The thirty-second gloat

I'd just like to take a moment to say

IN YO FACE JACK CHIRAC!!

Yeah, that's right, their only contributions are mad cow disease AND THE 2012 OLYMPICS MUTHAFUCKA!!!

We now return to our regularly-scheduled gloat-free programming.

More than one way/To while away the day

Another amusement we took up at Monday's barbecue was sliv_1's Name 20 Song Titles From the Same Band Challenge. In general, the first ten are a breeze; the second ten are a ballbuster. To give you an idea: It took three of us working together five whole minutes to do Oingo Boingo. spookyfruit deserves special mention for taking on a band sliv_1 considers "virtually impossible"--New Order--and coming away victorious.

The lowest level of challenge is provided by bands with short, catchy songs that always mention the title in the lyrics. I think any of us could do They Might Be Giants, it's just a question of how long it would take. Prog rock bands are the devil. spookyfruit says, "In theory, if you've listened to three albums from a band, you should be able to do it." But all the titles on all the Yes albums I used to listen to repeatedly don't add up to 20. (It's like the old Total challenge: "It'll take four prog rock albums to get the number of titles you'll find on one novelty band disk!")

The real difficulty, of course, is who listens to albums all the way through any more? As soon as I gained the ability to shuffle, I went nuts with it. Most new albums, I don't listen to all the way through once, let alone long enough to learn the titles.

The other challenge of the day was: How many songs can you name about masturbation? It's not so rough finding mentions, but hard to single out any that are actually about self-abuse.