just got a text?

no. ship may have sailed, per orange.

I just read the first page of mozart's rant, clicked on page 2 and POOF! Man, I must've missed some good stuff.

Playing with my Google submarine.

CFP wrote:Snyder's Honey Mustard/Onion pretzels should be illegal

As should their Butter Snaps

a butt itch can be truly relentless

Had Christina Aguilera not screwed up the lyrics to the National Anthem, it still would've sucked.

there's a pretty good article that Slate runs (pretty much every year after someone murders the anthem at the Super Bowl) about how terrible a song it is

http://www.slate.com/id/2140995/

Eem wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:

Eem wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:me and housh are drunk as $#@! and watching the human centipede

FIND MY IPOD

WE LOOKED EVERYWHERE

I bet it turns up in somebody's buttcrack or something

a+ exchange

Houshphandzadeh wrote:there's a pretty good article that Slate runs (pretty much every year after someone murders the anthem at the Super Bowl) about how terrible a song it is

http://www.slate.com/id/2140995/

The linked column doesn't say that at all

Should Pablo and Pilar succeed in mastering the lyrics of the first verse, the music is almost certain to defeat them. By convention, the anthem is played in the key of B-flat major, which is too high for most untrained voices, especially when they reach the notes that correspond to the words "rocket's RED GLARE" and "la-and of the FREEEEE." These oft-screeched passages provoked the song's nickname, "The Star-Strangled Banner." To get through the verse also requires an extraordinary vocal range. You may be able to hum and muddle your way through in the company of 50,000 Yankees fans, a thundering organ, and a coloratura soprano on loan from the Met. But try it in the shower and you'll see what I mean.

awful lyrics + too hard for most people to sing = bad anthem

It also doesn't say it has awful lyrics. It says it uses archaic language. Well, no shit, it was written 200 years ago.

That's a pretty bad criticism.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3lZFiyd_-0&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]

phatj wrote:It also doesn't say it has awful lyrics. It says it uses archaic language. Well, no $#@!, it was written 200 years ago.

That's a pretty bad criticism.

I go back and forth on the anthem. The music, to sing, is difficult, but it is pleasant enough when played instrumentally. Has a certain majesty to it. The lyrics, when read, are really awful - it is a third rate piece of poetry - but have the distinct advantage of not referencing God, where admittedly better songs (America the Beautiful, Battle Hymn of the Republic) do reference God. I'd really rather not force one more God reference into the group of cultural artifacts that make up the backbone of American mythology, thank you very much.

I just meant I don't like the way she sings.

What happens when the generation in its teen years right now gets handed the keys, and we see a President born in, say, 1998 (will first be eligible in 2036)?

All of these kids will have had their every thought, word, and deed recorded by Google and Facebook or things of that ilk. People of this generation trying to enter public life will be at the mercy of these companies, right? "Do what we want or we release to the world that time you said X on Facebook about this or that quasi-political issue that would look bad now." I mean, people who wind up entering politics tend to be active thinkers/interactors in their youth. The kind of person who will be elected President in 2040 is likely the kind of person who will have spent a lot of time, from an early age, putting their thoughts out into the digital ether, and sometimes in ways that weren't filtered by the "I may run for President some day" principle so I'd better watch it.

I feel like companies that do this kind of recording are going to have enormous - frightening, really - power.

mozartpc27 wrote:What happens when the generation in its teen years right now gets handed the keys, and we see a President born in, say, 1998 (will first be eligible in 2036)?

All of these kids will have had their every thought, word, and deed recorded by Google and Facebook or things of that ilk. People of this generation trying to enter public life will be at the mercy of these companies, right? "Do what we want or we release to the world that time you said X on Facebook about this or that quasi-political issue that would look bad now." I mean, people who wind up entering politics tend to be active thinkers/interactors in their youth. The kind of person who will be elected President in 2040 is likely the kind of person who will have spent a lot of time, from an early age, putting their thoughts out into the digital ether, and sometimes in ways that weren't filtered by the "I may run for President some day" principle so I'd better watch it.

I feel like companies that do this kind of recording are going to have enormous - frightening, really - power.

I would think that there would be a lot of leniency for what future politicians do as teenagers. Most people know Bush's college life was a drunken four year stumble, yet it was not as big an issue as many would think. From what I read in Bush's autobiography, the political vitriol wasn't considered fair game until after college, according to the american public.

Our current president wrote about how he smoked pot and tried cocaine in college. The one before the ex-drunk with a DUI and unanswered allegations about harder drug use had serious marital infidelity stuff hanging over him and admitted to trying pot (though crucially not inhaling ).

I mean, it's not like we require our presidents or other elected officials to be angels, and I can't imagine we're going to get more demanding on this point as time goes on.

You just can't go John Edwards.