MY TOP 40 FOR 2008

In 2007, a bunch of the songs that made my Top 40 list weren’t released in 2007.  Somehow I’m actually catching up with the whole music thing and most of this year’s list is current music.  What isn’t, is music that I found when I’d hear an artist, fall in love and then listen to everything they’ve ever recorded.  Joseph Arthur is a good example of that. I’d never heard of the guy.  I listened to one song, went crazy and then found out he’d been recording for years and had tons of releases.

I’m not listing the albums these songs are from, that takes too much time (slacker).  And my wrists aren’t up to it (crippled).  Actually, if  I hadn’t started compiling this list a few weeks ago, it wouldn’t even be up now (slappled or crickled, take your pick).  Same goes for my Top Album list which I’ll post in a few days.

Most of these are on You Tube and you can click on the song to listen. They are in no particular order.  Enjoy some or all and let me know what you like.

Sex on Fire ~ Kings of Leon

True Love Way ~ Kings of Leon

Sometime Around Midnight~ Airborne Toxic Event

Innocence ~ Airborne Toxic Event

Wishing Well ~ Airborne Toxic Event

Own Your Own Home ~ Rogue Wave

Chicago x 12 ~ Rogue Wave

Burning for What ~ The Yelling

Paper Planes ~ M.I.A.

Time To Pretend ~ MGMT

Electric Feel ~ MGMT

Kids ~ MGMT

House of Cards ~ Radiohead

Can’t Exist ~Joseph Arthur

Devil’s Broom ~Joseph Arthur

Honey and the Moon ~ Joseph Arthur

White Winter Hymnal ~ Fleet Foxes

Mykonos~ Fleet Foxes

He Doesn’t Know Why ~ Fleet Foxes

Fine Young Cannibals ~ Wolf Parade

This Heart’s on Fire ~ Wolf Parade

Two Silver Trees ~ Calexico

Love is Noise ~ The Verve

Frame by Frame ~ The Honorary Title

Petals ~ The Honorary Title

Everything I Once Had ~ The Honorary Title

I Misunderstood ~ Richard Thompson

Human ~ The Killers

Spaceman ~ The Killers

Lover’s Day ~ TV on the Radio

Wolf Like Me ~ TV on the Radio

Geraldine ~ Glasvegas

Starlight ~ Muse

Supermassive Black Hole ~ Muse

Swimming in Your Ocean ~ Crash Test Dummies

Death ~ White Lies

Love In Our Hearts ~ Electric Touch

Saved ~ Electric Touch

Breakin’ ~ The Music

Sing the Changes ~ The Fireman (guess who this is before you look)

FROM THE HEART

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.

(It’s 10pm, my earliest Christmas Eve bedtime since I was in single digits.)

I wish you all the magic and wonder of a Blessed Christmas Holiday.

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BRRRRRR…TH DAYS

It’s cold here.  I’m sure it’s worse in lots of other places.  That’s all I have to say on the subject of the weather.

Here at our house, we’re getting ready to celebrate a couple of things.  One of course, is the Birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It’s important to me to keep this the center of our focus in this busy season.  PD calls it “Silly Season” due to the predominance of crazy things that people tend to do in the name of Christmas.  First and foremost (of those crazy things) being… and how do I say this…  To him it seems that lots of people decide to be nice and cordial and generous when they can’t seem to pull it off any other time during the year.  He has no time for these people and their transparent “good intentions.”  He figures, and I tend to agree with him whole-heartedly, that if they can’t be nice all year long, why pick this time of year to practice?  I swear to you, I work with a woman who only speaks to me in December.  She starts out slow in the first couple weeks with a casual “Hi” here and there.  And then, by geeze, the second week in she’s actually formulating sentences.  And man, oh man, Christmas week she literally oozes with chattiness.  Yes, it is disgusting.  I have discussed this with a couple of co-workers and the consensus seems to be, “Well, yeah, now that you mention it, she does the same with me!”   WTH?

Anyway, that’s all I have to say on the subject of Christmas Dorothy her.

The other celebration is that of the grandson, Julian’s, birthday.  Which not only falls on the same day as Jesus’,  but 1OO years to the day that my Grandfather (God rest his soul) was born.  (If that isn’t enough of a coolincidence, my cousin has a granddaughter who was born on the 100th anniversary of the birth of our Grandmother.  I kid you not.)

This Christmas Julian will be nine years old and he is the most awesome, interesting, handsome, articulate and talented 8-year-old that I know.  Heaven knows what another year will add to that!

So let’s wish a very Happy Birthday to Jesus and Julian.  🙂

My apologies to Jesus, as I do not have a current photo to share.

X + Y = -0.00

I’m over the ranting for now.  I only have to put in 24 hours at work this week and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let what’s-her-name get me all stressed out.  After Wednesday I won’t have to see her again until next year (Jan 5) and I will rejoice each and every second of those days away from work.

