Erstwhile Muse

DJing without a clutch: Deluxe Edition

or Christ I'm gonna need some more disk space soon....

Now, normally I tend to be a bit of an MP3 snob, I'll admit. I just really don't like to listen to anything of lesser quality than --alt -preset standard LAME VBR files—although apparently even that has been supplanted somewhat as a standard by the audiorati, but I'll be damned if I'm going to try and recode everything at this point—as I can notice a difference when using the Headphones O' Doom. As such, it would take something of extreme interest for me to recommend to someone else that they should go and download a hoard of 128kb CBR MP3s, but trust me, I think this one is worth it.

I'd actually heard about this a couple of years back when the first one was released, but I never got off my butt and did anything about it, so my loss will hopefully be your gain. What I'm referring to is the South By Southwest Festival's annual BitTorrent download of MP3s showcasing bands playing at that years festival. I was reminded of it last night while listening—well, falling asleep—to one of the TWiT netcasts (see sidebar) featuring the dulcet tones of Leo LaPorte. I seem to remember call-ins being involved, so it was likely to be The Tech Guy.

Since I was listening to someone talk about it, and not directly reading the information from a website which could conveniently link to the torrent file in question, I went through a few rounds of searching before I gave up and went to the engine I should have used in the first place , Torrent Scan. Don't get me wrong, I likes me my Google, but when trying to track down a particular torrent file I've found Torrent Scan to be the easiest route most times, especially since it can search some of the better torrent aggregators I've used before such as Torrentspy and isoHunt (these two tend to be my favorites). I was able to find most of the past years files that way, and with the current year's file easily available on the SXSW page (conveniently linked for your pleasure above), I was ready to assault my recently cleared-of-space hard drive with countless more gigs of music files.

So far it looks promising. Some of the more interesting finds from a quick and incomplete survey:

• A few acts I've heard of before such as Aimee Mann, Neko Case, Flogging Molly and The Dresden Dolls.
• Ride on Shooting Star by The Pillows, a.k.a the FLCL theme song.
• Yuppie Pricks, a group who could be the spiritual successors to the Dead Kennedys, with a lead singer that sounds a lot like Jello Biafra after a few singing lessons, and as far as I'm aware of not yet seen as sellouts.
• A weird Japanese band whose name I have forgotten at the moment—I've several thousand files to wade through here, pardon me for losing track of one—that has some very Queen like moments in the instrumentation and pacing of their songs. Case in point, I left the song on loop for several plays, and I rapidly lost track of which part was the end, middle and beginning. Entertaining stuff though….

So how does one go about procuring this massive slab o' musical goodies? It has come to my attention recently that some folks seem to find the whole technology behind BitTorrent a tad intimidating, or they have not yet come across it apart from occasional oblique references in their daily surfing. All of which is terribly confusing to me as I've been using BitTorrent now for quite some time, and it really is a terribly simple thing to use, but I have also recently been reminded how different the world and the internet can look from my rather techno-geeky persepective compared to the average user. So, as a guide for my gentle readers who may not yet have had opportunity to acquaint themselves with the modern method of P2P sharing, I shall put forth the following simple list of appropriate links and tips.

1. Acquire a BitTorrent client. My personal favorite at the moment is µTorrent (pronounced microTorrent), particularly the standalone version as it can be made portable.
2. Start up µTorrent to set up a few options. Particularly, I would suggest turning on DHT by going to Preferences>BitTorrent>Additional BitTorrent Features and click the boxes here to enable these features. I have found having DHT on can help with torrents that have wonky trackers (feel free to ignore the technobabble, but trust me, it helps).
3. Download some .torrent files. You can find links above for the SXSW torrent for this year as well as a search engine specifically dedicated to finding torrents. I'm bored at the moment, so I'll give you a few links for the SXSW files I have found thus far:
• SXSW Showcasing Artists (2005)
• SXSW Showcasing Artists (2006)-Release 1
• SXSW Showcasing Artists (2006)-Release 2
• SXSW Showcasing Artists (2007)-Release 1 [Alternate Link]
4. Start downloading, either by opening the .torrent files in the client, or by telling your browser to open it directly using the client. Make sure you have plenty of space free in whatever drive/directory you choose as the download location, as the totality of these files is around 9.5 gigs of music files.

So there you go, all you need to start clogging up your disk space with an astounding array of music, movies, tv shows, etc. Just don't come complaining to me when you run out of room on your hard drive.

