So my friend Jim, who I’ve known since 8th grade - long enough that we have way too many embarrassing stories to tell of each other (mostly him of me, though), came up with his Top 10 Albums on his alter-ego blog (which he is quick to point out should be classified as an “random outbursts of crap” and he’s pretty much been strong-armed into having one by a close friend). He suggested I try the same. Pretty simple rules though: Albums one could not only play front-to-back without skipping songs, but could also play over and over and over and over…
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Every workday I wake up to NPR, get my act together then drive down the hill to the Oakland Coliseum BART station and wait a bit before picking up my commuting buddy, Mafalda. I used to squeeze in a little Air America before her train would show up, but KQKE (the Air America affiliate) blew a great idea before they even implemented it and lost my morning drive-time patronage - they created a local show (good) but put Willy Brown and Will Durst on the air as its hosts (decidedly bad in my book).
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One thing that was added to the latest (last) revision of PowerBooks just two months after I bought mine was “Safe Sleep” functionality (at least it wasn’t as significant as the first SuperDrive, which happened the last time around). While the Mac has always was first place in the wake-from-sleep speed race over Windows, Windows did have the added bonus of its “Hibernation” feature that writes your computer session to your hard drive before turning off. No power, but your computer state ready to be restarted (albeit slower than the Mac’s traditional “I’ll keep everything but the RAM and VRAM off” Sleep).
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Steve Hackett keeps the tempest spinning in my proverbial teacup: The former Genesis guitarist confirms that the band’s management has been in touch with him to talk about his interests in a reunion. (Hat tip to Dan)

Yup, that’s right… it’s clementine season! Time to break out the Triple Sec and Tequila! (Thanks again Tim!)

Woo hoo! Darlin’ Clementines, here I come!

I heard it on my commute into work this morning and went temporarily insane (fortunately, my commute buddy is a sweet and understanding woman) - Phil Collins starts a tempest in my teacup by saying he’d be up for a Genesis reunion (Thanks to Chris for the link).

And to think that I was jabbering away during the mini Pink Floyd reunion about how a Genesis reunion tour would make my century… I know not to hold my breath, but I’m all over it if it comes to fruition. (Now that I’ve had time to breathe, I could’ve sworn what I heard on the radio was in context of touring, while the BBC report implies more of a recording situation - heck, either way I’d be psyched!)

Does anybody (either two of you) also watch the BBC’s Coupling? Easily the funniest relationship comedy I’ve seen. I happened to trip over it late one Sunday night, when KQED (the local PBS affiliate) shows it. Very brilliant take on the sometimes overlapping relationships with 6 friends. I’m re-watching last Sunday’s episode (”Unconditional Sex”) and I’m having a hard time figuring out what the best line of the episode is:

1. “I’m fairly new to mild naughtiness”
2. “[Sex] is like cuddling, only damper”
3. Her: “How many kinds of ‘oh’ noises are there?”
   Him (with complete certainty): “27.”
   Her: “27?”
   Him: “I counted once - I had this long phone call with my mother. My mother only communicates in levels of disappointment.”
4. “It’s the unthinkable - it’s Satan with breasts!”
5. Her: “…We’re supposed to be getting married. I’d like to think the man who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with has a better reason for staying faithful than ‘it might be a trick’.”
   Him: “It wasn’t the only thing, it was just like the…. deterrent.”
   Her: “The deterrent?”
   Him: “Well, yeah, you know, like nuclear weaponry - nobody likes it, but it can help keep the peace!”
   Her: “Steve! You just compared our relationship to the Cold War!”
   Him: “Which may I remind you, really lasted!”
   Her: “So, the nature of the bond between us is in fact the threat of mutually-assured distruction?”
   Him (consoling her, while stroking her arm): “Oh, among many other things…”

OK, so I have to admit a little hypocracy here and say that I induldge a little white trashiness in my appreciation for aerobatics. Can’t say that I love it and go to every event possible, but I do enjoy watching it. All while trying to ignore the staggering statistic that I heard from an NPR interview that the Blue Angels typically burn 1,000 gallons of jet fuel per hour per plane in an average show.

