Music

I've been thinking about music this morning and have decided that everyone should be listening to what I'm listening to. That being said, start listening to the following:

• Ben Folds has two new CD's out: Songs for Silverman andSongs for Goldfish. Silverman contains all new songs (except for a great remake of "Give Judy My Notice") and is available in a Dual-Disc format that has a 5.1 Surround sound DVD side. I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop for the last few days and I think it may be one of his best yet. Goldfish is a compilation of live tracks that include some tunes off of Silverman as well as some older songs. At the very least, get Silverman.
• I cannot emphasize enough how great the Garden State Soundtrack is with the exception of two songs. First, I don't like the Iron & Wine remake of "Such Great Heights". Perhaps it's because of how much I like the Postal Service (another must-have CD) original, but it seems way too slow. Also, I'm not a big fan of the Melissa Ethridge like sound of the final track, "Winding Road". However, the magnificence of the other tracks far outweigh the slight letdown that I get from the two that I've mentioned.
• You must have the Flaming Lips' Yosimi Battles the Pink Robots (and if you have a DVD_Audio player, the Enchanced DVD/CD set is amazing). One of the most inventive, imaginative, and complete records I've ever heard. I've had the CD for over a year and still find myself popping it into my truck's player on a regular basis.
• Anything by the Shins (here or here to start with). Amazing melodies and catchy tunes. Seriously, start listening.
• As far as radio is concerned, Denver sucks. I hardly ever listen to FM radio around here due to the lack of choices and repetitive nature of the ones we do have. If I spent more time in my car, I'd get satellite radio. Luckily, there are two great radio stations out of Seattle that you can listen to online. KEXP has a nice mix of artists. The Morning Becomes Eclectic show on KCRW brings artists into the studio every day and lets them play live. In addition, they broadcast a summary type show called Sounds Eclectic. You should definitely be listening to these programs.
  
• As far as other music websites are concerned, there are two that I frequent. Epitonic allows musicians to post mp3's of their music on the site for anyone to listen to. You can then select musicians and/or songs to add to your own playlist or let them just play songs from selected genres. I recommend checking out Spoon, Death Cab for Cutie, Pavement, Earlimart, My Morning Jacket, and AM/FM.
  
• Another cool site is liveplasma. This site has a graphical representation of every band (and apparently now movies and actors) that shows you what other bands/musicians are similar. There are a couple of bugs (right now a search for Ben Folds takes me to Tim Reynolds), but it's kind of fun to play around with.

Enjoy. If anyone has any suggestions for me, use the comments.

URL ABCs

These are my URL ABCs:

• A is for alamedairon.com - We're looking for a new railing for our kitchen before we start the tiling process. The kitchen may never be done.
  
• B is for baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com - My fantasy baseball league. I usually get bored with this about halfway through the season and my team goes to crap. I'm starting early this year.
• C is for cockeyed.com - Rob Cokerham. Genius.
• D is for defectiveyeti.com - DY is where I got the tool to generate this list. Great site.
• E is for espn.go.com - An obvious link. ESPN is set as my home page, so I'm on it almost all day.
• F is for fark.com - A listing of crazy, scary, newsworthy posts. Plus other crap that's not important.
• G is for gampp.com - Ok, so I visit my own page, sue me. I actually go to the Ptarmigan to get to other people's sites that I have linked.
• H is for historychannel.com - They have some really cool maps on the site that show the world as history progresses. They also have a cool new history trivia game that I'm sure will occupy a lot of my time for the foreseeable
• I is for improveverywhere.com/home.php - A group of people in NYC that create scenes in public.
• J is for jp.shockwave.com/games/puzzles/zookeeper/zookeeper.html - A fun little Japanese Shockwave game. Click on animals that are next to each other in order to align in groups of three or more. Very addicting.
• K is for kcrw.org/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=mb&air_date=4/22/05&tmplt_type=show - Homepage for the KCRW (Seattle) Morning Becomes Eclectic program. Fantastic show featuring many bands that I listen to. Too bad we don't have a station this cool in Denver.
• L is for labs.google.com - All of the cool new tools that Google is working on.
• M is for my.yahoo.com - Self-explanatory
• N is for news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/umedia/cx_dilbert_umedia/latest - The daily Dilbert comic. I usually access this through my Yahoo, but I guess this is the actual URL.
• O is for oddtodd.com - This is an unemployed guy with a lot of issues. Has some funny cartoons, though.
• P is for pub.tv2.no/multimedia/na/archive/00140/Tiger_Woods_140761k.jpg - I have no idea what this is from.
• I've got nothing for Q. Not really a surprise
• R is for ricksteves.com - I visit Rick's site when I'm longing to take another European vacation. Happens most every day.
• S is for sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index - The Sports Guy on ESPN. By far the best sports/culture writer out there.
• T is for thesneeze.com - Hilarious blog. Check out the "Steve don't eat it" section.
• U is for uefa.com - This is the homepage for the European soccer association. I was watching a web-broadcast of the AC Milan v. PSV Eindhoven match the other day.
• V is for vatican.va - The home of the Vatican. I don't remember what I was looking for.
• W is for www1.us.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs - I have a $35 off Dell coupon that expires in June and I'm still trying to decide what to use it on.
• X is for xmission.com/~daina/pinball.html - The Mr Pinball website. I check the classifieds on occasion on the off chance that someone is selling a good machine for cheap. No one is.
• Y is for yanks-abroad.com/content.php?mode=news - News regarding American soccer players who play overseas. I have a problem.
• Z is for zone.msn.com/en/utility/clientunsupported.aspx?url=http%3a%2f%2fzone.msn.com%2fen%2froot%2fpuzzle.htm - A message telling me that MSN games don't work very well with Firefox. Too bad for MSN games, but I'm not going back to IE.

