Here in the Dallas area, we can get pretty smug about our distance from any coastline, and thus the low likelihood of being threatened by hurricanes …
That is, until one is predicted to come barreling up the middle of Texas right toward us with just a little loss of power, still having tropical storm strength as it reaches Oklahoma.
At least, that’s what was supposed to happen. Then they began predicting that Hurricane Ike would make a sharp right turn just north of Houston and give us only 50 MPH winds and 100% chance of rain, measuring from two to four inches.
Now, at about 2 PM on Saturday, it’s scaled back to an 80% chance of rain for the whole Dallas area, with only an inch or two of precip and 30 MPH winds.
And for my little burb (about 35 miles NNW of downtown Large D), it looks like we’re going to get Mr. Jack Squat.
All that water to go around, and none for us?
That could change, of course, but for now I’ll set my attitude meter at Smug with a side of Envy.
UPDATE: It’s now 10:30, and we probably got a little over an inch of rain, and little wind, so I’m happy
But we took all the herb pots off the patio for nothing …
Aside from the usual jobhunting, I’ve mostly just been DJing in Second Life (hey, it’s free, plus I’ve been earning some miniscule tips), which is not only teaching me new skills, but also serves an informal networking functionality.
I’m currently DJing four regular shifts at three clubs right now: Rockers, Club Siren and Belar Inshan Social Club, with the Orion available any time I want to open it up, and an offer pending for the club I previously managed, Midnight at the Forum. (The reason I quit managing was because I was trying to fill 2 clubs — and they just gave me a third — in exchange for a small (virtual) house. Now I just DJ for tips, and I takes me just two shows to pay rent on a house that’s twice as big!)
As I’ve mentioned, I used to DJ in college, and never imagined I’d be doing it again, but thanks to the miracle of internet, I can inflict my musical tastes on the musical public! I’m also meeting a lot of interesting folks from all over.
One of the coolest new people I’ve met is Tamra Hayden, the real-life Broadway actress/singer/songwriter. She performs live concerts in Second Life, reaching a worldwide audience thanks to, you guessed it, the miracle of the internet.
Here’s a video of her singing in REAL life, performing “Eden Will Bloom”:
And Tamra’s not the only musician I’ve met in the virtual realm: At my DJ gig Monday night, several of us noticed a young lady hanging around on the fringes of the dance floor, unsure what to make of everything, and it turned out that it was her first night in Second Life. A few of us at the club began talking to her and giving her things we had previously gotten for free, and letting her know some good places to get more.
We also found out that she is the lead singer of the North Carolina band, The Situationals. They’ve got some really great music, and she’s got a good powerful voice, reminiscent of The Motels and Pat Benatar — but the songs (and the band) are much better than those too. Here’s a sample of their work:
The reason I’m mentioning her today is that she recently sent me this joke:
St. Peter is at the Pearly Gates checking up on the people waiting to enter Heaven. He asks the next one in line, ‘So, who are you, and what did you do on Earth?’ The fellow says, ‘I’m Barack Obama, and I was the first black to be elected President of the United States ‘ St. Peter says, ‘The U.S.? A black President? You gotta be kidding me! When did this happen?’ Obama says, ‘About twenty minutes ago.’
She also added that McCain “is a right cock”, and that Hilary “needs a good beating”.
It’s good to know that the people in other countries take an interest in our democracy …
… Is a very very very fine house,
With two dogs in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is better
Coz of you …
It’s hard to realize it’s been so long, but we’ve been in this house for 10 years now. In fact, in was ten years ago tonight that we were frantically loading up the last of our possessions from our old house, driving it the two miles to this house, throwing it into the garage, and hurrying back for more. At about this time that night (around 10), our neighbors were helping us pile things in my truck and unload it over here — a favor for which we repaid three of them, Kim, Ann, and Stacy, by taking them out to dinner a couple of weeks later.
As I recall, we finally finished up about 3:30 AM and got to bed about 4, but didn’t get much sleep before we had to get up and go to work.
I wasn’t really sleepy the next day, exactly. I was just so exhausted I was numb … which was kind of a rush in itself.
We had spent the whole month of August making repairs, since the place was a HUD foreclosure and a fixer-upper, and needed all new carpeting. We got just enough work done to put the carpeting in just in time to move in the furniture, then it was a mad dash to transfer the goods.
