Saturday, May 23, 2009

Re: covers

To find lists of covers, you might want to check iTunes' iMixes. If you search for "covers", a bunch of user-made playlists of covers comes up and they've been rated by others, so (maybe) it's easy to find good lists.


Here's one example:

Cover Songs

My comment on the Kate Bush topic got me thinking about obession with cover songs. I'm a sucker for them. I look over and over for covers of my favorite songs, no matter the era or style. My ipod is loaded with them - for some songs (i.e. The Smiths "How Soon is Now"), I may have 4 or 5 versions by different artists. Since I've asked for help for new artists/songs to rotate onto my ipod, I'll now ask for cover songs. I'll take any and all suggestions.

Just as a sample, here is a list of my favorites:

I Feel Love - Blue Man Group
Making Plans for Nigel - Nouvelle Vague
Shake the Disease - Hooverphonic
Hurt - Johnny Cash
The National Anthem - Me'Shell Ndegeocella
Straight Out of Compton - Nina Gordon
Running Up That Hill - Placebo **
How Soon is Now - Snake River Conspiracy
Lovesong - Snake River Conspiracy
Human Behavior - The Decemberists
Cinnamon Girl - Type O Negative


** On a side note, Placebo is my new (for me ) discovery. I listen to KEXP (from Seattle - University of Washington station) over the 'net all the time and that is where I heard them for the first time. And of their stuff I've heard so far, "Pure Morning" is high on the LJ chart right now... #1 with a bullet!!

Muslim organizations condemning terror tactics

One of the rallying cries from those who would seek to stoke us-versus-them sentiments is that there is no condemnation by Muslim organizations of terror activities. In fact, the problem is that their messages of peace are simply not carried by the main stream press. From Amy Eilberg at the Strib:
She [Dr. Ingrid Mattson, leader of the Islamic Society of North America] was way ahead of me [by issuing a statement condemning the violent plot of the four thugs in NYC], and so were many other Muslim leaders. By the end of the day, I had received notice of several press releases, including from the Islamic Society of North America, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Muslims for Progressive Values, a press conference planned jointly by Muslim and Jewish leaders in New York City, and multiple expressions of concern from friends and colleagues in the Muslim community in the Twin Cities. There were eloquent statements about the utter incompatibility of acts of violence with Islam, expressions of deep solidarity with the Jewish community, and prayers for the healing of the madness in our world that gives rise to violence.
Conflict sells papers; peace and solidarity do not.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Rolling the Ball..watch my soft spot

One more, er, "homage" to the 80s: Kate Bush.

Mom fell today...

while on her regular Friday morning garage sale excursion. She is spending the night in the hospital and one sister is there now and another is on the way. She has had a cat scan of head and x-rays of shoulder and hip.

I spoke to her about 30 minutes ago and she seemed in good spirits. She thinks her hip is OK but now thinks the tailbone might be hurt. Said she wouldn't be surprised if shoulder or arm were broken. Sister reports mom's going to have nasty black eye.

I'm actually somewhat mad at her because she fell while hurrying to her car in flip-flops to get out of the rain so her hair wouldn't fall. She always carries a plastic grocery bag to put over her head during those unexpected showers. (I always had to open the recently run dishwashers so that she could avoid the steam in her hair.)

Those flip-flops are getting tossed...I don't care how many pairs or how much they cost.

We'll know all the results tomorrow when her doc makes his rounds in the morning.

Nothing has been quite right

since this day in 1992.

Since I'm lately only interested in pop culture...

Can someone tell me where else I've seen the staircase/balcony that's in this video?

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Romeo Void--Never Say Never

Lileks today:

At least the song was followed by Romeo Void - there’s a perfect 80s band name. The lead singer is 55 years old this year. [I might ] like you better if we napped together.

Ah, the 80s.

Update: The vid.

Update II: Of course, I'd prefer to nap with Candy. In fact, I Want Candy.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

America didn't like this

Use your good speakers and turn it UP:


Update: OK. I take it back. America liked him enough to get him to the final 2. Out of 100,000. That makes me a little less mad at America.

LJ called it

As LJ predicted, Adam didn't win Idol. But we did get to hear him sing Queen tonight, with Brian May no less.

Weird weather in Minneapolis

This would be normal for North Dakota in July, but is just completely bizarre for Minneapolis. It's rarely windy here; humidity is typically high from now until fall; and it's never 94 in May.

