Tag Archives: gavin friday

Valentine’s postmortem and more…

Overall, this year’s Valentine’s Day wasn’t bad. Clad in my new favorite shirt — a brown long-sleeve T with the CNN logo in camo and “Baghdad Bureau” in darker green Helvetica Neue Medium Condensed underneath (it came straight from CNN Center) — I went out the door, starting the day off just right musically with a barrage of AC/DC (Back in Black and Shoot to Thrill, to be exact) and went on from there.

There was a bit of a tense moment where a police car was rounding Coming Street onto Calhoun at a pretty good clip, running hot (lights and sirens). At the same time, students began to cross the street. I was like “WHOA! HOLD IT!” and the officer was able to get around, despite the fact that some people didn’t pay attention and were thus halfway in the middle of the street until the officer reactivated his sirens. People just have to keep looking as they cross the streets, ESPECIALLY on Calhoun Street, the land of emergency vehicles.

All in all, today had its moments of hyper-mushiness, sure, but it wasn’t as bad as it probably could have been. After having had the opportunity to display hyper-mushiness several years ago, I no longer look at that with the scorn that I once did. Perhaps the free candy handed out in my classes today helped this situation…I’m really not sure. I also think that the post-work venting session about women with Tom in Applebee’s over beer and relatively unhealthy food was not only a great way to blow a gift card but also soften the blow of the day as well.

Tonight has been a mixture of homework and studying, complete with a Ryan Farish and Gavin Friday soundtrack. I think the song of the day is “The Big No-No” by Gavin Friday off his 1992 release “Adam & Eve” — it’s got a pretty sweet piano part in it and it’s really sung well. It’s one of the edgier Friday tracks in existence. I listened to it several times today in transit from place to place.

Funny anecdote regarding music and my habits listening to it: Two days ago, while using a public terminal waiting for class to begin in the Stern Center lobby, I was bopping along to “Together We Will Conquer” by Ryan Farish on the ol’ iPod nano, doing a little bit of air bass guitar along with it (if you haven’t heard this song, I recommend it with a giant subwoofer, the bass is that good). A girl walks up next to me and remarks, “You know, I’m trying to find mine so I can jam out like you, it looks like you’re having a good time!” Hey, what can I say — I can’t help it. I do have a good time with my music. I’ll bop along to it, tap it out, air guitar it, even sing it down the street when no one is around. I’m what they call an active listener. :)

Finally, I think it’s oddly appropriate that The Weather Channel had a small malfunction today and Trammell Starks played. After all, he is the unofficial romance music provider of JaredWSmith.com. So yeah, that was cool.

I hope everyone has a great Thursday. I’ll be back whenever I can come up for air. :)

“And on my stereo…is Caruso.”

The official song of tonight is Caruso by Gavin Friday from his 1995 release Shag Tobacco. The rhythm is just ridiculously infectious, and it’s just a damn good song. I first got to know Gavin Friday back in 1998 when I received the “music from and inspired by Mission: Impossible” album for my birthday (the other one was Top Gun), which included a remixed version of his song “You, Me, and World War Three.” I became obsessed with the song over the summer as I was lamenting lost puppy love. One of the first websites I used streaming media on was Gavin’s official website, where I watched the video for You, Me, and World War Three and got to learn a bit of his background (seems him and the U2 guys are tight; I think that had something to do with his song being on the M:I record, as Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen of U2 performed the Mission: Impossible theme for the movie). He was the first artist I really researched on the Internet, and would certainly not be the last. It was a treat to acquire Shag Tobacco this week — it’s a pretty neat album, kind of out there.

Other notes from this Thursday, now etched into history:

  • Regardless of your stance on Anna Nicole Smith, the ultimate tragedy in her death is that her six-month-old daughter is motherless and there’s no telling who the father is. Sick, unfortunate circumstances. It seems a decent-scale investigation is unfolding, too.
  • Wade Phillips is the new Cowboys coach. Seems ESPN’s analysts don’t like the move much — but would Norv Turner really have been any better? For that matter, what will Marty Schottenheimer do about his top assistants? Yikes!
  • You know, if you leave astronauts up in cramped spaces long enough, things will eventually happen. The Lisa Nowak Affair was probably bound to happen — perhaps not quite with the 36-hour-drives and Pampers involved, but still…talk about a real “anti-gravity love song” (with apologies to Incubus).
  • Seems WordPress 2.1 changed things up a bit with regards to displaying blog posts — it no longer permits me to restrict by the number of days to view, but rather show the x number of last posts. The WP 2.1 installer set this number to five, which reflected my previous number of days to allow. I’m not sure I’m too thrilled with this change — what if I blog a bunch later today? Forget catching the last several days’ worth of posts. I’ve always had five days of posts since the old Realm days, so a workaround appears to be in order here.
  • I’ve got my eyes set on a Samsung Blackjack, but perhaps I should hold off and see what devices will run on the upcoming Windows Mobile 6? All indications are that this is a fantastic release. Perhaps Samsung will do an upgrade for Blackjack customers…haha. I don’t think firmware upgrades of that magnitude have ever happened before. No time like the present to buck a trend, though. ;) WM6 looks really good, and I just might wait for it.

Tomorrow will be a frantic Friday, I’m sure, but I’m going to try and reestablish a little bit of blogging rhythm and at least squeeze in a post or two tomorrow. If not, happy Friday!