I was checking out the Cloud Cult website, getting info about their upcoming release, when I noticed something interesting. I've seen this picture (the cover of their last album) dozens, if not hundreds of times, but just noticed that that little dude is riding the exact same rocking horse i had as a child! Craziness...
Only one artist (person or group) charted a #1 single in the UK in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Who was it?
I was "tagged" a while back, but I'm finally getting around to it.
1. I was deathly allergic to milk when I was a kid. The first time my mom tried to wean me, I turned blue, almost stopped breathing, and was rushed to the hospital, where I was stuck in a plastic, cortisone-injected tent.
2. I was suspended from school three times between 6th and 7th grades. One of the suspensions was completely unjust.
3. I was locked in the Bridgeman's bathroom twice. The first time I was 5 or 6 years old, and they had to take the door off the hinges to get me out.
4. In the 4th grade, I was one of only 2 boys in my class.
5. I was born exactly 199 years to the day after Paul Revere did his famous ride ("1 if by land, 2 if by sea").
I'll tag the Skaar clan- Eric, Trevor, and Katie, you're it!
OK- I don't celebrate Boxing Day, and don't really know what it's all about. However, it turns out that even those who do celebrate it (Brits, Canadians, etc.) don't know much about the origins of the holiday. I think it's a wonderful idea, since I would love to be able to sleep in the day after Christmas. I started this post yesterday (on Boxing Day), but Vox was having trouble processing my audio upload.
Too bad I don't have the Wu playing Boxing Day > St Stephen- yesterday was also Gwy San Stefan (the Feast of St Stephen). In pre-20th century Wales, it was customary for young men and boys to slash the unprotected arms of female domestic servants with holly branches until they bled. What a lovely tradition! I wonder why it died out...
I've written a Boxing Day/St Stephen's Day post, but the audio is having trouble uploading. So here's a nice little youtube clip I stumbled across. It's kind of fitting, because, after a Chicago>Colorado>California>Madison>Connecticut journey, the Condor has come home to roost, at least temporarily, in the Twin Cities. Why is that relevant, you ask? Let's just say he and I have jumped into a few trees in our time.
It's been over a month since I last did one of these. My iPod is now nearly full- 6739 songs, with only 3.5 GB of free space remaining. I'm obviously going to have to upgrade to an 80 GB model at some point, since there are a lot of CDs in my collection not on the iPod, including hundreds of live concert CDs (primarily Phish).
The band Midlake has been showing up on a lot of best-of-2006 lists. I had not heard of them until recently, but the song Roscoe gets better and better each time I listen to it. This track will definitely appear on the forthcoming end-of-year mix CD Jen and I are putting together. (If you ask nicely, I'll provide you with one of these beauties!)
When I first started doing these shuffles (you can click on the "shuffle" tag on the left-hand side of my blog to see them all), I included the album that the song was from. Then I stopped doing that. The librarian in me regrets that, so I'm going to go back to the more-detailed version. Now that I've got over 6,000 songs on this s.o.b., this should be interesting!
- The Velvet Underground - "There She Goes Again" (The Velvet Underground & Nico)
- Led Zeppelin - "Immigrant Song" (Led Zeppelin III)
- Rush - "Closer to the Heart" (Chronicles)
- Pixies - "Monkey Gone to Heaven" (Wave of Mutilation: Best of Pixies)
- Johnny Cash - "One Piece at a Time" (The Essential Johnny Cash)
- moe. - "Again & Again" (Tin Cans and Car Tires)
- Elliot Smith - "Pretty (Ugly Before)" (From a Basement on a Hill)
- R.E.M. - "Ignoreland" (Automatic for the People)
- The Beatles - "Across the Universe" (Let it Be)
- Burning Spear - "Slavery Days" (Marcus Garvey)
- The Beatles - "Blue Jay Way" (Magical Mystery Tour)
- Del McCoury & Friends "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight" (Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza)
- Elvis Costello - "Good Year for the Roses" (Best of...)
- The Sadists? - "Last of the Leather Age?" (Matt Votel Punk Mix) -not sure about the band or song name
- Radiohead - "Bones" (The Bends)
- Bob Dylan - "Sara" (Live 1975- The Rolling Thunder Revue)
- Royal Fingerbowl - "Ozana, TX" (Happy Birthday, Sabo!)
