Biking at the Levee with Saul

Saul and I rode our bikes to the levee today. Saul is fearless! He did crash once, but he recovered, then we went to 31 Flavors where he got a Wild n Reckless clown cone. It was a real cool time!

You Tube and My Space

My friend, Connie, sent me an email about some company suing people $150,000 for copyright infringement for having You Tube Videos and My Space videos on their sites, so I took all of those links off this blog. You can still go to You Tube to see lots of cool videos, but I don't have that kind of cash. I doubt if the teeny boppers who post Gwen Stefani and J-Zee videos have that kind of cash either, and I bet those "artists" will eventually be sorry for suing over having their videos be promoted for free by actual fans of their tripe when their videos are no longer in heavy rotation on the MTV, but that's their stupid problem. Here is the article for your perusal. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, said on Friday it filed a lawsuit against popular social networking site MySpace for infringing copyrights of thousands of its artists' works. Universal, owned by French media giant Vivendi (VIV.PA), filed the suit at the U.S. District Court Central District of California, Western Division. The lawsuit accuses MySpace of allowing users to upload videos illegally and taking part in the infringement by re-formatting the videos to be played back or sent to others. It follows several months of talks on music rights with News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWS - news) MySpace, which broke down late on Thursday, a source familiar with the discussions said. It claims thousands of links to music from Universal's biggest artists, including Jay-Z and Gwen Stefani, are widely available on MySpace, even ahead of their release to music stores. It estimated maximum statutory damages for each copyrighted work at $150,000. Earlier on Friday, MySpace unveiled an enhanced copyright protection tool to make it easier for content owners to remove unauthorized material. MySpace later described Universal's action as "meritless litigation," saying in a statement its procedures for removing illegal downloads lived up to laws protecting digital rights. Protecting copyrighted material is one of the biggest challenges facing entertainment companies as they try to turn a profit off the growth of digital media outlets. Music and TV companies have been in dispute with sites like MySpace and YouTube in the last year because of the ease with which their millions of users can upload and share songs and videos without having to pay. "Businesses that seek to trade off on our content, and the hard work of our artists and songwriters, shouldn't be free to do so without permission and without fairly compensating the content creators," Universal Music said in a statement. YOUTUBE DEAL AVERTS LAWSUIT In the case of YouTube, now owned by Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news), Universal Music reached a licensing agreement to give the site and its users access to thousands of music videos. Other entertainment companies have been reluctant to take legal action against the likes of YouTube and MySpace because of the potential promotional exposure such sites may give to their artists. MySpace says it has more than 130 million users. News of Universal's suit comes a day after News Corp. said Ross Levinsohn, the executive who led the $580-million acquisition of MySpace, had resigned from the company. Universal Music Chief Executive Doug Morris had publicly hinted that his company could take legal action against MySpace and YouTube back in September. He said at the time that the two sites combined owed his company "tens of millions of dollars." But the threat of legal action seemed less likely after Universal and other major record companies including Warner Music Group (NYSE:WMG - news) and Sony BMG Music signed separate music video agreements with YouTube.

Annual Mountain Bike Ride :Chabot Lake

Kevin, Pat and I went on a 16 mile mountain bike ride on November 5. It was very strenuous to me, and I walked up the steepest parts of it, but the downhills were very fun. I didn't fall this time, which was good. I hope to make more trips like this before next November! Pat is a monster.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can hardly wait until next week, since I have the entire week off from work. I am very thankful for that fact. Saul and Sherri made a really cool looking turkey out of beads for his class. Here is a picture of it.

Easy Halloween Costumes

Here are a couple of no brainer costumes for me and Seth. I think we look pretty darn cool as John and George.

Happy Halloween!

I almost forgot about our jack o' lanterns. Here they are. Saul's looks the best, like a pumpkin should. Seth and I got ambitious, trying to do compicated images using these fancy carving tools we got. Mine is supposed to be a grim reaper, and Seth's is a skull. They look pretty good, but they took a long time, and it is hard to tell what they are in these pictures. Oh well. It was fun anyway.

