Hello,
Thanks to napster.com I listened to the The Kills most recent CD, "Blood Pressures". It's okay, but definitely not a must have for your collection. I was rather disappointed for the positive reviews I read for this CD. This band features Allison Mosshart who's also in The Dead Weather with Jack White.
C.W. McCall's "Convoy":
Quick sports notes:
My baseball teams had a relatively good day yesterday. LA won 1-0 in winning their second straight game! Of course, that's due more to Chad Billingsley excellent pitching rather than LA's pathetic offense. Also Boston beat Baltimore to move to a 1 game lead over the Yanks in the AL East. As for the David Ortiz- no name Orioles pitcher fight, no one won that. The Pirates continue playing well, coming back to beat alleged MLB team The Cubs 7-4. Pittsburgh is now 46-42 and have assured themselves their first winning record at the All-Star break in 19 years. Pittsburgh is tied for second place in the NL Central with St. Louis, both teams are 1 game behind Milwaukee. I expect the Pirates to be one of the biggest stories at the upcoming All-Star game.
Last but not least: The Braves were on fire and closing fast on Philadelphia. They had won 9 of their last 10 games. That was when they were playing teams with a mortal pitching staff. Last night Atlanta ran into the amazing, superhuman Phillies pitching staff. The Phillies won on a walk off home run by Raul Ibanez and take a 3.5 game lead over Atlanta in the NL East. Now news comes that Chipper Jones will miss at least 15 days as he undergoes a surgery today. The Braves faced Roy Halladay yesterday. It doesn't get that much easier over the next couple of days. They go against Cliff Lee today and Cole Hamels tomorrow.
It's been great not to have to hear about Frank McCourt over the last several days. However he put himself back in the news yesterday when he fired Dodger legend Steve Garvey. Garvey, who worked in marketing, was fired because he's working on putting a Dodgers ownership group together. Granted it doesn't seem like a great thing to do by Garvey. However everyone sees the writing on the wall about Frank McCourt being forced to sale soon. Everyone sees that but McCourt that is. The longer he holds on, the longer it's going to take the Dodgers to bounce back. As a Dodgers fan I'd love to see an ownership group lead by Steve Garvey and Orel Hershiser become new owners of the Dodgers.
Again all songs brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1. This song is from the movie "Once" which is extremely over rated, however "Falling Slowly" is an amazing song.
Yao Ming is reportedly retiring. When he's been able to play, he has been a quality player. Is he worthy of the Hall-of-Fame? Please. There's no way. The tissue soft center qualify for the Hall-of-Fame? Your kidding right. A good way to tell whether a player deserves to be in the Hall-of-Fame is would you have ever wanted him on your favorite team. For me, I would say no. Not only did he miss way too many games. But with his contract he ate up too much cap space that hurt the team in signing other players. Over the last 6 seasons Ming missed 250 games. In that time span the Rockets played 492 games, which mean Ming missed more than half of their games. He missed the entire '09-'10 season and played 5 games last season. Yao had his moments, but there's no way a 7'6" player should ever have his shot blocked.
I'm also glad that I'm not a Portland Trailblazers fan as they "tendered an $8.8 million qualifying offer" to the injury prone Greg Oden for one more season. (Thanks to espn.com.) I think that's a bad offer by Portland. I'm sure Oden will jump all over that. In his four seasons in the NBA he has only played 82 of the 328 games he potentially could have played. I wish I had a job where I only had to show up 25% of the time and still was offered $8.8 million dollars. Again what are the NBA players complaining about again?
Shouldn't this song be more funky? I remember this sung as being much more funky. Black Eyed Peas took the same idea with the much better "Don't Phunk With My Heart". This is Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam's "I Wonder If I Take You Home":
The Yankees game was rained out last night, postponing for at least one day from Derek Jeter getting 3000 hits. I really had a feeling that he was going to get that elusive 3000th hit last night. Today Jeter didn't let the suspense last any longer than he needed too, Jeter had his his 2,999th and 3,000th hits in his first two at bats today. Jeter is the 28th player in MLB history to have 3000 hits and the first Yankee. His 3000th hit was a home run, how cool is that? Congrats to him. Update: Not only did Jeter get his 3000th hit, he also got his 3,001st and 3,002nd hit so far. So far today he has a home run, double and two singles.
Jeter has now risen to 27th on all-time career hits. Jeter passed Pirate great Roberto Clemente, who finished at 3000 hits even, before dying a relief mission. Next up on Jeter's list is Al Kaline with 3,007 hits followed by Wade Boggs with 3,010 hits. In fact, he should move up to 22nd on the all-time hits list in the next few weeks. By the end of the season, assuming he stays healthy, he should be 19th in most career hits.
Stan Ridgway's "Camouflage". I love this song, especially the end. I don't know if this song is a serious tribute or highly ironic. However whatever it is, I get goose bumps every time I hear it.
According to espn.com: "very little progress was made in the NFL's labor talks." The lawyers will be working all weekend though. (Again the lawyers are the only winners of any kind of contract negotiations like this. I hate lawyers.) Key representatives of the NFL and NFLPA will again meet on Monday. Today is NFL Lockout day 116. Many people think that July 15th is the defacto cut off date on when nothing of real import will be missed. If they get past that point then things are going to start being missed. That would probably lead to shorter training camps, missing the Hall-of-Fame game and preseason games. None of those things are that important. The NFL has designed the regular season schedule in such a way that 3 weeks of the regular season could be missed and still all teams would be able to have complete seasons. I would love to see the NFL go on an extended lockout, but greed probably won't let either side do that.
Meanwhile the NBA Lockout is setting up to make the NFL lockout look like a church picnic. In only the 9th day of the NBA Lockout, players are already preparing for no NBA basketball games to be played. Such stars as Deron Williams have already agreed in principle on a contract an international team when the lockout wipes out at least part of the season. He will be playing with Besiktas. Williams has a contract with an opt out clause. That would allow him to leave Besiktas if, and when, the NBA resumes play.
Sonny Weems, last of Toronto, has signed a contract with a Lithuanian team that doesn't have an opt out clause. Probably not a big loss for Weems, are the Raptors still considered an NBA team? Also according to espn.com, "Former Philadelphia 76ers power forward Darius Songaila has signed a one-year deal worth $1.5 million plus bonuses with the Turkish team, Galatasaray, his agent said on Friday." He only played 10 games for the 76ers last season, so he might have explored playing internationally anyway. Reportedly former Jazzman Andrei Kirilenko has tried to secure a deal with Real Madrid. Smartly Real Madrid passed on signing the injury prone Kirilenko.
A great song, a terrible live performance. I was wondering who would be singing Roni Spector's lines. This is Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight":
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Lebron James widely mocked "Decision". I say who cares? Can't we just let this story go now? Of course, stories like this might be a thing of the future if there's no NFL or NBA this fall.
Eddie Money's "Two Tickets To Paradise":
Also tomorrow the USA women play Brazil in the WWC quarterfinals round very early in the morning. I'll be at church and unfortunately will miss the game. Fellow Americans please cheer for me. Why are WWC games played so much later today than they are tomorrow?
Many people consider "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" to be Crystal Gayle's classic song. However I prefer "Why Have You Left The One You Left Me For":
themusicaddict
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
"Horrible Bosses", Jennifer Aniston is gorgeous
Hello,
Following my stirring rebuke of both of the terrible Cubs and Dodgers in yesterday's blog, they both won last night. I'm sure my blog had a lot to do with that, lol. Pittsburgh didn't play yesterday, but my other four teams did. All four of those team won. Boston hit 6 home runs, beating Baltimore 10-6 and moved back into first in the AL East. It's important Boston win on Friday as vastly overpaid, under performing John Lackey is pitching for Boston on Saturday.
I'm off to see "Horrible Bosses" in a bit. A review will be coming later, the review is below. Meanwhile here's a picture of the amazingly gorgeous Jennifer Aniston:
Here's my review of "Horrible Bosses", it's fairly good but not great. There are a lot of laughs in it that's for sure. There are some interesting plot twists in it. However I wish the previews didn't show so many of the key moments. I love to watch a movie with as many surprises as possible. With having so many previews now days, it seems like we've seen half the movie before it shows up at the theatre.
