I've said it before, but it can't be said enough, best Pizza in New Jersey, maybe the world, Vinny's. Granted, I haven't tried a slice from every pizza place in the Garden State, but I have eaten enough pizza of all sorts from all kinds of places to know that Vinny's is tops. Kendall Park is a small town, I suppose, it's been years since I've played Sim City, I don't remember the qualifications for town, city or megalopolis anymore. I grew up in Kendall Park. Vinny's was known as Dominick's back then. Apparently that was the name of the restaurant when Vinny took it over; he stuck with it. Some years after my family moved away, we returned for a visit and found the name was changed to Kendall Park Pizza and Subs. Vinny has since moved his operation across the street and has branded it with his own name. My parents were just down that way yesterday so they brought some pizza and subs back. They also brought back a bright, colorful, glossy take-out menu. I scanned it into the computer for history's sake. I will now share the cover with you (it has the phone number and adress). If you ever find yourself in Kendall Park, NJ looking for somewhere to eat, check out Vinny's, you won't regret it. Unless you are allergic to pizza or something. Which would be the saddest thing I can possibly think of.
The following list of ten songs is comprised of the most listened to songs (with accompanying music videos) for the year 2010, according to me. I am not making a list of the top songs of the year, according to music charts, YouTube views or any opinion other than mine. These songs are the top ten for me for this year. They aren’t even all from this year, so within the music industry or television entertainment industry many of the songs wouldn’t be eligible for such a title as “top of 2010.” I do not discriminate and subjugate songs, however, so I look beyond the year of copyright and release in order to find music I like. Although, many of these songs I did not have to look for; rather, I was found by them, via Muffin Man sending Facebook messages about them.
This is a top ten list, of sorts, but it has no other condition for acceptance to the list than that I am choosing it right now as I recollect the last twelve months in my music listening habits. As far as being a soundtrack to my year, it really isn’t. A soundtrack, if I were to define it (which I am in the process of doing) , would be a collection of music that correlates to the feelings and experiences of a person or group at any given moment. Somewhat like a score and somewhat like a musical narrative. I don’t know that any of the songs on this list will fit that definition, but I’ll still call it a soundtrack.
These songs are not tied to any one specific moment in the year. I don’t think any of them are tied to feelings I had about a situation or a person. I might suggest that the real soundtrack to my life, if one were to be had, would be the collection of the songs that I have personally written. Unfortunately, I haven’t written any songs this year. The ones I’ve been playing and working on were written last fall, possibly the last time I had any real inspiration for writing songs. I may have written a song or two, early in 2010, but I don’t recall at the moment. Regardless of whether I’ve written songs this year or not, none of them are recorded, and none of them have professionally produced music videos to go with them.
So here are ten songs that I listened to a lot, with or without music videos. But because this is a blog and you want to be visually entertained as well, I'm going to create a YouTube playlist to share with you. I could try to embed each video, but I don't know if this page will allow for that many embed codes. I could also include links for every song, but that would take a long time for both of us. I think the best option is a playlist, if I can figure out how to get one in here. We’ll see. I did it! here is the embed code:
And here is a list of the songs, in no particular order (you will also notice there are more than ten, I got carried away)…
Brick by Boring Brick – Paramore I Can’t Give You What I Haven’t Got – The Living End Winter Winds – Mumford and Sons I and Love and You – The Avett Brothers Uprising – Muse Justified – The Graduate Great Expectations – The Gaslight Anthem At Your Funeral – Saves the Day Degausser (live/acoustic) – Brand New Carry On – Bayside Ignorance - Paramore Playing God – Paramore Bella Donna – The Avett Brothers The Cave – Mumford and Sons The Ghost of St Valentine – Bayside Pull Me In (live, can't find a studio version) – The Graduate Luca – Brand New
Luca is a good one to listen to with the lights off and you just sit quietly and enjoy it. Really focusing in on Jesse's voice. It is the most important instrument in the mix.
