Just got back from Cincinatti, where Ben Folds played at Bogarts. We got there about 45 minutes late, and sur-prize sur-prize, Mapquest got us a little lost. And, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Cinci, but the “cool” part of town is really just a gentrified black neighborhood (aren’t all “cool” parts of town?), so we stopped at the local Kroger’s to ask for directions, and the people there were very congenial — apparently there were plenty of lost white kids that night looking for Bogarts.

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I hate feeling afraid to be in a “part” of town. I feel stupid, ashamed, even. These are just people.

So, the frickin’ show was sold out. Luckily, scalping is apparently legal in Ohio, and we managed to still get tickets. Sure, they were about twice face value (which was only $18), but dammit, I had driven there with Kelly, and we were going to see the piano-mosh stylings of Ben Folds. We got in after they’d played about 2 songs, and the place was packed.

Most of the songs during the hour and a half set were from the new album, with an interlude of 2 covers, a punky “Mommy Make Me” and “Sweet Home Alabama”! Now, I know Holly would have hated it. I was a little torn, myself. Believe me, they rocked it out, for sure, though thinking about that song, and the whole Neil Young/Skynyrd argument. “Sweet Home” is a rebuttal to Neil Young’s “Alabama” — an indictment of that state’s history of racial inequality, and being in a town that has a certain level of racial tension, and in a room full of white college students, and a band singing “you don’t know what it’s like to be male, middle class and white”, it was all a little strange at the time.

I saw Luke Padgett while we were down there, much to our surprise, and he mentioned that he wasn’t sure if he was going to come up from Lexington to see it, due to the acquittal yesterday. It was a thought in the back of my mind as well, but I think that that fear is only felt outside of Cinci. There was no tension in that crowd, no violence, everyone in the crowd knew the lyrics, and because there was no overdub, they would fill in the background vocals. It was nice, and they rocked it hard. I think that’s what made me feel good about the state of the city, and the people within it. “You don’t know what it’s like, being male, middle-class and white” — and do I, a white middle class male know what it’s like to be hispanic, elderly and poor? Black young and rich? No, and race, creed, and status don’t matter — I know I don’t hate those people, and I know that most of them don’t hate me.

We also happened to see Art while we were down there as well, again, much to our surprise. What is this? We go to another city, much larger than our own, and we see people we haven’t seen in years? Never under-estimate the drawing power of white-boy piano mosh rock.

It was good to see Arthur. I miss Art. A lot. I think he and I shared a lot of similarities, and quirks. We are both too emotionally sheltered and too easy to “give up” on a relationship. And never let ourselves down for it. It was good to see him. We all appreciate good Art. (tee-hee).

Well, so anyway, BACK TO THE SHOW. It rocked. HARD. The new backing band (now with guitar!) is awesome, and the encore was a lot of Ben Folds Five stuff, including a 10 minute version of “Song for the Dumped”. I felt real good after leaving, and I still do. It was okay to just do the white-boy shuffle, hear a song that made me sullen, and then turn around and rock out hard, to a guy playing a piano…

Go, and read an article about men of Arab descent being removed from flights, and try not to become enraged.

And why were they removed? Because, and I quote, “the crew didn’t feel comfortable“, or “didn’t feel safe”. One man, Ashraf Khan, a Pakistani, was removed from a flight in Texas — and missed flights to take him to his brothers wedding. None of the people removed — including a 15 year old Saudi boy — were perceived as a “threat”, and were later cleared.

Everyone right now feels uncomfortable, unsafe, and the people who feel the most uncomfortable? Americans of Arab descent.

Microsoft’s Frontpage 2002 has just been released — and with this disparaging piece of text in it’s EULA^?:

“You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state, federal or international law, or promote racism, hatred or pornography.”

Now, come on! I know that they’ll retract this after anyone who isn’t a totalitarian maniac collectively blows up about it. I know this will happen, so I don’t really care about the after-effects. What I do wonder and worry about is how in the hell could a company with so many talented, obviously intelligent people come up with something so blindingly arrogant, brash, and just plain STUPID?! That is one thing that really, really irks me about large corporations and the culture they provide.

Just think — THERE HAD TO BE A MEETING ABOUT THIS. Whenever I see a blantantly dunderheaded move on the part of a company, or even just an obviously wrong piece of marketing, i think “There had to be a meeting about this”. Where good, smart people who drive in the same cars we do, walk the same streets, breathe the same air, get together in a room, and make horribly inane decisions. Think. For. Yourself. Don’t check your intelligence, your common sense, your rationality at the door to your workplace. If something doesn’t sit right with you — object. You’ll feel better about it in the morning.

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that this website was not edited, manufactured, or in any way touches a piece of Microsoft Technology… and I think MSNBC isn’t worth the pixels it pushes to me or the photons on my TV… and I fully promote pornography… of Matt Lauer.

New pictures are up in the gallery — mainly the cat, Karen, and of Kelly’s cake — as so noted!

I haven’t had a chance to taste said cake, but preliminary reports say that it will be tastee and yummee. In that order.

So ill. The last time I felt like this, I was 12 years old, and the Desert Shield had just turned into Desert Storm. “Is this war?” I asked my mom. Even though it was thousands of miles away, in a land I’d only seen in pictures, I felt this horrible pang in my stomach. I feel like that now, even though I’m older, and I think I understand the world better.

But this. This strikes at home. This enemy has no face. “No return address” as they kept saying on TV. This enemy is not military. This enemy has rules only governed by the most base human quality of hatred.

And at the same time, I can’t help but to feel that this could have been averted. Our foreign policy has gone to shit — we back a country that chooses to defend itself in manners in which we would never dare. Did we not rebel against a tyrranous empire? Did we not fight for our own scrap of land? Our own brand of freedom?

I try to stay as neutral as I can. But when such a horrifyingly scheme, so precise, so cunning, so evil is exacted upon civilians — whether they be on our soil or on anothers, that cannot stand.

I feel so ill. I haven’t eaten. My head aches with the images I’ve seen today. Boxed in. Trapped.

if any of you happened to see the story that was up here earlier — click below
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i apologize. it was posted earlier this morning, and due to a bug in the code (related to the billenium it didn’t show up until i fixed the bug. it was crude, and just plain wrong. i apologize again. thanks be to hunter for knocking some sense into me.

After a lengthy stretch of service, theLocust II (a beefy Celeron 400Mhz machine) decided to take a dive on Wednesday night, whilst I was playing Day Of Defeat on my Linux machine using Wine. Not a happy man was I! But lo! From the ashes of that little holocaust arises it’s predecessor — gone from public view for 12 months, laying idle — the original theLocust (a Pentium 100Mhz machine). All I had to do was put the network cards and hard drive from theLocust II into theLocust, and she fired up no problemo!

Methinks that the motherboard went bad in it. It was only a spry 2 years old or so (I’m guessing!), and that Pentium 100 motherboard is easily 6 or 7. They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to!

Hey all you loyal theLocustRadio fans — i’m in the process of moving the radio streamer to the MP3 box, so I can do more adventurous things with the radio station. The radio widget on the right will be broken for the time being — but in the meantime, you can still listen by clicking HERE or opening “https://thelocust.org:8000″ in your favorite MP3 player!

More soon!