Addicted and Obsessive...but completely normal.

Glee 3.10 - Yes/No

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:52:00 +0000

So, here's what you missed on Glee:

A secret romance between Mercedes and Sam was teased, but then Chord Overstreet got fired, they asked to come back, he declined - and then came back anyway. I'm assuming because he has bills to pay and whatnot. There was some sort of love triangle between Coach Beiste, the football recruiter, and Sue - but no one cared. Emma must be extra crazy because she's hellbent on marrying Will, and here's some stuff about Will's ex wife Terri who was extremely entertaining so of course - they wrote her out. And that's what you missed, on Glee!

This episode opens with the girls suddenly realizing that Mercedes may have a life outside of high school and pretending to be interested in her secret fling with Sam. For some reason, I can never remember Sam's name, so if I start calling him Chord or Abs, just go with it. We all know who I mean.

Anyway, as they twitter on and on while wearing an odd mix of seasonal clothing, all I notice is that Amber Riley is glowing and looks ten times better than the rest of the girls. I have a serious girl crush on Naya Rivera, so that's really saying something in my book. I'm not completely sure who Lea Michele pissed off in wardrobe, but her godawful ankle length skirt/loafers/weird poncho combo are completely offensive to my eyes.

In any event, we move over to the boys who are having the same conversation in the bleachers. I'm slightly confused about why Blaine would be all up in Sam's business demanding that he "tell him everything," about his fling with Mercedes, but I'll suspend my skepticism if it means that I get to look at Darren Criss for a few extra minutes.

"Summer Nights" begins and I'm ready to admit that I sort of would have missed Chord if he was gone forever, but who I would not miss at all is Rory, who may be the most useless character on a cast of useless characters. Rory's shining moment was his one line during West Side Story which was extra hilarious. Ship him back to Ireland now please! My favorite part of this whole performance is Santana being clearly too good for this shit, and the ridiculously campy split screen at the end of the song, which let's face facts, Glee would have done even if it wasn't an homage to Grease.

After the song ends, the single most brilliant moment in Glee history happens, as Helen Mirren does some fabulous voice over work as Becky's inner voice as she travels the hall and evaluates the Glee guys for which one she'd like as her very own. There is a crack about Puck's godawful mohawk looking like a squirrel - I can appreciate a show that takes note of the fandoms complaints and then mocks them in context, and Glee is in no short supply of material there. In any event, Becky decides that Artie is her one true love and seeks Sue out for advice, and I'm already bored.

Next up, Emma and Beiste are at lunch and we find out that Coach Beiste eloped. I don't care about any of this, but what I do care about is Dot Marie Jones and her hilarious twitter. EVERYTHING IS IN CAPS AND SHE RAGES ON THE REGULAR! So amazing. Please go there. Coach Beiste's Twitter.

Sue advises Emma that if she wants to marry Will, she should just ask him. In Glee fashion, she bursts into song. I'm so disinterested Will/Emma that I actually start paying more attention to the credits. Zach Woodlee, ftw! Somewhere during my tumultuous relationship with this show, I decided that I want him to be my best friend. I believe that it was moments like this that cemented that feeling:

I digress. Emma is singing "Wedding Bell Blues" and there's a throwback to the Royal Wedding which was nearly a year ago so ....that's timely. Oh and look, there's Matt Morrison dancing like a jackass and spinning. Dude loves to spin. Then he's suddenly in a tux and OH more spinning. And suddenly they're on top of a cake .... that's spinning.

Sigh. I hate this episode already. Jesus Christ, where is Blaine?

Will runs off to the Glee club to continue his totally inappropriate relationship with his students and ask for their help proposing to Emma. The best part of this entire scene is Sugar, who totally needs a "Fondue For Two" type show, or weekly video blogs. She's new to the cast, but has the best reactions to absolutely EVERYTHING. Quinn pipes up and adds "We totally don't think you'll screw it up this time." But dear, beautiful Quinn, we all know that he will. It's been well documented that Will sucks at everything - especially Glee Club.

I stole this from someones tumblr - and I have no regrets.

Amber continues to look hotter than everyone as Sam and Mercedes discuss their relationship since Sam has given up his high profile stripping job to win Mercedes back.

We're 10 minutes in and my mind is wandering as Sugar and Artie talk about something. I'm curious about Blaine and why his character is so perfect. I want him to have some sort of flaw. His vague rage issues really did nothing to add any depth to his character. But he's barely in this episode, so I try to focus on Becky asking Artie out.

After the break, Sam panders to Coach Beiste for a spot on the basketball team because he's so hard up for a letterman's jacket. She says that he's kind of late on this train, and the only spot left is on the synchronized swimming team. So now we're treated to Nene Leakes of Real Housewives of Atlanta fame and some spectacular overacting. I'm choosing to focus on Chord's abs instead as Nene rambles on about "individual synchronized swimming" and Chord's crooked nipples. This was definitely a great idea, casting department. Sigh. Sam gets slushied by Rick "The Stick" from the hockey team (who I'm pretty sure is going to hit 50 soon, I mean...seriously), Mercedes' boyfriend is a douche, let's move this along.

I wonder if the shooting schedule interferes with bridge nights at the retirement home.

As soon as I see the outfits for "Moves Like Jagger/Jumpin' Jack Flash" I already start feeling so much second hand embarrassment that I can't handle it. Even Blaine molesting his mic stand can't save this performance. This song would have been so much better hand it gone to the Warblers. I'm just saying. Anyway, there's a bunch more embarrassing slow mo dancing from Matthew Morrison, including more spinning - never saw that coming. Among my problems with this performance is why exactly they chose to mash these two songs together - and think that they were appropriate for a proposal. I also briefly consider how Mark and Darren managed to steal a scene that they were barely in, and why Kevin always sounds so awesome and then I just want this to be over. I still hate you, Mr. Schu.

Becky arrives and Artie breaks the news to her that this was the entirety of their date. "I invited you here so you could see me bring my sexy, which I think you can agree I did." Becky, not taking no for an answer informs Artie that they'll be having dinner at Breadstix.

Next up is a creepy scene in a jewelry store, where Mr. Schu takes his relationship with one of his students to the next creepy level and asks Finn to be his best man and make sure he doesn't get out of hand at his bachelor party. Murphy probably cut the line where Will asks Finn if Sam would want to maybe strip at the party, but we all know it was in there. There's also a line in there about how Finn taught Will "More about being a man than anyone I've ever known," and I'm waiting for Chris Hanson to show up...which let's face facts, would make this episode infinitely better.

Finn reveals that he's meeting with an army recruiter and talks about his daddy issues. And now all I'm thinking about is how this jewelry store set was the same one from Santana's performance of "Santa Baby" which was cut from the Christmas episode because I hate Ryan Murphy and he hates me back.

We return from commercial to the Glee girls pumping Will for information about Emma and then in something that never happens on this show, Rachel sings a sappy ballad and cries. This is super original!

The performance of "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" is peppered with really sweet scenes of the girls reflecting on their various relationships and OMG TINA HAS A LINE? Sometimes I forget that she's on this show. There's a super sweet Brittana scene but the highlight of this moment once again goes to Amber, whose face crumbles into tears as she leaves the stage at the end of the performance and is infinitely more effective than Lea Michele's patented single tear.

Oh, here's a Will scene again. Time to get a snack.

So after something happens that I'm legitimately unaware of because Matthew Morrison literally makes me need to leave the room, I come back to find Mark's terrible mohawk and the rest of the Glee club holding a Beckyvention for Artie - and there's a life lesson in here about treating people equally and all that but Santana steals the scene again with exactly one line. "I know that girl. That girls a sly, conniving bitch." What I've liked about Santana's character from day one is that as bitchy and mean as she is she's at least consistent about it. No one is safe!

For some reason, this season has really endeared me to Finn, so when I see him walking into an empty classroom with his step dad, mom, teacher/boyfriend and the guidance counselor, I immediately get tense because I know something terrible is about to go down. So this episode proceeds to rip my heart out and stomp on it as they talk to Finn about joining the military to follow in his fathers footsteps, and then his mother reveals that he actually died from an overdose after being dishonorably discharged. This scene is well written and brilliantly acted. I pretty much know by now that whenever Carol is on the screen I'm going to weep - and there we have it.

Helen Mirren is back and Becky has decided that it's time to give it up to Artie - all of the other kids in this school are whores so why should she be the exception? She sends Artie a naughty picture via text, and Artie immediately seeks out Coach Sylvester for help and admits that though he really likes Becky, he doesn't want to date her. Sue encourages him to be honest and treat her like she'd treat anyone else, and then proceeds to deliver the following in the way that only Jane Lynch can: "Maybe she can move on and date someone who doesn't sound like one of those weird puppets that they bring around to the middle schools to teach kids about sexual predators and for god sakes, you need to go one day without the driving gloves. It's a wheelchair, not a Porsche. Stop buttoning your shirts all the way up like a demented 90 year old. You look like you're auditioning for your nursing homes stage production of 'Awakenings.'"

Oh good, it's time for another Will scene. Whatever Emma, go back to John Stamos. Emma delivers a sweet, heartbreaking monologue and I still just wish she had better taste in men.

Now it's time for what will inevitably go down as one of my favorite Glee scenes in history. Kurt, Finn and Rachel are discussing their futures at Breadstix and Kurt is depressed enough to order 2 whole cheesecakes. We've all been there, porcelain. Finn is feeling sorry for himself and wonders "Why can't I have something in my life that's special, that means something." Kurt immediately looks to Rachel, and Rachel proceeds to sing a terribly gorgeous version of "Without You" in a super cute pink dress. I'm as critical of Lea as the next Glee fan, but I can find absolutely nothing wrong with this arrangement, her performance of it, or the scene itself. Plus, there's the added bonus of Blaine gazing dreamily at Kurt, and Brittana being as adorable as ever and holding hands. At some point in the middle, where it's just Rachel and Finn in the choir room I am blindsided by the thought that Cory Monteith is actually kind of attractive. And he's almost freakishly tall. I'm pretty sure I would climb him like a tree, given the opportunity. I'm also impressed that Lea makes it through the whole song without crying.

In true Glee fashion, after delivering one of the best scenes of the series, they decide to go full circle and deliver one of the worst. Abs catches Will in the hall and tells him he has an idea for the proposal. Next we see Will approaching Emma in her office as the beginning of "We Found Love" begins. I hate this song with a passion that borders on the psychotic so I'm already annoyed, but even more so as Will takes Emma down the hall and random people start handing her single white roses. This proposal already blows.

They reach the pool area and Will says something along the lines of "This is all for you - a room full of teenagers in bathing suits. I guess that's more for me..."

The Glee kids and a bunch of randoms begin this ridiculous synchronized swimming routine which is really not as impressive as they probably intended it to be, but Artie rolling his wheelchair into the pool is one of the funniest things I've ever seen, so at least we have that. Anyway, they splash around for awhile, Artie kind of wiggles in a floating chair (still hilarious), and for some reason Blaine looks like the happiest person to ever be in a pool.

Then...it happens.

Will appears in a shiny white tux and a stupid top hat and proceeds to walk across the water.

I can't.

He eventually FINALLY proposes and it's very sweet and all, but really. Walking on water. In a stupid tux. I just...cannot.

After that train wreck, Artie lets Becky down easy and Becky takes it like a woman in front of him, then begins to crack as she walks away. "Some days it sucks being me. This is one of those days. Focus Becky, don't let them see you cry."

In one of her shining moments of being an actual human, Coach Sue consoles Becky with some ice cream and some "Lifetime, television for ovaries." It's a very sweet scene but I feel like this episode has been on for like four hours already, so I'm pretty glad it's almost done.

The final scene opens to Rachel and Finn alone in the auditorium, discussing his father. Lea is actually really subdued and sweet here, this version of her character is one that I'd like to see more often. Finn sits her down and tells her to keep her mouth shut and I start getting nervous on his behalf because I realize what's about to happen. I'm a spoiler queen, so it's a rarity that a show even manages to sneak a big moment like this by me, but somehow they did and I had to actually sit up and pay attention.

