U.S. Intel failed on Underpants Bomber due to Misspelling, Software

Well, this isn’t good. According to an official White House review, the intelligence community failed to notice red flags about the underpants bomber. Why? The software that would have correlated intel and raised alarms was rendered ineffective by a one-letter misspelling of the would-be bomber’s name. From the White House’s review of the government’s failures … Read more

Nexus One thoughts

Google announced the HTC Nexus One today. On paper, it’s just about everything I want: a touchscreen-only HTC device with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. It’s headed to Verizon sometime in the first half of this year. I returned my Droid last week and put my unlocked iPhone onto T-Mobile, which has a great lower-price plan … Read more

Guitar Loot

These were the fruits of my Christmas haul:

New Guitars

I got a 1973 Yamaha FG-260 12-string acoustic (same kind recorded on Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”) from my stepdad and a 1986 Washburn G-IV electric from my uncle Dan Sweeney. They’re both great guitars, definitely more than a beginner could hope for. The electric is fresh from a tune-up at the luthier’s, so the action is great all over, and it’s in great shape.

So now comesĀ learning the darned instrument, which is going well so far. It’s definitely intimidating going back to the absolute basics with one instrument after being a drummer for 13 years, but I’m already to the point where I can have fun with stuff instead of wondering how the heck this thing is supposed to make music.

I’ve got the electric set up to interface with my MacBook Pro, so I can mess with all of the amp modeling and effects in Logic and GarageBand. My roommate Eddie let me borrow an old amp of his as well.

So I’m set up pretty well as far as learning guitar goes. In addition to that, my roommate Eddie and I converted our seldom-used dining room into a music room, because we and our other roommate Jeff want to start playing blues together on a regular basis. So we now have one room with V-Drums, a piano, and rigs for both guitar and bass. The room’s nice and spacious, so it’ll be accessible for practice and for parties and such. And having the V-Drums in there will be a total lifesaver for everyone’s ears, just like they were for Deliver Me Seven rehearsals.

2009 Travel Log

I just finished my last trip of the year. I just realized how much time this year I’ve spent sitting on some form of transportation, and there’s been a ton. Here’s every trip I’ve taken, ordered by transit method: Air: Denver-Philadelphia Philadelphia-Madrid Granada-Liverpool Liverpool-Amsterdam Amsterdam-Barcelona Barcelona-Granada Madrid-Dusseldorf Dusseldorf-Prague Prague-Frankfurt Frankfurt-Madrid Madrid-Dublin Dublin-Chicago Chicago-Denver Denver-Cleveland Cleveland-Harrisburg … Read more

On Yesterday’s “Terrorist” Incident

Airport security yet again failed to catch a person’s improvised weapon aboard a plane yesterday. Passengers yet again proved that they aren’t going to let shit happen on a plane in the first place. The cabin of a plane is no longer a viable place from which to carry out a terrorist act. The American … Read more