Johnny B: Renaissance Man!

It's been fun, but it's time to move on

2010-02-13T13:14:00.002-05:00

As promised/threatened several weeks ago, this site has moved. Please point your browser at http://www.johnbeatty.org. I have moved all posts from here over to the new site, and I will slowly be adding other content along with the usual posting. While using Blogger is convenient and fairly easy, it's difficult to extend the site past just being a collection of posts. I also wanted to move the site to a different host, which after this month will not be possible with Blogger. I am also using this as an opportunity to learn how to build a site with Drupal.

RPM Challenge Days 5 & 6

2010-02-11T12:26:00.004-05:00

Tuesday night I spent some time arranging the scratch tracks I put down on Monday. I cut and pasted the most accurate performances of each part, then looped them and arranged them with the click track. I cut the seven songs I had started down to six when I started recording. I worked on five of the six, as one of them needs more writing. The arrangements are all tentative. I'll keep working them out as I go.

Wednesday, I set up the drums and played through all of the five tracks and worked out drum parts I like for most of them. There are two that still need work. One more than the other. As I expected, I noticed some issues with some of my arrangements when I was working through the drum parts. I haven't decided what I'm working on the Thursday night. It may be re-working the arrangements, or I might go buy drum heads and change them and work on the arrangements Friday before I start recording the drums.

Friday I will change the drum heads if I haven't yet, mic everything up and then start laying down drums on the tracks I have ready. I will also work on arrangements and maybe some new songs in between drum takes.

Saturday will likely be more of the same.

RPM Challenge Day 4: Scratch Tracks

2010-02-08T23:00:00.002-05:00

I finally got back to work today. The parts for my guitar showed up in the mail today, so I started off with some bass tracks. I played around and found some tempos, then put the bass parts I have for two songs down with a click. I didn't do the third because I decided I don't like it.

Then I grabbed my guitar, and pulled the bridge out and tore it apart and cleaned it up some while watching the third period of the Sharks-Leafs game. I installed the new string hooks, springs and screws then put it back together. I put the strings back on, tuned it up, adjusted the tension, tuned it again and it's playing better than ever. The springs have been worn for a while. Several years ago I cranked the tension all the way up to compensate, but it would lose pitch if I bent a string. Also, I've known those string hooks were wearing and I think I was having some trouble keeping in tune because they were shifting. No more.

After fixing the guitar, I went back and put down the guitar parts I have for four songs. One of them definitely needs something else, but I have a start.

Tomorrow night I'll start arranging them via some cut and paste. I'll look to add parts to a couple of them and maybe come up with some more new stuff. If not and I lose inspiration early, I'll finish rewiring the recording setup. I found the rest of the cables and such that were missing. I was planning on doing drum tracks all week, but it looks like Wednesday I'll set the drums up and play for a bit. I probably will put some tracks down on Friday.

RPM Challenge Day 3: More Songwriting

2010-02-06T23:18:00.003-05:00

Thursday night I went back over all the stuff I had done the previous two nights and came up with one more thing. The parts for my guitar shipped so I should have that up and running again soon.

Today I had originally planned to get some demos started. I had a bunch of other stuff to do as well and it all took longer than expected. I did get the computer moved and the mixer wired up and I fetched the mic stands from storage. Tomorrow I have two morning errands to run, a small amount of kitchen cleaning and a Super Bowl party. Around that will be solid work on demos.

RPM Challenge Day 2: Songwriting

2010-02-03T21:34:00.002-05:00

Tonight was the Panthers' Season Ticket Holder team signing, so I went to that right after work, followed up by dinner at Stevie B's in Weston. After we got home, I unpacked my new, dirt cheap SX bass, which arrived this afternoon. I sat down with it in the living room and checked it out. It plays reasonably well. There's some buzz, but some of it is probably easily fixable. It's a "vintage" jazz bass, with the old neck style that's really narrow at the nut. It's a little weird as I'm more used to playing metal basses or 90s Jazz basses, but I think it will do the trick. I came up with the basis of three songs, so even though it was only an hour's work tonight, I think it was a good hour. I'm too tired for much else this evening, so it's off to bed to read for a while. Tomorrow I'll work on a couple more new things and maybe revisit the first couple nights worth of stuff. Then Friday's a night off for the Calgary game. On Saturday I'll start getting some rough tracks down.

RPM Challenge Day 1: Songwriting

2010-02-02T23:21:00.003-05:00

This year I have entered the RPM Challenge. I have entered under the name "The Irony Set," which Liz doesn't like. No matter. I will make my ambient dub metal album nonetheless. At least that's what I'm anticipating now. No telling how these things turn out, especially if they aren't well-planned, which this one is certainly not.

I missed the first day owing to the very dull Panthers-Ducks game last night. I might as well have stayed home, but I wasn't feeling great and wouldn't have gotten much done anyway.

I started work this evening after dinner. I was thinking I would start to put together some guitar riffs, record them and arrange rough demos on the computer. I realized fairly quickly that I had a couple of problems there. One being that I'm missing a fairly important cable for my recording rig, the one that hooks the tape recorders to the sound card. The other cables for the sound card are too short to reach from the mixer to the computer. I was planning to buy longer cables in August when I was setting up this room, but never made it. So, I need to find the missing cable and I also need to move the computer closer to the mixer. I also left all my microphone stands in storage, so I will have to go fetch those later this week.

I gave up on recording for the evening and instead picked my guitar back up and kept working. I put together pieces for two songs and notated them in my usual shorthand so I won't forget them (in theory). I tried dropping to D for a third song but quickly found I didn't much like it, so I started tuning the string back to E. I heard a popping noise and looked down to see the hook that holds the string in place on the bridge had broken. My guitar is a heavily modified Japanese Telecaster. I replaced the original bridge with a Kahler 2230 back in 1995 because the original System I bridge had worn out. This bridge was given to me by Marty, our lead guitarist and was about 7 years old at the time. I think mine is the second or third guitar to have this bridge mounted on it. I'm fairly lucky it happened now and not several years ago, as Kahler is making them again and repair parts are readily available.

I grabbed my backup guitar (the less said about this one the better) and went back to work. After a quick tune-up, I played around some more and worked up the beginnings of a third song. I had to leave to check the chile verde again, and that ended up being the end of my work.

I hopped on the internet and $61 later, I have a whole new set of string hooks (might as well fix them all), a pair of springs and set screws for the saddles. If I'm ordering, I thought I may as well fix some other parts that are showing their age.

Tomorrow, I will have to work in some cleanup and studio setup into the evening. That is provided the Panthers Season Ticket Holder autograph thing doesn't take forever. I have that right after work, then we'll head home and eat the chile verde. And then it's back to work.

I'm hoping to have rough arrangements of seven or eight songs by the weekend. If I can do two to three per night, I should be in good shape. I want to have rough demos recorded by the end of the weekend. Then I'll spend the week (Monday to Sunday) laying down drum and bass. Then the plan, such as it is, calls for guitar overdubs, then I'll work on lyrics, record vocals and then add whatever else seems necessary. Since I'm working on a DAW, I will be working up mixes as I record, meaning that I can hopefully mix very quickly at the end. I'll nail the plan down a little better as I go along. For now, I have three songs started and hope to get two or three more tomorrow.

Phish - American Airlines Arena, Miami, FL December 30, 2009

2010-01-19T21:40:00.000-05:00

Set 1: Soul Shakedown Party, Runaway Jim, Jesus Just Left Chicago, Dixie Cannonball, Stealing Time From the Faulty Plan, Corrina, What's the Use?, Tela, Gone, Rocky Top, Chalk Dust Torture, David Bowie

Set 2: Sand, The Curtain With > Lifeboy, Back on the Train > Wading in the Velvet Sea, Hold Your Head Up > Love You > Hold Your Head Up, Free, Boogie On Reggae Woman > Run Like an Antelope

Encore: Frankenstein

After a sleepless night following discovery of the robbery while we were at the second show of the run, we tried to pick up the pieces a bit. I spent most of the day trying unsuccessfully to fix the broken window. I got it mostly working, but the control arms were too bent for the bottom pane to close properly. Liz dealt with the police report and finding the serial numbers and getting better descriptions for stuff. Neither of us ate all day. We finally took off for the show around 6:30, arriving well after door time.

We went up to the 400 level to check out our behind-stage seats. They told us that we could trade our 400 level tickets in for 100 level seats, also behind the stage. I didn't want to trade my mail-order tickets in, so we went to check out the assigned seats. They were up pretty high, but offered an interesting view of the stage and the rest of the arena. Plus the section was empty. Before the show, groups of people would come in, look at the seats and, more often than not, leave. But a few other groups remained by the start of the show. The arena staff seemed pretty put out that they couldn't close the section on account of about 20 people who wouldn't leave. But too bad for them. After a really rough day, we were happy to sit way up in a sparsely populated section.

We went back down to 300 to pick up some food. I got a sandwich and some fries. It was passable arena food, better than what the BankAtlantic Center is serving, for the most part. It felt good to finally eat.

But what does this have to do with the music? Not much, except to explain my mood at the show. The band opened with some reggae, namely the first Soul Shakedown Party since the fateful 2004 Vegas run that led to Phish's breakup. But tonight it got the party started. Most of our section were up and dancing. They kept it uptempo with a nice Runaway Jim with, again, a concise and tasteful jam out into Jesus Just Left Chicago, the first of the year and my first as well. This was to be the theme of the evening, as it often is for December 30 shows.

After the bluesy Jesus Just Left Chicago, they kicked the tempo back up with a quick country tune I'd never heard, which turned out to be a Hank Williams song called Dixie Cannonball. Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan and a rare Corrina, which they had played for the first time in ten years ten years to the day on December 30, 1999 at Big Cypress.

After a quick break, Trey let out some feedback and they lurched into a familiar-sounding groove. Amazingly, someone down below us was apparently hollering for What's The Use and the band obliged. I couldn't believe it. This rarely played centerpiece to The Siket Disc is one of my favorite pieces of Phish music. By the time they segued into the first Tela since 1998, I had an enormous smile on my face and my mood had lightened considerably. At the first chords of Tela, the entire audience lit up and the band responded with a gorgeous rendering of the rarely played fan-favorite.

After the Phish debut of Gone, from the Party Time CD (aka the Joy box set bonus disc), the rest of the set was high octane: Rocky Top, Chalkdust and a blistering Bowie. I was left wondering what they were going to pull out for the second set.

The second set kicked off with only the second Sand since the last time Phish played New Year's in Miami back in 2003. That, naturally, got everyone dancing again. The Curtain With followed, in a much better performance than the last encore at Coventry. That gave way to the underrated Lifeboy. And in a continuation of the tempo shifting approach the band had been taking the entire run, they followed the mellow song with the uptempo Back on the Train and the quiet Wading in the Velvet Sea.

After wading, Page started playing the chords to Hold Your Head Up and Fishman emerged from behind the drum kit. Trey hopped up to the drums and they launched into Love You, the song that had held the last vacuum solo of the 1990s during the all-night set at Big Cypress. After the second verse, Fish stated that as they had announced his last vacuum solo of the decade two nights earlier, he couldn't play another one as "that would make us liars."

"Can anyone hear play the vacuum? It can't be just anyone, it has to be someone dressed like me, and that sir, is you." He motioned to security to let a guy from the front row up, a man dressed in a t-shirt patterned after the dress Fish wears on stage." The guy from the front row said his name was Rich and proceeded to play a fairly impressive solo. So impressive that Fish gave him the vacuum cleaner before returning to his drums.

With the audience raging, Phish finished up the set with some more high energy tunes, Free, Stevie Wonder's Boogie on Reggae Woman and Run Like an Antelope. Edgar Winter's Frankenstein (a fixture at special shows) was the encore and we were sent back off into the night. We drove home a lot happier than we arrived, and as there were no extra lights on when we got home, we relaxed a little more and actually managed to get some sleep.

Phish - American Airlines Arena, Miami, FL December 29, 2009

2010-01-06T21:30:00.000-05:00

Set 1: Golgi Apparatus, Maze, Driver, The Connection, Wolfman's Brother, Ocelot, Reba, Access Me, The Divided Sky, Cavern

Set 2: Kill Devil Falls > Tweezer -> Prince Caspian > Gotta Jibboo > Wilson -> Gotta Jibboo -> Heavy Things > Also Sprach Zarathustra > Slave to the Traffic Light

Encore: Sleeping Monkey > Tweezer Reprise

After the first night, I was pretty excited about the second show of the New Year's run. They
hit it full on with an uptempo Golgi Apparatus to open and then got into the jamming quickly with Maze.

A couple of slower, shorter ones followed including only the second performance of the lone single from 2004's Undermind album, The Connection. The rest of the set was mostly either long jam or long composed songs broken up by another second-ever performance of an Undermind track, Mike Gordon's Access Me, one of my favorites from that album. The Wolfman's Brother and Ocelot on the front-half felt like 1997 again as they pulled out the funk (yes, Ocelot is new, but the jam out of it could easily have been from summer 1997). The Reba and Divided Sky after were fairly tight, with a quite good solo in Reba. I particularly enjoyed this bit of the set, as it was Reba that first really got my attention. At the time I heard it, I was listening to a lot of Frank Zappa and Trey's composition at that time was heavily influenced by Zappa's work. Divided Sky is similarly constructed and as a bonus is a song I hadn't heard since my first Phish show.

The second set started out with a high-octane Kill Devil Falls, from the new record which slammed straight into Tweezer. Tweezer was an example of the concise jamming that Phish is engaging in. There was little long-windedness in the jams on the entire run. Tweezer faded into Prince Caspian which kind of stumbled into Gotta Jibboo. Jibboo picked up the tempo and eventually wandered its way into Wilson. Trey teased Jibboo in the Wilson outro and eventually they segued back into the ending of Jibboo which in a kind of sloppy fashion gave way to Heavy Things.

Liz was definitely enjoying the poppier tone of the previous night, what with all the pop classics on display, as opposed to this show which featured the two overplayed Phish singles from 2000 and 2004. She spent a lot of time home in Virginia Beach, a place where Phish is actually heard on the radio, those years and had her fill of The Connection and Heavy Things. I have no such problems, but I thought Heavy Things was a little on the sloppy side. The set got back on track with the funky cover of Deodato's arrangement of Also Sprach Zarathustra. This, much like Tweezer was concise. There was nothing wasted as they laid down some funk, dropped into the theme and then built up to big crescendo, falling away into a pretty Slave to the Traffic Light to end the set.

The encore went into silly with Sleeping Monkey before the inevitable Tweezer Reprise to end the show.

We finished the evening at the arena with a trip to the merch booth, where some girl had just bought a shirt, walked away from the counter, dropped the shirt and had someone grab and run off with it. We all talked about how lame that was. It was eerily prescient as we arrived home to find someone broke into our house while we were a the show and stole some stuff. So, then instead of getting some sleep after another good show, we spent some quality time with the police before spending the rest of the night unable to sleep. Unfortunately, the memory of this show may always be marred by this (mostly) unrelated event, and definitely affected us for the remaining shows.

Fifteen things about me and books

2010-01-05T21:39:00.003-05:00

I pushed off the post I was going to write for today because Sarah Glassmeyer posted a link on Twitter to Steve Lawson's Fifteen things about me and books and it looked like fun.

1. I don't really collect books, but my tastes are so odd I feel compelled to keep lots of books for fear of never being able to find certain titles again.

2. In first grade, they sent me to second grade for "reading class" because I read too fast for everyone else.

3. In sixth grade, I had to read and give an oral report on 'The Yearling.' I hated it so much that I stopped halfway through and just winged the report.

4. The only non-assigned book I've ever given up on was J.R.R. Tolkien's
'The Silmarillion.' It reads like The Bible, only more confusing.

5. I say the above as someone who has read The Bible, cover to cover.

6. When I worked in my junior high library, I was the first person who checked out a newly released biography on Ernie Davis, the school's namesake. I was very excited to be the first person to check out the book although I wasn't a football fan. I think I was just interested in learning about the person whom the school was named after.

7. I can't remember the last time I read a novel. I've been reading non-fiction books almost exclusively for several years, though I do read short stories. (OK, make that a non-Harry Potter novel-I read those).

8. I read the book '1984' in 1984. I probably didn't understand all of it, but the book had a profound influence on my thinking about a lot of things.

9. A book with an even more profound influence on my thinking was Douglas Adams' 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' I thought the worldview of the person behind that book had to be very interesting, indeed.

10. The book is always better than the movie. The only one that comes close is 'Goodfellas.'

11. While most of the fiction I've read comes from the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of the book store, very little of it is actual Science Fiction. It's always seemed so dry.

12. I'll read an autobiography written by just about anyone if they look like an interesting person.

13. I found so many of the novels I was required to read for school boring (still can't read Steinbeck and Hemingway), but the short stories (and sometimes the poetry) very interesting.

14. When I was in high school and my family took summer vacations, while everyone else was swimming I would be sitting on the beach with a book.

15. I read Douglas Adams' 'The Salmon of Doubt' very slowly because I knew it was going to be the last one of his I would ever be able to read.

Phish-American Airlines Arena, Miami, FL December 28, 2009

2010-01-04T21:49:00.004-05:00

Set 1: Sample in a Jar, NICU > My Soul, Roggae, Undermind, Bouncing Around the Room, Poor Heart, Stash, I Didn't Know, Beauty of a Broken Heart, Possum

Set 2: Mike's Song > Light -> I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Alaska, Backwards Down the Number Line, Makisupa Policeman > Harry Hood > Contact > Character Zero

Encore: First Tube

This was my first Phish show since the debacle at Coventry five years ago. We, along with thousands of others, told to turn back from the disaster area that was the farm where it was being held, parked our cars and hiked in. Though the band was obviously touched at this display by fans, it was their announced last show as their problems, in particular, as we would soon find out, leader Trey Anastasio's drug problems, had spelled the end for the band. The resulting show was reminiscent of a wake: an attempt to celebrate the life of the band, but ultimately sad at the same time.

Following Trey's drug bust and resulting rehab and community service, the stage was set for the band's return. They finally reunited this spring with a series of well-received, but tentative, shows at Hampton Coliseum. They followed these with a summer tour and a new album. Reviews were good, but not great as the band re-acquainted themselves with each other and their music. The band's Halloween festival in California and fall tour received much better reviews and it was about this time the Miami New Year's Eve shows were announced. I entered the ticket lottery and somehow managed to score tickets for all four shows.

I was never a full-on obsessive Phishhead. This was my twenty-first Phish show, which is a bit more, but still in line with other bands I've seen live as often as I've had the opportunity. And though I was less than excited by their latest album, I was still excited by the prospect of the shows as this band has almost always been better live than on record. And I am happy to report that this band can still bring it live. They may have needed the better part of a year to get back up to speed, but they've still got it.

The first set started nice, uptempo and poppy then got quiet with the first Roggae since the breakup. The composed part at the end was a touch sloppy but otherwise the song was very well-played and well-placed, slowing the tempo down a little before the second performance of Undermind and the pop of Bouncing. A slamming fast Poor Heart got the tempo back up before a nice, dark Stash and I Didn't Know, featuring what Trey referred to as "the last vacuum solo of the decade." That was fun, especially as I'd seen the last vacuum solo of the previous decade, at Big Cypress. They upped the tempo again they rocked up the opening (and best) track from Page's snooze-fest of a solo album and then closed out the set with Possum.

After the Roggae and Poor Heart/Stash combo, I was pretty excited about the next set. That was the best set of Phish I'd seen since 2003. Easily beat all of the 2004 shows I saw. Mike's opened up the festivities. The transition into Light was interesting and unexpected and the jamming from Light into Hydrogen was especially good and along with Stash, the highlight of the show. A couple more new ones followed and then a Makisupa where Trey sang about going to Mike's House. And it was Mike's set, as his playing stood out as being particularly good. From there they went into Hood, which was again well-played. The Contact was unexpected, but fun, and Character Zero is always a good way to end the set as far as I'm concerned.

By the end of the set I was excited for the next three days of shows and expecting a quick encore before we went on our way, but it was not to be. No, I was finally going to see a First Tube. Somehow, of all the songs on Farmhouse, this one, my favorite, had eluded me to this point. They revved it up and then pulled it back to end the night on a high note, leaving everyone ready for the next show.

