Oh, gag. Literally.

For reasons unknown, I woke up this morning with a swollen uvula. Yep, that's what I said. (And if you just scanned that line and said to yourself, "But, wait, you're a boy, you don't have one of those," please reread the sentence in question. Thank you.)

This happens now and then, and although it doesn't hurt, it's a sizable annoyance every time; this time out, though, it has crossed the line to Serious Problem. Very shortly after I awoke, swallowed, winced, swallowed again, winced again, rafaela called. I very much wanted to talk to her, since we were attempting to make some important arrangements. "Hi," I said, and choked. "How are you doing?" I asked, and choked harder. My &@$!ing uvula was setting off my &@$!ing gag reflex on every syllable. This was not good, especially when I tried to explain the situation, flailing and hacking, trying not to vomit directly into the receiver.

I somehow got enough words out of my mouth (and nothing more substantive, thank God) to give Anna a clue as to what was going on, so she said, "Okay, sweetie. I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen." She laid out the plans that we were supposed to be laying out, playing both parts ("At this point, I imagine you'd say that sounds like a good idea."), then ordered me to zap myself with some Chloroseptic and hit the ibuprofin to take down the swelling.

I just gave talking another try, and I still only got about three words in before I had to stop. Ohhhh, is this gonna be a fun day. zarhooie, I apologize, but I probably won't be able to return your phone call today.

The Alt90's Music Quiz, 2007 Edition (now with multimedia!)

You'd think the movie polls would have taught me a lesson....

I recently borrowed back a bunch of discs from Chez Melchert that I had burned back during my temporary-insanity 90's alternative obsession a few years back, so I could restore all the stuff we'd lost during Hard Drive Armageddon '06. Listening to this stuff again (four discs, 79 songs total) reminded me of the alt90's music quiz I did around the same time, and how much fun it was.

So, yeah. I'm still an idiot.

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The YouTube video above contains a series of brief audio clips from 33 different songs that came out during the Alternative Glut that ran from roughly 1990 to 1997, give or take a year. (The visuals are not only irrerlevant, but boring as hell.) Your task is to identify as many of the clips as possible, naming both song and artist. Realize that this is not necessarily easy—the 33 songs take up 90 seconds, so most of them are unforgivably short. Also realize that although every track received national distribution and airplay, some did receive considerably more airplay than others. I am not expecting anyone to get all 33 correct (although I'll be deeply impressed if anyone does).

Comments to this post are screened. To enter, reply with all the titles that you can identify, along with the artists who recorded them. (It is NOT necessary to list them in order of appearance.) Do not use Google or otherwise cheat, although Google won't really be as useful as you might think. The winner will be the person who gives the most fully correct responses, i.e. correctly naming both title and artist. Ties will be broken according to which of the tied parties makes the most partially correct responses, such as a correct artist but an incorrect title. Further ties will be broken by random draw.

First prize: a copy of all four discs. Good luck! (Oh, and this contest is open to all parties; pass it on to anyone you think might enjoy it.)

NOTE TO prairieflower: Yes, yes, yes, I'm sorry, I still owe you for the last Alt90's quiz. The aforementioned hard drive crash, combined with the earlier computer crash and the accidental trampling of the one hard copy of your prize disc I had, unfortunately pushed the delivery back yet again. In thanks for your continued patience, you will also be receiving all four discs (although you are more than welcome to enter this contest just to thumb your nose at everyone else).