Archive for November, 2006

How They See Us - The American Divorce Rancidity, An Italian’s Take

Published at November 19, 2006 in Geek Therapy. 2 Comments

There cannot be much more of a defining character of what distinctly separates modern American from Western European societies (well, at least those in Italy) than our divorce industry.s charateristics and strategies.

 Just stroll around in Northern Italy’s train stations and ‘bars’ as a single American guy, and the question will come up:

“Are you divorced?”

I was in the Florence a couple of weeks in the fall of ‘04 to visit my daughter Bianca. 

One evening during my umpteenth time of dining alone near my downtown ‘base station’ hotel, a tired waiter roughly my age sat at his last customer’s table across from me. 

We chatted for quite a while. 

‘ivergogna’.

 What does that word mean? 

‘disgrace’.

 Oh.  Yep.  ’tis.

 (pause)…..

Che cosa quella media?

(another pause?)  que?  (wrong language, but whatever)

I am asking you what that means.

 What what means?

’tis.

 oh.  It’s a connotation for ‘It is’.

 ah.

…and so on and so forth.  He asked me a bunch of questions about divorce, and why we don’t like women, when we have beautiful women, and whatever man who doesn’t like them must be gay or …(forgot the word he used–I’ll just say…) ’crazy’.

Well, let me tell you…

 (me rambling on like the well-rehearsed machine on this subject, the societally destroying American divorce paridigm, how it’s a travesty and so on, blah blah).

My waiter was on the money when, after a mutually long silence, he shared his discription for us:

“Barbaricos!”

 

The Burning Man

Published at November 19, 2006 in Rants. 0 Comments

It’s located in Black Rock, Nevada, a barren spot sixty or so miles north of Reno, in a barren place of desert and low elevation. 

 

Every year, for six days prior to Labor Day, the Burning Man event takes place.

 

I’m going to go this year.  Evidently it’s wild as hell.  My high school buddy lives in San Francisco and I’m going to hang with him. 

 

A few hundred thousand people converge on it initially, with numbers growing, of course, over the holiday weekend.  They build sculpture, paint bodies, watch bodies, become watched bodies, and there’s a lot of other stuff, apparently, that I don’t know yet, ‘lest I’d write here. 

 

There’s a ‘naked women’ parade with a thousand participants.  Thought I’d share that.  Would this occur in Midwest or Eastern Plains of US?  (or South or New England?)  Nope.  These are California people. 

 

The layout is a grid, N-E-S-W with basically a circular network of roads to orient one from place to place, as there’s no particular geographical or topographical features to help guide one from place to place.

 

All take food in, and all remove trash and debris, leaving only footprints, taking only memories.

 

In mid-fall, ’07, I’ll write and share profusely about it.

 

At www.burningman.com , there’s some explanatory text (a-la Southern California) and

700 or so photos archived in past years’ event.

 

 phil

billy corgan - The Smashing Pumpkins, session, circa 1981-ish

Published at November 18, 2006 in Rants. 1 Comment

In this video clip that I’ll direct you to in a moment, a really, REALLY healthy Billy Corgan, the master songwriter and founder of the delightful band “The Smashing Pumpkins” is in Brighton recording probably what is Siamese Dream or something. (Actually, that’s a wild–ass guess). It could be either of two others. Whatever.

The beautiful bass player D,arcy is occasionally seen in the foreground from the back (darn it), working through the “figuring out” of a riff he probably conjured the previous night. The riff shows up in the Siamese Dream album, hence my ‘wild-ass’ guess.

Corgan’s greatest attribute, though a brilliant pioneer guitar artist, is his voice. Check his intonation not only in song, but as he speaks. It’s as alluring of a trait as the almost-prohibited passion and sensitivity found in his tunes.

Two of these members, (always a four-piece band, and you can’t see them), are long since dead. Billy didn’t, in my opinion, get caught up in heroin; his music and control during bruising tours attest to that. Others, of course, not limited to his bandmates, find a ‘crutch’.

The clip of Billy, as well as a bunch of the Smashing Pumpins’ discograpy of video material, can be found at:

YouTube.com — go to upper right corner and type in Billy’s band in the search bar. You get there in lightning speed, the select the the topmost (and untitled) clip and see what I mean.

NOTE: Of all the American bands (these guys are from Homewood/Flossmore/Loyola U. — ie, Chicago), none, or close to none, offer more free downloads of tunes. An entire new generation can discover them as they mature and grow, and pass them on. Meanwhile, though, the band’s allegedly making a new album, but I’ll believe it when I hear it. The members first have to actually decide where to reherse, show up for rehersals, make a record deal with somebody, and that sort of stuff.
Google ‘The Smashing Pumpkins’ and cram your hard drive with their majesty. You needn’t purchase a single CD–entirely by design of Corgan.

