Art vs. Sport

Last night, I found myself in front of the TV, watching Olympic figure skating: specifically, the men's short program. I tuned in partway through, so I missed some of the more inspired performances. However, in amongst all the guys who bailed on their triple (and quad) jumps and just generally phoned it in, there was one skater whose program really captivated me.

In looking for a video of Evan Lysacek's performance, i found this short but interesting AP video interview with his choreographer.

Before I watched this "behind the scenes" news bit this evening, I thought I was going to be writing an amateur commentary about male figure skating in general, and Evan in particular.* Instead, my thoughts have turned to the parallels between figure skating and drum & bugle corps (which, for those who may not know, is an activity in which I was involved for five years total: 1995-1997 in "junior" corps, and 2004-2005 in "senior" corps).

Besides the similarities in judging, there also seems to be debate in both fields whether the activity in question a.) actually qualifies as a sport; and b.) should be designed for the judges, the audience, or both. Ms. Nichol's opinion is very close to my own:

I'm trying to appeal to those that I know have spent the hours and the time, and really understand the incredible difficulty of some of the things we're doing on the ice; and then I try to do it so that anyone can enjoy it. I think of what my Mom's watching, I think of what my neighbor's watching, and how do I make this program enjoyable for them? And how do I make it so that it's something the judges will be able to understand and respect — and especially my colleagues?

There are a lot of people saying right now that you need to choreograph to the lowest common denominator, you have to be able to grab people in two seconds.... I still have to believe that the essence of figure skating is the most important thing, the progression of the sport through that.

This is very much like the delicate balance of drum and bugle corps. Where is the line between pleasing the judges and pleasing the audience? As a former corps member, I can appreciate difficult drill moves and musical passages and such; as an audience member, I also appreciate the blow-your-face-off company fronts and the ballads and the tunes you've never heard before but still get stuck in your head as you're leaving the stadium after the show.

As soon as I stopped having those awesome audience-member moments, I stopped attending drum corps shows. I stopped seeking out the pre-season recordings of Memorial Day camps, when the show is just about complete. I stopped caring about the activity as I once did.

I watched more figure skating last night on network television and tonight on the internet than the amount of drum corps I've watched in the past two years, either live or online. And I enjoyed it more.

Appropriate, somehow, that Evan skated to The Firebird, a piece I know only from its popularity as a drum corps staple, most notably performed by the Cavaliers in 1976 and 1997.

* As far as my commentary on male figure skaters, and Evan in particular: Details matter. Watch the video of Evan's short program performance and note his arm position, his hand position, the extension of his body. He uses his long, slender body type to his advantage, making every inch of his height and wingspan count. Even his choreographed head snaps add to the overall effect. He makes the most of every movement, paying close attention to each detail. The multiple daily runthroughs of his program have obviously paid off.

TuneGlue

I showed one of my co-workers my 2009 Year In Review this week, and he mentioned that I might be able to turn some of that data into useful information. He meant more along the lines of incorporating a matrix into my mileage and calculating how many calories I burned over time, while dynamically updating my weight over time to increase accuracy.

What I immediately thought of, though, was music.

Last.fm can be a great predictor of what music I might like. So can Pandora. Even so, I find myself hearing a song, saying, "Yeah, I like that," marking it as such on the website, then never coming back to it again.

I don't remember where I heard about TuneGlue, but it uses data from Last.fm to display an expanding web of related artists. It's not just the data, though; the interface is half the fun. Go try it for yourself and see what I mean: input the name of an artist, then hover over the tiny LP that appears. Select "expand" to see related artists spring out from the first. Drag them around and watch them spring back into position, then choose another artist to expand. Rinse and repeat.

My musical taste is firmly rooted in '90s alternative, as evidenced by my Top 10 Most Played Artists of 2009: eight of the ten could arguably be said to have reached their peak of popularity in the 1990s. I assumed, therefore, that if I searched for one, another would be closely related.

I was right:

I searched for Greg Dulli, then expanded to see his bands and side projects. It only took me two degrees of related artists to get to Sugar, part of the Bob Mould conglomerate that I counted as #3 on my list.

This isn't exactly getting me NEW-new music to listen to, but it's at least getting me to some new-to-me music. A few of these bands I've heard of and can name one song: Screaming Trees with "Nearly Lost You"; The Lemonheads with "It's a Shame About Ray"; Buffalo Tom with... what was their song? Oh, right: "Taillights Fade" (thanks, Google). Some of these artists I've heard of, but couldn't name a song off the top of my head: Bettie Serveert, Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Then there are a few that are new to me: My Jerusalem, Soulsavers, Superchunk, Jeff Klein, Matthew Ryan.

If we were still in the mid-'90s, I'd borrow some CDs from the library and from friends and make myself a mixtape. As it is, I'm unfettered by any sort of time constraint, since I plug my 30GB iPod into the trusty Kia Forte every day during my 20-minute commute.

I'll probably acquire a few songs by the artists I don't already know — most likely, I'll snag the most popular songs as listed on Last.fm — and I'll throw them into a playlist with the songs I know (and already have on my iPod).

I do miss the days when I could turn on the radio and every song was awesome, and every music store had an "alternative rock" section, and everyone had at least one friend who could regularly introduce them to great new music. It seems like such a challenge now. It's possible, yes, with indie music podcasts and whatnot, but the results aren't as consistently awesome.

If I end up liking the playlist I concoct, I'll let you know...

This Too Shall Pass

[OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.]

Found this as a link posted on my high school band director's Facebook page. His comment: "I like it! Of course, now I am pondering how I can dress my kids in camouflage that will work on astroturf! Hmmm... show ideas abound!"

As for me, I've decided that I really need to check out this band a little more, beyond just this and Here It Goes Again.

Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck!

Back in 2001, Aaron made this compilation of Christmas music that he'd downloaded over his dial-up internet. See, he hated Christmas music, for the most part, but knew that there were some cool Christmas songs out there.

He burned copies for a few of his friends, who played it for their friends, and everyone loved it. And now, seven years later, you, too, can share in the joy that is...

Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck!
(download .zip, 61.6 MB)

1. The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight)
2. The Ventures - Jingle Bells
3. Stiff Little Fingers - White Christmas
4. El Vez - Feliz Navi-Nada
5. Cheech and Chong - Santa Claus and His Old Lady
6. Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus is Coming to Town
7. Disco Noel - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
8. Adam Sandler - The Hannukah Song
9. John Lennon - So This Is Christmas (War Is Over)
10. Bing Crosby and David Bowie - Little Drummer Boy
11. They Might Be Giants - Santa's Beard
12. The White Stripes - Candy Cane Children
13. Bob and Doug McKenzie - The 12 Days of Christmas
14. Weird Al Yankovic - Christmas at Ground Zero
15. The Arrogant Worms - Christmas Sucks
16. Henry Rollins - 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
17. Pansy Division - Homo Christmas

Please note that Track 17 is NSFW, and was purposely put at the end of the CD to facilitate easy removal/omission of the one potentially offensive song — say, if you were going to make a copy for a co-worker or your uncle or something.

Share, enjoy, but don't let The Man catch you sharing the joy. Happy Holidays!

Matthew Sweet at the Beachland Ballroom

Unfortunately, the usually-trusty Olympus XA didn't handle the lighting very well, so this is the best photo I got from the show on 25 October 2008.

Mixtapes

I love my iPod — don’t get me wrong. It’s portable, it holds a crapton of songs (currently 3149, plus 13 videos and 109 photos), and it’s wearing a neat Japan-inspired skin.

But I really miss mixtapes.

It’s not like I got that many of them — Aaron gave me two notable ones, but I never really traded mixtapes like he did back in high school. I made a lot of them for my own use, though — mainly with incredibly cheesy or obvious titles like “Energy Mix” and “Mellow Mix” and “The 70’s: Selections from Mom’s Record Collection.”

There was just something about the linearity of the mixtape creation experience. I felt like I had to have a plan, or at least a vague idea of what kind of flow (or intentional lack thereof) I wanted to achieve. I had to assemble the source material, usually other cassettes or CDs, but occasionally vinyl. (I don’t think I ever sourced a mixtape from 8-track. And yes, I did have a working 8-track player in the ‘90s.) If I used a song from another tape, I had to cue it up to just the right place on the tape. And then I sat down for the next hour and a half and listened to my creation as I was creating it, hovering over the pause button, waiting for the song to finish fading out before pausing the tape and cueing up the next song. Usually, right after I put the next song in to record, I’d write the artist and title down on the J-card in ballpoint pen, then find something else to do for three minutes (probably reading a Star Trek novel, or doing homework). Then I’d get near the end of side A, and wonder if I had enough room for the next song, and squint into the little window on the front of the tape deck, and make a decision. Either I’d pick a short song (or amusing filler bit, like something from the Clerks soundtrack or Monty Python) and hope I’d make it, or I’d risk wrecking the flow and just fast-forward to side B.

Creating a mix CD or a playlist or what-have-you these days requires so much less time and effort, which has its pros and cons. You’re not required to listen to the masterpiece you’re creating. There’s less guesswork in how much music will fit: either you get a graphical representation of your 80-minute allotment; or, in the case of a playlist, the sky’s the limit. Rarely is a handwritten tracklist included with a mix CD; since you’re on your computer, anyway, you’d probably either type it and print it out, or e-mail the tracklist, or just have your application of choice create a CD insert for you from the filenames or ID3 tags. Not quite as personal.

I’ve almost seriously considered joining one of those Mix of the Month groups online, where everybody creates a mix CD, burns several copies with some art (or at least a tracklist), and gives it to everyone — but I think I’d rather do something like that with my friends. Maybe just for a while. And make it a real audio CD, not a collection of mp3s that we might listen to eventually. Then all of our friends would a.) have a reason to see each other at least once a month (except the long-distance ones, like Amy, who’d probably get a zip file and a jpg via e-mail); and b.) all be able to discuss successful mixes together. Like the legendary Fries mix from Aaron’s high school days. Or his Pixies tape. Or “Hüsker Whü?” (Though everyone would also be able to talk smack about everybody else’s musical taste, too… I could see Heathbar doing an all-Billy Childish mix, or me giving out a poorly-received Emo mix.) We could even remaster those old legendary mixes onto CD — that might be fun.

And, no — despite all my nostalgia for the old days of tape trading, I wouldn’t give everybody Maxell XLII-90’s. Although, now that I think about it, I actually could record from my iPod to cassette…

Damn Weather

We were supposed to go to see Bob Mould at the Grog Shop in Cleveland on Saturday. Alas, Cleveland was under a Level 3 Snow Emergency. So, instead of getting ticketed, fined, or stuck in Cleveland, we just wiped our asses with the $45 we spent on two tickets.

Had the Grog Shop cancelled the show, we could have gotten our money back. However, as with the couple other times we got denied by inclement weather, the venue held what was probably an awesomely intimate evening with Bob and friends, since the band did manage to make it there in time and one piece.

It's always a crapshoot, buying concert tickets at this time of year, as Aaron has pointed out. I was really looking forward to seeing Bob again — we hadn't seen him since October 2005.

Ah, well. There'll be another time. Someday.

I Know People Who Have Done This

[via PostSecret]

Take Five

Even if you already know the tune, watch the video. It's a quicker tempo than the standard recording that all of us jazz / band / jazz band geeks know and love, and the drum solo? To die for.

If you don't know the tune, shame on you! Watch this video and get your jazz on. (Non-music people: it sounds all groovy partially because there's five beats to the measure — hence the title, "Take Five.")

[thanks for the heads-up, Wil!]

VH1: Love It Or Hate It... Or Both

These days, it seems that VH1 shows two things: reality TV and retrospective shows. By retrospective, I mean stuff like I Love The 80s (or 70s, or 90s, or whatever). I'm not much on reality TV, but the retrospectives? Those are a freaking time sink. Black hole. I accidentally flip to an I Love The 80s Strikes Back marathon — and the next thing I know, it's two hours later, and I'm wondering where my evening went.

My latest VH1 addiction is the 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s. Watching this show is like remembering all the highlights of high school and college on random. I started high school in August of 1990, and I graduated college in December of 2001, so the 90s were really where I came into my own. I know probably 95% of these songs (I'm not hip to the more hip-hop or rap tunes from the mid to late 90s), and all of those are associated with some time in my life. The Cranberries remind me of being home from college for a semester. Oasis reminds me of the early years of my relationship with Aaron (who used to say I was his Wonderwall, while he was my one Natural One).

You know what this means, right? Hell, yeah. New iPod playlist.

Luckily, they have the entire song list posted on their website. So far, I already have about 30 of the top 100 in my iTunes, anyway.

Some of the songs are kind of WTF — "Oh, God, I hated that fucking Spice Girls song!" — but I'll probably put them on my iPod for completeness's sake. And for the amusement factor.

OK, show's back on. Gotta go. :-)

Spirit of Christmas Past (1992, to be exact)

A day or two after the Holiday Concert in 1992 (my Junior year of high school), I came into choir to find a VHS tape on my chair. Someone had given me a copy of the jazz band, concert choir, and wind ensemble performances from the concert — all of which I had performed in, and in one of which I'd had a solo. It's obviously a copy of Mrs. Albrecht's tape — she was the mom who was at every single performance with her giant late 80's / early 90's VHS camcorder. I'm sure someone else must have been taping, too, but they wouldn't have focused in on the red-headed bass so often. :-)

This video brought back so many great memories of high school. I'd forgotten I had any, honestly; when I think of high school, I think of my being a misfit of sorts. Watching this reminded me of what a great time I had in choir and band, and the great relationships (if not quite friendships) I had with my classmates. Fun times were had, like taking Geometry with the choir president, who claimed he knew a hit man who would break our teacher's leg if we could collect a certain amount of money from everyone in the class. But I digress.

As I reviewed this tape, I also remembered every note and almost every word of every song. As I watched Ms. Beall cue the choir's first note, I found myself singing along, accents and all: "GLO - RY to God in the hi-igh-eeeest—" She was a great director, especially considering that she had to accompany at the same time. (I'm sure she still is a great director, too, although these days she's directing the junior high kiddies.)

