Spent much of the past week feeling pretty awful. There was some sort of viral thing kicking around the office the week previous, and it landed on me, hard, over the weekend, so much so that I took last Monday off and slept for something like 16 hours straight.

I’d mostly gotten clear of it by the end of the week, just in time for it to start to hit some of the kids; this time with fever! Yay. Otherwise, the week was mostly quiet (other than the fevered moaning), with some bass practice, and other rehearsals thrown in, both for stuff a few weeks down the road and for a quick road trip this weekend to play at UC Norfolk on Sunday morning (they’ve been having a rough time of late, and some of our folks filled in to help out). Special points for the meal afterward at Pasha Mezze; if you’re out that way, try the lentil cakes.

The other big deal this weekend, of course, was taking in a screening of Guardians of the Galaxy on Friday (late night Thursday just wasn’t going to happen), which is not just as amazingly entertaining as you’d heard – it’s better, and deserved every penny of it’s huge opening weekend. Go see it.

Oh, and I lay the blame straight at my friend Mike for this:

At least maybe it’ll improve my fitness level…

Windows 95 Tips, Tricks and Tweaks. How have I never seen this before?

It’s brilliant, and more than a little unsettling. Like io9, I need this to be a story, or movie, or something…immediately.

There’s so much here, in such an economical package. It’s the stuff of nightmares, even for those of you who weren’t around back then in the dark ages, and never had the experience of fighting Windows 95 into submission.….who am I kidding, uneasy detente was the closest any of us ever got.

It’s not every day you get to drive north in the southbound lanes of the interstate, and go backwards up an exit ramp.

It’s also not every day it takes one six hours to travel the 14 miles from my house to my office.

Today is not, apparently, every day.

I left for work at just past the normal time today, and ended up stuck on 95 south for more than four hours, less than a quarter mile from this, a rather unpleasant overturned tanker truck incident, which is going to keep the road closed pretty much all day. I had no chance to bail before encountering the back-up, as it had happened scant minutes before I arrived near the scene.

Eventually, after several hours (during which my morning coffee began to insistently make its presence known at the back end of it’s cycle) and the appearance of pretty much every Fire, Rescue, Police, and Hazmat resource in the county, traffic control guys in nice yellow vests started turning cars around, parading us up the shoulder in the opposite direction, and backwards up the exit ramp to get onto an alternate route. Once that was done, I only had another two hours (thanks to bottlenecks, traffic lights, and several secondary fender benders along the way) until I pulled into the office parking lot around noon.

So, that was fun. And, as it looks like the highway will be closed until at least 4pm for cleanup of all the spilled gasoline, I’m already planning alternate routes home.

At least I got some reading done.

Because I had a full spam folder and a spare half-hour. To recap the rules; I grab interesting phrases, not entirely at random, from the spam comments received on this blog. I take the lines and rearrange them into interesting experiments in free verse. I endeavor to change as little as possible from the original source; I think the most I did here was add a couple of line breaks.

No titles, just commentary on what I think this stuff might mean. You’re more than welcome to feel differently. Enjoy!

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Commentary on outward appearance. Possibly a little sexy:

When you are ridin’ superior and furthermore lookin’ the best out of them
yet you still receive the same sidelong glances and adoring stares.
most people would likely never risk exposing his or her
chicken tucks
which hangs loose below the knees after being knotted
Flushing this device can lead to increased longevity
Thanks a lot and I am taking a
look forward to touch you.

meditation on modern feminism and the traditional roles of women:

People typically inquire me about women’s liberation
probably 3 days a week and doesn’t play very long
Few items define a woman’s sense of fashion more than her accessories
Moms want to make sure there funds is invested properly
the queen is considered one of the most powerful

regarding America’s persistent economic woes:

he notes that your dog keeps “meticulous” track connected with his finances on her computer
The fixed. The existing. The persnickety. The scarce.
our country really has a broken machine

Exploring the philosophy of machismo in rock music:

living is to understand and handle the fundamental metal chords
the rhythm and the riff
you’ll see that I’m not just a natural badass
been recently rough on my claws

How unreasonable expectations of manhood affect adolescent males:

The boy was not behaving well in class
You are forcing the kids to make their individual pancakes
utilize Emma Watson
redefine the rules established by way of patriarchal system

On the commonality of experience at the gaming table:

Practically every person alive these days has most likely played a match of bingo
an unexpected spot of entertainment
after everybody has shared laughter

Society’s difficulty with accepting variance in sexual orientation:

come out in the pub
wear all your trousers; halfmast
unwanted is really a offense
The foxtrot is refined

Societal disaffection with the prominence of sport in popular culture:

After Bird retired, the Celtics were set for some hard times
Quarterback Dude
Make Use of Vertical Space
How Tall Is Aspirin?

