June 2004 Archives

If you need to make a square with thick edges, there is a little program that I always fall back on...Microsoft Paint! --------

ever tried to make a square in photoshop? it's not as easy as one might think. especially if you want to rotate it 45 degrees to the left, or make the outline thicker. i don't want to rasterize the image or dodge and burn or convert from rgb to cmyk - I JUST WANT TO MAKE A SQUARE THAT HAS THICK EDGES. WHY IS THAT SO HARD!?!?!?! --------

i just got back from an awesome phish experience. deer creek > alpine valley. so amazing...

pictures will be soon to follow.

-heady

update: pictures are posted here

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i woke up this morning to clouds and rain, not the shaking of windows or freightened animals as other people did this morning. or did i? lucas the cat was very weird this morning. he didn't seem as hungry as he normally would be. i'm sure he felt it. i have to say that i wish i felt it as well. instead, i was in a phish-induced slumber that only my cell phone alarm clock could wake me from.

viva alpine valley > deer creek!

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i'm continually frustrating more and more; i can't edit some of these crazy blogger templates to get them to do what i really want them to do. i think i finally need to buy a book to learn this stuff. my birthday is july 12 though. for all you blog readers that actually plan on buying me a birthday gift, a book on web page editing is probably not the coolest present.

in other totally unrelated news, lollapalooza has cancelled all their summer tour dates. i hope this doesn't have anything to do with the second night, as it features a much more jam-friendly line-up (sts9, string cheese incident)...read more...

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seriously, these guys love cutting heads off. Why? Why can't they just shoot the people? Or not kill them at all? I don't know if you have seen any video of these guys, but it is nasty. Jaw dropping. hopefully, this will make corporations want to pull out of the Middle East, but alas, most are not even flinching.

Good news is that Fahrenheit 9/11 comes out of Friday, June 25. It is going to be awesome. And speaking of awesome movies, go see "Napoleon Dynamite". The funniest movie I have seen in a very long time. Apparently it is only in six theatres nationwide, so maybe it will be hard to catch, but if it opens wider, GO SEE IT! I am telling you right now that you won't be disappointed. A very funny character trait, is that Napoleon doesn't curse. He gets really mad and says "heck, gosh, dang-it, flip, and flippin'". Unbelievable.

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06/17/04 KeySpan Park, Brooklyn, NY Set I: Song I Heard The Ocean Sing, Dinner and a Movie, The Curtain With, Sample in a Jar, The Moma Dance> Free, Nothing1, Maze, Frankenstein

Set II: 46 Days> Possum, The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony> Suzy Greenberg> Jam, Axilla, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Birds of a Feather, Kung, Mike's Song> I am Hydrogen> Weekapaug Groove

Encore: The Divided Sky

i'm sure that this show was lovely. in fact, i'm sure that all the shows on this last tour will be special in their own special way. that's why we're going to four of them. did anyone actually go see this show at the movies? it was being simulcast to some 100 movie theaters around the country. that sucks we missed it.

on my day off, i can't help but wonder if i should be at the grant thornton company golf outing today. and then i remember that me and golf outing should never go in the same sentence. i'm much happier sitting here listening to keller williams and looking for a new job.

can i get a hell yeah?

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i have posted our bonnaroo pictures; click the title above for the photo album. notice the sweet rash i've got. you can see one pictures of the wilco drummer on the main stage screen. you can see a blurry picture of the string cheese incident and many blurry pictures of the umphrey's mcgee late night set. we had some good moments. and i learned a lot about the jamband scene this weekend...

so, all is not lost. except my patience with hippies. and my love of the sun.

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Well, it takes a lot for me to admit this, but the Bonnaroo music festival defeated me. After hundreds of dollars spent on camping gear, tickets, gas, food and lodging, Justin and I left Bonnaroo early. Why? Not because the music wasn't good, not because we couldn't take the crowds, and not because we don't love camping. It was, in fact, the blistering sun, ungodly heat, and a nasty case of sun poisoning. Now, I am well aware that this type of weather is to be expected at this type of event. However, I have never before experienced what it feels like to literally be BAKED by the sun (no pun intended). Now, this wasn't your typical "I'm going to try and get a tan by not wearing sunblock" type sunburn. This was 100 percent unpreventable. You all know that our Irish asses don't spend more than a minute out in the sun without protection. In fact, if we had done that at Bonnaroo, we'd probably be dead. Let's take Justin as an example. He was wearing SPF 30 sunblock on his back under his shirt. Over-cautious you say? Try again. After an entire day of cowering from the sun under a canopy, the sun penetrated not only the canopy above us, but it also burned our skin through our clothes and SPF 30!!! To say that Justin and I were burnt to a crisp is an understatement. We were definitely borderline miserable by day 2, but it wasn't until the reddish-purplish sun poisoning rash starting appearing on Justin's legs that I started to get really alarmed. Even I started getting rashy on my ankles and thighs. So between the severe sunburn, the 100 degree heat indices, and the constant fear of dehydration I began to fear for our safety. By Saturday afternoon, I was convinced that if we didn't get ourselves out of that sun and heat, one of us was going to wind up unconcious. But the worst part of it all is that so many of our favorite artists were playing nearby, and we couldn't even step out from under our sun canopy to go out and enjoy what we went there for.

Two reasons why Bonnaroo sucked:
1) There were way too many cool things going on at once, so no matter what you were doing, you were ALWAYS missing out on something cool.
2) The only thing worse than not going to Bonnaroo at all, was being there so close to the action and still missing out on everthing because of the sun and heat.

After three days at the festival, we caught only a couple hours of live music. Our activity was limited to the hours of the day that the sun was not out. And by the time the sun went down, we were so exhausted that even the night time shows were hard to enjoy.

Lessons learned:
1) Redheaded Irish people have no business camping in a field in Tennessee in June
2) I can drink 3 gallons of water without peeing any of it out
3) Justin and I are both pussies

I am sad and disappointed by this experience to say the least :(

Keep rockin'
Katie

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we left at 5:45 p.m... --------

So, ol' dead Reagan was laying about 6 miles from where I work. The line for traffic was sooooo long. I didn't have to sit in the line, but if you wanted to see a box with a flag laying on it, be prepared to wait in line for a bus for 7 hours, then another three to walk around the corpse. What? Why? That seems like a waste of time. I almost got mad because it seemed these people just did it for the story: "I went to Ronald Reagan's funeral! He-uk, he-uk, he-uk!" Yeah, sweet move dingleberry. --------

what a good game...did i mention that katie and i were there?

anyone who wants to get in on some season tickets next year, let's do it. oh yeah. no one lives in chicago anymore...

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in the land of perfect, my superblog would get 50,000 visitors a day. i would publish links to all the lame blogs that i read. i would publish reviews of concerts that my friends and i have seen. but, nobody's perfect. that's why there's walgreen's...

umphrey's mcgee is playing tonight at the belmont & sheffield street festival. $5 at the door. i'll see you there...

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i just wanted to test out the "title" of the blog feature. you can go back to any post and edit the "title" field. i'm going to get into the rss syndication for our site, and it allows rss readers to better view the newer, posted content.

also, anyone have any ideas for a blog that could rival gawker or gizmodo? well, not so much rival. more like, creatively learn from their publishing style and use it for our own super blog.

i'm down...

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well, maybe I will be on TV this fall. I just had an interview at NBC, for this reality show about living luxuriously with Paris Hilton's mom. I would live in New York some of the time, and "travel to exotic locations around the world." It is sort of like a reverse Simple Life. Plain people go and live in the lap of luxury, and see how it is. The casting people said I fit exactly what they were looking for, because I had grown up poor, on a farm, and then moved to a bigger city. Wish me luck! Oh, the working title is "The Hilton Project". WORD. --------

okay, eight days and counting until we leave for bonnaroo and the excitement is mounting. i've spent the day reviewing accounts from those lucky enough to have attended last year's festival and the year before. the consensus seems to be that it is an awesome life-altering experience (as long as you come prepared). i've created list after list of essential items to bring along, but it's inevitable that i'll forget something. (any of you seasoned campers feel free to offer up any tips for braving the tennessee heat for four days - besides "bring water!" - duh.)

i am so looking forward to the experience of hearing new music, making new friends, and enjoying summertime! camping with 90,000 hippies may not sound like a great time to everyone, but i can't wait!!

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someone from qatar viewed our blog. that's crazy! --------