Bookshelf:

Recently Read & Reviewed:

• China Miéville, Perdido Street Station

Currently Reading:

• Julian May, The Many-Colored Land

Next Up:

1. Julian May, The Golden Torc
2. Julian May, The Nonborn King
3. Julian May, The Adversary
4. Margery Allingham, The Case of the Late Pig
5. Sean McMullen, Voyage of the Shadowmoon

A Week of Kitties

I'm still alive. And very, very busy. My cow-orker's absence for paternity leave has more than filled up my time at work, and it's exhausting, to boot, leaving me pretty wiped by the end of the work-day. On top of that, I spent much of my free time last week on the big push to finish reading Perdido Street Station for my book discussion group, which hasn't left much time for journalling.

This week's a change of pace: Debbi is out of town for part of the week, so she's left the kittens in my care all week, and is spending a couple of nights at my place as well. So it's mostly me and four cats! Yes, the kittens are not really "kittens" anymore. Roulette is still rather kittenish, but Blackjack is bigger than Newton and is cat-sized, even though they're not a year old until July!

Everyone's been behaving themselves fairly well. I have a couple of times forgotten to put my slippers away and found the rawhide laces chewed on by the Jackelope, but fortunately he has not shown much inclination to chew on other strings. He's also pretty scared of going out the front door, which is a good thing. He has zipped out onto my upstairs porch though. He may actually have some good judgment, that one!

The cats and kittens have mostly segregated themselves into separate routines, but we rarely get any hisses anymore. Every so often someone will chase someone else up or down the stairs, and Blackjack will try to jump a cat sometimes, but no fights have broken out, and no one's behaving territorially, which is a good thing. I think we can say that the cat household is fully integrated!

Last weekend Debbi and I went to the spring art festival in downtown Mountain View (it's the smaller one; the larger one is in the fall). I always enjoy admiring the photography, and someday I may actually plunk down $1000+ for one of the six-foot landscape prints from Jim Guthrie (for instance, this one). Until then, though, we bought a couple of hanging vases, since cats make it tricky to put flowers in a table vase.

Sunday Debbi was out of town with friends, so I went to the farmer's market myself and bought some roses for my new vase! They're very pretty on my wall, and very fragrant. Of course, Newton eventually decided he wanted to munch on them. He even succeeded in nibbling on some of the leaves, but strangely left the flowers alone. And then he horked up the leaves. Thanks, Newton. He seems to be getting over the urge, though, and they still look great.

Saturday we also went to a spring party at our friends Chad and Camille's. I envy them their yard, which is large and comfy, though I know they've put a lot of time and effort into it. But then, I also have to keep in mind that I have less house because I choose to live on the peninsula rather than in the valley.

I have been falling behind on some personal chores lately. For instance, I still need to get someone from the city to come inspect my new water heater; I've just been dragging my feet on that. And I need to get a haircut, but my old barber shop was bought out. My barber there apparently has opened his own place, but I haven't yet checked it out. Unfortunately it's been all too easy to procrastinate on things which I need to do during regular business hours.

Mostly I just need to kick myself in the ass one afternoon and get it done.

On the plus side, I did go for my first bike ride into the office on Monday, and hope to go again tomorrow. It's always fun!

I'll wrap up with some quick looks at some progressive rock albums I've bought recently, mostly from The Laser's Edge:

• Pallas, The Sentinel: One of the early-80s albums of "neo-prog", which was basically a record label-driven effort to produce more pop-friendly prog (along with Marillion and IQ). The Sentinel has weak production work and some sometimes cheesy melodies; the vocalist is not very polished, and the words often don't seem to fit the flow of the melodies. Definitely a very rough work, it's at its best when it's trying to evoke a particular mood rather than trying to be catchy or poppy.
• Pallas, The Cross and Crucible: 20 years later, Pallas has evolved into a very polished group which paints lush sonic landscapes. It's hard to believe it's the same group! This album feels like it has a number of tracks or parts of tracks which are just filler (the opening "Big Bang", for instance), but also some genuinely excellent songs, notably "Generations" and "Celebration!"
• Ice Age, Liberation: The opening track, "No Surrender (The Lhasa Road)", feels very much like Rush crossed with Dream Theater, though the album as a whole tends more towards the latter than the former, with a slightly harder sound than Rush. Outstanding performances, but the songs often seem to go on a couple of minutes too long and start to meander. It feels like their songwriting hasn't caught up to their chops. But they may improve.
• Tr3nity, The Cold Light of Darkness: Interesting, moody, dark album evocative of both early Fish-era Marillion and also mid-period Brave-era Marillion. The album never really rocks out, and careful listening is required to keep it from sounding a bit monotonous, but there's rewarding stuff here. The singer is a bit too melancholy for my tastes, and I'd appreciate a bit more energy (a criticism of I have Brave, too).
• Hourglass, The Journey Into: Guitar-driven rock which hasn't really grabbed my attention yet. The music feels like it lacks depth; better use of keyboards or more variety in the guitar sounds could help. Nondescript album cover suggests the band isn't quite ready for prime time.
• Everon, Flood: The best album from this crop, Everon is a Danish band which sounds like Dream Theater crossed with Queen. Bombastic, energetic rock, it's hard to believe they've been characterized as neo-prog. They sparingly employ vocal harmonies a la Queen, and less self-consciously. Not all the tracks work, but it certainly is lively and fun. "Black River" stands out for me. Not for people who prefer quiet music - try Tr3nity instead. But I definitely want to hear their later work.

That's all for tonight!