The Jack Noodle Journal

Plenty of shows for you to catch this weekend. Some great bands will be in town. Come on kids, time to represent! What?

Last night I wanted to see 3 different shows but had to pick just one. Wolfmother, Mogwai, and Architecture in Helsinki all played different spots around town on Thursday.

I decided on Wolfmother at Berbati’s. It was a pretty awesome show. Wolfmother really rocked it. They have some cool classic rock energy. Wolfmother is one of the many postmodern acts out now getting their inspiration from historical play books. Like Wolfmother, the bands that know they are playing classic rock tunes with their own lyrics, and not trying to hide that fact, are really fun to watch. The lead singer looked a lot like Marc Bolan. He even wore a cape for some of the songs! The whole band had very dramatic stadium rock gestures.

I only had a couple of complaints during the show. My major complaint was that I totally felt sick to my stomach during the show. I think I ate something bad yesterday. I thought I was going to have to leave at first. Luckily it wore off by the time Wolfmother got on stage. A minor complaint would have to be the audience. It was really crowded. It was a strange mix of people in the crowd. Oldsters and youngsters. A couple of the people there looked like they were still stuck at a 1978 Rush concert, which actually was kind of cool. You know, now that I think about it, the audience was pretty cool. Everybody was really into it which was fun. I think maybe if I would have felt better the crowd would have been less crowd like. The audience at Goldfrapp was actually more annoying.

I’m going to try to take it easy tonight and not go anywhere. I stayed up late Wednesday and Thursday and think I have run out of steam for Friday fun.
The Nine Inch Nails concert is on Saturday.

I’m finding the act of sleeping in being more possible on weekdays. I could barely force myself out of bed this morning. Sleeping felt SO good. All I wanted was a few more hours. It seems that sleeping isn’t this good on the weekends. I usually am wide awake with no possibility of continued sleep.

I went and saw the basketball game with Seth last night over at Holman’s. The Mavericks just barely beat the Spurs in overtime. Game number 7 of that series. Do or die time. It was a heart pounding game. A real nail biter. It’s crazy how the drama of a close game with the clock winding down sucks you in. Seth is a fan of the Dallas Mavericks so that is who we were cheering for. Seth has been checking the cable-only playoff games at the bars around the neighborhood and I’ve started joining him. He believes that his team does the best if he is watching the game at Holman’s. They seem to loose if he goes to other places like Claudia’s. Now that the Mavericks are in the Western Finals and the games will all be on the broadcast networks, will we still go to Holman’s?

I like watching basketball. It’s funny how I can still keep up with the sports talk even though I haven’t been watching basketball for last several years. I was a real basketball fan when the Portland Trail Blazers were doing really well in the early 90s. I remember watching the games with my brother. I also remember watching them with Travis. I remember being sent home by that lovely blessing of a girl Angie when she was too upset to see me after a major Blazer loss.

Last week I was thinking that it might be fun to start up a video podcast. It would be fun to do little 5 to 10 minute experimental movies for you all to be able to subscribe to and download to your iPods. What would they be about though? Should I think up some sort of story or can my little movies be about nothing? One of the great things that my recent education has given me is a group of smart kids that I can contact with my questions. I posed the question: “How does one make a video podcast?” and a truck load of answers were given. From doing my research, I am beginning to think that one would want to have 12 to 20 video episodes in the can before starting up a serious video podcast. Then there’s that whole bandwidth issue and finding a host that would take the bandwidth hit for you if the podcast becomes popular.

I think the video podcast idea will go on the back burner for right now. I could probably still shoot my little videos though.
What I should do is update this blog more often and get my photos posted up here.

Way back in 1999, Seth, Mr. Wagner and I were in the legendary rock band “PieFan”. Have I spoke about PieFan in these pages before? Probably. It was our attempt at good ole homemade experimental computer music. I do the singing and most of the lyrical content. I enjoy listening to PieFan about once every year.

A few days ago I thought that I had better get all of those song together in one spot on iTunes in my new computer. There are PieFan CDRs in different places around the house and It would be a shame if they got scratched or wrecked, destroying our tunes forever. I found most of the stuff but was missing the 6 song “YumMolly” EP. I was in a bit of a panic because that disc had some of our big hit songs on it! Seth can’t find his PieFan CD and I haven’t talked to Mr. Wagner in a while. Luckily after much searching I found the disc in the place I had put it for safe keeping where it wouldn’t get lost.

