This And That

So here I am typing away on early Friday evening while I am being serenaded by the hard-rocking pipes of one Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. I am in a head-banging mood right now. Started off with the "Flight of Icarus" which led to "Hallowed Be Thy Name" leading into "The Trooper" live from Tokyo. True balls to the wall vocals, guitar shredding and the oh so powerful drumming Nicko McBrain. What a cool name for a heavy metal drummer. Definitely not in the mood for Phil Collins right now. Ha!

My plan this weekend is to be super-productive around the house. I have to fix the toilet in H's bathroom as water seems to be leaking. Just got the water bill to prove it as it 2.5 times higher than usual. Like I have money to flush down the toliet. Pardon the pun. I gave myself an opening there. I should come clean here. I will buy the part to fix in the bathroom but my construction engineer to be son will fix that important piece of porcelain. I would likely hurt myself using a screwdriver or wrench.

I have a load of whites going in the washer and after I finish this quick blog I'm going to prep some chicken breasts Greek-style for some grilling tomorrow for souvlakis.

A live version of Styx's "Crystal Ball" with the Cleveland Contemporary Youth

Orchestra just came on. This version is great. Actually any version of that song is great. Definitely in my top three Styx songs ever.

I have lots of leaf mowing or raking to do this weekend as the never-ending dance macabre with my trees and their foliage continues. Hopefully the weather will hold out tomorrow. I have some work-work to do in my never-ending quest to make my numbers for this month-end.

Ah cool song now. The Angels and their classic hit "Marseilles" from way back in 1980. This song effin' rocks! As I type this paragraph I wonder how many people down here heard of this band. Another one of my down under bands that I seem to like so much.They were known as "Angel City" up north in Mtl. for copyright reasons and they had a couple of albums in the late 70s, early 80s that were pretty effin' good.

I was playing too much air guitar there. Now the song is over and Stephen Stills with the rest of the boys in Buffalo Springfield are singing "For What It's Worth". That song is 45 years old and is still absolutely amazing. Man oh man music is awesome.

I also have to get rid of stuff in my garage to free some space up. I have a broken down lawn mower, a leaf blower that never worked and old wall units that have seen their better days. In fact those wall units saw their better days back in the 80s when the Angels were coming out with songs like "Marseilles", "Face The Day" and "Fashion". LOL.

Weird this blog about this and that became a blog of the music I am hearing as I hunt and peck away. Time to prep some chicken and then maybe I can convince H that we go and grab a bite to eat somewhere.

12/12/11 ramblings

Next year I will be able to type 12/12/12 ramblings. It will be like an Iron Maiden song and album times two! LOL.

So I made it through another Monday. Tomorrow is another one on one day. I just can't wait.

I am the proud parent of a young man that just finished his last final exam for the semester. H had his last exam tonight in Calculus. It had a weird start time of 730pm and it was supposed to last 2 and 1/2 hours but H aka Einstein Jr. finished it in an hour and half. He says that he did well. So far this semester he has two A's and two B's and a GPA of 3.75 so he is doing rather well. Good thing as the scholarship money comes in real handy.

While he was taking the test I decided to stop in at Bailey's for some wings and beer. I just didn't feel like driving back home and then driving back to get H at Tech. It was much closer hanging out at Bailey's while he took his final. It wasn't cheaper mind you. LOL. $4.50 for a dang pretend beer like Miller Lite. Just another WTF moment in my life. I guess it was better than a $6.50 Yuengling.

I got to watch a bit of the Devils-Lightning game at least. It was 5-2 Devils when I left. That seems like a week of goal-scoring for the Devils at the best of times. I didn't recognize half of the names on the ice and I found out tonight that a diamond merchant coaches the Devils. LOL. It seems that someone named DeBoer is the head coach. I think he purposely mispells his last name so that we don't (or I don't) mistake him for the South African diamond merchant family. I am pretty sure I was only person in the place watching the hockey game. All of the other screens were devoted to the NFL and the NBA. Toto we are not in Montreal anymore!

It was pretty cool turning onto Chinaberry Lane and seeing my Christmas lights from the corner of the street. No one else on my side of the street has any at least until halfway down the street so my 400 lights look pretty darn cool.

