Skyehaven’s Cool Thing of the Day

If you loved Straight No Chaser from last year, then be sure you check out the “Christmas Can-Can”.
If you somehow managed not to hear about these guys last year, be sure you check out their previous Christmas Song “Who Spiked The Eggnog“.

UPDATE: Good grief. How could I have left out their “12 Days of Christmas“?

In a word…outstanding!

Spend some time making music. I need to figure out how to record my beautiful creations to share them with friends. And I need to figure out how to record my monstrous mistakes so I can share them with my enemies.

Most of us bibliophiles have been there, especially those of us who are sci-fi/fantasy types; we’ve fallen in love with a series. Maybe we found it at book one some lonesome October night and have been waiting anxiously for the next installment. Perhaps we were lucky enough to discover the series after a few books had been written and now the wait for the next is becoming excruciating. Some authors are very good at setting a schedule and keeping to it (one book a year in each series, come hell or high water. Thank you Jim Butcher!). Others not so much (12 years between books 3 and 4. Jean M Auel has been nominated for the hall of shame). Those of us who love George R R Martin have been waiting a bit. Some are getting so frustrated that they’re writing screeds to Neil Gaiman. As Neil pointed out so eloquently, and John Anealio put to music, George R R Martin is not your bitch.

A new classical music composer has come on the scene in Lithuania, and his soloist has crept into my heart like a thief in the night — a cat burglar, if you will.

The children’s department at our local museum has one of my favorite toys, a musical marble tree. As the marble travels down the tree from branch to branch, each rung/leaf chimes a different tone, like a xylophone. It’s a little difficult to explain, so here’s some clarification:

For your 4th of July listening pleasure:

Unless you happened to run across them in Las Vegas or at Disney years ago, you’ve surely never heard of Toxic Audio. I have a thing for a cappella anyway, but even if I didn’t this group would blow my mind. If you like what you hear below, be sure to check their schedule to see if they’ll be anywhere near you. I’ve yet to catch a live show…it’s on my list of things to do. In the meantime, have a go at this:

This’ll make anyone feel humble.

Earth Rise

From the comments at YouTube

An elderly couple at the Mayo clinic prove that happiness, even at a venerable age (the source for this video says they’re well into their 80′s in this video) is playing together.