Conspiracies: September 2005 Archives

Technology and life expert Dr. Erik held office hours for the second time at the Hideout tonight. I'm not really sure what his qualifications are. Most of his "curea" involved the purchase and consumption of large quantities of alcohol.

Walking through downtown Seattle at 1 a.m. was an interesting experience. There were almost no cars to be seen throughout the downtown core. This left me feeling adventurous enough to sing out a few lines of a David Bowie song that had been playing on the jukebox earlier in the night.

Activity picked up somewhat once I reached First Avenus, although taxi cabs still outnumbered ordinary traffic by a substantial margin. There was a Thai restaurant playing a Maktub song over the loudspeakers even though the restaurant was closed and the lights turned off.

I've fallen seriously behind on my telvesion schedule tonight, but I am just too tired to turn on the TV. I'll catch up a little tomorrow. For now, it's time to crawl into bed and sleep.

Blogging is hard work, and I've been spending a lot of time blogging recently. This has seriously cut into my television viewing time. That wasn't so bad when it was the height of rerun season. But now, the new season of shows is starting up.

This is quite an exciting time. Old favorites are returning to the air with updated looks and actors sporting new hairstyles and wardrobes. New shows are vying for their shot at success. And I can now bask in all of this entertainment in full high definition goodnes.

I am facing quite a dilemma now. After weeks of nothing interesting to watch, I now find myself struggling to choose between two or three shows running at the same time. Millenium has promised a software update to my cable box to activate the second tuner, but that likely won't happen for another two or three months. Until then, I have to make choices.

I'm afraid that, for the most part, I have to favor the returning shows, but I am afraid that I will miss out on some hidden gems. And I'm sure my blogging will suffer.

To fully appreciate the importance of "Almost Live!" in my life, I need to recount the story of how I decided to move to Seattle.

I'm a little reluctant, however, to divulge the inner workings of my decision-making process. This is certain only to fuel Robot Josh's suspicions of my psychological stability and whether it I'm actually fit to continue working with the Robots. It doesn't really help that today it was revealed that I was only hired the first time out of desperation. I suspected as much because there really isn't a better explanation for why someone so underserving was allowed to work alongside such a talented group of people. But I digress.

Think back, my faithful readers, to late 1992 and early 1993 when I was finishing my final year at the University of Texas at Austin. Job prospects in my chosen field are particularly bleak, so I decide to postpone the inevitable entry into the real world by signing on for a few years of graduate school.

The first acceptance that I received was from the UCLA law school. I'm sure I only got in because the aftermath of Los Angeles riots scared most sane people away. I sent in my acceptance as soon as I could.

Then I received an offer from the University of Washington. Things became difficult as I began to second guess my decision to go to Los Angeles.

That week's episode of "Melrose Place" had Allison involved in a carjacking. This left her noticeably distressed and she finally agrees to take her boyfriend up on his offer to move to Seattle.

Beavis and Butt-head were great fans of the Seattle grunge scene and often referred to Seattle as a place where "everything is cool."

Comedy Central had just picked up syndication rights for a local Seattle comedy show called "Almost Live!" I watched this quirky blend of local humor with complete fascination. I really didn't understand any of the local cultural references, but it didn't seem to matter.

So here everything was coming together. Los Angeles bad, Seattle cool. I send an acceptance back to the UW and inform UCLA that I would be going elsewhere.

I was shocked, then, when the next episode of "Melrose Place" had Allison returning to Los Angeles. It turns out her boyfriend was a bit of an overcontrolling psychopath and had tried to kill her. She returns back to her old apartment completely disgusted with Seattle.

At this point I screamed in horror. What had I done? Was it too late to retract my rejection? The panic, however, slowly subsided over the next few weeks as I continued to watch "Almost Live!", trying to assimilate the culture of my future home.

Last night the cast of "Almost LIve!" reunited for a look back at the series as well as to perform a few new sketches.

I was almost going to skip the show, consumed at the time in an ABBA special being broadcast on the local PBS affiliate in high definition. Fortunately, an extended pledge break disrupted the moment, freeing me to change channels.

The thing that struck me most was thinking when did these people get so old? Supposedly the show only went off the air six years ago. What happened to the young, edgy comedians that I remember so fondly?

If the High Five'n White Guys were to get together again, I'm sure at least one of them would be shuffling along leaning on a cane. And instead of the signature hand slap, I'm sure one of them would miss and stumble to the ground breaking a hip.

At least the could continue the Innefectual Middle Management Suck Ups indefinitely. That routine never gets old and is as relevant today as when it was first performed.

