Lay it down, clown

What is up, mein freunds? Just checking in after a week of this, that, and the other thing. I ended up catching a nasty head/chest cold in addition to the pinkeye, so I'm feeling extry fine these days. Hannah had a good third birthday and capped it off by finally getting the hang of the potty training thing. It's great that she's into it, but we go into Defcon 5 alert when she tells us she has to go to the potty...to avoid any messy accidents elsewhere in the house.

Still waiting for the warm weather to arrive. We've had a couple of crappy, rainy weekends in a row, and the warmest we're getting during the week is the low-to-mid 60s. Maybe May will be better...

A veritable smorgasbord of stuff to talk about:

• This podcasting thing is starting to take off. Sirius just signed a deal with Adam Curry's Podshow.com to devote one of its satellite radio channels to a podcast-themed show. Curry is looking to bring advertisers into the fray to help serious podcasters make some cash while giving novice poddites free tools with which to get their shows off the ground. Some, however, resent Curry's attempt to monetize the podcast community, which initially at least was formed out of the desire to communicate, not make money. I, for one, think it's a good idea, because the big advertisers will be looking to do this, anyway. Podcasters might as well try to get a little sumfin' sumfin'.
• The World hockey championships have begun over in Switzerland. An annual event, it usually pales in comparison to the NHL playoffs and it uses players from NHL teams that either didn't make the playoffs or lost early. But this year the Worlds have a lot more cache because there are no NHL playoffs, meaning the various teams are stacked with talent. Some big names like Mario Lemieux, Joe Sakic and Mats Sundin have opted to stay on the sidelines, but there's still plenty of good young stars out there. Canada and the U.S. will face off on Thursday in what promises to be a good first-round battle. Alas, hockey fans in the U.S. are unable to watch the games on TV. But there is an alternative available via a European-based site that is webcasting the games for a fee. Check it out if you want to get a fix of quality hockey, possibly the last we'll see for many moons.
• I updated the blogroll to feature Get Levitation, a great MP3 blog that this week features a fascinating item about Led Zep guitar god Jimmy Page and his allegedly dubious history of reworking other people's songs and innovations and turning them into his own. That said, I've always been a huge Zep fan and always will be, but some of this stuff does make you wonder. Thanks to OJ for the tip.
• Speaking of MP3s, this week I'm featuring one of them so-called supergroups. Although this is one that most music fans probably haven't heard of. The Monkeywrench is an erstwhile side project of Mudhoney's Mark Arm and Steve Turner, who joined forces with Tim Kerr of Big Boys fame, Tom Price (the U-Men, Gas Huffer), and Martin Bland. The group only has two full-lengths out, 1992's Clean as a Broke-Dick Dog, and 2000's Electric Children. Basically, they only record in between their main gigs, and apparently they haven't been up to much the last few years. But their punkimafied blues rock is mighty tasty, indeed. Check out Call My Body Home and The Story As I Was Told from their first album. Enjoy some of the American good-rock.