Viva la vida

Had the pleasure of checking out Coldplay at the Garden this past Monday night. I think that’s worthy of a few short words/thoughts here seeing as how I never go to shows anymore, yeah?

In short, they pwned teh house. Really, really tight show… just… a bit short. They came in at just about 90 minutes. Given they have four stellar albums to pull from, it is a little disappointing, especially what with this being a big arena tour and such. They played pretty much Viva la Vida in its entirety and other than that, a few here and there from the other three discs. Maybe two songs off each? I didn’t jot down a setlist.

The band was tight though and they managed to keep the entire audience in play by moving about the arena a bit. They did a couple short — two song — sets at different locations other than the main stage. One being just in front of the stage on a small, disco floor type platform and the other at one of those handicapped cleared landings between the lower bowl seats and the premium stuff. This was in one of the back corners, so I’m sure more than a few folks that way were blown away with Chris Martin sweating just fee... Continue reading »

Ill communication

I just listened to Ill Communication on my way home from work tonight. I left at 9.00p. I realized that it would be a great title for a blog post, so…

I was at work for the second night in a row until 9p, so that’s ill. I have gone just over a month without posting, so that’s ill. If I went a calendar month without a post, that would be ill… therefore, here’s your fluff piece to put a stop to that.

Seriously though, I intimated in the last real post that I’d fill in blanks later, so I guess this is it. I think that blogging during the summer can be a bit tough when you don’t have some regular topic to shout about. I definitely have never had that, so it is here and there. Well, weekends are straight out because the last thing I want is to be in front of a keyboard on a weekend. Weeknights have also been straight out because I have been getting home late most nights and since those are due to work, I have had enough of the keyboard for a day. When not, I want to spend it on the couch in front of the 360 for a game or catch up on summer shows.

Now, I am not complaining about work in any shape or form. I am very much enj... Continue reading »

Justice

Funny how sometimes you get two awesome titles for one post in your head and have to pick just one. It was a toss up between this and “Karma Police.” Both are linked to music, but this one is just way more ironical, so I went with it.

That said, this post is about justice, karma and the police.

It all started one bright, sunny Thursday morning… earlier this morning… or does it? After all, wasn’t I just railing against the MBTA Transit Police the other day for a “suspect” parking ticket?

Hmm… yes I was, and based on plain facts at the time, not so suspect. I mean, I was over the lines and I wouldn’t argue otherwise. I deserved the ticket, no matter what the circumstance, but it would’ve been nice to point out why I was over the lines. Well… here we go again…

So, I drove into work this morning because I was going to be driving up north after work to meet up with some friends from my old job. There’s a sweet $12 for a day lot over by the new Joe Moak courthouse on Fan Pier, so that was my destination. Well, I got over the bridge and missed my turn at the light, so I kept going an... Continue reading »

Year in consumables: 2007 music

Yeah, I know I said I was going to name this post “Year wax,” but a funny thing happened with that; I realized I came up with a regulah name for this stuff last year. I was searching for the one I remembered writing about music and there it was. Funny what happens when you search your own archives.

Anyway, I decided to keep with the naming convention, just because I like the way it ties things together. I did consider going with a convention based off “Year (something),” which would allow me to use “Year wax,” but I couldn’t figure anything good for gaming and movies. Best I had was “Year smax” and “Year flix” respectively, and those are, well… lame.

On with the scheduled programming…

Lemme see here… this past year, I purchased (!) 56 discs and an unknown amount of iTunes albums. I want to say it was like four or five, but I don’t track them and I should since you can’t fight the future. This total was a lot less than last year (by more than half!) and most likely years previous. I think one reason for that is I have been a lot better about previewing discs before b... Continue reading »

Three se7ens

Not sure why I feel compelled to post something today. I mean, it is cool that today is 07.07.07 and all, but does that mean I need to acknowledge that with a post?

