the French - Local Information

Erin, you would like this band. They're a lot like Hefner. By that, I mean that it's the same people playing a similar style.

The place where I get my haircuts is cursed. The guy who cuts Meredith's hair broke his arm a month ago and the guy who cuts my hair just broke his leg. I want a haircut, but I have to trust whomever is cutting it. It's a tragedy.

Hi Laney. I would feel strange saying hi to someone on somebody else's blog, so if you read my blog, you'll know that I say hi back.

Is not

I don't care what the Brits say, beer is good for me.

Spoon - Series of Sneaks

Does this count as cheating? You bet your ass it does. I blame the Underground. It's a pretty red vinyl record.

My first night of league bowling is tomorrow night. I am pleased about this.

I've decided against Mustaches for Kids this year.

I think I may have to do much more work at the Sentencing Commission than I had planned on doing. I convinced this guy that a cost-benefit analysis would be really useful. He agreed. Guess who works there who knows how to do a CBA.

Butterglory - Are you building a temple in heaven

I have applied for a senior auditor position with the SAO down in Austin. I am actually quite qualified for the position. Now, it is up to them what they do with that.

My CBA group had a meeting today. The project that wouldn't die is almost over. We have a presentation in Jefferson next Friday morning and then another presentation later in the month. Then, it should be done. I hear that there's a press release, but I have yet to see it.

I'm going to try to post a link to the record of the day on the Waterloo website so that anyone who cares to may purchase what I listen to.

The Super Bowl is in a week and I barely care at all.

I made some really good steak last night We went to Penzey's Spice World and spent about $25 on various spices. The bavarian spice mix is very good on steak. Meredith made some masterful mashed potatoes. Nobody makes them better than her. We had farm fresh eggs, toast, and strawberries for breakfast today. It's been a good weekend for home cooking.

UPDATE: I have now applied for jobs as a Budget Analyst and Research Analyst, respectively, with the city of Austin.

M4K 2006

In case you were wondering, Mustaches for Kids Madison is on for 2006. It has moved from Tuesday to Monday nights and starts Monday February 27 (next month) with clean shaven day and ends Monday March 27 with the 'Stache Bash. Last year we raised over $3000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin; hopefully, we'll do even better this year. The first meeting will be at the Stadium Bar (1419 Monroe Street, Madison, WI 53711) at 7:30 pm on Monday February 27.

Movies

9. The Restoration - If this movie had ended after the second act, it would have been a fine movie. As it stands, all the bits with Meg Ryan just wore me down. It gets incredibly boring.

Seven 7"

Pipas - A short film about sleeping
Enon - Drowning Appointments
the Rock-a-teens - Turn on the waterworks
Fivehead - Goodie the rat
Riverdales - Blood on the ice
Spoon - Not turning off
Deerhoof - Kit

Sorry for posting these so late, not that anybody is on some schedule where they need to read my records in a timely manner.

Strange Weather

Yesterday the high was something like 53 degrees which is more than a little bit above average for January in Madison. Tonight, we're supposed to get half an inch of rain. That seems like a lot of rain. I think it's supposed to snow yet be well above average next week. I'm worried about February.

Movies

8. The Matador - I really enjoyed this movie. It's not the most brilliant movie ever made, but it's clever and, for the most part, pretty interesting. I like hitman movies and I like Mexico and I like quirky dark comedies. This was all of them. On top of that, I ate decent southwestern cuisine for dinner, so the movie made the night very coherent.

Today I'll be listening to seven seven inches instead of one lp.

Stevie Wonder - Talking Book

I like that Wisconsin's Revenue Secretary is a large black man from Alabama. I like even more that he flashed the hook 'em horns/ sign of the devil at me when I told him where I did my undergrad. I like even more that he hassled Jenna when she claimed Tulsa, OK, as the south and then said, "Now that's the south" when I said that I'm from Arkansas.

I'm worried that our task may be a little bigger than our timeframe. We'll just have to figure out the core of the problem. It'll be okay.