"I feel like all of my life I've been wondering if I'm going to be as much of a man as my father was. Now all of a sudden I'm up at night, worried that I'm going to become the man he was. Lets face it; I've got high school hero, life zero written all over me. Except for one thing - you. You're like a beacon of light guiding me through the darkness. You're like this big gold star and for some bizarre reason you chose to let me love you. I feel like if I can just convince you to let me keep doing that, then I'm going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay. I opened up my first credit card to get this. I know it's not a swimming pool full of dancers or a tux, it's not very big - but it's a promise. A promise to keep loving you for the rest of my life. All you've gotta do is say yes. Rachel Berry, will you marry me?"

That's how you do it, creepy teacher.

YouTube Should Just Start a Record Label

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:15:00 +0000

You may have heard of this kid, his name is Justin Beiber. He got his break because he posted videos up on YouTube and someone saw them and decided to give him the big push and now, well, they're all millionaires. The funny thing is, my niece has been trolling YouTube for years to see people singing her favorite songs and I absolutely remember seeing Bieber before there were movies, earrings and perfumes with his name all over them. I absolutely get the "Never Say Never" thing because looking back even 3-5 years ago, who would've thought that someone could've gotten their big break just by posting videos online?

Every day, I get in the car, turn on the radio and hear shit. There's just no way around it. There's shitty, shitty shitastic music on the radio. It's actually kind of amazing the core level of raw talent you have to lack to get on the radio and into mainstream music when you just take a few minutes to visit Youtube. Here, take a minute...open a new tab, go to the site I'm sure you're more than familiar with and enter the name of your favorite song and at the end put "cover". You'll get so many videos returned and I can almost guarantee you'll find someone who's far more talented than Rihanna, Drake, or Ke$ha doing their version of the song. No autotunes...likely just the person, a guitar/keyboard, or sometimes an instrumental track. And once you start, you won't stop suggestions of more and more people doing that same song pop up and they're usually just as amazing and sometimes you come across the more beautifully talented people. It's actually really inspiring. Sure, there'll be some duds in there but man, the amount of talent far exceeds it.

In preparing for this post, I knew exactly a few people I'd post as examples of some of amazing voices I've come across but I wanted a few more for some variety of genre and people and what happened? I spent the last hour just going from video to video. It's hard narrowing down and I feel like I want to go get more because I'm sure there's even better than this out there but if I don't just post these videos, I'll never stop.

So, how about I end with a small challenge for the 5 people who might read this? Do what I said, go to youtube and put your favorite song -- in the comments post your favorite cover of said song (I'm talking to you too blogmate Maggie). I wanna know what you find because seeing all these great artists out there makes me believe there is hope and maybe the Mayans weren't right...there is a great future ahead and it's gonna be filled with some awesome music to get us there.

I stumbled on this one when I was telling some friends about this song. It's acapella...he recorded tracks for his voice for each part. So impressive. This is the guy who inspired me to want to do this post -- Daniel DeBourg:

Legaci -- I've known about these guys for a few years just stumbling on one of their covers. I was happy to see they'd been hired to be Bieber's background singers on tour complete with a segment to showcase what they can do during each show. Man, we're overdue for a new Boyz II Men/Color Me Badd/All 4 One. Here's my favorite cover of theirs:

Brandon Hines -- It might be a sacrilege to say this but this dude might have outsung Maxwell on this song. Just sayin:

Ashley Watson -- This girl should go on The Voice. I mean, it's not like she'd be catapulted to stardom cause apparently no reality singing competition does much for the person that wins anymore but I just think it'd be awesome to see her up on that stage completely blowing those judges away. I stumbled on her tonight. She's just...wow:

Jayesslee -- Twins. Who sing. Well. That right there is a free easy marketing tool. Their harmonies are flawless:

Andrew Garcia, JR Aquino, & Passion -- Andrew was on American Idol a few seasons back. He did a cover of "Straight Up" for Paula and made it through. Kinda crashed when they went live but he's better than he was on that show. JRA I found a few years back and stumbled on in this video again. He's good stuff. Passion...this boy. Go to his youtube page and listen to the song he dedicated to his grandmother, "Well Done". He's flawless. Thought when I found this one, I'd just put them all together but check them out individually, too. Great song, by the way:

Lana Fame -- Stumbled on her in my travels tonight. This song is currently a popular youtube cover (Thanks, Bieber & Jaden!) but this girl's got the ability to do runs that remind me of old jazz singers. I'd love to see her tackle an Ella song or something. She could probably sound like a scatting trumpet. Enjoy:

Britten -- Throwing this one in even though I didn't find him on YouTube. Saw him open for someone about 2 years back and have been rocked by his voice ever since. This is one of the few covers you'd find him doing online. He has a CD out called "Six Strings and a Drum Machine" and the kid really does have radio ready stuff and such a unique, soulful voice:

Ace -- ending with another one that's not a find online but rather a friend. A very talented friend who the world needs to hear more from. She also needs to post more videos so using an old one that I love:

It's New Years Eve! (No, not the one starring every celebrity on the planet.)

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:16:00 +0000

If there's one thing I love about the end of the year, it's all of the lists that come out counting down the top ten songs, movies, news stories, trends, things I had for lunch, etc. In the spirit of this time honored tradition, I present to you my own personal favorite songs of the year and in a few cases, the covers of said songs that brought me to them to begin with. I'm a sucker for a cover...and a list...and a boy with a guitar...and a well written tv show...

I digress. The list below is in no particular order, but has been vigorously road tested. What I mean by that is that if we made it to the end of the year and I'm still singing a song at the top of my lungs whenever it comes on in the car - it made the cut. If you're at all familiar with my infamous lack of attention span, you know that this is a much higher honor than a Grammy could ever dream of being.

1. Rihanna - S&M - not by any means the classiest of songs, but Rihanna is not by any means the classiest of girls, so I'd expect nothing less.

2. Katy Perry featuring Kanye West - E.T. - I can't help it, I have a soft spot for Katy Perry.

3. Britney Spears - I Wanna Go - It's no secret that Brit ain't what she used to be, but I happened to love 3/4 of her singles this year. (I mean, let's be honest Criminal is an all around terrible song.) It seemed like I couldn't escape this song thanks in part to the Bravo summer commercials and it being on my loop at work promoting the Femme Fatale tour, so at some point I was bound to give in.

4. Adele - Set Fire To The Rain - 2011 was clearly Adele's year, and provided me with many an angst ridden ride to and from work. I'm sure I wasn't the only damaged girl touting "I'm sure she wrote this song about me!!!" to all of my friends, but I'm probably the only one who sounds just like her when I'm driving and have the volume all the way up.

5. Lady Gaga - You and I - Next to the aforementioned soft spot for Katy Perry, I have one for Lady Gaga. This song is almost better without the video - I particularly love the bridge, but it's peppered with great lyrics all the way through.

6. Pink - Fuckin' Perfect - Pink is always going to be grotesquely underrated. I'm okay with that - more for me.

7. Glee Cast - Rumour Has It / Someone Like You - You didn't honestly believe we were going to get through this whole list without a Glee reference did we? While the show is hitting a few road bumps, the covers remain fantastic - and this is by far my favorite of the year.

8. Fun featuring Janelle Monae - We Are Young - This song I found by way of the Glee cover, but that doesn't make me love the original any less.

9. Glee - We Are Young - A quick look at my song stats reveals that I listen to this song pretty much every day. I can't help it, I just love it. I also love the performance from the show, which is so sweet and lovey that it just makes me want to hug my friends.

10. Chris Brown - Look At Me Now - Chris Brown is gross, but this song is awesome. Fact.

11. Karmin - Look At Me Now - This may actually be my favorite cover of the year, and watching her sing it is half the fun. She's totally charismatic and having such a fun time with it, you can't help but rap along.

12. Maroon 5 - Moves Like Jagger - You're kidding yourself if you try to say you didn't at least slightly enjoy this song. Even my totally pretentious music snob friends secretly fell in love with it.

13. Nicki Minaj - Super Bass - This is another song that was everywhere this year, and with completely good reason - it's almost annoyingly catchy.

It's often said that good music is getting harder to find and while that may be true, there's still something to be said for the pop hits that dominated the year, whether you can admit to your friends that you loved them or not.

Like something you heard? Download it here.

Self Realization: I'm A Gamer Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:17:00 +0000

This weekend, I came to the realization that I really am a gamer. I was able to run from the word because like many people when I heard it, I thought oh that's some boy who sits on Xbox live talking to random people playing fighting games all day. That's not me. Until Friday.

That day I started playing the sequel to a game I'd recently discovered because it totally is the problem solving sort of game I love to play. That game is Portal. I started at 5:30, stopped at 7:30 because I had to go out for dinner, immediately came home and started playing again and didn't stop til 3am. When I finally forced myself to go to bed, I'd realized I'd messed my own equilibrium off by staring at the screen for so long. When I closed my eyes to go to sleep and what did I see? Portals. I wanted to get through the weekend away from the game. I went back to it Saturday and I'm fighting the urge to get at it today.

Then I took a step back and realized, you know what? Every single day of my life, I play some sort of game usually. And that's thanks to having it at my fingertips with my iPhone. On there and on the computer I'm all about Time Management games. Diner Dash was my gateway drug thanks to my blogmate here.

If it's not one of those, I'm on the Kinect dancing along with my little characters on Dance Central and Dance Central 2. It's virtually replaced my cardio regimen at the gym because I can get on there for like an hour and just sweat. But I don't just sit up there and think "Oh this is fun!" I have have have to get 5 stars on every level (I'm almost done on DC2) and I get mad and try songs over and over and over til I can do it. I get all kinds of competitive with it. Even with this, I'm a gamer.

So there, in addition to being quite the techie, I'm totally a gamer. And you know what? I'm okay with it.

Black Friday Madness!

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:51:00 +0000

Yeah, this really happens.

So, I'm well aware that I'm one of those bitter folks who has been in retail for too long. But the fact of the matter is, most of the year, my job is pretty fun. I work with awesome people who are like my family, and we have a pretty good time.

But the truth is - Black Friday is my least favorite day of the whole entire year. It looms over the month of November like a thick black cloud, and now that it has crept earlier and earlier and now is into Thursday, has effectively killed my Thanksgiving.

But that's okay. It's all so you, the consumer, can save a few bucks. It comes with the job, it's not going anywhere, and I've done so many I'm the go to expert for my department (arguably the most important one in the store on this holy day).

None of that makes it any easier, and it's certainly not fun. But there are a few simple things that you - the crazy deal seeking masses who ensure that this one day keeps getting more and more and more out of hand every year - can do to make this day more safe and bearable for all.

1. Don't bring your children. First of all, people die during this thing, and if you need more of a reason than that, you're already seriously disturbed enough that you should just stay home to begin with.

2. Don't show up drunk. Because if there's any day that being belligerent and difficult will get you booted out of your favorite retailer, it's this one. We generally draw the line at when you start cussing us out, fyi - and the management team is extremely lenient when it comes to us firing back on this day. If you get snippy, we're going to get snippy back. Complain all you want, and demand that we get fired - unless you're leaving with bruises, it's not happening.

3. Stop running, pushing, and why the hell are you yelling? I've often compared that moment when the doors open to the scene in the Lion King where Mufasa gets trampled by the stampede. As people rush through the building toward the electronics counter in a sale induced frenzy, it straight up sounds like a riot. Calm down, crazy people, we all know what we're doing here. It's not like we hide the sale items from you, you have a map that tells you where you are. (Although hiding them sounds like an amazing idea and I want to try it next year.) Also, and I know this one is hard to believe - we can hear you. There's no need to scream at us when demanding to know where the digital cameras are. My ears work just fine, thanks.

