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This page stores my blog entries from September 2005.  The entries are dated September 13 and September 30. Back to the Blog Archive Band Familiarity and Concert Joys: a Reflection / Potential Computer Upgrades Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Even though I'm nearing my 30s, I still go to concerts.  For anyone who loves music, that probably wouldn't surprise anyone.  Usually, throughout one's life, a person will find interesting bands to follow.  Although I continue to find interesting concerts to attend, my relation to the band has, for the most part, changed. When I was younger, most of the concerts I attended were by bands from whom I had albums.  Whether it'd be Metallica, Pantera, Rancid, or White Zombie, I had all their albums and knew most of their songs.  When these bands came along, I could sing to whatever song they played and just have a great time.  I'd gain a sense of community with fellow fans, surrounding ourselves with a common love.  Even with bands like Aerosmith or Def Leppard, I knew nearly all of their popular songs, and bands like that usually don't need to play much of anything else. Nowadays, I find myself buying CDs so that I'd know something more than what little I have heard.  Sadly, that occurred for both Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.  I knew nothing from either of the bands besides what little I've heard, but, being a serious music fan, I had to know more to really get the full enjoyment of the concert experience.  I had a similar issue when I went to see Testament at Big Shots in Roseville.  I found myself at Slayer concerts being familiar with their first three albums plus the "Undisputed Attitude" disc.  Most of the stuff Slayer plays in concerts these days doesn't appear on those albums. Fortunately, my experiences are changing towards the better.  I am still a decent Dropkick Murphys fan, owning all of their albums.  They haven't come to Sacramento on a headlining tour in five years, but hopefully they'll come back around town on a spring leg of their current tour.  I finally got around to buying more Suicide Machines albums and got to see them in concert a month or so ago.  That concert was one of the most fun that I attended in years.  I'll be seeing Flogging Molly early in October.  I bought whatever CDs I could get at their last concert at CSUS (a live album and "Within a Mile of Home") and bought "Swagger" almost a month ago.  I still need to get "Drunken Lullabies", and I should be able to get that with enough time to digest it before that gig. I find, much more often than not, that if I actually know the songs the band plays, I enjoy the concert more.  If I can sing along with the songs, then I enjoy it even that much more.  Speaking with a hoarse voice the next day is a sure-fire way to tell if I had a great time at a concert. ***** My computer is getting to the point where I should upgrade it.  I recently finished "Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna" and will finish "Morrowind" at some point.  Beyond that, I found that not too many games are still being made for Win98SE.  So, I'm put in a bit of a spot for making decisions on this. I know I'd want to get more RAM.  Win98SE works wonderfully on 256MB, but WinXP and future OSs will not do much at all.  I'd be tempted to buy a new hard drive to use as a primary drive instead of my 6-year-old 20GB drive.  The real decision will be whether I go with WinXP or wait for Vista to come out. Microsoft Office will be my main concern when I upgrade.  I have Office '97 Pro that works beautifully for me and, most likely, has more to it than I really would use.  But, given the cost of the newer Office products, I'd rather not have to buy that again.  I'm hoping that Office '97 Pro will work with WinXP or some other OS (maybe by using the WinNT installation). I'll probably be a bit concerned with some of my games as well.  Marathon2, Doom, Doom II, Diablo, and Diablo II will probably be the ones I'd most want to play again at some point.  I do have Warcraft and Warcraft II, but I'm not very likely to play those again.  Other, more recent games are more likely to work on future OSs, so I should be safe with those. I don't think I'd have to upgrade much of anything else.  I really would love to have a new audio card, and the new one by Creative looks really sweet.  I may splurge on that when the time comes. If all else failed, I could get someone to have my system dual-boot in both Win98SE and whatever other OS I choose.  That would give me the best versatility for my needs. Back to the Top Say No to "Donuts" / Guess Who Performed (and no, it wasn't "The Guess Who") / Vacation Wrap: a Summary / M.C.E. Prof., where are you? / Those Darn Kids Friday, September 30, 2005 A couple of years ago, I went through a brief phase.  On some morning, I decided to get doughnuts for my team.  Other team leaders did such things, and I felt generous at the time.  My problem came when trying to pick a doughnut shop from which to buy doughnuts.  