One's a Knight, another's a Jabber, and the last one has died and come back to life

I was listening to my mp3 player (I'm old school) when the Pet Shop Boys came on. I was really digging the song and it got me to thinking. Neil Tennant has such a nasally voice, why on earth do I like it so much? This isn't something that has developed recently either. I remember riding around in my brother's '80 VW Rabbit (The one we had was sky blue) being 9 years old and listening to the awesome 80's music of the time. One song that always stuck with me was "Opportunities" by PSB. Sure, I remember liking Information Society, Erasure, Bananarama, Human League, Duran Duran, and OMD as well, but I just loved the voice of the guy who sang "Opportunities". Now, at 25 years of age I'm listening to "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" on the walk to the bus and still digging it. I don't get it. Why this deep seated affection for the voice of Neil Tennant? So, as I walked, and then rode the bus home I racked my brain trying to decide who my favorite male singers were. I was able to come up with 3 that rose head and shoulders above the rest. In reverse order they are:

#3 - Bono Vox aka Paul Hewson

Group - U2

Songs Where He Especially Shines - One, One Tree Hill, and Please

What to say about Bono that his many fans haven't already said? I for one feel that his voice peaked around '90-'91 during the recording and touring of Achtung Baby. He was still able to his those insanely clear high notes, but his voice had some balls when needed as well. Feel what you want to about his extra-rock god activities, but this man packs more emotion and feeling into his voice than just about anyone. It's nice when a performer can make you feel what they are feeling.

#2 - Neil Tennant

Group - Pet Shop Boys

Songs Where He Especially Shines - You Only Love Me When You're Drunk, Being Boring, and Can You Forgive Her (Check out the "Product" section of their website for audio clips)

Much has been mentioned about Mr. Tennant above. I'll just make this quick observation about his voice. It really has become much better with age. The nasal whininess has become much smoother and less abrasive he has advanced through life. Not that it has mattered to me, I was digging on his voice at the age of 9.

#1 - Dav(e)(id) Gahan

Group - Depeche Mode and Solo Project

Songs Where Especially He Shines - John the Revelator, Shine, and In Your Room

By far my favorite singing voice on earth. To me, he is the only one in this triad that can take a mediocre song and make it listenable/enjoyable. He has always (Well...let's call it from 1984, or when he finally made it through vocal puberty) had an excellent aggressive/suggestive singing voice. His voice is just cool. He can channel such wonderful darkness and emotion through those windpipes of his. But what has put him over the top is, after he got of the heroin sauce he took some serious vocal lessons and added another dimension to his vocal performance. Now on top of the funk he grinds, he increased his range and can now sing tenderly, as well as aggressively. (For a good example, check out Precious) For me, it just doesn't get any better than Dave Gahan.
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On a complete side note. An apartment building that I walk by on the way to work every day had it's fire alarm going off so I had the opportunity to see all of ghetto folks. Let me tell you, I was NOT prepared for the visual feast I was about to encounter. I just wish I was better at taking clandestine pictures so I could have snapped a picture of his huge beer gut hanging over his bitchin' black sweats as well.

What a wonderful...weekend?

So its been a long time since Gawain and I have had a really really really fun weekend. This is mostly due to the stupid weather that seems to spring up every weekend and also Gawain having terrible allergies since it is spring. Lucky for us, Gawain got tickets to the baseball game for Satruday. And they were GREAT tickets. We were sitting 40 rows behind homeplate on the lower deck. It was AWESOME!!!

Also great was the fact that we got a parking pass with the tickets so we got to park our beater 89 honda accord inbetween a canary yellow mercedes and a silver audi A6. The game was really fun. It was the Texas Rangers VS. the Seattle Mariners. Although I am a terribly uncoordinated person and have never played and excelled at sports, I do enjoy being a spectator. Theres just something about being in the midst of lots of people all excited about one thing. I suppose I just feed off the energy. So, a great reason I like to go to games is because you are allowed to eat all the disgusting things you would normally never allow yourself to eat and its ok. For instance, Gawain and I each had a BBQ pork sandwhich, a bag of potatochips, large lemonade, he had a cotton candy, I had a fruit kabob dipped in chocolate and nuts, and then I also had a bag of cracker jacks. mmmmmmmm......Anyway so the final score ended up being Mariners:8 and Rangers:3.

We then had to go to this square dancing thing for our church at a different church. OK, first of all I normally do not like to go to extra curricular activites for our church. Nothing personal, Gawain and I would just rather spend time together or with Isabel and the King. The problem is that we are on the Activites Committee for our church so we kind of have to go. Also, this particular activity, the Activities Committee main person was out of town and wanted me to advertise for this activity and get people to bring drinks. On the day I was supposed to advertise I totally blanked and left all of the flyers at home and didn't have anyone bring drinks. I did email everyone in the church, but that didn't seem to help because when Gawain and I show up, we are the only ones from our church there!!! The people from the other church all have a hungry look in their eyes like "new meat" and swarm to greet us and find out more about us, only to be disappointed on two counts that 1: we belong to another church and 2: we are the only ones from our church.....that's right. for the 1st hour we were the only ones there! The ironic (or not) thing is that it ended up being REALLY FUN!! and also everyone from the other church ended up being really really nice....we kind of want to go there now...perhaps we can move or something!

Your Eggs Are Showing

If there is one thing that Vesper and I love about Easter (besides the obvious religious aspects) is the decorating of eggs. Last year, much to our chagrin we didn't get time to decorate eggs and the only photo that was produced from that year was this steamy Doctor Octopus and Captain America shot.

Much to our delight we had the chance to decorate eggs both on Friday and Saturday nights with our friends El Gordo and Ms. Logic. The following are the festivity's blue ribbon winners.