Don’t you love it when you have a day when something especially nice happens that brightens your whole outlook? I’m having one of those. 🙂
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Tag: memories
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Memory is a strange thing
In the category of the power of memory…
I just picked up a copy of a guilty pleasure from Second Spin (link invalid… according to my brief scan on archive.org, this company started shutting down in late February of 2008) on the cheap: Electric Youth by Debbie Gibson. I was getting ready to rip it just a few minutes ago, and something really weird happened. My eyes rested on the title of the opening track (”Who Loves Ya Baby?”), and in the space of about 2 seconds, my mind went from the title to a mental sound clip of the chorus to the smell of the ink used to print the liner notes for my old cassette copy (which was stolen along with the rest of my collection over 13 years ago).
I’ve heard before that smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory, but I’ve never had it go “backwards” like that before. For whatever reason, that tape’s liner notes had a strong and distinct scent that none of my other tapes had, so I smelled it every time I opened up the case (which was REALLY often about 8th or 9th grade or so). I guess the association in my brain was stronger than I thought. 🙂
Thanks to Thomas (link defunct) for the cool link that got me started on this one.
First, anyone who watches Mythbusters must see this Flash animation. (link defunct)
Seen it? Okay. Jamie’s technobabble over the big diagram reminded me of an old electrical engineering in-joke: the turbo encabulator. I have known for a long time about a video incarnation of this joke apparently made by some folks at Rockwell: The Rockwell Automation Retro Encabulator.
However, what I didn’t realize is that Chrysler took a shot at this old joke even earlier: The Chrysler Turbo Encabulator. Keep listening. There are some screw-the-customer jokes at the end.
I love how this old joke just keeps coming back.
Bonus for the Mythbusters fans
Do pretty girls fart?
I hope they pay the poor girl well.
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A Minor Detail
post edited on July 28, 2022:
Starting at about 4:48 in this video, the detail I mentioned below gets pointed out!
21 years and who knows how many viewings later, I just now realized something new about Back to the Future with the help of the TiVo. I never noticed before that one of the consequences of Marty’s first trip back to 1955 was that Twin Pines Mall became Lone Pine Mall (as a result of Marty knocking down one of old man Peabody’s pine trees with the DeLorean). 🙂
Two recent (to me) media sources have proved to be a lot of fun for me lately: XM Satellite Radio and YouTube. Long-time readers (or people with way too much time their hands) may remember a post where I talked about “Com-Pak music“. Basically, it means what was playing on the local hits station when I was working at my first job. I mentioned “Joyride” by Roxette specifically, but there are a whole list of songs that snap my mind back to that time.
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Shared Music DNA?
I can’t believe I never figured this out before.
The recent post about “Electric Youth” got me thinking and listening, and on the way home from work yesterday, it hit me: “Foolish Beat” by Debbie Gibson IS the bubblegum rewrite of Wham’s “Careless Whisper“.
It’s all there. The raspy blues-ish alto sax, the sappy “I lost you and I’ll never get over it” message, the minor key. Not only are the song titles similar, each is uttered only once as part of the second verse of its respective song.
I wonder if Debbie was a big George Michael fan? 🙂
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When Bands Go Bad
I’ve been meaning for a while to post about a dilemma I’ve had.
It’s sad when a good band gets sucked into the dark side by a video director with a “vision”. Anyone can make a crappy video, but it’s especially painful to me when it’s a successful band that should know better. Even worse when it’s a song I actually enjoy.
Given that narrowed definition, I’ve been debating which of two videos I’ve seen truly qualifies as the worst video ever… the one that does the most damage to a song I really like.
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Memory Meme
This one is actually a bit scary. I’m not the kind of person who tends to accumulate true enemies, but there are certainly people out there who could relate some unpleasant memories.
Stolen from Joyce:
If you read this, even if we don’t speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be either good or bad. I promise not to come after you with a spatula, either way. When you’re finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.
I’m not going to put any explicit restrictions on what people post, but please be somewhat considerate of the other readers.
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The Tape
(edited 7 May 2024)
It occurred to me that most of my first comment was actually part of this post, so I moved it (mostly unmodified). Look at the end of this post to see it.
I was cleaning out the truck this evening, and I found The Tape. I can’t believe it. Over 21 years ago, I was passing the time on a summer afternoon recording songs off the radio on my dad’s cassette radio. Basically, if a song sounded interesting, I kept it. I ended up filling up most of one of those good old cheap “low noise” C-60 cassettes.
It’s either really cool or really lame that I recognized the Voltron toy used in one of the episodes of Robot Chicken (the sketch where Voltron “got served”). It’s the exact one I had as a kid (and still have in one of my keepsake boxes). I used to LOVE that show.
EDIT YET AGAIN:
And Cartoon Network and the YouTube posters play cat and mouse. The video works (for now), but unfortunately no lyrics any more.
Have fun!