What made the show even more special was this was only the fourth show performed with new Smashing Pumpkins drummer Mike Byrne. I was initially skeptical - the kid is 19 and looks 12. But he is a major talent, and I shot this video of him in action:

I cornered him after the show to congratulate him on his new gig and also to express my admiration. He said he was very appreciative of the support everyone was showing and just kind of seemed overwhelmed by the fact that he just hit the musical jackpot. Very nice and humble kid, and I hope he stays that way. I also became very aware of my playing fanboy to a kid almost half my age so I wished him well and left him alone.

But the most-talked about figure after the show was guitarist Dave Navarro (Jane's Addiction and briefly, the Chili Peppers), who basically seduced the entire female half of the audience. Probably some of the guys as well.

One other amazing item: Billy Corgan actually smiling:

More pics of the show are at Palm Springs Metromix.

That's right. 2 - 0 - 3.

Suck on that, Donny Kerabatsos.

Not bad for someone who bowls once every two years or so.

And for those interested, "Z" is Sharon and "D" is her boyfriend David. "CF" is Debz. Anyone care to guess the abbreviation?

I've been thinking about taking most of this down for awhile, but I've recently encountered an unpleasant individual through my job as a blog and forum administrator who seems to have done a fair amount of research into my personal life. While I don't think this guy is going to show up at anyone's door with a chainsaw, it was the tipping point. So all that's left are some travel posts and a few random posts that make me chuckle.

Besides, I haven't really written anything new recently, and my site has become static and outdated. I do plan to rejuvenate it relatively soon. As what, I don't really know, but I have some ideas.

I'm on Facebook so you can find me there if you haven't already.

B-dogg out.

It was impossible to resist the lure of Joshua Tree National Park after a foot of snow.

I love this place. If the commute to Palm Springs wasn't so far, I'd live in the high desert. More photos - some with snow, some without - from Joshua Tree here.

Despite our adventures in the sky, we had a great time:

More photos here.

My best personal WTF customer service account came when I was working as the online editor at The Island Packet. The newspaper printed a opinion piece by Andy Rooney from a wire service. This is a condensed paraphrase of an e-mail exchange between myself and a reader:

Reader: Please send me Andy Rooney's e-mail address.

Me: You can contact Mr. Rooney via the "60 Minutes" section of the CBS web site.

Reader: No, it will be answered by a secretary, and he'll never see it. Give me his personal e-mail address, the one he checks at home.

Me: Sorry, but we don't have that. We just pulled one of his columns from the wire to fill space.

Reader: Don't give me that crap. Andy Rooney's column was in your paper. It didn't just magically appear there. I'm sure you got it from him over e-mail. I need his e-mail address.

Me: Sir, we're a tiny little paper in South Carolina, 1500 miles away from New York, Mr. Rooney's column came over a wire service we subscribe to. One of the editors saw it and used it. We never contacted Mr. Rooney during any of this so I don't know what his e-mail address is.

Reader: That's bullshit! Give me Andy Rooney's personal e-mail address RIGHT NOW or I will call your boss!

Me: andyrooney@hotmail.com

Reader: THANK YOU! Now was that so hard?

Yesterday, I learned another lesson: My full cereal bowl does not go on the bed where the cat makes his usually graceful landing when leaping up from the floor.

This is the reason we stopped feeding the cats in the morning.

]]> http://www.briandearth.com/2008/02/wakeup_call.html http://www.briandearth.com/2008/02/wakeup_call.html Kittens Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:25:28 -0800

I could write a long-winded travelogue about the trip to New Zealand, but it would take a long time and none of you probably would read the whole thing. Plus, I'm lazy. Looky! Here's a picture instead: It's Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables range near Queenstown.

But here, in convenient bulleted form, is what we did - and didn't - do in the land of the Kiwi.

DID:

• Hike 82 kilometers in less than four days on the Heaphy Track with 14 kilograms of pack on my back. In American, that's 51 miles and 31 pounds.

• Get several dated pop songs stuck in my head on the hike: "Livin' on a Prayer" (mostly the line "Who-oa, we're halfway there" whenever I thought we reached the halfway point to the next milestone), "Purple Rain" (it rained a lot), "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers (that chick really better be worth the blisters, sore feet and destroyed knees) and "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car" (this one kind of defies explanation).

• Visit four national parks: Kahurangi, Paparoa, Fiordland and Abel Tasman.

• Visit five airports (these were less inspiring): Auckland, Nelson, Christchurch, Hokitika and Queenstown.

