new Kiss, old Kiss, bad Kiss

Kiss just released a new CD set this week. They released this as a Walmart exclusive which is the first thing that pisses me off but whatever. I went to Walmart on Tuesday morning to wait in line and get my copy like all the other Kiss fans, yes there were lines.. I cleverly avoided the line in electronics when i saw a few of the CDs sitting on a A-Frame and grabbed one along with the new Madonna DVD and walked to the front registers which had no lines. :)

This CD set has two CDs and one DVD. The first CD is a new CD called Sonic Boom, on first listen I loved the first song then it dropped off dramatically till the last few songs. On second listen I was more forgiving perhaps because I found myself liking most of the songs but my favorites are still the first and last. The CD booklet lists who wrote each song but not who sung them, obviously I can tell the Gene and Paul songs but there was one song sung by someone else, I assume it was Tommy Thayer because I've heard Eric Singer's voice before and it was not that bad.. :)

Speaking of bad voice, Eric did sing Black Diamond on the second CD but did it in his best (it was bad) Peter Criss impersonation.. If you hadn't guessed the second CD was a CD of recorded Kiss hits called Kiss Klassics. The did 15 tracks and for some reason felt the need to include Christine Sixteen in that set. For the most part these songs sounded almost identical to their original versions all the way down to the fade out and fade in at the end of I Love it Loud, they did sound better if only for modern day recording studios. A few of the songs were actually different and mostly in good ways, for example I Was Made for Loving You was done more in line with how they play it live and not in the original disco mold. Forever was a stinker, Paul's voice sounded strained and uninspired. All in all I think Do You Love Me was the best of the re-recordings.

But wait, there's more.. This set comes with a 6 song live DVD that was recorded on the last tour in Buenos Aires. Kiss fans are everywhere and one of my co-workers was talking about getting this CD so I let him borrow mine and then we decided to watch the DVD here on one of the projectors. Wow, was it bad.. I gotta think as a marketing decision this was a major screw up, nobody is going to watch that DVD and then think to themselves 'man I gotta go see these guys'. They were out of tune, out of sync and generally had no life on stage. I have to imagine that they could have found a better night to take the recordings from.

All in all, is the new CD set worth it? Yes.. There are enough good tracks on the first CD to make the $12 paid a value not to mention most of the songs on the 2nd CD were well done and sound fuller than the previous versions. The DVD, just throw it out..

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If you live anywhere near Hebron CT you need, need, need to get to the CT Ren Faire this year.. They did an amazing job on the fight sequences this year. The story this year is called 'For the Love of Lancelot' and there are four shows throughout the day, five if you include the show at the gates before the faire opens. By the way, if you can you really want to try and get there before the gates open because that show was really good and really sucks you in.

I mentioned the fight sequences were great this year and that's mostly in part to Taryn Bazinet and Colette Marie Crowley who play two French girls who fight as one, they were like watching intense synchronized swimming combat. The final fight had this holy crap amazing sequence that you really just have to see to believe. No, I'm not going to describe it because you need to go see it live!

I was a little disappointed by some of the cast changes and the fact that the sheriff was not around but all in all it was an amazing time.

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Sunday me and Jessie went to the final Mets game of the year with dad. He bought tickets in the Ceaser's Plaza Club which were right in front of the SNY broadcast booth. Believe it or not the seats were a bit thiner than the seats in the section we want to move to in the Promenade, they were actually thinner than some of the seats on the same level but further away from Home Plate.

When we got to the game they had closed off our normal parking area and let us park in the main lot (usually only for pre-paid parking). Because we were in the main lot we decided to walk over to the Shea Stadium base markers. It was neat standing on the pitchers mound marker and looking around at how small everything looks. Citi-Field was beyond the outfield wall at Shea but yet it looks so close when standing on the mound and even at Home Plate. I guess it looks smaller because now it's all just a parking lot.

It was a really good game. Nelson Figueroa pitched a complete game shutout, first in Citi-Field history. Jessie got a new sweater from Touch and we got a ball autographed by Alyssa Milano. Here is a quote from the label of her sweater.

"to rally for each other

to play fair

to run with abandon

to dance with life

is to Touch"

:)

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Speaking of Monday.. Lynz come over Monday night with Anja and we watched a great episode of Nova regarding the possibility of life on Mars. You can watch the entire episode here on PBS.

This was especially interesting right now because I just finished reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson which is all about Terra-Forming Mars.

Speaking of Terra-Forming.. I'm going to be playing Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect in November, it's a futuristic LARP that takes place on a newly colonized world. Just finished making my character the other day. Going to use a shot gun so it should be fun and at the very least different.. Come check it out with me..

Tuesday dinner was spent working with Kevin on his costume and on my gun. We had to modify the shells so the bullets go further by drilling holes in the bottom to let more air in. Sarah stole the food show with her soup. Hopefully she will post the recipe either here as a comment or on the Tuesday night dinner blog.

Holly came over last night and I re-made my Tomatillo Salsa tilapia dish, but this time with cod because Price Chopper didn't have any tilapia. It came out good but not as good as it does with tilapia. The salsa was just as good but the end product was a little less then I would have liked it to be.

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Yay, Laire is tomorrow... Speaking of yay! Garfunkel and Oates are coming to NYC next week, they will be at the Upright Citizen's Brigade on Monday and at the Gotham Comedy Club on Wednesday. Me and Jessie will be going to the Monday show, care to meet us there?

--Diversion of the Day

http://erim.net/misc/GeneSimmons_TerryGross.mp3

Introducing WPA

Works Progress Administration is:

Founding Directors:
Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) - vocals, guitar
Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek, Fiction Family) - guitar, vocals
Luke Bulla (Jerry Douglas Band, Ricky Skaggs) - fiddle, vocals, guitar

Executive Board Members:
Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) - fiddle, vocals
Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) - piano, organ
Greg Leisz (Joni Mitchell, Wilco, Sheryl Crow, Beck) - pedal steel
Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Randy Newman) - drums
Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Cracker) - bass

---2nd Diversion of the Day

1985

I am sitting on the couch watching Tom Seaver's 300 win on the new MLB Network. This game was in 1985 when Seaver played on the Sox, when I say the Sox I mean the White Sox. Back in 1985 they were trying to redifine their team so they dropped "white" off their name and uniforms and were just the Sox. They wore a pretty bad uniform that year, I can't say it was the worst uniform, but it was pretty bad. It's pretty cool watching this because they are giving alot of historical side notes, during commercial breaks they give commentary on the game from today's perspective. One thing I found very interesting was the Dwight Gooden pitched his first game in a Mets uniform that same day which back then would not seem significant but looking back at it in that way is.

Anyway, this is not meant to be a blog about me watching an old baseball game... so...

....
Thursday and Friday were all about trying new restaurants. Wednesday night me and Jessie had decided we would eat at the Thai restaurant in Putnam and on the way would pick up a menu to the new pizza place (Palmieri's). We went in and grabbed a menu and while there the guy behind the counter gave us each a very small piece of the pizza to try. After eating it both of us were upset that we had already called in the Thai order.

-small tangent--> The announcers in 1985 were speculating on the future of Tom Seaver, one of them said that he thought Tom had a good head for managing, the other said that Tom Seaver belongs in the broadcasting booth. They discussed it for a few minutes and both agreed that they would love to see Tom in the broadcast booth someday. If you don't already know.. Tom Seaver is one of the Mets announcers on SNY.

Back to our regularly scheduled blog.. Thursday night I asked Jessie out for a pizza date at Palmieri's. They have a BYO policy so we went down to Putnam Liquors and got a Malbec Cabernet blend by a company called Paladin to drink with our pizza which ended up being a really good wine. We split a pizza and it was OMG good! I don't usually rave about Pizza places, especially ones outside of NY. Pyzzz is good brick oven pizza, Someplace Special has good greek pizza but nobody in the New England area has ever had what I would consider good "New York" pizza. It's actually always been kind of a joke when you see places that boast "New York style pizza" or "Brooklyn style pizza", usually you end up leaving the place wondering if they've ever tried pizza in NY. Palmieri's does have the dreaded "New York style pizza" sign on the door but for them it's deserved. Not only do they have New York style pizza they have amazing New York pizza! I will be going back there again and again..

After dinner we snuggled on the couch and watched a few episodes of Scrubs from a few weeks ago. Kate Micucci was a guest star in the 2nd episode we watched playing a possible love interest for Ted. They did an amazingly cute song called "Screw You", which is my diversion of the day. I looked Kate up on Myspace and she is as super cute as her character and her music is really fun. "Screw You" is one of her songs, another of my favorites of hers is "Dear Deer" which I will post as a 2nd diversion for today. I am giving you two because I had not blogged nearly enough lately.

Before dinner on Thursday I went back to the tattoo place and I showed Dave what I liked about each drawing and gave him some thoughts on how I would like to see the tree drawn. I went back on Friday before dinner and got his new drawing. I am not going to say what I think here yet, I would like you to give me your opinion (don't worry, your opinions are not going to change mine but I would like to hear them).

....
Friday night Lynz came over with Anja and we went to Yamato which is a new Japanese restaurant in Dayville. I can't really talk about the cooked food but I can say they had good sushi. The miso soup was good and the salad was ok. The really odd thing about this place is that it's a "steak house" meaning you would expect cooking tables, instead they have a cooking counter in the back with two chefs. The counter is open to view (if your table has a view of it, ours didn't) but it's not the same as having the chef at your table. I don't know if they were doing any tricks while cooking because I couldn't see the cooking area. I would like to go back again and this time get some cooked food to see what it's like. I was going to get some cooked food last night but I decided to just get sashimi instead which was well cut and came with a ton of daikon.

After dinner we came back and watched a bunch of Cheers before heading to bed. I posted this and then saw a notepad document up behind the window with an quote from Samuel Mayday Malone that I wanted to post. He was talking about being out with a girl and refered to it as "a wild night of friend making." I like that phrase.. Thanks Sam... :D

--Diversions of the Day
Screw You


Dear Deer

Cast off!

So I was just reading Jessie's blog from yesterday about Heavy Metal and I wanted to re-iterate her statement that You Really Can't Kill the Metal!! People ask me why I need a 160Gb iPod, like jeez how much music could you possibly want to listen to.. I gotta say I still listen to same music I did when I was first getting introduced to music with my father's WLEN tapes (My dad used to record a mock radio program onto cassette so that he and his friends could listen to music while in cars, etc). Granted I also listen to a whole bunch of new stuff and every year more and more music gets put into the mix, aside from the rare exception nothing ever comes out of that mix. Why do I need a 160Gb iPod? My question is how can you live with only an 8 or 16Gb iPod!? Everyone has memories linked with certain songs and points in their life when a particular song meant the world or summed up what you were feeling... Everyone has songs that make you happy, make you sad, make you sleepy, energize you, I can go on and on... How can you have that few songs that you can put them all on a 8 or 16Gb device? A world without music would be a horrible place to be...

I like Jessie's idea of a music timeline and I will hopefully steal it and make one of my own.. See how many times Kiss re-appears as a driving musical force in my life..

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Last night I went out on a date with Kaitlyn, I drove up to her house and we went to a really good microbrew placed called the People's Pint. All of their beef is naturally grass raised and they have some really good ideas for cheese spreads like "chive-goat cheese spread" for the burgers. They also have live music, last night they had a pretty cool jazz band called Bok Choi Orchestra but they have Traditional Irish Sessions on every Sunday which I would love to bring everyone to. I had a few different beers:
Slippery Slope which is a 9.8% beer described as "A special blend of 1/2 cider, 1/4 malt and 1/4 honey then delicately spiced with ginger." It's a very good beer and the ginger really adds a great taste. I had two of these before I decided to switch over to..
The Peoples Pint Irish Red Ale which is as the name suggests a Red Ale. This is also a very good beer, makes Killian's seem weak.
I tried some of Kaitlyn's Farmer Brown and Tiger Bite.. All four beers were very good and the food was very good as well.
Here is Beer Advocate's ratings of them. I actually joined Beer Advocate too so I can rate different beers and different places.

After dinner we went back to Kaitlyn's and chatted, looked at pictures, and hung out till almost 3am. I probably would have slept over if not for the bathroom being downstairs and Lynz coming over this morning to "work from home"..

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BIG news, ok, well, BIGGER news!! I got my cast off today!! My calf muscle is not atrophied as badly as I would have thought, but the muscle on the top of my foot is bothering me. Plus the whole foot having full range of movement is really friggin weird. I have stretching exercises I have to for the next few months while I build up strength. I'm supposed to do 25 stretches 3 times a day! I did 10 when I got home, I have decided to work it up to 25... One big bummer is that I have to sleep with the night splint on to make sure the foot does not get into any odd positions and the really shit pile is that I am not supposed to run and play any sports for 6 months!!! I guess that means I'll be playing Chatima at Laire, speaking of which I really need to update my Jan pre-req.. OK, changed that... Hopefully I will get medical cameos again so I can bring Daimone in at least for a few hours each month so he does not disappear..

I seriously don't remember that 6 month thing in the brochure for the surgery... Ah well, it will be better in the end.. Just gotta keep my eyes on the prize... :)

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I updated my flikr site today, I added pics from the Holiday Dazzle Light Parade up to and including last night..

---Diversion of the Day

Cosmos Rocks?

