In the last two weeks I have been consumed with freelance projects and working with a bunch of people that contacted me through my portfolio site. The site was featured in a handful of showcase galleries, so that response has been awesome. I really appreciate everyone checking it out and all of the positive feedback. I don’t really consider my work anything extraordinary, but it’s nice to hear the comments and encouragement from others.

Last weekend I also made the jump to Leopard Mac OS 10.5. My initial reaction was, “Wow, this looks beautiful.” The screenshots that I saw did not do the enhancements justice. My favorite feature might be time machine. When I purchased Leopard I also got another external hard drive, just for that. It has already saved my world once. I was having some trouble with Firefox, so I thought deleting it and re-installing would work. It did, but then I lost all of my bookmarks, passwords, usernames, everything.. Just flipped back a few days with Time Machine and grabbed the necessary files. Bam, back to normal.

I don’t know if it’s because I only did a fresh upgrade to Leopard or what, but I do notice a couple little quirks. For instance, when I drag a file from Finder onto my desktop, sometimes the icon/file doesn’t appear. I have to adjust the grid positioning on the desktop and they just magically appear. Firefox is also a pain in Leopard. I don’t think I can go an entire session without having to restart Firefox a couple times. It just locks up and I have to force it to quit. Another little thing is when I click to open finder, it doesn’t always come into focus. That happens to a couple other programs as well. I also had a problem with conflicting fonts. I have hundreds of fonts on my system and when i re-installed Leopard a couple were duplicated I guess. I just went through and deleted the problems and so that was easily fixed.

Ok that probably seems like a lot of problems, and it is, but that is expected from a new release, especially from Apple. They are notorious for releasing things that are bug ridden. But with all of that, I still really enjoy using Leopard. The look is still very impressive and I have faith that updates are soon on their way to fix these little things.

Well that’s about it for now. Sorry for the delay in postings, just been so consumed in these other projects lately. There was one post between now and last one where Leeks wanted to “F” the Red Sox but I thought it would be best to censor him. He said he was going to post about “The Man” holding the little guy down, but I just said I would censor that too. Alright well back to work.

So I hate baseball and I hate all of you. First the Yankees and Cubs lose and all is right in the world. The Rockies win the NLCS and my life gets better. Then the Indians go up 3-1 and It looks like the WS of my dreams is about to happen. Then the stupid Indians blow it all a Willie Mays Hays to Jake Taylor. Come on. All of America except those stupid annoying Boston fans were rooting for you and you lay three goose eggs in a row. “Wild thing you walk everything” Way to make Bob Uecker proud. “one hit, we got one damn hit” “you cant say that on the air” “christ no one is listening”. Now i cannot go into a sports bar for the next week and a half because of those annoying Boston fans. Thanks a lot Indians. I hope you are happy. Cleveland does not rock. Maybe they should have put some vagisil on the ball.

Last night I was totally pumped up to go and watch what I thought was going to be an awesome concert. The bands that playing were The Dear & Departed, Alexisonfire, Norma Jean, and Saosin. Alexisonfire and Saosin I have been big fans of. Saosin’s recent full length CD is one of my favorite all time CDs. Alexisonfire is a little edgey but awesome melodies and choruses. Anyways let the review begin:

The Dear & Departed
We showed up just as The Dear & Departed started playing. They seemed alright at first, until you looked up on stage and saw the lead singer sliding across stage, dancing as if his manager had told him.. “Hey if you want to make it big, you gotta dance.” Obviously the dude couldn’t dance for a lick, and it didn’t help that his voice was horrible. They didn’t have much stage presence at all and their songs lacked energy. Luckily the beer tasted good.

Alexisonfire
This band always puts on a great show, even if the crowd isn’t into them a whole lot. These guys are the definition of “Screamo” but they follow it up with great melodies and rifts. Every song is full of energy and excitement. They played a very good collection of songs, but their last song kind of lost me. I hadn’t heard it before and it slowed down dramatically from the rest of their set. All in all I was very please with their performance, just a little disappointed in their last song. They were without a doubt the only highlight of the concert.

