Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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silky smoothness

Happy birthday to me!
Not much been going down, so it’s gonna be a short one today. Last night I divided my time between ripping VHS to MPEG and coding the brand new sidebar element you see on the right of the page. I hope to add some more sidebar elements as time goes on, just to make the blog more fun. Anthony and Ben said they stopped reading it, so I guess the blog novelty (and my 15min) is about over. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing, I’ve been doing it this long I might as well carry on.

The VHS to MPEG activities went well, although I didn’t have time to properly edit the captured video yet – so I won’t be posting it today. The 5th grade “fitness challenge” one was great, got to see all my old classmates and stuff. My best bud Shaine is like the star of the video, and since I know he’s a blog reader – I’m gonna put together a “best of” Shaine running the obstacle course. It’s pretty funny to watch. I think the comments sidebar addition to the webpage turned out nice too. If you’re confused by it, here’s a breakdown: it shows a snippet of the three most recently entered comments, each comment is clickable through to the full comment page for a particular blog entry. One of the thing I like about it is that even if you go back and comment on a really old blog entry, that comment will show up in the “most recent” sidebar. That’s cool for me because previously I had no way, other than scanning through the old pages, to know if someone commented on an older article. Anyway, it was a fun coding project and kept me busy for a couple days – so I deem it successful.

I still haven’t shaved, and to me this scruff looks pretty bad. However, Sharaun insists she likes it – so I’ma keep it for now. Maybe I’m crazy, but I get this strange feeling there’s something going down with this beard that I’m not aware of. Friday night is our little “holiday party” at the house, and Sharaun’s asked more than once if I plan to shave the beard for the party. Why would she wonder if I will have the beard at the party? Is there some kind of beard-related joke or event going down at this soiree that I’m unaware of? Only time will tell I suppose, but I’ve just never seen her take so much interest in my shaving habits. Maybe there will be bearded dude on the cake or something? Who knows.

Why do people always laugh when I tell them I put baby powder on my balls? I’m totally not embarrassed by it. That baby powder is a godsend when it comes to swampy balls. I guess my habit started in FL, where it’s always a million degrees in the shade, and a perpetually-hot dude like me is more often than not overheated. A lil’ baby powder applied in the morning can make the day so much more bearable. I tried Gold Bond at first, but that stuff is like powdered acid when it comes to genitalia – at least for me. I even have a little travel-sized thing of powder to take with me on trips and when hiking/camping. I’ve gotten way used to staying nice and dry and chafe free, so I gotta take it with me. My whole ball-area moves with effortless silky smoothness, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Maybe I’ve got dysfunctional ball sweat glands or something, but I need some kinda desiccant up in there to help me out – so I powder. Back off.

What am I listening to lately? Well, still the Decemberists, I can’t get enough of ’em. That and absmi has been spitting out some great new stuff lately. I’ve been alternating between the Statistics (with one of the members of the group who had last year’s best album, IMO, Desaparecidos), a group called Menomena (who have a hilarious website), and the new +/- album. All pretty good upon several listens. Since I’m talking about music, it must mean I’m out of other things to say. An appropo time to wrap up this entry I’d say.

Dave out.

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boats, check; poop, check

A boat, in a storm. It's the perfect image for my entry.
Last night there was a storm here. Not a “storm” in the Florida caliber I’m used to, but definitely more of a storm than we usually get. It was rainy, and really windy. At a couple points during the night I woke up to the whipping of the wind outside our window. I love the sound of a storm, if I was smart I woulda been the dude who recorded it and made millions putting it out on a series of “Earth Sounds” cds. Anyway, ’round about 4:30am I woke again to the rain and wind and decided to put on my glasses and go check out what it looked like. I got a glass of water and went to the sliding glass door to look, but couldn’t see much so went back to bed. I was lying there, listening to the storm, and I started imagining that I was in a boat at sea. It was the old times, y’know? with wooden boats like in pirate and pilgrim movies. I was out on the ocean, on some cool journey to some far away place.

