Modern Art Makes Me Want to Rock Out

2011 - year of firsts

2011-12-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

First time flying a plane.
First time traveling to Asia.
First time snorkeling.
Finished first half marathon.
First promotion. While I think it was mostly to keep me around after the buyout, I'm happy with it.
First time seeing dolphins in the wild.
First time turning 30.
First time kegging beer.
First time completing a master's degree.
First time buying a house... in Minnesota.
First time surviving a brutal Minnesota winter.

I thought there were more, but oh well.

In 2012... first kid?

KC trip

2011-09-10T17:53:00.001-07:00

I just took a quick 1-day trip to KC. Friends were getting married and had their reception at Boulevard. It was really great to catch up with people, but the trip was far too short. I did manage to work in trips to Cancun Fiesta Fresh, Glace, and Chez Elle, and drove around most of the old haunts (Westport notwithstanding, due to the art fest). I flew in, and, for traveling alone, the MSP->KC direct flight is totally worth it. I probably would have spent as much in gas driving.

The really odd thing is that, this time, it doesn't feel like home anymore. The last visit, we had moved away more recently, and it felt like we were going home. This time, it definitively felt like I was visiting, and not that it was home. It was weird. I didn't expect that change to happen so quickly. It took years before Ames didn't feel like home anymore. KC felt like a strange place where I somehow knew how to get around. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but yeah. Very odd feeling.

Still, great visit.

2011-09-07T18:46:00.001-07:00

Being alone is weird. Really weird. But I am managing so far. At least it's only for 10 weeks. 10 weeks kind of seems like a long time though, eh? At least I have had lots of distractions so far... but that may be drying up in a few weeks.

Home

2011-08-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

There's food in the food fridge and beer in the beer fridge. The desk is assembled (though I always seem to end up with a couple extra pieces whenever I do that). The TV and DVD player and internet are set up. The dishes are put away. The bookshelves are full of books. There's laundry in the laundry room, toiletries in the bathrooms, beds in the bedrooms (one of them is even made). China in the china cabinet. Dirty dishes in the sink. Most of our stuff has been dispositioned, if not put away yet. Tools in the garage. Couches in the basement. The bar is set up. We've had a board game night and a movie night. It's starting to feel like home.

Not too bad for our fifth day in the house.

We're near pretty much everything in the city, and that rocks. A short list:
-bus stop on our block
-Yeti Records 2 blocks away
-Bakery 2 blocks away
-Bookstore 2 blocks away
-vintage clothing store 2 blocks away
-neighborhood farmer's market 1 mile away
-community gardens in our neighborhood
-~1 mile from a coffee shop, Anodyne Coffee
-~1 mile from The Lowbrow, a great scratch kitchen restaurant
-~1 mile from Sun Street Breads, an amazing scratch bakery
-~1 mile to lake calhoun and the others in that system
-~1.5 miles from a grocery store, Lunds
-3 blocks to I-35W
-~1 mile to the lyn-lake area, a little further to Uptown
-~3 miles to downtown
-and still only about 20 minutes to work for me

All things are appearing to be awesome so far. I never would have thought it was possible when first moving here, but Minneapolis... I love you so hard.

Minneapolitan

2011-06-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

Well, assuming nothing goes horribly wrong (always a dicey proposition whenever I bring it up), we are buying a house. We still have inspection, post inspection negotiations, etc to go, but our offer has been accepted. After hunting for a while, we found a house that was the right combination of price, condition, location, and amenities, and it has a lot of gorgeous old woodwork that is in remarkable good shape. It has a two car attached garage that opens into a street, not an alleyway. Most houses in our price range have a detached one car garage without an automatic opener, so this was a good find. It is on a main street, which is a turn off for some people, but here it means that our street will *always* be plowed promptly, which is a big plus. It has a completely fenced in back yard with a nice, relatively new fence, also a rarity at our price point. It has a kind of 70s basement, but it's large and finished. It is close to Lyn-Lake, Uptown, and the lakes, which is pretty much perfect location wise. It's about a 20 minute drive to work for me, less than half of my KC commute, and there is a bus stop *on our block* for Rikki to grab a bus to work. Northern Brewer is opening its Minneapolis store roughly 2 miles to the south this fall. It has a smallish driveway and sidewalk (less shoveling), and a smallish but decent back yard (less mowing, enough space to have a small garden). Walk score of 77 is totally respectable. It's in a safe neighborhood. Inspection is next Friday. We asked for a long close because we need to run out our lease, but the sellers accepted. I am more than a little excited. It's all looking good so far.

Master! Master! Master of Engineering

2011-06-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

I finished grad school! I am now allegedly a Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering. It felt rather anticlimactic to finish as a distance student given that I didn't attend the graduation ceremony, but it's good to be done at any rate. Hopefully I can parlay this into a raise or promotion or something. Now if only my diploma would arrive...

New new new new new new music

2011-05-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah! I am making music again. I'm going for an EP-length running mix this time. Enjoy this crappy video I made using the iTunes visualizer for the first track I finished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y71DybgWTWc

In happier news

2011-04-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

We are looking for houses in the proximity of Lyn-Lake. Holy moly are houses more expensive here than in KC. But we will try to make it work. It's hard to resist houses like this: http://www.edinarealty.com/MN/Minneapolis/55405/homes-for-sale/2536-Harriet-Avenue-S-59729408/popup

Anyone want to rent a room?

I mean holy wow that house is gorgeous. Hopefully it's in better shape than our KC house (it appears to be), otherwise no deal. It's in Whittier, near all the stuff, and I mean ALL the stuff, worth doing around here.

But yeah, it looks like $250 is about what you're paying for a house in decent shape up here, so... ouch.

And apparently central air is not a thing here, because it just doesn't get that hot. Weirrrrrd.

Also, we might be getting a Corgi puppy soon if things work out, and OMG it's the cutest thing in the world And I never use OMG, ever.

2011-04-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

The weeks of awesome

2011-04-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, school's out forever on May 6. The twin cities have blessed me with a ton of great shows over the couple of weeks following that, which I will dub the weeks of awesome.

5/8 tUnE-YarDs / Buke & Gass
5/13 Fiery Furnaces
5/16 James Blake
5/17 Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings / Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears
5/18 Zoe Keating
5/19 Sleigh Bells / CSS
5/21 Death Cab for Cutie
5/23 Man Man
5/26 Adele

Man! I knew this town was going to make me broke.

I love you, Kurt Vonnegut.

2011-04-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

"They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and this is a good argument against atheism. I think it's a better argument against foxholes." - Kurt Vonnegut

In like a lion, out like... a lion?

2011-03-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

It's still 20 out and there's still snow on the ground. Please make it stop. Kthx.

I do have the most fabulous friends up here, though. We'll get through it.

Then, the glorious (I'm told) spring and summer, and the return of farmers' markets.

Inner Circle

2011-02-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

I've finished my 2011 RPM Challenge album. I still need to mail in the disc, but it's done. You can download or stream it here: http://datadamage.bandcamp.com/album/inner-circle

It was fun, as always. But I think I'm running out of useful Garageband loops. Next time, a drum machine / sampler/ synth will probably be involved.

RPM Challenge

2011-01-30T09:48:00.001-08:00

The RPM Challenge starts Tuesday. I'm excited and ready to go. And I've got draft cover art done. If anyone out there reading this is better at photoshop than I am, let me know. I know my work is a little ghetto.

Ignorance vs. Indifference

2011-01-30T09:16:00.001-08:00

So, I recently read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.

No, wait, hold up. This isn't going to be your average privileged middle class rant about how everyone should be vegetarian, I promise.

It was an interesting read, and spent ample time discussing the horrors of factory farming. Foer is seemingly a snapshot of the guilty meat-eater who goes back and forth between being a vegetarian, and, well, not. He's vegetarian as of the writing of the book.

He makes a Swiftian case for eating dogs using the same logic most people use to justify eating other animals, which is revealing. He loves his dog. What he doesn't discuss is what he feeds his dog - vegetarian diet there, too? It's pretty hard to find a dog food without animal byproducts like chicken fat and other terrible stuff. I suppose you could always make your own dog food.

Foer emphasizes the notion that free-range, as a term, is bullshit, because all it requires is access to the outdoors. A huge chicken coop of the regular type of cruelty is allowed as long as there's a door that's open sometimes. So, yeah, bullshit, generally speaking. He does being up an existing true free-range, minimum cruelty, happy pigs and cows and chickens type of farm as a shining example of what farming should be like. He neglects to mention that (on my own research) a package of four eight ounce pork chops from said farm runs about $60. Not exactly within reach of the average person. So, the thinking person says, either I have to pay through the nose to avoid cruelly-rasied animal products, or just get out.

A key point late in the book is pleading ignorance vs. just being indifferent. I've read more than a couple of books on food and the industrial food system. Knowing what I do, I can't plead ignorance as a reason for eating meat, I can only claim indifference to the cruelty built into the system. Yet, here I am, still eating meat. It's a source of cognitive dissonance for sure. I still eat meat knowing the chicken I am enjoying probably had its beak sliced off by a laser while it was still alive, conscious, and feeling. It probably spent its life in a cage with the square footage of a piece of printer paper. But I'm not going to rail on this stuff, because if you have a pulse and have heard of the name PETA, you probably know at least some of this stuff. I am emphasizing eating less meat, chosing vegetarian options when available (most of the time, eating out in the twin cities), and phasing shrimp out of my diet, shrimp trawling being one of the more awful and destructive processes out there for gathering animal products (shrimp trawling yields about 2% shrimp and 98% other marine life - which is then killed and thrown back overboard). But I don't cry myself to sleep over having bacon with Sunday brunch or enjoying the occasional burger. So what am I supposed to do with that?

I do disagree with some of Foer's points - I think that eating less meat is better than emphasizing meat in the diet, but he makes no such distinction, indicating it's an all or nothing thing - and, as these types of books tend to do, weasel words and phrases do sneak in there (he emphasizes the point that the CEO of a large factory farming operation's surname, Luter, is pronounced "Looter"). I find it interesting that Foer is vegetarian and not vegan, because the logical conclusion of most of his arguments would lead to being vegan (where does one think eggs and milk come from, some kind of magical cruelty free realm, just because it's not animal flesh?). Generally, though, it's a good read that, generally speaking, avoid the pitfalls of such literature, e.g. michael pollan's class blindness (the solution to factory farming is to just spend more on food, silly!). It's a worthy read if it's a topic that interests you, but as always, maintaining a skeptical point of view will yield richer rewards.

