Just found out today is the Fillmore Jazz Festival. Gonna stroll over there now.

Also, on Sunday Lu is doin' Sun Salutations across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then we're hitting Stern Grove for The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. In our four years in this city we've yet to attend a concert there. There's another off the list!

The is only the second time we've been in town for the Fillmore Jazzfest. The first time was four years ago, when we first moved to SF. Kinda crazy that this will be our last one before we leave.

Play this now and thank me later.

Goodbye workin' Wednesday!

Here's a roundup of reviews for the iPhone. I'm definitely looking forward to testing it out. I'm confident it will be groundbreaking, but I will probably wait a while for the kinks to get worked out, and the price to drop. I also don't want to have to switch providers to buy it. That's a hefty chunk of change to tack on.

The image to the right is from the barrel room of the August Briggs winery. Lu finally got around to uploading the images of that awesome camping and wine-tasting weekend.

Wednesday night we're crossing yet another the list. The Mountain Winery in Saratoga. Rodrigo y Gabriela is (are?) playing and I'm very excited to see them again. I'm also very excited to check out the venue for the first time. The way that woman plays guitar does funny things to my insides. Sickness.

I just tried to post some other stuff, but I couldn't stop with the nasty metal-flamenco tunes. I think this video has the most views of any YouTube video I've found. Wow. Tomorrow night is going to be so fun.

Seconds Later Update: Make sure you watch this one. They (we) did this at the Grand, too, and it was exactly that.

This weekend we crossed another one off the list (of things we can't forget to do before we scoot out of SF). We attended an event at the Castro Theater. And even cooler, it was to see a film by one of Lu's friends from Brooklyn, Rebecca Feldman, and Rebecca's sister Sarah. It's a short called My First Time Driving, and it was really funny and very well done. Rebecca also conceived and directed Spelling Bee, a Broadway musical that got rave reviews. It was here in SF, but we missed it. However, we will definitely check it out once we're back on the East Coast.

We also went to Le Colonial this weekend, as a gift from our friends. French-Vietnamese fine dining and it was knock-out delicious. The only thing that marred the experience was the waiter leaving us to whither for 20 minutes after the meal was done and we had declined dessert. A Late Harvest Cab was waiting for us at home. (thanks Michelle!)

And of course there was the copious consumption of oysters at Tomales Bay State Park. 13 people. 250 oysters. 5 or so hours of utter deliciousness.

Clearly this is a shitload of fun for one weekend, but the beautiful thing was it took almost no planning and very little effort, but it resulted in an amazing way to spend the first anniversary of our real wedding, Camp Gallagosen. It's been an amazing year. I can't wait to see what all the rest of them bring.

via Ira.

Great Phry tonight. So many good tunes. So many wonderful memories.

We hit the road many times.

I met my wife on the road.

We're hitting the road at 9am. We're eating oysters in a few hours.

I can't wait, but first I have to sleep.

Alright so which side are you on? And don't worry, no one will hold it against you!

Just found out that #4 started production today. It'll be released on May 22, 2008. I sure hope it doesn't suck. I actually referenced Raiders today at work as what scared me the most as a child. Seriously, Belloc's melting head and final words twisted my brain for many weeks afterwards.

Here's the Beastie Boys tour diary, updated recently. Here's Jen and Gil, our friends also on world-traveling adventures. I don't think they're a band yet, but who knows. Anything's possible with those two.

It's Friday and the weekend is close. Enjoy it!

My schedule is all flipped around. I'm reading the loose ends of the 'net at 1am, instead of watching the digital world unfold each afternoon. It's a whole different way of life and my sleep schedule is all screwed up. But I kinda like it!

Today is the longest day of the year. It was light until after 9pm last night. Tonight it'll go even longer. I love this day. I think it should be an official holiday where no one can do anything but wear shorts and have waterballoon fights and sit on the patio as the endless dusk just fades on and on and night never really seems to arrive. Music shall be played, with dancing, and beverages will be served. Laughter will fill the breeze and bright dawn will arrive before we've finished our twenty-first conversation.

Someday, it would be amazing to check it out there.

Birth of an island! This is a great series of pics.

This is a very interesting site called Avanoo. It is a 'community wisdom bank' that collects data through polls submitted by, and answered by users. But to access certain parts of the data, you have to provide that information about yourself. Here, I'll let them explain. Sign up is really easy, so before you know it you've answered 15 polls and 23min have gone by. Or maybe that's just me.

Bout to start learning up on some wiki-usage. If anyone has a particular one to recommend, I'd love to hear. I went through the wiki-wizard at Wikimatrix and it popped out 12 that sounded about right, but the one I was most interested in turned out to be the one Wikipedia uses. But after some more digging, it seems that Scratchpad Wiki would be a good place to start before attempting a full-scale server install.

Last bit is a game. (might even have posted it before, but ah well.) 15.834 seconds is my best. So far. The night is young.

Wine country never disappoints. And next time you go up there you should definitely put August Briggs and Dutch Henry on your list. They took us into the barrel rooms at both wineries and we got to taste some amazing wines. Those are our favorite kinds of places. Small wineries, family-owned, that give you that extra attention which shows how deeply they care about their product. It's inside the barrel rooms that I really think of wine as art.

And as for art, this is the most artful riding of a mt. bike I've ever seen. Ridiculous!

Alright, time to hit the hills. Later. I'll update this with some pix of wine country once Lu downloads them.

