Laser Zep

Dave and I went to Laser Zeppelin last night. It was better than I remembered. I got him to admit the first 15-20 minutes were good, although he got me to admit that I didn't think it was very good when we went 10+ years ago. Part of the problem was we were forced to sit on the very front row, so the only way to watch it was to get as horizontal as possible. That's not a real comfortable position to be in for an hour. Here were the highlights. The Immigrant Song lends itself to a lot of laser interpretation. There was a viking, his long ship, and a hammer like Thor's. The 3 different dancing women (cowgirl, classy lady, slutty lady) during Living Loving Maid were enough to satisfy any teenage boy's fantasies. I think it was during Good Times, Bad Times, but there was definitely a zeppelin cruising across the sky and when it got to the center of the planetarium it turned towards the audience and got bigger and bigger until you felt like you were crushed by a Led Zeppelin. The use of the lower portion of the screen during No Quarter was a fitting tribute to John Paul Jones' low end contribution to Zeppelin's music (I may be looking a little too deep into the meaning behind the lasers). And finally, Stairway To Heaven not only featured a lady looking for the stairway (although it looked more like an escalator), but also the wizard from the inside of the 4th album who I think was revealed as Jimmy Page during The Song Remains the Same movie. Tonight is the last night so give me a call if you want to go. I think it may take another 10 years to get Dave to go again.

Domino Effect

Maria is really sick w/ a throat infection. At some point her tonsils will have to be removed. I've been home w/ the kids while she tries to rest. Today her mom came over and I took that time to clean my gutters (I haven't done it this fall). It was 30 degrees outside so the silt that forms from the water and dirt was frozen in the gutters. I used a dandelion weeder to break it up and get it out of the gutters. Solid blocks of silt will form in your gutters if you don't clean them when you should. Lesson learned. Oh, and if you were planning on coming to our holiday party we had to cancel it b/c of the illness. Maybe we'll reschedule for Greek Orthodox Christmas.

Yes!

Yes! Weekly bills itself as the best free weekly in the Triad. I agreed anyway, but this week their cover story is about Greensboro's pro wrestling history. I'm officially giving them permission to change "free weekly" to "newspaper" in their slogan.

What have you been up to, Dan?

Thanks for asking blog post title. Maria and I went to see the Santaland Diaries at Triad Stage on Friday. It was pretty damn funny. And let's face it, I can't get really into the Christmas spirit until I've laughed at retarded kids. It's kind of a purging thing.

The whole family went to the Holiday Parade on Saturday. Some of the highlights were Lawndale Baptist church having a real camel in its nativity scene. I wouldn't put it past them to use a horse w/ a hunchback, but the Sunday paper confirmed that it came from some guy's farm. Not to be outdone, the Unitarians sponsored a float that featured a teenage white kid yelling "Merry Christmas and Happy Kwanzaa." And Hitz 94 was passing out stickers from their van allowing Desmond to run down the middle of Market St while somebody in the parade chased him with a remote controlled car. Fond memories of playing in traffic.

After the parade, we bought our Christmas tree. We have a lot of ornaments that have lighthouses on them. One made from a seashell w/ Bodie Island lighthouse on it, one shaped like North Carolina w/ Hatteras light on the end, a glass one w/ a bunch of NC lighthouses on it, a flat metal one from Currituck beach lighthouse, one that is supposed to plug into the lights but actually shorted out all the yellow lights when I plugged it in, and one I made from a Christmas card w/ a picture of Cape Cod lighthouse w/ a wreath on it in the snow. I don't really know what all that means, but it seems statistically significant.

I bought coffee at Starbucks for the first time ever. I don't really drink much coffee, so it's actually the first coffee shop I've been to period. I went in w/ Maria a few weeks ago, so I felt like I could buy the two of us coffees for the parade all by myself. I was impressed w/ the people who ordered all kinds of extras but did so w/o skipping a beat when placing their order. I wasn't impressed that I spent $8 for two cups of coffee.

Finally, I saw a Droopy Dog cartoon that was set in 2029 Los Angeles in a world very similar to Blade Runner. Instead of replicants, Droopy and his son Drippy were trying to save the shapely heroine from duplicates. It could have used a voice over w/ Droopy spilling his inner monologue, but it was a 5 minute cartoon so maybe I'm expecting too much.

Delinquent Tiger Bear Wolf Update

I've actually seen Tiger Bear Wolf twice in the past two weekends. They played at College Hill, and maybe that was too much of a good thing. The cops came b/c they were too loud for some people in the neighborhood, but I was standing right in front of them and it seemed just right to me. I guess they were too far away.

They also played at the Style In Stereo on the UNCG campus. There were over 500 people in the seats of the Cone Ballroom. However, most of them were there to see the fashion show that went on simultaneously w/ the bands and didn't seem real interested in Tiger Bear Wolf (or any of the other bands). That's ok b/c I wasn't real interested in the fashion show although the outfits during TBW were the classiest of the evening. I did like the guy during the beachwear portion who looked like the Austrian model on Da Ali G Show, but it would be hard to say he was "classy."

Death Row Phone Call

I heard Stanley Williams on Democracy Now last week. I don't want to comment on if he's innocent or guilty or what I think about the death penalty, but that was one of the strangest phone interviews I've ever heard. There was an announcement over the phone that the call was being monitored. Every 5 or 10 seconds there was a clicking sound to let you know that it really was being monitored. If you've been on death row for 25 years or you are a radical left wing radio show host this kind of stuff probably wouldn't phase you, but I found it a little unnerving. If you find yourself on death row, do me a favor and just send a letter.

Projected World Cup Draw

This Friday is the final draw for World Cup 2006. I can understand projections about who the top 8 seeds will be and even columns about is the draw fixed, but mock projections are kind of a joke. They draw the teams out of a brandy snifter, so how you project what teams will be in what group I don't know. I'll try and do some research by drinking brandy over the next couple of days.

The My Space Office

There's a group of cast members from The Office on NBC that have taken up their space. One of them uses his real name for the space, but the rest have assumed their characters a little more thoroughly. My favorite is the quote "I am an accountant. At a paper supply company. It is pretty cool I guess. And like everyone else on MySpace, I am in a Band."