I Caved

I was going through my wishlist at Half.com and I decided to thin it out by two CDs, basically because one of the discs was less than $3.00 before shipping and the other was a good price and was the first disc on my Must Have list.

So for less than $18.00 I got these two CDs.





Obsession isn't a bad thing, right?

Top 5 On Friday - Week 65 (Wishlist Edition)

Top 5 albums you wished you had in your collection (If you want, tell us why you want these albums)

My wish list is currently 2 pages long in a notebook. On Half.com my wishlist is 4 pages long. I'll post the discs that I currently want more than the rest.

1. Herman's Hermits - Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter



I only own a best of disc right now. (I'm still waiting for A Kind Of Hush to come in the mail) I hope to own all 4 of the bands CDs before Oct. This particular disc has the songs from the On Tour album, which was one of my favorites.

2. Cliff Richard - Miss You Nights



One of the nicer best of packages. Oh and it has a pretty cover!

3. Glass Tiger - No Turning Back



These guys were one of my favorite 80's bands. This best of has a few unreleased tracks that I have to hear. One day I'll own a copy.

4. Annie Haslam - One Enchanted Evening



Annie covers the Beatles, She's Leaving Home on this one and I have to hear it!

5. The Tremblers - The Tremblers



Peter's cover of Elvis Costello's Green Shirt is on this one. Nuff said.

Thursday Thirteen

13 Reasons Why I Love Peter Noone

1. Cheesy fun songs that get stuck in your head forever and ever like Rattler.

2. His wacky dress sense, which makes Justin Hayward's look good.



That jacket used to be someone's couch!

3. He is an active participant on his webpage.

4. The Noonatics are an awesome group of people.

5. His wacky sense of humor. I have a copy of a show he did in Carol Stream and his concerts are half stand up comedy and half vaudeville! (I can't wait til October now)

6. Those baby blues



7. He's a very silly man. (And you can never have enough silly in your life)



8. Tickets to his concerts don't break the bank.

9. He's got a cute tushie!



10. He's got cute down to an artform.




11. I don't have to drive more than an hour to see his concert.

12. He covered an Elvis Costello song.

13. He looks cute in leather trousers.

Hunks!

Hey, it's hump day! Ya gotta have hunks on hump day!



Elvis Costello is sexy in purple.



They don't call Richard, Foxy Roxy for nothing.



Sexy Sigh-moan!



Peter in leathers....YUM! He's so darn cute. (And Jill...you know what cheeks I want to pinch!)



And hump day wouldn't be hump day without the Jays!

Random Thoughts

Yes, it's time for another potpourri of thoughts.

~ Mary Kay is a pretty damn good line of skin care and make up. I swear they make the only lipstick that stays on after eating. The only line I like better is Chanel, but Mary Kay skin care is the best I've used so far. (Why am I not beautiful, then?)

~ I still have that damn Herman's Hermits song stuck in my head. I've got a mad crush on Peter Noone. Have I mentioned that?



He's so cute. I want to pinch his cheeks.

~ My "To Buy" CD list is now 2 pages long. This is so wrong. I've even made a few purchases and it seems to grow rather shrink. (Cheap Trick has a new disc out on June 6 along with Elvis Costello's The River In Reverse)

~ Keri Noble's new EP is supposed to be out next week. I'm very excited about this. I just wish I knew how much this 6 song EP was going to set me back. I'm thinking 20 bucks since that's what all her other EPs cost.

~ I need a DVDR drive badly. Why? I'm not sure, other than I want to copy some bootleg DVDs for family etc.

~ I'm going to the Spring Flower Show on Sunday! Yay! I'm going to get to take pictures this weekend! Squee!

Doing The Mary Kay Thing

A friend of mine has a Mary Kay business and tonight I'm going to one of the meetings to have a facial.

Me being the anti-social creature, am just a trifle nervous about this. I'd almost rather be a hostess, but I don't have enough friends that wear makeup or even have a decent place in my house for a party.

I hope this doesn't last very long, but I hope I have fun and most of all, I hope I don't spend too much money.

I'm such a beauty product whore, that it's easy to rope me into buying stuff. Right now I'm doing my best to only get things that I need. (skin care..that sort of thing)

Anything to be beautiful, right?

Ha! Making me beautiful would take more than Mary Kay!

