Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Riders On The Storm rode in on a storm and took Lockport by storm.

While rainy weather threatened to dampen the concert, rain up until nearly the start of the show didn’t stop it from going on. The weather Gods relented and the rain blew by leaving the Ulrich City Center cool and clean as the sun poked through the clouds. Only a short delay of about a half hour as tarps were removed from the stage and the sixth Canal Concert of 2008 was off.

The number of concert goers was up from all previous weeks, at least judging by the early turn-out. When Mo Porter Band took the stage, they had a sizeable crowd ready for their show. And the crowd was ready for the Buffalo band’s bluesy rock sound. They played a number of original, well written songs. I hadn’t seen them play before, but I was impressed and hope to see thm play again. They have a CD which was available at the show, but I didn’t see any ordering information on their website, so you’ll have to get to a show if you want one. Continue Reading…

If a gang of burglars were caught robbing a department store one night, you’d say to throw the book at them. You’d be glad they were caught and think the Police were doing a great job and be happy for the store stopping a loss that raises costs and prices for all of us, right?

But what if you found out that the persons caught stealing from the store found the door unlocked and just helped themselves? Maybe you wouldn’t feel so sympathetic toward the store with the inept security. Maybe you’d feel that, while it was still wrong to take something from the store, those who did were lured into doing it by the open door. Maybe you’d wonder if you wanted to do business with the store.

Well, that’s exactly the situation with the recent arrests and indictment of 11 people who got caught stealing millions of credit card numbers from a bunch of major name retail companies through their wide-open wireless network. Apparently, they put in wireless network equipment and left it unencrypted, leaving them with less security than I use for my home network. Continue Reading…

Happy Olympics. I’m almost as tired of the countdown of how many days until the Olympics start as I am of the warnings about analog TV going the way of the dinosaurs.

Somehow, I can’t get all that excited about the Beijing Olympics. I can’t name one star athlete from any country going to them, despite all the hype and articles in the paper and on TV. By next week, it’ll be just one more week of nothing worth watching…

Just a quick post… today the TV news announced that the major sponsor of the Saturday concerts in North Tonawanda, Labatts Brewing, had withdrawn from the concert series. That pretty much seals the deal for ending the shows for the rest of the season.

Well, at least they still have the Wednesday and Friday concerts. That ought to be enough for any city, right?

In fact, that’s downright greedy. There is a certain synergy between these concerts, offering free shows to bring people into a certain place. Buffalo has Thursday at The Square. Lockport has the Molson Concerts on Friday. Lewiston has Jazz on Mondays. Artpark has, well Tuesday and Wednesday… NT had Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Continue Reading…