Ten Beatles Favorites

I've got iTunes here at work, and I successfully took all my tapes and converted them to MP3 by running wires from my tape recorder to the sound in port on my Mac. So I've got a folder that's all Beatles stuff. I grew up with the American albums, so I once entered "Beatles '65" as my favorite album in an online poll, and was told not to choose American versions! Anyways, so I've got twelve minute "songs" that represent entire album sides. I can't pick out "Michelle" at random, I've got to open up "Rubber Soul Side 1" and then scan for it. The only changes I did were if, the tape didn't have the same song sequence as the record. I grew up with my dad's records, so I subconsciously always have a certain "next song" queued up when one finishes. Well, on the tapes, Capitol was concerned with keeping the side lengths approximately equal. So on Abbey Road, for instance, Come Together is on side 2 instead of Here Comes the Sun. I took the time to splice anything like that I could think of apart, and re-sequenced them "properly". (Of course that's in quotation marks, since all the pre-Sgt. Pepper's stuff was packaged so differently for the US.)

In any event, I think that everybody probably likes at least one song by the band. Even if you don't like them in general, for most people you can find *something* they'll like. I bought a book called The Complete Beatles Scores, which spells out every song, every instrument, as close to the albums as they could come up with. Try playing keyboard parts to Revolution 9 and see who notices.

Anyways, I tend not to like the "obvious" songs by my favorite groups anyways, and the Beatles are no exception. These 10 are probably my favorites:

Tomorrow Never Knows
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey
Sgt. Pepper's....(Reprise) -- at the end of the album before A Day in the Life
The End
I'm Looking Through You
Helter Skelter
I Me Mine
Things We Said Today
Wait
I Wanna Be Your Man (gotta pick a Ringo song, huh?)

So the real question is, which will vary with commenters' ages....who know all of these songs?

What would happen if.... (9/26 edition)

...New Orleans or something got its own cable channel entitled "NO". A bit of a quirk, considering there's a cable channel called "YES" that shows New York Yankees games. Are you watching TV? Umm...yes and no.

Ever detect a weird smell and try to put it to something, then realize it makes no sense? Yesterday morning I opened the door to the stairwell at work and was grossed out. I thought to myself it smelled like...."old lady breath". I can't explain what it is, or why that phrase would come to mind upon the smell. Later in the day, I thought I smelled the combination of hair spray and gum....so again, who knows.

I used to think there was a simple chain among the candy bars 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, and Snickers. I assumed Milky Way was just 3 Musketeers plus caramel, while Snickers was Milky Way plus peanuts. The nougat's different in Snickers, though. Lighter in color. Also, the outside chocolate shell of a Milky Way is definitely thicker than it is for Snickers.

Let's say you're flying east to west, so that you almost get time to stand still for you -- at 4 pm you're in Los Angeles, and an hour later, you're a full time zone further west, so it's still 4 pm your local time in the sky. In theory you could probably get all the way around the world, if you fly fast enough (and at a narrow enough band around the earth -- maybe not LA, but perhaps Alaska). So, what happens if it's holy day. A Jewish guy in the office was out last week for Yom Kippur....I wondered if he'd gotten on a plane at sundown Friday and kept heading west, from the start of the international date line all the way around, then it would have been roughly Friday at 6 pm for 24 straight hours. Then he'd cross the date line at 5:59 pm Friday, and it would be Saturday at 6 pm. He never would have experienced Friday night at all, and so he wouldn't have to fast or whatever observations are undertaken.

Six of an item is often referred to as a half dozen.
I want 3 of something referred to as a "quarter dozen".
The New England Patriots have started the season with a quarter dozen wins.
Donuts, two dollars for a quarter dozen, $3.50 for a half dozen, $5.00 for a dozen.

Genesis was okay, but they obviously targeted their show last night to the long-time fans, rather than people who know of them from MTV like myself. Oh well....they were good, I just didn't recognize any of the ten-minute "progressive rock anthems".

