Tag: list

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Checked Out: Week 1

Yes, I checked these out.

Okay, so admittedly I’m a book addict. I can’t help it. About this time last year I decided I was going to stop frequenting the library, that the number of books we own that I hadn’t read had gotten so huge that I would instead focus on them.

Two weeks later I was back at the library checking out an armload of books and breathing a huge sigh of relief. I know there are worse things to be addicted to (a lot worse), but I think I know now how crack addicts feel when they’re going through withdrawal. It wasn’t even like the books here at the house aren’t adequate, either. It’s just that I *knew* there were so many more out there, and I had to get my hands on them.

So, this year I’m not even pretending to be a good boy and read just the books here. Sure, I will sprinkle them in here and there, but I’m not going through that whole thing again. In fact, I’ve decided to use some space here to tell you about the books I currently have out from the library each week (they honestly do change from week to week). Maybe you’ll even want to read some of them, and perhaps I won’t even end up reading all of them myself, but at least for right now they’re in the queue, and sitting snugly on the bookshelf in my corner of the living room.

Here’s what I’ve Checked Out this week:

1. Innocence, by Dean Koontz

So, one of my favorite authors writes a book and I immediately seek out libraries hoping to get my grubby hands on it. Sound familiar? Oh, and did I mention that it’s our book club‘s book of the month for January, too? It means even if it wasn’t something I wanted to enjoy myself, now I have to get it done too. Continue reading “Checked Out: Week 1”

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Friday Top 5: Songs of 2013

If you know anything about me at all you probably know that I love music more than almost everything else. When I was 10 years old I heard U2’s “Bad” on the radio and I became fascinated with the nuance of the song. That translated into listening to the radio anytime I could get my hands on it, and when my mother wasn’t railing against secular music. I used to put a tape in the player, turn the sound all the way down, and let it record whichever radio station happened to be on for 45 minutes. Then I would turn it over and record for the next 45 minutes. That’s how I found songs like “Shout,” by Tears for Fears, and “Love is a Battlefield,” by Pat Benatar, and a host of other dynamic songs I would have never heard otherwise.

At the end of every year since then I’ve made my own list of my own top songs from that year. And I don’t care if absolutely no one else heard the songs or cared for them. It’s all about my own tastes. I have two rules, though, for a song to count. It had to be released in that calendar year, and it couldn’t be from my top 2 artists, even if they had released music in that calendar year. That second one was because usually they would take all the top spots, and I wanted to compile a list that was varied. So, without further ado, here are my top 5 songs of 2013*:

5. Say Something – A Great Big World (feat. Christina Aguilera)

“Say something. I’m giving up on you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you. Anywhere, I would have followed you. Say something. I’m giving up on you.” I never would have heard this song if not for singing shows like The Voice and The X Factor, where the original artists came on to sing (on The Voice), and the song was covered brilliantly (on The X Factor, by Alex and Sierra). But I have loved its haunting melody from the start. It also features one of the most subtle vocal performances by Christina Aguilera in a supporting role. Simply brilliant.

4. Holy Grail – Jay-Z (feat. Justin Timberlake)

“One day you’re here. One day you’re there. One day you care. You’re so unfair. Sippin’ from your cup til it runneth over. Holy grail.” This song would probably be number 1 if it had just been Justin Timberlake’s portion of it, but just like Suit & Tie from The 20/20 Experience, the song suffers when Jay-Z enters it. As much as I love Jigga, for some reason he doesn’t seem to hold his end of the bargain when he collaborates with JT. The song is still amazing enough, though, despite that, for me to place it high on my list for the year. Continue reading “Friday Top 5: Songs of 2013”

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Friday Top 5: Quotes

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill One thing that my favorite quotes have in common is the sense of immediacy that comes along with them. They’re not just quotes said for a particular time in history and that only fit in that time. They transcend moments and eras, and they speak … Continue reading Friday Top 5: Quotes

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Thursday Shuffle

When I upgraded to my 160GB iPod Classic, I gave my old 120GB one to my wife, who is decidedly not as up on recent music as I am. She gave me a list of artists, albums, and songs that she wanted uploaded to her new device, and the list was relatively short. I was astounded, because there was so much more music her iPod would hold, and I felt it was my duty to help her out. So, in addition to the entire Beatles catalog, Sting and the Police, Taylor Swift, Madonna, Maroon 5, and Sade, I uploaded a few more artists I thought she might like, thinking she would thank me. Well, I was a little bit wrong.

