Oh. My. God.

i'm a sucker for a little choreography...

Best. Video. Evar.

Also - an excellent song! Wish I'd been up to see them do it live on MAD last Saturday.

(Scroll down, left side of screen, link to 'a million ways' dance.)

If any three other loonies out there want to learn this, I'm so totally in.

deep breath.....here goes

10 years ago: blow-drying my waist-length hair, trying to get it to do that four-inch-high bang thing like Elaine from Seinfeld, while trying to read the driver's ed manual in preparation for my learner's test and figuring out what to wear for the first day of grade 11. The silk shirt and pleated jeans? The stirrup pants/pirate shirt/embroidered vest combo? How does one decide? Oh god.

5 years ago: blow-drying my shoulder-length hair after washing it to get the smell of Red Lobster out post-working a 10 hour "split" serving shift where not once but twice a manager had to break up a fist fight in my section, simultaneously pounding on the ceiling with a broomstick to get the raccoons living in the attic to STOP the freaking SCRATCHING and arguing with Beatrice about the thermostat.

1 year ago: blow-drying my chin-length hair in preparation for another in a series of boring blind internet dates, trying to decide what I think of my new job, still entirely shocked that they hired me, planning exACTly how I'm going to spend that first paycheque (hello VISA bill!).

Yesterday: blow-drying my hair...psych! Yesterday was Sunday. I don't bathe on my days off. On my days off I mostly read books of varying quality/importance, walk around my neighbourhood ostensibly doing errands, sit in High Park, do laundry/groceries/random cleaning and make mental lists of all the things I should be doing instead of walking/reading/cleaning/sitting - but only for a minute. Then I get over myself and enjoy the day as best as I can. Made dinner for the first time for PaGa, enjoyed some visiting and snuggling, then did the dishes and went to bed early.

5 songs I know all the words to: Too easy! How about 5 songs I thought I knew all the words to? 1) Beatles, 'Get Back' - 'Jo Jo was a man who thought he was a woman'. 2) Toto, 'Africa' - 'sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the seregeneeez' I still have no idea what I thought a 'seregeneeez' was, but I sung it faithfully for years. 3) Bangles, 'Manic Monday' - 'it's just an automatic Monday'. Especially embarassing, considering I knew what the NAME of the song was. 4) Beach Boys, 'Barbara Ann' - bop bop bop, bop bop-a-ram. Okay, it was grade 3, but still. 5) perhaps the most enduring of my misheard mishaps - the alphabet 'and the letter P' instead of 'L, M, N, O, P'.

5 snacks: triscuits, green grapes with cheese, dill pickles or anything dill-pickle flavoured, the perfect (ie. hard and un-bruised) granny smith or red delicious apple, freezees.

5 things I'd do with $100 million: wipe out family/friends mortgages/debt (take THAT student loan centre!), give my brother money to get 'dryft boardsports' off the ground, buy gram & gramps a house near great grandma in Thunder Bay, pay for my cousins/siblings post-secondary education choices, travel with friends/family. Pretty sappy and unoriginal, but there you have it.

5 places I would run away to: mom & dad, anywhere near the water, my bed (under the blankets), Cayman Islands if I'd just robbed a bank, grade 3 - the seekrit fort in the woods behind our house.

5 things I would never wear: anything with a thong, anything with horizontal stripes, a cummerbund, white pants, those stupid flat boots with furry trim all the kids are wearing.

5 favorite TV shows: CSI Las Vegas, That 70s Show, Star Trek: Next Generation, Firefly, What Not to Wear

5 greatest joys: singing, listening to music, reading, surprising people, talking to strangers

5 favorite toys: mini ipod, AnBa's loaner dvd/surround sound system, super teeny compact umbrella, super cozy no-skid blue slippers, Action Hero on my kitchen wall.

5 people I'm tagging: Ha! Roro, Katicus, Hairstick Gal, Call-een, Chateau Nice. Bring it!!

lessons learned from British Folksongs

For my Barkworth Green friends:

I was disappointed that there was nothing mentioned about being deported to Australia for stealing a loaf of bread, however, here are some of my favourites:

"Avoid any situation where the obvious rhyme-word is maidenhead"

"If you look at the calendar and discover it's May, stay home."

"Don't ignore warnings. If someone tells you to beware Long Lankin, friggin' beware of him."

"If you are an unmarried lady and have sex, you will get pregnant. No good will come of it."

Lessons Learned from British Folksongs

video

A friend just sent me this link to a video of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann giving what she called a 'searing editorial piece' about the US Gov't's response to Katrina.

http://media.putfile.com/OlbermannSwings

I know we've all been deluged with media coverage of New Orleans, but thought I'd post the first thing I've seen that illustrates some clear thinking about the political situation that's emerged post-hurricane. Will be fascinating to see what happens once the 'crisis' phase has passed.

play it again, sam

Have you ever fallen in love with a song?

I mean, really-and-truly-head-over-heels-obsessed in love?

I've begun to notice over the past few years that not everyone can handle this sort of musical obsession - the extreme ability to love one song above all others, and to listen to said song ad nauseum for an undetermined period of time. Past roommates hated me, old boyfriends mocked me, strangers stuck beside my car in traffic looked at me funny.

Maybe it's a genetic thing. I clearly remember an Uncle of mine going through a divorce in the late 80s, lying on the rug in my grandparents' family room, listening to 'Sacrifice' by Elton John - loudly, with headphones, a bottle of red wine and, most importantly, the song on 'repeat'. (Hey man, whatever speaks to you, right?)

But oh, the magic of digital music and the repeat button! Let me tell you a little story that will help you to appreciate this marvellous piece of technology.

Picture it: 1990. I'm wearing whack shit like hammer pants and hypercolour t-shirts tied in a knot on my left hip, hair in a banana clip, socks rolled down to the top of my L.A. Gear kicks (with three different pairs of laces)....you get the idea. Clearly I am the epitome of cool. ANYWAY, something exciting has just happened to me - I've discovered the song 'More than Words' by Extreme, and have just bought the full-length album ('Pornograffitti') from my local A&M Records.

I rush home, put it in my red, dual-cassette 'ghetto blaster' in my room, and prepare to bliss out. Except - I can only bliss out for approx. 5.21 minutes at a time because then I have to get up and push play/rewind to get to the beginning of the song again. After several trips to the buttons, I began to think there must be a better way. I rummaged through my collection of blank tapes to find one that I didn't really like (it was a mix tape from a girl who was so totally like, not my friend any more) and headed back to my boom box to put my genius plan into action.

You can see what's coming, can't you? That's right - I taped 'More Than Words' back to back on an entire side of that cassette. If memory serves, I believe it fit 7 times in a row (and at the end of the final repetition, there was a few seconds of Mariah Carey's 'Vision of Love' from the previous tape). No more play/rewind for this sucka. Man, was I proud of myself.

My poor family, you say? Forced to listen to my current obsession through the walls of our home? Oh please -

Mom was in the kitchen listening to 'Lady in Red' (an all-time Mom fave - there's a good chance it's playing in her kitchen right now)

Trav was in his room listening to 'U Can't Touch This' (or possibly the Humpty Dance) and possibly shakin' his thang. Ew.

Dad was in the living room listening to something by Nana Mouskouri that he'd had on repeat since the early 70s.

Told you I came by it honestly.