Paul’s alice.homelinux.net weblog

Well, it’s new to me.  It’s a forest green 1997 Saturn SW2 I bought from Jeff’s dad, Lloyd, for a song.

I just got the title, license plates, and paid the tax on it.  Pure awesome.  Here’s a list of “issues” with it:

• Funky smell inside
• Brake lights out
• Needs oil change, air filter
• Check Engine light on
• Rear window leaks
• Needs new tires (also a stipulation of sale)
• Hood was “keyed”
• Some “funny business” with the trans I haven’t figured out yet

I found out pretty quickly where the funky smell was coming from; it seems the back window leak had allowed the spare tire well to fill up with water and spill over into the back seats.  As a result, the bottom of the back seat foam was entrenched in about 1 inch of mold.  I figured no one would want to sit back there knowing that, so I took out the rest of the back seat entirely.

To be continued…

Keith, Holly, and I got to see a hair-raising Incubus concert at Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island tonight. Being one of my favorite bands, it was hard for them to really do any wrong, even though I’d sampled some of their 2004 concerts on iTunes and been disappointed. I haven’t mulled it over yet, but I may be ready to declare it The Best Concert I’ve Ever Been To.

Here’s the set list:

• Quicksand
• A Kiss To Send Us Off
• Wish You Were Here
• Anna Molly
• Pistola (Jam)
• Vitamin
• Love Hurts
• Drive
• Megalomaniac
• Nebula
• Sick Sad Little World
• Stand By Me
• Oil And Water
• Dig
• The Warmth
  
• Punch Drunk
  
• Aqueous Transmission

Listing the titles of the songs does little to pay them the reverence they deserve; they all really need a listen to latch onto. Their performance of `A Kiss To Send Us Off’ and `Oil and Water’ were fantastic; by far the concert’s best offerings, the most hair-raising. ` Sick Sad Little World’ was also given the justice it needed.

The instrument variation was a really cool part of the concert. Lead singer Brandon Boyd and drummer Jose Pasillas managed to work in an awesome drum duet during the `Pistola’ jam. One of the drums, maybe a sort of djembe or conga, looked like a toilet. I’m not even crapping you. I also found it interesting that I’ve never seen a concert where the drum set and keyboard/turntable sort of angled into each other, taking equal parts of the rear stage. To wrap up, guitarist Mike Einziger brought out what I learned was a pipa for the `Aqueous Transmission‘ finale; it was really captivating to see played.

Okay, stuff I didn’t like: I am normally vexed by the song `Stand By Me’, but I forgave them pretty quickly for that. Also, their offerings from S.C.I.E.N.C.E. were not any of my favorites, so they could’ve picked better songs from that album.

Songs I missed:

• Paper Shoes
• A Certain Shade of Green
• I Miss You
• Pardon Me
• Are You In

And worst for last: Their opening band, Simon Dawes, was not so good. Of singing, lyrics, keeping songs at a reasonable length, and fitting into any genre with Incubus, they failed. Entire measures of bad songs kept lingering on and on… It’s not Incubus’ fault they sucked, though.

Update:

Keith E-mailed me some photos he took at the concert, but alas, they’re tiny.  Better than nothing, though.

Somebody said something at work along the lines of “this is brought to you by…” and all I could think of is “Mr. Fung’s Nerve Tonic!”, an exclamation that would sometimes start off a round of Rocket Jockey, one of my favorite games from the mid-90’s. Thus began a series of web searches, sifting through CD-ROMs, hacks, and patches that resulted in a (sort of) working game. This might be prime material for another LAN party; the patched LAN game supports up to 6 players!

It appears there’s also a project underway to remake the game, albeit under a different name and without all the original character names (Artie “The Torch” Jablonski was my favorite!), sound effects, and fortunately, graphics.

In a delectable attempt at one-uppsmanship against my grandma’s flag cake, I had decided to make my own banana chocolate chip cake to bring to my mom’s on the 3rd of July, which is Parade Night in Evergreen Park.  And by “make”, I mean have Holly make the cake and frost it, and I do the decorating part.  I know, I’m so difficult for her to deal with. 

But I didn’t want to decorate it like the regular stars-and-stripes flag; it had to be something different.  I remember seeing an image recently of the Gadsden Flag, but I didn’t want to make a cake with a solid yellow background, and couldn’t figure out how to get a snake all coiled up on it.  But the First Navy Jack was closer to what I wanted.

Anyway, I laid out parchment paper on the cream cheese frosting, but it stuck so badly that when I pulled up the strips it took nearly all the frosting with it, causing The Diamond to lash out.  Fortunately, wetting them down first kept the stickiness to a minimum, and I was able to use Betty Crocker Easy Color Decorating Spray to spray on the red stripes.

After putting down the “DONT TREAD ON ME” in black gel frosting, and laying down the $2 wooden snake (uh, so to speak), it was done.

We saw all these bands (except Winnie) from lawn seats at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, but we missed part of Foreigner since we got there kind of late. Foreigner was the most exciting to see for me, but Holly was all about Def Leppard; I think one of theirs was the first CD she ever bought. They paid respect to the song “Rock On”, originally by David Essex, though, so I can’t knock ‘em too bad.

Most of the pictures came out poorly since it got dark fast and was less conducive to my attempts to zoom.

Winnie, on the other hand… I found out that Keith bought a dog the night of the concert as well. It’s a bichon pomeranian that weighs about 5 pounds, and it’s all fur. So after the concert we went to go meet Winnie.