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posted by cat mcconnell 12:01 PM

Friday, November 28, 2003

posted by cat mcconnell 2:14 PM

Yes, West Virginia, there is a freakin Santa Claus

Hope springs eternal here in Gladesville, but now they may actually be a good reason for it. I called my dad yesterday to wish him a happy Thanksgiving, and we slid into an interesting politics discussion (flavored, in part, by a few scotches on the rocks, I think). My dad, a self-described grassroots Republican, and who canvassed his neighborhood on behalf of Dubya during the last so-called election, thinks cowboy George has became a raving asshole! He is even setting pen to paper to inform the Thief in Chief of his opinion (ignoring my response that the dork doesn't care what my dad thinks of him or anything else).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's a great Democratic alternative out there. Those of you who know me must know that I think of Democraps and Repooplicans as two sides of the same lousy coin, pretending to be at odds to distract from the shitty reality of the Corporatocracy.

But who could possibly be worse than that monkey currently in the oval office? Surely no other idiot would drag us into war after war, decimate our economy and federal budget to give Dick an $85,000 personal income tax cut, sanction the rape of our civil rights (except gun laws), have his rich cronies blow our pensions, and do it all in the name of the christian god? Sick fuck.

Ouch, fell off my very high soapbox there. Anywho, if my dad is ragging on Boy George, there must a landslide of similarly-situated righties turning away from the GOP. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeha!

posted by cat mcconnell 12:23 PM

Friday, November 21, 2003

Mister Arizona keeps me up late

Liv and I went to see Jason Mraz last night in the Mountainlair ballrooms. It holds about a thousand people, and I don't think they sold half the tickets. No seats, just a big dance floor, and actually a few chairs in the back. Tristan somebody opened, a solo singer/songwriter with her guitar. She was not unpleasant to listen to, though the songs were musically immature (one groove per song, no bridges, very few chord changes, lots of harmonic repetition, Alicia Keyes-style melodies with no hooks). Lyrically I heard lots of I's and me's, the hallmark of a newbie, dontcha think? She played a long set, and Jason came out and jammed with her on one tune, which improved it dramatically. Liv, on the other hand, really liked her and bought her CD.

Then Jason comes out with a 6-piece band, him switching between electric and acoustic, a lead guitar player, electric bass player who also played a hollow-body fretless, drumset, handdrums (mostly conga)/shaker player who also laid in luscious high harmony and a little scattyrap, and a keyboard player (sporting a real Rhodes, some kind of Ensonique board, and a Korg brain) who strapped on a banjo at one point.

Jason has a very smooth and lithe set of pipes, his vocals stole the show. His vocal range and flavor reminded me of Neil Sedaka, but his style ranges from much swing smooth to white bouncy rap to shiny vocal pop rock. He also did a fair amount of straight-ahead scat singing, and some audience-repeat scatting. Cute little dorky dude with a ballcap on crooked, somebody gave him a "somebody loves you in WV" hat, and he put it on for the rest of the show. The whole band donned WVU football jerseys for the encore, and he liberally threw in WV references throughout the evening.

[I'm being attacked by crazed ladybugs as I write this. Normally we co-exist fairly peacefully, but I vacuumed a bunch up at my house, and apparently negatively-impacted my ladybug kharma. Back to your regularly scheduled programming. . .]

Great show, lots of good tunes (I was only familiar with 2 of his tunes from radio, The Remedy, and Curbside Prophet, so no setlist from me on this one). Lots of 80's references, and he actually covered I Can't Go For That (Hall & Oates). The handdrummer sang super-tasty high 3rds and 6ths throughout, definitely never overdoing it, making harmony a welcome occasional treat.

The band didn't initially particularly stand out, but as the night progressed, each player got a chance to do it up a bit, and each revealed a more developed musicianship than I got in my first impression. I don't know if it was rig, room, or soundman, but the bass sounded pretty shitty all night long. When he played this big hollowbody fretless, it sounded best, but most of the night the bass was very flabby and slightly too far forward in the mix. The guitars and drums sounded good, and the keys were mostly synth sounds and cut through nicely.

