Evol's Blog

Weezer was amazing Friday night. I blogged from the event before they took the stage. I had to post again about the actual show because it was that good. It was 2 hours of almost everything they’ve done. They came out in white jumpsuits and started with their older music. Then a few songs in they took the white jumpsuits off and revealed the red jump suits. This is when they began playing from their new album, known as the red album.

They played and played. The energy was high and the showmanship was amazing. Some people may think from the surface lyrics of the latest album that frontman Rivers Cuomo has a huge ego. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Those lyrics are clearly satirical. He was continually giving props to the other band members throughout the show. It’s truly a collaborative group. Everyone in the band sung at least one song. There was lots of instrument changing up throughout the show. They also invited the lead singer and the drummer out from the opening band, Angels and Airwaves, to join them for Undone-The Sweater Song.

And just when you thought, no way they’ll do an encore, they gave the crowd some more. Earlier that day, they had the radio station rustle up a bunch of locals. That group got to come up and play musical instruments onstage with Weezer. They played two songs with Weezer and Rivers even had parts for the audience. The first song, Island in the Sun, included a ‘hip, hip’ lyric and clap part for the audience. For the second song, Beverly Hills, Rivers invited the men to sing the ‘Beverly Hills, that’s where I wanna be’ with all the ladies in the house following that up with a ‘Gimme, gimme’ lyric.

Next the local musicians left the stage, Weezer left the stage and a stage hand brought out a record player. He put on a single red album of the song, Heart Songs. Right after the lyrics, “my roommate said, “C’mon” and put a brand new record on it had a baby on it, he was naked on it….” Rivers kicked the record player over in a dramatically Nirvana style and they launched into Nirvana’s Sliver. Then they closed it all down with a great version of Buddy Holly.

We saw Weezer way way back in 1995 with Archers of Loaf opening for them. At that show Archers kicked their butts. Weezer was dealing with new found success then and they had a bad attitude. But since I loved the new album so much and it had been well over a decade we decided it was time to give them another shot at a live show. I’m so glad I did. It was the best arena show I’ve ever seen. They were into it, they gave so much, they shared and they got all of us to participate. It helps that they now have a freaking amazing body of work behind them and a deep well to draw from for content.

As my husband smartly stated when it was done. “Success wears on them well”. Thanks Weezer. Way to be the best rock band ever!

Here we are at weezer. It’s our anniversary concert early this year. 2 opening bands. Way too much time in between bands. No good food.

BUT, it’s my first concert with an iPhone so NONE of that is bugging me. I’m live blogging and taking photos and tweeting and having a great time. Thank you iPhone.

A Winston Churchill quote sums up much of where we are today, and probably where we have been many times.

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they’ve tried everything else.”

-Winston Churchill

Great risk can bring great reward. Great risk can also bring great loss. That’s why it’s a risk. I remember when I started an IRA account. I was rolling over my very first 401k because I was moving on to a new job. My financial advisor at the time was VERY CLEAR with me. “The stock market is a risky place for your money.” That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest and it doesn’t mean that you won’t make money over the long run, but she wanted me to understand. It was a RISK. She even had my husband and I sign a paper saying we understood this concept.

Now we hear that we are in big trouble on the news. I have not heard any good reasons for a loan that is almost a Trillion dollars. This is so big it could literally bankrupt our government. If you think ’social’ programs have seen a bum rap under a Republican government, just wait til we are carrying that kind of debt.

It gives me pause that so many are rushing to support something that George Bush thinks needs to happen so quickly. We have seen examples of this and they have done nothing but bring us to disaster and strife. I have no confidence in him or the people he has chosen to actually identify a real crisis from a natural correction. The stock market it still over 10,000. I remember when it reached 10, 000. It was in the dotboom years. It hasn’t been that high for that long. Sure it fell today. It fell hard. But isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?

And this business about banks not loaning money. Isn’t that what banks do? Should we really let this threat be held over our head at the expense of so many other very important things? Is this really our biggest threat? And does it really need to take all of our resources?

I’m just asking people to think a little bit critically about this. Ask a question or two. I bet there are other options. I’m glad it didn’t pass today. I don’t think it should. The consequences of us taking it on scare me much more than what they say is going to happen. They don’t know what is going to happen. But we do know what will happen if they do it. We will not have money for anything else. Are we really willing to go all in for this?

Rhett and Link are back at it with the Economic Meltdown song. They just keep putting things out there and making me laugh. It’s better to laugh instead of cry, I guess.

A few months ago I posted about signing off Facebook. Alas, being in the social media and User Experience space, I have been forced back on to participate in a few things I will miss out on otherwise.

1) Some members of a professional organization I belong started a conversation about making the organization more open and transparent to the membership. Ironically, this conversation is happening in the Facebook walled garden.

2) Clients are referencing interface elements that I can’t look at without being on Facebook because specific examples are being cited.

3) My friends have all abandoned MySpace for Facebook. I’m missing out on information about them that they assume I’m getting - I guess I’ll be catching up now.

Begrudgingly, I have signed back on to Facebook.  Since I signed back on, over a dozen people have found me. It was an interesting experiement to try to stay away but sometimes you have to go with the flow because taking a stance can have unintended consequences.

I haven’t tried to post to my blog from my phone yet, until today. Imagine blog posting from anywhere without a need for your computer. Another mind blowing innovation.

Thanks to The Daily Show and Comedy Central, all the clips from the past two weeks RNC and DNC convention are available to watch and SHARE.

I found this one to be particularly illuminating regarding the difference between McCain and Bush. (i.e. there won’t be one)

Starting 4:30 minutes in, they show that the John McCain speech is almost word for word the same as the campaign speech given by George W. Bush.

In their own words. I’m just sayin….

Do these people not realize everything is being video taped these days?

Playing this September 12th at Club Underground in NE Minneapolis.

Go watch them. DO IT.

As part of the Cinema of Urgency series at the Walker Art Center this month, we went to see the film Secrecy.

From an artistic perspective, the film was well done and incredibly engaging. Secrecy is not a very visual topic, so it was fascinating to see how the filmmakers took on this challenge and addressed it.

From a topical perspective, the film is pretty unsettling. Some of the stories told illustrate how significant the amount of secret information is compared to the amount of available information. It costs billions of dollars a year for this information to stay secret and the cost and amount of secret information is growing at an alarming rate.

The film tries to balance the stories of secrecy ’saving’ and secrecy ‘corrupting’. The cost of secrecy is high in terms of our foundational way of living and thinking. If something is secret it cannot be part of the fundamental checks and balances that the founding fathers of this country put in place. Having the secrets means having the power. Power corrupts.

One of the concerning things about this to me is that overall people aren’t aware that much of this is happening. So I’m doing my part on my blog and talking about the movie.

Here are a couple of additional links:

• Secrecy: Official Film Website
• Review from Sundance
• Link to Walker blog post