Random Thinking

The early crocuses came out today. They are the first sign that Spring is just around the corner. Meanwhile, the weatherman is telling us that we will get a wintery mix of snow and ice tomorrow and Monday with accumulations up to 4 inches and temperatures in the 20′s.

Time for this week’s song from my iPod:

The Decemberists is an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The group was formed in 2000 and is made up of Colin Meloy (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Funk (guitar), Jenny Conlee (keyboards), Nate Query (bass), and John Moen (drums). The name of the group comes from the Decembrist Revolution of 1825. This revolution occurred when 3,000 Russian soldiers protested that the heir to the Russian throne, Constantine, renounced the throne and Nicolas I became Tsar. The revolution was a failure and most of the protesters either died during the revolt, were executed afterward, or were sent to exile in Siberia.

As an amusing aside, Republicans were rather annoyed that The Decemberists performed in a free rock concert before an appearance by Barack Obama when he was running for president. The first claim was that the only reason Obama had 75,000 people appear was because of The Decemberists. However, the group has never appeared with crowds larger than a couple of thousand people so it is fair to say that Obama brought out the crowd for The Decemberists. The second claim was that the group was made up of a bunch of commies because of their name and because they occasionally play the National Anthem of the Soviet Union in concert – though that has little to do with politics and more to do with the whimsical, baroque backstory for the band that lead singer and Victorian-era fiction enthusiast Colin Meloy has constructed.

The group has had some commercial success with their most recent album reaching #35 on Billboard’s Top 200. Their new album, The Hazards of Love, is coming out at the end of next month. The song, “16 Military Wives”, is from their album Picaresque which came out in 2005. The song is a protest song against the Iraq War. The video shows a model UN at a fictional high school where the kid representing the US tries to bully a smaller country and then gets his in the end.

16 Military Wives
Sixteen military wives
Thirty-two softly focused brightly colored eyes
Staring at the natural tan
of thirty-two gently clenching wrinkled little hands
Seventeen company men
Out of which only twelve will make it back again
Sergeant sends a letter to five
Military wives, whose tears drip down through ten little eyes

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da

Fifteen celebrity minds
Leading their fifteen sordid wretched checkered lives
Will they find the solution in time
Using their fifteen pristine moderate liberal minds?

Eighteen academy chairs
Out of which only seven really even care
Doling out the garland to five
Celebrity minds, they’re humbly taken by surprise

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da

Fourteen cannibal kings
Wondering blithely what the dinner bell will bring
Fifteen celebrity minds
Served on a leafy bed of sixteen military wives

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da-dedadeda-de de dadede-daaaaa

I won the Set Weekly Challenge again! I finished in 42 seconds but mainly it was luck. I spotted matches very quickly and then when I hunted and pecked I hit them on the first try. Plus the people who usually have the best times were a little off their game this week, although 42 seconds is a pretty good time.

So give the Set Puzzle a try if you haven’t yet. It’s actually quick and fun and there is a new puzzle every day.

Time for this week’s song from my iPod and what better song for the state the country is in right now than “Everything is Alright.”

Motion City Soundtrack is rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group was formed in 1997 and is made up of Justin Pierre (lead vocalist and guitarist), Joshua Cain (lead guitarist and backing vocalist), Jesse Johnson (keyboards), Matthew Taylor (bass), and Tony Thaxton (drums). The group has gone through a number of personnel changes and has seven former members.

The group has had some commercial success releasing three studio albums, one of which reached number 2 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart and another reaching number 1. The group has had some problems with illegal file sharing sites. Their second album was distributed illegally on the web months before it was ready for release. The group made serious efforts to prevent the same thing happening to their third album and were successful. The group has moved to a major music label and expect their next album to be released later in 2009.

Everything is Alright is from the group’s second album, “Commit This to Memory” which was released in 2006.

Everything is Alright
Tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.
Oh please tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.

Give me a reason to end this discussion,
To break with tradition.
To fold and divide.

Cause I hate the ocean, theme parks and airplanes,
Talking with strangers, waiting in line..
I’m through with these pills that make me sit still.
“Are you feeling fine?”
Yes, I feel just fine.

Tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.
Oh please tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.

I’m sick of the things I do when I’m nervous
Like cleaning the oven or checking my tires
Or counting the number of tiles in the ceiling..
Head for the hills, the kitchen’s on fire!

I used to rely on self-medication,
I guess I still do that from time to time.
But I’m getting better at fighting the future,
“Someday you’ll be fine..”
Yes, I’ll be just fine.

Tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.
Oh please tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.

Give me a reason (I don’t believe a word)
To end this discussion (of anything I’ve heard)
To break with tradition (they tell me that it’s not so hard)
To fold and divide (it’s not so hard)
So let’s not get carried (away with everything)
Away with the process (from here to in-between)
of elimination (the long goodbye)
I don’t want to waste your time.

Tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.
Oh please tell me that you’re alright,
Yeah everything is alright.

(Alright)
Tell me that you’re alright, (Hi, everything’s great)
Yeah everything is alright. (Everything’s fine)
Oh please tell me that you’re alright, (Hi, everything’s great)
Yeah everything is alright.
(Everything’s fine)

Johntell Franklin’s mother had died earlier that day, February 7th. She was 39 and lost her five year battle with cervical cancer. Johntell was the captain of the Milwaukee Madison High School basketball team. When the coach of the team, Aaron Womack Jr., asked Johntell if he should cancel that night’s game, Johntell said no, “tell the guys to go out and do their best.”

Everyone was very surprised when Johntell showed up in the second quarter of the game. He arrived wanting to play, to be part of his team. “I knew my Mom would have wanted me to play. She was always proud of me playing basketball.” But his coach hadn’t listed Johntell’s name on the game roster because he didn’t think Johntell would be at the game. The rules are that if a player is not on the roster, he can play but it causes a technical foul.

When the coach of DeKalb, Dave Rohlman, heard this he said his team didn’t want the foul but the referees said that was the rule and there was nothing they could do about it. So after arguing with no success for seven minutes, he sent one of his players up to the line after a brief team meeting. Darius McNeal stood at the foul line and rolled his two shots across the floor. “I did it for the guy who lost his mom,” McNeal said. “It was the right thing to do.” Everyone in the gym stood and applauded.

Madison went on to win the game but there is no question that DeKalb showed that they are winners too.

Meanwhile in Washington, DC, Senator Sherrod Brown was mourning the death of his mother, who died of leukemia at the age of 88. Her wake was the day of the stimulus vote but Senator Brown’s vote was needed to pass the bill. Senator Brown had to leave the wake and fly from Ohio to Washington, DC so that he could cast the deciding 60th vote. Senator Brown could have stayed with his family in Ohio if just one Republican Senator had turned aside politics and cast an aye vote.

Our friends at Fierce Mobile Content had this to say about our product:

If you’ve ever stood shivering on a Chicago street corner in the middle of January waiting for a bus that seems like it might never arrive, then a mobile application such as the Chicago Transit Authority’s Bus Tracker might strike you as the most ingenious idea since thermal underwear.

That’s us! We are as ingenious as thermal underwear! CTA Bus Tracker has been getting rave reviews. I have worked on a lot of cool products since I started in this business a couple of hundred years ago, but having a product that is out there, out in the public’s eye where it can get reviewed by the general public is something that most developers rarely get to enjoy.

Most development involves the parts that you don’t get to see. BusTime™, which is exposed to the general public, also has most of its development where you can’t see it. Yes, you go to the map and see when the bus will arrive but those predictions come from somewhere. There is a huge development effort involved in making those predictions available and accurate. And there’s hardware on the buses that tracks the position. And the information from that hardware has to be captured and analyzed by our software. BusTime™ is a complex, interwoven product that makes being a bus rider a better experience. I can truly say that I am proud to be part of the development of this product.

By the way, the picture is one of the coffee mugs that were made up by our sales department and given to us after we won the prize.

Mikey was only trying to be helpful. He really didn’t mean to kill all the fish. Thursday, just before the blackout, Mikey fed the fish. By “fed the fish” I mean he dumped a full container of fish food in the fish tank. And then the power went out for 14 hours. No filter to clean, just the rotting of fish food in a 75 degree fish tank.

By the time I was able to get to the fish tank, it smelled like a sewer and most of the fish were passed on.

‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Well, actually they were ex-fish. Three fish did survive their feeding and they are happily swimming in their now spotless fish tank. To be more precise, only one is swimming. The other two are catfish so they are just lying around on the bottom of the tank. Which makes me wonder if the catfish really did get its name because of the whiskers or because they demonstrate the same activity level as the felines living in my house.

Before the cleaning, when you walked into the room where the tank was, the first smell that hit you was the smell one would expect if the dog had left a present in the corner and it had not been found for several days. Anyway, the tank has been cleaned to an inch of its life. Every last trace of algae and sewage has been removed. Rocks and fake plants were scrubbed. Yes, the tank is spotless. Well, it certainly isn’t contaminated by the presence of many fish.

So that is how I spent the Saturday of my three day weekend. Sunday was spent cleaning up the broken glass from the glass table we had outside which exploded during the last deep freeze and picking up presents left by the dog in the backyard. How about you?

Last night, Michel picked me up from work and as we pulled up at the house we noticed something odd. It was dark. I don’t mean the outside was dark which wouldn’t have been the least bit odd it being almost 6 PM. I mean the house was dark. Considering Mikey doesn’t like the dark this seemed out of the ordinary. Sure enough, our power and everyone else on our street’s power was out although all the streets around us were fine. This was the result of the 60 mph winds we had been having knocking down some tree branches which then knocked some wires down. A quick call to our power company and their automated system assured us that even though they were swamped with outages because of the winds, that power would be restored within 5 hours.

