Darkness has been a friend to me

OK, I was originally going to do a review on the new Coldplay album. But I think everyone who reads this blog has it already, or has listened to it. I might still do one just to give people who have the album an idea of how I listen to stuff. But for now, we shall delve into a new artist I discovered last year.

And holy crap, its been a while since I've done one of these.

Liz Tormes - Limelight

I literally stumbled on this artist by accident. After some quick clips I decided to take a chance and grab it on iTunes. A couple of minutes into the album I had stop and start over, this was truely something different, and I wanted to reset my mind and sink into it.

This isn't a flashy, over produced record. In some ways, arrangements are quite simple, yet the subtleties in the music are profound. The whole album has an organic feel to it, making it feel like a casual live performance in your living room. There is a lot of excitement in the album, but it's driven by emotion not by meter. Very possible to do, but very difficult to do for a whole album. I'm constantly amazed that the songs are mostly to a moderate beat, yet the intensity can be so high.

Liz has a fantastic voice, and the lyrics are well polished. Liz can lend emotion to the music without having her vocals overpower the song. Sometimes her voice is sweet, sometimes very smokey, her range is fantastic. I also love the fact there are hardly any self-backing vocals on here. I feel those are used way too much (except for Charlotte Martin who is the queen of knowing how to use them effectivly), when they are used, they're very focused and perfectly executed. From time to time a male backing vocal will appear on Maybe You Won't, Black Luck, and Sorry. I call this out due to the perfection on how this vocal is weaved into the songs. You'll be surprised on how subtly it's used and yet gives a huge impact to the song.

I won't go song by song on this album for three reasons
1) I'm trying something different
2) I think that was boring people
3) Frankly, this is an album that should be bought as a whole.

However, I will point out some highlights

Black Luck is the strongest piece on here, the longest piece, yet it will seem to pass too quickly. The most organic piece on the album, it will sometimes seem to have no structure, yet it's the piece with the greatest punch, and will stick with you long after it's over. Everything on this song is crafted perfectly, and the male vocals I talked about above are used to perfection here. If you buy one song this year, this is it. I could not rate a song higher.

The other very strong songs on the album if you're a cherry picker is Better Days (with the best lyric on the album, "It's not that I don't want to be your girl, I just don't want to be"), Limelight, Without Truth, Sorry and Fade Away.

The other songs aren't as strong, but they should not be considered weak. To quote Coupling "One of them has to be better". When listened to as an album, every song gets a boost by the atmosphere created by the surrounding pieces.

If there is a weak spot on here, it's the song Maybe You Won't, which doesn't seem to deliver like the other songs, and never really gets going.

If you're more popish, then Don't Love Back and Without Truth will probably be your favorite tracks. This album pretty much has something to offer for everyone.

One final note about this incredibly positive review. I have an iTunes playlist "My Mood" where I take songs in and out of as my mood strikes me. This album got added there a week after I bought it last November. It has not ever left that playlist.

It is the only album I own to claim that.

Maybe you're right but I don't think so

OK, no album review....yet. This one is pretty much going to be rapid fire since it's after midnight

First off, if you have kids, go buy the Barenaked Ladies kids album "Snacktime". Here's a music video from it that Gavin just loves. I'll admit the song is getting stuck in my head somewhat as well.



I'm done painting Ian's room, we went with two colors, you know, advanced stuff. What I don't understand is a gallon of paint usually is good for the bedrooms I've painted so far. So why is it with only painting two walls each, the paint cans are almost empty? Maybe you always subconsciously allocate the paint on the wall to what you have? Or maybe Gavin used a lot more paint on the little parts of the wall he did than I thought...

BTW, I'm having trouble with a lyric again for this one, we'll see what I come up with, iTunes shuffle is on.

Speaking of iTunes, why is it they have every freaking Barenaked Ladies video EXCEPT for Pinch Me? Which is the one I would actually buy.

Speaking of buying, will people shut up about the InBev buyout? And by people, I mean politicians who posture like they have any influence on this at all. As I've said, I don't mind stupidity, it's WILLFUL stupidity that pisses me off. (ah, there's the lyric title, thanks Barenaked Ladies). Frankly, its just insulting you think we're that stupid. Especially since now the deal's done you'll be cozing up to the new owners. Oh, and by the way those of you who think it's your patriotic duty to stop drinking Budweiser fall into that bucket as well. If you want to be patriotic, drink even more so less people who work here in St. Louis don't lose their jobs. Alcoholics, we're counting on you.

From a business point of view, the buyout makes good business sense. I hope that in the long term St. Louis will benefit from the global reach. This is unlike the stupidity that is happening between Microsoft and Yahoo. As my father is prone to say, 80% of the mergers/buyouts that happen are because of ego, not good business. This is definitely an ego purchase. It's like the dog chasing the car, once he catches it, what's he doing to do with it? (I apologize to the female dogs who would accuse me of gender bias in that last sentence, of course you chase cars too). Microsoft should be running from the deal, and Yahoo should be begging them to buy. Instead both parties being run by ego.

My wife probably got bored and left after that last paragraph, let's get out of the business world.

Speaking of something more interesting, Ian is doing much better now. We actually get sleep, and I can actually type with two hands tonight. Hence the lack of posting (there's always a reason, isn't there. I haven't even dug that deep into the bucket of excuses). Our wonderful Dr. Allison suggested putting some towels under his mattress so he can sleep at an angle, and it worked quite wonderfully.

Speaking of Ian, Andi, I told you earlier by email that you don't need to bring anything over to visit the baby. You never listen to me. So you'll come over this weekend. Clear your calendar.

Speaking of visits, our finished basement had it's first guests over the 4th of July from A&S who brought their daughter Maya who's gotten much bigger. Her phrase right now is "dop dop" which is quite cute when you hear it. Anyway, they didn't complain or run screaming out of the guest room, so I guess the money was well spent.

The playroom also survived a 4 hour play date with Gavin's friend J. I shudder to think of the damage these two can do when they get older. Frankly as much fun as he has with J, playtime with C is much easier on my nerves.

Thanks again to A&A (you know, this tradition of abbreviating names just irritates me sometimes) for helping paint the basement. After that and Ian's room I have lost all desire for the task.

Holy crap, has it been 30 minutes already? How did that happen?

