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December 31, 2004

Craig's blog recently introduced me to the Song Lyrics Meme. Here's the deal: you go through WinAmp (or your equivalent program with playlists) on shuffle and take the first 25 songs that come up randomly, and post snippets of their lyrics (avoiding the title if at all possible, though if you really like Fatboy Slim's "Fucking in Heaven", that may prove difficult). People try and guess them. Using Google is CHEATING, people! Of course, we all remember how my movie quotes game turned out, but see if you can restrain yourself just this once. Post your answers/guesses in the forum if you want to play. I'll cross out the correctly guessed songs and list their answers and who got them right if/when they are guessed. Ready?

Update, bitches! The songs are now about 40% answered; those that have been gotten are on top in order of when they were answered, followed by the ones as yet unanswered.

~~2) "When I'm watching my TV and a man comes on and tells me how white my shirts could be, but he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me."~~
The Rolling Stones: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Answered by Dad

~~5) "What can I do, what can I be, when I'm with you I want to stay there. If I am true I'll never leave, and if I do I know the way there."~~
The Beatles: Got to Get You Into My Life - Answered by Dad

~~6) "I like your pin shot, I keep it with your letter. Done up in blueprint blue, it sure looks good on you."~~
Steely Dan: Peg - Answered by Dad

~~7) "I support the left, though I'm leaning to the right. But I'm just not there when it's coming to a fight."~~
Cream: Politician - Answered by Dad

~~10) "How can I even try? I can never win. Hearing them, seeing them, in the state I'm in."~~
The Beatles: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - Answered by Dad

~~17) "To avoid complications, she never kept the same address. In conversation, she spoke just like a baroness."~~
Queen: Killer Queen - Answered by Dad

~~22) "She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane... the man in the crowd with the multicolored mirrors on his hobnailed boots."~~
The Beatles: Happiness is a Warm Gun - Answered by Dad

~~25) "Gonna do just what I please, gonna wear no socks and shoes, with nothing to do but feed all the kangaroos."~~
Steely Dan: Black Friday - Answered by Dad

~~1) "Hangin' round, downtown by myself, and I had so much time to sit and think about myself, and then there she was, like double cherry pie."~~
Marcy Playground: Sex and Candy - Answered by NJ/VA Dave

~~8) "So let's sink another drink, 'cause it'll give me time to think. If I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance."~~
Billy Idol: Dancing with Myself - Answered by NJ/VA Dave (it's actually Blink 182 on my playlist, but theirs is a cover so it's academic)

~~9) "Hot August night and the leaves hanging down and the grass on the ground smelling sweet. Move up the road to the outside of town and the sound of that good gospel beat."~~
Neil Diamond: Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show - Answered by Drew

~~18) "Well, he shouted out his last word and he stumbled through the yard, and she shattered her last china plate and spun off in the car."~~
Ben Folds Five: Fair - Answered by Drew

Still in Play as of 1:00 am Central Time, January 2, 2005

3) "Remember that I confessed how when I laugh sometimes I'm crying, and we sat and didn't talk for half an hour?"

4) "When the weight of the world has got you down and you wanna end your life - bills to pay, a dead end job, and problems with the wife - well, don't throw in the towel 'cause there's a place right down the block where you can drink your misery away."

11) "Meet me, Jesus, meet me. Meet me in the middle of the air. If my wings should fail me, Lord, please meet me with another pair."

12) "I saw you again and again and again, there's some room to move on, to move on, to move on... I saw you again and again and again - how do we fix this if we never have vision?"

13) "I pay my bills like any other man, I get my thrills when I can. I go out, soak up all the neighborhood sights."

14) "Seen a lot of things in this old world - when I touched them they did nothing, girl. Ooh, baby, here I am..."

15) "And so it is, just like you said it should be. We'll both forget the breeze, most of the time."

16) "If I told you a secret, you won't tell a soul? Will you hold it and keep it alive? 'Cause it's burning a hole and I can't get to sleep and I can't live alone in this lie."

19) "Hello there, the angel from my nightmare, the shadow in the background of the morgue, the unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley, we can live like Jack and Sally if we want."

20) "Leave my bed warm and I'll breathe in your smell. You shouldn't tell a single soul you know it's right."

21) "I can follow the path, I can read the sign. Stay right with it when the road unwinds. I can handle whatever I stumble upon - I don't even notice she's gone."

23) "With the giving, there is taking; neither one feels like it's right. And since your heart can't tell the difference, you give up without a fight."

24) "Now you're climbin' to the top of the company ladder, hope it doesn't take too long. Can't you see there'll come a day when it won't matter, come a day when you'll be gone?"

