I've been taking lots of little one day absenses over the past few weeks. Not intentional, they just sort of happen.

Anyway, Thursday night Kathy and I took the Red Line over to Hollywood and Highland to see Jim Bianco at the Knitting Factory. It was the first time I'd been to the Knit in a good two years, and they've changed some stuff up. The show was in the front bar, which meant that they actually had three events running at the same time (Main Stage, Alterknit Lounge, and Front Bar). Crazy. Anyway, the show was great, the sound was great, the crowd was large... It was a fun time.

I bought Jim's new cd, Handsome Devil. Good stuff. Not quite as good as the live performance, but few things really are.

This week's Downtown News is their Best of Downtown issue. One story presents reader answers to the question, "Who Would You Vote Off the Downtown Island?" Top voter-getter was the still under construction CalTrans Building. From the article:

Some have complained that, with 13 stories of metal and steel, the building resembles a futuristic fortress out of step with its Civic Center surroundings. As one critic commented, if architect Thom Mayne - who, it must be noted, is frequently praised and is winning high-profile commissions across the country - was going for the "totally impenetrable" look, he nailed it.

I can't help but agree. The building rises 13 stories shrouded in a black metal mesh. The otherwise flat surface features various protruding panels that seem like they were partially ripped back by some rogue hurricane. Riding my bike to work I pass the building's site on Main and it just feels absolutely dominating.

Opinion on this Archinect forum thread is somewhat split. Some applaud the green features, while others (rightfully, in my opinion) decry the building's very poor interaction with the street and surrounding neighborhoods. All are interesting reading.

What I find most interesting, though, is a quote from an article about lead architect Thom Mayne that ran last year in Metropolis Magazine (the quote's on the second page). The author questioned Mayne about a concept he had done for the Ground Zero site in New York:

I told Mayne I was confused by all this. His plan for Ground Zero seemed to be exactly what he was condemning at the UCLA conference: a paper fantasy that doesn't speak to the concerns of the average person. It was fairly clear that the people of New York were not clamoring for a critique of Modernism in Lower Manhattan. Mayne's answer surprised me. The average person's understanding of his projects is "irrelevant," he told me. "There's layers and layers of ideas that go into a piece of work. It can be engaged at many levels. Probably most people are engaged at a very direct level: how it affects them. Others will recognize that there's an organizational or conceptual tissue."

That's the feeling I get from the CalTrans building. I walk by it and I feel like I'm missing out on something. More than disliking the building, I simply don't understand it. Which is all good and well on paper, but not nearly as cool when I'm standing beneath 13 stories of Borg-like metal.

I noticed this little bit at the bottom of an LA Times story on PAC-10 Media Day:

USC announced that Leinart has started a blog on the Internet that will feature daily entries. It can be found at http://www.MattLeinartBlog.com.

Now, let's get a couple things straight here right off the bat:

The site's hosted by OCSN, the people that host pretty much every NCAA school's official athletics site. That means this is basically an official USC publication. So while I would really enjoy seeing the NCAA equivalent of Mark Cuban's blog, I don't think you're going to see that. I'm sure this is just USC attempting to be "cutting-edge" as they start the Leinart for Heisman campaign.

Imagine if some college athlete really did start a blog, and really was honest about the refs, the opposing team, etc. Do you think the NCAA would stand for that? I don't, even with the new kindler, gentler, student athlete friendly NCAA.

Over the past few days the long awaited sale of 1100 Wilshire has finally completed. The synopsis background for this maligned structure is provided by an article in today's LA Times, titled "Buyers Seek a Home Life for Empty L.A. Tower":

The 255,000-square-foot tower, whose construction was finished in 1986, has never been more than 10% occupied. It has been empty for a decade, its shell an eerie reminder of the city center's construction boom and bust.

Even before I knew any of its story, 1100 Wilshire interested me just in how set off it is from downtown, isolated from the rest of the tall buildings by the 110. It's a funny looking building, too, the actual glass tower rising from 15 stories of red brick parking.

An article from last year titled "Empty Downtown L.A. Office Tower May Be Getting Its Fill" (available several places, including here) had some fascinating bits:

Martin's firm was hired to work on the Wilshire tower by its first owner, East Asian businessman Tsai Ming Yu — but to this day, AC Martin Partners doesn't want to be known as the building's architect. "We couldn't believe he wanted us to do something this bad," Martin said of Tsai. "We were severely criticized for attempting to change the design," Martin added. But "he was the supreme owner, ruler, emperor of this project. Nobody was to question him." Martin thought that the ramped parking structure, which rises 15 levels, would make drivers dizzy and that the building's triangular shape would turn off tenants who were accustomed to laying out space in more efficient rectangles.

