I’ve been blogging for over six years now and the process still amazes me. Such as I never quite anticipated that something I wrote would anger the people behind the BBVA Compass Bowl. For those wondering and who didn’t read the comment on the last post: BBVA is the second largest bank in Spain, a nation that will most likely have to declare bankruptcy in, oh, the next five minutes. So I will have to admit that a) BBVA is a real company, b) Compass is the name of the US bank they acquired and is not a reference to a deep seated, almost erotic, love of directional devices, c) I still question whether sponsoring a bowl game in Birmingham featuring Pitt and Kentucky is a good use of their marketing dollars and d) no one is questioning my statement that Dave Waanstadt is the worst coach who ever lived. As long as we all agree on the last point I am satisfied.
(Oh well, still not as bad as the comment from the person who disliked one of my music reviews. A review that I began by stating “As someone who attended a Weird Al show this year I cannot claim to have any taste in music whatsoever.”)
Well, it snowed in Philly on Thursday, which resulted in the end of the world. I am not kidding on this one. We received a dusting of snow (I don’t even think we had an inch total) and absolutely no one could drive anywhere. I know that this was the first snow of the year and that usually causes people to freak out but this was absolutely insane. It took me two hours to complete a drive that should take me at most forty five minutes. I spent about thirty minutes at a dead stop. Now if I lived somewhere that it didn’t typically snow I can understand it but we had three blizzards last year. Driving in snow is a rather common occurrence. I just wanted to lean out my car window and scream “Learn how to drive you morons!”
I did however finally deal with the fact that my car was telling me that I had low tire pressure. It did this through what is possibly the most useless sensor ever. Now while I am very happy to own a car that will tell me when one of my tires is low (especially as I think I had seven flat tires over the life of my old Grand Am) it does not bother to specify which tire. This makes things rather challenging as the light makes you freak out and then you get out of the car and have no idea which tire is low and then you are forced to search for a tire pressure gauge which could be avoided because obviously the car knows what my tire pressure is otherwise it wouldn’t be telling me I had low tire pressure. Still not as bad as the rental car I recently had that gave me a low fuel warning light because I went under a quarter of a tank. That is not technically being low on fuel; it is more like “you should probably gas up in the next couple of days.”
Best of 120 Minutes: I was trying to think of Christmas themed alternative rock songs and immediately my mind turned to A Very Special Christmas, probably the one holiday charity album that people owned because they actually liked the music. I’m going to go with two of my favorites from the album. Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” and U2’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”. Enjoy the awesomeness of Run DMC and the fun Rattle and Hum “everything is earnest” period of U2.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Luscious Jackson “Fever In Fever Out”
2) Terrance Simien “Zydeco on the Bayou”
3) Fleet Foxes “Fleet Foxes”
4) The New Pornographers “Together”
5) Jeff Buckley “Grace”
Showing posts with label U2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U2. Show all posts
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Monday, January 29, 2007
Our Communion Hymn is "Bullet the Blue Sky"
Stress dream from last night #1: Dreamt that I walked back to my car to find a guy breaking into it and stealing my stereo.
Stress dream from last night #2: Dreamt that I had a calculus test in a few days that I hadn’t studied for and between now and the test I had to fly to England and back to give a presentation.
Not quite sure why the second one stressed me out. I mean, I’d obviously would have a lot of dead time on the plane where my only other option would be to watch unfunny Jim Carrey films (not as if there is any other kind). That would give me plenty of time to study and run problems. Really don’t see much of a challenge there at all. Still, I find it interesting that even though it’s been three and a half years since I’ve been in school and more than a decade since I’ve had a test where I was worried about math problems that when I get stressed out my subconscious immediately sends me back to school.
(This does mark several weeks worth of stress dreams. I really need a vacation. Or sunlight. Either would be beneficial right about now.)