I used to know a guy who lived on a boat. When I was manager at the record store, he was a salesperson. One night he asked a couple of us guys to come back to his place and hang out. Man, that boat was so cool. It wasn’t very big, but it smelled all “boaty” like that stuff they treat wood with. In the cabin it had all the trappings of a little efficiency room: TV, fridge, microwave, stove, etc. It was really cool and all old-timey nautical decorated, and I just loved that boat smell. Maybe it was because that little self-contained cabin area tapped into my “enclosed space” fantasies, all womby and stuff. He just had it moored at this little marina, where he payed a docking fee and a hookup fee for electricity and sewage or whatever. I remember him saying that it wasn’t as cheap as I may have thought, but man did I dig that whole idea. You could pick up and leave whenever you wanted, go out for days, whatever. Awesome. We got tight on Jack that night and hung out above deck telling stories under the stars – it was totally awesome. I guess Florida has some things going for it, the Jimmy Buffet lifestyle that the weather affords is certainly one of them. I’d never get Sharaun to agree to moving onto a boat though, and I dunno how much I’d really want to “live” there either. Owell, cool to think about.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like to take any time away from playing with friends. I would spend as much time as I could enjoying myself, and didn’t like to get interrupted with other things I had to do. From this dislike of playtime stoppage, I developed a habit holding in my poops. Oh yeah, I totally said it. While I no longer hold my poops (in fact – I now revel in them, marking them not only as necessary but also totally enjoyable), I did for a few gradeschool years? I think about 3rd through 5th. When I was outside playing and I could feel nature calling, I’d simply ignore it. If it got really bad, I’d sit on the ground with my leg folded underneath me to help add some “you get back in there” pressure to my innards. Why I disliked the poopin’, I have no idea? I think I was just trying to save time or something. Why I’m writing about this, I also have no idea. Other than it might make me laugh one day when I get senile and can jog my memory by reading it.

Hmmm? talked about boats, check. Talked about poop, check. What else was it that I was supposed to talk about?

A friend at work is letting me borrow a machine that rips any video input source to MPEG video for the PC. You just plug in an S-video or RCA source, and it encodes and outputs MPEG video to your PC in real time. I wanted to borrow it so I can rip and archive a couple old VHS tapes I have. One of them is “A Day in the life of Dave,” a 24hr autobiographical documentary I made in high school, and the other is of a videotaped “fitness challenge” that my 5th grade class participated in. (Yes Shaine, you’re in there crab-walking with the rest of us). I know the idea of me in any kind of “challenge” seems an alien one, let alone the “fitness” kind? but I was in 5th grade and relatively un-ruined by Nintendo and potato chips at the time. Anyway, I’m gonna rip ’em and upload them to the web? as I do nearly everything.

Ahem… Dave. Is. Out.

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sense of pity for today’s kids

I thought it was so cool when I first started shaving... ugh.
Yesterday while getting the link for the blog to talk about Explosions in the Sky, a new group I’ve been digging, I was poking around their webpage and realized they were playing in Sacramento that very night. I quickly informed Ben that, pursuant to the conditions of our rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, we would have to attend. Even though I’ve only had their stuff for a few days, I had already decided I liked them a lot – as they reminded me a lot of other post-rock (see, I know the jargon) outfits I enjoy, like Mogwai. So Benz and I decided to pull off the last-minute show, and Sharaun came along as well.

The show was at the Cap Garage, a nice little place in downtown Sac where we’ve seen other acts like Pedro the Lion and Hot Hot Heat. I generally like the place, although it’s way small and therefore gets really loud. This time I got smart and brought along three pairs of earplugs, just in case. It was a four-band night, and oddly enough Explosions in the Sky weren’t the last up – some local Sac band was. That was fine by me, since it was midnight by the time EitS finished anyway. Oh, and finish they did! After sitting through about five mediocre songs from another local band, the second opening act came on. A dude by the name of Lazarus was up. He mostly strummed his guitar solo and had occasional soft drum, keyboard, and rhythm backup. This guy sounded like he was about to commit suicide at any moment. He was seemingly so bitterly depressed or tortured that it was all he could do to croak out some apologetic intros to his Prozac-needy songs. The portrait of loneliness and loss, his songs had us all considering suicide by the end. I’m not saying he wasn’t talented, he was – quite talented. His stuff would be good for rainy days or breakups; or rainy days when you’ve just been broken up with, and your entire family just died in a fire, and you just learned you have cancer. Yeah.

