Because, seriously, I cannot stop thinking about this, I have done a little research.
And now I'm conflicted.
In my newfound pimp position, would I need a Parrot-Head Cane with Concealed Dagger?
Or maybe the God of Wine Cane with Concealed Flask for those hectic days on-the-go when I forget my hip flask and/or my paper-bag-concealed bottle of cheap wine?
No, perhaps the Steel Skull Head on a Stick Cane, who's description actually reads: "The finely chiseled skull head motif is meant to be confrontational and is sure to provoke conversation among those who stop to admire it." Apparently it also "will last a lifetime and serve [me] well in all of lifes adventures."
I am almost certain that is pimp-code for "Will strike fear into all your pimp rivals and yet still be durable enough for everyday pimp use, with a lifetime guaranty."
---------------------------------
I have not yet started researching big hats with feathers in the brim, but you know it's only a matter of time.
I don't know when exactly it was that the wheels fell off this blog, but we're moving forward anyways, by God.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
I Can Already Hear the Snickers
Ugh.
So somehow last night while I was asleep, I a pulled a muscle. Okay, specifically, I pulled a groin muscle. This had to have happened sometime between 3:30am (when I woke up and got a glass of water (and bruised my elbow on the counter going into the kitchen)) and 7:48 (when I finally dragged my lazy ass out of bed). It seems like a very short window of opportunity.
This doesn't seem possible, it's not like I was running the 40 yard dash last night, I was asleep. And I don't remember any dreams about being chased by rabid clowns (for once, finally). But oh dear lord, when I did drag my ass out of bed, I took one step and collapsed onto the ground like I took a bullet to the knee. Or, y'know, groin. The pain, she is exquisite.
So today is my day of limping around and wincing. I could really use a cane right now.
Strike that - I really want a cane now. A really pimp cane, possibly with an eightball on top. But I think buying a cane is a little drastic. Plus, I don't even know where you'd find one. What sort of shop do you think pimps frequent that sells canes?
Wait.
Now I'm really intrigued. Where do pimps get all of their accoutrements? Big purple hats with feathers, velvet suits, fuzzy steering wheel covers, pimp canes - these things are not usually stocked in your normal stores. The only place you can get them is novelty stores, and I know no self-respecting pimp shops at a novelty store. They buy the genuine articles, hats with feathers that were created with serious, non-ironic intentions.
Is this what that song was about? It's hard out there for a pimp, to find a good pimp gear supplier?! That makes so much sense. I feel their pain now. Me and the pimps, we're like this now. [insert hand gesture representing closeness with pimps here. use your imagination.]
So somehow last night while I was asleep, I a pulled a muscle. Okay, specifically, I pulled a groin muscle. This had to have happened sometime between 3:30am (when I woke up and got a glass of water (and bruised my elbow on the counter going into the kitchen)) and 7:48 (when I finally dragged my lazy ass out of bed). It seems like a very short window of opportunity.
This doesn't seem possible, it's not like I was running the 40 yard dash last night, I was asleep. And I don't remember any dreams about being chased by rabid clowns (for once, finally). But oh dear lord, when I did drag my ass out of bed, I took one step and collapsed onto the ground like I took a bullet to the knee. Or, y'know, groin. The pain, she is exquisite.
So today is my day of limping around and wincing. I could really use a cane right now.
Strike that - I really want a cane now. A really pimp cane, possibly with an eightball on top. But I think buying a cane is a little drastic. Plus, I don't even know where you'd find one. What sort of shop do you think pimps frequent that sells canes?
Wait.
Now I'm really intrigued. Where do pimps get all of their accoutrements? Big purple hats with feathers, velvet suits, fuzzy steering wheel covers, pimp canes - these things are not usually stocked in your normal stores. The only place you can get them is novelty stores, and I know no self-respecting pimp shops at a novelty store. They buy the genuine articles, hats with feathers that were created with serious, non-ironic intentions.
Is this what that song was about? It's hard out there for a pimp, to find a good pimp gear supplier?! That makes so much sense. I feel their pain now. Me and the pimps, we're like this now. [insert hand gesture representing closeness with pimps here. use your imagination.]
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Today I am a Jedi (and other embarrassing tales)
If you will look to your right there a bit, you will see a nice new widget on my sidebar, which is a neato little direct link to my most recently played music tracks on iTunes. In case I have not said it lately, I truly dig the Last.fm. Sadly enough, that little widget took about 2 hours to program in, because initially I changed everything around all dramatic and crazy and with offsets and framing...only to realize that it looked like crap and I should just go back to the original format and just change one line of code.
My HTML-fu is not so strong these days.
-----------------------------
Because I decided that the cave that suffices as my office was not quite full of enough humming fluorescent lights, I went around and replaced all the inset lights around my desk area. This left me with 3 burnt out fluorescent bars and a little free time.
This is a bad combination when you are alone. Because why not have a little mock lightsaber fight in the comfort of your own office? Only, when this is done, make sure your office door is closed. And for God's sake, don't make the little accompanying lightsaber sounds with your mouth. Dignity, man!
Whether or not I followed my own advice I will not divulge here. I will only say that from now on I'm getting into the office really early, and leaving really late. And never ever interacting with anyone else in the office. Just to be safe.
My HTML-fu is not so strong these days.
-----------------------------
Because I decided that the cave that suffices as my office was not quite full of enough humming fluorescent lights, I went around and replaced all the inset lights around my desk area. This left me with 3 burnt out fluorescent bars and a little free time.
