Check out my photos:

http://www.flickr.com/gp/33771723@N00/1732wc

Heather was originally supposed to go, but got very sick today, please keep her in your prayers. Instead, Michael went with me and we had a great time.

It was so awesome being able to go whereever we wanted, hang out backstage, etc.. but I’m kinda bummed that we watched Eisley from the side of the stage. I wanted to hang out/talk with them a bit, but didn’t really get a chance to.

Gomez was alright, but not really my cup of tea. The Fray was amazing, I definitely need to pick up their CD. Lots of energy and emotion going into the music.

I’m trying to upload a video of The Fray performing Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie”, but having some trouble with YouTube. I’ll try to post it later. Why can’t it just take the AVI off of my camera? Hrm. Anyhow. Wait, it worked! Check it out here.

With all that said, a few rants about concerts in general:

• People, your cell phone is not going to take a nice photo of the band from hundreds of feet away. Your cell phone camera’s zoom is DIGITAL, not a real zoom. What could you possibly want a blurry overexposed photo for? To send to your friends to show you’re there?
• STOP SMOKING MARIJUANA. I don’t care what you do in your personal time, but smoking pot out at a concert is just lame. And blowing it directly behind someone (namely me) makes me enjoy the show a bit less.
• Hey, guy? Yeah, you, the one who sells water in bottles for the venue up and down the aisles? No one wants water bad enough to have you ruin the concert with your flashing red-LED headband and lit–up water bottle in the pitch-dark of night. It’s a bit distracting.
• People usually come to see the band perform. They usually don’t want you and your (drunk/high/dumb) friends shouting the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Just a thought. Oh yeah, your random phrases and shout-outs during the silence between songs is really “cool” too. SAN DIMAS HIGHSCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!
• If you don’t have tickets to be in that section, then why are you trying to climb over/push through people to get to that section? This applies mainly to the “pit” but can also work for the people in the standard assigned seats. Why are there 10 of you crammed into a space that has 4 seats?

Oh yeah, by the way, I saw a large “Zune” sea-train with lots of flat screens and Zune units/headphones for people to check out, and there were also little Zune teams wandering around the crowd (in-between acts) to demo the Zune. I thought that was kinda cool. Anything to get it out there, you know? I still prefer it 2 to 1 over my iPod any day.

Watch Kanye West ruin the song about halfway through. Ugh. Should’ve left the guest lineup as just John Mayer.

I can’t stand Kanye. Look man, you’re not Jesus. And you’re not Akira or Daft Punk. And GEORGE BUSH DOESN’T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE!

It’s awesome. I can’t wait to hear what the rest of the album, named “Combinations”, is like. You can tell they’ve spent a lot of time and crafted their sound, just based on this one single. And I can tell too, that the production value is a lot higher. On their first album, they had a number of producers doing different tracks, and it kind of showed. Some of the tracks were even engineered poorly (in my opinion.) For this album, they got Richard Gibbs, who was in the amazing band Oingo Boingo, and like his former bandmate Danny Elfman, currently writes scores/music for television shows (Battlestar Galactica!) and movies. Richard’s experience shows in this single.

It’s called “Invasion”, and from what I’ve heard, is based on the movie/book “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, which seems to be a cool concept to write about, something you can really read into (or hey, aliens taking over other peoples bodies if you want to stay literal.)

Download the MP3 for “Invasions” here, and check out the lyrics:

the colorless words are burning our heels as the bright lights
of the city fade
taking the chase to curb our fear as the bloodless moon
cast's it's face

oh something's not right, i can feel it inside

you would take the breath from my throat
and you would take the cherished people that i hold

all in time you will be one of us painless, us blameless
go to sleep, this wont hurt a bit
shifting your shape to our shells

and they will try to make us forget ourselves
one by one one by one
call me crazy but they are after us
one by one one by one
you don't have to know the truth
if you believe it, i believe it too

oh something's not right, i can feel it inside

you would take the breath from my throat
and you would take the cherished people that i hold

P.S.: Visit Nicole’s excellent Eisley pix site if you want to see more pictures of the band, etc.

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications
Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know will be alright
Perhaps it's just imagination

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away

I can't get get to sleep
It only beings exasperation
It's time to walk the streets
Smell the desperation
At least there's pretty lights
And though there's little variation
It nullifies the night
From overkill

I can't get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications
Especially at night
I worry over situations
That I know will be alright
It's just overkill

---

Been feeling a lot like this lately. Overwhelmed, worried about the future and finances. But today I’m strangely at peace with it all. Just thought I’d share.

