So I’ve taken a couple of days off…I originally had a week or so blocked out around this time as the plan was to join the Humdingers at MISTI-Con in New Hampshire, but life and time and stuff got in the way. I knocked some of that time off, but saved myself a five-day weekend, because dammit, I deserve it.

I’ve been spending my time mosty relaxing about the house, taking care of some chores (today is laundry day), and getting some solid miles behind me on the bike in the mornings before the heat gets to badly. I did fifteen yesterday, and while I don’t regret it, I was feeling it in my old man bones by the end of the day. I still did ten this morning, enjoying the breeze of the James and counting turtles on the trail.

This week’s been a busy one for the dancers in the family, as HOI has been hosting a couple of guys from the Fusion Fighters, a professional dance group (who do a fusion of tap, irish, and a bunch of other stuff) from England who have been working with the folks at the school and some other groups in town all week, leading up to a video they’re shooting tomorrow. The older girls are limping around after intensive work and private lessons all week, but it’ll probably be worth the effort.

Otherwise, the current obsession is finding appropriate vessels for 7-Eleven’s bring your own cup slurpee day, in order to maximize the benefit.

Anyway, here are some tunes, this time from my personal archive, rather than from Pandora:

1. “Handy” – Weird Al Yankovic
2. “Building A Mystery” – Sarah McLachlan
3. “Listen to Your Heart” – Roxette
4. “Boom City (live)” – Halestorm
5. “Promises” – Eric Clapton
6. “The Dornishman’s Wife” – Valentine Wolfe
7. “The Gringott’s Goblin Coaster” – Witches of Grimmauld Place
8. “Code Monkey” – Jonathan Coulton
9. “A Better Man” – Earth to Bob
10. “Boys Don’t Cry” – The Cure
11. “Mary Ellen Carter” – Jig to a Milestone

So…the Roanoke HP festival.

It was interesting. There were some weird organizational issues that could be chalked up to this being the first year of an event that got way bigger than anybody expected (and a couple of rumors I won’t go into that probably can’t). The folks in attendance seemed to have fun (even if it wasn’t always the kind of fun they were expecting) and enjoyed themselves.

Our part of the festival kind of got the short shrift; although the weather for Saturday ended up being gorgeous, the organizers made the call early to put the wizard rock in a venue several blocks away from the main festival area and didn’t do much to let anyone know where we were. The venue itself, The Spot on Kirk, was a pretty nice room to play in, but it’s kind of frustrating when for much of the day, the very talented musicians (Grace Kendall!, Tonks and the Aurors!, Hawthorn and Holly!, us!) were playing for nobody but the sound guys.

We had a few folks roll into our shows, partially because we had a couple friends in town, but mostly, I think, because we picked up our gear and set up a rogue busking show on the festival grounds (next our our friends from Mysticon) which got us a fair bit of attention for our afternoon show.

What was really frustrating was watching a metric assload of people wander into the space when a couple of YouTubers we’d never heard of were scheduled to do their thing. I guess promotion made it out for some stuff.

Oh well – our shows went well enough from a performance perspective – those that heard us dug us, and word from the crowd is that we looked and sounded good. We also took some band promo photos in front of an interesting wall that I think will probably come out looking pretty great (maybe it’s just because I’m feeling good about myself after dropping some weight, I don’t know – the other two are really pretty, pretty much all the time).

Whatever the non-optimal circumstances, we had fun playing for the folks who came out, like we always do.

Happy rainy Friday, folks! I’m wrapping up my work week a little early to make the trek to the other end of the state for the Roanoke Harry Potter Festival gig tomorrow, which should be fun, even if the whole business has been wet, rainy fustercluck so far in terms of scheduling, atmospheric conditions, and organization, though we’re going to do our best to entertain the folks who come out, and we’re committed to enjoying ourselves, as we always do when we get together to make music and goof off for our adoring public.

