Tweets for Today

• 12:45 It's the patio. Done deal. #
• 12:49 Silliness: paying $10 for 2 day birthday present shipping, realizing it shipped to wrong address, paying $8 to ship to intended recipient. #
• 13:09 Considering this spectacular deal for the new patio: rickroll.it/830781 but worried about theft potential. #
• 14:05 Buried in this article, looks like I might be getting an HEB! Finally! tinyurl.com/69wzp6 #
• 15:49 Taking the shuttle to Rice is lazy and takes as long as walking, but it looks an awful lot like rain... #
• 18:00 If there's a projector problem, b-school prof usually jokes "Is it Mac?" But It isn't a) a Mac or b) funny. Laughter anyway, though. Sad... #
• 18:02 Kevin Rose's home theater: lame. tinyurl.com/5jcsu2 #
• 18:36 Wow, Office '08 sort of does look less ugly. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 13:17 So Walt *doesn't* know when the next iPhone comes out? tinyurl.com/3pausx #
• 17:22 Feeling patio-ish. #
• 17:31 Signal is always bad in this one room... #
• 23:55 So *that's* what rancid peanut butter tastes like. Date on the jar said best if sold by 10/06. Which, to be fair, it probably was. #
• 02:37 3.5 years later, I finally finish Pikmin. Now back to all the other games I haven't finished. Zelda, you're next. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 08:17 Had a dream last night where I lived in a sane world that allowed harmless pocket knives on planes. #
• 16:08 I know I'm spoken for, but trying to sit by the cute girl in class still seems reasonable, if only for purely aesthetic reasons. #
• 16:22 Quizzes. I'm to old for this shit. Good thing this isn't for credit. #
• 17:10 Speaker, your makering spiel is not useful. Give me the benefit of your experience. You're not trying to sell me something. I hope. #
• 17:31 For the love of God, stop referring to your corporate "DNA" #
• 17:32 number of cell phones that rang in class today: 3. #
• 20:28 Highlight of day may have been correcting an error in an iLounge review of speakers. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 11:35 Vegan cooking is like trying to drive somewhere only making left turns: you can do it, but it's sort of silly. #
• 11:36 I was referred to last night as a beer expert. I'm honored but it's overstating things quite a bit. #
• 12:18 Papa John's thin crust is ~5x better than their regular crust. But regular *does* have garlic butter. #
• 12:37 "Acquired" very nice pilsner glass and wheat beer glass from bar last night. Brought them $300 of business so I don't feel guilty. #
• 15:14 Take that link and rickroll.it ! #
• 15:15 Sadly Nick and I have discovered that fuck.it is registered. #
• 15:44 Ah, crap. Thao & Xiu Xiu are playing tonight at the Orange Show, but I'm already commiteed to hosting a Battlestar Galactica viewing party. #
• 16:14 Thank God for webcasts. Too rainy to walk to Rice today. #
• 16:15 Stupid QuickTime player won't stay maximized on my second monitor. #
• 16:40 OK, too much math in this talk. #
• 17:30 Battlestar Galactica is back tonight! #
• 02:39 Playing around with Pwnage. Nothing exciting so far, except that I've proven to myself that I won't brick my iPhone. Living on the edge! #
• 04:00 iPhone does look awfully sexy displaying terminal text while booting. Wonder if there's a verbose booting option hidden somewhere? #

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Dinosaurs

And the IT execs still don't get it.

Apple: "Here's everything you asked for! And we made it even better!"
IT: "Sorry, we lied. We're really just too lazy, incompetent, and prejudiced to support your incredibly useful device."

I'll be glad when the current generation of IT people goes the way of the current generation of music industry people.

If I feel like it later I'll post a more detailed blurb of my thoughts on Apple's announcements today. Short term, I'm happy.

Nobody gets sound

Half of home theater owners never set up rear speakers? No shit! I can't tell you how many systems I've seen where rear speakers were not hooked up, or, worse, hooked up and just stuck on top of the front speakers. Why do people buy things they have no intention of using? Don't waste money and look like an idiot. Bad ideas all the way around.

Sharper Image

Engadget mentions that the Sharper Image is bankrupt.

Sort of sad. I used to love looking around their stores when I was a kid. Of course, in the pre-iPod and pre-hi-fi days, my standards for gadgets were lower. A CD player with glass doors that you waved your hand in front of to open was simply awesome.

Their pathetic slide downmarket was, strangely, sort of a mirror of Radioshack's pathetically failed attempts to move upmarket. The one thing Radioshack was useful for—buying obscure electronics parts (which certainly never necessitated 5 stores in a 5 mile radius, and has been obviated by the internet)—is only a small ghetto in a store now dedicated to selling crappy cell phones, iPod accessories, and remote control cars.

I have to admit, Radioshack did come through recently with a cheap battery charger for Cindy's camera. Props for that...

Shafted

Apple to loyal customers: "Drop dead."

Addendum, 9/10/2007: I'll expand on this a bit.

Technology both improves and gets cheaper over time. It's almost always true. I recognize this.

However, Apple's pretty predictable in terms of how frequently products get updates, when they get updated, and whether they just get better specs, or whether they are redesigned to some extent. Beyond that, especially with their "consumer electronics" items, i.e. iPods, prices rarely change; you're more likely to just see better capabilities at the same price point.

So if you buy something from Apple the day after it comes out, odds are that it won't be getting better for at least 6 months if not a year, and probably not any cheaper, but if there are price cuts the time frame is similar.

But in the case of the iPhone, after an unprecedented 2 months there was a 33% price drop. $200 off is huge, especially after Apple made it very clear that they didn't want to have a cell phone that gets given away in cereal boxes and such. It's still hard for me to believe.

So I took a gamble that six weeks ago was a good time to buy, and it wasn't.

Beyond those who argue that you can't bitch if you take a risk and it doesn't pan out (which is false), there are those who argue that if you can afford a $600 phone then $200 shouldn't matter to you. That's horseshit. I can manage to afford lots of nice things, but that's only because I try to maximize my money, and that includes not throwing away $200 whenever possible.

There's also the claim that two months of iPhone use and bragging rights were worth $200. To those people, I say that I would have gladly waited it out for $200.

