Yahoo Phone-in and Netgear XE102 Powerline Adapters

I picked up a pair of refurbished Netgear XE102 Powerline Adapters on eBay. These things are very cool. Powerline adapters let you use your home's existing power wiring as network cable. Each unit is identical. They have a standard 2 pronged wall plug and an RJ45 port. You plug one in where your connectivity is, and plug the other one to another outlet in your house where you want connectivity.

I've been using Yahoo's phone-in service in my home office. It's basically phone service through Yahoo messenger. It's like $30/year to have a phone number that people can call. Incoming calls are free. Outgoing calls are a penny a minute and toll-free calls are free. It's a really cheap way to have a home phone. You prepay your account, so I put $10 in mine, and I'm still going. 1-cent per minute for only outgoing non-800 calls takes a long time to use up!

Anyway, I recently had to switch my network equipment around and the router ended up in the living room, so in the office I was on the wireless. The wireless network throughput wasn't enough to run the Yahoo phone successfully. So, I picked up the powerline adapters. Now I'm not wireless any more, but using the wiring in my house as network cable. I'm connected and things are speedy, plenty speedy enough to run the phone.

These things are cool. Just when you think wireless is the way to go, something like this comes along.

Rock, rock, rock!

I woke up with a headache....not good for a marathon concert day. Excedrin did the trick...whew. We got to the amphitheater right about 1:00, when the concert was supposed to start. We stood in the pat-down line in the blazing sun for about an hour before getting in, so we missed Jet Black Stare, which is OK because I hadn't heard them before anyway.

Earshot was good. I have one CD and will buy their new one. Drowning Pool was surprisingly good with their new singer. He had a problem with his leg and couldn't stand for very long, but that guy can scream his lungs out while sitting...pretty impressive. Another CD purchase on the way. Sevendust was thrashing good hard awesomeness. I'd only heard a couple of their songs before. This is where my ears began to ring....oh yeah. :) Shinedown was awesome. The singer came out into the crowd a couple times. Very entertaining, and the music rocked. Ok, two bands to go and my headache is coming back. Excedrin to the rescue again. No, this is not a commercial.

Seether...I love Seether. This is #2 time seeing them, and they're some talented guys. It had just started to get dark when they were setting up so they were the first band where the light show and the smoke were used, which was great, but it made picture taking pretty hard with my little Casio.

Here's me waiting for Seether to start.
Here's Steph and me waiting for Queensryche to start.
Queensryche was last. This is my first time seeing them and Steph's 6th. Notice the Queensryche hat and shirt. The band was perfect. They played mostly songs from Empire and Mindcrime, so I knew a lot of them. They had an orchestra play with them, and a couple of times a line of drums. I don't know where all the drum guys came from. They never said, but they basically ran out on stage in a big line and banged out some nice rhythms while Queensryche played. One of the guys on snare drum was the drummer from Sevendust though, so that was pretty cool to know. Geoff Tate can still sing, man. Wow. He doesn't hit all of the high notes from the early days, but his voice is crystal clear and as powerful as ever. I liked the way he stepped back for the guitar solos. It's their time to shine, and he doesn't get in the way. They were terrific. The last cool thing I have to say about the Queensryche part of the show is that Jef (with one 'f'), the lead singer for "The Enemies Of...", did the lighting. He usually does lighting for shows at the Emerald Queen Casino, but was asked by Queensryche to do the lighting at their Portland and Auburn shows. Steph's brother Steve plays bass for "The Enemies Of...". Overall, this was an awesome awesome (did I say awesome?) day.

All nerd aside, it's time to rock!

Today I venture to beautiful Auburn, Washington to get my rock on!!!...with my fiance of course. :) Who's playing? Thank you for asking. Here's the list.

• Seether
• Shinedown
• Sevendust
• Drowning Pool
• Earshot
• Jet Black Stare
• and...Queensryche!!!

They allow cameras in the White River Ampitheatre, so hopefully I'll be posting some pictures tomorrow. I'll bring the big memory card. heh heh heh

Smoggy Freaky Sky

A coworker of mine took these photos of the sky last night in Olympia. A good mix of smog, weird clouds, sunshine, and pending darkness...very cool.