For those of you who know me, you'll know that I've always had a lot of gay friends, both male and female. Throughout my life, I've often had people telling me that I was suppressing my own latent homosexuality (a little concerning when two of them were girlfriends at the time). My response has always been that I don't see sexual orientation as a binary thing (i.e straight or gay) but as a multi-dimensional continuum, with people being at different points at different times of their lives, or under different circumstances.

I do have to say that it has all been a lot easier since someone coined the term metrosexual. Since then, more people seem to accept that for a man who enjoys the occasional manicure or facial is not necessarily familiar with the "the love that dares not speak its name". Not that it has ever really bothered me, as I've always been pretty comfortable with my sexual identity, whether others were or not.

I give this background so that you know a little bit more about me, and to give some context to the following email that I received from my daughter last Wednesday, and how I'm reacting to it.

There's also something else you should probably know. The friend I would be coming out with is also in fact my girlfriend. We have been dating since June of last year, and it is quite serious. We are planning to move in together in London over the summer, and this would be our summer holiday together before starting our new jobs, etc.

Since the Holidays, I'd been playing telephone tag with my daughter (who is in her final year at University)

Unable to sleep, I get back on my PC and start to wander aimlessly through del.icio.us links.

Here's one from http://postsecret.blogspot.com that made me sit up with a start!

Linux for Human Beings

Okay, I have to admit it... if I checked my biorhythms, I'd find that my geekiness was in the ascendant.

Ever since I had to replace the hard drive in my notebook PC (moving up from a slow 60GB drive to a fast 100GB one), I've been itching to do something else with all that real estate.

It's not that I hate Microsoft or Bill Gates (heck, I just bought some MSFT stock), but a lot of the fun that I had in the early days of desktop PCs just seems to have dissipated. I think part of it is that I just know Windows XP and Office 2003 so well, that they don't really present much of a challenge any more.

Anyway, I decided to set my notebook as a dual-boot (Windows XP/Linux) machine. It took me a few attempts (see below), but this blog is coming to you courtesy of Ubuntu Linux.

Attempt 1: Ubuntu 5.1 - AMD64 version
This loaded okay, but I soon hit multiple problems because of the unavailability of some key 64-bit Linux drivers.

Attempt 2: OpenSUSE 10.0
This one loaded okay too, but didn't do as well with recognizing my wide screen (1280 x 800). For many Linux distros (this one included), one of the key challenges is getting wireless access working. If you google for help, you enter a world of what could be taken for black magic and mysterious incantations. Maybe I didn't have the right type of chicken bones to scatter, but after an hour or so I gave up. I would have tried longer, but SUSE didn't seem to run too fast on my machine, so I decided that it was time to move on.

Attempt 3: Ubuntu 5.1 - x86 version
It was a little frustrating to have to fall back on the plain vanilla (x86) version, as it doesn't take advantage of the Athlon 64-bit processor that I have. Having said that, it did let me get wireless access up and running (by cleverly 'wrapping' the Windows driver, so that Linux could use it), and so I'm ready to forgive a lot.

Okay... I promise I'll try and get out more ... must see more shows... MUST SEE MORE SHOWS!

Blogging via email

Often finding myself in airports with time to kill, I suddenly started wondering if there wasn’t a quick and easy way to keep up with my blog.

Sure enough, a few seconds with Google and I came up with the answer – blogging via e-mail.

Before you can use this feature, you do need to configure it, but it is very straightforward.

1) Sign on to your blog and click on the ‘Select’ tab.

2) Select ‘e-mail’ from the list of options that appear directly below the tab settings.

3) You’ll see a field called ‘Mail-to-Blogger address’ which is made up of the following components:

· ‘Your blog name’, followed by a period.

· A blank field where you can enter a secret word that will make up part of your blogging by mail email address.

· A ‘Publish’ check box (if you check this, your blog entry will be automatically posted; if not, you’ll have to go in manually and publish your blog to post your entry.

All you do is fill this in, and then you can send you mail-in blog to the following address:

Blogname.secretword@blogger.com

The inner geek in all of us

I'm afraid this is a bit of a geeky blog entry, but I was just so excited to find the following page. I'd been looking at the new Treo 700W as a potential replacement for my Blackberry 7100T (my plan's up for renewal next month, and I've sort of got used to getting a new 'free' phone every year). While I was browsing , I came across a link which told you how to use the Treo as a wireless modem. This got me wondering if I could do the same with my Blackberry, and one quick google later, voila!

