:: My Divided Soul ::

I just got back from the best concert I’ve seen in quite some time. It was certainly the best of the six Live I’ve seen. The boys from York came to Penn State for the first time in about five years to play the Bryce Jordan Center.

Let me first explain my history with the band Live. This is a band I have seen in concert at many of the pivotal moments of the past twelve years of my life. Live was the first concert I ever saw, when I was in my first year of high school. Back then, bands could play Rec Hall and tickets were first available to people with Penn State IDs. Luckily, my mother working at Penn State allowed me to get tickets, which was a big deal to a fourteen year old kid. Ignoring my parents’ instructions, I went down to the general admission section (what we called “the pit,” back in those days) and rocked out to Live shortly after Throwing Copper came out and before it really blew up with the single “Lightning Crashes.” It was the first of many shows I would see in my life.

Live was also there when I moved to Ithaca and started grad school right before Birds of Pray came out, when the song “Heaven” was still called “Hell,” as I recall.

Live also has associations with three of the last four girls I have dated, including my first relationship to last over a year. If you are reading this, don’t worry, ladies, no single Live song was associated with more than one of you. The song “Dance With You” in particular reminds me of a moment I was caught in at that Live show in 2000.

So all of that history leads me to the show tonight. Lee and I waited patiently on the floor of the Jordan Center, set up in the much preferred side stage configuration, for Live to come out. Shows at the Jordan Center are always plagued by waiting at least half an hour between the opening act and the headliner. It was interesting to note that the crowd was diverse with regard to age. I think Live is one of those bands that will date me at some point, as they will be around for a long time and I can say I remember them back in ‘94. Some of these damn kids at the show were probably still unable to read back when Throwing Copper put Live on the music map.

The lights dimmed and some music started over the loud speakers for atmosphere. The band entered the stage and with a few clicks of Chad Gracey’s drumsticks, they blasted into “All Over You,” a song they often like to start with. At that moment, I already realized that this was going to be one spectacular show. Towards the end of the song, we all got to sing: “our love is like water, pinned down and abused for being strange…”

The band members looked really excited to be there, particularly the guitarist Chad Taylor, who, along with James Black from Finger Eleven, I find to be the coolest looking guitar player out there. “All Over You” was followed by the first Live single from Throwing Copper, “Selling the Drama,” which was the first Live song I ever heard (and fell in love with immediately). I will now, in a format championed by some friends, go over some of the show’s highlights.

• The version of “Lakini’s Juice” was just…wow. It was absolutely rockin’. I have never heard the song sound that good.
• Before the concert, I thought to myself, “what is one song I’d like to hear that I haven’t heard them play in awhile?” The song that came to mind was “Iris.” As I’m standing there at the show, I hear that distinctive guitar chord followed by the run of bass notes that leads to “I liked the way my hand looked on your head.” They played it! The song I was hoping to hear, they played. And they played it damn well.
• The songs from the new album, Songs From Black Mountain sounded like some of the best work Live has done, and that is saying a lot, as they have done some fine work. Four songs from the album made their way into the set list, including “The River,” “Mystery,” “Sophia,” and “Show.” No doubt I will be picking up the new album when it comes out on June 13.
• “The Dolphin’s Cry,” a song that has found itself with certain associations in my head was great, with the audience singing along to every word. “Heaven” was the same way, with Ed saying “I look at my daughters and I believe,” reflecting the latest addition to his family. I wonder what he would have done if his second child had been a boy….
• I turn to Lee after the first song of the encore, and said, “You know what would be cool? A song from ‘Mental Jewelry.’” Ask and ye shall receive, in the form of “Beauty of Gray.” Ed is right, we do all need some gray in our lives.
• After two songs in the encore, a chant of “Shit Towne” rose from the audience. A couple of the band members laughed and then Ed signaled for an electric guitar (this is the only song on which he plays electric these days). “This song is a request from the front row,” he says. And why shouldn’t they play it? After all, last time they were in State College, they said the song was about our town.
• Before and during the last song, “White, Discussion,” Ed led the audience through a chant of “We Are”…”PENN STATE!” He seemed truly blown away by the volume level the crowd reached, remarking, “you have to hear that from up here once in your life.” He then invited a member of the audience up on stage just to do that. Mike seemed to enjoy getting a chance to stand on stage with such greats of rock music, exchanging high fives with a few of them before walking off stage.

I came out of this show saying simply, “ummm…wow.” It ended all too quickly, but it was just the energization I needed. Live has never disappointed in the six times I’ve seen them, and I hope I get to see them six more times. I do recommend you pick up Song from Black Mountain when it comes out June 13. Until then, if you reading this own any Live, listen to one of their songs right now.

As mentioned in my last post, I have recently decided that using a cell phone is in my best interest. It’s been nearly a week now that I have had my Motorola SLVR, so I thought I’d take the time to review it in the hopes it will benefit someone out there who is considering one. When I invest in a new piece of technology, I tend to investigate the options extremely thoroughly and the quest for a cell phone was no different.

