Sunset Rubdown Setlist 2009-06-22 at Plush in Tucson AZ

11:01:41 PM sunset rubdown is setting up
11:04:28 PM girls on the left squealing. Spencer gives a dirty look
11:12:25 PM the band leaves the stage
11:17:06 PM Black Swan;
11:23:55 PM Taming of the hands that came back to life (labeled as "Funky" on the set list);
11:29:18 PM Spencer: Thank you Hello we're Sunset Rubdown we're from Montreal Canada. ... we have a new record its out tomorrow. Were going to play a number of songs from that for tonight
11:30:00 PM Silver Moons (Labeled as "Silver" on the setlist);
11:35:09 PM Camilla: It's a good turn out for a Monday.
*cheers*
Drunk: any day of the week!
Camilla: Oh get a job.
Spencer picks up a guitar
11:36:20 PM Idiot Heart;
11:42:31 PM Drunk: Let's go to the pool!
Spencer: Go to the pool?
Drunk: For sunset rubdown!
*More Tuning*
11:43:39 PM Spencer: How we doin? How are you guys?
*cheers*
*Song request yells*
Spencer: We're going to play a new song right now, it's not even on the new record.
Spencer: while loading the very complicated gear he was saying "Do you remember the last time we played this venue?"
"No"
He said "Well it was a fucking disaster"
I said "That's great I don't remember that"
He said "Well that's because you were really drunk"
So I told him "Thanks for mentioning my problem"
*lifts beer*
I don't have a problem
This is just to take the edge off
*sips*
This new song is about having to much to drink sometimes.
I would like to dedicate it, to Tod, he's in another band and is our tour manager.
He's babysat me a lot of times I've needed babysitting.
11:45:21 PM Coming to a Dawn (Labeled as "Obliterate" on the set list)
11:50:45 PM Spenser: Thank you
11:51:43 PM tuning up another song.....
11:52:22 PM You Go on Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II) (Labeled as "You Go..." on the set list)
11:57:56 PM Spenser: Thank you
Spenser: Going to do a switcheroo
Spenser: I want to thank elfin saddle and the witchies. Please buy their shit
*points at the merchandise table*
*People yelling "shut up I'm dreaming" and "snakes got a leg"*
12:00:00 AM Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh! (Labeled as "Buff" on the set list);
12:03:46 AM spenser back to keyboard
12:05:29 AM Drunk: Wonder me before you eat me from the crowd
12:05:42 AM Spenser: Well shit well try it. You guys are very kind.
12:06:09 AM Crowd: Shut up I'm dreaming
12:06:17 AM Spenser: We are going to play none of those 3 songs. We have I'm afraid our own agenda
12:06:37 AM The Mending of the Gown (Labeled as "Mending" on the set list)
12:11:36 AM Spenser: Thank you
12:11:50 AM spenser asks crowd member "What are you telling...?"
Drunk Guy up front pointing to Jordan: "I was telling him I love him"
Spenser: "Yeah he's pretty good eh? He's only 12 years old"
12:12:56 AM Winged_Wicked Things (Labeled as "Winged" on the setlist);
12:17:29 AM
Camilla: "Thank You"
Spenser: You guys are awesome
Spenser: "Let me do one more. Lets see how much time we got"
You guys ever drive just around Arizona and listen to 'The Doors'?
That's what we did today.
Crowd: Really?
Crowd: Nice
Spenser: Well I mean, Well we had to drive
Crowd: You had to drive and you had to listen to the doors?
Spenser: Yeah we had to listen to the doors
*Random yells*
Spenser: I'm hurt
12:18:52 AM Dragon's Lair (Labeled as "Dragon" on the setlist);
12:29:09 AM Spenser: Give us a second
*Spenser and band move offstage for a moment, applause dies down to a few clappers, Spenser stands up (perhaps not visible to everyone since hes' on the side) and gives the "slit throat" motion with a flat palm which usually means "cut it off" or "stop it" but since the crowd sees him they just start applauding more*
12:31:47 AM Spenser: Sorry. Thanks. That was really fucking awkward.
12:33:18 AM *Spenser on the guitar*
12:34:12 AM The Empty Threats Of Little Lord (Labeled as "Lord" on the setlist);
12:40:42 AM Camilla: "Thank You"
*Spenser says some things but inaudible over crowd*

Handsome Furs Setlist 2009-06-12

An awesome concert last night of Handsome Furs at Chyro Arts Venue in Scottsdale Arizona. June 12th 2009. Dan happened to filter his way through the audience and get close to the stage while the second opening band "The Cinnamon Band" was playing their last song.

