Just got back from dinner at Louie’s Backyard. Dinner was decent – a lot of fried seafood. The highlight, however, was the Luau. Nothing like a traditional South Seas celebration at the ass-end of Texas. I’ll give them all an “A” for effort, but that effort was lost on a rather lackluster audience. I felt badly for the dancers as they did their best, and I did what I could to bolster their enthusiasm by applauding vigorously. However, when only a dozen folks out of an audience of 4 times that applaud, I’m sure it can get a bit disheartening.
The good news: while relaxing on the beach I spoke to my wonderful wife. I was so impressed with the “family friendly” beach here that I suggested a family trip next Summer. Neil and Kadi would dig (literally)the talcum white beach and the warm Gulf waters. It’s fairly reasonable as well, as our hotel is less that $100 a night. I would dearly love to take everyone somewhere, at least once. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is that place.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Got a chance to steal away some time today – grabbed a 24 oz. Tecate, my Zen and walked a half mile to the beach. Picked the Dead’s Winterland Farewell as my music of choice and…just….fucking…relaxed. South Padre is fantastic for that.
I really have nothing else to say.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Well, a misnomer at this point, more like “On South Padre Island” – both literally and quasi-philosophically.
Here I sit, in a Days Inn on South Padre Island. It may sound idyllic for the MTV generation, bred on scenes of scantily-clad coeds and buff college-aged Casanovas. For me, a 40ish (can you be “40ish” if you just turned 40 not but 3 months ago?) businessman/entrepreneur it’s almost sad. Sort of like I’m in a place I was better equipped to enjoy in the late 80s. Well, not “sort of”, I WAS better equipped to enjoy this place 20 years ago, when musty hotel rooms were the furthest thing from my mind: getting laid was first and foremost.
Now, my opinion revolves around the facts that the beer at dinner was warmer than it had to be and that my hotel room smells like my grandparents’ cellar. The downside is that the smell isn’t accompanied by fresh blackberry preserves.
Not sure if this makes any sense, but Ben Folds is on the stereo, I have a decent buzz, and my luggage just arrived – 5 hours late, but with enough time to spare me having to wear the same underwear for another day. And that’s a good thing, right?
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve always preferred live music over studio albums. Even if it was a cassette, or an album (anyone remember those?) and even now with MP3’s I’ve sought out the innocence, and the reality of live recordings.
Take for example what I’m listening to now: The Doors Live in Detroit. Now, I’ve perused The Doors’ catalog in various record outlets for going on 25 years, and I don’t ever recall seeing a album or tape that featured this concert. There was the Hollywood Bowl concert captured, in part, on Alive She Cried, but from a pure album standpoint I don’t think I ever saw this one. Regardless, I have it now, and I couldn’t be happier.
In my estimation nothing captures the true essence of a band like a live recording does. In the studio, you can do anything; in a live recording, you’re at the mercy of the crowd, the elements, the equipment, nature, your own limitations, and force majeure. A live concert, or a live recording, is the true essence of a band, and hearing that band live strips them down, lays bare the talent and ability, and demonstrates their true essence.
I prefer live recordings of my favorites, and especially older bands like The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd….I guess I’m a purest in that respect as I prefer live recordings of bands well before the advent of electronic enhancement. Put the purity of Jim Morrison singing against someone like Britney Spears and you’ll see what I mean – Jim Morrison’s voice is raw, real and exudes a power and sexuality that Britney can only get via studio enhancement and “lip syncing”. Morrison never lip-synced, and never had to. That’s real music.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
Steve O’Hear, at ZDnet, has an interesting little tidbit on Twitter as social phenomenon. For the uninitiated, Steve has a good definition of Twitter:
“Twitter is an SMS, IM and web messaging service for groups of friends, which at its most basic invites users — in near real time — to answer the question: what are you doing, right now? The results of which are then broadcast to a user’s social network via SMS or IM, and posted to their Twitter micro-blog.”
Sure, sounds kind neat – and is one of thost “why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-first” type things (I had that with Pandora when I first started using it). However, as cool as Twitter sounds, my first impression is that it’s a great idea but it caters (as do most other things these days) to not only extending the publics’ ADD, but creating a next generation of children/students/employees/government officials with a severe limitation on their ability to sustain a consistent thought for more than 30 seconds. I already see it at restaurants and coffee shops, and even in places that require actual thought like libraries and during moves: people constantly checking their phones for IMs or their Blackberries/Smartphones for missed called and/or emails (or IMs or SMS or any/everything else).
I already have a fear that my son and daughter will not get the visceral experience of going to a library – especially a university library – as libraries will eventually go the way of the Dodo. Now I fear that I won’t be able to sustain a conversation with them – face to face – for longer than 30 seconds at a time. What with the constant fear of sickness, abduction, accident, global warming, continued exposure to Rosie O’Donell I have enough to worry about. I don’t need technology adding to my stress level.
UPDATE: Found this article by Linda Stone on “continuous partial attention“. While not necessarily saying that newer technologies contribut to ADD, the idea of being “so accessible, we’re inaccessible” is just as frightening. What happens to interpersonal skills if all (or the majority of) communication is done via IM, SMS and/or chat?
Filed under: Uncategorized
From : This ZDNet Post
So, Google is purposefully placing those advertisers who utilize Google Checkout above those advertisers who have organically achieved a high result for a specific term. Sure, they’re Froogle results, but it is possible to optimize for Froogle. Do they have the right to do this? It could be argued that they do as they own the search engine. Interestingly enough it looks like this is happening only for Microsoft products. Doing a search for other producst doesn’t elicit the same result. Regardless, it sets a dangerous and troubling precedent.
See, here’s what scares the crap out of me regarding Google’s future ownership of the internet. It’s not free email, it’s not free offline/offsite storage, it’s not the miles and miles of dark fiber they own that will eventually become an ad-based, private intranet available to those who want a spam-free (barring Google’s ads) and uncluttered inter-network. It IS the loss of competition. It IS the monopoly they are looking to gain on all communication. It IS the ownership and monetization of my information for contextual advertising. It IS the fact that Google is doing everything they can to monetize Google, and NOT allowing others to share the wealth.
UPDATE: I have seen this with other, non-Microsoft centric products. Also, for those that say (and I know you are out there) that those companies hilighted are using Google Checkout, and Google Checkout is free so GOOG isn’t making money off those merchants, I say this: It’s free…FOR NOW. There will come a day when Checkout is OUT of the perpetual beta phase. And guess who will set the price for merchant and gateway fees?!
Filed under: Uncategorized
