I had a great time yesterday. It was nice to get out of the house.
I left my place about 4pm and went over to mom and dad's. We had a nice dinner of venison steaks, asparagus and mashed potatoes. Yum, yum! After dinner, we went downstairs and popped in a movie. "North Country" -- it's a fairly new release, and it was really good (if a bit depressing). It's based on the true story of the first women miners up north (in MN) back in the 80s and all the shit they had to put up with. It was a really good movie, and if you can handle a sad story line, I'd suggest renting it.
After the movie, I sat around and BSed with mom and dad for a while, then headed over to the bowling alley. Had a nice time hanging out in the bar waiting for bowling to start. Guess who I ran into? Rosalee! I haven't seen her in *ages*! Her dad was having a surprise birthday party at the lanes, and I spotted her (and her sister Nicole) wandering around. It was great to talk to her again: she's down in Cedar Falls, IA working on her Master's. And Nicole is married now (for about 6 months)! Wow... It was definitely awesome to see them again.
Bowling started at about 10, and we got shoved onto a lane with three strangers. A mom, dad and little daughter. It ended up being pretty fun -- the dad was hilarious (yay Gustavo!), and they were all pretty fun.
It ended up being JR, Lou and I bowling. Jess, Shelli and Julie all chickened-out for various lame reasons. But that's fine, they still came and hung out! The bowling was fun (at one point, we started a rousing game of left-handed bowling), the company was great, and the music was terrible. Horrible. I thought karaoke at Howie's on Wed was bad -- this was worse. I forgot how bad the music from the 80s was. :-P
A handful of inside jokes later...
I managed to straggle home about 2am. But this time my liver was fully intact (I only had like 3 beers), so I don't feel so bad today. :-P Got back to my place, checked mail, crashed.
Today's plan is to work on the house with dad for a while (more electrical stuff), and hopefully go around and fill some more nail holes (yes, I am still finding places to hit). In fact, dad just got here, so I'm gonna sign off.
Have a good one!
I'm jealous. My weekend has totally sucked. A big storm front came through
Memphis (along with a tornado watch), triggering massive migraines for me (and reactivating the vestibular problems). I've been in pain and trying not to throw up all weekend. I hope that nobody else on this blog ever has to endure this.
Luckily, this weather should only last one more day, then I stand of chance of returning to less devastating migraines.
On the plus side, this week I wrote a geometric optics simulation program for another professor in a couple of days. It works perfectly on the Mac (which he uses in the classroom) and the PC (in our student computer lab). REALbasic to the rescue again!
Oh, I forgot the other good thing: The email from Apple that my MacBook will arrive on Wednesday! I'm really excited -- a faster notebook and a faster hard drive space with more space. My PowerBook will now be permanently attached to my electronic keyboard to run Reason 3 synthesizer software. A new woodwind controller will arrive in about 2 weeks, and I'll be able to make music again!
Oh. What was the song that I was trying to sing, but really just came out a bunch of jibberish?!?!?!
@Jess -- that would be "Summer Lovin" and it wasn't jibberish. It sounded more like a long-dead rendition of some forgotten language. It had a tinge of being human, but not much. LoL :-P
Not _all_ music from the 80's sucked. At least 0.3% of it was pretty good. I think the 90's may have been even worse, but it's hard to tell when the stats are that bad to begin with.
Much of the problem stems from the fact that the record labels have formularized and standardized much of what they release and what is played on the radio. Everybody sounds about the same. This is still true. This trend is what almost killed music in the 60's (the formula "teen idols", then formula "hippie-like" groups, who were all "me-too" music minus the talent). What saved music then, as it will now, are groups and songwriters with wholly unique and new styles who sound like absolutely nobody else.