Speaking on money spent (3 paragraphs up, stick with me), could I stop spending money on the house for a bit? After the basement was done, you'd think I'd let it sit. But no, I have to buy a bookshelf, curtains (which I haven't installed yet), new blinds for Ian's room, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something in there. I need some time to recover for my credit card's sake.

Speaking of credit cards (see, we're back on track now), my credit card company decided to improve their systems. Improving their systems apparently involves giving me a new credit card number. I don't understand how that is necessary, since we still have the same # of digits. I had my old number nice and memorized, now I have to actually look for my wallet if I want to make an impulsive purchase online. So thank you for changing my credit card account I guess.

Those of you who chuckled 8 paragraphs up are just sick. I'm too tired to change the sentence though.

Speaking of sentences (this one's a stretch, stick with me), apparently Gavin can actually write letters. He attended his first afternoon adventure, which is apparently like an afternoon school like program, or getting kids used to pre-school, or something like that. I'll let Pam field the questions on what it is. Anyway, he came home with traces of the letter A (and a). Frankly the only thing I've seen this kid do with a crayon is turn a kid's menu monochromatic (that's right, 1am and still churning the multi-syllable advanced words). So I was surprised to see he could actually do that kind of thing. Apparently he loves "school" and can't wait to go back. Apparently he was so energetic, he used up all his energy as I had to carry him up to bed tonight as he fell asleep on the couch an hour before bedtime.

Speaking of bedtime....seriously, did you need me to finish that?

Peering out of tiny eyes

Well my last post was somewhat prophetic, as Ian Ramiel MacDonald was born on May 27th, 6:30 pm.

That's for the random people who have stumbled on this blog and wondering why after stating I was going to post more often, that I go silent for a month. The rest of you know this. We all up to speed? Good.

His middle name can be interpreted as Thunder of God, or Mercy of God. To be quite frank, he seems to be trying on both hats to see which one he likes. One night we get 4 hour sleep sessions, the next, 2 hours. Such is the life of a newborn.

It was quite strange this time to actually come home with the baby. With Gavin in the NICU, we didn't have him in our room, and when we left the hospital we left him there. Otherwise known as the worst day of my life. However we did have the benefit of easing up to being parents as we did it part time for a week before we brought him home. With Ian, we had him as soon as the nurses were done checking him out. A bit of a shock, but it was quite nice. Even nicer was Ian's natural ability to nurse. After Gavin's initial troubles, that was a welcome change.

Gavin surprisingly did not regress as is normal, but went the other way. The week we brought Ian home, he suddenly decided to be potty trained. He will reject some of the little forks and spoons and call them "baby spoons" and he wants a "big spoon". Gavin also tries to give Ian advice during tummy time, and disposes of his dirty diapers. He's starting to resent the amount of time Pam spends with Ian, but we're addressing that.

I suggested to Pam that we might want to try the same potty training technique for Ian, however she is not so keen on the idea. No surprise there.

The basement is now done pending the final county inspection tommorow or Monday. I'm quite pleased with the results, not so pleased with the time it took. Not my contractor's fault though, let me give you a breakdown of the latest issue we had.
1) We buy hardware for the shower/tub (faucet, shower head, bath head, etc)
2) We buy shower surround walls for the bathtub
3) Shower surround walls crumble when the glue is applied, Lowes won't take it back because holes were already drilled into the walls.
4) New shower surround walls bought and installed OK
5) At the end of installing shower hardware, it is found a piece is missing.
6) Manufacturer is contacted and ships said piece.
7) Manufacturer takes a week, and does not ship the unique screw needed to attach piece
8) Manufacturer ships screws (somewhat faster)
9) Hardware installed, however bath and shower come on at same time, and water temperature control just keeps spinning
10) Manufacturere contacted, sends whole new control out
11) 3 weeks later, shower works.

If you aren't a believer in MacDonald's law of luck by now....

But I have a finished basement, and I'm happy. Tired, broke, but happy.

I think my next post will be an album review, I haven't done one of those for a bit....

Come the day I awake the child inside

I have drywall.

After weeks of inspectors, corrections, re-inspections, and the discovery that I apparently am not qualified to run my own phone lines (and must pay someone to do it for me, exactly the same way), I have drywall.

This means that someday my basement will be finished. Someday very soon actually. So it was great joy that I came home Tuesday, went down to the basement to see for myself the amazing spectacle.

I have drywall.

On other happy news, the finals for the Stanley Cup playoffs has begun. Pittsburgh vs. Detriot. I of course am cheering for my beloved Penguins and against the hated Red Wings. This will though be one hell of a series. The 1st game so far has been a little worrisome since the Penguins can't get a good bounce of the puck. However it is offset by the fact that the Red Wings can't catch a break either. A strange situation, but makes for a tense game.

Speaking of tense, not a day goes by that I don't expect a phone call from my wife at work telling me its time for the new baby. Pam is quite big now, and the baby is making her life miserable. However it apparently is content to stay in for a bit longer. We haven't settled on a name yet, however we're not too concerned. I think we're going to wait until he's born to see what feels right.

If we're lucky, the basement will be done by then. But I'm not holding my breath...

Hey I, but, I'm still alive

I thought it was going to be longer until I quoted Pearl Jam, oh well

Sarahlynn (http://sarahlynn.blogspot.com/) has tagged me, which is pretty much a wake up call for me. I've had a lot of false starts over the last month and a half. I'll log on, start writing, look at the clock, then say screw it and go to bed.

Besides, it's hockey playoffs, if you didn't think I was going to be distracted, you haven't read this blog very long. (does anyone still read this blog?)

OK, according to the rules I have seen, you must do the following (shamelessly copied and pasted from Sarahlynn):
1. Link to the person who tagged you. (done, 2nd paragraph, hers is good, read it, she rocks)
2. Post the rules on your blog. (done)
3. Write six random things about yourself. (following)
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (ummm, maybe next post)
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up. (it's 11:30pm, should I call? :) )

Random stuff:
1) I love Oreos. I love them so much that I have to protest whenever anyone buys them for me, because I know that the battle of wills has begun. It is a battle I will lose. I feel shame.
2) As much as I praise the likes of Genesis, Rush, Tori Amos, plus countless other artists in that vein. The website I check just as much for a new album is Roxette. (probably because its never going to happen)
3) I have problems convincing myself to buy anything over $50.
4) I have problems imposing myself on anyone, for any reason (hence reluctance for rule #4)
5) My favorite series of books is the "Death Gate Cycle" by Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman
6) I am planning to write a series of 7 books (more on that later)

So let's catch up. We've started the process of finishing our basement. We decided to go the contractor route instead of doing it ourselves. There were a lot of reasons, but the main one being that I'd spend days obsessing over the spacing and leveling of each stud, where a contractor gets it done in a day or two.

