I picked up an early birthday present for myself- a Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen XTRA. I've been wanting a portable digital music player for some time, and I figured "Why Not?" This thing is awesome. I can take my music along with me while I work (finally, I dont have to keep switching radio stations while driving around in the work van) I've been using it at home, hooked up to the stereo using the "Play any song" function, so it will pick a song at random.

Two words that I'm using to describe it with...
FUCKING AWESOME

Many of you know that I just love free concerts in the park during the summertime. This weekend, I didn't only go to one show, but 2..... Friday night, Craig called and (last minute) suggested that I high-tail it to Hamden to see the Gregg Rollie Band play at Meadowbrook Park. Gregg is the founding keyboardist of Santana and lead vocalist on many early Santana hits, including Evil Ways and Black Magic Woman.

The band was superb! They played a couple of newer GRB tunes, but the rest of the show was devoted to Santana tunes. The band the Gregg assembled was well up to the task, with the percussionist and bass player both coming from former Santana incarnations. Of exceptional note was the guitarist, Kurt Griffey. He was just amazing! At one point, I went up to the front of the stage and joined in the many people dancing. I had closed my eyes, and I could swear that it was Carlos Santana himself playing the guitar. It was just perfect!!

Rollie was also a founding member of Journey (along with ex-Santana bandmate Neil Schon), leaving the band after 1980's Evolution album. The band didn't acknowledge any Journey material durung Friday night's performance.

Saturday night, I again trekked off to the New Haven Green to see Blues Traveller. Well, hear them would be more accurate. I had a hell of a time getting a parking spot, as I was a bit late, but I made it onto the Green for the band's second song ("Hook"). They just ROCKED. I caught up with Steve and Darlene and we had a great time. The Green was packed like I've never seen it before, even more packed than last year at the Isaac Hayes show.

I've been receiving numerous emails lately to my Yahoo! account (which I rarely use, but I do use it), claiming to be from Yahoo! The emails state that my account is in danger of being closed, or a confirmation of a password change that I didn't do.

From: webmaster@yahoo.com

To: xxxxx@yahoo.com

Subject: WARNING MESSAGE: YOUR SERVICES NEAR TO BE CLOSED.

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 16:27:12 -0400

Hey Yahoo,

Your e-mail account was hacked please take 5-10 minutes out of your online

experience and confirm the attached document so you will not run into any

future problems with the online service.If you choose to ignore our request,

you leave us no choice but to cancel your e-mail account

Virtually yours,

The Yahoo Support Team

+++ Attachment:

No Virus found +++

Files: important_details.zip (52k)

Every one of these messages that I received has had some sort of attachment to it. Now, I didn't download the attachments, or even download the Emails to my PC, I simply looked at the text using the Yahoo! Mail webpage. The funniest parts of this hoax message were the grammatical errors, and how they addressed the message to: "Hey Yahoo."

I sent a message to Yahoo! Account Services today (this is the 4th message that I got) and here's their response (well, automated response, but whatever) :

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:20:56 -0700
To: xxxx@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Feedback Report a suspicious email claiming to be sent from Yahoo!
From: "Yahoo! Account Services" account-security@cc.yahoo-inc.com

Hello,
Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
***************************************
Please do not reply to this email.
***************************************
Thank you for bringing this incident to our attention. Yahoo! will
investigate this report immediately and contact you if any additional
information is required. We appreciate your concern and thank you for
your report.

Your Yahoo! ID and password are your own confidential information. No
Yahoo! employee will ever ask you for your password or personal
information in an unsolicited phone call or email message. If you are
ever asked for your password in an unsolicited manner, or by someone
you do not believe to be a representative of Yahoo!,
*do not* share your password with them.

If you replied to an email asking for your password or entered your
Yahoo! ID and password on a phishing site and found that you could not
log into your Yahoo! account, please contact the Account Security help
pages by clicking the link below:
(edited)

Last night, I took Delilah to see the Neville Brothers perform on the New Haven Green. The concert was part of New Haven's Concerts on the Green series. When I asked Del earlier in the week if she'd like to go to see the concert, her response was an enthusiastic "Yes!" without even knowing who was performing.

We've* been taking Delilah to see concerts since she was a little baby. Many of them were to the Monday Night Jazz Concerts in Hartford (back when they were in Bushnell Park) and to see the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz (which was also this weekend.) Last Year was the first time that I took her to see concerts in New Haven, culminating with Isaac Hayes. I think these events are giving Delilah a pretty good exposure to many eclectic artists.

The Neville's put on an awesome show. I wasn't too familiar with their music, but I did know some of their tunes, and they added their New Orleans style to a some cover tunes as well (the show closer was Bob Marley's One Love/People Get Ready**). The weather was a bit humid, but it was pretty comfortable, and the atmosphere was perfect, aside from a few rowdy drunk people.

It's starting to be a tradition with Delilah and I that we make a Father-Daughter event out of these concerts. We pack a picnic dinner and set up in the park and have a great time. I'm already looking forward to next week's Blues Traveler show and the Jazz Festival next month

* This is something we used to do with her mother as well.
** Yes, I know that "People Get Ready" is a Curtis Mayfield tune

I picked up Sly and the Family Stone's "Higher" anthology collection at work today. I was working in one of my stores, and the CD caught my eye at the register. I immediately picked it up and scanned the titles to see if their cover of "Que Sera Sera" was on there, and it was. This was a song that I had been looking for since I had seen the movie "Heathers" many years ago. The song plays as the end credits roll.

The only copy that I had until now was on a cassette tape of one of my old radio shows at CCSU's WFCS back in 1992. The station had an old vinyl copy of Sly's album "Fresh", and I had played the song on my show. So, finding a good, digital copy of this song was kind of in a way, finding the Holy Grail!

Well, back to the CD. GREAT! The mastering sounds great, the artwork is top notch, the song selection is awesome! I give it an A+

(I would have provided a link to the actual CD, but Starbuck's web site appears to have gone down while I was composing this)