Even in My Dreams My Words Get Blown Away

Monday. Well, since last week was so mind-numbingly boring, I decided to come in this week with a fresh start and see if I can kick myself out of this funk that seems to be plaguing me ever since I returned to work from my surgery. You see, things have just been kind of dragging lately, and while I don't expect to derive immense pleasure from my job function, I would at least like to spend the day in at least some mild sort of bliss. Sure, work is lame, but this is the time I've got and I have to do the best I can with it, right? So, I decided I was going to turn things around and get back on the upswing.

Well, while today wasn't exactly a buzzing ball of excitement, it has been better than any day last week (at least so far...). I had a spreadsheet report to do this morning, and I had a couple of teleconferences to attend. Other than that I have been working on collections since the combination of me being out a week and a half and the customer changing business software systems a month ago has had a few negative effects on my receivables base. Nothing too crazy, but when you are used to continual positive progression, the slightest dip can be unnerving.

Speaking of dips, once again I am without new tunes to discuss. Don't get me wrong, I have a few artists/albums that I want to check out, but I have not yet been able to procure them. Trust me, though, I am working diligently to resolve this dilemma and hopefully I will have some new stuff soon. In the meantime, I pulled out Bossanova by the Pixies to listen to on the drive in. I know, I've talked about the Pixies like a bajillion times on this blog, but after a little hiatus I had to get my fix. These guys are just too darn cool. I like this album a lot, but I have one grievance with it. There is a noticeable lack of Kim Deal. Of course, this lack of an outlet is what led to her forming The Breeders, but still, couldn't Francis afford her at least one track? She doesn't even do backups on this album. What a waste.

Even though one does not get a Gigantic Deal when listening to this album, I enjoy it just the same. Dig For Fire is a great tribute to David Byrne and the Talking Heads' signature style, and Velouria and Allison are excellent tracks as well. If you are new to the Pixies you might want to go with Surfer Rosa or Doolittle first. If you already have those albums but not this one, then what are you thinking? Was your copy stolen or something? Round out your collection today!

Passengers on Different Cars Steppin’ off the Same Train; In the End Makin’ it Right’s the Main Aim

Friday. Yeah! Well, another boring day to end an extremely boring week. There isn't much going on here at all today. I'm just trying to keep myself busy doing odds and ends and putting through whatever orders come in. Not exactly thrilling, but I guess it could be worse. At least it's Friday. I'm ready for this week to be over.

So, I was reading music reviews in The Onion AV Club the other day and I was ecstatic to see that Jurassic 5 was finally putting out a new album after a long hiatus. I've been waiting for this one because I am totally down with the J5. They are good stuff indeed. However, after reading the review I have to say I came away with three major reservations about this album:

First, Cut Chemist had no part in the production of this album because he is busy with his solo career. Actually, I already knew this because I read an article a few weeks back in which he discussed his solo career and his love for Star Wars (yeah!). So, that was disappointing. Second, Scott Storch produced a track on this album. For those who aren't familiar, Scott Storch has been the producer behind some of the biggest commercial pop hits recently. That's all nice and good I guess, but I don't listen to commercial pop music. One of the main reasons I love J5 is because they aren't commercial. Which is an excellent segue into reservation number three, which is that the Dave Matthews Band collaborated on one of the tracks on this album. The DMB?! Those guys are totally lame. I know they are super popular and all the ladies think Dave is hot, but really, to me they are to jam band music what, say, Good Charlotte is to punk. To paraphrase what the guy in the Onion said: this track will be sure to usher in a bunch of new fans for the J5, while pretty much alienating all of their old ones. Exactly.

I overcame all of this trepidation by reflecting back on how sweet the J5's old albums are. This one couldn't be that bad, could it? I gave Feedback a listen on the way into work to find out for myself. Admittedly I thought the album got off to a slow start. It was good, but it didn't compare to their older work. Then it started to pick up. I started getting into it. Even the DMB song wasn't too bad (not that I'm reversing my position on the DMB). It had a pretty catchy hook to it that was reminiscent of Action Satisfaction. As the album progressed, so did the overall quality, in my opinion. While (at least on the first listen) I don't think that Feedback can compare to the Jurassic Five's earlier releases, I can't deny that there are a few pretty good tracks on this album. I ended up fairly enjoying it. I recommend this album to any previous J5 fan looking to hear their new stuff. If you are new to the J5, though, check out Jurassic 5 or Power in Numbers first.