Big, dumb, fun music

2011-01-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

I have a soft spot in my heart for big, dumb, fun music. Currently occupying that space are:

Sleigh Bells: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYYd5adVY4&feature=fvst
Wavves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjdfEvzBPz0
Best Coast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sj5_WITMpA

Step 1 in my pursuit to be inked seems to be coming together.

Other than that: working, class, reading. Tonight is the current's birthday party show, which will be great.

This one goes up to '11

2011-01-03T07:08:00.001-08:00

Ok, so it's time for my annual laughable goals in review and goals for the next year. So, here's 2010 in review. Some things turned out not to apply due to... life changes? It's a hard sell taking the bus when work is less than 5 miles away. <>

-Finish the bathroom remodel.

Done.

-Release Stress Test. Give 100% of sales to United Way of Kansas City.

Done. No one bought it, though. It's the thought that counts...?

-Volunteer 10 times in 2010

1. KCUR spring funding drive

2. Pilgrim Chapel easter egg hunt

3. Pilgrim Chapel children's film festival

Fail!

-Paint the porch and deck

Fail

-Get involved in the KC Fringe Fest
Fail

-Read at least 25 books
1. Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

2. Chuck Klosterman - Fargo Rock City

3. Benjamin Wallace - The Billionaire's Vinegar

4. Chuck Palahniuk - Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk In Portland, OR

5. Sarah Vowell - The Wordy Shipmates

6. Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen

7. Jake Adelstein - Tokyo Vice

8. Guy P. Harrison - 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God

9. Michael Largo - Genius and Heroin

10. Bret Easton Ellis - The Rules of Attraction

11. Lydia Peelle - Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing

12. Stig Saeterbakken - Siamese

13. Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs - And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks

14. Sam Tanenhaus - The Death of Conservatism

15. James Howard Kunstler - The Geography of Nowhere

16. Brian Epstein - Good Without God: What A Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe

17. Tom Robbins - B is for Beer

18. Chuck Palahniuk - Tell-All

19. Matthew Latimer - Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor

20. Michael Muhammed Knight - Osama Van Halen

21. Miranda July - No One Belongs Here More Than You

22. Sherry Lamb Shirmer - A City Divided: The Racial Landscape of Kansas City, 1900-1960

23. Haruki Murakami - The Elephant Vanishes

23. Melissa Febos - Whip Smart: A Memoir

24. Hans Keilson - Comedy in a Minor Key: A Novel

25. …fail!

-Run at least 7 races

1. 3/14 St. Patrick's Day Run

2. 4/11 Brew to Brew

Fail!

-Build a linen closet at the end of the second floor hallway

Done!

-Either substantially complete my thesis or switch to a non-thesis degree for the sake of getting it done.

Switched to Master of Engineering. My last class is this spring. Assuming I can pass Cryptography, I'm actually finally going to finish my Master's!

-Take the bus or carpool for at least 50% of my commutes

Fail, and also N/A now. My commute is so short that I don't feel bad for driving it. Though I want to try biking when the weather is nice.

-Pay of Rikki's low student loan and substantially pay off my student loan

Rikki's is paid off. We paid off our second mortgage instead of my student loan.

-Expand my musical tastes beyond what Pitchfork sells me. Listen to more Jazz, Neoclassical, and Soul music.

I would say The Current has helped me along those lines.

And for silly things I would like to do in 2011:

Get a tattoo.

Read 25 books.

Make gravlax.

Make cheese.

Make more beer.

Make ice cream.

Make sorbet.

Go to a firing range.

Run 5 races.

Volunteer 10 times.

Give 1% of my income to charity.

Do an album for RPM Challenge.

Do a novel for NaNoWriMo.

Finish grad school.

Pay off one outstanding line of credit (e.g. student loan).

Travel somewhere new.

Buy a pass to SXSW for 2012 for my 30th birthday.

Cook 10 challenging new dishes.

A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I'm An Atheist

2010-12-22T15:13:00.001-08:00

I'm sure anyone who reads this also follows what I do on Facebook to some extent, but this is so good that I also had to post it here.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/

success!

2010-12-11T12:21:00.001-08:00

My beer is moderately drinkable!

Beeeeeer!

2010-12-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

Two posts in one day? No one can live at that speed!

So, I brewed my first batch of beer two weeks ago, thanks to a great deal on Groupon that finally kicked my butt into gear. $40 for a complete brew kit and a recipe kit was too much to pass up, given that the beginner equipment kt is usually $80 and a recipe kit usually runs ~$30 for a five gallon batch. It's an Irish Stout, which I'm led to believe is more or less a Guinness clone. It's been sitting in fermentation for 2 weeks and smells like beer. I'm bottling it tomorrow. It appears I haven't entirely ruined everything yet, so keep your fingers crossed. You may have a sixer of moderately drinkable homebrew in your Christmas stocking.

I have to say, for as much as I read leading up to doing the brewing, it didn't really click for me until I actually did it. Now it makes total sense. Next up, I'm planning on doing a strong Belgian witbier, with two-stage fermentation and everything. Here's hoping I don't blow up the apartment - I don't think my $300 deposit will cover it.

New City vs. Old City

2010-12-02T17:13:00.000-08:00

Music Scene (you knew I was going to start with this, right?)

New City takes this one handily. I mean come on, Prince and Bob Dylan, enough said. Well, ok, not enough said, because this city's music scene is out of this world. I miss 4 or 5 shows a week here that I probably would have gone to in KC. The First Ave Club is great. There is a great collection of local musicians here as well. Of them, I've only seen Cloud Cult so far, but they are lovely. Doomtree, Jeremy Messersmith, and Mason Jennings are probably next up.

Art Scene

This one goes to KC. Granted, I haven't explored this much yet in Minneapolis, but there's no real companion to KC's Crossroads neighborhood and the associated First Fridays, which are really incredible.

Politics

Minneapolis takes this one. Minneapolis is pretty reliably leftie. Not being split across a state border makes it a lot easier to get civic-y stuff done (see: light rail), and as far as I have seen, there's no poaching of businesses between cities, at least not on the level of KC. Other than that, I don't know too much about the politics here yet.

Weather

Kansas City's too hot. Minneapolis is too cold. Minneapolis gets the slight edge here, because I deal with the cold better than extreme heat.

Dining

Kansas City has world class barbecue, and a pretty good food scene. Minneapolis restaurants in general have a remarkable selection of vegetarian entrees - not that I'm vegetarian, but it's striking in comparison to KC. Every hole in the wall place has something like vegan chicken nuggest or mock duck tacos or something. It's kind of great to explore this stuff, which is widely off the menu in KC. Haven't tried a ton of places yet, for fear of offending my poor wallet, but I like what I've seen so far.

Transit

See the aforementioned light rail, add buses that people actually take, and Minneapolis wins this one by a landslide.

Downtown

While Minneapolis lacks anything like the Power and Light District or the Crossroads, Nicollet Mall and the surrounding area are kind of amazing. Tons of cool restaurants and music venues. And everything is clean and there are always tons of people out at all hours. I have to call this one a draw...

Living Conditions

Well, housing is a lot more expensive here. We live in an apartment in the burbs, which is certainly an adjustment from our house in the thick of it in KC, but we are adjusting. Having light rail to take into the city is great (no driving or paying for parking), but there really isn't a lot to do in Burnsville. We're certainly not roughly a mile from two happening neighborhoods like we were in KC, but we're not near the crime either. I love the old house in KC, but I have to give the nod to Minneapolis here. The crime was a rough thing to deal with in KC. Living in an apartment has its ups and downs. Our management is pretty incompetent, but hey, getting all the laundry done in parallel is great. And we have a pretty large apartment for the price up here.

Public Radio

I love KCUR, but MPR is here. That means The Current in addition to a classical station and a regular NPR news station. Despite A Prairie Home Companion being recorded here, I have to give this one to Minneapolis, mostly on the greatness of The Current.

Job

My job here pays marginally more and has, on balance, slightly better benefits. It's pretty boring, and there's too much bureaucracy and process and 20 ways of doing the same thing, and my coworkers were totally way cooler at the old job (and I'm not just saying that because some of them read this). I have to give the nod to the old job. My Modern Warfare skills have totally gotten rusty. Everyone still says "the tire company?" when I tell them where I work.

Miscellaneous

Like I said, it generally seems a lot cleaner here than in KC. It's not total panic on the roads when snow falls. They actually have smartly planned bike lanes and buses take the shoulder in rush hour. I miss my group of friends in KC, and I know it will take time to build something similar here. It's still a little weird to live in the burbs again, but driving (a lot) less is really nice. I still like KC a lot, and I am having trouble distancing myself from it, but I guess that will come in time.

Only Shallow

2010-11-09T16:40:00.000-08:00

There are relatively few songs that, when they come up on random, force me to listen to the entire associated album immediately. Only Shallow by My Bloody Valentine is one of those songs. That riff is simply ridiculous. Amorphous and interesting and ass-kicking and catchy all at the same time... who cares if you can't make out the vocals? That's kind of the shoegazer thing.

Forgive the laughable early 90s video.

Watch. Listen.

One for every year he's away

2010-10-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, because it's Tom Waits, and it's amazing, and I live in Minneapolis now (and have been to 9th and Hennepin a number of times), I have to post this.

--------

Well it's Ninth and Hennepin
All the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamn town's ready to blow...
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs
And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat...
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
"One for every year he's away", she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
'til you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen...
And I've seen it all, I've seen it all
Through the yellow windows of the evening train...

I am not my father, or an extended blog post title in honor of Sufjan Stevens, who I saw in concert last night, and who has a preponderance for long s

2010-10-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

....ong titles. I blew past the Blogger post title limit!

Last night, I spent a couple of hours walking up and down Nicollet Mall and Hennepin downtown before the Sufjan Stevens concert. It's a really cool area. It seems like the most conventional of businesses are there (Target, Walgreens, etc), but they did an excellent job of using the existing urban fabric for their buildings, which is not something those businesses tend to do. I know that Target, being headquartered here, has an impetus to look cool and invest in downtown, but I was really impressed with their store that was shoehorned into this odd two-story space. A two-story Target. How about that?

