Or maybe we know a song is really bad: the lyrics are beyond awful, the singer had enough electronic assistance and back-up singers to start a dozen bands, the tune is obviously trying too hard to be catchy and you MUST resist…but somehow you…can’t…(imagine that last part in the voice of Cpt. Kirk).

Case in point: I just bought a song from itunes from a singer I really can’t stand…really. Lady GaGa is more Lady GagGag to me, and when that new Bad Romance song of hers comes on the radio I shriek like I’ve been bitten by a hyena and clutch at the stereo dial, praying I can get the damn song off before my head explodes from the awfulness. Yet, somehow, I find myself really liking another of her songs. Everytime Paparazzi comes on the radio, I find it still playing in my head hours later – and I like it. So I caved, and for just under $3, bought a series of 4 remixes of the song.  There, I admitted it.

Which made me think of other songs I liked, but if anyone caught me singing it (or rocking out to it in the car, yikes), I wouldn’t deny it, but would feel I had to justify it somehow…or at least acknowledge that I should be embarrassed by my poor taste in music.

So here we go – my list of Top 10 Songs I Should Probably Be Ashamed To Admit I Like

10. As discussed above, Paparazzi by Lady GaGa

9. I am a mom to a 6 year old, which means I have accepted that Hannah Montana is going to be a part of my life. But I admit I really like some of her songs, especially Hoedown Throwdown

Somehow it goes against my principles to like songs from an American Idol winner, but sometimes they are just so darn catchy!  So that reason alone, covers the following 3:

8. That Jordin Sparks song…One Step At a Time

7. Before He Cheats Double Whammy: an American Idol winner AND a country song!

6. Battlefield again by Jordin Sparks – I was kind of irritated by this song when I first heard it, (steal from Pat Benatar much?) but the more I hear it (and it’s rather hard to escape it) the more it grows on me…like a fungus.

5.  1,2,3,4 by Plain White Tees  – Lil’ G really likes this song, and in a year or two, probably could have written the lyrics for it…but I have to say, I like it too.

4. Here I Go Again by Whitesnake Crazy women who go to court for beating their husbands doing  naughty things to the hood of a car aside, there’s something about this song that just makes you want to belt it out at the top of your lungs.

3. Fallout Boy – I Don’t Care Really? Fallout Boy? I know, but I love to run to this song.

2. Taylor Swift – Love Story I suppose I shouldn’t be embarrassed, based on the number of awards this girl has won even Jesus buys her music, which kind of makes me wish I didn’t like it (the whole not wanting to like what everybody else likes).

1. Nickelback….So Far Away Ok, this one I am truly ashamed of…of all the bands out there, Nickelback is one of the biggest jokes – poser rock to the extreme, Google Dolls squared. But this one song, I like it… alot.

I am sure there are more…oh so many more…but those are the ones I could think of right away.

So embrace your bad taste and be proud: what songs do you love when you rather wish you didn’t?

Trying to squeeze NaNo writing time into my day just isn’t happening, so I end up having to make my day last longer, and have been up writing most nights til the clock rolls over on a new day. This is starting to mess with my cognitive abilities I fear, after all – I’m getting older, I can’t knock out a week of all-nighters like in my old college days.

I have had a killer headache for the better part of 2 days and it’s what I blame for the following: in the middle of a scene I was writing just now I had to stop and do a homonym word check, because my former English teacher self just couldn’t remember the answer…and here is what the Google told me:

faun or fawn? Do not confuse the spelling of faun and fawn, which sound similar. A faun is a mythological being depicted as part man and part goat; a fawn is a young deer. Fawn is also an adjective and noun referring to a pale yellowish brown color, as in a fawn jacket, or a verb meaning “try to win favor” or “attempt to please somebody,” as in fawning over the celebrities he interviews.

Miss A is convinced that the Google knows everything…she might be right. Long live the Google.

And in case you’re wondering, “fawn” was the word I needed…no Mr. Tumnus-like dudes hopping around in my story.

Not yet anyways.

If I get a little more over-tired, anything is possible.

Anybody have some good headache remedy suggestions? Or want to send a massage therapist to my house?

