Week 1 Day 1

Training for my next Half-Marathon started today. Officially. I clarify the "officially" because today was a rest day. Why you start a running program with a rest day I'll never know. I didn't write the program, I just follow it. It has worked for my last two Halfs so it should work again this year. Well I think I did Novice 1 before and now I am on Hal Higdon's Novice 2.

Unofficially I started the training last week. I needed some pre-training training after the sloth-like vacation I took the week before. I'm sure three miles tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday won't be that bad. Of course I foolishly pushed myself a bit on my bicycle yesterday. Did I pull something in my leg? Maybe. With luck it's a minor grievance and won't hinder me too much.

Who's Winning?

I'm fighting nostalgia today. Right now I am listening to the "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" Score/Soundtrack. Oh, it's excellent by the way. I used to own it back in the day. I would spend hours building up my Lego castle sets, listening to this soundtrack and living out my medieval fantasies.

I love "Prince of Thieves" unabashedly. I realize it's ridiculous but I don't care. It came out when I was 12 or 13 and it hit me right. Action, Bows and swords, that Bryan Adams song, Christian Slater, Alan Rickman giving it his all ("Because it's dull you twit, it'll hurt more!") and a kick ass score, what more do you need at 13? For me, nothing. I can still watch and love that movie.

So, even though I can just listen this score with the press of a button on the Internet, I want more. I want to own a physical copy of it. And not just any physical copy. I want it on goddamn cassette like I used to have it.* And lo and behold, for less than 5 bucks it could be mine thanks to the power of eBay.  So this is the nostalgia battle today. This and the Batman Score which I also listened to while building Lego sets (city, not castle) If I buy it, would I listen to it more than once? Would I have to then find some old Castle Lego sets to try to relive my youth?

Decisions Decisions...

*My memory is hazy, but now I am thinking that I might have had it on CD. So now what I'm really battling is false nostalgia.

Resolution Follow Up.

Every year I try to out out a list of my favorite 6 or 10 or more albums of the year. Just like the rest of the Internet does. Last year I ran a little late and didn't post until mid-January or so. By the time I got around to it the moment had passed and I didn't at all feel enthusiastic about posting the previous year's excitements. It was on to the new year and no time to reflect on the past. Part of the delay came from my usual December listening choices which is Christmas music. I prefer the more obscure/different songs then the handful that are played on traditional radio. (Though I like some of the traditional stuff too, "Last Christmas" by Wham! being one of my all time favorites) I have an rdio playlist which has over 200 hundred songs ranging from traditional, obscure, sad, bittersweet to downright weird. I listen to that many times during the month. I also try to find more and more to put on there by scouring the Internet for offbeat Christmas. I've already got a few albums queued up and ready to listen to. But, I can't do it until December or at the very earliest after Thanksgiving. There are rules you see. So December is stocking stuffed with Christmas music, and though I try to make time to reflect on the year past to get my top albums in order I sometimes find I don't want to . I want to keep the Christmas and not interrupt it with non-Christmas music.

Christmas Playlist

So I made a resolution to try to reflect on my yearly favorites earlier this year. Keep December for Christmas Carols and use November to shore up my list. After all, it's doubtful that there will be anything coming up in the last 2 months that will blow me away and reach top status. But I can keep an ear open just in case.

Here we are in mid-November and it's time to get started. Great right? I'm right on time. Unfortunately I'm not. You see I spent the last few weeks at work listening to an Audiobook. Of course during that time I queued up a lot of music on rdio. So my queue is looking daunting right now and I kind of want to clean it up a bit. Also, I spent most of October listening to Halloween music to add to my Halloween playlist (I like seasonally appropriate playlists, though I spend more time looking for music for the playlists then I do actually listening to them it seems) Another issue that could potentially hold me back is my upcoming vacation and the Thanksgiving holiday. That's 7 days out of the office. That's 7 days that I won't be catching up on my rdio queue (I mainly listen to it at work. Home is usually filled with life and I don't have rdio to go) So really I only have 4 days to reflect and get this list together.

Okay, I can probably do that. I already have 3 albums that I know will be on the final list. Each of them were so good right away that there was never any doubt about them. It's the final few that will be difficult. There was some great music this year, but outside of those 3 albums has there been any that are truly great? Any that I think I'll love for ages to come? I hope so.

Today I started the process by firing up my 2014 playlist (Yes, I have a lot of playlists) This will help me choose which albums and artists I need to hone in on. The list itself is all the songs I like from this year. I'll listen to the songs, and if there is an artist that is represented a lot on the list, I'll queue up that album. Or, if there's one truly transcendent song I'll queue up that album as well. Sometimes if a song is so good it could elevate everything around it. My only fear is that I may have tapered off updating the list in the second half of the year. Maybe I was too distracted with life, maybe nothing was all that great after Summer. Hopefully it won't matter.

2014 Playlist

Mark it Down

Here we go. Another out of control situation. Is it monthly? Bi-Monthly? Seasonally? Only when we are visiting/have visitors? What is it? What can I do? What can we do?

Inspiration vs Inspiration

What do you do when you have too many ideas?

Tonight the gang and I are playing some more D&D. The gang being Ace, Mike, Meri (second-timer) and Frank (second second-timer) Is Alex out completely? I'll be the DM (My second time in the Modern Era)

Last time I ran 5th edition with the introductory adventure "Lost Mine of Phandalin" that came with the Starter Set. I think it's a solid adventure and we were having fun. In between sessions I looked into some OSR adventures and read up some more on the Moldvay Basic set of D&D. This came about from Ace's interest in the old-school. Of course it inspired me to throw together something. Which in turn became something else. Which in turn became the beginnings of a small campaign/adventure path. One that I would love to run. But I also want to wrap up the 5th edition game. And yet I also want to finish the Skylark Vale that Ace runs in 3.5.

Maybe the problem isn't too many ideas, but rather not enough time.

Sigh

Blogger, Why are you so broken? Why can't you refresh my feeds? Why do you struggle so?

A Dream

Wouldn't it be nice if one day when we had company we actually liked one another for a change?