Best Albums of 2008

2010-01-03T20:00:00.001-05:00

Best of 2008? Isn't is 2010? Shouldn't I be writing a best of 2009? While I'm all for year-in-review, I often think that albums released late in the year get short shrift on year-end lists. A lot of year-end lists are published before the year's last albums have been released and many more were written earlier for publication at the end of the year. Also, as someone who is not a professional reviewer (and no longer a record-store employee), I don't hear everything as soon as it's released. I don't get to a lot of albums until well after release. I also like to give it some time. Sometimes things that don't impress me at first do so ultimately. Sometimes I'm all over an album when it's new and then set aside when the next thing comes along.

As of right now, here are my favorites from last year, in no particular order:

Deerhoof-Offend Maggie
Terakaft-Akh Issudar
Stereolab-Chemical Chords
David Byrne & Brian Eno-Everything That Happens Happenss Today
R.E.M.-Accelerate
Von Sudenfed-Tromatic Reflexxions
Radiohead-In Rainbows
Hawnay Troof-Islands of Ayle
Dengue Fever-Venus on Earth
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds-Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

Best New Old Music:
Frank Zappa-One Shot Deal

Best Box Set:
2 Skinnee J's-Big Green Book

Best Reissue:
Nick Lowe-Jesus of Cool

Honorable Mention:
Bob Mould-District Line

A few notes on the above:
Bob Mould gets the honorable mention because I just bought the record last week. I missed it when it came out. I recently heard a track on the radio and at first I wasn't impressed. I didn't like the effects on the vocals and it just didn't seem great. The song ended and I was humming the chorus over the DJ. I bought the album two days later.

It took me a long time to decide whether or not I liked Deerhoof. I eventually heard enough tracks I liked from Offend Maggie that I got it, and when I heard the whole thing i was a lot more impressed. Terakaft is a couple former members of Tinariwen, who started their own group. The music is very similar, but they also have their own sound. The latest Stereolab is fabulous. I think it's the best thing they've released in years. It's very poppy, with a lot of shorter, catchy songs. Too bad it might be their last. A lot of people were disappointed in the Byrne and Eno album because it was so dissimilar to My Life In the Bush of Ghosts. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is a much different project with a completely different sound. Byrne described it as a sort of "electronic gospel" and that's not too far off. I enjoyed it and the accompanying tour quite a bit. Accelerate is the first R.E.M. album I've been excited about since 1989's Green. There are a couple of duds late in the album, but up to that point, it's just as solid as they come, with more energy than the band has displayed since Monster. Von Sudenfed is a collaboration between The Fall's Mark E. Smith and Mouse on Mars. It sounds a lot like the Mouse on Mars guys put some tracks together and then Smith came into the studio, got loaded and just went for it. With In Rainbows, Radiohead turns out another good one. It feels less like a progression than leftovers from Hail to the Thief, but they're good leftovers. I don't know quite what the Hawnay Troof are doing, but it's a lot of fun. It's kind of a hip-hop version of XBXRX. Definitely worth checking out if one is into crazy electronic stuff. Dengue Fever were the darlings of NPR for a while. We kept hearing pieces on them on various shows. It took a long time, but in mid-2008 I finally found their albums in a shop in Durham, NC. I bought all three. Venus on Earth had just come out and might be my favorite of the three. Dengue Fever update classic 60s Cambodian pop music. Their older albums contain covers of Cambodian tracks and originals in Khmer. Their newer albums have more originals, including several in English. it's all good stuff. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! sounds more like 2007's Grinderman album than a Bad Seeds record, but with the full group. Either way, it's all Nick Cave and it's all great.

One Shot Deal is based on a build reel found in the Zappa archives. It was apparently from a lost, never completed project from the mid 70s. Frank's build reels were usually one album side. This particular reel had no corresponding other side, so it was filled out with a couple of tracks from the Royce Hall show in 1975 and, randomly, the recording of "Illinois Enema Bandit" from the 1981 Halloween show. The last track notwithstanding, the rest of the CD is some really good mid-70s FZ including an excellent performance of the Yellow Snow suite from Australia and a great guitar solo from Heidelberg. Yep Roc re-released Nick Lowe's debut solo album, Jesus of Cool in 2008. The CD also includes B-sides and the alternate tracks from the U.S. version, called Pure Pop for Now People. It sounds great and there are liner notes explaining the circumstances behind the album and the two versions. And the music is still fantastic 20 years later.

Best Live Shows of 2009

2010-01-02T21:19:00.003-05:00

Continuing my year-end wrap-up, here are my ten favorite live performances I saw this year.

Jesus Lizard, Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA, November 6, 2009
My top choice reflects my musical biases. As much as I liked the next two performances on the list, I find it difficult to not list an amazing rock act first. Ten years after their breakup and coinciding with the reissue of their first four albums, The Jesus Lizard reformed to play a couple of summer festivals and a short fall tour. I missed this band the first time around and have regretted it ever since. Their live reputation was stellar and as much as I enjoyed the records I always wanted to see the live show. I was certainly not disappointed. One song in, I was thinking "This band is fucking awesome!" A couple more in and I was convinced it was the best show I'd seen all year. By the end of the set, I had decided they are the best rock band I've ever seen. Period. I'm convinced they reformed just to show up a bunch of guys half their age. The tour is over now and allegedly they ‎will be returning from whence they came. If they hit the road again, there is no question I will be there. They are everything great rock and roll should be: intense, loud, slightly dangerous and unrelenting.

Leonard Cohen, BankAtlantic Center, Sunrise, FL, Oct 17, 2009
I came late to the party on Leonard Cohen. My f‪riend Bill, who is a huge Cohen fan, turned me on to the I'm Your Man album a few years back and more recently I have started to explore the rest of his catalog. When I found out he was playing locally, I couldn't pass up what is likely to be my only opportunity to see a living legend. The show was all-around amazing. The lower bowl of the arena was turned into a makeshift theatre, giving it a bit better atmosphere for the music. The sound was incredible. Cohen's band is stellar, in particular Spanish guitarist Javier Mas. And Cohen himself is engaged, self-effacing and funny on stage. He played a two-and-a-half hour show from throughout his catalog, from first album to most recent.

Tinariwen, North Beach Bandshell, Miami Beach, FL (Heineken TransAtlantic Festival), April 25, 2009
I picked up on Tinariwen from Henry Rollins' radio show on Indie 103 in Los Angeles (he's now on KCRW). He has been playing tracks from them for several years. I finally found one of their albums in a store early this year. I played the disc incessantly and soon after found out they would be playing locally as part of the TransAtlantic Festival. They were opening for Cuban-American singer Cucu Diamantes and it was pretty obvious early on that it was her crowd and hardly anyone there had any idea who these guys were. Little matter as the band had the crowd all dancing within five or six songs. Group leader Ibrahim skipped the tour, opting to go into the desert to recharge. No matter, as his songs were sung ably by younger member Intidao. Tinariwen will be back in the United States early this year. We will be catching them in Brooklyn in February.

Phish, American Airlines Arena, Miami, FL, December 28-31, 2009
I cheated on this run and put the whole run as one show rather than have three shows by the same band in the list. In almost any other year, the December 30 show would have been at the top of the list. Barring performers I know personally, Phish is the one I have seen the largest number of times (24). I was in the swamp ten years ago for their New Year's Eve set, which began at five to midnight and ended at dawn. For a number of reasons, the band lost their way following this show. They took a hiatus after 18 years as a band to recharge, came back two years later and then broke up within two years. They reformed early this year and played their first shows in March. They've spent the year becoming re-acquainted with each other and regaining what they'd lost as a unit. These shows are proof that they are back one hundred percent. Reviewers are calling the December 30 possibly the best pre-New Year's Eve show of all time and the whole run found them playing well, having fun and pulling out all the stops. The complicated songs were tight, the jams were focused and well-developed, their sense of humor and spectacle were well intact and on display. Unlike some of their late pre-breakup shows, these were an affirmation of why I continue to return to see this band. There is simply no one else who can do what they do.

The Pogues, Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, Pompano Beach, FL, March 7, 2009
One of the crushing disappointments of Langerado's cancellation is that I wasn't going to be able to see The Pogues. That is, until they got a replacement booking in Pompano Beach. Liz and I spent our wedding anniversary with The Pogues and had a marvelous time. They haven't written any new music since reuniting a few years ago, but they're still getting on and still playing amazing shows. The music always felt older than the band and I feel like their age is just now catching up. That said, they're a lively bunch. The whole band is in great form, including singer Shane MacGowan, who was originally tossed from the band for being drunk and unpredictable.

Tussle, Revolution Live!, Fort Lauderdale, FL April 12, 2009
I saw these guys open up for Ratatat and ended up liking them a lot more than the headliners. Tussle play a more indie rock version of electronic music, stripped down and sparse. The songs are built over bass lines, filled out with percussion and electronics. I enjoyed the show so much, I bought all three of their albums and a number of singles, which were all excellent.

Judas Priest, Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, FL August 17, 2009
Judas Priest was the headliner for the first arena rock show I ever saw (Broome County Arena in Binghamton, NY, Jan 1991). I actually went to see the openers, Megadeth, but I was interested in seeing Priest as I had liked their most recent album, Painkiller. New drummer Scott Travis, at 21 years old about half the age of the other members, was kicking their asses live and they were high energy, playing even their slower mid-80s material at a faster tempo. The band had a huge set of ramps on stage, which they would run up and down throughout the show. The stage was smaller and there was no running, on ramps or otherwise, but their set this year was every bit as good as that show eighteen years ago. The band was touring for the 20th anniversary of the classic British Steel album and as such the set consisted of the entire album and then a bunch of mostly 70s Priest classics, with one Painkiller track, a couple early 80s tracks and one from their newest album. Maybe the show was so good because the set concentrated on a lot of their best material. Or maybe they just still have a lot of energy in their 60s. A side note: I think Glenn Tipton is still wearing the same pants as the first time I saw them.

All the Saints, Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA, November 6, 2009
I saw All the Saints open for The Jesus Lizard. Having never heard of the band, I didn't know what to expect, but I was impressed with the show. All the Saints are noisy indie rock in the vein of Jesus and Mary Chain or A Place to Bury Strangers. Detached vocals, loud guitars and lots of feedback rule the day here. This was the second time in the year I was impressed with an opener I've never heard of.

Dangerous, The All Heavy-Metal Tribute to Michael Jackson, NorVa, Norfolk, VA, August 28, 2009
Dangerous was formed for one show by members of 2 Skinnee J's and Tragedy, the All-Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees. As 2 Skinnee J's are one of Liz and my favorite bands and Tragedy was one of the best bands I saw in 2008, when they added a couple extra shows including one at the NorVa, we made the trip. The trip was well worth it, as the metal arrangements of the King of Pop's biggest hits were as brilliant as Tragedy's metal arrangements of the Bee Gees disco hits. I'm still hoping they do an album.

Unwigged and Unplugged, The Fillmore at the Jackie Gleason Theatre, Miami Beach, FL, May 5, 2009
Not so much a concert as a bit of musical theatre, the Unwigged and Unplugged tour featured Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer playing songs from their various films and projects including This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman. The show featured only the three of them playing mostly acoustic, and included stories about the making of the films and the music as well as some concept pieces, including a dramatic reading of the NBC censor's report on This Is Spinal Tap. The tour was promotion for the new Spinal Tap record and was likely done in this fashion because it was easier to do than mounting a big arena rock Spinal Tap tour. However, it was actually a quite brilliant show. It was a lot of fun, funny as hell and well played and sung.

Honorable Mentions:
The Gray Girls
Mr. Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers
Both of these are local groups I saw this year. I'm pretty sure the Gray Girls haven't been around too long. The bands really aren't too similar although they share a member. Gray Girls owe a debt to the shoegaze of the 90s. Mr. Entertainment are more cabaret, I think. In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing more of both this year.

Dishonorable Mention:
Metallica
I always thought Lars Ulrich was overrated and now, having seen Metallica live, I know he's the worst drummer in metal. I've seen grade-school children with a better sense of dynamics. He hits full-force all the time, even during what are supposed to be the quiter songs (Nothing Else Matters, etc.) They kept away from most of their recent albums, barring the latest one, which made me happy, but the execution just wasn't there. Lars was crap, plain and simple, and the whole band seems like they're going through the motions a bit. A huge disappointment.

Don't Call them New Year's Resolutions: Personal and Professional Goals for 2010

2010-01-01T20:00:00.003-05:00

In December, I was already mulling over some goals for the coming year. Inspired by my colleague Tom Boone and by Chris Guillebeau, I decided to put them together in a concrete way. Not all of these goals have a plan as of yet, but some have dates by which I will have a plan in place.

Writing: I will put together one piece of law library related writing, most likely an article or presentation. I will not necessarily present or publish, but I will have ready to submit by the end of the year or the submission deadlines for 2011 conferences, whichever comes first.
Photography: I will stop slacking off and take more photos in 2010. I will produce at least five things I would be willing to submit to an exhibit or use on an album cover. I also will finish organizing all the photos I took in 2007 and 2008 and do some printing. In theory I should have 10 to 12 things I’ve already shot that are worth printing.

Music: I will make two records this year. I am entering the RPM Challenge in February. That’s one record. I will also make another later in the year, even if it’s an “Album a Day” crap art project.

Music: I will endeavor to start or join a group this year.

Language: I will learn Spanish in 2010. I started in 2009, but have not gotten as far as I would like. I will be more organized and disciplined this year. I would also like to brush up my German and will likely attempt a little French as well (see Travel).

Exercise/Lifestyle: I will exercise more and drop 30 pounds this year. I did a lot in 2008, but, except for the weekly skate sessions, slacked off in 2009. I need to find another gym to join and start a regular routine. I have started walking on my breaks at work again, but that’s only good for so much. I have also started to more carefully assess what I eat and will continue to do so. I’m not so much for not fitting in my clothes and feeling tired all the time. I will also need the increased stamina to make it through school.

Skating: As much as I think it would be fun to learn to play hockey, it’s just not happening this year because the time commitment conflicts with too many of my goals. I do, however, in conjunction with the exercise noted above, want to improve my skating. Between off-ice and on-ice work, I should be able to skate backwards comfortably, stop at a decent speed and do crossovers by the end of the year.

Career/School: This year I will apply to law school. In light of the choices I have already made (not least of which is buying a house in South Florida), this is, for better or worse, what I need to do to advance my career. My other choice is getting out of the law library business. Well, there is a third option, but I’m not sure I want to go that route. Right now this is the best option.

Career/Professionalism: This year I will strive to convey a more professional image, without being a stuffed shirt. I will be on better behavior at conferences and other events and also every day at work.

Style: This year I will assess, pare down and update my wardrobe. I will find better-fitting and better looking clothes. Liz thinks I should find a new barber. I’ll consider it, but I have made no decisions.

Home: I (we) will finish all of the major home projects on our plate before the end of July. In August, I will likely be starting school and will not have the time or patience to enter into major house projects. This includes, but is not limited to finishing the painting, redoing my closet (including unpacking the rest of the boxes in it), organizing the garage and setting up workspace there, clearing out our remote storage and updating the ceiling fans and lighting.

Career/Tech: I will learn at least one new (to me) technology-related skill that I can use at work, whether or not I will use it in the short-term.

Writing/Online: I will fix my website. I will move it to a new platform and set up a regular writing schedule. I set it up with the idea that writing about my interests would encourage me to engage in them more often, but I never set any real goals so it hasn’t worked as well as I’d hoped. I will set goals by February.

Podcast: I have an idea for a podcast which I will develop this year.

Non-Conformity: I will continue to be myself and set my own goals and rules for success and not be tied to anyone else’s ideas of what is important or what constitutes success. I will do things because I am passionate about them, not because someone else thinks it is what I should do.

Travel: I will travel to at least one new country this year (this looks like it will be France in the spring) and one new state (west coast or midwest probably). Also, we will make it to the Keys this year.

Debt: I will pay off my credit card and my car this year. The long-term goal is to pay off my personal debts so we can pay off our mortgage early. I’m not sure how I will pull off the travel and the debt payments, but I have time to work that out. Having no student loan bill while in school should help. Cutting waste out of the budget should help as well.

Reading/Media: I will cut down the number of blogs I read, podcasts I download and other time-consuming and sometimes overwhelming media choices I face. I will stop feeling like I am missing something. I will use the time gained to read more literature and more in-depth material and to accomplish other goals.

Oh, so it's another new year, is it?

2010-01-01T15:44:00.001-05:00

I had been fully intending to post a number of year-end wrap-up type posts this week, in between getting things done around the house and taking in Phish's New Year's run in Miami. Unfortunately, someone broke into our house and stole a bunch of stuff while we were at the second show. So, that wrecked our week. We went to the rest of the shows, but everything else that had been on the schedule got bumped in favor of window repair, serial number searching and other such tasks.

We strapped together a setup to watch the NHL Winter Classic today sans television and while it's on I'm getting caught up on the posts I was planning for the previous week. I'll be scheduling posts all day for the rest of the week. The first one will go out tonight. I will also be moving the site to a new domain and platform in the next week or two. Coming up first: my goals for the year, followed up by show reviews from this week and a year-end music wrap-up.

Just Like Starting Over: Rest in Peace, John Lennon

2009-12-08T23:08:00.003-05:00

I have been using the occasion of the much-awaited re-release of the Beatles catalog to not only re-acquaint myself with their music, which I have long neglected, but also to acquaint myself with more of the music they all made after the Beatles. I have never been a huge fan of the Beatles' various solo outings. The first record I ever bought was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and despite having been fairly obsessed with their music in the mid-80's and theirs being the first complete discography I purchased on CD, I have never owned more than a handful of their solo records. Back when I was buying most of my vinyl at secondhand shops, I picked up a smattering including Ringo, Ram and several mid-70s Wings albums. At some point, I got rid of the R albums and added Band on the Run and a couple greatest hits collections (McCartney and Lennon) but never went further until two years ago when I picked up McCartney's Memory Almost Full.

So, this year I have started to explore these records. My first purchase was George Harrison's 3-LP All Things Must Pass. A bit later I replaced that old LP of Ringo. Several weeks ago, I scored a copy of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. I'd never heard the record before outside of "God." And is it ever a painful listen. Never one to shy away from autobiographical lyrics, Lennon pulls no punches here. These songs are written and sung by a man with some serious problems. What I know of the remainder of his solo albums often follows the themes on this record.

This weekend on my latest record buying outing, I picked up two more: McCartney and John and Yoko's Double Fantasy. I've always liked the four singles from this record, but had never heard any of the rest of it. I listened to it this weekend while building shelves for the bedroom closet and was astounded by it. The album takes the form of a dialog between the two, with Lennon mostly talking about how he walked away from fame to be with his family and couldn't be happier and Ono mostly talking about what a pain in the ass he has been, but that's all past. It's beautiful, touching and tragic given what happened shortly after the album's release.

As tough a listen as John Lennon/Plastic Ono band is at times, it's not nearly as heartbreaking as listening to Double Fantasy knowing what comes next. Here was someone who spent a long time with some ugly demons and had finally seemed to have worked through them and was then cruelly taken from his family. And though the album may always live in the shadow of John Lennon's shortly following its release, it's a moving piece of work and deserves a listen.

I bought the record on Friday, listened to it on Saturday and decided I should write about it sometime on Sunday. I didn't realize that the anniversary of his death was coming up today. I didn't make the connection at all. I randomly mentioned my thoughts on the album to Liz, who was not home when I listened to it, today and she mentioned that today was the anniversary. Strangely enough, I've passed up two copies this year and decided Friday it was time to grab one. Life's just funny that way sometimes.

Where Do We Go from Here?

2009-09-24T10:17:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago, I posted It's Time We Reconsidered Our Relationship (With Vendors) in response to a number of issues relating to law resource vendors. My original draft was quite lengthy and I cut it down considerably. However, there is more to be said on the issue. In particular, I liked the responses of two law librarians in particular. Tom Boone and Meg Kribble both responded in ways that went beyond mere anger at West' recent antics and instead looked at where our profession is headed and what we can do about it.

Tom Boone jumped into the fray looking at the situation from a different angle than most.

