After a year of silence, I'm back and I've moved my blogging activities off of LiveJournal and over to Blogger. Here's my first post over there, which explains the change.

Cheers to everyone!

for shaunathan:

Tom Cruise's Medical Forum

thanks to AJ

Several people have pointed out that I haven't posted anything here since my Colorado trip to visit mrkvm and dnsvm. The trip was wonderful but too short. There was all manner of geeking and a good time was had by all. I also got to meet their wonderful baby girl, and spend an afternoon with another good pal and his girls (wife and daughter).

Since returning home, things have been very hectic, with amydennett's schedule seemingly a moving target that's always maxed out. This is preventing her from joining me at the sold out Spoon show Tuesday night, but skipping it is the only way for her to hold onto her sanity.

More soon, I swear!

Sitting in the airport now, waiting to board my plane to Colorado. What perfect timing for a four day getaway – we're in Day Umpteen of near-winter weather in the Boston area. Can't wait to see mrkvm and dnsvm again, and meet their new little girl. Heck, I'm gonna get to see a few more friends out there too. Whoo!

Just finished watching the season finale of Lost -- wow, what a great show! I can count the number of TV dramas that have managed to maintain this level of quality for an entire season on the fingers of one hand.

The DVD set of Season One comes out in September, presumably followed shortly thereafter by the debut of Season Two on ABC. How am I gonna get my weekly fix between now and then?

In honor of mrkvm's birthday today, here's a quickie 20 second video clip of Beans kickin' it at the Best. Soundcheck. Ever. (at Coachella 2005)

Nope, it really doesn't have anything to with mrkvm or birthdays but what the hell -- it's very cool and so is mrkvm!

Happy Birthday!

Finally started up watching Homicide again.

A year or more ago I started with the first episode on DVD, and was getting through about five a week (on the train commute you see). Somewhere about six months back I stopped watching DVDs and started either working or sleeping on the commute instead. Now that things are normalizing at work, I decided it was time to pick it up again. Of course mrkvm and dnsvm are like two seasons ahead of me now, but I'm not going to let that discourage me!

Anyway, now seemed like a good time to remind everyone that it's the best cop show ever.

My Amazon Wish List has dipped below the 500 items mark for the first time this millenium.

I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that I've got that many things on my Wish List or that I've bought some many things that it's now under 500.

mrkvm reminded me that someone released a Tiger dashboard widget that allows you to post to your LiveJournal. If you're reading this it actually works as advertised.

This year I took a camera with me to Coachella, and came back with tons of photos.

In the process of tweaking and tagging and captioning and uploading all of them to Flickr, I realized that all together they made up a pretty good journal of my trip. So here's my photo journal of the weekend in three parts:

Behind the Scenes

Day One

Day Two

I invite and even encourage you to check 'em out, tag 'em and comment on them. A small handful of the pictures are restricted to friends and family only, so if you're not already on my friends list at Flickr just let me know.

You won't be hearing from me for a few days, because I'll be away having a blast at Coachella.

This year I'm taking my camera, so there will be some large-scale Flickr action when I get back.

Whoo!

Another weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my AudioScrobbler user stats:

Top Artists Week prior to Apr 24, 2005
1. Kid Loco
1. Cocteau Twins
3. Kate Bush
3. The Flaming Lips
5. Spoon
5. Gang Of Four
7. DJ Krush
8. Devo
9. Zero 7
10. Cabaret Voltaire

Top Songs Week prior to Apr 24, 2005
1. Spoon - The Way We Get By
1. Spoon - Small Stakes
1. Spoon - Something to Look Forward To
1. Spoon - Jonathon Fisk
1. Cocteau Twins - Tishbite
1. Gang Of Four - Guns before butter
1. The The - The Violence Of Truth
1. Mike Ladd - Music For Tanks
1. Spoon - Stay Don't Go
10. DJ Krush - Road to Nowhere

Another week of productivity-inspired nostalgia as my selections this week were chosen more for their ability to keep me working through to meet my deadlines than anything else. As it stands now (mission accomplished at work as of yesterday) I have a pretty fat backlog of new acqusitions to go through and tons of new releases just around the corner.

But first: Coachella here I come!

Happy Birthday to pansy_burke! I hope you make a wonderful day of it!

