Illuminatea

On my drive into work this morning, one of the local radio stations played ''November Rain'' (Guns n Roses) ''Rock Me Amadeus'' (Falco) back to back. That's some serious musical whiplash. That's like having bacon-caramel pie. I like bacon, and I like caramel, but not together.

Dear iPod, Over the years that I've had you (as your second owner), we've had our rocky times. You've worked well with both my Windows and Mac workstations -- that's a plus. Your battery life is damn near useless (and I understand that's not really your fault), but with the appropriate adapter therapy we've been able to work around that. I hardly ...

For the record, Aly & AJ's Potential Breakup Song is one hell of an earworm, but it sounds really good on my work desktop's speaker/subwoofer. I've got it cranked up loud before anyone else gets here.I have finally found out what is more annoying than getting your ass kicked online by a nine year-old kid -- getting your ass kicked by an ...

The more Steph and I listen to Brad Paisley, the more impressed we are. (Those of you who don't know who he is, he's a country singer. If you don't like country, that's fine, you can stop reading, although I suggest you go to the video section of his website and at the very least watch Whiskey Lullaby, the duet he does with the incomparable Alison ...

Earlier tonight while reading my LiveJournal friends' posts, I saw this video: The Mean Kitty Song This video has been cracking me up for hours now. I've watched it, like, a gazillion times, and I still am laughing my ass off. I'm also madly wanting a cat, but that's partly Ryan's fault, since he just got a new cat and we went over to his place ...

A YouTube clip of David Lee Roth performing Van Halen's classic "Jump." Nothing odd there, right? Try it as a bluegrass song. I blame John Scalzi. 

First, I would like it to be known that I am only doing this under protest. I don't usually participate in blog memes, because most of them are damned silly. However, I got tagged on this one by Paul in what looks like a fairly typical spree of spreading the love, so I'll go ahead and do it. So here's the meme, in Paul's words: ...

For the past several months (maybe even year or two), I've been pondering an essay on how short and overt expressions of Christianity seem to be a staple feature of the country music genre and the severe cognitive dissonance this sometimes produces. Several events have happened recently that convince me I need to write this essay sooner, ...

Dang. I just pulled off something tonight that makes me wonder if Apple wasn't in fact smoking crack when they decided to drop the PowerPC processor in favor of moving to Pentiums. My little Mac mini -- 512MB of RAM, 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 CPU, was able to effortlessly (and I mean without a single slip, skip, hesitation, or bobble) do all of the ...

As you may remember, the local bookstore closed down last year. Today, I found out that our charming little hole-in-the-wall CD shop will be closing down in 6 weeks or so. This bites, because Steph and I try to support small local shops even if it means paying more, as long as we can get what we want there. On the good side, they're holding a 15% ...

[Editor's warning: the following is tale of suspense and horror...of mid-80s Christian rock music and youthful prejudice. You have been warned.] Once upon a time, when I was a young and impressionable lad, my sister discovered a really good contemporary Christian rock band by the name of Petra. This was back in the day when Petra had just ...

It's all Steph's fault. No, really. She's the one who introduced me to Il Divo, a new male chorale group put together by American Idol's venom-tongued emcee Simon Cowell. These guys have some serious opera and theater cred, and I shamefully confess that I fell in love with their cover of Toni Braxton's ''Unbreak My Heart.'' Of course, Il ...

Holidays are a time of love, peace, family unity, good smells coming from the kitchen, world peace, and a fluffy bunny for every child. They are also times of high stress, especially for those who are hosting the inevitable gatherings. Lots of chores, food preparation, and other tasks of varying degrees of pleasantness await those who extend ...

I recently posted a round-up of the recent music and videos we've been enjoying here in the Ganger household. One of the songs I took pains to point out is Lion from Rebecca St. James. However, there's a small problem with this song that grates on my nerves every time I hear it. Rather than rant about it, let me post the lyrics and see if you ...

It's been a bit since I've talked about music and video, so here we go. Mickie's belated birthday presents showed up (thanks, Mickie!) so I now have Explosive: The Best of Bond to listen to (and watch, since the flip side of the CD is a DVD with several of their videos). If you've not heard any of Bond's work, I urge you to give them a ...

It is probably not a good idea to watch the video for Alan Jackson's ''Monday Morning Church'' when you've recently lost a friend, especially not when you are wondering how his wife is holding up. I'd imagine that Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss's ''Whiskey Lullaby'' would be a bad one too, but since that one brings tears to my eyes on a good day ...

Once again, I'm up far too late, trying to fix a raft of computer problems. This time I'm reinstalling my Exchange organization, migrating DNS zones, and trying to install a new reverse proxy web server. The usual. I've got my iPod playing away -- I love the Griffin iTrip I bought for it. For $40, I have wireless streaming media at home and in ...

I was asked by our priest if I could provide some quiet background guitar music for my church's Maundy Thursday service. I agreed, and when time came to head down to the church tonight, I decided to walk. It's only ten minutes away by foot and I can always use the exercise. My fingers are sore -- with the practice time yesterday and today, plus ...

Stephanie and I were listening to the radio in the car tonight. We had it on our local country station since they were doing their weekly countdown and we both like a lot of the modern country music (although by no means all of it). As we were listening to Brad Paisley's ''Mud on the Tires'' Steph asked a question that demonstrates just how ...