I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone involved in the campaign to follow @GranadaTheater . You helped get me in the door and the rest was up to me. After an exciting stint as an intern, I can now say that I’m officially employed by the Granada Theater! Big thanks goes out to everyone in this screen capture. [1263 x 4181 PNG]
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Not gonna lie, last night was probably the highlight of my internship at the Granada Theater.
I’ve been a long time fan of Imogen Heap, as in, I had iMegaphone on cassette tape back in 1998 and my old friend Ryan Obermeyer did the art work for Speak For Yourself. When I heard that she had chosen the Granada as the venue for her Dallas performance I had an internal SQUEEEEE! Think flaming gay man with flailing arms excited running down a hallway excited. But as most know me, I am a calm natured in real life and not so ready to start fires with my gayness, so I kept my cool but with a big smile.
The Show
I unexpectedly managed to get in during the sound check for Immi. When I say unexpected, I mean I didn’t realize she’d be doing sound check so late. She literally left the stage minutes before people entered the venue.
My good friend Eva and I sat and watched as Immi tested various equipment and songs in her non-stage clothes and her simple hair up in a bun do. It was one of those “damn this job is so awesome” moments.
Then in a unbelievably packed to the hilt Granada Theater I watched Back Ted-n-Ted and Tim Exile play with what I like to call “toys” on stage, working their craft to the delight of the crowd.
When Imogen hit the stage she did as I expected, wonderful. She’s got a charmed presence on stage that is endearing to fans of her music. Her tinkering with the equipment, song restarts and mumbling to herself into an open mic during the show never felt like a disappointment, it just added charm to the show.
She played nearly an equal amount from both of her mainstream albums and nothing from iMegaphone. One of my favorite songs from Eclipse, Bad Body Double was presented as almost more of a rap version than the album’s version. With Buffi Jacobs of Polyphonic Spree Immi performed another favorite, Aha! which I have always thought of as very much like a Tim Burton/Danny Elfman composed song with Imogen Heap doing vocals. Come to think of it, even the tree and lighting for the tour almost seems like early Tim Burton (but a little more feminine).
During Hide and Seek and Just For Now Imogen “played the crowd like an instrument” # which admittedly sent chills through me as I heard the perfectly synchronized voices of the people below rise up and meet with Imogen’s vocals. It was one of those moments I live for when seeing an artist perform live.
Behind the Granada I waited in the cold along with many other fans to get an autograph and a photo with Imogen. While it was chilly, it was worth the wait. She’s just as pleasant in person as she is on the stage. She even got the group of fans to sing Happy Birthday to a girl named NayNay which I’m sure made for one super happy fan and a wonderful birthday present!
The techie in me took the time to put together an RSS feed of links to postings all over the web about the show using Yahoo Pipes and Imogen’s ingenious idea to use hashtags/tags for every show on the tour. You can click here to view it. Also embedded below are some photos and videos I took. Enjoy!
I absolutely love most things about Windows 7, especially when compared to Windows XP. It is faster, it is prettier and much more useful. With that said, upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 using the $30 upgrade copy from Digital River was the biggest pain in my ass I’ve experienced since troubleshooting my mother-in-laws computer with Windows ME on it.
After I went back and forth with Microsoft & Digital River over the phone for a good hour and a half over the activation issue I was having. The only thing that came out of the phone calls was frustration, misinformation and bad attitudes, oh and tons of transfers. Needless to say I was pissed.
The issue was the activation was saying I hadn’t upgraded from a previous edition of Windows, which, all stemmed from trying to use the Home Premium Upgrade disc from Digital River.
In order to upgrade from XP (unless Digital River fixed it) to Window 7 you have to create an ISO out of the download. Which is completely un-user friendly. Then take that disc you made and boot into the install, wipe the drive to do a fresh install of Windows 7.
When you get to the part about putting in the Product Key it will more than likely tell you that you have an invalid key. Instead, just skip putting in the key and continue the install.
Once you are inside Windows go to this site and use Method #2. I tried it on 2 machines and it worked. Now you have a fully functional copy of Windows 7 to enjoy!
My main reason for writing this is that I personally have suggested upgrading to Windows 7 to many of my friends and I fear that they will try and call the idiots at Microsoft or Digital River and will end up just as ticked off as I was.
Another reason is, I wish Microsoft would read this and reconsider their partnership with Digital River and think about just offering it from their own site, as an ISO. Not to mention, they need to offer a way to put in your old XP/Vista Key to validate your upgrade should you have to wipe your drive to do the install. If your computer craps out and you install Windows 7 again from the upgrade disc, you will have to do those registry edits again to make it work. This is completely un-user friendly and it’s why people are moving to MACs, even if they are ridiculously overpriced.
The Beginning
Back in high school my friend Carmen used to pass around a napkin and a pen at lunch. We would be given a prompt and then told to add our line to the napkin, fold it over and pass it down to the next person. At the end, we would unfold the napkin to read the story we all created.
The Idea
With that said, I have a project that requires us to use the “New Media” to create a story. This involves getting people to get in on the fun. So, I thought, how about I update the “Napkin Stories” for the web? And what if instead of giving you a noun, a verb, a sex as a prompt, I just give you a Creative Commons licensed photograph as a prompt?
How to get involved
Use your Twitter/Facebook, personal blog to make your reply. Think, a status update on twitter, a comment on Facebook, an entire blog post on your own blog. Also, you don’t have to write a whole story, just a line is fine.
All I ask is that somewhere in the story you include what is called a hashtag. You only need to use the hashtag if you are posting somewhere other than in the comments on this blog. Hashtags are primarily used for Twitter but can be used anywhere. Each photograph/story will have its own hashtag which will allow me to find it by searching on Google, Facebook & Twitter.
*Note: Keep in mind that if you’re Facebook profile is private or you are not a friend of mine, I will not be able to find your reply.
Here is the photo for the first story as your prompt. Please use the hashtag #Napkin1.
I updated the hashtag because NS1 is too common.
Ideas to get you started:
The story can be, where came from, who he is, who he’s going to be….