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February 06, 2004  Update 4:00 pm: Amazingly, I was playing basketball at Mosswood Park in downtown Oakland today when a man came on the courts and started shooting a gun, ostensibly at another man. The three guys I was playing with were as shocked as I was, but they were a bit more composed, and they were instrumental in getting my sorry white ass out of there as quickly as possible ... not only did they notice the gun before I did, they tried to help me despite the fact that I went about 2 for 15 shooting during our game. The Oakland Police were on the scene and had the suspect in custody within a few minutes, making me think they are a bit more effective than I had previously conjectured. I called the police afterward, and they told me no one actually got shot, which makes me wonder what was actually going on.
After having been about 10 feet away from an honest-to-God urban shooter, I think I've seen just about everything. Now I know what it's like when Allen goes back to the hood. I returned to California last night from a lengthy trip to the East Coast, during which I spent most of my time napping. I hate flying and am tense for the duration of long flights; who could have guessed that I would have to dodge bullets in broad daylight at a park 5 minutes from my house upon arrival? ------------------- In an interesting turn of events, the DualDisc CD/DVD has been finalized and is being test marketed in Seattle and Boston. (This is the long-in-development disc that has a regular CD on one side and a DVD on the other.) This has potentially big implications for the music industry, which would now be able to provide lots of extra content (not just DVD-Audio content) on a single disc that is compatible with the billions of CD players in the market. However, I fully expect the industry to screw the whole thing up somehow. I have to say that April's going to be a fairly exciting live music month here in California, with Kraftwerk and Yes on tour. (Separately, of course.) I saw Kraftwerk live in 1998 in Los Angeles right after I graduated from college, and it was quite an event. All I hope is that they don't play too much of their insane, somewhat crappy new album. |