Category: My Life

Neon Trees At The California State Fair

July 22, 2011
MusicMy Life

I am mostly a casual fan of the band. They are good but I would not say great. But I will say that their show the other night at the State Fair was really pretty good. They are a tight unit of good musicians and played together like they had been doing it for a long time. The singer might have been a bit melodramatic but the show was good and the band rocked. Sure, the crowd was preteen and teen (and us, of course), but that’s ok. As far as I know, it was all original material except for a cover of INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart”. The set list:

Your Surrender, Love and Affection, Calling My Name, Alarm, Helpless, In The Next Room, 1983, Phones, Farther Down, Animal, Our War, Attraction, Girls & Boys In School, Sins of my Youth, Never Tear Us Apart, Habits.

Here is some cheesy cell-phone video of the show, sorry for the quality (or lack of…)!

What do you think? Leave me a comment!

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Music We Own: The S Stuff (As Of Today)

July 16, 2011
MusicMy Life

Hi there again music fans…

This is the nineteenth in a series of posts about the music we own. We sort-of collect items by certain artists, as you may notice. And yes, we are both still obsessed with music!

Artists are listed as last name, comma, first name. If it is a band then it is just the band name. Anyway, check it out and see what you think. Leave me a comment below the list!

Name – Title – Format – Size – Country – Comments

S Club 7 – Don’t Stop Movin’ CD 5 UK

S.B.B.L. – Purple Mix vinl 12 HOL

Sakamoto, Riuichi – B2 Unit CD 5 FRA With Andy Partridge.

Sakamoto, Ryuichi – You Do Me vinl 12 US With Jill Jones.

Sakamoto, Ryuichi – You Do Me cass na US Featuring Jill Jones.

Santana – Supernatural CD 5 US

Santana – Shaman CD 5 US

Sarducci, Father Guido – Live From The Vatican cass na US

Savage Garden – Affirmation CD 5 US

Savage Garden – Savage Garden CD 5 US

Save Ferris – Modified CD 5 US

Scaggs, Boz – Silk Degrees CD 5 US

Scarlatti – Gifted Guitar Of Barbosa-Lima vinl 12 US Guitar sonatas.

Schmitt, Adam – World So Bright cd 5 US

Schneider, Bob – Lovely Creatures CD 5 US

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Liveblogging The Hawaii Trip

June 25, 2011
My LifeTravel
2 Comments

Saturday June 25th

We left Sacramento by car in the late afternoon and arrived in Oakland (near San Francisco) a couple hours later. We are traveling with Petra‘s parents to Hawaii to attend her brother’s wedding. After checking in to the hotel for an overnight stay before the Hawaii flight in the morning, we went to a nearby Italian restaurant (Francesco’s) for some dinner. It was good and we all ate a lot of the great bread too. Then Petra’s dad and I dropped the car off at a lot and caught the shuttle(s) back to the hotel. We’ll see the car again in a week or so. Now it’s time to get some rest. There’s a very early wake-up call with my name on it.

Sunday June 26th

It was an early morning. The shuttle came to take us from the hotel to the airport at around 7:40 or so. At the airport, Petra got frisked and felt and her hands checked for something (powder residue or who knows what). Just lucky, I guess. It was a long flight to Oahu and a very short one from there to Kauai. The good news, they actually served food on the flight. The bad news, nothing vegetarian at all. Someday when I am king things will be different 😉  

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Music We Own: The R Stuff (As Of Today)

June 6, 2011
MusicMy Life

Hi there music maniacs…

This is the eighteenth in a series of posts about the music we own. We sort-of collect items by certain artists, as you may notice. And yes, we are both still obsessed with music!

Artists are listed as last name, comma, first name. If it is a band then it is just the band name. Anyway, check it out and see what you think. Leave me a comment below the list!

Name – Title – Format – Size – Country – Comments

R.E.M.  – Reckoning CD 5 US

R.E.M.  – Fables Of The Reconstruction vinl 12 US

R.E.M.  – Wolves, Lower vinl 7 US Flexi-disk. Flip side has Lords Of The New Church.

