Desert Island Discs Inspired

I was thinking the other day about how it used to be a thing to talk about which CD’s one would take to a desert island. Of course, it no longer makes much sense in that format. Spotify, streaming and so forth are the way now. So I began thinking of particular songs and artists that I would want when I end up living the rest of my days on some lovely little tropical island with palm trees, hibiscus, jasmine, mangoes, pineapples etc.

So, in no particular order, I will begin to list some of those here.

Artists that immediately come to mind…Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Forbert. And Jimmy Buffett, The Tragically Hip, The Clash.

Songs: Hotel California by The Eagles. The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. Remember the Name by Fort Minor. Sundown and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. SexyBack by Justin Timberlake/Timbaland. The Way I Are by Timbaland. Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett. Dirty Laundry and Johnny Can’t Read by Don Henley. Fool in the Rain by Led Zeppelin. Arc of a Diver and While You See a Chance by Steve Winwood. Life’s Been Good by Joe Walsh. And New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. And Bring The Noise and Don’t Believe the Hype by Public Enemy.

More to be added over time.

Ambrosia (The Band)

Social distancing since the ‘70’s!

Still On The Oldies

November 30th – Playlist
Found a website that is having this thing where some panelists pick 10 songs and then people vote for their favorite(s) and each week the bottom four songs are eliminated and the panelists add 4 new songs (and so on).

The songs are from different genres and eras. The goal I think is to eventually come up with the top 10 songs you’d have on your music player if you could only have 10. It’s pretty cool – many of the songs/artists are ones that I’m not familiar with while some are classics (e.g. Bob Dylan). http://www.cbc.ca/nationalplaylist/ NOTE: link is no longer operational.

Here’s One I Don’t Remember…

…but I still love doing this! Although no more desktop. Now it’s laptops or tablets or phones.

November 2nd – Desktop
You know having a customizable desktop is pretty cool. I like being able to change it every so often. Put up a hallowe’en theme…then a favorite t.v. show…then a picture of a trip and so on. It’s like redecorating for lazy people – which I like 🙂 Hell of a lot easier than painting 😉

I Still Remember Writing This

Another one from a very old blog. This is one I never forgot…

October 31st
Watched an episode of Cold Case last night. The story was particularly nasty, with racism, a rape, a lynching, et cetera. The beating and hanging (and therefore death) that the story revolves around were ‘racially motivated’ (that sounds so bloody innocent, what a dumb phrase). At the end of the episode they show the crime happening, and the famous speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is playing on the car radio, then it starts playing this song that is really haunting and so appropriate – something about strange fruit hanging from the trees. As I listened more, I realized that the lyrics were about a hanging and I was really interested in finding out more about the song and surprised that I didn’t know more about it. I looked it up (see link for example) and found the story interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/film.html
Strange fruit hanging from the trees indeed – what a well written song.

Another Old Post

October 27th – Games of Chance
A few months back I started partaking in dice game sessions. We play once every 2 weeks or so and it’s a lot of fun. I’m not much of a gambler (at all) but it’s still very exciting when you get a crazy good roll and pretty…well exciting might be the wrong word…but pretty ‘throw arms in air, groan, and turn away’ when a streak goes cold. As there are a few different games we play, it keeps up the variety factor, too. Not to mention that when you lose, you get to call the next game, so you can always see if your luck will change with the new game. I get pretty into it, you know, some things you find your mind wandering or you’re not entirely present but with the games there is a certain focus yet still a fun atmosphere. I can’t really explain it – it feels like I’m doing something pretty exciting even though really we’re just throwing little cubes around and keeping score. Now I’m starting to think I should rename this ‘lame blog’ – but on the other hand maybe it’s nice to know that there are some things that are fun that you can’t overanalyze and explain exactly why they are that way. I feel that way about love or attraction. I don’t want to be able to come up with (or hear about someone else coming up with) an equation that shows me why I find A appealing from across the room but B doesn’t turn my head. Anyway…

My First Blog Post?

I can see some entries from a very old blog I started waaaaay back when… so copying here… I think this might be the very first. It’s dated October 24th but doesn’t list the year…

October 24th
Just watched Garden State. I had seen a short trailer before but really knew nothing about the movie (no expectations). I thought it just got better and better…often I find I’m really enjoying a book or a movie but then they go and do something that kind of messes things up. I was just so impressed by this movie – it was almost like it cast a spell, ask me now what was so great about it and it’s hard for me to find the words. The acting was really good, the story interesting and then some, the soundtrack really great as well – but that doesn’t do it justice (which is why I’m writing a blog that no one reads and someone else is writing screenplays and scripts 😉 I feel different after watching that movie. I guess one could call that life changing…at least in a small way…and that’s a pretty huge accomplishment for a movie (an artistic endeavour can be life changing, but how many movies are really ‘art’ in that sense?) And when I say life changing in a small way, how many things are life changing in a big way – maybe having a huge health scare or near death experience or something but I suspect that for the most part it’s just little things that affect our lives…a kind of chaos theory type of deal where a butterfly flaps its wings and there’s a storm somewhere in the world…Garden State has flapped it’s wings…okay, that seemed overly melodramatic but…

Tour de France: Stage 21

Usual except they’re saying that the GC times will be final once they hit the Champs Élysées (or after one lap or something). Due to conditions. 

Oddly, none of the usual attacks. At about 50k to go a little sprint for the prizes and then some attacks. 

Lot of punctures. Sun coming out. Crash with 1k to go. No lead out trains. Sprint finish. The Trek rider on the floor didn’t look good at all. 

Sky arm in arm cross the line.  

Women’s World Cup: Germany

Sad news at the start. 22 year old rider killed on the way to the race. Awful. 

They do such a good job of the coverage of these women’s races. Despite only having a half hour broadcast window, they do a bit of pre-race and rider interview. Show the bits of the race where stuff happens. Then brief podium coverage and interviews. Kudos. Chapeau. 

Crazy close sprint finish!

La Course by TdF

The start of the broadcast didn’t correspond to the race. About 67k remaining, no intro. Looks very rainy on the Champs Élysées. Sounds like the race distance is 89k. 

Big crash, peloton all split. More crashes later. Crash with about a k left. 

Wow! Anna Van Der Breggen holds off the (reduced) peloton for a few k and wins!!