Laying Tracks

I went down to Curtis' studio yesterday to record some saxophone solos for a blues rock song he's producing. I like playing on rock songs because it forces me to reign in my tonal choices during the solo. I've been so trained in the jazz idiom that my instinct is to start getting creative by playing around a lot with the scale, a ninth there, maybe a sixth here, even trying to play out of the key. But rock songs don't want any of that and it can be refreshing to try to be rhythmically and melodically interesting without resorting to that level of jazz pretentiousness. Don't get me wrong. I love jazz. But there's a reason that it fell out of favor as a music for the average joe and into the hands of academics and I blame complexity with a dash of pretension.

After the recording session we went out to dinner at a nearby Italian place and had some great calamari and cavatelli (mine was in tomato cream sauce that was superb) and a fine bottle of merlot. All in all, we had a great Saturday afternoon and evening. Hopefully, they'll stop up this way and we can go to Pequod's pizza at some point.

No News is No News

We were supposed to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl this past Monday, but no news. It was faced the wrong way and the sonogram tech couldn't get it to wake up and move around. All is well and the doctors have given he/she another healthy gold star.

Half-Interested 2

Since I finished Portal, I'm playing the Half-Life 2 single player campaign. It's good, no doubt. But it's already wearing on me like any other FPS I've played in recent years (and I haven't played too many of them because I think I got bored with them after 2002). There is certainly fun to be had with Half-Life 2, but I'd rather complain. Frustrating things about the game so far include vehicle control which feels like driving a rubber ball, too much driving in general, and for a game that is striving for realism I can't stand when I shoot a head crab zombie right in the head (where the crab is) only to have the head crab jump up and bite me when the zombie falls to the ground. What? I just shot the thing at point blank range with a shotgun! Minus realism points for that one. In the end, it's a good game that doesn't really introduce anything very meaningful to the current first person shooter template. (Sorry, the gravity gun is cool, but beyond throwing tires and tables at enemies, it doesn't do much to add to the way I play these kinds of games.)

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Now playing: A Tribe Called Quest - Description Of A Fool
via FoxyTunes

Three Weeks, One Post

For whatever reason, October always seems to be loaded with things to do around our house. We get together we people we haven't seen for a while, out-of-town friends come for visits, and we start refilling our "to-do" list for the coming new year with some new items and all of the things we didn't get to do in this one. It's my assumption that we tend to get more visitors (and be visitors more often) during this time because all of the major summer vacation plans, not to mention budgets, have been exhausted. That's just a guess, though.

We started the month by traveling to PA for the wedding of Amy's cousin Sarah. They held the reception in an old pump station outside of Shippenville and it was a great choice. It might seem overly industrial, but it was really a great choice and was decorated well. The building itself was nestled in a small valley next to a stream and a grove of trees. The weather was beautiful and the all the huge doors and windows were wide open to let in the breeze. There was house across the road from the building that had a bed sheet tacked up to the garage wall that was spray painted in hunter's orange "Get Out of the FIELD!", which I assumed meant that they'd had some unwelcome visitors from previous festivities running across said FIELD. Country charm, indeed.

Last weekend, Ian, Rachel, and their nine-month-old son Lucian came for a visit. It was encouraging that he seemed to like me a lot. Well, it was more like he enjoyed my antics, but he loved the cat. Every time he'd see the cat, he'd squeal and smile and then struggle to be put down so he could give chase. Sid, being the nervous, curious one always tried to keep about six feet between himself and Lucian but would never quite run and hide. I keep telling Sid that he'd better get used to small, pink, loud things in the house, but I'm not sure he quite understands yet.

In other news, I've begun giving saxophone lessons from my home. I have one student for now, the daughter of one of Amy's coworkers. I think this might give me more inspiration to play a bit more often if for no other reason than to demonstrate concepts and techniques. I do miss it and have considered trying to find some local musician's ensembles to get back into playing. With the baby on the way, I'd have to see what kind of commitment the groups require, but I'd like to give it a shot if possible.

Finally, I can't neglect that I purchased the Orange Box when it came out last week. Ever since I'd heard of Portal, one of the titles included therein, I'd been holding off purchasing anything in the Half-Life 2 universe in case they bundled the game with any of the other offerings. They did and my patience paid off well. I pre-ordered it via Steam so I ended up with five games for $45, an excellent value for the amount of entertainment the box has to offer, although I will probably avoid Team Fortress 2 for the most part, though. Being sworn at by teenagers is no longer what I consider entertainment.

Sorry, I was talking about Portal. Please watch the trailer available through that link. It's worth seeing the game in action. Portal has been labeled by the zealots of the gaming publishers and press as a first-person, action-adventure puzzle game. I don't care what they call it. I just call it fun. It's the most fun I've had with any game since Puzzle Quest and if you are anything like me and are tired of the game design rut that the industry has dug for itself, Portal is another small glint of blue sky through the clouds.