We Didn't Start the Fire!

Original Music Video Courtesy of YouTube

So, one of my sisters sent me a video link.  It was to a slide-show, for lack of a better term, that someone (Ye Li) created to go along with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire song from 1989.  Ye Li did a GREAT job looking up photos for each of the lyrics, and then went a thousand steps further and linked those photos up to Wikipedia.  Honestly, I'm someone who just listens to music and rarely gets all the lyrics and back in 1989, I was working too hard at drinking and college to really pay that much attention to this song.  But, when I watched this, I thought it was pretty cool... a) because I never really tuned into what all was included in the lyrics and b) because I was able to click on an image in the video to learn more about that piece of history via Wikipedia.

Apparently, Mr. Joel is a history fan, and in 1989 he turned 40 (what a coincidence... I'm 40 this year).  He decided to reflect back upon the history between 1949 and 1989... and essentially, that's what this song is about. Some of the major events that occurred each year of those 40 years.  In one song.  Pretty cool, even if you don't like the song itself...

Anyway, I'd love to share Ye Li's video with you.  Check it out!

All credits go to Bill Joel, Ye Li, Wikipedia and Google Images - I take no ownership of this fabulous creation...

Click Here To View Ye Li's Video

It makes me think... what a great scrapbook page... or even entire album... devoted to a timeline of your personal world history.  Kinda like those cards you can send to people on their birthday... what was the price of bread, the price of gas, the #1 song, the average salary in the year you were born.  I would love to do a scrapbook on the history of the world during MY lifetime.  I just think that would be cool...

What do you think?  Have you ever thought of something like this re: scrapbooking?  I have actually thought of it quite a bit.  I touched on a few things in my Eighties post below... truly, I have lived through so much history, but until you sit down and look it up or think about it, you really just don't realize.

Yep, I think this is going to be added to my "list of things to scrapbook"...

Sandpaper

This box of tissues was brand spankin' new (full) at 10am today.

This is what it looked like at 10pm tonight.

I don't care if it says "Puffs with Lotion". 

Galdanged stuff is sandpaper!

Time Flies When You...

...are on vacation.

...spend time with friends and family you haven't seen in months, many months.

...are in a casino!

...realize your mom would have been 72 this week, had she survived her fight with Ovarian cancer.

...realize it's been 12 years since she lost that fight.

...turn off the movie and head to bed, knowing that the next day you'll be going "home".

...sleep almost all the way home from vacation because The Hubs decides to drive the full leg (yay!).

...read a book.

...have a list of things to do before the day is over.

...catch cold germs from your lovely, sweet husband and have half your normal energy.

...spend most of your day wiping or blowing or fighting with your nose.

...have at least 8 loads of laundry and only have 3 completely done (and two in progress).

...spend all afternoon running errands (bank, groceries, library, etc.)

...look back and realize the last time you wrote a post was Monday! 

*sigh*

Time Flies When You're On Vacation!

Where In The World Am I?

I dare ya to guess...

Look at that sun!  The sky!  The daggone spot on my lens!  Caught without my lens cleaner too!

Can anyone tell me what that tall tower is that is in the background? 

It was a beautiful day... sunny, warm... veeeeerrrrrrryyyyyyy breezy.  With quite a bit of mist in the air.

Look at this old photo I found while I was out browsing around!

Isn't it beautiful?!

Naaaaaaaahhhhh, it really wasn't old... just converted with an action from PW.  That was from my day trip today.

Have you guessed yet?

How about now?

If you guessed Niagara Falls, you got it!  What a wonderful day today...

I'll be back to share more later!

Forever a Child of the 80's...

I had this album... yes album, as in vinyl. 

I may still have it in a box in my basement!

In a few days I'm off on vacation.  It's not a glamorous vacation, but days off from all jobs all together, so true enough, a vacation.  I'll be traveling "home" with The Hubs to visit with family for half of my time off, and then back "home" to my kids and zoo for the last half of my vacation.

