It had flashing lights and everything, so typically late-1990s web development. Ok, maybe mid-1990s. I’ve always been about five years behind the curve. I didn’t stop using tables until three or four years ago.

Anyway, should anyone actually be at their computer instead of enjoying life out there in the great, beautiful world this weekend and stumbled upon this site, I’m tweaking the layout this weekend. My goal will be to have a version 3.5 by Monday, mostly because I, as the one who looks at this page 642 times more than anyone else, get bored seeing the same layout everyday.

I’d do these changes in a test environment first, but I don’t really care to practice change management unless I’m at work. (And even then).

….

Ooh…I found it!

Even more fun…look where I found it!

I’ll run out of Toastchees soon enough. I mean, I’ve already skipped ahead two decades. On the other hand, I could probably go through a couple hundred of these. I realize it takes little effort to embed the YouTube video that someone else has already gone through the effort of stealing from the artist. These posts actually have a great deal of meaning to me, although I’ll probably keep most of the narratives to myself.

If only I were a gifted pianist (ah, one of those examples of early-life failure to realize potential), I’d still rip off other people’s music but make my own recordings. I’ve almost bought a keyboard or electric piano on impulse over the past year, but I probably won’t, just like I’m probably not going to buy a bike either. I’ll probably spend about a grand on my dog’s dental work, though. And on that tangent…

When I saw him in Raleigh in 2005 (sharing the bill with Tori Amos), he did not perform this song, sadly…

No, no, no, I’m not talking about the Sex and the City movie! I’m talking about this gem:

There’s a new Durham site that everyone ought to check out, durham.mync.com. In the meantime, I’ve figured out a replacement for the domain I had used for Durham-specific posts, since I decided recently that the restaurant with that name ought to have the domain (actually, two domains). I don’t know how often I’ll make a Durham post, but I’m inspired, for the moment, to stick with positive posts about Durham. There’s enough to complain about already, and should I do the complaining, I’ll just tag with something other than what will get it on toastofdurham.com.

In honor of the launch of durham.mync.com and my little renaming, I offer a humble Durham video. Yes, it is true, I haven’t ventured much out of the shadow of the ATC water tower…

This video had the opposite effect that the song usually has. I was hacking up a lung laughing at the visual bombast. (I love it).

I will see Heart in a couple of months in Charlotte, as they do the
old-eighties-bands-band-together thing with Journey and Cheap Trick. I had one of those LiveNation gift packs, and this is what I redeemed it for.

I was so thrilled to be able to buy the Chicago Twenty1 cassette from the Cherry Hill (NJ) Mall back in March 1991. (Cherry Hill was the home of the NJ State FBLA convention!) There were a few pretty good power ballads on this release, even if no one’s heard of any of them.

‘Miracle’ Marine loses final battle [msnbc.com]

I had some commentary, but I’ll let the story speak for itself.

I was just going to link to a quarter-century old Steve Perry clip, but Sony doesn’t like you embedding their stuff on your page, and I’m too lazy to download it and convert it and upload it. I think this far more recent Journey clip is more timely anyway, since it’s similar to the sound that will be on their new release June 3. Tragically, the 2-CD release, entitled Revelation, will be exclusively released at Wal…I can’t even say it.

I take far more pictures than I bother to revisit, go through, and post to Flickr. If I don’t post them right away, they usually go forgotten. I was going to go through some New England photos, but I found lots of pet photos in the same folder, mostly from November and December 2007. I know they look the same as all the others…