Labels: BitTorrent, language, music, netcasts

Audio turns of fate

In between spates of trying to mangle the pile of computer parts in the center of my floor into something nearing an organized disaster in hopes of putting together a useable workstation or two tomorrow afternoon, I've been roaming the intarwebs looking for various and sundry tidbits to play as background noise, be it music or video clips or what have you. Having exhausted most of the interesting netcasts—expect a more nuanced explanation of that word later, possibly this evening—I listen to on a relative(ish) basis, I went over to Uncle Warren's recently revamped site, as I know he is in the habit of leaving hints to interesting audio tidbits lying about.

Lo and behold, what to my wandering ears should appear, but several recent entries of just that nature. Bonus of bonuses, one had conveniently linked files ripe for my immediate aural gratification. Dropped them on down to the desktop, spun 'em up, and gave them a listen. It didn't take long after firing up the first one, Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken by Camera Obscura, for me to get a sneaking, lingering mental tickle that was telling me I'd heard this somewhere before.

And of course, I'm sure I have. WCBE has played it at least twice, along with a good bit of the rest of the album. I'd say that's a pretty decent indicator for the song though, if one or two listenings half a year or more ago can elicit a feeling of familiarity upon a chance re-encounter with the music. Of course, the fact that it's winsome indie pop fronted by a Glaswegian hipster chick probably does a good bit to cement something like that into my brain. I've had the song playing on repeat while writing this up, a rather certain guarantee that I'm going to have to acquire this album at some point.

Never mind that I've got 19+ gigs of music waiting to be burned to backup discs, and the attendant mp3s sorted out into a useable directory structure...

Labels: music

Neo-Bauhaus post-industrial thrashcore

or Bad Typography jokes at their worst.

I've decided on a name for my second non-existent band.

The Skausage

Of course, what every up and coming amateur ska band of the mid to late 90's needed (even fictional ones) was an equally amateurly drawn cartoon frontman. Thus was born the image you see above. I wish I could remember where I have the original .psd file of both that image and the band name—assuming I still even have it anymore after several crashes over the years. I'd still love to get a t-shirt made up after some tweaking.

Some of you may remember some incoherent ramblings I made years ago about the mythical, non-existent ska band The Skausages!—yes, the exclamation point is part of the name. I don't remember precisely what got us started on the random brainstorming that lead to such silliness, but I suspect it was rampant boredom and an over-abundance of gamer funk. Needless to say, it is undoubtedly best for the world that yet another low talent ska band doing covers of 80's tunes and one semi-original song based off of a dog treat commercial remained but a strange glimmer in the eye of it's creator.

Today though, I know precisely where it all came from. Lee IM'ed me with a typography question, specifically looking for the proper name of the daggers they use to denote footnotes and the like. My combined Google-fu and random typographic knowledge led me to the answer rather rapidly.

What it also lead me to was the sidebar in the above linked Wikipedia article on typographic punctuation conventions. The one that caught my eye was interpunct, what I had previously been accustomed to referring to as the middle dot from its HTML Entity code of ·. Something about this word struck a chord in the old brain, and I went off on a bit of a tangent, complete with gratuitous umlautage, and the rather non-sensical genre description in the title. By the end of it all, I had derived:

In·ter·pünkt

Turns out though that I'd already been one-upped even before I was finished. Browsing through some of the pop culture references in the heavy metal umlaut article on Wikipedia, I came across mention of a bunch of kibologists who had formed an actual band known as Interröbang Cartel, complete with actual songs. Thoroughly defeated, and by my favorite obscure typographic mark at that.

Ah well, if some CCAD students can get away with Times New Viking, I should be able to amuse myself with private little jokes like this...

Edit:

It just came to me today that what the name really needed to finish it off was gratuitous self-reference. I have amended the name above to include interpunct marks at the appropriate places.

Labels: music, random, typography

Writers block

The first paper for my composition class was due Monday.

Here I am, trying to bang out some words to bust through a bit of writers block on Thursday night. Luckily for me, the paper has actually been pushed back twice now, so that it is due tomorrow. Wee, lucky me...

It's not like I haven't been working on it, I have all my research, a roughish outline—my brain doesn't normally do outlines for writing, but this time I needed something as a starting point—selected my quotes, started my documentation process, all that jazz. I just can't get the actual guts to come out.