Paper-cut is the song that I had decided to post for you when I thought I had lost the other ones. Paper-cut has some creepy imagery to it.

Kiss the Money seems to be the favorite of quite a few people. Seth doesn’t like it as much because he’s not on it.

I think that Draw the Blinds is my favorite.

The weekend is almost here my friends. It’s a tad overcast out there right now. I couldn’t possibly have believed that rain was going to be in the forecast for this weekend, but I felt a few drops this morning. Looks like my weather forecast of sun and more sun isn’t going to happen this weekend.

I caught the earlier MAX this morning and am at work a tad early. The work week went pretty fast for this guy. Work was okay I guess. I need to start doing some of my own work.

We don’t have anything planned yet for fun this weekend. Maybe something will present itself during the course of today.

Deep in thought this morning. I wasn’t paying attention and almost tripped over a wall that was taller on the side opposite the one I was coming up onto it from. Did that make sense? I was standing on top of this wall thing that had a further drop on the side I was facing away from.
I was thinking about stuff. Nothing too deep or specific. Nothing to break an ankle over.

I’ve got to get a plan going for the next few months and the rest of the year. I need to do something.
I’ve got to get some schemes going. Too many things are half way up in the air right now. 2 or 3 things.
I need to get to a point and relax.
I’m not at the relaxing point yet.
Schemes.

Anybody want to start some schemes with me?

My love affair with Underworld continues. Has anyone reading these pages been turned on to Underworld yet? If so let me know. I am starting to feel crazy about my Underworld gushing and I need your words to affirm that I am not nuts.

Today Underworld’s DVD “Everything; Everything” arrived in my mailbox from the lovely folks at Netflix. I just got done watching it and holy cow. It was quite amazing. Sure, I should calm down a bit and think about it more, but while I was watching it I thought, “Man, this is the best concert DVD I have ever seen”. Take that with a grain of salt. Remember that I have ONLY been listening to Underworld this week. To explain myself: The energy content of the disk was through the roof. I wished desperately to be dancing in the crowd the whole time the DVD was playing. The concert was mixed masterfully with text and graphics and film clips splashing around everywhere. I am also happy that blokes in their 40’s can rock it. There is hope for this 33 year old.

Part of my interest in Underworld this week that was made evident on the DVD tonight, is that they are graphic designers from the awesome firm Tomato. Did I mention that they are designers? My Underworld week has been sparking my dead soul up and has been getting me thinking about doing some good design work again. All that type design and motion graphics flashing around has given me inspiration. I should start making some films and motion graphics again and offer them up here for your viewing pleasure. Working on that kind of shit in the past has been heaven for me. I need to keep that in mind and get closer to heaven again. 8 to 12 hours lost in editing video is a big boner for me.

Come on Noodle! Hit it!
Yes, something good is in the works folks. I have the hunger again.

Hey, the lovely Alicia has really been rocking the photos from the Noodle compound and picking up my photo taking slack. I need to update my photos. Yes I know that my photos are from 2 years ago. I thought about getting a Flickr account but have decided that as a web designer that route would be far too lazy for me. Alicia has some awesome photos of Philip, Abby, Pierre and the current Noodle world that you can view for now until I stop being so lame and update my photos. You can see the new fence in the Philip and Abby shots.

Yes, It looks like another sun filled day is in the works this morning. Yesterday they said it got up to 90. I think that would qualify as summer weather wouldn’t it? Does that mean that summer is here folks?

I was in the office all day yesterday and didn’t get to see the warm sun. I did step outside briefly to see how warm it was. I’ll be inside all day today also. I meant to take a sweater with me today for leaving at the office but forgot. The air conditioned air is quite chilly.

Have I mentioned yet that I love our fenced in back yard? It is a peaceful sanctuary now. I was laying back there on the grass Sunday night and it was quite relaxing. It’s amazing how closing that area off with a fence improved the quality of life.