I thought I'd choose one of the easier things to sort them, given that I hadn't been to a doughnut shop in ages: I limited it to whatever shops spelled "doughnut" correctly.  That so many shops insisted on spelling it "donut" just plain irritated me.  I might have seen it as one symbol of the declining literacy ability in the country.  Or, I might have wanted to punish those who I deemed too stupid to spell "doughnut" correctly. (Actually, for all I know, it might have been cheaper to make a sign with fewer letters.  So, I can see a reasonable possibility for doing so.)  Either way, I sorted through and picked a few that actually spelled it correctly.  None of them were anywhere near where I'd be going to work, so "donut" had to suffice. My "donut" phase didn't last very long, but it existed in my phase of being critical of such things.  An instance similar to this came up recently and reminded me of the aforementioned situation.  Apparently Rocklin is now home to a location of an "Italian" restaurant called "Pasghetti's".  If I were a parent or five years old, I wouldn't find this name to be irritating or downright stupid.  On a different note, this family-oriented restaurant could be a rather fun dining experience that reminds oneself back when saying "pasghetti" was fun or funny.  Even though I still find this a little irritating, I'd certainly have to applaud a rather good name that easily catches people and can be remembered easily. ***** I love it when musicians present a cause and actually maintain their convictions.  On September 24th, a bunch of bands will perform at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. for the "Operation Cease Fire" concert.  Jello Biafra will M.C. the shin-dig, and many bands will perform, including the Bouncing Souls, and many speakers will voice their concerns over the drawn-out military action in Iraq (and the alleged fact that 60% of all Americans oppose the war).  A lot of punk bands and band members comprise the performers for this concert and political uprising.  One person sticks out as being a bit out-of-place: Joan Baez. Joan Baez?!?  The Joan Baez, who performed at Woodstock nearly 36 years ago.  And, nearly 36 years later, she's still performing at protest concerts, probably singing the same songs that brought her fame.  Singing those light, lilting songs with acoustic guitar.  Being covered by Judas Priest, of all bands.  How cool is all that?  All of that, and to still be performing in concerts near one's retirement age, still supporting the same causes as in one's youth.  If only I had such convictions and constructive paths I could take. ***** After about 500 miles traveled and over 100 pictures, my vacation nears an end.  The one thing I sorely needed on this vacation I did not get: sleep.  Do I worry?  Of course not!  During my vacations, sleep tends to get in the way of things I'd much rather do.  Besides, I found too many things to do than just sleep the days away: Monday through Wednesday: Tahoe City!  I've always loved Lake Tahoe, and I had to make a journey there a priority for my vacation.  I stayed a couple of nights in a familiar motel and used my one full day up there to prowl around the lakeside segment of Sugar Pine Point State Park.  I spent nearly five hours hiking around there, stopping once to eat lunch.  I declared my hike a success when I located the lighthouse, which proved to not be an easy or clear objective.  A great dinner at Bacchi's included the house ravioli and sauce (a main dish that came with minestrone, salad, and an antipasti plate), a glass of Delicato Cabernet Sauvignon, and some spumoni.  I still managed to catch Monday Night Football, two Giants games, do some yarn shopping for Pam, and patrol downtown Truckee for a few hours before heading home.  It did rain while I was up there, but it only rained Monday night, the night I stayed inside with wine and the come-from-behind victory thanks to Randy Wynn. Yesterday, I took the day to go see the A's play the Angels in an afternoon game won by the latter team 7 - 1.  Instead of driving, I took Amtrak, my first long-distance train trip.  On the way to the game, I felt rather disoriented.  I'm used to driving along I-80, but the Amtrak rails don't really follow that.  So, my sense of location was a bit off.  The Oakland Coliseum station sits just across a foot bridge from the BART station, both of which lie just east (?) of the Coliseum itself.  I enjoyed a bratwurst, garlic fries, and a Guinness (a seemingly out-of-place beer for this stadium) for lunch.  Scorekeeping challenged me a bit, since the A's scorecard in the program didn't have a general score line per inning and didn't have a whole lot of room for pitchers.  I think I'm too used to the River Cats' scorecard, which is a whole lot cheaper ($1 as opposed to the $5 program guide from the A's) and just better designed.  (Both teams really need to do better with putting current, rather than last night's, game info page in the appropriate document, but that's another matter.)  