- Phish - "Scents and Subtle Sounds (Intro)" (Undermind)
- Emmylou Harris - "Two More Bottle of Wine" (Best of Emmylou Harris)
- The Who - "The Real Me" (Quadrophenia)
Still heavy on classic rock...
I was excited about this book, especially having read Legs McNeil's Please Kill Me earlier in the year. McNeil's book is an exciting, entertaining snapshot of an era, starting with The Velvet Undergound, and chronicling the rise of the punk scene, featuring the words of Iggy Pop, Dee Dee Ramone, Patti Smith, and dozens of other people who lived (and often died) through it.
Rip it Up and Start Again picks up where Please Kill Me left off, but it's nowhere near as fun to read- it's far too academic. If you're a major fan of bands like Public Image, Ltd. and Joy Division, I suppose it's worth the read. But the author is way to passionate about his subject:
In retrospect, as a distinct pop-cultural epoch, 1978-82 rivals that fabled stretch between 1963 and 1967 commonly known as the sixties. The postpunk era makes a fair match for the sixties in terms of the sheer amount of great music created, the spirit of adventure and idealism that infused it, and the way the music seemed inextricably connected to the political and social turbulence of its era.
If you agree with this bold (insane?) statement, then do yourself a favor and get it from your local library. Any fans of contemporary music should read this one, though:
I got a phone call from a woman today who wanted to know what the high temperatures were on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week (Dec 18-20, 2006). The computer was going a little slowly, so I told her I would track down the data and call her back. "There's a follow up question. What temperature does a ham need to stay at to avoid spoilage?"
Turns out her husband left the Christmas ham in the car for three days.
The USDA (and Hormel, too) recommend refrigerated food (including hams) be kept at 40 degrees or below. Two hours above 40 degrees is supposedly the limit. The temperature stayed below 40 for most of those three days, except for this stretch on December 19:
1 PM: 39
2 PM: 41
3 PM: 42
4 PM: 41
5 PM: 38
I relayed this info to her, and she wanted my advice. If it was me, I'd go ahead and eat the darned thing (actually, I'm vegetarian, so I wouldn't actually eat it). It's been smoked and preserved in chemical juices, and wrapped in plastic. However, I wasn't about to tell the woman "Oh, go ahead and eat it. Your family will be fine," and then see a lawsuit hit the county when hubby and children come down with some nasty bacterial disease. I hinted at the fact that I would serve it to my family, but never came out and said it.
Sometimes I really, really love my job.
Who would you like to kiss under the mistletoe?
Submitted by EmmyAngua.
Susan Sarandon. I know- one of these years I've got to give up on that crush. She's still got it going, though. But, since Ms. Sarandon won't likely be stopping by my house this Xmas season, #1 is my beautiful wife Jennifer.
A while back, I posted one of my pet peeves (apostrophes inserted where they don't belong). We just got a Christmas card the other day, and the return address label read "The Anderson's." (I changed the name to protect the not-so-innocent.) The Anderson's what? If the apostrophe was at least placed after the s, we could assume that something that the Andersons owned was at least being implied. Instead, I'm wondering who "The Anderson" is, and what he/she/it has...
I will periodically add pet peeves. I have a lot of them, although most relate to grammar. I'm kindy of grumpy old bastard, apparently. If you read my last post, you know there's going to be a cell phone-related one mentioned at some point. But, for Pet Peeve Number Two, I present one of the things that drives me absolutely batty. Please take a look at Exhibit A:
If you're using the microwave, and you take your food out before the timer has hit 0:00, press "clear!" A certain person who I've lived with on three separate occasions never lets the microwave finish. I'm not sure if he hates the beeping sound it makes when its done, or what, but every single time he finishes using the appliance, the LED is left displaying 20 seconds or so.
At work, there must be 10 people that regularly do this, because more than half the time I go to use a microwave, it has been left in a similar state. Now, you might be thinking "Why do you care, you OCD weenie?" That's a legitimate question. The main reason it bothers me is because microwaves have a clock built into them- when not in use, they display the time of day. When you leave it stuck at "0:22," I can't tell what time it is! Aaarrgh!
Also, I simply don't understand the need to always open the microwave before it's done cooking. Sure, sometimes you're checking on the food every so often, and maybe it's done before the timer has counted all the way down. Maybe you're so lazy, that the thought of pressing "clear" is just too much. But these people do this every time they use the microwave. Why not just set the time 20-30 seconds lower?
