memoryloot

Last weekend (before Labor Day weekend) was filled with Radiohead! I went to see them perform at the Hollywood Bowl on Sunday, August 24th. My buddy and I was seated in Section N1, Row 4.

The show had a great lighting display. Some songs flowed through the light show. Here is the set list for the first night.

We also went on August 25th’s show. I have to say that was the BEST Radiohead show that I’ve ever been (and I’ve been to 5). My friend also agreed. We were closer this time in Section J2, Row 11. The binoculars came in handy and the set list was amazing. They included songs from Thom’s album as well as a Neil Young cover song, “Tell Me Why”.

Our view for Monday’s show:

This past weekend on Sunday, I finally did one of my destination ride from the San Gabriel Valley to Seal Beach. My buddy Rich and I decided to do this ride from his home in South El Monte to Seal Beach. We took the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel bike path. Took us 4 hours and 33 minutes to do the 56 mile round trip. It was tough because on the way back, Rich started experiencing some back and knee aches. Not that I was doubting him but I was impressed that he was okay after the ride. Yes, he did take a few hours to recover but he wasn’t complaining and was up and about the following day. I was aching for a few days after my 48 miler 2 weeks ago. Big kudos to him on that.

Here’s one of our many breaks over looking the San Gabriel River on our way back from Seal Beach.

Next destination is a ride to Orange County!

I did my second 5K run this past weekend. Less hills and it showed in my time. Here are the results. I’m #118 on the list. I was a minute and a half faster than last week. It was still tough. I don’t know what it is but during these races I exert a bit more effort and try to run faster than I normally do. I think it’s that you get so competitive and think that you can beat that person or this person. But in reality, I should be running at my own pace. A fun experience nevertheless. Now that I have these races out of the way, I’m going to focus more on my triathlon training. Well, the bicycling and running portion of it at least. We’re racing in September so this should give me plenty of time to train. At the same time I’m going to train for next year’s LA Marathon.

Radiohead concert August 24th and 25th @ The Hollywood Bowl! Tickets go on sale this Saturday at 10 AM. You know I’ll be going. Most likely to both shows. I can’t wait! It’s been too long since the last concert.

My free time has been completely consumed with 3 things this week.

1. Radiohead’s In Rainbows album
2. My new Mac Mini
3. My new Uninterruptible Power Supply

I did get some Halo 3 in the mix but I must digress. In Rainbows has been playing non-stop on my work computers and my iPod. The more I listen to this album, the more I love it. Yes that’s right, love it! I find myself looking forward to Jigsaw Falling Into Places everytime the album loops around. I still haven’t decided if this is top 3 of my RH albums. It’s so hard because the more you listen to it, the more you enjoy an album. This happened to Amnesiac and Kid A. I didn’t like those album at first but when I started to listen to them more and more, it grew on me. In my opinion In Rainbows is another masterpiece.

I used the hell out of my Mac Mini this week. It’s been on 5 days straight. I’ve been making it my own by installing various freeware and testing out Parallels. I got my laptop’s WinXP loaded on my my Mac Mini. Only thing left is to get an activation key from Microsoft. My iTunes is setup similar to my PC but I don’t think I’m going to reformat my iPod with the Mac. The PC has all the interesting historical data like the star ratings and the times I’ve played a song. It’s so stupid how little things like that makes such a good experience in using an iPod. Moving it over to the Mac is a cumbersome task. My entire library is on my Linux fileserver.

I also had to replace my UPS this weekend. I got it setup but was interested in getting it to shutdown my server in the event of a power failure. The model I got was an APC BACK UPS XS 900. It came with software for Macs and PCs. Unfortunately none for Linux. I found out that there is an open-source solution called apcupsd. It basically are scripts that allows you to do shutdowns for APC branded UPS. I also found that people have used my UPS with this software solution successfully. I installed the source code and compiled it. Everything is working fine, I think. I’m in the middle of running various tests. So far it passed the few early tests. I need to simulate a complete power failure and see if it shuts down my server. May not sound fun to you but gobs of fun for a geek like me.

