Friday Fun!
Sorry, there isn't any. Friday fun, I mean.
I got ReplayTV. Did I mention that? It's pretty sweet. I find that I'm not really recording as much stuff as I thought, but I use the hell out of the pause functionality. See, you can actually pause live TV, just like the commercials say. It's fucking brilliant, cuz you can pause a show at any point, and the Replay box starts recording it for playback whenever you return. So if you hit pause and get up to take a leak and make a sandwich, when you come back you'll have like five minutes of show in the bank. So you're watching it on a five-minute lag. Which means that when a five-minute commercial break starts, you can fast forward all the way through it. But you gotta have some in the bank is the thing.
I'm at the point now that I absolutely dread the "You're now watching Live TV" message that pops up when you spend all your banked recorded programming, cuz that means you can't fast forward no mo'. Until you put some back in the bank. So you may as well go take a leak and make a sandwich.
Of course, we do record some stuff. Tracy records American Idol, watches it when I'm not around, and then shows me just the really really really bad singers. Which, after all, is most of them. But we can still skip the commercials.
And now, theoretically at least, we'll never miss another episode of the Daily Show or Insomniac or Antiques Roadshow. Except that you still have to find time to watch them, even if Replay does save you about 16 minutes of every TV-viewing hour. And who's got 44 minutes to spare? Not me, that's for damn sure.
So between the Replay and the Netflix and the Mr. Show DVDs and the iPod and the European Sleep Works Alpine mattress they're building for us as you read this, it's a wonder I ever leave the house at all except to scavenge for provisions.
Ahh, Webvan. We hardly knew ye. ßßß
You may already be a winner.
Thanks to a tip from my bandmate Denny, I know am now the world's biggest fan and proponent of Soulseek. As the site itself says, "Soulseek is an ad-free, spyware-free, just plain free file-sharing application." And it rocks my fucking world. Thanks to it, I'm up to a whopping 3,192 jams on my 20GB iPod. Life? She is good.
Band action is ratcheting up. Offers from reputable record labels are forthcoming. Allegedly. As is interest from other parties, like press folk and entertainment attorneys and booking peeps. It's looking like it might be on.
If you haven't had a chance to check out the Scheme yet, you better get crackin' if you wanna be ahead of the industry curve. Enjoy our mp3s here. Not bad, huh? Nope. Not bad at all.
You can even say you knew me when. I'll never tell.
xox,
ian
ßßß
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Trivia
We survived Disney. Never have so many colossal people been squeezed into such close proximity. The new California Adventure park rocked, especially the It's Tough to Be a Bug animatronic interactive attraction deal in which I screamed like a little girl. Good times ...
I also survived that freelance gig I alluded to down there, which was not really supersecret at all. I was writing questions for the online version of Trivial Pursuit. Problem was I became completely obsessed with the task. Everything I came into contact with became a potential trivia question. What shape are the taillights of a Cadillac Escalade? What is the main ingredient of chilaquiles? Who curated the famous "Nuggets" compilation series? That last one's an actual question, though. It was Lenny Kaye.
It's sad that it didn't work out, though, as I am uniquely qualified as a trivialist. It's how I'm wired. I forget the things that matter, but I can recall useless minutia like a mu'fucka. But like in all things I do, I took the Trivial Pursuit thing to its absurd and unfun conclusion. Shame, really. Now all I have to show for it is a tiny little check and a story to trot out at cocktail parties. Like I go to cocktail parties. Cracker, please.
I promise I'll try to update more oftener. If you get bored, you can always write me. I love the email. ßßß
No Excuse Like a Good Excuse
Lack of recent updates has been caused by new supersecret freelance assignment. It's really not as exciting as all that, but it has usurped time usually available for blogging. Hence, no updates.
And things will get more sporadicker next week, when I depart for the happiest place on earth©®TM on the company dime. Yes, I am attending some team-building/trust-exercising/feel-good Japanese zaibatsu-style cult-indoctrination workshop at Disneyland. How fucking surreal is that? Answer: very. Trés Office Space.
