Got word last week that two of my favorite defunct-musical-acts, the Stooges and the Replacements, are reforming in some capacity to record new material. I put off writing any rants on the subject until I could take some time to re-explore some of their respective work at home…

My admiration for the Stooges and the Replacements come from very different places… My admiration for the Stooges came in my late teens as I began to finely tune my ear and understand their importance in the timeline of music. The Stooges, with the exception of the Talking Heads, have been a musical act I’ve grown to appreciate more with age. The recorded moments I discovered at age 20 on the “Funhouse” record are a world apart from the ones I discovered at 25…

Listening to the collective work of the Stooges 30~35 years later is very strange for me… Perhaps it’s because I lived in Detroit for 10 years and I stared out at a city that had so much of an impact on their sound, that I closed my eyes and transported myself to a place where their protopunk ways changed the course of music…

In contrast to that, the Replacements came at a time when the musical landscape needed music to be ar-ticulated in a different manner and voice. The Replacements were that. I’d be lying if I said I understood anything of depth that Westerberg wrote before I was in college, but I remember seeing the “Bastards of Young” video and knowing that there was something very different going on.

The Replacements also have something that I think really sets them apart from many musical acts… they recorded an amazing record on a minor label, only to follow it up by recording a very important record on a major label. Listening to “Let it Be” and “Tim” in succession should be prescribed to anyone who turns 25 in the world.

Hearing that the two bands are reuniting to record new material is leaving me feeling a bit cold inside…

I may be in the minority here but I really don’t think either band could recapture or release something worthwhile… Can anyone think of one band that could possibly reform – 10, 20, 30 years in the case of the Stooges to release something of worth?

The news of the new material doesn’t light me up with much hope or anticipation…

.rCr.

Nintendo officially announced the name of their fifth home console this afternoon: Wii… I may be in the minority on this one, but I kinda dig “Wii” over the code name “Revolution”. I don’t particularly put too much stock into the final names of gaming consoles. Xbox and Playstation aren’t any better…

At the end of the day its going to be about great game titles with tight controls.

I so hope the new controller doesn’t suck…

.rCr.

Quick birthday shout out to my man Ace Frehley… Not only is he my favorite member of KISS but he also has a firm claim on my favorite guitar solo of all time. What solo you ask? The guitar solo for DETROIT ROCK CITY!

Happy 55th Ace

.resaca city rollie.

OK… so my initial guess on Vito’s lifeline couldn’t have been more off. My weekly Vito-Death-Watch entry has become a bit of joke… seeing how he’s managed to live 2 episodes longer than I originally fore-casted. That said… this season of the Soprano’s might be some of the finest moments in HBO Sunday night TV. There’s been a few moments this year where I think they could have progressed the story line a little further, but I can’t fault them for it because of the wonderful dialogue.

After week 6… um 7? I forget… Vito continues to live, but it looks like his head will roll in one (possi-bly) two episodes, pushing a war between the Jersey/New York families.

Odd plot lines that need to develop… The terrorists in the bar… Phil’s rise to Boss in the New York Family… Tony’s possible mental slip in the last episode where he didn’t take credit for the hit on Rusty… and Vito’s end.

Had a rather momentous trip over the weekend… Had my father accompany me to San Antonio to visit Kathie over the weekend. It was the first time I had ever had a family member meet a significant other in my adult-life. Happy to report that the visit went incredibly well. I’m fairly certain that he enjoyed himself while up in San Antonio… Having him take a closer glimpse on the life Kathie and I are building together is very important to me.

Prior to the visit… I found myself feeling incredibly nervous about them meeting. Not so much because I feared disapproval of any kind… I know how badly Kathie wanted everything to be perfect for his visit and I wanted everything to go perfect for her.

In retrospect… I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.

I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time at Newsvine the past couple of weeks following the “Iran-nuclear-threat” story, in hopes of understanding an inevitable trainwreck.

In short… Iran has begun a uranium enrichment program to generate electricity. There are a number of countries that aren’t all that pleased with this development and they’re currently seeking diplomatic avenues to stop Iran from continuing it’s current nuclear program.

There are a number of articles one can find on the subject and I urge anyone with a spare moment to bone up on the topic in light of the President’s (Bush) comment on a possible nuclear strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Let me repeat that. Bush was asked today if the Administration was planning for the possibility of a nu-clear strike against Iranian nuclear facilities… his answer “all options are on the table”.

I’m not old enough to know what the Bay of Pigs was like… I’ll ask my father about that this afternoon, but I take great discomfort in our President answering the above question with “all options are on the table”. For our President to openly state that a nuclear-preemptive-action against any Iran sickens me to my stom-ach.

