Lit City Blues

CD #51, Untitled, all repeats except for Jay Z & Alicia Keys- Empire State of Mind Cake- Short Skirt Long Jacket Van Morrison- Baby Please Don't Go John Lennon- Stand By Me CD #52, Untitled (pretty close to being an original CD! The Missus made this one, I'm pretty sure. 1 repeat.) Beck- Loser Bruce Springsteen- Born To Run Fall Out Boy- The Take Over, The Break's Over The Format-Let's Make This Moment A Crime Green Day- Basket Case Janis Joplin- Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) Kaiser Chiefs- Ruby Kanye West-Stronger The Killers- Mr. Brightside Jet- Cold Hard Bitch OK Go- Do What You Want Prince- Get Off Jay Z and Rihanna- Umberella Sex Pistols- Anarchy In The UK Sublime- Santeria U2-Angel Of Harlem The Vapors- I'm Turning Japanese Weezer- Undone (The Sweater Song) White Stripes-Icky Thump CD #53, Untitled, repeats except for: Earth, Wind and Fire- September Rolling Stones- All Down The Line The Clash- White Man (In Hammersmith Palai...

It's another 'Lost Weekend' In Vexillology, but this time it's a particularly timely one- what with North Korea and South Korea in the news so much of late, I figured what better time to go back into the mists of cyberspace to take a look at not one, but both Koreas.   First up, South Korea : The national flag and ensign of the Republic of Korea (South Korea's official name), it's been adopted a few times. January 27, 1883 it was adopted by the Korean Empire and then after Japanese Occupation and a couple of world wars it was adopted again with August 15th, 1948 upon the foundation of the Republic of Korea and an updated version was adopted in October 1997. What's the 4-1-1 on this flag? Well, the background is white, which is a traditional Korean color that represents peace and purity. The yin-yang in the center represents the balance of the universe. The blue half stands for the negative cosmic forces and the red for the opposing positive forces. Wher...

We're back with some Irish whiskey- and to be honest, I can't remember why I purchased this particular bottle of whiskey, but there was a reason. I think perhaps it was for a recipe of some kind that I was working on, but it totally escapes me at the moment. (Or maybe it was just to have a bottle of Irish whiskey in the house for Saint Patrick's Day? Could it have been that simple.) Anyway, for whatever the reason, I settled on 2 Gingers and it turned out to be a decent buy. I haven't really explored too much of Irish whiskey beyond the usual suspects of Jameson and Bushmills, so it was nice to break out and spread my wings a little bit and try something new. So what's the deal with 2 Gingers? It's from Minnesota... yeah... that was kind of a puzzlement to me as well. But Minnesota bar owner and businessman Kieran Folliard was inspired by his fiery haired mother and aunt (Mary and Delia) to found 2 Gingers. So it claims Minnesota as it's home, but was f...

So, the build-up to the French Presidential election was sort of muted by the sudden announcement of a snap election for the UK to be held on June the 8th, British Prime Minister Theresa May is apparently seeking a wider mandate to handle Brexit- but before we get to that, let's talk France: So, it's Macron vs. Le Pen for Round 2 of the election, set for May 7th and I find myself curiously unwilling to make a prediction on this election. It's probably going to be Macron. Probably. The French have a sensible tendency to close ranks against the National Front in second round elections at all levels of their Republic, so I don't see a good reason why that wouldn't happen again. And yet...  the first round was kind of a train wreck and a half- Macron won with 24.01% of the vote, Le Pen following with 21.3% but after that you had Fillon at 20.01% and Melenchon with 19.58% right behind them. The top four candidates were pretty much in a photo finish here, with Macro...

Watched On: Redbox (literally the day before it hit Netflix. Grrrrr...) Released: 2016 Starring: Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei, Matthew McConaughey Rotten Tomatoes: 97% Pick: Mine  This was the second time that I had tried to watch this movie and happily, this was the successful time- freakishly, despite a time lapse of some months (this movie proved to be too scary for Little Man- or more precisely, the freaky underwater scenes with the gigantic eyeballs were a bridge too far for him) the DVD player new exactly where we had left off in the movie, which...  disturbed me a little bit. (How did it know? Wasn't like it was the same DVD- had to be a different DVD from a different Redbox and all that jazz.  Technology, man. It's alive and it's going to kill us all someday.) But anyway: Kubo and the Two Strings is the story of Kubo, a one-eyed young boy who cares for his  mother in a cave atop a mountain next to a vi...

So, on this date in the year 1500 or so, a Portuguese fleet saw this: Obviously, they weren't on land when they saw it- they were at see, but this is Monte Pascoal which is on the Northeast Coast of Brazil in state of Bahia- and is believed to be the first chunk of Brazil ever seen by Europeans- which is why today is Discovery Day down in Brazil and why This Week In Vexillology, we're dipping back into Brazilian State Flags to take a look at the flag of Bahia : Adopted on June 11th, 1960 as the state flag, it's influences spring from what this website calls 'a synthesis of libertarian ideals' which seems pretty close to the mark. The colors recall the 1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates - which was a slave rebellion that engulfed the region which was separatist and looking to free slaves and all the other classes that were oppressed or discriminated by the colonial society in the state. The triangle recalls another great revolt from the decade prior- the Inconfiden...

So, true confession time: I had never listened to a single Phish album before I listened to this one. I don't know what it was- whether it was the fact that Dave Matthews was more radio friendly and I never listened to alternative college radio back in the day so Phish was just one of those bands I just assumed was tasty and delicious like the ice cream and never actually sat down and listened to them. But I decided that no survey of music or albums or whatever the hell this thing I've been trying to do for seven years now is would be complete without listening to one Phish album, so one Google search for 'where should I start with Phish' and one Reddit thread later, I found myself listening to A Picture of Nectar , which, I was surprise to learn was their first major studio release. ( Wiki-Tangent: they've been kicking since December 1983, three months after I was born. And in a weird twist of something- fate, perhaps? My family would begin our long, strange Ame...