Also yes the movie is very crude. The language is terrible with one of the characters name being so profane I won't write it here. The sex is more intimated than actually shown. Also saying the f bomb over and over does not comedy make. All four main actors, Aniston, Day, Batemen and Sudeikis are great. (Jason Sudeikis is allegedly January Jones soon to be baby daddy. And he stars in a movie with Jennifer Aniston? I would say he has lived a charmed life.) Both Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey in supporting roles are also very good. Of course Spacey is usually great in any movie he's in.
Would I recommend seeing this movie, I would say "yes". Just don't go in expecting a movie as funny as "Wedding Crashers". Although the previews give away so many funny moments, there are still funny moments to be had. I'd have to give this movie a B- grade. If you have to choose between this and "Bad Teacher", go with "Horrible Bosses".
I'm not sure how any straight man can resist the charms of the gorgeous Jennifer Aniston. She's looking amazing in this, as she always does.
Returning to movies harmed by previews giving away too many of the great parts, "Despicable Me". I absolutely loved "Despicable Me" and would have loved it even more if the previews didn't give away the entire story. I read an article about how "The Sixth Sense" caught people by surprise when it first came out. Although it was one of 1999's best movies, it completely came in under the radar. All the better that movie turned out to be without the previews giving away the whole story. I wish movies could go back to that. Perhaps if previews weren't show several months in advance that would help a movie remain fresh. It's especially exacerbated for someone like me who sees a lot of movies. I probably saw the "Despicable Me" preview at least 20 times. That doesn't count all the times I saw it on TV. Many times with entertainment less is more.
Meanwhile meet the new "Footloose", same as the old "Footloose":
The story seems almost exactly the same. I know remakes are usually very similar to the original movie, but this seems even more similar than other remakes. It also looks like a big downgrade from Kevin Bacon to Kenny Wormald? Who? I'd never heard of him before today. It's also looks like a big downgrade from the hilarious Christopher Penn to Miles Teller. Again, who? Although I think it's an upgrade to Julianne Hough. She's looking amazing in this movie. Although there was nothing wrong with Lori Singer.
Again all youtube.com videos today are brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1, thanks for letting me redownload about 400+ songs I've bought over the years from iTunes.
I'm not a big country music fan, but I do like Brad Paisley. Here's one of his many great songs. This is "Better Than This":
Information Society's "What's On Your Mind":
I've never been a big Iron Maiden fan, but I do like this song quite a bit, "Flight of Icarus":
I'm sure this is Marc Anthony's favorite video :) "Jenny From The Block":
One of the best and most unappreciated songs ever is Gene Pitney's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance":
Other great songs brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1:
Kenny Chesney's "Living In Fast Forward":
Freddy Fender's "Wasted Days and Nights":
Brooks and Dunn's "You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out Of The Girl":
themusicaddict
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Dodgers, Cubs: How Bad Will It Get Before It Gets Better?, Pia Toscano rules
Hello,
While I'm excited about how good Atlanta, Boston and Pittsburgh are doing in MLB, when all is said and done my favorite team is the Los Angeles Dodgers. My second favorite team is probably the Cubs. I'm wondering how bad things will get for the Dodgers and the Cubs before things start to improve. Currently of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, Chicago has the 29th worst record. They're winning percentage is .398. The Dodgers are a bit better. They have the 27th worst record and they're winning percentage is .420. The five worst teams are:
30) Houston Astros: .341
29) Chicago Cubs: .398
28) Kansas City Royals: .414
27) LA Dodgers: .420
26) Baltimore Orioles: .429
As a Dodgers fan the longer we have to deal with the McCourt alleged ownership, the longer it will take LA to recover. I wish he had already been told that he need to sell the team, it would be nice to see a light at the end of the table. However we haven't reached that much needed milestone yet. This season is unimportant now, this season's team won't win anything. It seems the players know and have accepted that. Are they even trying any more?
Once the Dodgers get a new owner, as long as it's a properly financed owner, they can begin to rebuild their entire organization. The Dodgers cupboard is pretty bare in talent now. I also hear the minor league system is in rough shape. The Dodgers are going to have to go the free agent route to become more relevant. But there's no guarantee that will make them significantly better. I'd just urge the Dodgers to stay away from injury prone players. Once they get injured they tend to be a lot more prone to injury in the future. All the Dodgers have to do is look at their own Rafael Furcal. He has missed so many games in his Dodgers career so far. By my rough estimation he's missed 33% of his games in his Dodger career. So far this season he's played less than 25% of possible games. And the Dodgers are paying him $13 million this season and injuries have forced him to play a lot less games than are possible.
I would love for either the Orel Hershiser and Steve Garvey group or Mark Cuban to buy the Dodgers. The first two people mentioned are former Dodger greats who would bring instant credibility back to the Dodgers. After McCourt has turned the Dodgers into a laughing stock, they desperately need some credibility. And Mark Cuban has shown that he's willing to spend the money to get the type of team he wants. I never thought the Mavericks would ever win the NBA Title. But with Cuban's money and surrounding himself with smart people, the Mavericks won last season's title. And honestly how hard is it going to be a better owner than Frank McCourt?
I don't know what the answer is for the Cubs. Even when they spend a lot and have relatively good managers, they just never seem to get over the hump. I thought Alfonso Soriano was a great signing when the Cubs got him. I expected him to be a game changer, a player that could put the Cubs into the World Series. Since he's been on the team, they haven't even been close. He's had some highlights, but for the most part he hasn't delivered as much as expected. He's getting paid $19 million for his .260 batting average.
Also the US Women's World Cup team lost to Sweden yesterday 2-1, which means they finished second in their group. What does that men for the ladies of America? They open up the World Cup knockout round by playing the powerful Brazil team. Brazil features Marta, who many people consider the world's best player. That game is going to start about noon EST on Sunday. That game makes me very nervous.
Quick reviews, about a month ago the Arctic Monkeys released their latest CD, "Suck It And See". Not only is the title sophomoric but the music is less than inspiring. It's hard to believe that a band that started out so hot has become so mediocre. The Arctic Monkeys went from this song:
This is one of the best songs, if not the best song, on "Suck It And See". It's an okay song but nowhere near their first few songs. This is "Brick by Brick":
I took a break from Brady Udall's "The Lonely Polygamist" and started reading Ted Bell's "Warlord". I read what the book was about on it's back cover. It sounded like a terrific book. However after reading the first 33 pages last night, I've come to a different idea. So far this is not a good book, in fact it's been very disappointing so far. Dare I say boring. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue to read it, it's that bad. Thankfully for the library so that I didn't spend any money on it.
Last night's "American Idol" Season 10 tour started in West Valley City. Pia Toscano debuted her new song "This Time". Obviously the following video is from a cell phone so the sound quality is very low. "This Time" will officially will released on July 12th.
Besides the crappy sound and "Blair Witch" camera work, what do you think? I actually like it somewhat. I'm going to wait until I hear the actual song, before making a final judgment. I'm so glad she didn't sing another ballad. Isn't Pia looking gorgeous? I do wonder why this song wasn't released earlier. It had to be known that this song would be all over youtube as soon as she sang it live.
Salt Lake Tribune (www.sltrib.com) writer David Burger reviewed last night's first stop on the "American Idol" tour. Some of the highlights of his review: "The contestants that showed the most star power, stage presence and vocal chops were Stefano Langone, Casey Abrams, Haley Reinhart and Pia Toscano.
No surprise that Scotty McDreary isn't listed in the above sentence. Even though he "won" "AI", he rarely showed either stage presence or star power. If you want every song to sound the same, then he was your man, uh boy.
The following paragraph is exactly why I had no desire to see the "AI" tour: "The show tries to be all things to all people, so you heard R&B from Jacob Lusk, jazz from Abrams, country from runner-up Lauren Alaina and rock from James Durbin. Yes, it is karaoke, and considering the price, a rather expensive night of karaoke."
As soon as I read Jacob Lusk's name I didn't need to read anymore. In fact I think my hell would be 24/7 Jacob Lusk "singing". I'd also question if James Durbin really sang rock. Did he also do his terrible screeching, something he stole directly from Adam Lambert.