We're doing a playroom, a guest room, and a bathroom. The guest room is causing the largest issues since it is a 'living area' and the permit office has all sort of annoyances for the permit and what not. Every contractor I talked to suggested that I skip the permit process unless we got caught. My neighbors that had done their own improvements agreed. However, I know my luck, and each time I take a shortcut it comes back to bite me. So we went through the frustrating process (even though my contractor handled it). I wouldn't of minded as much except that its costing me more money. Oh well.

We decided to put a guest room in the basement and turn our upstairs guest room into a room for kid #2 (no, we haven't picked a name yet, but we have finalists). There was talk of bunk beds, or moving our upstairs office. But it came down to the fact that keeping an upstairs guest room we used once or twice a year wasn't worth it. On the upside, the new guest room will have direct access to the bathroom.

I'm thinking of putting a security camera down there as well, so I can send Gavin and friends down there to play, and know what that crash was. Probably not a bad idea to have when he's a teenager too now that I think about it...

Hey, don't look at me that way. My mother's deviousness pushed me and my brother to higher levels of creative trouble making. With this trend, I'll need higher tech to keep up. Spend some time talking to my mother and you'll understand.

Speaking of Gavin, people have been showering him with gifts lately. Not only people I know, but random strangers. I'm not talking about people driving up and offering him candy, stop panicking. I'm just saying that while Gavin and I are waiting in Pizza Hut, a random woman playing the little "win a toy" game in the corner gives the prize to Gavin when she's done. No big deal, but after 3 incidents, I went back to check this wasn't a Give A Gift To Gavin month.

By the way, I'm not promoting that month, we have enough stuff in our house already.

OK, this post is long enough as it is, besides if I do it all now, there won't be another post for another month again...

They search for the color they can never quite see

Gavin's 3 now, thanks for everyone who came to his party! I started getting worried when I kept getting sick kid reports that we wouldn't get anyone, but everything turned out OK. Note, 2 boys playing together is a chaotic, 3 boys is a natural disaster. Yet no one gets hurt, funny how that works out. Managed to finish his year 3 DVD in time for it as well, so I was able to show it off to the in-laws, Pam, and M&K(w/C). I know I'm getting decent at this when I can point to a time point and say "Pam will cry here" (and she did, that's 3 years in a row, woot!). I had help this year though, Vanessa Carlton's song "Home" is perfect for this sort of thing and I was easily able to setup the pacing to that moment. This was probably the easiest year I've had doing this thing, simply because I'm now used to the tools I'm employing, and I know how to use my source material.

If you decide you wish to do your own DVD of your kid's moments, here are some tips:
1) 25 minutes is your target length, 20 feels just too short, and 30 is when people have had enough. Cap it at 25 and you'll be good.
2) The pictures you posted to your website might not be the ones you use in the video, I have one in the video of C & Gavin's back to me, not good for a published picture, but with the context, fit in perfectly in the video.
3) Get a rough idea of your soundtrack first. Know what song you're starting with, and which one you're ending with. The rest will usually fall into place. Eliminate all voices from your shot video, trust me you won't need it. The soundtrack will be the glue that drives the pacing.
4) During the year shoot a lot of pictures, and a lot of video. I usually have 2 hours of video shot and about 1000 pictures. Of that I'll get about 10 minutes of good video which works in the DVD (of which I'll use 6 minutes worth), and 300 pictures. If you are using all your pictures & video in the movie, you haven't shot enough.
5) Mix your pictures & video together. My first DVD did a picture slideshow, then I dumped all the movies in the extras section. The feedback from year 1 was mixed, once I decided to weave them together all I got was good feedback.
6) Buy a good tool. I got Sony's Vegas Movie software (that comes with a nice DVD architect). It runs about $100 but will make your life a WHOLE lot easier.
7) No one will usually obviously notice things you sync up with points in the music, but over time it will make an effect on the viewer. This is how I make Pam cry every year.

That said, you can always use option 8 and ask me to do one for you, I'm easily bribed. Now that I'm comfortable with it, this is quite a bit of fun.

All you need to do is give me some oreos.

But you shouldn't because they're bad for me.

Even though I love them.

But I shouldn't eat them.

Even if I beg you.

And trust me, I am begging....

You've only begun to shine

I know, two posts in a month? I'm as shocked as you are.

First I must start off by mentioning a completely evil but wonderful game that has entered my life, Audiosurf (http://www.audio-surf.com). This game takes a song you pick, generates a track that bends, climbs, twists, and dives all based on the soft and intense moments of that song. That's pretty cool as it is, but then they added a sort of bejeweled type game with it where you match colored blocks. And to top that off, there are many types of 'cars' each playing the game a different way. Its great for a casual game where you want to listen to your music, and its good for those more intense people too at the harder difficulty levels.

So why did I say evil?

Well, after my first 'ride' through the game to a Genesis song, I saw my score. It then showed me the scores of everyone else who had played this song. The software doesn't use randomness, so for a song, you'll have the same generated track as everyone else. That person had a higher score than me, on a Genesis song. This could not be. So I went back in there and crushed him.

That's not evil, that's just mildly addicting (and a bit of pride as well).

What's evil is 2 days later I got an email stating that someone had beaten on of my scores.

That's just evil.

So if you do pick this game up ($10 on steam and comes with the Orange Box soundtrack), keep an eye out on the scoreboard for Genesis songs. The name at the top of the list should be Darkthorn. That's me. Pick your favorite band and dominate!

I'm not going to go into why my gaming screen name is Darkthorn, that's for a different post hopefully I won't be writing for a while.

That'll make sense eventually, trust me.

