Music Friday: Bart Crow Band Performs 'Wear My Ring'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you great songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, we welcome the Bart Crow Band to our blog, as they perform a foot-tapping country sing-along titled "Wear My Ring."

Tagged as one of the most dynamic acts on the Texas/Red Dirt scene, the Bart Crow Band has been topping the Texas Country charts since 2005 with a straightforward, honest brand of music that often has a "common working man" theme and witty lyrics.

Although the Austin, Texas-based band has been on a long and steady road to stardom, one reviewer noted that it was "Wear My Ring" that put the Bart Crow Band on the map. The single was rooted in the Texas Music Chart's Top 15 for more than 20 weeks and, even today, Texas DJs refer to "Wear My Ring" as "the song that just won't go away."

Bart Crow is the band's front man, lead vocalist, writer and guitarist. The other band members are Paul Russell on lead guitar, Matt Slagle on bass, David Fralin on keyboards and Jay Warren on drums. The band is constantly on the road and performs more than 200 shows each year.

In the video below, the Bart Crow Band performs live at Hank's Texas Grill in McKinney, TX, in 2007. The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along.

"Wear My Ring"

Written by Bart Crow. Performed by the Bart Crow Band.

Said you wanna stand there,
With your arms around me...
But I can't feel you...
It's kinda like a dream...

Then you walk out with another...
Lord my jaw hits the floor...
It's kinda like a dream...

Said little angel with the bottle...
I don't love you anymore...
Yeah I spent some time out with the devil,
Oh but you don't hurt me anymore...

Yeah I waste my time...
And I waste my money...
On a broken dream...
'Cause you wouldn't wear my ring...
Baby give me back my ring...

One day you'll look back...
Baby when you're all alone...
Just wonderin' to yourself...
Just where in the hell did I have gone...
And I'll be down the road
Like a thousand times before...
And you'll be sittin' home...
With your jaw on the floor...

Said little angel with the bottle...
I don't love you anymore...
Yeah I spent some time out with the devil,
Oh but you don't hurt me anymore...

Yeah I waste my time...
And I waste my money...
On a broken dream...
'Cause you wouldn't wear my ring...
Baby give me back my ring...

Said little angel with the bottle...
I don't love you anymore...
Yeah I spent some time out with the devil,
Oh but you don't hurt me anymore...

Said little angel with the bottle...
I don't love you anymore...
Yeah I spent some time out with the devil,
Oh but you don't hurt me anymore...

Rare 158-Carat Diamond Unearthed in Russia; Should Bring $1.5 Million at Auction

Russia's largest diamond mining company, Alrosa, recently unearthed a rare 158.2-carat diamond that's the size of a ping-pong ball and worth more than $1.5 million, according to the Daily Mail. A spokesperson for Alrosa said the mammoth diamond was discovered at its Nyurbinsk mine in the Russian republic of Yakutia. The diamond is believed to rank #32 on the list of the world's largest diamonds.

The Alrosa spokesperson noted that the giant diamond will have one of two fates. It can be left in its natural rough state and sold at auction, where it would bring about $1.5 million. Or, it can be processed and cut into several high-quality diamonds, each expected to be worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Alrosa accounts for 28 percent of the world's diamond production, and boasts proven diamond reserves that will enable it to maintain diamond production for more than 25 years.

Despite its enormous size, Alrosa's diamond prize weighs barely 5% as much as the heaviest diamond ever recorded. The granddaddy of them all is the Cullinan, which was discovered in South Africa in 1905 and weighed in at an astonishing 3,106.75 carats. It was subsequently cleaved into 105 diamonds, including nine major diamonds, 96 small diamonds and 9.5 carats of unpolished pieces.

The nine major diamonds became part of the English Crown Jewels. Both the Cullinan I (530.4 carats) and Cullinan II (317.4 carats) are on display with other Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.

'Studs' Collection of Football Cards Embedded With Genuine 10-Point Diamonds

Twenty superstar football players from today and yesteryear are immortalized in a 2012 collection of rare trading cards from Panini America called Momentum "Studs." The cards feature genuine 1/10-carat diamonds embedded right into the ears of the players on the cards.

How did Panini come up with the "Studs" concept? A company spokesman told ESPN that the players were not only studs on the field, but were also known to wear diamond studs in their ears. He said the individual diamonds have a value of $100 to $200.

Among the superstars featured in the dramatic black-and-white "Studs" series are Michael Vick, Ray Lewis, Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders.

The cards are considered extremely collectible. Even though they were released in early September, they are already starting to appear on EBay as lucky card enthusiasts have been finding them randomly in their $200 boxes of Panini Momentum cards. A Terrell Owens "Studs" card sold on September 20 for $102. A box contains 10 packs and each pack contains three cards.

Panini America, which claims to be world’s largest sports and entertainment collectibles company, has added a new dimension to the premium trading card business by including swatches of jersey fabric and genuine signatures to its series. But last year, the company made news when it released its 2011 Gold Standard football cards. More than 2,200 trading cards were embedded with shimmering circular discs of real 14-karat gold.

Apparently, collectors are enthusiastic about Panini's blingy strategy. One collector wrote this glittering review: "It’s a strike-it-rich, collecting-turned-gold-digging proposition that should be well received by NFL fans across the country..."

Here's a list of the football players featured in the Momentum "Studs" series:

#1 Antonio Gates
#2 Michael Vick
#3 Matt Forte
#4 DeSean Jackson
#5 Ray Lewis
#6 Terrell Owens
#7 Chad Johnson
#8 Emmitt Smith
#9 Deion Sanders
#10 Jerry Rice
#11 Michael Irvin
#12 Aaron Hernandez
#13 Jacquizz Rodgers
#14 James Starks
#15 Titus Young
#16 Dez Bryant
#17 Hines Ward
#18 Glenn Dorsey
#19 Vernon Davis
#20 Steve Smith

Romantic or Monstrous? Pilot Pretends Plane Is in Trouble to Add Spice to Marriage Proposal

In a crazy scheme that blurs the line between monstrous and romantic, the pilot of a two-seat private plane faked an emergency while showing his girlfriend the Chicago skyline to add some spice to an airborne marriage proposal.

With a hidden camera capturing all the action, pilot Ryan Thompson simulated the loss of flight controls and dove the plane as a ruse to have his girlfriend, Carlie Kennedy, read his doctored emergency checklist.

The clearly distressed Kennedy is seen the video reading through a short list of what to do in the event of "Unresponsive Flight Controls." The last item says, "IF NEEDED, CONDUCT RING ENGAGEMENT PROCEDURE."

On the next page of the checklist, the Ring Engagement Procedure is outlined: "Determine if he is a good mate. Note: He will always love and honor you."

The checklist ends with this request: "Answer: Will you marry me?"

The misery instantly turns to elation as Kennedy realizes she's been tricked and Thompson pulls a ring from his pocket. "Well, you got me," she says after accepting his proposal.

"I genuinely did believe that we were going to die," Kennedy told ABC News. "I felt like our lives depended on me making it through that checklist."

The four-minute video documenting the proposal has gone viral, with more than 1.38 million views on YouTube and countless comments in the blogosphere. Some have complimented Thompson on his creativity. Others are calling him cruel and sadistic.

"At that moment, I genuinely thought something was wrong with the plane, and that we were going to crash," Kennedy recounted in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. 

Was she upset that her fiancé put her on such an emotional roller coaster? "I was never angry, not even for a second," she told the Sun-Times, but added, "I told him, and my mom told him, no more surprises for now."

Here's the video...

Opal's Kaleidoscope of Color Makes October's Birthstone Truly Unique

Today is the first day of October and opal is the month's official birthstone. Opals are special because they all have their own DNA and no two opals are exactly alike. An opal's internal structure makes it diffract light, causing the gem to shine and sparkle in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colors that experts describe as “opalizing." In some of the finest opals, every color of the spectrum is visible.

Two of the most famous opals in the world are the Galaxy, which was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest polished opal at 3,749 carats, and an unnamed specimen in the collection of the Houston Museum of Natural Science that's purported to be one of the finest boulder opals ever mined.

Even though 97% of the world's opal supply comes from Australia, the Galaxy was discovered at the Boi Morto Mine in northeastern Brazil in 1976. Carved from a grapefruit-sized piece of rough weighing 5,205 carats, the final specimen is said to resemble a child's head and measures 5 1/2 x 4 x 1 5/8 inches. Today, the polished stone is valued at more than $1 million and is part of a private collection.

Headlining at the Lester and Sue Smith Gem Vault at the Houston Museum of Natural Science is one of the largest and most beautiful boulder opals ever mined. Discovered at the Opalville Mine in Queensland, Australia, the 2,765-carat opal gleams like a lava lamp, with brilliant flashes of red, yellow, green and blue.

According to the museum, the tale behind the immense unnamed opal reads like the plot of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Apparently, after three miners won and lost the opal in a series of poker games, it wound up locked in a vault for nearly 20 years as the miners worked out a legal dispute. When the suit was finally settled, the owner was anxious to sell the stone.

"A guy walked into the museum with it in a cardboard box, and we acquired it," revealed museum board member and benefactor Lester Smith.

Of all the opals mined in Australia, 90% is considered "light opal," defined as the most common white or crystal opals. The white variety makes up 60% of the opal production and crystal opal makes up 30%. The much rarer and more valuable varieties are black (8%) and boulder (2%).

Above: Black opal, semi-black opal, boulder opal, crystal opal and white opal. Source: www.opalsdownunder.com.au