Friday Five: 5/29

In which I blather about five songs randomly selected from my iPod playlist as I listen to them.

"When Love Comes to Town" - U2
Duet with B.B. King from Rattle and Hum. A pretty by-the-numbers song, but the presence of King (and Lucille) makes it quite a bit more special.

"Let's Go Crazy" - Prince
I like the faux-preacher bit at the beginning.

"Tom's Diner" - DNA & Suzanne Vega
So, a couple of British DJs take a 10 year-old a cappella folk song about nothing (interesting coincidence - the actual Tom's Diner was the inspiration for Monk's on Seinfeld) and put it to a dance beat. And not only is it not terrible, it is actually pretty awesome.

"Dancing Barefoot" - U2
This cover of the Patti Smith song was actually the b-side to "When Love Comes to Town." The Edge sounds phenomenal on it.

"Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" - K.T. Tunstall
So I was watching VH1 while ironing a shirt one morning, and they were playing a live performance of this song. One by one, she captured all the background elements (hand claps, the "woo-hoo"s, etc) on a playback machine so she could accompany herself. It was pretty amazing.

Beware of Knock-Offs

Susi and I have been watching The Fashion Show, Bravo's replacement for the departed Project Runway. It's... not that good. Not terrible, but not particularly memorable either. The biggest weakness is having the Isaac Mizrahi/ Kelly Rowland tandem serve as host, mentor and judge. I miss non-judgemental Tim and extremely judgemental Michael. August, right?

A Night of Unrelenting Horror

Mike was gone for game night this week. Before we got started, Jay and I were talking about Guitar Hero for some reason, and it occurred to me that nobody was using the TV downstairs (the one with the Wii attached to it). So, for the first time ever, game night went video.

However, when setting up the drums, I discovered that the wire the connected the yellow cymbal (very important in GH) to the rest of the drums had caught on something and pulled free from the plug head. It was then I came to a realization that even years of Lovecraftian gaming could not have prepared me for. One of us... would have to sing. The less said of that portion of game night the better, other than that I am a poor singer and a mediocre lead guitarist, Matt is a mediocre singer and a terrible lead guitarist, and Jay is a mediocre singer but otherwise awesome.

After that, we played a couple of games of Small World. The first game saw my first ever defeat as my first race (Berserk Dwarves) failed to get anything done and I was playing catch-up from the get go. Matt was the winner in that one. For the second game, Matt had to leave but Corry was back so we were still at 3 players. I won that one going away. Jay tried a turtling strategy, and Corry was more worried about Jay than me, which meant there weren't a lot of conquests coming my way (I still had several Spirit Halflings, my first race, on the board at the end of the game).

Friday Five: 5/22

In which I blather about five songs randomly selected from my iPod playlist as I listen to them.

"Old Friend" - Lyle Lovett
While the first half of I Love Everybody is filled with quirk and whimsy, the second half has a lot of beautiful little melancholy songs like this one.

"Dance Hall Days" - Wang Chung
"Take your baby by her hair/ And pull her closer there, there, there/ Take your baby by the ears/ And play upon her darkest fears." Although more remembered for their self-referential other song, I've always felt this one was superior by far. And a bit sinister when you really listen to it.

"When I Look at the World" - U2
"When the night is someone else's/ And you're trying to get some sleep/ When your thoughts are too expensive/ To ever want to keep/ When there's all kinds of chaos/ And everyone is walking lame/ You don't even blink now, do you/ Or even look away/ So I try to be like you/ Try to feel it like you do/ But without you it's no use/ I can't see what you see/ When I look at the world" For reasons I can't adequately explain, I really love this song. It is just begging to be used as a dramatic backdrop in some sort of rpg campaign (Fading Suns, especially).

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" - The Beatles
It's a shame what those boys did to Clarence, man.

"Lips Like Sugar" - Echo & the Bunnymen
There's this newer radio station in town that bills itself as having a "classic pop" format. What that means is that every once in while they'll pull out a gem like this, which you haven't heard in 20 years, and put it heavy rotation for a couple of months. Pretty cool.

Going, Going... Going... Going...

Corry and I have been playing a lot of Small World lately (he has yet to beat me). As a change of pace, I dug out my copy of Dynasty League Baseball (which is more or less a refinement of Pursue the Pennant) to introduce him to the wonderful world of statistics-based geekery. We played the Braves versus the Astros (2001 versions, although we were in the Astrodome since I don't seem to have the stats for Houston's current ballpark). Thirteen scoreless innings later, we were still at it. Finally, in the top of the 14th, Atlanta plated an unearned run (followed up by a completely gratuitous Chipper Jones 3-run homer a couple of batters later). Even though I lost, I was just kind of relieved it was over.

I used to play Dynasty League with Mike quite a bit, and my brother-in-law has some experience with it as well. I am tentatively putting together some ideas for something more structured than a series of pick-up games for 4 people, probably recreating a post-season (yes, this is all an elaborate plan to experience the vicarious thrill of an '01 Mariners World Series title).

My ulterior motive, though, is to line up a replacement gaming fix. Matt is going to be out of town for all of June and the last half of July. Starting in August Mike will be resuming his Friday-night refereeing gig. We haven't had a regular rpg campaign in over a year, and probably won't for the foreseeable future. I am afraid that our group dynamic has , much like a scoreless baseball game in the 13th inning, gotten to the point where you are just sort of waiting around for it to end.

