So the idea of the game is you get to play as the Beatles, on plastic instruments painstakingly designed to look like the ones John, Paul, George, and Ringo actually played. In between songs, you'll get to hear "previously unreleased authentic voice recordings from John, Paul, George and Ringo chatting between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road more than four decades ago," according to a press release.

yesterday i had my first experience with jury duty. apparently a good way to get selected is to say nothing during the selection process. it was only a 1 day trial and was over by 5. the case was a public intoxication charge against a 40ish british man. the defense attorney said (not sure if it's true) that texas is the only state left where you can request a jury trial for a class c misdemeanor.

the arrest took place in february so the prosecution's only witness, a police officer, couldn't remember most of the details. the man claimed to have 4 bottles of beer over about 4 hours at a restaurant and his wife drove them home. they got pulled over 2 blocks from their house. the wife got arrested for DWI. the man was arrested for PI and the car was impounded.

the officer said the man had bloodshot eyes, was slurring, had alcohol on his breath, and didn't have normal balance. the defendant said that the officer asked the man if he had been drinking and then arrested him. the man was not offered the chance to call someone to take him home (or to walk home). my impression was that the man didn't let the officer know that he only lived 2 blocks away.

we had to decide if the man was intoxicated to a point of being a danger to himself or others. the prosecutor seemed a bit outmatched and was at a disadvantage mainly because the event happened so long ago. he was mainly trying to show that the guy was a danger to himself because he let his wife drive and drank too much. he had a good closing statement.

the defense attorney was basically trying to prove that the man was not intoxicated. to open his case, he showed a video of the officer who arrested the wife talking to the officer who arrested the defendant. he was basically saying that he didn't care what the officer did with the husband. i'm not sure why he showed the video. we were all expecting to see the officer talking to the defendant. he also made a big point about the officer not performing sobriety tests on the defendant. according to the officer, they never perform them for a PI charge.

one other point brought up was that the man didn't have his green card yet. this was his reason for why the wife was driving. he didn't want to get into any trouble that would affect his green card status.

in the end, i could understand why the officer arrested the guy. i think there would be a liability issue if he let him go or drove him home. ultimately, however, i wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he was a danger to himself or others. we decided to vote not guilty in about 10 minutes

i'm pretty sure pokee introduced me to the afghan whigs. this is a very angsty album that i'm sure i enjoyed more in my angstier days.

i listened to this cd again recently after i heard the title track on the radio (hooray flashback lunch). i still like most of it, but it kind of peters out for the last three songs. overall, i'd say the album is best listened to as a whole as opposed to individual tracks.

my favorite track on this album is _my curse_. i can listen to that song over and over. oddly, it's the only one not sung by greg dulli. i read somewhere that it was too personal for him to sing it on this record, though he has performed it live since. how's that for angst? the lazy rolling guitar, perfectly timed crescendos, heartbeat-drum-to-cymbal-crashes, and marcy mays singing make one seriously addictive combination.

screw you, bruce mcculloch!

this is my other aerosmith cd. i probably bought it around 1995 or so and haven't listened to it in a long time. being greatest hits, i still often hear many of them on the radio. this is actually their best selling album ever (over 11 million copies).

dream on is one of my favorite aerosmith songs. i always remember that mtv video of the live performance with the orchestra. it seems like a farewell song but it's from their debut album.

the rest of this collection is really good too. sweet emotion, and walk this way stand out for me. and of course, the most famous cover of come together.

you have to admire those bands that have truly made a decades-spanning career out of their music (even if they maybe should have stopped a long time ago). they've been going at it for nearly 40 years now and they're working on a new album and tour right now. they've certainly had their ups and downs and this cd highlights a lot of their musical strengths.

this is another album i bought in high school and another one i probably haven't listened to since i was in high school. i guess i got it primarily for the track _livin' on the edge_ that was popular at the time. i still like that one ok. the part when it cuts out to the wind blowing and then the kick drum starts pounding sticks out in my mind.

looking back over the track list, i probably wouldn't have bought it in the age of mp3s. seriously.. eat the rich? who is singing this? hobo steven tyler? aerosmith does a mix of fun and serious songs across their discography. i like many of both of them, but the serious side definitely wins on this album. the trilogy of ballads on this one - cryin', crazy, and amazing were big hits with the alicia/liv videos.

not much to say about aerosmith that hasn't been said before. hopefully some of my cds will make for more interesting entries.

i decided to make some posts. i'll be doing a writeup about every cd i've ever bought. or until i get tired of it. from ac/dc to white zombie. that doesn't really describe the spectrum, except alphabetically. but anyway, here we go!

