Dad Therapy

Why The Internet is Awesome: Ted Leo Covers Tears for Fears

David Thomas — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:08:53 -0500

There's been some talk lately about how the Internet isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. There's the alternate talk that mobile+twitter is taking over. All I know is if it wasn't for the importance of the Internet websites like the AV Club wouldn't exist and they wouldn't get a corporate sponsor like Starbucks to underwrite a live music video series which kicks off with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists covering Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

Behold! This is the true power of the Internet and thank Al Gore it exists.

Oh, and the Internet is great but the AV Club embed is very hard to jury rig for smaller sizes sorry about that. Go to their site to watch it in better quality.

Jake Melnick's Review: Good Wings in Chicago

David Thomas — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:44:00 -0500

Someone Tweeted about Jake Melnick’s winning an award for its wings which spurred me to actually leave my cubicle for lunch last Friday.

A co-worker and I headed over, parked a few blocks away (It's near Michigan Avenue if you're an out of towner looking for a good lunch spot) and got seated instantly despite it being 12:30. The lunch crowd seemed to filter in later.

We both ordered a combo of the regular buffalo wings and the Poncho wings which have garlic and chipotle. I also ordered the onion loaf while my buddy got the buffalo fries which are loaded with blue cheese.

The buffalo wings were ok, but the Poncho wings were beyond excellent. All the wings were huge and meaty so getting 10 instead of 12 is fine by me. The wings were $9.95 and each side was about $4 but they were big enough to share. The onion loaf was honestly one of the best I’ve ever had and reminded me of a place I used to go to as a kid with my parents. Ever since I’ve been looking for that same kind of loaf and 30 years later I know Jake Melnick’s have them.

The buffalo fries were ok. I think you’d get them if you weren’t getting wings though or as an appetizer. Not as a side dish.

Am I going back? I’m trying to find an excuse to go again this week.

Pearl Jam on Saturday Night Live, The Videos

David Thomas — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:03:33 -0500

Here are the two performances from last night's Saturday Night Live hosted by Jude Law. Overall I thought Pearl Jam did a good job, although I would have done the rocker first and the ballad second as the night got later but what do I know. The sound mix on "Unthought Known" wasn't great. All vocals, drums and Eddie's Guitar. That video is below. Oh, and about 24 hours til tickets for Indy go on sale. Here I come.

PJ also took part in one skit which was pretty funny. I also got a kick out of the Broadview Security spoof. It was right on.

Brizzly for iPhone: Review

David Thomas — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:30:59 -0600

I’ve had issues with Tweetie for a while now and recently downloaded TweetDeck and Twhirl. TweetDeck is good, especially with multiple accounts, but its white text on black is hard to read and a lot of posts show up twice.

So I was going back to Tweetie because it’s glitches as annoying as they were weren’t bad enough to give up on the clear text.

Then I hear Brizzly is on the iPhone. Well, I use Brizzly to look at my Twitter accounts at work. It’s web based and is unique. It unabridges tweets. Meaning if you tweet a link to a YouTube video it displays the YouTube video in the stream. It also expands shortened links to the full link. And obviously it displays Twitter formatted photos. All of this makes for a blog like experience.

The Brizzly app does none of that. It’s just another copy of Tweetie or any of the other Twitter apps for iPhone. However, it does have some things going for it.

The layout is clean and easy to read with each person’s tweet broken up like a cartoon word balloon. I also like how when you write a tweet a character countdown begins in a graphic bubble going from blue to amber to red to show how many characters you have left.

When you select a tweet the options are also well done with a simply reply, favorite and forward (retweet). You can also follow a string of replies so if the tweet you’re reading is a reply to another tweet, there’s a link to go read the originating tweet. These are what makes it a useful app, and it’s free. Plus, it's the first app icon I've seen that floats on the black background. Why don't more?

Brizzly is definitely my go to Twitter app for the time being.

MacHeist Bundles: Do Other People Fall for Them?

David Thomas — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:03:07 -0600

This is the second MacHeist bundle I’ve bought. The first one was purchased right after I got the Mac Mini and I was interested in these flashy applications. But I didn’t really use any of them on a regular basis.

So when the latest one hit earlier today I was definitely hesitant to pull the trigger. However, there were two applications I could use, CoverScout and RipIt. The rest are just gravy.

I was most excited for CoverScout but it doesn’t work as advertised. It brings up your library in a coverflow fashion, but it only shows a 20th of my album artwork that shows up in iTunes.

That means I have to have both CoverScout and iTunes open at the same time to make sure I’m replacing album covers that are actually missing. I have about 2,000 albums so it's no small hiccup.
Luckily, the rest of the app works fine. It gives you a number of options for the new artwork and they’re rated. Some are color corrected or of different versions of the album if it’s an older record.

It’s a one-click addition process too, which is nice. If the company can get the recognition process down right it would be a perfect program.

RipIt is a simple, one step DVD ripper which makes an easily accessible copy of your DVDs onto your harddrive which can be replayed later using the DVD player software without the DVD in the drive. This is the type of simple program that makes me glad I switched to a Mac. The company describes it best: It saves laptop power because the disc drive isn’t spinning the whole time.

I doubt I’ll use the other applications at all, but for $20 the two I will use were woth it and maybe I will try the game or the notepad program.

If you want to get one there are six days left. You can check out the site here.

Blogger disclaimer: I purchased this product myself and have not been contacted by the company in any way prior to publishing this post.

Growing Up and Old With Walter Schreifels

David Thomas — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:40:00 -0600

I still remember getting the first Quicksand record when I was in high school. It was a monumental release because it opened me up to the idea of intelligent hard rock/metal. Sure, there had been great records from Alice in Chains, Faith No More and Nine Inch Nails but heavy metal was pretty much a meathead arena.

‘Slip’ blew that wide open and was one of the most worn out tapes (I taped my CDs to listen to in my car) I owned. I blasted that tape at high volumes in my car like any good teenager would.

After Quicksand broke up it was a while frontman Walter Schreifels next big work Rival Schools hit. At that time I had gone through college covering indie rock and this Walter band was just as infectious as Quicksand was. I was peeved when it broke up. Walking Concert followed and while the record was good it didn’t live up to either of his best stuff.

Arthur Lee's Lullaby, Walter Schreifels

So two decades of listening to Walter Schreifel’s work and here’s his latest solo release. The tune, structurally is almost identical to Rival Schools, but the music is acoustic. I’m pretty impressed with it, but boy, it sounds old. I mean it sounds mature. It sounds like the music a married guy with two kids – me - would put on to relax to. Schreifels is only six years older than I am (yes it’s on Wikipedia I didn’t know this off the top of my head) and this sounds like music a 40-year old should be making.

I’m sure I’m not alone making personal connections to an artist, and following a career over so many years, but it’s interesting to hear such an evolution in the music and that I’ve enjoyed each step in his career from enlightened metal to heavy indie rock to well-written indie-pop.

While I’m sure the upcoming Rival Schools reunion record will be more upbeat, it might not be as authentic as the Schreifels solo record. I still get these press releases from my days covering music and the new record, ‘An Open Letter to the Scene’comes out May 4. That’s a long way to go so enjoy the free track until then.