Monthly Archives: June 2008

Ricky Berger's First Album

CD Release Party & Ice Cream Social

Nichole, I, and that other guy, arrived promptly at twelve after seven and made our way to Revolution Wines behind Bricka Bracka after first paying cover for the Ice Cream Social and purchasing featured artist Ricky Berger’s CD , which would be autographed later in the show.  The three of us enjoyed a reasonably-priced flight that consisted of seven different wines from Sacramento’s Urban Winery.  (My favorite was the 2006 Clarksburg Syrah.)

The wine and company was nice, but it was not the reason we left the house.  We attended the night’s event to show our support for local music artist Ricky Berger who released her debut album "Ricky Berger’s First Album" to family and friends.  As we waited patiently in line to enter the venue, we had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Ricky’s grandmother — a sure sign that we truly had shown up for a family event, as Ricky’s grandmother shared family stories.  (Ricky’s father graduated from my Alma Mater, Cal Poly, and studied Engineering.)

Ricky Berger's First Album Cover

Ricky performed songs from her recently released CD as well as tracks she’s planning for her second album.  (Always think sequel, baby!)  I enjoyed Love Junkie most, but it didn’t make the first album so I’m looking forward to Ricky’s next release and keeping fingers crossed that she includes it.  The released CD itself is a treat with, perhaps the most touching song, Okle My Dokle , which brought tears to concert-goers’ eyes as she made a heartfelt dedication to her late grandfather.

That other guy @JoshGZ and I purchased copies of Ricky’s first album.  It comes loaded with eleven tracks and the video "If" (watch it below.)

Special thanks to Leatherby’s Family Creamery .  Your delicious dessert complimented the night.

Ricky Berger’s First Album

CD Release Party & Ice Cream Social

Nichole, I, and that other guy, arrived promptly at twelve after seven and made our way to Revolution Wines behind Bricka Bracka after first paying cover for the Ice Cream Social and purchasing featured artist Ricky Berger’s CD , which would be autographed later in the show.  The three of us enjoyed a reasonably-priced flight that consisted of seven different wines from Sacramento’s Urban Winery.  (My favorite was the 2006 Clarksburg Syrah.)

The wine and company was nice, but it was not the reason we left the house.  We attended the night’s event to show our support for local music artist Ricky Berger who released her debut album "Ricky Berger’s First Album" to family and friends.  As we waited patiently in line to enter the venue, we had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Ricky’s grandmother — a sure sign that we truly had shown up for a family event, as Ricky’s grandmother shared family stories.  (Ricky’s father graduated from my Alma Mater, Cal Poly, and studied Engineering.)

Ricky Berger's First Album Cover

Ricky performed songs from her recently released CD as well as tracks she’s planning for her second album.  (Always think sequel, baby!)  I enjoyed Love Junkie most, but it didn’t make the first album so I’m looking forward to Ricky’s next release and keeping fingers crossed that she includes it.  The released CD itself is a treat with, perhaps the most touching song, Okle My Dokle , which brought tears to concert-goers’ eyes as she made a heartfelt dedication to her late grandfather.

That other guy @JoshGZ and I purchased copies of Ricky’s first album.  It comes loaded with eleven tracks and the video "If" (watch it below.)

Special thanks to Leatherby’s Family Creamery .  Your delicious dessert complimented the night.

What's A Pogo From AT&T

Project Pogo ?  More like "why the heck?"  This is the new browser from AT&T, and I can’t figure out what’s going on here.  Perhaps just maybe I’m that dense.  (I’ll take it, if you can throw it.)  Why, I say, do we need another web browser?  Especially one that is so closely tied to that of FireFox ?  I’ve been using the product for over a week now (at home and in the office,) and I haven’t been able to see a reason to switch from my already favorite browser to this new beast.

I will say that it leaves a much smaller footprint on my machines, but I’m going to have to attribute that to Pogo’s lack of support for the many addons I have installed with FireFox.  I need these plugins.  (Wait till I tell you about SocialBrowse.  It’s good stuff.)  I really do need them.  And perhaps, just maybe, they do work in Pogo.  But what, or why, is my excuse for figuring out how to make them work?

