Month: July 2023

Who Is Matt Nathanson?

/ Dave Novak / Leave a comment

That was the question I posed to my Facebook friends the other night when when we went to see Matchbox Twenty Saturday night at Mohegan Sun and Mr. Nathanson’s band was the opener.

The answer, in addition to be being a fantastic performer, is he gave us the 2008 hit song Come On Get Higher

The next day, Kristine and I looked Matt up on the YouTube and were quite impressed with his work. In addition to Come On Get Higher, he had another song, Laid, which I knew very well but didn’t know was from him as well as a song called Faster, which I’m pretty sure I might of heard of but wasn’t incredibly familiar with.

The thing that really impressed me about Matt though is that he seems very intelligent and very self aware about the career that he’s had. We came across a PBS piece that he had done about looking back on who he thought he would be as a musician compared with who he actually became and he said something that really hit home with me. A little over 2 and half minutes into the following video Mr. Nathanson says, “The only real gift of age is the experience that goes along with it. That’s the lesson that you get from being young, is that you squandered so much of it. You thought it was going to be forever, so that, by the time you’re in your 40s, you’re like, I definitely know this is not forever. I better get on with enjoying myself as best I can.”

I can recall a time in my 30s that I once joked that I was, “just waiting around to die.” Now that I’ve just recently crossed over into my 50s however, I’m finally starting to realize that my days here on Earth may in fact be finite and, looking back, it wouldn’t have killed me to have made a better decision or 2 along the way. Hearing Matt say the squandered so much of it line just made me appreciate what he has to offer as a person and an artist and I’m very glad that Matchbox Twenty was nice enough to introduce me to the talent of Matt Nathanson. Here’s the PBS video.

Matt Nathanson on PBS

And here is how Matt Nathanson’s band ended their set this past Saturday night with Come On Get Higher and a couple of songs added in for good measure.

End of Mohegan Sun set.

Prime Day 2023!

/ Dave Novak / 4 Comments

It’s here! Woo-HOO! Two days of shopping for things that really… Well… I guess one could argue that I don’t really need. But that can be tricky.

You see, I’ve done this before and I’ve failed. If you start out trying to be responsible, you could miss out. Because what happens is that you might see something that you kind of want and it’s a good deal but you don’t REALLY need it and your trying to be responsible so you don’t buy it but it’s a pretty good deal so you keep thinking about it and THEN, just when you decide, “Oh what the hell? I’m going to get it because it’ll be kind of fun to get it,” you go back to Amazon’s webpage to get it and the deal is GONE. And that sucks. It’s happened before. And I’m sure it’ll happen again. But not this year.

So, while I didn’t really have a NEED to buy anything on Amazon Prime Day (as all of my tv sets just REFUSE to die), I was ready. It’s probably worth noting that, at the time of this writing (4:05am ET), Amazon Prime Day has only really been live for about an hour and five minutes. And with a kind of a need and a kind of a want, I now have a few less dollars available on my credit card but a little extra joy in my heart. So what’d I get?

First up, we have the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. I actually have two of these already but, for some reason, my front door Ring (the oldest of the 2) has some sort of permanent fog over the camera lens. I tried a few different cleaning products and because of a YouTube video, I tried some scratch removal cleaner but that didn’t do the trick either. So a new one it is.

The pre Prime Day deal came in at $125 which, according to camelcamelcamel.com beat the previous lowest Amazon price and since I am neither a professional expert doorbell lens glass cleaning expert or even an amateur one for that matter, this deal seemed like a slam dunk. Amazon says I’ll have it on Wednesday.

And then there’s Deal #2. This one seems alllllmost unnecessary but I do feel really good about getting it. A few months ago, I went over to my man Tim’s house and he showed me his Kindle Scribe which he said he loved and therefore I loved it too. The envy factor aside, I do like the larger Kindle Scribe screen and I think it’s kind of cool that you can take notes, especially now that I’m reading books like Atomic Habits where I do feel like I do need to reread it and take some notes.

Now do I REALLY need another device that will allow me to read books? Probably not. I have an iPad Pro, an iPad Mini and I’m told they still print books on something called paper. I even have an old Kindle Paperwhite but just to show you its lack of value, Amazon would only give me five bucks for it if I wanted to trade it in. So I didn’t.

So, why get the Kindle Scribe? First off, I do prefer an e-ink screen compared to a computer screen for reading as it is a little easier on the eyes and the Kindle does read better in sunlight situations (q: Dave, ya do a lot of reading out there in the sunlight, do ya? a: That’s neither here nor there. 😀). Second of all, I don’t have a Kindle Scribe and it just seems like fun. Throw in the fact that it’s a hundred dollars off and, for dropping off two my old Echo Shows at my local Whole Foods, Amazon is nice enough to drop an extra 90 bucks off the price. And yes, camelcamelcamel.com does say that $319 is the lowest the Scribe has ever sold for, the previous lowest being $355. Plus, ya know…, reading is good. And I’m just trying to make myself a better person and make the world a better place thru uhhh… reading knowledge. And, ya know… It’s FUN! 😀 Amazon, somehow thru the miracle of magical shipping says I’ll have the new Kindle Scribe around 5pm this evening.

Thanks for reading! Happy Shopping! I’ll talk to you soon.
Dave