311 and Slightly Stoopid

I just got back from a 311 concert at the Queen E. My ears are still ringing, and I can't really heard myself type. It was a great show.

A friend had bought me some tickets in return for letting him crash on my couch for a little over a week. Definitely a good trade. I hadn't heard of the opening guys, but 311 was a band that I had rocked out to quite a bit in High School.

The opening act, Slightly Stoopid, was surprisingly good. They had a very unusual sound, probably because they kept switching up genres with each song. Sometimes they were Reggae, sometimes Ska, they did two punk numbers, and a couple of songs that sounded like Snow. Overall, very good. But, it's hard to go wrong when you have two percussion sections, and a brass section. This also marked the first bongo solo I've seen performed on stage. Probably the highlight for these guys was the sheer amount of  bass they were generating. They opened with the kick drum and a bass guitar solo -- I was pretty sure my eyeballs were going to explode.

After an incredible finishing number (all music, no singing) the band let up for a 30 minutes intermission and then the main act came on.

Before this concert, I asked a number of people if they'd be interested in catching the 311 concert with me. To my surprise, no one I know knew who they were (even the person I sold the tickets to had never heard of them; she was purchasing tickets to the openers instead). I don't really know how people my age haven't heard of the band before, they had a number of pretty big radio hits during the 90s that I'm sure would have stuck with you. The three biggest being Amber, Love Song, and Down.

Anyhow, obviously some people remembered these guys. As the lights went down, their bass player let rip an amazing solo (Why can't I buy that for Rock Band?!) to the sold out hall that had everyone standing in their seats. No one sat down for the next ninety minutes as the band played a great mixture of old and new songs.

The highlight of the show was an awesome solo by drummer Chad Sexton. They hit the lights and he pounded away solo for 3 and a half minutes. When they raised the lights, there were 4 more kits on stage, and the rest of the band accompanied him for another 2 minutes. They hammed it up a little, drumming robotic style, and running with a short cowbell solo -- it was great.

Turn off your lights on March 29th

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Earth Hour US - Earth Hour 2008

Earth Hour 2008 is tomorrow at 8 pm. Hit the lights and chill for an hour.

Vancouver is listed as one of the major cities that will be participating. I'm really hoping that having a downtown view of the entire city in the dark will be an interesting spectacle.

I've got a new camera.

I picked up a Canon XTi this past week. I haven't had much of a chance to play with it just yet, but I'll definitely be spending some time with it over the weekend. The package I bought came with a smaller case, two lenses (the standard lens and a 50 mm - 50 mm portrait lens), battery pack, shutter release and other random accessories.

I was actually debating picking up a Pentax K100d. I'd heard a lot of decent reviews about it (much, much better than the previous versions) and it was a good deal cheaper than the canon body. The kicker, though, was that it takes the same pentax lenses that have been in production for 30 odd years or more. I already have two of those lenses (a pretty standard lens and a 100-300 telephoto) so that saves me a lot of money up front. Also, additional lenses are way cheaper, even new, than the canon equivalent. It's definitely a worse camera, but the TCO of the canon was so much higher that it seemed a fair trade off.

That said, I got a deal I could not refuse on the canon.

While I'm messing around with it, I'll probably be shooting a lot of junk -- I'll toss up some photos in a bit once I've gotten used to the settings and such.

Dryer Balls

I bought a set of Dryer Balls a few months back to try out in the laundry. So far, so good. They work almost as well as a regular dryer sheet (90% effectiveness) and I don't have to pick up dryer sheets from the store anymore.

The biggest reason that people buy these things, though, is that they are supposed to be environmentally friendly. The idea is that by using the blue rubber balls instead of dryer sheets you are [1] saving trees from being cut down to make the sheets, and [2] saving the toxins in the fabric softener from entering the watershed (either upon the next wash, or upon disposal of the sheet).

Turns out, there are some additional negative side effects to the things. According to treehugger.com:

What the manufacturers fail to mention, however, is that the the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material the supposedly "nontoxic" dryer balls are made of is one of the most poisonous plastics ever created, posing great environmental and health hazards in its manufacture, product life, and disposal.

Yet another green alternative that ain't that green. The unfortunate part of the current green movement is realizing that nothing we do really has a small impact on the world around us. Maybe one product is better than another during it's lifecycle, but what about upon disposal, or during manufacturing? Perhaps the product is a traditionally poor product for sustainability, but it's sourced from better materials than others.

Doesn't hurt to keep trying though.

I figure I'll keep the dryer balls I have for now - I can't see any evidence that using the product is harmful, only manufacturing and disposal - as I figure it's better to keep using it now that it's been made and purchased. If anyone else is considering something similar, that's a canadian product called Fluff Balls that are supposedly a little better. They are made from wool. Don't let the website fool you, they are actually about $25 for purchase.

Also, some people have reporting getting good results from tennis balls.

Ding!!

We finally hit 70 in WoW.

NewsFire now free

The RSS Reader I use has been released as Free (as in beer) software this week.
If you have a mac, I'd strongly recommend giving NewsFire a try.

It's quick, clean, easy to use, etc.

If you've never used RSS Feeds before, you've gotta try it. They are a great way to get the news.
If you've only used online RSS Readers, give this a shot. I find it zippier than online readers, and I like that I can use it when I'm away from a net connection (yes, there are still a few places like that).

http://www.newsfirerss.com/