Just a Few More Minutes

When the Empire descended on San Francisco...

(Hat tip: Scott Jennings)

| Posted by That Chip Guy at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry it's been so long -- if any of you are still out there, of course. My old friend TJ mentioned in comments that were devoured by my spam filter that he's running for the General Assembly. Consider it reposted. If you can vote for a Libertarian, I can vouch for his character as long as we're not talking about dorm room games of Earl Weaver Baseball.

...What? Oh, yeah, the subject! Great Big Sea! Wolf Trap!

I'm sitting in a Courtyard by Marriott. An exhausted, unconscious six-year-old in a hide-a-bed told me this morning that this is the most amazing place ever. He's worn out from a great deal of jumping up and down and socializing in rows C and D at the Filene Center, his closest vantage point ever for GBS. Watching him dance in place -- as I sometimes danced with him -- I felt inexpressable joy, such happiness generated from his own. Great Big Sea is not kids' music. Certain innuendo flies over his head (for now, thankfully), and I'm finding little ways to remind him that their drinking songs are not exactly role model moments. But the melodies and beat are so accessible, it's hard not to get swept away by them. The family of four behind me -- the elder son eagerly showing mine his parents' iPhone lightsaber -- seemed to have a similar experience.

All that is to explain that I spent most of the time watching Will watch the concert, and not focusing as much on the stage as I otherwise would have. That and my despised-but-necessary ear plugs probably reduced the impact of the show. That aside....

Much like their current album Fortune's Favour, the Wolf Trap gig presented a band in transition: uneven, but undeniably powerful. The between-song rambles revealed some fatigue, and that plus the gigantic album-cover backdrop made them seem oddly smaller on that Filene Center stage than I'd ever seen them before. Their mailing list just sent an e-mail breathlessly reporting that "The boys are performing in Vienna, VA right now and are making an important announcement to the audience.... Great Big Sea will be at Rams Head Live! in Baltimore, MD on October 25." Someone should have reminded "the boys" to announce it.

Their new music was potent and drew a positive response, however, particularly "Love Me Tonight," "England," "Here and Now," and "Walk on the Moon." The latter thrilled my son, who a few hours earlier stood in awe at Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's actual space suits at the Smithsonian. Several of the classics were represented as well. Typifying the night, Sean McCann began "General Taylor" strongly, then wandered the stage without an apparent plan, before reasserting himself, sitting on the edge and blowing the roof off.

It wasn't a perfect night. Then again, it didn't have to be. I was there with my son, wolfing down hummus, veggies and flatbread after having danced and sung with him. I'm better than content. I'm happy.

Parenthood | Posted by That Chip Guy at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Life in General | Posted by That Chip Guy at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Two nights ago, at the (hopeful) nadir of several difficult weeks -- my desktop PC died.

Bricked. Kaput.

Fortunately the data survived, and I've begun migrating it to my trusty PowerBook G4 Titanium. For a five year-old, merely 1 gigahertz machine, I love it. It does everything I ask of it, it will probably run the new Mac OS X upgrade somewhat decently, and it can even boot into OS 9 if I'm feeling nostalgic.

Unfortunately, I'm an inveterate gamer and the laptop is more sluggish than I'd like. So while I'll be a Mac-only guy for the next month or so, ultimately a new machine is going to have to come into the household.

Modern Macs can dual-boot into Windows, of course, but to turn them into a truly modern gaming machine may be more than I can afford. (F'r instance, I don't think the current iMac has a powerful enough video card to support modern 3D gaming at its LCD panel's native resolution.)

I'm enjoying being in a Mac environment full time. However, for all of Apple's John Hodgman-driven marketing success in attracting PC users, there's that one category of user out there -- the gamer -- who isn't being served by their current mix of products. A comparatively cheap, scratch-built gaming PC may be in my future, sitting next to the PowerBook just as the dead one did.

Macworld Expo is coming up soon. Will Steve Jobs offer me a new reason to switch for good?

Technology | Posted by That Chip Guy at 9:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

J.K. Rowling is clearly not the most disciplined writer in the world, from a grammar and syntax perspective. But that doesn't matter.

Her supporting characters sometimes have uneven characterization, or at least are not fleshed out as much as some readers would prefer. But that doesn't matter.

