Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

Happy New Year to all! May it be peaceful and healthy.

I heard a Traveling Wilburys song on the radio and I thought I’d spotlight them on Tuesday Tunes. Then I got to thinking, why don’t I include other supergroups? So here is today’s lineup:

• Traveling Wilburys
• Velvet Revolver
• Damn Yankees
• Audioslave
• Temple of the Dog

I included these groups since I remember liking all of these songs. I don’t know if Temple of the Dog technically qualifies as a supergroup since they came out just about the same time as Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder were getting famous, but I really like the song.

Karen gave me a bodhran a while ago, and I recently have been making an effort to learn how to play it. I really enjoy Irish music but never really tried to play any. I have an instructional DVD that gives some good pointers, but is sometimes hard to follow. Even searching online, a lot of the instructional stuff seems to make certain assumptions and they go at a very fast pace. However, I have found that playing along to songs I know is pretty fun and I imagine I will get the hang of it this way.

In searching for music that has a bodhran in it I came across a very unusal mix. Ziggy Marley and the Chieftans covering Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. Most excellent!

Tonight is warmer than this afternoon, it was 62 at 1:00 and 63 at 9:00 PM.

The downside of having a couple of feet of snow melt in less than 24 hours is a very very wet basement.

Gas was $1.79 today.

More pictures in the Christmas set.

We had a wonderful Christmas, hope you did too!

Imagine Peace

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending sprial begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

May you have a peaceful Christmas.

War is over (if you want it).

As is our tradition, today we opened non-Santa presents. Last year we let the girls open them in the morning instead of in the evening like we used to do. This year we opened in the morning again. It seems like that works out the best. I uploaded a bunch more pictures to my Flickr Christmas set.

Here’s a video of Erin opening one of her presents. She definately has the hang of it now.

Our church doesn’t do a Christmas Eve service, so we go to our old church. I like to get a family picture before we go. Here it is:

I will probably be light on the uploading and blogging for the next couple of days. So I will take this time to wish everyone a peaceful and happy holiday season! Cheers!

Wow, this is post #500!

I thought it might be fun to try to remember all the bands I’ve seen live. This isn’t a complete list, I’m sure I’ve forgotten some and I couldn’t find videos for others.

The first band I ever saw live was Whitesnake. I can’t remember for sure who opened but I think it was Ratt. I must have been about 12 and my friend’s Dad took us.

I saw a bunch of bands in clubs on Staten Island, I don’t know if any of them ever got big. I went to see a friends band and one of the other bands was Eve’s Plum. I liked them and bought their CD when it came out. This was my favorite song. No video embedding though, so here’s the link.

After high school but before college a bunch of friends went to a giant show put on by a radio station. There were a bunch of bands. The one’s I remember were Terrance Trent D’Arby, 10,000 Maniacs, Bon Jovi, and The Proclaimers. I went specifaically to see The Proclaimers. I remember them as being very gracious. Our seats were actually behind the stage and they were the only artists who acknowledged that people were sitting behind them.

In college I saw a bunch of bands too. Some I wish I had videos for. However, I did get to see The Goo Goo Dolls before they became the pop sensation that was constantly on the radio.

I also saw Black 47 and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones at FredFest. Actually, the Bosstones only played for about 10 minutes before the show got shut down (think lots of mud, lots of equipment damage, and a near riot when the plug got pulled).

Karen, Chuk, and I went to see Rush at Darien Lake. I don’t remember if anyone opened for them or not. They put on an excellent show.

Karen took me to see Tom Petty for my birthday. A super awesome surprise! Also, Brian Setzer and the 68 Comeback opened, which rocked! That was so much fun!

Karen and I have also seen 10,000 Maniacs with Mary Ramsey and not Natalie Merchant as well as the Woods Tea Company at the Fredonia Opera House.

As gasoline hits the lowest price going into Christmas week in 5 years (link) my question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing? My thought is that it is good. Cheap gas means we can fill our cars without any mental anguish. Theoretically our heating bills will go down. But in the financial news the falling price of oil per barrel is always reported with a sense of gloom. Is there a good reason for this? It seems like the only people who would want oil to cost a lot are the oil companies and those who invest in oil. The everyday person seems to benefit the most when oil is cheap. Am I missing something and what?