Further, there's the issue of whether this price cut was planned or not. If it wasn't, well, that's the market. But if it was, Apple fleeced their best customers. Not only do they buy the most stuff (I've had 5 macs, 6 iPods, an iPhone, and countless software packages and accessories), but they also are influential in their friends' purchases (I'd have a little more money in the bank if I had a commission for every Mac and iPod I helped sell0. They also fleeced some of there newest customers, who they should be building a trusting relationship with.

So, thankfully, they practiced good business and apologized and gave use $100 in store credit. That's pretty good.

I'd prefer to have the $200. And in cash. That doesn't make me ungrateful. $100 and an apology went a long way toward restoring my faith in a company that makes great products and has yet to screw me over.

Those who complained about the early adopters like myself bitching either a) didn't pay $200 more than they should have or b) have enough money where $200 doesn't matter. Those people can all go fuck themselves.

Idiots who talk about something they can't understand aside, I want to thank Apple for making an overture toward their best customers, myself included. It's not perfect, but I'll take it. And willing or not, I'll probably figure out a way to get that other $100 out of you. Now I just have to figure out whether to take the sales tax from you or form the government.

Lab meeting and new toy; BBQ; Vinyl Edge and Jana Hunter

2/5

Did the lab meeting thing. I had new data which covered up any inadequacies in my presentation quite nicely.

Took off early to get home and grab my new toy, a Roku Soundbridge M1001. Of course, it ended up not really working. But more on that later.

Later: Cindy, TV, and Dan DJs at the Prole.

2/8

Once I had, new toy in hand, listened for a while to the receiver that Oliver had given to me, I noticed the right channel going in and out, and after confirming that the problem did not lie with my speakers or my subwoofer crossover/amp, I decided that I liked the receiver well enough to see about getting it cleaned, etc. At least I thought that was what it needed. Some of the switches made some noise when they were flipped, so I figured that was what it needed. And the backlighting seemed to be dim in one place.

So I first called up the one stereo store in town that I had any amount of faith in, Audio Concepts, who had previously been very nice about showing me some Magnepans and some Vandersteens (speakers). I asked if they did service or could refer me to someone. After telling them about the vintage Pioneer receiver, they referred me to somebody that did warranty work for Pioneer gear.

They were assholes. "Well, we don't have time to be wasting on old gear, so we'll do it when we can get to it, and it'll probabaly cost $400." Fuck you, you pretentious dicks.

So, on to polling through the "TV and radio repair" (how quaint!) section of Citysearch. I made about 20 calls. There was "no, we don't do that". There was "yes, we can do that; is it under warranty"—I said it was from 1974; your asking if it's under warranty clearly shows that you were not listening, or that you're an idiot, neither of which results in you getting my business. There was "yes, we can probably do that". And finally, there were two "Don't those old Pioneers sound great? We'll go over it with a fine tooth comb. All we do is service, so we want to earn your business." Bingo. One was west of the loop and the other was in Clearlake; and so I went with the one that was closer, Houston Audio Video.

Anyway, once I had found a place, I took Thursday morning and drove out and dropped it off to be, hopefully, well cared for.

Over Christmas, Dad, Becca and I had smoked some more ribs. We backed off on the rub too much, and they weren't quite as good, but that's nothing that heating them up slow in the oven drenched in BBQ sauce wouldn't fixed.

So to enjoy that, Cindy came over and she made potato salad and I made baked beans, and we had a nice little BBQ dinner together.

After that, a little trip up to Woodrow's to meet some people for some beer.

2/9

Got a ride with Char to seminar. At Rice, all visitor parking is paid, and fairly steep at that. However, there seems to be some sort of understanding that you can park along the interior streets, if you leave your emergency flashers on. I'd certainly done it before, and Char was in the habit of doing it for Keck.

Except he forgot to turn his flashers on. So when we got out, he had a ticket. Under the comments section, "no flashers". That's right. Flashers equals no ticket; no flashers equals ticket. There's some kind of internal logic there, but nothing that can really be considered logic in the strict sense of the word.

2/10

Detour to Vinyl Edge; Jana @ Rudz

Despite the fact that Susan and Jerry had warned me against going there after dark, I took the jaunt from their place over to Vinyl Edge not too far east of them, which Cindy insisted was perfectly safe. And, well, it was.

Anyway, the point to this excercise was to buy a few concert tickets without the service fee. But I checked out the shop while I was there. Small place, lots and lots of records, a lot of which weren't really... organized. If I was a real record collector, I could imagine the place being very exciting. Still, interesting to check out, and mission accomplished.

Afterwards, Cindy and I went up to Rudyard's to see Jana Hunter play. She seemed glad to see us there, but quite nervous: when onstage, "I like it when you guys are quiet. It makes it feel like I'm not performing for an audience". Anyway, good show.

New Toy; Shopping; Dan, Wii, TV; Lamb Stew; Dacia's Birthday; School

1/29

Got a cool vintage receiver that Oliver was getting rid of. I'll talk more about it in an upcoming post.

1/30

My hi-fi habit necessitated some new furniture. In the living room, I'd long had the crossover and amp for my subwoofer leaned up against my TV stand, the Mac mini and Wii hiding to the left and right of the TV, and the record player that Cindy had bought me was sitting on my floor in front of a plant.

In the bedroom, the subwoofer amp/crossover was also on its side up against furniture, and now that I had a new receiver I didn't have a place for. Ideally these things would go on an audio-grade stand (spiked feet, high mass, stable), but the rest of my gear isn't, and honestly there are probably better things to put money into.

So, off to IKEA for cheap furniture. I ended up with something that was either a very small TV stand or a minimalist night stand. Either way, it had two shelves appropriately sized for audio components and looked sturdier than some of their other options. They only had a light-colored finish, which wasn't ideal, but I was eager to get something accomplished, so I went for it and grabbed two.

After that, on to the grocery store, then home to assemble and set up the new furniture.

1/31

After a trip to Whole Foods, I dropped by Dan's place. Dan had managed to break his mp3 player, so I loaned him my old 4th generation iPod until he could buy a new one. Cindy was picking up sandwiches for dinner so we invited Dan to join us.