Now you understand how the illuminati controls us all:

you’ll see that I’m not just a natural badass
powerful techniques to control the h2o
Ben Affleck video won best picture
The united kingdom attempted to ban cappuccino
Disney Channel Metoclopramide

one single entry; perfect all by itself (and explains a lot):

Keep up the {superb|terrific|very good|great|good|awesome|fantastic|excellent|amazing|wonderful} works guys I’ve {incorporated||added|included} you guys to {|my|our||my personal|my own} blogroll.|

And because I had some leftover text, some bonus band names:

Wellbutrin accident plan
Regional Clicks
Guidebook to Unwanted Fat Biking
Lunch at PeeWee
Motifs could be Animals

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This has been your literary excursion into found art for the day. You should now feel sufficiently cultured.

Have you ever had an impending task looming over you for a good long while, hitting all sorts of impediments that need solved, and causing all manner of stress to your person? Sure you have.

Remember when it finally got resolved? The relief you felt when the stress finally lifted, and you actually physically felt the burden dissipate?

Then, shortly thereafter, feeling yourself pretty much melt into a gooey puddle with no internal structural integrity?

That’s me right now. Good thing I don’t really have a whole lot of heavy lifting on my plate today.

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Anyway, this weekend, in addition to the Anniversary stuff (we had a nice afternoon out without the kids, even if a bit of it invovled errands): Played some games with friends. Slept in a bit. Took in a baseball game. Did a terribly clever parenting thing that might mean we’re really terrible people. Rehearsed a bunch of new and old songs. The guys and I saw Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which was really quite good.

Today,my marriage is old enough to drive.

Uh, wow.

Cool. Awesome. Overwhelming.

Wow.

Happy anniversary to us.

I spent the early part of this week back in Columbus, Ohio, sitting in on two days of requirements planning sessions for upgrades on a computer system that’s been in service since the late 1950s, is jointly “owned”/supported by two different agencies, and has a directive to remain in service, in some form, until the year 2100.

Yeah.

It wasn’t really all that bad an experience, really. I learned a lot, and was able to contribute materially to the discussions. This business, and the follow-on projects, will probably keep me busy for the next decade or so. Job security is a nice thing.

I drove to Columbus again; I’ve got a pretty direct, not to particularly congested route that take a leisurely eight hours or so with bathroom, gas, and meal breaks. It’s not particularly stressful, allows me some quiet time to enjoy audiobooks (this trip? Brandon Sanderson’s The Rithmatist and about half of Terry Pratchett’s Dodger), and most importantly, keeps me out of the US airline system (folks who flew actually took longer to get there than I did).

Of course, while I was in town, I took the time to get together with good friends Elizabeth and Duncan, who provided entertaining company in The Short Northneighborhood, with dinner and drinks at The Arch City Tavern, and absolutely amazing ice cream at Jeni’s. Much catching up ensued, as well as some discussion of in-progress projects we’re working on for Antimatter Press. A good time, as they say, was had by all.

Today saw new releases from Efenwealt Wystle (aka Scott from my occasional bass gig The Blibbering Humdingers) and comedy rock geek Mikey Mason. Tomorrow sees the release of “Weird” Al Yankovic’s Mandatory Fun (see today’s video – the first of eight in eight days – “Tacky”).

I posit that this is the best week for geek music in like…ever. Prove me wrong, I dare you.

In any case, it was certainly enough to take some of the sting out of my ass after driving for eight hours today to get to Columbus, Ohio for businessy things.

Like a lot of bigger metropolitan areas, Richmond has, for as long as I’ve been here, run (at least) one of those mid-week summer beerfest/concert series in a large suburban office park/mixed use retail “community”. Wednesday evenings from June to October feature a parade of fading nostalgia acts, mid-level live staples, and developing country artists performing on a semi-permanent pavillion stage on a lawn ringed with food and beverage vendors and port-o-pot villages. Gates open around happy hour, and the crowd disperses by around 10pm – exactly the kind of hump day diversion a middle-aged professional needs to break up the workaday monotony and still manage to get to work on Thursday morning without too many lingering aftereffects.

