./janella.com

Ah, another Internet and ME moment.  Found this nifty plug-in/site called [Audioscrobbler].    From their site it states:

Audioscrobbler builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations.

[See my page here]

The cool thing I’m looking for is recommendations of new music and groups. This was one of the main reasons why I liked file sharing, the ability to see what other people listen to who share your musical tastes.  (Of course there’s that nasty legal side of sharing files, but let’s not get into that here.)  The profile does time time to build, requiring about 100+ songs to be listened to before updating. The site can also be slow due to the amount of submissions and songs processed. Give it a shot.

Plug-in available for the following players:

• Winamp
• Windows Media Player 9/10
• iTunes (Windows)
• iTunes (Mac)
• foobar2000
• XMMS/Beep Media Player
• AmaroK
• QCD
• Rhythmbox
• J. River Media Center
• Xbox Media Center
• SlimScrobbler
• Noatun
• AmiScrobbler (MorphOS)

The Governor of California visited work today to make a little speech.  We waited in line, hopeful to get in, but fell about 50 people short of the door.  Oh well, I didn’t vote for him (or the recall) anyway.

Here’s some photos from outside (with a few more @ my Flickr page):

Thursday was one of the times I was glad I checked my spam email.  I get the weekly email from [Ticketmaster] about concerts.  I guess I missed the one earlier about [Esthero] coming to town, and only found out on Thursday when she was playing on Friday?!?!?

I called Farrah to quickly confirm we had nothing plan, and was able to purchase some general admission tickets online.  Finally, we get to see Esthero after missing her so many years ago.

Esthero in Seattle.  Photos taken by [OptimusCrimeDeux]

Esthero came out full of energy.  Her vocals were strong, her manner confident,  and her energy contagious.  She was chatty with the crowd, taking requests for a song here and there.  She was wearing a black strapless number that posed problems for her during the show (having to continually pull it up to hide the goods), but otherwise danced around like there was no tomorrow.  A great show.

Her set was a little under 90 minutes.  Some of the songs she sang (in no particular order) were:

• Wikked Lil' Grrrls
• Breath from Another (just an a cappella tease)
• OG Bitch
• Superheroes (a cappella - by request)
• Gone
• My Torture

ENCORE:

• Joey
• Wish You Away
• We Are in Need of a Musical Revolution

“I was born Wednesday, June 29, 2005 at 8:24am.  I weighed 7lbs 3oz and measured 18.5 inches.  My turn-ons include nipples, balmex and pink onesies."

Congratulations to Mark and Ivria

It’s been a pretty low-key weekend.  I have just been trying to recover from this cold-thing.  Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, hoping I could go out and about on Sunday and Monday.  And so I have been able to do so.

Yesterday, Farrah and I just hit the malls - Valley Fair, Vallco then Fry’s - to do a little window shopping for the most part.  Coming back from a late breakfast we ran into Mitsuki and her father on their mid-day walk.  You can see pictures either on my Flickr account or soon to be posted on the photo page:

Today we went over Farrah’s house for a BBQ lunch.  I didn’t take any pictures, probably because I was upset with the fact that I might have lost a lens.  Yeah, I can’t find my 50mm lens.  I’m not sure when I had it last - I think during Kayla’s dance recital a couple of weeks ago.  But I’m sure I had it in my bag.  I’m thinking I simply put it down when I was changing the lens and left it behind somewhere.  Luckily it is not a really expensive lens, but it still irks me that I lost it.  Ugh.

Oh well, that’s the weekend wrap-up for you.

Farrah and I ran into Doug and Mitsuki on their mid-morning walk.  I had the camera with me and started to take some photos of Mistuki, which I haven’t had the opportunity to do.  I went to manual and forgot the sunny 16 rule, so few of the shots here have way too much light:

Luckily I could look at the LCD and quickly remedy the situation to get a couple of good shoots as well:

I’m recovering from this damn cold still.  I got the stuffy head thing going right now.  Hopefully it will be gone soon so I can enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Right now as I’m writing this I am watching the the Live 8 concert feed on [AOL.com]  I know the Internet has been around for a while now, but I’m just amazed that I am able to jump back and forth between the feeds in London, Berlin, Toronto, Philadelphia and Rome.  It’s coming across pretty good too with no jumps or jitters.

Oh well, time to clean up some of this computer room.  It’s a mess!

These new albums now available for viewing:

Photos from Yen’s birthday dinner.

Photos from Lotte’s birthday dinner.

