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just a sarcastic working mom living life in New England

Reason #742 John McCain is a tool August 30, 2008

Filed under: Music,things i hate — nashsmom @ 4:10 pm
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I’ve worked in the music business and the advertising industry most of my life.  Music licensing is sort of my speciality and I’ve been involved with it in some way, shape or form for the past two decades.  So it always baffles me we when someone thinks they can use a song for “free” or without getting permission.  John McCain has now done this THREE times during his campaign.  

Back in February, John Cougar Mellencamp asked McCain to stop using “Our Country” and “Pink Houses” at his rallies.  Four days after the request, he stopped using them.  Lesson learned, right?  WRONG.

Earlier this month, Jackson Browne – who we in the ad business know as one of the untouchables that WILL NOT license his music for advertising – filed a lawsuit against the Ohio Republican Party, the GOP and McCain himself for using is classic song “Running on Empty” in a commercial.  The lawsuit claims copyright infringement as well damages for creating the false impression that he in any way endorsed John McCain.  

The Tool  MUST have figured it out by now, right? 

Nope.

Yesterday he strutted out on stage in Ohio with Van Halen‘s “Right Now” blaring out over the loudspeakers. And guess who didn’t approved the use and is pissed about it?  That’s right, our friends in Van Halen.

WTF?  It’s like his camp is just picking songs from a vending machine and not even thinking twice about any rights that may be associated with the use of it.  There’s not just the band, but the record label, the publisher, performing rights, singer rights, musician rights, union rights, implied endorsement issues…. the list goes on and on.  How he/they can have no respect for the intellectual property rights of these songs is shocking.  And frankly, as a musician, would you want this guy in the White House having anything to do with copyright issues right now with all the controversy of illegal downloads?  He clearly doesn’t give a shit.  Tool.

***Update***

Officially now a super tool – The Foo Fighters blasted McCain for using their song “My Hero” at rallies without, you guessed it, seeking any sort of permission.  I didn’t think I could hate him any more, but I was wrong.

 

Oh internet, you’re so silly August 29, 2008

Filed under: Nash,things I love — nashsmom @ 1:53 pm
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I can’t remember what blog I read about this site on but I thank them, cuz this is funny.   It’s called Yearbook Yourself and you just upload a photo and choose a mall and voila!  You are transformed into various poses from the 50′s to the 90′s.   Here’s a sample of Nash from a couple different decades…..

 

       The 50′s….clearly channeling a little Buddy Holly and sporting his skinny tie.  He  looks more like my old shop teacher than a student…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Here’s my personal fav, circa 1976.  He would have totally had a bitchin’ Camaro driving around listening to “Fox On The Run” by Sweet.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         And finally, the 90′s.  I would have guessed 80′s and I’m pretty sure this haircut would match up well with parachute pants.

 

Ouch. August 28, 2008

Filed under: things i hate — nashsmom @ 5:32 pm
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OK, here’s the deal.  For the last two weeks I’ve been in pain.  Like on a scale of 1 to 10, a 7 pain.  Constantly.  And it’s all in my knee.  My left knee, to be exact.  Because as some of you may recall, I spent SIX months in physical therapy last year for my RIGHT knee.  And guess what?  Not related.  So basically this girl has bum knees.  They don’t know what caused it.  Every visit starts with this:

Them: Are you sure you didn’t have some trauma to it?

Me: Yes

Them: Maybe you fell?

Me: Nope

Them: Car accident?

Me: No.  Oh wait – that’s right I was in a car accident and my knee went through the dashboard! (not)

So I had an x-ray last week and it looked like my knee cap was shifted over to the outside and that was probably what was causing the pain, but they ordered up an MRI to get a closer look.  On Friday I spent 45 minutes in a tube getting pics of my knee and yesterday I got to see those pics.  Ladies and gentlemen, it was not pretty.  It looked something like this:

