Good Whiskey Wednesday, Bar Flies!  I hope this post finds you all quite well.  If not, you may be worse by the end of it.

It comes as no surprise that health care is going the way of the politicians.  No one from either party is truly interested in overhauling the health insurance industry, mandating that health insurers follow proper guidelines and don’t screw over patients and doctors, and making sure that Americans have access to health insurance.

I was having a conversation last night with Jack.  We’re considering doing Podcasts of our conversations as I’m sure they would be entertaining at the very least.  I, coming from a patient’s perspective, thought it would cost more money to send a patient to the emergency room than it would to send the same patient to their doctor’s office.

Jack disabused me of that particular notion real quick.  If I were an uninsured person and went to my doctor’s office, I would pay about $100 for a regular visit.  As the same uninsured individual and went to the emergency room, I would pay a great deal more.

But the insurance companies have the opposite problem.  Due to various contracts and negotiations between insurance companies and hospitals, it’s cheaper for your insurance company to pay an emergency room to see you for, say a hacking cough that keeps you up at night, than to send you to a doctor, even one out of network where  you would pay a greater percentage of the bill.

This is one of the big problems with health care today.  The insurance companies make their own rules and screw over doctors and patients in multiple ways.  They have a bigger monopoly on screwing than the porn industry!

And is Congress doing dick all about it?  No, they’re too busy playing politics.  Joe Lieberman is saying “no, no, no” to anything with a whiff of a public option.  Senate Republicans are declaring a “holy war” on universal health care (and basically health care in general).

Evidently, caring about your constituents has become passé.  Congress should be stripped of their health insurance until they can adequately over-haul the system and insure access to health insurance.

As far as universal health care goes, why not?  Yes, it will be expensive, but we can mitigate the cost by making sure patients have to pay a certain percentage of their care.  Also, we can make it solely for those without access to health insurance through their employers or other group options.

You know what else would make it cheaper?  If health insurance companies were forced to stream line procedures, quit making it impossible for doctors to actually be doctors and take care of their patients, and start paying for what they said they would pay for.

When is Congress going to put down the whiskey (I know, hard to believe I’m saying it) and actually help this country out of this health insurance fiasco?

So in keeping with that blog I did on interesting bacon products I found this one on another site. I just wanted to feature it once again. Man, bacon seems to be everywhere.

Now playing: jmvdono

A radio documentary about Paula Stone and the AQVA – L’Association quebecoise de voile adaptee – recorded on location at the Point Claire Yacht Club in Montreal

Those who are wondering how they can can increase their profile views, receive more messages, and significantly raise their chances of landing a date on Zoosk should maybe consider requesting and publishing friend testimonials on their Date Card! Testimonials are awesome and really speak a lot about you, especially on an online dating site.

What’s a testimonial? A testimonial is a short blurb from a friend or acquaintance that says something positive about you. We publish third party testimonials on Zoosk because testimonials are a great way to give potential matches more information about you from people who know you. It gives someone who looks at your profile the chance to hear something nice about you from a third party. Because this information is coming from a source who knows personally, it gives credibility to the fact that those great things they say about you are true. It’s uncouth to brag openly about yourself, so why not have one of your friends brag about you on your behalf?

If you’re wondering about how the get testimonials for your Date Card, read on for step-by-step instructions! Log into Zoosk and go to your Date Card tab. At the very bottom, below where you enter your favorite music, movies, and books, you’ll see bold text that says “Testimonials”. If you do not have any testimonials, the page will say, “You do not have any testimonials” and show a link that asks you to invite your friends to offer testimonials for you. Click this link to get testimonials! It will take you to the next page, screenshot below.

Clicking “Invite friends to get more testimonials!” will take you to a page that looks like the image above. You can invite people from your email networks, like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live, and AOL. All you need to do is enter your email login name and password and click “Continue.” Zoosk does not store any passwords. This feature uses the same technology that helps you locate contacts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social networking sites and doesn’t store any of your or your contacts’ information. Once you click continue, the screen will pull up a list of your contacts. You can choose specific contacts and send them a request. Your contacts do not have to be Zoosk or Facebook members.

You can also invite people straight from Facebook. On the same page there will be a link, highlighted in yellow, that says “Invite your Facebook friends to write testimonials for you”. Click that link and you will see your Facebook friends pop up on the next page. Simply choose which friends you’d like to get testimonials from.

If you would prefer not to upload your Facebook friends or to load your Gmail or Yahoo Mail contacts, or if you use a different email server that isn’t listed on the sidebar, you can invite  your friends to send their testimonials by directly typing in their email addresses into the system. We then automatically send testimonial invites to their inbox. Click the link that says “or type in your friends email addresses” and you will be directed to a page that looks like the screenshot below.