( Note: My son Dylan turned me on to the bedazzling amount of the world’s numbing array of music media. I rate the previously mentioned site a clean and solid 10. These young people have done an excellent job of stretching to the latest tools, as well as taking risks while doing so–the exact formula for a triumphant success in this era and realm of web development.)

phil baker

Minty fresh music & iPod usage

Published at November 15, 2006 in Music and TechnoGeek. 0 Comments

I’ve come up with what I think is a pretty ingenious use for the iPod. It’s there out of the box, and its obvious, but still, its mine:

I use my iPod as a rating engine - I rate music in my collection. I have a playlist that contains 50 random unrated songs on my ipod. During the day, I listen to them, and rate them. It doesn’t take very long.
When I synch my iPod in the evening, the ratings go back to my collection. So, I’m slowly rating my entire music collection - and it’s working!
I have another playlist called Best for iPod - a random 50 songs that rated 5 stars. During the day i lsten to these, and re-rate them. Maybe what I thought was a five isn’t, its a four. So I’m refining my list of my favorite songs.
I have a third playlist called Favorites - this is songs that are 3 stars or more, and which i have never skipped. if this list is right, its all the songs I’ll never skip.

I have one other playlist on the ipod - songs that have gone unplayed in the last month - just to make sure that I’m not getting stale in my collection.

With these lists, and the fact that i’m always rating and re-rating, I keep my music minty fresh!

What is DRM for REALLY?!

Published at November 15, 2006 in Music. 0 Comments

1280.imgI went to lunch recently with a guy I used to work with. We got to talking about whats new in networking. What I learned is that there’s not really much new in network gear these days. The backbone providers want to learn how to use what they have to do more intelligent things - build an automated distribution system, that provides the same abilities to data streams that take for granted with static files.
Continue reading ‘What is DRM for REALLY?!’

Concert: Ghanatta Interationale

Published at November 12, 2006 in Music. 1 Comment

11-11-06

A few nights ago, a lady friend asked me to go see/hear “Ghanatta Internationale”, an African band. The backdrop of the medium-sized theater (the one in UMSL’s newish Millennium Student Center) was a lobby area and meeting room, where a very cool looking buffet was laid out–weird stuff, mostly, but a lot of it quite good. I’d review the effects on my palette if I could remember the words.

A speaker rose to speak as we all finished eating, and laid on a foundation for the few of us who where newcomers:

Nigeria, population 65 million, is handily the biggest country in Africa, pretty much dead center, slightly north, on the continent. That makes it about 9th or 10th largest in the world, containing 20 million or so people more than South Africa.

This was the 22nd annual Nigeria Day in St Louis — a large number of people, apparently, came here (and to Chicago) during the late 70’s/early 80’s.

The band (Ghanatta) was intense. Four brass instruments (2 trombones, two trumpets) stood front center, the singer off to the left, the lone white player was a heck of a bassist, always with his back to us and facing his drummers (2) and the set was rounded out with two guitarists. One of the drummers I was quite grateful to be able to talk with for awhile was by far the youngest of the group, perhaps 20 or so…I was quite ready to adopt him. He began touring with the band a few months ago, and thinks he’s going to stay on with them.

The opening set started with a procession of ladies in brilliantly colored dresses, each holding two white silken cloths, moving and swaying to the African drumming, which shortly was added to by “shake” guitar feedback. In my years I’ve not had the pleasure of hearing such a sound.

About 4/5 of the lyrics weren’t in English, but the rhythm really moved all ages, and this was one of the very COOL kinds of concerts where chairs kept being moved back to accommodate the growing number of us dancing. The language gap didn’t bother me; it was cool to see all the people singing along, from those who were college-aged (a few, anyway) to my parents’ age.

This was GREAT dancing music! I wish I could describe it better, and my date was awesome company–there were places to go where we could hear each other talk and drink tall cold bottles or beer-like stuff (I forgot the name—they, however, did NOT cause hangovers in either of us!).

The band played for a long time–from about 8:45 to about 1:15 am or so. Most of them, I found as the night wore on, are from a Chicago near-suburb, so they agot into their van after saying their good-byes and drove off into a nasty drizzling rain that they faced on their trip home.
phil baker
11-06

Wine Tasting tonight…

Published at November 10, 2006 in Rants. 0 Comments

3175.imgTonight, I’m tasting wine at eJava & Wines… Check it out. They’re great.

Yes, this is a shameless plug…

Chicks who sing in electronica…

Published at November 10, 2006 in Music. 2 Comments

IMGP1878.JPGWell, these days, Here’s my music strategy.

Find may favorite electronica that has a female vocal.

Find out what singer did the performance.

Find and purchase an album that is either solo, or independant from the electronica.

Here’s a small list.

  • Lisa Shaw. (Weekend Players)
  • Imogen Heap. (Frou Frou - duh…)
  • Angela McCluskey. (Telepopmusik)
  • Beth Hirsch. (Air)
  • Madita. (Dzihan & Kamien)

So, I have one album from each of these chicks, Angela McCluskey has an album where she covers some Jazz Standards, its pretty good.IMGP1535.JPG

Anyone got any others?

Geekforce desktop backgrounds

Published at November 8, 2006 in Geek Therapy. 0 Comments

teletubbiesblissThe Gallery is full of great pictures for your desktop, here is one that makes a great visual pun.

IE 7

Published at November 7, 2006 in Rants. 0 Comments

I’m using IE7 at work so that we can pilot it, and fix the things that need to get fixed.

My buggest gripe is that the menu bar is NOT the first horizontal bar beneath the window title. It’s really annoying actually, I’ve come to expect that the menu is always where it is, and now, its not.

What’s more, you can lock and unlock the locations of things, but I cant find a way to change the position of the navigation and search controls in IE7. They are always the top bar in the window.