Consider for a moment “We Built This City” by the musical group Jefferson Airplane Starship. While I profess no particular animosity toward the song (not the way I do, toward, say Bob Carlisle’s “Butterfly Kisses”, for example), I will admit that is objectively pretty terrible. I do kind of have an innate sense of why […]

This week I had the opportunity to do something kind of cool: I was part of an Eagle Scout Board of Review. For the uninitiated, the Board of Review is essentially the “final interview” for those who’ve met all the other requirements for Eagle Scout – the candidate sits for a group interview with several […]

As it is December 17, today we begin the celebration Saturnalia, the Roman festival for Saturn, god of the harvest, running through December 23, and landing, as most winter celebrations do, around the time of the winter solstice. Saturnalia, of course, is the pagan observance from which many modern Christmas traditions are derived, including the […]

80 years ago today, the 21st Amendment was passed, repealing Prohibition, as dictated by the 18th Amendment. If you find the time today, take a moment to celebrate. (photo from this gallery at the NY Daily News)

This song is twenty years old: You’re welcome.

The week itself has been busy, but there aren’t any particular events to which I can point which have exhausted me so. Played some music with friends early in the week, did a lot of user support and document review at work (plus our section Thanksgiving luncheon yesterday), and ran kids all over the county […]

I’m finding that for the first time in my adult life, my work group is made up primarily of people my own age. For most of my tenure as a civil servant, I’ve been the office “baby”, well into my late 30s. The federal service cadre I’be been part of is made up largely of […]

I guess it’s one of those date occurrences that really set off some people’s superstitious reflexes. Me? I don’t really care. Been an okay week, I guess. The usual annoyances are still annoyances, though some are at least winding down a bit. More to come there later, if we haven’t talked about it. If that’s […]

Just wanted to take a minute to point out (another) article over at The Av Club which I *almost* wish existed ten years ago when I fell into a particular rabbit hole, a Beginner’s Guide to Paul Westerberg and the Replacements, which does a nice job of running through the band’s history and evolution, and […]

The AV Club recently posted a great Q&A feature discussing suggestions for various official state rock songs, given that a couple of states actually have official ones, and others have generally accepted unofficial ones. There are lots of good suggestions in there: New Jersey writer Joe Keller makes a passionate and lucid defense for Bon […]