Then came EitS. Holy crap. Right out the gate I knew they were here to rock. Tuning up and soundchecking their instruments, it was obvious that their amps went to 11. I decided that, image be damned, I would put in my earplugs and enjoy the show while also preserving my hearing for the years to come. Yeah I looked funny with neon orange foam in each ear, but it was cool with me. Heck, I’m old now? I gotta start thinking about my kids. What? Anyway, the band went from one wordless tune to the next with no pause in between. It was sometimes hard to tell song from song, with only an extended bit of feedback separating what may or may not have been different tunes. It was like one huge In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida/Mountain Jam/Thick As A Brick/Moby Dick/Dark Star/Get Ready epic. Their playing was tight and powerful, and sounded excellent. They ended with a crushing version of The Only Moment We Were Alone from The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place, grinding three guitars and smashing the drums into a wash of total noisy awesomeness. After their hour+ set, the crowd showed their appreciation with a lengthy round of applause. We split after a couple songs from the closing band, as we were eager to get some sleep and not too interested. All in all, a great show and a fun evening – and a deal for $7. I took some pictures, maybe I’ll post them.

Right now I haven’t shaved since before Thanksgiving. While it’s liberating in the sense that I loathe shaving, I’m torn trying to decide if it looks nasty or not. Sharaun seems to like it, which is I guess all that matters – but I’m still undecided. It itches. But last night at the show I saw a guy with this immense, wild, lumberjack beard – and I just loved it. I would love a crazy stranded-on-a-desert-isle beard, and I might just try and grow one. The more unkempt the better. Wonder why Gilligan and them never grew beards? Guess they either figured out how to shave with coconuts, or managed to salvage some dull-proof razors from the Minnow. Hmmm?.

Oh, and out of some sense of pity for today’s kids I decided to actually watch the new He Man. And guess what? It’s not bad at all, in fact – it’s really good. Now, the new Transformers, that computer animated crap sucks. But the new He Man was good, a lot like the old one I used to love. The action figures are still gay looking though, too pretty boy if you ask me. I think I was a little hard on the Cartoon Network the other day, there are some great kids’ shows on there. The new Justice League looks awesome, He Man ain’t bad, and I saw a couple more previews of stuff that looked pretty decent. So to the youth of America, I apologize. Your toons aren’t all that bad, just mostly bad. Oh, and stay off the fighting trading-card monster crap? that junk will rot your brain.

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me the artist of each epic song mentioned in the concert review. Dave out.

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dudes flirt with dudes

It's a llama. The result of a GIS for "canoodling," I swear.
Back from a weekend where I purposely set out to do nothing, and totally accomplished my goal. Then again, for a weekend of doing nothing I sure managed to do a lot. Friday night Pat called an impromptu get-together at his place for some Kings game watching and poker playing. Saturday day I did absolutely nothing, aside from downloading the new Myst game to check it out. I never play PC games, but I loved the original Myst. Saturday night we had dinner with a variation of the standard crew – and then closed the night in the hot tub. Sunday I took in Sharaun’s indoor game, and we went home and put up the Christmas tree before the Alias crew came over for tri-tip and tater salad. Not a bad weekend.

Dudes flirt with dudes. Oh yeah that’s right, I said it. Dudes flirt with dudes just like they flirt with girls. We may not call it “flirting,” but it’s essentially the same thing in that it achieves the same results. Now, I’m not saying dude/dude flirting is done with the same goal in mind as dude/girl flirting (i.e. canoodling), but the two are alike in that they both provide the flirter and flirtee with some measure of satisfaction and pleasure. Oh I know, all you hard core dudes disagree with me – but you’re just lying to yourself.

You know when your buddy messes up and you give him constant crap about it? Flirting. When you “mess” with another dude about something, sidling and poking fun at him? Also flirting. Akin to chasing girls around the playground and pulling their hair, dudes punch each other, give each other a hard time, and make fun of each others’ faults. Oh we won’t admit it for flirting, but it is. Make fun of what he’s wearing, call him a “pussy” for checking in with his woman, dog on his back hair… all just flirting.

