Monday, September 20, 2010

This list needs some explanation

My son and I talk music, pretty much all the time. We share some common ideas, even if our tastes are significantly different. I know more about Hip Hop than I ever expected to. Recently, list making has become a bit of a hobby of sorts and after reviewing several of his I was encouraged to make a Top 100 of my own. I am not listing my entire Top 100 here, as I made two separate Top 100 lists for Heavy Metal/Hard Rock and Other Music. So ... this excerpt is from my Heavy Metal/Hard Rock list, with my own definition of what constitutes said genres implied ...

I also did some detail in a list we went over where I picked out favorite songs and lyrics from each record, but typing that up seemed incredibly tedious and OCD ...

... and for the record, lists like this are fluid and open to change and revision and updates at any time. Also, this is a favorite list, a list of the records that i would and still can play over and over again and in some cases have purchased in multiple formats over the years.



Jeff's Top 50

1 - Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
2 - Black Sabbath - Never Say Die
3 - Blue Oyster Cult - Imaginos
4 - Mother Love Bone - Apple
5 - Iron Maiden - Powerslave
6 - Lacuna Coil - Comalies
7 - Soundgarden - Louder Than Love
8 - Warlord - Deliver Us
9 - Metal Church - The Dark
10 - Riot - Born In America
11 - Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard Of Ozz
12 - Blue Oyster Cult - Fire Of Unknown Origin
13 - Alice In Chains - Jar Of Flies
14 - Sanctuary - Refuge Denied
15 - Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
16 - Dio - Holy Diver
17 - Black Sabbath - The Mob Rules
18 - Psycho Motel - Welcome To The World
19 - Raven - All For One
20 - Queensryche - Rage For Order
21 - Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force - Marching Out
22 - Saxon - Power And The Glory
23 - KISS - Destroyer
24 - Pearl Jam - Vs.
25 - My Sister's Machine - Diva
26 - Nightwish - Once
27 - Within Temptation - The Heart Of Everything
28 - Mudhoney - Mudhoney
29 - Paradise Lost - Paradise Lost
30 - Iron Maiden - The X Factor
31 - Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door
32 - Halford - Resurrection
33 - Motley Crue - Too Fast For Love
34 - Bruce Dickinson - Tattooed Millionaire
35 - Iced Earth - The Glorious Burden
36 - Yngwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force - Odyssey
37 - Guns 'n Roses - Appetite For Destruction
38 - Anthrax - The Sound Of White Noise
39 - Slayer - South Of Heaven
40 - Def Leppard - High 'n' Dry
41 - Cinderella - Long Cold Winter
42 - Lacuna Coil - Karmacode
43 - Metallica - Death Magnetic
44 - Green River - Rehab Doll
45 - Motley Crue - Girls, Girls, Girls
46 - Ratt - Out Of The Cellar
47 - Bulletboys - Bulletboys
48 - Jerry Cantrell - Boggy Depot
49 - Joe Satriani - Surfing With The Alien
50 - Apocalyptica - Plays Metallica By Four Cellos

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Book List 2010 ... month eight

I must admit that going into August it seemed plausible that I could hit #100 by Labor Day. We will find out next month, but I am still on a really good pace. It seems odd to think that reading 11 books in a month feels like a letdown of sorts and yet it almost does. 100 beckons.

Seattle Sounders FC Season One by Chad Mack (Author), Richard Morrison Ph. D. (Photographer), Drew Carey (Foreword)
This is a nice look at the inaugural MLS season of the Seattle Sounders FC. If you look closely in some of the pictures you can see me, I am the guy in the jersey wearing a scarf.

Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science by David Lindley
These are some of the most rational thinking minds of the past hundred or so years and yet they were capable of moments of petty bickering that can make even theoretical physics seem like a soap opera.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
I recently began watching the Dexter TV series on DVD and decided to read the original novels. It is always interesting to me to see the changes from book to screen. I do mean interesting, as I am not one of those readers who go all unhinged at changes.

Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Once I have actual actors in mind I can picture them when I am reading. In this instance it means I am constantly picturing Julie Benz ... so I am okay with this.

The Making of Toro: Bullfights, Broken Hearts, and One Author's Quest for the Acclaim He Deserves by Mark Sundeen
Jorge loaned this to me and I can hardly describe it. So, the best I can do is to say that this is a fictional memoir about a non-fiction book that was never written via a pen name and we are to read it as a first person narrative from the perspective of the fictional character that did not write this non-fiction book. About Bullfighting.

Cyborg by Martin Caidin
This is the original science fiction novel from the early 1970s that led to The Six Million Dollar Man franchise. I really loved that show as a kid and to go back and read the source material was quite nostalgic. Caidin wrote a story about a guy being rebuilt at a time too many young men were coming home with pieces missing from war. It is not hard to see why this resonated with an older crowd than I was at the time.

The Mocking Program by Alan Dean Foster
I have always enjoyed Foster's work and this book is no exception. Near future novels that deal with the way the world might become are interesting to me. There might just be ghosts in the machine after all.

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel
Four short stories by Yann Martel ... not a bad way to spend a few afternoons.

Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay
The third book in the series ... I am reading them quickly it seems.

Dead As A Doornail by Charlaine Harris
The fifth in the Sookie Stackhouse novels. The differences are not great in the characterizations between the books and the TV series, other than maybe Tara. If I write too much it might be a spoiler to those who have only watched on the telly ...

Shaggy Planet by Ron Goulart
More silly 1970s scifi that I have picked up at used book stores ... this one cost me 47 cents. Well, 47 cents were deducted from the credit slip anyways.

August total = 11 / YTD = 96 (goal 100)