So now the new buyers get to try and disassociate the building from years of bad impressions, spending $60 million (on top of the $40 million purchase price) to take this thing and make it into somewhere people would want to live. The building has an unmistakable upside; that's not in question. Being west of downtown offers it an unobstructed view in three of four directions, so that will surely be a big selling point, as will easy access to the 110, the 101, the 5, and the 10. But, wow, $100 mil? That's a pretty big project.

University Auto Center just called, letting me know what was up with my car. Apparently the problem is the ignition coil. My first thought was, "what's an ignition coil have to do with a car while it's running?" The internet provided my answer, in the form of this ignition system article at about.com:

The battery is the source of the voltage for the spark we need to ignite the mixture at the proper microsecond in the cylinder. This spark requires thousands of volts to occur, as much as 120,000 volts. Where do we get these thousands of volts? The ignition coil is the source of the high voltage we need.

Ah... That makes sense. All in all, not a terrible thing to have die. With parts, labor, tax, etc, it'll be $330. And they say they'll have the car ready by 3pm. Let's review the timeline here:

• 7:40am, car dies
• 9:00am, car's at the auto center
• 3:00pm, car's ready

That's not bad at all.

It's been a long morning. I got up, took a shower, made coffee, got in my car, started to work... only to have my car die in the intersection of 7th and Broadway.

I pulled up to the red light, sat there waiting for it to turn green, it did, I started to go, the car sort of jerked once, and then it turned off. I pushed it across the intersection, into what would have been a meter spot were it not in the 7-9am no stopping time, and tried to start it back up. Nothing happened.

To make a long story short, I called AAA, they sent a tow truck, and I got the car towed to the University Auto Center right next to my old apartment. They'll call me back when they've taken a look at it. So now I'm on campus at USC, trying to salvage the day and get a little work done on my laptop.

Bright sides:

• The spot I pushed my car into was right next to a news stand. I got to spend the time I was waiting talking to a guy hanging out there (I thought he was working, but apparently he was just waiting for something/someone). We talked about cars, work, Australia (he saw the boomerang in the back of my car), and Mexico.

• The tow truck driver was prompt and friendly.

Oh well. Now I just get to wait and see what they say the damage to my wallet's going to be.

I've been listening to her Five Song Sampler CD for two weeks now. I do like it--she definitely is in the same vein as Jewel, Plumb or John Mayer. Can't wait till I get the full CD...

Saturday night Miggles and I wandered over to 3rd & Main to check out the party/show The Peak Show was hosting. We didn't really stay for the party part, but we did see both Peak Show and Zonk.

Zonk was first (for us... the first band was more punk, not exactly my thing, so we came a little late). The acoustics in the room did them no favors. Concrete walls, a concrete floor, and a high ceiling (wood at least). Mics had a tendency to go into a very gradual feedback loop as things echoed and rattled around the room. As a soundman the first thing I would have done is hang thick comforters on the walls to try and kill some of the bounce. But whatever, it's a band throwing a party.

But back to Zonk... The lead vocals got washed up in the bounciness, so the set lacked the punch of the stuff I'm hearing on their site. They're at Temple Bar tonight, and I'm kicking around heading out there to give the live sound a second chance, but it's a late show and I've got work in the morning, so I'm not too confident that'll happen. So I guess in summary, I think I like them.

Peak Show was up next. The same acoustic disclaimer applies, but I enjoyed this set a lot more. Holland was a bit more forceful about bringing out her vocal, and that helped. I've heard various Peak Show stuff before, with Friend playing some on KCRWMusic.com's show Broadband. Megan Jacobs, who I saw last year as Old Sol ,was on keys and backup vocals. It was a fun, intimate set, with the band playing about 6 feet away from, and on the level of, the 60 or so people who were there.

So, yeah, a fun time, but next time you're throwing a party that includes a show, please think about the acoustics. Please?

So we went to see The Bourne Supremecy last night. I liked it, though it really was just straight up an action movie. One thing that bothered me, though... And just to be fair, I'm putting it after the jump.

Continue Reading...

It's days like today that make me all the more amazed with my neighborhood. In the process of moving apartments I managed to lose the cord to my electric razor. I didn't actually realize this until a couple weeks later, when the battery started to get low and I made a futile search for it. So now I've got a dead razor, and being the lazy person I am, that means I shaved less (I'm not all about real shaving...).

