Magic Jewball

I always love to point out lesser known songs by so-called “one hit wonders” especially because 99% of these songs are better than the big hit. As Matthew Sweet used to say, your stupidest song will become your biggest hit. Indeed so it went for our iSotW spotlight artist this week. Could any song represent the 80’s, early MTV, and wacky novelty numbers more than “She Blinded Me With Science?” Think of the song for more than one second and you will imagine dotty old Thom dancing with a Japanese woman decorated to look like a musical instrument.

But if you listened to the album from which that song hailed, The Golden Age of Wireless, you’d know that Thomas Dolby wasn’t really so much about the wacky and more about the pathos. The other songs, even the more upbeat ones, are sad-edged and maudlin. This one has always been my favorite, and is an evocative lament for both a vessel lost at sea and the end of the British Empire. The lack of hope and sense of looking back at something gone shine right through the electronics.

Thomas Dolby – One Of Our Submarines

Lyrics

It’s Sunday morning at 7am and this can only mean one thing. If you guessed that it means that I woke up early you are SO wrong. It means that I began fiddling with my blog at 3am and never went to sleep. But if you guessed that I am truly insane, you would be quite correct.

Stealing a page from my blogfriend Midwesterner in NYC, I decided to install a plugin (that’s a “whatsit” to you non-bloggers) that would tabulate my top commenters in the sidebar there. I mean, in my defense, I did already have a “last 10 comments” box so you could gaze dreamily at your name after you had commented, but I think this takes it to a whole new level. I set it to be a rolling two week tally and knocked myself off the list so I could focus on you, being that this blog is already pretty Beccacentric. Unlike Mid, there will be no commentary and I will do no tabulating. It’s strictly based on quantity and the “whatsit” does it all for me. I love compupers!

Next, I put up a calendar which shows which days I’ve posted on. This is for me, really, so I can bask in my plethora of posts (that would have worked better last month) or berate myself for my slackeriness (hello, April!). If you’re wondering what took so long, first, as always, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing and have to consult 85 websites, and second, you know me. You know that if all the other sidebar items are black text/white text hover/cornflower blue shade hover, that this would have to be too. I’m still not sure I love it but at least it’s consistent. And if you move your cursor over the date it’ll tell you what exactly I posted that day, although that seemed to come with the calendar. But I still like to do it and ooh and aah.

By the way, I don’t think commenters is a word. And neither is commentors. What’s up with that? Actually, the thing was originally called “Top Commentators,” but that made us all sound like we were on the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour.

I think I’ll go to sleep now.

Edited at 4:30pm to add:

While I’m thanking my commenters & commentators, I’d like to highlight this new service where you can keep track of all the places you’ve commented and check in one place if anyone has answered you or commented after you. It’s called Commentful and you have to sign up but how could they keep track of your commenting otherwise? Each time you comment you just add it to that page and it keeps track till you tell it not to. There’s a Firefox plugin too and even though it hung the one time I tried to use it to add something, it seems to reliably indicate when there are new comments. And you can even add it to your feed reader! This is a screenshot of where I’ve commented today, although they were wrong about one site which shows zero but actually has six. Oops. (click to enlarge):

And now back to the Yankee game and listening to the wind and rain howl against my windows.