Philip Fibiger

Best…Birthday…Ever…

I had my 24th birthday last week, and it was a geek heaven. As an engagement / birthday present, Emily got me a 20 GB ipod, an adaptec firewire card, and a copy of XPlay. She did a lot of research about the differences between a Mac IPod on windows using XPlay vs. the Windows IPod, and it turns out that XPlay is really superior to MusicMatch, which comes with the Windows player, and now I have a player that’ll work with a Mac, if I ever get one. Over 1500 songs loaded onto the device, and it still has 13 out of 18.5 gigabytes free. My IPod ranks right up there with my Tivo as the greatest piece of consumer electronics ever created.

Continuing the computer/electronics geek thread, I went out and got a T-mobile Sidekick (also known as a Danger Hiptop. I ditched a $35/month cell plan and replaced it with a $40/month plan. I went from 300 anytime minutes to only 200, which is fine because I didn’t use the phone that much during the week, and I added unlimited data transfer. The hiptop is a cellphone, pops down email (and has its own email address), browses the web, uses aol instant messenger. It isn’t a perfect convergence device by any means, but it is certainly a huge step in the right direction. Leonard has already gone into way more detail about his hiptop than I can handle, and we have a lot of the same observations/complaints about the device, so go there, or something.

It was also a happy birthday for my motorcycle. I got a magnetic tank pad so that the zipper on my leather jacket won’t scratch the tank. I got a tank bag that’s both great for commuting and weekend rides. Now I don’t have to worry about loading my pockets with my cell, digital camera, etc..I can just toss everything into the bag and go.

Finally, my parents bought me a Craftsman 250 piece mechanics tool set. It’s got enough metric and standard sockets to do almost any maintenance my motorcycle will require. The problem with owning a tool set like this is really, it doesn’t like to live in an apartment. In a lot of ways, it’s like having a dog..sure, you an raise one in an apartment, but they want a big yard to run around in. Similarly, this tool set is huge, and needs a big garage of its own to inhabit. Some day…

What is better than a 45 year old drunk ex-elementary school teacher strutting around on stage, doing high leg kicks, swinging his microphone like Roger Daltrey, raising his beer in salute to the audience, drinking like a fish, smoking like a chimney, and singing in a bit of a faux-british accent? The answer is, not fucking much. Guided by Voices played the House of Blues last night, and I’d been waiting to see them for seven years. They did not disappoint! Two hours of old classics and new songs, plus an encore. I think that Bob Pollard consumed at least 8 beers while he was on stage, maybe more. Even when he got to the point where he’d forget which albums songs were on, he still remembered all the lyrics to each song, and he could still dance around like a maniac without falling down.

Now, I’m not a Guided By Voices completist by any means (and damn, would that be hard. The Fading Captain series alone has what, 19 records? Add at least a dozen GBV records, a couple Bob Pollard solo records, and innumerable EPs, and you realize that it would be near impossible). I do consider myself a big fan, and while this isn’t my favorite incarnation of GBV (the Alien Lanes era band is), these guys rocked. They even took people’s ids and checked them, and then handed out beer they had on stage. Bob Pollard has great stage presence, and happily interacts with the audience. This one’s from an old album called Bee Thousand! Do you know why we called it Bee Thousand? (Audience Silence) Hold your tongue between your fingers and try to say Pete Townshend!

Jack Black and Kyle Gass were up at the railing during the show. Jack seemed really into the show, rocking out and clinking his beer bottle with the other GBV fans nearby.

In an attempt to further expand your musical horizons just a bit, here’s Silver White Flash from the new David Barbe record. He played in Mercyland, Sugar, and Buzz Hungry, and has been producing a ton of records. Maybe you don’t love his voice on the first listen, but give it a chance..it’s really a great moody, dreamy pop song.

I saw Spider-Man on friday, and in general I thought it was quite good. Williem Dafoe played a very generic villian, and that was definitely the weak point of the movie. Some of the dialog was corny, but I thought it presented the superhero tale as a coming of age story in a way that hasn’t really been done in a movie before. It was definitely worth seeing.

That said, I have to say that this trend toward putting out previews with no real footage in them is pretty bizarre. I remember the first trailer for Hannibal, it came out around a year before the movie actually did, and all it was was some recycled footage from The Silence of the Lambs. Before Spider-Man, there was a trailer for Hulk. Go watch it if you like, it has no actual footage..I realize that the studios want to build hype for a movie, and that it makes sense to attach a Hulk trailer to Spider-Man, but c’mon people..would it kill you to wait til you have a few scenes from the movie shot?