A day late and a turkey short

Who’s up for bologna on white?

KKCK:

Beyonce “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Destiny’s Child or Beyonce, but I wouldn’t describe myself as an anti-fan either.  The fast songs I tend to like longer (“Crazy in Love”, “Ring the Alarm”, “Survivor”) more than the slow ones (“Irreplaceable”), so I was quite happy to get this one to play along with “If I Were a Boy”.  “Single Ladies” doesn’t have the raw emotion and raw sound of “Ring the Alarm” that I found so refreshing, but “Ring the Alarm” wasn’t a big hit, so doing a song with more in common with “Crazy in Love” makes total sense.  If you didn’t see her bit on SNL with this song, involving Justin Timberlake, Andy Samberg and Bobby Moynihan, get thee to NBC.com now.

Pussycat Dolls “I Hate this Part”
MTV writer, musical Bon vivant, and blogger James Montgomery listed PCD’s album as one of 2008’s “top turkeys”.  I haven’t heard enough to make that assumption, but this song is akin to that can of cranberries.  Some people like it, but one sometimes wonders if it is really necessary.  I could make a joke about how “berries” are better if they’re “fresh” and “real”, but that seems a bit over the top.

The Airbourne Toxic Event “Sometime Around Midnight”
Step one: Watch me at every party/bar/gathering I went to in college
Step two: write a song about a guy who totally whiffs because he didn’t go for it
Step three: profit make ‘em open the box playlist on KKCK?
At first I didn’t care for this song, but if you give it time it just might grow on you.  I can’t remember the last song we played that didn’t have a bona fide hook, or one that didn’t have a chorus at all.  Sadly, this band suffers from a disease called “Brit-itis” which makes them sound a bit British (or a lot British in parts) even though they hail from Los Angeles, California.  Do I really need to put the California part in?  Is there a Los Angeles, U.K.?

Pick to click: Beyonce

I apologize for my Wednesday blog being late this week.  Work was rather busy, and will only be busier on Friday.  My Wednesday night was spent talking to an old friend who I hadn’t spoken to in quite some time, and baking a pie.  Some of you might be bored with this story, so here’s the short version.  I said “how hard can it be” in regards to making pecan pie, so I was tasked with making said pie for Thanksgiving.  I’m not sure where pecan pie ranks in terms of pie difficulty, but as far as a first time pie-maker goes, it wasn’t as easy as I thought, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought either.  I made the decision to go for broke, so I found a recipe on Foot Network’s website that included making the crust from scratch (everyone told me to go with a frozen one).  I made the crust on Tuesday night, and let it chill overnight (the instructions said at least an hour, so I thought 24 hours would be even better).  The problem with the overnight chilling was that our fridge seems to be a bit on the cold side, and the dough got a bit dry and sticky.  I had to wet it down a smidge and really flour the rolling area before I had the right size and consistency.  Just making the crust brought back a lot of smell-induced memories from my childhood.  My mom isn’t the greatest cook ever, but she is a heck of a baker.  Her apple pies are the stuff of station legend.  Anyway, once I had the crust frozen for 30 minutes, I threw it in the oven so I could start on the filling.  The pecans I bought weren’t toasted, so those got a quick trip in the toaster oven.  While those toasted, the corn syrup, brown sugar and butter got their boil on.  The pecans were supposed to be chopped, but there wasn’t time.  So, chopping gave way to a bowl and a potato masher.  The pecans, vanilla and bourbon (Jim Beam black label) went into the filling mix, and the crust was taken out of the oven.  The instructions told me to place the crust on a sheet pan rather than bake it inside the pie pan, but somewhere along the line my crust had developed a crack, so Kate helped me get it back in the pan when the leak became unfixable.  45 minutes later, the pie was out of the oven and it looked ready to go.  The moment of truth is later today, and then I’ll know if I can attempt a pie I’ll actually like.  That’s the twist ending: I don’t even like pecan pie.

Braeden and Kate had doctor appointments yesterday.  Kate is in great health, and Braeden is freakin’ huge.  After two months, he’s 25 inches and 15.6 pounds.  A friend of ours has a four month old that isn’t that big yet!  I keep joking we’re raising a pro wrestler or a linebacker, and I’m starting to wonder if I should stop joking about that.  He’s stating to get very giggly and smiley, and soon he won’t be napping so much.  That’s when I can start regaling him in tales of the Cybertronian War, the principles of the Federation, the threat of COBRA, and why he shouldn’t pick the Yankees as his favorite baseball team.  Maybe I’ll work in the alphabet somewhere if I have a chance.

Over the past four days four albums have found their way into my head.  Guns n’ Roses finally dropped Chinese Democracy, and lo, it was good.  Ten year wait good?  Well…maybe not ten year wait good.  I need to give it a few more listens before I can quantify how many years worth of wait it was really worth.  I’m just happy it is finally out and the saga of it coming out is over with.  Maybe Axl can relax and get the next one out in just five years.  Kanye West’s new CD is out and…yeah.  Look, auto-tune is fine.  If I want auto-tune, I just need to hear any song with T-Pain, or I can buy a freakin’ T-Pain album.  I liked about half of the album, and there was one song that I liked even more than “Love Lockdown” but at the moment I can’t remember what that song was called.  Next up the Killers returned with Day and Age.  I think this one will have to grow on me, much like Sam’s Town.  Actually, I think the only Killers CD that I liked right away was Sawdust, which was a b-sides album.  Brandon Flowers, make with more b-sides please.  It was looking like G’n'R was the winner, but then Ludacris stepped up and took care of business.  Here’s how good this album is.  I was starting to listen to it while cutting commercials for HyVee, and I had to shut it off because I was laughing too much.  Ludacris exercised a few demons on Release Therapy, so now he’s back to his humorous ways on Theater of the Mind.  The CD was the soundtrack to my pie-making, and if good music helps you bake this pie should be outstanding.  Since I made the pie, I’ll settle for edible.

Other things I’m really liking in November: Kate, Braeden, our cats, Quantum of Solace (better than Casino Royale IMHO), Knight Rider, Terminator: TSCC, the Star Trek trailer, work, gas prices of late, Night Court reruns on TV Land and Arbys.

Things I’m not fond of: worrying about the budget, waiting for BSG to come back, the new Star Trek trailer, and how much Arby’s costs.

The wee one is demanding sacrifice!  Or, at least his bottle.  Happy tryptophan overdosing day.