Of Course I Know Better Than You Do

Since I've been, as I mentioned last post, a mostly lab sequestered, ill tempered, warmly dressed jerk the last several days, I thought I'd play the part of pretentious blogger with a stubborn belief than someone other than friends who are in on all my jokes reads this crap and share my poorly conceived opinions on a couple of things.

Music:
Listen to the latest CDs from Muse and Sigur Ros. They're both brilliant. I won't link anything, because I'm lazy, but I'll say a few things. I burned out on Muse's first (US) CD pretty quick - if you have it, listen for the gasping microphonic breathing between lyrical stanzas. Once you it's there, it'll drive you nuts - even though it has some of the finest rock guitar and bass in the last ten years. But the latest is great. It's got several Queen-like moments with three and four part harmonies, a lot of rocking, a touch of electronica, and more than one appropriate use of symphony orchestra. Sigur Ros might not be for everyone. They're an Icelandic band that doesn't sing in English - or Icelandic - it's a made up language. It's cool, atmospheric music. The singer/guitarist bows his instrument. Cindy and I had Sigur Ros' "( )" playing in the background when we were fake married for our families (I'll explain that if anyone doesn't get it).

Arts:
Here. Here. And here. Eye party, on.

Grumpy B:
I won't say much here. Suffice to say, if you're reading this blog it's not about you. Instead, here's some pictures of donkeys and ill tempered female dogs instead of my well thought out meditations on why and how certain people and things drive me to anear murderous rage. As I'm writing this, even.

Edit: In my irritation over something going on in my lab while writing earlier, I forgot a couple of things. Funny here. And I forgot to mention that I made a four foot ethanol geyser in my lab earlier this week. I have nylon connectores that I use to attach fluid and waste tanks to my sorter. Well, they snap off pretty nicely when you wack them with your foot or anything else, and it seems that the larger diameter valves - which is currently all I've got - don't have the strength that the smaller ones do. So I replaced the valve on the tank I use to hold the 70% lab-hooch that I sterilize the machine with each morning. Flipped on the pressure to the machine and suddenly, from clear behind it, I could see a spout of fluid rising into the air - I'd just filled the tank with about a gallon of the stuff and it emptied in about two seconds. It looked kind of cool, was over and done with before I could even get out of the chair to respond, and I couldn't help but sit and luagh like a maniac for a few seconds before I got up and fixed it. And my whole week has been like that!

Bitchalot!

Oh, I've had a cold all week that's made the whole front half of my head feel like it's all swollen out from the rest of my face n'junk. It's also swallowed up my abilities to think straight, do anything above and beyond duty, and "function." And all that with-out the powerful cold medicines that allow the rest of you to float through your day in a pleasant haze whilst ill. Right now it's leaving my head and settling firmly in my chest so that I have a nice healthy rattle when I breathe deep. It could be worse. It could be settling into my testes (Rutager and Django) so that I have a nice healthy rattle whenever I walk.

The weather's cooled down, and we've had a-lots of snow. Okay, it's snowed for prolonged periods of time, but it only stuck last Friday and Saturday, and now even though it's cold and snowing, the ground's still bare. Did I mention I have a cold? Maybe it's pneumonia...

Even though I have nothing to do with that picture (stolen, graciously, from the Daily Enterprise' website) it's still cool, no?

The big news at work is that a bunch of us in the under-35 crowd are having a moustache growing contest. A lot of the guys are going to grow outlandish looking facial hair, but I think I'll stick with a good, solid Burt Reynolds man-stache. I'll have to wait until after I do a couple of things that require me to not look like a complete jackass until I can shave the current crop of griz into the glorious representation of virility that my upper lip shall be.

Old people can get away with wearing the coolest shit. Just look at those glasses.

So, since Simon left and my workload insta-tripled, my caffeine consumption has shot through the roof - it's the only thing that keeps me going. It's bad enough that I get headaches on Saturday mornings when I wake up and don't make coffee. I've had to switch to tea with the cold, but my good tea travel cup-cum-mini French press also acts as a very nice dribble glass, so in the last week I've been wandering around in my sickened haze with a stained shirt. Yay!

Lately, I've been suffering from a chronic inabililty to get much exercise because, now that the weather's turned, treadmill's the word and I have a two year old that would me more than happy to jam a fist into the moving bits. So the immune system suffers, as does the ol' waist line. You have no idea how painful it was to do a GIS for pictures of fat men. The internets are a strange and horrifying place.

Heed the teachings of meerkat Buddha!

Would you go and see this comedy duo? While this picture was not, in fact, taken in TL (I can't remember which website I ganked it from), it does represent the caliber of entertainment I would expect to find locally.

Here's a draw-ring of some Marvel characters that I'm not familiar with.

