The Night Before: February 27, 2009

We are in Miami, the night before we embark on Cayamo 2009. Cayamo is a cruise which will take us from the Port of Miami to Samana, St. Thomas, Tortola, and Great Stirrup Cay, an island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines. We'll be aboard the Norwegian Dawn (one of my favorite Beatles songs). Heh.

I found out about the cruise through Pollstar, which operates a service to notify you when your favorite artists update their tour information. I got a message and five or six bands on my notify list said they were all going to be at Cayamo. I wondered what the hell that was. So I checked out the site and signed up within a few weeks.

Aboard the ship with us will be many singer songwriters like John Hiatt, Patty Griffin, Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, Tift Merritt, and Kathleen Edwards. we've never been on a cruise. we don't know what to expect. Will the artists really be on board the ship or will they get off and on from the ports? Will we like the food? Will we break the bank with our drink budget?

Stay tuned. I will answer these questions and more right here.

Your Most Valuable Possession

From Ben Folds:

Your Most Valuable Possession :
(6:49 a.m, Friday, November 20th)
"Good morning, Mr. Ben.
It's about 6:30 —
Winston-Salem, North Carolina.


Um...just laying here in the bed,
half awake, half asleep,
thinking about you.

I was
wondering if you were looking after your
most valuable
possession:
your mind.

I was thinking about
John Glenn,
his space journey and all.

They said that
when you're in space you lose
muscle mass
and the body
mass
and I wondered if there was any
end to it.

Or whether,
if you didn't exercise in space,
how long it would be before you were just
a head, or a mind —
and have no body or arms.
You'd have them but you couldn't use them.

I was wondering if
if your body mass would drop to a certain level,
and then it would stop right there.
And keep whatever you needed to
use your mind
because it would still be working."


(30 seconds remaining)

"Anyway, I was just pondering that.
What do you think about...that?

I hope everything is going alright.
I may well wake up here in a little while
and forget what I was thinking about."

Music Choice FunFacts: James Blunt

If you have Time Warner Cable, chances are you've listened to their music channels, called Music Choice. One of the interesting things they do on Music Choice is provide trivia on the artists and songs as you listen to them. Here are the things they said about James Blunt whilst his song "1973" played on Adult Alternative (uncensored):

• James Blunt's album "Back to Bedlam" came out in 2004
• James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" reached #13 on Billbord's Hot 100 Chart in 2005
  
• The word blunt means to make less intense, dull, numb, or insensitive
• James Blunt is often seen in public enjoying cucumber sandwiches
• James Blunt has been known to sleep in excess of 17 hours per day
• "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt is hated by almost everyone
  
• Critics rank James Blunt alongside inexpensive FTD floral arrangements and Sweet'N Low
  
• James Blunt is described on his website as "tender" and "mealy-mouthed"
  
• Experts expect James Blunt to fade into obscurity sometime in late 2012

BlairLake in the News

From the May 20, 1999 issue of the Wall Street Journal.

Peanut Butter Items Recalled

Breaking news from Reuters:

The sole source of the U.S. salmonella outbreak involving contaminated peanut butter appears to be the Peanut Corp of America's Blakely, Georgia processing facility, federal officials said on Wednesday.

Here are items made with Peanut Corp's products (listed in order of popularity):

• Balk Brand Salted-in-the-Shell Peanuts
• Salma 'N' Ella's Peanut Butter Schnapps
• Emeril's Peanut Remoulade Sauce
• PowerUp Protein Giblets (Peanut Butter flavor)
• Omaha Steaks Nu Flavas Brand Fillets w/ Peanut Butter Cream Sauce
  
• Kirkland Brand Mini Nougat Hunks (2-gross pack)
• Obese Gourmet Ready-2-Eat Peanut Butter Waffles
  
• Guy Fieri's Nutrageous Ginger Blast (12 oz. size)
  
• Yoplait Nutty Molasses Hot Chocolate Smoothie Nibblers ToGo

If you have any of these items, the FDA suggests you should return them to the store.