Buckcherry

Show last night was great. I got there shortly after 8pm just as the first band was leaving the stage. 4 more bands, 1 was ok, 1 was terrible avoid Whiskey Business at all costs, and 2 were pretty good Bangkok Five and Redgun Radar. And then Buckcherry...

They have stockpiled quite a few great singles. Crazy Bitch, Next To You, For The Movies, Check Your Head, Porno Star and of course that cocaine song Lit Up.

The new band seems to click better live than the first time I saw them back in 1999. This was their last show before a nationwide tour so the band was definitely amped up. Having a single about to break through also helps.

Upcoming Concerts

This past weekend I decided to get back out and see some live shows. Here is a few of the shows that are now on my calendar.

Tuesday March 28 - Buckcherry
Tuesday April 25 - Rob Zombie
Thursday April 27 - Jack's Mannequin

I saw Buckcherry long ago on their first tour at the Backroom in Austin Texas with Crazy Town. I even scored a Buckcherry guitar pick at the show. Going alone to the Buckcherry show.

And odd for me these days is I'll get to go to two shows where I haven't seen the bands before. Darian and I will be seeing Rob Zombie and Jacki and I will be seeing Jack's Mannequin.

Scott Stapp

This past weekend Jacki flew to Arizona to see her friend Jennifer. Jennifer had won tickets and backstage passes to see Scott Stapp. Here are some pictures of Jacki, Jennifer, Scott, and Breaking Point the opening band.

Taeho has a fan

Tom Cruise showed up at the Helio offices on Wednesday. He asked Taeho for this photograph, so I'm posting this on behalf of Tom...

Myspace

I finally took the Myspace plunge this past week. Not sure how this page will interact with the Myspace page yet.

Dave's Myspace

What's it worth

So how much do 2nd row center tickets to a Motley Crue concert in Atlanta Georgia go for?

ebay link

According to the ebay link, $610.00.

These were tickets I purchased over a year ago, moved to LA, flew back to Atlanta, had Vince screw up his leg and play only 1/3rd of the show, cancel the show, and reschedule for March 15.

I decided to sell on ebay instead of trying to make the trip. Needless to say I was quite happy with the selling price.

Dream Theater Show #2

Sold out show number 2. Tonight was much better than night number 1.

Set 1
The Root Of All Evil
Another Won
A Fortune In Lies
Take The Time
The Mirror
Lie
Raise The Knife
Strange Deja Vu
About To Crash(reprise)
Losing Time/Grand Finale

Intermission

Set 2
As I Am
These Walls
I Walk Beside You
Sacrificed Sons
Octavarium

encore:
Sheep (Pink Floyd cover)
Wait For Sleep
Learning To Live

The show was so much better than last night in Anaheim. Even the performances of the same songs were much cleaner tonight. Terry was hoping for Strange Deja-Vu and Wait For Sleep / Learning To Live, he got them both. I was waiting for Lie, I got it. Plus we got to hear Raise the Knife, a b-side neither of us had seen performed live as well as Sheep by Pink Floyd. Total suprise.

Fortune In Lies, Take The Time, and Mirror -> Lie back to back was probably the best set of DT back to back songs I've seen them perform.

Dream Theater Show #1

With the continued spirit of multiple Dream Theater show experiences Terry flew to Los Angeles last night for a weekend of DT. We actually had not planned to go to the Thursday night show in Anaheim, but with some hopeful thinking and a little luck we were able to catch the show last night.

Terry landed at LAX at 7:10, got out to curbside pickup about 7:20, of course it took me an hour to drive the 6 miles to the airport. We made a judgement call and decided what the hell, the venue is only 40 miles away and the show starts at 8. Why not?

45 minutes of 80 mph and we get to the venue shortly after 8. Score the sweet seats, the last two seats on the very last row :-), (I think we made it a sell out) and get to our seats about 20 seconds before the band hit the stage. Perfect timing.



Setlist:
Set 1
The Root of All Evil
Never Enough
Another Won (Majesty)
Afterlife
Under a Glass Moon
Innocence Faded (1st time played in 10 years)
Just Let Me Breathe
Home

Set 2
The Glass Prison
This Dying Soul
The Answer Lies Within
Sacrificed Sons
Octavarium

Encore
In the Name of God

Nice, clean venue. Horrible sound. Surprisingly interesting set list, but a very long show that lost both Terry and I about 2 hours in. Show clocked in right at 3 hours with a 15 minute intermission.

Tonight we will see them at the Pantages in LA on the 7th row center so it should be a completely different experience.

Celeb Sightings

Quite a few recent celeb sightings.

We saw Leslie Jordan, the really small grey haired gay man that plays crazy characters recently on both Will and Grace and Boston Legal. Jacki and I saw him at Louise's Trattoria on Melrose on Feb 16, 2006.

Jacki and I saw CC Deville from Poison at the Cheap Trick show at the House Of Blues on Sunset on Feb 21, 2006. Jacki, Darian, Janice and I then saw CC again at the Rainbow bar and grill on Sunset on March 1, 2006. He walked out of Rainbow talking on his cell phone just as we were walking in.


Also at the Rainbow we spotted Steve Harwell, singer of Smashmouth and
B-Real of Cypress Hill.





This past Saturday March 4th, Jacki, Darian and Janice saw Deacon from King Of Queens, I mean Victor Williams.

