Phillies Repeat as NL East Champions

Remembering Yesterday's Game via Text Messages

Phillies going to the playoffs.

Again.

Last year I watched the Phils clinch their first playoff berth in 14 years along side my father-in-law, Jim. He and I watched the game and the post game celebrations in my living room. This year Jim was unable to watch the game so I kept him up-to-date via text messaging.

4:15 - Jim: Keep me posted please
4:31 - Paul: Top of 3rd: 0-0. Mets beat Flordia.
4:31 - Jim: Yuk! Go Phils
4:58 - Paul: Bot 4th. Runners at corners. Pat the Bat up. No outs.
4:58 - Jim: K
4:59 - Paul: Burrell sacrifice fly. Phils 1-0
4:59 - Jim: Yes!
5:03 - Paul: Bases now loaded. One out.
5:04 - Paul: Ruiz sacrifice fly. Phils 2-0
5:07 - Paul: Moyer walks. Bases loaded again. Let's go J-Roll
5:09 - Paul: Rollins grounds out. Inning over.
5:10 - Jim: Urgh!
5:11 - Jim: Oh well...2 to 0 sounds good.
5:15 - Paul: Top 5. Nat's score a run. 2-1 Phils.
5:22 - Paul: Bot 5. Worth leads off with solo shot...3-1 Phils.
5:45 - Paul: Moyer out. Durbin to start top 7th.
6:00 - Jim: Still 3-1?
6:00 - Paul: Yep...going into top 8th.
6:11 - Paul: Nat's score again. 3-2. Victorino & Rollins collide. Victorino hurt.
6:15 - Paul: Victorino ok. Moving into bot 8th. 3-2 Phils.
6:25 - Paul: Phils score an insurance run. Inning over. Brad Lidge time.
6:30 - Paul: Strike out! 2 outs to go!
6:40 - Paul: Lidge gives up a single, then a walk. Two on - one out.
6:43 - Paul: Loop single. 4-3 Phils. Two on. Looking for a double play.
6:47 - Paul: Another single. Bases loaded and still one out. Yikes!
6:50 - Paul: An incredible double play!!!!! PHILS WIN!!!!
6:51 - Jim: YES! YES! YES!

Today, Rachel and I are off to the last regular season game of the year. Now that the Phils are in I'm sure we're not going to see many regulars playing today. That's ok. We'll see them on Wednesday when they kick off the playoffs in Philadelphia. Go Phils!

Blip.fm

I've finally discovered a social network "community" I actually want to participate in - Blip.fm. Rather than answering the question "What are you doing?" a la Twitter, Blip asks "What are you listening to?" and then prompts you, as the DJ, to associate an already uploaded song or upload your own. In a 150 characters or less Blip allows you to write about your song. The comments and song are called a "blip." Anyone who discovers my blip can listen comment.

Now, the cool part about Blip is the community. Blip allows you to add DJs to your community purely on the basis of shared music likes. If I leave the page on autoplay, I can let my friends and DJs play music for me all day long, and when I want to join in, I turn them on to what I'm listening to.

If you're into music and you like to Tweet then I suggest you combine the two and tune into Blip.fm

Paul Altobelli R.I.P.

Seconds before I was tragically killed by 10,000 balloons.

Top Five Records: Great Song Outros

1. Layla - Derek & The Dominoes - The granddaddy of great song endings.  Dominoes drummer, Jim Gordon, contributed the elegiac piano coda for this close.  He later went to hatchet his mother to death.
   
   
2. Starship Trooper - Yes - Starship Trooper is actually comprise of three songs:  Life Seeker, Disillusion and The Würm.  The Würm is a continuous cadenza of chords (|G-Eb|C|) that my buddy Tim Weaver taught me to play on the guitar.  It's only one of two songs I can play on the guitar.  The other is Louie Louie.
   
   
3. I Want You (She's So Heavy) - Beatles - This song held the title for the "world's coldest ending" until Townshend released "Face the Face."
   
