Yep, the Griswolds are back...

Oi! Oh, man... seriously, why is the world still rotating today? When I got home from the bar at whatever o'clock in the morning it was, only a few freakin' hours ago, I'm pretty sure all I wanted was for some type of worldly catastrophic event to take place that would mean I wouldn't ever have to wake up for work!

Here's the deal -- drinking a lot when you don't drink a lot anymore... whoa. Might as well, might as well, might as well just skip the drinking and take a jackhammer straight to my skull. Come on, Advil, work, baby! It's not even like I was drinking to get plastered. Somehow the glass kept getting filled with beer and so that meant each time I had to eventually empty it into my stomach! Dems da rulez, yo -- No Beer Wasted. Duh.

Now it's like coming up on 8 a.m. as I type this and I have to work a 24 hour shift starting at 9 ... haaaa! luckily not until 9 o'clock tonight, Christmas Eve -» through Christmas morning -» through Christmas day -» 9 p.m. Christmas night. I have no idea what bar in town will be open but when my shift's over, it'll probably be pitcher time again, that or just pour me Guinness by the pint and I'll be forgetting Christmas with each and every hoist. Ahhhh... or I'll just come back to my bed and collapse. We shall see, we shall see.

Probably no way that I'll run today. Even though the gym's open until 6 p.m. this evening, I'm fairly sure I've written that off already. After my run last night, man, I was so stoked for a run today. Just the mere thought of stepping foot on the track is making me shudder in horror. Stoopid alcohol.

So for now I've got 12+ hours to get some more sleep and recover from this. If I had to start a shift in an hour, that would be so wicked irresponsible. I think, at least I hope, I've left that kind of irresponsibility way in the past. Mayhaps if I worked at Mickey D's I'd tell them to kiss my shiny metal ass, I quit... but my job is slightly more important than that so I'll be there with bells on, or I would if I wore bells, which I don't, so no bells, nevermind. But if it's anything like Thanksgiving then it'll be an interesting shift with interesting calls. Still, perhaps I shoulda flown to Dutch Harbor for a few days. All I woulda done there is drank myself silly with strangers and Christmas would have been actively happening just as much as it is here. Maybe the best place to go to avoid the holiday would be, oh, Saudi Arabia? Yemen? Something like that.

Anyway, I didn't plan to listen to Christmas tunes this late into the season but this happens and that happens and I didn't want to wait on this until next year so here it is now...

Tunes...


National
Lampoon's
Christmas
Vacation
soundtrack

1989

(1999 Limited 10th Anniversary Edition)



256 kbps whole album dload
► National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Soundtrack

192 kbps
Christmas Vacation (cartoon version) -- Mavis Staples
· Take It Russ. . .
Hey, Santa Claus -- The Moonglows
· Clark's Asskiss Remark
That Spirit Of Christmas -- Ray Charles
· Sh****r Was Full
Christmas Vacation Suite -- John Williams/Angelo Badalamenti
· Aunt Bethany's Arrival
Hallelujah Chorus -- The Oratorio Society of New York
· Feeding the dog at the table
Mele Kalikimaka -- Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters
· Clark Explodes
Here Comes Santa Claus -- Gene Autry
· Eddie's Gift
Joy To The World -- Angelo Badalamenti
· Hell's Threshold
Christmas Vacation (end credits version) -- Mavis Staples
· Rocket's Red Glare/Star-Spangled Banner
-- Bonus Tracks-- (Christmas Jingle -- Angelo Badalamenti)
Holiday Road -- Lindsey Buckingham
Dancin' 'Cross The U.S.A. -- Lindsey Buckingham
Holiday Road -- Limp
Christmas Vacation (radio version) -- Mavis Staples
Radio Commercial (movie trailer)

soundboard mp3 download

So... was E.T. an Illegal Alien?

· Hiking Time --- 2 hours 23 minutes

· Temperature: 28ºF (-2ºC)

· Trail Time in October -- 24 hours 6 minutes

____(starting Oct. 1)
· Weight Loss Goal -- 24 pounds (11 kg)
__________· So Far -- 7 lb.

7 pounds gone this month. Not bad but it was eight that I was hoping for. That means in November, with a day less than October, I've gotta do 9. Whew. All I've gotta do is lay OFF the ice cream and cheeseburgers... and not make any cookies. Or cannolis. An uphill battle but I did 7, I can do 9. Cooking with fresh ingredients and making ultra-healthy meals I do... almost every night but when I don't, that's when I really indulge. So I've gotta be more careful. Oh, and no popcorn? That means no movies and... and.... and no movies? Ugh.

