And the game is total crack. alenxa has been playing it all week, and it’s that perfect combination of WTF and fascinating.
Tag: music
Writer’s Block: Your First Record
What was the first music album you ever bought or owned? Do you still listen to it or have you moved on?
If I remember correctly, the first album I bought was the soundtrack to Glory. I haven’t listened to the album itself in a long time, but the music’s on the instrumental mix.
Weekend: Concert & Home
alenxa and I went to see Aimee Mann at the House of Blues on Friday. Rather than trying to eat somewhere in Downtown Disney, where no one takes reservations and everything is crowded on a Friday night, we just ate at Taco Rosa and drove up after dinner. It worked out pretty well — we ended up there after the doors had opened (so we didn’t have to stand in line), but early enough to secure a spot on the main floor, putting us closer to the stage than we’ve ever been before. The concert was good, but a bit strange in that her new album had only been out for 4 days, so most people didn’t know the songs. Older songs got cheers as soon as people recognized the intro, but the old songs were met with silence until she finished and the audience applauded.
And she told a funny story about how one of the songs started out as a sort-of commission for Shrek III. Unfortunately they wanted a happy, encouraging, “Come on, you can do it!” song, and she said she’s not very good at that kind of message.
House-hunting on Saturday turned up a few prospects. Meanwhile, did some cleanup at the apartment. Finally arranged the front of the living room so that the display case doesn’t block access to the window.
As for the goals I set for myself:
- Sort through old magazines. – Done. Tossed 2 bags of magazines & one bag of old papers (seriously, brochures for wedding services for a company we didn’t use?) into the recycling.
- Find desk lamp. – Tried, no luck.
- Put some actual content on Facebook profile. – A little, but not much.
- Finish website update on the Silver-Age Flash. – Wrote a lot, but didn’t finish.
Sound and Image
A month or two ago I dug out a bunch of CDs I hadn’t listened to in years, including some musical-related stuff, and started importing songs into iTunes. My plan was to play the albums first, then pick out which songs I wanted, but it didn’t quite work out, so I put a lot of stuff on just from memory, or in some cases just imported the whole album with the idea that I’d remove anything I found myself skipping. Some worked out well. Others… well the Man of La Mancha suite from Quantum Leap just wasn’t as good as I remembered.
So today, as alenxa and I were driving around to look at condos, Bernadette Peters came on, singing “Cupid.” It was a bit more easy listening-sounding than I remembered, but not cringe-inducingly-so… and then my brain stepped in to “enhance” it.
You see, we’re also working our way through the third volume of Animaniacs on DVD. I found myself picturing Rita (as in Rita and Runt) singing the song.
“Brain, stop it!” I said.
Katie: “Is yours doing the same thing mine is?”
“I think so…”
“On a fence post?”
“Yep.”
In house hunting news, we found a couple of good possibilities. Well, one good possibility, and one that was really nice, but the rooms were way too small. Fantastic view, though.
And then there was the place that had been trashed so badly that when I dropped my sunglasses, I refused to pick them up. Ugh.
Music, Christmas, and Deadlines
Ended up missing my company’s Christmas party this year because we had tickets to see Tori Amos at the Grove on Saturday. Good concert, but our feet were pretty much dead by the end of the standing show. Sometime I’ll have to post the experience of trying to eat at El Torito Grill beforehand.
Meanwhile, everyone at my office hopped on a bus last Friday at noon to go out to Las Vegas. Apparently they did a murder mystery dinner for the actual party. It was a bit eerie afterward.
Still scrambling to finish a website at work. Also trying to finish some articles that I’m contributing to a book about the Flash. And Christmas shopping? Hah!
5 days before Christmas is a bad time to find out that you’re almost out of scotch tape, but I suppose it’s better than finding out at 8pm on December 24.
Musical Weekend
Friday night alenxa and I went to a Gin Blossoms concert in Cerritos. They spent most of the show alternating between songs from the new album (which is surprisingly good) and their old standards. Encore was 2 covers: Rocketman and something I didn’t recognize.
Funniest remark: “We don’t get to play many Performing Arts Centers. Mostly we play casinos and dog pounds.”
Saturday I spent some time filling in random songs for our music collection, going with Amazon’s DRM-less plain old MP3s when possible and iTunes when not.
Sunday we watched Phantom of the Paradise, a truly bizarre mash-up of Phantom of the Opera and Faust set in a satire of the 1970s rock music industry.
Utilization of College Impulses
I’ve been meaning to run by the UCI bookstore and pick up some new license plate frames (the original plan was to just move the old ones, but when we took them off, we realized they looked kind of ratty) — if possible, before the plates arrive. Around 11:30 or so I decided I’d run up on my lunch hour, then drop in at the Apple Store at Crystal Court (excuse me, South Coast Plaza) and see if they could give me any pointers on some weird stuff my iPod is doing. (The Googles, they do nothing.)
