bobby t’s

We had a great show at Bobby T’s on Friday. Thanks so much to everyone who tuned in to the broadcast. Thanks to Ty and Rob, our friends from San Francisco, who called in with credit cards to buy us rounds of drinks from several states away.

Thus ends the three-day weekend of relaxation. Today was the best day by far. Erica ate with us this morning and when I dropped her off she ended up with both of my cell phones. There is an unexplainable sense of peace that accompanies the knowledge that nobody can contact you.

It’s weird having Erica here and Megan gone. My sisters are quite similar and yet quite different. I’m excited to get to know her as I got to know Megan.

I’m watching Chelsea Lately with Lucas and Diane and plugging away at finishing the new shows section of the website. My mother was in town all day Saturday and never contacted me because she thought I was in Omaha because that’s what my website said. We had booked a show there and when I Twittered regarding its cancellation I never got around to updating the convoluted event calendar that was nailed on top of Wordpress. That’s all fixed now, as the new shows section now includes all shows, both upcoming and past - all the way back to the first launch of the site when Trevor Burgess and I were playing at Fats.

I’m typing away on my Apple slim aluminum keyboard. It’s the one I poured nearly a full cup of coffee into a couple weeks ago. I dried it, wet it, dried it again and when it wouldn’t work I’d left it for dead. A week passed and I tried it one more time and it’s been working well ever since. I guess I bought a pair to have a spare. With all the damn computers around here, I guess it will get plenty of use.

I’m selling my Cloudbook at Thursday’s auction. I couldn’t ever get the wireless to work as well as I wanted, though it seems I’m not the only one. The graphics always seemed weak, though VIA just released an open source driver for it.

I’m currently rocking the ASUS EeePC 900. It’s quite possibly the finest piece of equipment on which I’ve ever laid my hands. I turned it on long enough to hit restart on the Knoppix distribution of Linux so that I could install Ubuntu. I had good luck with Ubuntu-eee as opposed to Eee-Ubuntu. Everything worked pretty much right away. I had to load a different kernel to get the microphone working so I could play with Skype with Diane.

I got Diane an Acer Aspire One as an early birthday present. It’s slightly bigger than my Eee, but the difference in the keyboard size is pretty huge. It also runs Windows XP, which is pretty much a must for her iPod Touch. It was also crazy-cheap, weighing in at $349 at Best Buy.

It seems like John McCain’s Eskimo running mate’s daughter is knocked up. How fun.

Free TV Show from Ustream

We had a great show. I removed the video stream from the post now that it’s no longer active.

From Bobby T’s in Manhattan, Kansas, on 29 March, 2008, this video of Aaron Traffas Band playing Archipelago features Aaron Traffas, Mason Powell, Chris Goering and Lucas Maddy.

For more YouTube goodness, view this gem. Rob told me about it the other day. It’s for all you asshole racists out there. This shows how smart you sound.

Aaron Traffas and Lucas Maddy
Bobby T’s Bar and Grill
3240 Kimball Ave
Manhattan, KS 66503
785.537.8383

I won’t be there. Lucas “Squirrels are Fun” Maddy, however, and Russell “Love Rusty” Lovenstein will be drinking it to ye. Rock the cash bar. Say hi to the greatest bar tender in Kansas for me. Lucas will think I’m talking about him. Don’t tell him, Greg.

Diane and I are rolling to Wichita for her brother Dave’s wedding. We’ve loaded the Zune with West Wing episodes for the drive down. Between those hits and the XM channel POTUS 08, I’ve got my political drugs set to keep me on a progressive high until election day.

I’m going to be checking walmart.com hourly tomorrow to be the first one to order a Cloudbook. It’s got to be the coolest thing I’ve ever wrapped my mind around. An ultra-portable sub-notebook with a 30GB hard drive that runs gOS, an Ubuntu Linux variant, for $399. At that price, they’re disposable.

Aaron Traffas Band
With Lucas Maddy
Bobby T’s Bar and Grill
3240 Kimball Ave
Manhattan, KS 66503
785.537.8383

Here’s Archipelago from Bobby T’s on 4 May 2007.

Well, Jim has convinced me that it’s time for me to make my triumphant return to the world of the electric guitar. I think it’s more like a bunch of friends pushing the gullible guy off the cliff - or off the rocker. In any case, it’s going to be a rock show at our monthly railing, or, rather, our monthly show at the Rail, tomorrow night.

I’ll be playing a solo, acoustic show at Bobby T’s on April 7. It’s been a while since I played in Manhattan, so it should be a good time.

We’re still running the *NAME THE BAND CONTEST*. We’ve had some good suggestions so far, as well as some bad ideas. We’ll be running the contest for a few more weeks, so send name suggestions to band@aarontraffas.com. Be sure to leave your name and valid email in the message if you want to be eligible for the prize. If you submit the selected name, we’ll buy and send you three CDs of your choice from http://www.lonestarmusic.com/, not to mention a free CD and T-shirt from us once we have them ready. We’ll post the runners up on the website.

I’m sorry to anyone who thought I was going to Gumby’s as intermittently advertised. I went to Bobby T’s due to Jed and Chrisi’s insistence. I almost miss the days that I was assigned five songs and could only perform those and was forced to get off stage. Tonight I played 17 songs. Half of the alcohol I consumed was paid for by other people. That’s nice, but I wish I could be forewarned when I have to finish the night…with over an hour of time to go. Maybe it’s just that facet of me that has to look pessimistically on a good thing. Anyway, I think this is the last time that I set a goal for myself that I will play all four open mic nights in Manhattan. It was a good experience, but I think I will limit myself to two nights a week.