Month: February 2005

Sometimes Gawker can be brilliant.

In today?s Times, David Carr offers a fond appreciation for Hunter S. Thompson, the person who, in our dreamworld, would?ve had his Sidekick hacked on the same day as Paris Hilton killed herself.

That’s why I usually leave celebrity news to the pros. I’ll stick with posting chili recipes and bloody piglets.

The big story this week is that Paris Hilton’s T-mobile Sidekick got hacked. All her notes, phone numbers, and cameraphone shots got posted to the Internet. A google search should find them easily. Normally I wouldn’t post about something like this, but I think one angle has been missed. Is Paris Hilton dating world famous Sim City designer, Will Wright? He’s in her notes (scroll down a little or type CRTL-f Will Wright).

Of course, it could be a different Will Wright.

I mentioned on February 9th that the site had just passed the 400,000 mark for total page views since I started the site in 2002.

11 days later we’re up to 450,000. Granted, I know it’s not becuase people are actually reading these posts.

Last night I stopped into the Treehouse to grab some coffee and Jerzy Jung was playing. She’s got a great voice. She usually plays the piano, but sometimes she picks up the guitar, too. I didn’t get a chance to stick around for long, so I missed the set by Johnny Miles but maybe I’ll check out his open mic again this week.

Damn, if you live in South Jersey and haven’t been to Aunt Berta’s Kitchen you don’t know what you’re missing. They have amazing fried chicken, ribs, turkey wings, and pork chops along with the standard home-style sides like macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, collard greens, etc. It makes Boston Market look like your high school cafeteria.

It’s on the White Horse Pike in Oaklyn.

After seeing them on Conan, I finally got up off my ass and bought the Arcade Fire’s album, Funeral. It was Pitchfork’s best album of 2004 and made the top 10 almost everywhere else. Does it live up to that hype? So far, definitely. Their music sounds like it came from ex-drama club geeks who got beat up by the Russian historical society… but in a good way! I haven’t been obsessed with a song in a while, but Neighborhood #2 (Laika) is so freaking good.

Always looking for ways to help out parents, the good people at Microsoft wrote a guide to help understand their kids’ chats. It’s amazing how serious the author takes the subject.

Key points for learning leetspeek

Numbers are often used as letters. The term “leet” could be written as “1337,” with “1” replacing the letter L, “3” posing as a backwards letter E, and “7” resembling the letter T. “0” (zero) will typically replace the letter “O.”

Mistakes are often uncorrected. Common typing misspellings (or typos) such as “teh” instead of “the” are left uncorrected and may be adopted to replace the correct spelling.

But then, we see the real reason they wrote this.

The following is a sample of key words that haven’t changed fundamentally (although variations occur) since the invention of leetspeek. The first series is of particular concern, as their use could be an indicator that your teenager is involved in the theft of intellectual property, particularly licensed software.Leet words possibly indicating illegal activity:

“warez” or “w4r3z”: Illegally copied software available for download.

“h4x”: Read as “hacks,” or what a computer hacker does.

Not that I’d been there on a Tuesday night in a while, but Grape Street will no longer host the Y-100 Tuesday Night Music Club. This news came to me in an email from Dan Fein. I have no idea how I got on his list.

February 17, 2005

Dear valued member of the Philadelphia local music community,

I wanted to inform you that February 22, 2005 will mark the last Y100
Tuesday Night Music Club at Grape Street Philadelphia. We are
currently looking for a new home to continue the Y100 TNMC?s six-year
tradition of supporting the best live, original music in the
Philadelphia area.

While informing you of the TNMC changes, I wanted to take this
opportunity to thank you for supporting the night through playing it,
attending it or both. It?s been a long journey from our beginnings at
Brownies 23 East to our move to 105 Grape and finally to 4100 Main
Street. I hope you?ll continue the journey with us to our new home
where I plan on making the Y100 Tuesday Night Music Club bigger, better
and even more beneficial for the local music community. I?ll be sure
to inform you of our new home as soon as we confirm all of the
details. I?m confident that we?ll have an announcement in the next few
weeks.

We?re extremely proud of playing local artists like G. Love,
Silvertide, The Starting Line, Burning Brides, La Guardia, ike and The
Roots in regular rotation. I?m sure we?ll be adding more names to this
in the near future. Also, get ready for some contests and promotions
that will involve unsigned original bands in the near future.

Y100 supports local music seven days a week. We feature a track from
one of the area?s best original bands every weeknight at 11 in the
Philly File, hosted by Y100?s Electra. On Sunday nights at 9 I host
two hours of new and local music during Y Not.

If you need to contact me, feel free to do so via email or phone.

Rock,
Dan Fein ? Y100

There’s no time for “Thanks” or “Sincerely” in Dan Fein’s world. Only time for “Rock.”

Like this post, Beck’s new video is almost entirely in ASCII.

On August 25th, 2003 I went to an open mic at the Fire and met Alex Ounsworth. He gave me a copy of his demo and I probably listened to it about 100 times that year. I was pissed because I wanted to invite him to the treehouse open mic, but his name and email address on the CD was unreadable. Back in 08/03 I said:

The other CD was from Alec Onsworth (that’s definitely spelled wrong). Alec’s demo could be a lost Violent Femmes record (update: Jeanne thinks he sounds more like the Talking Heads and I agree) and despite wanting to make a joke about how it should stay lost, I can’t. I found out this morning that I like it.

So, the other day I downloaded a bunch of MP3s I saw linked from Stereogum and I got around to playing Tidal Wave by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The singer sounded just like Alec, so I checked them out and I was right.

Listen to Tidal Wave if you’re interested or maybe this solo track by Alec. Alec’s voice grows on you, but in a strange way.