Perhaps it didn't look creepy at the time.

The first eight songs of the day after setting the iPod to shuffle play:

Chainsaw Kittens - Sgt. Whore: From the entertaining Angel on the Range EP, a mix of rock and a touch of Tyson Meade weirdness.

Husker Du - Back from Somewhere: Another track from the Warehouse CD, this one is a fun Grant Hart track that he continued to play live on his solo shows for years.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Love Comes Home: The more I explore Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's music, the more I find a wide range of genres. The folks who were clamoring to collaborate with him towards the end of his life was remarkable, and this collection mixes his traditional singing with near-electro beats and sounds.

Dengue Fever - Lake Dolores: Looks like the iPod has found a new band to stalk. This is a bouncy instrumental from the Escape from Dragon House release, a fine exhibition of the musical talent this band brings.

Joe Walsh - Malibu: So, when I was in high school, I got a bit overwhelmed by a number of record/tape clubs I was a member of, and without really caring about what I ordered, I sent for the unfamiliar Got Any Gum cassette from Joe Walsh. It instantly became one of my favorites and I played it to death for a year or so. Eventually it went the way of all cassette tapes (buried in a drawer somewhere), but I couldn't resist tripping down memory trail when the CD was reissued a few years ago. It is a kinda silly album; it isn't moldy classic rock like one might expect from Walsh, but it isn't really contemporary either (even for the time). It is just kinda there, but it still makes me feel happy when I hear a song from the release, so on the iPod it stays.

Hella - 1-800 Ghost Dance: The first disjointed punk song of the morning. I'm not sure what makes Hella stand out above hundreds of other bands who play music like this, but I'm always drawn to their sound.

Boredoms - Feedbackfuck: I suppose you could call this the second disjointed punk song of the morning, but I never really thought of the Boredoms as punk as much as just crazy. The song is mostly noisy guitars, drums, and screaming; maybe not as innovative as the Boredoms can be, but certainly as weird.

Yo La Tengo - My Heart's Reflection: One of those songs that really made me like Yo La Tengo years ago; a very calm, soft track with the potential for noise, slight-off-tune riffs, and a general feeling that you never really quite knew what to expect from them.

So, after tens of thousands of clicks since I bought my first digital SLR nearly five years go, a small piece of metal wire that held the mirror to the shutter on my camera snapped, causing an obstruction on any picture that I now try to take.

Since the last shots were of our Coco Kitten, I dug deep into my embedded elementary school insults and said to her, "you're so ugly you broke the camera" (it was either elementary school or an insult my Grandmother used to tell me...she was a bit of a nasty sort at times). Nicole didn't find this the least bit amusing, so now the line is the cat is too cute / pretty to have her picture taken.

Either way, the kitten was more concerned about watching the Montreal hockey game on television than responding to my jabs, which is interesting in its own way.

In keeping with my trend of fixing things with stupid methods, such as fixing my iPod with a piece of bubble wrap, I used a small piece of masking tape to join the shutter and its mirror back together, hereby, at least temporarily, fixing the unit so I can take pictures again until I decide to either fix the camera for real (unlikely), or buy a new one (which I was contemplating just this week anyhow).

The camera, the first Canon Digital Rebel SLR, has been great...not a complaint in the world really, and to say I've taken tens of thousands of shots with it is in no way an exaggeration. But, as technology has evolved, even basic handhelds can capture shots at higher megapixels than mine does now. So, upgrading after all this time seems like a reasonable thing to do.

And, if the masking tape holds, I can dedicate the old SLR to my microscopy shots. A win-win for everybody.

Getting fatter, mouthier, and downright goofier, little Oz Junior (previously mentioned here) is still the bravest of the stray cats we feed. She greets me as soon as I arrive, follows me with that food-expectant upward-gazing walk that only an animal can do, and yells at me non-stop until I quit taking her picture and give her food. Plus, as I dare to scratch the fur between her ears, I have found she is getting much softer than she was in previous days. It is good to see her preparing for winter.

We put peanuts out for the squirrels on occasion.

However, we never really know who will show up for feeding. Lately, it has been blue jays.

With colder days and nights closing in on us, aggression towards food gathering is obviously growing. From my window seat, I could hear the jays and squirrel squawking at each other as they made a play for the available nuts.

In the end, each creature did fairly well for themselves in the food gathering. It probably helped that, half wanting to make sure all were fed and half because I was enjoying watching the scene, I put many more nuts out after the first batch was foraged.

The cats are annoyed by the squirrels, but they really hate the jays.

Even Sasha gave them a cat-machine gun sound that seems to be reserved for birds.

Oz watched intently, half mad, half worried. But then, Oz always looks kinda worried.

The first eight songs of the day after setting the iPod to shuffle play:

My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When: Probably a thousand bands have tried to mimic the noisy, wall-of-sound music of Loveless, but nearly all of them miss the fact that every track on the recording is a genuinely good song before it got "noised-up." It sounds cliche at this point, but this is still one of my favorite releases ever.

