Gabriel Murphy's Weblog

On August 1, 2007, the Dave Matthews Band performed a new song named #27. Since then, the show has been performed almost every night and is likely to remain commonplace throughout the remaining part of the 2007 tour.

The mere name #27 "likely" breaks a common tradition with Dave Matthews. Dave numbers all of his songs in the order that he writes them. To put it simply, "#34" was the 34th song that he wrote, and so on for the others. Dave has often said that he has trouble coming up with titles for the songs that he writes. For this reason, some of his song titles may seem elusive (for example, the title "Granny" was made more as a joke than a reflection of the song's meaning.) In the absence of a good title, Dave has turned to soundman Jeff "Bagby" Thomas, who is credited with naming such songs as "Heathcliff's Haiku Warriors" and "Blue Water [Baboon Farm].") When neither of them could come up with a title, Dave has called the song by the number that it was assigned when he wrote it. The first song to have its number as its name was "#34."

It is hard to believe that naming the song is more difficult for Dave then writing the song. Given Dave numbers all of his songs in the order in whicih he writes them, then either #27 has been in a vault since approximately 1995-1996 (when we know #34 came to be) or, and more likely, the name #27 breaks this naming convention as #27 is not the 27th song Dave authored (if it was given a traditional name, it would be something like #7_ or #8_). Perhaps there is something about "number eight-nine" that is just not as catchy.

#27 reminds me of the Summer 200 rendition of Raven- it evolved every night. However, it seems Dave has focued in on lyrics he likes for #27. Nancies.org has yet to update their song database with #27 and the lyrics. After listening for hours, here are the lyrics to #27 with a high degree of accuracy:


As a young man, I was afraid
Of my life, what would I make?
Well, I would make love, what will I hate?
What bittersweet role will I choose to the grave?

Well I'm so old that this oldness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then
Cause if I'm old until this oldness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then

I'm sick of you and I'm sick of me
I'm sick of war and I'm sick of peace
I'm sick of sound like I'm sick of silence
I'm sick of the darkness till I'm sick of the light

Well I'm so sick that this sickness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then
Well if I'm sick until this sickness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then
I hope you'll be by me then

Once as a boy, I saw what happened
I saw them beat him down to the cold, cold ground
I watched those big boys beat that man down
I was too weak, too weak to take a stand

Well, I'm so weak that this weakness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then
Yeah, I'm so weak that this weakness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then

Well I'm old till this oldness has me dying
I hope you'll be by me then

So I will live as I see fit
And there will be those who will not like it
But in the arms of a woman I found my way home
So to the arms of a woman I will always go

And if I'm old until this oldness has me dying
I hope she'll be by me then
Yes if I'm old till this oldness has me dying

After the 7-30 blowout by the Saints against the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead yesterday, I now regret spending $8,000 on four club level season tickets. The Chiefs are now 0-3 in the preseason and although it is just the pre-season, it is a glance of the regular season ahead.

The Chiefs kickoff the regular season with what will likely be a road victory against the Houston Texans, then will fall on the road at Chicago and Miami in weeks 2 and 3. The Chiefs get the Vikings for their homeopener on September 23, and will likely win this contest, making them 2-2. The week after, they will start a 3 game loosing streak, starting with an away loss to San Diego, a loss to Jacksonville at home in week 5, and a loss to the Bengals at home. The Chiefs will likely be 2-5 after week 7.

Infact, the Chiefs are very likely to drop both home and away games to San Diego and Denver this year, accounting for 4 losses to division rivals. The Chiefs will surely (hopefully) sweep Oakland or at least split the series. The Chiefs will likely win the away contest versus Oakland, taking their record to 3-4 going into their week 8 bye.

Hosting Green Bay, the Chiefs will surely win but will turn around and drop a home game to Denver the following week. Week 11 takes Kansas City to Indianapolis, where Kansas City will certainly loose. Coming home into week 12 with a record of 4-6, they will improve to 5-6 against the Raiders at Arrowhead. An early December game (December 2) against San Diego could work to the benefit of Kansas City, but unlikely, resuting in a record of 5-7 at the conclusion of week 13.

The Chiefs will then loose the next two games to Denver @ Denver and the Titans at Arrowhead, falling to 5-9 with two more games. Kansas City will be mathematically eliminated from playoff contentions in week 14 or 15. The Chiefs will defeat Detriot on the road and likely loose their last game of the season to the Jets away, ending their season at a dissappointing 6-10.

Perhaps the Chiefs pull off a victory against the Jets and/or Denver/Tenessee at home. If so, consider the best case scenario for Kansas City to be 8-8. Whether it is 8-8 or 6-10, it will be a long season.

Yesterday APlus.Net announced the acquisition of web-design firm WebImage. I strongly believe that the remaining 40% of small businesses which have yet to establish an Internet presence (domain-owned website) will rely on a do-it-for-me (DIFM) solution provider. WebImage is an outstanding little company that has differentated itself from other larger players in the DIFM design space by focusing on high quality designs with efficient processes (it takes an average of 1.5 hours from start to finish to complete a design).

Look for the WebImage product to be quickly integrated into the product portfolio of Aplus.Net.

Just got back from HostingCon 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. Same speakers, different year.

Today, Ryan Elledge and I went out on Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures 32' dive boat for a two tank dive off the shores of Wailea, Maui. I was hoping we would get to dive the backside of Molokini Crater as I had heard that this is a challenging dive. From what I understand, the ocean floor is in 3,600 feet of water and Molokini is a vertical wall filled with eels and other interesting aquatic life. Most dive shops in the area qualify this dive as an advanced dive as you have to have excellent control of your buoyancy to avoid drifting while maintaining a consistent depth. As it turned out, the waters that morning were very rough and we could not make this dive. Instead we dove the side of the crater, which goes into the water at an approximate 45 degree angle. Our dive master informed us that per the dive plan, we would be diving to a depth of 60-80 feet.

Once we got into the water we found the visibility was at least 200 feet. We came across a number of Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, butterfly fish as well as some white tip reef shark. Ryan and I ventured a little off the dive plan and ended up at 120 feet before it occured to us we were at 100+ feet. Knowing (or thinking) I was certified at 135 feet, I saw some white tip reef shark about 15 feet down and immediately decented to get my depth gage to record 135.

After the dive I learned that the NAUI certification is only at 130 feet- the dive guide was not impressed with our venturing off the dive plan.