Hello, Cleveland!

2008-05-21T18:12:00.002-04:00

Humility is not the way to sell a used BMW M3. At least that's this dude's philosophy...just read the entire description.
Horse racing fans are classy and smart.
You know it's a good hockey brawl when they have to kill the arena's lights just to get everyone to cool the fuck out.
The Foo Fighters' tour rider is awesome.
Rule one of being a baseball fan: don't let parenthood get in the way of a home run ball.
The new "cheap" Ferrari GT California is a pretty nice ride. I guess.

2008-05-06T19:32:00.002-04:00

Nike tops itself with perhaps the coolest soccer commercial they've ever done. It's like the "Smack My Bitch Up" video, except less vomit and more futbol. Well, probably the same amount of vomit.

******

My album of the year so far is Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours, but then again you probably already knew that. Other favorites of late:

Crystal Castles / "Courtship Dating" (from GEE WIZZ)
Hercules and Love Affair / "Blind" (left-click)
Neon Neon / "I Lust U" (left-click)
Lykke Li / "I'm Good. I'm Gone" (left-click)

******

Random Linkage:

Former Sonics forward Peja Drobnjak was Borat before Borat was Borat. Best NBA commercials ever.
The key to passing bad checks: don't be too ambitious.
Joe Posnanski with a great story from his days as a Royals beatwriter.
Australians having fun with road signage.
Chris Bosh is making a play to be my favorite non-Milwaukee Buck.
Mazda Miata: more cargo room than you think.
The new Batman trailer reconfirms how awesome this movie is going to be.

2008-04-05T10:43:00.003-04:00

Elephant Larry: About your mother...

Random Linkage:

Human Giant has the Will Arnett sex tape. Hilarious.
The key to good bowling: there's no such thing as "lanes."
Wade Boggs: Legendary.
Patrick Roy's son likes to fight more than your average goalie.
For sale: 1999 Acura Integra, "only rolled once."
Probably the greatest catch in the history of catching baseballs.
It's the old full court alley-oop.
Shaq is funny, but he's also a petty douchebag. Seriously, it's about time he got called out.
Find me a longer buzzer-beater.
Best hat ever (thanks, Foon).
Nobody loves the Go-Bots.
Once again, the "eight glasses of water a day" thing is a myth.
Shameless self-promotion: Andrew Bogut needs new teammates.
A high school girl dunking way too easily.
Bob Seger asks: Seriously, Cleveland, how are you?

2007-11-18T17:38:00.000-05:00

No Country For Old Men

I finally got around to some movies and fortunately saw some good ones:

No Country For Old Men. The best movie I've seen this year, and one that has to be the odds-on favorite for Best Picture at this point. Set in rural Texas in 1980, the story isn't all that complex: strong/silent type finds drug money, bad guys send bad people to get it, drama ensues. But it's really the direction, cinematography, and acting that set it apart. Javier Bardem is terrific as a deranged bounty hunter while Tommy Lee Jones plays the weathered, wary Texas lawman role to a T. I can't say enough for the work done by the Coen Brothers in this film. I think some people might be a little disappointed in the story; it's fairly straight-forward and the movie is more a vehicle for the characters than one that tries to blow you away with a complex plot. Watch the trailer and you'll get a good feel for what the movie is like.
American Gangster. It's all about Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, who are both about as good as you'd expect, especially Crowe. The whole story is pretty cool and one I was totally unfamiliar with, though I suppose that's maybe why it's only based on a true story. It's all fun and entertaining and worth watching, but at the end it wasn't quite as satisfying as it could have been.
Dan in Real Life. The more I see Steve Carell in non-Office roles the more I feel like Michael Scott is his worst character (my increasing disinterest in "The Office" is another story though). Here he plays a widower raising three daughters who goes to a family reunion in Rhode Island. It's nominally a comedy with a major rom/com element, and a worthwhile drama as well. Dane Cook is surprisingly not obnoxious as Carell's brother. Definitely worth a rental.

******

Picnicface are funny.

I loved Powerthirst (Part I / Part II), and now Picnicface bring you Super Bingo (above).
If you haven't seen it yet, check out the best referee call ever. Well, it wasn't totally original.
Easily the most disturbing PSA I've ever seen. Raises a number of questions, like a) what's wrong with Canadians and b) isn't anything more specific wrong in Canada for them to be worried about?
The Aston Martin DBS is the hottest ride on earth. Or close at least. Can you say gift idea?
Boxers say the darndest things.
Best Manute Bol picture ever. Which is saying a lot.
"All I Need" has quietly become one of my fave songs off the brilliant In Rainbows, and this fan video is pretty cool.
Goal of the month? Well, Leo Messi is never a bad choice.
Malcolm Gladwell tells you why Kenyans are so good at running.
Boeing is pitching to the army a Hummer fitted with a huge laser cannon turret. Badass.
If bouncing balls were a sport, then this guy wouldn't need a day job.
Wilco live on Austin City Limits: "Impossible Germany."

2007-11-03T21:53:00.001-04:00

College football play of the year, no contest (above).
Backwards bowling! This guy is almost as good as Stal Brown, circa 1998.
Jared Allen is easily the coolest NFL player. This press conference is the best thing I've seen associated with the NFL this year, and that's saying a lot given how well the Packers are doing.
The hot new band: Electric Dream Machine. OK, so maybe my love of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is playing a role here, but the "Dayman Remix" is pretty awesome.
My mom now has a Prius, but I prefer this hybrid.
Marshawn Lynch of the Bills like Applebees, and for that I like Marshawn Lynch.
Australian Packer fans are crazier than American Packer fans.
I'm really digging the new NBA on ESPN commercials.
Would a race walker run if he was being chased by sword-wielding samurai? The eternal question is answered.
These newscasters are really enjoying footage of a cheerleader getting wrecked. Perhaps too much? No.
Taxes as a share of GDP, 1975 and 2006. Sorry, sociopolitcal awareness is an occasional weakness of mine.
Some interesting facts about health care.
The water cooler Ronaldinho. Some unnecessary nudity at the end, but pretty funny.
The best limo for your wedding? The A-Team van baby!
Dudes love looking at other dudes' junk.

2007-10-23T00:00:00.001-04:00

Current Mixtape
Radiohead / "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" (Frequenze Indipendenti)
Radiohead / "Reckoner" (Frequenze Indipendenti)
Radiohead / "Bodysnatchers" (Frequenze Indipendenti)
Lupe Fiasco f/Matthew Santos / "Superstar" (left click, All Things Go)
Pinback / "Good To Sea" (Music is Art)
Black Kids / "Hurricane Jane" (free@MySpace)
Wojtek Godzisz / "A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours"
Wojtek Godzisz / "Light Over Dark Earth"
The Cribs / "Our Bovine Public" (left click, Burros y Perros)
Chromatics / "Mask" (free@MySpace)
Glass Candy / "Life After Sundown" (free@MySpace)
Intramural / "Impairment Begins With the First Drink" (Stereogum)
Intramural / "From the Ground" (Stereogum)
Nada Surf / "See These Bones"
Daft Punk / "Harder Better Faster Stronger (Alive Version)" (left click, Shameless Complacency)

2007-10-13T15:22:00.000-04:00

Powerthirst!

I just saw the second Powerthirst ad (above) and wow, it's incredible. I guess the first one circulated some time ago, and it's also well worth a look. Check out more stuff from Picnicface here.
The 2007 Green Bay Packers: now featuring famous young celebrities!
We already knew Clinton Portis was weird, but now his teammate Fred Smoot is giving him a run for his money.
Suzyn Waldman is the atrocious-sounding, Masschusetts-born color commentator for the Yankees' radio broadcasts. She became well known for losing her shit when Roger Clemens announced his signing with the Yankees earlier this year, and then last week she started crying on air after the Yankees lost. The former was laughable, while the latter actually wasn't as lame as it seemed. Listen to those, and then check out this sock puppet homage is awesomely on point.
The Walsh Brothers go bumping! I had no idea what bumping was, and I'm not sure if that makes me dumb or not.
Cracked presents the 9 Manliest Names in the World and the 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World.
Korean soccer fans are amazing. And in a non-violent way, too!
Teen gets shot in the mouth, coughs out bullet a few weeks later.
A dissertation about humans marrying robots. Seriously? That's your life's work?
Shockingly, Joe Dimaggio's streak was probably bogus.
What better way than to spend a day at the beach, using beer to bribe Hobos into athletic feats.
Traincoasters >>> Rollercoasters.
Watch the Shelby Supercars Ultimate Aero TT break the production car record by going 256 mph. Oh by the way, the Aero has 1183 horsepower.

2007-10-06T02:07:00.000-04:00

The Hipster Olympics: It's gotta be at the top

Sorry for the long wait, but alas, I'm lazy. However, it was Carly's birthday today, or yesterday technically, so because she was bitching about my lack of posting this one's going out to her.

Must-read article for all fans of The State. Speaking of which, check out David Wain's quality series of funny shorts.
The coolest dude at ESPN: Rob Effing Stone.
Another example of why all old people should be locked away.
This Mercedes comes with a special carphone.
Roy Williams (the Texas one) is a cheap fuck.
Japanese people know how to pull a prank.
Interesting ideas about the best markets for electric cars.
Hazing MLB rookie is fun!
Easily the best thing from all the OJ bullshit: THIS GUY.
Dutch striker Klaas-Jan Hunterlaar loves bicycle kicks, almost as much as he loves the letter a.
Michigan coach Lloyd Carr is close friends with...Russell Crowe?
Novak Djokovic is easily my favorite tennis player. And here's even more evidence that tennis players are actually vaguely interesting people.
Aston Martin just keeps making prettier and prettier cars.
What's better than belligerent mascots? OK fine, I guess mascots that are toilets are up there too.
Scouting the sports bar scene.
Baseball pictures can be fun!

2007-09-01T01:57:00.000-04:00

I don't know why, but this random commercial for chocolate is like the best thing ever. (Props to Carly and Pojo). And it's remarkably similar to a promo for the new ABC comedy "Carpoolers."
The Whitest Kids U Know are funny.
More great Always Sunny stuff: Charlie discovers an unfortunate clause in Danny DeVito's conract. Check out a new "pre-season" episode here.
One of the all-time great baseball pranks: the tater toss.
Hulk Hogan's son Nick is a huge tool.
The CFL has great in-game promotions.
Unlock iPhone, get Nissan 350Z.
Darren Rovell at CNBC says Ana Ivanovic is the hottest tennis player. I agree.
Speaking of tennis, here's what happens when a bird gets too close to the action.
What do you do once you've done a 720 dunk? Uh, apparently another 720 dunk.
The title says it all: Grandma needs a helmet.

2007-08-25T16:19:00.000-04:00

The "Poor Man's..." Hall of Fame.
Slate looks at a controversial NYT op-ed by a group of soldiers in Iraq.
Broncos' RB Travis Henry gets around. At 28 years old, he has nine kids, by nine different women. YIKES.
I'm glad to see my boy Jon has given Deadspin the truth behind Bristles the mascot.
We all love a great direct free kick, but these are much more interesting.
Really cool sidewalk art illusions (above).
The best no parking sign ever.
Former Phillies catcher Darren Daulton is really fucking weird.
The new M3 is sweet as hell.

2007-08-19T13:32:00.000-04:00

Band of the week: Welsh kids Los Campesinos. They're on Broken Social Scene's Arts and Crafts label, but sound more like Architecture in Helsinki. Perhaps too much? Basically it's very busy, energetic pop-rock.

Los Campesinos / "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives"
Los Campesinos / "Please Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)"

******

I've always been a huge fan of the 3-series coupe, but the new 135i looks like it will be an absolute beast. Even if the 135i is faster I still like the look of the bigger 335i, but considering the little coupe will cost $10-15k less it could be something you wouldn't normally call a BMW: a bargain.
The latest episode of the Michael Showalter Showalter features David Wain.
Social Darwinism at work: People are buying oven doors thinking that they're plasma TVs.
Here's the Harold & Kumar 2 trailer.
Superbad is hilarious--Judd Apatow's next movie is the John C. Reilly-starring Walk the Line spoof, Walk Hard.
Being 5'10.5" makes me extremely average. On a related note, Dutch people are enormous.
Does anyone make better looking cars than Aston Martin? Probably not.
Goal of the week? David Beckham is the obvious choice, but don't forget about another cracker from Leo Messi.
Mashup of the week: GvB has a cool Tough Alliance/Victoria Bergsman combo.
Download a zip file of Patrick Watson's Close to Paradise. Sample him at Myspace.

2007-08-14T23:35:00.001-04:00

Some mp3s from the new Flight of the Conchords EP.
Here's a ton of new short clips from the upcoming season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Will Ferrell's new movie is looking rather promising.
A reason not to beat up an old piano with a baseball bat.
It's confirmed, Tay Zonday is legitimately creepy.
Long before he disowned his dad for being a deadbeat, Prince Fielder was in a McDonald's ad with him.
Electric cars for the common man?
Rocket Science seems like a cross between Rushmore and The Squid and the Whale.
Ryan Gosling is supposedly one of the best young actors out there, but Lars and the Real Girl I'm not so sure about.
Steve Carell continues to make movies, his new one is Dan in Real Life.
This Muppets-set-to-new-music thing that Carly sent me is strangely hypnotic.

2007-08-05T22:02:00.000-04:00

Random Linkage:

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is back in a month (see above)! September 13th season premier, September 4th Season 1/2 DVD!
Slalom skateboarding? That's just ridiculous.
Andy Samberg on The Michael Showalter Showalter.
Here's a free mp3 sample from the new Patton Oswalt CD.
The new Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione is...how do you say...HOT.
Rule number one for this site: post any and all new Interrupter sketches from Conan.
Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords did some animated sheep shorts. Pretty funny too.
The best of Alec Baldwin from "30 Rock."
Dr. Ken Jeong from "Knocked Up" really is a doctor, and he once performed on BET. And here's a pretty awesome deleted scene from "Knocked Up."

2007-08-03T11:06:00.000-04:00

Random Linkage

Easily the worst idea ever at a rodeo, which is saying something, since a rodeo is by definition a terrible, terrible idea.
Music of the day: Patrick Watson / "Luscious Life"
I'm normally not amused by people randomly fighting in the street, but if that street is somewhere in Eastern Europe and one dude is dominating everyone, then I'm all about it.
The sickest 9-year old soccer player around. ManYoo just signed him after his family sent them a DVD of him annihilating other little kids.
Oh, and here's the 5-year old tennis equivalent of the soccer kid.
So this kid Tay videotapes himself singing songs and then puts them on youtube, and a lot of people watch them because he's got a really deep, tonedeaf voice. But I'm not sure if watching these is funny or just creepy.
The only thing I have in common with extreme sports people is that I like Mountain Dew, but I have to say I enjoy watching skateboards fall fifty feet to the ground from a huge half pipe.
It's like the new fumblerooski.
Davey and I have been passing randomly hilarious Ichiro quotes back and forth for a while, so I'm glad Slate has tried to figure out what his project is.
Female bowlers aren't quite as ugly as expected. Is it possible that there are more attractive bowlers than tennis players? I've never understood it, but aside from Sharapova and Ivanovic tennis is basically a lot of ugly girls in really good shape.
In spite of their historical ineptitude, I hate the Cubs. So I'm pleased to bring you this bit of latent homoeroticism from the Cubs' dugout. I'm a Brewer fan, so it's bad enough that their fans invade Miller Park when they're in Milwaukee, but now that they've caught us in the tepid NL Central I'm a full-out Cub hater.
Let's enjoy the Brady Quinn era.
Snoop is down with FC Barcelona. Uh, OK.
Download some Flight of the Conchords.
Golf is dangerous, especially when your ball is on fire.
My first baseball glove was actually a Pedro Guerrero Rawlings model. Here's a slightly more, uh, interesting Pedro story.

2007-07-29T17:48:00.000-04:00

Jemaine tries to make a depresed Bret feel better

As most of you now know, Flight of the Conchords is the best show on TV at the moment. If you don't have HBO, go over to Youtube where some dude is kind enough to post each episode for your viewing pleasure.

*****

He needs the tux, because being 2'7" isn't demeaning enough dressed normally

Random Linkage:

50 ways to compliment a cocksucker.
Sam McGuffie is a little white high school running back who is awesome in most ways.
The bearded/awesome Zach Galifiankais stars in the latest Kanye West video.
My boy Greg Mankiw asks whether the rich pay their fair share of taxes.
Interesting story about the latest terrible footwear craze.
Big meets small (pic above).
Free kick masters.
Note to famous ex-athletes: maybe you should just leave the Michael Vick situation alone.

2007-07-19T23:07:00.002-04:00

Never Before Aired: Neil Diamond and Christina Aguilera

Here's an unaired SNL sketch featuring Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond, quite possibly my favorite recurring character ever on SNL. This sketch starts slow, then has some absolute gold a couple minutes in. And if you haven't seen the follow up to The Landlord--the one with Ferrell and writing partner Adam McKay's daughter Pearl--check it out down below. Pearl rules. And she's also Jeremy Piven's niece. Go figure.

Good Cop, Baby Cop

******

The State is coming to DVD!!! This was probably the show that most reflected my humor as an adolescent. Special shout-out to Dmo for giving my tape of State stuff to James Mentkowski's son and never getting back.

2007-07-16T20:11:00.000-04:00

Michael Cera was great as George Michael, the awkward son of Jason Bateman on my old favorite show Arrested Development, and he could be set for a breakthrough as the star of Seth Rogen's new movie Superbad. He was on Letterman the other night and is pretty much what you would expect if you have seen him on AD. He's also got a series of episodic shorts that's pretty amusing. Basically they're 8-11 minute shows following Cera and his friend Clark Duke's attempts to get a TV show script picked up by a network. The first couple are OK, then it gets progressively funnier.

******

Dragonette is the Canadian duo of Martina Sorbara and Dan Kurtz who live in England and make electronic pop/rock. Think some combination of Goldfrapp, Morningwood, and old No Doubt, except like, not bad. I stumbled across the Midnight Juggernauts' remix of "I Get Around" the other day and their debut album Galore is pretty catchy (but not yet available stateside). Martina also provided the vocals on Basement Jaxx's "Take Me Back to Your House" which I first heard and liked last year, but I didn't realize the connection until I read their bio this afternoon. You can find a link for a full album download of Galore right here.

Dragonette / "True Believer"
Dragonette / "I Get Around (Midnight Juggernauts Remix)" (from The Rawking)

*******

Quick review of recent movies...I've been reduced to the blockbusters so far this summer:

Transformers is funny and fun and great in spite of massive plot holes that even I had a hard time ignoring. Shia Leboeuf is awkward funny and Megan Fox is ridiculously hot, and Starscream is badass.
Live Free or Die Hard is shockingly good for a movie I was expecting to be a tired retread of a good but long-in-the-tooth franchise. I probably liked it even more than Transformers. Justin Long could have swapped places with Shia Leboeuf in Transformers and both movies wouldn't have missed a beat. They've got the market cornered on awkward, baby-faced roles.
I was expecting even less of Ocean's 13 but it was also entertaining. I don't even remember Ocean's 12 but I probably saw it and felt the same way. My only complaint is that not being a gambler half of the lingo flies over my head, but it really doesn't matter. And it's nice that these movies are keeping Casey Affleck and Scott Caan's respective careers alive.

2007-07-10T20:58:00.000-04:00

Music thoughts:

The Justice album is really good. Kind of like a slightly more accessible Homework. Download it here.
In the Justice/Daft Punk/Cut Copy spirit, download good Midnight Juggernauts stuff here.
Stars have a new album coming out and here's a song.

******

Random Linkage

Watch the latest episode of my new favorite show, Flight of the Conchords.
Germans love playing tricks on runners.
New Zealand's rugby players are intimidating.
Via Carly, it's a handy interpretation of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"
The ladies go to unusual lengths to get near Argentinian wonderboy Leo Messi. This sort of fans endangering themselves to get near players is surprisingly typical in soccer.
Spinal Tap reunite for Live Earth.
The new Nike commercial with Wayne Rooney is dangerously on-target.
Lots and lots and lots and lots of Ferraris doing cool stuff.
Argentina's former first lady running for president is better looking than our former first lady running for president.
Indoor soccer teams make great music videos.
David Cross is a guitar hero.

2007-06-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

911 Video #1

Louie CK was on Conan this week and then he put a bunch of shit up on youtube. NICE. It's all over the place, first time he's done this sort of thing, hopefully more is to come.

Airline Safety Video
LCK like ice cream
LCK learns about the Catholic Church
911 Video #2

*****

New tunes:

Even Kanye can't fuck up a Daft Punk sample. Brian should like this one.
New stuff from Irish rock band The Thrills.
The Shout Out Louds play in a park. Fun.
Check out "Forever Young" by Youth Group.

******

David Beckham vs. Reggie Bush. Not sure if I actually find this interesting.
Interesting story about my first favorite athlete, Cubs Hall of Fame 2B Ryne Sandberg, who's now managing in A-ball for the Cubs.
Germans have no love for Scientology. Nice.
Australian footballers have a pretty good sense of humor about their drug habits.
The best long range goals of 06/07. Cool.
Nobody drives supercars like Tiff Needell.
I've never liked French Open champ Justine Henin--she's Belgian AND ugly--and being disturbingly open about her STDs isn't going to change that.
The HobOlympics.
Tennis ball to the groin? No thanks.

2007-06-21T21:48:00.001-04:00

My new favorite show is HBO's Flight of the Conchords (thanks Carly!), which stars New Zealand guitarists/comedians Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie as unsuccessful versions of themselves. OK, so they've only had one episode and I don't even have HBO, but you can watch the entire first episode on the HBO website. I'd seen them on Conan previously, but the show actually expands a fair amount on their two-guys-singing-funny-songs schtick. It's really dry, absurd humor, but the guys are perfect foils for each other, mixing in retarded musical numbers (above) with sitcom elements (below). Clement also stars in the new movie Eagle vs. Shark.

******

New Interpol songs are leaking out in advance of Our Love to Admire dropping on 7/10. The latest four to leak are darker and more epic than first single "The Heinrich Maneuver," so it sounds like they're turning back the clock to more of a TOTBL sound. Which is good, since that's probably my favorite album of the decade. Download three of the songs Tunes Consumed. But the best track so far is the epic "Pioneer to the Falls" which you can get at I Rock I Roll.

