Double Meme Squared

I missed last week's memes, so those are presented first, followed by this week's editions. -M
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Part Ia: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast for Friday, 24 August 2007:

Appetizer Say there’s a book written about your life. Who would you want to narrate the audio version?
Either Patrick Warburton or Neil Flynn. Probably Warburton.

Soup Take the letters from your favorite kind of nut and write a sentence. (Example: Perhaps every avenue needs understanding today.)
Capes are sewn here every Wednesday .

Salad If you could go back in time and spend one week in another decade, which decade would you choose?
How about 1900-1909? With Teddy Roosevelt, Einstein's "Wonder Year", and the Chicago Cubs' last World Series championship, what's not to love?

Main Course Name a song that brings back memories for you.
"Save The Best For Last" by Vanessa Williams. Dancing to that song started me in a relationship that ended up being one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Not a pleasant memory, but still quite memorable.

Dessert Do you prefer to wash your hands in cold water or warm water?
I prefer warm/hot water, but I don't generally have the patience to wait for the water to warm up. So the water's usually cold when I start and warm or hot when I finish.

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Part IIa: Top 5 On Friday
Top 5 On Friday - Week 138 from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 albums that you would recommend to all your fellow meme-ers and why.
While it's tempting to mention all the usual bands and albums I feature here—Rocket Scientists, Lana Lane, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Reckless Kelly, Micky and the Motorcars, Cosmos, and so on—I'll try to make some different recommendations this week.



» Between Sunlight and Shadow by
Critics generally thought the band's first album, Color of Space showed real promise. But even I was amazed by the sophomore effort. Fifteen songs, some thoughtful and introspective, some driving and even frantic, are woven seamlessly into a single musical story. Amazing.




» Beggar on a Beach of Gold by Mike + the Mechanics
A lot of people don't realize the band was still recording after 1988's Living Years. That's too bad, because this album is every bit as good, if not better. M6 is also recommended.




» Asia by Asia
I've been listening to this album again recently, paying special attention to Carl Palmer's drumming. Wow.




» Planet Swing by Girls from Mars
Nicely performed vocals-driven swing that hearkens back to the days of groups like the Andrews Sisters. Turn it on and let it play in the background as you go about your daily business, and soon you'll find yourself humming along.




» Classical Music For Home Improvements
Featuring over an hour of loud, powerful, boisterous, up-tempo classics, this'll get you motivated for just about anything, including knocking out a wall or remodeling the kitchen. I've owned—and regularly listened to—this CD for years. Highly recommended.

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Part Ib: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast for Friday, 31 August 2007:

Appetizer Who is the easiest person for you to talk to?
Nancy. It's been easy to talk to her since the day we met.

Soup If you could live in any ancient city during the height of the quality of its society and culture, which one would you choose?
Maybe Washington, D.C. It had society and culture once, didn't it?

Salad What is the most exciting event you’ve ever witnessed?
The Olympic torch relay passed right in front of my office in 2002. That was pretty exciting.

Main Course If you were a celebrity, what would you do for a publicity stunt?
If I ever were a celebrity, I'd like to think I'd still be grounded enough to want to do something truly useful with my life, and not just spend it living off the adulation of fickle, sycophantic fans. But even if I tried to do something useful, the media would probably still interpret it as a publicity stunt. What's a celebrity to do?

Dessert What do you consider the ideal age to have a first child?
Oh, any time now would be okay.

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Part IIb: Top 5 On Friday
Top 5 On Friday - Week 139 from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 Best Opening Lines In Rock Music

» "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression-Part 2" by Emerson Lake & Palmer
Welcome back, my friends
To the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside, come inside

» "Sunday Morning Coming Down" by Johnny Cash
Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad
So I had one more for dessert

» "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality

» "You Give Love A Bad Name" by Bon Jovi
Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give love a bad name

» "2112" by Rush
And the meek shall inherit the earth

From My Inbox

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Where's My 3d6?

Taken from a thread over at the Hero Games Discussion Boards:

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

You are the large, round, friendly d20! (You probably didn't know this, but the shape of the twenty-sided die is called an Icosahedron.) You are the friendly, outgoing, outspoken, leader of friends. You are often looked up to, even though you don't normally deserve it. Most other types secretly wish they were you, and you'd give them tips on how, if only you had a clue yourself. Your charisma is often all you need, but you have your occasional moments of brilliance as well--just never when it's actually needed. You are the all-around good guy, a dependable chum, a respectable foe, and an inspiration to those who need one. Who says you can't get by on a smile and good looks alone?

