Happy Friday!

Here's a random thought on this lovely Friday:

I've started going to the gym recently, and my biggest problem with it is that it is filled with ripped dudes. This makes it somewhat intimidating/embarrassing for me, who am weak, to lift weights in front of these Adonises. As I'm pretty sure I heard some comedian say before, all I can think when I see these guys in there is: What are you still doing here? You've already won!

So here is my proposed solution to this problem:

Open up a gym where the weight machines have limits on how high they can go, and no free weights above 20 lbs. This way, the weaklings like myself can still go there and get stronger, but the already buff dudes would just be wasting their time because the weights wouldn't be heavy enough for them to get anything out of it. I think it would be a very popular gym for people who don't go to the gym. It would probably go out of business within a year.

#1 Songs - 1962

It's been a little while since we looked at the number 1 songs, but I'm determined to not let this project die, so let's get back to it. Damn, that sentence was terrible. But, this is the internet and there's no time for editing or doing more than one draft! It's just type and publish. Anyway, here are the songs that topped the charts in 1962:

The Lion Sleeps Tonight	The Tokens
The Twist	Chubby Checker
Peppermint Twist - Part I	Joey Dee & the Starliters
Duke Of Earl	Gene Chandler
Hey! Baby	Bruce Channel
Don't Break The Heart That Loves You	Connie Francis
Johnny Angel	Shelley Fabares
Good Luck Charm	Elvis Presley With The Jordanaires
Soldier Boy	The Shirelles
Stranger On The Shore	Mr. Acker Bilk
I Can't Stop Loving You	Ray Charles
The Stripper	David Rose and His Orchestra
Roses Are Red (My Love)	Bobby Vinton
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do	Neil Sedaka
The Loco-Motion	Little Eva
Sheila	Tommy Roe
Sherry	The 4 Seasons
Monster Mash	Bobby Boris Pickett And The Crypt-Kickers
He's A Rebel	The Crystals
Big Girls Don't Cry	The 4 Seasons
Telstar	The Tornadoes

1962 was not a terrible year in music, but not an outstanding one either. The longest any song stayed on top of the chart was 5 weeks, and three songs managed to do that: "I Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles, and "Sherry" and "Big Girls Don't Cry," both by the 4 Seasons. One rarity that happened in 1962: a number 1 from a previous year climbed back up to the top. That was "The Twist," by Chubby Checker, which first rose to number 1 back in 1960.

The best:

There were a few fun songs that came out in 1962 such as "Hey! Baby," "The Loco-Motion," and "Big Girls Don't Cry," but for me, the song that still holds up the best after all these years is the instrumental "The Stripper." SPOILER ALERT: The video is going to be the end of Slap Shot.



The worst:

There were also a few dreadful songs that somehow managed to top the chart in 1962. I normally don't like novelty songs like "Monster Mash," but it's not as terrible as our winner. "He's A Rebel" features some piano playing that doesn't really jive with the rest of the song, but even so it is still better than "Telstar," by the Tornadoes. It's "electronic music" was inspired by the satellite of the same name and supposed to sound futuristic or something, but it just doesn't hold up. At all. This is the 1980s CGI of songs.

Grandpa Oakland Gets a "Smart" Phone

I am a bit of a Luddite. In school, I never liked using a graphing calculator, preferring a less powerful, simpler scientific calculator (like a TX-30 - is it sad that I know the names of calculators off the top of my head?). Until recently, I owned and used a flip phone. Now, due to outside pressure, I have finally given in and upgraded to a smart phone. I also now own a tablet computer. These are both things that I never envisioned myself owning.

I have always believed that cell phones should be used for making phone calls. When texting first became popular, I was reluctant to join in. It seemed like a step backwards in technology. Surely it took more data to transmit a voice in real time than it did to send a small amount of text, and yet the phone companies were charging you out the ass for this privilege. It didn't make sense to me why anyone would do it. Not only was it unreasonably expensive - $0.10 a message! Can you imagine how expensive phone calls would be if they were $0.10 a sentence? - but it also took 20 minutes to have a conversation that could have taken 30 seconds if done with a call. I could get into a whole thing about what I think texting says about where our society is heading, but for now I'll just move on.

