new music

i love when two things you like come together to form another thing you like. like for example, enrique iglesias and ping pong. everyone knows i have liked EI and his music for a long time. i also enjoy playing table tennis, although i havent played much recently. anyways, for those who havent heard it, i suggest you listen to Do You Know? by Enrique.

one of those guys you just know you dont like

the two main reasons that i never liked the band Creed was because of their music and because of their lead singer. luckily i hadn't heard anything about either in a long time until i read this.

quote of the day

"those pipes were especially wondrous"

I think that is excellent writing, although based on that quote you would probably never guess what this grammatical masterpiece (that also contains the words "crotch" and "sensibilities") is about. Too bad it didn't include the word moist. After Jewel, Christina A is probably one of my favorite female artists. I know it is often talked about these days, but remember years ago when she was in the huge shadow cast by B Spears?

In other entertainment news, I am reading this book and it is awesome.

interesting predictions courtesy of Dial Idol

Dial Idol predicts that Brandon and Nick will be voted off tomorrow. Based on what I saw, that would not be surprising [then again i have never voted on AI.] That site is pretty interesting though, users can upload the program and use it to speed dial votes via your modem. I guess the analysis it provides is based on the rate of busy signals... anyways, if you are nerdy and care to read about it you can find answers to most of your questions here.

If you want to know my opinion of last night, I liked Blake and Chris R the best. I thought Brandon was sort of weak (although he picked another awesome song, just not AI awesome) and Sanjaya was terrible. I think S-jaya has a good voice, but it is so awkward it's almost painful to watch when he sings. Chris S still looks like he belongs on The Family Guy, but he did alright. I just don't like him as much as others seem to. AJ seemed kind of female and diva-like the way he constantly moved his neck. I thought the bald guy Phil was good. Jared did well and sung another money song, but i think it was said that he lives at home with his parents, which he seems kind of old to be doing... Sundance was strong, but he was bad 5 times in a row, so eventually he had to do better. Finally Nick was average. I think SJaya and Nick should be bounced.

to the left, to the left...

I hear that new Beyonce song on the radio a lot, and everytime I notice the same thing:

I could have another you in a minute
Matter fact he’ll be here in a minute

It reminds me of an old Beastie Boys song (Pass the Mic):

Everybody’s rapping like it’s a commercial
Acting like life is a big commercial

I think it sounds bad when you have a song that has words that rhyme, and then you throw in one two-line verse that ends in the same word. I know there are many other songs that have similar conditions, these are just two that came to mind first.

It kind of reminds me of a first grader's poem-

School is very fun
At recess I like to run
Lunch time is neat
My swiss cake roll is sweet
Math is cool
First grade is cool

not what i expected

This is not what I expected Katharine McPhee's first album cover to look like. I am not saying I mind at all, I am just saying it doesn't seem to match the image she portrayed on American Idol last year... I think I remember her lying on the ground and singing barefoot saying that was how she was most comfortable.

I confess that I probably will buy the album, since she was my favorite contestant from last season (along with Pickler). Although part of me does feel like she is 'selling out' a bit. I always got the impression she was not trying to be a pop princess. I assumed that the songs she chose were the type of songs that she enjoyed singing.

That being said, I don’t really hold this against her. Were I in her shoes (or knee length leather boots in this case) I would probably sing whatever song I could to produce a popular record.

Serious Sirius

I recently got Sirius radio and felt obligated to post my thoughts on this product. Quite simply, it is awesome. I spend a fair amount of time in the car and I really enjoy having so many listening options. I would guess that in the last 2 weeks while listening to it (at least 14 hours probably more), I have listened to only about 5 or so complete songs. I am unable to stick with one song because I know on another station there is another great song, and I need to know what that song is. Journey, PC, Michael Jackson, Wham, etc. are never more than a scroll button away. I think Its almost like I have a personal assistant who has the soul task of thinking of random songs. The satisfaction is similar to playing the baseball player name game, needing a name that starts with L and coming up with Lee Tunnell...

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Updated

After posting that link I got really excited and found some other great links:

This guy may be related to a regular reader.
This guy was one of my favorite players in the 80s.
This and this are two of the few 80's players I don't remember.
Who hasn't heard of this guy?

Jewel Live

I think in the blogworld it is common to talk about music and to review stuff, and since I havent done much of either, I thought I would give it a shot.

