Anyway, I am going to keep this short because I am tired and need to go to bed.  If you have an xbox 360 and xbox live and you don’t own Braid, you are an idiot.  It is the best game I have played in the last 10 years.  It is a reason to buy the xbox 360.  It is the first video game I have ever played that I would consider art.  Read the reviews, other people have said it better than I will be able to right now.

Also, my buddy Jeremy directed me to a site that everyone should check out.  It is called indexed and it is awesome.  This girl boils down what most blogs blather about for pages in simple drawings on index cards.  Sometimes it is funny, other times it is very clever and poignant.  Sometimes it is all of those things.  Check it out.  That is all I have for now so on that note I am off to bed.

Braid

Basically, Thom screwed up the lyrics and bailed on the song, half-assedly covered “Tell Me Why” by Neil Young to the laughter of the audience (he didn’t know the words) at which point Phil came out and threw some money down as if Thom were a street performer.  Thom and Johnny tried again and screwed up again, Thom yelled “Fuck” and stopped playing again, only to start again from where he screwed up and finish the song.  It was really funny.  The band was in good spirits for sure.  In Limbo was also badass because Nigel came out and played tambourine.  It was a fantastic show.

I am posing the set list below with song names in yellow I have video for.  They are all on youtube and embeded here.  Make sure and check out the videos in high quality mode on youtube so you can hear everything in stereo and see everything more clearly.  The actual video I shot is at a pretty decent resolution and youtube doesn’t do it justice; however, I don’t have the bandwidth to post 9 500MB files.  Anyway, the show kicked ass.  It was the best show I have ever been to.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and video.

Here is a slideshow of the pictures I took.  If you want to see bigger versions of them go here.

1. 15 Step
   
2. Reckoner
3. Optimistic
4. There There
   
5. All I Need
   
6. Pyramid Song
7. Talk Show Host
8. The National Anthem
9. The Gloaming
10. Videotape
11. Lucky
12. Faust Arp
13. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
14. Climbing Up The Walls
    
15. Dollars and Cents
16. Nude
17. Bodysnatchers
18. How to Disappear Completely (Encore 1)
19. Arpeggi/Weird Fishes (Encore 1)
20. Idioteque (Encore 1)
    
21. In Limbo (Encore 1)
22. Street Spirit (Encore 1)
    
23. You And Whose Army? (Encore 2)
    
24. No Surprises (Encore 2)
    
25. Everything In Its Right Place (Encore 2)
    

As I understand it, a large section of Georgia wants to be Russia (actually, there are several, but Ossetia is just the one getting action right now).  Georgia attacked Ossetia to keep that from happening.  Russia would love to regain some of the regions it “lost” when the USSR dissolved so they found a reason (dead peacekeepers) to retaliate decisively.  Georgian military used the Russian attack as an excuse to do some ethnic cleansing of the people there who want to be Russian (US media is leaving this information out to make it easier to justify supporting Georgia to protect some pipelines).  Russia started attacking other sections of Georgia because it wants to win this before it can escalate enough to require cease fires and turn into another Chechnya.  US and NATO threaten Russia because Georgia has oil pipelines and militarily strategic locations that benefit the US and NATO.

The history of the region is insane.  Like the bulk of that part of the world, it is a history of constant invasion (due to no geographical boundaries that can stop military).  Because of that it is difficult to say who is right unless you limit history to certain timeframes and only talk to certain people.  The region is in constant flux.  The Cliffs Notes history is something like this:  Georgia was its own nation with its own royal family.  Russia manipulated it politically by not participating in some of Georgia’s wars with neighbors and offering protection during others.  Russia somewhat peacefully took it over and exiled its royalty (peacefully) and taxed it and everything went okay for awhile.  Then Lenin and Stalin took over and did everything they were known for to Georgia.  Then things were quiet for awhile until the USSR dissolved.  Georgia was very eager to get out and that eagerness was kind of a slap in the face to Russia.  Georgia’s current eagerness to deal with Western nations makes the Russian government very nervous (as it would the US if the US existed in a place where it had a history of constant invasion).  Couple that with the fact that many Georgians in the area of conflict want the area to be part of Russia because the president of Georgia is incompitent at best and genocidal at worst and you have what is going on today.