Otherwise, I think I’ve learned an important lesson: the first rule of weight loss club is to not talk about weight loss club. After trending down nicely all week, my weigh-in this morning was slightly more than half-a-pound higher than yesterday. I know that in the scheme of things it’s signal noise (it’s either a slightly higher sodium intake yesterday and I’m retaining water, or I’m increasing muscle mass with all the biking I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks), but one of the detriments of this daily weigh-in program is seeing these sorts of things and assigning too much value to them emotionally and feeling like a failure for a couple of minutes.

I think the nagging scale understood that, though. It’s message to me this morning wasn’t that I was up xx lbs today, but “Your weight is stable. Make one small change to see your weight go down tomorrow.” I think that’s its way of softening the blow.

I’m kind of over it already. I rode over 30 miles on my bike this week (ten of those miles in the rain yesterday, picking up a couple of ticks for my trouble), and maybe more importantly, I tried on the vest I mentioned yesterday, and I was able to button it again(!), so I’m calling it a win.

Here’s some tunes. Enjoy:

1. “Never Be The Same” – Surf Rock is Dead
2. “Alone” – Heart
3. “Montana (Whipping Floss) – Live in Helsinki Finland, 1974 – Frank Zappa
4. “Shine” – Mondo Cozmo
5. “Animal” – Miike Snow
6. “Enter the Glade” – Falconer
7. “Obsession (U.S. 12”) – Animotion
8. “Alive” – Pearl Jam
9. “Daylight” – Matt & Kim
10. “Gone for Good” – The Shins
11. “Dashboard” – Modest Mouse

Oh, and in Stranger Things news (to carry on the “eleven” theme) season 2 is supposed to edge more toward the horror genre than last season. I just hope it keeps the same great atmosphere from last season, which played more to fear and dread than jump scares, and one of the things that really made it special.

It seems the thing to drop a quick note to let anybody within sight of this particular post that we Humdingers will be performing at the Roanoke Harry Potter Festival in beautiful Roanoke VA this Saturday, May 13!

As of right now, the schedule has us playing at 11am and 4pm as part of the “Wizard Rock Concert” on the Downtown Stage. I expect with weather (they’re calling for rain), the venue and/or time may shift. I’ll add more info if/when I get it, We’re making the assumption that there’ll be some organizational snafus, but we’re going to have our fun anyway, and put on the best shows we can for the people who show up. We’re going to be playing some of the new stuff that’s available on the new record, which is a lot of fun, if I do say so myself.

So, if you happen to be in Western VA this weekend, swing on by!

This post may be a bit personal, though I’m proud of my progress thus far, and felt like talking about it in this space might be interesting to you and/or useful to me.

As I’ve alluded to a few times over the last month or so, I’ve been working on dropping some weight. Although my doctor tells me I’m mostly healthy in spite of the extra pounds I’ve put on over the last couple of years thanks mostly to my sedentary office job and elevated stress and anxiety levels (I’ve found that my body’s reaction to stress is to go into “starvation mode”, holding on to every last calorie I put into it, even if I’m not eating all that much. I wish I was one of those people who lost weight when anxiety kicks in!), and we’ve agreed that dropping a few pounds would be a good thing. Thanks to a slight re-adjustment to my antidepressants, jumping back into my biking habit, and the temporary inclusion of a medication that assists in weight loss efforts through the magic of brain chemistry (it depresses the hunger center, reducing appetite, and the reward system, which kills the impulse for stress eating and cravings), I’m down 15 pounds over the last month or so.

One of the things I’m doing to monitor my progress is playing around with the free membership to the weight loss support system that came along with the prescription. Basically, I get a free, internet-enabled scale that tracks my progress and sends text messages to me regarding progress and offering advice for reducing caloric intake and adjusting behavior to lose weight.

