Lagging Behind

Couple of random things today, no rhyme or reason.

Friday night, the missus, a coworker and his wife, and I went to see the Dave Brubeck Quartet at a local venue. Which is strange, in and of itself, because the city where I live ain't necessarily the most happenin' place in the Bay Area. It's a decent neighborhood - don't get me wrong. But it doesn't seem like the kind of place a big name like Dave Brubeck would be playing at. Was quite a big theater, surprisingly, and looked like there was a good 1,000 people or so. Nevertheless, it was one of the best live performances I'd ever seen, regardless of the fact that Dave Brubeck is now officially older than dirt.

The man could hardly stand up with holding onto the mic when he was talking, and needed constant back support. But it didn't take away from his playing. Oh sweet baby jeebus, that man can play. But for me, the highlight of the evening was Bobby Militello on the sax. It's a shame that the legendary Paul Desmond (original sax player for the quartet) isn't around anymore, but Bobby Militello has to be *the* best sax player I've ever heard live. The man looked like he weighed about 400 pounds and had to sit down in between songs, but the music that came out of that man's pipes was astounding. And regardless of how hard he played, he was never breathing heavy, despite being that large. Simply amazing.

I believe it was Jack Six on the double bass and Randy Jones on drums (who was great, as well). But for their closing set ("Take Five," of course), they invited Dave's son, Chris Brubeck (trombone), Madcat (harmonica), and Joel Brown (guitar) onto the stage to play with them. The presence of the extra instruments made the song much more festive-sounding and it was a good closing number, but personally, I would have preferred to just have had the sax playing during the "hook" (not sure what the part of the song is called). When each of the instruments had their solos, it was amazing, but the sax was just drowned out during the rest of the song...

The only disappointment of the night was the fact that the performance was in a classic theater type venue, rather than a jazz bar, because I was really jonesing for a glass of scotch. I just wanted to sit back and relax and take in the music...

In other news, had a conversation with Seppo on Sunday morning that was actually then later repeated at a barbeque at a friend's place: I don't really cook anymore. Back in college and the early days of working, I cooked all the time. In fact, I was pretty decent at it. Not to say that I'm *bad* at it now, but I certainly don't have the skills I used to have. I can work my way around a recipe and can even improvise anything that needs to taste remotely Japanese-y, but my cutting speed has slowed down dramatically, and I've forgotten how to make quite a few dishes. I simply don't have the will power to cook that often anymore. I really should, seeing as how eating out so much has affected my weight/health, but both my fiance and I are drained by the time we get home from work and we just want to relax. Need to figure out a way to make it easier to cook and clean up afterwards, otherwise we're going to be stuck in this pattern for a long time...

Picked up Loco Roco about a week ago, and finally popped it into my PSP on Saturday night. It's not necessarily a really fun game, but playing it makes me inexplicably happy. The music, the art, the animations - they're all just absurdly cute. It's a very well-made game and exactly what the PSP needed, but I'm afraid it might not be enough to get the kind of momentum that, say, Katamari was able to produce. If you have a PSP, though, and are looking for something a little different, quirky, and so cute that it will make you want to devour small children to satiate the lack of cuteness in your system every time you are away from the game, this is the game for you.