So much for love.
A 40 degree, sunny afternoon decapitated my snowman.
Monthly Archives: February 2005
Snowman of Love
Yesterday’s rain turned into snow overnight and we had a good three inches or so this morning. As I was shoveling the driveway I realized the wet, sticky snow was prime packing snow. So I invented a new way of clearing the driveway: rolling snowballs. I made a snowman on the hill in front of my house (pictured to the right), which was my masterpiece. Later in the morning I made three more in the backyard just for kicks. A tall one in front of the garage and two smaller ones. The sun’s already out and the snow’s melting pretty quickly, so I don’t expect them to last long. But hey, snowmen. I haven’t done this in a long time.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Grammys: Lifetime Achievement
I’m watching the Grammy’s tonight (Why? Not sure. Missed U2’s performance, though I did enjoy Green Day) and I’m wondering how many lifetime achievement awards they’re going to give out. Every few minutes they’re dropping another one. I’m expecting to get mine any minute now.
Yeah, looks like I’m watching the Grammy’s and blogging a bit.
Right now some guy (Anthony LaPaglia) is introducing the All Star Tsunami Song–sheesh. This guy can’t read a teleprompter to save his life. Is it that hard to memorize what you’re going to say? You can buy the song on iTunes tonight? Cheese-o-rific, but that’s pretty cool (let’s see how long it takes them to put it up. As of 10:27 CT it’s still in production). These all star things are so hilarious. Who’s the old guy? And look, it’s Slash! And go Bono, leading the back-up vocals so we can be sure to hear you.
Norah Jones: “That’s still a great song.” You mean even though that crowd just butchered it?
And what was up with U2’s acceptance speech for “Vertigo”? Anybody know what Larry was talking about with the band almost not performing tonight or for the rest of the year? (UPDATE: “The band’s guitarist, the Edge, dedicated the latter award to his young daughter, Sian, who is reportedly suffering from leukaemia, although the band had not commented on the matter.” from Reuters — sounds like that may be the reason.)
Looks like someone tried to take a bite out of Sheryl Crow.
All I have to say about the Best Album of the Year award is thank goodness we didn’t have to watch Kanye West accept another award.
The Media Drop has some nice Grammy blogging.
Baby Names
In honor of Gabriel Isaiah Johnson, who’s about 26 hours old right now, I present the Baby Name Wizard. It charts the popularity of first names over the last century. As you type in a name you can watch the graph climb.
Selling out U2
Along with the big splash of U2’s new album last year came plenty of complaints about the band selling out. The complaints range from the type music (too commercial), to their appearance in the iPod commercial (sell out!), to licensing their songs, to the recent ticket debacle. This Chicago Tribune article covers most of the complaints from disgruntled U2 fans.
Now I’m a U2 nut (in case you haven’t noticed) and probably rather biased, but I still don’t get all this complaining. The ticket stuff I understand–they screwed things up and should have a better system. Though I don’t understand how that makes them a bunch of sell outs.
But all the other complaints just amaze me. They’re taking all these steps to get their music out there and be heard, and they just get slammed for it. As if licensing songs–making money from the work you did–is a bad thing. The band has a big ego (OK, Bono has a big ego) and they want to be heard. They don’t want to play music to their dying fans on some unending reunion tour. They want to make fresh music and be heard by new ears. I don’t see how that’s a horrible thing. It’s not like we’ve seen the U2 rap album (or worship album for that matter). It’s not like they’re appearing on TRL and trying to rock it with the youngsters.
Quit your bellyaching, people. It reminds me of the folks who piss and moan when 89.3 plays a U2 song: “Oh, they’re too commercial!” Grow up.
FOX Kills NASCAR
Disclaimer: I doubt many of my readers are NASCAR fans, so I’ll try to keep this short.
Last night I watched the opening event of the NASCAR year, the Bud Shootout. It’s basically a short race (70 laps) with 20 of the series stars (drivers are eligible if they’ve won a pole position the previous year). It’s not for points, so it’s usually lots of fast, no-holds barred action. It was a good race last night, but what I absolutely cannot stand is NASCAR on FOX.
Last fall I watched a lot of NASCAR and I’d gotten used to NBC’s coverage. But FOX covers the first half of the season, so Darrell Waltrip and the other horrid announcers were back. I’ll admit that NASCAR has a southern hick image, but it’s quickly fading–though no thanks to folks like Waltrip, who when the green flag drops shouts “Boogety, boogety, boogety!” What the hell is that?! And it just got worse from there.
Maybe it was a bad night. After all, it was their first broadcast in seven months. But it couldn’t have been just rustiness. They were full of hick sayings, bad metaphors, inane comments and just plain poor coverage. NBC had cool graphics to explain how all these technical things worked–Waltrip just told old stories. If it continues like this, I’ll have to spend my Sunday afternoons doing something else.
All of which is sad for NASCAR, which makes an international debut of sorts this year when the Busch series heads to Mexico.
$15 Musical Odyssey
Since I’ve been listening to 89.3 The Current (best radio station ever) I’ve been discovering all sorts of new music. At one point last week I couldn’t take it anymore and decided I must purchase said rock. I had $5 cash and a quick trip to Cheapo delivered $10 more. Not enough to buy the three albums I lusted for, but never fear, iTunes is here. With $15, iTunes and the insight of 89.3 I expanded my musical horizons. Join me for a musical journey of my purchased singles…
Billy Graham Fires Lesbian
So tonight I was writing a Church Marketing Sucks entry about my former employer, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (nothing ground-breaking, I just noticed they were preaching to the choir with their online advertising), and I came across this news item from October 2004: Minnesota Upholds Billy Graham Firing of Lesbian Sara Thorson.
Shocking stuff, even in such a brief story. You can get more thorough articles from the Pioneer Press, Gay City News or WorldWide Religious News.
Basically, Sara Thorson was fired from the BGEA in 2002 after coworkers saw her kissing another woman in the parking lot. Thorson worked in bulk mail processing and had nothing to do with the organization’s evangelistic mission. According to court documents, she had worked at the BGEA since 1971. Regardless, she was fired.
“Oh, shit. It’s Petra.”
GQ (yeah, that GQ) covers the Christian rock fest Creation in long, hilarious style. It’s written by one of those liberal, going to hell, media types who James Dobson likes to accuse of undermining America’s youth. He also failed as a backstage counselor at a Petra concert in 1988.
It’s long, but a good read. (via F*i*F)
Airy Melodic Rock
Last night I picked up the much-anticipated debut CD from Eisley, Room Noises. It’s a lot of airy, breathy, melodic rock from a bunch of Texas siblings and their neighbor. And they’re all somewhere in their teens–the youngest one started writing songs when she was 8 (and they were better than everyone else’s attempts at writing–so they let her in the band).
It reminds me a lot of the late, great Sixpence None the Richer, only with more Leigh Nash-style vocals and lots of harmonizing.
The sad thing is that iTunes only has a partial album, comprising one song–the same song that’s available on two of the band’s previous three EPs, which are all available in their entirety on iTunes. Bah.