What have I been up to, you ask? Well, working mostly of course, thanks for inquiring. But here and there, in betwixt, I’ve done a few interesting things. {Andrew} and I went to a decent concert at the Cat’s Cradle a few Mondays ago. The headliners were the Electric Six who are probably most famous for the very humorous “I wanna take you to a gay bar” (this is an even funnier third-party video using their song, circa 2003). They were pretty good, but honestly better were their opening acts. The Blue Van is a really good Danish modern-day classic rock band, akin to Led Zeppelin or The Doors. It’s not normally something I spend much time listening to but I could definitely appreciate their talent.

Aberdeen City were the true standouts for me though. It’s somewhat hard to categorize them: a bit Interpol-ish but more like early Radiohead. I picked up their CD and it is pretty damn good, especially for just $10. I did make one fairly large blunder though; I forgot my earplugs. We were standing fairly close to the stage and were too close to the left speaker and I had ringing for days. This was worse and longer than my previous run in and it scared the crap outta me. Seriously, I had resigned myself to a life of slightly impaired hearing and it was a sad few days there. Fortunately it did fade away but I have to be way more careful — there’s a set of earplugs in my car now, just in case.

The following night I went to my first AV Geeks event. This one was titled “Stop Driving Us Crazy” and was a collection of 1940-1960s era driver education and safety films. Matt and Julie went as well, and while the attendance was low it was still pretty odd, humorous, and fun. I guess the main oddity occurs because of the huge gap in the social norms of then and now. Last Friday AV Geeks had their Science Fair for the founder Skip’s birthday. He encouraged people to bring in psuedo and/or movie science projects, which ranged from “how to grow an abnormally large bat” (strategically placed high voltage) to “what effects do meteorites have on plant growth” (oh no, what have I created?). Matt and Jules were again in attendance, along with Ian and Molly. Ian used to be a roommate/collaborator of Skip’s… yes, Raleigh is a small place.

Other than that, a few dinners with various friends and working on the house. I walked with Team Zillah for awareness of Ovarian Cancer a couple weeks ago to support a surviving friend. And I’ve decided to go ahead and install a second zone A/C system upstairs in my house. I’ve had 2+ years of window-unit A/C and wall-unit heating and that’s plenty. So it’ll help my comfort and very likely increase the value and saleability of the house: win-win. Now I’ve just got to get a contractor to call me back, dangnabit!