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Warning: I'm just talking hockey today.

Well, having been burned a few times already by seemingly certain reports that the NHL lockout was over, I'm taking a cautious approach to the news that a deal between the league and the players' union to end this stupid thing is imminent.

Sure, you take it with a big bag of rock salt when the news comes from Larry Brooks (registration required) or the comically optimistic Eklund. But columnists Damien Cox in the Toronto Star and Mike Ulmer of the Toronto Sun both wrote Tuesday of the light at the end of the Zamboni tunnel. Bob McKenzie of TSN warned Monday of factions within the player ranks that could still scuttle the deal. But all are saying a deal could come within a matter of weeks or even days. Although I do find it interesting that the reporters for the Canadian publications chose not to write anything about these latest "developments." Maybe they figure it's not news until something actually happens.

So should a deal be struck in June, what will the NHL be returning to? For one, the fans that care the most about hockey are probably the ones that are the most bitter about the lockout. Forget about the casual fans who have migrated to the NBA, poker, or the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee. The real fans are the ones who have taken it on the chin here. And though they may talk tough now, I bet the majority of them will return to the game when it finally does return. Supposedly the league plans to roll out a bunch of rule changes and gimmicks designed to improve the game and win the fans back. I'd like to see more offense, but not at the expense of the integrity of the game. The bottom line is, both sides need to get back on the ice and out of the boardroom. Because the longer the NHL is gone, the less it's missed.

One sign that hockey may be back soon: Buccigross wrote a new column. Surprise, surprise, he's lobbying for Cam Neely to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Of course, I wholeheartedly agree with him. Neely combined finesse and ferocity in a package that was awesome to behold.

The Toronto Star has a nice feature on one of hockey's great mysteries: the death of Bill Barilko. If you're Canadian and over 30, you probably know the tale by heart. Barilko scored the Cup-winning OT goal for the Leafs in 1951 to defeat Montreal, immortalized in a classic photo that shows Barilko falling to the ice as his shot sails over goalie Gerry McNeil's outstretched blocker. In the offseason, Barilko went on a fishing trip and was never seen again. He and his pilot remained missing until 1962, when searchers found the wreckage of his plane. Canuck rockers The Tragically Hip wrote a song about the crash 30 years later, stoking the interest of a new generation of fans. The new story tells of a group that was the first to revisit the crash site in 43 years. The reason for the crash remains unknown, although many rumors abounded for years, including one involving smuggling gold from a nearby mine. Some things are just destined to go unanswered.

Run to the Hills

As another long weekend quickly comes to an end, I wanted to send out some major congrats to my brother-in-law Matt, who finished his first marathon yesterday. He ran the Vermont City Marathon in beautiful Burlington in a respectable 4:33, a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that he only really started running seriously about a year ago. Damn, it took me about four years until I dared try a marathon. But it didn't come easy to him, like all those stories about people who just decide to run on a whim and finish in three hours. Matt has worked hard to lose about 80 pounds in the last couple of years, in addition to working full-time and being a dad to two young sons. Very impressive. The marathon wound around downtown Burlington and we (me, Deb and the girls, and Matt's wife Tricia and their two boys) spent the whole time in Battery Park and nearby Waterfront Park, where we were able to spot Matt four times while also entertaining the kids. It helped that it was a nice day, temps in the 60s with occasional sun. Matt looked good at the 15-mile mark and was on a 4:00 pace, but as it turned out, he started having knee problems around mile 16 and struggled the rest of the way. But in the end, he did it, and that's all that matters.

My buddy Rick Johnson also ran the VCM and came in at 3:30, so mad props to him as well. I have to admit I got a little wistful out there watching all the runners, since I was supposed to be running this race, too, until injuries kept me from having enough time to train. The woman to whom I sold my number, Heidi Patel, was running her first marathon and finished in 3:56. I was glad to see the number didn't go to waste.

Next up, hopefully Matt and I will get accepted to run the New York City Marathon in November. We find out in two weeks if we get in.