Today, though, I decided to take matters to hand and go find a replacement cord. I've mentioned before the joys of living downtown and having multiple electronics shops within a block or two of my apartment. No problem finding something that works then, right? Well, not so much. Electronics shops didn't really have anything, one of them said to try Rite Aid, since they sell the razor. Rite Aid did have the razor, but no cords. The guy there told me I might try Ross Cutlery, which was at Broadway and 3rd, or Broadway and 2nd... I had seen it before, though, so I knew it was 3rd (right next to the Bradbury Building).

Ross Cutlery is an amazing shop. Things I remember them selling: Mag lites, razors, fancy German straight-edge barber shop type razors, barber shop type scissors, barber poles, knives, watches... You get the picture. They had a couple cords like what I was looking for, but with European plugs. Doh.

But the guy who was helping me was like, "Hold on, you might be lucky today." He went to the back and came out with a 1960s Norelco razor for women. With it was a cord, a cord which just happened to be exactly what I was looking for. The guy had been at a garage sale this morning and had bought the razor. He was willing to sell me its cord, and find another one later. After clearing the person-to-person transaction with his boss, he sold me the cord for $5.

So now I've got my late-model Norelco razor charging with a cord straight out of the 60s. And I love it.

Total time away from the apartment? A half hour.

A few quick things before my lunch break's over:

The Peak Show has a party tomorrow night downtown. I'm definitely planning to go, and am excited about finally getting out to one of their events. I was going to make the Viper Room two weeks ago, but, well, I forgot.

Speaking of The Peak Show, though, their website is the example I would point people to for how you design a successful band site. First of all, the navigational scheme is very clever and well executed. You have the room-by-room navigation in the house, but then you've also got the complimentary links up top (with alt text to satisfy accessibility concerns). The interior of the site is very logically organized, and the content's pretty straight-forward.

Back to the the home page... That right there is the perfect example of how you use Flash to spice up a web experience without disenfranchising non-Flash users. I didn't even realize the page had a flash version until I happened to visit with my laptop, where I have the plugin installed. As a non-Flash user, I had no clue I was missing anything -- because I wasn't. Every bit of content was accessible to me. The Flash simply added a little spice to the page.

Constrast this with a site like Erik Penny's (Erik knows I'm a fan, so I can get away with making an example of him here). Two of the three computers I routinely browse on don't have Flash installed. When I try to go to http://erikpenny.com I'm imediately redirected to a page that tells me this:

You have visited a site that requires Flash Player version 6

We have detected that either you do not have the player installed, or you need to upgrade the version you are currently using.

Macromedia Flash Player is one of the most widely distributed pieces of software in the world and is safe to install. Downloading and installing the player should take no more than a couple of minutes.

Well, I guess it's cool that Flash is that big-time, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't have it and I'm not very likely to take the time to go get it just to take a chance that your site's going to be worth it (though, Erik, I'm sure yours is... I just don't have Flash here, so I haven't seen it). These stats might be a little skewed, but when I look at the stats for people visiting this site I see 79% of them having Flash installed. If I made my site Flash-only, I'd be instantly cutting off 21% of my audience. Now, maybe that's cool... Maybe you don't want the lamers who can't be bothered to install the latest greatest flashiest Flash, but I do.

All this to say: come on people, show a little consideration. I don't care that I'm missing the bells and whistles. Here's what I want from your site:

• To get some basic bio info
• To hear your music, in mp3 form. I want to download it and have it sit on my computer for a couple days while I digest it.
• To know when you're playing next.

Give me those three things, don't force me to choose between my laziness and seeing your site (because that's not going to be a fair fight), and I'll be happy. I'll come to your show. I may even buy a cd. Then we both win.

Today The Bourne Supremecy comes out, and D4, Magilla, and I will be going to see it. The debate yesterday was about where to go. On one end of the spectrum you have the cheap theaters, like the downtown Laemmle Grande. On the other end are the high-end experiences, like ArcLight or the Director's Halls at The Bridge. In the middle are the decent but not all that special screens like the theater at The Grove, the one at Universal Citywalk, etc.

The difference between high- and low-end is significant. Basically $6.50 vs. $15. But the difference between middle- and high-end isn't really all that defined. You could go pay $12 a pop at the Grove, or pony up the $3 more and get a better movie experience at the ArcLight. Therefore, my argument is that the middle theatres are a bit pointless. I see choosing a lesser screen to save $6 or more, but I can't see doing it to save $3.

The end-result was deciding that a good screen really is nicer. ArcLight's website is failing to connect to anything resembling show times, though, so the choice between Dome and Director's Hall has yet to be made.