Check it: why bother making resolutions you know you won't follow through with? How about just reviewing the things you did accomplish in the previous year. I will explain further. When you decide to do something, i.e. set a goal/resolution, you feel badly if you don't succeed. How do you feel when you do accomplish something? Goodly. That's right. Rather than start your year off with a list of things that you can't possibly accomplish, only to be continuously deflated every time you think about all the things you aren't accomplishing...I'm using an ellipsis to interrupt my improperly structured sentence...make a list of all of the things you did well in the last year and celebrate your accomplishments. Instead of periodically reviewing your goals throughout the year, review your past accomplishments. You will be happy and have more motivation because you are seeing your successes rather than your failures. Your new confidence will make you do more, essentially meeting all of the goals you would have set had you set any goals. This is all just theory, of course. I just came up with it in the course of typing. It sounds pretty sound though. I expect that if you were to really follow through with this theoretical process you would have a noticeable difference in the coming year. If anyone is interested in conducting a psychological study on motivation, comment me and maybe we can hash out a plan. I don't want to do the study, but it would be an easy one for someone to do. It just takes time. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy, I don't know. Figure it out. Track some people who don't set resolutions or review accomplishments, some who do set resolutions, and some who do the past accomplishment thing. I don't know how to gauge the results though. Some type of scales or something about self-worth feelings. When it comes right down to it, I don't set resolutions because I'm not big on making lists and reviewing them, so really, I'm not going to make a list of things I've done and look back on it. Even though I won't be doing it, I think it would be a more beneficial act to monitor accomplishments rather than to set unobtainable goals. That being said, if your resolutions are obtainable, good luck to you in your life. I'm trying to sync my contact list from my old cell phone with the new cell phone I just activated. It doesn't seem to be working. I guess I won't be calling anyone ever again. Peace out.
So this is Christmas, and I have a sinus infection, or something. It is early on Christmas Eve and I am awake when I should be asleep. The inside of my face hurts, when it should be not hurting. The pain extends to my left ear, even. Prior to being awake I had been sleeping. While sleeping I had been dreaming that I was at college again. Only this time I had driven with some people who I don’t know, but must have known in the dream. I still had my backpack full of books and stuff from the previous semester, yet I did have my new class schedule taped to the front of my binder. I had to go to class and I had to go soon, but I didn’t have the correct books and I didn’t know which class I had. For some reason I couldn’t look at the schedule very well. I kept looking, but not seeing. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my old books, as I didn’t want to carry them around with me. I finally decided to leave them in the car with these guys, who I assume I rode with. They wouldn’t unlock the door though. Eventually they did and I left my books with them. I made off for class, but wasn’t sure what direction to head in. Then I saw one of my professors from before and I stopped to talk to him. That was it. Strange dreams aside, the inside of my face hurts.
Christmas cards are a waste of time and money. Time and money that could be better spent on sugar cookies and watching It's a Wonderful Life. I don't send Christmas cards, usually. I have in the past. Honestly, I have nothing against them, but for some reason when I take a satirical approach to things, people laugh, and I like to incite laughter. So if you are a fan of sending cards, I applaud your dedication to the all-but-forgotten tradition involving handwriting and postage stamps. If you are a fan of those stationary-based form letters, you are so far from the mark of Christmas cards and greetings that you aren't even part of this discussion. I actually do think those letters are bogus. It would be like me printing my blog and mailing it to everyone I've met for the last 10 years. The reason for a blog is to say the things that many of those letter writers say, without forcing it into some one's mailbox. If it is in a blog you can read it or not; a blog will never give you a paper cut. Back to the cards. My friend Christal wrote a little about cards on her blog. She speaks of the generic predictability of cards and her effort to overcome that this year. It made me think about cards and how I react to them. When I get a Christmas card I read the message and appreciate the feeling and effort behind it. And then I stand it up on a shelf. After a while, it has either blown over and fallen behind something, never to be seen again, or I take it down and throw in in a drawer. That's the best case scenario for a card. I think more often than not the card finds its way into the garbage. Not even the recycling, just the garbage. I wonder if the recyclable materials have their own form of religion in which they view recycling as heaven (eventual reincarnation) garbage as hell (slow, suffering, decomposition into oblivion). Anyhow, cards are nice, but an e-card would be more efficient in my book. I could look at it, read it, put it on my "desktop." I could save it for a lot longer without losing it. That is, if I wanted to. Think of all of the "Forever" stamps you'd save, as well as preventing hand cramps. Just type it up and send it off. But then again, it is the thought that counts. Maybe there is more thought behind a physical card than an e-card. Maybe not. I'm done with this thought, I'd rather think more about the recyclable item religion. It's impossible though, how would the recyclables communicate with each other. For the stuff that goes to a landfill there would be no way for them to learn about recycling. For the stuff that gets recycled, they might be able to tell of the glory of recycling, but they still wouldn't know about the landfill. The only way it could possibly work for them is if they understand human language, but that is simply preposterous. Merry Christmas from Ajax!
