Video Game Music.

This is how much of a geek I am: I like listening to video game music, independently of playing the game that the music appears in. I also listen to game music from games I have never played or have never made it through. I have a bunch of CDs with game music on them, and there is game music in my iPod and iTunes. For awhile, most game music was not in mp3 format, so you couldn't burn it to a CD or listen in Winamp (this is way before iTunes) without lovingly converting it to mp3. This took a long time of sitting in front of the computer, and I did dozens of soundtracks this way, which I still have. Lastly, most of my favorite soundtracks are from the 16 bit era and before, as I never had a Playstation or Sega Dreamcast or anything from the mid to late 90s.

I think a lot of the appeal for me is nostalgia. I played a lot of these games when life was uncomplicated and I didn't have any worries. But some of the music is very beautiful. I have the Secret of Mana game for the SNES, but I didn't get very far into it. I found the music for it (under its Japanese name, Seiken Densetsu) on Usenet, and it's probably one of my favorite soundtracks ever.



Nowadays you can find a lot of these soundtracks in mp3 on various torrent sites, but I try to stay away from those. I'm also too lazy these days to convert the files to mp3, but I will make one exception. Back when I was in the thick of gaming music, there was one soundtrack I was dying to have, because it was one of my favorites and I had logged a lot of hours playing it. Unfortunately, no one had ripped the files from the game back then. I tried to learn how to do it myself, but laziness pervaded. On a whim, this morning I went to a game music site I haven't been to in a number of years, and sure enough, someone had ripped the soundtrack in my absence. I downloaded it and listened to it, and it made me very happy. What game was it? Why, Monopoly for the NES of course. I told you I was a geek!

Stupid cats!

Just now our cat Toby managed to knock over our free standing halogen lamp, which shattered the bulb all over the floor. I had no less than three cats jump on me and scratch up my legs because of the loud noise. Then they all had to go over and see what the broken shards were before we could go and get the vacuum cleaner. Luckily none of the cats stepped in the glass (luckily meaning unfortunately in this case).

They say that having pets lowers your blood pressure, but they didn't give a maximum allowable amount, which is what the problem is. Sometimes I would rather take lisinopril for the rest of my life than have cats. But I love them anyway, because I'm stupid too.

7 (Cats of Gloom)

You must do a lot of loafing

Being a baker, that's one joke I NEVER EVER get tired of when people ask me what I do for a living. Oh my yes. :P

Tomorrow at work, I have what I think is the biggest single bread order that I've ever had in the almost 8 years I've been there. 65 loaves of sourdough bread, sliced, for 9 am. The hard part is going to be the slicing and bagging, which sadly I will probably not be a party to. It's Saturday as well, which is the busiest day of the week, so it's going to be a little hairy. But I'm only going in a half hour early, because I don't feel like messing with my schedule too much today. Not that I have important things to do, but Sarah is not feeling well and I want to pick her up at work at 5 so she doesn't have to walk home in the rain. Well, I don't have important things to do besides that. My work ethic has made me miss a lot of time with her in the past, and I also missed a lot of things that I now wish I hadn't, so no more slave to work, unless it's obvious like the holidays. But it's been kind of slow so far this year, and I kind of half hope that it doesn't get any busier so that maybe I can enjoy them a little bit more, which would be nice.

VII

On a slightly related note, I'm really looking forward to making Christmas cookies this year, even though my mixer broke. I won't be doing it overnight like the last two years, so Sarah and I are doing them together. She has already promised to decorate the gingerbread cookies for me. She's very creative, so I'm going to let her do them however she wants. I can't wait!

Nablopomo Day 12

Good day, and welcome to Day 12.

My friend Monica has a few regular features on her blog. One is Haiku Thursday, where she writes her blog in haiku. This is too much thinking for me today, since it is Thursday. She also does Friday Shuffle, where she takes her iPod and puts it on shuffle and takes the first 10 songs and writes something about it. She usually puts lyrics up, but again, too much work. So I present Thursday Shuffle! I have to go get my iPod, be right back.

Okay, here we go. Please bear in mind that I have about 1000 cds, and only a fraction of them are on my iPod. The burner on the iMac broke after I started putting music onto the iPod. Pleh.

1. Louisiana Redbone, Paul Revere and the Raiders - This is from the Alias Pink Puzz album from 1969, which is long past their peak of popularity. I love the album, but this is not one of my fave raves. I think it's lazy when the same phrase is rhymed over 2 lines.

2. Hang On To Your Ego, The Beach Boys - This is the alternate version from the Pet Sounds Sessions box. I prefer this version to I Know There's An Answer, which I believe Brian wrote new lyrics for after Mike Love complained that the original lyrics (Ego) were too heavy. I may be oversimplifying or totally incorrect.

3. Speed Racer, Devo - From the Oh No, It's Devo! album, which is what many people say, including my wife. I never liked Speed Racer when I was a kid, so this song is also not a favorite. But Devo has feelings too!

4. She Knows Me Too Well, The Beach Boys - This song is kind of typical for post-surfing and pre-drugging Beach Boys; beautiful harmonies, but simplistic lyrics. I still like it though.

5. The Longest Time, Billy Joel - I was 13 when the Innocent Man album came out, and I was heavily into oldies at the time, so I was crazy for this album. Not so much now, but he does a good job doing all the singing by himself.

6. Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway), Billy Joel - This is a live version, from the 12 Gardens album. My first impression of this album was that they detuned all the instruments to accommodate Billy's voice. I prefer the earlier live versions that I have, but he pulled out a lot of obscure stuff on this tour. The song is originally from Turnstiles, which is my favorite album of his.

7. Through The Long Night, Billy Joel - Jeez, the shuffle is broken I guess. This is a beautiful sparse song that always reminded me of the Beatles. I love the harmonies on this one.

8. She's Goin' Bald, The Beach Boys - I think the tune and melody are from the aborted Smile sessions. What a crazy awesome song. "You're too late mama, ain't nothin' upside your head." Genius.

9. Glad Girls, Guided By Voices - This is one of their "hits," as far as you can use that word with Guided By Voices. To me, they seemed to get a lot poppier towards the end. I think this was in a Buffy episode or something like that. Great song.

10. Sportin' Life, The Lovin' Spoonful - It's seems like such a shame that they only released around 5 or 6 albums worth of material. I think all of their stuff with John Sebastian is awesome. This is a nice slow blues song with a great wailing harmonica. Zal Yanovsky is a horribly underrated guitarist, probably because he was also a goof.

Some of you may be wondering where the Beatles are. They didn't show up until song # 24, which is very strange, considering they make up almost 25% of my iPod. Next time I guess.

7.

Veterans Day SALE!!!

Today is Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day). It is a day to honor United States veterans of all wars. But like most American holidays, it's just an excuse to get a day off work and/or shop. As we all know, Christmas starts in October now, and not everyone celebrates Christmas anyway (I won't even go into the recent War on Christmas here). Thanksgiving is basically for eating and watching football, and I think FDR moved it back a week to kickstart the Christmas buying season. Valentine's Day is a terribly commercial holiday that starts right after Christmas is over. Easter's religious themes have given way to chocolate, eggs, and gifts. Gifts! I never got gifts on Easter, just chocolate. I'm not religious, so many of these holidays mean spending time with family, as that's what is important to me. Last year for Christmas, for adult gifts, we gave money to a charity in their name, but we gave my niece and nephew toys.

Am I also guilty of being a holiday commercialist? Of course, I make food for a living, and I will cater to whatever holiday is coming up. I will take my wife out to dinner on Valentine's Day, and I have gotten her chocolates. But Veterans Day (and Memorial Day) shouldn't be treated this way, as those days are honoring the people that let us commercialize these holidays in the first place! So if you haven't already done it, please thank a vet today. They deserve it.

What, me worry?

If there's one thing about myself that I would change, it would be worrying. I have always been a worrier, but at this point in my life, it's actually physically hurting me, as well as mentally. I think butterflies in the stomach is due to worry, but sometimes it goes father than that, like maybe you feel really sick or throw up.

When I get worried, I hunch my shoulders, so much so that it is second nature. I have to actually realize that I'm doing it in order to relax, but it doesn't last long. A couple of months ago, we had our Customer Appreciation Day at work. It's usually a very busy day, and it's also a long day for me. I guess that I was super hunching, because by the end of the day, I had a terrible pain in my neck and right shoulder, which went down into my arm. When I left for the day, I could barely use my right arm because it hurt to put any pressure on it. It hasn't hurt like that since then. It's flared up a few times when I've been stressed about something, but never as bad as that day.

I know that I can avoid this. I couldn't change the fact that Customer Appreciation Day was coming, and I can only do my best at work, so worrying is for naught. I don't think worrying has ever helped me in any situation before, yet I do it constantly. Many people worry constantly for no reason at all, usually hurting themselves in the process. Why?

I had a neck pain flare-up today while I was at work. Two weeks ago I read somewhere about male breast cancer, which I don't think I ever heard about before. Friday night when I got out of the shower, I noticed that I had a painful knot underneath the skin on my chest. I thought it was probably a pimple that hadn't surfaced yet, but the breast cancer angle was in the back of my mind, and I started worrying a bit. It got stronger after a few days when the knot didn't go away, and I worried about telling Sarah because I didn't want her to worry. I told her on Monday when I got home from work, and I told her I was going to call the doctor (which is the reverse of what usually happens). The doctor's office told me to call back on Tuesday morning, so naturally my neck and arm started to hurt once I got to work this morning and started thinking about it. Along with worrying, I tend to assume the worst is going to happen, and I make up scenarios of doom in my head. That's what I occupied myself with during work, so I was good and frightened when I got to the doctor's office.

The doctor basically said that my first instinct (the rogue pimple) was probably correct, and that cancerous lumps aren't painful at first, and the fact that it didn't hurt as much now was a good sign. All stuff I could have found out on the internets, if I had stopped worrying for a second and thought about doing that. The doctor is not ignoring it though, I go back next month regardless of what happens to it in the meantime. But it was a relief to hear.

It seems abnormal to live my life without worrying about something, which itself is probably abnormal. I just don't know how to stop.

Fall, we hardly knew ye

A couple of days ago I had the heat on in the house and it was cold at work. Today I had the AC on in the car, and I'm going out to cut the grass in shorts and a t-shirt. I hope we get back to fall before Thanksgiving, because I am making a turkey for Sarah and me (it's just going to be the two of us for the first time), and I like to brine it. I don't have room for a turkey bucket in our refrigerator. The last time I did it (2001), I was able to brine the turkey in the attic for three days, because the temperature in the attic was well below the green zone. I don't think it's been that way since then. And it would be fantastic to have snow on Christmas, even though we may be driving to be with my sister and her husband. I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I really like this time of year, but it's not right if it's this warm out. I will keep my fingers crossed.