No Principles

I started playing with a local band called No Principles a couple months ago. They've been around several years, and consist mainly of old fogies like myself. :) Their music is mostly classic rock (Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Billy Joel, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd) with a couple oddities thrown in to keep it interesting ("Fast as You" by Dwight Yokum, "Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson, etc). They're a good band, and I'm glad they saw fit to add me to their numbers.


I play a lot of lead guitar, and harmonica on several songs, even though I was originally hired as a keyboard player (so I play that too). You can catch us the first weekend of most months at a club called The Regent (formerly The Woodshed) in Longview, Washington. Drop me a line if you want directions or a specific gig date list. We'll be there May 4/5, if anyone cares. :)

Meantime, here's a few pics from last week. I might get ambitious and put more up, but since I'm revamping the whole website, you'll probably just have to settle for these for now!

Click on the thumbnails to view bigger images!
- posted by Brian Underhill @ 8:39 PM

 
From Blogger to Google

I've been using blogger.com since the inception of this blog a few years ago and have never had any problems - until now. For some un-announced reason, they've switched everything to Google and now I have to have a Google account to log in, etc. Unfortunately, though some incompetant coding on their part, I've been unable to log in for days now. I went around and round with their "help pages" (shyeah, right, help...) and finally posted a message on the help group in Google's forums. Someone gave me a workaround and I'm able to post now.

More coming very soon - I just had to vent a little about the lameness that has become Blogger/Google's merger. Why does everyone have to keep changing perfectly good software, web sites, ISPs, whatever?

If it's not broken, don't fix it.
- posted by Brian Underhill @ 8:04 AM

 
Game Storm 2007 (And Other Newsy Bits)

Just got back from Game Storm in Portland, Oregon, and had a great weekend. It's a good gaming con, but more importantly I spent most of my gaming time with old friends and met several new ones. I've come to the conclusion that game cons are fine for playing games, but the real enjoyment comes from the social company.

I managed to get in several board games (Gloom, St Petersburg, Midguard) as well as play a few RPGs (Castle Falkenstein, Horror Rules, InSpectres, and 7th Sea), all of which had excellent GMs and players. The high point was, as is often true, the Horror Rules game run by the game's creator and my pal, Chris Weedin. If you ever get a chance to play in one of Chris's games, or visit eastern Washington for the Horror Rules MiniCon, by all means do so. It's a top-notch game from a top-notch guy.

In other news:

I started work as a Health Care Specialist for a local school district a couple months ago. Better pay, but not as much fun as being a FF/EMT up north. Still, I get summers off.

Lost a crown last week eating soft-serve ice cream. How is that possible?

Rumors are that gas hit $4.00 a gallon in California. It's close to $3 here. Time to buy another motorcycle.

There's an overhaul of brianunderhill.com in the works. It should be up and online in the next month or so, so if you link directly to this news page, you should pop out to the main home page and check out the changes once they're up. One significant change will be an RSS feed capability for this blog. Details to follow.

My friend Jake bought a new minivan with a built-in GPS and mapping system that talks to him and follows voice commands. The voice recognition is so good that it doesn't even need training. It worked for both him and me, as well as us being silly and using a superhero voice. Technology... hmph.

Jake's van also has a front-mounted laser that automatically detects the speed of the car in front of him and adjusts the cruise control to match it. Just like the old Wing Commander game.

Anna Nicole Smith died of a drug overdoes. Hm... who didn't see that coming?

I'm working on a pulp-era board game in my "spare time" (shyeah, right). It's mostly for friends and family, but it's a nice reminder of the fun involved in game design. Might bring it to a con or two some day if I ever get it finished.
- posted by Brian Underhill @ 12:47 PM