The Smelliest Bar in Boston!

That's right, Gypsy bar is the smelliest bar in Boston. I know when hot, sweaty bodies get together there is bound to be some rank, but this was OOC. From the front door to the entire dance floor, there was BO to be found within the confines of Gypsy bar. Not only was the music terrible, the crowd pathetic (many solo AFCs trying to make a go of it on the floor & many stupid bachelorette parties) but people everywhere had BO. I was shocked as this used to be a good club. If only Felt had been open to non-guest list folks tonight I wouldn't have had to write this post.
In an effort to spread the news of this smelly club, please send the link to this post to as many people as you can and digg it if you do that kind of thing. The club-going public must be informed!

Take that crappy southern hiphop!

I've had some choice words for southern hiphop over the past couple of years, but recently even worse music has come from the south. I love hiphop, I really do, but if you put Jay-Z's music next to some of the recent stuff (Webbie's Independent anyone?) it is like night and day, and the recent rise in craptacular hiphop is only going to make more people write it off forever. I am apparently not the only one who feels this way - please read this small article on Ice-T's feelings!

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.7135/title.ice-t-tells-soulja-boy-to-eat-a-dick

Fashion No-No - Suits with Backpacks

I saw this one on the T this morn and decided to make a note to the world. Wearing a backpack with your suit makes you look like at best out of place and at worst, partially retarded.

Seeing people wear a backpack reminds me of my days back in Freshman year at Babson. Ah, the floors were sticky with promise back then, but I digress. For our first presentations of the year, most students wore their first suit. Although many committed other egregious fashion sins (see here), this one was all over the place. Before anyone had a briefcase, they had backpacks, so the wore them with their suit.

I refused to do this and would carry my books to class rather than looking like some bizarre cross between Quasimodo and Bud Fox. So to all of you out there with backpack and suits - get a briefcase, or at least something with one shoulder strap. It will help your suit maintain its shape and you'll look and feel better!

Disingenuous Dress

Just a quickly - I find it very disingenuous when people roll up the sleeves of their dress shirts, only to leave their tie tight and top most button in tact. This is a common tactic of the politician, pundit, and stock guru to show they are "relaxing" or "working hard." BS - if you were really relaxing, you'd loosen or take off your tie! To see this in action, check out McCain and Obama on the stump and Cramer on TV.

Take that Auto Industry!

So I've made the switch. It was a huge decision, but I feel great about it. No, I'm not talking about Folger's Crystals, but Zipcar.
For those who don't know - it is a car sharing service - and you only pay for what you drive. Need a car for 3 hours on a weekend? Just use Zipcar... http://www.zipcar.com/ if you want details because I don't feel like doing it here.
Anywho, I cashed in my old 1995 Chevy Blazer after its most recent mechanical failure for 100% Zipcar and I feel liberated. I don't pay for gas, I don't pay for insurance, and I don't pay for parking! HA! Of course, I don't have a car either, but I do have access to many. That is the rub, I can't just drive on a whim. On the flip side, I think this will push me to use the T and even walk some! Whilst running the numbers for Zipcar I noticed a trend with my monthly expenses. They are all service subscriptions:

Rhapsody

Cell Phone

Netflix

Gamefly

Zipcar

I prefer this to the depreciating asset model of the automobile and because I don't drive much, it makes financial sense for me. When you own (outright) an old car, you usually have two options:

1) Keep the car and deal with stream of payments that increase in both size and frequency as more time passes. I suspect this may be exponential to some degree for very aged cars, but without any testing, I really can't say.

2) Buy a new/used car and deal with a new, stable stream of payments that turns into #1.

Now with Zipcar - there is a third option. This only works for the city dweller and T user - sorry everyone else, but population density rocks and the suburban sprawl sponsored by GM & Ford sucks.

Is this it for Windows?

So since Vista's release, Microsoft has been having problems, but I've noticed a convergence of a couple of trends in my life. I think these trends, and my participation/consideration of participation in them signals trouble for MS. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but I feel I'm more of a "regular consumer" than I am a technophile - or at least less of one than most and this puts me more in line with what "most" people are going to do... That being said - here are my observations:

1) The rise of web application. Lately I've noticed how you barely need applications on your desktop. Web apps are so rich that most of us can use them for what we need and never have to install anything. Photoshop Express, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Animoto, the list goes on and on. I'm sure they will not replace hardcore installed functionality, but it is like the electric car. It isn't for everyone, just 90% of the users.

2) Apple's Halo Effect. The oft mentioned halo effect of the iPod/iPhone has people running to buy a Mac. I was even considering this, until I looked at the price. Regardless, people love Apple's design and what they are doing with their OS. Also, the iPhone's new SDK sounds like it is going to wipe the floor with every other cell phone SDK, furthering the halo effect.

3) Rise of Linux. I'm not the first person to get Linux, but I'm probably one of the first "regular" people to do so. My old XP machine was a slug on XP (P4 1.4gh w/ 512mb ram), but with Ubuntu and Firefox it is blazing fast! Now, getting all the drivers can be a pain, but now I use that computer! Also, combining this with #1 - there is no real need for the MS compatible apps because they all work in Firefox. All the problems I've had have been solved (almost) by the huge community of people who back the Linux framework. People spend their time on this in a huge way. I've had problems installing Real Player and Netflix on demand doesn't work - but it is a trend, not an endpoint.

So what does all this mean? It means I have a narrow field of vision and I'm certainly leaving some things out, but hey - it is just my viewpoint. Either way, I think we're trending away from MS. People are getting sick of a 5 minute boot time and all the hassles of Windows. People are starting to look at alternatives, and in the case of Apple - they're voting with their dollars. In the case of Linux, they are voting with their time - which is money, right?

If these trends continue, and I think they will, I can't see how MS will wiggle out of this without having Windows 7 be the best OS ever.

Family, ah family

So, this past weekend I took my loverly Fiancee, Sarina, to meet some members of my extended family whilst one of my cousins was getting married in NJ. As if my nuclear family wasn't enough, she had the pleasure of meeting all of my aunts and uncle on my mom's side. Apparently this gave her even clearer picture of where select traits of mine come from.

Apparently my significant weight loss had quite an effect on some of my cousins, so much so they wouldn't have noticed me! That is pretty bad considering my two older cousins haven't seen me in years, so they have a persistent image of their fat little cousin. I'm glad I've gotten past that part of my life.

Of course, because we were in NJ for a wedding, our wedding was the topic of many conversations. My favorite being when my mother told me I have to invite my other cousin(because I'm inviting her sister, whose wedding it was, and father and mother). Although I now agree with her logic, that would be like not inviting my brother, but inviting me and my parents (incidentally that is who attended this past wedding). My first reaction when my mom told me, "You gotta invite her" was, "I don't 'gotta' do anything." Which has now become our second tag of our wedding:

Sarina & Brian

September 5th, 2009

"Plan the fuck out of this thing"

&

"We don't 'gotta' do anything"

Although I think it is important to consider family, I'm not very close with my extended family and Sarina and I are paying for the wedding, so everything is our decision and no one else's. Ultimately, I think these chain-invites (invite one cousin, you have to invite them all) have the opposite effect on me. If I have to invite all my cousins, then I'll invite none of my cousins! Problem solved! Eat that family!