A good work friend of mine read my playlist posts and took pity on me - she sent me copies of You All Everybody, and that awesome Geronimo Jackson hit Dharma Lady. This totally made my day.
I think I'm just about ready to move back into my parents' basement.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
My Big Fat Geek Playlist, Updated
So, I'm on Lostpedia this week (yes, there is a Lostpedia, proving that I am not the biggest geek on the planet) looking for some info on a potential plot hole in season four (but there were two helicopters and two helipads on the freighter, so it was a false alarm) and I found an even MORE comprehensive playlist for Lost. By more comprehensive, I mean every single freakin' song that ever thought about appearing on the show (sung or hummed or whistled by characters, played on music boxes or mobiles or Muzak- EVERY song).
And while most of them were not playlist-worthy (I mean, does it really count that Sawyer sung a Bob Marley song on the raft?), I did make three additions, all songs that I know and love. I thought I would share for those of you keeping score at home:
Stay - Dave Matthews Band (playing in Shannon's apartment)
The End of the World - Skeeter Davis (playing in Kate's mom's diner)
It's Getting Better - Cass Elliot (playing on the radio when Michael drives into the wall, ironically)
In a related story, I'm really grooving on the season one soundtrack. Beautiful melodies. And hilarious titles as well. "Booneral", "Shannonigans","Crocodile Locke". And strangely enough, the most lovely, most haunting song on the soundtrack is called "Win One for the Reaper". Go figure.
And while most of them were not playlist-worthy (I mean, does it really count that Sawyer sung a Bob Marley song on the raft?), I did make three additions, all songs that I know and love. I thought I would share for those of you keeping score at home:
Stay - Dave Matthews Band (playing in Shannon's apartment)
The End of the World - Skeeter Davis (playing in Kate's mom's diner)
It's Getting Better - Cass Elliot (playing on the radio when Michael drives into the wall, ironically)
In a related story, I'm really grooving on the season one soundtrack. Beautiful melodies. And hilarious titles as well. "Booneral", "Shannonigans","Crocodile Locke". And strangely enough, the most lovely, most haunting song on the soundtrack is called "Win One for the Reaper". Go figure.
What I'm Reading Now
The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb.I love Wally Lamb. His previous books - I Know This Much Is True and She's Come Undone - were excellent. Long and exhausting, but excellent.
And this one appears to be no exception. Ironically, it is a fictional account of a couple impacted by the events at Columbine High School. I had planned to put a little time between reading this, and reading Columbine, but Mark and I were stuck in the Atlanta airport coming back from Boston, and I finished my Jodi Picoult book with about five more hours to kill, and I had already ordered the new Pat Conroy book,which was the only other book I saw that I wanted, so I bought this one in the airport.
And so far, so good. I'm about a quarter of the way through it - my mom has warned me that it is really two books in one, and I really don't know what to expect in that regard. But I love a good book - two good books is even better!
P.S. - the new Jodi Picoult was good as well - Handle with Care. Not her best, by any means, but good, and very her.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Geeking Out: My Lost Playlist
The 2009 Lost re-watch is well underway. We started watching every episode with the boys in May or June, and are now well near the end of season four. It’s been quite a ride, and the boys’ commentary has added a lot of humor. (“Jacob is a chair?”)
The more we watched, the more I found myself humming many of the tunes from the show (specifically the piano melody they play when someone dies, and Downtown, Juliet’s harbinger of doom). So I decided to download a few good Lost tunes to my iPod.
I found the Giacchino soundtrack on iTunes and downloaded that, and it has all the cool melodies you hear on the show. I also downloaded Downtown and Make Your Own Kind of Music. Then I attempted to find what I thought was Shang Ri La from Three Dog Night. I now know that it is actually Shambala, but in order to figure that out, I had to look up the episode on IMDB, where I discovered the “Soundtrack” feature. Turns out, any episode that features a known song by a known artist has a Soundtrack listing on IMDB.
This led to me to search for songs I had heard on the show and grooved on, but didn’t know the name of, like Wash Away and I Shall Not Walk Alone. Since I am a bit Lost-obsessed, I ended up going through each episode on IMDB, seasons one through five, and noting the name of each and every song featured. (More often than not, episodes had no soundtrack, so this wasn’t actually as time-consuming as it sounds.)
