tinkr.net

So when I hear that it’s the first of May the first thing that comes to mind in the Jonathan Coulton song. I wish I lived closer to Minneapolis. He is performing at the Varsity Theater tonight. How cool would it be to hear JoCo sing “First of May” on the first of May?

If you have no idea what song I am talking about check it out here. Just so you know, it’s a little NSFW.

He is giving it away on his site, so I am sure it’s fine if I gave it away. If you like it check out his other stuff. I bought it all, and it’s good stuff.

So if you are regular reader of my blog you know who the best fucking band in the world is right? Well, next Tuesday they are releasing a little 5 song acoustic EP on iTunes. I don’t know if it’s only going to be on iTunes or if it’s going to contain DRM or not, but I will be getting it. You can check out one of the songs over at Spin.com. Next month I will be seeing them for the sixth time. I can’t wait.

Thanks to Salena I now know when to expect my “economic stimulus” check from the government. I will be getting a paper check around June 20th. It doesn’t really matter to me when I get it. The money is going right into our savings account. We are trying to build it up again after the house purchase put a big dip in it last summer. I love having a big chunk of money in my savings account. I just feel more comfortable knowing that I have enough money in savings that I could miss several months of work and not have to worry. Currently we could probably go three months without any income. I would like to at least double that this year.

So it’s been a busy week. It’s been reasonable nice out so I have been busy doing outside house stuff. We got an estimate on a fence. Sometime in May we should be getting our backyard fenced in. It will be nice to be able to let the dog and not have to keep an eye on her.

We also had another thing going on this week. We had a two day adoption workshop. I tend not to blog too much about my personal life. I might start opening up a little more. We have been trying to have kids for some time now. The doctors can’t find a problem, it just isn’t happening. We have been talking about adopting for a while. In January we went in to start things rolling. It’s a long process to adopt a child. At first I wasn’t sure if I was up for it. I have always admired people who adopt, but I never thought I could be one of them. After attending this workshop I can see myself doing it.

We learned a lot about how adoptions work this week. There are a lot of misconceptions about adoption. In the past it was kind of kept a secret from the child. Then when the child learns that they were adopted it’s been hard for them to find their birth parents. Now days adoptions are more open. The birth parents actually chose who they want adopting their child. There are varying degrees of openness depending on the comfort level of the families, but the child grows up knowing who their birth parents are. Sometimes the birth parents get to see their child a couple times a year. Sometimes it’s just pictures and letters, but it’s all to benefit the child. Everything is geared toward the child.

Adoption is a great thing. I am actually kind of excited about it now. The next step is a bunch of paperwork. I am not to excited about that.

So I have been sick the last couple days, and really haven’t been in the mood to blog, but I had to blog about this. Weezer has leaked the first song off of their new album which is coming out June 24th. It will be Weezer’s third self titles album. This one will be known as “The Red Album”.

You can hear their first single titled “Pork and Beans” here.

I so can’t wait for this album. Weezer is one of my all time favorite band, and I have seen them in concert five times.

Last night the wife got free tickets to see Michael Winslow. If you don’t know who he is, he is the guy that makes all those noises in Police Academy. I know him from one of my favorite movies Spaceballs. He was pretty funny, but I thought his opening comedian was funnier. He still put on a great show. It was amazing the noises he could make. That was something to see. At one point hs sat back and played a clip from Star Wars and suplied all the voices and sound effects. It was pretty funny and amazing.

I watch very little TV. Most TV shows bore me. I am watching more and more online video. I love most of the shows on Revision3. They have a new show called Scam School that is pretty cool. Brian Brushwood is the host. He is a magician, and each show he shows cool tricks to play on your friends to get them to buy you free drinks. He recently did an interview with Drew Domkus from the Dawn and Drew Show on his N3rd Moment show. During the interview Brian said he was trying to get his show on a TV network, but they didn’t get it. They wanted him to comb his hair, put on a sweater, and tame it down.

TV always seems to dumb things down. They have to make shows that suit a wide range of viewers. The Internet is great because you can make a niche show just about anything and if it is good and entertaining, you can get an even bigger audience that if it was on TV. Once advertisers realized that people are really watching online video and are really passionate about them and actually see their commercials, rather then their commercials being just background noise on TV, I believe online TV will explode even more and it wont be just geeks watching it.

One show that I hope makes it to TV is Skeptologists. It has a great cast including Phil Plait, Brian Dunning, Kirsten Sanford, Michael Shermer, and Yau-Man Chu of Survivor fame. If they can’t get it on TV I hope they will do in on the Internet.

So it looked like spring was about to get here. The snow was almost completely melted out of our yard. We were making plans for spring. I was going to call some fencing companies today to get estimates on getting out backyard fenced it. I guess I wont be doing that for a couple weeks now. We got a little “April Shower” yesterday. Six inches of “April Showers”.

Here are a few pictures I took with my phone at work. You can’t really see the snow coming down, but it was coming down like crazy.

I shoveled last night when I got home from work. It was some heavy ass snow, full of water. Today I got up and we had some more, but it was really frozen. The sidewalk and driveway are a mess now. I am not even going to bother trying to get the ice off. One of these days it should warm up enough to melt it.

Ten years ago today I started my current job. I can’t believe I have been working here for 10 years. Since it’s my anniversary, I get a nice 50 cent raise today, plus I now get a little longevity bonus every paycheck. It’s also now been 10 years that I have been living in Fargo. That’s the longest I have lived in one town. That seems crazy. I grew up in a little town in northern Minnesota. It seemed like I lived there forever, but it was only eight years. After my freshman year in high school we moved to a town in southern Minnesota. I also lived their for eight years, then moved to Fargo after college.

Another crazy thing is that I am 33 and have only had two jobs in my life. I got a job in a restaurant in high school and worked their until I graduated college and got my current job. I like my job. It very secure. Not too many people leave. I have been here 10 years and there is only one person that is newer than me. Crazy.

I have always been a CD guy. I like to touch and look at the physical CD. A couple of CDs that I want came out yesterday, and I am really tempted to buy them in MP3 form from Amazon. I have purchased a few albums from Amazon, but they weren’t from bands that I have to have their CD. No Use For a Name is one of the band that I have to have their CDs. Now that Amazon sells non-DRMed MP3s, they are actually an option for me. I would never buy DRMed music. I couldn’t tell you the last time I played an actual CD. I bet the last couple hundred that I bought have never been played. I just rip them, and then they just sit and take up space. I might as well just buy the MP3s, but it’s tough giving up the physical media.