What About The Aliens?

So I’m hangin’ at the house one night, kickin’ it and flipping through the dial when I come across Penn and Teller’s new show: Bullshit!. As Penn so eloquently said, “if you call someone a liar or a quack, they can sue you. But if you call what they do ‘bullshit’, you’re legally OK.”

Anyway, as you might imagine from the name, the show is dedicated to debunking spurious claims, such as penis enlargement pills, global warming – or in the case of that night’s episode – UFOs. In my time I’ve known several people that genuinely believed that aliens walk among us, visiting regularly in their super-fast spaceships to find out all they can about us with the dreaded anal probe. Personally, I think the whole thing is a sickness. Just as some people get addicted to drugs or join cults, these people are tying to fill some void in their lives. They have a need to be “different”, yet part of a group at the same time. It becomes an almost religious belief. And interestingly enough, most everyone I know that believes in UFOs – the little green men with anal probes – also thinks Christianity is “silly”. Go figure.

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A Tale Of Two Apps

Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past few years, you’ve probably heard of the war between Windows and Linux. But there’s more to this battle than just a group of Linux “freedom fighters” taking on a monolithic corporation. There is a philosophy at work here and I’m talking about something deeper than the “information wants to be free” mantra that the open-source crowd is fighting for. You see, Microsoft has spent billions of dollars and man-hours trying to make software that’s easy to use. Unix on the other hand has always been about software that does one thing and does it well. To that end, most people can sit down in front of a Windows computer and get the hang of it after a couple of hours – yet Windows has historically been an OS of dubious stability. Unix (and its offshoots, like Linux) has a reputation for stability but is also well-known for being somewhat less than user-friendly.

Unfortunately, this is par for the course with computers. Making a program easy for non-technical users means adding huge amounts of code, which introduces the possibility of instability. Making a program as rock-solid as possible means removing large amounts of code or features. Think about writing down a recipe – for someone that’s never cooked anything before, the recipe would need to be long, complex and detailed. Writing that same recipe down for a professional chef like Jamie Oliver or Emeril Lagasse would take far fewer steps. The sheer length and complexity of the first recipe means that you are more likely to make a mistake while writing it down; the smaller “professional” recipe – being shorter – will, by definition, have fewer instances for you (the “programmer”) to make an error in your “code”.

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The Future of TV

Advances in technology are rapidly changing the way we “consume” entertainment. MP3 players with gigabytes of space on them mean we can take around entire jukeboxes in a player smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Satellite radio means we can get non-stop music or uncensored talk radio from anywhere in the country. Using my PC, I can record audio streams from thousands of radio stations anywhere in the world and burn them to an audio or MP3 CD for listening later in my car (or on a portable player).

But one of the biggest changes that will come is to the way we view television. Already DVRs like TiVo, ReplayTV and Scientific Atlanta’s Explorer are making just about all TV “commercial free” in a sense. There are very few shows that Lisa and I watch “live” these days as it’s just far more enjoyable to record it and use our DVR’s “super fast-forward” feature to skip through commercial breaks in around 5 seconds. Even for shows that we watch “live” – like 24 and Lost – we typically wait until around 20 minutes into the show before watching so that we can skip through all the commercial breaks and still finish the show at the usual time. And the easy-to-use interfaces on these DVRs mean that even Mom & Dad can record their favorite shows – either a single show or an entire series – and watch them at a time of their choosing.

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REVIEW: Keane live!

What: A review of the British band Keane in concert
Where: The Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, GA January 28th 2005
How Much: $20, plus TicketBastard’s “convenience charges”

Don’t you just love falling in love? I think everyone has the same kind of moment… you’re in the car listening to the radio… at a friend’s house listening to CDs… or hangin’ out at a club… and then it happens! Some song comes on and makes all the hairs on your arms stick up. It grabs your attention and holds it completely, just like a beautiful woman. And the next thing you know, you’re at a record store buying every CD from the artist you can find. You’re surfing the Internet looking for fan sites. You’re bidding outrageous sums of money for the artists’ memorabilia on eBay. You even spend the few extra bucks to order their CD directly from the UK, just so you can have it before any of your friends. The next thing you know, you’re even considering naming your first child after them!

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REVIEW: Emiliana Torrini’s Fisherman’s Woman

What: The new album from the Icelandic chanteuse
Where: Currently available in the UK only
How Much: £8.50 at Amazon UK

Torrini CoverYou know what I hate? Have you ever bought a great CD from an artist, only to never hear from them again? I suppose in a way it’s better than really bad follow-up albums. After all, was there any need for A Flock of Seagulls’ 1995 stinker The Light At The End Of The World or The Fixx’s unheard-by-anyone 1991 album Ink? At least when an artist disappears you don’t have some godawful claptrap ruining your memory of the band. But still, a collapse into nothingness is sad. There are a slew of abandoned websites out there that promise “a new album coming out soon!” yet haven’t been updated since 1999. I thought that one artist in particular was going to fall into this trap, but thankfully she hasn’t.

I don’t remember the exact moment I first heard Emiliana Torrini. I do know that it was while working for Pathfire, where one of my co-workers – good ol’ Joe Klingler – had a massive music-sharing file server set up. It’s kind of funny – he was told to spend the rest of his department’s budget for the year, so he went out and bought a massive server with a RAID-10 disk configuration and gigabit Ethernet in it and… Well, it’s not that important, really. It suffices to say that he commandeered a massive amount of company hardware that held well over 200GB for music on it at the time. So anyway, one day he turned me on to this mellow Icelandic chick whose voice sounded a lot like Bjork but who’s smooth, mostly downtempo electronic music was much more soothing and consistent than her fellow countrywoman. I mean, I’ve got nothing against Bjork, but the girl can sometimes just be all over the damn place. And while I can appreciate her wanting to develop a new sound for each album… well, sometimes it’s just a bit too much. Emiliana Torrini has a much more… controlled sound. When you listen to her, you can rest assured that she’s not going to go off on some loud, jazzy “It’s Oh So Quiet” rant just when you’re falling asleep. No, Emiliana is far more smooth and atmospheric, some would say in the Massive Attack vein. I think that that comparison is a bit off, but there *is* certainly some truth to it. While Emiliana is mostly softer electronica, that doesn’t mean that all of her songs have less of a beat than most Zamphir tunes. No, no… far from it. The girl can rock when she wants to!