I have been perfectly content using a landline for my voice conversations for the past four years. Therefore, I was searching for a phone, not a miniature computer, not a digital camera. I had four basic criteria, in order of importance:

1. Good phone call quality: This is a function not just of the phone, but of the service provider one is using. Cingular tends to have good reception in my home and office, so the phone needed to be able to take advantage of that reception. Thanks to years of drumming without earplugs, my hearing isn’t the best, so call quality and volume were that much more important.
2. The ability to use a headset easily: I see a headset as very useful for a couple reasons. First of all, having my hands free to do other things mean I’m much less likely to drop the phone. I broke one phone I had on my landline because I dropped it while holding it between my face and shoulder and wanted to avoid such situations. Secondly, I figured not having the phone next to my brain was not a bad thing. I’m not saying it’s proven that cell phones cause brain tumors, but I’m quite sure that holding the phone away from one’s head does not cause them. I wasn’t so concerned about having a Bluetooth headset, but I was not opposed to the idea.

   You might be saying, “every cell phone can use a headset, what is your issue here?” My research led me to discover that some flip phones require the phone to be open to talk, even if a headset was plugged in. This was unacceptable to me.

3. The ability to synchronize the address book on the phone and my computer: I use the Mac OS X Address Book to keep all my contacts. I find the integration with the rest of the computer’s applications to be beautiful and I wanted my phone to share in that beauty.
4. A good feel in the hand, particularly with respect to weight: This criteria is pretty obvious. However, my situation was a pit special in that having been used to a landline phone, I wanted a phone with a pretty good weight to it.

As I first stated, I didn’t want a miniature computer or a fancy camera. I had a PDA for awhile and found it was more trouble than it was worth. I toyed with the idea of a Treo or Blackberry, but decided to remain adamant in my wish to avoid such devices. This also meant I was not concerned about data transfer or internet access for the phone.

As for the camera, since I consider photography a hobby, I didn’t need a camera phone that boasted awesome 6x digital zoom. I doubt a camera phone could produce the images of my current digital camera nor the one that will be in my possession in the near future.

In my week with the SLVR, I have to say that it has met all of my criteria perfectly. Allow me to break it down based on the criteria set forth above.

1. Audio quality: Call quality is just fine. I dare say I’m starting to get used to the way calls sound despite it initially seeming horrible compared to my landline. I have seen complaints about the call volume being too quiet, including in the CNet review. When I purchased the phone, I made sure that they would allow me to return it if this were a problem. While finalizing my plan, I was required to give some information through a call on the phone via an automated system. My comment when I made this call: “Whoever complained about the lack of volume in phone calls must have been completely nuts.” The volume on this phone is just fine, even for someone like me who has lost some of his hearing.
2. Headset: For me, this is an area where the SLVR wins big. Because of the integrated iTunes player, the headset provided with the SLVR is stereo; they serve as the headphones for the player as well. This means that the voice of the person with whom I’m conversing comes through in both ears. That’s something I didn’t even have with my landline. I really like the fact that the phone comes with the stereo headset.
3. Address book syncing: I plugged the phone in via the provided USB cable, I opened up iSync, I told it to search for new devices, I clicked the Sync button. All of my contacts loaded into the phone without any problems. Some people have complained about the fact that the Motorola address book lists a contact several times, once for each phone number. You can easily turn this off by going to the address book, hitting the menu button, going to setup, and changing “View” from “All Contacts” to “Primary Contacts.” Then, each person is listed in the address book once, with alternate numbers for contacts accessible with the left and right buttons.

   Through the USB interface, one can also load custom wallpapers for the home screen and mp3s to use as ringtones. With the phone connected to the computer, you simply drag jpg images (mp3 files) to the mobile/picture (mobile/audio) directory on the card, disconnect from the computer, go to Pictures (Audio) under My Stuff, move the files to the phone, and then change the wallpaper (ring tone) in the appropriate Personalization options. I currently have the Skype classic call in sound as my ring tone and Alex Grey’s Dying as my wallpaper.

4. Size and weight: The SLVR is a nice and heavy phone, particularly for its size. I’m sure it’s not going to be too heavy for anyone to carry or use, but it is heavier than other phones. Nevertheless, it is a great size: less than half an inch thick and pretty tall. I held other phones in the Cingular store and found none had as comfortable a feel.

The SLVR has a built in camera and calendar functions, but I have not used these. The camera is only VGA, which some people see as a con for the phone. I see it as a plus; it means that more attention was paid to other more important phone features.

One of the major selling points for the SLVR from Cingular is the inclusion of iTunes. I wasn’t sure I’d ever use this feature of the phone much, but after having experimented with it, I am extremely impressed. One can synchronize a playlist of up to 100 songs from iTunes on his computer. The phone acts just like an iPod Shuffle, including the ability to auto fill and auto convert music to AAC format. Since I keep all of my music in Apple Lossless, this automatic transcoding is great.

Most noticeable is the incredible sound quality for song playback. The audio is crisp and clear, putting my third generation iPod to shame.

The iTunes interface on the phone is well done. It looks and acts like the menu on an iPod, minus the scroll wheel. Artwork and artist/song info appear on the screen when playing a song. A nice touch is that you can hide the iTunes interface and go back to the main page. In this state, the album artwork and track information show up on the home screen and the four buttons on the circle control iTunes.

iTunes interface	Song info on home screen

The phone has a couple setbacks. They are issues that do not make me regret the purchase of the phone at all, but they do leave some room for improvement. First of all, silent mode should mean that the phone is completely silent. With voice dialing set on the phone, whenever I enter the address book and select a contact with a voice name saved, the phone says the name, even when the phone is in silent mode. I wish I could turn off its repeating of the name completely, but there does not seem to be an option to do so. The only other problem I’ve had is that transferring songs can be a slow process. Because I had to transcode from Apple Lossless to AAC, putting 100 songs on the phone took 45 minutes. I believe if the files had been AAC to begin with, it would have done the transfer in around 10 minutes.

Overall, I am extremely happy with my choice of cell phone. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a phone with good audio quality and a useful set of features as a phone. It does carry a hefty price tag at $200 with a two-year contract, but I’m glad I spent the money.

With my impending move to California for the summer, I’ve decided–wait, I haven’t yet mentioned my move to California. Granted, if you are a friend of mine actually taking the time to read this, it probably means I’ve already told you about my move. But, for the uninformed, I’ll be moving to Santa Clara, CA this summer to intern at Intel. I’ll be working in the Programming Systems Lab on the Type-Safe IA. I’m not going to bother going into the details of that. I am without a doubt looking very forward to this opportunity.

But anways, back to the main point of this entry. I’ve decided that it is my best interest to use a cellular phone as my primary means of distance voice communication. I have for a long time felt that cell phones are evil. About four years ago, before I came to Cornell, I was using a cell phone as my primary line. However, it annoyed me in several ways. Most importantly, sound quality was horrible compared to a land line. Also, I didn’t like the way I used the phone; for instance, I allowed myself to get distracted while driving and talking on the phone. When I made the move to Ithaca, I decided to have a land line at home. I kept the cell phone in the car for use in emergencies only. It has come in handy in some of those situations, I cannot deny it.

Up until this point, I have resisted keeping a cell phone with me, despite the objections of several friends. It is true, a cell phone would have made it easier to contact me. That is precisely one of the reasons I avoided using one–I like only being available by phone when I am at home. My voicemail allowed me to check messages online, so any important messages I got during the day while in the office and, in the event of something requiring my immediate attention, I could respond. With cell phone technology being adopted at a staggering rate (along with other technologies, including email and instant messaging), there is this believe that people should be available any time, all the time.

And with that belief cell phone users make themselves available all the time: on the streets, in the stores, in cars, and even in bathroom stalls. I doubt I’m saying anything new here. We’ve all heard the arguments against cell phones and how they are making people more rude. I’m still not sure if inconsiderate cell phone usage is part of the cause or the effect.

Nevertheless, I do believe that a lot of the times I have been treated rudely in the past couple of years have related to the way someone has used a cell phone. The driving incidents happen several times a week: someone driving excessively slow or not paying attention at an intersection with a phone held up to the ear. More interesting for me was an experience in Wal-Mart a few months ago. I was in line at the self-checkout behind a woman who was ringing up her items while talking on her cell phone. Once she had checked out, she just stood there continuing her conversation on the phone despite the fact that I was behind her waiting. After a minute, I said to her, “are you going to take your bags?” at which point she gets extremely angry and defensive telling me not to be rude. I do not think I was the one being rude here, however. I told her that she can’t just stand there oblivious to the world around her and to the fact that I was standing there waiting because she was on the phone. Her final response to me before taking her bags and walking away: “I think you need to go fuck yourself.”

The primary thing cell phones have had going for them is convenience. For me, that convenience has finally won out over the drawbacks. Since I will be in California for three and a half months and then (hopefully) only back in Ithaca until January, I find a cell phone is what makes the most sense for me with regard to convenience.

So with that, I upgraded my cell phone plan and got a new Motorola SLVR (hey, if I was going to give in and get a cell phone, I at least wanted to be a technology/style whore, too). The gadget lover in me does enjoy having a new toy. Nevertheless, I will do my best to remain true to my current phone habits as best I can. I never want to be that guy whose phone rings during the movie, who attempts to dial and drive, or who allows himself to get so absorbed in his phone call that he is oblivious to the world around him. So if you see me doing any of these things, please take what action you see as appropriate to prevent me from doing it again.