I seriously have been sitting here trying to write down some lists but I just can't bring myself to do it. It's 11:50 right now and I've got the NYE footage on, just cuz I always feel like I'm supposed to have it on. I'm not really paying all that much attention to it, but I feel required to see that ball drop. Maybe once that happens I can turn it off and focus on some lists. Of course by then it will kind of be too late, but that's sort of my M.O.
In the meantime, people bothered me again today. Surprise? I got a call from my mom saying my nephew was spending the night at her house. She wanted to see if I wanted to come over, and when I said yes, if I could pick up some pizzas on the way since I live practically next-door to a Pizza Hut. No problem. Put the order in online. Feeling like Mr. Organized. I show up at Pizza Hut and it is a little busy. A line of four groups waiting to put in or pick up orders. So, I get in line. I'm not going to get upset in this situation because I see the employees working as fast as they humanly can. Of course, that's not going to stop other people from complaining, which bothers me enough, but they didn't stop there. While I was there, the place got slammed. First of all, lots of people blatantly cutting in line, acting like they're just asking how long things are going to take, but then monopolizing the attention so they can place an order and then shout at the guy trying to take and send out orders while he's working. But one woman in particular, I've never wanted to see a trap door open up so much in a long time. She comes in later than most of the other people there but works her way up next to the register to say, "You know, you've got a lot of people waiting here!" Oh! Really?!? And then she stands there for 15 minutes, complaining the entire time to anybody who will listen to her. Then the guy behind the counter gets a chance to take her order, and she turns to the kids she came with and says, "What kind of pizza do you guys like?" You have got to be joking! You're standing here all this time bitching and you have no idea what you want to order?!? I had kept my cool all that time but now I was starting to get mad. Had nothing to do with any service issue, just this woman who had no regard for anybody else's time. So, happy new year. Go to hell! Not you, that woman, and all the other people I'll encounter in 2010.
Why do I watch this Times Square thing? I don't like New York, I don't like crowds, I don't like Carson Daly, I don't like parties, and I have no particular feelings for New Year's aside from enjoying another day off work. Let me turn this shit off, play some records, and make some lists.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
New 33 1/3
Picture for dazzling effect. I had forgotten what a great feeling it is to get a brand new 33 1/3 in the mail, for an album you've been waiting for, and shitting yourself for the chance to tear into it. I got the new book for Zaireeka in the mail on Christmas Eve and I tore through it in several down hours on Saturday. Nothing better than reading one of these on an album you know backwards and forwards, where any time the author brings up a specific passage you can bring it up in your brain. AND even more fun when it's on an album you have your own opinions about so you can find out where the author agrees with you or where he is a moron. I did have some misgivings about this one. It's written by a Pitchfork writer, and as I've just gone a year without Pitchfork and see no reason not to go another one, I felt a little uneasy about reading something from one of their ilk. Especially considering the site's original review of Zaireeka gave it a 0.0 without considering a second of music. And you can tell that this guy is of the Pitchfork variety. Like most other 33 1/3's it's split into sections, and the final and longest section is, of course, devoted to an anecdote from the author's life that minorly involves the album but that there's no reason anybody other than the author should care about instead of being devoted to analysis. But, he did do a pretty good job. If he was reading it to me from under an anvil, there's only a couple times I would have cut the string. I put the 33 1/3's into a few categories. Ones like If You're Feeling Sinister and Armed Forces that I could not be less interested in, ones like Court and Spark and Aqualung that I would read if I really needed something to read but are on albums that I'm only familiar with, ones like Horses and Loveless that are on albums I have some history with loving but not that I feel an urgent need to get in depth with, and ones like Aeroplane and Music From Big Pink that deal with albums I've obsessed over and jump at the chance to get any new nugget or opinion on. Zaireeka was definitely in that last category, just considering the obsession I had with that band and the feeling I've always had that the songs, regardless of the format, from that album were sorely sorely underrated. And because Adam and I probably hold some kind of world record for a proper Zaireeka playing in a space-to-people ratio kind of way. Like, 12,000 square feet per person? I'm not going to lie, there's a point in the book where he starts mentioning the message board I used to frequent as a source of Zaireeka party planning, and I half expected us to get a mention there, because you bet your ass I pimped those pictures on that board at the time. Fun read. I'll probably get the Gilded Palace of Sin sometime soon, as that should be a category 3 read for me. But really Mr. Marquee Moon needs to get off his duff and finish something so I can tear into another one.
Why not follow that up with a limited edition ice cream review? This one is really short because I've only had a couple spoons worth so far. It's Ben & Jerry's Hanah Teter's Maple Blondie. "Maple ice cream with blonde brownie chunks and a maple caramel swirl." Now, my sweet tooth is my downfall. It's gotten to the point where I have very little tolerance for salty snacks, I need the sweetness. So far, this stuff is too sweet for me. The blondie chunks are good, but the overwhelming taste for has been like eating frozen maple syrup. Which it pretty much is, it says so right there in the title. For some reason I couldn't put that together before I bought it.
I've been thinking about making some lists lately. Year-end lists. Decade lists. Probably not a lot of “best of [insert piece of time]” because there just haven't been enough albums in the last couple years that I loved, or even enjoyed. The lists I'm thinking of would be a lot more like “things I didn't know I would like at the beginning of the year,” “top five shifts of genre enjoyment,” “top five songs or albums I've come across in the past decade that put me in a very particular space and time from the past decade,” “top five albums I had high hopes for that failed me miserably upon their release.” Things like that. Just not feeling very motivated to make them though. If I was working much these last two weeks of 2009, probably a better chance I would have some sitting time to work on those. But as I'm on an almost two-week sabbatical with limited work-related interruption, there's other things I'm using the time for. Initially it was shoveling snow. Now it's napping and watching movies.
Why not follow that up with a limited edition ice cream review? This one is really short because I've only had a couple spoons worth so far. It's Ben & Jerry's Hanah Teter's Maple Blondie. "Maple ice cream with blonde brownie chunks and a maple caramel swirl." Now, my sweet tooth is my downfall. It's gotten to the point where I have very little tolerance for salty snacks, I need the sweetness. So far, this stuff is too sweet for me. The blondie chunks are good, but the overwhelming taste for has been like eating frozen maple syrup. Which it pretty much is, it says so right there in the title. For some reason I couldn't put that together before I bought it.
I've been thinking about making some lists lately. Year-end lists. Decade lists. Probably not a lot of “best of [insert piece of time]” because there just haven't been enough albums in the last couple years that I loved, or even enjoyed. The lists I'm thinking of would be a lot more like “things I didn't know I would like at the beginning of the year,” “top five shifts of genre enjoyment,” “top five songs or albums I've come across in the past decade that put me in a very particular space and time from the past decade,” “top five albums I had high hopes for that failed me miserably upon their release.” Things like that. Just not feeling very motivated to make them though. If I was working much these last two weeks of 2009, probably a better chance I would have some sitting time to work on those. But as I'm on an almost two-week sabbatical with limited work-related interruption, there's other things I'm using the time for. Initially it was shoveling snow. Now it's napping and watching movies.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Thank You Population of Williamsburg...
For reminding me why this site has the name that it does, and why I generally can't be around people. Two run-ins I wanted to chronicle.
At the Messiah performance, the music was gorgeous, the audience was hilarious. Bruton Parish does not have pews like most people are used to. They're really deep. Unless you're above average height, I would say you're not going to see much going on in the front of the church unless it's elevated. Which most of it's not. The chorus and musicians may have been a step or two above the level of the audience. So, you're not seeing much, but it really shouldn't matter. I thought we were there to hear the room fill up with some overwhelming music. What it became for me was laughing at people craning their necks or even standing up to see when a new soloist started, as if Alice Cooper had just come out and was about to do the guillotine. Then there's the Hallelujah Chorus. Being Mr. Has-A-Problem-With-Everything, I'm already not a big fan of standing during it. I know it's a tradition, but I think it's a really cheap piece of audience participation that takes away from the music a little bit. Especially when you hear people around you whispering, "It's almost time to stand," like it's their chance to be the star. But what was totally unforgivable, and I never saw it coming, was when people started singing along with it. Those half-hearted voices you'd hear at semi-indie concerts from the people who just want you to know that they know all the words. During the Hallelujah Chorus. This trend has gone too far.
More later at the IHOP. There was pretty much nobody there when I got there, which of course I was delighted with. (Except that it highlighted the reason I've waited so long in the first place to get holiday pancakes. Sitting by yourself in a pancake house while you're waiting for your food to come out is uncomfortable. I thought for sure they'd have a local coupon book I could read, but no dice.) But of course after a while a gaggle of college students, if 4 makes a gaggle, comes in and of course they get seated in the booth right next to mine. I swear I tried not to pay attention to them, but eventually they started talking about how their neighbors were such assholes because they got the cops called on them when they were having a party. And they went on to talk about the situation, with them of course being the pure victims, saying everything I bristled at having flashbacks from the time we were living next to Kevin to the apartment I lived in under college students here in Fredericksburg and beyond. He would have never understood why I did it, but I think I would have been totally justified in pouring the rest of my carafe down the back of his shirt and walking out on the bill while he pulled skin off his back.
At the Messiah performance, the music was gorgeous, the audience was hilarious. Bruton Parish does not have pews like most people are used to. They're really deep. Unless you're above average height, I would say you're not going to see much going on in the front of the church unless it's elevated. Which most of it's not. The chorus and musicians may have been a step or two above the level of the audience. So, you're not seeing much, but it really shouldn't matter. I thought we were there to hear the room fill up with some overwhelming music. What it became for me was laughing at people craning their necks or even standing up to see when a new soloist started, as if Alice Cooper had just come out and was about to do the guillotine. Then there's the Hallelujah Chorus. Being Mr. Has-A-Problem-With-Everything, I'm already not a big fan of standing during it. I know it's a tradition, but I think it's a really cheap piece of audience participation that takes away from the music a little bit. Especially when you hear people around you whispering, "It's almost time to stand," like it's their chance to be the star. But what was totally unforgivable, and I never saw it coming, was when people started singing along with it. Those half-hearted voices you'd hear at semi-indie concerts from the people who just want you to know that they know all the words. During the Hallelujah Chorus. This trend has gone too far.
More later at the IHOP. There was pretty much nobody there when I got there, which of course I was delighted with. (Except that it highlighted the reason I've waited so long in the first place to get holiday pancakes. Sitting by yourself in a pancake house while you're waiting for your food to come out is uncomfortable. I thought for sure they'd have a local coupon book I could read, but no dice.) But of course after a while a gaggle of college students, if 4 makes a gaggle, comes in and of course they get seated in the booth right next to mine. I swear I tried not to pay attention to them, but eventually they started talking about how their neighbors were such assholes because they got the cops called on them when they were having a party. And they went on to talk about the situation, with them of course being the pure victims, saying everything I bristled at having flashbacks from the time we were living next to Kevin to the apartment I lived in under college students here in Fredericksburg and beyond. He would have never understood why I did it, but I think I would have been totally justified in pouring the rest of my carafe down the back of his shirt and walking out on the bill while he pulled skin off his back.
Interrupting Williamsburg talk for a Ltd. Edition report
I've been meaning to post on this and while I was typing about sandwiches finally remembered. Weekend after Thanksgiving I had a run-in with the Wawa Gobbler. Let me see: turkey, gravy, stuffing, provolone, cranberry sauce, on a sub roll. You wouldn't think it would work but it does. I couldn't wrap my head around how gravy and cranberry sauce could go on one sandwich without making you wretch, but it did the opposite. My mom had gotten this amazing turkey from Wegman's on Thanksgiving and I wanted some more of it. So I went to the prepared foods area to see if I could get just a few slices. And I could. FOR ABOUT $15 A POUND! Ridiculous. So I guess I kind of revolted and got the cheapest imaginable version of Thanksgiving dinner I could think of. So, that's the end of that.
Thank God that wasn't there when I had less than no money...
Went back to Williamsburg this weekend for the first time since Adam and Christy's wedding. Man there's a lot of shit there now. I guess the colonial area is pretty much the same except for the parking garage, but pretty much everywhere else blew me away at how much has been done.
So, half of the reason I wanted to go down to Williamsburg this weekend was to see the Messiah performance at Bruton. The other half became that, the more I thought about Williamsburg, the more I started craving a sandwich from Padow's. Well, come to find out, Padow's is gone, which sent me out on a search for a sandwich. Cuz I wuz hongry. So I decided to trek down Richmond Rd. toward Lightfoot to see what I might find. First thing I noticed was the dilapidated gas/service station across from Staples was now a Walgreen's. I love Walgreens! They have the best snacks! So, my mind being sufficiently warped by the site of the Walgreen's, I go past New Hope Rd. which used to just be a carpet between our house and Dunkin' Donuts. First thing I saw was that Chanello's was right next to IHOP now. I said, "Oh wow. I think I would have liked that," though I don't really have much memory of Chanello's. Then my mind kind of went into overfuckingdrive. Drive past the hotel next to IHOP and all of a sudden there's this giant shopping center looking thing that isn't really populated yet but looks like it would have been my worst nightmare. So I drive through, there's a Firehouse Subs, a Plaza Azteca, and a Five Guys there now, right next to our house, with presumably many more things to fill up those spaces. Are you fucking kidding me?!? I managed to make myself the size of three people with a 1-minute bike ride to KFC and Dunkin' Donuts. And a car that would occasionally get me to a lot of pizza. Or Wendy's. And a lot of Subway Station. And Padow's. This is suddenly not seeming so amazing to have those places right next to me, I think I found the food I was after. But still! Can you imagine what I would have done to myself if there was a Five Guys like 30 seconds away? I would have smelled like peanut oil french fries every minute of every day for 3 years. I was kind of embarrassed when the people at Padow's learned my name because I went there so much, same with the guy at Subway Station, and even more so when the people at KFC knew what I was going to order because I went there so often. (It's fucking KFC! Do you know how many people probably went in and out of there in a day? If I saw that many different people every day I don't think I could remember what ONE was going to order unless he was there way too much. I was there way too much.) So yeah, right next to our house. If Five Guys had been there when we lived there, I probably would not have made it out alive.
But here's what really bowled me over. Remember how hard it was to see a goddam movie in Williamsburg? Kimball or bust most times. Or that one small theater that I can't remember where it is now because I probably went there three times in the dark. I know I saw The Scorpion King there. Anyway, now there is also a movie theater right there. Right. There. Tell me we wouldn't have gone broke. And then I got back to the Travelodge and they actually had a brochure about the movie theater because it's a Movie Tavern where you EAT DINNER WHILE YOU WATCH THE MOVIE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? And you might expect them to be showing second or third run family fare for the family to go out to. Nope. First run movies. It was mostly on the younger side, Twilight, Princess on the Frog, that kind of stuff. But also Blind Side, Invictus. They'll be showing Avatar when it comes out. MAN! How many times would we have driven to Video Update if we had to drive past a Movie/Dinner Theater to get there? Probably not as many. But good lord I would be so much more in debt than I am now.
But I still hadn't found anything I wanted to eat. (You think I wasn't tempted to stop at the Taco Bell on Richmond Rd. just because I was driving past at a time when the Cheesy Gordita Crunch happened to be back for a limited run just for nostalgia's sake? It crossed my mind.) I decided to turn around and go back down Monticello and see what was out Ukrop's way now and perhaps what had become of this New Town that was just on the rise when I was last there. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think when we went there for your wedding (yeah, I know nobody else is reading this so it's pretty much just going to become an email to Adam) the movie theater was pretty much the only thing that was open and there were a few other buildings around but looking uninhabited at the time. I don't remember it being real busy. And now it's pretty much the size of Fredericksburg! Maybe bigger. I mean, I know Fredericksburg isn't the biggest city in the country, but it is a CITY! Not a shopping center! I just kind of drove in where the movie theater was and almost plowed over some people down the main concourse by going the wrong way down a one way street. I thought for a second about getting out and walking around to see what was there but I just said FORGET IT! I don't want to deal with this. So I drove further down Monticello and saw just how far New Town went. Ridiculous. Kept driving toward Ukrop's, noticed another pretty big shopping center between 199 and the Ukrop's shopping center that I'm pretty sure was not there before. Didn't even set tire in that one. Didn't care! Too much to try to take in. Kept driving toward Ukrop's, only thing I really noticed out there was that they had a Cold Stone now. I'm guessing I would have liked that.