Gavin is progressing in his potty training. We're putting him in underwear, and he's doing pretty well. He's much better after 11am than he is before that. For him its not a matter of knowing, its just if he's busy, he doesn't care if he goes potty in his pants. Focus is a good thing I guess, but I'd like him to get this down before the baby comes.

Speaking of the baby, its my turn to pick the first name. So I'm digging through tons of Scottish names right now. I've got a couple I like, but none I've settled on. For the middle name I'm leaning towards Raguel. Look it up, and learn something. I know I give M crap for picking Gabriel for his son, but Raguel is more complementary to Gavin's middle name Raphael. Again, look it up, knowledge is good for you.

Don't ask me why an agnostic like myself is picking angel names for his kid's middle names. It is just one of those things OK?

On the reading front, I finished Stephen Colbert's I Am America (and so can you!), which I found amusing. I'm now working on Terry Goodkind's final book in his series. I have to admire this guy, he's managed to write an 11 book series that well paces the overarching storyline, while giving detailed individual subplots. He writes great characters, and does a fantastic job of keeping you on your toes. Its not a perfect series, but I highly recommend it. Warning the first book will shock your sensibilities about 2/3 of the way in, push through it and you will be rewarded. He decided to end this series with a sub-trilogy, that started very very slowly, but once it got moving its hard to stop turning the pages.

On the music front....Anna, Anna, Anna.....This is very disappointing. Those of you who actually remember what I post remember that I highly regarded Anna Nalick's first album "Wreck Of The Day". That came out in 2005, then re-released with more tracks in 2006. You might also remember my post about prolific album releasing vs non, and my worries about what the record companies would do this this artist since it had been about 3 years. Well, apparently after 3 years all that's coming out is an EP with 2 new songs, and 3 old songs acoustic versions.

Now I have nothing against EPs, Charlotte Martin has shown what good outlets they can be. But after 3 years I would hope there'd be something more. Anna's mentioned a new album in a couple of her posts (though she seems unsure when it will be released herself), so I assume the material is there. Her new song "Shine" is quite good, so she's not out of talent (I hope). So what's the deal? I know this isn't a huge deal to people, I just hate what seems to be stifling of good talent by the record company. I could be wrong, but after seeing what has happened to Vanessa Carlton, Sophie B. Hawkins, and others I doubt it.

So this post wasn't as deep as the last one, I never said I would be consistent.

Can I have better days? Let them come

Wow it's been a while. Not that you've missed too much since I've been working quite a bit. And I don't blog about work, though I have been very very tempted. But rules are rules.

We enjoyed the last snowfall we had, and Gavin and I built his first snowman. Got some decent pictures though we had to reverse the snowman's face to the other side because the sun was constantly in his eyes when attempting to take said pictures. The snowman ended up falling over while attempting to fix one of his arms, but that's ok, because a fallen snowman is just the first step in a new snow fort! Gavin was so happy with the concept, I ended up ripping half the snow in the back yard to build it, it looked like a white fort in a sea of green.

On a quick side note and non-humble moment, if there's proof of mutations in our gene's its in my brother's and my ability as snow engineers. Both my parents have tried to claim credit, and have been refuted by their respective parents. So in this case we're mutants. Its not much of a mutation, but it did serve my brother and I well in the long snowy winters in Pittsburgh. No snow fort was complete without a couple of entry tunnels. I'll be interested to see if Gavin inherits it...

Anyway, Gavin and I had a great deal of fun sledding, and pelting each other with snowballs. I'd only hit him when he was outside his fort (gently, he's just almost 3), so he got the concept of the fort pretty quickly.

Its strange how fast the year has gone so far, Gavin will turn 3 in less than a month. Which isn't good news for me since the DVD I do yearly usually gets started in January. Whoops. Luckily I've already got some of the soundtrack picked out, which I'll admit is what I end up spending a lot of time on (wow, that's a surprise).

Pam got me the 2nd Genesis CD/DVD box set for x-mas, 1985 to present day, and Gavin and I have been enjoying dancing to it. Gavin definitely has taken to "Home By The Sea" (which sounds incredible in surround) which shows his good musical taste :). However at a song clocking over 10 mins, dancing to it turns into quite a workout. Speaking of music, Amanda (you're name's on the comment relating to this sentence, fair game) left me some comments for some artists to check out, I need to get to that...

My string of bad luck has continued as my computer's power supply blew up last week. Literally blew up, pops, sparks, and smoke! Which is what I told the tech support guy when he said "be more specific" when I told him it blew up. Apparently people tell them that figuratively. They replaced it and it worked fine. The next morning my car died. Specifically the battery which needed to be replaced. Can't really get too mad about that, the battery has lasted over 5 years, which is pretty damn good.

Surprisingly I didn't vote in the primaries this year. When I was thinking about going and doing it, I realized on the Republican side, that McCain was going to end up as the nominee, and on Democrat side I was happy either way.

I know I'm going to regret posting that last sentence, it seems a lot of my friend's are Obama fans. I feel kinda bad for not sharing in their enthusiasm, but while I like the guy I just can't get that enthusiastic yet. I think its just the fact that I'm more cynical politically, and there's a just a bit too much idealism in what I'm hearing to make me comfortable. Our Congress just isn't that responsive, and as much as Presidents like to ignore it, they make the laws. We'll see how I feel as we start leaving the primaries behind us if he wins.

I know Clinton has that love/hate thing going on with her, a lot of people don't like her because she's hard nosed, a bit too crafty, and will play dirty at times. I guess it says a lot about me that those are the reasons that I like her :).

In the end I'm split pretty evenly between the two, which is a good thing for the Democratic party, though the media thinks that's a bad thing for some reason. I'm looking forward to a convention showdown. I think its the kick in the pants the party needs, maybe it will wake up some of their congressman contenders as well, one can only hope.

On the Republican side, I have a problem. McCain is probably going to win the nomination, which puts me in a quandary. You see, though I'm not a Democrat or Republican, I was fully intending on voting Democrat for the President since the Republicans have done their best to piss me off during the last 8 years. This is now a problem, because I have a great deal of respect for McCain. I'm not saying that I agreed with him on everything, but I realized early on that voting on someone just because they agree with you on the issues of the day is slightly wacked out because
1) I could be wrong
2) They could be lying
3) What about the handling of the issues of tommorow?