Other stuff as I ponder the link between blogging and my kids crying way past their bedtimes:

• I know it's shocking, but apparently Dennis Rodman will do anything for attention.
• The top single in the U.K. is a frickin' ringtone, beating out Coldplay for the top spot. Back when we were at Webnoize, my good pal OJ wrote an article about how the sale of downloadable ringtones were going to be big business. At the time, they were only popular in Europe, but they've caught on somewhat here. Obviously, they're still more popular across the pond if people will pay to hear an animated frog doing a cover of Harold Faltermeyer's Axel F (you know, the instrumental from "Beverly Hills Cop") . Ringtones reportedly are a $5 billion business worldwide. As for Coldplay, they just don't do it for me.
• A little hockey talk because, well, somebody's got to do it. Sad to hear that John D'Amico, longtime NHL linesman, died Sunday night. I'll always remember a photo of him covered in blood, breaking up a fight between Boston's Stan Jonathan and Montreal's Pierre Bouchard in a 1970s playoff game. In other news, a New Jersey legislator seeks to get the New Jersey Devils to change the team's nickname because of its devilish nature. Stoopid. And in more great news for the NHL, ESPN declined its option to carry NHL games next season. Looks like a ploy to get a reduced rate, which will probably work.

Here Comes the Flood

It's almost June and it's 40 freakin' degrees out. We've got some serious global colding going on. Here in New England, we've been in the throes of a Nor'easter the last few days: temps in the 40s, 50 mph winds, sheets of rain. Pretty lousy.

Deb just got back from a few days in Jacksonville for the funeral of her uncle, who died over the weekend. She noted that it was the first time I've been home alone overnight with the kids, which didn't seem possible and yet was true. The toughest part was getting them both ready for preschool/daycare in the morning; usually Deb and I tag team them and it still isn't easy. Then I had to truck them over to Malden to drop them off at Deb's school and then drive to Marblehead to work. Fortunately, a friend and co-worker of Deb's helped out by bringing them home for us; otherwise, I would have had to leave work at 2 to go pick them up. At any rate, it's good to have Deb back in the hizzy.

What is up:

• Getting psyched for the Memorial Day long weekend. We're heading up to Vermont to watch Deb's brother Matt run his first marathon, the Vermont City Marathon. The very same race I had signed up to do before my Achilles problems put me on the shelf for most of the winter. Hopefully, it won't be raining up there. Five straight weekends of rain in enough already.
• The Crue is in a litigious mood after NBC banned them from appearing on the network again after Vince Neil dropped an f-bomb live on the air on New Year's Eve. I don't really get the point of the whole thing. It's not like they're showing up on TV that much, anyway. When was the last time they were on network TV, 1989?
• Phil Spector's trial has begun and he's pulling out all the stops. Dude looks like he was separated at birth with this classic TV character.
• I was glad to hear that the only season of the great unsung series Undeclared will be out on DVD in August. Created by the same dudes who came up with Freaks and Geeks a few years earlier, Undeclared was not nearly as poignant but pretty damn funny in its own right.
• I haven't gotten into the whole bit torrent scene, but it looks like the feds are cracking down on movie downloading through bit torrent sites. Just another case of the Man trying to keep us down.
• A band I want to check out in more depth is System of a Down, who just topped the Billboard charts with their latest album. I caught them on SNL a few weeks back and they sounded pretty good. I had always lumped them into the nu metal camp with Korn and Limp Triscuit, but they definitely have more substance to them than those other mooks.
• The podcasting phenomenon is growing, and it got a big boost this week from Steve Jobs, who announced that the next version of iTunes will support podcasts. Essentially, what this means is you'll be able to locate and download podcasts using iTunes. Right now, I use software called iPodder to do that, and then load the podcasts into iTunes, from which I transfer them onto my iPod. I subscribe to seven podcasts, which means I usually have something new to listen to every day. Since my radio doesn't work in the 98, I use my cassette adapter to listen to podcasts to and from work.
• The yapping continues between the NHL and players' union. Just let me know if you come to an agreement, gents. Rumor has it the league has set a mid-June deadline for cancelling next season because a lot of its big sponsors say they'll take their business elsewhere if there isn't a deal in place by then. So hopefully, the two sides will get their shizz together. All I know is, a year ago today, the Calgary Flames beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 in game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. What a difference a year makes.

This Note's for You

First off, a happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Deb. She takes solace in the fact that she'll always be younger than me. Dammit. But seriously, folks, she rules and I hope she knows that.

