Boredom-Fueled Blog

What to write about…
I believe that at some point in a nerd’s life, they will feel a sudden urge. An unexplainable urge… the urge to visit Wikipedia and be a major part of that.
I felt this calling a couple weeks ago so I decided to write a Wikipedia article. I searched Wikipedia for hours looking for a topic that hadn’t been covered. Finally I found that although Loudon Wainwright III and his third album had their own articles, the first song and a single from the third album did not have an article yet. I’m talking, of course, about the song “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road).”
I laid out a bit of the page. I just needed to add some minor informational details. Unfortunately, I waited a week, and by the time I got back to Wikipedia the page had already been written, and not by me.
Next I considered writing an article about Late Night with Jimmy Fallon; since Jimmy Fallon is doing a daily video blog about Late Night, there would be plenty of information, but whenever you type “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” into the Wikipedia search engine it just redirects you to “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” So I decided to write about “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” but that also redirects you to “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”
After about a week, I found the perfect thing to write an article about. It’s a fairly insignificant thing, but yet significant enough (in my opinion) to have it’s own Wikipedia article… I could tell you what that is, but I haven’t published it yet and someone might read this (does anyone ever read this?) and complete the Wikipedia article before me… so you’ll have to wait a bit to find out what the article is about. I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat…

The Internet Wikipedia

With the recent news of a Guitar-Hero-Rock-Band-style video game featuring Beatles songs, it got me thinking that I should make a list of my favorite Beatles songs – something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but have been too overwhelmed by great songs to attempt it. There are so many great ones, but I was bored so I decided to go for it. (My own boredom is the cause of nearly every post on this “blog.”)

* denotes a song that would make a good Rock Band-style song.

Honorable mention: “Within You Without You”, “Yellow Submarine”, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “I’m Looking Through You.”

10. Mean Mr. Mustard (Abbey Road) This song is from the medley on the B-side of the Abbey Road record (that’s roughly the second half of the CD, for you young whippersnappers). No other lyrics over the years have confused me more than the lyrics of “Mean Mr. Mustard,” and that includes the lyrics of “I Am the Walrus” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Maybe it’s because I’m not British, but what do they mean by “sleeps in a hole in the road” and “shaves in the dark/trying to save paper”? Maybe I’m not even hearing the lyrics correctly. I don’t know.

9. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey* (The Beatles) Affectionately nicknamed “EGSTHEFMAMM” by it’s fans this is the longest song title in Beatles history (it’s not “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” or “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” as many believe). The best part of this song is the slightly-demented-sounding shouting of “Come on!”

8. Hey Jude (1967-1970) No this isn’t déjà vu… nearly every top ten list of Beatles songs has to include this one. If it’s not number one, it’s probably on their somewhere and this is no exception. And why not? Who doesn’t like four minutes of “na na na na na na na”?

7. Helter Skelter* (The Beatles) I read somewhere that Paul McCartney wrote this one to prove that he doesn’t only write ballads and that he can right a crazy rock song with the best of them… and in my opinion, he did it better than the best of them. The funniest thing ever shouted on a Beatles record: “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” – Ringo.

6. Free as a Bird (Anthology 1) You probably know that this song was originally written by John Lennon for his solo career, but he died before it could be released and then fifteen years later the other Beatles added to it and released it. This is a very calming song and the music video (filled with dozens of clever references to other Beatles songs) is incredible. This was called the first new Beatles song in 25 years.

5. While My Guitar Gently Weeps* (The Beatles, Anthology 3, Love) The “White Album” version of this song features Eric Clapton on lead guitar. (I like to think that all musicians from the sixties would hang out together.) The Anthology 3 album features a home demo that George Harrison made on the acoustic guitar, and the Love version features a string arrangement added to the acoustic home demo. (Another favorite version of this song is from the “Concert for George” album, played by Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Lynne [of the Traveling Wilbury's].)

4. Get Back (Love) This song was originally featured on Let It Be, but it was remixed for Love in 2006. I very much like the Let It Be version, but I’ve chosen to highlight the Love version here, because I think it is the best example of a compilation song from the Love album. The song features several snippets from some of my favorite Beatles songs. It starts with the opening chord from “A Hard Day’s Night,” and contains pieces from “The End” and “A Day in the Life”‘s orchestra crescendo. Also, if I’m not mistaken, there are backwards cymbal clashes from “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

3. Let It Be (Let It Be) This song has a great guitar solo… not much else to say about this song. It’s just a very good song.