Oh thrunk, I'm sorry. I'm neglecting you now that I have a shiny new blog to play with. But fear not, I will not toss you into the dustheap of interweb detritus.

Gonna be quick tonight, though 'cause I haven't had a lot of time to surf the vastness of the net recently to find those gems you've come to know and love.

But speaking of love, here's an awesome little note from one little dude to some other little dudette, where he's getting a feel for what this whole 'relationship' thing is all about. Priceless!

This image is a wonderful shot of the Earth, from space, at night. And yes, you're right, there's no way this photo could have been shot all at once for 2 very important reasons. But I'm sure you know what they are, so I won't get into it.

I do have bad news, though. The whole 'new car smell? Not such a good thing. Unreal! Next they're going to tell me ice cream doesn't make you younger and that beer isn't the nectar of the gods.

Wine country tomorrow night + camping + a barrel blend + friends = happy happy Bones and Lulu. I'm already psyched for the campfire.

Oh yeah one last thing, a big huge happy Father's day to my Dad of course, AND to my brother Mark. It's his first and I'm so friggin psyched for him.

My schedule has gone haywire now that I've started a new job. It's a job I probably should have done 4 years ago when I first got to SF, but it simply never occurred to me. I'm canvassing for the ACLU via Grassroots Campaigns. Some days we stand on a corner and accost strangers with tales of injustice. Other days we walk the big hills of this city and ring people out of their comfortable dinner chairs and away from their steaming plates of delicious food.

I feel bad doing it, just a little bit. I know how much it sucks to hear how bad things have gotten.

I feel even worse about all the times I've walked by someone smiling with a clipboard on the sidewalk, avoiding them at all costs.

This is, however, the first time I have ever felt like I am actually doing something in a real and tangible way to alleviate the outrage I have felt for a long time now. I have to see if this type of work is for me. I'm lucky to have such an amazing and supportive partner like Lu to help me test these waters. Without her extra hard work there's no way I could attempt this endeavor. Gonna see how it goes for a month, and then take it from there.

I'm tired of just yelling at my friends and seething at the news. It's time for me to step and see if there is anything I can do. accoster. will be a chronicle of my new job as a canvasser. <~thrunk~> will return to it's regularly scheduled posts about music, web tools, games, and life. Outrage at the former, fun at the latter. I do hope you enjoy it all. And, as always, thank you.

I still can't believe that my bro is a Dad now. Married first, house first, and now a kid first, just like I predicted in my best-man speech at his wedding, Mark is doing it all first! I guess he really did want to be the older brother all this time. My only regret is that I'm not there to meet Oren already. Lu wants to meet him so bad she's nearly beside herself. Soon enough we'll get to hold him, though. I can't wait!

Lots of doing off the planet, too, though. Many exoplanets have been discovered recently, and here is a list of the 10 most interesting finds. I believe that there is intelligent life orbiting around other stars. With these discoveries we are edging closer to a defining moment of human history. I hope I'm around to see it go down. And there's more evidence of water on Mars. Maybe. I love that these rovers were intended to last a few months and have instead spent years exploring our big red neighbor.

And although I try and stay mostly non-political on this web site, I simply cannot pass up an opportunity to link to this one by Tom Tomorrow. (There's a quick ad to get through to Salon, but worth it if it helps support Tom.)

Today a Matisse exhibit opened at the SF MoMA. This time, though it focuses on his sculptures, rather than his paintings and drawings.

Tomorrow is the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair. 30th Anniversary this year! They usually have lots of good vendors, but it gets very packed and very drunken by about 1pm. This year alcohol is banned and anyone with an open container "will be asked to discard it, or face a fine." Something tells me the bars are going to be packed. Lu and I usually get to the fair early and get the hell out of there before it gets crazy. Should be interesting to see how this one shakes out with the new rules.

And then I've got BBoys on YouTube, with a song from their soon-to-be-released album. (thanks Chuck!). I really dig these new tunes. Can't wait to buy a real copy in a few days.

Oh yeah, one last thing: new WILCO tourdates were announced last night. (thanks JP!) There's no better show than WILCO at the Greek in the summer, and they know it.

Well at 7:56am this morning (edt) I became and an uncle, Lu an aunt, my brother Mark and his wife Melissa a 'Mom and Dad', my parents upgraded to 'Grandparents' and my other brother Mike became an uncle, too. It's all really rather hard to believe!

Hi Oren! I can't wait to meet you in person. What an awesome day.

Well, I'm one day away from becoming an uncle and I can't freaking believe it. I really wish we were closer so that we could see that little guy right away, but I guess a few weeks will have to do.

Weekend in Vegas was awesome. Playing some sit'n'go cash games at the Mirage was definitely, by far, the most fun I've ever had gambling in Vegas. Didn't win, but played for a long time and was very happy to see I can hold my own against strangers.

This Saturday is a really interesting event here in SF. I wish I knew about it beforehand because it's something I'd really like to do. It's called Film Racing. You get 12 hours to produce a 4 minute film and the only things you can do before the time starts is gather your crew, cast and equipment. They give you the plot theme, a surprise prop and then it's go time. Everything: script, location, shooting, reshooting and editing all has to take place within those 12 hours. Maybe I can rally some troops and make it happen! Although without boom or wireless mics it might be a non-starter.

I really like this. See if you can figure it out what it is before you scroll down.

Also, I've got some invites to Joost. Not sure how many. If you want one let me know.