Down On Ferry Farm

Not much going on in my personal life. I have been pretty busy at work so I'll just take the easy road and give you a Top 5 List. This time, the subject is "Best Backing Band". When an artist attaches their name -- and only their name -- to the name of the entire band it's not only 'ballsy' but it tends to make you forget that there's an entire band behind them. With that in mind, here are some of my favorites: 5. Cyndi Lauper - Even thought the music she decided to make was sometimes quirky and the lyrics a little weak, you can never say she didn't have a good band behind her. They had to know they weren't making award-winning music but they played their hearts out. In fact, they played so well together they decided to strike out on their own. You know them better as "The Hooters". 4. Pat Benatar - As a younger man I used to watch videos on MTV (remember when they used to show videos?). I remember seeing Pat Benatar's videos and thou

I'm going to be turning 40 later this year and I figured that by this time in my life, I'd know myself by now. I would know, for instance, why I have plenty of energy during the week but absolutely zero on the weekend. I'd love to say that I have a physically demanding job and I "leave it all on the field" but that just ain't so. Every morning after I've gotten settled at my desk, I'd walk down the hall, talk to L-girl for a minute or two, and then buy myself a Coke. It gives me energy to make it through the morning. At lunch, another Coke and I'd get through my day and make it to sleep that night just fine. I don't really keep soda in my fridge at home. Saturday morning comes and I try and shake off the previous night. Come mid-afternoon, and I'm ready for a nap -- and I mean hard. I'm not a nap-taker so I really don't like the thought of laying down on a Saturday afternoon when I could be doing something with my free time. I did i

You heard me! I said Drummers. Seems like the lead singers get all the attention while the drummer sits in the background holding everyone together. Here are the top 5 that -- I think -- have really cool, great or unusual names: 5. Neil Peart - Rush . It's hard to compete for a spot in the band when the other members have names like Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. Neil Peart stands out as one of the few "Lead Drummers" in rock-n-roll. Basically, it just means that he doesn't sit idly by and hold a 4/4 rhythm -- he actually plays his drums differently for each song... at times mimicking the melody. Best Progressive Rock in the business. 4. Bun E. Carlos - Cheap Trick . The thing I most remember about seeing Cheap Trick live is that Bun never looked like he was working. He had the trademark cigarette hanging out of his mouth, keeping time without breaking a sweat. Rick Neilsen played his antics out on the front of the stage while Mr. Carlos kept it together in the back. 3.

For all you stickler's-for-detail... here is this past Monday's episode -- in its entirety. Enjoy! [INT. DAY. One girl and one boy sitting on a couch. They appear to be in their early teens. The year is 2030] FUTURE TED (VOICE OVER) Kids, before I met your mother, when I was still out there searching, I learned something valuable: that love is not a science. DAUGHTER (sarcastically) Wow, that was a great story, Dad. (she gets up from the couch) SON We’re going to go watch TV (he gets up from the couch) FUTURE TED (VOICE OVER) Ya see, (they both sit back down) sometimes in life you just have to accept that certain things can’t be explained… and that’s kinda scary. [INT. NIGHT. An Irish-themed pub in New York. The crowd is casual, comfortable. BARNEY, TED and ROBIN are already seated at a booth. MARSHALL and LILY walk in.] MARSHALL Oh, my god. LILY I know. I’m still shaking. (she grabs the drink from BARNEY’s hand and takes a sip) BARNEY What the --? Ha, ha… jokes on you: I have

I swear, most of the time my days are random acts of weirdness that link together in such strange ways I find it very hard to believe that someone has thought this all out. My day today was not that weird or strange, I was just making an observation. Something funny happened -- but not to me. I picked the winning lottery numbers -- for two days ago. This is fun! Yesterday, I was -- no, wait -- that wasn't me. Can you tell I don't have much to say. Okay, here's what I have to say: I went to a funeral on Saturday. My sister's ex-husband died. He had remarried so his current wife was there sobbing like a... well, like a widow. My sister had a son by this man and by the looks of it, he was either taking it very well or was so detached he didn't know how to act. My nephew stood up after the preacher had spoken and said a few words that he had written on some 3x5 cards. It was touching, I have to admit. He talked about the good times he'd had with his father, the firs

So I'm grocery shopping tonight when I look down an aisle to see if I need anything from it. I look up at the little sign that tells you generally what's in the aisle -- "Seedless Grapes/White Chocolate/Wooden Skewers" (don't you wish they were that specific?) Anyhow, there's this woman standing there with her shopping cart and she asks me: "Which do you like better, Potatoes Au Gratin or Scalloped Potatoes? All my life I can never tell them apart". "Well," says I "I prefer the Potatoes Au Gratin". "Why?" she asks. "Because they're cheesier," I reply. "Sounds good to me" she says, and unceremoniously plops the box in her cart. As soon as I get home I'm looking on the Internet for the difference between these two side dishes and -- wouldn't you know it -- I'm right. Au Gratin is made with a cheddar cheese sauce where Scalloped are made with a white cream sauce. I am awesome.

You can say I'm whining -- I don't care! It's just not fair. Why does it look so easy? It's the media's fault for making it look so easy. (I've talked my way into this, let's see if I can talk my way out). Once again I watched an episode of "How I Met Your Mother". It's like they held a mirror to my life and wrote down what they saw in the reflection. It was so spot-on I almost cried. This time it had to do with the main character ('Ted') asking the girl of his dreams ('Robin') to a wedding. Ted runs into the bride on the street and she informs him that he didn't check 'plus one' on his RSVP so he can't bring a date. Well, he's already asked Robin to go and Ted wants Robin to go and Robin is very excited about going. When the day comes, it turns out Robin has to cancel to be a news anchor (her job). He looks at her, dejected, and tells her to go while she's on the phone with her job. I've seen that fa

The end of the year around the office doesn't usually bring much in my direction. In years past, it was a very slow time of year with a lot of our people on vacation. This year is different. One of our software vendors requires that we update our software at the end of the year because it's time-sensitive. Okay, fine. This year we decided to upgrade the software at the same time -- meaning: going from Version A to Version C (yes, we skipped a version, but we didn't think it would affect us that much). We went to the higher version because it had some features that we had actually requested. In the long run it will benefit us greatly. In the short-term it's been a royal pain in the ass. We realized a few days before the new year that we had to convert all our current files to the new version (something we didn't have to do before). For some reason, I was the only one who seemed to care about this conversion. So I spent the next 3 days in the office converting somewhe