Blogs

For anyone spamming blogs, especially my blog, this is the proper way to do it. This comment is vaguely related enough that it seems like maybe the person just missed the point they were trying to make, or is a bad writer. In fact, it was copied from this Amazon review of a DVD from 2007.

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.

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:

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...

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