   
4. Drop Dead Legs - Van Halen - One of the all time greatest guitar solo outro fades
   
   
5. Austraila - Kinks - The beginning of this tune is a typical very British sounding late sixties Kinks song.  Then, it morphs into an extended guitar jam that will leave you speechless. 

Honorable mentions:

• Rock and Roll - Velvet Underground
  
• Good Morning Good Morning - Beatles - Lennon asked engineer Geoff Emerick to arrange the animal noises heard at the end of the song so that the animal was capable of devouring or frightening the animal that came before it.
  
• Won't Get Fooled Again -THE WHO - Beginning with the line, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
• She's The One - Bruce Springsteen - live version
  
• 40 - U2 - For years U2 would end their concerts with this song.  I vividly remember walking out Brenden Byrn Arena singing the final chorus, "How long to sing this song?".

Dishonorable mentions: 
Stevie Wonder has a thing for extending songs two or three minutes longer than they should be.  "Golden Lady" is like one long-ass 6:53 outro.  It goes on and on and on.  Another song he kills is with an extended outro is "Maybe Your Baby".

Please feel free to comment and give me your Top Five.

Remembering Rick Wright

Rick Wright has passed on to The Great Gig in the Sky. He was 65 years old.

Top Five Records: Great Song Intros

A few weeks ago my friend Beth Mann, ask me me to list my favorite great song intros and closers. It took me a while to come up with my list because there were so many to choose from. At the same time I'm finishing reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. A book featuring many Top Five lists. So, between Beth's question and the book I decided to start including my favorite Top Five lists to my blog. I'm doing this because 1) I believe it will be fun to come up with Top Five lists and 2) they're easy to write. So, with a nod to Beth, I give you my Top Five Great Song Intros. Please feel free to comment and give me your Top Five.

1. Hell's Bells - AC/DC - Can you think of any other song intro that is as cool as this one? Really. Even today, almost thirty years later, this song intro still gives me goosebumps.
2. Baba O'Riley - The Who - One of the great all-time song intros. I think I like the intro more that the song.
   
3. Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix - For me, this song (more so than Purple Haze) defines the essence of Hendrix's soul. It combines rock and blues and throws in the Wah Wah intro for extra spice.
4. Money, Time - Pink Floyd - These two intros were actually assembled and engineered by Alan Parsons. Yes, that Alan Parsons.
5. Eruption into You Really Got Me - Van Halen - These two songs - and especially the transition from Eruption into You Really Got Me - have probably accounted for more kids picking up the guitar than any others in the history of rock.

Honorable mentions:

• What I'd Say - Ray Charles
• Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
• Welcome to the Jungle" Guns'n'Roses
• Tomorrow Never Knows - Beatles
• Monkey Man - Rolling Stones
  

Dishonorable mentions: 
I think Al Green is great.  I love his music.  Many of his songs, however, start wimpy and end incredibly strong including:  Love And Happiness and Beware.

43 Things

I can recall two times in my life when I actually wrote down realistic goals I wanted to accomplish in a short time period. The first list was 1992 and it included "buy a home" and "figure out what I want to do with my life." A year later I living in my first home and getting ready to go back to college. My second list included "quit smoking" and "lose weight." I haven't really smoked in eight years and I lost 30 pounds. So, my point is that I seem to meet my goals when I write them down.

A few days ago I discovered 43 Things or 43things.com. 43 Things is a social networking web site that is ask users to list a number of goals or hopes; these goals are connected to other people's goals that are constructed with similar words or ideas. So far I've come up with seven goals. One of which is to contribute to my blog on a regular basis.

Top Five Records: Hurricanes

In what I hope will become a regular feature on my blog - here is the first in a series of my "Top Five" lists. With a nod to the "mother of all storms," Gustav, here are my Top Five Records about hurricanes in no particular order and without including the obvious.



Listen / Download:
Lena Horne - Stormy Weather
Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
Billy "The Kid" Emerson - When It Rains It Pours
REO Speedwagon - Ridin' the Storm Out
ELO - Standing in the Rain