The band was starting to setup on the stage about 10:08 PM (Arizona Time, which for this part of the year is the same as Pacific time zone).

They started off with a song "about the current financial crisis" as Dan put it.

10:18 PM Legal Tender;

10:20 PM Talking Hotel Arbat Blues;

10:24 PM All We Want, Baby, Is Everything;

I get my twitter messages as Text Messages, so the times can sometimes be off, but at any rate, this came in at 10:27 http://twitter.com/somuchsilence/status/2150823760

10:28 PM
Dan: "What's this song about?"
Alexei: "Doing it!" (excited)
Dan: "It's about sex" (grinning)

10:28 PM Evangeline

10:32 PM
There is some talk of a cactus that attacks you? Dan says their tour manager has told them about it, the crowd attempts to explain, but then shouts of "no thats wrong, they use lasers" starts to be the loudest voice (at least from where I was standing).

Perhaps they are talking about "jumping cactus"

http://travelingmamas.com/2009/06/09/how-to-remove-cactus-needles-from-your-skin/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylindropuntia_fulgida

10:33 PM Dan "This song is for David Caridine and Lugio ??? at the same time."
If you are reading this years later, David Caridine was found dead in a Tokyo hotel room 8 days earlier under mysterious conditions that pointed to either murder, suicide, or autoerotic asphyxiation but conflicting reports of the condition of the body are still being sorted out. I didn't quite understand the last name of Lugio, and my searches of "lugio dead" and "lugio confused" in Google and Google News don't seem to have any results that jump out at me.

10:33 PM I'm Confused;

10:38 PM Dan: "We booked the hotel off HotWire for $41 a night, and the pool was closed. Last time I was in town ... this girl ... forced me ... to swim. 'Only 15 minutes away' and it was 45 minutes into the desert"

10:38 PM Nyet Spasiba;

10:43 PM Dan: "This song is about any city you want it to be about."
Alexi let's him know that the microkorg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroKORG has been shifting like tectonic plates. He joins her on the table they are setup on, and they jam out.

10:43 PM Handsome Furs Hate This City;

10:46 PM Dan moves back to the guitar

10:50 PM Dan has some praise for "The Cinnamon Band" http://www.myspace.com/cinnamonband Also, did anyone else notice the letter "I" was missing from the drum in the title making it "The C_nnamon Band"? I kept wanting to ask them because I figured they would have a cute story like "there's no 'I' in team" but I never worked up the courage.

10:50 PM Dan says they have one more song to play.

10:51 PM Radio Kaliningrad;

Oddly the Amazon mp3 I bought names it "12 - Radio Kalininbrad.mp3", but he clearly says "grad" and not "brad" in the song. Also thier MySpace has it as "grad" http://www.myspace.com/handsomefurs

10:56 PM The crowd demands an encore. The latin girl with the black fedora sitting right in front of the speakers who was recording most of the concert with some sort of hand held device got up and left and missed the encore song. I wanted to ask her what that was, and if she was going to post the videos anywhere. The encore song I didn't recognize. If you are reading this years from now, he repeats the phrase "I know" in it quite a few times.

Easter Devotional - Psalm 91 about Iraq - 2009

(A relative of mine presented this devotional)

Easter Devotional
Saturday Brown Bag Lunch
April 11, 2009

Iraq is about the size of Texas, and I say this because I understand that while I was gone my brother (removed) came home for a little while and talked about HIS experiences in Iraq. While some of the things I say may sound similar, some will sound different. During my tour of duty I was a Motor Transportation Vehicle Operator for (removed) stationed in Al Anbar province. That's a real fancy way of saying: I was a truck driver in western Iraq. But that sure doesn't sound as cool.

I got to see a lot of western Iraq while driving on Convoys for hours and hours at a time. At one point I was living in SW Iraq near the Saudi Arabian border, and the next month I was living in NW Iraq near the Syrian Border.