Okay, enough with the sappy stuff. On with the blogination:

• It's May 18. The weather still feels like November most of the time, chilly and crappy and depressing. We finally got our first softball games of the year in last Sunday after having practices and games rained out the previous three weekends. And we still ended up freezing our butts off on Sunday.
• The latest radio format foisted on the world by nitwit programmers is called "Mike." Or "Jack." Essentially, it's radio's response to the popularity of the iPod Shuffle; the concept is "we play everything," just like your iPod. In Boston, disco station Star 93.7 was replaced by MIKE-FM, which according to its web site does the following: "Mike is everything you would download if you had time to download. Mike plays EVERYTHING...from Donna Summer to the Doobies, Abba to Aerosmith, Journey to Janet, Beatles to Bananarama." Sounds like they've combined the station' s past two formats, disco and classic rock. I'll stick with my iPod, thanks.
• The rock reunions roll on. Gang of Four just played Boston Monday night and I was thinking of going but ultimately decided not to. But judging from OJ's review, I definitely missed out. Looks like it's still a no-go for a Husker Du reunion, according to Grant Hart, who was a key cog in that classic trio but who apparently still doesn't get along with Bob Mould, who's readying a solo album. The two played a few songs together last fall at a benefit, getting everyone's hopes up, but it ends there. For now. But another classic band from the late '70s/early '80s that's touring this year is Devo. They've actually been playing together occasionally over the years, including a handful of shows last year, but they've announced more tour dates this summer, although none in Boston as of yet. Break out your flower pot hat and your yellow jumpsuit!
• Speaking of great bands, the MP3 of the week (the way I've been posting lately, maybe it should be the MP3 of Every Other Week. Sheesh!) is from a great Australian band, the Hoodoo Gurus. Formed in 1981, the Hoodoos combined elements of rock, pop and surf into an appealing sound that propelled albums like Mars Needs Guitars, Blow Your Cool, Magnum Cum Louder and Kinky. They had a number of minor radio hits stateside, including 1989's Come Anytime off Magnum Cum Louder. The band kept plugging away until 1998, when they split up, but reunited last year to record a new album, Mach Schau, and start touring again. I guess it's all about getting the band back together these days.

The Lines You Amend

Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs. Man, I don't know how those daily bloggers do it. I actually tried to write this post Tuesday night but couldn't access Blogger, which as I found out later, was shut down for maintenance. Whatevah.

So we've gone three straight weekends with nothing but rain. My softball team has had two practices and our first doubleheader washed out. Our next games are scheduled for Sunday and wouldn't you know it, the forecast calls for pain. I mean, rain. But with the rain would also come pain.

Pain.

Anyhoo, I'm finally healthy after a couple of weeks of feeling absolutely miserable, what with the coughing and the stuffiness and the pinkeye and the GLAAAAAYVEN. I played hockey again last night after a few weeks off, so I'm pretty wiped today. I continued running all along, although I didn't push it by trying to do a long run of 7 or 8 miles. Maybe this weekend, although the rain could put the proverbial kibosh on that.

Words, words:

• Bill Gates says the iPod's popularity won't last. Wishful thinking, perhaps? One theory is that Apple may be planning to stop manufacturing the iPod and just license that out, to focus on the massive success of iTunes. Makes sense when you think about it. Meanwhile, mobile phone makers like Ericsson and Nokia are introducing cell phones with increased hard drive storage to hold many more songs. Who knows, maybe they're on to something. The kids love the cell phones, and if it plays as many songs as an iPod Mini, why not go with one device?
• Think Comedy Central regrets signing Dave Chappelle to a $50 million contract last year? Dude just checked into a mental hospital in South Africa, according to Entertainment Weekly. Dayamn. I hope he gets his shizz together and gets back on the air, but you've gotta figure something is very wrong with him right now.
• This story is amazing. Vikings running back Onterrio Smith is busted at the airport with a white powdery substance that turns out to be...dried urine. Which came as part of a kit called The Whizzinator that supposedly helps one pass drug tests. But that's not all: the kit comes with a fake penis that the user brandishes while filling a cup with bogus tinkle. Wow.
• The World Hockey Championships have moved into the semifinals. Today in the quarters, Canada edged Slovakia, 5-4, on a Joe Thornton goal late in the third; the Czech Republic knocked off the U.S. in a shootout, Sweden nipped Switzerland and Russia beat Finland in the other games. This sets up Canada-Russia and Sweden-Czech on Saturday. Of course, we hockey fans in the U.S. (all 12 of us) can't watch a second of it on TV because ESPN's more concerned with poker. Of course, the way the NHL's powers-that-be are bitching up the game, who can blame ESPN for looking for viable alternatives to hockey? Still sucks, though.

