I Ain't There Yet at Country, But Everyone Else Is

    This is the time of year I would normally be making my predictions for the number one song of the year. However, not this year.  For one, Billboard already announced all their awards last week, almost immediately after the eligibility year ended. For another, it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that the number song would be "Last Night" by Morgan Wallen. He had such a commanding apparent lead over the nearest competitors such as "Anti-Hero" by Taylor Swift, "Flowers" by Miley Cyrus, and "Kill Bill" by SZA. Wallen spent sixteen non-consecutive weeks at number one which is the record for a solo act.  Other songs have spent longer at number one, but all were collaborations.  The main reason why "Last Night" became such a hit is that country music fans finally started to embrace streaming in greater numbers.  Rap/hip-hop fans have been using streaming for years, leading such artists to have huge first weeks whenever a new album drops.  However, they usually didn't lead to songs with great staying power, as the songs would drop after that first week.  Country fans were different, with newcomers coming in after that launch week, leading to songs with a greater staying power. That why so many country songs have had such good debuts, and even staying power this year.  Three other country songs debuted at number one this year, with one of them even staying near the top for more than a few weeks.  In fact, "Fast Car" by Luke Combs has spent months in the top ten, even without hitting the number one spot.  The Combs version of the song has even out-performed the Tracy Chapman original.  For the last few decades, country songs have had a hard time reaching the full crossover potential they had throughout the 60s and 70s, and through the early 80s.  When rap and hip-hop started to get popular, many larger radio stations started to cut back on country as a way to play the new genres.  As such, fewer country acts reached the top of the Hot 100 chart.  Garth Brooks, one of the biggest country acts of the 90s, only has had one top ten hit, and that was under his alter ego of 'Chris Baines.'  Shania Twain had many hits in the 90s, but most of those songs had pop overtones.  Even Taylor Swift didn't start reaching her great heights until she started to turn more towards pop.  "Meant to Be" by Bebe Rexha and Florida-Georgia Line spent almost an entire year at number one on the country chart, but peaked at number two on the Hot 100. Now that streaming is becoming more important to a song's popularity, country acts are starting to catch up and are finally appearing on a more regular basis.  What's even more compelling is that I am starting to like them.  Sure, I would never listen to a country station as my first, or even fifth, choice, but many songs that are already crossing over are appealing to me.  I loved Wallen's "Wasted on You" last year, mostly after everyone else already started to move on.  I liked "Last Night" as well, but I would buy an entire triple album of country music.  One song that really took a hold on me this year, one who I borrowed a lyric from last week as the basis of my post title, has been "Dial Drunk" by Noah Kahan, especially the remix version with Post Malone.  I know, the original is sort of folk-rock, but I still consider it county since it is about a guy trying to call his ex after getting arrested for public intoxications and causing a disturbance. I finally got to hear the follow-up "Stick Season" this morning.  I weird take on a potential Christmas song, as well as drinking again.  I even kind of like "White Horse" by Chris Stapleton, which almost skyrocketed into the top ten this past week based on his performance on the CMA Awards. (Also, I lyric-checked the song for today's title.)  Before this, the only song I liked of his was "Blow," which was a collaboration with Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars. I seriously doubt I'l ever be a huge country fan, but I might be liking more later on.

Son, Why Do You Do This to Yourself?

    I almost forgot that today was my regular posting day.  I got so involved watching Good Mythical Morning and Good Mythical More that I just plum forgot that I write my post immediately afterwards.  That's the kind of week I've been having.  I just haven't been myself lately.  I am not sure what started it or when it started.  I remember just not feeling it when I worked out this weekend.  Usually, exercise can lift my spirits, but it didn't really work too well this time.  I've been trying to decorate my store before Thanksgiving, but it just has been a struggle this year.  If I was doing it all on my own, I could have probably done it all in a day or so.  However, the person who is 'helping' me is doing her 'best' to make it take as long as possible.  For instance, she cleaned the windows on Saturday when the window-cleaner never showed up on Friday.  Then, she cleaned them on Monday when she felt the first time wasn't good enough, meaning that that portion of the decorating was delayed another day. While I did my portion of the store in the usual amount of time, I had to wait until she finished other things so I could deal with my next step.  I also had to change my Thanksgiving menu to something I didn't really want to at the last minute, technically the last day I was planning to shop.  I had to reschedule a shopping trip out-of-town by a week because of weather.  I been swamped by chocolate-covered cherries.  At least they are selling at a reasonable pace.  I trying to figure out the best time to place the next book order, while also planning the December Upcoming Releases board.  A free trial just started this morning, and so many of the channels have been re-arranged since the last time I checked on them. I finally remembered to go back to cataloging my old weightlifting magazines so that I can finish up that project that started over a year ago. I have been doing a review of an RPG on a forum I'm on.  I'm about through with the second of four phases.  I go into a really deep detailed analysis.  Probably too deep, considering it is taking me about thirty minutes to post each segment with multiple segments per phase.  I trying to find the time each night to play Golf Clash so that I don't fall too far behind the rest of the people in my Clan.  At least I already qualified for this week's tournament for both of my accounts on the first night.  I'm just at wit's end.  I can't remember to look at my online dating profile.  I still haven't responded to my big push from two months ago.  I guess I'm just too afraid and too embarrassed.  I also don't know what to say, since I feel that I have said everything I needed to.  I've caught up on the new Bluey episodes that just came out to regular cable.  I swear, I am regressing here just to feel content.  Maybe even happy.  Still, I do like most of what I do, even if it is taking me much longer than I wanted to do.  Now, someone wants to clean and vacuum the store's carpeting at the most inopportune time for me, so I best finish before things get even crazier. Ugh.