One Dimensional Fool in a Three Dimensional World

Thursday. I've had better days at work. Not that today has been that awful, but there's enough going on to keep me teetering just at that perfect level of annoyance and frustration without going over. First off, the network response time today has been completely terrible. The slightest task I ask my computer to perform seems to take forever, as if I am asking it to devote every single system resource to join in to accomplish it. Now, this wouldn't be too bad, however, today is website upload day and I am trying to move information back and forth across a server 800 miles away. Something that usually takes me about 20 minutes to download took about 2 hours today. The compiling macro has been running for over an hour now. Uploading the database back to the pick-up site usually takes two hours in itself. At this rate, I might have to start it when I leave and hope that it is done by tomorrow morning...

On top of all of this, one of my customers issued a formal complaint against our company because of shoddy work and materials provided by one of the installation firms that we contracted out to perform their requested services. Even though none of the many issues are our fault directly, because we are the procurement firm that arranged the services, we are by default liable. The customer is ticked off, the installer refuses to acknowledge their complaints, and we are stuck in the middle. There is a very strong possibility of this going to court if we don't resolve it all by the 31st. Since the sales rep failed to secure a signed labor contract between the two parties, we pretty much have nothing to work with should it actually go to litigation. This situation has caught the attention of several of the high-ups, and I just finished a fun little teleconference with the sales rep, the customer service manager, the Big Boss Lady, and several other directors of sales, operations, etc. Let's just say no one is really happy about this development, and it only seems to be getting uglier. This could seriously jeopardize our relationship with this end user, and with over $700k in receivables on the books, we have to do the best we can to not lose them. I'm seriously crossing my fingers that this all works out. Otherwise I may be dealing with legal issues for the next two years. Yeah!

On a more positive note, I listened to the second half of Ben Harper's Both Sides of the Gun this morning and I totally dug it. The acoustic portion was all right, but these tunes were what I had been waiting for. I lamented yesterday that Mr. Harper's usual calls for radical change and cures for social injustice were all but absent on the first half of this album. I ended the post with my fingers crossed that they would appear on the second half, and I am very happy to say that I was not disappointed. Mr. Harper is back to his trademark self on tracks like Black Rain and Gather Around the Stone. This was the Ben Harper whose music I fell in love with long ago. I just had to be patient.

Although the B-side of Both Sides of the Gun is intended to be more rockin' than first and takes on more confrontational themes, these songs are not depressing or too heavy. In fact, the title track actually has a bit of a funky feel to it. Most of the other tracks are fairly upbeat as well, including Engraved Letter and the feel-good Better Way. I loved the second half of this album, and while the acoustical tracks are enjoyable, I am basing my recommendation on the strength of the second half alone. It's that good. I can't wait for the drive home so I can listen to it again...

Another Day, Another Chance to Get it Right; Must I Still be Learning?

Wednesday. Another insanely boring day. Seriously, I am experiencing some major ennui over here. And you know what? I'm bored of ennui. I need some serious excitement around here, and not the type that slapping into a Slim Jim can provide. The highlight of my day was my account review with the Big Boss Lady. It could have gone better, I suppose. The combination of me being out for a week and a half on top of our customer converting to a brand new computer system less than a month ago has not had optimal effects on my account base. Luckily I had some irons in the fire already going that should shake some things loose, or this could have been much more ugly. So, needless to say I have to get crackin' on some collections in the next few weeks.

My sister and her family are in town and are planning to drop by the house tonight. They are currently on some kind of freewheelin' free spirit cross-country odyssey right now. They had no real plans; they just hopped in the van and went driving out west. They had only the barest agenda and are camping wherever they find camp. They are on the second week of their trip now, and I think we are the last stop before they head back home. I haven't seen my sister in over a year and a half, so it should be a pretty good time. I just feel bad for them because I know they wanted to go to Rocky Mountain National Park today and it just started to rain out. Hopefully they got out in time this morning to enjoy it before the rain started. It's funny because it doesn't really rain much in Colorado. We usually have clear blue sky from horizon to horizon all year long. It just seems to rain whenever we have guests in town visiting. It really is beautiful here, trust me...

Ok, so I finally got my iPod/iTunes/new Ben Harper issue all figured out. I converted the music files to the correct format last night, and now they play on my iPod just fine (though some would argue that the files lost quality during the shift). So, I am now finally able to give the first part of my two part discussion on Ben Harper's latest release Both Sides of the Gun.

