Al's Blog-o-Sphere

I just drove through Downtown Lockport (3:30PM) and witnessed the preparations for the first of the Molson Concerts. It’s already looking interesting and the excitement is palpable.

Many vendors are already setting up and open. Parking lots all over are ready. I still think they are a bit high on their prices which were $7-$10 dollars. The free lots will be in high demand!

Sound checks were going on as I drove down Walnut Street and a lot of people were already walking around the area. Traffic was noticeably slower than usual on Walnut and I can see it being gridlock later. Main St. wasn’t bad, though. Continue Reading…

The efforts of Lockport’s City Fathers to pass a sign ordinance regulating what businesses can and can’t have for a sign reminds me of the Malvina Reynolds song Little Boxes:

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

[dewplayer:http://gritzmacher.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/malvina-reynolds-little-boxes.mp3]

While the song was about suburban architechture on the surface, the conformity this ordinance is attempting to impose fits just as well. Continue Reading…

… for Melissa.

Hamster Gets Owned

Just sitting here thinking. That can be dangerous…

I’m not a big user of instant messaging, IM. I’ve had accounts on most of the IM networks, from ICQ years ago, to MySpace IM, a pointless exercise, and all those in between – AIM, Y! MSN etc.

I stopped installing all those – or any of those – networks clients when I found Trillian, a program that connects to all of them at once. It was kind of cool seeing all those little colored dots light up to tell you they were connected. Continue Reading…