If you want to know what my story is all about, you can view my profile page here: KwaS
You know of those rear-enders that you can see coming in your rear view mirror? I saw one coming in my rear view mirror this morning on The 101 freeway.
I saw a damaged off-white older Toyota pickup with a shell on the back approaching way too fast. The driver hadn't noticed that my lane had slowed to a stop for a few moments, even though all the other lanes were still moving. Next, I heard screeching tires and saw the smoke from the pressure applied to the brakes. I watched the car sort of veer from side to side in order to slow down but not enough to leave the lane. I remained calm and just prepared for impact.
Then it was quiet.
The car behind me stopped mere inches behind me and a couple seconds later, my lane started moving again. I drove on and watched my rear view mirror and I as drove away, untouched. The driver changed lanes and as the guy passed me (quickly) on my left, I was left with the smell of burnt rubber.
I am a defensive driver and I try to give cars, especially visibly-damaged ones, a wide berth on the road. Even this doesn't prevent all possible collisions. Sometimes I can't do anything but trust others' ability to either pay attention to where they are going or react in time if they don't. I can do that or I can figure out a way to get one of these for my next car.
Fully-loaded WITH the voice-activated Bat Shield.
You know you want one too.
Hello all my Vox people!!!!
Just wanted to check in, let you all know that I'm alive & kicking.
- thehaitianqueen has become a tumblr blog, & I love it!
- I talk about all my carnival exploits at live from brooklyn.
- Last but not least, you can find me talking my behind off at twitter.
Hope all is well, & happy holidays!
First, I want to state that I have this lofty goal to eliminate my credit card dependency. However, my compulsion to support certain 'why-are-these-people-still-under-the-radar?' musicians @ established music venues makes it quite difficult.
Tuesday night when I saw Ari Hest play at the Hotel Cafe I knew the online ticket purchase was worth it-- as are all my purchases, of course. The opener from Ireland, Declan O'Rourke, told the audience that this was his first time playing (or first tour playing?) in America. He had a great sound and one novelty song stands out. It's about an old black crow and it was highly entertaining because there was a fun song introduction and then part of the chorus was him cawing. Not counting that particular song, to me, live, his style was like an Irish version of Ari's so it shouldn't be too surprising if he gains a large following here fairly quickly.
"I can make you move against your will. Don’t it make you sad to lose control?" Broken Voices by Ari Hest
Ari was fantastic with his band, and played a bunch of songs from his early material and CD The Break In, plus newer songs from his project, 52, which included my favorite song, Broken Voices. At some point Amy Kuney came up to sing Cranberry Lake which she co-wrote and sang in a duet with Ari. That was great because I've been wanting to see her live for a while now too.
Ari's vocal ability is amazing. His tone ranges in his songs from baritone to falsetto with impressively flawless lung control. It bowls me over me every time I see him live.
I ran into @KristinJuel during the evening which is always refreshing. Sitting with her I discovered my new favorite bass player, Rob Calder, who has an interesting way of dancing to the beat while he plays. Very entertaining to watch!
The only downer of the night is that there's a rule that non-flash photography is allowed in Hotel Cafe, but video recording is not. Kristin got busted for taking video with her digi cam at some point. That was too bad but at least they didn't confiscate her camera. She had also taken a bunch of still photos. Overall, it was a good night for live music.
"You're the song that I sing that I don't need to practice." from In the Creases by Amber Rubarth.
Tomorrow is Amber Rubarth's show @ The Mint-- http://themintla.com is their site. I refuse to hyperlink to it because it has music that auto-plays and defaults to the loudest volume setting. Way to facilitate an obnoxious user experience.
I love Amber's lyrical ambition and like Ari, she is now based in NY so I try to see her whenever she's playing here. Can't wait to hear her new songs and old ones again that I like. A lot.
I received an invite this morning for Google Wave and with no idea what to do with it. So, I'm watching a Google video on what the intended use for Google Wave is. The video is an hour and twenty minutes long. *smh*
At first glance it seems like a glorified e-mail account, which is what I thought G-Mail was.
I don't know if I like the 'view text while typing' feature being a default setting. I'm a bit of a messy typist. I also wonder about the implications of data mining for users of this service. I am mostly concerned about how Google is planning to use, archive, catalog, and ultimately monetize this potential goldmine of user generated content (UGC) with a EULA (by using this product you consent to *anything the company wants to do*) agreement. I'm going to give it a chance and see what happens.
G-Wave users, what are your initial thoughts?