My grey Fedora made its Minneapolis debut last night. While I was walking around, the cutest little girl ever (maybe 6 or 7) said to me "man, you looking' REAL fancy!", and started imitating my walk. It was really the cutest thing I could possibly imagine. The actual amount of my fanciness is a topic up for debate.

The Orpheum Theatre is nothing short of amazing. It was built in the 1920s and very obviously taken care of very carefully. I love old theaters like this, especially for concerts, and this one is in impeccable shape. The acoustics were also excellent.

Once I got in, I wandered around for a while admiring the architecture of the place, ordered a gin and tonic, and took my seat. I was sitting next to the cousin of the girl who I bought the ticket from, and she struck up a conversation. It was nice to talk to a new person who's into the same random stuff I am, but it did make me (once again) realize that I am a terribly awkward conversationalist. These things happen, I suppose. She had just moved to town too, so we talked about getting lost, where we were from, and Asthmatic Kitty records and other artists we liked on that label. It's really the first time I've had a conversation with a random stranger at a show, and it was nice.

The above is deceptive. I was thinking, oh, hey, Sufjan Stevens is touring solo. That's cool. his arrangements are fairly complex, but hey, maybe he's got backing tracks or something. Oh, how wrong I was. This was the setup for the opener, who was a dude with an acoustic guitar whose name escapes me. He played about 4 songs, and that was it. It was a nice opening set, for sure. After a short wait, Sufjan came on, and I realized how wrong I had been about the night's setup.

He had a backing band of ten people, I shit you not. Two singers, two brass players, two drummers, a pianist, another keyboard/sampler guy, a bass guitarist, and a rhythm guitarist. All those instruments that show up on his arrangements? Played live, by real people. It's sad that I have to point out and be impressed by this fact, but there you have it. Also, and this is a weird thing to point out, but the sound mix at this show was amazing. There were 11 musicians on stage, and no one ever clobbered the other in the mix. Everything was crisp and nice and audible. It honestly sounded like a studio mix or something, but it was being performed live in front of me. Along those lines, Sufjan's vocals were crystal clear, and not muddied in the mix or anything. It was really important to get this right, and they nailed it. Sufjan is one of those vocalists where you have to be able to take the nuances of his performance to really appreciate it, and in this regard, this show knocked it out of the park.

Most of the show's set came from his new album, The Age of Adz, and the accompanying EP, All Delighted People. I hadn't had much exposure to this material yet, but it blew me away. He has (re-)introduced a lot of interesting skronky electronics to his music, and you know I eat that shit up, so it was totally great. The set was very light on Illinois material (just Chicago and Casimir Pulaski Day), and there was nothing at all from Michigan. He did open with a song from Seven Swans, though, which was great. It was a talky set. Who'd have thought that Sufjan would like to yammer on a bit, given song titles like "The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'"? (editors note: that song is a whopping two minutes long)

It was mostly banter, but one of his longer conversational interludes was a discussion about Royal Robertson, an outsider artist who inspired The Age of Adz's artwork, much of its material, and most of the visuals for the show. I guess he was a schizophrenic who perceived all of these apocalyptic events unfolding around him, and turned them into art. He had a huge, loving family, and he eventually kicked them out of his life and lived in a tiny trailer making this art for decades, hardly seeing anyone the entire time. It's kind of an amazing tragic story, and his work is really interesting as well. I hadn't heard of him before this, and I'm intrigued to look into his work further. I'm very curious about outsider art and music, so it was great to learn a little something aligned with my interests in between instances of face-rocking. Some of his work can be found here.

Sufjan Stevens and company played for about three hours total, including encore. It was really a great show, probably among my top five ever. Anyway, I've gone on about this long enough, don't you think?

How to make yourself more awesome in just four hours a week

2010-10-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, the title is pretty tongue in cheek. However, my new job allows for the 4 9s + 4 schedule, which I happily took up. This gives me Friday afternoons off, so I have decided to spend them doing awesome things - brewing beer, cooking adventurous food, random adventures. It will be fun. I'm going to try to challenge myself to try new stuff with this little pocket of time each week that I now find myself with. Taking suggestions.

The next portion of this post is dedicated to the magical radio station that is The Current. It's a music station run by MPR (and thus NPR). It's basically the perfect radio station, because:
-it plays the music I would probably seek out and listen to anyway (of Montreal, Yeasayer, MGMT, Arcade Fire, Cloud Cult, Janelle Monae, Jenny and Johnny, Brother Ali, etc) and exposes me to new stuff along the same lines
-it plays a LOT of local music. I can partly thank the vibrant Minneapolis music scene for this, but I am grateful for the exposure to local acts. I have already discovered a lot of new (to me) music that I need to be checking out.
-they tell you the song and artist name for every song they play. No really, every song they play. It's very helpful and much appreciated.
-they give away tickets to great shows nearly every hour (this week: the Walkmen, LCD Soundsystem, Sufjan Stevens), although I've yet to get anything but a busy signal
-they are an NPR station, so the advertising is only as obtrusive as it is for any other given NPR station. Which is to say "not very". no loud irritating car dealership or diamond ads. Just "89.3 The Current is supported by _______, serving you ______ since ______". and then on to more music.

Good news, people who like awesome music but don't live here! You can stream the station online from their website!

Hooray!

T-minus 5 days

2010-09-23T20:21:00.001-07:00

Yeah... I have five days left at my current job. That's pretty wild to think about. I'm pretty sure the new company isn't cool enough to allow for playing X-box over lunch, but you can't win them all.

Casimir Pulaski Day

2010-09-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

It's apparently been too long since I've made a total downer post, so here we have it. This Sufjan Stevens song makes me a total mess. It's just the perfect song about death and loss, and I'm not sure else how to say it. It just has this perfect economy of lyricism that allows you to read between the lines - and it's mostly NOT about the death of the person. Thoughts start in the middle and aren't really completed in several of the stanzas. That's how it just kind of works sometimes, the grieving process, and it's brilliantly captured in this song. It's just... a perfect song. I don't know. I can also definitely appreciate the struggling with faith angle of the song, though I approach it from the opposite perspective from the subject of the song.

Listen here: Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day
or: go to his Bandcamp site and listen to all of the Illinois album, because it's amazing.

Lyrics:

Goldenrod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh, the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael’s house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh, the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh, the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh, the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes

Only 720 Bars Left

2010-09-16T18:30:00.001-07:00

Two demos for 900 Bars are streaming now on my Band Camp site here: Data Damage. Enjoy!

Working with 90 bars is hard, because 90 isn't evenly divisible by 4. Whoops.

900 Bars

2010-09-13T19:42:00.001-07:00

Constraints can drive creativity. To that end, I thought up this odd idea for a project on the way home from Minneapolis. 900 bars of music. At 120 BPM, that's exactly 30 minutes, but I'm not constraining myself to that tempo. 10 tracks, 90 bars each. Get in, get out, do something (hopefully) marginally interesting. Let's see where this goes.

15 Films

2010-09-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, internet meme overlords, you win.

To be fair, this list is heavy on movies I first encountered in my late high school or college years, when my "adult" taste in film was developing. So, most of these are narrowly banded to a particular few years, 1999-2005, but oh well.

1. Amelie

Charming, almost - but not quite - to a fault. Audrey Tautou makes this one, of course, but it's a fun, quirky story that makes me grin whenever I go back to it. This one I watch over and over and over.

2. Lost in Translation

Sigh. Bill Murray, take me away from all this. A lot of people don't like this film because "nothing happens" in it, but I couldn't disagree more. It's a deep study of two people who bump into each other in strange circumstances and build a deep, if brief, friendship. Sophia Coppola does an excellent job of capturing the daze one can find oneself in when traveling internationally, as well (bolstered by the Kevin Shields-arranged soundtrack). Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannsson turn in excellent performances. It's alternately delicate and touching and crass and abrasive, seamlessly shifting between the two. This is way, way, way up there on my favorite films of all time.

3. Minority Report

So much science fiction deals with far-futurism, in the year 3000 or something similar. Minority Report struck me because of its near-futureness and general interesting concept. Also, I don't hate Tom Cruise in this one, so go figure. I really have this film to thank for introducing me to the writing of Philip K. Dick, which is, by and large, fantastic. More so if you are into science fiction, but his themes seem to reach beyond stereotypical Sci-Fi tropes.

4. Children of Men

More of the near-future sci-fi stuff. It's an interesting story. Humanity as a whole has gone infertile in the near future. England appears to be the only (nominally) functioning government still around. Hordes of refugees flock to England, where they are most often carted off into hellish ghettos. The youngest person still alive, age 18, dies minutes into the film. Then it starts to get dark. The whole thing has razor sharp writing, really strong action sequences, stunning cinematography, solid acting, and the set design is amazing. Little details - like graffiti that says "last one to die please turn out the light" highlight the zeitgeist of this imaginary future filled with desperation. The ending is brilliant in that you can pretty much take what you want from it, depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist.

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

What else can be said about this movie? It's inventive, risk-taking, well-acted, more than slightly bent, and most of all, really charming and heartwarming. Meet me in Montauk.

6. Me and You and Everyone We Know

Ok, it's really weird, pretty gross and uncomfortable in places, and a little aimless. But hey, it's quirky art house cinema, so that's probably par for the course. Lots of touching moments to be found here, with people momentarily making connections. That seems to be what most of Miranda Juy's work is about. Anyway, it's an interesting 80 minutes or so for sure.

7. The Matrix

Ok, listen. In retrospect, I admit that this movie is pretty horrible. The sequels in particular really ruined it for me. However, you can't deny that at the time it came out, it was totally groundbreaking in terms of special effects, and it had a pretty interesting plot to move things along. And a great soundtrack. Oh, my 17 year old self loved the hell out of that soundtrack.

8. Pulp Fiction

The first Tarantino I saw. My taste in film wasn't quite the same afterward. Again, I don't know what to say about this one that hasn't been incessantly beaten into the ground already. It's Tarantino. He makes films in a really warped world, but damn it's an interesting ride.

9. Akira

This film made me start to take animation seriously as an art form. It's sweeping, epic, and really really long, but I suppose I am repeating myself. It also only covers 2 of the 6 books, which is kind of wild.

10. Everything is Illuminated

Elijah Wood goes off on a journey to find relatives in Ukraine. He's accompanied by Eugene Hutz, frontman of Gogol Bordello, as Alex, a Ukranian guy that speaks hilarious halting English. The first two thirds of the movie is hilarious road movie, driven mostly by Alex's character. The last third packs some major emotional punch, and the transition happens quite quickly, leaving you with a sort of gut punch feeling. Great soundtrack by Devotchka. I will say that this is another case where the book is much, much better than the movie, but the movie didn't stand a chance, because the book is fantastic.

11. When Harry Met Sally

One of the few "relationship movies" I like. It's aged remarkably well. It's funny and touching. There is too much pepper in my paprikash.

12. Pi

My first Darren Aronofsky film (coincidentally, also HIS first Darren Aronofsky film). On the surface, it's about a brilliant mathematician trying to figure out patterns in the stock market, and the various people trying to use him for the information. On a deeper level, it's about the perils of ambition and burning oneself out, often overtly (the main character gets migraines because he once stared into the sun for too long). The film does some interesting work with tying together religion and the mysticism of numbers and how simple ratios determine a large portion of the working of the universe (mathematical errors notwithstanding). It's shot in stark black and white, giving the film a paranoid feel that closely mirrors the main character's mind state.

13. Donnie Darko

It's weird and doesn't make any sense, at least on the surface, but it's an oddly compelling film apparently involving time travel.

14. Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch is David Lynch. This is the first one I saw. It's mostly dreamlike and makes no sense at all, but many scenes have stuck with me over time. No Hay Orchestra.

15. Fight Club

Other than being more than a little misogynistic, it's a good movie. Interesting twist, though it's long slipped into cliche. Introduced me to the work of Chuck Palahniuk, who has written several good other novels as well as several not-so-good ones (mostly his more recent work, though Tell-All was great). I'm still waiting on that screen adaptation of Survivor, dude.

------

There are so many films (and directors, even) that I want to include on the list but can't seem to fit in there. The Darjeeling Limited/Wes Anderson, Memento/Christopher Nolan, City of God, The Usual Suspects, Dark City, the Cohen Brothers, Good Bye Lenin!, Once, The Fifth Element, Kubrick, Pixar, Hayao Miyazaki, The Corporation, Food Inc., Dig!, any number of other documentaries, et al et al et al. The problem with me and these lists is that I can usually go WAY past any preconceived boundary. You should see my top 10 albums of 2009, which is about 44 albums. Anyway.

Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Indie Rock

2010-08-30T17:18:00.001-07:00

Way back in the year two thousand and something or another, I encountered a little film called Igby Goes Down. It's a pretty cool movie, sort of a Catcher in the Rye type thing starring Kieran Culkin. The soundtrack, however, blew me out of the water. To that point, I had mostly been listening to radio rock along with bizarre electronic music like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. The soundtrack here was something different to my ears, for sure. The highlights are two songs by The Dandy Warhols, "Bohemian Like You" and "Boys Better". The former is on a record titled Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia, and it's a record that went a long way towards shaping my tastes in indie rock. Even though it came out on Capitol Records. *ahem*. Anyway, the record is all kinds of fun, and I highly recommend checking it out (and the band in general, really. They're great).

Some videos/songs from Thirteen Tales:

Bohemian Like You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTcihBUWIVA&ob=av3n (video is NSFW. song is safe for rocking out)
Horse Pills: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4KqdABwQqY
Get Off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-LBarfe4g
Sleep: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCrIt1koGao

Scott Pilgrim vs. 30 Years of Pop Culture Iconography

2010-08-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

So, I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World today. It was funny. It was cool. Michael Cera wasn't even very much like Michael Cera (the character). It was a love letter to people who love video games and/or comic books. It wasn't the most amazing movie I've ever seen, but I was grinning from ear to ear for a lot of it. It was just downright fun.

It does make me wonder a little bit about when video games will stop being a geeky thing and become widely accepted as a part of our culture. Super Mario Bros. came out roughly 25 years ago, for crying out loud. I suppose the Wii, and casual gaming in general, has helped things along. It's a huge, multi-billion-dollar industry, but the people who partake, especially adults, are still somewhat marginalized.

Anyway, there were a lot of wink-and-nod references to video games throughout the film that were fantastic, and really cleverly inserted into what could otherwise have been a pretty boring movie - Pilgrim's foes explode into coins when defeated, and scores pop up. He "levels up" a couple of times in the movie. There is a visible combo counter at one point. There's a lot more that I won't spoil, but you get the point. There's not much plot to speak of, but plot really isn't the point here. Sometimes style over substance just kind of works (e.g. Sin City), and this is one of the cases where it works really, really well. Great movie, great soundtrack, and hey, Michael Cera didn't irritate the hell out of me, which is a bonus.

Trailer, if you still need convincing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wd5KEaOtm4

Cerebral stuff this is not. But it's a hell of a fun movie.

Rik and I spent most of the weekend repainting our spare bedroom a cream color, as well as touching up paint in some other places. It looks much better than the deep red that was there before. We've also got a handyman in to help us finally finish up the bathroom, which will ideally be out of the way this week. We're both kind of exhausted, but I have to give Rikki props for just generally working harder than me this weekend. The house is starting to look pretty great. Cleaning, organizing, getting rid of stuff, touching up the caulking around the house (along with the requisite uses of "caulk" in totally immature ways), sweeping (it's always fun to see the weird looks from the neighbors as I stand on top of our garage sweeping), all kinds of good stuff. We had a four hour (yes, FOUR HOURS) adventure where we looked for tile. We started at Habitat ReStore, but they didn't have what we were looking for. The Home Depot (nope) The Tile Shop (yes, but with a week and a half lead time), and then finally Lowe's (success, and for less than half the price of the tile shop). As a side note, I am pretty sure my personal hell in some way involves The Tile Shop. That store is horrible. ANYWAY, the point is that we are doing some long overdue things to get the house in shape, and it's nice to see the results coming together.

Good music I've picked up lately: Best Coast, Arcade Fire, The Heavy, Wavves, Florence and the Machine, Scissor Sisters, Kings Go Forth, and The Books. So if you're REALLY bored, go check all of those out. If you're only partially bored, I'd say go with Best Coast, Arcade Fire, Scissor Sisters, and The Books.

We were on vacation in Iowa for the last most-of-a-week. It was nice to see friends and family and just generally chill out. Last Saturday was our 10 year high school reunion. It was pretty much like paying a $20 cover to go to a bar where 100 people you graduated high school with (side note: my class was around 300) happened to be. All of those things they say about reunions are true - mostly that everyone just kind of talks to who they talked to in high school. Only everyone was a little drunker. I mostly keep up with my friends from high school, so with a few exceptions, I'd say it wasn't really worth the bother. HOWEVER, we did run into Rikki's old friend Anne, who figures into the third act of this vacation story.

After the reunion, we drove to Dubuque for a few days to visit with Rikki's extended family. Lots of walking the dog and playing cards. It was fun and pretty laid back. Nitro and Daisy (Rikki's aunt's dog) got to walk off leash for a while in this awesome park area that had a lake and a creek. Nitro swam around for a little bit. Then, disaster struck (or nearly struck). Daisy heard some ducks going along in the stream and TORE off after them. The resulting scene was like something out of Looney Toons - daisy swimming along behind a duck going one direction, the duck swimming away and quacking frantically - and then the same thing happens in the opposite direction. Then, the water gets shallow enough that Daisy can run instead of swim - and then she takes off after the duck, out of our field of vision. Suddenly, there's no much quacking, and no more dog noise. Oh no... we lost Daisy for a little bit, and she may have killed a duck. After calling after her for a while, we finally got her back, and she wasn't covered in blood or anything, so we figured the duck just got away. We hope. Anyway, the visit to Dubuque was good times.

On the way back from Dubuque (Act III), we stopped by Iowa City. You see, Anne now works full time as a tattoo artist, so Rikki and I thought we would get our first tattoos. Who better than someone we know from way back, right? Rikki got the Hyde Park fleur de lis, and it looks really great. I got - nothing, because I guess my design was too hard. I wanted to get the Amen Break tattooed in a loop around my arm, but I guess it's really hard to do parallel lines well (music staff). Oh well. I still want to make it work somehow. I will have to think on it. What's the Amen Break? It's a 6-second drum loop that's used all over the place in popular music (and lots of generally unpopular music), usually spliced and rearranged. Here's a handy video about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac Anyway, after Rikki got inked, we wandered Iowa City for a bit and got dinner at Quinton's. Then we drove back to Ankeny, stayed the night, and then drove back to KC and started the grand home improvement adventure. This whole blog post has taken kind of a Pulp Fiction sequence of events, huh? Oh well. Toodles for now.

2010-08-09T20:16:00.001-07:00

The lack of anything worthwhile to post in a while makes me think I need to seek more adventure in my life. Yup.

This is the room for people who care

2010-07-29T20:15:00.001-07:00

So, Rikki's been up in Minneapolis all week working at the home office. It's been really lonely. I went into super hermit mode last weekend and generally only left the house to buy food (and to see Inception. Go see it. It's great.). I finally got out of the house for a social reason Tuesday. I've mostly been reading, watching a lot of movies on Netflix instant watch, and doing odd jobs around the house. Oh, and I finished my summer class Tuesday. It had that rare combination of being easy and pretty interesting. An easy-A grad class is pretty rare, so I'll take it. The professor is tremendously lazy, but hey, whatever works. Two more classes to go. Computer Graphics and Geometric Modeling this fall, and either Cryptography of Distributed Systems in the spring, and then I will (finally) finish my Master's degree. This is taking longer than my undergrad did! Better late than never, eh?

For those of you who have not checked out A Softer World. It's pretty great. http://www.asofterworld.com/

The most recent one is fantastic.

Um, what else. I tried a mumblecore film (Hannah Takes the Stairs) and hated it. Oh well. Other things I have watched recently: The Girlfriend Experience (hated it), Jesus Camp (hated the people in it), No Impact Man (liked it), In The Realms of the Unreal (pretty fascinating), Dead Snow (really dumb). I'm averaging pretty poorly here.

I think that's really it for now. Rikki gets back Saturday afternoon, and I'm really glad for that. I hardly know what to do with myself.

Random!

2010-07-15T20:37:00.001-07:00

Hi. I haven't posted in a while. Here's a sequence of 25 songs that came up on Random today.

