Mars Needs Moms: Seth Green's Mom To Be Stolen By Martians:
"Pity Seth Green. His mama is going to be kidnapped and taken to Mars, in a new motion-capture Disney picture, based on the book Mars Needs Moms."
This is my favorite children's book!
It makes me cry every time I read it.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Music for Old People
The Beatles: Yes, I understand that the above title is somewhat odd. A song over forty years old leaking in this day and age of the interwebs is almost a farce, given how common it is to witness entire records appearing online in crude mp3 matter months before being released. What is more odd is that someone who calls themselves a Beatles fanatic, such as myself, didn't even know this take (it was take 20) existed! I've known about the infamously mythological Sgt. Pepper-era, LSD-infested unreleased sound collage "Carnival of Light" and the orgasm-inducing approx. seven hour long "Helter Skelter" slow-groove jam that Macca won't release; but I've never heard of this "full version" of the White Album classic, "Revolution 1″.
The Beach Boys: It was undoubtedly these abuses that finally led Brian and his brothers to fire their overbearing manager dad-- in these now-legendary 1965 tapes for their second No. 1 hit, "Help Me, Rhonda", the Beach Boys have an increasingly confrontational recording session with their father and finally show him the door. The entire session, which the Bedazzled blog has divided into four parts, runs about 40 minutes. There's some swearing, a lot of yelling, and at one point before the final confrontation, Brian shouts from the studio to the booth, "I got one ear left, and your big mouth is killing me!"
The Beach Boys: It was undoubtedly these abuses that finally led Brian and his brothers to fire their overbearing manager dad-- in these now-legendary 1965 tapes for their second No. 1 hit, "Help Me, Rhonda", the Beach Boys have an increasingly confrontational recording session with their father and finally show him the door. The entire session, which the Bedazzled blog has divided into four parts, runs about 40 minutes. There's some swearing, a lot of yelling, and at one point before the final confrontation, Brian shouts from the studio to the booth, "I got one ear left, and your big mouth is killing me!"
SuperUserDO
Sudo Manual
Yes, some of you know this...some of you don't...
And then some people look at this joke and they get and idea...
A "Sudo Make Me A Sandwich Robot"...
Comic from Xkcd.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Indie Rock Is Dead.
RIP Indie Rock at Pretty Much Amazing!:
"Okay, sure, you like independent music. Fine. But what exactly does that mean? When you hear talk of independent music, what bands come to mind? Seriously, think about it. I’ve debated the term “indie” with friends, over-analyzed it with strangers, and completely dismantled it in heated arguments with just about anybody. Everyone I talk to has a different perception of what exactly indie music truly is. I remember having this conversation with a friend in the late 90’s and thinking that we’d nailed it down"
Long Live Indie Rock!
"Okay, sure, you like independent music. Fine. But what exactly does that mean? When you hear talk of independent music, what bands come to mind? Seriously, think about it. I’ve debated the term “indie” with friends, over-analyzed it with strangers, and completely dismantled it in heated arguments with just about anybody. Everyone I talk to has a different perception of what exactly indie music truly is. I remember having this conversation with a friend in the late 90’s and thinking that we’d nailed it down"
Long Live Indie Rock!
Oh, WaPo, don't you have better places to be?
GOP Resting Hopes on Normally Conservative Upstate N.Y. for House Election, but Area Has Been Defying Political Trends - washingtonpost.com:
"For the Republican Party, the long road to a comeback winds through the hills, small towns and dairy farms of Upstate New York and runs smack through such places as the Halftime Sports Bar and Grill, where Mark Hansen was recently nursing an afternoon beer."
Hoosick Falls? Really?
"For the Republican Party, the long road to a comeback winds through the hills, small towns and dairy farms of Upstate New York and runs smack through such places as the Halftime Sports Bar and Grill, where Mark Hansen was recently nursing an afternoon beer."
Hoosick Falls? Really?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Subtext
Longest-Serving Senator Gives Obama a History Lesson - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com:
"Senator Robert C. Byrd, whose career in the Senate has spanned five decades, advised President Obama this week to keep in check the powers of members of the White House staff to prevent an erosion of the “Constitutional system of checks and balances.”"
The subtext to this is Byrd is saying, "I was in the Klan, and I don't want you and that Chief of Staff of yours to get to...uppity..." and after a cough, the Senator carefully added a "Mr. President".
"Senator Robert C. Byrd, whose career in the Senate has spanned five decades, advised President Obama this week to keep in check the powers of members of the White House staff to prevent an erosion of the “Constitutional system of checks and balances.”"
The subtext to this is Byrd is saying, "I was in the Klan, and I don't want you and that Chief of Staff of yours to get to...uppity..." and after a cough, the Senator carefully added a "Mr. President".
Wait...huh?
Mayor Hits Rough Patch...
The mayor of Los Alamitos is coming under fire for an e-mail he sent out that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons, under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."
The mayor of Los Alamitos is coming under fire for an e-mail he sent out that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons, under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."
"Bottom line is, we laugh at things and I didn't see this in the same light that she did," Grose told the AP. "I'm sorry. It wasn't sent to offend her personally — or anyone — from the standpoint of the African-American race."
Want
Wrestle Jam Creators Speak -- Vulture -- Entertainment & Culture Blog -- New York Magazine:
"If they'd given an Oscar for Best Performance by a Video Game on Sunday night, surely it would've gone to Wrestle Jam, the 8-bit Nintendo game seen in one of The Wrestler's most heartbreaking scenes."
Now that we know that it is playable, can someone make a port for both the Blackberry and the iPhone?
"If they'd given an Oscar for Best Performance by a Video Game on Sunday night, surely it would've gone to Wrestle Jam, the 8-bit Nintendo game seen in one of The Wrestler's most heartbreaking scenes."
