BrewBlog

Best of

Something I always look forward to is a new music release from a favorite band.  One of my primary sources for new releases is the All Music Guide New Release page, which has a free, solid and to the point  weekly newsletter (sign up here).  Billboard is a great source for seeing what is coming out in the coming weeks.  Simply go to their New Releases page to see what is coming up by week.  Of course Amazon is also a great resource for seeing what is coming out as well.  There are thousands of Internet resources for music but that is not new information.  At one point in the nineties I considered putting together a comprehensive music review website where I would document my thoughts on new music, incorporating a rating system or something.  That never happened, but I did create a web site where I would highlight my favorite CDs of each year and had ten or so years documented.  Why perform such a tedious exercise?  Probably because music is one of my favorite things to think about and having a "Best of" each year was my personal way of paying tribute to the music I enjoyed the most that particular year.  Music makes up the soundtrack of your life and if you listen to music as much as I do, it has a profound impact on your very being.

This year I've been thinking about my "Best of 2005".  The year is not over so it can't be official until December 27 (the last Tuesday of the Year).  However, I've documented this century to date, beginning with the year 2000.  I'm not getting caught up in the debate about when the century begins so let's just say I'm starting with 2000 and forget the century thing.  I completely understand that nobody cares what my favorite releases are on a given year but since this is my contribution to the Internet, it doesn't matter.  That's why blogging is so cool anyway, right?  Since 2005 is not over, I'll start with 2004 and post a new year each week. 

I'm going to stick to a "top ten" format just to have some boundaries.  I'll have one called out as my favorite and the others will round out the top ten.  Titles in one position higher than another are not necessarily more highly rated but titles higher on the list are generally higher rated than those on the bottom, so anything in the top five is more highly rated than the bottom few.  Whatever, here we go.

2004 was a fair year overall, but not great. 

Best of 2004:  Interpol - Antics

1. Interpol - Antics
2. Silver Mountain Reveries - Pretty Little Lightning Paw
3. Therapy - Never Apologize Never Explain
4. Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
5. Clutch - Blast Tyrant
6. Eagles of Death Metal - Peace Love Death Metal
7. Soulfly - Prophecy
8. Bad Religion - The Empire Strikes First
9. Probot - Probot
10. Monster Magnet - Monolithic Baby

2004 had some great surprises.  First of all, Interpol's "Antics" is a follow up to their very good debut release, which is among my favorites of 2002.  This CD is just so good from beginning to end.  It has tremendous lasting power in terms of repeat listens.  Silver Mountain Reveries is a basically the same as A Silver Mount Zion.  This collection of unique artists led my Efrim Menuck is a post-rock band from Canada.  Their stuff is not for everyone since it lacks the pop and rock formula that appeals to most.  Lot's of quiet moments, strings and vocals that you'll either get used to and eventually appreciate or hate and think is a bad joke.  Their music has really grown on me since their first release in 2000, regularly giving me chills.  This particular release is short but solid.  A Silver Mount Zion is a spin-off of Godspeed You Black Emperor, another Canadian band with many of the same band members, only larger and completely instrumental. 

Therapy's latest, only released in parts of Europe, was a big surprise to me.  I've been a fan since around 1991 and have followed them along some great titles and others that were a little weak.  But this latest effort surpasses their past several and turned out to be a favorite of mine recently, making me a big fan again.  Sonic Youth and Clutch both had solid releases, keeping me excited about what they are doing.   Eagles of Death Metal is a new band that spun off of Queens of the Stone Age.  It's fun, no, it's really fun.  I didn't take it seriously at first but now I love it and am looking forward to a follow up this next year.  Another side project making the list is a Dave Grohl project called Probot.  He does it all on this CD and invites his metal heroes in this highly entertaining collaborative effort.  I'd definitely get a follow up although I doubt there will be one.  Soulfly's release, Prophecy, was better than their last and showed some growth I wasn't expecting.  This, and arguably Probot, are the two metal records that made it on the list, which is not too bad.  Bad Religion continues to release good music and their latest was above par.  Squeaking onto the list is Monster Magnet.  Their latest is not a good as past efforts but still worth a listen as a fan.  A few of the songs are just great, making it worthwhile for sure. 

So that's it.  I'll be looking at 2003 next week.

Thanksgiving Lessons

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone.  The weather is finally beginning to act appropriately.  We've had long summer and fall seasons and up until today, I've been comfortable wearing shorts outside.  But finally, no longer.  I love the weather around here and I'm not complaining about wearing short practically all the way through November.  But, I always embrace winter around here because it's so pleasant to me. 

Thanksgiving this year brought about some valuable lessons for me.  For the first time ever, I actually had a heavy involvement in the preparation of the feast.  Thanksgiving was at our house.  We had a very small gathering of eight family members.  This year, I was to be in the kitchen, working almost all day to feed those closest to me.  Having never actually been a part of the big meal preparation, I was quite impressed with the results.  The meal was great and I really learned a few things.  We had the traditional feast, except for maybe the Tofurkey for my wife.  We've had Tofurkey before and I've grown accustomed to calling it "Turdfurkey".  To be honest, it's not bad at all.  The key to Tofurkey and all other "fake meat" is to approach it with the expectation that this is a brand new food item your are about to try.  Expecting it to taste like real meat will only lead to disappointment.  But we made both turkey and Turdfurkey this year and everyone was happy.

What I learned this year had only partly to do with the view from the kitchen.  Some of the amazement of the meal was put into a new light having been involved with all the different dishes, preparation, timing, and even shopping.  The mystery and "how do they do that" was replaced with the satisfaction of working all day to see the collective effort of loved ones culminate in the most celebrated of dinners by all.  Well, Americans anyway.  But that was only part of the lesson.  This Thanksgiving was a graduation to a new level of appreciation of family.  My immediate family  has always been important to me and the gist of the holiday has been with me for a long time.  But this year was different.  My wife's family and my family spent the day together preparing the meal.  We had a very strong sense of togetherness.  My wife being pregnant presented a sense of transition.  We'll have our baby in the family next year.  The strong sense of fellowship and love that was in the house this holiday will be magnified (and amplified) to a level I'm thrilled and lucky to look forward to experiencing. 

Holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas are always full of magic and have that special feeling growing up.  I'm looking forward to watching my child experience that same magic.  I'm going to do everything I can to make them the best of times for my family.  The best is yet to come. 

Hang up the phone and drive

Does anything more really need to be said with this?  No, but I'll simply add that more and more people are going from being bad drivers to terrible drivers by talking on the phone while driving.  Who the hell is everybody talking to?  Hang up, pay attention and get out of my way.

Why do we put up with pirates?

Link: BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Cruise lines turn to sonic weapon.

Passengers traveling on luxury cruise liners usually expect to be looked after by their ship's crew. Yet pirates who tried to hijack a liner off the coast of Somalia met something a little more sophisticated than a warning shot across the bow. The crew of the Seabourn Spirit quickly changed course and headed out into open water to evade the attackers in small boats who had raked the vessel with rockets and automatic weapons fire. They also deployed a military-grade sonic weapon. The long range acoustic device, or LRAD, is a high-tech loudhailer capable of causing permanent damage to hearing from a distance of more than 300 metres (984ft).

This is an interesting story and immediately put ideas into my head.  Apparently, the pirates around this area where the attack happened off Somalia are a big problem.  There have been many attacks this year and there is no sign the problem is going away, mostly because of the lawlessness of the area.  It's great that the cruise ship tried to run down the pirates and it's even better that they had the LRAD to deploy.  Thank goodness for that innovation is weaponry.  Thanks Al Quida, for the inspiration.

Even though this particular incident was a near miss, thank goodness, I simply cannot stand thugs and terrorists.  We should not put up with it AT ALL.  So here is my very simple idea.  Use a cruise ship as bait, put some normal looking volunteers on it.  Nearby, have a military submarine cruising along behind the cruise ship.   Wait for these pirate bastards to show up.  Act weak of course, and wait for one of them to fire rounds and rockets and such at the cruise ship, as they do.  Then, simply fire a missile at them.  Done.  No more pirates.  This would be expensive but can be partially funded by recording the whole thing and broadcasting it on television. 

Repeating the process or hunting down the "mother ships" as they call them would be even better.  Then these worthless people would perhaps think twice about attacking civilians.  Or maybe they wouldn't think twice, then we can just pick them off one by one.  See?  Problem solved.  Simple solutions.  I should run for office. 

Road Trip 2005

My wife and I wanted a vacation and were wrestling with different ideas for weeks.  To sort of force the decision we went ahead and reserved a week off even though we had no plan.  With her being so pregnant we had some limitations with vacation activities.  For example, delicious beach cocktails are out.  Lot's of walking is out of the question as well.  Plus, we're trying to save up for baby stuff so we set a pretty strict vacation budget.  We finally decided on a road trip.  Our honeymoon was a road trip.  We also did a road trip through Canada, eh?  One of these days I'm planning to post some of our vacation pictures.

Our plan was to visit some parts of California we've never seen.  Even after living in California my whole life, I have yet to see much of the state.  So, we booked some cheap hotels and set off on our journey.  Our first stop was in Yosemite.  I had never been to Yosemite, which is just crazy having lived here so long.  Yosemite was beautiful of course.  We spent one night there and spent most of the day we had there, driving through the park and going on some short walks.  They were supposed to be short walks but they turned into slightly longer walks, which is something we always do to ourselves for some reason. 

Our next stop was Death Valley.  The drive to get there was pretty long but it was beautiful.  We stayed in middle of Death Valley and explored much of it for the day we had there.  We saw as much as we could in a day anyway.  I really like the desert landscape.  Normally a very hot place, Death Valley this time of year isn't too bad.  It was 90 degrees the day we were there.  Our next stop took us through the Mojave Desert and to a stop over spot on our way to San Diego.  We ended up in Barstow, which is like the butt-hole of the world.  What a crappy place.  Before our stop over in Barstow, we went to a little ghost town called Calico.  We just saw the signs while we were driving and decided to check it out.  Neat place, better than we were expecting.  A tarantula crossed out paths, which was definitely a highlight. 

Our next stop was a two day visit to San Diego.  We'd both been there before but not together and it was our Southern California destination of choice.  We spent much of our time visiting the zoo and animal park.  On our way back up toward home we made a stop at her mom's place for an overnight visit.  Our last stop was Sequoia National Park.  We stayed nearby and dedicated a little more than half a day at the park, very much enjoying the views and huge trees.  Finally, we headed back home after what was the biggest road trip of our lives.  We drove 1,860 miles! 

Trip Photos

Trip Summary:

Night 1 - Yosemite
Night 2 - Death Valley
Night 3 - Barstow (Butt-hole)
Night 4 - San Diego
Night 5 - San Diego
Night 6 - Redlands
Night 7 - Three Rivers (Sequoia)

Speeding at Work

Society is growing in it's need to control and be controlled.  We have one side that tend to repeatedly break rules already in place or do stupid things that hurt themselves or others, demonstrating to society that "I just cannot handle life without being told specifically what to do and when".   Then there is another side that simply must control things and dictate their will on others, insisting that we have more and more rules and control because the world needs a babysitter.  This is apparent whenever I drive into the work parking lot and have a radar gun pointed at me by the work rent-a-cop.  If I'm speeding while pulling into or out of the parking lot (as dictated by radar gun), then I'm subject to a lecture by my immediate manager, emphasizing the importance of parking lot safety.  Another infraction and an HR person will have a little sit down with me.  I haven't actually gotten busted for this yet but a friend has and it was pretty amusing. 

So why are we here?  We're here because people cannot drive with courtesy and common sense.  Employees tear through the parking lot in their giant cars.  They are not paying attention because they on the phone or head in their ass.  They are in a "hurry" because they are late for a meeting that doesn't matter.  We've had some near misses with pedestrian accidents and there have been some fender benders.  It's a PARKING LOT!  So, like everything else, we simply must have new processes and guidelines to deter bad parking lot drivers.  Now a team of two rent-a-cops periodically sit by their rent-a-cop-car, with lights flashing of course, radar the cars in the parking lot.  One operates the radar gun and the other writes license plates of the purps onto a clip board for immediate processing and subsequent booking.

Great.  It's annoying that we are subject to radar guns and it's even more annoying that we deserve it and have more or less asked for it.  This isn't really a big problem in actual scope of things, but it's definitely an example of things we see everywhere in our lives.  I think I tend to lean more towards less babysitting and more accountability vs. more rules with more chances. 

Bad hair is bad enough

My wife left for a few days on a work trip and I embarrassed myself at Safeway.  She does all the cooking, pretty much.  I do all barbecuing but otherwise she does the cooking.  She's good at it and I'm not.  So while she was away I had to recall my bachelor recipes because I needed to eat.  My first inclination was to find what can be wrapped in a tortilla.  Beans, check.  Hot sauce, check.  Sour cream, damn.  I headed out the door, leaving the house for the first time that day to buy sour cream for my bachelor dinner. 

Once I got to Safeway I caught a glimpse of my hair in the rear-view mirror and notice a serious bedhead situation.  My hair was ridiculous but there was no way I was going home just to fix my hair.  I was already sporting sweat pants and tee-shirt anyway.  Then, as I was walking across the parking lot, I noticed that I was wearing slippers (my wife calls them "grandpa slippers").  Now that is just silly.  My plan was now to move quickly through the store and hope nobody noticed.  I felt so stupid while I was standing in line.  Should I have gone back home before going into the store?  I didn't think so but had second thoughts on that decision while racing around the store.

Liveplasma

I just started playing with Liveplasma a few minutes ago and I already love it.  The developers call it a "discovery engine" and this thing has some great potential.  This nifty little site uses Amazon data, I think,  to map together similar interests.  All you have to do is type a band name, movie title, actor or director that you like and Liveplasma will quickly develop a visual mapping of other potential interests.

Try it. 

http://www.liveplasma.com/