This week boasted an interesting bill – the “80s Invasion” package, featuring hair metal staples LA Guns, FireHouse, and Warrant, each boasting at least 50 percent original membership! So, on a bit of a lark, I picked up some tickets, and drove over after work with my teenage daughter in tow, who was actually rather into it, as she enjoys raiding my aging CD collection more than listening to the music supposedly marketed to her generation.

General admission lawn tickets were cheap, and it provided a bit of a break from the currently rattling house (current status – about 60% showpiece, 40% janky cardboard) from the siding guys doing their thing.

The bands sounded surprisingly good, even if they all looked a little old and paunchy (or in Phil Lewis from LA Guns’ case, rather like a strutting old woman), particularly FireHouse, who may have lost most of the hair, but can still hit the high notes. Warrant, even with a replacement singer after the original one died a few years back, sounded mostly like themselves. Setlists were obviously tilted toward nostalgia, heavy on the early material, with only token nods to “modern” output. They played the hits, and pretty much only the hits, and that’s what the crowd responded to.

Like any good show, crowd watching provided just as much sport as the main event. The assembled throng was an interesting mix; most folks a bit older than me, made up of the usual semi-intoxicated leathery tattooed women who tend to spring, fully formed from these things, as well as the aging metalheads who follow them. Mixed in were the usual dudebros, soccer moms in soccer mom bob haircuts reliving their youth, and a handful of high school girls wearing their mom’s old 1989 club gear. Also, a surprising number of prosthetic limbs.

Then there was the man who would become known as Stripper Thor. A younger, ripped guy with long flowing blond locks way prettier than one might expect, along with his leather miniskirt clad girlfriend, both wearing (in somehwat of a concert faux pas) Warrant t-shirts*. Of course, Thor didn’t leave his shirt on for long, at which point, he was mobbed by the previously mentioned leathery women (and a couple of the guys, too) to pose for pictures often taken by the girlfriend, who took it with good humor, but seemed a little annoyed.

All in all, it was a fun time; I’d never managed to catch any of these bands before (and I’ve seen my share of 80s hair bands over the years), and they all still put on a good show. In spite of occasional internal turmoil and personnel changes, these guys still look like they’re having a blast playing for a crowd, even if they’re playing the same crap they’ve been playing for 20 years. And they can all still really play – there are many complaints about this era/genre of music – shallowness, macho posturing, misogyny, etc;but no one can accuse these guys of not being talented instrumentalists. There was lots of shreddy noodling, but it was really impressive shreddy noodling; the guitar solo may be largely defunct in current popular music, but it was alive and well last night amongst immaculately manicured lawns and interchangeable corporate office blocks of suburbia.

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* – Really, has nobody told these people that it’s bad form to wear the shirt of the band you’re seeing to the actual concert? Some people….

I’ll have you know, I have some pretty creative friends who make some neat and entertaining stuff. When they do, I like to point people at those things, because I like to see my friends succeed, and because I think the stuff they make is pretty cool, and I want other people to see it and enjoy it as much as I do.

One of my friends is currently mounting a kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of his latest “nerd comedy” album, Songs of My People: Let Me Sing You Them. I’ve known Danny for several years now, and have been a fan of his brand of “filk” for even longer, and make a point to catch his performances at conventions whenever we happen to be in the same place. Danny’s stuff could be considered a very fine example of “traditional” filk, leaning toward sci-fi and fantasy themed parody and humor, which has received many accolades, and has been featured in such illustrious venues as the Dr. Demento Show and The Fump. He also does some really great solo piano stuff (which has not been featured on novelty song radio) and has a good half-dozen novels to his credit.

My entire family are big fans, especially my youngest, who’s been known to occasionally join Danny for a duet.

So, if you’ve got a few extra bucks lying around, I highly recommend contributing to this effort – if it’s successful, you’ll receive some great music, and support a great creative talent. As I write this, he’s about half-way there, with a couple of weeks to go – not exactly potato salad money, but well on the way to success. There’s some great tunes on this one – you can see the video for “Lady Hath Bustle” on the page, plus, this one will also feature “Eye of the Newt” (my current personal favorite) and long-time live staple “I Love Calculus”.

So, what are you waiting for? Let him sing them to you!