Here at Gangplank hack night, and in the first 60 minutes I participated in an unexpected podcast and met my first angel investor (didn’t have an elevator pitch for him, but I gave myself a good introduction).
Not bad for the space of an hour. I like this place!
Read more...It’s about 6 AM, the morning after Dad and Ruth’s wedding. It was very successful. Nice ceremony and a beautiful, beautiful reception, they rented out Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, got a string quartet, DJ, all that good stuff.
We retired to Glen and April’s with John and Lacey and cousin Chuck, just sitting out by the fire pit and yakking away. A really nice time, but unfortunately now we have to be up in time to get to an 11:30 AM brunch and we’re probably gonna be tired as hell. Oh, well I had a nice time and it’s well worth it.
Read more...Lenny is a REALLY cool kid...
I absolutely love, love, adore Stendeck’s “Frozen Sun” because of its eardrum-crushing, distorted drums and wailing sirens in the background, but I figured Lenny would hate it for the same reasons. I mean, he’s barely graduated from nursery rhyme CDs.
So I had Frozen Sun on in the car, but turned way, way lower than I’d like to because Lenny was in the back seat. Suddenly I hear him beatboxing to it (a habit he picked up from me). When it faded to synth pads at the bridge, he stopped, and I asked him:
“So, do you want this on CD?”
“Nah, no thanks.”
“Oh. OK.”
Disappointed, I drove on in silence, until the percussion kicked back in on the song, and Lenny exclaimed,
“OK, yeah, I do want this song.”
I gave a huge grin. “You just didn’t like the part without any drums, huh?”
“Yeah.”
I set up MTV Music Generator 3 on the old XBox for him the other day, and he gleefully set about randomly filling the score with nothing but bass loops, which when played simultaneously double their volume: “duhduhDUHduhDUHduhduhDUH”… Well, whatever, he’s having fun. Finally got him to add some percussion, and maybe we’ll do a more structured tutorial when he’s ready.
Should I be getting him violin lessons or something? Maybe, and I will if he asks for them, but I couldn’t do that with as much enthusiasm. Besides, exposing your kids to the things you love is the greatest reward of being a parent (and gods know I need some rewards).
Read more...Narrow Stairs
D and I are both definitely liking Narrow Stairs (Death Cab for Cutie). “Cath…” is a whole season of a TV drama wrapped up in a single song. “Bixby Canyon Bridge” evokes the lyrical part of “Different Names for the Same Thing”, “I Will Posess Your Heart” the rambling jam session part. There’s a few songs that are mediocre by the band’s standards but that means you merely listen to them instead of include them on “soundtrack of my life” mixtapes.
Plans remains the album to get first, but if you’re hungry for more after that, Narrow Stairs may satiate you.
Read more...What close button?
This isn’t a good first experience for a new major revision of the app you use most…
I saw what was going on immediately, of course (assumptions about my config), but if even a small percentage of those 8 million downloaders get confused by this, it’d be better to just leave that friendly little message off. (Personally, I’m sick of the welcome pages altogether, since I get one every time FF upgrades itself.)
Just had to point that out, because I’m used to better from the Firefox team. Aside from that my initial impressions are positive; the interface looks cleaner, and maybe more responsive (that could be the placebo effect though).
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