******

Max Weinberg is the new Burt Reynolds

Random Linkage:

Next time you start an argument with a Mormon track star, don't bring your mop.
It's the hot new pastime...say it with me, Crackhead Chunking.
A newer, but not kinder nor gentler, biathlon.
I don't watch the American Idol type shows, but I've now seen a couple clips from Britain's Got Talent that I've really enjoyed. First you've got the awkward guy who's an opera singer, and then you've got the super-cute little kid. Also, if they feel like getting me to watch Idol, they can start by replacing Paul Abdul with the English chick.
NBC now has the latest Interrupter sketch from Conan. Thank God.
Check out New York's Lightest Rock Station!
Goal of the Week: 40-yard free kicks always work nicely.

2007-06-19T22:01:00.001-04:00

Random Linkage:

Very interesting chart showing presidential approval ratings since Truman.
Gotta love dumb fat kids.
Trailer for the new Coen Brothers movie, as first noted by KevNev.
Cool breakdown of the greatest players of every ten-year period in NBA history. David Robinson was always my boy.
Michael Ian Black directed Wedding Daze, which looks kinda funny.
One of the dumber inventions I've seen in a while.
Guy in construction crane vs. passing bus--who ya got???

2007-06-09T13:57:00.000-04:00

Random Linkage:

Another trailer for the State-tacular "The Ten" is now up (above). Unrated trailer here. Every actor I've ever liked is in this movie.
Will Smith is the last man on earth in the post-apocalyptic I Am Legend. I'm guessing this movie won't be particularly good, but I like the premise and that they don't give the whole movie away in the trailer.
The Bugatti Veyron holds the production car record of 252 mph, but on the autobahn this guy only got it up to 227 mph. Weak.
These parents are clearly doing everything they can to guarantee their new son has a life of swirlies and getting stuffed inside lockers.
A guy in a wheelchair got stuck to the grill of a truck (huh?) and wound up going for a 50 mph ride. Those of you who know me can guess what I think of this.
What did pirates really talk like?
The Onion: With All Due Respect, I Choose Not to Go Fuck Myself
Tina Fey says Alec Baldwin will be returning to the funniest show on television, "30 Rock." Huzzah!
New Okkervil River / "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe." OK, but not their best.

2007-06-03T22:54:00.001-04:00

Red Sox color commentator Jerry Remy is probably my favorite in all of baseball; he's honest but not overly opinionated, has great chemistry with his partner Don Orsillo, and while he loves the Sox, he doesn't come across like an obnoxious homer. And as dumb as it sounds, there are few things funnier than when Orsillo and Remy start getting the giggles about something and can't contain themselves. And he REALLY likes the air guitar, as the above clip proves. Gotta love the Remdawg.

******

SNL's Andy Samberg is unleashing his first movie this summer, and yes, I'm feeling optimistic about it. In other movie news, Ben Stiller is re-teaming with the Farrelly Bros in The Heartbreak Kid. Not quite so sure about that one, but even after all these years I still find most Stiller movies reasonably funny.

******

Random Linkage:

The US National Team played pretty well this weekend, beating China 4-1. Nice to see Dempsey on the scoreboard.
Kicked in the Nuts! Kung-fu edition.
Video of Wilco performing "You Are My Face" live in studio.
Marita once forwarded me this trick for unlocking your car over a cellphone, and I immediately had to call bullshit, which was confirmed by snopes.com. Well, maybe it actually works. And if that doesn't work, you can also use your skull to open your car.
An album sampler with commentary from The Rosebuds. If you haven't heard Night of the Furies, give this a listen.
How to use a hair dryer and compressed CO2 to remove a car dent. I'd really to try this on my passenger door, though I need to acquire a hair dryer first.

2007-05-31T19:38:00.000-04:00

The new video for the Strokes' "You Only Live Once" is rather outstanding in my book, especially the way they lead in with "Ize of the World." "Once" is easily the best song off their last LP, and right behind "Hard to Explain" as their best track period IMO.

*******

Random linkage:

The best goal celebrations in soccer (above). I hadn't seen a lot of these.
Historically high gas prices are not quite as historically high as you think.
Somebody has brought sabermetrics to soccer.
What's better than watching a college softball player get annihilated by an outfield wall? NOTHING.
Tim Duncan, professional nerd.
Hazing sucks, example 435,890.
Soccer fans in Europe are constantly running onto the field, though stuff like this might begin to discourage it.
MP3 of the day: Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, and Pharrell vs. Thom Yorke / "Us Placers"

2007-05-28T21:33:00.000-04:00

After seeing the Ireland-Bolivia friendly at Gillette and about 12 hours before heading down to New Haven, Sean and I saw the Rosebuds Saturday night at Great Scott. The show was a small one, probably slightly less packed than it could have been since so many people are out of town for Memorial Day, but it was a really fun time. Husband-wife duo Ivan and Kelly put on a great show, ending the gig by coming down into the audience to play a couple tracks acoustically with the crowd singing along. On CD the new album is far more synth-driven than anything they've done before, but performed live the difference isn't quite as noticeable. I've been falling behind on music, so here are worthwhile links to other blogs' posts:

MOKB provides the jinky electropop of Uffie's "First Love" and another cool Ghostface mashup, this time featuring the new Spoon song.
GvB offers a new Sound Team song, this one a pretty chill, mostly instrumental track.
Torr mentions the track "16" by The Flaws. He also made mention of The Orange Lights, whose first single you can find here.
Neile's Life links a couple good tracks by Swedish duo The Tough Alliance, who make calypso-tinged electropop that reminds me a bit of The Knife before they got really weird.

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Random Linkage:

The Interrupter is back on Conan! See his latest above, his best here, and another good one here.
TV bloopers involving Bill Clement? Sign me up!
LeBron James is good at doing things with basketballs.
Kicked in the nuts! Soccer edition.

2007-05-26T00:37:00.000-04:00

Random Linkage:

Daily Show: Samantha brings you News I'd Like to Fuck
Behind the scenes of that Will Ferrell/Pearl McKay sketch.
Still the best baseball video game commercial.
Caron Butler--coolest dude in the NBA?
I watched the shit out of American Gladiators growing up, but I never remember it being this retarded.
The best goals in Europe in 06/07 and the top ten Champions League Goals of 06/07
Deer vs. Race car--who ya got?
Explore the seedy underbelly of the Preakness Stakes.
Biggest effin pig ever.
As reported by KevNev, a State reunion *could* be in the works.
Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock was a drunk idiot who got himself killed, and now his dad has decided to blame everyone but his moron son.
Note to self: don't attend soccer game in Turkey.

2007-05-18T10:40:00.001-04:00

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky is good. But don't take my word for it, here's literary theorist and Dead Armadillos vocalist/guitarist C. Elijah Ewing:

I think it's more interesting from an instrumental perspective than Ghost. There's a fair amount of intricate two- and three-guitar interplay. On that note (as it were), I think Pitchfork misjudged BSB (5.2). The album's edge is beneath the surface, and it is, in my opinion, more complete than Ghost.

After one listen, this strikes me as Summerteeth's slightly countryfied, all grown up sequel. Once again, the album centers around an on-again-off-again relationship. Domestic images feature prominenintly in both albums, but instead of drug use and threats of physical abuse SBS focuses on the humdrum of daily life (e.g., Hate It Here). Whereas Summerteeth teetered from glossy-eyed (really, manic) celebration of puppy love (e.g., Candyfloss,
nothingsevergonnastandinourway again) to morbid fixations on lost love, fear, and distance (via Chicago, She's a Jar), SBS's narrator drifts listlessly from longing (Impossible Germany) to cautious optimism: "On and on an on we'll stay together yet." SBS's homespace may be broken, but may yet be fixed.

As in Summerteeth, the band is playing with pop themes, albeit a set of different genres. This is not "dad-rock" anymore than summerteeth was bubblegum pop. Tweedy and co. are playing with popular themes in a, well, subversive way. But to appreciate that, you have consider SBS in relation the rest of the Wilco catalogue. One doesn't have to love it, but it's not an attempt to market to fifty year-olds.

In this long interview with Pitchfork, Jeff Tweedy argues that SBS is no less "experimental" than previous records, but to the untrained ear such as my own, it's hard to argue that the new album isn't more straight-forward than its two most recent predecessors. It's not that the album is boring, but it definitely seems to lack some of the edge and purpose that made YHF and A Ghost is Born so compelling, instead relying on a calmer, more pleasant sound. Which immediately sounds like a knock on the album, but it's still very good, just in a different way. Maybe that's not surprising given Tweedy's personal life isn't the mess it was during the previous album. Still, the new album seems to flow from song-to-song in a way Ghost did not, but to be honest that impression is mostly due to the fact that Ghost has the 11 minute blast of krautrock that is "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" plopped into the middle of it.

Along with the special DVD of performances included in the deluxe edition, I also got a 2-song EP for free from Newbury Comics. On it are the unreleased song "One True Vine" and a live version of the fantastic "Theologians":

Wilco / "Theologians (Live)"
Wilco / "One True Vine"

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Of all the summer blockbusters, Transformers is the one I'm most looking forward to; here's the newest trailer which shows tons of huge robots fucking shit up.
Ridiculous video of a dude on a motorcycle answering that age old question--how fast can you go while popping a wheelie?
I love watching people breakdance, and I love watching little kids get kicked in the head, so you can guess what I think of this...
One of the weirder swerves you'll see on a free-kick.
Judging by the practice these guys obviously put into it, ladder-racing is apparently a real sport

2007-05-12T13:59:00.000-04:00

J.J. Hardy has been the best player on the best team in baseball

The Brewers have been the biggest story in baseball this side of Barry Bonds, and right on time, too. In 1957 the Braves won Milwaukee's only World Series, followed by the Brewers' only World Series appearance 25 years later in 1982. Another 25 years later it's 2007, and through 36 games they have the best record in baseball (25-11) and sit 7 games ahead of the Cubs in the NL Central, leading many to already declare them this year's Tigers. Not bad for a team that hasn't had a winning season since the first Bush administration. The New York Times has a nice story, though there are plenty of Brewers stories in the national media these days.

So what's been the key? Well, the rotation has been consistent, with great starts from Capuano, Suppan and Vargas compensating for Bush's problems and Sheets so far being less than his usual dominant self. Just as importantly, Turnbow and Cordero have been unhittable in the last two innings. Offensively, Rickie Weeks and Bill Hall haven't found a groove, but Prince Fielder is tied for the league lead the league in homers while the Jenkins/Mench platoon in left has gotten the job done. But the MVP of the first six weeks has been shortstop J.J. Hardy, who has shocked everyone by complementing his usual slick fielding with a red hot bat (.333/.385/.633) that currently leads the league in RBI and is tied for the homer lead with Fielder. While third base will be a weak spot offensively until top prospect Ryan Braun comes up later this year, the toughest thing for the Brewers right now is finding ABs for their outfielders. Bill Hall's conversion to CF hasn't always been smooth, but he's the guy there. Corey Hart has had some injury issues and needs to get some run in right, but Tony Gwynn Jr. has also shown the ability to hit (shocking, huh?) and might be the only true leadoff guy on the roster. Jenkins/Mench in left have been more than capable.

The Brewer faithful have had a rough time of it

If they can maintain their big division lead through their current roadtrip then they'll be awfully tough to beat in the division, especially given the weakened state of the Cards and the Cubs being the Cubs. In fact, only three teams in major league history have had a seven game divisional lead with 50 or fewer games played and NOT made the playoffs, the last being the '69 Cubs. So for once, history is on the Brewers' side.

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Click above for the next installment of The Michael Showalter Showalter featuring Paul Rudd. If you don't get the reference to their argument, it's a reenactment of the Lily Tomlin-David O. Russell throw-down that took place during the filming of I Heart Huckabees.

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I won't bother trying to describe this, but it's cool.

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Random Linkage:

I didn't think it was possible, but the '87 Calgary Flames might have lost their title for the worst sports-related music video ever. In fact, this is possibly the worst music video ever. Possibly the worst thing ever caught on video. Possibly the worst thing ever involving humans. OK, you get the point.
Blue Jays centerfielder Vernon Wells offers a great comeback to Cleveland hecklers.
"Brewers kicking, inspecting ass."
Lost has been great lately, and it's nice to hear they've got the end of the show mapped out.
Cool video of an old BMW M3 chasing the 500-hp Porsche Carrera GT around the Nurburgring. Despite being one of the world's most famous racetracks, the Ring is still open to the public.
Bobby Knight, linguist.
Probably the dumbest thing ever done with a golf ball.
We already know pro skateboarders are great at crazy beer pong shots, but don't sleep on their hoops skills either.
Some piece of shit kid gets what he deserves.
Apparently Tracy McGrady throwing sheep will get people to buy water.

2007-05-05T16:42:00.000-04:00

On first viewing, this goal by Andres Vazquz for Swedish team Goteborg just looks like a nice chip of the keeper, but watch the replays closely. Striking the ball that way is called a rabona, which you see occasionally on passes--originally by Maradona, now by the Cristiano Ronaldos of the world. I had never seen anyone actually score a goal like this, but then I also found one by Dave de Jong, which happened in a German Cup match a couple years ago. Pretty amazing--it's an incredibly awkward motion even if you're not trying to precisely kick a ball.

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Random Linkage:

The best moments from Mr. Show.
The most awkward moments in home shopping.
The most awkward moments in sports interviews.
The 3M Sticky Bear is happy to see you.
Much to the delight of myself, Allen and Kyle, the most talented US soccer player finally scored a goal in England.
Derrick Rose is good at dunking. He'll be one of the best freshman in the country next year at Memphis.
Rush Hour 3 comes out August 10, and if you think I am sick of these movies, you know nothing about me.
Will Sheff of Okkervil River provides his perspective on file-sharing.
I've seen a fair amount of random freestyle soccer videos, but this has gotta be the best. Ridiculous.
Video interview with BRMC.
Andy Samberg is excited about his brother-in-law Roy.

2007-04-29T18:09:00.000-04:00

These go to 11.

First Trimester 2007 mixtape (in particular order):

01 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club / "Weapon of Choice"
02 Beanie Sigel & Jay-Z / "Two Glock Nines (Ratatat Remix)"
03 The Maccabees / "X-Ray (Filthy Dukes Society Remix)"
04 The Little Ones / "Lovers Who Uncover (Crystal Castles Remix)"
05 Dead Disco / "Automatic"
06 Mika / "Relax, Take It Easy"
07 Sloan / "Everything You've Done Wrong"
08 Laura Veirs / "Wandering Kind"
09 Travis / "Big Chair"
10 The Maccabees / "Precious Time"
11 Kings of Leon / "On Call"
12 Wilco / "Either Way"
13 The Rosebuds / "When the Lights Went Dim"
14 Andrew Bird / "Heretics"
15 Dear and the Headlights / "It's Gettin' Easy"
16 Patrick Wolf / "The Magic Position"
17 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club / "All You Do Is Talk"

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PBS has a very interesting feature about the role of private contractors in Iraq. Lost amid the debate of how to get the troops home is that Iraq is currently home to nearly as many private contractors (125,000) as US soldiers (155,000). If you don't feel like reading all of it, check out the Peter Singer interview.

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Random Linkage:

This eBay feedback page is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Just read the comments.
Under Armour employees don't mess around.
One of the weirder soccer goals you'll see.
NFL players are athletic.
It's never to early to give you guys Christmas gift ideas.
Stock photos: fun AND educational!
With most animals this should be extremely cute, but instead this is kind of creepy in my book.
It's a computer mouse. Quite literally.
Here's a list of weird animal mating habits. This list taught me a lot, most notably that animals are gross.
The top ten ESPN commercials. Maybe.
I want no part of angry magicians.
My boy Tiff Needle takes the new Audi R8 for a track spin. Pretty awesome how he manages to fly around without disturbing a single cone.
Larry Summers on climate change and carbon regulation. While you might think economists would favor the sort of market cap/trade systems that have worked well for SO2 and NOx emissions, my sense is that most economists favor a (relatively) straight forward carbon tax.

2007-04-27T21:33:00.000-04:00

Carlos D looks...different.

New Interpol track "The Heinrich Maneuver" has been ripped from the radio and can be heard at the bottom here. So far I like it, and yes, I realize the title makes no sense (haven't seen an explanation why it's called that). They played Coachella and Stereogum was there.

Interpol / "The Heinrich Maneuver"

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Thoughts from the first democratic debate, by a political simpleton:

Barack Obama looked disappointingly nervous, but seemed to get more comfortable as the night went on.
Hillary Clinton is who we thought she was.
John Edwards seemed serious, almost disinterested, but for some reason I liked him--I give him credit for actually having something resembling a plan on health care, but he also didn't seem desperate to ram anything down your throat. He left a lot of dead air on the moral leader question, but I would have LOVED to see Hillary answer that question after Edwards cited his wife as the "finest human being" he's ever known. He seemed a little too willing to take advantage of the fact that his dad was poor.
I really like the idea of Bill Richardson--great background as a governor, UN ambassador, energy secretary, and congressman--but his presentation could have been better. His hands were all over the place. But it's tough when you need to use the debate to introduce yourself to voters. If elected he would have the most prominent jowls of any president since Nixon.
Biden seems to be the token big name insider with no shot, but he won points for the best and most succinct answer of the night.
Every debate needs a crazy old man like Mike Gravel. I might have to donate a couple bucks to his campaign just because he makes the debates so much more interesting. I don't know if there's been a performance like that in a major debate since Admiral Stockdale put his senility on display in '92 or whatever.
I thought Kucinich did a pretty good job of picking on the big boys without appearing totally desperate, especially considering that he IS totally desperate. Of course, that's one of the interesting aspects of this election--most of the big-name candidates supported the war in Iraq, meaning the two biggest scrubs (Gravel and Kucinich) can now high-road the shit out of them for it.
It was nice that halfway through the debate everyone started completely ignoring the questions and just started saying whatever they felt like (usually crap about Iraq).
Did the debate organizers really think they could get one-word and one-sentence answers for some of the questions? Come on.

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Random Linkage: anytime is a great time for T

The campaign against diving soccer players gets more serious.
Three cars, 34 cylinders, and about 1,900 horsepower. Giddyup.
Should Audi make a baby R8? Hell yes.
I've always liked CBS/Nets play-by-play guy Ian Eagle, and this does nothing to change that.
Steal my car, shame on me. Try to sell me the car you just stole from me, shame on you.
I hate to admit this, but I like Rasheed Wallace a little more after seeing this.
Relive the Sox going back-to-back-to-back-to-back.
Danica Patrick is now the second-hottest Indycar driver.
How are Leeds? Not good.
Our taxes aren't too high.

2007-04-25T10:54:00.000-04:00

Why can't we get this kind of insight into any Milwaukee Bucks?

Wizards' forward (and Wisconsin native) Caron Butler is a habitual straw chewer, and there's nothing I like more than someone who is serious about something as random as straw-chewing:

"I don't do these," he said. "I don't do 7-11 straws or anything. McDonald's, Burger King, that's it. Not Wendy's. Maybe Subway, because their straw is thick, clear, with a clear wrapping, but that's it, McDonald's, Burger King....Cheesecake Factory's got the black straws, they're kind of thick. That's good quality straws."

Watching this and reading Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Blog makes me jealous--he consistently delivers off-beat stories about the Wizards, which made me realize that despite watching every Bucks game and devoting sad amounts of time to discussing them, on some level I know the Wizards much better than the Bucks.

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Plague of Angels has a couple more tracks from the new Travis album, The Boy With No Name. It looks like there are at least three or four good to really good songs on the album, which comes out May 8. So it's shaping up to be a ridiculously great month of music:

May 1st
BRMC / Baby 81
Patrick Wolf / The Magic Position

May 8th
Travis / The Boy With No Name

May 15th
Wilco / Sky Blue Sky
The Maccabees / Colour It In (UK)
Dungen / Tio Bitar

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Random Linkage:

Good news--we still have 10 million years before we're all annihilated by cosmic radiation. Huzzah!
Shockingly, the kid who won the world yo-yo championship looks like a kid who would win the world yo-yo championship. Trust me, this clip is worth it.
Your soccer goal of the week comes courtesy of Werder Bremen's Diego, who shows us why goalies generally shouldn't leave their penalty area.
I'm woefully behind the times on hip-hop, so I found this list of the greatest hip-hop albums somewhat informative.
As part of the previous link, check out the best rap video ever.
Spinal Tap is reuniting to save the world.
Apparently this cat playing the piano is the latest youtube phenomenon. I don't expect a cat to be good at playing the piano, but I still have higher expectations of my youtube phenomenons than this.
If you love ping-pong, you'll love this rally. And this one might be even better. And if you don't like ping-pong, fuck you.
Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy on "30 Rock" is probably the funniest character on TV, so naturally I'm totally cool with him berating his daughter on voicemails. Seriously though, why is this a big deal?
Nice to see that undertakers still have a sense of humor.
As noted by KevNev, Interpol's new album is scheduled to arrive in July.

2007-04-22T12:31:00.000-04:00

Granted, this probably wouldn't count in a real game because of the high stick, but Rob Schremp still has the sweetest penalty shot repertoire in the business. The history of these types of lacrosse-style goals begins with Mike Legg's goal in the 1996 NCAA Tournament, and Sidney Crosby shows off a scoop-and-spin move in a Reebok ad. And I myself was inspired to score a few behind-the-goal scoops on KevNev in my driveway in high school. Of course, it's easier to scoop it up on pavement than on ice, but I definitely saw Kevin D. do it a few times in warm up in high school too.

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Random Linkage:

My nominee for worst name ever.
Schrute v. Schrute
Here's the trailer for Superbad, starring George-Michael from Arrested Development.
SNL presents a car you can really love.
This kid should probably go by Andy.
Suspending soccer players for diving? About fucking time.
Bill Shatner: bilingual film star.
Microsoft sold 244 copies of Vista in its first week in China. Yay piracy!
In the Year 2000...according to people in 1900.
History's weirdest taxes.
BRMC's great new single "Weapon of Choice"
Mute Math performs "Reset" live. Reminds me of Kid A.
Dodge Charger x Aston Martin Rapide = BMW Concept CS. Can't figure out what I think of it.

