Album #1

The last album on my list of top ten personal favorites is...


These Are Special Times - by, Celine Dion. This is a special album, Celine.

PSYCH! The actual one is...


Highway 61 Revisited - by, Bob Dylan. You didn't think I would make this entire list and not include at least one Bob Dylan album did you? Because, seriously, if you thought that, then you are crazy. Just plain crazy.

During a period of less than two years, (1965-1966) Bob Dylan released a hat-trick of brilliant records: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. All three of these are basically perfect, but I thought it would be lame to have all three on my list, so I settled on the one I like the most (by a little bit). Here are some stats about Highway 61, Revisited:

• Biggest Hit Song: "Like a Rolling Stone"
• Number of Vowels in album title: 6, unless you spell out "sixty-one" in which case, it's 9. Unless you spell it out and also count "y" as a vowel, in which case, the answer is 10. So, the short answer is - 6, 9, or 10.
• Bob Dylan's real name: Robert Allen Zimmerman
• My favorite song from the album: "Highway 61 Revisited"

Here's another good one: "Ballad of a Thin Man"

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Who's Reading "Joel on Internet"?

There are all kinds of things on the internet. Some of them are difficult to explain: doomsday countdowns, voting analysis (since we know voting doesn't matter), timecube.com, etc.

Speaking of bizarre stuff on the internet, I have recently been perusing my Google Analytics reports which provide information about visits to this e-blog. Most of the people who visit my e-blog are friends and family (thanks guys!) while some are simply blog-browsers (thanks guys too). Still, there are others who end up on this e-blog by way of a Google Search (usually a Google Search gone terribly wrong). Here are some of the keywords that people were searching for when they happened upon my blog...

• Win a Million Online Games
• Why are Cool Ranch Chips so Good
• Sideburns that turn into a Moustache
• Why did Linux call his invention the internet
• Who was the guy who died on the day of Hailys comet when he said that he would
• Why are cool ranch chips so good
• Radical Chops
• Internet is a great invention
• Computer is a great invention
• Ambrose Burnside bullet + invention

Unfortunately, I am not making this up. These are the questions on our minds. HEYO!

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Album #2

Astral Weeks, by Van Morrison. I know, you're probably thinking: Van Morrison, isn't he the guy who sings "Brown Eyed Girl" and basically sounds exactly like Mick Jagger? Yes. It's the same guy. Some facts about Van Morrison:

1. He is known by his fans as "Van the man." The nickname is appropriate because his name is Van, he is a man, and the two words rhyme, thereby making the nickname more memorable than something like "Van the singer" or "Van the guy who's suit is at the dry cleaner's".
2. His other nickname is "The Belfast Cowboy". I can't imagine anyone calling him that, though: - "So, did you go to the Belfast Cowboy concert last night?" "Are you talking about the Van Morrison concert?" "Yes, that is what I'm talking about."
3. He plays the ukulele.
4. He is Irish
5. He sounds like a better version of Mick Jagger.
   

Unfortunately, I can't find any youtube or hypemachine videos/mp3s to share, but trust me, this album is awesome. Van Morrison has written a lot of lame songs during his 50 year career, but on Astral Weeks, he has just eight songs, all of them real beauts! If you find a way to share some of these tunes with the blog, please let me know!

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Number 2

Did you think I was talking about albums still? GUESS AGAIN! I'm talking about the bathroom. Anyone who, like me, has worked for an hourly wage ought to know about the joys of a little something that I like to call Normal Business Hours.

FACT #1: Everyone goes to the bathroom - it is scientifically proven. Ordinarily, this is not cause for celebration. We routinely and monotonously do our "business" every day. (Side Note: A computer cannot do any sort of "business"). It's not something that we often talk about. In fact, some people even try to act like it doesn't happen. (Side Note: Many celebrities will not admit that they make poo-poo. In a recent interview, Angelina Jolie claimed that: "I have never pooped. Ever. Even when I was a baby.")

FACT #2: As long as you aren't one of those lame-ohs who get paid a salary, then your employer compensates you for "hours worked." In other words, you have a time-sheet or a time-card or a time-cube, or something that keeps track of how long you've worked. Your employer then multiplies your hourly wage by the number of hours that are recorded on your time-sheet. Can you see where this going?

FACT #3: NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS means that you can take care of your "business" while you're on the clock. It might be a small consolation, but I know that I have, at times, taken great joy in the knowledge that I am getting paid for the time I spend standing in front of the urinal. Especially if it's a busy or stressful day at work, you can always find a reason to smile when you go to take a quick baño break and realize, I am actually getting PAID TO POOP. And that, my friends, is the joy of NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS!

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ALBUM THE THIRD!

Pet Sounds, by The Beach Boys. While technically this is a Beach Boys album, this is, in actuality, a Brian Wilson album more than anything else. It is also the album that basically drove Brian Wilson insane. Scientists think that he put so many ideas into this album that he ran out of ideas and so his brain was empty and a virus moved in to his brain and made him insane. That's sort of the technical explanation.

If you are only familiar with the big Beach Boys hits, then you might not know this album too well. It does have some very popular songs: "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "God Only Knows", "Sloop John B.", etc. But in general, this album is not about hit songs, but about a sound. The whole things is dense and layered and complex. In fact, the ending vocal parts of "God Only Knows" is a great example of counter-point, a musical composition technique which was used extensively by Bach and Mozart.

"God Only Knows"


"That's Not Me"

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Favorite Record number Four

Revolver, by The Beatles. Perhaps Sergeant Pepper's and The White Album (not its real name) are considered better by critics, but for my money, Revolver is the tops! Not only does it boast some of the most famous Beatles tunes - "Eleanor Rigby", "Good Day Sunshine", "Yellow Submarine", etc. - it is also the first record by the Beatles to suggest their future studio experimentation.

And finally, this is the record which has "I'm Only Sleeping" which is, I believe, my favorite Beatles song ever. So, I know it's sort of a cop out to have The Beatles on my top ten list, since they're also on everyone else's top ten list.

"I'm Only Sleeping"


There are some people out there who say they don't like the Beatles, but what they really mean is that they are just being contrarian and argumentative. This is a terrible way to end this post. I am just sort of trailing off. I am sorry.

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Fave Record #5

Exile On Main Street, by The Rolling Stones. This double-disc album (if you buy it now you'll get 0ne CD) was released in 1972, after the fantastic Sticky Fingers and before the forgettable Goat's Head Soup. Despite not having many (or any) of the most famous Rolling Stones singles, this album is still my favorite Stones record, no contest. It is, in short, 19 tracks of ragged, deep-fried rock and roll. If you love Rock and Roll (not pop-rock, or hard-rock, or any of that) then this is the album you need to hear.

Rip This Joint (Live)



Soul Survivor (Album)



All Down The Line (Live)

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CAPTCHA

Hello, internet. There is a thing going on. Perhaps some of you, during the course of your web-explorings have encountered CAPTCHA security technology. If you didn't know, CAPTCHA is these things:
Apparently, they are intended to prevent robots from doing human activities, like voting, and e-commerce. The reasoning is that a robot can read ordinary letters, but not squiggly ones, therefore, if you ask the internet-user to type in the letters that he sees in the image, it will weed out the robots and allow only the humans to proceed.

There is only one problem with this plan...HUMANS CAN'T READ THOSE LETTERS EITHER! At least I can't (and don't you dare insinuate that I am a robot), and I think there are a lot of other people who can't. Ordinarily, when I want to comment on a friend's e-blog, it takes me at least three tries to enter the code correctly. Often, I just give up in frustration.

On the whole, I'm glad we have CAPTCHAs because without them, we would have robots posting on e-blogs and forums and you know how robots are...they would ruin everything.

To see how hard these things are, try commenting on this post. It will make you decipher one of these things. The first time you try to comment, begin the comment with "1". If you fail on the CAPTCHA, try again. This time your comment should begin with "2", etc. This way we can see who is the best, and who is the not best at CAPTCHAs.

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