Haircut 100 was formed in 1980 by singer and songwriter NIck Heyward. After a number of lineup changes, they were signed by Arista and put out their debut album Pelican West. Four hit singles later, Heyward quit to pursue an unsuccessful solo career, and the rest of the band continued with even less success without him, releasing the now long out-of-print Paint and Paint and disbanding shortly thereafter.

Four cheesy-ass videos for near-perfect pop songs:
Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)
The debut single.
Love Plus One
The big transatlantic hit.
Fantastic Day
This song has an awesomely cheesy video too, but for whatever reason the suits pulled it from the Youtube (but left the others up.)
Nobody’s Fool
The last single before it all fell apart.

And the rest of the album? Pretty heavy on the filler, to be honest. Heyward apparently used all his lyrics on these four songs, because the rest of the record is largely instrumental. Musically, its all pretty heavy on the chuka-chuka funk guitars and brass hooks of the first two singles. There’s nothing really bad on the record, but Favourite Shirts is Lemon Firebrigade is Baked Bean is Marine Boy and so forth. A lot of reviews say that the album is front-loaded, but its really more that your ears become desensitized to it by track 6.

I can’t really fault their consistency, though. They had their one thing and for a few short years they shined and polished it until they had a few 3 minute blocks of perfection. No band since then, bar perhaps Vampire Weekend, has come close to perfecting the sound of rich twentysomethings on exotic vacations.

Better breakfasts – For much of 2008 I started my day with a snack cake and a mountain dew – something like 750 calories but no nutritional value. I realized I could pretty much eat a whole box of fiber cereal and come out ahead, calorie-wise, all while getting vitamins and blowing out my ass. I started strong, with fistfuls of Fiber One and a PB & J in the morning, but as time progresses lots of “just this once” snacks work their way in. Overall, I’m doing pretty well, but I need to keep up with this.

Better lunches – this I have done. While I occasionally eat out and snack between meals, I have generally stuck to sandwiches for my lunch; haven’t had a hot pocket all month!

Dental hygiene – from never brushing to twice a day. No longer do I have miscellaneous crud and a patina of plaque on my teeth every day. Gum bleeding during brushing under control. Need to keep up with the flossing – started strong but lapsed in second week.

Shave & a hairdo daily – halfway there. Still only shaving periodically; I blame the high cost of razor blades. I do the hair frequently enough that when I don’t do anything with it, its a change of style, not a lazy default. Discovering exciting world of hair tonic and pomade.

Wardrobe maintenance – did laundry for the first time in ages, but now it’s mostly dirty again, and none of it made it to the ironing board. Picked up some nice blazers and cowboy shirts at garment district, but haven’t had any opportunities to wear them. Need to take an inventory of my pants, cause I tend to wear the same pair day after day until i stumble upon a different pair in the morning. (Old habits die hard.) The closet is barricaded with dirty laundry, and my shoes are all wretched. At least I’ve finally got a nice pair of glasses.

Find a doctor – still haven’t seen one in five years; same goes for dentist. I’ve managed to do all the simple short-term health stuff that involves buying a few things in a place I spend 48 hours a week in anyways, yet I haven’t called any of the doctors offices on the list Allie gave me a few weeks ago.

Exercise for it’s own sake – nope. I own Wii Fit, which I would count for this, so there’s no excuse.

Bake – haven’t been cooking much of all, lately. A little bartending here and there, but the most complex thing I’ve done this year is a breaded chicken breast. I’ve instead been putting my food budget towards fancy dinners, which is unsustainable with school bills. I’m supposedly getting a stand mixer from my uncle, but that’s not going to make me want to make souffles all of a sudden. I should just start working through an episode of Good Eats every night.

Grow an herb garden – have all the materials but haven’t set it up.

Get meats from a butcher – every time I’m at the supermarket looking at sausages, I think, “I could get a better variety cheaper at sabor brasil.” I get a chuck steak instead.

Take dancing lessons – Plan on signing up after my soul quest, but no commitment yet.

Practice guitar & piano fundamentals – been playing a bit more since lessons started back up, but a lot of it is the procrastinators “cramming” style, which really doesn’t work for musical instruments. I’ve got a million different musical projects to work on, but none of them are at the point where I’m actually playing stuff.

Learn analog electronics / how to solder – sure wish I hadn’t skipped all those physics labs. (Could have done without the F in the class, too.) No progress.

Define personal space physically – this is a big thing from Pattern Language, which I was reading around the time of my two-hour breakup; couples need to have separate spaces aside from their common area. So I’ve got my keyboards all over half the apartment. Now all I need is a door so I can jerk off in peace.

Find a new job – shit economy on one side, promotion freeze on the other. I went around Cambridge a few weeks back and passed out resumes but have done no follow-up & haven’t tried again. Lost my steam pretty quickly, as I tend to do.

Post on Modern Serf – Well, here’s a start.