The Land of the Free
Okay, so after the bitch session that was my last entry, a bit of the lighter side. The final bill for my car repairs was $756, some $80 cheaper than I had anticipated. So I'm a bit less screwed than I thought I was. Plus, this week has brought a boon of the best things in life, at least if cliches are to be trusted (and why not?) - the free things.
Because Jesus dyed eggs for our sins, or something, my family celebrates Easter, which means candy and gobs of it. I came home after the weekend with a handsome little basket teeming with chocolate. I also scored This Bird Has Flown, a nifty 40th-anniversary tribute album to The Beatles' Rubber Soul LP. It's pretty much what I expected: the artists I already liked (Dar Williams, Rhett Miller, the various and sundry Bens) churned out good, mostly faithful covers. The rest were acts that I had little to no familiarity with, and they were hit-or-miss. Some were just plain weird, like the Fiery Furnaces' disco/psychedelic treatment of "Norwegian Wood". And, of course, The Donnas still suck. To be fair, the music was kick-ass, but their vocals sounded flat, like lousy karaoke.
Tuesday I chaperoned my 15-year-old cousin Brittany at the Orioles game. It was freezing cold and they lost 3-1, but we both got free Nick Markakis shirts. Also, my aunt paid for the tickets.
Yesterday, I strolled past the "free table" at work. As I work at a national news magazine, people are always getting rid of books and promotional materials that enterprising companies thrust upon them. It's usually slim pickings, like a DVD of the "What About Brian" pilot, or a pile of Vince Gill CDs. But on this particular day, I hit the jackpot. There was a new Lucy Kaplansky CD. I've been meaning to give her a try; she's a friend and collaborator of Richard Shindell, who I of course love, and he sings backup on a few tracks. I'm interested to hear her covers of "Ring of Fire" and Loudon Wainwright III's "Swimming Song". I also got my hands on Roger Ebert's new book, "Your Movie Sucks", which collects about 200 reviews that he gave to terrible movies of recent years: Battlefield: Earth, Monster in Law, and of course, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (the title of the book is taken from this review, in which Ebert addresses Rob Schneider directly. Please click that link, you won't be sorry).
Tonight I'm babysitting, in a manner of speaking. My aunt won box-seat tickets to tonight's Orioles game (behind home plate), but she's not feeling well, so I'll be accompanying my cousin to the ballpark one more time, gratis.
I'm starting to think I should buy lottery tickets, but then, they're not free, so it's not quite the same principle.