4. Do not, under any circumstances, call the store. Any phone call that occurs during the first four hours of Black Friday madness, will either go largely ignored, or will be answered with the shortest, best guess of an answer possible. The fact of the matter is this - everything is so chaotic that we rarely actually know what we have left in stock until the dust settles anyway, so you're probably not getting the correct answer to begin with, and furthermore, there's not a chance in hell that we're going to traipse across the store to find out, nor are we going to hold whatever you ask for anyway. Save your minutes, either let the dream die, or show up like everyone else.

5. Don't touch me. I mean really, just don't. You will get an elbow to the jaw.

6. You're going to have to wait. The lines are long, and the team is busy. Deal with it.

7. Once the doorbusters are gone, they're gone. Sure, we're going to tell you that we have a truck coming on Saturday morning and there's a chance that we'll get more back in just to get you out of our hair. Here's an insider tip for you: I've been to this party seven times - it's never happened, it's never going to happen. Sorry about your luck.

8. It's not the day for a tutorial. You'd be surprised just how many times people will come up in the midst of the most chaotic few hours of the year, park themselves in front of me clutching a doorbuster camera/tv/other random electronic item, sigh with labored irritation and demand that I tell them everything that they need to know about this product. "Sigh. I don't know anything about digital cameras, can you tell me about them?" Any of the other 364 days of the year, I'd be more than happy to explain to you how cameras work. But there are punches being thrown behind you and a line of impatient, exhausted, drunks in front of you. Keep it moving and look it up online, or come back next week.

9. You get what you pay for. There's a reason that you don't see that giant tv that you paid like ten dollars for on the wall with the tvs that we carry all year. It's because we get them in for the sole purpose of this two day event and will never see them again. Until a month from now when you haul your broken one back in and you're SOL because we can't replace it. Just saying.

10. Don't hand me your list and tell me to find you "any of this." This happens every day of the holiday shopping season, and unless you're a sweet old lady, is completely lazy and rude.

11. The rules exist for a reason. Did you see that line outside? Yeah, that means that we have to try and make that many people happy in span of about two hours until things calm to a dull roar. So when we say there's a limit on purchasing, we mean it. And stop telling me that you have twins, triplets, are the octomom. I see you here all the time, and you've never been hauling anything but a latte and an iPhone, and even if you are straight out of an epsiode of 18 Kids and Counting, you're not getting more than one tv/camera/whatever.

12. We're people, not robots. People lose their shit during these sales. I mean really. So if we have go to get you something from the back room and it seems to take forever - that's because the back room is like a damn day spa while the war rages outside of the swing doors. It's quiet, nearly empty, cool. So while someone is pretending to look for that last tv, we take full advantage of a few moments to breathe, cry, sneak off for a drink of water, or to pee. A couple of years ago, some woman bitched me out because I wouldn't give her a deep discount on a video game that wasn't even on sale, even after the manager next to me shut her down twice. It was near the end of my shift and I was tired both physically and emotionally, and her rage fest was almost enough to push me over the edge. The man who was waiting patiently behind her until she stomped off in a huff, had been paying rapt attention the entire time. I started to ring up his purchases, and he stopped handing me things until I looked up at him - when he smiled sympathetically and said "Hey, just so you know, you're doing a really good job." It made my whole holiday season better. Seriously.

So as you head out tonight in a tryptophan and wine haze and stumble into a herd with the rest of the crazed shoppers clutching your ads and your coffee, take a minute to remember that people have been working around the clock for weeks to make sure you have the best chance of getting the items that you want. But once the floodgates open, our resources are limited and there's only so much that we can do. Being rude, pushy, and aggressive isn't going to change anything, and isn't going to help your case if there's any sort of negotiating to be had. Be nice to us, and we'll be nice to you. Isn't that some sort of golden rule or something?

"I worked that song like a hooker pole."

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:06:00 +0000

It's no secret, I love Glee.

Sometimes, I love to hate Glee.

Here's the deal: I know how completely ridiculous it is. I get why people hate it. It's cheesy, silly, and it's EVERYWHERE. Lea Michele is so sickeningly sweet and perky she makes you want to punch her in the face. Mark Salling is playing a high schooler but looks like he's well into his 30s. Some of the covers belong straight on a Kidz Bop compilation. Show creator Ryan Murphy has no concept of continuity. Don't even get me started on Matt Morrison. Did I mention that Lea Michele is completely exhausting?

But the thing is, some of the performances are good. Really good. Like, stuck in your head for days but you don't want to tell anyone good.

I promise.

But this is only going to work if this relationship is based on mutual giving, so you have to promise me that you'll watch each performance once.

It won't hurt, I swear.

You may even like it.

So follow me, as I count down my top ten Glee performances.

szólj hozzá: Glee - Blame it on the Alcohol

10. Blame It On the Alcohol
I had just forgotten about this song until Glee brought it back to my attention. This particular episode actually featured two of my favorite performances, but in the end this one won out for a few reasons. 1.) Kevin Mchale (Artie Abrams) is full of win, always. 2.) The performance itself isn't intercut with dialogue or plot moments like most of them are, and therefore you get to see the cast look like they're genuinely having fun with the performance, particularly Heather Morris (Brittany S. Pierce), who is either really enjoying herself, or trying to pull all focus away from Cory Monteith (Finn Hudson), who couldn't dance his way out of a paper bag.

Heads Will Roll/Thriller - Glee Cast from alittlepanda on Vimeo.

9. Thriller/Heads Will Roll
I remember being slightly nervous when I heard that Glee was getting a special episode after the Super Bowl AND that they were covering Thriller AND that they were going to mash it up with another song. Then I heard that the second song was going to be "Heads Will Roll" from the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and I was instantly totally on board.

8. Don't Rain On My Parade

I know, I know. Stop rolling your eyes. But do you have any idea how difficult this song is to pull off, and to pull off as well as she did? Go ahead, give it a try.

Yeah. Your pet is deaf now. Good job.

7. Like A Prayer

I like performances were more than one member of the cast gets to shine, and this moment clearly belongs to Amber Riley (and her mom, who is in the choir behind her). Jonathan Groff is also in the ensemble here (we'll be hearing more of him later.)

6. Valerie
Naya Rivera (Santana Lopez) has brought her character a long way from her original casting as "Cheerleader #2" - but that's another blog entry altogether. Here, she flawlessly covers the Amy Winehouse version of Valerie, and Heather Morris and Harry Shum Jr. dance like their lives depended on it... and from the horror stories I've heard about working with Ryan Murphy, they very well may have.

5. Teenage Dream

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I've spent much of the last year or so worshiping at the altar of Darren Criss (Blaine Anderson). I mean...he looks just like a Disney prince. And by all accounts is the nicest guy ever. Have you seen A Very Potter musical? Hilarious! And - okay, I'm back. ANYWAY, this cover was one of Glee's most successful songs to date, and it's the song that Criss credits with changing his life. (How much did it change it, you ask? We'll cover that in another entry.)

I'm a sucker for well dressed, well groomed pretty boys who can carry a tune. Everyone knows that.

4. I Feel Pretty/Unpretty

Something that Glee has excelled at since it's early episodes was the art of the mash up. This one is delicate and sad and beautiful. Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray) is not the strongest vocalist on the cast, and putting her in a duet with Lea Michele was a risky move, but the result is damn near flawless.

3. Singing in the Rain / Umbrella

When you're a show delivering classic songs to a demographic that has probably only heard them in passing, sometimes you have to update them a bit. What better way than to mash Singing in the Rain with the most overplayed song in history - Umbrella?

2. Rumor Has It / Someone Like You
As soon as I saw this I was telling anyone who would listen that it was my favorite Glee performance of all time. No, I haven't forgotten how to count, but I was simply reminded how amazing number one is.

That said, this arrangement is damn near flawless, and deserved every one of the over 6 million views that it currently has. The mash up is fantastic, the vocals are stellar, the choreography and costumes are perfect for the number, and once again, Naya Rivera steals the show.

1. Bohemian Rhapsody

Now, it may seem a little controversial to choose a number one performance that doesn't even feature the Mckinley High glee club, but the fact of the matter is that Vocal Adrenaline has always been the stronger group. There are so many amazing things at work here, that it's hard to deny that this number is a total show stopper.

First of all, lets get through this while trying to ignore the fact that Quinn is giving birth and focus on the fact that Jonathan Groff is a total rockstar. Without his voice and theatricality, this epic piece would have been a total mess.

What we get instead is a performance that wins on all levels. The wardrobe is perfect. The vocals are stellar - but the real stand out here is the choreography. Zach Woodlee delivered choreography that's incredibly intricate and at times acrobatic. Take into account the intense shooting schedule that any one hour weekly follows, and it's a wonder that they even had the time to rehearse it, much less turn it into such a winning number.

Rachel, you should be glaring. You never stood a chance.

It's been a long time...

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:51:00 +0000

But we're going to commit to coming back to the 2 people who read this. Gonna do a little revamp of the aesthetics and then we're both going to do at least one post a week. Let the games begin!

"Guess who I'm dating? Wes Brody. He's super cute. He plays soccer with my sister. He's seven."

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:59:00 +0000

Everyone who knows me knows that once I get obsessed with a tv show, it's pretty much all I talk about. Before White Collar, there was Glee. Due to the creative marketing and never ending buzz, I was into this show before it ever aired. Now that the first season has finally wound to a close, and I ended it with mixed feelings, I have a few suggestions for next season.

Click below:

"Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?"

1. Do not let Jonathan Groff go!
Writing his character as a senior was probably a big mistake. When he first showed up I was annoyed by his blatant overacting, but once he settled in to his character, he stole every scene he was in. Groff's big rock star turn during the regionals performance of Bohemian Rhapsody easily became my favorite performance of anyone on the show ever. He's a great character and has more singing talent than Mark Salling and Cory Monteith combined. Find a way to bring him back. The show is definitely going to miss him.

2. Brittany, Quinn, and Santana are underrated.
Let's face facts, Dianna Agron is the best actress this show has. (The argument can be made about Jane Lynch and her stellar comedic chops, I know.) Dianna transitioned from the bitchy alpha female cheerleader to the vulnerable fallen from grace teen so well, and the heartbreaking crying on command didn't hurt one bit. She's not an outstanding vocalist, but the sheer acting ability makes up for it. Heather Morris and Naya Rivera managed to turn Brittany and Santana into two of the most well liked characters in an ensemble cast. Everyone loves Brittany's one liners ("Mr. Schu...is he your son?") and Santana emerged as a hyper sexual firecracker with a surprisingly good voice. (I mean, who expected her at all during Like a Virgin? I know I didn't.) Use the dynamic duo more. It'd be nice to see them with an actual storyline other than Britanny says something funny, Santana says something sassy or flirts with someone, then they flirt with each other.

3. Can we get some new story lines next year?
Who didn't see the plot of the finale coming from a mile away? It was essentially the same thing that happened in a ton of other episodes, with the added bonus of Quinn finally having that baby thrown in. Coach Slyvester threatens the Glee club, Mr. Schu tears up like a woman, Rachel and Finn either fight or fall in love (again), Kurt makes reference to struggling with his sexuality, Mercedes hits that note, Glee club doesn't end after all.

Groundbreaking stuff.

The Kurt storyline got recycled so many times this year that it was easy to forget that the other characters even have lives outside of the choir room. Though it gave Mike O Malley the room to show off some impressive range (who knew the host of Guts and the star of the Time Warner commercials had legit talent?)one episode covering this topic would have been sufficient. I went to high school in Ohio ten years ago and alternative sexualities weren't even as big of a deal then as they were made to be on Glee. Personally, letting Kurt be openly gay and giving him a functional relationship with an awesome guy and having it NOT be an issue would be a more effective way to get the point across in my eyes. (But rumors have it that this is in the cards for next season. Fingers crossed.)