Actually, I did know that it's called an icosahedron. And for the record, I prefer 3d6 to a single d20. My kingdom for a bell curve!

Pretty Good Day

As I was saying way too late last night, Thursday was a pretty good day for me. Three things in particular stand out:

1. Lula
Lula, the 1990 Dodge Dynasty we inherited from Granny, has been making a loud, persistent clacking noise for a while now. When we were in Colorado several weeks ago, Dad said he thought it was probably the lifters (or "tappets"), and if we didn't get the problem fixed right away, it could ruin the engine. That kind of repair would run something like $400-$600, according to someone who knows more about cars than I do (which, unfortunately, is almost everyone). Somebody else thought that the problem might be as simple as a serpentine belt that needed to be replaced. That's a $100 job we could have done the next time we take Lula to get the oil changed. Or it could be something completely different. Either way, we haven't been driving her much lately.

So, having the day off, I took Lula in to the shop yesterday. I got there just after 8:00, as the guy I spoke to on the phone recommended. I dropped off the keys, gave them my cell number, and headed off toward Library Square just a couple of blocks away. When my phone hadn't rung by 10:15, I headed back to the shop. When I came in, I was told that my car hadn't even been looked at yet. The owner of the shop overheard our discussion and offered to look at it right then. So, about 20 minutes later he emerged from the repair floor with a diagnosis and an estimate. Good news: the noise appeared to have nothing to do with the engine itself, which meant no expensive valve job. Huzzah! Using a stethoscope, they isolated the noise to the water pump area. Replacing the water pump, he said, should eliminate the problem. His estimate for parts and labor was just over $185. That's doable—not right now, but we can save up for that pretty quickly.

2. Substitute Teaching
On my way back from the shop, I stopped off at the district office to get registered to substitute again this school year. When I walked into the office, Pam, the district coordinator recognized me—and remembered my name. When I expressed my surprise, she said, "You really made an impression on some of those schools." That was really gratifying to hear. Maybe I've got a future in this business after all.

Re-registering for the year was really simple, and Pam verified which schools had me listed for substituting. She handed me some new materials for the year, including the pay schedule. And that's where the other piece of good news came in: "These numbers are wrong," she said. It seems that the Jordan school district raised their substitute pay rates over the summer, so the Granite district is matching the increase. End result, if it passes the board meeting review next week: an extra $15+ per day for the upcoming school year. That puts the hourly rate on par with what I make as QA Manager at the call center at night.

3. Champions
At last night's meeting of the OGC, I got to play a new character for the first time. We decided several weeks ago to start a new campaign to accommodate everyone's hectic summer schedules. There would be no long, multipart adventures, no complicated story arcs. There would just be simple adventures for whoever happened to be there that week. And whoever felt like GMing (or whoever could come up with an adventure on short notice) would run the week's adventure.

Unfortunately, I've been the one to miss most of the gaming sessions this summer. So while I've GMed an adventure in what we refer to as "The Floating Campaign", I've never played my her. Until last night. His name is Onyx, and he's something like an Earth elemental. He projects blasts of stone that have various effects. That's right, my hero's main offensive power is that he throws rocks. He was a lot of fun to play. I can't wait until I get to show off the power nobody in the group has seen yet: he transforms to living stone and goes from energy projector to brick!

And that's my pretty good Thursday. I hope you all have a pretty good day, too, loyal readers.

My Wife's Still At Work, And I'm Bored

Part I: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast for Friday, 17 August 2007:

Appetizer Describe your laundry routine. Do you have a certain day when you do it all, or do you just wash whatever you need for the next day?
We usually do laundry when the baskets get full. I say 'baskets' because we have one for whites and one for colors. When it's full, we wash. We don't wait for both to be full at the same time.

Soup In your opinion, what age will you be when you’ll consider yourself to truly be old?
I think that when I finally hit thirty-nine, I'll feel like old age is right around the corner.

Oh, wait....

Salad What is one of your goals? Is it short-term, long-term, or both?
One of my biggest goals is to get my Master's Degree and get a real teaching job. It's a long-term gal with a lot of little short-term goals built into it.

Main Course Name something unbelievable you’ve seen or read lately.
The Frantics' classic Ti Kwan Leep/Boot to the Head routine.
Performed by furries.

Dessert
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how happy are you today?
Probably 8 or 9; it's been a pretty good day. I'll write more about it later.

