Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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gifts, spoils, and fevers


Christmas in Florida came with thunder, lightning, and rain.

Since storms here are front-page news, all the network affiliates broke into their regular programming to report today’s Storm of the Century. The coverage here is downright paranoia, with all sorts of doom-and-gloom “what if” scenarios (“if the winds down a power line and lightning pops a gas main, we could’ve have a disastrous situation” type stuff), and minute-by-minute tracking of the storm cells moving across the state. We sat and watched the satellite coverage track the eastward march until we could see the darkness on the horizon, then took Keaton outside to watch. She pointed and looked as it got dark and the winds whipped the trees around, and laughed at the rain. We certainly felt Californian sitting out in the rain like it was a spectator sport, but I miss a storm with some good tropical-style gumption.

As of Christmas eve Keaton’s been running a fever. We swung into a 24hr pharmacy on the way home from a family get-together and bought a thermometer (which we didn’t have in the “travel kit”) and I got the job of sticking in in her butt when we got home. I feel bad for her, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from her attitude that she’s feeling anything less than normal. It’s the first “real” fever she’s had, and being a first-time parent I was of course a bit over concerned. But, she’s sleeping and eating and playing just fine, so I guess we’ll just keep and eye on her and maybe even chalk it up to teething… poor babygirl.

Been spending the past couple days on a downloading spree, as my favorite invite-only tracker gave users a weeklong Christmas gift of “free” downloads (i.e., not ratio impacting). Spent a good amount of time researching and looking for a breakbeat mixtape I had back in highschool that I’ve been searching for ever since I lost track of my copy. After years spent listening to classic early 90’s breaks trying to reconstruct the tracklist, I’ve pretty much decided I’ll never hear the exact mix again – but I did manage to pull down some great old skool tracks that bring back great memories. Too bad the “high speed” connection here at the inlaws is pathetic as all get-out.

Goodnight friends and lovers.

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what i heard, 2006


And now, from an easy chair in a warm Florida living room, my picks for 2006. Took my time this year, listened and re-listened, and tried to be as honest as possible without letting other internet rankers influence me too much. This year I went back to a “top ten” instead of last year’s fifteen, mostly because the greater-than-ten stuff just became too much “in the noise” when it came to subjective judging. I also shamelessly copied over albums that made both my halfway toplist and year-end toplist, word-for-word, without shame. So, here goes, my favorite albums of the year of our lord two-thousand and six.

10. Thom Yorke – The Eraser

The solo effort kept a secret until just before its planned release, Yorke’s Radioheadless foray into melodic-electronic took the music blogosphere by surprise. Then, it leaked over a month in advance, and the web collective had dissected and discussed the album to death before the law-abiding, CD-buying public ever even got to hear it for the first time. For me, I had to get it – couldn’t wait. I must say, I was leery from the moment I heard about the album. Could Thom’s genius shine as well without the group effort? In short: yes. Thom’s lyrical prowess and knack for eerie melody make a fine showing here; although I will admit the album is a little too ProTooled for me, and it drags a bit through the chewy center – it’s still a damn fine effort with some classic tunes.


9. The Fratellis – Costello Music

Every year has to have this album… the throwin’ darts in the garage at midnight half-plastered with a cocksure swagger rock ‘n’ roll album. Put this on and watch the uninitiated bounce around with the easy-as-pie beats and choruses. The Fratellis don’t require much attention to love, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing – they come right out the chute with loud crunchy guitars that score near ten on the danceability meter – and their music doesn’t suffer too badly from that Brit-dancerock cliché. Oh, maybe a Ramones fan, or an Arctic Monkeys fan, or a Clash fan, or a Strokes fan, might say the Fratellis are biting their style – but when the album is packed with singles and is this much fun, who cares? Wanna get drunk with the crew and put on an album that’ll mix perfectly into the din of conversation while helping maintain everyone’s buzz? Then get this album.


8. The Islands – Return to the Sea

When I first heard the Unicorns album “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?,” I fell in love with it almost instantly. I was bummed, but not entirely surprised, when they announced their breakout shortly after the album’s internet buzz carried them to underground stardom. After all, I’d seen them on stage and they were young and insane with very distinct personalities – I could tell just watching them that they were a bubbling pool of varied talents… and sometimes that just doesn’t work out. But, when I heard that the two “creative” members of the group had formed a new band and released an album under the name The Islands, I was excited. Turns out, this album is only just shy of “Who Will Cut Our Hair…” awesome – and that’s pretty damn awesome. The songs are longer than what they did as the Unicorns, and a little more cohesive with less randomness. “Swans,” in particular, is a good example of why I consider this to be one of the best albums of 2006.