Back at my place, we indulged in some wonderful sandwiches from Jimmy John's, newly opened in Houston, and played some Wii. Dan took off and Cindy and I watched some TV.

2/1

I had, for some time, been wanting to check out Alton's recipe for lamb and barley stew. Check out the link for more, but it turned out well, and it was only a pain to clean the fat off the roast and cut it into chunks. Next time I'd just buy lamb stew meat and save myself the trouble.

2/2

Dacia's birthday @ the Mink, Dan DJs, we eat

Handily, Dacia decided to have her birthday party at the mink, and Dan happened to be DJing upstairs. I got him to guest list us so that we could move between the two. Caught a "band"/DJs who did video game remixes called Extra Man; they were awesome and I bought their CD. Dacia's girlfriend made some surprisingly good vegan cupcakes.

Dacia and co. eventually left for lesbian bar Chance's, and, curious as I was, I was also tired and hungry, so instead Cindy and I walked a couple doors down to Tacos A Go Go. It's a charming little place: appropriate decor, high ceilings, only slightly expensive, simple menu, taco-focused dining experience, appropriate late-night ambiance. Go with the corn tortillas if that's your thing; it's that kind of place.

Afterwards, we went back to the Mink and bid Dan adieu. I spared Cindy the experience of listening to my brand new Extra Man CD.

2/4

It was Super Bowl Sunday, and though there weren't any big parties in the picture, I had many things I would have rather been doing, some of which actually involved watching the game, than preparing a lab meeting presentation. Yet there I was.

Hi-Fi 101

If I'm going to follow up on my promise to start posting more stuff about my interests, you're all going to have to learn a bit about hi-fi. I'll try to make this as painless as possible.

Source

Let's start with a CD. You all know CDs, right? Shiny little things that used to be all the rage ten years ago? So CDs store a bunch of songs in digital form. Let's go through the process of turning those bits on the CD into music, and in doing so take a tour of hi-fi equipment.

So, the CD has to go into something, right? You think immediately of a CD player, of course, but a CD player actually consists of a couple parts that can be purchased sepparately.

The first is the transport. It's the mechanical part, including the motor and the laser, that pulls the data from the CD.

A transport can output the digital signal straight to a digital to analog converter (DAC), which produces the corresponding analog signal.

This is electrical current that rises and falls with the peaks and dips of the sound wave it represents. Actually, you have two signals, one for the left channel and one for the right channel. They go out over interconnects, often called RCA cables because of the most popular type of connector, those round thingies with a little metal tip sticking out that are usually color coded red and white, with red representing the right channel and white representing the left.

Amplification

The interconnects carry this line-level signal to a pre-amp. A pre-amp usually has a bunch of sources besides a CD player hooked up to it, and allows you to pick which one you want to listen to without haveing to unplug and replug the interconnects for different sources when you want to listen to a different piece of equipment.

The pre-amp takes the analog signal from the selected source (still the DAC of the CD player), and does something else useful, which is to allow you to change the volume of the signal, by amplifying or reducing the volume of the signal.

But the electrical signal at this point is still very low power. It takes quite a bit of energy to make enough sound to fill up a room, so the pre-amp outputs this volume adjusted signal, using another set of our old friend, the interconnect, to send the signal on to a power amplifier.

The power amplifier ups the energy of the signal significantly. Exactly how much depends on the particular amp you're using, but we'll assume here it's, well, enough.

Speakers

Enough for what? Follow the electrical signal along 2 wires (speaker cables) to a pair of loudspeakers. The electrical signal hits a magnet, which makes the speaker cone vibrate at the frequency and amplitude (pitch and volume) conveyed by the signal.

Now the tricky thing with speakers is that small speakers don't handle bass well, and large speakers don't handle treble well. So what you see most of the time (unless your speakers are cheap or you're into the really weird shit) is a speaker incorporating multiple drivers of varying sizes that cover different frequency ranges. To make sure each one only produces the frequencies in the appropriate range, you use a crossover to apply a high pass filter (high frequencies "pass" through) to the smaller speaker and a low pass filter (you can figure that one out) to the larger speaker.

Generally the smaller speaker is called a "tweeter" and the larger speaker is a "woofer", a perhaps overly clever bit of onomatopoeia . A speaker with one tweeter (.75-1" in diameter is pretty normal) and one woofer (4-6.5" diameter) is called a 2-way speaker, one with a tweeter, a "mid woofer", and a subwoofer (8, 10, or 12", commonly) is a 3-way speaker, as is a design that uses a tweeter, a "mid-treble driver", and a woofer. If you have one tweeter and two woofers of the same size, it's called a 2.5-way speaker, and so forth.

Combinations

So we've covered the following parts so far:

• CD transport
• DAC
• Pre-amp
• Power amp
• Crossover
• Loudspeaker

But we can combine some of these pieces into the same component.

For example, it's almost univeral, particularly in what you'd find at, say, Best Buy to see the CD transport and the DAC in one box, and the whole thing is your typical CD player. Actually, it's even more unviersal to just see a DVD player instead of a CD player, but the principle is the same.

It's also quite common to combine the pre-amp and the power amp into one box, which is called an integrated amp or integrated. Add a radio tuner to an integrated amp and you get a receiver, which is the most common for of amplification you'll see.

If a receiver can do more than 2 channels of amplification, and has a DAC which can decode surround sound, it's a home theater receiver. It's also common for an HTR to be able to switch video sources in addition to audio sources and pass the video on to a TV or monitor, so you don't have to change inputs on both the TV and the receiver.

Amplifiers that only amplify one channel of audio and are designed to be used in pairs (or more for a home theater system) are called monoblock amps. If two of these go in the same box, it's called a "dual-mono" design. If a stereo amplifier can be used as a monoblock amp, it's "bridgeable".

It's also pretty common to see CD players with digital audio outputs that let you bypass the built-in DAC and use a standalone one or one built into an HTR. This is because the DAC is usually the most expensive element in a nice CD player.

Some high-end CD players also acept digital inputs so that you can use their DACs for other sources. Some even have volume control so you don't need a pre-amp and can hook straight into a power amp.

