Healing Walk Number 1 (of many more to come)

28 degrees and clear - the stars were out tonight and the city lights reflected off of the mountains to the east.

I got home from work tonight just in time to see Lisa yelling at Malley and kicking him in the bum on his way out the back door. She was not pleased. She directed my attention down the stairs to the basement and there it was, one of Sadie's poopy diapers, chewed up and torn to shreds all over the carpeted hallway. Hence the need for one of O'Malley and my "healing walks."

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to go through my dad's sweet record collection. Two records in particular got a lot of spins from me: Billy Joel's The Nylon Curtain and Queen's A Night At The Opera. I sometimes wonder if my parents ever overheard me dramatically belting out the words to Goodnight Siagon and grinned to eachother. And my sister and I knew all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody even before it was made cool again by Wayne's World.

I think the 70's are emerging prominently as a influence to several big bands these days. Think Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown and also Muse's The Resistance. During tonight's walk, I was rocking out to my favorite Muse song yet: United States of Eurasia/ Collateral Damage. Listen at least to the 1:18 mark and you will totally hear the layered Queen-style guitars.



Lisa and I are way excited to see these guys in concert in April!

Later on in the walk, I rocked out to some Ben Folds. I like to think of him as my generation's Billy Joel. A story-teller singer songwriter. He's sometimes sarcastic and sometimes sincere. Sometimes snarky and sometimes sweet. I liked the first few Ben Fold's Five albums but, in my opinion, the best came with his solo record Rockin' The Suburbs. How cool is my wife, Lisa? She was down with having our first dance on our wedding day be to Ben Fold's The Luckiest.



Our wedding video also rocked some Blink-182 and Ben Lee!

Well, after a nice walk on a clear night thinking about the greatest dad and the greatest wife in world, O'Malley is forgiven. I think the healing walk was a success. We are buds... until the inevitable next incident.

Cloud Cult - The Meaning of 8

37 degrees and sprinkling - reminds me of winter back home

I was almost all the way to the A&W before this album started up and I'm afraid I have to refuse admiting what was playing before then. After all, this is the very first post.

Cloud Cult is a pretty recent addition to my music collection thanks to Aric at work. I have gotten way into their Feel Good Ghosts album. So with a Christmas gift card from Doug, I downloaded this older album. The thing that is way cool about these guys is you really don't know what to expect as a new song starts up. Some are beat-heavy, some are acoustic, some distorted, and sometimes the whole mood changes several times within the same song. I made it through the first 5 and 1/2 songs before getting back home and I am already a fan with 13 songs left on the album! Please, please listen to Chemicals Collide:



Love it like me? Hate it? Perhaps I will report back later with my thoughts and feelings on the rest.

Peace.