I figure you all could use something funny to read, and since I can’t provide it directly I might as well link you to somewhere that can. Go forth and laugh it up, friends.
Author: Karel Kerezman
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My birthday present from Mother Nature
One last present arrived late yesterday afternoon, in the form of Mt. St. Helens blowing her top for a while. Sure, years from now nobody will remember the exact date of this eruption or think of it as anything but part of “that string of eruptions that took place between 2004 and 20??,” but I think of it as a touching display of affection from Mother Nature nonetheless. An old chat buddy of mine sent me a pic of it, no less:
If I can’t have fireworks, I might as well have a volcanic eruption, I always say.
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Happy Birthday to ME!
I turn 33 today. Huzzah, and stuff. A year older, five or ten minutes wiser, I figure.
But really, it’s all about the nifty stuff. Let’s see… some comfy and stylish bedding, a cute picture to help decorate my room (in addition to a Swiss Army thumbdrive), a copy of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves,” a DVD of low-budget zombie movies, some money, some snackies, and various well-wishing emails. Not too shabby, I can’t complain.
Here’s hoping my living situation will be such that I can pull off that 33-and-a-third party in July…
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I’m so blogking this…
Seen downtown, on the way from the MAX to the Amtrak station with Dawn this evening… the following signage, submitted for your amusement.
I can only assume that they just couldn’t get their hands on a letter C. Ah well. Their loss is my gain.
Because now, I’ve blog(k)’d their driveway. Heh.
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Naminanu, what?
So there was I was, at Fry’s, replacement parts in hand for the kids’ broken anime-viewing computer. Dawn had her Stellvia DVD and was looking for other stuff to buy tax-free at the Geek Mecca Of Portland, and Lil’ was outside waiting patiently with Geoffrey after having picked out her iPod. (She chose the 4GB model, in silver, in case you’re wondering.)
For some reason I ended up wandering from poring over the anime box sets to poring over the music box sets. I didn’t find what I was looking for on the first shelf, but I turned around and discovered it on the other.
It, in this instance, is the Genesis Archive #2: 1976-1992. The three CDs cover the usual boxed-set gamut from unreleased tracks and B-sides to live material and demos. Once I got home (after dinner at Kell’s… my tummy and Dawn’s both thank Lil’ very much!) I spent the first entire hour listening to various tracks and poring over the nifty booklet insert.
So, why did I get it? You mean other than the fact that I’m a die-hard Genesis fan, that is? Well, this box has some tracks from the Invisible Touch and We Can’t Dance sessions that you can generally only find as B-sides, my favorites of which include “Feeding the Fire”, “On The Shoreline” and “Do the Neurotic.” There’s a song I’d never heard before, called “Naminanu.” (The geeky fanboy in me goes “Yay,” while the jaded media employee in me nods knowingly at the lack of mystery behind why the song didn’t make it onto the album.)
The live tracks I was most excited about include cuts from the generally-disregarded And Then There Were Three… album, which is admittedly not one of the band’s strongest works. I got a kick out of hearing live renditions of “The Lady Lies” and “Burning Rope,” as well as “Ripples” and “Entangled” from the Trick of the Tail album.
Included are a few tracks I’d consider filler, like the contents of the Pigeons EP, the fourth side of Three Sides Live, and a few remixes. On the other hand, it’s sort of nice to have even these not-so-rare birds collected in one place.
The track I got the biggest kick out of hearing for the first time, though, was “It’s Yourself,” another bit of the Trick of the Tail sessions that didn’t quite make it on the album. I say “quite” because the bridge section does make it on… as the opening salvo of “Los Endos,” the instrumental power-medly that closes the record.
So, yes, for the first time in many years I’ve had the chance to buy Genesis music and actually have something new to enjoy. It’s a damned shame that I’ll probably never have that pleasure again.
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Perhaps not the answer you’d expect?
To the question of, “How did you spend your evening?” you might not expect to hear me answer, “Playing Donkey Konga and Mario Party 6,” but that is in fact how I spent at least part of this evening.
See, Dawn and I went to visit Mari and Doug, and along with their other guests I got sucked into some Gamecube fun. (I could have won the Mario Party game, but I had my star stolen near game’s end. Bah!) There was also some hilariously bad music, fun with massagers, and a bit of Neopets gaming (though that was called on account of soda).
All told, much fun was had, as was much pizza. Yum.