...currently reading.....
Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset...last read.....
Trout, by Ray BergmanEmbed? Win!
Fantastic Contraption
Powered by: MySpace Games >br?
Saturday, September 11, 2004
LEFTOVERS..
A couple of amendments to the list of rulez I posted yesterday:
10. Don't force it.
11. When right grammar seems wrong, just go with wrong grammar. It's easier than explaining esoteric 'rules' to people who make fun of your grammar, because they don't know the rules.
By the way, the exact quote, as I remember it, from G-Had's dad was: "Hot dogs are something I tend not to like to save money on." That's such an elegant way of stating it.
****************************
I always sit down on chairs from the left side.
****************************
Some things I've discovered since starting the RealRhapsody subscription:
1) Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, by The Flaming Lips, is an awesome, awesome album.
2) I don't really care if Wilco remains as it is currently, or splits into different bands, or launces into numerous solo careers. The reason for that is that everything that Jeff Tweedy, Jay Farrar, Jay Bennet, or any of the other people in Wilco, Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, etc., have ever been involved in has kicked ass. So I'm sure that whatever happens to Wilco in the next few years, ass will nonetheless be kicked.
3) I feel sorry for bands like (the) Old 97's. No matter how earnest their lyrics, it's hard to take them seriously, since they write such playful melodies. Catchy stuff, though. I need to lay off them for awhile, especially Too Far to Care, which I've probably listened to 14 times in the last week.
4) Honcho Overload isn't as awesome as Hum, but it's a good stand-in for those of us who get weepy everytime we think about Hum's breakup.
5) They seem to be adding new music all the time. The first time I looked, they only had Tipsy's Trip Tease, but now they also have Uh-Oh!
****************************
Someday, when I'm rich, I'ma get me one of these futuristic nap pods.
****************************
My favorite genre of music is 'good' music. I feel the same way about music as I feel about food: Nearly everything is good, as long as it's done right.
****************************
I was thinking that for a PhD project, I could create an interactive, animated, temporally dynamic, 'genealogical' tree-map thingy that shows the interrelationships of bands and people and stuff. It could look something like musicplasma, except be less sucked. I mean, if you enter Old 97's in musicplasma, you see that it is 'close' to Whiskeytown, the Jayhawks, Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams, etc., but you don't see the connections, really, between all of these. Also, it has Jay Farrar in between Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams. Stupid. The lineage of bands like Hum, Whiskeytown, or even Wilco, is fairly complicated if you're just trying to figure it out by reading band bio's. Mostly, they're incomplete, or at best, you still can't move laterally between bands with much ease. I think that, for instance, it would be enlightening to track the evolution of Siouxsie and the Banshees, from Sid Vicious to Robert Smith, and onward.
-m
A couple of amendments to the list of rulez I posted yesterday:
10. Don't force it.
11. When right grammar seems wrong, just go with wrong grammar. It's easier than explaining esoteric 'rules' to people who make fun of your grammar, because they don't know the rules.
By the way, the exact quote, as I remember it, from G-Had's dad was: "Hot dogs are something I tend not to like to save money on." That's such an elegant way of stating it.
I always sit down on chairs from the left side.
Some things I've discovered since starting the RealRhapsody subscription:
1) Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, by The Flaming Lips, is an awesome, awesome album.
2) I don't really care if Wilco remains as it is currently, or splits into different bands, or launces into numerous solo careers. The reason for that is that everything that Jeff Tweedy, Jay Farrar, Jay Bennet, or any of the other people in Wilco, Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, etc., have ever been involved in has kicked ass. So I'm sure that whatever happens to Wilco in the next few years, ass will nonetheless be kicked.
3) I feel sorry for bands like (the) Old 97's. No matter how earnest their lyrics, it's hard to take them seriously, since they write such playful melodies. Catchy stuff, though. I need to lay off them for awhile, especially Too Far to Care, which I've probably listened to 14 times in the last week.
4) Honcho Overload isn't as awesome as Hum, but it's a good stand-in for those of us who get weepy everytime we think about Hum's breakup.
5) They seem to be adding new music all the time. The first time I looked, they only had Tipsy's Trip Tease, but now they also have Uh-Oh!
Someday, when I'm rich, I'ma get me one of these futuristic nap pods.
