December 2005

Previously on "Cerebral Flotsam and Jetsam":

You may remember me talking about me Arch-nemesis, Darin Murphy. Well it turns out the bass player for the K-tel hit machine stumbled upon my blog and read that entry and the following amusing (to me anyway) email thread ensued:

I was browsing the pictures from our company holiday party when I stumbled across this picture of Jess and some guy that I didn't recognize at all. Now there are a lot of people in our company that I don't really know and probably wouldn't recognize, plus everyone could bring a guest. I was about to IM Jess and ask her who this slightly insane looking dude was. He had his arm around her so I figured she must at least be fairly acquainted with him which isn't unusual since, as the receptionist, she gets to know most of the company. Just as I was about to ask her, I figured it out. That guy was me. It was a bit freaky to not recognize myself at all.

We now have digital phone service. This includes free calling to anywhere in the U.S. with no long distance charges. Now we just need people to call and the guts to do it. I just keep thinking "I can't call these various friends of ours scattered across the country! It will just be awkward silences because I'll just be like 'uhhh, so hey, what's happening?'"

Anyway, feel free to email us with your numbers if you would like to receive frivolous phone calls from us saying "Uhhh, hey, what's happening?"

We now broadcast to you our official first entry from our new condo. We aren't supposed to have internet yet, but for some reason we do. Mmmmmm, free contraband internet. The move went as well as a move could go, being that moving is inherently evil. We paid some movers a hefty some to do all the hard work, and it was some of the best money we've ever spent. The main brunt of the move was done in something like an hour or so, however due to the fact that we knew we could be a bit lazy on our part, we were, and thus required several trips back and forth to get all our straggling possessions shuttled to the new locale. We weren't very good about actually boxing everything we own up, but it worked out because we ended up reusing a lot of boxes. We would unpack some of them at the new place then take them back to the old place to re-pack them with more stuff. We pretty much spent the entire rest of the day split between moving the rest of our stuff, and unpacking organizing etc. By the end of the day we had actually accomplished a hell of a lot of progress and are all at home in our new home. Now you must all come and visit.

Remember back when I had just moved to Austin, didn't have a normal job and was trying to get Production Assistant work and such? Well now that I have a normal, good, full time job, I've had more calls for P.A. jobs in the past month than I've probably had since I started doing P.A. work. Of course, now I have to turn them down as I can't really take off work for a week and ditch band gigs to go do a week of last minute P.A. work. *sigh* I am taunted.

I present to you quite possibly the most amusing holiday related song in the history of the world. I recommend not drinking while watching this as it may result in you ruining your keyboard. Be sure to watch it to the end as it only gets better as it goes on.

Karkis - Secret Satan

I figured that using a song title from their first album was apropos as it represents my relaitonship with the second album. It is indeed growing on me the more I listen to it. Jess just pointed out a lyric that I had to share:

"I had never seen a set of eyes more hazelerer"

The Darkness's first album "Permission To Land" absolutely blew me away as one of the best albums I'd heard in a long while, so naturally when their second album "One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back" came out on Tuesday I put on my best glam spandex catsuit, strutted into my local record store and said in my best British Falsetto "Where's the new Darkness album, mate?" Sadly I found that it was Monday and I'd jumped the gun by a day so I would have to wait a day to plant my legs solidly in an "A" shape, raise my arm to the sky, purse my lips and rock out.

On Tuesday I had a groupie bring me the album at work (O.K. so it was my wife, but that doesn't fit the story as well.) My first impression was a bit of disappointment. Not that it's a bad album by any means. It was just that I was so blown away by the first album that naturally my expectations were high. After having a few more days with the new album, I've warmed a bit to it, but I can tell that it will never be as popular with me as "Permission to Land". It's definitely not quite as straight on rockin as "Permission", but there is still much enjoyment to be had.

This album was produced by Roy Thomas Baker who produced Queen, Foreigner, Cheap Trick, The Cars and Devo. In fact, the piano on the album is the same piano used on Bohemian Rhapsody and still bears the red wine stains from Freddie Mercury. I would say the Queen influence can be heard quite heavily on this album. All in all I think it's definitely worth a listen and most likely an addition to your collection, however I can't quite call it as much as a "must have" as "Permission to Land" is. However the more I listen to it the more I like it and I still highly recommend it if you dug their first album. Still one of the best albums I've heard in a while.