Sounds of Summer

Even before I read Melinda's playlist post I was planning on doing my own. When you drive as much as I do (about 250+ KM a week) you plow through playlists pretty quickly. I'm really fond of the one I have now thanks to a few of my own simple rules.

1. Never put the same artist on twice (unless the songs sound very different -- which is pretty much never).
2. Keep all songs under 5 minutes. My attention span seems to run out at about three and a half minutes but if its a great song I'll listen to up to four but after that I'm usually bored.
3. Try to mix up genres and tempos and styles.
4. Put at least two mellow songs on back to back - this will be a good place to start the CD if you're driving in the early morning or evening, and don't want to get too pumped up.
5. Make sure you put on songs you like. This seems obvious -- but many times I've put on songs I didn't really know, but liked the band. Bad idea, you'll just keep skipping to the next song.

With this in mind here is my current playlist.

1. The Mending of the Gown - Sunset Rubdown (from Random Spirit Lover, released 2007)

2. Major Tom (Coming Home) - Peter Schilling (Error in the System, 1983)

3. Breakthru - Queen (The Miracle, 1989)

4. Lipgloss - Pulp (His & Hers, 1994)

5. When Doves Cry - Prince (Purple Rain, 1984)

6. Decision/Indecision - Atomic Rooster (In Hearing Of, 1971)

7. Wonderful, Wonderful - Johnny Mathis (Wonderful, Wonderful, 1957)

8. F.E.A.R - Ian Brown (Music Of The Spheres, 2001)

9. Voo Doo Child - Rogue Traders (Here Come the Drums, 2005)

10. Happy Hour - The Housemartins (London 0 Hull 4, 1986)

11. Thrill Seeker - The Divine Comedy (Fin de Sièclem, 1988)

12. J.Lo vs K.Co vs. S.Wo - Lenlow (Independent, 2004 click here for website)
{Mash up Between Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box; Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World; Stevie Wonder - Superstition; J-Lo - Jenny from the Block }

13. Brand New Day - Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog Soundtrack, 2009)

14. Photocorners - The Lovely Feathers (Hind Hind Legs, 2006)

15. Gamma Ray - Beck (Modern Guilt, 2008)

16. Mongoloid - Devo (Q. Are We Not Devo? A. We Are Devo! 1977)

17. Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III (Handcream for a Generation, 2002)

18. Sabotage - Beastie Boys (Ill Communication, 1994)

19. Time to Pretend - MGMT (Oracular Spectacular, 2008)


That's all for now folks. I expect I'll be sick of these songs come July.

Nerd it up! (again!)

Apparently May 25th isn't just Towel Day but also "Nerd Pride Day" that's a lot to celebrate! This day celebrates the right for everyone to be a geek. It started in Spain in 2006 a quick list of rights and responsibilities was made up for nerds as well.

A manifesto was created to celebrate the first Nerd Pride Day which included the following list of basic rights and responsibilities of nerds.

Rights:

1. The right to be even nerdier.
2. The right to not leave your house.
3. The right to not have a significant other and to be a virgin.
4. The right to not like football or any other sport.
5. The right to associate with other nerds.
6. The right to have few friends (or none at all).
7. The right to have all the nerdy friends that you want.
8. The right to not be "in-style."
9. The right to be overweight and have poor eyesight.
10. The right to show off your nerdiness.
11. The right to make an attempt at being as nerdy as Morgana Summers, and the right to fail.
12. The right to develop serious crushes on Randall Munroe & Bo Burnam, as opposed to James Franco. (See 12).
13. The right to execute shameless self advertisement via the Wikipedia Geek Pride Day page. (See 12).
14. The right to carry a thesaurus with you at all times.
15. The right to falsely assume the surnames Finkleton, Waldman, Stratzer and Krukemeyer.
16. The right to take over the world.

Responsibilities:

1. Be a nerd, no matter what.
2. Try and be nerdier than anyone else.
3. If there is a discussion about something nerdy, you must give your opinion.
4. Save any and all nerdy things you have.
5. Do everything you can to show off your nerdy stuff as though it were a "museum of nerdiness."
6. Don't be a generalized nerd. You must specialize in something.
7. Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every nerdy book before anyone else.
8. Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related t-shirt, all the better.
9. Don't waste your time on anything not related to nerddom.
10. Try to take over the world!

(Geek rights and responsibilites found on Wikipedia, T-shirt available at ThinkGeek)

DON'T PANIC!!

This Monday (May 25th) is Towel Day!

Towel Day is a day for fans to celebrate the life and work of Douglas Adams, authour of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, by carrying a towel around with them all day. The first celebration of Towel Day was in 2001, two weeks after Adams' death. The towel, is widely regarded by Intergalactic Hitch Hiker's as the most useful of useful objects -- as explained in this quote from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

So if you love the Hitch Hiker's guide, or Douglas Adams grab your towel and take it with you wherever you go! And if you haven't read the Hitch Hiker's guide books, I suggest you do so! This is year is the 30th anniversary and they are being republished in North America in the fall! Share and Enjoy!

Free Comic Book Day

Tomorrow (May 2nd) is Free Comic Book Day! It's exactly what it sounds like, most independent comic book stores in North America will be offering free comics all day! For realsies! Big B in Hamilton has free food too!