I just wanted to mention that I love what Jonah's doing over at LA Blogs with the twice daily "blog digests." He's pulling together a nice little sampling of all the updates that pass through the left side of the page. For someone who's already done so much to bring the local blogging scene together, putting these things together twice a day is definitely going above and beyond.

A year ago I mentioned seeing Anna Nalick play at the Hotel Cafe. I've been away from the computer so much these last few days that I've been slow to post this, but I got an email last week from "Anna Nalick's (proud) aunt." I love getting emails from musician's families that find my site. It makes me feel important somehow.

Anyway, Anna's aunt confirmed the Columbia deal signed last October and added that it's a three album deal, of which one album is in the can as of February (to use the film terminology... it means the film's been shot. what's the music equivalent?). There's also a new official website, though it's only really a mailing list signup at the moment. The album is titled "Wreck of the Day", and the first single "Breathe" should be released in August with the album following in October. To quote a little from her Aunt again:

She writes all her own lyrics and music and, as you'll see in the next few months, she is really talented. On top of that, she is just an awesome human being. We all have great hopes for her success in the music world!!

From the little I saw a year ago I definitely agree that she's got the talent, and I too wish her the best of luck in the ever-tough music world. LA's a tough place to play, and it's always good to see someone come up and have a chance to make it.

Update (2004/07/22): Just some minor changes. Album title is "Wreck of the Day," as I had written earlier. Release date has been bumped back, with the date right now being October 26. Anna's about to embark on a three week radio tour, so hopefully the official mailing list will have some locations for that.

As promised, here's the last installation listing all the things my mom and I did while she was out here visiting. We've already made it through Sunday night, so we'll start this chapter Monday morning. I'm still going for the bullet point approach, since it's quick and I've got a lot to catch up on today.

• Monday morning we slept in a bit, then I picked her up around 11 and we made the quick drive up to JPL. I've been there a year and a half now, so we figured it was probably time for a family member to actually see where I work. My boss gave a little tour around my group, and then after eating lunch we made our way down to the auditorium and caught onto a lab tour that was just starting out from there.

• After that we started out about 3pm and took a hike in the mountains behind the lab. We only went to Paul Little picnic area, but the 4.2 mile or so round trip was all we could fit in before dark.

• Monday night we picked Miggles up from my apartment and made our way out to Venice for dinner at C&O Trattoria. It was a mixed-emotion visit to an old favorite, though I have to hold off judgement before I can say if it was an aberation or a trend. The food's still as great and plentiful as it ever was, but prices are up and a couple of little things just seemed a little off to me. Still a great value and great left-overs, just not quite the steal it once was.

• Tuesday morning I picked my mom up and brought her back downtown. We walked over to the LA Flower District and made our way through an amazing array of plants and blooms.

• Lunch was at the Angelique Cafe, which I've mentioned before. Good as always, and I've still got a half a steak sandwich sitting in my refrigerator next to the leftover pasta.

• After lunch we did a little shopping, never wandering more than a block from my apartment, but still managing to find everything we were looking for. My mom bought a big piece of rolling luggage for a little under $20, and I picked up a vacuum for $50.

• A little break at the apartment to watch the Cubs blow their game against the Cardinals, and then the three of us got in the car and took a little drive down Wilshire, turning north on Western and making our way into Griffith Park. We wound around hills, climbing via car to the observatory. There we exited the car to take in the view, one thing led to another, and eventually we were climbing Mt. Hollywood. While on the summit I got invited to Def Con, which would be weird anywhere but in LA. Here anything goes. I won't be heading to Vegas this week, though I might take up an offer to get comp'ed into ApacheCon later this fall.

• Back to my apartment for leftovers, and then over to Kathy's (where my mom was staying) for me to get a bit of a hair cut.

• Our final trip was over to Westwood to pay a stop at Diddy Reese for some ice cream sandwich goodness.

United's flight tracker shows my mom's plane to be leaving any minute now, so I think that wraps things up. It was a busy five days, but they were good ones.

Life should get a little back to normal now. I just dropped my mom off at the airport after a fun 5-day visit, and now I'm sitting at the Panera Bread near LAX. WIFI connectivity is great and worked right away. The store has a lack of power for the most part, but there's a seat I'm eying that may well even fill that need too. Not that big of a deal, though, as the plan is to work here for a few hours and then head right down the coast to Manhattan Beach for a few of the peak sun hours.

All in all a great place to hang out for a while if you ever find yourself near LAX in the morning hours (South Bay Galleria and its Chick-fil-A would be my choice once you hit lunch).

