I'm working on it!

I started writing my posts on my weekend trip to Philadelphia--and the accompanying photos--tonight, but I don't think I'll finish it quite yet.

In an attempt to appease your disappointment, I offer this strange bit of information.

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WIZARD ROCK!!!!!

Yeah, you read that right. You can read about it here. Heck, even Forbes magazine wrote an article on it. Everybody in the know has heard about the most famous wizard rock group--Harry and the Potters--and while I've got nothing against them, I wanted to talk about another group that I heard about this week.

While listening to the weekly Pottercast, I heard about a new group called The Remus Lupins. (NOTE: This link will open up a myspace account for the group and songs will play. Plug in headphones if you don't want to disturb anyone.)

But don't let the name fool you, this group is one guy writing surprisingly effective music that just happens to base its subject on fictional characters who happen to go to a school of magic.

Give it a quick look before you shake your head at me and move on with your life. (And maybe tomorrow I'll have more trip-related posts.)

A Wedding Teaser

I spent the weekend in Philadelphia with friends, celebrating the marriage of a former coworker.

I have many pictures to describe and three days of memories to compose into a coherent narrative.

Until I put all of that together, please enjoy this brief moment of music and conversation that I recorded during the trip home Monday afternoon.

That post was EXHAUSTING

I finally tackled the important television events of the past few days.

You can read about it over on Omnimedia.

But, I'll give you a hint--to either entice you or to convince you not to follow the link.

(Namaste)

Portrait of a TV Geek

It's ten thirtyish on a Tuesday night in May. What are you doing?

Me . . . well, I'm blogging (obviously) but that's not all.

I've got a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting chilling in the refrigerator to my right. Further to my right, the first stages of my inaugural potato-leek-shrimp soup is beginning to cook and meld flavors.

Why do this on a Tuesday night when most people are done cooking and are relaxing?

Well, tomorrow is the season two finale of LOST and I've been invited to a finale party. Food will be served and I am bringing soup and dessert. The attempt to make it an island theme was tossed about, but not truly expected that people will follow through very assiduously. (I doubt that mango--the Island's food of choice--will make an appearance.) Even my own dishes aren't strictly island-issue (though who knows what DHARMA drops in their hot-air balloon pallets?).

But my cake has yet to be fully decorated, so don't count me out yet. And my soup DOES have seafood in it. I bet Jin could catch some shrimp if he put his mind to it.

***

TV-related parties and I go back a ways. My first real commitment to total TV geekdom came in 1990 and 1991, when Twin Peaks hit the ABC airwaves. Thought the two shows are very, very different in subject, style, director, etc. there are some similarities between Twin Peaks and LOST. Both are cultish, inspiring zealots to put aside their more rational natures to suss out the clues and mysteries presented by the weekly drama.

TP had the Black Lodge, mysterious owls, BOB, and "damn fine coffee." LOST has the Swan Hatch, Lostzilla (a.k.a. the smoke monster), Alvar Hanso, and mangos.

My high schools friends and I embraced Twin Peaks with a fervor that we has hitherto reserved only for Batman, Science Olympiad, and early Coen Brothers movies. But embrace it we did, holding weekly Twin Peaks parties at each other's houses. These parties often featured some (often me) dressed up in costumes--usually a simple suit to designate F.B.I. Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLaughlin), and ALWAYS featured hot coffee and various flavors of pie. (Pie and coffee, if you didn't know, was a central food item in the small, tortured town of Twin Peaks.)

So, while my older sister looked on in bemused disgust, my geektastic friends and I would bliss out on the crazy, unexplained, thing that was David Lynch television.

These days, we've got LOST podcasts, mysterious websites, odd commercials and 1-800 phone numbers. Heck, we've even had ads in the New York Times and all sorts of mysterious clues surrounding the so-called "LOST Experience" game. I shudder to think what might have been done if we'd had the internet when Twin Peaks was on the air.

But it's the rabbit holes of mystery that keep me interested, both then and now. I'll be enjoying myself tomorrow night, eating good food, geeking out with my friends. What's wrong with any of that?

Maybe it's the paper

I just walked by the copier in the coffee room, the copier that is broken about 45% of the time.

Seriously, its either jamming up in five different places or there is some serious mechanical problem.

Yesterday, a technician spent a few hours with the insides pulled out and disassembled, repairing I don't know what. But after lunchtime it was fine.

When I walked past the copier seven minutes ago, it looked innocent enough, but there was a piece of 11 x 17 piece of paper sitting on the counter, crumpled up like an accordion and a few bits of torn paper as well. That is a sure fire sign that a paper jam has recently occurred and is sure to occur again. Sure enough, when I walked by the copier again five minutes ago, there was an innocent employee crouching down, copier door open, peering into the machine's guts, trying to figure out what went wrong.

So, let's recap. The machine is individually serviced for hours yesterday and this morning, it is screwing up again.

The machine might be old, but maybe it is something simple. Maybe it's the paper that is causing the jams. For whatever reason, maybe the brand of paper we buy is curling at the edges, reacting adversely to the humidity, fraying at a microscopic level.

Has someone considered this? It makes me wonder, given the multiple problems that we all encounter at home, at life, at work. We all find complicated reasons for why things go wrong. Maybe its a simple, but big reason that is staring us in the face.

Consider it.