Short Update, then Sleep

[ehowton]

This, from Amazon.com:

Please note that the price of [one of many CD's in my wish] has decreased from $13.99 to $13.98 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.

"By Grapthar's Hammer...what a savings."

---

Wife needed some books from Amazon.com. I used that opportunity to order:

1. Aliens Soundtrack, Special Edition (Remastered)


2. The Fly & The Fly II (thanks to lehah's engaging review in filmscore)

---

Paid for my router I got on eBay on the advice of unixwolf. Soon, very soon, my Solaris box will be online. I now have a fantastic slackware box I have no use for. I wonder what trouble I can get myself into with it...

---

Been enjoying the hell outta leonardii since he's emerged again from the primordial ooze which is Blogger. And I'm thrilled the unixwolf has been more verbose here lately as well. You are the wind beneath my wings.

---

My dissertation on swashbuckler332's Sonorous post (an insight to me):

I used to believe that classical music alone should reside on CDs when they were first released. What else could possibly utilize the full-range of this new media? What goes higher and lower and is more layered than classical music?

Of course I was limited in my thinking then, and have come to appreciate much, much, more - but I always fancied myself a music lover rather than an audiophile (an old magazine I used to get delivered from the states to Germany when I was there, CD Review stated once, "A music lover uses his system to show off music, an audiophile uses music to show off his system.") nonetheless I owned an impressive system.

Being overseas and hearing so many people older than me, married with bills, bemoaning their current stereo systems always said, "Someday I'm gonna get..." and I just got sick and tired of that. I never wanted to live in mediocrity. So I hand-chose the best components I could afford, and over time, built a $10,000 system. Now then, being young, (and foolish) I had not factored in what was probably the most important facet of my brilliant plan - this shit was someday going to be old! Alas, I am now a married man (with bills) and one by one, each of my top-of-the-line components have broken beyond repair and I am left with a shadow of my former system. My Bose MediaMate computer speakers lasted 11 years before they gave up the ghost, and they are gone as well now. "Someday, I tell myself...someday." I am now what I once despised.

Truth is, where I am in life right now does not necessitate a system of such grandeur. I don't have the cycles to sit for hours on end any more and listen to entire symphonies. When I moved from Dallas last year I went from a 3-hour daily commute to one lasting approximately 15 minutes. I don't even get to enjoy music in the car like I used to. So I'll get back to where I was once I am able to enjoy it. I'm not bitter...life is funny and I feel sorry for the poor sods who choose not to enjoy it.

Reading your description of the fireworks in Manhattan lead me to express (The reason for the preamble comes to light!) that not even my uber-system could recreate actually sitting in a performance hall feeling each and every one of the instruments in an orchestra performing a full symphony no matter how hard they try. Often, live performances contain errors and errant notes - but that usually matters only on the recording, as the enormity of the experience waxes irrelevant when enjoying in person.

Alas, I don't often go these days - and I'm more likely to want to attend the playing of a score than a classical symphony nowadays. But perhaps that's something I'll get back to when life allows it.

As my responsibilties increase, things which were important to me in the past lose their priority, and I understand that will be a living, breathing, changing thing. If I get to play a game of Monopoly with my wife and kids on a day off - I'll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday...just know I'll have something instrumental playing softly in the background.

Comments

[galinda822.livejournal.com]

If that's a short post - I'd like to see one of your long ones! :)

You, really, continue to amaze me all the time!

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

It was meant to be a short post. That last section was a cut & paste from an earlier comment on another entry I thought I might like to share with my readers, but I can see where it gives the opposite impression of 'short' as a whole.

[galinda822.livejournal.com]

We, as readers, have no idea what you cut and paste vs. write. Hence, for you it took a short time to post....a little longer for us to read!

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was hoping my discalimer My dissertation on [info]swashbuckler332's Sonorous post (an insight to me): would help evaporate any confusion, but that's usually touch-and-go. You never know how others will perceive things.

[galinda822.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it!!!!!

[lehah.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think of Fly/Fly 2!

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

Will do! I did not enjoy the X3 soundtrack as much as you did (and didn't pick up on Debney's Cutthroat Island which I loved - granted, I don't own the full score and would love to a side-by-side comparison) and that's not to say I didn't enjoy it all, as I listen to it often, it simply didn't call to me with your enthusiasm.

But for me, it's the exciting discriptive nature of your reviews which lead me to new matieral - and as I am wholly unfamiliar with those two score, and Christopher Young as a composer, as always, I am looking forward to receiving it with the glee of a child on Christmas.

I have been burned by Shore before - it was Dogma which I picked up on sale for something like $2.99 at Borders. I thought I was getting a steal, when, as it turns out, it was I being robbed.

[leonardii.livejournal.com]

Since I already have your opinion...

The piece of shit waste of film to which you are referring is nothing but blasphemous trash.

Yeah, you WAS robbed!

You just happened to mention the very X at the bottom of my list.

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

We uh...were specifically talking about the film's score.

[leonardii.livejournal.com]

Oh...

Well...

If you are just talking about the SOUNDTRACK - then I might just like that part. I don't know - though I can't recall anything musical that got my attention.

Otherwise - if YOU "liked" the film, then... well... enjoy!

If I want to see blasphemous entertainment, I tune in to "South Park." I'm so torn and disturbed how something so damn funny can be so wrong. Or is it? As I said, I'm torn... but laughing.

Uh, sorry if I insulted one of your favorite movies. It won't be the first time we've disagreed.

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched SouthPark since Season 4. My Catholic buddy celtmanx swears by it, and has all available seasons on DVD.

My favorite SouthPark issue recently, is Issac Hayes (Chef). Who, after mocking and deriding Catholic, Jews, Muslims, Christians, everyone, decided he could not mock his own religion, Scientology, and left the show. I mean, how funny is that?

[leonardii.livejournal.com]

Oh Yeah! Chef can dish it out, but he can't take it!

Thanks for pointing that out. True life is the best entertainment!

[jesskd26.livejournal.com]

I had no idea Isaac Hayes was a scientologist! Wowsa.

They have a "Celebrity Scientologist Center" fairly close to my house that, at last drive by, was for sale. I always wanted to join that religion just to see if they are as wacky as the media makes them out to be.

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

So, you get this science fiction writer who makes up a bunch of stuff and people start worshiping his fiction. Sounds rock solid to me. Of course, Joseph Smith is accused of doing the same thing...with the same results now that I think about it.

[professortom.livejournal.com]

You're amazing. I want to be you.

LeonardII

[leonardii.livejournal.com]

I'm not just back - I've been around for quite a while too!

I had my first blog (back then it was simply called a message board on my website) running for years.

I was not lost - we've just been... disconnected.

And yeah, I've been enjoying the posts too, reading comments and trying to back read everyone's previous entries and comments. The journey so far has been most fun.

Being married with children - it does change priorities in life. We're not just single soldiers with lots of extra cash sitting around waiting to be spent. The days of sitting in our room, drinking wine and eating cheese whilst listening to a million dollar stereo are - simply gone. Well, not completely - I still drink wine and eat cheese - there is just nothing million dollar in my house. Except for my life insurance policy - but Lena only thinks it is for a 1/4 million. If she ever finds out and I don't wake up at the bottom of Lake Ray Hubbard - somebody start asking some questions!

That's a joke of course.

I hope.

Anyway, with nothing million dollar at home or not, for me, I chose this life and I'll take it. Creating a family has made me a very happy man. And like you say, a father loves the hugs and kisses only a daughter can give! I think only a father of a daughter understands this. But of course I also love my Darling Lena. And they're both worth more than any amount of money! Why - what kind of offer did you have in mind? :)