1. White Rabbits - Right Where They Left
2. Beirut - A Sunday Smile
3. Art Brut - Twist and Shout
4. Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra - Rehab (Amy Winehouse cover)
5. The Octopus Project - I Saw The Bright Shinies
6. Dengue Fever - Monsoon of Perfume
7. Final Fantasy - Horsetail Feathers
8. Justice - One Minute to Midnight
9. Chemical Brothers - K+D+B
10. Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die (Parts 1-4)
11. IAMX - Nature of Inviting
12. The Roots - Doin' It Again
13. Noah and the Whale - Five Years Time
14. Yacht - Ring the Bell
15. Viva Voce - Good As Gold
16. The Antlers - Bear
17. Darla Farmer - Big Accident
18. The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt
19. Flight of the Conchords - Bowie
20. Battles - Atlas
21. Venetian Snares - Bebikukorica Nigiri
22. Rumble Strips - Cowboy
23. Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside
24. OK Go - Needing/Getting
25. Son Lux - Weapons

I've been busy. Summer class, running, work, 80/35, a funeral, and, this weekend, a wedding.

Take that, Hugh Grant.

Toodles.

I take part in your grief

2010-05-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

With apologies to any of my (two? three?) readers that are sick of me talking about funerals and/or Humanism, and with apologies to the author, Greg Epstein, for the blatant plagiarism (I'll take it down at your request), I wanted to post a few paragraphs from Good Without God regarding funerals that I found rather profound. I'm almost done with the book, so the random quotes about Humanism should slow down a bit after this.

---

As much as I try to give religion and religious people the benefit of the doubt when possible, it is almost always a bad idea for a nonreligious family to stage a religious funeral for a nonreligious loved one who has died. At those moments when we are feeling most vulnerable, the last thing we need is false comfort. "I'll pray for you," even nominally believing people suddenly begin to a dying friend. "He's in heaven now," we are told by people who haven't been to church in a decade, about a husband, brother, or son who has just died in pain. If you are among those who do not believe such words true or effective, they can add insult to the pain, because these are not theological statements. They are the words of people who cannot bear to participate in your pain.

For a Humanist, the mourning process begins with accepting that death is real and final and that, with apologies to Epicurus, we fear it. Our fear of death is not only normal, and not to be dismissed, it is part of the motivation we feel to live a good life now, while we still have time. But when the moment comes for for someone we love to die, there are almost never good answers for our questions: Why? Why now? To what end? The raw feeling of these unanswered questions is so strong because they are the sign that we care about life, and without our ability to care, sometimes to the point of great pain, we could perhaps continue to walk and speak and chew but not really live. And so we do not try to find words that will wish these feelings away - we tell no stories of worlds or reunions or rewards to come - because the mere suggestion that our feelings can be magically washed away is trivializing. And we do not speak of God's presence in the mystery. We acknowledge that no God, no one, no thing can take the pain away except for time, and never entirely.

But there is something else we do - the most important thing. We offer our own presence. A funeral is about people who cared about a common loved one, and who care about themselves and each other, coming together to be present with with one another despite the tension and the ambivalence. It is a time to recall the significance of the life that has ended, no matter what it may be - to share stories and memories, meaningful readings and songs, and to express love in the form of laughter and tears, hugs and just sitting. It's amazing that just sitting in the room with a grieving person, neither running away nor wishing his or her pain away, is the single best thing we can do. This is why secular Israelis, with their tradition of building a secular nation from the ground of traditional Judaism up, do not say "I'm so sorry" at a funeral, or "My condolences," or even, "My sympathies." They say "Ani mishtatef b'tzarcha" - "I take part in your grief."

Oh Joss, I do love you so much.

2010-04-26T17:11:00.001-07:00

The enemy of Humanism is not faith - the enemy of Humanism is hate, it is fear, it is ignorance, it is the darker part of man that is in every Humanist, and every person in the world... but faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God means believing absolutely in something, with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.
--Joss Whedon

Financial Aid

2010-04-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

So, I just applied for a little financial aid for my classes this fall, and the application form asked for information about my parents individually. I checked the "Deceased" checkbox for my father, but the form still required an address. Should I have entered the grave site....?

Ugh

2010-04-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

I need to stop surrounding myself with people that are constantly negative and cynical. Fault can be found in anything, sure, but are you really getting joy out of life when you constantly bash everything? I'm kind of sick of it.

And the first quarter results are in...

2010-03-31T19:32:00.001-07:00

So, how are things going with my foolish predictions for 2010?

(I have at least signed up for things future-dated here).

-Finish the bathroom remodel. The hard stuff is done (other than the shower tile, I guess).

TODO: finish, grout, seal baseboard tile, install medicine cabinet, finish painting, finish, grout, seal shower tile, paint and install furnace vent, do the glass block replacement window, put in final shower plumbing, fix gouge in bathtub, trim work around door. Believe it or not, this actually represents some progress on the project.

 -Release Stress Test. Give 100% of sales to United Way of Kansas City.
Done. No one bought it, though. It's the thought that counts...? 

 -Volunteer 10 times in 2010
1. KCUR spring funding drive
2. Bridging the Gap Arbor Day tree planting 4/24
3. Fringe Fest Artopia setup 4/2
4. Pilgrim Chapel easter egg hunt 4/3

-Paint the porch and deck
Nada so far.

  -Get involved in the KC Fringe Fest  
The Artopia thing counts, I think. The wider Fringe Fest is this summer sometime.

-Read at least 25 books 
1. Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart
2. Chuck Klosterman - Fargo Rock City
3. Benjamin Wallace - The Billionaire's Vinegar
4. Chuck Palahniuk - Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk In Portland, OR
5. Sarah Vowell - The Wordy Shipmates
6. Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen
7. Jake Adelstein - Tokyo Vice
8. Guy P. Harrison - 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God
9. Michael Largo - Genius and Heroin
10. Bret Easton Ellis - The Rules of Attraction
11. Lydia Peelle - Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
12. Stig Saeterbakken - Siamese
13. Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs - And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
14. Sam Tanenhaus - The Death of Conservatism (in progress)
15. Alfredo Vea - Gods Go Begging (in progress)

 -Run at least 7 races
1. 3/14 St. Patrick's Day Run
2. 4/11 Brew to Brew
3. 4/17 Race for the Cure
4. 4/25 Trolley Run
5. 6/5 Hospital Hill 10K

 -Build a linen closet at the end of the second floor hallway  
Nada so far.

-Either substantially complete my thesis or switch to a non-thesis degree for the sake of getting it done.
Switched to ME. Taking classes this summer and fall. Graduating in Spring next year.  

-Take the bus or carpool for at least 50% of my commutes
This has not gone well so far. Lofty goal, indeed.

 -Pay of Rikki's low student loan and substantially pay off my student loan
Solid progress made here. This may slow down a bit with impending grad school for the both of us.

-Expand my musical tastes beyond what Pitchfork sells me. Listen to more Jazz, Neoclassical, and Soul music.
This is admittedly an ambiguous goal, but I'm striving to try out new music.

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future

2010-02-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

Before my father died, I always thought that joking about death was in poor taste. Since then, however, I have found it to be quite the opposite; rather, gallows humor got me through a rough time in life. Joking about death is a way to deal with it, I suppose. At least one good friend has confirmed with me that those who have lost close relatives are entitled to a little gallows humor. I understand that some people feel awkward about this kind of thing, and to be sure, there is a time to be serious about it, but there's only so much seriousness one can take before cracking a joke or two to ease the tension. Two examples.

1) When we went to the graveyard to choose cemetery plots, I noticed a dumpster behind the main building of the cemetery and barely managed to keep myself from wondering aloud how much that plot cost. I started cracking up, and couldn't bring it to myself to explain why to my mother.

2) While on a recent trip to visit some friends, Rikki mentioned that we should visit Iowa more often because of my dad. I responded that he wasn't getting any deader, to a mix of horror and laughter at the table. The laughter was from my friend, who has also lost her father.

You get the idea. Or maybe you don't, but there it is. On to happier things.

The title of this post comes from a song by Los Campesinos! I downloaded their new album, Romance is Boring, from emusic this month. It's freaking great. I particularly recommend the song that lends its title to this post, but the whole thing is good. The lyricism in the record is really interesting, especially on repeat listens. If you hate "indie music", you will probably hate it, but to each their own.

It's not a happy song, but the best ones aren't. Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoIr60buB1I

Grad School. I am finally going to wrap up my degree, after dawdling for far too long. I am switching from an M.S. with Thesis to an M.E. (Master's of Engineering) program, which amounts to me taking another 9 credits of coursework. 3 will be at ISU, and I will take 6 locally to transfer back. I'm planning on taking my last ISU course this fall, and depending on the KU course offerings, I will either take one this summer and one this fall or two this fall there. It will be a relief to finally have this thing behind me, as it's been bothering me to varying degrees during my time in KC.

Books. I am currently reading Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein. It's a pretty interesting book about the reporting he did for a Japanese newspaper, mostly crime stories involving the Yakuza. I have a potentially unhealthy interest in reading about criminal underworlds of all types, so I am, of course, finding this book riveting and will probably go back to it immediately after finishing this post. I'm well on my way to getting 25 books in this year, having finished the following thus far:

Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart (definitely not my favorite Murakami, which remains Kafka on the Shore. Pretty forgettable)
Chuck Klosterman - Fargo Rock City (I love Klosterman and all, but this was a little too scattershot even for me)
Benjamin Wallace - The Billionaire's Vinegar (pretty interesting book about the old wine industry, and forgeries in particular. Remember that criminal underground thing I mentioned?)
Chuck Palahniuk - Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon (I read this in about an hour and a half while on a plane to Washington DC, and it was awesome. I will probably pick up a copy at some point)
Sarah Vowell - The Wordy Shipmates (read this on the flight home. It was awful, and I love her contributions to This American Life. Stick to radio!)
Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen (great stuff, though I preferred Lizard)

Speaking of Portland, we are going over memorial day weekend with some friends, which should be fun. I loved the city on my brief solo trip there last fall, so I am super excited to go again with company. On the menu is getting silly drunk on the regional craft brews, eating lots of voodoo donuts, convincing myself (again) that I don't need the $8000 leather-bound, signed, first edition of The Little Prince at the Powell's rare book room, possibly seeing a show, definitely going back to the chinese gardens, definitely checking out the rose test garden, which I missed out on last time, and ideally trying what they call barbecue out there. Staying at the Ace Hotel again. STOKED.