Saw this news article today and felt that it would be interesting to talk about. A church in England has decided to replace its normal hymns with U2 songs. Written like that it sounds like one of those bad Folger’s coffee commercials from the eighties. “We’ve replaced their normal hymns with songs by a sometimes bombastic rock band. Let’s see if the parishioners notice the difference.” Now, ignoring the whole fact that this is just a pretty transparent ploy to try to make church seem hip and interesting while not offering any real source of solace, there are some U2 songs that would really fit in here. Back in the early 80’s U2 was viewed as almost a Christian Rock band except that they had good songs. Gloria is religious in nature and 40 is based on Psalm 40 (and was an awesome set ender back in the day.) Toss in One and Beautiful Day and you’ve got a service.
Of course, I read this and think of what would be the worst possible U2 songs to use in church. “I Threw a Brick Through a Window” is probably not one you would want to use in a place with a lot of stained glass. “Elvis Presley and America” probably wouldn’t work given that I’ve listened to the song for twenty years and still couldn’t tell you what the hell it means. Personally, I would go with “Lemon” as the worst possible song if only because it would require the entire congregation to sing in a bad falsetto. That or anything from Pop, though that would be less religious and more pure torture.
I’ll end on a sad note. I would like to wish a fond farewell to Barbaro: Kentucky Derby winner, Deadspin’s 2006 SportsHuman of the Year, and beloved by women with inordinately large numbers of cats everywhere. I have never seen so much emotional attachment to a horse before. The Barbaro message board, which featured people writing get well messages to a horse that, unless I missed something, did not know how to read, is a sociology paper just waiting to be written. Still, he was a darn good racehorse. See you on the other side.
Stress dream from last night #2: Dreamt that I had a calculus test in a few days that I hadn’t studied for and between now and the test I had to fly to England and back to give a presentation.
Not quite sure why the second one stressed me out. I mean, I’d obviously would have a lot of dead time on the plane where my only other option would be to watch unfunny Jim Carrey films (not as if there is any other kind). That would give me plenty of time to study and run problems. Really don’t see much of a challenge there at all. Still, I find it interesting that even though it’s been three and a half years since I’ve been in school and more than a decade since I’ve had a test where I was worried about math problems that when I get stressed out my subconscious immediately sends me back to school.
(This does mark several weeks worth of stress dreams. I really need a vacation. Or sunlight. Either would be beneficial right about now.)
Saw this news article today and felt that it would be interesting to talk about. A church in England has decided to replace its normal hymns with U2 songs. Written like that it sounds like one of those bad Folger’s coffee commercials from the eighties. “We’ve replaced their normal hymns with songs by a sometimes bombastic rock band. Let’s see if the parishioners notice the difference.” Now, ignoring the whole fact that this is just a pretty transparent ploy to try to make church seem hip and interesting while not offering any real source of solace, there are some U2 songs that would really fit in here. Back in the early 80’s U2 was viewed as almost a Christian Rock band except that they had good songs. Gloria is religious in nature and 40 is based on Psalm 40 (and was an awesome set ender back in the day.) Toss in One and Beautiful Day and you’ve got a service.
Of course, I read this and think of what would be the worst possible U2 songs to use in church. “I Threw a Brick Through a Window” is probably not one you would want to use in a place with a lot of stained glass. “Elvis Presley and America” probably wouldn’t work given that I’ve listened to the song for twenty years and still couldn’t tell you what the hell it means. Personally, I would go with “Lemon” as the worst possible song if only because it would require the entire congregation to sing in a bad falsetto. That or anything from Pop, though that would be less religious and more pure torture.
I’ll end on a sad note. I would like to wish a fond farewell to Barbaro: Kentucky Derby winner, Deadspin’s 2006 SportsHuman of the Year, and beloved by women with inordinately large numbers of cats everywhere. I have never seen so much emotional attachment to a horse before. The Barbaro message board, which featured people writing get well messages to a horse that, unless I missed something, did not know how to read, is a sociology paper just waiting to be written. Still, he was a darn good racehorse. See you on the other side.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)