7. Phoenix – It`s Never Been Like That

Every summer deserves a summery album. Like a sweet, dripping ice-cream cone, “It’s Never Been Like That” plops perfect little circles of melted goodness all over your favorite Hawaiian shirt. Each track a self-sufficient pop gem, bouncy and singalong, with just enough rock sensibility and “rawness” to save it from being pure bubblegum indulgence. This album is 2006’s 95° summer-drive-with-the-windows down blarer; put it on and watch the sun move across the sky, maybe toss the frisbee with the hand not holding your beer while you wait for the meat to come off the grill. Oh, and chicks’ll dig the thing too… makes a great poolside swimsuit soundtrack.


6. Figurines – Skeleton

How this album can remind me of experiences I never even had is beyond me, but when I hear it I think about that summer when I lived in that ramshackle bungalow on the beach, spending my days surfing and my nights drinking. Mind you, I never actually had such a summer, but that doesn’t matter. It was crazy, me and the guys blaring this album from the house as we ate Taco Bell on the beach before smoking a joint and heading back out to catch another set. For real though, there’s good energy here, youth even. I realize that people might criticize me for picking albums that “feel” good yet lack lyrical or poetic depth – but fuck those people. You can sit in your room and cry tears over the beauty of some warbly, plucked-harp bullshit – I’ll be riding waves stoned and having sex in the dunes.


5. Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther

The trials of what-who, now? Whatever you may think about the title of this album, what you’ll find inside is a loosely-cohesive narrative, set to some of the most tightly-cohesive, gorgeously-crafted music put on wax this year. Before 2006, I’d never even heard of Midlake – and I downloaded this album only after hearing the track “Roscoe” via the Hype Machine. A haunting tune with lilting harmonies reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac, it sets the tone for the remainder of this unbelievable album. This album, too, falls in my personal favorites partly because of the way it’s imagery gels with my personal fantasy world. Plaintive pastoral narratives about roving bandits, building rough homes, pioneering and falling in love talk right to the wanna-be naturalist-hippy that I think of myself as.


4. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife

C’mon snobs, just because they’re in the majors now and they’ve got the production values of a “radio band,” doesn’t make them bad. In fact, in this case, it makes them awesome. Let’s explore: In the scant three years I’ve been making my own “best of” lists, the Decemberists have been in the top-ten twice, and even had two albums there in 2003. Not surprisingly, I’ve given Colin and crew the nod once again in 2006 for their progressive (as in progressive with regards to band direction and just straight-up King Crimson / ELP “progressive”) latest LP. This album once again talks to the things that are near and dear to my very own fantasy world: ships and hidden islands, homesteading, and the perils of love. Shutting my eyes tight and listening to “Summersong” with headphones on, I can almost feel the sand under me (and the the girl with the peppery skin above me) on the island.


3. The Most Serene Republic – Phages

Back in 2005, I ranked the Most Serene Republic’s debut effort as #3 on the year, with the subtext that it “could just as easily change places with #2 and I’d be just as happy with the list.” So, when I saw this tour-EP was only available on the ‘net – I went ahead and sent my virtual dollars on down the wire. Little more than two minutes later, the string of digits that represents the money in my bank account went down by $7 or so, and I was happily listening to what turned out to be one of the standout efforts of the year. Lavish instrumentation draped over stunningly complex beats and rhythms, and the kind of trembly falsetto voice that called me to indie rock to begin with. There’s so much going on in these tracks that, when I’ve played them to people, I’ve heard “I can’t ‘hear’ this” more than once. Kind of like trying to wrap your mind around the complex signatures on Brubeck’s Time Out, some of these songs can confound before they delight – but take your time, it’ll pay off in the end I swear.


2. Malajube – Trompe-L’oeil

Malajube is from Canada, and I don’t know if they speak English or not (I’d give ’em the odds tho), but they sure don’t on this album. So, right off, if you can’t get into an album that’s not in your mother-tongue you might wanna steer clear of this one. But I’m telling you now, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it a try. If, however, you can get past the Frenchness of the thing, I think you’ll be nearly as joyous as I am every time I play this thing. Malajube are incredible. Malajube’s songs are dripping with the kind of shit that made the Arcade Fire’s debut so damn likeable – “fun” turned sonic, a band that’s happy making their art. This album for me… it would sound so gay to talk about how some of the choruses make my chest swell and inspire delusions of grandeur… but that’s about as close as I can get to telling you how much I love this thing. This album is it, album of the year… simply incredible; head and shoulders above the rest… well, all but the one below.