There was an old saying that the "moral majority" was neither. I always liked to insist that "classic rock" was neither, as well -- just to piss off a friend for whom music stopped when he was in junior high school.

Let's try this again...

No, I'm not alluding to a famous quote from Daffy Duck. (Do you want to shoot him here, or wait till you get home?)

I'm saying this because my wife has gone to an online ticket re-seller and purchased us 2 nosebleed seats to see Genesis at Madison Square Garden Tuesday night. (I like how on Futurama, they have Madison Cube Garden.)

Anyways, Suldog is promising a story from his life as a dishwasher. But while he stalls, I've got my own story as one.

In college I worked for dining services, and was a really good worker in the dishroom. I sometimes would do the 4:30 to 7 shift -- early dinner -- a lot of putting away the last of the dishes run from lunch, and clearing the crap from trays of early eaters. We had a pretty big industrial dishwashing machine in there. It was a twenty-foot conveyer belt on which you could load the plates and stuff....two foot square racks for silverware...wire frames for drinking glasses...or you could also put giant roasting pans on there from the kitchen itself. Sort of like a big automatic car wash that you drive into.

There was a steady crew of 3-4 "townies" who worked full time in the dishroom, along with a crew of 2-3 students. My friend Brunel and I were working one night, along with the only young townie on the crew. A guy named Danny....probably about 20....maybe he finished high school, not even sure. He was an all right guy. Once we discussed the operations of the conveyer belt....could one ride it from beginning to end? Perhaps, if we turned off the spray hoses. Well, we talked Danny into going for a ride, and he certainly seemed up for it. He knew the machine itself better than we did, so he had turned off the spray hoses. He turned on the conveyer belt and crawled on.

So he's going along at the leisurely pace of the belt...it would take a minute or so, I guess from entering the washing tank to the exit. And he was fine, since the sprays weren't on. One problem, right at the end. He didn't turn off the water at the rinse bar. This was not only the last shot of water the dishes would get, but it was the hottest. I think we were told 180 degrees (F). So we hear him scream and start scurrying down the belt to get out of the tank. So he's not only soaking wet, he's burned. Second-degree burns, if I remember correctly. I think the top layer of skin was bright pink and peeling.

So sure enough, Danny was fired after that night. The funny part of the story was that there was a section outside the dishroom, where the line for students would form, where people could put "napkin notes" -- informal suggestions for specific cold cereal, or "fewer pot roast nights" or whatever. We thought it would be cute to put an anonymous note up there asking for Danny to be reinstated. A couple of days later our napkin note was responded to (right on the napkin, actually). Something to the effect of, the risk that our friend Danny posed to both himself, and the machinery, made it so that he would not be appointed back to his position.

And so we never saw him again. But the tale has lived on for years in what we'd call "dishroom lore." In the same way songs by Winger and the Cult were known as "dishroom music" for their popularity around 1989.

What would happen if.... (9/19 edition)

...I ordered the kid's meal for myself at my cousin's wedding next month? Actually, that is what I've done. It was either beef tenderloin (I hate beef when it's baked), Chicken Oscar (I "just say no" to stuff with chives in it), the vegetarian entree (yeah, right!), or the kid's meal (chicken fingers and fries!). This didn't take much thought. My mom said my aunt was going to call me and tell me I couldn't do it at first. I guess that if you order a kid's meal, it's one less person that they charge you for at the open bar. Now that wouldn't be fair...."you can have the kid's meal, Brian, but you'll be chasing it down with chocolate milk all afternoon."

I'm sure the folks who designed the World Wide Web didn't INTEND to choose the one polysyllabic letter in the alphabet for its abbreviation. There's no good way to say WWW really fast. The PBS show "Zoom" (2000s version) referred to it as "triple-W", but that's still a mouthful. Even one W is a mouthful, let alone three.

