Something I posted on the Peter Gabriel website the night of his show in Orange County:



I've just returned from the "LA" show which is really in Orange County at what used to be called Irvine Meadows but is now Verizon Amphitheater. Same set list as Shoreline Amphitheater show.



Good show, but not a great show. It took a while for the audience to get going and some members of the audience were unhappy with the sound level (not loud enough).



The band was excellent, but I have to say Melanie Gabriel is no Paula Cole. The set list was disappointing to me personally. I've been a "true believer" in PG for over 20 years. The show he did on the "Security" tour at the Universal Amphitheater in LA in 1982 stands as the greatest show I've ever seen. I so hoped he'd use this tour as an opportunity to bring back some great stuff from the Peter Gabriel Plays Live era, but it was not to be. "Family Snapshot" would have been great to hear, as would "No Self Control." Even "San Jacinto" would have been awesome to hear live.



The opening act was good but I would have preferred no opener and have PG play for an extra 30 minutes to get all those great old ones back in the set; "Sledgehammer" might be a big hit and "So" might be what brought him the audience he has today, but I wish I wish I wish...



I was of course almost immediately flamed by members of the "Cult of Peter" who probably never heard of him until "Sledgehammer" but oh well. Funny though that the next day a few others posted similar wistful opinions and weren't flamed.

I have been neglecting my house lately and it has retaliated.



I went for a great hike yesterday and then worked on my roses, which are suffering from every unhealthy condition a rose can suffer from. I bought a combination insecticide/fungicide/mildewcide and sprayed it on and then added a ground-based disease preventer. I trimmed the bushes back to near-nothing and hopefully they will spring back healthy and happy.



Today I worked on the front sprinklers. I'll have to do to them what I had to do to the back set; replace the valves and re-wire. Fortunately I have plenty of wire this time.



We had a neighborhood party today which was fun. I dragged my monster PA out and we had tunes in the driveway and the street. My party is next weekend. Una amica Italiana called me yesterday to wish me a happy birthday and to enjoy my party; I'd forgotten to tell my Italian friends that I'd changed the date so she was one week early. It was great to hear from her, though and we had a good conversation.

Haven't updated in a while.



Ed and I have been making a lot of beer and he has become an avid homebrewer. We've made several 5 gallon batches in the last 2 months and he's had one beer tasting party at my house and we're having another one at his place next weekend. We made a movie of "The Making Of Irish Wedding Red Ale" for his cousin who is getting married and receiving a case of red ale from Ed for the wedding.



I was up late on Friday hanging out with a friend and seeing X Men 2 after along walk to balboa Park with her huge Great Dane puppy and then dinner at a Spanish place. I got home at 1 AM and went to bed at 2 AM. I woke up 5 hours later, started my day and then said. "Forget this! I'm going back to sleep!" So I did and then woke up at 11:15 AM. Later that day I drove down to Ed's place and then we went to the Hotel del Coronado to work as database jockeys for the JDRF gala fundraising auction. It was tough work and it is amusing to see the office manager attempt to be authoritative when she doesn't react well under pressure.



At one point she actually instructed us to not allow anyone to check out because it wasn't "time" yet. My comment was that if a $15000 donor wants to check out and go home, or even if he wants to check out and go back in, I was going to check him out whether it fitted into her plans or not.



Apparently she wasn't happy that Ed and I took off to the Coronado Brewery for lunch. We... didn't care.



I have been hiking in the hills locally a lot and having a good summer so far. it should be a good summer; I am looking forward to it.

It was a tough weekend. Ed had his "Awesome Lethality Pale Ale" beer tasting yesterday. We used my house and the dozen of so people who attended had a very good time. I always enjoy having people come over. I was drinking a lot of pear cider instead of the brew and woke up at 4 AM today with a splitting headache. I took somepainkilerls, drank alittle water and went back to bed.



Eventually I woke up and called Paul. I drove down to see their new house and help them move furniture. Afterwards we drove over to Coronado and had lunch at their favorite place - Coronado Brewery. I drank iced tea.



That's it for now. I am really tired today and have to get to work early tomorrow.

A friend of mine sent this to his "Joke" list the other day. I've been thinking about it and have a response (below).



> With all of this talk of war, many of us may encounter "Peace Activists"

>who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating

>against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001, and those

>who support terror. These activists may be alone or in a

>gathering.....most of us don't know how to react to them. When you come

>upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper

>rules of etiquette:

>1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a

>conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They

>will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people

>who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will

>probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to

>humanitarian.

