Find It In Me

I've been tagged by my fabulous former roomie, Brittany. I'm suppose to come up with six things people don't know about me. I'm pretty sure that there's nothing about me that someone doesn't know, but I'll try hard to come up with some of the lesser known facts for your reading enjoyment . . . :)

1- I love to run. Crazy, I know. My gym teacher would never believe it, but it's true, I love running. I think it has a lot to do with the quality time I get to spend with my i pod :)

2- I have an insane memory when it comes to social things. I can remember stupid little details that don't really matter about what day it was, who was there and what we talked about type things. Of course my everyday memory's not so great. Go figure.

3- Sometimes I get embarrassed because of what I remember so I play dumb . . . I say something like "have we met before? I'm not sure. Maybe. I think so . . . Oh yeah, we did hang out a little." Truth is I know where we met and what we were doing. If I thought about it enough, I could easily figure out the date as well. One time we played Cranium and I couldn't for the life of me figure out that you were humming Mary Had a Little Lamb.

4- I really don't watch a ton of TV, but I feel like I know what's going on in a bunch of shows I've never seen because I keeping up on them through their commercials. My favorite show I kept up on through commercials: Ed. You know, the bowling alley lawyer. I eventually caught most of the series in syndication. LOVE it! :)

5- I picked up a swearing haibt from the kids at the group home where I use to work. I'm doing a pretty good job of getting rid of it these days, but I refuse to let go of "bitcher," it's way too funny!

6- I'm going to Florida next month with The Knutson's. I think maybe three people know that. It's not some hidden fact about myself, just a recent development, and since I've been trying to come up with a sixth thing for over a week now, it's gonna have to do. Karen actually reminded me about it today, so it's been on my mind. I'm pretty excited about it. ;)

Passion Play

Today was a big day for two of my absolute favorite people in the entire musical world. Both Joshua Radin and William Fitzsimmons released their new albums! (Note: if you haven't realized this by now, let me just point out that I tend to get a tad passionate about music. Especially when it comes to Josh ;) ).

Let's start off with Joshua Radin a.k.a. the love of my musical life. If you haven't heard him before then you obviously need to check out my playlist. :) The man has been compared to Nick Drake and referred to as a modern day Simon and Garfunkle. Josh's new album is called Simple Times and it's brilliant. A little different than the first album, but it's still Josh. Let me just tell you why I love this man so much (well, one reason anyway). Colombia Records signed Josh probably two and a half/three years ago. He went with them because they said they'd produce his album just as he recorded it; no changes. Then when it came time for the sophomore record, they wanted him to make changes; move towards more of a mainstream/pop-ish sound. He wouldn't do it. He bought himself out of his contract and signed on with Mom and Pop Records, an indie label and was able to release his music how he feels his music should sound. Even if you hated his sound, you'd have to respect the guy for that.

The album has been up on i-tunes for the past four weeks and beat out Metallica for the number one selling album it's first week out. I was going to wait for the hard copy, but I just couldn't hold myself back. I did of course, order a hard copy but of course it wasn't in the mail. Hopefully tomorrow! Josh also performed on the Ellen Show today. I was stoked until I got home and found that the DVR did not record the event. Tragic. I feel I handled myself well though; no tears were shed, I didn't break anything, just complained a little. Good thing I'm going to see him perform live this weekend, or thing may not have turned out so pretty . . . Now if someone could just get the clip up on youtube . . . :)

Next we have William. William Fitzsimmons also released and album today called The Sparrow and The Crow. It's his third album, and possibly my favorite. I can't get over how talented this man is! I first heard WF towards the beginning of the year when I noticed him on the Hotel Cafe Tour's line-up. I instantly bought one his albums and later fell in love with it so much that I had to have the other one as well. Imagine my delight when I found out he had a third album on the way!

I pre-ordered the cd rather than waiting to buy it on i-tunes because it came with a free subscription to Paste Magazine ("the entertainment magazine for thinking adults, Paste looks for "signs of life" in music, film, and culture") and I like getting mail. I'm generally not big into the whole pre-order thing, but this time it turned out to be the best thing I could have done because when I got home on Friday afternoon, the cd was sitting in my mailbox . . . that's four whole days before I could have gotten it anywhere else. The album is amazing, I can't wait for November 7th when I get to see him perform the songs live!!!

For more details on Josh, William, or the Hotel Cafe tour, or to listen to their music, direct your eyes to the right side of your screen. For those of you who are directionally impaired, just take a look at this . . . (Josh appears at approx. 6:07) ;)