i

It seems Stephin Merritt has a thing about the word "infinite." It shows up an awful lot in his songs, although he always seems to pronounce it differently, bending it to fit with whatever rhyme and meter he's presently working in. I digress, however. In the days when the Buffistas were still at Tabletalk, there was a lot of nattering about the Magnetic Fields' album 69 Love Songs. I was intrigued, because a lot of people whose opinions I trust really liked it a lot. It's a three CD set, though, quite an investment if it turned out to be a dud. I could have bought it in parts, but the completist in me insisted on the boxed set or nothing. I tried to find mp3s of some of the songs to see if I'd like it, but no such luck. I never did overcome the inertia, and eventually it became yesterday's news and forgotten.

Flash forward to last weekend at Newbury's, when I noticed the new Magnetic Fields album, i, on display. It was even on sale! ( 14 Love Songs )

Anyhow, I liked it a lot, and 69 Love Songs is now on order from Amazon.

Waiting for the Thunderbirds...

No not those Thunderbirds, the real ones, the USAF aerobatic team. It's airshow weekend here in Rhode Island, and the Thunderbirds are supposed to perform, but they don't seem to have shown up yet. Certainly they haven't been practicing as they (or the Blue Angels) normally would prior to a show. Bummer. All we're getting today are the aerobatic biplanes. Don't get me wrong, they're cool and all, but it just isn't the same as having high performance jets thundering around the sky above your office.

(Huh. Some kind of jet just flew over, but it wasn't an F-16. Feh.)

[3:30 p.m. - They've finally started practicing. Woo hoo! Of course it's overcast today, so viewing isn't all that great.]

Last night was Somervillain Game Night, and much fun was had putting together a jigsaw puzzle and playing Munchkin, a very funny card game. Sample conversation from the course of play (paraphrased a bit):

veejane (faced with a level 8 monster that she can't defeat on her own): Okay, I can't beat this monster, except I have a "Cheat" card. If I play that, I automatically defeat the monster.
helvirago: No, it doesn't work that way.
vee: Yes it does. I'm cheating!
hel: No it doesn't. Read the card. You can't just play it on the monster to make it go away. The card only applies to objects that your character could not normally use.
vee: But it says I can cheat...
hel: No, there's an epistemological difference between cheating, and having a card that says "Cheat."