You want to be angry at West for that ad? Be indignant at the suggestion that their online systems are comprehensive enough or designed intuitively enough to eliminate the need for librarian (or West's own customer support) assistance. Be outraged that they charge so much for their services that, no matter how well designed, our library budgets are the only thing that makes it possible for researchers to use them.

But never forget that if West, Lexis or some other legal database vendor ever fixed these problems, the need for our expertise, at least in its current form, would be reduced dramatically.

He further states that although this is unlikely, he doesn't relish the idea of "relying on someone else's incompetence to stay relevant," and goes on to suggest that we, as law librarians, should put our efforts into designing, implementing, redesigning the systems to make them better, to focus on the systems and not expecting that the old reference model will last forever. This will probably upset the hardcore public services crowd that hates anything to do with technical services, but the truth has always been that the better the systems the technical services people use and the better they do their job, the easier it is for the public services people to do our jobs. He is, I think, suggesting that maybe some of that public services work is going to disappear, merged into the work the researcher/patron is doing on his own, but that maybe librarians, not vendors, are the best candidates to build these systems. Not that public services will go away, but the models are changing and we can embrace that and our part to influence the changes or we can stand helplessly and watch as it is done for us.

It is this change that Meg Kribble takes up:

Yes, I agree. It's insulting and offensive. But beyond the outrage, I'd love to see it lead to more discussion of the positive things we as law librarians are going to do to change things so that next time a major legal publisher makes such a blunder, we all just laugh it off. And more important than discussion, action. What do we, the legal information experts, do to take more control of legal information back from vendors?

She suggests a number of places we could focus our efforts, and asks do we start here? My answer is yes, we start here and in all other worthwhile projects we can find.

We need to explore options and contribute to open-source ILS projects like Evergreen, Koha and OPALS. Or open-source OPACs like VuFind, Blacklight, oss4lib, Rapi and more.

We need to develop more free services like Cornell's Legal Information Institute and find better ways to organize and use online government and court information.

We need to encourage our organizations to realize the importance of technical services, to realize that our online presence and our technology needs are too important to be left to the IT department. Law Libraries need web developers, network administrators and programmers. Our future is in online services and we can't expect the average overworked university IT department to have the time or the expertise to design and implement these systems. Neither can we continue to rely on vendors to administer these for us.

Some (more forward thinking?) academic law libraries have an in-house IT department. However, I would hazard a guess that the model at my own school is more common. That being one or two people who can do just enough UNIX administration to keep an ILS running and who have some web development skill. There is a resistance in such places to implementing anything that can't be purchased with support because only one person will know how to administer it. If that person leaves, no one else will be able to do it. My argument is that the next person should be able to do it. Organizations evolve, job responsibilities evolve and we should not be using job descriptions from ten or twenty years ago when he bring in new people.

We should continue on from there by looking into the future and not predicting where we will end up, but deciding where we want to end up and how we want to get there. We can sit back and do what we've always done or we can shape the dialog and the future.

Tinariwen, Cucu Diamantes - Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, North Beach Bandshell, Miami Beach, FL April 25, 2009

2009-09-10T23:19:00.001-04:00

Due the the concurrent scheduling of the 2009 SEAALL Annual Meeting, I had to miss most of the Heineken TransAtlantic Festival. I would have liked to see Curumin the first night, but I was in Athens that whole weekend. So, instead of picking up a festival pass and going to all four nights, I only went to the fourth and final show, Tinariwen and CuCu Diamantes. The TransAtlantic Festival is organized as part of the Rhythm Foundation's concert series. While I think I heard something about the festival last year, I have to admit that I did not know about the Rhythm Foundation or the concert series they run every year. I will pay more attention in the future.

I arrived at the venue about a half-hour before the doors were scheduled to open. I heard music when I parked my car and realized that Tinariwen were soundchecking. I walked across the street to the venue, bought my ticket and stood in the queue listening to Tinariwen. They finished about 20 minutes later. I could tell the show was going to be great from the soundcheck.

They only kept us outside for a few minutes after the soundcheck finished. I went inside and grabbed a seat at the end of the middle aisle about five rows back. As I was alone and didn't want to give up my seat, I decided to forgo the usual pre-show beer and instead devoted my time to people watching. I heard at least six languages being spoken inside, as well as out in the queue (English, Spanish, French, German and a couple I didn't recognize). There were a lot of families and large groups of people who I believe were there to see Cuban singer Cucu Diamantes.

After a reasonable wait, someone came out to talk about the festival a little bit and introduce Tinariwen. Six people in desert garb walked on stage and began singing. The stage setup had three instrumentalists on the right side of the stage (guitar, bass, djembe) and three singers/guitarists on the left side of the stage. After searching a while, I had finally found a copy of Tinariwen's latest disc, Aman Iman: Water is Life, while I was in Athens, and only had the chance to listen a couple of times before the show. Prior to this, most of the Tinariwen music I had heard was played on Henry Rollins' show on KCRW (and before that, on his Indie 103 show, Harmony In My Head).

Led by Abdallah, they opened the set with the second song from Aman Iman, "Mano Dayak." At it's conclusion, he asked "Is ok?" and was greeted with applause. He said a few words of introduction in French and they continued on, with singer/guitarists Abdallah, Hassan and Intidao taking turns playing guitar and singing lead while the others backed him up. I found out later that the group's leader Ibrahim had gone into the desert before the Australia tour and missed both it and the US tour. The band has a long history and has many members passing through and even without its leader they were still stunning.

People filtered in during the first couple of songs. At the start of the show, most were sitting in the seats or standing in the back. A large portion of the crowd didn't seem to have any idea who Tinariwen were. As they played, the area in front of the stage slowly started to fill up as people left their seats to move up front to dance. By the end of the set, Tinariwen was playing to an enthusiastic crowd. I don't think I have ever seen such any band win over an audience like that before. It was truly amazing.

I only know of Cucu Diamantes what I read on the festival website. I stayed to check out her set. She's a New York-based Cuban singer from a group called Yerba Buena. She was playing in support of her first solo album, which was not quite out at the time of the show. When she came on stage, it was obvious that this was her crowd. She asked if the audience wanted her to speak in English or Spanish. This is Miami, like one really need ask. She went back and forth between the two for much of the show. The band played a more rock version of Latin jazz and while very good, it was all very professional and show biz, completely the opposite of Tinariwen. While enjoyable, my hunger won out and I went in search of food.

I started in the restaurant across the street. I was seated quickly, but after sitting with a menu for ten minutes, I left and found a small pizza place down the street. I ordered two slices and ate one since they were enormous. The second one went in the car and I went back to the bandshell to catch the end of Cucu Diamantes' set.

I will definitely be paying more attention to this festival next year. There were earlier shows I wanted to see, including one featuring Curumin. I am hoping that SEALL's later date this year means there will be no conflict. Tinariwen will also be returning to the US early next year to support their upcoming album (already out in Europe) Imidiwan: Companions. By all accounts, it's going to be even more amazing than the last one. Right now, the tour starts in mid-February in North Carolina and heads west. I plan to be at the opening night, even though it's a 14 hour drive. They're that good. Tinariwen's albums are excellent and I highly recommend giving all of them a listen. But live, it's a whole other thing. They are, without question, one of the most amazing groups I have ever seen and anyone who passes up a chance to see them is seriously missing out.

50 Bands You've Seen

2009-09-03T22:22:00.003-04:00

Bob Boilen over at All Songs Considered made a post of random bands he's seen, commenting "I don't know where this started, but a friend of mine asked me to make a list of 50 bands or artists I've seen live. The instructions are simple. You have to do it from memory, ordering them as they pop into your head. Some of the fun of this is seeing the random list."

His list was interesting and it sounded like fun, so here's the first 100-ish that popped into my head:

1.Naked City
2.Cake (2x)
3.Phish (20x)
4.Hank Roberts (10+x)
5.Napalm Death (5x)
6.Type O Negative
7.Slayer
8.Tragedy, the All-Heavy Metal Tribute to the Bee-Gees (2x)
9.2 Skinnee J's (14x)
10.X
11.The New Pornographers
12.Thievery Corporation
13.Beastie Boys
14.R.E.M.
15.GWAR (3x)
16.Sick of It All (5x)
17.Murphy's Law (12x)
18.The Scofflaws (9x)
19.The Toasters (5x)
20.The Reverend Horton Heat (2x)
21.The Dwarves
22.Abalienation (50x?)
23.DROPDEAD
24.The Varukers
25.The Wernt
26.Doom
27.J. Willis Pratt & We're Bionic
28.Medeski, Martin & Wood (2x)
29.Joshua Redman
30.The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (12x)
31.Descendants
32.Snapcase
33.Social Distortion
34.Judas Priest (2x)
35.Megadeth (2x)
36.Anthrax (4x)
37.The Flaming Lips (3x)
38.Iron Maiden
39.moe. (5-6x)
40.The Dead/The Other Ones (2x)
41.The Police
42.Phil Lesh & Friends
43.Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
44.Radiohead
45.Beck
46.Sonic Youth
47.Of Montreal
48.The New Mastersounds (2x)
49.The National
50.!!!
51.Simon & Garfunkel
52.They Might Be Giants (14x)
53.Primus (3x)
54.The Boredoms
55.Brutal Truth (3x)
56.Carcass (2x)
57.Godflesh (2x)
58.Tinariwen
59.Tussle
60.Ratatat
61.The Rentals
62.Circle Jerks
63.Mike Gordon
64.Seu Jorge
65.The Who
66.Sex Pistols
67.The Cramps
68.Body Count
69.D.R.I.
70.Pro-Pain (2x)
71.Exodus
72.Prong
73.Cannibal Corpse (2x)
74.Obituary (2x)
75.Agnostic Front
76.Kreator
77.Biohazard (3x)
78.Morgoth
79.Malevolent Creation
80.Fear Factory
81.Overkill (3x)
82.Bad Manners
83.Madness
84.Zappa Plays Zappa
85.Stereolab (3x)
86.Atlas Sound (2x)
87.Insane Clown Posse
88.Twiztid (2x)
89.2 Live Crew
90.Public Enemy
91.Blaze Ya Dead Homie (2x)
92.Willie Nelson
93.Queensryche
94.Suicidal Tendencies
95.Barenaked Ladies
96.Trey Anastasio (3x)
97.Elvis Costello and the Imposters
98.Dangerous, The All-Heavy Metal Tribute to Michael Jackson
99.Flogging Molly
100.Superchunk
101.Elastica
102.Pavement
103.Cypress Hill
104.Butthole Surfers
105.Alice in Chains
106.Stone Temple Pilots
107.Sepultura
108.Sacred Reich
109.Harry Shearer, Michael McKean & Christopher Guest
110.Modest Mouse
111.David Byrne (2x)
112.The Ramones

Some were on purpose, some because they were opening for someone I wanted to see (*cough* Stone Temple Pilots). It's an interesting list, but not nearly complete.

It's Time We Reconsidered Our Relationship (With Vendors)

2009-08-26T09:23:00.011-04:00

Hot on the the heels of AALL's refusal of Annual Meeting sponsorship money from West, a Thomson Reuters business due to their practice of refusing to submit pricing information to the AALL Price Index, there was another mini-scandal involving the removal of free printers from the Puerto Rican law schools. The students in Puerto Rico were using the printers "too much," so rather than institute some sort of quota system to control costs, they just pulled the printers out completely. Amid the hubbub, it was revealed that they also rather quietly pulled printers from some of the non-ABA accredited schools. Following a number of complaints, including some accusing the company of racism, West, a Thomson Reuters business, reinstated the printers at the Puerto Rican schools and made a statement to the effect that in the future, any limits to the printing program will be instituted across the board.

Almost immediately following the printer saga, an email was posted to the law-lib mailing list referencing a marketing email sent by West, a Thomson Reuters business proclaiming that those "on a first name basis with the librarian" are "spending too much time at the library." Later, a screenshot was posted publicly.

Anne Ellis, the Senior Director of Library Relations at West, a Thomson Reuters business apologized for the email on law-lib, but not before many posts were made by offended law librarians.

My use of the name "West, a Thomson Reuters business," rather than the usual "West" is deliberate. Apparently West Publishing wasn't enough of a mouthful, so Thomson Reuters changed the name and has gone to great pains to use this name in their correspondence and on the phone.

Jim Milles stated yesterday on Twitter "Law librarians need to get over the idea that Westlaw or Lexis are on their side, or the customer's. They're all about profit--of course."

I think long-time law librarians who remember West Publishing, before they were bought by Thomson, as a less profit-oriented more benevolent dictatorship. They're the people who throw the big party at AALL every year, and dole out money to support events. I think even younger librarians are swayed by large swag giveaways and helpful support reps into thinking that the companies are wonderful people. Not to take anything away from the people who work at these companies, and some of them individually are wonderful people, but the fact is that whatever they were in the past and helpful staff notwithstanding, these two companies are divisions of much larger public companies and as such, they are expected to maximize profits. Period. That's how large-scale corporate capitalism works. There is no morality, there is only stock price and maximizing profit for the shareholders.

I was part of several discussions at AALL's Annual Meeting this year and afterward on Twitter regarding our relationship with vendors as a profession, as an organization and as individuals. My own bias is that I believe the culture of accepting tchotchkes undercuts our standing as professionals and in the relationship with vendors. I was turned off to this culture early on in my library career. As a student, I attended the ribbon cutting at an ALA exhibit hall and was horrified by the behavior of the attendees. I watched as alleged professionals tore through a large exhibit hall looking for free junk and running people over with their carts. I think I lasted fifteen minutes before I convinced the fellow student I was with to leave in search of dinner. (Full disclosure: I did spend a minute talking to an OUP rep and grabbing a free copy of one of their guides to Austin and San Antonio before I left).

I was unhappy to find similar, though less obnoxious, behavior at AALL. Every year, I watch people load up on branded junk to take back home and fill their offices. Every year, we go to vendor-sponsored parties and eat their food and drink their alcohol (and have our pictures taken). We come home and fill our offices with the pictures and the branded toys and coffee cups. We, the information professionals who should always be advocating the best available tool for the job no matter who sells it, in effect become shills for the legal information publishers. This undermines our position both with our patrons and with the companies, who have bought us with parties, cheap trinkets and sponsorships.

AALL finally took a stand this year with West, a Thomson Reuters business, over the long-standing issue of the Price Index by excluding them from sponsorship of the meeting. While I commend the organization for actually taking a stand on something that might cost them money, I am with those who don't think we went far enough. I think our point will only be made by enacting a blanket ban on West or any other publisher who does not conform to AALL's Sponsorship Policy. West should not only not be banned from sponsorship of the meeting, but also from the exhibit hall and their annual "Customer Appreciation Event" should be excluded from the official program. I realize that AALL may be including it for convenience of the attendees, but its inclusion gives the appearance that it is an official AALL event.

Yes, I realize that this would cost the association a large amount of money, but last I checked we could afford it. The meeting made several hundred-thousand dollars the last few years, and there are likely some places where budget could be trimmed (say, overpriced keynote speakers) to offset the loss. AALL is a non-profit organization founded to "promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in the field of legal information." It's time for AALL to provide some leadership by example and put some distance between the nation's largest organization of law librarians and companies that sell legal information products to the organization's members.

As an individual, I picked up no trinkets at this year's meeting and upon my return I cleaned my office of branded gear. I gave away or threw out my branded mugs and brought an unmarked one from home (Full disclosure: I sometimes bring marked mugs from home that contain the logo of a sports team or a brand of coffee). I believe that Meg Kribble and possibly some others did the same. I still have one branded bag from a past conference which will be removed when I find a suitable replacement. I urge others to do the same, not as a symbolic gesture but as the start of a new relationship with vendors where librarians do not shill product, but treat each source as a tool to be used for its best purposes. Use WestLaw when it's the best option, LexisNexis when it's the best option, use FastCase, LoisLaw, Cornell University's Legal Information Institute or FDSys when they're the best options. I make sure to inform my students of the cost of Wexis when I teach the online portions of our Legal Research Bootcamp and let them know there are lower and no-cost options for a lot of the content. Most of our students start solo practices or work in small firms. A lot of these firms can't afford much past a Shepard's subscription and I'm not doing my job if I don't point out affordable alternatives. My position as an independent consultant and educator is undercut if I'm drinking water out of a Wexis mug while I'm teaching.

It's time for us to go forward and forge a new relationship with vendors. Think about it.

Judas Priest - Seminole Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, FL August 17, 2009

2009-08-17T23:13:00.005-04:00

A few days ago I received an email from Evan about the upcoming Judas Priest/Whitesnake show at the Hard Rock. Ticketmaster was offering tickets for free plus service charges (of course). He was looking to see if anyone else was interested. I checked it out and found out that the tour is the 30th Anniversary tour for the British Steel album, and they're playing the whole album every night. I couldn't miss that for virtually free.

Setlist:
Rapid Fire
Metal Gods
Breaking The Law
Grinder
United
You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise
Living After Midnight
The Rage
Steeler
The Ripper
Prophecy
Hell Patrol
Victim Of Changes

Encore:
Freewheel Burning
Diamonds And Rust
You've Got Another Thing Comin'

This show broke a concert-going record for me, that for longest-time between two shows by the same band. Generally, if I see a particular performer multiple times, it tends to be on successive tours, or alternating tours. Some I see on as many tours as possible. Then, there are the oddballs. My previous record was 13 years, for The Flaming Lips. My first Lips show was when they were touring for Transmissions from the Satellite Heart in 1993, opening for the Butthole Surfers. I was really there to see the Surfers, but really enjoyed the Lips' set. For some reason, though, I never bought any of their records, and didn't seek them out again. Many years later, I heard some of their newer albums and started listening more actively to them. My second show was in 2006, just before I left New York. They played the New York State Fair with Sonic Youth and Ween. My third show was much sooner than my second. I saw them again on the same tour (for At War with the Mystics) in 2007 in Pompano Beach.

I first saw Judas Priest in January 1991, at the Broome County Arena in Binghamton, NY. They were touring for the Painkiller album, with Megadeth opening. This was my first arena show. I had previously only seen shows in local clubs or theaters. We made the trek to Bingo primarily to see Megadeth, but I had the latest Priest album and was looking forward to seeing them as well. They had recently hired drummer Scott Travis. The young drummer had energized the group and their tour was getting excellent reviews. I'd never been much of a fan. Although I liked a few of their songs, the records they'd released after I had begun buying metal albums (Turbo and Ram It Down) were underwhelming. Painkiller was different and I quite liked it.

The show opened with Rob Halford riding a motorcycle from underneath an enormous set of ramps behind and over Scott Travis. He shut the motorcycle off, leaving the headlight on and the band ripped into "Hell Bent for Leather." By the end of the song, the headlight had dimmed considerably and stagehands removed the bike. The remainder of the set was a mix of songs from Painkiller and their considerable back catalog. The band was tight, energetic (they spent much of the set running up and down the ramps) and, importantly, a lot of fun. I never ram out and bought up their back catalog, but I did gain an appreciation for some of those older albums and I have fond memories of that show.

Eighteen years later, I found myself in the upper deck of the Hard Rock waiting for Judas Priest to come on. The place was fairly empty when we arrived. Camera operators were stationed throughout the venue to record the show for a live DVD. I suspect that the free tickets (all to the upper deck, as far as I know) were to help fill the place up for better sound and better crowd sounds. Whitesnake canceled as singer David Coverdale has apparently wrecked his voice. No one we heard talking about it seemed too disappointed. I can't imagine the crossover between those two bands' fans is that great, so I was not surprised.

The group had a large banner with pictures of factories on in front of the stage. The show started with the sounds of hammers and machinery and a laser show(!) consisting of guys hammering metal. The pounding stopped and the band ripped into "Rapid Fire," with the banner dropping at Halford's first line of lyrics. The group on stage looked almost exactly the same as eighteen years earlier, albeit grayer (and balder in the cases of Halford and bassist Ian Hill). "Metal Gods" and "Breaking the Law" followed, and I guessed the band had decided to change the order of the album live. I found out later that they were playing the original UK track list of British Steel. Columbia Records changed the order for the American edition (as they did with all of Elvis Costello's early albums, so this is not much of a surprise).

They followed up with a curious collection of older songs, plus one from their recent concept album about Nostradamus. Most of the later part of the set was from the albums preceding British Steel rather than the 1980s albums with which I am more familiar, so I didn't really know that many of the songs. This did not deter from my enjoyment of the show, as they had already played what is largely considered their best album, and one of the two that I know reasonably well.