For those out there unfamiliar with Ben Harper, it is pertinent that you familiarize yourself immediately. This guy is good. His style varies from time to time, but I think he is most often put into the "guy with an acoustic guitar" category. However, I don't think he would be in the "sensitive guy with an acoustic guitar" category. I would put him in the "guy with underlying anger with an acoustical guitar" category. That is, until I heard the first part of this album. You see, Both Sides of the Gun has been split into two parts: an acoustical part and a more rockin' part. Mr. Harper insists, though, that this is not a double album (even though it comes on two discs). He says to consider it as "side A" and "side B" of a record, although he says on his website that he often changes his mind on which side is which.

I started with the acoustical stuff since that is what was listed first on my playlist. While these tracks were very enjoyable (did I mention that Ben Harper is awesome?), gone were the angry, confrontational lyrics of his past. These seemed to be more intimate, like he was letting his guard down. Perhaps this is a softer side of Ben Harper. Maybe once I can contrast this half with the other, the whole will make more sense. I'm counting on you, Mr. Harper, to confront the injustices of the world on the second half of this album. I guess we'll see tomorrow...

Fate Isn’t What We’re Up Against; There’s No Design, No Flaws to Find

Tuesday. Man, I am really dragging today. I woke up tired and I haven't been able to shake it even with the cumulative help of four cups of coffee. Not that there is much going on today here at work worth waking up for. I started out this morning doing my pre-upload spreadsheet for the receivables website because it requires little or no hard thinking to put it together. After that I have been mostly doing odds and ends, trying to clean up deductions and other discrepancies on my accounts. As I said, tons of fun to be had for sure. Zzzzzzzzz...

Sorry about the no-post yesterday. I had a bunch of stuff going on here at work due to our customer advising us that we have until September 30th to collect a certain kind of billing from them or we aren't getting paid for those items ever. Yes, they seriously told us that. I know, you are thinking "can they get away with that?" and while the legal answer seems a bit unclear, the customer is moving forward with this plan of action anyway. I can't say who this customer is, but let's just say that they are incredibly big and legal matters don't really concern them all that much. Seriously, who else could get away with this? If my company called up all of our vendors and told them, "hey, you got 2 months to collect all of our past dues or tough luck" we would be run out of business. Needless to say, the Big Boss Lady and all others involved pretty much freaked at this development and we had a bunch of action plan meetings to discuss how we were going to deal with this mess. It's going to be a tough two months. We have been trying to collect on some of this stuff for over 2 years. I don't know if two months' time is going to be enough to make it happen.

On top of that I admit I have just been lame lately. I don't know if it is a post-promotion/post-operative return-to-work slump or what, but my blogging has been a bit sub-par since I got back. For that I apologize. Unfortunately the lameness is going to have to continue for one more day, though. I was all prepared to have a two-part music discussion on Ben Harper's new double album, but when I went to play the first track on my iPod this morning all I got was silence. Apparently the tracks need to be converted to another format in order for them to play (this has happened to me before). So, mid-drive and on the fly I had to find another album to listen to or be stuck with Clear Channel-operated commercial radio (no!!!).

I ended up picking Chutes Too Narrow by the Shins. I'm pretty sure I've already discussed this one before, but it had been a long while since I've heard this album so I decided to give it another spin. I haven't been listening to this album because I have been focusing most of my Shins attention on their Oh! Inverted World album instead. Oh! Inverted World has New Slang on it, which you might have heard featured in the movie Garden State. Anyway, Chutes Too Narrow shouldn't be overshadowed by its sibling because it is pretty darn good in its own right. It is a bit more dynamic than OIW, with songs breaking out of the mellow transcendental mood so predominant on that album. It still sounds like The Shins, though, so if you aren't hip to their sound you might want to skip this one. If you do dig The Shins, then by all means run out and get this album. I think it's pretty darn good. Recommended tracks: So Says I, Turn a Square and Saint Simon.