Put your emails in the blanks and click “Invite Now.” You’re done!

Once they’ve written a testimonial for you, you’ll get an email at the same address you use to log into Zoosk (if you use Zoosk as a FB application, this will be at the same email address you use to log into Facebook). This is the same email where you get all the other Zoosk notifications, like notices about messages and updates on our site. The email will look just like the screencap below.

The testimonial your friend submitted will be now on your Zoosk Date Card. It will be on the side bar, to the left of your personal information. See?

Doesn’t it look great? Now potential Zooskers will be able to read awesome tidbits and compliments about you from your friends. What better way to advertise what a great catch you are than to get a testimonial from someone who knows you already? Get a testimonial today!

Miss Geo is a new singer/songwriter from Rhode Island over there in the States. When I first heard some of the tracks off her debut long player The Story, I could’ve sworn she was a local. You listen to her music and tell me you’re not reminded of Frente! (For those that aren’t Aussie or don’t know who Frente! are, they were a massive Australian pop band that were big here about 15 years ago or so. Produced really great pop music).

Miss Geo’s real name is Abby Gutierrez, and calls her music a mix of indie pop, new wave, and electro with a few “cunning lyrics” put in for good measure. She plans on touring sometime in 2010, presumably in the states. For any other info, check out her website, or her MySpace. This is one to watch out for, and I definitely recommend checking out her album.

Anyway, this is probably a standout off the album. It’s called Broken Wrists and this is the track that reminded me of Frente! the most.

Miss Geo – Broken Wrists

(iTunes, BigCartel)

K. That’ll do the ramble for now.

According to this report, the cost of solar energy will halve by the end of 2009.

Justin Blows

There are two ways to import tables. The simpler way is go to Tools > Durkin Toolkit and click on the Setup Wizard button in the bottom left hand corner. Click the Next button and on the following page click the I have my own template button and select the zip file. Click the Next button and then click the Install Now button.  This will select all the table structure and all of the settings. 

The way with more options is go to Tools > Durkin Toolkit and click on the Import Settings button and select the zip file containing the settings. In the custom tables list box check the tables you wan to import like below and check which table

Which settings to import can be selected also.

By now we can probably all agree that the iPhone is the Model T, the Sputnik, the Lawrence Taylor of the mobile technology realm. We are still waiting for the offenses to adapt, the competition to catch up.

Some of us are losing patience.

I have spent the last few weeks speaking with mobile technology researchers about hardware and software innovations that could, within two years, create a phone good enough to make the 2009 iPhone seem like a quaint relic.

The important takeaway is that the mobile devices of late 2011 might physically resemble the smartphones of today, but they will be much more computer than phone. Call it a PC, but this time it will be “personal” for real, because it will virtually never leave your person.

Today’s smartphones can do almost anything a PC could do in 2007, but in a couple of years smartphones may have enough computing power to enable much more sophisticated applications that truly take advantage of the device’s portability.

Just imagine a device with an 8-inch fold-out screen, a big virtual keyboard for easy text input, numerous sensors to detect your surroundings, and software smart enough to anticipate your needs and sharp enough to respond to conversational commands.

Open up the device, point it at the street and ask it to show you what the place looked like 200 years ago, and it offers a photo or video. Ask it where to eat lunch and it highlights a restaurant that suits your tastes. If you are heatedly debating food choices with a companion when someone of marginal importance tries to call you, the phone will know better than to interrupt.

This blue-sky, composite prediction comes with a stiff warning: forecasts with a two-year horizon are especially chancy, technologists said, since those making the predictions are often overly optimistic about emerging designs and, at the same time, blind to some of the reasons the current generation of technologies looks as it does.

But why spoil things? Here is what you may see in your next device upgrade, two years down the line.

Research and development teams at technology incubators like SRI International, PARC and MIT’s Media Lab, as well as designers and technologists at companies like Nokia, Intel and others said smartphones of the future would not look much different from those today.

But James Begole, a principal scientist at PARC, the research lab based in Palo Alto, Calif., that was formerly known as Xerox PARC, said screens, at least, would be fundamentally different. “The one hardware development I’m feeling most certain about,” he said, “is foldable displays.”

Dr. Begole, who is known as Bo, said the current availability of the Readius (Readius.com), an e-book reader with an expandable display, suggested that smartphone makers could incorporate something similar in their devices within two years.

Researchers are also experimenting with virtual keyboards, he said, to overcome the size constraints of phone-based keyboards. With these, users move their fingers over an imaginary keypad, and sensors infer the keystrokes. (See senseboard.com for an example.)

But if displays are bigger, touch-screen typing may work just fine, said Norman Winarsky, a vice president at SRI International, another technology incubator based in Palo Alto. Dr. Winarsky said SRI had created “an electroactive polymer that vibrates beneath the glass, and gives your fingers the sense of touching individual keys.”