Robyn Hitchcock - Queen of Eyes: A fairly straight-forward track full of lyrical Hitchcockianisms that makes for interesting listening.

Peter Holsapple / Chris Stamey - Here Without You: A cover of the Gene Clark / Byrds song from the former dB's front men.

Archers of Loaf - Assassination on Christmas Eve: A catchy tune from the somewhat-concept album All The Nation's Airports, which probably has a story behind it that I never bothered to understand. If you can avoid letting the words "concept album" scare you, this is a very solid release from the Archers, probably only second in enjoyability to their studio-finale White Trash Heroes.

Dengue Fever - Thanks-A-Lot: A California band playing Cambodian traditional (or, at least sounding) songs; as an early release, this one is more ethnic sounding than eventual tracks that mixed the sound with more contemporary riffs.

Dengue Fever - Sui Bong: Speaking of more contemporary sounds, this one is from Escape From Dragon House and mixes the female Cambodian vocalist / lyrics with a harder edge sound.

Talking Heads (Tom Tom Club) - Genius of Love: The strange opportunity Tom Tom Club to play at the Talking Heads show during the Stop Making Sense tour (and subsequent CD release). Can't say this track impresses me much.

Jeff Buckley - Satisfied Mind: From the posthumous Sketches CD, an insight into the quiet practice sessions he apparently would record.

The first eight songs of the day after setting the iPod to shuffle play:

Nico - Ari's Song: An ode to her son who, it is interesting to mention, was the only person who didn't say anything bad about her in the documentary Nico Icon despite (allegedly) becoming addicted to drugs under her hand.

Jeff Buckley - Mojo Pin: The first track from the Grace album presenting his incredible vocal range and a bit of his Zeppelin influence.

Tom Waits - Clang Boom Steam: Never has a song title been more descriptive of its contents.

Chainsaw Kittens - Lazy Little Dove: Oooh, a repeat from last week. Weird, as of right now, there are over 5,300 songs the ipod could choose from.

Mission of Burma - Forget: A consistently solid song from MoB, if not one of their more well known tracks.

Cut Copy - Into the Groovey: A mix of the Ciccone Youth (say, Kim Gordon) track off Fabriclive.29 which we heard in Sound Garden while in Baltimore last week. The collection of 25 mixes is really fun.

The Only Ones - City of Fun: I've really started enjoying The Only Ones lately; this is certainly one of those bands who has been covered more than I had ever realized over the years.

Yo La Tengo - Moby Octopad: A fun, somewhat off-tune track from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, probably the last album from the trio that I really enjoyed.

Having fun on the cables that extend above the National Zoo.

I'm right there with you, buddy.

Picture above of a Komodo Dragon at the National Zoo.

Picture does not include a jerk who, thinking it would be fun to see if he could get a rise out of the dragon, ran back and forth in front of the dragon's habitat until said dragon turned his head, thumped his tail, and flared his sides out like he wanted to take a bit out of me...er, uh, take a bite out of the jerk.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist. They are such fantastic creatures, and very few animals have quite the same ability to glare a hole right through you.

Before my exhibition, we were watching the creature next to a family with a toddler. This isn't the first time that I had seen an animal look at a small child as if it were lunch, but it may have been the most obvious. Even the mother took notice and proceeded to tell the ~3 year old, "look at him looking at the juicy young child I'm holding."

The kid promptly followed up the comment with a very concerned, "let's go somewhere else now." I bet the kid had nightmares for a while.

The first eight songs of the day after setting the iPod to shuffle play:

Pit Er Pat - Scared Sorry: A drum, bass, and synth exercise in catchy songwriting with a consistent minor key undertone.

Junkie XL - No Remorse: A bouncy release from the early Saturday Teenage Kick, slightly repetitive as it clears the 6:30 mark, but fun nonetheless.

Faust & Dalek - Hungry for Now: Very noisy trip-hop with driving drums and bass lines. Can't go wrong with this track if you are into chaos.

Chainsaw Kittens - Lazy Little Dove: A fairly hard rocking track from the mini-album Angel on the Range, this is Tyson Meade at his noisy best (with a great eerie ending).

Enduser - My Shit Eats Tapes: Somewhere between dub, techno, and rap, this is yet another chaotic offering from the iPod (I guess it is in a mood today).

Terre Thaemlitz - Face: Not one of the more inspired dancish-electro songs, this hums along for about 5 minutes, bringing calm to what has so far been a very hectic random eight.

Twink - Ten Thousand Words in a Cardboard Box: I think all the other songs are going to gang up and beat up this rusty psyche/prog track. Funny how this reminds me of the eventual sound of the Butthole Surfers.

The Boomtown Rats - Joey's on the Street Again: This was one of my favorite bands in high school, and when all the CDs were reissued a few years ago, I was quick to snap up the few that never existed in digital back then. This song, which actually appeared on a few releases, seems to be one of the more well known from the Rats and captures a lot of their different sounds all in one 5 minute umbrella. I'm glad I haven't lost my interest in the Geldof-led troupe over the years.

