Just because I don’t post here, doesn’t mean you can steal my stuff…

Every so often I google keywords from some of my older stuff, and recently I’ve been seeing it show up in some unusual places.  So I send a cease and desist email and magically stuff tends to disappear as fast as it shows up.

But this week I’ve have content theft taken to a new level.  Through my hosting provider I got an email, ostensibly from the author of this blog, claiming that someone wanted their domain and blog restored to them.  Thankfully, Dreamhost not only laughed them off, they gave me the relevant information to deal with it legally.

I’ve owned this domain and this blog since inception (and I don’t mean the movie).  No one had this domain before me.  This is not my first blog, and I have friends and readers who remember my first faltering foray into blogging over on blogger all those years ago.

I do still blog, I just don’t do it here.

What surprised me is that someone is claiming to be me, on another blog and in comments.  I don’t know why they want to claim to be me…I’m not a particularly great set of life experiences to emulate…but let me say categorically and without any ambiguity, if you see someone claiming to be deadcharming (or Dead Charming) of deadcharming.com or deadcharming.wordpress.com they probably aren’t me.  I blog at mybadpants.com and I comment as Bad Pants pretty much exclusively.

The blog-o-sphere is a pretty small place really, trying to pretend to be someone you’re not isn’t worth the time and effort, especially when people will call you on it.

While I realize that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, persona-hijacking is just creepy.  And claiming you wrote someone else’s stuff makes you an ass hole.

To take any further mystery out of this blog or it’s authorship, let me go on record:  My name (as in my legal name) is Nicholas Rogers and I currently live in Atlanta, GA after a job transfer from Portland, OR.

Persons named (or associated with someone named) “Chad” from Texas are not, nor have they ever been associated IN ANY WAY with this or any other writing by Mister Oregon, Dead Charming or Bad Pants in this or any other parallel universe.

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Please help someone who could use some help

Someone whom I don’t know personally (or even particularly impersonally) in any way, shape, form or format has recently found herself in the middle of a life-changing situation.  As is so often the case with life changing situations, it has had a profound financial effect on her, and created a profound opportunity.

I realize I haven’t posted anything in the last eight months, and yet this blog still sees something like 40-50 hits a day on a slow day; so perhaps I should leverage that traffic for a good cause. This person has put up a post directing people to a process that lets them buy some wonderful fiction, and she gets a small (nearly trivial) amount of financial help.  Everybody wins.

If you like good writing, have a few measly bucks to spare, and like helping out a fellow decent human being in the process, please visit Crisitunity’s blog post about the issue.

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Twenty questions I almost didn’t answer

Maleesha over at Binary Trash tagged me with a meme last week…and I almost refused to do it based on the second rule of the game (because saying I HAVE to do something is pretty much the fastest way to make me NOT do something).  BUT, because it’s Maleesha, I’m going to go ahead and answer the questions, but I refuse to tag anyone else.  If you like it, steal it.  If you don’t, then no harm done.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?

I’ve been the betrayer and the betrayed.  I didn’t handle either with much aplomb.  Hell, both ended up being monumental fuck-ups.  If it happened again?  Who knows, the same as last time, totally different?  If we could predict life with that kind of accuracy, no one would need to go through the motions of actually living it.

2. If you have a dream you’d like to come true, what is it?

Full-Time professional writer.  Novelist to be precise.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?

No one.  I’m bordering on pacifist.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?

Spend it.  Trust me, it’s what I’m good at.

5. Will your best friend always be your best friend?

Probably not.  Deep friendships are essentially transitional and transitory for me.  At least on the “best” friend level…I have friends that I’ve known for decades.  But my closest friends now are people I’ve known for less then ten years.  I can’t predict what the future holds.

6. Have you ever been in love with two people at once?

I thought so at the time, more than once, and it did real damage to my ability to define and perceive love, both in me and from others.

7. How long would you wait for someone you really loved?

I can’t categorically say “forever” but I can confidently say “a really long time.”

8. If you won the lottery, would you quit your job?

Depends on which job I had when I won…

9. Who is on your celebrity top 5…you know, the ones…that if you ever had an opportunity…

As stupid as this is going to sound, this question always makes me uncomfortable.  I tend to think of celebrities as “people too” and therefore, I think of them as having pre-existing exclusive relationships…so my answer is based on the assumption that I’m single, they’re single, and everyone is free to act as they chose at this magical moment in time.

1) Kiera Knightly – Because she’s beautiful, and she’ll always be just a little bit Elizabeth Bennet and a little bit Elizabeth Swann (and I’m a nerd).

2) Lúcia Moniz (she played housekeeper/waitress Aurélia in “Love Actually”) – I’d learn Portuguese for this woman too.

3) Regina Spektor – If the most physical thing we did was talk and she sang to me, I’m pretty sure that would still be a night beyond imagining.

4) Parminder Nagra (Dr. Neela on ER and co-starred with Kiera Knightly in “Bend it Like Beckham”) – One of the most physically attractive women in the world.

5) Sadly, I ran out of ideas and had to think about this for a while.  I decided no. 5 would be Kendra Todd (Season 3 winner of “The Apprentice” and host of HGTV’s “My House is Worth What?”) – She’s attractive, intelligent and she got her BA in Linguistics.  She’s a hot nerd.  Seriously, that’s hot.

10. What sucks the life out of you?

Leeches and Mosquitos.  Never trust an insect with a proboscis or teeth.

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?

This joke’s been overplayed, but I agree with everyone else that said visually/with my eyes/in a mirror/etc.

12. What’s your greatest fear/phobia?

Dying unexpectedly.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

She cracks me up and makes me think…good traits to have.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?

Single and rich.  I’ve been married and poor, and that sucked on several levels.  If I only get to pick between the two extremes, I’ll take the money.  (notice it didn’t say anything about HAPPILY married…that kind of missing adjective scares me.)

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Resist the urge to hit the alarm clock really REALLY hard.

16. Would you give all in a relationship?

I have.  Would I again?  I don’t know…hence the pensive nature of my musings on love and life and loss and starting again.

17. Is your career vitally important to you?

Depends on which career you mean.  Do you mean a specific career path?  Being a writer is vital, being a project-managing-tech-monkey-tax-dude…not so much.

18. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing the someone has done?

I have once, I expect I’d be able to again.

19. Do you prefer being single or having a relationship?

I am tragically incapable of being single.  I’m really not good at it.  At all.

20. List 6 people to tag

Not gonna do it.

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The kind of morning that lasts all afternoon

I sufferer from a terrible stereotype, I’m a northwest liberal who wears Birkenstocks. 

In my defense, I’ve never worn socks with them that I can remember, but I wouldn’t put that past me either.  I’m prone to throwing on my trusty pair of Arizona (two strap) dark brown leather Birks and heading off into whatever weather is on the other side of my front door.

They go with everything: jeans, shorts, jean-shorts, some pairs of khakis…oh hell, who are we kidding, ALL pairs of khakis…they’re the perfect footwear.

Now, in point-of-fact I do NOT wear birks with my slacks to the office or client sites, but I have no compunctions about wearing them out in a casual setting…pretty much ANY casual setting.

What they just don’t go well with is a Northwest Winter.  For years, I’ve pretty much ignored the weather and just worn my Birks.  Hot and dry?  Perfect.  Rain?  no big deal.  Snow?  it doesn’t snow that much around here, and I have boots as a backup for those days anyway.

But there’s always this point in every year where the weather turns against me, where the rain sets in and the damp takes over.  I’ve never really cared before, but today was different.  Today things changed.

I woke up this morning and fall was in the air.  Falling cold and damp from the sky to be specific.  Fall was puddling up in the parking lot, and for the first time I can remember, I actually cared if I walked through it.

I commute about 35 miles (one way) in to my office, and from my driveway to the parking space, my wipers were on the top intermittent setting.  Not quite a mist, not really raining, just enough to make everything damp, slow up traffic, and deliver the deathblow to a tenacious summer.

When I opened the door of the truck and looked down, there was an inch-deep pool of fall, waiting to drench my Birks and make my hike to the front door a soggy mess.  For the first time in years, I regretted my loving commitment to my Birkenstocks.  This might not seem like much, but for me this is a watershed moment.

Birks have been a defining element of my self-image.  When I think of myself in the abstract, I think of myself in a pair of Birks. 

Comfortable.  Casual.  Understated.  Unpretentious.

At 9:11 am this morning, My self-image met my rational side, and my rational side said “grow up junior, you need a decent pair of shoes.”

I suspect this foretells more changes than just my footwear, but on my way home tonight I’m just gonna start with some new shoes.

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The Rumors of My Demise…

I am NOT, as many of you have suspected, dead in a ditch somewhere.

I HAVE been essentially without internet for almost two weeks. Between traveling for work, hurricane Ike, more traveling for work, and the complete lack of internet at client sites and in hotels (SERIOUSLY?!?! who doesn’t have internet in their hotel in the 21st century???), I’ve been pretty much absent from the internet and the blog-o-sphere and the webs and whatever else comprises the interconnected communication habits of the human species.

Can you tell I’ve been without an outlet for creative writing for days???

…Anyway, I’m alive, I’m working hard, and I’ll be back next week or so. Never fear, Dead Charming isn’t dead yet.

p.s. The Apple iPhone 3G is the single coolest device ever invented. Email, Web, Phone…and now WordPress…I am LOVING this thing.

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And the award goes to…

So, a week ago, Lara over at Life, the Ongoing Education gave me an award!

brilliantweblogaward

First of all, I’m honored to be nominated and I’m terribly embarrassed that it took me this long to post about it.  It’s not because of a lack of appreciation, I promise.

I have to admit, this is a) the first award I’ve ever been given for writing what’s already gonna dribble out of my brain, and b) it’s really almost MORE fun to get to nominate OTHER people for the same thing!

Lara’s nomination mentioned the mental exercise I give her when she reads my posts, and I’m pretty sure she meant that in a “thought provoking” way and not in a “bad foreign film with mistranslated subtitles” kind of way.  At least, that’s what I’m gonna tell myself when I smile and think of myself as thought provoking.

Anyway, the rules appear to stipulate that I must now nominate seven other blogs for this honor and notify them in the comments section of their most recent post, so here goes:

First, I nominate The Taoist Biker because even though I only comment about once out of every ten posts, I read them all and I’m always amazed at how much he can write about, and HOW WELL he can write about it.

Second, I nominate Maleesha at Binary Trash.  In getting this list together I realized just how out of date my blogroll is.  For whatever reason, she seems to be missing from mine (well, not for long now that I’ve realized that) but she’s one of the blogs I look forward to every time I fire up my blog reader.  Her stuff is always very well written, and tends to make me laugh even when I’m not in a “laughing place” in general.

Third, I nominate Crisitunity (also missing from my blogroll).  The amazing thing about her blog is the complete (and almost intense) lack of pretension in what she has to say.  It’s incredibly refreshing to read the thoughts of someone through almost no filter whatsoever.  Which is NOT to say that her blog is unrefined, she is the first person I’ve ever encountered outside of the Sanga who is visibly down the path towards enlightenment in her day to day life.

Fourth, I nominate Alison from That’s What She Blogged because she loves Trixie Beldon more then I do, and I didn’t think that was possible until I met her.  Ok, she’s also insightful, fearless, well read and has excellent taste in men too.

Speaking of which…Fifth I nominate Matt of Licensed to Blog because…oh hell, I’ll be honest, he has written a TON of great stuff (see his post about a memory book for his kid), but NOTHING will ever top “I Kissed an Earl” in my book.  I find myself singing that at random and inappropriate times, and I’ve gotten at least a half-dozen of my co-workers stuck on the ear-worm with me.  All I have to say is “squeezed Earl’s buttocks” and six to ten (seemingly) grown men will break down laughing in the middle of a meeting, conference call or client support session.  Really, what more could anyone ask of a blogger then utterly fabulous and slightly homoerotic alternative lyrics to a pretty dismal and very homoerotic pop song?

Sixth, I nominate Kristiane aka The Pilver.  I’ve been following The Pilver off and on for more than a year now, and she’s never once posted something that didn’t either make me smile, make me laugh out loud, or make me think (and after a LOT of consideration, I’m quite sure that the other side of the flat earth really is where Care-a-Lot exists, there’s even photographic proof).

And finally, I nominate Vince of Better Than Sex.  I’m gonna be honest, generally the NYC gay community is essentially as foreign to me as Ukrainian Art House Cinema.  The thing that makes BTS so great is that it really opens my eyes to how basic and universal human love and sexuality really are.  Vince has sworn off sex for 100 days, and he’s blogging about all the things that are better than sex (and some things that definitely are NOT better than sex) until his vow of celibacy is up.  The best post so far (in my humble opinion) is where he talks about going on a silent date at the Cloisters.  Thinking about how everything that he has to say is actually and utterly independent of sexual organs, preconceived notions, or personal prejudices…that’s the moment where my mind is opened a little bit and I realize that the NYC gay community, or the Portland gay community or any other community isn’t really any more foreign than my own backyard and the openness of my own mind.  And that’s pretty much the essence of brilliance, at least for me.

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What I want to be when I grow up?

In 1983 I saw “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” for the first time.  It was on HBO, I was seven-years-old, and I was NOT supposed to watch HBO without my parents permission…which was a rule that got suspended about the moment I discovered “Fraggle Rock” for the first time.

I’d been going to Sabbath-school for long enough to know exactly what the Ark of the Covenant was and why it was important.  I had a reasonable grasp on Nazis, and Egypt, and submarines…and pretty much no idea about sea-planes,  Peruvian idols, Russian drinking games (I remember wondering why that guy fell over from drinking water…what a wuss), or that REALLY cool flying-wing-thing that chopped up that German boxer/mechanic like a giant blender stuck on “puree”…and DAMN did I want to learn about ALL of it after that!!!

From that moment on, I KNEW what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wanted to be Indiana Jones.  While my family environment, my parent’s interests, my education, and my other entertainment choices all contributed to my eventual love of history, and ancient cultures and far away places…I really just wanted to be Indiana Jones.

I remember the moment, when I was probably eight or nine years old, that I learned that my grandparent’s generation had already defeated the Nazis.  I actually felt gypped. The Russians just weren’t as “cool” as the Germans as “bad guys” (although Firefox was awesome). 

In fact, I remember being very confused by the whole East German/Russian connection as a kid, until a member of our church told my fifth-grade class about the day (August 12th, 1961) he, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter went for a Sabbath afternoon walk away from their home in the Soviet Authority Region, and past the border zone to the American Authority Region, almost exactly where Checkpoint Charlie would stand in future years.  Away from their possessions, their family and friends; away from everything they had ever known, and into freedom. 

They took that walk eleven hours before Walter Ulbricht’s order closed the border from east to west Berlin.  Exactly ten years to the day before his brother died in the “death strip” after failing to escape the watchful eyes of East German boarder guards, or the bullets from their automatic rifles.  I will admit that his very personal story, and the way that he told it, has haunted me all of my life.

As does the knowledge that he died of a heart attack at a school function two years before the Berlin Wall fell to crowds of Germans from both sides of the iron curtain and the march of history; and three years before German reunification and his family’s return to their homeland after three decades of exile in America.

His father had fought in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front, specifically in the Siege of Leningrad; and died on the steps of the Reichstag during the Battle of Berlin.  A little bit of time on google will lead you to a picture of a uniformed twelve-year-old boy clutching his dead father under the rifle and leery supervision of a member of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army.  It will also lead you to a picture of Hitler shaking hands with uniformed children in the Hitler Youth corps before the battle, and another of uniformed Hitler Youth being taken as prisoners of war.  Same boy in all three photos.  It’s hard to reconcile Soviet atrocity with German atrocity when both are painted on one child’s face.

One child who eventually survived war, indoctrination into a brotherhood of hatred, five years in a POW camp in Siberia, returning home to Soviet institutionalized poverty for the German people, escape to a foreign country, the death of his sibling in front of the world, and three decades of exile and penitence for the sins of his youth and the sins of his father.

But he didn’t survive high cholesterol long enough to see his country restored, his family reunited or peace and tolerance overcome a half-century of very personal pain.

History hurries for no one, and the reaper doesn’t care what any man deserves.  What the Soviet sickle couldn’t cut down, cholesterol and the grim scythe did.

And, to be honest, THAT haunts me more than anything else that he taught me…

…Anyway…so, no Nazis.

I took Latin by correspondence in high school because it was closer to my future goals then Contemporary Spanish.  I student taught world history because (and I’m quoting my mentor and favorite teacher EVER, who had me teach the class for him) “[I] knew it better than [he] did.”

My parents have degrees in Communications (dad) and two in Art (my mom, one in Fine Art, and one in Design), and two minors history, two in English lit and one in theology and one in philosophy between them.

By the time I was in high-school I had read most, if not all, of their college text books.  Some of those books remain in my personal library to this day.  I LOVED history.  I loved philosophy.  I loved art.  I LOVED literature.

I had already been through a LOT of theology, but I still learned classical and koine (biblical) greek so I could understand exegetical concepts directly, rather than rely on other people’s translations.

High school was entirely dedicated to my goal of being Indiana Jones an archaeologist.  I studied for the ACT (32) and the SAT (1280, 800 Verbal/480 Math) tests PURELY with the intent to get into the schools that would further my quest to be a professor.  I applied to (and was accepted at) Reed College and Amherst College SPECIFICALLY because of the number of Rhodes Scholars each institution had produced (and damn it, I WAS going to spend two years at Oxford).  I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do and EXACTLY how I intended to get there.

Of course, as with all great plans, this one had it’s little bumps.

First, there was the day I spent on a “job shadow” with the director of the Anthropology department of Boise State University.  He was cordial, honest, open and without a doubt the best dose of reality I could have ever had.

Conversely, the reality of hearing about what life is like as a perpetual student working up to a doctorate and a chance to be an assistant professor for 10-15 years while waiting for one of the 150 employed archaeologists in America to DIE and create a job opening that the other 500 assistant professors (who are all waiting for the same thing) will all compete with you for…it was all sounding a bit grim.

He left out the parts where you gallop around the world, finding treasures, seducing women, and generally saving the free world from the Wrath of God…which seemed like important details.

Hell, the fact was you only ran a dig once every five years at best, and even that was unlikely until you were an established voice in the academic community.  I didn’t want to establish my academic voice, I wanted to shoot Arabian swordsmen and steal religious icons from indigenous Peruvian tribes…for the greater good and posterity of course.

Beyond all that, there was another major bump in the road…no matter how much you plan.  No matter how hard you research, and map out, and plot your course, you can’t control something as simple as the human heart.

By the end of my Senior year of high school, I’d given mine to someone else and I really didn’t want anything to come between us.  Not even my dreams of being Indiana Jones.

By the end of my Freshman year of college, our marriage was just a few months away, and we decided that both of us being in college just wasn’t financially viable…so I got a job.  Well, we both had jobs, I just focused more on “a career” and less on short term goals.

Before long, that COBOL programming class came in handy and I ended up working in IT for state government.

I never set foot on a college campus again, except for the occasional sporting event or musical performance.  While I have considered going back to school and getting a degree or two…I’ve given up my plans to be Indiana Jones.

My “day job” path has gone far better than I could have ever hoped.  I have a great job with a great company.  I’m a “Senior Technical Consultant” and a “Project Manager” and a “Primary Knowledge Expert” and a “Systems and Business Analyst and Solutions Designer” depending on the needs of the project(s) I happen to be working on.

Let’s be up front, I get paid very well, the benefits are great, I like the people I work for and the people I work with, and above all I like the work I’m doing.  But it’s also not what I wanted to be doing when I grew up.  I realize that shouldn’t matter, but I think about it at night when I’m driving home.

See, there’s one other thing I wanted to be when I grew up…I wanted to be an author like my mom.

My mom wrote almost twenty novels for Pocket Books and St. Martins Press from the time I was seven until I was twenty seven.  She won awards, had genre bestsellers, spoke at conventions and went on book-signing tours across the pacific northwest.

When I was in high school, the fact that my mom wrote historical and/or fantasy romance novels wasn’t always a conversation I wanted to have…but as an adult I can’t begin to tell you how cool I think it is.

I didn’t really identify it as a kid, but since I was seven I’ve always believed that was the coolest job ever.  Cooler than Indiana Jones.

I’ve always written.  It’s something that’s simply a part of my physical make-up.  I can’t just “not write,” even if I wanted to.  I make up stories in my head constantly.  Plots and characters and driving factors and motivations and places and things…I wish I could turn it off sometimes, but my imagination isn’t under my control.

I wrote my first novel when I was in the eighth grade.  It was about 55K words, and it was HORRIBLE.  I still have it.  Think “The Mummy” meets “Time Bandits” meets a very thinly veiled “Star Wars” via the writing skills of a twelve-year-old.

I didn’t write another novel for almost two decades, but I spent many MANY hours laying the groundwork.

I also wrote shorter pieces that have since been published.  For money and everything.  And while at one level I know that makes me “a writer,” I just won’t feel it until I can hold a book in my hand.

And here’s a little secret, I’m horribly self-conscious about my writing.  The greatest challenge of my professional life was the moment I wrapped up a synopsis and three chapters and stuck it in the mail…off to the slush-pile and a brief chance at life.

What do I want to be when I grow up?  I want to be an author like my mommy.

Because she’s cooler than Indiana Jones.

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First I shuffled, now here’s the deal…

Ok, so I participated in the shuffle/lyrics meme, and now it’s time to reveal the answers.

  1. “Silence” by Delerium fea. Sarah McLachlan
    from Karma

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  2. “I Burn for You” by Sting
    from Bring on the Night

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  3. “Sampson” by Regina Spektor
    from Begin to Hope

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  4. “Why Georgia” by John Mayer
    from Room for Squares

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  5. “Thank U” by Alanis Morissette
    from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

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  6. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 – First Movement (Allegro)
    by Philip Pickett and New London Consort

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  7. “Darkness” by The Police
    from Ghost In The Machine

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  8. “Dream On” by Aerosmith
    from Aerosmith

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  9. “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam
    from Ten

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  10. “Magic” by Colbie Caillat
    from Coco
     
    [Apparently I don't have this mp3 on the server...I'll fix this ASAP]
     
  11. “I Will Possess Your Heart” by Death Cab for Cutie
    from Narrow Stairs

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  12. “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol
    from Eyes Open

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  13. “All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints” by Paul Simon
    from Graceland

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  14. “Don’t Let Go” by Bryan Adams (With Sarah McLachlan)
    from the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack

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  15. Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade – IV Movement – “Festival at Baghdad”
    by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic

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  16. “Porcelain” by Moby
    from Play

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  17. “Old Blue Chair” by Kenny Chesney
    from Be As You Are

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  18. “Breakdown” by Jack Johnson
    from In Between Dreams

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  19. “Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos
    from Little Earthquakes

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  20. “Idaho” by Train
    from Train

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The Truffle Shuffle

Actually, this isn’t about The Goonies, even though I really love that movie…No, this is me stealing another meme because I’m struggling to finish the “real” posts in my queue and I need to post SOMETHING or no one will bother coming back here.

So, without further ado, here’s a music meme I stole from Taoist Biker and Lara David.

The rules are simple:

  • Put your MP3 player on shuffle for ALL songs.
  • Post the first four lines from the first twenty songs that play, no matter how embarrassing; skip repeat artists.
  • Let everyone guess in the comments what songs and artists are on the list.
  • Remind everyone NOT to be dirty rotten cheaters who google the answers.

I’m not embarrassed by any of my end results, but I did have a problem where several of my random items were instrumental…I thought about it for a while and decided that I’d post an mp3 of those songs, and let people guess the composer and title.

  1. Give me release, witness me
    I am outside, give me peace
    Heaven holds a sense of wonder
    and I wanted to believe that I’d get caught up when the rage in me subsides
     
  2. Now that I have found you
    in the cool of your evening smile
    the shade of your parasol
    and your love flows through me
     
  3. You are my sweetest downfall
    I loved you first, I loved you first
    Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
    I have to go, I have to go
     
  4. I am driving up 85 in the
    kind of morning that lasts all afternoon
    just stuck inside the gloom.
    Four more exits to my apartment but
     
  5. how ’bout getting off of these antibiotics
    how ’bout stopping eating when I’m full up
    how ’bout them transparent dangling carrots
    how ’bout that ever elusive kudo
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  7. I can dream up schemes when I’m sitting in my seat
    I don’t see any flaws ’til I get to my feet
    I wish I never woke up this morning
    Life was easy when it was boring
     
  8. Every time I look in the mirror
    all these lines on my face getting clearer
    the past is gone
    it goes by like dusk to dawn
     
  9. At home drawing pictures of mountain tops
    with him on top, lemon yellow sun, arms raised in a “V”
    and the dead lay in pools of maroon below.
    Daddy didn’t give attention
     
  10. You’ve got magic inside your finger tips
    it’s leaking out all over my skin.
    Every time that I get close to you
    you’re making me weak with
     
  11. How I wish you could see the potential,
    the potential of you and me.
    It’s like a book elegantly bound,
    but in a language that you can’t read just yet.
     
  12. We’ll do it all, everything, on our own.
    We don’t need anything, or anyone.
    If I lay here, if I just lay here,
    would you lie with me and just forget the world?
     
  13. Over the mountain
    Down in the valley
    Lives a former talk-show host
    Everybody knows his name
     
  14. I can’t believe this moment’s come
    It’s so incredible that we’re alone
    There’s so much to be said and done
    It’s impossible not to be overcome
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  16. In my dreams I’m dying all the time
    Then I wake, it’s kaleidoscopic mind
    I never meant to hurt you
    I never meant to lie
     
  17. There’s a blue rocking chair, sitting in the sand.
    Weathered by the storms and well oiled hands.
    It sways back and fourth with the help of the winds.
    It seems to always be there, like an old trusted friend.
     
  18. I hope this old train breaks down
    then I could take a walk around
    and see what there is to see
    time is just a melody.
     
  19. Excuse me, but can I be you for a while?
    My dog won’t bite if you sit real still.
    I got the anti-Christ in the kitchen yellin’ at me again.
    Yeah I can hear that.
     
  20. Texas, are you my friend?  You live so close to me.
    Texas, are you my friend?  ‘Cause I’m afraid of you.
    Hey, Maine! Hey, you’re a little to high for me.
    And F-L-A, you’re just a little too low.

Meme
Music

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"Houston, the Eagle has landed…"

Ok, so it’s not quite as big a deal as a man on the moon, nor was it REALLY as technically difficult (although…there were moments…), but the accomplishment feels just as awesome right now.

I do believe I can declare the transition to deadcharming.com COMPLETE!

If your blog readers, rss feeds, old links, past bookmarks, or any other gizmo designed to get you here quickly (and we ALL know you want to be here ASAP!) doesn’t work for any reason, drop a comment here and we’ll see what we can do.

If you can’t get here and you can’t read this for any reason, PLEASE leave a comment ASAP.

[edit: Honest-to-God that last joke was funny when it crossed my brain...so...sorry about that...]

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