The Importance of Being Late.

Lately, I've been "discovering" things in the most tardy of fashions.  We don't have the TV hooked up to the antenna, or cable.  We mostly entertain ourselves with the wonders of the internet.  Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature is a definite friend of mine.

We've spent many a happy hour working while watching "Sherlock Holmes" with Jeremy Brett, who I have an inexplicable old-man crush on.  If you haven't seen any of these, go out and find them immediately.  They are old-school PBS stuff in the best way possible.  I defy any Robert Downey Junior supporters.  Jeremy Brett is Sherlock all the way.

We also finally got around to watching "Firefly."  I'd seen the movie "Serenity" a few years ago, and liked it all right, but the show was great.  Now I want to see the movie again, except they kill off a main character that I didn't know I liked until seeing the show....It's a total shame that this series ran for only one season, and I know that all the rest of geekdom already got over it years ago.  It's still fresh for me, though.

It's kind of the same with music.  I have been so spoiled by MP3 players that listening to the radio is a real chore.  While working, we visit Pandora, Last FM, and Slacker a lot.  I also found Grooveshark recently, and it is awesome.

I'm discovering all these bands that have been around a few years, maybe even since I was in high school, and I completely missed them.  Coldplay and Radiohead fall into this category.  I'm also listening to the Killers a lot these days.

Sometimes, I love something for convoluted reasons.  I now adore the song "Total Eclipse of the Heart," after watching the masterfully done literal video version of it a dozen times.  I jumped on that bandwagon about twenty years late, because someone was making fun of the randomness of the video.

I always liked the fifties-ballad sounding dance song at the end of the movie "Twilight."  It seemed sweet and soft and delicate and I always wondered what the words were.  Go look them up for yourself.  It's awesome to me that what sounds like a cute little romantic dance song at the end of a girly movie has such dark, creepy words.  Now, guess how much more I love it?

One of my favorite bands to listen to these days:  OK GO.  It all started with this music video, which, considering my track record, you have all seen years ago.






Oh, heck.  That was done in all one continuous shot.  It took lots of engineers (the ones cheering at the end), and lots of takes.

But wait, there's more:  This is a different version of the same song, done marching band style.  Soo awesome.  For a former band geek, anyway.




How could I in good conscience not love this band?  I even like the music.

For a Nerd....

...there's nothing out there cooler than this video.  He looks like an 80's steampunk Alton Brown.

Enjoy!



She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby

Family Time.

My aunt and uncle from Florida were visiting Missouri the past week. We have a tradition that the whole family celebrates Easter when they come to visit. This year, we were only one week after the rest of the country. We all had a great time and ate lots of delicious food together, as is also our tradition.
The last night we were all together, my mom brought out some old pictures for us all to look through. I found some awesome ones of Toby and me when we were dating. We were both so hot back in the day...
Anyway, before we left for the night, Mom wanted us all to have what she called 'a singing." Now, my family is generally musical. My mother and sister have beautiful alto and soprano voices, respectively. I don't really sing much. The whole idea made me squirm a bit, and I considered leaving earlier to miss out.
My family was raised in the now-defunct Newtonia Methodist Church. It's where my Grandma and PaPa took their young family, and it's where Mom and Laural and I attended until I left for college. Lots of us have joined other faiths since: I'm Mormon, and we have Baptist, Church of Christ, and Christian Science members in the family.
Mom passed out a stack of hymnals that she was given when the old church shut down. We had about thee different versions, so finding each song was a challenge. We started to sing...I blushed a bit, and looked at the floor. It was tentative at first, but these were songs we all had known from infancy. I didn't even need to look at the words.
Those songs...I was a little girl, and sitting next to Grandma and PaPa again. Grandma would draw us little pictures to keep us entertained in church. She always drew jack-o-lanterns and cats, because that's what she knew how to draw. Grandma had a beautiful voice, and I loved to hear her sing at church and at home while she worked.
Since joining another church, I don't hear the songs from my childhood all that often. I'm so glad I stayed and participated. It was unexpectedly beautiful and nostalgic. Thanks, Mom.

Listening to...

Hey, everyone else knows that working out is easier when listening to music.  Duh, me!  I've been struggling to put in fifteen minutes on the treadmill, while watching an episode or two of Good Eats (is it wrong of me to watch food while trying to lose weight?), or a Netflix movie.  Today, I just plugged earbuds into my skull and did 30 minutes, no problem.  I think a fast beat and a large number of changeovers between songs help keep me going.  Yeah, my attention span is about three minutes.  I even felt kind of...happy.  Go, music!

Rocking my world today:

The Killers, Muse, and The White Stripes, and some Queen.