I now have a complete Lost playlist, and it rocks. It‘s a very eclectic mix of music. Check it out:
Leavin’ on Your Mind – Patsy Cline
Wash Away – Joe Purdy
Are Your Sure – Willie Nelson
I Shall Not Walk Alone – The Blind Boys of Alabama
Delicate – Damien Rice
Make Your Own Kind of Music – Cass Elliot
Up on the Roof – The Drifters
My Conversation – Slim Smith
Outside – Staind
These Arms of Mine – Otis Redding
Downtown – Petula Clark
Slowly – Ann Margret
Wonderwall – Oasis (although actually performed by Charlie on the show)
Shambala – Three Dog Night
Walking After Midnight – Patsy Cline
Scentless Apprentice – Nirvana
Xanadu – ONJ and ELO
Everyday – Buddy Holly
Gouge Away – Pixies
Shotgun Willie – Willie Nelson
Dream Police – Cheap Trick
Ride Captain Ride – Blues Image
She’s Got You – Patsy Cline (Kate flashbacks are Patsy Cline-heavy)
It Never Rains in Southern California – Albert Hammond
Love Will Keep Us Together – Captain and Tennille
Only song missing? You All Everybody by Drive Shaft. Bummer.
The more we watched, the more I found myself humming many of the tunes from the show (specifically the piano melody they play when someone dies, and Downtown, Juliet’s harbinger of doom). So I decided to download a few good Lost tunes to my iPod.
I found the Giacchino soundtrack on iTunes and downloaded that, and it has all the cool melodies you hear on the show. I also downloaded Downtown and Make Your Own Kind of Music. Then I attempted to find what I thought was Shang Ri La from Three Dog Night. I now know that it is actually Shambala, but in order to figure that out, I had to look up the episode on IMDB, where I discovered the “Soundtrack” feature. Turns out, any episode that features a known song by a known artist has a Soundtrack listing on IMDB.
This led to me to search for songs I had heard on the show and grooved on, but didn’t know the name of, like Wash Away and I Shall Not Walk Alone. Since I am a bit Lost-obsessed, I ended up going through each episode on IMDB, seasons one through five, and noting the name of each and every song featured. (More often than not, episodes had no soundtrack, so this wasn’t actually as time-consuming as it sounds.)
I now have a complete Lost playlist, and it rocks. It‘s a very eclectic mix of music. Check it out:
Leavin’ on Your Mind – Patsy Cline
Wash Away – Joe Purdy
Are Your Sure – Willie Nelson
I Shall Not Walk Alone – The Blind Boys of Alabama
Delicate – Damien Rice
Make Your Own Kind of Music – Cass Elliot
Up on the Roof – The Drifters
My Conversation – Slim Smith
Outside – Staind
These Arms of Mine – Otis Redding
Downtown – Petula Clark
Slowly – Ann Margret
Wonderwall – Oasis (although actually performed by Charlie on the show)
Shambala – Three Dog Night
Walking After Midnight – Patsy Cline
Scentless Apprentice – Nirvana
Xanadu – ONJ and ELO
Everyday – Buddy Holly
Gouge Away – Pixies
Shotgun Willie – Willie Nelson
Dream Police – Cheap Trick
Ride Captain Ride – Blues Image
She’s Got You – Patsy Cline (Kate flashbacks are Patsy Cline-heavy)
It Never Rains in Southern California – Albert Hammond
Love Will Keep Us Together – Captain and Tennille
Only song missing? You All Everybody by Drive Shaft. Bummer.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
A Culinary Tour of Boston; or, Taters We Got At Home
For those who don’t know, Mark and I went to Boston last Saturday for an early anniversary trip. We decided back in January to take a trip for our 15th, and didn’t know where we wanted to go. Mark found out in late July that he would be going to Boston on business, and it worked out for him to go early and take me along!!