I saw Jewel on Saturday night at the Hippodrome in Baltimore and I thought it was one of the best performances I have seen. It reminded me very much of the old MTV Unplugged concerts because on stage was only Jewel and a guitar. She casually asked the crowd for song requests, and told a bunch of funny stories that I thought really helped me get a feeling for the type of person that she is. Perhaps I enjoyed the concert so much because I like Jewel. I have all of her albums and even though I dont talk about it much, I really enjoy all of her music. I think I like that her lyrics are orignal and meaningful, but not always too serious. Oh, and she is hot and can sing quite well. I felt the other night at the concert many of her songs were more like a story than a song. I also appreciated that the performance was different than the music on her albums. One thing that bothers me at concerts is when singers perform songs exactly as I hear them on the radio. I go to a concert to be entertained, and sitting and watching a boring person sing a song I have heard many times does not entertain me. I was very entertained, in particular when she was yodelling as I have never heard.

So if you enjoy relaxing in a nice theatre listening to hot female vocalists with unique voices sing and tell stories, than I would recommend attending a Jewel concert.


Bonus thoughts:
The concert was especially awesome because I attended it with my brother-in-law. There were not that many guys at the concert, and of the men who were there most of them were with their wives/girlfriends. And then a small percentage of guys were there, perhaps on a date, with another man. I honestly think we were the only 2 straight men at the concert together.

Just some thoughts...

In middle school I had a teacher who called Wednesday’s Hump Day. At the time I thought it was hilarious because I thought any word that could be used to describe sex was funny. That was when I was about 12. Now I am 26 and I still feel the same way. I am physically unable to say the word box to a female and not crack up.
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I was checking up on some of my contributions on Wikipedia, and noticed that some new material has been added. I also got a companywide newsletter via email the other day and noticed some external links. I found it strange that all the links were to Wikipedia. I emailed the HR guy who writes the newsletter and asked him why he chose Wikipedia. He was unable to provide any good reason, and I just pointed out that those pages are editable. I am pretty sure he did not know that, which is why he was not hesitant to send a corporate email to thousands of people. I seriously considered going to the linked entry for ebay and editing the first sentence to say something about the guy.
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Due to some Country Music Awards, the Bachelor wasn’t on this week. If you missed any of the recent episodes check out the recaps.
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I have been hearing advertisements on the radio lately for HD Radio. I know very little about this product, but I assumed it meant High Definition Radio. After some brief wikipediation, I learned it actually means Hybrid Digital. Well that’s good to know I guess… in any case, I confirmed that it is a form of higher quality radio.

The problem with this concept for me is that I don’t really value sound quality that much when I am listening to the radio. If I wanted to listen to high quality music I would put in a CD. Pretty much the only time I listen to the radio is on my way to and from work. And my car, like most others, makes some noise while driving. Not to mention often times (much more than 50% of the time) I am driving with a passenger. I talk frequently and would usually rather chat it up than sit silently in the car listening to music. Unless maybe there were some powerful Josh Groban-style vocals on, in which case I would be singing along anyways (you are lying if say you can listen to You Raise Me Up and not want to belt it out along with him.) The only other times that I can think of using a radio is for background noise at a party or maybe while showering (if I had a shower radio.) Neither of these scenarios warrants me paying more for higher quality sound.

Which leads me to the other problem: HD Radio costs money. I need to go out and buy a new radio to listen. I am not a student of business but common sense tells me that sounds like a not sweet business model… take something that isn’t broke, reinvent it by adding features that are not valued by consumers, then hope they go out and pay money for it. I just have a hard time imagining it being successful. I don’t think your average consumer is going to out and buy a new radio. And if they did want to pay for radio they might consider satellite radio. So I think the best way for it to work would be to put the HD radios into all new home stereo receivers and cars. If eventually that became the standard and replaced normal style radios I might listen. But I wouldn’t go out and specifically trade my cash money for a HD Radio.

I know what you are thinking… what about HDTV? In my opinion that is not exactly the same thing. It is true that the shaky business model is the same, adding an unnecessary feature to an already good product and raising the price. But I think that people value watching TV much more than they do listening to the radio. They do it more and it gives them more enjoyment, so they are willing to pay more for it.

Note: I have never listened to HD Radio, so I could be totally wrong. Let me know if that is the case.