But I think of all the things David Burger wrote, this is the most telling: "Just cut the running time, please — some of us have to work the next day." First of all it cracks me up he complains about the length of a concert. For most concerts the longer the better, but I'd agree that 3 hours of the Idols would be a bit much. A great concert is a concert I don't want to end, no matter how little sleep I get the next day.
themusicaddict
While I'm excited about how good Atlanta, Boston and Pittsburgh are doing in MLB, when all is said and done my favorite team is the Los Angeles Dodgers. My second favorite team is probably the Cubs. I'm wondering how bad things will get for the Dodgers and the Cubs before things start to improve. Currently of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, Chicago has the 29th worst record. They're winning percentage is .398. The Dodgers are a bit better. They have the 27th worst record and they're winning percentage is .420. The five worst teams are:
30) Houston Astros: .341
29) Chicago Cubs: .398
28) Kansas City Royals: .414
27) LA Dodgers: .420
26) Baltimore Orioles: .429
As a Dodgers fan the longer we have to deal with the McCourt alleged ownership, the longer it will take LA to recover. I wish he had already been told that he need to sell the team, it would be nice to see a light at the end of the table. However we haven't reached that much needed milestone yet. This season is unimportant now, this season's team won't win anything. It seems the players know and have accepted that. Are they even trying any more?
Once the Dodgers get a new owner, as long as it's a properly financed owner, they can begin to rebuild their entire organization. The Dodgers cupboard is pretty bare in talent now. I also hear the minor league system is in rough shape. The Dodgers are going to have to go the free agent route to become more relevant. But there's no guarantee that will make them significantly better. I'd just urge the Dodgers to stay away from injury prone players. Once they get injured they tend to be a lot more prone to injury in the future. All the Dodgers have to do is look at their own Rafael Furcal. He has missed so many games in his Dodgers career so far. By my rough estimation he's missed 33% of his games in his Dodger career. So far this season he's played less than 25% of possible games. And the Dodgers are paying him $13 million this season and injuries have forced him to play a lot less games than are possible.
I would love for either the Orel Hershiser and Steve Garvey group or Mark Cuban to buy the Dodgers. The first two people mentioned are former Dodger greats who would bring instant credibility back to the Dodgers. After McCourt has turned the Dodgers into a laughing stock, they desperately need some credibility. And Mark Cuban has shown that he's willing to spend the money to get the type of team he wants. I never thought the Mavericks would ever win the NBA Title. But with Cuban's money and surrounding himself with smart people, the Mavericks won last season's title. And honestly how hard is it going to be a better owner than Frank McCourt?
I don't know what the answer is for the Cubs. Even when they spend a lot and have relatively good managers, they just never seem to get over the hump. I thought Alfonso Soriano was a great signing when the Cubs got him. I expected him to be a game changer, a player that could put the Cubs into the World Series. Since he's been on the team, they haven't even been close. He's had some highlights, but for the most part he hasn't delivered as much as expected. He's getting paid $19 million for his .260 batting average.
Also the US Women's World Cup team lost to Sweden yesterday 2-1, which means they finished second in their group. What does that men for the ladies of America? They open up the World Cup knockout round by playing the powerful Brazil team. Brazil features Marta, who many people consider the world's best player. That game is going to start about noon EST on Sunday. That game makes me very nervous.
Quick reviews, about a month ago the Arctic Monkeys released their latest CD, "Suck It And See". Not only is the title sophomoric but the music is less than inspiring. It's hard to believe that a band that started out so hot has become so mediocre. The Arctic Monkeys went from this song:
This is one of the best songs, if not the best song, on "Suck It And See". It's an okay song but nowhere near their first few songs. This is "Brick by Brick":
I took a break from Brady Udall's "The Lonely Polygamist" and started reading Ted Bell's "Warlord". I read what the book was about on it's back cover. It sounded like a terrific book. However after reading the first 33 pages last night, I've come to a different idea. So far this is not a good book, in fact it's been very disappointing so far. Dare I say boring. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue to read it, it's that bad. Thankfully for the library so that I didn't spend any money on it.
Last night's "American Idol" Season 10 tour started in West Valley City. Pia Toscano debuted her new song "This Time". Obviously the following video is from a cell phone so the sound quality is very low. "This Time" will officially will released on July 12th.
Besides the crappy sound and "Blair Witch" camera work, what do you think? I actually like it somewhat. I'm going to wait until I hear the actual song, before making a final judgment. I'm so glad she didn't sing another ballad. Isn't Pia looking gorgeous? I do wonder why this song wasn't released earlier. It had to be known that this song would be all over youtube as soon as she sang it live.
Salt Lake Tribune (www.sltrib.com) writer David Burger reviewed last night's first stop on the "American Idol" tour. Some of the highlights of his review: "The contestants that showed the most star power, stage presence and vocal chops were Stefano Langone, Casey Abrams, Haley Reinhart and Pia Toscano.
No surprise that Scotty McDreary isn't listed in the above sentence. Even though he "won" "AI", he rarely showed either stage presence or star power. If you want every song to sound the same, then he was your man, uh boy.
The following paragraph is exactly why I had no desire to see the "AI" tour: "The show tries to be all things to all people, so you heard R&B from Jacob Lusk, jazz from Abrams, country from runner-up Lauren Alaina and rock from James Durbin. Yes, it is karaoke, and considering the price, a rather expensive night of karaoke."
As soon as I read Jacob Lusk's name I didn't need to read anymore. In fact I think my hell would be 24/7 Jacob Lusk "singing". I'd also question if James Durbin really sang rock. Did he also do his terrible screeching, something he stole directly from Adam Lambert.
But I think of all the things David Burger wrote, this is the most telling: "Just cut the running time, please — some of us have to work the next day." First of all it cracks me up he complains about the length of a concert. For most concerts the longer the better, but I'd agree that 3 hours of the Idols would be a bit much. A great concert is a concert I don't want to end, no matter how little sleep I get the next day.
themusicaddict
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Pia Toscano Begins To Set Herself Apart From "Season 10", Steroid Stank
Hello,
Where I work I'm about a mile from where the Top Eleven of "America Idol's" Season 10 will perform their first concert on the latest craptastic "American Idol" tour. Is it too much to have Pia Toscano come and hang out with me for a couple of hours?
I honestly have no interest in going to this concert. The way I've heard how the concert format was done in the past is the 10th place singer sings a couple of songs. Then the 9th place singer sings more etc. (This year due to the lame judges save, there are actually 11 Idols on this tour.) If I had tickets to this concert I'd go see Pia Toscano. I then would find something else to do until Haley Reinhart took the stage. I would stay for Lauren Alaina. After which I would leave as fast as I could before I had to hear a note from the one trick pony. When you let tween females decide on "winner", you probably won't get the most talented singer as your "AI" winner. That has been the case for three years now. Bonus points if you can name "AI's" last two winners from memory previous to Scotty McDreery. And what does it say about me that I know those two people?
Back to Pia Toscano, she needs to find much better songs to sing than she did on her short stint of "American Idol". She sang too many slow, languid songs. Her being eliminated so early was good I believe. She was on the show long enough to earn herself some brand name recognition. Yesterday Interscope, home of alleged "AI" mentor Jimmy Iovine, signed Pia Toscano to a contract. Her album will come out later this year and her first single, "This Time" will be released on July 12th. Maybe you can hear that song tonight though. According to ew.com the song is, "an acoustic guitar and beat-driven track by Ester Dean". As of right now the song isn't on youtube.com
If "American Idol" isn't your thing, maybe you might enjoy the Roger Clemons trial. It starts today in Washington. Jury selection, which is expected to last at least 3 days, is the first thing. According to espn.com "Clemens is charged with six felony counts, including perjury, false statements and obstruction of Congress, which carry a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine".
It's been a busy year for the steroid cheaters of MLB this year. Back in mid-April two of MLB's steroid cheats were in the spotlight. Manny Ramirez, following the failure of his test for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), retired rather than facing a 100 game suspension. Also Barry Bonds was "convicted on one count of obstruction of justice. Meanwhile a mistrial was declared on three counts of lying about steroid use". (Thanks to Time Magazine.) Do you want to have your blood really boil? The cost to prosecute Barry Bonds to this point has cost $6 million so far. Really couldn't a lot of that money gone to something else more appropriate. Now Roger Clemons is on trial for the above alleged crimes.
Most of the steroid cheaters have retired including players such as Bonds, Ramirez, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafeal Palmeiro. There are still at least a couple of reformed steroid cheaters playing- Boston's David Ortiz (sigh) and the Yankees Alex Rodriguez.
