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Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em

Know When to Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em, as the great Kenny Rogers sang once.

Tonight starts our first, of monthly, poker tournaments with our little clique of friends. 8 guys, 2 of which whom know how to play Texas Hold ‘Em are gathering together.

Lots of chats and figuring out the rules have taken place. We’ve each been assigned what to bring (food, licquor, beer, snacks, etc).

I’ll grab my camera and see if I can’t add some pics when all is said & done.

Should be a good time.

The Breakfast Club

John Hughes’ seminal teenage movie, The Breakfast Club, turns 20 next month. I stumbled across an article on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel discussing the film’s anniversary. It briefly covers the movie, and also 5 things you might not know, 5 things that would be different, and 5 reasons why it’s still relevant.

The Breakfast Club still remains my favorite John Hughes movie, but Pretty in Pink has to be a close second. The Breakfast Club introduced us to the actors that become the Brat Pack in the late 80’s, and the view on high school it had in 1985 isn’t too different even 20 years later.

KCMP – Better than I expected

My corporate firewall / proxy server defeated me at work today. I was unable to stream the Windows Media stream for 89.3, KCMP The Current. So tomorrow, I shall go old school, and bring an old radio / small boombox. Take that corporate IT managers!

The Current publishes their playlist for the last 6 hours, here’s a sample (in reverse order) of what I heard on the way home from work today:

The Jayhawks – I’d Run Away

Shivaree – I Close My Eyes

Iron & Wine – Teeth In The Grass

Pinetop Perkins – Meanest Woman

The Black Keys – Girl Is On My Mind

A.C. Newman – Miracle Drug

R.E.M. – Driver 8

T Rex – Mambo Sun

Fountains of Wayne – Radiation Vibe

They had a Beach Boys song in there too, that there website doesn’t list for whatever reason.

Looking through today’s playlist is absolutely amazing – Ani DiFranco (32 Flavors!), Dylan, Soul Coughing, a bunch of REM, Luna, deep cuts from Liz Phair, Luna, Muddy Waters and Sonic Youth. I could go on. This is everything I expected and more. I can’t communicate how happy and excited I am.

This is music. This is radio. This is freedom.

KCMP Launches Today!

I’ve been meaning to blog this all weekend, but I got distracted.

MPR has re-launched their website, replacing just the blog, including bios of the on-air talent, a feedback form, a FAQ, and donation information.

Speaking of donating, in the age of XM, Sirius, and Napster, when you can pay $10-$15 month for hundreds of stations, why donate? Because 89.3 is public radio, a community service, and is unlike and other radio station out there. Where DJ’s control the playlists, not big media (yes, even XM has a significant Clear Channel stake), and 89.3 will also have a heavy local focus for Minnesota artists. I did my part, and put my money where my mouth is.

They will be streaming live, including Windows Media Player (more ick), and aacPlus, a fairly new MPEG-4 audio stream that supposedly has excellent quality at low bandwidth. The open source VLC project has a player available for Windows, Mac, and Linux that will stream aacPlus. I’ll be installing that this morning!.

Give it a try, and listen in.

24 vs. Alias

I recently blogged about Alias’ current reboot, and as I try and get caught up on my TiVo, I finally watched the two hour premier of 24.

Talk about how to reboot a show in two totally different ways. I’ve already complained about Alias and my inability to suspend my imagination about the reboot. 24 handled it the opposite – in less than 5 minutes they explained the changes in Jack’s life, made it believable, and then the action just grabbed you and didn’t let go for two hours. Sure, Jack becoming a temporary field agent stretches the imagination a bit, but no where near how Sydney’s working for Sloan again does.

I was very impressed with 24’s season premiere, and couldn’t stop watching. Where with Alias, I watched it, but I was just waiting for the next thing to happen.

The 3rd season of 24 might have been the weakest in some regards, but it was also better with how they kept the plot moving, 3 major plot shifts instead of 2 at the twelve hour mark, (which helps people watching for continuity’s sake). The 4th kicked off with a bang, and hasn’t let go yet.

I’ll continue to watch both shows, but for very different reasons.

More Christmas Presents: Books

One of my favorite Christmas presents to receive is a Barnes & Noble gift card. And this year my sister hooked the family up with a dandy. Alex was able to purchase two nice hardcovers by Garth Nix, and I picked up a few.

