Sep
30
Not every night can be golden… Another Tuesday Open Mic…
Filed Under Music, The history of me | Leave a Comment
Well, its another Tuesday, so time for another open mic run down… Again, at Memphis on Main, and this time, I wanted to mix up the set a little for the night. Yes, its been two weeks since I played there seeing Jeremy was sick last week, but I modified the setlist a little…
Tonic & Gin
And I Said
Last Kiss - 7M3
Taking Back Me
Toast - Mikey D
Trying So Hard
As a whole? I have to say that I really wasn’t feeling it. I think that a combination of not practicing, running through my “B-grade” material, and just not really hitting that one song that helps me cruise into the set? Just didn’t happen. I do have to admit that Mikey’s “Toast” sounded exceptionally good tonight. I might have to throw that one in more often.
My deficiencies come from me not practicing, not taking the time. That just means taking a few more minutes a day to get back to my music and get back to the songs… And then next week? We’ll just have to take it one step at a time…
Sep
28
And to think that I could have had things easier all along…
Filed Under Babbling, Sunday Share, Webmaster Woes | Leave a Comment
Well, this is a “belated Sunday Share” that I actually found a few weeks back, but I wanted to actually have some saved content for my next one, seeing I’ve been running out of cool things with how busy I’ve been recently. Matter of fact, I’ve been so busy that often I find myself behind on updating the actual WordPress software. I hate having to download and then upload and update everything. Pain in my ass to take that time away from making a meaningless post about nothing that noone really reads anyways. So that’s why this saved my day:
Maybe I’m late to the game with finding this, and I already upgraded to 2.6.2 the prior weekend, but it seems like this sucker might help me out in the future. I guess I’ll find out when 2.6.3 comes out, huh?
Sep
25
Tweet Tweet?
Filed Under Babbling, Webmaster Woes | Leave a Comment
Despite me having issues and it not working the way I’d like it to, if you missed my status update on Facebook earlier, I’m now using Twitter! Feel free to add me!
And if anyone has any suggestions for plug-in usage on Facebook/WordPress/MySpace/etc? Please, let me know… I’m having a few issues getting it off the ground, but I’m slowly doing it…
Sep
21
Fire away with a loaded gun…
Filed Under Music, Sunday Share | Leave a Comment
I found something pretty cool the other day that I’d love to share this time around as my Sunday Share. See the band Kill The Alarm just remastered their debut album and because of that? They’re giving it away for free till the end of September!
A nice rocking album that just sounds great, if you ask me… But don’t ask me, go listen to it yourself! But get it fast, because come September 30th, this one will be gone all over again…
Sep
18
I’m not going to remove the post, but I am going to edit it to link to this one for folks who might be interested in it… If you recall me recommending Google Chrome almost 2 weeks back, well, I take it back. Let me start at the beginning of this story…
Before I had made that post, not 3 days after using Chrome, I started having hang-ups on websites I’d normally visit. I noticed my computer wasn’t being nice to me. Granted, my desktop is a 1.4ghz Celeron with 2 gigs of RAM running Windows XP Pro, but even with that, this was just stupid small hang-ups. Things that even after such a fresh install of Windows as I had (which I should really get to sometime soon), I shouldn’t be having. Especially on an internet connection that’s seriously going at 100mb/s. I could show you my SpeedTest results. Insane speeds. So before I had even made the post about Chrome, I wasn’t using it anymore. I was seriously back to FireFox.
At any rate, shortly thereafter, I noticed a button on my WordPress site called “Turbo.” When I clicked on it, it was talking about Google Gears, so I installed it. On some of the sites that I was going to, I was starting to get these messages from it about it speeding up my internet experience. So why not, you know? We all want faster internet.
I noticed a few days afterwards when my computer was running slow that I had an Administrator and SYSTEM process on my Task Manager for “Google Updater.” Now, I wasn’t running anything that should have been updating, and the only thing that was open that was Google related at all was the Gears which was a plug-in on FireFox. So when I couldn’t remove it from my Add-Ins, I used Google to find out how to kill its own Gears. That uninstalled, my computer started running a little faster.
Only a little. You see, a few days later, I noticed that “Google Updater” was back on my Task Manager. The only thing that was Google related on my computer happened to be Chrome. I just uninstalled it now and all of a sudden, things started speeding back up. Strange, huh?
But not too much. You see, hours after I initially made this post, I noticed that “Google Updater” was still running. So after searching my computer, I learned something: when you uninstall Gears and Chrome, it doesn’t remove the task function from your computer to run Google Updater whenever your computer goes idle. So after manually removing it and rebooting? Its really finally gone.