Overall, a great show. Add in that fact that tix were only $24, and my drive home was a mere 20 minutes, and I have to give the night a rousing fuckin A. If Jason Mraz comes to your town, take a night off and go.
posted by cat mcconnell 8:17 AM

Thursday, November 20, 2003

The Mod Squad Redux

I'm all about people's groovy mods. How about this tremendous action that I stumbled across this evening. Just the perfect gift for that geeky pisces in the family. Fishy laughs, finny fun

posted by cat mcconnell 5:47 PM

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Webulouser and Webulouser

This whole RSS thing is started to make my head wobble. You can have an RSS feed on your blog, and you can syndicate your blog via RSS, and someone else can put your RSS feed on their blog, and . . .See what I mean? Seems like eventually it would eat it's own tail and disappear altogether. Or not.

How about a little art for the brain? Crake says art is like the drainpipe the frog croaks in during mating season, to make him sound like a bigger, more genetically attractive froggy. It's just your amplifier, increasing your likelihood of getting laid. Buy that?
posted by cat mcconnell 8:39 PM

McNews for the illiterate Ever read Slashdot? I subscribe to their RSS feed on Bloglines. Today they blurb a site that is merely images from current news, no actual news or text. Here's what Allen Varney had to say about it, which I found significantly more informative and entertaining than the site itself: Like Ozymandias in WATCHMEN (Score:5, Interesting) by Allen Varney (449382) on Tuesday November 18, @02:58AM (#7500493) (http://www.allenvarney.com/ | Last Journal: Friday July 18, @09:53PM) Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created a superhero, Ozymandias, in their 1985 graphic novel WATCHMEN. He had a huge wall of TV screens that showed the whole world's channels, each screen switching randomly every few seconds. Being incredibly intelligent, he could divine the state of the world through these Burroughsian blipvert glimpses, like a prophet reading entrails. This page reminded me of Ozymandias.
posted by cat mcconnell 9:52 AM

Monday, November 17, 2003

Scambaiting the Scammers Since I still get at least one Nigerian scam spam email every week, despite a mad variety of spam filters I have in place, I found this site particularly satisfying. It is an archive of photos and email exchanges between Nigerian scammers and wise recipients who tease the scammers as long as possible. Some are very hilarious. The recipients use names like Butt Clenched, D'arth Vader, Klench Mychiques, Mi Eric Shun. Enjoy 419Eater.
posted by cat mcconnell 12:10 PM

Saturday, November 15, 2003

in search of an RSS sherpa to help me explore the mysterious world of blog syndication. But in my aimless surfing this lovely evening I happened upon a very interesting bit of software for audio hijacking. WTF, you ask? It apparently allows you to save any audio that encounters your computer onto an .aiff file. For example, RealPlayer stuff that is only available as a stream, or audio snippets from DVD's. $16, seems pretty reasonably priced. Yet another way to steal intellectual property. We might as well get a grip on this shit, it's happening whether we pretend to like it or not, just like pot smoking, pornography, and migrant labor exploitation.

No images in the last few posts, I notice, so here's one for good measure
posted by cat mcconnell 7:42 PM

Friday, November 14, 2003

Who brought the cat? Would Margaret Atwood?

A little Moxy Fruvous nostalgia there, a quote from My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors. An amusing little gem of a song.

I'm reading a totally excellent book by Margaret Atwood called Oryx and Crake. It's chock full of genetic engineering, the doctrine of unintended consequences, bioethics, human relationship stuff, and dystopic zoology. I think some call this genre "speculative fiction," it's kinda science fictiony ina way. Kickass, I highly recommend it. It's smart, dark, witty, and 3 dimensional. Here's her own website www.owtoad.com.

TGIfreakinF, i say. Liv is staying with a pal, and I'm looking way forward to spending a little quality time with cat. But for now, I'm off to spend a little quality time with my righteous pals, Dan, Ed, and James. It's beer-thirty, l8r.
posted by cat mcconnell 5:21 PM

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

dirty knees, look at these

Lovely rainy day today. I worked from home for a while (gotomypc.com is the bomb, I even sent some docs to Jolene's printer by pushing a button here in beautiful downfreakintown Gladesville), then played some music at the old mall. It was the Senior Expo. Bluesman Ed Cabell was supposed play before me, he didn't make the scene, so I started early and ended late. It was pretty cool, two of my pals from RDVIC were there, I dedicated Independence Day to them. Then Liv got picked up by her pal's mom, and they headed off to see Brother Bear at the new mall. Meanwhile, Dave Sweitzer and I grooved on the mega Chinese buffet. Yum.

