The League Bowlers are a side project of Watershed. You’ve likely never head of either band. That’s a shame. The album Some Balls is essentially a collection of Watershed songs that were too twangy for a Watershed album, so they spun off a side project in the early 2000s to record what is simply a great record. The opening 20 second slide guitar riff sets the tone for the rest of the record, which is a bluesy, twangy, alt-something rock and roll party. If you are a fan of Dan Baird this record will sit real well with you. Highlights on the record include Kids Down South, which channels 1970 era Stones, and Pretty in a Slutty Way, which has more of that pop-punk groove that you would expect from Watershed, if you knew who they were 😉 There isn’t a weak track on the record.

Apparently you can check out Pretty in a Slutty Way on their leftover MySpace page.

A record of cast-off songs from a band that never “made it” is better than 98% of anything you will ever hear on the radio. If that isn’t the ultimate indictment of the record industry…

If the online calculators are to be believed, exactly 10,000 days ago my life took a dramatic and fortuitous turn. I met the girl that would become my wife, the mother of my children, and in the coming years, my partner in figuring out what the hell we do now that we’ve unlocked the raise kids into responsible adults achievement.

It was not love at first sight. We were pushed together into a blind date when the friend of mine she had asked to her sorority formal decided to bail on the date. Michelle was not sure, and thus a meetup at our frat party that weekend was arranged. I guess I did a reasonable impression of boyfriend material at the party as the formal date was confirmed. That didn’t stop me from almost blowing it before that second date could happen though. I was special that way. Yet somehow I defied all odds and got the cute sorority girl to stick around long enough to fall in love with me, and vice versa. (The full story of that first date.)

A lot has happened in that 10,000 days. From all the drama of dating in college, to running off to Hawaii to get married, to buying our first house, to becoming parents, to picking up on a bit of whim and moving to VA, to homeschooling two kids all the way from age 5 into college, and to whatever the future holds. I couldn’t have picked a better partner to take this ride with, and I’m really looking forward to the next 10,000 days! 

A few photos of us – starting at that second date.

I think it was Ron that posted about his 10,000 anniversary with Andrea recently. That  got me curious, and when I calculated the date I realized it was coming soon, and here we are.

One on hand, the release of this record in 2013 could give one hope for the future of rock and roll. OTOH, that there are only 2 or 3 substantial reviews of it on the Internet could make one give up all hope. This record is the very definition of what rock and roll should be. If a visitor from another planet wanted to understand rock, handing him Circus Life would be one hell of a good way to set the standard high.

The album starts with a guitar riff that sounds like it came straight off of Highway to Hell, but once the rhythm section kicks in it’s clear this is Dan Baird’s brand of rock and roll, not Angus Young’s version. Another highlight is “Thousand Little Pieces,” an almost 8 minute slow burner of heartbreak and lost love. There isn’t a weak track on the album, and you’ll enjoy every minute, right through the album closer “Wear and Tear,” which is a classic power pop tune, and as a fan of power pop, I don’t say that lightly.

Last week a paper was published in a respected scientific journal detailing an experiment done on 680,000 Facebook users, without their consent. They tinkered with what these people saw on Facebook, specifically to try to make them happier, or less happy. Sure, they sort of do they same thing all the time with advertising. However, there are rules governing advertising. They are distinguishable from  your friends posts on Facebook. What they did here was completely behind the scenes, the user had no idea they were in an experiment. We all know they are advertising to us on Facebook. If you are still not sure about the ramifications here consider a couple hypothetical examples.

The Republican party (or Democrats, pick your poison) could throw silly money at Facebook for an exclusive, secret agreement that Facebook would try to impact how we feel about abortion, gun control, or whatever. I don’t care how anti-whatever you may be, if for 6 months they very subtly tuned your feed to expose you to a certain point of view it will impact how you think. Likewise, maybe Pepsi spends big bucks to get us all thinking Pepsi over Coke, or maybe Putin sees Facebook as a way to improve Russia’s standing with the citizens of the US. The possibilities are endless, or maybe that should be endlessly frightening.

I know the easy answer is just quit Facebook, but it really isn’t that easy. Way too many civic and community groups have abandoned their websites for Facebook. For many people stuff they need to know is only available on Facebook. And for all my griping about Facebook, it has reconnected me with many far flung friends. I have too many friendships with distant friends that are maintained almost exclusively within the confines of the FB wall. I like seeing the pictures when my friends do interesting things, when their kids play Little League or attend the prom. Maybe that isn’t the best way to do it, but for now, it is what it is.

So what do you do? I have no idea. But it does seem like a line has been crossed here. I’m still thinking about what I’m going to do. Honestly, I’ll probably do nothing.

