Well, there are some things that I just can’t say when I’m posting on caedmonscall.net, despite the fact that we emblazon “the officially unofficial fan site of Caedmon’s Call” all across the top of every page. You’d be surprised what kinds of hot water we’ve gotten the band into for things we’ve said. Remember how Bill Simmons jokes about dodging the electric shocks coming from Bristol in his chats? Well, let’s just say that if I said something about a C&D, well, I’d probably get 10,000 volts applied to me the next time I saw someone from Bragg Management.

That said, putting out a greatest hits compilation—the second such release in three years, and this one containing no new cuts whatsoever—less than two months before the release of their next album? That’s a low blow, even for a record company that pushed for two make-lots-of-money worship records from the band.

Maybe I’ll write an open letter to Essential, telling them how much they suck. Or maybe I’ll let Derek do it for me, a decade ago:

It’s not as though this truck’s been up on blocks for years in my front yard
Waiting for the fuel of you to make it go

Essential Records sucks.

Holy architecture changes, Batman! I don’t think I’m still breaking anything here, but let me know if you think I am.

Update, 1555 CDT: My apologies to the handful of subscribers of my comment feeds, who’re now seeing the effects of me using the BirdFeeder Pepper for Mint and the BirdFeeder WP plugin.

• Economic Realities of Cheap Orbital Access « Live Granades
  Of course, Stephen can tell me that I need to go back and read to the end, and I will, but I didn’t want to throw my iBook across the room.
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• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty McGoo
  (tags: to_read)
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  I love Huntsville. [I'm both proud and mocking.]
  (tags: huntsville alabama fallout_shelter nukular)
• Song of the Day: Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
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• Audioasis: H is for Hellgate & Levator
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• NEW on DIME: Ryan Adams 2007-09-21 Toronto [Sbd + Mics]
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• Casa De Morrill » to the man who’s always standing next to me
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• Song of the Day: Pela - Lonesome Hearts (Cassettes Won’t Listen remix)
  (tags: KEXP song_of_the_day)

Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmater’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food was both worth reading and frustrating. Oliver’s passion for beer is quite evident in the writing, and he does a solid job of explaining how beer styles evolved. It’s a solid mixture of anecdotes about his own discoveries of beer and historical discussions of the importance of beer throughout the ages. Rightfully, the book focuses on European brewing and places pilsners in the proper historical context. [I must note here that I love Pilsner Urquell, but I know that what we drink here in the States is a mass-produced facsimile of the original. But damn, it's tasty.]

There is a fair amount to criticize in the book, though. For one, it’s awfully repetitive—understandable at some level, if it’s designed to be a reference text. Reading it even as I did in fits and spurts, I tired of the unending sameness. I think that a fair amount of the writing could have been replaced with some solid tables. Also, I found it a bit amusing that the best American producer listed for many European style beers was … Oliver’s employer, the Brooklyn Brewery. Admittedly, they do great work, but … come on. Also, I found the bicoastal nature of the American beer discussion to be a bit disheartening; yes, there’s great beer brewed on each coast, but there’s also a lot of great beer brewed in Middle America. I was disappointed that Abita in Louisiana got a mention but Shiner didn’t.

All in all, it’s a decent book, but I get the feeling that Oliver’s passion translates better in person rather than on the page. That said, I must thank Scott for getting it for me, because it convinced me that maybe I wanted to try an Irish red ale, and … well, I love Smithwick’s now. [Goal for the next year: have a few pints of Smithwick's with SOG.]

• Another Young One? at [caedmonscall.net]
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• Numb3rs TV Series - A Formula For Numb3rs - Episode Recap | Television Without Pity
  Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. So, so true. [And yet I watch this show for all its formulaic goodness.]
  (tags: numb3rs formula)
• ESPN.com - NHL - Isles’ Simon, Rangers’ Hollweg spark preseason brawls
  “To me it looked like a real deliberate elbow to the head,” Rangers coach Tom Renney said. “From that point on I thought to myself, ‘OK, this might be interesting.” Dear God, I love hockey.
  (tags: hockey nhl fights)
• Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : God Knocks
  Heh.
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)

• Rogue Amoeba - Radioshift: Radio on your schedule, only for Mac OS X
  Does anyone know of a device that I can use to connect this to my XM radio?
  (tags: timeshifting radiohead)

A hot girl moves in next door to a couple of nerds. Sounds like my dream come true. I found the writing interesting to a point. The secondary characters are probably more interesting than the two main ones at this point, because while they build on stereotypes [the shy guy who can't say a single word to a woman, the geek who thinks he's a Lothario because he speaks a half-dozen languages and can sing karaoke], they’re at least semi-interesting ones to plot and weren’t run over by the laugh track.