The web, like TV, is filled with senseless drivel and I can't stop looking at it (them). But if you're looking for a chuckle, check out Engrish (unless you are too PC for that). Yeah, it's just what you're thinking.

Jason Mraz is coming to the famed Mountainlair next week. A mere $22 and a local trip, I'm pretty much there. Liv wants to go, too. Then Bruce Cockburn in the strip district a week from Saturday. I need babysitter action for that, yo.
posted by cat mcconnell 7:23 PM

Friday, November 07, 2003

Deep-Fried Twinkie

You should be ashamed at what you're thinking. But seriously, liv and I stopped by the Mountainlair today on our way to Larry's work. It is Mountaineer week, and there are lots of vendors and whatnot happening. There were two food vendors out front, Toledo Steve's Kielbasa and the classic funnel cake dude.

At Toledo Steve's, while ordering a coney dog and some pierogies, I am asked by the nice lady "did you used to sing for Angel Patrol?" Yup, sure did. Then dude making my dog says "yo, cat, s'up?" It's Scott, my old pal Kelly's husband. And the nice lady is Kelly's aunt. Scott says Kelly, a great singer and cutie pie, is singing in classic rock band. All good. He gives me his card, I will check in with her and give y'all an update. Their baby Ella Rose is 3 years old now, time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas.

Twinkie, I'm getting there, just take a chill pill. So liv wants french fries, her primary food group. We saunter over to funnel cake dude. Actually, it's funnel cake chick. And what does the hand-printed sign on her cart say, but Deep Fried Twinkies. That's what I'm talkin bout. Of course we had to have one. With powdered sugar on top. It's just as greasy, sweet, crispy, and luscious as you're thinking, only it's on a stick, too, which makes it even finer. How bout an amusing Merlot with that? Absolutely. Or Rolling Rock, it's your pick. Anywho, I've seen Kiss live, been to Mozart's birthplace, taken pictures off the top of the Eiffel tower, touched Rudolph Nureyev, and eaten a deep-fried twinkie, so I can die a fulfilled life.
posted by cat mcconnell 6:06 PM

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

81 in the shade

This autumn continues to be amazing. Monday I saw 81 degrees on the bank clock, and I believe it was accurate. Absolutely unreal for November. I think we had more sunshine in October than we did all summer. The trees are losing their leaves now, but the magnolia tree at my office has buds all over it. Confused.

I've got wonderful news. I just saved a bundle on my car insurance. . .Just kidding (though I actually did just get a quote for next year that is about $100 less than last year, yeah baby). Two bodacious dudes emailed me today:

1. The long lost Brett Cain. I'd been searching all over Wheeling for his 6'7" butt, to no avail. That's cuz he was in sunny southern California, amazing the locals with his funky hillbilly soul. New website www.brettcain.com.

2. My sweet and lovable old duo partner Tommy Teachout finally had a baby!!! Jacob Matthew Teachout. What a lucky little boy to have Tommy and Cherrie for parents. Welcome to earth, little dude!
posted by cat mcconnell 7:28 PM

Sunday, November 02, 2003

Marshal McLuhan, what are ya doin?

Gadfly, spellbinder, word merchant, oracle of the electric age.. I saw a cool documentary on Sundance this morning called McLuhan's Wake. He went, like, put your thang down, flip it, and reverse it. Exhibit A:

Narcissus actually comes from "narcosis," a numbing. He didn't fall in love with himself, he thought the dude in the reflection was actually somebody else.

McLuhan expounded on the impact of the media The pervasive environment is impossible to perceive. We don't know who discovered water, but we're sure it was not a fish.

Tempted now to read McLuhan? Not to try to discourage you, but apparently talking, rather than writing, was his milieu. Catch the documentary instead. Perhaps.
posted by cat mcconnell 7:27 AM

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Just a box of space, I don't know who put it there
posted by cat mcconnell 5:11 PM