You Got the Fast Food, and You Can Take It to Eat Anywhere

    I don't eat out that much, maybe two or three days per month. I have many reasons for this.  First, I am kind of a picky eater. When I was a kid, there were only so many things that I would eat.  That's still mostly the case, although my tastes have expanded considerably.  I must admit that I have cut quite a few things back in the last few years, which I am hoping to change. Next, I do try to eat healthy whenever I can. I don't eat totally 'clean,' but it is usually a bit more on the healthy side.  It is one of the reasons why I learned how to cook.  (Another is that my mother is not that good at it.)  While I'm not the best, I am really quite competent in my wheelhouse.  Another reason is that I tend to try and schedule my meals in advance.  Back when I was starting college, there were nights when I didn't know what I was eating for dinner as much as an hour beforehand. I actually hate having to do so much scheduling, and I have put off final details a lot in the past few weeks, but I would rather make a list early than not having any idea until the last second.  That just happened to me this weekend, but it was more of what can I find while shopping that I need rather than not having any ideas at all.  It also helps me figure out how to alternate dishes so I don't eat things too similar too close together or repeat meals too frequently. It doesn't help that I can't eat leftovers. (I'm sort of a 'super-taster.' I can't tolerate the taste of most reheated foods.)  Finally, there's cost.  I just can't afford it all the time.  Just within the last year, I spent over twenty dollars just for two signature burgers, two sides, and a fountain drink. I won't mention where, but it is a local place and not one where I would even think of normally going.  Anyway, I had to eat out yesterday.  I was taking my mother to the doctor, so I had to leave early before I could eat a real breakfast. I have a hard time eating a full meal that early in the morning, so I had just a protein shake, with a small snack mid-morning.  She wanted to get some takeout.  I didn't want to eat at the place I had burgers at the last time, and my mother had some qualms about their rewards program lately. I was thinking about the new promotion at another place, since I really wanted to try it now that it was brought back, but I couldn't be sure if the local location was running it yet.  I was thinking about a few other place, but I really wasn't feeling it for any of their signature burgers that day.  My mother ultimately 'convinced' me to go to the place she had some coupons for, including one for something she absolutely craves and I couldn't care less for. Well, we were the only people inside at the time we went in. Someone had just left.  There was one person at the counter and the drive-through, and she was being easily distracted, especially when some workers from the back came out to check something out in the restrooms, maybe. The attendant had to process another order before she came back to take ours, after it took a minute or two for my mother to decide if she really wanted to use her coupons after all.  The attendant almost got us too many cups.  Then, she almost forgot whose order it was.  Things almost got worse when another attendant came up front to try and help out, and she almost got the orders mixed up as well.  By that time, someone else had come in and was waiting in 'line.'  Finally, we were ready to leave, although my mother almost got mad when the place was out of napkins.  She is obsessed with getting free napkins whenever she goes out. She also waited until getting to the car to double-check to see if the order was placed correctly.  That almost got food over my car.  At least we got to the store without any problems. Well, my burger barely had anything that qualified as lettuce, and I don't think there were any onions on it either.  I don't remember them.  At least I had double the tomatoes after I stole them from mom's burger.  (She doesn't really like them in the raw state.). While she complained that the meal was a little too expensive even after she used her coupons, she couldn't stop raving about the food after she ate it.  I barely could stand it.  It just didn't like the flavor.  I still can't believe she went from almost saying she would never eat there again to saying it was very good.  She is prone to doing such things.  She didn't even eat all of hers.  She is saving the rest of her burger to eat today.  Yuck.  As for me, I was fairly hungry for the rest of the afternoon.  Admittedly, I weigh over sixty pounds more than she, or even seventy, and with a faster metabolism, so that same amount of food just wasn't enough for me.  Even after a small bite in the afternoon.  How I wish I stood up and suggested any other place that day.  We would've spend about as much, but for something I might have actually liked.

Who Can It Be Calling on My Work Phone?