Thankfully the great thing about sports is there is always next year. When Ramirez and Bonds were going through their fall the MLB season was just starting. Now with Clemons on trial, MLB is headed towards it's All-Star Game. And the Pirates, bouncing back from 18 consecutive losing seasons, are the feel good story right now. Thankfully for the most part, those are the story lines that are most dominating baseball.
One final note combining baseball and "American Idol". Megan Joy will be singing the national anthem at the Triple A All-Star Game in Salt Lake City. Of all the "American Idol" contestants from Salt Lake, she by far is easily the most talented. She also is the most pleasing to the eye.
themusicaddict
Where I work I'm about a mile from where the Top Eleven of "America Idol's" Season 10 will perform their first concert on the latest craptastic "American Idol" tour. Is it too much to have Pia Toscano come and hang out with me for a couple of hours?
I honestly have no interest in going to this concert. The way I've heard how the concert format was done in the past is the 10th place singer sings a couple of songs. Then the 9th place singer sings more etc. (This year due to the lame judges save, there are actually 11 Idols on this tour.) If I had tickets to this concert I'd go see Pia Toscano. I then would find something else to do until Haley Reinhart took the stage. I would stay for Lauren Alaina. After which I would leave as fast as I could before I had to hear a note from the one trick pony. When you let tween females decide on "winner", you probably won't get the most talented singer as your "AI" winner. That has been the case for three years now. Bonus points if you can name "AI's" last two winners from memory previous to Scotty McDreery. And what does it say about me that I know those two people?
Back to Pia Toscano, she needs to find much better songs to sing than she did on her short stint of "American Idol". She sang too many slow, languid songs. Her being eliminated so early was good I believe. She was on the show long enough to earn herself some brand name recognition. Yesterday Interscope, home of alleged "AI" mentor Jimmy Iovine, signed Pia Toscano to a contract. Her album will come out later this year and her first single, "This Time" will be released on July 12th. Maybe you can hear that song tonight though. According to ew.com the song is, "an acoustic guitar and beat-driven track by Ester Dean". As of right now the song isn't on youtube.com
If "American Idol" isn't your thing, maybe you might enjoy the Roger Clemons trial. It starts today in Washington. Jury selection, which is expected to last at least 3 days, is the first thing. According to espn.com "Clemens is charged with six felony counts, including perjury, false statements and obstruction of Congress, which carry a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine".
It's been a busy year for the steroid cheaters of MLB this year. Back in mid-April two of MLB's steroid cheats were in the spotlight. Manny Ramirez, following the failure of his test for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), retired rather than facing a 100 game suspension. Also Barry Bonds was "convicted on one count of obstruction of justice. Meanwhile a mistrial was declared on three counts of lying about steroid use". (Thanks to Time Magazine.) Do you want to have your blood really boil? The cost to prosecute Barry Bonds to this point has cost $6 million so far. Really couldn't a lot of that money gone to something else more appropriate. Now Roger Clemons is on trial for the above alleged crimes.
Most of the steroid cheaters have retired including players such as Bonds, Ramirez, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafeal Palmeiro. There are still at least a couple of reformed steroid cheaters playing- Boston's David Ortiz (sigh) and the Yankees Alex Rodriguez.
Thankfully the great thing about sports is there is always next year. When Ramirez and Bonds were going through their fall the MLB season was just starting. Now with Clemons on trial, MLB is headed towards it's All-Star Game. And the Pirates, bouncing back from 18 consecutive losing seasons, are the feel good story right now. Thankfully for the most part, those are the story lines that are most dominating baseball.
One final note combining baseball and "American Idol". Megan Joy will be singing the national anthem at the Triple A All-Star Game in Salt Lake City. Of all the "American Idol" contestants from Salt Lake, she by far is easily the most talented. She also is the most pleasing to the eye.
themusicaddict
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Why Can't The Pirates Make The Playoffs, NFL Lockout Bad News
Hello,
Yesterday I posed the question wondering if the Pittsburgh Pirates can make the playoffs. After thinking about it for awhile, I'm now realizing why can't they make the playoffs? Yes, I know they are young and inexperienced. Yes, I know before this season they had a culture of losing. A culture isn't just thrown off in one half season. However the Pirates play in the very mediocre, being generous here, NL Central. Four teams in that division are very similar. Any of those four teams could win this division, in fact any of them could finish anywhere from 1st to 4th. So with all that, yes the Pirates can make the playoffs. While that is possible, it might be a bit unrealistic at this point. However I'd be very disappointed if they don't finish above .500.
It's hard to believe that a team that has had such historic players as Barry Bonds (although they may not claim him with his postseason struggles when he was in Pittsburgh), Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, The Candy Man and Kent Tekulve, faded away so much. Deserving a sentence of his own, the great Roberto Clemente. I'll let other people figure out why the Pirates went into such an extended drought. After 18 consecutive losing seasons the Pirates are on their way back to at least relevance.
They have a solid core in pitching and hitting. They have up and coming hitter Andrew McCutcheon. He's only 24 and possibly the best offensive prospect on this team. They also have Matt Diaz, Neil Walker, Lyle Overbay and Garret Jones. They have solid starting pitching in Kevin Correia, Charlie Morton and Jeff Karstens. They also have the All-Star closer Joel Hanrahan.
Again all of today's songs are brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1. Thanks iTunes for letting me have music I've bought and then lost, back. Now Apple the next thing that needs to be worked on for future releases of iTunes is a feature that will balance out the volume for all songs. In other words all songs will play at the same volume. Thanks Steve and everyone else.
Let's start off with Madonna. BTW: she started working on her next CD today. Do you care? I can't believe this song wasn't on my iTunes:
The Pirates are now 44-41 after winning 9 of 13 games. Pittsburgh moved 3 games above .500 this late in the season for the first time in 12 years. The city of Pittsburgh is embracing these young, over achieving Pirates. The Pirates had their fourth consecutive sellout. "Rookie Alex Presley had 3 of the 14 Pirates hits. Chase d'Arnaud, Garrett Jones, Neil Walker and Lyle Overbay each had two hits for Pittsburgh". It was good to see someone else besides Andrew McCutchen have the big hit. Although McCutchen did have a hit and drove in his 46th run of the season. (Thanks to cnnsi.com)
Pittsburgh is 3rd place in the NL Central and trails first place St. Louis by 1.5 games. The Cardinals haven't been playing well of late but they should be getting Albert Pujols back today. The Pirates are a half game behind second place Milwaukee, the same team that have 3 players selected to start in the All-Star Game. The Pirates do need to add at least one more bat to their lineup for the stretch run. Although their pitching has been better than expected, it still seems a little shaky. I'd like to see them add another solid starting pitcher before the July 31st trade deadline. (Just say no to Carlos Zambrano.)
Of course the Pittsburgh brain trust, no longer an oxymoron, needs to decide which direction they want to go in. Trying to win now is one option, of course the other option is to continue to build this team without any major trades. With the current talent on the roster, do they have enough to make a deep run into the playoffs in a couple of years? Thankfully there's someone smarter than me to answer that question. (As always, thanks to ESPN for the stats.)
As for my other teams it's good to see Atlanta and Boston also doing well.
As for the Dodgers, Cubs and John Lackey maybe a visit with "Mack The Knife" would be in order:
However one Red Sox player not doing well is John Lackey. He leads the league in pitching futility, he had another miserable outing yesterday. Pitching at Fenway, against the Blue Jays, he gave up 7 runs in 3 innings. He's pitching so badly now I'd be happy with just a mediocre performance from him. It's time for Boston to give up on Lackey. I'd love to see Boston promote one of their pitchers from Triple A ball and see if he can grow into a solid MLB starting pitcher. I know Lackey is on the hook for 15.5 million dollars this year, but when does Boston cut their losses? As I'm hoping with Daisuke Matsuzaka, I'd like neither pitcher ever to pitch for the Red Sox again.
However for two of my teams it's time for them to pull the plug on their seasons. The talent thin Dodgers need to start preparing for the post-McCourt era. This Dodgers team has just too little talent to achieve any kind of postseason glory. They won't even get anywhere near the postseason. LA is 37-49 and last in a not very strong NL West division. Hopefully McCourt will sale the Dodgers soon, whether on his own or with MLB's assistance. I'm hoping the next Dodgers owners have deep pockets and not a married couple. The signing of Juan Uribe is just not the type of free agent acquisition that launches a team into the playoffs. In fact, I have no idea why they signed him anyway.
