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Recently, a visitor on my site asked:

do you still have the doctor martens music sampler cd?

Unfortunately, he/she forgot to leave an e-mail address or contact info. Yes, the CD is still available. The original post contains all the info.

I went to see the Undertow Orchestra last night at the Iota Club and Cafe in Arlington VA. The “Orchestra” is an amalgamation of David Bazan of Pedro the Lion, Will Johnson of Centro-matic, Mark Eitzel of American Music Club, and the ever-enigmatic Vic Chesnutt. You could call them a mope-rock supergroup of sorts.

Iota is a small venue — I’d say not room for more than 100 to 150 in the main room. I saw Bazan before the show — he was mulling about, setting up, procuring drinks, etc. I smiled at him and got his attention. We ended up talking for a few minutes — mostly about his music (what else?). He was very forthcoming in his answers and sounded natural —very grounded. He confirmed my suspicions about the demise of Pedro the Lion but assured me that it was a death in name only. While Bazan will not be recording under that name, I wouldn’t consider the band’s breakup a great loss. The heart and soul of Pedro has always been Bazan — in fact his revolving cast of touring and session musicians can rightly be deemed Bazan’s band. Meaning no disrespect to said members, Bazan is Pedro the Lion. The others are simply his messengers. He may in fact employ a drummer and/or basist when he records his first proper solo album and tours. Nothing — save for the name — will have changed.

Singer/songwriter Jesse Harris opened for the band, and did a short seven or eight song set which consisted entirely of down-tempo ballads. During the set, I thought that his sound/intonation/lyrics were similar to Norah Jones’ debut album. I guess I didn’t put two and two together, because it turns out that he did indeed co-write Jones’ signature song “Don’t Know Why”, as well as a few others on the album. He even played guitar on about half the album. Bowl me over, why don’t you?!? Not only did he not perform any of the songs he wrote for Jones, but he didn’t even mention anything remotely pertaining to her during the set! The nerve of some people, I swear.

The Undertow Orchestra’s sound was more or less cohesive, considering that their first rehearsal was February 3, a mere eight days prior to the show. Will, David, Mark, and Vic took turns on lead vocals; all told, they did about six songs a piece.

Bazan’s sets consisted of “Bands With Managers”, “Priests and Paramedics”, and “Slow Car Crash”; then “Criticism as Inspiration”, “The Devil is Beating His Wife”, and “I Do”. “The Devil…” was a song from Pedro the Lion’s abandoned 2006 album sessions, originally recorded in demo form in fall 2005. I asked David about the song before the show; he said he liked it and would be incorporating it into his solo project. Hearing it live proved his was serious. It was also refreshing to hear “Slow Car Crash”, a standout synthesizer-infused song from Bazan’s side project, Headphones. It’s one of Bazan’s more “romantic” songs, albeit within the context of impending death.

However, the show ended on a high note of sorts, with Vic Chesnutt and the band singing his “In My Way, Yes”, a strong show closer. One would hope that this song exemplifies Chesnutt. But that’s just the optimist in me.

Everybody’s more upset with this cartoon than they are about the suicide/homicide bombers that [Muslim extremists] make of their little kids.
—Rush Limbaugh

See also: The Cowardly American Media

I joined a gym with Annie a few weeks ago with the hopes of losing a bit of weight. But I’ve seen my weight creep up lately and I can’t explain why. 193 · 196 · 200 · 202… What’s going on? Could it possibly be that I’m gaining muscle mass without losing fat? I heard that Brad Pitt actually gained 20lbs while preparing for his role in Troy, and Hilary Swank gained 19lbs while training for her role in Million Dollar Baby — so even if I do make it to 210lbs, I can still rationalize it.

The gym is a sad place — at least the one I frequent. My county has a series of rec centers with weight lifting and other gym equipment. The gyms aren’t well known, and aren’t used by many. I’m in virtual seclusion half the time, and thus I’m missing one element of working out — competition. I’m one to believe that collective participation definitely raises intensity levels. When I go home, I pass a well-lit Bally Total Fitness and can see scores of people running like hamsters on their treadmills. They’re probably trying a bit harder than I am, if only because they’re concerned that they’re not going as fast as the people beside them.

I’ve often wondered why liberals and some pacifists claim that they support the troops but not the war. Is it so that the rest of us won’t view them as unamerican or unpatriotic? Unfortunately, yes. Why would Democrats, liberals, and others claim to support the troops if said troops volunteer to carry out the decisions of an “imperialist war machine” fighting an “unjust war” that the liberals do not support? It’s like claiming that one supports the murderer, but not the death. …that one supports drunken driving but not the fatal car accidents. …that one supports the Bush Administration but not their policies. Illogic!

…[B]eing against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken – and they’re wussy by definition. It’s as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn’t to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

If you are of the opinion that the Iraq War is morally wrong, why, in the words of Joel Stein, would you go and “throw a parade” for the purveyors of death and violence? While most of Stein’s opinions are 180° from mine, you have to give the guy credit for not lying about his patriotism (or lack thereof).

I found an interesting article by David Friedman, son of acclaimed economist Milton Friedman. He takes a strident position on the current evolution/intelligent design debate:

A school that teaches that evolution is false is taking sides in a religious dispute — but so does a school that teaches that evolution is true.

The problem is broader than evolution. In the process of educating children, one must take positions on what is true or false. Over a wide range of issues, such a claim is either the affirmation of a religious position or the denial of a religious position. Any decent scientific account of geology, paleontology, what we know about the distant past, is also a denial of the beliefs of (among others) fundamentalist Christians. To compel children to go to schools, paid for by taxes, in which they are taught that their religious beliefs are false, is not neutrality.

Freidman is an atheist, and as such, probably sides with evolution. His views are nonetheless refreshing.

Bailey’s Irish Cream is probably one of the more versatile adult beverages. There’s straight up Irish Coffee (coffee, Irish Cream, whipped cream), Irish Ice Cream, Irish Cream with plain milk, Irish Cream with warm milk, Irish Frappe (1 bottle Starbucks’ Mocha Frappuchino, 4 ounces Irish Cream, 2 tablespoons Hershey’s dark chocolate syrup). Heck, I’ve even added it to cream of crab soup, and it wasn’t bad.

I spent about an hour or so just now upgrading and tweaking WordPress 2.0 and so far I have a very good impression of it. It definitely has an AJAX flavor to it now — admin pages are more customizable and features just flow nicer.

One of the more noticeable differences I can see is the restoration of the Dashboard. In version 1.5.2, I could only see the right side of the Dashboard — the left column was mysteriously missing. Yet in another install of 1.5.2 that I had done, the left column worked just fine. However, the Developer blog entries are missing from the Dashboard now! Such a pity.

I wonder if sometimes my standards are set to high. Do I expect too much from people? Was it wrong for me to veto a rental of The 40-Year-Old-Virgin because the movie was rated Morally Offensive by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops? Granted, I probably would have vetoed it even if it hadn’t achieved such status.

My grandparents came over for lunch today. After I put on an old Herb Alpert record, they spontaneously got up and started dancing.