Weezer on Letterman

Here is Weezer performing two of the new songs on Letterman. They were on the Late Show both Thursday and Friday night which demonstrates their greatness. Only U2 and the "hippest" bands get to perform multiple shows on Letterman in the same week. The second song features the band (Including the CBS Orchestra) in the custom made Weezer Snuggies.

Despair or Graditude?

Robert C. Solomon, a well-known professor of philosophy at the University of Texas who died in 2007 of heart failure at the age of 64, used to tell the following story from his own personal experience...

He was a medical student at the University of Michigan when by chance he walked into the wrong crowded lecture hall. He had been unhappy with his medical studies when something the lecturer said caught his attention. The professor was lecturing about Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return and the the fundamental question:

"If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"

That very day Solomon went and changed his major to philosophy and would eventually become one of America's foremost experts on 20th Century Continental Philosophy and phenomenology.

Goodbye Geocities....

I am not alone in my fond nostalgia for the now dead Geocities webhosting platform. I have good memories of Geocities which Yahoo pulled the plug on this week. Geocities was the host of my first real presence on the web. My first platform, truepath, died a fairly quick and obscure death. Geocities was The Internet Lounge's first home. As blogs and social networks replaced homepages I relunctantly followed the masses by moving to blogger. The blog medium was much more intuitive and efficient than the old homepage format at Geocities. But it was at Geocities where I first learned how to construct a webpage no matter how primitive. R.I.P. Geocities...you helped invent the modern internet.


HERE is a very good article on the demise of Geocities.

See 'ya Slingin' Sam...

I was disappointed to hear the news that Sam Bradford will have season ending surgery on his shoulder. He has almost certainly played his last game as a Sooner. He had a short, yet spectacular career. It is tragic that it ends this way. Had the Sooners played a cupcake schedule the first weeks of this season like most of the other NCAA powerhouses out there (see Texas and Florida) Bradford's story probably would have ended differently.

I was fortunate to be invited by my uncle to go see Bradford play against Baylor a few weeks back. It was the only time I saw Bradford play in person. Little did I know that the Baylor game would be the only game this season Bradford would play the entire time (save for the last series when Landry "The Mustache" Jones came in for mop up duty).

Photo: Photo taken by me at the Baylor game...Bradford's last full game as a Sooner.

Candy Madness!

Last Saturday Jackson and the fam watched the annual Kaufman Scarecrow Festival Parade. There were lots of firetrucks, police cars, tractors, horses, two marching bands, floats, ATV's and more. The parade went on for more than an hour. Best part...candy! Jackson and I ran out into the street time and time again to grab candy being thrown by the paraders. JDW would yell "Candy Candy!" and we'd make a mad dash of it. He filled a whole bag. Pics are HERE.

U2 in Dallas

The U2 Concert at the New Dallas Cowboys Stadium last Monday night was spectacular. Everything worked out very nicely. We got parked quickly and easy. On the way out we only had to wait in parking lot traffic for 20 minutes...not bad when there's 80,000 other fans trying to get out. I'm thinking they have the kinks just about worked out on the parking front at JerryWorld.

The stadium itself is truly a wonder. When we walked through the glass doors on the north party plaza entrance I expected to see the usual concourses that have entrances to your seat. But instead you immediately are in the arena itself overlooking the playing field. It's only once you move to the left or right that you find the usual concourses. It's quite a jolt to find yourself overlooking the field so quickly. The bathrooms are spotless. The walls glisten. The concourses are wide and spacious. The seats are comfortable and well spaced. Jerry spent his 1.5 Billion well.

U2's stage was covered by a spaceship looking canoply with four massive exo-skeleton like legs descending to the ground. It was bordered by a round catwalk and moving bridges that allowed the band to play to the crowd in all directions (hence the "360 Tour"). Even the drum platform rotated. The giant videoscreen was round as well and lowered to right above the band and back up to the top of the stage. It could also break up in fragments and spread over the whole stage exploding with light and color.

The music itself was great. U2 is even better live than on disc. They played a great mix of old and new. During the song "Walk On" and "One" they had crowd members walk around the circular catwalk holding up masks of Ang San Suu Kyi...the Nobel Prize winning president of Burma who has been under house arrest by the repressive military junta since her election in 1990. Bono also thanked George W. Bush for his work with Africa and played an impassionate speech by Nobel Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu.

A once in a lifetime show. Our seats were great. The experience utterly fantastic. Here's the setlist. HERE you can find some pictures from the concert.

Breathe

Get on Your Boots

Magnificent

Mysterious Ways

Beautiful Day

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Stuck In A Moment

No Line on the Horizon

Elevation

Until The End of the World

Unforgettable Fire

City of Blinding Lights

Vertigo

I'll Go Crazy - Remix

Sunday Bloody Sunday

MLK

Walk On

One

Where The Streets Have No Name

Ultraviolet

With or Without You

Moment of Surrender

We Are All Neda

Neda died with open eyes. Shame on us who lived with closed eyes.