Oh my god, sheep is driving! How can this be?

Car full of Kiwis!

Dang, it's been a long time since I posted anything.
So "Black Sheep" is a horror comedy in the style of "Shaun of the Dead". It's set in beautiful New Zealand and is awesome. Sounds like actual New Zealand actors in it, too. Sheep eat people. It's great. Hopefully we'll have a review up at Movies Schmovies soon, but Tom had to spend his evening figuring out how to teach high school sophomores about logical fallacies without offending anyone. So yeah. Go rent it.

Friday Random Ten on Saturday: Missing the Point Edition

So I love the concept of the FRT, but since I rarely listen to music during the week, and usually carry around a limited playlist that I listen to obsessively until I scrap the whole thing and start fresh, it's hard. But in the spirit of the FRT, instead this week I give you:

The best concerts that never happened....

1. Earth, Wind & Fire, Aqua, and Heart - the Captain Planet tour
2. Snoop Dogg, Lil' Bow Wow, Bow Wow Wow, and Seal - the Things that Bark tour
3. Grand Funk Railroad, Chicago, Jefferson Airplane, and the Cars - the Transportation tour (Chicago started out as The Chicago Transit Authority)
4. Fountains of Wayne and Garth Brooks - the Schwing! tour
5. Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Molly Hatchet, and Alice Cooper (though he has to open, since he doesn't quite fit anymore) - the No Such Person tour (alternatively, if you want to get obscure, the Gravy Train tour - "And by the way, which one's Pink?")

OK, that's a good start. Share yours, and let me know if you've heard of any band/musician with the name Anne/Ann or Emily in their name, because I want to put them with Good Charlotte as the Bronte Sisters tour.

How dare they have my idea first!

D. Simpson of I Drew This did my Republican Opposite Day joke back in 2004.

I swear, I just now, today, was introduced to this comic. I love it. But I swear I didn't steal the joke.


Bastards.

Friday Random Ten: Fergalicious Edition

What the hell is "floxy"? I know I'm not the only one who hears it.



Is it this?





Or this?





Or this?







Or maybe even this?





Anyway, the ten:

1. Ben Folds - Rent-a-Cop
2. Neil Young - Heart of Gold
3. Beatles - Hey Bulldog
4. Paul McCartney and Wings - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
5. Donovan - Sunshine Superman
6. Led Zeppelin - Misty Mountain Hop
7. Ringo Starr - Back Off Boogaloo
8. George Harrison - When We Was Fab
9. Who - Join Together
10. Peter, Paul, & Mary - If I Had a Hammer

Bonus of Bob Dylan - Positively 4th Street. I didn't actually listen to this, but I talked about it with my boss today.

omg i can has lols!

http://laughingsquid.com/roll-your-own-lol-not-just-for-cats-anymore/



OK, go here, then go to all the wonderful lolsites. Highlights include:



Televangelists

Theorists

lolChaucer

Batmans

Presidents

more Presidents



of course, this assumes that you already go to I Can Has Cheezburger?

you do, right?

you better if you know what's good for you....





that being, lolcats!

Friday Random Ten: Eating Waffles Edition

1. Bangles - Different Light
2. Fatboy Slim - Praise You
3. Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
4. Rob Paravonian - Pachelbel
5. Ben Folds - Underground
6. U2 - Discotheque
7. White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
8. Alice Cooper - School's Out
9. Timbuk 3 - My Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)
10. Escape Club - Wild Wild West
11. Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs - Shake your booty while the band complains...... - yes, I loves me some Ben Folds. I got to see him in concert. That was a fun 2 days - I drove 2 1/2 hours after work to see him at a college and got back home at god-knows-when in the morning to get up the next day at 7:30 to go to work, then that night saw Eric Clapton - fortunately he was playing 5 minutes from my house.

How could this not be the best thing evar?

A webcomic about the adventures of a doctor who is also a ninja.