If the amplifier is built into the speaker, the speaker is an active loudspeaker. Sometimes these even have their own source switching and volume control, as is common with computer speakers.

Another possibility is that you want to add a sepparate subwoofer to take over the bass duties normally handled by your main speakers. In this case you have an additional crossover which sends the very lowest frequencies to the amplifier that powers the subwoofer, and the higher frequencies to the speaker's own crossover. Subwoofer crossovers can be built in to an HTR (often referred to as bass management), an external box, or part of the subwoofer itself. Same for the amplifier, although you see it in the receiver only in cheap home-theater-in-a-box setups, and usually see it bolted to the back of the sub (a plate amp), or, occasionally, in its own box.

Now, imagine that instead of pulling bits off a CD using a transport, you pull them off a hard drive, and then send them on to a DAC. What you have is a digital music player that plays CD audio that just so happens to not be stored on CD. Essentially, you can do this running iTunes (or whatever software it is the infidels are using these days). Or instead of pulling the bits directly off a hard drive, the music player could even grab them off the network. Maybe you could even compress the CD audio using mp3 or something even better so it takes up less space on a hard drive. Wouldn't that be fancy...

So that gives you an overview of the basic parts of a stereo system, so the terminology won't be completely alien to you when I start throwing it around in future blog entries. Next time I'll talk about the equipment I have, and where my system stuff fits in to the schema described above, why I chose the gear I did, and what gear I ultimately aspire to own.

Christmas, Robyn, poker, the obligatory night of nothing, bar hopping, return to Houston, NYE

12/25

We awoke, had a nice breakfast, and then opened presents. I got my Nintendo DS and some games, plus some comics, CDs, a nifty vintage shirt from Becca, and a set of cutting boards. Becca liked the fancy remote I got her, Dad liked the presents that he had pretty much picked out. Mom was taken aback by the pottery lessons we gave her, as if she was scared of actually taking them, but I think she ultimately enjoyed them.

Lunch was good too, particularly the Turkey that had been the source of so much contention.

Eventually the evening rolled around, and David, Thomas, Win, Bennett, Goates, and myself all piled into Thom's grandparents' Buick. Someone (*cough* David *cough*) insisted on going with his intellectual "let's slum it with the common man" bullshit and we went to some small bar on N. 19th not too far from MCC, got weird looks when we came in, had a round and played a game of pool, and left for the next spot just up the road, which was, thankfully, closed. From there I think we went next to the bar (Shooter's? Booter's?) on Valley Mills near New Road, which had seen a bit of a country western face lift, had a couple rounds there, and then on to the sister bar on Lake Air (which could also be Shooter's or Booter's), which still looked like it used to be a strip club. Next to Chapter 11, which I'm actually kind of fond of.

There was a girl there who spotted my "Remember the Alico" t-shirt and introduced herself. She asked about the shirt, and after my brief explanation of living in Houston, etc., she summarized it by saying that I was "representing", which I suppose was accurate. We chatted a little more; turned out she was an art person and trying to do something for the art "scene" in Waco. She compared herself to a Buddhisatva (which I think was just meant to be humorous rather than arrogant/condescending) in that she had found "enlightenment" (i.e. moved away from Waco) but come back to teach the unenlightened (i.e. the Wacoans). Also, she mentioned that she had dated two girls I knew. Huh. She invited me some art show she was putting together (which I wouldn't be in town for) and insisted I track her down on myspace. Check.

Anyway, there was lots of drinking that had been done by that point, and thankfully the driving was not my responsibility. As was pretty much inevitable, Two Minnie's (right down the block) was settled on as the next destination.

Two years prior when we went, it was basically deserted, but this year the "joint was hopping", as the kids say. I wasn't particularly excited about Waco strippers, but the beer kept flowing which was good enough for me. David kept handing me dollar bills to use, and I kept redirecting them to Jordan and Bennett.

By closing time, we were even drunker, particularly Bennett. We went on to IHOP to get something to soak up the alcohol.

So, another nice, debaucherous Christmas night. But, thankfully no emergency room trip this year.

12/26

As is also traditional, we tried to catch up with Robyn. We ended up meeting her, first trying Cricket's (too fucking crowded) and then heading next door to Bogart's (formerly Malone's). Robyn had Cara Beth in tow, much to my surprise (they tend to go in and out of speaking to each other). After a round or two, we migrated to Scruff's (which had rearranged, much to my shock and consternation), I had my "Ziggy Jack" (Ziegenback and Jack Daniel's, a creation of one of the bartenders), and then we made a second night of IHOP.

12/27

David decided to host a poker night at his father's place in Temple. A lack of planning meant that Win had already gone there without giving us the chance to carpool, which briefly pissed me off, but really going to Temple is no different from going to visit my Aunt and Uncle (except perhaps not as visually interesting), so it wasn't a big deal.

So there was beer and poker. Despite Win's online poker activities and David's frequent mocking of my decisions, in the end it was down to me and Bennett, with me leading substantially. But I tire of poker quickly, so we negotiated a truce. But hell, I won $15.

12/28

As always, there was one night when shit just didn't happen. In this case, David fell asleep. So, it was a night for me with the DS. Which is not all bad.

12/29

The last night in town. David once again pushed the blue collar bars, and we compromised on Fred & Wally's. Beer and pool were consumed and played. We tried to catch Kacie McClain but no such luck. David was leaving the next morning, so I picked that day as the time to...

12/30

...go back to Houston. I left in the early evening, car packed up. With my new phone complete with screws, and leaving Waco where it got crap reception, I oficially called and got my number transferred to the new phone. Which meant I incurred a $150 charge with Cingular for breaking my contract (and was also charged sales tax, what the fuck were they selling me that got taxed!), but that would later be mitigated by Ebaying the old phone, and since the new one was free, I ended up getting teh whole deal done for $50 or so. Not bad.

Anyway, I got back in town, got unloaded, and caught up with Cindy. It was good to be back.

12/31

I saw a post online that Toys 'R Us had a nice clearance special on DS and Gameboy games, so I went for the first time in years. Actually the last time I went was sophomore year of college in Waco, when I was having some difficulty tracking down the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Anyway, I ended up finding a couple of good bargains. After that I made a comic store run, and then met Cindy back at my place.

