Listen to the sound of my voice

Recently, I appeared as a "special guest" on a podcast over at OnTapKC, with my friends Corey and Beau. This is sort of ties in with Stone Week, as new beers coming to the KCMO area are discussed (albeit somewhat obliquely at times, we hit nearly ever tangent we can, including a brief time talking about the beer Lent guy). Below is a link to part 1, cleverly titled Abbey Road - Side A (it'll make sense if you read the description, I swear). Give it a listen (fair warning: bad words are said, many times, and there are adult situations), as I prepare myself mentally and physically for the marathon that will be the next few days as Stone takes over the city.

OnTapCast Episode 6: Abbey Road - Side A

Rural Alberta Advantage - Departing

I'm dusting off the cobwebs today to let everyone know about some wonderful music.

The Rural Alberta Advantage - Stamp from Saddle Creek on Vimeo.

Yeah that's awesome. Great video, great song. New stuff from Rural Alberta Advantage. They have a new album out, Departing (official release date is March 1, but you can "preorder" the digital edition, and download it now). It's damn good, so you should probably go get it right now. It's OK, I'll wait here.

Now, I will start off by saying something negative about it. It's a short album. The ten songs clock in just over 30 minutes. It's not a bad problem to have, I'd much rather have something come off too short as opposed to too long. Too short leaves you wanting more. Too long, you get bored. (This is actually the same way I felt with their Hometowns album too, these guys are good at leaving you wanting more.)

That's the only bad thing I can say about this album. It's great. It's follows Hometowns well, delivering the same sound, same "emotional without being emo" lyrics, and same Canadian-centric themes. I dig it. While I think Hometowns might have a song or two that are better individually, Departing is the better album, each song is solid. (I'd really love to listen to both albums back-to-back, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I think they'd flow together pretty well.) The highlights for me include "Stamp" (shown above), "Barnes' Yard," and "Goodnight," below, from SXSW a few year ago. Such a fantastic song. Enjoy it, get the album, listen, and enjoy it some more. If you're lucky enough to have them playing in your area, check them out. And if you have a place for me to crash, let me know and I'll join you.

(oh and PS - Amy Cole is super freaking adorable, she's my latest bandgirl crush. It's serious.)

Reading is the best

Since I'm stopping by here like once a month now, I figured I should do something. Here's one I stole from various spots.

I'm at 51. Really, they think most people will have only read six of these? Do people not go to school? I'm pretty sure at least half of those in bold were read before I was in tenth grade.

Granted, I read A LOT when I was in school, and still do. Reading is awesome. But still, only six?

***

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Bold those books you've read in their entirety; italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible - Author/s in Debate

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22- Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Travellers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchel

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath- Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina –Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Willaim Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martell

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On the Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson

74 Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - Charles Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

(sort of) Live Blogging the end of a season

(Don't forget to check Chris Goes Hoggin' and Bare Knuckle Writers for more [frequent] entertaining posts)

It's a sad time for me. The baseball season is nearing its end. (I'm writing during the 5th game, a damn great pitching match up so far, so this post could take a turn at any moment.) I think I'm going for the Giants, I love the city of San Francisco, and was there more recently than Arlington. I usually go for the American League when I don't have a dog in the fight, but in this one, I'm actually alright either way.

3-run shot by Edgar Renteria in the top of the 7th, this game is over.

I'm not ready for the baseball season to end. I remember watching the Yankees and Red Sox play the first game of the season back in April. While I only made it to a handful of Royals games, I watched many, many more on TV, and followed along in the office when I could.

I went to Opening Day at Kauffman Stadium, watched no-hitters, perfect games, an imperfect game, saw the National League win the All Star Game for the first time in almost 15 years and...

Solo home run by Nelson Cruz, maybe this isn't quite done.

Anyways. Royals didn't surprise anyone. Zack Greinke had a slight letdown from last season, but still showed brilliance. Billy Butler is still one of the best young hitters in the game, if he can keep maturing he'll be a freaking stallion. There's hope in the future. Moustakas, Hosmer, Montgomery, Duffy, et al. There were times when frustration came over me, and I was ready to give up on the team. Who was I kidding? I've been a fan of theirs for over 25 years. Mostly painful years, but still, I can't quit them. I've said it before, and I'll say it again here: I think the Royals can be in contention in 2012. They might not necessarily win the division, but they'll be close. Stuff like that gives me hope.

Going to the bottom of the 8th, still 3-1 Giants.

This will be the first season in probably close to a decade that I didn't go to a game anywhere other than Kansas City. And the first season in a few years that I didn't see the World Series champion play. Ah well, streaks are meant to end, I suppose.

I'm a sucker for those "look back" or "year in review" montages they always do. "One Shining Moment" always gets me, even when Iowa isn't anywhere near the NCAA tournament. I'm a sap like that sometimes.