Finally, I think I suffer some cognitive dissonance when it comes to the subject of shows. I have what some people might call a fondness for music, and always get really excited to go to shows, and then never have that great of a time when I actually do go (at least recent shows). So, I am trying to tell myself that it's ok to miss some stuff (like the St. Vincent show in Lawrence going on as I write this post). Cheaper that way anyway. Maybe it's the fact that I'm turning old and grumpy and I'm 5-10 years older than most of the people at the shows for bands I like. Who knows.

On that sourpuss note, farewell for now.

P.S. Sorry Los Campesinos!, but Blogger will not let me put an exclamation point in a post tag, so I've misspelled your name.

2009 in Review, and foolish goals for 2010

2010-01-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

So, here's the year-end thing for 2009, and some goals for 2010. They will probably look somewhat similar to 2009's goals, but isn't that how it goes?

2009:

-Lose 16 pounds (to 195)
Well, I am hovering around 205, So I guess I lost a little bit of weight. That could be within the realm of the statistical variability of my terrible scale, though.

  -Get to 80% done on the thesis (to first draft status)
I have what I think is a solid topic now, I just need to dig in and do it. 80% it is not, but I should have less distractions next year (hopefully!)

-Finish Stress Test. Whatever state it's in at the end of the year, it's done.
It's done, and I have album art. The next step is getting it released through Bandcamp and CDBaby, which I am working on now.

 -Pay off credit card debt entirely (potentially doable this time)
Done. It's such a relief to be completely out of credit card debt. It was mostly house-related stuff, and not totally frivolous, but still. Additionally, we totally paid off the loan on the Civic. So no car payments either!

-Volunteer 10 times in 2009 
1. Harvesters distribution center
 2. Bridging the Gap recycling center 
3. Children's Mercy game night 
4. KCUR spring funding drive 
5. Bridging the Gap Arbor Day tree planting
6. Manheim neighborhood cleanup
7. Hyde Park graffiti cleanup 
8. KCUR fall funding drive
9. Kansas City Marathon course monitor

Almost made it. 9 is still pretty good, right?

 -Do RPM Challenge in February 
Done! Get the record here.  

-Do NaNoWriMo in November 
I signed up, but didn't deliver. One of these years, perhaps.

-Get involved in the KC Fringe Festival in some capacity 
Epic fail. Didn't volunteer, didn't go. To be fair, my father was dying at the time.  

-Paint the porch and deck 
Paint mostly removed from deck. Need to rent a power washer, power wash, and then prime and paint.

  -Install the new windows 
Done, just need to finish up the trim, caulk and touch-up paint  

-Do at least one other home repair that improves my home repair knowledge
 I think the complete bathroom remodel more than suffices here.

  -Get more involved in public transit advocacy and improvements 
I've talked at least one person at work into riding the bus. Does that count?

  -Spend at least one entire month without driving to work 
This just didn't work out, unfortunately

-Read 20 books, courtesy of time spent on mass transit 
1. Alan Weisman - The World Without Us 
2. Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard 
3. Chuck Klosterman - Downtown Owl
 4. Neil Gaiman - Stardust
 5. Dave Eggers - What is the What 
6. Mark Kurlansky - Salt: A World History
 7. John Updike - Trust Me: Short Stories 
8. Maira Kalman - The Principles of Uncertainty 
9. Dave Eggers - How We Are Hungry 
10. Frank Schaeffer - Crazy for God 
11. Alex Beam - A Great Idea at the Time 
12. Haruki Murakami - What I talk about when I talk about running 
13. Brent Runyon - The Burn Journals 
14. Don Thompson - The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art
 15. Neil Gaiman - Smoke and Mirrors 
16. Remy Stern - But Wait! There's More! 
17. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr - Armageddon in Retrospect
18. Dave Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity!
19. Haruki Murakami - After The Quake: Stories
20. Michael Pollan - In Defense of Food
21. Bill Ayers - Fugitive Days
22. Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

Two bonus books!

 -Run 5 races 
1. Love 2 Run 2/14
2. Westport St. Patrick's Day Run 3/14
 3. Olathe Marathon 4/4
4. Brew to Brew 4/5
5. Trolley Run 4/26

-Participate in Carrot Mob
I'm not sure these guys are still active. I've tried to contact them a bunch without much luck.

-Damn the man, save the empire
 Man damned. Empire's more or less ok.

So now, for the 2010 goals, with some carry over from 2009:

-Finish the bathroom remodel. The hard stuff is done (other than the shower tile, I guess).

-Release Stress Test. Give 100% of sales to United Way of Kansas City.

-Volunteer 10 times in 2010

-Paint the porch and deck

-Get involved in the KC Fringe Fest

-Read at least 25 books

-Run at least 7 races

-Build a linen closet at the end of the second floor hallway

-Either substantially complete my thesis or switch to a non-thesis degree for the sake of getting it done.

-Take the bus or carpool for at least 50% of my commutes

-Pay off at least one student loan and substantially pay off another one.

-Expand my musical tastes beyond what Pitchfork sells me. Listen to more Jazz, Neoclassical, and Soul music.

I simultaneously love and hate this song

2009-10-01T20:54:00.001-07:00

This song nearly made me sob at work today... but my god, is it a stellar piece of songwriting.

Regina Spektor - Chemo Limo

I had a dream
Crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin came over
Baby-sat all four of my kids

Then, in my dream, I told the doctor off
He said if you don't want to do it, then you don't have to do it
He said the truth is you'll be okay, anyway

Then in my dream
Crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin and the doctor
Went and had a talk with my boss

Something about insurance policies
They kept the door closed at all times
I couldnt hear or see

When they came out they said You'll be okay, anyway
And I smiled cause I'd known it all the while.

No thank you, no thank you, no thank you, no thank you
I don't have to pay for this shit
I can afford chemo like I can afford a limo
and on any given day I'd rather ride a limousine

No thank you, no thank you, no thank you, no thank you
I ain't about to to die like this
I can afford chemo like I can afford a limo
And besides this shit is making me tired, it's making me tired, it's making me tired
You know I plan to retire some day,
And I'm gonna go out in style, go out in style
This shit it's making me tired, it's making me tired, it's making me tired
I'm-a gonna go out in style, go out in style

When I woke up
My kids were being quiet
I knew it was a dream right away
I called the limousine company

Then I got dressed
I dressed the kids as well
The limousine pulled in
And we piled in

The doctor he asked which way we were headed
I said, Sir, let's just go west and he listened obediently,
Sophie only wants to listen to radio BBC
Michael sat on my knees and whispered to me, all about the meanies
Jacqueline was being such a big girl with her cup of tea looking out of the window
And Barbara, she looks just like my mom
Oh my god, Barbara, she looks so much like my mom

No thank you, no thank you, no thank you, no thank you
I don't have to pay for this shit
I can afford chemo like I can afford a limo
and on any given day I'd rather ride a limousine

No thank you, no thank you, no thank you, no thank you
I ain't about to die like this
I couldn't afford chemo like I couldn't afford a limo
And besides this shit is making me tired, it's making me tired, it's making me die
You know I plan to retire some day,
and I'm-a gonna go out in style
go out in style
This shit it's making me tired, it's making me tired, it's making me tired
I'm-a gonna go out in style, go out in style

I had a dream
Crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin came over and
Baby-sat all four of my kids

I had a dream
Crispy crispy Benjamin Franklin came over and
Baby-sat all four of my kids

Sophie only want to tune us into radio BBC
Michael sat on my knees and whispered to me, all about the meanie
Jacqueline was being such a big girl with her cup of tea looking out of the window
And Barbara, she looks just like my mom
Oh my god, Barbara, she looks so much like my mom

Oh my god, Barbara, she looks so much just like my mom...

----

Here's a link to a short, demo version of the song. I couldn't find the full one on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcNQRXIY9U

And This All Bears Repeating

2009-09-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

It has been roughly a month and a half since my father died, and I haven't really felt like writing about it during that time. Every once in a while, though, I start to think about him again, and feel the need to get something or another out. It's unpredictable, but when it strikes, it's hard to think about or accomplish anything else. I apologize in advance for the darkness of the post to come. If you don't want to read it, then don't. You've been warned.

My father was in hospice for eight days before he died. I was there for most of that time. Eventually, time just sort of ran together, and we lost track of the days. Hospice is a place with a strange gravity. It feels like some kind of purgatory, where one stops for a while before crossing over fully. It's clean and beautiful and quiet, and the staff is wonderful, but it's fundamentally somewhere that people go to die. You sit in a quiet, generally dark room, and listen to a person you love start to struggle to breathe a little more at a time, watch them get pale and waste away. I could only take so much of this at a time, so I would walk laps (the building is roughly organized as a circle, with a garden in the middle), close the door to the side room and do Sudoku, try to sleep on the profoundly uncomfortable furniture, anything for a distraction. But… you never want to go too far, because, well, … you know. Someone you love is dying, and you can't stand to be there and watch it, but you can't stand to not be there either. For some reason, even though you know it may be the most painful thing you've witnessed in your life, you don't want to miss it, the end.

I missed it, but more on that later.

My mother and I would leave the hospice home for the day at various times, to either distract ourselves or to get things done for what was to come. We went to the funeral home and planned the funeral. Parts of it felt oddly sick and commercial, like even death has been commoditized. Of course it has… everyone dies. The people at the funeral home were wonderful and everything, but I hope you can understand how the idea of a showroom of caskets would rub me the wrong way. Glossy marketing pamphlets of the virtues of various caskets and liners, funeral packages, etc. It felt… a little impersonal, but I don't know how it was supposed to feel. I will say that the funeral home did an excellent job of dealing with things that we just didn't want to deal with, like contacting the newspapers to run obituaries.

Later, we went shopping (?) for funeral plots for my mother and father. We were following a hearse on the way to the graveyard. No funeral procession or anything. I mean, I understand it's a graveyard, and that hearses occasionally stop by. It was just really strange. After walking around the graveyard, my mother found a spot she liked under a tree. She wanted dad to be buried under a tree so that he would be out of the sun. Skin cancer. It kind of weirdly made sense. I paid my respects to a dear friend's father, who is buried in the same graveyard, and we left.

