Half-Life and Times
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas, y'all!
Don't worry, kids - the movie is NOT called "The Martians Conquer Santa Claus"!I know quite a few people that can't imagine spending Christmas in Australia or Brazil because it would be warm and stuff. Hah! Pretty much all Christmas movies would have you believe that it snows in all 50 states in the US every Christmas - if it ain't cold, it ain't Christmas. But growing up in Nashville and spending most of my adult life in North Carolina, I remember many more Christmases going around in short sleeves than I do wearing heavy coats. This year is no exception - even the coldest-natured person was running around with at most a light jacket today and it may reach 70 this weekend. I do have a lot of sympathy for the folks that are stuck in O'Hare or otherwise victims of foul weather but that's rarely a problem here (we get it around the second week of January, when we almost inevitably get an ice storm).
Like most long-time Chapel Hillians, we headed off to University Mall and A Southern Season today. No one goes to UMall to do real shopping anymore - it's more a place to pick up some last minute knick-knack, run into folks from church or your neighborhood and pick up a few nummies from ASS. We only did the middle of those (having finished our knick-knacking and nummie-buying earlier in the week) plus we had a nice lunch at the Weathervane, before coming home and doing the last minute "OhGodthisplaceisapigsty" housecleaning. It was, of course, not a pigsty, but there's no question that it looks better now and we can relax and enjoy wrecking it again while I'm off work the next few days.
Here's hoping you all have a magical Christmas and a healthy and happy 2009!
Labels: Holiday
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Christmas Tunes
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this has been a really music-oriented holiday season for us, with opportunities to hear the North Carolina Symphony's Holiday Pops concert, the NC Jazz Rep Orchestra's holiday show and club shows with Hege V, the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Southern Culture on the Skids. Between the concerts and a number of good Christmas episodes of television series we like (like Chuck, Monk and Psych), I've been unusually uninterested in catching holiday movies this year. But it's already been one of the best holiday periods I can remember and it's not even Christmas yet!When I was working from home regularly, I usually had a playlist together for when I knocked off on Friday - something to blast out of the Klipsch speakers and knock the dust off the shelves. Since I'm planning on working up through Christmas Eve next week (but doing so from home), I've put together my playlist for Wednesday afternoon - if you hear a loud rumbling around 2:30 on Wednesday, it's probably my subwoofer...
1. T-Bone Burnett - God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen
2. Beck - The Little Drum Machine Boy
3. Timbuk 3 - All I Want For Christmas
4. The dB's - Home for the Holidays
5. Dave Edmunds - Run, Rudolph, Run
6. Fishbone - It's a Wonderful Life (Gonna Have a Good Time)
7. Southern Culture on the Skids - Merry Christmas, Baby
8. The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
9. The Musical Cast of Toys Featuring Wendy and Lisa - The Closing of the Year
10. Sun 60 - Mary Xmess
Happy Solstice, y'all!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Holiday Music
Hege V and the Bijous
The Master Entertainer
The BackbeatI'm a sucker for music at Christmas - not just Christmas music but music in general, although I do dig me some Christmas music. We've got CDs of traditional, jazz, bluegrass, New Wave, Celtic, early Rock, 70's, 80's, lounge, and alternative. We've got Mannheim Steamroller, Celtic Women, Johnny Mathis, Jethro Tull, Mojo Nixon, Squirrel Nut Zippers and just about anything else you can imagine, except maybe hip-hop and straight country.
But it's not just Christmas music on the radio or CD player that we're into - November and December are prime times for us to go out and see live music. We caught the North Carolina Jazz Rep Orchestra at Memorial Hall a week ago for their annual Christmas jazz show and last night we went over to the Cat's Cradle for Hege V opening for the Backbeat.
