Bloody brilliant.

Big props for pulling off those high notes so smoothly.

I know it takes incredible talent to do what she does. But I gotta say, I'm not enjoying her voice as much as I'd like. That's why I usually listen to Mezzo Sopranos instead.

I like a little bit of depth in volume. Usually when sopranos sing high notes their volume stays high but they lose that resonance I look for. Hitting high notes like that is incredibly hard, but doesn't automatically make it a pleasant sound, at least according to my personal taste.

I too love The Office, but had forgotten about most of the threads that they left off the last season with. I'm wondering if Pam is going to catch Jim and Karen doing something, and then take it out of context. And I'm sure Jan will be back, while Michael is trying to hook up with the HR lady.

(Ugh, I just read what I wrote and realized that it sounds like a soap...which, in a way, it is. ) But I'm with you; can't wait to see the new season and see what they're going to do with it. It surprises me that it's lasted this long. I'm interested how it's going to end, as the UK version ended on a high note...or will they pull some kind of E.R. thing where it just keeps going and going...probably not.)

She ended on a high note, and I'm grateful for that.

Nice post, arvana. I'll address each of your suggestions, point by point:

- Auto-select for email: Great idea. People can still uncheck the box if they don't want it, but the vast majority I'm sure would keep it checked.

- Expand possible duplicates list: Another capital idea.

- 'Modify' button problem: I don't have that problem at all, and I've used Firefox, IE, and Opera. Therefore your computer is insane. I understand you use Linux, which is an operating system still in its adolescent phase of development. You know how defiant teenagers can be.

- More playlisting around the site: Ain't nothing wrong with that. Good idea.

- More listing options on the Channels page: You're on a roll. Another primo suggestion.

- Fix 'Unsifted queue date' sorting: Without a doubt, brother.

- Shorten queue time to 2 days: Damn, your roll just came to an end. I think 3-day queues have worked out great, and I paid active attention to mine for a while when the 3-day queue went into effect. I think the second day is crucial to third day success. Sure, the second day is probably still the slowest, but I notice that if my videos get at least 1 or 2 votes during that time then they stand a much better chance of being sifted. This is ideal for music videos, which almost never get that many votes anyway because people here have so many different tastes. Without that second day I believe a lot of music videos will slip through the cracks. Then we'll just have more LOLcats (playing jazz in their sleep . I'd like to hear what more members think about this point.

- More social features: Well at least we're ending on a high note, because I agree wholeheartedly. I've been longing to find a sifter who's as interested in shirt buttons as I am, so this would be fantastic.

Was a big fan of the Pumpkins (aka Amazing Tomatoes, as they were going to originally call themselves) in high school. I'm always surprised to see music videos of songs I really, really love and realize I've never seen them before. Never been an MTV watcher, especially not now that they don't play music videos any more.

Still have an old bootleg of them in a tiny club performing acoustically the songs of their then unreleased upcoming album Siamese Dream. Billy's voice cracks a few times trying to hit the high notes and he just laughs. It's great.

They were sure something awesome.

okay, i know nothing about how to play the trumpet, so i guess i never realized it was difficult to hit those high notes. shrug. i'm upvoting this for the 70's awesomeness of this clip.

>> ^quantumushroom:

How about this: an honest man has a better chance of landing a job than a convicted felon, even one who's been forthright.

Your assertion is demonstrably false, as appealing as it might be to believe it.

http://paa2005.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=50874&ei=AzrhR-mKBIjKhQTMgv25Dw&usg=AFQjCNGRrZyTqgfg6fFWpomP5Vm_mUQ3ig&sig2=DlvBJ-AZ6_aYrbq5wE
3oSQ

The chance a qualified black man with no criminal record has of getting a job is less than
the chance a qualified white man with a felony conviction has of getting that same job in the progressive city of New York, I doubt it's any better in the deep south. While we may both wish this was not the case, desire =/=> reality.

Excuses. And most American Blacks are middle class and do well. You just never hear about them because only crises buy votes.

That ignores the issue, impoverished communities are different things from individuals. While many individuals overcome hardships within a generation, communities do not.
When People move here from Ukraine, for instance, they take initiative to improve their lives, when people move out of the ghetto they do the same thing. If you want to compare middle class blacks to immigrants you will find no significant achievement disparity.

We don't count the people who stay behind in Ukraine, but we do count the people who stay behind in the ghetto, your claim is biased because you are not comparing like groups. If we add the population and average income of people in Ukraine to our statistics of the economic prosperity of Ukrainian immigrants they would do worse then the average black American, but you are not chastising all of Ukraine for not taking advantage of all the great breaks they have been given.

