The Delian's Commonwealth

FridayMonday Random Ten

1. "Something Doing" Scott Joplin from The Red Back Book performed by George Spoonhaltz and The Southland Stingers.  I've always been fond of Joplin, especially the instrumental arrangements in the RBB.  A nice performance, but not quite as energetic as those by the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble.
2. "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" The Commitments.  Not a big soul/R&B fan, but the soundtrack to The Commitments is pretty good.
3. "Trial Before Pilate" from Jesus Christ Superstar (Original Studio Recording).  One of my favorite musicals of all time.  I played in the pit orchestra for a production when I was in HS.
4. "Hanks For The Memory" from Expletive Delighted, Fairport Convention.  One of the core groups in the English Folk-Rock scene, they're still going strong.
5. "If Wishes Were Fishes" Eric Bogle, At This Stage.  Great singer/songwriter
6. "May Day Carol" Magpie Lane, English Country Songs and Dances.  Magpie Lane are based in Oxfordshire and are still going strong, according to their web site.  This CD was marketed through the Past Times catalog, which is no longer available in the US.
7. "Rocked In The Cradle Of The Deep" Mr. Jack Daniel's Silver Cornet Band On Tour Across America.  Great rendition on the tuba of a classic seaman's hymn.  Words: Emma C. Willard; Music Joseph P. Knight
8. "Streets of Baltimore" The Little Willies, The Little Willies. Some nice country music.  Too bad the are  (so far) a one-CD band.
9. "I Can't Say No" from Oklahoma.  Oklahoma was the first musical I ever played in the pit for (oboe), so I have fond memories of it.  Unfortunately, this isn't one of my favorite songs -- Ado Annie is just annoying.
10. "The Grey Funnel Line" June Tabor & Maddy Prior The Silly Sisters. The "Grey Funnel Line" is a term for the British Navy.

Friday Random Ten 7/11/08

Several bloggers I like used to run a "random ten" post, so I thought that I'd try, now that I have an iPod.

1. "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid.  Alright, I'm a sucker for Disney music.  I love the calypso feel.
2. "I'll Go And List For A Sailor" from Morris On.  This is a compilation by Ashley Hutchings (yes, of Fleetwood Mac) with a bunch of folk and folk-rock musicians doing Morris-dance related stuff.
3. "War Dance for Wooden Indians" The Music Of Raymond Scott.  Everybody knows Raymond Scott's music, even if they don't know that they know it.  The long-time Looney Tunes music supervisor, Carl Stalling, used Raymond Scott's music a great deal.  "Powerhouse" would be instantly familiar to anyone who has seen more than a couple of Bugs Bunny cartoons.
4. "The Mary Ellen Carter" from Between The Breaks Live.  Stan Rogers was a Canadian folk singer who, sadly, died in an airplane fire in 1983.  "Mary Ellen Carter" is a great song about strength in the face of adversity.
5. "Seventeen Come Sunday" Train to Sligo.  The band Train to Sligo used to play in Pasadena, CA, at a pub called The Loch Ness Monster, and I went there many times to hear the band.  The female vocalist, Janie Cribbs has the darkest and richest voice I've ever heard in a woman.  Other band members included Thom Moore, who is now well known as a composer of Irish music, Gerry O'Beirne, Cait Reed, Paulette Gershen (a fantastic pennywhistle player) and Judy Gameral.
6. "Piccolo Peet" sung by The Andrews Sisters.  I love 1940's swing and bought a 4-CD collection of the Andrews Sisters.  This isn't one of their best, but it's still a fun song.
7. "Dance".  A Renaissance dance played by the Southern California Early Music Consort.  A very talented group, some of whom I see at our local Ren Faire.
8. "Two for the Early Dew" sung by Tommy Makem and Liam Clancey.  I grew up listening to the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.  This is a very silly song, but has a nice rendition of Off to California at the end.
9. "Belle-Ile/Crookhill" from Unstrung Hero.  I first heard Brian McNeil when he played fiddle (and other strings) for the Battlefield Band.  Unstrung Hero was his first solo album and I was thrilled to find it released on CD (I had the vinyl.)  A very talented fiddler, guitarist and composer.
10. "Rattlesnake" from Incandescence.  My friend Michael J. Lewis is an amazing composer.  This is an album of guitar music that he wrote or arranged and produced.  A bunch of talented guitarists, along with some interesting percussion.