The wide swath of western Iraq that I saw, looked exactly like what you see out your front porch... Really flat, Really brown, Really desolate.

(Removed) spends his time in eastern Iraq, and like I said: Iraq is about the size of Texas and just as diversified. In an email he sent to the family he talked about beautiful mountains, rivers, and good hiking ground. Well I'm looking out of 4 inches of bulletproof glass thinking, "What on Earth is he talking about?!!"

We had a Navy chaplain with us, and I really liked him. One convoy we went on he had to ride in the back of the truck and when he got out at the end all covered with dirt, I stopped him and said "Hey Chap, this sure has come a long way from being the Promised Land." He then explained how the Promised Land wasn't in this exact spot of this glorious desert.

For a couple of months I was living in the middle of nowhere. Lots of times people throw that saying around, but when I SAY the middle of nowhere, I mean it in the purest way. While I was living out there we would go out on convoys every other day, and the rest of the time we were just trying to stay out of the sand. This made for lots of down time.
We would sit in the trucks and play cards, try and learn Spanish (which sure didn't work for me), and try and decipher the Bible. I say try and decipher the Bible because between me, Garcia, Guzman, and Padilla, we were just a bunch of young dumb truck drivers. We tried to dabble in the Old Testament but very quickly we would find ourselves in the Gospels.

And this is what I want to talk about today or bring to you: how religion affected me over there. We were half way across the world away from our families for a long time and during holidays. Over there all we had was God and each other. Religion has a way of having people come together. After these discussions with my fellow Marines, I'd always feel bonded together a little more.

People often ask me. Were you scared? YOU BET I WAS! I was scared when I shouldn't have been. And I wasn't scared when I probably should have been. Somebody somewhere once pointed out Pslam 91 to me and I held on to that chapter throughout the deployment.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=23&chapter=91&version=31

I had Psalm 91 written on some of my gear and many guys would ask what Psalm 91 said. I'd say, go read it, but I'd also tell them that to me it meant, do not worry because God will protect you. Religion can bring people, even Marines, close together. Some of the biggest, baddest, toughest, Marines I know would walk up to me and say, "You know my favorite part of Psalm 91 is this verse or that line." --Marines that I didn't know well, but after just that little exchange about Psalms we would be brought closer. God really helped us out, because all we had was Him and each other. And religion gives you that warm feeling of security and that was a feeling that didn't come up very often.

There were many times I would be in the truck driving for hours and hours about to fall asleep, and I'd say a prayer: God it doesn't matter how many more energy drinks or sugar pills I take; I'm about to fall asleep, flip this big truck and kill everybody in it. Please just keep my eyes open for a couple more hours. And He always did.

Before every convoy we had what is called a convoy brief. This brief would tell us where we were going, how we were getting there, how fast we'd be going--things like that. Then we would jump in our trucks, slap a round into our rifles and hit the road.

But at the end of every convoy brief, the Navy Chaplain would lead us all in a prayer. Some of the prayers were motivating, some were a little sad. The prayers would go something like: "God, we're here in Al Taqadum Iraq. Be with every Marine and Sailor and truck as we go across the Al Anbar province to our objectives." And then at the very end he would always say the same thing every single time, and I liked it.
He'd end it with: "May his spirit guide us, presence protect us, and strength uphold us. Amen." That was motivating for me. Sometimes my buddy Guzman and I would even give the fist pump when he'd say those last three things. I enjoyed it so much that everyone in my platoon grew to enjoy it as much as I did.

But in the end I'd just like to say thanks for all the packages sent, and the prayers said for me while I was over there. There were some really tough times to get through over there, and God played a major role in making all the guys in my platoon feel like brothers, and some sort of family out there, and some sense of security.

And the next time you get scared. Think of Psalm 91.

Heavenly Father we stand here today in (Removed) TX asking that you be with every man, woman and car here as we all drive across (Removed) County to our appointed places of duty. Thank you for dying, and rising that we might live. May His spirit guide us, presence protect us, and strength uphold us. Amen.