There ought to be a minimum slicing setting for cheese at the supermarket. I like my ham really thinly sliced. But cheese HAS to have some minimum thickness -- maybe an eighth of an inch? Because what good is it, if the cheese is so thinly sliced that it sticks to itself? I had to try to pry the slices apart with a sharp knife.

My younger daughter followed the older into the bathroom at a restaurant last weekend. Apparently girls learn early to go in pairs or something.

I started to watch Hitchock's movie Rope the other night....I've already seen it, and it's good. It seems impressive that the entire movie plays out as one very long scene -- there are no changes in the angle to "camera two". Of course, it could also be seen as just a fancy videotaping of a live play, in that regard, too. (That at least makes the memorization of such a long stretch of lines only slightly less impressive.)

When playing Scrabble under various influences (coconut rum, for instance), it's perfectly acceptable to play "PQRSTU" as a word. Any five-or-more consecutive letters of the alphabet, actually, are allowed, I believe. In fact, the same board also had "VWXYZ". Yes, it was on the triple word score, but the aforementioned influences preclude the actual tallying of points.

Vanilla ice cream is as popular as it is, in my opinion, only because it's pretty much white and "plain" looking. If vanilla ice cream were blue, or brown, it would sell much less. But because it looks natural, it's a popular flavor. I'm not playing the race card on this.

Was the Legion of Doom modeled after the Superdome amidst the Louisiana swamps?

If you carve your name in a pumpkin, you have to be wary of any letters that have holes in them. For instance, and "o" won't look like an o without some creative carving, as it would just be a hole.

In college on a calculus exam, I had to draw a picture of a duck. And then for more points, compute some line integral around the duck. This required me to erase the eyeball inside the duck I had drawn, because, of course, this prevents the line integral from automatically being equal to zero.

I saw a paperback version of the first Harry Potter book last night, and was stunned by how skinny it seemed. I thought perhaps it'd been divided into smaller books (part 1, part 2, etc....).

Is the Genesis concert next weekend?

That's what I was asked this morning while showering. The answer, of course, is
FUCK!

It was last night.

Oops. That's $150 I'll never get back. Not only did both of us completely forget, but I lost two sets of tennis (6-8, 7-9) to a friend of mine when I should have been driving to Hartford.

And...we were discussing concerts coming up....my friend is one of like 20 million people in the lottery trying to get Led Zeppelin tickets. I mentioned going to see VH next month....and never did it occur to me that I had Genesis tickets for a show starting in about an hour and a half.

I'm "cloning" a brew called Fat Tire Amber Ale. The brewmaking store puts together all the ingredients you need to make famous and not-so-famous beers, so you don't have to work too hard on ingredient-buying. I have no idea if this beer's any good. Each raw ingredient is awful, of course, so hopefully it'll all come together in the end. I had to run out to buy cheesecloth to make a homemade grain bag -- the first step is to steep the grains in water like a giant tea bag. I thought about using an old sock, and actually until I found the cheesecloth at the store, I almost bought a mesh ironing board cover to use.

I could definitely envision someone marketing a beer called "Old Sock"...

Apple season

Apple picking should commence this weekend. The wife makes a f-tastic "Dutch Apple" cheesecake. Our friends coming over the following weekend will be well fed.

Picking fruit at an orchards or farm always takes way less time than it seems like it should. I think hey, a nice trip outside and stuff, but really, you have all the apples/strawberries/blueberries you could ever need in like 15 minutes. So then it's off to the farm stand. I often go to this local place to pick them. They sponsor what is supposed to be a great Sunday breakfast, but I don't know anyone who's gone to it.

