Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent into the dark place where it leads - Erica Jong

Just dropped a long-overdue jukebox update into the blog to celebrate the fact that new music is starting to flood back into the market after the holiday doldrums. I’ve included more tracks than normal just because. One of them isn’t actually new though… which one is an exercise for the listener.

One of my joys in life is that there is great deal of overlap in my son’s musical interests and mine. I get the sense from other parents that we might be a little odd in that respect. We do like a lot of the same music, though our tastes do diverge at points. The nice thing about it is that we get to have really interesting conversations about music and bands and often introduce each other to new artists or material. Just yesterday he pointed out to me that the English band InMe had a new album out that I hadn’t gotten yet. That led to a long and involved conversation about the fact that we both tend to like UK bands, often more than US groups. We speculated at length about why that might be without coming to any real conclusions. It’s a pleasure being able to have a simple conversation like that with my son.

All that aside, here is what I think is my favorite track off that new album…

I may be on my death bed… ok, probably not but I sure feel like it lately. It’s been flu, kidney stones and now the cold from hell. I pretty much lost my voice off and on the last week or so and I’ve had a near constant headache and sinus drip. I’ve beat back the symptoms temporarily with Theraflu but they keep coming back. I even had to beg off having the kids over this weekend, which I hate doing. I’m trying to force myself to rest and hydrate, figuring that will kick it in the end. I’m not even spending much time at the computer, so that’s why I haven’t been posting or visiting or Facebooking much lately. Hopefully things will turn around soon.

Saturday was my son Matt’s birthday, he’s 17 now. I went over to my ex’s to have dinner with them in celebration. Hard to believe he’s nearly grown. He’s a junior in high school right now, he’ll graduate in 2009. He’s at that point where he’s trying to get a part time job to earn a few bucks, trying to figure out what he wants to do when he graduates, etc.

Shephard tagged me with a meme. List five things I never though I’d have or experience back when I was 25. Hmm… 25. I’m not sure I remember the age all that well, I turned 25 in 1991. Well, that was a momentous year in at least one way since my son was born that year. In fact, his birthday is this weekend. Interesting coincidence there! But as to the surprises between now and then, well I guess there have been a few.

This has been a long strange week health-wise. It started out last weekend with a kidney stone that I thought passed. Something passed, trust me you can tell. Then it was flu-like symptoms. Then the pain returned, as if the kidney stone was still around. Then the pain went away, and came back, and went away, and came back. Throw in an occasional bout of nausea mixed in with hours feeling perfectly fine. Very odd. Very confusing!

I don’t like how 2008 is starting… can I have a do over? Insomnia, kidney stone and then right into some kind of virulent plague that is causing fully-body aches and pains. I hope this just means I’m getting this all out of the way early and the rest of the year will be smooth sailing. I can hope right? Right?!

The holiday season is normally a dead time for new music releases. Most bands want to get their material out in time to make the gift buying frenzy. As a result, the week of Christmas and New Years is typically a wasteland of unknown artists and small label releases. Still, that’s not always a bad thing. I did manage to stumble over a few artists new to me and a couple of new releases that are quite satisfying.

I’m not going with any “resolutions” this year… I’ll just feel guilty when I don’t keep them. Instead I’m just going to keep it relaxed and easy-going. I’ve noticed several other bloggers doing the same by setting a few low stress goals. I like that approach. In that spirit, here are a few things I plan to focus on this year.

Ok, after much consideration I’ve decided to tackle Project 365 for 2008. No, not 365 Days, those are self-portraits and let’s be honest, no one needs to see 365 photos of my gruesome visage. Project 365 is simply a photo a day for a year. I think I can handle that, though I nearly had a panic attack coming up with my first shot. Sometimes, just getting started is the hard part!