Videolog: The Power and the Passion

Midnight Oil
The Power and the Passion, 1983.

Muzak

They apparently changed the Muzak at the cafeteria.

Before, it had been standard, easy to ignore, old-fashioned elevator music (think symphonic covers of “When Doves Cry”) but now, it’s some oldies channel from hell that is apparently programmed to feature all the most depressing songs of the 1960s that you never wanted to hear again, from Donovan to the Byrds, and beyond. In fact, “River Deep, Mountain High” was about the most upbeat thing I heard through my whole dinner, which is kind of sad. Literally.

After enduring twenty or thirty minutes of this, I think I finally know why so many people did so many drugs during the 1960s.

Alas…

I seem to have returned home bearing a nasty cold alongside the other souvenirs.

It’s kind of hard to believe that my five-week break from school is sixty percent over before it really even seems to have started. It was a really intense fall semester, and I was sort of looking forward to a few moments of calm. They sort of never came, what with the trip to Fresno in December, followed by the actual holidays, and the big road trip to Pittsburgh last week. I have a lot of things I really want to catch up on before things get crazy again:

The major renovation of Groceteria, moving it into the PHP world using a content management system (Joomla, to be specific) and integrating flickr photo albums to make the image hosting easier and more logical.
Back-correcting old links in Otherstream now that it’s a WordPress site. This is becoming less and less of a priority, I must admit.
Catching up on all the home video.
Getting a sports blog set up for one of my clients. While typing that, I had the brilliant idea that they might consider using Twitter, making it all easier for me and cheaper for them. We’ll see how that works out.
Posting about the just-completed trip, not to mention the one from six months ago that I never really covered either.
Reading about fifteen books I have piled up in the office.

I have my doubts that I’ll get it all done.

Home from Pittsburgh

Alive and well, and bearing many new books, photos, and assorted other geeky souvenirs. More to follow.

Richmond and Home

I hate the last day of a road trip. It’s usually all driving and no fun at all.

Breakfast was at Richmond’s Third Street Diner, which looked enticing from the street and inside, although I could never quite get past the notion that the place was about to be busted either for gambling or prostitution at any moment. I’m sure this was not the case, but there was just this sort of weird paranoia about the place, probably since there were several people drinking at the bar so early in the morning. The mini-skirts and the curious “ticket jars” on the tables didn’t help, nor did the fact that as we finished breakfast I realized I’d left my wedding band back in the motel we’d already checked out of.

Ring recovered, we made a last spin through Richmond (Cary Town, the Fan, downtown, and that hillside neighborhood off East Broad) and even Petersburg, and made our way south on I-85 through such exciting locales as South Hill, Henderson, and finally Durham, where we stopped at Honey’s for our 3PM feeding before returning home to Winston-Salem.