The first thing I noticed while watching my solo (bookmarked in the above embedded video — just hit Play to hear my, um, glorious voice) is that the camera really does add ten pounds. As does that damnable outfit — mainly the cummerbund. When I was sixteen, I weighed about twenty pounds less than I do today, as I recall, although you'd never know it from this video.

The next thing I noticed was how nervous I was. It was funny: I hadn't watched this video for years before digitizing it yesterday. Still, as I watched my younger self descend the risers and take her place in front of the microphone, my heart started to pound and my breath quickened with the memory of my nerves. It had definitely shown in my voice, too, as my normally smooth vibrato morphed into a nervous tremolo, and any semblance of breath support whooshed away with every quick catch-breath.

After not having seriously sung for so long, I'm taken aback by how mature I tried to sound at age sixteen. I've been known to sing to myself every now and then these days, and I don't even have that dark and mature of a sound now (unless I'm being silly and singing all "looly-loo," as Aaron puts it). To my ear, so many years later, it sounds a little forced. Overall, though, not bad for a high-schooler.

I won't subject you to the jazz band or the wind ensemble. The memories are fun, but the music is painful. Especially the one *really* wrong note from the saxophones in the middle of Russian Christmas Music. The entire jazz band performance is pretty painful, too, come to think of it. (Remind me later to tell you about Ryan Galmarini, our drummer, aka Eternal Freshman. Priceless stuff. Jazz band rehearsals were awesome.)

I never found out exactly why I was given a copy of the performance, or by whom, or if anyone else was given a copy, too. I'm grateful either way, though, because this is the only visual record I have of myself performing with any of my high school ensembles.

Hope you enjoy. Happy Christmahanukwanzakah!

PS - For the music geeks in the crowd, here's links to the specific songs in the concert:

"Be Not Afraid" — Jacobson/Lojeski
  Bass feature: Bill Coersmeyer and Matthew Albrecht
  Women's trio: Jenny Waddle, Diana Cook, Cheri Burdell, and Amy Gumm
"Pat A Pam" — Simeone
  Flute soloist: Melody Marco
"Christmas Hymn" — Baker/Jungst
  Echo chamber group:Jennifer Waddle, May Ying Thao, Cheri Burdell, Brian Murawski
  Conducted by Bill Coersmeyer
"I Wonder As I Wander" — Niles
  Soloist: Diana Cook
"December Child" — Moline/Hayward
  Soprano duet #1: Jennifer Reisner and Elise Bond
  Soprano duet #2: May Ying Thao and Amy Thao
"Twelve Days After Christmas" — Silver

End of an Era

I finally did it.

After turning the thought over in my head for months now, I finally submitted my resignation as LSM webmaster.

It's nothing against them. It's just a reorganization of priorities for me. I can only handle so many projects at a time, and can only keep focused on so much. I'm sure that there is someone actively participating in the corps who has HTML skills and can do just as good a job as I did. Or better, probably.

I just haven't been devoting the amount of time to the website that the corps deserves, and it's been like that for quite a while now. LSM deserves more than I'm currently giving them. And I deserve to be cut free of the guilt I've been giving myself over that very issue.

The announcement feels like a weight lifted from my mind.

Rediscovery

Since I fussed with my iTunes library earlier this week, I've been rediscovering some of the music I've downloaded and ripped over the years. Until Aaron got me my 30GB iPod, I didn't have enough room on my 8GB iPod mini to just add my entire mp3s folder. After he got me the new iPod, I didn't really think about it. Actually, I didn't think about it until I started running out of room on my C: drive, and needed to finally move all my music to my external USB drive.

The result is that I've been listening to songs I haven't touched in years. Remember the days of Scour, around the year 2000 or so? When you could think, "I'd really like to hear this song I haven't heard in years," then you could go online and download the mp3 from Scour, over the web, with no fuss? I still have so many songs from those days.

The RIAA's gonna come and get me. Probably shouldn't blog about how many mp3s I have on my computer, eh?

Anyway, I have my iPod/iTunes set up with Smart Playlists, so I can listen to either my favorite songs or songs that I've just put in my library and have only listened to once or twice. My "New / Unloved" playlist has suddenly ballooned from about 600 songs to over 1400. Hell, my old mini could only hold 600 songs total! Damn. But I've been listening to that playlist for the last couple of days, and have been rediscovering songs I hadn't realized I'd missed. Lots of Folk Implosion, some Catherine Wheel B-sides, pretty much my entire collection of awesome '60s and '70s songs (Strawberry Alarm Clock, Chicago, The Association, et al.), plus a bunch of albums I'd forgotten about, like Dashboard Confessional and Chris Botti and Dream Theater.

This is fantastic. Great background music for writing.

The Flaming Lips at the Agora Theatre

The Flaming Lips at the Agora Theatre, originally uploaded by dianaschnuth.

The Flaming Lips in Concert

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

This was quite possibly the most fun I've ever had at a concert.

Not only are the Lips an incredible band from a musical and lyrical standpoint, but they put on a great show. The audience participation bits actually don't seem cheesy or silly. —Well, I guess they do seem a little silly, but no one really seems to mind. Who cares, when you're beaming a laser pointer (provided by the Lips) off of a giant mirror, or participating in a "scream-along," or bouncing a giant balloon through the crowd up to the very top of the upper balcony?

You MUST check out the rest of my Flaming Lips photos. They tell some of the story. As for the rest of the story... you really just had to be there.

Best concert EVAR.

ETA: Here's the first couple minutes of the show, recorded by Yours Truly:

Disappointment

I've been watching the 2007 DCI Finals on ESPN2 this evening, while recording it on Aaron's computer with the intent to burn a DVD of it before bed.

I just came downstairs and deleted the file. On purpose. I'm never going to be inclined to watch it again.

The corps' programs just didn't grab me this year. I knew that early on, and that's why I didn't attend the Toledo show or travel north to any Michigan shows.

I haven't heard a ballad that brought me to tears in years. It's been a long time since I left a stadium singing a riff from a show, wondering what song that was. The members still totally throw down; it's the design teams that are leaving me scratching my head lately.

I don't think I'm getting old and out of touch, per se... but maybe the activity is moving forward without me. I'll stick with my '88 Bluecoats and my '92 Blue Devils and my '95 Scouts and Cavies and my '96 Phantom and be content with the fact that my favorite years in drum corps seem to coincide with my favorite years in popular music, as well.

Just label me as stuck in the '90s all around, I suppose.

Air For Band

This takes me back to high school band, back in 1992. I joined band my Junior year, and I believe this may have been the first song I ever played with the concert band — in warm-ups. Air for Band was almost always next on the agenda after our brief and basic long-tone warm-up every day. (Music majors, please note that the clarinets are featured, *and* that the main melody is in the difficult "throat tones" of the instrument. Excellent warm-up... in retrospect.)

It got to the point where Mr. W. would just start right into Air for Band before we even got our music out, and we'd have to spend the first phrase or two shuffling papers with one hand and playing with the other. Eventually, I think I had the whole first page memorized; even now, fifteen (!) years later, I can still recall the fingering of the first phrase, and I haven't even touched a clarinet in nigh on ten years. (I can still sing my part all the way through, though, of course.)

Hearing the North Texas Wind Symphony play it so perfectly is almost surreal. In my memory, I can still hear the saxophones (behind me and to my left) completely missing the key change. (One in particular, usually, although they had their days.) Jim would be on the snare in the back; and Jeff, Eileen, or Katie would have the cymbals.

During my Junior year, I was first chair clarinet (yep, my first year in band — it was more because of my attitude than my ability, IMO). That meant I got to sit next to my best friend, Melody, who was first chair flute. We had a vibe goin' on, be it in Concert Band or Jazz Band or after school in the cafeteria. Anyway, I remember it was strange when Mel graduated and I had to spend my Senior year playing Air for Band (and everything else) next to Heather instead.

They weren't the "best years of my life," not by a long shot... but sometimes I forget that they did have their moments. Air for Band was always one of those moments.

Everybody Dance Now

Earlier this week, a co-worker got a song stuck in my head. Actually, just a chorus, since that's all I could remember. The resulting resurgence of mid-to-late-80s hip-hop memories has been disturbing, on one hand, but a hell of a lot of fun on the other.

Last night, I fired up Ye Olde SoulSeek P2P client to see what I could find. Amongst other gems of non-hip-hop-ness, I gathered enough songs to combine with the few staples already in my library in order to start the following "Hip-Hop / Dance" playlist:

Granted, the list is still small, and a couple of the songs are from the 2000's, and one or two of them are more dance than hip-hop. I'm still working on it, though, and I need your assistance.

I'm working on locating I've downloaded "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic tonight — after that, though, I'll need to sift through the Billboard Top 100 from 1986 to 1991 or so to find the songs I need. I'd rather have your suggestions first. I'm trying to focus on hip-hop and dance-pop music from 1986 or 1987 through 1991 or 1992. (That's when I finally found friends who helped me hone my musical taste from the standard Top 40 to "progressive alternative," like The Cure and Depeche Mode and their ilk.)

So, think back to the all-night skate, or the junior-high dance, Dance Party USA, or the clock-radio in your room, and hit me with some good hip-hop tunes that I'll be almost embarrassed to admit that I used to totally love.

Drum Corps Cameraphone

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].

Taken at the Toledo All-Star Review, 17 June 2006.

(Yes, I just got the film developed...)

Drum Corps Withdrawal

Some years, I just don't get "into" corps. I always go to the Toledo show in June — usually the first show of the season for most corps involved — but sometimes, I can't really get excited about making two-hour drives to see other shows during the summer. This was one of those years.

Tonight, on ESPN2, I watched highlights from the DCI World Championship Finals. I recorded it on the PVR program on Aaron's computer, and am currently burning it to DVD. In a few more minutes, I will have a DVD of the two-hour program I just watched, complete with chapter stops to skip the commercials. Tomorrow, this DVD may even have a fancy label printed right on the disc, if I get around to designing one.

Some years, I get "into" corps right about the time the highlights are broadcast on ESPN2 or PBS or whatever medium they're in. I'm not sure if this is one of those years or not.

We'll see tomorrow, after I listen to the On The 50 podcast that's been sitting neglected on my iPod for weeks. If I bring my old DCI tapes downstairs and start digitizing them and burning them to DVD, that's a sign.

Twilight Sheen

I ended up taking a brisk walk around the neighborhood this evening, just before dusk. I'd strapped on my iPod, and the first podcast I queued up was On The 50 (a weekly podcast of drum corps opinion), and I'm sure that affected my mood on some level.

As I finished my first lap around the neighborhood, I'd also finished the podcast. The sky was that particular shade of blue that means the sun has set, and that it's going to be very dark in about five minutes. The stars had begun to come out, and a light breeze was cooling the sheen of sweat I'd managed to accumulate. Circles of light pooled under the streetlamps, spilling over curbs onto the street.

I queued up another podcast as I started my second lap, but my brain was still focused on a memory. Drum corps in the mid 90's.

read more...

Chiropractor, Conclusion

This morning at ten o'clock was my last visit (hopefully) with Dr. Sue. I'm feeling much better now, and very close to normal again.

Last time, she had mentioned that her younger son — Drew, was it? — plays piano and trumpet and xylophone / marimba / bells. She also has a picture of the local chapter of the Sweet Adelines up on her wall. So, I decided to wear my Dick Does Drum Corps shirt to my visit, as a conversation-starter. And did it ever work!

We got talking about music, and how her son has braces, so he had a real problem with the trumpet for a while. (I was thinking that he needs to work on his mouthpiece pressure, then, and use that weird wax that Amber used to use when she played mello with braces. I kept that to myself, though.) Then I talked about being a music ed major for a while, and how I only started playing clarinet in high school, and how I was a choir person before that.

Cue segue into Sweet Adelines discussion.

Turns out that my chiropractor is a baritone in the Pride of Toledo, and that they rehearse not very far from my house on Tuesday evenings. I may go check out a rehearsal, but even with their completely reasonable dues of $30 a month (and their super-close rehearsal location), there's no way I'm devoting that much time to a musical group again. Not yet. Maybe I'll see if I can still sight-read for the hell of it, though. ;-)

Back to the actual chiropractor visit.

After she was done with my adjustments, and after I was decent, she asked me again about my insurance. I told her that they pay 80%, I pay 20%, and reminded her that I hadn't paid her for the last visit. So she opted to have me pay $30 for both visits, and she'd see what my insurance would cover. I wonder if I'll get a refund if the insurance actually pays for what it's supposed to, or if she'll just keep the change.

Either way, I'm still curious about Dr. Smith. I mean, Dr. Sue is very cool and gentle and easy to talk to, but Dr. Smith has The Thumper™. With any luck, though, I won't have to schedule another series of chiropractic visits for some time.

Making Things Difficult

So, I finally decided it's time to get off my ass and work on the LSM page again. Figured I'd start with installing phpBB, the standard generic PHP-based forum. Simple to configure, free... can't go wrong. Right?

Well, I came across a problem. LSM's hosting only allows one SQL database. That spot is currently being used by my home-grown content management system, which is kind of important. So... now I get to figure out how to write a forum FROM SCRATCH. Or at least steal appropriate someone's code.

I'd just gotten myself all excited over figuring out how I might make an alumni database work. Now this... this is a little more daunting. I don't doubt that it's possible, but I also don't doubt that it'll be buggy as hell. I just hate to disappoint. Shout-out to all web geeks: any help here? Where can I find my holy grail of forum code?

I guess the bright side is that my users a.) will be able to access the forum with their site login, and b.) will *have* to sign up if they want access to the member forums!

