kevin barnett

Kim Clark with Apple Computer, Inc. left me a message today about my interest in working at the Michigan Ave. Apple Store. The store is currently under construction and I’ve heard it won’t be open until May…good timing as the semester will be winding down. We’re supposed to have a call in about an hour, so I hope it goes well. It shouldn’t be too hard for me to blab about Macs.

As another example of the genius of HBO Original Programming, America Undercover always stirs up interesting documentaries. Tonight was about the Visible Human Projectwho’s project involved disecting the cadivar of a death row inmmate killed by lethal injection by the state of Texas. They took the frozen body, suspended it in a gelatin *matrix* mold, and sliced it into 4 blocks (cut across the body as it was layed down). The blocks were then stood up on end, photographed by a overhead camera and then shaved 1mm at a time. Each millimeter was photographed making possible new 3D and 2D models of the human body.

Watch this amazing animation of all of the pictures that were taken…

I wanted the Raiders to win but that favor became more and more embarassing as the game went on. Nice showing by the Yucs especially since nobody can call them that anymore. They’ve passed that crown on to Jimmy Kimmel.

And the only ad worth remembering was that Matrix spot.

Bill Gates is a schmuck…a very wealthy schmuck, but a schmuck nonetheless. He and his software company cannot create software that makes it difficult for other people to easily and maliciously fuck up. For some it maybe the inconvience of a website down (for example, this one) but for others, it means not being able to use their bank’s ATM machines. And the website down for the user like you and me is trivial except that there are other businesses that lose a lot of money when people cannot connect to it. It should be an important lesson in either economics or psychology how Microsoft has been able to sell gagillionzilliontrillion dollars on software that breaks down so much.

The problem is that software companies dupe their customers into thinking their software actually works. In reality, their software is much like a bleeding, dying corpse and it’s up to a (small) development team to either patch the wounds or just hope for the best in the next release. And the beauty of it all is that software companies actually charge their customers to fix their own product. I guess we’re too accustomed to buying cars and washing machines - we expect them to suck.

This afternoon while my roommates were studying up on their incredibly interesting and entertaining law books in the new hip hangout Filter, I graced the warm interiors or Reckless Records and Myopic Books.

This was actually the first time I had been into Reckless since it’s basically the best place to buy vinyls/LPs in the city and I do not have a record player (although I want one). They do have an interesting selection of CDs though and an equally interesting method of stocking CDs. They only put out the CD liner note booklet (or the maxi-case) in a plastic sleeve and then you go request the CD (usually used, but a fair amount of new CDs) to listen to on one of their discmans or to purchase if you’re really confident and determined in your selection. I was looking for a Bar-Tays album, specifically one that had their song “Holy Ghost” but couldn’t find it. Instead, I picked up a used copy of R.L. Burnside’s Come On In. I became aware of this album from hearing It’s Bad You Know and Shuck Dub on The Sopranos.

If you know anything about R.L., then you know this album is quite different from his other stuff. The majority of the tracks on Come On In are blues over house beats…a sort of Acid Blues if there is such a thing. The other traditional tracks are, in my opinion, really good blues songs in that they are up-tempo and have diversity…which in my experience, is where a lot of Blues music falls short. I guess I enjoy the bastardizations of Blues much more than the actual stuff…maybe I’m missing out. Maybe not.

On to Myopic books, which is quite frankly, the shit of all used book stores. Staff is friendly, the selection is incredible and they sponsor the Wicker Park chess club (meetings are in the Myopic basement every Wednesday night). Today I was in luck because they had a copy of The Botany of Desire, a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while. The guy who helped me said they this copy in two days ago and they usually don’t stay around too long because it’s pretty popular. I expect that Botany will make it to my recommendations column on the right side of this page soon.

I also picked up a few Mark Twain books including The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories. I read somewhere that this book inspired Claypool to dub his band “The Fearless Flying Frog Brigade” since their first performance was at the Mountain Aire festival in Calaveras County, CA - which is where the book takes place.

Actually, the reason I bought these Mark Twain books is that my interest in the man his increased a lot over the past few months. I’ve been reading a lot about him and I recently watched Ken Burns’ documentary. He’s a facinating fellow and I think there is a lot to learn from Twain concerning writing, storytelling and satire. More on him later…

I want to learn how to play bass like this guy, Quintin Berry.