Thing the first, tomorrow is Muffin Man's birthday. In honor of this occasion I have written an acrostix poem: My Unequaled best Friend Forever In Non-Brokeback ways. Marbles Are Neat
Next, well, I don't remember what is next. You see, I get these ideas about things I want to share and then by the time I get to typing them I forget. And then in the process of typing that out, I remember. The second thing is this, yesterday or this morning there was a lunar eclipse. To honor the moon phenomenon, here is a funny thing about the moon and people:
Lastly, my brother and his wife are here for Christmas, they showed me this video last night, it is hilarious:
Check this thing out. Sandwich roll, pork with homemade BBQ sauce, sweet potato fries, and homemade coleslaw. Allow me to wax-Richman for a moment (Lou just told Chief Wiggum that the reference isn't any good if you have to explain it, so I"ll refrain from offering an explanation so that I can continue to think the reference is not lost on you).
Ajax as Adam Richman: This sandwich is what they serve to children in heaven when they get straight A's [hugs the person who prepared it, while that person smiles awkwardly and is obviously trying to determine where to look (at the camera or at the ground) as well as where to put their arms (around Richman or hanging loosely at their sides)]. First, you get the cool, crisp, crunch of the coleslaw. It's not too sweet, not too heavy on the vinegar, just right to compensate for the heat of the pork and BBQ sauce. The sweet potato fries add the right amount of sweet, as well as some crunch and salt. The starch helps this sandwich to fill you up.
That's enough of that. As I have commented before, I think those food show people are nuts. I like to watch them, but they are nuts with the way the words they use to describe the food experience they are having. When you think about it, though, it isn't an easy job to eat a sandwich on behalf of half a million viewers and describe it in a way that we can all feel like we are eating it too. Even that doesn't change the fact that they are eating food for a living, so I will not curtail my fun-making at their expense.
The Chief Wiggum joke that Lou called him out on was calling Marge "Ma Peddle" when arresting her for selling prescription drugs. I got the joke and I laughed, and then Lou asks "Ma Peddle?" and Wiggum says "Yeah, it's a reference to the popular 1940's movie character Ma Kettle" [Paraphrased]. And that's when Lou says it doesn't count if you have to explain it. Don't worry Wiggum, I understood, and I thought it was a great play on names for the arrest. If you are unfamiliar with Ma Kettle, do yourself a favor and look up a movie called The Egg and I (1947). It features the debut of Ma and Pa Kettle and their rambunctious brood. Is is a great movie, Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray star as a city couple making the transition to living in the mountain-country. They don't make movies like they used to, and I for one am saddened by that.
A sandwich to The Simpsons to The Egg and I...yeah, that's about right.
Inexplicably tired. At least to me. No, that doesn't make it make more sense. Whatever, I've got something else to mention. This one is for all of the cooks and confectioners out there. I'm wondering what the difference is between fudge and chocolate that has been sitting out in a car on a hot day. Is there any difference? I eat chocolate and then I eat fudge and I think, 'fudge is the same as chocolate, just softer, like it has been in a hot car.' Granted there is a slight taste difference, but there is a taste difference between different brands of chocolate as well. Nestle is no good, but Hershey is. Then there are the obvious taste discrepancies between dark and milk chocolate. So it seems to me that fudge could just be a meltier version of chocolate and the taste difference is nothing more than brand specific recipe. Okay, so I do know that fudge is made differently than a Hershey's chocolate bar, but the idea just hit me a few days ago when I was eating fudge and I had a Homer Simpson moment: "You know, Marge, mud is nothing more than wet dirt." Only replace Marge's name with my name and mud with fudge and wet dirt with melty-soft chocolate. Speaking of melty chocolate, have I ever told you about the time I put chocolate chips into oatmeal? I like oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, so I figured I'd like oatmeal with chocolate chips in it. Up until the moment I saw the chips melting into the steaming hot bowl of goo I honestly thought that they would retain their shape. I imagined a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and chocolate chips dispersed throughout. It never occurred to me that the steaming hot oatmeal would instantly melt the morsels of chocolate. Let me tell you, the melting was pretty much instantaneous. What resulted was an ugly color of brownish gray swirls in the bowl. And as they were semi-sweet chips, the resulting mess was not a sweet treat. Thankfully there is granulated sugar to fix any and all oatmeal related problems. The whole event was a failure, but I am now smarter than I was. When experiences expand your thought and capability can they really be considered failures? I suppose so. In this case it is still a failure, the chocolate melted.
