brainsplotch

My copy of the Tragically Hip's new album, Now for Plan A , finally arrived in the mail today one week after it was released and over a week after I ordered it.  Yeah, I know, I could have downloaded it and been able to listen to it the day of its release, but I'm old-fashioned and wanted a physical copy of the album. I was willing to wait for the thrill of finding the package in my mailbox, ripping it open, and popping the CD in the disc player in my kitchen. I get no thrill from downloading music, and in fact have had some horrible mishaps in which I've lost downloaded music into some electronic black hole, so I will probably be the last person on earth to continue buying CDs. Once I have a chance to give it a proper listen with pen and paper in hand, I'll bore all of you with a little review in this blog.  I like what I heard when I played it earlier today, but it was more background noise as I was busy doing other things around the house. Oh yeah, not only did...

I finished reading a great book called Life after Death by Damien Echols. For anyone who doesn't already know, Echols was one of the "West Memphis 3," a trio of teenagers who were wrongfully tried and convicted for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas back in 1993. Echols spent 18 years on death row, while the other two, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., were serving life sentences. Last year, the three guys, now in their mid-30s, were finally released from prison when they agreed to an Alford plea. The completely bizarre Alford plea essentially allowed the three men to acknowledge that the State of Arkansas has enough evidence to convict them while still maintaining their plea of innocence--and this allowed them to be released from prison. Makes no sense, right? Essentially, it allows the State of Arkansas to cover its own ass, because if the WM3 went to trial again, they would be found not guilty and would be able to sue the state for millions o...