Happy New Year

Well, Happy New Year, everyone. Hopefully, 2006 has been treating everyone well, so far. Liz and I traveled to Minneapolis with a couple friends for New Year's. We spent most of the night at Famous Dave's. Apparently, the Famous Dave's in Minneapolis, aside from being a barbecue joint, is one of the best blues bars in the cities. Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials were playing. I had never heard of them, either, but they really put on a great show. So, long story short, we spent the evening eating, drinking beer, and listening to really good blues. The morning after, we rolled out of bed around 10, grabbed some lunch on the 50th floor of some building, and travelled back to Rochester (in a far less energetic car than it had been the previous day). (By the way, I just noticed that Lil' Ed and the gang will be playing in Merrill, WI, on January 21st. Sure, Merrill's a ways to go, but they're playing at Ballyhoos Brew and Chew. Face it, you know you want to go, now.)

Now, it's back to the grind. Back to work. Back to cleaning the house. Nonetheless, it's nice to be back to the usual routine. I'm pretty much a shining example of a creature of habit.

A couple nights ago, I spent the evening playing music clips from a handful of albums for my wife, trying to figure out which albums to order with a gift certificate I had gotten for Christmas. The plan was to get two albums, as the gift certificate would roughly cover that but, after an hour or more of playing bits and pieces from various albums, I had narrowed it down to three. Close enough, I figured, and ordered 'em all. In the end, I picked up The Black Keys, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and Franz Ferdinand.

Last night, being tired and not particularly in the mood to watch football, I went to bed as Penn State and Florida State entered the fourth quarter of their game, with Penn up 14-13. Three hours later, the game finally ended in triple overtime. While I slightly regret not staying up to watch the remainder of the game, I am quite surprised that neither coach actually died of old age while on the field for that long.

In other sporting news, the coaching change in Pittsburgh may actually be doing some good. While I'm not ready to hop on the bandwagon yet, I have to admit that the current run of 3-0-2 is a lot better than the 1-10-1 record the Pens had amassed in the previous 12. Hopefully, they can keep this up. One bright spot for the Pens, though, is that Crosby is the real deal. The kid is 18 years old and can flat out play. The season is nearly half over, and he's hanging in at 9th in goals scored and 14th in total points. That's pretty much awesome for a rookie.

Well, I'm off. Catch y'all later.