The Cubs need to start building for next year... again. The Cubs also need to pull the plug on this season. The Cubs are only 35-51 and going nowhere. They seem to be a team full of chemistry misfits and too many expensive players well past their prime. It was good the Cubs spent a lot of money a few years ago to give this team a chance at glory. However they need to sign better players next time.
I also wonder did the Dodgers and Cubs make the right selection in their managers? Of course with all the issues the Dodgers and Cubs have, how much can you blame their lack of success on the managers?
On Day 112 of the NFL Lockout unfortunately it seems the NFL and the NFLPA are starting to reach agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). It sounds like for the next couple of days the lawyers for both sides are getting together working on the language for a projected new CBA. Although I'm a huge NFL fan, I'm saddened by this development. Both the players and owners have taken the fans for granted for so long. Both sides need a large dose of humility. I was hoping a several month lockout, with part of the season missed, would help with that. Also both sides have assured the people behind the Hall of Fame game that it's expected to be played as scheduled on August 7th.
Other notable NFL dates, obviously based on an actual agreement being reached: On July 23 training camps will start. The first game will be on September 8th. Then the first full Sunday of games will be on September 11th. Yes, that being the 10 year anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It's hard to believe it has been 10 years already.
Although I'm not a big Yankees fan, I respect Derek Jeter. He returned from an injury yesterday with an 0-4 performance. Those kind of games even happen to the great players. Anyway right now Derek Jeter is sitting at 2,994 hits. With only 6 more hits he will be the first Yankee to have 3,000 career hits. The question is when, not if, he'll reach that milestone.
Other great songs from iTunes 10.3.1:
The Zombies "Time of the Season":
From the amazing film "Rainman", the Belle Stars "Iko,Iko":
From the very good movie "Inside Man", "Chaiyya Chaiyya":
Big Audio Dynamite's "Rush":
The great Brad Paisley, and his hilarious "Ticks":
David Bowie "Suffragette City":
A great song, but terrible lip synching. Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together":
themusicaddict
Yesterday I posed the question wondering if the Pittsburgh Pirates can make the playoffs. After thinking about it for awhile, I'm now realizing why can't they make the playoffs? Yes, I know they are young and inexperienced. Yes, I know before this season they had a culture of losing. A culture isn't just thrown off in one half season. However the Pirates play in the very mediocre, being generous here, NL Central. Four teams in that division are very similar. Any of those four teams could win this division, in fact any of them could finish anywhere from 1st to 4th. So with all that, yes the Pirates can make the playoffs. While that is possible, it might be a bit unrealistic at this point. However I'd be very disappointed if they don't finish above .500.
It's hard to believe that a team that has had such historic players as Barry Bonds (although they may not claim him with his postseason struggles when he was in Pittsburgh), Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, The Candy Man and Kent Tekulve, faded away so much. Deserving a sentence of his own, the great Roberto Clemente. I'll let other people figure out why the Pirates went into such an extended drought. After 18 consecutive losing seasons the Pirates are on their way back to at least relevance.
They have a solid core in pitching and hitting. They have up and coming hitter Andrew McCutcheon. He's only 24 and possibly the best offensive prospect on this team. They also have Matt Diaz, Neil Walker, Lyle Overbay and Garret Jones. They have solid starting pitching in Kevin Correia, Charlie Morton and Jeff Karstens. They also have the All-Star closer Joel Hanrahan.
Again all of today's songs are brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1. Thanks iTunes for letting me have music I've bought and then lost, back. Now Apple the next thing that needs to be worked on for future releases of iTunes is a feature that will balance out the volume for all songs. In other words all songs will play at the same volume. Thanks Steve and everyone else.
Let's start off with Madonna. BTW: she started working on her next CD today. Do you care? I can't believe this song wasn't on my iTunes:
The Pirates are now 44-41 after winning 9 of 13 games. Pittsburgh moved 3 games above .500 this late in the season for the first time in 12 years. The city of Pittsburgh is embracing these young, over achieving Pirates. The Pirates had their fourth consecutive sellout. "Rookie Alex Presley had 3 of the 14 Pirates hits. Chase d'Arnaud, Garrett Jones, Neil Walker and Lyle Overbay each had two hits for Pittsburgh". It was good to see someone else besides Andrew McCutchen have the big hit. Although McCutchen did have a hit and drove in his 46th run of the season. (Thanks to cnnsi.com)
Pittsburgh is 3rd place in the NL Central and trails first place St. Louis by 1.5 games. The Cardinals haven't been playing well of late but they should be getting Albert Pujols back today. The Pirates are a half game behind second place Milwaukee, the same team that have 3 players selected to start in the All-Star Game. The Pirates do need to add at least one more bat to their lineup for the stretch run. Although their pitching has been better than expected, it still seems a little shaky. I'd like to see them add another solid starting pitcher before the July 31st trade deadline. (Just say no to Carlos Zambrano.)
Of course the Pittsburgh brain trust, no longer an oxymoron, needs to decide which direction they want to go in. Trying to win now is one option, of course the other option is to continue to build this team without any major trades. With the current talent on the roster, do they have enough to make a deep run into the playoffs in a couple of years? Thankfully there's someone smarter than me to answer that question. (As always, thanks to ESPN for the stats.)
As for my other teams it's good to see Atlanta and Boston also doing well.
As for the Dodgers, Cubs and John Lackey maybe a visit with "Mack The Knife" would be in order:
However one Red Sox player not doing well is John Lackey. He leads the league in pitching futility, he had another miserable outing yesterday. Pitching at Fenway, against the Blue Jays, he gave up 7 runs in 3 innings. He's pitching so badly now I'd be happy with just a mediocre performance from him. It's time for Boston to give up on Lackey. I'd love to see Boston promote one of their pitchers from Triple A ball and see if he can grow into a solid MLB starting pitcher. I know Lackey is on the hook for 15.5 million dollars this year, but when does Boston cut their losses? As I'm hoping with Daisuke Matsuzaka, I'd like neither pitcher ever to pitch for the Red Sox again.
However for two of my teams it's time for them to pull the plug on their seasons. The talent thin Dodgers need to start preparing for the post-McCourt era. This Dodgers team has just too little talent to achieve any kind of postseason glory. They won't even get anywhere near the postseason. LA is 37-49 and last in a not very strong NL West division. Hopefully McCourt will sale the Dodgers soon, whether on his own or with MLB's assistance. I'm hoping the next Dodgers owners have deep pockets and not a married couple. The signing of Juan Uribe is just not the type of free agent acquisition that launches a team into the playoffs. In fact, I have no idea why they signed him anyway.
The Cubs need to start building for next year... again. The Cubs also need to pull the plug on this season. The Cubs are only 35-51 and going nowhere. They seem to be a team full of chemistry misfits and too many expensive players well past their prime. It was good the Cubs spent a lot of money a few years ago to give this team a chance at glory. However they need to sign better players next time.
I also wonder did the Dodgers and Cubs make the right selection in their managers? Of course with all the issues the Dodgers and Cubs have, how much can you blame their lack of success on the managers?
On Day 112 of the NFL Lockout unfortunately it seems the NFL and the NFLPA are starting to reach agreement on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). It sounds like for the next couple of days the lawyers for both sides are getting together working on the language for a projected new CBA. Although I'm a huge NFL fan, I'm saddened by this development. Both the players and owners have taken the fans for granted for so long. Both sides need a large dose of humility. I was hoping a several month lockout, with part of the season missed, would help with that. Also both sides have assured the people behind the Hall of Fame game that it's expected to be played as scheduled on August 7th.
Other notable NFL dates, obviously based on an actual agreement being reached: On July 23 training camps will start. The first game will be on September 8th. Then the first full Sunday of games will be on September 11th. Yes, that being the 10 year anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It's hard to believe it has been 10 years already.
Although I'm not a big Yankees fan, I respect Derek Jeter. He returned from an injury yesterday with an 0-4 performance. Those kind of games even happen to the great players. Anyway right now Derek Jeter is sitting at 2,994 hits. With only 6 more hits he will be the first Yankee to have 3,000 career hits. The question is when, not if, he'll reach that milestone.
Other great songs from iTunes 10.3.1:
The Zombies "Time of the Season":
From the amazing film "Rainman", the Belle Stars "Iko,Iko":
From the very good movie "Inside Man", "Chaiyya Chaiyya":
Big Audio Dynamite's "Rush":
The great Brad Paisley, and his hilarious "Ticks":
David Bowie "Suffragette City":
A great song, but terrible lip synching. Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together":
themusicaddict
Monday, July 4, 2011
Happy July 4th, Can the Pirates Make The Playoffs?, "The Lonely Polygamist"
Hello,
This blog is brought to you by the greatest country in the world, the United States. Happy July 4th everyone.
In my church I teach a group of 16 year olds. Before I started the lesson I talked a bit about July 4th and what it meant to them. They came up with family, fireworks and other fun things. I asked them about specific years they thought of when I mentioned July 4th. While they were thinking about it I started writing 177 on the chalkboard. It took them several guesses, and that's exactly what they were, before they came up with 1776. I thought that was just a bit scary. These are smart kids some of them were in AP history classes. So for those who might stumble across this blog, here's some July 4th history.
"Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The USA declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.
Background
During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.[4][5] After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4." (Thanks to wikipedia.org, I've cleaned this up a bit.)
Thanks to iTunes 10.3.1 and the new feature it has of being able to redownload any song that I've downloaded before. With switching between hard drives and computers, I've lost a lot of the digital music I've bought from iTunes over the years. I often thought that iTunes should have someway of reclaiming music that has been lost. (With amazon.com and iTunes doing a tit for tat, I wonder if they are will be offering a similar feature?) I honestly thought they'd never do that as Apple is corporate America and numbers driven as almost every other large company.
However Apple has indeed offered the ability of reclaiming songs I've previously downloaded but lost over the years. In the last couple of days I've downloaded about 425 songs that had been lost. I estimate once I download all the songs that have been lost, it will probably be about 600 songs total. This is why I call myself themusicaddict. So all songs on my blog today are from songs I've redownloaded over the last couple of days.
Warning this song is very provocative. However no one can deny that this song is indeed one of the catchiest songs ever:
There are many songs that I already have on my iTunes that came from CD's, I'm not going to redownload those. There's no reason to have duplicates. There's also some music I've bought that's so bad that I'm not going to redownload it, even though it's free. Two examples are Michael Penn's "Mr. Hollywood 1947", just not a good CD. Also The Mars Volta "Frances The Mute" CD is terrible. Five very long songs of bad prog rock music. When I bought it I had a review in my head, the review said that this CD was a mix of Soundgarden and Queen. I thought that sounded like an intriguing mix. It's as intriguing of a mix as Michael Bay and an actual story. "Frances The Mute" is just a bunch of very crappy and way too long songs.
Today's music is brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1 and I will feature it some songs throughout this blog. Enjoy!
Camper Van Beethoven's "Pictures of Matchstick Men":
One of the surprise teams in MLB has got to be the Pittsburgh Pirates. Right now they are 43-41. The Pirates started this morning with their first winning record on July 4th since 1999. Pittsburgh beat the Nationals yesterday 10-2, scoring 8 runs in the first 2 innings. Kevin Correia, who may be added to the all-star roster, won the game. He's now 11-6 on the season, including 9 road wins. The 9 road wins leads all of Major League Baseball. Andrew McCutchen had three more hits for the Pirates. He's hitting .294 on the season, with 12 home runs and 45 RBIs. Also Pittsburgh closer Joel Hanrahan was named to the All-Star Game yesterday.
This song was used for great comedic effect in "Ghost":
Pittsburgh is in third place in the NL Central, they are 1.5 games behind the tied for first place Milwaukee and St. Louis. Although the NL Central has 4 teams that are above .500, it's still a fairly mediocre division. Pittsburgh plays the two dregs of the Central Division over their next 6 games. First they welcome the 29-56 Astros, followed by the 35-50 Cubs. All games will be played in Pittsburgh. Playing home games is usually a good thing, but the Pirates actually have a better road record.
I think the acoustic version of "Layla" is a lot better than the original:
Here's another song first brought to my attention thanks to "MTV Unplugged":
themusicaddict bookclub selection is Brady Udall's "The Lonely Polygamist". Full disclosure: The religion referred to in this book is an offshoot of Mormonism. Other than that there's no connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Also known as the Mormons or LDS. I'm a proud member of the Mormon Church, which hasn't practiced polygamy in over 100 years.
Thought questions:
1) I've read to page 228 in this novel so far. The protagonist is Golden Richards, he has 4 wives and 28 kids. He's clearly not in charge of his own life though. The head wife Beverly is clearly in charge. At this point in the book she's thinking about getting Golden a 5th wife and hasn't even consulted Golden Richards. That makes me wonder why is Golden Richards barely a participant in his own life?
2) One of the main characters is Rusty, a 11 year old overweight malcontent. He has a very active imagination and loves to steal things. Rusty is the son of Rose, who is wife # 3, and Golden. Why is one of what would seem to be a fairly minor character play such a pivotal role in this book?
3) Besides Beverly, the most talked about wife is Trish. However she lives on her own with her daughter Faye in a duplex. She lives across Virgin Valley from where the rest of Richards family lives. Why is she such a pivotal character. It seems members of the family that play a lesser role are more important characters.
4) This might be the most important question of them all. Why would anyone want to live The Principle (polygamy)? It seems no one is happy in the Richards family. Golden is away from the family building a Brothel. He enjoys those times more than being with his family.
5) This book seems to be full of various parts of Mormonism and fundamental Mormonism. In the book there are references to Brigham Young, Book of Mormon, Christian missionaries, baptisms, church plays, Council of the Twelve (Apostles), the One Mighty and Strong etc. Why does the author have such a religious stew? What is his purpose doing that?
Speaking of good, I'd be remiss in not mentioning the amazing USA Women Soccer players. They are now 2-0 in World Cup action. The USA looked very good in their 3-0 victory over Columbia this past Saturday. The USA plays Sweden in the last match of the group round on Wednesday. That match will determine who the winner of Group C is. The USA has already advanced to the quarterfinals, the knockout round.
In honor of the US Women's World Cup, this is what men should do when they are on TV:
Finally another new episode of the excellent "Falling Skies" was on again last night. After the third hour of the show was a bit of a downer, this episode put "Falling Skies" back into high gear. This show is absolutely amazing now, although I do wonder how good this would be if it had the same budget as "Transformers 3". Even with a much smaller budget "Falling Skies" is considerably better. Sure the special effects are a little cheesy, but they aren't really needed. The story does all the heavy lifting in this series.
The story in "Falling Skies" is so much better than any of the "Transformers" movies. Its' direction of plot and actors is also considerably better. Unlike any of the "Transformers" nonsense, in "Falling Skies" there's actually acting! I apologize to Noah Wyle for doubting his acting ability. He has been a revelation in this series. I also like Moon Bloodgood's Annie, the heart and focus of the civilian population. The actors are great and I care about their characters.
The story is great and naturally moving forward. We are learning more about the skitters. They seem to be taking on a more important role than the mechs. I love the scene when Rick puts his harness back on, the parts that were in his body eagerly wanting the harness attached again. Rick then channels the alien's thoughts. We know the skitters know English, and presumably all other human languages. We are still unclear what the skitters want. What is their motivation? They seem to be in charge of the mechs.
What is going on with the harness and the radio waves? "Falling Skies" is scheduled to be 10 episodes, which mean there are 6 hours left. What is going to happen in those 6 hours? The first four hours have been very good, so I'm expecting great things. If the creative team do it right, I think they could stretch this into two or three seasons. (Just please whatever you do, don't let Veena Sud near this.) This show doesn't have any filler, other than the long commercials. All the tension feels natural and the emotions are genuine.
Other great songs brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1:
I've gone back and forth on whether I like this song or not. It was definitely overplayed when it first came out. Right now I'm quite liking this song:
How about some Big Audio Dynamite? This is "Contact":
Would you like a piece of Cake, unfortunately the band not the food.
Billy Dean's "Somewhere In My Broken Heart":
Barbara Mandrell "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed"
I will close with a couple by the Beastie Boys. "Intergalactic"
"Girls":
themusicaddict
This blog is brought to you by the greatest country in the world, the United States. Happy July 4th everyone.
In my church I teach a group of 16 year olds. Before I started the lesson I talked a bit about July 4th and what it meant to them. They came up with family, fireworks and other fun things. I asked them about specific years they thought of when I mentioned July 4th. While they were thinking about it I started writing 177 on the chalkboard. It took them several guesses, and that's exactly what they were, before they came up with 1776. I thought that was just a bit scary. These are smart kids some of them were in AP history classes. So for those who might stumble across this blog, here's some July 4th history.
"Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The USA declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.
Background
During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.[4][5] After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4." (Thanks to wikipedia.org, I've cleaned this up a bit.)
Thanks to iTunes 10.3.1 and the new feature it has of being able to redownload any song that I've downloaded before. With switching between hard drives and computers, I've lost a lot of the digital music I've bought from iTunes over the years. I often thought that iTunes should have someway of reclaiming music that has been lost. (With amazon.com and iTunes doing a tit for tat, I wonder if they are will be offering a similar feature?) I honestly thought they'd never do that as Apple is corporate America and numbers driven as almost every other large company.
However Apple has indeed offered the ability of reclaiming songs I've previously downloaded but lost over the years. In the last couple of days I've downloaded about 425 songs that had been lost. I estimate once I download all the songs that have been lost, it will probably be about 600 songs total. This is why I call myself themusicaddict. So all songs on my blog today are from songs I've redownloaded over the last couple of days.
Warning this song is very provocative. However no one can deny that this song is indeed one of the catchiest songs ever:
There are many songs that I already have on my iTunes that came from CD's, I'm not going to redownload those. There's no reason to have duplicates. There's also some music I've bought that's so bad that I'm not going to redownload it, even though it's free. Two examples are Michael Penn's "Mr. Hollywood 1947", just not a good CD. Also The Mars Volta "Frances The Mute" CD is terrible. Five very long songs of bad prog rock music. When I bought it I had a review in my head, the review said that this CD was a mix of Soundgarden and Queen. I thought that sounded like an intriguing mix. It's as intriguing of a mix as Michael Bay and an actual story. "Frances The Mute" is just a bunch of very crappy and way too long songs.
Today's music is brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1 and I will feature it some songs throughout this blog. Enjoy!
Camper Van Beethoven's "Pictures of Matchstick Men":
One of the surprise teams in MLB has got to be the Pittsburgh Pirates. Right now they are 43-41. The Pirates started this morning with their first winning record on July 4th since 1999. Pittsburgh beat the Nationals yesterday 10-2, scoring 8 runs in the first 2 innings. Kevin Correia, who may be added to the all-star roster, won the game. He's now 11-6 on the season, including 9 road wins. The 9 road wins leads all of Major League Baseball. Andrew McCutchen had three more hits for the Pirates. He's hitting .294 on the season, with 12 home runs and 45 RBIs. Also Pittsburgh closer Joel Hanrahan was named to the All-Star Game yesterday.
This song was used for great comedic effect in "Ghost":
Pittsburgh is in third place in the NL Central, they are 1.5 games behind the tied for first place Milwaukee and St. Louis. Although the NL Central has 4 teams that are above .500, it's still a fairly mediocre division. Pittsburgh plays the two dregs of the Central Division over their next 6 games. First they welcome the 29-56 Astros, followed by the 35-50 Cubs. All games will be played in Pittsburgh. Playing home games is usually a good thing, but the Pirates actually have a better road record.
I think the acoustic version of "Layla" is a lot better than the original:
Here's another song first brought to my attention thanks to "MTV Unplugged":
themusicaddict bookclub selection is Brady Udall's "The Lonely Polygamist". Full disclosure: The religion referred to in this book is an offshoot of Mormonism. Other than that there's no connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Also known as the Mormons or LDS. I'm a proud member of the Mormon Church, which hasn't practiced polygamy in over 100 years.
Thought questions:
1) I've read to page 228 in this novel so far. The protagonist is Golden Richards, he has 4 wives and 28 kids. He's clearly not in charge of his own life though. The head wife Beverly is clearly in charge. At this point in the book she's thinking about getting Golden a 5th wife and hasn't even consulted Golden Richards. That makes me wonder why is Golden Richards barely a participant in his own life?
2) One of the main characters is Rusty, a 11 year old overweight malcontent. He has a very active imagination and loves to steal things. Rusty is the son of Rose, who is wife # 3, and Golden. Why is one of what would seem to be a fairly minor character play such a pivotal role in this book?
3) Besides Beverly, the most talked about wife is Trish. However she lives on her own with her daughter Faye in a duplex. She lives across Virgin Valley from where the rest of Richards family lives. Why is she such a pivotal character. It seems members of the family that play a lesser role are more important characters.
4) This might be the most important question of them all. Why would anyone want to live The Principle (polygamy)? It seems no one is happy in the Richards family. Golden is away from the family building a Brothel. He enjoys those times more than being with his family.
5) This book seems to be full of various parts of Mormonism and fundamental Mormonism. In the book there are references to Brigham Young, Book of Mormon, Christian missionaries, baptisms, church plays, Council of the Twelve (Apostles), the One Mighty and Strong etc. Why does the author have such a religious stew? What is his purpose doing that?
Speaking of good, I'd be remiss in not mentioning the amazing USA Women Soccer players. They are now 2-0 in World Cup action. The USA looked very good in their 3-0 victory over Columbia this past Saturday. The USA plays Sweden in the last match of the group round on Wednesday. That match will determine who the winner of Group C is. The USA has already advanced to the quarterfinals, the knockout round.
In honor of the US Women's World Cup, this is what men should do when they are on TV:
Finally another new episode of the excellent "Falling Skies" was on again last night. After the third hour of the show was a bit of a downer, this episode put "Falling Skies" back into high gear. This show is absolutely amazing now, although I do wonder how good this would be if it had the same budget as "Transformers 3". Even with a much smaller budget "Falling Skies" is considerably better. Sure the special effects are a little cheesy, but they aren't really needed. The story does all the heavy lifting in this series.
The story in "Falling Skies" is so much better than any of the "Transformers" movies. Its' direction of plot and actors is also considerably better. Unlike any of the "Transformers" nonsense, in "Falling Skies" there's actually acting! I apologize to Noah Wyle for doubting his acting ability. He has been a revelation in this series. I also like Moon Bloodgood's Annie, the heart and focus of the civilian population. The actors are great and I care about their characters.
The story is great and naturally moving forward. We are learning more about the skitters. They seem to be taking on a more important role than the mechs. I love the scene when Rick puts his harness back on, the parts that were in his body eagerly wanting the harness attached again. Rick then channels the alien's thoughts. We know the skitters know English, and presumably all other human languages. We are still unclear what the skitters want. What is their motivation? They seem to be in charge of the mechs.
What is going on with the harness and the radio waves? "Falling Skies" is scheduled to be 10 episodes, which mean there are 6 hours left. What is going to happen in those 6 hours? The first four hours have been very good, so I'm expecting great things. If the creative team do it right, I think they could stretch this into two or three seasons. (Just please whatever you do, don't let Veena Sud near this.) This show doesn't have any filler, other than the long commercials. All the tension feels natural and the emotions are genuine.
Other great songs brought to you by iTunes 10.3.1:
I've gone back and forth on whether I like this song or not. It was definitely overplayed when it first came out. Right now I'm quite liking this song:
How about some Big Audio Dynamite? This is "Contact":
Would you like a piece of Cake, unfortunately the band not the food.
Billy Dean's "Somewhere In My Broken Heart":
Barbara Mandrell "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed"
I will close with a couple by the Beastie Boys. "Intergalactic"
"Girls":
themusicaddict
Friday, July 1, 2011
Just Say No to "Tranformers 3: Dark of Common Sense"
Hello,
I have yet to see "Transformers 3" and I hope to keep it that way. After seeing the craptastially horrid "Transformers 2", I have no desire to see the third one. The quality of this movie trilogy is obvious when people say the first one was the only good one. When a chaotic mess like "Transformers" is considered good, what does that say about Michael Bay. When a second and third "Transformers" movie is made, what does that say about Hollywood? What does that say about us, the people who keep on attending these crappy movies.
So as anyone predicted, the reviews for "Transformers 3" have been less than kind. It seems many reviews have been along the lines that this movie wasn't as bad as expected. When that's your consensus review, how bad is the movie? Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine closes his review of "Transformers 3" with this paragraph:
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon — high on any list of the worst blockbusters ever (move over Green Lantern, you've been bitch-slapped) — is a movie bereft of wit, wonder, imagination, and any genuine reason for being. Watching it makes you die a little inside. Is this the future of movies? God help us! Michael Bay, you've done it again."
How bad do movies have to get before they start getting better? Hell, Travers gave "The Green Lantern" 1 star. And that movie is pretty darn terrible. It's flatter than a pre-teen girl. I did have the misfortune of watching "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Stupid". Sam Witwicky goes to college until he gets pulled back into the war with the Transfomers. Cue explosions! Seriously that's the whole movie. I ain't the sharpest knife in the tool shed already, but I think I lost about 10 IQ points while watching that movie. That movie was so bad, I couldn't wait for it to end.
Is Michael Bay the worst director ever? These are some of his movies he has "directed": All 3 "Transformers" movies. He's also responsible for "The Rock", which I think is the first of the no story/ all action movies. This movie didn't start the dumbing down of Hollywood, but it certainly sped it up. He also directed "Armageddon", which certainly is on my list of Top Ten worst movies ever. It was so boring I didn't even watch the end. I completely had stopped caring. Even with Bruce Willis in it, who I love, I hated everything about this movie. The love story was extremely juvenile etc.
He also directed "The Island", "Pearl Harbor" and both "Bad Boys" movie. The subtitle for "Bad Boys 2" should have been "I'm Only Doing This For The Money". I understand all movies aren't going to be great, wouldn't that be cool, and it's okay for people to make bad movies. That is as long as they do everything they can to ensure its the best they possibly can make. I don't get the feeling that happens with Michael Bay movies. It seems like he has a formula for how to make a blockbuster. Seemingly the formula is don't let story get in the way of the action. The story should compliment the action, not the other way around.
If Michael Bay had directed "Super 8", the train crash scene would have been a hour long. If he directed "The Titanic", the boat would have taken all 3 hours to sink. What? It did that already? (But at least James Cameron has made some good movies.) I'm just imagining what would have "The Sixth Sense" been like if Michael Bay had directed it? Haley Joel Osment would have saw many more dead people. And their deaths would have been much more horrific.
So America how do we stop this kind of nonsense? I get it sometimes you just want to go to your local air conditioned theatre and relax. I completely understand that, but shouldn't there be some entertainment involved as well? There needs to be a movement where huge groups of people just stop going to these movies. The only way you can get a corporate America company to change is to deprive them of what they crave so much: money. Why should Hollywood care about story when we will go see almost every piece of crap they give us?
With "Transformers 3" breaking all kind of records, the message Hollywood gets is that people like these movies. There's already rumors of a "Transformers 4", or maybe they should just call that movie "Transformers $".
I know I can't do much on my own. But when I left "The Green Lantern" I vowed I was going to stop seeing these kind of horrid movies just to get some escape. If a movie bores me and I battle sleep through it, how good of an escape is it? I can battle sleep at home without paying a cent or killing brain cells.
Just when you can, maybe go see an art house film. The creators of those usually have a lot less money to make movies. They can't just use explosions to cover up a lack of story. They have to focus on making the story as good as possible. While not an art house film, "The King's Speech" is a great movie. Although it's during war time we don't see any explosions. The focus is completely on the story, we see a great story told with humor, compassion and thought. We also see some great acting. I'll wait while someone explains what that is to Bay. In "The King's Speech" Colin Firth got the awards and most of the praise, but Geoffrey Rush was absolutely magnificent in that film. We feel the frustration of King George and his therapist. We feel how these two dissimilar men begin to care for each other. Instead of explosions and head scratching story lines, there's genuine emotion in this movie. Making "Speech" must have been Rush's penance for being involved in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. In the "Pirates" movies he did the best he could with very little he had to work with.
Please America let's pressure Hollywood to make much better movies. Just say no to crap like "Transformers".
themusicaddict
I have yet to see "Transformers 3" and I hope to keep it that way. After seeing the craptastially horrid "Transformers 2", I have no desire to see the third one. The quality of this movie trilogy is obvious when people say the first one was the only good one. When a chaotic mess like "Transformers" is considered good, what does that say about Michael Bay. When a second and third "Transformers" movie is made, what does that say about Hollywood? What does that say about us, the people who keep on attending these crappy movies.
So as anyone predicted, the reviews for "Transformers 3" have been less than kind. It seems many reviews have been along the lines that this movie wasn't as bad as expected. When that's your consensus review, how bad is the movie? Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine closes his review of "Transformers 3" with this paragraph:
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon — high on any list of the worst blockbusters ever (move over Green Lantern, you've been bitch-slapped) — is a movie bereft of wit, wonder, imagination, and any genuine reason for being. Watching it makes you die a little inside. Is this the future of movies? God help us! Michael Bay, you've done it again."
How bad do movies have to get before they start getting better? Hell, Travers gave "The Green Lantern" 1 star. And that movie is pretty darn terrible. It's flatter than a pre-teen girl. I did have the misfortune of watching "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Stupid". Sam Witwicky goes to college until he gets pulled back into the war with the Transfomers. Cue explosions! Seriously that's the whole movie. I ain't the sharpest knife in the tool shed already, but I think I lost about 10 IQ points while watching that movie. That movie was so bad, I couldn't wait for it to end.
Is Michael Bay the worst director ever? These are some of his movies he has "directed": All 3 "Transformers" movies. He's also responsible for "The Rock", which I think is the first of the no story/ all action movies. This movie didn't start the dumbing down of Hollywood, but it certainly sped it up. He also directed "Armageddon", which certainly is on my list of Top Ten worst movies ever. It was so boring I didn't even watch the end. I completely had stopped caring. Even with Bruce Willis in it, who I love, I hated everything about this movie. The love story was extremely juvenile etc.
He also directed "The Island", "Pearl Harbor" and both "Bad Boys" movie. The subtitle for "Bad Boys 2" should have been "I'm Only Doing This For The Money". I understand all movies aren't going to be great, wouldn't that be cool, and it's okay for people to make bad movies. That is as long as they do everything they can to ensure its the best they possibly can make. I don't get the feeling that happens with Michael Bay movies. It seems like he has a formula for how to make a blockbuster. Seemingly the formula is don't let story get in the way of the action. The story should compliment the action, not the other way around.
If Michael Bay had directed "Super 8", the train crash scene would have been a hour long. If he directed "The Titanic", the boat would have taken all 3 hours to sink. What? It did that already? (But at least James Cameron has made some good movies.) I'm just imagining what would have "The Sixth Sense" been like if Michael Bay had directed it? Haley Joel Osment would have saw many more dead people. And their deaths would have been much more horrific.
So America how do we stop this kind of nonsense? I get it sometimes you just want to go to your local air conditioned theatre and relax. I completely understand that, but shouldn't there be some entertainment involved as well? There needs to be a movement where huge groups of people just stop going to these movies. The only way you can get a corporate America company to change is to deprive them of what they crave so much: money. Why should Hollywood care about story when we will go see almost every piece of crap they give us?
With "Transformers 3" breaking all kind of records, the message Hollywood gets is that people like these movies. There's already rumors of a "Transformers 4", or maybe they should just call that movie "Transformers $".
I know I can't do much on my own. But when I left "The Green Lantern" I vowed I was going to stop seeing these kind of horrid movies just to get some escape. If a movie bores me and I battle sleep through it, how good of an escape is it? I can battle sleep at home without paying a cent or killing brain cells.
Just when you can, maybe go see an art house film. The creators of those usually have a lot less money to make movies. They can't just use explosions to cover up a lack of story. They have to focus on making the story as good as possible. While not an art house film, "The King's Speech" is a great movie. Although it's during war time we don't see any explosions. The focus is completely on the story, we see a great story told with humor, compassion and thought. We also see some great acting. I'll wait while someone explains what that is to Bay. In "The King's Speech" Colin Firth got the awards and most of the praise, but Geoffrey Rush was absolutely magnificent in that film. We feel the frustration of King George and his therapist. We feel how these two dissimilar men begin to care for each other. Instead of explosions and head scratching story lines, there's genuine emotion in this movie. Making "Speech" must have been Rush's penance for being involved in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. In the "Pirates" movies he did the best he could with very little he had to work with.
Please America let's pressure Hollywood to make much better movies. Just say no to crap like "Transformers".
themusicaddict
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