Mini-review: Ryan Montbleau “How Many Times? (part I and part II)”

Rather than review the entire album I’ll take a moment to review some of the songs off Ryan’s new release “Patience on Friday”. The first track is “How Many Times? (part I and part II)”. The kicker of the song, and the thought he leaves linger in the air as the track ends is:


There's a general store in Maine where I spent some younger days
I took a drive one day to see it with a long lost love of mine
although that day was years ago I cannot help but feel as though
I was such a foolish child as we argued on the ride.
how many times?
how many times?
did I look for something petty as love stared me in the eyes.
how many times?
how many times?
how many times will I get that chance, how many times?


I love the fact that he’s so honest. Go Ryan.

is one blog enough?

Lately there have been things I want to vent about. Things on my mind but I don’t particularly want them tied to me. That is, I’d rather cast them out to the web anonymously. I won’t be calling any of my friends idiots or jerks, or our politicians–enough people do that already and do a good job. No, I want a place to write free of fear, basically my private journal but it would be shared. Perhaps a plea to help but there would be some satisfaction that it would be published to the world to read but yet not tied to me.  I could scream, yell, rant rave, like I do in my journal. Perhaps someone might find a little common ground with me through that. That would be nice. But, is one blog enough? Sometimes I think it is.  Anyway, this isn’t a well formed idea but at least I’ve got it down before I’ve dismissed it as unimportant.

stupid sponsorships

This is stupid. Really stupid.  How stupid can things get when a printing format is sponsored by something? Check it out:

I wanted to print out a recipe and after clicking the printer format link I saw this little gem in the upper right corner.  So I took a screen shot. This is on par with NPR’s underwriters (commercials, let’s call a spade a spade).  But seriously sponsoring a !#$*#$%^& printer-friendly format?  Nothing against “The Darjeeling Limited”, I have no idea what they are, but c’mon sponsoring a printing format? I want to see underfunded amateur athletes sponsored, poor but brilliant college material high school students, a poor village but NOT A PRINTER-FRIENDLY FORMAT.

Do I feel better? No, but at least it’s out there.