Reading Playboy For the Articles

My wife and I were having dinner with another couple a few weekends ago, and the topic of the election came up. We told them we were 'Anybody but Bush' people, and they admitted, kind of sheepishly, that they had voted for Bush. He described his decision making process: 'I watched the debates, and made a decision based on that'. At this point my wife and I had to be careful to not make eye contact for a bit for fear we'd start laughing.

Plenty of fairly intelligent people voted for Bush, sure. Using the TV debates as a justification, though, is kind of like saying 'Oh yeah, I bought the Milli Vanilli album back in the early 90's, but I did it because the lyrics really spoke to me'.

100 worst pop records

Channel 4's 100 Worst Pop Records

This one comes to us from Channel 4 in England, where they take their pop music a lot more seriously than we do in the US (the notable exception being rap, where people shoot each other over it and stuff).

It's not a bad list, but a lot of the records weren't big here in the US, and there are definitely some records that should be listed, but aren't:

• Puff Daddy and The Family - 'I'll be missing you' (I might get shot for that one)
  
• Rupert Holmes - 'Pina Colada (The Escape Song)'
  
• America - 'Horse With No Name'
  
• R Kelly - 'I believe I can fly'
  
• That 'Y'all Ready For This?' song from the 'Air Bud' movies
  

Here's a fun experiment: take this list and pick 100 songs from Rolling Stone's List of the 500 best songs of all time, give somebody both lists, and see if he/she can identify which is which.

I tunes - yet another web site allowing us to make furtive purchases

Thanks to the anonymity of the web, people can buy all kinds of things they'd be embarassed to go into a store and purchase in person.

ITunes, for example, allows me to buy all kinds of chee-zee 70's Hits that are guilty pleasures for me. See, for example, this recent purchase:

Robert Palmer - Looking for Clues
Bill Withers - Lovely Day
Boz Scaggs (Boz f*&*in Scaggs) - Lowdown
Marvin Gaye - Got to Give It Up

Marvin Gaye wouldn't fall in this category, but when they used that song for the 'everybody get funky and bust a move' scene in 'Barbershop', they pretty much raped Gaye's carcass and cheesified that song beyond repair.

It's still a good song, though.

Hello World!

I have a blog now. Details as they happen.