This is a bad combination when you are alone. Because why not have a little mock lightsaber fight in the comfort of your own office? Only, when this is done, make sure your office door is closed. And for God's sake, don't make the little accompanying lightsaber sounds with your mouth. Dignity, man!
Whether or not I followed my own advice I will not divulge here. I will only say that from now on I'm getting into the office really early, and leaving really late. And never ever interacting with anyone else in the office. Just to be safe.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Addiction
Hi, I'm Jason and I have a tiny marshmallow addiction.
Hrm.
That should read "Tiny Marshmallow" Addiction, not Tiny "Marshmallow Addiction."
Because the addiction is not so tiny. It is large and powerful. It is the marshmallows that are tiny. Tiny and delicious.
They live inside my big bucket of hot chocolate mix that I keep on hand for my morning doses of Chocolate Coffee. During downtimes in my office, I carefully excavate the tiny marshmallows from the cocoa mix and then devour them. I am like an archeologist of marshmallows, only more hungry.
At this rate, I will run out of marshmallows long before I run out of cocoa mix. This is very bad, and yet I can't think of a solution. I can't imagine what will happen when I no longer have access to my tiny marshmallow fix.
I'm going to continue to live in denial for now, and pretend that there is no actual bottom to my bucket, and that the marshmallows continue all the way down the strata to China on the other side of the world.
Did you ever try to dig a hole to China in your backyard when you were a little kid? When I lived in Homer, Texas (Population: 46) my best friend from across the field (of course we had a field) and I decided to undertake this mission. Only we used the field, rather than the backyard. Mostly because my backyard was actually more of a forest than a yard.
I do believe we got exactly 3 feet into the ground before we recognized that the idea might be beyond the scope of our tools (one shovel and a spackling trowel, and each of us being about 4 feet tall) and went back to our extended imaginary world wherein we battled against invisible but ultimately evil beings who lived in the trees of the forest and were made mostly of mud.
I would say this shows that I was pretty pragmatic kid, but mostly it just shows that we were really, deeply weird. In any case, it also led to one the primary indicators of exactly how clumsy I would grow up to be: Despite the intense largeness of the field, I still managed to fall into that stupid hole at least three times while we lived there. The odds of that have got to be astronomical; I mean that field was frickin' huge.
(Aside: The other two main indicators? I managed to fall and break my nose twice before I hit the age of, like, 9. It's a miracle my face remains passable today. I'm still really self conscious of my nose, though.)
Wait, wasn't I talking about marshmallows?
Crap.
Hrm.
That should read "Tiny Marshmallow" Addiction, not Tiny "Marshmallow Addiction."
Because the addiction is not so tiny. It is large and powerful. It is the marshmallows that are tiny. Tiny and delicious.
They live inside my big bucket of hot chocolate mix that I keep on hand for my morning doses of Chocolate Coffee. During downtimes in my office, I carefully excavate the tiny marshmallows from the cocoa mix and then devour them. I am like an archeologist of marshmallows, only more hungry.
At this rate, I will run out of marshmallows long before I run out of cocoa mix. This is very bad, and yet I can't think of a solution. I can't imagine what will happen when I no longer have access to my tiny marshmallow fix.
I'm going to continue to live in denial for now, and pretend that there is no actual bottom to my bucket, and that the marshmallows continue all the way down the strata to China on the other side of the world.
Did you ever try to dig a hole to China in your backyard when you were a little kid? When I lived in Homer, Texas (Population: 46) my best friend from across the field (of course we had a field) and I decided to undertake this mission. Only we used the field, rather than the backyard. Mostly because my backyard was actually more of a forest than a yard.
I do believe we got exactly 3 feet into the ground before we recognized that the idea might be beyond the scope of our tools (one shovel and a spackling trowel, and each of us being about 4 feet tall) and went back to our extended imaginary world wherein we battled against invisible but ultimately evil beings who lived in the trees of the forest and were made mostly of mud.
I would say this shows that I was pretty pragmatic kid, but mostly it just shows that we were really, deeply weird. In any case, it also led to one the primary indicators of exactly how clumsy I would grow up to be: Despite the intense largeness of the field, I still managed to fall into that stupid hole at least three times while we lived there. The odds of that have got to be astronomical; I mean that field was frickin' huge.
(Aside: The other two main indicators? I managed to fall and break my nose twice before I hit the age of, like, 9. It's a miracle my face remains passable today. I'm still really self conscious of my nose, though.)
Wait, wasn't I talking about marshmallows?
Crap.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Freedom, Coke, and Cell Phones
Only four things today, because I had a very lazy week and didn't actually do anything that wasn't just a ton of work. So many times this week I got home and collapsed on the couch, only to realize later that it was past 7:00 and I hadn't even taken my work shoes off. And I hate my work shoes. That's how bad this week has been.
- New haircut looks less bad. But my head does not understand the concept of short hair. I guess it's just used to having a lot of cover, but every time a breeze comes by I get goosebumps all over my scalp. It's so disorienting, especially when it happens while I'm walking. You have no idea how many times I have walked into something this week because I just got a head chill (a head chill is the lesser cousin of a brain-freeze, but without the added enjoyment of ice cream).
- Movie Review: Freedomland - A step-by-step walking through of my thought process while watching this movie: Boring, boring, Julianne Moore is a good actress, boring. Samuel Jackson decided to bring it for this movie, eh? More boring, overuse of slow motion, racism, several scenes must have been cut here in the middle. Even more boring, okay that makes no sense. Wow, one intensely good scene. Edie Falco? Really? Oh no she di'n't! Wow, how is this still boring? And it's over. No wait, there's another scene. Now over. No wait! One more scene. Now over. Maybe? No. Now? Okay.
