SFV Pictures from Church at Rocky Peak

The Church at Rocky Peak gave me permission to take pictures of the San Fernando Valley from one of their locations!

Here's a link to the gallery.

Spoof Spam

How do I stop spoofed spam? Multiple e-mail addresses that I've never used for any submissions anywhere are receiving e-mail that is spoofed so I cannot see who truly sent it without sifting header data. Many of them even come *from* the e-mail address they are spamming. This is my inbox this morning, from my own e-mail address:

Notice the next e-mail is from ... no one? With no subject line? They even read as to no one:

Isn't that beautiful?

How can this be stopped?

Quoted in The Straight Dope

After years (decades, been reading him since 1987) of reading Cecil Adam’s article “The Straight Dope,” and writing in to him several times, I was finally quoted in an article of his.

It’s not quite the same as him responding to a question I sent him, but it’s almost as good.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060217.html

That’s the link to Friday’s article in which he quoted me. I had responded to an article of his on his website, and he excerpted me.

Moon at night

Took this picture of the moon tonight, February 03, 2006.

Concert: Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger, Zebrahead

Reel Big Fish, Goldfinger, and Zebrahead all played at the Avalon in Hollywood on January 20, 2006. Kristin and I attended.

Pictures taken with my ever-present cell phone:
Goldfinger pictures
Zebrahead pictures
Reel Big Fish pictures

Zebrahead
First time I've seen Zebrahead. I was very impressed! They have a shredder for their guitarist, and they let him go on solos like they're a heavy metal band. This sets them apart from normal punk guitar solos, which are normally buried as part of the rhythm of the song.
I would definitely like to see this band again.

Goldfinger
I've seen Goldfinger three times in concert now. I do believe, however, this is the first time I've seen the drummer pull his pants down and ... well, if you have seen them enough times, you probably know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't, then anything more I say here would just ... spoil it. Let's just say, my ever-present camera phone gets put away during this part.
Their musical performance was terrific! This band always rocks! At one point during the concert, they got about 150 people from the audience on the stage (see the pictures I took!) and played a couple songs.

Reel Big Fish
I saw this band in 1997, and now 9 years later. I'm sure in another 9 years I will enjoy seeing them again - they are a fund band to see. Their on-stage antics remind me of Madness sometimes.

Concert: Anthrax/Rob Zombie/Judas Priest

Kristin and I went to the Long Beach Sports Arena to see Anthax / Rob Zombie / Judas Priest in concert.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say around for Judas Priest, as I was not feeling well that night.

Anthrax was fun. I had never seen them previously and they perform really well. I think most of the crowd was there for Judas Priest, and Anthrax seems like they are used to a more full venue. They kept expecting the pit to circle violently, but there weren't enough people to get worked up about it.

The performance was still great - Scott Ian is a monster with his guitar.

Rob Zombie was a blast as usual. Rob strutted his stuff from spot to spot on the stage and the whole band laid out a solid performance.

New Camera

All picdtures taken from 10/22/2005 and forward were taken with my new Canon Digital Rebel XT, and some with this amazing lens.

Water quality in our apartment

The pictures showing the water are completely, 100% unadulterated, unedited, un-color balanced, etc. The pictures with my hand and the white top are there to give you an idea of the color balance of the pictures. This is hot water from the tap after 30 minutes of running the hot water.
Pictures

Treadmill in our gym

So I'm working out on the treadmill in our gym.

I did the first 1.2 miles between 4 and 4.5 miles per hour.

I began increasing rapidly after that, and was running at 9 miles per hour when the treadmill suddenly decided to cease functioning. I unplugged and replugged it, but could not get it to turn back on, so my workout was cut short.

U2 HUMS

Kristin and I went to breakfast with my grandparents.

Saw this license plate, borrow grandfathaer's camera to take pictures.

Found old pic

Was digging through some old paperwork, and found this old picture. Enjoy!

