Archive for Lists

Ultimate New Wave Mixed Tape

August 26, 2008 at 6:12 pm · Filed under Lists, Music, Movies, and the Arts, Reviews

NewWave80.jpg

I grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, and while my first favorite song was Joan Jett’s hard rock anthem “I Love Rock and Roll” My music tastes have tended toward a softer sound. I’ve always been a fan of what is commonly referred to as New Wave, and have been rediscovering it recently. I’ve had Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, and Tears for Fears CDs for years, so recently I’ve been working to find more obscure music from the 80s.

Much of this list includes later New Wave songs, 1988 seems to be a particular favorite for me, which happens to coincide with high school, when I really started to listen to my own thing, rather than what Casey Kasem or Rick Dees told me was popular.

For your consideration is my list of my favorite, lesser known New Wave songs. Everybody knows Duran Duran and Depeche Mode, but there are a lot of lesser known artists and songs out there that are really good.  This list is in no particular order, and probable contains some songs that might not be universally considered “New Wave”, but since this is my list, I’ll include all of them.

Song                                                  Artist
More Than This                                     Roxy Music
Situation                                              Yaz
The Promise                                          When in Rome
Mexican Radio                                       Wall of VooDoo
This is the Day                                      The The
Fascination                                           The Human League
Under the Milky Way                              The Church
Video Killed the Radio Star                     The Buggles
One Small Day                                       Ultravox
Our House                                            Madness
Always Something There to Remind Me    Naked Eyes
Oh l’Amour                                           Erasure
In a Big Country                                    Big Country
Tarzan Boy                                           Baltimora
Things Can Only Get Better                    Howard Jones
Come Dancing                                      The Kinks
One Night in Bangkok                            Murray Head

Click on the song title to link to the music video on YouTube

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USA: What is Really Killing Us?

August 19, 2008 at 1:36 pm · Filed under Lists, Politics and rants, Utopian Status of America

Utopian Status of America

Originally published in the Summer of 2001 in The Utopian Status of America Volume 1, Issue 1: 

 

What is Really Killing Us?

If you watch the news on TV you’ll see stories about people who die or are killed pretty much everyday. If this was your sole source of information, you’d think everybody died from school shootings, by viscous dogs, in tornadoes, or by flesh eating virus’. These stories are newsworthy because they are unusual, so how do people in the United States really die? Check out these statistics:

Top ten causes of death in the US:
1.       Heart disease     724,000         0.0027%
2.       Cancer               541,000         0.0020%
3.       Stroke               158,000         0.0006%
4.       Asthma              112,000         0.0004%
5.       Accident               98,000         0.0004%
6.       Pneumonia           91,000          0.0003%
7.       Diabetes              64,000          0.0002%
8.       Suicide                30,000          0.0001%
9.       Kidney dis.           26,000          0.0001%
10.   Liver disease          25,000          0.0001%
        TOTAL              2,300,000          0.0087%
This chart shows total yearly deaths and percentage of population that dies of this cause each year.

Now some other statistics:
Traffic accident               42,000          0.00016%
Alzheimer’s dis.              23,000          0.00009%
Homicide                        18,000          0.00007%
HIV / AIDS                     13,000          0.00005%
Hernia                             6,700          0.00003%
Drowning                        4,400           0.00002%
Fire                                 3,400          0.00001%
Medical accident                3,200          0.00001%
Firearm accident                  866          0.000003%
Flash floods                        140          0.000005%
Lightning                             93           0.0000003%
Aircraft accident *                 86           0.0000003%
Tornadoes                           80           0.0000003%
Overexertion                        14           0.00000005%
Shark Attack                        <5           0.00000001%

Source: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (1996); NOAA; NTSB; University of Florida; * NTSB 10 year average 1991-2000

“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.”        – Francis Bacon

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Genius Idea Log

June 16, 2008 at 11:40 am · Filed under Lists, Personal, WU

I don’t know why I didn’t do this before, but I finally started a log of all of the great, and not so great, business and product ideas I’ve had over the years. I’m currently recreating it from memory and notes I’ve saved. This does not include any presonal projects but includes anything that could, should, or would bring in income.