As I continue with the play-by-play of what my mom and I have been up to since she's been out here, I'm still holding to the short summaries. I will come back and fill in details for a few of these as I get time in the upcoming days. We pick up the tale Saturday afternoon.

• Saturday afternoon included my customary trip over to the Bonaventure Hotel to ride up and down the glass elevators. It's a fun view, and it's close and free.

• Saturday evening we had dinner at Border Grill in Santa Monica. Very good food, and reasonable given the $20 off coupon we had (thank you Last Remaining Seats). Afterward we walked over to the park overlooking the ocean, and were there around sunset; though the sun had already gone behind the hills to the north there was lots of color to be had.

• Sunday morning we went to Bel Air Presbyterian for the 11am service, and afterward looked off the hill at the plume of smoke rising from the Santa Clarita fire.

• From there we made our way down the 405 to Manhattan Beach, where we walked around for a while. Lunch was at Wahoo's, since you don't really ever see a fish taco in the midwest.

• From Manhattan Beach we headed slightly north, ended up at Lickity Split in El Segundo. I had peppermint while my mom had chocolate.

• Sunday evening we had dinner at Water Grill, just around the corner on Grand just north of 6th. It was everything you expect a high-class resturant to be. We started by splitting Clam Chowder and crab cake (Water Grill kindly brought the clam chowder in two bowls). The clam chowder had real clams in it. For a main course I had the Rhode Island hook and line striped bass, while my mom had the Alaskan troll caught king salmon (as you can see the menu was very descriptive of where and how each fish was caught). Both were amazing. Dessert was a chocolate truffle tart with ice cream on top.

I'll leave off here, and pick up with Monday later on today.

My mom arrived yesterday morning, and it's already been a packed day and a half. I'm a little tired, so I'm not going to post a full review right now, but here's what we've hit:

• The Natural History Museum, which I had seen in June. I wanted my mom to see the LA: Light/Motion/Dreams exhibit and the model of downtown.

• The California Science Center to see Body Worlds. Crazy.

• The Koo Koo Roo on Wilshire to eat and then next door to see the tar pit.

• The Grove, including a great view from the top of its 8-story parking garage. The skies were clear and the view included the Hollywood sign, downtown, and the trail of buildings that follow Wilshire down to Century City and beyond.

• The Hard Rock Cafe to see the retooled lineup of Yardley.

• Today, a morning LA Conservancy walking tour of historic Broadway theaters. We were able to see inside five or so theaters and to hear the organ played at the Orpheum.

• Lunch at Cole's, claimed originator of the french dip sandwich.

Yesterday there was a post on blogging.la asking the oft heard question:

So, blogging.la, what would you say is "The" Los Angeles attraction that must not be missed?

In the comments be sure to look for the suggestions of Will Campbell. His day plan sounds tiring, but amazing.

But then you get a couple comments by "Mike", derriding other suggestions in favor of just going surfing (not bad in and of itself, but in his context a bad comment). One of his comments includes

Have you been downtown on a weekend? Did you like sharing your lunch with the 20 homeless guys sitting next to you?

Funny thing about that... One of the most surprising things to me about moving downtown was that downtown on a weekend is absolutely packed. I live on Spring, between 6th and 7th. One block west is Broadway, where Will suggests seeing the old theaters. Broadway these days is home to a huge range of shops selling cheap clothing, electronics, basically anything you can imagine. And on the weekends people come there in droves. D4 and I walked up the street to Grand Central Market this past Saturday, and the sidwalks were so full it was hard to get around.

Yeah, you'll definitely see the homeless people around there at night once the shops close, but during the day you're going to have a tough time picking them out from the mass of other people milling about.

While I'm on the topic, downtown blogger Jim Winstead has for a while now been doing some figuring and running the numbers on what it would take to open a video rental store in the area. Downtown is largely berift of options in that regard, and while being able to get DVDs from the library is cool, their selection is way too odd to be of regular help. Anyway, after thinking he wasn't up to it, he did end up going to home entertainment 2004 is Las Vegas.

The building next door to me has some empty storefront space, and in the window is a sign that includes a bit about how residents would like to see a gallery or video store (paraphrasing since I'm at work right now). You'd like to think that with the influx of population and apparent interest someone could make the numbers work.

Last week I mentioned that some days my bike ride seems a lot tougher than others. Today it was a breeze.

The L.A. Times today has an article titled "Developers Set to Start Staples Center Project." It talks about the upcoming start of construction on LA Live, the massive entertainment/hotel/housing/shopping project to be built on the north side of Staples Center. The hotel aspect is one of the focal points of the project, and the article today lists a detail I hadn't seen before:

As planned, the 1,200-room hotel is expected to include three components in one high-rise of as many as 55 stories:

• 900 guest rooms and the largest meeting space in Los Angeles County under one hotel brand.
• 300 rooms above those, under the flag of another, higher-end hotel chain.
• As many as 100 luxury condominiums at the very top of the building.