Update, 6/9/06: Thanks to Sheryl's and Dan's patient explanations, I now have a brand-spankin' new forum installed on the LSM site! Now all I have to do is write a post about how to sign up, how to play nice, etc; add a forum link to the main site; and email the board of directors so they can be my guinea pigs to test the thing. :-)

For Diana's Listening Pleasure

I found out pretty early on in our relationship that Aaron was a big music fan. We went to Ann Arbor for our third date, a triple-date with Mary/Drew and Heather/Garza. Aaron definitely tended to gravitate toward the record stores while we were there, and was bummed that he didn't have more money to spend on records (especially since I was jobless and had made him pay for my lunch at Amer's). So, naturally, I was curious about the music he was listening to, as I had never heard of ANY of it.

Before Spring Break, he made me a mixtape. The spine of the insert read: "For Diana's Listening Pleasure: selections from Aaron's CD collection." On the tape were the following songs:

Side A:

1. Wally Pleasant - Stupid Day Job
2. Sugar - Your Favorite Thing
3. Frank Black - Fazer Eyes
4. Catherine Wheel - I Want To Touch You
5. Pure - Lemonade
6. Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Someday I Suppose
7. Ash - Jack Names The Planets
8. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Blue X Man
9. Pixies - All Over The World
10. Man or Astro-Man? - Sferic Waves
11. Sebadoh - Magnet's Coil

Side B:

1. Dirty Three - Better Go Home Now
2. Folk Implosion - Lo-Fi Suicide
3. Pavement - Give It A Day
4. Clutch - Big News I
5. Henry Rollins - Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
6. Rollins Band - Right Here Too Much
7. The Amps - Tipp City
8. Afghan Whigs - Debonair
9. Sentridoh - Perfect Excuse
10. 24 Gone - Girl Of Colours
11. Sugar - Explode And Make Up

I listened to this tape nonstop during my week of Spring Break in Parma, so much so that my step-Gary would often get up without saying a word and just hit the stop button on my boom box, then quietly sit back down again.

Over the years, I continued to listen to this tape. This tape was so much a staple of my listening repertoire that I frantically performed cassette tape surgery with scotch tape when it got caught in my aging boom box. After that, I hesitated to play it very often, just in case the Afghan Whigs would get caught in the heads of my tape player again. I eventually stored the tape away with my other tapes, listening instead to the follow-up tapes of Rollins spoken word and Sugar and 24 Gone and Afghan Whigs and Catherine Wheel.

A few weeks ago, I unearthed the tape from a box in the bottom of a closet, and spent a couple of days hunting down digital versions of the mixtape songs. And now, I'm sharing all 100MB of 90's goodness with you:

[music_sampler.zip - 103MB]

I didn't include the Rollins spoken word, but everything else is there, in the exact version I have on tape. (Note: Three files are in iTunes .m4a format; the rest are mp3s.)

I now have this set up as a playlist on my iPod. Funny how things change. Funny how all things old are new again.

My Musical Tastes

So, this handy tool will probably make its way into my About page as soon as I get around to it: my top ten artists, as calculated by Last.fm. Fun!

Keep in mind, though, that this only counts the music I listen to at my computer at home. It can't count my iPod plays (yet), which would totally change the dynamic of artists and tracks. (Much more J-Pop, and Death Cab For Cutie would definitely be higher up in the Top 10.)

As it stands, Depeche Mode is #1 due only to the fact that they provided the correct mood for writing last month's vampire story. And most of the music in my Top 10 is basically just good music for websurfing — or for web designing, in the case of the Moby and the Oakenfold. I like to design to trance, don't ask me why.

But, yeah. Fun. If you decide to join up on Last.fm, be sure to friend me! I need some friendage, yo.

It's Done.

I turned in my mellophone after last night's Lakeshoremen Open House.

There were several reasons I decided not to march in 2006, but the membership was definitely not one of those reasons. Everyone was supportive of my decision, and they all seemed to understand, but they really didn't want me to go. Kemo tried to convince me to attend a few early rehearsals, so we'd have an easier time recruiting mellos, and Ann and Mona kept asking if I'd changed my mind yet.

Really, though, after two years (winter, spring, and summer) of driving to Michigan every other weekend, I'm finding that I'd rather enjoy my weekends with my husband instead. Maybe we can be social sometimes, instead of cramming all our chores and laundry and shopping into one day. Maybe attend some of the weekend-long anime conventions we had to pass on last year. Yes, this is a bit of a selfish decision, I suppose -- but this is the time to be selfish, before Aaron and I start a family.

I felt a little more secure about leaving the mello line after seeing the new talent, though. Amber's returning, and there's two or three new mellos (depending on whether Courtney ends up being drum major); so, even with me leaving and Duane opting to focus on writing and cleaning drill instead of marching, there's still a solid core of three or four strong mellos (assuming we don't scare any of them off). The goal for 2006 is five mellos, so we're well on our way.

I was pleasantly surprised at not only the number of new people at the Open House, but also at the quality of the overall sound we produced. LSM just keeps getting better and better earlier and earlier every year. The hornline had 19 returning and prospective members total, and there are still a few returning members who couldn't make the Open House. I think that, if everyone does their part with recruiting, we'll fill out the hornline this year with no problem. Three tubas (or contras, if you prefer), five mellos, ten baris and ten trumpets (or sopranos, again, if you're old-school). I think we can do it.

And, yes, I still say "we" because I'm still involved with LSM, despite my not marching. I'm still the webmaster, and I'm still a member at-large of the Board of Directors. (That said, anything I state on my personal site should not by any means be construed to be the official word of the Lakeshoremen. Check lakeshoremen.org for official news.)

It's like Dan said:

Once you grow up and move on, it's nice to actually MOVE ON. If you have something positive in your life to devote your attention to, why spend your time and energy on a chapter that is admittedly closed? The glory days of youthful summers are gone, but the heady days of mature summer can kick just as much ass, though in a different way.

I say you can give back to drum corps any way you want, but explore the next chapter of life with the same enthusiasm with which you explored your youth.

Conundrum

Here's the thing.

This past summer, I was waffling weekly about whether I wanted to march drum corps in 2006. I would be getting ready to drive the hour and a half up to a "camp" (aka six-hour-long rehearsal), or to a parade, or to a carpool site before a weekend trip, and I'd be absolutely positive that, no, I'm not doing this next year.

Then I'd arrive at said rehearsal or performance and wonder how I could possibly think to give this up. Not once would I contemplate what was going on at home, or the opportunity cost of marching drum corps. I was berating myself for not practicing more at home, and concentrating on my own personal performance at the moment. That's what corps is all about: focusing on a common goal, working toward a vision, doing my best not to be the weakest link.

Now that I've had some time away from it, though, I've been thinking about my reasons for wanting to march next year, and I'm finding them weaker than I'd previously thought.

First, I wanted to be a part of the very first competitive Lakeshoremen season. Since our debut at DCA was unexpectedly upgraded from mini-corps to Class A corps, though, I *was* a part of the LSM competitive debut. And we did well. We didn't come in last — in fact, we were quite near the middle of the pack. I even had my very own little mellophone solo (not actually a solo, per se, but a good measure or so where you can hear my very own countermelody line over the rest of the corps).

Second, I was under the impression that I'd be very interested in playing whatever music we ended up playing in 2006. Several ideas were bandied about at the end of the 2005 season, but I was particularly underwhelmed with the near-final song selection that was played at the banquet earlier this month. I could really care less about playing that music. No disrespect to the show design team, of course. It just was a total turnaround from the ideas that had been shared late in the 2005 season. So, the musical selection isn't such a pull factor anymore.

Third, and most importantly, I had wanted to march one more season of drum corps before Aaron and I decide to start a family. One more summer of selfish indulgence in what *I* want to do. Because, after we decide to pop out our progeny, the selfish days are over. Now that I think about it, though... wouldn't I rather spend my possibly-final childless summer with my husband? Not in a car driving to Michigan every other weekend? Or more? I think I'd rather go to anime conventions and on vacation and hit garage sales and go thrifting and do all the things that my drum corps activity curtailed last summer.

I might turn in my mellophone at the Open House next month.

I'm still an at-large member of the Board of Directors, and I'm still webmaster. I'd also like to take some photos for the corps, for PR and for the website. I want to stay involved. But not at the expense of my family, or my relationship with my husband.

I think I've convinced myself. But what do you think?

Bob Mould: Detroit 10-1-2005

Here's my first attempt at a homegrown MySQL photo album: 10 photos from the Bob concert last weekend.

Fantastic show. Bob started out with three songs from his early-90's band Sugar, which I'm fairly sure gave Aaron and me simultaneous geekgasms. The entire gamut of Bob's solo career, Sugar, and Husker Du were all represented in the setlist, which almost made up for my missing Sugar in concert by a few years.

Aaron's better at concert reviews than I am, so maybe he'll post something more in-depth in the comments. Until then, suffice to say that this was the best concert I've been to in a very long time. I hadn't seen Bob for fucking years, and this show was extraordinary. Awesome.

Google Ads Amuse Me

How utterly amusing. I'm sure there's some witty comment that should go along with this Google Ad, but it's escaping me right now. Something about various defunct corps — yes, the entire corps — gathering dust in some insano fan's basement after having been purchased at a price-slasher discount on eBay.

VK 1996: Hey, man, can we come out now? Our NASA jumpsuits are starting to smell funny, and our families think we got deported.
High Bidder: Only after you play that song from Star Wars again...
VK 1996: Dude, you suck.

Kilties Member Dies During Preliminary Competition

By Drum Corps Planet
Sep 3, 2005, 19:37

Joel "Lothar" Magnuson, mellophone player with the Kilties Drum & Bugle Corps, tragically passed away this evening after collapsing on the field during the corps' performance at the Drum Corps Associates' preliminary competition.

Following his collapse, the Kilties cleared the field mid-performance while medical personnel attended to him. The corps then restarted its performance after Joel was taken by ambulance toward a nearby hospital. Following the corps' official photograph, they were told of Joel's untimely death.

Joel was a charter member of the Kilties, from Racine, WI, when they reformed as a Senior corps in 1993. When not marching with the corps, "Lothar" worked as a chef at Amelia's Restaurant in Milwaukee, WI.

The entire Drum Corps Planet family extends our thoughts & prayers to the Joel's family, friends, and the Kiltie organization during this difficult time.

And I was there.

read more...

Corps Season is Almost Over

I'm leaving tomorrow evening after work to head off to the Drum Corps Associates finals in Scranton PA. Rehearsal is on Friday, with a brass ensemble performance that evening. Saturday we rehearse some more, and head out to the stadium in the early evening for our competitive debut.

Deep down, I'm nervous and excited... but I'm having one of those *meh* sort of days today, so I'm not excited about it right this moment. I'm feeling like I wish I could spend the long weekend with my husband instead. I feel like I haven't practiced enough over the past, oh, entire summer. It feels like the end of the semester, when I know that no amount of cramming will make me pass the final exam. But I know that when I get out there, in front of whatever crowd there may be, under the lights (if they have them on yet), I'll be excited and happy to perform and I'll feed off the energy of my corpsmates and the audience.

*checks Google maps for drive time*

Um.

OMFG.

Since I'm not taking time off of work tomorrow for a travel day, and my ride is swinging past Toledo around 6pm, we're not going to get to Scranton until TWO O'CLOCK AM. *facepalm*

I have made a bad decision. Shoulda just taken my last remaining half-day of personal time, I guess. Ah, well. As I recall, the guy I'm rooming with for the weekend isn't leaving until after work, too, so he'll probably be getting there around the same time. So, the plus side is that I won't wake his ass up. The minus side? I'll only get maybe four or five hours of sleep before breakfast and rehearsal.

Damn, damn, damn. What a double-edged sword this senior corps thing can be.

When I aged out of Junior corps, I would have given anything to be able to keep marching. Now that I've found a way, I find that I'm not entirely sold on it anymore. It would be different, maybe, if Aaron were into it too, and came with me. As it is, on drum corps weekends, I have to choose the corps or my husband.

I don't know how much longer I can force myself to have to make that choice.

One more year, maybe.

*sigh*

Last.fm

Audioscrobbler was, at first, a curiosity for me. I downloaded a plugin, and it gave me stats about the music I listen to. It could also spit out an RSS file of what I've been listening to in the recent past, which was also quite cool.

It suddenly got cooler.

Audioscrobbler has rebranded itself Last.fm, and can now give even more statistics. Click the "recommendations" link, and Last.fm will look at your favorite artists and give you some other artists you might want to check out. (For me, Last.fm suggests The White Stripes, Wilco, Weezer, Badly Drawn Boy, and Ben Folds Five, among others. I'm already a White Stripes fan, but I don't listen to them much anymore — Last.fm doesn't know that, though.)

The absolute coolest part of the new Last.fm, though, is the free Last.fm player. Without paying for a premium Last.fm subscription, you can download the player, click the "Start Radio" link, and select "neighbour radio" to listen to music selected from your Last.fm Neighbours, people who share similar musical tastes with you. Plus, the Last.fm Player transmits the songs you've heard, so that they count in your own Recent Tracks and get added to your stats. If I thought shuffle play on my iPod was sweet, this kicks it up a notch. BAM!

But wait! There's more! On certain artists' Last.fm info pages, you can click a "preview track" button to listen to a stream of 30-second previews of the artists' songs. Very cool feature, and it saves the time of going and searching for the most popular song by an artist and downloading it and deciding whether it rocks or sucks before downloading (er, I'm sorry, I meant buying) the entire album.

No, I was not paid for this plug. I've just enjoyed discovering this new aspect of my cute little Audioscrobbler. I mainly use Audioscrobbler / Last.fm for finding new music, and this makes the process much more streamlined.

There are some bugs with the system, though. The Last.fm Player is still a touch new, and the buffer stutters sometimes, but I haven't had too much trouble with it and it's starting to bug me, especially when it totally stops playing and I have to relaunch the app. Also, the Audioscrobbler plugin for iTunes doesn't upload the play count from my iPod — which is unfortunate, as I listen to most of my music on my iPod these days (several hours at work vs. a couple hours at home).

It's fun, though. Go sign up. I'll be your friend, and it'll be keen.

