Bring Me Home Neil

Twice last week, I was in a bit of a grump and a Neil Diamond song came on; Cracklin' Rosie and Sweet Caroline. Classics.

A few years ago someone told me, "it's hard to be unhappy when you're singing at the top of your lungs." Who ever that was, is a genius.

Puttering down Regional Road 25 hollering "Cracklin Rosie git on board/We're gonna blah blah blah blah/stay for a while/make the world smile/Cracklin Rosie you're a store bought woman/you make this guitar feel like hummin'/Say it now! Say it now! My baby blah blah blah words words words." I think because I don't totally know the words, it also made me laugh a little. Plus I got busted singing a few times but I just smile and danced in my seat.

Sweet Caroline is another story. I could recite those words backwords if I wanted and I even do hand motions too. I put on a good traffic jam show really. Sometimes I mix it up with steering wheel drum solos, but most often I play the gear shift guitar.

I highly recommend Essential Neil Diamond if you're new to the joys of the greatest singer-song writer of bubble-gum love songs ever.

Questioning The Greatness of Sliced Bread

I would like to know just how good the invention of sliced bread was.

We've all heard the saying "best thing since sliced bread," but before that, what was "the best thing", wiping your ass?

How bad were things, that the thought of taking stale, saw dust and rat dropping filled bread and slicing it, made people excited? How stupid were people to have not thought of that sooner?

"You slice your bread?...I...uh...started doing that ages ago, back in 512BC at least."

Was slicing your bread "the new black" or "the new gay"?

How simple life must have been to be so excited over slicing your loaf instead of tearing at it. I wish life was that simple now but instead we've got wars, pollution, crime and people who shop at Wal-Mart.

Or maybe life was so bad, that such a simple thing as slicing bread made the world take notice? I suppose that when sliced bread was likely invented, people were worried about the bubonic plague, saber tooth tigers, and male chastity devices which had sharp spines on the inside of the ring, hungrily waiting enlargement.

"Coming up in in today's news, a tyranosaurus rex ate 17 people and Corg sliced his bread. More at 6." Of course that would likely be beaten into a drum and danced out or puffed in smoke signals.

But really, how great was the invention of sliced bread? I suppose it lead to the creation of things like jams, jellies, peanut butter, toasters, mayonaise/Miricle Whip (same thing) and Montreal Smoked Meat Sandwiches. Sliced bread has probably injected trillions of dollars into the global economy: sandwich shops (Subway, Mr. Sub, Quizinos, NY Deli, etc.), bread knife makers, and toaster factories and all the people who work behind the scenes on production, planning, sales, and transport.

And let's not forget that without sliced bread, deli-meats had no home. 90% of left-over holiday turkey was thrown out before sliced bread because they had nothing to do with it other than soup. Since then, thanks to turkey sandwiches--and sliced bread--that number has been greatly reduced.

Sliced bread has even survied the pita fad of the late 90's and the more recent anti-carb wrap craze. Not to be confused with M&M, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince or Jay Z (or Jay Zed as he's known in Canada).

On the down side I guess it did spawn Vegemite and ruin many people's mornings when their toast came out burnt.

Country Covers

I enjoy a good cover or remake of a song, but I must say that country artists should not be allowed to either cover or remake a song, unless it was originally a country song or your name is Johnny Cash. They all suck! Anything Johnny Cash covered was amazing from U2, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails to Depeche Mode, it was damn cool.

For example:
The Wilkinsons' Fast Car, Tracy Chapman original
Rascal Flatts' Life is a Highway, Tom Cochrane original
Unknown, Lips of An Angel, Hinder original
Luther Wright and the Wrongs, Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2, Pink Floyd original (this one is so bad, it's funny and I actually like it. It's like a spoken word hill billy version.)
Mark Chestnut, I Don't Want To Miss a Thing, Aerosmith (written by Diane Warren)

I've only heard the country version of Hinder's Lips of an Angel once and didn't hear who was singing it, but what a joke that is. The singer has no passion, no 'umph' in his voice and the rental band he brought in for the recording session also needs a shot of adrenaline. I'm not even really a big fan of that song either.



However, I do really like Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. That's a beautiful and soulful song that the Wilkinson's just butcher. It's a very simple song too. The chords are very repetitive and so is the melody but they managed to shit the bed on the remake.



I know there are likely many more country remakes that I can't think of at the moment (and maybe even a few good remakes), but who ever owns the rights to the original song should be allowed to revoke and destroy the remake if the remake sucks (according to me). I just don't like it when they butcher a rock or folk song.

Worst Hockey Players Ever

Let me set the scene for you.

My hockey team is in first place in our division, riding a nine game winning streak.

We're playing the #2 team, who is two points behind us in the standings with just four games left in the regular season.

We come from behind, 3-0 to tie the game, sending it to overtime shoot-out.

I get chosen as the third shooter which isn't an unreasonable choice, but clearly there would have been many better choices.

We shoot-goal. They shoot-save. 1-0
We shoot-save. They shoot-save. 1-0
They shoot-goal. 1-1 and I'm the last shooter and can win the game.

I take the puck, skate in quickly. The whole time I was thinking "shoot on the ice, stick side while moving glove-side." I get in close...see my corner...shoot...

And the puck flips off my stick and I don't even get a shot off. So I said, "fiddle-dee dee. I suck-didly-uck!"

So now the shoot out is tied 1-1. We shoot-save. They shoot-goal. They win. Maybe I won't sign up for the Thai hockey team.

On the bright side, I'm not Patrick Stephan.