In case you might be curious as to the “state of affairs” at our house… 

If you’ve known me long, you know full well that I’ve honed the Art of Procrastination into a full-fledged science.  The beauty of that science lies in its vast potential for creativity and it’s penchant for flexibility. I’m not hemmed in by a set of rules or properties.  There is a sort of formula where the x and y and z values vary from moment to moment.  For example:

5x + (-2y) = 3z

If  x = wrapping presents

and y = the amount of time between dinner and bedtime, say, 2 hours or less

z could = anything from downloading mp3 files to playing Spider Solitaire.

(Being that I was born on Albert Einstein’s birthday, I was born with a talent for developing theories and have spent my entire life testing and proving them.)

So yeah, my tree is still naked.  A cookie has not been baked and I have about $500 worth of holiday purchases piled on the dining room table begging to be wrapped in tissue, stuffed in boxes and tied up with pretty bows.  But never fear, by the time Dec. 25 rolls around, I will have broken all my previous Solitaire records and have an entire new library on the iPod.

PRE-HOLIDAY RANT

Not in keeping with the spirit of The Season, let me get a little something off my chest and then we can get back on track and be all Yule-like and full of tidings of comfort and joy and stuff.

Step outside your pleasant self for a moment…  (C’mon, indulge me here for a second.)

Imagine that you’re at work in a large room with about 30 other people, most of them involved some way in their daily job.  Now…

Suppose you are annoying and very child-like in your need for constant attention.  Imagine babbling on and on about nothing of any consequence for hours upon hours each day.  Think what it would be like to never possess an original thought, much less convey one.  Speak instead in cliche’s.  Old, worn-out cliche’s.  And speak them loudly to no one in particular.  Concentrate on 3 to 5 unoriginal thoughts per day and repeat them as many times as necessary to insure that everyone in your general proximity hears and has the opportunity to comment on your unoriginality.  Each time a conversation (not involving you) originates in another part of the room, stop what you’re doing and wander over and start asking questions of the parties involved.  Keep doing that and don’t stop until you’ve completely overtaken the conversation to the point where, finally, it’s all about you.  Be oblivious to the fact that the aforementioned parties are all standing there, slack-jawed and stupefied.  Now trudge back to what you were doing in the first place, while tossing over your shoulder, “There I go, babbling again!”  and laugh obnoxiously.  Now start scanning the room for your next victim or victims.  When you see someone concentrating on something, anything… approach them and loudly announce, “Not to be nosy, but… and then pronounce something so inanely obvious that makes you sound not only ignorant but unbelievably so.  When the interruption causes the person to jump and blink and roll their eyes, say “I’m sorry, I was just asking.  Don’t mind me, I’m just nosy.”  And then traipse away.  Stop several times on your way back through to inspect items on other people’s desks and be sure to remind them also that you’re just being nosy.  When you get back to your desk, sit down and begin to act like you’re actually working and then realize that you need to discuss politics or religion or the price of yams with your supervisor.  Call out her name loudly.  When she doesn’t answer immediately, stand and call out her name even loudly-er until she acknowledges you and shout your reason for interrupting her.  When she comes to your desk, engage her in some sort of banter that will insure that none of your work gets done until it’s time for you to take a cigarette break.  Remind her at regular intervals that you will be needing a smoke soon.  When your break time comes, grab your cell phone and walk down the hall like a battleship slowly with ten or twelve people trying to pass you while you weave back and forth slowly as you text all your friends.  Or just call them and talk real loud so everyone around you can have an equal shot at learning all your new “business.”  When you get some perverted pictures or dirty jokes texted to you, see how many people you can share them with.  And then wonder why Linda is always headed in the opposite direction.  And why she answers your questions with “Uh, yeah.”  or “Uh, no.”   And why, while she seems polite enough, she always looks like she’s clenching her teeth…

Yeah, guys, I realize it’s the Holiday Season and we’re supposed to be all smiles and filled with The Spirit and all that.  But holey smokes, this gets old.  And what’s really sad?  If by some chance this woman were to come upon this post, she’d start reading and probly somewhere around line 5, she’d break out in a huge grin and proudly announce, “This is all about ME!”

I’d be willing to bet my lunch money on it.

Let the lectures begin.

WHAT AM I DOING?

Good question.  Besides working on finding my way around the new WordPress digs, you mean?  Well.  I’m sitting at the diningroom table in front of this machine but I’m looking around at an undecorated house, over at a huge mound of shopping bags, up at the clock and realizing that before I can go to bed and rest my weary, mall-abused bones, I’m going to have to haul the just-dried sheets out of the dryer and put them back on the bed.  After I ask dear PD to help me flip the mattress.  I can’t put that off any longer.  So I guess you could say I’m all over the place, figuratively speaking.  Need.  To.  Focus.   There is only so much one can cram into 24 hours.  You would think I would learn never to shop for Christmas without a list.  Not when you have a family the size of  mine.  If you know me at all you know that I’m as easily distracted as I am overwhelmed.  I better tend to those sheets.  Give me a few minutes, I’ll be back.

Okay.  Check a few more chores off that never-ending list. Focus. Harder.

