This One is Special

Life is about quality, not quantity. You can buy me a warehouse full of fresh baked bread and this little loaf of challah would mean more to me.

Its because my little princess made it just for me. She called it "Pizza for Daddy", doused it in sesame seeds and served it for dinner.

And Life Is Good.

p.s. baking Challah is the perfect activity for a snow day.

Belated Birthday Bizness

Have no fear,'Da Jew is still here. I'm sure y'all were oh so worried where I disappeared to, based on all the (none-existent) emails received.

Anyways....

Another year passed and it wuz time for the grand ole celebration: my birthday!

This birthday, people have been especially generous to me.

D.S. got me a great cake from Chiffon's Bakery, Topp Dawg sent me some Dale & Thomas Popcorn and my ex-neighbors LFD and Gilmour hooked me up with a bottle of Tequila and 2 CDs of Cannonball Adderly and Charles Mingus. Yum!

We had a Friday night bash with spiked punch (once a year Da Wife prepares that) and lots of homies showed up like LFD and Co., EE and Co, and Child Ish. Many thanks for coming as it wuz mad cold!

Da Wife got me an amazing gift which deserves a post of its own...stay tuned!

The Quest is over......

The search, quest, whatever you want to call it. It's ovah.

Da Gurlie has been accepted to a great school!

We've been to 2 schools since this post. The first one was absolutely brutal and nasty like the others. The second school interview went very well and we received a letter of acceptance yesterday.

 It actually turned out for the better as her new school is close by, enabling us to save on transportation costs.

We are happy to put this harrowing experience behind us.

To those schools who rejcted my daughter simply because she doesn't fit the cookie-cutter mold, go fluck yourselves.

Full credit should be given to Da Wife who persevered and did not settle for anything less than the best for our daughter. 

Whoopee!

Death of the Blog-Roll

How things have changed.

Used to be, quite a few hits and page-views were from other bloggers "Blogrolls". Not so lately.

Now, with the widespread use of Google Reader and other RSS feeds, blog rolls are almost extinct.

Used to be, in order to check up on a fellas blog, you needed to check in every so often.  Not anymore. The instant someone posts, it shows up in my feed and I can usually skim right through the content. I might only click through to the page if I wanted to comment or see other comments.

I now view my Blogroll more ornamental rather than a functional tool for my blog. People on my blogroll are definitely in my Reader and are considered "Noteworthy".

Naturally, my hit count is down. Is my message still getting out? What is more important, meaningless hits or people reading your material? Obviously, the readers.


Your Thoughts ? Is your blogroll more or less meaningful lately?

Special Mazal Tov....

Special Mazal Tov & Mabrook #1 to Lion of Zion, Mrs. LOZ and Jr. on the birth of a baby girl.

Special Mazal & Mabrook #2 to my good friends Child Ish and Mak on their engagement to...each other! Child Ish and Mak were honored guests in my home a few weeks ago and they "mak" a great couple.

Jewish Music Bloggers Awards

Received a couple of emails that I am invited to post some thoughts about the Jewish Music Awards.

I am honored to be included in the same company as Chaim Rubin, Gruntig, Jewish Blogmeister and other illustrious Jewish Music Bloggers.

Wow. However....

People who know me, and that includes longtime readers, remember that I'm not a huge fan of Jewish Music.

But I do have my favorites.

So after the text from JMR pasted below, I'll share some views. People are welcome to say whatever they want in the comment section. Anonymous comments are welcome too, just assign a handle to yourself so we know whom to bash back ;)

From JMR:

Last year, YK of jmusicforum.blogspot.com organized a Jewish Music Bloggers Awards where he gave both his readers and several Jewish music bloggers an opportunity to vote for their favorites in a number of categories.  It was an exciting process to be able to vote for your favorites, read the opinions of some of Jewish music’s best known bloggers and finally see the winners when they were announced.  YK was hoping that the Jewish Music Bloggers Awards would become an annual event and has asked us to host this year’s awards.  We are so honored to be a part of this exciting event!

We have come up with a list of categories and are giving you, the readers, until Sunday night to  nominated your favorites in each category.

Once we have firmed up the list, we will post it on our website and you will  have ten days to vote for your favorites.  During this period, we will be posting picks from a number of Jewish music bloggers who have graciously volunteered to share their opinions.    After that, we will narrow the poll down to three finalists in each category, before we finally tally up the votes and proclaim the winners.

Below are the categories for this year’s awards.  Who would you like to see nominated in each category?  Let us know at awards@jewishmusicreport.com.  We look forward to hearing from you!

• Best Album
• Best Song
• Best Debut Album
• Boys Choir  Album
• Best Arrangement
• Best English Song
• Best Yiddish Song
• Best Concert DVD

Here we go:

Best Album: A lot of new titles. Seriously. I'll have to go with the one I listened to the most: Malei Olam by Shlomo Katz.

Best Song: I can't help it. The song Bye Bye Bye by Shua Kessin stuck in my head for the longest time. It didn't help that my kids loved it too and were asking for the song to be played. Alot.

Best Debut Album:  Ta'amu by Benny Friedman. Quite simply, it was different yet familiar. 

Best Choir Album: Its not my fault. I've tried to steer my kids to listen to other music. But they simply insist on the New Yeshiva Boys #3. I'll take their word for it.



I'll leave these four to the peanut gallery.

• Best Arrangement
• Best English Song
• Best Yiddish Song
• Best Concert DVD

Let the fun begin.

Jazz, anyone?

Anyone reading this here blog a fan of jazz? Contemporary or classic, leave a comment with your favorite artist, clubs or whatever listed.


For the record: I enjoy classic jazz artists such as Miles Davis, Hank Jones, The Duke, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and Stacey Kent.

Last night, I was listening to Sketches of Spain by Davis and it hit me how well he tells a story with that sax.