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Part II: Top 5 On Friday
Top 5 On Friday - Week 137 from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 "earworms" that you actually like getting stuck in your head.
(Earworms being those songs that crawl in your ear and stay in your head until madness sets in. In a good way, of course. Does that make sense?)

» "The Larger Bowl (A Pantoum)" by Rush
I've had that song in my head almost nonstop for the last two weeks or so. It's very cleverly written, and the musicianship is of course excellent. Seeing it performed live last week—introduced by Bob and Doug McKenzie, no less—was amazing.

» "Vancouver" by Reckless Kelly
I saw this one performed live about two weeks ago. It's my favorite song by the group. I've been through a few long-distance relationships, and I've never found a way to describe the problems as well as this song does. I can hear this song once and keep hearing it in my head for days.

» "Lighthouse Keeper" by Cross Canadian Ragweed
This was the opening number when we saw this band two weeks ago. I've always liked the band's energy, and this song is a perfect conduit for it.

» "The City Sleeps" by MC 900 Foot Jesus
It's not the music that makes this song so unforgettable; it's the compelling imagery the lyrics bring forth. The mood is subdued and mysterious, and you can almost feel the rain on the streets of the city.

» "Point of Origin" by Yanni
I received the 'Out of Silence' album from an old roommate and loved it immediately. This is my favorite song on the album, partly for the driving, engrossing song itself, and partly for the memories.

Car Tunes

We have three cars right now: Nancy's nameless Nissan Maxima (which really doesn't figure in this story beyond right now), the Dreadnought (a 1989 Chevy Suburban), and Lula (the 1990 Dodge Dynasty we inherited from Granny). When we got Lula, the plan was for us to sell the Dreadnought. It's been a good car, but it just uses way too much ga$. But due to an unidentified clacking noise somewhere in the engine compartment, we haven't been driving Lula much lately—though I am taking her in for a checkup on Thursday. So for me, the Dreadnought has been the vehicle of choice for the past month or so.

Now when we brought Lula back from Montana, it had the factory-installed Infinity AM/FM/Dolby Pro Logic Cassette stereo. Top of the line stuff for the time. But most of my music these days is on CD. And my brother-in-law had upgraded his CD player earlier this year and given me the old one. So he and I took out the cassette player and installed his old Pioneer CD player in Lula one Saturday afternoon/evening. And it sounds great.

When I got the Dreadnought, it also came with a cassette player. I bought a Boss CD player online, and I helped my brother A install it (which basically means that I kept the girls entertained while he did the work). And it sounded really good. For a while. But shortly after I started dating Nancy, it started to fail. For about the last year, the Dreadnought has had no CD capability, just an AM/FM radio with analog tuning that tends to drift...a lot. There was talk of replacing it, but A] We don't have a lot of spare cash for that sort of thing right now, and B] If we did, we'd probably find better ways to spend it than on a new stereo for a car we intend to sell in a few months anyway.

So the other day, I got this sudden rush of brains to the head: Why not transplant the Cassette player from Lula into the Dreadnought? So I started doing a little research and finding out just what would be required to pull off the switch. I talked to a guy at the local Sound Warehouse store, told him what I planned to do, and found out which wire harness would be necessary to reconcile the wiring. So I bought the harness last night, intent on making the switch this morning before going in to work.

Having seen Nancy out the door around 8:30 this morning, I immediately set to work on the transplant operation. I parked the Dreadnought in the driveway (and off the street where we normally park it). I disconnected the battery and took the dashboard off. And then I took out the screws holding in the defective CD player and removed it, mounting bracket and all. I studied the wires emanating from the back of the device and matched them to the diagram on the back of the small plastic bag holding the wire harness. And then I took out the harness.

That's when I began to realize there might be a problem.

There were no wires coming from the back of the cassette player, only a couple of slots to plug in a wire harness. When I looked at the harness in detail, I realized that they looked exactly the same. And that was the problem. There should have been one male end (a 'plug') and one female end (a 'socket'). I had two female ends.

So I scrolled back in my cell phone's Dialed Numbers record and called the shop back. I described the problem, and the guy there told me to bring in the harness I'd bought yesterday and he'd swap it out. So I fired up Lula for the first time in probably a month and headed downtown.

I should mention that this conversation took place a little after 9:00 a.m. I wasn't sure when the shop opened, but since someone answered the phone, I assumed they were open. Not so. I pulled into the parking lot around 9:25 to discover a sign reading "Open 10 AM to 8 PM". What to do, what to do? I headed for work (just a few blocks away) and hung out for half an hour, then made my way back to the shop.

