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I picked this up from this guy, who acquired it from that guy… and so on. And I (block)quote:

1. If you’d like to play along, reply to this post and I’ll assign you a letter.
2. You then list (and upload or link to the video, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Then, as I’m doing here, you’ll post the list to your journal with the instructions.

I was given… “H”. And since I can do this, I’m embedding tracks in WordPress. Hah!

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  Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea (Genesis) – I love this piece. I just plain love it. Especially the various live renditions with the dual drummers. This sort of thing is what I love about Genesis.

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  Hallo Spaceboy (David Bowie w/ Pet Shop Boys) – Two great tastes that go great together.

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  Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Daft Punk) – Let’s be honest: They’re probably never going to top this.

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  Hyperactive (Thomas Dolby) – This is one of those love-it-or-hate-it songs from Mr. Dolby, and I happen to love it. I can see why some people don’t enjoy it as much, though.

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  Heat (Jethro Tull) – Speaking of love-or-hate, this is from the Tull album which is the most “electronic” they ever released, and it drove the die-hard fans batty. One of the things I like about it is that nearly the entire album could be used as the soundtrack to a cheesy 80′s spy caper flick… especially this track.

And there you go. Anybody want a letter of their own to run with?

I’m the proud parent of a college student.

Well, that’s a strange thing to find myself saying, now isn’t it? Not the “proud parent” part; I’ve been that for a number of years now, since I have two awesome offspring. It’s the “college student” part I’m still wrapping my brain around. Not that we haven’t known it was coming. Alex applied and was accepted to DigiPen a while ago, with financial aid sorted out a few weeks ago along with the living situation.

On Sunday, however, he actually left Portland. The Seattle area is his home now and will be for at least the next four years, potentially much longer. (That’s where a lot of the jobs are, after all.)

Funny thing is, I was fine up until Saturday afternoon when the kids got on the #9 bus for home at the end of what was the Spud’s final weekly parental visitation time. We hugged, and they got on the bus, and I damned near lost it. Fine time to get emotional, eh?

Mind you, he turns 18 about ten days from now. That’s not the part which makes me feel odd. (No, not “feel old,” because my failing joints take care of that very nicely, thankyouverymuch.) It’s that he’s off to school in another state and just plain doesn’t need his folks anymore. (Miss, possibly. Care about, certainly. But need? Not hardly, except for making sure his pesky finances are covered. Heh.)

I guess that means we did our job right… right?

Now all I have to do is help get the younger child up on her own two feet and my work is complete… insofar as parenting is ever really done, of course.

I’ve been on a tight budget lately. Costs keep going up, but my income stays… rather flat. So I end up buying cheap breakfast and lunch fixings. Unfortunately I get tired of sandwiches very, very quickly. I can, however, do a couple of days of sausage-dogs before I have to cycle over to some other cheap and generally-unhealthy food item like cardboard burritos and cheap french-bread pizzas out of the frozen-goods aisle at the supermarket.

So, take it from me:

Unlike their cousins, the “Beddar [sic] with Cheddar” smoked sausages, Johnsonville’s “BOLD [wtf] Chili Cheese” smoked sausages are to be avoided at all costs.

Eww. I have another day’s worth of them to get through and I’m not sure that starvation isn’t a better option.

Yes, I haven’t been posting. It’s hard to post when you’re stressed and tired of being stressed and tired due to stress all of the time.

Why? Oh, it goes something like this… starting in late May… Read the rest of this entry »

As of Monday night, my son is no longer a high school student. His school’s graduation ceremony took place at Memorial Coliseum, a venue I hadn’t previously entered even though I’ve lived in this city since 1989. Go figure. Maybe I need to take up hockey fandom. (Or, perhaps, not.)

I think I’m glad that I didn’t graduate from a larger school, because good grief it took a long time to get through all of those kids’ awards and diplomas and what-not. At first we were delighted that Alex was sitting in the front row… then we found that they were cycling kids through starting from the back rows. It worked out, actually: It would’ve been much more tedious being elated early on at his name being called, then sitting through half an hour or so of listening to other kids’ names.

The girl playing the harp during one of the entertainment interludes was quite good, however. Staggering home at nearly 11pm after an event which started at 8pm wasn’t all that good… worth it, mind you. I feel like I’ve fulfilled one of those critical parenting milestones, you know? Yes, it’s as cool a feeling as you think it is.

My daughter, meanwhile, has a couple of years yet to go on her high school career. She just finished up and posted her art-class “final” project on her gallery, though, and I rather like it. Apparently she’s getting very good use out of that drawing tablet computer accessory.

I have awesome kids.

One of the other units in our little apartment complex, at some point in the last few months, became the “party place.” You know, drinking and music and groups of idiots shouting at random, that sort of thing. Generally speaking they’ve kept it reasonable; they’re usually not super-loud, and they’re dispersed by 11pm or so. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, but when kept under control I can deal with it on occasion.

Not last night, though.

Full-volume music. Several conversations taking place outside at full volume simultaneously. People wandering out to the street to be noisy gits. And this went on well past 11pm.

And past midnight.

And past 1am.

The party didn’t wind down until two-freaking-thirty in the morning. (And it took another half hour or so for me to calm down enough to be able to sleep. Joy.)

Icing on the cake? Eight-o’clock rolls around and one of them decides to drive somewhere… announcing this fact by blaring their car stereo for a couple of minutes before driving off.

Yeah, they’ve had their exceptional party. I hope they enjoyed it, because if they try it again, cops will be called. Persistently and promptly. After a generally crappy week of work, this was precisely what I did not need. Grrrr.