The new Queen + Paul Rodgers CD showed up yesterday and I've listened to it a few times between last night and this morning. Last night I listened to the first three songs and was kinda disappointed by the fact that it is not Queen. As a first listen I found it sounded more like Bad Company than Queen which makes sense because Paul Rodgers sings 2 of the first 3 songs. This morning I started over and found I was still cringing a bit on the first few songs, I found myself thinking each song was getting progressively better than the song before it. The last track is a reprise of the fourth track and I found myself loving the reprise but I remember not really thinking it was very good when it was track 4. I decided to let the CD repeat and it was almost like listening to a different first few songs, I found that on the repeat this morning I really liked those songs, some better than the later tracks.

I don't really think the CD gets better with each track I think I let go of it not sounding like Queen a little bit each track so I was able to enjoy it more and more as it went on. I will say that right now I like the Brian May sung songs better but I've always been a big fan of his voice.

When you listen to this CD try to remember that the band is not Queen anymore, I know it's hard to do but the "+ Paul Rodgers" tied to the band name is the key to really enjoying this CD. I think this CD is a good blend of the Queen and Bad Company sounds, I would have like to have seen more Brian May but it is worth buying.

I still don't have access to the Queen +Paul Rodgers Album club, I emailed Queenonline to try and get that figured out. I did go to Brian's Soapbox here is his blog from Nov 5th.

**Wed 05 Nov 08**

OBAMANIA

Congratulations to America. And your brave new leader.
Wishing you, in this memorable moment, all that you dreamed of.
Love Bri

I added Brian's Soapbox to my links page. I also checked the tour information and they now have dates listed for Brazil. They are coming to America, just don't have dates yet. Tonight I am going to the Millbury movie theater to see Queen + Paul Rodgers live, they are airing the first show of the tour.

We Believe I put up a new version at 1:15PM on 11.06 because the one I had was cut..

I believe there's no evil out there we didn't have a hand in

You believe it's a time for peace and a time for understanding

Some of us believe that we are chosen

And if god is on our side we'll win the game

And some of us believe that there's a heaven

When the trumpets sound and the judges call your name

But let's get it straight...

I believe there's just once chance in this world to hear our brothers

You believe there's a better way to listen to each other

We don't get what the other guy is saying

We hear the words but we don't understand

So around the world the same old anger raging

And we all cry for shame and the same old tragedy goes down

We believe there's a better way to fight

There's a way to make our children safe at night

We believe there's a war we could be winning

But the only way to win it is to give what we need to receive

I believe we need a hero to step boldly from the shadows

You believe there must be someone on the scene that fits the bill

A man or a woman who knows how to say i'm sorry

With courage in his heart to match his creed

A leader who can build a brand new morning

And match the tide of changes

Match the intent with the deed

We believe there's a deed of obligation

To bring reconciliation

To make peace with every nation - in our time

We believe there's not a minute we should be wasting

When the darkness falls it's too late to fix the crime

It's peace that we need

Every father every mother knows the meaning

Human treasure that our leaders do forget

And the bullets fly in the face of common reason

And the pain we give is the legacy in the end we get

We believe there's a song that's worth the singing

It's a song of truth we're bringing

There's a way to share the earth with everyone

We believe every creature has a being

Has a right to respect and feeling

To live and breathe and flourish in the sun
That's what we believe

---Diversion of the Day

Oh noooo

Here is a post from Glen Phillips Blog:

never sit on a glass coffee table, even on the edge of one, the metal part which looks like it can support your weight that you’ve sat on before and seen others sit on. it will break and you will fall into the glass, deeply cutting your arm so that you’ll have to cancel the first few shows (at least) of the upcoming tour.

which means: i need to see a hand specialist in the next few days and find out what can be done to make my left hand work properly again. i also need to get mr kingham to learn to play all my songs, as i dont think i’ll be able to play guitar for a while. i’ll keep you informed as i know more about the tour and my arm. just to repeat: only the first few shows are currently cancelled. i want to get out and sing for you all as soon as i can

also: special thanks to sean watkins for calling the ambulance, putting a tourniquet on me and reviving me when i passed out from blood loss. he even cleaned up the room. three cheers!

There have been no official cancellations yet but unless it's not as serious as he thinks I doubt I will be seeing him on this tour. Hopefully there is no lasting damage..

I was looking at the Glen forum which I have not done in a while and I found this.. WPA "Works Progress Administration which is apparently a new collaboration between Luke Bulla, Sean Watkins, Glen Phillips, Sara Watkins, Benmont Tench, Greg Leisz, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher. Here is their myspace page.

Cosmos Rocks, just not in October!

Remember how I said in my blog I was all excited because Queen was coming out with a new CD (Cosmos Rocks) the first week of Oct? Yeah, well... Funny thing is that I was reading that ad in a British magazine apparently.. That CD did come out in Europe this week... It does not come out here till Nov, however if you pre-order it from Queen's website you get it on Oct 28th. I did pre-order it so I guess I will wait.. Or will I... I dunno, I'm still tempted to change my iTunes address to a UK one so I can download it.. :D

I got my new iPod case a few days ago, it sucks! The click wheel does not work with the case on and the car iPod adapter won't plug into the bottom because the hole is not big enough.. Doh! I emailed the company today asking how I return it..