R.E.M.  – Drive cass na US

R.E.M.  – Automatic For The People CD 5 US

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The Latest 21 Music Items We Got

May 30, 2011
MusicMy Life

Here is the latest update. Some we bought, some were gifts, a few we burned. Do you love any of these? Hate any of them? Or are you just confused? Of course I’ll blame a few items on Petra (James Blunt, Bruno Mars, etc). 🙂

Read all the way to the end and then leave me a comment!

ARTIST – TITLE – FORMAT – SIZE – COMMENTS

First the vinyl, then the  CDs afterwards…

Spektor, Regina – Four From Far vinyl 7 Blue vinyl

Death Cab For Cutie – In Living Stereo vinyl 7

JP, Chrissie, & The Fairground Boys – If You Let Me vinyl 7

Hendrix, Jimi – Fire vinyl 7

Bush, Kate – Hounds Of Love vinyl 10 Four song EP, pink vinyl

Costello, Elvis – Secret, Profane, & Sugarcane vinyl 12

Gorillaz – The Fall vinyl 12 Limited, numbered 4203

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100 Best Beatles Songs

May 22, 2011
BooksMusicMy Life

Have you read this book? It’s “100 Best Beatles Songs – A Passionate Fan’s Guide“.

I know. How can you possibly pick the top 100 songs by the greatest group ever? Well, the authors do it, and most of the picks are pretty good. One thing I really liked about the book, they devote about three full pages to each of the top 100 songs. That includes detailed notes about the recording of the songs and the different studio takes. Also, they detail “who played what instrument(s)” for each song. Some of those may surprise you. There are also trivia items about each song, which a true Beatles fan will find fascinating.

As for their rankings,

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World Ends Tomorrow! My Last Post Ever?

May 20, 2011
My LifeStupidity
3 Comments

As I posted recently, the world is going to end starting tomorrow. Those who are worthy will be whisked off to heaven. Me, let’s just say that I’m expecting some very warm weather where I am probably going. They say you get used to it, we’ll see.

As for this, my last blog post, why even bother. See you in the afterworld. But just in case they are wrong, you MIGHT want to still check back with this blog from time to time 😉

And just to get ready for the upcoming rapture and end of everything, here’s a  video to watch while you are waiting, after the @#$%^& commercial. It’s Blondie, doing (what else) “Rapture”:

Any thoughts?

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The San Diego Trip Pictures

May 18, 2011
FamilyGrandkidsMy LifeTravel

As promised, I’ve posted some pictures from our recent trip to San Diego with our granddaughter Josephine. Take a look by clicking here. There are three pages of pictures so don’t miss a one! Click on the first small one to see the larger ones. Then you can just click through them or use the right arrow. Have fun! And maybe leave a comment below if you want to…

2011 San Diego pictures

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The 2011 San Diego Trip

May 11, 2011
FamilyGrandkidsMy LifeTravelVegetarian
2 Comments

We recently took a short vacation to the San Diego area of California. This trip was a bit different, because we had our 9-year old granddaughter with us. Because of that, we tried to work this trip so that she would have a great time. And I think she did.

Here’s a quick overview of what we did. Oh yes, there will be pictures. Later. For now, thrill to the exciting recap of… “Our Trip to San Diego”!

Monday – April 25th

It’s a long way to San Diego. Even though we had six days of vacation, two of them (one on each end) were driving days. On this one, we headed south from Sacramento, on our way. A few hours 

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Elvis Is King In Reno

May 8, 2011
Cover SongsMusicMy LifeTravel
2 Comments

Last Saturday night we traveled to Reno to see Elvis Costello and the first night of his “Spectacular Spinning Songbook” tour. First a bit of history: about twenty-five years ago Elvis toured with a big spinning wheel with names of songs on it. We saw that tour but it was a l-o-n-g time ago. And now, all these years later, he is doing a short tour again with a new, huge, updated wheel. The photo on the right gives you an idea of the size of the wheel. He gets people from the audience to come up and spin the wheel. Then he and the band play the song that is chosen by the wheel spin. Meanwhile, the audience member(s) get to relax with a beverage in some chairs on stage, or also have the option of dancing in the metal go-go cage at the left side of the stage. Yep, big fun!