Lincecum plows through the Rangers in the bottom of the 8th, heading to the 9th now.

It might be kind of obvious by now, I have no real direction to go for this. Didn't exactly want to do a live blog of the game, and didn't really want to make it a swan song for baseball. I know it'll be back, pitchers and catchers report in just over 3 months. It's sounding like I might be going to Spring Training. It'll be my first trip, I'm so so pumped for it.

Going to the bottom of the 9th. Rangers down 3-1. This has been a pretty excellent game (maybe helped by Dogfish Head's World Wide Stout).

One out left in the bottom of the 9th.... Nelson Cruz up to bat, I'm not sure there's anyone the Rangers would rather have up. Oh wait, Josh Hamilton struck out looking a couple of batters ago. They had the batters up, it just wasn't their night.

One strike away now for the Giants.

Full count, bottom of the 9th.

Strike out, game over, World Series over, season over. Congratulations to the Giants!

I can't wait for the Royals to return to the playoffs. I'll be there. I don't care where I am in the country/world, I'll be at the next playoff game to be played in Kansas City.

Easy like a Sunday morning (I think I finally know what that means)

(For some more frequent updates from me, be sure to keep an eye on Chris Goes Hoggin', and check out this newer blog from a group of miscreants, the Bare Knuckle Writers. I know I've said this plenty of times, but I'm going to try to do a better job around these parts.)

Football is here. Baseball playoffs are about a month away. Cooler weather is starting to creep in. I love it all. This is my time of the year. Soon Woodyard Bar-B-Que will have their burnt ends chili. Pumpkin flavors will be appearing everywhere. The stout beers are going to sound more appealing (really, you can't drink one on a hot night). What's not to love?

My last few weeks have been, eh, uneventful. I did go to Vegas for a weekend, for a buddy's bachelor party. It was awesome, but the Friday-Monday I spent there was probably enough. My liver couldn't take much more, neither could my wallet. I actually didn't lose much in the casinos, but everything else added up. We did all of the usual Vegas stuff, short of seeing a show. Bellagio fountains? Check. Downtown/old strip? Check. $4.99 steak and eggs at 5 am? Check. Strip club? Check. What more do you need? Oh yeah, I could have cashed in the chips that were in my pocket. So if anyone's heading out that way, I have $22 between the Monte Carlo and the Fremont, I'll sell it to you for $20. You're already up for your trip! One of my favorite parts of the whole weekend? No open container laws. Getting a gin and tonic to go was exhilarating. Oh yeah, and I drank beer out of a boot.

The boot adds a second chin. I swear.

So that was a good time. Since then, I've been taking it easy, saving money, and playing video games. Yeah, I'm basically awesome. I really wish I could come back here with tales of exciting nights out on the town, or to tell you about the romance of the century, anything! I'm not saying that I haven't had awesome nights, because I have, they just don't make for good blog posts. "Hey, went out, had some drinks, did a little dancing, went to some apartment and drank some more!" Yeah. One thing that has been consistently excellent, however, has been brunch.

Sunday mornings are brunch mornings. Some friends and I have been trying to go to as many brunch places around town as we can. It's a nice little tradition we have. Our meal is usually followed by a movie and/or drinks, sometimes just strolling around the Plaza or hitting a park (occasionally with some wine). Sundays have become nearly perfect days. This last Sunday was one of the best. (having Monday off for Labor Day might have swayed this, but still, Sunday was DAMN good.)

I met up with my friends Blake and Maggie at a newer place in town, Westport Cafe and Bar. I'm pretty sure it became my favorite place to go in Westport. Sure, it's a little pricey, but holy cow. I got a couple brunch cocktails (a pink peppercorn and a Tom Collins - both FANTASTIC), and the Eggs Norwegian - english muffins, 2 poached eggs, smoked salmon, hollandaise. OH. MY. Unbelievable. My total was just over $20, not too bad. Worth it, for sure. Maybe not a place for every day, but wow.

Next, we headed to the Plaza to catch an early showing of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Yes, it was my third time seeing it. Yes, I still loved it. I'll try to write something up about it soon. But go see it now. SO GOOD. Anyways, we had a little time before the show, so Blake and I stopped at Blanc Burgers + Bottles to get another drink, while Maggie shopped. An excellent deal. Another excellent deal - after the movie, Maggie did a little more shopping, so Blake and I headed to another bar, and got a few $2 gin and tonics. Oh me oh my. That is how you spend a Sunday afternoon.

But wait, it got even better. Some other friends o' mine were having a little get together at their place, for some drinking and board games. Yes, I needed to have some more gin, it was the middle of a long weekend! So we played a few games, had a few drinks, and had an awesome night.

Good gaming, good drinks, good food, and excellent friends? Really, do I need anything better?