Another Regrettable purchase!!

I woke up this morning and was listening to NPR Morning Edition. They were celebrating a Boy Scouts of America Anniversary. As part of the recognition they interviewed Eagle Scout extraordinaire Jon Heder. He stared in Napoleon Dynamite which features a pivotal dance scene that features Jamiroquai's song Canned Heat. The NPR story was closed with a sample of the song. The Host identified the song by artist and title. This put me in the mood to go buy the song. I logged into my Amazon account bought the song and thought....

You know what would be another equally guilty pleasure? If I bought the Dee-lite song Grove is in the heart. So I search for the song which generates a long list of possibilities (without cover art) and I purchase what I perceived to simply be the LP version of the song. The screen that gives you a final chance to change your mind also doesn't show the album art work so I click continue and leave the computer to do it's thing. When I come back there is a very strange thing on the confirmation screen....

I see the word PRIDE in rainbow colors with the "I" replaced by a pink male figure. I thought that's strange why would there be an ad for something like that on this page. That was only for a brief second. I realized my mistake and I sorted my iTunes and there it was in all it's splendor. I realize that the song is weird and could in itself be considered suspect but I really just find it amusing. I certainly never intended it to make any sort of statement. So I quickly altered it to look like my intended purchase.

I replaced the cover art to that belonging to the original LP. I changed the album title, track number and release date to match. Over reacting? Perhaps?! I realize that most people would only see the cover art.... and that there is at least one marker that remains. It is the most crucial one. In the info section of the file the comments contain the Amazon song ID. Again I can probably safely delete it and no one is going to come to my house and pull that up or even know that it means anything but..... that's not the only place it will appear.....

It also appears on my Amazon purchase history from which the marketing geniuses will be making recommendations for future purchases. This happens instantaneously. So far I can't pull it up on the list of purchases where I can mark the item as not for use in recommendations.

A music stream featuring the aforementioned songs will be soon to come.

I got What I paid for

I just received a package full of colored ink. I bought them online because I could get 3 for the price of one. I had already changed my black ink with the same company and method. I've spent 3 hours and opened two yellow cartridges in trying to get one to stay in. I failed miserably. So now tomorrow I'll go to class and I won't have done my homework. I had to put in the old empty cartridge and so I still can't print in color. It makes the entire purchase useless .... Oh if that were not enough I will also be arriving with ink stained hands

The line between Opera and Musical

This weekend I had a once in a life time experience. I don't mean to suggest that it was that fantastic; I mean quite the opposite. I went to see Carmen at the Capitol Theater this past Friday. The performance was really very good. The part of the experience I don't intend to ever repeat is having gone alone. I think that the experience would have been near perfect if I hadn't spent 3 fifteen minute intermissions in near complete silence. With the exception of saying "your welcome" to each person who thanked me for standing and allowing them to pass through the isle I said nothing. While each intermission is necessary in order to change the stage setting It made the whole experience seem far too long. If 3 breaks were not enough the final act was preceded by a shorter intermission in which the house lights were not turned on and the superscript screen read pause. The final scene was shorter than the time spent sitting in the dark. That's probably the straw that broke the camel's back.

I wanted to see Carmen because I'd passed up the chance to attend with my French class about 7 years ago. I watched a video recording of a performance instead. One of the things I noticed was that I was actually familiar with a lot of the music. How I became previously acquainted with it is still a mystery. There were significant differences between the live and video versions. I'm convinced that the video was just a grouping of highlights because I don't remember the video having such a complete narrative as the Capitol Theater performance. An important difference may have been that the video only included singing and the performance included bits of dialogue. There seemed to be more scenes with lot more singing too.

So as I was walking to the train stop at about 10:45 pm I realized how absolutely absurd the singing is. If all you had were the english superscripts you'd just laugh. You get a chorus like tell us who loves us tell us who betrays us.... over and over again and every illusion starts to fall apart And if it weren't in French and performed with bravado it would be an overwrought musical. I'm not dismissing the genre all together but I'll carefully consider ever spending that much time with a piece of music. Next time I'm definitely bringing a date.

