Song of the Week #215

I've been on holidays this week and to be frank, a fair bit of it has sucked. But, I'm doing my best to be a 'glass half full' kind of guy so I'll tell you some of the good bits too.

Let's get the bad stuff cleared out first. Well, a stinking head cold and a visit to the hospital with kidney stones really wasn't how I planned to spend most of my first week off. Those things put a bit of a dent in my training schedule for mountain biking and learning new songs on the guitar! But really they didn't do my family any favours either. Alison spent the day at the hospital with me and then her and the kids have had to put up with my resulting grumpiness.

It was lucky that Alison stayed with me at the hospital though. With the drugs I was given I was on another planet and probably would've agreed to almost anything! I was rather amazed though when the Doctor told me about another condition I had and that I could go home and Google it.

If I never had another kidney stone it would be too soon. So I'm off for more poking and prodding to see if it can be averted. If I drink any more water I may drown.

Love/Hate - Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?

The other crappy news for me is that I've got really sore feet. So sore that I can't run and that is making me mad. It's probably some form of annoying overuse injury. I remarked to someone the other day that triathlon was great because you could train around whatever was injured. As a result I've been mountain biking up a storm. That includes getting lost at night and having to ride around and around until I worked out where I was. That's good for the cardiovascular system but not for my nerves!

Who? Where? Why? - Jesus Jones

One of the good things about having some time off, and even being sick, is that you can watch some TV and not feel you should be doing something else. Angus made me laugh today when I put Star Wars on and he asked if I was planning on a nap. I lasted 7 minutes apparently! But I did watch this the other day and it really is a great track I reckon...

U2 - Angel of Harlem (from Rattle and Hum)

The 24hr mountain bike race is in a week's time. Apart from the blip in my preparation (ie: a hospital visit) I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm in a team of six with two guys I know really well and three strangers. It'll be a hoot. Riding around with a couple of thousand others all day and all night is great fun. Riding at night is the best really. It's just you, a bike and a light mounted on your helmet out there stomping on pedals at 2am! Sure, it's dangerous to a point but if you've had a few practice rides it's a doddle.

AC/DC - Danger

No-one got the link between last week's OMD tune and Zoë's trip to Rouen? Oh well. I'll leave it a while.

The guitar songs I've been learning have got me looking for a tremolo pedal. And the awesome thing about the internet is that loads of guitar pedal manufacturers have a plethora of videos to demonstrate their wares. I've watched a heap so far and haven't come to any sort of conclusion other than that I definitely need one! One of the demos played a riff that reminded me instantly of this song. I hadn't realised how much I liked it...

Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones

Without wanting to sound like a Denis Leary lyric, I'll admit that I like war films. I remember watching "Tora, Tora, Tora" as a kid when we still lived in Scotland. That and an unhealthy obsession with Action Man toys probably started me on that path! I also read the Victor comic (for boys!). These days the films serve to make me think about the abomination that war is and the men and women who bear scars physical and mental as a result. I watched Mel Gibson in "We Were Soldiers" this week. I hadn't seen it before. It's based on a true story of the first major US action in Vietnam. What I really liked about this particular film was that, like "Tora, Tora, Tora", it tells the story from both sides. I can watch Rambo blowing stuff up anytime - and enjoy a certain degree of escapism - but this was quite different. Give it a whirl. I laughed when the Sergeant Major in the film wouldn't use an M16 because it was plastic. When John Wayne made "The Green Berets" many of the M16s they used were Mattel toys. Plastic is in these days though.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son

That's enough for another week. But because I can, I'll finish with Johnny Cash. You can work out why.

Johnny Cash - Ira Hayes

Be nice to someone...life's too short to be a grumpy bastard.

DJ Rob