Here we are, as in olden days

It was almost feeling fall-like around Texas the past few days, the lows overnight were below freezing, and the highs only into the lower 50's! Of course now it's going to warm back up and stay in the 70's for the next week, so Austin's streak of non-white Christmases will extend. Since records have been kept in 1926, there has never been a white Christmas here.

I will be having a some snow on my Christmas, though. I'll be heading back north to Iowa one week from today, and sticking around for a week. I'm really looking forward to it, to see family and friends, and to sleep on an actual bed. I've even almost got some Christmas shopping done! I'm having a couple issues, though. I've been looking in used book stores for a few books, obviously, but can't seem to find any that I want, at a price I'd want to pay. I mean, it's awesome to find a first edition copy of Vonnegut's God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, but if I'm at a discount book store, chances are I'm not wanting to spend $25 on a single book. Although, I was able to overhear some guy telling a girl the differences between Eastern and Western vampires, their eating habits, how they slept and hunted, and all sorts of stuff. That was pretty awesome. As well as informational! Then, at another store, I saw a kid carrying a handful of books by the author I was looking up, effectively cleaning out the store of his books. Thanks a lot jerkoff! I hope you get a paper cut.

Some shopping was accomplished, though. I won't list the gifts I've purchased on here, since I'm not sure who will or won't be reading between now and the unwrapping, but I'm pretty happy with how things are going so far. If I could only figure out what to get a 19 or 20 year-old girl, I'd be set. It was a while ago since I was that age, and when I was that age, I didn't talk to girls, so I don't remember, and probably never even knew what they liked back then, let alone these days. I'm sure I'll come up with something, even if it's a bottle of barbecue sauce, straight from Texas!

I'm going to try to do something this week, being the week before Christmas and all. I'll put up one of my favorite Christmas songs each day, since I love Christmas music (those of you in the Great Blogger Mix CD Exchange should be finding that out!). I've already had a couple up, first Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song," then "O Holy Night," as featured on Studio 60. The song I'm putting up today comes from the Midwest, Omaha specifically, from Conner Oberst and crew.

Bright Eyes - "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Enjoy it, and check back for tomorrow's song!

I'm leaving this place, but there's nothing I'm planning to take

Cassadaga, the latest album from Bright Eyes, was released yesterday, and I'm getting through my first full listen of it now. It's good. Very good. And on this glorious, seemingly ironically excellent day, it's perfect. (For those of you not reading this from the Midwest, there has been some extremely unseasonably cold weather, complete with some huge, huge snowflakes falling in Iowa City today. Incredibly beautiful. I love this. It's like Iowa City knew that I was going to be leaving after the summer, and wanted to give me one last snow, just as a nice little going away thought. Everyone around is bitching about the weather, while I'm walking around with a big, dopey smile on my face.) This album is a nice mix of some country-tinged tunes, showing what I feel has been the natural growth of Conor Oberst. If one were to listen to Fevers and Mirrors and then immediately play this album, they'd probably find it hard to believe that both came from the same band/musician, but, listening through their catalogue as it's grown, the band becomes more of an organic being, maturing with each song. It may help that Oberst around the same age as me, so maybe I'm kind of growing the same way. That may be a stretch, but it's nice to think. I haven't decided on a favorite song yet, I'll have to listen a few times more.

For other things in my life right now, it would seem like today would be a Bad Day. I mean, to borrow an analogy from Bill Simmons, I had a no-hitter through 7, brimming with confidence. I had lost the perfect game with a walk and an error, but was still going strong, no one could touch me. Then, on my best pitch, I gave up a triple off the wall. Now the other team is threatening to score, while my bats have been silent for sometime now. And I'm pretty sure the pitches were being tipped somehow, and the signals between me and the bench had somehow gotten confused. Now, with confidence shaken, I gotta try to maintain composure and finish the inning. I know about 94% of the people reading this won't get the reference, and that may be a conservative estimate. But I find it hilarious, so the whole day was fun for me. Just humor me this. Thanks.

However, part of the bright side of losing the no-hitter is that I've made up my mind. I'm going to Austin. It'll be after the very first Iowa Hawkeye home football game, just because I want to see another game at Kinnick before I leave. So, most likely sometime after September 8th, I'm heading south. I know, I know, some people may be skeptical about moving to Texas, home of our president, but Austin's a college town, suposedly similar to a (much) larger Iowa City, and I think my ideals will fit in there quite nicely. Plus the music scene is exactly what I want. So there's not a lot that can change my mind at this point. Unless someone offers me a lot of money to move to Boise right now. Eventually I'll get there, but there are other things I'd like to do and check out right now. Plus, I don't know if an opportunity like this will present itself again, so I gotta take advantage. So, as Howard Dean once said, "Beeyah!!!"