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Continuing on with lists. I know these are lame blog posts, but it’s helping me get my writing ability back, and it’s also basically all that I have time for at the moment.

In no particular order (an * denotes that I’ve seen them multiple times). For the most part I’ve excluded opening acts unless they were noteworthy. I’m also excluding some bands I might have seen at festivals like the Horde Festival or Lollapalooza.

Phish*
Blues Traveler*
Dave Matthews Band*
David Gray*
George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars
Sonic Youth*
The Allman Brothers
Beck*
Sasha
John Digweed
Seb Fontaine
David Seamen
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Van Dyk*
The Verve
Massive Attack
Coolio
The Fugees
J-Live
Digable Planets
Bjork
Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra
Train
Coldplay
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
No Doubt

I’m sure that I’m missing quite a few shows that I’ve seen but this is all I can remember right now. If you didn’t figure it out, I meandered through various musical tastes along the way that started with a slightly hippie-esque following (BT, DMB, Phish, etc.), transitioned into grunge, then a random whatever was at my college at the time period, followed by a trance phase, and then settling into pattern of rarely seeing shows and when I did they’d be something I really wanted to see (Coldplay, Wynton Marsalis, Bjork, et. al.).

Bands I’d love to see live

The Stone Roses
Pink Floyd
Radiohead (this one might actually happen someday as the others on this list are no-longer together)

Movies I’ve Seen this year (and mini reviews to go with them)

• Juno - entertaining but a little too snarky for my liking
• Cloverfield - loved the action and fast pace but gave me motion sickness
• Smart People - totally sucked - just like I figured it would
• Made of Honor - watch you’d expect it to be, a total chick-flick, light and fluffy, guy gets girl, predictable but worth it for getting kudos with the wife.

Needless to say, I haven’t seen many movies this year and haven’t really liked any of the ones I’ve seen so far. I am looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight and Wall-E. I’m not a huge superhero fan so Iron Man and Hulk don’t really interest me. Batman Begins was a recent favorite of mine so I have high hopes for The Dark Knight. As for what else is due this year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Righteous Kill look worth seeing. I’ll pretty much watch any movie that has both Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in it. If there’s a new Harry Potter movie this year, I’d like to see that as well.

Music I’ve bought and liked recently

• Viva la Vida
• a couple of early Cafe Del Mar compilations - I got hooked on volume 5 and picked up a few more along the way. The newer ones aren’t all that great, in fact, the whole series went downhill after Jose Padilla stopped compiling them. But they are great for relaxing to and especially with a baby at home, we find them indispensable around bedtime. I had volumes 3, 5, 6 and 7, so I back filled with volumes 1, 2 and 4. Volume 1 has a very raw sound reminiscent of electronic music from the mid-late 90’s but both 2 and 4 are really great!
• Ellington Live at Newport 1956 - absolutely wonderful
• Cinematic Orchestra - Live at Royal Albert Hall - Having purchased previous live albums by them, I knew this would be good, and sure enough, it is!

For the past week or so, my host has been having a lot of problems with email. Last week I went two days without an inbound email and today the problem occurred again. It’s been incredibly annoying to not know who sent messages, how many were missed, when the messages finally will come in.

They were able to fix the problem last week and I did get most of my mail. Some even trickled in despite the problems. But today was an all out blackout. That is, until about 5pm. At 5pm the floodgates opened and all my email for the day arrived in my inbox.

And I was surprised at how much more enjoyable email was this way. Then I remembered GTD and how the system recommends for you to cut down on how often you read email. And I think I understand why. It might be time for me to read the book now. Ironically, I wrote this about a month ago about GTD:

I’m remarkably able to keep on top of things at work, only 12 emails in my inbox right now, but in my personal life, I’m a mess. Me with the 119 open tabs in Firefox, 168 unlistened to podcasts, 1000+ mailing list emails, and several long time voicemails not returned. And a pile of about 12-15 books I want to read. The good news: only 3 things on my DVR right now, but most of that is thanks to the summer TV schedule.

I did find an inspiring nugget recently. I’m reading The Dip by Seth Godin. It’s a tiny little book, but it contains a solid message. “Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other.”

What I’m having a problem with is that I’m passionate about a lot of things, probably too many things. And I’m drowning in them. It’s a good drowning, I really love these things. But do I love one less than the others to quit? Time management appeals to me, but I’m just not about to focus on anything in the 4-Hour Work Week or GTD kind of way. They just seem so robotic and that’s just not me. One day I’m the UX guy, the next day a music guy, the next day a wine guy, and then a stock market guy. I float between these passions, fulfilling whatever part of me is most in need.

Ultimately, it doesn’t bother me all that much that those things are there and seemingly too large to tackle. But I’ve given up on trying to get there as a goal, it’s just too hard. Would I love to have fewer unlistened to podcasts in my iTunes? Sure i would, but then what would I listen to?