But all that aside, I've now processed all the great photos taken by one of my best friends Glen, and am ready to post some of them so that you too can see the ringside view of Outside Lands.

To help you rank the bands, here's my assessment -- the best band all-around had to be Cage the Elephant, which gave the most intense performance I've ever seen, all without the slightest hint of pretension. Next came Ween, because they have mastered their catalogue and gave a flawless and energetic performance of some strange and difficult material. Street Sweeper Social Club is next, primarily because of the mammoth guitar chops of Tom Morello and the verbal calisthenics of Boots, without the icky taste of someone else's cloying politics.

The best new band is a toss up -- Portugal The Man was good, if too into staring at each other while ignoring the audience. The Dodos were also amazing, as was Loop!Station, and AudioLux.

The only band we didn't like (I'm going out on a limb here by speaking for Glen, but I'm pretty sure he's with me on this) was the Morning Benders. With that name, you'd expect a grizzled group of road veterans finally breaking into primetime after a decade spent behind stage cages, dodging beer bottle shards and stepping around strippers on stage. Instead, we got four high school sophomores with three chest hairs among them. They had zero energy, and less stage presence.

Still, as Glen said, they were the best band at Outside Lands without driver's licenses.

Anyway, on to the pictures. Glen took all these with a consumer point-and-shoot camera, garnering better photos than a lot of other photogs who had thousands of dollars in gear hanging around their necks. He's got mad skills, as they say.

Loop!Station

Street Sweeper Social Club

TV on the Radio

Cage the Elephant (here the lead singer is standing on the shoulders of the crowd, shoe and microphone in hand, surveying the raucous crowd)

The Dead Weather

and

MIA

Tenacious D

and

And here's just a great photograph. Thanks Glen, for everything.

Here's some pics:

Turns out that Pearl Jam has a ton of strange rules about who can photograph their shows. At Outside Lands, there are likely scores and scores of photogs, most of whom wanted to get in the photo pit to shoot Eddie Vedder's flannel. But only 20 got in. Randomly drawn apparently. Outlets like AOL didn't get in. We got in.

It's not as impressive as it sounds when you realize it was for just one song, and the whole time you're wondering if PJ's publicist is having a hernia. But, it's always nice to win something. It's no foot massager from the church raffle, but it's still a prize. Here's another shot:

Aaahhh, media privilege.

The photo, BTW, was obtained by Glen Cooper, who was shooting for the T-S at the festival because of this:

Others were somewhat upset that we got in ... Alas, I kicketh too much asseth.

Loop!Station

The Dodos

Autolux

(no picture, dammit)

Every band exceeded expectations, but of the major acts, Sliversun Pickups kicked the most ass. And mainly it was the singer, whose infectious good humor and strong vocals -- not to mention his serious guitar chops -- kept the swollen crowd loud and moving.

What else can you say about a festival where Tom Jones -- yes, THAT Tom Jones -- and Q-Tip can find robust crowds who know all the words.

Also, because I'm a geek, here's the view from our inner city hotel -- we've already seen a man and woman get arrested as they had a "415 with themselves," just as a horrified tourist family walked by ...

Alas, no one got Tasered.

My buddy Glen and I drove down last night from Humboldt County, checked into our rather 1950s chic hotel room in the city, and are now freshly showered and plugged in to the Internets.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Glen Cooper, 31, of Washington state:

There's a laundry list of bands performing this weekend, but I'll keep it to a short list:

Pearl Jam
Incubus
The National
Autolux
Q-Tip
The Duke Spirit
The Do Dos
Built to Spill
Kinky
Silversun Pickups

And, of course, Tom Jones

That's just one day folks. We're making our schedules now, trying to plot out some harrowing conflicts. For instance, on Sunday, the legendary (to me) band Ween is bisected by MIA. What are we to do? The station KSLG has gotten us all so addicted to MIA that I may have to duck out for a moment or two to catch the band's international sound.

Yikes. At least Ween is playing for two hours.

Anyhow, we're off in a few moments to search out the press tent, find Will Call, and see if this silly chain of events comes to some kind of enjoyable conclusion.

More photos and words to come ...

I'll be the judge:

John McLaughlin, host of a usually great PBS political talk show, calls Obama an Oreo — black on the outside, white on the inside.

