Category: Uncategorized

Holy Crap!

Woah!  My city played host to a bank robbery today.

Here is a link to the story from the Lawrence Eagle Tribune.

Allow me to quote the story. Please note that there is no author listed on the page.

METHUEN – Police are investigating an armed robbery at the TD Bank at 228 Haverhill St.

A white man with a goatee robbed the bank of an unknown amount of cash at 12:15 p.m. He told the teller he had a weapon, but one was not shown, said Lt. Michael Pappalardo.

The robber, who is about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, was wearing dark pants and a dark, hoodie-style sweatshirt, he said.

The bank was closed after the robbery so police could investigate.

Every officer on duty along with state troopers working in the area responded to the bank after the robbery was reported. “It appears he slipped through,” said Pappalardo, noting officers are now “pursuing several leads.”

A picture of the robber was distributed to officers on duty at 1:50 p.m.

It’s weird.  My wife and I have been to that bank.  I have never had a personal connection to a bank robbery before.  It feels sort of weird.  Let’s hope we don’t get this feeling again, eh?

photo haverhillstreet_zps5d0d153a.jpg

ADDENDUM
The Methuen Police Department released this photo of the suspect. I don’t know if it will be blocked if I post it here or not, but it’s worth a try.

Two Days, Nine Hours, and 54 Minutes

Two days, nine hours, and 54 minutes to go until the start of the 2013 RPM Challenge.  I have done nothing to prepare.  Here is an off the top of my head to-do list to prepare for my sixth attempt at completing the challenge:

Practice my guitar.  I have no calluses on my finger tips.  Pain is inevitable.

Decide on the platform I want to focus on.  Last year I ended up doing the whole thing on my iPad.  I think I want to go back and forth between the iPad and the Mac this time.  I expect the bulk of the writing and rhythm section tracking to be done on the iPad, but I also think I want to expand a little in an attempt to make the drum tracks sound a little more adventurous.  On the Mac I can move stray notes around so that they sound in time without messing with the quantize settings.  I want drum fills that are faster than just 16th notes.

Put the MacMini in the cellar back together.  I had moved a lot of computer equipment around a few months ago and the MacMini was taken apart.  I plan on using that to record vocals at least.  I still want to run my mic through my Mackie board so that I can EQ my crappy voice.  I’m not able to do that if I plug directly into the iPad.  I went through the board into the iPad last time and it worked, but I would like the added flexibility of working on a full GarageBand for vocals.  In Theory at least.

Clean the workspace in the cellar.  It’s a mess down there.  Really.

Test the lightning cable adapter on my New iPad.  Wouldn’t it suck if the adapter didn’t work and I couldn’t plug external sources into the New iPad?  Yes, it would suck.

If I plug into the JamUp app, can I record into GarageBand?  I’m 99.999% sure I cannot, but it is still worth looking into.

Sign up for FAWM.  Really.  I signed up for RPM last week, but the FAWM website is not going to open until tomorrow.  It’s going through a complete redesign.  While I’m on the topic, the website is fawm.org.  NOT fawm.com.  You don’t want to go to fawm.com.  Trust me.

Find some inspiration.  I was thinking about using the founders of the towns of Methuen, MA and Salem, NH as characters somehow.  I doubt I will though.  I’ll probably just write another 10 songs about my cat.

I’m sure I’ll think of 100 things to add to this list between now and the start of February, but for now this is enough.  And by enough I mean enough to make me start musically panicking.

Important Reading Material

I finished Derek Sanderson’s book “Crossing the Line” today.  I had planned on reading Terry Francona’s book on the Red Sox next, but I thought I’d read something off of the sports biography topic first to sort of clear the pallet .

Must Read

I figure I should read this carefully. You know… just in case.

I’m not too Excited

I’m not too excited, am I?  I am going to see Rush the day after my birthday!

WOOHOO!

Rush 7-5-08 Saratoga Springs, NY 115

Rush 7-5-08 Saratoga Springs, NY 401

Rush 7-5-08 Saratoga Springs, NY 920

Rush 7-5-08 Saratoga Springs, NY 1002

Rush @ Manchester 7-11-08 220

Rush @ Manchester 7-11-08 191

Rush @ Manchester 7-11-08 064

Rush @ Manchester 7-11-08 027

2010-09-14 - Rush at TD Garden 1176

2010-09-14 - Rush at TD Garden 1156

2010-09-14 - Rush at TD Garden 1276

2010-09-14 - Rush at TD Garden 341

photo

photo

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Yeah, so I’ve probably posted all of these before. So what. I’m freakin’ giddy right now. If you don’t like it, go screw.

Just over three months to go!

Success!

Ticketmaster is a bitch.

I logged in ahead of time so that I would be all ready for the 10:00 start.  I also entered my credit card onto my account so that I wouldn’t have to enter it later.

When my clock struck 10:00 I refreshed the event page and discovered that ticketmaster’s clock is behind mine.  Figures.  I refreshed again and got into the sale.  The first thing it did was a friggin’ captcha.  I hate those things.  There has to be a way for the system to know I am a human, rather than me having to prove it.  Get on that, would you please ticketmaster?  Each new page had a timer on it.  The captcha page’s was two minutes.  Stressful, eh?

Finally I get to a page that actually offers me tickets.  Of course they are nose bleeds, right?  I know there were presales galor, and I know it’s a casino so the high rollers will get the very front, but I am as far away as you can get.  Does ticketmaster start selling from the back these days?

I chose to buy the tickets and it asks me to sign in.  Didn’t I just sign in?  I even reset my password so I wouldn’t have to struggle with it.  I entered my newly reset password and of course it failed.  Blow me.  I enter it again, it failed again.  I enter the old password and it fails as well.  I click to create an account and go through 20 steps only to be told that my account already exists and I get prompted for the password again.  I chose to reset the password and finally get in.  All of that happened while the 5 minute timer was ticking down.

Now I am signed in and I have my tickets selected and what does it do?  Asks me to reenter my credit card for verification.  Are you kidding me?  I entered my credit card literally minutes before, now I have to enter it again.  Assholes.  Okay, so now I have my credit card reentered.  What next?  I click the button to complete the transaction.  Finally.  It asks me what credit card I want to use.  Are you kidding?  I only have one in the account and I have entered it twice already, now I have to select it from a drop down.  Okay, okay.

Now I am at the screen that shows me my purchase and gives me one more chance to back out.  I am about to click purchase when I notice a little tiny field, buried in a mess of related sales offers (no I don’t want a t-shirt or anything else you are bundling with my precious Rush tickets) that asks for the little security number on the back of the credit card.  Really?  Why the hell isn’t that field filled when you enter the effing card, and why the hell isn’t it right at the top of the page with all of the actually important information?  Well, bullet dodged, thinks I, and I fill in the field and click purchase.

Next ticketmaster tells me they have to verify my card with my bank and that they will be taking me off of ticketmaster.com and sending me to my bank’s site.  What the hell is this?  Fortunately the processes was automated and all I had to do was watch my screen redirect five or six times.  All while the clock is ticking.

Finally… Finally, I get to the screen telling me that my transaction is complete and that Jen, the love of my life, and I will get to see my all time favorite band again.

That was way too much work.  Was it better than standing in line outside of a strawberries or tower records or newbury comics?  Maybe, but I bet I would have gotten much better seats if I had stood in line.

Aw, who cares.  We’re going to see Rush!

2010-09-14 - Rush at TD Garden 363

Archer

I just got myself caught up on my current favorite animated television show, Archer. I nearly choked myself laughing.  While being attacked by a KGB hit squad, Sterling Archer yelled out, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Stalin!”

How can you not consider that the funniest show ever?