My favorite genre of music is 'good' music. I feel the same way about music as I feel about food: Nearly everything is good, as long as it's done right.
I was thinking that for a PhD project, I could create an interactive, animated, temporally dynamic, 'genealogical' tree-map thingy that shows the interrelationships of bands and people and stuff. It could look something like musicplasma, except be less sucked. I mean, if you enter Old 97's in musicplasma, you see that it is 'close' to Whiskeytown, the Jayhawks, Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams, etc., but you don't see the connections, really, between all of these. Also, it has Jay Farrar in between Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams. Stupid. The lineage of bands like Hum, Whiskeytown, or even Wilco, is fairly complicated if you're just trying to figure it out by reading band bio's. Mostly, they're incomplete, or at best, you still can't move laterally between bands with much ease. I think that, for instance, it would be enlightening to track the evolution of Siouxsie and the Banshees, from Sid Vicious to Robert Smith, and onward.
-m
Friday, September 10, 2004
RULEZ...
OK. This will be off the top of my head, so I'm sure I will forget something - bear with me, and be ready for updates later on....
I've been on this earth for over 1/4 of a century - nigh 30 years. Here is a list of things I've discovered so far (you may think of them as rules to life, especially for guys):
1. Never get a haircut that has a name (i.e. mullet, buzzcut, etc)
2. Always keep chocolate in your pocket to give to girls (I get asked by girls for chocolate about 14.8 times more often than I think about the movie Contact).
3. You can never go wrong in blowing off work for something like fishing.
4. It's alot easier to just avoid stepping in dog shit to begin with than it is to clean it off.
5. Generally speaking, hippies are far less cool than they seem.
6. There are some things in life on which it is not wise to be frugal when purchasing. Examples include wine, coffee, hot dogs (credit to G-Had's dad for pointing this out), toothpaste, bicycles)
7. There are some things in life on which it is wise to be frugal when purchasing. Examples include gin (try Barton's), potato chips (most off-brand potato chips have something weird about them that actually makes them better, or at least more interesting to eat, than name-brand chips), and flies (like for flyfishing).
8. Just never answer the phone.
9. There is such a thing as 'too much of a good thing.' I'm thinking, here, of bacon grease.
That's about all I've really learned, so far.
***************************
Oh. So I'm thinking of dressing up as a Wooly Bugger for Halloween. A Woolly Bugger is a fly and it looks like this:
I was thinking I would buy some fake fur to make a top, paint my head gold, and wear a grass skirt type of thing. Oh, and buy some number 9 wire and bend it to make a hook that will protrude from my nether regions.
Comments?
-m
OK. This will be off the top of my head, so I'm sure I will forget something - bear with me, and be ready for updates later on....
I've been on this earth for over 1/4 of a century - nigh 30 years. Here is a list of things I've discovered so far (you may think of them as rules to life, especially for guys):
1. Never get a haircut that has a name (i.e. mullet, buzzcut, etc)
2. Always keep chocolate in your pocket to give to girls (I get asked by girls for chocolate about 14.8 times more often than I think about the movie Contact).
3. You can never go wrong in blowing off work for something like fishing.
4. It's alot easier to just avoid stepping in dog shit to begin with than it is to clean it off.
5. Generally speaking, hippies are far less cool than they seem.
6. There are some things in life on which it is not wise to be frugal when purchasing. Examples include wine, coffee, hot dogs (credit to G-Had's dad for pointing this out), toothpaste, bicycles)
7. There are some things in life on which it is wise to be frugal when purchasing. Examples include gin (try Barton's), potato chips (most off-brand potato chips have something weird about them that actually makes them better, or at least more interesting to eat, than name-brand chips), and flies (like for flyfishing).
8. Just never answer the phone.
9. There is such a thing as 'too much of a good thing.' I'm thinking, here, of bacon grease.
That's about all I've really learned, so far.
Oh. So I'm thinking of dressing up as a Wooly Bugger for Halloween. A Woolly Bugger is a fly and it looks like this:
I was thinking I would buy some fake fur to make a top, paint my head gold, and wear a grass skirt type of thing. Oh, and buy some number 9 wire and bend it to make a hook that will protrude from my nether regions.
Comments?