The advice itself is kind of simplistic; I quickly realized it’s not designed for somebody like me who understands the chemistry and biological processes at work. I get things like “eat more vegetables” and “have the restaurant make your sandwich open-faced”, and I immediately know it’s telling me to increase fiber intake and reduce refined carbohydrates; I’m out-thinking the machine. It was also pretty creepy getting text messages from the scale at first (it’s in my phone contacts as “Creepy Nagging Scale”), but it’s gotten less weird over time.

I wasn’t originally sold on weighing in every day, though doing so does feed the part of this program I do find terribly useful and fascinating; the online tracking of daily weight and the ability to derive trends and such from the daily data points. And those of you who know me know that I appreciate data to play with.

At first, things plotted all over the place, but eventually I’m starting to see the patterns and how adjustments to diet and exercise affect things. And, so far, it’s working, and I’m not experiencing any of the side effects (other than a serious reduction in appetite overall) some folks have experienced. The program’s helping me focus, and it’s helping to modify my behavior, including increasing my exercise regimen (I’ve added my hike/bike mileage to the left-hand column again – I’m on track for over 30 miles this week).

Here’s my chart from this morning:

Over the last week or so, it looks like I’ve settled into a good groove with things, and the trend overall is definitely going in the right direction. Having the data to watch actually does help; it helps me anyway, since I tend toward the analytic side of things. I’ve also plugged this data into excel spreadsheets where I can calculate trend lines and averages and such, because why the hell not.

Of course, I’m not seeing any physical appearance changes yet – I’m hoping that’ll come soon. My weird aspirational goal is to be able to button the vest I’m wearing in this photo again; then I’ll really know it’s working.

Again, apologies for any overshare!

Hey, look what I woke up to this morning!

It’s the new release (kind of) from The Blibbering Humdingers!

We’ve been working quite a bit on this one for the last little while (right up until Saturday afternoon, in fact!), and while it’s not the whole record, we’ve got enough to get out now ahead of a couple of big gigs (The Roanoke Harry Potter Festival, MISTI-Con – which I sadly won’t be making- and ConCarolinas) coming up, so Scott and Kirsten put up a limited-pressing “pre-release EP” to whet the appetite at those shows before getting the whole record out.

There’s some pretty great stuff on here, if I do say so myself, and it’s been a lot of fun to play on, with me really stretching myself in my bass playing (and getting to do some cool electric guitar stuff too!). I even got a songwriting credit!

Anyway, enjoy!

Two album releases from two different bands in the same week….I’m a freakin’ machine!

Happy Friday, folks. It’s actually not been a bad week at all. At work, I’ve managed to finally (I think) give everyone the documentation they need to wrap up the annual budget/contract stuff so I’ll be able to pay my folks next year. I hope, anyway. It feels good right now, so I’ll take it. Outside of work, I’m trending down on the weight loss program thing I’m doing (down ten pounds over the last couple of weeks), and I knocked out a good 20 miles on the mountain bike this week, including my first ten-miler of the season before the weather all turned to crap.

Speaking of weather, an aside:

It seems over the last week or so, the facilities guys left a couple of two-way radios (is it still culturally sensitive to call them “walkie-talkies”? I don’t know…) with NOAA weather alert receivers charging around the building. It’s been a ton of fun this morning tracking them down to shut the alarms off every time the “severe thunderstorm warning/tornado watch” goes off…every ten minutes or so. I think I finally managed to shut the beeping off when that kicks in. If I can’t figure it out, today’s going to be a blast.

Aside over.

One other neat thing I did this week was hanging out with Cory Doctorow for a couple of hours last night durning his current book tour at The Fountain, after a nice dinner with my con buddy Chris at Citizen Burger Bar in the city (I was saving up calories all day to enjoy this one). The Fountain is always an awesome place to visit, and Cory was very cool to chat with before the reading/signing (we ended up at the store a little bit early), and is a very engaging personality when he’s “on stage” doing his thing. He’s a great authority on all things relating to digital rights and privacy issues (not surprisingly, being one of the guys behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and that kind of sensibility really informs his writing (seriously, go read Little Brother) and public persona. I’m really looking forward to reading his new one, Walkaway, which I picked up last night in hardback and in special tour-exclusive audiobook USB drive.