Then today as I was walking to the parking garage I'm pretty sure Apollo Ohno got out of the elevator as I was going in. Not sure what he was doing at my office building, but since there is a high end gym it wouldn't be impossible for him to have a reason to be there.



Gotta love LA.

Helio Tattoo

Is it true? Can it be? The world's first and possibly only Helio Tattoo?

Jacki, Janice and Darian were out on Saturday in Hollywood and Jacki got a tat. A Helio tat.

Jacki wanted to have ink injected into her skin to
mark the event that moved us to Los Angeles.

The Dave Pod

Even though the wait for the rumored video iPod never materialized, it was time to end the wait for the upgrade and order a new iPod. Having Darian urge me to upgrade easily justified the upgrade, since she wanted to get my old iPod.

On Wednesday I went to the Apple website and ordered the 5th generation 30GB Video iPod. I personalized with the free laser sketching option and you can see the results for yourself.

Long live The Dave Pod!

Some prime Helio coverage in Wired

Family if you read this you have magazines on the way. For others read on...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/helio.html

Questionable Ethics

I'm pretty sure I know who the offenders in the below article are. I worked with them at a prior employer and approximately a month ago I went to dinner with a friend who informed me of the move of a group of 7 from Yahoo to MForma and what I thought about this crew from my previous emplyoer.

Read on...

Yahoo sues MForma over mobile game secrets

Yahoo sued seven former employees who left the company for mobile gaming company MForma Group for allegedly stealing company secrets regarding mobile gaming. Yahoo is also suing MForma and plans to seek an injunction to stop the parties from using its technology. Yahoo's lawyer claimed that there is "extensive evidence of wholesale theft." MForma President Jonathan Sacks denied the allegations and chalked the whole thing up to Yahoo's attempts to pressure its employees not to leave the company for competitors. Yahoo's specific allegation is that a former manager copied Yahoo trade secrets when he left to join MForma and then he allegedly recruited another Yahoo manager who also provided MForma with confidential information.

Although I know nothing more about the allegations or how this case will shake out, if MForma emerges from this legally unscathed, at the very least the market now knows theirs is a mobile gaming solution that Yahoo deemed threatening.

For more on Yahoo's suit against MForma:
- take a look at this article from The San Jose Mercury News

New Computer HP m7360n

I broke down and picked up a new computer to replace the computer I have had for 5 years. I ended up going with an HP m7360n. I set it up this afternoon and the performance is light years beyond what had been working with. Dual core processor, lightscribe DVD burner, 2GB of ram, and what seems to be an endless supply of USB ports. On my old computer I had to ration the connections.

Oh and the iPod finally syncs and performs as seemlessly as it does with a Mac.

The computer uses Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. Most of the Media Center Edition features seem nice in principal but have a little trouble with their execution. I'll mainly use it for the online sites like MTV Overdrive. The online MCE sites look slick, but once you factor in bandwidth congestion the ondemand experience of watching your favorite tv shows from Comedy Central or your favorite music videos from MTV can become frustrating. I had numerous buffering problems, however when I did get a good stream watching some old bad 80s metal videos and a little Chappelle show was really cool.

With the MCE I finally got to try out the connectivity to the XBOX 360. This experience was seemless. Able to watch videos, browse MCE websites, listen to music and look at pictures all from the XBOX 360 interface streamed from the new HP computer to my TV. Some of the videos had minor drop outs due to the streaming. However I was quite impressed with how well it performed.

Now I just have to decide if I want to install the new Windows Vista beta onto this new machine.

Joe Travers Videos

I tried to publish and host these once before with no success. So here is try number 2 using Google's new video hosting service.

To recap:
On November 6, 2005 Joe Travers former drummer of Z, Mike Keneally Band, and Duran Duran made his vocal debut. Here we have two video clips documenting the momentous occasion.

The first clip is of Joe signing with Communication Breakdown featuring Mike Keneally on guitar.



The second clip is of Joe signing Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.



ENJOY!

Tulips for Jacki

Go Indian Go!

Jacki and I saw The World's Fastest Indian this afternoon. A nice feel good movie with some amazing acting by Anthony Hopkins. I'd seen the trailer on HDNet a month or so back and had been waiting for the movie to be released domestically. Very worthwhile and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Check out the trailer


Definitely recommended.

Jacki's new Saturn Vue

So this is how it started this past Tuesday...

From Jacki
Feb 7, 2006
10:48am PT

I'm going to saturn tonight to speak w/sales rep about trading in my car…
I'm meeting him around 7pm…..wanna go?
[cut]

I'd like to get a new car tonight---am so tired of driving stick on highway every day.
[cut]

My reply at 10:57am PT
Wow. You make decisions quick.
[cut]

Jacki's reply at 10:58 PT
not hard to decide when i drive I 10 during morning traffic...
i'll pick you up...
i'll talk to you later

....
Approximately 12 hours later we drove off the Saturn lot in Torrance California.

Jacki was happy!

more new clothes

Made it to the store to get another round of new clothes. Dropped another inch in my waist and bought my first medium sized shirts in probably 10+ years. I'm still heavier than I was in college but my clothes sizes are nearly back to what they were then.

Billy Martin

after lunch we saw billy martin from good charlotte....darian got to talk
to him for a bit & got a picture...he was kinda surprised when david
mentioned d had his guitar...