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I Love NH

I'm very proud of my state this week. On January first, NH House Bill 73 went into effect, finally providing equal rights under the law for one more state's residents. AFAIK (and I'm not going to hunt this out now), New Hampshire is the first state to allow gays full access to marriage via legislation, rather than a court ruling. I am ambivalent about the court-based approach, but I know a lot of people feel very strongly that such things should be handled through the legislature. At least this way "activist judges" can't be held accountable.

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Google Chrome Review @ 5 Minutes in

I've just been playing with Google Chrome from the Dev Channel site. After 5 minutes, I've got some things I hate.

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Mousepoclypse

You can tell a lot about an organization by what kind of mouse they design:

Microsoft creates the Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical, it is curved for the hand, 3 buttons, scroll wheel, works well, is sturdy, Not Too Bad:

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Silence My Lambs

My bathroom is being remodeled and is now completely gutted. Before this project, I proposed a change of venue to the brand new Hampton Inn like 7 miles away, but I was vetoed. I am to "suck it up" and use the serial killer Buffalo Bill bathroom in the basement of our house.

Here is that bathroom, and the journey to it. It took a good deal of self control to do this in the dark. Walking the length of the house in an unlit basement with only the timer light dealy on my camera...I fully expected to see a hand coming at me when the flash fired.

Take a tour with me:

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Dinosaur Jr at the Middle East

An evening with the Anti-Edge

I've seen The Edge from U2 saying that notes are sacred, and that they should not be wasted, and he certainly takes that philosophy to the hoop. J Mascis takes the contrary view. Prior to tonight's show, people were telling me it will be the loudest thing I've ever been to. Definitely not, but it is up there. My boots are still tied though, and that was in the same room, standing in the same place in front of the same stack of loudspeakers...

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Dumbest argument ever, a 2 minute rant.

This is the DUMBEST argument against "public option" healthcare I've ever heard, and I've been hearing it more and more, even in such Lieburul Hotspots as NPR:

"CNSNews.com
With 50 Million New Patients Possible, Nation Needs More Primary Care Doctors"

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U2 at Gillette Stadium, Foxboro MA, 9/21/2009

It's probably about time Natalie and I went to a big arena show, and so we did...

The reason I never was that into arena shows is the distance and lack of intimacy, never mind the multi-hundred dollar seats. However Natalie scored at the last minute by noticing $50 general adm. tix opened up and snatched them up on the spot. Apparently, there are a few "levels" of GA. There's "on the field", then "Red Zone", which I gather you pay a lot more for, and then there was some inner circle deal.

The trick with the inner circle was that it was guarded by a bunch of security passing people through. Had we not gotten the scoop that anyone with GA is allowed in, we never would have approached, because it looked "Exclusive". The Inner Circle held like a couple thousand fans and got you to within a couple of feet of the stage.

At that point, the only difference between this and any other show was that the stage was like 8' high. We took our spots 3 rows from the stage and laid in wait.

All in all, the show was great. We were close enough we didn't feel like we were watching TV from the stands. This was easily the biggest show I'd ever been to, previously it was probably "anything in a hockey arena", so NIN, Tool, that kind of thing. I think I'll take stadium shows much more seriously now, assuming we can get down close in and not spend a fortune to do it. Thanks U2 for making a show I wanted to see, even with 80,000 other fans.

Here are some of my favorite pictures, here's the Flickr set:

More Pictures

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Alice in Chains, Paradise Boston 9/7/2009

[music | Leonard Cohen - Don't Go Home With Your Hardon]

Yep, Alice in Chains (!) at the Paradise (!!)

I can't believe how incredibly lucky we were with this show! I'll get to the show, the luck actually started earlier. We rolled down Comm. Ave around 6:10 or so, and apparently, seems like this was move-in weekend at BU, at least, there was lots of "moving in" looking activity. AND there was a show at the Agganis Arena as well. Luckily they opened up the lot to general parking for the low low price of $25 (generally street parking is pretty easy to find, but with this triple hit, it wasn't to be).

So we slid into Brown Sugar for some of the fastest Thai food ever. Love that place, needs to be hotter :-)

We ended up making it in line just before doors, but wow was it a line. We didn't get in until 7:30, and by that time I thought I was fucked, with no good photo spots left available. Getting inside, that looked like the case, until we went all the way stage-left where there were some road cases and not much else. They had taken over the whole area at stage right for mixing desk and guitar tech stuff, so you couldn't reach the balcony from there, it was a bit of an odd setup. This is when I noticed there was also a barrier 3' out from the stage, which was unexpected. Maybe this was the better spot after all? I remembered from the Lupo's show a few years ago that Jerry was at stage-left for that one, so that's why I wanted to angle that way to begin with.

Turned out I was in the absolute perfect spot to shoot from tonight. The sound was fantastic, the crowd was perfect. Way better than most any Boston audience you get I guess. I've never lived anywhere else, but from what I understand, artists roll through Boston and the audiences are all too jaded and hanging around and not seeming into shows. Not tonight, not even a little. Everyone sang every word to every song, it was great.

At one point, Jerry Cantrell tried to hand a pick to someone and took a mean header off the stage into the 3' gated security area dealy. Got back up, miraculously, found a mike, and just said "Bitch cursed us this morning" (it might have been Duvall that said this, I don't think so). Evidently Mistress Carrie (Mistress Yoko?) jinxed the band by asking them if they'd fallen off stage in an interview this morning, they said it hadn't happened in some time, now BAM. Har.

I have to say I enjoyed this even more than the Lupo's show, if that's even possible, probably just due to my proximity. I got more energy from the band, and crowd, than I have in a long time.

Toward the end, the road cases I was camped out on became stage runway, so suddenly I was gathering up my stuff and joining the staff in holding the cases tight for Jerry and William so no one else took a spill. They were incredibly interactive with the audience and it was great to see how happy a band can look when they seem to be really having fun.

Here's the setlist as it was handed to me, looks totally accurate:

Rain When I Die
Again
Check My Brain
Them Bones
Dam That River
A Looking In View
We Die Young
Nutshell
Down in a Hole
God Am
Acid Bubble
Angry Chair
Man in the Box
Would?

Encores:
Sludge Factory
No Excuses
Rooster

And here's some of my favorites out of the dozens and dozens of pictures I got. Many more at Flickr, many more than that on my machine. Clicky Biggy:

PICTURES!

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Pretenders, Cat Power and Jackie Jorp-Jomp, Hampton Beach Casino - 8/8/2009

--There were no cameras allowed tonight, so instead I live-blogged the first two sets from my phone, and kept a setlist for the Pretenders set--

Unnatural Born Singer
Why do I keep going places when I know Juliette Lewis is going to be there?

Just because someone can act like Janis Joplin and be a screaming disheveled trainwreck on stage does not give one the artistic cache to make people buy you as a musician. Juliette Lewis just strikes me as an actor acting like a musician they like.

Jackie Jorp-Jomp indeed

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