Random Brain Dump

We’ve all seen it before– dirty cars with dust-covered windows. Sooner or later somebody would surrender to the temptation and would write “Wash Me!” on the windows. This somehow gives a lot folks a sense of cleverness.

Blah… how about being really clever next time? Dust painting anyone?

For a blogger, I actually don’t read many blogs. Most of the ones I frequent are friends’ to keep up with what they are up to…

One of the few blogs I do follow though is The Dilbert Blog. Scott Adams is one funny man. While most of his writing is laced with his unique humor, it’s not always about silliness. Some of his posts are very thought-provoking and usually with very unique & interesting perspective.

Check it out if you haven’t, it’s one of the most entertaining blogs in cyberspace!

Technorati : dilbert blog

Cowboy Junkies is an alternative rock band from Toronto with their down-right depressing lyrics, nice blend of guitar and harmonica, subtle rhythms and of course the original voice of Margo Timmins. Their melancholic music is a mix of blues, country, folk, and rock. With a lot of depressing with titles like “To Love Is to Bury”, “‘Cause Cheap Is how I Feel”, “Lonely sinking feeling”, their style is a bit off-beat, which to me is appealing. In fact, the band makes a point of evading mainstream: quitting major record label and starts distributing their own music with their independent label. How cool is that?

I first heard their music during my college years; my room-mate Minh had a copy of The Trinity Session. The album was recorded live in a single day in a church in Toronto and basically launched the band, an early album that remains one of their best work. At first, I didn’t think much of the music after casual listening. But during a late night study, I was hooked on their tunes! Guess it’s got to do with ambiance and the undivided attention from a pair of headphones. I found their music captivating and they became one of my favorite bands. I’ve been following their works ever since that one late night.

So I was looking forward to their concert all this summer. Last Wednesday, after the kids were done with their swimming classes, we got them ready to spent the night with their cousin Malia. After their aunt Betty drove them off, Suzanne & I headed to the Mountain Winery. It was our first time there. There were obvious signs of renovations everywhere. But it has a breath-taking view of the valley. The venue is small, intimate and beautiful with the valley below on one side and the back-drop of wineries on the other. I wish I had a chance to take some photographs during the sunset. We arrived as the opening act started playing, so no chance to stroll and tour the place. I lugged along my camera but had to hide it in my jacket as I was scared away by the posted signs banning non-consumer cameras. I was able to sneak in a few clicks though. 🙂

The Bittersweets opened for the Cowboy Junkies and they were very good by the way. The band even blogged about that nite. The lead singer Hannah Prater seemed very down-to-earth and had very nice voice. Not sure the title of the last song they performed but it was a beautiful song that starts with “Good night San Francisco…” (can’t go wrong with lyrics like that). I’ll probably order their debut CD; very talented band and I have no doubt we’ll hear more of them in the coming years.

This was the 3rd time I saw The Cowboy Junkies’ concert and I’d say it was as good as the 1st concert I saw them during the Lay It Down tour (Lay It Down was an amazing album). I was hoping for more numbers from Lay It Down and they didn’t get around to their own rendition of Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane as I’d hoped. But they did a few songs from their old album The Trinity Session including Blue Moon. They closed the night with Margo’s masterful rendition of Misguided Angel— it was best of the night.

The Cowboy Junkies are a type of band that is perfect for small venues like Mountain Winery. The ambiance was great. Suzanne & I enjoyed the evening. What’s not to like: good music, starry night and beer in our hands!

Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created in the ’60’s to ensure means for independent broadcasts. Now, the Bush administration is trying to eliminate the federal subsidy to CPB. This funding normally is distributed between the public TV stations and NPR. But in a vote of 357-72 last week, the House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush’s proposal. Here’s the official recorded tally.

The funding for public broadcasting has been threatened by conservatives the last few years. Unfavorable coverage and views on the Bush administration on many programs broadcasted on PBS & NPR have a lot to do with that, no doubt.

As frequent readers of this blog knows, I’m a big fan of public broadcasting. Say what you will of Congress, they did at least something right last week.