Making twitter groups as simple as possible

Originally posted at http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/when_is_twitter_going_to_get_groups

************

In Twitter Settings>Notices>@Replies you can select "@ replies to the people I'm following".
If we could have this be the default behavior for all new users, and encourage existing users to change to this setting, the following solution could work:

For most of these conferences there will already be an "official" twitter account, for instance @podcampaz

If I create a message and direct it to @podcampaz only people who also follow @podcampaz will have it show up in their feed. Of course if you went straight to my page, you will see the tweets, so it's not "private" and if you wanted to hear what was going on at PodCampAZ even if you weren't there you would subscribe to them.

(Props to @cycomer for the idea)

If you wanted, you could even make groups like @phoenix @arizona @phx @phxNightLife @phxWork @smith123Family @youtube @RT @OH @twitpic @WolfParadeFans @SpencerKrugFans @WorldOfWarcraftPlayers

Maybe this is an alternative to #

************

I'll explain by example:
I follow PersonA and PersonB
I don't follow PersonC

Whenever PersonA or PersonB says: Hello World
I see it.

Whenever PersonA @ messages PersonB like: @PersonB I like cupcakes
I see it, because I also follow PersonB

Whenever PersonA @ messages PersonC: @PersonC I'll be in your town next week
I don't see it, because I don't follow PersonC

Now if I go to twitter.com/PersonA I can read all of the messages, but I won't have the @PersonC messages in my feed.

So as an example, I go to @phx2600 meetings, and I live in @cityofchandler. Assuming everyone who lives in Chandler follows @cityofchandler, and everyone who goes to the local 2600 meetings follows @phx2600, AND has @ replies to people they don't follow turned off, I could say:
@phx2600 meeting is tonight. I'm going to bring a box of junk and give away whatever I have, if you are late bring donuts.
and then right after that say:
@cityofchandler there is a broken water main at Kyrene and 56th st, but 58th is packed to, so if you are headed that way, take 60th st

If you only follow @phx2600, you only get the first message.
If you only follow @cityofchandler, you only get the second message.
If you follow both, you get both.
And if you follow neither, (like my dad in another state), you don't see either message.

And everyone sees my: w00t, I just got paid today! Now who do I owe money to?

*************

One last note that didn't make it to the getsatisfaction page:
On my twitter stream I have it set to "Show no @ replies". Instead I just track the groups I want to keep up with (like @phx2600) using my favorite twitter search app.

My mistake of following 550 people and how I hope to fix it

Sorry for the follow, and then unfollow everyone in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Cave Creek, etc.

Building off my previous "You are the news" blog post http://tankilo.blogspot.com/2008/11/you-are-news.html where I explain that reading people's twitters is more valuable as news than watching the local nightly news or your local paper.

I have been struggling with how best to accomplish this.

One of the first things I did was use Google to search Site:twitter.com "Location: Phoenix" and then follow everyone there, and then tracked Phoenix and if the person who came up listed as being from the area, followed them too. Way back in the day twitterlocal.net would show a map of an area and twitter posts from there, so looked up Phoenix and followed everyone from there as well. Then started attending local "social media" events and if I met someone there, followed them on twitter as well.

The problem: twitter.com/tankilo follows 550 people. Way back in the day Leo Laporte mentioned that he viewed these micro blogging services as a "river of news" where you can't possibly drink it all in, but instead, "bathe in a river of information". That's what I was doing, but found I wanted to keep up with some currents 100% of the time, but they were being flooded out by the other 546 people I was following.

Location based search and TwitterLocal.net came to my rescue. You can now do near:Phoenix at search.twitter.com and run an Adobe Air app called TwitterLocal that allows you to have a program that launches at startup, showing posts within so many miles of a zip code. So I setup one for within 5 miles of 85050, and another for within 50 miles of 85051. That should take care of the river of info for Phoenix AZ. So now whenever I have 30 seconds to spare (waiting on a download, or my World of Warcraft character has to wait for something to finish for a few minutes) I switch over to the TwitterLocal app and glance at what's going down.

Distraction? Certainly not. I'm saving hours a day by not even trying to read the newspaper or watching television. With this system I only "head to the river" when I'm free. There might be days where an intense set of circumstances causes me to ignore everything, and on the days when I'm open to more information coming my way, I'll go for a bath.

