Tag: synth

Sunda’s Theme Music

Sunda, July 20, 2025, has entered the play. 73 F, summer is currently riding the norms in Ashlandia. A high of 90 F is expected and the sky is cloud-free blue. Smoke scents surf the wind, enough to be a smelly irritant but not enough to change the air quality or discolor the sky.

This is the Apollo 11 moon-landing anniversary. One giant leap, all that. Seems like it was last night that I sat in our Penn Hills wood-paneled basement game room, watching the news on the big color television as a 13 year old. Then I went outside and looked for the moon again. Seems like we progressed for a long time after that, but now as a nation, as a world of people, we’re falling backwards. Bummer to consider as my body curves into its 69th year. Of course, history slides on its own spectrum of peaks and valleys as nature and political wins and losses bend the trajectories. Time will tell what we’ll be remembering as history in 2075, and how a person like me will look back on it.

I perused this morning’s news with sighs. Flooding and deaths in South Korea, questions about Trump’s state of mental health, death and disaster in more places, lawsuits, etc. As far as Trump’s worsening gibbering, I don’t expect his loyalists to do anything about it because that would disrupt their power trips. That’s what it’s all about for enablers like Noem, Biondi, Kennedy, and the whole Project 2025 gang.

We went dancing yesterday. An annual thing, a troop of fifteen humans and one dog met on the shores of the Lake of the Woods Resort at 3 PM. Chatting, dancing, eating, we enjoyed being outside in sunshine, cooler air, smoke free air, enjoying Lisa & the Dynamics as they ably covered pop, rock, and country hits. Nice being away from the routines and the news for a few hours.

Today’s song comes from yesterday’s outing. “Everyone just have a good time,” was said and The Neurons said, “Kick it.” So, this morning has “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO from 2011 in the morning mental music stream. The song was a pretty big hit back then, was frequently heard via television and radio while I was traveling and running errands, but I haven’t heard it in a few years. Synth music, it’s made for dancing and has simple lyrics.

Back to Sunda I go. Hope you have the best day possible. That’s what I’m gunning for. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Theme Music

Thirstda, April 3, 2025, is here. The day arrived in a morose mood, dangling thick gray cloud strands over the mountains, covering the sun’s influence, and acting like it planned to dump us in moisture. Then some mystical order was given. Cosmic stagehands raced out. Clouds were shoved to the scene’s edges. Blue sky lit up. Sunshine burns down with a new hope. It was 36 F. Now we’re touching 45 F. But, hey: it feels warmer.

I stepped into the bathroom. Doing bathroomy stuff, my foot landed on something hard and mildly sharp. This was an attachment to an electric razor. One I had to trim my beard and mustache. I always have a mustache. My first mustache was noticed on me when I was fourteen. Mom told me that my face was dirty and to go wash it. “There’s something above your lip.”

My older sister laughed. “That’s his mustache.”

The beard comes and goes. A goatee is almost permanent. I’ve had it since I left the military in 1995. But the electric razor that piece attached to has been gone for over a decade. Turning it over, I pushed to understand how it came to be on the bathroom floor today. Unable to come up with anything except The Borrowers and aliens, I tossed the piece into the trash. It’s another page in my Book of Life Mysteries. I think we all keep one of those record books, don’t we?

Three songs were competing in the morning mental music stream. I introduced the first one. This was “Valley Girl” by Frank and Moon Zappa. This song capture the California valley girl subculture, and their unique verbiage. ‘Valleyspeak’ swept the nation. Too many people walked around, smirking, telling me, “Gag me with a spoon.” Variations of that phrase quickly emerged.

I was singing my variant of the song to Papi. Papi is my housefloof, feline by looks and attitude. The boy loves treats such as Churri squeeze tube pastes. My wife rechristened it chumley. Chumley is how we refer to any of those treats.

Today I sang to Papi, “Chumley cat, he’s a chumley cat. Oh my my, fer sure fer sure, he’s a chumley cat and there is no cure.”

Second up was Elvis Presley with “Blue Suede Shoes.” Carl Perkins did it first, after writing in in 1955 and releasing it in 1956, the year of my birth. The Neurons delivered this one to the mental music stream. They didn’t explain why. I was in the bathroom doing bathroom stuff when it arrived. I used to perform this song for my family when I was four or five. Hip swiveling and singing the chorus. No, video and photographic evidence doesn’t exist. I remember doing it and Mom verified it.