In other news, I appear to be inexplicably happy at the moment; one might even say euphoric. For no real reason at all, save that I just came from the gym (still not paying dues — this month marks a year of free membership — maybe that has something to do with the joy I'm currently experiencing), and all available endorphins are coursing through the bloodstream. Or maybe it's the universe trying to make up for the complete disaster that was yesterday. But rather than deconstruct it, I think I'll just enjoy it. I suggest you do the same. ßßß
"random cat owner" has sent you a message. Do you want to accept it?
random cat owner: One of my cats got hit by our neighbor today both legs on one side are broken. is there anyplace to get a good copy of the Domestic Cat Skeleton?
What the fuck??? ßßß
Pull your pants up! And get the hell off my lawn.
This whole thing with the low-rise pants (AKA leg warmers) has got to stop. We went out with some friends last night — an older couple and their two daughters — and the 15-year-old girl's pants rose so little that she may as well not have been wearing pants at all. These weren't hip-huggers, mind; these jeans wouldn't have reached her hips standing on their tippy toes. I honestly have no idea how the pants in question were even staying up. Kids today, what with their saggy pants and their rock 'n roll music. Sheeeesh.
Speaking of rock 'n roll, let's hear it for Russ Feingold for taking on evil media monolith Clear Channel Communications. In case you've been treesitting for the last few years, you know that Clear Channel owns more than 1,200 radio stations and, in 1999, acquired SFX productions, the largest concert-promotion company in the U.S.
Feingold is calling for anti-trust proceedings against Clear Channel. Those railroad robber barons got nothin' on Clear Channel: If ever there was a monopoly, this is it. Good luck and godspeed, Russ.
If it seems like the current Bush administration is pulling its Iraq policy out of its ass, that's because it is (link from dack.com).
Is this really how a democratic government functions? Dragged kicking and screaming into war by a shadowy cabal of archconservatives with axes to grind? Regardless of where on the political continuum you place yourself, you need to read this article. And remember that this is the Washington Post, folks, not indymedia, Mother Jones, or the Nation. ßßß
Riding with Osama.
So last night Tracy and I were talking about the propaganda posters from yesterday's post, specifically the You ride with Hitler one. Campy and preposterous, right? Apparently not.
Last night's Marketplace broadcast introduced us to the Detroit Project, the latest brainchild of the former archconservative, current Salon columnist, and still thoroughly batty Arianna Huffington. The Detroit Project's ads do for SUVs what this ad did for street drugs: make a tenuous and ubsubstantiated claim that they support terrorism.
Now before you go getting your knee-jerk liberal panties all in a bunch, allow me to continue: of COURSE buying street drugs doesn't support terrorism any more than buying Eli Lilly drugs does. In fact, buying a dub sack of chronic from your friendly neighborhood purveyor will most likely contribute a helluva lot less to the momentum of the war machine than buying Cipro from the good people at Eli Lilly. But I digress.
The SUV-gas-terrorist connection is at least plausible. Buying more gas equals more dependence on OPEC nations equals more money going to "state sponsors of terrorism." But is this really the way to reach your audience, I wonder? I mean, how is the average Joe Paycheck watching Everybody Please Kill Raymond Because I Can't Bear to Watch This Shit Another Second gonna react when he hears "WHAT IS YOUR SUV DOING TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY? DETROIT, AMERICA NEEDS HYBRID CARS NOW."?
I don't know fer sure, but I'm gonna guess he'll start out laughing, thinking it's some kind of high-concept joke. Then the realization that he's being patronized in a singularly appalling way will creep across his alcohol-dulled synapses. Then he'll hurl heavy objects at the screen and follow that up by going out to the garage to blow kisses to his Dodge Durango. Then I imagine Joe lovingly steamcleaning the engine compartment of his beloved SUV and buffing it spotless and shiny with a special chamois reserved only for that purpose, while his pathetic, neglected wife and brood huddle inside, cold, lonely, and afraid. But then I have a rather active imagination.
If someone's gonna buy a big dumb SUV, these ads certainly will NOT deter them from doing so. It'll just help galvanize who US is, and who THEM are.