It was too late that year, but the next spring I got to work on the yard, which had been horribly neglected. Fully half of the front yard was bare (except for ugly weed grass) and riddled with huge cracks. It took a lot of top soil, mulch and sod, but I got those bare expanses filled in, and our across-the-street neighbor later expressed appreciation for my efforts, since he said we probably improved property values by fixing that place up!
Anyway, it’s been ten years, and we still love our little house, with its roofed-over patio and nice shade trees and sloped living room ceiling …
The Alaska Governor (and, now, Vice Presidential nominee) sent a video greeting to Craig Ferguson last year to Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson, offering him honorary state citizenship (before he actually firmed up his US citizenship). Here’s a clip:
As you may know, I follow politics, and had just about given up on politicos getting anything right — until today.
McCain picked a woman as his running mate!!! Woo-hoo!!!
Seriously, I had given up on the idea that McCain might pick anybody but another white guy. I could just imagine this presidential season, as the hopeless two-white-guy Republican ticket limped along for two months against the first African-American candidate in history.
But that’s all changed now: McCain stepped up and did what he needed to and picked a female running mate.
Ha ha ha ha, now the fight is ON!
All the news commentators would skim over the two or three most eligible women — mostly Kay Bailey Hutchison, and there was ONE mention of Sarah Palin — then they’d go back to concentrating on the same old white guys, like Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman, Tim Pawlenty, and some other guys I’ve barely heard of.
WHITE GUYS.
Now, I have nothing against white guys. Historically, some of my best friends have been white guys — in fact, now that I think about it, I’m actually a white guy myself — but when it comes to politics, enough is enough. White guys have gotten this country in the mess it’s in, and in the 232 years that we’ve officially been in existence, there has only been ONE instance where one of the people on one of the tickets was not a white guy, and that was 24 years ago.
So this year, when Obama was breaking down a barrier for the Democrats, I was going to be VERY, VERY UNHAPPY if McCain and the Republicans just sat back and said, “Well, we’re just gonna stick with what’s worked so far …
But good ol’ John McCain went and surprised the holy licking heck out of me and picked Sarah Barracuda Palin! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Whew!
Bonus points: She’s a babe!
But um … more importantly … she’s an experienced executive official with deep economic knowledge, and brings a much-needed Washington Outsider perspective to the race.
It is my solemn duty to announce the death of our long time friend, our iced-tea maker. It was a Salton 2-quart model, cost around $20 back then, and it has served us well since at least 1996.
Now, however, the brew button won’t push in, so we have to break down and get a new one — which, it turns out, is not easy. WalMart only had ONE model, a flimsy Mr. Coffee job that if infamous for its easily breakable/warpable pitcher. Linens & Things had NO models — they said they were sold out, and Bed Bath & Beyond had only a bigger version of the Mister Coffee model, with a poorly designed pitcher: The filter basket was build in to the pitcher lid, so the pitcher had to be 50 percent taller than the amount of tea it would hold! Target was little better, having only a weird, expensive but off-brand model in addition to the too-big Mr. Coffee model.
There is a Hamilton Beach model that looks really good and which has gotten good reviews on Amazon, but none of the stores carry it.
And of course, the Salton machine like we have, and which worked well above and beyond the call of duty, isn’t being made any more.
What the hell is wrong with American manufacturing and retail these days? I guess this is why the economy is down the tubes.
Oh sure, all those stores had dozens types of coffee makers, many with bizarre and frivolous (and expensive) options, but iced tea drinkers barely get noticed.
That’s another thing my wife and I have in common, fortunately, that we don’t drink coffee, and consume lots of iced tea — this is a hot locale we’re in, after all, so cold tea does make sense.
So why the almost total lack of choices when it comes to iced tea makers??
It’s the first week of summer, and the brutal Texas heat is upon us. It is time, therefore, to blow the dust of the old Blazing Sun mini-icon and give it its inaugural showing for the year.
And now, some miscellaneous stuff, and let’s try to make this fast:
Thanks to our blogging friend Renny (whose weather is not near as hot as ours, being in Oslo) for being the only one to comment while I didn’t post for a bit. I appreciate it, Renny!
Renny recently posted photos of a Seafood Fair in his city, so go check it out!
