Last Updated on October 1, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
I’ve been trying to keep a lower profile online the last couple of weeks. But telling everyone where you are seems to be the rage these days.
I’m in my living room. I’m here a lot.Earlier tonight, I was making toy cars with my oldest son ("Daddy, make more school buses!"). We have a routine. I make them, he plays with them until he gets bored. Sometimes he lets me play too. Once he gets bored with that, he takes them apart. Sometimes he brings me the pieces, which I reassemble into something a little different. As the night goes on, the cars get weirder and weirder.
The game will probably change when he gets a little older and discovers, like my cousin and I did, that you can crash the cars into each other.
After both sons went to bed, I wound down by watching old Guadalcanal Diary videos on Youtube. Guadalcanal Diary was an indie rock band that came up around the same time and place as R.E.M. They were a little weirder, immensely talented, and a lot less successful. The DJ who used to play alternative music on Sunday nights on one of the Top 40 stations in St. Louis in the late 1980s and early 1990s would mix them in very occasionally. I’m pretty sure by the time I’d heard of them, they’d already broken up.
I think their singer, Murray Attaway, could croon with almost anybody. The single off their final album, "Always Saturday," shows off those abilities. But their songs tended to be a little too cerebral, and maybe a little too dark, for mass audiences.
I won’t be posting another update like this one. The routine will be about the same tomorrow. And probably in a couple of weeks, though by then, I might be listening to some other forgotten band.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Flock of Seagulls, anyone?
I’ve recently rediscovered the joys of my turntable and vinyl album collection. It seems much more rewarding to buy an album at a garage sale or thrift store (for 50 cents!) and wait with anticipation until I get it home, clean it up and put it on the platter.
I haven’t found Flock of Seagulls yet, but that would be a find.
I found the Rhino re-mastered INXS compilation today. So I was cranking "Don’t Change" all afternoon. I think everyone else is probably good and sick of it by now. I’ve only been looking for a CD with that track on it since, oh, 1993.
I think I’ll go see if there’s a video for "Space Age Love Song" on Youtube. I love the synth in that.