Portishead - Undenied

February 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I recently reaquired a couple Portishead albums. I first got into them in 1998 when Roseland NYC was coming out. My introduction was actually by way of NPR, which was a lot more random for me then than it would be now. Sitting here right now, on a sunny socal day but in the shade with headphones on, something just makes this absolutely the right song to be on. Beth Gibbons vocals are hauntingly beautiful. Of the Portishead albums this one, Portishead, is probably the least of my favorites, but I just love this song. In the same vein is "Roads", off of Dummy.

getting out to see those events

February 11, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I link to flavorpill LA off of my web favorites, but haven't ever gotten around to mentioning it here. It's not any sort of a comprehensive listing, but it does highlight cool events happening in LA.

Today my context for actually making mention is that the current issue talks about Overwrought, an art show occuring in Venice on Friday. While I'm not generally the art show type of guy, Erik Penny's electronic/ambient solo-sideproject, Maxy Wango, is the soundtrack for the evening. Now, let's take a second to say... That's one cool name. How do you go from naming a band after yourself to coming up with a name like that? Second note... Right now there are no google results for "Maxy Wango". Will I be the first?

virtual servers... mmm....

February 10, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I'm somewhat in the market for a hosting provider right now. I say somewhat because I don't have a firm timetable on when I need to make a switch, and might end up getting colo space on the barter system. Anyway... Were I to be purchasing hosting at this moment, I think I would be going with Linode. I hadn't heard of them until today, but they offer exactly what I need. I've been spoiled by having my own box in a colo. I run qmail, I play with console apps, I do whatever. With Linode you get a virtual Linux server, so you can do all that. You get to pick a distro to install, and user-side everything behaves like it's your own box. Pricing is pretty good, and the ability to remotely reboot and reinstall with confidence is very cool. Definitely something I'll be keeping in mind.

one backwards day

February 10, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Today's running really backwards. I'm waiting for UPS to bring me a pair of packages (memory and a battery for my laptop), and as of 1pm they haven't come yet, but normally they'll all about morning delivery. On the other hand the mail, which never comes before 3:30pm or so, was here at 11:45am. I'm confused.

The mail brought me a copy of Bennett Mosier's 2000 solo album, so I'll be writing about that sometime soon.

it's not like this is their job...

February 10, 2004 by Eric Richardson

So today the spring installment of my National Merit scholarship came in. It's February 10, which means that it arrived pretty close to a month after school started. Now, I don't know exactly what processes are involved in actually getting these out, or even really who the money's coming from, but it would seem to me that if all you do is send out scholarship checks, you would make a point of being able to get them there around when school starts. That is usually when they're needed, after all.

On the plus side, I can head over to the cashiers office today and pick up a $1000 check. Last fall I used that check to buy my laptop. This time it'll be going largely toward paying some bills and paying off several hundred dollars worth of books I had to buy at the beginning of the semester.