As for the performance, they were much as I remembered them, with a little less of the running around that they did on the Painkiller tour. Judging from some other live footage I saw on the internets, this may have been an anomaly of that particular tour, anyway. The band were still tight, energetic and a lot of fun. Yes, it's metal and some of the posing is a little silly, as are some of the lyrics (though Judas Priest's are better than most). But the mark of a great heavy metal band is that they help you forget your problems for 90 minutes and enjoy the show. For all of its pretension, the best metal bands know that they are entertainment (something many performers, particularly in other genres, have issues with) and give you an entertaining show for your money. Even if you pay full price. Judas Priest certainly lived up to my memories of seeing them all those years ago. These guys are my mother's age and still rock. That's an unqualified "rock," not "rock for old guys." The show was thoroughly enjoyable and may inspire me to buy up some of those other older albums, or possibly their recent box set.

Look what we bought

2009-08-15T22:30:00.002-04:00

As has been mentioned several times here, Liz and I bought a house, in Southeast Hollywood. We're hard at work unpacking, painting and changing things around. This set of photos was taken after our offer was accepted, but before closing. The owners' furniture was still inside. Our move was crazy and I was unable to get photos of the empty house. These are dark and lousy for the most part, but is all I have for "before" photos. As we work through the house, we will have (better) "after" photos.

The living room, from two different angles.

Dining room.

Kitchen, with original cabinets.

Laundry room.

Garage.

Master bedroom and bath.

Hallway bathroom.

Liz's room.

My room.

New Digs

2009-08-15T17:32:00.003-04:00

I've installed a new template here. The previous one was an emergency substitution for the original template, which wasn't working with my imported flickr photos. I like this one a lot better. I'm still tweaking it. For the moment, the above "recent posts" photo menu does not work, and anything in Spanish is a dead link. I'm also going through all of my posts and adding tags. I'm also going to import all of the posts from my previous page (John's Weblog of Doom). I'll be slowly working through it all and everything should be working by Monday.

I've also moved house, of course, and soon there will be posts about that. My plan is to go room by room and post pictures of everything we do to the place. None of the rooms are finished yet, but as we finish bits, I'll post the before and afters.

A tip to prospective realtors and homeowners

2009-04-23T22:39:00.002-04:00

If you want to sell a house, it's best not only to remove the carpeting that your dog urinated on, but also to deal with the flea infestation. If the urine smell doesn't turn off prospective buyers, it's likely that being attacked by hordes of fleas and suffering multiple bites will.

SEALL Institute 2009: The Impact of Electronic Resources on Today’s Law Library

2009-04-23T10:49:00.006-04:00

While I twittered a lot of the SEAALL meeting this year, the first day I took notes on paper. With a pen. Here's a quick and dirty summary. I didn't take very good notes as to who was saying what on some of the panels.

HeinOnline surveys (Roxanne Marmion, HeinOnline)

HeinOnline bound volume survey:

24% of libraries surveyed have moved journals in HeinOnline to remote storage

43% have discarded journals in HeinOnline

67% have cancelled journals not in HeinOnline due to budgetary restrictions

HeinOnline journal survey

50% of journals on HeinOnline are current (latest issue available)

23% are all published (discontinued, retitled)

17% are added to HeinOnline by volume

10% have a one-volume delay or more

Future of tech services (Kevin Butterfield, College of William & Mary)

At William & Mary, from 2000 to 2009, 1274 subscriptions were cancelled. As a result, there was less work in labeling, shelving, filing, etc. 2FT positions were retooled. 30,000 e-resource records were added to the catalog.

Trying to follow the Google model (from Harvard Business Review article). 80/20 rule. 80% of an employee’s time spent working on core duties. 20% spent on personal projects that enhance core services. Wants staff members to find projects that they are passionate about and that will enhance core services. Employees are evaluated on the 20% projects.

Communication (First segment vendors, second was Billie Blaine, Supreme Court of Florida, Marian Parker, Wake Forest University and Kay Todd, Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker)

(I didn’t take a lot of notes on the vendor presentations as I knew about most of the things the concerned vendors were doing. Exceptions were the HeinOnline blog and wiki and BNA’s law school professional information center. I already knew about the Lexis newsletters and West trainings and email newsletters, etc.)

Libraries using Facebook to push out trainings, workshops, etc.

Law review requires students to take a certain amount of workshops, on a points system.

The (Almost) All-Electronic Library (Gordon Russell, Lincoln Memorial University)

Just-in-time model; small staff (model allows for fewer staff members).

Smaller print collection means less filing, shelving, cataloging and invoices.

Cataloging records are purchased from YBP, Cassidy and others.

E-Book licensing model: Purchase from publishers with more open model (allow printing of entire chapters, etc.) and who provide MARC records.

Just-in-time print model

Patron-driven purchasing

Only 4,000 linear ft. of shelving at Lincoln (10,000 at Charleston)

No journals or reporters in print.

Main university uses Voyager. LS will use as well, but only print materials will be added to catalog. The others are all in Aquabrowser and Serial Solutions.

Seminars are offered as 3 credit course. One credit is pass/fail research segment taught by librarians.

Forecast and Impact Today (Billie Blaine, Marian Parker, Faye Jones, Kay Todd, Sally Irvin, Kevin Butterfield)

3 lists: Sacred Cows, Endangered Species and Chopping Block. Things are moving rapidly from Sacred Cows to Chopping Block.

Firms are “deconstructing” libraries. Materials are being moved into practice group offices & satellite libraries.

Moving to just-in-time model might be more shocking to faculty than anyone else.

“Students think they know everything because they come in searchers. We need to teach them to be researchers.”

Staffing changes coming. Librarians will be more like law faculty. Staff members will be fewer but will be more like a bridge between paraprofessionals and what librarians used to do.

Pizza night

2009-04-22T22:43:00.006-04:00

Michael Ruhlman declared this week National Make-Pizza-at-Home week. I already had pizza on the brain, ever since making those pies when James and Elizabeth were down from Buffalo. Ruhlman's post was enough to get me to the store to buy more flour, as I was running low, and some cheese. I used to make pizza almost weekly when we were living in Ithaca and a bit less often in Syracuse. I stopped making my own when we moved to Hollywood. The proliferation of decent pizza joints (not an issue in Syracuse) here makes it easier to give it a pass and order out. But, for those outside the five boroughs, a homemade pie is more satisfying than most takeout.

Since I had to stop on the way home from work to get the flour and cheese, as well as herbs for the sauce, I opted for a quick proof dough. I used the basic recipe from Ruhlman's post, but with a whole packet of yeast and some good warm water. I also put a pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven and preheated it to 200. I had some problems getting the dough wet enough. I needed just a touch more water than called for to get the consistency I wanted. Problem was, I added twice as much as needed. I tossed in a little extra flour and kneaded it in. Catastrophe averted. After kneading, I coated the inside of a mixing bowl with olive oil, tossed the dough in, then covered it with a damp towel and put it in the oven for 30 minutes.

While the dough was in the oven, I put a sauce together. I chopped up some of the basil and parsley I bought and added them to a can of tomato sauce and half a can of water. I added a couple of minced garlic cloves and a little bit of olive oil along with some dried oregano and thyme (no fresh at the store today; at least you can get away with those—dried parsley, not so much).

After 30, I pulled the dough out and cranked the oven up to 450. It was a little too warm on the edges, but that's to be expected when you heat it in a metal bowl. It wasn't unworkable, though. I nicked the parchment paper idea out the comments on Ruhlman's post. I stretched the dough out, then dropped it on parchment paper, sauced it and loaded it on the stone with a peel. Yes, I have a peel and therefore don't need the paper, but I'm out of cornmeal and on parchment, you don't have to be so exact. If you miss an edge, you can grab the paper and move it over. It's ridiculous amounts easier.

I, of course, did not think to pick up any toppings for this pie, so I had to improvise out of what I had in the refrigerator. The black olives were kind of old and scary looking, so I tossed them and pulled out the green ones. I grabbed two slices of ham out of the meat drawer and sliced them up along with a handful of the olives. I added some baby spinach from the crisper.

After 10 minutes, I pulled the pie out, added some cheese, then the spinach, ham and olives and then more cheese to hold it together and put it back in for 10 more minutes. The split cooking is important if you're using oil in the dough. If you put everything on at once, the cheese burns well before the crust is cooked. Yes, the guys cooking on belt ovens put everything on the pizza before baking, but that's because it's faster. Anyone using a belt oven is concerned about speed, not quality.

I sliced it up and cracked open a bottle of the 2005 Firestone Central Coast Vineyard Select Riesling. I read somewhere on the internets that it was a good buy. I forget where, or I'd link. It's a pretty decent Riesling on its own for $10 and it went perfectly with the pizza. The fruitiness was offset nicely by the salty ham and olives. This is one of my favorite recent dinners.

The Pogues - Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, March 7, 2009

2009-03-08T00:21:00.009-05:00

Photo by Liz.

Setlist:

Streams of Whisky
If I Should Fall from Grace With God
The Broad Majestic Shannon
Turkish Song of the Damned
A Pair of Brown Eyes
Repeal of the Licensing Laws
Cotton Fields
Greenland Whale Fisheries
Sayonara
Tuesday Morning (Spider)
Kitty
Sunnyside of the Street
The Body of an American
Lullaby of London
Thousands are Sailing (Phil)
Dirty Old Town
Bottle of Smoke
The Sickbed of Cuchulainn
-------
Sally MacLannene
Rainy Night in Soho
The Irish Rover
-------
Poor Paddy
Fiesta

I was particularly disappointed when Langerado was cancelled this year because I was finally going to be able to see The Pogues. I missed them when they played their first U.S. reunion shows around 2002-3 on account of being broke and also not being able to take the time off to go to downstate for the show. The bonus for the current tour is that Phil Chevron is healthy enough following his cancer treatments to be back on the road. As it turns out, the cancellation was nearly a death blow to the tour, and their booking agent quickly found them a replacement local show in Pompano Beach.

Following poutine and burgers at Homeburger USA, we made our way to the arena. Fast food for dinner meant that we were unusually early, arriving about ten minutes after the doors opened. The place was pretty empty, with just a few people wandering around with drinks. I bought a Pogues scarf at the merch booth and we went to find seats and overpriced beer ($8 for a draught can of Guinness actually isn't that bad for venue beer).

Openers Kiss Kiss were a pretty good indie rock group, with a violin player and touches of Eastern European melodies. Unfortunately, the singer is from the school of whiny emo vocalists, which detracted greatly from my enjoyment of the performance.

Eventually, the place filled with in with other old geezers, drinks in hand, and the Pogues emerged from backstage. It's always a crapshoot with older performers, as some, especially rock guys from the 1960s and 1970s, lose a lot of what made them vital when they get older and richer (see The Rolling Stones or Osbourne, Ozzy). Others only get better with age (see Aitken, Laurel or X). I was very interested in seeing an older Pogues perform, as the band always seemed so much younger than their songs. Shane grabbed a beer off a tray set next to his microphone stand and the band launched into "Streams of Whiskey." The lineup of the band touring now is the one that recorded the middle trio of Pogues albums (If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Peace & Love and Hell's Ditch), but the setlist was skewed heavily towards the early albums and associated singles, with only one from Peace & Love, two from Hell's Ditch and one from the Shane-less Waiting for Herb, the single "Tuesday Morning."

Shane now has the permanent slur of the lifelong drunk, but unlike the recordings from that last tour before he left the Pogues in 1991, when he was sloppy and sounding ready to pass out for most of the show, here he was coherent and in good form, just harder to understand. The band, although obviously aging, are all quite spry (James Fearnley in particular) and can still kick up a racket. They were tight, energetic and really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Spider Stacy in particular seemed to take great joy in making jokes and giving Shane a hard time. I can't say enough good things about this show. Well worth the money and time spent. Our consolation prize for the Langerado cancellation turned out to be a full set of The Pogues. Cheers!

Danshui

2009-02-28T19:00:00.001-05:00

Our last night in Taipei, Julia took us to Danshui. She explained it as basically the Coney Island of Taipei. It's a waterfront area out of the main city a bit. To get there, you take the red line north all the way to the end.

We arrived in Danshui and a couple of us grabbed coffee to go, and then we walked to a restaurant on the top of a hill that offered a great view of the water. We all did our usual confused tourist thing and accidentally ordered enough beer for about twelve people, even though there were only five of us. Luckily, this was explained to us and we adjusted our order. The local brew came is large bottles and we had assumed they were much smaller.

The food at the restaurant was good, but not great. I think the attraction is more the setting than the food. They had the satellite radio on a station that was playing American hits of the 80s and 90s. We had the feeling this was for our benefit. Unfortunately, a couple of us at the table are music snobs and after the third Celine Dion song, we couldn't take it anymore and asked for it to be changed (by this time, we were one of the last tables still eating).

Following dinner, we went for a walk down the waterfront, which was strikingly similar to waterfront areas of the northeast United States, only the signs were in Chinese. The girls found a photo booth, so Mike and I walked to a place further down that had a large neon sign of a beer glass, assuming that it was a bar. It turned out to be a restaurant. They walked us up a couple of floors, through a storage area, to the top floor deck outside. I think they were a touch put out when we only ordered beer, although I think they were a little happier when the girls showed up and we ordered a bigger round with some snack food.

After the drinks, we walked back to the station and took the Metro back to the city and walked back to the apartment from City Hall Station.

On the walk back, we passed a restaurant and bar that's open from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM. Liz and I had noticed it our second day in Taipei when we made the same walk. Tuesday is "foreigner night." Show your foreign ID and get 2 for 1 drinks. After much discussion, we decided to stop for a drink.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

2009-02-27T19:00:00.002-05:00

After our entirely too-filling lunch, we visited the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial (which is now called the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. Mike remarked that the whole thing had the feel of something like the Nixon Presidential Library. All of the exhibits talked about how great General Chiang was, and included a strange assortment of personal artifacts.

Generalissimo's Cadillacs.

Generalissimo at his desk.

You will show respect in the memorial. Or else.

Hollywood Art Deco Walk

2009-02-26T19:00:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, Liz and I went on the Hollywood Beach Art Deco Walk, run by the Historical Museum of South Florida. The walk is led by Paul George, MDC professor and local historian. The walk covers the historical area of Hollywood Beach, up Surf Road.

Although less well known than the area on South Beach, there are some interesting examples of art deco buildings on Hollywood Beach, as well as some older buildings.

Unfortunately, the light wasn't really good for taking pictures in the morning, so I didn't get much. But now, I know where some of the more interesting buildings are and I will go back in the late spring or summer and get some more shots.

Garden of Zen

2009-02-25T19:00:00.001-05:00

The morning after our night market visit would be our last in Taipei. Kathryn and Mike went off to see some more of the area around our hotel and Julia went to meet some of her arriving family members. I sat around and didn't do much. We had originally planned to go to a hotpot place for lunch, but their menu didn't work with Julia's temporary Buddhist vegetarian diet, so we ended up at a more traditional restaurant. Entirely too much food was ordered. I think Liz has pictures on her camera from the meal. I did not get any.

Following lunch, we stopped at a shopping mall with a zen garden inside. These are apparently somewhat common.

A look at the street below.

A Chinese restaurant on the next level down. I find it surprising that they felt the need to point out that it is a Chinese restaurant.

Raohe St. Night Market

2009-02-24T22:35:00.001-05:00

My camera battery died on the way from Taipei 101 to the bookstore. I picked up a couple of Taiwanese cookbooks in English (well, Chinese and English), and we went back to the apartment for a little bit of rest. I put a bit of a charge on the camera battery while we were there.

The rest of the evening was spent in the Raohe St. night market. The entrance is across the street and a little down from the apartment. We spent a little bit of time there the first night in Taipei, but we were really only there long enough to get a couple of things to eat. This would be my first real night market experience.

I passed by this shrimp because I was looking for something else. Note the fresh snails (in two different sizes, or are the small ones whelks?). I'm not sure you can get non-canned snails in France. Perhaps I should have tried some.

Something I did not expect to find in a Taipei night market was fried cheese. I was not surprised, however, that Liz bought the "Cheeses of the World" selection. It was actually pretty good.

While some of us were shopping and others looking for food, Julia stopped for a massage. This electrical mess was above the massage setup. I wonder if that's up to code.

A stand of offal. I did not partake because I was already told Ray would take me to get the best chicken feet at the night market in Tainan. But that would be several days later.

Attack of the brain, umm, eater things

2009-02-19T23:28:00.003-05:00

As is inevitable, I have fallen behind in posting. Work stress has hit real life stress and the result isn't pretty. My brain has decided it doesn't want to work properly all the time. Last night, I drove to the wrong cinema. Luckily, it wasn't too far from the proper one and we made it to the film (Coraline, very good) during the previews. I have also been unable to get it together to make a bunch of posts that I want to. Who knew that keeping peoples' spirits up took so much out of a person. But there you are, then.

So, to anyone waiting for me to post proper concert reviews, more food stuff or my backlog of pictures and travel stuff (all two of you), patience please and I'll have some more posts soon. In the meantime, I will console myself following the Panthers 4-0 loss to Chicago by reading Calvin and Hobbes and listening to Scorn.

Taipei 101

2009-02-08T22:08:00.004-05:00

Once our group was complete, we visited Taipei 101, for the moment the tallest building in the world. Across the street is a poncy shopping center called New York, New York that's full of American chain stores (and MUJI). There's a ice cream eating statue of liberty out front.

Taipei 101 is mostly an office building, but the first few levels are host to a mall, and there is an observation deck and exhibit hall on floors 97 and 98, or thereabouts.

The day was a gloomy one for the most part. I am told that eventually the clouds parted and the view of the city was good. I did not actually see the view as I was having a bad day and was in no mood to go up to the 97th floor.

Instead, I contented myself with wandering around downstairs and taking some pictures of the building and surrounding area from outside.

101 is connected to New York, New York by a covered walkway.

My camera battery died shortly after this picture was taken, on the walk to the book store down the street. I bought a couple of Taiwanese cookbooks at said store, then we returned to the apartment for a rest before heading to the night market.

Visit with Scott/Hanamizukai, Orlando

2009-01-26T21:52:00.008-05:00

A couple of weekends ago, we drove up to Orlando to visit family. My grandfather's 78th birthday was Monday, but the family celebrated on Saturday night. We ate pizza, talked a bunch of crap, the girls got their Wii on and I introduced the family to Dark and Stormies.

I read recently (on Wikipedia) that Barritt's Ginger Beer is the ginger of beer of choice in Bermuda, and that it is better for the drink than Jamaican ginger beer, as it's too spicy. Being in Miami, the easiest ginger beers to find are Jamiacan or Jamiacan style D&G (Jamaica), Jamaican Country Style (Miami/Jamaica) and Goya (US). (My usual ginger beer of choice is D&G).I found a couple six-packs of Barritt's in a liquor store down the street from Mom's house. I grabbed them and a bottle of Gosling and spent the evening mixing drinks.

Sunday night, we met up with my friend Scott, whom I had not seen since just before moving to Florida. He and his wife Becky were down for a few days visiting her family. We met at their hotel on the south side of Orlando and went in search of Hanamizukai, which I had read was the best Japanese in that area. We had a little trouble finding it as I hadn't really written the directions down. After driving all the way up to the outlet mall (some 2 miles or so past the restaurant), we found it on the way back south.

First course was a squid sunomuno. This was the best squid I've had to date. Firm without being rubbery, with a hint of vinegar.

Main course was one of the sushi combination options. Tuna roll with chef's choice of nigiri. Ama Ebi was one of the nigiri pieces. Eventually, the deep fried head was served, as well. The nigiri was all very good, and pretty much all of my favorites were accounted for (hamachi, sake, maguro, ikura, saba).

The interesting thing is that the first place I was served Ama Ebi was across the street at another Japanese place that James and I visited a year or so ago when he was visiting Mom. We drove up from the airport and stopped somewhere that looked interesting.

Dinner was excellent, all around. Excellent food, excellent dining companions. We got a bit rowdy eventually, as we recounted stories of the old days for Becky (Liz has heard most of them already or was there, although there were a few new bits). Most of them were old band stories (Scott and I played together in The Fink Squad (WARNING: Ugly website) and other associated acts. It was really great to see them and hopefully it won't be quite so long before we catch them again.

