Wow. Music-obsessed blog. I should turn this into a pop culture blog. Pop vulture?



Unlikely.

When I bought the Britney Spears CD in November, I received a free singles collection with five songs from random acts. One was from an newly signed artist whose debut CD would come out in the winter. This was the onyl song on the CD that I liked - I actually adored it. Suddenly, this chick, Vanessa Carlton, is huge. her video is a buzzworthy clip on MTV and she's crossed over to the TRL base, too. She's got a great backstory, too - a piano player who seriously studied ballet through her teen years, but gave it up because of all the bullshit associated with dancing professionally. Now, she's back at the keyboards and, if the first single is a fair representation of her music, she's on her way to big-time success.



Speaking of which, I'm glad Michelle Branch is moving beyond the one-hit wonder label with her second single. Same for Natalie Imbruglia. Her new song kicks major ass. I love it. Back to Michelle, I'm seeing her at a club in SF in a few weeks - should be fun times.



Continuing with the music theme, I went to Amoeba for the first time a few weeks ago. It's this huge CD store in SF (and there's one in Berkeley) that offers a ton of used CDs. I found Duncan Sheik's last CD for $5. This thing is amazing. I had read a lot of positive reviews last year, but didn't pick it up, despite loving "Barely Breathing." This new CD, "Phantom Moon," is a really well-crafted work. It's all mellow and neo-folk with music and lyrics that are equally beautiful. "Mr. Chess" is my favorite. Buy it now.

I'm totally digging music from Lori of Real World 10 (New York). I checked out the website of the a cappella group she was in at Boston College, and she is definitely the best female soloist in the group. A cappella is weird because the songs are usually amazing and technically difficult, but the soloists are, more often than not, mediocre. Anyway, there are clips of her a cappella stuff here - she solos on "As Yet Untitled" - and there are also two regular songs featuring her on this site.



Also, I finally found the second song BT produced for Britney Spears here. "Before the Goodbye" is probably one of my favorite songs by any artist, but the second BT track is good, too. Neither made it onto the American version of her CD because of squabbles between BT and Jive Records (story is that Jive wanted changes and BT was not into them telling him what to do). I sort of wish she had stayed with the techo-pop sound of these two tracks rather than the R&B style of the rest of her CD, but oh well.

Today, while lost within the maze-like paths of Golden Gate Park, I saw a one-legged man walking a three-legged dog.

Email from Charlie: "Isn't it SO FUCKING WEIRD how it's possible to

have a love-hate relationship with a WEB SITE? And yet, we seem to."



Amen.



Although I'd say my relationship is more like-hate than love-hate. But I am starting to appreciate it again.



Just as odd, in my opinion, is that no matter how annoyed/frustrated/disgusted I become with this site, I could never take it down.

I think that a lot of people who didn't go to Ivy League schools find it endlessly amusing when someone who did winds up failing at something. I know I chuckled tonight when I watched the oh-so-gay Harvard student on Millionaire use all of his lifelines and walk away at the $8,000 mark. Is it he or I who is pathetic?

Fogel, why do you deny me?

Well, I haven't gone to bed yet, so this counts as Wednesday.



It's strange to have two freelance projects that could actually become successful business ventures. Strange, I say, not great. Great would be if they both were generating some real cash.



(And I won't mention the Australian Open)

A challenge, perhaps.



How about one post each day. One link, one line, one paragraph, one commentary, one criticism, one emoticon - something each day.



It can no longer be about audience and this crazy blogger/journal/personalwebsite community that we're almost forced into. It's got to be about writing. For me.



So I'll write something each day, share some of myself, no matter how insignificant. It's a (re)start.



Now...that was easy, wasn't it?

Ben and I hung around Civic Center long enough to see the Olympic torch pass through. The runner stopped in front of city hall for a photo op with the mayor before taking off for the Embarcadero. The funniest thing was watching a 30-something mother with a camcorder sprinting away from her family as the runner took off - torch groupies are a strange sight to behold.

At least I'm not Buffy.

I came back from a few days at Ben's to find that PG&E has blocked off all parking near my house and is in the midst of a month-long construction project. The fools are working about 15 feet away from my bed...



In other news, the never-ending DSL saga continues, although we are closer to solving the problem (which makes is more frustrating that it keeps dragging on, ya get?) So updates will still be infrequent, even though the past two weekends were amazing and completely deserved mention. Later, perhaps.

Happy New Year...



Last night was mellow but fun - my first New Year's celebration in a city. Oh, just kidding, forgot about Providence in 2001. Well, my first New Year's in San Francisco, anyway. Ben, Terri, who flew out for a few days, and I combed the Mission District for some food before hitting a packed party downtown at 111 Minna. The crowd was a bit more posh than usual (they're already pretty WASPy), but the overall vibe was cool. Luckily, the rain held off until well after midnight, making our 20 minute wait for a cab much more pleasurable than if it had been raining. Since ArtDecoDenny's had a 45-minute wait, we just combed through my pantry for some late-night snacks. Nothing like garlic bread with cheese at 3 a.m. after a night of drinking, eh?



Oh, and it's been a year. Can you believe it?