by rustedrobot | May 31, 2008 | Sports
I’m on a roll this weekend! Up again late (see post below), Stanley Cup Finals on TV and I have to post because the thing I might love most about the NHL playoffs are how in some cities, the fans ALL put the same color shirt on. It looks like a scene out of Mad Max or an Apple commercial or something. It’s awfully Orwellian, but when you remember it’s the NHL playoffs, it becomes very damn cool! I remember the first time I saw this – it was in Winnipeg when the Jets played up there (now the Phoenix Coyotes) and it must have been the early 1990s. I was totally flummoxed! Bruins fans don’t do this, but Penguins fans do…..
by rustedrobot | May 31, 2008 | Sports
After Steph and I watched the season finale of Lost last night (great episode, BTW), she went off to bed and I found myself with the rare opportunity to sit on the couch by myself and flip around the TV. This just doesn’t happen that much anymore – before the population of our house doubled, most of my channel surfing was done from 10pm-1am when Steph was in bed. Now I’m in bed by 10pm too! So it was mildly exciting to settle in and hit remote buttons. Here’s the problem: there was nothing on worth watching. The Red Sox were in extra innings, but I just can’t invest myself in it until July or August. Comedy Central wasn’t offering up much. The news channels were spewing the same thing they always do – robotic talking heads arguing about stuff.
That left me with one option. Gulp. The Celtics. There. I said it. I watched basketball. Good heavens, is THAT what it came to? Apparently so. It wasn’t just any basketball game, it was a chance for the Celtics to reach the NBA Finals against the Lakers. Old school! I can already see CBS saying stuff like “a generation ago, these two teams engaged in some…….blah blah blah.” Then they’ll show the old video and it will look like it was shot 100 years ago but when we watched it live back then, it looked so much better. Ah, tape degradation. And it really was a generation ago now. Cripes.
Now, with the Celtics winning it and all of our shows having aired their season finales and the Cup finals just about done, will I do it again? I don’t know. I think it’s super cool to have Boston-L.A. series, but I’d have to be pretty desperate to do anything but periodically check the score. Unless they start allowing checking or something in basketball.
Of course, we could always watch movies, but come on now. We’d be challenged to find time where both of us had that kind of time available to us concurrently. Movies have gone by the wayside since June 4, 2007. We’ll come around again.
by rustedrobot | May 30, 2008 | Internet
So here’s the thing. I loved the previous design, but a) I like to switch it up every six months or so, b) the previous page took too long to load and c) you could say that the big blue page was just too busy. So I took my Friday night and did this redesign, which seems cleaner and simpler to me, despite roughly the same amount of content being on the page.
You’ll notice a new set of rotating photos at the top of the page – those are photos that I’ve taken over the past few years which I believe tell a little more of a story about who I am. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory – and I STILL, for the life of me, can’t figure out how to seperate and put a border on the Flickr photos. The bane of my existence.
Hope you like the new design.
by rustedrobot | May 30, 2008 | Music
It’s been a while since I posted any MP3’s. Nothing new has really been grabbing my attention lately, so I’ll just post some stuff I’ve had for a while that deserves to be heard. What, you didn’t know? Everything I listen to deserves to be heard! Come on, give it a chance! Leave feedback if you want.
I don’t think I’ve posted about Cat Power. Her last two albums have been extremely listenable, due to the fact that she’s in a phase of channeling that marvelous female ’60s soul sound. Bless her heart. This one is called “Aretha, Sing One For Me” and it takes, oh, about 20 seconds to love it.
[audio:aretha.mp3]
I know I’ve posted in the past about Kelley Stoltz, but to me his new album is about the best thing going right now. What a sense for crafting a song! This one for me is a showstopper. It’s called “Put My Troubles to Sleep” and about 2:10 into it there’s this fuzz-guitar that comes in and it just gets me every time. It’s not loud or aggressive, it’s just….I don’t know. Classy?
[audio:trouble.mp3]
The Black Keys also continue to impress me. Their latest album, “Attack & Release” is my favorite work of theirs thus far. It’s the albums where they expand their repitoire and explore sound when I really dig them. They did it with the “Chulahoma” EP and they really hit a home run with this new album. Here’s “All You Ever Wanted.”
[audio:wanted.mp3]
I will NEVER stop loving music.
by rustedrobot | May 26, 2008 | Food
Just about every time I mow the lawn, my allergies (especially in spring) rear their ugly head. Lucky for me, my allergies aren’t as bad as they were when I was younger (12-21). It was never totally unbearable. I mean, I never had to get shots or surgery or go on medication or anything, but it was just crappy to have to always be sneezing, wheezing, coughing and blowing my nose. Anyway, I mowed this morning (Monday) and right away I knew my sinuses were going to act up. This time, though, it affected my sense of taste, which is just an inexcusable side effect. At dinner tonight, I asked Steph what she would do if she completely lost her sense of taste forever. Her answer, practical as ever, was “I’d just eat all healthy food.”
Just imagine for a second not ever being able to taste food again. Eating would just be something you do because you have to. As monotonous as it would get, the pleasure of tasting food would just be……gone. Can you imagine it? I can’t. Every time you eat, you’d be reminded what you’re missing. I’m not sure there’s a worse malady that isn’t terminal. I might be really, clinically depressed if that happened to me. Luckily, it’s rare to lose your sense of taste completely, as it’s pretty heavily tied into both your sense of smell and your ears. Interesting.
By the way, many people think Steph lost her sense of taste when she decided to marry me. Hahaaaahahahaaha.
What would you do (or eat) if you lost your sense of taste?