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Last night I finally hooked up my PC after the move. In last apartment, Ali and I shared a desk and monitor for two computers. That was fine because I didn’t use my PC for much of anything besides a jukebox (It’s nickname is “Music Bitch”).

Well the second bedroom in our new apartment is huge. Much bigger than our old master bedroom, so it was finally doable for me to have my own desk. But this was a problem. We only have one monitor which we used to switch between PCs via a KVM switch.

But after a Planet video gig we had a little extra money one week, and thanks to a sale at Circuit City we got Ali a pretty cool new monitor and I took her old one. I don’t need anything special or new, so I decided to give the new one to her instead of me.

So now that Music Bitch is up and running, I had a stock pile of about 2 gigs worth of new music to put into iTunes since it’s been down for over 2 months. I got all that situated there are now 11,086 songs in iTunes (my e-Penis is huge) but 5,548 (6,806 before the first sync in over 2 months) songs have a play count of zero. That is just over half of my entire library of songs that I (or Ali, now that she has an iPod) have not listened to.

I decided to make a smart playlist of songs that have a play count of zero and I plan to work through it until, at least my music, is listened to at least once. What’s the point of having all this music if you never listen to it, right?

So right now the play list is at 5,539 songs and they will automatically remove themselves from the list once the play count goes to one.

By the way, the last time I made a note of my iTunes library (February 2007), I had 2,792 fewer songs.

I am right at my goal of a full month’s worth of nonstop, no repeating music. I’m pretty happy about that. Now I just need to do that pesky thing. You know. Listen to it.

Once again my Mom is participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer around the isle of Manhattan. Yes, the whole island. Just under the 40 mile mark over two days. It takes an incredible amount of dedication and training for a feat like this, and I am extremely proud of her.

This year breast cancer has come even closer to our family. My mother’s best friend, and my “second mother” was diagnosed as well as another very close family friend. Sadly, my mother’s godfather lost his battle with breast cancer. It’s not only women who are affected by this terrible disease.

In 2006 my Mom first did this walk and she raised $3,260, and I would love to see her top $4,000 this year. Please help as much as you can, even if it’s just passing the link along to others. It’s for a great cause, our wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and even the men in our lives.

I know it’s a tough year, and that things are tight for a lot of us, but anything you can do is greatly, greatly appreciated.

Thank you, everybody.

If you would like to write a check, email me and I can get you the necessary information.

So as most of you may have known, (except for Dianne, that is) Ali and I went out to Louisiana this past weekend.

Driving out there always makes me want to see more of America, because as much as I’ve seen and/or been to, it’s no where near close to what America is.

I’ve been to 27 states, all but 2 states east of the Mississippi River (Kentucky and Michigan), the only states west of the Mississippi that I’ve been to are Louisiana (dir), Texas (dir dir) and Nevada.

Being from the northeast and now living in the south, I see differences in culture, environment and everything in between everyday. That’s a given. But if you go from state to state up there, things don’t change all that drastically. Driving from Texas to Louisiana, things change quite a bit. Hell, things change in Texas quite a bit once you start driving away from the cities.

I would love to be able to one day drive across the country, and visit all the places in America that you hear about and see pictures of. Mountains, hills, farm after farm, little white churches in the middle of nowhere, miles between houses, last chance for gas for 300 miles signs, the desert, the plains, the nothingness and the everythingness.

This site is going to chronicle a trip by blogger/vlogger Cali Lewis of 50 states in 50 weeks. It’s going to be an awesome blog/vlog to follow once they get started around September by their estimates.
http://www.bigtrip.tv/

I will definitely be following that blog in my RSS reader and living through them. One day I would love to have the opportunity to do something like this. Ali and I in an RV, driving across the country at our own pace, stopping where we want, exploring the country, the people, our history.

So as most of you know by now, we moved downtown. If you don’t know this fact, you need to go back and read a few blogs here and at Ali’s blog.

I used this move as an excuse to break up with my comic book shop. It’s not the best shop ever, books are a day late, they often don’t get enough in so there was a lot of times when I had to wait an additional week or more. But I did like the people that worked there.

So after Ali and I moved, I called up the shop (that’s right, I dumped them over the phone) and told them that I wanted to cancel my pull list. It happened to be the new owner that answered the phone. He seemed really broken up about it.

“Was everything okay?” he asked. “Is there something we can do differently?” I assured him everything was okay, and told him again that I moved downtown and wasn’t in the area of that shop anymore, which was a total lie. I pass it everyday on the way home from work. Classic “it’s not you, it’s me” pulled off pretty flawlessly, I thought.

