The Semi-Finalists

Since I have waited so long to post my top-10, I thought I would wait even a little longer. Hopefully I will get it all done before Christmas, because I am sure that after the 25th I will be spending endless hours on my new Play Station 3, and won't have much time for blogging. Or maybe I will be reading a book or something.

As I was perparing my top 10, I ended up with 22 tracks in my second to last cut. THis cut was a challenging one to make, as I was cutting from 52 songs, and I really needed to make the list more manageable. So the songs that made the semi-finals were all very very good. Here is a list of the songs from that list that did not make the final cut:

1. Coyote - Joni Mitchell
   The Last Waltz recording is my favorite, although it is remarkably similar to the studio version.
2. Where the Streets Have No Name - U2 - The Joshua Tree
   The toughest choice I had to make. It's been more than 20 years since this album came out, and I am not sure that there have been 3 better albums released since then.
3. Third Movement from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat - "Emporer"
   Pick whatever recording you like, I've spent many a late night parading around my own house conducting the orchestra in my stereo to this one. Sadly, I was not always alone during those episodes. The quiet section at the end with just the piano and timpani is absolutely amazing.
4. Warehouse - Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - Live at Luther College
   Something crazy happens at the end of this one, when you can tell that they are positively jamming, and the audience is loving it.
5. Terrapin Station - The Grateful Dead - Terrapin Station
   There's a little bit of everything in this one, from what is my favorite Dead studio album. Lots of great memories of this one, including a re-make from the late 90's (by me) called "Impound Station." I am so glad I don't have to park on the street anymore.
6. Dead Souls - Joy Division - Substance
   I understand that they use to open a lot of shows with one, because it has 3 minutes of music before the lyrics kick in, and Ian Curtis could get a feel for the crowd during that time. 
7. Old Laughing Lady - Neil Young - MTV Unplugged
   During rehearsals for this performance, Neil walked out because the band wasn't ready. Production was delayed for a few weeks, and I still don't know exactly who the Old Laughing Lady is. Maybe I will find out someday, but I kind of like not knowing.
8. Range Life - Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
   There was lots of great Pavement to choose from. This is one of several albums that I have somepltely worn out in my day. A classic.
9. Schizophrenia - Sonic Youth - Sister
   I prefer my Sonic Youth in the more melodic and not so noisy way, and this is a good sing along as well. This was the encore at the outdoor concert they played the night Jonathan came to town.
10. Plush - Stone Temple Pilots - Core
    My second favorite karoake song, which I mean as a sincere compliment. Here's a tip - it's easier to sing this one after about 12 cigarettes.
11. Can't You Hear Me Knockin' - The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
    Honestly, I am not a big Stones guy, and I haven't heard very much of their music. This one I got from Guitar Hero, and if you ever want to rock, you can't do much better than this one. Plus I freaked out at a wedding reception one time when H&B played it.

So there it is, the best of the rest. The top 10 is right around the corner.

Borderline

I always liked that picture of Nicole!

If you think that I hesitated at all this morning when I saw that Madonna's debut album was made available at Amazon's Music Store today for $1.99 , then you don't know me. The only question now is how much work will I be able to get done today when I am rocking Borderline all day?

Top10 Nerdy Controversy

I'm going to start rolling out the Top 10 list, also known as the CD that I would carry with me all the time in case I got stranded on a tropical island with a CD player and an unlimited amount of batteries. The list itself is complete. However, when I went to burn the disc itself, I ran into a serious problem - the tracks I picked would not fit onto one CD in standard CD format.

Now, this is a problem for two reasons: 1) I wanted to stay true to the spirit of the list. Specifically, I thought it was important to keep the set on one CD. When we are working on these kind of lists, the limit we set is important. A top 10 list with 12 songs on it rings hollow to me. The interesting part of this exercise is making the hard choices, and if we allow extra songs on the list, then the list itself is tainted. So having 10 songs that all fit on one CD was important to me. The other problem: 2) Since I am iPod-less right now, if I want to enjoy the list, I would need to burn the disc on a CD. If all the songs don't fit, I have to leave tracks off the final production CD, which would be lame for obvious reasons.