Nine years ago, Nicole and I were married in downtown Baltimore Pier 5 Hotel. We've made a number of day trips to visit the city since then and decided to spend a couple nights last week for a more extended celebration of our anniversary.

I lived in Baltimore for a year, working at Bell Atlantic as my first job out of school. The Inner Harbor area, already a touristy hot spot, has only sprawled since that time, mixing the natural beauty of the bay with a swarm of chain restaurants and boutiques. Still, the harbor is flanked by the Baltimore Aquarium (eh, I say, although I realize I'm in the minority), and the Science Center (woohoo, I say), which we visited for the first time this year.

Bill likes science, especially when the Science Center is not overrun with summer vacationing kids. I was able to play in the wet lab, see the super-cool K'Nex display, watch a demonstration of liquid nitrogen (a staple of any good Science Center), and sit at the kiosks to create my own dinosaur pictures which I was able to email to myself.

My dinosaur, coming to a nightmare near you

We made a trip to the American Visionary Museum, our first visit there in a number of years. Being fortunate to see the first full day of the new exhibit, The Marriage of Art, Science & Philosophy, we were treated to a collection of pretty creative and artistic displays. Also, the museum has expanded into a second full building since our last visit that allows for some massive displays including (Nicole's favorite) a super-sized Divine from Pink Flamingos.

Perhaps the only downside to the museum now is the disappearance of its great view over the harbor, replaced by the obstruction of million-dollar condos that took the water's edge. Only the museum's illuminated eye can see over the construction.

Being sure to not miss out on anything that would dub us as tourists, we took the Water Taxi to Fells Point. The trendy area has dwindled in its collection of neat shops over the years, but still has Bop Pizza, Sound Garden, and The Daily Grind which is all we ever cared about anyhow.

We were also sure to take a ride on the taxi after dark so I could get a picture of the Domino Sugar sign illuminated. I bet nobody ever did that before.

Dalesio's, our wedding dinner restaurant, served as our anniversary dinner spot and was, as always, a treat. Not to mention, we were able to eavesdrop on a table of old folks who couldn't say on a conversational topic for more than 15 seconds. "Did you watch the John Adams miniseries? He sorta looked like Charles Addams. But where was Morticia? And Lurch?"

It made us laugh because it is pretty much the attention span to detail that Nicole and I have now, and we aren't anywhere near as old as those folks were. I'm not sure what that means for our future.

Me, trying to screw up the light sensors on my camera.

And even though I poo-pooed the Aquarium above, the rain forest makes for a fun picture at night.

I started a new batch of peanut butter jar ecosystems. Here is my first model from the new collection.

It is time to clarify something.

After weeks of noticing "Groundhog Eating" or "Eating Groundhog" in the referral logs as keyword hits in Google linking to this site, I'd like to point out that this link is only for a picture of a groundhog eating food, specifically from this post, titled Eating Groundhog.

Of course, I have no idea what the motivation is to search on that particular phrase, but I think it is worth pointing out that there are no recipes or helpful hints for "eating groundhog" on this site.

I probably should have been more careful in my choice of words for naming that post. It seemed clever at the time.

The first eight songs of the morning after setting the iPod to shuffle play...and just to make it more random, it occurs on Wednesday this week.

Flaming Lips - Talkin' 'bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues: The fun opening to Hit to Death in the Future Head; still my favorite era by the Lips.

Archers of Loaf - Let the Loser Melt: This was truly one of my favorite bands to see live around the late 90's. This song, originally on Vee Vee, is from the live release, Seconds Before the Accident, which is neat but doesn't really capture the energy this band had in person.

Motorhead - Overkill: Yeah, Lemmy!

Galaxie 500 - Listen, the Snow is Falling: What a great band. It was very nice that most of their music was reissued a few years back as it makes for a great part of my music collection.

Deerhoof - Look Away: Another band that is becoming a favorite of the iPod random play. This lengthy track is more like a story than a song, changing directions in rhythm and sound with no clear direction but in an interesting fashion.

Nuno Canavarro - Untitled (from Plux Quba): This is an experimental album from the Portuguese composer that meshes ambient, electronica, and just plain weird noises into a fine collection.

Replacements - Message to the Boys: The greatest rock and roll band ever, if you ask me. This song was one of two released as a reunion of sorts on a recent "best of" album. Frankly, it sounds a lot more like Westerberg's solo work than it does old Replacements music, but a new song is a new song, so I take it for what it is worth.

Smog - Sleepy Joe: For most bands who start performing weird (if not bad) experimental music and move to a more mainstream sound (in this case, kinda alt-country), there always seems to be one release that captures the midpoint of that transition with a great set of tracks. Wild Love is Smog's (Bill Callihan) is that release; just a great mix of music and misery, and Sleepy Joe is one of the more fun tracks on the record.