Seriously. Dr. McNinja. Admittedly I've only read one story arc*, but the concept alone spells awesome.

*A shadowy nemesis unmasks himself to reveal that he has a secret weapon against the doctor - he's a kid with terminal cancer, so the doctor can't in good conscience defeat him. So the doc cures his cancer instead.

I want to punch Kelis in the face

The finger cymbals! They hit in the wrong places! ARGGGH!

Sure, she could be deliberately violating the conventions of music, but judging by the normalcy of the rest of the song, I think not.


Edited on July 7, 2007: I've identified that it's possible that the hits are evenly spaced, but simply out of phase with the music - like, they take place in multiples of something that's not divisible by the 4/4 meter of the rest of the song. It sounds like they happen a measure later each time the chorus cycles through. This does not reduce my desire to punch Kelis in the face.

OMG open source software is for COMMIEZ!1!

I'm just waiting to hear it. 'It's PATRIOTIC to only use software you had to pay for! Linux is treason! Why do you hate AMERICA?!'*

What the hell am I talking about? Go here.


*Note: I know approximately jack about Linux and work for a tech company that's a Microsoft partner. But aside from that we're all about the free stuff.

Friday Random Ten: A Week Behind Edition

I totally wish I could use moving as an excuse for missing last week, especially since I had my list all ready and just didn't take the time to post it, but that's this week. Here's what I heard on the radio last week:

1. Scorpions - Rock You Like A Hurricane
2. Patty Smyth - Goodbye to You (I think.)
3. Van Halen - Beautiful Girls
4. Black Crowes - Hard To Handle
5. Gwen Stefani - Wind it Up
6. Van Halen - Dance the Night Away
7. Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar on Me
8. THE COOG! - Jack and Diane
9. INXS - New Sensation
10. BTO - Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

So the odd one out is Gwen. I was in Old Navy, and I realized two things. One, Gwen's latest work and Fergie's stuff are the Pixi Sticks of music - tasty, but without substance, not very good for you, and some people are allergic to them.

Two, what the hell, Old Navy? Who told you you were allowed to do that to fashion?! I had a gift certificate, and I used it on the one sweater that wasn't either expensive, god-awful, or both, and some plain socks. Formal capris, '70s upholstery prints, and maternity-looking tunics are Not. Ok. Just no.

Friday Random Ten: Working Ahead Edition

Wednesday's driving all over town list (yes, I kept track, so I'd be prepared for today's post!):

1. Outkast - Hey Ya
2. Bowling for Soup - 1985
3. Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
4. Golden Earring - Twilight Zone
5. Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax
6. Collective Soul - Shine
7. Genesis - I Can't Dance
8. Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
9. Heart - Barracuda
10. Jethro Tull - Aqualung
11. Killers - Somebody Told Me
12. ELO - Don't Bring Me Down
13. Haddaway - What Is Love?
14. Gerry Rafferty - Right Down the Line

I also listened to, among other things, Rock Flock of Five[edited to add, apparently it's the George Baker Selection?] - Little Green Bag from the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack, today.

And I was listening to 311 today, and it maked me think of my first CD purchases.

My first CD (not album - I owned some cassettes, naturally, I'm not that young) was Ace of Base "The Sign".

You may boo me now.

I still own it, and listen to it on driving trips.

I kind of made up for it as my next two were Sgt. Pepper and the Magical Mystery Tour, bought at the same time. After that, it was 311, Garbage, and Soundgarden (all self-titled).

How about you, my three readers? What were the first music purchases you made? I'm also curious about, specifically, the first thing you bought when you switched over to the 'new technology', whatever that was in your youth. (i.e., I switched to CDs in middle school with Ace of Base, my brother went over to mp3s in high school, my mom and dad went from records to cassettes in college.)

Ooh, and what was the first mp3 you remember searching for? I seem to think mine might have been Genesis - I Can't Dance, since I could only find the live version on albums at the time.

