Entertainment
The teenager in me was ecstatic to find out that Night Ranger's new album "Hole in the Sun" was finally available in the U.S. It's been available in Japan for a while, but not here. While I've loved the band since their first album "Dawn Patrol", buying the import was impractical. I did buy one import ("Neverland", I think) years ago, but I was single then and spare cash was easier to come by then.
I typically won't buy an album without a recommendation or unheard but Night Ranger has consistently put out great music (IMHO) over the years so...
Since I've had my iPod (almost three years now!), 10000 Maniacs "Like the Weather" had the distinction of being the first song in my iTunes list (when sorted by Artist, the default) and on my iPod. I just upgraded to iTunes 7.3 and they've now put numbers at the end of the list. Not sure what prompted the change, but the honor of first in my list is Aaron Tippin's "The Sound of Your Goodbye". Congrats, Aaron. Call Apple and thank them.
My wife, who is an amazingly smart woman, called me the other day as she was driving to pick up my step-daughter from volleyball practice. She had the radio on and "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette was playing. She called me to tell me that she realized that the events in the song aren't actually irony, but they are just plain old misfortune.
Here's the definition of irony. Looking at some of the lyrics:
"A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break"
There's no irony - it's just misfortune. There's no "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence...
Since Sheryl Crow thinks we should only use one square of toilet paper for conservation purposes as well as use a "dining sleeve" instead of a napkin, I have a suggestion for her:
She can eat her used toilet paper. It's natural recycling! And as creepy skinny as she is, it'll probably be filling, too! And, if she's still hungry, I'm sure there are fans that'd be more than happy to send theirs to her as well.
Think it'll work?
Much is made of country songs and their penchant for trucks, heartbreak, prison. These sentiments are probably best typified (parodied?) by the song "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" by David Allan Coe. Country songs often tell great stories and sometimes, they just pull you in from the beginning with a great opening line. Two come immediately to mind:
"I got an empty feeling when that moving van pulled up,
It got a whole lot emptier as I watched them fill that truck."
from the song "Maybe We Should Just Sleep On It" by Tim McGraw. All I can say to...
One great thing about the iPod is the random feature. Sure, it may not be totally random, but sometimes it just hits a great song. This afternoon it picked a great classic rock song "Rev On The Red Line" by Foreigner. What great song. Go buy it on iTunes if you don't have it - it totally rocks!
"...everybody knows at the green light you rev it on the red line..."
I love a good movie. I love it when the story pulls you in and you're really entertained.An example of a great movie is "The Italian Job". It's got a great story, a guy you love to hate (Ed Norton [an actor whose work I admire] as "Steve"), a serious "get revenge" factor, a beautiful woman (Charlize Theron as "Stella"), characters with great personality (Lyle, Left Ear and Handsome Rob) and an appeal as just a good time, have fun movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.But I have wondered: do movies like this one shift our values as a...