Every night we're gone, and to karaoke songs

It's been pretty warm today (which I guess would now be yesterday, but I'm going to treat it as if it's still today in the rest of this entry). Six more weeks of winter, my ass, Punxsutawney Phil! I guess you can't really have six MORE weeks when you haven't had six weeks already, although the Mad Hatter might disagree. The unseasonable warmth apparently scrambled my brain as well, because I kept taking wrong turns while driving this morning.

This evening, I went out with bethje, Alyssa, Dorothea, and Dorothea's best friend Eileen; and I sang karaoke in public for the first time ever (assuming the time I sang Weird Al's "Since You've Been Gone" for my twelfth grade English class doesn't count). I did "Daydream Believer," and I had a hard time figuring out where to come in at the beginning, but I did a little better once I got into the swing of it. A weird thing about me is that, even though I'm incredibly shy, I don't really mind speaking or performing in front of a crowd. I get nervous, sure, but I also enjoy it. I can understand musicians and other performers who seem comfortable on stage but never want to meet fans afterwards, because I think I'd be the same way.

Speaking of karaoke, I've seen most of the current season of American Idol, and Simon Cowell is still using that as an insult, apparently unaware of the fact that the show essentially IS a karaoke contest. Karaoke performances aren't necessarily bad, after all. His other favorite negative description is "cabaret," and once again I'm not sure how that's a bad thing. (I wonder how he'd feel about Brechtian punk cabaret. {g}) Oh, well. One thing I've noticed about the current season is how many stories of tragedy they're working in. They showed up occasionally in previous years, but this time it seems like every other contestant just went through some horrible event. Aren't the audition episodes supposed to be the funny ones, where the audience is encouraged to laugh at the contestants' accents, not feel bad for them?

I'm under house arrest in the hidden track, hidden track

bethje and I turned in our marriage license today, but I didn't realize I had to bring in my birth certificate. They said I could bring it in tomorrow morning, though, so I guess that's what I'll do.

I was thinking this morning about how some albums used to have hidden tracks in the negative space at the beginning of the CD. I actually kind of liked the one on Mono Puff's It's Fun to Steal, even if no one else did. Does anyone still do this, or was it a temporary fad? I get the impression that, with a lot of people listening to music on their computers and portable MP3 players, it became even less practical than it already was, since you can't rip those hidden tracks. Or is there a way that I just don't know about? Really, while an interesting way to hide songs, it was annoying that not all CD players could access them. There were also the albums where the last track was just really long, with a hidden song at the end of it. But I think my favorite method was what they used with CD's like Cracker's Kerosene Hat and Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish (although not my copy, which also doesn't have "Popscene"; I guess there must have been different versions released) with a whole bunch of extra tracks at the end, some with music and others just empty space. (Actually, I believe both "Eurotrash Girl" and "Peach" are Track 69, showing a similar sense of humor for both bands.) While the hidden track fad is probably past its prime now, it's still something interesting that you could do with a physical format that really wouldn't be practical with a buy-one-track-at-a-time download deal.