I’ve determined that the secret to a successful wedding (and even the impending marriage, but that’s another post) is to be a good listener. There are a million people doing a million things, and asking just as many questions. There are places to stand, things to hold, words to say, etc. And add on top of it the fact that you’re likely nervous as hell (either for jumping feet first into a binding contract of fidelity, or the thought of being in front of a bunch of scrutinizing hawks). Those don’t mix well.

So for my friends yet to take the plunge, just learn to listen and you’ll be fine. Unless someone tells you that doing body shots off of a stripper the night before is a good idea. Then, and only then, is it prudent not to listen.

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1. Music for one apartment and six drummers - I guess you could consider it a “what if the cast of stomp took over your apartment.” The shaving cream inclusion is brilliant.
2. Old fashioned farm people - At a rehearsal dinner for a wedding last night, the groom’s grandmother had supplied the cake. Not only was Geraldine dressed in a frock straight out of Green Acres, but the Italian wedding cake that she made took her three days to complete. Judging by the taste of it, she probably even made the butter herself. Recipe must be had.
3. This incredible “Lands End” photograph - Unsane picture. Beautiful color palette as well.
4. A confusing end to American Idol - Nope, didn’t watch it. I do know that Taylor Hicks won though. And while the show is still bastardizing American music in my opinion, the fact that someone so filled with passion for music won is worth a nod from me. I have no idea why America “chose” someone that eccentric, seemingly introverted and perhaps humble. But hooray for gray hair!
5. Top 50 places to have a beer in America - I have plenty of friends that live in these cities. Now I have a reason to visit them! Err, I mean more of a reason…yeah, that’s it.

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Things have been abnormally quiet around here as of late. Closing on one house, moving to another, catching up with old friends and attracting one wicked head cold has left me with not much energy. Or at least just enough to go searching for that box where I put that thing. Right next to the eleventy-billion other boxes.

Hopefully once my head drains and I find that box with that thing that I need (socks? monkey wrench?) I’ll be back in good spirits around here. Just a day or two, I promise.

“Sir, we can’t handle it anymore. Production has slowed to an absolute crawl. No movement in a week! There are just no workers with this strike going on. What should we do?!”

“You put your nose right back to that grind stone, damn it. That’s what you do.”

1. Google Notebook - The perfect browser companion for a Post-It Note freak like me. No more coffee stained hand-written ideas. Now I simply highlight text on a web page, right click and add it to my note board or write my own. No logging in each time. No waiting. Seamless. I’ll be a Google fanboy in no time!
2. Text Twist - How I’ve mananged to pack anything this week is beyond me. I’ve played so much of this game, sitting in the kitchen hunched over, that I fall asleep to word patterns dancing through my skull. As if it’s not hard enough for me to fall asleep!
3. Strongbad Email #152 - The Brothers Chaps are always hilarious, but being about the interweb this made me smile just a bit wider.
4. Having other friends that are homeowners - Not many guys that I’m friends with are active homeowners, so when one of my good pals joins the club it’s great. This week has seen many a minute on the phone sharing stories, easing my fears that I’m the only weirdo that feels like an idiot dealing with Adult Stuff like this.
5. Smoking chips - No, not rolling up Cheetos powder and puffing it. Hickory chips for your grill. I tossed some (soaked in water first!) on the grill last night along with some chicken. I was expecting mediocre-at-best results but was pleasantly surprised. It actually yielded a distinctive and appetizing taste. Even The Wife™ liked it (and that’s huuuge).

Aw, little buddy turns 18 today. It seems as if it were just last month that you were about weeeee big. Now you’re all grown up. And smoking. When the hell did you pick up smoking? And that mouth of yours… Do the other sailors know how liberally you curse? Gracious…

Anyway. Happy 18th birthday FTILFF. Now make sure you register for the draft. Oh, and dump that little tramp you’ve been seeing too, ok? She wears too much makeup.

1. Aya Kata’s shirt from Beautiful Decay - What a beautiful shirt. Yea, it’s $30 but the illustration is incredible. Perhaps even a smidge better than the Steve Buschemi shirt?
2. How dare you instant message a supermodel! - Heather has a particularly hilarious post. A cutting insight into the irrational fears of humans women.
3. ReleaseGuide.com - I used to use the Metacritic link. This is much more comprehensive. And I check it every week. I is teh loser. [via chrisglass]
4. Local breweries - We stopped off for a celebratory drink last night after closing, and I enjoyed on a BBC Nut Brown Ale. Sometimes the little guys just do it better.
5. America’s Bread Battle - I caught this last night on Food Network in a rare moment of couch time. The bakers featured in this show did things with bread that left my mouth agape for a solid hour. Silkscreening? Feathers? Who knew a baguette was that hard to make? I should stick to the microwave.

OK, FTILFF, another slice of cake? Oh. You’re going out tonight? Well I hope it’s not with that floozie!

I admit it: Tool scares the crap out of me. They’ve been that band that I’m afraid to admit I like. Not because I’d lose indie cred if anyone knew, but because I’m actually afraid of Maynard and his buddies. That being said, they make some good music.

One of the most reclusive and, well, weirdest bands out there currently, fans have been waiting five years for a new album. Personally, I was not a fan until Aenima (the second disc), which found heavy rotation in my CD player my senior year in high school. And with substantial speculation that 10,000 Days was a full-blown fake disc meant to throw off fans, I had my doubts.

