Sun 22 Apr – The Decemberists

I hereby propose that all venues have a section reserved for short people. Like 5'4" and shorter. And all people 6' and over should not stand in the front or near the center. Unless they can make arrangements to stand in a trench or the orchestra pit.

The opening act, My Brightest Diamond, was fantastic. They played for 30 minutes, and I could have listened to them longer. Their cover of Feelin' Good was very enjoyable. The rest of their set was off their debut album, Bring Me the Workhorse. The lead…

I'm listening to more music than ever, since I have a job that I do better when listening to music on my new iPod Shuffle.

On the other hand, I'm not on the internet as much due to the fact that this job is 40 hours a week and I need to eat, sleep, and clean my house on top of that.

I regret the fact that I haven't been able to be as active here, but I thought I'd leave a quick note explaining why.

Here's to music!

I don't know why, but I seem to be in the mood to listen to a lot of vintage Disney. I may have to have an especially cynical Stephen Sondheim marathon to balance it all out.

Gracenote and I are old friends. When computers first started asking the internet to type in ID3 tags rather than requiring the user to type in song names, Gracenote (formerly the CDDB) was there. Read the Wikipedia article about it.

Unfortunately, Gracenote and I have grown apart. When tagging mp3 files in iTunes I use Gracenote, but only after I've tried MusicBrainz. You see, Gracenote has more errors than MusicBrainz. A lot more errors. These are usually errors in the artist tag and they are especially bad for albums by various artists. Also, Gracenote has no style guidelines, leading to…

For you Judy Garland and also you Rufus Wainwright fans, here is an article from the New York Times that talks about Judy's famous Carnegie Hall performance and Rufus' thoughts about her legend and style. Worth a read.

Go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/fashion/sundaystyles/04RUFUS.html?ex=1307073600&en=c6fbf4d7274d6bcb&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss.

American Idol is carrying the mantel of the variety show proudly. Adding in ever-popular "audience participation" it is the only one of its kind to make it big in our cynical, media saturated country today. Call it "variety show 2.0" or something. Still, it hails from a mighty tradition, so don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

Please do not throw stones, but I kept watching AI after Chris got booted. I did not cry, rend my clothing, or tear out my hair. In fact, my full emotional reaction was "meh."

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed tonight's show. There were…

Hey! JyotiMishra is the first person to ever ask about my avatar! He gets a gold star.

My grumpy mascot is my mom's cousin Lois. The picture was taken in a photo booth, and I have two pictures from the strip. The other one is shown below.

http:/homepage.mac.com/fontogddess/reallygrumpy.jpg

I haven't reconstructed my library from its pre-harddrive-crash glory, but this survey was just too fun to pass up.

Sort by song title:
-First Song: !!!!!!!
-Last Song: Zydeco Shuffle

Sort by time:
-Shortest Song: yarr (0.731 sec)
-Longest Song: Pilcharddiscomix (30:18)

Sort by album:
-First Song: Mambo UK
-Last Song: Zoot Suit Riot

Top 10 Most Played Songs:
1. History Repeats Itself
2. Western Eyes
3. The Man That Got Away
4. Rook
5. Extraordinary Machine
6. Every Day A Little Death (sung by Patricia Elliott & Victoria Mallory)
7. Berta, Berta
8. Sao Paulo Rain
9. Virgin State…

Is "indie" rock the new "alternative" rock? People these days are throwing around "indie" as a genre term, rather than as a description of a band's non-affiliation with a major record label. Combine that with the fact that what's labeled "indie" was formerly shelved in the "alternative" section and I'm just confused.

I like American Idol. I can't really explain why. Maybe it's my love of cover versions.

Anyway, I listened to Bo Bice's new album The Real Thing today. I am sad. Yes, I knew it was going to be a pop album. But I hoped it would be fun and happy, like Bo is on TV.

Nope. It's all boring ballads except for one song (Lie... It's Alright, and even that song doesn't go to the fun and funky place that Vehicle, I Don't Want To Be, and his other performance choices on tv went.…