Good Blueggie

I just realized that Monday's post was my 250th post on GB! Hope you like the new design -- I didn't get too fancy, it was just time for a change.

I was woken up at 6:30 am this morning, (of course, after being woken up at 2:30 am before that) by my friend Andy, who had apparently passed out on the couch and not known it. I guess all of my friends that went out last night blacked out at Sullivan's, and had no recollection of going downtown. Kinda makes me sad that I didn't go out, but I'm alright with not being sleep deprived. Plus, I can take a nap this afternoon. Yay naps!

Elbo.ws is probably one of the more definitive sites on the internet for music blogs. It's a conglomeration of tons of them, with ridiculous search capacities for links to mp3s. I went there this morning, typed in "Stars", and got probably about 75 blog hits back, each organized into individual songs. It's pretty rad.

This video is amazing. Remember Mark Sommers? Double Dare? How about Pete & Pete? Clarissa Explains it all? Salute Your Shorts? Though I don't have full episodes of those shows to post (something my friends and I talk about almost every time we get drunk), I do have a sweet low-budge music video for a band called the XYZ Affair, that has some of the stars in it.



And, just because I got kinda nostalgic, here's the intro for "Clarissa Explains it All".



I've often celebrated my favorite movie-review site, Pajiba, for its unflinching reviews and acrimonious retellings of movie plots. I often look forward to awful movies coming out, just because I can read what awful things the Pajibans had to say. This article is no exception -- just reading it made me angry and mutter things like "mysogynistic movie-producing bastards" under my breath. Here's a little part of the article:

"...But, more than anything, I don’t want anyone to see this film — I want it to fail spectacularly. I want the filmgoers of this nation to prove that we’re above this sort of contempt and hate of the female sex. That we’re not actually a nation of sick, twisted frat-boy fuckers who’d get off on this sort of deprivation. That there is a line, and that we, collectively, recognize that it’s been crossed, and we won’t subsidize it anymore. That we can reluctantly accept the insulting comedies, the drab thrillers, and the tiresome, lifeless romantic comedies, but that this sort of noxious cinematic poison is not only deplorable, but morally criminal."

"...And I’m sure the filmmakers will argue that Captivity has some sort of feminist empowerment message behind it because Jennifer, the captive, eventually figures it all out and kills her kidnapper, walking away “triumphantly” as the credits roll. But, that’s total fucking bullshit, because for 89 of the 90-minute run time, Joffe and his cinematic henchmen try to pass off torture and date rape as a form of entertainment — they somehow expect people will want to pay to see a woman suffer for 89 minutes and then hope the audience feels vindicated because she mercilessly puts two in her captor’s chest before the screen goes black. Well, fuck that. And fuck you, Joffe, et al. for thinking we’re that easily manipulated."

If you don't read the site, you probably should start. It's good for you -- nothing like uppity hipsters telling you what to like and not to like. Seriously... it's damn good.

This is a cute story -- two elephants escaped from their cages in a travelling circus, and wandered into a neighborhood, where some teenaged boys called the cops. The kid was like, "uh... there's an elephant in someone's front yard" and sure enough, there they were, eating people's trees. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2007/07/12/stevens.loose.elephants.gnn

Need a reason not to talk on your cellphone or listen to music on your ipod when it's raining? (Other than "you should fucking know better"?) People are actually getting struck by lightning because they refuse to turn their elecronic devices off.

"Emergency physicians report treating patients burned while using personal electronic devices amid lightning. "It's going to hit where it's going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity," said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians. And the metal can cause contact burns.
A Canadian jogger suffered severe injuries while running with his iPod, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The man, a 39-year-old dentist, was jogging in a thunderstorm when lightning hit a tree a couple of feet away and jumped to his body. It not only caused second-degree burns on his chest and left leg, but ruptured both ear drums, dislocated tiny ear bones that transmit sound waves and broke his jaw in four places. "

Dayum.

I got an email in my inbox this morning from Pandora.com, urging me to call my senator to oppose the insane rate-hikes for internet radio. I was all set to post a plea for help, but then I read this:

"The SoundExchange executive promised -- in front of Congress -- that SoundExchange will not enforce the new royalty rates. Webcasters will stay online, as new rates are hammered out. [A blogger] just spoke with Pandora founder Tim Westergren, who expressed relief that Pandora wouldn't have to shut down on Sunday in response to the new rates. He said, "It was getting pretty close. I always had underlying optimism that sanity was going to prevail, but I was beginning to wonder." "

So no fear, you shall have internet radio for a little while longer.

I also read an article about how the McDonald's restaurants in the UK are going to start converting all of their cooking oil to biodiesel. Yet another reason why I wouldn't mind moving to England.

I guess tonight, we're going to probably do some karaoke. (I realized today that the people who sit around me must think I'm into the nose candy -- I've gotten in the habit of calling karaoke "yoke". Think about it.) It's way more fun than you may think. I somehow always get the microphone passed to me, and I'm sure the regulars are sick of me singing bad 80's songs. But, of course, I'm not. Never.

I'm going to leave you with a really awesome video -- a single room, painted tons of different ways.