Brandon Moeller

Step right up to a mountain, chop it down with the edge of my hand

From Jimi Hendrix’s eighth and final song during his May 24, 1969 performance at the San Diego Sports Arena.

It will blow your mind.

I artistically altered the short clip from the bootleg using audacity, providing for an echo effect and a cross fade in during the fret scratching part. Best. Guitarist. Ever.

Download here: ~~~~* voodoo *~~~~

Hot legs and lawn seats

So Kim and her sister and I went to Rod Stewart at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion on July 24, and you know what? It wasn’t really all that bad.

Kim and I on the hill at The Woodlands Pavilion

Well, getting out of the reserve parking garage ($15: for the privilege) was the worst nightmare ever, we were all the way at the top of the darn garage and it must have been 45 minutes before we could even get in the exiting line. There were other traffic jams elsewhere, thanks to the cops’ strategic decision to route traffic away from Woodlands Parkway, but a few turns away from the herd found us on that main road and onto the freeway while others probably waited another 20 minutes just to get to the feeder road.

I think the musical climax of the evening was when one of his backup singers, who’s from Houston, led the other stage performers in a Tina Turner-esque rendition of Proud Mary.

Apparently, someone bootlegged it and it’s up on YouTube, but I can’t vouch for the quality because, hell, I was there. No need to see it again. It appears to be an amateurish capture from the hill, which is where I was, just a little to the right of that obnoxious guy with the foreign flag who kept outstretching it and pissing off all the old people whose view he blocked.

I’m serious, a few of those old Rod Stewart fans almost threw down.

Rod played all the songs that I knew he was famous for, including that Van Morrison song “Have I Told You Lately” that kick-started his career once again when he did it on MTV Unplugged. I think that’s how the story goes. I dunno. He also sang that Creedence Clearwater Revival “Have you Ever Seen the Rain” song, I think it’s on his new (covers) record. He tossed around a few of Sam Cooke’s hits, too.

I could have done without all the soccer video montages and the constant stripteases … but his computer animated video intro was so … adorable. I can’t find it on the web, so I guess you just kind of had to be there.

He only performed one encore song – Maggie May – and then the large screen behind him lit up with “Mr. Stewart has left the building.” Kind of rude, but hell – it was Houston in July.

Shark attack

I busted my toe and I have learned that I must always wear shoes at the beach.

Some lessons hurt more than others. Especially those involving the sudden loss of half a toe nail.

They didn’t have to amputate it, but man – what if they would have? I certainly wouldn’t be having to wear sandals to work, man.

Kim said the photo I’m adding to this post may not be suitable for all viewers, especially those who may be missing a toe. I don’t think I know anyone missing a toe, but I do know a guy who goes by Toes because on one foot, he has six.

See.

Speaking of Kim, she was part of this lovely exchange on Facebook about the toe.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Bloom collage

Here’s a collage from this year’s blooms.

Links galore

GEEK + TECH

Where’s the $10 million, Google? : http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=179611
Be a keyboard ninja : http://lifehacker.com/5321432/how-to-highlight-text-like-a-keyboard-ninja
“Now the challenge is to keep proving that Mozilla matters.” : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/technology/companies/26mozilla.html?_r=1
What is a good standard? An essay on W3C’s design principles by Bert Bos : http://www.w3.org/People/Bos/DesignGuide/introduction.html
A maker’s schedule : http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
Unlinker Replaces Thumbnails with Full-Size Images : http://lifehacker.com/5323756/unlinker-replaces-thumbnails-with-full+size-images
Best. Vista. Service. Pack. Ever. : http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001290.html
Kill dead-in-the-water apps in Windows with SuperF4 : http://lifehacker.com/5324471/superf4-truly-kills-faltering-windows-apps
The definitive guide to negative margins : http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/27/the-definitive-guide-to-using-negative-margins/
jQuery vs MooTools : http://jqueryvsmootools.com/
Microsoft’s biggest threat isn’t Google : http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=561&doc_id=179794
A strange era indeed : http://gawker.com/5325619/chris-anderson-asshole-interviewee
Textures + photos = coolness : http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-use-textures-to-enhance-your-photographs

