A list that tells a tale

I've been spending a lot of my time on Listal lately, and those of you following this blog have seen me post links to it here. I can't remember now how I first stumbled upon it, but I joined the site so I could keep track of my music and movie collections (I've got my books on there too, but I was already using Goodreads for them). It's been a great resource for that, despite the fact that music-wise it rarely acknowledges lesser-known artists & albums. When that happens, I can sometimes add an album through a connection between Listal & Amazon, but if it's never been sold through Amazon then I'm out of luck.

ANYWAY, for the past year or so I've been creating my own lists of various things. Most have been movie-related, such as my favorite horror movies, annual best-of lists, and movies I hate. I've also posted my share of music-related lists, and there's one that I'd like to share here with you.

Behold: "I was a preteen metalhead". This list details my personal musical evolution, from childhood through high school with a glimpse at what has followed since. I've given a lot of thought in recent years about why I like the music that I do, which albums and artists had the most significant impact on my listening tastes, and this list has given me a means to deconstruct that and present it to others. I really enjoyed this process as it's led to a clearer understanding of where I've been, and I like that I can finally lay to rest the ongoing conversation in my head about my musical taste.

So far, the response to it on Listal has been very positive, and I hope it will continue to gain attention. I have plans for more music-related lists in the future, and any time someone shows interest in those lists I can always refer them to this one to provide a deeper understanding if necessary. And since my lists can be accessed by non-Listal users as well, I can share it with the rest of my friends too, though of course you can't comment on them without being a member. (If you'd like to join the site, let me know & I'll send you an e-mail invite to get you started.) So feel free to bring your comments back here after you've looked at it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have household chores that demand my attention....

a few things

Back here again. Tomorrow will be my first day having Evie all to myself during the day, as V goes back to the office. She'll still be working part-time for a while, so it's not like we'll be home without her most of the day, but it's still a change and one I'm excited about. Our little girl is getting stronger every day, and she's making attempts to do more than just cry at us now. I'm hoping with her set of lungs being as strong as they are so far she'll be a scream queen some day...that could be cool. Anyway, it'll be up to me to keep her fed and happy during the day now...hopefully it'll go as well as I imagine. She's been really easy to handle so far, so if that continues I shouldn't have any problems.

This week in addition to watching her I intend to get some more boxes taken care of. There's a few in our garage I know I can find places for the contents of...won't be long and all that will be left are the things we want left in boxes in the garage. Since Evie tends to sleep a lot during the early part of the day, that should allow me time to get it done. That is, of course, if we don't both go back to sleep. Heh. We shall see what happens.

Also this week Evie has her first pediatrician appointment, so we'll see how that goes too.

And in addition to the above I'm still working my way through horror movies when I get the chance. If you want to check out what I've watched so far & my thoughts on them head over here. I've still got several left in our instant queue, and odds are I won't get through all of them (especially since I keep noticing ones I've overlooked & adding them). Along with the ones in the queue, the annual Halloween movie marathon is this weekend and on Halloween no less. Since I'm no longer in Dallas where it's usually held, we're trying something different this year. Tommy will have at least one person over at his place, while V & I will be at our place. We'll all watch the same movies at the same time & text our comments & thoughts between us. I still have no clue which movies we're watching though, so hopefully that'll be determined in enough time for us to acquire any movies we don't already have access to. If it all works out as it should then a good time shall be had by all.

Guess that's about it for now. I'll most likely check in again next week. Until then...

a long-delayed update

A lot has gone on in the past few weeks, beginning with moving into our new place. We hired movers, and the whole process took a little longer than we'd anticipated. Fortunately though, they managed to transport all of our belongings safely. We're now mostly settled into our new home, and it's taken a couple of weeks just to get this far. Funny, we were excited about having more space and now that we're here we've already agreed that we could use more than this. Oh well, it'll work for the time being. Hopefully we won't overload the place too much too quickly.

Don't get me wrong though...we're loving our new place. Quiet neighborhood, friendly neighbors, more space to maneuver around our belongings, a kitchen that both of us can be in at the same time without bumping into one another, a yard to hang out in when the weather's nice (which it has been lately), plenty of space to have guests over...all good things. We could use a bookcase or 2 still, and we need to figure out what to do with some things that have been sitting in boxes for unknown amounts of time, but we'll get it accomplished. Especially now that I'll be at home full-time.