The Golf Ball Mall

2009-01-15T19:00:00.002-05:00

On Sunday, we relaxed a bit. We spent the morning sitting in the room looking at the internets and looking through our pictures.

Around noon, we set off for the golf ball mall, aka the CPC Center. This is quite possibly the ugliest, and most likely the most poorly designed mall in the world. We had to walk down four sets of escalators to get to the food court, and to get to each escalator we had to push our way through tables of merchandise on a small walkway. I ordered a beef noodle soup from one of the food court vendors and we had an enjoyable, if a bit surreal, lunch while listening to Christmas carols both played over the PA and sung live (we think). Very strange. I think there were two different versions of Jingle Bells sung with heavy Chinese accents. All I could think of was the last scene in A Christmas Story.

After lunch, we saw Ray off. He had to return to Tainan for work on Monday morning.

We took the rest of the day rather slowly. We eventually made our way out to the NTU area for Mexican food.

The Mexican restaurant in question is called Tequila Sunrise and, while not spectacular, is fairly decent US Mexican restaurant fare. I've certainly had worse Mexican food in the northeastern United States and Europe (Ljubljana, Slovenia, to be be precise - I have yet to experience the dreaded "Czech-Mex"). We really just went there because we try Mexican food wherever we are. If you're spending a long time in Taipei, it's worth the visit, but if not, I would recommend sticking with the local stuff.

I also had my second in a series of Kirin brews not available at home. The Bar was a good sight better than the winter brew, and actually better than the Kirin available at home, as well.

Late Night Snacks

2009-01-14T21:10:00.003-05:00

After the bubble tea, we hopped on the Metro and rode back to the main station. We caught a cab back to the apartment and made a brief stop at a 7-11 up the road. For the record, there were at least three 7-11s within a five minute walk, plus a FamilyMart.

Ray and I loaded up on snacks at the 7-11, and since you have to pay for bags, we loaded it all into one bag. These pictures represent $20 worth of snack food. Items include a potato and cheese burger, a more regular burger, two onigiri, several packets of chips, beer and assorted candy.

We finished the night by watching cable on a ceiling-mounted screen in the apartment. Actually, I fell asleep transferring photos to my laptop while everyone else watched cable.

Still posting... slowly

2008-12-17T22:56:00.003-05:00

I'm not even close to finishing the Taiwan Chronicles and we're preparing to leave. Again. I'm still uploading pictures, but I haven't posted them up here for a while. So, if you want to see photos as they go up, I would suggest looking here. I will eventually post them all up here with more text than what's on flickr. But they'll be there first.

A night at the hot springs

2008-11-22T23:14:00.005-05:00

After meeting up with Julia and Ray at the station, we walked back to NOVA and the camera area. Julia bargained with a couple of the vendors and got Liz a good deal on a Fuji instant camera. Polaroid is dead, but Fuji is still making the instant film. Then, we stopped at a hair salon so Liz could get a haircut. The salon was pretty posh looking, but is in an area full of students and is dirt cheap. The haircut was about $8. We're told that the expensive haircuts ($100+) are in a different part of town.

Once Liz had her camera, we made our way up to Tienmou for the hot springs. We went to a restaurant on the side of the mountain

Julia and Ray thought it might be easiest if we went for the set menus. The food was certainly more interesting that way, but maybe not best.

First up were salads. They were having a vegetarian course as they were on a Buddhist vegetarian diet for 30 days before the wedding. The left salad was ours (with the shrimp) and the right theirs (with the fruit).

The second dish was a beef dish that I've forgotten the name of. It was decent if unspectacular.

Third course: Black chicken soup. The chicken looked weird but tasted like chicken. It was the odd broth and the medicinal herbs that tasted weird. This was our first of, I think, three black chicken soup experiences.

Fourth and fifth courses: winter melon soup and shrimp balls (complete with mayo and sprinkles). The soup was not great. We didn't finish it. Liz really liked the shrimp balls. I, not being a fan of the mayonnaise, appreciated them a bit less.

Last course was a funky chicken dish that was pretty good.

Following our meal was 40 minutes in the hot springs. The room we got was basically a big bathtub with controls to turn on the springs. The experience was oddly relaxing. It was a bit weird at first, but after a few minutes, we began to relax a bit. We cleaned up and caught a taxi back to the MRT. We stopped for bubble tea across the street from the station and drank it out front as there are no drinks allowed on the MRT. This was my first bubble tea experience and a positive one to boot. I didn't get the funky things in my tea this time, but I would on all subsequent tea trips.

It's morning in Taipei

2008-11-22T22:54:00.004-05:00

We were slow to get around on Saturday. We spent the morning eating the remainder of the bread that Julia left and drinking Dr. Brown Coffee and milk tea that I bought at the Family Mart down the street.

Eventually we got it together and walked to the MRT station to check out the computer market there. As we're not really looking for computer parts, there wasn't a whole lot there. There are some other electronics, but not nearly as much as the NOVA tower.

We were starving and wandered by a bunch of small restaurants. Eventually, Liz decided we needed to get red bean paste cakes from a cart. Brilliant! While we were waiting, another vendor walked by with what looked like corn dogs. Liz dared me to eat one. I didn't feel like dealing with interrupting the guy's cell phone conversation, but Liz said she'd buy it if I ate it, so she did. And... it was a corn dog. Not a bad one, either. After that, we wandered through the vegetable market across the street before making our way to the train station for lunch, and to meet Julia and Ray.

Lunch was from the food court at the station. I ordered Szechuan beef with noodles. It also came with some seaweed soup, tofu and bitter melon (I think that's what it was). It was very good. It was in a broth rather than in a sauce as you usually see in the States.

Liz ordered pho from a Vietnamese place.

Wandering around Taipei

2008-11-21T22:39:00.005-05:00

We sat around most of the morning eating breakfast and drinking tea. We finally left around 1:00. We spent the day wandering around near the train station, looking at electronics, with a break in a coffee house. Later, we rode the MRT to the Breeze shopping center and went to Muji and Tokyo Hands, where Liz bought little containers and weird things.

They tell me that people in Taipei eat hamburgers for breakfast. This one came from the place downstairs (I forget the name). It was a peppered pork cutlet. Next to it are radish cakes.

The food court in the train station is enormous and also boasts a wine store featuring the entire 2008 Wine Spectator Top 100 in their front window. We walked through but didn't eat there. A couple of hours later, we ate lunch at the food court in the department store across the street.

I had a bowl of noodles, which was quite good but not as good as the beef noodle from across the street.

You can tell rush hour, because not only does the traffic get insane, but the police appear to direct the traffic.

By the time we got to the Breeze, my insides were tearing themselves apart, probably from the airline food consumed the previous day. Eventually nausea subsided to hunger, but they were still fighting it out when we went to the food court. I ended up ordering the same fish katsu sandwich Liz did.

It had too much of the mayonnaise on it, but was otherwise ok. Not a stellar dinner, but it settled my system down and I felt much better the rest of the evening.

We took the MRT back to our general area and walked back to our place on BaDe Rd. By the time we returned, the night market was in full swing.

I picked up a can of Kirin's winter beer (and an enormous bottle of water) at the 7-11. The can looks nice, but I can't recommend the beer. It tastes a little too much like Genesee for my liking.

We finally crashed pretty late after sitting up researching all of the gadgets we were looking at all day. Liz found some nice-looking cameras, but wanted to actually read reviews before buying anything. I forgot to check the going exchange rates before we left, and had to make sure my calculations were correct. So, today we will likely be off to buy photo gear. I anticipate starting at the Kuanghwa market. If the deals aren't as good as what we found yesterday, then we'll probably be back at the Nova and the camera area by the main station. By that time, Julia will probably be back from Tainan. I don't know what we'll do then. There was talk of going to Tienmou.

I wonder what's for lunch.

A few notes

2008-11-20T22:56:00.003-05:00

I switched templates. Not the best, but it will have to do now. I finally got fed up with the tiny column size of the old one. The size wasn't working with posting pictures from flickr, so it goes. This is only a temporary replacement. I will redesign the page at some point.

The other quick note is that all of the photos I'm posting are quick pictures from the new DSLR. They're converted from RAW format in the camera and uploaded with little more than a quick resize and maybe a crop in the GIMP. No sharpening or other processing has been done. While today we are spending the morning sitting around acclimating to the new environment, later on there will be little time for posting at all, much less performing any processing.

Raohe St. Night Market, Taipei

2008-11-20T22:38:00.003-05:00

After arriving at the apartment where we're staying in Taipei, Julia took us to the closest night market to get something to eat. We walked through an alley across the street to get there. It reminds me of some of the street markets in London. As it was a weeknight, some of the stands were closing when we arrived around 11:30 (23:30 to you 24-hour clock types). The first place we stopped sold spicy fried chicken. I'm not sure what it was called, but it was basically popcorn chicken tossed in a chili spice mixture.

We stopped at this Okonomiyaki stand for Okonomiyaki. It was pretty good. I'm not sure what all was in it besides tuna and shaved fish.

We walked around a little more, but we were tired and everything was closing. We were cutting through a noodle shop to go back to the apartment and I mentioned I was still hungry. So, we stopped in the shop and Julia ordered us a bowl of beef noodle and spicy wontons. Both were excellent.

The noodles were a bit slippery. I had some chopstick issues, but they were thick and chewy. Easily the best Chinese noodles I've had. The broth was flavorful with a hint of chili. The spicy wontons were regular wontons in a spicy sauce. They were very good, but allegedly in a couple days we will be going for the best ones in town.

Have I mentioned that I hate flying?

2008-11-20T21:04:00.007-05:00

As always, I am behind posting. I put some photos from the Miami Book Fair last weekend on flickr, but I haven't posted here yet. Similarly, I will attempt to upload photos as I take them on the trip to Taiwan. I'll upload them to flickr and then post here as I have time and internet connection to do so.

Yesterday was the big plane trip to Taipei. This is my first trans-Pacific flight. My previous longest plane trip was the flight to Budapest earlier this year. That was two legs: Fort Lauderdale to New York, then New York to Budapest. This was three legs: Fort Lauderdale to Detroit, Detroit to Tokyo, Tokyo to Taipei. It could have been worse, but it would have been nice had my seat not been broken on the long flight.

This was in the airport in Tokyo. I don't think I've ever seen one of these at home. I can certainly think of a few times I've been down the pub and could have used this.

Instructions for the automatic faucet in the airport, in case you had trouble figuring it out.

Plitvička jezera - end of the day

2008-10-03T19:00:00.001-04:00

Liz takes a picture.

Nature up close and personal.

Pond.

One last shot on the way to catch the bus back to Camp Cat.

In defense of the Misfits

2008-09-30T17:38:00.006-04:00

Listening to the Misfits today on the way home from work, I came to a realization: on the surface, the Misfits aren't very good. Although I remember a time when virtually everyone I knew, punks, metalheads, skaters, thought the Misfits were brilliant. There is one notable exception, but his favorite band was Queensryche, so his opinion doesn't count for anything anyway. This is the same guy who used to make fun of the song titles on Metallica's Master of Puppets album. He never actually listened to the album.

As for the Misfits, they were extremely popular for an underground band in the 1980s. Their albums, along with Black Flag and a few select others, were in just about everyone's record collection and their singles, all with limited production runs, were very desired on the collectors' market and heavily bootlegged.

However, on first listen, a lot of people would say that the band isn't very good. Pretty much every one of their records is sloppy. The exception is the proto-thrash final LP, Earth A.D., which featured former Black Flag drummer Robo. Pretty much every one of their records has entirely too much reverb, making it sound as though recorded in a cave. Most of the records are mixed unusually for hardcore, with Glenn Danzig's vocals way out front and Jerry Only's bass right behind. On the earliest records, Only's bass is more 60's pop, but he became a quick study of Motorhead's Lemmy and it is his trademark punchy, distorted sound that is present on most of the Misfits subsequent recordings. Also, unusually for hardcore, Glenn Danzig was a huge fan of 50's singers Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley and the Misfits records featured this type of vocal style over loud guitars. There was also a touch of Jim Morrison in there, which eventually reared its ugly head in Danzig.

The lyrics were mostly inspired by old horror films or real-life events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the death of Marilyn Monroe. This is quite different from other bands associated with the scene the Misfits came from, which was generally more concerned about the direction the country was headed under Reagan or how they were being treated by the police.

In the final analysis, it's this combination that really made the Misfits great. They certainly weren't the best musicians. Their records sounded weird. The singer sang like Roy Orbison. The lyrical themes were dark, but not topical. In short, they sounded like nothing else out there at the time and as such were embraced by a number of different scenes. They are most associated with the early 80's hardcore scene, but they had an obvious influence on late 80's thrash. Bands like AFI tread in the space the Misfits carved out, but there's still nothing that really sounds like they did. Even Jerry Only's "resurrected" Misfits don't sound the same; they're too well rehearsed, their records sound too contemporary. As for Glenn Danzig, he left that sound behind with Samhain, a more heavy metal influenced group that would eventually morph into Danzig.

NOTE: The final installment of Plitvička jezera will appear later in the week. Before then, I will be reviewing the Stereolab shows I caught over the weekend.

Plitvička jezera after lunch

2008-09-29T19:00:00.002-04:00

The lighting wasn't nearly as good in late afternoon, so I got a lot fewer interesting photos after lunch, but I did get a few.

Water on the C trail.

More water on the C trail.

Tree.

The rickety bridge.

Plitvička jezera - more waterfalls and boats

2008-09-28T19:00:00.001-04:00

It's almost unbelievable how clear the water is here.

This boat was tucked in a corner near a cave.

Waterfall head on.

A small pool at the top of a waterfall.

Log in another pool.

Morning in Plitvička jezera

2008-09-27T19:00:00.001-04:00

We spent the morning walking up the A trail.

A visit to Plitvička jezera

2008-09-26T19:00:00.001-04:00

One day in Zagreb was quite enough for just about everyone. However, we had no plan and about six days left before we had to be back in Budapest. We had pretty much ruled out Dubrovnik at this point as it was too far. A couple of Australians we met at the train station the night we arrived in Zagreb were on their way to a national park they had heard about. James had seen something about it somewhere else and insisted we go check it out. So, he and Timika figured out how to get out there, booked us a couple of cabins and we headed to the bus station. The bus trip was about three or four hours driving into nothing. We didn't realize the cabins were a couple of kilometers from the park entrance and inadvertently missed our stop. Eventually, we were able to catch a bus back a stop to Camp "Korana," which we decide meant cat, since there were so many feral cats about the place.

Dinner came in the form of the "party mix," a selection of meats in a package, chips, cheese, crackers and loads of beer, all procured from the general store. We spent the evening playing cards with some Finnish guys and making plans for the next morning.

Zagreb, Croatia

2008-09-25T19:00:00.001-04:00

We arrived in Zagreb around 10:00 and set out immediately for the hostel. We had to take the tram all the way across town to the edge of the suburbs. There is a chocolate factory on the corner by the tram station, and one can smell it throughout the neighborhood. We trekked to the hostel, checked in, got directions to an all night gas station with food and set out. I got my first (and only) Yugo sighting behind the gas station. I also had my first taste of the pepperoni sandwiches they sell in all the convenience stores. I would be eating them for the remainder of our stay in Croatia.

The next morning, we set out to explore Zagreb proper, starting with the neighborhood around the hostel, as we heard there was a good restaurant down the street.

Graffiti.

Apartment building.

TRG Ban Josip Jelacic.

Remains of the market, TRG Ban Josip Jelacic. This is right down the plaza from the Rubelj Grill, where we ended up eating excellent pizza some five hours later. (No my color-correction skills did not suddenly massively improve. The next two rolls are slide.)

On to Zagreb

2008-09-24T19:00:00.001-04:00

We foolishly did not purchase return tickets from Tokaj. I'm not sure why. It might have been because we thought we might have been able to buy tickets direct to Zagreb. There was no such luck, however, and we took the same train from Tokaj back to Budapest with about 2 hours before the next train to Zagreb. We spent about 40 minutes standing in a huge queue in the international ticket wing. We could have been out of there in 3 minutes if we'd bought the tickets on Sunday. We ended up with a person in 2 different queues hoping that one of them would be quick. After buying tickets, we decided there was time for a meal in train station restaurant.

That meal, improbably enough, ended up being one of the best of our trip. James and I got our chance here for a good bowl of the cold fruit soup, and it was excellent. I had the veal with pancakes (I forget the Hungarian name), and that was also excellent. And I was expecting overpriced, mediocre food. I spent most of the rest of the 30 minutes before our train attempting to call the hostel in Zagreb to let them know we'd be in about a half-hour after front desk closing. I'm not sure why it's so difficult to use the international phone cards in
Hungary, but I had problems the whole trip.

Random train yard approaching Budapest.

Lake Balaton from the train.

Tokaj

2008-09-23T19:00:00.001-04:00

One might notice I'm saying little about Tokaj. Everything was fabulous. The people are friendly, the wine is excellent, the food is excellent. We weren't there nearly long enough. I hope to spend a week there in the future. We promised the proprietor of Huli Panzio we would stay there next time we're in Tokaj, but for more than one night. Some day we will make good on that, and there will be more Tokaji drunk. And perhaps we will have a way to tote out more than 4 or 5 bottles each.

Many cranes make their home in Tokaj and are considered good luck.

Taken on the walk to dinner.

Two rivers meet.

Tokaj: Welcome to the middle of nowhere

2008-09-22T19:00:00.003-04:00

Tokaj station patform, looking southwest.

Tokaj station patform, looking northeast.

Tokaj, from our room in Huli Panzio.

Rakoczi Ut. Looking north.

Rakoczi Pince. Home of Hetszolo Wines.

Citadel Hill

2008-09-20T13:49:00.005-04:00

James was adamant that we visit Citadel Hill. We didn't have time for much of anything in Buda, but that's the one thing he wanted to see. Accordingly, we took the tram down the river and exited near the Hotel Gellert. The climb was very unkind to Liz's knees and to my general lack of good health, but the view from the hill is excellent.

Erzabet Hid (Elizabeth Bridge) from Citadel Hill.

Budapest, looking north from Citadel Hill. I took shots in each direction from the south side of the Citadel as the sun set. Liz and James disappeared while I was shooting through a roll of film. Eventually, I packed up the camera and realized they'd gone. I walked along the road around the Citadel and saw a small bar set up in a row of food and souvenir stands. The two of them were at the bar sipping wine. I went to join them, but stopped when I saw this:

Buda Castle, from Citadel Hill.

When I joined James and Liz, they were talking with the bartender, Martin, about Budapest and the US. They were two drinks into the survey of Hungarian alcoholic drinks. We continued through the survey and when James told Martin that we had yet to experience Gulyás, we were invited to join him for dinner. He and his uncle had a pot on in the back and were getting ready to eat. We had a wonderful dinner of Gulyás and red wine (Egri Bikavér or something similar) and a couple more drinks to follow up. Eventually, we settled the bill and began the trek back down the hill.

Pest, looking south from Citadel Hill.

A Trip to Buda

2008-09-20T13:40:00.003-04:00

Our objective the following day was to see a bit of Buda. We didn't have nearly enough time to see much of it, but we wanted to at least see a couple of things. First, we needed to visit Keleti pályaudvar to buy train tickets for our Monday trip to Tokaj. We had a bit of trouble finding anyone who spoke English at the station on a Sunday, but eventually we were able to find the train we needed on schedule, find our way to the right window and buy the tickets in very broken Hungarian.

Arena Plaza is around the corner from the train station. We went in search of an open Tesco, but alas it was a national holiday and most of the Plaza was closed. It is, however, very important that one not take pictures of the plaza. I took this picture from the street and then a few minutes later whilst I was taking a picture of the back of the train station across the street, an Arena Plaza security guard yelled at me in German and said I couldn't take pictures.

Following our Tesco misadventure, we hopped back on the Metro and rode across the river to Buda. This is the not-quite-the-postcard shot of the Parliament building, complete with scaffolding on the south side.