To me, its really just not worth it.
I should have known from back when I first tried using Google Desktop way back in the day when it came out that I wouldn’t like using a Google product. When I first tried using Desktop, not only did it take well over a day to archive my computer, but my computer was completely locked up while it was going through the process and my computer would only work afterwards for the day or so that it was installed if I (1) deactivated the toolbar on my browser and (2) closed the application on my desktop. Not really the way somethings supposed to “work,” you know?
I like Google. The website, that is. I think from here on out, the search engine will be the extent of the products I use from them. I don’t need unapproved background processes running on my computer.
Not cool, Google. Not cool.
Sep
17
Planting some new roots… A review of Open Mic Night…
Filed Under Music, The history of me | Leave a Comment
Before people even knew who I was in Orlando (not that anyone left there on the scene still knows me, but still), I did what every musician loves and hates: an Open Mic night.
I’ve described these with such distain and hatred in the past: you go to a bar and you play three songs, and maybe your friends are there, maybe not, but everyone around is drunk and doesn’t care about you and barely cares about their own friend who’s there. Sure, that’s a bleak and dismal picture of it, but because everyone has dreams of being famous and big and known, everyone makes a big deal out of it.
And I’ll admit, I’ve done the same thing. The whole day today (9/17), I didn’t really know if I wanted to go or not. I didn’t know if I wanted to play tonight at the one at Memphis on Main. I knew that I wouldn’t know anyone in the audience, and I didn’t tell anyone from work that I’d be going there at all. If I were to go, I wanted it to be me doing this for me.
So, I left home around 7:45, and got there around 8:30ish. I took it slow because I wasn’t sure exactly how to get there. Even still, I got there in the end, and I met Jeremy Harper. Really cool guy with a heck of a voice and good playing style. As I told him, I’ve never seen anyone play “Blue on Black” in F. Very nicely done. And because it was a quiet night there, I got a little longer of a set. And I think I needed it:
Lucky - 7M3
Emergency (Fifteen)
Echo
Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
Growing
Don’t Stop Believing - Journey
Trying So Hard
A very upbeat and fairly fast hitting set, I settled into my rhythm just about after “Growing.” Yeah, it took me 5 songs into a 7 song set to slide into my groove. That being said, its not that I botched the other ones. I was playing on Jeremy’s guitar (because of a technical difficulty with equipment) and I was settling in…
Afterwards, I talked with him a little about the scene and how things are in town. It was good to have that sort of talk with someone who’s playing actively on the scene. And me? I definitely enjoyed it, no matter how sparce the crowd was. And the crowd enjoyed it. I got a few complements at the end.
We talked a little about open mics in the area and I remembered that Cowboy Monkey had one. Jeremy gave me directions, and seeing it was about a block over, I just walked. There, I met Mike Ingram and signed up to play third in the night. The actual open mic started around 10:30ish, and I took the stage just about 11:50, but I made the most of the old three song format:
Echo
Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
Trying So Hard
In Orlando, I wouldn’t be able to get away with sets like that being almost identical, but in a new place and space? I wanted to stick to the comfortable and familiar and keep it not only easy for me, but as a good introduction to who I am. To hit hard, and (hopefully) leave an impression. I don’t think I played the best that I could at either of them, I think that I’m still a bit rusty to be at that level again, but I do think that I gave them both very good efforts, and I feel good as a whole about just doing it. I needed to do that. I really did.
So, to anyone in the Champaign-Urbana area who might be reading this and who heard me tonight, I welcome your thoughts on it. I enjoyed being out and playing, and I enjoyed myself, and I hope to see folks and maybe meet some of you folks next week.
And this, is why I always keep trying so damn hard…
Sep
16
So Goob finally got my new bio up on the HeyItsFree.net site, and if you head to the “About” page, you can read it.
Well, today? There was a mention in a blog that also linked back here. So uh, if anyone happens to find me? I guess I should start really writing more soon, huh?
Sep
14
Fresh is best, and local is better…
Filed Under Babbling, Sunday Share | Leave a Comment
I feel like each and every time I start posting a Sunday Share here, its more and more things that folks back in Orlando won’t really be able to appreciate. And it truly goes for this one…
Sarah and I had heard about them and found them online and finally went out today and had lunch at the Flying Monkey Cafe there. Add to that the fresh apples and the fact that we got to try some of the goodies that they have and its an all around awesome place that we’ll definitely head back to. Who knows, maybe we’ll find a way to ship out some apples for family and friends, eh?
