Evan’s having a hard time sleeping, so daddy’s having a hard time sleeping. There’s some strange correlation there that I can’t put my finger on – maybe it’s the whole disrupting-daddy’s-sleep-by-coming-into-the-room-and-crawling-on-top-of-me-in-bed thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll love little E until I breathe my last, but man is it ever hard to sleep through a little 40-pound person climbing on top of you. Try it sometime (pending the availability of little 40-pound people in your immediate vicinity). You know I’m right.
Whiplash-inducing gearshift… CRUNCH!
Most people think of volcanoes as dangerous and scary things. Well, most people are right, but I find watching them from a safe distance strangely relaxing. So that’s precisely what I have been doing of late. Here are a couple of links so you can watch with me if molten rock is your thing too – trust me, it’s beautiful. Vodafone has set up a couple of near-real-time webcams at Iceland’s currently-active Eyjafjoll volcano; the resolution is astonishing given the refresh rate of every 6 seconds.
If “badass” was in the dictionary, and there was an illustration next to that definition, this would be that illustration
Compare and contrast that with the quality/frequency of the B&W US Geological Survey webcam overlooking Hawaii’s always-seething Halema’uma’u volcanic vent in a crater on Kilauea. I’d love to have the quality/frequency of the Iceland cam on Kilauea – even in B&W, with a slow refresh rate, the Hawaiian view is mind-blowing. It’d be even moreso in color. Okay, enough earth sciences geekage-outage. Volcanoes are awesome, ’nuff said. If you ever want to know which ones are bubbling away at any given moment, check out the USGS’s weekly global volcanism report. P.S. It’s not the end of the world. Just like all these earthquakes that the media’s trying to find a reason to panic about, volcanoes erupt all the time (and they also psych geologists out all the time too, that’s part of the fun).
Another whiplash-inducing gearshift… CRUNCH!
I’m fairly certain I say this every year, but 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for music. I have to say that I’m still, as we speak, underwhelmed with Peter Gabriel’s album of covers of other people’s songs. I keep going back, listening to it again, and telling myself “Hey, I like Peter Gabriel, therefore I should like this,” but so help me, he’s actually hit me with something I can’t get into. Luckily, it gets much better than that. Royksopp’s Senior is finally supposed to be out in May (if you need something to tide you over, check out Roksopp’s free Track of the Month downloads here), and Crowded House graces us with a new album, Intriguer, in June. Even without a US label deal in place, the Crowdies are going ot be touring the States in July (just in time for my birthday, no less). It’s looking very likely that Alan Parsons will release the single “All Our Yesterdays” (from his Art & Science of Sound Recording DVD project sessions) this year, even though there’s not an entire album to accompany it. If Jeff Lynne gets his finger out and releases his long-promised second solo album this year, then I might worry about the world coming to an end. Soundtracks coming out this year: a revised edition of Star Trek III (“before Comic-Con”), and, if you believe the official-announcement-less rumors, a whopping 15-CD box set of Star Trek: The Next Generation music, both from Film Score Monthly. (The rumors also say that the TNG box will focus entirely on the work of Ron Jones, who scored Best Of Both Worlds among others; that’s cool, but there’s a lot of unreleased McCarthy that I’d love to have on CD too.) There are also abundant rumors of FSM releasing remastered, full-score CDs of Jerry Goldsmith’s music from Poltergeist and Gremlins by the end of the year. And those are just the archive releases, let alone the music we’ll be getting from new movies/shows in 2010 (smart money says: watch for Caprica and new Doctor Who soundtracks).
If “badass” was in the dictionary, and there was an illustration …oh, wait, I already said this
Music acts I’d like to see reawaken with all the force of the above volcano this year: L.E.O., Rob Dougan, Ror-Shak, TV Eyes, and especially The Orchestra. C’mon guys, let’s ‘ave ya.
All of the above would make me happy. Even the volcano, if we can figure out a way around this whole “stranding most of the air traffic in the northern hemisphere on the ground” thing.
A volcano so nice, you posted it twice? BTW, I tried the link and it’s not showing up. Too busy, it says. I guess everyone wants to glimpse the volcano and the internet tubes are full.
Another L.E.O. album would be awesome.