HP pavilion zd8230us

I just purchased this hp pavilion from compUSA

It has the following stats:
P4 650 w/HT (3.4GHz, 800MHz 2MB L2, SpeedStep

17" WXGA+ High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display

100GB Hard Drive

1024 MB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM Dual Channel

ATI Mobility Radeon X600 w/128 DDR

54g 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth

LightScribe 8x DVD etc. Dual Layer

12-Cel Lithium-Ion battery

HP Dual TV Tuner / Digital Video Recorder

HP Media Center Remote

Expansion Ports like mad

So far, this thing is cooking.

It was easy as pie to connect to the network - just browsed, found, put in my WPE, and boom it's on the internet. I've installed about 5 programs on it so far, and will begin installing games momentarily.

Concert: Bad Religion at House of Blues Hollywood

Bad Religion plays for a packed crowd at the House of Blues, Sunset Strip, in Hollywood, California, June 18th, 2005.

Street Dogs (a Boston punk band) opened for them. I enjoyed this band's performance a lot, even though I had never heard one of their songs before. The audience obviously has heard it - they had some friends in the audience they kept connecting with.

The singer kept jumping down and standing on the rail the bouncers use to keep the crowd a few feet from the stage. He would reach out into the crowd while singing and grab their hands.

Bad Religion is vital and poignant, and rocks like crazy. Their performance is excellent as always!I've seen the band in plenty of places larger than this, and must say - it's such a treat to watch them pour the same amount of energy into this small venue. The crowd really reflects their energy in a major way!

They are from the same places I live in (Chatsworth / San Fernando valley area) and rocking in Hollywood (20 minutes away) is a very local venue to them. The audience is massively loyal, and Greg plays up to that.

They DID play: Sorrow, 21st Century Digital Boy, Atomic Garden, Better Off Dead, Stranger than Fiction, Los Angeles is Burning, and a variety of others.

The only songs they did not play that I really wanted to hear were: A Walk, Struck A Nerve, and Punk Rock Song.

This performance gets 9 Smitty Points out of 10.

Japan 1997

Mike and I go to Japan to see Fujifest - I won a contest on KROQ. It's a long story, but we end up in Japan a day late, and miss the first day of the concert. The second day is blown out by a typhoon. For years after I was known as "Typhoon Sean." Thanks Kevin and Bean for tagging me with that.

Pictures

We took tours and enjoyed our time, and spent all of the money KROQ gave us and more.

Concert: KROQ Third Annual Weenie Roast

KROQ Third Annual Weenie Roast

Luke and I went with Jack and his wife - great seats!

With bands:Better Than Ezra, Bush, Elastica, Hole, Rage Against the Machine, The Ramones, Rancid, Soul Asylum, Sponge, Sublime, Matthew Sweet, Throwing Muses, and White Zombie.
Terrific sets from everyone - no complaints!

We especially enjoyed Rage, Better Than Ezra, Sublime, White Zombie, and Bush.

When Sublime played on the stage, during their last couple of songs, they brought a bunch of bandmembers from other bands performing that day on the stage with them. There must have been 25 additional people on the stage dancing and singing . They continued to play long past when they were allowed to play! And at this event, management can "force" you to stop. See, the stage is circular in shape with a dividing wall. While one band is playing, the other band is setting up on the other side. Then they rotate the stage, and a band can start playing 5 or 10 minutes after the last band stopped - as opposed to 30-60 minutes (or longer) like you always see at concerts. Well, they warned Sublime to stop after their 40 minute (or whatever) stretch of playing, and they kept playing anyhow, so they rotated their stage. Sublime kept playing, and people kept dancing, the whole while.

Better Than Ezra's performance was pretty darn good! The singer can sure sing, and he's got a huge Adam's Apple sticking out. He's very tall, and keeps his mic up even higher so he has to stretch up to it.

I think the bass player for White Zombie has always been one of their best aspects. No, not because she's a girl, you pervs. Nor because she spells her name the same way I do. But because she had such a driving bass presence in a song, and wasn't afraid to crank her bass up loud.