Carl

Chip from Rochester, NY wins a clean and comfortable Songfacts T-shirt. Here are the answers: What former cast member of Saturday Night Live had a Top 10 hit in the US? - Eddie Murphy "Party All The Time" hit #2 in 1985. We also accepted Adam Sandler, who had a #10 hit with "The Chanukah Song" in 1995. What musician dated a famous actress after they were both in a popular movie from the '00s? - Jack White of The White Stripes He went out with Rene Zellweger after meeting her on the set of Cold Mountain. What song contains the line, "Hello you fool, I love you"? - "Joyride" by Roxette What song written by Irving Berlin was a hit in the '80s? - "Puttin' On The Ritz" by Taco What European Pop group from the '70s was named after a city in Michigan? - The Bay City Rollers What hit song from 2005 features a Tuba? - "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani What famous Punk band had a member leave to record a Rap album? - The Ramones Dee Dee Ramone released a rap album as "Dee Dee King." What singer's first hit was a cover of a song first recorded by an obscure British group in 1975? - Joan Jett The song was "I Love Rock And Roll." What famous band started a record label with the same name as a kind of fruit? - The Beatles They formed Apple Records What Rock Star was a cultural adviser to the Czech Republic? - Frank Zappa Thanks to everyone who took the quiz, and be sure to take the new one here.

EA is right. Here's what the board tech said: The image that "edna" posted is on an SSL site that has an invalid SSL certificate.

I sent an inquiry to the boards people. Hopefully we'll have an answer soon.

I picked a red hoe. I must like garden tools. Let's try this one. Pick one of these numbers: 1 2 3 4 You chose 3.

I've been to some P-Funk shows where this comes up, but I'm not sure what specific song it's from, or if it's just something they do on stage. Maybe we can get some history on it and put together some Songfacts.

That is a brilliant website. I'm fascinated by how these people can turn their feelings into works of art (imagine the ones they don't use). One thing I learned from Songfacts is that many people simply want a place to express themselves. I know I do. That's why I started a thread about trying to install satellite radio or wrote a rambling commentary on the Red Sox after they made me proud last year. It's scary how many people have serious issues to deal with. The comments on songs like "Hold On" and "Adam's Song" are filled with kids talking about self-destructive behavior. Clearly, it would be better to speak with a real person about these issues, but if you can't do that, I guess a postcard is a first step. The other reason I love the site is because you have to snail mail your post card. That means you have to put real effort into it. Thanks Mairi.

The obvious one you already know, but here are a few others: "All The Way To Reno (You're Gonna Be A Star)" by R.E.M. "Tumbling Dice by The Stones" (also "Casino Boogie") "Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen "Take A Chance On Me" by ABBA

That rat is quick. He planned a Shawshank-style escape, but I foiled it at the last minute. Didn't they try that on the Brady Bunch when they got a dog that looked like Tiger? I remember Ben Stiller did it in a movie as well. I'm not sure it would work, so I better keep this rat safe.

Thanks Peaches. Fortunately, there are some really good people who help us out. A lot of technical folks like working on Songfacts. Here's the latest - We made some changes to the Top 10 list that would allow us better song tracking and make it more efficient, but it caused some problems, which made for some outages the last few days. We adjusted it to take a load off the server - it will update about once an hour instead of constantly. Songfacts gets a lot of traffic, so we have to keep an eye on things. We should be in pretty good shape, but there's a good chance we'll make some code changes that should help out long term.

I figured out a way to position the radio, but haven't been able to mess with the antena. We're getting closer. Meanwhile, I'm babysitting a rat. His name is Stones.

Ken, that is quite an adventure. I'm amazed how good the pictures turned out at those depths. I also didn't know you could dive in Canada. I would have picked somewhere warm (and with tropical fish, of course).

We had this problem Wednesday and Thursday while I was keeping an eye on the site, so I had a developer on call all day Friday so when it happened, he could take a look and see what's going on (Ever take your car to the mechanic and he can't do anything because he can't recreate the problem? Same idea.) I'm pretty sure this is not a problem with the boards. The main site gets pounded with queries, and there might be a bad piece of code somewhere or a setting that is off. When you do a search, it opens a connection, then quickly closes it when the search is over (Survivor, 1984). The problem occurs when these searches don't close properly, which ties up the server until it dies. We'll keep digging until we find the problem. The good news is that along the way, we're getting everything optimized, which means the site is working very well when it's, well, working.

The dreaded too many connections. Every now and then, something goes wacky and the database ties up, which won't allow anyone to access the site. We'll keep an eye on this and do our best to solve the problem. Thanks for letting us know.

My friend who takes apart Civics is going on vacation next week, and I'm in charge of his pet rat while he's gone. I'll post pictures of the pet rat to prove that I am babysitting a pet rat. When he gets back, I'll have him take apart my car.