So far, operating off of memory and a few saved spreadsheets and such, I’ve come up with about 70 things that I’ve thought about or really planned. My next step is to start adding info about what I did with each idea. Some were merely thoughts, some had rough sketches, and some I actually tried, with varying success. So far, I haven’t found “the” business idea that’s really taken hold, but it will happen. Perhaps I’ll start posting some of the ideas I’m sure I will not be using, along with my sketches and original notes.

In any case, I’m excited to revisit some of the ideas I’ve had and start to get an idea of just how many there have been over the years.

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Top Ten Pet Peeves

December 11, 2007 at 12:44 pm · Filed under Lists, Politics and rants

It recently occurred to me that, like others I’m sure, I have several pet peeves that bug me way more than is warranted. Some of these are obvious and tangible, others are a little less tangible, and some are, I’ll admit it, downright hypocritical of me. Here is a list of the top ten things that really bug me. 

10) Parking where there is no spot – Here in the Snowbelt, this is often witnessed as “winter parking rules” where people forget where the parking spots are and park anywhere there is space. This is normally innocent as snow covers lines and makes it hard to determine where spots are. However, some people take advantage of this and either don’t pay attention to where they are parking, or do it on purpose. These people irritate me.  9) People who smile and act cheerful while complaining about everything – For goodness sake, if you want to complain about things, fine, but don’t pretend like you aren’t an annoying complainer. If you smile and laugh while bad-mouthing the world around you, you need to grow up and own up to the fact that you are a hater, and not try to sugar-coat your complaining. 

8) Capable people using handicap parking because they have a sticker – How lazy are people that they use a handicap spot when they don’t need it? Many people that have the temporary handicap sticker (or mirror tag here in Minnesota) use the spots when they don’t need them. Then there are the people that don’t even have a sticker. While there are often far too many spaces dedicated as handicap spots, if you aren’t disabled in some way, don’t park there. Walking to the store is good exercise, which, we as a country could really use.  7) Driving in the car-pool lane – Here in Minnesota most people do not use the HOV or carpool lanes. Many people do not carpool, and many that do, do not use the carpool lane for whatever reason. More often than not the car in the carpool lane is just some jerk using it to speed ahead of others. It’s silly that we have them, but we do, respect the law and stop being a jerk by using them illegally. 

6) The variability of the cost of gas – Just pick a price to rip me off at already, stop making me play the which day of the week should I buy gas to get the better deal game.  5) People who get offended for others, without their input – “That’s offensive to X!” Really, why aren’t they complaining? If you aren’t X, you don’t know what offends them, so shut up about it. 

4) Littering – I am continually amazed at how some people litter. Throwing a cigarette butt on the road is bad enough, but entire fast food bags of trash? How does a person believe that throwing garbage out of a car window, or dropping it where they stand is ok? It’s not.  3) Driving slow on the left – The left lane is for passing. If you are not passing another car, you should not be in the left lane. 

2) Leaving a shopping cart in the middle of a row – How hard is it to stop your cart out of the way. Most people pay attention and move their cart when somebody needs to get by, but why be in that situation in the first place? Then there are the people who have to be asked to move, some of whom seem to think it’s a chore.  1) Listening to the sound of people eating – It’s so irritating, and don’t even get me started on slurpers. I don’t know what it is about it, but these sounds irritate me intensely. I’m made this my number one pet-peeve mostly because it’s the oddest of the list. I just can’t help it, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. 

The amazing thing about the world today is that so many of us have nothing worse to deal with in their life than these silly, pointless, problems. Our lives are so easy compared to the lives of people in third world countries, and even to people in our own country not too long ago. In the past, only the aristocracy had such trivial problems, today, we must all be aristocracy, since these trivial problems seem to drive our entire society. Thank goodness for the trivial problems.

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Lists – Animals I’ve eaten

August 16, 2007 at 11:16 am · Filed under Lists, Personal

I was saving this list for my return from China as I hoped to add a few animals to the list, which I did. While I know of other people that have eaten more animals and more exotic animals, I’m using this list as an excuse to try new and unusual foods.

Yak
Sea Horse
Scorpion
Rabbit
Seal Oil (in “Eskimo Ice Cream”)
Jelly fish
Black Bear
Reindeer (Caribou)
Whitetail Deer
Duck tongue
Goat
Goat’s milk
Octopus
American Bison (Buffalo)
Snail
Squid  

I’ve left out the usually eaten animals, and have never kept track of fish, so the list is longer if you add those in.

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