With “10,000 Days,” Maynard and company don’t disappoint. Such lag time between releases (and with only four major releases in fourteen years) makes it easy to assume that Tool could easily have fallen off the wagon with this one. But they don’t. In fact, I think that they took the spacey parts of Lateralus, toned them down a bit and brought back the harder sound of Aenima. A nice balance of the two albums, in my opinion. Though it’s still very apparent they’re all on heavy drugs. Or something.

The first single, “Vicarious,” is stylistically very close to the chord progressions of Aenima in the intro, but eventually kicks into a rocking seven minute foot tapper that builds upon previous efforts. “Jambi,” the second track, features some truly impressive guitar/bass skills while fundamentally showing off the chops of one of the best drummers in modern rock history. “The Pot” is another stand out track with a great vocal performance by Maynard, and consequently perhaps the only track on the album that takes a divergence from the standards “Tool sound” in terms of melody.

The album is not free of oddities though. The lyrics are more obscure and perplexing this time around, as if the band has taken too fondly to tripping and navel gazing. I get it that they’re all about mystery, intrigue and hidden messages (an angle that I think has helped them sell more albums than just their sound alone), but c’mon guys. “Now you’re weeping shades of chosen indigo, got lemon juice up in your eye / And when you pissed all over my black kettle…” Huh? I’m all for artsy albums but if I’m supposed to buy into your brand of intelligent progressive rock at least gimme something. To their credit, though, the lyrics of this album are almost exclusively personal and introspective, as opposed to the usual soap-box style edicts and judgements.

They’re still up to their old tricks of being weirdos (read: swirling instrumentals of chanting and guitar acrobatics) and still making songs that keep me shifty in my chair for some unknown reason. But 10,000 Days is a strong disc that for once has Maynard’s vocals faded to the background to allow the instrumentals to fully shine. I doubt it will top Aenima for me, but it’s got some impressive tracks that are definitely worth hearing, even if it’s a faux prelude to the “real” Tool album yet to be released.

That’s right kids, it’s that time of year again where my hometown goes bananas for a two minute horse race. Two. Minutes. Yet the city parties like it’s Y2k redux for the two weeks leading up to it. Apparently the yokels don’t know what “anticlimactic” means. They ain’t dun learned ‘em that in skool. So without further blathering, on behalf of that windbag Bob Costas, I bring you FTILFF #17: Derby Edition:

1. Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere - Hooo-weee. What an album. Cee-lo, the Atlanta rapper of Goodie Mob fame has teamed up with indie producer Danger Mouse to give us one of the more offbeat, oddly addictive CDs I’ve heard in awhile. Cee-lo doing his best Al Green (which ain’t half bad) overtop smart and quirky beats. Think gospel, disco, rock, soul, RnB mashed together. And if you haven’t heard “Crazy” or “Smiley Faces” you’re definitely missing out. (hear those tracks on Myspace)
2. German people - Ok, not all German people are cool. But the ones here in Louisville throw a mean Derby-week party. I can’t recall the last time I went out on a weeknight, but last night was great. The weather was perfect for an outdoor event, and for $20 all you can drink, free wings (which I heard were tasty) and Jager luge shots you can’t complain. Hooray for German people!
3. Poverty Has Its Price [photograph] - I’ve linked to David’s site before, but this picture is incredible. It conveys the message almsot entirely by it’s texture. Not an easy task.
4. Public transportation - Now that we’re moving out a bit further, I can’t continue to pretend that my daily commute bothers me. I drive an SUV and though I love that truck (and it gets pretty darned good MPG), it’s irresponsible to commute 30 miles each way. So I’m looking to take the bus in to work each day. I wonder if they’ll let me install my speaker system on the #64…
5. The Typewriter Guy [from Seasame Street] - Watch the classic video on YouTube. I always love this strange character…

Apparently no one told me that EVERYONE ELSE in the city takes this day off. I’m like the kid at school who shows up in uniform when everyone else knows it’s Jean Day. Crap. Oh well, off to the races, err, work…things…

We had the inspection last night at the new house. Although there were a handful of things that truly need addressing before we seal the deal, I think we should be ok. And by “handful of things” I really mean fixing the front porch so that it’s not RIPPING ITSELF from the front of the house. Apparently the builder was enjoying the “special brownies” when he was working on this house. Either that or they didn’t teach him at Builder University that nails do not suffice for this application.

I don’t claim to know much about homes. At all. And what I DO know is basic at best. But I’m damned sure that I know that it’s a boo-boo to drywall over the gas main. And the water main shut-off. And the shut-off for one of two exterior spiggots. I’m not sure if this amazing feat of carpetary was compliments of Commander Billy the Master Builder (of porch building fame) or the current homeowner. Whomever is to blame they should be knuckle-wrapped, for real.

By the end of the day I was completely frazzled. After work we had a meeting with Mortgage Man to discuss superhero things just how dramatically we had missed our original monthly payments estimates. Since meeting with him I’ve decided: 1) not all mortgage brokers are blood-sucking vampires and, 2) no one ends up buying a house BELOW the price that they seek to find. The power of self-persuassion is all too seductive I tell you.

So we signed our souls away, locked in our rate and headed off to a less-than reassuring inspection. And while I’m sure that in the grand scheme of things the report really wasn’t that bad at all, it surely seemed like our guy had it our for the house. Seriously. I actually felt badly for the house, as if it was getting unnecessarily picked on. Poor thing. And what I learned from the inspection? If you look at ANYTHING for three hours, you’re going to find a sh*t ton of things to be remediated.

While there I snapped some truly awful pictures since it’s not listed on the internet. I’m sure the family wouldn’t be overly happy with their home being published. But it’s not like I’m revealing the address. Yet. Because when I do, you’re all invited to the bash of the century.

Just don’t stand on the porch. It might collapse.