Magic Jewball

I meant to make special mention of my 5,000th comment and to toot the horn (so to speak) of said commenter except… it was me. Whoops. I mean, go me! What are the odds? But then I realized that 5000 = 5001 in Canadian, what with our poor exchange rate and so…. Woot! Go, Deas! You were my 5,001st commenter! Your prize is: a gorgeous program from Wimbledon and some delightful Canadian chocolate. Oh wait, did you think I’d be sending you that?

Hahahahaha, that would be ridonculous to expect Deas to send me that, wouldn’t it? Except she already did and for no reason except that she’s teh awesome, as we say in the US with our lesser educations. I mean, look at this bounty!*

*there was no Bounty. But look at the Coffee Crisps!

How classy does this program look? Even the tennis is fancier in England.

And you can’t see from this angle, but this thing is like a book, with big glossy pages. It is seriously stunning, like the sun shining on Centre Court. Which never happens but you follow me, I’m sure.

Here are the three best aspects of receiving this in my mailbox today.

1. I was really hungry and desiring of chocolate (but that could have been any day, admittedly).
2. The heatwave just broke and so I did not find a chocopuddle at the bottom of said mailbox.
3. I sort of knew Canadian food items would be coming but I had NO IDEA there would be a Wimbledon program! I was so excited that I clutched it to my chest and hugged it. I’m a little embarrassed about this, so let’s just keep that part between us.

Anyway, xoxo and thanks so much, Deas (and Mr. Deas, who I assume toted it home). I owe you 5,001 expired Metrocards!

And to the writers of my 4,999 other comments (if you’re wondering why the comment count is higher, it counts crazy spam comments, too), thank you all for being the other half if not more of this blog! Because if a post is published in the forest and no one comments… the computer is probably being eaten by monkeys.

Title is the slogan of Canada Post and means, according to the handy Queen’s English provided, “From anywhere… to anyone.” Which could also be the slogan of this blog. Or Measles/Mumps/Rubella.

It is true, I will use any excuse to link to this exciting Canadian artist.
Loverboy – Turn Me Loose.

I had a bit of an influx of first-time viewers (I hesitate to call them readers, as I have no idea whether they read anything) last week and so that pushed me to revamp my About section, which I promised to do several months ago but never did. There’s nothing like a lot of new people essentially saying, “who is this person and what is this blog?” and having the answer be three years old to propel you to finally get something done. For those who know who I am, there’s nothing much new for you, I’m afraid. But it used to be that the sidebar said it all (works in the music industry, lives in New York, blah blah) and now the story is more complicated. So because the posts are eternally in the present tense and the present has changed, I thought maybe it was time to add a bit more about where I am.

I also deleted the Napster Links FAQ page as those no longer work. Because they suck. I may update it at some point but if/when it ever comes back, it will probably state something about how Napster sucks. You can consider that a sneak preview.

But back to the About page. The blog info has mostly stayed the same although I took out old references to features I no longer feature and utilities I no longer utilize. One interesting thing I noticed, and this is only the second time I’ve ever changed this page in four years, is that I always make the change in June. In fact, this one is a day off from being exactly three years to the day after the last change. And the page was originally set up in June of 2006. What is it about soul-sucking heat that makes me feel the need to tweak my blog?

And now, a week later, it’s July and we’re due for yet another heat wave. But this is OK, or at least somewhat, as this week begins my new mini-semester and unlike last month, my classes are in a physical place, a physically air-conditioned place. It’s not that I don’t have A/C, it’s that I’m too cheap to run it, and since I already pay huge tuition dollars to my school, they might as well cool me, too.

Today is a holiday for most people, but for me, it’s just another summer day without much to do except think about moving to Alaska for the season. But I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth and has an enjoyable day off to come. If you are vacationing in New York, as many people seem to be, come visit me at Starbucks where I’ll be nursing a tall ice coffee and contemplating whether it really is less expensive than a day’s electricity. I suspect….. not.

Nirvana – About A Girl

Last year, I was terribly upset because my third blogoversary post narrowly missed being my 500th post. Well, screw you, random numbers! Because this post will be exactly my 600th. Go me! Except that means I’m posting less than ever, so, boo me. But this year has been a bit different from all the others. I have a new direction and so, somewhat, does the blog. Last year I said in my blogoversary post that I had something cooking and now you know what that was, my big life change. Should you want to do some reflection (because I won’t be doing much today), or just rehash that post, it is here. But besides that, I also reflected on the occasions of the end of the decade, John Hughes death, Michael Jackson’s death, and two memorable Depeche Mode shows.

