I’m eagerly anticipating the release of Grandaddy‘s new album, Just Like the Fambly Cat. It’s a shame that this will be their last studio album, as I’ve just recently become a fan of theirs. Leader Jason Lytle recently spoke with Paste Magazine:

Unfortunately, money was a big part of [the decision to break up]… The band wasn’t making money and the guys were always broke, and [having been] appointed the ringleader early on, I was exhausted with having to constantly dish out excuses and assurances and false hope. We did this for a long time, often considered on the verge of greatness, and greatness never came, and collectively the will to make that happen disappeared… It’s been a bummer to hear from people how much we meant to them and how they simply don’t want us to stop. It’s sad.

And so it goes. I’ve been listening to “Elevate Myself”, track 11 from the album. It sounds like a slick little single, and I’ve heard that the rest of the album is of similar quality. Like a greatest hits album, but with all new songs. There are drawbacks to this praise, however. Remember that Smash Mouth’s Astro Lounge album was once categorized as such.

Mitchell Baker has a new post that actually explains me quite well:

…Many artists practice their art because the drive is in them and needs to get out. A set of programmers [has] the same internal drive. My husband is one — he will happily spend hours — days if he could — programming on his own, unrelated to any job or money.

I’d get home from a long day of sitting at my computer at work, and the first thing I want to do is fire up my home PC and start coding, developing, designing, etc. And I couldn’t care less if I’m not getting paid for it. Perhaps that’s my Achilles Heel.

Amazon.com‘s wishlist goes German on me… It’s funny that the other options aren’t in German, only the first, translated as “I must have.” Amazon does have a German site, so there must be a cross-pollination thing going on or something.

Annie threw another “girl’s night in” party, so I got the chance to catch a late-night showing of Thank You for Smoking. The film was quirky and thought-provoking, et cetera, but what I relished most about it was its on-location filming in DC. A fictitious research and lobbying group, the Academy of Tobacco Studies, is set in a building that is, in real life, the Department of Energy (my day job!). The DOE site in DC is a massive group of structures that houses thousands of federal and contractor employees. I think it was the movie’s intent to imply that the entire building belonged to the “Academy of Tobacco Studies” — in reality such agencies could make do with — perhaps — 1/100th of the floor space of the Forrestal building complex. (more production notes)

Some of the bar scenes looked like they could have been filmed at the Caucus Room, but the end credits mentioned the Hyatt Regency as a location. I don’t know for sure… A particular scene in the offices of The Washington Probe featured a row of cubicles with nameplates on each. The first nameplate I saw happened to be my mother’s first name and maiden name. Far out.

Firefox 2.0 Alpha 1 is out…

Mozilla late Tuesday began the push towards Firefox 2.0 with the release of Bon Echo Alpha 1, designed to give a preview of the company’s upcoming revision to its popular alternative web browser. One of the most notable new features of Firefox 2 will be its improved bookmark functionality, called Places.

Changes have also been made to tabbed browsing, support for SVG, and numerous bug fixes. While the release is not recommended for daily use, Mozilla is asking users to download, test, and provide feedback on the build. “The BonEcho Alpha 1 milestone is the first of many developer milestones on the path to Firefox 2,” Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for Mozilla, said in a statement.

…but I’m wondering if 2.0 will ultimately support CSS3 border properties (e.g. border-radius). Currently, Firefox supports Mozilla-specific properties derived from CSS3; such properties are appended with “-moz”. Support for these properties without the “-moz” prefix will be a solid step in the right direction.

I saw Cowboy Mouth at the 9:30 Club last night for the first time in nearly five years. Had it really been that long? Lead singer and drummer Fred LeBlanc had put on some weight since 2001, but was still as enthusiastic as ever. Throughout the show, he was literally dripping sweat from his torso and arms as he banged the drums.

Cowboy Mouth is one of those bands that begs your full attention and participation. “Gimme rhythm! Gimme rhythm!”, Fred would implore. I’ve never clapped so hard in my life. Simply posting an audio sample of their music wouldn’t do them justice. It would be like looking at a 3×4 photo of the Alps, and trying to relate to actually being there. Cowboy Mouth’s music is like that.

Annie just recently brought some bettas back to the townhouse. She’s in charge of taking care of them, cleaning their bowls, etc. However, I’ve been assigned the task of naming the little rascals (there’s eight of them): BlueBoo (a.k.a. “MSIE”), OpenOffice 2.0.1 (a.k.a. “Opie”), Mozilla, Firefox, Linus “Linux” Torvalds, Wikipedia, Launchy 4.2.0 (pictured), and Zippy (a.k.a “.tgz”).

File this one in the that’s gotta be intentional department: check out the new HD trailer for the upcoming Mel Gibson film Apocalypto. At approximately 1:46 into the clip, this frame appears for a fraction of a second. Going over the sequence a second and third time, I could barely make out the image when viewed in real time: Mel in a wife-beater and unbuttoned plaid workshirt, a Camel hanging from his smiling mouth, full beard and head of hair. Totally insane.

Apparently, I’m a bit late on this scoop, but better late than never.

I purchased a Dell Dimension L933-r yesterday off of craigslist for Annie. It’s now sitting next to my newish Dimension E510 and has a fresh install of XP Professional, a measly 930 MHZ processor, and a soon-to-be-upgraded 128 meg of RAM. But for just surfing the Internet and writing the occasional document, this box will more than suffice for her. It’s replacing our old 450 MHZ Dell, which will officially be put out to pasture as soon as I plunder the memory I added to it a while back.

I miss my old commute. I never thought I’d say those words, as my recent move to Silver Spring has shaved an hour a day off my once-long commute. In a way, I miss it because I got used to the idea of curling up with a book and being able to polish off a considerable portion of it before having to exit the train. Now, chapters or magazines which once took one day are now spread over the better part of a week. When I find myself two or three stops from my destination, I have actually caught myself thinking Oh good, I have a few more minutes to read. Eventually, I’ll get over it.