The Will Schuester, Emma Pillsbury romance is getting stale as well. They get so close to figuring it out and then something happens. She dates someone else, he starts making out with anyone who will have him, she dates someone else again. For someone who is so socially stunted, Emma sure does get around. Maybe it's because Will cries all the time. That's bound to put a damper on anyone's romantic plans.

Hopefully the writers will stray from the regular episodic formula next season and we'll get to see some new stuff. For example, it'd be nice to see what Rachel's dynamic with her dads is actually like. Do Mercedes, Tina, Artie and Puck even have parents, or do they all just live in the choir room in some kind of "don't get them wet, don't feed them after midnight" Gremlins type deal? It's okay to do episodes that don't revolve around Kurt, Rachel, and Finn. I won't tell, I promise.

4. Make better use of the stellar guest stars.
If you're a show that has access to Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth, and Neil Patrick Harris (just to name a few), you hang on to those names and those voices for all that they're worth and gave them something solid to work with. The character of April Rhodes is weakly written and largely useless. Sad stuff, since Kristin has an amazing voice, great chemistry with Matt Morrison, and great comedic timing. Having April show up should be an event, not an afterthought with some lackluster songs thrown in the mix.

The Idina Menzel story line is a whole other story. It's a solid character with obvious flaws, but condensing a plot point as major as revealing her as Rachel's mother and then her insistence that she doesn't want to be a part of her life into two episodes was a biiig mistake.(Not to mention that weird performance of Poker Face as the one song they were ever going to sing together...I mean I know it was the Lady Gaga episode, but really? Did everyone forget that "Speechless" exists?) Not to mention her magical instant adoption of Quinn's baby at the end of the season. Who knew adopting a baby was as easy as going to the hospital and filling out a form. Apparently a lot of people are doing it wrong.

If you're going to have Broadway royalty on your show (and lets face it, it's a trend that will continue), use them well.

5. Better song choices, please.
First of all, unlatch from Journey already. That first performance of Don't Stop Believin' was magical, tear jerking, awe inspiring. It set the tone for the first half of the season. Bringing it back for the finale couldn't even revive it, not to mention throwing together a completely underwhelming medley for the regionals performance. With a fan base that is largely under 30, Journey, Kiss, and that god awful "To Sir, With Love" performance are not going to hold the attention that the Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga songs will. The surprises in the first half of the season (Bust Your Windows, No Air, etc) were great reminders of modern songs that may have been forgotten over the last couple of years. But "Rose's Turn", "A House Is Not A Home", "Give Up the Funk" took what could have been amazing moments and turned them into forgettable scenes.

At the very least, if there's going to be an insistence on taking obscure older songs and turning them into performances, at least put them on par with the Vocal Adrenaline performances. "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Another One Bites the Dust" are two completely dated, forgettable songs made cool again by the flawless performances from the rival club. It's been done, calling out Lea Michele's out of the park performance of "Don't Rain On My Parade" from the end of the first half of season one, but that magic hasn't seemed to be recaptured since.

Also, for the love of God, stop Mr. Schu's embarrassing rapping moments. Matt Morrison is a ridiculously talented singer, but I've never suffered more second hand embarrassment than I do whenever he busts out some ridiculous hip hop number. Also, if you're going to have Quinn sing, keep her in the ballpark of "Papa Don't Preach" and "Say A Little Prayer", that weird pregnant ballet of "It's a Mans, Mans, Mans World"...odd, and totally out of her range.

I was not looking forward to the theme episodes, but the Madonna episode became my favorite of the season. The "4 Minutes" performance was exactly what it should have been, and "Like A Virgin" went from a light and bouncy song to a steamy and sexy song with the chosen performance. Or I guess as much as it can be when you're singing during foreplay and are a show about teenagers.

In spite of the obvious cracks that became evident during season one, I'm not going anywhere. I still love the show, it's still a unique concept that has been executed better than was to be expected, and is bringing musicals to the forefront, which is never a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully season two will give the other characters room to grown and get the show back on track with some stronger musical numbers.

The back nine was largely a disappointment for me, but did have some shining moments: Tina scaring Principal Figgins with her vampire act, The Safety Dance, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Puck trying and failing at hooking up with Mercedes ("I'm going to ask you to stop, because I'm starting to get embarrassed for you."), and Emma's rant about Will being a slut, ("Nobody's safe. NOBODY'S SAFE.") to name a few, but I have hope that it'll rebound in a solid fashion next season. It's still better than lot of shows around right now, I think it just set a standard for itself with the first few episodes that was nearly impossible to maintain.

I'm just not sure the point of it all was to make me wish that the show was focused on Vocal Adrenaline instead of New Directions....

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:02:00 +0000

I'm notoriously known for judging other people based on their tastes in movies, music, and books. Now I feel it's time for me to confess a few of my own. (Rest assured, I do still find a few guilty pleasures unforgivable...everyone who loves Twilight, I'm looking at you.)

Short is the joy that guilty pleasures bring...

Miley Cyrus - See You Again (Rock Mafia Remix)

I want to preface this by saying that I find Miley Cyrus to be one of the most annoying people on the planet. As a result, I almost feel like this song was wasted on her, but I do love it, and it's impossible not to sing along with once you get it in your head. Especially the 'My best friend Leslie said 'Oh, she's just being Miley!' part. I'm pretty sure Miley's bff is that girl Mandy who is in all of her Youtube videos. Poor Leslie, dropped like a bad habit once Miley made it big...but I'm sure she'll turn up for the E! True Hollywood Story.

Selena Gomez - Falling Down

Selena Gomez looks exactly like a real life Bratz doll to me. That said, I happened to watch the Princess Protection Program movie and immediately decided that she's super cute. Not cute in the traditional sugary sweet Disney kid way. Cute in the kind of way too sassy for her own good, we'll probably be hearing about her cussing out an assistant and throwing a cell phone at their head in the future way.

The Rachel Zoe Project.

I can't really figure out why I watch this show. The actual content is incredibly boring, the outfits that they put together are mostly fugly. Taylor hates everything, Rachel is only mildly interesting, and Brad is too fabulous for words and should spin off immediately. What I'm really fascinated by is the butchering of the language, of course. Where. Everything. Is. It's. Own. Sentence? With. Like. Random. Questions? Thrown. Into. The. Middle? Of. Them. Oh. My. God. I. Died. Bananas. Shut. It. Down? Vintage. Chanel. You get the picture.

Britney Spears - The Circus Tour

Right around the time that Britney went bat shit, I developed a soft spot for her music. Blackout and Circus have become two of my most played cds ever. As a result, when she took her psycho circus on the road, I was totally tapped in. I love the shades of crazy that we still get, like when she starts talking about Christmas in the middle of the summer and things of that nature. I think I can safely say that I've seen all of this show via Youtube, and my favorite numbers are the first two. Circus and Piece of me are as well staged as they could be for an artist that never sings and doesn't dance anymore. A bonus in this video is Britney ripping out one of her awesome extensions at the 7:22 mark.

I fully expected to hate Glee, and then fell in love with it so hard that I'm eagerly seeking out the performances for the next episode that surface a few day before it airs. Thankfully it stays as far away from taking it self seriously as possible, because if this show came off the least bit pretentious, it would be over. It's fun and light and written to be quite snappy and sarcastic, but the music is where it really shines. I'd pretty much watch Lea Michele and Amber Riley sing the phone book for an hour every Wednesday and be happy about it.

I'm hoping that in calling out a few of my own guilty pleasures, I can now be on the road to recovery. The first step to healing is admitting that you have a problem. God grant me the serenity...

Twitter, oh Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:17:00 +0000

So, first let me start by saying neither Maggie nor I are addicted or obsessed with this blog, apparently. It's really quite sad because we had such lofty goals in the beginning. But don't give up on us yet. I know we'll continue to blog when the urge strikes. That said, the urge has struck me. There's something I've been wanting to blog about for a while now just as one of those pet peeve sorta things.

So back in the good ole days of 2007, Maggie tells me about this new thing called Twitter that Kevin Pereira from G4TVs Attack of the Show had been talking about. And she says I really gotta get on there cause Kevin's so awesome. And I resisted for a little while because I didn't "get it". I was still all into MySpace (see, I said, the good ole days!) and was really trying to even get a grasp on that Facebook thing. Didn't really want another thing to get caught up in. But sure enough, my arm didn't need much twisting because, yeah, I'm a techie at heart and like to see these new things early on.

I joined and followed Maggie and Kevin and singer/songwriter Matt Morris for what feels like forever because in it's infancy, no one was really doing the whole Tweeting thing. When I finally remembered I had one and went back to it after a few months, I started to get it because of it's simplicity and to this day, that's the thing I love most about it. Call me a victim of the MTV generation with the whole lack of being able to pay attention to anything for very long. I was getting sick of MySpace and people's ridiculously decorated pages and I still was (and kinda am not) feeling Facebook and all the damn quizzes and stuff. So, yes, Twitter was becoming and still is my social networking site of choice. The app on my iPhone made it so easy to fall deeper and deeper in love with it, too.

Given all of that, I don't want to say that I'm like the Queen of Twitter cause I know I'm far from that. BUT having been around it for longer than a bunch of people that I now follow, kinda leaves room for me to make some observations that are generally reasons for me to stop following people and it makes me sad even though I'm sure someone might be able to say the same about me for some reason or another. I mean there are real, legitimate friends who I wish there was a way to stop getting their updates because they're such annoying Twitterers but I don't because I don't want them to see I stopped following thus causing some sort of Twitter War because of feelings being hurt. So, I'm resorting to blogging my general annoyances and if I stop following you, it's not personal. I just don't wanna be annoyed when I log on to my favorite little website of the moment.

Here's the lowdown...

Don't tweet too much - There's nothing I hate more than when I see on Friendbar (a ticker of tweets for Firefox) the same pic/name for like 10 posts. Twitter's 140 characters for a reason. If you got more to say than that, take it to a blog or Facebook or something.
Learn how to use RT - Retweet stuff that you want everyone to know, not just when you feel the need to reply to someone. I don't see when you reply to people I don't know for a reason, and I like it.
Do you really think P Diddy is gonna see you tweeting him? - I get the whole loving the fact that Twitter gives you a bit of accessibility to celebrities in a way that we've never seen before but really, said celebs are likely getting thousands of @ replies and there's a slim to none chance that you're gonna get a reply or acknowledgment when you try. That said, it's not completely wrong to do, just don't do it all the time, cause really? It's ridiculous.
Trending - Sure, some trending topics are fun, but man, it's not a competition to get something to be a trending topic (though some are amusing) and making every tweet of your day a # is just wow, too much.
Sharing of information - There's a bunch of people that are either TMI or not enough info. I think the people who share waaaaaay too much are equally as annoying as the vague ones. It's like both are searching for attention and replies and it's just frustrating...okay, wait, I think I hate the vague ones more cause it's like "Really, WTF are you talking about?!"
TV Tweeting - I like to see what the people I'm following are into, as far as TV and music and all that fun stuff, but man, when you feel the need to give me a play by play of what you're watching, there's a problem. Step away from the computer or cell phone and just WATCH THE FUCKING SHOW. I don't need to know every detail of it. If I did, I'd be watching it myself.

I'm sure there's many, many more things that peeve me about the way people are on Twitter but those are the ones that come to mind. Again, if you notice I stopped following you, no offense...you're probably doing at least one of these if not a combination of them and I just can't take it.

An open letter to Matt Nathanson.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:26:00 +0000

Dear Matt Nathanson,

It's about damn time.

Love, Maggie

So, news broke this week that Matt Nathanson is FINALLY releasing another single. Falling Apart is going to usher us into the summer! I can only consider this the best birthday present ever, since Come On Get Higher long ago entered dangerously overplayed status for me, so this news leaves me positively thrilled.

I was going to make a pro and con list, but can see nothing but pros thus far. It's the perfect summer song. Great energy, catchy, perfect for highlighting during the billions of tour dates that he has lined up. It'll take me awhile to get tired of hearing it during every tv performance that he does, and the pictures from the video shoot look promising. I love when a series of videos has some sort of continuity to them, and since the same model that was featured in the Come On Get Higher video was also hired for this one, I have incredibly high hopes!

There has been other stuff going on. Life and love (and lack thereof) and things of that nature, but this new single is the best news I've gotten all week! (The second best news was the announcement of the In the Heights tour, but that is another entry all together and will be coming soon!) For now, go ahead and get acquainted with this song before you start hearing it on the radio and wondering who the hell is singing it.

The Guiltiest of the Guilty Pleasures

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:29:00 +0000

I can't believe October was the last time either Maggie or I have blogged. Wow, we suck at this.

That said, I'm going to do a quick one about the one thing I should totally be ashamed about. Remember a few years ago when Disney announced they were going to try to bring back the musical and that it'd be about High School? Yeah, I totally avoided it...completely stayed away from it. I have a niece that got all into it and I just was like, whatever, let her have it...good for her. Then just last year, I finally saw the first two and I thought they were adorable for what they were. I mean, if I were their target age, I'd totally be all about it. So, they have their big bad Senior Year movie coming out and I promised the niece that I'd take her and a friend to see it...apparently, I'm the cool aunt. We go and I totally loved it. I thought it was the most adorable mindless entertainment ever. And being a fan of the cheesy pop songs, I totally loved most of the music, like I said, if I were in the target age range, I'd have been ALL about it. But since I am not, it's so sad how cute I thought it was.

So, in celebration of the release of the High School Musical: Senior Year DVD release last week (of which I bought for ME and not my niece but she can borrow it), I will share with you my guiltiest of guilty pleasures from it. I love Troy and Gabriella (and actually Zac & Vanessa as a couple are equally as adorable), so here's "Can I Have This Dance". I'm sure you'll actually click this and LOVE it.

*Hides face in shame*

A true sign of the apocolypse...

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:15:00 +0000

...is that this chick is considered talented in some circles. Cause, REALLY?! REEEEAAAALY?! 21 MILLION plays on youtube, people. REALLY?! God help us cause these kids nowadays wouldn't know good music if it was thrown at them. The part that has me scratching my head the most is near the end when you have absolutley no fucking idea what she's saying. The only good that came out of this track is that "Swagger Like Us" got it's title and sample from it. That is all.

I don't even know where to begin.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:43:00 +0000

Let me preface this by saying I'm hardly a connoisseur of music journalism. I'm not a connoisseur of music journalism for the simple fact that it peaked somewhere in the early 90's, which can also be earmarked as the true dying days of Rolling Stone being somewhat credible. Since then I regularly read Blender, but admittedly for the funny commentary and not any genuine insight into the state of music, or the industry, or anything that actually matters to me as a music fan.

That said, I recently stumbled across an article by Boston Globe writer Joan Anderman, and have not felt so genuinely compelled to respond to an article in more than a decade. Let's take a look, shall we?

Does that sound familiar? Blame it on John Mayer.

In August I dutifully arrived at the Rod Stewart show at the Comcast Center in time to catch the opening act, Josh Kelley. Kelley, known to gossip hounds as Mr. Katherine Heigl, is a singer-songwriter. He writes pop-rock tunes, plays the guitar and the piano, and sings well. He's attractive and personable. His songs are sturdy and pretty. And he makes me feel . . . nothing.

Nothing is worse than feeling nothing at a concert. If you hate a band, at least you can whine about it to your friend in the next seat, and if you're me, you can register a public complaint in the newspaper. And odds are good I'll receive plenty of mail from readers who love the band just as much as I don't love the band, which confirms my view that music that makes somebody feel something is worth listening to.

Listening to Kelley, I just felt empty, and I found myself marveling once again that he and his ilk have become the mainstream standard-bearers for the genre.

"Garden-variety" is the term I used to describe Kelley in my review of the show - i.e. common, ordinary, of no special quality or type, according to the dictionary. And he's not alone.

So up until here I have no complaints. I've never found Josh Kelley overly burdened with talent, and have been genuinely more entertained by other artists telling stories of him stumbling around the Rock Boat completely tanked than I have been by his cds. A quick search of Joan Anderman's other articles for The Globe reveal that as many times as she finds reason to reference Josh in articles that have little to do with him, she trots out the "Mr. Katherine Heigl" moniker as if he's showing up in the pages of the Enquirer with nothing but that to carry him. I read my tabloids, girlie, can't remember the last time I even saw an article on Katherine, much less on Josh and trust me I'm no fan of hers either, so I'm on the lookout.

Another quick search gets much deeper to the root of what we're dealing with here. The review of the Rod Stewart show in question was largely positive, and very indicative of someone who has clearly had a lot of years to get familiar with his catalog. My knowledge of Stewart largely consists of people singing "Maggie May" to me on a regular basis, a Tom Waits cover that was better off left alone, and a daughter that looks like a cocker spaniel.

The description suits a whole slew of singer-songwriters making the rounds of theaters, airwaves, and soundtracks with their inoffensive, unremarkable, soul-numbing songs.

Matt Nathanson, a Lexington native who lives in San Francisco, performs a sold-out show at Berklee Performance Center tonight, the same night Howie Day plays at Northeastern University's Blackman Auditorium. Jason Mraz comes through town Oct. 17 for a show at the Orpheum, also sold out. Matt Wertz has been on the road opening for Gavin DeGraw, Mat Kearney is making a new record, and Josh Hoge just put an album out. Ari Hest, exhibiting a flash of ingenuity, has been writing and releasing a song a week this year.

All of these artists are competent. None of them has a sound.

Okay wait...what?

Hold the phone.

This is the point where I put down my glass of water and almost laughed and ended my own life by choking.I mean...seriously? Maybe someone spent too much time in her late 20's in the 80's listening to arena rock and hair bands and therefore has some damaged ear drums that led to making such a sweeping generalization on such a wide range of artists. I'm friends with a lot of musicians, or very involved music fans. I myself am someone as versed in the discography of everyone from the likes of Britney Spears, Jay-Z and Fiona Apple as I am with those of Matt Nathanson, Death Cab for Cutie, and Hit the Lights. I'm hardly a musical elitist, I just can't seem to consume enough of it. Granted, some of it is completely lost on me - the majority of country music, screaming rock anthems, and the Dave Matthews Band for a general cross section, but I know enough to know who is who when I'm stuck in traffic and hit the scan button and it settles on a station that I never listen to.

We all know that I could go on for days about the mere passing mention of Matt Nathanson, but let me just sum it up by saying that someone who can't seem to find a unique sound would never be able to sustain a career that's now spanning 15 years and was built solely on crisscrossing the country and selling out rooms wherever he goes. Howie Day may have hit the mainstream with the generally generic "Collide" but his first album showcased his unique abilities as a writer and singer in songs such as "Sorry So Sorry" and "Kristina". Hearing him pound out "Sorry So Sorry" live could put anyone's doubts to rest.

Jason Mraz has hit his stride with his new record and the reworked version of "I'm Yours" but is another artist who, with his own blend of wordplay and quick beats over his guitar playing has carved out his own niche that makes him another sure sell out road act each and every summer. Mraz has a quick tongue and churns out gems on his albums that range from quiet love songs to stumble over your own tongue rhymes and slick and sexy ballads. I don't remember anyone ever confusing a Mraz tune for a Mayer tune, even in the "Remedy" days.

I'm hardly a huge Gavin Degraw lover (I leave that for Nikki of course), but there's no denying that he's probably got the strongest voice out of his entire genre of young singer songwriters. He can literally sing the hell out of anything, from the defiant and slightly cocky "I Don't Want to Be", to a cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come" that Sam Cooke himself would approve of.

The point of this is that the genre itself is deep and unique. Insisting that this crop of artists have no unique sound is about as ridiculous as getting a Jay-Z song confused with a Soulja Boy song, just because they happen to file into the same genre when you're browsing through the iTunes store.

They seem for all the world to be using a template to write their songs. Sit down to listen to a batch of them at the same time, and you'll notice that the same pattern crops up again and again, usually in the chorus. It's made of four chords that repeat in a cycle, sometimes tenderly and sometimes forcefully but always winsomely, suggesting lost love or found love or the bad love that inspired him - no, impelled him - to write this song.

As wrong and this woman is, this argument can be applied to any genre of music. During the reign of pop it was largely argued that every pop hit was composed of the same few chords and key changes. With some slick production and a catchy hook, anyone could have a number one song. During the reign of rap it was the era of a sample. Grab a beat, obtain a sample, enjoy the millions rolling in. This is not new information, sweetie.

Love songs will always be the ones that get people talking, because those are the songs that everyone can relate to. If Jason Mraz wrote "Remedy" (a song about a close friend fighting cancer) 14 times over and released it as an album, he would have never had the chance to make a second record. If John Mayer had released a handful of albums consisting of different versions of "Your Body Is A Wonderland", he'd still be playing at coffee shops in Atlanta on nightly basis. Being cute and holding a guitar may work as a novelty for a little while, but is hardly enough to grant you the ability to tour the country and live comfortably when not doing so, especially not in this day and age. Let's face it, they all can't have the ability to churn out such obscenely creative jams as "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?", but they do what they can to entertain those that somehow manage to find meaning in their meaningless and talentless songs, you know?

I don't buy it. This musician has studied hard. His introspective lyrics read like a composite of sensitive-guy clichés. He doesn't so much sing from the gut as use his voice, expertly, in the service of a sentiment. It cracks just so to evoke his broken heart and grows bold when it's time to be strong. He's a little soulful, a little wounded, totally ready to be saved, and with the help of a skilled producer he pushes people's buttons - especially those belonging to young women, a demographic that's especially susceptible to a cute boy's connect-the-dots charms.

And who can blame them? These guys get the job done. It's like the recipe for McDonald's Secret Sauce; you can count on it. It tastes the same every time. Nobody clamors for new ingredients every time they order a Big Mac, because reliability is a good thing when it comes to fast food. But sameness is depressing when it defines an art form where emotional veracity has always been the most compelling piece.

Singer songwriters are not the new bubble gum pop stars. The guitar boy equivalent of Lou Pearlman is not sitting behind a desk holding auditions at theme parks for the next group of boys he can clean up, give a Fender and an MTV reality show to, send to Max Martin, and then swim in the millions he makes off of them like it's the beginning of Ducktales and he's Scrooge McDuck. This would be valid if I walked into a store and was faced with seeing Jason Mraz and Gavin DeGraw lip gloss, or John Mayer and Matt Nathanson lollipops that I could buy to enjoy while watching Josh Kelley's feature film about traveling the country with some of his friends to find his long lost mother.

This is not 1999 and Howie Day will never sell 2.1 million records in a week. There is no longer endless money to be made for getting air headed teenage girls to stand outside of the MTV studios for you. To put it into reference the writer may understand better, this is not the same thing as anxiously awaiting Davy Jones' appearance on the Brady Bunch because he's OMG SO DREAMY!

I blame John Mayer. He paved the way for this wave of well-groomed troubadours with the unlikely success of his 2001 album, "Room For Squares." Mayer is a better musician than the lot of them, but the mass appeal of his sweet strummed pop tunes triggered a record-label spending spree on cookie-cutter tunesmiths. And it's working, because in this era of branding and multi-platform careerism, originality isn't the goal. Quite the opposite: The business needs innocuous, multipurpose songs that can service radio formats, dorm rooms, television dramas, film credits, and iPod ads.

The original pop troubadours carved their niche (and set the bar high) with distinctive visions spanning the literate commentary of Jackson Browne, James Taylor's graceful meditations, and fiery soul-searching from Cat Stevens. And there are formidable talents working today, among them Conor Oberst, Damien Rice, Tom McRae, Joseph Arthur, and Rufus Wainwright. Which makes it even harder to listen to the assembly-line sentiments and achingly familiar refrains of the Mayer descendants.