Part of it stems from the fact that as I started this semester, this class was third on my list of three as far as perceived usefulness actually went. I've seen examples of what most of the students here are writing, and on a good day I could probably slap my junk on the keyboard and produce better prose. It's not writing techniques that I really need from this class, three years of daily essay writing in high school and my occasional monkey babblings here have that quite well taken care of, thank you very much. Mostly what I need from it is a primer on documentation (citation, etc.), which to be perfectly honest I could figure out on my own given the grammar book they use for this class, and the actual bit of text on my eventual degree transcript that says yup, he done did it. That fact, coupled with the complete artificiality of this initial assignment and it's rather limited and boring scope has left me with little motivation to, as they say—they in this instance being mostly redneck fuckwads I'd rather not deal with on a regular basis— git 'er done.

So, a minor little random post to flex the literary muscles as it were. Got me some swingin' lounge tunes on for motivation, a couple Grolsch Amber Ales (Thanks Lee!) for mental lubrication, and most of my distractions out of the way. As a bonus, this post is about a third of what I have to write for my paper (as far as word count goes) and took me all of about 20 minutes, including link searching, music finding, and beer opening.

Off we go, into the wild boring yonder...

Labels: music

I've got my love to keep me warm...

A love for knowledge that is.

Ok, so yes, I stole the title for this post from the rather funky jazzish remix of the classic song by the same name currently playing on WCBE. But it works for today. I ventured outside long enough to enjoy the sight of a mostly unspoiled wintery landscape being filled by large wet flakes in my quest to acquire coffee and donuts for a morning repast. I love the winter weather—how's that for two in a row—but I am glad I don't have to go anywhere today. I paid my fees for next semesters class yesterday, I know my paychecks are in the mail, no Christmas shopping left to worry about...it's just me and the internet today.

You may all begin quaking in fear now.

I'll be here and there, doing some testing, some writing, and a lot of reading. Copious, obscene amounts of reading. Perhaps even reading copious amounts of obscene material, who knows, the day is yet young. All I know is that I have wandered the streets of Paragon City long enough for a while, and need something different to kill a day. Do not be surprised though if certain entries appear on days that have passed—I have at least three different entries that have been in draft mode for some time, and I plan on finishing them today, now that I am free from the clutches of school, work and a burning desire to deliver swift justice to the criminal element.

Ah yes, I can feel the caffeine begin to course through my veins, and Spider's whispering in my ear. Maybe that's the sugar rush—who cares. This could be fun...

Labels: coffee, music

WCBE is at it again...

Where's my tinfoil hat?

My first free day, all to myself. No work, no school, nobody coming over to the house. So a very boring day, but one in which I can begin the laborious process of cleaning up my computer to the point where I can commence with backup procedures, and then on to the system rebuild. Overall a process that is long overdue...

Part of that process is sorting through all of my music files, copying them over to the Archos for storage and eventual transport to the HTPC, and general organizational maintenance issues. I've been at it for a few hours or so here, having had to burn some files to disc first for archival purposes, whilst enjoying the leftovers of omelet fixin's from yesterday. Omelets that were apparently well received by all who sampled them, even if they were sans mushrooms, but oh well.

Now obviously I can't sit here in abject silence as I do all of this, least I go quite mad with boredom and tedium. So, as is usual for me, I've had WCBE on all morning. Someone there is apparently much like my mother, and needs to hear fucking Christmas music way too much for there own good. It's still well over a week before you need to be inundating me with this crap for hours on end folks.

Apparently the mind-reading beam that WCBE has pointed towards my bedroom though can be over-ridden by the Aura of Loathing™, even if only via unconscious means. This was evidenced most strongly when I went to sort through the Leonard Cohen folder, and immediately heard some of his newest album begin playing almost immediately as my mouse stopped making clicking noises. That's a bit too strong of a correlation if you ask me. I must find a way too consciously tap this new found power...

Labels: music

Rollin' rollin' rollin'...

We are, we are, we are...

Ah, the holidays. For many, a time of greatly increased stress and frustration. Not so for me however, as classes let out at both Columbus State and CCAD, I actually get a little bit of a break from the pace that's been near constant since the middle of Ren Faire season—say, mid-September or so. Rather, my problem usually ends up being that time honored combination of lots of good home cooked food and too much time to indulge in sloth.

