Has It Really Been Two Years?

    It's a little early, but I'm giving my opinions on what the number song of the year could be. Sure, HUNTR/X could pull off a fast one and end up having "Golden" do something spectacular, but I believe that these three songs are the only real contenders. First, there is "Ordinary" by Alex Warren. The song has been number one for the most weeks this year. However, it debuted much later than the other two songs, so it lacks the longevity that most year-end number ones need. Next is "Luther" by Kendrick Lemar and SZA. The song is based on a Luther Vandross song that itself was a cover of another song. In fact, a sample of Vandross is used on the track. It spent many weeks at number one, and it was on the charts for a fairly long time. Finally, there is "Die with a Smile" by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. It first debuted last August to qualify for the Grammys, where it did wind up winning an award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group. It took a few weeks to reach number one, which it finally did after the holiday song glut broke. In fact, it is still in the top twenty as of this week, a year after it first came out. In my personal opinion, this song has the best chance to take the top spot.

    "Die with a Smile" is not the only song that has been on the charts for a long time.  Two other songs that are older are also still doing quite well. First is "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" by Shaboozy. It debuted in the spring of 2024 and, aside for a few weeks last fall during the Christmas blitz, had been in the top ten until this week. It has been on the charts for so long that only this week has the follow-up, "Good News," has finally overtaken it on the charts. It debuted last summer.

    However, no song has been on the charts as long as "Lose Control" by Teddy Swims.  It debuted all the way back in August 2023. It reached number one in the spring of 2024.  It got knocked off the charts last fall due to various rules.  Specifically, songs that have been on the charts over twenty weeks and would no longer place in the top half of the charts are no longer listed. The Christmas rush pushed the song below the top fifty, removing it from the charts.  However, it got re-listed back in January, where it pushed back into the top ten.  It is still in the top ten now, two years after it first charted! Of course, it easily holds the record for most weeks on the Top 100 chart.

    This is the third time since 2020 that this record has been broken.  First, it was "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. Then "Heat Waves" by Glass Animals beat it out by a few weeks, only for Swims to take the record this summer. "Lose Control" has been on the charts for so long that it has outlasted not one, but both the follow-ups that came out later. (By the way, I like both "The Door" and "Bad Dreams" a little more than "Lose Control.")  I put the blame on streaming. Back in the days when radio airplay and physical single sales determined the charts, even the best songs rarely spent more than twenty weeks total on the charts on their initial runs. Now, streamed listenings over various platforms are the biggest factors for success. Since there are no limits to how much a song can be streamed, totals can keep adding up. This can make it harder for newer songs to find an audience, but it can keep an older song popular well past its original, natural ending. 

    Personally, I feel that songs will soon be forced off the charts after a certain date. I've never streamed music, and I don't plan on doing it in the near future. Streaming just skews the metrics of popularity too much to have so much power over the charts. Now, if I only could hear "Golden" on local radio.

Pop Goes the Pawpaw

    I have been waiting for two new limited-edition flavors of pop to come out for a while now. About two weeks ago, they both hit the shelves.  However, I have yet to try either one of them.  There are a few reasons why, but they are pretty significant.

    First is the first ever limited-edition flavor from A & W, Ice Cream Sundae. This one was announced late last year.  Why do so that early? No idea, but it is now out. The reviews I've seen online suggest that it is based on root beer. I would have thought that the cream soda flavor would be a better base, but the reviewer could be wrong.  The predominant flavor is chocolate, with at least one reviewer comparing it to a chocolate soda. Another one suggested that there were hints of cherry, but mostly in the background. One reviewer actually added creamer to his drink to get a more traditional sundae flavor.  Now, I'm sorry, but I hate this 'dirty soda' trend of mixing other beverages into your pop. That is the main reason why I hated Pepsi's Wild Cherry and Cream flavor from earlier this year.  Too much of a dairy flavor and not enough vanilla.  While individual bottles are out there, no local store I have visited so far seems to carry them. These first reviews kind of turns me off to try a full carton of twelve, mainly because I don't really like too many chocolate-flavored things.  For instance, I couldn't stand chocolate milk or chocolate ice cream when I was a kid.  Still don't think I'll like it, although I haven't had either one in a very long time. Even a six-pack of larger bottles might be too much of an investment if I don't like them.  Still, I will be searching.