The whole stacked-use concept is kind of cool. I realize the hotels will probably share a lot of management and infrastructure, and so really won't be entirely separate, but it's still kind of funky having two hotels in the same building. And as everything downtown right now, it includes a large dose of housing. The city of LA recently launched a map of adaptive reuse projects downtown, and it's pretty crazy to see graphically what you sort of understand walking around the area. Just the "Under Construction" category includes 2,551 units.

It's a fun time to be downtown.

Update: The Daily News has this similar story that includes some artist's conception drawings of the LA Live project.

As I'm writing this Morning Becomes Eclectic is playing "Tennessee Wedding" by Jim Bianco. I'm loving it. Jim Bianco is amazing. His next local show is the LA cd release party at the Knitting Factory on July 29th.

Looking at my On This Date... I see a post telling me that today is the 4th anniversary of the release of eThreads 1.2. That is, as I've mentioned, the most recent release. Yikes. Four years.

I mentioned last month that I had picked up an Indigo while up in the Bay area. Sunday night a 13W3 SGI monitor out here, so all the pieces were in place to give it a shot at booting up. I thought I was going to have to find an old, big external SCSI cable, but then last night I realized I had one under my bed, so that wasn't really an issue. What is an issue, though, is this error:

Initializing tod clock
setting secs=0 min=0 hour=0 day=1 month=1 year=0
Can't set tod clock

And repeat, ad infinitum.

Apparently if the clock battery on the Indigo motherboard goes dead, it won't boot at all. This flies in the face of logic and even of other SGI behaviour (my Personal IRIS has had a dead clock battery since I got it. On boot it sets the clock to the latest file timestamp on the drive). I think the box is an R4K, which means the battery's soldered onto the mobo. This guy says it's an easy connection, so I'll have to break out the soldering iron and see what happens.

Today's one of those days where I just can't seem to wake up, even though I've been out of bed two hours, driven to work, taken a walk in the sun, and listened to music. I just walked down to the cafeteria and got root beer, though, so we'll see if that does the trick despite a lack of caffeine.

Only two more days after this in my shortened work week. Friday my mom flies into LAX, and I'm taking that day off along with the first two of next week. I don't have much of a plan for her visit yet, but I know what some of the pieces will be. Friday night Lee Beth's band Yardley has a show at the Hard Rock in the Beverly Center, so I told her we'd come out to that. Sunday morning I'll be taking her to Bel Air Pres. But that's really it as far as set time things go, I think. I know one of the nights I want to take her out somewhere fancy, I'm going to bring her in to see around JPL, and we've talked about going hiking. That still leaves a good bit of time to plan, but I'm sure things will come together.

Driving up Hill this morning, I passed the Superior Court around 8:20am. Outside was a line of business-suit clad people stretching out the door, down the steps, and around the corner. I don't know if for some reason a lot of extra people needed to be there, or if a security checkpoint was malfunctioning, or what, but that didn't look like a fun line to be standing in.

I did walk over to The Standard last night to check out Sent. I think it was my first art exhibition opening, and it was pretty clear to me on walking in the room that I am in no way part of the art scene. I didn't feel cool enough to be there, and more importantly I was wearing entirely too much color with a muted orange shirt.

Continue Reading...

The phonecam art exhibition Sent opens today. You might think, "Phonecams suck, why would you have an exhibition with them?" Caryn Coleman answers that question and explains more of the idea in this art.blogging.la post. The public exhibition is at the downtown Standard Hotel, which is only a couple blocks from my apartment. I'm planning to walk over and check things out in a few hours (after laundry's done and I actually have clothes to wear).

In honor of the exhibition, I've gone through my buzznet photos and selected out a few of my favorites.

Continue Reading...

Over the past weeks I've been working on a complete rewrite of eThreads, my forever in progress piece of forum/blog/who-knows software. I posted a bit of a brief history a couple years ago, but I don't think it really does a good job of summing up exactly how long I've been doing this. Let's take a look at codebase versions (not releases, but major changes in the architecture):

April 21, 1998

This is the oldest recorded date in the eThreads revision log. It was actually the third check-in (version 1.3 of common.pl), since I didn't have any RCS tags (yeah, my pre-CVS days) in the initial checkins. Most likely, though, that inital checkin was on or right around this same date. I'm not sure exactly when development began, though.

