Random Music

One of the longest running and most enjoyable bloggers out there is Aaron Gleeman (www.aarongleeman.com. Yesterday he randomized his IPod and listed the first 40 songs that were shown. I don’t have an IPod, but WinAmp can do the same thing, so, here are my 40 random songs.

Van Halen – Top Jimmy
Ekova – Starlight in Daden (Aurora Remix)
Eddie Van Halen and Brian May – Starfleet
Bob Marley – Jamming
Wolgemut – Processional
Altramar – O Columba insignis signifer
King’s X – I Can’t Help It
Judas Priest – Breaking The Law
Dream Theater – War Inside My Head
Peter Tosh – Mega Dog
CSN & Y – Teach Your Children Well
The Cult – Big Neon Glitter
Michael Longcor (Duke Moonwulf) – The Irish Guard
Stevie Nicks – Landslide
Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill
Yngwie Malmsteen – The Sails of Charon
Blind Melon – No Rain
Beatles – While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Kingston Air Force – There’s a Riot Gwaan
B-52s – Love Shack
Smashing Pumpkins – Bury Me
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem – Whack Fol The Diddle Oh
Korn – Blind
The Calais Consort – Cuckolds All A Row
Wolgemut – Schottish
Led Zeppelin – Rain Song
Conn MacNeill – Echoes
Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
King’s X – Skeptical Winds
Enya – Caribbean Blue
Ozzy Osbourne (with Randy Rhoads) – Paranoid
Blues Brothers – Rubber Biscuit
Rush – Something For Nothing
Flogging Molly – To Youth (My Sweet Roisin Dubh)
Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
The Ealdormere Bardic College – Lifeblood
David Munrow; Early Music Consort Of London – Je ne puis – Amors me tienent – Veritatem
Smashing Pumpkins – Landslide
Dropkick Murphys – Time To Go
The Who – Squeeze Box

Leave me comments and I’m curious what you all came up with.

Here’s the second post. I separated them because it seemed like the thing to do as I talk about my real life in the first and talk about my hobby in the second.

September is a long way away, but I suspect it’s going to fly by. This is going to be the most interesting reign I will have seen because for the first time I’m seeing it from the inside. I’ve never been part of retinue before.

Yesterday, though, I swore my fealty to TRMs Tristram and Katrine as Queen’s Champion.

Not surprisingly, I am incredibly excited. I have been bouncing since Her Majesty asked me at Estrella. The request came from nowhere, as while I have spent time with Her Majesty and her husband Eric St. Leger at events before, I did not know them very well. I think I’ll know them better in six months, :).

Some early notes. I’ve never dealt with Kingdom regalia before. Now I have in my possession the Champion’s Axe; the Champion’s Circlet, a replica of the circlets that the Warlords of Calontir wore; two Queen’s Favor Gloves, one beaded, one painted; several Champion’s Tabards, including a beautiful embroidered tunic donated by HE Magnus, a great friend, who was Queen’s Champion a few reigns ago. The history that each of these items has is amazing, simply holding these things is an incredible honor and a great responsibility. They’re also a great inspiration. I can already tell that if I even think about relaxing any, a simple look at one of these items and my enthusiasm will be reinvigorated.

The overall responsibility is awesome. I felt a great responsiblity to live up to the ideals of the fyrd when I was fyrded three years ago. This is a hundred times more. I am now a representative of the Crown and Kingdom of Calontir and a missed shot or a crass word or a mistreatment of someone now does not reflect on me but on something much greater than me, something I truly love. I am both terrified and overjoyed at the prospect of living up to this ideal.

More mundanely, I am very glad I went and got gel-soles for my boots last week. After two courts, fighting, and helping clean site, my feet and knees are sore. I shudder to think what it would have been like without the new soles.

Stamina is my greatest concern, in fact. I’m very concerned with being able to keep up at Gulf Wars, but most importantly at Pennsic. Her Majesty’s request has crystallized my goal of exercising into a need, so that’s a positive. And it’s not just feet. The axe that the Queen’s Champion bears is very heavy.

So Coronation is over. Gulf Wars is next week, and I am thanking my lucky stars that I have spent the past two summers up in Ealdormere. Those summers gave me a much better understanding and appreciation of the SCA as a whole I feel, and I am glad for the experience as I approach a foreign war as a person who will interact with Royals and peers of other Kingdoms. It should be one of the most interesting and fun wars I’ve ever been to.

Anyway, much of my LiveJournal over the next six months will consist of me trying to record my experiences as Queen’s Champion. No matter what the next few months entail, I know that I’m going to grow as a person because I’m going to have to to fulfill my obligations.

Well, I realize it’s been a while, but you’re going to get two posts today.

The first post is the basic business post. My applications are still coming back but I’m pleased to have had three acceptance letters this time, so I know I’ll be going somewhere.

The front-runner thus far is the University of Missouri. I had a nice lunch with the prof who’d be my coordinator. She’s a smart, energetic, enthusiastic, very nice person and I think I’d really like working with her. She also would be able to let me work on Anglo-Saxon military stuff, which I didn’t think I would do because of Dr. Richard Abels. Abels is the man when it comes to Anglo-Saxon military history and I would have loved to work with him but he teaches at the US Naval Academy. I had decided that if I could not work with him, it made little sense for me to compete against him. However, it seems possible that I might be able to add him to my committee and receive his guidance with research while at Mizzou so this is extremely appealing.

Probably second is Saint Louis University. I’m still unsure of monetary details so I don’t know exactly where to rank it, but the topic and the prof are not as exciting as at Mizzou.

Third is the University of Arkansas, but the same things I said about Saint Louis apply here as well.

I’m still waiting on apps from Minnesota, Chicago, Toronto, and Ohio State so my list may not be complete yet, but it’s great to know I’m going somewhere in September and awesome that I have choices.