work

Leah did leave last night for Colombia. I’m glad we said our goodbyes yesterday morning rather than having dinner at LAX, since it didn’t work out to connect before her 9pm flight.

But I did work a little late last night. Nice night, but chilly. I think I needed a sweater last night.

I tried to hit the newsstand in Hollywood last night, but once again it’s far too busy, so I went home. I’m thinking maybe I’ll try and hit it sometime in the middle of the night or good and early in the morning sometime.

Earache still present, maybe milder, but still present. Still irrigating.

She’s arrived safely as of 5:30am today, and napping now. I’m sure she’ll have a great time. This morning I did some dishes and need to put out some donations for ARC before 8am. I’m looking forward to getting some garage space back.

Here are two photos I took last night. They’re sort of evocative, if not in focus.

So a local (Culver City) car dealer started storing cars on the top of our parking garage. I always park on the roof, so anytime I am up there I see the cars. I have taken to think of these cars as an economic indicator. They all seem to be SUV vehicles. I wonder about why they are up there, and why there seems to be more every week. I suspect the fact that they’re stored here has something to do with the price of gas.

So over on the right hand side of the main page of artlung.com there I include a statement about when I’ll be available for work, and that just changed again. I am continuing on with Sierra for another two months while we continue an ongoing project. It’s always simpler to renew something than it is to start something new, but Sierra has been very good to me, and I like to repay that good treatment with loyalty while they have a lot of different stuff going on.

Co-incident with that a friend of mine has been having multiple respiratory issues which honestly make me consider getting my Respiratory Therapy license again. It’s like $500 in California, but it has me thinking about it. He’s getting a BiPAP machine and feeling poorly. I hope he gets well soon!

In line with that I’ve been pleased to see my moribund respiratory care site, Rhonchi.com, be active these days, particularly this post: Are you a Respiratory Therapist? Do you blog?—which was originally supposed to be a post trying to find RTs who blog, but has turned into a heated debate, cheerleading, and bitch session about the whole profession of respiratory care. It’s a very good comment thread, with some vitriol, but real passion, which is great. I’m always interested to hear from fellow RTs (hah! I still self-identify as an RT! matter of a fact I still carry my RRT card from the NBRC in my wallet out of habit).

I’m hearing reports from my Mom that the latest chemo was too hard and she’s regrouping a bit. I’m going to give her a call during my commute. If you are of a mind to say a prayer or have a good thought, please include her in yours. You can read more about my Mom and her struggle with Renal Cell cancer by looking here and working backwards. I love her so much.

Okay, time to get started on the day. Cheat Commandos, Rock, Rock Onward!

One of the funner side effects of working for a game company is that new games tend to get bought on the date of release. To that end, yesterday there was a copy of Rock Band in the office. Because of my previous experience (documented by Leah here) playing SingStar and Karaoke Revolution I was not intimidated to sing, which I’m rather proud of. I did ok on songs on Medium difficulty, but I utterly failed on the Garbage song “I think I’m Paranoid” on Hard. I enjoyed singing Gimme Shelter—but I find myself mystified by how Mick Jagger goes between the falsetto and his gruffer voice. All told I tried my hand at these songs:

• “Blitzkrieg Bop” – Ramones
• “Creep” – Radiohead
• “Gimme Shelter” – The Rolling Stones
• “Here It Goes Again” – OK Go
• “I Think I’m Paranoid” – Garbage
• “In Bloom” – Nirvana
• “Learn to Fly” – Foo Fighters
• “Maps” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• “Paranoid” – Black Sabbath
• “Say It Ain’t So” – Weezer
• “Should I Stay or Should I Go” – The Clash
• “Wanted Dead or Alive” – Bon Jovi
• “Wave of Mutilation” – Pixies
• “Pleasure (Pleasure)” – Bang Camaro

There are photos! The Ferreteer took some. Let him show you them:

I completely lost track of time playing the game. It wasn’t till Leah texted me until I really realized we’d spent 3 hours on the game! I had fun. This was on one of the Xbox 360s at work and on a big TV. It is a loud game though. You really need to hear the song to be able to play, or at least I do, and the drums are loud, and usually the singer is loud. Honestly, it made me think of the stepkids – I can see Dev on guitars, Tony too, Alex singing, and Ty on the drums (which were difficult! I need to try again but it felt like I had no rhythm at all). The feel of the guitars are a bit different from Guitar Hero I and II —but not unlearnably so. The singing interface looks just like Karaoke Revolution, and that made it familiar to me. I’d love to pick this up, but really it demands stuff not in the budget yet—a wider TV (we have a conventional tube TV still and I don’t see how the interface for four people would fit on the TV at a good size—it’s really designed for a wide aspect ration), an Xbox360 (Joe says that there were 150 Xbox360 copies at the Best Buy he went to , and only 10 PS3 copies), and the game itself. I believe that adds up to more than $1500. I can’t justify the cost at this point, but I look forward to a day when I can. :-)

This morning my voice is raw and tired.