More time passed, but I'm not sure how much more.

Mary and Joe got me out for dinner at some point, and may have saved my sanity in the process.

Eventually, my mother and I were at home, and got a call. Not THE call, but A call. My father was probably going to die within the next twelve hours. Things are kind of a blur, and I probably already have some of the details wrong. It's evening, and we go back to the hospice house. Dad's breathing is different… but it sounded like we had a little time. After agonizing on whether I should leave to get some sleep, or some more distractions to use in the hospice home, I leave. On my way home, mom calls and lets me know that I should just grab some stuff from home and come back if I want to be there when it happens. I run inside, grab a book, make sure the cat is ok, leave. I drive back, texting my niece to get ahold of my brother, because our dad is dying, and it's now, and he needs to come if he wants to be there. Thank goodness the other cars on the road knew enough to get the hell out of my way. Sometime within this trip to home and back, no more than 45 minutes, my father has died.

Just like that.

I didn't know, but I did know in some way. Something feels off. I have not had the best timing at these things this year. Rikki's grandmother died 15 minutes before we got there. My uncle died on a Saturday, when we had planned a Sunday visit.

When I arrived back at the hospice house, I see that the door to my father's room is closed, and the hospice nurse comes to give me a hug. Then, I really do know what's happened. I go into the room and try to comfort my mother, who is understandably a mess. My mom's friend, who also happens to be a grief counselor, shows up and does a better job of comforting her. I let Rikki know that she should just wait to come until tomorrow, because it's late, but she decides to come anyway. After some private time, I ask the nurse to call the funeral home, and they arrive eventually, and wait for us to leave before taking my father's body away.

My mother and I go home, and Rikki arrives in Ankeny late. Then, there is more planning, meeting with the family and the pastor, notifying relatives and organizations, finding out how to give memorials to the right place.

Fast forward to the wake, and I am shaking hands with people I barely remember, who fondly remember my father, and apologize for my loss. This whole thing is more or less a blur. So many of my friends show up, and we stand in a large circle in a separate room, talking. Nobody really seems to know what to say (I'm 27. I don't have a lot of friends who have lost parents), so we turned to distraction again, talking about other things. It helped a lot. We stayed for a half hour after our allotted time slot, and were more or less asked to leave.

The funeral took place at the church that I went to as a child, and where I was confirmed. The service was… ok. I didn't know what to do when we were walking down the aisle and being stared at by everyone. Do I look sad enough? Do I look callous by trying not to show emotion? In retrospect, I may have cared about these things far too much. Readings from the bible, stories and anecdotes about my father written by his family and read by someone who only tangentially knew him in life, organ music, crying, and then I am lifting a corner of my father's casket towards the hearse. It still does not seem real at this point.

Into the limo, into the funeral procession, towards the grave site. A short gravesite service, and this time my mother starts sobbing uncontrollably, and I try to comfort her, but know it's somewhat pointless. Everyone leaves, back to the church. We have the classic church ladies' luncheon, and once again talk about anything but what just happened.

Shortly after the service, Rikki, my mother, and I return to the gravesite and gather up some of the flowers. Dad's already been buried. Awkward does not begin to describe.

Rikki and I decide to get together with some of our friends later, and we do, and drink, and laugh, and generally try to feel better about life. After a couple of days, I return to Kansas City, and go back to work, still not totally sure what just happened.

So now what?

I have gone through what you might call a crisis of unfaith through this process. My beliefs generally fall under the "agnostic" banner, but through this process, I have felt something rather odd. I want there to be something better at the end of life than what the evidence suggests - pain, misery, and suffering. My pseudo-belief in a just universe cannot be reconciled with what I have witnessed, so I want there to be something more. I just can't believe in my heart that there is. I am still having some trouble reconciling these feelings, and I'm not really sure what to do. Of course, my belief in a just universe has been shaken in many ways this year, so perhaps if I can give that up, I will know some peace in this regard as well. I suppose I will have to leave that here, for now.

I have also thought about the contrast between a sudden death and a long, drawn out fight against illness. My father battled with cancer for two years, and all the while, we knew it was killing him. It would go away, it would come back, it would show up somewhere new, it would go away, it would come back, and eventually he was too weak, and the treatments stopped working, and he died. Something really strange about this, that I didn't fully realize until afterward, is that you do a lot of grieving during the whole thing, while the person is still alive. This way, The shock is perhaps not so great when death does occur. However, there is not some great emotional change when the person dies, at least in my case, so I am still grieving in the same way as I was before he died. It's an even, dull kind of emotional pain. I have to wonder what it's like to lose someone suddenly. The pain, and shock, must be awful, but I wonder if it's like a spike, a blip on the chart, and then it gets better more quickly. Harder, but quicker. I don't really know. I don't know which I would have preferred for my father, but I do know that I am having trouble shaking, or even really expressing, the feelings that I have experienced throughout this whole thing. That will perhaps come in time, but for now, I am still a little punch-drunk and bewildered.

Caring for Your Introvert

2009-09-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

I do love this article so very much.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

Seattle was awesome, and Portland was awesome. I won't bore you with the details for now, but I predict the rather rare occurrence of a lengthy post to this blog in the future.

(500) Days of Summer was also incredibly good, and also has a lovely soundtrack.

I want to dig into getting Stress Test finished up, but I am apparently currently lacking my headphones, and a collection of loops I used that resided on my old computer. I'm in the home stretch, and once I can rectify these two things, it's game on.

That's all for now.

P.S. How do you like the new layout?

Listen to this!

2009-08-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Yeah! New Imogen Heap album!

Half-year update

2009-07-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

So, I hardly ever post on this. Yadda yadda, etc. But here's how I'm doing so far with my goals from the start of the year.

-Lose 16 pounds (to 195)
I am currently sitting at around 202, down from 211 at the start of the year. I am making decent progress here.

-Get to 80% done on the thesis (to first draft status)
Still at the literature search stage, but I have found a research group I can hopefully hook up with to get things really rolling. I at least have a solid area of application that I want to work within now, and a list of applicable papers in the area, which I am about 2/3 through reading.

-Finish Stress Test. Whatever state it's in at the end of the year, it's done.
I am currently tweaking the final mix and awaiting my lovely album art. After these are done, I plan on getting the thing out on CDBaby. It could be kind of awesome.

-Pay off credit card debt entirely (potentially doable this time)
Rik and I have made significant progress here and have a plan in place to be completely out of CC debt by the end of the year.

-Volunteer 10 times in 2009
1. 2/3 Harvesters distribution center
2. 2/21 Bridging the Gap recycling center
3. 3/25 Children's Mercy game night
4. 3/30-3/31 KCUR spring funding drive
5. 4/25 Bridging the Gap Arbor Day tree planting

Upcoming opportunities include the KCUR fall funding drive and some more shifts at Harvesters. Also hopefully a return visit to Children's Mercy. I wonder if the employer will sponsor a Habitat build this year... if so, I am there.

-Do RPM Challenge in February
Done! Get the record here.

-Do NaNoWriMo in November
signed up.

-Get involved in the KC Fringe Festival in some capacity
I think I have officially missed the volunteer training, so my involvement may just be "going to fringe fest". Alas.

-Paint the porch and deck
Nothing yet. This has fallen to a low priority.

-Install the new windows
Handyman Dave is going to help us out with this one, I think.

-Do at least one other home repair that improves my home repair knowledge
I think the complete bathroom remodel will more than suffice here, once it's done. Those are the magic words.

-Get more involved in public transit advocacy and improvements
I've talked at least one person at work into riding the bus. Does that count?

-Spend at least one entire month without driving to work
Nothing thus far.

-Read 20 books, courtesy of time spent on mass transit
1. Alan Weisman - The World Without Us
2. Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard
3. Chuck Klosterman - Downtown Owl
4. Neil Gaiman - Stardust
5. Dave Eggers - What is the What
6. Mark Kurlansky - Salt: A World History
7. John Updike - Trust Me: Short Stories
8. Maira Kalman - The Principles of Uncertainty
9. Dave Eggers - How We Are Hungry
10. Frank Schaeffer - Crazy for God
11. Alex Beam - A Great Idea at the Time
12. Haruki Murakami - What I talk about when I talk about running
13. Brent Runyon - The Burn Journals
14. Don Thompson - The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art
15. Neil Gaiman - Smoke and Mirrors
16. Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (in progress)
17. Remy Stern - But Wait! There's More!

-Run 5 races
1. Love 2 Run 2/14 (4 miles, 50:20)
2. Westport St. Patrick's Day Run 3/14 (4.15 miles, 47:00)
3. Olathe Marathon 4/4 (5K, 33:12)
4. Brew to Brew 4/5 (8 miles, ~90:00)
5. Trolley Run 4/26 (4 miles, 45:08)

-Participate in Carrot Mob
awaiting next Carrot Mob event / planning meeting. In touch with the carrot mob folks.

-Damn the man, save the empire
Man damned. Empire's future still in question.

So, I think I am doing ok so far. Must keep forging ahead! Etc.

I really am happy with how Stress Test is turning out. It still needs some tweaking to pass the car test, but it should be a good time when completed.

Must-sees

2009-05-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, so in the interest of paying off my credit cards sooner (no pun), I am planning on restricting my concert ticket purchases for the remainder of the year to the following bands, if they come to the area.

Grizzly Bear
St. Vincent
Art Brut
Amanda Palmer
Animal Collective

I will, of course, make exceptions for bands that are exceedingly unlikely to play anywhere near here, e.g. Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, IAMX, etc.

BORED!

2009-04-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

I am bored with everything.

Oh, and I'm also still alive.

As Michel would say, I have ennui!

The Anti-Green

2009-03-04T19:58:00.000-08:00

So, I was thinking today about my personal habits, particularly with regard to recycling and creating less waste. I came up with the most wasteful thing I do (that I can think of, anyway). I need to quit getting takeout Chinese from Price Chopper for lunch. I don't do it very often, but I would be better off not doing it at all. It's terrible for me, it doesn't even taste that good, and it's a disaster as far as creating waste for a single meal goes. It comes in a Styrofoam container, within a plastic bag. It also comes with a paper cup. The straw is wrapped in plastic. The takeout meal is placed in a plastic bag. I use a plastic fork from the store to eat it (also wrapped in plastic!). Then, I throw everything away. It's really pretty horrendous.