Ugh. I'll give you Damien Rice and Joseph Arthur. Those two have moments of pure transcendence on their albums. But Conor Oberst? Really? That almost negates the rest of the list for me. I do enjoy a couple of Bright Eyes songs, but holy Christ, pulling that name for a list of formidable talents making the rounds today is almost like putting Hanson on a pedestal or loving the Terrence Howard record...oh wait, Anderman already did that in previous articles. I guess somehow those two artists managed to avoid the trappings of the terrible pre packaged singer songwriters that you can't help but be overrun with these days.

There's enough wallpaper in the world; we don't need uniformity from the very people who are meant to be scouring their hearts and baring their souls in song. But that venerable task has been co-opted, at least in part, by music supervisors looking for a faux-emotional tune to underscore the season's faux-emotional teen drama, and nervous music execs hoping to reach the most people with the least distinguished palette of sounds.

It's bad math for music lovers, but it adds up in the short term, and these days that seems to be the main frame of reference.

To sum this all up somehow, I'll say this: if this writer wanted to bash an entire genre of music based on it's depth and genuine contribution to music a whole, she was way off base to pick this one. Go to a Matt Nathanson show, watch him play upwards of 30 songs that he himself wrote from the ground up, and then tell me that he's in it for the money and not for the genuine love for music and his gift for sharing it. Listen to a live Mraz record from top to bottom and tell me that he isn't a great lyricist and and amazing vocalist. Sure John Mayer has become commercialized and trite, but he wasn't always that way and with any hope the other greats in his genre will never see that side of themselves.

Being that Anderman still finds Motley Crue culturally relevant none of that is likely. Writing a badly researched and completely off base article damning an entire genre of music isn't exactly a reflection of a well rounded music fan, much less one that should be writing for a major newspaper.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some cds to listen to.

16 Things About Me

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:39:00 +0000

So, it's been a while since I've been compelled to blog. Not sure why...methinks there's a bit of a funk in the air around me, but I'm coming out of it. I was checking out a blog I frequently visit and I saw them do this, so I figured, well what a bloggy thing to do! Maybe it'll get me all up in it again! Here goes!

Sixteen Things About Me

4 Things I Did Today
1. I took a nap in the morning time, even though I really should've just stayed up and read stuff for work or something.

2. Went to Barnes & Noble for the second day in a row. This is like a record for me...you see, I'm not that much of a reader. But this time, I got an interactive type book thingy...you know those self help type things (let's call it Personal Development, sounds better)? Yeah, I need it and I'm not ashamed to say it.

3. I stayed for an hour after class at the gym talking to one of my fellow Zumba girls. We were walking to our cars and before we knew it, we had talked for an hour. The only thing that made me actually leave was that my niece called me...for no apparent reason.

4. I played MarioKart on the Wii for like an hour and a half with people from all over the world on Wifi. I lost pretty much every race I was in, too. I pretty much suck at that game but it won't stop me from playing it.

4 Things on My To Do List
1. Get certified in Zumba. I'm using it as a fitness goal. Not sure I'd ever actually teach. I got other shit to get done.

2. Actually solidly plan my next trip to LA. Wheels are in motion for it already and there might actually be some meetings/invitiations on the burner, so maybe it'll end up being fruitful this time.

3. Find the focus that I need to get the shit done that I mention in point 1.

4. Take a nice, nice vacation. I'm talking like a week or two just away...somewhere I've never been. Australia? Who wants to go?!

4 of My Guilty Pleasures
1. Pop Music
Much like my blogmate there, I unabashedly love simple pop music. Although I can't get behind that new Britney Spears song, I will say she's had others that have been and will forever be in constant rotation on the workout playlist on the iPod. "Slave 4 U" anyone?!

2. Snapped
If you've never seen this show on Oxygen, then you're just not watching TV. I inexplicably get caught up in it every time there's a marathon and I've probably seen every episode they have done or almost all of them. The gist? It's a show about women who snap and kill their boyfriends/husbands. Some of them have gotten off, others are locked up. But it's basically a half hour little show about how they got to where they were when they snapped.

3. YouTube
I'm pretty sure that youtube is one of the signs of the apocalypse. It's down right demonic cause really, I could sit on it for hours and hours before I realize it's been hours and hours. Commercials, videos, TV shows from my youth...all end up on youtube. Missed something in that latest episode of that TV show you're all up into now? Well, wait about a half hour after it's over, it'll be on youtube! Didn't see that Britney video on 20/20, where should I go? Youtube! *sigh* Man, I love me some youtube.

4. My iPhone
That's right folks, I no longer have iPhone envy. I've caved and gotten it and it's the most glorious phone thingy I've ever had. I know people have issues with it and sure, it's got little problems like the inability to do MMS messages, but whatever, I had that when I had my Sidekick, too, and this thing is infinitely more advanced than that. The keyboard's still taking some getting used to for me, but I adore the damn thing. I'm an Apple girl, anyway, so the fact that the thing can sync my contacts and all that stuff so easily just makes me love it more. I find myself doing emails on it, even when there's a computer inches from me...it's just weird. But it's come in so handy with it's applications and maping and GPS and all. Every day I discover something new to do on it.

4 Random Facts About Me
1. I Remember When I First Fell in Love with Music
I was 5 and in Mr Gardener's Kindergarden class. We did little musical plays and he always had music on and I just remember being obsessesive about it from the start. Always wanting to be in the lead roles in our little productions. I will never forget that man's name, even all these years later because he helped me find my passion.

2. I Don't Know if I want kids
Even still...as I'm in my 30s, I don't know. I have this whole, it'd be nice if I did but if I didn't I wouldn't die either. I really only get that internal ticking clock when I go to sporting events it seems. Odd, right? Well not so much. You see, when you're at sporting events, you see all these men with their little ones in their itty bitty jerseys doing the father thing and it really just makes my heart melt. So, there, I think the only way I would want to have kids is if I am in a committed relationship and it's a decision we make together. I have friends that want them regardless but I know I don't want to enter into it alone, if I don't have to.

3. Of all of the guys from Entourage Turtle is the one I like the most. Everybody is usually all about Vinnie, but not me. It's Turtle. - Direct quote from who I stole this from. I'm not touching it cause I wholeheartedly agree.

4. Sometimes I wish I just went ahead and lept into what my dreams were in HS/College. I know everything happens for a reason and all that fun stuff, but man, that's probably the one "what if" I have.

I'm supposed to tag 4 people with this, but this took way longer than I thought and I would kind of feel bad asking someone else to do this. But if you feel so inclined you can put some random facts about yourself in the comments. It's not like we don't love finding out more about our readers.

It's a song with pretty much one lyric.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:12:00 +0000

But I am inexplicably loving Britney's "Womanizer" all of a sudden. It was the video that did it. Sure, its Toxic 2.0, but the sheer fact that I can even manage to watch the entire thing means that it must be good, since I check out of most videos like a minute in. I'm past the point of having to apologize for my guilty pleasure musical tastes. The short of it is this: the video is good. Watch it.

I'm not a princess...

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:01:00 +0000

Well I am, but that's another blog for another day. Let me just preface this by saying that I am not a country music fan...like, at all. There's something in the twang and how every song is about the same damn thing that makes me insane. There are exactly two country songs that I have ever admitted to liking in my 26 years of existing. The first is a song by The Wreckers called Leave the Pieces. The Wreckers barely register to me as country because I was such a huge Michelle Branch fan, and there are a few reasons that this song means something special to me.

The next song came to me by way of Grey's Anatomy which admittedly is how I've found a lot of the songs and artists that I've fallen in love with over the past few years. That said, Taylor Swift has been on and off my radar since she appeared. Not really on a musical level since I couldn't recall one of her songs if you paid me, but I've seen her on various shows and always thought she seemed cute and fun, and I could see why she appealed to people, but I immediately just assumed that I wouldn't fall in love with any of her songs.

Boy was I WRONG.

I've pretty much been listening to White Horse on a loop for the past day and a half. It's a simple song, beautifully delivered, and as it always goes for me, the lyrics totally get me. I love it.

Sooo, what can we talk about?

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:58:00 +0000

I keep getting distracted by that video. I love me some Butch Walker. He'll get his own Matt Nathansonesque blog one day, I know it. I would not hesitate to say that his This Is Me...Justified and Stripped live cd is easily in my top ten albums of all times. If you don't know who Butch Walker is, trust me, you know his work. He's produced and written hits for Pink, Fall Out Boy, Avril, Simple Plan, The Donnas, The Academy Is...the list pretty much goes on. In fact, he was on stage with Pink at the VMAs. His own music however, is pretty much full of win. He pours his heart out over heartbreaking lyrics and gut wrenching vocals. I'm going to curb the gushing here but seriously, he's amazing.

It's been an odd week for me, and it's still not all sorted out and so that's got my thoughts a bit scattered. Perhaps the way to handle this is via bullet points, and take it from there. Hmm.

Things I Love This Week:

- Sour Starburst. I will eat them until my tongue feels like it's going to fall off.

- The new Zune update. About 95% full of win. I'm PISSED that I don't get the fancy now playing screen that the videos promised. Apparently whatever magical level of graphics ability your computer has to have... I don't. But the software runs like a dream now, and while there are still a few kinks to worked out, I'm VERY pleased with it this go around.

- Hey Olivia! and Kevin Pereira.com the blogs of the two hosts of Attack of the Show! on G4. Kevin has been my television techie boyfriend forever now, and I find Olivia infinitely more likeable via her online persona than on the show.

- All things Alice in Wonderland...except for the movie, oddly enough. I just finished reading book one of The Looking Glass Wars, and I'm suddenly crazy fascinated by all things Wonderland. I love books that tell common stories from another side, such as Wicked. So for now, Wonderland is my new obsession. This is not uncommon for me. I go through these phases. Marie Antoinette was a big one recently. It comes and goes randomly.

- The fact that it gets dark earlier now. I'm a fall, winter, spring type of girl. Generally, I don't like summer. I don't like the heat, I don't enjoy doing things outside, I don't think it needs to be light outside until like 9:30. I'm perfectly okay with cozy evenings in, rainstorms, and snow. Weather keeps me creative. Rolling heat day after day makes me bored and grumpy. Fuck summer. I'd punch summer in the fact if I could.

- The horoscope that I get emailed to me daily has been dead ON this week. It freaks me out, but at the same time it doesn't. It's not a big thing, and not a thing that a lot of people would put any stock into. But for me, words are what count. This small thing has definitely helped me through a very challenging week.

Things I Hate This Week:

- Girls who HAVE to be involved with someone, even if that means settling for an unappreciative, undeserving douchebag who is going to do nothing but break their hearts into a million pieces. I find it hard to feel sorry for girls who set themselves up for this time and time again.

- Guys who can't just just man up and TALK. I hate when there are underlying issues and subtext and tension in any situation. I think these things are a waste of time. I appreciate honesty and respect straightforwardness, and that's just another fabulous service that I offer, and I seem to click best with men who have this same policy. Closed off and guarded and reserved goes from charming to annoying as hell when you're suddenly on the receiving end of it after months of being on the other side of the wall. My addictive personality gets contrasted by the fact that when I'm done and I decide to write someone off, that's IT. I'm as strong willed and stubborn as I am flirty and sweet. Most people would prefer to stay on my good side.

- People who say they're going to call you right back and don't. I get it on a few occasions, and I know I'm guilty of it. But with some people that I know, they need to just stop saying it. Tell it like it is: "I'm gonna go talk to someone I think is more interesting, but I'll call you the next time I'm stuck in traffic/waiting for a table/am suffering a cable outage."

When I started this entry there were a ton more things that I'm hating this week on the tip of my tongue. The good news is that I've seemed to forgotten them all for the most part. Maybe I'm finally letting go of a little of the stress of the week and am centering and moving on. Let's all keep our fingers crossed on that one, k?