A Confession

I'm still pissed at myself for my lame rehearsal yesterday. The entire rehearsal wasn't lame ? the corps made some fairly decent progress overall ? but my own personal performance was sub-par all day. What really gets me is that my poor performance is entirely my fault; I can't just chalk it up to a bad day. It could have been avoided had I actually practiced during the past two weeks.

It had to be painfully obvious that I hadn't practiced ? at least, it was obvious to me. My endurance was pathetic. I could barely play by the end of rehearsal, and my lips are still swollen, even today. I tried to admit it and shrug it off at the same time by admitting to my closer corps friends that I'd been working on the website instead of practicing my mellophone.

The truth is, I did neither.

Greg Dulli to Release New Album

David Nadelle of Pitchfork: Daily Music News reports:

Former Afghan Whigs frontman and silver-tongued devil Greg Dulli has spent little time in the spotlight since the collapse of his former band. The singer would be the first to admit that rather than cranking out the tunes Ryan Adams-style, he tends to return to past ideas and noodle them into completion. Sometimes it's deliberate, sometimes fate-- following the 2002 loss of a dear friend (director Ted Demme), Dulli turned his back on the album he had been working on, issuing a wholly different record in tribute to Demme. The resulting Twilight Singers album, Blackberry Belle, came out in 2003 on Birdman Records, and now its unreleased older brother, now entitled Amber Headlights, will see release on September 6. The album is the curtain-raiser for Dulli's Infernal Recordings imprint and contains many friends and past collaborators, most notably multi-instrumentalist Petra Haden. Tracklist:

01 So Tight
02 Cigarettes
03 Domani
04 Early Today (And Later That Night)
05 Golden Boy
06 Black Swan
07 Pussywillow
08 Wicked
09 Get the Wheel

Dulli has also co-written songs with Screaming-Tree-turned-roots-rocker Mark Lanegan in the eventual hope of issuing a record as the Gutter Twins. Until that day comes, the Gutter Twins will manifest themselves solely on two dates with Italian band Afterhours. Meanwhile, Dulli hopes to finish the new Twilight Singers album Powder Burns, and to mount a full-scale tour, both of which have tentative arrival dates of "early 2006".

Musical Poseurs

It's a slow day at work today (again). So, while I'm thinking of it, I wanted to mention something I found on my work's intranet.

There was an employee profile I read online, where the employee being interviewed said, "I love all music, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, Enya, Shania Twain and the Beatles." I found this pretty amusing, being a person of fairly eclectic musical taste myself. If she loves all music, where's the jazz? The industrial? The classical? All I'm seeing is country and easy listening and the Beatles. (I wonder if she likes their later, stranger albums, too?)

I'd like to be indignant and declare her a poseur and say that I really DO love all music... but I know I don't. I'm not a big fan of modern country, or gangsta rap, or even recent "modern rock" in more than small doses. And I'm sure there's other music I've never heard that I don't like, either.

That's the thing: everyone says that they like just about all kinds of music, but they don't ? and can't ? consider music that they rarely or never hear during the course of their daily lives. They may think they really do like everything... but it's only everything within their own sphere of influence. Most people want to think they're eclectic and tolerant and far-reaching in so many ways... but they're not.

I include myself in this generalization, as well. As far as music goes, I enjoy alternative, some modern rock, some punk, ska, classic rock, jazz, classical, drum & bugle corps, barbershop / a capella, progressive rock, easy listening ("adult contemporary"), some techno/electronic, some j-pop, new wave, synthpop, old-school rap, folk, pre-90's country, some international music, and some other music that can't quite be pigeonholed. I know for a fact that I don't like gangsta rap, modern country ("crossover" country is almost worse), really heavy industrial, a lot of modern rock and pop... but I can't think of much else that I can't stand, mainly because I don't find myself in situations where I would experience music I may not like.

So, yes, feel free to claim that your tastes are eclectic. Claiming that you love "all" music is a bit of a stretch, though.

Remembering Drumcorps

I was just reading a column on DCI.org, and one particular section caught my attention:

It?s funny how we all easily forget memories that are so important to us. What would we do without each other to remind us of all the funny things that happened? Would we try and remember the day that our caption head fell right on his butt trying to imitate how horrible we looked during a phrase? Or would we simply forget and let the memories fade with time?

The last thought is the scariest for me that comes along with leaving the activity for good. My caption head, Jamie Oakley, always said that we will never remember the bad days, only the good. That our struggle in the heat and torrential downpours would make us better but would never be our first thoughts when reminiscing about the entire season with our friends.

Maybe I just haven't schmoozed with enough alumni from my years in Northern Aurora and the Bluecoats, but I find that I think equally of the bad and the good times. They were fairly evenly dispersed throughout my three years in Junior corps, but I wouldn't have it any other way. (Well, maybe.)

read more...

Drum Corps Reflections

My practice gloves smell like sunscreen and sweat. I reach into the horn case and put them on. I lift out my mellophone, still shiny from the bath and polishing it got Saturday afternoon before the performance.

That shine was the first thing, back in the summer of 1995, that made me truly realize that I was part of a drum corps. I remember being on the practice field at the Memorial Day camp, looking around the circle of horns warming up, and seeing the sun shine bright off the silver. It spoke to me somehow, made me realize that I was part of something I'd never dreamed I could do.

Now, standing in the basement of my house, I pick up my LakeShoremen horn, blow some long tones and lip slurs to warm up, then play through the show, opening my music to look at a few bars in a couple songs that I can never seem to get right. I run through the trouble spots again, then warm down with "Contact," the horn feature.

It's up to me now. This isn't Junior corps, like Northern Aurora or Bluecoats. No one is going to make me practice. If I want to perform better at DCA than I did at DCM, I need to apply myself. Now that I've tasted performance again, now that I've roll-stepped out onto the turf and seen the stadium lights flash off the silver horns, now that I've heard the applause again and been congratulated by one of my own for a job well-done, now I can find the impetus to practice on my own.

How could I have thought of leaving? I'll have to take time away from LSM eventually, I know... but not quite yet. There's plenty of time to have kids and stay home on weekends. For now, I'm just starting to remember why I love this activity.

Lou Barlow

Neither myself nor Aaron had ever gotten to see Lou Barlow live before this show. (Lou Barlow = Folk Implosion, Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Kids soundtrack... remember the song "Natural One" from the late 90's?) Being a giant fan of Lou, and wanting to support the Hannelore Barlow charity tour, we bought ourselves tickets and headed out to Coventry.

Anyway, he performed back in March at the Grog Shop and, despite my less-than-stellar Tegan and Sara results, I brought my trusty lomo along. This was one of the two shots of Lou that I got; after a while, I realized that they weren't really going to come out well, and I gave up on snapping pictures and just enjoyed the show.

Bob Mould: Body of Song

No, I haven't found the leaked album. But it's not for lack of trying.

It's late, so this will be kind of disjointed, but I wanted to get my first thoughts written down.

I was surfing through my blogroll, hitting sites I hadn't hit in a while, when I surfed over to Bob Mould's blog. He's been promising us a guitar-driven album for a while now—several years, in fact—and, lo and behold, Body of Song is finally due for release next month! I also learned from Bob's blog that the album had been leaked.

Which, of course, set me to trying to find it.

I did manage to find it on Soulseek, but the guy logged off before I could get ANY of it. Now, you watch: I'll wake up in the morning and Aaron will have read this and downloaded a torrent of it overnight. [No, wait, there it is. Only 3.5 KB/sec, but it's going. I'll have it by the time Aaron gets home.]

Anyway, I did find a couple of sanctioned tracks: (Shine Your) Light Love Hope, and Paralyzed.

read more...

P2P Is Not Evil

My husband and I have recently downloaded several forthcoming albums by our favorite artists. We don't feel bad about it.

Sure, we've had the new Beck album for months. We had the Nine Inch Nails weeks before its release. We just downloaded the new Coldplay and Clutch albums. (OK, mainly this is all my husband's intarweb sleuthing, but I enjoy the fruits of his labor.) The thing is—and here's the monkey-wrench in the RIAA's sales-slump complaints, IMO—we still plan to buy the albums.

Music critic Sasha Frere-Jones makes a point about this in her blog, but from another perspective—from the people who actually get (or don't get) the advance copies from the record labels:

50 Cent was all over the P2P networks for weeks before The Massacre dropped and he's already done five million. Coldplay will move their four million with or without P2P. Why? Because people want the record. The marginal loss of sales to downloading?already disproven by one study?would not even kick in for in-demand artists, because the fans and curious tourists will want the CD no matter what's on the web (sometimes because the web is simply not their thing [see: age curve]). With another kind of album—those that nobody wants or knows they want yet—the "harm" of downloading is equally irrelevant, though for a different reason: any barriers to a less-desired album's dissemination only further dissolves an already shallow bond between the artist and their potential audience.

Take, for example, Keane. I was bored with my musical selections, so I checked out my Audioscrobbler neighbors. There I found Keane. WTF, I figured, and fired up Soulseek to download their album.

I loved it. I ate it up. I bought the album from BMG, and I bought two singles (with non-album tracks!) off of Amazon.

What if I hadn't downloaded the album? I don't listen to mainstream radio anymore. Hell, I don't even listen to internet radio. I would have had absolutely no exposure to Keane. P2P networking just made Keane and Interscope Records another three sales.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Oh, and these bands who are including DVDs along with their audio CDs for a similar price? You guys have the right idea. We consumers like extra goodies. Take a tip from the Japanese, who get jacked on their domestic CDs so bad that it would be cheaper for them to buy imports. How do you get people to buy your overpriced product? Throw in goodies. CD-Extra content. DVDs. Plushies. Pencil boards (OK, that wouldn't work so much in the States). Ultra-cool packaging. Display value.

With popular music being the atrocious pile of shit that it is these days, of course we're going to want to sit down with the music and decide whether or not we want to support the artist by actually purchasing their album. If we like it, and especially if you throw in stuff we can't download off of teh intarweb (yet), we will be more than happy to give you our money.

iPod Randomness

The shuffle play on my iPod today is fantastic! I added the new Coldplay, Clutch, Beck, and White Stripes last night, and it's randoming to each album just enough. I also have WOXY's Modern Rock Minute on my iPod, so it's like listening to my very own radio station that doesn't suck. Early 90's Depeche Mode, Tegan and Sara, a massive collection of 80's synthpop, some indie emo stuff, and a smattering of funny novelty and hip-hop tunes (The Terrible Mr. Grimshaw, The Thong Song, Baby Got Back, Poison by Bell Biv Devoe), among other songs and albums, makes for a great work mix.

Makes the day much less tedious.

Sneak Peek

I don't think I'm quite ready to ask the Executive Director or the Assistant Director to look at my LSM website redesign ideas. I've put my first three Photoshop comps on one page with notes, and I think I'm going to wait until I have an even half-dozen before I give them the URL and ask them for a critique.

However... I think I'll let you guys have a look-see and let me know what you think of the designs I have up so far. Leave me some feedback, good or bad, in the comments here—maybe I can improve on my next three comps.

Oh, and I'd really appreciate it if no one, ah, *appropriates* my layout ideas? I'm really proud of myself for coming up with the second two, and I may recycle any layouts I don't use for the LSM site. ;-) Not that I think that any of my regulars here would swipe my ideas, but I get 30 entire hits a day, and that means that there are about 20 strangers reading this shit. o.O

Memorial Day 2005

My Memorial Day in a nutshell: drive to Michigan, 2½ mile parade, lunch, 3½ hour rehearsal, dinner, performance for returned Marines, drive home. Total time away from home: approximately 14 hours. Total driving time: approximately four hours.

Overall impression of the day: productive.

read more...

A Musical Baton

Hey! I get to be the first to introduce a new meme to my little clutch of friends, thanks to Ellie passing me the baton. Thanks!

Total volume of music files on my computer:
14.94GB (2702 songs; 9 days, 3 hours)

The last CD I bought:
Keane - Everybody's Changing and Somewhere Only We Know singles

Song playing right now:
Nothing - Aaron's websurfing too, so I don't have anything playing, out of courtesy to him. Thanks to this meme, I have a bunch of different songs playing in my head right now, too, so I can't really pick one out. Maybe James - How Was It For You?

Five songs I listen to a lot, recently:
James - Ring The Bells
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
Lou Barlow - Mary
DJ Funk - Ass and Titties (an old RCC favorite)
Fischerspooner - A Kick in the Teeth

Five people to whom I?m passing the baton:
Sheryl
Beth
Erk
Jason
Aaron (you can post in the comments, since I know you won't update schnuth.com)

Good stuff. Ready... go!

Elephant Riders From The Northwest Bring... A New Album

CLUTCH SET TO RELEASE THEIR SIXTH STUDIO ALBUM ?ROBOT HIVE / EXODUS? ON JUNE 21, 2005

Co-Headlining Sounds of the Underground Tour Beginning June 24

New York, NY — DRT recording artist Clutch are set to release their sixth studio album titled, Robot Hive / Exodus. The album was prodcued by J. Robbins (Jawbox, The Dismemberment Plan) and recorded at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY, and mixed at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ.

The follow-up to the acclaimed Blast Tyrant, Robot Hive / Exodus firmly implants Clutch as one of the most talented hard rock bands making music today. With wildly creative songs that feature amazing musicianship and thought-provoking lyrics, Robot Hive / Exodus solidifies Clutch?s hard rock legend status. The band will showcase their new material on the upcoming ?Sounds of the Underground? tour which they are co-headlining along with Lamb of God. The tour begins June 24th in Lowell, MA, and will cross the entire country through the first week of August.

New Toy

So, this is what's been occupying my time for the past two days: Aaron's (early) birthday present to me. *squee*

See, a few days ago, I told Aaron that I was going to splurge one last time with my new Amazon Visa before I lay off the spending. Of course, he asked what I was going to buy, and I told him: an iPod Mini. And he got this look on his face and said that maybe I shouldn't really buy one right now...