Next weeks Invista class was cancelled! So I am taking Monday as vacation so we can go to CT Ren Faire and working on Invista prep the rest of that week. I am having the lab cleaned up so I can work on it.

Check out Google Translator it does a pretty good job, and it will actually do entire websites..

Oh, and a musical side.. Check this out.. Giovanni Sollima!

Going to Haiku tonight for dinner with my dad and then going home to marinate steaks for tomorrow..

BIG BREAKING GREAT NEWS!!!
I should be going to Australia in January for two weeks!!!

---Thought of the Day
Read my previous blog.. :P

Focus on the positive.

Don't you hate when you're driving and you think of something awesome that you want to make sure you add to your blog.. Then you get to work and you forget.. What a crappy thing to have happen.. So all day I sit at work and I can't remember what the hell it was that I thought was so insightful. I mean isn't that why we blog, to show the world just how insightful we can be? Sure, it would be easy to just Wright up a bunch of dick and fart jokes but there are so many out there already, speaking of which - what's worse in your opinion a hot dog that's too small for the bun or a hot dog that's too big for the bun? In one case you just have this mess of hot dog that you can't quite put mustard on because it falls off and you certainly can't put chili or kraut on it because there's nothing to hold it on the dog.. In the other case you might as well just eat a loaf of bread.. Hmmm..

Anyway, where was I.. Insightful things.. I'll get there.. This is a linear blog right? I might as well start back to what made me forget my friggin thought to begin with.. I was driving to work this morning and I (and almost everyone else on the road) got pulled over for speeding! I know what you're going to say "when you speed ALL the time eventually you get caught", and you would be right, but you could also bugger off.. The MA cops had a guy sitting at Exit 100 in CT clocking everyone's speed, they had a ton of cops sitting at Exit 1 in MA with the two right lanes blocked off and a guy in the left lane pointing at everyone who was speeding! My question is can the MA cops put a guy in CT to clock people? What are the rules for crossing state lines?

So, on to work.. Busy, busy, busy, busy.. I am not going to whine about work, at least not in this forum.. :) Went down to eat around 1:30 and the cafe was already closing, the sandwich girl had not cleaned up so she let me order.. I had ham & swiss on a wrap with mayo, lettuce, tomato and basil. Ok, no more about work today..

After work I went to my foot doctor, I am going to have surgery on my right Achilles tendon on Nov 19th with the left foot to be scheduled after that one heals a bit. Did I say no more about work? I lied.. My boss is going to give me the week of Nov 19th off platform so I can work from home with my foot elevated..

On the way home I was chatting with Lynz and I suddenly remembered what my insightful thought was!! I was all excited, ironically though as soon as I logged in to start typing this I forgot!! :( I have been typing up the day in hopes that it would jump back in there... Oh well.. On to dick and fart jokes? Nah, I'll leave those to Mr. Smith, he is the real master..

So, I wanted to mention a really awesome band my friend in Chicago showed me.. There is an acoustic duo Rodrigo y Gabriela which will blow your mind away.. This video is them doing Stairway to Heaven on two guitars, nothing but two guitars!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc5o9TU0t0

If you have not yet you should check out my "Random Links" section.. If you have something that you feel people who read my blog would be interested in shoot me a link and I may post it over there.. Things I really want are links to my friend's blogs so that I can have one place to go for all my blogging needs..

About to head to dinner.. I am going (if they are open) to check out the Putnam Tattoo place finally.. I figure I keep going further and further away to find a good tattoo place and I keep crapping on the one right down the street because "it can't possibly be good if it's that close"..

And two more things that came to me while Jessie was checking for spelling errors.. First - Queen has a new CD (http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Rocks-Queen/dp/B001DU8T6S) coming out!!! I am so friggin happy I think I make myself wet everytime I think about it!! Second - RC is the best cola!!

---- Comic of the day
http://www.xkcd.com/400/

---- Thoughts of the day
Just because you have an insightful thought does not mean it's always a good idea to share it.. I did remember what my insightful thought was finally but after all of that I decided in the end I should not post it.. I guess today's thought of the day is that some thoughts are meant to be internal thoughts only.. Wizard's Eleventh Rule?

Remember to focus on the positive thoughts and positive things in your life. The more you focus on those the happier you will be which will in turn make you focus more on the positive things.. It's a happy spiral!