This is a post, so I guess so, but how to acknowledge it exactly? I mean, I can’t just post this and be on my way, can I?

I suppose I could, but I did have one little idea. I thought, maybe since there are three sevens, I’d do three lists of seven. And, since it is Summer, maybe have one list be of things I have enjoyed so far, another of things I have not and finally, the third of things I am looking forward to over the rest of the Summer.

Yeah, that works and it gives me a chance to fill in some blanks since I haven’t posted much lately. Of course, it hasn’t been officially Summer for but three weeks, but we all know we started thinking it was way earlier than what the solstice tells us, right?

Anyway, here goes nothing:

Seven up

1. Transformers Yup, just saw it today and I’m leading off with it. Even if you are not a fan, of them or Michael Bay, it is just a good old fashioned Summer popcorn flick. Go see it.
2. Beckett and Matsuzaka Seeing these two... Continue reading »

Annual jam

I found myself blasting thru my Pearl Jam catalog yesterday starting at work, continuing on the drive home and a late evening completion. Interrupted only by a break for Lost, natch.  It reminded me of the posts I wrote last year about PJ and my subsequent calling out by PJ zealots on some message board.

So, I looked in the archives and wouldn’t you know that it was a year and a day since I posted the infamous Pearl Jam = Crap post. Weird.

Oh… and I skipped No Code.

Year in consumables: 2006 music

I know that most people like to read year in review stuff at the end of December or early January, but I’m a procrastinator, so mine comes out in February.

This list focuses on the discs released in 2006 that I consumed, but I’ll also post on flicks and games later in the week. Those are nice, short ones that can be done on a school night.

So, my main justification behind waiting a bit is because sometimes, not often, but sometimes a disc comes out at the end of the year and it needs to get its due before you make up a list. I could stick it on the next year’s list, but then that doesn’t feel right, even if I didn’t pick it up until that year. So, I’m going to follow the tradition of ranking them for the year they came out.

Yeah, that’s right… even though the title talks about 2006 consumption, I’m only counting the discs released in 2006, you know… just to confuse you. I consumed 121 discs in 2006. All legally too. Just about half of those were new releases.

For sure I have a full list of ten (and change) that dropped in 2006. Trimming down the list to 10 is tough for me. I had to leave off four or five t... Continue reading »

U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Select, Start

I just picked up the new Deftones disc tonight and it is the title of the sixth track. I’m sure some of you can easily identify where that title originated. Freakin cool…

Hiro’s iTunes

Anyone else upgrade to iTunes 7.0.2 on Windows yesterday and also get stuck with the Japanese version of the iTunes Store? Not that I really ever buy anything from it — I still like buying reflective plastic — but everything is in Yen so I wouldn’t know what it really cost anyway. I can guess that 150 Yen = 99 cents though.

Too bad I didn’t end up with the British version of it. If I did, I could grab some mad imports. Oh wells.

I also lost some album art due to the upgrade. They can never seem to get this right. I am always losing album art for no good reason.

Summer Shudder

Well, the title of this post should have been the title of the previous post, but I just wasn’t paying close enough attention. A lot of the time I try to come up with clever titles that play on words and stuff like that and I am sure I am not in the minority there. Look no further than Ed as he consistently comes up with great title posts. Then you have Jason, who usually has me running straight for dictionary.com.

However, when I’m not feeling clever, I try to find a song title that fits my posting topic in some way. Well, I got stuck on Consumed Summer because I was going to write about stuff I had consumed over the Summer, but I also felt it was a play on “Cruel Summer” — yes, it is a reach, but who can resist Bananarama — and the fact that Summer was now over, thus consumed.

What would have been more perfect was this title because not only does “shudder” suggest the Summer is closed (if you pretend it is “shutter”), it is the title of one of the tunes on the current AFI album (decemberunderground) that I recommended in the post! Anyway, I noticed it when I was spinning the disc tonight. Better. Late. Tha... Continue reading »