Norma Jean
I’m going to try and keep an open mind about this band. Definitely not my style of music at all. They bring it hard and loud with angry vocals and constant screaming. I will say for their fans though, they put on a great show. With all of the fanfare and lighting effects they seemed to be the headliner of the tour. The fans were really into it and for that I give them props. I’m not a huge fan of their music but I can respect them for putting on a good show. It was the first band to draw out the crowd surfers, and anytime you’re at a concert and start seeing crowd surfers you start to get a little energized yourself.

Saosin
Well normally you would save the best for last, as it goes with any concert. This is the band that we paid 20 dollars to go see. Their CD was absolutely amazing with great melodies, rifts, vocals.. everything. Great mixture of songs. We were about 30 feet back and just off to the right of center when they started. I couldn’t help but notice a very obvious echo coming from the lead singers mic and the back up vocals of the bass player and rhythm guitar were horrible. I figured it might be where we were standing so we moved back and towards the middle of the stage. Nothing changed, they just flat out sounded bad. I think the sound guy even realized how bad the bass players voice was and turned down his mic, but then the Tool just walked across stage and used the other guitarist mic. They sounded so bad I wanted to leave half way through. It was a total disappointment and might even have a lasting effect on whether or not I go see them in concert again. Along with them sounding bad, the over all performance of the show was very cheap and not entertaining at all.

With that said I would rate the bands as following: Alexisonfire (Great sound and good songlist), Norma Jean (Good overall performance, just not a fan of their music), Saosin (Just because the first band was that lame), The Dear & Departed (First band, can’t expect too much out of them.)

Tonight Saosin, Norma Jean, Alexisonfire, and The Dear & Departed will be preforming at Jannus Landing. Hands down the greatest place to watch a show, especially during this time of year. It’s an outside venue that’s located in the middle of a city block. Leland and I always thought it would be the greatest place to live, cause of all the sweet shows you’d catch. Well tonight is going to be a great show.

We first heard Saosin when we met our friend Rob. They were playing at the Orpheum in downtown Ybor (Tampa, FL). I believe they were either the first or second band to play that night, and to tell you the truth I wasn’t all that impressed. I liked them but it wasn’t the best I have ever heard. Then about a year later they released their first full-length album. The CD completely blew me away. Every song is very well crafted and unique in their own way. I have probably listened to the entire CD in it’s entirety 200 times.

I’m also a pretty big fan of Alexisonfire too. Not big on the whole screaming part, but the lead guitarist (Dallas) has one of the best voices I have heard. His solo work, City of Colour (He’s Canadian), is amazing. A definite addition to any music collection. I’m planning on the night going something like this:

• Get to Jannus just before 7:00pm, as the first band is just starting.
• Quickly grab a huge $8 Bud Light.
• Proceed to our designated viewing spot (Right around mid-court, next to the sound board).
• BS about how sweet the concert is going to be, ignoring the first band
• Rock out like a 13 year old for Alexisonfire
• Listen to Norma Jean and talk about all of the suicidal teenagers, “Death is my Bitch Lover..” “You tell that mean ocean Todd.”
• Go crazy for Saosin. (Crazy as in nod our heads and cheer after each song.)
• Reminisce how great of a concert it was with Leland.
• Go home.

And that’s pretty much it. Each concert has it’s ups and downs, but really they are all about the same. The music ends up being great, by the bands we goto see and the other bands leave something to be desired. I think the greatest part about these concerts though, is that it’s still the time when Leeks and I throw back some tasty beverages and just have a good time. Definitely excited about the show.

I was able to wrap up everything for brettnyquist.com over the weekend. I’m pretty happy with the way the site turned out, but I also think it’s going to be one those little fix it here and there type of sites. I will be adding some more functionality to it and am thinking of adding another blog area for tips and tricks on designing.. not sure about that though. Alright well that’s really about it.