My problem with smart phones has always been that the "phone" part of it is no longer the primary function. They really should take the word "phone" out of its name. Smart phones aren't for making phone calls. Smart phones are small computers with cameras attached to them. They are for checking email. They are for taking pictures. They are for playing games. They are for looking things up online. They are for finding directions. You know why you don't see any more of those "Can you hear me now?" commercials? Because nobody gives a shit! The cell phone company commercials of today boast of their 3G or 4G or whatever-G coverage. Computing speed and camera resolution continues to increase on phones, but voice and call quality remains low.

So now that I finally have a smart phone, what do I think?

One of my biggest concerns about getting a smart phone was the size of the phone. To me, they always looked awkward to hold to your face for making a call. There was a time when cell phones were getting smaller. Now it seems they only get bigger. Part of the reason that I liked having a flip phone was that it was small and fit comfortably into my pocket. Fortunately, that hasn't really been an issue with my new smart phone. It fits in my pocket more comfortably than I would have thought, and although I still find it a bit wider than I would like to comfortably hold it while making phone calls, I'm getting used to it.

My biggest issue so far with my new phone has been battery life. My old phone could go a week without charging it, maybe more. The new smart phone always seems to need to be charged. I'm lucky if I can get two days out of it. Now, I don't know if this is typical, or if it's just the phone I have, but it's rather annoying.

Overall, I'm getting used to having a smart phone. It isn't as terrible as I thought it would be. I'm never going to be someone who constantly browses the internet on his phone, but I do like having the option to do it. I guess living in the future is not so bad. As long as I can keep my vinyl.

Oakland's Vinyl Vault - Animals

Last week we recklessly dove into the mid-80s. This week, the randomizer has been much kinder to us. It's Pink Floyd's Animals.

Release date: January 23, 1977
Singles: (None)

PIC Video Game Review

Here at Pat Is Crazy, we love video games. Our favorite type of video game: 30 year old games that we can play for free on the internet. So today, we're going to take a look at the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game!

As you may know, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a popular comedy science fiction franchise created by the late Douglas Adams. It originally started as a radio show, and has since been adapted to just about every medium you can think of - books, TV, movies, and 30 years ago, a video game. Fans of the franchise will enjoy the game, while people who aren't familiar with the franchise will find it very difficult to get past the first level (fans of the franchise will find it slightly less difficult).

The game, originally created in 1984 for this new-fangled device called a home computer, is completely text-based. You type in commands like "stand up" or "drink beer" to guide the characters through the story, and hopefully not kill them. You will almost certainly kill them. A lot.

The game is very difficult. Unless you consult a guide (but not the Guide - you don't get that until later in the game), you may give up before you even get out of the room that the game starts in. If you do manage to get out of the room, or even make it all the way to the Heart of Gold, you probably will still fail in the end and have to start all over again, because the game is perfectly happy allowing you to skip over items or actions that are absolutely essential to beating the game with no possibility of back tracking. A good example of this is the Babel fish. You can easily go right on past the level where you get it, and once you do you can't go back, and you can't beat the game without it. In fact, when the game first came out, they started selling "I got the Babel fish" T-shirts because it was so difficult to solve the puzzle necessary to get it. It gets rather frustrating. I've been playing the game for a few days now, and even with cheating by reading some of the hints when I got utterly stuck, I still feel very far away from beating the game.

So if you've read the books, seen the movie, watched the TV show, or traveled back in time, moved to England and listened to the radio program, I encourage you to give the game a try. Adams was heavily involved in the making of the game, and it shows. The writing in the game is top quality, and it has a wide range of commands that it recognizes. If you do decide to play, a word of advice: look at everything, and pick up everything you can - even the pocket fluff. And of course, always know where your towel is.

Oakland's Vinyl Vault - Reckless

Time to get back into the vinyl vault. This week, we look at one of the biggest album of the 1980s. Well, one of the biggest Canadian albums. It's Reckless, by Bryan Adams.

Release date: November 5, 1984
Singles: Run to You, Kids Wanna Rock, Somebody, Heaven, Summer of '69, One Night Love Affair, It's Only Love