I’m not going to knock Gusto’s list but I would have not had any of the singers that Gusto put in like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. I also would have moved Alice in Chains, Green Day, and Garth Brooks out. The bands that I’m going to review are my personal choices and I wouldn’t expect other people to agree.
Anberlin
The songs that people know by Anberlin are Feel Good Drag, Breaking and Impossible. To date the band has sold 700,000 copies of their albums and when compared to most people on the top 25, this is a joke. I however find their music to just rock. I don’t think it’s lyrically amazing but the singing combined with the music has a cool blend that makes me really like this band. Anberlin formed in 2002 and since the beginning of 2007, the band has consisted of lead vocalist Stephen Christian, guitarists Joseph Milligan and Christian McAlhaney, bassist Deon Rexroat, and drummer Nathan Young. They’ve had 5 albums so far and I’ve listened to a large majority of their music and it’s been good on all 5. One of them is an awesome CD where they cover songs like “Like a Rolling Stone”, “The Promise”, and “Enjoy the Silence”. I think this band is overlooked mainly because is more “hardcore” then most pop music. I’m going to post a few songs that I particularly like because most people will probably never have heard them.
Ck4 and I both agreed that this is the funniest commercial. I’m not sure if it’s the poor driving by the chimps, the guy uses the word “clipped” of that the monkey’s name is Ron. I just think the combination of things make this one a winner. Plus CareerBuilder in an economy like this is perfect for the target audience. I watched a few of the other ones but wasn’t really impressed. I remember thinking the Audi one with the escaping the mansion wasn’t bad. The Kia with the extraordinary journey was ok but in the end it’s still a KIA. As I’ve gotten older I actually remember the brands that are associated with these commercials even though, unless subliminally, I have no interest in anything they are selling. I still stick with the simpler is better and the ones that try to hard are bad. And why is everyone getting hit by things?
I’ve also noticed as I’ve gotten older that I know a ton more songs on the radio that I’m sick of. Like songs that I know are really good and I used to like a ton, I just can’t listen to. Everlong comes to mind. Popular 80’s songs like Maneater and Power of Love. Anything that is really popular, there’s a chance that I’ve listened to it frequently enough to know the chorus and have gotten sick of it. This even goes for pop songs like Firework and anything on the 20 on 20. I do want to introduce on of my favorite songs that I’ve come across. I’ve been raving about Anberlin and this cover of “like a rolling stone” is great. I’m not wild about Dylan’s version but this is just really well done and has a great sound to it.
We played a Manayunk Bball game last night w/o our usually best player, CK4 would resent that, and ended up winning by double digits. Chad probably fired up close to 25 shots but he’s obviously our best offensive weapon so no one really cares. I think that’s one thing about our team and maybe the reason why we win, we just let our best offensive players takes the shots. There’s no complaining about not getting shots and everyone just goes along swimmingly. Jkash even busted a J right in some big oaf’s eye which was a rarity (no offense). He even fouled a guy who was coming down into the lane and the guy’s comment was “I think he raped me…).” Once again though we were out sized and came away with the W to go to 3-0 in that league with a game on Tuesday in the Ambler league.
In other news, I don’t have much going on. Just to give a brief update on things and what I’ve been doing. I’m halfway done the first season of the Soprano’s and I’m really enjoying it. If you have the 2nd season, and want to help me out, I will pay to have you ship it to me because it’s running $31 bucks. I’ve also been playing a ton of poker with mixed results. I fancy myself pretty good at heads up and jump started my bankroll that way. Then I won a 12 dollar 45 man on Saturday night at 3am after coming back from the bar. I have about 400 in my account and am really just waiting to breakthrough with a multi-table tourny win. I got 36th of 617 and have made runs in bigger fields but just can’t walk away with the W. Playing sort of makes me lazy but I’ve been hitting the gym and am still active. Until I go busto again, be prepared to have me periodically update my poker situation in the blog.
One unusual thing that has happened to me is that Dunkin Donuts raised their price of the combo I get to 4.17 instead of 3.86. Most people would just move on but this throws a huge monkey wrench in my daily routine. I like to have change in my car for various reasons but what this new price is doing is making me use a quarter instead of getting .14 cents back. I don’t have an unlimited supply of quarters and it’s starting to worry me that my change supply is going to dry up. Things like this are what really bother me. Now you might say, use a 5 dollar bill and get the .83 cents and problem is solved but it doesn’t work this way. If you have a change amount <.15 cents, you should try to use change so you don't have to make the cashier count out the change and fill your pockets with nickels and dimes. The sad thing is that every single day this event transpires, it's going to bother me until it gets to the point that I'm just going create a dept with rows and rows of .17 cent increments. Problem solved.
I’ve also been listening to a lot of Anberlin and I just think that this might be the best band I’ve heard in a long time. How can you tell if a band is good? If you play their CD and you don’t have to skip songs because they are all good. Gusto gave me all their music and I just start it and let it play through. I may post some of their better songs to give my readers a taste. That is all.
I went running down Kelly Drive yesterday and the amount of people who wear the Philadelphia distance run shirts amazes me. I do not believe in free shirts. What do I mean by this? I’ll wear free shirts from time to time if I don’t mind promoting the company (beer, athletics, work related, etc) but I refuse to let myself be a walking advertisement for some company I could give two shits about. I only wear the free shirt if I like the cause and not because a shirts a shirt. Anyway, people who wear the distance run shirt when they run are screaming one thing. “I’m in terrible shape because I’m fat and lazy but if I wear last year’s shirt saying I completed the run, then people will think higher of me.” This really shouldn’t bother me but let me explain. The distance run shirt is just a regular cotton shirt. People go out of their way to pick this particular shirt. There is a thought process behind the act of picking this shirt which bothers me. So to sum it up, you lose all credibility to me when you wear this shirt and your thoughts mean nothing to me.
I don’t like when companies make bottles where the hole is too big. An example is I bought a some body wash at CVS. It was 2 dollars and even thought I usually only buy old spice I go for a deal if it’s too good to pass up. I would use other body washes but I used Ax one time and it made me break out in hives which kind of freaked me out. Back to the topic, every time I try to use this 2 dollar bottle of off brand shit it comes pouring out. I give this bottle a tiny squeeze and I get enough body wash to last a month. I get it to. The fucking manufacturers are sitting behind their giant mahogany desks figuring out ways to bend over the customers and they come up with this brilliant idea to make the substance fly out of the bottle so it gets used quicker and the person has to buy more faster. Same logic applies behind the rinse, wash, repeat. Are those steps really necessary? No Fucking Way.
This one doesn’t bother me so much as it’s an observance. My dad reads a lot of books on improving oneself. So whatever he’s reading he preaches while he’s reading the book. His latest book is called Excuses Begone. I haven’t read the book but I assume it says that an individual can accomplish anything as long as they are persistent and want to succeed. So now at work whenever any problem or situation comes up there aren’t any excuses for if it doesn’t get done. He actually hasn’t finished the book but there will be more to come.
I started reading Tucker Max and all I can say that it’s refreshing to have people get as drunk as I like to get. “If you were drunk and you don’t remember doing it, it didn’t happen.” I haven’t finished it yet but it’s a quick read and I’ll give a better review when I’m done over the weekend. The 5-roper is something I’ll be adding to my vernacular. Is that word used right? What if I was like my dad and I practiced what I read in my book… I’ll keep this updated.