So what should the US be doing in all of this?  How about not a fucking thing.  This isn’t our fight, it has never been our fight, it should never be our fight.  We keep getting into other people’s fights because of pipelines and our ideas of where borders should exist.  This is between Russian and Georgia.

What am I missing here?  This is a legitimate question posed because it is impossible to know what is going on there without being there.  I can only have an opinion based on what I know.  It’s easy to blame Russia because that is what Americans do; however, watch this video (provided by Russian Media) and tell me what you think.

I’ll come out and say that I am not a big fan of Microsoft on a lot of things; however, Vista does kick ass. The people whining about how it is slow and doesn’t run on their ancient computer need to suck it up. It wasn’t built for old computers. If you have an old computer then stick with XP. XP is solid. Run Ubuntu if you want, it’s cool too (if you don’t need exchange and don’t mind spending time getting it set up to do what you need to do). If you have the means though, Vista kicks ass. It runs fast as hell on my laptop. It’s snappy. It looks good. Gadgets are way cooler than I thought they would be. It’s just good.

I do a lot of development in Python using PyQt for Gui design and Eclipse as an IDE and I have not had a single problem with any of it. It all runs great, it looks good (a testament to Qt as well). I don’t know what else to say. I am pretty critical of software and gadgets that make big promises and then punk out on them and so far Vista hasn’t pissed me off. People complain about it always asking permission to do things; however, that only happens when an app is doing something it probably shouldn’t be. Well written apps behave. If I could talk Microsoft into changing anything it would be the way the networking configuration is set up. Opening 5 windows to change my IP is a drag; however, how often do I really need to do that?

Anyway, since Microsoft is building an entire ad campaign on this idea I am not going to go into tons of detail as to why I am happy with Vista. I suppose I have been so busy getting things done that I haven’t had time to write up anything on Vista. That is a good sign. Microsoft seems to be on track and lately they are coming around to the open source community (ironpython actually works, they are throwing money at apache, etc). Microsoft out from under Bill Gates might be a company that people get can excited about without feeling dirty.

Randy Pausch died today from pancreatic cancer. It’s sad, but his impending death prompted him to take action and do some really positive things that I think will ultimately be bigger and more important than him. If you haven’t watched the speech you really should.

I mentioned a few of his quotes to a friend of mine today, and his response was was an immediate and short, “Yea, I hate that shit.” It totally took the steam out of me. Without knowing it he completely pulled the rug out from under my mood. It was a perfect example of why that kind of cynicism is so useless to the world. What was just an offhand comment to him completely pissed me off. I wonder how many situations that would otherwise be everyday type situations are made completely sour by people with shitty attitudes. I can’t say I am perfect. I can be as negative as the next person; however, I don’t claim cynicism as a virtue the way many people do.

Dr. Pausch had all kinds of little anecdotes and sayings that provided a glimpse as to how he saw the world. They allow you to see the world from his optimistic perspective. It’s a refreshing view if you’re constantly around people who think it’s cool to have a shitty attitude. It’s honest. It doesn’t assume the human condition is screwed up beyond repair. That kind of optimism is inspiring. I have another friend who likes to point out that the world isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. He uses that as a way to justify the way he views and interacts with the world. It’s not my place to try to change his mind about that kind of thing; however, one can be optimistic without thinking the world is all butterflies and rainbows. He sees things that are wrong or unfair. I see things that I need to fix. It’s an important distinction.

I’m not saying people need to always be happy. That’s ridiculous and probably unhealthy. How do you understand happiness if you haven’t been miserable? I can’t say that I’ve been truly happy very many times in my life. That being said, looking at the world honestly, openly, and with a mind to fix the things that you can and accept the things that you can’t is the right way to look at the world. The people who actually make waves in the world have this mindset and everyone else is just riding those waves.

Now for a quote from my favorite author because irony is different than sarcasm but can be just as funny…

“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.” -Ernest Hemmingway