Aiight, I'm beat. I'll be back in a day or two to rock some MP3s for you.

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.

Red Lenses

Right about now, I'd be hitting the ice in Concord (Mass.) for a good 90-minute skate, but I'm on the shelf tonight with a case of conjunctivitis in both eyes. I could have gone and played with my glasses on instead of my contacts, since I wear a full cage, but I figured it was probably smarter to just relax and get better. I went to the doctor today and gots me some drops, so it should all clear up in the next few days. Too bad, though, because the Wednesday night skates have been a blast so far.

Still managed to get a 5-mile run in this morning on the treadmill, just because I didn't want to get caught out in the rain. Normally, I'd be outside but I didn't want my glasses to get all wet.

And here's the rest of wha' hoppen:

• Got together last Saturday with the Webnoize crew--Ric, Dave, Lee, OJ and Amy--plus a couple of my Daily Grind email buddies, Bob and Justin, at River Gods in Cambridge. Cool little bar. Bob brought me copies of two short films he made in which I "acted": the DVD of "Ninja Zombie Explosion" and a VHS copy of "Men's Group Massacre." Bob's been making these little spoof horror movies for years; improvised, inexpensive, and usually pretty damn funny. We shot MGM last October in the woods behind his house in Worcester, but I was one of the first to leave and I never saw the finished product until now. Turned out really great. After we ate and drank for a while, Dave, OJ and I went to the Middle East to catch the Mudhoney show. The Konks, featuring Kurt Davis of Bullet Lavolta fame, opened up but didn't impress me. Mudhoney, however, sounded great. A little more detached than usual, but still rockin'. They played 80 minutes of mostly hits, since they don't have a new album out. I was so tired by the time the show ended at 12:40, I was just glad I managed to stay awake on the drive home.
• The new White Stripes single, "Blue Orchid," kicks major butt. You can find it here for the time being. Looking forward to their new album.
• We watched Manhunter over the weekend, which is the original movie version of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, which was remade in 2002 with Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins. The original featured CSI's William Petersen and Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor (as it is spelled in that movie). Directed by Michael Mann in 1986, Manhunter is definitely dated somewhat with the "Miami Vice" pastels (that show as also created by Mann) and cheesy Italian suits and skinny ties. But it's much more effective in getting inside the mind of the FBI agent and the serial killer he's chasing. Of course, Silence of the Lambs came along five years later and was amazing.
• We also rented The Passion of the Christ, which was about as violent a movie as I've ever seen. I'm not squeamish about violence, either; I like violent movies when they're done right. But this really was gratuitous to the point of overkill. The entire movie is essentially Jesus getting flayed to a bloody pulp by various soldiers and others. Definitely not for those with delicate constitutions.
• Hannah's 3rd birthday is Friday; the celebration has lasted a few weeks and I think when all is said and done, she'll have had four cakes. Of course, she only eats the frosting, but still, that's a lot of cake. My mom is going to be here for the weekend, so that will be good.

Working for the Weekend

Another week has flown by and here we are on Friday night. Of course, it helps when you have a short week, but usually that just means more work crammed into fewer days. On Wednesday, the temps hit the mid-80s to give us a tease of summer before we dropped back down into the 50s yesterday.

Actually ran 15 miles this week and felt good on every one of them. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it's nice to be back on the road on a regular basis.

Oh, and another thing:

• So it turns out the "finger in the Wendy's chili" incident was a hoax. The cops arrested the woman who claimed she found the digit. Turns out she has a history of suing restaurants. Wendy's should sue her sorry ass, not just for lost sales but for making the whole chain a laughing stock.
• I didn't have a problem with Detroit Free-Press sports columnist Mitch Albom until he started writing sappy shizz like "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." Well, turns out he's in some hot water for apparently writing a column about a Michigan State hoops game 24 hours before it happened; he wrote that two former MSU players now in the NBA (Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson) had flown in for the game. Only problem was, despite telling Albom they planned to go, both players never went to the game. Now the Free-Press has suspended Albom while it investigates the rest of his columns to make sure no other fabrications have occurred. Chalk it up to life in the post-Jayson Blair era. Granted, it's not as bad as what this jackass did, but still, you can't be making stuff up.
• Back when I was at UNH, one of my roommates had a buddy at Dartmouth who knew a fellow student named Jay Kumar who was also an English major. I believe this is the other Jay Kumar. Actually, if you do a Google search, there's a ton of guys with my name out there. But this guy has also gone into specialty journalism: he's an expert on bass fishing. Hey, somebody's gotta be. Seriously, I first heard of him when a guy I worked with brought in a bass fishing magazine and asked me if I was doing some writing on the side. Nope. Now he's also written a book about Bigfoot. Pretty cool. Don't worry: my book will be out sometime in 2012.
• One of my fave power-pop acts, Sloan, is coming out with a greatest-hits collection. All of which is a bit puzzling to fans like myself and Dr. Doobs; why would a band that doesn't really have any hits (in the U.S., anyway) put out a hits compilation that will have a limited appeal at best? We'd both rather see a B-sides album, because the band could definitely sell a bunch of those to its fan base. My guess is it's a record company idea; at least it's coming with a bonus DVD. And even better, the band is supposedly touring behind it, which is always a good thing. The site I linked to above has a video for one of the new cuts on the hits album.
• My main man Briggy has revampified his Internet home page, turning it into what he calls a "non-blog." Visit early and often for Angry Dave's insights and observations. But remember: it's not a blog.

All right, go on with your bad self.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Ah, it's Marathon Monday, also known as Patriots Day in these parts. The last few weeks I had a lot of people asking me if I was running the Boston Marathon this year, which of course led me into the whole explanation of my foot injuries and PT and all that. For the most part, I'm glad I'm not running it, but I did get a little wistful for the heady days of '02 and '03 when I was watching all the marathon coverage this morning. Even if I was in condition to run, I had planned to run in Vermont next month instead of Boston. Now I'm hoping to get picked in the lottery for the NYC Marathon in November. And I'm feeling pretty good. I ran 5 miles last Friday for the first time since October, and ran another five this morning at an even faster clip with no pain.

It was another warm marathon, although not as bad as last year's 85-degree nightmare. Temps were in the 70s, much like they were when I ran it two years; I ended up severely dehydrated and cramping for the last six miles of the race. I had a couple of friends running today and took the day off from work, but I ended up spending it at home with Deb and the girls, who are home for April vacation. I followed my friends' progress online through the marathon's athlete tracking feature. Everybody finished, but it looked like the heat and possibly injuries may have slowed them down a bit.

In other news...

• Hannah's 3rd birthday bash was held Saturday, even though her actual birthday isn't for two more weeks. The party had a princess theme and everyone seemed to have a blast. Especially Lily, who did her best to keep up with the other kids.
• We upgraded our cell phones today to sweet new Samsung flip phones with camera, text messaging, and all that other cool crap I never had on my old phone. Not that I ever use my phone that much, but it's nice to have, I guess.
• Tough times at the Boston Herald, where they're in the middle of some serious job cuts. I've got a few friends over there who I think are safe for now, but the paper has already seen some big names, including columnist Mike Barnicle, either leave or cut back their positions. I've been reading both the Globe and Herald nearly every day for the last 16 years or so, since I was a young newspaper reporter at the Peabody Times (R.I.P.). I always liked the Herald as a brash tabloid counterpoint to the Globe's stodgier broadsheet. In recent months, the Herald has grown trashier, focusing less on the hard news it used to consistently break before the Globe and turning to gossip and sensational stories to sell papers. Obviously, it's not working well enough to save a bunch of jobs. Of course, the Globe has other things to deal with, like freelancers fabricating stories. Ouch.
• So after a few weeks sans MP3s, I gots my shiz together and have some rock for ya. I'm reaching back to my Canuck roots for this band, the weird and wacky Max Webster. The band (no member was actually named Max Webster) got its start in Toronto in the mid-70s, led by skinny singer and guitar master Kim Mitchell, who had a penchant for unitards, lightning-quick solos, and onstage rock leaps. The band played a wild mix of hard rock, bizarre time changes, symphonic synth-driven mid-tempo stuff and the occasional ballad; kind of like a combo of Rush, Zappa, and Steely Dan. Throw in the off-kilter musings of lyricist Pye Dubois (who later co-wrote "Tom Sawyer," among other things, for Rush) and the band's reportedly crazy live show (I was too young to ever see them), and you've got a left-of center band. They opened for Rush on several tours in the U.S. and elsewhere, but never made much of an impact on the charts. The band released five studio albums and a live album between 1975-81 (all are available as imports through Amazon); they broke up while on tour in the U.S. in 1981. Apparently, Mitchell had had enough and just called it quits. A year later, he launched a fairly successful (and much more mainstream sounding) solo career in Canada that included a few FM radio hits in the U.S.: 1985' s Go for Soda (which was used by Mothers Against Drunk Driving in its campaigns, even though the same album included a song extolling the virtues of Lager and Ale) and 1989's Rock and Roll Duty. They briefly reunited for a few gigs in Canada in 1996 and were rumored to be recording a new album, but nothing ever came of it. Anyhoo, here's a double shot for ya: an early classic from their first album called Here Among the Cats and an awesome blast of rock power from the Universal Juveniles album on which they teamed with Rush for a band vs. band monster called Battle Scar. I really dug these guys and still do; I only wish I'd gotten to see them live.