The title of this post is a lie. I am not a fan of all forms of attention. This lie was for the purpose of catching your attention. Perhaps it worked. I will now explain why I lied to you in a title. A few days ago while driving home I passed a person sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk. They were holding a sign for a furniture sign. It was freezing cold outside. I wondered if this type of advertising was really worthwhile. When I saw the person sitting in the chair with only their nose and eyes exposed from beneath layers of winter clothing, the only thing I thought was that whoever put that sign holder out in that weather must be a creep. Never once did I think, "hmm, furniture sale, maybe I'll look into it." No, I never thought that; rather, I felt sad for the person whose job it was to sit in a chair on the sidewalk in the frigid air. Not Frigidaire, but that probably would have been warmer. Have you heard the saying something along the lines of "all press is good press." That's the spin that some celebrities put on reality when they behave poorly. Governments do that too. As long as people are paying attention to you then it's all good. In some regards that is true. People like familiarity, so once they become familiar with your name there is a greater chance they will recall you in the future. Maybe someday when I do need a sofa I will think of the furniture store that puts people out on the street with a sign in the freezing cold. I might not recall that I once found their advertising efforts to be akin to torture, I'll simply remember their business name. At that point I will buy their sofa. That's what they want to believe anyway. But not this time. I won't shop there, probably. I might be the only one that thinks sign holding on the street is inefficient and cruel advertising. I don't care. I still think it. I suppose it isn't so bad if the weather is nice, but I wouldn't want to do it. I hope the people doing those jobs are getting paid well. Does it really pay off as advertising though? That's what I'm wondering. Is it a case of "all press is good press" or does it backfire by making people like me think the store owner is a jerk? What do you think? Comment below if you feel the desire to let the music catch you on fire. Also if you know what song that is referring to.
Vermont is a beautiful state. One of the most beautiful, in my opinion; although I haven't seen them all. Maybe in a book or something. Possibly a clip in a movie or on a commercial. I suppose I have seen some form of visual representation of every state over the course of my life. I'd actually be surprised if there is a state that I haven't seen any pictures or video of. Vermont is a beautiful state.
I see all of the crazy natural disasters that plague other states - earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, droughts, urban sprawl - and I think about how grateful I am to be in Vermont where we don't have all of those things. It rains so much that there is no way we could have drought or fires. We are too far inland for the hurricanes to do much damage. While there is a fault line that runs through the state, for some reason it doesn't do things here like they have in California. We don't have a lot of people so there isn't any urban sprawl. I suppose the Green Mountains block the tornadoes. I don't know why else they wouldn't come here. If I were a tornado I'd come to Vermont. Have I mentioned it is a beautiful place?
I'm not a meteorologist or a geologist, so I don't know why stuff happens, in regards to weather and land. I do know that a lot of those scary disasters don't occur here. We don't have poisonous snakes or spiders running rampant. There aren't any small dinosaurs in the rivers trying to eat mini-dogs or nautically-minded people. What we do have is snow and cold and ice.
Today was the first day I've driven in snow since December of 2008. It has been a long time. I suppose it will just take a few days and then I'll be back in the swing of it. Then I can be zipping along the highway at regular condition speeds in dangerous conditions, just like everyone else.
One of my homeboys - you could call him a friend - runs a blog called Random Rants and the Like (Harris Lunt is my friends name). I just read his latest post, One Voice is Not Enough, and I can't make the title into a hyperlink. I'm trying to put the link to the article in there and for some reason the pop-up menu for the hyperlink function button isn't appearing. So much for a professional looking post - here is the link: http://randomrantsandthelike.blogspot.com/2010/12/one-voice-is-not-enough.html
My recommendation at this point is that you read the article and then get back here and read my commentary. That's about as egocentric-sounding a sentence as I've ever heard. Still, go read his stuff and then come back for my observations. I was going to just leave a comment on his post to answer his rhetorical questions, but figured I'd end up typing more than a comment box can hold, so this is the better route to take. Now I can post this and just copy and paste the URL into his comment box.
The swagger of his story is that one voice alone is not sufficient to make a change, so we all need to unite our voices in a chorus for good. I agree with the end result of that argument, but I think that one voice alone is sufficient. Jesus Christ was one voice, supported by Spiritual confirmation, but one voice. There have been other "one voices" throughout history. Jesus changed the world with his voice alone, but he is God, so it is different in some regards. The great "one voices" that have been mere mortals have also changed the world. But perhaps this is just another matter of semantics and definitions. Does "changing the world" mean the final action before a universal paradigm shift? Or could it be the reveille of the united chorus? If one voice unites the people for a good cause, haven't they changed the world? Hasn't that one voice been enough? It was enough to put the wheel in motion.
