Pick #166

The Eels - "Novocaine for the Soul" from Beautiful Freak

Alive Again Video

By Sarah Mac Band at their CD release party for "I'm Not Scared" at the Submarine in Thomasville, GA on 11-14-09.

'Alive Again' the Sarah Mac Band from marc bowerman on Vimeo.

Dexter's Folly (Last Night)

Dexter fans: this post references last night's episode. If you haven't seen it, you may want to wait to read this.

First, I noticed a filming error. When Dexter's going through one of the empty houses, you can see a face in the bottom left corner of a set of jalousie windows. I thought that someone was watching him, but it's part of the film crew.

Now for the mistake Dexter made: he should have taken care of Trinity after hitting him with the shovel. When Trinity was on the ground, Dexter should have injected him with that sodium-whatever-it-is that he keeps in his syringe. Even though the little boy was sinking in the concrete, there was no chance that the concrete would have set up any harder during the time it would have taken Dexter to incapacitate Trinity. Dexter would still be able to rescue the boy and he would have had the opportunity to kill Trinity that same night.

Maybe they had to write that kind of mistake into the show to set up the final two episodes, but I don't think that Dexter's character should have gone for the boy first. Maybe this is part of his changing as a result of having children himself, but the old Dexter would definitely have taken care of business with Trinity first...especially because he knows that a new kill cycle is just being started with the boy, so there are 3 more people in immediate danger. Bad Dexter.

Pick #165

Monsters of Folk - "Say Please" from their self-titled release

Pub Run

Yeah, pub runs are great. You get some friends together and run from one bar to another. Take turns buying pitchers and take it all in. The event itself is only part of the experience. There's also the anticipation: "hey, are you doing the pub run on Saturday??" and the post-event: "man, that was so cool when those kids on bikes followed us to the next bar."

I've always wanted to do a pub run race. Teams of 3 or 4. At each stop, each team has to consume one pitcher and every teammate has to down at least one glass. The team can't leave to go to the next pub until everyone on the team has finished the beer. Ironically, I think that the experience wouldn't be as pleasant if they were races like the beer mile. What really gets to you when you combine drinking and running is speed. You don't want to drink too fast and you don't want to run too fast. Drinking too fast makes it slosh around in your stomach when you run. Running too fast makes it slosh around in your stomach. There's also the increased chance of hurting yourself. And one last problem with a competitive pub run: finding enough people down to do such a thing to themselves. It's way easier to throw together a friendly pub run.

Pick #164

The Rifles - "When I'm Alone" from No Love Lost

Road ID Firefly Supernova

I just got a Firefly Supernova by Road ID. Mine's blue. It's tinier than I imagined. I clipped it to my backpack for my ride home tonight. I still want to test it out running. I wonder if it will bounce and annoy me.

I'm always curious how I look (how visible I am) on my bike at night. I really want to get in my car and watch someone else ride my bike. Anyway, tonight I settled for dropping my backpack at my driveway, facing down the road. Then I rode my bike to the end of my road and I could still see the flashing light. Road ID claims that you can see the light from up to a mile away...that might be a little far fetched or under perfect conditions or something. This light was still very visible from a quarter mile away. The light is supposed to be omni-directional, meaning it doesn't matter which direction it's facing - you'll still see it from any side. I pushed my backpack over and looked at the light coming out of the side of the Supernova and it was not nearly as bright. You could only see it faintly at about 100 meters.

I'll see how well it holds up...it's supposed to be waterproof down to 300 feet (a light like this would be sweet in low-vis water). It's small enough that I can keep it in my backpack. The packaging says that there's a bike mount for it, but I can't find one on roadid.com. If I like it, I'll probably get another one or 3 of them.