2007-04-18T20:47:00.000-04:00

Messi v. Getafe: you don't need to understand Arabic to get this

Back in November it didn't look like anyone would be able to top Ronaldinho's screwball bicycle kick (see below) for the title of goal of the year, but apparently little Leo Messi had other ideas. In today's 5-2 win over Getafe in the Copa del Rey semifinal the pint-sized Argentine scored a a pair of goals, with the first a near carbon copy of the famed Maradonna goal against England in the 1986 World Cup (aka the greatest goal of all time). I guess he figured he should remind people why "the next Maradonna" tag has been following him around for the past two years. And oh by the way, he's still only 19 years old. Here's his second goal from the game.

Ronaldinho v. Villareal: I love Ray Hudson's ridiculous commentary here

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Random Linkage:

- I'm afraid of this kid .
- I never get tired of great names.
- Dungen go postal.
- Ryan Adams speaks. And sings.
- The Rapture now have a video for the title track from Pieces.
- Thomas Friedman goes green.
- Why we live in houses.
- Old people rock out.
- Travis' wimpy first single from The Boy With No Name, featuring random appearances by Ben Stiller and Bruce (WTF?) Villanch.

2007-04-17T21:26:00.000-04:00

Random Linkage:

- Everybody loves a well-executed bicycle kick.
- Kirsten Dunst is the most overrated woman on earth but she seems pretty high on herself.
- This German kid is fucking crazy.
- Indian people are uptight.
- The story behind the UPS whiteboard ads.
- Buffet: "Bill Gates cost me about $3 billion." I've been there.
- What the French are good for. Seriously.
- Hillary is scary.
- A crack dealer becomes a chef.
- Beware of flying pizza at Sox games. I always love it when Orsillo and Remy get the giggles.

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I normally find Bill Maher to be something of a blowhard, but this article on the Bush administration's dubious hiring practicesis equal parts funny and depressing.

You know how whenever there's a major Bush administration scandal it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screw-ups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third most powerful official in the Justice Department of the United States. Thirty-three, and though she had never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 95 U.S. attorneys. How do you get to be such a top dog at 33? By acing Harvard, or winning scholarship prizes? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College -- home of the "Fighting Christies," who wait-listed me, the bastards -- and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school.

I'm not kidding, Pat Robertson, the man who said gay people at DisneyWorld would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. It's called Regent. Regent University School of Law, and it shares a campus with Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network studios. It's the first time ever that a TV network spun off a law school. And that's all America needs -- more Christians and more lawyers. You see, years ago Pat became concerned that our legal system was coddling criminals, forgiving them instead of meting out that Old Testament "eye for an eye" justice Jesus Christ never shuts up about. So Pat did what any red-blooded, Hindu-hating, gay-baiting, glue-sniffing Christian would do: He started his own law school. And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years and you only have to read one book. The school says its mission is to create an army of evangelical lawyers, integrating the Bible and public policy, and producing graduates that provide "Christian leadership to change the world." Presumably from round back to flat.

U.S. News and World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook.

But there's more! As there inevitably is with the Bush administration. Turns out she's not the only one. Since 2001, 150 graduates of Regent University have been hired by the Bush administration. And people wonder why things are so screwed up. Hell, we probably invaded Iraq because one of these clowns read the map wrong. Forget religion for a second, we're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college founded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich University? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House? I'd be surprised if she got a job on the "Maury" show. And then it hit me: This is why Bush scandals never catch on with the public -- they're all evangelicals of course, and nobody is having sex. America is a big, well-known, first-rate country, and when we're looking for people to help run it, we should aim higher than the girl who answers the phone at the fake abortion clinic. It's not just that this president has surrounded himself with a Texas echo chamber of war criminals and religious fanatics. It's that they're sooooo mediocre. This is America. We should be getting robbed and fucked over by the best.

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Here's a video of Texans defensive end Mario Williams joyriding in his Lamborghini Murcielago LP640. This leads to a couple questions:

- Why is he using some random dude's video camera to record himself tearing around at illegal speeds on the highway?
- He claims if he wanted to race this wouldn't be the car he'd use. Really? A car that goes 0-60 in 3.3 seconds just doesn't get it done against the average guy in a Subaru STi? You're a fucking idiot.
- Shouldn't the first overall pick in the NFL Draft have a more attractive girl riding with him?

2007-04-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

At first I thought I'd throw this in the random linkage file, but it really is too cool for that. This is Billy Marks, professional skateboarder, pulling off the most ridiculous pong shots you could think of (he might even be better than Kyle). A couple people I showed this to thought this was fake, but after watching it a couple times the vast majority of it has to be legit (though the path of the ball looks a little odd at times). Still, I'm guessing this has a lot more to do with wasting massive amounts of time at home with a video camera, rather than wasting tons of time with video editing software.

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More Ratatat remix action:

Jay-Z & Biggie / "Allure (Ratatat Remix)" (from GvB)

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Random Linkage:

- NBA ref Joey Crawford proves once and for all he's a bitch.
- Another Kurt Vonnegut anecdote
- Of Montreal do karaoke with Michael Showalter, Paul Rudd, etc.
- In India you can buy insurance for riding the train without a ticket.

2007-04-13T14:16:00.000-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday. Vonnegut ranks as one of the few authors whose work was interesting enough to inspire even someone as intellectually lazy as myself to read. I can distinctly remember reading my first Vonnegut book,Cat's Cradle, on a train while riding through Germany in June 1997. I later read Slaughterhouse-Five and Sirens of Titan, with the former being probably my favorite book. If you have suggestions for other Vonnegut books I should read, let me know.

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Random Linkage:

- First, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are funny.
- Second, Will Ferrell SNL bloopers? Count me in.
- This 15-year old is a fucking awesome driver.
- As noted by KevNev, Milwaukee is an awesome baseball town.
- Random French guys can dunk.
- Manchester United had a pretty good day.
- Ronaldo on the Simpsons? Weird.
- The $10,000 car wash.
- And on that fateful day, the streets ran orange with dye.
- To go 253 mph in a street car, you need both the right car and the right road.
- Jimmy Kimmel rips some vapid editor chick from Gawker.
- Gotta love an electric car that goes 0-60 in 3.1 seconds.
- Cool photos of Russian in the early 1980s.
- Bacon in a bathroom? Awesome!
- Larry David is here to save the Jets' draft day.
- The softer side of Randy Johnson.

2007-04-07T18:18:00.000-04:00

Pretty much anything Ratatat does is gold in my book, so given my lack of interest in hip-hop, it's no surprise that 90% of the hip hop music I listen to are Ratatat remixes. The first two songs below are my favorites from got their forthcoming second remix album, while the third track is a remix done by Ratatat bassist/producer Evan Mast aka E*Vax.

Beanie Sigel & Jay-Z / "Two Glock Nines (Ratatat Remix)"
Memphis Bleek / "Alright (Ratatat Remix"
Ratatat / "Wildcat (E*Vax Remix)"

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Random linkage:

- Pulled over car vs. semi. Who ya got???
- Australians make fun of music snobs.
- Britons make fun of NWA.
- The only ambidextrous pitcher in college baseball.
- Government subsidization of home ownership is counterproductive.
- These snowmobiles are real fuckin fast. Is that because there's no snow?
- Husky Rescue's new video for "Caravan" once again proves that lead singer Reeta-Leena Korhola is hot.

2007-04-06T15:36:00.000-04:00

I loved the Rosebuds' 2005 album Birds Make Good Neighbors, so I had high hopes for their third album, Night of Furies. The new album was supposed to be more synthpop-oriented, and after they made "Get Up, Get Out" available for download I was a little worried they had strayed too much from the folky guitar pop of the previous album. Not to worry though, because they actually pull off the new sound remarkably well. Some are saying the new album has a distinct New Order influence, but to me it also sounds a little like Garbage's Version 2.0(which is still an all-time fave of mine), minus the big electric guitars.

The Rosebuds / "My Punishment for Fighting" (left-click)
The Rosebuds / "I Better Run" (left-click)
The Rosebuds / "Get Up, Get Out"
The Rosebuds / "Leaves Do Fall" (left-click, from Birds Make Good Neighbors)

Dear and the Headlights are an alt/pop 5-piece from Arizona. Their debut album Small Steps, Heavy Hooves came out last month and is full of radio-friendly, late'90s style guitar rock. A few of their songs actually sound kind of like a less-embarrassing Third Eye Blind, and have more than one song I could picture being in a Grey's Anatomy season finale. Normally I'd use those comparisons on a band I hate, but DatH actually pull it off. I imagine they're probably a little too derivative to get much respect among the indie crowd, but they're good.

Dear and the Headlights / "It's Getting Easy"
Dear and the Headlights / "Run in the Front"
Dear and the Headlights / "Paper Bag"

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Random linkage:

- iPods can be lifesavers.
- Even if you don't like watching MLS, they still score sick goals.
- Metric has a cool video for their song "Empty."
- Final score from Rome: Italian Cops 1, Manchester United fans 0.
- The LA Galaxy are well aware that their new sponsor's logo looks like marijuana.
- Live Radiohead tracks anyone?
- Fire Joe Morgan dissects the exaggerated love of Darin Erstad.
- When planning a murder, at least use the computers at the library or something
- Steve Nash continues telling it like it is.

2007-04-01T11:59:00.000-04:00

Random linkage:

- 30 Rock has officially been renewed.
- What your girlfriend's celebrity crush says about you.
- And the 2007 Name of the Year is...
- Human Giant debuts tomorrow on MTV. I have my DVR set.
- Alex's Brooks Brothers tuxedo purchase is looking like a mistake.
- The best soccer goal celebrations.
- The Freakonomics gang notes the huge disparity in generic drug prices
- Bowlers know cool tricks.
- The 2008 M3 is officially out, and it officially makes me drool.
- The new Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera makes beautiful music.
- Proof that it doesn't matter how you sign your credit card receipts.
- Make this fat guy run a marathon.
- When the kiss cam goes horribly, horribly wrong.

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Phil Ball as expected offers the best recap of the Barcelona-Real Madrid clasico from a few weeks ago. My favorite part is the description of Real Madrid midfielder Guti:

He never seems to have quite recovered from his early days of fame in the late 1990's, when he discovered that his new girlfriend was in fact a transvestite. Not that one wishes to be transvestist in any way, but it did take Guti an alarmingly long time to find out.

I've been toying with a Barcelona-themed rant for quite some time, so here are my thoughts on the somewhat disappointing season so far (don't worry, I expect you to ignore this):

Injuries have been a major problem, with both Eto'o and Messi missing huge chunks of time at the end of 2006 before more recently returning, albeit not in time to rescue Barcelona's Champions League campaign. Still, Barca did reasonably well with Gudjohnsen and Saviola deputizing for Eto'o and Giuly playing in Messi's place. After a slow start, Ronaldinho caught fire for a few months and was able to provide some of the goal-scoring punch in Eto'o and Messi's absence. But the real downturn in play came largely when teams began to use the Valencia strategy of blatantly sitting back, soaking up Barca's pressure, and then looking to counterattack against the shaky defense.
While they have destroyed inferior opponents all season long, they have show a continued inability to play at their best in big matches. Even last season their only great big-game performance came in the first Real Madrid game. The win at Chelsea and the Champions League final vs. Arsenal were comebacks aided by opponent red cards, and this season they've been dismal against the best teams. They were wrecked 3-0 in the European Supercup by Sevilla, managed only 1 point from the two Chelsea Champions League games, fell 1-0 in the World Club Championships to an inferior Internacional team, lost badly away to Real Madrid, lost twice to Valencia, and of course faltered badly at home in the opening leg of their Champions League exit against Liverpool (and were somewhat fortunate to win the away leg 1-0). Their most memorable big-game performance this year was the 3-3 draw at home against Real, which was a moral victory given Real were trailing in the standings, but still hardly a resounding performance. They do deserve credit for coming back from their 1-0 loss at home in the King's Cup vs. Zaragoza, but realistically they should never have lost the first game anyway.
The defense, which last year proved many of its critics wrong thanks to strong seasons from both Puyol and Rafa Marquez, has been the team's Achilles heel. Marquez has been absolutely miserable in central defense, though he's been comparably decent at times as a defensive midfielder. Still, Thuram has been much better and has justifiably taken his place in recent matches. Puyol has been tireless as always, but his bull in a China shop style doesn't always compensate for his occasional inability to anticipate the play. The wing defenders have arguably been even worse, with Belletti and Sylvinho each struggling with injuries and proving liabilities on the counterattack. Zambrotta has slowly adjusted to Spain since coming over from Juventus, while Van Bronckhorst has been perhaps the most consistent wingback. The one bright spot has been keeper Victor Valdes, who has played very well after a shaky 05/06.
Perhaps the breakout star of the season has been Andres Iniesta, the baby-faced midfielder with the receding hairline, who has emerged after playing as a utility player the past few seasons and found his way into the Spanish national team (even scoring some big goals vs. England and Iceland). For Barcelona he has played all over the park, but mostly has taken over as Deco's attacking midfield partner, with Xavi becoming more of a rotation player but still seeing a lot of time and playing relatively well. Deco has been perhaps a step below the all-world level he played at last year, but the diminutive Iniesta's steady play--whether it's controlling the ball in midfield, jinking past defenders and providing service to the forwards, or popping up and scoring goals himself--probably have made him the team's most valuable player this season.
One of the team's strengths in recent years has been its continuity; coach Frank Rijkaard has kept players happy, while the players bought into squad rotations and winning kept mouths shut. Beginning with Ronaldinho's signing before the 03/04 season and then the subsequent purchase of Deco and Eto'o the following summer, the team has been relatively stable, with only minor personnel changes each offseason. However, Eto'o's curious refusal to enter a game a month ago as a substitute marked the first sign of real internal strife, as he subsequently called out Rijkaard and Ronaldinho for their lack of support. Word is that he was lashing out at perceived preferential treatment given to Ronaldinho by the club, and while publicly everyone has kissed and made up, it's unclear where Eto'o really stands and whether he'll look to leave this summer.

In any case, for all their disappointment they are still atop the Spanish league and in the semifinals of the King's Cup. Two trophies seem well within reach, which would be a pretty respectable haul, especially given the inherent difficulty of defending the Champions League. Still, a third successive league title seems imminent more for the lack of true competition than Barcelona's own dominance; Real and Valencia have never found their stride, while upstart Sevilla looks to have run out of gas, though they're still within striking distance. Messi and Eto'o have been on fire of late, so I'm optimistic the season will end on a high note.

The real challenge may be in the summer, when the question of who will stay and who will go must be answered. A central defender and top-notch holding midfielder would be welcome additions, as would another wingback such as Sevilla's Daniel Alves. Ronaldinho seems likely to stay despite continued interest from AC Milan, while Rijkaard could also be tempted by a big-money offer from Milan. Eto'o probably is the most likely big name to leave, which is a shame. Barcelona's attacking style of play is based largely on the interchangeability of its players, aided by the fact that most of them have played together for more two or three years. While each may have unique skills, a good first touch, the willingness to push forward, and a pass-first mentality is common to each (long gone are the days of Rivaldo blasting 35 yard shots every chance he had). Eto'o is the team's only pure goalscorer, but besides that all-important trait he can also switch out into Ronaldinho's position on the flank and he has an unusual willingness to track back and play defense for a player of his goal-scoring talents. He's as good a goal-scorer as there is, but he's also the perfect type of player for Barcelona's style. Players who combine his finishing with the team pedigree to mesh with Barcelona's system are rare and not surprisingly expensive; Thierry Henry is the only obvious name that comes to mind. Stay tuned.

2007-03-29T21:48:00.000-04:00

Is this the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life? Probably.

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The newest episode of the Michael Showalter Show features guest David Cross. Meanwhile, check out the trailer for The Ten, which features pretty much everyone from The State. And most other famous actors as well.

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Somehow I own the Mute Math cd; it's definitely not worth owning, but it's not awful either. That said, this video shot in reverse is prett effin amusing.

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Random linkage:
- Some background on Locke from Lost
- Violence is up in Milwaukee
- Renaults are pretty ordinary cars on four wheels, but something special on only two
- Soccer fans in Frankfurt test the structural integrity of their stadium
- Most decisive pillowfight ever.
- The best rant from a major league manager: Lee Elia.
- UNLV hoops is cool with polygamy.
- If you need to withstand a fastball directly to your groin, may we suggest this.

2007-03-26T16:56:00.001-04:00

Mulldoggey, Alex and I have been speculating about the likely awesomeness of the new BRMC album Baby 81 since "Weapon of Choice" and "666 Conducer" leaked about a month ago. Based on those two tracks and interviews with the band, it was clear that BRMC were moving away from the more acoustic sound of their third album and headed back to the trademark sound they developed on their debut B.R.M.C. and its slightly disappointing follow-up Take Them On, On Your Own: angry guitars, driving basslines, and plenty of distortion.

While on the surface Baby 81 is far more like the first two albums than Howl, it's also cleaner and more accessible than anything they've previously done. Among the album's 13 tracks, I'm still trying to find one that I feel like skipping past. While Howl had some great songs that they never would have otherwise produced ("Weight of the World," "Howl," and "Sympathetic Noose") it also sounded like Robert Been (vocals/bass) and Peter Hayes (vocals/guitar) had strayed from their strengths as musicians. Drummer Nick Jago had left the band during the recording of Howl, so it wasn't surprising that this was the album where Hayes' acoustic leanings would finally come to the fore. Even the songs that did have drums sounded like they were coming from a band without a drummer; the cohesive sound wasn't always there. The new album offers four classic hard-rocking BRMC songs that rank with the best off the first two albums: lead single "Weapon of Choice" as well as "Lien On Your Dreams," "Berlin," and "Took Out a Loan." But on top of that you've also got the Beatlesy "Window" and Joshua Tree-era U2 sound of "All You Do Is Talk," which might well be the best song on the album.

I'm guessing the critics might see this album as something of a retread, but I'm having a hard time imagining I'll like an album this year more than I'm liking Baby 81 right now.

BRMC / "All You Do Is Talk"

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Random music:

Elk City / "Los Cruzados"
Elk City / "Cherries in the Snow"
Voxtrot / "Kid Gloves"
Archives / "Sleepdriving"

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If you didn't see the ending to the Division II championship game, you'll want to give it a look.

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The boys in Penthouse M don't have shit on this: Millennium Pong.

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Random linkage:
- Worst wedgie ever
- Comedian/professional midget Eddie Griffin wrecks an Enzo.
- Chuck Klosterman talks about American indifference towards NFL drug abuse
- Ozzie Guillen is already in midseason form
- I'm sick and tired of not having a 273-mph street car.
- How they pulled off that crash in the new Bond flick.
- Geico Caveman and Phil Simms--who knew Phil could act?

2007-03-20T13:17:00.000-04:00

The new LCD Soundsystem record is comically overrated but the cool remix site has offered at least one gem:

LCD Soundsystem / "North American Scum (Dunproofin's Not From England Either Remix)" (Karo with the find)

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The always awesome Tiff Needel tries to contain his excitement

My two favorite sports cars are the McLaren F1 LM and Ferrari Enzo, so yes, I'm extremely jealous of this random dude who has both. Tiff Needel, host of Fifth Gear, is my favorite car guy so I'm happy to see him flog these cars a bit on public roads. It should be noted that to pull of this ownership combination you need more than just $5 or $6 million. While 349 Enzos have been produced, the Le Mans variant of the McLaren F1 seen here was built only five times, with three coming in the awesome "papaya orange" color (the other two were ordered by the Sultan of Brunei in black with stripes).

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Here's a pretty compelling argument for seeing Ferrell's new figure skating flick Blade of Glory:

If you've seen one Will Ferrell movie, you can probably see his latest, Blades of Glory, in your head right now. Ferrell plays Chazz Michael Michaels, a sex-addicted alcoholic ex-figure-skating champ who bottoms out when he vomits inside a foam mascot head while on the ice during a children's skating revue and is redeemed when he becomes part of history's first male-male pairs skating team. "The part was written for a young Martin Landau," says Ferrell. "It's a script that's been around for 30 years, just waiting for its time. That time is now."

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No Frontin' hasn't posted in a while but he does have a pretty great comedy sketch posted at the moment.

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My Bucks are languishing near the bottom of the lottery right now, so every loss at least provides the benefit of bringing us closer to a better draft pick. While I feel alright about the promotion of Larry Krystkowiak to head coach, this is clearly a lost season, especially now that Bogut and Villanueva are officially out for the rest of the year.

Assuming Oden and Durant both come out (not guaranteed) and go 1-2 (guaranteed if the come out) it leaves a bunch of nice but not sure-fire guys. As much as it might spell an end to CV's future as a Buck, we could use a defensive power forward to complement Bogut, and with Al Horford, Brandan Wright, Julian Wright, and Joakim Noah available. I'm personally on the Horford bandwagon at the moment, but another intriguing guy is 7 foot Chinese prospect Yi Jianlian.

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How Ronaldinho grew up. And the Times notes that he's become the face of soccer.

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Extras is done.

2007-03-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

"Sexual Healing" vs. "Wonderwall" works surprisingly well.

Go Home Productions / "Oasis is Gaye"

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Cool article about scientific research at the Defense Department.

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Interesting article about the lack of African-American players in baseball. People knock the legitimacy of hockey and the Winter Olympics for not having black athletes, does that mean we add baseball to the list?

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Also, here's a quick nod to Kyle's Vermont Catamounts, who dropped a heartbreaker in their conference title game but did contribute this sick dunk by Marquis Blakely.

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Steve Nash knows some tricks.

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If you're going to be on the Price Is Right, make sure you're not stoned out of your gourd.

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Say what you will about Vince Carter--he's soft, he quit on the Raps, he's not clutch, etc--but you can't convince me there's ever been a better dunker in the history of basketball. His dunk contest performance was incredible, but the number of incredible dunks he's done in games is far more impressive: a ridiculous array of 360s, windmills, facials, and alley-oops of every variety. Jordan and Dr. J's best dunks might rival Carter's best, but Vince's collection of incredible dunks is never-ending (see above video).

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Here's a cool goal from way back in the day--too bad that after this happened, they banned doing this sort of stuff on free kicks.

2007-03-07T22:46:00.000-05:00

Ratatat has released another track from their second volume of hip-hop remixes. Here they drop the hammer with Biggie and a killer bass loop.

Notorious B.I.G. / "Party & Bullshit (Ratatat Remix)"

GvB has another track here.

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The new Wilco stuff is all over the web, and it has a very mature, dad-rock sound to it, but for some reason I'm really liking it. Maybe because I'm old. Download Sky Blue Sky right here.