See that pretty heart shaped bone on the bottom?  The one on top of it is supposed to mirror that.  But notice the missing chunk?  That’s what I’ve got.  It’s what my knee guy first called a “shark bite” then later referred to it as a “pot hole”.  Cuz that’s what y’all want in your knee bone.  A big old gouge.  And that black outline around the outside of the bone?  That’s the cartilage.  Also missing.  And if that’s not enough, I have some deterioration on my knee cap.  Two separate injuries causing this girls some massive pain.  I’ve been driving to work as the walk to and from the train station was unbearable.  And don’t get me started on steps.  My biggest nightmare.  And please note I live in a 3 story house and have a 6 year old. A bad combo all around.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

A large knee joint effusion is present.  There is some prepatellar fluid.  Medial popliteal fossa cyst measures 5-6 cm.  Subcutaneous edema diffusely.  Degenerative subcortical edema in the patella.  Moderately large osteochondral defect.  Anterior aspect of the lateral femoral condyle.

If anyone has any experience with any of these words, please let me know.  I’m currently at the mercy of this guy:

I’m sure he’s taking good care of me, but what do I know?  He did give me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory pill that seems to be working and promised me a cortisone injection if I still hurt in two weeks.   But he also discussed using cadaver parts to fill in my pot hole.  eww.  

Needless to say, I’m cranky.  So if you see my hobbling, don’t laugh.  It freaking hurts.  

But in more exciting news, I got a shout out on my hero Bean’s blog today!   Click here to check it out….

 

Get Crafty!* August 24, 2008

Filed under: wtf — nashsmom @ 8:04 am
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Moooom, I’m bored.  

Ever hear those words?  Daily around these parts, even with a playroom that puts most Toys R Us stores to shame.  Well, whip out a box of tampons and check out this site TamponCrafts.com.

It’s loaded with all sorts of great ideas like this easy peasy ghost:

 

Or this fabulous turkey centerpiece for Thanksgiving:

 

Or amaze your friends with this pitch perfect pan flute!

 

A shout out to Bean who blogged about this site a while back on stronglywordedletter.com.  (Holla!)

 

*Go ahead and “ewww” me.  I was going to call this “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.  But I didn’t.  So there.

 

Zuma Nesta Rock August 21, 2008

Filed under: Celebs,wtf — nashsmom @ 10:17 pm
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Ok, I have held my tongue on all the wacky celeb baby names that have come out over the past year.  I figure I named my kid Nash so who am I to judge?  But Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rosdale just topped them all with this one.  Zuma Nesta Rock??  WTF??  I can only guess that this is where the little guy was conceived.  On ZUMA beach near a ROCK and now they’re adding him to their NESTa?  Whatev.  Maybe Pilot Inspector (Jason Lee’s son) or Levi and Miller Light (Matthew McConaughey’s son and nephew) will come over for a play date.

 

I’d like to thank the Jonas Brothers August 20, 2008

Filed under: Me — nashsmom @ 3:39 pm
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Today I checked my “blog stats” on WordPress and there have now officially been OVER 10,000 visitors to nashsmom.com. WTF, right? Sadly I think most of them are teenage girls that somehow dug deep in their search engines for anything Jonas Brothers and found my random little post. But hey, I’m going to celebrate anyway. Won’t you join me?

BTW, I’m huge in South America…..

 

In case you need to laugh August 19, 2008

Filed under: things I love — nashsmom @ 7:26 pm
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This is a special dedication to anyone that needs to laugh tonight.  My pal Chuck sent this to me and it needs to be shared with all.  I’ve been savoring it and slowly reading through this blog.  I laughed so hard I cried.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you:

Cake Wrecks 

And don’t stop reading after just the first page.  I’m telling you, bookmark this bad boy and keep going back to it until you’ve read them all!  You can thank me later.

Here’s a taste of what the 4 year olds are ordering up these days….