We decided that for NYE we would make some fresh salsa and then cook dinner. The salsa turned out well. Dinner was some NY strip steak that Dad had sent home with me, green beans, and mashed potatoes. We learned a couple of lessons from that dinner.

First, if you don't have something to mash with, don't use a food processor. The potatoes will resemble library paste. Second, if you combine garlic, butter, and lemon juice, and heat it up (as in making a lemon butter sauce), it turns a strong shade of cyan. Strange but true.

One option was to join Dan at the Proletariat for the NY party there (it turns out that things had gone south with Kristin and that she had decided to move to Austin after all). But since we don't hang out with Cindy's friends much, we opted to go to Jim and Nikki's place to join them, Tyson and Louisa for a relaxed evening. There was beer and the salsa was a hit. By the time we considered leaving, Dan was already gone from the Proletariat, so we stuck it out there.

It's not quite the wild party I really want for NYE, but it was nice enough, and we still managed to stay out pretty late.

P.S. I want it noted that I stayed up late just to finish this post. There's a token of committment there for you.

The Hold Steady; The Thermals; The Bound Stems; iPod; Conference, Two Gallants and Police Brutality; The Departed; Cooking (Wings)

It was the super hardcore week of concerts, the last the most shockingly hard of them all...

10/9

I had first listened to the world's greatest bar band's (the Hold Steady) newest album on the way to the retreat the previous Friday and liked it immediately. Songs about drinking and drugs and hooking up and romance and the revelations that come about as a result of the above are featured prominently, and the entire thing wrapped up in easy to listen to mainstream rock hooks that wouldn't be out of place on a Counting Crows album.

So obviously the ideal way to see the band is at a place like Walter's—a dingy, low-lit dive with cheap, crappy beer. As luck would have it, that's exactly where they played. The cheap beer gave me the perfect buzz with which to appreciate the music, and, well, the concert was pretty much exactly what I expected—great rock, a great band, a great show.

10/10

Honestly, I barely remember this one. I'm not that familiar with the band, and I recall enjoying the show, at least. I do know it was at the Proletariat, and as it was a Tuesday, I probably had a Sparks to wake me up a bit.

10/11

Dan really loved these guys after catching them at SxSW, and while their EP didn't hook me, their album did. So I was excited at the chance to see them, which I also have to thank Dan for as he apparently suggested that the Prole book them.

The music is... difficult to describe. The bound stems are all about moments. Good moments. Moments that you could build a whole song around. Instead, they stuff a whole bunch of them in one song. Some work, some don't, but all you have to do is hold out a little because a good one is bound to be around the corner. There are elements of normal indie rock, some electronic manipulation, and maybe a little math rock.

Despite a relatively positive review on Pitchfork (maybe they're not the tastemakers they used to be, especially as evidenced by their bizarre best of 2006 list), the crowd was sparse. But god bless 'em, the band was very appreciative of the crowd they drew. Dan got a shoutout for his mad skillz behind the mixer, which, if it wasn't enough that the band was playing, completely made his night. The show itself was great, replicating their album well with the added energy of a live show, but removing some of the ponderous spoken samples that weighed their album down a bit.

At the end of the show, their female vocalist announced that we could support the band in one of two ways: buy their album, or give them a place to sleep. I attempted both, and succeeded in buying their album, but they got a better sleeping offer. I just can't top a guest room, but that was ok; everyone involved was better off. But at least I offered, right?

Anywyay, everyone should check them out. Great music, great, super nice people. What more can you ask for?

10/12

It was the night off from shows. Apple had, not too long before, announced the new generation of iPod nanos, which managed to increase storage space, and offered improved durability in a scratch-resistant aluminum shell. Despite my slight guilt over my past tendency to run out and grab any new iPod which was available (although in my defense, I skipped generation 2, the color version of generation 4, generation 5, the iPod mini, and the new iPod shuffle), once I found a buyer for my old nano in Angela, I braved the rain and went to Best Buy to buy the new nano with some gift certificates and the cash from the sale of my old one in hand. In addition, they had an insanely cheap price on the new Decemberists album, and the new Beck albumw as available as well, so I picked both of them up to add to my Best Buy tab.

10/13

The Agency That Funds Me (TATFM) had their annual retreat actually in the med center this year, which minimized driving, and even had free parking for us, which allowed driving in the first place, and God bless 'em for both those things. I showed up a bit late, because I could, put up my poster, hung around a while, and then Graham, Tiffany, Char, Jeff and I took off, first for a coffee shop (as I had some things I had wanted to work on and once again was at a conference without wireless), though the internet wasn't exactly working in the traditional sense, and then went to another coffee shop to work (which, it turns out, didn't have internet at all). Lunch at Brasil was good. Tiffany and I split a pizza, though it may have been a bit granola for her.

After that back to the conference for a bit, then I grabbed my car and went home for a while (it was so nice to have that option) to "get some work done" before returning in time for the happy hour with the free beer, and dinner, catered by Treebeard's. I wasn't overly impressed, but, hey, free meal. Dinner over, I snuck out during the keynote, went home, and grabbed a nap.

Char made arrangements for a whole mess o' people at a wine bar (the Tasting Room, maybe?). I think Graham and Angela had actually made the choice, as it was within walking distance for them. In addition to them, Cindy, and myself, other Angela was there, some first and second years, Kim, Oliver and Oliver's New Girl, and Char were there. We filled up a big table, and started putting away the bottles.

But Cindy and I tooke off to go see Two Gallants. Having been super impressed with them the first time I saw them and liking their recorded output subsequent to that, but not being overly impressed with their next show in Houston, I figured they'd at least be worth catching.

I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen.

Cindy and I got there. Dan and Kristin and a whole mess o' other people were there. The show was going great. It was great music and exciting and the duo was executing flawlessly.

Then I looked out the door of Walter's and saw a police car pulling up.

This was odd, of course, so I kind of kept an eye on the door. A young, large, latino officer with a shaved head came through the door, exchanged a few words with the door guy, and then started making his way to the front of the room, shining his flash light. I thought maybe he was lookin for underage kids there or something? At the time, that was the best guess I had.