Third up is “Don’t Bring Me Down” by the Animals. I’m feeling absurdly young kitten energetic and happy. I don’t know why. You’d think that with Trumpzilla burning down the world economy with his outlandish tariffs, I’d be more depressed. My stocks are down. 401 K and IRA worth down. Prices are up and will go higher. But here I am, happy as the mythical lark. Sensing that mood, The Neurons introduced the 1966 song into the morning mental music stream. This is today’s theme music.

Hope you’re experiencing some of what I’m getting and your day doesn’t bring you down. Do the best you can, right? Cheers

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XMas Theme Music

Mood: Xmaschilled

I’m dreaming of a gray Christmas. Where raindrops glisten, and fog and mist close us in, and the temperatures are neither too warm nor too-oo cold.

And I got my wish! Yes, it’s a dreary day outside my windows. 43 F now, up from 36 F before. Cloudy as cloudy can be. Late posting this because I scoffed off to have breakfast brunch with friends. Yes, I was invited and didn’t crash it. Wonderful time with them, culminating in working on a five hundred piece Christmas-ornament themed jigsaw puzzle. Which didn’t get finished but was about 25 % when we walked after about 90 minutes of effort. Besides that, we compared stories of how we met our sig others, what holiday traditions were observed, and related tales of holiday craziness. Fun time all around.

We got home — I’d worn a dark gray sweater and charcoal pants to honor the gray holiday — ditched our clothes and served up leftovers.

You can guess that we’re not over-the-top Christmas celebrants. We’re not even up to our belly buttons in Christmas. Friends gifted us interesting X-mas theme stuff. Like an Amaryllis. And a pine tree centerpiece decorated in red ornaments and ribbons. Shortbread cookies dolled up with minced dill. Other kinds of cookies and baked goods. But that’s it. We put a couple items up and sent off a few cards and put a few gifts online and the end.

Meanwhile, my little sister sent me food photos of her Christmas setup. She had her nephews, children, grandchildren, sister, and Mom, along with her family. About fifteen people Ham. Mashed potatoes and cheesy hash brown potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, meatballs and stuffed shells, tossed salad, Stouffer’s mac & cheese for the kids. Apple pie, banana cream pie, pumpkin pie. Cookies. Cheesy pineapple casserole. Rolls from Oakmont Bakery along with carrot cake.

Today’s song is brought to you be Der Neurons. They’re always up for a song. In this case, someone said something about being human at brunch. The Ns took that as an brainvite to start “Human” by the Human League in the morning mental music stream (Trademark roasting). Not at all a Christmas song, this is a pop offering of a guy trying to explain away his cheating to his sig other by when they’re away by explaining, “Hey, I’m only human. Flesh and blood. A man.”

Hope your holidays met your needs. Time to start counting down to the new year yet? Here’s the music. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: freshThursnergy

It’s fresh today. Thursday morning finds the thermometer informing us that it’s 62 F. The high will be 79 F, a surprisingly low number for August 15, 2024. Clouds layer part of the sky. Airnow.gov says our air quality is 18, so it’s good air. Nice to see the numbers, to validate what my eyes are seeing and my schnoozer is telling me.

Skimming through the news. Here’s a small sampling.

Earthquakes in Texas — Scurry County. Seems oil related as they encounter saltwater that must be injected deeper into the Earth. The Railroad Commission is investigating, so we know they’ll get to the bottom of it.

Hurricane Ernesto is storming toward Bermuda.

Two astronauts remain stuck at the space station after the new Boeing Starliner failed them. In a way it’s like an old sitcom called Gilligan’s Island. Those folks were trapped on an island for years after a shipwreck when it was supposed to be a ‘three-hour tour’. The astronauts were only expected to be up there two weeks. Unfortunately, the astronauts don’t have the professor there to help them out. He was always coming up with intriguing ideas.

Trump was called out for lying about what the economy was like at the end of his term, trying to make out that it was the greatest in history when it was not.

Ukraine made an incursion into Russia as that conflict keeps going.

Montana’s Supreme Court struck down a 2013 law that required minors to get parental permission before getting an abortion. The Reuters article says the court unanimous opinion was written by Justice Laurie McKinnon. She wrote that “a minor’s right to control her reproductive decisions is among the most fundamental of the rights she possesses” and that Montana had not shown that the law was justified to protect minors. Sweet.