Sanjay's Coding Tips :: How to use the Blackberry 7100 as a GPRS Modem

I have an unlimited data plan with my Blackberry, which I need to be able to get the synchronized e-mail. This uses GPRS which is pretty slow (25KB down / 5KB up). Up to now, I've been limited to using it for simple browsing on the phone itself (checking flight times, checking directions, etc.), but now I can use it as a wireless modem and save those outrageous airport/hotel hotspot charges.

The Pogues: In the wake of the Medusa

Thinking about Kirsty MacColl earlier, it reminded me that her single with The Pogues, 'Fairytale of New York', was re-released in the UK to mark the fifth anniversary of her tragic death.

I decided to find out how it did, and was pleased to see that it ended up #3 in the charts (it had originally reached #2 in 1987, when it was first released).

What was also interesting to read was that a documentary, 'The Story of Fairytale of New York', was shown on UK TV on December 19th. I need to find a BitTorrent of that, as it sounds pretty interesting.

Post-script to last night's events:

One more thing that I should mention was what happened after the show. We dutifully queued to get the newly-purchased 'Room of Songs' autographed and to meet and greet the band. While we were in line, I saw a tall figure approaching me. It was my former girlfriend MaryBeth who comes in at a striking 6'3" in stockinged feet (she claims 6'1", but I'm 6'2" and she's taller than I am).

It was a little bit strained; somewhere near the 'cordially frosty' point on the air kisses <-> pistols at dawn continuum. This might have had something to do with the fact that the only exchange we've had over the last 3 years was when I found out that she was continuing to use my Emusic.com account to download music for free (for her, that is ... it was costing me my $9.99 / month subscription). When I tackled her on it, she came up with some lame story about how the cookies must have been still sitting around on her PC and that her new boyfriend (who also has an Emusic.com account) must have inadvertently gone into my account without noticing. Hmmm, the phrase "pull the other one .. it has bells on it" comes to mind.

Last night, we went to one of my favorite music venues, World Cafe Live, to see the Alejandro Escovedo Acoustic Quartet (which turned out to be a Quintet), with Amy Rigby opening.

For those of you who don't know, World Cafe Live is a $14MM partnership between Philadelphia’s WXPN and a 'for profit' business called Real Entertainment Group. What they did was refurbish an old building owned by the University of Pennsylvania into a 'state of the art' music venue / radio studio that houses both an 80-seat cafe with a stage (known as 'Upstairs') and a 350-seat concert hall (known as 'Downstairs'). If you're a music fan, you'll love this place. If you haven't tried it out, and you live within striking distance of Philly, I heartily recommend trying it out.

So... last night, we decide to go early and have dinner there. The show was sold out, but by getting there at 6.30pm, we were able to get two of the closest seats to the stage. While we were waiting for the food to arrive, the general manager, Roger LaMay, came over to our table and introduced himself. The other people at the table had driven down from Albany, NY for the show (4 hours, so they're pretty ardent fans) and so he was filling them in on the background of the venue. One thing that he mentioned that I hadn't heard before was that the intent is to build a chain of 10 similar venues around the country over the next 5 years, with Philly remaining the flagship location. Now if only I can generate some serious wealth from my day job, I now know exactly what I want to do next!

Okay, onto the show. I'd only ever heard a couple of Amy Rigby tracks on WXPN before, so it was a pleasure to see her opening for Alejandro. Most of all, she reminded me of an American version of Kirsty MacColl. Not a bad thing at all in my book, as I always enjoyed her clever lyrics and self-deprecating humor. Amy's set was 8 or so songs and lasted about 45 minutes.

After a very short break, Alejandro took to the stage, along with the rest of the band (two cellos, spanish guitar and violin). Their sound has been described as 'chamber-pop', and for me, that it is too limiting. What we got last night was an eclectic mix of chamber-country, chamber-folk, chamber-blues, and even the lightest smattering of chamber-punk. The crowd seemed to be made up of hard-core fans, and so the performance was very well received. Unfortunately there was the obligatory drunk at the back of the room shouting out song titles (Alejandro very carefully repeated all of them, before adding "very good.. and we won't be doing any of them") and then at one point declaring his love for Alejandro, which was met with "and I love you too".

The set was probably about 1 hour and 45 minutes. I was so transfixed by the music, that I lost all track of time. I did make a mental note to go out and repurchase the Michael Nyman catalog (my ex-wife got custody of those when we got divorced), as I saw a lot of parallels in just how contemporary they both make traditional instruments sound. The band played incredibly well together, with a tightness that comes from putting in a lot of hours on the road. Alejandro gave insights into a lot of the songs as he introduced them, with lots of touching stories on where the songs came from or the impact they'd had on others.

Okay, I think that it is time to start blogging again. So much has been going on in my life recently, particularly over the last couple of years, that I think it would be good to start keeping a better record. Who knows - if presenile dementia kicks in, it could become very useful!