There have been several horrible stories in the local news the last few days. People are dropping like flies. Yesterday a woman crashed her car over the divider on the freeway and slammed head on into a police car. On Sunday a man got his legs severed when the MAX train ran over him. Come on people! Let’s be safe! These two incidents reminded me of the randomness post from last month. A car event and a train event. I am now a believer in routine and repetitiveness. Routine isn’t as romantic as randomness but it is safer. My normal routine on Sunday and Monday didn’t take me near either one of those events. Although I was driving the car yesterday and could have had a car event. If I was really aiming for randomness I might have had a wacky enough route to take me near those accidents. Yeah, I know, if an event is meant to cross your path then there really isn’t much you can do to avoid it.

Happy weekend to you! We have made it through another week kids. It’s sunny outside right now and I am going to be dragged away from playing on the computer and forced to work out in the yard when K and Mr. Baptist get back. It should be a fairly nice day for yard work. I’ll give the lawn a good mow and do some clean up and ivy cutting in the front.

Hopefully I can find some time this weekend to do some creative projects. I have been saying that every weekend for last couple of months haven’t I? If I keep saying it maybe I will do it. Keep speaking the words Noodle and the actions will follow.

Right now at this very second I am listening to “Rez/Cowgirl (Everything, Everything Edit)” from the “Cowgirl EP” by Underworld. Holy crap it is so freaking good. If you are one of those people out there who listens to headphones all day at work like me, then you must get some Underworld. The music totally gets you thumping, puts you in a trance, makes your work go easier and the next thing you know, it’s time to go home. That Cowgirl Ep has got a couple of 11 minute remixes on it that are out of this World. I have 2 or 3 Underworld CDs.

I think this sudden hunger for electronic music and techno must have been sparked during that Goldfrapp show on Wednesday. I started thinking more about that embellishing and improvisation I was writing about yesterday. Underworld mixes it up during the live recordings I have heard, with interesting sounds and different mixes of their tunes. It was crazy yesterday, I was actually craving all the Underworld songs I could find on my work computer. When I got home I bought the first bundle of the Underworld RiverRun Project, “Lovely Broken Thing” and downloaded it to my computer. It is pretty amazing. It is very experimentalish sounding. There are 7 songs on it that are all ran together into one long piece. You wouldn’t really have known that there were different songs unless you knew it before listening. I am going to buy the next bundle “Pizza For Eggs” later today. I can’t wait to listen to them on my headphones in a work setting.

Seth and I were looking at our bellies during the Goldfrapp concert and were starting to feel pudgy around all those young hip kids. I know, I don’t have anything to complain about and am nowhere near being fat, but I am getting a beer belly now and seem to be gaining weight as old age sneaks in. This is unusual for me because I have always been freakishly skinny. I have been thinking that I need to start exercising. I need to create a whole exercise regime for myself. Maybe I should start riding my bicycle to work. Maybe I should start jogging. If I started exercising I know I would start feeling better and I’m sure I would start having more creative ideas again.

Part of my exercise regime would involve mental and creative exercise. I need to start building up my drawing muscles, I need to do some good reading, I need to go view some fine art, exercise my photograph taking muscles, and do some laps to get my web creation blood flowing.

The Goldfrapp concert on Wednesday night was pretty cool. That Alison Goldfrapp is an amazing singer. The wise and whimsical Seth said after the show that her singing reminded him of that blue opera singer from the movie “The 5th Element”. Alison wasn’t painted blue though. She is very cute. I think that if she wasn’t there it would have been a hum drum performance. She really makes Goldfrapp. The music sounded really good and it was nice and loud. I wish that they would have mixed it up a bit. After the concert I was saying that I wish they would have improvised more during the show, but what I meant to say was that I wish they would have embellished more. They pretty much played the songs like you hear them on the CDs. The only song they steered off of the road map for was “White Horse” and it was my favorite song of the evening. Sure everything is programed in, but you guys can let the beat and the bass bump a little bit longer can’t you?
It was fairly crowded at the show and I was annoyed at times when I wasn’t able to see. There were definitely strange and interesting people to look at in the audience.

I had a great time at the show and I am glad we got to see it.
I wasn’t as tired at work on Thursday as I thought I would be.