Friday Five: 5/15

In which I blather about five songs randomly selected from my iPod playlist as I listen to them.

"Like a Prayer" - Madonna
I don't like a lot of Madonna's stuff, but the quasi-Catholic in me gets a kick out of this one. This is one of those versions that has been needlessly re-mixed for a compilation album, demonstrating the dangers of buying a song with multiple versions from the iTunes store.

"Creeps Like Me" - Lyle Lovett
"I knew this pretty girl once/ She was eighteen... maybe/ What's a year or two/ One day when she asked me/ If I loved her, I said baby/ What's it worth to you?/ Look around and you will see/ This worlds is full of creeps like me/ You look surprised, you shouldn't be/ This world is full of creeps like me." If I haven't mentioned it before, Lyle Lovett is extremely funny in concert, especially telling the story about how this song was written.

"When Doves Cry" - Prince
Until it was pointed out to me, I never even noticed this song had no bass line. It gives an already good song a unique sound.

"Don't Speak" - No Doubt
It's interesting to listen to a song that became ubiquitous long after it's popularity has faded. Will you think "why did I ever listen to this crap?" or "now I remember why I really dug this song before it got played to death." This one is much closer to the second category.

"Time After Time" - Cyndi Lauper
Maybe a little sappy, but I've always enjoyed this one.

The Queue

A periodic feature in which I regale you with thrilling tales of my Netflix queue.

Watched
Bedtime Stories: My daughters wanted this one. They seemed to enjoy it.

Hoop Dreams: "People always say to me, 'when you get to the NBA, don't forget about me.' Well, I should've said back, 'if I don't make it to the NBA, don't you forget about me.'" It wasn't as spell-binding as the first time I watched it (many years ago), but I was able to see the entire thing this time. Well worth watching, even f you don't like basketball.

Sex and the City (Season 2): By the end of the season, I think the premise was starting to feel played out.

This American Life (Season 1): Since I've become a huge fan of the radio show, this is like an extra little fix.

In Progress
Sex and the City (Season 3): On disc 1 of 3. I get the feeling this series will be a regular entry on the queue for the foreseeable future.

Undeclared (Complete Series): On disc 3 of 3. It's uneven, but seems to be hitting its stride. Not as good as Freaks and Geeks, but then, what is?

Cards & Conquests

After having to cancel the week before, the poker game I had been planning went off as (re-)scheduled Saturday night with the usual suspects (Matt, Jay, my dad, my brother-in-law Chris and me) in attendance. We led off with a HORSE tournament that Chris won. He built up a pretty big stack during the first round of Razz, taking every hand and putting out Matt, then busting Jay during Stud. I temporarily passed him in chip count during the second round of Hold'Em, but he took a large-ish hand off of me and took out dad to regain the chip lead going into head-to-head. That only took about 2 hands, when I went all-in with pocket 8s against 2 over cards (I lost that race when he paired a Queen).

We played a straight Hold'Em tournament after that, that I don't quite remember all the details of. Dad was knocked out first, followed by Matt then me. Jay ended up beating Chris in head-to-head. I was kind of hoping that we would play some dealer's choice instead of a second tournament, but I think dad and I are the only ones who are into that. Still, it was a nice evening.

...

I've also been enjoying Small World quite a bit. Most of the games have been 2-player ones against Corry. He hasn't beaten me yet, but he's getting closer. We also managed to get in an impromptu session with Jay and Mike. In the 3-player game, they got tangled up with each other, and my Forest Wizards had one side of the board pretty much to themselves, which allowed me to build up a huge lead and cruise to victory. In the second game, Corry joined us. Defying my expectations, he tangled with Mike and then Jay instead of vindictively coming after me (although, in his defense, both times they messed with his territories first). I only used two races the entire game, but my Seafaring Elves were doing so well in decline that hated to get rid of them. My other race were Pillaging Ratmen, and I had more to gain by conquering new territories than holding old ones with them, so I got into the habit of abandoning the map every turn and attacking somewhere new. Jay had (I think) built an early lead, but I was hard to attack and wound up with the win again.

I really liked how it plays when you get more people involved. Unfortunately, I don't think Mike was overly enamoured with it, so I don't know what that means how much playtime it will get in the future. I think it will definitely be going with me come convention time, though.

Friday Five: 5/1

In which I blather about five songs randomly selected from my iPod playlist as I listen to them.

"Homeless" - Paul Simon
'Duet' with Ladysmith Black Mombazo from Graceland. It has a nice laid-back groove, even if I'm not really sure what it is supposed to be about.

"There She Goes Again" - The Velvet Underground
One of the more accessible songs from their first album.

"Money for Nothing" - Dire Straits
When he did the impromptu backing vocals for this song, Sting used the melody from "Don't Stand So Close to Me," garnering him a co-songwriting credit. I'm speculating that made him quite a bit of money for pretty much no effort. Irony?

"Crazy Love, Vol. II" - Paul Simon
I guess it is Graceland day today. I have no opinion about that.

"Ruby Tuesday" - The Corrs
Cover of the Rolling Stones song (featuring Stones guitarist Ron Wood) from their live VH-1 concert album. It's a little exuberant during the chorus, but a very good cover.