Inconceivable, Unbelievable, Grammar Like a Hammer Information Receivable

Friday. Man is this day ever dragging. Seriously, if time were going any slower it would be yesterday. I have work to do, but it is all long and monotonous spreadsheet work so it really isn't making the time go by any more quickly. I am so bored right now I am randomly Googling things just to see what comes up. I tried Googling my own name. That sounds incredibly egotistical, but I already knew ahead of time that it wouldn't bring anything up related to me, so I was just curious to see what other "Johns" are out there. Unfortunately this exercise can be fairly depressing as I read about university professors, software engineers, professional animators, musicians, old famous bishops, town founders, and all kinds of other exciting lives and professions that my doppelgangers are enjoying. Me? I'm virtually non-existent, not even a quick blip in the local paper to be found. Forget working on the perfect epitaph. I need to work on the perfect web entry...

I had planned on having some new tunes to discuss today, but due to technical difficulties unfortunately that did not happen. It is Friday, though, so I had to come up with something upbeat as a replacement. I have to get my Friday started off right, ya know. So, I dug deep and pulled out an old Run-DMC mix that I made up a while back. I figured if I couldn't do new music, I should perhaps go in the other direction and kick it old school. Man, was listening to these tunes fun. These songs still hold up even 20 years later. It's kind of funny to me, though, that rappers like Run-DMC and Kool Moe Dee were considered "hard" back in the day, but aren't even close to what is played on regular top-40 radio nowadays. Not that it stopped me from listening to them. Raising Hell was huge when it came out. I don't think there was a fifth-grader at my school who couldn't recite every word of You Be Illin'. I also think that Walk this Way single-handedly led to Aerosmith's resurgence. They were pretty much written off at that point in time, then Wham! Walk this Way comes out and next thing you know Permanent Vacation is topping the charts the following year. And what about the Beasties? There would be no Beastie Boys without Run-DMC and Def Jam Records.

Of course all of this prop-giving is unnecessary since Run-DMC's place in music history is pretty well solidified. They were the bridge that took rap from the underground to the mainstream. The beats were good and the lyrics were positive. As I said before, I had a ton of fun jamming out to these tracks first thing in the morning and that's all that I can ask for on a long Friday morning commute.

The Tune You’ll Be Humming Forever, All the Words are Replaced and Wrong; With a Shower of Yeahs and Whatevers, You Trade Me Away Long Gone

Wednesday. Well, back to the boredom. I've kept busy, but not the exciting kind of busy. More like the busywork kind of busy. To be exact, the "let's stare at an Excel spreadsheet screen all day compiling line item reports" kind of busywork. So, I guess being busy isn't always a cure for boredom, but it is helping pass the time I guess. Other than that, not too much going on as far as work goes.

During my time off I tried to discover some new tunes through my usual combination of searching Live Plasma for bands similar to the ones I already know and then sampling their songs on Amazon. I was typing in some band, probably Modest Mouse or Built to Spill or something, and it came up with a band called the New Pornographers. I don't know exactly what happened to the old ones (perhaps overtaken with the onset of digital media vs. video tape), but these were the new ones and I decided to check them out. Unfortunately, Amazon did not have any song snippets to sample. The reviews seemed favorable, and described music I liked, but I have been burned by this before. Someone says that some album is the greatest of all time and it sounds like this and that group, but when I actually hear the tunes they are nothing at all like the reviewer made it out to be (probably a lot like your respective reactions after hearing the music I discuss on this blog...). But, I decided I was going to take a chance on this one so I asked the music fairy to help me out and sure enough three albums appeared on my hard drive shortly after.

I had no idea who these guys were, so I decided to try to find some background info on this group. At this time, I would like to say that one should be VERY careful when researching a band named "The New Pornographers" when sitting at a work computer. If my post tomorrow regards my immediate dismissal, well, let's just say you'll know why. Anyway, it appears that the NP are similar to Broken Social Scene in the fact that the band is actually made up of people who are from other bands. The NP are also from Canada as well. What is the deal? I guess all of the coolest indy super-groups are coming out of Canada these days.

I didn't know which album to start with, so I went with Mass Romantic. I took a risk on this one and it paid off. I had no idea what to expect, but I ended up really enjoying this album. These guys are pretty cool. I don't really know how to describe them, though. They for sure don't sound like Modest Mouse or Built to Spill if that is what Live Plasma connected them to. They are more like over-the-top indy pop or something. Every single song is upbeat. There are no downers on this one. Even the depressingly titled My Slow Descent into Alcoholism is presented in a smiley-faced manner. My only complaint was that my copy of this album either had some pretty bad skips in it, or this was some of the roughest sound editing I've ever come across. I'm guessing it was the former, though.