Hey there. This is another “sneak a post in while doing work at the office” post.
I don’t like those kind of posts. Too short and scattered.
We’ll see how this one goes.

I bought K the new Paul Simon CD “Surprise” last night. It is really good. I took it away from her today to listen to and put on my work computer.
I am turning into an old man. Raving about the new Paul Simon CD? That’s not hip, indie and alternative.
It’s really good. Believe me.
I think what sold me is the fact that Paul Simon is collaborating with Brian Eno on this project. I love Brian Eno’s work. Eno’s magic on Surprise mixed with Simon’s song writing make for a dreamy, electronic, alien, spacey. folk album. I had goose bumps at times during my initial listen.
The new Paul Simon CD is going to make for some good summer listening. I can imagine it playing during the hot days sitting in lawn chairs in the backyard.

Hey, tonight we are going to the Goldfrapp concert at the Crystal Ballroom. It’s going to be amazing. I think it’s a sold-out show tonight.
A concert on a Wednesday night? Argh. I predict lots of coffee Thursday morning.

Hey there all. How have you been doing? I have been doing pretty fine.

I was just outside planning on writing this post from the backyard but it was too hard to see the monitor. The morning cloud covered light was too much competition with the light of the screen.

The fence is finished! We now have a fenced in backyard. The fence looks great. Rick’s did a great job building it. It really has a different feel out there now. There is something relaxing about sitting in a freshly fenced in yard. The dogs are worn out from all the playing that they have been doing. Last night was the fence “coming out” party. Thanks to all who attended.

Yesterday was the fateful day of Cinco De Mayo. My personal Friday the 13th. Cursed day. Day of evil. The whole story is here. I was well aware of it’s arrival this year so I was prepared. I was kind of creeped out about in the morning. I felt gross, and knew for sure that something horrible was going to happen on the morning commute. Nothing did though. After a few pints of coffee at the office I started to feel better about the day. I did think for a time that my website went down due to Cinco De Mayo, but it came back up. Looks like I avoided another Cinco De Mayo catastrophe for one more year. Maybe the curse has been lifted?

I am hoping to get some work done this weekend. I really need to step my game up. For one thing, I need to figure out if I am going to go to school or not and get started with the application process. I think the deadline is in June. That’s less than a month to get my shit together. Other than that school business, I think I am in need of an overall strategy. I need to start get a creative plan going.

I think I’ll continue with this post later in the day. K and Mr. Baptist are getting ready to go out for breakfast. I don’t want to miss out on that action so I have to go.

Well, first off I have to correct my previous post. Seth and Alicia will be moving to Baltimore Maryland. I don’t know why I got it stuck in my head that they were moving to Pittsburgh. Eh, Pittsburgh and Baltimore are often times the same city to us native Oregonians. Alicia thought I was joking every time I said Pittsburgh, and never bothered to correct me. I was confused and embarrassed once everything was straightened out. Oh well.

The weekend was alright. We did quite a bit of drinking and not very much sleeping. That’s starting to get lame. I’m going to have to switch it around to quite a bit of sleeping and not very much drinking. There were several photos from the weekend. Hopefully nothing too nutty will get posted. We did this crazy series of photos where we had the person who was being photographed pose and pretend like they were laughing their heads off at something really funny. Half of the shots looked like the person was in agonizing pain. They were pretty funny.

We did manage to finish watching the end of Six Feet Under! Oh my goodness. The end of the series. K and I were so sad when it was over. We have been living with those characters for 5 seasons and now it’s all come to an end. We won’t be able to be part of their lives ever again. K and I were teary eyed towards the end. I really liked the end. It was really sad. Is sad the right word? It was a bitter sweet ending. Some of you may think that it ended with quite a bit of cheese but I will have to respectfully disagree. It’s just what this increasingly emotional baby ordered.

K talked to the fence guys today and it looks like they are coming to put the fence in on Tuesday instead of Friday. That’s pretty exciting. A fence by Tuesday evening. Woo hoo. I think I am going to stay home from the office and supervise the building. Mr. Baptist will be here helping me supervise. The puppies will be very happy that they can go without the leashes.

I’ve got to go. Medium is on and the light from the computer is ruining the mood.
Me have some good writing tomorrow while I sit on my ass and watch the strong men build the fence.