Does anyone want to form a metal band with me? I can tell you this - our stage show (and any in-band backyard barbecues) would have very ambitious pyrotechnic displays.

Arggh!

I had a huge post with lots of pictures that blogger beta completely ruined.

YOU SUCK BLOGGER!

Maybe I'll post it Monday.

Go here and buy me this poster, the explanation was in the original post.

YOU SUCK BLOGGER!

Recovered?

This is the post I was going to toss up on Friday that Blogger beta ruined for me - if Blogger beta was a person, I would punch him/her in the throat!

I'm going to go ahead and apologize now if any of the images I'm about to slap up here are a bit crap. It's been a long shortened week (yeah, us Easterners get Columbo Day off, in honor of Peter Falk, suck it! Man!), and I can't be bothered to edit at all. So if you could just go ahead and deal, that'd be great. Mmkay?

ROCKTOBERFEST!!!???

One of many odd and unusual things that were found in the house when we moved in was this gem in the garage:

I would gladly attend something called "Rocktoberfest."

Wait a tick...that fat bastard looks familiar!

Could it be? Really? No way...

It is! It's my uncle Les!

"FALL?"

The air is crisp (It's tried to snow last night and at lunch time today, brrr), hunting seasons are opening (Ducks 2, Brandon 0), but I'll get one of the delicious little shits sooner or later), and the leaves are turning - they didn't last year, so it's nice to see how pretty it can be back here. I tried to take some pictures and failed:

This is our giant "Backyardrock©" with leaves on it, taken with a flash to blandify all the pretty colors.

Same thing, no flash, see the colors, enjoy the murk.

This is what drew me outside in the first place- the sun setting through the trees. Beautiful to behold. Taken through a digital pocket camera that's five years old? Not so pretty.

A bit better, still murky...

...And, just as the color-washing flash went off, I was attacked by a bear! Honest! That's why it's blurry, I was running for my life!

The most significant crop we had this year. There's some tomatoes chilling on the windowsill in the kitchen, waiting to taste like dirt, too.

BATTLE OF THE BOXES

Do you know why it sucks so bad around your house? It's because you don't have two squirts who are more than happy to dive into a couple of boxes and raise some hell. Knick Knacks be damned, the kids are here!

This was actually towards the end - Connor had invaded the "fort."

Yep.

Yep.

This is sort of where it all started - boxes in the kitchen, baby disappears repeated muffled shouts of "Hello" heard from boxes, hilarity.

What you can't see? Ethan suffocating.

Yup.

More of the disappearing two year old (I posted all of these for you, mom!)

Yes, we did get new Wolfgang Puck cookware whilst at the Club of Sam's.

This must be the where the actual battle started.

Guh-rimace...

When I try to take a picture of the dog, he gets all nervous and runs away. When I try to take a picture of the kids, he comes out of nowhere and plops down, front and center.

This is what initially prompted me to grab the camera - little skinny legs sticking out of the bottom of a box.

Dog, again.

CONNOR'S FIRST INK
THAT YOU CAN'T SEE

Here's a picture that looks great on the back litscreen of the camera. The little one got a tattoo..With some candy or something. When I put it on him and tried to take a picture, he insisted on the hat.

Too bad the picture sucks...

THE VIDEOT

Yes indeedy, our kids love the ol' TV!

WHA!!!???

I found this on e-bay, and nearly impulse bought it to throw up behind my guitar amp since mine is all but roont. But I shouldn't. One of you can have it sent to me, though...

C'mon. I'll compose a song about how bad the Germans suck becausethey only invented "Oktoberfest" when they had the opportunity to invent "Rocktoberfest" for you!

Judas Priest On A Stromboli Roll!

I switched to blogger beta, and I must say, I really hate it. No soup for you, blogger.com! Anyhow.

Lately, my work listening habits have been 90% ALL ABOUT THE METAL. Metallica, Pantera (when no one else is around), Maiden, all of it. My work buddy Frank even gifted me with both the Essential Ozzie and the Essential Judas Priest CDs, both of which made me reflect on the life of a heavy metal act. Why is it that all metal bands have a kick ass set of albums when they're young, put out a bunch of shit mid-career, and then return to form when they're older? I can sort of understand if it goes along with pissed off youth/settled down family man/elder statesmen with both time and ability now that the kids are out of the house. That's my rumination of the week.

The Priest is almost too much for me to listen to while at work. Guitars that are high, hard, and fast? Check (No prison jokes, please). Vocals that are just this side of operatic, with a good dash of falsetto? Check. Machine gun drumming? Check. Bass lines that remind you that at least one band member is way too into the booze or blow for his own good? Check. I have a hard time not jumping up and punching a coworker in the throat every time the band kicks in on "Judas Rising." And that is no lie. That's how excitable it makes me. So watch this if you were born after 1972: