback for 20-30 seconds while he switches instruments. I know it's part of his bad-boy-rock-star "schtick", but really... it pretty fucking obnoxious.

There is very little between-song-banter. I think he spoke to the audience 3 times. One of the exchanges went like this...

JACK: Meg had breakfast with Dennis Hopper today.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
JACK: (pause) ...that's not true.

He was also dressed like some sort of satanic bullfighter. You really have to be a "Rock Star" to pull off wearing a hat like that.

The crowd was far more diverse than I expected. I thought it would be all black-clad greasy-haired hipsters, but no... there were both younger AND older people there than I expected. It's nice to see that they have such a broad appeal.

(I also ran into a former student from the college there, which is always good... helps to reinforce my 'cool prof' street cred!)

Anyway... it was a long night. I didn't quite realize that the drive would be THREE HOURS. Plus, lots of standing around. Fuck "general admission"... I want a CHAIR!! I'm taking many naps today in an attempt to recover.

Dave

PS> The opening bands didn't suck either, particularly "The Shins" who were quite good, if a bit... "flippant"!

cans't thou heareth me now?

It's been a few years since I've been to a Renaissance Faire, but I'm pretty sure there weren't *quite* as many period-inauthentic tattoos and body piercings peeking out of all the costumes the last time... and I know I didn't see nearly as many people in full garb talking on the cellphone.

what dave's days off are like...

Hung one bathroom cabinet, one IKEA shelf, and four West Elm shelves.

Honestly... I'd really rather go to work... thanks.

(Although I have to say... how anybody ever hung ANYTHING before THIS amazing contraption was invented, I have no idea. Fucking brilliant. Buy one!)

dave was very busy today...

...so he didn't post.

please don't be alarmed.

because 40 gig is just not enough...

I tried to burn a CD yesterday, but my iBook told me it COULDN'T because it had less than 650 Mb of hard-drive space free. Ooops! Time for a good house-cleaning. I discovered that an archive of files and programs called "Old Mac Apps" was taking up 2.1 Gb, so... I think that's going to get burned to a DVD today. I could probably clean out the iTunes folder of downloaded-but-disliked music... not to mention retire some mediocre porn. I should also get rid of the Mac "Developer" tools. It's not like I ever actually write C-programs anymore, even though I like to know I could if I needed to.

I really, really would like a new computer. The problem is... I promised myself I would never buy another iBook. And to do what I want to do is really going to require a PowerBook anyway. (I'd like to be able to run GarageBand and iMovie at decent speeds.) And even a 12" PowerBook is gonna run me $2400 or so. Yeah... it's hard to be a Mac Snob at upgrade time, especially when there's always an ugly Windows laptop at Best Buy for $500.

I'm considering a few options. I could add some RAM, a bigger HD, and a new battery to the iBook for maybe $500 and get another year or so out of it. But hell... for that much money, maybe I should just buy a MacMini to use at home. They are, after all... awfully CUTE!

pant, pant...

Is there a better way to start the day than with a brisk, full out sprint from one's parked car to an arriving train? HOW COULD THERE BE???

It was a rough morning... the boy was up 3 or 4 times during the 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM stretch. I'd hate to be HIS preschool teacher today. After all that I couldn't sleep, so I just got up at 5:15. (I'd hate to be MY preschool teacher today!)

Last night we watched "The Day After Tomorrow". Don't ask me why... the wife has been asking to rent it forever... she seems immune to bad movie reviews for some reason. I mean, she knew it was supposed to be "bad" but she thought it might be kinda "funny bad" or "campy bad". No. It was just plain BAD. Maybe the worst movie I've seen since "Mission to Mars." I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie with less buildup. Five minutes in it's like... "Gee, the weather sure is getting crazy". No effort at all is put into building any suspense... not to mention any sense that any of this is remotely plausible. It's all just a lame excuse to show cities being leveled by tornadoes or frozen or covered in water. And the thing is... it's no longer so much fun to see a major American city covered by water when... you know... a major American city has just been covered by water. (Although the portrayal of the arrogant, stubborn, incompetent government officials comes off as somewhat prescient.)

