Again, I'm testing things

Things are not working as they should. Arg.

This is a test, but I promise I'll come back here soon

I hope this works.

While you're waiting for me to do some more stuff here, you can find more of me at http://brewmaniacs.com/ , http://beerkc.blogspot.com/, and http://lockerpartner.com/. I'm basically everywhere on the map. But I won't forget where I started.

Update 1: first time it didn't work. . . let's see if this does it. . .

Update 2: ok second time still had some kinks. Maybe this will change things. . .

Update 3: this is getting frustrating

Update 4: The third update was a success!

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