ChichaPlanet

Melissa's sister, Virginia, was here with her bf Rich for the weekend from Philly. It was his birthday, so we had pizza, cake and a movie. They also brought along their puggle (Wikipedia) Bailey.

My cousin Virginia graduated from Amherst College yesterday. We spent two nights there with our family.

Photo gallery here.

More graduation photos.

by Manuel Lora at 4:16 AM under vida (Comments)

A few weeks ago I finally had the chance to see The New Pornographers at the Ithaca State Theatre, with Okkervil River as the opening act (Myspace; Wikipedia). The two, of course, kicked ass. I did have a problem with the sound. I wish that the music had been a bit lower because it was drowning out the vocals.

The New pornographers


Okkervil River

Rachael Sage

Blues musician Taj Mahal (Wikipedia) was in town last night at the Ithaca State Theater and we had tickets. During the hour and a half of music, the Taj Mahal Trio treated us to a good selection of blues. Some songs were instrumentals and some were performed in the classic blues style. A few of them, however, included the banjo, which was quite a crowd pleaser.

Last weekend we had the chance to see Neko Case (Myspace; Wikipedia) live at The State Theater.

I first heard of Neko Case because of her association with The New Pornographers and wanted to hear what her solo work was like so I bought her latest album, Fox Confessor which I have enjoyed. Many articles refer to her style as "alternative country" but in my opinion there doesn't seem to be much of that, at least on her latest release. Rather, it's more of an alternative-ish, very lightly countrified blues with a dash of rock.

I enjoyed her performance though I thought that some of the arrangements were too similar and a couple of the songs did not showcase the full potential of her repertoire. That said, I will continue to listen to her music and would not pass another opportunity to see her again.

(Eric Bachman (Myspace) opened the show.)

Continuando el meme...

Coger el libro más cercano, ir a la página 18 y transcribir la línea 4:

"the seats, respectively, of the European Union, and the United" [estoy leyendo este libro]

Cuenta lo último que viste en la tele:

Pushing Daisies.

A parte del ruido del ordenador, ¿qué más se escucha en este momento?:

The New Pornographers

¿Cuándo te reíste por última vez?

Hace como 15 minutos, escuchando una canción de los Beatles.

¿Qué hay en las paredes donde te encuentras ahora mismo?

Dos estantes llenos, mi torre de CDs, un par de fotos mías en blanco y negro y otras de nuestras familias y amigos.

¿Cómo estás vestido/a en este momento?

Jeans, polo, medias blancas.

Algo que los bloggers no sepan sobre ti:

Tengo un lunar en el cachete izquierdo del cucú.

¿Cómo son tus manos?

Espectaculares.

¿Qué ves desde tu ventana?

Jardín, otros edificios y a lo lejos carros.

¿Qué imagen podría definirte?

Ninguna.

For the last week I've been indulging in the intoxicating indie rock/pop sound of The New Pornographers (MySpace; wikipedia). So far I have only thoroughly listened to their latest album ("Challengers"), particularly the tracks All The Old Showstoppers (my favorite so far), Challengers, Failsafe and Go Places.

I have also purchased the other three albums, which apparently are just as good or better according to the various reviews I've read. It's been a while since I've found such enjoyably satisfying work.

How did I discover NTP? Thanks to the local college radio station, WICB 91.7FM from Ithaca College.

I hope that I can see them live one day.

They have a lot of albums. Which ones are the best? Send comments or email please. Thanks.

I've been watching Heroes (Season 1) via Netflix and it's fantastic. This is already one of my favorite shows. Gotta catch up quickly as the next season starts soon.

7.9!

We got this done in San Antonio when we were there in 2003.

Ooops!:

These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

Here's the new gallery of their wedding and our visit to the LA area.

There are also some photos of San Juan de Capistrano, an 18th century mission in southern California.