We've spawned the devil

It's been kind of a weird day today. Nothing seriously weird, mind you, but weird nonetheless. I started today with an odd sense of inertia that it took me quite a while to shake off. In the end, I'm not sure that I ever really did.

Last night I played Guitar Hero for the very first time with my friend Matt. And I must say that I did not do too badly for myself! Most of the songs on Guitar Hero are distinctly in either the classic rock or hard rock/heavy metal vein, so I wasn't even sure how many of them I would know. Surprisingly, I knew quite a lot of them. And boy, does it make a difference when you know the song. Still, I couldn't get over how hard some of them actually were! "Crazy On You" was so damn difficult, even at my low level of play! I started out on "easy" but progressed rather quickly to "medium." By the end of the night, Matt told me that I was probably ready for "hard." Now, I am bound and determined to buy my own PS2 just so I can have Guitar Hero in my house, something that I can easily afford from the tax refund we will be getting. I'm not sure how my wife will feel about this, but it's cheaper than upgrading my iPod or Madonna tickets.

Today, a leaked copy of Backwoods Barbie landed in my inbox and I just had to give into temptation and have a listen. No worries, I will still go and buy it when it is officially released at the end of the month because, well, it's Dolly! Very solid work from Dolly which will get absolutely no play on country radio whatsoever for no other reason than she is in her 60s and country radio has turned its back on the legends of its own genre. Her cover of the Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy" is pure camp hilarity. My sister had what was probably the best reaction I have heard yet to the track. This was her quote: "Okay, I went through three reactions during that song. First was oh my god, why, second was this actually kinda works, and then I thought, no it's too much. I'm still conflicted."

Other than that, I spent a large portion of the day reading The Other Side of the River as I try to finish it to make room for Monster Island, which arrived from the library much faster than I thought it would. My biggest problem with reading these days is making time for it. That is not to say that I don't have the time, but I don't often use that time very wisely. Mostly, it is spent being a zombie in front of the computer which is something that I'm going to work on starting soon. The trouble is I just crave input, and it's so easy to get that from the internet. However, I feel like I end up wasting a lot of time just zoning out, kind of like a crackhead just looking for one more hit. This is not to say that I am no longer going to use the internet, but I think I may need to be a bit more judicious.

I also cleaned up my office today in preparation for Nerdery Week. I was just not in the mood to expose my nerdery as well as my general tendency toward clutter. I'm probably going to have to write a few of those posts early and save them as drafts so as to not be constantly writing posts that week.

I have had a nagging sense of unease all day for no apparent reason. I don't know where it came from or when it will pass. What I probably need is a good night's sleep, which as many of you know, is pretty much a coin toss with me (especially these days.) There are a few things to be uneasy about which I will not go into in great detail here, but I recognize most of those things as being out of my control. Once I recognize that, I'm usually pretty good at putting them out of my mind. But for whatever reason, not doing as well with that today. *shrug*

But as we all know, nothing cures nagging uneasiness (or at least makes you forget about it) like Eddie Izzard. We have The Definite Article out from Netflix right now, and even though I've already seen it, I died laughing as Eddie described his youthful experiences with a clarinet and his band teacher, Mrs. Badcrumble. I beg of you, if you don't normally watch embedded YouTube clips, you owe it to yourself to watch this one, especially starting at about the 2 minute mark.



Classic stuff, I tell ya. And is it me or does he look like Anne Murray in that clip?

The one thing I will be accomplishing this week is taking care of my flex benefits so I can get the goddamn email from them out of my inbox. I am so incredibly sick of looking at it every time I open my email, I can't even begin to tell you.