![[caedmonscall.net]](http://rocksmyfaceoff.net/images/rmfo/ccneticon.jpg "The Official Fan Site for Caedmon’s Call.")
![[derekwebb.net]](http://rocksmyfaceoff.net/images/rmfo/dwneticon.jpg "The Official Fan Site for Derek Webb. (Last updated 07/03/2004 04:24)")
![[rmfo-blogs.com]](http://rmfo-blogs.com/images/rmfoblog.png "An experiment in Weblogs for community members.")
![[rocksmyfaceoff.net]](http://ijsm.org/wordpress/wp-content/themes/ijsmorgv3/images/rmfoicon.jpg "The server I run.")
links for 2006-04-29
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I wish I were on vacation starting today. I have one more week!
Sat 29 Apr 2006
Fri 28 Apr 2006
Thu 27 Apr 2006
Square Peg Alliance … dot net.
Yes, another little project. More coming. In support of the Square Peg Alliance, I present … SquarePegAlliance.net.
Wed 26 Apr 2006
Revisiting Tom Brosseau
On Sunday, I wrote the following:
Tom Brosseau’s What I Mean to Say Is Goodbye. Brosseau has a high, reedy sound to his voice. It’s a sound that takes a bit of getting used to, but I like it, on the whole. I know that this is a re-issue of an early CD in his career, and it shows; too much of the music uses the same chord structures and strum patterns; all the similar criticisms of Derek Webb’s Mockingbird ring true here. Like the Webb, though, this is on the whole a very good disc. It gets four stars from me, and “Wear and Tear†is, to my ears, the highlight of the disc.
Since I’ve started listening to the disc more in iTunes and on shuffle in my truck, I’ve come to appreciate it even more. Not having the songs in the original order allows me to mix up the sameness of the record, and I’ve found myself unable to stop listening to it the last couple of days.
So yeah, I still re-rate, for sure. This is edging to the four-and-a-half star mark now.
links for 2006-04-26
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Yes, Noah, I have reconsidered my “I’d rather email you” policy. I like cheese!
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Big ups to Neil for getting me this.
Tue 25 Apr 2006
Big Time Munroe!
From Alabama to the Flyers
Rather than call up veteran NHLer Jamie Storr from their Phantoms farm team as their emergency third goalie, the Flyers tapped unheralded rookie Scott Munroe.
Munroe, who played four years for the Division II University of Alabama-Huntsville, signed an amateur tryout contract and played a couple games for the Phantoms.
Even though the odds of him playing for the Flyers are quite slim, this is still a dream come true for the 24-year-old.
“Our early assessment is he has some ability,’’ Phantoms coach John Stevens said. “Any guy who’s big and moves well in the net, we can work with.’’
Munroe, a native of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, said he’s a little intimidated dressing in the same room as Peter Forsberg and Keith Primeau.
“A month ago I’m in Alabama and now I’m here, it’s been kind of a whirlwind,’’ Munroe said. “I’ve only played two AHL games so it’s an honor. I didn’t think I would get here from there. I’m playing with guys I grew up watching and I’m in a little bit of awe.’’
Mike and I were privileged to call both his first and last games as a Charger. Scott is as nice of a guy as he is a good goaltender, and I’m so proud of him, I can’t stand it. WAY TO GO, 29!
links for 2006-04-25
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Apparently the up done last night is dead. Indeed, this is the show seeded on DIME on Sunday.
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As Planet Planet! gets better, it’s time for me to break down and implement it in a couple of spots…
Mon 24 Apr 2006
Daring Fireball Initiative
I won’t spare you with much text about John Gruber going as a professional Weblogger with his Daring Fireball. I’ll tell you that, simply, my interactions with John and with Alex King were what largely convinced me to buy a Mac [and now I own two]: that these two guys, whom I respect, were passionate enough about their platforms convinced me.
I wish I were kidding, but I’m not. But that should tell you that John’s got an important voice … it’s seen me spend $1700+ on Cupertino hardware in the last year.
[Now if I can only get John's mail server to recognize my incoming mail ... I re-upped my membership some time ago, but I've never heard from him; I bought another original DF shirt, and now I want to buy the other ones. John, this is a public plea for help!]
FeedLounge APIs
Scott and Alex have been talking about APIs for a while, and now they’ve released APIs for grabbing data from FeedLounge:
I could definitely find value in this in generating a blogroll, if nothing else. I just gave mine a test, and it gave me a good little start. [I'd link it, but it has Susan's full name, and I don't like linking her full name publicly. She doesn't like it, either. 
There's probably other folks there who don't want their full names used, as they may be pseudonym-blogging, so ... ]
Also getting some love in all this is Matt Walters. Congrats for the named release, Matt.
Aim Shotgun at Foot, Pull Trigger
Noooooooooooooo! And YESSSSSSSSSSSS!
That describes my emotions about five minutes ago when I read the latest email missive from Karin and Linford: Hem will be joining them on the Mid-South dates after all. I’m still going to Portland, though; that’s gonna be my vacation for the summer, as things are gearing up here [I think].
It’s almost a given that I’m going to Atlanta on Sat 3 Jun; I’d get to see them with Jeff, and Jeff introduced me to OtR. It’s pretty certain that I’ll go to see them in Nashville at the Exit/In on Fri 2 Jun; I can find crashspace with one of my peeps there. I’m also thinking about making the trip to Charlotte to see them on Monday the 5th, largely so I can see Brandon and Sarah and hopefully Kari and Mike.
My heart may not take this much OtR. [It's almost a guarantee I'll be buying the bootleg rig I've been eyeing. Four shows in five weeks that I want to bootleg? Yep.]
links for 2006-04-24
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I got beat to seeding this on VC; either way, I’m more about helping the network than anything.
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Kinda sparse. I like it, though.
Sun 23 Apr 2006
Geof’s New Music: 23-29 Apr 2006
I’m moving the posting of GNM to Sundays. My Mondays are getting hectic, and this is an easy Sunday-night activity. This week, I’m back to processing bootlegs, and gracious, I have a bunch of them: I have 90 bootlegs sitting on the computer to my left, and most of those aren’t burned off to CD! I probably have another 30-40 bootlegs on CD in the filing cabinet. Yes, I have a problem.
- 3 Feb 2006 [Portland, OR, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy.
- 12 Sep 1998 [Lawrence, KS, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco.
- 24 Mar 1994 [Chicago, IL, USA] concert bootleg of Uncle Tupelo. One of their last shows, and their last one at Lounge Ax.
- 15 Oct 1967 [Detroit, MI, USA] concert bootleg of Cream.
Last week was a couple unexpected CDs joining some bootlegs:
- Tom Brosseau’s What I Mean to Say Is Goodbye. Brosseau has a high, reedy sound to his voice. It’s a sound that takes a bit of getting used to, but I like it, on the whole. I know that this is a re-issue of an early CD in his career, and it shows; too much of the music uses the same chord structures and strum patterns; all the similar criticisms of Derek Webb’s Mockingbird ring true here. Like the Webb, though, this is on the whole a very good disc. It gets four stars from me, and “Wear and Tear” is, to my ears, the highlight of the disc.
- Over the Rhine’s Live from Nowhere, Volume One. This disc is simply lovely: live music lovingly played. I look forward to the succeeding years of this. This disc gets five stars and is, at this point, the best official release I have purchased this year. I cannot say enough about this disc.
- 29 Feb 1992 [Boston, MA, USA] concert bootleg of Uncle Tupelo. This is a good-but-not-great show; only the rendition of “Gun” stands out to me. It’s a solid effort overall, although the first bits of it aren’t great [and to be fair, the tape does cut off the first track]. This gets four stars from me.
- 10 Sep 1998 [Seattle, WA, USA] concert bootleg of Elliott Smith. This is a mediocre recording: not a lot of passion, unfortunately. I give it three stars, with highlights being “Sweet Adeline”, “Bled White”, and “Say Yes”.
- 22 Oct 2005 [Rio de Janeiro, BR] concert bootleg of Arcade Fire. Last week, I called it “almost unlistenable”. Let me revise that to “unlistenable”. One star. Just horrid. Ugh. I left this starred and checked in iTunes for a week, and I shouldn’t have.