But it's not over yet, which is a good thing for my waistline. I get a bit of a reprieve from the time-crushing schedule that's had me eating way to much fast food and junk for my own good, and just enough impetus to start riding my bike more often. Don't get me wrong, I love the new bike racks that COTA has installed, and have made great use of them. Perhaps a little too much use of them lately, at least as often as Wendy's has been my mainstay. So it's fortuitous that I missed my bus on Monday, and after a moment to pause and consider a plan, I just said to hell with it and biked downtown. Yeah it was cold, but I'm built for cold weather, and with a well bundled coat and gloves I was all good. Plus, it meant I had a chance to indulge in a little people slaloming once I hit campus.

Now people slaloming is just what it sounds like for those of you uninitiated to the past-time, that is whizzing through foot traffic at a moderately quick speed, making course corrections to go around and between as many people and things as possible. Normally this is a fairly low risk endeavor, as the only segment of the populace in Columbus more oblivious to bike traffic is approximately 95% of the drivers in this town, the ones that are going to end up with a size 12 boot print in their fender next time I have to dive out of the way of them pulling their goddam land barges into the cross walk. Yeah I'm talking to you, jackass on the cell phone—next time it won't be a tap, it'll be a dent you fucker. I digress...

I'm happily slaloming my way down High Street, humming a little tune to myself, when I realize I have the terribly strong urge to ride right over people. Not just people, I'm going out of my way to hit anything with an interesting yet squishable mass. Normally this only happens when I have had too much of the stupid, and is considerably more malicious in nature than my current, yet rather odd, inclination. It then strikes me that it may have something to do with what it is that I am humming that is having this particular effect. You see, Andy was kind enough to lend me Katamari Damacy, which I promptly thrashed my way through in a little under a day. Yep, it's that kind of game folks, addictive as hell. And the music is just as absorbing as the game play, as others can attest to, just ask the people I introduced the game to this weekend— still humming along with me there Tona?

So there I am, merrily zipping down the road, wanting nothing more than to run folks over and add them to a huge ball of stuff to be flung into space, or as Dan likes to put it, make them become One with the Many. Oh if only my bike could actually perform such wonders...

Labels: biking, games, music, public transportation

Techno-lust dujour: MIDI Edition

This one's for Andy.

So thanks to the happy mutants over at Boing Boing, I came across this little article describing the world's first commercial digital accordion, complete with MIDI expandability. I likes it...now we just need digital bagpipes.

Ooh oooh ooh! Digital Oompah music, provided perhaps by the Digital Oompire‽ Ok, bad pun on my part...

Hmm...what about a MIDI Theremin you ask? Ok, well I asked, and apparently so did someone else. Interesting. I'll have to file that in the Projects To Work On One One Of These Fucking Years folder.

Labels: music, technology

Tropical Brainstorms

Spending monsoon season with the Amazons

Every once in a while my internal turntable gets stuck in a bit of a loop, and I end up listening to one album pretty much to the exclusion of all other music. To the point where it would probably drive most others around me quite batty after the third or fourth spin—in a single day that is. Thank goodness for phatty-bo-baddy headphones.

The recent object of my obsession has been Kirsty MacColl and her album Tropical Brainstorm. Now most folks I know will probably recognize her better as the female vocalist on The Pogues Fairytale of New York, which is a shame in and of itself. Not that I dislike Fairytale of New York, quite the opposite in fact. No, the main tragedy—aside from the fatal boating accident that happened shortly after Tropical Brainstorm's release—is that most of my friends would only know her for that song, and then not even necessarily by name.

Part of what makes this such an entertaining album for me is that my mind likes to animate it as I'm listening. The first time I heard In These Shoes? on WCBE, I had visions in my head of an animated music video with character design done by Shane Glines. Minimalistic backgrounds, focusing on the main characters movement, I sit there and storyboard it every time I hear the song. Even stronger is the reaction from my obsession-within-an-obsession, Track 10, Us Amazonians. We bring in Paul Taylor on this one, to produce a rainforest utopian village of Lakshmis and their token kidnapped Owen. Screw storyboarding, I start painting the sweeping vistas of wide angle shots, hell I start planning camera shots and pans right there in the little studio in my head.

Those are the albums I truly like, the ones that engage me completely.

Labels: music

Go Baby, Go Go!

On second thought...no, come here.

Ok, maybe putting on beautiful garbage in my current mood wasn't the best idea. Am I pining a bit? Perhaps...well yes, quite probably yes.

I would tend to classify that as an overall good thing though. So maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all...

