Friday, January 6, 2012
Random Start: Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down by Brand Nubian
Yes, punks do indeed jump up to get beat down. Enjoy your Friday.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Random Start: January 1979 by MeWithoutYou
Look Danno - told you I had some MeWithoutYou in my collection. This is a band that most people I know who like quality rock music are into. And pretty much all the bands I'm into are into MeWithoutYou. I just haven't been able to catch on yet. Maybe I don't get it. The other day I was playing some La Dispute, Touche Amore and some other stuff for my brother-in-law (Danny) and he said "And you don't like MeWithoutYou?" Will try it out again - this song is a good one. I think all of their stuff lyrically is going to be like reading poetry, where you have to really dig into it to find meaning.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
New Recipe - Salmon with Brown Sugar Glaze
We just made this for dinner tonight and it was both super easy and super tasty. I got this from Allrecipes.com (link below)
Salmon with Brown Sugar Glaze
Servings: 4
Prep Time: 5 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ingredients:
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 (6 ounce) boneless salmon fillets
salt and ground black pepper to taste
Directions:
Preheat the oven's broiler and set the oven rack at about 6 inches from the heat source; prepare the rack of a broiler pan with cooking spray.
Season the salmon with salt and pepper and arrange onto the prepared broiler pan. Whisk together the brown sugar and Dijon mustard in a small bowl; spoon mixture evenly onto top of salmon fillets.
Cook under the preheated broiler until the fish flakes easily with a fork, 10 to 15 minutes.
View this recipe and others:
Salmon with Brown Sugar Glaze
Salmon with Brown Sugar Glaze
Servings: 4Prep Time: 5 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ingredients:
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 (6 ounce) boneless salmon fillets
salt and ground black pepper to taste
Directions:
Preheat the oven's broiler and set the oven rack at about 6 inches from the heat source; prepare the rack of a broiler pan with cooking spray.
Season the salmon with salt and pepper and arrange onto the prepared broiler pan. Whisk together the brown sugar and Dijon mustard in a small bowl; spoon mixture evenly onto top of salmon fillets.
Cook under the preheated broiler until the fish flakes easily with a fork, 10 to 15 minutes.
View this recipe and others:
Salmon with Brown Sugar Glaze
Random Start: Don't Think Twice, It's All Right by Bob Dylan
My first exposure to this song was from Mike Ness' first solo album, Cheating at Solitaire. Frankly, I didn't realize until today that it was a Dylan cover. Wow - he's written some really good songs I didn't realize for a long time were his.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Random Start: Your Song by Elton John
Random Start rolls out a classic today. I'm not a regular listener of Elton John, and probably not to a lot of the other all time great artists, but he's one of the greats. I was actually inspired to download some of his stuff by a recent season of American Idol. They did Elton John week and I realized how great every song was and needed to get to know them better.
Monday, January 2, 2012
A Weekend of Missed Opportunities
Two of the teams I follow had rough weekends. Up until this year I was a rabid Tennessee Titans fan and was meticulous about keeping up with everything happening in their world. I lost interest this year, but still kept up with what was going on and watched several games. Now that the playoff seedings are set the Titans are just barely on the outside looking in.
Yesterday they had to win to get in...but also needed 3 other things to happen. Only one of the other things happened so they're out. They were in the same boat a few years ago and ended up losing their game to the Patriots while the other pieces fell into place. Looking back at the season the easiest games to point to are losses to the Colts, who were AWFUL this year, and to the Bengals, who overcame a 10 point 2nd half deficit to win - and are in the playoff spot the Titans could have had. The part that should be painful to the team is that just one more win would have sealed their spot. Had they beaten the Colts a few weeks ago none of this would have mattered.
Bright spots for the Titans:
1. Mike Munchak kept the team playing hard all season long, when they were arguably in the toughest spot starting the season with new coaches and a new quarterback.
2. Matthew Hasselbeck (yes, he prefers Matthew) was far better than any of us thought he could be both on the field and as a leader. He ended up having one of the best ever passing seasons for a Titans QB, was a great mentor to Jake Locker, and seems to be a pretty nice guy - good in the community. Plus, he's a Windows Phone user.
3. The passing game was solid WITHOUT Kenny Britt. It can only improve once he gets back.
Areas of concern:
1. Chris Johnson. Chris Johnson. Chris Johnson. What the heck happened? Dude got paid and fell off the map. He only had a few games where it looked like he had his game together. Otherwise he was generally running into tacklers instead of evading them, and certainly wasn't running away from anyone. I don't care what he says, he was slower this year. I'm not an Xs and Os expert, but there were chances to get away from tacklers and take off and it didn't happen.