But then he got up to the front of the room. And climbed on stage. He exchanged a few words with the Gallants' guitarist, who continued playing the instrumental bridge of the song they had been playing when he arrrived. The cop then grabbed the guitar, and the guitarist pulled back on it.

In the blink of an eye, the guitarist was on the ground, taken down by the cop. I backed up, because God knows what was going on there. A woman's voice authoritatively told us to toss our drinks and get out, and for some reason I thought maybe there was some weird liquor license thing going on, so I exited immediately.

In my absence, apparently crowd members tryed to pull the cop off the band, which was dumb but maybe justifiable, as it probably looked like he was going to kill them. It was then that the cop broke out the tazer. A guy that was taking pictures (and would later be arrested for something vague like "interfering with an officer's duties" got shoved by the cop into a century-old upright bass belonging to the opening band. Various members of the audience were harrased. a 14-year-old boy, there with his parents, got tazered. At some point the cop started chasing the guitarist with a tazer. The guitarist went behind the bar, hopped it, and then took off running out the front door.

Meanwhile, I was outside; Cindy, Dan and Kristin were still inside. More cars had showed up (four or five at that point). I saw the guitarist take off running out of the front door and off down the street. It was probably around this time that some audience members got arrested, some of whom were just asking what was going on, though undoubtedely not in the most respectful of tones. I was hanging out off to the side, about to go in looking for Cindy when she came out. We hung around for a while when we were told we could go inside and close tabs, and since I'm rather fond of my credit card I opted to do so, noting the broken bass on the floor.

We walked across the street to our cars, wondering aloud what the fuck had just happened, but taking off rather quickly rather than risk being singled out by any of the 20 or so cops that were swarming the place, opting to wind down at Rudz.

The story of what happened would come out over the next weeks and months. Apparently there were pretty much nightly noise complaints from some assholes who had moved in behind the bar and were shocked that they would be able to hear the music from the fucking rock venue adjacent to them. And apparently that particular cop had harrased Walter's patrons before. And there were all kind of other stories:

• Chronicle Handstamp blog entry with video


• Chron blog entry with e-mail criticizing the Chronicle's coverage of the story


• Chron blog entry referencing Chron story on Walter's and noise complaints


• Pitchfork interview with the band


• Interview with the band in Rolling Stone


• Two Gallants forum thread on the incident


• Heavily linked-to account on Dan's blog

It was, really, a fairly traumatic experience to see those tasked with keeping law and order escalate a situation into violence. I hope the band gets some justice in all of this. I hope this doesn't scare too many bands away from Texas, though certainly there's evidence it already has. Finally, I hope that, whatever happens, life is a little worse for that asshole of a cop and that he regrets abusing his power the way he did. Of course, a lot of this hasn't been taken seriously because the people who were there were a couple of hippy musicians from San Francisco, a bunch of kids who don't contribute much to Houston's coffers, and a whole bunch of cops, and everyone knows rock and roll is lawless, rebellious, troublesome music anyway.

Fuckin' a, man, fuckin' a.

10/14

Cindy and I met her brother up at the I-10 Edwards to see The Departed which was certainly well-acted, if a bit... opaque.

10/15

I decided to try my hand at making buffalo wings (of the boneless variety). Some breaded and fried chicken breast chunks, some melted butter, some Louisiana hot sauce, some celery sticks, and some bleu cheese dressing, and I was in business. Not bad for a first effor, though I could probably improve on both the breading and the sauce...

Best Buy; Kings of Leon; Architecture in Helsinki; Reggae Hut; Girl Talk

Back in Houston now, and taking an extra day off (shh!). I'll try to get a couple posts in.

9/18

Once again to Best Buy to get a little more money back on my TV before the 30-day price matching period was up.

I also checked out their new in-store Magnolia home theater store. It was a definite step up from the current audio experience at Best Buy, which has gotten steadily worse, and is particularly bad in my store where most of the speakers are sort of piled up in a sad little room at the back and not even hooked up.

The Magnolia store was small, though, focused much more on video than audio, and lacked a variety of audio brands. An improvement for Best Buy, but probably nothing that necessitated a sepparate store.

9/19

Cindy and I had been given tickets to a free Kings of Leon show. It was apparently some sort of service industry thing being held at the Meridian, but people who had tickets to give out were having trouble getting rid of them; hence we ended up with them. So we figured we'd check it out.

After eventually finding parking (no sense paying for parking for a free show).

It was fucking packed. Apparently they didn't have that much trouble getting rid of the tickets. And, honestly, the band kind of sucked. Well, maybe they didn't, but the combination of an annoying audience and a band with which I was not faimiliar didn't exactly make us want to stick around.

9/20

The next night was better, featuring Architecture in Helsinki's triumphant return to houston. K Record's The Blow opened up, in alternate solo form rather than as their normal duo. Alternating between charming naivete/indifference and an annoying lack of polish and over-artsiness, I ultimately wasn't impressed with their low-fi spoken word/rap but didn't hate them either.

Architecture in Helsinki came on next and put on a good show, though perhaps lacking some of the magic of their previous show at Walter's. It was enjoyable, though, and their new material had definite potential.

9/23

Our return to Reggae Hut came in the form of takeout, which Cindy picked up. We refined our order, settling on one order of jerk chicken with an extra side of their great veggies, and opting to try out their "empanadas" (they corrected Cindy when ordering, referring to them as "beef patties", which is a little too close to "cow patties" in my mind), which were nicely seasoned. Always a good meal...

9/24

For the Prole's birthday celebration, they had managed to snag indie mashup sensation Girl Talk. Cindy and I went; the usual suspects were there, and Jeff dragged Jim along. Jim looked thoroughly miserable the entire evening, though I'm not really sure why he didn't like the mix 'n match take on the past 20 years or so of pop and rock.

Girl Talk was incredible, but I'm not sure I can explain why as he just reproduced the album live. The thing with laptop music is that he could have just bee plaing it straight off the CD for all we know, but he looked like he was staying busy making the music happen.