Come to think of it, there are many other ways I can finish that sentence:

Yes, I am aware -

- that there is a small hole on the front of my sweater…I got a little carried away with the fuzz buster.

- that it is 11 pm and I still haven’t started my NaNo word count for the day…guess I won’t be getting in bed til after midnight.

- that I didn’t work out today…well,  we needed to work on Miss A’s science project, I had ZZZ stuff to take care of, and a pile of bills to pay.

What are you aware of? Make some excuses for all the things that haven’t been fixed or taken care of – at least you can say you have acknowledged their existence!

-

So I was delighted to discover an on-line source for my “sugar.” Ok, I confess, I didn’t discover it…props to the Queen of Hearts for telling me about it (Thanks Sharon!). I’m talking about Pandora, an on-line personalized radio station. At first I was skeptical, there had to be some kind of annoying or expensive catch…but nope – from what I can tell so far, it is as easy as pie to use and even tastier.

They created a  station for me (just type in a fav song or artist), and I left the site running in the background as I typed away. It was awesome! It really was like someone had peeked in my mind and put together a radio station just for me. I heard many favorites, and many songs I love but forgot about, havent’ heard in forever, and songs I had never heard before that grew on me right away.

I had typed in Tori Amos, and got stuff from her but also songs from Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Cowboy Junkies, Sarah Mclachlan and others – it was a truly great mix (for me anyway, the husband would have been gagging).

There was a Faith Hill perfume commercial that popped on every 5th song or so, but there was an option to mute it out,  so that was hardly a problem.

I am totally sold on Pandora, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to get my spoonful of it and start writing. I gotta crank out 500 words before Lil’ G wakes up.

ETA: They also make cool little widgets, check mine out in the sidebar under Groovin’ Mama.

This is the picture that first caught my eye in the Google image search:

My eye roamed right past it, then my brain said, “Is that an Imperial Walker?!?” and I went back to click on it and found all kinds of awesomeness…like this:

or how about this:

I find this next one hilariously appropriate:

I’ve always liked the original version of the next one, so I really appreciate what a great ps job this is!

This next one I find somehow disturbing…

Well, I could be here all day, but I’ll let you take a look for yourself – visit Worth1000 and see their series of Star Wars Ren contests.

It seems none of my lady book club friends have heard this term.

Butt Rock was first introduced to me as a genre of music by my husband. Based on my knowledge of the genre, I’d say bands like the Scorpions and ACDC are the epitome of butt rockism. Trying to explain  to my book club buds what qualified as butt rock was surprisingly difficult…the husband and I can be channel surfing – hear a song come on and immediately agree that such and such song most certainly belongs in the butt rock genre. Baffled by their complete ignorance to this term, I decided to google it…just now…

Here is my favorite definition as described on Urban Dictionary:

The name “butt rock” has a few possible origins. First, in the 1980s, the musicians in many hair metal bands often dressed in a “glam” style, wearing tight pants that would accentuate their butts. (This may also be the origin of the term “cock rock,” which has the same connotations, as the tight pants would also accentuate the musicians’ crotches.) A less flattering origin for the name is that the lead singers of these bands sounded like they were singing out of their asses. Finally, the term can generally mean that the music sounds like ass.

Dude, turn off that butt rock. We’re not at the gym.

Like ever.

The husband and I try to catch The Soup together on Friday nights, and that pretty much covers my viewing time for the week.

Last night the Soup had a clip from the Daytime Emmy Awards Show involving a Soap opera montage. My husband turns to me and asks, “Do they really show that kind of stuff on t.v. during the day?” To which I replied, “Probably, but I wouldn’t know – I don’t watch soaps.”

And I don’t -  I have neither the time nor interest to watch any of that stuff now. But our conversation reminded me of a time when I did watch a soap: for about a year I was hooked on One Life to Live. It was 1995 I think. After graduating high school a year early at age 16, I spent the next few years taking classes at the local community college to earn an Associates degree and get all my basic credits out of the way while working like crazy to save money to go to a “real” school. My schedule included a full load of classes in the morning, then home for a quick lunch before my afternoon gig at a nearby convenience store (my time at that job allows me to truly relate to the movie Clerks.) My shift was 2-6, which gave me time to go back to school in the evening for a night class or rehearsals.

Anyway, One Life to Live came on t.v. at 1pm, so I started watching it while having lunch and became hooked on a story line involving the characters Dylan, Marty, and Patrick.

Mostly I was hooked because of this him:

I’m a happily married woman, but I am not ashamed to say my then-teenage self lusted after the Dylan Moody character (played by Christopher Douglas). Except the guy (whether in real life or just his character) was a total lame-o. I just liked to look at him. He was purty.

His character was in love with a girl named Marty, who went off to Ireland for some reason or another and met Patrick. Now, Patrick was yummy too, and had an Irish accent to boot.  He quoted poetry and Shakespeare and walked around with his shirt off alot.  Of course Patrick and Marty fall madly in  love and he ends up back in her town and a love triangle ensues. Oh man, I was hooked.

Problem was, the show was on from 1-2 pm and did I mention my shift started at 2?  So it was always a mad dash out of the house after I pulled myself away from the screen. I hated always missing the last 10 angsty minutes or so.

Life moved on though and my schedule got crazier, and before long I forgot all about Marty, Patrick, and delicious Dylan.

Til last night, when our conversation reminded me of the one time in my life  I did watch a soap opera. So  I did what any normal person would do: I searched youtube for old episodes…and I discovered this.

And I don’t think I have to tell you I wasted way too much time watching those clips….it was past midnight before I decided I’d been indulging long enough.

And yes, I’ll be going back to finish watching them.

I love books. I love reading them, talking about them, shopping for them, thinking about them…and writing them.

But trying to share my love of books in a long and boring list of links isn’t really much fun.

And then along came GoodReads. (let’s not talk about noun and verb placement in that sentence, mmk?)

I discovered it today while poking around FrenchToastGirl’s site (she’s a MM). “Hmmmmm,”  I thought to myself as I looked over her Good Reads widget…”that looks interesting.”

And, boy howdy, but is this site fun. A wanderlust of organizational bliss for a bookworm like me. Much like my old string-o-links used to do, it keeps track of all my am reading, was reading, will read, etc. lists of books…only they do it in a much prettier package. Plus you can link to other readers, post and find reviews, search for books…oh, and there’s trivia. Who doesn’t love a little bit of trivia?

So check out my super-slick new GoodReads widget over to the right, then if you’re feelin’ it – join up and add me as a friend. Because I’m a pathetic shut-in who reads all day and has to beg for social connections. Well, not exactly (except for the begging).

Oh, and if you’re thinking, “Wow, this woman reads a warehouse-store-sized-shopping-cart load of Harlequins,” please remember, it’s all in the name of research. As for all the other romance novels, I just love reading ‘em, and I’m not ashamed to say so.

Oh yes, he knows.

And if you touch that piece of triple chocolate fudge mocha cheesecake (do they have such a thing?) then the Ringwraiths will be coming for you (or would they be cheesecakewraiths?).

Anyways, so Miss A is now 6 and is obsessed with all things Star Wars.  So there are lots of lightsaber fights  and attempts to use the Force around here. She has big plans to dress as Princess Leia for Halloween (with Lil’ G going as R2D2  of course).

I won’t let her watch Revenge of the Sith until she is 10, but I finally decided she could watch Attack of The Clones. Watching along with her, I saw one of my favorite moments in the movie that I had forgotten about.

I don’t think it’s breaking news to say that Hayden Christensen, while delicious to look at, was a bit weak in the acting dept. Perhaps it was the horrible dialogue that was at fault, or Lucas’ inability to work well with humans, but in any case – his performance fell short.

There was however, one moment I thought he played to perfection. It was done so well it was really believable. Believable and hilarious. That moment when they first arrive at Padme’s little lake house hideaway on Naboo, and she is outfit #456 – she and Anakin are on the balcony, and he is overcome with her hotness, so he moves in for a kiss…she responds for a moment…then leaves the poor boy hanging.  Watch this, if you don’t remember.

The look on his face after she says no is just priceless. Classic “WTF woman!?!”

Lemme see some hands – how many of you boys can remember being in just such a moment? I am embarrassed to admit I pulled that on the husband a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

And we were a tad farther along then a smooch.

Obviously, he got over it.