No "boundaries" in lyrics

The Idol finale was last night and, per custom, the contestants had to sing a god awful original song. This year it was "No Boundaries" penned by new judge Kara DioGuardi. As Adam put it, "It had a lot of lyric." Understatement. Writing the word "boundaries" in lyrics should cost you your membership in the Songwriters Guild.

Re: Growing in Office

I missed this yesterday but Ms. Dowd sees things a little differently.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Today's This Day in History just for LJ

The beheading of Anne Boleyn.

The best news of November 4, 2008, and somehow I missed it

A friend of mine (neighbor of M&T) wrote last week concerning a real property matter in Henderson County, Texas, of which my hometown Athens is the county seat.

She wrote back to let me know that the neighboring town of Malakoff (about 10 miles west of Athens and where her property is) had gone somewhat wet: beer and wine retail sales and by the drink liquor in restaurants.

Per the Athens Daily Review the vote was perilously close:

Opponents of the proposition allowing the sale of beer and wine for off premise consumption are not likely to contest its successful passage, First Baptist Church of Malakoff Pastor Nathan Lorick said Thursday. The measure passed by a margin of 331-316 [emph. mine!] on Nov. 4.

Thank heavens, now Mom won’t have to drive all the way (20 miles) to Gun Barrel City to get her box of rosé.

Ida


When I first saw this photo of Ida, with nothing in the photo to give a clue about its size, I thought that it was huge and that the photo was taken from a satellite. But no, she's the size of a small cat.

Growing in Office

I think I expressed somewhere on this site last summer or fall a fear that President Obama might end up just being a marionette of Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid. Stephanie told me I was all wet though I’m sure she used kinder language to the effect of, “Wait and see, I think you’ll be surprised.”

I’ve been slowly coming to the hopeful realization that I may have been dead wrong at least on the defense/War on Terror front. (I won’t yet say foreign policy because I’m not yet convinced the President won’t take us down a protectionist path. I am also worried to death about Israel though I’m not really sure there is anything to be done on that front as long as we’re tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m certainly not there on the domestic front—and I do blame President Bush for setting the terrible precedent last fall.)

VDH (his Works and Days site is shown on the right) has been all over this for months. I haven’t posted about this as I wanted to see whether any patterns were emerging. I’m beginning to think there are. The reversal on the release of the prisoner interrogation photos being the most recent though the President could really end all discussion by executive order under FOIA if his critics are correct.

Michael Barone seems to be coming to the same conclusion. From JWR today:

I choose to believe the non-cynical explanation. As commander in chief, Obama looks soldiers and CIA personnel in the eyes and shakes their hands, knowing that some of them might die following his orders. It's a terrible responsibility. Look at how the presidency aged Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — or Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Listen to Roosevelt's D-Day radio broadcast that in its entirety is a prayer (think of the uproar if Bush had done that!), in which his voice is almost cracking. He knew that thousands of Americans following his orders would die, as more did in the next few days than have in six years in Iraq.

I believe Obama is taking this responsibility seriously. And in doing so he has found himself not indicting but validating the decisions his predecessor took, and any conscientious executive would have taken, to protect the nation.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Adam Lambert is aural crack to me

Bear? Age 19.2 months

From dshort.com as of the end of the day on Friday, May 15:

Cross one off my bucket list

I've always had a desire to experience this and until yesterday, never had. To say it was weird would be an understatement.

We've been having our a/c's replaced and the guy was working in the attic yesterday morning. After he left, I was on the computer in our "office" when all of a sudden, I heard a "BOOM" noise and the foundation of the house felt like it was moving, along with what I thought was the furnace or something in the attic falling or crashing. It lasted about 5-10 seconds. I went outside to look around and didn't see anything. Went into the attic and looked around and nothing looked out-of-place. It was raining at the time, so no one was out looking around or anything. I had no idea what had happened until I read the paper this morning.

To me the strangest part of it was the "BOOM" noise. I've heard sonic booms many times, the last one was actually the Space Shuttle Columbia when it came over the DFW area as during it's ill-fated re-entry. That was a different type of BOOM - the windows in our house sorta rattled a bit. The BOOM yesterday didn't effect the windows - I guess the difference being that the Columbia book was airborne while the one yesterday was underground.

The city of Euless is right next to where we live, so the epicenter had to be very close to us. I think I'm going to go get a T-shirt made that says "I survived the Great DFW earthquake of '09".