Speaking of my blogging friends, Kim likes to take tours of state capitals and collect souvenirs, and thus one day last week or so we got a postcard from her from Little Rock. Thanks Kim! I’ll scan it in and post it when I get a chance.
She’s got one picture from her trip posted on her site now, but we’re looking forward to seeing more. (Hint, hint!)
Speaking of collectible snail-mail, my mom sent me a letter for the sole purpose of getting it postmarked with our town’s 100th Anniversary postmark, which I think was a one-day thing, and because which the town leaders the town’s leaders and movers-and-shakers (not necessarily the same thing) were tring to get eerybody to mail a letter to family out of town that day.
That too will be scanned in when time is found …
Speaking of noteworthy goings-on back home, I’ve mentioned in times past that ol’ college buddy The Spook was instrumental in helping make the first CD for country singer Jake Kellen a reality. This year, Jake (whose mom and aunt and uncles I went to went to school with, BTW) wrote and recorded a song for Spook for his birthday, and I was lucky enough to get an advance demo copy of the song, which is pretty funny, especially if you know the Spook.
Spook was going to call me to detail exactly how I would be allowed to distribute the song, but I haven’t gotten that call as of yet, so you Dear Reader are out of luck for now, but keep checking back.
Speaking of friends, another friend (and former co-worker) Todn8r has taken me to task for not commenting on the passing of comedian George Carlin.
Yes, yes, in due time; it’s just that Carlin fits nicely into a theme post I’m doing, so that is yet to come as well.
Speaking of former co-workers, my good friend Misty called on Friday to say that she had bid a fond adieu to Chucky’s Madhouse (my term of affection for what our old company has become), and she even found a job first so that she could leave on her own terms.
I’m so proud!
Speaking of jobs: I had a job interview last week! Woo-hoo! And this was for a job as the tech support guy for a mortgage insurance office. I don’t know if I’ll get it, since I didn’t immediately know some of the more esoteric network admin terms on the skills assessment test, but I have to say that the person who interviewed me was the most un-Catbert-like HR person I'’ve ever met — and that’s a GOOD thing.
And now for something completely different: Waterloo TV.
I need to post more, I know, but basically I’ve just been DJing some more in Second LIfe … I do have things to say about it, of course (like: I finally got wife my to try Second Life, and she’s hooked — mostly on the shopping part; I’ve done four DJ gigs in under 2 weeks, and am already in serious talks with at least 3 clubs for paying gigs; my fan club is up to 68 members already; and I had the idea to preserve my playlists send them to everybody in my fan club after ever gig), but I’m too busy actually doing those things to write about them in detail …
Anyway, gotta post something: I’ve previously mentioned Epic Fu, a fascinating, fast-paced video newsmagazine. EF recently was discontinued and given a facelift, and relaunched.
I think I remember liking this more before, but it’s still got the same edgy, energetic hostess, the same jump cuts, the same kind of piling on of lots of different subjects — my ADD loves it — and the same casual youth-cultural attitude (at one point she says, “I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass when I say this …” — now that’s what I call cutting edge journalism!), so I’m posting the latest three epiosdes for your amusement.
Well, I’m happy to report that my debut in my regular slot as a DJ in Second Life went very well in spite of technical glitches (stupid Winamp ate one-and-a-half of my playlists just hours before the show) and accidents of nature (our power went off 15 minutes before the end of my show due to wind storms in our area).
Other than that, though, the music I picked to play was solid, I got a lot of great comments, and the club had a nice-sized crowd (mostly with people that *I* knew and asked to come, further illustrating my value as a DJ).
My “fan club” (okay, okay, it’s really just a mailing list, but still it’s a measure of my popularity) is up to 50 people now (after just one complete show!), and three more club owners are wanting me to do regular slots this week or next.
Ha! I knew that once I could finally get in to do a show, my musical tastes and networking skills would do the rest.
By the way, the picture above is my avatar (yeah, yeah, it’s based on the Japanese hipster kid, or harajuku archetype, because all the other male archetypes in SL are these big musclebound apes), but that’s not the club where I worked my DJ magic … yet.
I just wanted to post a shot of me posing in the smoking hot DJ booth of Club Orion, the club owned by Kelly Yap Studios in SL and the next club where I’ll be entertaining the masses, such as they are.