I, for my part, got nice and trashed, and Cindy was treated to Dancing Ward, making a rare appearance. Great music + drunkeness = fun.

Practice, Amy's; Double Dave's, Best Buy; Benjy's, Gnarls Barkley

I'm in Waco for Christmas vacation. One might think this would give me a chance to catch up on blogging, but old friends and new toys are both around. Still, I'll see what I can do.

9/12

I'd been craving Amy's Ice Cream for quite a while, so post-band practice, I rang Cindy up and asked her to join me.

I was excited because I had read on their web site that Amy's had a "call list"; that is you could sign up to be notified whenever your favorite flavors were available. Shiner and Guiness ice cream, here I come. Sadly, upon arriving at the establishment, they couldn't even find the list, which gives a pretty good indication of how dedicated they are to keeping their customers informed.

Still, good ice cream is good ice cream. My favorite ice creams there are the ones that contain alcohol, as they only further prove my theory that alcohol makes just about any food better. This time around I opted for "tequila sunrise", an orangy ice cream with a nice touch of that sweet, sweet agave-based liquor. Cindy had something chocolatey...

9/13

Will gave me a ride and we made a comic store run before grabbing some dinner. He and I seem to be on a Double Dave's kick, as we hit up the buffet there. Not the best pizza in the world, but always enjoyable.

The price had dropped $150 or so on my TV, so I made a trip up to Best Buy to get the difference taken off the balance I owed them. Sadly, they evaluated the price after my $100 cable service discount, as opposed to before, so I only got $50, but fifty bucks is fifty bucks.

9/14

Dan was wonderful enough to point out to me weeks ago that the hot new R&B/gospel/hip hop sensation that is Gnarls Barkely (which would be Cee Lo and DJ Dangermouse, with their powers combined Captain Planet-style) were being featured in a free show sponsored by Scion. Now I'm not the biggest Scion fan, seeing as how Toyota's idea of a "youth brand" is to make underpowered cheap cars rather than reasonably-priced fun-to-drive cars (well, the xA and xB fit into the former category, although the tC is more the latter, and I shouldn't fault it just because I didn't fit comfortably in it). But far be it from me to complain about a company that, in their quest for the young demographic, hires a hot new R&B/gospel/hip hop sensation to play a free show.

The only minor catch was online registration, which I had done for Cindy and I weeks before. Although Dan and Kristin decided not to use their registration, Char and Angela had both registered and were joining us for the show.

There was a bit of a panic in that registration had closed, and that they had registered more people than could actually attend. They were handing out tickets starting at 4:00, which would guarantee entry, so we managed to slip out of our respective labs early and Char picked us up in his souped-up Volvo. It was hot outside, but the Scion people had free water for us, which was nice, while we waited for 4:00 to come to collect our tickets.

After that, Char dropped us off at Cindy's car, we dropped by our respective apartments for quick showers and changes of clothes, and then met up at Benjy's (well, actually the Lounge at Benjoy's which for some reason is listed sepparately on Citysearch) for some happy-hour-priced appetizers and drinks, which is the only way we could really afford to go there anyway (unless Zaina was workiing and hooked us up, which is something we should probably investigate).

Gin was a featured liquor, so I opted for a gimlet, and I believe we had crab cakes and a barbacoa-over-polenta-over-salad sort of thing. Good, but still fairly expensive. Still, nice place, good time.

After that, on to the Warehouse for the show. A hip hop act opened up; apparently the guy had collaborated with Kanye West in some fashion. I enjoyed it; despite my tendency to find hip hop a little samey after a song or two, the live setting seems to offer enough stimulation to prevent "hip hop fatigue".

Eventually, Gnarls Barkley came out in their jammies. In addition to the soulful Cee Lo and "white-friendly" (thanks, Pithcfork) Danger Mouse, there was a full complement of strings, backup singers, guitars, and keyboards. The show was great, hitting every song from the album. We were far enough up front that the Warehouse's shitty acoustics didn't cause problems. The full band was exactly the treatment a live veresion of Danger Mouse's tracks deserved.

What a great show. Thanks, Toyota.

Plastic Constellations; Boys & Girls Club; TV w/ Will; Shopping & The Corpse Bride; TV, Beer; Little Miss Sunshine, Poison Girl; Prole

The blog's been competing with Zelda lately for leisure time. And, frankly, the blog doesn't have an immersive 3D world with sword play and clever puzzles. Sorry, blog.

8/28

And student #2 from our lab makes it out. Good for him. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that.

The Plastic Constellations, whose rock/half-rap Mazatlan I had liked, were scheduled to open for the Fatal Flying Guilloteens at the Proletariat. I guess a highly-rated local band outranks a low-rated national band, even if on the absolute scale the national band is probably better.

Of course, since it was a Guilloteens show, Chris B. was there, as was Colin, and it was good to get a chance to see them both. Chris parlayed it into an occasion to do his bar column for the Houston Press, but didn't parlay it into free drinks for the rest of us, sadly.

The Plastic Constellations' new material didn't seem quite up to their '04 album that I was rather fond of, which was a disappointment.

Still, a nice night out.

8/29

I had first heard of it from Matt B, who did it. Large LCD TVs, without built-in tuners, are, technically speaking, monitors. Monitors happen to be one of the things that I can apply my equipment budget towards. And I didn't have a monitor for my Mac mini (except for my TV), or a big screen flat panel TV. So certainly, it was something that filled a niche.

After spending some time poking around the internet previously, I had pretty much settled on one of Westinghouse's 1080P displays. They were cheap with a good feature set, and though the brand was a relative unknown, they had certainly developed a large following on the internet.

Labor day weekend seemed like a good time to buy. I spent a good deal of time researching my buying options...

8/30

Boys & Girls Club is a nice occasional divergence; a good thing to do if you're up for more partying after starting your Wednesday night out slow, but it's rarely a primary destination for me.

Occasional special events, though, change that, and one was the opportunity to see Andy Rourke of the Smiths DJ at anonymous strip-mall club A38. So Cindy and I took off. Dan and Kristin told us things hadn't really taken off yet, so we stuffed them in the back of Cindy's car and moved over to the Mink for a few rounds, before stuffing them and Levi back in and heading back to A38.

