Monthly Archives: December 2009

Audio Addiction: Pearl Jam’s Backspacer

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I fail at blogging.  I wrote this post like three weeks ago and thought I published it.  Apparently not.  Here it is anyway.

The biggest difference between this and previous PJ records is that its…happy?  My first reaction when I started listening was, “huh? what happened to the dark and brooding PJ I know and love?”  After I got past how different it was from their previous albums, I quickly realized how good of a straightforward rock album it is.  It easily takes its place as one of my favorite PJ albums.

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Quick Christmas Thoughts

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Merry Christmas all.  Just a couple of quick thoughts for the holiday weekend.

Thanks American Airlines for not charging for luggage on our flight out.  We really do appreciate it and wish you a Merry Christmas as well.

First, truly white Christmas this year was pretty cool.  We didn’t get a ton of snow here in Missouri, but it was enough to satisfy me.

Christmases that start at 6:30 AM are Christmases that start a little too early.  And I’m still trying to get used to Christmases with big families.  I’m still used to smaller, more low key Christmases myself, but this was still really fun nonetheless.

Kids go along way towards reminding you of the mystery and wonder of Christmas even if their not yours and your watching them open gifts that you didn’t give them.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas and ate way more than they should like I did.

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Snowpocalypse 2009: The Aftermath

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Usually, talk about snowstorms happening in the cities I live in are full of hyperbole and sensationalism.  Huge storms often turn into nothing, but this time the predictions were pretty much right on.  I think the final accumulation count came to right around 20 inches.

What I do know is that uncovering two cars from 20 inches of snow takes forever and is tiring as hell.  I also realized that it brings the grumpy old man in me out.  Half of the time I was shoveling snow I kept thinking that I was going to do all this work, and as soon as I moved my car some lazy jackass that didn’t shovel their car out was going to park in my space.  Then when I got back I was going to be stuck with a crappy space that I can’t get in and out of.  Sort of makes the whole exercise feel futile.  I realize that I can’t do anything about it, but it doesn’t make me any less annoyed about it.

In a positive karmic twist, the gods are blessing me with an unexpected day off from work.  Apparently, all that snow I was shoveling was enough to lock down the area enough for them to cancel work here.  I’ll take another day off from work for losing my good parking space.

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Pictures from Snowpocalypse ’09

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You’re living under a rock if you don’t know about the big snowstorm we’re having along the mid-Atlantic coast and north. Cris and I have had a pretty nice day of lazying about, but we did for a brief walk earlier to soak it in. The cool thing for me is that this is by far the most snow I’ve ever had in a place I’ve lived and I particularly like that it came so close to Christmas. Here are some pics we took out walking around our neighborhood.

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Final Weekend of College Football

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What a way to finish the season.  Last weekend was the final weekend of the regular season, including conference championships, and there were some pretty incredible games.

Pitt-WV was tight until the end with points flying left and right.

The ACC championship was the same.  The game actually went the way I wanted.  I was rooting for the higher ranked Continue reading →

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Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

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Every year leading up to Christmas I still love to catch all the animated kid shows.  Behind the night before Christmas with the Christmas clock that breaks, Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer was my favorite.  I say was because seeing Rudolph through adult eyes leaves a pretty different impression.

I never realized how crappy Santa and Comet are through pretty much the entire show until the end.  I know that the other kid reindeer shun Rudolph, but the parent reindeer suck too.

And when you really look at it, Santa is a user because he doesn’t really accept Rudolph until he needs him to drive the sleigh because of the storm.  If there was never that storm, Rudolph might still be wandering around the tundra running from the snow monster.

Its kind of sad when great memories of things from your childhood gets messed up when you revisit it from an adults perspective.  I better not watch The Night Before Christmas and I find some kind of crapiness about that one as well.

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