Long Weekends Should Be Longer

Not that I'm greedy or anything. It just that I once again managed to let a holiday weekend slip by without doing anything worth mentioning. I got back on the exercise horse with short, awful runs on Saturday and Monday and Bowflex action on Sunday, but so what? I dipped to a new low weight for this weight loss effort, too, but bounced back up a pound or so.

My mother had a nice deck party on her brand new deck on Saturday -- that was pretty much the highlight of the weekend. She and her cohorts are now talking about starting a rescue not just for Danes but for all sorts of giant dogs. (I figure that'll make Miracle Ed smile.)

After Ma's I went to check in on my friend David's birthday party, but apparently it had just broken up after BJ Penn beat up Sean Sherk. Since the party (and DJ) were winding down, Erik and I went to his house to throw darts and play a little ping-pong. Yep. We're wild.

Sunday was a failure, as I decided not to ride my motorcycle figuring I would do that on Monday. Well, Monday turned out rainy, so no Bonneville time for me. This bummed me out since Erik had come over last week to help me get the Bonnie running well after a long bit of garage rest.

So it goes, eh?

A couple media notes:

  1. Don't waste your time with Revolver. Gah.
  2. Sweeney Todd, by contrast was good times. On Helena Bonham Carter -- Me: "I wonder what she's like day to day... You never hear much gossip." Wife: "Yeah, I don't know. I was just thinking she's got to be the oldest goth chick around." Me: "Still totally hot, though." Wife: "Well, yeah."
  3. Also, if you're cooler than me (by which, in this case, I mean you own a Blu-ray player), you might be interested in Amazon's Blu-ray sale.

Toto?

So, holy crap. The area about an hour North of my house got pounded by some significant tornadoes yesterday. One funnel was reported to be about a mile wide. Probably the same one (not sure, though) could end up rated as an EF 3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale -- one about 2% of the tornadoes in the world are that strong, with winds in the 136–165 mph range.

It seems Weld County is just far enough to be a bit of a tornado factory, though usually they are just small ones that do next to no damage out int he farmlands. This was a definite exception to the norm.

The storms are obviously saturating the local news coverage. Send some good vibes up that way. Folks up there could use it.

Plans (and assorted junk)

This afternoon, I'll be trekking down to Shelf Road for a weekend of camping and rock climbing with my bossmen and a few others. This is rather exciting, as I've done neither of those activities in yonks. It's also a bit depressing as I realize just how many yonks it's been. Based on the evidence, I haven't touched a real rock while wearing a climbing harness in this century. In fact I've only climbed on the indoor fake stuff the once since I've moved to Colorado. Climbing was part of the "why" of moving to Colorado at the time of that decision. Funny how things work out, eh? A large part of it is having people with whom to actually do things. I suppose I didn't realize how lucky I was to have developed the network of like-minded and tolerable people I had back in Massachusetts. Thanks, gang!

Then there the camping. I unpacked my tent to make sure it hadn't dissolved completely over the years and found bits of bark and moss from a camping trip I took in New England with Miracle Ed and Hanh something like ten years ago. Good goddamn!

It's all a bit conflicting, to be honest, because I can't say I've missed it all as much as I would have expected. I've found other things to do at times. Mostly I'm just kind of lazy, I think. Or at least I tend to have a lot of inertia when I'm comfortable. That's a nice way of saying "lazy"...

Also, snakes. ;)

...

Unrelated: Holy crap! I totally watched The Master back in the day!

Meta: I wanted to add my shared items from Google Reader to the new secondary sidebar, but it didn't work properly. I might keep trying.

Still Alive

Just FYI. I love me some GTA IV. If you can wrangle a couple friends to play the online multiplayer it all becomes worth it. My Xbox Live Gamertag is JakoBlah, but I won't be your friend unless I know who you are first.

I caught Explosions in the Sky on Austin City Limits this past weekend. They are right up my alley.

Scarlett Johansson singing Tom Waits songs? Not as bad as you might expect, but not exactly awesome, either. She sure is pretty, though.

Hillary is ... Guh. Never mind.

---

Do you ever feel like you've stopped having ideas? I can solve the problems presented to me with little effort, but I can't say I'm coming up with anything cool on my own these days. It relates to the paucity of posts on this here blog.

Later: Isn't that a coincidence?

Quick Hits

  • My Colorado Avalanche managed to make it through the first round of the NHL playoffs. Now they have the pleasure of playing the possibly unstoppable Detroit Red Wings in the second round. In truth the Wings have looked fairly human this season, especially in the playoffs. We shall see.
  • The Wife and I are suddenly both able to jog something like 2.5 miles continuously. This is a big jump from where we were. I definitely believe a course change is the prime contributor to the improvement.
  • Since September of 2007, I've manage to whittle myself from around 220lbs to 190-ish. I only have this to say: It's a lot of friggin' work.
  • I cannot tell you how excited I am about GTA IV. The multiplayer action looks like a flat out hoot. Email me if you want my Xbox Live gamer tag. ;)
  • Meanwhile, The Wife is all about the Karaoke Revolution on the 360. They've been all over adding downloadable songs to it. It's really pretty impressive so far. Not to mention tons of fun.
  • I'm really sick of the Democratic primary garbage. I'm still backing the liberal black man, though.
  • My Ma has a fancy new deck on her house. It's totally sweet.
  • I really need to sand & stain my deck this year (just like I have for the past couple years). Boo.
  • Went to a DeRailed (the Denver Rails user group) meeting last night. They covered interesting material, but I ended up leaving early anyway. It was definitely what you'd expect, demographically. ;)

Go Get 'Em!

