Giant stomach drop.

Just so you all know, it's official. I'm planning to head to Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana) in the fall. I'm buying a bed from Drew's girlfriend Julie and moving into her old room, which is a giant blessing. I'm really excited to meet her roommates, Ann and Jill. They're also librarians, which should be fantastic. I also hear excellent things about the Institute and the branch out there.  (The school is supposed to be pretty great too, so don't worry.)

Other things I'm happy about: It's only 4 hours away from Chicago (I'm totally going to look into going to see Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me live. How nerdy is that? Very nerdy.) It's also only 4 hours away from Ann Arbor, so I'm hoping that occasionally I'll be able to see Katherine. That's really only the distance between Centerville and Cedar City, after all, and I take at least a few trips down there every year. 

Anyway. Putting the card that says I accept their acceptance on Monday, and orientation is August 27-28, so I'll be heading out a few days before that so that I can drive my car out there. Meanwhile, the money-hoarding continues. 

On an unrelated note, the Keane/Mat Kearney concert was most excellent. I think everyone should check out the picture blog on Keane's website, because it's the kind of thing I would do. Millions of pictures of things like what food they're eating, what things they thought were funny on the road, etc. Most excellent. 

A call for creeper songs.

• I'm posting my half-hearted attempt at a spring mix because I'm out of inspiration (for now) and want to start a new one. So. Here's as far as I got with this one before I got bored and abandoned it. The new, more exciting project idea is below, and I want your help, so please start thinking. 
• "Ragged Wood" - Fleet Foxes
• "Do You Know What I'm Seeing?" - Panic At the Disco
• "Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall" - Simon and Garfunkel
• "Be Gentle With Me" - Boy Least Likely To"
• "Run" - Ben Kweller
• "Index Moon" - Grand Archives
• "I'm a Cuckoo" - Belle and Sebastian
• "Oceans" - The Format
• "Good Day Sunshine" - The Beatles
• "Rise" - Eddie Vedder
• "Let's Get Out of This Country" - Camera Obscura
• "The Cult of Karl" - Chris Merritt
• "Sausalito" -Conor Oberst

•  Okay. Here's the new project.
• I want to make a mix of songs that seem sweet at first, but when you really think about them are kind of creepy-weird love. Here are some examples.
• "Aliens" by Andy Dunlop - "I've been talking to aliens. They've agreed to abduct everyone but you -- so we can start again." Um, pardon? So you're having aliens take away the entire human race so that you can have another chance with this girl? Because she has no other choice??
• "Strange and Beautiful" by Aqualung - "I'll put a spell on you and when I wake you I'll be the first one you see, and you'll realize that you love me." Hmm. Maybe you should just move on buddy.
• And the ever popular, "Every Breath You Take" by Sting. "Every breath you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you. Oh can't you see, you belong to me?" Yeah. Nice idea, but in practice, super creepy. 
• So here are the rules. I don't want it to be an all stalker mix, so there has to be some creativity, and it has to initially sound sweet. Because of this I'm leaving off Rooney's "Daisy Duke" for now, because that song is just freaky (even if it's incredible catchy). So we're looking for over-the-top, kind of weirdo love, I-love-you-so-much-I'd-do-any-number-of-desperate-freaky-things-to-make-it-work-with-you songs. Oh yeah - and they have to be good songs, not just icky ones no one listens to. Ready, set, creep me out!

Jennie's Wedding

I promised Miri and Lindsey some pictures from Jennie's wedding, so here we go. I can't believe our little Jennie is married.

Delicious cake (which I didn't eat)

This kid was playing Disney songs all night. So appropriate for a Zaelit wedding.

Aw. Isn't Jennie beautiful? 

Sean and Jennie Peterson. (Oh, that looks SO weird.) 

Us being loving former roommates at the luncheon.

Papa and Mama Zaelit. You probably can't see it, but Matt was wearing a Mickey Mouse tie tack. Also, Mama Zaelit lost a ton of weight and look FABULOUS. This picture doesn't really do her justice. 

Delicious eclairs and creme puffs and things, which I DID eat.

Oh, how I will miss my Jennie, but I'm so happy for her. 