I think the one about my life change was easily one of my favorites of all time to write (and re-read), but I’m also enamored of the Depeche Mode one with its snippet soundtrack, and my two part series, Guided Tour of Becca’s Baltimore. That had a soundtrack too, you just couldn’t hear it.

And now, a link free paragraph. Lots of times, I wonder if there is a natural point for a blog to end, not because I want mine to be over, but because I worry that I never will end it. Sometimes, weeks pass where I have nothing significant to say or I am too busy writing things that someone will grade to post anything here. This is the sort of obvious place to say, “I never imagined I’d still be blogging four years later!” But I did. In fact, until some other, better medium comes up, I can’t imagine not having this place to connect with people. Other forms have come up like Twitter and Facebook and Buzz and they have their place. But they are not like this place. So thanks everyone for reading and commenting and connecting with me. If elected, I promise to do my best to actually update my sad and old “About” page as well as my outdated Blogroll. God bless the Internet!

By the way, it appears after three+ years of letting me post songs for free, Napster has revised their site and business model. Which means that not only can I not post Midge Ure’s Four as I had hoped to, but that all my links, nearly four years of them, are broken. Super. I will look for a better solution; yet another campaign promise.

Oh hey, it’s 3am and I’m up doing research. You know what I really have time for? A new blog!

No, actually, it’s a blog that takes a lot less effort and yet still fulfills some need in me to vomit the stuff that exists in my brain into a format best read on the Internet. So it’s a tumblog, one of those short blogs that just lets you post media or links or text. Mine’s for videos. Videos from the alternative 80′s of my youth. Because sometimes I’ll remember a song so good that it MUST BE HEARD. I aim to post a new one every night between midnight and 1am and it helps that I have 12 queued already (who knows if I’ll be too busy reading about asynchronous CMC online learning some night when you want a video? God knows, I certainly won’t be sleeping).

If you’re the type who looks at iPod Song of the Week (remember those? ~sigh~) and clicks the “close browser tab” button, this new blog is not for you. If you really did sigh when you read that first sentence or you listened to WLIR or KROQ back in the day (people who find this blog by Googling “Larry the Duck,” I’m talking to you) you may want to check it out and/or add it to your feed reader.

This is the least I could do and still feel like a blogger whilst sleeping three hours a night and reading 300 pages a day. And really, what’s the distinction between day and night anyway? Not much these days.

I went through my entire song collection to find a title for the tumblog and this one just kept sticking there. Ironically, when I went to find it to post as my first video, I discovered there was no video. Typical!

Here it is from Lala.

And here’s my new, better updated, music blog. I’ve set it up for no comments… you’ll be too busy reliving your youth.

http://areeverything.tumblr.com/

I can’t believe I wrote yet another rant against the concert ticket industry! Mostly because it kept this third Blogoversary post from being my 500th post. How awesome would that have been? I blew it. But whatevs! I’m happy to still be blogging because several of the bloggers I really loved and admired when I first started no longer are. Actually, a little bit of me wonders if they were on to something as I occasionally have nothing much to say and am afraid I’m saying the same shit over and over. Luckily, if you have as short an attention span as I do, the latter one doesn’t bother you as much.

Life has been very busy and weird lately and later on this year, I might be able to tell you why! It’s not the Jew & A book, which I’ve unfortunately not been able to work on (and I’m only working on the proposal here – there may be no actual book, except in our minds), it’s not my next charity project, although I hope to get started on that soon, and it’s not a super-secret cure for the economy, although I wish it were.

But in the meantime, there will almost certainly be more cookies, more New York, more baseball, more Judaism, more tennis, more music, and more exclamation points. Not there, though, that didn’t seem to merit any. Eventually, should the last one or two things get taken care of, there may even be kitchen pictures. Thanks for sticking with me, readers, RSS subscribers, commenters, and Googlers! You deserve all the exclamation points of my heart!

See? 500 posts, I kid you not. This will be 501, like the jeans…. and just as meaningless.

The last couple of years, I gave lots of stats, but this year I think I’ll just link to my two favorite posts of the year, one light-hearted and one not so much.

Onwards!

The Cure – Three