On the music tip, I am really excited because I convinced Steve & Ragan to come to a show with Benz, Sharaun and I. They’ll be popping their indie show cherries to the crooning of the Decemberists at the Bottom of the Hill in January. Too bad we couldn’t have taken them to a more impressive venue for their first show, but owell. Also in music news, Ben put up some cool video and stills of his bro’s band in action at a concert he took in over Thanksgiving. That’s real rock y’all, don’t be scared. Meanwhile I’ve been stuck listening to the two Explosions in the Sky albums I’ve grabbed from absmi. Much like Mogwai, who I also adore – they are instrumental and noisy, fine fine tunes. I’ve also been enjoying the Neil Youngness of the Magnolia Electric Co. album from Songs:Ohia; and the loud grittiness of a “new to me” but old album from A Minor Forest.

OK, tired of writing. Dave out.

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four

it's a boat. because they sing about boaty stuff so much...
Oh… oh… the spirit of old-time-stories is harrying me again. Time to revisit the golden years with yet another round of dumb retellings of long-ago deeds. Beware, it comes random, it comes quick, and it mostly comes in poor english and narrative form. Blog away!

When we were younger, we had a theory that the number “four” had some sort of special meaning. <Sound of chimes. The present scene becomes all wavy-blurry and gives way to an image from the past, an 8th grade campout. Four boys sit on a log deep in the woods at night, the smell of burning rope hangs thick in the air as we join the scene .> Taking a break from keeping ourselves entertained by striving to precisely describe the feeling of running ones tongue across ones teeth – I came up with a “game” we could play.

We would count the number of letters in various words, and then count the number of letters in the number of letters from that word. Hmm… confusing? Let me ‘splain. The word is “whitebread.” “Whitebread” has 10 letters in it, the word “ten” has 3 letters in it, the word “three” has 5 letters in it, and the idea was to go to infinity. But! Guess what? We soon found out that every word, no matter what word, always came back to the number four. We tried short words, long words, and ridicu-long words like “antidisestablishmentarianism” and “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” all of which came back to “four.” Try it, it’s for real.

After several hours of this game we decided that “the number four is the only number that has the same number of letters in its spelling as the number it represents.” It was a momentous occasion for us young thinkers, and as they say – it totally blew our minds. From then on, when we failed to understand anything we would just chalk it up as “Eh, whatever. It’s all four in the end anyway.” Convinced we had unearthed some basic truth – we threw out the shake, put away the papers and Swiss Army Knife tweezers, and fell asleep on the ground. No pillows, no sleeping bags, nothing. Ahhh… good times. Thank you brave braincells who gave your lives so I could enjoy my younger years, and thank you to the ones who stuck around and learned me to stop enjoying them so much.

In 7th grade a friend of mine brought a book to school called Big Secrets. It was the first in a series by author William Poundstone where he discusses some of the worlds “biggest secrets,” and outs them all for what they are. The eleven secret herbs and spices in the colonel’s chicken, was Walt Disney cryogenically frozen, what’s the formula for Coke, and plenty of other fascinating things to the 7th grade mind. The last chapter in the book was all about “backward masking” in music. For the unfamiliar, that’s where artists supposedly hide secret messages in their music by reversing the track. Backward messages in music became a big deal during the satanism scare of the 80’s, Geraldo talked about it on his satanism special (which, by the way – I was glued to the TV for, but more about my childhood fascination with the occult later). During that time Judas Priest even got sued over a fan who committed suicide, supposedly because he was subliminally urged to do so by hidden backward messages in their songs.

Anyway, I was fascinated with the idea that artists might hide backwards messages in their music. I rooted through all my old records to see if any of the ones mentioned in Big Secrets were among the musty boxful. I hit paydirt when I found Prince’s Purple Rain from my collection, and the Beatles’ “White Album” among my folks’ old vinyl. I sat and listened to the Darling Nikki clip forward, then pulled the record backwards across the stylus – it was awesome! I threw on Revolution 9 from the White Album and listened to the whole ~9min mess forward and backward a million times.