I'm now going to try and unfollow down to 100 people. Why 100? It just seemed like a nice round number. So if I had followed you, and am now unfollowing you, please do not take it as an offense, and I promise, from now on, to not follow someone just because they are in Phoenix AZ. I have to expect that some people will unfollow me once they read this, if you do, consider setting up a solution for those nearby as well, and then @ me to let me know what you came up with, I'd love to hear it.

Speaking of @ messages. On the advice of @evo_terra, you can turn off all @ replies (other people @'ing someone else) in twitter settings. Still trialing that.

The list of people I'm going to try and keep following:
1. Family.
2. Friends I grew up with.
3. People within 5 miles of 85050
4. Phoenix 2600 Group (Once a month meeting where we chat about computer stuff)
5. Social Media Friends
6. A few tech journalists / news feeds
7. People I've met at local events

Then the whole other list of people who I get their text messages sent to my phone will fluctuate depending on how many txt a day I feel I can handle.

Twitter if you are listening: You could make this easier by default.
1. Include @Replies in the main stream instead of another page.
2. Have a "near me" page on the main page that users could click on if they get interested.

A problem: I know how to do this, but will anyone else?

You are news

I made a post on twitter.com awhile back stating:

"I love Twitter because it has you guys :-) Its my local news, cup of tech, cup of politics, quart of comedy, and a sprinkling of addiction" Source: http://twitter.com/tankilo/status/992850990

@jonnyangry Replied: "@tankilo whats the local new twitter SN?" Source: http://twitter.com/jonnyangry/status/993588735

I hadn't meant that there was a news organization with journalists reporting what people are doing locally or what people are thinking locally, I meant that I read what you guys report on what you are doing and thinking, to me that's news.

I'd love a situation where a large number of my neighbors, coworkers, and people who work close to me, were active on twitter. It would bring me one step closer to recreating the "small town" feel of "everyone knows everyone" that I grew up with.

The rest of this article is skippable.

My internet connection went down sometime around midnight on November 16th 2008. Since I was just surfing along it's very likely it's just an outage and nothing wrong with my system. The last time this happened I was on the phone with Cox, and they said "nope, no outage, we can't communicate with your modem, try disconnecting all your TV's and going straight to the modem, that still didn't work? You are going to need some high quality cable then, we will schedule a technician visit to your home." The next morning the internet works fine, I hook my TV's back up, and everything else, and it still works fine. So I have to call back and cancel the technician visit the next day. So a fail on their part, obviously there was some sort of outage but the technician on the phone didn't have the info and so he had me do the normal troubleshooting steps.
November 16th around midnight, the internet goes out again.
I posted "Cox internet went down. Makes it hard to research WotLK DVD install problems for my relative. They upgraded account & can't play" http://twitter.com/tankilo/status/1009262892
About 2 hours later "@tankilo Mine was down too, I wonder how widespread it was. Where are you located? I'm at 7th Street and Greenway" http://twitter.com/PHLAK/status/1009314652
Then that morning someone who lived close to me tweeted "OMG the internet isn't working. Someone save me." http://twitter.com/kissmecait/status/1009737695
It was already pretty late at night so I went to bed and read these messages in the morning, and to me that was good to hear because it confirmed "an outage" and nothing I needed to change about my own system. This was even "news I could use" since now I wouldn't spend hours messing around with my own equipment.

Edit: I'd say this probably improves your outlook on life as well. Try consuming a little less of the "news" and listen to a few more people on twitter. If you don't want to follow anymore people, just use http://search.twitter.com/ and lookup your town, apartment complex, shopping center nearby, office building, name of your company, etc.

Why I pay for online multiplayer games and why some "free" ones have problems

Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games are where everyone connects to a virtual world with their computers. They all play as characters in this virtual world and either fight each other or computer generated monsters.There are pay MMO's and free MMO's. The pay MMO's are usually setup on a monthly recurring basis, and the free MMO's make their money from allowing you to buy things inside the game. For instance the online flash game "Dino Run" http://www.pixeljam.com/dinorun/ is free to play, just go to the page, and click "Start Running" on the left, then use the left and right arrow keys to run to the right and try and outrun the meteors while collecting eggs on the ground, (press Up to Jump, and Spacebar to pause the game). It's free to play, but if you pay money, your dinosaur gets to wear a hat! I'm lead to believe there's some part of the game where you can socialize with other people and the dino's can walk around without having to worry about extinction.