ac/dc live (2 cd set)

i remember buying this set in san antonio at some little cd store near my house. it was probably around 1994. san antonio is way more of an ac/dc town than austin. this set reminds me of 99.5 KISS. i still miss lisle and hahn.

the packaging is a double-length cardboard thing with a full size pic of angus on it. i don't think they package it like this anymore. it has a detachable fold out poster that i never detached because i'm anal about stuff like that. it also includes a fake dollar-bill that says "in rock we trust."

because of being re-released and re-mastered, it's both #3 and #8 on the amazon hard rock and metal live albums bestseller list.

i've always enjoyed ac/dc but this is the only album of theirs i ever bought. it has all the classics and then some. of course it's mostly brian johnson material. i can't remember the last time i actually listened to these cds. it's probably been at least 10 years. i guess i hear enough ac/dc on the radio to get my fill. it's true what they say that ac/dc is one of the few bands that can get away with making the same song over and over. as such, it's hard to name a favorite song. it's officially a 16-way tie.

Rest in peace, Will.

http://www.legacy.com/statesman/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=95937181
http://www.apaaustin.com/illnesses%20and%20deaths.htm

we got married at the golden nugget in las vegas on oct 13th. a good time was had by all.

http://dough.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=560

i haven't been married 24 hours and my wife has already cheated on me!

who would have thought i'd make it to 31? all this fast living can't keep me down!

yesterday i had some thai food at satay. it was pretty good but you usually have to pay a lot more for portions that small. they need to raise their prices if they want to play that game.

anyway, we stopped at sun harvest on the way back to the office to pick up some filler dried fruit and nuts to snack on. i think i figured out why the turkish apricots were $3/lb vs the california ones that were $10/lb. my vision started getting weird around 5pm.. it felt like it might be the onset of a migraine, but it never got that bad. i got a bit of a headache and felt nauseous so i went home instead of playing poker. i took 4 hour nap and i feel better now. that's going to mess up my sleep schedule, though.

i think i will go heat up some lasagna for dinner.

i went to do a little grocery shopping tonight, just after midnight. i was sitting at the stoplight on Parmer at McNeil. see all those trees on the top left behind the gas station in the image below? that's now a shopping center. so anyway, a white SUV comes flying down parmer in the opposite direction doing at least 80. he jumped across the median dividing Parmer, went through the intersection on the wrong side, passed me and went through the parking lot of the shell station to my right. then he shot right past the gas pumps.

aside: between the shell station and the starbucks behind me (green dot), there's a... i'll call it a ravine that's about 10 feet deep and maybe 70 feet wide (i suck at these types of estimates). it's probably the pad sites for a couple more shops that don't have their foundation laid yet. halfway across this ravine there's a wall of rock held up by chicken wire.

i'm guessing about the rest of this because i couldn't see it: he barreled through the fence after the shell station. flying over the ravine, he clipped the top of the rock wall, and bounced at the muddy bottom. something he hit must have started him spinning because he landed 180 degrees from the direction he was heading. i'm also guessing about the bounce because i saw what looked like an impact point after the rock wall and nothing between that and where he landed (25 ft away).

i turned right onto mcneil and parked at the shell station. a guy who had come out of there was already at the SUV helping the guy out of his car. i called 911 to report the accident. the driver was wearing his seatbelt and didn't seem to be seriously injured. there was a plastic gas container near the car that the driver had thrown out after he stopped. he didn't seem to know what happened. one of the policemen guessed that maybe the gas fumes knocked him out. if that ravine hadn't been there, he would have gone straight into the starbucks.

bedtime for me now.

i finally replaced the mustang today. it was just easier than cleaning it. a friend of mine that i play pool with just got a job selling cars in round rock. he told me about this one the other night. i went and test drove it on friday night and then bought it today. black/graphite 2005 acura TL with about 11k miles on it.

http://dough.net/~archon/acura/

i received an invitation today to a bat mitzvah in fairfax, va.

i have no idea who these people are. it's a pretty nice invitation, too- not cheap. very clearly addressed to me. rather strange.

does anyone who reads this remember a journal that was a fictional account of a woman who found some box and turned into this story involving a burningman-like festival? i could have sworn i followed the link to her journal from one of you. this invitation reminded me of that journal..

