Now with less time wasting!

I've been happily aggregating away today, and it really works! It cut down my news reading time dramatically. I may have to buy this program. What's better is that I feel totally up to date - I know immediately when things are updated, so I don't need to be contstantly watching or bouncing around to different sites.

Now I just need to get more efficient at the 18,754 other stupid time wasting things I do every day, and I'll be all set.

RSS & Post titles

A good friend of mine asked me yesterday if my blog provides an RSS feed. Never having used it, I did some investigating, and yes, blogger does provide RSS newsfeeds. They're automatic for those hosting on Blogspot, but for those of us using blogger to publish to our own FTP site, they simply need to be turned on.

What's an RSS feed? It's basically a version of your blog that other programs can read directly and format however they want. What kind of a program would do that? Well, a news aggregator like NewsGator for one. I just installed it and put all my favorite blogs and news sites in there, and it rocks.

One thing I noticed is that if you don't use "titles" in your posts, it just takes the first few words as a title. Sometimes this doesn't really make sense. So I'm thinking about starting to actually use titles for my posts. I'm trying it out with this post, to see what it's all about.

Anyway, if you'd like to aggregate my blog, you can use the "RSS" icon on the right.

The universe is in order.

überjam is back in town from the AWP conference in Chicago, it's almost my 29th birthday (gah), I cleaned the kitchen (and battled the weird and powerful mold monster in the 2nd sink drain, ewwwww), and ProTools is working on my machine now. The universe seems to be in order. So I am going to bed.

ECHO Progress & New Blog

Finally got started working on my new event calendar idea last night: ECHO (Event Calendar HOuston). To keep myself on pace, I started a blog just for that. So if you care (no idea why you should), that's where you can keep up with my progress. Whee.

In other news, I am sick as a dog today. At least I came to work anyway. (groan). Remind me not to go see 8 bands in one night again.

Nothing good to do ...

People say there's nothing going on in Houston. Nonsense, I say. In fact, there's usually so much going on (if you know about it) that it's hard to choose.

So last night, I decided instead of trying to choose, I would just go to every single event on my list. überjam was out of town, I had no committments, and so I resolved to spend the cover on several places, knowing I wouldn't be there long. I ended up hitting 8 different destinations and seeing some very cool stuff.

I started out at Brasil for dinner, where I saw Osama Raad setting up his drums for a gig with Mike Viteri and a couple other folks. I had some dinner with him over there (mmm, garlic bread), but had to leave before they started. Intended to get back for some of the music but somehow never did.

After leaving Brasil, I scooted over to Tropioca Tea House in midtown for Bad Art Night, a production of Cody from H-Town Blogs. Sadly, my timing was off on this one and I got there too late to join in the festivities. Apparently they didn't have a big turnout so they ended it early. :( Next time ...

My next stop was at a new place on Westheimer called Tha House. My friend K'Monte had invited me to come down for his open mic, so I figured I would check out the scene there. Jill and I had been there once before, for a Mary Magdalene poetry duo reading. It's basically a house that has been converted into a really comfortable, chill performance and mingling environment. Seems like the perfect place for an album listening party or something. Anyway, the featured performer of the evening was Jeremiah David (see a video interview with him). His songs were really moving and well written, and he's got a killer voice. I got a copy of his CD and it's great.

After being persuaded to embarrass myself by getting behind they keyboard for a couple minutes, I headed out over to the Proletariat to try and catch some of Lights Out On Sound, the live electronic music project of the Killers For Hire DJs (the Reprogram Radio guys). I missed them, unfortunately, though I was greeted from the roof of the Prole by DJ Samplistic and Travis from Damn You Drunk Rooster. I got to see a little bit of Go Spread Your Wings, which was very cool. I also got to talk w/ Matt, my KTRU DJ trainer. He told me not to forget the little people when Drop Trio gets big and famous. To which I replied "hahahahahaha". I also got to talk with Eric (CeePlus) about the state of the industry in Houston and elsewhere, and our feelings about performing at SxSW.

Towards the end of the GSYW set, I headed out to Industry Cafe, for the CD release party of Karina Nistal (aka "Diva Karina"), one of Houston's hottest singers (no joke). Her new 12 inch single just came out in LA, and this was her Houston record release. (You know you're big time when the first web sites that pop up about you on Google are Japanese). She gave me a copy of the thing on CD, but of course I wanted it in vinyl so I bought one (never hurts to support local artists, right?). The show was cool, I saw a bunch of good musician friends there as well out to support Karina.

After Karina's performance, I continued my long evening by heading over to the Last Concert Cafe to see Potroast. They were great - I'm glad to finally know some of the guys in that band (Brian, the drummer, and Eddie, the keyboard player). The crowd at LCC was totally off the hook - 2 or 3 hundred folks at least. I've never seen it so crowded. (I was particularly psyched to see a big old Drop Trio sticker up right behind the bar - thanks guys!) Many Drop fans were there (Teal, Hoopinman, etc.) and I made some new friends as well.

