What is that smell?

It's finally official. A very good friend (with some other family types) just purchased the ultra hip Tin Hat in beautiful Ballard (another Seattle neighborhood). John is very excited - as are we. I mean who wouldn't be. Turned out that the Tin Hat was voted best jukebox by the Weekly last year (you need to scroll down to see the post). You should go. It's great.

You could look at their Web site, but as of now it sort of blows chunks. Be prepared for more pop-ups than a porn site. It would be great if John had a friend who knows a thing or two about HTML. Let's hope he does!

For the most disturbing article so far this week, the BBC brings us a story of the newest in genetic engineering: the bald chicken.

Although after some consideration, I'm thinking about how the creation of the bald chicken can lead to other exciting new products. For one, the article mentions that these scientificly modified noble beasts tend to get sunburned. So how about designer parasols? Not functional enough, here's an idea. A sunscreen for the bald chicken with a touch of BBQ or honey flavor. Just think, while protecting his skin the chicken can also be flavoring himself up for you. Anything else? Well if it takes off there will probably be some alterna-bald chicken product for the veggie set.

It's not even Memorial Day, the unofficial start of the summer event season and thoughts are already turning to Labor Day. The Bumbershoot line up is shaping up quite nicely. Yeah the crowds suck, the beer tents are packed, and last year before you owned a cell phone you could completely lose all your friends for hours. But at the same time, there are always more friends to run into, usually in the aforementioned packed beer tents and where else can you see so many freaking bands in one weekend? Anyway the shows last year were really good and this year's line up looks promising: Sonic Youth, Kirsten Hersh, Blackalicious, Ani Difranco, Wyclef Jean, Jonatha Brooks...and more.

Tomorrow it's off to Whidbey Island for the holiday weekend. To avoid the ferry lines (how are they now?) I'm hoping F-lin will drop me off so I can walk on and not have to take Veloria, the sexy black honda. I'm trying to persuade him with promises of beer samples on Friday and zen rolls on Sunday. We'll see. Either way I'm psyched to sit by the beach, enjoy the view, and code some more data for my project report.

Kisses!

And now I just went and broke my archives while shopping for a new template. Good grief.

Ah...better. So what do you think of the new digs? Too blue?

I didn't get to say goodbye to Jeff. He already left for Yoo-rope. Boo-hoo.

Read an interesting article on Salon today about wireless devices in the US compared to Japan. The US wireless companies are still trying to drum up enthusiasm for the services that are supposed to help us be more productive AND have more fun. The big problem here, as it has been with all the wireless services, is the lack of agreement on a technology. But, as the article points out, the real problem is that Americans love their cars (no shock there). I guess one of the reasons for DoCoMo and iMode being so popular in Japan and SMS being so popular in Europe is because people who use mass transit have microniches of time. Go figure. I take the bus, I have more microniches than San Fran has microclimates.

So graduation approaches, I'm still not sure if it will offically spring or summer, but either way the ceremony date of June 15th remains the same. I am planning to aviod the hassle of walking (the whole cap and gown schpeil). I did it for undergrad which was fine, one of my best friends was the validictorian speaker and the ceremony only lasted an couple of hours. But I've heard about the nightmare known as the UW commencement ceremonies. Held at the mammoth Husky Stadium (with a capacity of 72,500, the largest stadium in the Pacific NW), you are lucky if you can pick out your loved ones. I'm not sure if it's an urban legend or not, but I've heard people claim that cell phone service gets knocked out for a big portion of the Seattle area on that day becuase all the graduating students are trying to call their parents, saying "Can you see me? I'm the one in the gown waving!" If all that isn't enough, the cermony lasts five hours! But now, I just found out that Madeleine Albright is the commencement speaker. That makes me almost reconsider. Perhaps they'll be a web cast of her speech.

Damn I'm exhausted. Yesterday I went to Olympia in the morning (a quick trip down an a quick trip back) to meet with one of our clients for the usability study. We're trying to test a pretty popular web site used by lots of Washingtonians. This has been a year long project. I really wanted to test around spring break, which was back in March, but that didn't happen. The problem is that the agency we are working with decided they needed to rebrand the site. That's great and all, but this rebranding is being done by another consultant. We want to test the new site they are working on (cause the old one is going to obsolete in about a month) but the problem is we can't see the new site. The agency is worried about the consultant's money so we haven't been able to communicate with them to get a prototype. It makes no sense, so I'm a tad frustrated. I'm supposed to graduate in June, but I won't graduate until I get a project report written on this project which looks like it'll never end. I guess I could stick around and finish up in summer but I'd rather just get it done.

Ok, I'm off to meetings to strategize.

OK, its been a few days but the Prince concert is still pretty fresh in my mind.

First of, the show was amazing, amazing, amazing. He played for three hours straight. He had so much energy, so much funkiness. Lots of new stuff, some old stuff, and a cover here and there. One thing is for sure, he has an obsessive fan base, I'd say maybe 60/40 split of female to male. Very diverse and very enthusiastic. I've been to many a concert in my time and I've never been deafened by such a loud audience, maybe the music, but not the audience.

Our seats were kind of nosebleed (3rd Mezzanine) but the Paramount is so cosy we could see everything fine. It also helped that we were in the front row of our section. I'm so sick of going to shows and staring at the back of tall boys' heads.


We saw Tenacious D at the paramount last week where all seating was general admission. That show was like 20/80 female to male. I couldn't see freaking anything from the floor. But half way through Jack Black gets up on this huge box and yells, "This is for all the shrimpies! Can you see me little people? Can you?" That rocked. And yes, true to form, those guys kicked *ss. Some very tasteless home movies, but what do you expect.


One of my favorite moments of the Prince show was when he played Nothing Compares 2 U, sorry Sinead you made if famous, but you can't beat his version. The thing that was so great about the show was how much he interacted with the crowd. It made it feel even more intimate. He made a couple cracks about the EMP and asking where all the money went? Ironically enough, the EMP's sky chuch is where they helf the after party. One of the funniest moments was when Prince asked the audience if it was better to give than to receive - of course it was a big love fest, so everyone is yelling "Give! Give!" So Prince strolls over to the front row and asks some guy if it's better to give than receive, the guy says: "Give!" So Prince then asks him if he would give up his front row seat to someone in the balcony. Pretty funny stuff.

The only down side of the show is the note on which it ended. There's a lot of rumors that Prince had recently found religon. The last fifteen minutes of the show felt like he was trying to convert the crowd. Yelling we all have to believe together and believe one thing and we have to believe in Jesus Christ. That just sort of flies in the face of a lot of other things he's been saying about diversity and being open to everyone. The crowd didn't really seem to be getting into it and Prince sort of finally dropped it. Although strange, it didn't detract from the evening.

This weekend is a big event in Seattle and I'm going, a front row seat on a yacht. Let's hope it doesn't rain.