The turnout for the Wisconsin primary was an impressively high 26 percent — highest in 60 years. Geez. It depresses me that 26 percent is an impressive turnout. It’s for the primary, though.

And Bobcat kittens were stealing golf balls.

Dance week continues. I asked The Neurons what song I should include today, and they shoved “The Safety Dance” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark dancing). The 1982 new wave tune was performed by Men Without Hats, a Canadian group. I was overseas when it started charting, living on Okinawa, and they loved the song in dance clubs over there.

Stay positive. Be strong. Lean forward. Vote Blue in 2024. Here’s the dance music. I’m off to freshen my coffee. Cheers

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Sat’day’s Theme Music

Read enough news this morning to irritate me for a month of Saturdays. Do videos help? Sure, the truth emerges. Man, though, the truth gets ugly. Of course, some dismiss the videos and dismiss the truth and the ugliness. Turn away, pretend it’s not there or didn’t happen, or rationalize why it happened. I’m sure you know the score.

We’re on the cusp of a new month of the new year. How long can we call 2023 ‘the new year’. At what point does it just become the year?

So far, there hasn’t been much change in 2023 over what was happening in 2022. Is the U.S., is the world, heading in the right direction? It reminds me that calendar notations like years and months are convenient for record keeping. The periods of changes and shifts, rise and fall, define themselves. We just use the calendar to remind ourselves what happened when. Think about if we lacked calendars and what it would be like to refer to the past without one.

Anyway, it is Saturday, January 28, 2023. Heard a little girl call it Sat’day in a store yesterday. Dad corrected her, “Sat-ur-day.” She seemed about five years old. She and her father were chatting and shopping. I assume it was her father. She called him daddy. “Daddy, can we get some fish? I think I would love some fish.” I was looking for miso paste. Never did find any.

Sunrise today came in at 7:30ish. Cloudy conditions marred the viewing. Some blue is squatting to the northwest but we’ve been warned, gonna rain at 4 PM and then snow at 8 PM. Not much of either on this day. It’s trending toward being a cold day, especially with the sun’s mitigating effects being squashed. It’s 38 degrees F at my house, reaching for a high of 40.

The big chill is on its way, arriving a few days earlier than they originally thought. But it’s not as bad as initially forecast, with lows dropping to 23 tonight.

I have Devo with their 1980 new wave song, “Whip It”, in the morning mental stream. It’s all about, “Crack that whip.” “Move ahead. It’s not too late. To whip it. Whip it good.” Those might not be the lyrics but it is how I remember them. All about working harder, but in a satirical manner. I’m trying to whip my novel into shape. I cracked the whip but the pages didn’t change at all. The computer was pretty pissed about being whipped, urging me, “For cryin’ out loud, print it out and whip it.” Which made sense.

That expression, “For cryin’ out loud”, is one that Mom often used while growing up. I asked her, what does that mean? She responded, “It just means I’m exasperated.” But why? Why those words? Along with, “Oh, for goodness’s sake.”

Alright, got coffee. Got to power up and get a move on. Those expressions, I understand. Stay positive. Hope you understand. To a happy Saturday and some kinda change. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s pretty out there, and pretty nice, employing simple terms. The wind has taken some time off, fog didn’t show up, and the rain has granted a respite. Now 42 F, we expect 50 by the day’s end. More minutes were for our daylight, with the sun and Earth negotiating an agreement to give us one more minute on either end of sunshine’s visit, 7:37 and 5:04, AM and PM.

Birds are lovin’ it. A blue flash at my bathroom window arrested my activities. A stellar jay was on the stacked Adirondack chairs on the covered patio out there. Lovely color, those birds are, with a black head accenting their blue bodies. A acorn was in his beak. After popping his head in several directions to regard me, standing still and naked on the glass’s other side, he conducted a stop and go inspection, with a few hops tossed in, looking for a dignified burial site for his prize. Two other stellars joined him, showing their moral support, I suppose. The acorn wasn’t meant for my yard, as the jays headed off with the acorn still in one’s beak.

Up front, robins briefly visited, followed by a few wrens. Oddest thing, I heard no noises out of any of the birds. It was like Silence of the Birds. Also, neither of my cats witnessed any of this. One was following me around the house while the other napped in a chair.