June 09, 1998

This is the oldest remaining snapshot of the eThreads code, and can be found in http://old.ethreads.com/src/archive/devel/old/. Tonight I actually took a little bit of time to recreate some database syntax and get a bit of that old code running. You can see the resulting test forum here. It's not much to look at, and none of the stuff that requires logging in will work, but I'm kind of amazed it runs at all.

July 14, 1998

This is the date of the first checkin log entry I have for the eThreadsII codebase. It's version 1.4 of shared-code, so the real start must have come a bit earlier. This version gets rid of the crazy BASIC-style syntax=? navigation and brings in the new (and current) /script/function/forum/ style URLs.

September 19, 1998

I use strict; for the first time.

January 20, 1999

First checkin of the shell that will become the new eThreadsIII codebase.

April 18, 1999

This blog post was the first time eThreads was used on this site. Previously I had been using a little app I called eNews.

July 14, 2000

eThreads 1.2 was released. This has been the last major eThreads release for what is it now? four years? Ouch.

August 10, 2001

eTevolution branched off from the eThreadsIII codebase. The eThreadsIII code subsequently died, aside from little bug-fixes, so it was more just a change in direction than a real branch. Oh well.

July 31, 2003

mod_perl_safe branch began in an effort to get a much needed speed boost. Though it never technically merged back into the main branch, this was where all development was. On August 8, 2003, I moved this site over to the newly mod_perl friendly code.

May 14, 2004

First checkin of eTrevolution core. This is a ground-up rewrite designed around mod_perl and a very OO interface.

So it's been six years now, I've released a couple versions, and I'm been promising 2.0 since 2002. I think I'm right on track.

I've mentioned Cole's before, in the context of it being the oldest bar/resturant in LA. Not only is it that, though, it's also a place that's doing some cool stuff to get people in and engage the community. Last week they started doing free movie nights on a 70" TV. Last week they showed The Princess Bride. This week they're showing The Big Lebowski. They also feature some live music, the occassional play, and apparently sometimes a reading series. I'd love to see the live music side of things pick up. I'd be in heaven if I could walk a block and a half to see shows.

Cole's also has a collection of really old stock listings books (or at least we'll say that's what they're called... I can't really remember off-hand). Last time I was in there Magilla, another friend, and I made a fairly tedious, but entertaining, game out of picking stocks and seeing who was in the best shape at the end of a couple months. I won.

I just noticed that the Central Library website lists wifi in their computer center. I can't seem to find, though, if the coverage is specific to the computer center or if it covers the entire library. I could really use a good place to go with the laptop; all the cool ones I've been to are far from downtown. Something outside, like the coverage that should someday blanket Pershing Square, would be excellent.

Third time in a row that I've pulled up to the steps at the Memorial Park Gold Line station and looked down to see the southbound train starting to accelerate out of the station. I end up leaving the office at different times every day, so in the end it's just that I'm unlucky.

The bike ride into work today about killed me. I swear some days that ride's a lot tougher than others. I just keep telling myself it's good for me.

I went to Vegas with D4 and Magilla over the weekend. Not a lot in the way of big stories, but one random anecdote:

Traffic was pretty bad driving back to LA on Monday. Somewhere around the CA/NV border a Jeep pulls up next to us and the driver's making some hand motion. D4 thinks the guy's blinker is broken and he's trying to get us to let him over. When I look over, though, that's not at all the case. Instead he's got his right hand up and pointing with his left at the left side of the palm. I immediately recognize this as someone from Michigan telling me where they're from. Turns out he's from Spring Lake, about 15 miles south of North Muskegon, where I went to high school. Random.

Just for fun I grabbed the html from LA Blogs, stripped it down to just the blogroll, and then ran some stats. It had seemed to me that there were a lot of blogspot users. I particularly notice them because blogspot likes to do weird things to my browser (not load the site for a couple tries, etc). So I wrote some quick perl to parse through the roll and what do I find? Of 641 blogs, here's the major hosting provider breakdown (as counted by comparing domain names):

155 blogspot.com
22  typepad.com
12  livejournal.com
10  xanga.com
8   diaryland.com

That's a pretty high percentage. Of course if a site is using a provider but doing it through a vanity domain name, that won't count here so the numbers could be different in reality. Still, just an interesting first glance. If anyone wants to play on their own, I've put the Perl up as host_stats.

Near the end of May I mentioned seeing Eric Hutchinson (whose site is empty if you don't have Flash installed) at the Hotel Cafe. I said that Kathy and I both enjoyed his set, and that she bought a cd. A week or so later she brought the album over and I gave it a listen. I didn't like it. Then in Minnesota I listened to it again, and liked it a bit more. Today I listened to it again. Three times through and I feel like I can comment.