So my level of respect for someone plays a major factor. Again, you're seeing my problem here.

What the Bush campaign did to McCain 8 years ago seriously pissed me off, and I've wondered how much better off we'd be today if McCain was President during the aftermath of 9/11.

In the end, this means I'm actually going to have to think about my vote this year. Frankly, I haven't had to think about my vote for President ever, they've been all no-brainers.

Damnit.

A strange new sound you never heard before

OK, so I lied. Its not that I didn't have stuff to talk about, I just didn't seem to get back in front of the computer much. There were many culprits, watching poker on tv with my father, playing Canasta with my parents, playing Settlers of Catan with my parents, playing Munchkin with my siblings, playing the bean game with everyone, and playing Final Fantasy III that my brother got me for x-mas.

So in case you just skipped through that paragraph, blame my brother, I do.

For those of you who have been wondering, we did have the ultra-sound, and we do know what we're having. The title lyric is all the clue you need, if you're too lazy to figure it out, you didn't really want to know anyway. SL has already figured it out, why, because she's cool like that. Follow her example won't you? Then get the song, its one of my all time favorites.

(OK, let's just get this out of the way, I know you're thinking, "Is there ANY post he's going to do that doesn't reference his music tastes in some way?", the answer's NO. Get over it)

We had a great x-mas, as predicted we did the drive back without stopping for the night. It must be the psychological effect of the time change going west. Go figure. Portable DVD players for the car are great for entertaining your child. Though I must admit I was hesitant to get one for Gavin, probably because I didn't have one when I was a kid.

Quick note on the elections, I was REALLY hoping that looking at the field, religion would stay the hell out of the Republican primaries this time. I thought we had a good shot. God fucking dammit. Let's get this straight, I don't give a damn how/if/when you pray, I care about leading the damn country. Truthfully if it wasn't for the religious right, I'd be leaning republican. I've always been drawn that way for fiscal policy, they're just plain morons by messing it all up with stupid social policies that just piss me off. Republicans should be for equal rights for everybody because it makes more money, you discriminate, you lessen the talent pool. Simple economics, wake the hell up.

To be clear, I think Huckabee's a pretty nice guy, I'm not targeting him with that rant, I'm just pissed religion became an issue that Romney has to defend, and even Giuliani (seriously?) jumped on.

Oh and stop predicting who has this sown up after one state, especially since that state is Iowa. Stupid primary system, thus ends that rant.

Since we got a 2nd kid on the way (nice transition there don't you think?) I'm giving myself 2 years to finish the basement. I took a big first step by measuring the damn thing. I say a big step because I've been talking about doing it for over a year now. Gavin wanted to help, but once he realized that meant having to stand still holding the end of the tape measure in one place, his enthusiasm waned. But its done, and I'm trying out Google SketchIt (free!) to put it into the computer to try a couple of ideas. Then I get to figure out if I can actually afford this thing.

BTW, for any house builders out there. PUT THE DAMN FURNACE IN A CORNER INSTEAD OF THE CENTER OF THE DAMN BASEMENT! I know why you did it, but moving 10' to the wall would still keep it mostly centralized and made my choices for the basement much better. I won't get started on the placement of the bathroom rough-in.

To end this bit of ramblings (hey, check the title of this blog), I'd have to say that last year was a pretty good year music wise for me. I discovered 2 new artists who have some real staying power with me, Martha Berner & Liz Tormes. And even though you don't care, here are my yearly awards.

Best Music: Tori Amos - American Doll Posse.
Best Lyrics: Liz Tormes - Limelight (specifically, Black Luck)
Best New Discovery (for me): Martha Berner
Biggest Surprise (Good) : Charlotte Martin - Repruductions (Its a freaking cover album that's actually good!)
Biggest Surprise (Bad): Collective Soul - Afterwords (decent album, but lacked the punch that "Youth" had)
Best Complete Album: Martha Berner - This Side Of Yesterday
Worst Complete Album: I can't say, because it was a gift.
Best Guilty Pleasure: American Gladiators (OK, its not music, but still.....)

All is calm

Well, we've accomplished the long drive to Pittsburgh. Gavin thankfully was pretty good for the trip, even though he hates being cooped up in a car for a long time. We stopped for the night in Columbus, and Gavin got his own big bed which he loved. I had to let him run laps in part of the hotel main floor, but not that many people were there so no one was bothered. Thankfully the pool was open late so Gavin got plenty of swim time to exhaust him. As I get older, the trip going east seems to get harder and harder, so I was thankful for the break. Strangely the trip going west I do in one day without a stop. Probably because 1) We get an earlier start and 2) The time change works in our favor in a weird psychological way.

My sister has a dog now, and Gavin loves it. The dog loves Gavin too, but a sometimes little too much as it is twice Gavin's size. Gavin loves to run, and the dog sees running and catching as a game, you can see how this works out.

Christmas Eve is when my family decorates the tree, which is probably a large reason why I hate doing Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving. Gavin attempted to help decorate, but with breaking 2 out of the 4 decorations while attempting to put them on the tree, he got a new job of unwrapping decorations which he tackled with great enthusiasm. Gavin loves 'helping', I wonder how long that will last....

Its been a calm Christmas morning, Gavin isn't at the "OH MY GOD SANTA CAME!" stage yet. When asked what Santa did, Gavin said "Bring candy canes". Gavin was impressed by the number of presents that appeared after he went to sleep, and is currently cuddling with the very large Elmo doll Santa brought him. He's not nagging anyone about opening the presents though. We're waiting for my brother to arrive, and my sister to awake. My brother lives about an hour away, so good money is that he'll get here before my sister wakes up. I'm sure once everyone arrives and he sees the orgy of present opening, it will imprint on his mind and he'll be much more excited next year. I'm enjoying the current calm and quiet right now though. I had a great Christmas present this morning when Gavin crawled into bed and said "I snuggle daddy, I love daddy".

I know I haven't been blogging much recently, blame work, I do. In fact, I'm doing a little work right now, not much but they're moving all the servers from one building to another over the break and I need to make sure my apps are still up. Merry Christmas to me :) Anyway, while I'm on break I'll be blogging quite a bit.