But who is US, anyway? SUVs may be one of the more obvious and fatuous symptoms of our culture of consumption, but they're not THE problem. What about suburban sprawl and the absurdly large estates that exist therein? Arianna may drive a hybrid car, but if she's driving it 50 miles each way to work and back home to a 5,000-square-foot palatial estate full of unused rooms that require heating and cooling and such, what of that? That takes energy. Lots of energy. I could go on, but I won't, because I'm tired and I'm already boring myself. But think big picture, people.
But even though I think they're kinda foolish and entirely miss the big picture, Arianna and co. should certainly have the opportunity to run the spots. But certain TV outlets in New York and metro L.A. are refusing to air the Detroit Project's commercials, claiming they make "too big a leap." Did these same stations run the absurd drugs=terrorism PSAs? Damn right they did. So why are they exercising editorial control over commercials all of the sudden?
If you're not a conspiracy theorist, maybe you're just not paying attention. ßßß
If You Are a Fat Bastard, the Terrorists Have Already Won.
National security has recently been cited as a reason for us to do all sorts of shit — sell your SUV, vote Republican, quit smoking weed — but now we should aerobicize for America?
This article seems to suggest that we should trim down in the name of national security. Now I'm all for physical fitness and junk, being something of a health nut/gym rat myself, but do you think the average McDonald's patron will forgo that second Big 'n Tasty so s/he can do his part in the war against terror? Surgeon General Richard Carmona seems to think so.
"Our preparedness as a nation depends on our health as individuals," he said. "The military needs healthy recruits."
He goes on to say that military leaders he's talked to are concerned about our nation's fatness and how that might affect the availability of grist for their war mills. Richard, dude: Did they not explain that the "general" part of the "Surgeon General" title was more or less an honorific thing? You're not an actual military general or anything. Simma down now.
Can you imagine Dick Carmona sitting up nights in his office designing WWII-style propaganda posters for people to go jogging? Rosie the Riveter leading a spinning class? The specter of Osama bin Laden cackling maniacally as some poor sap tucks in to a bucket of KFC? (Actually, he could probably use this one or this one pretty much as is to encourage to people to exercise. Or as gay porn. Man the guns?? It really doesn't get any gayer than that. And to think the Navy had a problem with the Village People. ...)
So if you are morbidly obese (or smoke weed in your SUV), the terrorists have already won. What can you do, Mr. and/or Mrs. America? Put down that Super Big Gulp and breastfeed your baby, dammit. Oh, and work on a farm this summer, of course. ßßß
All I Want for Christmas Is a Functioning Immune System.
Sadly, I did not get the one thing I really needed for Christmas: not to be sick anymore! I swear ta Christ, people, I am so over this. Over the holiday break I had a stomach thing, then a head cold, then the stomach thing came back while I still had the head cold, and now I have some chest ailment which has me routinely hacking up great gobs of yellow lung butter. It's so wrong. I lead such a good and clean and healthful life. I eat a strict vegan diet. I help old ladies cross the street. I pick up fallen baby birds and put them back in their nests. And this is the thanks I get? Maybe I should become a cannibal and start voting Republican. Fucking hell.
Speaking of trying to be good, I finsihed reading How to be Good last night. It was no High Fidelity, that's for sure, or even a Fever Pitch. A weird affair, all in all. It poses some Big Questions and answers none of them, which I generally appreciate (I mean, they wouldn't be capital-letter Big Questions if they had easy answers, right?), but somehow the entire experience was strangely unsatisfying. I know, I get it that it's a parable and all, but still. I think Hornby overreached on this one, which is always better than underreaching, but it still left me wanting ... something. I dunno. I imagine I'll be thinking about it for at least a few more days, which I also like a book to make me do. Think and stuff.
Still no pics of my backpiece, it seems. Note to self: Have lovely wife Tracy take pitchers when you get home. Note to lovely wife Tracy: Remind me to remind you to take pictures of my back when you get home. Thanks. Your slacker friend, Ian. ßßß
The Man of Steel Sends His Regards.
Superman says: Download the new beta version of Opera 7 for Windows! It will rock your world, or your money back.
To the guy who keeps leaving copies of Awake! magazine in the bathroom stalls at my gym: I'm happy you've discovered the secret to everlasting life, but do us all a favor and keep it to yourself. Go peddle that shit somewhere else.
