hello...

Yes, it's been a while. I'm still here. The last month or so has been a whirlwind - expect major announcements soon!

In the meantime, yesterday was a happy election day. Deval Patrick will be Governor of the Commonwealth, and small business won a rare victory on ballot question #1. Horray for small business!

sounds - 2 of the latest

Guster - Ganging up on the Sun ***1/2

Guster's new album has been on my iPod playlist since it found it's way into my way into my backpack at Newbury Comics a month ago. I just couldn't help it. How can a Bostonian resist the charms of Guster. As opposed to the easy sing-along harmonies and catchy acoustic guitar of Goldfly and Lost and Gone Forever, the new one is one of those that grows on you. Good stuff. Check out the tour diary on their website, by the way. My webpage would kick ass too, if my daily adventures consisted of traveling around the world playing rock shows.

Cursive - Happy Hollow ****1/2

Staying on the topic of albums that grow on you, I'm still trying to get my arms around Cursive's latest. It is a wildly inventive "folk-metal" concept album, careening all over the sonic map while pulling you in with quirky hook after quirky hook, oddly charming melody after oddly charming melody. Playful lyrics on unusual recurring existentialist themes, emotionally pleading, a musical tapestry as if the Shins and Bright Eyes grew up listening to nothing but System of a Down and They Might Be Giants (what??), this one is a strange gem. Song titles include Bad Sects: "I know this is wrong....because we're told this is wrong" and Big Bang: "There was this big bang once, but the clergyman doesn't agree. Oh no... There was this big bang once, but it don't jive with Adam and Eve." Rock on, Cursive. Indeed.

Debate tonight

Tonight's debate will feature yours truly vs. Heather in a battle of wits regarding the recently developed home decorating platform and also FY2007 laundry policies. I am the early front runner, but you can never count out Heather due to her superior intelligence and good looks.

Wait, that's not right, the real debate is Healy-Patrick at 6 p.m. on Fox. I can't wait, I hope Patrick shows her up. This gubernatorial campaign, much like the last two Presidential campaigns, has the potential for the Republicans to capitalize on the short-sightedness of the American electorate, making me want to move to Canada. That shouldn't happen in Massachusetts, of all places. We'll see.

Global warming

Virgin businessman and billionaire Richard Branson pledged about $1 billion to fight global warming at Clinton's environmental summit. Well that's exciting and inspiring, and I applaud the announcement.

But...air travel has a major impact on global warming. Obviously it's impractical to not fly anywhere anymore, so I think Mr. Branson's committment to work toward renewable, sustainable energy sources without a conflict of interest will be quite a challenge.

MV

After spending the weekend on the Vineyard for Heather's friend Stacy's wedding, I kept seeing parallels between Oak Bluffs and Seaside. The narrow, winding streets and organic mish-mash of seemingly residual spaces turned into small pocket parks and the larger planned greens:



the tightly knit neighborhoods of homes with porches lining the streets:




and mostly, the 7 acre green on the ocean, which seemed to be the grand-daddy of Seaside's much smaller green:


Great stuff. I liked Oak Bluffs' victorian charm over the colonial stateliness of Edgartown, but hey, that's just me. It was a great weekend, but I'm glad to be home for a while with no travel plans.

Wayne's wisdom

There are too many things that require you to be smart. If you can't surrender to the stupid thing that is rock 'n' roll, what good is life?

- Wayne Coyne, the Flaming Lips

Politics

Check out this cool map boston.com cooked up showing campaign contributions linked to address. There has to be better uses for this mapping technology. Zillow is a similar application, showing estimated home values (with links to tons of data) overlaid on an aerial photo.

By the way, Kerry Healy's tv campaign ad lists her primary objectives as suspending the gas tax and rolling back the income tax. Way to advertise yourself as a short-sighted politician. I first saw this ad at the gym and I almost fell off the treadmill.