That's right, no more temp job. It really wasn't working out anyway. I like the people, but being forced into crummy projects got to me. Plus, even if I wanted to stay, there's no alternative shift for me to work. And after looking into day-care costs, it's just not feasible for V and me to work similar hours, especially for no more than I'd been making. So that brings me to being home, which I'm excited about. I'll keep my eyes and ears open for late-night or work-from-home opportunities, and if I find something, great. But if not I'll gladly stay home with our little girl and take on a full-time job working for her. I believe that'd be a teaching/culinary/entertainment job...looking forward to getting some practical experience in all those areas.

Oh yeah, back to the moving thing...after the movers did their part, we still had to clear some things out of the old apartment. The following week, I was ill. Nothing serious, congestion and cough mostly. At first I chalked it up to allergies, what with high pollen counts and the dust regularly flying around as we packed and unpacked and so on. But if it was solely allergies, then it may have progressed into a sinus infection, as this past Friday and Saturday I ran a fever. I seem to be better now, though the cough continues to linger...fortunately it's nowhere near as bad as it has been. I've been self-medicating, and it seems to have worked. But over the now week-and-a-half that I wasn't feeling well it was difficult to do my share of unpacking and such. I'd do a little and have to rest for a bit before I could move on to another task. Sucked. So yeah, that slowed down our progress a little.

Add to that the fact that V's now working from home part-time, and both of us juggling the little one, and that slowed us down even more.

Yet somehow we managed to pull off having the place looking great by the time my parents, sister, and brother-in-law rolled into town this past weekend. (I give V most of the credit.) My parents stayed overnight and watched Evie while V & I hit up a pair of post-ACL shows. V won us tickets to see The Black Keys, and I'd bought us tickets to see Sonic Youth. Both bands were better than the previous time I'd seen either of them, though The Black Keys were merely OK this time instead of completely dull, and Sonic Youth were simply more enthusiastic this time around. Neither show was Amazing or especially memorable, but I enjoyed both of them. I especially enjoyed spending a night out with V and not having to worry about Evie the whole time.

And I guess that brings us up to speed. Now that it's October, I've got a slew of horror flicks in our instant queue to watch. So far I've only managed 5, but I'm hopeful I'll get through most if not all of them between now and Halloween. Slowing me down on that front is the fact that the fall TV season has started up, and we've got a bunch of shows to watch now (not to mention having just begun watching season 1 of Damages this past week). Which shows, you ask? Those would be: Bored to Death, Boardwalk Empire, Big Bang Theory, House, Community, Weeds, and in V's case Mad Men, which I admit I'm still far behind on (still lingering back in season 1). I think that's all of them. So yeah, lots to watch on top of caring for our baby girl and being entertained by her. Funny how she can't do much of anything and yet still manages to keep us enthralled with what little she can do.

All right, that's it for now....

The birth of Evie

Vita recently posted to the baby blog a detailed account of the birthing process, plus some pictures. For those not following it already who may be interested in checking that out, go here.

In other news, we signed the lease on our new place today. It'll be great to get out of this crummy little apartment and into a nice, spacious 2 bedroom duplex. We'll be moving toward the end of the month, so we'll be plenty busy between now and then! The new place is a little further north from where we are, in a nice quiet neighborhood. As an added bonus, it's right around the corner from a handful of restaurants we like to eat at on a regular basis.

OK, off to eat some lunch....

I'm officially a Dad now

Evelina Michelle was born at 3:07am on 8/27/10. She measured 20 inches and weighed 7 lbs 4.5 oz.

We were at the birthing center for about 12 hours before she arrived. V gave birth to her naturally and her sister Allie & I coached her through it. We also had some help from the midwives who took vitals when necessary, checked V's progress regularly, and gave her instructions on how to push when the time finally came. The whole experience was mind-blowing and tiring for all of us, and the end result is the most beautiful baby girl I've ever seen (I may be biased). One of the midwives pronounced her as perfect, and none of us could dispute her...I also thanked her for giving us a professional's word to back us up.

As you can probably tell from the above pictures, I'm totally in love with her and proud that I could be there throughout her birth. I'm also extremely proud of V for giving birth to her completely naturally the way she wanted to.

Expect more in the near future...I just wanted to post something while I had a chance.

P.S.--It's been brought to my attention that the comments haven't been working. So I changed the design again...hopefully now they'll work.

deconstruction

As I approach the day when my first child will enter this world, and I think about it more and more, something major concerns me. OK, maybe you wouldn't think it's a major thing, but I do.

I'm scared that my child (and other children of mine that may follow) will never experience mystery when it comes to music.