And because that picture didn’t do justice to the club or the booth, here’s a wider shot of my little throne room:
Pretty sweet, huh? It gives the illusion that I know what I’m doing …
Anyway, I need to get back to whipping my thousands of MP3’s into workable playlists …
I’ve mentioned that I’ve been dabbling in Second Life in recent months, and have even been in job discussions with a potential employer smart enough to see Second Life (and the other social networking sites I belong to) as an asset.
What I haven’t mentioned is something that I’ve been angling to do in Second Life, but have encountered lots of foot-dragging and excuse-making.
This past weekend, however, I began getting more aggressive about my endeavors, and finally achieved my goal:
I’m an online DJ!
On Sunday, I was supposed to have a quick test of my connection at one of the many virtual dance clubs in Second Life (an Irish-themed club, at that!), but the scheduled DJ didn’t show up, so I ended up spinning tunes (figure of speech) for about an hour and a half. (Good thing I had already compiled a sizable playlist.)
And they liked me so much they decided to keep me!
Keira, the club manager, offered me the 5-7 (Pacific Time) slot on Thursdays, so I snapped it up. And today she messaged me that she wants me to do a special theme night on the 27th (we’re going to do a hippie night, but with more than just 60s music).
My playlist on Sunday, and pretty much every time I go on, will be a good mix of new music (the more accessible new alternative and indie music, like Panda Bear, LCD Soundsystem, Portishead, Foxboro Hot Tubs, Hem, and one of my personal favorites, The Go! Team), classic rock (mostly album cuts, not the singles that everybody’s sick of), and a few dance floor crowd-pleasers (like “Brick House” and “Jump Around” — I’m certainly not above pandering).
And of course, Weird Al. You can’t DJ in Second Life without Weird Al.
Anyway, it was exciting on Sunday to get back to my college roots, going back to playing DJ. I always enjoyed to take the graveyard shifts during finals week, when I could ignore the formats and play what I wanted. Usually I could count on the Spook to tap on the window about 3 a.m. and help me get the records on. We’d sit around drinking Cokes out of glass bottles and take calls from the few listeners up at those wee hours.
This feels a lot like that, except with technologies the way they are, I can chat with several listeners at once, get instant feedback, and they can shout out comments about the songs and discuss among each other. As a bonus, I can have listeners in all parts of the world.
Of course, this isn’t anything like having a real radio show. For starters, I’ll be DJing for audiences for about 20 or 30 people tops, and sometimes as small as three or four. Also, this job doesn’t pay, except in micro-tips — although at this particular club, all tips go to a charity, Project Children. (I like the donation aspect; I actually feel productive doing something as frivolous as playing music.)
Oh, and another bonus: I have a fan club!
Okay, okay, it’s just a mailing list group, but I’ve got 20 members so far, and they’ll have my DJ tag over their names while they’re dancing to the music I play.
Hey, I’m out of work; I’ll take my ego-boosts where I can find them.
Oh, and I get to play and promote my own original music!
So seriously, if you’re already on Second Life, come by on Thursday. Again, it’ll be at 5-7 Pacific Time (7-9 Texas time), and the name of the club is Nancy Blake’s West of Ireland.
I could use the attendance boost on my first time in my regular slot.
And tell the host you showed up because you heard the DJ is HOT …
I had a little adventure on Wednesday … a weird adventure, but it was interesting.
In addition to my job hunting efforts on the regular sites, my wife combs CraigsList for job listings. One day last week she found something that wasn’t a job exactly (though it did offer $20), but rather a chance to be in the audience of a pilot episode of a local talk show. I thought, Hey, I’d like to see how those are made, plus it’s 20 bucks, so I applied and got accepted.
Here are the high points:
1. They made us leave our cell phones and cameras in our cars! It’s Communism! I took my phone back, but kept my camera.
2. While we waited in the atrium of the building (with access to cold water and a wide variety of snack treats), I looked around at the facilities as best as I could. Apparently the place where the show taped produces a whole line of training and educational videos, specializing in the areas of security and first response. Near the entrance was a big, circular war-room type area, with lots of ceiling mounted monitors in a circle in the center, surrounded by curved desks for computer workers, and open to the waiting area via a glass wall. Also off the atrium was a small CNN type newsroom, also with the requisite wall of newsroom monitors in the background (one of the stories they were tracking apparently involved The Price Is Right) and the word NEWS in the mandatory Times Roman font repeated on the wall over the TV screens.