Current Mood: confused

8.13.7/8.13.7 2006/06/14

A malformed MIME structure with many parts can cause sendmail to crash while trying to send a mail due to a stack overflow, e.g., if the stack size is limited (ulimit -s). This happens because the recursion of the function mime8to7() was not restricted. The function is called for MIME 8 to 7 bit conversion and also to enforce MaxMimeHeaderLength. To work around this problem, recursive calls are limited to a depth of MAXMIMENESTING (20); message content after this limit is treated as opaque and is not checked further. Problem noted by Frank Sheiness.

good surprise: "coming up next we have some lush on klbj, austin's rock classic..."

bad surprise: hearing the opening riffs of "closer to the heart"

Current Mood: disappointed

i'm 30!

my auto repair posts could never be as entertaining as warhol's, but here goes..

sometime last year, i was having problem starting my car. i took it to a an auto shop near my house and they ended up replacing my alternator. i told a mechanic friend of mine about it and he said i should have brought it to him.

so on a separate occasion, i was having the same type of problem and i asked my friend for help. he took a look at it and determined that the starter was going bad. it would occassionally end up in such a position where it just didn't work. so, anyway, he replaced it and all was once again right with the world.

fast forward to this wednesday night when i stopped at the grocery store for some bread on my way home from work. when i got back to my car, it refused to start. i called a friend and he drove over. we looked at the battery and it was pretty dry. i put some distilled water in it and we tried to jumpstart it.

this was comedy in itself because i nearly put the cables on backwards until he stopped me. then he put the cables on backwards on his own car. that was some serious sparkage and jumper cable heating uppage. well my car refused to start even after jumping it so he just gave me a ride home.

i had my alternator replaced by a car shop near my house.

the next day he gave me a ride back to the store where i arranged to meet a tow truck. when i got there, i tried to start the car again, and still no love. mr. tow truck was about 20 minutes late. as soon as he got there, i stood up and went to get my keys. oops. more comedy. i locked my keys in the car when i tried to start it. apparently his company doesn't want their tow truck drivers doing service calls anymore so he doesn't carry a slim jim. so we waited another 20 minutes for the locksmith to come open my door. finally, we were on our way to the auto shop down the street.

at the auto shop, they started looking at my car while i watched lou dobbs and jack cafferty deliver what must be the source of jon stewart's worst media nightmares on cnn. eventually, the guy at the counter got my attention and asked who installed my starter. i told him it was a friend. he told me that this starter was a refurbished one and from a not-so-hot brand. of course, in the process of going bad, it basically fried the battery so they had to replace the starter and the battery. he said a starter was one of the things for which you should never use a refurbished part.

so now what i'm wondering is if i should confront my friend about it. i'm not sure what good it would do. what do you think?

Current Mood: aggravated

sarah got sick on monday, so i wasn't sure if she would want to do anything on valentines day. i had to work monday night and that turned into an all nighter. i finally got home around 9am on tuesday. this foiled my plan of getting v-day stuff on tuesday since i could stay home from work; i ended up sleeping all day. i was kind of wanting to cook dinner for us, but sarah really wanted to go out somewhere nice.

i made a few calls and scored a late reservation at mirabelle. (thanks for the mention, sinndar) the dinner was ok, but definitely not worth the price. i got the veal piccata and it was basically like chicken fried steak. sarah's beef tenderloin was pretty good. the garlic mashed potatoes had way too much butter and garlic. i was surprised they didn't drip through the fork.

dessert was.. interesting. sarah had the lemon tart thing and could only eat one bite. it reminded her of this iron chef episode where the ingredient was turkey and they made some kind of turkey ice cream. we just couldn't get past the turkey taste.

after dinner we went home and watched some tv. after that we went upstairs to do computery things for awhile. sarah decided she was hungry so i fixed her some cereal. when i gave it to her she started sifting through her grape nuts flakes. i asked what she was looking for. she said she thought maybe i stuck a ring in there. i said that would be silly because it's right here in this little box!

( so, there you have it. i am now engaged to be married to the most wonderful girl in the world. )

Current Mood: happy

i just went to get a couple fun-size candy bars out of the giant cannister-o-candy in the breakroom. i couldn't help but notice the large maple and brown sugar granola bar floating, out of place, at the top of the heap. just sitting there, pondering how it was going to make its way back to the basket of granola bars at the other end of the counter.

i wonder if the granola bar was left on purpose as someone's reminder to themeself the next time they reach for the wrong snack. or perhaps it was kicked to the proverbial curb on the way to the drink fridge as someone gave into sweet, chocolaty tempatation.

these are all radio inspired:

heard tonight on love lines while driving home: how do you think the number of girls who wanted to be veteranarians and didn't compares to the number of boys that wanted to be professional sports players and didn't?

i heard a commercial for these on the radio the other day. they highly stressed the quiet nature of the container. is this really a problem, ladies? have you been asking for this? just curious.

and finally; there are people who don't like chocolate. there are people who don't like sex. there are people that don't like midget hookers chewing bubble gum. but.. is there anyone that doesn't like them some creedence?

Current Mood: sleepy