- 22 Oct 2005 [Rio de Janeiro, BR] concert bootleg of Wilco. The Wilco taping from the Tim Festival is pretty decent. Nothing really stands out, and nothing truly sucks. The only complaint that I have is that the final encore isn’t that great, but that could be fatigue from doing a world traveling thing. I can’t fault the boys too much for that. It gets three-and-a-half stars from me.
- 17 Nov 2005 [New York, NY, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy. This is a great little bootleg. No track gets less than four stars from me, and “Lost Love”, “Sugar Baby”, “Not for the Season”, “War on War”, and “Heavy Metal Drummer” all get five from me. Four-and-a-half stars. This specific recording is no longer available that I know of, but there is a bootleg of this show on Via Chicago.
As always, I’m generally uninterested in doing B&Ps when you can grab stuff via BitTorrent. That’s why I make links, folks. 
links for 2006-04-23
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The first known live bootleg of REM? Don’t mind if I do…
Sat 22 Apr 2006
In the Back Yard, in the Garden
I really wish that my neighbor would realize that, honestly, I just don’t care. Our homeowners’ association cuts the grass often enough that I don’t feel like I need to go out and do it myself. And you know what, I pay them to do the landscaping. That’s great, because I honestly don’t care about that stuff.
But my neighbor doesn’t get that, probably because I’m nice enough to pretend to care about yardwork when she prattles on about it. [I listen so that she'll tell me other things going on with her, things I might actually care about, like her lot in life, the state of her soul, etc.] So while she was awful joyful just now that her father had come to help her sod her miniscule back yard—and it’s small, folks; it’s not much bigger than the size of the patch of grass under the net behind the goal on a soccer field!—I was … non-plussed. I think that she picked up on it.
As Mom said when I moved in here, one of the reasons that she figured that I’d move into a place like this was because someone else would get to mess with the yardwork. She’s right!
Fri 21 Apr 2006
IJSM.org Conversation Index
Bert Webb pimps Stowe Boyd’s idea of a Conversation Index on his Open Loops Weblog, and then reveals his CI. So, uh, let’s go with mine here, as of the writing of this post [which means the post count is off by one]:
Posts: 2690
Comments + Trackbacks [which are combined in WordPress]: 5194
CI: .520
The scale is that a healthy blog has an index of less than one. Higher numbers indicate a blog in trouble as no one, it appears, cares enough to add to the conversation. This could indicate that an author is not clicking with his or her audience, does not provide information that the readership deems important, or does not put forth any valuable ideas.
Now, this is arguable: if you’re writing to inform or entertain, this is legitimate. If you’re writing as a form of self-expression, well, ignore this.
So yeah … I guess this place does okay, even with my CI-killing daily links posts. [Of course, those do get comments.] Would I have ended this Weblog if my CI had been, oh, 43? No, because that’s not the point.
Thu 20 Apr 2006
links for 2006-04-20
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Re-writing your post doesn’t ever un-say the words.
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… but if Mark pissed Karyn off, well … okay!
Wed 19 Apr 2006
ATK Receives $28.6MM to Continue CLV First Stage Development
NASA MSFC has announced that ATK Thiokol will receive $28.6MM to continue its development of the first stage of NASA’s new Crew Launch Vehicle. Well, duh. ATK are the only folks capable of doing man-rated solids for NASA these days.
links for 2006-04-19
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Doug, I’m definitely referring to Henry and Bruce here…
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I wish I was down there so I could go drink beer with Scott.
Tue 18 Apr 2006
links for 2006-04-18
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Inconceivable.
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This is the location of Wonder Ballroom, where I’ll be seeing Hem and Over the Rhine in May.
Mon 17 Apr 2006
MusicBrainz Now Supports MySpace
MusicBrainz now supports MySpace relationships to URLs. Good for ensuring that artists’ whole public faces are being represented.
Yes, I’m a MusicBrainz nut.
Huntsville a Green City
The Green Guide has named Huntsville, Alabama one of America’s ten Green Cities—ahead of Denver, Anchorage, and Seattle. Somewhere, a bunch of granola-eaters just got really mad that some white-bread, hayseed, fried-chicken rednecks like us beat ‘em out.
Huntsville: More Than Just Really Big Rockets, FOOL!