So I am cheating, but I think it is ok. I am still keeping 10 songs (although I am including a couple of extra tracks due to the solution I came up with). But I decided to burn the CD in mp3 format. This method means there is no problem fitting all the tracks on one disc (a regular CD could fit 70 or more mp3 tracks). And since most CD players being sold these days play mp3 CDs as well as regular CDs, the format should not be a problem for most equipment I come across on a tropical beach. The main issue now of course is that why keep it to 10 songs? Since the mp3 format would allow as many as 70 songs to fit on one disc, why not just do a top 70 disc? Well, I am not doing that. I'm sticking to 10, and that's that. It's a nerdy controversy after all, so there is no need to stop the exercise altogether.

The picture with this post is from the trip we took to the North Shore with Emily and Jonathan in the fall of 2006. On our way back, we took a short hike at Gooseberry Falls. Very good times!

Schell's Snow Storm

Clearly, we are overdue for another Beer Review post. It's the season to sit at home, by the fire, and drink a bunch of winter brew. Luckily, there are lots to choose from. The goal this winter is to drink them all. 

The guys at the Tonka Bottle Shop had some recommendations for me as we exit the October Fest season and enter the Fest Fest season. I was interested in the back story of the Schell's Snow Storm, because I really like the idea of the local brew. It turns out that before the winter season last year, they hired a new brewmaster. The new guy wanted to play with some of the old recipes, so last year's winter brew from Schell's was really brand new. And it turns out no one liked it, not even the gutter sluts downtown.

So the packaging is a little different this year, because they need to make sure everyone knows the recipe is different. And I think they did a nice job, because this is a very interesting, and very drinkable beer.

The flavor is mellow - this is not an overly hoppy beer. The pour was very smooth, it had a very attractive thickness as it came out of the bottle. There was a slight cloud amidst the rusty brown color, and I found it overall to be very attractive in the glass. 

The flavor was sweet, and slightly fruity. The sweetness is pretty common in the winter beers, and I found this to be a very tasty beer. It wasn't chalky at all. There was a very light quality about the finish. In other words, you could actually have more than one of these beers without feeling like you had just finished your fourth Thanksgiving dinner of the day. 

Overall, this was a good beer, and you should go buy some. I am recommending it highly in part because of the local angle. It's nice to enjoy something that was made close to home. And I don't always look to Schell's when I am looking for a new beer to try. In that sense, I am probably overlooking them because they are local, I think a lot of time we look for the exotic choice when we want to try something we have never had before. I am here to tell you, give this one a shot, you'll be pleased. 

So go out and buy 2 six-packs of this one. You can have a few on a Friday night, and then if you really want to kick it up a notch, you'll be able to start that second six-pack and not hate yourself in the morning. And if you decide to keep it to the first six-pack, you'll enjoy the second one the next night I am sure.

List of 10

There's been a lot of list making going on over at Rolling Stone this year. The Top 100 singers of all-time is the most recent edition. It got me thinking: what are my top 10 songs of all-time? It's a hard question to answer. Too big a project really, because I really think that if you made that list on a regular basis, the list would change every time you remade it. So I decided to narrow my thinking a bit. And since we are about half way through the first season of LOST, a perfect scenario came to mind:

You have crashed on a tropical island, and you can survive, but you are not going to be rescued. You have your iPod, but there is no way to recharge the battery on it, so you won't be able to listen to that for long. But you did find a portable CD player with pretty good headphones attached. Going through all the luggage, you found enough AA batteries to keep the thing running for a LONG time. And you were smart, and a nerd, and you thought about it ahead of time, so you made this one CD that had 10 songs on it, and it almost never leaves your side, because these recordings are that important to you. So what 10 songs did you put on the CD and why?

I was happy to have someone else to go over the list with, so Jonathan is going to be announcing his best of list as well. I think it will be a good chance to talk about the music we love, discover some new music from each other, and hopefully, to sit around and have a few beers and listen to music sometime. I'll be announcing the list over the next few weeks - not all at once, because I want to talk a bit about each song. I hope you like the list!

iPod Blues

I think my iPod is dead. Long live my iPod!

This is a picture from Keri and Noah's wedding. It was March 2005, and this was the first trip that my iPod went on. I purchased it very shortly before that trip, after seeing the wonders it could perform. See, I often struggled to figure out which 24 CDs I could bring in my Case Logic whenever I traveled. I mean, how can you commit to just 24 CDs? What if you leave the wrong one home? The iPod was going to change all that.

