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iTunes is one of the main reasons I have not switched to a Mac. I really do not like it. All I want is a simple music player, and iTunes definitely does not fit into that category. And iTunes has some of the worst UI design flaws ever. (Don’t even get me started.)

Well, the whiz-kids at Apple have finally forced me to soften my position on iTunes with the addition of their latest killer feature - Genius. This gem categorizes all of the music in your iTunes library, allowing you to create a custom playlist with a couple mouse clicks. Simply chose a tune to seed the playlist, and Genius does the rest - instantly creating a playlist of similar music. These lists can be saved, so that means that they can be fine-tuned and combined with other playlists. I’ve been using Genius for days now, and really like the way it works. It finds tunes in my collection I might not ever have listened to and creates playlists that rival my best efforts. VERY cool!

This is probably a good time to mention Pandora - another nice piece of software that does something similar, but from a vast on-line music collection. If you don’t have or don’t want iTunes, I recommend you check out Pandora.

I don’t think so. I can think of a whole bunch of people who would totally love Item Number One on this year’s wish list.

thedude and Kelly joined about 1,000 others last night to show our respect for His Dudeness at the first San Francisco Lebowski Fest.

Yes, there were plenty of Jeff Lebowski and Karl Hungus look-alikes. Music was provided by the hilarious Meshugga Beach Party. Primal drum beats and sexual energy came by way of the fabulous Extra Action Marching Band. NEW! Now with Video!

We tried our best to get close to Jeff Dowd, to get a shot of thedude with thedude, but no luck. Perhaps we’d have been able to better focus if we hadn’t consumed those last two caucasions. “Hey, careful, man, there’s a beverage here!”

gotye.com » Blog Archive » Hearts A Mess film clip. Check out my new favorite song/music video. I LOVE it! Thank you so much, Bill & Rebecca at Radio Paradise for turning me on to this!

Tonight, while listening to an excellent version of Particle Man by They Might Be Giants with its inspiring Stylophone solo, I was delighted to learn that They Might Be Giants perform the Daily Show theme song (unconfirmed) - but more importantly - that Rolf Harris was the Spokesman for the Stylophone. This naturally led me to the first recording I ever purchased - Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. Man, ya gotta love the Internets!

Wow. We had a terrific weekend, and I have a throbbing headache this morning to prove it.

Our friends Grant and Sandy are lucky enough to have one of the world’s greatest musicians in their family. Grant’s cousin Jon has a new CD out, and Grant was kind enough to have one signed and then hand-delivered the disk to us before a fantastic dinner at Downtown Restaurant in Berkeley. I’m listening to the disk now, and it’s great. Thanks, guys!

On a totally unrelated topic, I never thought it made sense to buy a photo printer, given that it takes just a few mouse-clicks and very little money to order real photographic prints on line. Well, all that changed this weekend, when I attached an Epson Stylus 1400 Photo Printer to Kelly’s iMac. This printer produces some of the best-looking prints I have ever seen. the six-color inks deliver a wider gamut than is possible using photographic paper, and 5760×1440 ink droplets per inch means sharper images as well. The very first print I made on Epson Ultra-Premium Luster Paper was perfect! The images this printer produces more closely resemble what I see on the LCD display than I imagined possible. The printer is super quiet, and fast enough. It spits out a gorgeous full bleed 8 x 10 in about two minutes. Epson offers a $75 mail-in rebate through September 8th. Highly recommended!

My new-found old friend Robbie set us up with VIP passes to the 40th Summer of Love Reunion in Monterey. The show turned out to be one of our all-time favorite live music events, mainly due to the “unstructuredness” of it all. No one seemed to care much about where anyone sat or if a rogue photographer obstructed their view for a minute or two. This was the most laid-back concert crowd ever. Aging hippies rule!

I’m sorry to say that no guitars went up in flames while we watched, but there were a few memorable moments. The David LaFlamme Band put on a great show early in the day. It was fun to sing every word of Hot Summer Day and White Bird along with the rest of the crowd. Evidently, I’m not the only dude who still loves these tunes - even after (gulp!) almost 40 years. Anyway, the band played with a lot of skill and energy, and of course, it was great to see Robbie play again! It seems I may have inadvertently snapped more than a few pictures of Rob on and off stage. Not sure how that happened… :)

The RaveUps rocked hard and reminded us just how good some of the music of the 60’s is during their scorching Yardbirds tribute, but the most amazing performance came from a Beatles tribute band from Alameda, California called the Sun Kings. Now, when I hear “Beatles tributes band”, I expect them to play tunes like Twist and Shout and I Want to Hold Your Hand. This was not the case with the Sun Kings. No - they skipped the lighter fare and dove straight into the album that changed the world forever - Sgt. Peppers. Backed by the amazing Liddypudlians, they played the whole album - flawlessly. The band could not possibly have found a more perfect audience - some of whom had seen the real Beatles perform at Shea Stadium in 1965. The Sun Kings were the only band to receive a standing-ovation and perform an encore while we were at the Festival.

