Things That Make Me Go Ooooh

Discovered a new beta search engine today that knocked my socks off and no, it's not Cuil. Found a link to this one in an article about Cuil's crash and burn.

SearchMe

It won't replace the functionality of Google but it'll be good for seeing the pages before linking to them.

Music to My Ears

Our air conditioning is out. Well, not out, per se, but not entirely working, let's say. The ... people ... who put together our condos weren't exactly working on all cylinders (that's me being nice) and so made it practically impossible to reach the filters for our air conditioner. They (the filters) are supposed to be changed 2x a year, we've been here since March, 2005 and this is the first time we've realized we can't reach them because they (the cylinder-less nincompoops - that's me being less nice - that built these condos) put riveted obstacles in the way - to the point where we will have to pay to get these things replaced. It's 86 degrees out there today. Oy.

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On an entirely different subject (I just thought I'd mention the above paragraph so you got a good picture of my environment), I have been inspired to write a post about one of the things closest to my heart: music. But first, let me put some on so I can get further inspired ...

Mmmm Vampire Weekend, hell yea ... let's go.

We'll start with my favorite band of all time and no surprise because in this, I am as normal as a heartbeat: The Beatles. Seriously people, this IS rock music. Everything stems from The Beatles and [rant]don't give me that shit about Elvis or -god forbid- The Rolling Stones. I am firmly in JohnPaulGeorgeRingo camp and couldn't care less about MickDruggie1Druggie2Invisibleman1Invisibleman2 - the Stones would never have left London if not for the initial Invaders: The Beatles.[/rant]

The Beatles are the best selling group in musical history, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could have been built on them alone. They enjoyed only one year of success in England before exploding into America and starting an audio revolution that would never again (yet) be rivaled. With the exception of Yellow Submarine, every album The Beatles released both in the UK and US held the #1 sales positions for multiple weeks. Between 1962 and 1970, The Beatles songs grew from short, Pop-py sing-a-longs to wandering, mind-bending exercises in existentialism - pretty much, as they grew so did their music ... and so did their audience. A young girl who might have screamed her entire way through a concert in 1964 would later be tripping face to "Dear Prudence" or "I Am the Walrus" as she enjoyed the farther reaches of her wild oats. I believe that is one of the most amazing legacies of The Beatles, that they could grow with their fans and avoid being looked upon as "a band I liked when I was young" of which there are SO MANY. And that they could then speak so clearly to those fans' children, of which I am one.

Despite all the great new bands I've been exposed to and fallen in love with in the years since I first built my appreciation for The Beatles, I will always consider them my favorite because they will always be the best. They are the Michael Jordan of rock and roll.

Holding the second spot in my heart, and a close second at that, is Phish. For this one I have my college friends to thank. One friend brought over the album "Rift" one night in our last week at school. He bought it for the album art and thank God for great album art because Phish pretty much defined my 20s and early 30s and has infiltrated so many parts of my life, I'd be a completely different person otherwise. I think some people find something a little pathetic about that statement but really, it is no different than saying a god or a faith defines you: it's all subjective, it's all opinion and it's all individual to the person and therefore nobody else's business to judge. I am defined by my faith and that is in music and not in air.

All-in-all, I've seen many Phish shows. We'll leave it at that. I could count them down (I have before, I've forgotten before) but the count is for competition purposes only. "Many" is as good a count as any.

My first Phish show was 8/10/1996 at Alpine Valley, WI. It was the first Phish show for many of my friends and, unbeknownst to me at the time because I hadn't yet met him, my husband. The experience and music both had such an amazing impact on me that I came ->thisclose<- less than a week later to heading to Plattsburgh, NY - ticketless and solo - for the tour-ending Clifford Ball Festival. I had my boss on-call, I had a ride from Detroit to NY - I was missing the ride from Chicago to Detroit and that, in the end, was what undid my plans. I still regret that.

Until their quote-unquote end in 2004, I based most of my vacations and family visits around Phish shows which makes me a bad daughter, I know. But they were THAT important to me. I met Jason because of Phish. And when they return (note the when and not if), I will find a way. Despite the facts that I'm in a new job now with a much stricter vacation policy and that we have goals now that require savings accounts and that the economy is such that both driving and flying are financially tough ... I will find a way.

In the meantime, I am satisfying myself with new music that excites me and makes me wish - just a little - that I was in high school now and therefore didn't look quite so silly as a thirty-something woman blasting The Killers or The Raconteurs in public. I have three favorite stations programmed on my car radio that fulfill most of my needs when not on commercial: WDRV for its devotion to the 60s and 70s (and sometimes 80s but only the good 80s), Q101 for its love of the Alternative (which is now mainstream, of course, as alternative must always become one day) and XRT for the blend of both and some new stuff to boot. XRT introduced me to Vampire Weekend which I started playing at the beginning of this (went through that self-titled album then onto Yellow Submarine during The Beatles portion of this posting and now I'm into The Killer Hot Fuss for what probably should be the wrap-up since I am supposed to do other things today).

All-in-all, I would say that of all art forms - even writing, says the writing major - I find more comfort and a Home in music. Some songs can tell a great story while other songs can influence a heartbeat and give my restless toes something to do. When I was younger, I went everywhere with my walkman (yes, I know that is a brand name but, like xerox and tivo, it has become the term for all in its category and, while I never owned a brand-name Walkman, I did own several of its competitors) and I couldn't even begin to impress upon you how exciting it was for me to graduate to a portable cd player and let's just say that my iPod is my 2nd best friend (behind Jason, of course) and, despite a 60 GB capacity, is nearly full with so much not yet on it. I like music too much for 60 GB to properly express.