The Cover Up

In light of the last post and the fact that I've been finding a lot of awesome covers lately, I want to make a list of my favorite covers. I'm sure I'll remember more as I go along and have to post them, and I'm not even entirely sure I haven't done this before, because I've thought about doing it so many times. Also, I'm not even going to address Beatles covers, because there are many amazing ones and I don't want to list them all. Nevertheless, here it is. 

• First, a great big bow to Lindsey for finding Obadiah Parker's cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya" - it's unbelievably amazing. 
• "Major Tom" covered by Shiny Toy Guns, originally by Peter Schilling
• "In Between Days" covered by Ben Folds, originally by The Cure. Actually, Ben has a few awesome covers, including "Golden Slumbers" and "Video Killed the Radio Star"
• "Creep" covered by Ingrid Michaelson, originally by Radiohead. I've never gotten over the first moment when I realized Ingrid was singing Radiohead with a ukulele. 
• "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" covered by Keane, originally recorded by Frankie Valli
• "Don't Forget Me" covered by Neko Case. I don't even know who did the original, but this version is beautiful.
• ". . . Baby One More Time" covered by Fountains of Wayne, originally by Brittany Spears. I love this version, but I need to track down the version by Travis that Spence told me about this morning. I'll let you know if I find it.
• "Ocean of Noise," covered by Calexico, originally by The Arcade Fire
• "Keep the Car Running" covered by The Foo Fighters, originally by The Arcade Fire
• "Cello Song" covered by The Books, originally by Nick Drake
• "I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow" covered by The Soggy Bottom Boys, originally brought to the attention of the world by Bob Dylan (haha - Treb's right, this is an older song and I don't know how long it was around before Dylan did it, but his version is great). 
• "If It Be Your Will" covered by Anthony, originally by Leonard Cohen 
• "Run to the Hills" covered by Barn Burning, originally by Iron Maiden. I mostly throw this in because I was really proud when my brother sent it to me and I identified it as an Iron Maiden song. 
• "I Wanna Be Like You" covered by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, originally sung by Louis Prima in The Jungle Book
• "Free Falling" covered by Kings of Convenience, originally by Tom Petty
• "Ring Them Bells" covered by Sufjan Stevens, originally by Bob Dylan - there are many amazing Dylan covers out there, but I love this one because it's so original and awesome. 
• "I Will Survive" covered by Cake originally by Gloria Gaynor.
• "Long Black Veil" covered by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, originally by Johnny Cash (I think). 
• "Ring of Fire" covered by Coldplay, originally by Johnny Cash
• "Waters of March" covered by Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, written by Antonio Carlos Jobim with the definitive original probably being Joao Gilberto (Treb, correct me on that if I'm wrong). Anyway, this version is great. 
• "Suddenly Everything Has Changed" covered by The Postal Service, originally by The Flaming Lips
• "Lullabye" covered by Lucy Kaplansky, originally by Billy Joel
• "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You," covered by Muse, originally recorded by Frankie Valli (wow, two that Frankie Valli did first - who'd have thought?)
• "Wonderwall" covered by Ryan Adams, originally by Oasis
• "1,000 Umbrellas" covered by The Format, originally by XTC (I remembered this one today and Treb commented about it at the same time)
• "Hallelujah" covered by Jeff Buckley, originally by Leonard Cohen. I'm pretty sure I meant to put this one in the first time around, but I think I had a momentary internal debate about whether to reference Rufus Wainwright's cover as well, and then it just didn't make it.  Which reminds me of a marketing principle I learned today, actually. 
• "Moon River" covered by Innocence Mission, originally made famous by Audrey Hepburn
• Okay, I'm not sure if this counts, but Yovee has a song that is a total rip off of Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party." It's called "Intimate Controversy," and I swear they stole the chorus and just added things here and there. I'm putting it here for the sake of comparison. 
• I haven't found it anywhere yet, but have you heard Cat Power's cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on the Lincoln commercials? Apparently they're launching a Major Tom campaign, but it sounds great. I want it. 
• "Such Great Heights" originally by The Postal Service, covered by Iron and Wine
• "Waiting for a Superman," originally by The Flaming Lips, recently covered by Iron and Wine (which is what reminded me of the "Such Great Heights" cover.)
• There's a whole album of them, but "Rock and Roll Suicide" originally by David Bowie, covered by Seu Jorge - amazing. I'm a big fan of the original song, but I especially like it in Portuguese with the "Gimme your hands!" still in English. It's quite fab.
• "Bohemian Rhapsody," originally by Queen, covered by The Flaming Lips. I'm also a fan of their version of "What a Wonderful World" and "Plastic Jesus," but their version of Bohemian is a lot of fun.
• "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" or "Feeling Good," covered by Muse. I have no idea who did the originals, but their covers are excellent.
• "With God On Our Side," originally by Bob Dylan, covered by Straylight Run. There are a lot of great Dylan covers out there, and I'll probably mention more.
• "Across the Universe," originally by the Beatles, covered by Fiona Apple. I know I said I was leaving the Beatles covers out, and their are so many excellent versions of this song, but I have particular love for this one. And now that I've added this, I want to add all of the others, especially Joe Anderson's version of "Happiness is a Warm Gun" from Across the Universe.
• "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" by Coldplay, covered by Mark Ronson. This is actually an instrumental cover - it's almost a brass groove version. Most excellent.
• "I Shall Be Released" by Bob Dylan, covered by Wilco (during election season)
• "Bean Vine Blues" which is M. Ward's cover of sorts of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer." 
• "Hazy Shade of Winter" by Simon and Garfunkle, covered by The Bangles
• "Romeo and Juliet" covered by the Indigo Girls, original by Dire Straits (I really didn't care for this cover for a long time, but I've now decided it's worthwhile.)
• "Manhattan Skyline" covered by Kings of Convenience, originally by A-ha. 
• "I Fought the Law" covered by The Clash, originally by Sonny Curtis and The Crickets