On my list for quite a while is a few books by Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, EFF board member, and a Stanford law professor. I bought The Future of Ideas and Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.

In addition, I picked up We The Media, Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People by Dan Gillmor, who recently put his money where his mouth is, and left his job at the San Jose Mercury News to found a grassroots journalism project.

And last, but not least, Geoffrey Stone’s Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. Mr. Stone had the opportunity to guest on, but who else’s, Lawrence Lessig’s blog in December. Fascinating thoughts, facts, and history behind the governments role in free speech regulation during wartime. I’m really looking forward to reading this book.

It feels good to be buying non-fiction, and topics I believe in: Free Speech, copyright reform, and journalism. Now to finish off the two novels I’m reading and tackle some real reading material.

Alias 4.0

Over a year ago when the 2003 TV season started, I blogged about Alias rebooting for the third time.

After sitting on my TiVo for over a week, I sat down and watched this season’s premiere and the current episode. We’re now on to Alias 4.0, another reboot to start the 4th season. I enjoy the show, but it’s getting harder to suspend my disbelief after all of the plot holes that open up every time they decide to start over.

This time, we find Sydney, Jack, Vaughn and Dixon have been transferred to a black ops division of the CIA. (The show can now just ignore the whole workings of the CIA). And guess who they’re working for – Sloan! We have now recreated SD-6, but sanctioned by the CIA now. By the end of the 2nd episode, Weiss & Marshall are working for them now.

I’ll give them some credit – continuing plot points are still there, with the tension between Sydney and Jack regarding her mother, Rombaldi, and Vaugh and Sydney’s romance. I’ll give it a try, but I’m at the end of the line. I’m all for watching a well done espionage with a beautiful heroine, but at least try and keep a plot for more than one season. I understand that people didn’t watch the show because they couldn’t follow the plot if they missed an episode or two, but dammit people, buy a TiVo. That’s my favorite part of shows like Alias & 24.

The 2nd best Christmas Present I received

The 2nd best Christmas Present I received was a book from a co-worker: The Daily Adventures of Mixerman, by Mixerman.

The book tells the story of Mixerman, a sound engineer in Los Angeles hired to mix a new up and coming band’s CD. This dysfunctional band, signed to the label after a bidding war, has been locked away by the music label for 2 years to write a “radio hit”. Everyone in the book is anonymous, including the author, to protect the band’s identity. From Willy Show, the big time producer, nick named because his contract to produce the album isn’t done and he doesn’t show up for a week, to the aptly named Dumb Ass, the drummer who can’t do anything right.

The book is a hilarious look at everything that can go wrong in a recording session, and a behind the scenes look at the music industry. Originally posted almost as a blog in 2002 (before blogs were cool), the book contains all of the blog entries, and the missing final entry. It was easy reading, and will keep you laughing the whole way through.

Radio Goodness

A long time ago, I blogged about Rev105. Without rehashing all of that history again, Rev105 is being re-created by Minnesota Public Radio. The purchase of WCAL, St. Olaf’s classical radio station, was met by animosity in Minnesota, as MPR bought out the classical competition in the city. But MPR’s vision for the new KCMP is a radio station dedicated to local music. Following the template of LA’s KCRW and Seattle’s KEXP, 89.3 KCMP will have a focus first on the local scene, and then dedicated to playing music no one else does.

How is this re-creating Rev105? Well, their station director is Steve Nelson, the former co-host (with Brian Oake now on Clear Channel’s 97.1) of Rev105, who left after some time after the Capital Cities buyout to go to NPR. Steve was also a founder of Radio K 770, and has been on their board of directors for quite some time. Thorn, KCMP’s music director, was the afternoon drive-time DJ on Rev105. And their newest DJ is Mary Lucia, who hosted nights on Rev105, and mornings with Brian after the buy-out and Steve leaving.

MPR is hosting a blog dedicated to the launch of KCMP as they prepare to go live. No go live date yet, but my anticipation is building.

A Breath(ed) of fresh air

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has an amusing interview with Berke Breathed, of Bloom County / Outland / Opus fame.

I love Bloom County, as I’ve commented before. Re-reading and collecting those 80s comic books reminds me not only of my childhood, but how topical Mr. Breathed’s cartooning is and was. So much of what he talked about then still applies to today.

He has a 25th anniverary book coming out of his favorite Sunday comics he wrote.