*facepalm* I should know better than to buy myself stuff right before my birthday. I've done that before, and thrown Aaron for a loop. Luckily, I hadn't actually purchased a Mini yet, so all was well... except that I'd managed to ruin a really, really keen birthday surprise.

It's still keen, though. I'm still all a-squee about it, although I can tell that it'll soon become part of my normal gear, like my wallet and my lomo.

Wanna know what's on my iPod?

The Afghan Whigs / Air / Bob Mould / Catherine Wheel / Coldplay / The Cure / Depeche Mode / Fischerspooner / The Flaming Lips / Flogging Molly / Folk Implosion / James / Keane / Lou Barlow / Peter Gabriel / Smashing Pumpkins / Sugar / Tegan and Sara / The Violent Femmes / The White Stripes

...among other things. @whee!

So Close

I was just congratulating myself on getting the first draft of the 2005 LSM brochure done, and remembering to print directions to the corps director's house, since I'm carpooling up to Saginaw with him tomorrow (instead of my normal carpool buddy). Not quite 11:30, and I can go to bed in time to get a satisfactory amount of sleep before having to leave at 9:15am or so.

Then I remembered: I haven't polished my horn yet.

Shit.

*trudges upstairs with silver polish and an old towel*

You May Be Right: I May Be Crazy

But I'm still planning to go to the LakeShoremen January Camp in Attica MI tomorrow. Leaving bright and early, before 8am, to get to Clawson (north of Detroit) by 10am, to carpool up to the Michigan Christian Youth Camp in Attica by 11:30 or noon. Rehearsal lasts from noon to 6pm, after which there's an optional pizza party and some cleanup to be done. Then back to Clawson, and back home to Toledo.

This could suck.

Aaron and I usually do our laundry and shopping on Sundays, so we went out and tried to find an open laundromat tonight. Hit the ATM, topped off the gas tank, no luck finding anyplace to wash our damn clothes. Everyplace closed up early due to the FUCKING SHITTY WEATHER. So, Aaron's going to just do everything tomorrow while I'm off drumcorps-ing. That's awfully cool of him.

Plus, I've promised to turn around and come home if the road conditions suck, and to keep the phone on while I'm driving. (Quite opposite of what most people would say, true, but we rarely have the need or desire to have the cell phone on. It's just good to know it's there if I get in trouble, or if Aaron starts to worry.)

So... wish me luck! (I must be nuts.)

Malaguena, Motley Crue-style?

Now that's a reality show I might get sucked into: Tommy Lee enrolled at the University of Nebraska, taking Chemistry classes and marching in the tenor line. Playing Malaguena. Now, I'm not a big Tommy Lee fan, but I can deal with watching a rocker take on marching band and The History Of Rock And Roll class.

For more drumcorps-related blogging weirdness, such as P.E.A.R.T: The Robotic Drum Machine, check out this site: They're So Old, They Played On Stone Bugles. Heh.

Topless Drumcorps

As requested... I have delved into the drumcorps archives and dredged up the smuttiest and sleaziest drumcorps photos of the late 90's! (And don't forget... you asked for it!)

Here they are, in no particular order:

 
Here's a teaser: just a little midriff.

 
Mmm, some more midriff. Check out that hot... um, chick. Yeah.

 
Chad shaved his head for Finals in '95. That's sort of "going topless"...

 
When I think of topless drumcorps, *this* is my fantasy. Mmm... tasty.

 
But these two fine specimens are more of the reality than the fantasy.

 
And finally: bottomless drumcorps. Or pantsless, if you prefer.

Tegan & Sara: Live in Cleveland

After the mildly disappointing BGSU Libraries Record Sale on Saturday, Mark came over to our house and we headed out to Cleveland to see Tegan and Sara live at the The Grog Shop.

read more...

Mmm... Free iPod...

As opposed to Aaron's idea of getting an iPod and paying it off over one interest-free year, thanks to credit from Musician's Friend, I got sucked into the Get a Free iPod craze.

Yes, there's always a catch, and this offer is no exception. First, you have to complete an offer—I chose to sign up for BMG, which was pretty painless. I didn't really expect even this much of the process to work... but, lo and behold, I received an e-mail from the nice FreeiPods.com people today, saying that I'd completed my offer.

Well, hot damn.

Now all I have to do is shill my friends.

See, that's Step 2: I have to refer five friends to the site and get them to complete offers, too. The best offers listed are the BMG signup that I did, maybe the Blockbuster Online deal (sounds like NetFlix to me), or join the Columbia House DVD Club, or subscribe to USA Today (that wouldn't be bad). Of course, if you don't have enough credit cards in your wallet, there's over half a dozen of those to try out for, too.

Soooo... if you're so inclined, please consider yourself invited to check out the Free iPods scheme. If not... well... Aaron's probably going to buy himself one, anyway. I'm sure he'll share.

Right, honey-muffin...?

A Measure of How You'll Be Missed

Last Sunday was the 2004 LakeShoremen Banquet. You may recall that I didn't attend for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was the two-hour drive. Anyway, I had assumed—or, perhaps, just hoped—that someone would miss me. That I'd catch some flak from someone for not being there. That someone would tell me that I'd won some award or other, and that they'd have it for me at the first 2005 rehearsal.

But alas. Nothing.

My egotistic assumption that someone would miss me at the banquet reminded me of a poem my Mom taught me long ago, that I'd nearly forgotten (and Google managed to remind me):

Supersizus Interruptus

I had just sat down to write a review of Super Size Me, the documentary that I went to see yesterday with Mark and Aaron, when Kris Heath called. Turns out that he and Jamie happened upon the PBS broadcast of the 2004 DCI World Championship Finals, and he wanted to let me know it was on—which was good, because I hadn't realized it would be broadcast so soon after Finals. Usually, it's not broadcast until Thanksgiving weekend.

As always, watching Finals on PBS was an experience best shared with no one. If I can't have fellow corps alumni with me, I'd rather not have anyone else watch me silently cheer the incredible drill moves, or tear up at the memory of aging out forever, or any of the other silly unexplainable things I do while watching the broadcast. Having been involved in the activity, these reactions make perfect sense; to someone looking from the outside in, I'm sure it seems... over the top?

Back when I was still marching Junior corps, I'd seen alumni from the 70's bawl like babies when they saw the Troopers perform their signature starburst drill move, simply because no one does that anymore, and it was once a staple of drum corps repertoire. I only vaguely understood back then what they were feeling, even with the drum corps experience that I had. I can't imagine what people with no drum corps experience whatsoever would make of this.

Even without the drum corps experience under your belt, though, the DCI PBS broadcast is a wonderful program. Back in high school, before I ever dreamed I could possibly age out of a Top 12 corps and play in The Night Show, I watched and admired the ability of these young people to perform with such intensity. All the corps put on a great show, and every last kid is giving it his or her best for that one final performance. Even without knowing it firsthand, you can see in their eyes their love for the activity and their corpsmates, and it can really move you if you let it. When I saw it back in high school, I wanted that feeling myself. I never thought I'd actually get it.

Even now, seven years later, it's such a great memory.

Random thoughts

Even though I marched two parades over the weekend, I'm still not sure how that, combined with eating three pieces of pizza, made me lose almost three pounds this week. ::shrug::

It's goddamned hot tonight. I'm even wearing one of my new tank tops from Fashion Bug (yay, $9.99 shirts!), and sitting in the basement, and I'm still sweltering. Yeesh. Aaron's gotta be having a fun time at work tonight.

I didn't have a whole lot I wanted to accomplish today, which is good, since I took another 90-minute nap this evening. —Oh, but I did want to boil some eggs. Hang on... I'll be right back.

*pauses Winamp, runs upstairs and puts eggs on to boil, sets timer*
*waters plants and takes ailing begonia upstairs to better window*

OK, I'm back. Damn, our stove is boil-a-rific. I'm not used to electric yet; this thing gets water boiling in, like, three minutes. Crazy. Must be one of those stoves Emeril talks about when he tells you to use your knobs.

Saturday night up in Michigan was actually quite a good time, watching drum corps videos and DVDs on a projection screen in Russ's garage in Clawson. Been a long, long time since I attended a drum corps party. This weekend, though, I'm planning to take a weekend off from corps instead of going up to the show in Kalamazoo. I've had enough of driving to Michigan for corps for a while. On August 7, I have to go up and carpool to Grand Haven for the Coast Guard parade and performance, stay up there overnight, and drive back on Sunday. I may take a personal day on that Monday, just so I feel like I've had a weekend. And before that, there's the Bluecoats' home show in Massillon (Canton). Since I'm skipping out on K-Zoo, I'm definitely going to that one, even though it's two hours away on a Sunday night. Hopefully I'll be able to get someone to go with me.

In other news, I have the last week of this month off. Yay, vacation! Aaron has it off, too, and the following week, as well. We still haven't figured out where we're going, although the consensus is that we want to use the tent we got for our wedding (and, no, we're not doing a backyard campout). Bring the lawn chairs-in-a-bag, the picnic basket (maybe), do some hiking, maybe some swimming... not sure where yet, though. Should be fun, anyway. I'm ready for a week off.

Hmm. Better go check on those eggs.

July 4th Drumcorps Fever

Aaron reported that while I was at work today, Paul from my senior corps called and wanted to know if I could give him a ride to the parade tomorrow morning. I had been going to double-check the timeframe, anyway, so I looked at the Lakeshoremen schedule to see when the parade started and when the brass line was meeting to warm up.

OMG. I have to leave the house at 6:15am.

Arrive at Paul's house at 7:30am; arrive at the carpool location at 7:45am, warm up at 8am, parade starts at 9am. Lunch at Russ and Barb's house (the aforementioned carpool location) after the parade... and the party will continue into the evening and night, as those of us from faraway lands (Toledo and northern-mid-Michigan) prepare to stay the night at the Braman household.

For Sunday morning's parade begins at sunrise.

Well, OK, sunrise is at 6:03am (according to the Weather Channel) and warmups start at 6:30am, so I guess it's not really at sunrise. We'll have to be up and ready to head off to the parade staging area in Plymouth before that, though. Of course, this is all assuming that it doesn't rain on our parade—literally.

I think it might be different if the Toledo Glassmen had a senior corps being funded out of their organization; then I could do parades in, say, Maumee or Toledo or Perrysburg or BG, or even Lima or Wauseon wouldn't be horrible. I enjoy being in the corps and marching again, don't get me wrong. It's just that I don't enjoy trading off for the only potential quality time I have with my husband in order to do it.

Maybe once we field a show and the returns feel more "worth it," it'll even out. Maybe fielding a show will push me over the edge and make me not want to do it anymore—after all, most "real" DCA (Drum Corps Associates; senior corps) shows are in New England. That's a bit of a haul for everybody, not just Yours Truly.

Anywho, I'm going to go play some Civ III and wait for Paul to return my confirmation I'm-giving-you-a-ride call. —Er, check that. Just got a 30-second call from Paul. I guess he's going to leave his wife the car so she can attend the post-parade party for a while, too. I wonder if that means he'll a.) be going home with his wife, or b.) be staying the night at the Bramans' with us out-of-towners. I guess we'll see...

I'm still gonna go play some Civ III, though. :-P

Toledo Drum Corps

I'm crashing early tonight, so I'm going to keep it brief.

I don't think I mentioned it here yet, but I got a new job within Sky Bank. As of today, I'm working in Loan Corrections, and driving 15 or 20 minutes to work across town instead of 30-35 minutes down to BG. So far, I have no complaints... except having to be at work at 7am this morning to unpack my desk and get everything situated. That, plus the fact that there's very little beginner work coming in for me to work on. I think it'll be cool once I learn everything I need to know, though. It'll be a while, I'm sure, since there are so many different functions that Loan Corrections does.

On Saturday night, I headed out to UT's Glass Bowl to watch the first drumcorps show of the season. Arrived early—was planning to meet Garza and his group at 6:45 by the ticket booth, and arrived at 6:20 instead—and got to schmooze with several people I hadn't expected to see. A couple techs (instructors) from Northern Aurora, the first corps I marched; a couple alumni; a couple members of the LakeShoremen; and my high school band director. I shit you not. We must have talked for a good ten or 15 minutes or so. Very cool.

Oh, and the nice lady at the Bluecoats souvenir booth recognized me! Sure, she might have gotten help from the "Diana" embroidered on my jacket and the 1997 Bluecoats member shirt I was wearing, but hey. Even if she did cheat with context clues (which I don't think she did), she gave me the best compliment ever: she told me that she recognized me because I hadn't changed  much.

Bless you, Souvie Booth Volunteer Lady, bless your pea-pickin' heart. Little did you know that I gained 50 pounds after I left corps, and only just recently lost it again.

So much to say...

...so little motivation to say it.

As I'm generally disinterested in posting today, I'll keep it (relatively) brief.

Aaron took Friday night off of work, just because. I like having my honey-muffin around.

Saturday night was Mark's gathering of friends and brohams, at which Aaron and I joined Mark's friends and UPS co-workers in games of Crokinole and Hearts. Hot dogs were grilled and eaten and low-carb beer was imbibed (though not by me). Overall, a very fun time. It made me realize how much I miss playing cards.

Sunday was the Bavarian Festival in Frankenmuth, where the LakeShoremen performed in the annual parade. I left the house at 8am to meet Russ and Barb at their place in Clawson (north of Detroit) at 9:15am. Took another hour and a half to get to Frankenmuth, had lunch, warmups started around 11:30-ish, parade step-off was at 1pm. Overcast all day except when we were marching in the parade. (Go fig.) Impromptu group photo after the parade, post-parade party after that, got to eat bratwurst and meatballs and sausage and all sorts of low-carb yummies. Finally got back home to Toledo at 7:30pm. Fell asleep on the couch by 10:30pm, and was whisked to bed by my honey.

