I went to see Tift Merritt at the Cat’s Cradle last night. I didn’t really know her music very well (outside of some 30 second samples off of iTMS), but I very much enjoyed the music. The venue, however, was a little weird for me. I hadn’t ever been to Cat’s Cradle before, but I thought it sounded fun. Well, I also thought it was more of a bar. I wasn’t really prepared for a open room with wall to wall people.
I’m not a big fan of crowds and I really like my personal space. All in all, it went okay and I didn’t freak out or anything 
I think my best bet is to keep going to concerts at places like the Cat’s Cradle and try to push myself into dealing with crowds better.
Now, back to the music. I was in shock at the quality of the singing and the band. She has a beautiful voice, but it is even better live. She had a guest join the band, Gary Louris from the Jayhawks. I also had never listened to the Jayhawks, but I enjoyed a song he played called “Save It for a Rainy Day”. I guess I will have to be checking them out now. Okay, back to Tift. The concert was a CD release party, so I got a copy of her new album, “Tambourine”. I would say my favorite songs from last night included “I am your Tambourine”, “Shadow in the Way”, and “Your Love Made a U-Turn”. Honestly, all the CD listening today has kinda blurred last night’s setlist 
I enjoyed it enough that this morning I hopped on iTMS and purchased her first album, “Bramble Rose”. I know the newer album is less country, but I am enjoying them both.
I have to throw out my thanks to Larry from over at Hickory Wind. He turned me on to Tift and is really helping me to find some great local music that I previously wouldn’t have known about…
Published on
August 29, 2004 in
Personal.
So, work has been pretty involved lately, but I am learning a lot about Linux clustering and getting some real good additional experience with enterprise-class hardware. I haven’t even seen any movies lately. Still need to check out the following movies:
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy
Hero
Shrek 2
The Village
I need to get caught up on quite a few things, but other than that everything is going well. I am really looking forward to next weekend, Labor Day weekend, as Heather and I are going to the beach. We are taking our dog, Vegas, to the beach for the first time. I think she will like it a lot as she loves sand and chasing birds. So, all of the seagulls on the North Carolina coast better watch out!
So, just a quick note (yes, I swear I really am going to sleep). I have decided to hack my 2 year old (almost) DirecTiVo HDVR2. This is an experiment as I will probably hack Heather’s too if all goes well.
I got a fairly cheap Seagate 120GB 7200rpm IDE drive (Yeah for 5 year warranties) from Best Buy and I am prepping an order for a NetGear FA120 USB NIC. I will be replacing my DTivo’s 40GB hard drive and placing it in storage (Just in case I want to go back). The 120GB will take it’s place and will have some fun hacks like TivoWebPlus and of course much larger recording space. Hopefully the rest of the parts will come in by this weekend, but I do have to finish watching the last 10 episodes of 24 that we somehow missed. Yes, I know I am behind, but somehow if I miss a couple it just snowballs. Luckily they have been patiently waiting there for months.
Anyway, more details as I get it done
2 out of 4 stars
I forgot to post this Sunday after coming home from the movie, but I thought I would knock out a short review before hitting the sack…
I saw this movie with YAFMT (yet another free movie ticket) that I got with the new Special Edition of Predator. Long story short, the film was a fun popcorn ride that was entertaining, but hardly memorable. It didn’t have the drama, excitement, or intrigue of either of the original two films. I think the special effects were much better in the original Alien film, but the infrared vision in AvP is definitely cooler than in the original Predator. None of the human cast is very memorable and the lead female role is overacted and easily forgettable (if you can forget how corny she was). The action was fun, but somewhat tedious due to the now terribly overused wire-fu Matrix-esque battle scenes.
So, like I said. It was a fun popcorn movie that if you can enjoy very superficially, but there is nothing more there. Accept that and you should have a good time.
Published on
August 8, 2004 in
Software.
Today, I have been playing with the social bookmarking tool, del.icio.us. I really like it so far. Amazing what some people can come up with when they take a simple concept and make it fun and interesting to use…
Click the link, if you would like to check out my bookmarks.
Published on
August 8, 2004 in
Software.
I was just reading over at ThinkGeek about a piece of software that is supposed to be coming out soon called, Delicious Library 3.0. It is a catalog program to keep track of your books, music, and movies. I have seen a previous version of this program that was simply called, Library. It was very nice, but previously only handled books. It does have an exceptional feature that can use an iSight camera to scan in a collection via it’s UPC barcodes.
I am very curious about this app and how much it will cost. The screenshot gallery over at Thinkgeek was extremely impressive.
Published on
August 6, 2004 in
Personal.
Well, I made it through my first week back at work. I really enjoy the cluster work I am getting to do, even if it is all still in the early phases. I had lunch with Matt and several other people from IBM for his last day. I think a good time was had by all…
Next week means more assembly of the cluster racks and things will really begin to get exciting. In the meantime, I am playing around with Gentoo Linux on my Pentium IV. I hate to say it, but I may end up building a faster system (3+ GHz) and buying a copy of Windows XP. I really want to play some of the higher-end upcoming games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2.
Published on
August 3, 2004 in
Personal.
Well, this is different
I got up at 6 AM (much earlier than I have been during the 2.5 months since Oculan’s closing) and I am getting ready to start my new job. I am starting a contract at IBM today and it sounds very interesting. While I don’t relish getting up early, I have been dying to do something more productive with my time. Not that cleaning out the garage and repairing a futon aren’t rewarding, but it just isn’t the same as earning a paycheck