An A-Maze-ing Day

Dad took us to the Dell'Osso corn maze today, and the kids had a blast. We made it through the little ghost maze with no problem, but the farmer maze took us a while . The kids rode horses, too. The haunted house was pretty scary, but Saul didn't cry. Seth went ahead of us and claimed it was not scary at all. We'll see how they sleep tonight, though...

Fall Back

We had our annual Fall Back Karaoke party tonight with Ruth, Rob, and Vince. The highlight was Vince singing Sister Ray by the Velvet Underground, but before that he sang Brandy by Looking Glass. Rob had a little mp3 video recorder, so here it is on You Tube.

Saul's in Kindergarten, and HE CAN READ!

For the last couple of weeks, Saul has been reading, and at our school, when kindergarteners start reading, they get to go to the principal's office and read aloud to the principal. When they do that, they get a t-shirt that says, "I'm in kindergarten, and I can read!" Well, Seth was the first one in his class to get the shirt, so Saul wanted to be the first in his class to get the shirt, and he's been asking his teacher when he'll be allowed to read to the principal. It turns out that the reason he hadn't been able to do it yet is that the school ran out of shirts last year and didn't reorder them yet. When Saul found out about that, he was mad, so Seth gave him his old shirt from two years ago to wear, but Saul was worried that his teacher would get mad at him for wearing the shirt without reading to the principal first. He wore it to school today, and kept his jacket zipped up fearing that he'd be caught by his teacher or the principal. He approached Mr. Amato at recess to explain about the shirt, and I saw him walking up to Mr. Amato, so I snuck over to eavesdrop. Saul explained to him that he was wearing the shirt Seth gave him because he is in kindergarten and he can read, and that he'd like to read to him to alleviate his guilty conscience and unzip his jacket. Mr. Amato called him to read to him this afternoon, and Saul was so proud of himself! He said, "I read the whole book without missing a word!" He got an eraser for his effort, and a little parachuting man toy. He was the first one in his class to get the shirt!!

Louie, Louie!

Sherri and I just got back from Old Sacramento. We saw Louie C. K. at the Punch Line last night, and it was about the funniest show we've ever seen. Louie tells jokes about his life, his marriage, and does a lot of self reflection and introspection which is what makes his act so funny. He tells it like it is, and he is just a regular guy, so I relate to his humor, and I think pretty much anybody my age could. Anyway, we approached him after the show and talked to him for a minute. We found out that his show on HBO, Lucky Louie, is not going to stay on the air for another season, which is ridiculous since it is the best sitcom ever made. He said, "What are you gonna do?" and seemed to be taking it in stride. I got my picture taken with him, and got his autograph, and we said thanks and goodnight. We went back to the Delta King, sat on the deck and drank some good wine, and talked about the stuff Louie talked about, like a time when he cut a guy off in traffic and got chased down by the guy who pulled up next to him at the next red light and told him to "suck a bag of dicks." He riffed on that for a while, saying stuff like, "What does that mean? How do you picture that? Is it a plastic ziplock bag with a bunch of dicks in it like chicken parts? Do I put the whole bag up to my mouth and suck the side of the bag, or do I take each one out, suck it, then toss it aside into a pile like a bunch of edamame pods? Or is it a paper bag with a bunch of dried up dicks that you buy from some Chinese guy on the street? Gimme one of those long red ones hanging up there... are they all in a paper bag, like a bunch of baguettes sticking out the top? Do I have to make them all come?" He just kept going, and the whole audience was cracking up. He went on to talk about what his sex life is like now that he and his wife have two kids, what he would do if he had 55 billion dollars like Bill Gates, and lots of other stuff. So, we were still talking about him today when we were walking around Sacramento checking out the capitol and the stupid K street mall waiting for the sushi place to open, and after we ate lunch and were about cross the crosswalk back to the parking lot to get the car and drive back to Stockton, we looked up and saw Louie crossing the street towards us! I said,"Is that Louie?Hey, we saw you last night." He said, "Yeah, I remember." We talked to him for a few minutes and Sherri asked if he'd pose with her for a picture and he said, "Sure." It was a trip! He is such a cool dude, and I really think he's about the funniest guy going these days. I signed a petition on line and wrote to HBO to try to save the Lucky Louie show from going off the air. What a great time we had!

