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Finished Neil Peart's Ghost Rider last night. Brief review: Could have used some maps and photos. Ends a bit abruptly, as if they had excised 30-40 pages before the epilogue. Perhaps I'll come up with a longer review some other time.

Was looking for a book to toss in the backpack to replace Ghost Rider and ended up with Steve Martin's Pure Drivel, which I haven't read in years. Very short; I'm on page 68 after reading it on the L and at lunch. Time to wade back into the fornt office and see what else I've got for commuting reading, since my "brief history of philosophy" book (title forgotten right now) has fallenout of my backpack, and my "history of europe during the renaissance" book is too big to easily tote around.

Posted by jim at 1:43 PM | Permalink

Haven't had an entry about what music I'm listening to at work in a long time.

Today it is:

Resphigi: Pines of Rome/Fountains of Rome -- Debussy: La Mer -- CSO/Reiner
Händel: Wässermusik -- The English Concert -- Pinnock
Revueltas: Night of the Mayas: Music of Silvestre Revueltas

What are you listening to?

Posted by jim at 3:36 PM | Permalink

Picked up a copy of Ghost Rider at the Milwaukee Rush show. I'm only 70 or so pages into it right now (reading it on the L to and from work, mostly). Has a similar feel to Masked Rider, his previous book. I do hope he published his journal from the 1996 tour that he mentions, sounds like it could be good reading.

I do wish there were some photos (a quick thubming through turned up none). Then again, I don't recal that he took any (from what I've read so far). I'd like to see some of the scenery that he writes about.

Posted by jim at 4:00 PM | Permalink

There's a great review and discussion of I'm Just Here for the Food at slashdot.org.

Posted by jim at 2:05 PM | Permalink

The Tribune's review is decent. The one at the Sun-Times is similar; both reviews miss the point several times, have the standard backhanded compliments, and the standard dissing of some aspect of the band's career. Sigh.

The review in the Milwaukee Post-Sentinel is a little more favorable, but still lukewarm.

Posted by jim at 2:07 PM | Permalink

This week on Sound Opinions they'll be talking about Rush. Pretty surprising, although I remember one of the hosts is a fan.

Posted by jim at 3:10 PM | Permalink

According to Google, there are no Trainspotting action figures.

Posted by jim at 11:35 AM | Permalink

I've had the The History of Eating Utensils bookmarked for some time, but kept forgetting to link to it. Kind of cool.

Posted by jim at 10:59 AM | Permalink

Intersting article on plane spotting in the Tribune today (reprinted from the Washington Post) from a few days ago. I remember seeing some plane spotters several years ago when I was waiting at Midway for somebody's flight to arrive. Two guys from Australia were checking out Southwest planes with binoculars and checking their records to see if they had seen and logged those specific planes. Seemed a little odd to me, but we've all got our unusual little interests.

Posted by jim at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Looks like 'Yahoo! Internet Life' to close with August Issue. It was a nice little net magazine, not too geeky, yet not too new-user. Too bad they didn't put all of their content online. I recall several articles that were in their magazine that I wanted to access but couldn't even find on their site.

Posted by jim at 10:30 AM | Permalink

Took a bike ride this morning after installing a little cycle computer to track distance & speed. Headed out to the lakefront then north to Hollywood. North of Montrose there were already four or five soccer games going on (at about 8:00 am) and dozens of large families who had staked out prime lakefront spots and were already grilling. Turned around at Hollywood and headed back south. Saw a middle-aged guy on his nifty recumbent bike with his African Gray parrot on his shoulder. Only went as far south as Fullerton, then down Fullerton to Lincoln north back home. About 13 miles in total in less than an hour.

Posted by jim at 9:48 AM | Permalink

There's a nearly five-and-a-half minute video montage from Hartford up at Rush.com today. Bits of Secret Touch, Dreamline, By-Tor, and Spirit of Radio are shown. Not a bad start, but there's some pretty bad pixelation and out-of-sync problems at times. Nice shots of the dryers, though.

Posted by jim at 3:38 PM | Permalink

Saw a couple things this morning: There was a story on NPR the other day, with clips online. There's also an update on Alton Brown's site about this book tour (the June 25 story is quite good; glad to know he's still an approchable celebrity. I bought the cookbook before I had heard of the book tour and missed him when he was in town and when he was in LA. There's also a new episode of Good Eats on tonight. Now, if I could only find those DVDs that they plug during the show somewhere online besides FoodTV...

Posted by jim at 10:21 AM | Permalink

Spent the weekend on the road visiting Adam & Angie and Sue & Dave. On the way up we picked up a pie at the Norske Nook (cherry, quite good) in Osseo. Picked up some lefse as well. Forgot to take pictures. Good time, we'll have to get back up there again soon.

Review of the Rush tour and setlist are coming in on the Hemispheres Rush-Tour mailing list. We've got tix for Milwaukee and Chicago. Rush.com has recevied a big update, and there's a note regarding video footage of the first show going online this week. Rumor has it that the first couple shows have been taped, which leads me to believe that a dvd of the tour may see the light of day (Apparently there was footage from the last tour that was intended for release, but nothing came of it). There's also a decent photo gallery with some previously unpublished pix.

Posted by jim at 4:03 PM | Permalink

Saw this today: The Who decide to resume tour. Incredible.

Posted by jim at 10:21 AM | Permalink