In case you were wondering, we are now all of nine days away from an all but certain NHL lock out.  What’s the latest on the negotiations?

There are no negotiations.

Read this espn article.

No talks in progress, and no talks scheduled.

We the paying fans need to stand up to this bullshit.  Show them that we aren’t going to come back and say all is forgiven.  Show them that we aren’t going to come back at all.  I am as hockey obsessed as anyone, and I am here to say that there are plenty of other things to focus my time and energy and MONEY on between October and June, thank you very much.

Clockwork Angels in Manchester, tomorrow night!

I’m giddy, really.  This fat guy is giddy!

I have never seen Rush on an opening night before.  I have never seen Rush tour a concept album before!  Well, no one has, but they have toured albums that were 50% conceptual, just not since 1979 or so.

I took a vacation day tomorrow so that I could be home early enough to get the kids and have them ready to go.  I can’t wait.

I CAN’T WAIT!

This one is weird.  The other day I was at my parents house looking for my Calvin and Hobbes books (I didn’t find them) in my old closet.  I stumbled across a small stack of Memorex CD-Rs.  Two of them included songs that I wrote and recorded while I was working at Northeast Broadcasting School back in 1994 or 1995.  Another had all of my former band Prime Meridian’s four track tapes from 1997 through 1999.  The remaining two were a Break Even gig that I recorded onto my ADAT.  I think it was at Burgundy’s in Derry.  I don’t recall the date off the top of my head, but it was the same day as the Red Sox vs Yankees playoff game when Pedro Martinez grabbed 800 year old Don Zimmer by his bald head and threw him to the ground.  The Great Zimmer Toss of 2003.

I just ripped those two CDs into iTunes with the plan of eventually uploading them to alonetone.com.  The files did not have any CDDB information, so prior to ripping them I gave them an artist and an album and I will figure out the song titles later.

I use iTunes Match, so as they were being ripped into my library they were also being uploaded to iCloud.  Somehow, and I have no idea how, some of the songs were tagged as matched.

Huh?

I’ll probably make a play list out of the whole thing and upload it here so you can all laugh at me.

ADDENDUM:

Oh crap, these Break Even CDs aren’t what I thought they were.  I pulled up a random song and happened to hit one of ours and not a cover.  If it had been a cover I would have known what it was.

We did not tune to an A (440 hertz), we tuned to an Ab (that’s A-Flat for the non-music readers).  Prior to one of our first gigs, maybe our very first gig, I did some messing with audio files for the songs we were covering and detuned all of the songs down one half step.  That way we could practice at home without having to retune the instruments.

That is what I found in my old room last weekend.  Not the Zimmer Toss gig.  That’s why iTunes Matched the files, they were the actual recordings of the songs we were covering, not recordings we made ourself.

Ah, nuts.

Daily Rush picture, from my very small pile of really bad concert photos.

The Clockwork Angels tour opens in two days, although my wife told me she doesn’t want to go anymore.

This one is from Boston on the first leg of the Time Machine Tour, 9/14/10.

The Red Sox have been a complete failure this season (although they did break their seven game losing streak last night).

The NHL has been a complete failure at labor relations and having it’s ownership be able to not completely destroy itself financially.

And me?  I just feel like a normal, ordinary failure.

Hey sports fans, how about those Red Sox, huh?

Do you think they will win another game this year?  How does 0-7 on a 9 game road trip sound?  Yeah, we lost three to the Angels, but the Angels are still in it.  Yeah, we lost three to the A’s, but the A’s are in position to make the post season.  Yeah, we lost the 1st of three to the Mariners… ummm… yeah. 

Hey, we are only one game up on last place Toronto in the East.  We could do it, we could finish last in the East!  What a thrill that would be.

Now I know I haven’t been very kind to this team this season, and I know that I was dancing in the streets when they made “The Trade” with the Dodgers, but that doesn’t mean I want to see them crumble like they did during the Kerrigan Reign.  I want them to at least look like they are trying out there.  The good news is, Schmucko the Clown will surely get the axe.  The bad news is, after they hired Schmucko the Clown who is to say that they won’t hire someone more ridiculous?  (shiver in fear)

Still, even though the Red Sox have sucked like a hoover this season, they have been interesting.  Not on the field, mind you, but with all the soap opera drama.  I’m waiting for them to tell us that Dice-K needs a brain transplant or that Bobby Jenks has amnesia.  (more likely that would be the other way around, right?)  Let’s hope for an interesting on the field team as opposed to the current interesting off the field team next season.

Then there are the Bruins who are going to be locked out in 11 days.  Labor negotiations were broken off.  Over the Labor Day holiday no less.  The hell with the Bruins and the hell with the whole NHL.  I hope they rot.

Three days from now the Clockwork Angels tour will kick off. Rush will be on the road again and we will be there!

I started reading the Clockwork Angels book. I’m still only 29% of the way through it. I expected it to be a bit of a cheese doodle and it is. The constant use of song lyrics in the narrative, not just from Clockwork Angels either, wore thin very fast. Sorry. I’m still enjoying it though, despite it’s fluffiness.

Freshly made guacamole at Plaza Azteca, right around the corner from home

Today is a day for conflicted feelings. On the one hand it’s great because it’s Monday and we are not at work. On the other hand it’s the unofficial last day of summer.

It’s a good thing and a band thing at the same time. How should we feel?

Your (late) daily pre-tour kick off Rush picture. I only have so many shows with real camera pics, so here’s an iPhone jobber from Hershey, PA.

Oh what the hell, another Manchester, 08 pic too. Bonus.