Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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put on some king crimson

No significance, just a cool lookin' picture.
Thursday crept up fast this week. Tonight is the Decemberists show in San Francisco. It’s at the Bottom of the Hill, which is a tiny little place – not very glamorous at all. Hopefully the music will make up for the seediness. I’m excited about the show, both their albums are excellent and all the show reviews I’ve read say they are a fun live band. Plus they have a chick drummer, and I think that’s cool. Looks like the show is sold out, so it promises to be a fun night. Plus, I had a brilliant idea and I text messaged the directions to nearly every SF venue to my cell phone, so we should never get lost again. Right….

Saw Big Fish last night, even if it was a poorly rendered screener rip with the words “for your consideration” emblazoned on the screen at times. It was a really enjoyable movie. The stories were great. There was less of a “Burton” feel to the movie than I expected, but at some points his style definitely showed through. I didn’t cry, but I think that’s because everyone had been telling me they cried at the end. I think I subconsciously steeled myself for the sadness, and when the end came I kept expecting something that would really turn on the tears. Turns out I psyched myself and the thing ended with my eyes were still dry.

So the Ford finally put up its final protest yesterday. I mean, the check engine light has been on in it for months now – and I’ve been ignoring it because I figured it was something stupid like the oxygen sensor and I didn’t really want to spend $100 to find that out. But more than that, the whole electrical system in the car has been acting funky. First the door unlock buttons don’t really unlock the doors but about 1 out of 3 presses. The parking brake light in the console comes on at random times while driving, and goes off in some strange relationship to pressing the gas pedal. Rolling down the windows causes the entire cabin and dash lights to dim, etc. Something is really messed up electrically, and I’ve been trying to ignore it as long as I could. Well yesterday I guess it got tired of being ignored, and the thing just refused to start. Just clicked in that hopeless dead battery sound, although the battery isn’t dead at all. I’m bracing for the estimate from the garage later today. It’s cool though, because our bonuses are coming later this month… there’s no such thing as extra money.

That’s enough for me today. Sorry it’s so “blah.” I’m gonna put on some King Crimson and get some serious work done. Dave out.

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how can that stuff not be interesting?

GIS for jetlag.
Back from Texas and all is well. Funny how two days flying can make you feel like you’ve been gone for a week. I was totally wiped out when I got home tonight (yes I’m writing this last night). A hot shower helped relax me, as I think a lot of my tiredness comes from just the tension associated with flying and wanting to be back home.

As for the presentation, it far exceeded my expectations. It was a large audience, and while they were inquisitive they weren’t aggressive – I think due in part to my being able to answer most questions easily. So my preparation paid off and my presenting-confidence has risen a notch with a very successful effort now under my belt. It’s good, because I’ll be in Taiwan for a week soon giving the same presentation multiple times a day. I feel much better now with today’s run having gone so well. I wasn’t really looking forward to spending another week in Taipei – but I found out that Ben will be there the same week, so at least we can have some crazy adventures in our spare time.

When I was in Houston overnight I did something I haven’t done since college. I used to put an album on each night while falling asleep. I’d usually put it on low and just listen as I fell asleep. I remember looking forward to choosing what I’d listen to each night, and then I’d put it on repeat and just let it go. Sometimes the words in the songs would influence my dreams, or the songs would work their way in somehow. Anyway, I haven’t done it in forever – mostly because I no longer have a stereo in the bedroom, and because Sharaun never really did like it. So Monday night I plugged in the laptop, set to a “I can sleep over this” volume, and queued up Not Exotic by Dolorean. A sleepy little album from an Oregon band, it’s folky hush-music is perfect to drift off to. It was still going when I woke up the next morning. Was kinda nice.

Ben made me kinda jealous the other day, he showed me the new book his reading. Something like “A peoples history of the United States.” It’s basically an account of US history from the peoples’ point of view. It’s all very “college” and highbrow, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to run out and get the same book so I could discuss it with him.

Anyway, it did look interesting – if huge. I love learning about history, I always have. Too bad most history classes in school manage to take all the fun out of studying history and reduce it to the ultimately boring task of memorizing dates and facts. To me history is about sentiment and feeling, atmosphere and climate of the times, and human development. How can that stuff not be interesting? That’s just the way it is. The past is interesting, the future is kinda scary but also exciting. What you know is often a source of comfort while what you don’t is often a source of discomfort. At least for me.

OK, I’ve rambled quite enough I think. Dave out.

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daytime tv

I stand by a tank or something with a missle..
Monday and I’ll be in the air all day. With a horrendous combination of layovers and air-time I’ll end up in Houston about six hours after I leave Sacramento. Speeding my way through the clouds to the lone star state, I’ll be there for a couple days before returning home. Not exactly what I wanted to do with my week, but then again I’m not making that decision. On a positive note, I feel a lot better about my presentation. I shook some of my blahs and knuckled down to learn the material. I feel I’m about as prepared as I can be, which is good.

This weekend was good. Laziness, flying-for-leisure with pilot Ben, lots of cleaning and Christmas-taking-downing, and just hanging out. I did manage to reorganize the garage and do some fanatical shower cleaning. I find myself doing older and older things all the time. I mean, I woke up early on Sunday and cooked breakfast for Sharaun and I. Not really that strange except it just hammered home how domesticated I am. After that I cleaned the garage and waved “hello” to neighbors as they drove down my street. Yikes.

Now it’s Sunday night (yeah, I’m not gonna lie to ya) and I’m all packed up and ready to go. Just got back from a nice meal and Alias episode at Kristi’s place, which has me properly satiated and primed for some sleep. But instead I’m sitting here contemplating watching the second disc of the Two Towers dvd set? nah? bad idea. Spell-checking that paragraph above led me to find yet another word that ruins that dumb “i before e” rule. “Leisure” doesn’t fit at all. And I’m still mad that “won’t” is a contraction of “will not” (where’d the ‘o’ come from?), and “fiery” doesn’t have “fire” in it. Foreigners: give up, it’s too hard. (Check it out, “foreign” wrecks it too.) Ugh.

The other day my long-lost and recently-found friend from 5th grade, Shaine, asked me if I’d make him copies of each album on my top-ten of 2003 list. Oh man, that’s like a dream come true for me. Not only did I make ’em, I threw in a few extras and even wrote a little paragraph about each album explaining why I like it that much. When you indulge my musiclust, you get more than you bargained for. So if you’re reading and you wanna hear what tops to me, drop me a line and I’ll be happy to oblige you with copies.

The other day I was at home for lunch, eating leftovers and marveling again about the “theme” in daytime TV advertising – COPS to be specific. It’s abundantly clear that there’s a target audience in mind here. There are a few basic groups that these adverts can be broken down into, and it’s extremely rare to see a commercial that doesn’t somehow fit. We have the “I’m in financial/personal trouble” group: bail bonds, hold-check-for-cash places, buy-out your settlement places, dirt-cheap car insurance, and car loans and cell phones for those with negative credit ratings, etc.. We have the “I want to better myself” group: no-name colleges, medical coding, high-tech degree in 6mos, truck driver school, the Hollywood Diet, etc. Then there’s the “I want to sue” group: motorcycle attorneys, personal injury attorneys, asbestos attorneys, divorce attorneys, on and on and on. It’s depressing to see who’s sitting at home watching TV during the day.

OK guys, it’s getting near midnight and when I can legally post this entry as “Monday.” Until tomorrow, Dave out.

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a unabomber shack in alaska

Old timey grammar school photo.
Guys, I gotta admit? I’ve been spelling the word “won’t” wrong for as long as I can remember. Anthony confronted me on it yesterday, saying that there should be an apostrophe in the contraction of “will not,” that I usually write as “wont.” Incredibly, I have apparently been misspelling this word since forever. I quick search through my old journals finds the non-apostrophe spelling all the way back through the 1st entry in 1995. Spellchecker doesn’t catch it because the word “wont” (no apostrophe) is an actual word. Strange thing is, I was actually familiar with the use of the word “wont,” but because of it’s pronunciation I always assumed it was an alternate use of “want.” I’ve even used it before to mean “inclined to,” like “I am wont to take walks outside.” Jeez, all this time I’ve been making no sense. It’s gonna be a hard habit to break, but I will start integrating the apostrophe into my won’ts – I promise.

I got a boatload of new music last night. Some kind soul has been posting his top 25 albums of 2003 to absmi, and looking at his list I saw that we appear to have similar tastes so I decided to grab all of them. Found some nice new stuff in Dolorean, Spearmint, The Legends, and more. Thanks nameless absmi poster guy, your cause is just and true, and you are appreciated. I burned a dvd of all the new tunes I’ve got recently and brought them for Ben and Anthony. Benz made the comment that there were over 60 albums on the dvd, and that some people don’t even own 60 albums in there entire music collection. We really do devour music. Guess some things don’t change.

I was using a pair of binoculars the other day and realized something, I’ve never been able to make the two lenses converge into one in my vision. I mean, that’s what’s supposed to happen right? Aren’t you supposed to adjust them so you see a stereo image? I can get close, but never perfect. One of the first things I ever bought on my own was a pair of binoculars. I saved up and bought them, and thought they were the coolest thing. I think they demanded a kingly price of $35 back then, which was a lot of saving for someone in the 5th grade. I still have them, even took them to the Radiohead concert last year.

I had a much better day at work yesterday. Kinda shook the cloud that’s been hanging over me, kicked the childish pouty attitude and dug in. It was what I needed really. I came home feeling better and more accomplished, which is nice. Sometimes I just get despondent about working, and that’s about when the Walden fantasies kick into high gear – and a Unabomber shack in Alaska starts sounding so good. I guess that’s a little extreme really. But I think I would love to be on one of those PBS shows like Frontier House or something? to get a better idea what it would have been like. I’m sure it’s not as relaxing as I think it is.

That’s about it today, didn’t feel like cut-n-paste so I wrote this on the fly. Dave out.

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meth-bread

Food eaters unite! Break your bonds of ignorance and eat with knowledge!
I was searching through some older tunes to find something nice. Ended up listening to some sigur rós for that ethereal relaxing vibe that sometimes helps quiet my mind. I like music without words, or even with foreign words I can’t understand. Sigur Ros different in that the dude sings in a language he invented. Yeah, he made up a whole language and he sings all their songs in it. There are even internet sites for fans to go and vote on different interpretations of the lyrics. Kinda cool, kinda strange. But above all the music is awesome so it really doesn’t matter to me.

Found out I’ll be traveling to Texas next week for a couple days, not really what I wanted to do – but the bossman ordereth so I comply. I’ll be giving another presentation. I can already tell you that I most likely won’t fully know the material, because I most likely won’t invest the proper amount of time into learning it. Doomed to repeat my viscous cycle of “getting by,” I’ll do enough to fare well and, over time, forget the sting of not knowing what I should have. I don’t really count myself as having a self esteem problem per se, but I do definitely have issues when I am to be perceived as particularly learned on something and I know I’m not. I suppose that’s more of a guilt thing, but there’s also the slight humiliation that goes along with it. Not that I have a right to complain when you consider it’s all my doing, and that I could bone up and become nearly bulletproof if I wanted to. if I wanted to. Anyway, all that aside – the timing kinda blows because I’m gonna miss an Ima Robot show that’s here in town. Bummer.

Benz informed me that the Notwist is playing at Slims in February, which is cool because counting the Decemberists show this month it looks like we’re off to a well rounded concert schedule for 2004. I hate it when the paragraphs in my entries are all big and then there’s on tiny one, so I’m adding this sentence to fill round out the size of the paragraphs on the screen.

The other night I got this crazy itch to bake some cookies. Not like the kind you buy in a plastic tube and slice off onto a sheet, but like the kid where you need flour and eggs and crap. So I started looking online for recipes, and I kept seeing these crazy ingredients: baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar. What the heck is that junk? I mean the words “baking powder” aren’t all that descriptive. Just what is baking powder? Well, since I was already on the internet, I decided to check it out.

Turns out that baking powder is a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar, along with some flour or something. Well great, a circular definition. The bottom line is, they’re chemicals; all chemicals that act as catalysts for the baking reaction that makes air and causes things to rise. Kind of like yeast substitutes. My question is, when did baking powder come into existence? Who first decided that adding some NaHCO3 to some KHC4H4O6 might make their cookies get all fluffy? Did people use yeast until that crap got invented or what? Anyway, I skipped the cookies, as it all took on some kinda “meth lab” imagery in my head. I envisioned whipping up a batch of peanut butter cookies (with fork marks) in my bathtub while wearing a chem suit, not too appealing.

Food trivia like that is really interesting to me. It amazes me how much I don’t know where what I eat comes from. So much history has gone into the way food is made that we just pick things off a shelf and take it all for granted. I mean, who discovered that you have to boil some poisonous root for days before it turns into delicious tapioca? Some totally hungry dude I’d bet. Where does yeast come from? I know it’s naturally occurring, but if I was stuck in the woods with nothing and wanted to make bread – how would I grow/harvest/cultivate some yeast?

Who first thought of all the crazy things we do to make inedible things edible? That stuff trips me out. What’s more, I like to think about things like “what is baking powder,” because in my mind it’s some small form of questioning authority. The authority that tells me “it’s baking powder, just buy it and use it.” Screw you baking powder conglomerate!! I’m onto you, I won’t be blindly fed your propaganda! Question authority!! Now, why is wheat brown and flour white…. they bleach it?!?! I have so much to learn…

That’s it for today. A fresh-written piece, not canned like yesterday. More cut-n-paste to come this week, but this flows straight off the dome.

Dave out.

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uncharacteristically vivid

It's funny because it's probably true.
Wow! I have a lot to write about from yesterday evening to now. While I was writing yesterday’s entry, Dan and Sara stopped by to give my a belated birthday present. Hopefully you can tell what it is from the picture, but if not – it’s the coolest t-shirt in the world. It’s solid black, and in medium white letters on the front it says: “I’m blogging this.” I thought it was the coolest thing ever, what an awesome gift. Here’s a picture of it, although mine doesn’t have the URL on the back. Anyway, it’s a sweet shirt.

Yesterday I watched some New Year’s Day football, and then headed over to Anthony’s place to try the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) game he got for the Xbox. If you’ve never heard of DDR before, I’ll try to break it down: it’s an interactive dancing game. There is a dancepad that registers your steps, and you try and keep up with the foot positions shown on the screen. There are varying levels of difficulty, and a bunch of different songs that suck. The first time I ever saw the game was in an arcade at a mini-golf place, and some little Asian kid was going crazy on it. I mean, he had a towel and everything. It was truly amazing to watch this kid jump and spin and shuffle around to the footsteps on the screen. Anyway, I’ve been kinda intrigued by the game ever since. I looked it up on the internet and found that they have championships and everything, but I never dared play it in an arcade.

So last night I was anxious to give it a go. Anthony assumed I’d hate it, probably due to my intense hatred of dancing, but man I loved it so hard. It was so fun. We started playing around 9:30pm and went until 1am. By the end, I had a towel on my head and was covered in a thin sheen of sweat from head to toe. That game is no joke, you get a little workout trying to hop around and keep up. At first I was terrible, but I started getting the hang of it about midway through. What a blast, I could play that game for hours? wait? I did. I am seriously considering buying it for our Xbox here so Sharaun and I can play it. She’s really good (of course), and tore us all up. Today my calves are tight from bouncing around on my toes so much, but it was totally worth it. I brought my camera and got some footage of us in action, so maybe I’ll post it later.

You would think that after a late night of DDR, the remaining hours would be pretty uneventful. Well all that aerobic exercise must have freaked my body out or something, because I had some seriously strange (and uncharacteristically vivid and rememberable for me) dreams during the night. At one point I even yelled the words “fucking idiot!” out loud, waking Sharaun. See, Sharaun, Melissa, and I were in the truck and Sharaun was driving. It was raining outside and Ben was standing on the sidewalk throwing Hershey’s Kisses through the driver-side window at Sharaun while she drove in slow circles around an intersection. He missed the car with one Kiss and it landed in the street. Wanting to get the stray chocolate, Sharaun simply opened the car door and stepped out. The car continued driving in circles, but came too close to a cement utility pole and scraped it all the way down the passenger side. It was at this point that I yelled my profanities at Sharaun, as she ran for the candy on the rainy street. What an odd dream, I bet Freud could write a thesis on the symbolism.

After that, my dream switched to me in jail. I was planning a breakout with some other guy who I knew in the dream but couldn’t name now. I recall the dream being very involved and detailed, but I can’t really remember it all now. The basics were that we busted out by digging a tunnel ala Shawshank, and headed towards some arranged spot. Once we got there we were on the riverbank, and we uncovered a camouflaged boat that was hidden and hanging on someone’s backyard fence. Another strange one for ya. I would have thought I’d have dreamed about dancing or football or something.

On a completely unrelated note, I officially closed up shop on my cd trading hobby today. I mean, I haven’t actually traded in nearly a year – but today I actually changed my cd trading pages to reflect my non-trading status. It’s kinda sad for me, but nowadays I get most of my new tunes online, and there just isn’t that much rare Beatles material coming out anymore. At least, nothing that I’m slobbering over – I’ve grown tired of the endless hours of Get Back rehearsals. So, I’m done with it for the time being. I’ll leave the webpage up, and I’m sure I may get back into it one day… but for now it’s the end of an era.

