This is not a tag line!
life in the us
Concert time!
Sep 29th
I went to two concerts at the 9:30 club this week: Ladytron [official site] on Tuesday and Massive Attack [official site] last night.
CSS [official site] was opening for Ladytron and I was pretty impressed by the show. The band was full of energy, especially the lead singer stepping down from the scene to mingle with the crowd several times during the show or even bringing people from the audience on the scene. Ladytron was great though I thought they were less impressive than last time I saw them, though I thought that Mira is developing more and more of a scene presence. She looked just as cute as usual but a lot more comfortable! Seventeen was a huge crowd pleaser as usual and I admit that I appreciate the opening of the show with High Rise which also opens their latest album, Witching Hour. DCist has a pretty good account of the show.
Last night was Massive Attack, and they were, well… massive! 
They had a couple of glitches but not enough to derail the show. Horace Andy [more info], Shara Nelson and Elizabeth Fraser were there to provide vocal support as is most of the time the case with Massive Attack concerts. Angel was just sick and so was Mezzanine. They didn’t play Karmacoma to my regret and I thought that their rendition of Inertia Creeps lack some punch (though it was still great to hear it)!
Next up are Cursive on Tuesday, TV on the Radio [official site] (with Grizzly Bear [official site] opening for them) on October 15th and finally, for this concert series at least, Frank Black [more info], which I haven’t seen live in too long, on October 22nd.
Moved again…
Mar 28th
This time virtually, not physically. Codepuccino has moved to a new hosting company (thanks Jerome ^_^).
Been quite busy lately (as you might be able to tell by the posting time of this blog) but I managed to squeeze in a couple of concerts. I missed Belle and Sebastian at the 930 club (though I managed to get the audio from NPR‘s All Songs Considered) and I missed the Arctic Monkeys last night (damn!) but once again, NPR pulled through and recorded the show! Thanks, NPR! (I should really consider a donation). I managed to see Metric (who were, once again, excellent) and will be seeing Ladytron in April. I also saw Korn in Baltimore this past week-end (Mudvayne were opening for them). The show was quite good: nice visuals, energy and excellent balance. I only (somewhat) regret the fact that they chained together excerpts of a bunch of their better known songs into a “mega-mix” of sorts at one point, which was a little disappointing. But hey, I guess after a while you get bored of the crowd pleasers and you want to play some of your other stuff. I can understand that!
Anyway, I should be getting to bed…
Moved…
Mar 15th
Well, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks (and to be fair, it still is). I have moved to a new place and to celebrate this new beginning, I decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.0.2 and update the theme of this website. I would like to say that I plan on tweaking it here and there but I don’t know that I’ll have time to actually do it. I would also like to say that I’m going to try and post more regularly with more interesting things to say, but, here again, I don’t know that that’ll ever happen. 
Anyway, hope you enjoy the new theme and hopefully, you’ll hear from me again in not too long!
Oracle and JBoss
Feb 11th
So you might have seen the rumors that Oracle might acquire JBoss. According to SYS-CON Italia, it’s more or less a done deal…
Before anyone asks, no, I don’t know anything more about it than what has been reported. And even if I did (which I don’t) I wouldn’t be telling anyway! I approach the issue from a more personal perspective since it would mean that I would end up being hired by Oracle after all. I say after all because, though I didn’t mention the company by name at the time when I discussed my new job, the other offer that I had was from Oracle. It would be an interesting twist for my career but one that I cannot help but consider with a little apprehension, considering all the uncertainty that would result of such a deal. Time will tell and I guess I’ll have to wait and see…
Questionable content
Jan 28th
I discovered the online comic Questionable Content a while ago via Chris Hanson but then forgot about it. I was nursing a cold last night and finally caught up on all the episodes (all 544 of them, yeah pretty sad/geeky way to spend a Friday night but I didn’t feel like doing anything else with my head so far up my ass from the cold). The comic is a pretty smart account of the tribulations of young people immersed in indie culture and all the music snobbism and smartass-ness that entails, while managing to be funny and engaging at the same time (even hitting close to home on occasion). Give it a try!