She is absolutely gifted at plot. Her lead characters are three dimensional. And -- usually without beating you over the head with it -- she has a message.

The message is about love, in all its forms. Love of life. Love of family. Love of friends. Romantic love. And the message is about the responsibility goes with that love -- how love extracts a cost even as it enriches the soul, and how ultimately love and grief are intertwined.

Chapter 24 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the story of Harry Potter, and of Harry Potter, in its purest form.

And, at the end, Harry must make the greatest choice of them all -- as Dumbledore put it, between what is right and easy -- in a moment when fear and duty collide in his heart.

It's almost embarrassing to say (especially since my better half had a completely opposite reaction to the sixth book), but I think this book changed me in its reading. And, when Will is old enough, I'll be proud to share it with him.

Life in General | Posted by That Chip Guy at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

So there's this guy you may have -- should have -- heard of. Jonathan Coulton. Musician. Sidekick. Troubadour. (No, really; he's the official troubadour for both I'm-a-PC-Areas-of-my-Expertise John Hodgman and Popular Science.) He made his claim to fame with songs like "Code Monkey" and his white-boy acoustic cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back." His complete catalog of music is here, while there's also a less intimidating page of listening suggestions.

Popular Science recently held a make-your-own-video contest for Coulton's song, "I Feel Fantastic," an ode to our over-medicated society -- embedded here for your entertainment (and to break up the page). I'll be back after the song to talk about one of his songs about parenthood (yes, parenthood again).

Very lovely, very lovely. Golf claps for Mr. Coulton and Ms. Crain all around.

I first encountered Coulton through his December 10 interview on Morning Edition with Andrea Seabrook. They played his biggest "hits," "Code Monkey" and "Re: Your Brains" (smug corporate zombies in cubicles for the win!), but the song that captured me was "You Ruined Everything." It's a love song to a child. Yes, I mean it:

I was fine
I pulled myself together
Just in time
To throw myself away
Once my perfect world was gone I knew
You ruined everything
In the nicest way

Coulton writes in the liner notes:

I was having a conversation with a friend who had recently become a parent, and she reminded me of something I had forgotten about since my daughter was born. She was describing this what-have-I-done feeling - I just got everything perfect in my life, and then I went and messed it all up by having a baby. I don’t feel that way anymore, but the thought certainly crossed my mind a few times at the beginning. Eventually you just fall in love and forget about everything else, but it’s not a very comfortable transition. I compare the process to becoming a vampire, your old self dies in a sad and painful way, but then you come out the other side with immortality, super strength and a taste for human blood. At least that’s how it was for me. At any rate, it’s complicated.

In the interview, Coulton and Seabrook talked about the way new parenthood strips you down -- you find yourself inhabiting clichés such as "it's all for you." Hearing their conversation brought it all back -- the panic I felt before his birth because I knew I was going to screw it all up, the claustrophobia I felt as our social world (necessarily) shrank due to our new responsibilities, the mutual aggravation when Shannon and I contend(ed) with a child who knew better but misbehaved anyway, dammit!, and the love and pride when he gets it right.

In this song, as well as his ode to the suburban nightmare "Shop-Vac," Coulton brings the candy-coated Harsh to his music -- but finishes with heart. He may please the geeks like me with songs like "Code Monkey," but songs like "You Ruined Everything" show that he's more than a gimmick songwriter. Much more.

Music | Posted by That Chip Guy at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

A new podcast dedicated to parenting in the digital age: Jumping Monkeys, hosted by former TechTV personalities Leo Laporte and Megan Morrone. Having started drinking from a podcasting firehose ever since I got an iPod, this podcast scratches a completely different itch. I'm not in the tech industry, but the hosts' observation that parenting and family issues are something of a taboo there rings true. So Jumping Monkeys feels pretty fresh: the first full podcast is an intriguing look at how current Web2.0(TM) technologies such as Twitter and Flickr can intersect with parenthood.

Shannon and I are both listening to this one, and she's finding it a lot more enjoyable than Star Wars Galaxies with Yivvits and MrBubble. Hard to believe.

(Oh, yeah. I'm back.)

