coffee and TV

the whole blur vs. oasis battle of the early to mid 90's made me hate both bands. i thought they were both bands full of copy-cat talentless hacks who used personality to mask the fact they were terrible to mediocre pop songwriters. i believe this still holds true for oasis.

but blur is changing my mind. especially with this album: 13. this album boasts styles galour and music ranging from pseudo-soul to grunge-ish songs to simple melodic confessionals. and of course coffee and TV is basically a perfect pop song.

i liked parklife and i liked the S/T album. but 13 is worth your time.

when you dance you can really love

i passed BEC. that's half of my tests. i have now until august of 2011 to pass FAR, which i'm taking sunday, and REG. half way there.

"you see, you see...he's not a machine. he's a man."

divine comedy

stephen colbert two nights ago:

"news flash: there is no news flash."

still laughing about that.

watched capitalism: a love story yesterday.

today, currently watching maxed out.

our car club

if anyone is interested in a 1998 chevy camaro, let me know. i have one. totally clean and still moving like a champ.

benjamin is currently mashed in between my fortress of albums, two boxes and a trash can. that is cracking me up. i don't even know how he got back there.

i've been listening to bob dylan all morning. his vitriol from albums like highway 61 revisited and, to a lesser extent, blonde on blonde is sprayed across the landscape. the targets are wide ranging and varied between people and establishments. with blood on the tracks, it's totally directed at one person. now, whether that one person is actually one person or a combination of many persons together that form one target is debatable. but i love the directness of the album. he is scorned, confused, angry and somewhat embarrassed and trying to hide behind these emotions. i have a version of tangled up in blue that will make your mind melt. what am i talking about? this is the internet. here it is. look for the version called demo. listen for the buttons on his coat hitting the guitar. it's amazing. the whole tone is different. this one is sarcastic almost, covered in an apathetic nature. completely dispassionate and indifferent. i love it.

there goes the sun

is there a market crash coming? will we feel the september blues again this year? the WSJ is contemplating as i am typing this right now!

i ate two donuts this morning. which proved to be two too many.

here is a ben bernanke action figure.

evolution really failed us by not giving us gills.

the great secret of our times: celebrity lives are actually quite boring says joe alasky.

summer mood

this might not be the best album of the year, but it might be the most fun. look at that cat!!

modern man

the guys at the burning platform and the ultimate chinese bubble.

excellent quick video on the circumstances surrounding japanese deflation in the 1990's and the contrasts with the current u.s. situation.

matthew simmons died yesterday. i've quoted him several times on the blog regarding peak oil production. i saw him speak one time at the museum of fine arts after a video. he was poignant and matter-of-fact and his point landed with me. too bad he's gone.

i need to fix my printer. who fixes printers? i can't print. it's quite vexing.

the suburbs

i've listened to it about six or seven times now. i find it overbearing, suffocating and utterly humorless. and i love it. i absolutely love it!

barstool blues

i played volleyball yesterday for the first time in about fifteen years. think about that. that's half my life i went without playing volleyball. that was a good streak that ended yesterday. the only other streak i had similar to that was a vomit-less streak from 1993 to 2000. i vomited the morning of the epic oilers loss to the bills in the playoffs. i vomited before the game, as most people vomited after the game. then in 2000, i randomly got some stomach thing and ate a spicy chicken sandwich from wendy's and that was it man. the streak was over.

random streak:
1) volleyball-less 1995-2010
2) vomit-less 1993-2000
3) james bond-less... my whole life

that's right. i have never, ever seen a james bond movie. never. that's the new streak.

i saw leatherbag play this weekend. twice. i tried to get as many people as i could to the saturday show. i succeeded in bringing one. i even titled the email i sent to everyone "super karate monkey death car." i received a lot of confused responses. marketing is not my thing. i would consider just bringing one person a major accomplishment seeing as how i really only hang out with my wife and a cat. the shows were great though.

the astros traded roy oswalt and lance berkman this past weekend. it's kind of a big deal because the last time they traded a veteran at their peak-ish was glenn davis in 1991. i was 11. so it's been a while. i hope they can rebuild and get back to the world series. i don't want to be one of those people telling other people that so-and-so died without ever seeing the astros get the world series. because all that person has to do is say, "so did everyone else in the history of you the world, you ass!" and they would be completely correct in their assessment.

thank you for making me beg

now that i've got all the time in the world, i decided to embark on a maddening journey into out of print records. it didn't start that way. it started with an interest in bands like game theory and the apartments. but it quickly evolved when i found out that both bands have zero records currently in print.

maybe i should just get a couple badfinger records.....

on another note, the current record for most grapes i can fit in my mouth is 17.

the wedding march

i just put together a wedding mix for my friend tanner that begins with yo la tengo's "our way to fall" and ends with a version of "only with you" sung by dennis wilson instead of carl wilson, who sung the album version. and there's all sorts of goodies in between.

harry nilsson dvd "who is harry nilsson (and why is everybody talkin' about him?)" is finally coming out later this year.

all my friends

"houston, i love you, but you're bringing me down."

i was laid off on friday. five minutes before five.

the reason: i was under the age of 72 and my last name didn't begin with certain letters that were more important than a W.

come in, letter W, your time is up.

