I Fear A Return Of The 1970s

And not the good part of the Seventies.

Lately I’ve noticed that my favorite Sirius channel (26 – “Left Of Center” in case you never looked at the bottom of this blog) has been playing more dance music. This bothers me greatly since I am old enough to remember disco and wished it never to return. Earlier they played a song called “D.A.N.C.E.” by some “band” called Justice. It’s sad to say but if this trend continues I will start moving away from 26.

Sometimes I’m Amazed How Easy It Is To Make Great Food
Last night I decided stop by Kroger on my way home to pick up some grub. While driving I kicked around some ideas — beer-butt chicken?, burgers with grilled potatoes?, Cuban sandwich with black beans? Yes, that would be the winner.

I picked up a slew of things that I could throw together. Failing to buy all of the proper ingredients for a real Cuban sandwich (Damn my Irish/German heritage! I guess I wasn’t thinking inside Kroger.) I decided to make this “Cuban-inspired” “ham and cheese” sandwich

– two slices of Canadian bacon
– one slice of Provolone cheese
– a few bread-and-butter pickles chips
– yellow mustard
– a fresh roll

I heated a cast iron pan and a cast iron skillet and used the two to make my own Cuban press. The result was an amazing sandwich. Oh, I decided that I didn’t need the black beans. The sandwich was that good.

ITP Flickr Pic
Could it be possible that I have gone 769 entries without posting a picture of Reese?

Who is Reese you ask? Well, let me tell you… Reese is a dog who lets my friend Betsy take care of her. Reese likes to dig while laying on her side — she’s industrious and somewhat lazy all at once. Reese has two cobra-like swirlies on her butt (not pictured). Last Winter Reese proved to me that dogs have the ability to chew through bungy cords.

What this photo cannot convey was how many attempts it took Reese to sit in this Adirondack chair “comfortably.” Why go through so much trouble you ask? Because Betsy was sitting in the Adirondack chair next to her. Doggie loyalty — I hear that it cannot be beaten. I am of course skeptical.

You Have To Spend Money To Save Money, Right?
If I was the type who believed in government conspiracies then I’d swear that the internet-tubes were tapped.

The day after I swear that I will not purchase Adobe’s Photoshop CS3 and instead download the free The Gimp I received an email from Adobe offering me a chance to upgrade my old Photoshop Elements to CS3 for $300. Considering the retail price of Photoshop CS3 is $649 (which is why I was choosing not to buy it), you can understand why I was downloading The Gimp instead.

Why would I spend $300 for software? Because Photoshop is The Gold Standard for digital manipulation. There are many resources for learning Photoshop techniques, and not so many for the rest of the packages out there.

CD Pick Of The Week
Okay, I admit that I led you a bit astray last week. That Rilo Kiley disc stinks (its got rather a 1970’s Fleetwood Mac vibe to it). However if you also picked up that New Pornographers disc you as still batting .500 which would make you tens of millions of dollars in Major League Baseball.

This week the pickings are back to being somewhat slim.

If you like the musical stylings of Stockbridge’s Collective Soul and you like shopping at Target you can pick up their new disc which is only being sold at that retailer. Don’t bother waiting for me. I like shopping at Target. The other, notsomuch.

If you are into buying your music digitally, or on Old Skool vinyl, then you can get the release of “Hey Venus!” by Super Furry Animals. Want it on CD? You’ll have to wait until January 22, 2008. You think I am joking, don’t you? Nope. Somebody at their record company really has his/her head screwed up his/hers own ass.

However, if you want to buy a CD copy from any retailer then you should turn to “Bring On The Comets” from the band VHS Or Beta. (Seriously, I couldn’t make up this scenario. It fell right into my hands.)

Ben Harper also has a new release today (“Lifelines”), but I’ve never heard any of Ben Harper’s music so I can provide no help here. However, I may give it a listen today because AOL’s Full CD Listen has that as well as the new Collective Soul (not such an exclusive after all!) available for streaming from their site.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – pretty good
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Manchester Orchestra — “Wolves At Night” (In case you hadn’t noticed Atlanta rock is starting to blow up, specifically Manchester Orchestra and Deerhunter)
Website Of The Day – My sandwich proved that things do not have to be elaborate in order to be incredible. This To That does the same. If you ever wanted to know the proper glue to use in order to glue “this” to “that” (get the name now?) then that’s the website to consult.
Exercise (b)Log – nada
Monthly Mileage – 12 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work – My car

August Goals
1) Get my first Ruby / Ruby on Rails program written
3) Lose 5 pounds (if at first, second, third, fourth, you don’t succeed….)

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]