Old Age
So I'm wearing my Ancient Order Of The Killer Owl winter hat when I go into a Subway tonight, and the kid asks me about my hat (which is, apparently, no longer available at the Killer Owl store). And I say something about how it's from my little band. And, naturally, he asks what group we sound like. Now, there are a few questions that typically get asked whenever a band is mentioned -- who do you sound like, where are you playing -- and really I ought to have answers ready for those questions. But I don't. If you give me enough time, I'll bring up They Might Be Giants, since that's the group I've heard most often when people describe my music. It takes a couple minutes to make a sandwich, so I told the kid, They Might Be Giants. And he asked me again. And I said it again. Clearly, TMBG must be something he'd never heard of. And he was probably confused further since it's a sentence and he must have thought I was confused about what he was asking because why would I be spouting gibberish like, "They might be giants." Granted, they were never superstars, but they're still around. However, saying another group, like, let's say, Social Distortion -- which I'm sure is overreaching on my part -- wouldn't create any more of a glimmer of recognition in the average youth of today.
I should find a group from this century who kind of, sort of, sounds similar to Killer Owl.
Dan on 12.30.06 @ 08:01 PM CT [link]
Friday, December 22nd
Computers
Over 10 years ago I started keeping a list of every movie I watched. Same as everybody else. Once you start something like that, how can you stop. Frankly, something like the following was probably going to be the only way I'd quit.
As I was adding an entry last night, nothing happened for a while, and then, an error. And when I went back, the database was corrupted and not recognized as an Access file. The "repair database" function wouldn't work, since it didn't look like a database. For crying out loud. I suspect this can be connected to me updating it from another computer over my wireless network. What was I thinking. And now it's apparently unrecoverable. Backups? Yeah, I do make backups once in a while. The last time was, um, over a year and a half ago.
The first entry was "They Live", which I watched in June 1996. The last entry on the backup is "The Butterfly Effect" in April 2005, the first of many times that I've watched that one. In the span of almost 9 years I saw 1427 unique movies, and quite a few more than once. Now with a gap of 20 months of lost entries, there doesn't seem to be much point in starting again. Thus it ends.
Dan on 12.22.06 @ 04:15 PM CT [link]
Thursday, December 14th
Theater
It begins. Tomorrow night is the start of my 18th show, "The Nutcracker" -- a repeat of my 12th show. I am, once again, Godfather Drosselmeyer. Biggest thing stuck in my head this week? This might sound like an old man rant. Once we start full dress rehearsals, there's a traditional warning about not eating in costume. You'd think that's because of all the kids in the show, but you'd be surprised how many adults need to hear it. But what gets me, instead of the usual, "only water", we were told, "you can only drink water, and only eat crackers and pretzels". What, these kids can't go 3 hours without eating??? Come on, kids, do you want to be paying for diet plans for the next 70 years???
Dan on 12.14.06 @ 10:58 PM CT [link]
Wednesday, December 6th
Weather
Did it snow enough for you? Once a year is enough for me, but since it's only December, I'm sure we haven't seen the end of it. I got about a foot last Friday. These two shots are from pretty similar angles -- from just inside my garage. I waited until it eventually stopped snowing before shoveling -- and I took my sweet time doing it. The "after" picture is almost 24 hours after the "before" picture.
Dan on 12.06.06 @ 09:35 PM CT [
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