Crazy 88s

I grew up taking several years of piano. Recently, I noticed something about the songs that strike a certain chord with me. (Pun also probabaly a result of the years of piano.) They all have a keyboard of some sort. Be it the mellow coolness of the Fender Rhodes, or the jangley gospely hepness of the Hammond B3, or even just the clean sound of a rockin' piano, I seem to be realizing that a lot of the times the best part of the song I like is the keyboard. This really hit home when was watching a AAA commercial. (The one where the AAA guy just appears, putting gas in the guy's car.) It was just these mellow, airy chords that just resonated.

As Strong Bad would say under his breath, "Man... so cool!"

It could be the years of taking piano, and also I acknowledge that it could be a phase. But does anyone else find keyboards to just give an ethereal fullness lacking in most other instruments?

Other great keyboard moments:

Baba O'Riley by The Who
The beginning of Supertramps' Goodbye Stranger (You could just like, loop that, man)
The organ solo of ELO's Can't Get it Out of My Head
Pink Floyd's Sheep
Emerson Lake and Palmer's Lucky Man
The list goes on...

Ridge Soup

On Saturday, Chris "Dr. Gonzo" Gonzoles and I took a trek up the hill to Ridge Vineyards located in the Santa Cruz mountains of Cupertino. We were going to see Sideways (a movie with the premise of a wine-tasting vacation) later that day, and Chris, who knows his wines, suggested we do some actual wine-tasting first. Sort of make a whole thing out of it. I thought it was a great idea. So we got there early, as to beat the crowds. When we got to the winery at the top, the valley was filled up with a layer of fog, making a distinct barrier between the clear mountain-tops and the hidden valley below. Quite something to see. Wine-tasting was fun, and I got to learn a lot about what goes into a good wine. Later, the movie was pretty good. I don't know about award winning good. I would much rather see The Life Aquatic or American Splendor again. Ah, but that's a different rant. :)