It's hard to keep up with all the ways to interact on the internet these days. But apparently President Obama is having no trouble with that.
He went on reddit.com the other day for an AMA session. Apparently that stands for Ask Me Anything. Users were allowed to ask him anything, but he didn't wind up answering all the questions.
So I thought I would do the president a favor and answer on his behalf.
This is best experienced while hearing Barack's voice in your head on the answers.
Q. Who is best pony?
A. Gumby's friend Pokey. I admire his flexibility.
Q. What is your favorite cheese?
A. Ooh, there all so good. Especially the ones from swing states like Wisconsin. But I would have to say Caesario. No wait, that's a font.
Q. When will the United States officially move to the metric system?
A. We're off to a good start with one and two liter bottles of soft drinks. We don't want to rush things.
Q. Hey Mr. Obama, can you tell us something we're not supposed to know?
A. No, I can't do that.
Q. If you were a potato, what kind would you be?
A. Well, Michelle calls me her sweet potato. I yam what I yam.
So yesterday I gave you a mini-playlist of songs about hurricanes. How did I forget this one?
Okay, it's not about hurricanes. It's a song called "Oh Babe What Would You Say." And despite the fact that the singer sounds EXACTLY like Carol Channing, it's actually a dude named Hurricane Smith.
I don't remember if this was on the World's Worst iPod or not, but it should have been. It's horrible.
It went all the way to #3 on the charts in the United States in 1972.
(Beatle fans may remember that before he made this horrendous song, Norman "Hurricane" Smith was a studio engineer who engineers all the Beatles albums until 1965).
Hurricanes are a powerful force of nature that have been inspiring musicians for decades.
Here are a few of my favorities.
Hurricane Season by Billy Pilgrim. This came out in the early 1990's. Featuring Kristian Bush, who's now in the country duo Sugarland.
Walkin' In a Hurricane from John Fogerty's amazing "Blue Moon Swamp" record. I was lucky enough to see him live twice when he was on tour supporting the album.
And of course we can't forget Neil Young's Like A Hurricane! Check out how young he looks in this video.
Okay--here's one more. Rock You Like A Hurricane by the Scorpions.
She's apparently Facebook's oldest user, at the age of 101. Apparently Facebook applauds use of their social networking site by older folks, as they invited Ms. Detlor to Facebook headquarters and gave her a tour.
So that story got me to thinking. My dad, if he were still alive, would be 93 years old. If he could handle the technology of Facebook, what would his posts look like?
First of all, I'm thinking that this would be his profile picture.
On his profile, he'd probably write something like "what are you, a cop?"
Other features:
A whole album of photos dedicated to the attractive meteorogists on The Weather Channel.
A link to an article about how to get soft boiled egg residue off bowls that have been sitting on the counter for two days.
Quotes from John F. Kennedy, Fighting Bob LaFollette, and Mo Udall.
Some of his posts might look like this:
"Banana? Don't mind if I do."
"If you can't dazzle 'em with your brilliance, baffle 'em with bullsh**."
"The Today Show hasn't been the same since Frank McGee left."
"No I won't water your damn farmville crops. I'll crop you right over the head."
It's hard to believe it's been 22 years since we lost Stevie Ray Vaughan in that helicopter crash at Alpine Valley.
Even though Vaughan was Texas through and through, he will always be linked to Wisconsin, because it's where he died and played his final two concerts.
I've met so many people who went to one of the last two shows and were blown away by the music. I had thought about going, but decided instead to go to a play at American Players' Theatre. I figured I'd catch him the next time he came around.
The concert was kind of like a mini-Crossroads Guitar Festival, with performances not only from Stevie Ray Vaughan, but also Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Stevie Ray's big brother Jimmie Vaughan.
I don't think this video is from Alpine, but this is the same lineup and the song that was the final jam at both shows.
Idea drought by Kitty Dunn,posted Aug 23 2012 12:37PM
Has the well of witty and clever run dry?