2. Revolution (1?)* (1967-1970) In the “Revolution 1″ version of this song from The Beatles John Lennon sings, “But when you talk about destruction/Don’t you know you can count me out… in,” because apparently he couldn’t decide, so I’m following the trend, because I can’t decide what I like better “Revolution” (loud and fast) or “Revolution 1″ (slower). “Revolution” has incredible, fast guitar solos, but I really like the “shooby doo wop”s from “Revolution 1.”

1. The End* (Abbey Road) This song feels like it has a lot of energy, and the lyrics are very profound – so much so that they were even ripped off by “Happy Feet.” (“And in the end/the love you take is equal to the love/you make.”) Another great thing about this song, is that it was the last song recorded by all four Beatles together, and it’s called “The End,” so you’d think it’d be the last song on the album, but “Her Majesty,” comes after it, which I find hilarious.

Music Lists, The Beatles

1. The Motion-sensing-Oriented Games
Examples: Wii Sports, Cooking Mama: Cook-Off
These kinds of games were very abundant during the early months of the Wii because everyone was interested in this ground-breaking technology, and game companies knew that people would pay big bucks to throw a virtual horseshoe.

2. The Mini-Game Games
Examples: WarioWare Smooth Moves, Wii Play
Personally, these are my least favorite kinds of games. Often they also utilize pointless motion-sensing tecniques. The general rule for these games is: the more minigames in one, the worse the game is going to be.

3. The Movie Games
Examples: Shrek the Third, Meet the Robinsons
Following in the steps of such terrible NES games as “Home Alone” and “Back to the Future Parts 1 and 2,” the tradition of making video games out of movies continues. These games could sometimes be good if they didn’t have some annoying character as the game hero.

4. The Hard-Core Sports Games
Examples: Madden NFL 07, Madden NFL 08, Madden NFL 09
Personally I’ve never been a big fan of these sports games, but I’ve never been a big fan of sports in general. I must say that I played a lot of “NFL Blitz 2000″ for the Nintendo 64 (it’s responsible for everything I know about football) and I enjoyed it, but in my opinion the “Madden” series of today is too complicated.

5. The Self-Bettering Games
Examples: Wii Fit, Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
These games were marketed as games that were not only fun, but made you a better person. With Wii Fit you could try to balance on one foot and supposedly have fun doing it. Several minor categories of games fit within this major category including the “Games Based on Game Shows Games” category.

6. The War Games
Examples: Medal of Honor: Vanguard, Call of Duty: World at War
I think that these games have made gaming too mainstream. There are some gamers out there who can be perfectly happy playing Call of Duty or Mario Party, but I don’t know many people like that. “The War Games” have caused division… most of the people I know who play these games are people who, had “the War Games” never come along, would be beating up people who play games like Super Paper Mario and Wii Chess.

7. The Tie-In Games
Examples: Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit
Ahhh… the tie-in… Is there any better way for an already rich company to get richer? Nintendo jacks up the price by offering some peripheral such as the Wii Wheel, the Wii Balance Board, or (for some versions of Animal Crossing: City Folk) WiiSpeak.

8. The Rockin’ Games
Examples: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Rock Band 2, and to a lesser extent, Wii Music
Before GH III, Guitar Hero games were not allowed on a Nintendo system, but finally the rocker games came to Nintendo and it was all a landslide from there: Rock Band, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero World Tour, Rock Band 2, and several third-party rip-offs were soon to follow. (If you’re not into learning pretend guitar, you can always just shake your arm in Wii Music.)

9. The WiiWare Games
Examples: Mega Man 9, Dr. Mario Online Rx
WiiWare is to Nintendo as XBox Live Arcade is to Microsoft. WiiWare games are overall terrible games, but there are a few good games to be found, including Mega Man 9 which is a great continuation of the original side-scrolling Mega Man series.

10. The Good Games
Examples: Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Yes, amidst the clutter at your local gaming store or Wal-Mart you can actually find some games worth buying. These games never quite lived up to expectation, but they were still phenomenal games.

Nintendo Guitar Hero, Mario Kart