There is music I dislike, certainly: a flat twang or an overplayed song (cough-stairway-cough) or what I call noodling which is a state of guitar-play in which the tune meanders hither and thither without actually going anyplace, and the only noodling I will put up with is Trey Anastasio because I know that eventually, he will go somewhere.

But for the most part, music is one of those subjects that I like to keep an open-mind on because I don't want to miss the best stuff each era has to offer by being mired up to the knees in my own era. My inspiration on this is my own mom who opened herself up to my music when I was a teenager and even though I won't have a child to do the same for me, I think I will succeed just fine on my own.

The History Boys

Briefly, my apologies for so long a lapse - it seems that the proxy server (aka The Great and Powerful Censor) is at least partially A.I. and in less than a week "learned" to ban my access to all things Blog and Interesting. It's becoming a challenge; thankfully, I am enjoying the job and colleagues.

Jason's working a rehearsal dinner tonight so I've got the television to myself and Friday is a typical, dreadful night for programming. But I've got free HBO and free HBO On Demand. Scrolling through the list, I ran across The History Boys. I'd only heard of this play/film from a former co-worker who is an anglophile to the nth degree in addition to being a theatre person (said in a snooty aka uppercrust British accent of course) but it sounded very interesting and not something Jason would enjoy so I settled in and clicked on it.

Originally written for the stage by Alan Bennett, The History Boys is a multi-layered coming-of-age story set in 1980s Sheffield, England. On the surface, the story of 8 boys hoping to be accepted at an Oxbridge school (a cute term for the two pinnacles of English educations: Oxford and Cambridge Universities) is about education and the black and white difference between learning and testing. They have been well-groomed by two very hands-on teachers but, while they know an awful lot about a great many things (can recite Auden on call and play-act a transaction with a prostitute in French), they don't stand out. Enter Irwin, a much younger teacher bringing a little bit of a No Child Left Behind theory (minus the complete and total ignorance of the very definition of education, of course) mixed with a healthy dose of salesmanship to these ambitious boys' study plans.

Undulating beneath school boy tales comes the real meat of any coming-of-age story: the sex. In this case, both hetero and homo and a little here and there. The General Studies teacher, Hector, has a tendency towards pederasty which would typically be cautionary Hollywood fare if not for the unique characters of the boys who play along without playing along. It is a laugh to them, something to even the field between teacher, who should normally be of a vaulted stature, and student. At the end of their first classroom scene together, Hector turns to each boy to ask if he wants a ride home on the back of his motorcycle. This is apparently a standard offer and to be followed by an expected grope before reaching home. The boys aren't homophobic and they aren't afraid, it's a joke to them to see if they can avoid the grope while Hector believes he got the grope.

I am very pleased with the movie. The accents can get heavy at times, I made friends with the rewind button, but it's a different coming-of-age movie than I am used to. I liked it very much. The ending almost seemed a little Hollywood to me and not having seen the play, I don't know if that is unique to the movie, but I wasn't upset at it, I just wasn't surprised.

Googling Oneself & Other Oddities This Thursday

Oh c'mon, don't act all innocent - you know you want to know alllllllll about you, even if that you isn't you but someone else who dares to have your same name - bitches! So, in the act of googling my maiden name for images, I ran across this paragraph and while I am not the one who wrote this, I can tell you she is my long-lost twin. Does this not sound like me (and true enough to be kinda scary too):

Howdy.

I'm Debbi and I really don't care if you put an "e" on the end of my name or not. I came up with the "Debbi" spelling whan I was about 7 and my teacher insisted I choose a spelling for my name: "y" or "ie." So I choose neither. In any case, I've been using it since.

So … yea. You can tell I didn’t write this – I would have spelled “when” correctly and put the period after the end-quotes, but that’s just me and my OCD

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It’s been awhile since I could post – I have very tight restrictions on Internet and email access where I work and while I HAD blog capabilities last week, that is apparently no longer true. Makes me wonder if I’m the first person at my company to attempt to visit or compose blogs and if the proxy server made an executive decision to ban me.

The good news is, I am very, Very caught up on current events. CNN’s website is allowed. I could tell you all about the Florida woman with a missing toddler who didn’t tell police for 5 weeks that her child was missing (can you say, killed her?) I’ve been keeping track of oil prices – dropped the last three days. Local gas stations … have not dropped. But they’ll crank it up as soon as the drop stops and the oil prices go up. What goes up … must stay up. New rules, you’re outta here Newton!

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This picture cracks me up … googling images again … I have the song Mr. Horrible stuck on my mind (don’t ask, I have no answers), so I googled it. This is what I got. I thought it should be shared.

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On the subject of googling and the as-you-go-along spell-check on my Firefox browser: Get with it People, it’s 2008 and googling is the latest xeroxing … if we can’t use brand names to appropriately define our actions (when there are words that already exist to do so, yes, I know!) then we need to have a talk. I will not use the word “searching” when I can more aptly use googling to get the point across – and sound “rad” and “with it”. So get with it, spell-check, I don’t want to have to have this talk with you again! (Rad is too a word!!)

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That’s all I have today. I’m not trying to kill time at work, so no googling for intellectual purposes. Meandering and mumbling, that’s what I’m all about. Rad.