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03/11/2003 Entry: "Friends, Jazz trip, VCR, palm pilot--a Neddick rockin' long post"

Friends? I got 'em. Tons of them. Let me explain...

Jim. My buddy. He wants to do somethin' nice. So we went to see the Mingus Big Band at the Regatta Bar in Boston. We tooled down late Saturday morning (I had a gig the night before) around 10:30. The drive to Boston was fine, which is pretty good, as Jim can make me pretty car sick. :-) We parked at the hotel in Cambridge, and took the T into Boston. Red line to green or something like that. From there it was to the Prudential Center, and lunch (at about 4pm) at the Cheesecake Factory. (Good food, horrible web site.) I had pasta in pesto with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, and chicken. Jim had what Jim always has: steak. Jim loves his beef, and he's not ashamed of it. ("If God didn't want us to eat cows, then why did he make them out of steaks?") I couldn't eat it all. But I had to order desert. I got the Godiva limited edition cheesecake, and I got a piece of Dulce De Leche Caramel cheesecake for Sue. Jim had strawberry cheesecake, I think. Then to the concert. It was a really good concert. Mingus was all about making music. Making music. You know, improvisational stuff. The band had a chart of what the tune was "supposed" to do. But the solo sections were all improved. The leader would just cue everyone in to whatever section he yelled out in however many bars he yelled out. Example: sax player is taking a solo. Just blowin' to beat the band, so to speak. Other sax player stands up. "Go to "B" section in 4 bars, 3, 2, 1, go!" I've always loved bands who's leader just shouts out directions to the band. Louis Armstrong used to do that, as did James Brown. I just think it's cool.

So crazy massive props to Jim who bought the tickets, paid the gas, bought my lunch, and a beer at the concert.

Next up: Paddy. Patrick threw me the gig I played the night before the gig. It was a fun, pick-up style gig in a band called "Spork." We played good old bar type music: Honky Tonk Women, Mustang Sally, Brick House kind of stuff. The place was packed. There was a beer rep there from Guinness. He gave a bunch of prizes away, and held a little contest to see who would get them. He called it an auction, but it was more like a dare kinda thing. One woman said she would take off her shirt to try to win a bike. She won. Another girl said she would take her bra off. She won a snow board. Where was I when this whole thing went down? On the other side of the room, getting away from the crowd and smoke. I saw none of it. Jim, on the other hand, saw a booby from the girl who took her bra off. (She showed it to him on purpose--it wasn't some voyeur flash of skin thing.)

Also, Paddy drew this caricature of me.

I think I'm going to use it in a site redesign. And, he sold me his Palm Pilot. He bought it, and decided he didn't like it. So he sold it to me for less than he just paid for it. Quite a bit less. This thing rock's Neddick. I can't believe I ever lived without one. It keeps my schedule, and I can sync it up with my home and office computer. Way better than a paper calendar. Way.

(Ever wonder where I got the phrase 'rocks Neddick'? I stole it from Biz Stone. Of course, Natick is in Massachusettes, and Neddick is here in Maine.)

Next up: Harvey from Northern Kingdom Music, the best music store in the world. He's got all the juice--I have none. In a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" world, Harvey scratches me all the time, and I can't help him at all. I need to do something, but I can't figure out what.

Dude, this is one long post!

A new VCR arrived yesterday. As you may remember, I got a $50 gift certificate Susan and I decided to buy a new VCR. The Mitsubishi HSU-580 wasn't cutting it anymore. (There's something wrong with the head alignment. Tapes made on the machine are ok, but store bought/rented tapes usually sound horrible!) Crutchfield had a JVC S-VHS VCR on sale. On top of that, they had a scratch and dent model. So I paid about $50 out of pocket for this baby, and it blows away the $350 Mitsi. (Of course, I've owned the Mitsi for 5 years.) The remote is awful, and the programing is very non-intuitive. But the picture and sound rock Neddick. Too bad the chassis is plastic--it gives it a very cheap feel. So far though, I really like it.