Now that we know that it is playable, can someone make a port for both the Blackberry and the iPhone?
Cold War Holdevers that still make sense
Holder Draws 'Survivor' Duty - washingtonpost.com:
"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. did not attend President Obama's speech to Congress last night, instead serving as the 'designated survivor,' or the Cabinet secretary who by tradition stays at an undisclosed location to ensure continuity of government in case of a catastrophic event."
I have always found this ritual a little creepy.
I mean, what happens if the Secretary of Education is the "Survivor" on the day that Skynet activates?
"Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. did not attend President Obama's speech to Congress last night, instead serving as the 'designated survivor,' or the Cabinet secretary who by tradition stays at an undisclosed location to ensure continuity of government in case of a catastrophic event."
I have always found this ritual a little creepy.
I mean, what happens if the Secretary of Education is the "Survivor" on the day that Skynet activates?
Political Language
I love the nuance of the English language (even though a friend told me he didn't speak hipster when I said something, bastard) and the subtly of phrase that the language allows.
Politicians wield their words as weapons (which makes sense, considering how many politicians are attorneys and how much contempt attorneys have for the language) and they are not often given over to rhetorical flourishes.
This tool allows you to analyze what they are saying and how often they have said it.
For the example above, I used peace and fearin SotU addresses
The combination of "gay" and "marriage" returned Clinton's 2000 SotU as the only SotU to mention that phrase.
Those words have never been used in an Inaugural Address.
While the combination of the words were used rarely by President Obama during the campaign and even more rarely by Sen. McCain, which proves something to be at least.
McCain didn't want to use it as a wedge issue, and that either President Obama was taking the community for granted or he doesn't care about them in the first place.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Robert Smith on Radiohead
Robert Smith Says Mean Things About Radiohead | Pitchfork:
"'You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all and that's nonsense. If I put a value on my music and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan, it can't work.'"
Say it with me now, "Wahhhhhh"
"'You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all and that's nonsense. If I put a value on my music and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan, it can't work.'"
Say it with me now, "Wahhhhhh"
This is exciting!
Faith No More to Reunite for European Tour | Pitchfork:
"Years before Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails took scuzzed-out sonics and transgressive imagery to the mall-rock mainstream, the Bay Area funk-metal spazzes in Faith No More violated every form of conventional wisdom and wound up playing bigger venues than anyone could've predicted. Back in the late 1980s, Faith No More brought new-wave synth-sheen, skronky jazz textures, and awkward white-guy rapping to a profoundly regressive heavy-rock scene."
"Years before Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails took scuzzed-out sonics and transgressive imagery to the mall-rock mainstream, the Bay Area funk-metal spazzes in Faith No More violated every form of conventional wisdom and wound up playing bigger venues than anyone could've predicted. Back in the late 1980s, Faith No More brought new-wave synth-sheen, skronky jazz textures, and awkward white-guy rapping to a profoundly regressive heavy-rock scene."
They forgot bourbon
#122 Moleskine Notebooks « Stuff White People Like:
"In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked: typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples."
"In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked: typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sometimes I love this school...
Escaped slave's story offers lesson -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY:
"Jared Gourrier walks across the Union College campus wearing a T-shirt that reads, 'Who's Moses Viney?'
If you ask the junior class president and American studies major to answer that question, be prepared for a lengthy and impassioned history lesson, delivered in the soft, honeyed drawl of his native New Orleans.
Gourrier will discuss his research on the life and times of Viney, a runaway slave who found refuge at Union College at a time when the issue of slavery was tearing apart the nation, at Founders Day on Thursday."
"Jared Gourrier walks across the Union College campus wearing a T-shirt that reads, 'Who's Moses Viney?'
If you ask the junior class president and American studies major to answer that question, be prepared for a lengthy and impassioned history lesson, delivered in the soft, honeyed drawl of his native New Orleans.
Gourrier will discuss his research on the life and times of Viney, a runaway slave who found refuge at Union College at a time when the issue of slavery was tearing apart the nation, at Founders Day on Thursday."
Take that snark, Denby...
Beautiful Awards: Secretly, the Oscars Have Always Been This Gay:
"The Oscars aren't exactly the 'one billion people are watching!' extravaganza of eyeballs they used to be, at least not in this country. Ratings for the telecast have sunk to precipitous lows in recent years, and all of the glitz and tomfoolery is increasingly being dismissed as cheesy indulgence by irony-fattened 21st century mindsets."
"The Oscars aren't exactly the 'one billion people are watching!' extravaganza of eyeballs they used to be, at least not in this country. Ratings for the telecast have sunk to precipitous lows in recent years, and all of the glitz and tomfoolery is increasingly being dismissed as cheesy indulgence by irony-fattened 21st century mindsets."
I am going to see both of these...
Jane Austen Overdrive: Pride And Predator Is Dante's Peak, Claims Zombies Writer:
"We've Pride and Prejudice and Zombies writer Seth Grahame-Smith has spoken about his feelings about rival project Pride and Predator."
"We've Pride and Prejudice and Zombies writer Seth Grahame-Smith has spoken about his feelings about rival project Pride and Predator."
Google Google Burning Bright
New Search Technologies Mine the Web More Deeply - NYTimes.com:
"The challenges that the major search engines face in penetrating this so-called Deep Web go a long way toward explaining why they still can’t provide satisfying answers to questions like “What’s the best fare from New York to London next Thursday?” The answers are readily available — if only the search engines knew how to find them"
"The challenges that the major search engines face in penetrating this so-called Deep Web go a long way toward explaining why they still can’t provide satisfying answers to questions like “What’s the best fare from New York to London next Thursday?” The answers are readily available — if only the search engines knew how to find them"
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