Friday night I saw the Smashing Pumpkins play an awesome show at the Fillmore (the indoor venue of the Music Factory complex) in Charlotte. I’m not sure how Cheecho felt (he and Moxie accompanied Tali and I), but I know my doubts about the band (Billy Corgan is the only remaining original) were swept away by the performance. Most impressive to me was the young replacement of all-time great drummer Jimmy Chamberlin who Corgan fired from the band last year. Mike Byrne, all of 20-years old, was more than adequate backing Corgan’s signature vocals with the thundering, driving beats so often associated with Chamberlin.

As an added bonus, the opening bands did a great job of getting the crowd going. Bad Town was my favorite. Apparently that’s either a completely new band name or they have only existed for a week because I can’t find anything about them on the internet. Correction, the band was called Bad City…which would explain the lack of information on the web. Thank to CC for pointing this out to me. In any case, they were a totally over the top, straight-out-of-the-’80s band reminiscent of The Darkness (also one of my favorite bands of yesteryear). The lead singer worked the stage with some mic-as-weapon moves, the guitarists combined for a few synchronized solos (duos?), and the drummer kept the energy up. Unfortunately, as the opening act, they weren’t treated to the same technical support as second act Kill Hannah, not to mention the Pumpkins. The volume was too low to do them justice and the lights were static, but they still rocked it out the best they could.

There’s nothing like a good concert to get the musical juices flowing. The next day I dusted off the ole drumset and played along to a few Smashing Pumpkins tunes. One of my favorites, Doomsday Clock, comes off their newest album Zeitgeist. I’m not sure about the merits of the song as a whole, but it has a cool solo I’d tried to figure out for the longest time a year ago and gave up. I tackled it again yesterday and mastered it! It’s strange how a common beat shifted a sixteenth forward and backward can totally warp your mind. The beginning two measure solo is cool, but wasn’t too hard to figure out. I struggled to get the part at 23 seconds in. It’s subtle but sweet. Check it out above.

The problem: Creating unique file names isn’t that big of an issue. Just set the file name to some kind of concatenation based on the current time…

The problem arises when a user edits a form already in the library. When they save the form after making their edits, the form gets added as a unique row (with a new name based on the current time) as opposed to updating the edited row.

The solution: Set up some clever rules in the form’s submit rules (Tools -> Submit Options -> Perform custom action using rules)

Just follow the well-written instructions in this forum reply from my boy J_A_G.
Nice!
Wow, I just noticed how cluttered my Wordpress theme looks. Gonna have to put in some work to make that…Nice!

This blog has always been riddled with inconsistency and I haven’t posted anything of substance in over 5 months. And now I’m shifting the focus…or maybe I’m just giving focus to what was an addled mishmash of unrelated material. I’m a Sharepoint developer by trade and one of the things Sharepoint developers do is write and read blogs. My cohort/colleague/mentor/taskmaster Lloyd Faulkner has been pushing me to blog about my struggles and successes with Sharepoint for some time now. I’m finally caving.
For those few friends and acquaintances that stumble across my blog and have no interest in Sharepoint, I hope to separate out the content into a different area of the site eventually. So if you’re visiting the site for amusing but woefully dated youtube videos or attempting to expand your vocabulary go suck a lemon…or just pick through the categories links to find what you’re looking for.

We need an improveverywhere cell in Charlotte.

Definition: noun one who eats foods grown locally whenever possible

Etymology: local + -vore (as in carnivore)

Quotation: “While he is steeped in all matters locavore and was a moving force behind the White House garden, Mr. Kass has no formal culinary training and has never run a restaurant or hotel kitchen.”
- from a New York Times article about the White House’s young, politically motivated chef

These days with the wonders of DVR I find myself captivated by Iron Chef America. The kitschy theatrics are all good and well (and not half as bad as the original Iron Chef), but I’m genuinely entertained by watching master chefs do their thing. Add to that the helpful commentary from my boy Alton Brown and you have a genuine learning experience…something any self-respecting nerd can’t resist. Unfortunately, I’ve never come across this word on the show. Thankfully, there is the trusty standby NYTimes.com to fill in the knowledge gap.

I’m not really sure what drew me to an article whose headline read “No Apologies From the Boss of a No-Frills Airline“. In any case, I’m glad I read it because it led me to the above youtube clip. This guy (the CEO of a super low-fare airline based in Ireland) is talking about expanding to trans-Atlantic flights and moving to a two-tier pricing system: economy and business class. The rest is just funny.

This weekend I consumed some rather disturbing media. The Saturday New York Times ran a story about the looming robot apocalypse. Below the first photo in the article is the caption: “This personal robot plugs itself in when it needs a charge. Servant now, master later?” This is the stuff of conspiracy theories. The story itself is interesting and thought-provoking, but you just can’t help getting goosebumps thinking about a real-life, modern-day Terminator scenario.
Secondly, I listened to a This American Life podcast distributed by NPR. The show from 7/10/09 featured a story about a man who committed a crime and, when faced with 5-7 years of prison time, started looking for alternatives. Inmates at the prison suggested he pass himself off as a lunatic and thus get moved to a cushy psychiatric ward. The man, Tony, mimicked scenes from various psycho-thriller movies (Clockwork Orange, Blue Velvet) to the desired effect. What he didn’t anticipate was how difficult it would be to get out of an insane asylum. He was assigned to the Broadmoor asylum, a place for the worst psychologically ill offenders in all of England. When he tried to convince doctors that he was actually perfectly sane and had only pretended to be mentally unstable they just took that as a sign that he was really ill. Apart from the story itself, there’s something very creepy about the guy on the radio telling the story. I’m sure it was unintended, but he sounds eerily similar to Old Gregg.

A classic Slappy the Squirrel episode from The Animaniacs…one of my favorite shows as a child.

Holy crap…I gotta get these DVDs.

I’ve never heard of a Tom Swifty, but I like it. It’s hard to describe these clever little puns without just going into an example.

“I manufacture table tops,” said Tom counterproductively.

Table top = counter, manufacture = productive…get it? The New York Times is running a competition this weekend to find the best, most witty Tom Swifty. Can you top my entry:

“Who knew a billboard in a bog could be so beautiful?” he asked admiringly.