George Hamilton V (Hege V) went to high school in Charlotte at the same time I did (he was a Myers Park Mustang, I believe, where I was an Independence Patriot) and we both spent the same four years at UNC. I remember seeing George at Festifall early on and he had a band when we were seniors that included my bud Handsome Dave on bass. But I never really met him until first Gumbo YaYa and then Hege V played the Rhythm Alley. I can honestly say I've never seen anyone that is a better overall entertainer (or a nicer guy) than George and of course the show last night was no exception. Excellent as usual!
I'm not a fan of tribute bands (no offense to my friend Not-Slash with Appetite for Destruction) but the Backbeats are quite good at the Beatles cover thing.
Next Tuesday we've got tickets for the NC Symphony's Christmas Pops show at Memorial Auditorium in Chapel Hill. Wednesday we'll be at the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas show at the Arts Center. And next Saturday we've got tickets for the annual Southern Culture on the Skids Christmas show at the Cradle.
There are more shows coming up - those are just the ones we've got tix for...
But it's not just Christmas music on the radio or CD player that we're into - November and December are prime times for us to go out and see live music. We caught the North Carolina Jazz Rep Orchestra at Memorial Hall a week ago for their annual Christmas jazz show and last night we went over to the Cat's Cradle for Hege V opening for the Backbeat.
George Hamilton V (Hege V) went to high school in Charlotte at the same time I did (he was a Myers Park Mustang, I believe, where I was an Independence Patriot) and we both spent the same four years at UNC. I remember seeing George at Festifall early on and he had a band when we were seniors that included my bud Handsome Dave on bass. But I never really met him until first Gumbo YaYa and then Hege V played the Rhythm Alley. I can honestly say I've never seen anyone that is a better overall entertainer (or a nicer guy) than George and of course the show last night was no exception. Excellent as usual!
I'm not a fan of tribute bands (no offense to my friend Not-Slash with Appetite for Destruction) but the Backbeats are quite good at the Beatles cover thing.
Next Tuesday we've got tickets for the NC Symphony's Christmas Pops show at Memorial Auditorium in Chapel Hill. Wednesday we'll be at the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas show at the Arts Center. And next Saturday we've got tickets for the annual Southern Culture on the Skids Christmas show at the Cradle.
There are more shows coming up - those are just the ones we've got tix for...
Happy Thanksgiving
The three most important women in my life that I'm not married to - sister, mom and mom-in-law
DaddioSpent a very nice Thanksgiving at my sister's rebuilt-after-last-years-Halloween-fire house outside of Charlotte. Drove down in the morning with JennySlash, her mom and her mom's fiance - the drive down the back roads to Harrisburg via Liberty, Ramseur and Asheboro was pleasant and the food of course was all that one could ask. Got a chance to see nephew Sailer Boy for a bit, although he spent most of the day shuttling between family members' houses. They're heading out for the Gulf in February and then (probably about this time next year) heading to the Orient, which should please Sailor Boy since he's been wanting to get to Japan since he joined up.
Spent some time Friday cleaning up my home office (it's still something of a disaster area but not as much as before) and then got a little Christmas shopping done on Saturday before going over to the Cradle (more on that in the next post). Today we got the tree up and decorated (I think it's our prettiest tree yet) and now I'm enjoying a fine local IPA at Top of the Hill while J is at church for the first Sunday of Advent.
Got a lot of work to do over the next few weeks before Christmas but also have a lot of good holidays stuff planned, so I'm in a good holiday buzz that I hope will last for a few more weeks!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Memorial Day Weekend Rundown
1) I. M. Pei's East Gallery - National Gallery of Art
2) Thunder rolling down Constitution Ave.
3) National Cathedral from the Bishop's GardenWe spent an extended long Memorial Day weekend in DC again, as we did last year. Since the Hotel Washington is closed for refurbishment after being bought, we stayed at our old favorite - the Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel in Crystal City. Besides consistently having excellent service, it means not having to drive all the way into the city and there's a Metro stop adjacent to the hotel.
After getting in Friday afternoon and spending a little unwind time in the hotel hot tub, we took the Metro into town for dinner at The Oceanaire on F Street. While it's not quite as good as Devon in Chicago, it's damn fine food (as is the one in Charlotte near South Park).
