While you make pretty speeches, I'm being cut to shreds

Hey there, Senator Clinton. I know you won in South Dakota last night, and you gave a speech to rouse your supporters and everything, and you have a plan and you said you weren't going to be making any decisions. I know that. I just wanted to tell you something.



Scoreboard, Senator. Look up at it. You've lost. For reals this time.

Now. Go away. Before you start to do serious damage to the party. You've already destroyed yourself.

Oh, and Senator Obama? First of all, congratulations and good luck in November. But don't even think of naming Clinton your running mate. Don't you dare. Say it with me now: "unmitigated disaster."

That is all.

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Now playing: Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates
via FoxyTunes

I am certifiably insane

I am. It's true. What else can explain it?

I went into Job Number Two this morning. About twenty minutes after clocking in, the cooks made a startling discovery: the natural gas that powers our ovens was, well, out. No gas. Meaning no ovens. Meaning we can't cook anything. You see how that might be a problem for a restaurant. In any case, with customers walking in and walking right back out again, I was told my services would not be required for the day. So I came home, grateful for a few extra hours off.

I did some reading. (Chuck Palahniuk is an odd duck, ladies and gentlemen.) I took a nap. It was good -- very, very good. And when I awoke, what was the first thing that popped into my head?

"Whoa -- Brent from Corner Gas was in an episode of The X-Files!"

He played a coroner in "Bad Blood," one of my favorite episodes. He appears for maybe a minute, has three or four lines. The last time I saw the episode, I hadn't seen Corner Gas. But now I have, and now I realize that it was him.

This information, of course, came from nowhere. I haven't seen the episode in years. But a quick trip to IMDB confirmed it. I was right.

And I'm a goddamn lunatic, is what I am.

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Now playing: The Strokes - Heart in a Cage
via FoxyTunes

Weezer: The Red Album

Well, this much is clear: Rivers Cuomo and his band of merry men no longer give a fuck what you think. That's certainly commendable, given the "Let's pander to the masses!" sound of their last three records. (You may recall us discussing this before.) So instead of a disc of tried and true three-chord power pop numbers destined to scale the charts, we find the band spreading out as far as they can. Rivers plays the drums. Rivers raps. Other band members write songs. Other band members sing. It feels truly experimental, which is not a word I ever thought I'd associate with Weezer. It's a nice breath of fresh air.

Now, if only it were really good.

It starts well. After kicking off with the snarling, snarky "Troublemaker," we move on to the album's standout, "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)," which is no less that ten songs crammed into a six minute medley. They let it all hang out here, ranging from Beach Boys-esque harmonies to Queen choruses to police sirens and drunken rapping. It's all glorious and loads of fun, even if it shifts gears with the ease of a semi. After that is "Pork and Beans," and that's still one of their best singles ever. It's catchy, it's funny, and it's compelling in a way they haven't been in over a decade.

Unfortunately, that's when the wheels start to come off. "Dreamin'" is a great song, but the rest flails about for purchase without finding any. "Heart Songs" and "The Angel and the One" are both overlong and dreary, "Everybody Get Dangerous" is a jokey song that's not funny, and "Automatic" is just bad. It's nice to hear them spreading their wings and trying new things, sure, but it would have been nice to get a good album out of it.

It's time to face the cold, hard truth, kids. It's time to stop hoping that mommy and daddy are getting back together. Weezer -- the blue album Weezer, the Pinkerton Weezer, the Weezer we love -- is never coming back.

Which is truly a tragedy.

Rating: **1/2 (out of *****)

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Now playing: Gabriel Mann - Someone Else for One Day
via FoxyTunes

That's one of the best casts I've ever seen

There is no one is this trailer I don't love. Plus the Coen brothers? Oh, I am so there.



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Now playing: The Tragically Hip - Blow at High Dough
via FoxyTunes

Weekly Chart: 5/25-6/1

I stopped doing my iPod shuffles a while ago, after growing bored with them. But now I've found another weekly habit to torture you with that you might find interesting. I've started using last.fm to keep track of my music -- maybe you've seen the new blue box over there in the sidebar -- and one of the cool things it does is give you weekly charts, showing various stats for the week. Starting this week, I'll post each week's list of my top artists -- the music I listened to most that week. (I'm using artists instead of tracks because I think that's a more interesting list; this week's top tracks, for instance, are split among only two artists.) We'll see how long this goes before I get bored with it, huh?

This week, I discovered a few albums on my hard drive I'd forgotten I had -- namely, Maroon 5's It Won't Be Soon Before Long, which is nowhere near as bad as I remembered it being. In fact, it's pretty good. Also, Blind Melon's Soup, which was as underwhelming as I recalled, unfortunately. I also gave Green Day's Dookie a spin for the first time in four or five years. Some classics never get old. (Random nostalgic memory: I seem to recall that, back in high school, Josh somehow got his graphing calculator to play a tiny, garbled sound clip of "Basket Case." I recall thinking this was awesome. My iPod -- a device an eighth of the size of that clunky calculator and which holds twelve days' worth of CD-quality music -- thinks this is hilarious.)

