Concert: Foo Fighters
After my initial plans for this show fell through, I was almost ready to let my hard earned floor tickets to this show go to waste. Fortunately, new plans were made and I managed to get to the show around 9:15 – two hours after the start. There were two openers, so I figured that it might still be worth seeing.
Got there just as Foo Fighters went on. After a quick beer in the beer garden, we headed down to the floor.
First impression was: wow, there are a lot of people here. I don’t think it was a sell out, but the Rose Garden’s bowl was fairly full (and I do know that the floor tix were sold out). The sound was great – loud and full without being overpowering.
After a few songs, Taylor went into a drum solo, which was our cue to hit the bathrooms and the bar. Five minutes later and we got a nice surprise.
The bar setup on the floor of the Rose Garden is at the back of the arena. I’m not the kind of person who tries to wrangle their way to the front of the crowd, so this was fine by me. When we came back on to the floor, though – wow.
The whole band had moved to a small auxilliary stage at the back of the floor. We basically walked in and were in the third row! The songs they did there were a bit more mellow, more intimate. Then Dave introduced the band. It was at this moment, that he really connected with the audience. He has mastered the art of being the snarky front man of a huge rock band, all with a wink and a nod. After a handful of songs on the back stage, Dave went into an “acoustic” version of Everlong while the rest of the band disappeared. As they reassembled on the main stage, they transitioned into a full version of the song, and completely left the back stage.
The rest of the show was solid. Then they left and the inevitable wait for the encore began. And once again, they did something different. Someone was backstage with an IR camera filming the band rehydrating and taking a break. Through gestures, Dave intimated that he heard the crowd and basically said “ok, one more song”. After a minute or so of this, they move over to Taylor, who started upping the ante, going from one song to four, all playing off the crowd energy.
As they came back on stage, Dave talked to the crowd for awhile, reminiscing over the fact that their first ever live show was here in Portland (at the Satyricon). A couple of solid encore songs and the show was over. A good two + hour performance.
(update a few janky camphone pics)
As I was reading this story over at What Would Tyler Durden Do? about Tobey Maguire sitting in his car getting blinded by camera flashes, it struck me. Instead of sitting there patiently until you lose it, why not fight back? Install super bright flash lights on the exterior of your car and start flashing back. You know, like a million candle power bright. The kind of bright that makes the back of your eyeballs hurt. As they stand there stunned/clawing at their retinas, you drive peacefully away.
Remember, if you turn this into a million dollar idea, I want my vig.
So… following up on yesterday’s post, I was deposed today for my expert witness gig. I was told it would probably take two hours or so. Five hours later, and I was finally done.
First up were the biography questions. Who the hell am I to think I can make these opinions? Where do I get off acting like a know it all? Those kind of questions. It was funny. At one point they entered my Linked In profile as an exhibit. If you’ve seen it (and yes I am not linking to it on purpose – gotta keep public and private somewhat separate , yknow?). Well my Linked In profile, has some humorous entries in it. Case in point: areas of specialty. Now is it my fault that I am an expert at “kicking ass and taking names”? When that was read into the record, the court reporter had to stifle a laugh 
I calmly explained that I use Linked In begrudgingly to keep in touch with old coworkers and not to market myself.
So, after an hour of getting my ego bruised, and you all know how fragile my ego is, we moved on to a series of questions regarding my knowledge of the case outside of my forensics report. The whole gameplan up to this point was for me to do a “clean room” analysis of the code – no knowledge of the business and legal wrangling that had occurred. It was hoped that by doing this, my analysis would have that much more weight as a true neutral party. Opposing council was flummoxed. They had obviously fed their expert the conclusions they wanted and he couldnt believe that I was answering “I have no idea” to all of his questions.
Next, we moved on to my report. Very interesting. As it turned out, he didn’t directly question any of my conclusions. Instead, he tried to play games with timing and dates. I thought I handled myself fairly well. At any rate, I never shouted out “Don’t be an idiot”, which is more than I can say for my last three bosses.
Finally, we came to the opposing expert witness report. I spent about 45 minutes, tearing it to shreds, without giving them too much ammo.
Phew – 5 hours is a long time to be recorded with every word you say written down.