    The second pop is the latest limited-edition flavor from Ale-8-One, a regional beverage company here in Kentucky.  Now, I've never had any of their products, from the original ginger ale through all of their newer varieties--from cherry to their other limited-edition from this year straw(berry-water)melon. However, their current one intrigues me.  It's pawpaw. That's right, America's very own 'exotic' fruit. Almost no one outside of the Appalachians has ever tried this cousin of the tropical custard apple. Oh, there have been attempts to cultivate the fruit tree, but the actual pawpaw is so far too delicate for widespread shipping, especially since in can look disgusting when fully ripe. Somehow, with help from Kentucky State University, Ale-8-One has managed to capture the flavor of a pawpaw in a pop. Unlike most of their products, this one is shipping in cartons of four instead of the typical six.  All glass bottles. While the original ginger ale is sometimes available in plastic bottles, this variety doesn't. I've looked for individuals, but almost no one carries a wide variety of glass bottles. So, I will have to but them buy the carton, if I can still find them.  Almost all of the first batch has sold out, if not completely, by now.

    This is a shame, because I used to love pawpaws when I was a kid. One of my great aunts had a tree in her yard. I would get a selection of them after older relatives had their share. The tree stopped bearing fruit while I was still young, so other relatives and friends would search the woods each fall to help me get my fix on the fruit. However, by my late teens, I had turned off of pawpaws. My picky eating habits didn't like the fact that the fruit had to turn dark brown or black before being ripe. Having people I didn't really like bring them in didn't help either.  Finally, I was starting to get a rash if I peeled my own fruit by hand, a fairly common disturbance. Swallowing the entire whole seed while trying to get all the flesh off didn't help either. At least they aren't poisonous like the seed of the custard apple. It's been so long now that no one who used to hunt pawpaws for me are still around, even if I did want to try one. This Ale-8-One might be my last best chance to relive this part of my childhood. I just have to find a bottle opener.

Updating Updated Updates Again

    This week, I'll be updating a few things that I've been discussing these past few weeks.  Again.  I have to  say, there has been so much going on, that I just have to keep updating things until everything is caught up. 

    First up, my car. I finally took it in for yet another evaluation. This dealership identified the problem almost immediately. My tires have very uneven wear, causing them to bounce and rotate, making the noises I've been hearing.  Considering the local road conditions, it was hard to tell exactly what had been wrong. I mean, I drive over so many roads in need of repaving, as well as very curvy ones, it would be hard to tell what problems came from my car and which were due to the roads. The problem can easily be fixed by replacing them.  While I should have them replaced as soon as possible, I could get a rebate on new tires if I wait until October.  This would put problems on my plans for shopping trips to search for missing comics. Still, I will see what they say when I take my car in for an oil change in two weeks.  We have a theory as to why the previous dealership couldn't determine this simple cause sooner. Like two of my cars, this one came from the waning years of the model before it was discontinued. While not from the very last model year, it was the last one that didn't have the stop-and-go gas-saving feature most new cars now have. (The mechanic said that this feature can now be turned off and on in some newer vehicles.) We were thinking that someone really wanted my old car, and that is why the other dealership was pushing so hard for me to sell my car. So, it looks like I might not need a new car for a while longer.

    [As a corollary to above, I received a free trial for SiriusXM from one of my other recent trips to the first dealership. We tried to activate it Monday by phone call. The person on the other end of the line was so pushy into trying to start a full subscription, as well as having a hard to understand accent. For some reason, the trial wasn't activated. I kept checking for it on the evening drive Monday and the Tuesday morning drive, but nothing. On Tuesday, Sirius emailed us a feedback survey to fill out.  They received a very low rating. They sent out a second email late Tuesday, after they failed to reach us via telephone. (We had used my store's landline for reference.  They called about an hour after it closed for the day.) We finally called back this morning, and the three-month free trial has finally started. I'll now have it until just before the partial trial starts for Thanksgiving.]

