L is for Love

Nearly every Valentine's Day, I hear the same thing: "Why do we need a holiday to show LOVE?" It is akin to what is said each Thanksgiving. “Why aren't people thankful ALL the time?”

And my answer is always the same: because we are human. Yes, we should ALL be LOVING and thankful ALL the time. But sometimes, we're not. Sometimes, we are tired, or grumpy, or distracted, or overwhelmed. Our thoughts are overstuffed by the busyness of LIFE.

I, for one, need/want special days to remember veterans, or show thanks, or express LOVE, or the LIKE.

Here are some Valentine's Day statistics.

From HERE:

The music industry LOVES LOVE. The latest project from Nickolay Lamm—a Pittsburgh-based digital artist...tracked the popularity of certain keywords across more than 50 years of the Billboard charts. One of the most consistent words? LOVE.

Lamm's "History of Music" project details every song on Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 list since 1960. Each colored rectangle in the visualization represents one song, and each column represents one year of the list, organized from the top of the graph to the bottom starting with the year's most popular song. The redder the rectangle is, the more times that word popped up in the song’s lyrics. Blue means it wasn't mentioned at all. You can see not only how often a word has appeared in pop music over the decades, but what percentage of each song was dedicated to that word.

Since "LOVE" has taken a dip in our music this century, we obviously need to have show more LOVE at every opportunity. Here are the lyrics of a noted song on the topic, circa 1967:

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can LEARN how to play the game
It's easy

Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can LEARN how to be you in time
It's easy

Nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy

All you need is LOVE
All you need is LOVE
All you need is LOVE, LOVE
LOVE is all you need

From the movie LOVE Actually.

The version by some British band, the name of which currently escapes me.

Make sure you send some LOVE to your fellow ABC Wednesday bloggers by visiting 3 or 5 (or more) of them.

LAST thing: sometimes, when you visit ABCW, the LINKS are slower to LOAD than the rest of the page. If necessary, reload.
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An InLinkz Link-up

J is for Jump

ChrisJ asked me this question on my blog, which I'll post here:

"I try to comment on 7 or 8 ABCers but JUST randomly. Do your commenters have a system or are they random too?"

My response, with an addendum:

I assign all the (currently seven) readers to (currently) 12 numbers, 1-12, 13-24. etc. Usually I try to mix up the list so that they get to JUMP around and visit different people, on the (sometimes false) theory that most people post roughly at the same time each week.

Personally, I try to visit everyone who JOINS us in this JOURNEY, eventually (though the last ones might be over the weekend), so that, theoretically, two people from ABCW has visited everyone. I'm trying to keep people from feeling JILTED.

Now the participants should JUMP around and visit as the spirit moves.

We are trying not to have people JUMP through too many hoops, but that I will e-mail folks who, the team has JUDGED, don't mention ABC Wednesday or have an obvious theme. In the worst case scenario, I can JETTISON folks from the Linky roster, but I get no JOY in that.

One last thing: the starting time may get slightly JOSTLED about during these weeks when US Daylight Saving Time and British Summer Time are not JOINED together. It happens for three weeks in March and one in late October.

Let's have some JUMP songs:

Jump - Van Halen, a #1 hit in the US Billboard charts for five weeks in 1984
Jump - Aztec Camera, a cover of the Van Halen song, and a totally different reading

Jump(For My Love) - Pointer Sisters, a #3 hit in the US Billboard charts for two weeks, also in 1984

There are several totally different songs called Jump that have been in the charts, including by Kris Kross (#1 in 1992), Movement (#52 in 1992), Flo Rida with Nelly Furtado (#54 in 2009), Aretha Franklin (#72 in 1976), Loverboy (#101 in 1982), and Madonna (#1054 in 2006).

What else?

Jump Back - Rufus Thomas (#49 in 1964)

Jump into the Fire - Harry Nilsson (#27 in 1972)

Jump Jive An' Wail - The Brian Setzer Orchestra (#23 in 1998), a cover of the classic Louis Prima version

Jumpin Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones (#3 in 1968)
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An InLinkz Link-up

A is for ABC Wednesday - AGAIN!

AMAZING! I don't believe that the initial ADMIRAL of this ADVENTURE, Denise Nesbitt, would have ASSUMED that ABC Wednesday would be still going seven and a half years later!

For ALL you newbies, we have a set of rules, but this is the gist of it:

*Each week, there is an APPOINTED letter. This week is A, next week is B, etc.

*You AUTHOR a blog post; it could be an ARTICLE, some ART, ALMOST ANYTHING. The post should include a link to ABC Wednesday's URL ADDRESS, as well as clear ARTICULATION how it meets that week's topic (A is for APPLE, et al.) Feel free to ACCESS the current ACCOUTERMENT on your blog.

*You enter the specific link to your blog post in that Linky ACCESSORY. For instance, my post this week will be http://www.rogerogreen.com/2015/01/13/a-is-for-apostrophes/- A is for Apostrophe. If I just enter my main page URL - http://www.rogerogreen.com - it'll be harder for visitors to find the specific post, now and especially in the future.

*At least one ASSOCIATE from the ABC Wednesday team, and ASSUREDLY other people, will visit your post and leave comments.

*Try and ACCESS at least 5 other participants either before or after your listing, or randomly, or people you like, or people you don't know. Comment on their posts. It's ARITHMETIC: the more sites you do visit, the more comments you will probably get.

*We retain the right to ABROGATE overly commercial links, or folks who don't ACKNOWLEDGE ABC Wednesday. We really ABHOR doing that; we ALWAYS feel AWFUL about doing it. But we want to be fair to those who do ABIDE by the rules.

If you have any questions about this, ACCESS me at RogerOGreen (at) Gmail (dot) com.

An InLinkz Link-up