To start, Elvis and his band, The Imposters, came out and played a few songs, starting with

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A Night In Reno With Elvis

May 8, 2011
AlcoholFoodMusicMy LifeTravelVegetarian

imageThis weekend we drove up to Reno, Nevada to see Elvis Costello at the Grand Sierra Resort and Hotel. I’ll blog about the Elvis show soon, this post is a recap of the trip.

First off, the road (I-80) is terrible, at least on the California side! It needs paving really badly, especially through the Sierra Nevada mountains. But we made it to Reno, arriving in the late afternoon. We got a free room upgrade, to a pretty nice and roomy room, because they didn’t have exactly what we reserved. Sweet. So I got some much needed coffee and we decide to gamble a little since we had a few hours until the show. Petra had some luck. Me, well, not so much. Easy come easy go?

We had some dinner at a very ordinary casino cafe. On the plus side, free or cheap drinks were easy to find. 😉

As I mentioned, I’ll blog more about the Elvis show soon so be patient! After the show we gambled a little more and quench our wicked thirst too. Then sleep. Crisp white hotel sheets and zzzzzzz…..

And then it was morning. Mother’s Day too! So we went in search of the only all vegetarian restaurant in Reno. You guessed it, closed. We wandered into a nearby casino for a few minutes to ponder. Then we went to a nearby pizza place that offers vegan pizza options. We had a really good vegan pizza (dead serious) at Pie Face Pizza. They do regular pizzas too. And then we hit the road, full and happy. On our way home after a heck of a nice weekend.

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Music We Own: The Q Stuff (As Of Today)

April 18, 2011
MusicMy Life

Hello again musicaholics…

This is the seventeenth in a series of posts about the music we own. We sort-of collect items by certain artists, as you may notice. But this entry in the series (the Q stuff) is a pretty short list.  And yes, we are both still obsessed with music!

Artists are listed as last name, comma, first name. If it is a band then it is just the band name. Anyway, check it out and see what you think. Leave me a comment below the list!

Name – Title – Format – Size – Country – Comments

Quarterflash – Goodbye Uncle Buzz CD 5 US Credited to Marv and Rindi Ross

Quarterflash – Bliss CD 5 US Credited to The Rosses, Marv and Rindy Ross

Quarterflash – Quarterflash vinl 12 US

Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody CD 3 UK Three inch CD

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Music We Own: The P Stuff (As Of Today)

April 6, 2011
MusicMy Life

Hello again music fanatics…

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts about the music we own. We sort-of collect items by certain artists, as you may notice. And, of course, my wife IS the world’s biggest Prince fan! And yes, yes, yes, we are both still obsessed with music!

Artists are listed as last name, comma, first name. If it is a band then it is just the band name. Anyway, check it out and see what you think. Leave me a comment below the list!

Name – Title – Format – Size – Country – Comments

Paganini  – Violin Concerti vinl 12 US

Pale Pacific, The – Urgency CD 5 US

Palmer, Robert – Sneakin’ Sally Thru The Alley vinl 12 US

Panic At The Disco – A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out CD 5 US

Panic At The Disco – Pretty Odd CD 5 US

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The Best Albums Of 2010? Or Not?

March 17, 2011
MusicMy Life
1 Comment

Finally! And only a couple months late! Here are my picks for the best albums of 2010. Well, at least for the moment.

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

Broken Bells – Broken Bells

John Wesley Harding – Songs to a Small Guitar Vols 1 & 2

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

Cyndi Lauper – Memphis Blues

And also good…

Crowded House – The Very Very Best Of Crowded House

Michael Franti – The Sound of Sunshine

John Lennon – Lennon Box

JP, Chrissie, and the Fairground Boys – Fidelity!

Ra Ra Riot – The Orchard

David Bowie – Station to Station box

So what do you think? What did I miss?

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