So I’ve been going to the new shop for 4 or 5 weeks now, and of course you sometimes think back to your ex. Is the grass really greener? As long as they’re happy, and you hope they want the same for you. Right?

My new shop has my books every Wednesday, and except for one minor screw up on their part, everything has been pretty cool.

This past Saturday was Free Comic Day, a day started to try and bring in new readers by giving people free books. With all the running around we had to do this weekend, I wouldn’t be able to go to the new shop and get free swag.

But Ali was getting her hair cut at the mall where the old shop was. I did need to pick up a book that my new shop somehow screwed up the order on (It’s a rather big book in the scheme of what is going to happen in the DC Universe this year, launching several titles from it.) So I decide that I can pick up the book I missed this week there, and get whatever free comics are left.

I walked in, the owner was there, helping a ton of customers. I was happy for him. The shop was usually dead when I was there, maybe I’d see one other customer, tops. I found the book I needed, and decided to browse the trades since I needed to spend more than the cost of the book to use my debit card (I never carry cash.).

Well, I guess he forgot that I called to cancel my list because he asked if I had anything waiting for me. I reminded him that I had closed my pull list, and it all came flooding back to him.

He knew I found another shop. Another woman.

Him -(Sheepishly) “How’s your new shop treating you?”
Me -(Awkwardly) “It’s pretty good. You know…”
Him -”Yeah.”
Me -”Yeah. So how did the Free Comic Day go today?” I said changing the topic.

Hi, how about a slice of awkward cake?

Good bye, old comic book store. I’ll look back on our time together as mostly adequate, but never punctual. I miss the free bags and boards, though.

I think the emotions here can only be described by überband, Chicago.

I’m said Im happy for you,
I’m really happy for you.
Found someone else,
I guess I wont be coming round.
I guess its over, baby;
It’s really over, baby, whoa…
And from what you said
I know youve gotten over me;
It’ll never be the way it used to be.
So if its gotta be this way,
Dont worry, baby, I can take the news okay.

I mentioned in a previous blog that Ali and I were going to see a performance by a group of musicians in Houston calling themselves “The Fab 40.” The group consisted of 40 musicians (actually I think before the performance they said there were 43 musicians) who played the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album from front to back at a brand new (and beautiful) park in the heart of downtown Houston called Discovery Green.

First, the park. It is located right behind the convention center in the city. It is 12 acres, has a one acre lake (I’m assuming man-made) playground, water fountains, stage and sloped hill for attendees, restaurants, and to top it off, it’s green friendly. And WiFi hot too, which this web geek loves.

It’s a great family park and it is dog friendly too, which is awesome.

Now, the performance. It was incredible. It opened with Beatles music on traditional Indian instruments which sounded out of this world. It’s really amazing how many different genres and cultures. “Across the Universe” on a sitar and tabla is something you need, need, to hear.

After that, the musicians played a few random Beatles tunes to warm up and launched right into Sgt. Pepper’s.

I sound like a broken record, but it was incredible. Sgt. Pepper’s holds a special place in this Beatles’ fan’s heart. It was the first Beatles album (CD) I ever owned. I got it for Christmas when I was in 6th grade, and didn’t stop listening to it until Easter. I studied the people on the cover, looking them up in encyclopedias learning what I could about who was there. If only the internet was around back then I could have read so much more.

People were singing along, grooving to the music, and it wasn’t just an older crowd. Families were there, some looked 4 generations deep, couples sat arm in arm, swaying back and forth, it really was quite an experience.

The music, the people, the energy was intoxicating.

After a while Ali and I got tired of sitting on a blanket on the ground so we decided to find a new spot to sit.

After walking around we ended up on the other side of the stage (facing the musicians backs) across the lake.

Ending the album, “A Day in the Life” was surreal in person. The song, the crescendo, stunning. The horns and the strings sounded great in the park.

After Sgt. Pepper’s was over the band wasn’t done playing and went into a few more random songs and ended the night with a huge sing-a-long to “Hey Jude.”

As I have said countless times in this blog, it was an awesome night. Ali and I had a great time and found a new spot in Houston to go and hang out at. We love living downtown, there are so many cool things going on like this around the city. I can’t wait for our life to slow down after the summer so we can enjoy more events like this.

Check out some write ups on the show:
http://houstonist.com/2008/04/27/houstonist_was_4.php
http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-04-24/music/sgt-pepper-at-discovery-green/1

And some photos by some real photographers:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98693566@N00/tags/42608/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldheretic/sets/72157604765731102/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deneyterrio/2445524309/