The question is not whether some individuals can overcome these hardships quickly, which is trivially provable, but whether entire communities do, in both of my examples the answer is no.

Oh boy, another atheist, who can't see into the infrared spectrum with naked eye or hear the same high notes as dogs, is going to lecture about how, "There's nothing out there."

I'm not the one who said that Dr. Wright, in his role as a preacher, should be "serving up rationality". If you don't want the irrationality of religion pointed out, don't bring rationality up in that context.

I didn't say I was a Marxist, only that you are using a label in an attempt to demonize someone when you don't appear to understand it's meaning. Marxist => Atheist =/=> Marxist.

The most prosperous societies are secular, even the US, despite it's cultural fetishization of Christianity, is a highly secular society composed mostly of unchurched Christians-in-name-only, who do very well without any real deference to their espoused god or religion.

Marxism fails because it is totalitarian, not because it is irreligious, just as Capitalist-Democracy succeeds to the extent that it avoids totalitarianism, religion(except as a political ploy) has nothing to do with it.

Living in a culture that is racist, and making a spectacle of race/racism, is not the same as discussing race, which is something Americans do very rarely.

Well, you won't find any peoples on earth that aren't racist to some degree. And the Spectacle Award goes to our leftist friends, everyone else is working toward a colorblind society. Conservatives would like more Black votes but don't need them. Liberals need Black votes but don't want them.

When an honest black man has a better chance of landing a job then an otherwise equally qualified white convicted felon, then you might be able to make such a claim. Until then your claim is full of shit.

How about this: an honest man has a better chance of landing a job than a convicted felon, even one who's been forthright.

Immigrants self select, so using them as the control sample is absurd. Historically oppressed non-immigrant communities recover very slowly, though it is happening.

Excuses. And most American Blacks are middle class and do well. You just never hear about them because only crises buy votes.

Take a look at native people on reservations, or poor rural whites in the Appalachians (pejoratively called hillbillies). These groups gain social/economic parity very slowly. We can argue about why that is, but to claim that the dominant culture is not at all at fault, when they were clearly the cause of the disparity to begin with, will require some evidence beyond your hyperbole.

The "evidence" is those who are literate, work hard, don't have children before marriage, and have a consistent set of values harmonious with the larger society usually are no longer "poor" after 10 years. And half of America's "poor" own their own homes, 2 cars and 3 tvs.

Dr. Wright is a preacher who believes that a man who never existed has saved his soul, and will greet him in heaven after he dies, your statement is trivially true OF ALL CHRISTIAN PREACHERS.

Oh boy, another atheist, who can't see into the infrared spectrum with naked eye or hear the same high notes as dogs, is going to lecture about how, "There's nothing out there."

Accusing a Christian preacher of being Marxist suggests you have no idea what you are talking about.

Oh, I get the irony, since atheists, communists and marxists don't believe in God. Maoist China, Stalinist Russia and other fruitful utopian societies don't need God or religion.

Did anyone say *parody? I just did.

Simpsons could've ended on a high note, but it's on Fox, and we know that it'll stay there until it becomes unprofitable.

Oh dear. 28 is much too young to die. I hope he ends on a high note with the joker performance.

Actually, Plant's voice is probably the best it's ever been.

No, he can't hit those very high notes that he used to, but he's compensated for it in other ways. I mean, listen to his new album with Alison Krause.

Anyway, from everything I've read, it was an outstanding concert. Everyone is raving about it including some really nasty critics who couldn't stand them. So if the critics that couldn't stand them AND the ones that loved them all agree, something is there. Not bad for a band that hadn't performed a full concert in 27 years!

But not to worry, it looks like they taped the whole thing so we'll see a DVD of this in the next few months and hopefully a world tour.

Generation Disney. You ever watched the Disney channel? Makes you wanna chop your own nuts off in order to sing high notes.

I too feel like that sometimes... I LOVE Disney music.

I got confused too, because when someone "blogged" a video, I used to think there was something cool about that video. Now, I see it's only used to ban users. Haha. I blogged somebody's video once, and I did so because I thought it was a cool video. Ooops. I bet the sifter who posted that video was pissed.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
HAHAHA - he upvoted Sifty's comment sending him to the blog! WTF!?!? Does he not know that he's about to be cast off into the land of banination?

I didn't think she'd get the high note, but she did it.