Jars Of Clay

Ever since the summer before we started dating, my wife and I have gone to at least one concert at the Nebraska State Fair. This year we went to see Jars of Clay and I must say that it was one of the best concerts I've been to in a while. It was a bunch of guys, who were quite popular some time ago, on stage with just instruments playing and singing because they love it. They aren't quite as popular now, but that doesn't matter, I don't know that it mattered to them all that much back in the day either. They played some new stuff which I didn't recognize, and some old stuff that I did, and even a cover of the Cars (who played the following night). I enjoyed all of it. There wasn't a song that I didn't connect to the music, and that's kind of rare for me. Nothing seemed forced, and there weren't any distracting pyrotechnics or anything like that. We took my, nearly, four year old. He thought the music as too loud for the first song and a half, but then he started to get into it and by the end he was telling me that he wanted to go talk to 'that guy' (meaning the singer). We went up after the show, while they were tearing down (yeah, the band helped tear down their own set!) and the drummer talked to him a little bit and gave him a set list. He was so excited! I think bands like Jars of Clay are all too rare anymore. If more bands played sets like that and interacted with their fans on a personal level I think the pop music scene would be severely diminished, and the state of music would be that much better for it.

SPAM-a-lot

I made 寿司スパム and, with it, won the title of

2007 Nebraska State Fair SPAM Cookoff Chapmion

I'm rather proud of my little concoction, which is simply vinigared rice, nori, some fresh vegitables and, of course, SPAM. It was great to win this year because I really liked my entry last year (SPAM pot pie) but it didn't place. A friend also recently introduced me to 30 Days of SPAM which, in turn, let me to The Book of SPAM. Another friend of mine is going to see Monty Python's SPAM-A-Lot. So, everything is turning up SPAM! It turns out my son likes it quite a bit too, which is good because now we enjoy canned meat together. I hate to keep shamelessly plugging for Hormel here, but it has to be said at this point, plus this is a first for me winning something at the State Fair even though I did a lot of animal shows here when I was younger. I'll have more on the fair as it progresses.

Growing up as a boy

I loved Calvin and Hobbes as a kid... now I see them again, and am constantly reminded of my son, who's almost four now, and his awe inspiring imagination. I feel bad sometimes because, as a dinosaur, sometimes he bites and I get after him... then I think, he's just being a kid, I shouldn't be so hard on him. After all, I remember being just like that...

Thor!

It's been nearly a decade since I bought a comic book, and for some reason the format is really appealing to me once again. At first I bought the, excellent, Bone One Volume Edition and I really loved it. Somehow, in the last week or so, I saw that there is a new volume of Thor starting, and that it's apperantly very good. I went out and picked up the first two issues and, lo and behold, the are really good! I never read Thor before, or the Avengers for that matter, back when I was into comics in my childhood. I was pretty strictly X-books until my midteens when I branched out to other things and eventually just stopped buying them. What attracted me to this book now, I don't know, but I'm glad I picked it up. The story (after some Wikipedia and Marvel site history lessons) is excellent so far and the visuals are great. Simply great. When Donald Blake steps out of his truck, I could feel the breeze and hear the footfalls in the dusty ground. Maybe it's from living in the midwest, I don't know, but I really connect with the small town he's chosen to live by. My biggest hope for the series is that the people of the small town will remain part of the story and not get lost in the grand over-arching stories. I subscribed to the series, and am eagerly awaiting Thor's confrontation with Iron Man. I never liked that guy anyway...