Also, I've been adding and just realized that I changed formats halfway through, which is a big oh well because I'm not fixing it, but also, I heard this fantastic cover of "Smile, Smile, Smile" on Castle the other night, and I haven't figured out who  did it yet. It was so funny to have that WWI song that Dr. Tate talked about pop up (especially since it was the opening music over the murder reveal). 

More coming eventually, I'm sure. Watch this space. 

A Gift from Amazon

I think you should all download this song. It's free, and it's awesome. And I found it on a car commercial but it took a long time because I didn't realize that "Major Tom" was a song and not just people calling "Space Oddity" by the wrong name.  Anyway, it's an awesome cover, and I think you should all get it while it's free.  (For all I know, that could be forever. But why wait?)

Yay for online translators

So at work I do a lot of SEO building. For those of you who didn't learn yesterday (as I did) what SEO means, it's Search Engine Optimization. We're trying to get the search engine to find us sooner by linking it in more places. Anyway, I use this program called Lotus Jump, and all you really need to know about it is that it helps me find places to write stuff and then link to us. SO. I was working on Lotus Jump yesterday, and I found this website.  If you don't care to click on it, you can just read the awesomeness here. 

• Guaranteed to accord. you whiter teeth in just three days
• Place the ransack on your teeth at the same time that far as concerns thirty minutes, two times a lifetime in spite of 10 days, soon afterward hindrance your whiter smile and dependence splendor the world
• Clinically proven to accord. you whiter teeth conducive to 18 months then impaired righteous 30 minutes, two times a appointed time, despite 10 days

Crest Whitestrips Pro Effects (Formerly known as Premium Plus) provides professional raze whitening at domicile. Just candid the foil clan, settle the strip forward your teeth beneficial to thirty minutes, two times a promised time as antidote to 10 days, then put to hire your whiter smile and dependence brightness the cosmos.

I think you should all give Crest Whitestrips a try, don't you? I've always wanted to dependence splendor the whole world. 

Shameless Coupon-Giving Plug

Okay, because I don't see myself doing a whole ton of advertising for this (Clark has already spammed the family), I'm posting it here.  Our company is having a contest for May. If you use my friends and family discount to buy anything on overstockdrugstore.com, you get 10% off and I get a greater chance of winning the iPod. There's some good stuff there - makeup, medicine, slimfast, whatever. Anyway, if you check it out and find anything you need, use my code, 'mwinegar0509' and you'll get 10% off. Yay!

