The Captain and the Kid

So Friday evening I was driving home from work when I spaced out and missed my exit on the Palisades Parkway. This is not the first time I've done this, but it doesn't make it any less annoying the next time. But then I had a grand thought: I could drive up to Rt 6 and take it over to the Wal-Mart near (in?) Harriman and buy Elton John's new CD! I even got it marked down to $9.72 the first week it is out. My sister would be proud. Anyways, here are a couple comments on the aforementioned CD, "The Captain and the Kid." I'll write a little extra at the end of this post to keep those of you who are not Mike Walker and don't particularly care interested. And those of you in the middle oval of the Venn diagram that is constituted by the friendship of Mike Walker and myself and may have to read about this more than once, well, I am truly sorry.

Let me begin by saying that I was very disapointed with EJ's last CD, "Peachtree Road." A few songs were pretty good, I enjoyed "Answer in the Sky" and "All that I'm Allowed" but other than that I can't remember anything that stood out, and I currently have no idea where the CD is, so you can imagine how often I listen to it. Mike was correct when he compared this new one to "Songs from the West Coast" (a CD I like quite a lot). This one is currently more than passing the test after a few listen throughs. I was a little worried at first, because the first song didn't grab me as being great (I like it better a few listens later). The second one I still don't think it anything special. Then the third song is about NYC. I have this strange problem about being able to get into songs about NY. Everyong acts like it's the greatest city in the world, and I can't say I've been all over the city but it seems big and unattractive... ok, I'm biased and I just like Boston better. And, fine, I admit it, I associate everything NY, just a little bit, with the Yankees, and that just ruins it. I've lived in NY for about 6 months and I still don't like the idea of calling myself a new-yorker. I've had this problem with Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" too. Anyways, nice enough song but I just can't get excited about it.

Luckily, the CD is build like a major league baseball lineup - the heavy hitters are in the middle. I really like "Tinderbox" - "Blues Never Fade Away" - and "The Bridge." "And the House Fell Down" is really neat and is my second favorite so far. Then after a couple other decent songs EJ wraps up with "The Captain and The Kid" - a reference to the nicknames for him and Bernie Taupin first encountered in the early 70's when he released "Captain Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy." This one is my favorite on the whole CD. A random thought I had about this song though - it's a nice little tribute to EJ and Bernie Taupin... could he possibly wrap up his writing career with this song? At the end of Billy Joel's last true album, "The River of Dreams," in the mid-90's, the last song on the CD proclaims "These are the last words I have to say, that's why it took so long to write." I wonder if Elton would make a fitting end to his career with the song "The Captain and The Kid." I guess we'll see!

Dinner time, be right back.

Ok I'm back, thanks for waiting. A couple random thoughts for the rest of you:

You know all of those surveys that have the same 25 questions in different forms? Yeah you do, I know you've done one. Well they always have a question like "Coke or Pepsi?" but they don't have one for "Ragu or Prego?" I think this is an important question too. For the record, I'm a Ragu kind of guy.

Have you ever noticed that anything you decide to cook in the over can go in for a half hour and come out done? Seems like it anyways. I think this is a corollary of the "everything that goes into a crockpot comes out tasting good" theorem.

Ok, well since my computer will probably freeze soon, I'll wrap up. I have a nice rant for the next post when I have time. Adios.

Jumping on the bandwagon

Hi everyone, and welcome to my blog! It seems all the rage recently and I thought to myself "well, I have random thoughts from time to time, perhaps I'll torture everyone with them." Oh and by "everyone" I mean approximately 7 people. Probably Mike and Datts and 5 other people I never talk to on AIM any more but still have me on their buddy lists and check my profile. Maybe Chrissy will read it and not email me. Maybe Dave will read because he's "working" from home and his fantasy teams suck, so he needs something else to do. Who knows. It would be interesting to know how many people check in on this, but I'll probably never know. That means that I'll just be posting just to see myself write (kind of like speaking just to hear your own voice), but that's no different from thinking these things to myself, and hey, it's more fun this way.

While we're on the subject, here are some AIM fun-facts:
- I have 137 names on my buddy list.
- In the past year I have talked to approximately 25 of those names. Probably no more than 10 with any regularity.
- There are 3 that I flat out can't remember who is associated with them.
- There are so many multiple names (ex: 1 person, 3 names) that I don't feel like counting.
- There are 12 names that I think I have on my list but have never spoken to.
So, why bother? Because it beats awkwardly short phone conversations, that's why!

And finally, what would my first ever blog post be without mentioning sports. This past Saturday, I went to my third ever Red Sox/Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. My first was April of 2001, I believe, with Dave, Eric, Karin, Sarah and Natalie. While the Red Sox lost that game, at least Sarah entertained us all by spitting sunflower seeds onto the back of the man sitting in front of her. The second was, according to Mike, in 2003. I can't for the life of me remember everyone who was there, but I'm sure at least Mike, Todd and Karin were involved. I would imagine Rob and Alita too. Anyways, the Sox lost that game too, 2-1, with the only run coming on a Manny Ramirez home run. This was also the day that the Patriots lost to the Bills 31-0 in their season opener, a week after releasing Lawyer Milloy. I was taping the game, but there was a dude in the row behind us listening to the game on a walkman who spoiled the score - though in retrospect he saved me from spending two hours watching that debacle. Little did we know the Pats would recover just fine, go 14-2 and roll to their second Super Bowl win. But I digress. Coupled with a Sox loss to the Yankees at Fenway one year, they were 0-3 in Red Sox/Yankees matchups I had been to.

This particular game we (Kristin, Adam, Mike, Jen and Roy) went to, however, was a very good one. Josh Beckett pitched well, but not well enough that we weren't a little nervous at times. It was a long game, but a good one that the Sox won. I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm (and, for that matter, number) of Red Sox fans at the game. Everyone who had bought tickets back in June (like us) showed up to the game as if the team weren't all but mathematically eliminated. When David Ortiz came to the plate in the first inning and was booed loudly by the Yankee fans, there were enough Sox fans there to start a legit "MVP" chant. There was a solid "Let's go Red Sox chant" later in the game too, that was weakly contested and never really drowned out. If you're a Yankee fan, you HAVE to drown that chant out, there's no excuse for that. I thought the Yankees fans put on a pretty weak performance. Other Yankee fans that I've told this tend to respond the same way - that the game was meaningless - but I thought about it and came to this conclusion: you've got to be kidding me! You have a big lead but you have a chance to eliminate your archrival from the playoffs if you win 3 of 4 games over the weekend, and this isn't exciting? Red Sox fans would drool at the chance of going to games in that position! The Yankee fans apathy was justly rewarded when they dropped 3 of 4 and still haven't sealed the deal. It's coming, of course, but I still contend that was a weak performance by their fans.

Ok, I'm going to wrap up my first post. This is probably longer than will be usual, but we'll see. Please feel free to comment or send me a message or email regarding my posts, and let me know what you would like to hear more or less of. Thanks for reading!