bicycle race

tomorrow i'll be riding in the tour de houston. i haven't rode in it since '06 when i rode a mountain bike and was easily passed by grandmas and their fat, overweight grandchildren. but somehow i got through 40 miles and i'm going to do 40 again, unless anyone else wants to do 70. i'm pretty sure i can do the 70. a friend is going to hook me with a sweet bike, so hopefully i'll be gliding through the air, my wheels barely touching the ground.

has anyone listened to the new u2 album? what a bunch of crap. i kinda of liked their last album. but this thing....wow. "get on your boots" is terrible. it's a total hunk of pro tools vomit. the rest is slow-paced and lyrically abysmal. i expect a lot from u2. "the joshua tree," "achtung baby," and "zooropa" are great, great records. since "pop" they really don't seem to know their way. or something like that.

here is an exerpt from another wildly outrageous, but ultimately entertaining and truth-laden rolling stone article:

"It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire."

the rest is here.

upstairs at eric's

i don't know why that album title cracks me up, but it does. "if you want me, i'll be upstairs at eric's." i'm laughing typing that line. i am in a slightly abandoned part of a building. the cleaning lady is the only person i have seen all day unless i ventured out on my own. so i'm in this old abandoned office and i keep hitting my foot on this giant computer tower. so i'm checking it out and i notice a stack of cds on top of it. here are the cds i found:

1. yaz- upstairs at erics
2. inxs- kick
3. erasure- the innocents
4. just say yo- a volume II of just say yes (some kind of remix compilation)
5. inxs- X
6. the church- starfish
7. concrete blonde- bloodletting
8. zz top- greatest hits
9. the outfield- play deep
10. pat green- dancehall dreamer

so by the looks of these cds, this office has been abandoned since 1986. i love the 80's theme with zz top and pat green mixed in there. and what is the outfield? and why do they have an album called, "play deep"? that is so funny. i already listened to inxs "kick" and yaz "upstairs at eric's." i'm currently listening to erasure. i can turn this up as loud as i want and no one will be bothered because i'm in the center of nowhere.

dude, "ship of fools." erasure, yes!

we came along this road

systemic risk. is AIG a systemic risk? they sure think so. here's an internal letter from those great civil patrons at AIG.

seems obama is going to try and undo the bonuses at AIG.

here's a list/story of who's on AIG's bankroll.

AIG's latest disclosure from footnoted.

i'm a little obsessed with this story. not because they gave out bonus money from our tax money, as asinine as that is, but because someone actually believes bonuses are deserved! what the hell? you have a company on the bubble accepting government money to continue operations. does that sound like someone is doing a good job? anybody? are these bonuses going to the guys who clean the floor or empty the garbage? because those guys probably are doing a good job even when the company almost doesn't exist. it's amazing. corporate america is amazing.

in other news.....

the avclub has a great list of television shows that changed characters/plots/entire stories. most of the ones from the 80's i remember, like charles in charge and valerie and the facts of life. even though i was young, i was like, "who are these people? what happenend here?"

finished the watchmen book this past weekend. i also saw the movie. i actually saw the movie before i finished the book, which usually wouldn't be a big deal because the movie never follows the book. but this movie followed it to the letter. i mean whole passages of dialogue were the same. plus, you ever watch a movie and think it's pretty good, but the further you get away from it, the more you think it wasn't very good. that's how i feel about this movie.

bob dylan's going to be releasing a new album soon.