Today, when I got home from work, I tried a new photo transfer technique I read in this month's Popular Photography & Imaging magazine. After a few paper jams and a few test prints, this was the result:

It reminded me of the Polaroid transfer technique Beth was telling me about some time ago. When I have a photo-quality color printer (or even just a color cartridge for our current printer), I'll have to try this again.

Memorial Day Parade

...went well, overall. After leaving the house at 7am, I did zone out on the way up to Novi and missed my exit at the I-475/23 split, and had to backtrack down 23 from Michigan to get back on 475, losing about 15 minutes or so. Then, of course, Mapquest failed to mention that 8 Mile Road was under construction at the I-275 ramp, so I had to do a U-ie in the "Authorized Vehicles Only" lane to get on 8 Mile coming from the other way. All told, I was a good 20 minutes late to meet the hornline. At least they waited for me, though—we were all meeting at the end of the parade route, and carpooling to the start to save us all some headaches after the parade.

Our brass caption head and his brand-new wife were off either getting married or starting on their honeymoon, so we faked our way through warm-ups. That was pretty fun. We also got to fake our way through F-Tuning—anyone who's heard a marching band or drumcorps warm up just before a performance, facing backfield, playing six chords in a row, you've heard it before. (Beth, I'm sure you've heard it. Donna too, if you still read this thing. Dan, certainly.) No sheet music for us, just listening to our drum major rattle off notes to play.

"OK, concert pitch. We all start on F, then you guys stay there, and you guys go up to C and stay there, then you guys go to A, then you go to D while they stay on F and you guys go to B-flat, then baris go to C and..."

Confusing, sure. But fun. Oh, so fun.

The parade itself was... long? Weird? Yeah. Two miles or so, which isn't killing, yet also isn't comfortable. And apparently Novi has no actual downtown area, so we just marched down a stretch of 10 Mile Road. There were stretches with gobs of people, then smatterings, then absolutely no people for a good quarter-mile. We did get to chill out in the spots with no people, though, which was cool.

Senior corps is increasingly different from Junior corps. In Junior corps, all members are expected to stay at attention during the entire parade, be intense, eyes front, watch your posture, no smiling and waving, etc. Remember, this is your time to practice basic marching technique, so make the most of it... blah. Yesterday, we all did stay in step, and we were serious when it mattered; but once we'd played through the parade tune a few times, we had no qualms about calling back to the drumline, "Cadence or taps for a while? Our chops need a rest!" The baritones also switched which hand they held their horns with every now and then, since their left hand would get tired from holding the horn down at their side after a while. And topping the category of Never In A Junior Corps: our tuba player, Russ, unabashedly answered his cell in the middle of the parade. :-)

By the end of the parade route, we'd played through Moorside March at least seven times, and once we got to where the TV cameras were, I'm sure we sounded like the freakin' Salvation Army band. But we made it.

And my lips are still swollen.

After the parade, we all drove our own respective vehicles to Pizza Hut, where we overtook the joint with no one having called ahead. The one server and one pizza cook suggested we all go with the buffet, for the best service. They weren't very happy with us.

It had been a long time since I met up with a bunch of music folks at Pizza Hut. Back in high school, Mel and I used to do Pizza Hut all the time with our woodwind section (and we left the best tips, though it was all change). Anyway, it was also great to get to actually socialize with these people I've been rehearsing and performing with for a while now. I did that a little at the picnic after the Birmingham parade, but not so much as at Pizza Hut. I finally got to hear different corps stories—I think that, by now, Paul knows all mine and I know all of his, since we've carpooled to so many events over the years. :-)

And, best of all, I was home by 2:30. Rock on.

Next parade: Frankenmuth, June 13. Definitely finding a carpool buddy for that one.

Parade Aftermath

I really need to stop going to bed so late, being tired all day, and taking hour-long evening naps after work. It's just not working out.

So, on Sunday I was in a parade in Birmingham, Michigan. Why was there a parade in the middle of May in Michigan, you ask? Well, let me tell you: it was the Basset Hound Parade. I shit you not. Upwards of 500 Basset Hounds brought up the rear of this relatively short parade (and those of us who marched in it were glad they were at the back of the lineup, so as to avoid any... surprizes).

Anyway, it was the first public performance of the full Lakeshoremen Drum & Bugle Corps, and we did fairly well. I did discover that I need to do some more aerobic cardiovascular-type exercise, because after the first run of our parade tune, marching uphill—hell, remembering how to march at all—I was pretty winded. But once I remembered how to breathe properly and pace myself, I did OK. I'm not really muscle-sore at all, except for my shin muscles. The... gastrocnemeus, is it? I seem to remember that from stretching and calisthenics in the BGSU Marching Band. Yeah, my shin muscles. The ones that crank your toes really high when you march in a parade. Those are still sore today. Other than that, my face got a little sun, despite my application of sunscreen, and my bare forearms got a little toasty.

But worst of all: the part in my hair got sunburnt. My scalp. A teeny little strip of my scalp.

Last night, I sat watching TV, and realized that it kind of hurt and was a little moist, like it wished it could blister, or like it had. I picked away the few gummy nasty parts I found, thought little else of it, and went to bed. This morning when I woke up, I had freaking little crystallized crusties growing in my part. It was like rock candy or some shit, kind of crusty but gooey and clingy to my strands of hair. Really, really gross. I managed to get it all out and look presentable, since I didn't have enough time this morning to shower before work, but all day it was still sore. In a while, I'm going to go upstairs and take a cool shower and ever so gently massage my scalp. Maybe I'll put some lotion or something on my scalp, although I'm not so sure how that's going to work out...

I was sick of the cat bugging me a while ago, so I closed the door down here to the basement for a little peace and quiet. I'd better go open it now and make sure the cat isn't causing havoc.

This Weekend

Yesterday: Aaron and I went to BG to meet up with Timmay for lunch at Campus Pollyeyes. Their salads are friggin' gigantic, so we weren't too sad about watching Tim eat his yummy breadsticks. It occurred to us that they always kinda sit funny in your stomach, anyway—not in any sort of "sour grapes" sort of way, but in thinking of how Aaron and I would react to so much bread right now.

We spent two hours there at Pollyeyes, talking and catching up. Tim told the best drunk story ever, including him passing out on the train and being awakened at the end of the line and having to walk five miles home while calling his passed-out roommate who's locked Tim out without his keys and then Tim eating breakfast at a local diner and finally breaking into his own apartment to find his roommate passed out in the bathroom. Classic story, and better than anything that ever happened at BGSU. I miss Tim. Heh.

After hanging out with Tim, we hit Goodwill and the Woodville Small, then went back up to Best Buy to purchase a scanner. Scanners these days are so cool. We got one that scans transparencies (most do now) and comes with this spiffy-assed scanning software that automatically detects where the pictures are on a strip of film and brings them up as thumbnails. Holy crap! Soooo cool. (Or maybe I've been away from cutting-edge technology for a while, having graduated college and all, and am just out of the loop.)

So, that was Saturday in a nutshell. Today involved me getting up and leaving the house around 9:20, getting ass-raped by the National City ATM (since the Sky ATM isn't exactly close to home), getting half a tank of gas, and driving up to Clawson. There I met Barb and Russ, and they drove the rest of the way to the first official LakeShoremen full-corps rehearsal in Montrose, Michigan. Basically, a three-and-a-half hour trip one way for me. Rehearsal was from 1:00 to about 4:00, and was quite productive and very cool. We got to rehearse in an Ensemble setting with the percussion, then put the colorguard with the group as we figured out a parade formation. It'll be interesting to see how the parade goes in two weeks—we didn't get to actually move the parade block outside of the gym, as outdoor practicing was noise-prohibitive. (The drumline tried it and got called by the superintendent within five minutes.) In other related news, I started getting that old familiar twinge in my middle back, below my shoulder blades—the one I get when I stand at attention with my horn up for extended periods of time. It's not an "ouch I hurt something" feeling; more of a "hmm I don't use that muscle much and it's really starting to feel hot and cold at the same time and it'll be sore later" kind of feeling. And, yes, it's sore right now.

Anyway, I finally got home around 7:15pm. Long day. Aaron had dinner just about done when I got home: barbecued chicken and grilled yellow squash. Mmm. He's off doing food shopping now. He did my job of laundry earlier in the day. He's so cool. I'm so lucky. *contented sigh*

My Butt

There were some of my friends in drumcorps who thought it would be great if a corps named themselves "Your Butt." Not a name like the Cadets or the Vanguard or the Scouts or anything like that, but Your Butt. The one-liners would be great:

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Flint, Michigan: Your Butt! Drum Major Dan Clouse, is Your Butt ready? Your Butt may take the field in competition!

And so on. I'm only reminded of such things because I was thinking about my butt.

If you were too squeamish to read the LJ-cut from my last entry, you may not know that my butt is not exactly in shape yet. (Have you been looking?) Anyway, I located the post I was thinking of:

15 December 2003: Ladies—have you ever been walking behind someone, maybe someone at work, and finally taken a good look at their ass? And then you say to yourself, 'My God... I hope my ass doesn't look like that!'

While searching for this quotable, though, I did discover that I've been feeling uncomfortable about my ass for some time now. Almost exactly one year ago, in May of 2003, I said, "BTW, I never realized how dimply my big ass was until I cranked around and looked at it in the mirror at home, framed by the wondrous thong. I know, you didn't want to think about that. Well, neither did I. Deal."

Heh. Yeah. Except I wasn't on Atkins then, and I was 41 pounds heavier than I am now. (!!!) Now I know I can do something about my butt if I give it a good try.

One other thing: You know when you're sitting in the back seat of a car, and all you can see of yourself in the rearview mirror is your nose, chin, and neck? I used to hate that; I'd crane my neck to get my double-chin to finally almost disappear, and then just get depressed. Well, today I went to lunch with some folks from Lockbox, and sat in the back seat—and saw no double-chin! Holy crap, it's gone! It's really, totally gone.

And I don't miss it.

LakeShoremen Brass

Yesterday's LakeShoremen Brass rehearsal wasn't all that bad. I drove an hour and a half up to Clawson and met my ride, Barb and Russ, and then rode with them the 40 minutes up to Holly from their house. We ended up arriving 15 minutes late—and not because of me, either, thank goodness. Rehearsal lasted about three hours total (two hours playing, one hour bullshitting). Paul, incidentally, didn't show up and didn't tell anyone for sure that he wouldn't be there. He told one person that he might not make it if he couldn't find a sitter for the kids, but that's not the same.

Next Sunday's full-corps rehearsal is up in Montrose... another half hour farther north than this Sunday's. I'm leaving my place at 9:15am to be at the Braman household by 11:00am, and to Montrose by 1:00pm. Is this really worth it for a four-hour rehearsal?

I guess we'll know for sure when our first parade happens on May 16th...

w00t... yardwork.

My fingers aren't too keen on typing right now—I just got back in from doing a little over an hour of yardwork. Forgot to take a picture of what it looked like beforehand, but I've got almost all of the out-of-control forsythia bushes hacked down. Don't worry, I took cuttings, so they'll be back... only much more controlled next time.

This afternoon, Fries helped Aaron pick up our free washer and dryer from Aaron's buddy Joe from work. I guess he had some issues getting the washer hooked up—the hose connector squirts everywhere, which is ungood. We need to hit Lowe's tomorrow and get some new hoses or hose fittings or something.

Actually, we have a whole crapload of stuff that needs to be done around the house, especially outside. Doesn't it just figure that this is when the drumcorps season starts to kick in with extra weekend rehearsals and parades and such? That pretty much wipes out about every other Sunday from now until early September, with a few exceptions. To make it worse, the initial joy of being in a drumcorps again has been overshadowed by the insanely long distance I have to drive to get to rehearsals now. But I can't back out: 1.) because I know I'd regret it later, and 2.) because I committed to stick out at least this season and probably another one or two on top of that. Oh, yeah, and 3.) because I'm the only damn mellophone. Four or five trumpets, four baritones, a tuba, and one lowly mellophone. Poor Diana. No pressure, none at all. *crosses eyes* Oh, yeah, and did I mention I can't get excited about practicing at all?

That reminds me: I need to e-mail my potential car-pool hookup from Clawson to Holly. I'm not planning to ride with Paul again. The caravan thing didn't really appeal to me. Nope. Kind of defeated the purpose. So, not again.

Did You Know...?

From the Sky internet policy: "Sky Financial Group Inc. retains the copyright of any material posted on the internet."

Any material? Anywhere? Better tell Viacom and all the other media giants that they're infringing on Sky Financial Group's copyrights.

In other news, last week's trip to Holly MI was almost a waste of my time. I finally managed to contact Paul, my supposed ride, once I was 20 minutes from his home in Hazel Park. Got to his house, and he springs on me, "Why don't we caravan? I have to leave early. Oh, do you have directions?" On top of that, his POS car can't go over 70 MPH—so after stopping for a good 20 minutes at Paul's house, crawling along I-75 (I would have preferred to go 80 with the rest of the traffic), and getting mildly lost in Holly, we ended up being a half hour late. Rehearsal only lasted two, maybe two and a half hours, then Paul left, and we discussed uniforms and rehearsals and other crap for a half hour. So, all told, I ended up spending twice as much time in the car as at rehearsal. Which, IMO, was pretty much a waste of my time. Everybody else lives in Michigan, and had to drive as far to this rehearsal as I usually do to the Detroit area. Boo-hoo. Ah, well. Next time, I'm carpooling with the Brass Caption Head / Board Member / Whatever-He-Is and his wife, instead of with Paul, who may or may not be back from his barbershop quartet convention by then.

*deep calming breath*

And now for something completely different... I've also discovered that the crazy insano out-of-control shrub in our backyard is a forsythia bush. I plan to take some cuttings of it before we chop it down and dig it up. It's crazy. I should take a picture of it before we take it out. It looks like the previous owners tried to chop it down, not realizing that it would only come back stronger. And wilder. Hmph. I am bound and determined to have a nice, pretty-looking yard, dammit. You'll see.