Okay it doesn't look quite like the lights that I saw last night in Butler Station. H drove by them on Saturday night and told me that I had to see this display. This house has over 250,000 lights. It's absolutely incredible! I went by last night. They even had a Santa Claus there for pictures. They were given out popcorn that you could munch on as you walk around their property as well as their neighbor's property to see these lights. I should have taken pictures. It was amazing. The couple that lives there has been doing this for the last couple of years. There are some baskets that they set up requesting donations to help defray the electric costs. Their bill must be an astounding amount. 250,000 lights! It is something to see. Even my jaded son was impressed. He doesn't impress easily!

I better stop typing as I have clothes to fold and a bed to make. LOL. I have way more things to do but I am having a Noche Beuna now so whatever else I intended to do tonight is pretty much out the window.

Mixed CD

So before I go off an a tangent right away, I'm going to talk about the CD I burned way back when...

1. Hallowed Be Thy Name - Iron Maiden (1982)
Okay I guess I wanted to start off the CD with one of those songs that is best played loud and louder. Hide the women and children and bow to the masters of metal from 1982. This song appeared on one of the most classic heavy metal albums ever released. The album in question is "Number Of The Beast" which featured not only "Hallowed..." but also the better known title track from this album as well as "Run To The Hills". Being a heavy metal band they sure aren't singing a boy meets girls theme here. LOL. The lyrics are dark and foreboding and are about a prisoner on his way to the gallows all the while claiming his innocence. It starts off slow for the first minute and then the rest of the song is played hard and fast and Bruce Dickinson sings it, shouts it like there is no tomorrow. Definitely not a first date song unless your gf looks tougher than you in leather. O:)

2. Fall To Pieces - Velvet Revolver (2004)
Okay looks like I was continuing on the morbid theme the day I burned this CD. It must have been an early, early Monday morning. Track #2 is about Scott Weiland's heroin addiction and the effect on him as well as the effect on his relationship with his wife. This was a power ballad and the 1st single released by the band that was going to take over the hard rock mantle from the remnants of Guns'n'Roses. The band featured the great lead guitar of Slash as well as Duff McKagan on bass and Matt Sorum on drums. All three were key ex-Gunners. Throw in Dave Kushner and his punk credentials on rhythm guitar and the aforementioned ex-lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots Scott Weiland and this band was primed. The song is sad but pretty at the same time. It features what I would call the atypical Slash guitar which is weepy, bluesy and melodic all at the same time. Couple this with Scott's heartfelt lyrics it was destined to be song to get heavy rotation on FM rock stations.

3. Vertigo - U2 (2004)
Well at least I got happier on track #3. Maybe I had a couple of coffees by that point. "Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce". Huh. WTF. Bono was a child left behind. 1,2,3,14. LOL. I have no idea what this song is about. Try to catch all the words of this song and good luck with that while you are at it. The words that you are singing along to are probably not the words you think that you are singing along to. LOL. Honest to Gawd. Play the song. Put the lyric sheet up. Then you will know what I mean. Anyways the song has a great driving beat to it. Put it on loud. Sing whatever words you want. Yell out "hola" at the appropriate time and laugh to yourself. It is a feel good song. Well it is to me and "no one gets hurt". `

4. Simple Man - Shinedown (2003)
To use the words of one of one of the managers that I best worked with which was “I tell you what”; This CD review is taking forever because (a) I had chauffeur duties (b) I was watching the Tigers beat the Yankees and (c ) I started drinking some beers pretty dang early today. LOL. I remember the reason that I put this on the CD. I was driving up to Montreal to pick up the prodigal son and I was bringing his buddy Aaron with me on this trip. Aaron was H's best bud for the longest time. I brought him (Aaron) to Gatlinburg a week or so after my Mom died to help H deal with things. The next year I brought Aaron to Mtl with me to get H at his Mom's place. I have pictures from that trip. I have to get my printer set up to scan these pics. They tie in so well. Anyways Aaron loved this song so I burned it onto the CD just for him. At the time I liked the song. I didn't know that this was a Lynyrd Skynyrd song at the time. Hey I am Canadian. Shoot me. LOL.

Okay I need a break....I will follow up on the other 11 songs on this CD tomorrow...LOL...maybe