Idiots

The title says it all:

Well, maybe not all.  It's the second edition -- I guess that their psychic awareness wasn't good enough to forsee the need for revisions.

Aaarrrrggggghhh

 

    My pirate name is:    

 

    Iron Tom Vane   

   

    A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way.    Arr!    

  Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network  

There's no there there

You Scored an A

It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

Hey Ref! Manners, manners

It's soccer season again for us.  I'm pushing to get on the next rung of refereeing, and the boys have both qualified as refs, so there are lots of changes for us.

Below the fold is a conversation that I wish I could have before every match -- laying out what the expectations are.  Sadly, we don't have time and a lot of people just don't get it.

An Australian Day

A koala wakes up
A kangaroo jumps away
The sun has come up.

The crocodile sighs
The box jelly floats in his sea
Noon has broken light.

The koala slumps back
The kangaroo jumps home
It is evening.

By: Z
Dedicated to: Steve Erwin

Remodeling update

My apologies to the two of you who commented on the lack of posting...

Our kitchen is close to being finished.  The cabinets are in and so is the flooring.  The result is spectacular!  Unfortunately, my digital camera died this summer and I haven't replaced it — I'll have pictures whenever I remedy that problem.

Completing the kitchen wasn't without its issues.  It took several weeks to get someone here to replace a piece of a cabinet that was broken during installation.  We also had a drawer guide break in the new pantry and had to order a new guide — what's really annoying is I had the necessary guide, because they sent us too many parts, but I had already thrown it away.  And... instead of sending us just a replacement guide, the manufacturer sent us an entire 2-drawer set.  This time, I'm keeping everything.

We still need to patch a bit of paint in the kitchen and order (and install) the tiling.  For that, I need the digital camera, so that I can show the tile people what the space looks like.  I think this is a project for the new year.

We've made some progress on the rest of the house as well.  The dining room and living room are painted.  I still need to move an outlet so that we can paint the TV room/den.  We removed the very ugly curtains from the living room and have been living in a fishbowl ever since.  Another task is to get some blinds put in.

The flooring for the house is a problem, though.  We've been looking at both Tarkett and Kahrs flooring — the Tarkett is cheaper, but doesn't have matching trim.  The Kahrs looks more sturdy (and they've been in business longer) but is much more expensive.  Ah well, the joys of remodelling.

More Joy of Reffing

I forgot to mention one further source of aggravation during my second BU10 game on Saturday.  On the orange team side of the field a man was walking up the touch line, talking on a phone.  Not normally aggravating, but he had a toddler (between 18mo and 2yo) with him.  The child was wandering onto the field!  I had to hold up the game until he noticed the kid and (sort of) herded him back off the field.  Didn't take the child's hand or anything useful like that, just nudged him off of the field.

I later saw this same person (dad?) seat the child about 3 feet off of the touch line, near the halfway point.  I realize that this is a U10 game and the ball doesn't travel with the force or speed that you'd expect with U16 or U19, but really... putting a small child, on the ground, where they can take a ball in the face is just stupid.  I wonder if I should have had him move the child -- the people on that side were already annoyed with me, so one more thing probably wouldn't have hurt.

I'm a Terrible Ref

After a couple of weeks off, due to holidays and G's birthday party, I was back in the bumblebee outfit on Saturday.  I centered two boys under-10 (BU10) games and was an assistant for one BU12 game.  The two U10 games couldn't have been more different.