Oh, and I learned Kevin Hearne, the guy behind The Iron Druid Chronicles is coming to town in July, which is something I’m going to do my best to get to.

I guess I ought to mention Ravencon a bit from last weekend – the Dimensional Riffs shows went well. They weren’t perfect, but I don’t think I’ve ever played a perfect show in my life. Still, they were well-attended and well-received, and we sold ten(!) CDs, which is about eleven more than I expected to sell. We also took a few minutes to sit down with the Guardians of the Geekery podcast to chat about the band and upcoming gigs, particularly ConCarolinas (which the hosts of this particular podcast are intimately involved with). It’s not a bad few minutes; it’s still weird hearing my own voice playing back at me, but I’m getting used to it.

This weekend looks to be pretty chill; pay bills, do laundry, record the tracks for the Humdingers record I got thrown my way this week, and on Sunday, head out to celebrate a dear friend’s birthday and catch Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 with a bunch of great folks, some of whom I haven’t seen in a while.

Anyway, here are some tunes that are the soundtrack for the apocalyptic rainstorm currently inflicting itself on the greater Petersburg area. Not a bad mix; pretty atypical of Pandora lately for me, which is not a bad thing:

1. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – Guns & Roses
2. “Elodie” – Ten Fe
3. “It’s My Life” – Talk Talk
4. “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” – REM
5. “Songs from the Wood” – Jethro Tull
6. “Karma Police” – Radiohead
7. “Dancing With Myself” – Billy Idol
8. “White Room” – Cream
9. “V.G.I.” – The Julie Ruin
10. “Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)” – The Moody Blues feat. London Festival Orchestra & Peter Knight
11. “Boy With A Coin” – Iron & Wine

The Catholic reflex is strong with this one…

I kind of love fun meaningless holidays, and Star Wars Day fits the bill perfectly. Just a fun little excuse to get your geek on, style your hair in cinnamon buns, or whatever your favored token of celebration.

My favorite thing about it, though, is the Glitter For Carrie thing that’s cropped up this year, our first May the Fourth without the Princess around.

Carrie Fisher, as most of us are aware, suffered from bi-polar disorder and depression – one of her coping mechanisms was to toss glitter around, especially at fan events (there are some great stories), often anointing fans with glitter, saying it would protect them. It was a little thing that made her, and the people around her, happy and brought a little happiness and whimsy into their lives.

Today, a lot of people are getting into the glitter game in memory of Carrie, and in support of sufferers of mental illness. I think it’s a great idea.

Remember your General; glitter up this joint!

Look what dropped today!

It’s nice to see the four Netflix heroes together, for the big Defenders crossover series; I enjoyed each of them, in one way or another, on their own, though I’m hoping (and am encouraged by what you see above) that together, they’ll be greater than the sum of their parts; I want to see some of the classic comics chemistry between Luke and Danny; I want to see a slightly less damaged, but still bitingly sarcastic Jessica (think Pulse rather than Alias), and I’m curious to see if Matt can overcome some of his brooding in the group context (my favorite bits of Daredevil were the lighter Matt-and-Foggy bits).

There’s some good Marvel one-liners in this one, plus it looks like we might finally get this Hand business employed properly and coherently (Daredevil and Iron Fist hinted at a lot, but it was kind of a mess). That, of course, leads to resurrecting Elektra, which should prove interesting.

I really want this one to overcome some of the weaknesses of the other series (so broody, a little long), and really give us a solid street-level superhero team-up story. Based on some of what I see here (it’s nice and quippy) and the fact that this one’s only supposed to be eight instead of thirteen, I’m optimistic.

…Even if this group really isn’t my Defenders (Doc Strange, Namor, Hulk, Silver Surfer, Nighthawk, Hellcat, Valkyrie, etc), but more a variation on Heroes for Hire, I’ll take it.

It’s that day, folks!