Growing up as I did in the pre-Internet days, the amount of information available to me about music artists (among other things) was limited. I could experience music firsthand by listening to the radio and the albums my family & friends possessed (or gave me). If I wanted to dig deeper into a certain band or artist, I could thumb through magazines or read the occasional newspaper article. Later on, when my parents broke down and got cable I could watch MTV and get more information through videos and interviews. Once I could drive, I could go see a band perform a show. At each show, I might find other bands I liked as well, depending on whom the band I liked was touring with. Otherwise I could find new bands to listen to by picking up an album with interesting artwork on it, or one I read an intriguing review of.

And then the Internet came along and ruined everything.

It didn't happen overnight, of course. But as the Internet grew I could talk to people all over the world about the bands I liked. I could search a variety of websites for news and interviews. Then as artists began fully embracing the web & using it to promote themselves and give fans more access to them, the mystery began to fade out. Now it's almost non-existent.

Don't get me wrong, I see the upside of it too. Now we can all listen to bands we previously would never have heard of, thanks to sites like Pandora and Amazon, through recommendations based on similar tastes. If you're stuck in a nowhere town with crappy radio stations and an absence of live music venues, and you're unable or unwilling to move to a major city, the Internet can provide you with all the music you'll ever need. It can approximate the experience of being at a concert (though it's never anywhere nearly as enjoyable). It can let you bond with others who share your tastes when you're surrounded by people who find your personal tastes to be weird compared to their own. And of course, we all have the option to turn off our access at any time. But many of us don't turn off our access; in fact, it seems we gravitate to the Internet when we have nothing else to do. That's one reason it's so popular to have WiFi connections for cellphones and laptops. Carry your escape route with you at all times.

So now you can find out what your favorite artist had for every meal of the day, whom they're sleeping with, their interests beyond the music they create, and so many other unnecessary details it's difficult to keep track of them. It's led most artists to a point where their fans see them as no different from themselves. The star quality is fading. The mystique that bands like The Doors, Alice Cooper, and Tool once used to lure fans in is rarely present among today's artists. The few bands who seem able to employ an otherworldly air today also remain obscure (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum comes to mind) instead of growing a following of music lovers simply because they're "different." Being inaccessible is now a liability instead of an asset.

And my children are about to enter this world where every musician is just another dude or grrl. They'll see what artists actually look like and know their life stories and idiosyncrasies before they've even had a chance to listen to the music beyond the track they downloaded for free or heard on Pandora. Even if I make a conscious effort to instill an attitude of exploring the music first and avoiding the truth behind it, that doesn't guarantee I'll be successful. We can only point others in the right direction; we cannot force them to walk that way. Hopefully though, if my children are passionate about music I can convince them they don't need to find out whatever they can about every artist. And there's a slight possibility they won't care anyway and I won't need to encourage them one way or the other.

Of course my children will be surrounded with the music I've acquired over my lifetime. When they reach certain ages, I know that I'll hand them the albums that I fell in love with around the same age. Certain albums simply define adolescence and transcend temporal boundaries, and hopefully they'll appreciate them (that too, of course, cannot be forced). And my kiddos will have the advantage of having parents with diverse musical tastes, which I think their peers will encounter more often as well. One of the things that's great about the Internet explosion is that we all have access to every genre, sub-genre, and category you can or can't think of. Hopefully if that goes on long enough all music will melt together into a genre-free existence. We'll simply agree that it's music, and either we like it or we don't. There'll be nothing more to discuss.

Especially after the Internet's been exhausted providing you every detail about the musicians.

New & improved!

First off, as you've already noticed, I changed my design. Feel free to tell me how much you love it. ;)

More importantly, my unemployment is soon to end. At V's recommendation, I hooked up with Kelly Services, the agency that landed her with the company she continues to work for today. I went in this past Monday for some paperwork and took some tests, and they hooked me up with a data entry job starting July 6th. I've been told it's a long-term position, but not how long that means. Of course, the best thing about being hired through an agency is that if I decide I'm not happy there, I can ask Kelly to find me something different. But for now this job should be good enough. It sounds pretty stress-free, the hours are close to what I've been working (8-5), and most of all it means having a steady paycheck again. And with Baby E on the way, the LAST thing I need is to continue drawing unemployment.

Anyway, I wanted to share the news now that it's official. Now I should get some sleep. This is the final weekend of the bowling tournament in Austin, and it's going to be a busy one.