You know me: I was particularly excited about the food. Whenever we traveled when I was a kid, my dad used to say “Taters we got at home.” I have adopted the same philosophy when I travel, and I do my best to eat food unique to the place I’m visiting. Let’s see how we did – I’ll give you a meal-by-meal play-by-play of our culinary adventures:
First off, we didn’t rent a car. For the most part, it would have been more trouble than it was worth in the city. But we stayed outside Boston, in Newton, and there wasn’t any real public transportation in Newton. The hotel offered shuttle service to and from the nearest MTA stop, but that was about it. So for our first meal on Saturday night, we were on foot. We started out in the early evening looking for a restaurant near our hotel. There were several restaurants on a map supplied by the hotel that were not really in walking distance, but since we are young and fairly healthy, we thought we’d try. After walking a ways and realizing the map was clearly not to scale, we called Ben and had him MapQuest the address. “Two miles.” Not too bad. After walking well over two miles through a suburban area that was obviously celebrating “grill outside week”, we gave up and went back to the hotel. (We actually contemplated the appropriateness of knocking on doors and offering a hundred bucks for whatever they were grilling. Ultimately, we decided against it.) In the hotel bar, we ordered a couple of appetizers, one of which was lobster and crab cakes. They were delicious. But there were only two of them. Shaft.
On Sunday morning, we took the train into Boston and got breakfast at a Dunkin’ Donuts. Now, I know what you’re thinking. There’s Dunkin’ Donuts everywhere. Well, actually, there’s not. We don’t have a Dunkin’ here, and it seemed like such a Bostonian thing to do, we felt comfortable running on Dunkin’. We took our bagels and coffee to Boston Common, found a bench, and ate while people-watching. Then we hit the Freedom Trail.
We ate a very late lunch (about 3:00) in north Boston at Cantina Italiana on Hanover Street. Mark had the chicken parm, and I had the gnocchi. I had never had gnocchi before, and it was exactly what I expected. And very good. Mark’s food was good to. I have since found out that Cantina Italiana is the oldest Italian restaurant on Hanover Street, a street famous for Italian restaurants. And old places. So there.
We went back down the Freedom Trail to Quincy Market for dessert. Mark had a black and white cookie, and I had a canoli. Good stuff.
We had such a late lunch and were so tired Sunday night that we just went back to the hotel and crashed without eating again.
For breakfast on Monday we ate blueberry muffins purchased at Quincy Market the day before. We toured Fenway Park, and went back to Quincy Market for lunch, where I had my first ever lobster roll, and Mark had a BBQ burger. Dessert was from a gelati place – I had Nutella and Mark had tiramisu. After an afternoon excursion to Harvard, we went back to Quincy and split a Boston Cream Pie (a single serving, not a whole pie.)
Dinner Monday night was at Fenway. All the local places were crammed with Red Sox fans, so we headed several blocks out to relax and give the scalpers time to come down off their outrageous prices. We had a very relaxing meal at a steakhouse chain (Longhorn, I think?). It was a good, it was not crowded, and it was air conditioned – the exact tri fecta we were looking for. (It totally violated our Taters rule, but sometimes, if we don’t bend, we break.) In the end, we skipped the game, so no peanuts and crackerjack for us.
Tuesday morning we ate in the hotel restaurant again as Mark needed to meet up with his work folks. We both had the banana-oatmeal Brule. It was oatmeal topped with custard and bananas, caramelized just like a crème Brule. Then it was topped with strawberries. It was really, really good. I thought it would be too sweet, but the oatmeal balanced out the sweetness. Delicious!
We went our separate ways for the day. I had lunch at Figs, a restaurant on Charles Street that I found in my guidebook. I ordered the signature fig and prosciutto pizza. It was the most amazing thing!! Really tiny place, but really good food. And they had bread that I would kill a bear for. I heartily recommend it.
For dinner, I met up with Mark again, and joined the work folks for dinner at Legal Seafood. Legal started way back in the day as a local seafood joint, and is now a large chain (mostly in Massachusetts and airports around the country). I had the clam chowder, and the baked scrod, two very Boston dishes I wanted to try before we left. Neither one disappointed. “Scrod”, as I understand it, is a Bostonian term for the fresh catch of the day, breaded and baked, not fried. Mine was a delicious white fish (no clue what, exactly) topped with breading and a roasted tomato.
And that was it – we had a very early flight on Wednesday morning, so we ate at the airport. Nothing special there.
All in all, though, I ate everything I wanted to and nothing I didn’t. Except maybe more of the Boston Cream Pie.