That said, last weekend was Fleet Week here in San Francisco. Being the sucker for aerobatics that I am, I was lured by the siren song of the Red Bull Air Race and, of course, the Blue Angels. Thrown in for good measure was “Team Oracle” (a.k.a. Sean Tucker), the civilian Airshows America L-39 Patriot team and taking up the slack waiting for the Blue Angel finale performance, the Blue Angels’ C-130 Hercules transport, “Fat Albert” (which was repeatedly being referred to as “Big Albert” by the monster-truck-rally-trained announcer). An obviously military-oriented event, there were recruiters a-plenty from every branch littered liberally on Marina Green, with overweight & over-machoed men meandering around rutting along to airshow soundtrack selections including classics from Van Halen, “patriotic” unidentified country singers and, curiously, Neil Diamond. Decidedly not your typical San Francisco event.

Fortunately, I had planned ahead, charged up my battery and went crazy with my digital SLR (well, as crazy as you can get with being hampered by a 128MB CF card). Enjoy!

OK, as I sit here waiting to meet up with a friend, I’m checking my email and posting to my blog. Nerdvana doesn’t get much better than this…

So needless to say, the Treo thing is working out better than anticipated. Now if I could only get the email app to automagically download, I’ll be stoked and not reminiscing my old Blackberry at all!

So this weekend was kind of interesting… Not only did I finally upgrade to a Treo 650 yesterday (I’m actually posting this using Mo:Blog on the Treo as a test), but I just ordered a new PowerBook today to boot. It’s been an expensive weekend…

So as I purge through my ever-growing and curiously rarely visited “Downloads” folder on my computer, I’m rediscovering doo-dads and miscellanea that I downloaded many moons ago and completely forgot about and stuff I downloaded yesterday… and completely forgotten about.

As I sift through and try to decipher oblique filenames as to their true meanings (and why on Earth I would’ve downloaded these gee-gaws), I’ve come across some gems that I would like to pass along to those who might be interested. I was originally going to entitle this post “More recommendations”, but I realized that I’m initially playing around with a large portion of this stuff as I write this. That said, if it went straight to the trash after playtime, it won’t be on this list.
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So what else have I been up to? Well, I took up Sean’s way-earlier recommendation on trying out Backpack - especially given the fact that Backpack now offers a lighter-weight mobile version. I’m so much closer to sinking the ridiculous amount of money into a Treo 650 that this was the only thing keeping me back. I mean, really - yes, you can synchronize your to-do’s and such between your computer and PDA/cell phone, but what happens if you’re temporarily away from both? Hence, I would imagine, Backpack. Now, you can access your to-do’s from anywhere, from any device (yours or someone else’s). Of course, it would be so much better if it had a more complete, synchronous interface with iCal. But ya gotta work with the cards your dealt, ya know?
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OK, I know it’s been a while… What can I say? I’ve been keeping myself busy. Nothing really fun outside of a couple of camping trips mind you, but busy nonetheless.

So speaking of keeping busy, here’s a little recommendation (a la Sean’s recent little recommendationathon). Keep in mind I don’t have a list of five right now, but for those of you using OS X, it’s a doozey. It’s not new - in fact, I’ve toyed around with it before when it first came out a while ago. But as I’ve been feeling guilty about not posting earlier, I figured I’d get some multitasking in tonight. Check out Trans Lucy. Now, I know what you might be thinking: “Hey, Brian lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s something having to do with ‘trans’ - I’m not interested!”
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Greg Saunders of The Talent Show fame is currently guest-blogging over at Tom Tomorrow’s blog. I haven’t read anything of Greg’s before, but his first guest-spot post is a good one, noting the parallels that can be found between Episode 3 and our current government.

Problem is, as I see it, how can we be sure that the people who could stand to see this parallel will actually “read between the lines” and see it as a critique of what’s going on right now as opposed to just a special effects feast?

While it can always be said that if this movie opens one mind it would totally be worth it, I have to admit that I’m thinking if there are people out there that are holding out hope that this is going to swing public opinion in any meaningful way, they’re going to be sorely disappointed.

If you haven’t been checking out the “Random Bits” part hanging out over there on the right side of my blog lately, you might have missed the pointer to Wednesday’s column written by Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle, entitled “What’s On Jesus’ iPod?”. If you missed it, go read his column and come back. No worries, I’ll wait.
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