I really liked these guys. Despite their name, Mass Romantic wasn't raunchy, obscene or misogynistic in any way that I noticed. Of course, for some of you that may be a disappointment, but I'm going to recommend this album anyway. I really liked it and I am excited to hear more of what this band has to offer.

Oh, You Call that Drivin’? Then See Us Dream; How Could it Last? I’m Tryin’ Hard Not to Scream

Tuesday. I don't know what was going on this morning, but for some reason the branch kept getting intermittently disconnected from every kind of communication tool. We were losing our phone connection, our server connection, internet, email and pretty much everything else necessary to do any actual work around here. So I spent the morning trying to find things to file and stuff since there wasn't much else to do. Once things clicked back on, however, I was super busy not only trying to catch up on the hours lost due to the outage, but I am also still trying to get caught up from being out. Luckily most of the stuff that I had to do involved spreadsheet reports, so I am just kicking them out like crazy.

Ok, as promised, a discussion of the New York Dolls. No, the NY Dolls are not a lesser-known sports team from the Big Apple. They are a rock band from the early/mid 1970's who pretty much ushered in the punk movement heard later in that decade. Much like the Velvet Underground, this band is probably more famous from the success of those they influenced than any success that they actually realized as a band. It is amazing when listening to New York Dolls to hear how much the Sex Pistols borrowed from their sound when leading the punk charge several years later. I can also hear a bit of New York Dolls in the Misfits. That being said, I wouldn't consider the New York Dolls full-out "punk." Then again, they're not exactly hard rock, either. They are a lot of fun to listen to, though. Don't expect to hear any deeply profound lyrics or hear any intricately complex guitar chords. Expect to rock out while cruising down the interstate with a big smile on your face.

Thanks Kat for the recommendation (hey, did you know that bassist Arthur Kane was a Mormon? His conversion is detailed in this documentary: New York Doll). I am forwarding along this recommendation to anyone else who is interested in the roots of the late 70's punk movement and/or just likes to completely rock out to some fun tunes.

How Many Called, Called My Name; I’m Tryin’ to Explain, that I’m Not the Same

Monday. Well, readers, I'm back at work after the long time off. I expected to be crazy slammed busy with stuff to do when I got back, but actually things weren't too bad. Don't get me wrong; I had an email inbox overflowing with things to take care of, but nothing insanely insurmountable to conquer in the next few days.

Sorry I didn't get another post off last week regarding my recovery. After I got my splints taken out of my nose, things started getting a whole lot better. I could instantly tell an improvement in my ability to breathe and I started to look a whole lot better without a bunch of stitches and bandages on my face. The bruises around my eyes healed up enough to actually go out in public by Friday, and I was able to go out and enjoy a fabulously beautiful weekend here in Colorado. I don't know how the weather has been in your respective parts of the world, but here it has been sunny and around 100 degrees F. We headed up into the mountains to cool off a bit and took a nice little day hike around Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Here are a few pics from that venture:




So, I had no idea how things would be returning to work. After seeing how bad I looked the day after the surgery I figured there would be no way I would be ready to go back to work in time. However, I ended up healing quite quickly externally, so I didn't have to come in all raccoon-eyed for everyone. For the most part I look ok, however, I am still a bit swollen and my right eye still has a red spot on it from when a capillary burst or something. Other than that, not too bad. Internally, however, I still have a bit of healing to do. My nose itself is still very tender and I can tell it is still swollen on the inside as well. I was still feeling a bit blocked up even after the splints came out, but every day I am getting more and more able to breathe through my nose as more gunk is kicking loose and coming out. Already, though, I am totally convinced this whole process was worth it. Hey, just the fact that I can pull any air whatsoever through my nose right now is nothing short of a miracle. Breathing and smelling and stuff is definitely pretty cool.

Well, I had planned to do a discussion of the New York Dolls today per an excellent recommendation from Kat, however I am unfortunately running out of time. I guess I spoke to soon about that "not being too busy" thing. So, I am going to postpone the music discussion portion of this post until tomorrow. Catch ya then...

Look at the Mess I’m in; A Broken Nose and a Broken Heart, an Empty Bottle of Gin

Tuesday. Well, faithful readers, I made it through the surgery. It’s hard to tell the results as of yet because everything is still pretty swollen and tender right now. Well, that and that fact that I’ve got two giant internal splints shoved up my nostrils…

I went into the surgery center Friday morning and everything took place right on time. I was amazed. I expected to be waiting for like four hours staring nervously at the clock, but no, they actually called me back early to be prepped and everything. I donned the wonderfully stylish hospital gown and cap, and laid back on the gurney while they tried several times to get an IV in my arm. Apparently I have large veins that make this task difficult. I would think that sticking a needle in a bigger target would be easier, but hey, I’m not an RN so what do I know?