Old Man's New Years Eve

I was asked to help chaperone the Regional Youth New Year's Eve Dance and I should have given just about any reason not to be there. I suggested to my fellow chaperones that the next time such an opportunity arose I was pretty certain I'd be too busy donating a kidney. The only thing that could have made the 3 hours any more excruciating would have been if I was of age were expected to dance. I'm not writing this post to comment on the kids dancing they had fun and that's all that matters.... Still I can't not comment about the music. I love music and I listen every chance I get. Except that most of the music I buy these days I hear on NPR the BBC or I find it online. Despite my almost complete abandon of commercial radio I thought that I was somewhat aware of the music scene and I'd even thought I could guess some of the songs they'd play......

I wasn't completely wrong I did recognize in a very cursory way Milley Cyrus' Party in the USA and I believe I heard Taylor Swift as well. I wasn't looking forward to either one but I knew they would be played. Still I held out against hope that they'd play other things I might enjoy. What that could possibly have been I couldn't say. Let me mention just a few other songs so you can get an idea what the music was like.

1.The first song I could Identify was Surfin' USA - The Beach Boys 1963
I'm certain these kids didn't have parents old enough to have danced this song at the time it was first released. They still danced though so I guess that's alright. They played another oldie which I can't recall but no one danced to it so I'm not sure who they played it for.

2. Another dishonorable mention: La Macarena- Los del Rio 1995
The oldest kid in the room was probably born in 1992 and would have been 3 at the time this was released. I'm pretty sure their parents weren't dancing to this one either. Except maybe at a baseball game......They need to retire this song. The kids did great with the line-dancing and the electric slide but with this one they all spun around in different directions and it didn't look all that fun.

3. For the most part the music was really hard to hear. I guess that's how they got away with playing: Watcha Say- Jason Derulo 2009 which is apparently about infidelity. I had to search for the song online based on hmmmm what you say...... which is the chorus and among the few lyrics I could make out at the dance! This among a few other songs made me realize that it didn't really matter what was playing all that mattered was the beat.... forget about lyrics, or rhythm...... or ... never mind!

4. Y.M.C.A - The village People 1978. I swear I've heard this song at everything that was ever called a dance, reception, or sporting event. This truly has become ingrained into the fiber of American culture... What more can I say?!

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Dear Santa,

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I'm a huge Weezer Fan I've seen them live three times and own all of their albums. I would like nothing better than The Snuggie Safari Package for Christmas. I know this is an expensive package but I really want the deluxe version of the album because the bonus CD on the red album was really cool. I know the CD can be bought for a lot less without the Zebra Weezer snuggie.... and if It weren't a Weezer snuggie I wouldn't even want it. After all it's a backward bathrobe without a belt.... I probably won't use it all that often... In fact I'll just answer the door in it to scare sales people away! I don't know it's really silly but it would bring the biggest smile to my face this holiday season.

$50 Buy Now + Shipping & Handling

"Snuggie Safari" Package You Get... RADITUDE DELUXE CD (tracklist below) PHOTO BOOK WITH LIVE SHOTS (5x5 booklet with 50+ exclusive live and studio photos taken by Karl) + Immediate download of Digital Photos EXCLUSIVE ZEBRA PRINT WEEZER SNUGGIE Tracklist (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To I'm Your Daddy The Girl Got Hot Can't Stop Partying (Polow version) Put Me Back Together (Rich costy mix) Trippin' Down The Freeway Love Is The Answer Let It All Hang Out In The Mall I Don't Want To Let You Go Get Me Some Run Over By A Truck The Prettiest Girl In the Whole Wide World The Underdogs <

Just What I'd always feared

This weekend I finally gave in to the urge to get a tattoo and here it is....



Sure enough I woke up today looked at my arm and wondered what in the world could I have been thinking.