That technology, he said, is within 24 months of reaching the market.

Henry Tirri, the Nokia senior vice president in charge of the company’s global research centers, said cellphones of the not-so-distant future would contain supersensors, like higher-quality camera lenses that will see faraway detail much more clearly than the naked eye.

(This is different from the multitude of external sensors, like heart-rate monitors, thermostat readers and others that now — or will quite soon — connect to your smartphone.)

So if you are on the street and looking toward the top of the Empire State Building with your smartphone, Dr. Tirri said, it will infer the visual elements you are interested in, and fetch close-up images from the Web.

This sort of “augmented reality” approach, as it’s known in the tech industry, could also allow users to see their surroundings as they may have appeared in another era.

Somewhat along these lines, PARC and SRI International have also spawned software that, using GPS sensors and data about the user’s past behavior or current calendar, can suggest nearby restaurants, among other things.

PARC’s software, called Magitti, is in its testing phase in Japan, and could reach the American market in the spring of next year.

SRI International’s software venture, called Siri, is more ambitious, in that it allows users to speak or write natural-language requests into the device (“Find me a place to eat dinner tonight with Karen, reserve a table and put it on our calendars.”), which will complete the task independently and inform you when it is done.

In terms of long-term predictions, Siri is actually an easy bet. Dag Kittlaus, the company’s chief executive, said one of the four major carriers would introduce the service early next year, and he said it would also be available as an iPhone app. But over the next two years the technology should be able to complete a wider range of tasks.

And now a word from the reality-check department.

With today’s batteries and processing chips, running multiple apps like these would make the device so hot you could toast marshmallows near it, and would run down the battery at record speed. This is a big reason Andrew Lippman, associate director of MIT’s Media Lab, said he believed that smartphones in the near future “won’t be much smarter than they are today.”

But Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer, says there is reason for hope. Early next year, the company will begin shipping its Moorestown chips, which use one-fiftieth of the power of Intel’s previous generation of processor when in standby mode. Other improvements in efficient power allocation, he said, will reach smartphone chips in the next 18 to 24 months.

In another power-saving move, apps could reach across to nearby users for information, rather than push the phone’s circuitry to its limits by grabbing GPS coordinates and parsing data from the Web.

Dr. Lippman, of MIT, and Dr. Winarsky, of SRI, said they could envision a not-so-distant generation of smartphones communicating more intensively with others nearby via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Smartphone apps could, for instance, recognize when a doctor is in the building, and alert him if another person nearby had dialed 911. Or, your phone might capture images from a video camera around the corner from a subway station.

This idea, labeled “the third cloud” by David P. Reed of MIT, underscores the most profound change for smartphones currently coming to the market — namely, that they need not communicate with the carrier at all.

“Carriers used to control everything, and now the tables have utterly turned,” Dr. Lippman said. “That’s what’ll make the future so interesting.”

Imagine for a moment that a business needs a radically innovative approach to a vexing problem. Designers and managers start with an intense focus on the human aspect–the real problems their customers face in daily life. Somebody gives the obligatory talk about out-of-the-box thinking. Then they step back–way back–and let creativity, not the cold exigencies of logic, reframe the problem. When it works, this process can lead to startling new solutions. In the parlance of the moment, this is called “design thinking.”

In this fix-the-world Obama moment, when all is up for review, design thinking is applied to everything from new auto showrooms to health care.

Can it also refine your personal life? Warren Berger (above) thinks so. In his new book, Glimmer, Berger argues that basic design strategies can be adapted to everyday issues, such as how to get along with colleagues, how to balance work and life, and how to ease gracefully into old age. Berger says the book’s title expresses that moment when a new solution to an old problem comes into view. “The designer’s job is to solve problems every day and create alternative solutions,” Berger says. “What can the rest of us learn from that?”

To find out, Berger interviewed 100 designers and 100 other innovators and creative types about their methodologies, though most of the book focuses on Bruce Mau (above), the Canadian graphic designer who made his studio’s inner workings available to Berger. In a recent interview, Berger sketched out three ways that design thinking can be applied to your life:

1. Designers are good at asking stupid questions. “Step back and reassess everything. Ask fundamental questions: Why are we living in this city? Why am I in this job? There are all sorts of assumptions in your life to reconsider.”

2. Designers put problems into visual form. “Bruce Mau never thought he’d apply design principles to his own life, but when he was overwhelmed by travel and work he created a graphic representation of how he spent his time. Designers know that when you see everything in front of you, connections and patterns become more understandable.”