After asking me the same group of questions about ten times over, I quickly slipped off into Johnny dreamland. I guess I was under for about three hours. I have no idea. I woke up to the feeling of being suffocated and pulled off the air mask that was causing me extreme discomfort. The nurse immediately put the mask back on my face, and I responded in turn by taking it back off. I think I was really making her mad, but what can I say? I couldn’t breathe with that thing on. It felt like a pillow over my face. After that she kind of put the mask beside my face so I could still get the oxygen, but I could still have fresh air as well. Eventually they wheeled me into a recovery room where I spent a little bit more time trying to come down off of the anesthesia. I got really disoriented from that stuff and not in a good way. Every time I tried to get up or move I got nauseous, so they ended up giving me even more meds to counteract it. Finally I was able to make the car trip home where I slept on and off upright in a chair until the next day.

My recovery after that hasn’t been as bad as I anticipated, but it hasn’t been exactly pleasant, either. Besides my nose being broken in two places and bandaged in a splint, my face is swollen and puffy, and I have two black eyes. My right eye swelled up so much I could barely see out of it, and my eyeball is all red due to some burst capillaries or something. Things are starting to subside now, but for the first few days I was looking pretty gruesome, let me tell ya.

I thought I was having a reaction to the antibiotics they prescribed for me, so I called the doctor’s office yesterday to discuss my concerns. The nurse I spoke with said that she wasn’t surprised that I was all swollen up because “they did a whole lot of stuff up in there.” Apparently once the doctor got in there to perform the procedures, things were a lot more complicated than he originally thought. He had to make a few adjustments on the fly, and then he had to make some cosmetic alterations to compensate for the structural changes. Things shouldn’t be radically different, but once all of the swelling goes down and the healing is finished, I should have a straighter nose with a smaller tip. Hopefully I will be able to breathe through it, too, since that was the whole point of the operation in the first place.

On Thursday I am going back to the doctor’s office to have my bandages removed and the splints taken out of my nose. From every account that I’ve heard from people who have had this procedure done, having the splints removed is an extremely unpleasant experience. However, I am looking forward to it because first, it means that I am one step closer to healing, and second, frankly, I’m getting sick of all of these bandages and stuff on my face.

So that’s about it for now. Other than that, I am enjoying my time off work (well, as much as I can shut-in with a big swollen and tender face) and trying to catch up on errands around the house. When I get a few moments to sit at the computer, I’m catching up on my blogging and looking for new tunes to discuss when I get back. I’ll try to do another post or two to fill you all in on how the recovery is going before I have to go back to work. Until then, thanks for dropping by.

“Do You Believe What You’re Sayin’?” Yeah Right Now, But Not that Often

Wednesday. Well, I hope that everyone in the US demographic of my vast readership had a swell Independence Day yesterday. Personally, mine was pretty cool. My parents are in town, so we took them up to Poudre Canyon and spent an absolutely gorgeous morning hanging out down by the river. In the afternoon we went to Old Town Fort Collins and heard some live local music before heading back home to have a grill out. Later in the evening it looked like it was going to storm as heavy dark clouds began to roll over the mountains, but the weather held out long enough for us all to witness a fairly decent fireworks display in City Park. All in all it was a pretty good Fourth, I must say.

Why do they call it "Fourth of July" anyway? You know, besides the obvious answer of what day it falls on each year. I mean, is "Independence Day" that hard to remember? We don't call any other holidays by the day they land on. Merry 25th of December! Happy Fourth Thursday of Every November! Don't forget that this year we are observing The Extra Day in February that We Stick on Every Four Years to Make Up for the Extra Quarter Turn That the Earth Makes But We Don't Calculate in the Standard Gregorian Calendar! I'm not even going to attempt to figure out an alternate moniker for Easter. Anyway, it seems to me that the only benefit to calling Independence Day the Fourth of July is to set up the old riddle "Do they have a Fourth of July in England?"