Seeing Rourke DJ wasn't really anything special, but it was somewhat interesting. I was surprised to hear him play a solo Morrisey song. Guess there's not that much bad blood there. We stuck around for a while, but a few Lonestars later, we took off.

8/31

Lab Dan was fed up with his laptop and wanted to go to Micro Center for some RAM, inviting me on the field trip to do so. He had ridden his bike, though, so we first rode that to his place to pick up his car before going to MC. The motorcycle ride was less initially scary, but the trip down Braeswood had a few bumps that made the whole lack-of-being-strapped-down thing a little jarring. Still, it reinforced my opinion that a bike would be a supremely fun, if dangerous, thing to own.

After getting back to lab, Will contacted me, wanting to watch some TV. We stopped by the store for some snacks, settling on some of the more bizarre kettle chips we saw: beer and cheddar, and spicey thai. The beer and cheddar were nice, good authentic cheese flavor with a little extra something. The thai were also pretty good; lots of ginger and a few other things I couldn't put my finger on.

We watched Justice League. It was good as usual. Bless you, Paul Dini.

9/1

Ah, the Friday before Labor Day and midnight madness sales. I had previously missed out on an opportunity to pick up a cheap Logitech Harmony remote. These aren't anything special in terms of hardware, but the software is what makes them "I should have thought of that" brilliant. They download device codes off the internet, and then, based on some Q&A with you on a web site, configure macros automatically for doing things like watching TV, listening to music, watching a movie, or playing a video game. As such, they're great at replacing a pile of remotes, and great at keeping SOs who aren't intimately acquainted with your setup happy.

CompUSA had one for $50 after rebates (which I still haven't gotten; assholes), which was a real bargain, considering it went for $120 or so at the time. After a brief debate as to whether or not to leave work early to pick one up, I decided to be safe, and it was a good thing I did. I got there about 5:45 for the sale that started at 6, and they were already handing them out. I grabbed one and then killed time until I could check out at 6. I also found a wireless router for $10 after rebates, so I picked one up with the intention of giving it to Cindy (who it turns out didn't know she already had one), although it's ended up at my parents' place.

After that, on to Best Buy to check out the TV. I realized while there that it was only a couple hundred more to go from the 37" to the 42". I was still deliberating about that somewhat, and they didn't have either in stock, so I opted to wait until the next day and go by a place that did have it in stock.

Cindy and I went for dinner (Chinese?) and then ended up renting The Corpse Bride that night, which was an entertaining, pretty little fairy tail (and the last movie I watched on the old TV).

9/2

Robyn was in town with some of her Baylor folks for the Body Worlds exhibit and wanted to meet up for lunch. Sadly I didn't have the opportunity to steer them someplace good for lunch, so they ended up in the village, at Brian O'Neil's. The food's not so bad there, though, and I had a good roast beef sandwich, potato leek soup, and some beer. Plus the company was good. It was great to see Robyn, however briefly.

Then on to Susan and Jerry's for a visit, laundry, and dinner,

After that, I headed over to the I-10 Best Buy to buy my TV. Of course, nothing ever is perfect, and they wouldn't let me use my 12% off coupon because the TV was on sale. But I did get $100 off for agreeing to sign up for HD cable service, which was pretty much free for me anyway. So I got their last TV, loaded it up into the Mazda (perfect fit!) and headed back home.

Traffic was backed up quite a bit, and a look ahead showed why: a huge plume of smoke was coming up. Getting closer, a truck on the other side of the highway was on fire. As in, I could feel the heat from 50 feet away driving past it. Absolutely crazy.

Got home, Cindy helped me unpack the TV, and made a quick trip to lab to borrow a DVI cable for the Mac mini. Went up to Woodrow's for beer, then left to meet a very bored-sounding Kristin at Poison Girl.

9/3

Cindy and I put some breakfast together and then went to see Little Miss Sunshine at the River Oaks theater. The movie... well, it was OK, but didn't have the kind of richness that would lead to a purchase.

After I got home, I got a call from Dan, who was hanging out at Poison Girl with his daughter, so I joined them and had a drink or two, before returning to some quality time with my TV.

9/4

Spent the day enjoying the TV, and bet up with the usual crowd at the Prole later on for drinks.

Buy Other Sound Equipment

No highs? No lows? Must be...

Randa asks the following:

Queston: is it all Bose speakers that are the devil or just the cube-y ones?

First off, these links (1, 2, 3) answer the question better than I could.

To answer your question before I start ranting, mostly it's the cubes. The speaker drivers in the cubes cost under a dollar; the drivers in even a modest bookshelf speaker will be at least $10. The sound is pleasant if you don't have any basis of comparison. Considering their price, though? Not good at all. They sell for two reasons. The first is fashion. The size sells because it makes them unobtrusive, or because it makes them seem high tech. The second is marketing. "Better sound through research." I have heard people argue the quality of Bose on that basis alone, despite the fact that here's nothing really to back it up.

Their headphone line is overpriced but not bad (see headphones from Shure/Etymotics/Ultimate Ears for better noise reduction and sound at similar prices). Ditto for their boomboxes/table top radios/iPod systems (a comparably priced pair of computer speakers will sound better, or bookshelf speakers and an inexpensive stereo receiver, or Apple's iPod Hi-Fi). And ditto for their bookshelf/tower speakers.

The problem is that you can't cheat phsyics in audio. You need a big speaker to reproduce long wavelenth sounds (bass). Their bass module uses probably aroud a 5" or 6" woofer which doesn't get you very deep in frequencies (probably couldn't play the lowest note on a bass guitar). Then you need a decently-sized midrange driver (approximately half the width of the woofer); theirs is too small at 2" or so across to integrate well with the woofer. Then you need a small tweeter; they count again on their midrange in the cube to reproduce the high frequency sounds, and it's just too big for the job.

I could go on. What it comes down to is that there is usually a similar product for less money or a better product for the same amount for any Bose product you could put in front of me. And instead of buying speakers to hide them, buy speakers that look nice (wood veneer is very common, as are attractive high-gloss finishes) and complement your decor if the look of the system is something that's important to you.

I gladly make recommendations for any budget!