So after much consternation, I went out and spent $300 on a 20-gig iPod classic. At that time, I think you could only get a 20 or 40 gig model, and I figured 20 would be enough for me. Now, for some reason, I have become a bit of a cheapskate as I have gotten a little older. Of course, when it comes to food and booze, this is not the case (the more expensive the drink, the more likely I am to buy it), but for material goods, I hav discovered that I have a very hard time spending money. STrange, but true. So that $300 was a pretty big deal to me at the time. I remember going in Best Buy to get it one time and leaving without it, I just couldn't pull the trigger. But in the end, I made the purchase, and it is one of the best purchases I have ever made.

I used to joke that the iPod changed my life. Well, I told people it was a joke when I said that, but the reality is that it did change my life. First of all, loading the iPod with all of my music was a terrific way to spend a month. I had a great time going through all my old CDs. I was sad when I had imported my last one. The ability to carry my entire music collection with me wherever I went pleased me very much. And playlists? I have made and saved more playlists than I care to admit. If a person could invent a reason or theme for a playlist, I did, and made the list. (Then I would go around and tell everyone how great the playlist was of course).

It wasn't long before my iPod went everywhere with me. I listened to it everyday at work. It provided the soundtrack for our living at home as well - why try to pick 5 CDs for the CD player when you can shuffle every song you own? In many ways, it became a very important part of my life. I remember being at a cabin one time for a guy weekend, and someone was looking at my iPod - scrolling through it. I felt as though they were going through a diary of my most personal thoughts. This person was making fun of me a little bit (I have been known to drunk download a bit), and it was as though he were insulting the essence of who I was.

So when my iPod starting acting up a couple of months ago, I was a little bit alarmed. I had never had a problem with the battery or anything - it had performed beautifully for me ever since I bought it. But it was starting to skip songs, end songs early, and just act strangely in general. I restored it, reloaded it, and it was better for awhile, but then a couple of weeks ago, I think it died. It won't play any tracks anymore, and when I try to connect it to my computer, the computer randomly turns off rather suddenly. That's not good. SO I am fearing the worst.

I have been trying to convince myself that the iPod is just a "thing", and not really part of me. It seems so materialistic to talk about a piece of electronics "changing my life" or "making me happy." But the more I fight that feeling, the more real it becomes. I miss it - not like a person of course, even I am not that shallow. But I miss the freedom it gave me, the power to pick whatever I was going to listen to whenever I felt like it. To be honest, I had been thinking about getting a new iPod sometime anyway. I had long since filled up the 20-gigs of space, and everytime I buy more music I have to remove some other music from the iPod, and that just doesn't feel right, since one of the greatest features of the iPod is that you can carry ALL your music on it.

But it is money to spend, after all, and I don't like doing that. Is it worth it? Will I get the use out of it? Even though you can get 6 times the storage capacity now (for 83% of the original price), it is still a lot of money. So I decided to break it down, to prove it to myself:

Original iPod
Purchased: 3/1/2005
Cost: $300
Total number of days in operation: 1310
Estimated average hours of play per day: 5.5
Total number of hours played: 7205
Average Song Length: 5 minutes
Total songs played: 86,460

Cost per day: $0.23
Cost per hour: $0.04
Cost per song played: $0.00347

Yes, it was less than 1 penny for every song I played on that thing. So that does it. The iPod does not make me a better person. It does not complete my life. But it is cool, I do like it, I use it every day, and it is totally worth it. So I am going to go get a new iPod tomorrow.

Plus my wife will be happy because now I can stop talking about it!

BEGICH WINS!

For those of you who have not heard, there is, in fact a God, and the people of Alaska are not, in fact, in love with Ted Stevens. The elcetion results are in, and the AP has called the election in favor of Anchorage mayor (and son of the namesake of the very famous Bartlett-Begich High School) Mark Begich. This is truly a great day for the residents of Alaska. Stevens was the longest serving Republican in the Senate, and turned 85 yesterday. We can only hope that he will now be sent to jail to share a cell with Bubba.

In other exciting news, you may recognize the picture below from Josephine's birthday party last year. She had an AWESOME time. We are planning another party this year, although we will probably have a cookie making party at our house instead. Not sure of the date, but it will probably be the night of 12/13 (it is a Saturday), if you want to makr your calendars, or if you want to plan something else for that night so you don't have to come. There will be details to follow I am sure.