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Queen

ESPN has had a banner running for the last few weeks promoting the halftime shows of the BCS College Bowls for their musical acts. One of them has been Queen + Paul Rodgers.

I am huge Queen fan, and really got into them again in 90/91 when they were re-releasing their albums on CD. I had almost completed my collection when Freddie Mercury died in 1991. I’ve had mixed feelings on this whole tour with Paul Rodgers not understanding why Queen would be touring again without their frontman, the legendary Freddie Mercury.

Who was this Paul Rodgers guy? Why was he touring with Queen, and why would Brian May and Co. resurrect Queen with a new lead singer?

Well, it turns out Paul Rodgers was the founder and lead singer for Free, Bad Company, and the Firm. He has an impressive resume. Now knowing his background, I can respect Queen’s decision to tour with him.

Browsing around Queen’s website, I came across their store where they offer their Official Bootlegs. While the collection is still growing, the price is amazing for what you get. For about $9 after translating the currency, you can buy live bootleg albums with up to 30 songs. Encoded in 192k WMA (192k = good, WMA = bad), the price is phenomenal for what you get. I’ll definitely be picking up a few of those in the days to come.

Football!

I love this time of the year – I think I’ve watched a football game every day for the last 10 days. Even the first few bowl games with teams you’ve rarely heard of we’re quite good (and I’m still laughing at George O’Leary).

I was ecstatic to see the Badgers win decisively in Coach Alvarez’s last game. I had been walking around the last few days convinced that what the analysts said was true – Auburn’s defense was going to rip in to Wisconsin, and the Badgers had little chance to win. Was I wrong – the Badgers won, and won big. Forget about the 10.5 point underdog status – Auburn couldn’t get it together all day and the Badgers offense was hot in the first half, and the defense played a heck of a game.

I was shocked to see the Packers fire Mike Sherman today – it wasn’t the $6 million they owe him for the last two years of his contract, it’s the question of who will replace him. In a year where there will be more head coaching vacancies than normal, will there be enough talent to go around? I also question if Ted Thompson is doing it for the right reasons – is Sherman definitely the wrong guy, or is Thompson trying to put his stamp on the team.

Time will tell. This leads me to believe Favre will retire, and is will be interesting to watch the Packers enter the next generation.

  • in General
  • 1 min read

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Kelly’s due date has come and gone, so we will be welcoming in the New Year any day now with a baby.

Resolutions this year? A few off the top of my head:

  • Finish the basement
  • Clean my closet
  • Build a HTPC
  • Go to Guyfest
  • Get silwenae.net back up and running, including with Jinzora
  • Make a Podcast There’s a ton more, especially basement related, but I’ll just stop there.

My Christmas Present

Kelly got me one of the best gifts I’ve got in a long time, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection.

Weighing at just over 22 pounds, the collection consists of 3 hardcover bound books, with every comic done by Bill Watterson. Kicking off with a 14 page foreword, which was worth it a lone, as Mr. Watterson discusses his love of comics, and touches on why he never granted interviews or went ahead with merchandising.

Each book contains 3 years worth of strips, interspersed with water color paintings that take up a whole page. The comic strips are laid out in order, and the background color of each page is an off-white that really makes the strips stand out. Each page has the dates the comics on the page were originally run.

I love Calvin and Hobbes – not only does it take me back to my childhood, but those strips still make me laugh out loud as I was reading them this weekend. It truely is one of the timeless classics.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Merry Christmas for Linux

The Gstreamer team at Fluendohas licensed the MP3 codec for use on Linux! From the article:

Why are we doing this ? Quite simple. mp3 is a very widespread format, and the fact that Linux could not legally play it out of the box in countries where patents apply is posing a lot of problems for adoption. It is one of the most commonly heard complaints about distros these days. Fluendo still fully supports open formats, and we hope people move to using them. Part of that move is being able to play your legacy formats, where you have no choice over the format. Remember, we are not giving away a free encoder.

What does this mean? That one of the biggest oversights in all Linux distributions has been fixed – Distro’s can bundle in MP3 decoding support out of the box, and not have to worry about patent issues.

Thanks Fluendo!

  • in Politics
  • 1 min read

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

Sen. Feingold has Senators listening! With a vote of 52-47, 8 short to override a filibuster, Senators today rejected extending the Patriot Act. Senators from all sides joined Sen. Feingold in opposing this terrible piece of legislation that stomps on American’s civil liberties.

“We can come together to give the government the tools it needs to fight terrorism and protect the rights and freedoms of innocent citizens,” said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., arguing that provisions permitting government access to confidential personal data lacked safeguards to protect the innocent.

“We need to be more vigilant,” agreed Sen. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record), a Republican from New Hampshire, where the state motto is “Live Free or Die.” He quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Those that would give up essential liberty in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”