Saturday we drove up to Rockville so that J could hit G Street Fabrics (although we both ended up spending more time and money at Filene's Basement in the same shopping center). We drove back into town via Wisconsin AVe and stopped off at the National Cathedral to take pictures and enjoy the grounds (we were too late to go inside, but we got some good pictures of the interior last year). We then drove on down Wisconsin through Georgetown to M Street before cutting across Key Bridge and back to the hotel. It has been a few years since we'd been in Georgetown - I was quite surprised that some of our old haunts like Commander Salamander are still in business. As I had thought, most of M Street looks pretty much like a mall but there still appears to be some interesting places on Wisconsin. AFter a bit of cleanup, we took the Metro down to the King Street station in Old Town Alexandria and walked over to Bistrot Lafayette. We showed up there on a Friday night in December last year without a reservation and they were kind enough to make room for us, so we actually had reservations this time and were rewarded with a really fine meal. I highly recommend the place - it's not very big, so you really do want to make reservations.
Sunday we took the Metro into DC in time to catch much of the Rolling Thunder parade of Harleys down Constitution - I've seen estimates anywhere from 350,000 to over 500,000 riders in the city. Pretty damn impressive - if you don't like V-Twins, I suggest you stay away from DC on Memorial Day weekend. We spent most of the afternoon in the National Galleries of Art - I remember reading about I. M. Pei's East Wing design when it first opened in the '70s and fell in love with it on my first visit to DC as an adult when it housed an incredible exhibit of Rodin sculpture. With no real plans for dinner for the first time during the weekend, we walked up Pennsylvania towards the White House with the intention of seeing if Occidental Grille was serving outside. They were not, but there were tables available at the Cafe du Parc next door (part of the Willard Hotel) so we parked it there and had the best meal of the weekend!
We didn't have definite plans for Monday but I'd suggested we stop off at Mt. Vernon on the way home. I had been once when I was about 9 years old and hadn't been back and J had never been. It's a beautiful drive down George Washington Memorial Parkway and it was quite hot but lovely on the grounds. Despite high gas prices, it was packed! The tour through the house was a bit rushed due to the crowd but we spent some time on the grounds and enjoying what has to be the best view of any house I've ever been in.
Now I need to get back to work so I can rest!
Friday, December 21, 2007
Back from WDW
Sorry for the lack of posting - we've just returned from almost a week at Walt Disney World and will be around home for the holidays. I'm actually working next week (first time since 1986 that I've worked between Christmas and New Year's) but it should be pretty quiet (one can only hope). I'll be posting the obligatory Walt Disney World trip report over the next couple of days along with some photos - if you've never been, it probably won't interest you but it's been kinda mandatory among WDW devotees since the advent of the InterWebs.Other than that we're going to rest up, see some family and friends, maybe finally decorate the house, catch a flick or two (National Treasure II opens tonight!) and relax...
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Nashville Christmas Parade
I'm not sure what year this was (mid-60's I'm guessing from the cars) but I'm pretty sure I would have been there...Labels: Holiday
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
More Christmas Tunes
Another of our favorites - I'm afraid it cuts off the last couple of seconds but it was the best I could find.Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Holiday Tunes
I have admitted before in these pages to being a sucker for Christmas music, although my tastes can run to less popular fare than "A Very Special Christmas XIX" and the latest horrendous unnecessary schmaltz from yet another R&B artist or boy band I've never heard of. Just put together some Christmas mixes to take down to my sister this weekend. This cut has been the house favorite for the last few years - if you don't get at least a little choked up then I really don't want to know.Tuesday, October 30, 2007
More Hallowe'en Fun
A nicely-done DIY video to the Bobby "Boris" Pickett classic (except for the abrupt ending)...
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Radioactive Ramblings of Tony Plutonium
About Me
- Name: Tony Plutonium
- Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
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