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If you think Carmelo Anthony's punch and backpedal move was bitchy, check out Valencia scrub David Navarro come in at the end of their Champions' League match vs. Inter Milan. Navarro is wearing the gray tracksuit...and after he throws his punch it's pretty easy to pick him out. Valencia progressed to the next round.

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If I had to pick my favorite band who I own no albums by, I'd rank Kings of Leon alongside stellastarr* near the top. This video shows they still make good music and that lead singer Caleb Followill is still sporting a douchebaggy haircut.

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As if the old M3 wasn't incredible enough, BMW decided to break out the more ridiculously awesome M3 at the Geneva show.

2007-03-03T11:18:00.000-05:00

HUMAN GIANT presents: CAMPING WEEKEND

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Rob Huebel (inconsiderate cellphone guy), Aziz Ansari, and Paul Scheer (gap-toothed bald guy from Best Week Ever) have a new comedy show called "The Human Giant" coming to MTV in April.

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Kevin beat me to it, but above is the second in the great series of The Michael Showalter Showalter. Speaking of which, Twins and Brian, check out this old sketch from The State with Showalter. Some ideas for the law firm of Ewing & Ewing.

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This corner needs a sign. Sorry Kyle, no porn music soundtrack either. And here's another nice clip of bad things happening in cars.

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Awesome but not recommended by your dentist

While Gerald Green was a deserving winner of the dunk contest, Dwight Howard got hosed when he didn't even make the finals. Check out some of the dunks he wanted to do.

2007-02-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

I'm late with this, but I like ripping on BC, so it's time we acknowledge how poor their defense was against VaTech. There are a surprising number of nice dunks in here, but one is much better than the others...you'll be able to figure out which one.

Meanwhile, Europeans? Not so good at dunking.

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Odawas / "Alleluia"
Cortney Tidwell / "Eyes Are at the Billions"
Two spacey and epic tracks. Odawas' new album is Raven and the White Night, while Tidwell released Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up last year.

Dead Disco / "Automatic" (video)
Metric / "Dead Disco" (video)
Dead Disco are three moderately attractive women from Leeds who wear a lot of makeup and play their own instruments. I've been listening to this song for a few weeks now, and somehow overlooked it when I mentioned all the new stuff I found over at Good Weather For Airstrikes. Reminds me a bit of the Metric song from which the band takes its name: punky dancefloor pop-rock with female vocals.

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Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips posted something over at NPR that sounds an awful lot like Wayne Coyne. Wayne might be my favorite personality in all of rock 'n roll, and to know why you only need to watch his video graduation speech for his old high school in Oklahoma. His cadence is a little off because he's clearly reading it off a prompter, but the message is pure Wayne.

Wayne Coyne Speech Pt 1
Wayne Coyne Speech Pt 2

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Dodger pitcher Matt White is a journeyman who recently acquired some very hard, very valuable assets.

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If you hadn't heard, Scottie Pippen is considering a comeback, and the word is that it's because he needs the money. In the meantime, TrueHoop passes along a fantastic story about why Michael Jordan is rich, and Scottie Pippen is not rich.

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Crime and violence are funny and/or sad:
- A woman used a baby as a down payment on a used Dodge Intrepid. This woman had clearly never driven a Dodge Intrepid before.
- Boston College girls are not to be trifled with.
- Bank robbery has never been so sexy.
- Next time you're in Pakistan, leave your kite at home.
- But do bring your children in case you need poker collateral.
- You don't want a moose riding shotgun.

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Vijay Singh is angry, accented, and fortunately for us, mic'd up.

2007-02-24T19:29:00.000-05:00

Great things happen when you fire cans of Beast at high speed.

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The Maccabees / "Precious Time"
The Maccabees / "Lego"

The Maccabees' debut album is out in May and I'm feeling very optimistic about it. The most distinctive aspect of their music is the the rapid-fire, slash-and-burn guitar part, which pretty much all of their songs have. Here are a couple more songs.

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Pictures of Audi's new A5/S5 coupe have leaked and it's pretty hot, though it's also apparently close to the size of an A6, which is a little big IMO. It also looks remarkably similar to the new BMW 3 coupe, but that's not bad thing either.

The current Maserati coupe is reasonably attractive, but the new GranTurismo is miles better.

Mini is giving its latest ad campaign the Starsky and Hutch treatment with Hammer & Coop.

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In honor of the new movie, I present the best of Reno 911!. My main complaint is that they don't even include the best bit ever--when Deputy Junior led a group of kids on a tour of the jail in season one (only the first part is shown here).

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It's not enough that Peyton Manning is the most ubiquitous ad-man in the NFL--now his backup Jim Sorgi is capitalizing on the pointlessness of his own life. I don't think anyone would argue that Manning's pretty dorky, but he's much funnier than Tom Brady.

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I love hockey, though my favorite players have always tended to be small, fast wimps who wear visors (Pavel Bure, Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne). Still, nothing's better than an all-out brawl in hockey, especially when you get the goalies involved.

Also, I don't know if I posted this previously, but here's Georges Laraque mic'ed up during a fight in Phoenix. Hilarious.

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The total shithead's guide to finance.

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Human skateboard--pretty effin' cool.

2007-02-19T20:47:00.000-05:00

Check out this video of rally car legend Walter Röhrl. The way he works the pedals is pretty amazing, but probably the craziest part are the fans lined along the "track."

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Laura Veirs / "Galaxies"
Laura Veirs got a lot of press last year for her album Year of Meteors, but I never bothered to check it out. Then Neile posted some good stuff from her forthcoming album Saltbreakers and I'm finally coming around.

Television Personalities / "You Kept Me Waiting Too Long...(E*Vax Remix)"
Ratatat's Evan Mast did a remix for Television Personalities, a British band I'd never heard of, and it sounds like something Ratatat would be responsible for, which also means I like it. I thought TVP sounded kind of like they'd been around, and sure enough, they've been around forever.

Dungen / "Gör Det Nu"
Here's a freebie from the upcoming Dungen LP, it's not the best song on the album but not bad either.

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One thing I HATE is when people don't return shopping carts in the grocery store parking lot. It's bad enough when parking spots are partially filled by a stray cart, but on a windy night it becomes a serious hazard to your car's paint job. The good people at the Census Bureau agree, and wanted us to know it's Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month.

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David Sedaris shares his product experimentation stories on Letterman.

2007-02-18T04:06:00.000-05:00

I told you so.

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The new Dungen album has leaked and is available here. My first impressions are very good, though none of the individual tracks have immediately jumped out at me (the lyrics being in Swedish contribute to that). It's not a huge departure from Ta Det Lugnt, with plenty of fuzzed out, psychedelic guitar rock mixed in with more cinematic feeling organ and string songs. I'm still not aware of anyone making music like this today. Some individual tracks can be found at Obscure Sound.

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Blonde Redhead have a new song and a new album: "23" is the excellent title track from their album that's coming out April 10th.

Blonde Redhead / "23"

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Wow, so much great music of late. Been listening to a lot of Europop, British rock, and remixes of late (primarily of Europop and British rock). Much of this stuff I found on Good Weather for Airstrikes, which has become my favorite music blog over the past several months.

The Maccabees / "X-Ray (Filthy Dukes Society Remix)"
The Maccabees / "X-Ray"
The Maccabees are British and don't even have an LP yet, but they make the sort of angular, slashing British rock that got me hooked on Bloc Party (think "Helicopter") two years ago. There's definitely a clear sense of Clash and Gang of Four influence, and this remix is currently my favorite thing to blare in the car. Here's their first video "First Love."

Klaxons / "Atlantis to Interzone (Crystal Castles Remix)"
Goodbooks / "Leni (Crystal Castles Remix)"
I'm actually not totally on board with Klaxons, who seem to have become a buzz band somehow. Crystal Castles can do little wrong with remixes, though. I haven't even looked into Goodbooks but I like how the female vocals are cut up and angled against each other (EDIT: just listened to the original and Goodbooks' lead singer is a guy, but on both of these tracks they play with the vocal track to make it sound like a woman's). Both tracks feature the signature Crystal Castles old school Nintendo vibe.

Mika / "Relax, Take It Easy"
I'm not even going to link to Mika's website because this song is a musical one-night stand. It's kitschy, laden with BeeGee audition vocals, and oh yeah, its melody was jacked from "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight." By Cutting Crew.

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Here's the promising and uncensored trailer for the new Judd Apatow flick "Knocked Up." It stars the hilarious and scrubby Seth Rogan (the guy who wasn't Steve Carell or Paul Rudd from 40 Year Old Virgin) and Katherine Heigl (from the massively overrated Grey's Anatomy). It also has Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig, and Jonah Hill among others.

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Andy Barker, PI has both Andy Richter and AD's Tony Hale, but the clip on the website isn't all that promising.

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Here's the trailer for the new Adam Sandler/Don Cheadle flick Reign Over Me, which will either be very good or absolutely awful.

2007-02-16T19:18:00.000-05:00

BRMC have a new single, "Weapon of Choice," that you can grab over at Idolator. Their new album Baby 81 comes out May 1st.

In the pantheon of weapon-themed BRMC songs, I'll put this one above "Six Barrel Shotgun" and just below "Rifles," which is saying a lot. As good as their last album Howl was, none of the tracks kicked the kind of ass that their previous LPs did. This one does. "Weapon of Choice" starts out with an acoustic guitar riff similar to the opening of "Ain't No Easy Way," before adding a clobbering drumpart and Robert Been's vocals. From there on out they turn on the electric guitars and basically begin burning shit and rolling around in the ashes.

Confirming what the lead single suggests, Peter Hayes told Billboard in October of the direction shift:

Hayes says BRMC didn't want to make an entire record full of the in-your-face, psychedelic rock found on 2003's "Take Them On, On Your Own," so the group incorporated some of the more textured production elements from "Howl" as a balance. "Things open up and break down within the songs, a lot," he says. "There are some songs that are kind of groove-oriented, not so blues or country influenced."

According to Hayes, "666 Conducer" is the most even blend of the last two albums, while "All You Do Is Talk" was built using 12 different guitar parts. "I played one string at a time making a chord and then doubled it," he says. "That's a big, thick wall of guitar, that one." Another song, "Am I Only," begins on acoustic "but opens up into big, distorted guitars. It also has a harmonium going along with it and some harmonica."

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KevNev previews the upcoming Brewers season. The only things I would add are that Carlos Villanueva could eventually take the #5 starter job. I'm praying for a healthy season for Ben Sheets and Rickie Weeks.

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You may recall my approval of the first single from the new Modest Mouse album, and over here you can find a zip file of the complete We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. I haven't listened to it yet, but I love the title.

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Did you know that my birthday is coming up in less than a month??? Gift idea!

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Other music tidbits:
- Princeton has a new and awesome theme song.
- Pitchfork says what everyone who likes the Wrens thinks.
-Mew are coming to Boston on Friday, March 23rd. Sadly this means I won't make it to NYC until the next day.

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This was mentioned on SNL as well, but it's a pretty crazy story: a Malaysian woman took the wrong bus and wound up going missing for 25 years.

A woman who boarded the wrong bus on an attempted shopping trip from Thailand to Malaysia has returned home after 25 years. Jaeyana Beuraheng told her eight children she accidentally boarded a bus bound for Bangkok instead of Malaysia, and once there she boarded a second incorrect bus because she could not read or speak Thai or English, The Times of London reported Wednesday.

Beuraheng, who speaks only the Yawi dialect used by Muslims in southern Thailand, said the noise and traffic of the big city confused and disoriented her, leading her to board the second wrong bus to Chiang Mai, near the border with Burma.

The woman said she spent five years begging on the street in the city and was often mistaken for a member of a hill tribe because of her dark skin tone. She was arrested in 1987 on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant and was sent to a social services hostel when authorities were unable to determine her origins.

However, last month, three students from her home village arrived at the hostel for training, and they were able to communicate with Beuraheng and help her find her way home.

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Rod Benson might be the new Paul Shirley.

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Tyrus Thomas sucks.

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Census Taker

The best Chris Walken SNL sketches.

2007-02-15T13:44:00.000-05:00

Gerald Green will win the 2007 dunk contest

I was at the Bucks-Celtics game last night to see the Celtics end their 18-game losing streak against my nearly-as-hapless Bucks, and I have to say that as a non-fan of the Celtics I think the dance team is a good addition. Sorry Kyle. Red's dead baby, Red's dead. Also, Gerald Green is good at shooting a basketball. Though not quite as good as he is at dunking it (see above).

In the meantime, the Bucks led by double digits in the second quarter and then clearly quit on Terry Stotts. Which is sort of understandable, given that he probably couldn't teach Charlie Weis to eat a Twinkie, much less inspire a basketball team to live up to its potential. While they'd probably be a bubble playoff team if they hadn't been so injury-riddled, the fact that they're 3-19 in their last 22 is indicative of a team that isn't going anywhere under their current coach. So either they're going to can Tater Stotts in the next couple days and give assistant Larry Krystkowiak a shot at running the team, or they're going to let Tater "lead" this team for the rest of the season and get us back into the lottery.

We clearly have offensive talent, but when a bunch of guys with decent attitudes still don't play any defense, you have to wonder about the coaching. Just as importantly, Bogut (who has officially added "mercurial" to his resume this season) has clearly had a distaste Stotts from the beginning and it wouldn't be bad to see what the big fella could do under a coach with a backbone.

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The tracklisting for Wilco's new LP, Sky Blue Sky, due May 15th:

01 Either Way
02 You Are My Face
03 Impossible Germany
04 Sky Blue Sky
05 Side With the Seeds
06 Shake It Off
07 Please Be Patient With Me
08 Hate It Here
09 Leave Me (Like You Found Me)
10 Walken
11 What Light
12 On and On and On

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Last year CBS offered incredibly convenient online access to every game in March Madness, which was super-handy for anyone who wanted to watch early round games while "working." However due to bandwidth limits you often had to wait in line to get the video to work. You can now pre-register for a free "VIP" pass that will get you immediate access to every game.

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Via KevNev, watch as Joe Rogan takes professional toolbox Carlos Mencia to task for being a hack and a joke-stealer. Or as WWTDD puts it:

Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia are both well known to steal other comedians' material, then re-write it and pass it off as their own. Except Dane doesn't re-write it, he just says whatever Louis CK says and then flails around a little bit. Now that's comedy! But no one has screamed louder about all this than Joe Rogan and Brian Redban. And so Mencia called Joe on stage Saturday night at the Comedy Store in Hollywood for a battle to settle things once and for all. Umm, it didn't work out, as comedian after comedian came out to say that Mencia absolutely steals material. What’s amazing is that Mencia jacks material and still sucks. He's not even clever enough to steal good material. Its like breaking into a bank and stealing their pens.

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Go over to Good Weather for Airstrikes for a great post with artists to look out for in 2007.

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Maggie Berger looks a lot like Maggie from Extras here

I seem to be all about excruciatingly cheesy Europop these days, and the latest culprit is Norwegian Idol second-place finisher Margaret Berger. I'm not sure how ironic she's being when she belts out "I'm in love with a robot!" but it's OK, she's Norwegian. "Samantha" is pretty catchy too but it also shows she's not a dancer.

Margaret Berger / "Robot Song" (left-click, from Alien Hits)

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The oft-quoted Autoblog has a "beater of the day" thing and I really love the description of this 1989 Chevy Caprice with police package.

Big Momma is optioned out with all the law enforcement-required kit and since we couldn't put it better ourselves, we'll quote her owner's Flickr description: "...she has a thicker cop frame, fuel-injected 350 cop V8, massive cop brakes, thick cop anti-sway bars, cop oil cooler, cop trans cooler, cop 'bucket' seats, cop 3.42 gears, cop 3-core radiator, cop 120A alternator, cop shocks, cop springs, and cop attitude. She's ugly, she knows it [and] she's angry about it!"

2007-02-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

The best from this month's Bliss Pop:

Octet / "Euro vs. Dollar (Pilooski Edit)"
This is easily the best rock-out-in-the-car song of the month...fat bass, a steady beat, no vocals, the perfect pacing of blips and bleeps.

The Shins / "Split Needles (Alternate Version)"
Their new disc Wincing the Night Away isn't bad, but it's a little short on hooks and a little long on wimpiness. This takes care of the latter a little.

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Here comes the Enron movie, with Leo DiCaprio in tow.

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And the winner for least effective gastric bypass goes to...Charlie Weis!?

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Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake perform Dick in a Box live.

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Dwight Schrute is coming to SNL.

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Thierry Henry is a fantastic player, but unfortunately he's also a jerk. Reason 456 to hate Arsenal and anyone associated with the French national team.

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My official prediction is that Gerald Green will win the 2007 Dunk Contest. He has ridiculous hops (his head regularly is in danger of hitting the rim when he dunks) and throws it down hard too. Nate Robinson is a small man but a huge tool, has no more interesting dunks to pull off after his BS act last year, and they changed the rules to prevent him from trying 86 times for the same damn dunk.

Tyrus Thomas is a great athlete but judging from his NBA highlight reel so far has no discernible creativity and his only good dunks are on follows of missed shots. He's also already said he doesn't care about the contest and only wants the cash, so fuck him. Fortunately poetic justice is alive and well.

Dwight Howard is good, but probably too big. On an unrelated note, he's not a whole lot better than he was last year, and has quietly become a little overrated (Shhhhhhhhhhh). Don't get me wrong, if you could pick anybody to start a team with he's definitely in the discussion (along with Wade, LBJ, and Dirk) but let's not get too carried away with him just yet.

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Kenneth from 30 Rock speaks.

2007-02-08T23:13:00.000-05:00

FAQ 1

Q: What is "Hello, Cleveland!" a reference to?

A: It's from Spinal Tap. It's also an album by Fighting Gravity, though I don't know why I'm admitting I know that. I haven't heard it. Really.

Q: What is lazy comedy?

A: "Lazy comedy" is a term for lame, obvious jokes that people who are not funny use to ineffectively make themselves seem funny, but in the process only reinforce their own lack of humor. There are many examples of lazy comedy, most of which you can find by watching CBS' hit comedy, "Two and a Half Men." Here are two obvious ones:

1) Brokeback Mountain jokes. These jokes were beaten to death about a week after they started, but that doesn't stop people from using "Brokeback" interchangeably with "gay."

2) Kwanzaa jokes. You've made them, too, it's OK. We've all told a Kwanzaa joke. Or 80. Ok, 87. But these are in many ways worse than Brokeback jokes, because they've been around a lot longer. Unfortunately, they start showing up every year around the holidays, and are favorites of people who you don't talk to very much except to exchange random happy holidays BS. These jokes are especially easy because almost no one takes Kwanzaa seriously as a holiday, and most people don't know anyone who "celebrates" it, so people aren't afraid to make fun of it. Unfortunately, easy jokes are generally bad jokes, and Kwanzaa jokes are both easy and bad, in addition to being old.

However, I should note that there has been one known effective usage of Kwanzaa for comedic purposes. On "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" on December 29, 2006, a George W. Bush character voiced by Robert Smigel was asked about the holiday season, and he responded by acknowledging Hanukkah as "Jewish Christmas" and Kwanzaa as "Black Hanukkah." Thus they executed the first and only effective Kwanzaa joke, though it should be pointed out that the punchline didn't actually use the word Kwanzaa.

Q: What's the best championship team music video?

A: "Red Hot," the Calgary Flames 1987 Stanley Cup Championship video. And it's really not even close. The Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle is more famous, but it suffers from the fact that the players actually sang the song. Additionally, hockey players, especially those with huge mustaches, are far more likable than football players, even fat ones.

Q: What did Yankees legend and native Oklahoman Mickey Mantle love most?

A: Hookers.

2007-02-06T11:11:00.000-05:00

Here's a good article discussing some of the challenges facing automakers as they try to bring electric cars to market.

Nobody in America currently sells a plug-in hybrid. Some seriously brave hackers have converted a Toyota Prius or two. And that’s about it. General Motors wooed a covey of press at the Detroit auto show with the Volt, their collective dream of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. The spinmeisters say it may be on the street in three years, if it’s able to fly General Lee style over a fat, flaming obstacle: batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries are currently our best electricity storage devices. They serve the lap-top and cell phone world nicely– at least for the moment. Compared to other batteries, they’re fairly light. On the downside, they catch fire if their insides are exposed to oxygen; not a great feature in a car. But it’s not an impossible situation. The all-electric Tesla Roadster uses an array of 6,831 lithium-ion cells, deploying a number a safety devices to keep it from becoming Tesla toaster.

The other downside: weight. While the two-passenger ultra-light Tesla can get away with schlepping a bunch of batteries, a mid-size sedan, pick-up truck stuffed with a bed full of peat moss or an SUV full of Boy Scouts, sleeping bags, tents and scarves are going to struggle just to get rolling.

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Unless you live in a cave you probably know all about the whole astronaut love triangle story, but I have to mention how hilarious I find it all. The part that really gets me is that during her 900 mile trip to stalk the victim, Astronaut Nowak wore diapers so she wouldn't have to stop. Now, I suppose that because astronauts wear special absorbent undergarments during takeoff and landing, this is slightly less odd. But the real question is was she wearing the space diapers when she frantically drove cross country? Or were these plain old Huggies? These are the things I need to know.

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Check out all the Super Bowl ads. Then check out Marvin Harrison's weird reaction to seeing the Snickers mechanics kissing ad. Then see where the inspiration for the Budweiser slapping ad may have come from.

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Cut Copy / "Hearts on Fire" (left-click YouSendIt)
The soon-to-be-released debut single from Cut Copy's sophomore LP is downloadable below. It's not a remarkable departure from what you've come to expect: Daft Punk meets New Order, with Dan Whitford saying stuff about "Hearts on Fire" over and over. It's not great, it's not bad. They even have have a Peter Hook-like bass part (3:13 in) to make me feel smart about the New Order comparison that I always make, as well as a sax part that I hope was played by a guy wearing Ray-Bans and a white blazer. If this song were to have its school picture taken, it definitely would have gotten the laser background.

Travis / "Big Chair" (left-click YouSendIt)
Contrary to what I said last week, this song is apparently not the lead single to Travis' next album The Boy With No Name, which comes out May 7th. However, it's better than the song that is the lead single, "Closer," which they were streaming on their MySpace last week. I have to say this song has been a favorite in the week or two since I first heard it, and I'm cautious optimistic the new album will be at least 50% not awful.