Sep
12
A Question For My Friends…
Filed Under Babbling, Mobile Posts, Music | Leave a Comment
So I’ve been juggling around this one for a week or so now and I thought I’d open up the floor to some comments from y’all…
Imagine you were going to see me play at an open mic and you were going to be the only one who knew me or my music. What three (or four) songs would you pick to hear me play that you think would be the strongest set? One has to be a cover. Other than that? I’m curious to hear what you have to say…
More, and the reason behind this query, later…
Sep
8
On arriving and settling…
Filed Under Homelife, Work | Leave a Comment
I’ve withheld from making an entry of any substance not only because I’ve been so busy in the wake of the move, but because I really wanted to let things seep in before I wrote anything of any prudence.
First off, for those who might have missed what happened, my wife was applying to Law Schools. One of the schools that actually courted her was University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign. While this might not mean much, they’re the #27th ranked school nationally. When you’ve got a school of that prestige trying to get you to come to it? Well, we figured that because we were already moving away from Orlando, might as well make the long jump.
So in mid-August, we moved up here and I found myself a job which I started at just a week back, and she’s been doing school. The little town of Champaign, Illinois is a beautiful place and I’d highly encourage any and all friends of mine to visit if they ever get the chance. There’s a lot to do, and there’s a charm that Orlando just doesn’t have.
As a whole, though, I thank all of my friends for their concerns with this move and for keeping up with me. I’ll be returning to regularly scheduled updates soonish or so, but I’m actually really working on a few nice ones about some things I’ve had on my mind, so we’ll go from there…
Sep
7
Pretty pretty, Shiney shiney…
Filed Under Sunday Share, Webmaster Woes | Leave a Comment
I have to admit that I’m usually behind on things, like updating about our move… You don’t want to know how long it took me to upgrade my WordPress when I first got it on my site, just because I didn’t want to mess with it. And moving to FireFox from IE? Yeah, let’s not talk about that, even if I do taunt and tease Goob about using IE 5.5 on my laptop…
Needless to say, I’m trying to stay with the curve on this one…
A new webbrowser that really is faster than all of the others. No joke! And it has its own task manager built right in so that if one of the tabs you have loaded gives you a problem? There’s no closing all of the tabs. Nope, all you do is just open that sucker up and kill the one giving you problems. Can’t complain about that one.
I’ve had a few times that its hung up on me and I’ve switched over to FireFox, and there was an issue earlier in the week about the Terms of Service in it, but other than that, its not a bad little program.
There are some other great little features to it, and the way it brought everything I had set up over in FireFox over? Well, flawless. Added to the speed with my already lightning fast internet, and?
Well, it was worth a shot to try it out, so I suggest this one back on out to my friends…
EDIT: If you happen to stumble across this post, please take a look at my update to this post… I no longer recommend this browser.
Sep
1
Giving back easily
Filed Under Babbling, Plugs | Leave a Comment
I know I promised something of more substance, but I thought I’d post something cool that I got in a text message today. It was from the Obama campaign:
Barack asks that you give to the Red Cross: give 5 dollars by texting GIVE to 24357 or give more by calling 1-800-435-7669 or at redcross.org/donate. Please fwd
Now yes, I know I’m an Obama supporter and I’ve made that bias clear time and time again, but I agree with McCain that in this time of need with Hurricane Gustav and other natural disasters, we have to take off our Democrat hats and Republican hats and wear our American Hats.
I thought I’d try out the text message one because it really doesn’t hurt and doesn’t take much of my time at all. Sure enough? Its even easier than all of that because it just tacks the donation right on to your monthly bill almost like it was a Jamster ringtone.
And for $5? Sure that seems a lot to me right now because I could easily almost get the 5 for $5.95 deal at Arby’s with that money, but for the people who have even less than me? Its the least I can do…
I’ll be back with more substance sometime soonish… I promise that much…
Twitter: AdamJCohen
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- @mongioi There's an easy solution to that... What it is, I don't know because I'm listening to what I sent you via email. :)
- doesn't know what's funnier: the fact that Shaq is on Twitter or his updates. http://tinyurl.com/64vgtl
- nearly missed the bus on this clear and sunny sub-freezing morning!
- is so hardcore that he chugsRice Nog from the carton...
- stopped and watched the snow flurries outside the window at work... :)
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About The Site
Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists and show reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!