Video of the Day: Auto-tune the News #3

I haven’t posted one of these in a while!  I love “Auto-tune the News” so much:

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Rick

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Music Review: Carrie Underwood’s Latest Single “Cowboy Casanova”

I love the interweb.  Without it, Carrie Underwood’s latest single, “Cowboy Casanova”, from her upcoming album Play On (in stores November 3!) wouldn’t be out until the 8th.  I discovered it late last night and listened to it a few times and then woke up and listened to it some more.  She’s truly got an amazing voice.  Anyway, on to the song….

To the top of the charts, and beyond!

When I first listened to “Cowboy Casanova”, I must admit I wasn’t sold.  However, upon third listen, I was hooked.  Fans of Carrie will no doubt find it impossible to tear themselves away from the beat and incredible vocals, and new fans will be drawn in by the brilliant hook.  I see “Cowboy Casanova” rivaling, if not passing, “Before He Cheats” in the success department, but not necessarily because I think it’s a better song.  We all know there will always only be one “Before He Cheats” and it is epic.  However, “Cowboy Casanova” is nearly as strong a song PLUS it’s a first single, and those tend to perform exceptionally well on the charts.  The excitement from the release of Play On in November and all of the promotion will probably give Carrie her best shot at #1 on the Hot 100 with this song, unless of course she has some KILLER songs on the album, which I don’t doubt.

Rocking Carrie > Everything

As for the actual song, “Cowboy Casanova” breaks Carrie’s pattern of more sentimental lead-off singles in a big way.  It starts off with a bumpin’ beat and some intense strings and then Carrie tears into the vocals.  People that are more technically educated in singing can correct me if I’m wrong, but these vocals might be some of Carrie’s most soaring yet.   The song also incorporates the more rock vibe Carrie has been known to infuse in concert performances and, of course, my favorite performance she’s ever done: “Last Name” from the Grammys last year.

If “Cowboy Casanova” is any indication of the style of songs we’ll find on Play On, more country/pop/rock, I expect it to be closer in succes to Some Hearts than Carnival Ride. Carrie’s got a monster hit on her hands and if her promotion team can get it together (They’ve never impressed me), she could ride this one all the way to the top of The Hot 100.

The Verdict

Carrie is awesome and “Cowboy Casanova” is rocking.  Of course it makes the TCJ Playlist!

The Rating

9 out of 10 Elephants

Read Carrie’s induction into The Conservative Journal Hall of Fame by clicking here.

What do you think?

What do you think of “Cowboy Casanova”  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Carrie Underwood’s Latest Single “Cowboy Casanova”: Hear It Now!

After much anticipation for the release of the lead-off single to her new album, Carrie sneaks up and surprises everyone by releasing it late last night.  So without further ado, the lead single off Play On, in stores November 3!

It took a couple of listens, but this song is growing on me.  Carrie has some crazy pipes and I could see this having mass radio success.  Look for a full review of the song later today.

What do you think about “Cowboy Casanova”?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Poll of the Day: Do You Use Facebook to “Track” Your College Age Offspring?

Watch the video that inspired the poll here.

For parents with college age kids:  Do you use social networking sites to track your college agers?  Vote below in today’s Poll of the Day!

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Increase Blog Traffic With Blogsurfer: Check This out!

I’ve been talking about Alpha Inventions and all of the great help it’s been in furthering my site for nearly a year now.  While I’ve been praising and using Alpha Inventions nearly I every day, I’ve also been using a smaller blogging utility called Blogsurfer.us, formerly known as Condron.us.

Blogsurfer.us allows you to submit your blog into a continuous shuffle of blogs, leading to an increase in traffic.  While the traffic numbers don’t really rival those of Alpha Inventions, Blogsurfer.us has its benefits.  For starters, Blogsurfer is extremely stable and has a very precise feel.  Blogsurfer displays a timer in the top left corner that displays how many more seconds until the next blog will appear.  This is extremely useful in assuring yourself that you have enough time to bookmark blogs you are interesting.  Also unique to Blogsurfer is a forum for users to interact and exchange blog URLs.  Submitting your blog to the rotation is also extremely easy; you simply press “Add Blog” and type in your URL, e-mail, and category.  I can usually pull out about 10 unique visitors per submission, wihch is definitely worth the 5 seconds it takes to enter the blog information.  Be sure and check out Blogsurfer.us today!

To visit Blogsurfer.us, click here.

To view all winners of the weekly “Check This Out!” award, click here.

What has worked for you in increasing blog traffic?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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Video of the Day: How to Use Facebook and Twitter to Stalk Your College Age Children, The ONN

I love The Onion News Network so much.  The following is a very informative video designed to help parents stalk their college age son or daughter.  Watch below:

Sorry college kids if you parents employ these tactics because they saw this video here.  My bad.

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Album Review: Kelly Clarkson “All I Ever Wanted”

Before I do this thing, let’s get one thing straight: I realize I’m probably a little too old to even know who Kelly Clarkson is.  But good music is good music, and I happen to think Kelly Clarkson’s My December is one of the best CDs I own.  So it only makes sense that I follow that up with a review of Kelly’s latest effort, All I Ever Wanted. Now that that’s clear, here’s my track-by-track breakdown of the album:

1. “My Life Would Suck Without You”- 7 Elephants- The lead-off single for All I Ever Wanted has been said by many to be the sequal to “Since U Been Gone”, and I guess that’s probably an accurate observation.  However, “MLWSWY” (rockin’ those abbrevs) uses more synthesised beats than 5 Katy Perry tribute bands and something about that doesn’t mesh with Clarkson’s voice.  The song does not flatter her chops.
2. “I Do Not Hook Up”- 7 Elephants- More like “I Do Not Want to Listen to This Crap”.  Seriously though, the second single from the album is more overdone pop.  Clarkson pulls this one off a little bit better than on “MLWSWY” simply because the generally subject matter of the song fits the style.  Not something I’ve got on repeat on my iPod.
3. “Cry”- 9 Elephants- Giving the album its little forray into the country music genre is “Cry”, a nice ballad that reminds me why I liked My December so much: Clarkson just has remarkable vocal talent.  “Cry” shows off her powerful while still keep that soft, ballady feel.
4. “Don’t Let Me Stop You”- 8.5 Elephants- This song serves as a pretty good bridge between the two extremes on the album: pop and rock.  It has a poppy sound while not being drowned out by synthesised dance beats.  As you can tell, those are a major turn off for me on songs by artist that can handle so much better material.  “Don’t Let Me Stop You” is classic Clarkson that will vastly appeal to fans of Thankful and Breakaway that were left wanting more after My December.
5. “All I Ever Wanted”- 9 Elephants- One of the more rockish songs on the album, “All I Ever Wanted” is one of my personal favorites.  A lot of the appeal for this song lies in the fact that it has great potential as a live performance.  I can imagine Clarkson up on staging rocking out to this song, and that’s what I like to see/hear.
6. “Already Gone”- 9 Elephants- I know the fact that I like this song contradicts with what I said earlier about hating synthesised beats, but hear me out.  “Already Gone” is possibly the most overproduced song on the album; however, it all works very well on this song.  I might even go so far as to say that the studio track sounds nothing like Clarkson.  So as a Kelly Clarkson song, I don’t like it.  But as a song in general, I love it.  Comprende?
7. “If I Can’t Have You”- 7 Elephants- This song is my second least favorite song on the CD, as it falls into my least favorite genre of music: dance pop.  I know several people that love this song and find it fun to dance along to as they drive down the road.  As for me, I’ll just sticking to skipping it on shuffle and laughing at the morons that I do see jamming out to “If I Can’t Have You”.
8. “Save You”- 10 Elephants- This song is quite possibly my favorite song on the CD.  It’s extremely unique in that it’s multi-genred; it even contains a section of classical music worked into the closing.  “Save You” shows some sheer composing genuis, and it all comes together brilliantly.
9. “Whyyawannabringmedown”- 9 Elephants- Let’s get passed the obvious first; someone clearly needs to invest in a spacebar for this song.  If you can get past the title and actually listen to the song, you’ll more than likely be pleasantly surprised.  “W” (Ughhh.. the lack of spaces in between words prevents me from abbreving this well.) is the most rock inspired track on the album and makes a great addition to a jogging or exercise playlist.  Very, very high energy.
10. “Long Shot”- 8 Elephants- “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was a Kelly Clarkson CD?  How’d that Katy Perry get stuck in there?”  Those are the thoughts that filled my head as I head “Long Shot” for the first time.  My disgust evaporated for the most part after I did some research and learned that Katy Perry did in fact co-write the song, explaining its eerie resemblence to a the songs on her CD, which, interestingly enough, I like.  If you listen to this song enough, it will grown on you.  Trust me.
11. “Impossible”- 8.5 Elephants- “Impossible” comes across as a filler track that gets lost in the shuffle on first listen, but on deeper analysis it’s actually a decent song.  It shows of Clarkson’s strong vocals and isn’t WAY overproduced.
12. “Ready”- 8 Elephants- “Ready” as it is in on the album is difficult for me to listen to, but not because it’s a bad song.  Quite the opposite, actually.  My problem with album-version “Ready” is that I heard the demo before the CD was released and it was a stripped down, My December-esque song.  When the CD came out, I expected to hear that same song.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the way it was “popped” up to an extraordinary level and present-day “Ready” was formed.  It’s still a strong song, but not half the song it was before.
13. “I Want You”- 7 Elephants- This is my least favorite song on the whole CD, and I’m not sure why.  It’s not really overproduced or anything, it’s just a song that gets on my nerves.  I can never really pinpoint what it is about it but I just can’t finish it.  End rant.
14. “If No One Will Listen”- 9 Elephants- The final track on All I Ever Wanted is also the “prettiest” of the songs, for lack of a better word.  It’s a very restrained song that highlights Clarkson’s mad skills with little interference from background music.  It’s a great close to a very diverse album.

The Verdict

Kelly Clarkson returns to her pop roots on her fourth album, but doesn’t totally leave behind all of the other genres she has explored during her young career.  All I Ever Wanted features songs with a little bit of everything; country, pop, rock, classical, you name it and it’s ont he CD.  Those who enjoyed Breakaway and Thankful should run to the closest Target and pick up their copy.  Those like myself who like only My December, however, will probably be less than thrilled with the majority of the songs on the CD.  Overall:  8 Elephants

The following songs will be added to the TCJ Playlist:

• “Cry”
• “Don’t Let Me Stop You”
• “All I Ever Wanted”
• “Already Gone”
• “Save You”
• “Whyyawannabringmedown”
• “Long Shot”
• “Impossible”
• “Ready”
• “If No One Will Listen”

What do you think of All I Ever Wanted?  What song was your favorite?

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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Poll of the Day: Do You Think Chris Brown Really Can’t Remember Hitting Rihanna?

If you missed the interview, you can watch it here.

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Video of the Day: Chris Brown Doesn’t Remember Hitting Rihanna, Larry King Interview

What an interview.  I try not get involved in Hollywood drama like this, but I just can’t resist.  I expect a retraction or clarification to that statement in the next couple of hours.  Watch below:

What do you think about Chris’s statements?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Poll of the Day: Which of the Top 10 Dumbest Democrat Quotes About Healthcare Do You Find the Dumbest?

If you missed the “Top 10 Dumbest Democrat Quotes About Healthcare” post, you can read it here.

For those that read the list, vote in today’s poll about which is the dumbest in your opinion!

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

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Rick

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Top 10 Dumbest Democrat Quotes Regarding Healthcare — Human Events

I just love Human Events.  Even though it feels my inbox with what seems like a billion messages every day, articles and lists like the one below make it totally worth it.  Below is a list of the top 10 dumbest quotes by democrats about healthcare.

1. “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking.  I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.  I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” — President Obama at an August 6 at a rally in Virginia
2. “They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an August 5 interview
3. “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?” — Rep. John Conyers (Mich.) at the National Press Club, July 24
4. “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves.  Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.” — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), writing in USA Today, August 10
5. “The last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and white supremacists and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble.” — Rep. John Dingell (Mich.), on MSNBC
6. “What we’re seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics.“ — Rep. Brian Baird, (Wash.) told a local newspaper
7. “The last time I saw well-dressed people doing this, was when Al Gore asked me to go down to Florida when they were recounting the ballots, and I was confronted with the same type of people.” — Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.)
8. “I hope people will take a jaundiced eye to what is clearly the Astroturf nature of so-called grassroots lobbying … The Astroturf nature of grassroots lobbying, which is largely the term for, you know, this is manufactured anger.” — White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
9. “Republicans and their allied groups — desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill — are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right-wing extremists funded by K Street lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of healthcare in America taking place in congressional districts across the country.” — Democratic National Committee communications director Brad Woodhouse
10. “These are nothing more than destructive efforts to interrupt a debate that we should have, and are having.  They are doing this because they don’t have any better ideas … It’s really simple: They‘re taking their cues from talk-show hosts, Internet rumor-mongerers and insurance rackets.” — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.)
11. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” — Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), responding to a town hall participant

To visit Human Events, click here.

To read the full article, click here.

Poll of the Day- Click here to choose the dumbest quote in Today’s Poll of the Day.

Which of the quotes do you think is the dumbest?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Exlporer, Safari… WHICH INTERNET BROWSER DO I USE?!

Unless you spend a lot of time reading the specifications and hard details of internet browsers, you probably don’t know what half of internet browser reviewers are talking about.  When I read that Google Chrome uses the latest NVIDIA 8600 Graphics Unit, my head starts to explode a little.  And the fact that Mozilla Firefox has 1 GB of RAM and a 1200x Processesing Core means nothing to me.  What I would like to read is a user account of the performances by each of the major internet browsers.  Well, lucky for you, that’s exactly what this is.  So sit down and buckle up because this is my first forray into technological smartness stuff, and it’s sure to get ugly along the way.

Which is the best internet browser; Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari?