Oh well... I guess the good thing about Netflix is that when you rent a bad movie, you don't feel like you've actually explicitly paid money to watch it.

tidbits...

* I fucking hate how crowded these trains are. Grr. I always wind up squished in with somebody... that never happened on the Long Island Railroad unless it was rush hour. (This train left NY at 3:45!)

* The closing finally happened on the Alabama House, and the money showed up in our account today. We're going out to dinner tonight... y'know?? Maybe we'll even order a fucking appetizer for the first time since MARCH.

* We got a laser printer in our office today, just for my office-mate and I. Seems like overkill, but I'm not complaining. The fucking thing is FAST!

* The Science Dean is trying to organize a "summit" between the art and science faculty over drinks this Wednesday night. It's a good cause, but two social events in 3 days is a bit much for me. Besides, we've seen what happens when I drink on a school night! And anyway...

* Tomorrow evening is the "Back to School Open House Parents' Night" thing at my daughter's school and we have to go yell at her teacher. I mean... I know it's just 1st grade, and that it's only the 3rd week of school... BUT... we need to make sure that she KNOWS our daughter is reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level, and that she plans to eventually DO something about it. Uppity parents!! As a former teacher I can tell you first hand... TEACHERS LOVE THAT!!! But if my wife sees another "circle the picture that starts with 'c'" homework come home... I think she may explode.

* One of my students was wearing a "Rush" concert shirt today, and I asked her if it was a true statement of musical interest or an ironic comment of some sort. She replied with a longwinded explanation about it being a sort of Canadian inside joke, and her Dad buying her a Rush album when she was young because she liked one of the songs, and then an ex-boyfriend who used to wear this Rush concert shirt that she would borrow, and the album came out in the year she was born so one day they were "vintage shopping" she saw it and bought one for herself. Ummm... excuse me...? "Vintage???" Jesus... it's not like it was "2112" or something... It was "SIGNALS"!!

a good argument for not drinking on a Monday night...

On days when I have class, I usually wake up at 5:30... leave the house at 6:00... and catch a 6:30 train.

Today I woke up at 6:38.

Oops.

It's not a big deal... I caught a 7:30 train and I'll still be in by 9:00 (class is at 10:00) but it still makes me feel like a bit of a fuck-up. It's not like I was passed out or hung-over or anything... I just forgot to set my alarm.

Anyway... I was going to deliver today's Astro lecture on the blackboard, but at the last minute I decided that a slideshow would be more visually appealing... so I scraped together at 45-slide Keynote presentation out of old lectures... a slide here, a slide there. I've nearly reached critical mass in Astronomy where I have a PowerPoint presentation in the archives with a slide about just about anything I could ever want to teach. It's just a matter of tracking them down and reshuffling them.

So, it's gonna be a whiz-bang astro lecture. Unfortunately my FIRST class is Physics, which is going to be a big problem-solving BORE. Oh well... they can't all be multimedia extravaganzas.

faculty reception + open bar = wheeeeeee!

Shit... I JUST made this train at 7:50. If I hadn't, the next one is at 9:40!! That would have been highly sucky.

As it is, I'm fine. It's surprising how much more bearable a faculty get-together is after a vodka & ginger-ale... and then a rum & coke... I'm beginning to understand why booze was invented. I stopped short of having a third, since I wanted to be able to find the train station. I know... I'm a lightweight... but in all fairness, the only thing I've had to eat since 10:00 AM was an apple.

So, the upshot is I was dangerously close to having "fun" at the thing. It's funny to see your serious academic coworkers get a little liquored up. God, I would never have thought it was possible for the woman who teaches Bio to talk any faster than she normally does, but... get a couple of mixed drinks into her and... ZING!

Not much else of interest today. I finished my grading this morning (yay!) and that's about it. I'm going to be back at this train station in about 12 hours, which is a little depressing. I should have had that third drink and just slept under my desk. I'm going to read some handouts for our next science meeting and call it a night.

afternoon trains...

