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Another exciting show is coming up soon! Rodrigo y Gabriela are playing at The Showbox April 24th. I will definitely be going! I will be looking for tickets since they are apparently sold out. Please contact me if you have tickets and want to get rid of them.

I sat trying to figure out how to best describe them and the best I can come up with is a mix between Latin rhythms, classical music, and rock. Their covers of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Orion” are worth a listen, but I personally find their own tracks more exciting.

I’m pretty excited that Ratatat is coming to Seattle soon. Recently I’ve been listening to their self titled CD a lot at work. The songs sometimes sound so simple but they just have a great melody to them.

If anyone is interested they are playing at Neumos on March 27, 2007. Tickets are only $13.

Just to give you an idea of what they are like, here are some videos I found of them playing live.

• Ratatat - live at the Gypsy. Dallas, Tx
• Ratatat - live at SFBH Wellington

Inspired by Jamie’s entry on gender and conversation I thought I’d share some thoughts on a book I recently read called Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back.

Norah Vincent, the book’s author and a journalist for the L.A. Times, spends 18 months as a man and writes about her experience. Read on »

During Scott McCloud’s closing plenary speech at CHI2006 I was particularly taken with one web comic he presented. For some reason I thought of it again recently and spent a good hour scouring the internet looking for it. The illustrations are pretty amazing and I love the use of size.

And without further ado: Pup by Drew Weing.

Today at the University of Washington was the yearly BizTech fair. For those of you who don’t know what what I’m talking about; BizTech is “a technology fair for staff and faculty.”

I worked at the Catalyst booth last year as an undergrad and I have to admin it wasn’t my favorite activity. Sure, it was interesting to talk to the various people who stopped by, but for the most part it pulled me out of my comfort zone.

For this year’s BizTech I still worked at the Catalyst booth, but this time as a fulltime employee. I have to say that it was actually a great experience. Many people stopped by our booth and had nothing but kind words. It was also a chance for me to hear some firsthand accounts of how people are using our tools and what things they would like to accomplish with them in the future. By the end of the day we had a whole page full of people interested in being contacted for usability studies; how sweet is that?

So what did I learn today? I learned that sometimes I get so caught up in the support emails and bug fixes that I forget about the many users who are happy with our tools, that sometimes I am my harshest critic, and that sometimes just talking to a few happy users is all it takes to remind me why I love doing what I do.