Maybe I can do popcorn and not have to pass on a few of those cheeseburgers if I keep up with regular running and hikes like the one this morning.

Hit the trail, I did, just as the very first light was showing itself on the horizon. Each day that time is creeping ahead by minutes. Lately I hadn't even noticed that dawn's first light, on a morning without clouds, isn't until well after 8:00 a.m. In no time at all it'll be close to 9 a.m. and then first light will eventually creep all the way towards 10 in the morning. LOTS of darkness ahead.

In any case... it has been forever since I went out [for a hike] in the a.m. My hikes and runs, since getting back to this after my dang tibia fracture, they've been at the opposite end of the light of day. Straight through dusk is when I'm usually out there, right up until the sky is almost purely black. Today that's what it was when I started. But I turned around and came home no more than 4 minutes after getting out there.

False start.
Decided I needed some breakfast.
Mmmmm... pancakes!

Then off I was for a great hike on a relatively warm morning (for this time of year.) Same old trail, same old out and back but it was freedom and it was exercise. It was a time for some good music and a time for some good thinkin'. Same old trail, same old out and back but it sure beat being inside, sure beat sittin' gettin' fat, that's for sure!

Trail Tunes...

E.T.
The Extra-Terrestrial

Music From The Original
Motion Picture Soundtrack

Music By John Williams (1982)

[1996 Digitally Remixed,
Remastered And Expanded Edition]

Far From Home/E.T. Alone
Bait For E.T.
The Beginning Of A Friendship
Toys
"I'm Keeping Him"
E.T.'s Powers
E.T. And Elliott Get Drunk
Frogs
At Home
The Magic Of Halloween
Sending The Signal
Searching For E.T.
Invading Elliott's House
E.T. Is Dying
Losing E.T.
E.T. Is Alive!
Escape/Chase/Saying Goodbye
End Credits

I've said it before and I'll say it again, when it comes to classical music -- give me Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, etc? No way, José! Give me a film score composed and conducted by John Williams!! Those other guys I just can't get in to. I don't care how immensely genius they or their music might be considered to be. Just not my cup of tea. But a film score with a classical music kind of feel to it, I always seem to dig.

With E.T., John Williams weaves together non-stop drama, bringing the listener on nothing less than a ride full of ups, downs, and back up again with a few nearly scary twists and turns thrown in for good measure. Knowing the movie, I was able to recognize Unknowing, Discovery, Fright, Dark Times, Fun Times, Relief and Freedom.

Forgetting the movie even exists, the music here flows effortlessly along. These individual pieces -- beginning and ending, beginning and ending, over and over -- work as one giant composition. At times the beautiful orchestration is lush and loud enough to reverberate through your entire body. Other times you've almost got to bend your ear to listen, to hear the quiet instrumentation before Williams brings the music booming to life again. And through it all that same familiar E.T. theme emerges here and there to tie it all together.

I haven't heard each and every Williams film score but it would be a great guess that this is perhaps one of his best!

320 kbps dload right here
E.T. -- Part 1 ·· Part 2 -- E.T.

Also on the trail:
Rebecca St. James...

Here I Am
I Thank You Lord
Above All Things
True Love
We Don't Need It

Rude Awakening but Feeling Good!

· Run Time --- 10 minutes 10 seconds (+0:36)

· Total Time On Trail: 67 minutes
· Temperature: 29ºF (-2ºC)

· Trail Time in October -- 13 hours 29 minutes

____(starting Oct. 1)
· Weight Loss Goal -- 24 pounds (11 kg)
__________· So Far -- 4 lb.

A much easier run this afternoon compared to my last one. First four minutes was a piece of cake. Then I started wanting the first song to hurry up and get over already and onto the next one. Got through that and the next few minutes were okay. But again, with a minute, minute and a half left in the second song, all I wanted was for it to get finished, wind it up, will you? Sheesh! Finally my sounding cue and I hit my time. Whewww.

I felt pretty beat but was able to keep walking instead of needing to stop with hands on knees, pleading for normalcy. Last time my lungs were in a minor state of feeling like ehty were on fire. Holy cow. This time my lungs felt fine. About 90 seconds after I stopped running, I was even able to stop walking to do a little Conga with Gloria Estefan. Yeah, all was definitely so much better!


Trail Music...

Rude Awakening

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

1989






Revolution - Mike + The Mechanics
Success - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
Rude Awakening - Bill Medley
Darling Be Home Soon - Phoebe Snow
We The People - Franke & The Knockouts
Comin' Home - Kim Carnes
Run Through The Jungle - The Georgia Satellites
Conga - Miami Sound Machine
Roadhouse Blues - The Doors
Somebody To Love - Jefferson Airplane
Uncle John's Band - Grateful Dead
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 - Bob Dylan

Kind of a weird selection of tunes here. They don't all go together but eh, it's not bad music. This is one of those 75 cent purchases that I got only because the Dead's on there. Not that I needed this CD to have that song... but I thought what the heck. This is also one of those albums that I'll listen to like once every two or three years and that's all that's needed. Worth the 75 cents? Eh.

256 kbps dload
Rude Awakening Soundtrack

Also on the trail...
and this concludes Bob Dylan's 1962 debut self-titled album...
In My Time Of Dyin'
Man Of Constant Sorrow
Highway 51
Baby, Let Me Follow You Down
Song To Woody

Music For An Idiot

Chicago Bears won. Good.
New York Mets suck, losing their 8th in a row to Philadelphia.
They don't deserve to play in the post-season. They're still in first place but playing so despicably this late in the year is a total downer. Ahh well.

In between football, football, and more football, and some Yankees-Red Sox, this album I'm about to play for the 4th time today. It's getting attention all over the place. I guess that just goes to show how popular Eddie Vedder's become. I can remember when he was just the lead singer of some kick-ass band named Pearl Jam who had just put out their first album and weren't even widely well known. Also, this book's been immensely popular and now the film's coming soon which is gonna be talked about a lot as well. I've been trying to separate the music from the film's main character, the cult-like hero Christopher McCandless a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp who had many great notions about the disgusting materialism of American society and giving away $24,000 to Oxfam was a beautiful thing to do... but when it came to Alaska he was nothing less than 100% pure idiot moron fool schmuck. He wanted to walk from the middle of the territory a few hundred miles to the Pacific Ocean on the western side of the state. Yeah, HAA!! You'd face 500 bears, 12 serious rivers, 2,000 creeks and streams many strong enough to carry you away, a fleet of mosquitos large enough to haul away Rhode Island, and soft mushy tundra that'll make your journey so slow that you might, might accomplish a mile an hour, maybe two if you're lucky. Add on top of that the immensely cold weather at night and during the day later into the season, and it's essentially an impossible task. But moron McCandless Supertramp had no idea... did he become permanantly brain damaged.... alright, enough, this post was supposed to just be about the music so....

Eddie Vedder

Into The Wild

music for the motion picture

2007

Setting Forth
No Ceiling
Far Behind
Rise
Long Nights
Tuolomne
Hard Sun
The Wolf
End Of The Road
Society
Guaranteed
Guaranteed [lyric-less, hidden track]

At only like 33 minutes for 11 songs, there isn't much music here. Many of the tunes are just short little ditties, sometimes even feeling like a song condensed. But what is here from Vedder is some pretty cool stuff. Largely acoustic, these aren't seriously rockin' Pearl Jam tunes. They are all sung with great passion and the lyrics can attest that this isn't some quicky little soundtrack job. It really makes me wonder how much time Sean Penn, director of Into The Wild, spent with Eddie to be able to really convey what he wanted from these songs. Whether it was days and numerous screenings of the film, or an hour, Vedder seemingly catches the mood of Into The Wild and of the film's main character, Christopher McCandless, perfectly... and the movie's not even out yet but that feeling is easy to have if you know the story of idiot McCandless. Uh oh, here I go again, I didn't wanna venture into writing about him, as this is about these tunes. I will digress and say that Hard Sun has gotta be hands down my favorite tune. This ones runs twice as long as most of what's on this album and has a fuller sound than all the rest. I could easily see PJ jammin' this one off live and if they don't add it to their rotation of songs I'll be surprised. Society is also a pleaser to me personally... "less is more" it goes, which is true. Vedder does a great job of speaking for McCandless -- "Society, you're a crazy breed. I hope you're not lonely without me. Society, crazy indeed. I hope you're not lonely without me." As a songwriter he has achieved near poetry capturing the spirit of Thoreau and Alexander Supertramp wrapped up in one. It'll be interesting to see where all of tunes appear in the movie. Probably the film won't even be able to capture the true McCandless and the songs, in the end, will really be a better companion piece to the book rather than as a soundtrack to the film.

Grab it from: - All Tribes

Damn good coffee, and hot!!

This one's been sittin' on my shelf for toooo long! An excellent choice for a dreary overcast rainy morning. And when it's 10 below with just 4 hours of daylight at the noontime hour come December or so, there's no time more perfect for a Twin Peaks marathon, every episode straight on through. I've done that once with this series, just might hafta do it again this winter. My love for TV is very small and my collection of DVDs of any kind is quite modest, but this set is a treasure! And the soundtrack's not bad either!

Soundtrack From
Twin Peaks (1990)

Music composed by: Angelo Badalamenti
Lyrics by David Lynch

Twin Peaks Theme (Instrumental)
Laura Palmer's Theme (Instrumental)
Audrey's Dance (Instrumental)
The Nightingale (Vocal by Julee Cruise)
Freshly Squeezed (Instrumental)
The Bookhouse Boys (Instrumental)
Into The Night (Vocal by Julee Cruise)
Night Life In Twin Peaks (Instrumental)
Dance Of The Dream Man (Instrumental)
Love Theme From Twin Peaks (Instrumental)
Falling (Vocal by Julee Cruise)

Angelo Badalamenti's score for the masterful David Lynch probably never made anyone want to hang themselves... but this definitely isn't for someone who's only into bright happy music for shiny happy people. The show's theme song is a memorable one for anyone who's ever seen the series. What follows is a mixture of sounds that are gloomy, haunting, ethereal and mellow. There are no standout hit songs and what fills the ears isn't plain and boring. These are all very complete and well thought out compositions. Together the collection of songs works well as an album of music to listen to without any connection to the television series from which they were composed for.

256 kbps mp3
Download Here

I wonder what Jebediah Springfield would think...

The Simpsons Movie: The Music

original soundtrack/film score by Hans Zimmer

2007

For the second night in a row I decided to Press Play on a little classical tunage. And for the first time ever, not like this is any grand accomplishment or anything, I listened to a movie's soundtrack before the movie is in the theaters. Exciting, eh?

I've been a Simpsons fan for quite a few freakin' years now. It's on twice a night and while some weeks I'll see a Grand Total of zero episodes, sometimes I'll catch five to ten a week. A memorabilia collecting fanatic I am not, nor do I actually schedule time to watch, but when it's on, really nothing is so important that I can't miss it for another excellent episode of The Simpsons!

That family has become such a huge part of Americana yet some people've never even seen it. One morning show host news dude recently said that after just seeing the show for the very first time, he didn't get it. While I respect tremendously those who eschew most of the crap on television, how could anyone completely avoid The Simpsons?! Once again, something I just don't get. It's harmless fun that can provide laughs all day long!

In any case, I'm not gonna rush out to see the movie but I am lookin' forward to it. And (segue time) I am looking forward to hearing this music in the movie! This is pretty good stuff from composer Hans Zimmer, who took over the reigns from The Simpsons usual composer, Alf Clausen. While Clausen's episode scoring is completely fun and lighthearted, Zimmer makes the scoring of the film explode with orchestral sound on nearly every track. He has previously worked on dozens of successful movies including Pirates of the Caribbean and The Lion King which, if I am not mistaken, is the movie he won the Oscar for.

At first I was thinking -- why wasn't Danny Elfman hired? Ahh man, he composed the theme song so many years ago so my mind got to thinkin' that this woulda been right up his alley. But no Elfman. Thankfully it didn't take long before I was completely enjoying this and quite glad that Zimmer had the job. One complaint is there's one song out of place, Release The Hounds. It's the only song (until the last) that's not at all orchestral in nature but more like a Dick Dale surf number. Its placement just messes a little with the flow. Aside from that, everything moves wonderfully along with the main Simpsons Theme intertwined throughout, showing up here and there to bind everything together. Closing out the soundtrack, Spider Pig is hilarious and then Recklessly Impulsive has a totally techno-type of sound. Gone are all the traditional woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion, all traded in for what I'm guessing is the song over the movie's closing credits. Since it's at the end its placement is A-OK. At the conclusion I was definitely happy that I gave this a listen. As a stand-alone collection of songs, it's not perfect but works well.

soundtrack can be dloaded here
password = soundboard
or play on Rhapsody: The Simpsons Movie: The Music by Hans Zimmer



As a bonus, I also gave a listen to a new song by Green Day which just happens to be their version of The Simpsons Theme. Very cool!

320 kbps dload here
or play on Rhapsody:
The Simpsons Theme by Green Day