I Am Officially Obsessed.

I’ve only talked about it here once before, but I’m a huge, huge Carpenters fan. And I just took it to a higher level of fandom by ordering Twenty-Two Hits of the Carpenters 10th Anniversary Edition: a 2-disc compilation of Carpenters songs straight from Japan. At $50 (including shipping, gah), it is the most I’ve ever paid for a CD in my life.

Why plunk down 50 bucks for a compilation album full of songs I already have? Well, it’s not just any compilation album– the second disc consists entirely of karaoke tracks made from the original freaking masters. In other words, these are no pale imitation karaoke tracks like you usually get. These are the original recordings, only sans Karen’s lead vocal. I have been looking for this for ages and I’m glad to finally get my hands on it, even if it did cost me.

Here’s an example of what the songs will sound like:

I don’t have much of an outlet anymore, but I grew up singing. I still love to sing, even though I’m no Karen Carpenter (I wish). So I wanted to have these tracks around just to sing along to.

These instrumental versions have been released on CD before, only to go out of print after a short time. Needless to say, I wanted to snap up this re-issue while it’s still available. Who knows; this might turn out to be an investment purchase if it eventually goes out of print too. 😛

Thoughts on the Late Night Fallout

I’ve been a fan of Conan O’Brien since one late summer night in 1998, so technically this falls under nostalgia…? Yeah, I know, bit of a stretch. Anyway, like many others, I was outraged and saddened at what happened to him this past January. (And I never liked Leno even before all this mess.)

This post actually comes straight outta my Livejournal, but since few of you here have access to that, I’m re-posting it here. I just want to make my opinion on the matter a little more widely known, I suppose. (Plus, hey, it’s content! Can’t complain about that, right?)

I am getting tired of people saying they have no sympathy for Conan O’Brien because NBC gave him millions in severance pay. Money, money, money– who cares? Ever stop to think that things aren’t always just about the money? NBC did wrong by him. Period. Also don’t forget the part where he was paying his employees out of his own pocket.

I think people don’t realize how hard a job it would be to be on television five nights a week. Think about it. You don’t just sit in a chair and talk to people. There’s a lot of stress and time and work involved, so I think television workers and actors deserve to get paid a lot of money, because you can’t just hire average Joe off the street to do jobs like that. It takes experience, knowledge, and talent. I do think that some performers are overpaid *coughlenocough* but in general, they don’t have an easy job so they deserve some monetary compensation.

THAT BEING SAID, it’s clear Conan was not just in it for the money. Obviously it didn’t matter to him that much because he was content to give quite a bit of it away to his staff. Forget the 45 million dollars and just think of it this way: The man worked hard for years and was given his dream job, and then was betrayed and had it taken away from him. Just think about how you’d feel if that happened to you. Would the 45 mil really be all that much of a comfort?

I guess I’m just tired of people being a bunch of cynical, jealous assholes. People think performers and other rich people should be happy and joyful and are not allowed to have any problems whatsoever just because they have boocoos of money. Look at all the celebrities that end up destroying themselves– money does not solve all problems and it does not buy happiness. You’d think people would’ve figured that shit out by now.

At least Conan’s touring the country, and making a triumphant return to TV this fall on TBS, and he’ll be on 60 Minutes tomorrow night– can’t wait to see that interview. So things are definitely looking up for him in spite of all this crap, and I’m glad.