Did I mention that we were in danger of not having a Christmas tree?  I should say a tree that fits in our living room.  You see, we have this beautiful tree that’s about eight feet tall and looks amazingly real.  It has graced our home and helped us celebrate Christmas since we bought our house in 1997.  And I just assumed that it always would.  Then, right before Easter we bought our new sectional furniture and monster chair.  And coffee table that rivals, in size, a twin bed.  I exaggerate, but only moderately.  Our beloved Christmas tree would never fit in our living room. So, to make a very long story (no, make that a 3-week-long saga) short, we searched and found and…finally today, purchased a smaller tree.  I don’t really want to go into the whole deal with the department store and how they screwed us like four times until PD finally black-mailed convinced the store manager to contact another store and tracked down the tree we wanted and actually sell it to us at the original sale price that we were promised 3 weeks ago.  (Not only was that a run-on sentence, I’m not even sure it’s a complete one but at this point, we don’t really care, do we?)  There is so very much more to the story but it’s not only unbelievable, it’s also boring. No, the store wasn’t Walmart.  And no, the tree doesn’t have a Martha Stewart tag on it.

So the tree is undecorated, but it’s up.  So there are no sheets on my bed, but the mattress is turned. I also noticed that I have a Holiday themed header up there but nowhere does it say that this is One Wink at a Time.

I gotta go focus.  Did you see the Moon tonight?

YOU CAN’T SIT ON MY LAP

Tell Santa what you would like for Christmas this year.  You can be all philosophical and philanthropic if you’d like, but it’s more fun to just be honest 😉

Me, I would like:

1. a stack of iTunes cards about four inches high
2. to fit into my skinny jeans
3. tickets to the Airborne Toxic Event show in March
4. a vacation
5. health and happiness for friends and family
6. and of course, world peace

* * * * * * this would have looked real pretty the whole way across, huh?

MADE YA LAUGH

Not sure why Julia Child popped into my head but I went on my BFF YouTube to find the video of Dan Akroyd doing his impression of her. Did you ever see it? Hilarious to say the least. Anyway, I couldn’t find it but I found this and it made me smile. So I thought it might make you smile too. Tell me your favorite Belushi thing. I think he was pretty entertaining. Can’t believe he’s been gone for almost 27 years! And it just occurred to me, John Lennon died 28 years ago today.  Sheesh.

Tribute to John Belushi

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Oh and another thing. Something touched my heart today. Actually, I believe that I touched something in someone and he touched me back.
Amazing how just speaking what’s inside you can do a loop and come back and make you smile.

THOUGHTS

So yesterday and last night we got a bunch of snow.  Enough that the roads are covered except for the tire tracks.  It’s bright and sunny out but cold enough that I doubt if there will be any meltage goin’ on.  PD just informed me that it’s 27 degrees and added, “Suh-weet! My kind of weather.”  Uh, yeah, his, not mine.

I flicked the news on when I got up to see what the weather would be today and Condoleezza Rice was being interviewed.  Should it bother me so much that an educated person in such a prestigious position would say “ec cetera” and “more crisper and clearer?”  I’m a stickler for proper grammar mostly and little things like this tend to irritate me.  But I had to laugh when one of the questions included the phrase (referring to a situation in which our government didn’t act as maybe it should have) “a failure of Intelligence.” *snicker*

Enough about that.  Except for a related topic.  Earlier in the week an anchor on one of our local news stations said “autustry,” referring to the auto industry.  I wonder if it was a misspeak or if that’s a new word.

On a totally unrelated topic, I’m terribly upset that I’ve been having problems with my wrists due to long hours on the job.  They’re hurting something fierce.  One of my favorite things to do this time of year is sending out Christmas cards.  I write out a ton of them, mostly to people I’m not in contact with through the rest of the year.  Some are relatives, some are teachers I’ve had, old neighbors… most are friends who have moved away and I don’t see often. Sometimes, if I’m pressed for time, I’ll compose a Christmas letter detailing events of the past year, updates on PD’s health, kids’ news, things like that.  But with the way my wrists are feeling, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it this year.  I feel like I have to “save” them for work.  Typing doesn’t seem to bother me too much, but I can’t see myself handwriting the envelopes.  If I were a more organized person with foresight, I’d have a labelling system in place and could just print out labels.  I don’t particularly care for that idea because it’s even more impersonal than sending a mass letter out, but if I had the time to make an address book on here, I would.  But I don’t.  So now there is one more reason to whine and complain about my job.  I hate that it affects other parts of my life.  My real life.

Sorry this was boring and whiny.  It’s my state of mind today.

4 YOUR ENTERTAINMENT

I’m working on my Best of 2008 Music post.  Hope to get that up by the end of the month.

Two of the songs I wanted to share with you today aren’t even on YouTube and that distresses me.  If you want to check them out elsewhere, they are Own Your Own Home by a great band, Rogue Wave and the other is Burning for What by The Yelling. You can listen to Burning for What here on their MySpace page.

From what I’ve heard, Burning for What is the only track I really like by the band, but that could change.  As for Rogue Wave, I haven’t heard anything from them that I don’t like to some degree.

My third choice is this, Geraldine by a band from Glasgow called Glasvegas. The quality of the vid isn’t great and I apologize for that.  Hope you like the song…  Lyrics here.

Geraldine – Glasvegas on jools 5/17/08