From then on I loved the idea of backwards stuff. I would record my voice on tape, spool out the recorded portion, cut it, flip it, and scotch tape it back in – just so I could hear myself say things backwards. Since reversed speech can actually change the phonetic sound and even syllable count in words, we would try and figure out what certain words would sound like backwards just so we could say them and reverse the tape to see how close we were. Kyle and I got so obsessed with backwards talking, we fashioned a tape reversing “machine” that aided us in extracting the audio tape, reversing it, and splicing it back together – with it we could reverse entire cassettes in under a minute. We learned the whole of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” backwards. We reversed songs, speech, random sounds – really whatever we could get our hands on. It was good times.

Anyway, if you couldn’t tell, the point of the last two paragraphs was to explain how I first got introduced to the Beatles. Yup, because I was looking for “Paul is dead” clues in backwards messages on the White Album when I got totally hooked on the music. It took me two paragraphs to say that.

Super random crap that came to me when no one was around and I couldn’t just blurt it out. But it’s gotta get out, or it will die the slow death of being forgotten. Three movies that I remembered from the old days: Bedknobs and Broomsticks; My Side of the Mountain; and The Electric Grandmother. What I remember from each: almost all the words to the “Portobello Row” tune; he eats mold, lives in a hollow tree, and has a pet raccoon; she pours orange juice out of her index finger.

Here’s my December comp thus far, you know I couldn’t go a whole blog without talking about music. Marvel at the newness and goodness that graces my ears while I work. And oh yeah, I finally got tired of the headphones I borrowed from Anthony, as they left my ears in crippling pain after two hours or so. I picked up another $16 pair from Wal Mart, maybe these will last. If my head wasn’t so damned huge and oblong, maybe I would get a more typical life from my headphones… but as it is now they tend to break under the immense outward pressure of my ginormous melon. Oh yeah, the comp:

Folder PATH listing for volume noo_chit
D:
+---ben folds - speed graphic ep
+---bonnie prince billy - i see a darkness
+---clearlake - cedars
+---decemberists - castaways and cutouts
+---decemberists - her majesty the decemberists
+---explosions in the sky - the earth is not a cold dead place
+---quickspace - the death of quickspace
+---the prids - love zero
+---unicorns - who will cut our hair when we're gone
+---walkmen - bows and arrows
+---wrens - secaucus
+---wrens - the meadowlands

Haha! There ya have it, that’s the end and I’m done. Time to hit the sack now, because I have to go to work in the morning and do stuff. Oh, and Benz… you know I already ordered two tickets man, hopefully you can go.

Dave out.

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i’m not a rockafella like you

what do you mean i can't pay you with this?
Hang on, it’s finna get random up in here pretty quick. I think California must be the only state in the union where people sell meat door-to-door. In Florida, we never got door-to-door salespeople. The only people that came unbidden to your door were Jehova’s Witnesses or Mormons. In college we got those “subscribe to some magazines so I can go to Paris” people, but never the volume we get here in CA. Back to the meat. These people actually come around in refrigerated trucks, hawking boxes full of assorted frozen meats. Steaks, burgers, kebabs, etc. It was such a foreign concept to me to see some guy at my door trying to sell me meat. Strange.

Check it out, Florida has a searchable online sex offender database, with mugshots and all! How fun to look up your home town and see how many dudes you know are now registered sex offenders. I went to school with this guy, and this guy, and I even played BB gun war in the woods with this one. Awesome. I knew the database existed, but I was reminded by a link on Fark (perhaps the best site on the internet). The thread about the link was just too rich not too link, so here ’tis – the pictures linked in there were cracking me up last night. Too bad CA doesn’t have an online one, you have to pay $10 per two inquiries, and it’s only by phone. Where’s the fun in that CA?

The recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie is one of my favorite movies of all time I think. Excellent story, with fighting and treasure and love and elements of fantasy. Excellent acting on the part of Depp, and the supremely (only one tick below Ms. Portman in my personal rankings) radiant Keira Knightley (who looks the the winner of some awesome Winona Ryder/Natalie Portman Mr. Potato Head contest, getting the better bits of each). Not to mention some kickass special effects with the whole skeleton-human-skeleton fighting. Rad to the bone y’all, rad to the bone.

Benz went to visit his brother in the NYC for Thanksgiving, and brought back some new tunes. Not unlike myself, Bother Dave is a indie-rock sympathizer – and even fancies himself a drummer in a real live NYC indie band. In other words, he’s in “the scene” up to his hips and occasionally acquires new tunes that somehow slip past Benz’ or my radar. Ben hand carried Quickspace, The Prids, and Clearlake cross the country within the safe confines of his iPod – and thoughtfully shared them with me upon his return. Based on early reports from a mere 15% of the polling precincts, I’d say we have some winners here. More on the new tunes as I decide whether I love them or simply think they don’t sound like Creed. Yes, Creed is the ruler by which all things suck are measured. Sorry.

Thanks to the blog, some pretense has been established where it is assumed that I have these random meandering and kooky thoughts all the time. While it’s generally true that I’m random and excitable by nature, I’m not as odd as the blog may make me out. You think I talk like that paragraph above when you meet me in person? I’d have no friends.

You guys wanna hear some shit? Between the two of us, Sharaun and I have like $40k of school debt. Yeah, that’s right… that’s like forty thousand dollars. Sometimes I think that college is the ultimate Catch 22. I plunge headlong into debt to further my education, all so I can get a higher-paying job that just enables me to pay back the huge debt I went into getting it. Couldn’t I be just as happy driving a tractor with a GED and socking all my 100% profit earnings into savings? Maybe, who knows. What I do know is that I need a serious windfall to get me out from under the specter of that massive black hole of debt. Anyone got any ideas? And Pat, don’t give me some smartass comment about how I should go back in time and finance my entire education by “working.” I’m not a Rockafella like you, and we all know every choice I’ve ever made is somehow deficient compared to what you would’ve done in the same situation.

But fo rilla y’allz… I gotta win some kinda lottery or something… get myself on a level playing field so I can keep some of the fruits of my “labor.” Ugh. I know I’m too young to be complaining about the seesaw not swinging the other way, I guess the college education was so that after time – things more than balance out in my favor. We’ll see, one can only hope. While I wait, anyone wanna pay me insane amounts of money to make mediocre webpages and fill them with banal rambling? Oh yeah, I’ll need full medical and dental too. No takers? Hmmm.. how surprising.

Dave out.

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i’m a leftist rhymer

defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever
Took this test (with a lil’ help from Sharaun) and ranked as a “Pop Junkie.” Combined, we fully kicked this test’s arse. I thought it was kinda fun, but only if ya got a good bit o’ time to waste on it.

If ya noticed, I fixed the comment script. Yup, it was exactly the problem I thought it was. I just needed someone on the host server to reset my permissions page so I could make the comments database writeable again. I had been sending unanswered mails to tech support since last Wednesday, every one of them marked as “level 3: critical site or network outage,” and I was getting increasingly short and kinda ornery with them. So yesterday, I decided to go the other route – and mostly out of frustration fired off this guy:

i tried to set some permissions,
but 404s filled my visions.

“page not found” is all i see,
why would they do this to me?

it worked last week i swear,
but now the page ain’t there.

oh sweet permissions,
how i wish i could change thee,
because right now my visitors,
cannot write to my DB.

i’ve wrote a hundred times now,
always “level 3,”
adaptive won’t you please,
chmod or calcs for me.

thanks!

dave
www.pharaohweb.com

Now, I don’t know if it was coincidence or not, but within hours I got this:

We will reset the permissions link immediately.
Sorry for the delay.

tech@daveshost.net

After which the permissions page was back in order, and I replied with the following:

you guys are da bomb, sorry if i sounded harsh… not like the fate of the free world hinges on my dumb blog anyway 😉

take it easy!! hope ya had a good turkey day.

dave
www.pharaohweb.com

Yeah, I was easy on ’em, but they did get it fixed. Don’t think I didn’t entertain thoughts of nastiness. At one point yesterday I had tracked down the name and home number of the dude who owns the server that was misbehaving. I even managed to dig up pictures of him and his extended family. The web can be scary in the wrong hands, but I donned my white hat and took the high road. I’m just glad the site’s working, and you can all leave nice derisive comments again. Ahhh, the world is right once more.

