Damn Things, The Radio Station war is over (mostly)

Hello,

Last night I was looking for something to do for awhile so that I could turn my mind off. I was flipping through the movie channels and stumbled across "Evita". I got sucked into it and watched the last 45 minutes. First of all let me just say, what a great movie. Amazing performances by both Antonio Banderas and Madonna. Madonna's voice sounds so good. It's also a very poignant ending with Che kissing Evita's casket even though he's been ripping her the entire movie. (Yes I realize there were a lot of liberties taken in the movie.)

I think this is my favorite song from the movie:



Although I like this song as well:



Don't forget this song either:



Okay just one more:



Okay just two more:



and



Here's the point, that movie reminds me of my ex-wife, the hex, of course I then continued thinking about her. That's the first damn thing, then driving home I heard this amazing song: "Impossible" by Shontelle. I'd never heard this song before and this song kicks butt. Here it is:



Kelly Clarkson actually sings a version of this song as well. I love, love, love Kelly Clarkson, but Shontelle's version is easily the best version. That's the second damn thing that has me thinking about the hex. Then I turned over to a local country station, guess what another song that reminds me of the hex:



Yeah you guessed it that's the third damn thing that reminds me of my ex-wife. I went for about a month barely thinking about her. When I did it was usually with anger. Now out of the blue she's bubbling back into my brain. What the heck? Not all songs relate to the hex specifically, they just remind me of her. I can see why people are telling me to take a year to heal before even dating. It's worse when you are the dumped one, like I was.

I've been listening to 5 radio stations as I've been driving around the last couple of weeks. They are

1) The Mixx 107.9 (dance pop, 13 year old tween music), They were leading my favorite of all 5 stations of most of that time. They play Lady Gaga, but I also heard a Paramore song the other day. That's where I heard that "Impossible" song driving home today. They don't do a lot of talking either. Unfortunately they also play that lame Ke$ha song, "Your Love Is My Drug". That's one of the worst and most annoying songs ever.

2) 99.5 (not sure of the call sign) but I like their mix of music a lot. They play a lot of dance pop, but they also play some newer rock and roll like Daughtry and Nickelback. They also play some rock from the 90's. I also like how they identify every song after it's played.

3) ZRock 94.9: they are really a hit and miss channel. I was driving to work this morning and they played the amazing White Stripes song "7 Nation Army". But a lot of that harder edge rock music now days sounds the same to me. A lot of it doesn't stand out. I have a hard time giving my loyalty to a radio station where so little music stands out. They also seem to have an insane amount of commercials as well.

4) X96.3: I use to think that this was the hippest station on the air. No longer, the dj's talk way too much. Their morning show has some highlights but is mostly tired now. They don't play a lot of new songs. It seems their playlist is about the same as it was 15 years ago. From my recent listening experience X96 has become an oldies station.

5) 104.3 The Cowboy: You voluntarily call your station the Cowboy? At least use the Spanish word for cowboy, vaquero. That sounds a lot tougher and cooler. I just can't listen to that much country music. Although they did have a good double shot tonight. They played Brad Paisley's "Then" (one of the damn things) and then Sugarland's "Something More". I love that song and Jennifer Nettles has such an amazing voice.

Here's a couple of examples of her amazing voice (and neither of these songs are damn things):



and



Nettles voice has so much power and sorrow in this song. Although the video is simple, it's also very powerful.

So the winner for now, at least tonight, is 99.5.

I can't wait to read more in "The Passage", what an amazing book! You've got to read this book!
Of course you might want to wait until the last two books in the trilogy come out. That's a bad thing about starting to read a trilogy of books on the first one.

themusicaddict

Thank you Chicago Bulls!

Hello,

Great news today. It has been announced that Carlos Boozer, the over-whining and under performing no power forward, is going to the Chicago Bulls for 5 years and $80 million dollars. THANK YOU CHICAGO!

Chicago you can have Boozer, he's a whiner, doesn't play defense, is only about himself and you paid $80 million for that? If he plays 75% of those games, it will be a miracle. He had a good season last season because he was playing for a contract. As a Utah Jazz fan, thank you so very much Carlos. Do you want to know what his nickname in Utah is? Loozer.

As the kids say, no give backs.

theveryhappymusicaddict

Netherlands-Uruguay, Funny Wired thought, Currrent Mindset

Hello,

The Netherlands will be kicking off at 2:30est in the 2010 World Cup. I'll be cheering for the Netherlands. Now if you consider this a good thing, I need to give you a warning. I also have been cheering for the USA, Brazil and Argentina. All three of those teams are eliminated from the tournament. Go Netherlands!