Well, I guess it’s time to go. Sharaun and I are cleaning up the house and trying to reorganize some stuff that we haven’t touched since we moved it. It’s time to clean out and throw away a bunch of stuff we’ll never use. And, we’re gonna use our steam cleaner to try and de-funk the loveseat. May the force be with us.

Dave out.

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wanna be hero

Another year down, another year gone.
Another day closer to Christmas. Worked a half day yesterday because things are so slow at work. Will probably do the same today. Hardly got a single e-mail all day, was kinda nice. We’ve still got a lot to do before we leave: pack, clean, do our Christmas Eve present thing since we’ll be in FL for the actual holiday. I’m getting excited about going back to Florida, which I still kind of consider as “home” since I did most of my growing up there. I always get a little homesick when we get out at the Orlando airport. For all the reasons I profess to not like Florida, it’s actually a great state – and I have a lot of good memories of my days there.

Yesterday my mom called me at work from her cell phone, asking if I’d felt the earthquake. I hadn’t, since it was centered too far south of here – but they did feel it there. It was kinda cool knowing a piece of big news before the news services started picking up on it. CNN and the other outlets were only about 20min behind real-time with their stories, which is pretty impressive. The US Geological pages that register seismic activity had it up instantly, which I also thought was cool. I’ve been through one or two slow rollers when we lived in Lompoc, but that’s about it. Nothing as hard hitting as a 6.4, which I’m sure is a little more scary than the lightweights I’ve weathered.

Bob asked me the other day if I was concerned traveling with the terror alert at Orange now. I guess it does make me a little more “aware” than usual, but not really nervous. That terror threat color chart seems awfully arbitrary to me, but I hope that it’s working. I guess the only real way it affects me is to just pile on imagination-fodder in my brain. See, I often have these little movies running in my head, that are sparked from what’s really going on in front of me. I run through these imagined scenarios, kind of like a “choose your own adventure” in my head.

As an example: I’ll be walking along somewhere and a surly looking dude passes by me; we both continue along our ways. In my head: All of the sudden the dude pulls out a ninja sword and rushes at me, screaming about something. What do I do? Then I’ll run though all these scenarios in my head, deciding on the best course of action. Kind of like thinking of a good comeback to an insult long after it’s been said, I’ll arrive at the coolest or most heroic chain of events, and then review them like a short action flick. I do it all the time: What if a plane hit my work building? What if a bomb went off at the airport while I am walking through? What if the supermarket got robbed right now? You guys don’t even know how many times I’ve saved the day in my head, I’m like a superhero in my own mind.

With all the year-end hoopla in the media, I felt it was time for me to put my personal spin on the “best of” game. I’ve chosen the following 10 albums as my choices for best albums of 2003. The criteria I used to judge is really twofold: How much did I listen to the album (frequency and longevity), and how much do I enjoy the music (savory-ness and emotion). Without further ado, my picks for the best of 2003 (in no particular order):

  • Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
  • Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism
  • Broken Social Scene – You Forgot it in People
  • Decemberists – Her Majesty the Decemberists
  • Shins – Chutes to Narrow
  • Hot Hot Heat – Make Up for the Breakdown / Knock Knock Knock EP
  • The Thrills – So Much for the City
  • Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts
  • Postal Service – Give Up
  • Iron and Wine – Iron and Wine

There it is, with Nada Surf’s Let Go, The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair…, and Snow Patrol’s Final Straw barely sitting outside the list. And I know I kinda cheated on the Hot Hot Heat double-pick, but I always listen to the two together – so it’s like a single album to me.

If you like good music, check some of that stuff out – it’s all tasty. 2003 was actually a really good year for music, I don’t know if it’s just that I get so much that some of it is bound to be awesome, but for whatever reasons it seemed there was a lot of excellent stuff out. Also nice, we got to see a lot of it live – as 2003 was also a great year for live shows. This year I took in: Radiohead, Modest Mouse, The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Nada Surf, Pedro the Lion, Explosions in the Sky, Broken Social Scene, The Stars, Beulah, John Vanderslice, Built to Spill, Hot Hot Heat, The Walkmen, Bright Eyes, The Strokes, and probably more I’m not thinking of.

Well, what started out as a blank slate ended up with some pretty decent blog content. I’m proud. Although I’m not going to all the trouble to go back and hyperlink everything, because I’m just not in the mood. As I mentioned, I’ll be trying to write every day over vacation, but it may not work out that way.

Merry Christmas all! Dave out!