My dad is resurrecting his annual Octoberfest beer party this year. It'll be held at my cousin's house, since my parents downsized their house. Usually people hit wherever they find a bunch of microbrews, and we bring them over, try them all, and then judge the best, worst, weirdest-tasting, best label, etc....winner gets like, a beer-a-day calendar, or a mug. Dad cooks up a spread, and we all watch football. (Except for my dad's brother, who's relegated to the basement to watch NASCAR. I don't understand how my dad's brother can be from Alabama when everyone else in the family is from Connecticut.) I always like to be dropped off/picked up. Otherwise, I gotta loiter around the house to sober up, which means my mom comes home from her day of exile before I've left...which of course leads to at least the second degree, if not the third.

I may whip up a home brew to enter this year. I should go buy ingredients this week to have it ready within 5-6 weeks.

I got Seattle right in my suicide pool last week. This week, a certain team from a certain Midwestern town that starts with a C, ends with an O, and in the middle has "HICAG". (Da Bears.) Actually, I never liked the George Wendt episodes of the Superfans as much, compared to the original one with Joe Mantegna. Although there's nothing like Polish sausage substitute to ward off that fourth heart attack, I suppose. (And don't get me started about them trying to use the same bit with the Bulls.)

Wednesday of this week I was promised a new printer either that day or yesterday. I'm going to wait this one out and see how long it takes for the boss to come through. I got an old, used HP LaserJet 4 to use here, and I think it's just about out of toner.

What's better?

Laughing at the phone ringing, because I'm not going to pick it up? Or rather, being pissed and giving the phone the finger while it rings?

Anyway, I've been swamped at work and I hate it.

We took the kids to Old Sturbridge Village just over the Mass. border from Connecticut over the weekend. It's a re-enactment of a New England village in the early 1800s. Farm animals, a blacksmith, a cooper (barrelmaker, apparently), a one-room schoolhouse, a meetinghouse, old school printshop (the guy there was a jerk when Erika pointed out the plasma TV on the wall for educational stuff, how it didn't seem so old-fashioned), so it's like a museum. History of lighting, dresswear, and guns from the era. Actually the corsets and guns were in the same building. Hmmm....

Closing up the pool. Added the chemicals, but the water level didn't drain fast enough before dark last night -- very slowly....so that the pipes and stuff don't freeze and crack from expansion over the winter. If there's any daylight when I get home, I'll tie the cover on. (And work has me thinking about tying one on, of a different sort.)

TiVoed (This is a verb, even if you're using a generic digital video recorder, I suppose...) the Patriots on Sunday, watched it in an hour....every play, none of the crap in between. It saved me from some of the announcers' blah-blah-blah. Wow, Phil Simms sounds stupid in small sound bites. And of course, I overheard the score at my aunt's birthday party that afternoon. I was then told you're supposed to announce upon arriving, that you are taping the game for later, because it's not their fault for not knowing. Knowing the score probably saved me time, less to be worried about while watching the game in progress...

15 people in my suicide pool at work, and after one week, it's already down to 11. Seattle was a good pick, I suppose. Haven't looked at this week yet, though.

Anyone remember Bang Tango? I've got the Psycho Cafe album on MP3 playing now. I thought they were pretty good "back in the day"...you know, for what was essentially a hair band.

The bitter end...

9-7. Stranded on second base in the last inning as the final fly ball out floated to center field behind me. Their lineup did more damage than ours did. I had probably my best defensive game of the year, with 3 really good catches (2 on dives, one on a full sprint) plus a couple of others....tracked down the bombs over others' heads to keep the batter from scoring an inside-the-park homer. But every error in the infield got compounded in such a big game.

Afterwards, ten of us went out to a Tex-Mex restaurant. I had chicken enchiladas in molé sauce. I really like molé sauce....this one wasn't spicy enough for my liking though. And the Bud Light in the pitchers was flat. (Molé sauce is tomato-based with chili peppers and unsweetened chocolate.)

I paid my $20 share of the bill with some of the bet money on our office suicide pool. That's an NFL contest where everyone chooses some team to win one game this week. If the team you pick wins its game, you keep playing. If they lose, you're out. The winners survive to next week, where you pick another game, with the caveat being you can't pick a team you've already chosen. This makes it so that you can't ride the best team in the league all season long. After 5 weeks, the field of 12 or 13 will most likely be down to 2 or 3. We'll see. I have Seattle to beat Tampa Bay on Sunday.