Last week a paper was published in a respected scientific journal detailing an experiment done on 680,000 Facebook users, without their consent. They tinkered with what these people saw on Facebook, specifically to try to make them happier, or less happy. Sure, they sort of do they same thing all the time with advertising. However, there are rules governing advertising. They are distinguishable from  your friends posts on Facebook. What they did here was completely behind the scenes, the user had no idea they were in an experiment. We all know they are advertising to us on Facebook. If you are still not sure about the ramifications here consider a couple hypothetical examples.

The Republican party (or Democrats, pick your poison) could throw silly money at Facebook for an exclusive, secret agreement that Facebook would try to impact how we feel about abortion, gun control, or whatever. I don’t care how anti-whatever you may be, if for 6 months they very subtly tuned your feed to expose you to a certain point of view it will impact how you think. Likewise, maybe Pepsi spends big bucks to get us all thinking Pepsi over Coke, or maybe Putin sees Facebook as a way to improve Russia’s standing with the citizens of the US. The possibilities are endless, or maybe that should be endlessly frightening.

I know the easy answer is just quit Facebook, but it really isn’t that easy. Way too many civic and community groups have abandoned their websites for Facebook. For many people stuff they need to know is only available on Facebook. And for all my griping about Facebook, it has reconnected me with many far flung friends. I have too many friendships with distant friends that are maintained almost exclusively within the confines of the FB wall. I like seeing the pictures when my friends do interesting things, when their kids play Little League or attend the prom. Maybe that isn’t the best way to do it, but for now, it is what it is.

So what do you do? I have no idea. But it does seem like a line has been crossed here. I’m still thinking about what I’m going to do. Honestly, I’ll probably do nothing.

I haven’t written anything here in almost a month. So here are 10 maybe interesting things about this website.

– I launched the site on 12/31/1995. Here is the story..

– In January 1996 there were 100K websites on the entire Internet. That means my site was among the first 100K. This site is one of the oldest continually running websites on the Internet.

– Sometime around 1998 the search engine Excite (shockingly still online) reviewed my site and gave it 2.5 out of 4. It seemed like a big deal at the time.

– ODonnellWeb was referenced in a doctoral dissertation in England.

– The site was also part of the curriculum in a political science class at Michigan State.

– In 2001 or 2002 the University of Texas did a study comparing the image of bloggers presented to the real person. They concluded my site was a very good representation of who I really am. I’m not sure if that was good or bad.

– Sometime in 2001 Ryan did a Google search for bloggers in Leesburg VA. He found me. It turned out he lived about 200 yards from me. We’ve been friends ever since.

– I have never received a cease & desist letter, or any kind of legal threat on this site. I’m kind of disappointed about that.

– The authoring tools used on this site are (roughly from memory)

1995-2000 – straight HTML

2000 – 2000 – Blogger

2001-2001 – Greymatter

2002 – 2004 – Movable Type

2004-2012 – Wordpress

2013-2013 – Anchor CMS

2013-2014 – Pelican

2014 – current – Drupal

And finally, I have never published a picture of a cat on this website.

Memorial Day ceremonies at the Fredericksburg Confederate Cemetery. pic.twitter.com/eyLXC44XIr

— Chris ODonnell (@chrisod) May 26, 2014

Memorial Day is supposed to be a solemn day of remembrance, not a party. Veteran’s Day is the day we celebrate Veterans. Memorial Day is the day we remember those that gave their lives in defense of the country. But I guess May is better beach weather than November, so there is that.

That said, I always feel a little odd going to the ceremony on Memorial Day at the Confederate cemetery. The war dead interred there were most certainly not fighting to defend the United States, they were trying to destroy it. The Union never recognized the CSA, so I guess that technically makes everybody fighting on that side a traitor. Or would, if Lincoln hadn’t chosen to let it all slide after the surrender at Appomattox. Our relationship with the Civil War is very complicated in this country. It’s something I see up close and personal living on the most contested land in that war. The south essentially sacrificed Northern VA as too hard to defend, making the Rappahannock River the real line between North and South during the war. Is there any other country where those that took up arms against it are treated with such reverence? On one hand, like in all wars, the cost was borne mostly by the middle and lower classes that didn’t have a financial state in the slave economy. Slaves were for landowners and rich people, most of the dead buried in the cemetery here were neither. However, that doesn’t erase their complicity in defending such a system.

The crowd at the ceremony was the smallest I’ve seen. It was 80, sunny, and breezy. I’ve been there in rain, and brutal heat, and the crowds were larger. It’s a 150 year tradition, but I do wonder about its future. The average age of the ladies organizing the event appears to be pushing 70, and they couldn’t even muster up 7 Confederate re-enactors for the 21 gun salute today. It was six riflemen, and an 18 gun salute. We just finished up the huge 150th anniversary of the Overland Campaign battles here, so maybe it’s just a little big of fatigue? There is certainly interesting history in the efforts of women in the South taking up the cause of proper burials and cemeteries when the North decided that dead Rebels were not their problem. It’s not something we want to forget about, but I do wonder if maybe the South would have been better served if the people had spent less time honoring their war dead, and more time being pissed off that they got them into a Civil War in the first place.