I took the radio in with me this time, just to make sure I was getting what I needed. They took one look at it and said they don't carry that harness because they don't install factory-installed stereos into other vehicles. They refunded my money and suggested I try some of the local Dodge dealerships.

So I made my way back home and put the Dreadnought back together. Sure enough, everything went back in and fit where it was supposed to, and it started right up once I reconnected the battery cables. There's just one little difference now: the radio, which didn't play CDs before, now no longer works at all. There's power to it—the little red Power light blinks on and off—but it won't turn on. It's possible something happened to the faceplate in the day's activities. But whatever the cause, the Dreadnought is now completely music-free.

And as it turns out, I'm okay with that.

I was talking to someone at church on Sunday and the following quotes on experience came up. First, "Experience is the hardest kind of teacher because it gives you the lesson after you take the test." Second, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." Today's experience taught me a few things:

1. It's okay to try new things, even if things don't turn out the way you think they should.
2. Look carefully at all the parts before disassembling anything.
3. When you're describing your situation to an expert, don't hold back on the details. Tell them everything, even if you're afraid they might think you're clueless.
4. Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions. It's easier than fixing stupid mistakes.
5. Things go wrong with any project. Try not to let it get you down.
6. There are things in life worse than a car with no radio.

Mind you, I've not given up on this. Once this is posted, I'm going online to see if I can find the right wire harness, now that I know what to look for....

Thursday Meme Goodness

Part I: Friday's Feast
Friday's Feast for Friday, 10 August 2007:

Appetizer What is your favorite kind of pie?

(Key Lime Pie [or Pi], for those not up to speed mathematically.)

Soup Name something that made you smile this week.
Neil Peart's 10-minute drum solo at Monday night's Rush concert. More on that later.

Salad What do you do to cool off when the weather is hot and humid?
I live in the middle of the barren desert, so while 'hot' is often an issue, 'hot and humid' rarely is. It's the proverbial 'dry heat'. Regardless, swimming is a good cure.

Main Course You receive $1,000 in the mail with a letter that says you can only use the money to redecorate one room in your home. Which room do you pick, and what do you buy to spruce it up?
I'd spent the money on the office, specifically on more shelving and/or more storage stuff. Our office is basically the dumping ground for all the carp we don't have room for anywhere else. It'd be nice to get it better organized.

Dessert Fill in the blank: My _________ says __________, but I __________.
Fill in the blank: My head says I should eat more fruits and vegetables, but I continue to be a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.

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Part II: Top 5 On Friday
Top 5 On Friday - Week 136 from The Music Memoirs:

Top 5 artists you loved in college.
Okay, 'college' for me could be anytime between 1986 and now, with a few gaps in between. But I get the idea.

» Mike + the Mechanics
My first year at BYU, my roommate and I decided that between us, we would buy Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" and Mike + the Mechanics' epynomous album. He ended up getting Bon Jovi, and I've felt ever since that I got the better part of the deal.

» Boston
I remember being so excited about hearing 'Amanda' from the albumThird Stage on the radio. It made me which I was dating (or even knew) a girl with that name.

» Chicago
My first rock concert, as I remember, was at the Salt Palace (wow, that takes ya back!) where my roommate and I and our dates drove up to SLC to see the Chicago 18 tour. And Chicago 19 was one of the last albums I bought before leaving for West Virginia for two years.

» Yes
As big a Yes fan as I am today, I was only barely getting familiar with the group way back then. I still have vivid memories of hearing 'Love Will Find a Way' from Big Generator on a professor's radio while I was making up a chemistry test one afternoon.

» REO Speedwagon
Yes, it's true. I owned Wheels Are Turnin' back in the day. (So did everyone else, though.) And I still have it, though I've upgraded from cassette tape to CD now. Admittedly, they're the prototypical example of a band that got more popular without ever getting better, but I still enjoy them.

Nauseating

Today was a dark day in baseball history. The Steroid Era has now claimed its ultimate victim, one of the most hallowed records in the game.



Barry Bonds hits No. 756 to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record

You know what the real bugger of it all is? Now I have to root for Alex Rodriguez—a New York Yankee, for crying out loud!—to have a long, healthy, and productive career so that he can one day take the record away from Steroid Barry.

At least the Rocks won today.

Quote of the Day

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (3 BC - 65 AD)

(Brought to you by Wordsmith.Org's A.Word.A.Day)

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EDIT: After Dilliwag made his comment ("Seneca? I could have sworn that quote was attributed to Dr Bruce Banner. Huh."), I did a little checking.



Maybe you were right, D... :)