Our time finally came last night. We were finally going to see Radiohead with other like-minded fans. Our journey started from West LA at 16:30 and ended on Hillhurst and Los Feliz at 18:20 (that’s LA traffic for you!). We decided to grab some dinner at Lousie’s. The meal was okay for $35. Like Lex said, the beer made it worthwhile. We started our walk from the base of the hill a little after 19:00. We decided to forgo the $10 stacked parking for street parking on Hillhurst, which was a much better option since we would have never knew when we got our cars. I suggest doing the same if you ever go watch a show at the Greek Theatre. It was a 1/2 mile hike up the hill which only took about 15 minutes.

It was 19:40 when we grab some drinks and found our seats on the South Terrace level at Row B Seat 28 and 26. We were to the band’s left. The venue was much smaller than I thought and the bugs were a-plenty! When 20:00 came along, the opening band, Deerhoof came out to perform. The trio consisted of 2 tall caucasian and 1 little asian girl. I’m inclined to say she was probably Japanese because when she sang, actually more like made funny noises, she sounded like a Japanese anime character with their cute pitch. They played for about an hour. Some songs were pretty good while others was pretty odd.

The crowds lathargically filed into their seats. It was not until 23:10 when the stadium began to resemble a sold out concert and the skies over Griffith Park began to dim. The stage crew in the mean-time was setting up all the instruments for the band. Suddenly the lights goes out and the sets began!

Playlist was as followed:

01 Airbag
02 The National Anthem
03 There There
04 15 Step
05 Exit Music
06 Bodysnatchers
07 My Iron Lung
08 Nude
09 Videotape
10 I Might Be Wrong
11 Climbing Up The Walls
12 All I Need
13 Pyramid Song
14 Spooks
15 Idioteque
16 Myxomatosis
17 Bangers ‘n Mash
18 Bones

Encore 1
19 Like Spinning Plates
20 Fake Plastic Trees
21 Down Is The New Up
22 Paranoid Android

Encore 2
23 House of Cards
24 True Love Waits
25 Everything In Its Right Place

More details of the sets can be found here on ateaseweb.com. The most moving song IMO was Fake Plastic Trees where the crowd was basically singing along. Paranoid Android was another one I remembered where the highs and lows brought the crowds to frenzy and calmly lulled them down.

We quickly exited the show and walked down the hill with the rest of the crowd. I was exhausted from standing the whole time. My knees started to buckle a little towards the end of the show, but the walked certainly helped.

In about less than 24 hours I will finally be setting foot in my 2nd Radiohead concert. I seriously cannot wait. I’ve been waiting for them to tour since the last time I saw them at Coachella. I’m wondering what they will be playing for tomorrow night. Anyhow, just want to rejoice before I jump right back into the current book I’m reading. It’s only the 3rd day and I’m already 3/4 finished.

Radiohead’s performance of Arpeggi in Copenhague this year is absolutely incredible! Check it out for yourself.

I’ve read that there’s another boring version of this song out there. This one is remade to be a bit more upbeat. Hopefully we’ll find it in the next RH album. In the meantime I’m waiting for Thom’s The Eraser album.

Reminder: Tickets for Radiohead’s LA shows go on sale tomorrow morning at 10am for June 29th and 30th. Go get your tickets! I can’t wait to buy mine.

What started out to be a bad day ended up to be fairly decent. Constant complaining from users and endless array of tasks I needed to get done. A blessing in disguise since time flew after the smoke settled. The day ended with me working out with Zeus. Well not actually with him, but I was “overlooking” his work out. I saw him when I went in the gym but just kept to myself. He’s not as muscular as he once was when he was in WWF (now WWE). While leaving the gym the two trainers who was still on duty had Radiohead’s OK Computer playing over the speakers of the gym. Finding Radiohead fans are similar to finding out someone rides. There’s a bit of excitement and then mutual respect. Yup. That’s the excitement for today. End of week is finally here!

Edit: (11:47PM) Just saw last week’s OC episode and guess what was the last song? No other than Radiohead’s Fog (Again). Excellent!

Ever since I was introduced to them by Lex back in 2003, I’ve continously grown to LOVE (not like) their materials. Never have I listen to one group for 3 years straight non-stop without getting bored. Even songs that I did not like before, I’m finding that they are actually very good. Their B-Sides are even better. I can’t wait until they release their next album. I hope I still feel this way for years to come. In a time where things change so fast and so frequently, Radiohead seems to be my only constant.