Please don't rent this movie, it makes you tired and isn't remotely interesting. - Thing Review: Coca Cola w/Coffee - No, this is not something that I just made up in my basement or whatever, this is an actual product offered by a multinational corporation. It is also the most vile thing I have ever put in my mouth. I love coffee. I love Coke. But never the twain shall meet. Because seriously. This is the worst invention EVER. Whoever designed this should be shot. No questions. It will be natural selection at its finest. We must think in terms of good of mankind.
- Book Review: Cell, Steven King - I can't decide if I love this book, or hate it. I think it's one of those love/hate things where it means that I actually really like it a whole lot. In it's favor: Tons of gore, fast paced, zombies!, compelling writing like you only get from Steven King. Against it: None of the usual extensive character studies and background that usually means Steven King, short by his standards, rather abrupt ending, a surprising lack of character attachment, mildly ludicrous plot (which can be forgiven, considering it is about a cell phone pulse that turns everyone who hears it into a zombie).
I really enjoyed the plot and pacing to a good degree, especially in the beginning, but there is a shift in the book about 200 pages in, where in his older works you would get the ramp up into the pulpy middle before the ridiculous denouement. And instead we get an abrupt ending to part two, and then a ramp up into a slightly disappointing and vaguely trifling ending.
Still genuinely creepy, sufficiently gory and King-ish, just not the best thing in the world. I am very looking forward to his next book, though. I really liked that handwritten excerpt thing at the end of this one. I'm glad he's having a retirement full of writing. Good for him.
-------------------------
I have nothing else to say to any of you, except that I plan on taking this weekend off in earnest. Have fun.
Also, Go Mavs! For the love of God, Go Mavs. You are giving me a heart attack.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Hair and Vehicular Homicide
5 Days Later
Well it is done. I have neatly sidestepped all the hair issues and questions of highlights in the most straightforward way possible: I just cut it all off, real-world-Matrix-style minus the helpful head-jack. Which is as close to truth in advertising as you can get - My scalp is pretty much on display, in all its glorious oddly shaped pointiness. This harkens back to my early college years during the time when I was still rebelling against my high school days of really ugly long-hairedness. It has yet to be determined if this will usher in a similar return to overly wordy prose and a tendency for very emo behavior. All signs point to yes, though.
Mostly its just convenient, as it is already the summer of wicked hotness (4 straight days over 100 degrees) and my TOM still lacks what polite society calls 'Air Conditioning.' Also, this saves precious minutes in the morning trying to tame the residual bed head - even combed my hair still looks like I just rolled out 5 minutes ago. Already, though, I am very conscious of my ears. They're just so big and out there.
---------------------
Speaking (earlier) of the TOM, I did get a good bit of work done on the malfunction, but it was very 2 steps forward, 18 steps back. Oil was successfully changed without anyone dying in the process, fuel injector cleaned to hopefully forestall any further ugly scenes with ignition and whatnot, and the air conditioning was treated to work for a couple of days. All accomplished without grievous injury to my person, although at one point my face was covered with Freon and I thought I might have gone blind.
But in retribution the TOM managed to throw it all back in my face, as the compressor seemingly failed halfway through my weekend adventures and started shooting super-heated air out of the vents in an attempt to melt my skin off Raiders-of-the-Lost Ark-style. Eventually it kicked back in, but the air conditioning treatment is now gone. Sum total of air conditioned time in the TOM: 44 minutes. Good times. And the car died twice this morning at stop lights on the way to work.
------------------------
In seemingly unrelated news, I'm going car shopping later on this week. Isn't that eerie?
(More news later, I'm currently swamped.)
Well it is done. I have neatly sidestepped all the hair issues and questions of highlights in the most straightforward way possible: I just cut it all off, real-world-Matrix-style minus the helpful head-jack. Which is as close to truth in advertising as you can get - My scalp is pretty much on display, in all its glorious oddly shaped pointiness. This harkens back to my early college years during the time when I was still rebelling against my high school days of really ugly long-hairedness. It has yet to be determined if this will usher in a similar return to overly wordy prose and a tendency for very emo behavior. All signs point to yes, though.
Mostly its just convenient, as it is already the summer of wicked hotness (4 straight days over 100 degrees) and my TOM still lacks what polite society calls 'Air Conditioning.' Also, this saves precious minutes in the morning trying to tame the residual bed head - even combed my hair still looks like I just rolled out 5 minutes ago. Already, though, I am very conscious of my ears. They're just so big and out there.
---------------------
Speaking (earlier) of the TOM, I did get a good bit of work done on the malfunction, but it was very 2 steps forward, 18 steps back. Oil was successfully changed without anyone dying in the process, fuel injector cleaned to hopefully forestall any further ugly scenes with ignition and whatnot, and the air conditioning was treated to work for a couple of days. All accomplished without grievous injury to my person, although at one point my face was covered with Freon and I thought I might have gone blind.
But in retribution the TOM managed to throw it all back in my face, as the compressor seemingly failed halfway through my weekend adventures and started shooting super-heated air out of the vents in an attempt to melt my skin off Raiders-of-the-Lost Ark-style. Eventually it kicked back in, but the air conditioning treatment is now gone. Sum total of air conditioned time in the TOM: 44 minutes. Good times. And the car died twice this morning at stop lights on the way to work.
------------------------
In seemingly unrelated news, I'm going car shopping later on this week. Isn't that eerie?
(More news later, I'm currently swamped.)