2. Defensive secondary. Michael Griffin is one of the players who will be a free agent and they need to let him go. He's had one good year - the rest has been lackluster. Too many missed tackles and what seem like blown coverages.
My other team, and the one that I'm much more interested in now, Tottenham Hotspur also missed an opportunity this weekend. The Premier League season started back in August but Spurs' season started a week late because of rioting in their part of London. They missed their match with Everton (to be made up on Jan 11th) and their next two were BIG losses to both Manchester clubs - United and City. After those 2 losses Spurs have been rolling and going into the weekend were 7 points from the top of the table with a game in hand. Spurs played against Swansea City, who was promoted into the EPL this season. Spurs got a Van der Vaart goal in the 44th minute but gave up a tying goal late in the match and played to a draw, earning just 1 point. The lost opportunity was that Man U lost at Old Trafford to Blackburn, who is at the bottom of the table, and City lost to Sunderland, who is also near the bottom of the table. So when Spurs should have earned 3 points they got 1 - and both Manchester clubs lost games they should have won. Spurs now sit 6 points from the top of the table and still have that game in hand. We're nearing the halfway mark of the season and it seems the questions are can Spurs overtake either Manchester club for top spot, but also will Chelsea or Arsenal...or maybe even Liverpool be able to rise up and get into the last spot to qualify for Champions League play next year? It's looking like Spurs will be a sure qualifier if they keep it up, and with the way Adebayor, Parker, Modric, Bale, Van der Vaart, Walker, Friedel and others are playing they should be in good shape. COYS
Yesterday they had to win to get in...but also needed 3 other things to happen. Only one of the other things happened so they're out. They were in the same boat a few years ago and ended up losing their game to the Patriots while the other pieces fell into place. Looking back at the season the easiest games to point to are losses to the Colts, who were AWFUL this year, and to the Bengals, who overcame a 10 point 2nd half deficit to win - and are in the playoff spot the Titans could have had. The part that should be painful to the team is that just one more win would have sealed their spot. Had they beaten the Colts a few weeks ago none of this would have mattered.
Bright spots for the Titans:
1. Mike Munchak kept the team playing hard all season long, when they were arguably in the toughest spot starting the season with new coaches and a new quarterback.
2. Matthew Hasselbeck (yes, he prefers Matthew) was far better than any of us thought he could be both on the field and as a leader. He ended up having one of the best ever passing seasons for a Titans QB, was a great mentor to Jake Locker, and seems to be a pretty nice guy - good in the community. Plus, he's a Windows Phone user.
3. The passing game was solid WITHOUT Kenny Britt. It can only improve once he gets back.
Areas of concern:
1. Chris Johnson. Chris Johnson. Chris Johnson. What the heck happened? Dude got paid and fell off the map. He only had a few games where it looked like he had his game together. Otherwise he was generally running into tacklers instead of evading them, and certainly wasn't running away from anyone. I don't care what he says, he was slower this year. I'm not an Xs and Os expert, but there were chances to get away from tacklers and take off and it didn't happen.
2. Defensive secondary. Michael Griffin is one of the players who will be a free agent and they need to let him go. He's had one good year - the rest has been lackluster. Too many missed tackles and what seem like blown coverages.
My other team, and the one that I'm much more interested in now, Tottenham Hotspur also missed an opportunity this weekend. The Premier League season started back in August but Spurs' season started a week late because of rioting in their part of London. They missed their match with Everton (to be made up on Jan 11th) and their next two were BIG losses to both Manchester clubs - United and City. After those 2 losses Spurs have been rolling and going into the weekend were 7 points from the top of the table with a game in hand. Spurs played against Swansea City, who was promoted into the EPL this season. Spurs got a Van der Vaart goal in the 44th minute but gave up a tying goal late in the match and played to a draw, earning just 1 point. The lost opportunity was that Man U lost at Old Trafford to Blackburn, who is at the bottom of the table, and City lost to Sunderland, who is also near the bottom of the table. So when Spurs should have earned 3 points they got 1 - and both Manchester clubs lost games they should have won. Spurs now sit 6 points from the top of the table and still have that game in hand. We're nearing the halfway mark of the season and it seems the questions are can Spurs overtake either Manchester club for top spot, but also will Chelsea or Arsenal...or maybe even Liverpool be able to rise up and get into the last spot to qualify for Champions League play next year? It's looking like Spurs will be a sure qualifier if they keep it up, and with the way Adebayor, Parker, Modric, Bale, Van der Vaart, Walker, Friedel and others are playing they should be in good shape. COYS
Random Start: Gas Station by The Cool Kids
Good to see The Cool Kids getting another entry into Random Start. This is one of my favorite tracks from When Fish Ride Bicycles - probably because it has Bun B and Ghostface Killah on it. Still trying to like this record as much as the first one, but this track is a winner.
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