My Portfolio Site

Smoothpiece is registered for Blog Action Day, which is a organization that gathered around 11 thousand bloggers and set one day to talk about one issue. This go around everyone is suppose to discuss the environment. It doesn’t say to take a stance against or for the current issues pertaining to the environment, just help drum up some discussion. Well you all know that here at Smoothpiece.net we like to take the extreme left wing approach to everything so let’s just get right into it.

I think it’s obvious that we are all contributing to destroying this planet and need to come up with better alternatives to help preserve the earth. Let’s not be quick to start accusing people of taking private jets or using 20 times the average electricity.. but let’s talk about the idea that we are having an effect on this planet and that the changes over just the last decade are above and beyond what this planet has experienced in the last 1000 years. We need to scale down our dependence of Foreign Oil and fossil fuels all together. We have the technology to convert our cars and suvs into a more efficient fuel burning system, but we need more stations, more options for cars and trucks.. those are things that need to be put in place by the government and make those things standard. A lot of these changes are going to only happen if people are forced into these decisions and it’s convenient for them. I don’t even know where someone with a Hybrid car or Flex Fuel car would even fill up. I have never been or seen a station that has those options.

We need to make some drastic changes now and help in preserving our planet so that our mistakes don’t effect the generations to come. Alright well that’s about all I have for now. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle everyone.

So i have no rants about Bush today, so I have decided to create a list because they are fun. My list surrounds creating your favorite cd that reminds you have great period of your life. Could be the songs you listened to in 8th grade while making out with your arm or songs you listened to with your drunk idiot friends while going throught the taco johns drive thru (swear I have never done that). My list centers around the greatest basement in Duluth, MN. Of course that would be Mr. Corey Kemp’s basement. Oh the times we had down there. Nothing like playing beer pong, playing horse race, golf, poker for keg stands, dancing with the gorilla, throwing td passes to Joe Joe, Joe Joe breaking glasses and then blaming it on my (was not me Brett), three guys passing out on a twin bed with a pink blanket, People Under the Stairs etc etc. Man what times. Well here are a list of songs that remind of that time and would be a great cd if you wanted to burn one

1. Less than Jake “plastic cup politics”
2. Rufio “rRoad to Recovery”
3. New Found Glory “Hit or miss”
4. Mxpx “Rock and Roll Girl”
5. The MovieLife “Jamestown”
6. Fenix Tx “Song for everyone”
7. Fall out Boy “The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes” (Side note did not want to put this on here because they are gay now, but they weren’t at that time)(this also makes my list for greatest drive to Grandmas with Brett)
8. Count the Stars “Better of Alone”
9. Blink 182 “Dammit”
10. Midtwon “Just Rock and Roll”
11. Rx Bandits “Analog Boy”
12. The Starting Line “The Best of Me”

I could probably go on for a while, but these are the ones that came to my mind the quickest. If any of you have been to CK’s basement, don’t be afraid to tell a tale. I know we all have them. Just remember the Gorilla went to AlBrook and fits into my lettermans jacket very nicely.

Ever since the RIAA went on this witch hunt for illegal downloaders, this whole music issue has gotten out of hand. A similar organization is suing a auto shop in UK. Mechanics at the shop have apparently been playing their radios loud enough for others to hear it. Performing Rights Society (PRS) has logged over 200 incidents of this happening and are asking for nearly 200,000 Pounds in compensation.

I completely understand the idea of having a license to play music at a bar or in a retail store, sort of. A license like that would cost a business around 30k a year. That is insanely crazy! 30k just to play some music. If someone buys a CD for 10 dollars they should be able to play that CD however they like. Do teachers get fined when they read a book to kids in school? Maybe they do need a license for that, I’m not sure.

Pretty soon there will be tickets given out to people with their windows down at stop lights, and their music playing. I think this whole copyright music issue has come about because of all the downloading. These agencies are finding any last resort to scrounge up every last penny they can. Even if that means coming up with absurd lawsuits like this one.

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