I understand why a President can’t rule out possible pre-emptive force against a Country/Leader that has fanned the flames of hate against Israel… but he can’t stand before the world and say what he did this afternoon.

Hug the ones you love.

.rCr.

Picked up a copy of Brain Age today after work… after reading an obscene amount of favorable reviews I had to see where I stacked up against people chatting up the game on the net.

I’ve begun with some of the first tests… for some reason, I can’t get the game to recognize me saying the word “blue” on some tests… I ended up taking on a number of Math tests instead.

I did so badly (in regards to age) that I’m too embarrassed to post my current brain-age.

It has a number of daily tasks so that I can chart my brain activity in the coming months. It’s a pretty cool title and recommend it to anyone into those IQ games. I’ve never committed any time to Sudoku puzzles until today… jury is still out on me liking it or not. The handwriting recognition on the DS is a 8 out of 10… so I got a few wrong while doing one that I shouldn’t have.

I have shitty handwriting tho… so maybe it wasn’t all the DS’s fault.

Spent Easter Sunday with the family yesterday… The day started out with an unwelcome-wake-up visit from my sister around 8:00AM in the morning. Got word that my parents wanted to grill up some eats so my sister and I broke for the grocery store to pick up some last minute items before assembling for lunch.

Easter for the most part came and went… highlight was a water balloon fight my family partook after eating lunch. I wish I had taken some pictures of the balloon collection before all hell broke loose in the backyard.

A few hours after my Sister left, I channel surfed a bit in hopes of catching the Ten Commandments on TV. Don’t particularly care it too much… but there’s something comforting about catching a little Ramses playing Egyptian chess on Sunday afternoon. Didn’t matter tho’… I loafed around the house until the Soprano’s started. I can’t believe that this show is going to be drawing to a close.

Last night’s episode wasn’t particularly good… The biggest plot development was Vito’s official outing. The episode felt out of place for some reason… It also felt like the plot development slowed down when they could have done everything they developed last night in 20 minutes. I think there’s 5 or 6 episodes left before they break for the final episodes in January… so I can’t help but be critical about every moment they squander on the screen.

The next episode seems a bit promising… but I really don’t know how much longer they’re going to drag out the Vito angle. Much to my surprise Tony want’s to possibly let Vito live. There appears to be too much unacceptance to his lifestyle within the family for him not to get snuffed out so I doubt that he’ll be welcomed back in any fashion…

One of the coolest perks about being back in Texas and seeing Kathie more… is getting to spend quality time with our beautiful miniature schnauzer Abigail. Kathie has commented aloud that I sometimes spend a little too much time with Abbie. I guess I have a deeper appreciation for her since our pet dog in South Texas (Ivan) went missing.

Took this photo of Abigail minutes before I hopped in the car and headed back home on Sunday… It’s one of the better ones Kathie and I have currently on record.

Keep a copy of it on my new iPod so that I can take a peek at her from time to time… coming home and not having a pet dog at home is a little strange… It’s way too early to think about replacing Ivan. Both my parents are still very upset about his disappearance…. They’ve warmed up to the idea of me having a puppy at some point tho’.

mmm… puppy breath. There’s no better smell in the world.

.rCr.

Did the unthinkable a few months ago… I pre-ordered a Japanese DS lite before it was scheduled for it’s late February launch. Demand for the device outstripped its capacity, so I didn’t get my grubby hands on one until yesterday.

For the long wait… Lik-Sang bundled a $10.00 coupon I have to use before the 5th of May, a funny mouse pad and a neck loop with Space Invader characters on it.

Felt kinda strange to put in the pre-order back in February… I haven’t had the itch to pre-order a game/system since Street Fighter II back in the early 90′s.

My need for a DS is a bit silly… I received one over the holidays as a gift, but I didn’t anticipate my Mom’s addiction to Animal Crossing. I can’t recall the last time I got play my original DS… getting the new DS lite so that my mom could rock out my old one is ok with me tho’. I haven’t seen her this happy in her off-time in quite some time.

The DS lite is surprisingly smaller than the original DS… While it may not seem very small in these pictures, it feels way smaller in ones hands. The screen has been GREATLY improved. It’s brighter than my PSP and the battery life has also gone up.

If all goes well, I’m going to swing by a local DS download station to check out Brain Age before I pick it up next week… I may or may not swing by after work… I feel incredibly tired for some reason this afternoon.

Anyhoo… I hope to post a follow up once I get some time to rock out some games I’ve picked up in recent weeks.

.rCr.