So there you go. I may copy this over to January, depending on how soon into the new year I have an update. Anyway, have fun, and try not to cheat this time. And if you don't see you before then, happy new year.

December 27, 2004

It's quite possible that if you don't have an irrevocable attachment to Amélie, you will like A Very Long Engagement more than I did. Nevertheless, the film is not different enough from its predecessor to avoid comparison, and no comparison could possibly flatter the newer film. Full review ici.

    In other news, my hundred bucks in gift cards are gone! Poof, evaporated. Here, for any interested parties, are the eleven CDs purchased while home, the first seven of which were bought at least in part with Borders gift cards:
    Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism
   The Long Winters, When I Pretend to Fall
   The Reindeer Section, Son of Evil Reindeer
   Soundtrack from The Motorcycle Diaries
   The Postal Service, Give Up
   ABBA, ABBA Gold
   Idlewild, The Remote Part
   Idlewild, 100 Broken Windows
   Snow Patrol, Final Straw
   Keane, Hopes and Fears
   U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

   So, some explanation on all this purchasing, since 11 CDs would normally compose my yearly purchases if not more. It's actually a very interesting story.*
    Generally speaking I will download songs and if I like more than a couple, I'll buy the CD sooner or later. (This justifies downloading to me - if I like enough songs, I'll buy the CD, but if I don't, I wasn't going to buy it anyway, so it's not like anyone's really losing. Anyway.) I had tried to download Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" but been frustrated by the fact that the files kept getting corrupted - Alma had the song, but I never got around to getting it from her. On the plane coming out here, I saw that United Radio had a channel where they were playing four-song sets from a number of recent albums. One of those was Keane, so I decided to tune in and see if it was just worth buying the CD. Upon tuning in, I came across a song that I liked immediately. It turned out to have been "Run" by Snow Patrol. After hearing that and a couple others in the set, I resolved to buy Final Straw.
    Upon arriving here, I went (well, not straight away, but within a day or two) to a local book and music store and bought the Snow Patrol CD. I also said "Screw it" and got the Keane CD, along with the latest U2. The latter two have yet to really take hold with me, but the Snow Patrol CD is fan-freaking-tastic - I highly recommend it.
    So then I got the gift cards on Christmas and went to Borders yesterday, where I bought the first six CDs in the list. My dad has recently been in a mode where he goes on Amazon and blind-buys stuff from his recommended artists list. Normally I don't blind buy unless it's the new CD from an artist I already like, and I've mostly stopped doing that because with only a handful of exceptions, I tend to get burned even on that seemingly safe method. But since this was free money, I decided to do that sort of thing. The Reindeer Section is the side project of the lead singer of Snow Patrol, so I got that one (it happens to be great as well). Then I picked up The Postal Service because I love the first three songs, and blind-bought Death Cab for Cutie because of the connection to The Postal Service and because I've heard so many good things. I had heard a few Long Winters tracks in the car, as Dad likes them, and liked what I heard enough to spring for it. The other two - while I didn't utterly love The Motorcycle Diaries as a film, the classical guitar score is largely lush and mystical-sounding, and it's a great thing to have in the background while doing work. ABBA... well, what can I say, I like a lot of ABBA's songs. Do your worst.
    Then today I had $5.56 left over from the last Borders gift card. I picked up the two Idlewild CDs - they have a connection to the Reindeer Section and I'd read that they resembled Snow Patrol, so I bought the recent one, and said "Hell with it" and got the older one because it was supposed to be even better. On one listen-through I'd say I prefer The Remote Part, the recent one - 100 Broken Windows shows some remnants of their punk origins, which I can't say I have much love for - but they're both pretty good.
    So there you have it. Plenty of music for the drive home, at any rate. I have to say that the experience has puffed me up a little on music as a whole - I was in kind of a rut for a while where I wasn't really about listening to much of anything new (except what I heard in Alma's car) and certainly not much different. I was never connected at all with the indie scene, really; that I managed to come across relatively non-famous acts like Guster and Ben Folds owes all but entirely to my college suitemates. The Snow Patrol thing was a total accident, but evidently loving Snow Patrol makes me hip, if Alma is to be believed, and tracking down related artists can only make me more so, though talking about it probably dials that back a bit.
    Anyway. I'm heading home tomorrow. If you actually made it this far, congratulations, I guess.

*no it isn't

December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope your gifts worked out as well as mine did - I didn't get all that much after the car, but the car - see, that was sort of the main thing. So yeah, pretty sweet deal. Got a couple of desired and/or useful books as well, and a hundred bucks in Borders gift cards which is going to get me Season Five of the Simpsons and then likely some music or other. All in all, good times.

