S'up?
Well, here I am, violating my general rule of not writing something unless it's worth reading. And, why, you might ask?
Couple reasons. First, I haven't blogged in a few days, and I'm afraid you might think I'm dead. In case your wondering, I'm not. I'm alive, so alive. I think that was an INXS song. Too bad their lead singer killed himself--they were an awesome band.
Second, I'm chained to my computer pretty much perpetually of late, as The Missus and I both have our various MP3 players and are rapidly trying to put anything round and plastic into our computer to see if it has something we want to burn.
Now, to remind you all, my wife got an iPod mini for Christmas. When she told me that she was getting that from me, she asked me what I wanted. After much consideration, I decided I wanted an MP3 player as well. My choice: the Dell DJ 20. Same price as her mini, holds 16 more gigs of junk! (And, I've just learned while getting you the link, that Oprah herself has named the DJ one of her favorite things of 2004. How can you argue with that? I also just learned the price has dropped $25 since Christmas. Bastards.)
Anyway, the upshot of this is that I've been spending every anxiety-addled minute I have awake copying music onto my DJ, looking out for duplicative music, and trying to make sure that I have an impressive collection of all sorts of stuff, should anyone ever inspect it. I have Adam Sandler's "Farting Hypnotist" routine. I have local DJ Ohmega Watts (knowns to his friends as Milton). I have all the U2 I could muster. I have the Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, Burt Bacharach. It's all there. 20 gigs. 3700+ songs. Enough to get me cross country and back many, many times.
I find, perhaps not surprisingly, that I listen to the same 25 or 30 songs constantly, despite the fact that I've sworn to listen to everything I've crammed into this little box. At the moment, I'm quite taken with the group Switchfoot, and I'm also listening to Snow Patrol quite a bit. I'd say they qualify, at the moment, as one of my top five favorite bands.
To prove my diversity, I have a hip-hop mix on my DJ. It contains music from the afore-mentioned Milton, and also from Mr. 12, aka DJ Twelvizm (who, while I'm mentioning him, made it home for a quick Christmas break with his wife, but is back in Texas awaiting an 18-month deployment to Fallujah), Public Enemy, the Beasties, Ice Cube, Ice T, Snoop Dogg, etc. I was listening to it at the gym the other day and found that the music was just a bit too angry for me. Good beat, could bike to it quickly, but after the 30th for 40th F-Bomb, it was time to switch it up a bit.
I just put a bunch of classical on. Currently, I'm burning my wife's Britney Spears CD, not only because I figure she'd like some of the young Mrs. Federline's music on her iPod, but because I actually enjoy her every now and again (don't tell anyone...that's our little secret).
Anyway, now that Christmas Break is done, and I was a good boy and stayed in town throughout, it's time to start planning this years vacations. Previously, I've talked about the various trips my wife and I have taken. To Cabo San Lucas, to Disneyland, to Italy. Next Monday, we celebrate Martin Luther King by flying off to Mexico. A week in the sun should do a lot for my current condition.
In preparation, I've been tanning and currently look like a nice shade of taupe. Before we leave, I hope to be khaki. When we return, I'm planning on being lobster-red.
Today, in respose to a query, I learned that our hotel is going to cost an arm and a leg. Now, I knew it would be expensive. What I didn't realize is that, not only did I do my math wrong and under-guess the cost by one day, but I also just learned that the tax rate for the hotel stay will be 12%. Whereas, this morning, I though my wife and I could cover the trip, I'm now a bit worried. Luckily, she's a financial optimist and will certainly see a way out of this trap. Probably by offering them my arm and my leg. I can type one-handed, though, so I guess that's fine.
Now, not only am I looking forward to Mexico's Isla de Mujeres (literally "Island of Women"), but we're already planning our summer adventure as well. JLowe and his wife are going to join us on a grand road trip. Grand not only in mileage, but in destination. The plan is to swing through California to see my brother-in-law who's at school in Santa Barbara at Brooks, studying photography, then maybe to hit a fun park or two, then to drive directly to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon, which is one of those things I've never been able to do.