It turns out she liked having only certain artists, and unlike me she wasn’t really up for listening and evaluating something new. So, after I un-synched the additional 30 artists I had placed on her iPod, I began to realize that it was okay. I don’t have to always be the great decider of what music gets played and when. There didn’t have to be some amazing revolution of new songs on my wife’s iPod. What made her happy were the songs and artists she already knew and loved. That was okay for her, and that would have to be alright for me too. I made my peace with it. Then I grabbed my iPod, plugged in my headphones, and put it on shuffle:

1. On the Outside – Sheryl Crow

Sheryl Crow has some really good b-sides, and this is one of them. “Standing on the outside, looking in…”

2. Animal Instinct (Live in Stockholm) – The Cranberries

Many people think The Cranberries stopped recording music after “Zombie” but that is entirely untrue. Animal Instinct comes from their fourth album, Bury the Hatchet, which is a great album in its own right. On their Greatest Hits compilation, they included this live version of the song.

3. Gold Rush – Snoop Dogg

This was back when G-funk ruled the west coast, and when Snoop was still calling himself a Dogg instead of a Lion.

4. Wildflower – Sheryl Crow

You know, there are some times when I honesty think that shuffle isn’t a true shuffle at all, like when two songs by the same artist show up back to back, or when someone like Sheryl Crow shows up more than once on a small section of the shuffle list, like in this case. This song is even better than the first, though, slow like a ballad. Continue reading “Thursday Shuffle”

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Monday Shuffle

So, I got an iPod Classic, with 80GB of space, or room for nearly my entire iTunes library at the time. That way, when I put it on shuffle there was a chance I would hear nearly every song I owned, eventually. But of course, being the music fanatic that I am, my iTunes library continued to grow, and I was forced to pick and choose what I would have on my iPod at any given time. But the shuffle function remained my favorite one on that iPod, and is still my favorite one today. A friend of mine liked to play this game where she would put her iPod on shuffle and list the first 18 songs that came up. They were always 18 of the wildest songs you could imagine, and usually crossed genres as well. So, I decided I would play along using my blog to list them. Here goes. Putting my Classic on shuffle…again…

1. Bad Girl – Madonna

“Bad girl, drunk by six. Kissing someone else’s lips. Smoked too many cigarettes today. I’m not happy when I act this way.” This video is dynamic, almost a little movie in its own right, with Christopher Walken doing a cameo in it. I remember watching it nearly every morning on VH1 during homeroom.

2. The Dynamo of Volition (Live) – Jason Mraz

You haven’t heard Jason Mraz until you’ve heard him live. Continue reading “Monday Shuffle”

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Sunday Shuffle

The old-school iPod Shuffle.

I thought I would try something new on here, and do something I saw someone else do a long time ago. My first MP3 player was an iPod Shuffle. You know, the small device that was the size of a pack of gum, had no screen, and held probably about 300 songs at most. When I first got it, I was ecstatic. I mean, up until that point I had been using audiotapes that held only 45 minutes worth of music on each side. A device that held nearly 300 songs was like heaven at the time.

The glory of the Shuffle was that it allowed me to — go figure — actually shuffle the songs, so they would play in random order, making it a surprise every single time. I even took to guessing what would be coming up next, and every once in a while I would actually be right. It was such a fun time, discovering that Shuffle and its amazing capabilities, until I realized that 300 songs wasn’t nearly enough. You see, at the time I had an iTunes library of over 40,000 songs (it has since grown to nearly 250,000 songs) and there was no way I could get every single song I wanted on that Shuffle.

What a Classic!

So, I got an iPod Classic, with 80GB of space, or room for nearly my entire iTunes library at the time. That way, when I put it on shuffle there was a chance I would hear nearly every song I owned, eventually. Continue reading “Sunday Shuffle”