Nyugati tér, Budapest

2008-08-19T11:08:00.003-04:00

Following a bit of rest and a change of shoes, we went to Arriba! Taqueria for dinner. Arriba! is a new Cali-Mex joint in between Oktagon and Nyugati tér. The food was solid California taco stand style, better than we can get in South Florida. James remarked that it is much better than Czech Mex. The plus is better beer than similar joints in the US. I've never been much of a Mexican beer fan, so I relished the opportunity to have some good Eastern European beer with my burrito.

McCafe, next to the train station. I think they were all called McCafe around here, but this one looks like it used to be something else, whereas the others look more like standard EuroMcD's.

City Park, Budapest

2008-08-19T10:16:00.004-04:00

In which I attempt to get back on track uploading photos from our spring trip to Eastern Europe, before our fall trip to Taiwan.

All photos as per previous posts (Pentax K-1000, Pentax A 35-70/4 lens, Kodak Ultra Color 400 film).

Beyond Heroes Square is City Park. We spent several hours wandering through the park. As in other parts of Budapest, there is a great deal of graffiti in the park. Taggers hit the statue of composer Posa Laios, located near the transport musem.

We didn't have time to visit the transport museum, but they have a several outdoor exhibits, including these bits of farm machinery.

Cafe Waggon, next to the transport museum. While I was taking pictures of the machinery outside the transport museum, my traveling companions located the Cafe and ordered drinks. I found them half a beer later and we proceeded to spend an hour or so drinking Staropramen (or was is Soproni?)

After our time at the cafe, we walked over to the hot springs, which were closing for the day. We were all dead tired, and so headed to the yellow line station to ride back to the Red Bus.

The Omnivore’s Hundred

2008-08-18T14:07:00.007-04:00

From Very Good Taste via Buffalo Wings and Toasted Ravioli.

Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

UPDATE: James says I have in fact had Epoisses. We had it when we cooked French food for Thanksgiving last year. I couldn't remember exactly which cheese that was.

Zappa Plays Zappa, Club Cinema, Pompano Beach, FL, July 22, 2008

2008-07-30T22:18:00.004-04:00

The Purple Lagoon >
Imaginary Diseases
City of Tiny Lites
Pygmy Twylyte
The Idiot Bastard Son
Cheepnis
Cosmik Debris
G-Spot Tornado
Flakes
Broken Hearts are for Assholes
Bamboozled by Love
King Kong
Joe's Garage
Wet T-Shirt Nite >
Toad-O Line
Outside Now
He Used to Cut the Grass
Packard Goose
Willie the Pimp

E: I'm the Slime

I've been thinking about what exactly it is that makes a cover band a cover band, as opposed to an act that happens to play songs written by other people. The term "cover band," besides being a descriptive term is, of course, often used as an insult, implying that the group plays others' songs because they are unable to write their own and are therefore inferior to others who do. But no one accused Elvis, or Frank Sinatra or Aretha Franklin of being "cover" artists. They are performers more in the mold of actors in that they interpret and perform material written by others. It doesn't matter that Carole King wrote "Natural Woman." What matters is Aretha recorded what is considered widely to be the definitive version of the song. The defining difference is that interpretation. A cover band attempts to re-create the original recorded version of a song, often to please an audience who could just as well be listening to a DJ, but are instead witnessing a live performance. What they generally do not do, is interpret the material or attempt to put their own stamp on it.

Zappa Plays Zappa is the "official" vehicle for the live performance of the music of Frank Zappa. The band is helmed by Zappa's son Dweezil and is mostly made up of unknown musicians. The three tours have included one or more "special guests" from Zappa's touring bands. The first featured Napolean Murphy Brock from the 1973-75 bands on vocals and sax for most of the show and guitarist Steve Vai (1980-82) and drummer Terry Bozzio (1975-78) for shorter portions. The second featured Brock only for most of the show. The current tour features singer and guitarist Ray White (1976, 1980-84). There has been a good bit of unpleasantness between the Zappa family and the various cover bands playing Frank's music. The contention seems to be mostly over claims of unpaid royalties, differences of opinion on the quality of the cover bands' performances and their possibly liberal interpretations of the music and on the rights to exploit Frank Zappa's name. I will not recount any of that here. I only note it because some fans and band members have accused Dweezil's Zappa Plays Zappa project as also being merely another cover band.

ZPZ played in Pompano Beach on the first tour two years ago. I delayed buying tickets owing to what I thought a ridiculous ticket price (one of the highest on the tour and considerably more than the following nights in Orlando and Atlanta). That tour has since been captured on DVD. This tour promised different material than that one, which drew heavily from the Napolean Murphy Brock era of the band as well as late 70's and early 80's material performed by the bands including Bozzio and Vai. This tour has focused more on the Joe's Garage album as well as some of Zappa's lesser-played instrumental pieces.

After a quick hello and thank you from Dweezil to all for attending, the band got right to work playing two instrumentals from the early 70s, The Purple Lagoon and Imaginary Diseases. The Purple Lagoon is one of Zappa's rhythmically difficult pieces, while Imaginary Diseases is a jazzy horn driven piece usually including some soloing. Neither were staples of Frank Zappa's stage show. The Purple Lagoon was only played from the mid-1970s through 1976, when it was released on the 1976 album Zappa in New York. Imaginary Diseases was only played on the Petit Wazoo tour of 1973 and was not released until 2006 on the album of recordings from that tour. They started off brilliantly, nailing both pieces, with Dweezil playing a great solo in Imaginary Diseases. Ray White walked on stage at the conclusion and the band dropped right into City of Tiny Lites, playing the original Sheik Yerbouti arrangement, as opposed to the mildly different arrangement played in later bands that included White. This is a trend that would continue throughout the evening.

Following a guitar change (from a hollow-bodied Hagstrom to a custom SG based on of Frank's guitars), Dweezil announced the next song as one "we learned for the last tour, but we liked playing it so much that we learned it again." Pygmy Twylyte, from 1974's Roxy & Elsewhere album was followed by several more from that era. The 1974 band arrangement of The Idiot Bastard Son and Cheepnis featured lead vocals by Ray White, with Frank's spoken parts on Cheepnis performed by drummer Joe Travers, who also took the vocal on what Dweezil described as a "bluesy" version of Cosmik Debris. This was the first left turn of the night. Cosmik Debris was completely re-invented as a slow blues featuring slide guitar by rhythm guitarist Jamie Kime and an excellent solo by Dweezil. The performance was amusing, fun and well-played, like much of the best of Frank's live work. About here, the band began to remark on the incredible heat in the venue. It felt like the air conditioning was off for most of the show, only being turned on infrequently for a few minutes at a time.

After Cosmik Debris, Ray left the stage while the rest of the band played a version of G-Spot Tornado arranged for rock band. Dweezil announced is as a track from the Yellow Shark album, but the arrangement was based on the original Jazz from Hell Synclavier track. The performance was not perfect, but was quite impressive, with Dweezil and Joe Travers in particular turning in excellent performances. This was a track that none of Frank's bands ever played live, and was only performed for the first time at the Yellow Shark concerts after members of the Ensemble Modern requested an arrangement for the program.

Ray returned sans guitar for a couple from Sheik Yerbouti: Flakes and Broken Hearts are for Assholes. In the first, the album arrangement was played note-for-note (including the feedback guitar overdub over the whole second half) but the band had a little fun with it in keyboard player Scheila Gonzalez's replacement of Adrian Belew's original Bob Dylan impersonation with one of Eric Cartman. Broken Hearts are for Assholes, on the other hand featured the album arrangement exactly including all of the original vocal ad-libs. A slow-fast-slow arrangement of Bamboozled by Love followed with a blistering Dweezil solo and powerful vocals from White. Everyone near me was suitably impressed, with one person declaring that he had gotten his money's worth at that point.

For me, the highlight of the show (besides the opening two pieces) was King Kong. Ray White again left the stage and the band launched into an arrangement based on the (again) original 1968 arrangement, but without the second melody (The Ark) that was only played by that band. Everyone in the group got a chance to stretch out here, with Gonzalez playing a wah-wah sax solo in the vein of Ian Underwood and Billy Hulting playing both a marimba solo and adding vocal interjections a la 70's-80's percussionist Ed Mann. Dweezil conducted the band for a while in the middle and, when the audience seemed appreciative, moved from the stage to the audience and back again. Following a couple more solos, Dweezil called Ray back out and asked him to improvise a song based on three things: mayonnaise, his Uncle Carl (Frank's brother) and the Three Stooges. He then told a story about his sister Moon visiting their grandmother and finding Carl having fun with the mayonnaise while the Three Stooges played in the background. I will the leave the rest to your filthy imagination. Ray responded with a hilarious set of lyrics about Carl and the mayonnaise, which then became the theme of the rest of the show, with band members working mayonnaise and the Three Stooges into the lyrics or interjecting them at appropriate places.

The bulk of the rest of the show was dedicated to the Joe's Garage album, all in the album arrangements (which Frank's band never played live), complete with Frank's original "Central Scrutizer" bits played back to introduce the songs and (I believe) note-perfect renditions of Frank's solos. Ray White handled Ike Willis' original vocals superbly, with Dweezil and Scheila performing the parts played by Frank and Dale Bozzio in the Wet T-Shirt scene. A short Willie the Pimp followed, with "Goodnight. Let us go get some oxygen and we'll come back and play one more." One more was I'm the Slime featuring Billy Hulting on vocals.

Is Zappa Plays Zappa merely a cover band, or something different? In a recent Guitar World interview, Dweezil states that "We treat Frank's music the same as any other composer—Mozart, Beethoven or whoever. Orchestras that play that music don't rearrange it, put in new notes and say 'I'm gonna do it my way.' When people do that with Frank's music, it's actually quite annoying to me." He goes on to speak of his disappointment in hearing the original Kinks recording of "You Really Got Me" after hearing Van Halen's version, which he didn't realize was a cover, which comes back to the original quandary. Van Halen, when they performed Ray Davies' song, did not merely cover the Kinks' version of the song, they made it their own.

In taking this position, Dweezil ignores that while orchestras may not radically change pieces they perform, the truth is that different conductors and ensembles emphasize different parts of the music. Otherwise, there is hardly any point in playing it live. One can always listen to a recording if one wants to hear a recording. The essence of live performance is a certain spontaneity, a sense that something could happen (or will happen) that has never been done before and won't be done again in exactly the same way. This is what keeps the music fresh. To slavishly re-create on stage what has been already done on a record is to keep the music a part of the past, rather than a vital part of the living world. Frank Zappa understood this. He continually revisited his older works and re-arranged them to best suit the talents of the musicians who floated through his group. His best asset as a bandleader was to identify the specific talents of the musicians in his groups and write or arrange pieces to their strengths. The live rendition rarely matched the album cut, unless the album was recorded totally live, but the notes were always there and the pieces matched the spirit of the original.

In putting together Zappa Plays Zappa, Dweezil is acting more as a curator for his father's music, specifically the recorded works, than as a bandleader. Ironically, Zappa Plays Zappa is at its best when it owns the material, when the members aren't trying to play the exact notes with the exact same tone as Peter Wolf had in 1980 or re-creating Patrick O'Hearn's vocal ad-libs from 1977. The most exciting parts of the show were when the band did something unexpected: Scheila's Cartman impression in Flakes, Dweezil conducting the audience or exhorting Ray to sing about Carl and the Mayonnaise, Joe Travers shouting about the Three Stooges during the second half of the show to get his band mates laughing, Cosmik Debris as a slow blues. The music still comes through and it still "speaks for itself" in this moments, the same as in the rest of the show, but it's in these moments that the music is really brought to life and I hope in future tours Dweezil steps back from his quest to re-create albums and allows more of these moments. It is then that Zappa Plays Zappa will be a monumental thing and will do proper service to the composer whose music they are playing.

Because I'm a dork...

2008-06-20T11:48:00.002-04:00

Eric posted a link on the Florida Panthers Message Board to this site, so I just had to go play around with it.

Heroes' Square

2008-06-11T23:29:00.005-04:00

At the end of Andrássy utcá is Heroes' Square. The square contains many statues of mustachioed men. All photos taken 10 May 2008, with the same Pentax K-1000 with A 35-70/4 zoom as the last batch, again on Kodak Ultra Color 400.

The view from across the street. The small number of tourists is probably attributable to it not quite being the season for tourists in Hungary.

This statue is in the middle of the square.

The building across the street, covered with an ugly banner and blocked by tour buses. I can only imagine what it looks like in July.

Another shot of the center statue.

A few tourists looking at mustachioed statues.

Walking up Andrássy utcá part 2

2008-06-01T19:56:00.003-04:00

It was around lunchtime I realized that I needed a watch. I usually use my cell phone, but once I'd turned it off on losing the signal, I lost the time. So, I stopped in a Swatch store near Oktagon and bought a watch for too much money. To be fair, it is a pretty cool watch.

The architecture in Budapest is an interesting mix of styles. There isn't much in the way of really tall buildings, and many of the modern wars in the region didn't affect the city. A lot of the pre-WWII buildings are still standing, and there aren't a lot of examples of Communist-era blocks of flats in the city proper. Nor are there a lot of newer buildings. However, there are quite a few examples of mixed-styles from previous centuries.

Terror House, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Sign, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/500, f/5.6, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Building detail, Kodaly Korond, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 70-210/4 (~100), 1/500, f/4, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Building, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Andrassy Hotel, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Walking up Andrássy utcá

2008-06-01T19:38:00.003-04:00

We spent our first full day in Budapest walking across Pest. James wanted to walk to Heroes' Square, so following some wandering in the neighborhood around Red Bus, we made our way to Andrássy utcá, one of the main thoroughfares in Pest. Andrássy utcá is home to a number of landmarks, including the opera house (above), Oktagon, Terror House and at the end, Heroes' Square.

Karoly ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Opera House, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Phones, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (45), 1/500, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

About halfway up to the square, we ducked down a side street looking for lunch. We found it at El Greco Hungary, which was running a Sunday lunch buffet. The food was mostly decent Greek with some Hungarian mixed in. James had his first cold fruit soup. If I'd realized that's what was in that crock, I would have had some as well. Instead I had a random meat soup that was pretty good.

Statue, Nagynezo ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4, 1/500, f/11, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

This was also the first day of our serious car watching. The best cars we saw on this day were a splatter painted SmartCar, a yellow Lotus, a monster truck(!) and a random car with a Florida license plate.

Lotus, Andrassy ut, Budapest, Hungary, 10 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (35), 1/500, f/4, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Traveling to Budapest

2008-05-31T23:59:00.005-04:00

Traveling to Budapest was fairly traumatic. First, we had problems checking in. We were a few minutes late, so Liz went alone to check in. They wouldn't help her at all until I finished parking the car. Once I arrived, the ticketing agent couldn't figure out the system. She gate checked our bags, and then spent five minutes printing the wrong boarding passes. We noticed on the way to security and returned to the ticketing counter. She spent a couple more minutes fighting with the computer, then gave us another person's boarding passes. She finally called for assistance and a second person managed to tell her how to print the right passes, once they scanned our passports again.

Upon arriving at the gate, we saw the last people boarding. Another 20 minutes later, we were seated waiting for some other seat assignments to be sorted out. Delta had canceled our flight, then reinstated it, losing everyone's seating assignments. We ultimately took off an hour late, with me losing my window seat to an aisle at the back of the plane where I was continually hit by flight attendants and people walking to and from the lavatory.

Upon arriving in New York, we claimed our baggage and re-checked it, then went back through security and waited. And waited. As we were waiting on the transport to board, the first officer announced that one of the ground crew had hit the wing of the plane with the portable ladder and broken it. They would have to find another plane. Amazingly enough, they did and we were off only three-and-a-half hours late.

We landed at Ferihegy Airport, breezed through Customs and waited 30 minutes for our luggage, which never came. We filed a claim with the airport baggage service. They very nicely called our hostel, as we were going to lose our reservation if we weren't there by 14:00. We were scheduled at 10:30, so I didn't give a credit card to hold the reservation, but between the delay and the luggage fiasco, we had about ten minutes before we lost the room. The hostel agreed to hold the room for an hour and we made our way to the taxi stand.

The drive out to Red Bus Hostel took about 40 minutes as The airport is out on the edge of the suburbs. We checked in and waited for James to arrive. Once he did, we set out to explore the neighborhood.

Building on the corner of Muzeum korut & Rackoczi ut, Budapest, Hungary, 9 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4, 1/250, f/16, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

We wandered down toward the river, stopping for gelato. After much debate, we took dinner at the Corso Etterem. We had our first taste of Hungarian beer, Soproni, which is quite good. James had his chicken paprikash. After dinner, we wandered toward the Erszabet hid (Elizabeth Bridge), and took some pictures of the Danube.

Danube River, by Erszebet Hid, Budapest, Hungary, 9 May 2008
Pentax K1000, Pentax-A 35-70/4 (70), 1/250, f/11, Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400

Back home; more coming

2008-05-30T13:14:00.003-04:00

I've been back for a week now, and I've been really busy. I bought a new scanner over the last weekend because the old one just wasn't cutting it. The new one does a much better job with film and will take medium format negatives as well. I've been scanning like crazy and have four rolls from the trip done. There's no game tonight (Game 4 tomorrow), and Liz won't be home, so I will start posting stuff tonight. Once I finish there, I will probably re-start the California trip stuff. I was never really happy with the results I was getting, which is much of the reason I never finished scanning those.

On the go

2008-05-15T04:57:00.003-04:00

I'm posting from Zagreb, Croatia. Yesterday was another day chock full of walking, eating and drinking. We arrived late Tuesday night by train and made our way on the tram to the hostel, which is out in the suburbs a bit. There's a cake factory up the street, which makes the neighborhood smell nice.

Yesterday, we took the bus to the airport to meet Timika, then spent the rest of the day wandering Old Town. We had lunch at a place near the hostel, drinks at Tolkien's House and dinner at some pizzeria. Today, we're headed to Rijeka, although we have no place to stay and we don't know where we're going or what we're doing once we get there. We'll probably be headed for some islands and maybe Ljubljana and/or Trieste.

Greetings from Budapest!

2008-05-11T09:02:00.003-04:00

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in an internet café in Budapest. Flyers are down 1-0, One of our two missing bags has turned up (I'm the one who got to wear clean clothes today), and I'm having trouble finding the Y and Z keys on this keyboard.

In short, Delta bites, I forgot three rolls of film, everything is closed on Sunday in Budapest, but otherwise everything is quite lovely. We walked the length of Andrássy útca yesterday. I'm two and a half rolls into my film stash, but since I left two rolls of 400 home, I'm probably going to need to stop at a store to get more. Hopefully, I will have time tomorrow before we head to Tokaj. There are two stores by our hostel. We walked by one of them and I saw Kodak Professional film in the fridge, so I should be in good shape if I can get there before opening.

New Mexico

2008-05-01T23:40:00.003-04:00

A couple from New Mexico.

Bertram at Rest Stop, Butterfield Station, NM, October 9, 2007, Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/16, Y2 Yellow filter, Kodak BW 400CN

Outside Nellie's, 6th & W. Hadley, Las Cruces, NM, October 9, 2007,
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/16, Kodak BW 400CN

West Texas Teardrops

2008-04-30T23:35:00.004-04:00

Here are a few from a rest stop in West Texas. The nearest town was Iraan. I feel like you haven't seen the middle of nowhere until you've driven across Texas. I'm sure there are more lonely, isolated places on this earth, but I haven't been there yet.

Butterfly. Rest stop, near Iraan, TX, October 8, 2007, Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/125 sec f/2, Y2 Yellow filter, Kodak BW 400CN

Fence at rest stop, near Iraan, TX, October 8, 2007, Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/60 sec f/2, Y2 Yellow filter, Kodak BW 400CN

Beware of snakes. Rest stop, near Iraan, TX, October 8, 2007, Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/125 sec f/2, Y2 Yellow filter, Kodak BW 400CN

New Posts Coming

2008-03-24T22:35:00.004-04:00

As soon as my Newegg order shows up and I have a microSD card for my phone again and I can therefore offload my Langerado snaps, I will post a Langerado wrap-up. In the meantime, I will be away in Washington at the SEAALL conference hanging with a lot of librarians. I will probably bring the camera, and I may get some shots while I'm there. I still have scans from the October trip to post. April will have to be a clearinghouse, as I want everything done before we go to Budapest in May. Because I'll have a whole lot more to post then.