The closest I came was the time that Caleb and I were on a road trip in my brand new car (I think I've covered this in a prior post, so if you don't care to read it again, skip to the next paragraph). This was after high school. My dad had died my junior year, and I came into my inheritance when I graduated. Most of the money went to college. But part of it went into a new car and a road trip to Banff, which was a town Caleb assured me would be awesome to behold. Midway through Washington State, I decided that I'd actually like to go to the Grand Canyon instead. Caleb cried foul, despite my prodding reminder that I was funding the entire trip. So voracious were his objections that he managed to get me to pull over the car and talked me into a coin flip. We walked fifty paces from the highway, into a field of grass, and flipped, best two out of three. Caleb, of course, won. And we stayed in Banff just long enough to eat McDonalds.
Anyway, the trip will be extra-nifty because JLowe has an Element, and one of the perks of that particular car is that it was invented post-MP3 player. As such, it has an auxiliary port to plug your MP3 player into, in order to play it through the vehicle's stereo. So, we can test how far my music will get us.
Very exciting.
Anyway, that's about enough talking about nothing. The real reason I wanted to post today was because I saw the following link and was moved by it. Click here to see before and after pictures of the tsunami damage in Asia. It's not too late to donate. Right now, Fred Meyer's is allowing donations at all of their registers, or you can just go to amazon.com or the American Red Cross' web site to give some money to help out.
Catch ya later.
Couple reasons. First, I haven't blogged in a few days, and I'm afraid you might think I'm dead. In case your wondering, I'm not. I'm alive, so alive. I think that was an INXS song. Too bad their lead singer killed himself--they were an awesome band.
Second, I'm chained to my computer pretty much perpetually of late, as The Missus and I both have our various MP3 players and are rapidly trying to put anything round and plastic into our computer to see if it has something we want to burn.
Now, to remind you all, my wife got an iPod mini for Christmas. When she told me that she was getting that from me, she asked me what I wanted. After much consideration, I decided I wanted an MP3 player as well. My choice: the Dell DJ 20. Same price as her mini, holds 16 more gigs of junk! (And, I've just learned while getting you the link, that Oprah herself has named the DJ one of her favorite things of 2004. How can you argue with that? I also just learned the price has dropped $25 since Christmas. Bastards.)
Anyway, the upshot of this is that I've been spending every anxiety-addled minute I have awake copying music onto my DJ, looking out for duplicative music, and trying to make sure that I have an impressive collection of all sorts of stuff, should anyone ever inspect it. I have Adam Sandler's "Farting Hypnotist" routine. I have local DJ Ohmega Watts (knowns to his friends as Milton). I have all the U2 I could muster. I have the Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, Burt Bacharach. It's all there. 20 gigs. 3700+ songs. Enough to get me cross country and back many, many times.
I find, perhaps not surprisingly, that I listen to the same 25 or 30 songs constantly, despite the fact that I've sworn to listen to everything I've crammed into this little box. At the moment, I'm quite taken with the group Switchfoot, and I'm also listening to Snow Patrol quite a bit. I'd say they qualify, at the moment, as one of my top five favorite bands.
To prove my diversity, I have a hip-hop mix on my DJ. It contains music from the afore-mentioned Milton, and also from Mr. 12, aka DJ Twelvizm (who, while I'm mentioning him, made it home for a quick Christmas break with his wife, but is back in Texas awaiting an 18-month deployment to Fallujah), Public Enemy, the Beasties, Ice Cube, Ice T, Snoop Dogg, etc. I was listening to it at the gym the other day and found that the music was just a bit too angry for me. Good beat, could bike to it quickly, but after the 30th for 40th F-Bomb, it was time to switch it up a bit.
I just put a bunch of classical on. Currently, I'm burning my wife's Britney Spears CD, not only because I figure she'd like some of the young Mrs. Federline's music on her iPod, but because I actually enjoy her every now and again (don't tell anyone...that's our little secret).