While I don't personally believe McLaughlin is a racist, he may just be an idiot. Comparing blacl people to inanimate objects, no matter what the point, is generally the wrong thing to do.

The New Yorker publishes a magazine cover featuring Obama dressed as Osama — as if we need any more confusion on this front — and makes Michelle Obama out to be a revolutionary, complete with an AK47 and gun belts.

While it's easy to say the cover of the magazine is inappropriate, it's clearly satire. It rattled some cages, and it pissed some people off. That's just successful political commentary. The cover was meant to be a reflection of the misinformation and rumors being spread about the Obamas, and it was exactly that. If some readers can't tell the difference between this ironic potrayal and the reality of the Democratic nominee, then the New Yorker's point is well taken.

Some people are so taken with Obama, and his candidacy, that they feel mockery should be off limits. My feeling? Screw them if they can't take a joke. It will only be a matter of time before McCain is spoofed for some aspect of his candidacy, and I wonder if the legions of Obamaphiles will cry foul then? Not likely.

Incidentally, as the link above will point out, the Niña replica ship will soon be visiting Humboldt County. It occurs to me with this ship's arrival, its crew members will see a relatively well-settled town in Northern California. But if these ships were preceded by the small pox virus and 95 percent of our population had died off prior to its arrival, they'd see a loose gathering of hunter-gatherer societies who they could feel comfortable calling savages.

History repeating itself?

This raises so many questions ... and most of them end with a punch line. For starters, is this for real? All we can do is hope.

I have seen religious tracts, such as from Chick Publications, that often times feature other religious groups and Satan as comic caricatures. But this one goes beyond any I've seen before. It's the only one I could find that makes Jesus out to be so ... well ... bad ass.

As for the recommended colors, what exact hue is "Flesh of Christ?"

On a personal note, Somerville took the initiative when arriving at the Times-Standard to create the position of Web editor, so that the online content objectives of this newspaper would not get lost in the shuffle and hubbub of other priorities. Because of this move, and the attention Somerville paid to online endeavors, our Web site has grown exponentially in terms of content over the past two years.

He was billed as a forward-thinker, and in this regard he truly lived up to that label. I thank Rich for the opportunity.

As the search begins for a new managing editor, I and others here at the Times-Standard know that until then we will be ably led by City Editor/Interim Managing Editor Kimberly Wear, who to my mind is one of the finest journalists on the North Coast. The future of The Times-Standard remains bright.

Russert's style was to make the guests face up to their past statements and expose inconsistencies. He never played favorites, and he never played soft. He was bold in his search for the truth and unflappable when meeting resistance. He was the reason I first wanted to become a journalist. Such a loss will be sorely felt at NBC, and in the rest of world of journalism.

I used to agree. As a reporter, obviously I grew sick of savage bastards calling my mother a whore and other things when I wrote a story about some meth head getting arrested. Now I welcome it.

Just kidding. But seriously, a newspaper Web site can drive itself nuts policing all the comments that come in, or they can clamp down entirely and ruin what has become one of the most prolific forums for free speech in the modern age. But there is a third path: I prefer the Topix system, predictably, in that it allows the commenters to police themselves. If someone posts something offensive, and three people report it as such, we take it down. If a particular forum gets so out of hand that it can't be so easily controlled, then we shut down that particular forum.

But anonymity, while painful at times, allows a level of honesty that isn't available otherwise. Therefore, we'll be keeping our comment system as is. Comment away, but know that if you piss of too many of your peers, you're likely to be taken down.

So a woman develops the backless bra, and everyone is ga-ga over the innovation. Seriously folks, in an age when scientists are growing organs in petri dishes, and when surgery can make Dolly Parton forever firm, why has it taken so long for someone to patent this no-brainer?

Nevertheless, I can't help the rush I get when an earthquake strikes, and the little voice in the back of my head that screams for more.

Every time an earthquake kicks off, there's that initial moment of surprise, and then the anxious expectation — is this THE BIG ONE? The megathrust? Are we all going to be shaken off the planet like so many fleas off a pissed off dog? When, as has happened so far in my life, it never is the big one, I can't help but feeling a little disappointed.