In his keynotes at both Macworld and the WWDC, Steve Jobs proclaimed 2005 as the year of high definition. I'm still waiting for a high def music video download service, but I have been enjoying high definition from other places.

A few months ago I switched from satellite TV to cable. One of the reasons for this was to enjoy high definition television broadcasts, because the DirecTV dish at my building could not receive high definition signals.

Unfortunately, the cable company only supplied high definition for local channels. However, as I was browsing through the channels the other night, I noticed some channel names that looked suspiciously like high definition movie channels.

And so I called up the cable company to ask them to please, please subscribe me to those channels. It's another $10 a month to my already expensive cable bill, but that doesn't matter. I can't wait to get home and enjoy the new channels.

If I had been thinking ahead, I would have had my old cellphone unlocked before getting a new one--especially one that involved changing carriers.

So, if any of you out there are T-Mobile subscribers and are interested in upgrading to a Nokia 6600, just let me know. It's the official phone of celebrity photoblogger Erik Benson, so you know your street cred will instantly go up if you get it.

It looks like my CD purchase last night was enough to skyrocket its Amazon sales rank from a lowly 178,054 to a much more respectable 20,223.

UPDATE: Ben wanted to know which CD I bought. Well, I'm not going to make it easy for you, but I will provide a clue to help you get started. Check out Erik's Flickr stream for a picture of the band.

UPDATE: Ben's laziness wins out in the end: The Catch. I spent some time listening to the sound clips and they didn't sound all that great. But at least the CD was only $6 and you can't really go wrong at that price.

One of the recurring topics of conversation at lunch is considering what makes work worthwhile. We have been working together for nearly a year now, for the most part free of the unhappiness that plagued many of us at earlier jobs. Why is it that this particular company is succeeding for us where previous ones failed?

Robot Josh has often said that at times it seems like our work is just a good cover to provide the opportunity for us to get together at lunch and have interesting conversations like this one.

I think I am starting to come up with a different answer. Our work is just a good way to come up with something innovative and creative enough that people like boots, Eric, Ali, or any of the other interesting people that have visited us over the past year find it worthwhile enough to drop in and hang out with us for a while.

Sometimes I look forward to the start of the work week to recover from the excesses of the weekend--especially long weekends--but Tuesday was quite an eventful day at the office.

Longtime 43 Things user boots was waiting for us in the office entrance when we returned from lunch. Robot Eric and I had been both been engaging boots in discussions on our latest super-secret site⁽¹⁾, and she decided to finally take us up on an offer to see the Robot Co-op Office.⁽²⁾

After a quick visit, things returned to normal for a while. A few hours later, however, Blogger employee Eric Case dropped by with his friend Ali. Work slowed down to a crawl as we gave a quick tour⁽³⁾ of the office. Eventually we just gave up and headed down to the Elysian for a few drinks.

As the Robots gradually slipped away to resume their normal lives, I stuck around at the table until I was ivited to accompany Robot Erik, Eric, and Ali to dinner at El Greco. The food was fabulous, if a little more expensive than my typical evening fare. Fortunately, Erik offered to pick up the check.

Ali wanted to go to some sort of rock show, and Robot Todd had found a show at the Crocodile Cafe that he considered passable, if overrated. It was still a little early, so we walked back to Erik's place to check out his infamous blue wall.

By now it was getting kind of late and I decided to just go home. Erik and Ali tried to convince me to go to the show but I stood my ground. When I got home, however, I realized that I really had nothing to do and the show was only $7. I made sure to grab my earplugs and headed out to the show.

This was the first show that I've been to in many years featuring essentially unknown indie bands. I'm not sure if the bands were any good or not, but it was a lot of fun. I actually preferred the first band we saw--the one that Todd called overrated--and in fact just ordered their CD. Let's see what this purchase does to their current sales rank of 178,054⁽⁴⁾ in music at Amazon.

During the break between bands, I spent some time giving Eric a crash introduction to reality TV. Why is it that interesting and successful people are so lacking in common pop culture knowledge?

After the show, we wandered down to Cyclops for a little more conversation before ending the night. It was after 1 a.m. when we left. Eric and Ali went back to their hotel while Erik and I returned to our respective homes.

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⁽¹⁾First there was 43 Things. Then there was 43 Places. I wonder, what could our next site be...?

⁽²⁾According to 43 Places, there are currently 61 people that want to visit the Robot Co-op office, although for the life of me I can't see why.

