Plate 0′ Shrimp

Human beings are emotional animals, but most people think they live their lives according to reason and logic. These same people are often unaware of the basic tenets of rational argumentation. In explaining why they believe something to be true, or in trying to convince others that something is true, their line of reasoning is peppered with logical fallacies. Logical fallacies disguise themselves as valid logical arguments, but can be proven to be invalid. Here are some basic logical fallacies:

Ad Hominem - This is very commonly used. Instead of trying to disprove an argument, you attack the character of the person presenting the arguement.

Appeal to Force - this fallacy is pretty easy to spot. When logic fails, a veiled or an overt threat can cause the other party to accept the desired conclusion… or else!

Appeal to Ignorance - Asserting that a statement is true because it has not been proven to be false.

As we ate our bag lunches and watched the crowd pour in, the boys started to get bored. Luckily, Otto brought his DS.

Max found that he could send a text message and it would scroll across the screens for all to see. A lot or WOW (world of warcraft) messages and messages about how “water brings out the best in Bweezil” followed.

Cheap Trick came on right on time, but I wasn’t able to get any decent pictures. Robin Zander wore a cowboy had for the entire show, which lead me to believe that he had gone bald. I was proven wrong when he came out for the encore without the hat, and with a full head of long hair.

Between bands Max had another round of texting the the video screens. The zanier ones didn’t make it up, but many did.

As darkness descended on Shoreline, Heart came on stage.

 We were also graced by the presence of a family didn’t bother to come early, because they knew they could just barge in on the hard-earned personal space of others, and get a good seat. The family consisted of a middle aged couple, their young daughter, and her much to old suitor.

The older gentleman just about sat on Max. They quickly became best of friends.

Journey comes on and the crowd goes wild (a little too wild if you ask me)

Journey put on a great show. The new singer sounded exactly like Steve Perry.

We left during the encore, and beat the traffic out. The boys were a little bored, but I think everyone had a good time.

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

What can you get for $18.75 each (plus convenience fees) in a 4-pack? Tickets to see Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick at the Shoreline from the grass. Parking lot opened at 4:30, so we got there at 4:00 and were about 20th in the auto line-up. I had heard horror stories about parking at Shoreline, but had never experienced them, and still haven’t.

I immediately noticed that there were a lot of Filipinos in the cars ahead of us. One of my Filipino coworkers had told me that the new lead singer of Journey was from the Philipines, and knowing the pride that Filipinos take in their culture and their fellow Filipino’s success, I surmised we might be seeing a lot of them at this concert.

There were two lines to get in to the concert. The line on the left was for people who bought their RED tickets from Live Nation. The line on the right (ours) was for people who bought their BLUE tickets from Ticketmaster. Sure enough, many Filipinos, maybe 75% of the crowd. No kidding.

In Line for Journey

Still in Line For Journey

We got us some good seats.

Journey Crowd - Are You Pinoy? YES!

More to Come…

Here are some highlights of the Vans Warped Tour that happened at Shoreline on Friday, August 15th. There were no “Blockbuster” bands this year. Just a lot of solid, lesser known (to me anyway) bands. Missed the Dickies, but had to get the kids home!

Emily Whitehurst, AKA Agent M, of The Action Design

Tom DeLong of Angels and Airwaves

The Horror Pops

The Black Presidents

ORESKABAND

I own a lot of LP Records. Vinyl. Most people sold or dumped their bulky, hard-to-store LP records many years ago. Not I. In fact, I just got married, and my wife also has a lot of records. The plastic milk crate option became less attractive, now that I’m no longer a bachelor, and such slobby accoutrements are less tolerated. So the search was on.

A Google for LP Storage was lacking, but luckily my wife was familar with the wonders of Cost Plus Worldmarket. There we found the Riley 4-Shelf Black Bookcase. 15 inches deep and the shelves are adjustable. It turned out to be the perfect solution for LP Storage!!!

Best Buy struck out with me today. For the past few years I’ve purchased all of my computers and electronics at Best Buy. I purchased the computer I’m typing on right now from them last fall. Which brings up:

STRIKE ONE: This computer had advertised with a GB of RAM. When I got it home and fired it up, it had less. So I called and asked customer service at their Dublin location what was up. They said “that’s weird” and told me to bring it in. I did, and waited about an hour for the Geek Squad to look at it. Turns out they count the video RAM as part of the total advertised RAM. New one on me, but I figured I explained my quandry to the person on the phone in enough detail that he could have saved me a drive and an hour wait. Plus the Geek Squad manager was a rude jerk, so STRIKE ONE.

STRIKE TWO: My son received two Halo Three disks for Christmas, so I wanted to return one. It was unopened, it was purchased at Best Buy, but I had no receipt. I heard they would take items back without a receipt so I thought I was safe waiting in line for a half hour after Christmas. No. The counter girl said they would only take back items under $50 without a receipt. Probably written in fine print somewhere and I should of checked. So I took it next door to Gamestop and they took it back. Yay Gamestop. Boo Best Buy.

STRIKE THREE: My fiancee bought me a GPS unit for Christmas, but it turned out to be defective. She mailed me the receipt, which was still valid and I took it in to return it. After explaining that they had recently got stuck taking back an $800 GPS device they no longer carried, the customer service/return person politely explained to me that my unit had been discontinued and I would have to either drive to the store of purchase (200 miles away) or return it to the manufacturer. After driving all the way back home I called the Best Buy customer service 800 number to confirm their poor return policy. Turns out the counter person rejected my return inappropriately, and he got the store manager on the line, who invited me to come back and return the unit. After driving back to the store, waiting in line for another 15 minutes, waiting again for the clerk in charge who turned out to be idley chatting with another employee while I waited for her at the counter where she promised to be… (yawn) … that’s when I decided Best Buy had “jumped the shark” as a business.  

 Maybe I’m being petty. Maybe I’m just tired of saying no three or four times to the extended warranty every time I check out. Maybe Best Buy sucks.

I took my kids for a short hike in the Sunol Wilderess area called Little Yosemite. It doesn’t have the rushing waterfalls that it does in the spring. A lot of horse poop though (regular horseback riding tours go on all year).

I was on my way to a meeting with a prospective client on Wednesday. I had come in to my space the previous evening at a weird angle because of some foot traffic. The huge 4×4 parking over the line into my space didn’t help either. Didn’t make it out of the carport without some uneeded excitement:

Here it is in my trunk. I want to use it as a decoration in my apartment.

I’m moving my personal blog here from blogspot.com. Why give them all the “link pop” (link popularity)?