While I never expected something like this to happen, last year’s Tsunami Relief Benefit Show in Seattle was a big hint [NOTE: if you've not heard the bootleg of this, and you are a fan of AIC, you've got to hear it] . Now Jerry Cantrell has come forward today and made it clear that Alice In Chains will be touring this summer. Here’s the MTV news story. As the article states, reuniting as Alice In Chains is only going to be a “one last time” deal and if it progresses any further, they’ll choose another band name.
Since their inception back in 1990 (at least based on the commericially-released album, “Facelift”), Alice In Chains have always been considered along the birth of the “grunge” era. They have also been one of my favorite bands. The death of Layne Staley in April 2002 pretty much ended the band, even though Layne became a reclusive drug addict for the previous six years. To me, this is good news and I’ll do what I can to catch them on the road (you know, they’ll skip Salt Lake, like 80% of the other bands out there do).
The last few years, since the RIAA has decided it was good practice to sue it’s customers, the Grammys have pretty much sucked, as an award show. And this year was no exception for another lackluster show.
But, as with each year, there is one stand out winner that puts a brief smile on my face. Green Day never ceases to amaze me in the quality of music they produce and to be the voice of protest and rebellion in a world of comforists. Last year they took the Rock Album of the year. This year is was the top prize (as far as the Grammys are concerned) of Record of the Year. Congrats to them. For the rest of the winners, clickhere.
Adding another computer in the house is always someting of a joy, sometimes a burden. In this case, it’s a Macintosh replacing a PC. As my personal reliance on Windows systems disolves, the need for another Mac becomes evident. Last April, it was the Mac mini, which is my main computer (my long promised blog on my switchover will eventualy get done). And my Umax c500 clone from 1997 is still in operation (running Mac OS 9.1 with 64Mb RAM and a 6gb hard drive).
This time, it’s an iMac 500Mhz indigo - click the photo above to see the specs. This one has 320Mb of RAM and a broken CD-RW, which I am replacing with a DVD/CD drive (slot loading). Found it on eBay and went locally to pick it up (saved $35 shipping). I’ve had it apart, cleaned the inside, the keyboard (each and every key had some weird spilage on it) and am getting it ready to sit at the desk next to mine for general use by the rest of my family.
I will still have one PC left in the house - my aging Toshiba Tecra 720CDT (specs) and it will have to do if for some reason we need a real PC to do something on (my mini runs Virtual PC 7.0.2, running Windows XP Pro).
And I am hoping sometime later this summer to replace the above Toshiba with at least an iBook. As a long time Mac user (got my first Mac 512K in 1985), this has been a goal of mine to remove Windows-based systems from my personal life. It’s not that I hate Windows… my entire IT career depends on it. But to be perfectly honest, when I come home, I would like to have a computer that I don’t have to constantly tweak or the need to remove spy/malware from. I just want to sit down and use it. The Mac fits that bill perfectly.
So where will the current PC go? It’s not a bad system - AMD 1.5ghz, 512Mb RAM, 40gb hard drive. Most likely it will go to my daughter, who if she is reading this, we need to talk about another incentive deal before I make a final decision on this.
So some 26 years after my first venture into the Macintosh world, the Mac has finally taken over as the computer of choice at home. And i’m pretty happy about that.
So January 31st (which would have been yesterday), the nominations for the 2006 Oscars were announced. You can get the main list here.
This last year was a great year for film and a lot of pictures covered all sorts of different topics, most of them fairly controversial. Who will win? Watch on March 5th on ABC.