Internet Explorer 8.0

You know, the only positive thing I can come up with is that Internet Explorer has great support.  Probably the best of all of the browsers I used.  However, 99% of people have never and will never use or care about Costumer Service and Support for their internet browser.  So this is pretty much useless.  I used IE 8 when it first came out, and as with all Internet Explorers, I was unimpressed.  Right out of the box it was one of the slower browsers.  When you begin to download toolbars, however, it gets really ugly.  I was operating an election 2008 toolbar and a StumbleUpon Toolbar on each browser that had support for those applications and Internet Explorer took the add ons the worst.  Pair that with the fact that as I type this the only browser that isn’t working of the four I have downloaded is Internet Explorer (It’s telling me I’m offline.  Clearly that’s not the case.), and it’s obvious that it’s the weakest of the bunch.  For slow loading and start times, not to mention poor stability, I give IE 8 2 of 5 stars.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0

Mozilla definitely pulled out all the stops with their Firefox browser’s third version.  The newest version features better privacy features, quicker performance, and, coolest of all, new applications.   The best thing to be said about Firefox is it’s vast expanse of applications.  Like the iPhone, I can assure you “there’s an app for that”.  Whether it be a theme or a weather widget, the mozilla.com has it all.  Thankfully, Firefox can handle the extra applications.  I’ve installed over 20 applications, and website loading time hasn’t been drastically increased.  However, I’ve been experiencing some stability problems with the latest update to Firefox.  The browser often crashes and leaves me having to restart and try and remember all of the tabs I have open since it doesn’t save your tabs by default.  Definitely an inconvenience, but not a deal breaker.  For the vast array of applications, Firefox still gets 3.5 of 5 stars.

Apple Safari

When Apple announced the release of the Safari browser to Windows-based computers, I was pumped.  I’d heard all my Mac friends talk about how zippy Safari was for years, so of course I needed to be a part.  Unfortunately, like most things, Safari must work best in its home environment because I was not all that impressed.  Though Safari has the second best start-up time, it’s all a big scam.  Once the window starts up the browser stalls for 3 to 4 seconds then loads.  Though Safari was the second most stable browser in my tests, the 3 to 4 second delay between page loads is extremely annoying.  When you’re running several tabs, that adds many minutes on to your browsing experience.  And quite frankly, Safari doesn’t have the extra features to justify the slow performance.  For that I give it 2.5 of 5 Stars.

Google Chrome

Ahhh Google, you amaze me.  As if Google wasn’t cool enough already, they release a killer internet browser that blew the competition out of the water.  Once I finally got around to downloading Chrome, I found that it was what I’d always looked for in an internet browser.  The window pops up immediately after clicking the icon, and the home page loads quickly after.  It amazes how Chrome manages to open and load so much faster than the other browsers when they are all operating on the same wireless network.  Each time I click a link or load a page, I’m amazed by the speed of Chrome.  I’m so amazed, in fact, that nearly every time I get the chance I tell my friends and colleagues to download Chrome.  It’s allowed me to be so much productive when on the internet because it doesn’t have the unstableness of Fireforx, the stalling of Safari, or the generally crapiness of Internet Explorer.  For being far superior to anything I’ve ever seen, I give a perfect score of 5 out of 5 Stars.

Final Score:

1. Google Chrome: 5 out of 5
2. Mozilla Firefox: 3.5 out of 5
3. Apple Safari: 2.5 out of 5
4. Internet Explorer 2.5 out of 5

Which of the browsers do you use most often?  Leave your own experiences with internet browsers below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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Video of the Day: 9/11 Impact Anatomy, National Geographic Special

I realize that some people don’t like to watch things about 9/11, so if you happen to be one of those people, don’t continue reading this post any further.

The following video, made by Purdue University, shows a simulation of the first impact on The World Center.  The video serves to debunk conspiracy theories regarding the impact, and is a part of a special on the science and conspiracies of 9/11, set to air tonight at 8 PM EST on National Geographic.

Don’t forget to watch the full episode tonight at 8 PM EST on National Geographic!

What do you think of the video?  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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Poll of the Day: What Do You Think of Jenna Bush Hager Joining the Cast of The Today Show?

For those that missed it, Jenna Bush has been chosen to join the cast of NBC’s “Today” show as a guest reporter to talk about once a month on topics like education.  Do you think this was a good move for Jenna?  Will you tune in to watch once she starts next month?  Vote below in today’s “Polls (Overachieving) of the Day”!

   

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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Video of the Day: New iPhone 3Gs Commercial

If you’ve ever watched a tv, you’ve heard Apple’s latest iPhone slogan, “there’s an App for that”.  The newest iPhone commercial shows the latest functionality and features in its most popular new applications.

Gotcha!  It’s not really the new commercial, just some genius by adamthinks.com.  Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

Rick

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