Artistsalon: The Big Picture

October 17, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Last night Kathy and I headed up the block to check out Artistsalon's event "the big picture". I was impressed. Jason and crew put on a great event with a little something for everyone. We had to leave a little early since we were both tired (I had gotten up at 5am to go waterskiing before the football game) and I had movies to return to Hollywood Video, so we didn't get to check out the music that was lined up. We did spend some good time walking around checking out all the art up on the walls.

Were I someone who had $750 sitting in his pocket I would have loved to have gotten a piece called "Moo Bettah Meaty Meat" (bringing back good memories of the deceased hamburger stand). But instead I'm a broke college kid, so I just admired it for a few minutes and moved on.

We ended up spending a good bit of time talking to people I've met through the neighborhood council, including my #1 commenter Don Garza (whose blog I will soon be setting up). It was cool to be able to introduce Kathy to a good number of the people in this newfound part of my life, since otherwise I just end up talking about people she doesn't have a face to connect with.

I think I might walk over to the Grand Ave. Festival in a little bit, though I forgot and got some Del Taco for lunch. Oh well.

woo hoo for anniversaries

October 15, 2004 by Eric Richardson

One year ago today I created this site's first RSS feed. That still makes me very late to the party, but I thought it was kind of random that I happened to notice while it actually was the anniversary.

Wifi: The post in which I preemptively diss Pershing Square WIFI

October 15, 2004 by Eric Richardson

So the CRA awarded the Pershing Square wifi contract a little over a week ago. I didn't know until I saw this little Downtown News blurb. From the DN:

City officials last week selected Verge Wireless Networks to provide wireless Internet - or Wi-Fi - access at Pershing Square. The Baton Rouge-based company was hired for $25,000 by the Community Redevelopment Agency and the Recreation and Parks Department, which manages the block-long park bounded by Fifth, Sixth, Olive and Hill streets. The Wi-Fi service will be free during the day, with additional subscriber services available at a cost in evening hours.

Oh, great, pseudo-wifi. It's "free" but your "free" service is "limited." What does limited mean?

Allows you to surf web sites on the Verge Wireless Hotzone, surf web sites on the Internet, and check e-mail using the Hotzone AirMail system or your own e-mail program. Requires a user name and password to login. Restrictions include: 128K bandwidth, no VPN access allowed, no MP3 downloading or high bandwidth video.

That's the description for their FreeConnect service, which I assume is what will be offered during the day in the square. Now, the during the day part is kind of odd. I don't know if they really scouted out the area before they decided to throw that into the contract. Pershing Square is closed at sunset (I think sunset... at night, though).

But aside from that, I read the limitations on the free service to mean that they're going to be restricting your outgoing ports, probably to just 80 (http), 443 (https), 25 (smtp), 110 (pop3), and 143 (imap). If they aren't the only real limit they can have is the bandwidth (which is completely legit... I don't mind people doing that). Also it would appear they're filtering web content (to a small extent... they claim not to be able to restrict access to specific sites, etc) to be able to block mp3 downloads and video.

All this to say... I won't be going to Pershing Square to use the wifi any time soon (err... assuming this is January and test service is there). I told you just a few weeks ago how the library's wifi service was worthless. This appears to be little better. I just hope they don't suck the Biltmore into their web of restrictiveness and charging.

ah politics

October 15, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Michael Moore spoke on campus last night. I didn't go. Partially, that's because I was still just knocked out exhausted from being up most of the night writing, but mostly it's that I just don't really care about what Moore's got to say. Kathy went to some of it, and thought he wasn't really a good public speaker. He stood up there and made fun of Bush, made fun of the protesters, and said republicans win because they get up in the morning and work hard while the democrats have only seen a morning in they're still up from partying the night before.

Of course most of the people there lapped it right up.

Sometime in the next month the school's bringing in General Wesley Clark. Now that's someone I would go see.

weekend events around downtown

October 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

There's a lot going on downtown this weekend, so I thought I'd take a second to point out a couple things:

• Saturday and Sunday the Brewery art complex is having their Autumn Artwalk. Kathleen at blogging.la posted a good tease for event. I've never made it up that way, but it should be cool.
• Saturday night Artistsalon is hosting "the big picture" in the Spring Arts building, just a couple blocks up the street from me. It's art, it's short films, it's music -- basically it's a crazy amount of cool stuff going on in one place on one night and it's all just a $5 cover. Come out and help Jason lose less money.
• Sunday is the Grand Avenue Festival, taking place on, uh, Grand Avenue, outside the Disney Hall. Food, music, and much much more. Hey, they're shutting down a big section of street. We might as well get to use it for a change, instead of just getting annoyed at having to take a detour.

Of course my Saturday is going to be dominated by ASU coming to town to put their #15 ranking on the line in the Coliseum. 12:30pm start, and it's an ABC regional game. I'm afraid I'll get out of that too late to hit up the Brewery event on Sat, but I might try to squeeze both that and Grand Ave. in Sunday. We'll see.