Music Pundit – It’s like a Maxim magazine version of media and copyright issues. “I wanna talk about crucial issues but I also wanna look cute and sassy on my Blog”

I wonder if EMC realizes that this will end up just like all other Microsoft partnerships ( Netscape, Real, Liquid Audio, Sun, Sendo, ) They will give Microsoft the opening they need in the storage industry along with code and know-how. Then Microsoft will turn around and use this to build another business unit for themselves while pillaging personnel and expertise from EMC and then turn around sever the relationship. Microsoft will take as many leads, customers, programmers, and code that they can and then throw a mob of lawyers at the eventual lawsuit that EMC will file. Microsoft will then use the expertise and code that they have sucked out of EMC to take the high end storage business away from them and then start the eventual hobbleware patches that will make it hard for EMC’s storage software to work with Windows Server 20xx.

Does the suit against Visa and Mastercard for overcharging consumers and merchants to take their card really surprise anybody? What is surprising about this suit is the fact that it’s in this phase of trial and it gets almost no press.

A good saturday always starts with the Pork Store and this one was no different. Alanna and I went to breakfast and then set out on a little adventure around the bay area. My sister was carless so we could not all go to the zoo and previously surmised. We started with a quick trip down to Adolph Gasser, which were it anything but a camera store would definately turn people off just by name, but thankfully for us was one of the only places in town where you can develope and get 120 film for my Holga as well as get slide film for Alanna and look at sporty expensive lenses for my 35mm. After that it was off to Fry’s electronics which was interupted briefly by stopping by Lynn and Michaels to see if they were up for a little geek road tripping. After that we made short stops at auto parts stores and party supply warehouses.

Let me just say that you can tell how much an owner of an auto parts store loves his business by how clean the place is and by the amount of car and gas station memorabilia is around and if this auto parts store were to be evaluated it would rank an 11…. When this person sells the store the memorabilia will be worth more than the store and all the inventory. He had one of the most beautiful collections of fully restored gas station pumps that I have ever seen.

Party America is one of the weirdest experiences that I have had in while. If the aliens landed tomorrow they would look upon Party America as one of the greatest locations for temporary happiness that this land can come up with. Rows and rows and shelves and shelves of brightly colors festivity waiting to be deployed against the waiting enemy of sadness and ennui.

After these icons of shopping bliss is was on to Fry’s Electronics, which any geek will tell you is as close as anybody is going to get to a ride in santa clauses sleigh.
I was looking a 17″ LCD monitor for home now that my old one is starting to flutter and sputter and other verbs ending in “ER”.

Just a few of the miraculous things that we found or realized would be:

• A car solor panel for charging your battery while you drive or are not in your car
• 40GIG drives for $40
• Monster Battle Game for PS2 (bought)
• $10 PS2 DVD remote (Bought, not like I need another remote but what the hell)
• Indescribable small key chain lights
• The amount of help the sale people are likely to offer is inversely proportionate the amount of things that you are already carrying and are willing to purchase.
• The walk down the candy covered checkout isle is the hardest isle to walk down and not pick something up.

For all those interested here is a link to the picture from our Italy trip. We have been getting up early because of the jetlag, so now we are going to go and run errands. Usually we are just getting up at this time… Morning? What is this thing you call morning??

Went to see Verbena last night at Slims in SF. It looked to be a light show with not a lot of people showing up for the show. The first band Jet was from australia and sounded like it too. Big tip for these guys that there is already a band that sounds exactly like AC/DC.

Next up was “On the Speakers” which looks to be the next project from the former frontman of “Creeper Lagoon”. An all around fun band with nice hooky songs, I’ll probable follow their progress and see what their EP sounds like in a few months.

What I was not prepared for was “Verbena”. Now Alanna and I own their records and she had been quick to tell me how cool they are. Upon listening to the records you are just unprepared for how unhuman the show really is. Now I’m not talking circus freak kinda stuff, I’m talking about the immense sound that comes from such an unassuming 3 piece. They will not be crowned pretty, they will not be played on the WB (like I believe On the Speakers is destined for) they will not be witty and coy. They are dangerous in the pure rock-n-roll sense. They are loud, vicious and sexy, with the raw power to make you shake your head and wonder “how the fuck is he making those sounds”?

OK folks here we go. Hope we will have lots of pics and stories when we come back

Our new refrigerator is now firmly in place in our kitchen and I feel so much better. Alanna and I spotted this sporty new model while at Costco around the corner from my work. We became very giddy and decided right then and there that if the landlord would not replace our ancient model (ours was so old that the freezer part was inside of the fridge, and it would always fill will ice and make it impossible to close the door.) with this sporty new frostless, stainless steel model that we would buy it ourselves.

Getting a 10.3 cubic foot refrigerator inside of 1988 Chevy Sprint (aptly dubbed “The Little Red Buddy” by my brother) is hard but not impossible, but then getting that fridge inside an apartment without a hand truck to get it up the stairs is a chore. I can understand how relationships run into a lot of problems when moving large pieces of furniture, but lucky for us Alanna and I are pretty good at not killing each other in such instances. We even switched the doors on it so that it would open the other way. 3 days to Italy.

The world feels like a bad rerun TV show that I don’t want to watch. It’s all very Clockwork Orange. 7 days to Italy…. I just want to kick back and eat and drink and feel the pace of a world that has been through a few thousand years of this kind of crap.

Well I had my first run today along with Alanna. We ran a 12k race and had some pretty good times per mile here they are:

Mile 1: 11:38
Mile 2: 11:26
Mile 3: 10:58
Mile 4: 10:08
Mile 5: 11:17
Mile 6: 11:49
Mile 7.5: 16:48

I think Alanna and I did ok for our first run together considering we barely trained at all. I think my knees are going to be killing me tomorrow.