Welcome!

If you happened to have stumbled across this here 'blog, welcome to my obscure little niche of the Internet.

What you've stumbled across is something akin to an autobiography. As you might have surmised from the title and the description, I will count down the 1,000 days to my 50th birthday via a countdown of my favorite 1,000 rock songs--one per day--beginning Sept. 9, 2011.

A few readers might recall I did something similar before the calendar rolled over to 2000 but via email to only a select few folks. This is the same concept on a wider and larger scale, but I'll be far less wordy this go-round. First, I don't have the time to write long-winded posts like I did 11 or so years ago. Second, music means different things to different people, so I don't want to waste a lot of time analyzing a song or talking about everything that was going on at this time or that time. Instead, I'll just nail down a single moment or memory that the song crystalizes for me.

Originally I wanted this to be on Twitter, as a way to force me how to figure out that social medium, which I need to learn for my profession, but because Apple isn't going to release the iPhone5 until after the countdown begins, I'm going to blog it out. Maybe later, I'll give you all the Bird (ahem). (And don't look for me on Facebook. I'm not on there and never will be.)

Another thing I will do here is nail down a "definitive" version of a song. Ideally, I'd link to it so you could check out each song if you either aren't already familiar with it or haven't heard the particular version. However, the RIAA thoughtpolice being what they are, I don't want to call attention to someone who might have posted the song somewhere and doesn't have an extra $100K laying about that they can pay the said RIAA. Google (or Yahoo or whatever) is your friend. You likely will be able to find just about everything if you look in the right places.

Two more rules/disclaimers before we proceed:

1.) Opinion can be healthy. I enjoy learning things I don't know, and I know I'm not always right. This list is purely my opinion; it's not an attempt to gauge overall quality. There will be some songs on here that a vast majority of people might think blow the meatiest of chunks. That's fine, and if you feel compelled to tell me what an idiot I am in the comments section (my family likely will be doing this on a daily basis), I would ask that you stay on topic and not dissolve into the name-calling bilge that can overrun YouTube, just because, on the Internet, people can be anonymous D Bags. Simple name-calling posts, particularly if they are mean-spirited rather than funny will be deleted ASAP. And from time to time, a song might conjure a political reference. This is not meant to ignite a debate. If your ideology compells you to respond, I would ask you to please STFU and GTFO (Google them). There's enough political rancor already on the Internet. This isn't the place for it, and your post(s) will be deleted, regardless of whether I agree with you.

2.) The names of some have been changed to protect the (relatively) innocent. The names of others, however, have been kept the same to punish the guilty. ;-)

OK, that's it for now. Starting Sept. 9, the musical journey begins. Keep your hands in the car at all times, please refrain from flash photography and don't feed the animals. Enjoy the ride ...