The top ten (well, eleven; there was a tie for tenth):

1. Jonathan Coulton (66 plays)
2. Maroon 5 (35)
3. Harvey Danger (26)
4. Genesis (22)
5. Spoon (14)
6. Beth Kinderman (12)
7. Blind Melon (10)
7. Radiohead (10)
7. Green Day (10)
10. Billy Joel (9)
10. Coldplay (9)

You can see the entire list here.

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Now playing: The Tragically Hip - Cordelia
via FoxyTunes

Nice one, Mom

FRINAN was called for jury duty today. Stunningly, our even-handed, fair-minded friend didn't make the final cut. I can't imagine why.

But I'm reminded of the time my Mom got called for jury duty. She actually found herself seated: it was a drug charge, a guy arrested for dealing drugs in a school zone. Oops. So they picked her, and she prepared to do her job as a decider of his fate.

One problem: the defense attorney realized the entire jury was made up of white people. The defendant? Hispanic. He made a plea to the judge, who agreed and dismissed everyone, starting over with a new set.

Mom came home furious. She hadn't wanted to spend a few days on a jury, but she felt she'd been personally insulted. In the kind of impassioned rant you've probably heard from me, she railed against the defense attorney and the judge, screaming about the implication that she was somehow unable to make a fair and impartial judgment of the evidence simply because of the color of her skin.

"And besides," she concluded, "I knew that kid was guilty just by looking at him."

Uh-huh.

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Now playing: The Tragically Hip - Three Pistols
via FoxyTunes

Hey, is that Jerry O'Connell?

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Now playing: Jim Rome - Wed, May 28th, 2008 Hour 1
via FoxyTunes

There was also that time he and I spent twenty minutes in his front yard trying to draw the Undertaker's logo in the grass...in fire

So, Stephen is trying to get into the Houston Police Academy. I fully support this. Apparently, he put me down as a personal reference, because I received a call from the HPD this evening, running background. I got the typical questions: how long have I known him (I said ten years, but later realized that was wrong -- it's been twelve years, kiddies, no shit), how did we meet (high school, which honestly seems like time spent on another planet right now), that kind of stuff.

After providing decent background and acceptable information, the guy hits me with the final question: "Can you think of any reason why Stephen wouldn't make a good police officer?"

And in that nanosecond, my mind flooded with a very vivid memory: Stephen portraying a hitman in a stupid movie we were trying to make. We'd been watching Good Will Hunting a lot around that time, so we decided his character needed a thick Boston accent. He also said the word "fuck" every five seconds...only he was Bostonian, so it came out fahk.

Then I remembered a few months earlier, and Stephen taking his frustrations out on a hopelessly scratched copy of WWF Warzone...with a BB gun. He blasted that fucking disc to pieces.

I remembered other stuff, too. All in a fraction of a second, mind you, because before I was even done thinking about it, I was already talking. "Not at all," I said. "He'd make a terrific police officer."

And he will, too. Good luck, buddy.

(And if I'm ever accused of murder in the city of Houston, I will expect the evidence against me to become, ahem, "inadmissible," if you follow me, sir.)

(That was a joke, by the way.)

(No, it wasn't.)

(Yes, it was.)

(Ahem.)

(Seriously, though, dude.)

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Now playing: Jonathan Coulton - Millionaire Girlfriend
via FoxyTunes

And I thought I got strange email

We all get odd emails from time to time. Most of them end up caught in our spam filters, but they still happen. But I've never received anything as batshit as the glorious slice of insanity MaryAnn Johanson just posted on her website. Ye gods! No question, the greatest email ever sent.

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Now playing: Rush - YYZ
via FoxyTunes

It's nice to watch this every once in a while

Randy Newman is, quite possibly, the most sarcastic man to ever walk this planet.



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Now playing: Maroon 5 - Makes Me Wonder
via FoxyTunes

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a damn minute

As you may know, I tend to ascribe nicknames to baseball players. It's a habit. Conversely, I tend to disdain the nicknames such players ascribe to themselves -- that's my job, buddy.

Take, for instance, Lance Berkman. I've been calling him "Fat Elvis" for, oh, three years now. Lance, on the other hand, self-glossed himself "the Big Puma." I was unimpressed, and so was most of Houston -- I never heard anyone outside of Milo Hamilton call him that, and Milo's certifiably insane. (In a good way, mind you -- Milo's awesome. The greatest baseball announcer of all time, hands down.)

But now that Berkman's hitting like Mickey Mantle, the nickname is starting to actually catch on, despite how stupid it sounds. There's an article on the Astros website discussing the nickname and its popularity, and I find this:

It was Berkman who came up with the name. He was tired of being called "Fat Elvis," and during a semi-regular appearance on a local radio show two years ago, Berkman told the hosts he wanted to change things up.

"I'm like a Puma," Berkman said. At that moment, a cult hero was born. He's Lance Berkman, the Big Puma.