the point of the post is that i will be removing myself from frequent posting. i am still alive and my lungs are working better than ever. all the newly acquired vast amounts of time will be put to good use as we start to plan the beginning stages of our exit/exodus.

here's to tomorrow. your time begins.......now.

meet me in the basement

re: meet me in the basement.

down is the new up

this guy. this guy is something else. he is the epitome of failing upward. he screws up, he gets promoted. he oversees the biggest wall street fallout, let's put him in the white house. he has nine lives. and now he wants to block the wonderful and beautiful elizabeth warren from heading the new consumer agency. hopefully, this will be his last mistake and he will be cut loose, as he should have been months ago. look at this guy. elizabeth, it's going to be okay. if you want to give me a call, please do. i would love to talk to you and have coffee and gently caress your hand and stroke your hair and maybe, just maybe, tell you i love you.

sting o' luv

wow. just when i thought our banks couldn't get anymore immoral, they go and do this.

here is a quick discussion on the future of finance.

this is a great article from the web of debt on how brokers became bookies.

a roosevelt moment for the biggest banks?

young adult fiction

today is bastille day! it celebrates the great french race around the world that began in france and ended in france and in between went through really, really interesting places. what a race it was. this is all true.

i got a spicy chicken sandwich from chick-fil-a today. this may be the best day of my life.

also, i received seasons 1 and 2 of newsradio in the mail today. didn't even order them. they just showed up! actually i did order them and they didn't show up, they went to the post office and i had to go get them. but i'm still thrilled. the first two seasons are not the best. the characters are not yet zany. most shows get terrible when the characters begin to get zany and lose all notion of reality. but newsradio got better when this happened. way better. phil hartman was incredible.

in other news, the epa says rivers shouldn't smell like shit...

evil urges

anyone who reads this blog knows one thing about me: i love me some arrested development. i think it's the greatest show on television ever. there will probably never be an arrested development movie and i think, we as a human race, are the worst for it.

but check out this trailer for an action arrested development movie. it's freakin' awesome.

i read this article today and nearly started hitting my head on the desk as hard as possible, but then i realized that wouldn't solve anything. so i asked someone else to do it. basically, the premise of the article is: what if the BP oil spill is the beginning of a chain reaction of events that will cause mass extinction of human life? wild? weird? wikely? i mean, likely? who knows.

i'm going to out on a major limb here and say the american league wins the all-star game. again. they've won every game since i was like 12 years old, so i think we're good on this bet.

"i nailed it! i hibbled that bibble like jibble on a dribble!"

tenth leaving train

i've been hearing a lot lately about austerity, haven't you? yes, that's what i thought as well.

so what is austerity? well, it's when a government reduces its spending and/or increases fees and taxes to pay back its creditors. that is straight from wikipedia. the page was last modified monday at 10:48, so the definition could have been different then.

but back to austerity, well, that's what it is. so when you use it next, you'll know.

this is a pretty good article from the nyt regarding the changing structure of the american dream. were the boomers the last prosperous generation of americans? that might end up being the case.

i have my lebron james prediction ready. he will play for the washington senators who will finally beat those pesky globetrotters!!! go senators!! go!!!

finish your collapse and stay for breakfast

i had another dream last night that i wish to share with the masses. it's short on details, but long on emotion.

dwight schrute and i are working on a road project. basically, we're standing on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere shoveling some chemical on the shoulder. in addition to the two of us, there are two tigers hanging out watching us work. that's right: TWO TIGERS!! we pay them no attention and neither one of us show any regard for them being there. behind me as i'm shoveling are a stack of boxes that form a kind of domino highrise. it's not too tall, only about as tall as me.

as i'm shoveling, one of the tigers gets up and walks up that ramp and jumps on my back. i am terrified and screaming for help. dwight, who has now turned into michael scott, runs away in terror to get back to the car, which is now a truck. when he gets to the car, which is now a truck, there is a man there waiting for him who begins to beat him with one of our shovels. that might be the weirdest part of the dream. why did he get the crap beat out of him? and who was this mystery man? i have no explanation for that one.

who knows. at this point, i have a tiger on my back. he is slightly gnawing on my arm, just playfully. he loosens his mouth just enough for me to pull my arm out and i begin to run like the wind. the tiger begins this wild pouncing motion. he jumps high into the air and comes down hard, only to quickly bounce back up into the air so he can pounce me into the ground. he is no longer playing with me. i reach the car, which is now actually a truck, and i'm having a hard time getting up the side of the truck so the tiger can't get me.

then i wake up. i have had tons of dreams in my life. lots of them where i get killed or i'm about to get killed, either by gangs, or wars or whatever. this was the most terrifying dream i've ever had. the idea of being eaten alive is utterly horrific. i woke up and could not go back to sleep.

now here is my explanation for this dream, not exciting, but i believe true. once i had woken up, i got up and went to the bathroom. while i was there, i noticed that benjamin, our cat, had knocked over his cup of water, either he did or my wife did at some point in the night. so i imagine he got thirsty and was meowing and walking over me, which has been known to happen. so what started as an innocent "dwight schrute and me" dream, turned into a tiger mauling nightmare because my cat did not have his water.

as far as michael scott getting bludgeoned with a shovel, i have no idea.