Another weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my AudioScrobbler user stats:

Top Artists Week prior to Apr 17, 2005
1. Ken Nordine
2. Madlib
3. David Holmes
4. Boards of Canada
5. Fila Brazillia
6. The The
7. Meat Beat Manifesto
8. Amon Tobin
8. Nine Inch Nails
10. K-OS

Top Songs Week prior to Apr 17, 2005
1. Boards of Canada - "Beware the Friendly Stranger"
1. Coil - "Windowpane"
1. David Byrne - "Light Bath"
1. Boards of Canada - "Ready Lets Go"
1. Nine Inch Nails - "March Of The Pigs"
1. Skinny Puppy - "Epilogue"
1. Boards of Canada - "Dandelion"
1. Three Drives - "Greece 2000 (Moonwatcher's Of The Sea Of Tranquility Remix)"
1. Ken Nordine - "Puce"
1. Radiohead - "I Will (No Man's Land)"

All hail Ken Nordine! I snagged a copy of Colors last week and have been entertained ever since. I feel sorry for anyone that hasn't yet realized what a national treasure he is. Other than that, last week (and probably then next couple) reflects a high instance of whatever-keeps-me-working music. We're heading into the home stretch at my job, and I'm playing lots of (for me) motivational music.

An interesting observation: this is the first week in I don't know how long that doesn't feature an appearance by Bowie. Don't know what to make of that...

Another weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my AudioScrobbler user stats:

Top Artists Week prior to Apr 10, 2005
1. DJ Shadow
1. Coldcut
3. DJ Nu-Mark
4. Underworld
5. Public Enemy
6. David Bowie
7. Broken Social Scene
7. Kenna
9. The Chemical Brothers
10. Lali Puna

Top Songs Week prior to Apr 10, 2005
1. Autechre - "Theme Of Sudden Roundabout"
2. David Bowie - "We Prick You"
2. David Bowie - "Strangers When We Meet"
2. David Bowie - "Wishful Beginnings"
2. David Bowie - "Outside"
2. Cocteau Twins - "For Phoebe Still a Baby"
2. Cocteau Twins - "Ella Megalast Burls Forever"
2. Cocteau Twins - "Blue Bell Knoll"
2. David Bowie - "No Control"
2. David Bowie - "The Motel"

Only a couple of new acquisitions made it to the top this week: I nabbed DJ Nu-Mark's Hands On for cheap via Half.com, and broke down and bought The Chem's Push The Button new after hearing "Galvanize" on a nice sound system one night. Both are okay but not great...I was really hoping for some stuff to blow my mind, but I guess I was looking to the wrong places this time around. ;-)

Another weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my AudioScrobbler user stats:

Top Artists Week prior to Apr 3, 2005
1. David Bowie
2. Spoon
3. Beck
4. Underworld
5. The Kleptones
5. Zero 7
7. Nightmares on Wax
8. Meat Beat Manifesto
9. Broken Social Scene
9. Nuspirit Helsinki

Top Songs Week prior to Apr 3, 2005
1. Adem - "Statued"
1. Dialogue (from Napoleon Dynamite) - "Loc Ness"
1. Dialogue (from Napoleon Dynamite) - "Chapstick"
1. Boom Bip - "dumb day"
1. Meat Beat Manifesto - "Fromage Dub (feat. DJ Collage)"
1. John Swihart - "A-Team Theme"
1. Brian Eno - "Another Green World"
1. Meat Beat Manifesto - "Intermission Dub"
1. Williamson - "time you'll never get back"
10. Beck - "Missing"

I actually thought that I had posted my Tops for this week back when it happened, but mrkvm pointed out to me that I was far behind....so here you have it.

Terri Schiavo dies; disturbing religious cults to follow.

Today DC Comics released a one-shot, one dollar, eighty-pager called Countdown to Infinite Crisis. If you're a hardcore comics geek you knew about this already. If you're just a casual reader of superhero stuff, I think this is absolutely worth picking up. Either way, if you haven't read this it yet you shouldn't read any further -- the rest of this review is just filled with spoilers.

( I've read it, please proceed to the spoilers! )

One thing's for certain: this is going to be a very interesting year to be a DC Comics reader.