"Every one of our parents does considerable emotional damage, and from what I've heard, it just might be the best part of being a parent."
                    -- Dr. Cox on Scrubs

The missus and I are expecting a wee one in February, and we're only just now getting around to telling anyone. Well, we've told immediate family and whatever friends we've crossed paths with, but it's been a pretty scattershot affair. Some good friends still to be told, and I, at least, will deserve whatever grief I get from friends who don't get properly notified.

we decided to wait until all the initial tests were run before we started announcing anything to the general public of the office, etc. Well, everything's come back shiny, as they say on Firefly, and now we have to start getting ready for the big event.

Naturally, as expectant parents with no experience whatsoever, we're full of all kinds of blanket statements about how we'll raise our child. To hear us talk, our child will reach the age of eighteen without knowing what a TV is, without getting pumped full of beef hormones every time he/she eats a cheeseburger, will not recognize the inside of a McDonald's, and other stuff like that. I'm sure the reality will prove us wrong before very long, as we encounter screaming fits everytime we pass by the golden arches -- and not because it burns the wee one's soul as if he were a vampire in a church's shadow.

My wife, though, ever the practical planner, posed this question a while back: "Can we take out restraining orders against the dumb kids?"

09/30/06 -- 11:56 p.m.

Contrary to popular belief, some writing does get done around here.

Review of the new Los Lobos disc, The Town and the City.

New column, on the recent Rockin' Bones box set and rockabilly in general.

09/12/06 -- 12:35 a.m.

Wow. I wasn't going to buy the new R.E.M. best-of disc, 'cause I already have all the IRS material already. But I'm a sucker for a bonus disc -- in fact, once I saw that you could buy a version with a disc full of demos, rarities, etc., I didn't stand a chance.

Man, I've gotta say that listening to vintage R.E.M. is almost enough to make you feel young again. I didn't become aware of R.E.M. until Life's Rich Pageant, which was getting a lot of play on the local college station. Then a buddy got us tickets to see them on the Document tour. I was hooked, and primed to get sucked into the golden age of left-of-the-dial alternative music.

Then, unfortunately, I went to college in a town that actually had "Stop here on your way to there" as one of its slogans. I mean, talk about your city-wide inferiority complex! Of course, back then, about the best I could say about the town was that the swamp gas didn't waft onto campus all day, at least, and that there was an excellent greasy spoon diner every half mile. No wonder the place was known for its high rate of heart disease.

At any rate, there wasn't much of a college music scene there, but R.E.M. still trickled through. And while the albums that came out during that time mark, for many, the start of R.E.M.s decline, I still like discs like Green and Out of Time (sidenote: my father, in his inimitable way, christened Michael Stipe "the little retarded boy" after seeing him dance in the "Losing My Religion" video -- and still calls him that to this day).

I can still remember going to see the band on the <i>Green<i> tour (I'd seen them on the Document tour as well). My girlfriend at the time, and one of her friends, hit the road on a two-hour road trip. I ate my first real Greek food, my g'friend and her buddy got mad at me because I wouldn't try to sneak onto the floor during the concert, and when everybody was getting too sleepy to drive, I almost tore out the transmission on my girlfriend's car while trying to learn to drive a stick in the rest area halfway home. The truckers must have laughed themselves to sleep that night.

No major stories to tell from that trip, though. Certainly nothing to compare to my friends being chased at high speed by The Cult's tour bus after they insulted the band and its roadies at a convenience store one night.

But listening to that good ol' R.E.M. just makes me nostalgic for the good old days. They say that the music you listen to in your teens and your twenties is the music you'll listen to the rest of your life. I've consciously tried to avoid getting caught in that time trap by always looking for something new and exciting to listen to, but I have to admit: I still get a charge out of the stuff I listened to during my second set of formative years.

09/11/06 -- 11:08 p.m.

My review of the new Richard Buckner disc is up today.

09/08/06 -- 10:39 p.m.

Today was our office's day for drug testing. The powers-that-be are changing and one of the new policies is your standard zero-tolerance attitude.

So a few days ago we got word that the drug screening crew was coming to the office. Not being a user of anything but copious amounts of caffeine (heck, I'm not even high on life <G>), I have no idea how long things stay in your system, or what the best shady convenience-store-brand system-cleaning product is best. But I found it odd that we got fair warning.

Today was the screening, and the office was full of people pounding water and soft drinks, and then sitting uncomfortably, bladders full to bursting as they waited their turn.

When it came my turn, I walked out to the restrooms, only to find two nurses blocking not only the doors to the restroom but the hallway as well. Both restrooms were out of commission for anything but drug-testing, and I thought of the little fellow in our building who seems allergic to the urinals on his own floor. What if he were to come bounding up to our restroom, full of shifty confidence and pee, only to find things shut down? Would he force his way in?

All in all, I'm not sure about the bunch running the show. The directions were pretty standard: take this cup, pee, don't flush, don't wash your hands, bring it back out.

Ah, but that "bring it back out" part -- that's the doozy. You go in, do your business, and come back out, only to find about three of your co-workers standing there looking at you holding a cup of your pee. And then your sample sits there while the nurse fills out the various labels and has you sign the forms. I was tempted to say to my coworkers, "Why yes, this is my pee! Notice the golden tones that can come only from an extended stay in my bladder. I think a mixture of sweet tea early in the morning, along with some cold pizza, is really the only way to produce a sample that captures the light just so."

Pretty soon, it was all over, and the nurses went their way, but not before leaving two trash cans of used sample cups (they poured what they needed into vials and disposed of the rest) not only out in the open, but under the water fountain. Way to go, folks.