I just wished that I could watch the match. But to quote the unwritten line from "Every Rose Has It's Thorn": "And every four day weekend has it's end".

themusicaddict bad luck streak may be at an end, the Netherlands are on the board first. They lead 1-0 about halfway through the first half.

Boo! Uruguay! They scored before halftime to tie the match back at 1-1. It looks like it may be a barn burner, I'm starting to come down with World Cup fever. I may need to go home :) Did you know of the productivity hurting events related to sports, the World Cup is the fourth most impactful.

Go Netherlands! In about the 70th minute, they just scored again and now lead 2-1. Come on Netherlands you can hold on for 20 more minutes. The Netherlands scored again, the rout is on!
(Is it Netherlands or The Netherlands, does anyone know? I'm sure Uruguay does now!)

Bring it on tomorrow's winner of Germany and Spain. I'm predicting a Netherlands-Germany World Cup Final.

I read the following in the April, 2010 Wired and had to share it. "When WIRED editors are feeling blue, we grab an early issue of the magazine and spend a few minutes looking at ads for tech that time forgot. The AT&T wrist phone! Thrilling new CD-ROMS! WordPerfect 6.0, now with Undo feature!" (that last one is my favorite)

I'm really struggling right now, this is my current mindset:



This is just a really, really great song:



themusicaddict

EW.com's 10 Hot Summer Songs Seriously?

Hello,

Currently I'm listening to Bret Michael's new CD, "Driven". It's about what you expect, it's an okay CD. There are some good songs on here like his duet with Miley Cyrus (there's that name again) "Nothing To Lose". Other highlights include "Go That Far" and his interesting take on Sublime's "What I Got". He also does a lame and boring remake of his own "Every Rose Has It's Thorn". I like Miley Cyrus's cover better of one of the all-time greatest songs.

On to ew.com's 10 Hot Summer Songs. Most of these songs suck. If your brave enough and want to hear these songs or see the videos go to ew.com.

1) "Misery"- Maroon 5, a very cheesy video. This is one of the best songs on this list, that's a sign of how bad the list is. Grade C-.

2) "Dream About Something"- Sally Seltman This is a trippy sounding song. I have to admit after a few listens, this song is growing on me. My grade now is B-, but may go higher as the song continues to grow on me.

3) "Right On"- The Roots with Joanna Newsom singing over the track. A pretty typical rap track with Newsom's winsome voice adding some personality to the song. Do we really need more rap songs though? Grade: D

4) "Bad Angel"- Dierks Bentley Is this really the same guy that sang the great "What Was I Thinkin'"? This song is a slow, boring bluegrass tinged song with guest appearances by Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert. Grade: D (being generous)

5) "Satellite"- Lena This is okay, it's very derivative of The Pipettes though. There's something about Lena I really like, not her bad dancing, though. I love her voice, her spunkiness and she's cute. This is the only song I could make it all the way through when listening to. I actually like Lena more than the song. Grade: B-

6) "Dancing On My Own"- Robyn I wasn't real thrilled when I first heard this song, but it's growing a little bit on me as well. It's still an average euro disco song though. Grade D+.

7) "Round and Round"- The Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti. This song is hot? Doesn't a song have to be good to be hot? This song blows like no other and the artwork is stupid. Although if you're looking for a song to fall asleep to, this would be great for that. Grade: Z-

8) "Be Still"- Big Boi Again do we really need another generic rap song? Janelle Monae sings the chorus, adding life to a lifeless song. Boi peeked out with "Hey Ya", I think it's time to retire Boi. Some songs grow on me, this song actually gets worse each time I hear it. Grade: D-

9) "The Boxer"- Gaslight Anthem No, this is not a remake of the Simon and Garfunkel classic. That song already has been skewered by Lee Dewyze this year. This original composition at least has a beat and some life. Grade C+.

10) "Goldskull"- Miniature Tigers Another boring, tiresome, soulless song. Grade Z-

I read another big chunk in Justin Cronin's "The Passage". This is getting to be such a good book.

themusicaddict

themusicaddict likes Miley Cyrus?

Hello,

The CD I'm surprised that I like is the new Miley Cyrus CD "Can't Be Tamed". Whoever made the CD definitely went to the school of Lady Gaga, her sound is all over this CD. That's a compliment coming from me as I love Lady Gaga. Cyrus' voice sounds pretty good, thanks to some auto-tune I'm sure. I've heard her sing live and she doesn't sound real great. But here she sounds very good and this is a great CD. I think the 17 year old Cyrus should stay far away from the skanky clothes and look. She says it's about female empowerment. Miley I'm sorry that's not true, it's about selling CDs. You'll understand in about 10 years, where's your Dad to help you with that anyway?

