Yes, Kevin, Bret does indeed have a red Strat. Here’s my favorite picture of Bret and his baby:
He’d donned my Halloween wig, and was posing as an ’80s rocker. I had to throw my nightie over his lap ’cause he was nekkid.
Bret despises everything Slowhand (he likes earlier Clapton). His guitar heroes (heh) are Ritchie Blackmore, Adrian Belew and?Buckethead. He’s also a big fan of?Tool. And Stone Ales.
[tags]Stratocaster, guitar, Stone Brewing Co.[/tags]
I love memes. Rather than being mere space-filler, for me they’re the equivalent of online gaming. Not all memes, of course, but if it looks fun I love to participate.
I first saw this meme over at Karl’s, played it right away, got busy on Twitter and forgot to ever post it. Just for the hell of it, I played again today and got much more pleasing results. Lucky you, you get to see both results!
How to Play:
I cheated today. My third picture was a BIRD. I don’t do birds, EVER. I hit Reload! and used that third picture. Here’s my newest result:
And here’s the first one I did. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down the photo’s info, and have been unable to find it again on Flickr.
[Note to self: Get your freaking holiday look up this weekend!!! Or else don't bother.]
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I thoroughly enjoyed Blog Crush Day yesterday. Truth be told, I enjoyed it TODAY, because I had time to go browsing. I found so many cool new-to-me blogs that I may actually be forced into using a feed reader. But I’ve been feeling in a bit of a rut blogwise lately, and it was refreshing to visit bloggers whose blogrolls don’t have the same people as mine! When you tend to hang with the same crowd, you forget how many kajillion really good writers there are out there in the blogosphere.
Same thing with music. I genuinely love hearing a song for the very first time, unless I genuinely hate it (I’m not a big fan of female singers). But for the past several months, I haven’t had much exposure to new stuff. The radio station we listen to in the car plays a good mix of familiar and fresh, but I’m only in the car a total of about 10 minutes per day, and it won’t pull in on my office radio. The two stations that tune in best in my office both play primarily songs from the ’80s and ’90s. Not that the decade matters ? if you’ve never heard a song before, it’s new to you even if it’s twenty years old. Only these two stations stick mostly to “top hits,” so it’s been awhile since I’ve enjoyed some crispy-fresh ear candy.
Here’s what I need: Tell me what I should check out. What music rocks your world? What’s in your iTunes queue that I might appreciate? It doesn’t have to be new, as long as it’s new to me. Please post your recommendations in the comments! Later on, I’ll do a follow-up post and share my reactions.
Entire contents of an email from my ?bergeek husband:
“Name that tune:
“
Right.
[tags]Cool Edit Pro, music geek, Beatles[/tags]
Once in awhile, if you’re lucky, you see a film that resonates within you. It touches your soul with its visual poetry, leaving you spellbound and mesmerized for hours after the credits roll. For me, that film is Across The Universe.
It seemed destined to disappoint me, because from the moment I first heard about it, I’ve been in high anticipation mode. Every news clip, every trailer, every commercial heightened my excitement. Surely no movie could possibly live up to such expectations. So to be honest, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d hated it. Added to which, I walked into the theater in a Very Bad Mood. As so often happens when I make weekend plans, I got involved in a creative exercise that morning from which I was reluctant to walk away. Plus, Hilly had taken a bad fall the day before and couldn’t make it. Then I hit a traffic snarl on the way and got to the theater almost half an hour later than I’d originally planned. Juli had called twice to see where I was (see why I hate cell phones?), and I arrived thinking this was so *not* how I wanted to spend one of my precious weekend days. I keep to a schedule all week; I want freedom on the weekend, you know?
So as we joined the rest of our group, I was fully expecting the movie to be an irritatingly silly and predictable love story peppered with painful butcherings of some of the greatest songs ever written. I will say that my mood was somewhat smoothed by the previews for August Rush, which has now gone from never-heard-of-it to must-see status. And then … and then … Across The Universe began.
It began with a beautiful boy on a beautiful beach singing a beautiful Beatles song. And the first threads of the web were cast. For the next two hours I sat utterly enthralled as a cinematic masterpiece of unexpected brilliance unfolded before me. At times I leaned forward in my seat, enchanted by the sweetness. At times I fell back, blown away by the perfect coalescence of subject, music, cinematography and editing. Over and over, I was impressed with the unique contexts in which those so-very-familiar songs were placed (the bouncy “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” becomes a torchy lesbian love ballad, scary Uncle Sams growling “I Want You” reach out of recruitment posters to terrify near-naked draftees). More than mere eye/ear candy, Across The Universe is a feast for the soul.
A few caveats: I lived these times. I appreciated small touches in the film that viewers who weren’t up-close-and-personal with the era won’t even notice. I related to the characters in a way younger moviegoers can’t. Plus, I’ve been a diehard Beatles fan since 1964 ? I know every note and every word of every Beatles song ever released (and some that weren’t). Let me tell you, this movie is permeated with Beatlemania. It isn’t just the songs and the characters’ names. There are inside jokes here, there and everywhere. And yes, the basic plot is predictable and the main characters stereotypical. The “star-crossed lovers, love conquers all” storyline is as old as mankind, but I seriously doubt many people will be going to see Across The Universe expecting a riveting plot.
Still, as in everything, taste is subjective. One of our group (who hates musicals) walked out after about 30 minutes, and actually demanded a refund of her ticket price. I walked out on a cloud, on which I’m still floating. Bret has even donned his noise-filtering headphones in a desperate effort to escape my unending enthusiasm (I’m talking and I can’t shut up!). I can’t help it. Across The Universe didn’t just speak to me, it sang to me. And I have to sing back.
[tags] Across The Universe, Beatles, all you need is love[/tags]
