We didn’t already have enough records. Oh no, not by a long shot. So we had to claim an extra couple hundred that my friend and ex-roomie Dan was clearing out of a storage shed while visiting his family at Lake Norman this weekend. And we ended up not only taking his stuff, but his dad’s as well…
We’ll be digitizing ’til 2008, but there was definitely some good stuff…
132 and Bush revealed…
Last night around 1AM, it was finally made clear to me — after many years of curiosity not quite bordering on obsession — that the famed intersection from the closing credits of Cops is in fact located in Portland, Oregon, and that the soundbite comes from a second-season episode featuring an officer chasing a surly juvenile delinquent around the southeast part of town…
Now I can go on with my life and maybe even get a job…
Damn. I already miss the boy like crazy, and then I read this and it gets me all sniffly on a Monday morning. Come home soon, m’love…
I did my Charlotte research for Groceteria yesterday afternoon at the main library downtown. No, wait. That’s “Uptown”. Nope, that’s not it either. In “Center City”. Yeah. That’s the ticket. Anyway, I was very happy to find that (a) several parking garages are free on the weekends, and (b) Fuel Pizza at 6th and College is open on Sunday. The latter made me especially happy, since I hadn’t realized how long I’d be in the library and neglected to eat before I went…
And yes, I was geeky and entered every address into a spreadsheet last night after getting home. To coin a phrase: I love “spending (my) free time doing things which uncomfortably resemble work for most of the world.” Yes, we very much ARE meant for each other, thanks…
OK. Back to job hunting…
Now don’t think for a moment that I don’t miss Mark a lot since he left on his two-week road trip this weekend. Tonight, however, I was able to get my mind off it very successfully because I have — after thirteen years — finally been reunited with my vinyl. And this is a truly wonderful thing…
I never brought the records west with me. There was just too much stuff and I never really had a way to do it. So they’ve been in the closet of my childhood bedroom in Greensboro since 1992. Until now…
Having been heavily involved in the college radio thing during the early 1980s, I have a fairly interesting collection of stuff, much of which never made it to CD. In addition, I have copies of old syndicated radio shows from the period, like “Rock Over London” and the “BBC College Concert”. And I found tapes of my old radio broadcasts which I’d though were lost forever…
Let the digitizing begin. Anybody wanna sponsor me if I start an internet radio station?
My current big project (aside from moving) involves organizing and burning to DVD hundreds of music videos I’ve recorded over the years from old standbys like MTV and VH-1, and such gone but not forgotten sources as “Night Flight” on USA and “Night Tracks” on TBS, among others…
I’m also interspersing them where possible with nice, new clean copies recorded from VH-1 Classic. It was on that channel yesterday that I was reminded of my FIRST music video project back in 1982, when I got my first Beta format VCR. I managed to catch “It’s Raining Again” by Supertramp, which was the very first music video I taped on the old Beta VCR at age 17…
As I remember, I taped it the first time from HBO, along with “Our Lips Are Sealed” by the Go-Gos and “Allentown” by Billy Joel. HBO used to run music videos between movies. Those were the pre-MTV days on most cable systems, and you sort of grabbed these things where you could find them…
If I weren’t so sleepy, I might write about dinner and record-buying last Saturday night with Dan the Ska Librarian, or dying Easter eggs with Mark yesterday morning, of the nifty new newspaper and magazine article database I’m working on, or the new G5 I’ll be getting next week, or maybe even about some of the thoughts I’m having on how I’ll no longer be living in San Francisco in a little over two months…
But I AM so sleepy, so I’ll just yawn and go back to my movie, hoping I can stay awake to the end…
The coolest thing about the new Brady Bunch season box sets is that the episodes have cool artifacts like the “in color” intros and the original Paramount logo and music…
Alas, they still seem to be missing the “back after these messages” bumpers which featured a different cast member’s voice each week and ran at the end of act two…
Am I a really big ol’ geek for remembering this stuff from my childhood?
Y’know, if it doesn’t involve another design change nor an additional 15 or 20 years of waiting for the damned thing to be built, I’m just as happy as a clam to have the Bay Bridge named in honor of Emperor Norton…
And while I’m still reading today’s paper, I feel compelled again to mention how Tim Goodman just gets it, completely and totally:
But I realized, as I bought a bunch of TV series on DVD that I’d already seen, that it’s not about the watching. It’s about the owning. Rare is the person who says, “I’m going to buy the first season of ‘The Simpsons’ out of curiosity. But not the next four years. And not the 12 to come.” Ours is not that culture. “I really loved the first two seasons of ‘The Sopranos,’ but I wouldn’t dare buy the next three seasons. Oh my, no. Who has the time?”
As consumers, most of us say, “I’ll take all four of these seasons and I’d like to be wait-listed for Season 5 and the yet-to-be-shot Season 6. Here’s my Visa with Uncle Junior and Bacala on the front.”
Americans are collectors. And worse, completists. Count me among you.
Me too…
This was our big day to tour Charlotte, our potential new home. We hit most of the important and essential neighborhoods, from Fourth Ward to NoDa, from Elizabeth to Plaza-Midwood, and from Dilworth to Chantilly. And, of course, we made the annual pilgrimage to the intersection of Queens and Queens and Providence and Providence…
Being the geeks we are, we also made our way to the Map Shop, not to mention several assorted supermarkets. It’s always nice to be someplace other than the Bay Area, where the supermarkets actually sell food and manage to keep it in stock. Imagine being able to buy bread and milk, even on a weekend. What a paradise compared to the Third World country where we currently live…
We saw the current round of modifications to always-changing Charlotte, including the latest construction (destruction?) surrounding the Independence Freeway, the new Coliseum downtown (which replaces the 16-year-old one southwest of downtown), and the startling, bulldozer-assisted redevelopment of inner South Boulevard, where my former favorite queer bar has somehow been left standing, and is now a very brightly-lit Dunkin’ Donuts…
After dinner, we saw a movie at some 68-plex somewhere near the beltway — henceforth referred to as the Outerbelt so as to distinguish it from the Innerbelt and Charlotte Highway 4. Charlotte roads are always an entertaining topic of conversation…
Lunch at Gus’ Sir Beef and dinner at the Bayou Kitchen. I was close to heaven…
Mmmm. Brand new Safeway…