Wow…

While channel surfing last nite, I caught an episode of a new series on PBS called Travels To The Edge with Art Wolfe.

The 13-part series shares the most majestic places in the world with the viewers through Wolfe’s camera lenses. But it’s not just a travel or wild-life program with video of harsh deserts, imposing mountains or lush rain forests. Wolfe actually talks about photography: equipment and techniques!

Tonite, the episode follows Wolfe to The Altiplano in Bolivia where he photographs the giant cacti and the largest salt flat in the world. It was a HD broadcast on KQED and it was breath-taking. HD is the perfect format for this type of series, and I’ll definitely be following the rest of the series.

The episode was simply awe-inspiring for a shutterbug and a hack like me!

Our government hatched this great idea of turning the clocks forward by an hour on March 11 rather than the usual early April date will result in energy savings. The first time I heard this is when I received emails at work about how our machines need to be patched for this. I went to the corporate meeting and it was apparent to me that this was a big corporate effort just to comply with this change. It was Y2K all over again. I was wondering about thousands of man hours and how this would cost Yahoo!

I had doubted the saved energy is worth the troubles. Sure enough, no utilities have claimed any measurable impact from this bonehead flop. For the same effort spent this past spring, I’d rather see DST abolished altogether!

This blog mentions a pending deal to convert a dozen 7-Elevens into Kwik-E-Marts as a promotional effort for the Simpsons movie this summer. Available to buy: KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola, and iced Squishees.

If you’re a Simpsons fan (and who isn’t), how ultra cool is that? 🙂

I’m hoping there’ll be one nearby in the Bay Area…

I was watching The Kid the other day with my girls. Bruce Willis plays a spin-meister whose job is damage control for ill-behaving famous figures. Well, it seems to me there’s a trend of damage control in real life of late…

First, rep. Mark Foley and Mel Gibson blamed alcoholism and entered rehab. Then Michael Richards, Mike Tyson & Isiah Washington both entered rehab for “psychological counseling” for whatever blame I don’t even understand. Now SF Mayor Gavin Newsom blames his affair on alcoholism and enters rehab. How convenient…

The first thing these guys do is announcing something like “I take full responsibility…” and then follow up with “I have a problem and I will seek help by checking myself into a rehab.” Makes you think if they’re all using the same image consultant. You can’t help but chuckle every time this same old tactic is employed by somebody famous.

These are desperate attempts to drum up public sympathy. I for one do not have any for these characters. They cannot be excused of their behavior just because they “acknowledge” they have a problem. There’s virtually no courage in this kind of “acknowledgment.” The majority of them are not even “owning” up to their problems– they got caught, for Pete’s sake! Plus, owning up to one’s behavior does not automatically means sympathy. They are adults, not kids…

Furthermore, using “going to get treatments” shifts the emphasis on the behavior from a character flaw issue. To a degree, these are attempts of distancing oneself from one’s own demons– a behavior is more treat-able than a character flaw. So ironically, this “taking responsibility and getting treatment” tactic actually removes the responsibility of the act itself in my opinion. Ultimately in the above cases, rehabs were used by these individuals to get a handle on their images and avoid the consequences.

Psychological counseling may help with behaviors, but how does it or anything else help with something inherent as a character flaw? Is that possible? Treatment is a way of getting help, not a convenient excuse for bad behaviors or character flaws!

Okay, these are a bit geeky, but can’t argue that they are anything but uncool:

• Video of demo of a digital drawing board @ MIT.
• Here’s cool video of the inner workings of a hard drive. Amazing machinery.
• 3D bump desktop

KTEH started running a pledge drive this past week. On Saturday evening, the station aired a concert by Celtic Woman, a group of 5 lovely Irish women artists with amazing talents. Suzanne tuned in and an unexpected thing happened. We left the TV on and when we returned a bit later we discovered Allison sat quietly on the couch intently watching the concert– I’ve never seen her watching with such concentration. When I tried to change the channel, she made me turned it right back. She told us that she liked the music.

Her favorite seemed to be Máiréad who’s petite (perhaps that’s why Allison took a liking?) & plays a fiddle.