In other news, the Panthers are only 3 points out of a playoff spot, with what should be a fairly easy schedule to wrap up the season. How'd that happen? Who knows, but I'm not drinking any Kool-Aid. If they can win the last 6 or so, though, South Florida may see playoffs for the first time in a long time...

In other other news, we are slowly working through the mess here. A little too slowly, but there has been some progress. And a lot of IKEA furniture has been bolted together.

They Might Be Giants, Revolution, Fort Lauderdale, March 12, 2008

2008-03-24T22:19:00.003-04:00

If you feel the need to talk during a show, please go stand near the bar or go the fuck outside. Thank you. That is all.

If it's not one thing...

2008-01-17T23:19:00.001-05:00

It's been a rough few weeks. Liz's grandmother has been in bad shape since a week or so before Christmas. Liz has been in Virginia since a week after Thanksgiving, first helping out after her mother's stroke, and more recently assisting her grandmother. I've been home trying to get our apartment into decent shape, broken by occasional travel. Liz's grandmother passed away on Monday, and the funeral was today. Now, she has somewhere between 6 days and two weeks to get her apartment cleared out. I will not be able to help much as I have to be back in Florida on Tuesday. In the meantime, I have managed to lose my cell phone. I think I left it in a restaurant last night, but no one found it there. We've searched the apartment and not found it, so it appears that I will have to replace it, at full price. It's not been the greatest week, but hopefully I'll be able to get out and finish the roll that's been in my camera far too long, and upload the pictures that have been sitting for far too long. There is also one bookshelf left to be assembled. Next week will be busy. This week was busy. It's always something.

Tonight's dinner: Beef tenderloin with shallot sauce

2008-01-02T00:37:00.001-05:00

I cooked twice today, which is unusual. I eat cereal or oatmeal for breakfast. During the week, I usually eat out or take a sandwich to work for lunch, and then I cook dinner. On the weekends, I generally reheat leftovers for lunch. Today, though, I made a nice soup for lunch (documented in a previous post), then went out to do some food shopping and pick up a pizza on the way home. While at the food store, I found a couple of lovely beef tenderloins in the hippie food section, and decided that would be dinner. I pan fried one of them (two minutes on the first side, one and a little more on the second), steamed up some broccoli and made some couscous on the side.

For the couscous, I heated up a little olive oil (2 tbs?) and tossed in a handful of peanuts (roasted unsalted) and two minced garlic cloves. After these cooked for a couple of minutes, I cooked the couscous with this and some beef stock.

While the steak was resting, I skimmed the foam off the leftover butter in the pan, then dumped about half of it off and added 1/3 cup of red wine (some Cheap Côtes du Rhône I found at the aforementioned food store) and a sliced shallot. I cooked that down about halfway and added 1/3 cup of beef stock and a little demiglace. I cooked that down not quite halfway. I should have cooked it a bit more. I whisked in two tablespoons of butter and some fresh thyme. Yes, that's a lot of butter, but that's really almost three servings of sauce. It's difficult to make pan sauces for one without wasting some ingredients.

It's hard to see from the first picture how rare this steak is. Yum!

Chicken and Sausage Soup

2008-01-01T23:47:00.002-05:00

I returned a couple of days ago from a particularly tiring and trying holiday week. There was not much in the way of food left that I didn't have to throw away. I did manage to toss a few things in the freezer before I left, and it was from this small amount of food, along with the usual staples from which I decided to create today's lunch. (Note: Photos are all cell phone pics, so they're a little blurry and the color's a little weird in some of them).

I spent the morning of New Year's Day at IKEA, buying some new book and DVD shelves, plus a wine rack, which I have been assembling and filling. I didn't want to have to leave the house for anything during the day. Thus was the requirement set: Lunch must be from the random ingredients left from before the trip.

A quick look around and I determined that I would need to use the chicken thighs that I pulled from the freezer last night. They were left over from the Thai Green Curry I made before I left. I used half the package and froze the rest. I recently purchased James Peterson's Splendid Soups, and I've been leafing through it. Inspired by my readings, I decided to attempt a Chicken and Sausage soup, using the leftover chicken, some Cajun sausage I had in the fridge, and two of the four good carrots left in the crisper drawer. I also had a large quantity of leftover rice, so I decided to make a soup to be served over rice, like a gumbo. However, as I'm up from my usual 20 pounds overweight to about 50, I did not want to make a roux. To solve the problem of how to darken up the soup, and replace the flavor of a dark roux, I decided to brown some onions to use as a base with the stock.

I started, as always, with prep. I sliced the chicken thighs into thin strips, across the grain, chopped the two carrots, sliced two of the Cajun sausages (now the pack's open, I have to find something to do with three more in the next couple of days), sliced two onions into 1/2 inch or so thick slices and sliced up two cloves of garlic.

With my ingredients at the ready, it was time to begin cooking. First, I heated a saucier and added a very small (about 1 tsp) amount of olive oil. Just enough to coat the pan, really. to this, I added the sausage. I browned all the slices for a couple of minutes on each side, rendering out much of the fat, then removed to a paper towel covered plate.

Then, I added the onions to the fat left in the pan from the sausage, stirring every couple of minutes to keep them from burning.

It soon occurred to me that I was going to have to deglaze the pan to get the onions as dark as I wanted to without burning the fond on the bottom of the pan. I added a small amount of stock three or four times and scraped the fond from the bottom of the pan, then left the onions to continue to brown.

With the onions nice and dark, I added the carrots and garlic and cooked for a couple of minutes.

Next, I added three cups of chicken stock from the freezer. This wasn't quite as much as I wanted, so I added a cup of vegetable stock I had in the refrigerator, which not only made up the amount I wanted, but added some complexity to the broth.

I simmered the stock and carrots, skimming off any fat and foam that rose to the top. After about 30 minutes, I added the chicken. The chicken, being sliced so thin, cooked quickly.

I wanted a spicy soup, and while I knew the Cajun sausage would add some, it was not quite as much as I wanted. So, I pulled out the Vietnamese chili garlic sauce and began adding it to the broth in small amounts. I ended up adding three tablespoons.

Once I had the spiciness level I wanted, it was time to add the sausage and the finishing ingredients: a little butter (about 2 tablespoons) and a 1/2 cup of dry sherry.

I cooked the soup for about another five minutes.

While the soup was simmering, I put some of the leftover rice in a bowl and put it in the microwave for a minute.

The finished soup.

I ladled some of the soup and over the rice and served.

The Verdict: The soup came out very well, particularly for being whipped up from what I had kicking around. The biggest thing that would have improved it would have been to use a nice medium grain rice like Valencia instead of leftover long grain. That will be the biggest change if I make this again, which I most likely will as it was quite enjoyable and not particularly difficult to make.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T01:34:00.001-05:00

Well, it's another year. And in the new year will be more posts. No, I haven't forgotten about the rest of those California trip pictures. Things have just been a little crazy since mid-November, what with all the family medical emergencies. So, hopefully things will settle down now, what with the holidays over and all. I should have the next roll from the trip up this week (it's already scanned).

More of San Antonio

2007-11-30T22:06:00.002-05:00

Bertram at the Rodeway Inn, San Antonio, TX, October 7, 2007
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/4.8
Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

This bunch are from The Alamo. This is the building next door. It's quite tall, and I shot just the top (this shot) and the whole thing. I like this one better:

Building next door to The Alamo, San Antonio, TX, October 7, 2007
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/16
Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

Fish in the moat:

The Alamo, San Antonio, TX, October 7, 2007
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/4
Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

The old meets the new:

Hotel next door to The Alamo, San Antonio, TX, October 7, 2007
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/16
Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

I liked this well in the grounds. I'm not sure I did it justice:

Well. The Alamo, San Antonio, TX, October 7, 2007
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/125 sec f/5.6
Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

On our way out of town, we were beset by a sudden downpour:

Gas station, San Antonio, TX, October 7, 2007
Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0, 1/250 sec f/?
Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

On the road in Florida

2007-11-27T22:49:00.001-05:00

This restaurant was across the street from our motel in Gainesville. I liked the look of it, so I took a picture even though the sky was gray.

Japanese restaurant, Gainesville, FL, October 6, 2007
Shot w/Pentax K-1000, Pentax Takumar 135mm/2.5 @ 1/125 sec f/16
Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

Next door to the motel in Gainesville. They're adding more hotels to a street that's nothing but hotels.

Construction at the Motel 6, Gainesville, FL, October 6, 2007
Shot w/Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0 @ 1/500 sec f/11
Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

Chimi's is a defunct restaurant attached to the Days Inn in Alachua, FL. We stopped in Alachua for gas and breakfast after we were unable to find anything but a Shoney's near the motel in Gainesville.

Chimi's, Alachua FL, October 6, 2007
Shot w/Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0 @ 1/500 sec f/16
Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

I should have used a flash on this.

Chimi's, Alachua FL, October 6, 2007
Shot w/Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0 @ 1/500 sec f/16
Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

Plants. Rest stop, Florida panhandle, October 6, 2007
Shot w/Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0 @ 1/500 sec f/8
Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

Back to the start

2007-11-27T22:41:00.002-05:00

Now that I've been back for a couple of weeks, I've gotten most of the film from the California trip developed. I've scanned the first few rolls, and as I scan more, I'll post some of my favorite shots. All are resized and some are tweaked as well. And they're all scanned with not the greatest scanner.

From the first day, before we left:

Bertram at home. Shot w/Pentax K-1000, Pentax-M 50mm/2.0 @ 1/125 sec f/2
Film: Kodak Ultra Color 400 (400UC)

Memphis to Atlanta

2007-11-13T21:56:00.002-05:00

My original intention was to visit Graceland in the morning and then skip town. This, as mentioned previously, did not happen. So, once again, we found ourselves leaving for a drive of several hours right before nightfall. We stopped just across the Mississippi border at Casa Mexicana, a decent Mexican restaurant.

The rest of the drive was mind-numbingly boring. We had about enough of the American south at night, and just wanted to sleep. We found our hotel without incident (once again around 3 AM) and checked in. It was downtown near the Fox Theater. Not the best neighborhood, and not the prettiest place. Our view wasn't much to speak of, either.

It was, however, a place to sleep. And the staff were amazingly nice. While they were serving breakfast, the kitchen staff were baking cookies to leave at the front desk. Seriously. They actually gave us cookies when we checked out. After our experience in Los Angeles, this was most welcome.

We spent our day in Atlanta with one of my librarian friends, Pam. We spent the afternoon wandering around the Five Points neighborhood and then we watched the Little Five Points Halloween parade. The parade was crazy. The most organized group was the high school marching band at the end. The best bit besides the Ramones impersonator was the freak show, which included "Man eating chicken," a man eating chicken wings. I didn't get any pictures as I left my camera in the car thinking we would get back to it before the parade. No such luck.

Lunch was at the Flying Biscuit Cafe. I had the shrimp and grits which was amazing. Creamy grits with large sauteed shrimp in a red pepper sauce. Brilliant. There is also quite a bit of vegan and vegetarian food on the menu.

Dinner was at Varsity, the "world's largest drive-in restaurant." The Varsity is an Atlanta institution. The place is an enormous fast food place that actually serves a quality burger at a decent price. I'm sure this is due to the huge numbers of people who come through the doors, particularly on game days. I also had the "Varsity orange" which, I gather, is their in-house orange soda. It is quite good if one likes orange soda. The whole experience is singular, and interesting.

Graceland

2007-11-13T20:54:00.001-05:00

The amazing thing about seeing Graceland is not the place itself, which is interesting in that all the parts not turned into museum rooms have been left much as they were in the 1970s, making it not only a time capsule of Elvis' mansion but of 1970s style as well. Nor is it being in the place where Elvis Presley spent most of his adult life. It's peoples' reactions to Graceland that are amazing. People line up to see it and they are visibly affected by it. Elvis' grave is surrounded by signs, collages, flowers and other tributes.

I have never been much of an Elvis fan. Honestly, it was a bigger deal to me when I was at Sun that it was the room where "I Walk the Line" was recorded than that Elvis first ten singles were cut there. Liz and I were married in Las Vegas by an Elvis impersonator, but that was reflected more our appreciation of Elvis' place in our culture than on our appreciation of his music.

However, that so many people are so affected by his music that they make pilgrimages to Memphis just to see the place where he lived his personal life, away from the crowds, with family and friends, more than anything, speaks to the great effect music has on us as as people. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, but it affected me a lot more than I expected it would.

Elvis' music room.

Elvis' dining room television.

Elvis' 70s-tastic kitchen.

Elvis' television room.

Elvis' rec room.

Elvis' "jungle" room.

Elvis' cell phone.

Some of Elvis' gold records.

Elvis.

Did I forget, forget to mention Memphis?

2007-11-13T20:14:00.001-05:00

Breakfast in Memphis was at the Cupboard, a Memphis institution. The cooking was classic Southern cooking. I had fried shrimp with mac & cheese and fried green tomatoes. All were excellent. These are people who know how to fry things. The tomatoes had a nice thick, crunchy well-seasoned coating. The shrimp were butterflied and fried with a similar coating. Service was friendly and pretty quick for the place being as busy as it was.

We were in the neighborhood, so I had to stop at Sun Studios. We got talked into doing the tour. It wasn't the spiel that sold us as much as the price. With the AAA discount, it was only $8.00. It seemed worthwhile, so after buying a Johnny Cash CD and a Sun Studio mug, we bought tickets and waited for the tour. The tour included a small museum section containing instruments, records and recording equipment, along with a short history of Sun complete with song clips. Following that, we got to see the actual studio, which is again a working studio at night after the tours end.

It's amazing that the building stood virtually unchanged for as long as it did after Sun closed. There were a couple of businesses in the space, but they didn't change anything. It was pretty amazing to be standing in the space where Johnny Cash recorded "I Walk the Line," not to mention all of the other amazing records made there.

We also stopped around the corner at Sam Phillips Studios, where Phillips set up shop after the lease on the Sun building was up. The first Cramps album, Songs the Lord Taught Us, was recorded here in 1979.

We also drove by Stax. We were running short on time, so we couldn't go through the museum. We took a few pictures and bought some CDs in the gift shop. On the way out, the children were getting out of the music school in the other half of the building. Many were waiting for their parents to pick them up out front, but there were also several in a group towards the back of the breezeway joining the two buildings. We walked by them on the way to the parking lot. As we passed, we heard a girl exclaim, "I can't believe I got his autograph!" Liz nudged me and asked, "Did you see who that was?" I hadn't, and looked back to see Isaac Hayes walking towards the street in front of Stax.

Arkansas

2007-11-12T21:10:00.001-05:00

The drive across Oklahoma and Arkansas was uneventful. We stopped at Feltner's Whattaburger in Russellville, AR for dinner. Feltner's is an old style drive-in burger joint. Apparently the prices have gone up and the quality down a bit, but it's still a pretty good burger place with an interesting atmosphere and enormous lines. Be prepared to wait here, as it's quite popular. For your troubles you're rewarded with a good burger, decent fries and good milkshakes. Plus the atmosphere and decor.

That was the only stop we made in Arkansas. After so many late nights, we were determined to make it to Memphis before 3 AM. We made it with several hours to spare, arriving around 11:30. We celebrated by sitting in the lobby on the internets until around 1:00. So much for the early start to the day.

Tulsa, OK, home of the big hands

2007-11-12T19:59:00.002-05:00

We actually went out of our way to stop in Tulsa just so we could visit Oral Roberts University and see the enormous praying hands statue. We were not disappointed. Someone obviously wanted to say something with this statue, although I'm not sure the message communicated is the one they had in mind. The thing is downright creepy, the hands grasping, veins bulging, towards something in the sky. It really is a sight to behold.

The flag garden around it, on the other hand, is a much more peaceful symbol, and one I found more personally inspiring.

Regardless of how one feels about Roberts, the University, Christianity in general or fundamentalists in particular, or even the creepy statue, it is undeniable that ORU is host to some particularly stunning 1960s architecture. The chapel is practically out of this world and that's only the start. If in the area, it's well worth a stop and walk around campus for the architecture alone.

Lunch was at Cancun, a lovely Mexican restaurant we were directed to by a friend from the area. We arrived to find a small and simple but full room. The food was fairly standard U.S. Mexican restaurant fare, but well executed and priced low. One thing we have had trouble finding in Florida is good Mexican food. There is a lot of good South American and Caribbean food, but not much in the way of good Mexican. So, we took advantage of our drive through the Southwest by stopping here.

Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, TX

2007-11-11T23:41:00.002-05:00

No trip to the Texas panhandle is complete without a trip to Stanley Marsh's Cadillac Ranch. We were traveling with nothing more for directions than a mark on the road atlas. Consequently, we got off the interstate too late and missed it completely. We turned around and went back. I had expected to be able to see something from the road and there was nothing, so after driving several miles, we exited the highway again. There was a gas station at the exit and Liz needed to use the room of resting, so I pulled in. She came back a couple of minutes later with a bottle of water and directions. Get on the frontage road and it's on the right side. You can't miss it. So, we'd driven by it twice.

We arrived right before sunset. We grabbed the cameras and hopped out of the car. I checked the camera. One picture left. Crap. I'll grab a long shot and change the roll. That should only take a minute and I won't lose the sun. Take the lens cap off. No meter. Battery's dead. Crap. I don't have a spare. So, sunny f16 rule it is, and let's hope my EV estimates are good and I can count. I grabbed some extra cell phone pics just in case.

For those who don't know, the Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation on land belonging to Stanley Marsh 3. It was installed in a wheat field owned by Marsh in 1974. In 1997, it was moved a couple of miles west into a cow pasture. It's an interesting sculpture consisting of a number of Cadillacs buried halfway into the field.

Every so often, the cars are resprayed so that visitors can graffiti them again, making the sculpture an ever-changing one. It's refreshing that something like this can have stood for so long, with no souvenir stand or snack bar in sight. Nothing but an unlocked gate, a field and some cars.

After taking in such a sight, we were in serious need of barbecue, so we took dinner at Dyer's BBQ. Dyer's was good barbecue. Acting om a tip, I avoided the brisket and instead ordered the sausage, ribs and ham. They were all good, if not great and the service was very good.

Back to New Mexico

2007-11-11T22:57:00.002-05:00

Again, I don't have a lot of pictures here. Most of my Grand Canyon pics were film, and black and white at that. I haven't sent any of the black & white stuff off to the lab yet, as I want to send that to a different lab and I had a roll still in the camera when I got home. That will probably go off right before I go to Buffalo, just to make sure it doesn't come back while we're gone.

The drive from the Grand Canyon to Albuquerque was uneventful, if long. We spent more time (naturally) at the Grand Canyon than originally intended, making for another long evening. We stopped in Flagstaff for dinner at a burger place I've forgotten the name of. Nevermind, it wasn't particularly memorable, except that it wasn't the cleanest place I've been in and you had to walk through the bar next door to get to the bathrooms.

We arrived late in Albuquerque, but somehow managed a decent night's sleep. Breakfast was at the 66 Diner, which I cannot recommend highly enough. My soup was amazing. Dessert (rhubarb pie) was amazing. Liz's pumpkin pie shake was amazing. My chicken and dumplings were good. Yes, only good. In most places this would not look bad by comparison, and they really were pretty good. But since everything else was so excellent, they were disappointing. Service was very quick and cordial. I would not hesitate to return here. But I will avoid the chicken and dumplings.

The drive from Albuquerque was rather dull, except for some crazy wind in western New Mexico, which I managed to capture on Cell Phone Cam.

The Big Hole

2007-11-08T23:33:00.001-05:00

I have no words, except to say that the soda machine is silly.

Williams, or I am so sick

2007-11-08T23:25:00.001-05:00

The serious lack of sleep finally caught up with me in Williams, AZ. We had arranged to meet Liz's cousin for breakfast at 7:00 AM, as she had to be back in Prescott at 9:00. I was driving until 3:00 AM and in no shape to move at 6:00. I felt like I was going to be seriously ill, and so went back to sleep while Liz went to breakfast. I was disappointed as I both wanted to visit and try out the restaurant, Old Smokey's. I slept until almost an hour past checkout while Liz did our laundry. Since we were doing our laundry, the motel let us stay a little over. I was very happy about that, as I desperately needed the sleep.

