Natebot
This Is Not Your Father's Natebot.

That's the headline for All Songs Considered's Live in Concert coverage of Tom Waits' concert in Atlanta. They are offering the concert, at least 2 hours 21 minutes 41 seconds, for download in mp3 format (at respectable 128kbps 130Mb).

Right now I'm listening to "Down in the Hole" the song used in the opening of HBO's The Wire. If you're a fan, even a little, you should download this. If you're not a fan then I dunno if we can be friends anymore. Just saying.

Gizmondo is reporting that Xbox Live will support Netflix's "Watch Instantly" service beginning in the fall.

If you've been living in a cave for the past year or so, Netflix allows it's subscribers to watch movies (of its library of 10K movies compared to Apple's 1K) on their Windows PC. If you're in a particular deep part of the cave, Netflix is an internet (the thing you are using right now, aka a 'series of tubes') service that rents movies via the post (aka 'snail mail'), and as a subscriber you also get access to watch a select subsection of their library of movies.

This news comes on the heels of my purchase of the Roku player which streams my 'Watch Instantly' queue directly to my tv.

I'll prepare a review of the Roku for another post but I'll say here that I am pretty happy with it. It's easy to use, plays movies faster than using my laptop ( considering having to re-boot the Macbook into Windows), and the quality ranges from TV quality to a few pixelizations when traffic is high (I have 3Mb downstream and 802.1 n network but still sometimes things grind to halt). The library of available movies has grown recently but still is mostly b-rate films, old films, and documentaries. Thing is, I do watch ye olde British tv, the odd documentary, and Westerns so I'm happy with what they offer, including tv series that I've missed.

I am a bit suprised by this announcement though. I knew Netflix was trying to get on as many platforms as possible (the Roku being the first of many possible machines), and I've heard they even released some code for anyone to make their own player, but I thought Microsoft would treat Netflix as a competitor to their own movie rental service through Xbox Live. Still this is welcome news to me, as I would be happy to consolidate my media watching through one machine like the 360. Now if Microsoft would add support for Pandora and shoutcasts (like somaFM's) then I would be in media heaven.

You can help put a geeky geek into office in all places, Kansas.

I first heard about this from Boing Boing like many of you, but the rest of you will read about it in the Wall Street Journal or the LA Times on Monday.

Political neophyte and Information Architect ( one of the important behind-the-scenes jobs of making information easy to find and use - say for example on a website ) Sean Tevis has launched a netroots campaign for Kansas State Representative in a small district just south of Kansas City.

According to his site, his call for 3000 donations of a modest amount of $8.34 to fill his campaign war-chest was answered in just about 35 hours. That's pretty impressive since supposedly no candidate in Kansas has ever had more than 644 donors. Though he may have gotten the bare minimum for running a campaign, he's still taking more donations. If you're a web-head check the source code of his site for an easter egg.

I wish Sean Tevis good luck and sent him a donation via PayPal.

The Consumerist blog is reporting the following Starbucks closures in Seattle

15th ave e 328 15th ave e
denny & aurora 620 denny way
met park ii 1220 howell st
23rd & madison 2201 e madison ave
45th & stone way 1218 n 45th st
northgate mall ii 301 ne northgate way
42nd & sw alaska 4704 42nd ave sw

As is the Seattle Times with this map. None of them impact me, as I treat the 'bucks as a last resort, usually only when traveling in lands where Americano has an entirely different meaning.

Another reason to avoid Starbucks, they might claim infringement of their trademarked logo by the Rat City Roller Girls logo . I have not heard a peep about this since it was reported in May, but the synopsis is that the local league of 80 some rollergirls were attempting to get their long used official logo registered as trademarked with gov'ment (you know the ® not the ™ ) and Starbucks lawyers asked to put a halt to the proceedings until they determined if Starbucks wishes to contest it.

I suppose the lawyers are just doing their job by being overprotective, so I wait to see what the suits at the 'bucks have to say. Will utter fear drive them to attack any logo with portraits and concentric circles? Or will they realize that roller derby and coffee are actually two different catagories - and their customers will never be so confused to go accidently buy tickets to a event at Magneson Park when what they really wanted was a Half Decaf - Grande - Quad - Half Non-Fat - Half Soy - Wet Whole Milk Foam - Two Splenda - Extra Hot - Nutmeg - Three Ice Cubes - Double Cup - Double Pump Peppermint - Single Pump Mocha?

If you want to be down with all the Starbucks gossip then maybe you should subscribe to the, er, Starbucks Gossip blog.

Labels: music

Huzzah! There was much rejoicing! A few images from the trip made it into the gallery.

This is one of my favorites that Amanda snapped: