The New Immortal, John Amsterdam

I admit it - I'm addicted to immortal characters.  First there was "Forever Knight," then "The Highlander" and "Angel."  I've loved them all.  This season, Fox has a new one, John Amsterdam of "New Amsterdam."  For those that don't already know, 'New Amsterdam' was the original name of New York when the Dutch colonized it in the 17th century.  When John saves an Indian girl from being killed by a fellow dutchman, she saves his life and bestows upon him immortality until such time as he finds "the one" and they are wed.

The show has only shown seven episodes, and I've seen all of them.  They're all good so far, and I'm hoping that Fox will bring it back soon for more episodes.  So far we've seen John as a coachman, a painter, a con artist, and an alcoholic.  His son, Omar, is 65 years old, the offspring of John & a black woman in the 1940's. John's got a sense of humor that other immortals don't usually have:  He stands up in an AA meeting and introduces himself, "Hello, my name is John and I'm an alcoholic.  I haven't had a drink in 15,495 days."  If you do the math, that's 42 years!  He mentions his many wives frequently and he doesn't bother to name his dogs anymore - the current one is "36."

If you haven't caught the show, there are episodes available in iTunes as well as Fox's site.

Why do I love immortals?  I've often felt like one, I guess.  While I'm only 47, I can certainly relate to the idea of outliving all of your friends (most of mine died of AIDS in the last 20 years) and re-inventing yourself over and over.  I think those kinds of experiences have left me feeling older than I really am.  

Give John Amsterdam a try, you might like him.

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge
Originally uploaded by jimfrazier

Here's a great photo of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge at night. I like this picture because it's not your standard Golden Gate photo of the bridge in bright daylight. Sometimes you also see the Gate surrounded in fog. The bay is often foggy, and I found SF to be chilly even in the summer.

Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee

Pyramid Arena
Originally uploaded by DiscourseMarker

Here is another great piece of American architecture (suitable for wallpaper). I remember driving through Memphis many years ago on my way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and the Pyramid is very striking. It's huge!

Sad that the arena is not currently being used. I hope they sort this situation out soon, it is such a waste of a great building.

Empire State Building

Empire State Building
Originally uploaded by Martini Captures

I'm starting a series of posts with pictures of American examples of "grand architecture." The sort of pics I'm looking for will show off the building or structure nicely and also be usable as a desktop picture (or wallpaper, if you insist on using Windows).

My other requirement is that the picture have some nice composition and be licensed under Creative Commons (so I'm not stepping on anyone's rights!).

This is the first in my series, a great picture of a truly American landmark - the Empire State Building. I hope you enjoy!

MOG vs Last.fm

OK, so remember how I said that MOG was doing better than Last.fm at using my processor and memory?  Well, I was wrong, but it isn't my fault.  The problem is that MOG's "MOG-O-Matic" preference pane hands all the real work off to the System Events application.  So although the MOG software uses almost no processor cycles, it's not true to say that MOG uses less of my system.  In fact, it's the opposite.

I've been in touch with MOG's support team, and they're trying to work with me to resolve the issue, but for now, I've re-activated my Last.fm account and will run it until MOG can fix whatever is going on with their software.

Ten Artists You Need in Your iPod/iTunes/MP3 player

I just posted my year-end list of artists everyone should own over at my MOG page.  The list includes some things you might expect and some that you might not.  Give it a look if you have time.  

Also, MOG's custom skin-handling issues that posted about last time are fixed, so I'm much happier.  I didn't need to sign up with Rhapsody, but am able to listen to music, so that's better too.

In the same post you'll find a link to my homemade album covers for some live concerts that are available from the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive.  If you haven't been over there, check it out, there's lots of free, live music available, some from people you know and some that you won't.  It's rated for quality so you won't waste your time with sub-standard recordings.  I'm partial to 3 of the Grateful Dead concerts and 2 by Smashing Pumpkins, but you might like others.

MOG Has Issues

OK, so I know that I was raving about MOG, but seldom is anything perfect, and MOG is no exception.  First off, they're affiliated with Rhapsody, which means that in order to listen to my recommended artists, I have to install Rhapsody, which means I have to sign up and give them my credit card number.  Not gonna happen.  Period.  At least Last.fm lets me listen for free.

Second, I tried making a custom skin for my MOG page, thinking I would do an ELO-tribute style, something with lots of blue and red and yellow and some stars in the background, a la Out of the Blue.  Turns out that the set of skin files you download is old and doesn't include some new items that MOG has added to their pages.  So I dig and find the offending CSS that doesn't match my page, it's on a second CSS file that loads AFTER mine does, so I can't override it.  Hmmmm....  Further, it seems that the skins you make only YOU can use.  What's the point if I can't share them with others?

Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed.  If you want to read my latest post over there, here it is.