On the train ride back, I read some of Stephen King's "The Body".  I watched "Stand By Me" when in Tahoe and wanted to read this novella upon which the movie is based.  So far, the movie didn't change much. I had a blast.  Pictures will come soon (I promise). ***** After the game yesterday, I wished I had my Multicultural Education professor around.  When I was in the teacher credential program at Sac State, we had a class we called, "Multicultural Education" (officially called, "Multicultural Education for a Pluralistic Society").  I don't know if any of us really knew what we were supposed to learn from this class. For nearly two hours, I sat at the bus stop near the BART Station at the Oakland Coliseum.  After sitting in the sun through a 2+ hour game and not sleeping very long the night before, I felt exhausted.  I found a shady-ish spot and sat down.  I felt safe.  More importantly, I had a bathroom (port-a-potty) nearby.  I had plenty of people-watching time.  One pair talking about drugs.  Various people checking the bus schedule.  A few people being picked up.  Anything from old Buicks to rather nice, shiny Cadillacs driving up or driving by.  People leaning against walls, waiting for buses.  At least one bus (the #50 bus line, I believe) had quite a few buses come.  One or two people dressed rather nicely.  One person with a hardhat who looked like he just came off the job and was heading home. At some point, I looked less deeply: of everyone I saw, I was, maybe, one of only three white people there.  I'm sure I watched several dozens of people pass by.  Nearly all seemed to be African-American.  I recall one teeny white girl waiting for a bus and one white dude who was one of the people talking about drugs.  Interestingly, this minor observation seemed negligible towards my interaction with or my comfort around these people. On the other hand, I started to wonder just how minor an observation this was.  The U.S. Government declared segregation unconstitutional decades ago, yet a certain segregation still exists.  It does appear to currently be mostly on monetary classes.  Granted, I don't know much about Oakland, but I did wonder if it was just coincidence that I seemed to see a predominately African American population at that bus stop.  Was it just the bus stop, or was it a larger segment of Oakland itself?  How much of this was due to class divisions and financial capabilities?  If I were at a similar bus stop in San Francisco or a different part of Oakland, how would things differ?  Or, was everything I wondered merely a correlation?  Certainly, just because someone takes the bus doesn't mean the person is poor.  There are too many other reasons why a person would take a bus (convenience, cheaper; a rich man doesn't stay rich by spending all his money). As these ponderings wafted through my tired grey matter, I began to wish I had my Multicultural Education professor around.  Maybe she could tell me that what I was wondering was ok.  Maybe she could tell me more about what I pondered.  Or, maybe, she could see my comfort and tell me that I passed a test towards being a good, culturally unbiased (in a negative sense) individual.  She could very well also point things out in this that illustrate what she tried to teach us. ***** On the way home, a group of (who I assume to be) U.C. Davis undergrads boarded the Amtrak train and yapped ... constantly ... loudly ... nearly the whole 2 hours from their boarding to Davis.  A part of me was too tired to care for a long time, being too engrossed in reading "The Body".  Eventually exhaustion reigned me in and other things seemed more prominent than normal.  That included their chatting. Could I really be old enough that a group of people only seven years younger than me would be annoying?  I thought old people were the only ones who complained about the noise emanating from youths.  Given how tired I was from four straight days of fun and adventure, maybe my tolerance dipped a little bit. Their chatter made me think, though.  Frequently, the younger generations blame the older ones for forgetting what it's like being young.  With vehicle maintenance, house/rent payments, job security, and career objectives added on over time (and kids, for some people), it seems that sources of worry replace the carefree attitudes.  As I sat there considering this, I remembered how my old high school group would chat up a storm.  I knew that, whenever the cacophony ceased, my friends were bored.  Therefore, if people were yapping away, they certainly must be happy and having fun (my friends and I, at least; for other people, this could be a different story). Eventually, my thoughts turned to envy.  I realized that I partly wished I had someone to chat with.  And, if it weren't for my near-dead cell phone battery and my Pam being at work, I probably would have had that.  That would come in time.  I sat back, periodically read another chapter in "The Body", relaxed, and watched the scenery roll by. Back to the Top