Desert Island II

meisajDaily Life

I have been working on a new mix cd.  It’ll be “Desert Island Mix II”.

rob - mixtape

Its a tougher undertaking than I thought.  I may have to rename it.  It’s more a playlist to send to my pen pal, but I am kinda of a playlist snob. I wouldn’t say I’m Rob from High Fidelity, but playlists are complex.  A playlist isn’t just a collection of songs.  It has to flow.  It has to represent what I’m listening to.

I haven’t created one in a long while.  I start by just going through my collection and throwing about 200 songs at my playlist.  I then narrow it down to about twenty that represent what I’m listening to then, or at least have been on my listening cycle for a long while.

From there is rearranging the songs.  What sounds best as an opener.  Is it going to flow from one song to the next.  Do they clash too much to be put near each other.  Have I already used the song on a similar collection.

If its a playlist for someone else, I think about whether it exposes them to something new.  Doesn’t necessarily have to be current new music, just something I think will be new to them.

And of course… would I listen to this playlist.

Its important.

I was pretty proud of my last Desert Island mix.  21 songs that made a near perfect mix.

  • Plainsong – the Cure
  • Mañana – Desaparecidos
  • Beat Your Heart Out – the Distillers
  • the Brews – NOFX
  • Nervous in the Alley – Less Than Jake
  • Fall Back Down – Rancid
  • I’m a Believer – the Sheila Divine
  • the Bends – Radiohead
  • Stars – Hum
  • Car Song – Madder Rose
  • Us – Regina Spektor
  • I Want to be the Boy – the White Stripes
  • Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins
  • Maglite – Wussy
  • Bone Machine – Pixies
  • Train in Vain – the Clash
  • My Name Is Jonas – Weezer
  • King of the Road – Piebald
  • Dishes – Pulp
  • Delicious – Catherine Wheel
  • Dream a Little Dream – Louis ArmstrongDesert Island Mix I

And of course I made some pretty awesome cover art for it.

 

So the bar, in my mind, was set high by me.  And I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Valentine’s Day Dilemma

meisajDaily Life

For the first time in history Sam has beaten me to the punch gift buying-wise.  But to be honest we have never bought anything for Valentine’s Day before.  Like most we recognize Valentine’s Day for what it is, a commercial entity that fuels the economy greeting card wise.

Soooooo….. With the prospect of Sam bragging about having gotten me a gift I’m left a little lack luster on ideas here.  Maybe its the long work hours lately, or maybe its the fact that Valentine’s Day falls on Parent-Teacher Conferences this year and I’ll be at work from 7:30am until 8pm that day.  I’m positive I won’t want to do anything after that.  Normally I make a day of Valentine’s Day instead of a gift of Valentine’s Day.  Homemade meal, movie, something else thrown in there.  But with a prospective 12 hour work day (more likely a 13 hour work day) Valentine’s Day is thrown out the door.

Eh.  We’ll see.  I have an idea.  But I don’t really feel like figuring it out now.

 

Snooty… or is it snotty

meisajDaily Life

Its snotty.  I’m fairly certain it is snotty.  Which is what I am this morning.  Pretty snotty.  One of those snotty mornings where you blow your nose and immediately realize you should have used six tissues instead of one because you completely destroyed the one you used.

That paragraph alone proves this wasn’t a snooty post.

Anyways, being a Buffalo Hockey fan means my nights haven’t been that great lately.  I was listening to NHL radio over the weekend and they talked about how bi-polar the Sabres are.  When they are there on, there is no defense against them.  Unfortunately they aren’t on often, or for even a whole game.  Basing my nights around hockey games is getting sad, but dammit I bought NHL GameCenter to watch these games, and like any true fan, I’ll still watch their games, even when horrible.

But… despite the Sabres loss and my snotty morning, Angelo is make me feel better.  Cause he’s a cat and can do things like that.

 

Angelo keeping me company.
Angelo keeping me company.

Post-Bowl

meisajDaily Life

So Sam and I used the idea of having guests over for the Super Bowl to clean the apartment.  We had one almost positive guest, a bunch of maybe, and two “I might show late.”

 

MantleWe scrubbed and cleaned our apartment like nothing before.  Which was fun and tiring and at the same very needed.  Apartment looks great.  We even bought a plant!!! And some pieces for our mantle.  We also hung pictures up using some awesome velcro strip!!  One fell down a few times before sticking, but with an extra strip added it looks nice now. We added a picture of our friend Jason, Danei and the awesome son Harvey to our wall as well.  We are working on a family and friends wall somewhere else in the apartment right, but this was in the middle of the living, where we were quasi expecting people.

 

Picture Wall

After a slew of cleaning we set to work cooking.  Like last year this was an excuse to bake.  We tried a modified soft pretzel recipe, our go to pizza recipe, a salsa recipe, chili, buffalo dip, and homemade perogies made three different ways.  Ya, we went that nuts in our baking.  It was a full on six hours of cooking on and off.

 

We knew early on it wasn’t going to a full house.  Some people I never heard back from, some people cancelled and then the Sabres lost their game.  That was like icing on the cake and a predictor of people showing up.  I’m certain if they won people would have come over in droves.

Regardless, food was great.  There was a power outage at the game, and San Francisco almost won.  And we had a good night.  Although that extra half hour of sleep I didn’t get because of the power outage has left me tired this morning.  Nothing unusual, but Friday my coffee shipment came in at work so I’m stocked and will be well caffeinated to get through the day.

SB 1

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Story Time 3

meisajDaily Life

A cane is generally nothing special.

Its indicative of intelligence, obstinate, or being something unique.  That’s what movies and tv told him.  But really, in the eyes of an 8 year old it was nothing special.

Jack, he had a cane.  He stole from a store.  He was pretty good with his hands, especially for an 8 year old, so stealing a cane, not a problem.

Now that he had it though, he didn’t know what to do with it.  He didn’t even know why he stole it.  Just that it was there, by the door, and he was on his way out.  Other kids left the mall with toys, games, and other childish things.  Jack though, he stole a cane and just kept walking until he was out of the store.

The mall was close to his hide out.  Jack built it in the woods near his house.  Just a lean-to made of sticks and some tarp he had found.  He kept a stereo there, some books, and some apples in a basket.  Now he kept his cane there too. If his parents looked closely out the back window they could see his lean-to, but everyone else would just see the woods.

Jack had an unusual amount of trust from his parents.  He often was allowed to stay out in his hiding spot late into the night.  He would lay there, with the tape deck listening to tv shows he had recorded until he heard his parents scream for him from the back porch.

If he closed his eyes and listened he could picture the shows in his head.  Not what was on the tv, but how he thought they should look like.

Tonight however, he listened to the woods instead of the stereo.  He looked at the branches, the leaves, hear the rustle and squirrels jumping around and felt completely at ease.

He laid there for hours, just staring.  The dark welcomed him.  Starting slowly however, he saw a yellow spot.  At first he thought it was the moon shining through.  Although the forest canopy usually blocked the moon, when the wind blew hard enough he could find it.  But this light grew larger and larger, like something was coming down through the trees.

Jack, for some reason, wasn’t scared.  He did however clutch the cane in his right hand.  The light couldn’t be more than ten feet above him, but at the same time seemed miles away.

Then it dropped….