Addendum to FRT: Alligator Edition

I realized I never actually explained I Write Puns Not Alligators. So mentally add this on after the last sentence of that post (I don't like editing after this long, and besides, postwhoring.)

So that kid would make lists of not-actually-synonyms, right? And one day we were talking about him and Tom (who was his editor at the paper) says, during an imitation of him, "See, it's a pun! A funny play on words! An alligator!"



....Maybe you had to be there, but if you know Tom (go read him, he's in my sidebar at the Fortress), you should be able to picture the hilarity.

Political Musings: found draft!

I wrote this in November and forgot about it because it was so tiny. But I like it. So you get it anyway.

Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President. Abbreviated CREEP. Now, he was a clever man - he had to have known. I wonder if the acronym amused him.

Friday Random Ten: How can a 30-hour work week feel like too much? Edition

And the sad thing is, I love my work.

I seriously need to start posting all the stuff I think about posting. Dang. And get that HUHO post out of draft.

This list is mostly populated by the stuff that played on the radio at the client I was working on today.

1. Guns 'n Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
2. Genesis - Tonight
3. INXS - What You Need
4. Divinyls - I Touch Myself (in techno!)
5. Grateful Dead - Truckin'
6. Human League - Don't You Want Me?
7. David Bowie and Mick Jagger - Dancing in the Street
8. Chipmunks - P.S. I Love You (Jon is a sick individual and has been playing Chipmunks Sing the Beatles in the car.)
   
9. Some girls at Applebee's - Video Killed the Radio Star (they were singing along with the ipod they were sharing the headphones to - all of a sudden I hear "Oh, oh!" in the middle of lunch.)
10. Panic at the Disco - I Write Sins Not Allegories .....

At my house, this is called I Write Puns Not Alligators because of a horrible emo-y writer we know. He had a tendency to put together lists of things that were all supposed to be synonymous and, well, weren't. (Example being putting "making out" as a synonym for "going all the way" and [ugh] "proving our love".) He also was a hateful man who hated fun. And despite the awesome name, Panic at the Disco, especially this song, sounds exactly like him.

And I don't like all this responsibility stuff. Working, keeping up with even a weekly post (though I do struggle with the FRT because even when I do listen to music, it tends to be the same things over and over for quite a while, then I scrap the whole list after a few weeks or months and start again, so I have to scrounge for things to put on my list.)

God, loser!

But Loki is chasing a toymouse around like mad, and that's cheering me up.

Friday Random Ten: Dead Saddam Edition

The list this week doesn't actually have anything to do with him, but I'm watching the coverage as I write this, and felt like I should at least mention such a piece of news, even though I don't really have much to say. I feel weird about the fact that he's dead. I don't really have an opinion on the death penalty as a policy issue, but it makes me feel weird, because it's the ultimate premeditated killing. Somehow, it's strange to be notified in advance that at X time, a person will be dead. Especially when it's someone who is such a cultural figure like Saddam. He's a kind of celebrity, and he was publically, openly put to death.

It's weird. That's all I know to say about it.

Anyway, the list, which I started making in my head this morning, is themed "songs with weird time signatures", because rock (which is what I listen to almost exclusively) is heavily skewed toward 4/4 with a steady tempo. With help from Wikipedia:

1. Pink Floyd - Money: in 7/4. Conducted as pairs of 3/4, 4/4 measures, at least the way I always heard it with the triplets, and that's what the sheet music says, although David Gilmour calls it 7/8, and according to music scholars, it's technically in 21/8!
   
2. Blood, Sweat, and Tears - And When I Die: I can't find anything on it, but it sounds like a mix of 4/4 and 3/4 to me, changing with the different tempos. (tempi.)
   
3. Jesus Christ Superstar - Everything's Alright: one of my favorite 5/4s.
4. Mission: Impossible Theme - not the modern version: also a 5/4, we did it in band and it was pretty nifty.
5. Jethro Tull - Living In The Past: 5/4.
   
6. Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick: 6/8. Crazy fluteman is all about the fun time sigs. The article calls it as partially in 10/8, but doesn't say if I'm right on the 6/8 for the rest. But damnit, I can hear it! It sounds medieval.
   
7. John Carpenter - Theme from Halloween: 5/4. I heard this thing way too much when I worked at Six Flags during Fright Fest. A fun change from the usual location music, which I heard so much of that I'd hear it in my dreams.
8. Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill: 7/4.
9. Styx - Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man): 7/4 in some of the keyboard solos. I also think some of the opening keyboard work is either in 6/8 or heavy on triplets.
   
10. Beatles - All You Need Is Love: the verses are in 7/4.

Bonus America from West Side story: split 6/8, 3/4.

Friday Random Ten: Leaving On a Jet Plane Edition

Early, since my interwebbing will be iffy this weekend.

1. Prince - 1999 - because as long as it's not, in fact, 1999, I decided that you can legitimately party like it's 1999
2. Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon - Plastic Jesus - Martha, if you ever see this, it's for you.
3. Violent Femmes - American Music
4. Miami Sound Machine - Turn the Beat Around
5. Killers - Somebody Told Me
6. O-Zone - Dragostea din tei - in Hungarian
   
7. Sean Paul - Get Busy - might as well be in Hungarian
8. Presidents of the USA - (twofer) Lump and Peaches - Lookout! (ninjas appear)
9. Jason Mraz - Curbside Prophet - I never noticed before, but he mentions SpaceGhost!
10. Fergie - Fergalicious - she's expanding the reach of her fascist Fergtatorship

Bonus track: Jimi Mistry - Chori Chori Gori Se - I swear this man is the Venga Boys of Bollywood. Seriously, listen to it, and tell me that doesn't sound like the same semi-truck horn accent. Plus, it's got steeldrums!

Friday Random Ten Not On Friday: Middle of the Night Edition

I never remember about this until I read everyone else's the next day.

1. Disturbed - Land of Confusion
2. Kelis - Milkshake
3. Outkast - Hey Ya
4. Miami Sound Machine - Turn the Beat Around
5. Beatles - Helter Skelter
6. Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
7. Peter Gabriel - Big Time
8. Cranberries - Zombie
9. Eve 6 - Inside Out
10. Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil

And Jon and cat pic: Jon communes with The Loki.

Your mother's a tracer!

So there's a vehicle that I see parked near my office building frequently. Along with its multiple "Character Counts" bumper stickers (which I'm told are from a local elementary school program, but I remain suspicious), it has one that says "I don't believe the Liberal Media".

And my first thought was, good for you, van owner! You shouldn't believe what the liberal media tells you, for the same reason you shouldn't believe what you're told by, say, a blue dragon wearing rhinestone pants. Because, to quote Banky Edwards, they're both figments of your fucking imagination!

Johnny Hart, why did you have to start sucking?

B.C. comic for today, Pearl Harbor Day (here)


OOh, look, Americans are sellouts for not boycotting products from a country whose ass we kicked and whose leaders that fought us are likely all dead by now! Not to mention the fact that lots of Toyotas are built in Ohio, and Americans own stock in it!

WTF, mate, WTF.

(My parents own a bunch of B.C. collections from the '70s or '80s, and he didn't used to be a weird conservative nut. Sad times for my comic pages when all that started.)

FRT: I don't understand 'Friday' edition

Seriously, self, wtf?

1. Fergie - Fergalicious
2. Electric Six - Gay Bar
3. Beatles - Baby You're A Rich Man
4. Tenacious D - The Pick of Destiny
5. Genesis - Land of Confusion
6. Boston - Peace of Mind
7. U2 - With or Without You
8. Jim Carrey as The Mask - Cuban Pete
9. John Mayer - Waiting On The World To Change
10. America - Horse With No Name

And in lieu of catblogging, bunnyblogging, from my visit to BunTown! (a family farm in my area lets you visit with the pet rabbits they raise.)