I don't dislike his songs. I like "Breakdown More." It's catchy. My problem with the album is that it's short and fast. Short in that the total run-time is a very scant 23 minutes and change. Fast in that most of the songs feel like they're rushing. Those 23 minutes include seven songs. The one 4:35 track feels epic when compared to track times like 2:47, 2:38, and 3:11.

Now, I'm no musician, but if I only had a couple songs (which is absolutely understandable for a young artist) and I wanted to put out an album, I'd probably pad the songs out instrumentally a bit. As is, the album just feels like each song's a drawn out teaser. You just start to get into it and it's already gone.

One of the top google searches bringing people to my site over the past month or two has been people looking for Anna Nalick. Just over a year ago I mentioned seeing Anna Nalick play at the Hotel Cafe (sorry about the cheesy last name reuse there, just hoping that post will get into the results and clear things up a little). I really enjoyed her set, but was confused that google listed zero results when I searched for her name.

Today the results for that same search stretch out to two pages, but manage to do it without being any more enlightening. Looking at the google results you'll see that the current top two results are both hits to my googlefun tracker (basically just recording what google queries bring people to my site). Unlike other occassions where googlefun has made it into query results, these results don't even mention last year's post that started this whole chicken and egg scenario. Other results are just as meager. She's listed in one of two events calendars, but there's no good source of other information. It's a shame... I'd like to get back out and see her again.

Slight update -- From google I can gather that she's got an album in the works with Columbia, which Mark Endert's discography lists as being titled Wreck of the Day. It was recorded this spring. No listing of any sort of a release date.

I'm working from my apartment today so that I can try and fix a car window (which I'll talk more about later). That means that I was home just now to hear our apartment phone ringing. I answer it, and a woman's voice asks:

Hi, is this the Standard, in New York?

I said no and she said she must have a wrong number.

Now, there are multiple problems with this question. First, there is no Standard in New York, the only two are Hollywood and downtown. The downtown one even has a phone number that's very close to ours (same area code and exchange, two numbers the same in the final four). But if that's what she was looking for, where in the world did I get New York? How does that make any sense? What can you confuse with New York?

Weird.

I'm lying in bed just now, copying a Simpsons episode over to my laptop so I can watch it while falling asleep. Out my window looms Library Tower. Tonight the illuminated top is shrouded in fog. It makes the whole building look eerie, the partially lit walls contrasting with the dark cloudy sky. The lights at the top reveal the fog around them, making it appear that it's only present in a halo around the tower.

But seriously, it looks cool. Now I'm going to watch Homer Simpson in Kidney Trouble and fall asleep.

I'm at work early today. Yesterday I was here at 7:40. Today I walked into my office at 7:20. Last summer I somehow made myself into a morning person in this same sort of vein, but last summer I at least got good parking spots as a result. The last two days parking has been crowded, even trying to find a spot at 7:15. Yesterday I blamed it on Cassini. Today I think there are just a lot more early-risers here than I thought.

My plan was to mitigate the getting up early by actually eating breakfast. I stopped at the gas station on my way to the freeway and picked up a bottle of grapefruit juice and a little cream cheese cake. Only upon getting to the office did I discover printed on the outside of the bottle: "NOV 17 03". Doh. Uhhh... Let's see it's now July, so... I don't think I'm going to drink it, despite what Topher may say:

(07:37:40) topher: go for it man
(07:38:11) Me: see, i don't think you have enough at stake 
in this decision to cast an unbiased vote
(07:38:22) topher: I was thinking the same thing.  :)

I really wanted that grapefruit juice, too. I may just have to go down to the cafeteria and get something else.

Last night Kathy and I returned to the Los Angeles Theatre for It Happened One Night, again a part of the LA Conservancy's program Last Remaining Seats. The film was again excellent, as any film that goes and sweeps the Oscars should be. Last night we got much more of a chance to wander around the theater than we had the first time around (this time being prepared with coats to save our seats). The projection booth was available for viewing, as you can see in the picture at left. There was nothing high-tech to speak of up here, as most of the equipment and furnishings look like they could well be from the theater's opening in 1931.

Again a very cool experience, and something that everyone in LA should get out to at some point.

Last night Cassini entered orbit around Saturn. This, like the mars rovers, is a mission operated by JPL. Though my job is about as far from the space groups as you're like to get here, I enjoy the fact that the lab's success rate during my tenure has been very impressive.