Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 8: Song That Crosses
I have no idea what this means. Crosses what? Genres? Christian music? I’m going to interpret it as a song with a pronounced key change (i.e., crosses from one key to another). Here’s one of millions that do.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 7: Song About Walking
I choose this one because it’s funny. Back in high school and even college, I’d watch soap operas. My soaps were All My Children, One Life to Live, and (especially) General Hospital. Watching Luke Spencer (Anthony Geary) happily and proudly walk down the street to this song is a memory that stuck with me.
On another funny note, General Hospital came up again not so long ago when I accidentally interacted with one of the cast members that still on the show today.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 6: Song That Moves You
This category of song should produce results that others will find weird. That’s because songs, even those that aren’t particularly moving per se, can be strongly associated with events that move someone. I’ve already explained this one. Here it is again.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 5: Song with a Color in It
Recently, I saw a Rush cover band. Leading up to the concert, I told my two friends that also attended that I really wanted to hear music off of my favorite Rush album, Grace Under Pressure, and one of Rush’s more underrated albums (even by the band itself!), Presto. The band played The Enemy Within early in their first set, but in the second set, they played the worst song on Presto, Scars, followed immediately by the worst song on Grace Under Pressure (though neither are bad songs). Here’s the latter.
When you make a wish, try to be more specific than I was.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 4: Song About Animals
Honestly, I was having a mental block thinking of a single song about animals. I thought, “What about the Heart album, Bad Animals?” Posting a YouTube video of the entire album would be cheating. Even worse, as humans are animals (at times, not any better than apes flinging poo), I could have chosen any song at all (except perhaps some Rush songs). Clearly, I was overthinking, and then this one popped into my head. It’s an obscure song from the early 70s. Clearly, lyrics weren’t the songwriter’s strong suit. This is one of two hits by this band with only six words in the lyrics.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 3: Song About Coffee
I don’t think this is what was intended, but I’m sticking to it.
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 2: Song for Dirty Dancing
This seems a bit counterintuitive — it’s about “flying solo” — but it’s such a dirty song and has the right rhythm, so I’m going with this.
Seriously, what do I know about this sort of thing?
It’s September, the start of a new month. Well, in mid-August, half a month too late, I came across one of those internet challenges. Being a music nut, I’m willing to take my chances with the data mining assholes and participate. For the month of September (plus October 1), I’m going to answer each of these with a blog post. Here’s the challenge:
Day 1: Song for Champions
The low hanging fruit on this one would be We Are the Champions by Queen, but I’m not even going to link to it. I’m better than that. I’m going with a song I love that appears on my 1st Edition AD&D playlist.
I remember this song being played after the St. Louis Cardinals won the 1982 World Series.
Look at me. Ending my streak of posts after an entire year, and the very next day posting every day for a week. Will it last? (No.)
I recently rediscovered the BBC show, Connections, hosted by James Burke. I used to watch this with my dad when I was a kid. This is a show about the marvels of science and engineering throughout history and, more to the point, their connections to one another. That is, a technology over here gets merged with a technology over there, and voila! A new invention.
It’s enough to drive you mad.
I apparently remember it extremely well, because I find myself saying the host’s lines before he says them. Nevertheless, I’m relearning a lot of material. I recently learned about, and wrote a post on, the Cistercian numerals. To my recollection, I never heard of the Cistercian monks before learning about their numbers, yet they were mentioned in the one of the first few episodes, so my memory is exceptional, but not perfect. (My short term memory is failing, which is very unsettling.)
Another thing threw me off a bit. In the first episode – which is a bit scary, by the way – the host describes the New York City blackout of 1977, which left several planes circling overhead with nowhere to land. The flight he expressly mentioned was flight 911. A spooky an odd . . . connection.
Whether your academic or professional background is in science (like me) or history, this is still a fascinating and relevant show.
Play What You Want 