This is the middle of January, 23, the fifteenth, a Sunday. About four percent of the year has passed. Time is not letting up.

When I was bird-watching, The Neurons took some time to hatch a song out of the activity. (See what I did there? Sorry, it’s pre-coffee.) I found myself singing, “West End Birds”, based on the Pet Shop Boys’ 1984 song, “West End Girls”. The Neurons were doing this, even as I pointed out that I’m on Ashland’s southern end. The Neurons tried accommodating me, singing “South End Birds” but none of us were impressed with that result. Then The Neurons pointed out that direction is relative and that we’re on the west end of the pass. As we weren’t specifying a place, west end worked. Just think of it as being on the pass’s west end, okay? Without coffee, I easily surrendered to their logic.

Anyway, skipping those details and jumping ahead, today’s theme music is “West End Girls”. It’s an interesting synth-pop song and fit well back in that musical era, an era which is still going on and started before the Pet Shop Boys and synths arrived. With pop and rock, with all music, going back and back, and back, it’s about finding the desired song to tell the story, share the emotions, or drive the direction. That’s my take.

Let’s try to stay positive as the year progessing and move ourselves forward as individuals, families, nations, and a species. First, I suppose, we need to find common ground on how ‘forward’ is defined.

Coffee is calling. So is a cat, so I’m up and off on a twofer. Here’s the music. I enjoyed pausing to watch the video and listen to the song. For that little slice of existence, I was back in another time.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Congratulations. You have won a beautiful, brand-new Saturday, March 12, 2022. What will you do with your new day? Maybe clean the house, go to a concert, talk a walk, run errands, do general chores, read a book, play an instrument, knit, cook, eat, party, celebrate, sleep?

Day overtook night with sunrise at 6:28 AM. Tomorrow, as we spring ahead, sunrise will be at 7:25. But tomorrow’s sunset will be an hour later than the 6:14 PM of today. I don’t care. Just stop with it. Does it accomplish anything any longer?

Spring-flavored weather is in the air, with March’s roars shaking tree branches. A mild shower is expected in the afternoon. We’re at 60 degrees F now, with a high of 68 in the works.

A cover of “Blue Monday” by Orgy (1999) (which was originally released by New Order in the early 1980s) is running around and around and around the morning mental music stream, a writing derivative arriving because I was asking characters how they feel about a moment, and how I felt about the new novel in progress and its emerging, evolving directions. The neurons picked up on the quest for feelings and began playing the song. And here we are.

Stay positive, etc. You know it by now, don’t you? Keep Ukraine in your well of good outcomes. I’m going for coffee, as my well has run dry. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Trump often declares how others should feel. He loves extolling the greatness of himself, and how wonderful he is. “I’m the greatest,” he’ll often declare. “People should be thanking me.”

Not me; I’ve not seen anything come from his miserable administration that cues up thanks.

Somehow, from coalescing thoughts and manifesting feelings, up rose New Order’s “Blue Monday” (1983):

And still, I find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But, I’m quite sure that you’ll tell me
Just how I should feel today

h/t to Genius.com
I don’t believe the song ever mentions Monday. That amuses me. The vocalist’s robotic, deadpan delivery offers a delicious counterbalance to the lyrics, no doubt by design.

Enjoy your day. Let me know how you feel.

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Depeche Floof

Depeche Floof (floofinition) – New wave and synth-infused electronic floof rock (eflock) band, originally hailing from Essex, England.

In use: “Among Depech Floof’s many songs was a cover of “(Get Your Treats from) Floof 66”, but are better known for songs such as “Scratch You” and “Just Can’t Bite Enough”, original material from the band.”

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I have a habit now of waking up and reminding myself of the day and date. Just wanna ensure I don’t forget them.

We played dance music yesterday and danced around as we finished the jigsaw puzzle. Not so easy for many others out there. So, in a sappy way, this is for them.

From a simpler time (and another decade), here’s the wonderful Whitney Houston with “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” (1987).

Clock strikes upon the hour
And the sun begins to fade
Still enough time to figure out
How to chase my blues away
I’ve done alright up ’til now
It’s the light of day that shows me how
And when the night falls
Loneliness calls

h/t to MetroLyrics.com

Feel free to move around yer spaces.

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