Jason Beghe is rapidly climbing my hero list now that he's crusading against the "church" of Scientology:

"Will Smith is supposedly dabbling in Scientology. Let Will Smith know that his shit was fucking recorded. And tell him to look them in the eye and see if he believes it when they deny it."

Even worse, he says, is that behind the backs of celebrities, Scientology officials gossip about what transpires in those supposedly private sessions. "Everything's supposed to be confidential. But all they do is chat about it," he says.

And apparently Maverick almost slipped loose at one point...

The best part is this dude was deep into the whole thing:

His move to clear was so rapid, Beghe was told that diminutive Scientology leader David Miscavige considered him a “poster boy” for the religion.

“I was Miscavige’s favorite boy, so they were doing all kinds of things to keep me happy,” he says. “I moved up the Bridge faster than anyone in history. I went at it 24/7 for about a year. I went clear. Got to OT V. I was a trained auditor.” (OT stands for “operating thetan,” and the highest level in the church is said to be OT VIII.)

“I’m farther up the Bridge than Travolta, and he’s been in there a thousand years. He’s not a trained auditor.” To Beghe, some of the celebrities “seemed like dilettantes,” enjoying the perks but not really working hard at being Scientologists.

I still wonder what the "perks" actually are. Aside from "connections", or whatever...

Holy Cow

The Broom Game has to be one of the most (potentially) dangerous party past times I've seen in a while. Coworkers and I are working on death-defying variations, since our only spot to play it would be on a 3rd story stucco balcony. Here are a few others:

  1. My neighborhood (featuring a nice mix of ponds, streets, and prairie dog-infested open space)
  2. On a rowboat (sharks/piranhas/etc. for extra points)
  3. The grassy triangle in the crotch of a highway off-ramp.

Awesome.

Both Kinds

That John Croghan kid sure puts on a good show. Like, for real. As The Wife put it, "He plays country music I don't mind!" ;)

Worth noting are the "Face Melting" covers* featured last night: "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Six Days on the Road" (which I know as a Taj Mahal jam).

* Not featured last night was my own request for "More Than Words". The Excuse: "The band didn't have time to learn it." The Wife's reaction: "There's no band in that song!!"

Look at all that def!

You may recall that my dearest mommy got me a big ol' television set for Christmas this past holiday. Well, I've finally got it running at full capacity now that I have a TiVo-HD (got a deal on a refurb from Woot!) and boy is it something.

Of course, the CableCARD install wasn't perfectly smooth, but at least it turned out to just be a bit of an annoyance while the cable guy fiddled with it for an hour or two. It was definitely not the sort of tragedy I had read about on various TiVo forums, etc.

It's funny what HD does to you, though. Two words to illustrate my point: Sunrise Earth. My friends (who were all way ahead of me on the HD curve) all told me about this hypnotic show, and I always pointed at them and laughed. Turns out they were right on the money. It's just mesmerizing. Even beyond that, though, I'll watch a nature show or rock concert in HD before just about any other option now. Good times.

The Wife's favorite bit - aside from when I blew her mind by showing her how we can watch shows from our old TiVo unit on the new one - is the dual tuner action we get from the TiVo-HD. Now "Boy shows" don't automatically trump "Girl shows". Peace reigns supreme at the Lazy 'S' Ranch, though it does give the TiVo twice the opportunity to record one of it's off the wall suggestions...

A.G.G.R.O.

The Aggrolites rocked it last night. I definitely recommend you catch them if they come to your neck of the woods. (Boston kids, that's April 15 for you.) The opening acts were The Haggardies, a local Goldfinger clone with songs about skateboarding and stuff (meh), and Synthetic Elements who are like a poor man's Streetlight Manifesto and plenty of fun to watch on stage.

As is typical with these very small shows, the headliners were miles above the opening acts. The highlight was the encore, during which Jesse and the boys did a reggae / ska / two-tone / dancehall / soul medley that had us all singing along at the tops of our lungs.

Good times.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig

Supposedly, that's Irish Gaelic (which I'm allowed to rock thanks to my 13th century Kilpatrick heritage, yo)... So, yeah, it's St. Patrick's Day and it's snowing like a bitch this morning. Luckily the roads stayed mostly clear, and we didn't get anything near the high end of the 4-8 inch predictions.

Nevertheless, I am pleased that I was able to get my celebrating out of the way this past Saturday with Brozovich at the "Lazy J Ranch" of one John Croghan. John pulls together a nice little crowd of good people, so it was an excellent laid-back time. Plus he had a keg of Guinness. Hard to go wrong there. (Hell, I didn't even bother to check if it was carbonated or nitrogenated. No need to be rude in the man's house.)

By the way, John is doing his country crooning thing in Olde Town Arvada on April 4 at the 12 Volt Tavern. He's guessing he'll go on around 10pm or so. I'm definitely going to be there. If I'm lucky, John might even sing my request. ;)

In other music performance news, The Aggrolites are playing in Denver this Wednesday. I love those boys. We saw them open for Madness in Los Angeles a couple years ago and have since collected all of their stuff. Well worth the $13 ticket, I'm thinking. (Here are some YouTube samples for you. Oh, and The Wife's favorite track.)

Oh, there's also roller derby on April 5. The Wife was asking about derby last night, so we'll probably try to hit that, I think. Derby's always worth the $13 ticket.

That's all I've got, but that's way more than usual, so I'm fine with it.