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Mendieta: You cannot strike a ball better than this

There's no washed up former European star I'd rather see join MLS than my first favorite soccer player, Gaizka Mendieta, and he's now been linked with a possible move from England to the US. I became a fan of his when he captained Valencia to back-to-back Champions League finals in 2001 and 2002, and I even left my intermediate macro final about 45 minutes early so I could catch all of the 2002 final against Bayern Munich (they lost on PKs). Anyway, he had some great games for Middlesbrough the past few years but has gotten lost in the shuffle this year. He's certainly past his best days but definitely has the skill to still be effective, especially in MLS. Check out the above goal as well as this gorgeous goal he scored in the Copa del Rey Final in 1999.

The best of Clint Dempsey: Did I already post this?

Meanwhile, the best (or at least the most entertaining) American soccer player, Clint Dempsey, is getting some minutes for Fulham while he gets back into shape (remember he hasn't played regularly in months). I was kind of ticked when he left the Revolution because I never made it down to Foxboro to see him play in person, but then it occurred to me that I saw him score the USA's only goal of the World Cup in June. We were sitting right near the corner flag he ran towards after he scored.

If you don't mind really random, innocuous highlights from his games in Englad, check out:

Slide tackle and backheel in his debut vs. Spurs
Couple plays vs. Newcastle
Nearly scoring vs. Stoke in the FA Cup

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Good news! The Reverend Ted Haggard, who lied about having sex with a dude before finally admitting he's a liar, is now cured. And it only took three weeks of rehab.

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If you haven't already seen it, go over to Deadspin to check out Peyton Manning doing the tango as a middle schooler.

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I generally think it's hard for a tuner to improve on something as perfect as a stock Ferrari, but I'm digging what Hamann did to the 599 Fiorano. The black rims actually look pretty good, though getting rid of the Ferrari prancing horse badges was going too far.

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Wisconsin cops are honest.

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Eagles coach Andy Reid's son is a huge idiot.

Britt Reid was arraigned on nine counts including making terroristic threats, possession of a controlled substance and a felony charge of carrying a firearm without a license. Reid did not speak to reporters as he left court with his attorney after posting bail.

Reid got into an argument with another motorist Jan. 30, pointing a handgun at the man and laughing before driving off, prosecutors said. The other driver managed to get the license plate number of Reid's black SUV and police traced it back to Reid's parents.

The other motorist described the driver with the gun as "a white kid trying to act like a gangster."

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Farmers need love too.

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Tough to block a shot better than Gerald Wallace does here on Al Harrington.

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This week's reminder that drunk people do dumb stuff.

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Here's Andy Dick being forcibly removed from the Jimmy Kimmel show for repeatedly touching Ivanka Trump. What this shows us is that Andy Dick is a drunk, Ivanka Trump is hot, and Ivanka Trump is really boring.

2007-02-03T17:24:00.000-05:00

Comments have been activated by popular demand (read: the Green Mountain State's finest asked nicely) so there you go. Also, an FAQ is in the works.

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I don't know how old these kids are (high school maybe?) but I like this little sketch a lot. It starts off a little corny, but the more random crap it throws in there the better it gets (Karo with the tip on this one). My favorite? Buffalo.

Of course, there's history here...in middle school my favorite show was "The State," which produced the sketch below (edit: they pulled it, damn). And then of course in high school I *may* have been involved in the production of a video with Kevin Neville that involved me portraying a Russian man whose dream of playing hockey was complicated by the fact that he was born with loaves of bread for hands.

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If you own a car and you're my friend, then I've probably lectured you on how to properly position your sideview mirrors to minimize (or erase) your blindspot. Unfortunately, you then probably switched your mirrors back because you're an idiot. Well, I just wanted to again remind you that a) I'm right and b) you're being unreasonable. I'm just trying to help, people.

As for the side mirror or mirrors, most people adjust them so they can see the side of the car on the inside edge of the mirror. Consider the view when the sideview mirrors are set up as just described. Essentially, you have created "tunnel vision" to the rear. Your sideview mirrors overlap much of what your inside rearview mirror sees and you've also created blind spots.

What is the solution to tunnel vision and blind spots? Simply adjust the sideview mirrors just beyond the point where you could see the side of the car on the inside edge of the mirror. With this setup, you almost completely solve the blind spot problem. To adjust the outside mirrors this way, follow these two steps: (This of course, is for vehicles with an inside mirror)

1) For the driver side mirror, roll up the window and press your head against the glass. Adjust the mirror so that you can just see the edge of the car.

2) For the passenger side mirror, place your head in the center of the car (directly behind the inside mirror mount) and adjust the outside mirror so that you can just see the edge of the car. This is necessary even with convex (curved) mirrors where the image is distorted a little.

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Cut Copy has a new song up on their MySpace page. I've only listened to it once but I'll rip it and post it here in the next week or so.

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Ratatat is indeed planning on a second volume hip hop remixes, meaning it will be safe for yuppie scum like me to listen to the rap music. Yay for rap!

Z-ro, Devin the Dude & Juvenile / "The Mule (Ratatat Remix)"

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Crystal Castles are a guy and a girl who make dirty-sounding electronica with the blips and bleeps from old video games. They're weird and you won't like them.

The Little Ones / "Lovers Who Uncover (Crystal Castles Remix)"
Crystal Castles / "Air War"

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UTIOG: Their lead singer looks like Jason Schwartzmann's transvestite brother. Or sister. Whatever.

I assumed Under the Influence of Giants would be a bunch of douchebags because Mike Torto recommended them to me, but I'm coming around a bit. Don't get me wrong--they're definitely douchebags. Just look at them. But their music is kinda good, in that smarmy dancefloor-disco-rock kind of way. Plus they're touring with the Rapture, so they win cred points there.

Under the Influence of Giants / "In the Clouds" (stolen from MOKB)

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The new movie Breach is about that dude (played by Chris Cooper) who was passing government secrets to the Russians for 20 years. I always feel kind of embarrassed when I see Ryan Phillippe act, but Crash was still good in spite of him, so...OK, that probably doesn't mean much.

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Some of the best quotes of the 06/07 NBA season.

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Salon has an interesting interview with Tyler Drumheller, the CIA's former chief of European Operations. While he doesn't comment specifically on some of the rendition issues, he does provide an interesting perspective on the CIA's work with European counterparts and the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Let me give you a general thought: From the perspective of the White House, it was smart to blur the lines about what was acceptable and what was not in the war on terrorism. It meant that whenever someone was overzealous in some dark interrogation cell, President Bush and his entourage could blame someone else. The rendition teams are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful. They are the men who went into Baghdad before the bombs and into Afghanistan before the army. If they didn't do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks. Perhaps the Bush administration deliberately created a gray area on renditions.

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If you're interested in breaking into a Mazda3, all you need is a tennis ball.

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Pure Volume has an old track by Mew that I had never heard before.

2007-01-31T20:48:00.000-05:00

Check out this video shot from a US Humvee as it makes its way through the crowded streets of Baghdad. (from Autoblog). On the one hand it's totally ridiculous that they get away with this shit, on the other hand I don't think I'd be too thrilled about waiting in stop-and-go traffic in the middle of Baghdad.

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I'm always disappointed with the quality of the women involved in political sex scandals. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is going in the right direction.

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There's a new tallest basketball player in North America, Sun Ming Ming.

Sun moved from his native China--where he played on a second-division team--to California about 1 1/2 years ago in hopes of making it in pro hoops. His career was put on hold last year while he had two operations for a pituitary tumor that led to his extraordinary size but threatened his life.

Sun said those procedures were successful and he's getting into shape. Doyle noted that his big addition needed extra training after taking time away from the court to shoot a fight scene in Jackie Chan's upcoming "Rush Hour 3."

"That was very fun," Sun said.

Given he's not really on NBA scouts' radar, it's pretty clear this guy has no basketball skills whatsoever. Check out the video at Deadspin to see him set new standards in immobility.

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It's on now--Baby Einstein and Slate are going at it. I'm hoping the Baby Einstein/State of the Union controversy really blows up, as it will provide the perfect media springboard for my new children's DVD series, Baby Mutombo. Maybe DVDs can't make infants smarter, but I'm confident that the Baby Mutombo DVDs (along with massive amounts of prescription growth hormones) can make infants taller.

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I've become strangely obsessed with bad-mouthing Bloc Party's new album Weekend in the City, especially given they were one of my favorite bands up until a few months ago. Anyway, the reviews are slowly trickling in, and Cokemachineglow hates it too.

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Justice haven't really made good on the "new Daft Punk" rep they seem to have, but this one's pretty good. And pretty Daft Punkish, in a stuttering electronica kind of way.

Justice / "Phantom Part I"

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Here's a dude jumping off a cliff into a ravine with a pile of boxes at the bottom. The backflip is a nice touch.

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If you didn't hear about it already, a 29-year old sex offender managed to pass off as a seventh grader and attend school for a few months before being caught. Once again proving my theory that middle school teachers aren't very smart.

2007-01-30T23:40:00.000-05:00

What has changed in the alternative energy investment landscape?

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The good people at With Leather know that the only thing better than looking at cheerleaders is looking at cheerleaders getting injured.

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Peter Bjorn & John put on a nice show on Conan with a performance of "Young Folks." Victoria Bergsmann also was along for the ride. It's been too long since we last saw whistling on live TV, though at the end you'll notice they have a whistle backing track.

Peter Bjorn & John / "Young Folks"

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I haven't seen !!! live yet, but I've always gotten the impression that lead singer Nic Offer was pretty weird. This video of their new single "Heart of Hearts" reinforces that quite well...not sure what you can say about the shorts he's wearing in this one.

!!! / "Heart of Hearts"

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Apparently a lot of Israelis are under the impression that they can buy plots of land on the moon.

Israelis make their purchases through a Web site run by Crazyshop, which also offers other "out of this world" products such as the opportunity to name a star after a loved one. The company, which claims to be the exclusive place to buy moon property, is a franchise owned by American Dennis Hop, who "owns the moon," according to Wegman.

The eventual payoff could be much greater due to a loophole in international law, said Ron Movshovitz, a legal adviser for the Israel Space Society.

The United Nations' Outer Space Treaty banned states from purchasing land in space, but allowed individual citizens to purchase land, said Movshovitz.

As a result, it is possible that in the near future NASA will have to buy land from the private property owners, enabling them to demand large sums for their plots.

There's a Palestine joke to be made here, but I'd rather focus on how fucking retarded all this is. Something tells me that if random Israelis want to enforce their phony property rights to pieces of lunar surface, they will need to pack their shit up and go there first.

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The mascot for the Austin Toros of the NBA Developmental League nearly cost his team the game. I think we need to give the guy credit--it can't be easy jumping up and hanging on the rim while you're wearing a mascot outfit.

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My favorite animal growing up? Sharks. This one's really weird.

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Military technology is awesome:

The military's new weapon is a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they will catch fire. The technology is supposed to be harmless -- a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons.

During the first media demonstration of the weapon Wednesday, airmen fired beams from a large dish antenna mounted atop a Humvee at people pretending to be rioters and acting out other scenarios U.S. troops might encounter.

The crew fired beams from more than 500 yards (455 meters) away, nearly 17 times the range of existing non-lethal weapons, such as rubber bullets. While the sudden, 130-degree Fahrenheit (54.44 Celsius) heat was not painful, it was intense enough to make participants think their clothes were about to ignite.

The system uses millimeter waves, which can penetrate only 1/64th of an inch of skin, just enough to cause discomfort. By comparison, common kitchen microwaves penetrate several inches of skin.

The millimeter waves cannot go through walls, but they can penetrate most clothing, officials said. They refused to comment on whether the waves can go through glass.

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Yep, Reggie Bush is a cheater. Also, while he had a nice year catching the ball as a rookie, people seem somewhat oblivious to the fact that he was pretty awful running the ball. He averaged a miserable 3.6 yards per carry and didn't have a single 20-yard run during the regular season. How is that possible given his explosiveness? He's an idiot who dances in the backfield rather than hit holes, that's how.

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Mew's awesome 2003 album Frengers is finally available in the USA.

Mew / "Snow Brigade"

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This isn't a terribly interesting review of the old Mercedes C-Class, but I love this line:

Like the chubby college girl that somehow found her way into your dorm room on a regular basis, the Benz has a familiar, soggy shape, with too many curves above the beltline.

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John Krasinski (Jim from the Office) is in a new movie with Anna Farris. From what I can tell she's stoned out of her mind the entire film.

2007-01-26T10:40:00.000-05:00

Slate reran a 2004 interview they did with former CIA spy and Watergate operative E. Howard Hunt. Pretty awesome insight into the old days of the CIA...the overview:

Former CIA spymaster E. Howard Hunt died yesterday at age 88. His ignominious career included masterminding the Watergate break-in and overthrowing the democratically elected government of Guatemala. He gloated over his most sordid exploits—including Che Guevara's assassination—in a 2004 Slate "Interrogation" by A.L. Bardach, which is reproduced below. He was unrepentant to the end: When asked if he had any regrets, he replied, "No, none. [Long pause] Well, it would have been nice to do Bay of Pigs differently."

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A faithful reader (let's call him "Brian C. Lay") reminded me of an SNL bit that was centered around one of our favorite words: Rrrreallly?!?. I also liked the recent MacGruber sketches;

MacGruber I
MacGruber II
MacGruber III

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Still trying to figure out why the Baby Einstein chick was one of the people singled out during the State of the Union? Slate is, too.

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Travis: Making poor use of YouTube

Travis have kind of descended into semi-obscurity over the years, but they have a new song called "Big Chair" which keeps up with their tradition of releasing great lead singles. The Man Who is still an album I like a lot, even though my taste has become slightly less wimpy since I first heard it about seven years ago.

They came back with The Invisible Band in 2001, which I had huge expectations for based on the great lead single "Sing." I also loved the next two songs I heard, "Side" and "Pipe Dreams," but as it turned out, the album was pretty worthless after those three. Then they had 12 Memories in 2003, but aside from the single "Re-Offender" it was pretty much one for the scrap heap. Hopefully the new album won't follow their more recent pattern.

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Some tunes:

Andrew Bird / "Heretics"
Mohair / "End of the Line" (pilfered from MOKB)

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You know John Hodgman as the "PC guy" from the Mac commercials, and might also remember him from the Daily Show as well. His new book is Areas of My Expertise and he showed up recently to talk to Jon Stewart about history, FDR, and hobos.

In fact, he's something of a hobo expert, something I appreciate because for my money there's nothing better than hobo-based humor. And for our benefit John has come up with the 700 best hobo names, and uploaded them via mp3 to his website:

John Hodgman / "700 Hobo Names"

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Looking for some short-term cash, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is considering selling the state's lottery to a private buyer.

2007-01-25T12:29:00.000-05:00

I'm way late, but here are my top albums of 2006. If I didn't REALLY listen to the album much I didn't give it a number, hence there are only eight.

ALBUMS:

8. Junior Boys / So This is Goodbye
I've always thought they were critically overrated--really, their music is way too repetitive and sparse to get so much cred, especially their debut album--but this is the real deal. The first five tracks are great, and they've got some nice foot-stompers in there as well. Very fun live band too.

Key track: "Double Shadow"
My first fave song off the album, though a few others took that title at various points. There's not a ton going on in this song, but that's JB in a nutshell. It's got a slick, Depeche Mode-type bass line--I love that echo-ish effect--and lead singer Jeremy Greenspan has the sort of ice cold vocals that go perfectly with their style of music.

7. Islands / Return to the Sea

This is the kind of quirky, dinky indie pop that I usually don't go for, but Islands do dinky pop better than anyone else, so in this case I most definitely went for it. Opening track "Swans (Life After Death" was already a fave late in 2005 when it leaked, and while it's a marathon at nine minutes in length, it never feels that long, which is saying a lot because I usually don't have much patience for long songs. The album varies a fair amount and even features an odd, super-fast (think the Micro Machines guy) rap on "Where There's a Will There's a Whalebone." I definitely didn't listen to this album much at all by the latter part of the year, but still a keeper. Whenever I listen to Islands I picture a band of muppets playing on little muppet instruments...fuck, muppets are awesome.

Key track: "Volcanoes" (left click)
"Swans" is better but I love the way this song builds to its climactic ending.

6. I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness / Fear is On Our Side

Interpolish but with smoother vocals. Individually the songs aren't fantastic, but track-to-track it's consistent and never gets old. It's the perfect album to put on and not pay much attention to, if that makes any sense. Pitchfork referred to their genre of music as "serious rock music" (I think that was the term) and that's pretty accurate. It's not for dancing but it's also not juvenile lovey-dovey crap either. This is music to do your tax returns to...alright, that came out wrong.

Key track: "Lights" (left click)
This song has no discernible hook to it, but it just has this continuous, optimistic urgency to it that I really like.

5. Ratatat / Classics

This was easily better than their debut LP, but I guess their schtick--crunching guitars and bass over beats with zero vocals--didn't have the same appeal with the critics that loved the freshness of Ratatat. That's not to say they didn't add more depth to their sound this time out. "Gettysburg" sounds like it could have been an old Blur song, and they sprinkled in acoustic guitar parts as well. I'm listening to the album a little bit as I write it, and I'm remembering how much I like it. Because it leaked relatively slowly, I listened to most of the songs one at a time before the album came out, so I definitely didn't listen to the album as a whole as much as it probably deserved. What I loved about the first album was that despite the lack of vocals they could still build to these really climactic, even emotive parts, and this album does that even more.

They've carved out a nice niche for themselves (I missed out on tickets entirely the last time they were in Boston), and I'm curious to see what they do from here on out. So much of their stuff you could put rap vocals over, so their rap remix album was a no-brainer, and hopefully they'll do more of that. Easily one of my fave live bands as well.

Key track: "Nostrand" (left click)
The opening couple minutes are very chill, the bass part is just as head-bobbable as you could hope for, and then they spice it up with the guitar part (with just enough sustain), which then leads into the crunching climax two minutes in. And that's how Ratatat makes glorious music.

4. Husky Rescue / Country Falls

Ok, this album came out in 2005, but it's too good for me to ignore altogether. Their style of music is a perfect combination--retro, cool, effortless, soundtrack-ish, and oh yeah, they've got a hot lead singer. It's music you can fall asleep to, or music to crank while driving around in the car, which is a pretty rare combination. I'm now loving their new album Ghost is Not Real, which has already locked up a spot on my best of 2007 list.

Key track: "Summertime Cowboy" (left click)
There are about five other great songs on the album, but most are softer and lack the simple, poppy infectiousness of this song, which was the breakout song on the album.

3. The Rapture / Pieces of the People We Love

They're my fave live band and at this point are probably my favorite band period. Echoes has stood the test of time, so coming up with a satisfying follow-up was going to be tough. Rather than refurbish the raw dance-punk of Echoes, they went with a bouncier, far more polished approach and it really paid off. The first six tracks off this album are amazing, but the quality seriously dips in the latter half, which is a little more psych-rock and doesn't have the same fun dance feel of the front end. This album was in constant car rotation for me; even "W.A.Y.U.H." has become a song I really like.

Key track: "Don Gon Do It" (left click)

2. The Sunshine Underground / Raise the Alarm

Pretty much every song on this album is really good. Not the most inventive sound in the world--a modern rock interpretation of the Clash, lots of hooks and cowbell--but they've got a good thing going and keep doing it over and over with enough variation that I never get sick of it. Sadly, this was never released stateside and they haven't made a huge splash in England either, so who knows if they'll ever make it to America period. Of all the albums I bought in 2006, this probably had the heaviest rotation in the last couple months. Note the track below isn't the best on the album, but it's a hidden track so I figured I'd upload that since it's a pain in the ass to get by itself.

Key track: "Climbing Up the Walls" (left click)

1. Sound Team / Movie Monster

I was pretty much a one-man Sound Team promo machine this year, pimping them shamelessly to everyone who would listen, so this probably isn't much surprise. They never really caught on that much though (at least I got Dave and Jon to bite), and the totally misguided Pitchfork review probably played a large role in them not even being reviewed by most outlets. Which is interesting, because they had some positive buzz and had even been signed by Capitol (perhaps a kiss of death to their cred) in the run-up to their album coming out in June.

So why was Movie Monster my fave album of the year? The album varies a fair amount from song-to-song, blending mostly indie pop and fuzzy krautrock influences, lots of organ and synth thrown in to further muddle things, though positively so.Best of all, it manages to sound cohesive without being repetitive. And it's that last part which generally separate good music from great music. It's got my favorite song of the year in "Born to Please," which combines an (almost cheesy) '80s pop urgency with a great modern rock song. And the album ends with another of the year's best, the blipping, stopping and starting "Handful of Billions." I also came to really like their lyrics, in the sense that they tend to be very non-linear (read: they don't make sense) but mostly are just interesting phrases that tend to be delivered in a passionate way. Often times they're a little too randomly literate for their own good ("Do you remember the one who took Place in the Sun from you?" and "Kafka on the shore!") but whatever, it's better than the same old bitching about girls you love who don't love you.

Key track: "Born to Please" (left click)
This was my favorite song of the year and I knew it would be within a day of hearing it this spring. Even so, I don't know anyone else who likes this song even remotely as much as I do.

Honorable mention--good albums I didn't quite get into as much, for one reason or another:

Director / We Thrive on Big Cities
Emily Haines / Knives Don't Have Your Back
French Kicks / Two Thousand
Flaming Lips / At War With The Mystics
Gnarls Barkley / St. Elsewhere
Peter Bjorn and John / Writer's Block
Presets / Beams
The Sleepy Jackson / Personality: One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird
Sparklehorse / Dreamt for a Light Year in the Belly of a Mountain
The Strokes / First Impressions of Earth
TV on the Radio / Return to Cookie Mountain
Villeneuve / First Date
Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Show Your Bones

2007-01-22T14:22:00.000-05:00

New music:

Kaiser Chiefs: Not as shitty as once thought.

Kaiser Chiefs / "Ruby" (pillaged from Extrawack!)
I previously had taken a firm stance against Kaiser Chiefs, but their new single "Ruby" is pretty damn catchy. Like the Futureheads, they showed up in the wake of Franz Ferdinand and were part of a surge in "fun" British rock bands that I didn't see the point in (Franz were enough for me). Most music videos are pretty pointless these days, but this one's actually very good. And FYI, Kaiser Chiefs are from Leeds, but named their band after the South African soccer team that former Leeds United (and South Africa) captain Lucas Radebe played for.

Papercuts / "John Brown"
This sounds like it could have come from the ride-off-into-the-sunset scene of a Quentin Tarantino movie (I think Kill Bill 2 had one?). Has a certain late '60s or early '70s spaghetti western feel. Too bad the name is just a bit off.

