Oliver's posterous

More me-blogging than you can shake a stick at
 

SOTD: Light Gives Heat - Jars Of Clay

* The video is not an official music video, though it has some perfectly fine images. But the music is great.

Today it's Jars of Clay for the win. I'd heard this song a few times cycling through my playlist in the past, but it never really caught my attention until today. When it comes to Jars of Clay, I'm always tempted to tune out or go to a different track. They're no longer the groundbreaking  band they once were with the amazing "Flood" and "Liquid" tracks from their first album in the late '90s. And their recent work has seemed overly pensive and unremarkable, at least from the bit I've heard.

It would seem, at least in my universe, that they were doomed to irrelevance. And yet it's songs like these with lyrics like these that keep bringing them back for me. Jars knows how to write solid, provocative words that cleverly and truthfully skirt platitudes in favor of simplicity and power. "Light gives heat" -- yes it does.

Let's take a look back at a few of my favorite Jars songs:

"Liquid" from the album "Jars of Clay" (1995), I'm not as captivated by their old stuff anymore, but it's still solid and good for review purposes. I think the video is the real deal, but it's not much to write home about

"Hymn" from the album "Much Afraid" (1997); again, not the official video

"I Need You" from the album "The Eleventh Hour" (2002), not official video here

Posted January 28, 2010
 

SOTD: "This Kind of Love" cover by Eric and Me

The Sister Hazel cover, live from Christina and Peter's wedding. Couple of small hiccups, but otherwise great job Eric (and me). We must do this again.

Posted November 11, 2009
 

SOTD: "This Kind of Love" by Sister Hazel


The Song Of The Day today is in honor of newlyweds Christina and Peter. Christina asked rockstar friend Eric and I to sing and play this song for their last dance at the wedding reception this past weekend. Got to see a lot of college friends, had a blast, and Philly was actually really warm! Thank you, Global Warming.

Posted November 8, 2009
 

Philly-bound

The show says it's always sunny in Philadelphia, but this weekend the forecast says it will be friggin cold.

Posted November 6, 2009
 

Song of the Day: "In the Summertime" - Rural Alberta Advantage


Thanks to Mike for this one.

Today we mourn the death of Summer. Anyone who knows me knows that summer is by far my favorite season: it's the type of weather you don't have to think twice about before going outside, and it's a beautiful hazy jumble of chlorine, beaches, open windows and warm rays.

This number by the Rural Alberta Advantage does a pretty good job of evoking the summer zeitgeist. They're a Canadian indie rock band based in Toronto, Alberta. I've never heard of them, since they come from the forgotten 51st state, America junior, but now I'll keep an ear out.

Posted October 29, 2009
 

Song of the Day: James Morrison's "Nothing Ever Hurt Like You"


The singer-songwriter's music and lyrics are usually pretty easy on the ears. He's also only 25 years old, but he's already got a pretty solid music sensibility and this old-guy jazz-pop voice. Sort of like Amy Winehouse, but without all the drugs and drama, at least, as far as we know.

Posted October 26, 2009
 

Spambots - the Turrets syndrome of the comment world

One of the stories on Forbes.com, an article on Microsoft, today had this for a comment:

Posted by famulla | 10/23/09 09:40 AM EDT
What do you expect the circus from Russian and the daredevil motor cyclist from India on the pirated CD from China or a geisha nude lady? You are on the train tunnel that is sold as bad assets
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla

Either we need a better spambot filter, or Mr. Firozali's metaphors are just on some other higher plane of existence and I want one of whatever narcotics he's bathing himself in.

Posted October 23, 2009
 

The case of the mysterious package left on our doorstep that had brown stuff inside...

Last night, I got home late, after going to a potluck at a friend's house, and there it was: the mysterious package.

It was sitting on the mat right in front of our house's door, a small, square-ish package wrapped up in aluminum foil. It was about the size of a tissue box. And it was just resting there, inexplicably and naturally at the same time, as if it had been there all along. There was no note or any other marking attached to it.

I carefully bent down and peered closer. Everything looked, and smelled, ok still. I had the sneaking suspicion it was something unspeakable. I wondered if we had already made enemies around us, when we had just moved into the neighborhood not more than four months ago. Was it our wild block parties or our pet triceratops -- you know, because our house has both of those things regularly -- that had raised some ire?

I gingerly lifted some of the foil covering the top of the package. There was something brown and soft inside.

For a moment, a fraction of a second that seemed to hang in time, I saw my worst fears realized. I was also a little excited; this was something I'd only read about or seen on TV.

Did someone just leave a sack of frakkin' feces at our front door?

But then I looked closer. It wasn't feces. It wasn't feces at all. No, thankfully, but just as inexplicably, it was a package containing brownies and chocolate cake.

I took it inside. All the housemates were there, and when eventually questioned, nobody knew where the package came from, or, more importantly, who it came from. Was it a sign? A delicious, and possibily poisonous, sign? What did it mean? Did the gods of chocolate send down a gift like manna from the heavens? Or was some stoner on the run from the cops and had to drop off his 'magic' brownie stash here in order to avoid being caught with incriminating evidence?

We still don't know where the package came from, and we haven't yet tried to eat the snacks inside. And so the mystery remains, right up there with all the unsolved greats -- Atlantis' existence, Amelia Earheart's last flight, Miley Cyrus' continuing success. Is the *finger snap* still in these days?

Posted October 23, 2009