3. Designers think laterally. “They force their brains to go sideways and consider solutions that are off the path. For example, a bank can transform into boutique hotel or a community center. Most of what Dean Kamen does is apply technology to new areas. The trick is to avoid problems in a straightforward manner so that you’re open to left-field possibilities. It’s all about getting away from heuristic bias.”

Lurking behind this discussion is a fundamental question: Can design thinking promote happiness? “You can design your life so that it’s stimulating,” Berger said. “Richard Saul Wurman, creator of the Ted Conference, is always learning about a new field. When he’s done with the project or book he moves on. I think that’s a good model for designing one’s life so that it has flow. We tend to be happiest when we’re challenged. But not over challenged.”

Learn Something Every Day is a daily project by UK based design studio Young. Anyone can submit a lesser known fact and since August an illustrated fact has appeared everyday. Many of the images appearing on the site are available as t-shirts. The best fact will be made into a special poster at the beginning of each month, with the winner getting a free poster.

The Hintonburg Breakers rock the house at the Senate Chambers. From left to right: Absobeha Adamu, Kyle Callwood, Lorrie Marlow, Ramnon Adamu, Freddie Garcia Sollows, Javier Garcia Sollows. (Tanya Springer/offCentre)

By Tanya Springer

Between bites of pizza, 12-year-old Kyle Callwood explained why breakdancing was so important to him.

“It’s taught me to have tolerance for people, made me more confident, and is good for expressing feelings—either good or bad.”

Eleven-year-old Ab Adamu puts down his slice and chimes in.

“Dancing is expressing yourself. When you’re on a rush, about to perform, you give it your all and don’t even hold back. If you do that, you’ll always succeed.”

And succeed, these boys have. Ab and Kyle are the founding members of the  Hintonburg Breakers, or as they’re known in the community, the HB Breakers.

Yesterday, the group, which also includes Ab’s brother Ram Adamu, 8, and Freddie Garcia Sollows, 6, and Javier Garcia Sollows, 9, who are also brothers, performed in Parliament’s Senate Chambers in celebration of National Child Day.

The event, hosted by Senator Jim Munson, marked the 20^th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The boys were invited by Senator Munson personally, who heard their unique story, and found value in what the HB Breakers represent.

Watching Monday’s performance on Parliament Hill was especially emotional for the boys’ parents, many of whom are new to Canada.

“I am so very proud,” smiled Ab and Ram’s mother, Azeb Debebe. Like many Hintonburg residents, Debebe is not Canadian-born. She immigrated from Ethiopia before her children were born.

The HB Breakers got their start at the Hintonburg Community Centre, in a dance program funded by the Hintonburg Economic Development Committee (HEDC). The HEDC is a self-described hyper-local organization that promotes positive development and community use of parks and public places throughout Hintonburg.

Lorrie Marlow, the HEDC’s youth coordinator, explains the importance of bringing these boys off the streets.

“When [the HEDC] first started thinking about youth programs, the neighbourhood was dealing with prostitution, drug use and crack houses…A big problem was when kids waiting for the bus in the morning would encounter prostitutes working, or when Johns approached the mothers who were walking their kids to school,” she recalled.

Marlow, 46, moved from Saskatchewan to Ottawa in 2001. With no children of her own, Marlow credits T-Bone, her big Retriever-Husky, with introducing her to the youth in the community.

“I was out walking the dog all the time, and ran into the same kids every day and got to know them,” said Marlow. “I could tell they were bored, and began to understand that their parents didn’t have the time or the means to take an active role or provide recreation in their kids’ lives.”

Never one to subdue an instinct, Marlow quickly got involved in the HEDC, trying to think of ways the group could engage neighbourhood youth, without having to levy any registration or equipment fees. It wasn’t an easy sell, as the HEDC was understandably preoccupied with needle-hunting programs, the closure of neighbourhood crack dens and an escalating crime rate.

“We had no budget at the start, so we thought dance—which involves virtually no equipment—might be a good option,” she said.  “We wanted the chance to bring in good male role models—since that was what many of these children were lacking.”

Marlow volunteered countless hours of her time, soliciting donations and applying for grants through private foundations and government departments.

“I nearly had given up,” she recalled, “when we finally got our first big supporter.”

CTV Ottawa’s vice-president of news and longtime news anchor, Max Keeping, gave the HEDC the financial kick-start they needed.

“He gave us $1,500. It was the nicest, most unexpected thing…and it allowed for us to keep going,” said Marlow.

In 2004, after nearly two years of fundraising for instructor fees and securing facility space, the Hintonburg Hip-Hop (HHH) program was launched. 90 youth, primarily boys, came out to the first class.

“We were completely overwhelmed. It was clear the need was there, so [the HEDC] made a promise that we would do all that we could to sponsor this program. In return, the kids had to give back to the community, by performing at local festivals and charity events,” said Marlow.