I was so stunned by the performance that I could barely raise my camera off my lap. I felt tears well up in my eyes. I was probably feeling nostalgic for a beautiful carefree time in my life and the amazing soundtrack that accompanied it. Or maybe it was the Jesus weed.

As difficult as it is shooting under these conditions, you can occasionally get some wildly colorful shots. Motion blur is unavoidable as using an on-camera flash is not an option in an environment this dark. Luckily, a little motion blur can work in your favor by helping to convey the mood.

To get further into the mood, I’ve arranged for you to get Shpongled while you view the rest of the images. May I suggest you put your best ‘phones on and turn it up loud!!

You gotta love the Internet. This week it helped bring me back together with my roommate from 27 years ago. We exchanged a few e-mails and I learned that my old friend Rob Espinosa would be performing today at the Novato Art and Wine Festival.

Kelly and I watched Rob play with the David LaFlamme band - formerly It’s a Beautiful Day. Those of you who remember Rob from the days that we lived together on Conkey street would instantly recognize him - especially when he’s on stage clowning around and flashing that trademark grin. Oh - and he still plays his guitar fabulously. Rob is leaving soon for the east coast performing with a Summer of Love 40 Year Reunion Tour where he’ll be playing with the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company! Awesome!

Rob, it’s really great to hook up with with you again and to meet your wife Nancy! It’s especially cool to discover that you live just an hour away in Santa Cruz! Let’s fire up that hot tub and barbecue grill when you get home. We’ll bring the wine!

Last night’s Mystic Beat Lounge, held at the enormous Grace Pavilion in Santa Rosa was headlined by “Hallucinogenius” Simon Posford, aka Shpongle. His performance was the highlight of the evening, but an earlier act, Australian band Ganga Giri really blew me away.

This was another of those impossible-to-photograph events where lighting can only be characterized as “sporadic”. That didn’t keep me from trying though. More photos soon.

First of all, let me state up front that Kelly is my best wife - ever. There is no second place. She totally rocks. This week she granted me 77 hours of bird-less bliss. (Thank you Darling. The kindness of boarding your four sometimes lovable, but often totally annoying critters has not gone unnoticed. It has been wonderful, and I am very grateful. Four stars. Of course I miss you. :)

So, what did I do with all of this glorious free time? I delved into the world of Internet radio! See, an ex-coworker, (and actual friend) Bill, came by with questions about the technology and the market. Unfortunately, I have learned that I’m totally out of touch with the mainstream. I wasn’t much help describing the audience for Internet Radio. I mean, all I know is that I tune in Radio Paradise pretty much every day. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? (I also contribute to RP, and you will too after you listen for a few days.)

Anyway, I’ve always preferred to be the guy “behind-the-scenes”. (I guess that makes me an “E” - an “enabler”. That’s probably why I love System Administration and networking in general.) So, when the idea of running our own Internet radio station came up, I did what I think I do best - I began researching what it would take to actually do this. What software is available? How is bandwidth allocated? How much does it cost? What about the web site? How many listeners can be supported for nothing? Are there Open Source solutions? Will this run on one of my Linux servers? What kind of resources are we talkin’ about, anyway? More importantly, Is there payola in Internet radio, and can we get some?

Which brings me to Bill Tobin. I have known Bill since somewhere around 1989, when I started at Conam Nuclear. I could say a lot about Bill, the nuclear industry and having 6 months a year off, but I’ll save all that for a later post. The one thing I’ll say for sure is that Bill has the best taste in music of anyone I know - and the most eclectic music collection. That’s why his will be the best Internet music station ever. Simple as that.

Stay tuned…

(By the way, I found answers to all most of the questions about Internet radio and some surprises too, which I hope to detail in subsequent posts right here.)

Oh - on a totally unrelated note, we had the garage cleaned this weekend. This is the first time in eleven years that I have seen the garage free of automobiles.

The best thing ever to happen to computers is Adobe PhotoShop. Ask anyone who uses it every day. It’s mind-boggling.

The second best thing is Winamp. Instant access to my vast music collection is a godsend. Winamp was such a breakthrough when I first saw it that I immediately sent my ten bucks to Justin Frankel. Others have tried, but nothing beats Winamp for it’s simplicity, (old style skins, of course!) and functionality. With Winamp and any reasonable search engine, I can easily fill an evening with an off-the-wall playlist of songs I and my wife (mostly) like. Even a tool as lame as Windows search allows me to scan my MP3’s and instantly create playlists of songs containing words like “Friday” or “shadow” or tonight’s list - “road”. (A good one!)

Windows search is a bit lame, so I use a web frontend called Andromeda. It’s old, definitely un-fancy, and works prefectly. I registered it too.

Oh - and the third best thing ever to happen to computers is the Internet.