December 19, 2004

The Graduate

December 14, 2004

Bowl picks are in and closed. I was willing to be a bit lenient because this bowl is so early, but now that it's over, it's definitely too late for any more to trickle in. So we're set with six contestants - me, Tyler, Rudnik, NJ/VA Dave, Drew, and Craig. For an hilarious boat giveaway scam - er, game-by-game breakdown, check out the Flax Picks page.

December 9, 2004

The deadline for bowl picks is five days away? What the hell is that? Anyway, to get involved, along with me, Tyler, Rudnik, Nemo, NJ/VA Dave, and Drew, shoot me an e-mail.

The following paragraphs have been rated NA-AR, not appropriate for Andrew Reinbold. Other like-minded individuals who complain about sappy entries may feel free to stop reading now.

    One year ago tomorrow was my first non-quiz-bowl social interaction with Alma, when she invited me to the holiday party for the volunteer organization she works for. I viewed it, secretly, as something of a litmus test - we got along online and in brief quiz-bowl based interactions, but this was, whether anyone acknowledged it or not, something of a date.
    Needless to say, it went great. Within two weeks, she'd gotten me to confess my attraction, and eleven months ago today, we had our first actual date, leading to a relationship I simply couldn't be any happier with.
    Last night was this year's holiday party. It was a nice time. Saw some people I'd met before, had a couple good conversations, some free food, did a little white dancing (though not nearly as white as some probably drunk people who took over the floor at the end of the night). And I had the best looking date.
    I'm not even going to pretend to be objective. I don't have to be. I can't look at Alma's face without being amazed. Nobody's ever made me feel that way. I long said that I'd be happy with someone with a great personality who was at least okay-looking - but I hit the jackpot. I got someone who's absolutely wonderful and who I could stare at for days on end. There's no such thing as an objective standard of beauty anyway - I'm never going to see a woman I consider more beautiful, and that's all there is to it.
    She's perfect. And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her. And I can't even start to put into words how happy that makes me.
    Baby, I love you.

December 6, 2004

On the heels of yesterday's rant, how about the 2004-5 BigFlax.com College Bowl Challenge? Eh? This year there are 28 bowl games to be picked. Best of all, it doesn't cost anything to enter! Of course, that means there's no prize, but you know you play these things for pride all the time. E-mail me to sign up - deadline for picks is 6:00 pm CST on December 14, just 30 minutes before the kickoff of the "Why Is This A Week Before Any Other Game" New Orleans Bowl.

December 5, 2004

   Once again, the BCS fails. Not that I'm surprised, as the way this year lined up, there was no real way for it to succeed. The system simply can't handle three undefeated teams from power conferences, which means that, after last year's split title, we're set up for another repeat of something the BCS was supposed to try and get rid of - the undefeated runner-up.
    In 1994, Penn State and Nebraska both went undefeated, but Nebraska took both polls and so won the national title - Penn State was second in both and won nothing despite being undefeated in the Big Ten. This year, all Auburn has to do is beat Virginia Tech. There's almost no way the winner of USC/Oklahoma won't be #1 in the AP poll (the coaches are required to vote the Orange Bowl winner #1) - the only way I can see it is if that game is a close, low-scoring contest and Auburn beats Virginia Tech by at least four touchdowns. The latter, at the very least, is pretty unlikely.
    Meanwhile, because of the conference affiliations, 8-3 Pittsburgh, ranked a distant #21 in the BCS standings, goes to the Fiesta Bowl as the Big East representative. Cal, despite being #4 in both polls, despite being #5 in the BCS, and despite being 10-1 with its only loss by six points to USC on the road, goes to the Holiday Bowl to play Texas Tech, a game not even held on New Year's Day.
    And who goes to the Rose Bowl? Texas, by virtue of making up ground in the polls that they no doubt only made up for two reasons: because Cal only beat Southern Miss by ten (despite having taken margin of victory out of the computers a couple years ago, the BCS put it back in when it decided to narrow its components solely to the computer and poll averages, as many voters take it into account), and because Texas coach Mack Brown lobbied for votes on his team's behalf. It's not to say that Texas has any less of a claim than Cal - they were also 10-1, with their only loss coming to #2 Oklahoma in a low-scoring game - just to say that Cal shouldn't have been leapfrogged based on Saturday's game.
    So what are we left with? Four games that aren't all that compelling and, as usual, no way of determining the true national champion. I know we'll never see a playoff as long as the bowls hold as much money as they do, but is a real national champion year in and year out honestly that much to ask for?

There's more! View last month's updates.

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This page last updated: Sunday, January 02, 2005 07:21:36 AM