After chatting for what was probably far too long with a new friend, Pete, I headed over to Rhythm Room to catch Kirk M (the sound engineer) to try to grab a copy of a jam session we did over at his place in February. Transaction was completed, and I got to say hello to all the Goodtrain session guys (Jeremy & James from MG, Randy from Us & Them and the Hightailers, Teri "et tu" Greene, and a few others).

That was pretty much the end of the night for me, but I did have to make the obligatory stop at Late Night Pie for a couple slices. Listened to Damage Control radio on the way home and heard a few bands I know (RMYC, SMUGGLAZ, etc.).

There were even a couple I didn't make it to. Mike McGuire's poetry in reverse was going on at Helios, followed by my new favorite Houston musician Musak John. Also, the KTRU staff was having a CD reviewing party. I wasn't able to squeeze either of those in (for logistical reasons more than anything else).

So who says there's nothing going on in Houston? This was a Wednesday for crying out loud! In any event, I'm gonna have to chill out the next couple nights if I want to stay employed. :)

I've got a bit of a sore throat today. I wonder if that has anything to do with me getting under 5 hours of sleep for the past few days, running around in the rain, getting really stressed out, yelling at the top of my lungs in bars to people I'm trying to have a conversation with, and then eating nothing but a donut today.

Stupid consequences!

Back to the grind. SxSW was a hoot, as well as SxDE. Both were solid performances, and both totally fun in their own way. I was particularly psyched that überjam made it out to see us at SxSW - it's been a little while since we've had a show big enough to ask her to come out to. (If she came to all of them, she'd never get anything of her own done!)

Now all that remains for me is to go through the hundreds of business cards I got and figure out who each one was from, and email them to say hello. No sweat.

Today has been a totally hectic day, getting ready for SxSW. Making promo CDs to hand out, assembling samplers for industry folks who want them, making sure I've got places to stay, etc. I will sleep well tonight. Other than, you know, being totally nervous about the whole thing.

Oops, almost forgot to post my playlist for today. Here it is. Not very inspired today, sorry. Some days you're inspired, some days you just show up.

Did manage to get some obscure Houston music collections in there.

Yay for new planets! Yay for Sedna!

Happy Pi Day! (3.14) Go celebrate by having some pie (pizza pie is OK too). Today is quite an auspicious day, as it happens; it's also the birthday of Albert Einstein, and the 10 year anniversary of Wordsmith, a "word of the day" type list I get (I highly recommend subscribing - you can never know too many words!)

Accidentally hit my mail quota last night and didn't notice until this morning. Doh! So I had a whole night's worth of email that bounced! Damn I hate when that happens. So unprofessional.

Couple that with the fact that last week (and for a couple weeks before that) my ISP (Globat) was having spotty trouble getting emails through to me and some were bouncing. So basically, I haven't been up to snuff on the email front lately.

But on Thursday, uberjam and I did go through the (long) process of converting her to use IMAP and Spamcop. So she'll have better email access and no spam now.

It's funny, email is usually so transparent, and it's easy to forget about the maintenance it requires. But just like a car, if you neglect it, it'll break down on you.

Terrible news today - Dave Blood, of the Dead Milkmen, committed suicide last night. I have been a long time lover of the Dead Milkmen - in fact, I even played one of their tunes on my show this week. Very sad. I hope his band mates and family are holding up OK.

So, I got my new Bad Plus record in the mail yesterday. I am officially quitting playing music.

OK, not true, but it's hard to feel like I have anything worth saying musically after listening to these guys. They are truly, totally phenominal. Everything I wish I could be doing musically, they are doing, with humor and panache and total rulingness. Wow. If you like my music, you had better run out and get theirs.

So this seems to be turning into a weekly blog. That's not what I intended, but I'll take what I can get for now. The only thing that's been reminding me to blog is my radio show playlists (here's today).

I'm sitting at my desk, inside a room with no windows, on one of the most beautiful days of the year. I didn't even go out for lunch, I'm just munching kashi at my desk. Sad.

Dang, what a busy week. Work party Thursday, follwed by a Rhythm Room show Friday (watching, not playing ... seeing Goddess & Underground Nation, the latter of whom I missed - doh!); hosting Swirve @ Brasil on Friday night, followed by an all-night jam session at Kirk Madden's studio; show at Fitz on Saturday w/ Arthur (playing, not watching); recording session at Sugarhill on Sunday (which went exceptionally well); and radio show this morning (here's my new playlist).

It's a wonder überjam hasn't killed me yet. This week will be significantly more chill, with a trip to Bolivar to hang with the 'rents on Saturday and a little down time between now and then. As long as I can manage not to fall asleep on my keybozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz