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Clickity-clack...bring it on back! (Link roundup for 8/10 & 11/06)

• So, you say you need a great way to fuck with one of your vacationing co-workers, but covering their cubicle in foil is just so passé? Well, I'm sure Mike's coworkers would have a couple of clever suggestions for you...



• While this is probably one of the most heinously laid-out sites I've ever seen, it's also a veritable comedy goldmine (providing you're willing to put the work in.) I'm thinking about trying my hand at some of those OSHA signs after consuming gallons of coffee and letting my caffeine-riddled id take charge...



• I can't decide which is worse in terms of journalistic integrity, grabbing your ankles, shitting out whatever press release Tony Snow just jammed up there, splashing it with colorful 3-D graphics, and tagging it as "news"...or saying "fuck it!" and just making it up? It's obvious that the only way this can be settled as a Thunderdome-style cage match featuring Jayson Blaire vs. Bill O'Reilly*. Shit, I'm going to get on the phone with pay-per-view about this right now! If this idea catches on, I may make a million by 35 after all...



• PS3 vs. Wii? Think differently. I know which one I'll be picking up!



• 5 albums in heavy rotation this week:
  -Firewater: Psychopharmacology
  -Shapes and Sizes: s/t
  -Islands: Return to the Sea
  -Tapes 'N Tapes: The Loon
  -Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque
  

*I actually checked the Faux News site to try and find the name of an actual reporter, but I'm pretty sure they don't actually hire them any more. It looks like what they're doing now is just grabbing other people's stories off Knight-Ridder and Reuters and having one of their 10,000 "Commentators" shout about it in highly arguementative tones. Additionally, going to their site also let to some information that reminded me why I stopped paying attention to the news in the first place (and why I rarely, if ever, talk about it any more.) Apparently, not only has the Terror-Threat-Level-ometer been raised from Burt to Ernie but, due to some Die Hard 3-esque "liquid-bomb" BS, you can no longer carry-on suntan lotion, toothpaste, or even fucking bottled drinks on planes! So now, the list of verboten items has been extended to such WMDs as nail clippers, knitting needles, and the most dangerous element known to man...water. Fuck trying to smuggle uranium, I know I sure feel safer now that the friendly skies are free of the deadly H20!

When reached for comment, every single fucking passenger from every single fucking interview from every single fucking news outlet could be quoted as saying, "Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but what are you gonna do?" Personally? Since we're gonna get fucked in the ass either way, why not just tell DHS and the FAA to go to hell, and get an IT?

Webnotes and such for August 7, 2006...and stuff.

• Wait...intelligent discourse revolving around Sony's entrance into the whole next-gen console wars that doesn't completely break down into wild fanboy speculation and rabid name calling?! Yeah, I didn't believe it either...



• No more words and/or guitar? Sigh...Here's a link to the full MP3 version of Sleater-Kinney's last DC show ever. Thanks, Matt...and yeah, I cried a little too. (Incidentally, I still have some amazing pictures somewhere that I shot of a 9:30 SK show from, I wanna say, The Hot Rock tour. I really should try and dig those out...)



• In honor of next week's 2nd Season premiere of Showtime's Weeds, I decided to see what their official site had to offer. Turns out, there's a slew of (*shudder* there's that word again!) Podcasts up there, featuring the cast and creators. I've yet to listen to them but I assume they should be at least as informative/interesting as the commentary tracks on the Season 1 DVDs. At the very least, there's probably no screaming babies or idiot stoners in the recording studio this time around...



• Though Sunday's ads have told me otherwise, I prefer to hold to the belief that Capcom's Xbox 360 ode to the lighter side of the zombie holocaust Dead Rising, is actually going to ship on its ship date (which happens to be tomorrow.) After playing the demo last night, I absolutely need to get my hands on that game as soon as humanly possible.
  
  While most of the game seems to be focused on squishing, bludgeoning, decapitating, and coming up with other new and clever ways to help shuffle the walking dead off this (im)mortal coil, I personally am far more interested in the whole photojournalistic aspect of the game. See, your character in the game is a photographer who gets choppered into an undead-infested shopping mall in the hopes of scoring himself the scoop of a lifetime. Since you're there first and foremost to get some amazing pictures, I'm curious to see how they plan on handling that part of the gameplay.
  
  Sure, I'm prepared to risk my (virtual) neck to capture that perfect "holy-Jesus-I-know-I'm-about-to-get-my-fucking-face-bitten-off-but-I'll-be-damned-if-that's-not-a-great-fucking-shot!" shot, but the real question remains: can I do anything with these pictures once they're taken? In the demo version, I noticed that you can save individual shots to an "album" of sorts, but honestly, that's just not enough. With any luck, Capcom will take a note from the 360 version of Burnout: Revenge and let you upload them to some kind of server and share them with your friends. If not, I think I might just have to figure out a way to do it my damn self, because there's just too much potential situational comedy in this whole premise to just let it go to waste.

A case of "that book learnin'"

I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have caught a case of Litmania recently. That is, I've been reading a lot. And not just comics like usual (though I'll debate, or possibly even go so far as to fight anyone questioning the legitimacy of the graphic novel as a viable literary and/or artistic medium.) In the past 2 weeks, I finished Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation and Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and am currently slogging through the last 60 pages of Greg Palast's incredibly dense The Best Democracy Money Can Buy as well as MTX's Dr. Frank's clever first novel, King Dork.

My goal is to keep 1 fiction and 1 non-fiction title going at a time. Next up on the non-fiction block is either Bloodsworth or Bowling Alone, two titles I picked up last week based on recommendations (and, in the case of the former, seeing an absolutely heartbreaking CSPAN rerun of an in-store appearance of Kirk Bloodsworth, the titular character and first US death row inmate to be exonerated based on DNA evidence.) As for the fiction, well...I don't really have any. Maybe someone could recommend some that are actually worth spending the time on since I'm drawing a complete blank. I like Elmore Leonard if that helps at all...

Incidentally, this whole thing also begs the question, do Audiobooks count as reading? I mean, sure, the whole concept of "reading" implies that your eyes are physically moving back and forth across the page, but theoretically you are engaging just as much of your mind by listening to them as you are by reading their printed counterparts, right? Just because you happen to be using a different input medium to transfer that information, shouldn't devalue the information itself. Plus, in the case that the author themself is also wearing the hat of the narrator, a unique layer of perspective is added to the experience while still simultaneously engaging your imagination. I know that they probably don't hold the same amount of street-cred (or whatever the literary equivalent of street-cred is,) as actual books do, since I'm not a pretentious fuck who goes out of his way to make sure you know just how well read I am, I'm gonna count them in tandem with the books...so take that nobody!

Other things that are awesome today...(with links!)

• A new LOST podcast from last week's San Diego ComiCon! Lots of new info...plus the mystery code "VIX7ZXT97." Where does it go? Hansoexposed.com? What does it do? Hmmm...



• Fall comes early! The second season of Prison Break starts up on August 21st and one of my favorite character-actors William Fichtner is going to be joining the already stellar cast! Information courtesy of...Myspace?!
  
  
• Ever wonder what 5 albums your favorite musicians would want to be stuck with for the rest of their lives, were they stranded on a desert island? (I think Hurley's advice there would be "Dude, bring some extra batteries") Well... wonder no more. See how your choices match up...



• Not desert island, mind you, but these are the top 5 albums I've been rocking the hell out of this week (in no particular order:)
  
  1. Tapes 'N Tapes: The Loon
  2. Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze
  3. Finks: More Songs About Robots and Black Things
  4. Clem Snide: The Ghost of Fashion
  5. Maritime: We, The Vehicles



• The 33 1/3 book series. When Monica and I were at a party at Last Gasp Press in San Francisco, I stumbled across a couple of these in their warehouse. They're basically just little books that are supposed to accompany your favorite albums, but they've got so many amazing ones out there already, I think I just may become obsessed. All I know is I'm going to put up the first round of orders for Paul's Boutique, Daydream Nation, Dolittle, and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as soon as the last shit I ordered from Amazon comes in.



• Touch and Go's 25th anniversary megashow! Pegboy, Man...Or Astroman?, Big Black, and Three Mile fucking Pilot!!! After missing Lollapalooza this weekend, I need to make this happen...



• One word, Superchunk. NC, here we come!



• Two awesome (and extensive) pieces of info from gaming site Gamasutra:
  
  1. Telltale Games is finally making a sequel to Sam & Max: Hit the Road, probably my favorite computer game ever (Lucasarts has been repeatedly shitting on the license for the past 10 years, constantly shelving it to make room for more and more lousy Star Wars games.) There's 2 interviews up with members of the Telltale staff here and here. Great stuff in there if you're interested...and if you are, I'd recommend going to the Telltale site and reading the brilliantly original Sam & Max webcomics they've got up there. 21st century storytelling infused with vintage Steve Purcell humor. God Steve, we're sure glad to have you back!
  
  2. Two audiocast interviews (yeah, I've got an iPod too...fuck, I've got three...that still doesn't mean I can stomach the word "Podcast") with John Baez of The Behemoth, the company that completely blew my mind with the spectacularly simple Alien Hominid. A good listen if you're interested in breaking into the gaming industry or if you want any inside info on AH...or the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade exclusive Castle Crashers, which I know you all do...



• Finally, I am totally addicted to the all too sweet "Islands Gone Bad" by this new Canadian band Shapes and Sizes. I'm so fucking buying this album this weekend...
  

Well, I guess that's it for today. Hopefully you'll all find something on here that tickles your fancy...or your grundle...or whatever it is that's in dire need of a ticklin'...

Random nothing

Words I like today:

exculpatory
Scrimshaw.

Words that make me want to kill today:

Memecurve
Memecloud.

Spam Poetry II

Scissorcatchers and haughtyfiddlesticks
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And in that space, an empty place...

I'm currently undergoing Battlestar Galactica withdrawal. I don't know how this happened but I suppose I can attribute it to that Sci-Fi channel magazine I was thumbing through at Monica's last night. I guess it was the fact that for Sci-Fi's biggest show, you think there'd be more than just a 100 word boxout on Starbuck's new haircut but, well, I guess not. Anyway, that got me thinking that in my mad race to play catch up (I started watching the miniseries/first season about 4 episodes before the end of the second season) I didn't really give this show the attention it deserved (including watching 3 eps back to back to back in a room full of people who just couldn't shut up, as well as watching the amazing S2 finale on the 2x1.5" screen of my fucking iPod!)

Now the good thing is, I can really take my time and actually pay attention to what the hell is going on since the good folks at Sci-Fi have successfully forced me onto their timetable by wating until Mid-September to release the second half of the second season on DVD followed closely by the start of Season 3 in October. The bad thing is, once I'm done with the DVDs we already have (and by 'we' I mean 'Jon',) I have to wait until goddamn September to actually finish it up. Oh well...I'm sure I'll find something worthwhile to occupy myself in the meantime (and by worthwhile, I'm pretty sure I don't just mean scouring the internet looking for pictures of Tricia Helfer's ass...but I make no promises.)

P.S. Here's a picture of Tricia Helfer's ass...

Duck and cover...

I've only been awake an hour and I've already gotten shampoo in my eye and almost got my car door taken off in the parking lot. I think I'd better try and keep my head down for the rest of the day, lest it get chopped off or something...

MS Painting!

Basically a repost from my Myspace blog, but here's a picture of a Werewolf and a Robot having a drink, done in MS Paint. You can click on it to make it full size, if that's the kind of thing you're into...

A few bullet points.

It's been a little while since I posted anything on here so I guess I'll give a brief rundown on what's been going on in the past week or two. Join me, won't you?

• Monica and I saw Superman last night. The movie was pretty good, both from a story and action standpoint, although I did start to fall asleep towards the end. I've gotta say, that new dude made a pretty solid Superman. The rest of the cast? Well...um...the guy that played Jimmy Olson gave me a few laughs. But Parker Posey and Kal Penn, what the fuck?! Hope you guys got a nice paycheck...



• Went to a pretty fun little BBQ on the 4th. I didn't drink that much and no real veggie food to speak of, but damned if we didn't get to shoot off a hell of a lot of fireworks. Thanks Chris!



• Finally finished up Call of Duty 2 on the hardest possible mode. It took about 3 weeks of plugging away but I finally liberated France from those "dirty Kraut bastards." Now what the hell am I gonna do?



• Got through the first season of Prison Break in about a week. Not nearly as good as its Monday night follow-up (the still impressive 24) but with a pretty decent gimmick (the clues unfold from the main character's full body tattoos) and some fantastic casting (Peter Stormare, John Heard, and Stacy Keach to name a few...as well several excellent unknowns) I'll make sure I'm around for the Fall season.



• Speaking of shows I'm looking forward to next season, if the rest of Supernatural is as good as the episodes I'm watching now, I'm going to have to add it to my ever increasing DVR queue. The way it deftly juggles mystery, humor, and genuinely scary horror, honestly reminds me way more of Buffy than the X-Files (the show I've heard it most often compared to,) a compliment which I do not give out lightly. Plus, I love the fact that the source music for the show is based pretty strictly in one of the character's old rock casette collections and hits on Sabbath, Rush, Metallica, Van Halen and pretty much any other awesome rock band from the 70s or 80s, which is a gimmick I can 100% get behind.



• Item: I need a hair cut. All of them, actually...



• So, I've been reading a bunch of awesome comics lately and I would recommend looking into any, or all, of them. They are as follows: Ultra: Seven Days (miniseries,) Fables, The Walking Dead, and Runaways. When I'm finally caught up on all of those, I think I'm going to finally borrow Monica's League of Extrordinary Gentlemen books. I've been really meaning to check those out for some time now, even though I've just about had it with Alan Moore and his particular brand of bullshit.



• After about 2 years of searching in vain, I was able to score a LP copy of Les Savy Fav's The Cat and the Cobra on ebay. I bid far too much on it, but since I haven't seen it pop up on the internet in over a year, I was not going to let it get away. I sincerely hope it makes it to me safe and sound so that I can finally mark that one off the list.



• Finally, I made pretty much my first successful spike last night in volleyball. I think I'm actually getting better which, to me, is pretty exciting.

That pretty much wraps things up, I suppose. I don't exactly know how to tell if people read these since nobody ever comments but yeah, with any luck, someone out there gives a shit...

God of W...hat the fuck?!

If you thought that the Star Wars Kid was retarded, you ain't seen nothin' yet...

YO SOY KRATOS!!!!!!!!

I was going to make a clever soccer-related headline here...

...but then I thought, "You know what? Fuck soccer!"

How did soccer become hip all of the sudden? That's all I ever hear about anymore. Blah blah, "Brazil this" and "red card that." I mean everywhere! From friends who NEVER, EVER talk about sports down to goddamn video game sites, it's been buzzing around in the background for the past 3 weeks or so now. Did I miss something? I mean, we are talking about the same old soccer that I used to play on rec-league when I was a kid, right? They don't allow kung-fu or guns or chainsaw-equipped-robot-tanks out on the field, right? It's still just a bunch of assholes with high socks trying to kick a ball into a net, right?

I just don't get it. Maybe FIFA finally got around to changing their ad campaign to something with a little more kick (Edit: oh dear god, no pun intended) than their previous outings: "Soccer! If Argentina thinks it's cool, then it must be cool!" or "Soccer! The only sport more boring than Baseball." Either way, I ain't buyin it...

Aw, now thith thucks...

I burned my tongue on my coffee this morning and now it's gonna feel weird all day. I tell you this because, as an artist, I think you'll understand...

Urgh.

This is an update simply for update's sake. I am not feeling too hot today and would really just like to go back to bed for a little while but it looks like that's not going to happen any time soon. Grr.

The other thing is, I'm going to try and check out "Spaced" tonight (the new Simon "Shaun of the Dead" Pegg sitcom,) if I can figure out how to DVR it. I suggest you do the same, if you get BBC America. It's on at 8:00 tonight and I think they're showing the first 2 episodes back-to-back. I'm not entirely sure what it's about (I think there's some sort of Three's Company premise behind it) but I'm almost entirely sure that it'll be funny.

Ok, I'm gonna go die now...

Current Obsession Countdown: #3

3. Preacher (Vertigo Comics):



An ass-kickin' Texan preacher possessing the Word of God along with his on-again-off-again gunslinger girlfriend and an alcoholic Irish vampire, travels the world searching for the Lord. That, coupled with the promise of unbelievable amounts of violence, profanity, nudity, blasphemy, etc. makes this hands-down one of the best comics ever. I can't remember the last time I read through these (my first college girlfriend got me into them back in '96 or so) but they're just as good, if not better, the second and third time around. I can only hope that if they make a TV series of this, they can do the books justice. But at a scant 70 or so issue run, they'll hopefully have plenty of time to nail down the appropriate tone. It's not gonna be easy, but if they include the right people in the creative process, it could end up being one of the most amazing things ever produced for the small screen. Of course, that's only if they can get Sam Elliott to play the Saint of Killers. A man can dream, can't he?


P.S. Look at this crazy-ass picture of some dude made up as Arseface I stumbled across. It was on some Italian site but I'm pretty sure it was a makeup test for the movie they were talking about shooting a little while back. If that doesn't get me droolin' for the idea of a TV series...well, actually, i guess the drool is probably just the power of suggestion, it being "Uhhfehh" and all...

Obsession countdown: #4

The Starlight Mints - Drowaton:



I can't remember the last time I went to a show. Two months ago? Three? A lot of bands I like have come through here recently...so many, in fact, that I can't even remember who they were. This is kind of unbelievable to me since, for as long as I've known, I've tried to see pretty much every show I could stomach but I guess, as a lot of people do, I've mellowed out in my old age (that's a nice, cliched way of saying I'm now officially fucking boring. Great.) So when I found out these guys were playing in Baltimore, I decided that I was going to prove to myself that I don't 100% suck by making sure I was there. Unfortunately, that no-suck policy only covered me since I ended up having to fly solo, after everyone either straight out bailed on me or just didn't bother to call me back. Thankfully, I got there late enough that I only had to spend the 15 minute or so set change standing around by myself looking like the loser scene grandpa that I am. But whatever, once the Rhino Stomp kicked in, all my apprehension and self-consciousness took off down the fire escape (whatever the fuck that means) and were replaced by the reverence of sheer indie rock awesomeness. Hell, I'm grinnin' just thinking about it 5 days later.

Oh, right, I got sidetracked. Anyway, I guess the whole point of this was that you should go out and buy Drowaton like, right now. I mean it. As good as this band was before (that first song of of The Dream that Stuff is Made Of, is just about as fun as album openers get,) this is the one that should make them huge. I mean, the volume of applause for the new songs vs. the old songs was like 2:1. And rightfully so. This is a fantastic piece of head-noddin', hip-shakin', sing-along rock right here, and if you don't run out and buy this album right away, then the terrorists have already won. Now if only it was out on vinyl...

So this counts as irony, right?

New rule: Baltimore City busses should not be allowed to have those "250 poisons in every breath" ads on them detailing the dangers of second-hand smoke until they're fixed to the point where they aren't spewing pitch-black deathclouds of exhaust. That's only fair, right?

Plus, just think of all the valuable adspace those anti-smoking activists are stealing from HIV, Hep-C, Paternity Testing, and 48-hour detox clinics. Lord knows, we don't have enough of those ads around here...

A.K.A. iNdentured Servitude?

Oh great, now not only do I have to hear about whatever other bullshit reasoning you sickeningly sanctimonious cracker-ass turdburglars come up with about why you'd never ever buy an iPod, but now it sounds like I've actually got a legitimate reason to feel guilty about owning one (...or three, as the case may be.) It looks like these awesome little sons-of-bitches may not exactly be sweatshop safe. Apple is refuting these claims, saying that all manufacturers conform to a certain code of conduct, so I guess it's just a matter of time before this is all worked out. Until then, I suppose I'll just have to take my rock (and/or roll) with a teaspoon of humility...

Obsessions (a list in 5 parts)

5. Rockstar's Table Tennis (Xbox 360):





Not only is this the perfect way to deflect the general public's image of Rockstar Games (Publisher of Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series) as purveyors of smut and mindless violence, but as far as games go, it is just about perfect (not to mention a hell of a lot more fun to play than GTA.)

Since Launch, I wouldn't exactly call the amount of new 360 games "scant" but the fact that they don't come out at the rate of say, PS2 games do, 360 owners tend to pay attention to what's coming down the road. I've got to admit, when first I read about Table Tennis a few months ago, I thought it was one of the dumbest fucking ideas I'd ever heard. I mean, if even Mario and company hadn't been able to make me want to play video tennis, why in god's name would I ever want to play video ping pong? Let me just say, I was very, very wrong. Everything is so solid, from the graphics that are so realistic that you can actually see the players sweating when the game heats up, to the minute-to-learn-lifetime-to-master control scheme, to the ability to spectate on highly ranked matches over Live. No, this is not your father's Pong (or mine, for that matter,) and aside from being an intensely fun gaming experience it's also the perfect snapshot of just how far gaming has come in the last 30 years.


1975

2006

Notice any differences?

Inferior hardware indeed...

So aside from the multitude of ways it can help me to waste my life (something that it truly excels at) my Xbox 360 now has its own blog (thanks, in part, to some very intelligent nerds with far too much time on their hands.) Now, all I have to do is play and the damn thing will automatically write a daily update accordingly. I swear, we're truly living in the future and it's genuinely fucking awesome!



$50 says the Xbox updates its site more often than I do this one...

A brief diversion.

I've been asked to shoot a bunch of pictures for a slideshow at work showing diversity in our Systems department. While the idea of this is filling me with dread, it's not all that interesting to anyone else, I'm sure. It did, however, remind me of a small quarter-page ad in the back of an airline magazine that caught my eye recently. The bright yellow text at the top exclaimed "CELEBRATE DIVERSITY! in Birmingham, AL." and was accompanied by a photo of, I shit you not, a black family eating fried chicken at a cookout. So, yeah, aside from the fact that there was absolutely no diversity in that picture whatsoever, they chose just about the most stereotypically racist image possible to promote diversity in a city that is...well...not exactly historically known for their tolerance and brotherhood.

To me, the whole thing smacks of a half-assed community service requirement. It's like, "Ok, Birmingham, I want to hear an apology from you...and you'd better make it good!" And Birmingham's response was, "Fine! Y'all love n*****s so much, here's yer fuckin'n*****s! Y'all happy now?!" I guess we should all just be happy there weren't any burning crosses in the background or anything. Let's hear it for progress!

I wonder how long this'll last...

So it looks like it's been one month shy of a year since the last time I posted anything on here. Hell, it's probably been just as long since I've even considered logging into this site. I suppose I gave up on this Blogger site for 3 reasons:

1. I didn't have anything interesting to write about.
2. Far more people read (as in past tense) my Myspace blog than this one.
3. I'd have to kick my own ass for even thinking of using the word "blog."

Now that Myspace has made me want to turn the gun on myself once again (unlike a lot of people, I can't possibly bring myself to blame Rupert Murdoch for that, I mean we all know that Myspace sucked long before The Emperor sunk his greedy Aussie claws into it,) I suppose I've come crawling back to this toilet in an attempt to avoid verbally vomiting all over my self.

Yes Internet, we've got a lot of catching up to do, and I can't promise it's going to be fun (or even remotely interesting, for that matter) but dammit, I'm going to try and at least make it frequent! Now the last time I promised to try and keep to daily updates, I was met with a bunch of "Yeah, good luck with that" responses. If you were one of them, feel free to sit back and bask in the wonderful feeling of being right all the time. Then, when you're done that, go fuck yourself for being such a smug jerk.

Anway, this time I'm not promising daily updates (which clearly won't matter since the chances of anyone actually keeping up with this are roughly the same as me getting that Superchunk reunion I keep praying in vain for) but I think I can make a semi-weekly effort to get something up on here, even if it's just a brief rundown of what was in my pockets after I got home at the end of the day or some-such. So, here's to that.