Patrick Wolf / "Bluebells"
Another promising song from Wolf's forthcoming third LP. It has a similar feel to his second album, which means acoustic guitar, piano and random instruments from black-and-white movies, all mixed with electronic (but not dance-y) beats and synths. By the way, Patrick Wolf is weird.

Brand New: At least two of the guitars are totally unnecessary

Brand New / "Jesus Christ" (plundered from Music is Art)
Brand New are one of those borderline emo/punk bands, though in their defense they're not a bunch of pierced-lip retards wearing black makeup. I saw them on Conan last week and thought this song was really good. It's down-tempo, but it's not a ballad--reminds me a wizzle bit of Interpol's "Leif Erikson." But just a wizzle.

The Laughing: Bringing gay carpentry to the masses

The Laughing / "Wearing the Colors" (stolen from the incomparable GvB)
The Laughing are a new band, and for this song they stole the horn section from Radiohead's "The National Anthem." Dark, purposeful rock music from guys who look dorky and not terribly purposeful.

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The twenty most popular science myths.

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Bears fans are tasteful.

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As you might guess, I smugly enjoyed the Globe's chronicling of the Colts' victory over the Pats, mainly because I'm sick of having to hear about the Pats all the time. My favorite line:

Anna Majszyk's head hung low as she walked out of Game On off Lansdowne Street.

"My boyfriend's in tears," said Majszyk, 23, of Newton. "It's really disappointing. I'm still in shock."

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KevNev mentioned the new movie "Sunshine," which looks pretty interesting. I don't know much about the plot, except that it involves people being chucked into the walls of their spaceship. A lot.

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The Oscar nominations are in. Among the best pic nominees, I saw Little Miss Sunshine (really good, amusing), Letters From Iwo Jima (really good, heavy) and The Departed (the best, awesome in most every way).

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Online hunting actually exists, and people aren't happy about it.

New technology has enabled online hunters to gun down live deer and other animals from their computers.

It works like this: The "hunter" logs on to a website, where he or she views a live video broadcast from a selected location, such as a ranch stocked with game animals.

The feeding area is rigged with a loaded rifle that can be controlled through the website. When an animal wanders into the site of the gun, the hunter can fire the weapon with the click of a mouse.

Now, state Senator Robert Creedon, a Brockton Democrat, has filed a bill that would ban anyone in Massachusetts from taking part in Internet hunting.

The whole idea of internet hunting is pretty lame, but I'm half-impressed that someone even bothered to set something like this up.

2007-01-21T01:45:00.000-05:00

Wholly unrelated to the picture above, check out this high school QB in Texas...this is what we call gutting it out.

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The best name in college football is now no more.

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Nick Diamonds of Islands spoke to Pitchfork recently, and among other things now wants to be called by his given name Nick Thorburn. Aside from having the next two Islands albums already planned out, Nick had some very odd commentary on a range of issues:

On packaging the new album:
We're going to make each one ourselves, fold it up in a CFC Styrofoam container, non-recyclable, double plastic individually wrapped. The CD will be wrapped as well, and the booklet. Each member of Islands is going to hand-make the record. It's going to be really special, so it's going to take six months.

On the song "Rough Gem" from the first album:
I find [that song] a little insipid. I feel like that's really not encouraged, to shit-talk yourself...but that song gets on my nerves. It's really too chipper, too cheery for me right now. And it's cryptomnesiac. I stole that song unconsciously from Prince, so I'm giving it back. Cryptomnesia is a funny thing that has occurred throughout history-- authors and artists stealing from other authors and artists, either willingly or unknowingly, subconsciously or inadvertently. And it's pretty cool.

On ditching his stage name Diamonds for his given name Thorburn:
Diamonds is just a tacky, cheap kind of tawdry image, a little iconic graphic that people get tattoos of in Brooklyn, and I don't feel like I identify with that whatsoever. Thorburn is-- I've often thought it was a weird, punky sounding name, but it's kind of cool, it's got two pretty cool things in it: burn, things that burn-- that's cool-- and Thor. He was pretty cool. So I'm into it.

Islands / "Rough Gem"

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I'm not sure what is more surprising about this video of Phil Mickelson: the amazing trick shot he pulls off, or the fact that he's not tubby.

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Peter Vagenas of the LA Galaxy is delusional, but at least he's honest about it:

"I think, as we all are fans of soccer, he is David Beckham and a wise man told me you're worth what you negotiate. But at the same time, of course there's resentment, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't. On the one hand more power to him and on the other you say 'why can't I be getting some of that?'."

Let me break it down, Pete.
1) You're a hack who isn't good at soccer.
2) No one has ever spent money to watch a game because of you.
3) You're ugly.

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I saw this random story about the mayor of Pittsburgh sort of getting into trouble at a Steelers game, but it's not the story I find interesting so much as the fact that the city of Pittsburgh is being run by a 26-year old.

2007-01-17T20:03:00.000-05:00

Michael Showalter's stuff can be a little hit and miss (case in point: Stella) but him interviewing Zach Galifianakis is pretty much all awesome.

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I'm not a huge Audi fan but the new R8 is hot. In other car news, be careful where you park your Maserati.

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Here's an absolutely bizarre scene from a soccer game in South Africa.

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Jeff Tweedy provides some dish on the next Wilco album. It's called Sky Blue Sky and comes out May 15th.

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Apparently Edgar Davids is in negotations to follow Beckham to MLS. Davids has lost his place at Tottenham, and having seen him play for Spurs a bunch of times in the last year, I can say it makes a lot of sense. He's definitely not the player he used to be, but he certainly would give MLS another recognizable face, and he'd have plenty of chances to do this in America.

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If you want to know all about the best freshmen in the country, here are some good primers on Kevin Durant and Greg Oden. Durant scored 37 for Texas in their triple OT thriller vs. Oklahoma State.

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I mentioned it earlier and it keeps happening--kids around the world have got hanging fever.

2007-01-16T23:10:00.001-05:00

Grizzly Bear: I think somebody needs a little wamp wamp!

I can't say I really understand the appeal of Clipse, which is a shame since it seems the indie rock community has anointed them the "token rap group for white people" of 2006. This happens with a few rappers every year--indie bloggers pick up on them and then play it off like it's normal for them to like rap, but secretly you know white people who like indie rock LOVE finding rappers who it's OK to like. I liked a couple Ghostface songs last year, so I'm going to call it a day. Plus I still love "Hate It or Love It" by The Game. Makes me feel like dancin'!

All that cynicism aside, I have to say that Girl Talk's mashup of Clipse's "Wamp Wamp" and Grizzly Bear's "Knife" (a song I love, btw) does sound pretty fucking good. And it's certainly less retarded than something involving the phrase "Wamp Wamp" should be. Apparently there's some Ying Yang Twins in there too, at least that's what the kids are telling me. Girl Talk aka Greg Gillis was responsible for last year's copyright nightmare, Night Ripper, which was basically one huge mashup. Also, for the record I think we should call this song "Wamp Wamp (Girly Bear Remix)" because it'd be more clever, but whatever.

Grizzly Bear / "Knife" (Girl Talk Remix)
Grizzly Bear / "Knife" (left-click)
Girl Talk / "Smash Your Head"

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I've been aware of what RSS is for quite a while--Foon insisted a couple years ago I turn on the RSS feed for this page so that he could more conveniently read it. Still, I never bothered actually using RSS to more easily read my favorite websites until last friggin week. That was when I stumbled on Google Reader, which is one of many RSS apps out there.

I don't know if it's the best (no youtube video), but it's got an interface similar to gmail, and it's easy to keep tabs on all your favorite blogs and news sites from one page. And if you need this RSS feed for this page, it's right here:

http//hello-cleveland.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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They're finally thinking about how to end "Lost."

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Phil Ball, my favorite Spanish soccer writer, provides the Spanish perspective on the Beckham signing and his resulting benching.

In terms of how all this impacts on Real Madrid, the truth is that the issue of his exclusion (not the transfer) has split the country down the middle. I was in Santiago at the weekend, and everyone was talking about it. Back here in San Sebastian, and I've just come back from the bar after watching Madrid beat Zaragoza, people were still talking about it.

One chap with a scary moustache, who'd spent the game muttering darkly about Van Nistelrooy's inability to either control or pass the ball - Es un buitre, joder! Que se dedique a esto, y nada más! (He's a poacher, for God's sake. He should just stick to doing that!) then began to chat with the barman about Beckham (who'd just appeared on camera, sitting in the stands watching his mates play). 'I can't understand it!' he shouted. 'So Madrid need to clean out the old ones, and start from new. I can understand that. But to punish the guy like that is just nasty. It shows a lack of class. Beckham's alright. He's always worked his nuts off. The club's gone to the dogs. You can't treat people like that'.

Radomir Antic, writing in the tabloid 'AS' said something similar, qualifying the action as symbolic of a dying institution, one that no longer has the dignity to even know who its most loyal servants have been. And he has a point. Ronaldo's sullen and unpredictable behaviour over the past two seasons should have guaranteed his exit long before now, but now Beckham has been lumped in with the 'clean-up', which includes the troublesome Cassano - a most unholy trinity, since the Englishman's behaviour has been exemplary.

The Bernabéu rate Beckham, however much the tabloid Marca desperately publish daily (unsubstantiated) vox-pops which claim to support Capello's actions. The Bernabéu have always rated Beckham. They recognise his limitations, but they still know that he's the best passer in their squad, a player capable of bringing out the best in the rest. But like any other player he needs continuity. He can't perform in a bit-part role. When he's had continuity he's played just fine and he's a better player than he was at Manchester United.

I stick with the words of Jorge Valdano, who knows a thing or two about football. His mis-translated phrase, that Beckham 'strikes' the ball better than anyone since Maradona, was in fact 'Desde Maradona, nadie trata el balon como Beckham' (Since Maradona, no-one has had the touch that Beckham has) seems a good enough testament to me.

2007-01-14T21:49:00.000-05:00

Oh my. The trailer for the Will Ferrell/Jon Heder figure skating movie is out...and wow, this could be good. Note Amy Poehler and Will Arnett featuring as rival skaters.

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Thoughts from the season premier of 24:

- If the tall, googley-eyed CTU guy who took an order without any saying any lines looked familiar, it was Stephen Merchant, the co-creator of the original BBC "The Office." Here he is winning the British Comedy Actor of the Year award (or something).
- Kal Penn (aka the Indian guy from Harold Kumar, aka the only Indian guy allowed to play semi-major roles in movies) is unfortunately a shitty dramatic actor. Which is disappointing, given he has a monopoly on token Indian guy roles, and now is also taking roles as the token Muslim kid.
- For the second straight year, they found the perfect guy to play the incredibly obnoxious, unlikable bureaucrat dude. In other words, an annoying guy who meddles with the good guys without being a real bad guy, but you know that eventually he's going to get much worse.
- Is there any other character outside of Jack Bauer that you can root for as he bites a guy in the neck and kills him by tearing his artery open?

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Off shore wind power is cool.

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A tribute to the ramen noodle guy.

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This NYT article titled "Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs" really has very little to do with iPhones, but it's still a good read on how copyright protection on digital music might change for the better.

2007-01-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

Ali G meets the Beckhams...gotta say they're pretty good sports

So the big news this week is David Beckham officially signing to play for the LA Galaxy starting in August (or earlier, given he's been benched in light of his signing), but don't overlook the importance of USA Soccer Player of the Year Clint Dempsey moving across the Atlantic to play for Fulham in England. Some might say it's bad when the league has to lose its promising youngsters while bringing in expensive, aging stars, but ironically US soccer at this point depends on players like Dempsey competing in better leagues abroad. Fulham's a good choice for Dempsey, given he'll actually have a shot at winning a place in their midfield, while he'll have fellow Americans Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra there to keep him company. And of course the most important thing will be playing against the top competition of the Premiership.

As for Beckham, I used to like him at Manchester United, but I don't root for anyone wearing a Real Madrid jersey. Still, as a fan of soccer in America, I'm hoping he does well and wins the league some more attention. He has never had much in the way of dazzling moves, so hopefully he buries his share of free kicks, since that's really the only way the average American will be impressed by his game. And as far as the reported $250 million he's supposed to get, you can't really compare it to the standard sports contract. Supposedly "only" $10 million per year is salary, while $35 million is tied to endorsements and merchandising, and a final $5 million to profit-sharing with the Galaxy's owner. And for those wondering how a lowly MLS team can afford to pay Beckham that sort of coin, keep in mind the owner of the Galaxy is billionaire Phil Anschutz. With about $8 billion to his name, Anschutz ranks only behind Paul Allen (Seahawks/Blazers) in terms of US individuals that run teams. I don't expect Beckham to turn the big four sports into the big five, but considering how a non-sport like NASCAR has become such a big deal, it doesn't seem out of question that soccer could become significantly more popular in the next five to ten years.

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Cloud Cult: these dorks are dressed for winter

Stereogum profiled Cloud Cult and I like 'em.

Cloud Cult / "Outside of Your Skin"

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If you're the type of person who relies on the people that sell you oil changes to tell you when you actually need to change your oil, then you might want to read this.

Many decades ago, when metallurgy, tolerances, manufacturing precision and various aspects of engine controls (as well as the oil itself) were profoundly more primitive, the 3k mile oil change interval had a logical basis. Crude carburetor chokes caused overly rich mixtures, dumping raw gas onto cylinder walls that worked its way down into the crankcase. Poorly fitted rings caused blow-by, which had the same effect with nasty combustion byproducts. And poor tolerances created rapid wear, which released and circulated metal particles throughout the engine. People drove shorter distances, and cars often didn’t warm up enough to burn off contaminants. To travel 100k miles without an engine rebuild was a genuine accomplishment.

By the sixties, improvements in all of these mission critical areas led manufacturers to adopt an industry standard 6k mile oil change interval. Since then, recommended oil change intervals have risen as high as 10k miles. At the same time, many high end cars ECU’s (e.g. BMW, Porsche) now monitor engine and environmental operating conditions and calculate the ideal interval for an oil change– sometimes well into the teens.

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I began warning people weeks ago that the new Bloc Party album is a steaming pile of meh, and have been steeling myself for the Coldplay-ization of BP. And now bassist Gordie Moakes has further trampled my remaining hopes that the band can be salvaged:

"It's got everything that makes a Coldplay song, plus more," bassist Gordon Moakes says of the band's more introspective material. "It has a lush sound without being too syrupy."

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Boy Scouts: destroying America, one fire at a time.

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Fact: my favorite German crossover phrase is Schadenfreude. Note however, that it's impossible to apply this phrase to Florida QB Tim Tebow. Ridiculous, Tim. Just ridiculous.

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Check out my new website.

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With Leather shows us another example of why life isn't fair. Hint: it involves NFL cheerleaders and John Popper.

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Two old men tried their hardest and came up with another reason to make fun of the state of Alabama. As for the obvious question, the first thing I found on the internet said he was 5'6".

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Louie CK on the Daily Show. Nice.

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Michael Strahan has been ordered to pay more than half his net worth--$15.3 million--to his ex-wife. The sad part is that the dude had a pre-nup.

2007-01-09T11:18:00.000-05:00

Best songs I heard in 2006, in random order:

Sound Team / "Born to Please"
Sound Team / "Handful of Billions"
Sound Team / "Your Eyes Are Liars"
Grand National / "Drink To Moving On" (2005)
Director / "Reconnect"
Van She / "Sex City"
The Rapture / "Don Gon Do It"
The Rapture / "Get Myself Into It"
The Rapture / "The Devil"
Guster / "Satellite"
Peter Bjorn & John / "Young Folks"
Peter Bjorn & John / "Let's Call It Off"
Your Black Star / "Oh Jesus"
Maximo Park / "Postcard of a Painting"
The Sunshine Underground / "Climbing Up The Walls"
The Sunshine Underground / "Panic Attack"
The Sunshine Underground / "Commercial Breakdown"
The Sunshine Underground / "I Ain't Losing Any Sleep"
The Sunshine Underground / "The Way It Is"
The Stills / "Baby Blues"
Emily Haines / "Doctor Blind"
Emily Haines / "The Lottery"
Emily Haines / "Our Hell"
Grizzly Bear / "Knife"
TVOTR / "Wolf Like Me"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs / "Turn Into"
Guillemots / "Trains to Brazil"
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness / "Lights"
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness / "We Choose Faces"
The Boy Least Likely To / "Be Gentle With Me"
Mute Math / "Reset"
Gnarls Barkley / "Crazy"
Gnarls Barkley / "Smiley Faces"
Metric / "Poster of a Girl"
Taking Back Sunday / "Makedamnsure"
Division Day / "Tap-Tap, Click-Click"
Husky Rescue / "Summertime Cowboy" (2005)
Husky Rescue / "City Lights" (2005)

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Pitchfork provides the album version of !!!'s "Heart of Hearts," and gives it a pretty fair description.:

!!!'s prodigiously hyphenated genre exercises-- how does "electro-acoustic no-wave post-disco-funk" suit you?-- have always been audacious, if spotty. "Heart of Hearts", though, distills everything good about !!! (relentless propulsion, lean syncopation, and dynamic convulsions) into a mighty six-minute tsunami that cascades in perpetuity. Darkly glittering scraps of guitar and concussive noises gather before quickly bursting into a wiry disco pulse, arcing between chewy bass and smacking drums. The scatty, svelte vocals are all vapid dance-floor solidarity, fleshing out the glass-brick funk.

!!! / "Heart of Hearts"

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Not everyone is in love with Tony Romo...take Drew Bledsoe for instance.

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Dallas Stars vs. Edmonton Oilers, Stars are up a goal with 12 seconds left. Patrick Stefan skates in for the easiest empty-net goal he'll ever have...

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The Onion chimes in: The College I Attend Has Just The Right Number Of Indian Dance Groups.

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John Buccigross's NHL column at ESPN has a real gem of a story this week:

My favorite was a doozy that Dave Hanson told in which he wound up going at it with none other than the great Bobby Hull. Dave, of course, was one of the famous fighting "Hanson Brothers" from the classic movie "Slap Shot."

"The most memorable fight I ever got into over my career would have to be the one with Bobby Hull, probably the biggest star in the game at the time," Hanson recalled. "I was with Birmingham and we were playing Winnipeg. I was trying to establish myself as a player in the league and make an impact, so I was playing pretty physical. Well, I am out there skating around and I run into Bobby, which was like running into a brick s--- house. He just bowled me over. So, when the next opportunity came later on in the game, I gave it back to him pretty good. Bobby took offense and dropped his gloves, so I followed suit.

"We were just going at it with lefts and rights, and then, all of a sudden, he just stopped. You could have heard a pin drop in there at that moment. So, I looked up at the crowd and it was like everybody was just frozen. I looked back at Bobby and I am thinking to myself, 'Something doesn't quite look right here.' Sure enough, I looked down at my hand and I'll be damned if his wig wasn't caught in my knuckles. I had somehow caught it and ripped it right off of his head. It was unbelievable.

"They tossed me in the box and threw the book at me. I got two minutes for elbowing, five minutes for fighting and 10 minutes for pulling hair. Well, Bobby skated off and came back out with a helmet after that. Later on, I wound up in the faceoff circle with him and said, 'Mr. Hull, I am really sorry.' Bobby just looked at me, smiled and said in his deep, raspy voice, 'Ah, don't worry about it kid, I needed a new one anyhow.' Bobby and I later became good friends, but to this day, we have never spoken of that night."

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Willis McGahee can't get enough of fatherhood.

2007-01-06T19:52:00.000-05:00

The Walsh Brothers, my favorite Boston comedians, are finally looking to get their shot at the big time. They're leaving for LA in March, so they're having a final hurrah of four shows at Jimmy Tingle's in Somerville. I'm not sure if any of their online clips come close to doing their hilarity justice, but at the very least have a look at the Channel 5 profile above. Below is a sketch they did for Boston.tv.

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Most of the stuff on MHD, MTV's all-HD channel, is awful. But occasionally they have something kind of cool, like the Gorillaz live show at the Apollo Theater. They got about 8,000 different musicians involved over the course of the concert, with Damon Albarn and the main band in silhouette most of the time.

That said, the most, uh...interesting guest performer is definitely Shaun Ryder, the one-time frontman of the defunct '80s Manchester rave band Happy Mondays. The video above is not from the Harlem show, but the general idea is the same. The chick doing the vocals basically tries to avoid getting too close to Ryder while he moves around awkwardly and incoherently adds his vocal part here and there.

Happy Mondays were among the bands featured in 24 Hour Party People, the 2002 Steve Coogan film chronicling the rise and fall of Factory Records. And if you watch the trailer, you get a good feel for what Shaun Ryder is all about.

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I loved "Float On" but can't say I'm otherwise really a Modest Mouse fan. So maybe that's why I'm really liking their new single, "Dashboard," which you can download for free right over yonder. From what I gather, some "hardcore" Modest Mouse fans are a little annoyed at the song, because I guess it's too enjoyable to listen to or something.

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If your claim to fame involves the phrases "ejaculating into" and "a bottle of ranch dressing," then your name is probably Marco Castro.

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Jemele Hill provides an interesting piece over at ESPN on the recent violence against black athletes.

Contrary to stodgy opinions, young men have a right to go out. They want to hang with their peers. They want to talk to women. They want to show off a little of their success. Nothing wrong with any of that – as long as they're careful.

Who they're with, what time they're out and what they have is only a small part of the issue. The larger problem here is the one no one is ready to openly discuss.

While America is generally a violent place, no culture in this country glorifies violence more than the African-American community. And consequently, no other racial group is as disproportionately affected by it.

This isn't to say black people invented violence or have a penchant for it. But far too many of us glorify shooting people for revenge, perceived slights or to prove toughness. Two things you almost always see when "MTV Cribs" features a black superstar: a poster of Tony Montana and a poster of the Godfather. Montana and Michael Corleone, though fictional, are considered heroes by young black men everywhere. Montana and Corleone had one thing in common: both killed people to gain respect.

BET, the same network that saw fit to cut its nightly news program, has a new show called "American Gangster," which "chronicles the life and times of some of Black America's most notorious crime figures." It's explained that the program has a strong moral component and doesn't seek to glorify violence, but on BET's Web site the show is promoted by showing Ving Rhames, the king of cool, in slick gangster apparel – as if he were promoting a music video, not a show about violent criminals.