Still hadn't eaten. I don't know how I could have eaten with my mouth gaping like that. Anyway, I still really just wanted a sandwich, so I drove past the Subway Station (too many memories) and decided to go get one at The Cheese Shop. At which point I remembered why I rarely went to The Cheese Shop. A little over ten bucks for what amounted to a small turkey sandwich and a root beer. The turkey was good, the bread was good, the roasted tomatoes were the highlight of the sandwich, and they forgot my mustard. Ten bucks?!?
So, that's not even to mention any of the stuff that's been built on campus. Unreal. Then that night I also got a call from my dad and was telling him about all the changes that had been made, and he informs me that they also had a Best Buy now. I was like, you mean the one in Newport News? No! Williamsburg. Wow. That might have been handy.
So, half of the reason I wanted to go down to Williamsburg this weekend was to see the Messiah performance at Bruton. The other half became that, the more I thought about Williamsburg, the more I started craving a sandwich from Padow's. Well, come to find out, Padow's is gone, which sent me out on a search for a sandwich. Cuz I wuz hongry. So I decided to trek down Richmond Rd. toward Lightfoot to see what I might find. First thing I noticed was the dilapidated gas/service station across from Staples was now a Walgreen's. I love Walgreens! They have the best snacks! So, my mind being sufficiently warped by the site of the Walgreen's, I go past New Hope Rd. which used to just be a carpet between our house and Dunkin' Donuts. First thing I saw was that Chanello's was right next to IHOP now. I said, "Oh wow. I think I would have liked that," though I don't really have much memory of Chanello's. Then my mind kind of went into overfuckingdrive. Drive past the hotel next to IHOP and all of a sudden there's this giant shopping center looking thing that isn't really populated yet but looks like it would have been my worst nightmare. So I drive through, there's a Firehouse Subs, a Plaza Azteca, and a Five Guys there now, right next to our house, with presumably many more things to fill up those spaces. Are you fucking kidding me?!? I managed to make myself the size of three people with a 1-minute bike ride to KFC and Dunkin' Donuts. And a car that would occasionally get me to a lot of pizza. Or Wendy's. And a lot of Subway Station. And Padow's. This is suddenly not seeming so amazing to have those places right next to me, I think I found the food I was after. But still! Can you imagine what I would have done to myself if there was a Five Guys like 30 seconds away? I would have smelled like peanut oil french fries every minute of every day for 3 years. I was kind of embarrassed when the people at Padow's learned my name because I went there so much, same with the guy at Subway Station, and even more so when the people at KFC knew what I was going to order because I went there so often. (It's fucking KFC! Do you know how many people probably went in and out of there in a day? If I saw that many different people every day I don't think I could remember what ONE was going to order unless he was there way too much. I was there way too much.) So yeah, right next to our house. If Five Guys had been there when we lived there, I probably would not have made it out alive.
But here's what really bowled me over. Remember how hard it was to see a goddam movie in Williamsburg? Kimball or bust most times. Or that one small theater that I can't remember where it is now because I probably went there three times in the dark. I know I saw The Scorpion King there. Anyway, now there is also a movie theater right there. Right. There. Tell me we wouldn't have gone broke. And then I got back to the Travelodge and they actually had a brochure about the movie theater because it's a Movie Tavern where you EAT DINNER WHILE YOU WATCH THE MOVIE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? And you might expect them to be showing second or third run family fare for the family to go out to. Nope. First run movies. It was mostly on the younger side, Twilight, Princess on the Frog, that kind of stuff. But also Blind Side, Invictus. They'll be showing Avatar when it comes out. MAN! How many times would we have driven to Video Update if we had to drive past a Movie/Dinner Theater to get there? Probably not as many. But good lord I would be so much more in debt than I am now.
But I still hadn't found anything I wanted to eat. (You think I wasn't tempted to stop at the Taco Bell on Richmond Rd. just because I was driving past at a time when the Cheesy Gordita Crunch happened to be back for a limited run just for nostalgia's sake? It crossed my mind.) I decided to turn around and go back down Monticello and see what was out Ukrop's way now and perhaps what had become of this New Town that was just on the rise when I was last there. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think when we went there for your wedding (yeah, I know nobody else is reading this so it's pretty much just going to become an email to Adam) the movie theater was pretty much the only thing that was open and there were a few other buildings around but looking uninhabited at the time. I don't remember it being real busy. And now it's pretty much the size of Fredericksburg! Maybe bigger. I mean, I know Fredericksburg isn't the biggest city in the country, but it is a CITY! Not a shopping center! I just kind of drove in where the movie theater was and almost plowed over some people down the main concourse by going the wrong way down a one way street. I thought for a second about getting out and walking around to see what was there but I just said FORGET IT! I don't want to deal with this. So I drove further down Monticello and saw just how far New Town went. Ridiculous. Kept driving toward Ukrop's, noticed another pretty big shopping center between 199 and the Ukrop's shopping center that I'm pretty sure was not there before. Didn't even set tire in that one. Didn't care! Too much to try to take in. Kept driving toward Ukrop's, only thing I really noticed out there was that they had a Cold Stone now. I'm guessing I would have liked that.
Still hadn't eaten. I don't know how I could have eaten with my mouth gaping like that. Anyway, I still really just wanted a sandwich, so I drove past the Subway Station (too many memories) and decided to go get one at The Cheese Shop. At which point I remembered why I rarely went to The Cheese Shop. A little over ten bucks for what amounted to a small turkey sandwich and a root beer. The turkey was good, the bread was good, the roasted tomatoes were the highlight of the sandwich, and they forgot my mustard. Ten bucks?!?
So, that's not even to mention any of the stuff that's been built on campus. Unreal. Then that night I also got a call from my dad and was telling him about all the changes that had been made, and he informs me that they also had a Best Buy now. I was like, you mean the one in Newport News? No! Williamsburg. Wow. That might have been handy.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Expanding my limitations
Here it comes. Expansion. Now we have some ice cream instead of candy (on the day I find out about this. That thing is enormous.) Three flavors of Ben & Jerry's I gave the samplin' this weekend. At the time I was using my computer as a television and watching UFC 104, so I made actual tasting notes. On paper. Made me feel like a big shot.
American Apple Pie - Described as "Apple Pie Ice Cream with Apples, Pie Crust Pieces, & a Cinnamon Streusel Swirl" and I think my major issue with this flavor is right there. Apple Pie flavored ice cream, and then inserting all the ingredients of apple pie. A little redundant? Too much going on. The ice cream flavor didn't exactly scream Apple Pie, just kind of went unnoticed. I think it might have been better if they approached it as Apple Pie a la mode with vanilla ice cream and all those ingredients. The best part of it is the apples. They are for real. Little moist cinnamony pieces of baked-like apples, and there's lots of them. They're definitely the big part of the scoop. The pie crust pieces were hard to find, and I think it's because pie crust is light and flaky, easily lost in the ice cream. I actually wasn't convinced they were in there, so I took a scoop out and melted it in the microwave to see if I could spot them. They're there, but they're soft.
Pumpkin Cheesecake - "Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream with a thick graham cracker swirl." There are several ways to make me buy something, primary among them being to feature pumpkin. Maybe my favorite flavor of stuff. So I was excited for this. This was kind of a weird meld of pumpkin and cheesecake. I think I've had pumpkin cheesecake once in my life, and it's hard to believe this flavor was very far from spot on. But it was a little strange, it messed with my head a little. I could never really taste pumpkin and cheesecake at once, it would go back and forth whichever one I thought I was trying to taste at the time. Kind of like in Hook where they believe in a food fight and there's a feast. Bangarang. Whatever you were looking to taste, you could taste. But it was definitely pumpkin cheesecake, maybe more on the cheesecake side. I guess I kind of wanted pumpkin pie, but that might have involved those pie crust pieces from above, which would have been a downgrade. Bringing me to the graham cracker swirl. At first I thought this aspect was a major disappointment. It was just a little grainy mix in with the ice cream, so there was a difference in texture but the taste wasn't a factor. I would hit a small chunk now and then. But I dug down a little deeper into the pint and THERE it was. A BIG swirl, and like a good swirl, it was thicker in some parts and thinner in others. When you hit those big chunks, it was delicious.
Ginger Snap! - Here we go. "Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream with Gingersnap Cookies and a Ginger Caramel Swirl." Wow. I was stoked. First of all, pumpkin aside, what's better than cinnamon? If I want a flavored ice cream, cinnamon is a go to. Whenever I go to Maggie Moo's, my favorite thing to get is a mix of Cinnamoo and Sweet Cream. I'm not even sure why I get the Sweet Cream, the Cinnamoo is so good. So, this was a great base to start with. (And by the way, I recently got some Oatmeal Cookie Chunk from a Scoop Shop, also a cinnamon ice cream base, and also a homerun. The cookie chunks weren't very good, but the ice cream was pretty much worth it.) The cookie pieces were pretty much enormous. I'm not really sure if a regular ginger snap is supposed to be crunchy or chewy, so I want to say this is somewhere between a moist ginger snap and dough. They're kind of like thick streaks rather than little chunks like your average chocolate chip cookie dough. I loved them. The caramel swirl was creamy, which was good. How often do you buy something with fudge or peanut butter swirl and the swirl is frozen and cracking. Bad! It should be like plasma. Anyway, the swirl, there was not an overbearing load of it, but that was okay, because really I think it's unnecessary. What does caramel really have to do with ginger snaps anyway? I was definitely impressed with this one. If I were going to take one of these three and stock my freezer with a lifetime's supply, it would be this one.
American Apple Pie - Described as "Apple Pie Ice Cream with Apples, Pie Crust Pieces, & a Cinnamon Streusel Swirl" and I think my major issue with this flavor is right there. Apple Pie flavored ice cream, and then inserting all the ingredients of apple pie. A little redundant? Too much going on. The ice cream flavor didn't exactly scream Apple Pie, just kind of went unnoticed. I think it might have been better if they approached it as Apple Pie a la mode with vanilla ice cream and all those ingredients. The best part of it is the apples. They are for real. Little moist cinnamony pieces of baked-like apples, and there's lots of them. They're definitely the big part of the scoop. The pie crust pieces were hard to find, and I think it's because pie crust is light and flaky, easily lost in the ice cream. I actually wasn't convinced they were in there, so I took a scoop out and melted it in the microwave to see if I could spot them. They're there, but they're soft.
Pumpkin Cheesecake - "Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream with a thick graham cracker swirl." There are several ways to make me buy something, primary among them being to feature pumpkin. Maybe my favorite flavor of stuff. So I was excited for this. This was kind of a weird meld of pumpkin and cheesecake. I think I've had pumpkin cheesecake once in my life, and it's hard to believe this flavor was very far from spot on. But it was a little strange, it messed with my head a little. I could never really taste pumpkin and cheesecake at once, it would go back and forth whichever one I thought I was trying to taste at the time. Kind of like in Hook where they believe in a food fight and there's a feast. Bangarang. Whatever you were looking to taste, you could taste. But it was definitely pumpkin cheesecake, maybe more on the cheesecake side. I guess I kind of wanted pumpkin pie, but that might have involved those pie crust pieces from above, which would have been a downgrade. Bringing me to the graham cracker swirl. At first I thought this aspect was a major disappointment. It was just a little grainy mix in with the ice cream, so there was a difference in texture but the taste wasn't a factor. I would hit a small chunk now and then. But I dug down a little deeper into the pint and THERE it was. A BIG swirl, and like a good swirl, it was thicker in some parts and thinner in others. When you hit those big chunks, it was delicious.
Ginger Snap! - Here we go. "Brown Sugar Cinnamon Ice Cream with Gingersnap Cookies and a Ginger Caramel Swirl." Wow. I was stoked. First of all, pumpkin aside, what's better than cinnamon? If I want a flavored ice cream, cinnamon is a go to. Whenever I go to Maggie Moo's, my favorite thing to get is a mix of Cinnamoo and Sweet Cream. I'm not even sure why I get the Sweet Cream, the Cinnamoo is so good. So, this was a great base to start with. (And by the way, I recently got some Oatmeal Cookie Chunk from a Scoop Shop, also a cinnamon ice cream base, and also a homerun. The cookie chunks weren't very good, but the ice cream was pretty much worth it.) The cookie pieces were pretty much enormous. I'm not really sure if a regular ginger snap is supposed to be crunchy or chewy, so I want to say this is somewhere between a moist ginger snap and dough. They're kind of like thick streaks rather than little chunks like your average chocolate chip cookie dough. I loved them. The caramel swirl was creamy, which was good. How often do you buy something with fudge or peanut butter swirl and the swirl is frozen and cracking. Bad! It should be like plasma. Anyway, the swirl, there was not an overbearing load of it, but that was okay, because really I think it's unnecessary. What does caramel really have to do with ginger snaps anyway? I was definitely impressed with this one. If I were going to take one of these three and stock my freezer with a lifetime's supply, it would be this one.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
These damn stores! There's just no logic.
This is just a stupid rant. I never did get a review of Embryonic written up did I? Too much pondering candy. Way too much.
I had to pick up a couple things at Wal-Mart today. I have to admit I always feel a little guilty shopping at Wal-Mart, having the same problems with it that everybody else has. They just have no problem rolling in and erecting a giant eyesore wherever they can. From Stafford to Spotsylvania, there is now basically one Wal-Mart per I-95 exit. It's kind of disgusting. But, they carry some stuff that other stores don't have. For instance, the three ltd. edition Ben & Jerry's I wanted to try. Which are now in my freezer. Hopefully I can avoid eating all 3 pints tonight. Hopefully I can keep myself to just a taste of each. Enough to review, that's what I'm going for. I really need to start a separate blog (Yes, separate blog. Why separate blog WHY separate blog!) that focuses only on limited edition foods, and then have it blow up in popularity so companies will start sending me samples and inviting me to their expos. Anyway, this is not about ice cream or morals. Well, it's definitely not about morals.
It's about candy. Going to the cash register, I stumbled upon one giant display of Snickers Fudge bars, mixed with regular Snickers, and then another giant display of regular m&ms under strawberried m&ms under COCONUT M&Ms! Big bags! For those keeping track (have you kept track?) I have previously seen ONE bag of coconut m&ms larger than a small tucked under a bunch of regular m&ms in a Giant. And now, about four months after they originally came out, they're put out into full view. I can guarantee you that this Wal-Mart, nor any other Wal-Mart, has not been carrying any coconut m&ms before now. Late to the show! Why are they doing this to me?!? You know, hunting candy really is fun, but they could have saved me a lot of trouble having these two displays in place two months ago. But the bigger question is why? Why now? And where are they getting these now? Before I read that they were going to become a permanent addition to the line-up, I actually thought it might be worth my time to buy a couple small bags and hold on to them because, when it looked like they had been released and promptly eaten into oblivion, they were bags going on eBay for ludicrous prices. Look now, there's a big bag going for $15. And now you can buy them for $3 at Wal-Mart. Totally out of season! Coconut really is a summer flavor right? I'm sure people will eat them anytime, Almond Joy is obviously not hurting for fans. But how can these flavors get a fair chance if they're released, or promoted, at the wrong time. Absurd! It'd be like waiting until April to show me this fall's pumpkin ice cream. Okay, bad example, because I will jump on pumpkin anything at any time. Maybe it's like promoting chocolate pumpkins at Christmas. No it's not really that extreme. It's so ludicrous I can't come up with a good comparison! Am I really that upset? No. I just wasted a lot of time and a lot of gas for those things to be showing up en masse now. But AH, now I'm thinking about it a different way. Probably a good thing for ltd. edition reviewers isn't it? You find it in August and most other people aren't seeing it until October. A candy could live or die by that. The power! It's surging through my tongue.
One quick review that's kind of limited edition. Maybe not, this could be a regular player. Or it could go the way of the Bigfoot or the Big New Yorker. I tried the Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut tonight. I pretty much expected it to be half a foot deep and stuffed with cheese in every crevice. When I opened the box I was disappointed. It barely looked like pan pizza to me, and it definitely did not look stuffed. I pretty much thought I had gotten a regular hand-tossed crust pizza. I could kind of discern an extra ring of cheese on the inside of the crust, but I was so surprised by how much smaller it was than I expected that I drove it back to the Pizza Hut to make sure I had gotten what I had ordered. I was assured that was it. When I actually lifted a slice onto the plate, I did notice the extra heft. I was convinced now, it was larger than hand-tossed. When you eat the slice down to the crust, that's when you reach the stuffing. It's almost like having a ring of cheese between the crust handle and the rest of the slice from bottom to top rather than actually being stuffed inside the crust. So, that was my mistake, I was expecting something it wasn't. It's kind of neat, kind of tasty, but it didn't blow me away. Wouldn't get it twice. I'd much rather have the regular stuffed crust. I haven't had one of those in a really long time, but I think the ring of cheese in those is much thicker and a real feature. This cheese ring just kind of blends in. It's there, and you notice it, but it doesn't excite you as anything extra.
So I ate that. And I have a bunch of ice cream to try. And there's a big UFC pay per view tonight that I am completely stoked for and gave me a good excuse to pig out. So I'll sit and shove ice cream and pizza in my mouth while these guys in crazy condition pound it out for dominance. And I will feel like a zero. Until I write reviews for those ice creams, which will somehow make me feel special. Coming soon.
I had to pick up a couple things at Wal-Mart today. I have to admit I always feel a little guilty shopping at Wal-Mart, having the same problems with it that everybody else has. They just have no problem rolling in and erecting a giant eyesore wherever they can. From Stafford to Spotsylvania, there is now basically one Wal-Mart per I-95 exit. It's kind of disgusting. But, they carry some stuff that other stores don't have. For instance, the three ltd. edition Ben & Jerry's I wanted to try. Which are now in my freezer. Hopefully I can avoid eating all 3 pints tonight. Hopefully I can keep myself to just a taste of each. Enough to review, that's what I'm going for. I really need to start a separate blog (Yes, separate blog. Why separate blog WHY separate blog!) that focuses only on limited edition foods, and then have it blow up in popularity so companies will start sending me samples and inviting me to their expos. Anyway, this is not about ice cream or morals. Well, it's definitely not about morals.
It's about candy. Going to the cash register, I stumbled upon one giant display of Snickers Fudge bars, mixed with regular Snickers, and then another giant display of regular m&ms under strawberried m&ms under COCONUT M&Ms! Big bags! For those keeping track (have you kept track?) I have previously seen ONE bag of coconut m&ms larger than a small tucked under a bunch of regular m&ms in a Giant. And now, about four months after they originally came out, they're put out into full view. I can guarantee you that this Wal-Mart, nor any other Wal-Mart, has not been carrying any coconut m&ms before now. Late to the show! Why are they doing this to me?!? You know, hunting candy really is fun, but they could have saved me a lot of trouble having these two displays in place two months ago. But the bigger question is why? Why now? And where are they getting these now? Before I read that they were going to become a permanent addition to the line-up, I actually thought it might be worth my time to buy a couple small bags and hold on to them because, when it looked like they had been released and promptly eaten into oblivion, they were bags going on eBay for ludicrous prices. Look now, there's a big bag going for $15. And now you can buy them for $3 at Wal-Mart. Totally out of season! Coconut really is a summer flavor right? I'm sure people will eat them anytime, Almond Joy is obviously not hurting for fans. But how can these flavors get a fair chance if they're released, or promoted, at the wrong time. Absurd! It'd be like waiting until April to show me this fall's pumpkin ice cream. Okay, bad example, because I will jump on pumpkin anything at any time. Maybe it's like promoting chocolate pumpkins at Christmas. No it's not really that extreme. It's so ludicrous I can't come up with a good comparison! Am I really that upset? No. I just wasted a lot of time and a lot of gas for those things to be showing up en masse now. But AH, now I'm thinking about it a different way. Probably a good thing for ltd. edition reviewers isn't it? You find it in August and most other people aren't seeing it until October. A candy could live or die by that. The power! It's surging through my tongue.
One quick review that's kind of limited edition. Maybe not, this could be a regular player. Or it could go the way of the Bigfoot or the Big New Yorker. I tried the Stuffed Crust Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut tonight. I pretty much expected it to be half a foot deep and stuffed with cheese in every crevice. When I opened the box I was disappointed. It barely looked like pan pizza to me, and it definitely did not look stuffed. I pretty much thought I had gotten a regular hand-tossed crust pizza. I could kind of discern an extra ring of cheese on the inside of the crust, but I was so surprised by how much smaller it was than I expected that I drove it back to the Pizza Hut to make sure I had gotten what I had ordered. I was assured that was it. When I actually lifted a slice onto the plate, I did notice the extra heft. I was convinced now, it was larger than hand-tossed. When you eat the slice down to the crust, that's when you reach the stuffing. It's almost like having a ring of cheese between the crust handle and the rest of the slice from bottom to top rather than actually being stuffed inside the crust. So, that was my mistake, I was expecting something it wasn't. It's kind of neat, kind of tasty, but it didn't blow me away. Wouldn't get it twice. I'd much rather have the regular stuffed crust. I haven't had one of those in a really long time, but I think the ring of cheese in those is much thicker and a real feature. This cheese ring just kind of blends in. It's there, and you notice it, but it doesn't excite you as anything extra.
So I ate that. And I have a bunch of ice cream to try. And there's a big UFC pay per view tonight that I am completely stoked for and gave me a good excuse to pig out. So I'll sit and shove ice cream and pizza in my mouth while these guys in crazy condition pound it out for dominance. And I will feel like a zero. Until I write reviews for those ice creams, which will somehow make me feel special. Coming soon.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
But before Embryonic...more about candy
When I wrote that a few days ago about guessing the coconut m&ms would become a permanent addition before the strawberried, I hadn't seen this even though it was put up a while ago. I'm so ashamed. So, my guess about what happened is that they did in fact fly off the shelves. I know I didn't see them for long. And then they said, "Well, if they want 'em..." Still, I'd rather see it done with the strawberrieds. I am excited to try the wild cherry flavor. Never did get to try that one. And also, I'd like to see a return of the mint crisp and the white chocolate, never got to try those. And I think I read about one with a cookie center. M&Ms are awesome. (I started writing this entry two days ago and had not yet posted it because I had thought of one more incredible thing I wanted to say about M&Ms but then I forgot. I had hoped it would come back to me but it hasn't. So I'm giving up on that.) One other thing M&M related: I haven't felt in a long time the kind of gratification I felt last Sunday when my buddies dug into some strawberried peanut butter m&ms and had nothing but good things to say about them.
Onto the Peanut Butter Lovers Peanut Butter Cup. There's really not much to say. Reeses Peanut Butter is one of the greatest tasting things on the planet. (I think I might say that Reeses Cups vs. m&ms would be a titanic war that could never conclude.) But it's best when paired with chocolate. In my opinion, it's missed here. There is a little layer of chocolate along the bottom, but you can barely notice it. Not that I couldn't suck down a million of them, but the entire time I would wish I could have them with chocolate. And then I would wonder why I didn't just get the ones with chocolate as they're more readily available and probably cheaper. One other note about these: definitely enjoy these frozen or at the very least refrigerated. I had one at room temperature and the entire chocolate bottom came off when I removed the paper cup. So it was all peanut butter. Frozen is quickly becoming my favorite way to have candy.
Onto the Peanut Butter Lovers Peanut Butter Cup. There's really not much to say. Reeses Peanut Butter is one of the greatest tasting things on the planet. (I think I might say that Reeses Cups vs. m&ms would be a titanic war that could never conclude.) But it's best when paired with chocolate. In my opinion, it's missed here. There is a little layer of chocolate along the bottom, but you can barely notice it. Not that I couldn't suck down a million of them, but the entire time I would wish I could have them with chocolate. And then I would wonder why I didn't just get the ones with chocolate as they're more readily available and probably cheaper. One other note about these: definitely enjoy these frozen or at the very least refrigerated. I had one at room temperature and the entire chocolate bottom came off when I removed the paper cup. So it was all peanut butter. Frozen is quickly becoming my favorite way to have candy.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Embryonic
I'm sure I'll be posting on this way more in the next few days, but I just have a quick question right now. Wasn't this supposed to be a double album? I'm not complaining. Really. I got to Best Buy this morning and it was 8 bucks. Can't beat that for what is definitely looking like a long album. I'm just curious if I've gotten some shortened version of the album. I haven't made any attempt to keep up with Lips news in the past couple years, but I was pretty sure I read in multiple places that this was supposed to be a double album. I noticed on the back cover there's a little split between the name of the number 9 track and the number 10. Did they just decide that that's the cutoff between album 1 and album 2? Does the double album refer to a vinyl version only? Minor quibbles. Despite the need to complain, I am actually pretty excited to listen to it. Crossing my fingers for at least some redemption.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Notes from the last week...because I have a moment's peace at work...and for no other reason
1. Candy continues - I thought limited edition candy season was over, but apparently not. I was at Walgreens the other day looking for things that could serve as ice cream toppings when I stumbled onto a 3 for $2 bin that contained the already-reviewed Snickers Fudge and a limited edition Reese's Peanut Butter Lovers Peanut Butter Cup, which looks to be chocolate on the bottom of the outer shell and then the rest is peanut butter. So I bought two of those and a Snickers Fudge. Why not? It's only around for a while, I'll give it another chance. The peanut butter cups will be fun, I put on in the fridge and one in the freezer, so we'll see how that goes. This brings up a couple points. The peanut butter cup is a rerun, they've put these out in limited edition before. That gives me hope for the future, that even if the strawberried peanut butter m&ms do go away soon, they could always come back. It's kind of weird though that the Snickers Fudge bar is just now showing up at Walgreens, and I went to the 7-11 the other day where I originally found it and they don't have them anymore. And why is it that I can still find packs of strawberried m&ms here and there but the coconut m&ms are nowhere to be found? The coconut came out AFTER the strawberried, and as far as I can tell it got a much better reception. (Not from me, but from most reviews I read.) I know of one gas station around that still has a few little bags left, but that's it. The strawberried bags are now showing up at Big Lots for close-out, but I've never seen the coconut there. I only ever saw one medium size bag of the coconut. Coconut was way less of a drastic change than the strawberried was, I would have expected it to be a lot more successful. If either of them was to become a regularly produced flavor, I would expect coconut, though I'd vote for strawberried. So why were they around such a short time and so hard to find? Is it a regional thing? An individual choice for stores as to whether or not they'll carry them? Or was coconut such a success that the entire limited run was bought in a fury and they're still having trouble unloading the strawberried? (Like the Snickers Nougabot bars. I still see those everywhere. Nobody wants them, and rightfully so.) I have no idea.
By the way, sometimes looking at the candy aisles of Big Lots is a lot of fun. The cheap, ratty candy isn't so much fun, but then there's also the things that just failed to sell. A lot of different kinds of Hershey Kisses, Hershey bars with various things shoved in them that nobody asked for. You can find some out-there stuff.
Anyway, I'll try to get myself motivated to do some kind of post to review the peanut butter cups. It could go either way. Could just be overkill on the peanut butter and lose something without the mixing of chocolate. Then again, one of my favorite things in the world is seasonal king-size Reeses (for instance the pumpkins, eggs) because it's a little bit different texture and they just cram peanut butter in those. So maybe it's a good thing. We'll see. Pins and needles.
2. Music - I've taken a little break from my jazz buying. I started eighth grade dancing like crazy and it made me curious about the last few Pearl Jam albums that I had so far avoided. Surprised how much I liked them, especially Pearl Jam and Binaural. Thought the latest one was good, though front-loaded, but I'm going to give it another shot. Riot Act, I wasn't that crazy about.
And the new Built To Spill came out, so I checked that out and was surprised how much I liked that. Made me wonder what I disliked so much about some of their previous albums. I loved Perfect From Now On, but all of their other records had so far failed to stir up anything in me. So I went back to listen to those too. I'm not sure exactly what my problem with them was before, but most of these albums are very good. Keep It Like A Secret is very good, You In Reverse is very good. But There's Nothing Wrong With Love is dreadful except for a couple short spots. Maybe I always started with that one before and that's why I told all their albums to shove it. So, anyway, better band than I thought.
3. TV - I finished Lost last week. It was incredible. I have to say I think people who thought any of those seasons were lacking are crazy. Maybe I can understand them thinking some of the episodes were not worth the agonizing week between airings, and I had the benefit of watching as many as I wanted when I wanted, but still, that show has been consistently intriguing start to finish. And so then Adam sent me a bunch of links to reactions, recaps, postulations, and explanations. I haven't even put a dent in it, but I followed a little line yesterday that took me in a circle where I learned some stuff but mostly learned I had a lot to learn. And fall TV season is pretty much roaring. Except for Fridays and Saturdays every night has something I'm hooked on. I was doing really well studying for the GREs too. I have about 300 flash cards sitting on my coffee table. I haven't looked at them or the book in about a month. TV.
4. MMA - Attended my first ever MMA event last weekend. I won tickets from a Fairfax radio station. Pretty good seats too. Not on the floor, but that was probably better because I was at a vantage point where I could see when it went to the ground. I really enjoyed it. The promotion, UWC, is not huge, I guess it's regional to the Mid-Atlantic, or claims to be even though all of its shows are at the Patriot Center. But they still manage to book fights that have real ramifications for the fighters' divisions. And this card pretty much had everything. Knockouts, two championship fights that went to decision, one of which was an incredible brawl and the other of which caused a major controversy, a female fight, lots of local fighters, one fight that ended with a knockout 35 seconds into the fight, and one right before that was stopped at literally the last second of the first round. Of course, as with most things I attend, the audience could have easily ruined it for me. You had the guys that were just sitting there talking to each other through the whole match, which is distracting because I just sat there thinking, "Did you really come here to talk? Do you know there's people fighting in front of you? Maybe you want to watch?" Then there was the majority of people who shouted directions to the fighters no matter where they were in the stands. Newsflash shitheads! They can't hear you, and if they could, they don't need to hear, "Hit him! HIT! HIM! Elbows! ELBOWS!" I swear one guy only attended the event so he could yell "ELBOWS!" all night no matter what the situation was. And then worst of all is the booing of fighters. I can't believe people boo fighters. The Flyweight championship fight was amazing, a TON of action. But there were times when things slowed down, which is NORMAL, when the fighters are looking for an opportunity, especially when it goes to the ground. Well, apparently this crowd was spoiled by the two guys coming out and immediately getting to work, because if things slowed down for three seconds they immediately started booing. It's not like these guys aren't doing anything. They're in combat! Two inevitabilities: they are trying to fight smart, and they are going to get tired. Ideally, any fighter wants to find a way to take the other one out with minimal damage to himself. And this was a 25 minute fight! Things are going to slow down! As far as I'm concerned, people should be forbidden to boo. If they boo, I should get to put a bullet between their lips. Just let me in the shows for free. I'll provide my own bullets, I'll do the dirty work.
5. Other sports - The Redskins. Jesus christ....
By the way, sometimes looking at the candy aisles of Big Lots is a lot of fun. The cheap, ratty candy isn't so much fun, but then there's also the things that just failed to sell. A lot of different kinds of Hershey Kisses, Hershey bars with various things shoved in them that nobody asked for. You can find some out-there stuff.
Anyway, I'll try to get myself motivated to do some kind of post to review the peanut butter cups. It could go either way. Could just be overkill on the peanut butter and lose something without the mixing of chocolate. Then again, one of my favorite things in the world is seasonal king-size Reeses (for instance the pumpkins, eggs) because it's a little bit different texture and they just cram peanut butter in those. So maybe it's a good thing. We'll see. Pins and needles.
2. Music - I've taken a little break from my jazz buying. I started eighth grade dancing like crazy and it made me curious about the last few Pearl Jam albums that I had so far avoided. Surprised how much I liked them, especially Pearl Jam and Binaural. Thought the latest one was good, though front-loaded, but I'm going to give it another shot. Riot Act, I wasn't that crazy about.
And the new Built To Spill came out, so I checked that out and was surprised how much I liked that. Made me wonder what I disliked so much about some of their previous albums. I loved Perfect From Now On, but all of their other records had so far failed to stir up anything in me. So I went back to listen to those too. I'm not sure exactly what my problem with them was before, but most of these albums are very good. Keep It Like A Secret is very good, You In Reverse is very good. But There's Nothing Wrong With Love is dreadful except for a couple short spots. Maybe I always started with that one before and that's why I told all their albums to shove it. So, anyway, better band than I thought.
3. TV - I finished Lost last week. It was incredible. I have to say I think people who thought any of those seasons were lacking are crazy. Maybe I can understand them thinking some of the episodes were not worth the agonizing week between airings, and I had the benefit of watching as many as I wanted when I wanted, but still, that show has been consistently intriguing start to finish. And so then Adam sent me a bunch of links to reactions, recaps, postulations, and explanations. I haven't even put a dent in it, but I followed a little line yesterday that took me in a circle where I learned some stuff but mostly learned I had a lot to learn. And fall TV season is pretty much roaring. Except for Fridays and Saturdays every night has something I'm hooked on. I was doing really well studying for the GREs too. I have about 300 flash cards sitting on my coffee table. I haven't looked at them or the book in about a month. TV.
4. MMA - Attended my first ever MMA event last weekend. I won tickets from a Fairfax radio station. Pretty good seats too. Not on the floor, but that was probably better because I was at a vantage point where I could see when it went to the ground. I really enjoyed it. The promotion, UWC, is not huge, I guess it's regional to the Mid-Atlantic, or claims to be even though all of its shows are at the Patriot Center. But they still manage to book fights that have real ramifications for the fighters' divisions. And this card pretty much had everything. Knockouts, two championship fights that went to decision, one of which was an incredible brawl and the other of which caused a major controversy, a female fight, lots of local fighters, one fight that ended with a knockout 35 seconds into the fight, and one right before that was stopped at literally the last second of the first round. Of course, as with most things I attend, the audience could have easily ruined it for me. You had the guys that were just sitting there talking to each other through the whole match, which is distracting because I just sat there thinking, "Did you really come here to talk? Do you know there's people fighting in front of you? Maybe you want to watch?" Then there was the majority of people who shouted directions to the fighters no matter where they were in the stands. Newsflash shitheads! They can't hear you, and if they could, they don't need to hear, "Hit him! HIT! HIM! Elbows! ELBOWS!" I swear one guy only attended the event so he could yell "ELBOWS!" all night no matter what the situation was. And then worst of all is the booing of fighters. I can't believe people boo fighters. The Flyweight championship fight was amazing, a TON of action. But there were times when things slowed down, which is NORMAL, when the fighters are looking for an opportunity, especially when it goes to the ground. Well, apparently this crowd was spoiled by the two guys coming out and immediately getting to work, because if things slowed down for three seconds they immediately started booing. It's not like these guys aren't doing anything. They're in combat! Two inevitabilities: they are trying to fight smart, and they are going to get tired. Ideally, any fighter wants to find a way to take the other one out with minimal damage to himself. And this was a 25 minute fight! Things are going to slow down! As far as I'm concerned, people should be forbidden to boo. If they boo, I should get to put a bullet between their lips. Just let me in the shows for free. I'll provide my own bullets, I'll do the dirty work.
5. Other sports - The Redskins. Jesus christ....
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Snickers Fudge Bar
This was supposed to be way more momentous than it was. I had huge hopes for it, but it's been one of those situations where now that I've had it I can't exactly remember what I was originally expecting. Here's how I looked at it. (1) Snickers is one of my favorite candy bars. Maybe the top. (2) I like fudge. (3) Mars was having an active summer with limited edition candy. It was active, but it was hit-and-miss. I thought the Coconut M&Ms were okay. The first bag I had was fantastic, but by the time I got halfway through the second bag I was less intrigued. The Snickers Nougabot bar was a waste. It was just a regular Snickers, but the nougat was yellow. And it was a little bit smaller. However, in my opinion, the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms were on another level. Maybe one of my favorite candies ever, and if it stays limited edition, that would be a tragedy. (I saw at Wal-Mart that they had bags of them that were not Transformers related, which gives me hope they won't be as ephemeral as a movie tie-in, but they still say "Limited Edition" on them) Unfortunately I think it will go the way of Butterfinger BBs and Batman cereal into trash-that-left-us-too-soon manna. It took me about 3 small bags and 2 medium bags of those before I had to stop eating them due to pure exhaustion. But, it was like I told Adam before, they pretty much made me want to go back to Goodwill, buy back all my old clothes, and pound bags of those until I filled them. With flesh. Seriously. They're good. I want to put them in a bowl and pour milk on them for breakfast. I want to put them on bread and slather them with more peanut butter for lunch. I want to bake them with potatoes and cheese in a dinner casserole. (I started out joking there, but except for that casserole, those sound pretty f-ing delicious. Maybe add to the breakfast PANCAKES with strawberried peanut butter M&Ms baked into them. And then instead of dinner just have dessert of cookies with those baked in on top of ice cream with those mixed in. I could open a Strawberried restaurant.) Anyway...back to Snickers Fudge.
I found out about the Snickers Fudge bar something like two months ago when I was looking up bloggers' reactions to the Strawberried M&Ms and read about people having them at Candy Expo. It sounded like a monster. Fudge instead of caramel and peanut butter nougat. I was on the hunt. I swear I stopped at every grocery store, gas station, drug store, convenience store, and super center in the 20 mile range between North Stafford and Spotsylvania in July and August, and some in Williamsport, PA and Lewiston, NY, and that was just scouting. I was making note of which places stocked limited edition stuff, and that actually ended up being only about 5 places. Then I checked those places at least once every week. Didn't know if I was every going to find the bastard. It was supposed to come out in August, but I never saw it. I found it they were selling display boxes of 30 or 40 bars at Sam's Club, so I actually wrote Sam's Club asking for a trial membership just in case it came to that. But it didn't, I finally found them at a 7-11 on 17. So I bought a couple of them, and a regular Snickers for comparison.
A couple of things I found out. (1) Snickers are not good out of the fridge. I usually like to chill my candy. It works wonders with peanut butter cups, M&Ms, 3 Musketeers, regular chocolate bars, and Peppermint Patties for starters. But the Snickers, regular or otherwise, just doesn't like it. The peanut are and whatevers around it becomes so stiff that it's almost impossible to chew. And if you press on with it, it's not enjoyable. So, better at room temperature. (2) I was really excited about "peanut butter nougat" but when I bit into it, it tasted the same to me. So then I cut it into two halves, the fudge upper and the nougat bottom, and even isolated it tasted the same. Then I looked it up, and apparently the Snickers nougat is already considered peanut butter nougat, even though I think they just call it nougat on the wrapper. So that was nothing new, nothing different. Some people have said they can taste the peanut butter difference. I think they're full of it. (3) The top ended up just tasting like more chocolate most of the time. There were certain bites where I could distinguish the fudge as being thicker and a little creamier than the milk chocolate on top of it, but overall it was just like more chocolate. Which isn't horrible, but it wasn't life-changing. (4) The top layer of chocolate was thicker, but it was also kind of airy with the peanuts in there. Lighter than it should have been. If it was more like creamy chocolate packed into a brick, I think I would have liked it more. I'm not the biggest caramel fan in the world, but it's way more integral to the Snickers than I thought. You need something a little drippy in there.
So, again, I'm having a hard time remembering what specifically I was expecting originally from this thing, but whatever it was, I didn't get it. I had built it up pretty high though and put a lot of work into finding it, so maybe there was no chance. So that's unfortunate. More unfortunate is that my pre-occupation with limited edition foods, or food that seems like it will have a short lifetime, is becoming too much of an obsession. I get the feeling I have to try all these things and I have to try them NOW because soon they'll be gone. Basically, to the guys that sell this stuff, I'm pretty much their wet dream right now. They could pretty much sell me anything as long as it's related to something tasty and they tell me it will be gone before I know it. I'm a buffoon.
I found out about the Snickers Fudge bar something like two months ago when I was looking up bloggers' reactions to the Strawberried M&Ms and read about people having them at Candy Expo. It sounded like a monster. Fudge instead of caramel and peanut butter nougat. I was on the hunt. I swear I stopped at every grocery store, gas station, drug store, convenience store, and super center in the 20 mile range between North Stafford and Spotsylvania in July and August, and some in Williamsport, PA and Lewiston, NY, and that was just scouting. I was making note of which places stocked limited edition stuff, and that actually ended up being only about 5 places. Then I checked those places at least once every week. Didn't know if I was every going to find the bastard. It was supposed to come out in August, but I never saw it. I found it they were selling display boxes of 30 or 40 bars at Sam's Club, so I actually wrote Sam's Club asking for a trial membership just in case it came to that. But it didn't, I finally found them at a 7-11 on 17. So I bought a couple of them, and a regular Snickers for comparison.
A couple of things I found out. (1) Snickers are not good out of the fridge. I usually like to chill my candy. It works wonders with peanut butter cups, M&Ms, 3 Musketeers, regular chocolate bars, and Peppermint Patties for starters. But the Snickers, regular or otherwise, just doesn't like it. The peanut are and whatevers around it becomes so stiff that it's almost impossible to chew. And if you press on with it, it's not enjoyable. So, better at room temperature. (2) I was really excited about "peanut butter nougat" but when I bit into it, it tasted the same to me. So then I cut it into two halves, the fudge upper and the nougat bottom, and even isolated it tasted the same. Then I looked it up, and apparently the Snickers nougat is already considered peanut butter nougat, even though I think they just call it nougat on the wrapper. So that was nothing new, nothing different. Some people have said they can taste the peanut butter difference. I think they're full of it. (3) The top ended up just tasting like more chocolate most of the time. There were certain bites where I could distinguish the fudge as being thicker and a little creamier than the milk chocolate on top of it, but overall it was just like more chocolate. Which isn't horrible, but it wasn't life-changing. (4) The top layer of chocolate was thicker, but it was also kind of airy with the peanuts in there. Lighter than it should have been. If it was more like creamy chocolate packed into a brick, I think I would have liked it more. I'm not the biggest caramel fan in the world, but it's way more integral to the Snickers than I thought. You need something a little drippy in there.
So, again, I'm having a hard time remembering what specifically I was expecting originally from this thing, but whatever it was, I didn't get it. I had built it up pretty high though and put a lot of work into finding it, so maybe there was no chance. So that's unfortunate. More unfortunate is that my pre-occupation with limited edition foods, or food that seems like it will have a short lifetime, is becoming too much of an obsession. I get the feeling I have to try all these things and I have to try them NOW because soon they'll be gone. Basically, to the guys that sell this stuff, I'm pretty much their wet dream right now. They could pretty much sell me anything as long as it's related to something tasty and they tell me it will be gone before I know it. I'm a buffoon.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
From the "I Must Be Crazy" Files
1. I'm thinking about applying for another IT job, this one with the local hospitals instead of the school system. From what I hear it would be pretty similar to my current job, but should pay more, and the benefits are probably a little better. Though the paid leave situation would not be as good. But it's kind of stupid, because I've been lately thinking that what I really need to do is get my ass down to Chapel Hill and get back into grad school for library sciences, and getting a new job would kind of derail that. So, short term good, long term not so good. The other thing that might derail that is GRE's. Holy crap. The other day I looked at some sample algebra questions and I felt like a dunce. I knew it was very basic algebra, but I couldn't work my way around it to save my life. Amazing how much I've forgotten.
2. Just a little bit before I started watching Lost, my dad let me borrow season one of 24 so I could check it out. I put that disc 1 in several times but just never hit play. And then I got hooked on Lost and didn't even think about it for a while. Well, last Saturday I was craving something to watch but didn't feel like spending a lot of time with a movie, so I threw that on. Holy crap. I'm all in on this show now too. Pretty much from the moment I saw Doc Scurlock cut off a dead man's finger so he could ID him later, I was fully invested. So now I have yet another TV show I have to catch up on. AND I still have to finish Lost. Downloaded season five last weekend. And Spike is playing a lot of MMA. And I've fallen back in love with Roseanne now that TV Land is pushing it hard. AND last weekend I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Raging Bull, and When We Were Kings, so now I'm feeling an affinity for westerns and boxing movies. There's just not enough hours in the day. To watch all this TV.
2. Just a little bit before I started watching Lost, my dad let me borrow season one of 24 so I could check it out. I put that disc 1 in several times but just never hit play. And then I got hooked on Lost and didn't even think about it for a while. Well, last Saturday I was craving something to watch but didn't feel like spending a lot of time with a movie, so I threw that on. Holy crap. I'm all in on this show now too. Pretty much from the moment I saw Doc Scurlock cut off a dead man's finger so he could ID him later, I was fully invested. So now I have yet another TV show I have to catch up on. AND I still have to finish Lost. Downloaded season five last weekend. And Spike is playing a lot of MMA. And I've fallen back in love with Roseanne now that TV Land is pushing it hard. AND last weekend I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Raging Bull, and When We Were Kings, so now I'm feeling an affinity for westerns and boxing movies. There's just not enough hours in the day. To watch all this TV.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
FINALLY!
Interesting way to end my first day of vacation. Just found out that this has finally been released. About time! I've been asking for this for years. In fact I'm kind of upset I'm only finding out about this a week after it's been relased. Now if I can just see the complete series of Danger Theater released, then I can die.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Big Reveal
Last week I heard a few of the Flaming Lips songs that will be on their new album and, surprisingly enough, I am not repulsed. Definitely do not have any of the sick feelings I had when I first heard The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song and wanted to kabob all of my other Lips albums because of it. I mean, the new songs are not really great, they don't rank with the best the Lips have ever done, but definitely do not make me feel any need to make vows and curses against the band. So far. Here's what I think:
"Convinced Of The Hex": Pretty monotonous, especially the vocal. Kind of boring in the verses, but the, what I guess you would call, chorus, I can kind of get into. But I can actually get into the instrumentation of it quite a bit more.
"The Impulse": Least favorite of the three by miles. Pretty crappy actually in my opinion. Boring, BORING music and a robot-voiced vocal. Someone tell Wayne that nobody wants to hear robot voices and he is not Dennis DeYoung. A shame because it actually sounds like the melody/lyric might be something to listen to if he didn't ruin it with the effect. Something like this is bound to show up on a double album, I definitely get the feeling that the Lips are not making a double album because they're just too full of good ideas. More like they want to clean the closet of half-baked ideas like this.
"Silver Trembling Hands": This is the one that actually gives me hope. Actually almost sounds good enough to be on Zaireeka. Though maybe a Zaireeka unfortunately filtered through the band that made Yoshimi, so a little less than. But still, the vocal is good (though the lyric is meh), the music has some of that great alternating of screaming and floating that was prevalent on Zaireeka and The Soft Bulletin.
So, if this album is more 1 & 3 and not so much 2, I could actually get into it. And I think if this album redeems them a little in my eyes, maybe I'll finally go back and listen to At War With The Mystics. Knowing that they're still capable might make that album a little more palatable.
"Convinced Of The Hex": Pretty monotonous, especially the vocal. Kind of boring in the verses, but the, what I guess you would call, chorus, I can kind of get into. But I can actually get into the instrumentation of it quite a bit more.
"The Impulse": Least favorite of the three by miles. Pretty crappy actually in my opinion. Boring, BORING music and a robot-voiced vocal. Someone tell Wayne that nobody wants to hear robot voices and he is not Dennis DeYoung. A shame because it actually sounds like the melody/lyric might be something to listen to if he didn't ruin it with the effect. Something like this is bound to show up on a double album, I definitely get the feeling that the Lips are not making a double album because they're just too full of good ideas. More like they want to clean the closet of half-baked ideas like this.
"Silver Trembling Hands": This is the one that actually gives me hope. Actually almost sounds good enough to be on Zaireeka. Though maybe a Zaireeka unfortunately filtered through the band that made Yoshimi, so a little less than. But still, the vocal is good (though the lyric is meh), the music has some of that great alternating of screaming and floating that was prevalent on Zaireeka and The Soft Bulletin.
So, if this album is more 1 & 3 and not so much 2, I could actually get into it. And I think if this album redeems them a little in my eyes, maybe I'll finally go back and listen to At War With The Mystics. Knowing that they're still capable might make that album a little more palatable.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Done
Finished season 4 of Lost yesterday. Now it's time to take a break. That season was short enough and just in time too, because I was getting a wee bit burnt out on the show. Not to say that it ever lost my interest or it ever got less than intriguing. It didn't. But, the same thing happens when I do anything for two hours everyday for a month and a half. I get tired of it. So I'm going to break at the very least until I get back from the beach, maybe even until August. Time to get back into my kung fu movies, watch some episodes of The Monkees, start watching Renegade, and plug away at these stacks of VHS I've still been building up. After that I'll probably either find season 5 through a torrent or stream them, whichever turns out to work better. Doubt I'll wait until December for the DVDs.
Looks like One Tree Hill is moving to Mondays at 8. Which is House's time. After last season, guess which one wins.
Insane about Michael Jackson. In. Sane. Out of nowhere. What a shame.
Last Friday I went to see a Zeppelin tribute band called Zoso. I skipped the Rush tribute band that opened for them. Zoso was alright. Pretty much note-for-note recreations, either of the album version or if it was played in The Song Remains The Same, that version. They tried to pull off the look too. Eh. That velvet dragon costume just doesn't quite work when it doesn't billow away from you because you're all bone. Robert Plant looked a lot more like David Coverdale. John Bonham had a headband, but he couldn't quite hide his redneckness. John Paul Jones was pretty much phoning his look in. He had the pants and he had a puffy shirt, but otherwise he looked more like Jerry Cantrell than John Paul Jones. But like I say, musically it was okay. I only really got swept up in it once. They were really pretty powerful on "The Song Remains The Same," I was actually getting into it then. Unlike the rest of the crowd. Some people were all in on this band, in a way that I can't really criticize because when I was Zep-crazy in high school, I might have acted the same way. But I heard a lot of, "Man, I saw Zeppelin in '77, and this blows them away." And even heard one person say after "Ramble On" that, "I can die happy now," I assume implying that this was a suitable substitute for his one true wish in life which was to see the original Zeppelin play "Ramble On" in concert. The audience could not have been more depressing to be a part of. First of all, as always seems to happen when I go to one of these outdoor low-rent shows, I got stuck standing behind someone who was grinding around too uncomfortably close to me and paying very little attention to where she was swinging her stuff. This time it was what looked like someone's leather-skinned whorish grandmother, swilling beer and slurring speech and trying to look young like she hadn't been out of the house since she last saw Zeppelin at Live-Aid. She sure as hell wouldn't pay any attention to staying in her personal space, but was constantly looking around for approval from other attendees. And the worst part was, she was getting it! And it just got worse. By the end of the night, some dude near me was just absolutely molesting every pre-teen to woman in the vicinity, most of them going along with it, and a lot of the time doing it right in front of the guys these women were there with. But I couldn't feel bad for them, because one way or another those guys had proved themselves douches over the course of the night.
A couple things became more and more apparent to me that night. First, it's amazing, considering how much I used to smoke, what a hard time I have being around cigarettes now. It gives me a sick feeling to my stomach just to smell them around me, and oddly way more than it ever did before I started smoking. Of course, outdoor concert, it was one after another after two after eight being lit up around me at this thing, I just had to hold my breath. Weird. Second thing, I think I have absolutely zero enthusiasm for live music anymore. I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, but I'm just sapped of interest when it comes to live shows. I don't know that I ever really had it in the first place. When I would go to see someone like Dylan or B.B. King before, it was more about being in the same room with people and realizing what kind of history was on that stage. When I would go see more current/up-and-coming bands it was more like I felt like I ought to be there to say I saw it. Definitely a whole lot of feeling like I ought to go, and then once I was there hoping it would be over soon enough. But I've never really gone to shows with a worked up expectation of having my face rocked off like so many people seem to enjoy. And I certainly haven't gone for any sense of community with the crowd, like we're sharing something in liking this band. Hard to do that when you just wish that person 2 or 3 away from you would just shut the hell up and listen. That seems to be the part of the whole music fandom experience that has totally gone over my head. Anyway, what brought that on, I was sitting there last Friday night and just couldn't decide if a musical show was something I really wanted to bother with. Ultimately I decided to go because I was supposed to meet a guy from work there. He didn't show (family time? Come on!) and I doubt I would have gone by myself. Probably wouldn't again. Records, albums, CDs, those do it for me plenty.
Looks like One Tree Hill is moving to Mondays at 8. Which is House's time. After last season, guess which one wins.
Insane about Michael Jackson. In. Sane. Out of nowhere. What a shame.
Last Friday I went to see a Zeppelin tribute band called Zoso. I skipped the Rush tribute band that opened for them. Zoso was alright. Pretty much note-for-note recreations, either of the album version or if it was played in The Song Remains The Same, that version. They tried to pull off the look too. Eh. That velvet dragon costume just doesn't quite work when it doesn't billow away from you because you're all bone. Robert Plant looked a lot more like David Coverdale. John Bonham had a headband, but he couldn't quite hide his redneckness. John Paul Jones was pretty much phoning his look in. He had the pants and he had a puffy shirt, but otherwise he looked more like Jerry Cantrell than John Paul Jones. But like I say, musically it was okay. I only really got swept up in it once. They were really pretty powerful on "The Song Remains The Same," I was actually getting into it then. Unlike the rest of the crowd. Some people were all in on this band, in a way that I can't really criticize because when I was Zep-crazy in high school, I might have acted the same way. But I heard a lot of, "Man, I saw Zeppelin in '77, and this blows them away." And even heard one person say after "Ramble On" that, "I can die happy now," I assume implying that this was a suitable substitute for his one true wish in life which was to see the original Zeppelin play "Ramble On" in concert. The audience could not have been more depressing to be a part of. First of all, as always seems to happen when I go to one of these outdoor low-rent shows, I got stuck standing behind someone who was grinding around too uncomfortably close to me and paying very little attention to where she was swinging her stuff. This time it was what looked like someone's leather-skinned whorish grandmother, swilling beer and slurring speech and trying to look young like she hadn't been out of the house since she last saw Zeppelin at Live-Aid. She sure as hell wouldn't pay any attention to staying in her personal space, but was constantly looking around for approval from other attendees. And the worst part was, she was getting it! And it just got worse. By the end of the night, some dude near me was just absolutely molesting every pre-teen to woman in the vicinity, most of them going along with it, and a lot of the time doing it right in front of the guys these women were there with. But I couldn't feel bad for them, because one way or another those guys had proved themselves douches over the course of the night.
A couple things became more and more apparent to me that night. First, it's amazing, considering how much I used to smoke, what a hard time I have being around cigarettes now. It gives me a sick feeling to my stomach just to smell them around me, and oddly way more than it ever did before I started smoking. Of course, outdoor concert, it was one after another after two after eight being lit up around me at this thing, I just had to hold my breath. Weird. Second thing, I think I have absolutely zero enthusiasm for live music anymore. I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, but I'm just sapped of interest when it comes to live shows. I don't know that I ever really had it in the first place. When I would go to see someone like Dylan or B.B. King before, it was more about being in the same room with people and realizing what kind of history was on that stage. When I would go see more current/up-and-coming bands it was more like I felt like I ought to be there to say I saw it. Definitely a whole lot of feeling like I ought to go, and then once I was there hoping it would be over soon enough. But I've never really gone to shows with a worked up expectation of having my face rocked off like so many people seem to enjoy. And I certainly haven't gone for any sense of community with the crowd, like we're sharing something in liking this band. Hard to do that when you just wish that person 2 or 3 away from you would just shut the hell up and listen. That seems to be the part of the whole music fandom experience that has totally gone over my head. Anyway, what brought that on, I was sitting there last Friday night and just couldn't decide if a musical show was something I really wanted to bother with. Ultimately I decided to go because I was supposed to meet a guy from work there. He didn't show (family time? Come on!) and I doubt I would have gone by myself. Probably wouldn't again. Records, albums, CDs, those do it for me plenty.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Damn those Flaming Lips!
I was in the middle of waking up this morning when I decided I wanted to listen to In A Priest Driven Ambulance on the way to work today. Out of nowhere, I haven’t listened to that album in a really long time. Dammit, it’s so good! What happened to THOSE guys? Then I was thinking, it is really pretty inevitable that they’ve gotten so bad. Wayne has always aped a lot off of classic rock bands, whether it’s Yes or Zeppelin or Floyd. And just because I got into them seven years ago doesn’t make them any less twenty-five years old as a band. So I guess it’s really appropriate that take that downward shift like any other band would that they model themselves after. (To be fair, I guess Zeppelin never went downhill, but Page and Plant sure had their moments post-Zeppelin.) It’s still frustrating though, for some reason I thought they could go on forever like it was 88-98. Spoiled being a fan of Sonic Youth or Bob Dylan I guess, who seem to keep their shit together endlessly. Oh well, anyway, Priest, very good album. Can’t wait to get back in the car with it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
What's dangerous about watching this much Lost in a short period of time
I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks now, so it's not totally relevant, but I finally have a chance. Over Memorial Day weekend, my brother and I were housesitting for my dad in Staunton while he was in Nashville. That Saturday night we ordered UFC 98 (pretty much lackluster aside from the last match, go go Lyoto). So at 1am I was pretty much jacked up, not considering going to sleep, and instead watched a few episodes of Lost. I think that's when I finished up the first season. So I was in a house that was not my own, watching Lost on a TV that was not my own, in a town that was not my own. That weekend me and my brother pretty much sat in my dad's house, watching TV, eating a lot of home-made Chex Mix, and since we were not in Fredericksburg, we didn't really know where to go if we wanted to go out. That's right, feeling stranded. So combine that feeling with having had several dreams of being on The Island and I was feeling way wrapped up in that show. And a by-product of that being I was feeling way withdrawn from society, almost to the point I would go outside and expect nobody to be there. That was a long weekend, which added to it, and when I went back to work that Tuesday, I could not reconnect with normal life at all. I felt completely alien, almost wanted to look over my shoulders with shortness of breath going "Who are these people?!?" Anyway, by now I've gotten over it, even though I haven't backed off the viewing at all. If anything I think I've amped it up. I think there was a week or two between season finale week and when Conan started hosting the Tonight Show that I didn't watch anything aired on television. It was all Lost. Except for also watching the first two of the original series of Star Trek movies. Surprised by how much I liked those too. Hopefully some time soon I can find time to watch the next two.
I've been watching Conan as he's starting up. It's weird. It seems like the same show as Late Night, except the guests are more famous and more irritating, and the audience is often barely responding to anything that's going on. Do they just have one collective Tonight Show audience that they bus in every day and decided they'd use the same audience for Conan that they used for Leno? Just seems like things are falling flat with the studio audience that would have killed on Late Night. And maybe they can say he's adjusting to 11:30, but both shows tape in the afternoon don't they? Shouldn't make much of a difference with the studio audience. I'm not sure how long I'm going to try to keep up with it, Norm MacDonald and Neko Case are on this week so I have something to watch, but it seems to be going a little rough in the first few weeks. Hopefully he doesn't start to temper himself trying to get laughs from his zilch audience. Zilches.
Today I finally listened to The Hives last two albums, after basically taking a six year break from them. Not too shabby. That coming at the tail-end of a Santana phase I just went through. I think that guy basically deserves all the shit he's given for becoming a noodler between lame vocals, but those first few records are incredible, when Santana was more a band than a guitar player. I wonder if they had named the band something else and thus maybe made it a little less about him, maybe they would have been better a little longer. I've tried to listen to some of the albums after the third and I just haven't taken to them, except for the live album Lotus, which definitely burns at a lot of points. But I still haven't listened to Caravanserai, Love Devotion Surrender, or Welcome yet, so we'll see. Also have a little thing going on for the Monkees right now, which came from two fields. One: I was listening to a lot of albums from my younger days, which took me from Forever Your Girl to Gonna Make You Sweat to Ninja Turtles soundtrack to Batman soundtrack (which, ribbing about Batdance aside, that's just a really good album) to Beach Boys to Monkees. And two: since Lost has curtailed my time I was devoting to kung fu movies, I started getting the first season of the Monkees from netflix. Nice short episodes that go by really quick when I need a twenty minute break.
I've been watching Conan as he's starting up. It's weird. It seems like the same show as Late Night, except the guests are more famous and more irritating, and the audience is often barely responding to anything that's going on. Do they just have one collective Tonight Show audience that they bus in every day and decided they'd use the same audience for Conan that they used for Leno? Just seems like things are falling flat with the studio audience that would have killed on Late Night. And maybe they can say he's adjusting to 11:30, but both shows tape in the afternoon don't they? Shouldn't make much of a difference with the studio audience. I'm not sure how long I'm going to try to keep up with it, Norm MacDonald and Neko Case are on this week so I have something to watch, but it seems to be going a little rough in the first few weeks. Hopefully he doesn't start to temper himself trying to get laughs from his zilch audience. Zilches.
Today I finally listened to The Hives last two albums, after basically taking a six year break from them. Not too shabby. That coming at the tail-end of a Santana phase I just went through. I think that guy basically deserves all the shit he's given for becoming a noodler between lame vocals, but those first few records are incredible, when Santana was more a band than a guitar player. I wonder if they had named the band something else and thus maybe made it a little less about him, maybe they would have been better a little longer. I've tried to listen to some of the albums after the third and I just haven't taken to them, except for the live album Lotus, which definitely burns at a lot of points. But I still haven't listened to Caravanserai, Love Devotion Surrender, or Welcome yet, so we'll see. Also have a little thing going on for the Monkees right now, which came from two fields. One: I was listening to a lot of albums from my younger days, which took me from Forever Your Girl to Gonna Make You Sweat to Ninja Turtles soundtrack to Batman soundtrack (which, ribbing about Batdance aside, that's just a really good album) to Beach Boys to Monkees. And two: since Lost has curtailed my time I was devoting to kung fu movies, I started getting the first season of the Monkees from netflix. Nice short episodes that go by really quick when I need a twenty minute break.
Monday, April 20, 2009
And we're back
I might actually get a good amount of blogging done in the coming weeks. One of the computer techs at one of the high schools just went out on maternity, and they're making me sit at her desk for 3 hours every morning to give the impression that everything is working. Not a big fan of having to sit in one place and play help desk, but it does let me sit in an office by myself for a few hours every morning. Can't really complain about that.
Dandelions are a bitch. I don't remember having a severe dandelion problem last year, but this year they're all over the place. So I spent this weekend buying hoses and sprays and spraying my yard to try and kill the bastards. Last weekend I got one of those big containers of Weed B Gon that comes with its own little sprayer thing. You suck in an amount of chemical into the sprayer with a syringe like motion and then spray. It was good for the little front yard, but then I went in the back and got a real idea of how many dandelions were back there and said, "To hell with this! There's got to be a better way." And then I started making inventions in my head. It was a hose, see, that has an empty layer between the inside and the outside. You would fill the middle layer with concentrated chemical, and the middle layer would sweat a certain amount down into the hose through minuscule punctures as water traveled through it. So I was making plans to contact physicists to help me with the whole how fast gravity will drop the water into the hose, contacting a biologist and a chemist to figure out what chemicals would best kill that blasted dandelion and see if maybe we could mix them with something that will make the grass grow fuller. Of course, then I went to Home Depot and found something better, cheaper, and far less complicated that did basically the same thing, mixed the concentrate with water from the hose, and was already invented and for sale. What's even more annoying about the dandelions is that, at first you think they must want to be destroyed because they're bright yellow and you know exactly where to spray. But then they don't come out like that on a rainy day like today. So today I can think they're gone, but they'll just be back tomorrow. And what's even more annoying than that! If the neighbors don't take care of their dandelions, those spores are just going get blown into my yard and grow, and then I'm in the same old sad predicament. And the neighbors aren't taking care of theirs. Let me tell you about that.
After I moved in last year, I found out that the house next to me was owned by a couple who just happen to be the daughter and son-in-law of a librarian who works at one of the schools I support. She was a lady pastor at the church down the street. Very quiet. Bliss. So the librarian comes up to me a couple weeks ago while I'm picking up sticks and tells me her daughter bought a new place and, since she didn't want her daughter to lose money selling the house, she bought the house from her daughter and now is going to start renting it out. To three college girls. God. Damn. It. I cannot fucking get away from them can I? So, they haven't moved in yet (and the yard is just growing over, there's the connection) and I'm really hoping/PRAYING that they don't cause a lot of problems/NOISE. I'm hoping they'll avoid it, because on the other side of their house is an old man, he's not really crotchety, but if they're pissing him off he'll tell them. And it's basically a family neighborhood, so I'm hoping if they cause problems people won't put up with it. And if they're really being assholes I guess I can always just drop by the school she works at and complain to their landlord. Have to do it fast though because apparently she's retiring in June. CONVENIENT! Anyway, just really hope they'll keep their shit in order, because I DO NOT feel like moving.
Dandelions are a bitch. I don't remember having a severe dandelion problem last year, but this year they're all over the place. So I spent this weekend buying hoses and sprays and spraying my yard to try and kill the bastards. Last weekend I got one of those big containers of Weed B Gon that comes with its own little sprayer thing. You suck in an amount of chemical into the sprayer with a syringe like motion and then spray. It was good for the little front yard, but then I went in the back and got a real idea of how many dandelions were back there and said, "To hell with this! There's got to be a better way." And then I started making inventions in my head. It was a hose, see, that has an empty layer between the inside and the outside. You would fill the middle layer with concentrated chemical, and the middle layer would sweat a certain amount down into the hose through minuscule punctures as water traveled through it. So I was making plans to contact physicists to help me with the whole how fast gravity will drop the water into the hose, contacting a biologist and a chemist to figure out what chemicals would best kill that blasted dandelion and see if maybe we could mix them with something that will make the grass grow fuller. Of course, then I went to Home Depot and found something better, cheaper, and far less complicated that did basically the same thing, mixed the concentrate with water from the hose, and was already invented and for sale. What's even more annoying about the dandelions is that, at first you think they must want to be destroyed because they're bright yellow and you know exactly where to spray. But then they don't come out like that on a rainy day like today. So today I can think they're gone, but they'll just be back tomorrow. And what's even more annoying than that! If the neighbors don't take care of their dandelions, those spores are just going get blown into my yard and grow, and then I'm in the same old sad predicament. And the neighbors aren't taking care of theirs. Let me tell you about that.
After I moved in last year, I found out that the house next to me was owned by a couple who just happen to be the daughter and son-in-law of a librarian who works at one of the schools I support. She was a lady pastor at the church down the street. Very quiet. Bliss. So the librarian comes up to me a couple weeks ago while I'm picking up sticks and tells me her daughter bought a new place and, since she didn't want her daughter to lose money selling the house, she bought the house from her daughter and now is going to start renting it out. To three college girls. God. Damn. It. I cannot fucking get away from them can I? So, they haven't moved in yet (and the yard is just growing over, there's the connection) and I'm really hoping/PRAYING that they don't cause a lot of problems/NOISE. I'm hoping they'll avoid it, because on the other side of their house is an old man, he's not really crotchety, but if they're pissing him off he'll tell them. And it's basically a family neighborhood, so I'm hoping if they cause problems people won't put up with it. And if they're really being assholes I guess I can always just drop by the school she works at and complain to their landlord. Have to do it fast though because apparently she's retiring in June. CONVENIENT! Anyway, just really hope they'll keep their shit in order, because I DO NOT feel like moving.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Bets?
Bets on when I get around to blogging again? Personally, I bet on later than soon. As often as I think of things and say "I'd like to write something about that" and as much as I try to keep it brief, it's still really hard to get myself to sit down and do it.
Animaniacs
Between my Mel in the Morning phase and my kung fu phase, I was in a "what I watched in the afternoon" phase. You know what, Animaniacs was hilarious. Especially Goodfeathers and ESPECIALLY Chicken-Boo. Something about birds cracks me up, especially when their wings are just wings, when they don't use them as arms or hands. Which is weird because the wings are what freak me out about live birds, but animated it's hilarious. STILL hilarious. The one show I went back and watched that I wanted to watch a lot of. I can sit and watch an episode of Duck Tales, Darkwing, Gummi Bears, Rescue Rangers, but the Fox shows, and I guess a lot of them were Warner Brothers, like Batman or X-Men or Eek the Cat (but mayyyyyybe not so much Tiny Toons), as opposed to the Disney afternoon shows, still loved watching them. Semi-related note: I saw a documentary on Chuck Jones recently and it made me want to go watch a bunch of old Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Also hilarious. It's absolutely stunning the way those hold up, even the really old ones.
HEE-YAA! Ooooo....OOOOoooooooYAH YAH YAH
Last week I finally gave in and joined Netflix again so I can feed my growing obsession in kung fu/martial arts movies. I tried to feed it with torrents, but I actually found that to be too hard. Cuz I had to find the torrent, wait for the download, convert the download for a DVD, and then come to find out a few of them were in Spanish or of meh quality. Impossible to complain, cuz they were free, but it's worth the 9 bucks a month to me to not have to go through that. Anyway, I'm still waiting for the movies to start pouring in, so over the weekend I went through a couple more of my VHS's I still need to go through, such as Timecop and Bull Durham. Still have a lot of VHS to go through, and now I'm going to start piling on the DVDs. I think right now my Netflix queue is all martial arts except for Season One of Renegade. I've just kind of been dying to go back and watch some episodes of Renegade for a long time. Right now, Ong Bak is in my mailbox. Can't wait. It's funny too that this is sort of coming out of my always increasing fervor for mixed martial arts. Certainly the movies are, or at least look, a lot more furious than the sport, and when I watch the movies I don't really sit and recognize the skill, just revel in gorgeous choreography masquerading as fighting, where in the fights it's all about the skill and taking advantage of small details, and whatever flipping around and dazzling occurs is like icing. But I guess one interest has grown out of the other.
The couple new things I have listened to
The latest Neko Case, Middle Cyclone. It's very good, but not nearly as memorable as previous albums. One problem I had with Fox Confessor compared to Blacklisted was that it was very wordy. It's hard sometimes to get bowled over by her singing when she's trying to wrap around and pound out so many syllables, where I thought Blacklisted for the most part was a perfect balance. She likes to tell her stories though, but unfortunately that, rather than a performance, becomes what you'd identify the song by. I listened to the album a lot the couple weeks after I bought it. It's obvious she put a lot into it, and it's not like it's hard to listen to, but it ends up being, not quite forgettable, but unmemorable.
Tell 'Em What Your Name Is! by Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. Better than the usual retro soul, I liked it more than most Dap-Tone stuff I've heard. Not so much reliance on funk they might not be able to pull off. I liked it. Plus they have a song called Bobby Booshay. I don't know if it's actually about THE Bobby Booshay, but I figure it's better than NOT having a song called Bobby Booshay.
Van Morrison's Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl. I've actually only listened to about half of this so far, but so far I'm buying into it. Haven't formed a full opinion on it yet, it's really difficult to hear the album in such a different way. Not like hard to hear as if it churns my stomach to think of the album redone by modern Van. Not at all, completely the opposite, and I'd say to reviewers who have criticized it not having all its young glory are off base. I actually think rather than being straight mumbly old Van redoing the album that he struck a balance between the original album and something like the reworking of Cyprus Avenue on It's Too Late To Stop Now.
I have listened to some other stuff that I didn't like too, but I'm having trouble coming up with the names. They're forgettable and I'd like to keep them that way. I've been having trouble keeping up with Soulbounce lately though, need to get back on board.
Tell 'Em What Your Name Is! by Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. Better than the usual retro soul, I liked it more than most Dap-Tone stuff I've heard. Not so much reliance on funk they might not be able to pull off. I liked it. Plus they have a song called Bobby Booshay. I don't know if it's actually about THE Bobby Booshay, but I figure it's better than NOT having a song called Bobby Booshay.
Van Morrison's Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl. I've actually only listened to about half of this so far, but so far I'm buying into it. Haven't formed a full opinion on it yet, it's really difficult to hear the album in such a different way. Not like hard to hear as if it churns my stomach to think of the album redone by modern Van. Not at all, completely the opposite, and I'd say to reviewers who have criticized it not having all its young glory are off base. I actually think rather than being straight mumbly old Van redoing the album that he struck a balance between the original album and something like the reworking of Cyprus Avenue on It's Too Late To Stop Now.
I have listened to some other stuff that I didn't like too, but I'm having trouble coming up with the names. They're forgettable and I'd like to keep them that way. I've been having trouble keeping up with Soulbounce lately though, need to get back on board.
Theme Time Radio Hour
I haven't been listening to much new music lately. Rather I've finally gone back and started listening to the crazy backlog of Theme Time Radio Hour episodes that I've built up. Last year's spring break my mom and I took a trip to my see my grandparents in Niagara Falls and I listened to several episodes on the way there. And I haven't listened to a single complete episode since then. That's practically a year, though I have been downloading and burning them every week. By my count, tomorrow he'll do his 99th show. In the last month or so I've listened in backwards order, or as they were coming out, episodes 97 through 69. Totally fallen back in love with the show. I don't remember him being such a joker, but I love that he's a total fucking ham on this show. Somehow it's completely the opposite of his public persona but fits perfectly. The other day I was listening to a show and he started quoting Robinson Crusoe. Then he says, "Daniel Defoe. You know Daniel Defoe. I think he was in the movie Platoon. Oh no, I'm thinking of Charlie Sheen." At the time I said, "What the hell does that even mean?" Just this second I realize he was "confusing" Charlie Sheen with Willem Defoe, but at the time I was totally puzzled. That's definitely not the best joke I've heard on the show lately, I'd love to memorize them all, but some of his best jokes are just lists. I have tried in the past to go through the shows and pull out the highlights but realized it would take me forever and I lost interest. Anyway, I am fully back on board. And the music on it is almost unassailable, so that's a plus. And he still pulls out juxtapositions that make me ecstatic. Like Buddy Guy, followed by Puff Daddy "It's All About the Benjamins" followed by The Clovers. And it all makes perfect sense when he's introducing it.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Geez
Not the most successful day yesterday that I've ever had as a human being. Started out with a dream that had me shaken. I was being pursued by Vic Mackey and trying hard to hide from him. Vic Mackey is a red-eyed bull. I have two episodes of The Shield left to watch, and its at a point where Vic is after Shane Vendrell, and I've been rooting for Vic, but after that dream I'm actually sympathizing with Shane. Shane doesn't show fear on the show, but having that man after me scared the ever-loving shit out of me. And my two genius hiding places: first was my mom’s house and second was at work. That man should have been able to find me in two seconds. It was weird too because The Shield was not even close to the last thing I watched on Monday night.*
So after that, kids were out of school yesterday which means I go in 2 hours late. So I had a couple extra hours of sleep, which was good. Or it would have been a lot better if I hadn't realized it the night before and stayed up until 3:30. But what's bad about those days is that nobody is at the schools. Even though the schools are technically open, just no kids there. Office staff is SUPPOSED to be there. But they don't show. So I went out to find a school that was open that I could return a computer to, which I did. On my way back, sitting at a stop light, going zero miles per hour as the policeman put it, waiting to turn onto 95, a tractor trailer coming off of 95 doesn't turn wide enough and scrapes off part of my fender. Great. So after spending an hour in the cold with a policeman I had a few hours left of work. And since there was not actually any work to do but I was required to be there, I spent it going through about five phone numbers to find the guy I needed to get to to talk about getting compensated for what's going to be done to my car. And I didn't hear back from him until this morning. While I was in a meeting. So I spent all the rest of yesterday waiting for a call. Right after work though, I was hopeful still, because I was on my way to Best Buy to get the new Neko Case. And, son of a bitch, I couldn't find it. Wasn't in the new release section, wasn't under “Case, Neko” (where, yes, there WERE earlier Neko Case albums) in either the rock/pop section or the country. I was miffed.** Just wanted to come home and fall asleep for an hour. Which I did. Not the worst day of all-time, nobody got hurt, just an hour-by-hour pain-in-the-ass. Was that some kind of karmic payback for doing nothing but watch a LOT of television on Monday? When I probably should have been shoveling my driveway and stretch of sidewalk? Maybe. I am majorly looking forward to some UFC this weekend.
*After I watched The Shield I watched two things: The Way Of The Dragon and the first episode of the Jimmy Fallon show. I watched The Way Of The Dragon because I had read a list earlier in the day that purported to give me the top martial arts movies of all-time and it was number one. I don’t know about that choice. I am certainly no expert, but I thought it was just okay. Yes, Bruce Lee is a monster, the fastest man on Earth and it’s astounding to watch him. The movie is a mix of humor and action that you don’t really expect to get a nod as the greatest in a genre. Some of it is so downright goofy that the vote is a little hard to believe. Pretty good for the last fight between Lee and Chuck Norris though. Chuck Norris actually looked impressive. I’ve always wondered about Chuck Norris, because his moves have never seemed all that impressive. He’s always seemed kind of “do the most with the fewest moves” which might be a good motto to have but it doesn’t make for insane action scenes. He was actually pretty quick in this movie though, some of the more enjoyable action I’ve seen out of him. And, fighting Bruce Lee in the Coliseum while a kitten watches? MWAH! Beautiful. Anyway, I could watch Bruce Lee fight forever, but the pick of that movie as the best of martial arts, I thought it was a weird pick.
I watched the Jimmy Fallon show only because I read Van Morrison was going to be on there, and since the only thing I could think of that he’d be promoting was the live Astral Weeks record that just came out, I figured there was a chance he’d be performing a song from that, which got me semi-excited. Excited enough to watch. Which I did, and he did, he played “Sweet Thing.” And it was pretty good. It was pretty typical of Van nowadays, very mumbly, but still a solid performance, and all him. The Jimmy Fallon show is dreadful. I hesitate to say that, because it was the first episode, and judging anything on the first episode seems ridiculous. But I was reminded two minutes into it that yes indeed Jimmy Fallon is the same irritating prick that he was on SNL. The show seemed like he wanted it to be more about him than the guests. It was dumb. The whole thing was just dumb. One bad idea after another. One thing about Conan was, as childish as a lot of what he did was, it always seemed like he respected the show enough to be professional when it came to the guests. Jimmy Fallon just wants to be a fanboy and at the same time make it all about himself. “Let’s tell stories about ME! Here’s why I love you!” And I read a review the next day that said the only bright spot on the show was Justin Timberlake. No. Justin Timberlake was funny for a couple SNL sketches several years ago, but he’s annoying too. OH! Cuz he did impressions of John Mayer and Michael McDonald! OH MY GOD he’s a comedic genius! And I’m pretty sure that the little impression game Fallon played with DeNiro was a joke that was on SNL in that exact form when he was doing Weekend Update. Am I remembering that right? So he gets his first shot at a Late Night talk show and he’s going to use it to recycle bad jokes that already aired on national television several years ago that weren’t funny then and aren’t funny now? Applause.
**Went back today and I found it in the pop/rock section under N. N for Neko. Her first name. Obviously I was dealing with some real eggheads here.
So after that, kids were out of school yesterday which means I go in 2 hours late. So I had a couple extra hours of sleep, which was good. Or it would have been a lot better if I hadn't realized it the night before and stayed up until 3:30. But what's bad about those days is that nobody is at the schools. Even though the schools are technically open, just no kids there. Office staff is SUPPOSED to be there. But they don't show. So I went out to find a school that was open that I could return a computer to, which I did. On my way back, sitting at a stop light, going zero miles per hour as the policeman put it, waiting to turn onto 95, a tractor trailer coming off of 95 doesn't turn wide enough and scrapes off part of my fender. Great. So after spending an hour in the cold with a policeman I had a few hours left of work. And since there was not actually any work to do but I was required to be there, I spent it going through about five phone numbers to find the guy I needed to get to to talk about getting compensated for what's going to be done to my car. And I didn't hear back from him until this morning. While I was in a meeting. So I spent all the rest of yesterday waiting for a call. Right after work though, I was hopeful still, because I was on my way to Best Buy to get the new Neko Case. And, son of a bitch, I couldn't find it. Wasn't in the new release section, wasn't under “Case, Neko” (where, yes, there WERE earlier Neko Case albums) in either the rock/pop section or the country. I was miffed.** Just wanted to come home and fall asleep for an hour. Which I did. Not the worst day of all-time, nobody got hurt, just an hour-by-hour pain-in-the-ass. Was that some kind of karmic payback for doing nothing but watch a LOT of television on Monday? When I probably should have been shoveling my driveway and stretch of sidewalk? Maybe. I am majorly looking forward to some UFC this weekend.
*After I watched The Shield I watched two things: The Way Of The Dragon and the first episode of the Jimmy Fallon show. I watched The Way Of The Dragon because I had read a list earlier in the day that purported to give me the top martial arts movies of all-time and it was number one. I don’t know about that choice. I am certainly no expert, but I thought it was just okay. Yes, Bruce Lee is a monster, the fastest man on Earth and it’s astounding to watch him. The movie is a mix of humor and action that you don’t really expect to get a nod as the greatest in a genre. Some of it is so downright goofy that the vote is a little hard to believe. Pretty good for the last fight between Lee and Chuck Norris though. Chuck Norris actually looked impressive. I’ve always wondered about Chuck Norris, because his moves have never seemed all that impressive. He’s always seemed kind of “do the most with the fewest moves” which might be a good motto to have but it doesn’t make for insane action scenes. He was actually pretty quick in this movie though, some of the more enjoyable action I’ve seen out of him. And, fighting Bruce Lee in the Coliseum while a kitten watches? MWAH! Beautiful. Anyway, I could watch Bruce Lee fight forever, but the pick of that movie as the best of martial arts, I thought it was a weird pick.
I watched the Jimmy Fallon show only because I read Van Morrison was going to be on there, and since the only thing I could think of that he’d be promoting was the live Astral Weeks record that just came out, I figured there was a chance he’d be performing a song from that, which got me semi-excited. Excited enough to watch. Which I did, and he did, he played “Sweet Thing.” And it was pretty good. It was pretty typical of Van nowadays, very mumbly, but still a solid performance, and all him. The Jimmy Fallon show is dreadful. I hesitate to say that, because it was the first episode, and judging anything on the first episode seems ridiculous. But I was reminded two minutes into it that yes indeed Jimmy Fallon is the same irritating prick that he was on SNL. The show seemed like he wanted it to be more about him than the guests. It was dumb. The whole thing was just dumb. One bad idea after another. One thing about Conan was, as childish as a lot of what he did was, it always seemed like he respected the show enough to be professional when it came to the guests. Jimmy Fallon just wants to be a fanboy and at the same time make it all about himself. “Let’s tell stories about ME! Here’s why I love you!” And I read a review the next day that said the only bright spot on the show was Justin Timberlake. No. Justin Timberlake was funny for a couple SNL sketches several years ago, but he’s annoying too. OH! Cuz he did impressions of John Mayer and Michael McDonald! OH MY GOD he’s a comedic genius! And I’m pretty sure that the little impression game Fallon played with DeNiro was a joke that was on SNL in that exact form when he was doing Weekend Update. Am I remembering that right? So he gets his first shot at a Late Night talk show and he’s going to use it to recycle bad jokes that already aired on national television several years ago that weren’t funny then and aren’t funny now? Applause.
**Went back today and I found it in the pop/rock section under N. N for Neko. Her first name. Obviously I was dealing with some real eggheads here.
Friday, February 27, 2009
What we've become
It seems this blog of mine has quickly become little more than a chronicle of things that I'm sick of. Add another one to the list: Jack White. I'm officially fed up with Jack White. I've been sitting on wanting to comment on this for around a week now, could never get around to it, but the last straw was that performance on the last Late Night with Conan O'Brien. I think Jack used to have fantastic instincts. Now, if he has them, he ignores them in favor of doing something that's unexpected or a forced change of direction to show that he's quirky. First of all, he can't get off this idea that Meg needs to sing. There's an idea especially evident in indie that an untrained voice is an honest voice. But an untrained voice is not the same as an untamed voice. People like Bob Dylan, Roscoe Holcomb, Joanna Newsom, these are voices that are eccentric as far as singers go but make great vocalists. They make their own sound but it makes perfect sense. But then there's people who just can't sing, who generate no interest with their voices, and generally disrespect the entire history of singing with their mouths. It's why I haven't listened to any new indie rock in probably at least a year, it seems like nobody in the genre has any interest in singing anymore. (Do have a new Neko Case coming out on Tuesday, so I am siked about that.) But back to Meg, she just can't sing. And let's face it, Jack is pulling the strings in that band, he needs to let that go. Then there's this performance overall. It was shit. Slowed down "We're Going To Be Friends," had Meg sing and play some toy guitar, phrased it to make it different. Not only do I think it was irrelevant to the occasion, it was just a shitty performance. I can guess at what he thought he was getting across, but he missed. Wide. And there's been a lot of points in his career where you can look at him perform and he looks totally contrived in what he's doing, self-conscious of making himself look a certain way. I guess you can say that's been their whole shtick, but it over the top on that performance. They should've dressed LaBamba like Bette Midler and had him get sensual on the desk, that would have been an improvement. So yeah, stack it up. Last White Stripes record was mainly uninteresting, Raconteurs records are good for about one listen if that, and that awful performance. Jack White is not something I look forward to anymore.
What I do look forward to: what has become my weekend ritual. The last several weekends, every morning I get up and make an oatmeal which consists of this: instant oatmeal, Fiber One, unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze, pumpkin, sugar-free maple syrup, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, pumpkin pie spice, splenda, and Reddi-Whip. It's the most amazing bowl of oatmeal I can imagine. Combine that with a cup of coffee and park myself in front of the television for some stimulating viewing. The last month or so it's been dominated by Mel Gibson. Got through all three Mad Max movies and all four Lethal Weapons. Only one interruption, one day I watched Top Gun because the first VHS copy of Lethal Weapon 4 I got was somehow empty. Had to find another one, which I did, and watched last weekend. So I'm all out of Mel now. This weekend it will either be Navy Seals or cartoons. A couple weeks ago I heard the Ducktales theme song on the radio, and it made me want to go download a bunch of random episodes of cartoons I used to watch. So I have several episodes each of Ducktales, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Eek the Cat, Cartoon Planet, Taz-Mania, and several more that I need to start viewing. So far I've only really been going for ones that I watched in middle school and early high school. The interest in going back to the 80s isn't really there right now. I've also been mixing in a few live action shows such as Superboy and The Young Riders. If I could find an episode of Catwalk I would be in heaven. Should be diving into those this weekend, and finding more. It's frustrating though, because lately my take on nostalgia like that is that I should avoid it all costs, because it only makes me realize I am very old and I should have other things going on. AND that this and other media has decided to buy into other avenues that make these kinds of shows extinct, i.e. destroying cartoons with technology. Ultimately it comes down to, this stuff isn't coming back and even if it did I couldn't be a child again to enjoy it. And simultaneously wouldn't necessarily want to be but desperately want to have that kind of interest in something. Whatever, I have to shut up now because I really don't want to turn this blog into a diary.
What I do look forward to: what has become my weekend ritual. The last several weekends, every morning I get up and make an oatmeal which consists of this: instant oatmeal, Fiber One, unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze, pumpkin, sugar-free maple syrup, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, pumpkin pie spice, splenda, and Reddi-Whip. It's the most amazing bowl of oatmeal I can imagine. Combine that with a cup of coffee and park myself in front of the television for some stimulating viewing. The last month or so it's been dominated by Mel Gibson. Got through all three Mad Max movies and all four Lethal Weapons. Only one interruption, one day I watched Top Gun because the first VHS copy of Lethal Weapon 4 I got was somehow empty. Had to find another one, which I did, and watched last weekend. So I'm all out of Mel now. This weekend it will either be Navy Seals or cartoons. A couple weeks ago I heard the Ducktales theme song on the radio, and it made me want to go download a bunch of random episodes of cartoons I used to watch. So I have several episodes each of Ducktales, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Eek the Cat, Cartoon Planet, Taz-Mania, and several more that I need to start viewing. So far I've only really been going for ones that I watched in middle school and early high school. The interest in going back to the 80s isn't really there right now. I've also been mixing in a few live action shows such as Superboy and The Young Riders. If I could find an episode of Catwalk I would be in heaven. Should be diving into those this weekend, and finding more. It's frustrating though, because lately my take on nostalgia like that is that I should avoid it all costs, because it only makes me realize I am very old and I should have other things going on. AND that this and other media has decided to buy into other avenues that make these kinds of shows extinct, i.e. destroying cartoons with technology. Ultimately it comes down to, this stuff isn't coming back and even if it did I couldn't be a child again to enjoy it. And simultaneously wouldn't necessarily want to be but desperately want to have that kind of interest in something. Whatever, I have to shut up now because I really don't want to turn this blog into a diary.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
TV on DVD
Semi-random decision for this week: I think I'm going to stop buying TV shows on DVD. Because it's becoming painfully obvious that the only real reason I do that anymore is for the purpose of collection, which seems pretty silly. When I bought the first couple seasons of House and the first four of One Tree Hill it was with purpose. I had gotten into those shows way late and needed to catch up. But every time I go into Best Buy I look at that last season of House and wonder if I should pay for it. I saw every episode when it was on, it's really really unlikely I ever break them out to watch again, so if I bought it I'd really be buying it just to have it. Sort of the same with the last season of One Tree Hill. Definitely had to buy it if for no other reason than to have the cameos from me and the Kissicks. But I bought it in September, and I didn't even open it until December when I had some time and decided to browse the special features. I think my money would be better spent buying shows that I've never seen but there's a good chance I'd like, rather than buying episodes I've already watched. Like The Shield. Had never seen a minute of it, but I'd heard it spoken of and decided to take a chance on it. And now it's a month later and I'm almost into the sixth season. (But, I didn't buy those either. Got the first season for Christmas and after that has been ddownloads. Moral dilemma.)
Other updates: I am horrible at predicting MMA fights. I actually ordered the UFC 94 pay-per-view because the card was so good and it really felt worth supporting. And it really was a good show. No buyer's remorse. But only one of my picks panned out. Machida, who dominated, and who is getting a lot more love now, which is for the good. But I never expected GSP to destroy Penn like that, and really didn't expect Guida to lay it on Diaz. And I had no idea who Jon Jones was, but I do now. Too bad for Stephan Bonnar. Last weekend I also got Lethal Weapon 2 and half of Lethal Weapon 3 watched with my breakfast viewings. Is it just me or do the sequels get zanier and zanier? Probably going to get through the rest of 3 and watch 4 this weekend. I'm still upset with myself that I didn't finish 3 last weekend. I just ran out of time. There were like six times during the Super Bowl though that I thought I would turn it on, but I had problems turning off the game. I wasn't even paying that much attention to it until the 4th quarter. 4th quarter was a pretty nice reward though.
Oh, one thing I'm looking forward to for 2009 is paying a lot of attention to whoever Soulbounce tells me to pay attention to. The last few weeks I've bought (on cd unfortunately) the Jazzanova, Reel People, and Foreign Exchange albums from last year. And I went through all of last year pretty much thinking nothing good was coming out of music, and there's three records that are really great. I also got the new Platinum Pied Pipers (LP!) which is fantastic. I like this whole modern-producers-making-throwback-soul trend that's going on. I can buy into it. Also got the new AC Newman LP. Didn't exactly blow my skirt up, but it's good. Don't think the new one has anywhere near as much energy as The Slow Wonder did or as most of his New Pornos stuff does, but neither did the last New Pornos. I guess it's just what he's doing now. I have to hand it to him, he's nailed his own set of characteristics that make his songs distinctively his. I guess other people can sing them, but there's really no mistaking an song that he's written. On the horizon, just bought an LP by The Points, mostly because a buddy of mine from work recorded it in his home studio. It's pretty good, something I would have been a lot more into back in college. He played me the demos when he was making them and I enjoyed it, so it's worth the buy. Next week I should be getting the live Astral Weeks in the mail, which I'm really curious to hear. And also looking forward to this tribute to Q-Tip mixtape thing Soulbounce reported on yesterday. The De La version of "Excursions" they posted was unreal, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. Mixtapes are something I have to explore more. I don't really even understand what they're all about, but I've listened to a few in the past couple months that have been fine listens.
Other updates: I am horrible at predicting MMA fights. I actually ordered the UFC 94 pay-per-view because the card was so good and it really felt worth supporting. And it really was a good show. No buyer's remorse. But only one of my picks panned out. Machida, who dominated, and who is getting a lot more love now, which is for the good. But I never expected GSP to destroy Penn like that, and really didn't expect Guida to lay it on Diaz. And I had no idea who Jon Jones was, but I do now. Too bad for Stephan Bonnar. Last weekend I also got Lethal Weapon 2 and half of Lethal Weapon 3 watched with my breakfast viewings. Is it just me or do the sequels get zanier and zanier? Probably going to get through the rest of 3 and watch 4 this weekend. I'm still upset with myself that I didn't finish 3 last weekend. I just ran out of time. There were like six times during the Super Bowl though that I thought I would turn it on, but I had problems turning off the game. I wasn't even paying that much attention to it until the 4th quarter. 4th quarter was a pretty nice reward though.
Oh, one thing I'm looking forward to for 2009 is paying a lot of attention to whoever Soulbounce tells me to pay attention to. The last few weeks I've bought (on cd unfortunately) the Jazzanova, Reel People, and Foreign Exchange albums from last year. And I went through all of last year pretty much thinking nothing good was coming out of music, and there's three records that are really great. I also got the new Platinum Pied Pipers (LP!) which is fantastic. I like this whole modern-producers-making-throwback-soul trend that's going on. I can buy into it. Also got the new AC Newman LP. Didn't exactly blow my skirt up, but it's good. Don't think the new one has anywhere near as much energy as The Slow Wonder did or as most of his New Pornos stuff does, but neither did the last New Pornos. I guess it's just what he's doing now. I have to hand it to him, he's nailed his own set of characteristics that make his songs distinctively his. I guess other people can sing them, but there's really no mistaking an song that he's written. On the horizon, just bought an LP by The Points, mostly because a buddy of mine from work recorded it in his home studio. It's pretty good, something I would have been a lot more into back in college. He played me the demos when he was making them and I enjoyed it, so it's worth the buy. Next week I should be getting the live Astral Weeks in the mail, which I'm really curious to hear. And also looking forward to this tribute to Q-Tip mixtape thing Soulbounce reported on yesterday. The De La version of "Excursions" they posted was unreal, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. Mixtapes are something I have to explore more. I don't really even understand what they're all about, but I've listened to a few in the past couple months that have been fine listens.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Decisions, decisions, decisions
Potentially great weekend this weekend. Saturday night, uber-ultra-siked for UFC 94. I keep finding out more about this card and getting more and more excited. Rooting for BJ Penn but kind of skeptical as to whether he can pull it off. Also picking Lyoto Machida, Stephan Bonnar, and Nate Diaz. I do like to watch Clay Guida fight, but I think Diaz is a way too wily for him. I'm actually not sure that fight is being televised but I hope so. The rest of the guys on the card I'm still learning about. I love this sport of MMA more and more every week. So that's the major sporting event of the weekend as far as I'm concerned. The Super Bowl is icing. That's the cake. No that's the dressing.
But what to do with the time between? A few movies I want to see. The Wrestler is finally in a theater down here. Kind of interested. Still have a mild interest in seeing Gran Torino. Also Taken is kind of falling in line with the kind of videos I've been watching lately, and reading the AllMovie review got me a whole lot more excited about it. But then that brings up another issue, what I've been watching at home. Should I just stay home and watch more JCVD movies this weekend? Could be. Pretty sure I'm going to watch Lethal Weapon 2 with my oatmeal tomorrow morning though.
But what to do with the time between? A few movies I want to see. The Wrestler is finally in a theater down here. Kind of interested. Still have a mild interest in seeing Gran Torino. Also Taken is kind of falling in line with the kind of videos I've been watching lately, and reading the AllMovie review got me a whole lot more excited about it. But then that brings up another issue, what I've been watching at home. Should I just stay home and watch more JCVD movies this weekend? Could be. Pretty sure I'm going to watch Lethal Weapon 2 with my oatmeal tomorrow morning though.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
More Snow Day
Got another one today. Hard to complain. The only bad thing about it is these days go by pretty slow because there's nothing to do, nowhere to go, good for a day but three would be too much. I need this week to go by a little quicker because this weekend will be sweet. UFC 94 on Saturday and Super Bowl on Sunday, emphasis on Saturday.
As far as my movie marathon, yesterday was a little disastrous. The one I chose to watch was The Delta Force, the most interminably long action movie I've ever seen. It was so fucking boring I wanted to shoot myself. How much crap can you try to cram into one terrible movie? A couple minutes for racism, a couple minutes for sensitivity, a couple minutes of patriotism, a couple minutes for romance, a couple minutes for torture, a couple minutes for family, on and on and on to make a 2 hour movie. And very very little fucking karate from Chuck Norris! I wanted to shoot myself in the face it was so ridiculous. And yet I didn't turn it off. Some kind of syndrome I have, I can't turn them off. Once I start a movie I have to finish it apparently. Like a couple weeks ago I was watching Excalibur. Not interested in it at all, but I couldn't shut it off. I get a half-hour in and I'm invested, no matter how awful. The other thing about this disappointment was that I completely had The Delta Force confused with Missing In Action. I thought I was about to watch Missing In Action, which I was excited about. Realized about 15 minutes in I had the movies completely mixed up. Anyway, horribly boring. And I love bad Chuck Norris movies. Last summer I watched The Octagon I would say 4 days in a row when I was disabled in Myrtle Beach. And LOVED it. So I will give Chuck Norris more chances, but he better not do this to me again.
Anyway, that ruined my whole movie day because after that one I didn't feel like watching any more movies. I ended up watching 5 episodes of The Shield. I think I have one episode to go and I'll be finished through season 4. This morning I got back on the movies with the suggested Lethal Weapon. Much MUCH better. That movie moves baby! That was funny, because it was about as long as The Delta Force, but Delta Force seemed about 6 times longer. Also, Lethal Weapon marks the second time this week I've seen a naked woman die in the first few minutes of a movie, having watched Marked For Death on Sunday. Later today I think I'll either watch another Lethal Weapon or take on a JCVD movie, probably either Hard Target or Lionheart. Another Lethal Weapon tidbit, Mel Gibson movies are becoming my go-to's for mornings of days off. For some reason they just work for me. Last Saturday morning I watched Mad Max and Sunday morning The Road Warrior and I had a blast. Goes great with a certain oatmeal I've been eating lately.
As far as my movie marathon, yesterday was a little disastrous. The one I chose to watch was The Delta Force, the most interminably long action movie I've ever seen. It was so fucking boring I wanted to shoot myself. How much crap can you try to cram into one terrible movie? A couple minutes for racism, a couple minutes for sensitivity, a couple minutes of patriotism, a couple minutes for romance, a couple minutes for torture, a couple minutes for family, on and on and on to make a 2 hour movie. And very very little fucking karate from Chuck Norris! I wanted to shoot myself in the face it was so ridiculous. And yet I didn't turn it off. Some kind of syndrome I have, I can't turn them off. Once I start a movie I have to finish it apparently. Like a couple weeks ago I was watching Excalibur. Not interested in it at all, but I couldn't shut it off. I get a half-hour in and I'm invested, no matter how awful. The other thing about this disappointment was that I completely had The Delta Force confused with Missing In Action. I thought I was about to watch Missing In Action, which I was excited about. Realized about 15 minutes in I had the movies completely mixed up. Anyway, horribly boring. And I love bad Chuck Norris movies. Last summer I watched The Octagon I would say 4 days in a row when I was disabled in Myrtle Beach. And LOVED it. So I will give Chuck Norris more chances, but he better not do this to me again.
Anyway, that ruined my whole movie day because after that one I didn't feel like watching any more movies. I ended up watching 5 episodes of The Shield. I think I have one episode to go and I'll be finished through season 4. This morning I got back on the movies with the suggested Lethal Weapon. Much MUCH better. That movie moves baby! That was funny, because it was about as long as The Delta Force, but Delta Force seemed about 6 times longer. Also, Lethal Weapon marks the second time this week I've seen a naked woman die in the first few minutes of a movie, having watched Marked For Death on Sunday. Later today I think I'll either watch another Lethal Weapon or take on a JCVD movie, probably either Hard Target or Lionheart. Another Lethal Weapon tidbit, Mel Gibson movies are becoming my go-to's for mornings of days off. For some reason they just work for me. Last Saturday morning I watched Mad Max and Sunday morning The Road Warrior and I had a blast. Goes great with a certain oatmeal I've been eating lately.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Snow Day
Probably the one big perk of working for a school system. I put up with all the bullshit for the possibility of snow days. That and payment. But basically what can be better than an unexpected day off? Where you've made no plans and can't really make any plans because you're stuck in the house? Right now I'm watching The Street Fighter on FX (not Street Fighter, THE Street Fighter) and The Return of the Street Fighter is up next. After that, it could be anything. I have a bunch of movies I need to watch. Delta Force, Raw Deal, all 4 Lethal Weapons, Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Highlander, The Color of Money, too many for one day. Probably need tomorrow off too. One thing's certain, I doubt the world is going to get much movement out of me today.
Monday, January 26, 2009
More randomness
It occurred to me recently that I'm not posting on this thing near as much as I'd hoped to. I think it's because I'm not being nearly as random as I'd originally hoped. Originally the whole appeal of the blog to me was that I could post any stupid thought I had at any time, and instead most of what I've done has turned into overblown posts that take me a long time to write because I am of slow brain. And then that makes me not want to post anything because I know I'm going to be stuck working with it a while. So, more of the stupid stuff.
Such as, I have a new favorite paper towel. It's a Kleenex paper towel. Kind of feels like a cross between a tissue and a handkerchief. I like it. Man alive I'm tired.
Such as, I have a new favorite paper towel. It's a Kleenex paper towel. Kind of feels like a cross between a tissue and a handkerchief. I like it. Man alive I'm tired.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
I hope that you'll think this is as much shit as I do
Just last night I caught wind of what went down at the Flaming Lips New Years Eve show this year. More than enough material there to raise my ire, and hopefully at least some of yours.
1.) They played a cover of "Purple Rain." It was. Ho. Ren. Duss. Horrendous. Musically it was what all of their covers lately are, pretty faithful but not as good as the originals. The vocal is terrible. Not only does Wayne forget the words, obviously he had to spend more time on the light show than learning the song, but his tries to scream like Prince are completely pathetic. Worse than karaoke. I tried to listen to it last night and I lost interest very quickly. By the time it ended I realized I had zoned out partway through and hadn't heard much of it. Tried to give it another go today to make sure it was terrible. It was. I'm reading a lot of praise of this cover from their fans. They're idiots. Like they get a free pass for a terrible rendition because it's a good choice of song. I really wish Prince would find some way of getting litigious over this.
2.) Definitely will not listen to the whole show, because I still have not listened to the songs from the last album.
3.) Three songs included in the set that they haven't played in a really long time. "Turn It On" and "Mountainside" both had the same problem for me. Without the noise that only Ronald Jones could create live over top of them, they sounded incomplete. I know "Mountainside" is not originally a Ronald-era song, but he tore it UP live with sounds that were completely out of this world. What could Steven do? Bend some notes? Try to make some noise? FAIL.
Also, "The Process." When Ronald Jones was in the band, "The Process" was probably, as far as what I've heard, the greatest alt-rock instrumental that ever was. A masterpiece. They played it without him after the NYE countdown. Two words. Limp. Dick. I don't care how much people want to praise him as the real musical force behind the Lips even when Ronald was in the band, Steven Drozd is not Ronald Jones. He may be a good musician that can adequately handle several different instruments, but he cannot will the insanity out of a guitar the way Ronald could.
So of course then it all comes together and makes me mad. I used to have a favorite band. I used to have a band that I could point to amongst all others and say, "They do shit right." And now they're awful, and what I look for in music is a lot more aimless. Very frustrating.
Should you get curious, download it.
1.) They played a cover of "Purple Rain." It was. Ho. Ren. Duss. Horrendous. Musically it was what all of their covers lately are, pretty faithful but not as good as the originals. The vocal is terrible. Not only does Wayne forget the words, obviously he had to spend more time on the light show than learning the song, but his tries to scream like Prince are completely pathetic. Worse than karaoke. I tried to listen to it last night and I lost interest very quickly. By the time it ended I realized I had zoned out partway through and hadn't heard much of it. Tried to give it another go today to make sure it was terrible. It was. I'm reading a lot of praise of this cover from their fans. They're idiots. Like they get a free pass for a terrible rendition because it's a good choice of song. I really wish Prince would find some way of getting litigious over this.
2.) Definitely will not listen to the whole show, because I still have not listened to the songs from the last album.
3.) Three songs included in the set that they haven't played in a really long time. "Turn It On" and "Mountainside" both had the same problem for me. Without the noise that only Ronald Jones could create live over top of them, they sounded incomplete. I know "Mountainside" is not originally a Ronald-era song, but he tore it UP live with sounds that were completely out of this world. What could Steven do? Bend some notes? Try to make some noise? FAIL.
Also, "The Process." When Ronald Jones was in the band, "The Process" was probably, as far as what I've heard, the greatest alt-rock instrumental that ever was. A masterpiece. They played it without him after the NYE countdown. Two words. Limp. Dick. I don't care how much people want to praise him as the real musical force behind the Lips even when Ronald was in the band, Steven Drozd is not Ronald Jones. He may be a good musician that can adequately handle several different instruments, but he cannot will the insanity out of a guitar the way Ronald could.
So of course then it all comes together and makes me mad. I used to have a favorite band. I used to have a band that I could point to amongst all others and say, "They do shit right." And now they're awful, and what I look for in music is a lot more aimless. Very frustrating.
Should you get curious, download it.
Monday, January 12, 2009
33 1/3 Call For Proposals Results
The 33 1/3 blog posted up a list of all the submissions they got before the New Year and it's a LONG list. If a portion of these books actually get written it will be a huge year for 33 1/3's. More than likely most of these never get written, or most of the ideas get rejected (I don't think the editors have read the proposals yet), or these authors actually take years to put them together. But here's some of what I think of the list:
Ones I would be crazy siked for and shit myself to get my hands on them their first day out:
Bob Dylan – Time Out of Mind
Erykah Badu – Mama’s Gun
Fairport Convention – Liege and Lief
Joanna Newsom – Ys
Randy Newman – Good Old Boys
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
Ones I would wait on pins and needles for after I'd gone through the above:
The Blues Project – Projections
Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue
Joni Mitchell – Hejira
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night
The O’Jays – Back Stabbers
The Stooges – Fun House
Television – Marquee Moon (although I thought somebody had already signed up to do this one)
The Who – Quadrophenia
X – Los Angeles
Ones I would definitely love to check out:
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Black Star – Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Black Star
Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town
Carole King – Tapestry
The Cars – The Cars
The Fugees – The Score
Galaxie 500 – Today
Jerry Lee Lewis – Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
Metallica – Master of Puppets
Modern Lovers – Modern Lovers
Paul Simon – Graceland
The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed
The Velvet Underground – Third Album
X – More Fun in the New World
Yes – Fragile
Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
Ones that would be of great comfort in the time between the ones I'm really waiting for:
Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East
Aretha Franklin – Amazing Grace
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Chronicle Vol 1
D’Angelo – Voodoo
Danzig – Danzig
David Bowie – Let’s Dance
David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising
De La Soul – Buhloone Mindstate
De La Soul – De La Soul Is Dead
Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me
Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
George Harrison – All Things Must Pass
Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
J Dilla – Donuts
King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King
Metallica – Metallica
Michael Jackson –Thriller
Moby Grape – Moby Grape
The Monkees – Pisces Aquarius Capricorn and Jones Ltd
New York Dolls – New York Dolls
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Tender Prey
Olivia Tremor Control – Music from the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle
Pearl Jam – Ten
Pearl Jam – Vitalogy
Pearl Jam - Vs
Richard Hell and the Voidoids – Blank Generation
Sandy Denny – Sandy
Songs Ohia – Magnolia Electric Co
Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
Soundgarden – Superunknown
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Damn the Torpedoes
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Greatest Hits
Van Halen – MCMLXXXIV
Various Artists – Pebbles, Vol 1
Various Artists – Pulp Fiction: Music from the Motion Picture
The White Stripes – Elephant
The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
Willie Nelson – Stardust
Woody Guthrie – Dust Bowl Ballads
Now, it's kind of hard to actually criticize people's choice of album. The point of the series is not necessarily to write about the best albums ever (though of course the ones I want to read are the ones based in some way on albums I like) but to use an album as inspiration, and really I guess anybody could use any album for that. I definitely go through the list and see a bunch of albums that I would have to give the benefit of the doubt that they mean something to someone. There are definitely a few I had to completely roll my eyes at though. They are:
The Beach Boys – Smile (Unless you make some good fiction out of this album, is there really anything to say that hasn't been said about it. Come on! I mean, this is some of my favorite music ever, absolutely, but it's some of the most commented on pop music of all-time.)
Britney Spears – Blackout (Britney Spears is an easy target and this is barely worth mentioning, but really, who cares? And more than one person submitted a proposal for this album.)
Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
John Lennon – Live in New York City (I didn't like this album even when I cared about John Lennon. To me the choice of this album smacks of trying too hard to make an outside choice. Then again, there can be a story in there, so I can't really criticize.)
John Mayer – Heavier Things
John Mayer – Room for Squares (Geez.)
Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music (Maybe someone can come up with a way to make a story out of this, but I couldn't be less interested.)
Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
The Mountain Goats – We Shall All Be Healed (I really have given this band a chance and I just don't get it. Let four different albums inspired proposals in people. Whatever.)
Slint – Spiderland (Apparently seven people submitted proposals on this album. I don't really have a whole lot to say about it, except I fucking hate this album. So fucking much.)
Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend (Unless the book violently insults this album and the praise it shouldn't get, the author should shoot his/herself.)
Various Artists – Now That’s What I Call Music Vol 26 (Someone's trying to be funny and they're not. The ironic thing has been done in the Celine Dion book. I'd like to break all of this person's fingers.)
Wilco – Forthcoming 2009 Album (This one just makes me furious for a lot of reasons. This person is trying so hard to pick an album nobody else will that they picked an album that is not only yet to be released but yet to be named, probably also wanting other people to think he's in on something ahead of everybody else. Unless this is a book that gets written and released really fast and is all about how far from special hearing something before it's released has become in the internet age, I declare it a failure, and I hope its author dies hungry and penniless.)
A couple other notes for albums I should probably be more excited about:
Various Artists – American Primitive Vol 1: This one would go on my “crazy siked and shit myself” list as long as it put more stock in the music than in the compiling of the album. As long as it didn't become all about John Fahey. Give him a chapter and be done with him. Don't be lean with the protein. A really good choice if it's done right.
Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley (1956): Seems like this would be a no-brainer for me, but my choice for an Elvis album was better. Once again, what can a person say about this album that hasn't been said a million times over. A painfully obvious choice. I don't think an Elvis fan chooses this album, I think a fan of the time period chooses this album. Unless this book is just a tour de force that violently goes after every person who makes up reasons why Elvis doesn't matter, I'm not that interested.
Randy Newman – Born Again: Love Randy Newman, but there's better albums to be chosen. Then again it's all about what you do with it, so we'll see.
Bob Dylan – Saved
Bob Dylan – Self Portrait: Who am I to judge? Maybe someone can make good books out of these. But once again it seems like choices that scream out, “I sat down and tried to think of the one Dylan album that nobody else is going to do.” Basically feels like making a book out of a prank. Then again, one of the things I love about Dylan is that even when his music is not that fun to listen to, it can still be compelling because you always feel like he knows what he's doing. Like it's no accident that he's being awful, and the proof is that he can turn around completely and his next album will be incredible. There's definitely something to be written about there, but I would foresee more hammering on that point over and over and over again than really discussing the album.
Bob Dylan – Theme Time Radio Hour With Your Host Bob Dylan: I assume this is referring to the compilation that was made out of songs Dylan played on his show. I think this actually has the potential to be interesting, because his choice of songs is all over the place and tying such different songs together could make for decent reading. It makes for a fantastic listen. But if it's made all about Dylan, which I assume they'd try to do considering they list him as the artist instead of calling attention to it as a compilation, I'm less interested. Not because I love Dylan any less, but because he's not a major part of what makes this music great. He only pulled it together, and if you focus on the comp in particular you can barely say that since his input beyond having aired the songs originally on his show seems to be minimal.
That's all I have to say about that. I look forward to seeing what actually gets published. And I should probably read more often.
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