So tomorrow I head out on my big trip. I'm tossing Tippy in the back seat and he'll spend the week with my parents while I go to Minnesota. Tippy loves Milwaukee. He especially enjoys their wide selection of cheeses.
So if I get a chance, I'll post an update or two. I am in possession of one of the first copies of Maggie's mix, A Asspocket of Sunshine, and I've promised her a review.
6.30.2005
6.29.2005
6.28.2005
Tambourine Girl
When I was in college, my roommate Aimee and I took a fair number of road trips. We went to St. Louis with regularity and made it to Louisville a couple of times. There were two items required for any trip over two hours, (1) graham crackers and icing and (2) every single piece of music ever released by Counting Crows.
The roles were simple. The person not driving was the navigator and road trip DJ. They had control over the music and the maps, but they also had to make graham cracker and icing sandwiches whenever the driver demanded. The driver was expected to pay attention to the road and keep an eye out for rest stops (Aimee had a bladder the size of a walnut). With these well-defined roles, our trips went off without a hitch.
As you might expect, the soundtrack for our journeys was a continuous stream of Counting Crows tunes. They only had two albums out at the time and we sometimes listened to them over and over, singing along to every word. Aimee had a dream of being a tambourine girl/interpretive dancer for the band and she invented an endless array of hokey dances to perform while sitting in the passenger seat. It takes extreme measures like these to make Illinois seem interesting.
Nowadays whenever I get a little tired of driving during a long trip, I slip in a Counting Crows CD and sing along to every word, often at the top of my lungs. It always wakes me up but it sometimes makes me wish I had someone to make graham cracker sandwiches for me, too.
The roles were simple. The person not driving was the navigator and road trip DJ. They had control over the music and the maps, but they also had to make graham cracker and icing sandwiches whenever the driver demanded. The driver was expected to pay attention to the road and keep an eye out for rest stops (Aimee had a bladder the size of a walnut). With these well-defined roles, our trips went off without a hitch.
As you might expect, the soundtrack for our journeys was a continuous stream of Counting Crows tunes. They only had two albums out at the time and we sometimes listened to them over and over, singing along to every word. Aimee had a dream of being a tambourine girl/interpretive dancer for the band and she invented an endless array of hokey dances to perform while sitting in the passenger seat. It takes extreme measures like these to make Illinois seem interesting.
Nowadays whenever I get a little tired of driving during a long trip, I slip in a Counting Crows CD and sing along to every word, often at the top of my lungs. It always wakes me up but it sometimes makes me wish I had someone to make graham cracker sandwiches for me, too.
6.26.2005
Road Trip!
I don't leave for vacation until Friday but I'm already on a mental vacation. I'm sure I'll be able to fake my way through the week but it's not gonna be pretty.
I'm going to be doing a lot of driving on this break (7 states in 10 days) so it has me thinking about road trip music. I checked out a stack of new CD's from the library and I'll be compiling all my favorite driving songs. So the question arises, what is the best road trip song of all time?
I'm partial to "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynard Skynard. It's really got nothing to do with driving but that guitar riff always brings a smile to my face. It's fun to sing along to as well.
So come all you guys that read my blog but don't comment (I know you're out there) name your favorite road trip song and maybe I'll be singing tunelessly along to it in my car in a week's time.
I'm going to be doing a lot of driving on this break (7 states in 10 days) so it has me thinking about road trip music. I checked out a stack of new CD's from the library and I'll be compiling all my favorite driving songs. So the question arises, what is the best road trip song of all time?
I'm partial to "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynard Skynard. It's really got nothing to do with driving but that guitar riff always brings a smile to my face. It's fun to sing along to as well.
So come all you guys that read my blog but don't comment (I know you're out there) name your favorite road trip song and maybe I'll be singing tunelessly along to it in my car in a week's time.
6.23.2005
The Shins will change your life
The New York Times had an article about The Believer's music issue today and it mentioned a snarky little blog that I had to check out. I'm not always a big supporter of making fun of people, but the use of unadorned excepts from the authors themselves makes it feel o.k. The mean comments added later just add to the fun.
