A white flag in ones and zeros

Alright, I give. I'm not going to write on the tech blog anymore. The reasons for that are numbered below, like terms of surrender:

1. My life was too fragmented. I was tired of thinking what to write where, instead of just plugging it all into the same place.
2. It wasn't fun to write. I like the voice I write with here; the snarky, obnoxious, vaguely-insulting voice. I was basically writing documentation over there, and I do enough of that at work.
3. It wasn't reaching its intended audience. I wanted to make it a place where I could convince people who were a'feared of computer to pet their computers and finally be friendly with them. For the kid's sake.

Then there's the bad news, much like the news of surrender is followed by the listing of the dead. The first bit of bad news is that whatever tech I want to write about is going to be written about here, and there's going to be a lot of it. It's a force-feeding. Sorry.

The second bit is that this site might go a little squirrely at some point if I switch blogging platforms. You won't need to change your feeds or bookmarks unless they include the word "blogspot" in the URL, but there may be moments where the site won't come up. It'll be back up eventually, so don't run out into the street in a blind panic, throwing bricks through the first windows you see. Again.

Wow. Just: wow.

I'd love to write about the Super Bowl all day, but there are other nagging tasks. Namely, the tasks that pay my rent.

But today is a day when I'm kind of sorry for the people who don't like football. What an incredible sport and what an amazing game. Last night's finish--a (and it's hard to believe this is true when I type it out) 83-yard, 12-play drive inside the two-minute warning, ending with a TD with just over 30 seconds left--was almost impossible; more rare than the buzzer-beater or the walk-off home run. You hope for it, but so rarely get it, so when it happens, it's magic.

I always have new favorite parts of football; those little bits of the game that you never see until you start analyzing the game to ridiculous levels. Last night's game gave me a new moment in football to crave and love: the late fourth-quarter, four-point deficit. It's that moment when a team has a chance to win the game, but only with a TD. No field goals to tie: a TD or go home. It's happened several times in this year's playoffs, and it was perfect that the Super Bowl ended the same way.

Brief notes:

• As if anyone else questioned that Bill Belichick is a noteworthy asshole in a profession known for assholes, that he stormed off the field before the game was even over proved it. I second (third? 3000th?) the opinion that he'll retire to avoid all the questions of cheating and...being--and I can't emphasize this enough--a total dick.
• Okay, maybe Eli Manning's a jerk for what he did in his draft year, but come on: besides Patriots fans, how could you not love the goofy grin of glee he had after that game? You just want to tousle his hair.
• In all of the talk of Randy Moss's amazing season and the fact that he had Tom Brady throwing passes to him, everyone seems to have forgotten that he's choked before. And he choked again.

And now the wait until September...

Honestly...

How drunk do you have to be to buy a cheeseburger at McDonalds at midnight? Scale of one to ten, people. Scale of one to ten.

And how not-drunk do you have to be to start (but not finish) imagining the modern processes that got the cow in the bun for only $1.25?

Anyway, it was delicious. An unfortunate precedent has been set.

R7 Theater: "Of Stories"...or "Of Of"

CAST:

First character: The first character in the play.

Second character: A Nother character in the play.

SETTING:

A place. After the earlier time but before the later time.

ACT ONE OF ONE:

First character: Oh, that reminds me of that time that we took my golden retriever to the Wilco show at the 9:30...

Second character: Stop. You've told this story before. Too many times.

First character: Well. Fine. Maybe I've told it before, but you've heard it before. We're both guilty of repeating ourselves.

- End -

Me + guitar + tomorrow

For those of you looking for to rock Monday night away (and if you're not looking to do that, you're sad and lame not keyed into the counterculture), I feel I should let you know that I'll be playing guitar with Sprites tomorrow at the Galaxy Hut. Lookit:

Sprites
January 28, 2007
Galaxy Hut
2711 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA
Clarendon Metro

You can tell it's a big deal, because that text is CENTERED, and by law, you're not allowed to do that unless it's VERY IMPORTANT. All-caps indicates an emergency situation, which in a way, this is.

I have to take the chance to throw in that it's such an amazing feeling to play in a band that I'm also a huge fan of. Same goes with The Positions, but that's a little different, since I've been in it from the get-go. To be able to not only still get to play, but play songs that I absolutely love...it's an honor and a thrill. In short: it rules.

See you there, rocker.

Short attention span reviews: 2008, 24 days in

All hail 2008! For some reason or another.

Magnetic Fields, "Too Drunk To Dream"
Holiday meets 69 Love Songs. Clever genius meets even greater genius. If there was any justice in the world (there isn't), we would all be singing the intro to this song in every bar we went into: "Sober, life is a prison. Shitfaced, it is a blessing."


Vampire Weekend, "M79"
The Walkmen meets Afro beat. Not as good as that description and yet so much better than it. How does one band be so wonderfully catchy and so fucking irritating at the exact same time? The second half of this song was in my head all day, and I loved/hated every second it was in there.


School of Language, "Keep Your Water"
One of the three guys from Field Music. Appropriately, it's about 1/3 as good as Field Music. Which is still pretty damn good.


Cat Power, "Metal Heart"
This album kind of goes by in a pleasant, melancholy blur. It may sharpen and clarify with repeated listenings, but...probably not. Pleasant enough, though.

Which will you take

I can't really say why I felt so sad when I saw the news about Heath Ledger scroll across the closed captioning at the TV in the coffee shop I was having a business meeting in yesterday afternoon. For the most part, I always feel that it's really unfortunate when a celebrity dies unexpectedly and young, but no more so than the news of anyone I don't know. But Heath Ledger...he actually made me feel sad.

Part of it was that I saw Brokeback Mountain again recently and was reminded just what a tragic story it is. Part of it is that the Fourth of July scene in that movie (as well as Jake Gyllenhaal's Thanksgiving scene) really hit me hard and has always stuck with me, acting out a desire to be able to stand up for your values by backing it up with your fists. But even besides that, his character was tragic. It's hard to divorce him from that character.

And I was really excited (and still am) by his turn at Joker, but I really got sad when I found out that he'd obsessed over Nick Drake and had wanted to tell his story. Even though he had given it up when he apparently felt he couldn't do the story justice, that didn't keep me from imagining what an incredible--if difficult--movie it would have been.

Nick Drake, "Which Will"