1. The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America

She was a real cool kisser and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian; she was a damn good dancer but she wasn’t all that great of a girlfriend; he likes the warm feeling but he’s tired of all the dehydration.

This album so encapsulates some of my highschool-aged carousing, it’s hard to believe it was written by someone over 30. Then again, the lyrics are an immediate tip-off. It takes some word-prowess to write Springsteen-esque poetry about sneaking snootfulls from a girlfriend’s purse at prom – but it works here. To be fair to the haters, I’ll admit that this album does straddle the line, and if you called it butt-rock or bar-rock I wouldn’t have much room to take offense. Hell, I’ve even had a couple folks ask me if it was a Counting Crows album during some of the instrumental parts – so you know the line I’m talking about.

A lot of people hate this album, and honestly, I’m a little surprised I like it so much. Sometimes, though, you just like what you like. I put this album on, and I remember things like sneaking out at night and walking five miles to a party in the woods at a long-abandoned racetrack. As we left, we dropped our $20 sack in the long grass and couldn’t find it in the darkness. Out of spite for the party that ate our stash, we snatched a handle of rum that someone had left on the ground and took turns chugging on our long, dejected walk home. Turns out Joey had way too much, and passed out with less than a mile to go. Justin and I slung him between us like a dead body and carried him the rest of the way before roughly pushing his limp body back through my window. That night, he pissed himself while sleeping on my floor.

I might’ve though this album sucked if I’d heard it back in highschool, but it’s sure perfect for remembering it now.

Wow, heavy on the rock and light on the lite-rock, eh? Guess it was one of those rocking kinda years. No doubt that the majority of these albums will, one day looking back, remind me of when Keaton was new. Even going back and putting them on the headphones while finishing up this entry brought some memories back. But, let’s not harsh the buzz, yeah? Let’s keep this listmania going with the rounding-out stuff. For instance, what “best of” list would be complete without the safety-net of an “honorable mention” section? So, for 2006, here’s the albums that made my happy but just weren’t able to take one of the top spots, complete with one-sentence reviews:

The Dears – Gang of Losers
Was on the list for the longest time until the bubble-sort popped it off the stack (nerd humor).

Guillemots – Through the Windowpane
Half-brilliant.

+/- – Let’s Build A Fire
Latecomer to the 2006 party, but much better than their last.

Band of Horses – Everything All the Time
Good!

Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Wolf Parade, just not as good.

Furthermore, the list of lists keeps going with the best old albums I “discovered” in 2006:

Stone Roses – Stone Roses
Near the beginning of this year I discovered the Stone Roses much-hailed eponymous debut album after reading that it was one of the late John Peel’s favorite records. It’s an album I absolutely love.

Ride – Nowhere
Shoegazing roots, get it if you haven’t heard it.

And now, the “back to the drawing board” awards… here’s my picks for 2006’s most disappointing follow-ups

Radio Dept. – Pet Grief
What happened here?

Killers – Sam’s Town
Oh boy, I promise commercialism didn’t ruin this for me – it’s just vapid.

Stills – Without Feathers
New rule: One dude from the old band shouldn’t be allowed to recruit a new band record under the same name.

Next, here are what I feel were this year’s most overrated albums. Those that got the internet all in a tizzy yet lasted all of a few days on my iPod and left a sour taste in my mouth:

Joanna Newsom – Ys
Are you kidding me? I turned off this album when I realized I was starting to grow a pussy.

The Knife – Silent Shout
Sorry, I like beats as much as the next guy, but this just didn’t move me.

TV On the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain
Never liked ’em, never will.

And, finally, I would be remiss for not mentioning the absolutely glorious new Shins album, which isn’t due to be released until January 2007, but leaked to the masses sometime back in October. Suffice it to say that this album is outstanding, and I thought hard about ranking it amongst this year’s efforts. I’ll respect the street-date this time though, and let it hold its own next year – where, honestly, it’ll likely face a much stiffer set of competitors, that is, if the Arcade Fire and Radiohead make good.

Take it sleazy.

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concussed


Man the moon is big and full tonight, like it’s right up there in the sky in our backyard. Sometimes I want to sleep outside, like just on the ground in a sleeping bag or something. Not in my backyard, mind you, no that’d be dumb. I mean camping, or getting outside. Too cold now though, gonna have to wait until it’s a little warmer.

