CityCynic.com

Today marks my one year anniversary with my girlfriend, Melissa.

This past year has been both amazing and exhilarating. We’ve traveled and we’ve spent time together at home. We’ve both seen new places and met new people that have made our lives better. We’ve learned just how great helping each other feels. We’ve enjoyed being in sync and seen more than enough signs of “446″ together.

We’ve tweeted, blogged, and dailyboothed. We’ve used thousands and thousands of cellphone minutes.

She’s inspired me to express myself again in word and photographs. We created a baseball blog together about our favorite MLB teams, the Dodgers and the Mets.

We’ve shared new foods together and enjoyed new experiences. We both loved going to the movies and listening to music together. We’ve decided on and then watched our television shows together.

We’ve shared our love of dinosaurs and history together. We’ve traded baseball stats and players our teams have shared.

We’ve heard our song, You & Me by Dave Matthews Band, many many times, just about everywhere:

And we’ve laughed, cried, joked, debated, discussed, lived, and loved together more than either of us every have before.

And all of that is exactly why our relationship works so well and why she means so much to me.

I’m looking forward to what the next years will bring! Love you, sweetie! <#

U2 has announced their huge North American concert tour has been postponed because lead singer Bono has to recover from emergency back surgery.

That includes the Irish rock band’s show at the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey, which I happened to have tickets to see with my U2-loving family.

So much for my big summer concert plans.

A dramatization of how Bono might have injured his Irish back.

I really was looking forward to seeing U2 perform at the brand new football stadium in July, too.

And so far, all that us ticket holders have been told is that the tour will be rescheduled in 2011… sometime. Gee, I sure hope I’m free whenever that is…

Okay, so I missed the MTV Movie Awards this year. Until I caught half of the second immediate rerun and the other half of the third immediate rerun.

Overall the show was pretty good, a lot of funny jokes from host Aziz Ansari (“Parks and Rec”) and some typical MTV-ish moments, like Sandra Bullock’s kiss with Scarlett Johansson, but the real moment of the night was Tom Cruise’s attempt at remaining relevant.

He was back as his alter-ego Les Grossman, dancing around the stage like a lunatic, and then eventually with Jennifer Lopez for some reason.

Man, Tom Cruise has really let himself go…

Oh well, Katie Holmes didn’t seem to mind. She really enjoyed Tom’s moves…

Hard to believe, but singer Lady Gaga used to perform in a more restrained and traditional manner. At that time, she went by her birth name Stefani Germanotta and attended New York University.

Check out this video from the NYU Inter-Residence Hall Council of Lady Gaga singing and playing piano  at the NYU Ultraviolet Talent Show. She ended up coming in third place.

The first song is called Captivated and the second one is Electric Kiss.

The best part is that one of the judges said she thought Lady Gaga would be the next Norah Jones. Perhaps you could see why she said that, but uh, no, not exactly Norah Jones…

Listen along with me as we check out the progression of “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap.

The original:

And then the second chorus was heavily sampled in Jason Derulo’s “Watcha Say”:

And of course “Hide and Seek” made an appearance on Australian Idol in Season 5 by contestant Ben McKenzie:

What really made the song famous was it’s inclusion in a scene of the (now-defunct) teen drama The O.C.:

That inspired a Saturday Night Live Digital Short parody of The O.C. finale, called “Dear Sister”…

Check this out here (it was playing automatically).

And then someone parodied the parody on YouTube:

And then, of course, there are parodies of the parodies and parodies of the parodies of the parodies. And parodies using Lord of the Rings scenes and parodies using The Office, etc.

So what does Imogen Heap think of the sampling, at least in Jason Derulo’s hit version of the song?

She spoke about it recently with the BBC:

Finally, I have to ask you about Jason DeRulo’s single Watcha Say – which samples Hide and Seek. It seems to have split fans right down the middle: Some love what he’s done and others are literally out for his blood. What do you think of it?

I really believe a song has a life of its own, so when I heard his version, I actually thought it was pretty good.

Even the first time? I found it took a bit of getting used to…

First time I heard it, yes. I understand that for some people, it’s their favourite song and it feels like he’s butchered it and butchered their memory of it. But, to me, I’ve heard it in so many contexts – by a choir, by a marching band – I loved that it was completely different.

You just can’t keep a good song down!

Thanks for listening along!

Thanks to Jay-Z I have a new New York anthem:

In New York, concrete jungle where things are made of… there’s nothing you can’t do… Now you’re in New York… these streets will make you feel brand new, big lights will inspire you…