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Wherein I Learn an Important Lesson About Myself
So I was reading over the last few entries I wrote, and I was all "Man, why do I always talk about so much gay stuff?" And I vowed to come up with something totally normal and mainstream and interesting.
And then got two paragraphs deep into a discussion about how much I want to get highlights in my hair before I realized something:
I am never going to be a normal boy.
-------------------
Yeah, I really want to get some highlights. My hair has passed its tipping point from mildly shaggy, to unbearably long. And I don't do long hair. It just looks horrible on me, it doesn't curl or arrange itself artfully around my face, it gets long and bushy and starts flailing out in all directions. Give it one more week and I'll start to get that mullet flip going on in the back, too.
But, as I was discussing with Frank yesterday, long straightened hair is very "in" right now (In my mind it is very Zoolander - "Long hair, it's so hot right now.") and if I actually got some nice lighter streaks going on... the possibilities are endless. The main problem being, I suck at getting haircuts. I wouldn't even know where to begin to look for someone that not only could cut my hair properly, but also color it. At this point, I'm just looking for someone who isn't certifiably crazy.
As this discussion was taking place in Blockbuster (otherwise known as My Second Home) I pointed out that two of the employees there have the exact kind of haircut I am looking for, highlights and all. I really wanted to ask one of them where they get their hair done at, but seriously, I cannot think of a gayer thing to say, short of asking them if they want to go make-out in the Community Favorites aisle.
Although as Frank pointed out, when checking us out at the counter the guy did feel the need to announce to the entire store our selections ("Glory Road and The L Word - Season 1, Volume 3!") so really, it would have been a lateral move, gay-wise, asking him about highlight selections.
So yeah, it's such a conundrum. Get a normal haircut, hopefully from someone who knows what they're doing, or go for the whole deal, coloring and all and pray that it doesn't backfire and I end up looking like a Backstreet Boy reject from 1999? I don't know if I can handle that sort of pressure.
And then got two paragraphs deep into a discussion about how much I want to get highlights in my hair before I realized something:
I am never going to be a normal boy.
-------------------
Yeah, I really want to get some highlights. My hair has passed its tipping point from mildly shaggy, to unbearably long. And I don't do long hair. It just looks horrible on me, it doesn't curl or arrange itself artfully around my face, it gets long and bushy and starts flailing out in all directions. Give it one more week and I'll start to get that mullet flip going on in the back, too.
But, as I was discussing with Frank yesterday, long straightened hair is very "in" right now (In my mind it is very Zoolander - "Long hair, it's so hot right now.") and if I actually got some nice lighter streaks going on... the possibilities are endless. The main problem being, I suck at getting haircuts. I wouldn't even know where to begin to look for someone that not only could cut my hair properly, but also color it. At this point, I'm just looking for someone who isn't certifiably crazy.
As this discussion was taking place in Blockbuster (otherwise known as My Second Home) I pointed out that two of the employees there have the exact kind of haircut I am looking for, highlights and all. I really wanted to ask one of them where they get their hair done at, but seriously, I cannot think of a gayer thing to say, short of asking them if they want to go make-out in the Community Favorites aisle.
Although as Frank pointed out, when checking us out at the counter the guy did feel the need to announce to the entire store our selections ("Glory Road and The L Word - Season 1, Volume 3!") so really, it would have been a lateral move, gay-wise, asking him about highlight selections.
So yeah, it's such a conundrum. Get a normal haircut, hopefully from someone who knows what they're doing, or go for the whole deal, coloring and all and pray that it doesn't backfire and I end up looking like a Backstreet Boy reject from 1999? I don't know if I can handle that sort of pressure.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
An Only Partially Fictional Conversation
Jason: So I think Sushi Girl and I are in a big fight.
Frank: What?! Why?
Jason: I went to pick up some sushi on Thursday and she didn't come over to give me my order.
Frank: Yes, obviously she hates you.
Jason: No, wait, there is more. So first she walks off from the take-out counter as I come in, and then she gets some burly guy to come over to get my food together. And then when I waved at her, she totally got this 'whatever' look on her face and wandered into the back.
Frank: Convincing evidence. What did you do to piss her off? *Gasp* What if she read your blog?! She knows that you like guys! And this is how she finds out! Everything fits!
Jason: Number one, I get maybe 10 hits on this site a day. The odds of Sushi Girl stumbling on the 2 paragraphs I wrote in March are somewhat... remote. Number tw--
Frank: No! It goes like this: So, Sushi Girl...wait, do you even know her real name?
Jason: ....not necessarily.
Frank: Riiight.
Jason: Whateva! Our love transcends her real name.
Frank: Yeah, okay. Anyways. So Sushi Girl is at home daydreaming one day, on the internet naturally, thinking about that nice boy she sees at work every once in a while, and she googles jason + sushi + dallas. Suddenly she clicks a random link and BOOM! There's your gigantic head right there in front of her!
Jason: Wait "gigantic?"
Frank: And she's all "Ooh, it's destiny! We are meant to be!" And then she reads the entry. And is crushed! You're a big old 'mo! And now she hates you for ruining her dreams!
Jason: Wow.
Frank: I know!
Jason: That has to be exactly what happened.
Frank: Way to ruin her life, fool.
Jason: Maybe I should get her a "I'm Sorry For Being a Homo and Ruining Your Dreams" Gift.
Frank: Maybe you should.
Jason: You'd think they would have that Hallmark card standardized by now. It must come up a lot.
Frank: Right. Just the parents it would apply to alone would be enough to justify it.
