Friday, April 28, 2006

Bottom 10

Ok, I'll do the opposite of yesterday. I'll take my lowest rated songs and click shuffle. I'll skip the audio books and songs that have a low rating because of replicaiton in my collection. Here they are:

No One - Quasi
Make Me Laugh - Anthrax
Let It Be - The Beatles
Society's Victim - Discharge
El Condor Pasa - Simon and that Other Guy
Dance Little Sister - Rolling Stones
The Greatest - Kenny Rogers
Talkin' Blue - Bob Marley
Surfin' Cow - Dead Milkmen
Revolution 1 - The Beatles.

NO! I don't like the Beatles.

Now Sweat Caroline is playing!

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Random 10

So here's my Random 10 this morning:

A Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash
Sun Hits the Sky - Supergrass
Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam - Vaselines
We Got The Beat - Go-Go's
S.O.F.T. - Elastica
My Hometown - Bruce Springsteen
Don't Look Now - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
Hummingbird - Wilco
Swing It Low - Morphine

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Death of the Party

My friend stopped by with his new Honda motorcycle. He was pretty excited about it. He asked if I wanted to come tonight to a pharmacy school party (his wife is finishing pharmacy school). I asked if there would be any cute girls there. He had one in mind, so I signed on the dotted line.

I showed up and found them sulking at least five feet from the nearest group. We moved to a more out of the way place to get acutal seats. I asked if --- was there and they said she was in La Crosse. Pisser. They said they felt out of place and wouldn't mingle. After finishing my Spotted Cow, I reached for the free beer on the table: Miller Light. I don't know if that transformed me or if I thought that if I was going to sit around, I wasn't going to let everyone else boogie down. That's when I dove into the world that has sustained me ever since I requested "Love Stinks" at a wedding reception: Music.

Strange thing was, these mid-twenty and younger people were not aware when the music they were playing was on the radio..... in sincerity. White Snake. Skid Row. Motely Crue. Bon Jovi. I couldn't let these little white girls shake their asses and these Ambercrombie guys swallow barley water while I had to sit in a corner.

I threw $5 into the mp3 juke box to kill the party.

I was still thumbing through the list to fill my 13 credits when my first came on: Kenny Roger's "The Gambler". I had used two credits to play it immediately. It was still playing when I made it back to my friends and I found that these kids who had been born AFTER this tv movie was huge knew the song. They sang along. Still, the ass shaking and beer swilling was down a little. My next immediate play scored big. "Touch of Grey" mired these twits in a daze. They didn't know it and couldn't automatically dance to it.

Another song, requested before I took over, played, but I was delighted to know that my next 9 songs were next. First on the list was "Mrs. Robinson", which probably wasn't the wise choice as they all knew it. Still, it chilled the crowed some. Then "Cicelia" popped up and got some excited, but it didn't match the hard beat of "Girls Girls Girls". The next one scored big: "Three Times a Lady". None of them knew what to make of it. The roar turned into a million murmurs and I could actually hear my friends talking. That song was followed by the organizer of the party thanking everyone for coming out. By then, I had people leaving.

Next up: "Optimistic". While a great song, it's not a great dance/bar song. Again, these kids seemed a little lost. Masterfully, I followed that with "Time" from Dark Side of the Moon. The din quieted more. My friend ended up interrupting my set with a Ramones song. Considering a lot of Ramones songs sound alike and the bar was still a bit noisy, I didn't know what he had played. You think the up tempo of the song would get asses shaking, given the swtich from Lionel Ritchie to CBGB's finest, but I don't think Tyler and Taylor quite understand the Ramones.

"Man of Constant Sorrow" was the next song and I'll give credit to two girls who tried to dance to it. Then came "Love Hurts" as recorded by Nazareth. My pharmacy friend told me not to let anyone know it was her friend doing this. Evidently, the pharmacy world in this town is a small one and can be a bit spitefull. By the time a Toby Keith song (bad misjudgement on my part; mia culpa) rang out, my friends were grabbing their keys and walking to the door. The bar that had been full when I kicked out "The Gambler" was now 2/3 empty.

Mission accomplished.

Sunday, April 2, 2006

A Little Bit Better

Right now, I'm listening to Blondie with my feet up on the tv stand, blogging on my new Mac Mini, and converting my new Echo and the Bunnymen boxset from restricted play to unrestricted play. Simply put, things have improved in the last couple of weeks from what they were, what with my crappy back, the asthma, ticks, stress, etc. Just another batch of shit to gut through. That happens every so often.

My running is a little impeded since my right knee is not what it should be from all the years when I used to run. I'm also working out the last of the kinks in my lower back. I could use a massage, but I do have acupuncture tomorrow.

On other random news, the new grocery store is open on the north east side. I stopped there on Friday to get water for Steve's Devil Monkey, or more commonly called absinthe. It's well laid out and not overwhelming like most supermarkets. Plus people there know how to operate grocery carts as carts, not road blocks as you figure out what kind of mustard goes well with the pinto beans in your basket. I stopped there again today and picked up some sushi. It was good stuff.

I have no other random news, so I'll continue obsessing over my music collection.

Tuss!

Down the Road with Linux

About a week ago my System76 computer arrived at my doorstep. I'm getting a bit fed up with the graft and bloat of Big Tech, so I'm...