Stuff on the Web | Posted by That Chip Guy at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my mailbox today: the NCSoft newsletter. NCSoft publishes massively multiplayer games, including the popular City of Heroes. The MMO market is a scary place right now, with World of Warcraft serving more than 5.5 million subscribers and all of the other publishers wishing they could have a tenth that many.

I'm amazed at the flameout of NCSoft and NetDevil's Auto Assault, however. As a Mad Max-like fast action car shoot-em-up, the concept should have been bulletproof. But the gameplay was lackluster, to put it mildly. Not only did they merge all of their game servers into a single entity, but now I find that they're offering a free month of play as bounty for every friend you recruit to the game.

MMO players may like to play the games by themselves, but if they think that no one else is playing then the neighborhood turns over and they head to another game. If they're this desperate to boost the server population, I wouldn't be surprised if the engine drops out of Auto Assault by the end of the summer.

Gaming | Posted by That Chip Guy at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been quite busy and stressed, hence the radio silence.

This isn't helping, all right?

(Hat tip: Scott Jennings.)

Life in General | Posted by That Chip Guy at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What I've heard is really good...

Music | Posted by That Chip Guy at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." ‑ 1 Corinthians 13:11

I still read comics -- a habit I developed in high school and never felt the need to abandon. Sometimes the stories are quite good (I don't just read the superhero stuff), but more often it's about the nostalgia and, again, the habit. Which reminds me a little uncomfortably about this notion of kickball-playing adults: rejuveniles, but anyway....

Shannon and I just spent the better part of the day driving a bulldozer through my collection. This has been a real purge. Titles I'd enjoyed over the years are heading to the local comic shop, if not eBay. (Once upon a time, there was a comics collectors' market, but that turned out to be mainly a tulip craze that nearly destroyed the whole publishing sector. So I'm not expecting a lot of cash.)

Eight Eleven long-boxes of comics whittled down to three. The biggest surprise for me was how easy it was for me to let go of twenty years' worth of Superman comics. It was a practically uninterrupted run from John Byrne's 1986 reimagining of the character all the way through 2002, with a few later issues here and there. Today's Superman doesn't resemble that one too much, and I've discovered that the only thing that gave those old comics value to me was the sense that the story was continuing. In the end, they're not worth as much as some reclaimed closet space.

Tomorrow, some recommendations based on what I'm still reading and keeping. And yes, I'm keeping the Walt Simonson Thors.

Comics | Posted by That Chip Guy at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Human Space Invaders.

Ask a Ninja!!!

Stuff on the Web | Posted by That Chip Guy at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know, I think I could get into this hockey thing.

Life in General | Posted by That Chip Guy at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I wasn't expecting much from X-Men: The Last Stand. Goofy title. New director (Brett Ratner) regarded as inferior to the old (Superman Returns' Brian Singer). And, in the trailers, lots and lots and lots and lots of characters running around. I was expecting a mess.

Well, it turned out to be a good mess. There were actual moments of subtlety in the first two movies, not so much in this one. Instead what you get is the scope and scale that the first two movies never had. X-Men was all setup. X2: X-Men United was a bigger flick with real personal consequences. X-Men: The Last Stand leaps ahead of the previous movies' abstract threats -- "We've got to stop this special effects whizbangery!" -- to a massive, public, consequential fight between Magneto's terrorists on the one side and, on the other, the X-Men backing up federal troops. Here's the starkest representation yet in the franchise of the classic comic book characters "sworn to protect a world that fears them."

There's a more complex moral issue driving the story, although the dialogue and direction isn't quite up to carrying the load. Halle Berry is finally given a meaty role and does fine; Hugh Jackman continues to rule; Patrick Stewart finally gets to show some shades of gray; Ian McKellen starts out as a villain you can root for (before he starts killing people left and right). And there's, hands down, the best super-hero slugfest ever committed to film. As my friend Mark pointed out, the movies have never been able to pull off the team versus team fight scenes that comic books have done for decades. The previous X-films' fight scenes were largely one-on-one mixups. This one raises the bar for all future super-team movies.

So I can forgive this movie for not being quite as smart as the last two. This time, spectacle really is substantive. It's fun, it's intense, it's worth seeing.

Movies and Television | Posted by That Chip Guy at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)