 

Money DOES buy happiness August 19, 2008

Filed under: Nash — nashsmom @ 5:56 pm

This week is the last week of summer camp.  That in and of itself is a bit of an event, but the bigger news is that Miss Elizabeth is attending camp this week.  Nash is in loooooove with Elizabeth.  Like get-stupid-can’t-talk-when-she’s-around love.   We found out from her mom at Nash’s birthday party that she was going to go to the same camp, but only for the last week.  So each week he has patiently asked “how many more weeks of camp?” not because he wanted to know when it was over, but when Elizabeth would finally be joining him at bug summer camp.  The anticipation over the weekend was crazy.  And I was all over making the week perfect for him so we packed his backpack with two of everything, just in case she didn’t know to bring a snack, or bottle of water, etc.  I think she had most of it covered with one small but oh so important exception.  After lunch, the kids can buy a freeze pop for 10 cents.  So every day I pack the little guy one thin dime to get himself a freeze pop.  I’m sure it’s one of the daily highlights for these kids.  Of course there would be no way Elizabeth’s mom could possibly know about this little bonus event and likely she would show up with out the highly coveted dime.  So we carefully packed a couple extra dimes “just in case”.  The plan unfolded perfectly.  He said he bought her a freeze pop and “she was really happy”.  It was a hot day and I’m sure it was more than perfect.  (I’m also sure the camp counselor would have covered her but really this was so much better!). 

I’m sure there was a certain level of dorkiness, but I picture him as the cool kid, pulling out his two dimes for the freeze-pop lady and turning to Miss Elizabeth all “I got this one, babe”.  And Elizabeth melting faster than a freeze-pop at summer camp.

Where else can you get a scene like that for ten cents?

 

The R Word August 18, 2008

Filed under: Nash — nashsmom @ 10:12 am

If you happened to drive by this weekend you may have witnessed this:

Let’s see….where do I start?  OK, from the bottom:

  1. Vans checkered sneakers
  2. New lightning McQueen checkered socks
  3. plaid shorts
  4. long sleeved “The King” shirt (note: temps were in the 80′s)
  5. Marc Jacobs striped fingerless gloves (note temp in #4)
  6. Speed Racer baseball hat
  7. Speed Racer helmet

And what pray tell were we doing in the front yard in this get up, you ask?  Well, playing “baseball” with Max, of course.  Except we lost the ball while looking for the bat, which we never found.  So we ended up playing with a poster tube and a tennis ball.   Oh, it was a funny sight indeed.  

But don’t you dare make fun of him or he’ll squirt you!!

 

Reason #862 why having a kid rocks August 16, 2008

Filed under: Nash,things I love — nashsmom @ 10:21 pm
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Today was tax-free day in Massachusetts.  Or as I like to call it, every day in New Hampshire.  So figuring that the MA stores were going to be crowded with folks trying to save a buck, we headed up north to NH.  I was dropped off solo at the mall while the boys went on a quest to find the missing links to their respective toy collections.  My first (and only) stop was H&M.  Not all of their stores have children’s clothes so seeking this particular one out today I was on a mission to get back to school clothes for the soon to be first grader.  I hit the jackpot immediately when I spotted a t-shirt with “The King” from the Disney Cars movie.  He loves the King!  But then I turned it around to find a giant embroidered number 43 (his favorite number) and “The King” on the back. Check this out….

I went rack by rack finding something on just about every rack.  When my arm started to break, I brought stack number one up to the counter and went back for round 2.  That’s when I found them.  I could not believe my eyes –  kid sized skinny jeans!!!!  They were so freaking cool.  I even found some corduroy pants that were pretty peg legged as well AND had a guitar embroidered on the back pocket.  I walked out with five pairs of pants, countless shirts, black & white checkered socks, new boxer briefs, a tie, a new Lightning McQueen wallet with an awesome strap & clippy thing to hook on to his lunch box for school, winter hat, gloves, scarf….. it was quite a score.  I feel like $200 and an hour later, dude is all set to rock out in first grade.  Don’t cha think?

 

Of course the new rule is no Crocs with the skinny jeans, so here we are on our way out to dinner.

 

He’s so hip now, I don’t have to worry about what big a dork I am. (or that I have a big doorknob sized hole in my dining room wall……)

***

I almost forgot to mention how great it was trying to see him take them off!!  Once I explained how you just sort of peel them off and turn them inside out, he sort of figured it out but then of course his feet got stuck at the end of the process and we had to pull him out!  Remember that??

 

 
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