The Clouds are Singing

In case you've noticed, or haven't, there are a few new things added to the Clouds in My Coffee Blog... my ultimate goal is to make my site your one-stop shop for news links, weather links, sports links and other fun stuff to read, but that's farther down the road... we'll get there.

Added a new blog column to My Recommended Blogs list. Heather "The Angel" Hanson (now Conkle... and The Lovely Steph Leann thought she had it bad going from Campbell to Dollar...) writes a blog--I managed to find Heather via Facebook. In fact, Heather plays a role in the most embarrassing and at the same time most hilarious moment of my Troy life involving boxer shorts, but that's for another day. Her blog is entitled "Tell Me the Old, Old Story", and you can find it here... or on the links on the side. Show HH some love.

I've added a couple of widgets to the side--a "widget" is a little block of links an info--that you might find fun... one is Birmingham's weather, another in the sports section is the ESPN widget, for sports. Near the bottom, under my facebook widget, is The Sports Guy, who is one of my favorite columnists. Not too far under that is an iTunes widget, followed by a Pop Candy link to USA Today's Pop Culture columnist, Whitney Matheson.

And thanks to Heather "The Angel" Hanson, there's now music playing on the Clouds In My Coffee Blog.

You may be enjoying it, or you might have immediately gone to find it and shut if off. Right now I've got it autostarting, and randomly playing the list... if you are like me, when you visit a blog page, you are usually not there long enough to get through more than one or two songs, much less an entire playlist. With that in mind, I wanted to make sure the songs on the bottom got some love too, not just the ones near the top.

The fun part of doing any kind of playlist like this is... what do I put on here? You can put up to 100 songs on the list, via the site I used--Playlist.com. But really, I don't know that I want a playlist of 100 songs on any site, and definately not mine.

So I chose music that I really enjoyed, music that perhaps wouldn't rank in my top ten, but nonetheless that I loved, that I knew, and styles that I felt would represent who I am. Much of it is from the 90s, during music was at its peak, but there is some earlier and some later stuff.

This might be the closest I've done to an iTunes Celebrity Playlist... Here's what I chose, let me know what you think...

"Little Green Bag" by The George Baker Selection. Featured prominently in "Reservoir Dogs" during the brilliant opening sequence, its fun, its catchy, and its a great way to kick off the Clouds In My Coffee music list.

"You're So Vain" by Carly Simon. How could a blog entitled "Clouds In My Coffee" not feature the song that the words came from. This song is truly amazing, a song of anger, yet sadness. And Carly has never been better.

"Possession" by Sarah McLachlan. My. Favorite. Song. Ever.

"100 Years" by Five for Fighting. The more I hear this song, the more I like it. The opening is just hypnotic, and the lyrics just make you think about your life. Maybe thats a good thing, maybe not, but it only takes 100 years to live.

"Running from an Angel" by Hootie & the Blowfish. Make fun of it if you want, but if you were in high school or college from 1993 to 1996, Hootie was one of the biggest bands around. This is my favorite song off of one of my favorite albums ever, "Cracked Rear View"

"Time After Time" by Nichole Nordeman. The Cyndi Lauper version is really good. There's another out there now with both Lauper and Sarah McLachlan... but this one, this version off of Nichole's live concert CD is a masterpiece. Seriously, I almost cried when I heard it for the first time.

"I'd Die Without You" by PM Dawn. This was my favorite song ever, until earlier this year, when "Possession" finally took it over and ended its 15 year reign at the top. So it resides at a very close #2.

"Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks. Garth is just awesome, and this is my favorite country song ever. This is perfect to be sung loudly while traveling 78 on I-65 heading to Montgomery. Or wherever.

"Full Moon" by Brandy. Being born a poor black child, I'm a fan of R&B, and it doesn't get any more R&B'ier than this joint from Brandy. Dis juke is my jam, boo.

"The Remedy" by Jason Mraz. As much fun as this is to sing, its more fun when you can nail all the lyrics. That slammin' part in the second verse? Uncovering the ways to plan the next big attack they were counting down the ways to stab the brother in the be right back after this, the unavoidable kiss, where the minty fresh death breath is sure to outlast this catastrophe, dance with me, because if you've got the poison, I've got the remedy

"Love Will Never Do Without You" by Janet Jackson. Its hard not preceeding this song with "Miss You Much" because on Janet's "Rhythm Nation 1814", another one of my favorite albums, they go right together. But, in an effort to not feature two songs by the same artist, I picked this one. Mostly because... well, it makes me happy. We all have songs that just make us happy, for no reason other than it does. This is one of those.

"Stay" by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories. This is the most. fun. song. to. sing. ever. Seriously, this is the song that, when you walk into a room and start it, someone in that room will join you, if not multiple someones. "You say... I only hear what I want to, I don't listen hard, I don't pay attention to the distance that you're running to anyone, anywhere, I don't really care, I'm only hearing negative no no no baaaaaadddd...." NYCJenny is rolling with this song right now.

"Come and Talk To Me" by Jodeci. If I were a pimp, this might be a theme song for one of my ho's. Just sayin'.

"In the Light" by dcTalk. This is one of five songs that define my life as a Christ-Follower. Powerful and convicting, I dare you to find harmony as good as this.

"My Favorite Mistake" by Sheryl Crow. Off another one of my favorite all time albums, "The Globe Sessions". We all have our favorite mistakes, don't we?

So there it is. How'd I do?