Summer Music Guide

Well, I probably won't be able to use this, but I'm going to post here a list of all of the concerts I would see if I had an unlimited supply of money that didn't need to go to my grad school fun or a very rich, concert-loving boyfriend. There's some good stuff coming to our area this summer, my friends, and I'd like the word to be out there, even if I won't be partaking of much of it. 

May 9 - The Eagles at Rio Tinto Stadium (not at the top of my list, but we're creating this in a world where I have unlimited money, remember)

May 12 - Keane/Matt Kearney at Kingsbury Hall (and I actually am going to this one, with my dear friend Erin. I'm excited.)

May 13 - fun. with Manchester Orchestra at Club Sound - This is probably going to be a time issue rather than a money issue. Cheap concert, but I have other plans.

May 17 - Flight of the Conchords at Abravanel Hall

May 31 - Neko Case (of the New Pornographers, but she has some really decent solo stuff) with Joey and John of Calexico at Red Butte Gardens - I'm really pretty sad about this being a slightly more pricey than I enjoy concert, because I'm sure it's going to be fabulous. 

June 2 - Camera Obscura at The Urban Lounge - I don't love them enough to pay much money for them, but I think it would be a fun show. 

June 4 - Relient K at Murray Theater - Oh Relient K. I still love you. 

June 13 - Ben Kweller with Jones Street Station - I've already seen Ben, so I'll probably have to miss him, but he does put on an excellent show. 

June 20 - Marc Cohn at the Sandy Amphitheater - Because who doesn't love "Walkin' in Memphis," deep within their souls. "She said, 'Tell me are you a Christian child,' and I said, 'Ma'am I am tonight!'")

June 21 - David Byrne at Red Butte Gardens - because I will never forget Ty's Talking Heads video.  

July 7 - Indigo Girls at Reb Butte Gardens

July 9 - Bon Iver at the Gallivan Center - This one is free, so I'll be there. I would like to add in case Sydney still reads this - Syd, remember when you played "Skinny Love" for me on the way home from Andrew Bird? I think you should stand behind that and go to this show with me. 

July 13 - Death Cab for Cutie, Andrew Bird, Ra Ra Riot at Reb Butte Gardens - Anyone else noticing a trend in the awesomeness of Reb Butte's concert schedule this summer? I've seen the first two bands already, but I highly recommend this show to anyone who hasn't seen Death Cab or Andrew Bird (or anyone who has).

July 16 - Black Keys at the Gallivan Center - again, this one is free, so I might be going even though I only know a few of their songs. 

July 18 - The Fray/Jack's Mannequin/Meese at USANA- I've already seen all of these bands, so I can't really justify this one right now, but it'll be a good show. 

July 19 - The Wallflowers at Red Butte Gardens - because Jakob Dylan rocks my socks. 

July 23 - M. Ward at the Gallivan Center. I am SO happy that this one is free. I love M. Ward a LOT and plan to go and see him for sure. 

July 30 - Sonic Youth at the Gallivan Center - free again, so definitely worth it. 

August 15 - Elvis Costello with the Utah Symphony at Deer Valley - Yeah, I can't imagine this not being awesome. 

Anyway, I hope that some of you music lovers out there can enjoy some of these, and if you meet someone excessively rich who needs a date to one of them, please pass my name along. Thank you. 

Let the internet stealing and the badgering for real internet begin!

