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The Chicago Tribune asked readers to share their worst concert experiences, and one woman wrote in with a tale from a Doobie Brothers concert at Ravinia Park.

In short, it involves a friend’s kid, a beach ball, and a guy screaming in her face because his wine & candelabra ended up in his dessert.

Yeah, Ravinia is the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  But, this wasn’t the Tchaikovsky Spectacular, it was a freakin’ Doobie Brothers concert.  As one of the obnoxious preachers in the NIU commons so helpfully pointed out, they are not brothers, and their last names are not Doobie.  Calm down, take a hit, and listen to the music.  Isn’t the whole wine & candelabra thing a little antithetical to the whole hippie deal?

Eh…who am I kidding.  I’m sure Amy & I will find ourselves dragging the little ones to KMFDM at the Civic Opera in ten years, with a bunch of stinky cheese & cabernet.

There were some interesting new Apple products announced yesterday that I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about, so I’m not going to echo all the breathless geekery you’ve read a million times already.

But, I am going to ask “where’s the new Mac Mini”?

According to the Mac Buyers Guide at MacRumors, the Mini hasn’t seen an update since August 07, 2007. That’s the longest any current Apple product has gone without major changes, with the exception of the Cinema Display line which got a new model yesterday. Now, I have two Mac Minis and I love them. They’re little machines that stay out of the way and don’t have loud fans going constantly. They aren’t particularly easy to upgrade, but if you’re willing to drive two putty knives into the chassis, you can upgrade the latest ones to 3gb of RAM, and they sport Core 2 Duo processors.

What’s missing? 802.11n networking would be nice, but you can get a USB adapter for that. What’s really hurting the Mini is its integrated Intel 950 graphics, which are downright pitiful next to the new Nvidia chips announced yesterday. The Intel 950’s fill rate (”the number of pixels a video card can render and write to video memory” according to Wikipedia) is a “theoretical” 1600 megapixels/s. The Nvidia 9600M GT announced yesterday has a fill rate measured in gigapixels.

I’m not expecting the Mini to get much love in the near future. It’s always been seen as a cheap little machine for switchers to get the Mac experience before diving in and buying an iMac or MacBook. Not all hope is lost, though. There are MacBooks with broken screens selling for about $300 on eBay right now. They’re not the new ones, no, but they pack the same CPUs & features as the latest Minis, plus 802.11n networking and better graphics.

You can lay them flat and call them “squished Minis”. Or, turn them upright and wont take up much space on your desk. They were made to be portable, but they don’t have to be!

Anyway, just a thought from your local Mac Mini afficianado.

As I expected, Space Politics had the details on that $3 million “overhead projector” McCain mentioned in last night’s debate.

They quote Obama’s senate web site, which says:

One of its most popular attractions and teaching tools at the Adler Planetarium is the Sky Theater. The projection equipment in this theater is 40 years old, and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer. It has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience.

If they’ve kept the current projector running for 40 years, and they only want to replace it because they can’t get parts, I’d say it’s about time it was replaced. $3million every 40 years is a great deal.

I fucking hate moths.

Three weeks ago, I had moths flying around my car.  Every morning, there’d be at least two new ones.  I figured one got in and laid her eggs somewhere in my upholstery.  Yay.

Yesterday, I figured out why we haven’t had any birds at the feeder in months.  Part of the feeder broke, and a bunch of seed rotted at the bottom.  I had to throw the feeder out, and I picked up a new one today.

I opened up the metal garbage can with the seed in it, and…you guessed it…moths, moth larvae, and spiders preying on the moths.  It’s a good thing I had an empty stomach, or else I would have thrown up right there.  I had to get rid of at least $50 worth of bird seed and sunflower seed, which I wasn’t too happy about.

A few years ago, when I first started feeding the birds, we had mice living in the seed can.  That’s when I switched from a plastic can to a metal one.

What’s it going to take this time, mothballs?

Thursday night, Daisy squirmed and hissed when Amy brushed her tail.  Daisy never hisses.  I tried to take a closer look later that night, but couldn’t see anything under all her fur.  I felt a hard bump though, and expected the worst — a broken tail.  Amy took her to the vet Friday afternoon, and learned that Inigo bit her tail pretty badly, and that she had an infected abscess.  The vet drained the wound, and Daisy was spoiled all weekend.

My plans to meet up with Destine (in town for the ECCC Commodore convention) Friday night didn’t materialize.  So, Amy & I had dinner at Giordano’s and did a crossword puzzle while we waited for our food.  We got a call asking if we could come in to clean the cat shelter Saturday morning, and we were happy to oblige.

After we finished at the shelter Saturday, we headed downtown for Wired NextFest.  We came back home for dinner (homemade kung pao chicken), then picked up some Wii games at GameStop: The Simpsons Game and Trauma Center: New Blood.  Thanks to same late-night Red Bull, I was up until 3am playing The Simpsons Game.

Today, I did the crossword puzzle with Amy, ran some errands, mowed the lawn, and then we watched Jericho.  Tomorrow, I have to drop Daisy off at the vet’s for follow-up & observation on my way to work, and pick her up when I come home.  They might have to knock her out, so she’s locked in the basement bathroom overnight without food & water.  I just know I’m going to end up sleeping down there to keep her company.