Best Songs I Heard for the First Time in 2010

Most people do not hear most of the songs they know for the first time in the year the song was released. If anyone did, I would feel very sorry for them for missing out on all the great songs of the past from before they were born, or even great songs each year they lived they would have missed.

What most people don’t do is reflect each year on the best songs they heard for the first time that year. I’ve blogged some of mine, but not all so this is my entire collection for 2010 which could fit on a CD if I made one.

After several years of discovering a ton of jazz and older music, then tunes from musicals, so that they made up most of the songs in my list for recent years , I am back with an eclectic set that reflects my true musical tastes and philanderings across genres. I even have not only one song from the current year, but two! A song from the year of the list was something I didn’t have for several years. I did find newly released songs I liked a lot in those years, but they didn’t compare to a variety of jazz and musicals standards I discovered in those years.

But before I share my list, let me ask you the same question as I answered to write this post. What were the best songs you heard for the first time in 2010?

I’d love to know so please do leave a comment. I can add the links to videos so people can hear what you’re talking about, if you would like. But if you don’t want to do it here, maybe write a blog post like this if you have a blog, or a Facebook note or something like that on a social media platform account you have. It might just be one of the more thoughtful notes to your friends all year.

Here is my list, in no particular order of preference, with videos streaming the songs. You will need to click on the YouTube link for some videos with some weird copyright condition that only allow them to be viewed on YouTube. I hate that’s become a wussie and lost all its edge.

Happy New Year!
Continue reading

I’d like to thank the Christians for their holidays so I can enjoy them without being a believer

Merry Christmas, everyone!

That title is not meant to be a facetious comment. It’s true and genuine.

I am fortunate to live in Canada where I am free and encouraged to celebrate holidays of my ethnic origin and religion, like Asian New Year and Buddhamas. I can take vacation time off to enjoy them, too, if I so wish. However, my work calendar holidays are partly shaped by Christian holidays like Christmas, New Year’s that is based off of Christmas and Easter, and I don’t have to work on them just because I don’t celebrate them. That’s quite a nice feeling, to able to do what the majority does when you are not part of the majority. In a subtle way, it is a feeling of acceptance.

That said, I also appreciate all the people who have to work in and around such massive holidays as Christmas when so many people are off at the same time. I know the feeling. I’ve done it before. We all know the world can’t function if nobody were working, so somebody has to work during these massive holidays, and their efforts must be appreciated so I hope you’ll be kind and appreciative towards them whenever you encounter them. Say a word of thanks, tip them well, and definitely wish them well (and that they won’t have to work on the holidays next year).

Have an ebuliant Christmas!

Which Were the Most Popular and Interesting Cartoons You Saw for the Facebook Campaign Against Child Abuse?

Snoopy

Last weekend, the first weekend in December, there was a global campaign on Facebook where people replace their profile pictures with their favourite cartoon character/s.

I was happy to see a lot of my Facebook friends took part. It was really interesting to see what everybody chose for their characters.

Being the curious type, the two most obvious question I had were which characters were the most popular, and which were interesting?

For the most interesting, I would have to give that to my friend Dan, who chose Banana Man.

For the most popular, that’s a much harder question to answer with any confidence. I don’t have enough Facebook friends to get a statistically significant result. Fortunately, I have this site which I estimate provided about 20,000 cartoon pictures to people looking for them over the weekend. Talk about suffocating from smog from the traffic from my blog! OMG!!!

Of course, I don’t have all the comic book characters out there, but I probably have about 500, of which 250 were here. That’s a decent sample size variety for me. I also have visitors from around the world.

From stats on this website, from what I could tell, Snoopy from the Peanuts strip was the most popular character (sometimes with Charlie Brown and Woodstock so hard to separate them out.

Comic book heroine Wonder Woman was a close second.

My Melody from the Hello Kitty strip was third.

Wilma Flintsone was fourth.

Homer Simpson was fifth.

Cinnamoroll from Hello Kitty was sixth.

Catwoman was seventh.

Love-a-lot Bear from the Care Bears was eighth.

Pebbles Flintstone was ninth.

Finally, Lucky Bear from the Care Bears was tenth.

I haven’t seen any articles yet which gives a large sample size for the most popular character, but if you do, please do share.

What about among your Facebook friends? Who was the most popular character or most popular cartoon strip?

And don’t forget about the most interesting character you saw.

Over 250 Cartoon Pictures for Facebook Profile Pics Campaign Against Child Abuse

Until December 6th, there is a global campaign on Facebook where people replace their profile pictures with their favourite cartoon character/s, then encourage their friends to do the same. Now this campaign I like! Too bad it’s way too short but it’s gone viral globally after just a day’s notice!

I’ve got over 250 cartoon pictures made for Facebook profile pics at the bottom, arranged in alphabetical order with names, which include some modern and some old cartoons.

Continue reading

The Real Shit on Biosolids

There’s a lot of shit going down in Halifax these days in the fight over the safety of biosolids, or human sewage used for fertilizers.

One side is claiming they can get all the bad shit out of the people’s shit so it’s safe to use. The other is claiming there’s no way that shit can be clean and appealing to people’s feelings on eating food grown in shit. I’m not going to advocate for either side because I don’t know shit about the shit data, but I don’t need to. What I will do is point out some interesting shit people who don’t know shit seem to be neglecting that makes this whole shit spit irrelevant. There are some healthy food that’s not subject to this, but most people don’t eat that shit when you look at the big picture.

First, would you rather eat food grown in your shit or someone else’s shit?

A lot of food in the grocery stores are grown in other places, fertilized by other people’s shit. California, Mexico, China and other places all allow shit to be used as fertilizers, and a lot of shit, too! (Halifax Herald story, with research from the Nova Scotia Environmental Network, via the Organic Consumers Association)

So are you telling me you’d rather eat food grown in their shit rather than food grown in your shit?

Hey, lots of people have prejudices against Chinese and Mexicans. They make lots of jokes about them, too. Ironically, the last laugh may be on those people cause they’re probably eating food grown from Chinese and Mexican shit. Ewwhahaha!

You and I are probably eating food grown from foreign shit, too. Maybe not fresh food as you may get your fresh food locally, but think about the processed food. Do you know where all of it comes from?

To be honest, though, if I had to eat food grown from people’s shit, I might well eat those grown from other people’s shit. Part of the fear about eating food grown in our own shit is all the chemicals we ingest that can’t get filtered out, especially drugs we take for illnesses or lifestyle, like birth control pills. The boomer generation is by far the most drugged up generation ever. In poorer parts of the world, those people don’t have access to such “luxuries”. I’d be willing to bet their shit is a lot cleaner than ours and would take the risk to eat food grown from their shit rather than ours. It’s just that they have pesticides and other chemicals that probably make them more harmful overall.

Second, would you rather eat food grown from animal shit than your own shit?

Have you seen or heard about the shit that’s been going into animal feed lately? There’s everything from growth hormones to genetically modified crops to low quality reject foods, and very possibly more of that shit than real food! Those animals are, well, animals! What did you think they were, people, to be worth feeding better shit to? And the shit they get fed is nasty shit, even in the world of shit! Birth control pills and medications are like organically grown peanuts compared to that shit. Watch Food Inc. on this site to get a little taste, though the superb documentary covers a lot more shit than that and is real good shit for anybody to know about the nature of the food they eat.

Animal shit has been used as nature’s fertilizer over the millennia. However, that was when animals ate stuff Mother Nature fed them, not the shit we’re feeding them today. If you know all the shit the animals you eat are fed, whose shit fertilizes fields other food you eat are grown in, I’d be willing to bet you’d take food grown from your own shit any day!

Finally, why are you concerned about fresh food grown in shit compared to all that processed shit you’re eating?

Seriously, few people these days don’t eat processed food, whether frozen dinners or fast food, not to mention drinking pop. Obesity is an epidemic for a reason, you know, not to mention a lot of other health conditions stemming from shitty diets. A little shit here or there that gets through from food grown in shit, or food fed shit in the case of animals, is nothing compared to all that bad shit out there people are eating. Even the good shit, if frozen or processed to much like frozen organic entrees, isn’t all that good shit to be eating.

Conclusions

All in all, worrying about a little shit that might get through after Mother Nature, and possibly filtration plants, have filtered your shit in which you grow your food is misplacing your concerns. There’s a whole lot of other shit out there you ought to be raising shit about.

All right. Enough of this shit.

I hope I won’t get in trouble for talking about this shit…

Oh, shit.