Shortly after the program’s launch, Keeping was invited to a performance.

“You could see the pride in their faces,” he recalled. “These kids were really taken by the opportunity to do something great within their own community. That is a joy that should not be denied to any child no matter what their socio-economic background.”

Since 2004, the HHH program has run every Tuesday in the community centre. Membership numbers have been steady throughout this time, although the popularity of the breakdancing program seemed to increase in 2006 following the formation of the HB Breakers.

Marlow argued that while the HHH program has played a large role in changing the lives of local youth, it has had an equally profound effect on parents.

“At the start, it was apparent that parents were disinterested with the group. We had a lot of trouble communicating with them in the beginning.”

She said that as time passed, and more kids began attending classes, parents naturally became curious and began to come to festivals to watch their children perform. At festivals and performances, members of the HEDC would ask parents for help, and try to engage them in other community groups.

Monique LaChapelle, has worked at the Hintonburg Community Centre for the last 17 years, and is now the director of the centre. She too noted a change in Hintonburg’s sense of community.

“It’s been this gradual change in the last five years,” she said. “Parents are taking baby steps and making use of the programs available to them and their children.”

Marlow said that many of these parents were dealing with issues of isolation, either culturally or socially.

“They needed someone to reach out and ask them to be a part of the community. It isn’t an easy thing to do on your own. But we started to ask for their help at festivals and community events, and they never said no. They were a bit apprehensive, but happy to be involved.”

She argued that community involvement and increased communication have given many new Canadians the confidence to go to their child’s parent-teacher interviews, or seek out services in the community.

“If one of the mothers is having trouble of some kind, they might not want to go straight to any of the services, but they will talk to me about it. And I’ll find the help they need in a discrete way,” Marlow said, adding that community facilitators such as the HEDC have also been involved in mediating petty neighbourhood disputes.

Mature beyond their years, the older members of the HB Breakers are remarkably conscious of the greater social movement they have become a part of.

“Even if you don’t think you’ll be good at it, doing a group activity like this is really important because it teaches you self-respect and helps with leadership,” said Ab.

Kyle agreed. “Now we are leaders for the younger kids in class. We show them that you can go from Hintonburg to Parliament. And that’s a big deal.”

A tooltip can now be added to all controls in the Durkin Toolkit.  When hovering over a control with the tooltip set, a floating box will show for 5 seconds giving the controls name and the tooltip text.

When you hover over that control, a tooltip will show the control name and the tooltip text that was entered previously.

Abhijeet Ahluwalia

There are prog rockers, there are producers. And then there’s Todd Rundgren. In any given year of his 40 year career, few artists would have been as active both in front of the microphone and behind the mixing desk as Runt. I could keeping waxing lyrical all night long and still not cover all he’s done, or the impact he’s had. Little wonder then, that British fans are foaming at the mouth at the prospect of seeing Todd perform A Wizard, A True Star in its entirety.

A theatrical show replete with costume changes and props, the extravaganza was initially conceived on tour in England in support of the  2008 Arena record. “Last year’s English promoter came up with the idea,” Todd explains to me over the phone from Hawaii. “Younger acts and electronic artists had been name checking it in interviews and citing it as an influence, and we thought this was a better vehicle to attract a better audience. Word eventually got back to the US and some fans didn’t want to wait until 2010 to see it live, so they got together and did the promotion themselves! We didn’t go to a promoter, it was someone who runs an online station that only plays my music.”

What started with one show in Ohio quickly ballooned into several as crowds took to the idea in the way only a dedicated fan-base can. It is an overused cliché in the music industry to describe an artist’s fans as ‘the most hardcore’ or ‘rabid’, but Todd Rundgren fans are the rare set to whom such definitions can actually be applied. But, even amongst them, there was some unease over the choice of the record to perform.

To understand the significance of A Wizard, A True Star (AWATS), you have to place it in the context of Rundgren’s previous work, the popular Something/Anything? The album remains his best-selling work and got him one of his biggest hits – Hello, It’s Me, which went to No.5 on the Billboard charts. Which is why fans were forgiven for being completely flummoxed by his follow-up, AWATS. It was a complete change of sound and parked very firmly in progressive rock territory. The recording sounded muddled and cacophonic at first, because there was so much going on. Yet, the faithful persevered – slowly picking it apart, layer by layer, to uncover what was arguably the defining prog rock record of the decade.

“A lot of people gave up after Something/Anything? because AWATS was so different from anything I had been doing up till then, and other records at the time,” reflects Todd, then laughs as he says, “The rest of my fans have been with me the whole time and survived the change, and lots of other bizarre excursions and hip-hop experimentations!!”

