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We got tickets for the Sunday night show!!
GW's Lisner Auditorium presents Tinariwen
Stars of Mali's Festival in the Desert
NPR's All Things Considered
Tinariwen formed in the refugee camps of Libya and Algeria. They've carried instruments and rifles in their lives, and fought for the freedom of their Tuareg people. Their music is a mix of North African blues and at times reggae-influenced. Chris Nickson reviews their CD, Amassakoul.
http://www.internetvetsfortruth.org/ Site with all the major informational videos in Apple Quicktime format -
Our goal is to present you with these clips to help you make an informed choice next Tuesday.
We hope you enjoy, and draw your own conclusions.
Please help spread the word. Tell a friend, a relative, a co-worker, or Ohio.
And to paraphrase Jon Stewart, please, please, please vote.
http://www.liegirls.com/quicktime.html These Girls pose a grave and gathering threat ...
On another tangent of humour, check out Sweet Livin' http://in8.com/sweetliving/Resources/sweetliving.mov
This is just too good to pass up.
News Update Oct 30, 2004 - from "The Fix" column at salon.com -
Weird Halloween factoid (insert your own "bloodsucking politician" joke here): George W. Bush and John Kerry are ninth cousins twice removed and can each trace their lineage back to Vlad II Dracul, the 15th century Transylvanian warlord who inspired Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (Ancestry.com, via
Rush and Molloy) .
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 2004
See the Rolling Stone website
The good Doctor is in prime form in this column ... such choice nuggets! Here's a few paragraphs of his current writing ...
The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way. That is what this election is all about. We are down to nut-cutting time, and millions of people are angry. They want a Regime Change.
Some people say that George Bush should be run down and sacrificed to the Rat gods. But not me. No. I say it would be a lot easier to just vote the bastard out of office on November 2nd.
Sometimes I think I must be the last to hear of a promising new artist. I'm hardly plugged into the media music machine - I don't listen to our local radio stations in the car (just NPR or CDs usually), and I don't watch the media hype shows on TV. Heck, I didn't catch one episode of American Idle or any of its clones ...
But while browsing LiveJournals earlier this week, one writer mentioned an amazing album by an artist named Casey Stratton. I googled him and found Casey's official (Sony) website and heard samples from his album. Google also showed a Casey fansite with more info and some live songs and demos - real breathtaking stuff. Then I found Casey has a Live Journal, so I've been reading that the last few days
I went to Amazon and bought the album, then found a previous album is available through eBay, so I bought that one last night - (they say all money for that goes to the artist).
But don't take my praises for Casey's music - go to the Sony site or the LatitudeLine.com site and listen to Casey's music and make your own mind up. Casey sings with a high voice, known as contralto
We went to Richmond to visit Emma's family over the weekend. Saturday was a slow day, so Emma and I took a trip into downtown Richmond. I wanted to look up a bike shop I'd passed a few times on the way to MCC Richmond, but had never had the time to visit. It turns out that not only do they deal with Ducati and Royal Enfield, and have a great line of helmets and accessories, but they also deal with all kinds of classic bikes. When I went inside, I found out that Velocity Vintage is like a museum of amazing and collectable bikes.
The bikes are pretty closely packed on the showroom floor - but the following few pictures should give you an idea, though they don't do justice to the range of interesting machines there!
Click the pictures to enlarge
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I've been spending more time with my Dad lately. We'd been distant for many years, but we've been on better terms in the last few years. He surprised Emma and I in August when he told us he'd like to come to Emma's Ordination down in Richmond (August 28). He enjoyed the weekend and met Emma's folks - he got along real well with her dad. After the Ordination, Emma stayed with her mom an extra few days, and Dad and I drove back together. On the way home he said he'd like to go see The Flying Circus some time, so we made tentative plans for October.
Things had been hectic with Emma's mom's funeral and the trips back and forth to Richmond, but I looked up the Flying Circus and saw Oct 10th was their fall Motorcycle Day. That added bonus made it a good day for the trip.
Dad drove down from Maryland to our house in Fairfax, and about 1PM we headed out to Bealton, VA.
It was a great day, a bit breezy and sunny, but not too hot ... The Flying Circus is a "working museum" of antique airplanes, doing classic barnstorming stunts and flying adventures. In adition to the biplanes and the airshow, we got to see a huge crowd of bikes that rode out for the event, including a 1957 Triumph 500 and this 1924 Harley Davidson, both were at the VBMC show last weekend.
Dad enjoyed the planes, and he got interested when I told him about the 1957 Triumph and the 1924 Harley parked behind us. The Triumph left just as the airshow ended, but the Harley was still there as we walked behind the bleachers. I knew a little about it because I saw it at the VBMC Rally last weekend in Leesburg. Its not just a showpiece, its got Antique license plates and the owner rode it around the grounds ...
The 2004 VBMC Rally and show at Ida Lee Park (Leesburg, VA) - Sunday Oct 3rd
It didn't seem to be quite as many bikes as last year, but what a great day for a show - mid-70s a bit of a breeze and sunny!
As usual, click to enlarge the pictures
Also see - Here's a link to the Winners page on the VBMC website, with many great pictures of the bikes, too!
'iPod users are music thieves' says Steve Ballmer, Micro$oft CEO
In a recent article on the Silicon.com website, Andy McCue quotes Ballmer as saying: "We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."
Of course, now that Microsoft has finally entered the online music store market, selling their flavor of digitally "secured" music, one would think it hypocritical that the M$ CEO would attack/disparage the leading source of legal downloadable music, Apple. With over 100 Millions songs sold, Apple's iPods and the iTunes Music Store is M$ major music competitor.
One might be tempted to think this is just another campaign of Microsoft FUD - twisting the truth over backwards in an effort to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, as they have done repeatedly in the campaign against Linux and Anything Not From Microsoft ...
Of course, there are those who think Ballmer is secretly a fan of the slick little iPods that are selling so well - http://homepage.mac.com/trianglejuice/iblog/C1683193892/E2045005395/Media/ba llmersipod.swf
A recent article in the Nov 2004 Atlantic Monthly discusses Karl Rove's strategies and gives examples of last minute attacks he's used to snatch vitory from his opponents.
" If this year stays true to past form, the campaign will get nastier in the closing weeks, and without anyone's quite registering it, Rove will be right back in his element. "
I saw this listed on another blog and had to wonder - are they kidding??
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/
Its a 501c organization (not-for-profit) to make people understand that you have the right to your own heart attack, correct?And having the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld gives it just the right touch of surrealism ...