Interestingly, the ceremony at the National Cometary here is always a more subdued, more somber event, without all the pageantry of re-enactors and kids strewing rose petals around the unknowns memorial. It’s also always less well attended. Related, or a statement on the relative worth people place on the two sides from a 150 year old war? I really don’t have an answer for that, but given the turnout for the Luminaria at the National Cemetery I suspect its mostly the former.

On the way home, we couldn’t help noticing that the line to turn left into the mall was stacked deep and backed up. Sigh…..

This is a video I made in 2011 from photos of all three Memorial Day events at the cemeteries.

Over the long commute home this week I read Pint-Sized Ireland: In Search of the Perfect Guinness. The plot is not complicated. Guy and the girl-he-doesn’t-know-he-will-somebody-marry visit Ireland and spend a week hitchhiking clockwise around the country, in search of the Perfect Pint. Previously I had read Round Ireland With a Fridge,which is the story of a guy who makes a drunken bet that he can hitch around Ireland with a fridge in tow, then has to pay up. My first drinking round Ireland book was McCarthy’s Bar, in which a British writer ambles aimlessly from pub to pub, while taking really good notes. It was in this book that I learned one of the immutable laws of the universe.

Never pass a bar with your name on it.

Pint-Sized Ireland added a new law – The perfect pint of Guinness is the one in your hand.

If you’ve read this far you can probably see where this is going. I really want to spend a week aimlessly wandering Ireland, taking in the sights, and as many pubs as I can possibly fit into the week. However, I may be a little too old to hitch and camp out in hostels. I’m thinking rental car and decent hotels. My wife has already made her opinion of this plan clear to me.

So who wants to join me?

I have roughly a 1.5:1 ratio on Twitter, that being 1.5 followers for every person I follow. I gain new followers every week that unfollow me within 7 to 10 days. I’m sure some of them decide I’m not that interesting. They are probably right. However, I’m more sure that most of them unfollow me because I didn’t follow them back. How do I know this? Those people almost always have over 10,000 followers, and are following a similar number themselves. Nobody can pay attention to a Twitter stream with 10,000 people in it. You just can’t. So I know that person didn’t follow me because they thought I might be interesting. They followed me so that I would follow them back. I don’t play that game. Other reasons why I didn’t follow you back include

You didn’t catch my interest. – If I don’t know you personally or by reputation, I devote about 30 seconds to deciding if I’m going to follow you back. A Twitter profile that provides no interesting information about yourself is almost certain to result in my moving on quickly.

Your latest tweets weren’t interesting. – If you aren’t going to provide useful info in your profile, then it would be helpful if you at least had a few interesting tweets recently to give me an idea of what to expect. I err on on the side of opting out. You have to give me (and everybody else) a reason to care about what you have to say.

Your Twitter stream is mostly about self-promotion. – I don’t really need to explain this one, do I?

Your Twitter stream is a late night rerun – If I’ve already seen 75% of the stuff in your Twitter stream, there isn’t really much of a reason to follow you. This can be a particular problem with career related folks I’ve followed. We’ve all seen the that article about that thing by now. You don’t need to retweet it. If most of your tweets are retweets that have hundreds of other retweets you might want to work harder at Twitter. Or just quit.

You appear to be a dick. – Don’t be a dick.

Contrary to what the “personal branding” consultants tell you, nobody needs a Twitter account. It can be a great way to keep up on the news or an industry, but it’s not a magic button. It won’t automagically bring you sales, or fame, or influence. If you have fun with it, or gain something by using it even if you mostly consume content and don’t produce any, that is fine. But don’t feel compelled to participate. It’s ok if you don’t tweet. Odds are nobody is going to notice anyway.

M3 got off to a rocky start as Friday afternoon traffic combined with heavy rain turned a 90 minute drive into a 3.5 hour drive. We completely missed Lita Ford, which really hurt the next day when I learned Cherri Curry had joined her on stage for a mini Runaways reunion. That would have been something to see.

So the first band we saw was Extreme, and they did not disappoint.They sounded great and played all the tunes you would expect in a 45 minute set. The Friday night headliner was Kix. I have never understood the infatuation with that band around DC and Baltimore. I respect the fact that they are an old school working class hard rock band that earned their fame by playing 10,000 shows in countless crappy clubs before finally getting a break. And they have a few good songs. But headlining over Extreme? That I don’t get. Anyway, their set on Friday night did nothing to change my opinion. The singer, who was never a Bruce Dickenson or Rob Halford in the first place, doesn’t have a whole lot left, or at least didn’t this week. Combine that with an uncomfortably spastic stage presence and the whole package just did not work for me. We only made it about half-way through their set. So Friday night was basically 5 hours in the car RT to see Extreme play for 40 minutes. But we still had a good time.