>2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in

>the nose.

>3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry

>and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

>4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings

>about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell

>them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved

>attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell

>them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are

>saying.

>5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are

>correct.

>6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much

>harder. Square in the nose.

>7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot

>realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making.

>8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting

>victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is

>unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost. We owe our

>military a huge debt for what they are about to do for us and our

>children. We must support them and our leaders at times like these.

>We have no choice. We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep

>getting hit in the nose.

>Lesson over, class dismissed



If I were the victim of the "lesson" in this story, I would have no doubts about immediately kicking the shit out of the person who assaulted me. Why? Because I have a right to defend myself. I am not a threat to anyone, so if someone comes up to me and assaults me, I am in "emminent danger" and am allowed to use force to protect myself. This is not the same as revenge. If you assaulted me and I kicked your ass and sent you to the hospital, IF you then came back looking for me you would be committing revenge, which is not legal. It is revenge because you were not in emminent danger from me when you left the hospital.



The analogy above plays out like this (without the description I gave just now):



You are walking down the street. I see you and in order to prevent your possible assault on me I kill you. I think you might punch me in the nose at the peace protest, so it's OK - I've taken a pre-emptive strike to protect myself. By the way, the pre-emptive strike will consist of me driving by in a car, shooting an AK-47 at you while you are walking with only a rubber band gun to defend you (but you might have something more powerful, so I have to be sure to overpower you). I will do my absolute best to keep the pattern of shots on your body tight, but if I hit your wife and your kids while I'm doing it, I'll apologize but hey, it's their fault for being there or maybe your fault for having them there. Either way, they're dead and I'm "really sorry".



I know that a lot of people like this war and think it is great we are there and as of yesterday think it's over. You know what? It's not over. Afghanistan isn't over, but we have now forgotten about them. The Taliban are regrouping in the eastern part of the country and the US isn't funding infrastructure rebuilding. There is no police force and Hamid Karzai has no power or influence in any area except Kabul. How can we expect the Afghan people to stand up on their own two feet and have a society we recognize as open, free and democratic if they can't even get fresh clean water, have no shoes on their feet and go to school in a bombed-out hulk of a building?



There were a group of Iraqis chanting "Allah is great! Saddam is an enemy of Allah!" today in Baghdad. Criminey. Is that why we went there? So these guys can elect a mullah and descend into the Dark Ages again?

Macca's "Back in the US - Live 2002" DVD and CD



I bought the DVD and the CD of McCartney's 2002 tour last night and watched the DVD.



Oof.



The music for the most part is great, the band is amazing, especially Abe Laboriel, Jr and the performances are energetic, except maybe for that 60 year old man inthe center of the stage. The man's voice is not what it was, but that's a consequence of aging and isn't his fault. The problem for me with this disk is that there is an awful lot of "Paul is great, I'm his biggest fan" and "Look at all the celebrities at his concerts" stuff in between the songs. I laughed out loud (and not in a "that's funny!" way) when they actually gave credits to the various people they featured (Howard Stern and his latest porn star/stripper girlfriend, Paul Stanley of KISS, Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, John Cusack, lots of others).



There's a bit much of the "Heather and I are really happy together" stuff, too. It's odd to me that his wife has no real clue about his music (and that's McCartney's description, not mine). At least she's not on stage playing one-fingered keyboards and "singing" like Linda was for all those years.



So, there are a few constants in the world; death, taxes and Macca's continual quest to make sure all of us know he was important in the Beatles, too and not just that John Lennon fellow.



If you are a Beatles fan and a Macca fan then you should get this, if you are a casual fan you probably won't find it all that interesting.

Geocaching



I did something new today, that combines gadget geekiness with map reading and hiking. It's called geocaching and is a modern version of the treasure hunt.



It requires a GPS receiver and information about the location of a geocache, which is usually a small weather-resistent plastic container filled with little knick-knacks and a log book. When you find the cache you open it, take a little trinket, leave one of your own and sign the log book. Then you hide it in the same location.



It's pretty fun and combines physical exercise with a little brain power, trying to use the GPS receiver to locate the geocache.



Today I hiked all over the Calaveras Hill area, which is south of 78 and a little east of College Blvd. The hill itself is a 20 million year old volcano plug and the view from the top today was great - I could see from the ocean all the way to Mt San Jacinto and the San Bernardino mountains.



I found 3 of the 4 geocaches I set out to look for; there are three or four others in the area I didn't even set out to find.



http://www.geocaching.com is a good place to start.