Today at lunch, Sharaun and I got caught up talking about when Keaton grows up. We were watching a TiVo’d episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, which was showing clips of kids hurting themselves jumping their bikes off homemade ramps and landing on their asses while trying to jump curbs on skateboards. It got me thinking about when I was a kid, and how my brother and I used to pull my mom and dad outside into the front yard to watch us careen our own bikes down the sidewalk and off a ramshackle ramp we’d assembled from bits of plywood and bricks. It’s not like we were jumping over a pit of alligators or anything, just launching no more than a foot into the air for a split second, but we had our share of mishaps: ramps flattening mid-ascent, botched landings, and broken bikes – all which ended up in scrapes and bruises. All this before it was “vogue” to outfit your children in pads like linebackers, too.

As a parent now, I know there’ll be a day when Keaton wants me to watch her do a cherry drop off the high bars on the playground (that’s if schools even accept the liability of high bars anymore). The day will come when she wants me to watch her rollerskate down the driveway, or ride her bike while clapping her hands. And, as a source of validation, I’ll be expected to beam with approval and pride while stifling my fear of broken bones and skinned knees. I bet this is hard, although it must get easier as your child grows older. Sure makes me look a little differently at all the stupid stuff my parents used to watch us do when we were young though…

The bloggers-collective are slowly starting to scribe out their 2006 “best of” lists, and, as it happens, I spent a lot of time working on mine today and tonight. Today, running through the shortlist in my brain and re-listening to the albums on the iPod at work; tonight, writing up my thoughts, adding album artwork images to the post, tracking down and pasting in relevant links. It’s coming together nicely, and I think I may even be ready to post before leaving for Florida (or, if I’m facing a slow week of writer’s block). Look for it… if you’re cool… that is.

Goodnight.

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took a couple days off


Took a couple days off last week, had a couple evenings too packed with post-5pm work residuals and, more importantly, supping with friends. Lately I’ve been valuing our friends a lot, I think it has something to do with the ease at which our whole transition from childless-to-parents went with the clique. I love the little things about having a solid group of friends: hearing the unlocked front door open and wondering who’s coming in, the comfort in being able to speak casually, passing Keaton around the room, and, of course, sharing food and drink. The communal meal seem to me like something that’s been at the heart of human interaction from the beginning of time. Seriously, tho, we’ve got some great friends. Let’s go.

Wasted some time Sunday morning trying to help figure out the latest in internet mystery vogue. I first saw it over at reddit, but apparently it made it’s debut on some Russian website – where a psychiatry professor posted it as a problem for his students to solve. What is it? It’s a painting, one which the professor says contains “sure signs” that the painter has a mental illness. The challenge to the students, and, by proxy, the the internet at-large once the word got out, was to identify the signs and illness. Here’s the original version of the painting, from a Russian webboard – where the comments number into the multiple thousands. Leading theories suggest obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, paranoia and depression. Problem is, the professor who posted it said he’d come back with the answers in a few days and has since dropped out of cyberspace. Take a look, thoughts? Anyway, I bet the thing will have been “solved” in the reddit comments by the time this post goes live anyway.

Sunday evening I made the near-final step in my CD-ripping project – tossing all the Beatles CDs I’ve verified as MP3s. It was a very hard thing for me to fill the recycling bin to the top with the fruits of my college obsession with Beatles bootleg collecting. Oh, I saved all my factory-pressed discs, as I have some very rare ones, but I pitched all the CD-R copies of albums (hundreds and hundreds) that I traded for over the course of six or so years. As I dumped the piles of discs into the bin, I saw certain ones go by that I could recall spending hours and hours on: crafting homemade artwork in Photoshop and paying money to print it on the laser color machine at Kinkos, printing and affixing cd label stickers, etc. Hard to throw it all away, but liberating in a sense too…

Updated Keaton’s pictures today, like a good dad. Check ’em out.

Goodnight folks.

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three days off


It’s Monday night of an abbreviated work-week. Sharaun and I are intending to hit the road early Wednesday morning (which I tend to think of as Tuesday night, since it’s the same dark that came at 7pm the previous day), sometime around 3am. The thought being that, while it’s still dark outside, Keaton might get some sleep in her carseat. I’m hoping she can sleep until 6-7am, which would at least kill a third of the long trip for her. I hate the thought of her having to be stuck in a carseat that long – but you gotta do what you gotta do I suppose. Forecast through the mountain pass on the way up is rain, and on the way back is snow. It likely goes without saying, but getting stuck in the snow again, this time with Keaton, would particularly suck. I’m hoping for the best, at least. And, being that we’ll be on vacation Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I’m not sure how much, if any, I’ll be writing those days. Two days might be I’ll this week’ll get out of me.