Saturday we woke up to blue skies and 70 degrees temps. My wife went Friday night because my son was busy with a thing at school. Saturday was guys day out. We left at 11:30 AM, and the 90 minute drive took 2:45. I really hate I-95. So we got there just in time for Stryper, which was good. I had never seen them live before. They got a much better reaction than I expected for the 2:30 time slot. They played the golden oldies and a couple of tunes off the new record.

Next up was Red Dragon Cartel, which is Jake E Lee’s new band. I like them a lot, but the mix on their set was off. The bass was so overpowering that you could barely hear the singer or Jake’s guitar. We realized later that part of the problem was where we were standing. For some reason stage left was overwhelmed with bass, stage right sounded much more balanced.

After Jake, it was back to the main stage and our reserved seats for Queensryche. I was a little disappointed that they got such an early slot. However, it was clear that many people, like me, considered them a premium act as the pavilion filled up for their set, and that is not normal at M3 for an afternoon set. I don’t know what else can be said about Todd LaTorre at this point. If you close your eyes you’d swear you are listening to Tate 20 years ago. They played one new tune and the usual suspects, but also threw in Warning, which was not expected. I suspect that was a tune Tate couldn’t sing anymore. It’s not a problem for Todd. Queensryche was one of the highlights of the day for me.

Then it was back to the smaller stage for Autograph. Yes, Autograph. No, they did not play a 35 minute extended version of Turn Up The Radio 🙂 As they were starting I turned to about six guys standing near me and asked if any of them knew an Autograph song other than Turn Up The Radio. No one did. Actually, their set was pretty damn good. All the songs are in that same pop-metal vein. Also, it turns out I know two songs, as I recognized My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend Isn’t Me. I sort of feel like they deserved better in the 80s as the songs were there. But for whatever reason, they could never follow up the ridiculous success of their debut hit.

After Autograph it was back to the main stage for Sebastian Bach. His set was the only time all day I pulled out the earplugs, as he was playing at pain inducing volume. That alone took away some of the enjoyment for me. There was really no reason to play that loud, I’m not sure what he was doing. Loudness did the same thing last year, and it didn’t work for them either. Bach played the expected Skid Row hits plus a few of his solo tunes. I just find his constant screaming to be irritating. Sing dude, don’t scream all the time. That said, it was a solid set. I just wish I could have enjoyed it without earplugs muddling the sound.

After Bach it was back to the smaller stage for LA Guns. About half-way through the set it started to rain. We didn’t have umbrellas or even coats because when I checked the weather as we parked the car there was 0% chance of rain. So we decided that was a good time to grab something to eat. $24 later we were back under cover in our seats with two 4 hour old hot dogs and two sodas. I doubled checked my phone and it was still showing sunny and no rain. It was at that point I noticed I was looking at the weather for Springfield, MO, not Springfield VA. The real forecast was for high 50s that night and showers. I have no idea why my phone thought I cared about the weather in Springfield, MO.

The next band up on the main stage was Night Ranger. Night Ranger was my first concert, in 1984. I was 17 and we were in Honolulu for our annual mandated off-island vacation. (I lived on Kwajalein, a tiny South Pacific island serving as a military base.) This was right after Midnight Madness came out, but before Sister Christian hit the radio. Night Ranger started as a real hard rock band. After they got famous they tended to mix the records down to be more pop friendly, but I had always heard they still rocked hard in concert. It’s true. I hate Sister Christian, but even I was singing along as they play it hard and loud in concert. They played a new tune that was really good too. Then I went and found the video, and its like a different song on the album mix.

The final act on the smaller stage was Slaughter. The mix was awful. It sounded like some guy with a chainsaw and some guy with a large bass drum trying to out noise each other. We lasted three songs and decided to head back to our seats and chill waiting for Tesla.

Tesla has long been one of my favorite bands, but they never seem to play a show within 6 hours of me. So I was excited to finally see them live. They didn’t disappoint. They pulled out the acoustic guitars for What You Give and Signs, and encored with Little Suzie.

In a sure sign that I’m getting old, I drank one beer all weekend.

The drive home, which at 11 PM on a Saturday night should take 80 minutes, took 3 hours because I-95 South was down to one lane for construction. One lane that they completely blocked for about 30 minutes. I came down with an irritating cold on Monday, which my wife blames on me being too old to stay out that late for a concert. She is right. Next year I’m getting a hotel so I can stay up drinking, instead of driving.

Who wants to join me?

Bands we missed: Winger, Lita Ford, Heaven’s Edge, John Corabi, Jack Russell’s Great White, Femme Fatale