Q: Are we not men?

A: We are DEVO. D-E-V-O

I am turning into a bad traveller.

I cannot seem to sleep in strange beds. In NYC right now. Woke up at about 3:30am EST (which is 1:30am PST, still my biological time.)

But tonight I am happy. Turned on the TV... Not just the TV, but the very very nice 40" HDTV (which is a Samsung model that appears close to the LTN-406W for those that care)... And on HD-NET saw this concert: Devo and the yeah yeah yeahs in Central Park on July 22 2004.



We used to love Devo. But I haven't intentionally listened to Devo in nearly 20 years. It was fun watching myself sing along with every word.

Being up late watching Devo reminded me of the first time I saw the Beautiful World video, probably on Night Flight. From their Wikipedia entry "Devo created and directed many of their own videos, and the band has cited the video for the song "Beautiful World" as their favorite example of their video work."

The video works at an entirely different level than the "song." Over the course of a few minutes you see the sweet, sacharine images of our "beautiful world" unraveling into perverse carny devo funkiness... And only in the final moments do they deliver the punchline: "It's a beautiful world... (for you... BUT NOT FOR ME!)" Per the comments on YouTube: "devastatingly poignant irony that probably changed a few lives."

Both the yeah yeah yeahs and Devo were just so damn good. I'm glad I can't sleep.

Packets on a Plane

I was bummed to see that Boeing is terminating its Connexion in-flight broadband service.

I recently enjoyed the service on the SingaporeAir long-haul flight from SFO-ICN and it was amazing. Even made a VOIP call, because... I could. Worked flawlessly. Changed the way I thought about flying.

While a bummer for Boeing, hopefully this isn't much of a setback for broadband in the sky.