Heading into work late today... no classes, just a faculty meeting at 4:00. It's weird... you meet a whole different cross section of people. Instead of crabby commuting businesspeople who don't even LOOK at each other, much less talk to one another, you wind up striking up conversations with a grizzled Tom-Waits-type trucker on vacation from California, who is complaining about the prices of mass transit and theatre tickets in NY. (Him and his buddies went to see "Cats" in San Francisco for $50 each. Truckers? At CATS?)

Anyway... luckily he was headed in the opposite direction, or we'd probably be sitting together on the train talking more about drag-racing his truck in California...

But instead, I'm on my train... blogging for the first half hour as usual. I have some grading to do... it's a small stack, but I need to do it today. I plan on being too tired to do it on the way home. The faculty meeting is from 4:00 - 5:15, then we are supposedly having a "welcome the new faculty" reception at some tavern somewhere. I assume there will be drinking. Actually... I'm kinda counting on it.

I didn't blog all weekend, I guess. Not much to say. The village we live in had their annual "Harvest Fest" and parade on Saturday. Our daughter walked in the parade with her school. It was cute. We walked a LOT, actually... from home to the parade dropoff, then downtown for the festival, then back home... pulling 2 kids in a wagon for a lot of it. Between that and the yardwork Sunday (rake, mow, seed, fertilize) I lost a good 5 pounds this weekend. I plan to walk to work today rather than taking the subway to continue the activity trend.

(You know... it occurred to me the other day... not only does getting back to NYC mean that I'm walking more... I bet the actual ACT of teaching burns a considerable number of calories compared to just sitting at a desk all day. I mean, lecturing isn't exactly "aerobic"... but it involves a fair amount of movement and activity. At least, moreso than... click... click... click............. click...)

Watched the Emmy's last night. No big surprises. Yay for Jon Stewart and for "Lost". Also for Felicity Huffman. (Love her... she's "smoky".) Letterman's tribute to Johnny Carson was nice and heartfelt (for HIM anyway) but I couldn't help but wonder... "Hmm... wonder how LENO feels about this??" Unfortunately the cameraman never cut to him. Anyway, nothing too exciting. There weren't even many eye-popping dresses to gawk at. (Actually I think the person who looked hottest was probably Naveen Andrews, who plays Sayid on "Lost." I would totally do him.)

In other TV news, the fall premieres are starting to roll out. Not too impressed with "Survivor" so far. Why bring back two moderately-popular losers from last season? Bobby-John?? I'm sorry, but just the name alone should disqualify him from being on television. Hanging on for the "Lost" premiere... we Netflicked disc 7 of the first-season boxed set last week and watched all of the extras, so we're all geared up now. The wife is all excited about "Desperate Housewives" and I'm looking forward to "Gray's Anatomy". (It's a little heavy-handed and earnest, but I think I'm developing a crush on Sandra Oh). We'll watch "ER" and "West Wing" for a few weeks out of habit... but I suspect that this will be the season we give up on both of them. But all in all, our nightly TV menu is pretty full. It was probably a dumb time to start Netflix, huh?

Uhhhh... what else...? (I can't stop writing or I'll have to start grading papers!)

This old man just tried to swat a bee that's been flying around the train. The bee is now wounded and angry!

I saw this chick at the train station whose WRIST was pierced. Not like... top to bottom, Jesus-syle, but like... along the top where you would wear a wristwatch there were two balls about an inch apart, connected, one would assume, by a GIANT METAL BAR EMBEDDED DEEP IN THE FLESH OF HER ARM!!! God, I thought working with Greenwich Village college-kids had me pretty used to all manner of freaky body piercings, but this thing made me woozy. That can't be safe. There has to be a risk of permanent nerve damage if somebody fucks that up. I'm trying very hard NOT to imagine the act of getting such a piercing and the length and width of needle required, and the tortured screams that must fill the room...

Excuse me while I get myself a drink of cool water...

Ah.

OK. I should go grade or something now...