David, is there anything comparable in the Aussie rules leagues?

The best part about running the pool is having spending cash over the length of the contest....I can always later write a check to the winner, or make a single trip to the ATM to make up the cash I've used on stuff like lunch.

Tim Wakefield of the Red Sox pitched last night, and because the game was decided after he was removed for a substitute, he was neither the winning or losing pitcher last night. The first time all season he wasn't credited with either. This is a statistical rarity for a pitcher to go this far into the season without a "no decision".

Anyway, I bring this up because when I was living at home doing some graduate school at UConn, I used to use a 4-track tape recorder to make some homemade music with my guitars and synthesizer (with built-in drum machine). Sometimes I'd take the time to write well-structured songs, and other times I'd just mess around and layer stuff on top of it. One such song I wrote was called "Clemens got a No Decision" which was based on a Red Sox game I had on in my room at the time. Roger Clemens left the game down a run, but the Red Sox tied it up before losing later (I think they lost 4-2 to Detroit, although baseball-almanac.com doesn't support that.) Anyways, lyrics have always been optional, an afterthought at most, to my stuff....so I started rambling on one of the tracks that although Clemens got a No Decision, that you shouldn't get a no decision -- like me the singer suggesting people make up their minds in their life -- make a decision, one way or the other. Anyway, not one of my best songs. I think the song after it featured me saying stuff backwards, like Stairway to Heaven -- just f'ing around with the tape recorder.

practically fall

Okay, the equinox isn't upon is yet...so I'm leaving the sweaters packed away for now. One good thing about wearing sweaters in the fall is that it's less ironing to do. Shirts with nothing worn over them need to be ironed....anything under a sweater can be "as is".

Haven't gotten to see too much of the US Open....back in 1994, I had knee surgery and was laid up for a month, so I watched it every day, and so I usually watch at least one night every year, almost to say thanks to it for giving me something to do as a freakin' invalid that year. (I flew off an ATV and cracked open my patella upon landing....two stainless steel screws are still in there...yes I had a helmet on my head but I guess that wasn't the important spot....lastly, everyone who sees my scar wonders what ligament damage I had -- none, and also why the incision isn't straight -- it is, but the skin break from impact wasn't straight.) A couple of years ago I got tickets to a day session the first week in New York. First, ALWAYS buy the tickets ahead of time online, so you can save an hour in line. Second, if you have a softball playoff game later than night, try to leave early enough to get home. We saw almost a full match, and got to walk around, but we only got to enjoy about 2.5 hours. After the US Open, I convinced friends to drag me out mini-golfing, pretty much hopping around on one foot. And by late October, I was beating them at one-on-one basketball again.

We won the softball game in the 10th inning, and then won the division championship right after. The overall league/town championship is this Thursday.

My mother-in-law's chain saw was brought out to take down some dead trees in our front yard, but it only started up once. We had to call customer service to get a replacement user's manual emailed to us. Probably something stupid, but who knows. Anyways, this meant more work with an ax. The handle to the ax is now split a bit...it seems cedar trees have pretty hard wood. It's interesting enough to smell the cedar as I build up a pile of dead wood in the back of the house....cedar's supposed to be a moth repellent, no? So no moths in the yard then? Anyway, one tree is still suspended from the bittersweet vines above, so it's just kind of leaning in the yard. That's going to be a problem. Once most of the trees are down, I plan to rent a woodchipper or something and mulch them all up.

Flipped on the TV Saturday night to see the new Red Sox guy Clay Buchholz with a no-hitter through five. I would have kept it on, but since the Sox had gotten no-hit through 5 and 6 innings earlier in the week in New York, I just assumed Baltimore would have gotten a hit soon enough, too.