Pogo’s big selling point is that its tabs are 3D.  3-what?  Exactly.  I don’t need larger tabs eating up my screenspace.  I can work them just fine in FireFox, and if I was really having trouble I would install the ColorfulTabs addon .  (It changes the colors of your browser tabs.)  It’s safe to say that I’m not having trouble.

Final words, the broswer isn’t bad, but it’s not great.  There’s no reason to switch to it from your current browser.  It’s nice, new, and clean.  But so is your current setup.  I’m sure.

What’s A Pogo From AT&T

Project Pogo ?  More like "why the heck?"  This is the new browser from AT&T, and I can’t figure out what’s going on here.  Perhaps just maybe I’m that dense.  (I’ll take it, if you can throw it.)  Why, I say, do we need another web browser?  Especially one that is so closely tied to that of FireFox ?  I’ve been using the product for over a week now (at home and in the office,) and I haven’t been able to see a reason to switch from my already favorite browser to this new beast.

I will say that it leaves a much smaller footprint on my machines, but I’m going to have to attribute that to Pogo’s lack of support for the many addons I have installed with FireFox.  I need these plugins.  (Wait till I tell you about SocialBrowse.  It’s good stuff.)  I really do need them.  And perhaps, just maybe, they do work in Pogo.  But what, or why, is my excuse for figuring out how to make them work?

Pogo’s big selling point is that its tabs are 3D.  3-what?  Exactly.  I don’t need larger tabs eating up my screenspace.  I can work them just fine in FireFox, and if I was really having trouble I would install the ColorfulTabs addon .  (It changes the colors of your browser tabs.)  It’s safe to say that I’m not having trouble.

Final words, the broswer isn’t bad, but it’s not great.  There’s no reason to switch to it from your current browser.  It’s nice, new, and clean.  But so is your current setup.  I’m sure.

Feed The Animals, Save The Planet

Latest Girl Talk Album

Pop Lovers Anonymous, get ready for another smashing good time with the latest mash-ups from Girl Talk!  Feed the Animlas is the follow-up album to the 2006 release Night Ripper (which we all know and love) on the illegal art label.  This new release is well worth the “you-name-the-price” price.  I opted for the ten dollar version plus shipping.

To put this in some kind of perspective, it’s been a long time since I’ve paid for a CD or paid to download music.  Not because I’m off downloading pirated music files, but because I’m a Sirius Radio subscriber, and I don’t usually have an interest in CDs or music files.  So that should help you understand how huge this is for me to spend any amount of money on an album.  Not only spend the money, but then come here and recommend it to you.

Briefly, I’ll say this isn’t exactly what GT was pumping on his last release.  While it’s still definitely a mix of pop music from every genre (that sounds funny,) he’s moved on and up to change his style just a little.  Clips are played just a bit longer, and more care and detail is given to the transitions between mixes.  It’s the right mix of being up-up-and-away for dancing and then mellowing out just enough to rest and catch a breath before the next fast mix hits.  The whole time keeping your interest in the party.

I’ve had the album less than 48 hours, and I can honestly say it’s all I’ve listened to on the home and car systems.  (Huge speakers aren’t required, but they help with the “getting pumped up feeling”.)  I’ve caught myself dancing at home, and bopping my head in traffic.  (Now if I can just figure out how to make my way to one of the concert dates.)

Fine, maybe you won’t be saving the planet if you buy the CD, but you’ll definitely feel an urge to get up out your seat and move your feet.  That leads to happiness, and we can all agree that happy people are good for the planet.  Right?

Do your thing.  Play your part.

Blog Cards by Street Cards

It’s time to start marketing the blog out in the real world, and I figure what better way to do that than with business cards.  Small, easy to pass out, people are familiar with it and its purpose, and you can put whatever you want on it.  I decided to go through Street Cards because they offer a line of cards with cartoon art from Gaping Void blog author, Hugh Macleod.  There are some 90+ different cartoons to choose from, but I finally settled on this one after some brief discussion with thompology and that other guy.

Business Card

The back of the card shows the web address for this blog.  We’ll see how things go.  Should be a decent way to get traffic I wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Oh My Goosh.org

This is probably only really neat and fun for anyone who has ever maintained a computer from the shell, and I don’t know too many folks that still work regularly at the command line.  I have three linux machines (Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu) myself, and only on one of them (Fedora) do I work in the shell environment, and not very often.  (That’s pretty good considering it doesn’t have the GUI installed.)