Lunch was a muffin and some coffee in a little coffee house down Route 66 that had free wireless. I took a bunch of pictures after and we headed off to the Canyon that is Grand.

Well, dam!

2007-11-08T23:17:00.001-05:00

Our original plan had us taking I-40 from outside Los Angeles to Memphis, but our Las Vegas detour meant we had to take the back roads to Kingman, AZ before picking up I-40. What I hadn't realized is that our route took us right over the Hoover Dam. I knew we were nearby and I had originally wanted to stop, when I thought we might leave L.A. at an early hour and get in and out of Vegas before nightfall. We were a couple miles out of Vegas before I realized the road went overtop of the dam. Naturally, we stopped for a few photos before continuing on our way to Williams to sleep.

Leaving Los Angeles

2007-11-08T22:21:00.001-05:00

I can't say I was sorry to leave Los Angeles. I would like like to visit again, especially since we have several friends in town who really enjoy living there, which makes visiting more enjoyable. However, we will certainly stay in a different hotel. On our last morning in L.A., I loaded up as much as I could carry and went to fetch the car from the valets. Being entirely fed up with the whole valet issue, I took the car out, and finding the side loading zone area inaccessible, I parked around the corner by the library and fed enough change to pay for an hour's parking. I walked back to the hotel to find that Liz had called the desk and argued with them about getting a cart to take the rest of our stuff down.

The hotel's policy is that they "don't loan carts to guests." They said they would send up a person with a cart. She told them that we would load and unload the cart. They obviously didn't tell him this, because as soon as he arrived he began grabbing stuff. We took the elevator down to the lobby and I loaded up again. The bellhop offered to take stuff to our car and I informed him (and Liz) that I was parked around the corner. He offered to let us pull up to the loading zone and I tersely stated that the car needed to stay where it was and I would take the stuff myself. Liz, tired of my crap, went off to check out while the bellhop looked incredibly confused. I dragged the suitcases out, loaded them in the car and came back for the rest. I picked up everything, thanked the man and waited for Liz to finish checking out. She had run down the list of complaints to the front desk and they actually took some charges off of our bill.

Two days earlier another couple staying at the same hotel for the wedding had an odor problem in their room and had gotten a new one only after a nasty argument with someone in the office and had similarly gotten a discount. This serves nicely to illustrate the myriad of problems with this place. In contrast, we stayed in nine or ten (mostly cheap) motels on this trip and in none of them were we inspired to complain about anything on checkout. They were of varying levels of quality, to be sure. Some had non or poorly functioning internet connections or breakfast ended too early or the air-conditioning blew the window curtains up (a perennial problem at Econo Lodges). But these were all minor annoyances in the overall scheme of things. The Westin so infuriated us that we were tempted several times to check out early and find another hotel.

A quick trip to the library to check our email and directions to the next city calmed us and soon we were on our way to Las Vegas. It was three-and-a-half years ago we were married in Vegas and we haven't been back since. The occasion this day was to pick up new skates for Liz.

Lunch was at The Hat. Having no Roadfood recommendations, we picked a random exit for gas and food and then stopped at the coolest looking place we saw. A large lighted sign with a chef's hat advertising "World Famous Pastrami" was enough for us to stop. I ordered a small gravy fries and a pastrami sandwich. Liz ordered loaded fries, again a small. A few minutes later, we had a pastrami sandwich and enough fries to feed eight people. I really don't want to know the size of the "large" fries. We didn't even come close to finishing either of the piles of fries, or my sandwich. Not because they weren't good, but because it was entirely too much food.

We made it to Vegas as night fell. In an amazing stroke of luck, Sin City Skates was open a bit late that night, so Liz was able to get her skates and other gear. SCS is right behind the Stratosphere, our hotel the week of our wedding.

We headed to the Peppermill Lounge on the strip for dinner. Our previous time in Vegas we had dessert at the Peppermill following the Penn & Teller show. This time we got to try the food, which is upscale diner fare. The food was good, but the atmos is really what makes the place. It's one of the few parts of "old Vegas" that's still left. Our 2004 trip was just in time to see the new Vegas begin to take over the old, and we could get a sense of what it used to be like. Since we were there, the Stardust has closed and been knocked down and the Frontier has closed. The Frontier will be demolished on November 13, to be replaced with another ugly Trump hotel. I'm not sure I ever want to go back. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I feel that way about New York as well, once the powers that be and large corporations finish turning it into "New York, the Theme Park (tm)".

The drive out was pleasant. There were several cars parked in front of the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign on the south end of the strip while their owners took pictures. We didn't stop, as we needed to get to Arizona and it was already late.

Los Angeles Part Four

2007-11-07T23:42:00.002-05:00

Our last full day in Los Angeles we woke up in a new room. The new room was nicer than the old room and it didn't reek, which was a plus. We got up relatively early and headed off to the Tiara Cafe for the post-wedding brunch. The Tiara Cafe is a small restaurant featuring locally sourced, organic food. My review is mixed. I was disappointed to note that the prix fixe menu prominently featured eggs, which I do not eat. As the groom doesn't either, I was surprised. It seemed like there was enough other stuff, though.

The problem was the service. Dishes were served in courses, but the courses were all served at different times to people at the same table, and in different orders. We had to wait for a half hour after being served our first course to get the second. People who came in were served theirs not only before us but before a group who were there longer than we were. Some tables had half the people served while the other half watched them eat for twenty minutes. Someone gave our table's meat plate to another table because we felt bad that they had to wait even longer than we did to get all of their food. Some people gave up and left to catch planes. And then they screwed up the billing. In short, I don't think these people have any idea how to cater a group function, so they really shouldn't.

The food, however, was very good. The berries and cream parfait was excellent. Everything else was quite good, and we loved the small organic food shop on the other side of the restaurant (which was, unfortunately, closed that morning). I imagine that Tiara Cafe is a good place for a nice leisurely brunch or Sunday dinner, but the group brunch was disappointing.

We left brunch and went to the open house for a short time and then ran off to try to cram all of our missed Friday sightseeing and errands. The short version is: we spent too long and too much money at Amoeba Records, I went to three camera shops to find a lens cap, we tried unsuccessfully for two hours to find a place to take a picture of the car with the Hollywood sign in the background and we waited far too long to eat.

After our dinner at EBISU, we went out to Santa Monica to visit again with a friend out there. We walked out to the pier and played video games. I hit the wall right after a game of Ms. Pac-Man and felt like I was going to collapse from exhaustion, so I went out and leaned on the fence looking at the Pacific in the dark until everyone was ready to leave.

EBISU Japanese Tavern - Los Angeles, CA

2007-11-07T23:23:00.001-05:00

I discussed food options with one of the people at the Golden Gopher, and I wrote a few of her recommendations down so I would remember them. Not so the Japanese place she recommended in Little Tokyo. So, we headed out to Little Tokyo with a half-remembered name and no address. After wandering around Little Tokyo for half an hour, we picked a place that was open. That place was EBISU.

The main reason I wanted to get sushi in California was because I was hoping for dishes we don't get on the east coast. In this sense, the appetizer section of the menu did not disappoint. Unfortunately, the sushi page was nothing special, but I still found things to order.

Baby octopus and kimchee were the first appetizers to arrive. The octopus were in a pungent sauce. They were a bit on the rubbery side, but still texturally interesting. Kimchee was decent, though not as good as the Korean places back in Syracuse.

Next up was the Spicy Tuna Chips, a spicy tuna preparation on tortilla chips. These were quite good. Imagine a spicy tuna roll on a chip. Not quite Tuna Foie Gras, but interesting nonetheless.

My sushi entree was the rainbow roll. This was good, but not thrilling. It looked nice and the fish wasn't bad. But it was not particularly exciting. It was a kind of typical fish overload. I would have preferred a more interesting combination of tastes, but the sushi menu was more geared towards the pretty.

Not knowing what else is available and having not been overwhelmed by the menu, service (a bit slow) or food, I would recommend finding someone else's recommendation for L.A. sushi.

Los Angeles Part Three

2007-11-07T22:55:00.001-05:00

This is the part of the trip where I have very few pictures. I have more film pics than cellphone pics, but overall I didn't get as much as I would have liked. Truth be told, I was really tired and having trouble sleeping while we were in L.A. and we were really busy with wedding stuff. But first thing Sunday, I was off at the car wash scrubbing the filth and bugs off the car and vacuuming all the food and crud out of the carpets. It took longer than I expected and I had to dash back to the hotel. I dropped the car at the valet and told them to leave it out because I'd be right back. Fifteen minutes later, I was back fully showered and in a suit. I got to the cathedral just before the ceremony began.

Speaking of the wedding, I don't have much to say except it was a wedding and the cathedral is a really neat building. I'm just sorry I didn't get to see the priest so I could tell him he has a very impressive organ.

After the wedding, there was a rogue group set on getting food at In-N-Out Burger. They had wanted to try them in Vegas when we were all there for our wedding, but they hadn't made it. Most of them hadn't eaten yet, even though it after noon. I had grabbed some coffee and a muffin on my way to decorate the reception site at 9:00 AM, but I think I was alone. I got the directions and we caravaned over to the In-N-Out Burger on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. I felt a little weird standing in a fast food place in a suit, but what the hell, right? The food was pretty good for fast food and it was fairly cheap. I recommend it if one is out in CA and in need of a quick meal.

Following the In-N-Out Burger extravaganza was the wedding reception and after party at the Golden Gopher. We had some friends in L.A. unconnected with the wedding to see and we arranged to meet them at the after party. The Gopher is apparently owned by the same people as 7 Grand. The room is nice, with some nice seating spaces and a great jukebox. The box was kicking out random tunes when we first got there. We had the place to ourselves as it had just opened. Slowly the wedding group arrived and someone played something less than stellar on the jukebox, whereupon Zach took it on himself to put in a dollar and play some DEVO. I followed up with a five and programmed in a good 90 minutes or so of punk rock and rock & roll. By the time the hour was up most of the wedding crowd had bailed and the place had packed up and gotten incredibly noisy. We took off for somewhere quieter, which turned out to be the local IHOP.

Another hour later, we headed back to the hotel to find that our room had begun to smell like mildew. It was too much to take, so Liz called the front desk and got us another room and we packed up to move. It was about 1:30 AM. We managed to get the room moved in under a half hour and collapsed.

Los Angeles Part Two

2007-11-07T21:32:00.001-05:00

Our first day in Los Angeles was spent sleeping in incredibly late. I didn't get in until after 3:00 AM and Liz came in a couple of hours after. I had noticed when I got in that the floor on the far side of the room was wet. I was too tired to deal with it and crashed. When I got up, I noticed that the floor was soaked for about three feet around the air conditioning vent. This included the entire far side between the bed and the wall, and from the end of the bed past the table on the other edge of the room for about half the width of the bed. The comforter had gotten knocked partially off the bed and become thoroughly soaked. We stopped at the front desk and asked for it to be cleaned.

So, instead of getting out early and doing some exploring and running some errands, we found ourselves looking for breakfast around 1:00 in the afternoon. We eventually found a deli in the underground shopping center across the street where we got a couple of sandwiches. The next order of business was finding an internet connection. The hotel wanted $12.95 per computer per day for wireless access, and we weren't having any of it. Fortunately for us, our hotel is across the street from the Los Angeles Central Library, where we were able to take advantage of a free wireless connection. We got caught up on email and found directions to a few places we wanted to check out later in the weekend, and then Liz had to be at the wedding rehearsal.

I got the car out of the valet garage (grumble), dropped Liz off at the cathedral and went looking for a car wash. Naturally, I got stuck in traffic, but I did eventually find a car wash on the edge of Koreatown. By that time, though, I needed to be at the rehearsal dinner, so I headed back downtown to Blossom. Blossom is a small Vietnamese restaurant on Main St. It was a bit small for the crowd, but the food was quite good.

After dinner, we headed back to hotel, as everyone was pretty well beat. However, a group of us decided to meet up for dessert and drinks down in the hotel bar. We were the second group of two to show up downstairs. We perused the menus for a bit, then a waitress came by and asked if our whole group was there yet. Rani started to answer "no, but we'd like to order anyway," but the woman had walked away. A few minutes later the rest of the group turned up, but the waitstaff completely ignored us until we left about a 40 minutes later. I'm not quite sure why they would let a table be taken up for an hour and not get an order out of the six people sitting there. It did nothing to endear us to the hotel.

Interlude: Still Catching Up

2007-11-03T00:34:00.001-04:00

I've been home for two weeks, but I'm still catching up. My sleep schedule is finally stabilizing. I'm going to do my best to get all of the cellphone pics and their associated stories up over the weekend.

Tomorrow I pick up all the C-41 film from the lab. I haven't sent the regular B&W for processing yet. I'm still trying to finish the last roll and then I'll send it off. So, following the cell phone pics will be loads of stuff from the film camera. And then, the black and white pics. And probably a review of the Reverend Horton Heat show tomorrow.

Still to come: More Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, Memphis and Atlanta.

Los Angeles Part One

2007-11-02T23:38:00.002-04:00

After the obligatory couple of hours stuck in traffic on the 5, we arrived in Los Angeles around 6:00 PM. After quickly finding our hotel, we discovered that the only parking was valet, and $30 a day. This is something that I think should have been noted when the reservations were made. I don't have a problem with the charge, but they weren't particularly upfront about it. We checked in and then pulled around and into the garage. Our car was completely full of not only our suitcases, including the extra bags of clothes we brough for the wedding and related events that has lived in the car the entire trip up to this point, but also the CDs we bought in Austin, all the tiki stuff we bought in San Diego and other assorted junk accumulated on the road.

I pulled in, Liz talked to the valets and I started ripping the car apart. I attempted to make it clear to the valets that we didn't need any "help," but they were slow in getting the hint. I did manage, in about three minutes, to pull all the suitcases and bags we'd need in L.A. out of the car and get all of the shopping we didn't need packed into the back of the car. This left us with a large stack of bags that normally we would have moved in a couple of trips to the room. Instead, we carried as many as we could (mostly shopping bags) and the bellhop person brought the rest a little later.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a little weird. I'm very much a D.I.Y. type. I can carry my own bags, I can park my own car and I can open the door for myself without needing someone holding his hand out for a couple of dollars to do it for me. I realize that for some people, maybe most people for all I know, enjoy "luxury" hotels and places where there is someone to wipe your ass for you, but it only makes me angry. I can do for myself most of the time and I prefer to do so, thank you very much.

We were in the room one minute and the phone calls started coming in. Liz had to go meet the bride and some other people. Now. They were on their way out to the bachelorette party. Apparently, I was supposed to meet up with bachelor party. OK, no problem. If I wasn't, I would have just wandered around. This gave me somewhere to wander to. The only problem was we were still waiting for our clothes to be delivered. They turned up not too long after and we went out for the evening.

The evening is a bit of a blur. I wish I could remember the name of the Irish pub where we ate dinner and drank the first several rounds. The Guinness Beef stew was very good. We left there and headed to 7 Grand for Scotch and cigars. I'm not a big Scotch drinker, but this was my chance to try Laphroaig. About 150 years ago, back before any schmuck could sign up for internet access, I was on an online service owned by General Electric called GEnie (no, really). There were a couple of guys on there who swore by the stuff. I've wanted to try it ever since, but I usually drink in pubs; places with a much better beer selection than liquor selection. And I'm not one to buy a $65 bottle of liquor without ever having tried the stuff. Especially given, as I said, that I'm not much of a Scotch drinker. My whisky drinking is generally confined to Jameson in the winter when it's really cold. And given that I live in Florida, those days are few and far between. So, when we walked into the bar and were confronted with an enormous selection of whiskies, I knew what I was ordering.

After the initial shock (and the sensation that I was drinking lighter fluid wore off), I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the stuff. I understand what they say now when Laphroaig is described as "peaty." It tastes a bit like the swamp. And yes, that's a good thing. I would definitely have this again if given the opportunity, which may not be until we're in Los Angeles again.

After a couple of drinks and some interesting conversation (who knew architects were paid as poorly as librarians?), we set off to another bar, which turned out to have some terrifying club night going on, most likely due to the art walk. The place was packed with pretty people, the music was insanely loud and there was some sort of photography session happening in the back courtyard. We squeezed into the back, commandeered a table that someone was leaving and drank our one round before fleeing. We stopped for tacos on our way to the next place. I took a picture so I would remember the place.

We ended the night at a small cafe where several members of the group attempted to convince a group of drunk, underage girls not to attempt to drive back to the suburbs, but to instead call a cab. They wandered in so the driver could get a cup of coffee for the road. I don't think we were successful, but not for lack of trying. Quote of the night: "I hate art walk."

Hob Nob Hill, San Diego, CA

2007-11-02T23:26:00.001-04:00

For the second day in a row, we went to a Roadfood recommended breakfast place around lunch time. This time, though, we actually missed breakfast and had to order off the lunch menu. FOr the second day in a row, we were also in a place where we helped bring down the average age. Although not quite so restricted to the older crowd (there were a couple groups of thirtysomethings there who looked they were on their lunch break) this time, Hob Nob Hill is in other ways similar to Millie's Pancake Haus. Perched in a hill above the San Diego airport, Hob Nob Hill has been serving the same food since 1944. I don't think they've changed the decor or the uniforms since then, either.

The menu is fairly standard American/Diner fare: a lot of sandwiches, grilled beef liver, roast turkey, chicken fried steak... The service is excellent. Hob Nob Hill employs a team serving method wherein tables are not assigned to individual servers. The entire team serves the entire dining room and they all split the tips. While this could be a disaster, this restaurant employs it to excellent results. The person who takes your order may or may not be the person who brings it or refills your coffee cup, but someone will be there to do it. It seems that whomever is in the kitchen when the food comes up brings it to the table. Whichever server passes by your table and notices the empty coffee cup will grab the pot and fill it. The food, while standard fare, is done exceedingly well. I have never had a restaurant Reuben as non-greasy as the one I had here. (I have, however, made them that way myself.)

In short, Hob Nob Hill is a pleasant, non-pretentious place to get an old-style American meal.

The Plane, Boss!

2007-11-02T23:01:00.001-04:00

In San Diego, we stayed next door to the airport. The view at night:

And during the day:

More Arizona Rest Stops

2007-10-27T10:57:00.002-04:00

Millie's Pancake Haus, Tucson, AZ

2007-10-27T10:44:00.001-04:00

Now I know where to go when I want to feel young. Millie's is a fancy little breakfast/lunch place in a part of Tuscon we hadn't explored yet. So, I managed to get us almost completely lost trying to find it. Luckily we were driving around the hills only a half-mile or so from where we were supposed to be, so once we looked at the map, we found it quickly.

Millie's is one of those fancy places that grandparents like. The decor is very old-fashioned and most of the other diners were dressed up. Not us, we had to drive to San Diego. Liz ordered the regular pancakes and, acting on a tip from Roadfood, I had the Swedish pancakes. The Swedish pancakes, actually, is why we were there. I wanted to try them. And, I have to say, they did not disappoint. They were light, fluffy folded thin pancakes that seemed more like crepes, covered in a thick lingonberry sauce. Excellent and highly recommended. Liz's "short stack" of two enormous pancakes, on the other hand, were not nearly so good. Not that they were bad, but as far as I'm concerned, any place with "pancakes" in the name should have awesome pancakes. And, I've certainly had better (Sweet Sue's in Phoenicia, NY comes to mind). Service was good, and they had a lovely display of Frankenstein toys in a case next to our table. If you're in Tucson, I recommend hitting Millie's for the Swedish pancakes.

Interlude: Los Angeles

2007-10-16T15:57:00.001-04:00

I am now several days behind for a couple of reasons. No, not because I was too busy having fun. I was busy with wedding events, but the main thing is the hotel. We stayed at the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles. Unfortunately, our stay was not particularly pleasant. It wasn't just the enforced valet parking, the $12.95 per computer per day internet access charge, the fact that they wouldn't let us carry our own bags up to our room or that they wouldn't serve a group of six in the hotel lobby bar. It wasn't even that our room flooded, and then started to reek as it dried. It was all of this. And the short of it is that we didn't have internet access. We did go across the street to the Los Angeles Central Library to use their wifi, but we weren't there long enough for me to post anything.

We are currently in Williams, AZ in a little coffee shop. I would post more, but the lighting is looking good again and so I want to get outside and take more pictures.