Book Review: How Nashville Became Music City, USA by Michael Kosser

ISBN: 0634098063
Published: June 1st, 2006
Publisher: Hal Leonard Publising Corporation
Read from September 9th to 26th, 2012
Synopsis from Goodreads:

How did a medium-sized Southern river town become arguably the most important music center in America? In How Nashville Became Music City, U.S.A., we learn how a single studio in a tiny duplex house became Music Row, a ten-block area populated by hundreds of talented people whose job is to simply make music.The book features stories from publishers, songwriters and others who help tell the evolution of this fabled center of music. It's where Elvis ushered in the commercial rock 'n' roll explosion by recording "Heartbreak Hotel," Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Willie Nelson taught mainstream America to love soulful ballads, and Bob Dylan recorded three of his most important albums.The full-length CD includes 12 recordings made in the early studios of Music Row, giving listeners a rare chance to hear the demos made by some of Nashville's most talented artists. Songs include "Bye, Bye, Love," "Crazy," "King of the Road," "Walkin' After Midnight" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

Review:

Mickey and Poppy

When I first started college about a month and a half ago, I talked a lot about my homesickness in various places online, including here.  As time has gone on my homesickness has got a lot better.  I still miss home sometimes, but I'm enjoying school now and being here at college.  Still, I realized that there was one thing I never really talked about when I was talking about my homesickness.  I mentioned my family and friends quite a lot, but I never really mentioned my pets.

If you follow me pretty much anywhere online, you may have heard me mention my family's two dogs from time to time.  (They've even appeared in a couple of my Youtube videos.)  For those who don't know, my family has two brussels griffons named Mickey and Poppy.  I haven't seen them since August, and I really do miss them.  It wasn't the type of missing them where I really noticed it at first.  When my homesickness was bad, I would sit there crying about being away from family and friends, but I never really thought about the dogs.  Now that my homesickness isn't making me sit in my room and cry anymore, I'm starting to think more about other things I miss, and one of those things is Mickey and Poppy.

They are seriously two of the cutest dogs ever (even though Poppy isn't necessarily the conventional form of cute), and I miss them both a lot.  I can't wait to see them both when I go home in October!

TV Watching Friday

The first half of this week it seemed like I was doing nothing but homework, but then the second half of the week I haven't had much at all.  Now it's Friday night, I've done some homework, and I have some left but I'm leaving that for Saturday and Sunday.  I've spent most of the day since getting out of class watching movies/TV.  I watched Princess Kaiulani (which I reviewed on here earlier), Naruto, and How I Met Your Mother.

One Direction was also on Alan Carr earlier, so I watched that.  It was a great interview.  It was a absolutely hilarious and by far the best interview they've done in a while.  The interview kind of indirectly confirmed that Liam and Danielle broke up though.  Liam looks a bit down the whole interview, and Alan asks Louis and Zayn about their girlfriends, leaving Liam out.  To me that's basically a confirmation that they've broken up wihtout Liam having to directly say it on camera (which he probably doesn't feel like doing at the moment).  I'm actually pretty upset about this.  They were such a cute couple and seemed happy together.  Liam is one of the sweetest people ever and seeing him so down during the interview sucked.

I think most of the rest of my night will be full of watching Youtube videos and reading.  What better way to spend a Friday night?  I started a new book last night, and it's interesting so far.  I'm looking forward to reading more of it!

Movie Review: Princess Kaiulani

It's been a while since I've written a movie review.  Usually when I watch a movie I never even think to review it, but when I was watching Princess Kaiulani earlier I decided I wanted to write a review.

For those of you who have never heard of her, Princess Kaiulani was the last princess of Hawaii.  This movie is about her and the annexation of Hawaii by the United States.  I don't think most people know much about the history of Hawaii.  This movie was very entertaining, and it really teaches you about a very important part of Hawaii's history.  It's also an important part of American history considering it concerns the annexation of Hawaii, but we never really learn much about Hawaii in American history at school.

There was really only one aspect of the movie that bothered me, and that was the romance.  I didn't think it was necessary to focus on it as much as they did.  I'm not sure how much of that part of the movie was true. I don't think there was anything wrong with having it in the movie, but I wish they'd made it a smaller part of the movie.  If you enjoy romance though, then you'll probably enjoy that part of the movie.  I enjoy romance, and I did like that part of the movie, but in the long run I think I would have liked the movie more if the romance had been focused on less.

I definitely recommend watching this movie if you're interested in historical movies.  It's very interesting and focuses on a part of history that you don't really get to hear about often.

Re-Watching the Harry Potter Movies

It's been such a long time since I've watched a Harry Potter movie.  I know that seems like such a random thought, but with The Casual Vacancy coming out today I've been thinking about Harry Potter quite a bit.  I'll admit it probably hasn't been all that long ago that I watched the eighth movie, but it's been at least a year (probably actually about two) since I've seen the earlier movies.  It's kind of ridiculous considering I used to watch all of them at least every few months or so.

It's not because I don't love them just as much as I used to.  I just never think to put them in, and there's always so much going on.  Whenever I do get a chance to watch something, I usually chose something I haven't gotten to see before instead.  I'm getting really sentimental though, and I definitely want to watch the first movie soon.  I only brought the first, seventh, and eighth movies with me to school, and I think I'm going to pull the first movie out soon to watch it.  I have a feeling I'll be extremely sentimental.  While I consider the later movies to be my favorites of the series, I don't think the later movies can ever really compete with the earlier movies in the way the early movies make me feel when I watch them.  The first movie is especially important to me because it's what made me a Harry Potter fan.  I really need to re-watch it soon.  I kind of miss it.