big weekend coming up

Big Weekend for a Big Wimp coming up.

I say big wimp because I cancelled out of tapas with friends tonight because I really did not want to risk driving home in the rain. I'm a bit night blind these days. I don't mind driving daytime in the rain or driving at night in good weather, but I HATE driving at night in the rain. Hey, I know my limits.

Anywho, tomorrow is an interesting show with the Beautiful Losers playing at the EARL.
Saturday is the first parade-planning and murder mystery party with the krewe I'm fortunate enough to be part of.
Sunday, two friends are getting married.

I am looking forward to plans that don't fall through this weekend.
Looking forward to spending a lot of time with lovely people who I love be around.

TONIGHT! James Brown: The Man, Music, and His Influence

Tonight, Thursday, September 27, 5 - 9 pm
James Brown: The Man, Music, and His Influence, from Augusta, Georgia to Bamako, Mali
At the High Museum of Art 1280 Peachtree Street, Atlanta
Free with museum admission and free to members
$15; $13 college students w/ID; $10 children

5 - 9
Stent Atrium
Deep Listening Party featuring DJ Apple Jac and Kevin Sipp, Curator, Hammonds House Museum. Dancing is highly encouraged!

6:30 - 8
Hill Auditorium
Lecture and Panel Discussion with Dr. Manthia Diawara, Director of Africana Studies, New York University; Dr. Fred Taylor, Ethnomusicologist, Georgia State University; Brett Love, Features Editor, Georgia Music Magazine; moderated by Stan Woodard, Communications Director, Atlanta Contemporary Center.

Gimme Shelter – Mad Housers Fundraiser!

Saturday, Sept. 22, 8 PM - $7
Gimme Shelter – Mad Housers Fundraiser!
Help provide shelter for the homeless, while helping to keep Eyedrum from being homeless (figuratively speaking, of course!)

http://www.pd.org/~eyedrum/calendar/index.php?id=1638

performers include:
Lucky Stray
The 5TH Sundays
Amazing Lizardos Collaborative Spectacle
Lori Guarisco
Cecelia Kane
Steve Seaberg & the Atlanta Naked People


Also silent auction in the performance space + raffle


www.madhousers.org

more on the East Atlanta Strut

in East Atlanta Village near the intersection of Flat Shoals and Glenwood just south of I-20.

11:30 - Earthshaking Samba Group
12:00 - Strezo
1 PM - Entropy
2 PM - Holy Temple Choir
3 PM - Strut Parade and 5K Awards
4 PM - Batata Doce
5 PM - ENVIE
6 PM - Bouldercrest Singing Group
7 PM - Tag Team
8 PM - Parade

Then, pay a visit to the EARL to top off the night with sets from:

9 PM - The Preakness
10 PM - Anna Kramer
11 PM - Elevado
12 PM - Moresight

East Atlanta Strut

Correction - Chaz has let me know the pageant was last week. However, I think this year's Queen will be an important figure in the neighborhood parade again this year.

Chaz sez:

You missed the Queen of The Strut, actually. It was this past Saturday and, of course, great fun. However, I am manning the mic at The Strut proper...

I have to keep it family friendly. Yikes!

East Atlanta Strut this Saturday

http://www.eastatlantastrut.org/

7:00a.m.-7:50 a.m. - 5K Race On-Site Registration
8:00 a.m. - 5K Race Begins
10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. - Artist Market
10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. - Food/Beverages Area
11:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m. - Kids Area
11:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. - Live Music (See Stage Schedule for Details)
1:30 p.m. - Parade On-Site Registration
2:00 p.m. - Parade Starts
2:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. - Silent Auction
6:30 p.m. - Silent Auction Winners Announced

And my friend Chaz will be MC at the Queen of the Strut Pageant.

House gets fixed today

We have electricians coming to the house today, as well as plumbers and servicemen to empty the septic tank.
So, after today, we should be able to have working plumbing downstairs and sleep without fear of burning wires inside the walls.
Living here has been a learning experience for both of us and the landlord, who has not owned the house long enough to know any of the quirks of the building.

Starfighters The Praetorian Issue

Scanning through different posts about the cast alone, this looks like it's going to be my kind of show. Starts in 2008.

Earthlink to cut 900 jobs

I found this at www.peachpundit.com -

Earthlink to cut 900 jobs
August 28th, 2007 by Chris Farris · 11 Comments

There is a bloodbath going on on Peachtree Street today. Earthlink (my former employer) is laying off almost 50% of its workforce. While I expect some of those jobs will be outsourced or offshored, or both (they are different), that is mostly irrelevant to my point.

Since 2000 when Earthlink and Mindspring merged, there was no one with vision at the helm. Anyone who followed the Internet industry knew that dial-up was gonna die and high-speed would be necessary to use the future internet. However Earthlink never managed to build a coherent business model. They attempted to do VOIP 3 years after Vonage became a household word. The poured millions into selling $500 phones so spoiled rich kids could myspace in class. And their Muni-Wifi project went so bad they fired the EVP responsible for that business unit.

As a free-market capitalist I’m glad to see Earthlink die. There are still (maybe?) many talented good people working there, and releasing them into the wild means that their talents will actually be put to good use.

Updated to add: Wow, In January they’ll have only 4 people running all of their mail. If you’re a customer I’d recommend you get a new email address now and start giving it out to people.

Kitty is okay!

Monster took stray-kitty "Doris" to the vet today.

Here's what we found out:
We have a reasonably healthy, already-spayed female, anywhere between 5 to 10 years of age.

She got a new rabies shot and a flea treatment at the veterinarian's office. She is free of feline leukemia, immunodeficiency virus, diabetes, etc. Appears to be clear of parasites too. She's just very very skinny from being near starvation. They said we should feed her dry food. Also, they suggested cleaning her teeth - she's got quite a tartar problem in back, so we'll make an appointment for that later. She's lost a lot of muscle from the starvation, but she should regain most of it and be fine.

Dreams rewrite history

Sometimes I dream of being in my tweenage bedroom with a computer and online connections - which I never would have had in those days - surfing through the early incarnations of IRC and AOL and newsreaders when you could find everything and everyone (if they were geeky enough) out in the void with no restrictions.

cat maintenance

At last, I've had time to make an appointment to take the stray kitty I've been feed to the vet. There's a clinic just around the corner from the subdivision we're in and she's scheduled for a pre-spaying checkup tomorrow. Monster will take her in the pet carrier we picked up a couple of weeks ago at PetsMart.

Hopefully, she'll get a reasonably good bill of health for a near-starved stray such as herself and I will at least be able to prevent more homeless cats from inhabiting the neighborhood.

Labor Day Weekend

Saturday at Drive-Invasion was fun. I made the mistake of not bringing sunscreen (couldn't find it as I was leaving home) and got sunburned despite a shady hat and umbrella. Chaz volunteered the use of his grill to everyone and we had brats and adult beverages - as well as a lot of bottled water - between watching bands, looking at cars, and ending with B-movies.

Sunday was horribly boring. I should have gone to the mall or done a DragonCon drive-by.

Monday, got a lot of yardwork done early in the day. In the evening, we grilled corn and sausages and watched the Anthony Bourdain marathon on TV.