This video isn't the best, but I love this song:



This is "Liberty Walk", this song rocks:



I also like this song "Permament December": (sorry the sound is not so good)



This is the great, great ballad "Stay":



Great songs on this CD include "Liberty Walk", "Who Owns My Heart", the title song, "Two More Lonely People", "Permanent December", "Stay" and "Scars". This is the CD she covers Poison's "Every Rose Has It's Thorn". The Cyrus version is definitely interesting. It's the first time I've ever heard the line, "I know I could have saved a love that night, if I'd known what to say."

I don't know why but I've really having a movie watching jones lately. I really wanted to watch a movie last night. The first movie I gave a shot to was "Steele Justice". Within moments I could tell this is a very cheesy 80's movie. It's a poor man's "Rambo". Here's the movie poster:



Here's the tagline for the movie: "When the police needed someone to stop the Vietnamese Mafia, there was only one choice... You don't recruit John Steele. You unleash him. The only law is the Black Tiger's. The only justice is John Steele's."

I love that line, "You don't recruit John Steele. You unleash him." Is it just me or does he look a lot like the John Candy dog character in "Space Balls"? Although that movie has the gorgeous Sela Ward in it, I couldn't watch any more of the movie to see her part. This movie is bad, bad, bad. I don't know if it's intentionally bad or not, but it's bad. Here's a picture of the gorgeous Sela Ward:



Thanks to youtube.com, here's a trailer for "Space Balls".



After that I next moved on to "The Wrong Man", starring Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Pullman. I could only watch about 15 minutes of this movie. I consider myself a pretty big DeGeneres fan, but this is a pretty terrible movie. I use the term "starring" very loosely when it comes to Ellen DeGeneres acting. She's not a very good actress and she's basically playing herself. I had to turn it off after about 15 minutes. I decided to watch one more movie.

The name of that movie is "The Passengers" starring the oh my goodness, she's gorgeous Anne Hathaway.



Now honestly "The Passengers" is a movie I've never heard of, but it's a pretty good movie. Besides Hathaway the next most famous people in it are David Morse and Dianne Wiest. The storyline is very much "Sixth Senseish" with a different twist off that. "Passengers" is a very eerie movie, the music adds to the foreboding and has a great cast. I enjoyed this movie very much and would highly recommend it. Now don't expect too much from it, but just watch it and you'll enjoy it.

Reading: I'm reading the interesting "The Passage". It's received a lot of hype and so far it hasn't lived up to it. I've been a bit disappointed with it so far. I've almost read the first 200 pages of it so far and I realize this is all leading up to the main part of the book. Hell is about to break loose and then I will know how much better of a book it is. This is suppose to be the first of a trilogy, so this whole 766 page book may be leading up to the later two books.

"The Passage" is a vampire book, speaking of vampire books. I'm waiting for the second of "The Strain" trilogy. It's titled, "The Fall: Book Two of the Strain Trilogy". According to amazon.com it will be released September 21st. I have to go to the library website and put it on hold. I'm a big Stephen King fan, but I've never read his vampire novel, "Salem's Lot". I've heard a lot of good things about that book.

Do you remember the band Klymaxx? They sang "The Men All Pause" and "Meeting In The Ladies Room". They also sing this amazing song. I'd forgotten how good this song is:



Coming up a review of ew.com's alleged "10 Hot Songs of the Summer".

themusicaddict

match.com sucks (if you are LDS)

Hello,

Just a FYI for my fellow single Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints members. The church is also known as the LDS church or more commonly as the Mormons.

Before getting divorced I knew I would want to get married again eventually. At that point I wanted to get remarried quickly. About 6 weeks before the divorce was final I signed up for match.com and started sending out winks and hoping to make a connection. I'm not the best looking guy so I didn't expect it to happen overnight and I was patient. The divorce was finally final and I had talked to a couple of people at match.com but I hadn't gone on a date. Once my divorce was final I signed up with another dating website, ldssingles.com. Almost immediately I got results there. I went on dates with two different women within a month of the divorce being final. Both were good dates but after the second date I realized I was no way in the frame of mind to be dating. That's for many different reasons including I don't have the money and I need to get my head on straight.

I still wanted to keep ldssingles.com active. While I'm not looking for my future wife now or for at least a few months, I never know when the right one will come along. I was going to let my match.com website subscription run out and not renew. That's until I received the following e-mail from them: "It's simple: You winked at her, she winked back. Subscribe to email her and start the conversation".