Goosh.org gives you a command line-like interface in your web browser.  I came across it while reading the blog of Emily Chang and I started tinkering with it immediately.  Loaded up my blog, and ran all the commands just to see what they did.  Typing help is probably what you’re going to want to enter first so you can get a list of commands.  If you want more information, check out Emily’s post.

Like I said, this is probably only fun for a few folks.  Ha!  I’m not sure why I’d ever use this app, but I like knowing that it’s out there. I’ll throw a bookmark on it, and keep it around.

Enjoy.

Lounge On 20 – Grand Soft Opening

Last night wasn’t the first night, but it was the first night.  It’s strange to try and understand, because there could quite possibly be another first night.  That’s right, Lounge On 20 had its soft opening to the public, but it was mostly friends, family, and regulars of the local bar community.  Probably not the typical crowd you’d find once the newness passes.

It’s a lounge, so this isn’t the kind of place where you go to sit at the bar.  Hence the very short and small sitting area at the bar.  The rest of the building is great.  Wide and open areas with high ceilings.  (Not sure why the ceilings matter, but I guess it makes you feel like you actually have more room for you and your group.)  Clean, crisp lines.  Adequate low-light levels for proper dilation of the pupils.  The front walls open for patio seating.  And table service, so you don’t have to leave your conversation to go order drinks.

There is a small dress code that forbids the wearing of hats or tank tops.  (I usually take off my hat when entering a restaurant, so this isn’t a real problem for me.)  They had no issues with my wearing of sneakers and shorts — a plus, especially in this summer Sacramento heat.

I was a little late on ordering food, which stops at 10 during the week (at least for now.)  From what I gathered while talking to one of the line cooks, it’ll be mostly appetizers and snacks.  You wouldn’t come here for dinner or lunch, unless you want a bunch of small plates, which isn’t a bad idea if the food’s good.  (I’ll check back on the menu, and let you know.)

Of course my favorite part was the price of a single Bushmills.  Five Dollars.  Will this last?  I don’t know, but if it does, then it’s fair to say that my GV Hurley’s hours could be transferred to Lougne On 20.


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FireFox 3 Reachers Farther Faster

Maybe that’s true.  I don’t know.  What I do know, is Mozilla had a record day with the release of its latest version of Firefox.  I don’t know what the official count is for the opening day, but I’ve read that it’s upwards of eight million.  That’s a whole lot of simultaneous downloading going on in the first 24 hours.

I took it three times, and still have two computers to upgrade.  How does that affect the counting they’re conducting?  I’m only one user, but I have many machines.  Not to mention those I maintain for others.  (I’ll get the upgrades done soon enough.)

If you’re looking for an actual review of the product, you’ll have to do a google search for one.  Otherwise, just make good and get your shiny new copy of Firefox 3 today!

I will note that a few of my addons have been disabled due to compliance issues, but I’m sure they’ll be updated soon enough.

Please comply.  Thank you.

SMS Tax? Not 3jam!

How strange, that on the same day I come across an article in the local Sacramento newspaper indicating local government is considering a tax on text messaging, I also find myself knee deep in the latest SMS tech?  It’s called 3jam.  (Thanks Techcrunch.)  The whole thing is oddly curious.  But curiously odd?  It’s not.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a huge fan of the text message, be it SMS or MMS.  My biggest qualm being a general degradation of the English language form.  Which, if you’re keeping up, should seem kind of ridiculous —  I Twitter and Plurk.  Both services limiting input to 140 characters.  (What is it with that number?)

To be fair, the tax doesn’t really bother me.  The article claims there would be a reduction to my tax on the land line I keep.  Yea!  Some balance.  But the real reason is, I don’t do a ton of texting (verb?).  I typically distribute my GrandCentral phone number and it doesn’t allow for SMS or MMS.  (I’m saved.)

So far as I can tell, this tax is limited to the Sacramento area, so if you’re local, you might want to get involved in the November fourth election.

But even if you’re going to get taxed, the great feature of 3jam is that it only registers one text message regardless of how many folks you send the same message to.   (I can send a message to all two of my friends and only be charged for the price of one message.  Then, if either recipient replies to said message, it will go to every person on the original message list and only result in the cost of one message being sent for the sender.  It probably makes more sense if you have more than two friends.)

Good luck.