This is embarassing. I like Amy Winehouse’s CD… I’m guessing she wasn’t drunk when she recorded it, unlike this clip from the Charlotte Church show.

Found a flickr account with this photo from inside Microsoft’s Zune department, of an “Amnesty” bucket with some iPods in it. Reading the comments is hilarious.

I love how Apple supporters are so defensive. God forbid there should be competition in the marketplace! Or that the Zune team should poke fun at Apple. Because Apple never does that.

<sarcasm>Yes, we should all own an iPod and do the exact same thing. Clearly iTunes is the best software out there.</sarcasm>

Ugh. This is the sort of fanboy-ism that I hate. It’s the same thing that drives Mac vs. PC debates. Look, use whatever OS/platform you want. I don’t care. What’s ironic is that Apple totally advertises that you can run Windows on your Mac, yet makes fun of Windows/PCs constantly. Which is it, Apple?

If you follow my blog, you know I sold my iPod a while back and bought a Zune. I did this because I was fed up with iTunes being a complete performance joke. Argue with me all you want, but plenty of other people are running into similiar problems with iTunes on Windows. I really like my Zune, but it isn’t without its faults. I wish the Zune team was a little more “open” to communication about their software, as there are some fairly simple tweaks they could make that would help immensely (see my post for some examples.) I have even more bulletpoint items that I don’t like about the Zune, but overall, I’m more happy with it than I was with my iPod.

And one thing I noticed when I first listened to my Zune was how crisp/fuller songs sounded. These were the same format (AAC) being played on my iPod and my Zune.. and the Zune would almost always sound better. According to this YouTube video and this forum post, maybe I’m not crazy. It appears the Zune does have better sound quality in general than the iPod. Yay Zune.

I am looking forward to what the future holds for both Zune and iPod… competition can only be a good thing in this area. Do you really only want Apple-based digital audio players out there on the market? (And before someone mentions Creative and the other companies with DAPs… yeah, right, like they’re even in the same league as iPod/Zune.)

Now playing: Tom Petty - Yer So Bad

I won't pretend to know what you're thinking
I can't begin to know what you're going through
I won't deny the pain that you're feeling
But I'm gonna try and give a little hope to you

Just remember what I've told you
There's so much you're living for

There's a light at the end of this tunnel
There's a light at the end of this tunnel
For you, for you
There's a light at the end of this tunnel
Shinin' bright at the end of this tunnel
For you, for you
So keep holdin' on

You've got your disappointments and sorrows
You ought to share the weight of that load with me
Then you will find that the light of tomorrow
Brings a new life for your eyes to see

So remember what I've told you
There's so much you're living for

Pandora can seem weird sometimes, but hey, I dig all three songs/bands, so there ya go. It works. Now it’s playing Flyleaf… awesome!

TechDirt has an excellent write-up today named “Universal Music 'Settlement' With Bolt Makes A Mockery Of The Law; Common Sense”. If you’re not aware, Universal music’s CEO, Doug Morris has been suing video-sharing sites that make use of copyrighted Universal music. Keep in mind, these are usually humorous videos, video diaries, video game captures, etc.. that use music in a fair use manner and are totally legit. No one in their right mind is going to hear “Sexy Back” on a YouTube video and say.. boy, now I don’t have to buy the song!

They successfully got Google to pay out (conveniently after they bought YouTube) by way of equity shares in YouTube! Now, keep in mind that Google/YouTube has done nothing wrong. They’re not responsible for their user’s content. Nor have many of the users done anything wrong, seeing as the music is used in a fair use context, usually not a full song, and actually helps the artist instead of hurting them.

Then they went after MySpace; suing them and winning, again for the same reasons that don’t make sense.

And somehow they then convince Microsoft to pay a type of “Universal music” tax on every Zune unit sold, probably because it could potentially be holding pirated Universal music. What the ——? Check out this quote from the New York Times:

A recent study estimated that Apple has sold an average of 20 songs per iPod — a fraction of its capacity. The rest of consumers’ music files — 95 percent or more — come from ripped CDs, possibly including discs from their own collections, and illegal file-trading networks, the study said.

So what percentage of that 95% is legit files? I’m sure Universal and other record industry executives want to say 0% — but think about it. Most older teens/adults who have iPods aren’t going around and pirating music. Maybe they do the casual thing, and let friends borrow a CD, who rips it, and then gives it back. But ultimately, is that a bad thing? Maybe the next time the person sees an album from that artist, they will purchase it first-hand. Or perhaps they will feel led to purchase the album they ripped, to get the physical album and artwork? Why assume that all of your customers are filthy thieves trying to steal your profits?