Its official: I got some kind of bug.  Aching back. Runny nose. Hacking cough.  Ugh, I hate this stuff.

Of course, I decided to go out yesterday after work and spread my germs! No, I had to pay a bill at the mall. So Farrah and I grabbed dinner at [Alexander’s Steakhouse] - more on that later - and headed around the very dead Vallco Mall. I started to feel progressively worse. When I got home I knew I was just going straight to bed.

I break out the cold & flu medicine we have and check the label. Get this: “Tylenol Cold Nighttime with Cool Burst”? What the heck is ‘cool burst’? The box says Tylenol Nighttime with Cool Burst “gives you the multi-symptom relief you need to rest-plus an instant cooling sensation you’ll feel right away.” Well, it was like taking a mint for medicine but it was effective. It knocked me right out for a very good nights sleep.

But I still feel like s@!t this morning. I think I’ll be wiping my nose and coughing away all weekend.

This sucks.

Most of the postings lately have been about birthdays.  Let’s see, birthday’s this month were for Skylar, Little Gordon, Yen, Lotte, Doug and Kevin this month. Did I miss anyone?

A lot of photo opportunities present themselves at birthdays. So I took it was an opportunity to take photos with the D70s.  Pictures of Yen’s birthday (when we took her out to dinner at Straits @ Santana Row) and of Lotte’s birthday (at [Buca di Beppo’s] in the City) will be posted on the [Photos] janella.us.  Fina took most of the photos at Lotte’s birthday.  The photos out of focus are the ones I took :)  It was funny see Fina with a Nikon since she’s such a Canon person.  (Man, should have taken a picture of her holding the camera!)  I still need to post photos from Lotte’s and Skylar’s parties.  Remember to log in to see the ‘big picture’.

Podcasts

iTunes 4.9 was released earlier this week.  With 4.9 it now makes it easier to download Podcasts.  What are Podcasts?  Short and simple, it’s like a radio broadcast you can listen to on your digital music player (see [Podcasting])  Podcasts can be anything from news to business reports to independent music programs and beyond.  I don’t think Podcasts are bound by any FCC rules so content can be almost anything.  You don’t need to have an iPod or use iTunes to listen to a Podcast, so do a search on the Net and check one out.

Current Podcasts I’m listening to:

• KCRW's The Treatment
• Cinecast
• digital photography tips from the top floor

Apple did announce one this week that sucked:  iPods now come with color screens by default!  Ugh!  Oh well, the price you pay for wanting an iPod.  You knew it was going to happen.

Feeling blah

I’m a little under the weather.  Tuesday morning I woke up with a dry throat and my nose felt dry as well.  Wednesday found me staying in bed most of the day.  Today my nose is just running here and there.  I thought it was allergies, but usually my eyes itch, which is currently not the case.  What makes it worse is that it really isn’t comfortable staying in bed with the weather being so damn hot!  I had a little ramen in Mt. View last night that helped out.

Ugh.  I hate summer colds.

Etc.

Plans for the weekend?  Still working on it.  Farrah’s lucky to have a four day weekend.  Me?  Three days, which I’m not complaining about (or am I?)

Still, there are plenty of early Peas-heads who remain disgruntled about the  group's leap to the pop world. But go ahead and call them sellouts. Lead lyricist will.i.am doesn't mind. "It's cool. It makes me feel good because that means they really liked our  first record."

I wouldn’t say I’m disgruntled, I just liked their old sound better.  Not sure I’m getting into their new album.  It’s pretty much pop, with a lot of contributing artists (Jack Johnson, Sting, Justin Timberlake…).  It’s can be catchy stuff - which pop is supposed to be right?

For more on how B.E.P. feels about their changing sound, [read this CNN article].

Today we had Father’s Day breakfast/brunch at Aloha Kitchen in San Jose on 1041 East Capitol Expressway..  Uh, the food was so good.  I had the Samin with BBQ Chicken and it was delicious!!!  Farrah’s dad had Samin as well, her mom Portuguese Sausage and eggs, and Farrah had Hawaiian Pancakes.

Farrah’s dad struck up a conversation with another customer.  The talk started off normal - How you doing?  Where you from?  The guy talked about what street he used to live on.  Funny thing was that Farrah’s dad new exactly where that was  and the neighborhoods’ residents specifically!  So the guy would say, “Yeah, there is this short guy who lived in a house down the street…” and Farrah’s dad would reply, “Oh, you mean at 1084?"  Amazing.

Later that day Farrah and I took my mom to visit my dad’s grave.  It’s been over ten years, but still…