Jason: Yeah. A card would have been nice, back then.
.....
Frank: Heh. Your straight crush hates you now. That's perfect.
Jason: Sigh. This is exactly why I stick to guys. The second you fall in love with a raw-fish-serving girl, they read about your homosexual tendencies on the internet and break up your imaginary relationship.
Frank: It's fun inside your head, isn't it.
Jason: Like you wouldn't believe.
Frank: What?! Why?
Jason: I went to pick up some sushi on Thursday and she didn't come over to give me my order.
Frank: Yes, obviously she hates you.
Jason: No, wait, there is more. So first she walks off from the take-out counter as I come in, and then she gets some burly guy to come over to get my food together. And then when I waved at her, she totally got this 'whatever' look on her face and wandered into the back.
Frank: Convincing evidence. What did you do to piss her off? *Gasp* What if she read your blog?! She knows that you like guys! And this is how she finds out! Everything fits!
Jason: Number one, I get maybe 10 hits on this site a day. The odds of Sushi Girl stumbling on the 2 paragraphs I wrote in March are somewhat... remote. Number tw--
Frank: No! It goes like this: So, Sushi Girl...wait, do you even know her real name?
Jason: ....not necessarily.
Frank: Riiight.
Jason: Whateva! Our love transcends her real name.
Frank: Yeah, okay. Anyways. So Sushi Girl is at home daydreaming one day, on the internet naturally, thinking about that nice boy she sees at work every once in a while, and she googles jason + sushi + dallas. Suddenly she clicks a random link and BOOM! There's your gigantic head right there in front of her!
Jason: Wait "gigantic?"
Frank: And she's all "Ooh, it's destiny! We are meant to be!" And then she reads the entry. And is crushed! You're a big old 'mo! And now she hates you for ruining her dreams!
Jason: Wow.
Frank: I know!
Jason: That has to be exactly what happened.
Frank: Way to ruin her life, fool.
Jason: Maybe I should get her a "I'm Sorry For Being a Homo and Ruining Your Dreams" Gift.
Frank: Maybe you should.
Jason: You'd think they would have that Hallmark card standardized by now. It must come up a lot.
Frank: Right. Just the parents it would apply to alone would be enough to justify it.
Jason: Yeah. A card would have been nice, back then.
.....
Frank: Heh. Your straight crush hates you now. That's perfect.
Jason: Sigh. This is exactly why I stick to guys. The second you fall in love with a raw-fish-serving girl, they read about your homosexual tendencies on the internet and break up your imaginary relationship.
Frank: It's fun inside your head, isn't it.
Jason: Like you wouldn't believe.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Mmm, Snow Patrol
This post is brought to you by "Oh my God I just drank half a gallon of Starbucks coffee in 2 hours and now I can feel the Earth vibrating!" And also by the letter M.
It is Friday, which means review day. I'm gonna burn through as many things as I can think of, because it has been a while since I've reviewed anything. And I can think of a lot, because my brain is running at maximum velocity right now. Watch out!
Music!
Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
I never fully dug Snow Patrol. No actual reason, I just never quite caught on to their wavelength. This CD, however, is probably one my favorite things I've listened to all year long. It's ridiculously mainstream for all their indie cred, but I don't care. I like good music and this is good music. Lyrics are not the strongest in the world, but each song has a good hook to it, and a couple of the songs are outstanding. They played Chasing Cars on the season finale of Grey's Anatomy and it totally made me dissovle into a useless puddle. Highly recommended.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Considering Fever to Tell might actually by my favorite CD in the history of the world, I had intensely high hopes for this album. It's....not as good. Which sounds bad, but it shouldn't, because it's an excellent CD. There is almost none of the wailing, shrieking or feedbacking guitars that were so prevalent on FtT, instead there are actual songs and singing. Which is fine, y'know, if you're into that sort of thing. Independent of their last album, it's great, in comparison I am a little sad. Still recommended. Best song - Phenomena followed closely by Mysteries.
Bell X1 - Flock
The first of my imports. Bell X1 is an Irish band, and they sound like a cross between something like U2 and a crazy whiny emo band. Two things that I quite possibly dislike more than any other musical thing that is not Country. (Okay, that's a lie. I love whiny emo bands. I do hate U2, though.) But the combination is frickin' ridiculous. This album is just so slick. I cannot get enough of it. There is a rough edge to the lead voice that gives me shivers. (Also: Not on this CD, but you NEED to find and listen to it - their cover of Justin Timberlake's 'Like I Love You,' one of the best covers in the history of the world.)
Orson - Bright Idea
Hi, yeah, people who know me in the real worlds know that I will not shut up about this CD. So sorry people I know, but seriously, this album is so good it makes my teeth hurt. I will reveal nothing about how I may have come to be in possession of it since it does not come out until June 8th, but let us say that the insidious illegal supplier known as the Internet may have been...involved. Anyways, so this band feels like the summer immediately after I graduated from high school. Where me and my friends are just spinning our wheels before heading out to different corners of the world, staying up all night, running around doing stupid shit, being entirely inappropriate and full of big unrealistic dreams. Which is about as touchy-feely a description as Coffee-Addled Jason will ever come up with, but that doesn't make it any less real. I will pimp this album until the day I die. Download their single No Tomorrow and just try and tell me you aren't intrigued.