Fortunately we had candles and flashlights and, most importantly, a fully charged portable DVD player for Mikey. Mikey kept going around the house blowing all the candles out, “Happy Birthday!”, so we mostly sat in the dark and watched “Signing Times”. By 6:30 PM, Mikey was out. Sitting in the dark and having “pink eye” (he had been sent home from school earlier in the day) knocked him out so I carried him upstairs and after a little back rubbing he was done for the night. Michel went to bed too. Mikey’s OT came by but since Mikey was already asleep she volunteered to run out and get us pizza instead.

After Diane delivered the pizza and left (thanks, Diane!), that left just Beth and me sitting in the dark (although now, at least, we could light some candles). So we decided to watch “Hogan’s Heroes” on the portable DVD player. The pure genius of 60′s sitcoms left us both laughing out loud. When the DVD player gave up, we switched to my portable PC. When that ran out, we switched to Beth’s portable PC and watched Season 1 of “Get Smart,” a series written by two of the funniest men on the planet, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.

As we sat there Beth asked me if this is what it was like when I was a kid. Apparently I was a kid before electricity. “Why yes, Beth. Back in the days of the wagon trains, we all sat by candlelight and watched DVDs on our laptop computers.”

At 11 PM, the five hours had passed and we still had no electricity. Beth’s computer gave up as the battery died so we went to bed. Michel woke me up at 3 AM to tell me we still had no electricity and I assured her that I could wait until morning for any further updates. At 6 AM when I got up, we still had no power but it finally came back on at 6:40 AM, just in time for Beth to get up for school. With Mikey home today because of his eye, I think Michel would have been very angry with the power company if we still had no power.

Time for this week’s song from my iPod. And Happy Friday the 13th to all.

The Hush Sound is an indie band from Illinois. The group was formed in 2004 and is made up of Greta Salpeter (lead singer and keyboards) who was 16 when the group formed, Bob Morris (vocals and guitar), Mike Leblanc (bass), and Darren Wilson (drums). Chris Faller was the original bassist but he left the group last year. The group independently released their first album in 2005 which was discovered by Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz who signed them to his record company. The group has released two albums since 2005 under Wentz’s Decaydance Records label with their most recent album reaching 75 on Billboard’s Top 200.

The group has had limited commercial success although their tours have been very popular. Two songs from their most recent album have been used in television programs. “Medicine Man” can be heard in commercials for the TV series Grey’s Anatomy and the TV series House while the song “Hurricane” can be heard in commercials for The Young and the Restless.

The song “Wine Red” is from the group’s second album, “Like Vines”. Greta was asked what the song was about:

The song “Wine Red” is about the destruction of something that seems too beautiful to exist, much like the Garden of Eden is said to be. There was a story at that time of a vicious murder or a young girl whom we had all met and that is what inspired the line “the death of beauty”. Also, when I wrote the song, I had been reading Greek mythology as well as studying creation stories of many different faiths, mainly studying the Genesis stories of the Christian faith (out of curiosity rather than religion). Allusions to those stories are woven into the song.

Wine Red
Who shot that arrow in your throat?
Who missed the crimson apple?
It hung heavy on the tree above your head

This chaos, this calamity, this garden once was perfect
Give your immortality to me; I’ll set you up against the stars

Gloria,
We lied, we can’t go on
This is the time and this is the place to be alive

Who shot that arrow in your throat?
Who missed the crimson apple?
And there is discord in the garden tonight

The sea is wine red
This is the death of beauty
The doves have died
The lovers have lied

I cut the arrow from your neck
Stretched you beneath the tree
Among the roots and baby’s breath
I covered us with silver leaves

Gloria,
We lied, we can’t go on
This is the time and this is the place to be alive

The sea is wine red
This is the death of beauty
The doves have died
The lovers have lied

The sea is wine red
This is the death of beauty
The doves have died
The lovers have lied

The sea is wine red (Gloria, we lied)
This is the death of beauty (this is the time and place)
The doves have died (Gloria, we lied)
The lovers have lied (this is the time and place)

It’s a double celebration day today. It’s the 200th anniversary of the births of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Two of the greatest men in the history of our planet happened to share a birthday.

Abraham Lincoln freed us all from the horrors of slavery. Leading our country through the most brutal war ever fought to that time, he destroyed a brutal system that made a mockery of our country’s claim that “all men are created equal.”

Charles Darwin freed our minds to see the world as it really is. Going against the religious beliefs of his day, he showed that life on Earth had evolved through a process of natural selection. He showed that all creatures are tied together and that all creatures (including us) have changed over time to fit the environment of their day.

Enjoy the day!