Wait, the piña colada song guy is now writing musicals?

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the piña colada song? It's like a Jerry Springer episode in four and a half minutes, but without the bitchslaps.

Charles got in a copy of Makrokosmos today--it's one of the pieces he did for his final stuff in college or grad school. When you first pick it up and turn to the first piece (it consists of twelve pieces, one for each sign of the zodiac) it looks fairly ordinary. Lots of 32nd and 64th notes, which is terrifying for a former flute player. But as you flip through the book you find pieces that are... written in a circle. (One of them has you play a few bars written in the center of the circle, then play the circle 3 1/3 times around...) Or a spiral. Or half sideways, or in staves that jump erratically around the page or just disappear.

Stuff like this just reek of sheer pretentious douchenozzlery (Mr. Danielewsky, I'm looking at you). We listened to a clip on Amazon, and Charles is noodling around with it in the music room, and basically it's in the category of "modern dissonant show-offy artsy-fartsy." Give me Chopin or Debussy any day.

My senior year English teacher called me a curmudgeon. I wonder why.

Out There by Rick Wakeman may be the most aptly titled album evar.

Also, dear Rick, you're nearly sixty. Lose the cape.

This iTunes thing is much too easy--it's even more dangerous than the one-click purchasing on Books-a-Million.

Hey, whaddya know--"Flesh and Blood" by Oingo Boingo is in Ghostbusters II. Briefly.

How do I tell iTunes that something is an audiobook? It put the ones I copied into the genre "books and spoken word" under music, not under "audiobooks."

I found my steel-toe boots last night! They were right under the edge of the bed. I can't believe I never looked there. I was actually hunting for Chyna. Those boots have been missing since shortly after last July 4th.

And for the last few 4ths I've been thinking of getting cargo pants so I can better keep all my gear separated--my hip pockets get really overcrowded--but I'm not sure where to find them (stores I really don't want to go in, like American Eagle and Old Navy?) and also, THEY'RE FUGLY. Not that I'm a fashion plate, mind.

Tim Curry is love. Kind of a strange little number, though. Also, push-button light switch!

It occurred to me recently that my copy of "Ma Ya Hi" is TRAPPED in Sony format in my Sony music player. I wonder if I can export it to a normal format--I need my Numa Numa!

I also have "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra" in there too. And something by Souza.

Either my MP3 player is jealous of all the time I've spent listening to that Dresden Files audiobook, or it's a poorly-designed, cheaply-made piece of crap.

I haven't used it much since I got the audiobook on Good Friday; just a few afternoons at work, maybe. I put it in my pocket every morning and bring it work, then plug it in to its charger for the day, then bring it home again.

I noticed after I plugged it in this morning that the display was still on the welcome page, and the "loading" icon was spinning and spinning and spinning. Huh. So I hit the reset button with a paperclip and plugged it in again. It froze again. I reset and started it while it wasn't plugged in. It froze. I held it up and listened--whirrrclick, whirrrclick, whirrrclick, whirrrclick.

I reset it and ignored it for a couple of hours. Still nothing.

I stuck it in my pocket on the way to the doctor's office, and managed to hit a button while waiting for the doctor. It started up and froze. I pulled it out as I was getting ready to leave work and it had run itself out of batteries, so I hooked it up to its charger and left, disgusted.

It's around a year and a half old. The (poorly thought out) volume slider fell off several months ago, and I'm not sure how terminal this little glitch is. God only knows what Sony would want to have a look at it. Meanwhile its much older counterpart, my Discman, which has survived riding around in my car and my bookbag, is still in service, sitting on my desk next to the MP3 player.

So... are full-size iPods rugged? Do they stand up to the rigors of riding around in pockets and cars and bags? I've been eyeballing the 160GB Classic for several months now, but if it's not going to last, forget it.

"You Don't Want My Love" performed by the Muppet versions of Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Jerry Nelson.

Also, the "About this video" blurb is hilarious. Nightmares??

In lieu of having Robin and Bob over for dinner, we all went to the Civil War reenactment going on in Hartford City. Charles and I missed the battle, but we went to dinner and came back to see the night firing of the cannon. It was cool but long, and really anything involving the outdoors and me maybe wasn't the brightest idea, as cool, damp October evening air does NOT do good things when you've got a cold trying to get a foothold in your lungs. I had a good belt of cough syrup when I got home and I'm feeling somewhat better now, but I'm thinking tomorrow is another do-little-but-sleep day. I just may send Charles to do the grocery shopping himself.

Neil Cicierga is a frickin' genius. Check out his Lemon Demon stuff; it's like the next They Might Be Giants. Also? His Christmas present to his sister makes me laugh every single time I watch it. (I've always believed that laughter has great healing qualities.) My favorite line is "Right about now Emmy must be wonnnnndering... what the hell is wrong with her brother!" Hee.

I drove the Prius from here to Hartford City, and I'm seriously in love.

I've been having some lower-body joint problems, apparently due to the Levaquin I've been taking. I put two and two together and called the nurse yesterday... she said the same thing I was thinking, that it was kind of up to me if I wanted to take the last two doses and then just see Dr. Beckley at clinic. I decided four or five more days of stiffness wouldn't kill me, so I took the next-to-last dose and will take the last one on Tuesday. I'm just afraid that if I end the course too soon this infection will bounce back again.

I woke up at 3:15 when my sinuses decided I was awfully allergic to something in the room. Eventually I gave up, took two Benadryl, and went downstairs on the couch so I wouldn't keep Charles awake with disgusting "I can't breathe," sinus noises. My sinuses finally cleared up... at 4:45. I set my alarm for an extra 15 minutes, which I never, ever do, and considered (briefly) calling off for the first half of the day.

I already have the second half of the day off since I have to come back to Anderson to sign the refinance papers for the house today. After that I have to do my lunchtime exchange, get something to eat, pick up my refill of Sensipar, and then very likely take a nap before it's time to make dinner.

On the way to and from Mooresville this weekend I listened to the 1995 studio cast album of The Rocky Horror Show, which features Brian May (!!) as Eddie and Christopher Lee (!!!) as the criminologist. I love this cast, and it made me miss doing Rocky. It's been nearly ten years.

Time to get on with it.

We recently got The Birds from Netflix, and it really didn't do anything for us.

Psycho, however, is made of pure awesome.

And my new hobby is listening to "Davy Jones" our lovely new computer speakers.

The Oak Ridge Boys sing "Elvira," 1981

In 1981 their lineup apparently consisted of the white dude with the 'fro and the porn 'stache, the mountain man, the bass, and that other guy.

Goofy shit: Harry Hamlin and the Jurassic Park dinosaurs sing "Elvira."

Though I've never watched Family Guy, I found this on Youtube and thought it was hilarious. Though I felt old when I saw the note apparently had to inform younger viewers that "The song is 'Elvira' by the Oak Ridge Boys."

In other news, my car got egged last night, along with at least two others on our street. And SOMETHING IS FLATTENING ALL MY CORN. What, have we got citified bears?

The volume control slider has fallen out of my Walkman. This isn't a problem in the car, where I use it the most, because the car has its own volume control, but it's kind of a pain in the ass when I want to hook it up to my speakers at work.

The good news is that any parts are under warranty (how much could the teeny little slider possibly cost???), but the flat labor rate is $77.

Nothing says 6 AM like some good loud Oingo Boingo.

Neat.



Stayed up until almost one last night; the last hour was doing my pre-bed exchange, but until midnight we were cooking and cleaning. The baked potato soup is aging in the fridge, and the rice pudding is chilling in my shiny, never-used ramekins. Around 3:15 today I'll start the bread for a baguette in the bread machine, and then around five I'll start the steaks and sauce.

Last night the calico cat belonging to the Swiss Family Redneck showed up on our back doorstep, obviously informed of our suckerhood by her housemate Marmalade. She's an adorable little girl; her base colour is white, with big patches of caramel, orange, black and brown. She's also tiny--she appears full-grown, but she's smaller than Q*Bert.

Because we're suckers Charles went out and gave her a handful of Science Diet and petted her. Our cats were pissed. They sat on the freezer and growled through the screen. Once Charles came back in--after putting out more food because she really did eat like she was starving, not like she was just mooching (and I can't imagine that the hunting is very good yet this spring)--Rocket got in front of the storm door and pounded on it at her.

The SFR go to stay with one of their mothers while the weather is cold because their house is unheated. This year they left a window boarded up with a hole cut in so the cats (Marmalade, Calico, and god knows who else) to get in and out. This means, as far as we can tell, that the house is open and pretty damn easy to get into. I don't want to think what it looks like in there. There were cops over there one evening, and Jesse the husband, with Marmalade twining in and out of the cops' feet because he's such a little lovemuffin. We'd like to call the local animal people and cry neglect, but that means the cats would end up in a kill shelter. We can't adopt them because our cats won't stand for it, and WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE, and plus if the wife sees her cats looking out our windows at her she'll come over here and bust a cap in our ass. Charles offered Marmalade to one of the HVAC guys who was here looking at our furnace because they were standing outside and Marmalade was winding all around the guy's ankles. He said something like "I won't tell anyone if you want to take him home."

Marmalade has also acquired a friend, a little black tom who looks about Marmalade's age (~1 year). He won't let anyone touch him yet, but he's very handsome. They go everywhere together and it's adorable.

I discovered two days ago that my lettuce seedlings survived the multiple freezes the last couple of weeks. Now I have to go water them today, and maybe start some more basil seeds and plant my onion and potato sets.