Gnarls Barkley- St. Elsewhere
A CD with 6 months of hype and the most overplayed yet still awesome single of the year (Crazy) has a whole lot to live up to. And scarily enough, it pretty much totally does. Ambitious is the word to use. Just jumps all over the place from catchy rock, to disco throwbacks, to serious blues numbers , and then throws in some very impressive rap just to even every track out. All that said, after a week I'm only still taken with three tracks: Gone, Daddy, Gone (the best thing on the CD), Smiley Faces (or as I call it - Kittens Yowling in Space), and Transformers (which is just sick in its complexity, not to mention very 80's cartoon-like). Not everyone's cup of tea, but, it is love to me.
Book!
Live Bait - P.J. Tracy
Okay, so last review time I had the first book in this series, Monkeewrench, which I dug. The second one is different but good. Better, actually. The focus shifts away from the interesting main characters, which seems like a horrible move, but the actual storyline that they are working with is just ace, so it completely works. It's a murder mystery that seems piled up and ridiculous, but then pays off so satsifactorily that I cannot complain at all. And you know I can complain about anything. Very well done. And the overall storyline begins to progress at a steady pace too, so it gets bonus points for a working universe of characters. Delicious pulp novel.
Movies!
Bee Season - #1: What the hell? #2: I really liked this. I mean, it's just so strange. Richard Gere is an annoying Jewish Mysticism professor, his son is a cellist with a lot of issues, his wife is insane and a klepto, and his daughter receives correct spellings for the bee by communing with God and the Word (which are one and the same in traditional Jewish lore). The whole movie sort of flails down its path, careening into the weirdest situations and scenes, but I liked the overall tone and its sort of open ended take on the faith issues. The little girl was excellent as well. Just, completely bizarre, though.
Date Movie - Lame. Lame lame lame. That said, I have a girl crush on Alyson Hannigan and there are worse ways to spend 72 minutes of your life. There are quite a few more better ways to spend them, though.
Over the Hedge - What a bizarre movie. Slickly produced, occassionally very funny, but just completely ill conceived at certain points. This is going to be one of those spoiler reviews, because my mind is just boggled: Why on earth should we be caring about either of the main characters? The raccoon is straight up manipulatively evil and has the most ridiculous quick and contrived change of heart in the end that I'm surprised the audience doesn't get whiplash. Then the turtle directly calls his so-called 'family' naive and stupid.
Wait. Looking that over, I can tell I'm a little too overly invested in what is completely a little kids' movie, but seriously. What's up with that?
Funny-ish, but unrecommended.
Transamerica - Felicity Huffman is amazing, let's get that out of the way right now. Also, I have an intense actual crush on Kevin Zegers, so that colors a lot of thinking as well. Great movie, great dialogue, intensely-intensely awkward scenes that almost made me physically ill. There is a scene in this movie that caused me to declare that I could think of nothing more traumatic in the entire world. Of course Frank was immediately able to correct me by thinking up something that was indeed quite a bit worse, but that's Frank for you - Always with the traumatic thinking. Anyways, really good, hilarious and touching a varying degrees and contains probably my favorite piece of dialogue in a movie this year:
It is Friday, which means review day. I'm gonna burn through as many things as I can think of, because it has been a while since I've reviewed anything. And I can think of a lot, because my brain is running at maximum velocity right now. Watch out!
Music!
Snow Patrol - Eyes Open
I never fully dug Snow Patrol. No actual reason, I just never quite caught on to their wavelength. This CD, however, is probably one my favorite things I've listened to all year long. It's ridiculously mainstream for all their indie cred, but I don't care. I like good music and this is good music. Lyrics are not the strongest in the world, but each song has a good hook to it, and a couple of the songs are outstanding. They played Chasing Cars on the season finale of Grey's Anatomy and it totally made me dissovle into a useless puddle. Highly recommended.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Considering Fever to Tell might actually by my favorite CD in the history of the world, I had intensely high hopes for this album. It's....not as good. Which sounds bad, but it shouldn't, because it's an excellent CD. There is almost none of the wailing, shrieking or feedbacking guitars that were so prevalent on FtT, instead there are actual songs and singing. Which is fine, y'know, if you're into that sort of thing. Independent of their last album, it's great, in comparison I am a little sad. Still recommended. Best song - Phenomena followed closely by Mysteries.
Bell X1 - Flock
The first of my imports. Bell X1 is an Irish band, and they sound like a cross between something like U2 and a crazy whiny emo band. Two things that I quite possibly dislike more than any other musical thing that is not Country. (Okay, that's a lie. I love whiny emo bands. I do hate U2, though.) But the combination is frickin' ridiculous. This album is just so slick. I cannot get enough of it. There is a rough edge to the lead voice that gives me shivers. (Also: Not on this CD, but you NEED to find and listen to it - their cover of Justin Timberlake's 'Like I Love You,' one of the best covers in the history of the world.)
Orson - Bright Idea
Hi, yeah, people who know me in the real worlds know that I will not shut up about this CD. So sorry people I know, but seriously, this album is so good it makes my teeth hurt. I will reveal nothing about how I may have come to be in possession of it since it does not come out until June 8th, but let us say that the insidious illegal supplier known as the Internet may have been...involved. Anyways, so this band feels like the summer immediately after I graduated from high school. Where me and my friends are just spinning our wheels before heading out to different corners of the world, staying up all night, running around doing stupid shit, being entirely inappropriate and full of big unrealistic dreams. Which is about as touchy-feely a description as Coffee-Addled Jason will ever come up with, but that doesn't make it any less real. I will pimp this album until the day I die. Download their single No Tomorrow and just try and tell me you aren't intrigued.