I'm wearing a tie.

I called Professor Reschovsky a handsome man. He wasn't quite sure how to respond to that.

I tried to listen to the Briefs today, but the cd wasn't in the case. That made my exit from the DOR parking lot that much less exciting.

the Stooges - Funhouse

This is the first time I've felt like I'm cheating in the record listening process. It's a good record and I've only had it for a month. It was a Christmas present from my loving wife. If anybody wants to recommend some records, please leave them in comments, especially the random people who find this blog.

I have an idea for the Sentencing Commission, but I'm not sure if I should talk to them about it. They're doing this project to look at the impact of sentences on recidivism and they're looking at robbery, armed and otherwise. The average sentence for even the lowest level robbers is 3 years in prison which means that they would have to wait at least 5 years after some arbitrary starting date to have decent data. They've got data from the beginning of 2004, so that means that they'd have to wait until 2009 to actually have any data to work with at which time the legislation authorizing the Sentencing Commission will have expired. Either they use the research design to convince the state to extend the legislation while at the same time finding a new grant, or they could use a crime category with a similar recidivism rate to robbery but with shorter sentences and actually have the ability to analyze somethig.

Robert Pollard and his Soft Rock Renegades - Choreographed Man of War

I know this is Robert Pollard, but I actually haven't ever listened to this record before. It's been sitting, in its original plastic wrap with it's limit-one-per-customer sticker, in my collection for the past 4 years.

the guilt

I like working late into the night and then sleeping in. That's one of the reasons that Thundercloud agreed with me. It fit my natural preferences. Now that I'm married and my wife has a job with normal business hours, I feel guilty when I wander into bed after 1. I feel bad if I'm up after she's asleep. The thing is, I should be much more tired than I am right now. I was at work at 8 this morning. That was some tough shit.

Define a "short critique"

Does half a page count as a short critique? It's single spaced. My goal is to push this bad boy up onto the second page. Then, I'll be fine. It's in the am. I haven't listened to my record yet, but I will. I have a full day of school and bowling tomorrow. Emily better wear socks or I'll be super pissed, even though she lives downtown and it wouldn't be a huge walk to get some socks. How do people not wear socks?

UPDATE: For my money, 420 words qualifies as a short critique of a reasonable length.
UPDATE II: Meredith is not wearing socks today. Madness.

Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz

Noisier music has always been somewhat comforting to me, and this record is no different. It's a really nice listen.

I went to day 2 at the Sentencing Commission today. I didn't accomplish much other than some background research. Someday, I'll look at data. Someday.

I met with my workshop group today. We'll be working with the Wisconsin Revenue Secretary on a project analyzing the impact of the decreased role of state funding to municipalities as a local funding source. It should be pretty interesting. It could help me get a job here, but I want to go elsewhere.

I'm going bowling between classes tomorrow. Last wednesday I had a beer between classes.

Charles Mingus - Tijuana Moods

How does a good basketball team lose to North Dakota State? That's really all that I want to say about that.

I start at the Sentencing Commission today. It'll be a lovely afternoon without windows or privacy.

I want to start a consulting firm, but I fear I have no experience that could land me any clients. It's a shame.

Movie

7. Underworld Evolution. I'm not sure that I've ever seen a movie that tried so hard to explain the previous movie or leave room for a sequel as this movie did. It's simply amazing. There is also a fair amount of vampire sex. I'm not going to complain too much about being forced to see Kate Beckinsale naked, but it was a bit gratuitous. The violence was a little overly vulgar. Scott Speedman is fine as the werewolf/vampire hybrid/ father of the vampire/werewolf/vampire hybrid. I'm impressed that his career is based on being the love interest on Felicity and a vampire/werewolf hybrid. The movie is fine. It's pretty mindless.

Muddy Waters - I'm Ready

Day 2 of the attempt at a different record each day. I'm not talking a different album on any medium each day, I'm talking vinyl. First I'm going to go through the records that Meredith brought into this relationship. Then, I'll be going through old records that I inherited or bought for a dollar. The spirit of the exercise is that I'll listen to things that I normally ignore in the collection, but don't be surprised when I listen to the Kinks or Ramones.

