Five Fun Things: May 18th Edition

I’m try­ing to make this a week­ly thing, but who knows how long it’ll last.

Anoth­er week flew by me and I’m not sure where it went. That’s more the norm than not I sup­pose. Here’s a few things, in no par­tic­u­lar order that have been inter­est­ing and enjoy­able this week:

1. Get­ting to see inside me by hav­ing an MRI done. I’ve been learn­ing some about med­ical imag­ing in the past few months with baby ultra­sounds for Angela as well as x‑rays and MRIs for me. It’s all amaz­ing stuff and makes me real­ly appre­ci­ate mod­ern med­i­cine and our abil­i­ty to see what is hap­pen­ing inside us with­out ever open­ing us up. Of course, the cost for all this imag­ing is still high enough to make it as com­mon as I expect it some­day will be, so that makes me appre­ci­ate hav­ing good insurance.
2. Hav­ing a good boss. Okay, he does­n’t read this so don’t assume it’s for his ben­e­fit or any­thing. How­ev­er, I’ve had some bad jobs before and I’ve been lucky to work for peo­ple sense col­lege that allowed me to work in my own style instead of some rigid frame­work. Work has been insane­ly hec­tic for the past cou­ple of months and that’s going to con­tin­ue for a while in the future. How­ev­er, my boss nev­er beats me up about it. He’s demand­ing, but not unrea­son­able and that’s about the best you can hope for in this kind of work.
3. Okay, just so you don’t think this is some thanks­giv­ing list, I’ve also been lov­ing three new albums I down­loaded this week. Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky is kind of a con­tin­u­a­tion of A Ghost is Born; some quirky and soft melodies punc­tu­at­ed with some rockin’ moments. Not hav­ing lis­tened to Mod­est Mouse for all that long, I can’t say if We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is much of a pro­gres­sion for that band since their last album, but I can say I like it a lot. After see­ing The Avett Broth­ers last week, I can see why my friend Chris likes them so much. Their live album on iTunes – Live, Vol. 2 – seems to cap­ture a lot of their live shows and “Pret­ty Girl From Annapo­lis” has been stuck in my head for days, now. I need to pick up their new album as well.
4. I got on a Futu­ra­ma kick a few days ago and have been watch­ing a num­ber of episodes off of Com­e­dy Cen­tral (I only occa­sion­al­ly watched it first run in my pre-TiVo days). It’s best moments are using Fry & Co. to make com­men­tary about mod­ern life (this must have been the inspi­ra­tion for Idioc­ra­cy…). It’s most bor­ing moments to me are show­ing once again how annoy­ing Dr. Zoid­berg is or how crass Ben­der is.
5. This week­end is the Lebanese fes­ti­val in Rich­mond. Angela went to lunch there with some of her co-work­ers, as did one of my co-work­ers, and they said it was great. Angela is going to take me to din­ner there this evening. I haven’t enjoyed it just yet, but I know I will!