Al's Blog-o-Sphere

After the North Tonawanda Police cited vendors at the Gateway Park concert two weeks ago, the State Liquor Authority has pulled the liquor license putting the event in jeparody for the rest of the season and forcing the promoters to move this weeks headline act to Buffalo. [Tonawanda News article]

The story really begins–like much misery in my life–with the overzealous North Tonawanda Police Department. A few weeks back they dispatched an underage, undercover girl to buy beer at one of the Labatt Blue Light canal concerts. The dumbass working the tap sold the girl beer, and as a result, the state liquor authority revoked the promoters’ alcohol license, making it impossible to raise enough money to pay Mr. Hornsby’s appearance fee. While the NT police still haven’t caught the Booby Bandit that has been loose in the city for the last week, they wrapped up “The Case of the Girl We Hired To Buy Beer” lickety-split. [Middleman web site]

Continue Reading…

Another great concert this Friday and this time all of the billed acts were there. Opening the show was Lockport’s own Handsome Jack who had a good sized crowd of early arrivers to cheer them on. They put on a great show with their own unique updated version of 70’s hard rock. I love their stuff. Continue Reading…

My friend, Scott Leffler, will agree with that statement, I’m sure. Let me explain why I’m mad and why I make that statement.

All over the news today has been New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, who made a special trip to Buffalo to announce what he’s been doing to curb child pornography and while he was at it, take time to take a cheap shot at one of the few locally-run technology companies we have, Localnet.

First of all, let me say, I don’t support child pornography, or any form of pornography, in any way. No one is, or at least will admit in public that they are. That’s one of the techniques politicians use to gain support for their personal agenda, though. They take a sacred cow, like child porn, or breast cancer, and use it as a cloak to wrap their real purposes in and get a knee-jerk response in their favor from the majority of the people who don’t take the time to really look at what they are doing. Continue Reading…

First of all, if you’re not up for some serious geekiness, tune out now…

I’ve spent the last few days building up an new computer. Did I need one? Probably not, but this one is unlike any I’ve made before in several ways and it didn’t cost a whole lot either. It’s, so far, turned out well, though not without some tribulations along the way.

Here’s a photo of the finished CPU. It is the smallest computer I’ve built. It’s a Mini-ITX formfactor with a motherboard only about 8 inches square. Continue Reading…