Tangled Up in Plaid

Whassa happenin', hot stuff? So here's what's up:

• We got a new computer last week from Dell. Way overdue. We didn't splurge or anything, but we got a flat-screen monitor, DVD and CD-RW drives, an 80-gig hard drive (our old one was 4.3 gigs), and a new printer. Pretty sweeeeeeet.
• One of the first things I did was to reconfigure my iPod onto this computer instead of my work PC. Of course, this meant the iPod was wiped clean of nearly 10 gigs of music, which sucked. Fortunately, I have the majority of it backed up on CD-R. Although I've started to use this as an opportunity to put some different stuff on. I've begun ripping a bunch of different CDs instead of reloading the Radiohead, Nirvana, VH catalogs.
• I've also been exploring the world of podcasts. Pioneered last summer by former poodle-haired MTV veejay Adam Curry, podcasting is essentially audio blogging. Wannabe DJs are creating shows about whatever they're interested in--indie rock, baseball, Catholicism, some guy even has a podcast about his daily trips to the bathroom--and making them available for download. You can listen to podcasts on your computer's media player or yes, even your iPod. You can use apps like iPodder (developed by Curry himself) to subscribe to podcasts and download the latest episodes for listening. Of course, movie studios and other corporate entities are getting in on the act, launching podcasts to promote upcoming movies and products. It's definitely more complicated than just doing the blog thing; you need to have decent sound equipment, a degree of technical expertise, and well, time. I'd love to do one, but I barely have time to post to this Internet destination once or twice a week. If you're so inclined, check out some of this shiz; it's pretty cool. Like everything else these days, there's a lot of crap amongst the good stuff, but that's okay.
• Watched Kill Bill, Vol. 2 last week. What a great freakin' movie. Not as insanely over-the-top as Kill Bill, Vol. 1, but rather a slower-paced, thoughtful conclusion to the saga of the Bride (supoibly played by Uma Thurman). I love the first movie for its martial arts overkill, but as a whole, I like how Tarantino tied the story together with the second movie. Someday I'll watch them both together in one sitting. Someday...
• The Jays are off to a good start for a change. After disastrous Aprils the last two years, they're 4-2 after the first week of the season, taking two of three from the defending world champeen Red Sox last weekend. Of course, nobody really cared around here because the Sox got their World Series rings today. But I'll enjoy the good times while they last, which probably won't be for very long.
• Mark my words: the robots are taking over. Don't believe me? Check THIS out. Okay, now head for the hills.
• Maybe I'm a bit sensitive, but how do you not notice when a leech has made its way up your freakin' nose? Just asking.
• More later. The MP3 of the Week will return just as soon as I download the appropriate software and do the uploading of the music, etc., etc.

Que Ondo Guero
Okay, so I missed a few days. C'est la vie.

Wanted to give a so-called "shout out," if you will, to my good buddy Briggy, who celebrates his 40th today. The whole family attended a fine birthday party Saturday night at the Newton manse of the aforementioned Briggy; it was good to see my old WebNozie partners in crime Dr. Doobs, OJ and Amy, and Lee and his wife Mary Helen. Hannah and Lily had a blast running around with all the other kids. We figured it was time to leave when Lily tried to climb the stairs and fell on her head (she was fine).

Speaking of Lily, she walks 90% of the time now, and fast, too. The kid's into everything.

Speaking of birthdays, my brother hits the big Larry Bird tomorrow (33, if you need to ask), so mad props go out to him as well. Also, my brother-in-law Steve also has his birthday tomorrow.

Wanted to check in really quick. More later. Seriously.