Home Depot

Yesterday, Aaron and I used our 10% off coupon for Home Depot to purchase:

• a 6-foot ladder
• hedge clippers
• grass clippers
• two rakes
• a shovel
• lawn soil
• ryegrass seed
• a Clorox wet-jet mop

Then we bought two 10-packs of leaf bags at Kroger, and spent an hour and a half raking and bagging leaves. And those were only the ones next to our driveway, on the fence. We now have 12, count 'em, 12 bags of leaves sitting by the curb, waiting for trash day on Tuesday. And we still have quite a bit of other work to accomplish this week... but at least the front yard looks a little more presentable. Aaron has this week off, so he's planning to do some of it while I'm at work.

I have a hornline rehearsal up in Holly, Michigan today, and I'm supposed to be carpooling up with a friend from Hazel Park (Detroit), but he hasn't gotten back to me about when to be at his house, or if we're still even doing it at all. I gotta go call him now, because I'll need to leave in about a half hour to be there in time, either way we do it.

I don't wanna drive two hours up and two hours back myself. Ugh.

Landscaping and other randomness

I gave some more thought to landscaping the house today at work, and over lunch I drew our a couple plans for the front flower bed. I was thinking, for anyone into the whole HGTV-ish gardeny landscapey thing, that first we could hack down the overgrown bushes in the front to normal bush size. Then, I plan to mix some purple and some white flowering plants along with some white flowering ground cover, so as not to cover up the windows. I do have some ideas of flowers I'd like to use, like Lavender, Petunias, and Christmas Roses, among others that I haven't decided on yet. The trick is going to be finding just the look I want, with flowers that like the shade, since it's beneath an overhang on the north side of the house. I was also hoping to plant some stuff that blooms at different times, so there'll always be some color out there... but that might be a little beyond my scope. Maybe I'll save the rotating garden concept for when I tackle a backyard flower garden...

OK, girlie time is over. *whew*

The dude upstairs came home after I got back from my walk this evening (enjoying the weather), and proceeded to turn up his stereo. He doesn't do it often, but it's annoying when he does. So, I proceeded to fill my 5-CD changer with stuff—nothing too overbearing, though. Peter Gabriel's latest, and Catherine Wheel's last album, and 24 Gone (their only album), and Depeche Mode's most recent album (I'm seeing a trend), and the Cure Acoustic Hits (which I think was their latest release, too. Weird). It's turned up a little louder than I would normally keep it, but it's by no means blasting. Just loud enough to drown out whatever music he decides to turn up every now and then.

That got me to thinking... I kind of miss college, but not really. I miss it in that pleasant nostalgic way, where the memories are fun to look back on (like radio wars, which is how my brain got from there to here). Not the kind of missing where I would want to do it again. Not like drumcorps.

Speaking of... I've been practicing more this week, when the upstairs dude isn't home—more out of a need not to embarrass myself than to be considerate. :-) I've been getting better, and my relative pitch and pitch memory seems to be returning slowly but surely. The muscle memory is sort of there, but the endurance isn't. I've been practing for about a half hour every day this week, doing a slow warm-up to try to rebuild my range (which wasn't that stellar to begin with). After I warm up, I have about enough stamina and concentration to play through the warm-up tune once, the ballad twice, and to woodshed the march. Then I'm done, and I warm down with some pedal tones (reeeally low notes).

I'm also recalling why I stopped being a music major: I hate to practice. If I'm going to do this, though, I'll have to crack down. Senior corps doesn't coddle like Junior corps—and I can't believe I can think of it like that now. It was so physically exhausting... but everything was planned out and served to you, from your rehearsals to your meals to your everything. Now, in senior corps, I'm going to have to practice on my own time, and hype for shows and parades on the weekends only. It's a lot easier when it's your entire life for three months. I hope I've still got what it takes. We'll see.

And on a final note: On the front of my package of round Avery labels, the generic name on the pictured envelope is Tyler Durden.

"In the ear?! Why'd you have to hit me in the ear?"

New house and old chops

My weekend:

Saturday was house shopping day. We met Rebecca the Realtor at her office at 3:00 and headed off to look at the seven houses on our list. The first one, which we'd initially thought was one of the more promising ones, turned out to be just too damned small. Nice and bright and clean and open, but just too damn small. The other two that we'd thought would be just perfect from the exterior photos and their descriptions were actually the most skanky inside. Nappy carpets, smelly, and generally run-down. There was one tri-level that had some serious potential, though—of course, that house was owned by a cat-lover, and I made friends with the longhair in the cat window-seat. :-)

The house after the cat-lady's, though, was almost identical. The owners left music playing for ambience—sounded like something mellowish you'd hear on 94.5. At any rate, I think it helped our opinion of the house. As did the glass-pane door (French door?) down to the finished basement. We liked it so much that Rebecca inadvertently referred to it as "our new house" several times before we were even finished looking at the rest of the houses.

So, after we were done, we ended up going back to Rebecca's office and making an offer on the house on Ventura. (!!!) After that, we went out to dinner with Kris and Jamie at Ruby Tuesday's (yummy low-carb cheesecake...), then went home and began agonizing over whether the sellers would accept our offer... Well, not really agonizing, per se... well, not really at all. More contemplating how much more furniture we're going to need to buy to fill up our new house.

Sunday was my day to drive up to Clawson, Michigan for the LakeShoremen brass rehearsal. Saturday night, I'd crammed for half an hour, getting the notes "under my fingers," as they say. I hadn't played in seven years, so I was afraid I wouldn't be able to read the music as well as I should.

It should have occurred to me that my weakness wouldn't be my noodley-finger-speed; it would be my unused chops. Like, the actual real chops. As in, my lips. OMFG. After one third of the rehearsal was over, my chops were already gone. I have no range left, very little pitch memory, and I feel like I'm having to start all over again. Like my year in the Bluecoats was someone else.

My lip muscles are so underused (hey, be nice!) that, since I had no endurance, I started shoving the horn into my face. For non-brassers, this is how you are not supposed to combat fatigue, but it's an automatic habit. After a while, I just started blowing air. I tried to play, but got nothing but air. And I was so pissed off, because I had everything under my fingers... I just couldn't make it speak.

My lips are still swollen.

So, back to the saga of the house: After rehearsal, I called Aaron on the cell, and he said that Rebecca had given word that the sellers had rejected our offer and made a counteroffer. He told me what the offer was, and I agreed that it was fine with me, so he called Rebecca and she wrote up a new Purchase Agreement. Aaron and I drove up to her office today, separately, to sign the PA and send it on its way.

So, barring a piss-poor home inspection, we (almost) have a house! Next on our agenda is paying the appraisal fee, getting a home inspector, and talking to the Teamster lawyer about coming to the closing with us. The closing will be no later than March 5th (hopefully sooner), and we get possession 30 days after closing. If all the cards play out like they should, we may not even need to ask the Smiths to extend our lease at all.

How about that.

Clutch at Howard's

Here's a (slightly edited) e-mail Aaron sent out to our friends about the incredible Clutch show at Howard's last night (Thursday):

read more...

Weekend Shenanigans

What a fascinating weekend I've had. Really.

On Saturday, Aaron and I hung out with Kris, then went up to Detroit with Mark to watch a band called Blanche perform at the Magic Stick. The openers were a band called the Waxwings, who weren't bad, and a solo act (with backup singer/harmonica player) named Brendan Bensen. Also pretty good. I enjoyed his set a lot.

Now, I hadn't been going to talk about this on my blog, but since the cat's already out of the bag, I see no harm in repeating what I saw at the show. Mark is a giant fan of the White Stripes, and we're always geeked when we see Jack and Meg at a Detroit show. They like to support the local scene, especially since a lot of the bands who are growing in popularity are longtime friends of Jack. For instance, members of Blanche were also bandmembers with Jack in Goober and the Peas in the 90's. Anyway, we were watching Brendan do his gig, and quite enjoying the show. And who should walk up in the crowd next to Mark but Jack White himself! We were pretty excited, and surprized that he's so much bigger in person than he looks on TV appearances. He looks like a waify dude, but he's really a decently large fellow, though not quite as tall as Aaron, I don't think. Anyway, he stayed for a song or so, then left the crowd. We all shrugged and kept watching.

Then, a couple songs later, he came back and beelined for one particular guy in the crowd, who we found out later was Jason from the Von Bondies. As Mark put it when he was explaining the incident on the way home after the show, there's bad blood between them. Fortunately or unfortunately, I saw most of the incident, though I couldn't hear it due to my earplugs and our extra-close proximity to the speaker stacks. Jack shouted something into Jason's ear, they had a brief exchange of words while a young woman (also from the Von Bondies) was poking Jack in the back, trying to calm him down — then Jack White of the White Stripes slugged Jason of the Von Bondies right in the nose. Only show where I've witnessed a fistfight firsthand, and it was like freakin' Celebrity Deathmatch. Jack ended up on top of Jason on the floor, punching his lights out, and it took several people (including one burly bouncer) to break it up. Jason needed help off the floor, and two of his bandmates (I believe) helped him backstage.

So, yeah. Brendan Bensen cut his set short right there and then, and we decided to make ourselves scarce and move to the other side of the crowd. This so that a.) we wouldn't be shoved into the blood spatters on the floor and b.) so we wouldn't be questioned about what we saw. Especially since Mark and I saw most of it. Of course, once we got to the other side of the venue, there were a couple weirdos there, too, when Blanche went on — one guy had a giant cardboard cutout of Patrick Swayze's head strapped to his face, and he had a friend in a satiny gray vest who thought that was absolutely great. Everybody else thought they were both drunken idiots. Strangest show I've been to in a long, long time.

That didn't exactly quench my jones for a concert, either.

Then, today, Aaron and I were cleaning the apartment when Amy called. Anyone who knows Amy or ever met her Grandpa — he died yesterday. They knew he wasn't in the best health for some time now, but that sort of thing is never expected. You know. I talked with Amy on the phone for probably about half an hour, and asked her to let me know when the service is. If I can't go, I want to at least send flowers or something. If anyone wants details, I can let you know as soon as I do. Shoot me an e-mail. Grandpa was a great guy with a bizarre sense of humor, and it's really sad to see him go. It's also sad that the memorial is going to be more of a soap-opera/three-ring circus with the various family members who hate each other and such. Poor Amy.

So, yeah. Bizarreness all around this weekend. Mark's hero tarnished, Amy's Grandpa gone, and our house actually clean. Probably blasphemous to put those three occurrences together in the same sentence, but hey. It's me.

The State of Popular Music

It doesn't just suck here. It sucks in the UK, too.

While reading yet another surfed-upon blog by a total stranger, I learned that a cover of Barry Manilow's 70's hit Mandy has been chosen as the UK's Song of the Year by a local radio station in Kent. (For you Ohioans, that's Kent in the UK, not Kent as in Kent State. Just making sure.) Just out of sheer perversity, I fired up WinMX and downloaded the tune, by a band called Westlife... and OMFG, it sounds like some random pop singer(s) doing karaoke to Manilow. I posted to the blog where I found the linkage, and informed her that popular music in the UK must be as bad as here in the States, if a cover of Barry Manilow can make Song of the Year.

In other news, I've been feeling like a neglectful Secret Santa these past couple of weeks. All I got my person was the big gift she's getting on Wednesday, which cost nearly the full alloted $15 limit: a mixer. She probably thinks I've forgotten her, especially since I've gotten gifts from my Secret Santa every day since the thing's been going on. So... I went to Ben Franklin and spent some more on my person — another twenty bucks more, actually. I got her a bunch of piddly crap, and the pixie/fairy doll I bought her was the most expensive for $9.99. I also got her butterfly stickers, a butterfly suncatcher, a Slinky with butterflies printed on it (she likes butterflies... could you tell?), and some candy canes. She also collects fairies and dolphins, but I couldn't locate any good dolphins. Anyway, I bought a nice fuzzy stocking to stuff it all in, and I'm going to give it to her tomorrow.

As soon as I find out where her desk is...

You have a halo above you like you're the devil's own queen.

With apologies to Kris for publishing his work online without his permission,
I give you...

Beth

Why are your eyes pointed at the side
Like a knife trying to enter my soul?
How many knives would it take
And how many nights with your nails in me
In me?

You have a halo above you
Like you're the devil's own queen
But I beat the devil at chess last night, baby
Your eyes could say goodbye without looking
Your eyes could put me in a lead coffin
With no black coffee or tea

Beth

©2002 Kristin T. Heath. All Rights Reserved.
Originally from the limited-release EP Beth the Devil Saintress Maid of Ghosts.

12-hour workdays and moving sales

I've gotta find a new job. One that doesn't require a 12-hour day on Mondays. Ugh.

But the good news is two-fold: 1) UPS was overstaffed yesterday, so Aaron got to come home early, and 2) while he was home (and I was still at work), Sheryl and Sarah came to get my computer. Yes, Sheryl has taken pity on me and is in the process of figuring out what the fuck I did to my PC. I hope she doesn't have to erase my second hard drive... although I would be happy that my computer was once again functional, I would be extremely sad that many gigs of downloaded material (mostly .mp3 and .shn files) would be no more. Still, though... I have faith in you, Sheryl! *grin*

To Sheryl: Thank you so, so much for making my computer go. I feel bad for embarking on what was supposed to be a super-cool Upgrade By Diana and having it end up Sheryl Saves Diana's Ass Yet Again. I feel like I must be putting you out, even though you volunteered to help. (You always volunteer to help...) :-) Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I really, really appreciate your help, especially since you live all the way up in Toledo now, and I'm really the only thing in BG besides, oh, Pollyeyes. (Well... not the only thing... I mean, there's a college campus and a post office and a mall of sorts... but you know what I mean.) End of speech.

