Oh My Blog!

Thanks to Chris and Jess at Park Benches & Bookends for the Oh My Blog! Award. Here's what I, as recipient of this "incredibly prestigious" award, now have to do:

1. Get really excited that you got the coolest award EVER!
2. Choose ONE of the following options of accepting the OMB award:
(a) Get really drunk and blog for 15 minutes straight, or for as long as you can focus.
(b) Write about your most embarrassing moment.
(c) Write a "Soundtrack of your childhood" post.
(d) Make your next blog a 'vlog'/video blog. Basically, you're talking to the camera about whatever.
(e) Take a picture of yourself first thing in the morning, before you do anything else (hair, make up, etc) and post it.
3. Pass the award on to at least three, but preferably more, awesome bloggers. Don't forget to tell them.

Okay. #1... check. As for #2... Well, I don't drink, so option (a) is out. Most of my embarrassing moments are either boring or NSFW, so I won't inflict that option upon you. I don't have a video camera, so I can't vlog. And hell will freeze over before I post a picture of myself (bedheaded or otherwise) on my blog. So I guess that leaves the "soundtrack of my childhood".

So let me take you back twenty-five years to... the '80s. I grew up listening to music on records. Tapes came later. CDs didn't arrive in any large number until I was in my teens. So I have the obsolete skill of knowing how to load and start a record player.

My parents weren't huge audiophiles. The only stuff I can really remember in the record cabinet was an ABBA record (I think it was 1979's Voulez-Vous), In Search of the Lost Chord by The Moody Blues (the sleeve of which I found utterly creepy), and Hooked on Classics (not to be confused with Hooked on Phonics... which was probably more interesting, anyway). My sister and I never owned very many records. Well, not music records. We did have a number of the LP equivalent of audiobooks, though, including one of Bambi where you actually get to hear the gunshots. Lovely.

Much of my childhood soundtrack came from the TV. I can remember religiously watching Saturday morning cartoons (including Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, which featured a lot of music). There was also a music video countdown on Saturday or Sunday nights that we liked to watch... even though my sister and I were just little kids who really couldn't appreciate the music for what it was. Standouts from those years include "You Might Think" by The Cars, David Lee Roth's cover of "California Girls", anything by Glass Tiger and Tears for Fears, and the most memorable of all (and still one of my all-time favourite music videos), "Take on Me" by a-ha.

I also listened to the radio in those days, and developed a fancy for ABBA's "Super Trouper" (although I can't imagine why). And then there were the Minipops. Those high-pitched chipmunk voices provided an acoustic backdrop to many afternoons of playing with my friends. We had a couple of their albums on tape, and they got played a lot. A lot.

So basically, the soundtrack to my childhood was the unique acoustic tapestry of the 1980s. With all of that exposure to music from that particular era, is it any wonder that I love The Wedding Singer?

Hey... what do you know? I kind of did option 2(a) anyway (just without the booze). Heh. I'm going to pass this award on to:

Ryan G at Wordsmithonia
Juju at Tales of Whimsy...
Charlotte at The Book on the Hill

(I know this award is kind of requirement-heavy, so no pressure, guys. Just do it if you feel like it.)