January is always a weird time at the gym. During the first few weeks of every new year, it usually gets really crowded with resolvers. You have to wait in line for machines, for showers, to check in ... but hey, who am I to get pissy? The cold-fusion experts that run my gym still haven't figured out that I haven't paid dues in 11 months! Plus, everyone's got to start somewhere, so more power to ya. Just stay out of my way, dammit. I got weights to lift. Steel weights.
Plus I know that the vast majority of resolvers are just kidding themselves. They'll last a week or two — a month, tops — before they backslide out of yet another resolution and quit coming around. It's inevitable, and health clubs depend on it. They drastically oversell their capacity, knowing full well that the vast majority of their members will hardly ever use their memberships. It's like stealing, only legal. But it preys on our stupidity and our hopelessness and our profound insecurity and self-loathing.
So, you see, it's really my civic duty to continue to stiff my health club for the $78 a month I should be paying them. Power to the people. ßßß
Oh One, Oh Two, Oh Three.
Hey, y'all. I'm back. You know you missed me.
The nondenominational winter solstice break did me great gobs of good (go here for some highlights). Rest was had, houses were rocked, castles were explored, and hotels were defiled. We also watched some brilliant movies on DVD and all up in the theater, such as the fabulously post-postmodern Adaptation, that hobbit one, Lagaan (if you can make a riveting four-hour-long musical about cricket, you are the fucking MAN), Iron Monkey, and other stuff.
We even sat through I Am Sam (on cable of course). Watching that movie was like ... well, shit, I don't know what it was like, exactly. It was easily the worst movie I've seen since Glitter, and yet we couldn't not watch it. There's one scene in which superultrasuccessful lawyer character (phoned in by an increasingly angular-looking Michelle Pfeiffer) compares her lot to that of "special needs" barista Sam (played by Sean "Do I Get My Oscar Now That I Played a Retard?" Penn). "You think you've got it bad?" Pfeiffer did not actually but just as well may have said. "I live in a ridiculously large house and drive a Porsche and am a stupendously successful trial lawyer, but I'm trapped in a loveless marriage," she didn't continue, but this being the gist of what she did, actually, say. "I'm at least as pathetic as you, and my life is just as hard as yours is, you pathetic retard!" (Cue swell of Baby-Boomer-demographic-proven Beatles cover.)
Oh, great. I Am Sam is the perfect movie for our time. It allows — no, it invites even the uberpriveleged among us to wallow in self-pity. Lovely. This is what we need. Kill me.
So speaking of folks with special needs, I pass this drop-in center for the mentally ill on my walk to work every morning. There are usually a few folks milling about, some of whom I've come to recognize, like the insane Muslim guy who's always ranting about the coming apocalypse or the crusty old acid-casualty guy who's always asking me to audition for his band. Ummm ... that's a no, bro. Apart from that, my interaction with these characters is usually limited to cigarette-bumming attempts.
But today a new dude greeted me. He looked like a homeless cross between Michael Winslow (the Police Academy and Cheech and Chong sound effects guy) and Dave Chappelle (actually, looking at that picture now, it may have been Dave Chappelle ...).
At any rate, the Chappellish guy is sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with a goofy tie-dyed map of the solar system. He points to Earth on the shirt, and the following conversation ensues.
Insane Guy: This is us, right? This is us.
Me: Right.
Insane Guy: (pointing randomly to the other celestial bodies on his shirt) Is there life on these other planets?
Me: Yeah, I don't know ...
Insane Guy: No, there has to be. Has to be!
Me: OK, yeah. Totally.
Insane Guy: (flexing his arm and pointing to his bicep) I'm Batman.
Me: Right!
Insane Guy: Are you the man of steel?
Me: Yes! Yes, I am.
Insane Guy: (pointing to my chest) You lift weights. Steel weights.
Me: Sometimes I do, yes.
Insane Guy: I'm Batman.
Me: OK, great! I'll see ya later.
Gospel truth, every word, swear on my Moms. ßßß
Don't miss last month's brilliant insight.
