Slight Right

I-5 Flooding

Tom — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:18:30 +0000

This flooding is going to make it hard to drive home tomorrow. Looking at flights now to make it home for the weekend. Lame.

Commercial Oops

Tom — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:22:58 +0000

I just saw some commercial on ESPN for finallyfast.com (don’t actually visit it - I really have no idea how legit or spyware free it is). Anyway, I found it amusing that they show somebody typing on one of the old, white Apple keyboards while they flash across the screen "Finally Fast is for PC Computers Only". Nice job to whoever produced or edited that one.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop with No Keyboard

Tom — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:38:12 +0000

Well done parody.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Via: www.theonion.com

Ticket Scalpers

Tom — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:08:07 +0000

I can’t think of a more sleaze-ball profession out there. And don’t try to tell me a ticket "broker" is any more respectable - it’s the same shit. Dirtbags.

All Sides

Tom — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:44:50 +0000

So as of this morning you can listen to the new O.A.R. album All Sides over at VH1’s The Leak. On the whole I like the album initially much more than the last. Overall it’s a lot more mellow, but not as production heavy as Stories of a Stranger.

This Town
Yeah, it’s a little cheesy in the studio, but it sounds really good live and gets the crowd moving.

Shattered
Lead single. Meh. Pretty bland. Not looking forward to this being played every show.

Whatever Happened
Was so excited for this track from the live version last year, but Marc made some pretty significant lyric changes. Not sure if I’m digging it. Sounds good musically.

Try Me
Sounded decent.

One Day
Great song. Catchy.

Living In the End
Love it. Came out great. Should be huge at shows.

Something Coming Over
4 years in the making and it finally made a studio cut. Sounds really good.

What Is Mine
Sounds old-ish. Nice little groove to the song.

Dinner Last Night
Hmm, 7 years in the making? I was at one of the few shows this was played back in 2001 and then in 2006 they debuted a newer version which sounds pretty similar to this studio cut. I like the new bridge.

The Fallout
One of my least favorites of the new songs played live, but this actually sounds really good in the studio.

The Gift
Sounded good from a first listen.

War Song
Really liked this one after one play.

On My Way
I was really surprised to see this was actually "Maybe It’s Just Me" reworked with some different pieces. Glad to see it made the album cause I liked that one.

Pearl Jam 2008 Tour Kicks Off

Tom — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:47:27 +0000

And the first setlist of the tour is in. Looks pretty solid. Awesome to see Oceans back in the rotation.

West Palm Beach, FL - Cruzan Amphitheatre

Set 1
Oceans, Severed Hand, Save You, Gods’ Dice, Given To Fly, Faithfull, Unemployable, Sad, Dissident, Who You Are, Even Flow, Low Light, Gone, Grievance, Glorified G, Do The Evolution, Why Go

Encore 1
Inside Job, Better Man, Comatose, Rearviewmirror

Encore 2
It Rains On Me, No More, Alive, Yellow Ledbetter

The Roadhouse Blues Fiasco

Tom — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:13:36 +0000

A few weeks ago Beth and I took a drive out the coast and in an effort to save some gas we took her car. That meant no Sirius Radio or iPods so she dug around and pulled out some old mix CDs she had made in college. We listened for awhile and then a cover of Roadhouse Blues came on. She turned it up a bit telling me it was from the Woodstock ‘99 disc, which I had also owned so I figured it was the Creed version. After a part of the song I started to realize it certainly wasn’t Creed, but in fact Eddie Vedder singing with the Doors when they were inducted into the Rock n’ Roll hall of fame in ‘93. I told Beth it was Vedder, but she insisted she had ripped it from the Woodstock disc and that wasn’t possible because she had never heard Vedder’s version. Being the sick Pearl Jam fan that I am, I knew I was totally right based on the millions of live shows I’ve heard of theirs. Hell, I’m pretty sure I had this performance with the Doors on tape back when it was cool to trade those. Anyway, we argued over it for awhile both insisting they were right.

When we got back home I immediately pulled up iTunes and played the version I had labeled as Eddie Vedder & the Doors and Beth agreed it was the version she had. I also played the Creed version from Woodstock (which sucks in comparison) and she finally realized I was correct! So the point of this? I can recognize Eddie Vedder’s voice way more than I should be able to, and that I rule.

Here’s the actual mp3 in case anyone is interested in checking it out: Eddie Vedder & the Doors - Roadhouse Blues

Throwball

Tom — Wed, 21 May 2008 07:34:16 +0000

I need to get this shirt - the proper term for American “football”.

P.S. - The Champions League final is tomorrow at 2 PM EDT. If you only watch 1 soccer game all year, this is the one to watch.

Yahoo Pipes Rocks

Tom — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:22:32 +0000

As I was poking around on Facebook today I realized I wasn’t importing the data from my Confused Amused site’s RSS feed. Instead it was just the blog Beth and share and rarely use. I noticed Facebook only lets you import a single RSS feed at a time to your notes section so I needed to find a way to combine the two RSS feeds. Enter Yahoo Pipes. I remember reading about it awhile back and it looks like it has some really, really slick possibilites if you play with it. I was able to generate a single RSS feed composed of the two feeds in a few minutes. It’s essentially a drag and drog interface for programming, but here’s a screenshot of what my end “pipe” looked like.

And the result of all this is now you can all be bombarded with my work-related, extremely geeky posts about Unified Messaging. :)

Importing Flickr to Facebook

Tom — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:55:36 +0000

Awhile back Facebook added support to include your Flickr updates in a Facebook mini-feed. I’ve been looking for something that simple for a long time so I immediately filled out the config page, but today after uploading some pics I noticed the feed said it had no activity to report. Weird. After searching around I found the answer - Facebook expects you to use your Flickr screen name, not the (Yahoo) username you use to log in. I imagine this probably only affects people who were Flickr members pre-Yahoo merger, but still, hopefully this saves someone else a few minutes.

So for instance my Yahoo account is tpacyk so I had originally entered that into my profile box. Facebook considered it a valid entry linked to Flickr, but never uploaded any updates. I tried entering confusedamused (the web address for my Flickr pics) as the username and Facebook came back that it was an invalid entry. After some more searching I saw you need the exact Flickr screen name, spaces and all. Long story short, click on the You | Your Account button in Flickr, note your screen name and use that name in Facebook.