In fact, the complexity of AWATS became a bit of a stumbling block for Todd himself: “I went back to deconstruct the original master tapes because people couldn’t figure out what to play! I had to do remixes of just certain parts like guitars or bass so we could accurately reproduce the music part of it.”

Did that also force his hand slightly when choosing which musicians would back him up? “Yes,” is the straightforward reply. “It would be tempting to call up people I know who had no direct connection with the project, but I didn’t know if I was on solid ground myself, so I wanted familiar faces. For e.g. I had to fill in the keyboard slots so I first asked Greg Hawkes if he would join, and he was important because he has a lot of the original keyboards that were on the record. He actually has them and remembers how to play the stuff!!” says Todd, laughing heartily like he often does.

“Then I got Roger Powell because he had played some parts before. Unfortunately he is gainfully employed!!! He has a real job he has to go back to, so I went back further and got in touch with Ralph Schukett, so he’ll be pianist in London and Amsterdam.”

Credit: Jean Lannen

Of course, what makes this tour so special is the fact that there is a theatrical element added to the music, giving fans a visual element to the emotive music. This, in itself, presented some unique problems. Not all venues can accommodate this show, so immediately the touring scope was a limited one. And, as Todd points out, people already have a ‘mental movie’ that goes with the record, so he had to create something that, while fresh and interesting, didn’t completely clash with what fans had visualised. Imagine taking the best book in the world and making it into a movie. Then chuck out the script, and replace readers with ridiculously dedicated fans, and you being to get a glimpse of the effort that went into creating this tour.

“We concentrated on reproducing the fashion sense, based it on weird costumes back in the 70s and then that expanded to 12 costume changes. Which means there are music passages where I’m back stage going through a frantic costume change! We have modern day production gimmicks but …a lot of the essence of the song comes from the costume.”

What makes the European shows a fascinating prospect is what the opening act of this opus will be. In the US there were Utopia songs played, amongst others, but Todd remains tight-lipped on what European audiences will get to see. “There will be an opening act but I’m not going to elaborate,” is all he’s willing to divulge.

He’s a lot more forthcoming when confronted with a trickier subject. Cynics would see this entire idea as a way for an old musician to make a quick buck. Certainly, if this was true, Todd wouldn’t be the first musician to try doing it. Is this whole tour just a ruse then, Mr. Rundgren?

“I’m not making any money!!” Todd manages to splutter out after laughing. “I was lucky to break even at the end of the American leg because we have a larger band, crew and production. We’re coming over to Europe and only doing 2 dates with so many people. There is no big payday, at least not yet. As for my age I don’t feel any shame because I’m in my 60s and still have an audience. People did better than me (in the 70s) yet I’m the one who’s still around. My heroes are BB King and Tony Bennett, people who play till they collapse. That’s what a musician is. I could start lying about my age and getting cosmetic surgery but the whole pop-star thing doesn’t last long.”

In fact, Todd has been able to experience the joy that is reserved for very few musicians – seeing fans grow up and bring their children to his shows, thus exposing a whole new generation to his music. “Most tours have been a cross section of age groups. Part of it is the natural evolution of fans becoming parents and forcing their kids along, and some kids come on their own!”

He even credits some of this to the ubiquity of music on the internet, a topic that can and has generated miles of column inches. For Todd though, it’s quite simple: “The internet works!! Yes, it’s having an effect!! It is the domain of a young audience and they’re using it do discover stuff radio isn’t giving them. I’m meeting fans that have discovered me last year and they’re 25. When fans are young they don’t have compartmentalised attitudes towards music. They’re open to different styles and music. With so much stuff I’ve recorded over the years, they’re bound to find something they like!”

All this talk of new generations of fans and 70s prog rock does beg the question – how long can Todd Rundgren go on touring? It is a lifestyle that can take its toll on the youngest of bodies, let alone one that has been slaving out on the road for 3 decades, winning fans the old fashioned way – through the sheer brilliance of a live performance, night after night. Todd himself is realistic about his physical condition and where that leaves him.

Credit: Mark Mawston

“My back is weak. About 2 years ago, I did a tour of Japan and there you play smaller venues where they charge a lot for tickets; these are really tough gigs. In between 2 shows, I wrenched my back really bad, and had to complete the tour on painkillers. I would do the show but the rest of the day was complete fucking misery. Sometimes, the day began by crawling from my bed to the bathroom. Literally crawling. Then I’d somehow get my shoes on and walk around until everything loosened up for me to move, for the 2 hours I’m on stage.

“At 20 you don’t think about it. As you get older and your performance becomes more refined, your day revolves around those 2 hours on stage and the rest is a regime getting ready for that. That’s how it will be for me, the only question is will I crawl or walk!! It’s more and more a mental game; there’s nothing you can do about the atrophy attacking your body but hey, this is way better than a coal mine.”