When we left, our council said I did good job – blah blah blah. On the other hand, he did ask if I could be available when we depose their expert witness. He said they could really use my insight to help direct questioning. Another 5 billable hours? Hell yeah! I might just be good at this.
Software Depo
Depo-sition that is. Yep, tomorrow is the big day – my first deposition as a software development methodology expert. We – the attorneys, the client, and the other experts (bioinformatics – its a health/medical related case) – met yesterday for a strategy session.
Most of it was to discuss the opposition’s expert witness report and help them tear holes in it. It was remarkably easy to do that. It felt like their expert had barely looked at the application and was using boilerplate for most of it. For a couple of hours we went through it section by section, giving the attorneys arguments on how to discredit it.
Of course, this had me thinking – if we are doing this, the other side would be as well. Fortunately, we moved on to looking over our reports. Spent about a half hour on the other expert report, clarifying points, etc. When it came time to review mine, everyone agreed that it was spot on and didn’t need defending. W00t!
Funny thing is, they spent maybe 15 minutes prepping us for deposition. One of the take aways for me was that we aren’t there to educate opposing council. If they ask us about points in their reports, and to justify why we might differ, we are supposed to be as truthful and forthcoming as possible, while saying as little as possible. They can’t revise their reports (and neither can we) but anything said can be used to direct council when it comes to trial/arbitration. If we tell them that whole swaths of their report are bogus, and they go back and see that its so, they know to change their arguments to avoid those sections.
Anyways, it should be interesting. I get to blather on and act like a know-it-all, and no one can complain because thats what they hired me to do!
Question
Is the number 2554 in roman numerals:
a: MMDLIV
or
b: MMCCCCCLIV
Now, as someone who has hired numerous software developers over the years, the old roman numeral algorithm is a great thing to pull out of the pocket and have some candidate write some whiteboard code with. There are exact answers, and they can be measured very easily.
This is different than, lets just say… how many miles does one swim in the iron man triathalon. Obviously, there is a correct answer, and then there is an acceptable range depending on the judge.
I only ask this question defending the honor of SparkleMotion…
oh, we will come back with a vengeance next week… The Wrath of Sparklemotion.
Really digging this track off their latest album (YT: Weezer Heart Songs W/Lyrics) ( (The Red Album). Basically its the answer to the standard fanzine question of “Who are your influences?” Name checks:
- Gordon Lightfoot
- Cat Stevens
- Joan Baez
- Eddy Rabbit
- Devo
- Pat Benatar
- John Lennon
- Bruce Springsteen
- Grover Washington
- Quiet Riot
- Iron Maiden
- Judas Priest
- Slayer
- Debbi Gibson
- Michael Jackson
- George Michael
- Rick Astley
- Terrence Trent D’Arby
- Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock
- DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
- Nirvana
(ps. Weird aside. The extra info in the link is from a greasemonkey script I have that automatically expands YouTube links with the actual video name. No more Rick Rolls and single link youtube metafilter posts for me! – The Internet is serious business! I guess when I previewed it, the extra info came across.)
Voicemail is Dead
At least according to this article. I have to agree. I have a landline that is predominantly used to buzz people in to my place. Other than that, I rarely, if ever, even pick up the phone. A quick look at the caller id, and if its not my front door, the caller is sent to voicemail hell, where I never check the messages.
My mobile is a slightly different situation. Again, I usually only pick up if I recognize the number, and voicemail can sit in there for days or weeks before I clean it out. Even then, a few seconds to figure out who it is and it usually gets dumped.
I wonder if my behavior would change with Visual Voicemail, like the iPhone has, although I doubt it.
Between Twitter, IM, SMS, and email, there are plenty of ways to get information to me that are integrated into my normal routine. Calling an external phone number and dealing with a linear menu system just isnt one of them.
Not Cool
Ian Curtis memorial stone stolen
Ian Curtis’s fame lives on years after his death
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The memorial stone dedicated to former Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis has been stolen from a Cheshire cemetery.
Curtis was 23 when he hanged himself in the kitchen of his Macclesfield home in May 1980, shortly before the band were due to go on tour in the US.
Cheshire Police said the memorial stone was taken from where he is buried in Macclesfield Cemetery.
Officers are appealing for anyone with information on its whereabouts to contact them.