MEDIA

AP to index text : http://gawker.com/5321433/ap-to-finally-invent-indexing-of-text-on-internet
AP and hNews : http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/ap-doesnt-know-its-protection-tech-doesnt-protect/
NPR revamps its website, emphasizing written reporting over audio : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/business/media/27npr.html
Me likes the NYT Skimmer : http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=705&doc_id=179674
Two-thirds of internet users have spent time managing their online profiles : http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_networks_growing_while_other_social_media_sites_stagnate_and_decline.php

GARDENING

NEWS

“Ruthless defaulters” unite : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/26streitfeld.html?_r=1
Go jerks! : http://physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=3414795237807494042
Retaliating with truth? : http://www.fortbendnow.com/2009/07/29/39240

COMMENTS

That’s not journalism : http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2009/07/work_visas_unemployment.php
Why is Baytown hoarding your personal information? : http://blogs.chron.com/eastharris/2009/07/redlight_cameras_a_new_wrinkle.html

ART

2009 live music photos by Pin Lim : http://forestphotography.smugmug.com/Jazz:%20In%20Photos/709276
Mad Men Yourself : http://laughingsquid.com/mad-men-yourself/

HYPER-LOCAL

India. China. What’s the difference? : http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/cornyns-office-apologizes-for-india-comments-says-he-misspoke.php
Burka in town Aug. 21 : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nb/fortbend/news/6546503.html

MUSIC

The future of album art is Apple? : http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/apple-and-labels-hope-to-reinvent-digital-album-as-something-people-buy/

Yahoo has really sucked this week

So I use yahoo as my personal e-mail provider. I used to use Hotmail, a long low time ago, for quite a while, until Microsoft gobbled it up and in protest I started using Yahoo! I was brandonmoeller@hotmail.com – and now I’m brandonmoeller@yahoo.com.

Stick with the little guy, I thought. Of course, if I really cared about the little guy, I would have stuck with Juno. Does anybody remember Juno? I think it pre-dated GeoCities – and, yes, that was my first web space provider.

Juno was a dial-up ad-based system. You dialed up. It spat out your e-mail, then, disconnected. If you were lucky, and if the seven Houston numbers you had pre-programmed in weren’t busy. Man, those were the days.

But anyway, I remember having Yahoo mail back when you had, like, only a little bit of space. I was constantly deleting messages to keep from going over my limit. Then, one day, they opened up the floodgates … and now, size is no longer an issue. But I shouldn’t say that. You can only send like 20MB in one e-mail. Want twice that? You need to buy their premium product for like $20-30 a year, I believe. The premium product also allows you to export the e-mail into something like Mozilla’s Thunderbird and/or Microsoft Outlook. I’m pretty sure this used to be a free feature. Man, I should have configured it before they made it a revenue stream.

Today’s news that Yahoo will be incorporating Bing into its search system is likely what has my Yahoo mail on the fritz. It’s also probably why the search function on the Yahoo Groups has sucked for about a year or more … or, maybe like so many other Yahoo products, maybe they’ve just abandoned the Yahoo Groups Search function. It makes trying to moderate a group like VINELIST pointless … so I don’t, really, anymore.

Random thought of the moment: I miss San Antone.

Yahoo’s e-mail service is dead in the water so often lately – and so is it’s stock price, after today’s news. And I’m thinking about jumping. I guess it’s time for me to get a gmail account. Sigh. Maybe I’ll pay the premium fee for a Yahoo account, export all my e-mail to a client like ThunderBird, then I’ll get a free e-mail service that will also allow me to export to said client. With Google Wave coming up, and my current addiction to Google Reader, why the hell not jump onto the Google wagon. It’s not like they’re a large evil corporation or anything. Crap. brandonmoeller@gmail.com is already taken. What. The. Hell. Sigh.

Blue bloom

Yes. It finally happened. I had a convolvulus bloom in the backyard tree bed. Find its photos and more among week twelve’s garden shots.

Here's a shot of the whole plant. There's a few of them still left in various place around the yard, and on the porch. Can't wait until they all do this.