Oh my holy heck, the laugh track. Whoever decided that this show needed one was an idiot. The people who watch this show are either going to be smart enough to get the brainy humor [whether or not they really understand it] or not. Putting a laugh track in there tells that part of the audience, “See! We were funny there!” STFU.

In many ways, being stuck behind How I Met Your Mother—a startlingly well-written sitcom about relationships written more with men in mind than, say, Friends ever was—is a detriment to this show. I might not have minded the heavy-handed sitcommy stuff if I hadn’t had the third season premiere of HIMYM as a lead-in.

Best moment of the whole show: the extended conversation as the depantsed main characters, Leonard and Shelden, go up the stairs. Most shows would have avoided that awkward moment [multiple shots of a nerdy guy's butt in his not-so-tighty-whities], but this one embraced it. That leads me to think that maybe the writers and producers don’t completely suck on this show. In fact, that they were willing to do that scene is the only reason that I’ve set my TiVo to record it again. After all, many pilots try way too hard.

• 100_1011.JPG on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
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• Through a Glass, Darkly » Watch as I turn Mike’s birthday dessert into a celebration of myself!
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• andrew osenga | that wasn’t so bad…
  I knew that the band would start to get these questions.
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• ExpoImaging
  Thanks, Alex.
  (tags: wishlist)
• matt and i on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  But Bry’s nose? Way bigger.
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• WP-Plugin BirdFeederWP « Turmsegler
  (tags: wordpress plugin mint birdfeeder_pepper)

I think the true sign of how a book resonates with you is with how many people you think about while reading it. For me, the best books I read leave me saying, “This person needs to read this book … and this person, and this person, and this person.” Well, I could think of about eight people who needed to read Michael Lopp’s Managing Humans while I was going through it, which says, “Hey, Rands knows his shit.” In fact, I just bought my third copy on Friday: my program manager has my copy, but only after I let Stephen borrow it and read it first; my director down in Houston plans on passing it around to several managers at the customer/teammate [!]; the third copy is going to go to my manufacturing engineer and her husband. Her husband will be the first software person I’ve actually had read it.

Now, if you know the subject [or the subtitle], you’re saying, “He’s a software middle manager. How does that relate to what you do, NASA nerd?” Please. Software is a high-cost, low-volume business—ignore the fact that one copy of software can be sold a million times. Ideally, software development of the style that Rands discusses is high-dollar, low-vol stuff—exactly the business that I’m in over in manned spaceflight hardware. If we build ten of something, it’s a lot. We’ve got a fundamentally creative process going on, and we get the same crunches and crazy stuff that software dev teams like Rands’s get. [Like, um, my week this week: deliver hardware to foreign customer tomorrow, finalize overseas shipment/export control paperwork on Tuesday, polish the program review charts on Wednesday, have a program review Thursday morning before hopping a plane to Houston for a system requirements review on Friday, then return back here Saturday morning and walk right over to the shop, because hey, next Monday? Fit check before we deliver that hardware in another ten days so it can fly on Shuttle in January. Hooah.]

Obviously, there are things that don’t really apply. [You might think that all the stuff about version control doesn't apply, but ... you've never seen NASA-level configuration management. Honestly, it stuns me that we don't have VCS stuff in place at the pre-deliverable phase. It would make lives much, much easier.] But there is so much that does apply, because … people are people everywhere, and the smart, gifted, creative that you see in software also flock to manned spaceflight, for the same “I want to change the world” reasons—just a different application.

Oh, for the record … I’m an organic, holistic, incrementalist Sally Synthesizer. Most of the time. This is a change for me in a couple ways—I used to be more of a completionist and more of an inward, but … well, the last year has changed me, in ways I will never blog about because doing so requires talking about work I’m doing that I won’t talk about in much more than the abstract or, well, posting press releases or something. But that’s not to say that I won’t tell you a story over a Smithwick’s at Mason’s Pub.

MONTGOMERY, ALA. (IJSM): Alabama Governor Bob Riley convened an emergency session of the Alabama Legislature this morning to pass a resolution stating that bulldogs were no longer allowed as pets in the state of Alabama, for fear that the state’s football players might be harmed.

“After the mauling last week by Mississippi’s bulldogs down on the plains, and then last night’s mauling by Georgia’s dogs in Tuscaloosa, we just had to take a stand,” said Riley in a press conference held on the Capitol steps Sunday afternoon. “We’re here to say that, in Alabama, bulldogs are considered harmful.”

State Senate leader Lowell Barron (D-Fyffe) followed Riley to the microphone. “We support the governor in this cause,” remarked Barron. “Shoot, Senator Bishop called me crying last night, and I decided we could bury the hatchet in the bulldogs of this state rather than each other.” A teary-eyed Charles Bishop (R-Jasper) silently nodded his agreement from his position to Barron’s left rear on the dais, marking the first time the two had been within ten feet of each other without Alabama State Troopers between them since Bishop famously punched Barron out on the floor of the State Senate back in June. “We gotta do this for the people of Alabama! If mutual hatred of bulldogs can bring me and Bishop together, we can bring the whole state together,” Barron stated before being sobbing and falling into the arms of Parker Griffifth (D, Huntsville).

Auburn head coach Tommy “Ears” Tuberville received word of the bulldog ban with joy. “Just Thursday, Brandon Cox was walking down by Toomer’s Corner when this little old lady and her bulldog scared him so bad, he threw another interception.” Tuberville refused comment on whether this would affect Cox’s playing status.

News of the ban was not well-received on the hill at Alabama A&M University, whose mascot is also the Bulldogs. President Robert R. Jennings, under fire for perceived wrong-doings in his first year as president, seized upon the opportunity to distract the AAMU Trustees and students from investigating him. “This outrage will not stand! Once again, the folks in Montgomery have forgotten us up here in Normal,” Jennings said when reached via telephone. UAH President Dr. David Williams would not comment on the record, but did indicated off the record that he expressed concern over the broad brush applied by Montgomery. [Ed.: Williams also wanted to discuss the matter of UAHuntsville on the record, but our reporter hung up the phone on him.]

University of Tennessee football coach Phil Fulmer expressed concern of the state’s mistreatment of dogs. “What next?” he asked. “If we beat the Tide on October 20th, are blue tick hounds the next thing to go?”

Michael Vick’s attorneys had no comment on the matter.

[Thanks to Bulldawgs.com and Mississippi State for images of their respective mascots. Oh, and for beating both Alabama and Auburn and making my week. I love it when the Tide and the Aubies both lose. Warms my heart.]

Just as a note: if you wanted to buy me music for birthday, I have a whole wishlist set up for that, and you have eight days until my birthday. Here’s the new stuff I’ve got lined up for this week:

• Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.
  
• 23 Nov 1998 [College Station, TX, USA] concert bootleg of Caedmon’s Call.
• 18 Dec 2001 [Indianapolis, IN, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine.
• 12 Sep 2002 [San Diego, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco.
  
• 27 Mar 2007 [Upper Darby, PA, USA] concert bootleg of The Decemberists.
  
• 5 May 2007 [Madison, AL, USA] concert bootleg of Eric Peters, and …
  
• 5 May 2007 [Madison, AL, USA] concert bootleg of Randall Goodgame. As both happened on the same night, I’m listening to them together.
  
• 14 Sep 2007 [Dallas, TX, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco.
  

Last week was pretty darn good:

• Arms and Legs’s eponymous album. Okay, so Elliott Smith’s influence is all over Scott Daly’s music, but there are other things going on here. The banjo provides an interesting counterpoint to the early ES lyricism/sensibility. Admittedly, I’m a sucker for lo-fi indie stuff, but I really liked this one. Four stars.
  
• The Decemberists’s Picaresque. Obviously, I’ve heard a fair number of these songs, having been going through recent bootlegs of late. The studio version is solid, but call me weird … I’m not as beholden to this indie-label release as I am The Crane Wife. Three-and-a-half stars.
  
• 3 Apr 2001 [Seattle, WA, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. The crowd’s a little chatty, and it’s a stealth recording [done from headworn mics on the glasses---kudos, taper!]—and I’m pleased enough with it. Three-and-a-half stars.
• 31 Aug 2002 [Vancouver, BC, Canada] concert bootleg of Wilco. Solid show from the era. Three-and-a-half stars.
• 3 Jun 2003 [San Diego, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Coldplay. Flat. Two-and-a-half stars.
• 21 Mar 2007 [Jersey City, NJ, USA] concert bootleg of The Decemberists. Sounds kinda thin and treble-y, like it’d be easily pushed over on the playground. Good performances from the band, though. Three stars.
• 6 May 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootlegs of Derek Webb, Andrew Osenga, and Sandra McCracken. It was all one show, so I’ll listen to it all in one week. The recording suffers for what it is—inexpensive omnidirectional microphones used in a large room—but it’s pretty decent. I was hoping for a soundboard patch, so I didn’t drop any cash on some condensers pre-show. Alas. Three stars for all three recordings.
  

• Lolcats Mutate Once More « Live Granades
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• Through a Glass, Darkly » “You left your sorrow dangling.”
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• andrew osenga | Front and Center
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• geek ramblings :: Tags and Categories in WordPress 2.3
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• andrew osenga | Front and Center
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90% of my photos are taken at concerts, so through trial and error, I’ve learned what works for those situations. [Generally, the light is so poor that I'm running at ISO 800 or 1600, apertures between f/1.8 and f/5.6, and shutter speeds between 1/8s and 1/60s.] As I joked when I took photos of both Stephen and Misty’s and Jonathan and Ashley’s daughters, “I don’t know what to do with this much light!

Well, after reading Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Exposure, I have some better idea now. It was a good read to get me to thinking outside of my photographic rut. It’s written with examples all throughout the text and ideas for things to try on your own. Heck, I’m thinking about going to go get a grey card this afternoon. It’s a book that should stand re-reads and references as I add skills to my photographic toolkit. I may never be more than a guy who takes photos at concerts, but hey, you never know. It’s a fun (if expensive) hobby.

That said, when Amy borrowed my camera this week, I had to laugh … I couldn’t remember how to re-engage the onboard flash. I just never use it.

• Noir Liza « Live Granades
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• Why do we have so many different kids of cables and plugs?
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• andrew osenga | in the key of C
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• moreron.com » Blog Archive » Conversations with a 7 Year-Old - “Ron Davis” - Ronzilla
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• Weblog Tools Collection » Blog Archive » WordPress 2.3 Features
  “Many different sites and blogs have documented what they thought were their most desired features in WordPress 2.3. Since I am as excited about this release as I was about WordPress 2.0…” Surprised this version isn’t v2.5. Lotta features.
  (tags: wordpress)
• Mozilla Launches Internet Mail and Communications Initiative
  Good on ya, Moz.
  (tags: mozilla email +1)
• andrew osenga | I hate Advice Cookies.
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• andrew osenga | Going Postal
  I have no idea why I’m making Dave Coulier references … I should switch to Bob Saget.
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)

• andrew osenga | I hate Advice Cookies.
  Eat that, Flora!
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• Overdressed is #54 on Billboard Top 200 at [caedmonscall.net]
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)

• andrew osenga | Missed the Reunion
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• andrew osenga | Missed the Reunion
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• The More the Crazier, or Alan Keyes Has Entered the Building « Live Granades
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• andrew osenga | Rockin’ Goodlettsville
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• The More the Crazier, or Alan Keyes Has Entered the Building « Live Granades
  Nice try, Stephen!
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• There’s No Stoppin’ This Much Cute « Live Granades
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• Bootleg Cover on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
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Parents-to-be

Originally uploaded by Geof F. Morris

I think that I always capture this look on Rick’s face in non-laughing photos. It amuses me greatly.

Misty had her nice Digital Rebel XTI [and the f1.4/50 I lust for], and I just had my iPhone, but I took a few photos of last night’s baby shower. This notice is primarily for my mother, but if I can’t blog for Mom, who can I blog for, people?

Okay, so the first item in this week’s adds requires an introduction: Chad at Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands bade me to go check out Arms and Legs, and when I streamed the whole record, I decided to give it a try. Yes, there’s an obvious Elliott Smith influence, and Lord knows I miss him [and am still mad that I only got into his music after he died], so … well, maybe it’s transference, but I also really like the music.

So thanks, Chad. I owe you a favor, sir.

• Arms and Legs’s eponymous album.
  
• The Decemberists’s Picaresque.
  
• 3 Apr 2001 [Seattle, WA, USA] concert bootleg of Over the Rhine. I’ve been slurping the Live Music Archive’s Over the Rhine stash. Consider me your pre-filter, eh?
• 31 Aug 2002 [Vancouver, BC, Canada] concert bootleg of Wilco.
• 3 Jun 2003 [San Diego, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Coldplay.
• 21 Mar 2007 [Jersey City, NJ, USA] concert bootleg of The Decemberists.
• 6 May 2007 [Nashville, TN, USA] concert bootlegs of Derek Webb, Andrew Osenga, and Sandra McCracken. It was all one show, so I’ll listen to it all in one week.
  

Last week was hit and miss:

• Over the Rhine’s Discount Fireworks. Okay, so I’m not keen on “Last Night on Earth Again”, and it would have been nice for them to have had one more new track on there. But I bought this because I’m a completionist and wanted to see if the collection would serve as a good primer for new OtR fans, which I love to make. It does a good job, because it covers the breadth of the OtR sound—even bringing some older tunes from the days when the band was more than just Karin and Linford and whatever backing band that they wanted for that album. This is a money-making, label-deal-finishing record, and so it deserves to be judged in that light: three-and-a-half stars, just because they put “Within Without” on there.
  
• 10 Sep 2002 [Santa Monica, CA, USA] concert bootleg of Wilco. I’d love to have a pre-FM version of this, because this recording is just … ugh. Two-and-half stars. The interview is good, though.
• 19 Sep 2003 [Salt Lake City, UT, USA] concert bootleg of Elliott Smith. Man, not a good note to end my ES bootleg run on. Two stars. Poor recording [too bassy and indistinct].
• 22 Feb 2007 [Paris, France] concert bootleg of The Decemberists. This is a solid little recording. The vocal performances are a bit off—not hitting the highs solidly—but hey, at the end of a European tour, I’ll forgive some of that. Three-and-a-half stars.
• 3 Mar 2007 [Winnetka, IL, USA] concert bootleg of Jeff Tweedy. The other Tweedy home shows have disappointed me, but not this one! It’s very, very good. Four stars.
• 22 Apr 2007 [Northport, AL, USA] concert bootleg of Derek Webb. It’s a DWebb soundboard. It’s him solo from this spring, so he’s not playing the new songs with a band, and it’s still Mockingbird-heavy as a result. But for being all that, it’s pretty good. Four stars.
  
• 26 Apr 2007 [Paris, France] concert bootleg of Feist. Again, I’ve decided that Feist is hard to bootleg, and this is pretty average, even though she’s in her adopted home of Paris. Three stars.

• andrew osenga | Rockin’ Goodlettsville
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• Through a Glass, Darkly » Exclamation marks! Loud noises!
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• andrew osenga | Rockin’ Goodlettsville
  I think Zach just said that he wouldn’t buy my bootlegs. Bastard!
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• Rescue Me: A Fourth Season! @ Geof F. Morris’s Indiana Jones School of Management
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• When All You Have is the Pareto Principle « Live Granades
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• andrew osenga | … To Those Who Wait
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• Sam Ruby: Implementing an Internet Curfew
  This is very, very, very tempting.
  (tags: +1)
• andrew osenga | Rockin’ Goodlettsville
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• When All You Have is the Pareto Principle « Live Granades
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• andrew osenga | Rockin’ Goodlettsville
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)

• andrew osenga | Born After Vinyl
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• andrew osenga | Born After Vinyl
  (tags: gfmorris_comment)
• Big Step « Live Granades
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• Big Step « Live Granades
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