Substance D

Scanner Darkly is a really cool Philip K. Dick story, and I got the audiobook off demonoid! It has Paul Giamatti reading it, the guy in American Splendor and Sideways. Get it! See the movie, too!

Torrents

I learned about torrents recently, and my friend, Todd Reynolds told me about dimeadozen.org. I just found out about demonoid.com, and I found Peter and the Wolf on there, the prog rock one with Eno as the wolf and Stephanne Grappelli as the cat. If you don't know about torrents yet, you should check these sites out. They are out of sight!

Oktobriana

I never expected that Oy Vague would become a live band, but someone named Kasha wants us to play at her party, so I am uploading some songs we might play so Pat can learn them. These are songs we played back in 2003 at the beginning of Oy Vague. Duncan suggested these since they are pretty simple, and will allow us to do our thing with a minimum of pre gig stress. If you can't unzip them or want cds instead, let me know. http://rapidshare.de/files/33504633/oktobriana.rar

See Emily Vague

Oy Vague played at Steve Hohn's party on my birthday. It was supposed to be a birthday party for his dog, whose name is See Emily Play. Here is a link to the rapidshare files of the gig. Get it then unzip using the freeware program, winrar. Put it on your mp3 player and space out. http://rapidshare.de/files/32926171/See_Emily_Vague.rar.html

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

On September 19, 1982, I played Tommy Lee Huttner on the pilot of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers with the likes of McGuyver, the hairy guy from 30 Something, and Lil' River Phoenix. I played in a fiddle contest against one of the brothers. So I had only seen this once when it first showed and this was pre VCR for me and my family. I was curious about the possibility of getting a copy of this rare piece of historical footage, so I started looking on the internet. I finally found a guy in Georgia who found a complete set of the only season that someone had taped, labeled, then gave away to the Salvation Army! This guy tried to sell the whole set for $89 Buy it Now on ebay, but it didn't sell, so I emailed him asking if he'd sell me the pilot for $10. He said yes, then put it up and sent me the link. When I went to buy it, it had already sold! I emailed him telling him the story of how I was the kid playing the fiddle at the end of the episode and asking him if he'd copy it before sending it to the buyer, and he said he'd do it, and he sent it to me for free! I will try to figure out how to put it on You Tube and put it here on this blog. It is 2 of my 15 minutes of fame.

It's A Butte!!

Here is a picture I took while riding my bike around Camanche. I did some photoshop effects on it. It's a butte! Today is Sherri's birthday. We went to lunch at Sho Mi sushi restaurant with the kids and Ruth and Rob. It was great! We are all sushi hyped now. I can't believe raw fish tastes so good! We are watching Nip Tuck season three now. It is so trashy, but so good! I actually feel guilty for liking that show. Sickness! We went to Chico to visit Allan and Katherine this weekend too. It was lots of fun. We went out to Sierra Nevada Brewery for dinner, then went back to their house and played Cranium which is like charades, pictionary, scrabble, and trivial pursuit all in one game. The next day we went for a bike ride in Bidwell Park. It has been a nice Labor Day/ birthday weekend.

I'm SO Lucky!

My birthday was on Saturday, and Sherri got us tickets to see Louis C.K. in Sacramento! He is hilarious. If you don't watch his show, Lucky Louie, you should check it out. This show is the funniest sit com I've ever seen, and it's on HBO so it is pretty raunchy. I can't wait to see him live, which I can predict will be even more raw than the tv show. The stuff that is talked about on this show is just like real life, and it is so funny it hurts! Watch this show!

Time OUT!

Child In Corner To Exact Revenge As Soon As He Gets Out

Teach For America Chews Up, Spits Out Another Ethnic-Studies Major

Blogdawg

Kevin has put a blog out there,blogdawg, and it has some of his very funny "podcasts" which feature excerpts from various jams Oy Vague has done over their three years as a band. Click the links, and download them using the free rapidshare utility, then listen and enjoy!

The Boys' First Day of School