So finally, Universal turned its sights on Bolt.com, a site that is probably one of the first social networking sites (that I knew of, at least.) And now they have to sell their company/site to another smaller company, just to make the legal bills work out.

Ugh, when will this just stop? Movie and record executives, listen to me:

People will always steal. No matter what. Even if you put up your best padlock, someone is going to crack it. Give it up, and offer non-DRM’d versions of albums/songs online, in multiple formats. Why do I end up paying 99 cents for a single track in 128kbps MPEG4 format? Why not offer it to me in lossless MP4? Or better yet, 320kbps MP3 or the lossless FLAC format?

Movie studios, just give up. Your Blu-Ray and HD-DVD copyright protection is cracked. Why do you purposefully slow-down modern computers in order to make them support your DRM? By the way, check out this excellent blog post on MSTechToday regarding Vista’s DRM, and how neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs likes it.

And this all begs the question: when you buy something, are you buying the RIGHTS to play the song/movie, or are you buying the actual item transacted, such as a file or disc? If it’s just the rights, then shouldn’t I legally be able to obtain that same song in a different format, for little or no cost? If I damage my disc, should I be able to just copy a friend’s and still be legally correct?

Just, ugh. You wonder why people pirate. Because it’s easier to deal with than all of this crap. DRM sucks.

After having so much fun with the iTunes software in Windows (especially Vista), I decided a change needed to happen. On Friday on bought a Zune. So far my experience has been most enjoyable, despite the fact that the Zune software isn’t even supported on Vista yet. But there are workarounds.

Here’s some reasons why I’m digging the Zune over the iPod right now:

• On setup, the Zune software found all of my iTunes music and imported it. It even imported my playlists and song ratings, thankfully. I’d hate to have to re-rate all my songs (it took me months!) The import process took a while, but that was to be expected, since I have nearly 20,000 songs.
• The Zune plays all the same formats of the iPod and more (Windows Media Audio.) I was worried that the Zune would have to convert the MPEG4/AAC (.m4a) files that iTunes ripped into a format that it could play… but no, it just works!
• I had to re-create my “smart playlists” (Zune’s software calls them Auto Playlists.) No biggie. The rule engine looks a little different than smart playlists, but it works the same. I was able to set my few smart playlists back up in minutes.
• The sync speed is crazy fast. To sync around 2000 songs, it only took about 10 minutes. If I hook it back up and sync it again (with no changes), it syncs in less than a second. Woot. On my iPod, iTunes would sit there for minutes trying to sync up all the data, even if nothing changed.
• For some reason, the Zune software wants to convert most of my music videos/movies to a Zune-compatable format. I suspect this is because I did not encode the MPEG-4 video in the proper resolution/bitrate that the Zune supports. I’ll have to do more research on this to see exactly what’s up.
• The Zune interface blows the iPod’s away. It’s way more graphical, and the “sideways menus” are much more friendly than having to go “up” a menu on an iPod. For example, when I choose “music” from the main menu, I’m taking to a series of menus at the top (selectable by using the left and right keys), and the list of the currently selected menu item. Hitting left and right, I can switch between artists, albums, playlists, genres and songs. On the iPod, I would have had to go “up” in the menu structure to change what category to search by.
• When music is playing, the album art takes up about 80% of the screen. Hitting the center button “zooms in” on the artwork and overlays a menu allowing you to change the song’s rating, turn shuffle and repeat on/off, send the file to a friend, or flag the song. The “flag” feature lets you set aside some songs for whatever purpose you wish. Maybe you just really dig those tracks, or you want to flag them to be deleted, whatever.
• Photos and video look great. You turn the Zune sideways to watch them. There is a small indentation in the back of the Zune (underneath the controls) so your hand can more comfortably grip the Zune when it’s sideways. Neat.

And to be fair, here are some of my gripes thus far:

• The Zune software “monitors” folders for changes, which I kinda dig, but at the same time, I’m used to how iTunes does it. Maybe I haven’t found out how to do this yet, but I don’t think there’s a way to just import a single song/picture/video into your library. You have to put it into one of your monitored folders. I want to be able to just drag something onto the Zune software, and have it imported/copied to my library.
• Can’t rip directly to AAC/MPEG4 format. You have to choose between WMA, WMA lossless and MP3. The MP3 encoder they use isn’t the best (LAME would be much better.) So I’m stuck using WMA at 192kbps, which sounds great, by the way. Just a different format to get used to, I guess.
• More to come in time…