And sure enough, right beneath Rhames' promo ad, a BET dot.commer says, "Young, black males will look at this [show] as an inspiration."

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Arsenal v. Chelsea: Just embarrassing

Chelsea striker Didier Drogba is quite possibly my least favorite athlete in the world. Yes, there's way too much diving in soccer, and look no further than one of the strongest on-the-ball players in the world for great proof of that. Here's a compilation of some his most recent greatest flops.

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If you're an NBA fan then you probably appreciate the zaniness of Gilbert Arenas. After tearing my heart out with a 32-foot buzzer-beating game winner against the Bucks, he held court on his MVP-caliber start to the year. "My swag was phenomenal" may be the NBA quote of the year.

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One thing I always wonder about each holiday season is how much more money Santa Clauses get who have real white beards compared to the guys who have to wear the fake ones. Think about it--there's got to be a serious premium for the real beard. As it turns out, Slate recently offered this explanation for how to be a mall Santa:

Sign up with a Santa distributor. While would-be Santas can apply to smaller shopping centers directly, national staffing services farm out talent to the larger malls. Noerr Programs Corp. serves as the North Pole's version of central casting: It supplies St. Nicks to 169 major malls across the country. At Noerr, aspiring Santas are carefully interrogated about their willingness to travel, experience with kids, and, if applicable, their own memorable moments playing Santa. One key question: What does Christmas mean to you? Preferred answer: It's all about the children. Santas can be of any ethnicity—certain malls prefer African-American or bilingual Santas—but they must be male, in keeping with tradition. Having a natural beard is also a prerequisite.

Maybe I just go to really ghetto malls, but I thought the fake beard was fairly common.

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Kids around the globe just keep hanging themselves in the wake of the Saddam execution.

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I'd like to announce another nomination for dumbest band name.

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What's the worst gift idea on Amazon? I don't think it's close. I'm not sure why anyone would pay $5 for this thing, much less $140.

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Pluto's year in a nutshell: lose status as planet, win award for "word of the year."

2007-01-02T16:14:00.001-05:00


Is there anything funnier than when an old SNL sketch that made light of the hypothetical death of a public figure takes on a more tragic meaning when said public figure actually does die? Uh, no.

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While I am sympathetic to the not insignificant portion of my readership that was rooting for Oklahoma, it's hard not to love the last ten minutes of the Fiesta Bowl. Check out all the relevant highlights above, and if you're looking for Ian Johnson's proposal it's right here. Btw, could sideline guy Chris Myers have handled the situation any worse? Way to blow up the dude's spot, dick.

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Every mix I made last year had Irish band Director's "Reconnect" on it, and here you can find a couple more good tracks from their debut album We Thrive On Big Cities, which remains unavailable stateside. I'm not sure whether these dorks are going to have legs, but they make really good '90s alt-rock.

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I only recognize Jay Thomas as that guy who was in that thing, but this is a pretty awesome story from Letterman.

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Slate offers a quick primer on how online retails price consumer electronics.

Hal Varian, an economist at U.C. Berkeley and co-author of Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, argues that sellers offer the same products at vastly different prices as an intentional marketing strategy. (This phenomenon is what economists call price dispersion.) Imagine that everybody sold 42-inch Philips plasma-screen TVs for the same price. There would be no reason to comparison shop, consumers would always buy from the same places, and e-tailers' profits would stagnate. According to Varian, retailers who vary their prices over time—increasing them one week, then discounting the next—create the kind of price instability that encourages consumers to shop around. The end result is that shoppers visit several sites before making a purchase, which is exactly what retailers want us to do.

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EW offers their record of the best lines from TV in 2006 (Conan was most-quoted, so you know it's good). My personal faves:

"Uh, Jason...when you're filling out a female patient's exam report, her breasts can be 'Healthy' or 'Unhealthy.' Never 'Bangin' Double Ds.'"
J.D. (ZACH BRAFF), ADDRESSING ONE OF HIS INTERNS, ON SCRUBS

"Hold on a second.... Jon, I'm being told Whittington's condition has now been upgraded from 'stable' to 'stable, but still shot in the face by the Vice President.'"
ED HELMS, FAKE REPORTING ON THE HEALTH OF HARRY WHITTINGTON FROM ''OUTSIDE A HOSPITAL IN CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS,'' ON THE DAILY SHOW

"There's civil war, totally, and it's a great sign. Look how fast Iraq is growing up. It took America almost a century to turn on itself. These guys? Three years. At this rate, in a couple of months, they'll let black people vote."
CORRESPONDENT ROB CORDDRY, ON THE DAILY SHOW

"I never smile if I can help it. Showing one's teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life."
DWIGHT (RAINN WILSON), ON THE OFFICE

"You were in Baghdad for six hours! And you weren't even in the real Baghdad — you were in the Green Zone. That's like going to the Olive Garden and saying you've been to Italy."
JON STEWART, REACTING TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S TOUTING HIS TRIP TO IRAQ, ON THE DAILY SHOW

"Last night, Katie Couric debuted as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, and at the end of the broadcast she asked viewers to recommend a signature sign-off. So far the front-runner is 'Stay tuned for some kind of CSI.'"
CONAN O'BRIEN, ON LATE NIGHT

"In the West Bank, a group calling itself the Lions of Monotheism firebombed four churches, telling the Associated Press, 'The attacks...were carried out to protest the Pope's remarks linking Islam and violence.' The irony — and this is often the case, we find — was completely lost on them."
JON STEWART, ON THE DAILY SHOW

"Earlier this week, a man named his newborn son ESPN because one of the man's favorite things to watch is ESPN. The baby is happy, healthy, and already home with his brother Porn."
CONAN O'BRIEN, ON LATE NIGHT

"No, I don't have a gambling problem. I'm winning, and winning is not a problem. That's like saying Michael Jordan has a basketball problem, or Def Leppard has an awesomeness problem."
EARL (JASON LEE), ON MY NAME IS EARL

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There is such a thing as being too polite.

2006-12-28T15:48:00.000-05:00

I admit my musical taste has gotten kind of soft of late, so I'm happy to pass on that the new !!! album is pretty fucking hot. It comes out March 6th, but you can grab the whole thing right over here (courtesy of There's a Fire in the Peach Pit)

I liked their 2004 LP Louden Up Now a lot, though in all honesty about 10 minutes of the album was amazing (all of "Hello, Is This Thing On," half of "Pardon My Freedom," and about two minutes of "Me and Giulliani Down by the Schoolyard") and the rest was pretty unnecessary. Plus, the songs were all over the place, so half a song would be awesome and the other half would be garbage. Anyway, my first reaction to Myth Takes is that it's a lot more varied, coherent, and...good. I don't know if the highs are quite as high as those on the previous album, but it's definitely a better album. And if you're concerned that !!! have lost some of their strangeness, rest assured that new track titles include "All My Heroes Are Weirdos" and "Bend Over Beethoven." Good times!

!!! / "Heart of Hearts" (left-click Yousendit)

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Pitchfork has their top 100 songs of the year list up with lots of mp3 links. Some of my favorites:

Junior Boys / "In the Morning"
JB's electropop has been mentioned ad nauseum...here's one of the album's highlights

Ghostface Killah / "Be Easy"
As you know, I don't really listen to rap. Killah sounds pretty pissed, which amuses me. I previously linked to a mashup of this song with Ghostface Observatory, that adds a thick bass guitar. Either way it's pretty sweet.

Fujiya & Miyagi / "Collarbone"
Much to my disappointment, F&M are English and not Japanese. And they're English English, not Japanese English. So that sucks, but this is song offers an anatomy and physiology lesson over a slick bassline.

Asobi Seksu / "Thursday"
Another band NOT from Japan, though at least their lead singer is Japanese (and relatively cute). This is clean, pretty pop rock.

Annuals / "Brother"
This song goes from quiet acoustic guitar over the sound of crickets to a fairly rocking tune by the end of it.

Klaxons / "Gravity's Rainbow"
I keep hearing about Klaxons, and I want to like them, but I'm still not sure if I do.

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Parkour is the name given to the French "sport" of...well...this. Its "founders" are David Belle and Sebastien Foucain; the former starred in the French action/martial arts film District B-13, while the latter was in that crazy construction site chase scene in Casino Royale.

Below I've got a random video by a random dude who also does a lot of similar urban acrobatics...I just find this crap rather awesome. You can bet that I'd be doing backflips off the walls of J.C. Penny if I could.

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Mess with a bull, you get the (flaming) horns. I'm not buying the "20 minutes" claim though.

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The only thing better than a good prank is a prank that backfires. That and a million other things.******

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As a soccer fan who has a slightly more than passing interest in MLS, I've generally assumed that the David Beckham-to-MLS rumors were largely wishful thinking on the part of writers wishing their MLS coverage was less boring. Andrea Canales breaks down why there might be something to it.

It's not just that Beckham has lost his regular place with his club team, Real Madrid, and no doubt longs to be wanted, or perhaps even badly needed, as a player again. With the Beckhams having developed recent friendships with Hollywood power players, there's also the telling sign that his wife, Victoria, has also been spotted house hunting in Los Angeles.

Follow the money. The money required to sign Beckham has been made possible by the new MLS Designated Player Rule. Not coincidentally, it's known as the David Beckham rule.

"Because of the new rules, we are no longer dealing with strictly league money," said Los Angeles Galaxy general manager Alexi Lalas. "We are dealing specifically with, when you talk about designated players, with AEG [Anschutz Entertainment Group], and ultimately, Phil Anschutz's money."

Anschutz is the owner of the Galaxy, the MLS team considered to have the greatest appeal for Beckham.

Although Lalas is the team's GM, he is still a relatively inexperienced executive. In the past, major deals for the team, including the one that brought American star Landon Donovan to the squad, have been set up by Tim Leiweke, considered Anschutz's point man in all sports matters.

It's likely that Leiweke will again take the lead in any deal involving Beckham.

"I am smart enough to know that if I need to get a job done, and I need help to get it done, I will gladly let people help me," Lalas said. "Ultimately, the most important thing is that we get a quality team on the field."

Leiweke has dealt with Beckham before, helping the star establish his namesake soccer academy in Los Angeles. Leiweke was also instrumental in getting Beckham's Real Madrid club to play the Galaxy in 2005.

The hints of finance may not be enough for some to believe in Beckham's arrival. Others put faith more in the old-school connection of relationships and trusted insiders.

To those, it should be significant that a couple of weeks ago, Craig Forrest, a former Canadian national team player and Ipswich Town teammate of current Galaxy coach Frank Yallop, declared on radio and television that he is convinced Beckham's signing is imminent and will be announced during the January transfer window.

Yallop and Forrest are friends who remain in regular contact, and it's unlikely that Yallop would mislead his longtime comrade.

2006-12-21T00:55:00.000-05:00

Sports Illustrated counts down the best sports photos of the year.

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There's now a real trailer for next summer's Transformers movie. The cuts are a little quick, so you don't get a great feel for the look of the robots, but there's really no way I won't see this movie.

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Trailer for Letters from Iwo Jima. Was there anyway they could make a movie this big involving Japan and not have Ken Watanabe involved?

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I'm disappointed enough with the new Bloc Party album that I've taken the totally irrelevant step of removing them from my "favorite music" list on facebook. I know, it's a big move. But hey, Silent Alarm is one of my favorite albums ever, so my pettiness speaks volumes about my disrespect for their new stuff. Anyway, what makes it even more frustrating is that the only new song that really jumped out at me from live stuff I had heard was "Blue Moon," which apparently was renamed "England" before it was left off the album. Anyway, hopefully it pops up as a b-side. Here's a live recording that I find inexplicably good:

Bloc Party / "Blue Moon" (Left-click)

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The Department of Energy has some interesting findings on the prospects for plug-in hybrids

According to a preliminary release, the study looks at the effects of plug-in hybrids on foreign oil imports, the environment, electric utilities, and consumers, and claims to be the first comprehensive review of the impact of a high market penetration of PHEVs, which should easily have enough electric-mode driving range to do the average American's commute of 33 miles without using gasoline. Although specific details of the study will be released in a paper to be published in two weeks, the report appears to run counter to electric-car critics who have long speculated that our power grid doesn't have the capacity to support electric cars in any high number, and to the brownouts that have affected the Eastern states the past several summers.

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I don't know what the fuck this is, but it says here it's the amazing handless shoe-tying trick.

2006-12-16T10:07:00.000-05:00

This Andy Samberg/Justin Timberlake digital short from last night's episode of SNL is probably the funniest thing SNL has done all season. I have to give Timberlake credit, I can't say I like his music, but he's always funny on SNL.

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December means people putting together their best of '06 lists, which also means a good time to find stuff that I missed throughout the year. Probably my favorite list so far was the one over at Underrated, which had a lot of bands I'd never heard of and reads like a list of someone's favorite albums, rather than a list of albums someone thought they should like the best. I'll throw together my top ten or whatever at some point in the next few weeks, but here are other people's favorites that I missed out on. It's pretty much all similar, poppy indie rock, but Liam and Me deserves a mention if only for their name, which is a blatant and pretty awesome reference to the Jesus Quintana/Liam O'Brien bowling team in The Big Lebowski.

Division Day / "Tap-Tap, Click-Click"
A Brief Smile / "This Machine"
Oh No! Oh My! / "A Walk in the Park" (left-click)
Liam and Me / "There's a Difference"
Midlake / "Roscoe" (left-click)

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One of my favorite musical discoveries this year has been Finland's Husky Rescue, and the upside to only having discovered their 2005 debut Country Falls a few months ago is that they're releasing their follow-up, Ghost is Not Real, in January. To prep for that they've got a single and video out as well, and it's pretty damn good. And yes, their lead singer is still hot. You can find a link to download the entire album over yonder.

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This kid sounds rather awesome, and clearly has seen Super Troopers.:

A judge dismissed charges on Monday against a 14-year-old boy accused of meowing whenever he saw his 78-year-old neighbor. Police had charged Michael Loughner with misdemeanor harassment this summer.

The boy's family got rid of its cat after Alexandria Carasia complained it was using her flower garden as a litter box. Carasia claimed the boy would make meowing sounds every time he saw her. The boy says he only meowed at her twice.

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Slate explains the pointlessness of our proposed moonbase

There is scientific research to be done on the moon, but this could be accomplished by automatic probes or occasional astronaut visits at a minute fraction of the cost of a permanent, crewed facility. Astronauts at a moon base will spend almost all their time keeping themselves alive and monitoring automated equipment, the latter task doable from an office building in Houston. In deadpan style, the New York Times story on the NASA announcement declared, "The lunar base is part of a larger effort to develop an international exploration strategy, one that explains why and how humans are returning to the moon and what they plan to do when they get there." Oh–so we'll build the moon base first, and then try to figure out why we built it.

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A Texas bill has been introduced which would allow blind people to hunt. Like, with weapons and shit.

The bill would allow legally blind hunters to use a laser sight, or lighted pointing instrument, which is forbidden for sighted hunters, according to State Rep. Edmund Kuempel, who introduced it.

"This opens up the fun of hunting to additional people, and I think that's great," Kuempel said.

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Devin Hester set the single season TD return record last week, but we probably should have seen it coming. Some of his returns at Miami were fucking ridiculous.

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Here's an utterly bizarre outtake from an old episode of Siskel and Ebert where the dynamic duo start randomly swearing and cursing the existence of...Protestants.

2006-12-13T20:36:00.000-05:00

I never thought Wham's "Last Christmas" was considered anything but a joke to most people, but shortly after recently admitting that I liked it, Stereogum also posted at length about the appeals of the song. And apparently the power of the song is so universal that there's a blog dedicated solely to collecting covers of "Last Christmas." Who would have thought that I'd really like a Wham! song covered by Jimmy Eat Frickin' World?

Jimmy Eat World / "Last Christmas" (pillaged from Podbot)

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This story about Iranian students confronting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reads kind of like an SNL sketch:

A group of students Monday briefly interrupted a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at their university by booing and chanting "Death to the dictator," Iranian semi-official news agencies reported.

But Iran's official state-run news agency, IRNA, said the students "expressed their views in a cordial atmosphere" when they chanted "Down with dictators" and were met with agreement by Ahmadinejad who denounced the "dictatorships" in the United States and Britain.

"A small number of who claim there is suppression here are themselves creating a suppressive atmosphere and will not allow the majority to listen," FARS [semi-official news] quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

IRNA said Ahmadinejad held "sincere talks" with the students and "During the three-hour meeting, representatives of various student groups expressed their views in a cordial atmosphere."

IRNA also reported on the protesting students, but gave the impression the students were not referring to Ahmadinejad as a dictator:

"In response to the students slogans of 'Down with Dictators', the president said, 'We have been standing up to dictatorship so that no one will dare to establish dictatorship in a millennium even in the name of freedom.'

"'Given the scars inflicted on the Iranian nation by agents of the U.S. and British dictatorship, no one will ever dare to initiate the rise of a dictator,' the president said."

Three cheers for state-run media.

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Salon profiles retired Air Force JAG officer Mikey Weinstein, who is none too pleased with the role of evangelicals in the military. I'm generally wary of any grown man named "Mikey" (doubly so of men named "Mikki"), but despite being rather hyperbolic he makes some interesting points.

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The EPA has decided to kill the myth it created that Priuses could get 55 mpg:

With the new testing requirements, the EPA is attempting to come up with estimates that more closely reflect the real-world mileage motorists can expect when they purchase a vehicle.

Under the current system, which has been in effect since 1975 and was last changed in 1984, actual mileage is often far lower than the posted EPA ratings.

Hybrids will be hit harder because the new test eliminates some of the all-electric driving that helped them produce impressive results under the present system, Wehrum said.

The mileage for gas-electric hybrids probably will be 20% to 30% lower than present estimates for city driving and 10% to 20% lower on the highway. These vehicles quickly lose their all-electric advantage when operated in cold weather or quickly accelerated, Wehrum said.

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One of my freshman faves, The Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work" has been *scientifically proven* to be the saddest song ever. And of course "Fake Plastic Trees" also made the top ten.

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"W.A.Y.U.H." wasn't one of my initial faves off Pieces of the People We Love, but it's grown on me and the video is pretty classic.

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Another reason why tuitions are likely to keep skyrocketing--many schools get more applications when they raise tuition.

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For cinema fans only: Slate tackles the sticky topic of the auteur:

The word auteur can be confusing because it can be used to refer to any type of artist's unique style—a painter can be an auteur, as can a musician. But there's a difference between the word auteur and auteur theory, which relates specifically to film and is part of a cinematic debate that has raged for the better part of 50 years. The word itself is derived from the French for author, and the first definition of auteur in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary is "a film director whose practice accords with the auteur theory" (the second definition is "an artist [as a musician or writer] whose style and practice are distinctive"). M-W defines auteur theory as "a view of filmmaking in which the director is considered the primary creative force in a motion picture."

2006-12-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

I know I linked to The Boy Least Likely To's wimptastic video for "Be Gentle With Me" previously, but that was before I realized the cute girl in it is Rashida Jones, Jim's new love interest on The Office. To recap, she's the daughter of Quincy Jones, class of '97 at Harvard, and she was in Stella, too. So if it wasn't enough that Jim had a shot at the hottest average looking chick ever (Pam, and I mean that as a high compliment), now he's dating someone who's possibly even more appealing. Fuck you, John Krasinski.

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Like most Parisian twosomes, Arnaud Rebotini and Ivan Smagghe make electronic music and remix other people's stuff as Black Strobe. To be honest I haven't heard much from them, though I remember not liking a remix they did of The Rapture's "Sister Savior," though it's tough to remix one of my favorite songs without me hating it. Anyway, Paul Epworth, producer of Bloc Party and The Rapture among others, did a remix of Black Strobe's "Shining Bright Star" and it's pretty good. The second track is pretty stock electronic music, maybe a little reminiscent of Vitalic (to draw on my limited electronic catalog), and also decent.

Black Strobe / "Shining Bright Star" (Phones Industrial mix) (from Green Pea-ness)
Black Strobe / "Italian Fireflies"

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Here's the danger of the internet: after seeing the economically-challenged Royals signed middling starter Gil Meche to a staggeringly awful 5-year, $55 million deal, I yelled up from my second floor office to coworker and BP contributor Dave about it. Next thing you know, my hastily-constructed analogy ends up on Baseball Prospectus.

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Michael Irvin continues to defy all standards for idiocy, but incredibly and unbelievably just cannot seem to get himself fired.

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Kristen Wiig is probably my favorite SNL castmember at the moment, which is good because she's in most of the sketches these days (and in spite of her facial contortions she's pretty cute too). Check out her Aunt Linda Movie Reviews here and here.

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Bryan Curtis tells the great story of Don Carman, the Phillies pitcher who took longer than usual to answer his fan mail.

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The coolest car $50k can buy is the new BMW 335i coupe. I love any video of cars peeling around twisty roads, mainly because I would never have the guts to ever try something like that.

2006-12-06T19:45:00.000-05:00

Check out the cool story of 14-year old Ben Underwood, who uses echolocation to compensate for his blindness.

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Joe Somar, the star of the week, is now College Humor's Man of the Century. For the week.

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Mo Freeman and Paz Vega star in 10 Items or Less.

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The Red Sox will be paying $23 million a year for the services of JD Drew and Julio Lugo, which is retarded pretty much anyway you slice it. I know the luxury tax threshold was increased, but goddamnit, how about some sensibility? Slate tries to tackle the issue, but seem oblivious to the luxury tax threshold and how important it is to free-spending teams like the Sox and Angels.

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Good live performance by newish faves Husky Rescue. Good sound quality and lead singer Reeta-Leena Korhola is easy on the eyes.

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The 10 weirdest people on earth. Some much weirder than others.

2006-12-03T14:08:00.000-05:00

Tiger Baby is my second-favorite Danish band, and my first favorite Danish band name (sorry, Mew). And now they have my second favorite Christmas song, which is saying almost nothing because I hate Christmas music. The only other Christmas song that I like, off the top of my head, is probably "Last Christmas" by Wham! And I wish I were kidding, but at least don't have a copy of it anywhere. Btw, check out the video, the lack of sexual tension between George Michael and the women in the video is almost awe-inspiring.

But anyway, Tiger Baby recorded a song that includes the word Christmas and I like it, so there you go. They continue to crank out hyper-pleasant (if that's possible), slightly danceable electronic pop music in obscurity. And by obscurity I mean Denmark. And I love how they give away their music.

