Nobody Tells Me What To Do (really?)

Wednesday morning and the skies are clear, huzzah!  The lack of cloud cover upped the bright as well, finally showcasing the resetting of our clocks and making it almost light by the time I got to campus this morning.  I stopped to feed the Miata along the way in, so that tacked a fraction of an extra tune to the playlist timeline.

Today will have to be a catch-up day, since I was off campus most of yesterday.  It is probably only my impression, but it seems like the times when I am off campus see a corresponding steep spike in "I need from you..." calls and email messages (as I type this the Beetles are singing Help!, is life rich and round, or what?).  I can work at my desk for hours at time and never have the phone ring.  Wander off for a one-hour meeting and three voicemail messages will accumulate.  Don't get me started (he says to himself) on all the ways voicemail is a tedious and inefficient way to communicate.  Seriously, it is time we did away with it and started to treat the phone as a real-time communication tool only, just like a meeting.  Voicemail is to a phone conversation what leaving a post-it note on the conference table is to a meeting. Using synchronous communication tools for asynchronous discussion is a waste of everyone's time and probably indicates the subject isn't all that important.  Ugh - I got myself going again, didn't I?  The sister-in-law would say, with a wink and a smile, "Stop it––stop it at once!"

An odd collection of tunes popped up during the drive in today.  The Spamalot offering was a mere 23-second transition track, totally lost of context in a shuffle like this.  The Weepies newest album started the drive off (great group, great album!) and The Bad Plus wrapped things up with their cacophonous cover of the old Blondie song Heart of Glass. The latter is an interesting instrumental band, mostly jazz and totally unique.  They are highly percussive and infinitely creative. and a whole lot of fun if you can catch them live.  They do mostly new material with the occasional cover.  I love their cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit which, just like their cover of Heart of Glass, is a fun re-take on the tune.  Also got a little David Ford, doing his anthem of defiance, Nobody Tells Me What To Do.  It's a tune that's easy to sing very much out loud (don't we all wish it were true!); good thing I had the top up this morning.

The full morning soundtrack:

 - The Weekpies: Lighting Candles
 - Spamalot (Broadway Soundtrack): The Intermission
 - Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny: Waltz For Ruth
 - Pete Yorn: Last Summer
 - David Ford: Nobody Tells Me What To Do
 - The Bad Plus: Heart of Glass

As The Killers are currently reminding with their song I Can't Stay, I need to wrap this post up and dig into my pile of voicemail and email messages.  All of which, in their own way, do tell me what to do.