I make no excuses and offer no expainations…

The first band that I really latched onto in my adult life was Pink Floyd.  I have posted before a little about how I got introduced to them.  Suffice it to say, I am a really big fan.  The music I have on my playlist are excerpts from their Suedo-Rock-Opera The Wall.  To me, it is a very complex and moving album.  It is full of emotion and musical masterpeices.  It follows the life of the protagonist, Pink, as he grows up and decends into insanity.  Really, with a story like that how could you go wrong?

But seriously, it is a very well written and recorded album.  Some of the songs are considered to be the best rock songs of all time.  The album itself, two discs and 81 minutes long, remains the best selling-double album of all time and is on all sorts of “best of” lists.  To say that it is well produced is an understatement, as there are layers upon layers of things going on.

To give you a little taste of this I’ll tell you about two of the fun little “secret messages” contained in the album.  The first is a subliminal backwards recording in the middle of a transition song called “Empty Spaces”.  Played backwards it says “Congratulations. You’ve just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm…” and then someone in the background yells something about someone on the phone… really random.  The next one isn’t as random, I think that it was ment to really tie the whole album together.  At the very first of the first track you can hear a man say softly “we came in?” and at the very end of the very last song the same man can be heard to say, “Isn’t this where”.  So then if you could, you loop the record, and you would hear “Isn’t this where we came in?”  There you are… useless trivia.

Anyway, all tangents aside- or rather, one tangent to go- this band has everything I love about music.  Unfortunatly, they haven’t toured as a complete band for over two decades, so it is impossible to hear them preform live.  But there is a cover band called “Australian Pink Floyd” that is the premier cover band for PInk Floyd.  I was able to go a couple of years ago with Jenn and it was an awesome expirience.  And my lovely wife got tickets for us to go again this year!  I am soooooo exited.  They are playing most of The Wall in the first set and I am just really looking forward to it.

I tried to get some audio clips of the hidden messages so you can hear them, if you were interested, but I couldn’t find any online.  I might try to cut it together myself… I’ll try to do it if I have time.  Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy some of the tracks.

EDIT: I found a link where you can hear the “Isn’t this where we came in” pieced together.  It was on wikipedia (isn’t everything?).  Just click here

Well, as my friends and family can attest, I am not always as sharp as a nail. I had one of these moments just the other day.

I went through my day as usual. I went to the gym in my gym clothes (I pack my work clothes in my duffel bag the night before) and changed for work right after. I went through my day as normal, came home and took off my shoes right after entering my house. I had dinner with the family, and when I went to put my shoes back on, I noticed that my left shoe was from one pair, and my right shoe was from another…… done laughing?

In my defense, they are quite similar and there’s been a time or two when I’ve mistakenly picked up a shoe from both pair to put on, but I’ve never actually put them on. I am completely flabbergasted that I could go through my whole day an not noticed this. I even remember reaching down to adjust the tongues of both shoes and being surprised that one didn’t need to be adjusted.

To complicate the story, our children are very fond of throwing the shoes by the front door down the stairs and bringing them back up and doing it all over again. I’m pretty sure that my shoes didn’t get mixed up in between me taking them off and going to put them on again… but when I put the shoes on to take the picture for this post, they really didn’t feel right, and I’m almost positive that I would have noticed it when I put them on at the gym. But I also realize that I would probably think that they felt really weird just because I know that they are different.  Anyway, it’s a funny story and the mere possibility that it could have happened makes it worth mentioning, don’t you think?  Really the silver lining in this whole story is that I didn’t notice.  If I had noticed first thing in the morning, I would have been self conscious all day long, and in this case, ignorance is bliss!

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the different music I have going now.  It is exerpts from Pink Floyd’s The Wall , and I plan on giving a post on it next.  Hope you enjoy the change up!

I was tagged by my sister Carla, and have had a very difficult time coming up with them! Yeah… not really.

1. I stand on one foot in the shower.

Before you mock, you need to try it. Step 1: Choose a foot, any foot. Place it firmly on the floor within a foot of the shower wall. Step 2: Take your other foot and curl your toes and rest it on top of the planted foot. Now, tell me this is not the most natural shower position ever devised! For added comfort, try leaning slightly on the wall… I have created a nation of one-footed showerers!!!

2. I never grew up.

Evidence: Homstarrunner.com, Silly music, I read young adult fiction… a bit nerdy too, I doodle in my work meetings, and… I could go on, but I’ll save whats left of my dignity and move on.

3. I wear my watch on my right wrist and I am right-handed.

I refused to conform, I assert that this is the true way to wear your wrist watch if you are right handed. To quirk this up a bit, I also wear the face of the watch on the inside of my wrist.

4. I am a music snob.

I have a very distinct music taste that takes into account more than the song that is played. It takes into account the band and its members, future and past efforts from the group, the groups involvement in the making of the songs and albums, etc. It is a tribute to the wonderfulness of my wife that she not only puts up with my snobishness, but allows me to express it with out throwing blunt and heavy objects at me after rambling on about this band or that band for 30 min.

5. I hate talking on the phone.

If you are ever on the phone with me, and it appears that I am trying to wrap up the conversation… please don’t take it personal. I get very anxious when there is a lull in the conversation. This can be with anyone from my wife to a customer service agent. While if I am jabbering, I can go on for hours, but as soon as that lull hits, I’m running for an exit!

6. I have no sense of style when it comes to dressing my children.

I can usually dress my self without embarrassing anyone, but when it comes to picking out clothes for my kids, I am truly clueless. I don’t think I am alone in this either, this is why it is very smart for wives to have a few full outfits on hangers for dad to dress the kids. Then we just get the shoes and socks wrong!

I will now tag, anyone who has commented on my blog…. that should be about five people.

When I was attending high school, a friend and I decided to write a little “Ask Abby” type column, except it would be funny… at least to us.  The other night I was going through some stuff in our basement and found a little pamphlet that my friend had written for a class, that included our two columns, and I will share the funny one with you!  So without any further ado, I give you “Mr. Smarty Pants”.

Q.  Why do girls have so many colors?

-Oomyek Nomyeknom

A.  Dear Oomyek,

Mr. Smarty Pants knows where you’re coming from.  Mr. Smarty Pants once had to find his date’s house (Don’t be so surprised!  I have a long list of girls who want to date me!) using a set of instructions that included “turn left at the Burgundy/Rock house”.  Now I know what you men are thinking.  Your exact words are, “BURGUNDY?  What the heck is BURGUNDY?”  But that is not what Mr. Smarty Pants thought.   Being the Mr. Smarty Pants that I am, I immediately recognized that Burgundy was a former region of Europe.  Mr. Smarty Pants was very concerned.  Was this some kind of hint?  Was she trying to tell me to FLEE THE COUNTRY?

So I treated this the way I treat anything that concerns me, namely, by ignoring it altogether.

This tactic eventually proved successful, as I did manage to find her (which, incidentally, was not in Europe, though it was in Bear River City, which is probably just as foreign as Europe, only more remote).

Later that evening I consulted my “Mr. Smarty Pants Dictionary” concerning the term “Burgundy”.  By that point, I had determined that my date was not trying to send me to Germany, but I thought that maybe this word had some sort of secret meaning (I couldn’t help but notice that the letters in the word “BURGUNDY” could be rearranged to spell “DRUG BUNY”).

Indeed, I was correct.  The word Burgundy not only referred to  a certain regioun in Europe, but also to a certain alcoholic beverage that makes this region famous (True story!  Look it up for yourself!) and the term is also used to describe the color of this beverage.

So there it was!  Finally I began to understand.  She wasn’t trying to send me to Europe, she was merely trying to get me drunk so that she could steal my wallet and car.

No, I’m only kidding, but we’re getting to my point: girls are not content to give you a vague description of an item’s color.  Girls have loaded their memory banks with the names of hundreds of different colors so that when they tell you what color something is, there will be no question in your mind as to the exact tint, shade, tone, degree, and flavor of the object in question.

Of course guys don’t do this.  What a girl would call “burgundy” a guy would call “purple”.  If he wanted to be extra descriptive, he might call it “kinda purplish” or “sort of, ya know, a purple color.”  Only if he wanted to be EXTREMELY specific would he ever get even remotely close to being as descriptive as girls, and the he would call it “the color of the beans in a five-week-old burrito.”  What a guy would call “blue” a girl could call navy blue, azure, periwinkle, midnight blue, cerulean, sky color sapphire, aquamarine, turquoise, dusty blue, powder blue, kitchen blue, French blue, decaffeinated blue, fat-free blue, my baby done made me blue, or (my personal favorite) blue on a stick.

Mr. Smarty Pants thinks that life would be much simpler if girls adopted the guy method of color distinction.  In my example, for instance, I would have been a lot less confused if my date had just called the house, “the color of wine made in a former region of Europe.”

So what make girls this way?  To answer this question, you must dig way back into your childhood,  Remember a simpler time, a carefree time, a time when your social status was based on the cartoon character on your lunch box.  Now think about your crayons.  Everyone had to have crayons.  This was when color differences arose between genders.  Girls packed around huge 128 crayon sets that came in a carrying case that resembled designer luggage with wheels, built-in-crayon sharpener, and a V-8 engine.  Boys on the other hand had little boxes with seven or eight crayons in them.  Parents didn’t buy their boys huge crayon sets, because boys didn’t use crayons the same way girls did.  While girls were painstakingly coloring the chicken mauve, boys were in pain from sticking the green WAY too far up their left nostril!

Beck is seriously one of my absolute favorite artists.  He is one of the most ecclectic, rounded, and random artists that I have listened to.  This album, The Information, was released two years ago, and the only song that I heard on the radio from it was “I Think I’m In Love”.  However, like most Beck albums, the whole album is very listenable and is a lot of fun to listen to.  My favorite track is “No Complaints”, and should be the song that you’re listening to now on my player.

Beck has a history of doing really odd things with his releases.  With his 2004 album, Guero, he gave a master tape of all the songs to various groups to re-mix and released it soon after Guero was released.  With The Information he decided to let the fans choose their own cover art and included 4 pages of stickers to us on the blank cover for the album… kinda weird, but also kinda cool!  Another “unique” thing that he did with this album was to make music videos for all of the songs using fairly low-budget means.  So when you buy the album, you get a disc of the songs, a DVD of the videos, 4 pages of stickers and the booklet of linear notes.  What a deal, eh?

Seriously, give the songs a listen and learn to love the music by this truly unique and talented artist!

Well I think it’s time to post, mainly to spite my wonderful sister.  (love ya Carla!)

My company was recently acquired, and the new company offers a gym membership in their benefits package.  Anyway, I knew that I was very low on gas, but I was 90% sure that I would be able to make it to the gym…. I was not right.  I was so lucky to be very near to a freeway exit, and I was able to coast to within a few hundred feet of a gas station.  So I was able to get a gallon of gas and run over to the gym, shower, and hop back in my car and go to work!  So much fun!!!

I really shouldn’t be complaining because I am so very lucky to have run out in a good spot.  It’s a funny story anyway, and a good excuse to update my blog.  I think I’ll update the music too, I hope the “auto-play” feature doesn’t annoy too many people… let me know if it does.

Well, It’s time for a quarterly update… but you’ll have to hear about one of my favorite albums instead!!!

I was first introduced to the Flaming Lips in High School when they had their hit song “She Don’t Use Jelly”… not their best effort in my opinion… and I promptly forgot all about them.  About 8 years later I had a friend I had met on a Pink Floyd fan board that emailed me a disk with a low quality mp3 of all their songs and albums on it, I never really listened to much of it and lost the disk.  About a year ago, I got this album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots from the library and fell in love with it.  The lead singer, Wayne Coyne, has a unique voice that might get some getting used to.  This album is some what conceptual, and the songs transitions well from one to another, both of these things that I love about albums.  The songs are a bit off the wall, but each tells interesting stories and have odd insights that I like following along with.  One example of this is in the song “Do you Realize?”.  The lyrics go thus-

Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize – we’re floating in space -
Do You Realize – that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize – that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize – Oh – Oh – Oh
Do You Realize – that everyone you know
Someday will die -

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn’t go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize – that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize

——————————————————

I hope you can sense the mix of humor and insight in this little tune.  Anyway that’s my music recommendation. Give it a shot.

A funny little story, when I got this album I ripped it on to my computer through itunes, and in itunes there is this feature where you can maximize the artwork to the album while you listen to it, and for some reason Ryan adopted this album as “his music” and would ask to listen to Yoyoyoyoshimi and the pink robots.  It’s pretty cute.

I have been very busy… and very lazy.  I think that probably the 5 people who even looked at my blog have stopped.  In my defence, I have been a bit quite productive in finishing (almost) the remodeling job and keeping up pretty well on all the family things and goings on.  But I should be able to fit in a little blog time.

I should have some time to put in some posts in the next couple of weeks.  We’ll see, I have all sorts of good intentions that never get acted on.  The probably won’t be very exciting or super informative, but hopefully they are a little insightful and at least a little fun.

So I thought that I’d do a quick music update before I get into the home updates.

Nick Drake is an artist that I was introduced to about five or six years ago by a friend who is a music nut. He put out three albums in the late sixties before dieing of an accidental overdose of anti-depression drugs. At a first listen, his music is pleasing enough. His soft unique voice and incredible acoustic guitar rhythms are the mainstay of all three of his albums. His first album, Five Leaves Left, is a mostly nice album with soft songs with whimsical stories of life and love. His second album, Bryter Lyter, was much more produced and many of the tracks have a full orchestra backing him. Unfortunately, this second album was not commercially successful and led to a lot of depression for the young artist. When he made Pink Moon, he only recorded a bleak 28 minutes of him singing and playing guitar, the only exception being the title track which he dubbed in a bit of piano. The album only took a single session to record and was an even bigger commercial failure than his previous album. Sinking further into depression and borderline psychosis, he passed away a few years later at the age of 26. This last album, Pink Moon has gone on to become a very successful and influential album. It’s one of those albums that every artist you like will mention as an influence.

Anyway, give it a listen. I promise you will not regret it!