You two or three readers out there: is there anything like this you do that you're ashamed of?

Data Damage - Get Humongous Fang Power!!!

2009-02-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

So, as of about 10 minutes ago, I have finished my album for the 2009 RPM Challenge. It is entitled "Get Humongous Fang Power!!!" after a spam e-mail title that I found amusing. I hope that you enjoy it. I had a lot of fun making it. You can download the album, cover art, and liner notes here.

New Sonic Engineer Demos

2009-01-23T11:07:00.000-08:00

New demos for your listening pleasure. Aqua Nose has been around for a while in unfinished form, but I finished it up.

Aqua Nose
Sleepy Sandwich
Air Culture

Thanks, random song name generator! Couldn't do it without you!

2008 Report Card and 2009 To Do List

2008-12-27T04:13:00.001-08:00

My Resolutions for 2008 follow, along with my self-grading on those.

-Lose 20 pounds. Well, I lost a couple, but not nearly 20. D+
-Eat out only once a month. Hahahahahahah. F--
-That thesis thing should be started. Well, I am narrowing in on a topic, at least. C-
-Finish Stress Test album. I did get through a couple new tracks. C-
-Pay off credit card debt entirely. F-----
-Volunteer four times in 2008 (start slowly, eh?). I volunteered three times. B
-Get involved in the hyde park association. B
-Get involved in local politics. C
-Continue to improve the house. B+

So, I didn't do well with my 2008 goals. Let's set some equally unrealistic ones for 2009! Nah, I mean, it's time to stop dicking around, eh?

-Lose 10 pounds (to 195)
-Get to 80% done on the thesis (to first draft status)
-Finish Stress Test. Whatever state it's in at the end of the year, it's done.
-Pay off credit card debt entirely (potentially doable this time)
-Volunteer 10 times in 2009 (Harvesters should help with this now that they are answering my e-mails)
-Do RPM Challenge in February
-Do NaNoWriMo in November
-Get involved in the KC Fringe Festival in some capacity
-Paint the porch and deck
-Install the new windows
-Do at least one other home repair that improves my home repair knowledge
-Get more involved in public transit advocacy and improvements
-Spend at least one entire month without driving to work
-Read 20 books, courtesy of time spent on mass transit
-Participate in Carrot Mob
-Run 5 races
-Damn the man, save the Empire

New Sonic Engineer music

2008-12-13T19:51:00.001-08:00

So, the urge struck, and I threw this together in about an hour today. I want to fiddle with the mix and arrangement a little bit, but I am pretty happy with the results. Hope you enjoy it. I may eventually finish this album after all. I've got 10 full tracks and 2 demoed out, so that's pretty close.

Anyway, download it here.

Non-Audio Blog Episode 1: Laziness Ensues

2008-12-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I haven't posted for a while, and I'm breaking format for a non-audio post. This is mostly because I'm lazy and the audio blogs take a lot longer to produce than a written one.

My birthday has come and gone, spent at Blanc Burgers with friends. It was excellent. I always love that place, except the part at the end when the check comes. That Saturday, we used the free movie tickets from my place of employ to see Synecdoche, New York at the new Fork and Screen theaters in Olathe. The concept is that the movie theaters have a long row table in front of each row of seats, with a concierge button in front of each seat. They have a full dinner menu and will serve food throughout the movie, including drinks from the full bar on premises. I tried cconut curry chicken tenders and a boulevard IPA, for around $15 total. Pretty reasonable, considering a popcorn and soda sets you back $10 at the concession stand. I am definitely a fan of the whole experience, and will surely return. The only snag is that tickets are $10 at the Olathe 30, which makes a night out relatively spendy. I think that's still cheaper than the VIP Room tickets for the theater on the Plaza, though (similar concept). The film itself was ingenius. I'll leave it for you to go read about it yourself, but I can only highly recommend that you see it as soon as possible. Of course, I will likely go see anything with Charlie Kaufman's name on it.

Speaking of movies, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire open next Friday at the Tivoli. We are thinking of going for a double feature of sorts. Those two movies may be too much to handle in one night, but we shall see, I suppose.

Last week was the long Thanksgiving break, which was much needed. We ended up driving approximately 1,000 miles, but it was really nice to see everyone. We started at my parents' for Thanksgiving with my fam on Thursday. We went to Bolt with my mom and the younger neices and nephews. It was a super cute movie. We stayed with Rikki's parents on Thursday night. Friday, we boarded the dogs and headed to Dubuque for Rikki's extended family. Her maternal grandmother is in a bad way, so it's definitely good that we made it out there for a visit. Saturday, we began the long journey back to Ankeny, making a couple of stops along the way. We stopped in Cedar Falls to see one Mike Drahaus, and in Ames to catch dinner with Steve and Jana. We went to The Cafe, which I had never been to for dinner before. It was pretty amazing to me that one of the more expensive restaurants in Ames chalks up at below average for Kansas City. It's pretty nuts how much more expensive it is to live here. Anyway, we returned to Ankeny pretty late, and stayed with my parents. Sunday, we hung out with my parents, grabbed the requisite lunch at Jade Garden with Heidi and Senor Gruca, played some games at Rikki's family's house, picked up the dogs, and began the return drive to Kansas City. There was a bunch of snow on the road and the going was slow through Iowa. We saw a few overturned vehicles blocking the road. It slowed us down by roughly an hour getting home, but we made it back safely. The weird thing is that as soon as we hit the Missouri border, the roads magically cleared up completely, like someone flipped off the snow switch or something. It was kind of bizarre. And then... back to the grind on Monday. etc.

Shows since my last post, which was apparently ages ago:

The Dandy Warhols, at Liberty Hall in Lawrence. It was a straight ahead rock show, but man, I love almost everything this band does. It was a solid almost 3 hours of awesomeness.

Beck / MGMT at the Uptown Theater. Again, a pretty straightlaced performance, which surprised me. I was a little disappointed, compared to the first time I saw Beck. It was considerably more wacky and fun then. This just seemed a little too straight and narrow. MGMT has improved quite a bit since I last saw them live, so that was good.

Girl Talk at the Granada in Lawrence. There were two openers, and both of them were absolutely horrible. The second band, The Death Set, took something like an hour to set up a three piece band, who then played for all of 20 minutes. Lame! However, all was forgiven with Greg Gillis took the stage. It was a ridiculous carnival of dancing, balloons, beach balls, toilet paper flying everywhere, surrounding this one guy slamming on his laptop, doing things I can't even comprehend, creating some pretty incredible mash up music. They guy is awesome live. You des moines people, go see him. I'm pondering making the trip up to catch him again. It was just totally bonkers, unadulterated fun.

Of Montreal at Liberty Hall in Lawrence. The opener cancelled, but that's ok. The show went pretty late as it was. Holly joined us for this one. It was definitely more interesting than the last time I saw them, though they were pretty skimpy on the Hissing Fauna material, which is what I'm most familiar with. There were copious costume changes, and lots of little stage plays going on while the music was under way. Kevin Barnes pretended to kill himself in various ways during one song, including a staged hanging. There was a wild west shootout taking place on stage, part of which was covered by a saloon set. There were various wacky characters around throughout the show. It was quite the visual overload, but it was a really great show. Definitely more than worth the $14.50.

The Smashing Pumpkins at the Midland Theater. It was... ok. The venue was absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to go to more shows there, presuming that more shows that I want to see come to the theater. The drinks were expensive, but eh, whatever. It's a concert venue. I'm just thrilled they took credit cards without having a $20 minimum tab (I'm looking at you, Beaumont Club). The sound was pretty poor for the show itself. One of the things I find the most distinctive about the Smashing Pumpkins is Billy Corgan's voice, love it or hate it, and his voice just got muddled in the mix quite a lot of the night, expecially in the louder numbers. There were very few hits played for a so-called "20th Anniversary Tour", I thought, but these decisions aren't mine to make. Billy generally came across as a self-indulgent snot on-stage (he asked for a singalong to Today (during which, by the way, he did not sing), and then stopped in the middle of the first verse to chew out the audience for not knowing the lyrics and not putting enough effort into the song), but I went in expecting that. What I wasn't expecting was the long, drawn out, amp-humping, formless, pointless noise jams that comprised probably 40% of the set. They were pointless and boring. So, it was roughly 60% of a good show, for which I paid 200% of what I normally pay to go to shows. There were good moments, to be sure, but overall, it was a disappointing experience.

I think this post is long enough for now. Two weeks, and then the trip to Chicago! Then, the trip home for the holidays! Then, new years in Des Moines! Then, I will finally buy a couple of shirts at Smash! Then, I will add a few more exclamation points!!!!

Farewell, whoever may be reading this.

Audio Blog, Episode 3: This Great Society Is Going Smash

2008-09-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

Ha! A couple of weeks! Will you get a load of that? Anyway, on to the festivities.

1. Intro
2. The Rumble Strips - Motorcycle
3. CSA / Iowa / Man Man
4. Man Man - Big Trouble
5. Kansas City Goings On / The Books
6. The Books - Be Good To Them Always

Get it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=46684cb40c7d2f48d2db6fb9a8902bda

Audio Blog, Episode 2: You Know Best

2008-07-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, I did another one! Miracle of miracles! Anyway, hope you enjoy it. It might be a couple of weeks before I get to the next one. To make up for it, this one is substantially longer than the first one.

1. Intro
2. Laura Barrett - Robot Ponies (from the Earth Sciences EP)
3. Porch Party / Wedding
4. Amber Rubarth - You Will Love This Song (from the Unfinished Art EP)
5. Parental Visit / Cirque Du Soleil / Community Supported Agriculture
6. Swan Lake - All Fires (from the album Beast Moans)
7. Discussion of All Fires / Outro

Get it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yymrj1j2djn

Comments are appreciated, as always.

Audio Blog, Episode 1

2008-07-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Trying something new here - recording myself, interspersing a little music, etc. I'm going to try out the combination of Blogger and MediaFire for now. It at least seems to be a somewhat better solution than e-mailing out huge audio attachments. Anyway, in this episode,

1. Intro
2. The Dandy Warhols - Mission Control
3. George Carlin
4. The Flaming Lips - Free Radicals
5. Outro

You can (hopefully) download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?21tm4j4dwzt