My Major Accomplishment This Weekend

Yes, I took lots of pictures this weekend, which brought me endless joy, but that's not the huge accomplishment of the weekend. The huge accomplishment was buying this cd:



It's There's A Kind Of Hush by Herman's Hermits. I spent $14 dollars on this disc because of the song You Won't Be Leaving, which has been stuck in my head for the last 3 days.

I downloaded a video clip of this song over at Peter's Official Site in the forums and I've grown addicted to it. It's a song that's on the one album that I don't own on either CD or vinyl.

If Half.com doesn't cough it up quickly I will probably the last bit of sanity that I'm clinging to.

Gave My Camera A Workout

I finally got to snap some pictures yesterday! About 100 or so in all, which is great, because I haven't had the opportunity to use my good camera in ages. Out of the blue, I decided to take my nephew to Round Hill Park, which is a working farm.

Round Hill is a fun place to go with kids or just by yourself if you're an animal lover, but I like to commandeer a kid when I go, so I don't look silly.

Here's one of my shots of the ducks from the pond.



To see some of my other shots and more ducks go to my photoblog.

A Great Day For....

Trying to get more stuff done than any one person should try to accomplish in one weekend.

1. Laundry (oh how I hate doing the laundry)

2. Getting some photos taken somewhere. I don't really care what I photograph as long as it isn't my damn cats. (which I love, but they are such hams! And my camera is sick of them)

3. I need to clean out closets again. I still have 2 bags of stuff from the last closet dejunking to take to the Salvation Army.

4. Buy that damn Herman's Hermits CD that has the song You Won't Be Leaving on it. So at some point in time that song will get out of my head.

5. Go on a nice long stress busting walk. (Take the damn camera along)

6. Burn some CDs so I can get some stuff off my hard drive again.

7. Find pleasure in the beautiful things in life...like this





Eeep. Young Peter looks like Justin!

Covered Bridges

The County that I live in has about 30 covered bridges. A few weeks ago when I was out and about with a friend I got to snap pictures of 2 of them. Shortly afterwards I discovered that our county has a tourism website with directions to all the bridges in the county!

Clicky here to go to that site and to see some of our covered bridges. I plan on taking that driving tour (since I sent away for the brochure) as soon as the weather is nice and I can take pictures!

But wait! I do have a few pics. I posted them at my photoblog back when I took them, but I never shared them here.

Top 5 On Friday

From the ladies @ Music Memoirs.

Top 5 Songs that make you feel warm.

The Moody Blues - The Swallow

Herman's Hermits - Sunshine Girl

The Monkees - I Wanna Be Free

Bernie Barlow - Golden

Nick Lowe - The Rose Of England

Cross-posted at my Livejournal

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things that have irked me this week.

1. Parish council covered dish dinners that I have to attend. I'm still trying to figure out how I got talked into being on parish council. Oh wait, I remember, the magical nun powers of persuasion.

2. My debt management program, which managed to drive me crazy when I was just trying to add an account to the program. (They managed to make me think I had missed a payment when I hadn't)

3. Buying concert tickets for a show that isn't until October! Lordy I could be dead by October or rather, the act I'm going to see could be dead!

4. Truckdrivers calling me "The Sexy Secretary" HA!

5. The P.A.M.S. (which is the taxing authority for local taxes in my area) not knowing the tax rate for the borough that I work in. I found out that all the employees in my company had 42 dollars more than they should have withheld. ARGH!

6. Not being able to go to sleep early enough for my body. During the week if I'm not in bed by 10:30 I'm tired the whole day. I haven't been able to fall asleep until 11 or later all week.

7. Out of print CDs. Everything I've been looking for is out of print!

8. The cold! Wasn't spring supposed to start on Monday at 1:26 pm? Why are we still getting snow showers and generally cold yucky weather?

9. Venues that don't let you know when concerts are going on sale. I had to find out that the Peter Noone tickets were on sale a day after the fact. Thankfully no one else knew either and I still managed to score great seats.

10. Not knowing where a concert is going to be at. My sis wants to see Gary Puckett and he's playing Hershey Park, but the specific venue isn't listed anywhere yet. That concert's in June.

11. Not remembering things. Eddie Izzard has been on BBC the last 2 Saturdays and I've forgotten to watch both times.

12. Being told I look like Velma from Scooby Doo. Ok, that was last Friday, but that still counts, cos I'm still irked by it. The question now is, am I the "Sexy Secretary" or "Velma?"

13. The Moody Blues. I love them, but everything they do right now is annoying me. Including playing a show in Niagra Falls on April 1. (Considering Niagra Falls is on my list of places I really want to go)

Got My Tickets!!