Gnarls Barkley- St. Elsewhere
A CD with 6 months of hype and the most overplayed yet still awesome single of the year (Crazy) has a whole lot to live up to. And scarily enough, it pretty much totally does. Ambitious is the word to use. Just jumps all over the place from catchy rock, to disco throwbacks, to serious blues numbers , and then throws in some very impressive rap just to even every track out. All that said, after a week I'm only still taken with three tracks: Gone, Daddy, Gone (the best thing on the CD), Smiley Faces (or as I call it - Kittens Yowling in Space), and Transformers (which is just sick in its complexity, not to mention very 80's cartoon-like). Not everyone's cup of tea, but, it is love to me.
Book!
Live Bait - P.J. Tracy
Okay, so last review time I had the first book in this series, Monkeewrench, which I dug. The second one is different but good. Better, actually. The focus shifts away from the interesting main characters, which seems like a horrible move, but the actual storyline that they are working with is just ace, so it completely works. It's a murder mystery that seems piled up and ridiculous, but then pays off so satsifactorily that I cannot complain at all. And you know I can complain about anything. Very well done. And the overall storyline begins to progress at a steady pace too, so it gets bonus points for a working universe of characters. Delicious pulp novel.
Movies!
Bee Season - #1: What the hell? #2: I really liked this. I mean, it's just so strange. Richard Gere is an annoying Jewish Mysticism professor, his son is a cellist with a lot of issues, his wife is insane and a klepto, and his daughter receives correct spellings for the bee by communing with God and the Word (which are one and the same in traditional Jewish lore). The whole movie sort of flails down its path, careening into the weirdest situations and scenes, but I liked the overall tone and its sort of open ended take on the faith issues. The little girl was excellent as well. Just, completely bizarre, though.
Date Movie - Lame. Lame lame lame. That said, I have a girl crush on Alyson Hannigan and there are worse ways to spend 72 minutes of your life. There are quite a few more better ways to spend them, though.
Over the Hedge - What a bizarre movie. Slickly produced, occassionally very funny, but just completely ill conceived at certain points. This is going to be one of those spoiler reviews, because my mind is just boggled: Why on earth should we be caring about either of the main characters? The raccoon is straight up manipulatively evil and has the most ridiculous quick and contrived change of heart in the end that I'm surprised the audience doesn't get whiplash. Then the turtle directly calls his so-called 'family' naive and stupid.
Wait. Looking that over, I can tell I'm a little too overly invested in what is completely a little kids' movie, but seriously. What's up with that?
Funny-ish, but unrecommended.
Transamerica - Felicity Huffman is amazing, let's get that out of the way right now. Also, I have an intense actual crush on Kevin Zegers, so that colors a lot of thinking as well. Great movie, great dialogue, intensely-intensely awkward scenes that almost made me physically ill. There is a scene in this movie that caused me to declare that I could think of nothing more traumatic in the entire world. Of course Frank was immediately able to correct me by thinking up something that was indeed quite a bit worse, but that's Frank for you - Always with the traumatic thinking. Anyways, really good, hilarious and touching a varying degrees and contains probably my favorite piece of dialogue in a movie this year:
Toby: "Yeah, I'd probably be, like, disemboweled by a ninja."
Bree: "You don't have to say "like". "Probably disemboweled by a ninja" is sufficient."
Aaand, the coffee is still keeping me going, I could do this all freaking day long. Wheeee!
Okay, I'll leave you to your Friday, just try to ignore my energetic humming over here.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Iron - It's good for what ails you
Just to get it out of the way - No, seriously, do they bake crack directly into Pocky sticks? If it weren't for my awesome metabolism I would easily weigh 250 pounds by 5:00 this afternoon. God bless my mitochondria, each and every one.
-----------------------
In addition to all my regular duties at the office, I get the special assignment of doing any bulk mailings that come out of our branch office. This entails all the printing, folding, stuffing, sealing, addressing, postaging, and carting-to-the-mailbox-ing of the items, which altogether can be very time consuming.
This week we had a special mailing of invitations that was going out to a few hundred people (or, 611 people to be exacting about it) and thus it fell to me to get them all completed in under two days, as the event is pretty soon and we're needing RSVPs. Which isn't necessarily impossible, but it takes a very concerted effort. And with the 346 other things that I also need to take care of during the day, a concerted effort can really only be maintained for about 37 seconds before the phone rings, or someone starts yelling about mortgage insurance directly into my ear. In other words: Outlook Not Good.
To top it all off, the printer of the invitations used some sort of Devil Paper Cutter to slice the invites up, because dear lord it was like handling shards of broken glass, trying to get these things into envelopes. Have you ever had a 80 lb weight piece of paper literally lodge itself into the skin on your hand? Because it happened 3 different times to me yesterday. We're not just talking paper cuts, we are talking paper gaping wounds. I'm not saying I hit, like, an artery or anything, but it was a fair bet that I could have passed for stigmata at certain points during the day.
In any case, I usually managed to keep the bloodflow on the invitations themselves down to a bare minimum, as we do not want people to get the wrong idea about our event due to iron-rich bodily fluids sprinkled liberally about the page. But a bit of splash-over is inevitable, particularly from the one big cut on the back of my right middle finger, which tended to gush whenever I attempted to pull open a new envelope.
Despite these hurdles, I managed to get them all out in under 3 days, just shy of my actual goal.
....
You thought that story was pointless, didn't you? Wait for it, I'm coming (very, very slowly) to the reason for it.
So it's pure folly to try and lick shut 611 envelopes by yourself. #1 it is crazy gross, #2 you will run out of saliva around the 90th one and be totally screwed, and #3 you will get a paper cut on your tongue and the pain will drive you to a multi-state killing spree road trip.