You know me: I was particularly excited about the food. Whenever we traveled when I was a kid, my dad used to say “Taters we got at home.” I have adopted the same philosophy when I travel, and I do my best to eat food unique to the place I’m visiting. Let’s see how we did – I’ll give you a meal-by-meal play-by-play of our culinary adventures:
First off, we didn’t rent a car. For the most part, it would have been more trouble than it was worth in the city. But we stayed outside Boston, in Newton, and there wasn’t any real public transportation in Newton. The hotel offered shuttle service to and from the nearest MTA stop, but that was about it. So for our first meal on Saturday night, we were on foot. We started out in the early evening looking for a restaurant near our hotel. There were several restaurants on a map supplied by the hotel that were not really in walking distance, but since we are young and fairly healthy, we thought we’d try. After walking a ways and realizing the map was clearly not to scale, we called Ben and had him MapQuest the address. “Two miles.” Not too bad. After walking well over two miles through a suburban area that was obviously celebrating “grill outside week”, we gave up and went back to the hotel. (We actually contemplated the appropriateness of knocking on doors and offering a hundred bucks for whatever they were grilling. Ultimately, we decided against it.) In the hotel bar, we ordered a couple of appetizers, one of which was lobster and crab cakes. They were delicious. But there were only two of them. Shaft.
On Sunday morning, we took the train into Boston and got breakfast at a Dunkin’ Donuts. Now, I know what you’re thinking. There’s Dunkin’ Donuts everywhere. Well, actually, there’s not. We don’t have a Dunkin’ here, and it seemed like such a Bostonian thing to do, we felt comfortable running on Dunkin’. We took our bagels and coffee to Boston Common, found a bench, and ate while people-watching. Then we hit the Freedom Trail.
We ate a very late lunch (about 3:00) in north Boston at Cantina Italiana on Hanover Street. Mark had the chicken parm, and I had the gnocchi. I had never had gnocchi before, and it was exactly what I expected. And very good. Mark’s food was good to. I have since found out that Cantina Italiana is the oldest Italian restaurant on Hanover Street, a street famous for Italian restaurants. And old places. So there.
We went back down the Freedom Trail to Quincy Market for dessert. Mark had a black and white cookie, and I had a canoli. Good stuff.
We had such a late lunch and were so tired Sunday night that we just went back to the hotel and crashed without eating again.
For breakfast on Monday we ate blueberry muffins purchased at Quincy Market the day before. We toured Fenway Park, and went back to Quincy Market for lunch, where I had my first ever lobster roll, and Mark had a BBQ burger. Dessert was from a gelati place – I had Nutella and Mark had tiramisu. After an afternoon excursion to Harvard, we went back to Quincy and split a Boston Cream Pie (a single serving, not a whole pie.)
Dinner Monday night was at Fenway. All the local places were crammed with Red Sox fans, so we headed several blocks out to relax and give the scalpers time to come down off their outrageous prices. We had a very relaxing meal at a steakhouse chain (Longhorn, I think?). It was a good, it was not crowded, and it was air conditioned – the exact tri fecta we were looking for. (It totally violated our Taters rule, but sometimes, if we don’t bend, we break.) In the end, we skipped the game, so no peanuts and crackerjack for us.
Tuesday morning we ate in the hotel restaurant again as Mark needed to meet up with his work folks. We both had the banana-oatmeal Brule. It was oatmeal topped with custard and bananas, caramelized just like a crème Brule. Then it was topped with strawberries. It was really, really good. I thought it would be too sweet, but the oatmeal balanced out the sweetness. Delicious!
We went our separate ways for the day. I had lunch at Figs, a restaurant on Charles Street that I found in my guidebook. I ordered the signature fig and prosciutto pizza. It was the most amazing thing!! Really tiny place, but really good food. And they had bread that I would kill a bear for. I heartily recommend it.
For dinner, I met up with Mark again, and joined the work folks for dinner at Legal Seafood. Legal started way back in the day as a local seafood joint, and is now a large chain (mostly in Massachusetts and airports around the country). I had the clam chowder, and the baked scrod, two very Boston dishes I wanted to try before we left. Neither one disappointed. “Scrod”, as I understand it, is a Bostonian term for the fresh catch of the day, breaded and baked, not fried. Mine was a delicious white fish (no clue what, exactly) topped with breading and a roasted tomato.
And that was it – we had a very early flight on Wednesday morning, so we ate at the airport. Nothing special there.
All in all, though, I ate everything I wanted to and nothing I didn’t. Except maybe more of the Boston Cream Pie.
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