PixlBit

Bing Image Mad Libz: Topanga (Danielle Fishel) from Boy Meets World meets Tiger Woods at Doral, and pretty much nothing happens between them. Afterwards, global warming happens, and I play Tetris.

Here's what I had to say about Tetris in my 1up blog titled "My Gaming Timeline: Gameboy," subtitled "Oh I totally was ... at Nintendo."

"Tetris, embarassingly, also confused me as a kid. See, I thought the point was to stack the blocks to the top as fast as possible. I really wish I were kidding, but that's largely why I found it boring. Now, I spend much of my time on freetetris.org, always starting out on level ten, so I won't get bored of it being too slow, and it's my go-to boredome game, the same way most slackers use Solitaire. Back then though, I thought the game was really pointless; because I thought the goal was the exact opposite of what it actually was. Yup. I might have always done well in school, and gone on to become a Magna Cum Laude, four-year University graduate, but I had some dumb ideas as a kid.

You think I'm kidding, but I seriously thought this meant I won.

On that note though, that's one of the things I love about nostalgia: it both lets you know you were a kid with no worries, and that you've improved since in the common sense department... a little."

And that's all I really have to say about Tetris, which as I said in that quote, I play online all the time now. That, and I love its theme song.

Speaking of songs, here's another mixed bag of seven tunes I like. This time I won't offset that lucky number by putting "Born Under a Bad Sign" in the mix. Gonna go get myself a lottery ticket at the 7-11 on my walk, and I don't want to screw with it.

Some nice jazz by Louis Armstrong, "Muskrat Ramble" to start with. I said yesterday, I'd be missing some great jazz from the 20s, crooners from the 40s, and amazing classical pieces by starting with 50s music. I aims to rectify that today.

This video was recorded in 1962, but the song was recorded on February 26, 1926 by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. According to page 74 of a 2007 book titled, The Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong, by Gene Henry Anderson and Michael J. Budds, became the group's most frequently recorded piece.

Yes I did find all this out by checking Wikipedia. What? I was in school writing research papers when it came into existence, old habits die hard.

This piece was written somewhere between 1914 and 1916, and sounds like it could have influenced every modern orchestral score for film. Just awesome.

I urge you all to listen to this while frolicking, and loudly proclaiming "Jupiter is the bringer of jollity!" today. Surely, you will be the coolest kid ever by all accounts, and absolutely nothing will go wrong; especially if you live in a run-down neighborhood, where everyone loves hearing people sing about jollity and there's no social repercussions for frolicking! Thanks be to Holst!

I love Sinatra, plus this was recorded in 1939, and became a hit in 1943, so there's those decades, that I know the least about, music-wise, of all the 20th century decades (well, ok, I know even less about 1900s and 1910s) out of the way.

I mentioned yesterday that my mom wasn't much for Elvis, and I was lukewarm on him myself, but we do both love The Beatles. "Let it Be" is my personal favorite by them, though "Hard Day's Night" is a close second. And of course I love songs like "Imagine" by John Lennon and "What is My Life?" by George Harrison. My mom's favorite was Ringo, and I recall liking whatever he played on a relatively recent late show I watched with him as the guest.

I wanted to put some psychedelic rock from the 60s yesterday, but had Albert King instead, because I wanted to put blues in there somewhere. So today, here's my favorite Jefferson Airplane song, a band you've probably heard if you've watched most any recent film involving drug use. A movie based on a book by Hunter S. Thompson is obviously no exception.

When I worked as a classic hits DJ on the weekends in college, I loved playing this, especially on rainy days. And it's cloudy out where I live, so here we are. Enjoy.

This was one of my favorite songs in middle school, and one that probably helped get me more into music. It's pretty out-of-left-field compared to what else I posted today, but I don't care, I still enjoy it, even if everyone's forgotten this band, mostly. Hell, they weren't even that popular at the time, I just loved hearing the song when it came on 94.5 (now 102.1 in Dallas).

The Heavy Metal Parking Lot documentary short being parodied was parodied fairly often by these pop punk bands' music videos in the 90s and 2000s (ska-punk outfit Less than Jakes' "All My Friends are Metalheads" video being another example, taking the actual footage and just placing it in their video). Many of the bands grew up listening to the genre themselves (Sum 41 referenced Iron Maiden and Judas Priest in their breakout song "Fat Lip," and their guitarist later left to form a group closer to the metal bands who influenced him), but felt a disconnect when they started writing their own music, I guess.

I bring this up because I loved metal and hard rock/grunge in high school, but in middle school my older brother was the one who liked those genres, and I HATED everything about them at the time; I thought they sounded awful, and their lyrics were just depressing. My older brother and I didn't get along at the time, which didn't help.

Now, I love those bands, but it's for somewhat bittersweet reasons: I understood where those depressing lyrics were coming from; there's also just the flat out love of the music and guitar work, and I don't still listen to the harder stuff because it's depressing, I listen because I prefer the musical arrangements and vocals to what now sounds a bit too Radio Disney or whiney to me.

But I'll always remember listening to bands like American Hi-Fi that left me with no care in the world, thinking my only issues in life would be dating and going to concerts, and I get goosebumps just listening and remembering the carefreeness of my childhood. Listening to the pop-punk I loved when I was real little, as long as it's not too bubblegum, is still very enjoyable to me, and brings me back to a time in my life with virtually no stress or financial and personal worries.

Hakuna Matata, everyone, hope you have a stress free Saturday!