Thursday, April 8, 2010

Top 200 songs of the 1990s

I could not even imagine undertaking this sort of effort to rank my favorite songs of the 1990s, so I link to Keith Law and his Top 200 rock songs of the 1990s.

It is a exhaustive list, and as with any musical ranking list, plenty of room for disagreement. It would probably be easier to do albums, because then people won't quibble with the song you select from the album. But if you are like me, the choice of a song was a validation of the entire album and I could let it go. A few I could not believe were from the 90s, I even googled Depeche Mode because to me that is 80s, but Keith was right and I was wrong.

I found a few glaring, in my opinion, omissions, which I shared in a post to Keith for his follow up post:

“Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch/Who watches over you/Make a little birdhouse in your soul” – It might be on my top 10 list of all time.

“I know a girl who thinks of ghosts/She’ll make ya breakfast/She’ll make ya toast/She don’t use butter/She don’t use cheese/She don’t use jelly/Or any of these/She uses vaseline” – Any Lips fan will argue it’s a poor representation of the band and rightfully so, but this song is iconic.

“Hike up your skirt a little more /And show your world to me /In a boys dream/In a boys dream” – I have vivid 90s memories every time I hear this song.

“Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it/Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it/Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it/Kitty on my foot and I wanna touch it” – POTUSA needs to at least be mentioned somewhere in this discussion.

“Elevator lady/ Elevator lady/ Elevator lady/ Levitate me” – ‘Where is my mind’ may be the more memorable song thanks to Fight Club, but I sing this song to myself every day when I step into the elevator at work.

“I woke up this morning with a bad hangover/And my penis was missing again./This happens all the time./It’s detachable” – This song reminds me of drinking heavily, which is essentially the 90s for me.

Maybe these are a little more obscure than I realized, but even so, I had to speak my peace.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

It's just one game, but I think I was wrong

My focus on yesterday's opening day game between the Padres and dbacks was probably not the same as most other people. I was not expecting a new look Padre lineup, because the lineup is essentially the same as the end of last year. I was not waiting to see the running game in action, because these are real games now, which means less risk, and many of the spring steals were sent down at the end of spring. I was not expecting Garland to be the Padres new ace, because he's Jon Garland. So the loss was ugly, but not totally unexpected against a true ace like Dan Haren. The fielding was bad, but that happens (and sure made me feel better about our little league team!).

My focus was on the broadcast. You see, no matter how the team plays, I will watch every single game. Sure, it's more fun to watch a winner, but I think this young team will do decent, and is moving in the right direction, so I'm not worried about that. And I will watch regardless. So my focus was on Dick Enberg foremost, and to a lesser extent on Mark Grant. I was worried about bringing in the seventy something year old, but I though Enberg did an excellent job. He was very prepared and his normal professional self. He has this pace to the way he calls the game, and I found it very enjoyable. I was very pleasantly surprised and positive about that part of the game.

Mark Grant was a little off yesterday. You could tell this was a reigned in Grant, which I do not consider a good thing, but it was the first game he's done with Enberg and he has to be a lot intimidated by him. I hope as the season goes along, he will loosen up and they will mesh better than yesterday. I think that is a realistic expectation.

The grind and game 2 start tonight. Let's see if the kids can bounce back, even up their record and then take their first series tomorrow. That will be the big test, to see if the team can keep winning series like they did at the end of last season. Hopefully they can and the entire season will be full of surprises!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Football is finally over

For me, at least. I have not spent any time talking about football at this site, because I really don't like football. I watch football, I vehemently cheer for the local team, but I don't enjoy the game for a variety of reasons, including this one:
According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar
estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the
field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

I wish a comparable study was done on baseball. It would have to do better than 11 minutes per three hours.

You can compare the commercial time fairly easy, 60 minutes for football according to this study. For baseball, I figure 2 2 minute breaks before the game starts, a 2 minute break between each half inning (17), and say 3 mid-inning pitching breaks (which should be high I would think, so very conservative). That is 22 commercial breaks at 2 minutes a pop, or 44 minutes of the same three hour average broadcast time. Over 33% more in a football game, sure seems that way.

So football is finally over. And unlike with the baseball season, I am glad it is over. I already spent too much time watching football, and I'm thankful it is finally done. However painful the season ending game may have been, at least we don't have to spend another week waiting for the same fateful ending that 31 teams share each season.

Now we can really get on with baseball! Even Mr Hoyer noticed and has taken some action lately. And I even read a pitchers and catchers post. We're close!
The Out Campaign: Scarlet Letter of Atheism