YAY! It's the Video Music Ahhhh screw it, they suck.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:23:00 +0000

I remember a long long time ago when the VMAs used to be good. I'm not just saying that because I was in my teens at the time, and OMG Justin Timberlake was SOOOO dreamy! etc etc etc. They really were good. There were legitimate surprises, amazingly creative performances, and oh yeah....people actually showed up.

Remember the days of Christina Aguilera and her on stage romp with Fred Durst? When NSYNC and Michael Jackson took the stage together? When Britney showed up wearing nothing but sparkles? When the dude from Rage Against the Machine climbed up to the rafters? When the hosts were actually funny? When you wondered why the hell Missy Elliot was showing up in every performance but in the end you didn't care because she made them all awesome?

Those days are loooong gone. Last night was I believe, rock bottom.

First, lets talk about the choice in venue. I'm not sure who at MTV believed that it was a good idea to ever take those things out of NYC. You'd think they'd have learned by now that it just doesn't feel the same when they aren't there. Last night, they chose to hold the awards in a room that seemed about as big as my bedroom, and also had padded walls. I understand it was a soundstage, but really it kind of just looked like a giant cell in an asylum.

It became fairly evident early on that almost no one bothers to come to these things anymore, so holding it in a closet turned out to be an okay choice. Russell Brand? Mildly amusing. No further comment.

Since the actual awards portion of this so called awards show is clearly a joke, (I mean, way to kiss Britney's ass and throw her the pity awards MTV - seriously.) let's just move on to the performances, shall we?

It's worth noting that this is the order that the MTV site has them in, not the order they aired in...as if anyone cares.

Rihanna - Disturbia:

I actually liked this one, although I really do generally like Rihanna. She's no superstar vocalist, that's for damn sure.

Jonas Brothers - Whatever the hell that song was:

It really looked like they were sitting on the steps at Sesame Street in the very beginning. Wildly appropriate. It's a minute in, I'm bored. This would be better with Elmo. I would totally be in a band if my job could be to play the tambourine. Oh snap! The walls just opened up and now they're "rocking out" and there are screaming crying girls everywhere. OMG OMG OMG. Does that one dude really not play an instrument? What a rip off. This may possibly be the worst song I've ever heard.

Lil Wayne/Leona Lewis/etc -

I really hate Leona Lewis. Hate hate. Bleeding Love is the most annoying song on the planet, and I hate everything she has done and will ever do based on that, I'm not even going to lie, okay? We're beyond that. Pull your fucking pants up, Lil Wayne. No one wants to see that. Here's the thing, I like rap music. I like GOOD rap music. This is NOT it. There's not even anything good to look at here to redeem these five minutes of my life that I'm losing. Who is this Mad Hatter looking mfer? Man, the MTV stream quality is super crappy right now. Oh, I guess its T Pain...the talent level just keeps on plummeting during this performance. Okay screw this, I'm done.

Paramore - Misery Business

Blah blah blah, nothing is as it seems. Whoooo. Misery Business is a great song, and that little chick with the bad hair has an alright voice, although not here. I love how somehow, the person in the audience who gets the closeup never fucking knows the words to the song. It never fails. OMG MY MIND HAS BEEN BLOWN, THEY'RE NOT REALLY AT THE WHISKY?!?! Who didn't see that coming a mile away, MTV? That guy who I now know is named Josh? His guitar matches Hailey's crazy yellow pants. I got distracted by singing along, but trust me, nothing worth note happened here.

Pink - So What

I'm loving this song these days, and the video is great. This performance had a ton of ideas crammed into one. Pink smashes a mirror, Pink flies down the side of a building Mr and Mrs. Smith style, Pink throws a drill through a window and had a very real shot of almost hitting a poor extra in the head, Pink makes things explode, and now she's on a stage and boy howdy is it a good thing she remembered to put on some pasties. All I remember thinking during this performance is that this is the same lot where they shot the beginning of the RENT movie. I'm half expecting Taye Diggs and Rosario Dawson to appear on a balcony and start trading lines. Pink sings some more, and the backdrop awkwardly falls. Performance over.

T.I. - Whatever You Like

TI is super hot, but this girl he's parading around in the pink dress looks like a Bratz doll. So far this performance is well done, walking through different sets, from store to store and then a club...and then an alley...that's romantic. This song is crazy repetitive, and this girl looks like an idiot walking around LA in a "mink" coat. "Director" yells "cut" and now Live Your Life starts. I think I hate this song just based on that fucking sample. Oh good, there's Rihanna again. She's wearing a half jacket and not much else. Hopefully she didn't forget HER pasties...she keeps holding her half jacket closed, so maybe she did. She looks like some butch military sargent as she towers over little TI.

Christina Aguilera - Genie In A Bottle/Keeps Getting Better

I was really looking forward to this. I love Christina and have nothing but respect for the girl. I really do believe she's got one of the best voices of my generation. So it starts out with a montage of her evolution. New theme every album, we get it! There she is in a mask, behind a wall...lipsynching some rad new arrangement of Genie In A Bottle as she writhes around with her Brooke Hogan bangs and the cat suit she borrowed from Britney's ill fated Onyx Hotel Tour. This is very Madonna. I'm holding out faith that she's gonna actually start singing as the song switches over to a song that sounds exactly like Britney's Radar at first. The men in black come out and dance around while Christina....still lipsynchs. I love this girl and I love this song, but I feel like everyone in the world has done this exact performance before. Somewhere in the middle of this, the guys in the suits lose their shirts...I think they were supposed to look like superheros, but they really just look like they're headed to the gay club. Which would be infinitely more fun than sitting through anymore of this shit.

Kanye West - Love Lockdown

Are you there Kanye? It's me, Maggie...This thing with the drums was better in Beijing.

Oddly enough, the best performances of this whole debacle took place on the side stage, Katy Perry non withstanding. Travis Barker's remixes are good times. He managed to make Wonderwall more interesting than it is, and he and DJ AM's little VMA jam was cut off way too soon!

While I was willing to excuse them for shrugging off Lupe Fiasco and the Ting Tings to a few seconds from the side stage, its a disservice to us all to not allow us to see LL finish out Going Back To Cali. WTF, MTV! And this is supposed to be the 25th anniversary of this sorry show? That song is classic, LL is always worth looking at and I'm just disgusted! That may have redeemed this parade of suck at least mildly.

But don't worry. Britney is in the house, hair combed, dressed, and she has on shoes. MTV rewards this multiple times by throwing her every award she was nominated for. Good Lord someone at MTV feels sorry for this girl. It's not like she never had videos that were VMA worthy. Toxic? Sure. Stronger? Absolutely! Hell, I would have even thrown her a bone for Everytime before Piece of Me. But she trots up to the stage, gives the same speech 3 times and then hopefully Larry Rudolph manages to keep her under control so we don't find her wandering around a gas station at 3 am barefoot, crying, and flashing her vagina all over again.

I do wish nothing but the best for Britney. She looks healthy and happy again, and hopefully everything falls in to place for her and she gets herself back on track. That said....she still doesn't deserve a VMA this year, even if they don't really mean anything.

Edited to add:

I just realized that I forgot to mention the Kid Rock performance. That just shows you how memorable I found that one. Ahahha.

The point is this: the state of music is dire and different, and it's no longer the era of chart dominating pop stars and rappers with unlimited budgets - that much is true. However, I also am firmly aware that MTV is capable of pulling out a witty/interesting/entertaining show. Throw artists from different ends of the spectrum onstage together like you used too, have a respected comedian make the truly controversial jokes (not mocking the poor Jonas Brothers for their virginity), fuck, get Missy Elliot in her blow up trash bag outfit and get her ass back on that stage if that's what you have to do!

You're better than this, and I believe in you. Better luck next year MTV.

Seriously? ... Seriously.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:40:00 +0000

Can we talk about the VMAS for a second? I mean...I have to go to work, but after? Because I just.....no.

This was bound to happen eventually.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Alright, this one is totally for me. To save others from the depths of my obsession, I'm putting this behind a cut! But click it, I promise you entertainment.

More...

Anyone who knows me know that I'm beyond obsessed with Matt Nathanson. I could (and most of the time do) ramble on and on about how awesome he is for days on end. I thought about compiling a best of his performances playlist, but literally, I think I'd pull performances of every song he's EVER done. He's that good, and I cannot choose. So, I thought as an alternative, I'd throw together (in no particular order) some playlists of the things that make going to see him so incredibly fun: the hilarious banter, and the random, sometimes completely off the cuff and damn entertaining covers. I love this guy!

The videos above represent some of the best moments of banter from some of Matt's live shows. There is definitely no shortage of videos here, and even a site that features quotes from his shows. I've never come across an artist who plays off of audience comments as flawlessly as Matt does. He's also known for his impromptu songs about the city he's in. The infamous Philadelphia song is feature on his Myspace page as well as the Live at the Point record. Other honorable mentions include Oh, Elon, and the San Franciso song. Good times. Enjoy!

1. A fun few minutes near the end of one of his hometown shows in San Fran. Features "...I have cds for sale too, but you know what? Just burn them." "You want to lick my olives? This is dirty and wonderful! This is a bullseye, baby. I want you to shoot your love rocket right to me." "This is a song that someone else wanted to hear. I'm gonna play it, and then I'm gonna fucking ROCK YOU!"

2. If you go to a Matt show, get ready to hear people screaming out covers for him to do. Sometimes he's down, sometimes he's not. Listen to the following exchange as someone totally screws up requesting "When Doves Cry."

3. There are some shows where saying fuck and vagina all the time are just not welcome. This is one of them. Watch as Matt introduces "Lose Myself In Search Of You" in the most PG way he knows how. "This is a song about a monster truck that cheats on another monster truck!" "You're a wanton truck. You're a very loose truck. You need your bearings tightened....truck."

4. Matt deconstructs Enrique Iglesias' song Hero. I suppose this one could go under the covers list, but as he breaks down the lyrics it just gets funnier and funnier. "Would you run, if I slipped you a roofie?" "What the fuck, you just asked this girl to dance and run. She's exhausted. Then you ask her to cry. You're such a dick." "I'll tell you what, he sings the shit out of that song, I haven't cried like that since "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain."

5. Matt has a song called Angel that sounds suspiciously like Hey There Delilah. Here, he explains why.

6. The Care Bear rant. Probably my FAVORITE bit of Matt banter ever. I'm not sure why. I think it's just how genuinely frustrated and angry he gets about Grumpy Bear. "This was given to me by a guy, a fan...who apparently thought I was the biggest dick on earth!"

7. There's a ton of banter here from a show in a parking lot in Symrna. He hilariously banters back and forth with an incredibly drunk guy who can't keep his mouth shut, "Let's pass the talking stick to me. I'll be your man, but just be silently by my side," talks about the Rock of Love, "He's trying to date a bunch of women who are stuck in 1983," Hulk Hogan's divorce, and being an emo kid, "Inside I have a darkness that you don't know...that's dorky."

8. Intro to Laid: "This is like an orgy situation, and if one person doesn't pull their weight, the orgy suffers." "I see that only the sexy people are singing. Only the people that have pleased their lovers during sex are singing."

9. More banter from Symrna, this time pulling out a G rated intro to Come On Get Higher after he notices a kid in the crowd. "I could take a little less guitar, a little more of the girl asking to make out with me, and a little more of the vocal." "I feel like I'm in Bambi. How old are you, little man. 5? This song is about ice cream! This song is about ice cream and togetherness, and how mom and daddy made you!"

10. Matt does not respond well to being told what to do by a fan. "I didn't get the email that said I do whatever you want."

11. This is from the show that I went to in Cleveland. First he quiets the largely drunk crowd who braved the ice storm or the "snice storm" as he called it to get there, "I can't hear a thing you're saying....especially when you're yelling other peoples songs." Then explains to us all the plot of The Hills Have Eyes 2, which was featured that month on HBO. "Has anyone ever seen the movie The Hills Have Eyes 2? Don't ever watch it."