⁽³⁾There really is only the "quick" tour of the office which is little more than a single room with a few desks shoved together in the center.

⁽⁴⁾Talk about your long tail. The CD does have similarities so I know that at least a handful of people have bought copies.

I arrived home from the Mirabeau Room just after midnight and promptly crashed into bed. I managed to sleep in a little on Saturday morning, but not nearly enough to prepare me for what was waiting.

It was my nephew Evan's sixth birthday and like we had done for his brother's birthday in March and his birthday the year before, we went to the local Chuck E. Cheese's for the birthday festivities.

My sister hoped to avoid the crowds by going early in the afternoon. This was a great idea. When we arrived there were still plenty of tables available and few of the games had any lines waiting.

The Chuck E. Cheese motto is, I believe, "where a kid can be a kid". However, they forget to add the much less catchy "and an adult can be bored out of his mind". I was forced to wander around after my three year old nephew as he "played" skee ball. This is the first time, I think, that I have ever seen anybody score a zero. Still, he was excited to collect the single ticket given for this masterful performance.

I did manage to slip in a game of Space Invaders and a game of Centipede--some of the true classic video games--but it has been so long since I've played them that I didn't get much further than clearing the first level of each game.

When the meal finally arrived, we sat down to enjoy the pizza. They decided this time to avoid the grease pit that was the meat pizza we had last time by ordering a plain cheese and a ham and pineapple pizzas. The grease level was certainly cut down dramatically--to the point of being unnaturally dry and tasteless. Still, pizza is pizza and I have no resistence to pizza. I ate more than I should and regretted it for the rest of the weekend.

After finishing the pizza we started on the birthday cake, selected earlier from among the many fine cakes Safeway happened to have available that morning.

After exchanging all the hard won tickets for a few rolls of Smarties, we were out the door a mere two hours after we arrived.

As we left the stage following the Maktub performance, Daniel pointed out the muffled sounds from another stage. "That's Garbage," he noted. I joked that I should have paid more attention to the Bumbershoot schedule. Had I realized that Garbage was playing--I've been a fan since their first album but haven't yet seen them live--I would have just taken my free pass from Maktub but skipped the show and gone to see the band I really wanted.

A few minutes later we approached the Mirabeau Room. There was a small line of people waiting to get in. But since I was arriving with one of the owners, I got to jump the qaueue and walk right in. Normally I would be pretty disgusted by this special treatment, but since I was the recipient, well I guess it didn't feel so bad after all.

After having my ID examined, I reached out to have my wrist stamp. This took a bit of effort and revealed how unclub-savvy I really am. At first I extended my right arm, but must have had it angled wrong because of the scorned look I received from the doorman. So I held out my left hand as well. No it needed to be the inside wrist, so I twisted my hand. No, it turns out that it needed to be the right arm after all.

With the stamp issue finally resolved, we proceeded into the club. I had been here once before for a going away party for one of my coworkers, but it was different now, with the lights turned low and live music playing.

Daniel ordered a Coke for me. It was surprisingly good, fully carbonated, and served in an ever stylish disposable plastic cup. Normally I would expect a place like this to serve severely watered down soft drinks, perhaps to get back at me for wasting their time not ordering expensive liquor.

With drink in hand I walked closer to the stage to enjoy the music. The band was a self described improvisational hip hop R&B group. I don't normally listen to that type of music, but there was something about the small club ambiance that made it a very enjoyable show. Not having had enough with just performing an hour and a half set, Reggie joined the band on the stage and sang along with a few of the songs.

After the band finished their set, the DJ started playing some music. I hung around a while as people began to dance. Daniel warned me that the clientele would be about half our age. Well, I'm not that old yet, but two-thirds my age certainly felt about right.

I left the club after about 45 minutes. My aging body can only take so much excitement in one night, even when I get the rare chance to hang out with rock stars and pretend, for a moment at least, that I could lead this wild and crazy life.

This month marks the end of my twelfth year living in Seattle. And in all that time, I have never been to the Bumbershoot music festival. This is all the more remarkable because for six years I have been living no more than half a dozen blocks from the Seattle Center.

This year Maktub closed the first day of the festival with a headlining set at the Bumbrella stage. Daniel offered to put me on the guest list and I finally relented. He has offered to put me on the list for the last three shows I've been to and I think he might have been offended by my constant refusal of his offers. Well, Bumbershoot is a bit pricier⁽¹⁾ than the typical Maktub show, so I decided that free wasn't so bad after all.