Today work seemed interminable. With a good bit of the troops out for the holiday week the place felt like a ghost town. The volume of e-mails and calls and meetings was also down, making for less of the “filler” I rely on each day to get me from task to task. For me, switching focus every so often is essential to doing a thorough job on a single task. Rarely do I ever do my best work in one sitting, my real genius only comes with revision and revisiting. So, it’s good for me to take an hour meeting and break up my flow of work on a presentation – it makes me go back and start from zero, re-read and re-think and, most of the time, make things better. But, today was without those interruptions… and it was boring. When the office is abandoned like this, motivation is hard to come by.

This weekend, I spent Saturday my morning downloading and organizing music. A while back, I scored a membership to a private tracker site known for lossless live music (no, not that other private tracker I’ve mentioned before), and last night I decided to take some time and really browse the repository of FLAC-encoded shows that were available. I ended up downloading some vintage performances by Mike Bloomfield and Delaney & Bonnie (with Duane and Gregg), both of which are outstanding shows that have never seen commercial release. I’ve mentioned before how my musical leanings seem to go in phases, alternating between nouveau indie rock and good ol’ classic rock ‘n’ roll. I guess, lately, I’ve been getting back into the classic mindset. I attribute this to the recent release of a 1970 Neil Young & Crazy Horse show at the Fillmore East – which, by the way, is outstanding.

Goodnight, until whenever…

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the saigon turtle


Sunday we set out to do our Christmas shopping, but before we hit the merchants I took advantage of Keaton’s nap and headed up to get my haircut. A while back I switched hair cuttery from the Singaporean-run place I used to frequent to a place closer to home. As I’ve been going there for a while now, I’ve developed likings and dislikings for certain members of the staff there. For instance, through the luck of the draw, I had learned that one of them in particular, an older Vietnamese gentleman, was super-slow and not very friendly. (Now, I swear, I really don’t have anything against Southeast-Asian cutters-of-hairs… this just happens to be a coincident.) Needless to say, when my turn came up today and he was motioning me to sit down in his chair, I was disappointed.

Now, let me give you a little side-info about me and haircuts (haircuts and I?). For me, the “goodness” of a haircut, or haircutter, is measured in speed. I am willing to get a slightly less-than-perfect haircut if it only takes me 5min from door to chair and back to door again. It’s not that I hate haircuts, I just see them as a huge waste of time. I’ve often thought I should learn how to give myself the ridiculously simple haircut I request each time I go in, and save the time and $16 every other week. So, you can see how, speed being my chief concern, getting saddled with the Saigon Turtle was a crushing blow. Despite this though, I reacted as a gentleman and sat down for what I guessed would be a ~20min “#2 on the sides, #8 on top” trim.

“Ready for the holidays?” He asked, his accent thick and unusually difficult for me to understand.
“Yeah, I am, how about you?” I replied cordially.
“Yeah. I’m going to ‘City X.'”
“Oh, that’ll be nice,” I say. “Myself, my wife and daughter are all headed to Oregon.”

Here he spoke two or three complete sentences in broken english over the buzz of the clipper, and I nodded and smiled having not understood a single word. As we continued to exchange niceties, his words gradually became easier to understand, as is often the case when talking with those who have accents. Soon I could understand him as easily as anyone else. Moreover, I began to enjoy talking to him. And, he wasn’t cutting my hair slow, either. He was smiling and laughing and making pleasant conversation, and I was enjoying myself. And then, he said the following, which is the whole reason I’m writing this:

“You know, I just moved here three years ago. From Vietnam.”
“Oh?” I ask rhetorically.
“Yes,” he affirms, “All my life my dream had been to come to America; this is the best country in the whole world.”
I smile at him in the mirror, and let him continue.
“In Vietnam, I was a lawyer.”
“A lawyer?” I ask, thinking I may have misheard him.
“Yes, a lawyer.” He pauses, as if remembering.
“People have asked me, ‘Why don’t you go to school here, become a lawyer here?’ I tell them, by the time I graduate, I would be 70. I’m 61 now.”

I’m looking at this man, cutting my hair for his share of $13 and my $3 tip, and imagining him in a suit and tie carrying a briefcase into some Vietnamese courtroom.