No matter what I'm doing, whenever I get ready to take a vacation, The Go Go's song Vacation pops into my head and runs amok incessantly.  Having listented to the tune exclusively between my own ears for about an hour now, I had to run out to You Tube to watch the video.  Click the image above to go see it (embedding has been disabled for this video).

After delving neck deep into Go Go's nostalgia, I had to come on here and shout to the world that I am, and will always be, a child of the 80's.  The 80's was a very influential time period for me as I was in era of life where simply everything makes a huge, long-lasting impression.  Between 1980 and 1990 I aged from 10 to 20.  Talk about formative years!  I lived my teen years and entered college in the 80's. 

To borrow a song lyric from Dirty Dancing - I had the time of my life!

What the 80's mean to me...

• MUSIC!  I don't care what anyone says (in a negative manner) about the music from the 80's, but first and foremost, there was a heck of variety!  If the 80's didn't create the expression "one hit wonder" then it certainly embraced and popularized it!  If you took all of the top 20 hits from each week and put each song only once on a CD, I'm sure you'd still come up with a plethora of CDs from that decade... with NO repeats!  How great is that?  And the music was all about peppy beats, being independant, and S-E-X!  There was the New Wave revolution, the New Age birth and growth, not to mention the Top 40 be-boppers.  Hip Hop became popular and the 80's truly may have hosted the "second British invasion" with the influx of popular bands from across the pond during that time.  I will listen to music from the 80's until the day I die, and impress my kids and grandkids with my knowledge of lyrics in current-day songs that are just recycling those "one hit wonders".  (If they're so bad, why are people re-sampling them?)
• CLOTHES!  I admit, I was never into the fashion fads of the 80's when I was in the 80's.  In fact, every generation has it's "retro" look, and the 80's "retro" was the 60's.  So, I was more into dressing in the 60's peace-love-happiness and flower power type of clothes.  And I wasn't even that extreme, because, well... I was a wall flower and never wanted to draw attention to myself.  But I LOVED the ecclectic mish-mash of styles that defined the 80's.  Watch any music video or any John Hughes' film or ANY teen film in that era (Valley Girl anyone?) to see what I mean. 
• FUN!  I think the 80's were light-hearted and fun, and yet we had our share of serious issues to be afraid of.  The cold war.  Hostages in Iran.  AIDS.  But check out most music videos, songs or movies from that era... we were all about having fun!  I'll try to refrain from contrasting this with the influx of the Grunge & Depression of the 90's.
• BREAKDANCING!  I know it's not called that anymore, but it was in the 80's, when it became VERY popular.  It wouldn't have been a school dance without all those b-boys trying their share of moves, breakin' to the music.  I must admit, I did try a few moves myself... and, uh... well... let's just say I'm a bit to ample in the chest area to be doing the "worm".  And rug burns in that area aren't pretty!
• EVENTS!  So many historical events occurred in the 80's. I'm sure that's true of any decade, but it just seemed like so many big things happened both good and bad.  Here are just a few random things off the top of my head:
• The hostages in Iran...
• Mount St. Helens erupted...
• The space shuttle Challenger explosion...
• John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman...
• President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley...who was also stalking Jodie Foster...
• The Chernobyl nuclear disaster...
• The Exxon Valdez oil spill (which looks so small now, in comparison to the current BP fiasco)...
• The explosive growth of computers, developing into HOME computers...
• Movies!  The rise of Steven Spielberg, John Hughes, John Carpenter...
• Beginning of the AIDS pandemic...
• The rise of PC (political correctness)...
• South Africa Apartheid...
• The wall between east and west Germany dismantled...
• I WANT MY MTV!
• Valley "talk"... like, Omigod!  Gag me with a spoon, like, totally, fer sure! You're sooo tubular, dude!
• Pacman...
• Leg Warmers...
• Headbands...
• Rubik's Cube!

Yes... I am and forever will be a child of the 80's (with a distinct flavor for "retro" 60's)!  How about you... what's your favorite, influential 'time'?