Can you tell me where my country lies?

said the unifaun to his true love's eyes.
"It lies with me!" cried the Queen of Maybe
- for her merchandise, he traded in his prize.

"Paper late!" cried a voice in the crowd.
"Old man dies!" The note he left was signed 'Old Father Thames'
- it seems he's drowned;
selling england by the pound.

Sorry, I can't start that lyric without singing the whole thing in my head, so I might as well write it down. In fact, those lyrics are probably a major catalyst in my love of music. I can still remember sitting on the couch listening to my new tape on my parent's stereo. On the start of this day I didn't know that Peter Gabriel had also been a lead singer of Genesis. I had been listening religiously to Invisible Touch, and with my meager funds I had picked up a second album based on the interesting picture on the cover. Those lyrics opened the album, and turned me from a Genesis fan into a fanatic.

I bring this up for a reason. Those who know me know that I am the cheap Scotsman. My wife constantly teases me about my hesitation about buying anything over $50. I've put off my new computer purchase for months (and more months to come), and I haven't picked up a new game since 2006.

However, even though I own all the albums, and 2 box sets, I will not hesitate on June 12th in heading over to Best Buy and slapping down over $200 the new Genesis 1976-1982 surround sound mix box set.
Reviewed at http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/musicreviews/2285/genesis-in-surround.html

The fact the reviews of the surround sound mix were very good was the final nail in the coffin.

For all my frugality, I do have very little willpower when it comes to hardback books and music. Especially for my favorite bands.

Now, there's something I want to point out about my favorite top 3 bands vs what is out there today.
Between 1974-2007 Rush had 17 albums
Between 1990-2007 Tori Amos had 9 albums
Between 1969-1997 Genesis had 16 albums

That averages to an album (I didn't count live albums) under every 2 years. If you look at the early years of Rush & Genesis you'll see sometimes they did an album every year, or twice a year. Compare that with today where new artists won't see their second album until after 2 years, usually 3. You have to wonder if the ability to continuously craft your music back then really helped these bands grow. They could gradually evolve their sound over time. In fact, if you listen to the albums from their beginning days to current day you can see the connections. As opposed to today where an artist's second albums is usually a glaring contrast to their first.

With today's technology, you'd think producing more music more often would be easier. However the industry seems to want to space these things out, and I think its a reason people are dissatisfied with the recording studios in general. They seem to want to gamble on each release being a huge hit instead of growing an artist. Especially with their love of the 'single'.

While I despair over the possibility of the potential loss of the album in today's digital age, I hope it means that artists get to push their work out more often, and get better at honing their craft.

The cleanest I've been

Well, after over 3 years of faithful service, our faithful companion started showing signs of its age. Stuttering, stumbling, and falling. I am speaking of that most reliable of servants, our Tivo. For all our research, we found only one way to save it. Wipe it clean and start over. All the favorites, preferences, and knowledge its accumulated throughout the year, all gone. No longer will it find episodes of "Family Guy"wherever it may show and bring it to me. At least, not for a while.

Its amusing that after a certain amount of time our computers and computer like devices need to be cleared out and restarted. Even in a virtual world, we can't clean up after ourselves.

Driven up and down in circles

So I spoiled my son a bit and bought him a little three-wheeled scooter. We fitted him with a helmet (which he will slap while on his head going "knock-knock"), and pads and turned him loose on the streets. And by streets, I mean my driveway and the adjoining sidewalk. He's getting off to a decent start though sometimes he will end up kicking the wheel by accident. We definitely need to keep the knee pads up as he's already scraping them up.

I mention the padding because with that padding came some fingerless gloves that we did not put him in. However he discovered the gloves and insisted on wearing on them. At this point he went around stating "Gavin Cooking!".

Speaking of driving, gas prices have gone up again. This of course leads to my chortling at SUVs, and reading in the paper about how catastrophic it is. This irritates me. Not the chortling, I quite enjoy that. Here's the deal, the U.S. can handle $3 dollars a gallon. SUVs are still selling quite well, and while hybrids are well publicized, they're still a drop in the bucket in production. The economy will adjust. And don't get me started on that one day boycott of gas. You'll just buy it the next day, you know, I know it, they know it, stop kidding yourself. Useless public gestures just irritate me. Its just for people going "Look at me! Look at me!".

I'll give you a second to see the irony of that last statement.

Back to Gavin, he walked his first dog today. Well, he started walking the dog, it ended up with the dog walking him. He never let go of the leash though, he was determined to get it done. It was quite adorable.

We can act like we come from out of this world

Gavin and I have a secret, when mommy's away, we dance. Though his version of dancing usually evolves into spinning, it still looks a lot better than mine. Hence we do it while mommy is gone. Otherwise there will never be a brother or sister for Gavin (not that we're currently trying, but still). It is just that bad, but we have fun. However I need to make sure not to choose "Steam" by Peter Gabriel since its so long, dancing around with a 2 year old can take its toll.

Speaking of music I had a great day on May 1st. Having a new Tori Amos, Chantal Kreviazuk, and Rush album come out on the same day is almost too much. But not quite. Now I was a little worried about the new Rush album. Their last album, Vapor Trails, was not one of my favorites. However, I am pleased to say their new outing is quite good. In fact, all of them are very well done. My current favorite is Tori's new outing, she can fully pack a 74 minute CD with no fluff again and again.

On a very bad segue, what the hell was up with this season's Amazing Race? For an "all-star" season all the legs were poorly planned, and generally very weak. The worst was the season finale where all the teams went through multiple tough tasks, only to have that not matter because everyone was going to be on the same flight anyway. You'd think they would have learned from the season Chip & Kim won after doing terribly on all the tasks leading up to the final flight. Here's a hint, on the final leg, do the flight, THEN do all the tasks.