Threesomes and Coffins, Oh My!

Another night of entertainment and poetry at Writers' Block. There were gnomes.



A gnome spitting hot fire!



So many poems and incidents that seared into my memory forever.

Did a new piece that is dedicated to Frieda Hughes. Needs some work. Clearly shows that I have issues with academia and those who claim ownership of something that was never theirs.

Working it out onstage.

Really liking the new record by Over the Rhine. They're a band that has been mostly out of my radar, but when I put their music on I wonder why they hell they're not on continual repeat. The new release is called The Long Surrender and it's produced lovingly by Joe Henry. He gets some beautiful performances out of the band and reveals the colors of Karin Bergquist's voice.



Nicole Atkins has come back to the scene with a new record also. Mondo Amore has been four years in the making. During this period Atkins left her record label and broke up with her boyfriend and band. It's a darker record that Neptune City and if you're looking for the Brill Building influence it's hard to find. This is a much darker and swampier sound, and it's a decent change of pace for her.



I wonder what kind of record would have come out of Daniel Lanois had produced it.

Photographs and Memories

My adviser from college was in picture posting mode on Facebook yesterday. Among them was a group photo of people who went to a college radio convention in Washington D.C in the spring of 1983. The aftermath of a night filled with an incredible amount of drinking. There is another picture from the night before of myself and a friend passed out flat on our backs in a hotel room bed. Thankfully, that picture is not on the internet.

In the picture, I am holding a bag and seem to be eating something out of it. I was told it was KFC and was given great detail about how people needed or did not need that food after the activities of the night before. It's amazing what people can remember after drinking so much. I do remember somehow getting out of bed the next morning and going to breakfast at McDonald's with my adviser. We moved seats after realizing we were sitting under the Muzak speaker. It was a chilly and brisk morning. We walked over to the Washington Monument and he taped the flapping of the flags in the wind. I do not remember any of the drive from Washington to Fredonia, and the pit stop picture is a total blank after twenty eight years.

Aside from not taking that work study job at the library freshman year, and not taking any library science courses, and a poor relationship decision, one of my (seemingly many!) college regrets is not getting enough pictures of the experience. I have some, most of it lies in a box in the basement. Maybe I'll pull some more out and scan one Sunday afternoon. But it's not about not having pictures of the parties, but to not have any pictures of the music, the bands, the things we did at WCVF, the early shows of 10,000 Maniacs on film - that is something I would go back and correct.

Short Round Up

As a Bills fan you understand that turning the ball over three times in a Super Bowl is not going to help your team win the game. Well played Packers.

Many other bloggers, pundits and internet tough guys have their commentary about last night's game. I'll let the Deep 13 bunch speak for me.



At least it was not a blow out.

One bottle of Drano later, and the bathroom sink is unclogged.

I've figured out an unbelievably easy to convert certain types of files into other types of files on my Mac. This makes me dangerous.

At Least We Did Not Pay to See That

Full day as I went in for an eye exam in the early afternoon. My vision has been messed up and I have not adjusted well to progressive lenses. My peepers were poked, prodded and given a thorough once over for about two hours. Vision is worsening. I have to be wary of retinal tears and other disturbances.

Had a couple of new to me procedures done, a 3-D eye scan, which produced a cool picture that looked not unlike an ultra sound of the uterus. No baby in my eye, or nothing else really, a good thing.

Also had an ultrasound done on my optic nerve. A dab of goop was put on the end of a probe and placed on my eyelid. Very interesting look at the nerve too. Again, no problems were noted.

Ended up buying a set of reading glasses, which will be ready in three weeks.

Had to get home after the exam, which was a bit tricky walking around in the sunshine with dilated pupils. Put on the shades and walked a couple of blocks to pick up the #7 bus. No way I could drive in that condition.

Later, the eyes did improve and we headed to the Ohio State Hockey game.

When we got to the ticket office, we were approached by a kid of about 13-14, and he offered us free tickets. I'm a skeptic, so I tried dismissing him, but he was persistent. I looked at the tickets, which were legit, and thanked him profusely for them.

I was so gobsmacked I forgot to pick up our complimentary Thundersticks.

The team had been playing well, and I thought it would pick up attendance. I was mistaken, there were not many people - and they were fairly quiet, except for the student section. They had thundersticks and used them very appropriately

Sitting in front of us, in sparsely attended section, a Packer legend's jersey was at the game.



The student section and band support is growing. This is good to see.



Before the game, Michigan State Head Coach, Rick Comley, who is retiring at the end of the season, was given a plaque and a nice send off by OSU coach Osiecki. Class move by the team. Comley's one of the good guys of college hockey.

The game itself was rather close. Michigan State played well and their defense did not give OSU many chances to score. MSU picked up a goal right off a faceoff in the second period and the score stayed 1-0.

Late in the third, OSU thought they managed a goal, but it was waived off after the referee said the puck had been kicked in. I was on the other side of the rink and had no idea how the puck went it. There was no replay shown to the crowd but all reporters, bloggers and message board pundits think that was the right call. I was amused that after the red light went on and the team celebrated (prematurely) that two teddy bears were thrown onto the ice in anticipation of tonight's Teddy Bear Toss.

The Buckeyes have now lost four straight, and have only scored three goals in their last four games. The offense has to step up if they want any reasonable chance to move on in the playoffs or post season.

Various Administrative Things

I do check the stats for this blog to see how many hits it gets, what people are reading, how they're getting here and where they're from.

I joined Networked Blogs via Facebook and that has had some good results. So if you're coming from Facebook, hello.

A few others have joined from unknown and known reasons, hello to you also.

The U.S., Canada and the U.K. are the top three countries that read this.

Ohio, New York, Illinois, California and Minnesota are the top five states, in that order.

The search keywords people use and somehow wind up here can be amusing.

"Weiner Mobile" is something that gets people here. The post about it remains one of the most popular pages.

"The Blog of Mystery" is another search.

"Make Me Dance I Want to Surrender" another.

Two of the oddest ones are "John DeBella 1981 WLIR" a blast from the past! And "Esther Craw, Ohio State"

Bless her.

As always, thank you for stopping by and feel free to comment.

Last night was a first for my Scottish Wife and something I had not done for a long time.



She mentioned to me she had never had Jiffy Pop. I guess it was a part of America she wanted to experience. Do the Scots have it over there?

So I bought one and cooked it up last night. First off: Electric stove and Jiffy Pop does not mesh well. We ended up with a lot of burnt popcorn despite the constant shaking and motion. The house still smells like it was on fire and it was not because we watched The Expendables.

Kids Getting Their Influence On

If this band was any janglier, these Brooklyn hipsters would be able to afford Rickenbacker guitars.



Despite the snark, I do not mind this. One of their songs almost got into my top 20 last year. Dream Diary's new record ships next month.

What I am really liking is this Norwegian quintet.



Their first album, Hunting for Treasures, has just been released.

Square One

Lots of ice here today. Schools are closed. I'm taking the day off to look after the kid.

He's been frustrating recently. Really in his own world and it's hard to get him out. Even his teacher is having trouble reaching him.



His sleep pattern has regressed. He goes to bed about ten, has a monologue for about half an hour then falls asleep. At about 3AM he's up again, giggling, speaking nonsense words, nonstop, for about two hours. You ask him to stop, he looks right past you. You're not even in the room.

I'm very uncertain about how to deal with this.