I hadn’t been in the bookstore in several years, and it was mostly familiar, with only shelves and departments rearranged, but this was my first visit to the new Student Center. It was actually kind of eerie, since what I’d seen of construction made it look like they’d razed the entire old building except over at the bookstore/Cornerstone (sadly, now a Starbucks) end of the place. And yet the landing in front of Crystal Cove, the hallway below it, and the landing above, all looked strangely familiar. (And I could swear the only thing changed about the restrooms was the auto-flush sensors and the graffiti.) It turns out they actually kept most of the building below the terrace intact, in some cases moving stairways or adding partitions, and mainly built around it.
Most eerie: In the checkout line, I heard “La Vida Loca,” which for some reason I associate with the Student Center Zot-n-Go.
While I was there, I remembered a photo I took of the old Student Center from the top floor of what was then the Humanities Office Building. (10 years ago, as it turns out.) I had enough time left on parking that I figured I’d run over and try to match the shot. On the way, I pulled up the website with my phone and looked at the original photo so that I could match as closely as possible. I’ll try to post the before and after photos tonight. Edit: I’ve posted the before and after photos at K2R.
By then I figured I didn’t have enough time to deal with the iPod, so I’ll just wait until the Spectrum store is done remodeling and drop in next week.
Electronica
I’ve finally done it. After resisting for years, I’ve bought an iPod.
Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. Our music collection is on alenxa’s computer, which is old enough that its USB port is USB 1.1. This hasn’t been a problem until now, since she syncs her iPod with Firewire. Little did I know that the latest generation of iPod only supports USB. I charged it this afternoon, and started the initial sync this evening. So far it’s about 1/3 through.
At least future syncs won’t be so bad.
In other news, I’ve found myself in the middle of an online firestorm twice this week. Safari for Windows and a relaunch of the Flash comic book.
Don’t download this song… TO YOUR BRAIN!
I’ve got Weird Al’s “Don’t Download This Song” stuck in my head. It keeps turning into “This is the Moment” from Jekyll and Hyde, with the occasional foray into (believe it or not) “Bui Doi” from Miss Saigon.
The Long Weekend
Friday: Goo Goo Dolls/ Counting Crows concert at it’s-still-Irvine-Meadows-’cause-“Verizon-Wireless-Amphitheater”-just-sounds-dumb. Nifty view of the central Orange County valley before the sun set.
Saturday. Spent the day lying on the couch with a fan running, catching up on the Babylon 5 script book commentaries. So far I’ve only read about 1/4 of one script, but the introductions are a fascinating insight into the process of making the show. Given how much was out in the open (since JMS spent several hours a night online during production), some of the stuff that wasn’t revealed back then is mighty interesting. (Example: we all thought season 4 was compressed because they weren’t sure they’d get a season 5, and wanted to get as much done as they could. It turns out that at the beginning of the season, they were told in no uncertain terms that there would not be a season 5. So getting that fifth season on TNT was a real surprise.)
Dinner at CPK, then Superman Returns Enjoyed it, but no interest in seeing it again. It already felt like deja vu since there were so many references to the first two movies with Christopher Reeve. There were some great moments, but overall it was just kind of okay.
Sunday: Finished Bad Twin. Decent book, but not exactly a major insight into the secrets of Lost. Waited several hours until checking my email, at which point I discovered I really should’ve checked earlier… so I could bring a server back online. Went down to the office, brought the server up. alenxa tagged along and we had lunch at the crepe place at the Spectrum. Happened to glance over at one of the wall alcoves, which held a vinegar bottle… labeled Temeraire. After some shopping for food for upcoming family get-togethers, went home and played Heroes V for a few hours. Fortunately I was still awake when the same server went down again at 1AM. So I drove back, brought it online, figured out a way to make sure that it would automatically start up again next time, then came home. Still trying to diagnose the cause, but whatever it is does seem to like holiday weekends…
Monday: Traditionally, the 4th of July consists of hanging around at home followed by looking for fireworks. This year, both our families wanted to get together. So on Monday we went to visit my grandparents, carpooling with my parents and my brother. My aunt and her husband brought their dogs, which meant I spent most of the afternoon in a Benadryl-induced funk, despite drinking way too much Dr. Pepper to offset it.
Tuesday: I squeezed in an hour or two of Heroes in the morning, then it was off to visit Katie’s family, with more BBQ. Dinner was relatively early, so we cleared out around 7:00 so we could make it back to Laguna Beach for the fireworks display there. They launch the fireworks off one of the bluffs, out over the ocean, and the viewing is pretty good from the beach. We caught the tail end of it a couple of years ago, while driving around looking for displays. Two years ago we got there too late and missed the entire show while we walked from the car out to the beach. (Hey, have you ever tried finding parking in Laguna Beach?) Last year I was sick, so we just walked out to where we could see the local display. This year we made it with plenty of time to spare, parking up on Forest (roughly in line with the Laguna Playhouse, and maybe a few hundred feet from the entrance to Tivoli Terrace, where we had our wedding), and snagged a spot on the beach. The wind blew the smoke in our direction, so a lot of the fireworks were half-obscured, but they lit up the smoke a lot more than I can remember seeing anywhere else. After the show, we did our semi-traditional stop at Diedrich across the street.
Today: Back to work. I’ve been stress-testing the server, trying to get it to crash under controlled circumstances so I can get some information about what’s causing the problem… and it just won’t crash!