Nowadays, his manager refers to him as Big Puma. It's catching on with his teammates, too. And all because of Berkman's desire to replace the Fat Elvis label with a brand new image -- even if it's tongue-in-cheek.

Whoa -- who was calling Lance Berkman "Fat Elvis" and not telling me about it? That was mine, goddammit! Who stole it? Who?!

Oh, well. He's still Fat Elvis to me. And mean that in the nicest way, Lance, honestly. You're my favorite Astro (at least, current Astro). But...you're not a damn puma, okay? I don't care how far into your cheek you cram your tongue.

Now: is anyone else out there calling Morgan Ensberg "the Voyeur"? Because I will sue, damn you.

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Now playing: Jay-Z - Can't Knock the Hustle
via FoxyTunes

I must admit, I like your enthusiasm

The cancellation of Firefly is still an open wound for many on the internet. Not to mention the countless other beloved shows that met premature ends -- Jericho, or Arrested Development, or my precious, glorious Veronica Mars. So geeks have reason to worry about their shows.

But fans of Joss Whedon have taken it a step further: they're gearing up a Save-Our-Show campaign to save his newest creation, Dollhouse...eight months before it even airs:

Fearing Dollhouse will get booted off the air, just like the Joss Whedon-helmed show Firefly, fans are plotting and organizing their efforts in online forums.

Led by DollhouseForums.com, the campaign urges followers to organize viewing parties, watch the trailers online, buy Dollhouse-endorsed merch and create more fan sites.

DollhouseForums' trailblazing leader Nathan posted the following as a call to arms: "After seeing some of my favorite television shows get canceled in the past -- as well as the 'save this show' campaigns that followed -- I had the idea that a fan campaign BEFORE the show begins may be the best thing to do."

Okay. Now. I like the idea of a preemptive strike. I really do. But...come on, people. Isn't that just kinda-sorta rampantly obnoxious? Let's wait until we've actually seen it before we try and save it. I mean, we don't even know if it's going to be any good. It might not be worth saving in the first place.

(Huh. I didn't even a chance to finish typing that last paragraph before the Browncoats started teargassing my apartment. Hey, I'm one of you! I loved Firefly! All right, okay, okay, I take it back! It'll be the greatest show in the history of television! Jesus. Gorram lunatics.)

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Now playing: Slipknot - Before I Forget
via FoxyTunes

And she deserves every goddamn word of it, too

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Now playing: Metallica - The Outlaw Torn
via FoxyTunes

WOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

BioShock is coming to the PS3!

And thus I have now literally no reason whatsoever to desire an X-Box 360. Ha-ha!

So then. Here's a Weezer video.



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Now playing: Jonathan Coulton - Creepy Doll
via FoxyTunes

Shinies!

When you play a song in Rock Band, you're given a star rating based on your score. (It's not based on accuracy, which is a little annoying. But whatever.) You are ranked from one to five stars. If you're playing on Expert difficulty, and you get a super-duper-awesome score, you can get even higher: five gold stars. This is exceedingly difficult, and requires true mastery of the track.

I've made it my mission in life to get five gold stars on every song we have -- all 99 of them. Since I suck with the Rock Band guitar and I'm not that good a drummer, it'll have to be on vocals. I'll keep track of my successes here. Why? Because I have to be able to brag about something, don't I?

Gold Stars achieved on...
[* denotes a perfect 100% performance]

• "Maps"
• "Creep" * (27th place on the PS3 Rock Band Leaderboard)
  
• "Go with the Flow" *
• "(Don't Fear) the Reaper" *
  
• "Wonderwall"
• "Buddy Holly" (28th on the Leaderboard)
  
• "Interstate Love Song" (37th on the Leaderboard)
  

When it comes to chess...

...there's winning. And there's losing. And then there's losing. To wit:



I'm white, in case you're wondering. FRINAN is black.

Why didn't I resign long before it got this stage? Because I'm an enabler, that's why.

Man. Man, oh man.

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Now playing: Toadies - Possum Kingdom
via FoxyTunes

The waiting is the hardest part

There are people in this world who enjoy torturing me. Metallica? They're those kinds of people.

Their last album, St. Anger, came out in 2003. I loved it to pieces at the time -- as you'll recall -- but it's aged as well as episodes of Saved by the Bell. For the next record, they decided to go back an old-school sound and style, and to that end employed the Greatest Producer Who Ever Lived, Rick Rubin. They've been working on the thing for, like, ever now, and word has been slow in coming. Typical for Metallica, really, and I've been mostly ignoring any advance word or news, because I know it'll be ages before we get anything definitive.

Until today, that is. When I find Mission Metallica.

Yes, let's go inside the studio with the band as they're writing and recording the album. Yes, sneak peeks, please. Keep me informed at all times of the interminable wait for the record's release.

This is the greatest website ever. This is the worst website ever.

Bastards.

(Oh, and please ignore Monkey Man's rapping. He's a goofy guy.)

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Now playing: Metallica - Hit the Lights
via FoxyTunes