Now I know that modern advertising isn't necessarily 100% honest and that they will play on your hopes to get you give them money. Although I know that and I usually am very cynical, my looking for Ms. Right overcame my common sense. I paid for a three month subscription eagerly wanting to find out who had responded to my wink. My subscription became active and I eagerly signed in. I was met with disappointment because this girl who had responded to my wink was two someone that had responded TWO weeks ago. Someone whom I sent a message to and hadn't heard back from. Obviously she wasn't interested and so I gave up. But match.com was selling this as being current.

About 24 hours later they sent me a second e-mail with more inaccurate advertising trying to get me to extend my subscription. I had already signed up for three more months by then. Their website continues to a wasteland for me finding women to talk to. I'm going to call them and have them cancel my account and see if I can get any money back. Giving them money for me is a waste of money.

match.com advertises their website as "Welcome to the most dynamic group of singles anywhere." That's great if that's what you want. But my #1 priority for a future wife is that she's an active LDS member. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's a lot more than going to church every week. So I don't want dynamic, I want a static group of women who have most of the same values as I do. I find that at ldssingles.com but not at match.com.

So if you are LDS and looking for an LDS spouse don't even bother going to match.com. That was pretty much wasted money to me.

A couple of other bad things about match.com is that they have a lot of scammers getting on pretending they are real people and wanting you to send them your private e-mail to their private e-mail. If you stumble across anybody like that, it's not really a person. Set up a block so they can't contact you anymore and alert match.com. match.com is aware of the problem and appears to be vigilant about it, eliminating these fake profiles as soon as possible. But be careful for that. After seeing a couple of these fake profiles, you can usually pick them out pretty quickly.

Another thing that blows about match.com they have a feed which tells you when something new has happened on your account. Unfortunately this feed include when they've added a new advertisement to your account. The advertisement is getting the match.com application added to your phone. They should give you an option to decline seeing that if you aren't interested. I don't even have a cell phone and don't intend on getting one ever. (Even though I use to work for a cell phone company, I think cell phones are one of the biggest wastes of money ever.) Obviously this isn't something I'd ever be interested in.

The following song describes where I want to get to in the next few months:



I'm not there yet. I'm still working on getting "my stuff together" and making it "through the weather."

I actually quite like this Jason Derulo CD. "In My Head" is one of the catchiest songs I've heard in the last several years. Although I didn't approve when I heard my 9 year old daughter singing it.

Next blog coming soon: I'm giving big thumbs up to a CD that I expected to hate, but I actually love. You'll be surprised when you hear the artist is. Also a review of ew.com's alleged "10 Hot Songs of the Summer". None of these songs will be classics and most, if not all, of them will be forgotten by the end of the summer.


themusicaddict

"Glee" Article, Should Argentina be my World Cup team?

Hello,

The Rolling Stone article that's been getting all the attention lately is the one about Stanley McChrystal, which led to him being removed from his position. I haven't read that article yet, but an article I've read is in the April 15th, 2010 Rolling Stone. The article is by Erik Hedegaard. It's easily one of the worst articles I've ever read.

I'm not sure what his motivation was behind writing this article. He seemed to be very patronizing asking intentionally dumb questions. He was asking Lea Michelle if she peed in the shower? Seriously what kind of stupid question is that? Michelle was mystified with the question and thankfully didn't answer. Then Hedegaard wanted the 4 cast members he talked to to entertain him during their interviews. Why? The whole article was dumb and mean-spirited with no apparent point. I've never seen the show but am interested. That's why I read the article. However Hedegaard is definitely not a fan and doesn't want anyone else to be either.

At the end of the article Hegegaard bemoans the fact that following the interviews he was on the "Glee" set. While there was a break in the filming they ignore him. Duh, your interview questions and your whole slant on the article was stupid.

I will probably read his next article in Erik Hedegaard, but I hope he takes a completely different angle.

World Cup update, I was very surprised that Brazil lost yesterday. They are one of the sports powerhouses. I was considering them as one of the teams to cheer for. A sporting event is always more fun when there's a rooting interest. Brazil was one of the teams that I was thinking about adopting as "my team". With them losing, I think I'll pick Argentina. I love their coach, Diego Maradona. He's one of the greatest soccer players of all-time as well. They are down 1-0 to Germany early though, so maybe that isn't going to work out either.

After Germany's shellacking of Argentina 4-0, I obviously can't cheer for Argentina any more. So I have now picked the Netherlands to win the whole thing. The main reason is I have an ex brother-in-law who lives there. He's a pretty cool guy and it sounds like a really cool country. So I will be cheering for the Netherlands. The Netherlands next play Tuesday afternoon against Uruguay. Uruguay is the team who knocked Ghana out of the competition and Ghana is the team who knocked the USA out of the competition. Follow that?

Also I think that Nirvana is probably the most overrated band of all-time. But there's no denying the greatness of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", especially when the band kicks in.

themusicaddict