Still alive!
Jan 15th
It’s been a long time coming but I’m finally posting again! Lots of things have happened since last time I posted so I guess I should summarize a little bit…
First, of course, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year and lots of happiness and health for 2006 (and beyond)!
Then, I’d like to congratulate the Denver Broncos for their divisional playoff win over the New England Patriots. It had been a long time since they last won a playoff game and it’s nice to see them advance to the AFC championship for the first time in 7 years. While I haven’t blogged about it this season, I have been following their play (like I always do) and I was extremely pleased with the way they handled the end of the season to secure a second seed (bye and home game, baby!). Of course, while it’s a nice achievement, there is still two games to play and win before they can be where they want to be. But, first thing first, they’re going to have a tough game next week against a very good Pittsburgh team (sorry, Sylvain, but I hope they’ll beat the Steelers soundly and advance to the Superbowl).
So what have I been up to? As mentioned in my last post, I spent a month in France. It was really nice and relaxing to be able to come back home after having stayed in the US for more than a year and a half. I got to spent some quality time with family and friends and that’s something which importance is easy to underestimate. It was also really nice to finally go back to the Alps and snowboard on some real mountains (despite the now traditional lack of snow of the early season). The only trouble spot with that trip was the fact that, while tweaking my board settings, I forgot to screw all the screws tight of one my bindings which basically got removed from the board the first time I applied some pressure to it on the slopes… End result: a nice fall with my binding still attached to my leg but free from the board, making my left leg hit the edge of the board which cut through my just recently bought pants and a still-not-healed gash on my shin.
I also got upgraded on the return trip after giving up my seat on my originally scheduled overbooked flight and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t wish to always fly business.
I’m also starting to get a better understanding of the JBoss Portal code base so I should become more productive soon. I have also been looking for a new place to live in visiting lots of houses and it’s taken up a lot of my free time. Hopefully, everything will slow down soon and I’ll be able to blog some more.
Moving on…
Nov 29th
It’s pretty amazing the amount of crap useful stuff that one can amass on a desk and on a computer… I wish sorting through all this stuff would be easier/faster and wouldn’t leave me with the paranoid feeling that I’m forgetting to transfer something important… Then again, maybe it’s time to start implementing some changes to live simpler without accumulating as much junk as I currently do. I am thinking about getting started with GTD to improve efficiency on that front (tracking important things is the first step towards controlling chaos) and help me stay on track while working from home.
On the plus side, I now have a shiny new PowerBook 15″ (the ones with the improved screens) and, despite not being able to get the faster hard drive due to time constraints, I have to say that it’s very, very nice. Let’s try to keep it that way! Also coming up, after a very-interesting looking training, some time in France with my family (I hadn’t gone back since June 2004) and some good snowboarding in the Alps! Yay! 
Goddess on a Highway from the album Deserter’s Songs by Mercury Rev
New job
Nov 15th
It’s been a long time since last time I posted. My thoughts (and time) have been consumed by my quest to find a new job. I interviewed for several positions some more promising than others but in the end, it boiled down to two great but vastly differing offers between which I had a really hard time deciding…
Time was of the essence in this matter, as it often is, and with a slightly different timing, the outcome could have been very different (sorry, Christophe 
). However, I am happy and very excited to report that, thanks to a late but strong push by my former roommate Julien Viet, I’ll be joining JBoss to work on JBoss Portal as of November 30th. Thanks again to everyone who made this possible. I can’t wait to get started!
Patriarch On a Vespa from the album Live It Out by Metric
Leaving NIST
Sep 19th
I actually made the decision a while ago but I forgot to post about it: I have notified my manager at NIST that I will be leaving at the end of my contract in January. It wasn’t an easy decision since, while my assignments got somewhat less interesting and less in tune with my skill set and aspirations lately, I enjoyed working at NIST a lot and it was a tremendous experience. I just felt, as I alluded in a previous post, it was time for me to move on to new things… I haven’t made a decision on what to do yet and I need to get my job search in higher gear, though I am already interviewing… I’ll provide more information when/if I can.
