Archive for 2009

Just a little mirage

Each morning this week I’ve done something I don’t do very often; I woke up with more than just enough time to get ready for work. I got up about 7:00, got in my normal shave and shower. Then poured myself some coffee, threw on some music and settled down to do my daily devotional. It felt really nice to actually have a leisurely morning before work. Instead of just dragging myself into the shower then down the road to work, I actually felt like I had accomplished something useful before starting my work day. As opposed to getting work out of the way and then living after.
I’d love to say this is going to be my new habit, but even with my best intentions my snooze button often gets the best of me. I did enjoy the extra time in the morning though, so that helps. Just making my own coffee instead of getting from somewhere was good. I don’t mind paying $1 for coffee from McDonalds, to be honest, I dig their coffee. It’s just the concept of it I guess, it’s lazy to wake at the last minute and hit the drive thru.

I’ve been in a bit of a slump the last couple months. I’ve let myself get this way, I’ve almost welcomed it. Some things went all wrong and I was more than willing to stew in the aftermath. It’s getting old now. I’ve had my pity party, but now I’m not sure how to get out of it. I still enjoy spending my weekends at home, watching movies and sipping scotch. It’s not a lack of friends or opportunities to have fun. I really need to stop just sitting around my house. I need to change what I’m listening to all day at work. I need to pick up some projects that have been put aside and I need to actually take all of the opportunities I have to be social.
It’s really not as easy as it might seem, self pity comes too easy.

My church celebrated it’s fifth year anniversary last Sunday, this is a video we put together to mark the occasion:

Thank You from Praxis Church on Vimeo.

We welcomed everyone to come and simply say thank you to Praxis. We run over a thousand people on most Sundays, those you see in the video above are all that showed.

I must protect this house

It’s starting to look like fall here in Tempe. It’s 80 degrees, skies are blue, leaves hold firmly to the branches of the few dozen trees, and ASU has swollen the population of this city to the breaking point.
Work is still pretty slow, all though we are talking about some fun projects on the horizon. The audio I need to finish my current DVD is finally getting worked on. No word on exactly when it’ll be finished, the producer wants a vacation, but I want my audio before that vacation. We’ll see how it turns out, either way we should be ready for our spring release date this time around.

I’ve got another quick church project to share:

When Worlds Collide: Can Science and Christianity Co-exist? from Praxis Church on Vimeo.

It’s a good thing the interview cut together as well as it did, because I literally just threw some clips on a timeline for this one. He seems pretty smart, a lot of people around church are excited for him to come and speak. I honestly stopped caring about how my faith and science fit together a few years back. I’m not smart enough to understand it, and faith isn’t supposed to be logical anyway. Some of the young earth creationist stuff is pretty silly if you ask me, there is no reason to drastically over simplify things. I believe my God loves me, that’s all I need.

I bought a Tetris arcade game a couple Saturdays back. A guy on Craigslist had a few different games for sale including two Tetris cabinets, one working and one with a broken monitor. When I got ahold of him the working game was gone, but he assured me that everything but the monitor on the second machine worked. You never know how things will turn out with Craigslist, but for $50 I figured it was at least worth a look. He answered the door with a baby in hand and asked me to be quiet because he just put his older daughter down for her nap. We walked through his house to his workshop and there was my machine in front of a few others. The side art was ripped and it was covered in thick dust, but all in all it looked to be in good shape. It’s hard to not trust a guy who offers to shake your hand with his right hand while holding a baby in his left. He said everything other than the monitor was working, so I handed him $50 and the game was mine.
I got a monitor off of eBay last week and ordered new side art on Friday. I still haven’t decided whether or not I want to repaint it, it doesn’t look bad, but the sides are dingy and nothing I’ve tried has gotten them clean. It’ll be fun to have a game around for people to play, it’s two players so I’ve got to brush up on my skills. I refuse to be embarrassed in my own house.

David Bazan and his handsome bearded band

I moseyed on down to Tucson on Monday evening to see David Bazan. My last trip to Tucson was to see him, at the same venue, for a solo tour. However this time Bazan would be bringing a full band and I couldn’t have been more excited.
The opener was Say Hi, or Say Hi to Your Mom as they use to be called, I’m not a huge fan but they put on a great show. A lot of their music is backed by electronic synths and beats, which they didn’t use. It was all bass, guitar and drums, and sounded great. There were a couple slower songs that had the crowd singing along but the majority of their set was, by indie rock standards, pretty hard. I would have liked to see more synthesizers in their live show, but I did get to hear a lot of material from earlier albums I didn’t have.
Near the end of their set the frontman Eric Elbogen thanked the crowd and said to get ready for Bazan and his bearded band. He then looked over at Bazan, who was near the front listening with everyone else, and remarked on how handsome the band was and to be prepared for it.

Say Hi finished their set, Bazan and another guitarist took the stage… and then no one left the stage. The joke became obvious; Bazan’s band was basically Elbogen’s band. Sometimes you don’t realize how small a tour is until you see something like this. It really does makes sense to just use the same players for both acts. In the end Pedro the Lion was always Bazan and Say Hi has always really just been Elbogen, so why hire two sets of backing players? That’s just more people to have to fit in the van. The Solar Culture Club is not a large place, and its stage isn’t exactly huge, so five people on stage is a feat in of itself. Bazan’s guitarist was hilariously jeered for looking exactly like Jerry Garcia and the band played the new and old Bazan tunes very well. It was just a little funny to realize how frugal and indie the tour was.

Bazan played almost all of his new record, a few off of his solo EP and a couple Pedro tunes. There were no Headphones songs, which was a bummer. However the way the crowd erupted to the first new notes of “Magazine” off of Control made the whole evening worth it. I never got to see Pedro The Lion, and hopefully I’ll have more than a few more chances to see Bazan solo, but hearing a song like that with a full band was amazing.

I’d have grainy and mostly terrible cell phone video of the show but my damn iPhone wouldn’t jailbreak. I really had to use some will power to resist going out and buying a Flip Mino HD or similar camera for the show. The video that comes off my older iPhone isn’t great, that’s why you can’t officially shoot video with it, but it’s better than nothing.

Built to Spill has a new disc out, this post’s soundtrack is off of it. Go pick it up, it’s a fantastic release.

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