    My work phone has been very busy these past few weeks.  Over a dozen calls a day sometimes.  Unfortunately, the majority of these calls are not work-related, but telemarketers.  Predominately about Medicaid, or Medicare.  I get the two confused.  Sometimes, the telemarketers mention both.  There's also life expenses, funeral costs and such.  The problem actually started this past spring.  The store started to get phone calls for a 'Rhonda,' or possibly 'Wanda.' It can be hard to tell through some of the thick accents of the live callers.  From at least one call, this woman is from New Jersey. I always found it strange that the area code would be messed up that badly.  Anyway, those phone call started to drop off, only to be replaced these last few weeks by an onslaught of of Medicare callers.  Many of them automatic calls that pretend to be live.  Whenever the store gets one of these calls, I have fun with it.  I answer "Hello" with the same unusual tone the caller has.  When they ask how I feel, I try to respond in an unusual way.  Frequently, I just go "Meh."  A few times I go with "Horrible." How else would I feel when being bombarded with these annoying calls.  These fake callers sometimes respond with an appropriate answer, such as "So bad." Sometimes with the wrong response, such as "That's great!"  Even when I respond with a negative, they ignore the answer and continue on with the call, sending me over to a 'live' person.  I usually hang up by then, before I find out. [I just had one such call right now.  It was a real person.  When I said I felt "horrible," they asked why.  I said it was due to being called so many times and asked not to be called again.  They hung up before I finished my sentence.] I can't figure out why my store is getting so many of these types of calls.  It doesn't make sense for this to happen to a business. The store is getting calls about accident claims, Social Security benefits, life insurance. It just doesn't make sense.  It doesn't help that someone else at the store liked to wait until the second or third ring to pick up the receiver, just so the Caller ID feature would catch the number.  They would especially like to see who called overnight or the weekends.  Many times, the number was a spoof.  Obviously a hospital wouldn't be calling a business legitimately during off-hours. It happened so much that the back-up batteries in the landline have been acting up.  I'm not sure if they are dead or the connection has failed again.  Once, I left dead batteries in there a little too long, and one of the connectors corroded when a battery started to leak.  Currently, most of the phone's features only work during an active call, which is not long enough to do anything worthwhile beyond actual calling.  I got so bad, that the other person in the store decided to put the store's number on the national do-not-call registry, against my better wishes.  I'm afraid that could limit the number and times of legitimate callers.  Sure, we could do without so many third-party dealers wanting to help verify the store's Google listing, but I'm not sure we could do without so many other 'real' callers, besides potential customers. So far, the telemarketers still are calling.

Your Dreams Made as Real as Anything

    The last few weeks of this blogcast have been a little hectic.  At least one has been a little late on being posted.  Also, coming up with titles based on Dave Matthews Band lyrics hasn't been easy.  Especially since I wanted to go in the chronological order of their album release.  In case you didn't recognize the songs, in order, they were "Ants Marching," "Crash into Me," "Halloween," "I Did It," and toady's song is "Grey Street."  I did a similar thing a few Octobers ago, and I just thought I should repeat myself this year.  I've mentioned a lot of things in the past few weeks, but I haven't gone through with everything as well as I should have.  It is a bad habit of mine to put some things off until I feel it is the right time, but sometimes I just wind up not doing those things.  For instance, this morning, I was supposed to check out the registration process for the Spring semester at grad school, but I had to forego that for a little bit.  Late last night, I got confirmation that a book order for my store would be arriving sometime today, at least a day earlier than normal or expected.  I had to rush through my normal morning schedule to make sure I left early enough to get to the store on time, in case road work would cause a delay.  I also had to charge up the phone I use for contact with the school. It would have had enough power, but I always try to make sure it has more than a little before I go out. Regardless, I will be waiting a longer to check it out.  This is happening to me a lot lately.  Just last week, I made such a big deal about posting my views on a new game on a forum.  By the time I could get to the site, my allotted time for doing it was almost gone.  So, I had to wait until this Sunday to post the first part.  I'm hoping to post the second part this afternoon, but I just have so much other things I do online now.  Dating has yet to be one of them.  I started on one online dating service, but I must be doing something wrong somewhere.  So far, the majority of hits have been from out-of-state. On the one hand, I would prefer finding someone far away from where I am currently living.  On the other hand, I'm not driving over a hundred miles to meet someone.  Those few hits from closer nearby haven't seemed interesting to me.  My parameters must not be correlated correctly. Maybe I should use another service instead.  I just don't know what to do with such things.  I'm not tech oriented.  This past September, I mentioned a project I finally got around to finishing. I still haven't responded to the outcomes yet.  I just don't like messaging.  I also feel somewhat embarrassed to read other's thoughts and respond.  Someone actually had messaged me about my online dating dilemma.  That conversation ended over the weekend, and I haven't had the nerve to go back. I just don't write the same way I talk.  What sounds right in my head doesn't always work when I try to speak it, which is just the worst way to try and message, I guess.  I wind up writing too much, and I don't think I've written what I meant to say.  At least I have one good thing to update everyone on.  Disney will be airing the latest block of Bluey on cable starting next week.  I had already checked the synopsis of some of those episodes online before this was announced, and some very emotional ones are coming up. Maybe they will give me the emotional punch to actually go through with some of these things. The book order still isn't in as of 11:13 am.  Two and a half hours left in the delivery window.