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REVIEW: Grand Buffet Restaurant

What: A new Chinese buffet restaurant
Where: 609 N. Main Street, Belmont, NC
How Much: $8.99 per person for dinner (Friday & Saturday); $7.99 the rest of the week.  Lunch is less.

A few weeks ago a new Chinese buffet opened in a former steak house in lil’ ol’ Belmont. The missus and I have been long-time customers of New China right across the street, yet every time we passed Grand Buffet the parking has has been freakin’ packed! I’m sure Lisa got sick of me saying “ya know, we should really check that place out sometime…” every single time we passed the place.

And so it was this past Friday. Lisa was kind of tired after work and didn’t want to cook anything or drive very far to eat out. I couldn’t think of anything in the freezer that I wanted to make for dinner anyway. Charlotte is a long drive from Belmont if you’re tired and just to get something to eat, so I jumped on it with abandon: “CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET!” Perhaps I was a bit childlike in my tactics. Maybe I should have said something more erudite and well-reasoned instead of simply chanting over and over again. As it was, I needed only to grab a pan and a wooden spoon and start banging on the pan whilst marching in circles chanting “CHINESE BUFFET! CHINESE BUFFET!” to make my regression complete… but hell, it worked and so we went.

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REVIEW: New Order’s Waiting For The Siren’s Call

What: A review of New Order’s newest album
Where: Stores everywhere, April or May 2005
How Much: Around $15

I wish more of the members of my musical generation would die early. Seriously! Think about those tired, old 60s “heroes”… Would Jim Morrison still be revered as an “American Poet” if he was playing in Branson, Missouri today? Would Jimi Hendrix still be granted God-like status if he were pimpin’ his new albums via late night infomercial? Would people still get all misty-eyed about Janis Joplin if she was telling us to “get more” from T-Mobile?

Instead of our rock gods dying early, it seems that far too many of them are pumping out album after album of dreck that ends up in the $1.99 bin faster than William Hung’s newest crapbomb. Lord knows I loved The Cure back in the day, but to see Robert Smith still trying to fly his freak flag at age 45 is saddening. Watching Sting trying to remain “cool” while putting out disc after disc of elevator music is saddening. Even though Motley Crue and Guns and Roses are not my type of music, watching Vince Neil and Axl Rose still trying to be relevant is saddening. Even though Duran Duran’s new album is pretty damn good, it easily could have been a train wreck of the first order. It’s all depressing and it’s senseless, and that’s where this New Order disc comes in.

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REVIEW: Jaipur Indian Restaurant

What: Charlotte’s BEST Indian Restaurant
Where: 5909 South Boulevard, Charlotte, NC
Phone: 704-643-1421
Online?: Yes, here.
Lunch: 11 – 2:30 (M-F), 12-3pm (S-S)
Dinner: 5:30pm to 9:30pm (10pm F-S)
How Much: $10.95 per person for the buffet

One of my first priorities when I first moved to Charlotte was finding a good Indian restaurant. When it comes to epicurean delights, few things can beat a kick-ass curry. So I went to several websites like Creative Loafing, Citysearch and Digital City to see the score on local places. Several places were recommended, but for some reason, Jaipur stuck in my mind. And so the missus and I went there the first time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (of all things). A year later, we went there to celebrate my birthday. And just a couple of days ago… Valentine’s Day. Why we pick an Indian place to celebrate B-list holidays is beyond me, but you’ll sure know where to find us on Arbor Day or Columbus Day!

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REVIEW: Sonic Boom! Alarm Clock

What: The alarm that no one can sleep through.
Where: Available online; I used appliancehut.com
How Much: $34.99 (though I got mine on sale for $32.99)

I have a problem waking up in the mornings. Not only have I always been a heavy sleeper, I’ve also had a lifelong habit of staying up far too late into the wee small hours of the morning to allow for early rising. Because of this one-two whammy, I’ve never found an alarm clock that could wake me up properly. Oh sure, I’ve tried all sorts of tricks – randomly switching the alarm between CD or radio or buzz. I’ve tried moving the alarm clock to different places in the room. I’ve tried one of those clocks that gradually increases the volume of the alarm. You name it, I’ve tried it.

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REVIEW: Archos AV400 Portable Media Player

What: Possibly the best all around portable media player
Where: Stores everywhere; Archos’ homepage is here.
How Much: Around $449

There are dozens of devices out there that can play digital video these days: laptops, PDAs, Smartphones, portable DVD players and personal media players. Each of these devices have their strengths and weaknesses. Laptops have huge color screens and large hard drives, but they’re rather bulky (and expensive and quite heavy at the lower price points). PDAs and Smartphones are as portable as can be, but almost all of them use some form of Flash memory, which means hours of re-encoding videos, not to mention the hassle of keeping track of 4 or 5 SD or CF cards. Portable DVD players are pretty neat, but are typically plagued by short battery life and the lack of codec support (MP3? Maybe. FLAC or Ogg? No. DivX? Maybe. Xvid? No.) Plus, DVD players also require you to carry around a CD case full of discs, which makes them less portable that you might initially think, especially on airplanes or inter-city trains.

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