With the Seattle Center so close, I seriously underestimated the time it would take to get to the show. The actual walk from my aparment took less time than finding the right admissions gate, finding the person who knew where the guest list was, and then navigating my way through the Seattle Center in the dark.

At the entrance gate, I was informed that I had access to the backstage and would just have to let them know at the stage that I was on the list and they would let me in. By the time I finally found the stage, however, the emcee had just stepped up to announce the band.

I made my way through the crowd to get a somewhat distant yet clear view of the stage. Normally I look for a spot close to the keyboards where Daniel, but this time I was on the other half of the stage looking at Thaddeus in the guitar section. This was enough of a change to make it feel like I was almost watching a different show.

Once again, I forgot to take my earplugs to the concert, even after Daniel had been thoughtful enough to provide me with a free pair earlier in the week. I remembered five minutes after leaving home, but turning around would have made me quite late for the show. At least being an outdoor festival meant that the sound could dissipate in the open air rather than being reflected back like it would in a club. Unfortunately, the sound quality wasn't as good as I've come to expect from Maktub shows. There were constant cackles and pops from the speakers--as if someone had turned up the amplifiers past eleven--that detracted from the softer songs.

The set was a good mix of earlier and later material. I must admit that I quite like the newer material⁽²⁾ with its poppier hooks and harder rock edge. But it was also nice to see more of the older material creep back into the routine.

Before the last song of the set, Reggie ask the crowd to go back home and tell everyone whether they liked the song or not. I liked it. It was an intense sonic assault with crushing feedback. Daniel left the keyboards and played guitar to increase the impact. At one point Thaddeus was pounding the guitar with such intensity that his arm literally became a blur. At times I felt like the music was building up to some sort of breakout into something a little more melodic if not less violent⁽³⁾, but this never came. Instead, the tension continued to build until the band set down their instruments and walked away from the stage with the feedback continuing to ring in the background.

After the encore, I walked around behind the stage to see if they would let me in. However, as I was walking I ran into Jeremy, a coworker from the old company, who was there with his wife. I decided to spend some time catching up with them as a small crowd gathered around the stage looking for autographs and pictures with the band. Someone, I think, even asked Reggie to sign an iPod. Now that's a sign of true dedication.

After the crowds had died down, I headed out with Daniel and a few others to the afterparty at the Mirabeau Room.

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⁽¹⁾Given the quality and diversity of the acts, Bumbershoot isn't that expensive. Especially compared to, say, going to the Kelly Clarkson show at the Puyallip Fair later this much and paying much more to sit on cold, hard bleachers and hope that it doesn't rain.

⁽²⁾I also much preferred the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen to that of David Lee Roth. I suppose that this is just further indication that I am not a true music fan.

⁽³⁾For some reason, at the time the song felt to me like a very loud, feedback laden "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". However, listening to Pink Floyd now, the two songs sound completely different.

One of the nice things about living in the city is that I don't need to use my car for day to day activities. I can walk to work⁽¹⁾, to restaurants, and to movie theaters. The only real need I have of my car is when I visit my sister and nephews once or twice every month, or on the rare ocassions where I need to bring large objects home from a shopping trip.⁽²⁾

As a result, my cars over the years have not gotten very much mileage on them. When my first car was destroyed in an accident, the insurance rep seemed stunned when I quoted the mileage on the car. I also don't get a lot of respect from car people. My brother-in-law once told me that if I were to get a cool car like the MINI then I would have an obligation to the world to show it off. I have so far been quite negligent in this responsibility.

With gasoline prices currently rising at incredible rates,⁽³⁾ however, I now have a socially acceptable excuse for my irrational lack of car use.⁽⁴⁾ Now, I can simply say that I am a patriotic American following the request of my President to conserve gasoline in these trying times.

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⁽¹⁾More accurately, I usually walk halfway to work and then take the bus up the steep incline into Capitol Hill. However, I do walk all the way home, often stopping somewhere along the way for dinner.

⁽²⁾Grocery shopping is not a regular activity for me, as my nephews are well aware. While the car dealer was explaining all of the features of my new car, he pointed to the boot and indicated that's where I could put my grocery bags. My five year old nephew quickly responded, "Uncle Bob doesn't get groceries." I suppose my completely empty refrigerator gave me away.

⁽³⁾The price of gas at the station by my office jumped four cents today between the time we had lunch and when I returned a few hours later for an afternoon snack.

⁽⁴⁾One might ask why, if I drive so infrequently, did I just spend so much money to buy a fancy new sports car. That is indeed a very good question, one for which I do not have a suitable answer.