Tiger Baby / "Girlfriend"
Tiger Baby / "This Christmas"
Tiger Baby / "At Least I'm Honest"

Also, am I going crazy or about 4:10 into "This Christmas" there's a faint soundclip playing in the background talking about Green Bay and stadiums and peppers? It's like I was listening to a Packers game at the time and somehow the mp3 got some of the game broadcast meshed into the song. Except I wasn't listening to any games, and I don't know how it could get in there even if I was. I'm thoroughly confused.

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The Decemberists have never exactly been my thing, but they always have at least one or two really good songs per album--early favorite off The Crane Wife is "Summersong."

The Decemberists / "Summersong" (from The Sandwich Club)

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Looks like there may be no such thing as "being in the zone" in basketball.

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The Nintendo Wii is wreaking havoc on out-of-shape bodies everywhere.

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Slate tackles the role of Pitchfork in the indie music world.

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I consider myself to be generally in tune with new trends in technology and entertainment, but the whole concept of Second Life is pretty weird to me. And it's even weirder to think somebody became a real-life, virtual millionaire.

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Stephen Hawking dishes on the future of the human race.

"The long-term survival of the human race is at risk as long as it is confined to a single planet," he said. "Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe.

"There isn't anywhere like the Earth in the solar system, so we would have to go to another star.

"If we used chemical fuel rockets like the Apollo mission to the moon, the journey to the nearest star would take 50,000 years. This is obviously far too long to be practical, so science fiction has developed the idea of warp drive, which takes you instantly to your destination. Unfortunately, this would violate the scientific law which says that nothing can travel faster than light.

"However, we can still within the law, by using matter/antimatter annihilation, and reach speeds just below the speed of light. With that, it would be possible to reach the next star in about six years, though it wouldn't seem so long for those on board."

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Keshia Castle-Hughes plays the Virgin Mary in the new Jesus movie, and now she's going to be a 16-year old unwed mom, thanks to her construction worker boyfriend. Awkward!

2006-11-29T22:24:00.000-05:00

This video clip is one of my favorite things in a while. I wish I could give you more background on what the case was about, but all I can tell you is that the dude's name is Joe Somar and he knew exactly what he was doing.

UPDATE: Here's some more background here and download an interview with his explanation here. Of his newfound fame, Joe says "I will do anything for money."

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The Phat Phree strikes again: "Retarded Bagboy, I’ll Take It From Here"

Man, what are you doing? Close my box of Ritz. C’mon dude, I need those for a work party. Holy fuck. Is this really happening? You would at least think that you would try to face the other direction or make a slight attempt to hide the fact that you are devouring my groceries in front of me. No, instead you just smile at me and dribble Ritz crumbs all over your boobs. It really compliments the apple sauce that is smothered across your chest. Did you get any of your lunch in your mouth? Alright, enough with my crackers already. Are you challenging my manhood? Should I be delivering an unchallenged haymaker to your nose right now? How am I supposed to react in this fucking scenario?

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I loved Reno!911 when it first came out, but not surprisingly the show's gotten a little tired after a few seasons. So I'm pleasantly surprised by the trailer for the movie...I actually think there's potential here.

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Turns out the aforementioned Shutterbugs was part of the Channel 102, the NYC version of LA's monthly short comedy film fest, Channel 101. Channel 101 birthed Kicked in the Nuts, Yacht Rock, and the Andy Samberg-starring The 'Bu. Picks:

Shutterbugs 2 - The Sugar Plums steal Shutterbugs client Milo.
Shutterbugs 3 - The Shutterbugs strike back against the Sugar Plums.
Dr. Miracles 1 - All the Asian actors who don't get to do anything on TV are in this show. Though you may find the whole premise disgusting.

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The Nets are auditioning people for a dance team comprised of people 60 and over.

2006-11-27T23:05:00.000-05:00

The square root of awesome is Levar Burton.

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Was feeling nostalgic over Thanksgiving and watched a bunch of Arrested Development episodes...and now you can watch a bunch of freebies online.

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Balls of Fury will probably suck, but it has a few things going for it: ping-pong, Chris Walken, and it was written by Tom Lennon/Ben Garant.

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I forget if I posted this earlier...Rob Huebel rules. Aziz Ansari is OK.

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My least favorite commercial at the moment is this Mazda commercial. No way any self-respecting dude would get worked up by seeing a goddamn Mazda CX7 in the street.

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Pillaged and plundered from the excellent Gorillamask, here are some choice vids:

- Tracy Morgan's Blackass
- 7'5" Yao Ming gets PACKED by 5'9" Nate Robinson
- Sam McGuffie is good at running with a football
- Some of Ferrell's best moments on video
- Rejected Goodyear tire commercials

2006-11-25T16:42:00.000-05:00

Daytrotter had Sound Team in for a session and it's worth a listen. Included are "TV Torso," which always sounds better live compared to the LP version, as well as new track "Orion."

Sound Team / "TV Torso [Daytrotter Session]"
Sound Team / "Orion [Daytrotter Sessions]"

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Ronaldinho has scored some pretty filthy goals in his time, but he put on a show Saturday vs. Villareal that was capped off by probably his best ever.

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Casino Royale is about as good as advertised. Daniel Craig is more of a hard-man than Pierce Brosnan, so there are less of the puns that began to weigh down the last couple films and more of a focus on action (not surprising) and Bond's relationship with Eva Green's Vesper Lynd (somewhat surprising).

Like Spider-Man and Batman Begins, Casino Royale takes its hero back to his beginnings, which also gives Craig a better chance of reinventing the character. Casino Royale is the first Bond film in 19 years to be written by series creator Ian Fleming, and was in fact the first Bond book. Interestingly, it was the basis for a 1967 Bond spoof starring Peter Sellars.

While long (144 minutes), the pace is never tiresome and the Green/Bond combo has enough spark to carry the slower moments.

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Making a sequel to Bruce Almighty without Jim Carrey has lameness written all over it, but fortunately for the producers the Bruce back-up is Steve Carell, who's probably even more popular than Carrey at this point. The plot to Evan Almighty diverges a fair amount from the original as well, but I'm guessing it'll be pretty decent either way.

2006-11-22T17:22:00.000-05:00

Reposting the Harvard-Yale Recap, since it's the only relevant thing I've ever posted here. Also, a couple people asked me about the music. The first song everyone knows, it's the Grey's Anatomy anthem "Chasing Cars" by Wimp Patrol. The good song is "Get Myself Into It" by The Rapture.

The Rapture / "Get Myself Into It"
Snow Patrol / "Chasing Cars"

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Charlie Day is secretly the funniest person on the television

My favorite show on TV, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, finally got official word on its return for a third season. This time around they'll get 15 episodes starting next summer. Huzzah!

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Behold the crippling mediocrity of the new Bloc Party album, Weekend in the City. I'll have a lot more to say about this later, but for the moment I'll just say that the band behind my favorite album of 2005 looks like they already have the front-runner for most disappointing album of 2007.

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ESPN tries to deconstruct Canadian hockey/cultural icon Don Cherry. Kevin and I watched plenty of his videos back in the day, so I've long had love for Don Cherry. If you're not familiar with him, check out one of his latest Coaches Corner segments.

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Live every week like it's shark week.

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Coworker Dave sent me this story about an Outside Magazine journalist who learned about performance enhancing drugs by actually taking them. Pretty fascinating stuff, both for the its insight into the history of doping as well as the eye-opening results:

After a few weeks of the HGH, I began to notice subtle changes. My skin started getting... better. Sun blotches that I'd had on my arms for a year faded away. One morning I woke up and a scar on my forehead—which I'd gotten from a mountain-bike endo two years earlier—was more or less gone. Even though I was training like a madman, I looked more rested. Younger. A little fresher.

Then I started to realize that my eyesight really was improving. I'd been thinking about getting glasses to read fine print on maps, but now there was no need. The glasses I used for night driving stayed in the glove compartment, unused, unnecessary.

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Now $92k gets you 250 horsepower, a Lotus-spec chassis, and 0-60 in 4 seconds flat. Not the best deal, until you consider that it also gets the equivalent of 135 mpg. The car is the Tesla Roadster, and it's a shockingly sweet electric car.

2006-11-13T23:20:00.000-05:00

I've seen a fair number movies in the last while, but aside from Borat (solid but overrated) and The Departed (fantastic and correctly rated) haven't gotten around to a proper mention. Of note are two movies that could have been written by Charlie Kaufman but weren't.

Most recently I saw Stranger than Fiction last week and it was well worth it. Will Ferrell is very convincing as stale IRS agent Harold Crick, who one day finds his cripplingly boring life intrrupted by the voice of author Emma Thompson, who the film simultaneously follows as she struggles to finish her novel...about Harold Crick. Nevermind that it seems unlikely a whole book could be written about someone like Harold, because things get interesting when Harold hears his narrator mention his imminent death. At this point Dustin Hoffman and Maggie Gylenhaal become prominently involved, as Crick becomes a little more interesting now that he's concerned he could drop dead at any minute.

Ferrell plays his role mostly in a constant deadpan, which has an interesting effect because his character is difficult to imagine as a real human being: his life is so flat and regimented, social interaction seems an almost unthinkable deviation. It's perhaps most similar to his role in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda, if only because he's playing a somewhat normal, not funny human being. Of course with the plot being as it is, it's clearly a stylized world that is being imagined, with Crick less a caricature than a black-and-white penil outline, but still far from being a fully-formed, believable character. As a result, the idea of "imminent death" is both startling and uniquely able to force a break from his bland routine and after a while you stop really caring why or how the plot of the movie is at all explicable.

The film's soundtrack was scored by Spoon's Britt Daniel, so there are the requisite choices from the Spoon back-catalog (though perhaps surprisingly, the fittingly titled "This Book is a Movie" did not make the cut) in addition to a couple new songs. Even putting aside my affection for Spoon, I think the music as a whole works very well, as Spoon's often plodding and clean sound fits Harold's life pretty well. Perhaps my favorite part of the movie was strongly influenced by the scoring, but it wasn't a Spoon song--it was the random inclusion of the Cyann and Ben version of M83's "In Church," which was a bonus track on the US release of Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. In any case, the film wasn't a total revelation but it's unique and fun and now one of my favorites of the year.

The same can be said Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep, which marks Gondry's follow-up to the awesome, Kaufman-penned Eternal Sunshine. It's easy to compare the two, but in truth they don't have that much common, aside from Gondry's imaginative directorial style that puts a strange skew on otherwise real worlds.

Gael Garcia Bernal plays Stephane, a half-French, half-Mexican 20-something who at the urging of his French mother moves to Paris after his Mexican father passes away. Dealing with the disappointment of his shittier-than-advertised job, he takes an interest in girl next door Stephanie played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Beyond that the film kind of needs to be seen rather than described, as it takes fantastical but often absurd turns in his sweet but mostly juvenile attempts to woo her. Complicating the process is his tendency to blur the lines between his dreams and reality, but it's that condition which makes the movie so much fun. The movie is fundamentally incomplete and disjointed in many respects, but there are far too many great moments to make you care too much about that. Definitely a DVD purchase when it comes out.

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I've been blathering about the Sunshine Underground for months, and finally got my hands on an import copy of their debut disc, Raise the Alarm. To recap, their tunes are in that category of danceable alt-rock a la Franz Ferdinand crossed with the Clash, though I'd caution that their sound isn't quite as distinct as Franz's. Still, the album is solid as hell...certainly much better in my book than You Could Have It So Much Better, which only had one great track ("Outsiders") and one really good one ("I'm Your Villain"). There are no less than EIGHT really good songs out of the album's 12 (eleven plus a bonus track), so there's a lot to like.

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I also picked up the Peter Bjorn and John album Writer's Block, which I first mentioned in the summer for its lead single "Young Folks," and which since has become a Pitchfork favorite. I haven't totally wrapped my mind around it yet but my first weeke reaction is that the two best songs are fantastic but it's a little thin after that. Not offensively bad otherwise, just nothing that really jumps out at me.

Peter Bjorn and John / "Young Folks" f/Victoria Bergsman
Peter Bjorn and John / "Let's Call it Off" (left-click)

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One of my favorite Conan appearances, here's Jonah Hill a couple months ago...be sure to watch long enough to see the "Earthquake" and car keying stories...

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I think Kelly Clarkson may actually be the lead singer of AC/DC.

2006-11-05T17:02:00.000-05:00

The Presets: Through good times and bad

Modular may be pound-for-pound the coolest label on the planet, given they bankroll pretty much every good Aussie band out there (Cut Copy, Presets, Van She, Wolfmother) in addition to some damn good foreigners as well (MSTRKRFT, New Young Pony Club, YYYs). The only worthwhile Aussies not in there are The Sleepy Jackson and Midnight Juggernauts, the latter of whom would fit quite well with the jagged electropop/dance acts on Modular.

I saw the Presets last week opening for the Rapture and it was a really great show. I don't need to blather about the Rapture, they're my favorite live band so it was magical blah blah blah. But the Presets' club-friendly stuff also worked well with an audience that mostly hadn't heard of them. They also do a cross-fade between songs where they sample Daft Punk's "Da Funk," which upon further review I strongly believe to be the best electronic song ever produced.

Midnight Juggernauts / "Tombstone" (from Motel de Moka)
Midnight Juggernauts / "Shadows" (from fluo kids)
The Presets / "Girl & The Sea"
The Presets / "Are You The One?" (left-click)
Van She / "Kelly" (left-click)
Van She / "Sex City" (left-click)
Cut Copy / "Saturdays" (left-click)
Daft Punk / "Da Funk [Live at Coachella]"

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Stereogum was pimping The Twilight Sad a couple weeks ago and I'm unclear why no one else is catching on. Their music is very layered and intense, and at times things get kind of chaotic like BSS. Their lead singer also has a very noticeable Scottish accent, which is kind of interesting and surprisingly not annoying.

The Twilight Sad / "And She Would Darken the Memory" (from Stereogum)
The Twilight Sad / "3 Seconds of Dead Air" (from Stereogum)

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While cruising around youtube I've noticed links to "Ask a Ninja", but it just seemed kind of corny so I never bothered checking it out. Plus, back in the day I distinctly remember the Officials Skins Homepage (bonus points if you know what I'm talking about) had an "Ask Jackie" section where you could ask Jackie Chan questions about life. So I feel a little ahead of the curve on this. But I finally chcked out "Ask a Ninja" the other day and it's actually really funny--there's surprising depth to the humor at times.

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Inside Man + Memento = Unknown. At least conceptually.

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The superior version of Royksopp's "Remind Me" is not on the album (and interestingly also not used in the song's video).

Royksopp / "Remind Me (Someone Else's Radio Remix)" (from Mr. Brightside)

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Revenge is painful.

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So I saw Borat and I have to say it was funny but the second-best movie of the year? Give me a fucking break. To Sacha Baron Cohen's credit, there's actually a narrative and some new jokes, but mainly it's more of what you'd expect from Borat. I am (for unjustified reasons) proud to say I got on the Ali G bandwagon even before it came to HBO, but I think I'm about done with Borat. It's run its course. Fortunately, while the show looks done, my favorite character Bruno is getting the feature film treatment now too.

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Slate wisely continue their slew of Borat-related articles, this time telling us what Borat gets right and wrong about Kazakhstan.

In Borat's Kazakhstan, popular sports include cow punching and "shurik, where we take dogs, shoot them in a field and then have a party." In reality, Kazakhs, like most of the world, prefer soccer. But they also like horsemanship, wrestling, and, occasionally, buzkashi (literally "grabbing the dead goat"). In this popular game (a precursor to polo), players on horseback try to control the "ball"—the headless carcass of a goat or sheep. Then they have a party.

In other Slate news, I totally agree with Dan Kois' reasoning for why Studio 60 isn't that good.

When you begin your series with a soliloquy on the maladies of television, you're offering yourself up as the cure. And you're promising your audience that not only your show but also your show-within-a-show will be exemplary.

It's not just that the sketches aren't funny, although they're not. Take the third episode's centerpiece: a game-show parody called "Science Schmience," in which fundamentalists of all stripes—an Orthodox Jew, a Taliban member, an evangelical Christian, Tom Cruise, and a witch—attempt to refute science with faith. In premise, it's promising, if cluttered (that's a lot of yahoos on one stage). In practice, though, it's painful. To the evangelical, who's just claimed that life began 6,000 years ago, the game show's host pronounces: "You understand that archaeologists are in possession of a 3 million-year-old skull found by Johannesburg, which would put your answer off by 2,994,000 years." Yeah, it sounds about as funny as it reads.

2006-10-28T11:42:00.000-04:00

Good directory of random albums...Nada Surf, Stills, Bloc Party, Maximo Park, Islands, Hard-Fi, etc.

Maximo Park / "Postcard of a Painting"

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The Top Ten Ways to Show the World You Hate George Bush.

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I gotta put the Penn State Nittany Lion at the top of my mascot rankings because not only is Penn St. my favorite college football team (remember the colonel is an alum) but he's a) got the cheap, old school look and b) he has the best dance moves:

1) Nittany Lion vs. Napoleon Dynamite
2) Nittany Lion vs. Thriller
3) Nittany Lion vs. Evolution of Dance
4) Nittany Lion vs. Men in Black.

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The Hives' "Hate to Say I Told You So" at the Hurricane Festival

Their catalog is hit-and-(mostly)-miss, but The Hives still own arguably the best rock song of the decade. There's so much to love about this clip:

1) Trademark Hives black-and-white outfits.
2) Howlin' Pelle Almqvist's cartoonish speaking voice, made all the more ridiculous by the comedically grandiose things he's usually saying.
3) The freeze that they do at the beginning of the song, which is a nod to the also excellent original video.
4) They all look certifiably awesome as they perform. The lead guitarist (Nicholaus Arson) and drummer (Chris Dangerous) are your typical intense, herky-jerky types, and then you've got the chubbier rhythm guitarist (Vigilante Carlstroem) and bassist (Dr. Matt Destruction, who between his weird facial expressions and sweatiness looks like he could keel over and die of a heart attack at any point.
5) Their names. Dr. Matt Destruction? Vigilante Carlstroem? Are you fucking kiding me? Awesome.

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Last time I posted how Borat got people on camera, now Slate shows us why they can't sue him. And here's the Comedy Central Special on the Borat movie:

Borat Special Part 1
Borat Special Part 2

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Also from Slate, would the US be better off with one time zone?

Rather depressingly, David Letterman outshines the sun in his effect on what people are doing. Push the television schedules an hour later and 5 percent of people will be watching television later—nearly a third of those actually watching the television. But if sunset is an hour later (because the individual is at the western end of a time zone), only half of 1 percent of people will watch later television. The effect also spills over onto sleeping patterns: The television, more than the sunrise, determines when people get up in the morning.

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McSweeney's presents ALTERNATE ENDINGS TO FAMOUS LITERARY WORKS AS WRITTEN BY A 15-YEAR-OLD WITH A GRUDGE and RESPONSIBLE SPAM.

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All the original members of The State are involved in the upcoming Reno 911! Miami and The Ten. David Wain talks about it. Wain is also in the new Steve Buscemi movie Delirious.

2006-10-23T22:37:00.000-04:00

Ratatat was the first band to play the Guggenheim.

Ratatat / "Wildcat" (left-click)

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Husky Rescue played a live set for MPR.

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Saw TV on the Radio a couple weeks ago at Paradise, which according to openers Grizzly Bear was the smallest venue on the tour. As for the show, I'm not the biggest TVOTR fan, but I had to say the good songs sounded good and the ones I didn't care about I didn't care about. So I was glad I went...but don't need to see them again anytime soon.

TV On the Radio / "Wolf Like Me" (left-click, easily the best song on the album)

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The truth of about the freshman 15.

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How Sacha Baron Cohen cons people into talking to Borat.

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Business Week unearths the secret of BMW's success.

BMW derives much of its strength from an almost unparalleled labor harmony rooted in that long-ago pact. In 1972, years before the rest of Europe Inc. began to think about pay for performance, the company cut workers in on its profits. It set up a plan that distributes as much as one and a half months' extra pay at the end of the year, provided BMW meets financial targets. In return, the workforce is hyperflexible. When a plant is introducing new technology or needs a volume boost, it's not uncommon for workers from other BMW factories to move into temporary housing far from home for months and put in long hours on the line. Union bosses have made it easy for BMW to quickly adjust output to meet demand. Without paying overtime, the company can crank up production to as much as 140 hours a week or scale it back to as little as 60 hours. The system lets the company provide unprecedented job security, and no one at BMW can remember any layoffs -- ever. Since 2000, BMW has hired 12,000 new workers even as General Motors Corp. (GM ) and Ford Motor Co. (F ) have slashed tens of thousands of jobs.

That helps explain why landing a job at BMW is to many Germans what getting into Harvard is for American high school students. The company's human resources department receives more than 200,000 applications annually. Those who make it to an interview undergo elaborate day-long drills in teams that screen out big egos. For the lucky few who are hired, a Darwinian test of survival ensues. BMW promotes talented managers rapidly and provides little training along the way, forcing them to reach out to others to learn the ropes. With no one to coach them in a new job, managers are forced to stay humble and work closely with subordinates and their peers, minimizing traditional corporate turf battles. Anyone who wants to push an innovative new idea learns the key to success fast. "You can go into fighting mode or you can ask permission and get everyone to support you," says Stefan Krause, BMW's 44-year-old chief financial officer. "If you do it without building ties, you will be blocked."

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Things just keep getting worse for Kazakhstan:

The Kazakhstan central bank has misspelled the word “bank” on its new notes, officials said Wednesday.

The bank plans to put the misprinted notes — worth 2,000 tenge ($15) and 5,000-tenge — into circulation in November and then gradually withdraw them to correct the spelling.

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An extended interview with the Rapture.

Luke Jenner: I mean, for me, when I listen to Echoes, it just reminds me of being hung over everyday. The state of mind that I was personally in when I was writing that record was that I didn't like myself that much. Even the songs like "Open Up Your Heart" or "Love is All," things that are trying really hard to be overtly positive, don't come off exactly like that. They still have a real kind of twist to them. And this record was made in really good circumstances. I mean, I think part of what took us so long to make the second record was we didn't know how to be a band, really, to the level that we know how to be a band now. We had to tear everything down at the beginning when we first started writing songs. We had to operate under the old model, which was basically to argue your point at all costs until you win, which was how that last record was made. This time, we had to take a step back from that. We had a couple of false starts.