Been seriously hitting the Decmeberists again. I think I’ve moved onto Phase Three of musical enjoyment with them. Lemme break it down for you. Phase One is the “humming” phase. I listen primarily to the tune of the songs, the music dominates and it’s what I remember most. Sure, I might learn a hook or two lyrics-wise, but not much more than that. Phase Two is the “hearing” phase. This is where I listen to and learn the words of the song. At this point I’m mainly concerned with being able to sing along, ’cause you can derive all new levels of enjoyment from a song when you can sing along with it. Phase Three is the “ah-ha!” phase. This is where I start interpreting the words I’ve been trying to learn. I put the song together to pick out ideas and themes, and try to figure out what’s being sung about. I think Phase Three is the ultimate level of enjoyment I can get from music, like being in on the secret message the songwriter is trying to get across or something.

Anyway, I’m in Phase Three with the two (one, two) Decemberists albums now – and yesterday at work these songs sent me to dictionary.com like a hundred times. Seriously, this guy must have an old 18th century thesaurus nearby when he pens his songs. With gems like “stevedore,” “bombazine,” “oligarchs,” “laudanum,” and countless others – he by far out-vocab’s anyone I’ve ever listened to. I even got tongue-tied reading the reviews of the dang albums. But whatever, I’ve talked about a group 90% of you don’t care about (and would probably laugh off as novelty) for too long now. Next subject please.

Anthony and I were talking yesterday about how much we like getting new tools. We both agreed that, the less oft-used the tool, the more we want it. Meaning, I have no problem buying tools I’ll only use once – on the contrary, I love it more than buying tools I’ll use every day. Saturday I bought a staple gun to help hang the Christmas lights on the eaves. I bought the most top-of-the-line model that Home Depot had. Why? Hell, I don’t know why. I’ll probably only ever use it once a year, but if staple guns ever come up in conversation I’ll be able to say “I have a sweet staple gun, super powerful, the best.” I guess it’s also a status thing, the more tools I have the more times I can say “I have one you can borrow” to a buddy lamenting about not owning a planer when his project requires one; to which he’ll reply “Really, awesome. I can’t believe you have one of those.” Obscure tool: check, ego-food: check. Done and done.

Even though I’ve shied away from talking about the blog in person (talking about it makes me feel like you think I write it just so you’ll talk to me about it, and that makes me feel like a cheap attention whore), my pops said something interesting to when we were together over Thanksgiving. I don’t know how often my folks read the blog, but I suspect pops reads it fairly regularly. Anyway, he made the comment this weekend that we think a lot alike. Actually he said something to the tune of “we think a lot alike David, it’s kinda scary.” Pops… I agree! I don’t wanna think like you – you’re insane! Anyway, I thought that was kinda cool. Pop: you can talk about the blog when you want, you’re OK in my book. Makes me wonder though, how many of the millions of things I thought about during my youth did my parents also think about at one time during their youth.

Last night Sara (or Dan? I dunno) and I got to talking about rhymes and I realized that there are two distinct schools of rhyming. I’m what I like to think of as a “relative” rhymer, whereas Sharaun is a very “literal” rhymer. I guess you could say I’m a leftist rhymer, while Sharaun is a right-wing rhyming nut. Us rhyming liberals have it a lot easier than the rhyme-Nazis though, that’s for sure. For me, “away” rhymes with “foyer” and “bacon” rhymes with “naked.” For Sharaun, “away” rhymes with nothing, and “bacon” only rhymes with “Macon” or maybe “shaken.” Literal rhymers need both absolute rhymage and matching syllable count. Relative rhymers are happy enough with similar sounding words like “leanest” and the last ‘P’ of O.P.P. (for the ladies).

Gee, what an eclectic and long-winded blog this turned out to be. I kinda cleaned out some of the “blog_ideas.txt” file and probably put too many unrelated things into one entry, but I was in the writing mood. Sheesh, just re-read this thing for “editorial” sake, I write terribly sometimes. How can you even figure out what I’m trying to say? That paragraph about my dad’s comment… absolutely horrid. Sorry. That’s it for now.

Dave out.