If you guys see this error again, please copy it and paste it here so we can troubleshoot. Thanks, the management

I've always liked the idea of satellite radio, but I've never mustered the energy to actually get it. Any product requiring installation, protective clothing or an extended warranty has to significantly improve my life before I will buy it. I like easy, and I live by the modified Sinead O'Connor philosophy: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, unless it's cool enough to rock my world. Things that have passed the test include the Ipod, a DVD player and a Foreman grill. Those that have not include Tivo, a video camera and a cell phone. Satellite radio does not stand to improve my life in a major way, but my friend gave me a radio and car kit she won in a raffle, so it lowers the barrier of ease enough to push me over the edge. Sirius also has some goodwill points with me because they employ 2 of the most talented radio people I've ever worked with, and they had a link to us on their site for a while. Now, getting satellite radio in the car (which is where I want it) requires installation. After doing battle to get the components out of their packaging, I had a bunch of parts that could theoretically come together and deliver this technology to my Honda. As I put it together, it became clear that this car kit was not designed for a '93 Civic Del Sol. There's no good place to put the giant suction cup that holds the radio, and I'm not sure where to put the antenna. Also, the thing needs it's own power supply, so you have to run a cord into the cigarette lighter. This is a lot of effort, and the fact that so many people have jumped through these hoops for the right to pay $12.95 a month for a bunch of commercial-free alternatives illustrates the sorry state of commercial radio. I think about never having to hear that Hoobastank song again and try to figure out how to do this. It will be a custom job, but fortunately I have a friend who takes apart Civics. One of the advantages to driving a 12-year-old car that was never worth much to begin with is that you can poke holes in it and not care. It's like being in that stage of a relationship where you can fart in front of your girl without serious consequences. At one point I thought it might be easier to buy a new car with Sirius already installed, so I looked at the Mini Cooper website, and learned that the Sirius package was $499 plus installation. Having my friend jury-rig my Honda will be free. He's a home owner, so there are many times I answer the call to pull some tile or unload a pallet. I'll try to get motivated and deliver another report when progress is made. I might just become the first person to put satellite radio in a Del Sol.

In the Artistfacts section, we sometimes include a photo with a few sentences about the band. Mike sent us some pix of ZZ Top and Jethro Tull, but we need some blurbs to go with them - maybe a paragraph. Please post a blurb and help the team.

It's a giant spam recepticle, but real emails usually get through: carl@javanet.com Having the first name email was really cool in 1997, but it's an easy target for dictionary attacks.

If you're going to own just one song in this genre, it should be "Safe From Harm" by Massive Attack. I like the US3 recommendation. They have some good stuff. Something else you might want to check out is Action Figure Party. Very accessible Jazz, complete with a Lennon.

Richard and Robert Sherman were recently inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame. They wrote songs for many classic Disney movies, including Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. If anyone knows how to write a song that will live in your head (you can still hum those Mary Poppins songs, can't you) and make you smile, it's the Shermans. We're hoping to speak with Robert Sherman next week, and if there's anything you'd like us to ask him, please let us know. Their website provides a great overview of their career: Sherman Brothers site Robert Sherman Jr. answered some questions by email. Please check out these Songfacts, with should be a must-read for anyone interested in the art of songwriting: It's A Small World Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Just to shed some sun on the missing posts issue - if you get kicked off as a user, we need you to register again. We can then relink your missing posts to you, but your new ones will be orphaned. I'm hoping with the upgrade this will not happen again. I won't miss the relink process.

I'd love to put some Songfacts together on this, especially now that government regulations dictate that it be played at every minor leauge sporting event, and some major league ones as well. This would be a good one for a "Make up some Songfacts" contest. If we didn't have so much darn credibility, we could create a story about a one-eyed farmer who bred ligers until one of them got loose...

I think the red numbers on the main page were a caualty of the new software. They put a lot of strain on the database, and we're trying to keep the database happy.

Just posting to revive the forum. You can ignore this.

This is a transitional period for Songfacts. We had a lot of trouble keeping the site fast and stable, so we did a lot of testing. We decided to upgrade our database software and make some code changes to get the searches moving faster. We also decided to upgrade the boards. During the diagnostic process, we took down the boards so we could see what was going on and start the transition to the new boards. I wasn't sure these boards would work with the new software, but they seem to be doing OK. We'll keep a close eye on them and there's a chance we will have to take them down again if they clog the main site, but it will be just until we get the new system working. Best case scenario: Everything works great until we make a smooth transition to the new boards. Worst case scenario: We have to take the boards offline until we develop the new system (all existing posts and users should import). I hated taking the boards offline, but we had to really hunker down and get these technical problems solved. To be clear: we love these boards and they're a very important part of the site. I'm hoping that in a few months, we can spend a lot less time dealing with technical issues and focus on the many exciting things we can accomplish here at Songfacts.