6.22.2005
Mystic Pizza
A couple weeks ago I came home from the Hofbrauhaus and found a crumpled receipt outside my front door. Figuring it was something I dropped on my way out, I picked it up. When I finally took the time to look it over, however, it presented me with a new mystery.
The receipt showed that someone from LaRosa's had attempted to deliver a large pizza, a couple of subs and some sort of pasta dish to my apartment around 8:30 that night (I left the house at 7:45). It had my name and address but I'm really pretty sure I didn't order it.
At one point I thought I had the mystery solved. LaRosa's uses your home phone number to keep track of who you are and where you live. The number on the receipt was my old land line that I got rid of a year ago. I figured maybe somebody has my new number and didn't pay attention when they verified the address.
This theory was shot down with one simple phone call to my old number. It's still disconnected. So now I have absolutely no idea what happened. I feel bad for the delivery guy, the order was more than $40. I hope I'm not blackballed from LaRosa's because of this either. Any ideas about how this could happen?
Favorite Song of the Week:
"No One is to Blame" by Howard Jones - He was on Hit Me Baby, One More Time last week and was excellent. He just sat at a piano and belted out tunes like he was David Gray or something. If I owned a label, I'd have signed him immediately.
The receipt showed that someone from LaRosa's had attempted to deliver a large pizza, a couple of subs and some sort of pasta dish to my apartment around 8:30 that night (I left the house at 7:45). It had my name and address but I'm really pretty sure I didn't order it.
At one point I thought I had the mystery solved. LaRosa's uses your home phone number to keep track of who you are and where you live. The number on the receipt was my old land line that I got rid of a year ago. I figured maybe somebody has my new number and didn't pay attention when they verified the address.
This theory was shot down with one simple phone call to my old number. It's still disconnected. So now I have absolutely no idea what happened. I feel bad for the delivery guy, the order was more than $40. I hope I'm not blackballed from LaRosa's because of this either. Any ideas about how this could happen?
Favorite Song of the Week:
"No One is to Blame" by Howard Jones - He was on Hit Me Baby, One More Time last week and was excellent. He just sat at a piano and belted out tunes like he was David Gray or something. If I owned a label, I'd have signed him immediately.
6.21.2005
Your questions answered
A few of you already have copies of my new mix CD and those of you who don't will receive it shortly. From the early reviews I can tell that there are going to be some recurring questions about the mix. So here are the answers to the questions I know you're going to ask:
(1) Lefty's Deceiver is a band from Philadelphia. I found their song from a random iTunes search.
(2) You may have heard "Medicine" by Orbit in 1997. That's when Libido Speedway came out and this was their big hit single. Nobody listens to it anymore but it's still good.
(3) "Choked Up" is from the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Soundtrack. Yes, I own the soundtrack. I just ran across the song in my library and decided to throw it in.
(4) I put "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" on the CD for my friend Jeff. He heard on the radio the other and remembered what a good song it was. A forgotten gem, perhaps. Well it's forgotten no more!
Now you should have no more questions. I'm sure of it.
(1) Lefty's Deceiver is a band from Philadelphia. I found their song from a random iTunes search.
(2) You may have heard "Medicine" by Orbit in 1997. That's when Libido Speedway came out and this was their big hit single. Nobody listens to it anymore but it's still good.
(3) "Choked Up" is from the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Soundtrack. Yes, I own the soundtrack. I just ran across the song in my library and decided to throw it in.
(4) I put "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" on the CD for my friend Jeff. He heard on the radio the other and remembered what a good song it was. A forgotten gem, perhaps. Well it's forgotten no more!
Now you should have no more questions. I'm sure of it.
6.20.2005
Your Ad Here
I play on this flag football team and it's really, really fun. We run around outside in the fresh air then go have a beer. It's everything you could want in a sport and I look forward to it every week.
So here's the part that sucks. We play year round (that's four seasons) and pay $500 each season for team registration. That's usually $50 dollars each that nobody really minds paying because it's so fun. The hard part is finding someone who's willing to put $500 on their credit card.
I think it's about time we found a sponsor. A lot of the teams we play are sponsored by bars or other businesses and we'd be happy to advertise for just about anyone if they covered some of the registration fee. I posted this ad on Craigslist in an effort to drum up interest in our plight. I don't think anyone in Cincinnati reads Craigslist, though, so it might be a lost cause.