-m
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
TO ADD TO THE LIST OF SHIT I CAN FIX...
Computer keyboard.
If possible, avoid pouring a cup of coffee into your keyboard. If you do pour a cup of coffee into your keyboard, avoid shaking it around like some kinda damned ape, trying to get the coffee out. This is what breaks stuff.
On the positive side, I now understand how modern keyboards work (kinda). Although I don't understand how a whole row of keys can go into the same circuit, and still produce different results (I'm electronics-knowledge-handicapped). Don't really care, neither...long as I can open up a keyboard and fix it with a paper towel.
2 hours later..back to work...
-m
Computer keyboard.
If possible, avoid pouring a cup of coffee into your keyboard. If you do pour a cup of coffee into your keyboard, avoid shaking it around like some kinda damned ape, trying to get the coffee out. This is what breaks stuff.
On the positive side, I now understand how modern keyboards work (kinda). Although I don't understand how a whole row of keys can go into the same circuit, and still produce different results (I'm electronics-knowledge-handicapped). Don't really care, neither...long as I can open up a keyboard and fix it with a paper towel.
2 hours later..back to work...
-m
Monday, September 06, 2004
OH.
So..not like any of my 7 readers cares (though arguably, those of you who consider yourselves to be Rawk Afficianados ought to), but Alien Crime Syndicate has a new album out. Oh. Also (should have pointed this out like last week), they were in Omaha September 3rd at the Ranch Bowl. That's kind of funny, because that's where I first saw The Meices, which was Joe Reinke's previous band. I also just missed them in Denver.
Anyway, I like what I've heard of their new album, Ten Songs in the Key of Betrayal. But I have to say, it's not as good as Dust to Dirt. I mean, it's not bad, but look, Joe, I don't think there's any need to write any more rawk and roll songs about rawk and roll songs. Or about rawk and roll in general.
But to be fair, I've only heard like 3 songs off it so far, and only 1 time each, so I should probably wait before passing judgement.
I wonder to what degree ACS fans are just Meices fans that aren't willing to let go..
By the way, that was ACS backing Tommy Stinson on Craig Kilborn a few weeks back. Good to see Joe still plays and sings like a Canadian goose. Check out the video here.
***********************************************************
In other news nobody gives a shit about, I'm now finished with counting tree rings.
-m
So..not like any of my 7 readers cares (though arguably, those of you who consider yourselves to be Rawk Afficianados ought to), but Alien Crime Syndicate has a new album out. Oh. Also (should have pointed this out like last week), they were in Omaha September 3rd at the Ranch Bowl. That's kind of funny, because that's where I first saw The Meices, which was Joe Reinke's previous band. I also just missed them in Denver.
Anyway, I like what I've heard of their new album, Ten Songs in the Key of Betrayal. But I have to say, it's not as good as Dust to Dirt. I mean, it's not bad, but look, Joe, I don't think there's any need to write any more rawk and roll songs about rawk and roll songs. Or about rawk and roll in general.
But to be fair, I've only heard like 3 songs off it so far, and only 1 time each, so I should probably wait before passing judgement.
I wonder to what degree ACS fans are just Meices fans that aren't willing to let go..
By the way, that was ACS backing Tommy Stinson on Craig Kilborn a few weeks back. Good to see Joe still plays and sings like a Canadian goose. Check out the video here.
In other news nobody gives a shit about, I'm now finished with counting tree rings.
-m
Sunday, September 05, 2004
REAL DUMB
For some reason, when you search for Honcho Overload on RealRhapsody - a band made up of 2/4th of Hum - and you click on their album, Pour Another Drink, you get a picture of the cover art for Donny & Marie Osmond's Greatest Hits album:
That's awesome.
Unfortunately, RealRhapsody doesn't have any Centaur or Lovecup - the current bands of some of Hum's members.
They do, however, have a good Leon Redbone selection.
-m
For some reason, when you search for Honcho Overload on RealRhapsody - a band made up of 2/4th of Hum - and you click on their album, Pour Another Drink, you get a picture of the cover art for Donny & Marie Osmond's Greatest Hits album:
That's awesome.
Unfortunately, RealRhapsody doesn't have any Centaur or Lovecup - the current bands of some of Hum's members.
They do, however, have a good Leon Redbone selection.
-m