“You know,” he continues, “You can do anything here. In America, if you like to work hard, you can make money – anyone can make money.”
I smile, waiting for him to finish.
“Before I was a lawyer, I fought in the Vietnamese war. I fought against the South. Three years, I was a lieutenant. I was captured in 1967 and spent three years in a prisoner-of-war camp.”

Holy shit. Here is a 61 year-old former Viet Cong lieutenant, a POW-camp survivor, and former lawyer – and he’s cutting my hair. What’s more, he seemed so happy to be doing it. As I left, I wished him a good Thanksgiving in City X with his sister (who is a doctor), and he wished me and my family well in Oregon.

The whole exchange had an impact on me. I don’t think of America like that often enough, the kind of America you that the immigrants in movies and on TV talk about. For some people, that is the only America they know – and for the rest of us who’ve known no different, it can be easy to be blind to it. So, Lieutenant, I apologize for unfairly characterizing you as “that slow old guy who takes too long to earn my $3,” you deserved better. Thanks for telling me your story.

Goodnight.

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we need more of those people


It’s 8:30pm already, Wednesday night. Tonight is garbage night, so I have to get the various garbages together and haul them to the bins, after which I’ll haul the bins themselves down to the street. After that, I need to clean up the dishes from dinner, and maybe try and pick up Keaton’s scattered toys from her busy day at home with mom. I hate nights where the late creeps up on you, like tonight… where it’s 8:30pm already and I’ve barely had time to do anything but get home and sit down. Nights where the late creep up on you are almost as bad as sleeps where you wake up 15min before your alarm clock is about to go off. Anyway… back to tonight – let’s write something.

I like friendly people. Today, as I was walking out the door heading back to work after lunch, a truck was parked outside my house and a guy was unloading some boxes from it. “Hey,” he said, “got some boxes for you here.” “Boxes for me?” I wondered aloud, “OK.” As I walked towards the guy, he must’ve seen my company-logo’d polo shirt and asked me, “You sill work for Company-X?” (I’ll call my workplace “Company-X” for this one). I told him I did, and he proceeded to tell me how he’d just been laid of from Company-X. Having worked previously in some shipping/receivables department, he’d been let go just weeks ago and was now delivering for FedEx (in a Penske truck, no less).

Anyway, he was quite the talkative fellow, asking me what the situation was like now at Company-X: was it still bad, heads still rolling, etc. The guy was genuine, if a bit of a jabberjaw, and sincere. And I stood on the curb for a good 10min just talking about this and that with him. For instance, I learned that his dad recently died, and he’d moved back in with his mom to take care of her. You know those people who get personal too quickly when you meet them, he was one. But, I enjoyed myself, standing in the sun there – me still having my cush position at Company-X and being able to look down on his now lowly profession of Penske truck drivin’, box lugging deliveryman. No, no, that was a joke. The point here is that sometimes it’s encouraging to meet people who are just straight up nice. We need more of those people.

Helped Sharaun work on her resume tonight, as she’s applying for some part-time work as a freelance elementary school textbook editor through a connection. Would be stay-at-home work done on the computer, but we sure wouldn’t mind even the part-time income. Y’know, I’m glad, though, that she decided to leave work and do the mom thing – I honestly don’t think I could do it full-time. Watching the baby is one thing, but I’d fear I’m just too selfish to do it long-term. You think spending all day “playing” with the baby and reading to the baby and feeding and changing and singing to the baby is easy work, wrong… for me I get caught up wanting to do my own things. The things I’m used to being able to do when I want to do them. Yeah, I’ve got a lot of respect for what a selfless act the full-time mommy gig is, and I’m glad Sharaun’s the one doing it the same way I’m glad some dude (who’s not me) drives a garbage truck and takes away my refuse.

Well friends, the CD ripping part of my CD-ripping project is about 99% complete. I don’t know if I ever figured I’d really get this far. What’s left now is to optimize the entire resultant digital files. Because, out of roughly 150 gigabytes of music, some 50 gigabytes were ripped from discs that wouldn’t auto-grab MP3 ID3 tags from the ‘net. This means I’m going through and attacking them manually to make them more usable. But through a combination of some scripting I’ve done with the wonderfully extensible Godfather tagger, and just good ol’ done-by-hand data entry, I imagine the entire library will be finished sometime in early December. Make no mistake though, it’s downhill from here. All my tunes are now stored as safe digital copies, on a redundant disk array – and I couldn’t be happier. It’s a good feeling, to see my mater spreadsheet (which I started over two years ago) finally be completely green. I have now arrived at the digital age, ’bout time.

There we have it then, goodnight.