    Speaking of comic books, that is the second topic. My latest email was finally read last Wednesday afternoon.  Apparently, the manager doesn't work on weekends.  Or Mondays and Tuesdays, which I was somewhat certain they were open on.  Anyway, the delay caused me to miss out on one of my books for July, but I was able to order the other fifteen. I was expecting them to be delivered this past Saturday, but they didn't arrive until 4:00 pm Monday. I'm not sure why the longer wait this time around, but for brief period of time, I was only down single digits of comic books. As of today, that number has jumped to ten, plus a special I might want that I didn't realize was coming out this week. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get my missing July comic when I go on my late summer shopping trips.  If they aren't delayed too long. One of my older titles will be out in the trade collection later this month, and I've already placed an order for it through my store.  The other two older ones won't be out until November, but I'm ready for them. I'm thinking about placing my first August order from the Lexington store next week, as they seem to go faster.  We'll see. Page 3 Game Zone has still not fully reopened, but their Facebook page suggests that it will be soon. No word on comics yet from them, but I am waiting. Still waiting.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Shopping Center

    When Page 3 Game Zone, my local comic book shop, got devastated by the February floods, I almost volunteered my store as a possible pick-up point for them. I could have set up something for people to pick up their regular orders and possibly have some of other products as well.  If not that, then maybe set up some temporary storefront at my shopping center. We had a lot of empty units, with another one opening up soon after.  I shot this idea down, as I feared it would come off as selfish and greedy. Still, I mentioned that my store could help out in a comment on their Facebook page.  [In some respects, maybe I should have went down in that direction. In the past five months, I have had to go through four different stores, in three different states, just to get all but three of my books up through June. I'm still trying to get the sixteen titles for July through one online store, but I'm having problems contacting them about confirming my order. Hopefully, Page 3 will start their comic book shipments back soon before I have to start ordering too many from my August pull.]

    Strangely enough, no one ever came to rent any units at the shopping center, even though it had some of the few spots available in the area.  What was even stranger is that the center took down all of the 'for rent' signs down sometime, and I never noticed.  I walked by some of them every day, but I guess I just took them for granted and missed when they were taken down. We heard that at least one possible tenant called about renting, but they were told that the units were going to be remodeled. This was odd, as the renters were usually the ones who did the remodeling.  Even when major changes had to be made, such as removing asbestos, it was the renters who did it, not the center. Some people thought that the center was leaving units empty as a tax benefit. The center would get a bigger tax break from empty units, rather than from renting them out. Maybe, but it sounded off. We even asked to take some leftover fixtures that were left behind some of the units, but the center has yet to have someone come to help us out with this. 

    Well, last month, the regional manager for the center came by with a photographer to take pictures of the units. I immediately was against them doing this, but I got overruled. They took pictures of at least a part of each unit.  (They may have bypassed the church, as there was a visitation/funeral going on.  Yes, there is a church in the center.  For those who know, it took over the dialysis clinic's spot.) At least a few people believed/were told it was for 'insurance' purposes. However, one renter knew the photographer from one of the local realty companies. Sure enough, I helped compare pics of him, and it did look like the photographer. Now, an insurance company would most likely use their own people for this sort of task, not a realtor. Something seemed up.

    The rumors had been running for well over a year that the center was going to be put up for sale, most likely to the local hospital or university. There was no clear reason why either would want a shopping center, especially one so far away from downtown where most of their properties were located. Now, the current owner of the center is not the same one who built it. The current owner is the parent company behind Food City.  They bought the center about the same time that Food City took over the Piggly Wiggly that was originally here. The original store was torn down and rebuilt to the current building, now home to the company's discount grocery chain, Food Center Super Dollar (a combination of their original store and a second one they bought out).  While it is unlikely the main store would be sold, nothing else is out of the question, including the church. Both potential buyers have shown that nothing like that would stop them, if they really wanted to go that far.

    This October 7 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of my store, Booknotes. Now, there is a chance that I will have to move or even close if these rumors turn out to be true. I might not even make it to October, but that is a long shot.  Of course, I could be exaggerating the facts due to a lack of knowledge, but one has to plan for the worse case scenario. I only got this location due to the cheap rent and large amount of parking. I wasn't even planning on keeping the store open for more than a few years, but the 2003 flood messed up all of my plans, and I still haven't been able to fully recover. I hate not knowing enough to know what to do, but something is going to happen soon. I just can't figure out what.