The Week from Purgatory

It was made worse because I had other projects to work on which have basically gotten shoved to next week, which will likely be more interesting and which other people have been asking if I've had a chance to pursue yet. Nope. But soon!

Phew. Well, it's behind me now.

Last night a bunch of us - eight, as it turned out, which is a good number - got together at Borrone to play Bridge, the first time I've played since last year. It turned out to be a really interesting evening for me, as I kept getting dealt these high-point hands with interesting implications in the bidding. We even had the "my partner's hand perfectly complements my own" hand at one point. It was fun; we played for about four hours. At least a couple of people there hadn't seen me since I grew my beard.

(And yes, this means that Ultimate was cancelled again due to the rain.)

Tonight was a Quake night for a couple of hours, then I went to Borrone and read most of this year's Baseball Prospectus. We're going to have our fantasy baseball draft early in April so I got some ideas of who to look for in the draft.

I've spent a lot of the last two weeks listening to my Jethro Tull CDs. If I haven't mentioned it before, Tull is one of my very favorite rock groups, though it's been several years since I've listened to them with much frequency. I'd forgotten how good some of it is, and I've even discovered how much I like their album from a few years ago, Roots to Branches, which I gave only a cursory listen to when it came out.

Many years ago, I was a subscriber and significant contributor to The St. Cleve Chronicle, the first Internet mailing list about the band. I compiled a "history" of the group up until more-or-less that point, mainly sticking to facts and documented information about the band. Listening to their albums lately makes me think about updating (or, rather, rewriting) that stuff for my Web page, with more extensive personal commentary (i.e., opinions) about the albums. Not that I particularly need another project, but it's something I ponder while spending my 5-or-so hours a week driving around in my car.

Anyway, they really are such a terrific and unique group in rock history, having done progressive, folk, and straight-ahead guitar-driven rock throughout their long career. Their "famous" album, Aqualung, is actually not even among my favorites. For newbies, I would probably recommend Benefit (1970, progressive), Heavy Horses (1978, folk-rock) or Crest of a Knave (1987, guitar-driven) to get a flavor for the group. Actually, War Child (1974) is probably most representative of their overall style (if they have one), but it's a rather inconsistent and quirky album. Or, maybe that's what makes it representative! If nothing else, on it you do get one of their big singles, "Bungle in the Jungle", and one of their best songs, "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day".

Or heck, you can just go for the "hits" album and buy Original Masters (1986), which is more-or-less what started me on my whole Tull odyssey...

I jogged this morning, making four times this week. Not bad! My legs are starting to feel it, though.