Anyway, now that Christmas Break is done, and I was a good boy and stayed in town throughout, it's time to start planning this years vacations. Previously, I've talked about the various trips my wife and I have taken. To Cabo San Lucas, to Disneyland, to Italy. Next Monday, we celebrate Martin Luther King by flying off to Mexico. A week in the sun should do a lot for my current condition.
In preparation, I've been tanning and currently look like a nice shade of taupe. Before we leave, I hope to be khaki. When we return, I'm planning on being lobster-red.
Today, in respose to a query, I learned that our hotel is going to cost an arm and a leg. Now, I knew it would be expensive. What I didn't realize is that, not only did I do my math wrong and under-guess the cost by one day, but I also just learned that the tax rate for the hotel stay will be 12%. Whereas, this morning, I though my wife and I could cover the trip, I'm now a bit worried. Luckily, she's a financial optimist and will certainly see a way out of this trap. Probably by offering them my arm and my leg. I can type one-handed, though, so I guess that's fine.
Now, not only am I looking forward to Mexico's Isla de Mujeres (literally "Island of Women"), but we're already planning our summer adventure as well. JLowe and his wife are going to join us on a grand road trip. Grand not only in mileage, but in destination. The plan is to swing through California to see my brother-in-law who's at school in Santa Barbara at Brooks, studying photography, then maybe to hit a fun park or two, then to drive directly to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon, which is one of those things I've never been able to do.
The closest I came was the time that Caleb and I were on a road trip in my brand new car (I think I've covered this in a prior post, so if you don't care to read it again, skip to the next paragraph). This was after high school. My dad had died my junior year, and I came into my inheritance when I graduated. Most of the money went to college. But part of it went into a new car and a road trip to Banff, which was a town Caleb assured me would be awesome to behold. Midway through Washington State, I decided that I'd actually like to go to the Grand Canyon instead. Caleb cried foul, despite my prodding reminder that I was funding the entire trip. So voracious were his objections that he managed to get me to pull over the car and talked me into a coin flip. We walked fifty paces from the highway, into a field of grass, and flipped, best two out of three. Caleb, of course, won. And we stayed in Banff just long enough to eat McDonalds.
Anyway, the trip will be extra-nifty because JLowe has an Element, and one of the perks of that particular car is that it was invented post-MP3 player. As such, it has an auxiliary port to plug your MP3 player into, in order to play it through the vehicle's stereo. So, we can test how far my music will get us.
Very exciting.
Anyway, that's about enough talking about nothing. The real reason I wanted to post today was because I saw the following link and was moved by it. Click here to see before and after pictures of the tsunami damage in Asia. It's not too late to donate. Right now, Fred Meyer's is allowing donations at all of their registers, or you can just go to amazon.com or the American Red Cross' web site to give some money to help out.
Catch ya later.
posted by Rusty at 9:29 PM
3 Comments:
Now, see, that wasn't about 'nothing.' That was about music, and I thought it was quite interesting.
But...Britney? Say it isn't so...!
I told you, that was a secret.
However, I did roll my eyes when The Missus bought Brit's movie, "Crossroads". She vindicated herself when she traded it in toward a different movie later.
Which brings to mind the whole "Britney/Christina Aguilera" debate. Who's better?
In my mind, both do an excellent job at being trampy and hoish. Both are voluptuous and pleasant in the eye-candy sense (Britney less-so when she's snapped going into bathrooms without shoes on and eating potato chips, Christina less-so when her hair is all freaky and she's over-pierced). Christina's got the better voice (I'm finally giving in to an argument with my old friend Ivan here).
So why am I putting Britney on my DJ now? Because we have two or three of her disks (I swear, my wife bought them) and I had room. I imagine they'll be some of the first things to get dumped when I find something better...
Your road trip sounds awesome! And makes me want to hop in the car *right now* and head for Tucson.
Be sure to take some time in the Redwoods on your way down to Santa Barbara. I'd also recommend visiting the North Rim of the Grand Canyon--way less crowded. You can also access the West Rim (or maybe it's the East Rim) from there, which is waaay cool--and deserted.
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