All through this conversation the one thing strikes me is how amazingly light hearted Todd manages to be at all times. Even a graphic description of the aforementioned day of ‘complete fucking misery’ is said with a chuckle, and I can just imagine him grinning away as he patiently answers my questions over the phone. And that’s what makes Todd Rundgren such a great musician. There are lots of creative geniuses in the music industry. Many have attempted grandiose live shows, some have even succeeded. But it is rare to find a talented, critically lauded musician, who is also popular with the fans, but still manages to keep his sense of humour through the darkest of times. I didn’t ask him if the title was auto-biographical, but I realise I never needed to. Here’s to Todd Rundgren – A wizard, a true star.

Todd Rundgren performs the British Premiere of “A Wizard, A True Star” at the HMV London Hammersmith Apollo on Saturday 6th February 2010.  Box Office: 08700 603 777.  Book Online: www.seetickets.com

Follow me on Twitter, last.fm and YouTube

A couple of months back, Felix penned a curious article listing the top ten gaming allies: those staunch supporters, wondrous wingmen and brilliant bros who never failed to watch your back, and you can find said article here. It got me thinking, however; how many times have TV screens found themselves with a controller shaped hole through their centres as the result of some serious NPC irritation? There were a couple of Felix’s fondly loved sidekicks that I couldn’t help but disagree with, and suddenly a Top Ten started forming in my mind.

More often than not, the hapless characters alongside you are just well crafted bullseyes for enemy fire, or instructors with less appeal than a sat-nav voiced by Hitler. For every Aeris there’s a Natalya; for every Dante and Nero there’s a Jak and Daxter; for every Army of Two there’s a compelling character witness to make the case for saving the world on your own. These are those most insidious of nemeses: these are the cretins who try their hardest to ruin everything….and they’re supposed to be on our side!

Want to check out the Top 10? Hit the link to read the rest at Dealspwn.com

Have you looked at a date in the list view and wondered how many years, months or days have passed since that date.  Follow the steps below and you will have a column with how old a date is.

First make a duplicate of the column so we can see the date and the age of the date at the same time. To do this right click on the column and choose “Duplicate Column…” and click ok on the Edit Column window.

Right click on the newly created column and choose “Edit Column…”.

Change the “Data Type” to the “Age {Days}”.

The end result is that you see a date in one column and the age of that date right next to it.

THANKSGIVING JUST GOT A BIT MORE SOCIAL

Making the Tasty Treats

The first year my mother tried to make a turkey, she apparently over-stuffed the bird and a turkey powder keg blew a hole through the oven door exploding precious white meat all over the wall of our kitchen. Being that I had heard this story on numerous occasions, my first attempt at bird making was very well planned.

Here are a few sites to help get you started using language even the most beginner chef can understand. As an added bonus, after several years of trial-and-error, the Marauder kitchen recommends sage butter (and lots of it) underneath the skin. Also, when attempting to brine, soaking a bird in the crisper overnight is probably not the best idea…

How-Tos:

Videos to impress the giblets out of your friends:

Amazing recipes itemized by course:

Wine Pairing

Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV offers 12 wine selections to pair with the bird, a somewhat more difficult wine-pairing item.

Giving Thanks

Tweetsgiving

Last year, Epic Change launched Tweetsgiving raising $11,000 for charity in 48 hours. Those donations were used to build a classroom in Tanzania. How’s that for giving thanks? This year, the bar has been raised to $100,000. While many are returning for their third plate of stuffing, Tweetsgiving will be raising awareness across social networks from YouTube to Twitter asking users what they are thankful for. Follow @tweetsgiving on Twitter and tweet about what you’re thankful for from now until the 27^th using the hashtag “#tweetsgiving” at the end of your tweet.

Socialvibe

Socialvibe donates to charity by marketing brands such as Kraft, Timberland, and Powerbar. Every time a brand is successfully marketed, charity benefits. At first, I thought this sounded a little sleazy. But really, marketers scream for your attention on a daily basis. At least in this case, charities benefit somewhere along the line.

Download the Thanksgiving Feast App to play. Every time you add a meal to the table, a real meal is provided through the UN World Food Programme.

Setting the Mood: Best Thanksgiving Song

Sure, this song is old but no has yet to top Adam Sandler on the joys of Thanksgiving.

Talking Tryptophan

Yet again this year, you can get your thanks on via many of your favorite social networks.

Get real-time cooking advice from the Butterball team either on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.

What to do when mom locks herself in the bathroom because your 35-year old brother insists on making fart noises at the table? Butterball may not have the answer for that one…

Get your spirit on with 23,000 of your other friends on the Thanksgiving fan page.