These are all hindsight bullet points, because that's totally what I tried to do right up to the 90th envelope.
Once I got back from said road trip (results: mixed, but cathartic. See: Fox, America's Most Wanted for additional insights), I explored alternate methods to sealants. First, the sponge, which turns out to be wholly ineffective. Maybe I just had a bad one, but to get it sufficiently wet enough to actually get the glue to work, I basically had to dip the envelope in a glass of water. Invitations that run and disintegrate before I get them to the mailbox are generally not effective.
Next, I acquired something called DabNSeal, which advertises "Good for gluing all paper products." This sounds like a ringing endorsement to me. And indeed, it worked like a charm, except for the fact that it haunts my dreams.
#1 it is in the most creepily phallic bottle I have ever seen outside of a Condoms-to-Go store. #2 it has an explanatory diagram of use on the back side that rivals biology text books in terms of sheer gross-out potential. Nevermind that it is showing how to apply glue to an envelope, I always come away with the same Where-babies-come-from-lecture feeling very reminiscent of 2nd grade. And #3 there is a anthropomorphized envelope on the front of the bottle, and it is the most disturbing inanimate object with eyes that I have seen since that Juicy Fruit commercial with the CPR dummy that came to life and tried to suck the gum out of that kid's face.
God, it is two years since that commercial came out and it's still the most whacked-out thing I've ever seen. Ugh.
So yeah, last night I totally had a nightmare that the envelope mascot came to life and was trying to kill me in my office with a bunch of huge sheets of razor sharp paper. And he had this crazy maniacal laugh and he could slide himself under locked doors, because he was paper-thin. Oh my God it was traumatizing.
Do you think I could claim Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from my company due to a bulk mailing? I need to consult me a PhD.
-----------------------
In addition to all my regular duties at the office, I get the special assignment of doing any bulk mailings that come out of our branch office. This entails all the printing, folding, stuffing, sealing, addressing, postaging, and carting-to-the-mailbox-ing of the items, which altogether can be very time consuming.
This week we had a special mailing of invitations that was going out to a few hundred people (or, 611 people to be exacting about it) and thus it fell to me to get them all completed in under two days, as the event is pretty soon and we're needing RSVPs. Which isn't necessarily impossible, but it takes a very concerted effort. And with the 346 other things that I also need to take care of during the day, a concerted effort can really only be maintained for about 37 seconds before the phone rings, or someone starts yelling about mortgage insurance directly into my ear. In other words: Outlook Not Good.
To top it all off, the printer of the invitations used some sort of Devil Paper Cutter to slice the invites up, because dear lord it was like handling shards of broken glass, trying to get these things into envelopes. Have you ever had a 80 lb weight piece of paper literally lodge itself into the skin on your hand? Because it happened 3 different times to me yesterday. We're not just talking paper cuts, we are talking paper gaping wounds. I'm not saying I hit, like, an artery or anything, but it was a fair bet that I could have passed for stigmata at certain points during the day.
In any case, I usually managed to keep the bloodflow on the invitations themselves down to a bare minimum, as we do not want people to get the wrong idea about our event due to iron-rich bodily fluids sprinkled liberally about the page. But a bit of splash-over is inevitable, particularly from the one big cut on the back of my right middle finger, which tended to gush whenever I attempted to pull open a new envelope.
Despite these hurdles, I managed to get them all out in under 3 days, just shy of my actual goal.
....
You thought that story was pointless, didn't you? Wait for it, I'm coming (very, very slowly) to the reason for it.
So it's pure folly to try and lick shut 611 envelopes by yourself. #1 it is crazy gross, #2 you will run out of saliva around the 90th one and be totally screwed, and #3 you will get a paper cut on your tongue and the pain will drive you to a multi-state killing spree road trip.
These are all hindsight bullet points, because that's totally what I tried to do right up to the 90th envelope.
Once I got back from said road trip (results: mixed, but cathartic. See: Fox, America's Most Wanted for additional insights), I explored alternate methods to sealants. First, the sponge, which turns out to be wholly ineffective. Maybe I just had a bad one, but to get it sufficiently wet enough to actually get the glue to work, I basically had to dip the envelope in a glass of water. Invitations that run and disintegrate before I get them to the mailbox are generally not effective.
Next, I acquired something called DabNSeal, which advertises "Good for gluing all paper products." This sounds like a ringing endorsement to me. And indeed, it worked like a charm, except for the fact that it haunts my dreams.
#1 it is in the most creepily phallic bottle I have ever seen outside of a Condoms-to-Go store. #2 it has an explanatory diagram of use on the back side that rivals biology text books in terms of sheer gross-out potential. Nevermind that it is showing how to apply glue to an envelope, I always come away with the same Where-babies-come-from-lecture feeling very reminiscent of 2nd grade. And #3 there is a anthropomorphized envelope on the front of the bottle, and it is the most disturbing inanimate object with eyes that I have seen since that Juicy Fruit commercial with the CPR dummy that came to life and tried to suck the gum out of that kid's face.
God, it is two years since that commercial came out and it's still the most whacked-out thing I've ever seen. Ugh.
So yeah, last night I totally had a nightmare that the envelope mascot came to life and was trying to kill me in my office with a bunch of huge sheets of razor sharp paper. And he had this crazy maniacal laugh and he could slide himself under locked doors, because he was paper-thin. Oh my God it was traumatizing.
Do you think I could claim Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from my company due to a bulk mailing? I need to consult me a PhD.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)