These games are possible, even profitable, as long as the cost to operate them is minimal and just a few people donate. They still want players who don't pay because just them being there contributes to the richness and depth of the online world. You don't have to worry about losing to the pay customers since they only get a hat, and that's not going to let them run any faster or collect more eggs.

Now the next step up in this is a game I play for free "Ikariam". http://ikariam.org/ Everyone can play for free, and it's basically a game where you are the ruler of your city, and you decide how many citizens you will employ at the saw mill to gather building materials, how many citizens to go to work in the mines or the vineyards, how many soldiers to employ, how many ships, and how big the government buildings in the town are; any citizen that isn't working in the government is free to pursue his own interests, and pays taxes.It's great fun. It's also the definition of "open ended" since there are no scripted events, no monsters, no evil power out to destroy everyone, it's nothing but you and all the other "rulers" of their own towns. You are free to make new colonies, invade a neighbors town to take some of his stuff or gold, trade with your neighbors for goods you don't have, form alliances, or be a complete hermit with high walls and a huge defense and just do your own thing. You could even have no military and pay gold to another player to protect you; or play mind games with anyone that might attack you by sending them in-game email after they attack you offering to just give them resources if they will leave you alone, then pay another player to attack them while you build up an army, and then attack!

Half the fun of a game like Ikariam is the choices you make and what you want to get done, and how your neighbors, and everyone else in the world, reacts.If you devote 100% of your citizens to paying taxes, you are left to the will of the market prices for your building materials. And sometimes no one is selling, or the prices seem to high.Want to send everyone to work in the mines? Then no one pays taxes and you run out of money.Want to create a huge army? Their upkeep costs money, if you go bankrupt, they will start abandoning you.Want to attack your neighbor? He won't just sit there and take it, he'll fight back, and sometimes in ways you that don't make sense to you.Want to turn two of your enemies against each other? Assuming you can do it with only the in-game email (or maybe make some allies and setup scenarios to make them lash out). You can do most any political or diplomatic thing you can imagine.It's actually a great sociological experimental playground.

And then...

If you pay, as little as $1 a week, you can get 20% increased production. You can pay a few dollars and setup to allow you to convert some goods into another without having to deal with other people, or "the market".

So now your neighbor, can become more powerful than you, just by paying a little. You may have been in the game for months, slogging it out trying to get your resources up, and a brand new player can hop in, drop a few dollars, and get a big jump up.

The other end of this spectrum is Subscription games with no bonuses. And if anyone attempts to "beat the system" by spending money to buy a high level character, or buying in game gold, their will be punishments. The most popular MMO out there is "World of Warcraft" (WoW), and the company (Blizzard/Vivendi) has even sued other companies that create programs that can be used to put your character on "auto pilot" and farm gold for you while you aren't in front of your computer. WoW costs $15 a month to play.http://virtuallyblind.com/2008/09/29/mdy-blizzard-damages/

The thing I like about WoW is that I "know" that if I see a piece of gear on a character, they had to work for it. It is possible to give someone real money and have them give you gold inside of the game, and there have been problems with even the highest level players cheating in game, but attempts to "beat the system" are investigated and punished.

I had a friend tell me he played WoW on a "free server" meaning someone was able to run an illegal "pirated" version of the same game, but his virtual world was not tied into the virtual world I and all the other paying customers is on. I was intrigued and asked him if he could get things for free in the game, like free armor, or weapons, or break the rules in the game. He stated it was just like the original game, just free. I wondered why bother then? I'm sure whomever runs the server isn't playing by the rules, and probably none of his friends are, and if you ever happen to run into any of them in the game and want to fight them, they can just type /kill and defeat your character. If that's the case, why not play for $15 a month? Now you are in the exact same position, but no one running around with a /kill command on their hip.

To recap: When I play World of Warcraft, I know everyone is where they are because that's where they worked to be. When I play Ikariam, I know that the people I'm dealing with may be playing with loaded dice. When I play Dino Run, I think the people wearing hats are cool.
I should note that as of this writing (2008-10-05) any of these games could change over night since they are online. Thus they could change policies or prices.