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Spending SpreeWow, has it really been a week since I updated? So much for the surge of entries I was writing following Journalcon! I don't have a whole lot to report for the busy-ness, though. Work has been quite busy lately, as we've had some of our priorities reshuffled. It hasn't been too bad, though, and besides, I don't write my journal at work, anyway. I went to Wednesday gaming at Subrata's for the first time in a while. We played Robo Rally, and I guess I more-or-less came in second, as I touched four of the five checkpoints and never got killed. I had some devilishly bad luck at a few junctures, though, so I feel I did well. Plus, we kept Subrata from winning, which is usually a good result. I might start going semi-regularly again. On the other hand, ultimate frisbee season is starting early, which competes for my weeknight time. Thursday was our first game, and the league's theme this year is "12 Monkeys", with teams like King Kong (mine), Gleek, Abu and Chim Chim. Heh. The San Jose park department has prohibited us from wearing cleats this year, which is lame. Instead, we're wearing turf shoes or alternate footwear. I bought some Adidas turf shoes, which are definitely not as nice as my cleats. Not only do they not fit as well (fitting my extra-wide feet is always a trick), but they're not going to grip nearly as well, especially in soft or muddy ground. Bleh. Well, hopefully it will all work out. Anyway, my endurance kept up a little better than usual, which probably means all my bicycling is paying off!
 Hard to believe I've been so busy since there hasn't been any baseball since Monday! As you probably know, the Giants and the Angels are playing the first all-Wild Card World Series. The team which didn't have home field advantage won all six series to this point, which may bode well for the Giants, who don't (World Series home field advantage alternates between the leagues, and this year is an American League year). My prediction is that the Angels will win a pitching contest, while the Giants will win a slugging contest. We've had one of each so far: A home run-dominated 4-3 Giants victory in the first game, and an 11-10 slugfest won by the Angels tonight, which I guess is the opposite of my predictions! Tonight's game ended on home runs by each team's franchise player, Tim Salmon and Barry Bonds, and Salmon's 2-run shot compared to Bonds' solo dinger was the difference. The early innings were "someone stop the madness"-style slugging, which actually is pretty fun. Now the teams go to San Francisco for three games. Subrata and I tried to get tickets, but it was hopeless. A guy at work apparently got one seat through eBay for Game Three, and paid over $400 for it. Yow!
I've been spending too much money lately. I think I need to clamp down on my budget, even though much of it has been in a good cause (meals during my Dad's visit, needed bicycling gear, tickets for a planned vacation, etc.). My mortgage refinance will help - when it goes through - but still. Back in August I tried not to go shopping (other than my usual weekly gas and comic book runs) during the week, and that seemed to help. I should try that again. Anyway, it's not like I'm about to run out of money. But I like to live within the means of my paycheck and not spend my savings on month-to-month stuff. (I'm not really saving much money at this point - excepting my 401(k), which I'm always putting money into. I'd always been saving to buy a house, and, well, now I have the house. Savings are good, but having the house is better. Sooner or later things will change and I'll be able to save more. But there's no rush.) The aforementioned biking gear came from a weekend sale at the Bicycle Outfitter, which was celebrating their 26th (!) anniversary. I picked up a new helmet (my old one is over 5 years old, and who knows if it's still any good?), a seat pack (so I don't have to store my tire-changing stuff and extra light batteries in my bag) and a blindingly yellow jacket for biking in colder weather and in the dark. Next month I might buy biking gloves. Eventually I want to buy new panniers, but there's no rush for that. It's a luxury.
It's a little weird to realize that music isn't exactly the best medium for telling compelling and subtle stories. At least, not of the plot-driven variety that I like. Song lyrics are of course a form of poetry, rarely of prose, and my approach to music is not general lyric-oriented anyway (I focus on melody and harmony, primarily). Snow is not really better or worse than other concept albums in this regard, although it does feel more cohesive and studied than many of its predecessors. Or maybe Neal Morse is just a less fragmented lyricist than other prog songwriters. The music is quite strong, although it still shows the band's tendency to edge towards a light thrash or "sonic assault with guitars" sound ("Moving to NYC", "Freak Boy"), which doesn't really work for me. At the other end, there's an outright love song in "Carie", which is rather pleasant. Surprisingly, the album's strongest all-around track is written by (of all people) the drummer: "Looking for Answers" has the prog complexity wrapped around a strong melody and it quite catchy. "Open Wide the Flood Gates", "I Will Go" and the two renditions of "Wind at my Back" (as unabashed a rendition of praise and reverence for its subject as you'll ever hear) are all also quite strong. None of them, I feel, really equals the best work of the band on its previous two albums, so it's the gestalt of Snow which makes or breaks it. It doesn't quite come across as self-indulgent, but I wouldn't rate it a triumphant, unqualified success, either. Some of that is just my personal taste, though. I have been listening to the album quite a bit and enjoying it, and maybe anything else is just me being picky.
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