• Kayak three days, two in Doubtful Sound and one in Abel Tasman National Park.

• Eat very well, including some New Zealand specialties: lamb, venison, blue cod. Yum.

• Spend a lot of money. This is easy because New Zealand notes are colorful and there are birds on them so they don't look like real money.

• See two Maori shows and learn to pronounce correctly the Maori geographical names of the places we visited.

• Enjoy the hilarity of "Flight of the Conchords."

• Learn that Kiwis are not as uptight as Americans. This was confirmed by the Auckland airport's televisions all being tuned to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," f-bombs, boobs and all.

• Feed eels at the National Kiwi Centre in Hokitika, a facility of such renowned international fame that its operators do not even deem it necessary to have a web site.

• Discuss U.S. politics with several Kiwis who were very well-educated about such matters. It seems they don't much care for the current administration. None of them, however, could remember Rudy Giuliani's name; he was just "the 9/11 guy from New York."

• Take a bunch of photos, most of which do not do justice but will be posted at some point anyway.

• Decide to adopt the New Zealand national motto: No worries.

DID NOT:

• Eat chutney, vegemite, haggis or any of the other nasty-ass "food" the Brits imported into New Zealand.

• Touch a computer the entire time I was in the country (save for two minutes in Auckland to make a bank transfer).

• Know whether the Bears won or lost their last two games. I did, however, watch South Africa destroy England for the rugby World Cup championship. It was 15-6 for those of you scoring at home.

• Tip at restaurants. It's not the custom because wait staff actually gets paid a decent wage. This, unfortunately, is reflected in the food prices.

• Shave. But I did that once I got home so I no longer look like I just got voted off "Survivor."

• Think about work.

• Drive. Although I wanted to take a crack at that drive-on-the-left concept.

• Have any exposure to news, except for two newspaper clippings of most of southern California on fire and the last couple of innings of the Red Sox knocking off the Rockies in Game 4 (sorry, Morgan).

• Kayak in Milford Sound. Unfortunately, an avalanche closed the road that leads there.

• Kill anything, despite a sign at a youth outdoor camp in Fiordland that taught us "Conservation in New Zealand is about killing things." (For the record, I did not put my hand in the trap.)

• Succumb to the urge to skip the return flight. This was a struggle.

I have:

For the record, that would be the Howard Johnson in Hotel Circle in San Diego.

I don't know what happened to Homer's arm. It was like that when I got there. Really. I didn't steal it. What would I do with just an arm?

She was delivered Monday, July 2 at 10:35 a.m. weighing 5.1 pounds with 2 full GB of RAM. Beautiful, no?

(And look! In the background of the photo, you'll notice a creature testing the boundaries of what I call "The Dismemberment Zone." Don't be fooled by the innocent look; that is pure destruction in feline disguise.)

The MacBook does not yet have a playmate in the form of an iPhone. I had the opportunity to analyze one at an Apple Store last weekend, and I think it lived up to the hype. However, before I could finish my research, a certain someone physically dragged me away, muttering something like "You want an iPhone or a wife? 'Cause you're not getting both."

When I arrived, I zeroed in on the tub, which was stuck in a corner next to a couch. I didn't even look at the man sitting on the couch. As started to step over him, he said, "There's no more water in there. It's over there," and pointed a few feet away.

"Thanks," I said to Colin Meloy of the Decemberists.

About three hours later, he and his band put on one of the finest musical performances I've ever witnessed:

I'd write more and offer a few more pics, but I'm tired and only two-thirds of the way through the fest. I'm contributing to a blog for work so you can read that instead.

I've recently accumulated a lot of new knowledge: dirty socks don't go on the floor, empty plates don't go on the chair and kittens don't go in the bathtub.

I remember the first time this question was posed to me. I answered, "Yes, that is where that goes." Big mistake, and one I will not repeat.

Whenever this question is asked, an immediate answer and subsequent correction is required. However, I'm never given any other information to solve the dilemma. Once the question is asked, say about the phone's current location on the dryer in the garage, I quickly deduce that, indeed, that's NOT where the phone goes. But where does the phone go?

And every time I think I've learned where everything goes, I'm always surprised by something new. For example, soda cans are not to be left on the bathroom sink, and scissors are not to be stored in the area of the couch where Deborah sits.

Each day brings an exciting new fact for me to learn! I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

And a radical new video game was infiltrating the country's youth. It was called Pole Position, and if this commercial doesn't want to make you scour Ebay for a 2600 console, I don't know what will.

Aspiring ad executives take note... this has perhaps the most attention-grabbing opening line in television advertising history.