So last night I got

So last night I got to catch up with Cam, Emma, Pete & Rebecca (hi guys!), then later Lisa & I saw Rufus Wainwright at Town Hall. The show was a bit of a family act since his sister Martha opened, and his mother and aunt (better known as the McGarrigle sisters) chimed in on a couple of songs. Unfortunately the sound system had a number of feedback problems early on in the show, forcing Martha offstage early, luckily the problems didn't resurface during the second half of the show (these were painful feedback problems).

Lisa & I spent the night at the new Times Square W and enjoyed being able to sleep in and get breakfast in bed (since both of us were within walking distance to our respective offices).

In the crime of sharing:

In the crime of sharing: How excess legislation will kill your freedom of expression, John Perry Barlow writes: And just as sharing makes us civilized, it's sharing that makes civilization. It lets us build a great collective work from the exchange of stories, myths, songs, poems, facts, jokes, beliefs, scientific discoveries, elegant engineering hacks, and all of the other products of human thought and discourse.

I know that this is a fairly obvious observation. That's why I'm stunned that so many kinds of sharing have suddenly, without public debate, become criminal acts. For instance, lending a book to a friend is still all right, but letting him read the same book electronically is now a theft.

Hmm...think I need to look

Hmm...think I need to look at Radio 8 this weekend. Radio 7 seems to consistently have problems posting to epc.editthispage.com (the anchor tags get escaped) even while posting ok to the mirrored site on Earthlink.

Picked up a new car

Picked up a new car tonight. Let's just say it's not a Prius or Impact. Though it is of the Honda family of cars. Just, well, larger. Roomier. And, well, it fails the "economy car" test, however it does have a nifty uLEV sticker on it.

Oh, and a minor setback

Oh, and a minor setback at work tonight. See, the office is on the ninth floor of a midtown Manhattan building. Many of the other tenants are in the "garment" industry. Today the phrase "sweatshop" took on a new meaning as apparently the factory on the eighth floor got a little too hot and caught fire. I don't need to hear This building is on fire twice to know to move. I have the routine down pat, laptop into hibernation mode, slam everything interesting into my bag, jacket on, etc. Was out of the door in under a minute. Although smoke wasn't visible, it was in the air. I walked quickly down the nine flights (and noted along the way that the fire doors were pretty much open the whole way down, some even wedged open). Once on the street I let a couple people know I was leaving, and went over to Lisa's office on 57th & Madison. Have already had a bit too much smoke in the last few months for my taste.

And an update on the

And an update on the office fire: apparently the damage was contained to the eighth floor (right below our offices though). Apparently our offices did get damaged a wee bit by FDNY to gain access, nothing serious. Will learn more in the morning.