hellziggy

October 6, 2003.
That's almost 4 1/2 years ago that my shiny baby came to live with me. She is definitely feeling her age.
Her HUGE 60GB hard drive hasn't had less than 50GB used for a looooong time, and usually more like 55GB.
Her internal wireless gave out.
She's been through 3 different batteries, and a couple of power cords.
Now the AC input is starting to go again. Every now and then she'll start flipping between using battery and charging. When this happens, not only is the battery not charging, but it is also wearing down faster because of the switching. And the screen gets brighter or darker each time it switches. It's happening more frequently and it isn't worth the price to fix her with as old as she is.
*sigh*
As nice as the shiny new Macbook Pro I'll be getting will be, I really will miss using Chiana.
She was both my first laptop and my first Mac.
But, she's not quite dead yet, and the new one isn't ordered yet. But it is inevitable and will be happening in the near future.
*pets Chiana*

And of course, there is no one out there who can express geek feelings quite like Jonathan Coulton:

A Laptop Like You
Here you are at last
To bring my cold lonely soul sweet release
From my weary past
Always searching, the one missing piece was you
And I beg you, come away with me
And together we will find a place to call our own
I can’t wait to see what I can do
With a laptop like you

It’s not your CD slot
Or the Unix on which you are based
You make my lap hot
Cause underneath your aluminum case there’s love
And I forgive your strange one-button mouse
I forgive the way your keyboard leaves marks on your screen
I can overlook a fault or two
For a laptop like you

We will always be together
In love in spite of everything
Hang on tight through wind and weather
Heaven knows what time may bring

In a year or two
You will seem big and heavy and slow
I will carry you
To wherever it is laptops go to die
And don’t think it won’t be hard on me
How’m I ever gonna find a way to justify
The money I will spend on something new
For a laptop like you
For a laptop like you


The title is linked to a downloadable mp3 of the song. A Laptop Like You is released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. If you like the song, go give Jonathan Coulton some money.

killerweasel, who always finds all the best links, found this today. It's a Doctor Who vid set to the Coulton song Skullcrusher Mountain, and it's brilliant! I just sent the link to JoCo. :)


And a link to the video's YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc8RHHa_CF8

This has been a busy couple of days for me!

At the last Birds & Beer gathering I had mentioned to the other Sharon that I was going to the Jonathan Coulton concert, and that I would be working his merchandise table for him. She immediately asked if he needed any more volunteers and I said I'd check. Well, he did recommend that I bring someone else to help out, so I informed him that he would be getting the dangerous combination of TWO Sharons!

Then, last Tuesday, in his blog entry Neil Gaiman said, "...the dog romps and vanishes and reappears and romps again (being the same colour as the snow he vanishes easily) and you simply tromp after him, or ahead of him, or at least somewhere on the same continent as him, singing Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain" to yourself while the snow settles on your hair and your face..."

After seeing that I dropped Neil a line through the questions page of his blog telling him that Jonathan was going to be in Mpls in two days and that the other Sharon was going to be at the concert.

Then on Wednesday Coulton's blog post had this in it: "Wil Wheaton drops a “Brains” reference in his review of Datalore, an old TNG episode.
Not to be outdone, Neil Gaiman claims to actually SING “Skullcrusher Mountain” while walking through the snow."

It was about that time that I got an email reply from Neil saying that weather permitting, he'd be there.

Thursday came, I got to the theater to set stuff up. While i was putting it out the other Sharon showed up. She confirmed that Neil was indeed coming to the show. Jonathan showed us the merchandise basics, and then ran off to the back stage to get ready.

The doors opened at 7:00 and people started filtering in. At about this time the other Sharon told me that Mr. Neil had arrived and needed to get tickets. I did have one unused ticket that I hadn't needed to get in so she ran that out to him. I got to meet in person for the first time johnboze & his wife madhatter, wickedgroovy who was in attendance with her brothers, and LJ-less Karin who is a friend of genevra. There wasn't really a lot of time to talk to any of them though because I had to keep selling people stuff!

Sales slowed down when the opening act, Paul and Storm, went on so I was able to relax and watch them. They do a lot of funny music. Things like Randy Newman's "Theme from The Passion of the Christ" and My Fantastic Plastic Girl.

There was another rush in sales after their set ended, and then Jonathan Coulton took the stage.

I found a spot to sit up near the stage so that I could take pictures during Jonathan's set. I also had my new point & shoot digital so that I could shoot video. There was one song that JoCo had never sung live, but he knew that since he was coming to Minnesota he was going to have to. It was the song Curl which contains the lines:

He wakes before the sun comes
Even though he’d rather stay in bed
He curses the cold in Minnesota
Why’s it always so damn cold

I shot video of this song and put it on YouTube:



That's it for this post, but I've got one full of photos from the show to post coming right up.

Look what I gots!



So here are all the details I have so far on the Jonathan Coulton concert:

December 6, 2007
Varsity Theater
1308 4th St SE (Dinkytown)
Doors open at 7pm
Show at 8pm

Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door if you get them at the venue.
They are $23.50 if you get them from TicketBastard (more if you choose to print them yourself or choose non-standard delivery).

If you're here in town you can pick them up any time at The Loring Pasta Bar.



[Poll #1080278]

Jonathan Coulton is coming to Minneapolis!!!! Yay!

Mark December 6th on your calendars! (It's a Thursday nite)

If you don't know who JoCo is, check out his music here: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads
Several of his songs are there to download for free. They are also Creative Commons by-nc (except the ones he doesn't own like covers & such) so you can do what you want with them.

Even the songs that aren't linked for free downloads, you can listen to a sample. And if there is one you want to hear more of let me know. I most likely either have it to email to you, or can point you to somewhere to download it. Just be sure to give the man a dollar if you like it once you hear the whole thing.

JoCo told me that he'd most likely be in Mpls in December but it's nice to see it all official-like! And any of you Minneapolis geeks that I haven't met yet, make sure you introduce yourselves to me. I'll probably be working the merch table so I'll be pretty easy to find! :)