Shad

Tonight it begins. An intense month of swimming. A clinic, 12 classes, to learn the proper way to swim. I was excited at first, and I’m still looking forward to learning, but a this moment I really just don’t feel like going. Actually, I kind of just feel like going to bed. What a memorial day, tired, hung over, depressed… with swim class in in a hour. Nice.

I’m having a hard time convincing myself to get to work on the upstairs bathroom. Seems there’s been very little done to it in some number of weeks now. The Tile work is all done… I’m trying to get up some insulation, then I’ll be able to work on the drywall. Then the floors need to be refinished… the walls painted… etc.

Seems that this “project” has been going on for nearly 9 months now. ouch.

Maybe it’s the fact that they’re only a couple of blocks away… maybe it’s the fact that I feel like I know the people that work there… maybe it’s the fact that they have nightly music… maybe it’s the casino theme… I don’t know, but the pizza is good. Very very good. And for a buck you can get these crazy balls of garlic and butter saturated pizza dough… mmmmmmmmm.

link

So I’ve updated the site a little. Including adding comments in. So now you can actually tell me what you think of my ramblings. This will also help me to figure out if anyone is actually looking at my little peice of the ol’ web. So, go wild. Comment away.

The next time you’re looking for something to do on some random Tuesday night, might I suggest Flipnotics. Eric Hokkanen has a standing gig there every tuesday. His music is a little bit Gypsy, a little bit Surf Guitar and always amazing. Each week he has a slightly different group of people playing with him. While they do play some standard tunes, the majority of the time it seems that they are just improvising. Tonight, Eric was calling the key changes out during the song and the guys were just picking it up and running with it. The guy on guitar (”Rockin’” Rick McCray of George Strait’s band) even did an impressive solo… on a song he obviously never played before. Pretty incredible stuff.

Enter the Mowo (Mocean Worker)
Heros to Zeros (Beta Band)
Fingers Crossed (Architecture in Helsinki)

Thoughts on Record Labels.
I have recently discovered two record labels that are consistently introducing us to great music. Astralwerks is the label of Air, Chemical Brothers, Sondre Lerche, Kraftwerk and The Beta Band (to name a few). I managed to snag one of their sampler CD’s after the recent “Air” show at the Austin Music Hall and have continued to be very impressed. This album gets better with every listen.

I ran across a Bar None sampler after the “The Trachtenburg Family Slide Show Players” show during SXSW. This is one of the most playable mixes I own today. “The Mosquitos”, “Puffi AmiYumi” (Teen Titans theme song), and “Architecture in Helsinki” are just a few of the bands on the Bar-None roster. Trust me when I say that anything with the Bar-None label is well worth a listen.