More Distractions

So, I've been a bit busy lately. My folks are coming to visit this weekend, so I've been trying to get everything squared away before they arrive. However, for those of you who need more distractions in your lives, check this out:

Radio Memories is a podcast of some great old time radio shows: westerns, sci-fi, comedy, you name it. I've been listening to Groucho Marx while updating my notebook this morning, which makes for an interesting contrast.

I remember when I was a kid the NPR station in Oswego would broadcast all of these wonderful old shows from 9 to midnight every night. It was great. Jack Benny, The Shadow, X-Minus One, The Goon Show, all that good stuff. Hence my ability to explain in reasonable detail who Fibber McGee and Molly are, and how they relate to the Great Gildersleeve, while being utterly incapable of naming a single member of U2. I do have a certain amount of cultural literacy, it's just 50-80 years out of date, that's all.

Damn That Cotton Gin!

Hey hey! Tune your internet to Dan's webpage, where he once again features my humble banjo picking on his podcast! Thanks, Dan! I appear to be serving as a symbolic representation of timeless "traditional values", or some such thing. Perhaps I am the Anti-Techno! I have inherited a bit of a Luddite streak...

But damn it, Dan, if you're going to keep improving your production values this way, I'm going to have to figure out some way to make my recordings sound better.

(Um, actually, I hate to mess with your symbolism and all, but the "melodic clawhammer" style I'm playing in on that piece really only dates from the 1970's or so... A real old-time musician would never think of playing a melody like that on the banjo. That's what fiddles are for.)

Biffy and Laurence

Hey, look! It's the always-mysterious Biffy and Laurence (and Darlene, of course)!

I really do need to sit down and scan the rest of my old jug band pictures. There's some amusing stuff in there. We were all very skinny then. And damn did I need a haircut.

Stifling insanity!

Crazy, crazy weekend.

The heat, of course, is appalling. My brain stops functioning or being capable of sleep at around 85°F, so that's been fun, for starters. I've also had to work a lot this weekend - 5 hours yesterday, 2 hours so far today - which is actually not so bad, since there's AC and a -20°C walk-in freezer. However, it's still work.

Anita's been pretty stressed lately, too. Her boss is out of town, and there's been nothing but crisis after crisis at the clinic. She got a call during breakfast today about a cat which had been staying at the clinic being treated for diabetes which the kennel worker found lying on the floor outside of it's cage not moving first thing this morning. Of course, Anita had to go over to try to figure out what happened, and the clinic is an hour away. I haven't heard back from her yet, but whatever happens, it can't be good. So she doesn't get a break this weekend, either.

On the positive side, Hot Pants came to visit. He apparently had a conference in Chicago this week, so he called me up, rented a car, and cruised on up for the afternoon yesterday. It was fun. We wandered around town, caught up on old times, and drank more than we probably should have. The Italian restaurant on State St. turns out to be excellent. He applied peer pressure for another jug band reunion gig at Risley, since he missed the last one. I'm slightly dubious, since we don't know anyone who lives there anymore, but I expect I'll be back in New York sometime before next winter, so perhaps something can be coordinated. (Although I'd probably be just as happy with a good rollicking porch jam, honestly.)

Anyway, back to the salt mines. I'm debating whether the answer to all my problems is Tea or Sleep. Both seem reasonable, but they are more or less mutually exclusive. This is the kind of critical decision which drives my current existence.

Speaking of music

So, while I'm thinking about music... Some of you might be interested in the Open Source Audio webpage. Lots of good public domain recordings of music in just about every genre you can imagine. I've been downloading old-timey recordings from the '20s and '30s today (that's Clarence Ashley with the banjo over there), but I really need to poke around in their blues archive and see what's in there, too.

Getting plunky

Some great confluence of stars seems to be pointing banjo-ward of late, so I've recorded a little bit of melodic clawhammering for your listening pleasure... Point your internets to my music archive and you will find a little banjo picking under the title "Bonaparte's Breakfast."

It's a medley of two traditional tunes: "Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine" and "Whiskey Before Breakfast." I was going to call it "The Tendonitis Set", but thought better of it. There's a few missed notes here and there, but believe me, this is far and away the best take. Let me know what you think!

It came in the Cheerios

Anita bought Honey Nut Cheerios this week, and it came with these... We had a good time punching them out and trying to fit them together from the cryptic instructions. I imagine they're for some movie or another. I don't quite know what to make of the jive lion, exactly, but I sure do like the weird little kung fu penguins.

It's the little things in life, you know?

They said we were mad! Mad!

OK, I know I keep posting these things, but it's only because they're awesome.

Videos of NASA's Deep Impact probe blowing a great gaping hole in a comet. Cool engineering, the promise of some excellent science, and a large explosion around the orbit of Mars: this is science at its best.



*Edited sheepishly 7/6/05, to remove an extraneous apostrophe. Sorry, Mom.

So Patriotic I Can Hardly Stand It

Whew. Yesterday was a marathon of fun and excitement.

No pictures, sadly, but we started off going to the Farmer's Market on the Capitol square early in the morning so we could be sure to not be there when the annoying rental company people were going to come through showing our place for about the 30th time. (They're never going to rent it if they don't lower the price... Hell, we only rented it because we were desperate and had 2 days to find an apartment.) We bought basil, green onions, and snow peas, and discovered that it was Massage Fair Day, so we each got a free 10 minute massage. Anita used her keen detective skills to discover that the massage school in town has a student clinic where you can go to get your knots worked on by students for absurdly cheap. Something to check out later...

Then, we had breakfast at the Orpheum, which is this fancy old theatre with a restaurant in the lobby. They make a mean omelet and pretty good waffles. If the posters on the wall are to be believed, they also seem to do Rocky every week, which might be too much Rocky, but it's hard to say. You wouldn't have to go far for toast, anyhow.

Then on to a barbeque at Bob's place, where Anita and Kristi talked about horses while us menfolk watched MMA fights on the TV in the basement. (Bas Rutten is a hoot.) Kabobs and watermelon were had, and were good.

And we ended up the day at the Terrace, listening to blues by the Cashbox Kings (who are pretty darn good), and watching fireworks across the lake. Madison has the largest fireworks display in the Midwest, and it was, in fact, totally excessive. I like fireworks as well as the next guy, but once you hit the 20-minute mark, there really isn't that much more they can do. It must have gone on for half an hour or more, accompanied by bad blaring music on the loudpeakers (including that great patriotic classic "The Phantom of the Opera"), and I'm sorry to say that by the end I was just sort of wondering when it would all be over. We were across the lake from the actual display, so maybe it would have been better if we'd actually been with the 100,000 people in Warner Park under the fireworks, but it probably just would have been louder and more crowded.

No more adventures for me this weekend. Sitting here by myself in the lab is quite pleasant, really. I think I may have some sort of social allergy.

The Wonder of the Internet

You know why I like the internet? I like the internet because of things like the DogBlog, that's why.

I mean, otherwise I'd be forced to spend my time at work working, and nobody wants that.