Demolition Man

Deanna and I have been trying to decide what to do about our kitchen floor. The current floor is ugly vinyl that doesn't look very good next to our new cabinets. We had been leaning towards laminate tiles so that we could just install the new floor on top of the old one. However, I started poking around on Saturday morning and removed the metal edging next to the back stairs. On closer inspection, it appears that the vinyl (and the 1/4" plywood it's attached to) should come up fairly easily (famous last words). So now we've decided to install tile despite my vows to never install tile again. I went nuts on Saturday prying up all of the baseboards and the trim around the pantry door. On Sunday, now addicted to demolition, I ripped out the carpet in the dining room. The original hardwood underneath is in amazing shape, I can't believe they ever carpeted over it. Now we're just trying to work out the schedule for the kitchen floor. I think it will be demolition and installation of backer board this weekend and installation of tile next weekend. If anyone out there has been dying to install tile, let me know.

This past weekend was also Wen and Grace's wedding weekend (website link to the right). On Friday night, they had a bunch of people over to their house for a dinner. The food was amazing. Wen's dad cooked up what looked like 100 egg rolls. Wen, Grace, and both families (plus Jumin and his fantastic beer duck) made way more food then the party could eat. Most of the food was traditional Chinese and Singaporean (Singaporan, Singaporish, whatever) food and it was all delicious. The weather on Saturday for the wedding was perfect. The ceremony was held outside up on Flagstaff Mountain. Steve did a great job officiating and kept it short and sweet. The reception was held at a Chinese restaurant in Boulder and featured a traditional Chinese wedding banquet. Once again, we were treated to amazing food with a number of interesting items that I'd never had before (and, in the case of the jellyfish, will probably never have again). It was great to see some old friends (old in terms of from a long time ago, not old in age) and have the opportunity to share the celebration with Wen and Grace. Many thanks go to them and their parents for letting us be a part. I should have some pictures up sometime this week.

Ball Marks and Movies

A disturbing pattern is emerging in my soccer games. In three of my last four games, I've had the always exciting opportunity to be part of the "wall" for a penalty kick. The wall is the line of players you see in pictures where they are all covering their privates awaiting a free kick. Being part of the wall is a bit of a tense situation as you know that the guy taking the free kick is going to strike the ball as hard as he can. Most of the time, the ball hits someone in the wall. That someone is apparently me. I have now been hit in three of four games. In the first game, I took the ball off of my left outside quad, leaving a nice crescent-shaped bruise that lasted for about five days. The second game, I got off easy and took the shot off of my shin guards. Last Friday, I again took the shot on my left outside quad (actually, this one was closer to the left butt cheek). That shot was so hard, it actually left soccer ball pattern marks on my skin. They lasted for two days. Needless to say, I'm not really looking forward to my next wall opportunity.

Deanna and I went to see Sin City on Saturday night. As you can see from the picture to the right, it was good enough to jump into my "Last (great) movie seen" spot. Both of us really enjoyed the movie. I found the visuals and overall story to be refreshingly different than any other movie I had ever seen. If you like the Kill Bill movies, you'll definitely go for Sin City. Do be warned that there is quite a bit of violence (including a number of scenes that made me a bit squeamish) and also some nudity, so if you're against either of those things you should probably avoid it. Anyway, I'd say that this was the best movie that I've seen this year. Granted, it is the first movie I've seen in the theaters this year, but still.

20/20

I went to the eye doctor for the first time in 20 years today. Well, that's not completely true. I did once go the eye doctor when I burst a blood vessel in my eye vomiting too hard. It's a long story and it happened in college, that's all you really need to know. Anyway, this was my first full eye exam since I was in grade school. As expected, I can see just fine. Also, no big scary diseases living in there. They did dilate my eyes, making everything close up blurry. I had no idea that this was a side effect, I thought it was just a light sensitivity thing. Probably not the best idea to schedule an appointment in the middle of the work day.