New Toys are Good
I mentioned yesturday that I purchased a new toy, specifically I purchased a new printer: I bought the Epson 2000P. It is very cool, and it kept me up all that morning burning through ink like I could shoot it out my nose and harvest the drippings for free.
The printer is so good in fact, that it will require its very own node review after I have had enough experience with it to verifiy that it still is as cool as I think it is. Right now I am in a state of new purchase euphoria. This is a dangerous state for me to be in, as it usually requires me to purchase lots of accessories for my new toy. With the rate that I am burning through ink, I will be buying lots of stuff to feed it real soon now.
I printed a picture of some rhinos I had taken at the San Diego Zoo awhile back. I needed to tweak with the color-correction settings a bit before everything was all good, but in the end the print looked better than the one I had professionally done on a Kodak dye-sub. What's even cooler is that this print should last for 200 years. Far out!
Service? Service...Service!
I awoke around eleven o'clock in the morning that day, got ready and my brother and I went to Lund's resturant. Normally they aren't a bad place to catch a quick brunch. However, I have a theory about when the average age of a resurant is below a certain age (say 17) or above a certain age (perhaps 65): the food and/or service cannot always be good.
In short, our server was slow and went she brought my oatmeal pancakes they were burned on the outside and raw and cold on the inside. No good. Turn down the burner man!
I dropped off my brother and went to a classical concert with my girlfriend at the Minnesota History Center's 3M auditorium. It was very good.
The program was arranged, and in large part, performed by Sung-Nam Kim a darn good violin player and my girlfriend's former teacher. She's a conservatory gal.
The music that they opened with was a bit too modern for my liking. But the program got progressively better and the acoustic qualities of the auditorium and the instraments made the other concert I went to in the evening look like puppy shit.
One of my favorite all-time bands is Dave Matthew's Band and I was extremely excited to be able to get band issued tickets to their show for myself and for my brother. It was slighlt a dissapointment.
The truth be told, the acutal stage performance was great: Dave's set-list, stage antics, and the light show were all top-notch. However, the sound was just horrible! The audio people didn't have the vocal balence figured out until at least until more than half of the show was over.
The crowd was so young that all they did was scream their heads off: even during soft songs and solos. I imagine it was something like attending a Beatles concert in the 60s with the exception that not only were the girls screaching, but the beer-guzzling frat boys felt the need to contribute their un-welcome vocalizations as well. It was alsmost impossible to hear anything.
My guess is the the problems they were having with mixing and volume were a direct result of the band's recent upscaling to stadiums from large halls. They used to play venues in Minneapolis like the Orpheum Theater; and although I never attended one of those shows, I heard it was most enjoyable! Bummer!
Thankfully our seats were good enough that we could enjoy the visual aspects of the show. Dave is a very expressive singer and so is the rest of his band, especially that far-out fiddle player of his. It was worth going to the show just to strain to hear some of cuts off of their new album. Sadly, I don't think they played their new upcoming single Diggin a Ditch.
I am also thankful that I was able to smuggle my digital camera into the show by hiding it in my pants. Before I entered the stadium I tucked it in front of my pecker and fished the camera-strap up the front of me, underneath my shirt, so I could hook it on the shank of one of my shirt's buttons to keep the camera from falling down the one of my pant legs. My little plan executed without a hitch. They patted me down and made me open my coat--the goods were not found. I took some bitching shots: let me know if you want to see 'em.