This Should Work

Last night, I unpacked my bags from a weekend trip to Reno for a friend’s bachelor party. My sports coat that I wore most of the weekend reeks of cheap alcohol and stale cigarettes.

Yes, I had a good time.

I really like Odwalla products. If I’m feeling a little under the weather, I’ll drink a Mo’ Beta or C-Monster to help give my immune system a little boost. I always felt that I was putting in a very nutritious drink in my body every time I drank an Odwalla, but now that has changed.

I thought I would try a different Odwalla yesterday choosing the PomaGrand-pomegranate lemonade. A very tasty beverage; nice sweet flavor that’s quickly followed by the tartness of the lemonade. I really enjoyed drinking it and told my current officemate to try one.

“It’s good for you,” I said “just look at the bottle…” and when I turned to check out the Nutrition Facts I saw a bunch of zeros- and not in the right spots either.

• 0% Vitamin A
• 0% Vitamin C
• 0% Calcium
• 0% Iron
• 0g Protein

We compared my Odwalla to her Diet Coke and found that while the sugars were higher in the Diet Coke the calories were lower (0 for Diet, 110 for Odwalla). I went to Odwalla’s website and found that even the regular lemonade has more nutrition than the pomegranate-flavored one.

It may taste good, but it apparently has no nutritional value to it.

For Valentine’s Day my wife got me Rob Sheffield’s Love is a mix tape, a book in which Sheffield writes about certain times and relationships in his life while listening to the mix tapes he made during these times.

I believe when you’re making a mix, you’re making history…You go through an artist’s entire career, zero in on that one moment that makes you want to jump and dance…[a]nd then you can play that moment over and over.

A mixtape steals these moments from all over the musical cosmos, and slices them into a whole new groove.

I agree Rob. I used to make mix tapes all the time, now I just make playlists for my iPod which is not the same. There’s no commitment with a playlist; I can re-arrange or remove songs with the click of a mouse. But a mixtape is permanent; I’ve made a decision that this Pixies song will follow that Stone Temple Pilot song. I could record over a tape, but the ghost of the previous songs can still be heard if one turns the stereo up loud enough.

This weekend, while in the basement doing laundry, I randomly pulled out four mixtapes and brought them upstairs to listen to while doing other house work. The one I played was titled “Mix 101.5 mix tape #1.” I used to work as a DJ for an Adult Top-40 radio station in North Carolina, serving as the overnight host on weekends and weekdays. I hated the music I was playing (Celine Dion, N’Sync, Rob Thomas, etc.) and always looked through the music library to see if there was anything I wanted to play on the air. I’d take a couple of them to our Music Director to try and get them in rotation, but his hands were pretty much tied by market research.

I can’t tell you how many times a phrase like “Well, that song didn’t score high enough in our focus-group.” So I started broadcasting what I was told while playing my own music in my headphones. I soon found I could record these mixes to tape and this was the playlist from the first one:

I listened to this tape while cleaning the bathroom, sanding the wall, and shredding credit card offers-I was dancing the entire time. Some songs reminded me of the early days when I was dating my wife (we both had Arrested Development of CD), others reminded me of hanging out with my roomate from college (she once sang PYT at a bar on karaoke night).

Taking this little trip down memory lane was better than any mix I could have placed on my iPod.

LL’s pug Woody celebrated a birthday today, so birthday party was thrown in his honor at a local doggie day care called Dogtown. Myself, along with our pugs Yoda and Spike, went to celebrate Woody’s life along with eight other pugs and about 14 humans.

I’ve never been to this place before and was surprised to find that the dogs had a huge indoor room to run around (it’s literally the size of a basketball court). The dogs chased, sniffed, and peed all over the place and they all seem to enjoy every minute of it.

But the climax of the event was the the doggie birthday cake. After everyone sang Happy Birthday to Woody (including Yoda who howled his own rendition) each dog got a slice of cake from For the Love of Dog Bakery. Everyone took their dogs to a separate part of the room and let them enjoy the cake (which someone said tasted like gingerbread. She had to try it). Yoda and Spike licked their plates clean in a matter of moments.

Even though it was Woody’s birthday, his owners–Lorilyn and Tracy– made every other dog feel like a guest of honor. Thanks you two, and Happy Birthday Woody.

I broke down and bought a new Video iPod yesterday. I love it. The brighter screen, color, different games, the capability of holding both video, photos, and music.

The one downside it the newer designer (slimmer with a larger screen) will not fit in my old iPod case correctly; so the search is on this weekend to find a new one.