Labels: girls, music

Coming sometime to a Mind's Eye Theatre near you

Filmed in Stunning Morpheusvision

It was the last day of shooting. Most of the cast had already gone their separate ways, but the core group of main characters from the large ensemble was there for one last day of revisions and changes. Important tweaks to pivotal ending scenes were needed, so we were on set one last time.

Like most productions, the last day of shooting proved to be an emotional one for all involved. Tension that had built up over the long course of filming bubbled close to the surface, to boil off rapidly in the face of upcoming loss, of lingering friendships and connections.

Of course the sets, the actors, the whole production existed only in my head. Somewhere along the past year–year and a half or so, someone started shooting a film on the backlot of my dreamscape. Maybe it's a side effect of my massive Vitamin B dosing experiments, maybe it's just the cheap rent. Whatever the root cause, this has been one of the more interesting recurring dreams to come round in a while.

Most interesting is the fact that, unlike most that I can remember, this dream has an internally consistent timeline. I can vaguely remember the early days of shooting and pre-production. I'm assuming that at some point in the near future, perhaps when my brain has sorted through a new revelation that I need smacked about the head and shoulders with, I'll be there for the metaphorical premier. What is the movie about? I haven't the foggiest idea. I don't even know who any of my costars are, other than the standard amalgam of friends, constructs grouped and categorized by mutable characteristics depending on context.

What is not difficult to grasp is the subtext of this particular episode. Changes and endings, pure and simple. My subconcious givivng me the swift boot to the keister telling me it is time perhaps to move on. Lee and Monica have been trying to convince me that I should move up to Chicago. I must admit the prospect does hold a certain strong appeal.

Maybe it's time to get beyond the concept stage, get on to post-production and put this thing in the can.

Postscript:

From the Life Imitates Art Department

I was lying in bed trying to piece together thoughts in that hazy, half-theta wave state that memorable dreams leave behind, when the radio started to get my attention. I normally leave the radio on at night to listen to a little bit of the BBC's World Service newscasts before drifting off to sleep. By this point in the morning though, it was back to WCBE's normal music programming. As I sat there listening, the first lyrics that I could make out were from a song called Blues Stay Away From Me by Jay Unger and Molly Mason.Someone out there in the cosmic scale of things has a rather interesting sense of drama and humour, since the first words I heard this morning was the refrain:

Dreams are like a memory
bringing back
a love that used to be.

Sometimes you just can't make this shit up and expect it to be better than the strangeness that we live with daily.

Labels: music, random

Boys and their toys

Anyone who has actually read any of my ramblings here up till this point has probably figured out that I'm rather fond of my Archos mp3 player. Apparently I am in quite good company in that regard; a quick glance at Warren Ellis' page today shows some of his pub writing gear. Check out the bottom left side of the picture...

Labels: music, technology

April Showers

Today was one of those days in the Ohio weather scene that I enjoy quite a bit; temperatures around the high 50's–low 60's, slightly blue-grey overcast sky to block out the wicked, evil daystar and an electricity in the air that promises rain. I was walking over to a friend's house after I got done posing for a morning class, soaking in that feeling of potential and expectation, as well as enjoying the wonderful sense of lushness that it granted to the plants around me. Grasses were thick and green, flowering dogwoods and lilacs were at their peak fullness and color it seemed.

Which is when it struck me that 75–90% of the city around me was probably bemoaning what a crappy day it was, and given another week or two most of those will have chopped and hacked their lawns back to a socially appropriate and therefore completely unnatural and visually boring height. The more obsessive amongst them will have scheduled yet another chemical tune-up for their lawn. They will have their concept of a green and healthy lawn to enjoy, unless of course they have children or small animals, at which point they must concern themselves with the small flags surrounding the wannabe putting green detailing the possibility of toxic chemical buildup. What they won't have is the rich visual tapestry I was enjoying today. Sadly though, I don't think most of them are going to miss it.

So I took Sarah out to Momo KTV & Tea Zone for some strangely fruit flavored tea with bubbles, after which we grabbed her dog and headed to the park for a walk. Unsurprisingly the park was rather empty of other people; Ohioans are somehow under the delusion that being in a temperate climate should mean all the plants stay green without it ever raining, and therefore are wholly incapable of doing anything outdoors when threatened with possible precipitation. There were a few diehard joggers out there to join us, but overall the park was deserted. Eventually a light misting rain did start raising our ODI (Overall Dampness Index), but luckily I have friends who are apparently a hardier lot, and we continued walking about enjoying the spring foliage, discussing the ethics surrounding the theft of said foliage—flowers, specifically—from public spaces, and trying not to be tripped by the dog.