If they told me you'd be the one, I wouldn't have believed them

So when my stress levels get high enough, I have a habit of buying more music, only blindly. This is usually an incredibly stupid thing to do, as you can easily end up with some really terrible stuff no matter how good that 30 second clip is. Surprisingly, I'd had some really good luck in the last couple of years.

I saw a quick article about an new artist named Liz Tormes, never heard of her before, and apparently her stuff was folk/rock/blues which means the reviewer had really no clue how to classify. I decided what the hell and got her on iTunes (Limelight is the name of the album), and as a back up I bought some more David Gray since I figured he's be a safe bet, and because spending MORE money is always the answer...

Anyway, after listening to her, I agree with the reviewer, we have no freaking clue how to classify this person, but damn its a good album. If you're in the mood for something different, yet fantastic, download "Black Luck", its more of an emotional/musical painting rather than a traditional song. The whole album has this off-the-cuff, raw live feel. This won't be for everyone, if you only listen to very structured music stay the hell away from this one. But if you're in the mood for something different, give it a try.

As for the David Gray album "A New Day At Midnight", quite good, and the man continually finds ways of pissing me off. I should NOT LIKE the song "Be Mine". Its a freaking simple cheesy poppish song....but he has a way of perfect execution that takes stuff like that and makes it irresistible. Frankly the man is a genius when it comes to instrumentation, and can perfectly layout a track so it shines no matter what genre he decides to tackle. All my years of writing and playing music, and the knowledge that I couldn't even think of the stuff he comes up with in the most subtle ways to craft a song irritates me.

Speaking of stuff I shouldn't like. I hate cover albums. I usually hate most cover songs in general. Played live they're usually OK, but in recorded form they usually just fall apart. Either they're not even trying and just copying the song (so why am I buying it?) or putting a 'twist' on the song that usually involves a drum machine to turn it into a dance tune.

So why the hell am I enjoying "Reproductions" from Charlotte Martin so much? When I saw she was putting out a cover album I pretty much avoided it until I heard a clip on her site. That was "Bizzare Love Triangle", and it was a complete re imaging of the song that sounded incredible. I played it for Pam and she liked it as well. She even took songs I wasn't that fond of ("Cloudbusting" by Kate Bush) and made them not only listenable, but loveable.

Charlotte is definitely embracing the iTunes system, while she is putting out albums she's also putting other bits and pieces on iTunes as EPs. And I can't resist gobbling them up (see, thanksgiving reference, you can stop looking now). If you want to try one new artist, try her. Give her some love so she keeps the good stuff coming.

Everybody wants to know the score

Its been hard to blog, since really the only things noteworthy deal with work. And remember what my first post said...

What do you mean you haven't read the first blog post? For heaven's sake, start at the beginning and work your way back here.

While those people are off reading, I can talk about what else is going on.

Gavin is definitely in the imaginative stage, he makes up lots of games (I think we're on 5 variations of his "baseball game"), he practices conversations with himself, he talks to his bunny, its all quite cute. He doesn't always explain the rules of the game at first, but he'll teach you as you go. And he's very gracious, when I roll a ball down the banister for him to hit with a drum stick (baseball variation #2) and he misses. He calmly picks it up and tells me "I missed. Try again daddy". I highly enjoy the imaginative stage, some parents do get weirded it out by it though, especially the self-conversations. I just think its cute, I think that speaks for itself about my personality.

At this point, I've completely lost track of who we've told, so if you don't know, Pam is pregnant. If I tell you again, just live with it. I really should keep a chart of who we've told and who we haven't. Both Pam and I though the other told our next door neighbor, so she was the last on the block to know. And no, we don't know what it is. And I won't mention what I'm hoping for in case our future child reads this blog at some point in time because well, they just had a boring day. But if you know who you have to free from the Big Daddys in Bioshock, then you know what I'm wishing for. No way my kids will know what that game is when they get old enough :)

Speaking of video games, it seems slightly strange to me that a 32 year old guy like myself is still into that kind of thing. Apparently it isn't something you out grow. Though I do find myself passing on a lot of the normal action bang-bang boom games that are in the market, and really get engrossed in the ones with a great deal of attention to the world & the story. Bioshock is becoming one the best games I've played, frankly they should take the story and make a movie/book. It is that engrossing.

Music wise I'm addicted to Vanessa Carlton's "Home" and "More Than This". The album as a whole is ok, if a bit uneven. Definitely listen to those two songs. I've been listening to some clips of a new artist Liz Tormes and will probably download her sometime soon when I remember to take the iPod out of the car.

In reference to my last post, I've long resolved never to be "that parent" who pushes their kids to excel in something with an irrational passion. Like football, or some other sport. Yet, I find myself on the brink when it comes to hide and seek. Seriously. You have to understand, my family are at the professional level of hide and seek. Some of my siblings had no patience whatsoever, but would sit in a hiding spot for hours. I'm not kidding. The kid's got to step it up, the family's reputation is at stake!

You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em

On Saturday I played probably the best game of poker I've ever played from a technical perspective. I got away from every hand I should have gotten away from, I raised when I should have, I played slow when I needed to.

And I still lost.

No matter how good you are, you will have some nights when the cards just don't like you. For example, I got dealt 2,3 seven times that night. Now, that isn't as bad as 2,7, but it isn't good. When I got them as a suited connector, out of frustration I decided to bet them. Lo and behold, I get 2 more 2's on the flop. I go ahead and keep betting them driving people out of the pot except on guy who would sometimes stay in longer than he should. It turns out I had him beat the whole time, until a 9 showed up on the last card giving him 3 9's to my 3 2's.

It was that kind of night. Still fun though.

Oh, and I forgot something from the last post, Pam's iPod's hard drive died as well in that 2 month period.

Gavin's reached a point where his conversations are much more complex, and his ability to draw conclusions has really improved. There was a book he was addicted too, "The Bunnies Are Not In Their Beds". He asked for it as the "Bad Bunny Book", but no where in the book does it say that the bunnies were bad (though they were). His social skills, while not perfect, have improved quite nicely as he usually plays well with others. He enjoys group play, though I've noticed that sometimes he will leave the group and just play by himself. He's really pushing to grow another inch or two so he can reach his pedals better on his tricycle. His friend J can pedal it and Gavin is determined to do it too, just legs just aren't cooperating.

My favorite Gavin moment had to be when I was sick in Chicago. He was downstairs watching Sesame Street (which is holy writ to him) when I had to sprint to the bathroom to be sick. I hear this "DADDY!" from downstairs, then the sound of little legs pumping up the stairs. Next thing he was behind me patting me on the back asking "You OK Daddy?", "Feel better Daddy". It was nice, even if being sick wasn't.

He's still the worst hide and go seek hider in the history of the game, we'll have to work on that...

...Pulls you down on your knees

So what was so screwed up about August & September?

First, our camera broke. It wasn't completely unexpected since M&K have the same exact one and it broke 3 months earlier in the same way. Basically your pictures were colored snow. For someone who takes as many pictures as I do this was a major issue.

Second, as was blogged before, the new computer I had purchased and put together had some major issues. Let me be clear, I will still be putting my next computer together from scratch like this one. I have built all my previous computers from scratch and they've been perfect long term performers. However, something strange was happening with this one. I ended up shipping the motherboard back twice to ASUS, then shipping my processor back to Intel. Since processors are not supposed to be defective, what we believe happened is the 1st motherboard was defective and fried the processor. The 2nd one was probably OK, but ASUS never tested it. The 3rd motherboard was tested, which led us to realize the processor was fried.

Third, my car. They did an oil change and rotated the tires, and afterwards when I hit 40 MPH the steering wheel started shaking. I took it back in, and they said the back wheels were not balanced correctly which they fixed. But that didn't solve the problem. So I took it back in, and they re-rotated the tires back to their original position. That fixed the problem, and I guess I can't rotate my tires anymore until I get 4 new ones.

Fourth, we had a nice visit to Kansas City to see some friends. When we came back home, we found the refrigerator had broke. After getting a guy to look at it, the culprit was the compressor. Unfortunately to fix that costs $800, so we just bought a new fridge (which is why I'm hoarding money right now).

Finally, the night before we went to Chicago, Gavin got a stomach bug which delayed and almost canceled our trip. He gave it to me, and I was sick on the day we came back which left all the driving duties to my wife.

My old roommate found nothing weird about all these things happening in the same timespan, because he's used to this stuff. When I've mentioned MacDonald's law of luck, people think its something I came up with. The actual law was discovered by my old roommate, who found that there was some relationship to Murphy's law, frankly it wasn't as consistent, and had that taste of spite. He then came up with I believe 3 corollaries to the law, the only one I remember though is the one of distance. "MacDonald's law will not touch those close to Scott MacDonald as it would draw attention away from the spite and suffering when the unfortunate instances occur from the main target, therefore, those close to Scott MacDonald will have a greater concentration of good luck not only to keep them safe to witness the events, but to act as a foil to the shit that happens to him". I'll have to remember to ask him what the other two were, but they were of no help to me :)

Now we are in October, all my issues have been resolved, I have a working computer, car, camera, and fridge. So next is the house blows up I guess.....

More posts coming soon :)

Where the honey flows and takes you by the hand

OK, I know I was going to give an account of the many woes of the last month, but I figured I'd delay that with something good that went on. I saw Genesis live, and it was good. And oh my god they played Ripples!!!!!!

You don't know what song Ripples is do you. Fine, go to iTunes, download it from the Trick of the Tail album, I'll wait.

OK, we all good now, fine, OH MY GOD THEY PLAYED RIPPLES!!! (See, you're on board now).

We had to travel to Chicago to see them, because no one good comes to play concerts in St. Louis anymore (besides Rush). I don't know what we've done to piss good shows off, but whatever it is, we as a city are sorry. We had nosebleed seats, but we had a good angle on the stage, and we could hear everything perfectly.

I'd like to digress on that for a second, so many concerts I go too you get lots of sound, but you can't understand a word of the lyrics, or even when they talk to the audience. I usually blame the over reliance on the bass levels. Whatever it is, I usually am annoyed with the sound crew. I had NO complaints that night, it had a great full sound that reached the rafters, yet it was clear & clean. OK, digression over.

It was a great set, combining old stuff with new stuff. From the set list you could tell it was a lot of band favorites with a lot of energy. Collins spent a good amount of time behind the drums and there was a good selection of instrumental movements. They did some interesting things, like opening with Duke's End transitioning to Turn It On Again, then later did the middle part of Duke's Travels (right before Duke's End starts) in the middle of an instrumental medley piece.

Sigh, just go buy the Duke album then re-read the last paragraph. If you like creative music you won't be disappointed, its a very solid album with strong instrumentals.

Another good point was that my wife experienced a Genesis concert with me, and hasn't divorced me, so that's a good sign. She says she understands my obsession more now, which could be just her humoring me, but I'll take it in the positive light :)

Next Genesis surround sound box set due out in November, can't wait!

So we were at the art fair a couple of weeks ago. Frankly it was a bit of a disappointment, the best pieces on canvas were actually photographs. Some good pieces there, but nothing worth spending big bucks on. At least I only saw two booths with fruit & bowl art. I despise fruit & bowl art. If you want to practice on that stuff fine, but don't waste a booth at the fair with that stuff. I don't like the 3d mixed media stuff (it freaks me out) but at least its something interesting.

On the upside, while waiting for Andi & AD to make their purchases I heard some music that caught my ear. Female singer, good voice, very clean chord structures on the guitar. I checked the performance schedule, made a note of the name and went to dinner.

I listened to a couple of 30 second clips on iTunes, which is about as satisfying at eating only 1 chip, and decided to take a chance.

Her name is Martha Berner, and the album "This Side of Yesterday" is fantastic. Incredible vocals, great lyrics, and beautifully written songs. Its very acoustic/folk with some twists thrown in. I've been quite addicted to the album for weeks now, I had to buy it on iTunes since I can't find her in Best Buy, but I highly recommend you checking this out.

On another note, sorry I haven't been posting much, as many of you know the technology gods have not been kind to me. This will be the subject of the next post which should be out in the next day or so while I'm in Chicago (Genesis concert on Tuesday!!!).

I notice that my opponent is always on the go

Sorry for premature posting earlier, I hit the wrong button, we now give you your very late post in full.

Well after a month off, I'm back at fencing. The month of August was rough with it being the end of our fiscal year, plus visitors from out of town, add a week of a sick kid and the month goes by pretty fast.

While not my best bouts in foil, at least my epee was pretty solid. What's the difference? A foil is the basic fencing weapon, you place hits on the chest only. Its a very light weapon, with quick flashy strikes. Basically everyone starts learning with that weapon, and it lays down the foundation for the rest of the sword types. The epee has a much larger guard, and its more of a positional weapon. Any part of the body can be hit, and instead of parrying you do more of a counter strike. Frankly, while I enjoy the foil, I was born to wield an epee.

For those of you who have watched Olympic fencing, let me assure that what we do is nothing like that. Our fencing is actually fun to watch, and is a martial art. What goes on during the Olympics is basically spastic motions with no thought for defense. We act as if the point is actually sharp and would kill us. It makes a large difference.

Women seem to get in sync with fencing more then men, don't know why, it just is. Probably because men's basic instinct is to smash, while women are more subtle.

It does take a certain change in mindset. Your basic instinct when a sword point is coming at you is to bash it out of the way with a lot of force. This however puts you off balance, unable to launch your own attack, and a skilled opponent will simply dance their sword around that parry and hit you. Instead you almost need a sterotypical super-calm British mentality. As if your body is saying "Would you terribly mind moving that sword to the left just a tad so I may live and skewer you? Jolly good!". The perfect parry is one that has your opponents sword almost brushing your body. Its an economy of effort that allows you the best chance for a strike at your opponent before they know what is happening. When you have two skilled practitioners bouting, you can get movie quality sword fights every couple of minutes.

Its a lot of mental and physical discipline, but its an awful lot of fun!

My computer is still awaiting a good motherboard (and yes, the irony of a previous post has not escaped me), so blogging is still sporadic. Hopefully this weekend everything will be OK, but considering my luck with electronics this month, I'm not holding my breath.

Help me through the hopeless haze

I'm being a bastard with the lyric today, you'll have to know the song (or google for it) for it to make any sense.

So I drop off my car for its oil change and safety inspection. The guy they gave the job of driving me back to work was the chatty type who was asking about my job. When I brought up the hardest part was the scientists constantly changing their mind, he mentioned it was the same for him. When querying on his work, I found he deals with custom work for cars & detailing.

Now having people want to change software all the time can be understandable since it's just text (all developers reading this just winced a bit). But frankly, if you're going to detail your car, this is not something you should be wishy washy about. I guessed flip-flopping came because a husband made design choices the wives later disagreed with. It turned out I was right :).

Speaking of those scientists, we're going to be locking our users to what they want early. If it isn't funded, they probably aren't going to get it. This allows us to devote our resources a bit better, and frankly will give me less gray hairs. Predictably, our users like this as much as they like getting their nose hairs pulled. But this initiative came from way above me in the food chain, so I can just point the complaints in that direction and get on with work. Hee hee.

Gavin's growing again, and he's definitely more little boy than baby now. He's much more self-sufficient these days. Even to the point of being able to ride his bike down the hill without daddy right behind him. More importantly, daddy doesn't have to carry the bike back up the hill anymore. Because I like being lazy in my old age.

Reservations on the next train to the moon

I've been away for a while, work has been hectic, home life has been hectic, blah blah blah

We suffered a strange illness in our son that even had our doctor scratching her head. Basically, after a day of sickness & vomiting, he would be fine the next morning. But then, at 4pm he's just shut down in a very disturbing manner. He'd just lay on the floor, not wanting to eat, saying he's sleepy, and basically being miserable. He'd want to be put to bed, then come stumbling out, come right up to me, then plop down in my lap, or on the floor. Maybe some more vomiting.

The next morning, he'd be fine, until 4pm rolled around again, then we repeated the drill all week.

When your child is energy personified, this is pretty much my personal hell. Thankfully, on Saturday when 4pm came around, he was his old bouncy self. He then started eating the whole house, so we were happy again.

The pieces of my new computer arrived, and for the first time, when I put it together, it wouldn't turn on. This was a problem. 3 tech support calls, a 2nd power supply and 5 days later it was determined that I needed to send my motherboard back. So it will probably be another week before I have a computer again.

All in all, not a great week.

Now I’ve looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer

By the time you read this, I'll be 32, happy birthday to me :)

Unfortunately its going to be during a work day, and even worse than that it will be on a 'meeting' day AND a product release day. So no lazy day for me. The challenge will be to find time to do my ritual listening to "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" straight through. Since its 90 minutes, that isn't very easy during a work day. I'll probably have to wait for Gavin to go to bed and listen while Pam watches 'Big Brother'. Or I'll camp out in an empty conference room and not tell anyone where I am.

We had visits from Gavin at 2am and 5am last night. He wasn't hard to put back in bed, I'm thinking he's just randomly waking up, and since he's up, he figures he should come to our room. At least he isn't going downstairs and setting off the alarm. At least not yet. I'm slowly getting accustomed to getting up earlier in the morning. I've never been an early bird, I much prefer staying up later. Gavin isn't giving me much of a choice these days though, so I'm adjusting.

Finally saw the Bourne Identity tonight, good flick. I'll be interested to see how they tie in the sequel. My neighbors invited me to a guy's afternoon out to see the 3rd one this weekend, so I need to catch up :)

Speaking of our neighbors, we had a block party over the weekend which went pretty well. We tried it in a row of back yards instead of the cul-de-sac for a change. It worked pretty well though lighting was an issue as the night went on, but we managed. The kids all had a great time grazing on junk food and running every which way. We had some friends in from out of town, and we also had M&K (w/ C&T) join us giving a nice sized contingent.

You know I'm tired when I'm congratulating myself on spelling 'contingent' correctly on the first try, go me.

On a random side note, I've been amazed at how much the latest Tori Amos and Charlotte Martin albums have been sticking with me. After months, they're still on my current favorite listening play list. Cardboard Ladders, The Dance, Redeemed, Digital Ghost, Secret Spell, Girl Disappearing, Dragon and Programmable Soda seem to be destined to be long time favorites of mine.

I know that no one took me up on my call to buy the "Playing the Angel" album by Depeche Mode (yes, I checked when I was over at your house, deal). But give those tracks a try.

And so as the clock is soon to toll midnight on another year of my survival, I shall sign off with this

And all we have is who we are
And where we been got us this far
So let me go