da Blog

No, I didn’t get a job.

But for the past 48 hours, I have been working with a group of friends on a friend’s roof. It’s been a gratifying experience. I’d say we spent 24 of the last 48 hours at the house, for sure. Good thing there was good food.

I was on the cleanup and go-to detail. When people weren’t saying, “Dan, can you get me a pair of tinsnips?” or “I need some more nails!” I was cleaning up all the old shingles on the ground. I didn’t really feel confident on the roof, so it was cool with me.

It was really nice, for sure, to just have some good stuff to do. I’ve been missing getting up early and going off to a job. Plus, it was fun to hang out with friends.

I just got cleaned up, and now they’re cookin’ dinner over there, so I’m goin’ back. Gotta love these early days of burgers and brats on the grill. (In Minnesota, it’s too cold for about 4-6 months to do outdoor food.) Actually, another nice thing was that it was cold this weekend while we did the roof… but a tiny bit too cold, in my opinion. 55° or 60° would have been nicer, but it’s better to be cold than too warm.

Now for some geeky humor…

Problems with tape backup have been in the news a bunch recently, so John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) comes to the rescue. He heads up the Institute for Backup Trauma, and here they present this ad. It’s not funny the whole time, but it’s pretty good.

And the brothers Chaps better get a H*R update sometime soon….

This was so funny I had to create a new category called “Humor”.

For those of you who don’t know, a couple months ago they did an art thing in NYC with the orange cloth throughout Central Park.

But Kim found this: The Crackers. Brilliant.

Andy Osenga, one of my favorite independent musicians, recently posted this article in his blog. All I have to say is, I knew Oprah was evil!

Alright. Now here’s something new.

I put a list of movies on the site here. Look on the right to the “Pages” section to see My Movies. If you live near me, feel free to talk to me about borrowing some and we’ll do it. I hope to keep it updated.

Plus, if you click on the movie, you can buy it at Amazon.com (and support cMusicWeb.com). And don’t bother with asking me, “How do you like this or that movie, Dan?” Just don’t. I own it, so I must like it, right?

One of these years I’ll get a complete, working list of all the CDs I own too, but it’s gonna be a long time before it’s complete because it’s a heck of a long list.

Best Buy’s resident tech support team, The Geek Squad, has our back. They’ve put together a bunch of different forms that are sure to get us out of work or school for May 19th. Get yer forms and don’t miss the Revenge of the Sith!

Crap. I need to do stuff. Seriously.

Right now I have no official projects going, but I need to keep working. This week I’ve basically done hardly anything. I applied for one job and updated cMusicWeb.com, that’s mostly it.

It’s a downward spiral that I need to get out of. Although… I did have lots of fun reading The Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Douglas Adams was a genius.

Oh yeah, and I got to hang out with my University of St. Thomas friends who I hadn’t seen in most of a year. That was tons of fun.

Today I finally got my copy of Burn The Fields: The Elms Live In Indiana. For those who don’t know about The Elms, I highly suggest you check these boys out. They’re some of the best new rock ‘n’ rolll available today.

Although the DVD was recorded almost a year ago, it captures the band perfectly. There’s so much energy at their live concerts, and the DVD gets all of it in a beautiful package. Unlike most professionally done DVDs of recent times, it does not include a 5.1 surround sound mix, but the stereo mix is done so well that it sounds great nonetheless. (I don’t have a 5.1 speaker set anyways, so I probably don’t notice very well the difference. But it definitely sounds great.)

The disc has some great special features, including a couple bonus songs that were performed after the original concert. Plus there’s over 30 minutes of interviews with the band about the DVD recording and where the band is going in general. It’s very insightful. And another 45 minutes of a behind-the-scenes look into what the band put into the DVD, from dressing up the stage themselves to making the obligatory Spinal Tap jokes.

Well, we have a new Pope. Pope Benedict XVI.

Although I would have been fine with a non-European, I’m glad they chose somebody who’s not going to bow down to the pressures of today’s immoral society. Not that the church would ever do that, but it’s good to have a strong leader.

It would have been great to have a African or South American Pope… those are the places where the Roman Catholic Church is really working right now. Plus, it would show those darn Europeans that you have to believe in the church to have a European Pope!

According to those who study space (but not the astrologers), the earth may have a massive crisis on its hands in 2034 or so. A huge asteriod may hit us, but they’re not really sure. The good news is we’ll get a good look at the asteriod in 2029.