Filling that void on the menu, music and money
Taco Bell's brand new featured menu item is the Cheesy Beefy Melt. It is a combination of beef, Cheese, rice and sour cream. To this new menu item, I say "Welcome!" as there was nothing else on the menu that offered such a fine combination.
*****
I first learned the concept of music royalties in a 6th grade music class. (This was the class for the people that didn't want to join a band or chorus, which generally was music for people that didn't want to be there.) The day's topic was styles of pop music from the 1960's. Specifically beach music. The teacher pointed out that the two quintessential beach music artists were The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. A popular song from this genre was "Help Me Rhonda" made popular by the Beach Boys and rerecorded by Jan And Dean for the specific purpose to appear on the CD that accompanied the teacher's guide.
My Dad is a member of ASCAP and has published some musical works that have an extremely limited target audience. Every once in a while, they would mail him a royalty check in the amount of 12 cents. Don't spend it all in one place. Eventually, they changed their policy so that you have to earn a whole dollar to get a check cut.
Fast forward a dozen years and I'm at Media Play contemplating music to buy. They have bins at these stores of discount 3-disc cd sets. Often times, they have titles like "Today's Hits" and on the back of the case is a tiny sentence: PERFORMED BY THE COUNTDOWN DANCE MASTERS. The Countdown Dance Masters are a group of studio musicians that rerecord many popular current hits and release them in sets, and they probably go by other names based on the type of music you're looking for.
I was burned by a cd called Styx: Extended Versions. I was hoping this cheaply packaged $6 CD was either a collection of rare demo versions of songs, or at least some kind or remastered collection. I got home, opened the shrinkwrap and saw this tiny sentence: ALL SONGS PERFORMED LIVE. And what an uninspiring performance it was. rarely do I buy a CD from a group I like and not make MP3s out of it. If you're music collection is missing this cd, as of this writing, the going rate on this disk is $0.24. Let's see if my blog wields enough influence to bump that price above the cost of a new post office Forever Stamp.
I was also burned by a four cd set of 70's music. It had 48 songs scattered across 4 discs for a cost of $10. I thought there was no way that this could be songs performed by the original artists. There was a sentence on the back that said: ALL SONGS PERFORMED BY THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS. This seems safe. I bought it and opened the shrinkwrap and saw this sentence: NEW PERFORMANCES BY THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS. What? Is it really economically feasible to reunite the Ozark Mountain Daredevils to rerecord their hit Jackie Blue so they can sell it as part of a collection for 20 cents? If you can't trust the makers of this product, Madacy Entertainment, who can you trust?
*****
I predict it will be 2021 when someone will first utter the phrase:
"Since when is Britney Spears considered oldies music?"
*****
I didn't tell you this blog post would have a math question. I'm Evil that way.
Recently, my wife and I ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant. The place was named after a city I presume is in Mexico, so you know it's authentic.
The bill came to $17.32 and I had a $3 off coupon. Quick! Using only your brain, what is $17.32 minus $3.00? Can you solve this super-stumper brain teaser? Well, our waitress couldn't. She had to use a calculator. Now I know that I'm supposed to be all smart 'n stuff when it comes to math, but I thought this was simple enough that any public school grad could do it. Am I being overly critical about this or am I right about this? Comments please.
On a similar topic, 5 years ago, I put up a page buried on my website about foreign coins not for people who are bad at math. Coins with unusual denominations.
*****
When the dam breaks...?
Locally, I've heard a lot of talk recently about the Wolf Creek Dam and then the Center Hill Dam having cracks and possibly breaking soon. Something I wonder is if you know the dam break is inevitable, why don't you just build another dam right next to the original crumbling one, lets say five feet apart? I'm sure there's a good reason why you can't, but what else are you going to do? Get a lot of caulk for the first one?
*****
I first learned the concept of music royalties in a 6th grade music class. (This was the class for the people that didn't want to join a band or chorus, which generally was music for people that didn't want to be there.) The day's topic was styles of pop music from the 1960's. Specifically beach music. The teacher pointed out that the two quintessential beach music artists were The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. A popular song from this genre was "Help Me Rhonda" made popular by the Beach Boys and rerecorded by Jan And Dean for the specific purpose to appear on the CD that accompanied the teacher's guide.
My Dad is a member of ASCAP and has published some musical works that have an extremely limited target audience. Every once in a while, they would mail him a royalty check in the amount of 12 cents. Don't spend it all in one place. Eventually, they changed their policy so that you have to earn a whole dollar to get a check cut.
Fast forward a dozen years and I'm at Media Play contemplating music to buy. They have bins at these stores of discount 3-disc cd sets. Often times, they have titles like "Today's Hits" and on the back of the case is a tiny sentence: PERFORMED BY THE COUNTDOWN DANCE MASTERS. The Countdown Dance Masters are a group of studio musicians that rerecord many popular current hits and release them in sets, and they probably go by other names based on the type of music you're looking for.
I was burned by a cd called Styx: Extended Versions. I was hoping this cheaply packaged $6 CD was either a collection of rare demo versions of songs, or at least some kind or remastered collection. I got home, opened the shrinkwrap and saw this tiny sentence: ALL SONGS PERFORMED LIVE. And what an uninspiring performance it was. rarely do I buy a CD from a group I like and not make MP3s out of it. If you're music collection is missing this cd, as of this writing, the going rate on this disk is $0.24. Let's see if my blog wields enough influence to bump that price above the cost of a new post office Forever Stamp.
I was also burned by a four cd set of 70's music. It had 48 songs scattered across 4 discs for a cost of $10. I thought there was no way that this could be songs performed by the original artists. There was a sentence on the back that said: ALL SONGS PERFORMED BY THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS. This seems safe. I bought it and opened the shrinkwrap and saw this sentence: NEW PERFORMANCES BY THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS. What? Is it really economically feasible to reunite the Ozark Mountain Daredevils to rerecord their hit Jackie Blue so they can sell it as part of a collection for 20 cents? If you can't trust the makers of this product, Madacy Entertainment, who can you trust?
*****
I predict it will be 2021 when someone will first utter the phrase:
"Since when is Britney Spears considered oldies music?"
*****
I didn't tell you this blog post would have a math question. I'm Evil that way.
Recently, my wife and I ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant. The place was named after a city I presume is in Mexico, so you know it's authentic.
The bill came to $17.32 and I had a $3 off coupon. Quick! Using only your brain, what is $17.32 minus $3.00? Can you solve this super-stumper brain teaser? Well, our waitress couldn't. She had to use a calculator. Now I know that I'm supposed to be all smart 'n stuff when it comes to math, but I thought this was simple enough that any public school grad could do it. Am I being overly critical about this or am I right about this? Comments please.
On a similar topic, 5 years ago, I put up a page buried on my website about foreign coins not for people who are bad at math. Coins with unusual denominations.
*****
When the dam breaks...?
Locally, I've heard a lot of talk recently about the Wolf Creek Dam and then the Center Hill Dam having cracks and possibly breaking soon. Something I wonder is if you know the dam break is inevitable, why don't you just build another dam right next to the original crumbling one, lets say five feet apart? I'm sure there's a good reason why you can't, but what else are you going to do? Get a lot of caulk for the first one?
25013
posted by BrentKMoore | 3:16 AM
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