If you own a business and would like to see a bunch of people running around advertising for you every Saturday, you should email me. I know Maggie's looking for a skydiving sponsor but we're easier to read since we're not falling out of the sky!
So here's the part that sucks. We play year round (that's four seasons) and pay $500 each season for team registration. That's usually $50 dollars each that nobody really minds paying because it's so fun. The hard part is finding someone who's willing to put $500 on their credit card.
I think it's about time we found a sponsor. A lot of the teams we play are sponsored by bars or other businesses and we'd be happy to advertise for just about anyone if they covered some of the registration fee. I posted this ad on Craigslist in an effort to drum up interest in our plight. I don't think anyone in Cincinnati reads Craigslist, though, so it might be a lost cause.
If you own a business and would like to see a bunch of people running around advertising for you every Saturday, you should email me. I know Maggie's looking for a skydiving sponsor but we're easier to read since we're not falling out of the sky!
6.19.2005
Finished!
I'm proud to announce that my summer mix CD is finally done. I'll give you an idea of what's on it in the days to come. Until then, if you're someone I usually see every day I'm sure you'll get a copy soon. If you're someone I don't run across, you should email me with your address and perhaps I will send you a copy. It's just that easy.
6.16.2005
How to waste time
I know the internet was supposed to be used for important academic purposes, but look at what we've done to it. It's filled with porn, useless blogs (like this one) and dozens of other stupid ways to pass the hours. Yeah, I think that's pretty awesome, too. So here are a few sites that can help you with the time wasting you so desperately need to accomplish.
www.fetchfido.co.uk - Want to find a mindless game to play on your computer? Here you go!
www.ipodlounge.com - Everything you need to know about your iPod and its available accessories. And lots of stuff you don't need to know. I little anal but very informative.
www.mnftiu.cc - Who knew clip art could be so funny? All the snarky politics and belly laughs you've come to expect from the author of Get Your War On.
www.craigslist.org - I know you've heard of Craig's List. Right? It's and handy guide to urban life and the "best of" section gets updated every month or so. That's my favorite part to read.
www.gladwell.com - A great archive of just about everything Malcolm Gladwell's ever written.
www.alienlovespredator.com - An Odd Couple style comic strip featuring everyone's favorite scary monsters.
www.snopes.com - You really should have already been reading this page. In case you aren't, though, it's a great clearinghouse for all those urban legends and chain emails that seem to follow us around.
www.rtm86.com - The personal web site of a teenage guy in Texas. Check it out just for the cool way he uses photos to make links.
www.nytimes.com - I love the New York Times! I try to read it online on Sundays just so I can check out the Weddings and Celebrations page. It's an ostentatious ode to conspicuous consumption. When you're done reading that go to the blog listed below.
www.nytimesweddings.blogspot.com - No one has more fun with the weddings page than this guy. Read and laugh, repeat.
www.fetchfido.co.uk - Want to find a mindless game to play on your computer? Here you go!
www.ipodlounge.com - Everything you need to know about your iPod and its available accessories. And lots of stuff you don't need to know. I little anal but very informative.
www.mnftiu.cc - Who knew clip art could be so funny? All the snarky politics and belly laughs you've come to expect from the author of Get Your War On.
www.craigslist.org - I know you've heard of Craig's List. Right? It's and handy guide to urban life and the "best of" section gets updated every month or so. That's my favorite part to read.
www.gladwell.com - A great archive of just about everything Malcolm Gladwell's ever written.
www.alienlovespredator.com - An Odd Couple style comic strip featuring everyone's favorite scary monsters.
www.snopes.com - You really should have already been reading this page. In case you aren't, though, it's a great clearinghouse for all those urban legends and chain emails that seem to follow us around.
www.rtm86.com - The personal web site of a teenage guy in Texas. Check it out just for the cool way he uses photos to make links.
www.nytimes.com - I love the New York Times! I try to read it online on Sundays just so I can check out the Weddings and Celebrations page. It's an ostentatious ode to conspicuous consumption. When you're done reading that go to the blog listed below.
www.nytimesweddings.blogspot.com - No one has more fun with the weddings page than this guy. Read and laugh, repeat.
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