Well, I've now been home for a week, and thanks to a visit from Emily last night, I can already see my floor again. (There's a lot of stuff in my closet that won't be ending up there. That's a work in progress.)
My new job is good, although also kind of a work in progress. Clark and I have been experimenting with different things, including some Twitter spamming (hey, if you're talking about what medicine you need in your Twitter post, I'm sending you a coupon. Seriously, people? Immodium? You want the entire world to know you have some kind of gastric ailment?) and some other social networking, as well as some email campaigns and a few other things. It's fun working with Clark and carpooling with Spence (even if Spence's carpool listens to Glenn Beck on the way home sometimes), and I think that once we settle into what I'm really doing, the job is going to be really enjoyable. I will admit that the other day when I read Brittany's blog about her secret love of Zac Efron (which included her trademark, "Don't judge. You don't even know my life." I felt a little pang of missing Five Star, but I'm not going to miss trying to cram people into little spaces of time or trying to get them same day appointments because they apparently decided to get their house painted and therefore need to do it IMMEDIATELY or possibly YESTERDAY.
I would like to say a little word about Twitter, because I've been spending some time there for the last couple of days, and I have sworn that I will never have my own account there unless I have some kind of business need to connect to people that way. There may be people who are really clever, but mostly I just see a lot of people talking about nothing to no one in particular. The number of posts that I read and just go "Seriously? You wrote that?" is pretty unbelievable. Everyone else can just enjoy that fad without me. I have a hard enough time with the Facebook status, but at least there's more going on with profiles and wall posts and such. I realize that even this blog is an extended form of the same narcissism that drives many of the tweets I see, but at least I'm using complete sentences. And while I'm operating under the possibly false assumption that you all care about the trivial things I write about, you did actually come here, so you must care a little bit. Sigh. And now I sound very stodgy and old. Oh well.
Meanwhile, My secret stash of internet connection is still holding out (in one corner of the house and occasional bursts in my room) enough to keep me semi-connected. Today I got one really awesome gift from the wireless gods and got a consistent enough connection that I was able to watch the latest episode of Dollhouse, which, just by the way, was AWESOME, and yay for whoever plays Wash on Firefly being the fabulous guest star.
I've had a cold this week, which has been funny with all of the Swine Flu freak outs everywhere, but I laughed really hard when I turned over my James Dean calendar the other night and came up with picture picture very similar to this (except he was wearing glasses):


Yeah. Could James have better timing? I'm going to submit that he cannot.
I'm about halfway through 1984, having put a couple of other things on hold so that I can bond with my sister-in-law at her monthly book club this month. It's both everything and nothing that I expected, and I'm enjoying it, including the occasional renamed references to places in London. (Victory Square is totally Trafalgar Square, and I love that I could tell based on the description of where St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the "picture gallery" are.)
I'm hitting up some of my nephews' baseball games while I'm around (I had to miss Jake's because I'd stayed home from work with the cold, but I saw Cooper's) and that's enjoyable. More enjoyable is the fact that Savy and Cooper have started answering anyone who says "Sorry" to them by singing "It's too late to apologize." I spent last summer having Katie Rencher sing that to everyone in London, and hearing it come out of Savy's little mouth sounding more like "It's too yate to apowogize!" is just beyond amazing. I can't believe she's about to turn four.

I'm going to finish this off with a to-be-added-to list of my priority movies and books for the summer, because it's harder to get up the urge to post when you have to haul downstairs and sit on the bench by the window without moving too much, so I'm going to take full advantage.

Movies:
State of Play
The Soloist

Up
Wolverine (as skeptical as I am about the whole X-Men:Origins concept, I do dearly love these movies and will probably stick with them through one more)
Star Trek (how can this be so exciting when I didn't watch Star Trek at all growing up? JJ Abrams, possibly)
Harry Potter (obviously)

Is Anybody There? (If it ever comes anywhere near me)

Adam

possibly The Brother Bloom (mostly because I love the two leading men so much)
Lots more I can't remember now but will add later. Or possible not that many. Who can keep track? I think there's something I wanted to see that's still at the cheap theater in Kaysville though, so I'm getting on that. And I just looked it up. Taken, because I love Liam. 
Still Little Dorrit, as soon as the library or Top Hat get it.


Books:
Return of the Native (for my summer Hardy)
Life of Pi
The Satanic Verses
Convergence
At least one of the Cranford books in that set I got
Middlemarch
Tender is the Night
One of the unread E.M. Forster novels on my shelf - A Passage to India or Where Angles Fear to Tread (or possibly A Room With a View, which I don't have on my shelf, but I loved the movie when I saw it at the IC a LOT.)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (yes, that's happening)