Ella Fitzgerald - The Duke Ellington Songbook Vol. 2

I'm trying to listen to a different record each day. I'll post the novel record every day on this thing.

In other news, I want a Macbook Pro. This is completely insane because my Powerbook is perfectly fine for nearly everything that I want it to do and is less than a year old. Stupid Apple.

Family Business

Happy Birthday, Dad. Finally, a Riggs man making it past 59. That's something to celebrate.

Movies

6. The Incident at Loch Ness. This is a somewhat clever mockumentary featuring Werner Herzog and the Loch Ness Monster. It also features one of the ladies from the Miller Lite catfight commercials as a bikini clad fake-sonar expert.

please advise

This is all I'm going to post about this because it's personal family business, but does anyone have advice on how to comfort small children dealing with the divorce of their parents?

Movies

4. The Chronicles of Narnia.
I'm not a fan of fantasy so much and this is a fantasy movie. I am a fan of my wife and she is a fan of fantasy movies.

5. The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain.
I'm a sucker for quirky British comedies, so this was up my alley if not fairly boring at times.

I'm famous

Okay, I'm not really famous. The client for my group's cost-benefit analysis project has apparently issued a press release touting the findings of our report. I may get questions from rural Wisconsin reporters. I doubt it though. We're scheduled to present our findings and answer questions on February 3. The meeting at which we will be presenting is usually about 20 people, but the guest list for our day has hit 50 and is rising. There will be several decision makers there.

Weather.com

I just voted for my favorite season on weather.com, and it occurs to me that my favorite season has changed over the past two years. For the first 25 years of my life, without fail I would have said that Fall is my favorite and Spring my second favorite. It seems that Spring has taken the lead. Spring symbolizes it not being so cold or white anymore. I like that. Sure, it may have snowed as late as May last year, but the lakes weren't frozen anymore.

Copying Erin

I'm going to post movies that I watch this year. I may post shows that I see as well as albums that I purchase as well.

Movies
1. the Producers (didn't like this one)
2. Cassanova (quite enjoyable)
3. Kicking and Screaming (coffee addiction and Mike Ditka)

Shows
1. the Dials, Brief Candles

A little help

People who know me, do I look like Gary Oldman, Elvis Costello, or Steven Soderbergh?

This is how it's done. Are you paying attention, Madison?

Virginia Tech

I must say that they have blossomed into my least favorite team.

That crazy Marcus Vick

I wonder when we'll get our next "Marcus Vick is such a great good who has really showed his character and maturity" story from ESPN. It seems like intentionally stomping on the calf of a the other team's star player would get some attention from the head coach, but class act Beamer must have been too concerned with the 5 unsportsmanlike conduct penalties that his defense was committing. Maybe he was focusing on his defensive star getting ejected for grabbing the official and spinning him around in a fairly violent manner. The quarterback coach said that he was embarrassed by Vick's behavior. Why then, didn't he pull Vick from the game? Why did Frank Beamer say that he wasn't aware of what had happened when asked about it after the game? The kid should have been taken out of the game. Some people would complain that that wouldn't be fair to the other kids. That's bullshit. When a high school kid signs with Virginia Tech, he knows that he is going to a program with a reputation for signing troubled kids. The players all agreed to play for Virginia Tech armed with the knowledge that relying on a kid like Marcus Vick will likely result in them getting screwed by Marcus Vick. That's how it works. It's the same thing with every school in the SEC (other than Vanderbilt and maybe Florida), Florida State, Miami, Texas A&M, Ohio State, Oregon State and others. When you play for a renegade program, you have to know that someday you may face the consequences of someone else's behavior. If a kid doesn't want that risk, then they can go to North Carolina, Stanford, Penn State, Wisconsin, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Notre Dame, and any number of other schools that have fairly solid reputations.