Mobile App Fun

iHost: Thanksgiving

Developed by a Rhode Islander (big-ups to my home state), iHost helps you get organized from menu, shopping list to budget. Their most recent update supposedly added recipes from local Newport, RI chefs. A little Rhode Island flavor has come to southern California. Very nice.

Chef’s Timer

If you’ve cooked with your iPhone in tow, as I always do, you know the device only has one timer. In most situations, that works just fine. But, what about situations where you have three side dishes and a turkey crammed into your tiny NYC oven while your friends stare at your assortment of tiny snacks in disdain? Yup…there’s an app for that.

Thanksgiving = Football

For those of you who know me, you understand why this comes last in the list. I know next to nothing about football. I do know that the grunting emanating from living rooms countrywide leads me to believe that you all care. This year, the NFL is offering a central portal for all 3 Thanksgiving games.

From Marauder’s home to yours, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The TwitterKids of Tanzania (epicchangeblog.org)
• Thanksgiving Wine Picks: A Trainwreck of Love (dirtysouthwine.com)
• How To Cook A Turkey: 7 Tips From Butterball University (huffingtonpost.com)
• Turkey tips from experts at Butterball University (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Brine Your Thanksgiving Turkey for Juicier Results [Food] (lifehacker.com)
• Recipes for a Vegan Thanksgiving (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• How To Carve a Turkey (howcast.com)

THANKSGIVING JUST GOT A BIT MORE SOCIAL

Making the Tasty Treats

The first year my mother tried to make a turkey, she apparently over-stuffed the bird and a turkey powder keg blew a hole through the oven door exploding precious white meat all over the wall of our kitchen. Being that I had heard this story on numerous occasions, my first attempt at bird making was very well planned.

Here are a few sites to help get you started using language even the most beginner chef can understand. As an added bonus, after several years of trial-and-error, the Marauder kitchen recommends sage butter (and lots of it) underneath the skin. Also, when attempting to brine, soaking a bird in the crisper overnight is probably not the best idea…

How-Tos:

Videos to impress the giblets out of your friends:

Amazing recipes itemized by course:

Wine Pairing

Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV offers 12 wine selections to pair with the bird, a somewhat more difficult wine-pairing item.

Giving Thanks

Tweetsgiving

Last year, Epic Change launched Tweetsgiving raising $11,000 for charity in 48 hours. Those donations were used to build a classroom in Tanzania. How’s that for giving thanks? This year, the bar has been raised to $100,000. While many are returning for their third plate of stuffing, Tweetsgiving will be raising awareness across social networks from YouTube to Twitter asking users what they are thankful for. Follow @tweetsgiving on Twitter and tweet about what you’re thankful for from now until the 27^th using the hashtag “#tweetsgiving” at the end of your tweet.

Socialvibe

Socialvibe donates to charity by marketing brands such as Kraft, Timberland, and Powerbar. Every time a brand is successfully marketed, charity benefits. At first, I thought this sounded a little sleazy. But really, marketers scream for your attention on a daily basis. At least in this case, charities benefit somewhere along the line.

Download the Thanksgiving Feast App to play. Every time you add a meal to the table, a real meal is provided through the UN World Food Programme.

Setting the Mood: Best Thanksgiving Song

Sure, this song is old but no has yet to top Adam Sandler on the joys of Thanksgiving.

Talking Tryptophan

Yet again this year, you can get your thanks on via many of your favorite social networks.

Get real-time cooking advice from the Butterball team either on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.

What to do when mom locks herself in the bathroom because your 35-year old brother insists on making fart noises at the table? Butterball may not have the answer for that one…

Get your spirit on with 23,000 of your other friends on the Thanksgiving fan page.

Mobile App Fun

iHost: Thanksgiving

Developed by a Rhode Islander (big-ups to my home state), iHost helps you get organized from menu, shopping list to budget. Their most recent update supposedly added recipes from local Newport, RI chefs. A little Rhode Island flavor has come to southern California. Very nice.

Chef’s Timer

If you’ve cooked with your iPhone in tow, as I always do, you know the device only has one timer. In most situations, that works just fine. But, what about situations where you have three side dishes and a turkey crammed into your tiny NYC oven while your friends stare at your assortment of tiny snacks in disdain? Yup…there’s an app for that.

Thanksgiving = Football

For those of you who know me, you understand why this comes last in the list. I know next to nothing about football. I do know that the grunting emanating from living rooms countrywide leads me to believe that you all care. This year, the NFL is offering a central portal for all 3 Thanksgiving games.

From Marauder’s home to yours, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Related articles by Zemanta

• TweetGiving: Changing the world through GRATITUDE (socialmediaclub.org)
• The TwitterKids of Tanzania (epicchangeblog.org)
• Thanksgiving Wine Picks: A Trainwreck of Love (dirtysouthwine.com)

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