Life As I See It

Wow, I can not believe how expensive eyeglasses frames can be. It was rather odd trying on different glasses, I couldn’t get used to seeing myself with them on. Nothing looked right. I went in prepared to do the whole Buddy Holly look, but that really didn’t work on me. I ended up choosing some frames that were fairly inconspicuous, not at all what I had anticipated. I was dissuaded from buying Zeiss lenses since my prescription was so slight. That’s not a great sales technique, but I took their word on it. I did get the antireflective coatings. I know how important they are in photography, can’t imagine not using them on my glasses. I should consider getting some sunglasses, I anticipate using those quite a bit over there…

Isaac

Right in between my Lipps Inc. album (mouth to mouth if you must know) and a Free Kitten album I found a couple pieces of 80’s gold. A 12″ by UTFO, yeah everyone remembers “Roxanne Roxanne”, but what about “Hanging out” with the candy wrapper? My favorite is the “Special instrumental versions” on the flip side. The instrumental of Hanging out makes for some interesting 80’s breakbeats, but the “instrumental” of Roxanne Roxanne is just drum machine and synthesized hi hat. Anyway, some fun 80’s rhyming… “She takes to my rap cause my raps the best..”

I also dug up my 12″ single of “Der Kommisar.” Fuck Nena and her 99 LUftballons, we all know that Der Kommisar is the best song auf Deutch to ever play here in the states…
Isaac

How hardcore am I? I was just listening to “Stiff records, the Akron compilation”, complete with a scratch and sniff tire on the front! There isn’t a date anywhere on the LP, but I’m guessing somewhere between 78-79. Why in God’s name would I be listening to an indie label’s compilation of Akron talent from 1978? To hear the very first songs by the Waitresses of course! You remember them, right? “I know what boys Like”, “Wrapping Paper” and the theme to Square Pegs? Of course you remember them:-) My favorite song of theirs is “Tommy Tomorrow” found on their first album “Wasn’t tomorrow Wonderful?” These first two tracks give a glimpse of what is to come, but they are mostly just historical curiosities…

I am now listening to “Freedom of Choice” by none other than DEVO. Believe it or not, I think their stuff has held up pretty well. It’s definitely the product of the early 80’s, but it is still interesting. The title track is one of my favorite 80’s tracks of all time, it’s right up there with “Cars” by Gary Neuman… I may put on “I wanna be a Lifeguard” by Blotto next, or maybe some Human League dance remixes… Oh how I love my LPs!!!! God, I’m such a geek…

\
Isaac

The current bill (in the house? I can’t keep track any more) disgusts me. It was originally drafted to raise the federally mandated minimum wage to 7 something an hour. The other party has grafted (pun intended) an estate tax cut that they know will be hated by the bill’s original writer’s party. Never mind the actual substance of the bill (you all should know how I stand on those two things) or which party did what (although that’s sadly predictable), what kind of children are running things up there? My God, I would expect 8 year olds to behave better. You can be sure that when this bill is killed both sides will claim victory and nothing will happen at all. The two parties bickering back and forth remind me quite a bit of the whole middle east mess. Both sides are much more concerned with getting back at the other side and not losing face than they are with actually doing something. It’s just as well I suppose, who knows what kind of disaster they would manage to legislate if they actually got along….

Isaac

I have volunteered for two more 6 day weeks this month. I am going to regret that I’m sure. But if you want the money, what else can you do? Work is really starting to get to me, it’s back to a life wasting thing now instead of a useful way to spend my time. Gotta stay positive, not too much longer, and I need that money if I’m going to have that new laptop for the trip… I can do this, one day at a time…

Isaac

The iTunes music store now has The Venture Brothers on it. I am downloading the second episode of the current season. The first one had the now expected laugh out loud moments like finding out why Kong was in Jail. He “..sodomized and eviscerated Vince Neil on national TV” Now that’s funny!

Isaac

Those of us that are pretty serious about our LPs have a cleaning ritual before each playing. I use a combination of different cleaning solutions. Yes, it’s a bit of a pain, but it keeps the records in fine sounding shape. I have a pipette for the record preservative, when I withdrew it from the bottle, it immediately shot out a quantity of the liquid in the vicinity of my amp for the left channel. I didn’t see anything, or smell anything burning so I quickly dismissed it as a close call. Grrr, I put on “Life’s Rich Pageant” and thought, “Crap, I’ve worn this LP down to nothing…” It was scratchy, distorted, etc. So I immediately got onto ebay and put in a bid on another copy. Then the phone rang. It’s easy to forget how handy a pause control is on cd players when you’re halfway through an album side… I lifted the needle and got Rick. When I put the needle back down my heart stopped. The left channel sputtered and then went dead. OMG! I’ve fried my amp! Hmm, all the tubes are still lit though, and there’s no smell… Wait a minute, the right side is quickly fading too…. I had forgotten about my phono preamp. It is powered off of two 9 volt batteries. I popped in two new ones and viola! It sounded just like it should. Guess I didn’t need that new copy after all…

Isaac

I’ve always thought that Men at Work’s second album was better than their first. “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake” are of course great songs, but the whole album is solid. I’m trying to get as much listening in now as I won’t be able to for a while. That and ice cream, won’t be able to get Ben and Jerry’s over there either. Mmmmm… Music and ice cream, what better way to spend my day off?

Isaac

I had my first eye exam in 20 years. He gave me a (mild) prescription to counter my growing nearsightedness. Mom says I’m a freak, that I’m supposed to be getting more farsighted, not nearsighted. I think that its weird that calling my inability to see clearly at distances is “more” anything. I would think that the appropriate term would be unable to see far off… Anyway, he thinks that the glasses would help when watching movies (he doesn’t know me very well does he) or driving, especially at night. He also confirmed my fear that I should go and get glasses with really nice lenses like Zeiss or Pentax because the “cheap” ones would likely drive me crazy. Ah, the perils of being an optics snob… I’ve only found one optician in the area that sells Zeiss lenses and they’re in Reston town center and old town Alexandria, sounds expensive. The trouble is that I can’t figure out how to do this over the web, I need to see the frames on me. I’m not sure if I should get a regular set of glasses or just a pair of sun glasses. I won’t be driving in the near future and I need some sunglasses. I’ll have to look at the prices and see what makes sense.

Isaac

Last week was particularly draining for me. It seemed as though all I did was work and sleep, and I never had enough sleep.. Rick’s party went well, lots of people having a good time. I was introduced to various people as the guy going to Yemen in October. I have done so much reading that the exotic nature of the trip has faded somewhat. It was a bit exasperating to explain to person after person what I was doing. It was also a little weird having one person after another tell me that was nuts and then immediately turn around and say what I was doing was very cool. I don’t really think my trip either crazy or “cool”, but I didn’t expound on that at the party.

Had my first strong desire in a long time to drink today. For some reason a 6 pack of Mike’s hard cranberry lemonade really appealed to me. I actually stood there for a minute or so debating whether or not I should get it. People ask me why I don’t drink and I usually come up with some sort of plausible reason, but the truth is that I’m scared to death of it. I lived with several people that had alcohol problems, that isn’t pretty. Crawford males have a long history of not being able to handle alcohol or of alcohol handling them too easily… So I decided not to get the Lemonade, best not to worry about it.

Isaac