12. A pretty girl catches Matt's eye and the following ensues as he discusses "The portal of hot" where she came from. "She's just walking out the door, just hot and...leaving." Then he discusses Direct TV, popping your collar, and murdering and eating children.

Bonus video! (Only because it's not able to be embedded:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYNnkP2nrdw

From Irving Plaza in NYC. The intros to Come On Get Higher are always dirty, tmi, and hilarious. "Fuck you, I don't jack off into socks! I've seen other...I haven't SEEN anybody do it, I've heard tour stories..." "You want to be my sock? Thank you. I can't even see you but I love that your vagina is like a sock. No, no. Your vagina isn't like a sock...fuck I can't talk today."

Now on to the covers! They're not always fully realized, and some of them are completely random and off the cuff, but you're always guaranteed a few classics from the 80s and later when you're at a Nathanson show. There are tons of these. Way more than I even could post here. He's always covering something.

1. Matt busts out a little R Kelly and then expresses his desire to be able to cover a Mariah Carey song, We Belong Together. "What I like about that song is that like 6 people wrote it. That's talent...kind of."

2. Laid, also known as "The Song". He will often point out during a show if he is or isn't going to play "The Song." It was covered by him for the American Wedding soundtrack, and is by far a fan favorite. "If you think about it, the third line of this song is the best line ever written by anyone ever in a pop song," and he clearly loves to sing that line.

3. Armageddon It / Livin' On A Prayer: What I love the most about this is the dorky guitar boy rambles about the key change in Armageddon It. Adorable, and he warns the crowd "Don't get bored!" As he breaks it down, then segues into Livin' On A Prayer. "This sold 17 million records, you should all know it." "I play Utah a lot...you sing like Mormons. This is an emotional time for Tommy and Gina, I think they deserve a fucking sing a long."

4. Laid is the most famous cover, but Don't Stop Believin' is probably the only one that garners a bigger crowd reaction. Who doesn't love to sing this song?

5. Paradise City. This video is totally worth it for the surprised reaction when Aaron Tapp takes over.

6. This is another one from my show! Similar reaction as the one in the Paradise City video, but it all falls apart when they get to the bridge and Matt decides they can't hang.

7. Kids In America is now a staple in the center of Detroit Waves, and I love it every time.

8. Jesse's Girl - This comes at the tail end of Princess almost every time now, so you have to fast forward a bit to get to it. But for some reason, he laughs through it every time he does it.

9. Romeo and Juliet - I was lucky enough to see this one live as well, but this version isn't from my show. It's also available on the Live at the Point cd. So good.

10. I'm not even sure what song this is...in point of fact, neither is Matt.

11. Kiss Me Deadly - Clearly this one wasn't planned.

12. Hungry Like The Wolf - from the Rock Boat. He's been doing this one for awhile, usually as a smarmy lounge version... sometimes it's hard to believe that he doesn't drink.

13. La Bamba - This song is so obnoxious, but it's cute when he stops, the audience keeps singing and he just goes "Oh fuck."

14. Dancing With Myself - this is one of my favorite songs, and while the Nouvelle Vague version is by far my favorite, watching Matt bounce around to it is just as fun!

15. Take Me Out - another totally impromptu one, thanks Aaron Tapp for pointing out where it was headed.

16. Heaven - Another tangent about awesome chord changes.

17. Lose Yourself - The sound isn't so great for this one, but Matt talks about battle rapping, and really, who doesn't know all of the words to this song anyway.

18. Hangar 18 - It's a Megadeath song, and Matt's alternate version of singing the ingredients off of a soup can are pretty funny, as is his chatter about the 18 minute long guitar solo.

19. Lost Without You - Apparently not a fan of Robin Thicke. "Do you know that song? No? Good for you. Stay away from it!"

20. Since You're Gone - Totally off the cuff and another figuring it out on the spot one.

Whew, I feel better having gotten all of that off of my chest.

So here's the thing.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:37:00 +0000

It's 630 in the morning on my day off and I'm sitting here reloading my Zune after a complete reformat of the software and hardware. This would be frustrating - especially to someone who has well over 100 gigs of music in her collection - if I didn't have to do it every time there's an update to the software or the firmware.

Here's the thing: I'm a huge fan of the Zune product and the software. The short of it is that I have no desire to own an iPod and probably never will. I was a fairly early adopter of the product and am the proud owner of a shiny pink 30 gig Zune aptly named Princess. I love the massive screen and the options to customize, I take it everywhere, and we've had some good times.

The software however, is an entirely different story. The first incarnation of the Zune software looked a little something like this:

Not exactly gorgeous, kind of looked like Windows Media Player but the most important point of all is that it worked flawlessly. Never stuttered, never hung, made syncing and creating playlists a breeze, and had a host of editing functions for those of us who are OCD about organization when it comes to music.

The revamp and upgrades to the Zune line brought along the new software and a whole bunch of issues. Sure the new software is glossy and sexy and comes in several different colors, with fancy menu animations and the ability to share your listening history with your friends, all fun features, but not so much when most of the function of the software was removed.

Pretty, right? Like cotton candy with album covers stuck all over it.

Upon updating, my collection went to hell in a handbasket (whatever that means). My perfectly organized system was thrown every which way, album art was gone! East coast and west coast rappers were colliding! It was chaos!

I was not discouraged. New software would surely equal some sweet new functions to fix this musical disaster. However, upon further investigation I discovered that they'd virtually eliminated any way to edit track/album/artist names. They added a clumsy and flawed drag, drop and merge alternative which really helped no one. A feature of the first software that was long lost was the ability to look up track names and album art from the Zune marketplace and clean up your collection that way. All in all, the software was pretty, but completely useless. Like a socialite.

I was determined to persevere. After all, I'm a fairly tech savvy young lady, and I would not be deterred by a largely flawed piece of software. I downloaded a tag editing program and set to manually fixing all of the tags and art to make the appease the software gods. Meanwhile, outrage was ensuing at the Zune.net forums over the lost functionality. The poor Microsoft associates spent hours replying to angry messages and trying to throw out tweaks and fixes, like tiny morsels thrown to a huge angry pit bull who wants to rip your face off...and recode the software that you created.

It didn't take long for the promise of an update (apparently if enough people threaten to burn their Zunes, buy iPods and start worshiping at the altar of Wozniak and Jobs, Microsoft pays attention). I was psyched.... because I am a nerd.

Finally! The new update rolled out. Once again my entire collection was thrown into shambles. Britney and Christina were intermixing dangerously, John Mayer and Jason Mraz were now one unified front of guitar boy awesomeness. My techie heart was breaking slowly, how many times would I have to do this?

Another day was lost reloading the software and hardware. It was easier this time, the online album/track update was back! Success! Put down your pitchforks, angry people. Everything is gonna be alright. Months passed and my Zune software and I coexisted happily. Enough time had passed that the memories of the times it'd failed me were nothing more than misty memories of a tumultuous time.

Then my hard drive crashed.

That was traumatic enough. Although it didn't take me long to get it reformatted and up and running again. I set to redownloading the software and reloading my library for the 80th time. (Don't worry, I've since had the intelligence to back it up to my external hd. Why I didn't think of it sooner is beyond me.) I added all of my music back, sat back proudly, scrolled through it, my spider senses of organization and order tingling proudly - only to discover that somehow all of my custom album artwork was gone, and a ton of artwork that I'd imported through the software was missing also. I even quickly found out that even the totally annoying drag, drop, and merge function wasn't working properly either. If I merged one album and then tried to merge another into something else, it would revert back to the first one I'd created every time.

While I still haven't figured out the merging issue, and apparently if you have multiple versions of the same album, the software does not know how to comprehend that yet. It's not a huge problem, but an annoying one. However, I've finally managed to get everything else back in order for the millionth time. As a whole the software seems much more stable this time around, it hasn't frozen or crashed once, and my custom edits seem to be holding up so far. I'm still optimistic about it. I still love the product, it's just getting a little more difficult for me to recommend it to people as freely as I did before. Here's hoping that everything is finally going to stay in order this time. My music obsessed OCD heart cannot handle another upset. Do not let me down, Microsoft. I'll never let go.

iPhone Envy

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:23:00 +0000

So, you know I've discussed before how I'm techie girl and I also an instant gratification sort of girl. The pairing is not very good on a budget and so, I've had to stop myself from getting many things that I've wanted as technology moves so fast now. The last job I had, I was incredibly underpaid and a new homeowner and well really just not so good with money, so I totally had to curb my spending on my fun gadgets and such. Mainly the big ones, though. I substituted the feeling of wanting to run and get an HDTV by helping my mom shop for hers. It pained me that my mother would have such a beautiful thing before I would, but hey, she lives like a block away. I now spend many an evenings over there taking over the TV cause she's still so used to being on the computer and watching the little itty bitty one in the den. Score for me. (Though not really cause hey, I'm getting the HDTV sometime before the end of the year, anyway)

Since I couldn't spend the dollars I wanted to on the nice TV, I often substituted it with a few little things here and there. When the Sidekick 2 came out, I ran out and left Sprint to go get it. I now know that I can't have a phone that doesn't have a keyboard cause texting any other way would be painful. I then went on to get the Sidekick III (complete piece of shit is really what it should be called) and 1 year and 2 replacements later, I ended up sucking it up and going with the device that is as close to getting a Blackberry you can get without getting one. And I genuinely love my phone. It's durable cause I'm not easy on it. It's small but totally functional for email and texting and web browsing and all.

And then Apple went and rocked my world and released the iPhone. But I was okay, cause I loved my phone. Also, I'm an Apple girl (yeah, ran out and got a Macbook Pro as soon as they came out) and I know that they need to kinda fall back sometimes when they're in a hurry to release things. So, when it first came out, I was fine, really. I tried to convince myself that I really didn't need to even see or hold one of them cause they needed to be worked on. They need to be better before I invest so much into it. Then they went and released this new 3G one. I was still pretty okay with it, but I found myself when near an Apple store spending a little more time near it and touching it and handling it and slowly falling in love with it. And then a friend gets one a few weeks ago and talks about her love of it and then another friend informs me she's gonna cave and get it and I know that both friends are not even that into such things as I am and BOOM! The iPhone envy began.

Funny though, how at the very same time, the battery on my beloved Dash seems to slowly be dying and driving me batty. I charge the sucker 2 times a day on some days. So, hey, great reason to be thinking, hmmm, maybe I should just suck it up and go for that iPhone. Sure, rational cause now I can afford it and I do use my smartphone cells a lot. And how cool would it be to finally have a phone that can sync with my Macbook without having to buy some other software? Except not so rational when you still hold a contract with Tmobile. A contract that ends in June of NEXT YEAR. I know for a fact I am not holding out that long. It's just a matter of when I'll be willing to spend the $175 to get out of the contract. I kinda hate that AT&T won that one out and got the iPhone. So, let's see here...wanna take bets on just how long it takes before I can completely rationalize getting this phone? I kinda give myself until the end of September. Originally, I thought it'd be the end of the year. But I know I'm totally lying. I'm gonna want it by the time I go to Vegas in October. I totally know it. *Sigh*, I'll keep you posted on when I actually end up just caving and getting the damn thing.

Seriously? ... Seriously.

noreply@blogger.com (Maggie) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:38:00 +0000

If that chorus doesn't get stuck in your head you are lacking whatever it is that makes choruses get stuck in your head.

Speaking of Matts...

noreply@blogger.com (Nikki) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:53:00 +0000

I've just rediscovered my love of one in particular. It's Cusson. He's an unsigned artist who plays keys for Brian McKnight but writes and performs some pretty amazing stuff of his own. I found him on MySpace a while back and not only is he an amazing talent but he's a good guy, too. So, I figured now that Maggie opened the door about the whole name thing, I'd kick it wide open and share one of my favs of Cussons. Now, this one isn't an original. It's a song that John Mayer wrote that was on his very first CD. Mayer did the song well but Matt takes it to a whole new level. It's almost the most perfect broken heart lullaby. So, enjoy: