www.blowoff.us - go and listen to the mp3

I've been a fan of Bob Mould for about 10 years now I guess.  I started with "Workbook", which was given to me by a friend of mine who was into independent music.  I liked it, and now I've probably got about 10 CDs with his name on them, or the name of one of his bands - Husker Du, Sugar, and now - Blowoff.

Mould and his friend Richard Morel (an avid blogger) started doing a monthly dance club event in Washington DC at the 930 club called "Blowoff" a few years back.  Mould is a guitar wizard and over the last 5 years or so has done a lot of experimentation with electronica, sampling, and other stuff that you wouldn't associate with a hard core guitarist like Mould.

Personally, I didn't much care for the albums he put out that focused more on those things.  To each his own.  But Morel collaborated with Mould on his last album "Body of Song", which I like a lot.  A fellow from the band Fugazi was on the album too, I can't remember his name right now and I'm too lazy to look it up.  They toured and I had the pleasure to see Bob Mould live for a third time at The Cats Cradle in Chapel Hill back in 2005 I guess it was.  Great show.

Anyway, Bob and Richard continued to do these Blowoff things, and just recently put an album out titled "Blowoff" - with the band also named Blowoff.  I'm not entirely sure you call it a band, but whatever, that's semantics.  I'm sure there are other blogs for that.

I highly recommend you check it out on iTunes, Rhapsody, or wherever.  You can even download a free MP3 from the blowoff web site at www.blowoff.us

Do something cool today, and listen to some Blowoff instead of what Clear Channel radio wants you to listen to.

First of all, let me say that I'm not pro-hurricane.  I mean, I love The Hurricanes, but I hate the devastation caused by hurricanes.

Nonetheless, I'm still fascinated by them.  I've been here in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina since 1998 now, and there hasn't been a real hurricane here since 1996 when Hurricane Fran rolled up I-40 from Wilmington and was still a hurricane when the eye of the storm passed over the area.

Fran was pretty devastating, with lots of flooding and such.  My sister lived in Cary at the time and said it was quite a long night.

Well here we are in the early stages of the 2006 hurricane season, and Tropical Storm Ernesto is about to make landfall near the border between north and south carolina, and then travel up into North Carolina.

Erin is somewhat excited about her first hurricane, but it's really not going to do much here but rain and get no worse than "a little breezy' I suspect.

After last night's downpour and today's rain, I dumped about 2.5" out of the rain gauge.  We'll see what we get tonight.  My rain gauge only goes up to 3 inches, unfortunately.

The worst tropical weather I've seen around here was actually from the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston, which passed directly over us, or maybe just a little bit west.  I was driving to work in that mess and it was quite nasty.  Not like a hurricane, but I'm telling you, they said it wasn't a tropical storm anymore but it emerged off the coast of North Carolina and almost immediately regained its strength.  It was pretty gusty went it went through here!

Anyway, I've got another blog entry to post on another topic, so I guess I'll cut this one off.

Stay dry!

Normally I'm not a huge fan of Penn & Teller, but they recently did a really good episode on PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) that I found to be really enjoyable.

The most important points - PETA supports terrorism, and KILLS ANIMALS.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7562800910863882593&q=penn+and+teller+bullshit

Watch it, you'll see what I mean.