That was the swagger of the story, here is the thesis of his tract: art defines culture and our art is defining us as monsters. Harris cites the Saw movie saga as one example of how we might be defined by other cultures or future generations. If you think about it, it is kind of disturbing to think that perhaps all that will one day remain of our civilization is the movie Saw. It is a horrendously disturbing premise for entertainment, from what I understand. I have not seen any of the movies from that franchise. Harris' post is a call to arms for all of us to unite against filthy and degrading works that are being passed off as "art" and "entertainment." I don't know if quotation marks are appropriate in that spot. My intent is to make it clear that I don't see degrading works as works of art. If that requires quote marks, great, if not, my apologies to you, kind reader.
As long as money is being pumped into the pockets of movie producers, we'll continue to see disemboweled people on the big screen. Unfortunately, money will continue to be spent on these kinds of things because people are using extreme forms of everything in order to feel and to fill a void they have, but are unsure what to do with. That's my thought. Harris brought up some good points: a collective voice is more powerful than one voice and a culture is defined by what it produces. We can look at those ideas and see where we fit. Are we uniting with like-minded people and uniting for a good cause? Are we creating things that we want to be defined by? I'll let you answer those questions for yourself; right now I am getting back to the topic of people being drawn to extremes.
This is where I would have stopped if I put this in the comment box on Harris' blog post; as you can see, it is good that I didn't try to type it all there. But even this next bit is relevant. Why do movies like Saw and other horror/thriller types exist? Because they elicit physiological reactions in people. Even though the deranged person mutilating a body isn't real or in the same room as you, your body reacts in some ways as though they were. When you get scared your body increased production or release of certain hormones and chemicals. You feel. For some, feeling isn't a natural occurrence.
Being locked into a rigid routine from day to day, not experiencing basic human emotions other than vicariously through television or books, can make a bland existence. Some people when dealing with depression say they did something "just to feel anything." We want to feel. Sometimes it doesn't matter if the feelings are good or bad, we just want them. I think this plays into why humans do everything they do. But when you have someone with a void, and they find a quick fix (such as extreme movies), they stick with that quick fix. It becomes a drug, which is dangerous because the acting chemical portion of the drug is created in their own body. Imagine how much harder it would be to kick the cocaine addiction if the cocaine were being produced by the body? This is why it is as difficult as it is, because cocaine mimics chemical processes that are natural to the body. But I'm no doctor, so this is speculation based on some recalled knowledge from psychology classes. I think it is accurate. My blog isn't accredited so it doesn't have to be accurate, I'm just trying to provide a topic of contemplation, if you so choose to be contemplative.
Anyway, this is falling apart faster than a meeting between a producer and agent when the producer finds out the agent represents Pauly Shore. When people have a void in their life they seek to fill it. They dig and dig and dig until they get something. There are plenty of counterfeits out there, so sometimes you find something and it works, but it isn't lasting or completely fulfilling. Personally, I believe that making faith in God your top priority above all else helps to fill the void and put all other practices of fulfillment in order. When you seek God first, you can't help but seek good things after. And when we unite our voices with the voice of God, we don't have to worry about our voice not being enough. This doesn't mean that life will always be smooth or go how you'd like it to, but it does mean that you will make progress and accomplish the purpose for your life.
Now you know what I think about a few more things.
I've said it before, but it can't be said enough, best Pizza in New Jersey, maybe the world, Vinny's. Granted, I haven't tried a slice from every pizza place in the Garden State, but I have eaten enough pizza of all sorts from all kinds of places to know that Vinny's is tops. Kendall Park is a small town, I suppose, it's been years since I've played Sim City, I don't remember the qualifications for town, city or megalopolis anymore. I grew up in Kendall Park. Vinny's was known as Dominick's back then. Apparently that was the name of the restaurant when Vinny took it over; he stuck with it. Some years after my family moved away, we returned for a visit and found the name was changed to Kendall Park Pizza and Subs. Vinny has since moved his operation across the street and has branded it with his own name. My parents were just down that way yesterday so they brought some pizza and subs back. They also brought back a bright, colorful, glossy take-out menu. I scanned it into the computer for history's sake. I will now share the cover with you (it has the phone number and adress). If you ever find yourself in Kendall Park, NJ looking for somewhere to eat, check out Vinny's, you won't regret it. Unless you are allergic to pizza or something. Which would be the saddest thing I can possibly think of.
