Just a way for me to spare friends and loved ones from having to listen to my verbal diarrhea, which admittedly can sometimes get a big pointed or excessive. This way, if nobody is interested in hearing it, they don't have to read about it, but I can still get it out of my system.
Bike is still on the fritz, I cannont keep tension in the chain if I stop pedaling. I refuse to take it to a bike shop to get it fixed. If I can successfully make it through graduate school while working full time, I am confident I can fix a bike chain. That type of bad attitude has frequently gotten me into trouble.
Since last weekend I have installed a ceiling fan in the baby's room (which required some fairly extensive rewiring in the attic and behind walls, but afforded me the opportunity to learn about switch loops!), rebuilt the governor on my lawnmower (I'm not paying 300 bucks for a new lawnmower due to a broken 12 cent spring), but failed to repair my bike. In the words of Mr. Loaf, two out of three ain't bad.
And while I'm flexing attitudes and opinions, allow me to wax poetic on what I have been listening to recently:
Misfits -- Earth A.D.
This last album by the Misfits was a foreshadowing of what Glenn Danzig would later produce with Sam Hain. This record got very regular play in my rotation during the summer of 1990. When you are a 13 year old kid who spends his summer days smoking cigarettes, skateboarding, and getting angrier and angrier at the world, Earth A.D. is where it's at. To me, this record just sounded scary, the cover art was truly evil looking, and was probably a perfect soundtrack for where my life was at the time: boy slowly becoming man (I'm still not there yet), and VERY angry at the world. Hopefully if we have a son, he will not be as mad at the world as I was. I'm still not sure what I was mad about, all I knew was that I was very, very angry and had a ton of fight in me. Good thing my parents forced me to play football, it was a perfect outlet me, and if I would not have had the opportunity to get it out of my system in a controlled environment like that, I probably would have ended up some kind of criminal.
Van Halen -- Fair Warning
Another record that I believe was probably considered experimental at the time for Van Halen. From what I read, DLR felt that there was too much EVH synthesizer stuff, and not enough straight ahead rock and roll. I love this record and have very fond memories of driving around with my brother during the summer of.........must have been 1986 I think.............it was the summer before he left for the Marines. He had some kind of gray beater car that he installed a tape deck in, and Fair Warning was heavy in the rotation. I really liked the cover art on this one too, it had a cartoon of one guy on top of some other guy, punching him in the face. I think I was probably the only 9 year old kid who knew all the lyrics to Fair Warning. Years later when I was in college, I found that same tape and had it in my Saturn for many, many years. After I got married, our old next door neighbors donated all their vinyl to me, and Fair Warning was in the collection. All the DLR Van Halen was great but this one stands out for me.
Beach Boys -- Pet Sounds
Bought this one on a whim a couple weeks ago and it did not disappoint. Clearly a strong Brian Wilson effort, trying hard to break from the "Barbara Ann," "Help Me Rhonda" mold. Apparently the other Beach Boys really resisted this record, feeling it was tinkering with a successful formula. I do love the song Sloop John B, although it really sounds to me like the anthem of some rich kid who goes sailing with his grandfather, kind of like Spalding from Caddyshack.
Bike is still on the fritz, I cannont keep tension in the chain if I stop pedaling. I refuse to take it to a bike shop to get it fixed. If I can successfully make it through graduate school while working full time, I am confident I can fix a bike chain. That type of bad attitude has frequently gotten me into trouble.
Since last weekend I have installed a ceiling fan in the baby's room (which required some fairly extensive rewiring in the attic and behind walls, but afforded me the opportunity to learn about switch loops!), rebuilt the governor on my lawnmower (I'm not paying 300 bucks for a new lawnmower due to a broken 12 cent spring), but failed to repair my bike. In the words of Mr. Loaf, two out of three ain't bad.
And while I'm flexing attitudes and opinions, allow me to wax poetic on what I have been listening to recently:
Misfits -- Earth A.D.
This last album by the Misfits was a foreshadowing of what Glenn Danzig would later produce with Sam Hain. This record got very regular play in my rotation during the summer of 1990. When you are a 13 year old kid who spends his summer days smoking cigarettes, skateboarding, and getting angrier and angrier at the world, Earth A.D. is where it's at. To me, this record just sounded scary, the cover art was truly evil looking, and was probably a perfect soundtrack for where my life was at the time: boy slowly becoming man (I'm still not there yet), and VERY angry at the world. Hopefully if we have a son, he will not be as mad at the world as I was. I'm still not sure what I was mad about, all I knew was that I was very, very angry and had a ton of fight in me. Good thing my parents forced me to play football, it was a perfect outlet me, and if I would not have had the opportunity to get it out of my system in a controlled environment like that, I probably would have ended up some kind of criminal.
Van Halen -- Fair Warning
Another record that I believe was probably considered experimental at the time for Van Halen. From what I read, DLR felt that there was too much EVH synthesizer stuff, and not enough straight ahead rock and roll. I love this record and have very fond memories of driving around with my brother during the summer of.........must have been 1986 I think.............it was the summer before he left for the Marines. He had some kind of gray beater car that he installed a tape deck in, and Fair Warning was heavy in the rotation. I really liked the cover art on this one too, it had a cartoon of one guy on top of some other guy, punching him in the face. I think I was probably the only 9 year old kid who knew all the lyrics to Fair Warning. Years later when I was in college, I found that same tape and had it in my Saturn for many, many years. After I got married, our old next door neighbors donated all their vinyl to me, and Fair Warning was in the collection. All the DLR Van Halen was great but this one stands out for me.
Beach Boys -- Pet Sounds
Bought this one on a whim a couple weeks ago and it did not disappoint. Clearly a strong Brian Wilson effort, trying hard to break from the "Barbara Ann," "Help Me Rhonda" mold. Apparently the other Beach Boys really resisted this record, feeling it was tinkering with a successful formula. I do love the song Sloop John B, although it really sounds to me like the anthem of some rich kid who goes sailing with his grandfather, kind of like Spalding from Caddyshack.
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