As you can probably tell my brain is still a little tired from yesterday's festivities, which is causing a mild delirium. On top of that I have been slammed crazy busy here at work today. I am busy for one because, hey, it's just a busy day and my phone has been ringing off the hook since early this morning. This would normally be fine, however, today is the last day that I will be in the office until the 17th of July. So, I am trying to get as much stuff done in one business day as I would get done in seven business days. That's pretty much an impossibility, but I'm attempting it nonetheless. Also, on top of everything else I am uploading the receivables website a day early because I won't be here tomorrow. I would just let it slide, but I won't be here next Thursday either, and we just can't have it go two weeks without updating.

I would love to say that I'm going through all of this hassle because tomorrow I will be on a plane to some remote tropical island, but as all of you faithful readers know, I am having surgery on Friday so I will instead be at home recuperating during that time off. For those of you just dropping by, I am having nasal surgery and the details of the procedures that I'm having done can be found here. Don't worry, it's nothing serious. In fact, this is a good thing and I'm pretty excited to finally get this taken care of because I've heard it's pretty cool to be able to breathe and smell and stuff. So anyway, tomorrow I have a pre-op appointment with the surgeon, and then I have to go to the surgery center to fill out releases and other such paperwork. On Friday I go under the knife, and then after that I am going to take a lot of painkillers and veg out (sweet!). Since all of this stuff will be going on, I don't know how regular posting will be on Inaction-in-Action for a while. I'll try to check in once I am up and about to let you all know how everything went.

As far as new music to discuss goes, I am continuing my current lameness streak. With everything going on lately I just honestly haven't had time to sit down and search out new artists to review. Hopefully during this time off I can spend some time gathering some sweet new albums to share with you all. Of course, after a week of taking some pretty heavy painkillers, I may just end up doing one long discussion on my revised interpretation of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Who knows...

So What’cha Want? So What’cha Need? I’ve Got the Fonts You Want to Read

Monday. Due to the holiday tomorrow, this should be a really slow workday. Customer-wise it is a slow day. The branch is having a slow day. Other branches that I've talked to across the country are having a slow day. However, my day has been busy. I guess that's a good thing because it makes a slow day go by more quickly, but it still feels odd having to work my tail off through things while others are hanging out, talking, and doing all kinds of other non-work-related activities. The reason for my activity is that I only have two days this week (today and Wednesday) before I have a week and a half off for my surgery. So, I am trying to cram that much work into two days' time. Since I will be out Thursday, I am running the website upload on Wednesday. That would usually be no big deal, but since everyone is off Tuesday and most everybody is off today, it is going to be difficult to have all of the data accumulated that I need to get the upload done in time. Luckily next week the Big Boss Lady is just going to cancel it outright. She has learned better than to ask someone else to do it because in a company of 8-9,000 people, I'm pretty much the only person who can. Last time she asked someone else to do it in my absence, he had to call me twice the day of my grandmother's funeral to ask for help (and still didn't get it uploaded).

The plus side of everyone being out today is that I am in charge of the department. Yeah! The Big Boss Lady is off, and so are the two other financial managers who have tenure ahead of me. So, today all must kneel before John! Actually, since today has been so slow, I haven't gotten to wield my guy-in-charge powers much (or at all), but that's ok. With great power comes great responsibility. Ok, ok, I agree, enough of all of the superhero movie quotes. Let’s move on.

Not much going on in the new music area of Inaction-in-Action lately, and for that I apologize. I haven't acquired any new tunes lately, nor have I heard anything lately that I had to run and go get immediately, either. If you all have any recommendations for me, please send them on over. Sass, I'm still looking for Le Swing but keep coming up empty. Don't think I haven't forgotten about ya...

Since I didn't have any new tunes, I just tried to find something that I hadn't heard in awhile. It had been a few months since I last listened to To the Five Boroughs by the Beastie Boys, so I gave that disc a spin. There've been a few discussions on this blog regarding this album and they have all come to the consensus that as far as B-Boy albums go, this one is pretty weak. I'm going to have to agree that when you compare this album to, say, Paul's Boutique, there is no comparison. Of course, there are very few albums by any band that can compete against Paul's Boutique, so that really doesn't say much to me. I think that if you judge this album on its own merit and erase any previous efforts and/or memories that you have of the Beasties, then To the Five Boroughs isn't that bad. However, if you keep expecting every release to be better than Check Your Head, then you are setting the bar a bit high. Sure, it's the Beasties so we have come to expect the best, but if this is the worst they ever have to offer, then they ain't doin' too badly in my book.