Even though the tickets to Peter Noone's show in Uniontown went on Monday. (And I didn't know), I still managed to score great seats! Left aisle, row E! That's 5 rows from the stage! Better than I've managed for half of the shows I've gone to in the last 3 years.



I'm still pondering why I just bought 2 tickets for a concert in mid-October on March the 22nd!

Happy Hunk Day

Really, it's not about it being hump day, right? It's all about the hunks! Hunks make the world go around. (At least for me they do)



Erasure, geeky and gay boy hunks.



Jays! Cos they are still hunks even if they've toppled from their pedestal.



The Monkees are too cute to be forgotten.



Even with a bowtie, Cliff Richard is still a hunk.



And there's no forgetting Johnny Depp! Happy Hunk Day!

Farewell Kaufmann's

Elena was talking about the closing of Robinson-May in her area, due to the merger of the May Company and Federated Department Stores.

Well, yesterday saw the closing of two Kaufmann's stores that were close to my heart. South Hills Village actually closed on Sunday. That was the first store I worked at. I was employed there for 2 years after college. It was a fun and often aggravating experience, but one I wouldn't trade for the world. Everyone should work at a department store once in their life, and it should be over a Christmas holiday. I worked there for 2 Christmases. I'm sure I'll be up for sainthood for not killing anyone during those two seasons.

I adored that Kaufmann's store. It was big and beautiful, ok, not beautiful, but it was big and you could always find a deal there. Plus all the people that worked there were nice, associates and management alike.

These closings are the first step in switching over of all the stores to the Macy's name. I'm not thrilled by that. Macy's doesn't have quite the appeal to me as Kaufmann's did, and it's not that I'm feeling loyal to the home store. It's the May Company brands that I'm going to miss.

Shopping just isn't going to be the same when this merger is complete.

R.I.P. Kaufmanns.

Thank you for the debt!

Fan Clubs

In my nearly 32 years on this lovely planet of ours, I've only belonged to two fanclubs. I belonged to EIS for Erasure, still do, considering its a free service these days, and I subscribed to the Monkee Business fanzine back in the 80's.

I'm very seldom tempted into joining a fanclub.

I am now.

Who is getting my undying devotion and possibly twenty dollars, you ask?

Peter Noone.

Why?

Well, as opposed to some moodier bands, when I shell out the 20 dollars, I get things, rather than access to a website filled with nasty wanker fans that should be put to sleep or turned into cracker meal. Oh, that sounded nasty.

Anyway, with the Peter Noone fanclub. I get a welcome message from Peter. (Awwwww!) An autographed picture. (You can never have too many pictures, right) A 10% discount on merchandise at the store. And there were a few other things too.

Needless to say, I'm considering giving Peter's fanclub some of my cash. The Moody Blues won't get a dime from me. I have no desire to have access to a fan community that has a miniscule amount of nice fans.

Loving Herman's Hermits

I was going through my vinyl today and I found this among the piles of Beatles and Monkees LPs

I bought this album at a flea market sometime in the mid-eighties. I remember waving it madly at The Monkees 20 Anniversary tour, where Herman's Hermits (minus Peter Noone) opened, along with Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

I was in love with their light cheesy pop music. I'm finding that I'm still in love with it. Hearing some of the songs again, brings a smile to my face. They have the same appeal as The Monkees and the early Beatles material. Innocence, pure and simple.

I only wish more of the band's music was available on CD in the US. A few albums are in print in Europe, but the prices here are out of the ballpark and even Half.com doesn't have any good deals.

So if I want to replace albums like Blaze or any of the others, I have to cough up at least 25 dollars, which is ridiculous considering the Monkees discs are less than 10 dollars on CD Universe. And even more bizarre is the fact that Herman's Hermits had a great deal of success in the US. So the fact that you can only get a few meager Best Of discs in this country is just a trifle disturbing.

I want my Hermany goodness, damn it!

40 Years

I never realized it but there are so many bands and albums celebrating 40 years this year. (That sounds weird)

As for the bands...Happy 40 goes to:

The Moody lunkheads...erm The Moody Blues.

The Monkees

God that makes me feel old. I wasn't around to see either band in their hey day, but I did live through the 80's revival that brought so many bands from the 60's back into the music scene again, and that was 20 years ago!

Both bands are planning wonderful things for this year. Guess which one I care about and which one I don't give a rats backside about?

Ah, maybe I'll finally get to watch all the Monkees episodes again. I really wish I could get the chance to see one of Davy's shows, but he doesn't seem to want to play anywhere near me. Grrr.

On another note, how many times do you think that record companies can repackage and remaster any given artists back catalogs? And how many times will the consumer actually buy them?

Fried Pickles Are Yummy

I went to Primanti's for a corned beef and cheese sandwich, as my delayed St Patrick's Day feast and my sister and I ordered the fried veggie platter to go along with it.

The fried veggie platter is yummy, yummy, yummy. It had fried zucchini, mushrooms (which I let big sis eat, cos I'm not much on fungi), onion rings, french fries and fried pickles.

Now the concept of a fried pickle is not quite appetizing but I have to say, the finished product is really great. Somehow the dill pickles manage to stay cool and crunchy after they've been deep fried, and oh are they good.

I shouldn't have doubted the tastyness of this treat because I did sample fried oreos and fried twinkies at Idlewild last year and those were to die for.

So if you're ever anywhere where they serve fried pickles, I suggest you try them. (Assuming, that you like pickles.)

I Used My CD Player!

It's funny. I have a decent Aiwa stereo system that I've had for years, but since I bought a computer 6 years ago, I've used it less and less.

When I buy a CD, I usually rip the tracks to my harddrive and put the CD aside. But the other day I got some CDs in the mail from my friend Callie and I had to listen to them, nd since they are bootlegs, I didn't want to spend hours retagging the tracks, because that can be annoying with the CDDB screws up.

So my CD player is actually turned on, and Elvis Costello is actually coming through the speakers.

Wow!

It's probably not a good thing that I let the computer completely dictate my listening habits. I have so much music and not even half of it is on my computer. Hell, some of my stuff is still on vinyl, like my Herman's Hermit's stuff. (Though I do have quite a few mp3s)

Perhaps its time to step away from the computer for a bit.

Nah.

But I do think it's time to stop using my winamp for all my music needs.

Monkees In The Mail

I caved in and order The Monkees Missing Links Vol. 3 this week.

Because it's pretty much out of print I spent more than I would have liked to spend on a disc that's not in the best of shape.



But I'm just really happy to have this in my collection. (Even though I spent nearly 17 bucks on a used disc. But then again, this disc has been sold for 22 and higher on a few sites I've been to, so I'm not complaining too much. I'm just going to make sure I don't spend as much when I buy Missing Links Vol. 1. That disc will complete my Monkees collection.

For some reason I've really been on a Monkees kick for the last week or two. I haven't a clue why. I guess it's because it's shiny happy bouncy music, and I'm really in the need for something like that right now. Plus I like looking at the cute pictures of Davy in the CD inserts.

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things you might not know about me and/or my silly obsessions.

1. The Moody Blues aren't my favorite band. (but they are one of them)

2. If Elvis Costello hadn't worked with Paul McCartney I probably never would have listened to his music.

3. Then and Now The Best Of The Monkees was the first CD I ever bought.

4. I like more music from the decade before I was born than those afterwards.

5. I've only known one of my grandparents.

6. I've never owned a car with less than 50000 miles on it.

7. My CD collection is probably over 4000 discs now.

8. On 99.9% of the road trips I've been on, I've done the driving.

9. The only states I've been in are PA, NJ, WV, MD, NY and OH.

10. I've been to Canada twice. Once to Niagra Falls and once to Toronto.

12. I still have a crush on Davy Jones.



13. I plan on seeing Peter Noone in concert on Justin Hayward's b-day.

Can You Ever Say I Love You Enough?

Tonight while I was visiting my gram at the hospital I started to wonder if you could ever tell someone that you love them enough. I've had my gram all my life. She's the only grandparent I ever knew, all the others had passed on before I was born.

Since yesterday I've been feeling very guilty about not being the best grandchild I could be. I could visit more. I could do more.

I guess what I'm saying is that I've spent so much time living my life, which isn't necessarily the most exciting, that I don't always stop to spend time with her. And now I have to wonder how much longer I'll have her.

She's always been there to bail me out when I needed. She paid for the college education that I've yet to use, as I sit wasting my life in a half-assed secretarial job. (So I can be close to home for her and my parents) She's helped pay for my cars (not that any of them are new)

I only hope that she knows how much I love her and how scared I am right now that I'm going to lose her.

Hump Day!

The only thing that's good about today is the hunks. (And possibly the fact that there are 2 more days til the weekend)

So in a vain attempt to keep my chin up and all that, eye candy is needed.