There were also some editing booths lining the atrium and visible via windows, one of which was in use, and a young woman was apparently trying to overlay the audio of a woman being interviewed (her video was on the right screen) with footage of an SUV pictured on the left screen.
Needless to say, I was in video-hobbyist heaven.
3, There were some delays, apparently due to not having enough audience members show up, so we were soon shuttled off to Audience Holding Pen #2, which seemed to be some kind of classroom area and which also doubled as the Toastmaster meeting room.
(Hey, I went to a Toastmasters meeting one time, and boy was I disappointed — not one damn piece of toast in the whole place!)
(Sorry, comedian’s reflex.)
ANYWAY: Got to talking to one guy named Dan — Hi, Dan, in case you’re reading this! (I gave him my blog card, of course) — and we got into a discussion of the future of free vs. premium content.
(My argument for free content is that in this Age of Bits, as opposed to the old Age of Atoms, value is determined not by scarcity but by abundance. This was outlined, of course, by Kevin Kelly in his seminal Wired article 10 years ago, and we’re still seeing that principle, The Law of Plentitude, unfold.)
And again we had water and snacks, with the addition this time of bananas.
(PS: Dan didn’t laugh at my Toastmasters joke either, just like you didn’t laugh at it.
4. Finally we were herded like the cattle we are into the taping studio — except that cattle aren’t scanned with metal detectors on the way into the corral.
That’s right, the bastards found my camera, and I had to take it back to the car.
We ended up sitting in the studio for about an hour before anything happened, and even then it was just warmup — but still, it was interesting. It started with local comic Craig Frasier (who I think worked with us in Comics On Tap about 10 years ago), getting the audience loose and laughing, and then the director came out to get sound levels, and a few fake reaction shots.
That was probably the wildest part: The got shots of the audience faking reactions. They had us laugh, and boo, and shake our heads in disgust — keep that in mind when you watch one of those talk shows.
5. Anyway, let’s cut to the chase:
They told us it would be a talk show on the order of Jerry Springer or Maury Povich, but, long story short, it turned out to be more like The Jamie Kennedy Experiment (or Punk’d, or Candid Camera) — in other words, an outlandish situation was put on and our reactions were caught on camera.
Except that several of us figured out that something wasn’t quite right early on: The set that was too small, the first guest who was barely controversial at all, the fact that the lines of the second guest (the setup, the actor posing as the outrageous individual) were on the teleprompter, the fact that the actor’s fake foreign accent was far from convincing …
In fact, when he first came out, he looked to me exactly like Michael McDonald — no, not the mush-mouthed lead “singer” that killed the Doobie Brothers, but rather the MadTV actor. He looked just like McDonald’s character of Stewart, the creepie overgrown child.
In fact, here’s some video of Stewart in actin, in case you’re unfamiliar:
ANYWAY: I don’t think it was actually Michael McDonald that I saw, because I think this guy was too young. I also think he wasn’t ugly enough to be Jamie Kennedy (hey, I’m just saying), although the nose was almost big enough.
But it was certainly the kind of thing Kennedy used to do on his show, and all his lines had over-the-top comedy writing all over them.
So it absolutely was not the real thing, but some of the other folks in the audience didn’t seem to catch on.
The only thing is, they didn’t even tell us, “You’ve been X’ed!” or “You’ve Been Punk’d!” or anything else to that effect. That’s probably because they had to retape that night, and wanted all different audience members (they sent me another email, saying that people who weren’t at the first one were desperately needed for the night taping). Maybe too many of us caught on, or maybe they weren’t satisfied with the actor’s lack of convincingness, or maybe they wanted a version without the audience fanning themselves because it was so miserably hot in the studio.
But anyway, it was a great experience, and I made some new contacts I can use with my job search.
… Is a very very very fine house,
It is my solemn duty to announce the death of our long time friend, our iced-tea maker. It was a Salton 2-quart model, cost around $20 back then, and it has served us well since at least 1996.
Thanks to our blogging friend 
I’ve mentioned that I’ve been dabbling in Second Life in recent months, and have even been in job discussions with a potential employer smart enough to see Second Life (and the other social networking sites I belong to) as an asset.