Now for something completely different... I've talked about Ellie and her blog before, and you might find me strange for taking such interest in a complete stranger and her activities, but you're entitled to that. It's not one of those envy-type interests, nor is it one of those point-and-laugh-at-a-stranger interests. Rather, I find myself thinking that I would have wanted to be friends with Ellie and her crowd, had we gone to the same college — but it probably would have been kind of like a few friends I have now, where I'm kind of a friend, but more of an acquaintance, and not really someone they'd hang out with all the time. Someone I'd want to be closer friends with, but they just must not think I'm cool enough. —Yeah, that's a lot to read into a stranger's blog, I know. :-)

Anyway, Ellie has a great SHOUTcast stream called normalradio. Ellie has great taste in music. She's a big Morrissey freak/fan, but in the past several minutes of listening to normalradio, I've heard The Counting Crows, James, Dashboard Confessional, and the Lightning Seeds. Currently she's playing Dubstar, whom I'm not really familiar with, but I'm digging it anyway. I don't think Aaron would particularly like normalradio, but I'll bet Sheryl would listen for a while and be happy with a few choices (like James). She's not always on and broadcasting—it's whatever she's playing on her own computer—but when it's up and running, I'm loving it. *sigh* And I can't find all the cables to my cool-ass AppleDesign speakers... Damn you, quiet little internal speaker.

Now that I'm using my Mac so much more, I'm contemplating getting some more RAM for it, and maybe blowing $100 on a G3 upgrade... but I'm not going to, since my PC will eventually kick this thing's little ass. I'll always keep my Mac, but since more applications are available for Windows, I'll probably always use it more, unfortunately.

I have got to get myself some James. Ellie's playing another James song, and I'm finding myself hooked. Sheryl, I see why you like this band so much.

Speaking of music and bands... I'm not much into popular music these days, so whenever I find a band I like, I'm all ecstatic. I know you guys who read this don't generally share all my musical tastes, but these are the bands and artists I find myself listening to the most these days (and no, this isn't a comprehensive list):

• Coldplay
• Bob Mould / Sugar (not a recent band, I know)
• Matthew Sweet
• Catherine Wheel (another 90's alterna-pick)
• The Flaming Lips
• Alanis Morrisette

This past weekend, Aaron and I bought something cool at a garage sale. Actually, it was a moving sale, the kind that's held indoors because most of the items are too big to move outside more than once. We almost didn't go in, because we were kind of creeped out by having to go inside to see the stuff—but since we ended up not being able to just drive through the alleyway to the next street, we were forced by our good natures to check it out, anyway. And it's a good thing we did, because in the entry hallway of the guy's upstairs apartment was a gorgeous black electric guitar, labeled with a $200 price tag. Aaron and I didn't want to discuss our potential purchase there in front of the guy, so we looked around and left under the pretense of "we'll think about it, and maybe we'll be back later." In actuality, we drove out of the parking lot, talked it over, took the money out of the bank, and came back for the guitar sooner than the guy probably expected.

So, we have a 1969 Kay Vintage electric guitar (this model was manufactured with a Les Paul body), an Epiphone bass amp, electronic tuner, three picks, soft case, cables and cords, all for a very good price. Aaron looked for more info about our "new" guitar online, and found that the same guy we'd just bought it from had tried to sell it for that same price on eBay. Apparently the high bidder stiffed him, so he sold it to us for the same price at his moving sale.

It's a bigger purchase than we generally make at a garage sale, but we figured it was worth the investment. Both of us have been playing more often now that we have a decent axe. The Kay is far and away much better than the Silvertone Amp-in-Case model we had before, with the fabulous twanging sitar sound. *smirk*

My, what a novel I've written. Even though I have to handcode now, maybe I ought to update more often again...

Memories

Do you ever get the feeling that High School wasn't just a part of your past, but more of a different life? Hell, sometimes I feel like that about the first year of my college career.

I had just been thinking of the music that put me through high school. For all you young whipper-snappers who read my blog, my high school years were 1990 through 1994. Alternative music came into its own whilst my appreciation of "popular music" was in full blossom. Though I must admit, I discovered the Cure in about 1989, seeing the "Lovesong" video on VH1. But I digress. Here's a blast from the past (I know some of you still listen to these artists regularly — don't take it as a rip on you, 'cause so do I):

Oasis * Collective Soul * James * Pearl Jam * Toad the Wet Sprocket * Bad Religion * Radiohead * Bush * The Lemonheads * Nirvana * Smashing Pumpkins * REM * Matthew Sweet * The Cure * The Sundays

Sometimes I think high school was the worst experience of my life overall (except for 6th grade). Sometimes I think it was much, much better than I give it credit for. And generally, I assume I didn't get enough out of my teen years. Or, at least, as much as I could. Not that I would particularly want to experience those years firsthand again, but I find that, depending on my mood, I can see a great deal of either spectacularly priceless moments or of amazingly pathetic and depressing happenings.

Sometimes I wonder if and/or when I'll look back on my college years or my newlywed years (yipes) like I look back on high school: Something I enjoyed, something I should have taken more advantage of, something nostalgic. I wonder if the music I listen to today will set off memories of sitting at my computer, blogging, the day before my bachelorette party.

(I know it's a disjointed entry... it's 1:20am, and it's technically not even the 25th anymore. Cut me some slack.)

P.S. - There is talent in Bowling Green. Who knew? Check out Mac Hall.

Great Weekend

This weekend was the most fun and productive one I've had in a while. Saturday started off with lunch (of course), followed by the Wedding Fair at the small (aka Woodland Towne Centre). There, we ate some yummy moist wedding cake, avoided the DJs, talked to photographers, and ended up choosing one. She has interesting, professional-looking work; she has a good sense of humor; and she has very competitive prices. We scheduled a meeting at her studio for the following day at 7:30pm for contract-signing and an engagement sitting.

After the Wedding Fair was an attempt at the monthly BG Flea Market, held at the fairgrounds. However, by this point it was after 3:00, and most of the vendors were closing up shop. We walked in, saw this, and opted to wait until Sunday. So, we went to Wal-Mart instead.

At Wal-Mart, we got some basic necessities, like new dress pants for me and a can of compressed air for my streaky laser printer. Then back home to chill for a couple hours before heading back out again.

That evening, we met a couple of friends up at the Red Robin in Toledo for dinner. Excellent food, great alcoholic milkshakes, biggest BBQ Chicken salad in the known universe. Weirdest mascot you've ever seen. It's a giant red robin (go figure), in the new-Freddy-Falcon style, for those of you from BGSU. You know, the cartoony-looking Freddy with the creepy big eyes and huge smiling beak. Mark got a picture of Aaron with the scary robin dude. We'll see how that turns out.

Anyway, after dinner, we still had a couple hours before we had to be at Frankie's, our destination point for the evening. So, we hung out in Barnes & Noble. Aaron & Kris both bought William Gibson's new novel, Pattern Recognition, and I bought a copy of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. We tried to waste a decent amount of time there, but eventually we decided to go seek out Frankie's, where none of us had been for years (and some of us never).

Back in the heyday of the Alternative Music Scene, Frankie's was apparently the place to be to see great bands like Goober & the Peas, the Afghan Whigs, the Smashing Pumpkins, Pure, and dozens of other groups whose flyers are posted on Frankie's Wall of Fame. Now, though... Frankie's has turned into a bit of a dive. Unbeknownst to us, of course, until we found the place and wandered into the cold, dim bar.

After the door-dude found us and took our seven bucks apiece, we wandered about, reading the Wall of Fame and wondering what the hell happened. As the first "band," MC Habitat, was setting up its turntables and mics, we made a break for the outer room, where lived two pool tables (in use), six chairs, and three dirty tables. We pulled a table from against the wall, found four chairs without too many tears in their linings, and proceeded to sit and freeze our asses off.

We sat there for an hour.

Finally, after one of our friends came to join us and promptly gave up and left, and a few of Kris's friends (who are also friends of the band we were there to see) showed up and said hello, and after our tizoes and nizoes were frizoze, we decided to go check out band number two of three: The Satisfactions. This band is from BG, which gave us pause. Historically, very few bands from Bowling Green have amounted to shit. The Satisfactions were no exception. Their set started out mediocre, and only went downhill. By the end of the set, the lead singer took notice that the crowd (except their groupies) no longer gave a shit about their music, and decided to go climb on the light rig just above the stage. When he didn't fall and crack his fool head open, or bring the lights crashing down on everyone, he climbed back down and lay on the floor in the midst of the disinterested crowd to sing the remainder of the penultimate song.

The final number of their set took the proverbial cake, though. The opening riff reminded me of a song I knew, and I tried to pin it down as they sang the first verse. I still hadn't figured it out when Kris poked his head in between Aaron's and mine and started singing, "I'm comin' baaaack with my dinosaur aaaact..." Their chord structure was an exact mimic (OK, ripoff) of Matthew Sweet's song "Dinosaur Act," from the 1993 album Altered Beast. We sang the chorus a couple times, as the band sang the words to their own little song. Then, mercifully, they were done.

After that came the band we'd actually gone to see: The Soledad Brothers. (You know, I think eventually I'll put all these paragraphs into my reviews section...) The Toledo-based Soledads were once a two-piece, but have added another Brother to the mix, to make one drummer, one guitarist/lead vocalist, and one guitarist/saxophonist. This is the most explosive band I have ever seen live. The genre is blues. The atmosphere is electric. The volume is loud.

Yeah... I think I'll expound later in my reviews section. At any rate, we got out of there at around 2am. Kick-ass show. Amazing. I've never seen anything like it. Go to their website and take a listen, though they're much better live than in the studio, IMO.

So, Sunday morning/afternoon rolled around, and Sheryl called. She wanted to go to the Flea Market. Well, I'll be damned... so did we. We told her we'd give her a call when we were going to head out there. We finished waking up and getting ready, then called Sheryl and left a message to meet us at said Flea Market at two o'clock. And we went to have our lunch at the China Dragon. Yummy.

When we got to the fairgrounds, Sheryl was inside waiting. She surprized the hell out of us by giving us the gift of a prepaid cell phone. Apparently, her Japanese friend Mariko was going to come visit, and Sheryl had gotten her the phone for her stay. But... Japan says that the U.S. is going to war in March, and that was going to be when Mariko's return trip would have been. So, she opted out of the visit, leaving Sheryl with much unhappiness and a paid-for cell phone.

But once again, the BG Flea Market was unfulfilling. The only real amusement came from the generic Ken-doll look-alikes, dressed in full 80's gay regalia, with black mesh tops and shiny shorts. We made the rounds of the building, thanked Sheryl and bid her adieu, and headed off to do our grocery shopping.

Usually, we do shopping and laundry on Sunday evening. But, since we were planning to go meet with our photographer in the evening, we'd had to rearrange our little schedule. So, off to do shopping and laundry. Fun times.

By the time we were finished with laundry, it was time to get ready for engagement photos and head off to Fostoria. We'd never been to Fostoria, so driving at night in the boonies was a lot of fun. Anyway, we got there with little incident, and found the studio no problem.

Carol Creeger reminds me of someone's mom. She has an open and honest sense of humor about her, but is totally professional about her work. We sat down and completed the contract first, with her giving us some time to discuss while she set up the studio for our portraits. Once all the details were ironed out, she gave us the nickel tour of the studio and got us ready for our sitting. She shot digital, which was excellent; she got to see the images as she took them, and got to get our approval before keeping them. We got a feel for how she works, and she got a feel for what we like. I only had to mention my stupid double-chin once before she adjusted our posing and her lighting to make it disappear. We also learned not to make Diana say anything silly before taking the exposure, because Diana's eyebrows go up and her mouth looks funny. :-)

After the sitting (which was short and sweet), she showed us around her office, and we just shot the shit for a few minutes before Aaron wrote her the check for the deposit. The engagement sitting is included, and we'll get a matted 8x10 of one photo for guest signatures. We can also order reprints — we'll probably get some wallets for $15 a dozen, which isn't unreasonable. Two weeks before the wedding, we need to send her the remaining balance plus our sheet of necessary shots. Overall, we came away from Carol's studio with an overwhelming sense of relief, and the knowledge that we will have some quality photos of our wedding day.

Nine o'clock. Hungry. Dinnertime, chillin' out time, TV time, printer-cleaning time, computer time. Which then brings us to now. Which is midnight. Bedtime.

Bands Of America vs. Drum Corps International

One activity I look back on with nostalgia and remembered excitement. One activity I look back on with passion, longing, and tears.

I think it's the difference between a high-school crush and a lifetime soulmate. They're both desirable. They're both positive experiences. And, until you experience the latter, the former seems to be the most amazing experience possible.

In High School band, we had a tradition. As we stood at attention, ready to dismiss, our band director would call out the various facets of our posture that we should remember. He would call, "feet!" We would answer, together! "Back!" Straight! "Shoulders!" Up! Back! Down! And the final call was, "Eyes!" Louder than any reply, we would shout, With Pride! It meant the beginning of an era, of a legend: our band hadn't been worth anything two years before, and now we were winning competitions and making State Finals. We had pride in what we had become, and what future generations of Buckeye Bands would accomplish by building on our meager 30-member foundation.

I recall that being the most powerful experience in "oneness" with an ensemble... up until that point. In the Northern Aurora Drum and Bugle Corps, we had another tradition, one that transcended "Eyes With Pride" for me. At every corps dismissal, be it at camps, circled up after a show, or following rehearsal, the drum major or corps manager would call us up: "Corps — Ten-Hut!" We would snap to attention, horns snapping to shoulder-level, flags snapping straight, drumsticks snapping into position. The drum major would then call into the silence: "Corps! Dismissed!" and we would answer, "One!"

During every winter camp at NA, when potential new members would be attending, the corps manager would explain that this word referred not to a placement or a ranking, but a feeling of unity with our corpsmates. I refused to join in the response until the camp when I was officially signed as a member of Northern Aurora. At the dismissal of that camp, I answered the call as one member of a team, of a family. It was just as powerful then as it was through the two years I marched in NA, all the way through until our last dismissal at Division III Finals in Orlando, Florida in 1996.

My point? I don't know. I cherish my time spent both in marching band and in drumcorps. But what still brings me passion, what stirs the fire, what makes me long to relive each and every moment, is drumcorps.