I was trying to think of something to blog about today and just wasn't feeling inspired. It would be so much easier if someone else would tell me what to write about.
That's when I typed this into google: random blog topic generator.
And wouldn't you know it, several exist in that wild wild web of internet.
I picked this one, and here are some of the suggestions it came up with:
9 Things I Hate About Pitas
I Hate Counting Crows
I Could Do Without Iowa
The Future of Meat
I Can't Get Enough of Badminton
Now I'm sure I could come up with a lot of great material on all of those topics (expect 9 Things I Hate About Pitas, I love pitas!), but I think I'll have to roll the ideas around in my head a little longer.
Look for "The Future of Meat" coming soon!
Right now I'm too busy now looking at the same website's "Hipster Vampire Baby Name Generator."
For some reason which I don't feel like googling, today is National Radio Day. So I thought I'd do a little reminiscing about the first radios I listened to when I was a kid.
Most of our radio listening was done in the kitchen..and the radio was a big one and sat on top of the refrigerator. What was great about this from my parents' perspective, is that the kids were too short to change the station. This was especially annoying during the noon hour because the AM station my dad listened to had one hour of news from 12 to 1, complete with obituaries.
Little did I know at the time, I eventually worked at that radio station and got to read the news during that broadcast..including the obits!
But I digress. The first real radio I had was a small GE transistor radio, like the one pictured above. I won it for selling magazine subscriptions for school. After I got it sometime in junior high, I carried that radio all over the place with me.
It was my background music while I sunbathed in the backyard. At the beach. Even on the front porch of my house when I was hanging out with friends.
It was really a great little radio. I wish I still had it! While searching for an image of it online, I found one had sold on ebay recently for $8.50. I wish I had known...I would have offered at least nine bucks.
I was two when the Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan Show, and I got as carried away about the Beatles as every one else. I just had to have a guitar!
I had a pretty good assortment of toy guitars over the years, like the one above. I remember there was another one that you could wind up and it played music..it may have had Mickey Mouse on it. And one of my plastic toy guitars ended up El Kabonged on the clothesline post by neighbor Kenny.
My first REAL guitar was a half-sized Stella By Harmony, a very nice Made In USA acoustic that I got when I was around ten or eleven. Favorite memory regarding that guitar: playing along with a bunch of other pint sized guitarists at the Stevens Point Rec Dept during summer group lessons. The teacher was a young hippy type named John who printed out mimeographed sheets of song lyrics and chords for us to practice.
Oh how I wish I could go back in time and videotape the group of us strumming along to "Cover of the Rolling Stone." I can't imagine we knew what we were singing about when we sang the line "Got an old lady name of Cocaine Katy who embroiders on my jeans.."
I have had a few guitars in my adult life, and currently own two acoustics. I know some chords but my general lack of rhythm and laziness have prevented me from being even adequate at playing guitar.
Maybe someday I'll get around to working on my playing. In the meantime I'll just have to be content with listening and watching all the really amazing guitar players that are out there.
Sorry I've been a bit remiss at posting my annual list of funny/bizarre beer names from the Great Taste of the Midwest, which happened Saturday at Olin Park.
It seems brewers have a sense of humor.
Here's my ilst, in no particular order.
1. Scary Jesus Rockstar from Dark Horse Brewing in Marshall MI.
2. Snaggletooth Bandana-Haymarket Pub and Brewery in Chicago IL
3. Funky Sweat. and Buffalo Sweat from Tall Grass Brewing in Manhattan, KS
4. Really Cool Waterslides from 3 Sheeps In Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
5. O'tay Panky, and Citra Ass Back Down from Against the Grain in Louisville, Kentucky.
I think Really Cool Waterslides takes the prize for Best Beer that Must Have Been Named While On Vacation in the Dells, and Citra Ass Back Down just might take the award for Funniest Damn Beer Name Ever!
How did these beers taste? How should I know? Was I supposed to take notes?
This is the time of the year when I usually hit the streets looking for treasures left on the curb by students who are moving from one apartment to another.
But sadly, the city has really ramped up its efforts to clean the streets of all debris, and to encourage tenants to donate useable items to actual charities.
While I usually applaud support of local charities...I must ask...WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?
Oh well, at least I had some fun, and found some great stuff, while the opportunity lasted.
If you've got nothing else to do, check out this video my old friend "Star Cinema Steve" helped me make back in 2008.
Who are my favorite guitar players? On the top of the list I'd have to put Neil Young and George Harrison. Of course Jimi and Stevie were pretty good too.
But there are a couple that make my list that you may not have heard of. Quite frankly, until I met my guitar player boyfriend Mike, I hadn't heard of them either.
Rory Gallagher was an Irish guitar player who didn't gain much more than a cult following when he was alive. (He died after complications from a liver transplant in 1995 at the age of 47.)
Rory's first band was called Taste and John Lennon was a big fan! Taste opened for Blind Faith on their one and only U.S. tour!
Rory didn't tour much in the United States as a solo act, and never even released a single..so radio airplay was pretty much non-existent. But somehow guitar players like Mike found out about him and Mike even got to see him live, when he played the Dane County Coliseum opening for Rush (in 1982).
This is the song he opened with at that Madison show.
The other guitar player is on the other end of the spectrum musically. Roy Buchanan was known for his mastery of the Fender Telecaster. He gained national popularity after PBS aired a special called Introducing Roy Buchanan (sometimes known as The Best Unknown Guitarist in the World.).
Sadly, Roy had his demons and hung himself in jail in 1988, but he left some pretty incredible music, influencing every one from Gary Moore to Jeff Beck.
I collect old board games..and I especially like ones that tie in to TV or movies, and games that I remember from when I was growing up.
The other day I was at an area thrift store when I came across a game called "Limbo Legs."
Despite its 1969 copyright, I had no memory of it. It wasn't in the best shape either, so I wasn't inspired to buy it.
But it did prompt me to do a quick internet search, and I found an old commercial for the game. It didn't jog my memory at all.
I think the game is misleading...because you're not limboing at all. You're jumping over something rather than going under it. It also looks like an accident waiting to happen.
And on the youtube page for the video, one commenter had an interesting idea. He said it would "100X better with rotating knife blades."
This one comes from Canada, I believe. The family is pretty polite to the deer, and the deer isn't wreaking havoc. He's just kinda checking things out.
I think he left because the TV wasn't on! Maybe he wanted to watch the Olympics.
You've seen paper airplanes before, but I bet you've never seen a fully operational cardboard bike.
An Israeli inventor named Izhar Gafni has a brain that must be firing on more synapses than mine. When he heard a story about some folks who made a canoe out of cardboard, he didn't just say "that's cool" and get immediately distracted.
He wondered if he could make a bicycle out of cardboard, and it turned out he could!
It's pretty amazing. It looks like a bike, is durable, and is cheap to make....with just $9 worth of cardboard! He figures he'll be able to sell them for $80 to $90.
All I know is I would love to have one to ride in Madison's Ride the Drive events! But first I'd have to get a rack and attach it to my cardboard car.
The Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet, and is already beaming back pictures from millions of miles away.
This is an exciting breakthrough for science.
But its effect on me is a little different.
It's making me hungry! Now I want a Mars Candy Bar. Unfortunately, M&M/Mars stopped selling them in the United States in 2002!
Actually, they stopped making them the way I liked them (a candy bar with whole almonds on the top and then covered in milk chocolate) longer ago than that, and switched to the variety with the chopped up nuts inside. To me, this was far inferior to the original recipe.
Now the official story from the candy company is that Snickers Almond is the new Mars Bar. I guess that's probably true...but think of the marketing potential that's being lost. If the Mars bar still existed, you can bet a lot more people would be getting cravings every time the Mars rover is mentioned on the news.
Picnic fun by Kitty Dunn,posted Aug 1 2012 11:44AM
Tired of the same old boring routine at the family picnic?
Don't just slice up that watermelon the old-fashioned way. Do it the way these guys do it. Simply keep wrapping rubber bands around it until it explodes into a cascading shower of sugary goodness.
Yeah, it will be a little messy, but all those picnic ants will love you for it.
Oh..and buy a regular watermelon. Those personal ones are just too teensy.
Today is World Goth Day, a day to celebrate the post-punk, anti-establishment, dark clothes-wearing subculture.
I'm pretty sure I was a Goth for at least for little while, for two reasons.
1) I almost hardly ever wear pastels.
2) I used to...
Hello to all from Nfusion. Another round of challenges has moved beyond us all. Congrats to those of us lucky enough to have survived to this point. Sad to see the others eliminated as they were all very creative and talented. Good Bye to our new friends...
This morning it seemed like just about everyone was in the mood for some Funky Cold Medina...except Kitty. This ridiculous song made it all the way to number 3 in 1989. Jonathan says any song that references advertising dogs from the 80's has got...
Madison's summer music festival season kicks off this weekend with Brat Fest at Willow Island, where there are more bands than you can shake a bratwurst at! Check out the Brat Fest website to plan your itinerary.
Next up is the Marquette...
John Fogerty is making the talk show rounds this week, stopping in to see David Letterman Tuesday and Wednesday, and the ladies of "The View" on Thursday.
He's promoting his new album, "Wrote a Song For Everyone" which comes out next Tuesday...
It's a miracle that both Jonathan and KItty wanted to hear Barry Manilow this morning. They were not alone. Plenty of Fanilow's called in to vote yes. One caller claimed to have seen Manilow in concert 25 times!
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, it is another gorgeous Monday, fit for another great show at the Crystal Corner tonight.
Through locking ourselves in the barn on Irish Lane, tossing some ideas around, as well as a few choice beverages to...
Hey everybody, we were thrown for a loop by the twist this week, but were able to make one of our "oldie but a goldie" songs fit the mold.
We have a few songs that we have played consistently over the years, and we are very happy that we will be...
Today is World Goth Day, a day to celebrate the post-punk, anti-establishment, dark clothes-wearing subculture.
I'm pretty sure I was a Goth for at least for little while, for two reasons.
1) I almost hardly ever wear pastels.
2) I used to...
Hello to all from Nfusion. Another round of challenges has moved beyond us all. Congrats to those of us lucky enough to have survived to this point. Sad to see the others eliminated as they were all very creative and talented. Good Bye to our new friends...
This morning it seemed like just about everyone was in the mood for some Funky Cold Medina...except Kitty. This ridiculous song made it all the way to number 3 in 1989. Jonathan says any song that references advertising dogs from the 80's has got...
Madison's summer music festival season kicks off this weekend with Brat Fest at Willow Island, where there are more bands than you can shake a bratwurst at! Check out the Brat Fest website to plan your itinerary.
Next up is the Marquette...
John Fogerty is making the talk show rounds this week, stopping in to see David Letterman Tuesday and Wednesday, and the ladies of "The View" on Thursday.
He's promoting his new album, "Wrote a Song For Everyone" which comes out next Tuesday...
It's a miracle that both Jonathan and KItty wanted to hear Barry Manilow this morning. They were not alone. Plenty of Fanilow's called in to vote yes. One caller claimed to have seen Manilow in concert 25 times!
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, it is another gorgeous Monday, fit for another great show at the Crystal Corner tonight.
Through locking ourselves in the barn on Irish Lane, tossing some ideas around, as well as a few choice beverages to...
Hey everybody, we were thrown for a loop by the twist this week, but were able to make one of our "oldie but a goldie" songs fit the mold.
We have a few songs that we have played consistently over the years, and we are very happy that we will be...
