At this moment...
03.10.10
Last night, Sara and I made mac & cheese. The secret ingredient, butternut squash. We also added some leftover chipotle cream sauce from the fish tacos we made the night before. It was super delicious and pretty healthy considering mac & cheese is usually loaded with fat. The recipe made enough for a family of eight. We'll be eating mac & cheese for leftovers.
Unrelated to food, I'm just now discovering the Yeah Yeah Yeah's 2009 release, It's Blitz. Sometimes I can be slow to getting around to albums. This one is quite good.
Oh, and before I forget, specbebop.com is seven years old! Even though the archives only go back as far as 2004, 2003 archives exist. I'm just too lazy to reformat them to this version.
03.09.10
You'll need Quicktime to watch the below video. Or, download the video.
Today I upgraded to Aperture 3. Big mistake. It constantly crashes and I've yet to isolate what causes it to crash. Very frustrating. I thought the crashes might have something to do with some of the presets but it crashes when I'm just doing simple color correction. Of course, the below isn't simple color correction.
03.07.10
On Friday, Sara took me to The Publican for my birthday dinner. We featsed on tuna, three different types of ham, a salad, a delcious chicken with frites, and some wonderful beers. Afterwards we went to Margie's on Western for an ice cream sundae. I'm so blessed to have Sara in my life.
Yesterday Jason, Dan, Matt and I got togther and played some of the old Holiday Costume songs. Afterwards, a bunch of us went to see Robyn Hitchcock at The Space in Evanston. After the show, Sara and I stopped off at McDonalds for a shamrock shake. Disgusting. We then decided that we should have a frosty from Wendy's. Much better.
The highlight of the show was hearing Robyn play Flavor on the Night.
03.04.10
Last night, Sara and I had Greek-style mahi mahi (feta, lemon, mint & dill) with tomatoes and quinoa. I handled the fish and Sara made the quinoa. Neither of us had ever eaten quinoa before so we weren't sure what to expect. Quinoa is considered a complete protein, as it includes all nine esspential amino acids. And while it sounds healthy, and it is, quinoa is delicious. Sara did a magnificent job (as she always does) in preparing it. She has a great taste for what is missing in a recipe and I always ask her to add her magical flavoring touch to what I make. Sara is also far more creative in the kitchen than I am and takes risks. I usually follow the recipe. We paired it with a nice inexpensive white wine.
I also made some homemade granola. The recipe is super easy and perfect for adding to yogurt. It has just enough sweetness.
Just like in the old days, below is a video of Jason and Matt performing Two of Us by The Beatles. In high school we would have little music sessions at Matt's house whenever we had a day off from school. Those were always crazy. And while things were a bit more sedate, it still felt really great to see Matt and Jason making music together after a long time of silence. You'll need Quicktime to watch the video. Or, download the video.
I didn't shoot a lot of photos is February or January. Or maybe I did but they haven't been developed yet. I go through periods where I want to shoot film and then I only want to shoot digital. Right now I only want to shoot digital. I'm trying to figure out what to bring to NYC. Just a digital body with a 24 - 70 and a film body with a 50mm? I could be crazy and only bring film, but that would be foolish. Maybe a digital body with three primes (14mm, 24mm and 50mm)? Too many choices. Shot over lunch...
03.03.10
In Jan. I started listening to the iPod in my car starting alphabetically by album title. Over a month later and I'm still listening to the A albums. Here's an updated list since my last posting:
All Mod Cons - The Jam
All My Friends - EP - LCD Soundsystem
All of This and Nothing - The Psychedelic Furs
All Rise - Inara George
All Saint - David Bowie
All Shook Up - The Replacements
All the Pleasures of the World - The Crayon Fields
All Things Shall Pass - George Harrison
All This Useless Beauty - Elvis Costello
All Your Summer Songs - Saturday Looks Good to Me
Alone at the Microphone - Royal City
Alpinisms (Bonus Track Version) - School of Seven Bells
Alright, Still - Lily Allen
Aluminum Tunes - Stereolab
The Amateur View - To Rococo Rot
Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror - Brian Eno and Harold Budd
Ambivalence Avenue - Bibio
American Fool - John Mellencamp
Amnesiac - Radiohead
Among My Swan - Mazzy Star
Ancient Melodies Of The Future - Built to Spill
And the Ass Saw the Angel - Nick Cave/Mick Harvey & Ed Clayton-Jones
And Their Refinement of the Decline - Stars of the Lid
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out - Yo La Tengo
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Andorra - Caribou
Angel Dust - Faith No More
Animamina - EP - Amina
Anniemal - Annie
Another Day On Earth - Brian Eno
Another Green World - Brian Eno
Another Setting - The Durrutti Column
Anthem For A New Tomorrow - Screeching Weasel
Antidotes - Foals
Apartment Life - Ivy
Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants
Appearance And The Park (Mute USA Edition!) - Kreidler
Appetite For Destruction - Guns N' Roses
Apple O' - Deerhoof
April - Sun Kil Moon
Arches And Aisles - Spinanes
Architecture & Morality - OMD
Are The Village Green Preservation Society (Rarities) - Deluxe Edition - The Kinks
Are You the Sick Passenger? - King Radio
Ariadne - EP - The Clientle
Armchair Apocrypha - Andrew Bird
Armed Forces - Elvis Costello & the Attractions
Arrhythmia - Antipop Consortium
Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire) - The Kinks
Ask Me No Questions - Bridget St John
Ask Me Tomorrow - Mojave 3
Asleep at the Wheel - Saint Etienne
Asleep in the Back - Elbow
Asobi Seksu - Asobi Seksu
At Action Park - Shellac
At My Age - Nick Lowe
At the BBC - The Pixies
Only 13 albums until I enter the letter B. Overall, this is fun, but it can make for a rather jarring experience. Case in point, Shellac's At Action Park followed by Nick Lowe's At My Age (and at 6:45 in the morning.)
In other news, Sara and I are heading to NYC later this month. I'm excited. We have our hotel booked and I made dinner reservations at Scarpetta. I'm investigating other places to go and am looking for suggestions, so if you have any recommendations, send me an email or use the contact button at the top of the page.
03.02.10
I thought about writing an essay called, "Why I Don't Own Any Kiss" but then realized it would be a brief essay. I don't own any Kiss because they stink.
03.01.10
After almost 10 years, Bermans & Arrival/The Holiday Costume reunited (the only person missing was Mark). Only a few were on hand to hear us play (a wife, four children, one of which was a baby, a cat and a dog). Not to sound like a sap, but I've missed them and the music we made together. In those nearly 10 years, Jason and I formed Zerostars, Dan toured the world with Kill Hannah and Matt found himself a wonderful family and moved out to the country. We're far too young for this to be a mid-life crisis... Either way, it felt great to be in the same room with the three people who taught me so much about working together as a collective to create some really great music (that nobody heard). Hopefully we'll be able to share more of these musical moments together in the near future.
Check out My Musical History to learn more...