Eventually we had our fill and returned to her house. Sarah plied me with coffee, which was good because lack of sleep from the night before was catching up to me. I said my goodbyes and wandered off down the road in the slowly increasing rain to Used Kids, a great used record store down on Campus. I grabbed a few things for my collection—Thomas Dolby, Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon, and Evanescence (how's that for a combo?)—by which time the rain was now coming down at a nice soaking pace. Unperturbed, I grabbed a bus to head home, get some food and settle in for the night. It had been a good day, a rather enjoyable day, and I was not quite prepared for the first sight to greet me at the door.

All our shrubs had been chopped down.

Bereft of life, they laid in pieces.

I'm assuming the landlord has a reason for getting rid of all the shrubbery in front of our house. I was never even the biggest fan of them; they made it more difficult to get my bike onto the patio.

But to spend all day enjoying greenery and growing things, to come home to a front lawn that resembles something out of The Lorax—well, it's not quite irony, but it's getting dangerously close.

Labels: girls, music

A severe Vitamin DHC deficiency

Give me a Blue Plate Special with a side of Skinhead BBQ please...

One of the problems of having many, many gigabytes of music at one's fingertips is that every once in awhile you lose track of just what it is you have available, and end up rediscovering your own music. This is a problem that seems to be recurring for me when it comes to the Dance Hall Crashers. Now you would think I would be able to keep a better handle on this band; if someone were to ask me out of the blue what my favorite band is—I don't have any one single that is my favorite, but that's neither here nor there—the answer that would more than likely pop out on any given day would be DHC. I was originally introduced the them by Lee, who was lucky enough to be living in Hawaii at the time they were there playing clubs, and they have remained pretty consistently one of my favorite groups of musicians.

Ooh,oooh, hold that thought....

[Kingboy does a little chibi skankin' ala Blue Monday to Whiskey and Gin which just came on.]

Sorry, where was I? Ah yes, the Dance Hall Crashers.

Every once in a while though I will find myself flipping through the directories on my Archos aimlessly looking for something to listen to when I find I've wandered into the Ska folder, and a little light goes on, Oh, yeah...I remember them now. I'll push play, and all is good with the world. I can get picky about music; not as far as genres go, but about what I will listen to at any given time. I need to have my soundtrack match my mood or activity, I can't try and use music to change my mood around, it just doesn't work for me. That's what consistently amazes me about DHC though, they are the exception to an otherwise inviolable rule. I have yet to find a time or mood that makes me unable to listen to them. Why then do I keep forgetting I own their music is simply beyond my reckoning.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's an mp3 player on random shuffle mode waiting for me to continue.

Out on the dance floor everything's gonna be all right.
Out on the dance floor
Dance Hall
Dance Hall Crashers tonight

Postscript:

Chynna Clugston-Major, creator of the aforementioned Blue Monday, is what we in the bidness call a hottie hot hottie. Just so ya know.

Labels: music

Road Trip

or On a Highway to Hell

So it's about 7:58 pm, and while the stretch of 70 west through Indiana that we are currently on doesn't really classify quite typically as hell, the fact that we should have been this way about four hours previously had been a little irksome. But I let that go back before we crossed the Ohio border....I'm really just along for the ride after all.

So we're well on our way now, and the classic rock station is lending that soundtrack atmosphere to the car. The sun has set, leaving us driving straight into a flaming horizon no more. And, more importantly, my newly aqcuired power inverter seems to be powering my laptop nicely, so I will have plenty to occupy myself with. All in all a much needed vacation.

Ah... but I hear you say out there, where is it that you are headed ? That's a very good question...which reminds me, I need to grab the directions and navigate for a moment, lest we somehow miss Chicago and end up in a rather large body of water.

Ahh, one radio station fades out and in comes a little ragtime jazz, much more to my liking. Strangely enough, the air is full of the scent of watermelon, which sounds awfully tasty right now to be quite honest. That's a vacation I have to try sometime, a little trip down to New Orleans for some jazz and zydeco, and plenty of creole cooking. The only trick is when to go, seeing as now I loathe the heat of Ohio summers, let alone any place further south and more humid.

Labels: music, travel