The Wet Stuff
Finally! Rain!
I group around Seattle and for the longest time I hated the rain. My senior year of high school, it rained a record-breaking 90+ days straight. Take that, Noah. That much constant rain definitely puts a damper on one’s mood and it was definitely a factor in my decision to attend college in sunny southern California.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love sunshine. But it’s only rained about 2 inches in Los Angeles this year and I have been feeling a very deep and primal yearning for a change of pace in the form of precipitation.
A few years back, I saw David Garza, one of my favorite musicians, performing at the Largo. He covered the Eddie Rabbitt song above, mostly as a joke. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find an mp3 of that performance, but ever since, whenever it rains I’ve busted out the tune. It’s a deliciously guilty pleasure.
Filed under Los Angeles, Music | Comment (0)Leave Britney Alone
It is only appropriate that no sooner did the Internet People video come out that it was already outdated with the addition of yet another internet celebrity. Doubtless we’ve all seen or at least heard of Britney’s lethargic performance at the recent VMA’s. While major media outlets, bloggers, and your grandmother were busy lambasting Britney, one individual took the bold stance in defense of the pop songstress. Meet Chris Crocker.
Look Chris, I know most everybody has been pretty mean to Britney this past week, but come on. You have to admit that was a pretty half-assed performance on her part. I know you’re upset about the entertainment news industry making a buck off poking fun, but that’s their job. At least they’re doing a good job with it. It’s Britney’s job to put on a good performance, and girl couldn’t even get her lip synching right, yet she makes nearly $740k a month. Sorry Chris, with that kind of a paycheck, you’d better be able to deliver.
Posted only six days ago, Crocker’s video has gained internet infamy and ridicule to rival Spears’ original performance. Even Jimmy Kimmel poked fun at the guy on his show.
Kimmel references a YouTube spoof of the Crocker vid featuring Crocker’s “father” asking, “Why? Where did I go wrong?!” As with any good internet fad, there has been no shortage of parodying from all kinds of angles. My personal favorite is the one by Seth Green, of Robot Chicken fame, where he implores the internet world to “leave Chris Crocker alone!”
Now that’s a job well done.
Filed under Movies & Television, Music, The Internets, WTF? | Comment (0)Is that 40,000 songs in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Unless you’ve been living in a hole for the last… um… several hours then you know about all the iPod news. The iPhone has dropped $200 in price to a much more reasonable $399. The iPod nano now supports video in a fat little package with 4GB or 8GB capacities in all new colors. The shuffle gets similar color treatment, but otherwise nothing new. The normal iPod or, as they’re now dubbed, the iPod classic reaches its 6th generation with a sexy all-aluminum casing and capacity choices of 80GB and 160GB.
But the big news over which everyone is abuzz is the new iPod touch. At $299 for the 8GB model or $399 for the 16GB model, you get a touch-screen interface similar to the iPhone that plays videos and has Wi-Fi access and a built-in Safari browser.
At first I was pretty impressed with the Touch, too, but the more I look at it, the less I get it. For $399, I have the choice between either a 16GB mini-computer or an 8GB mini-computer with a built-in phone and internet access via both Wi-Fi and the EDGE network. That seems like a no-brainer to me. Trade a measly 8GB of storage so that the device is more usable for communication? Sure! That’s what I’d get it for anyways - for the internet access. If I can get a phone in the deal and ditch my old Samsung, that’s a million times better. Neither the iPhone nor the Touch are satisfactory as far as being a music device, at least not for this music addict and those like me who have trouble trimming out a choice playlist to squeeze onto my 60GB 5th gen iPod from my far larger music library.
It looks to me like the price drop for the iPhone will kill sales for the Touch before the product even gets out the door. For myself, I think I’ll start counting my pennies for the $349 160GB iPod classic so that I can finally fit all of my music AND all of my photos into one sexy little package.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a good SNL clip from when the iPhone first came out. Funny thing, the iPod Touch actually DOES have “Starbucks.”
Slice of Random: Bunnies
I’m a pretty avid fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and all other things Whedon. In fact, I wrote my college thesis on the show. It won an award, which is not to brag, but just to point out that the show is serious bid-ness.
Anyway, anyone who’s familiar with the show knows of the running joke that one of the primary characters, Anya, has a never fully-explained phobia of bunnies. I saw this picture today and I’ve got to say I can’t blame her.
Seriously now, what is going on? As if the guy in the bunny suit in Donnie Darko wasn’t enough. At least with that a body is able to sleep at night, comforted by the fact that “it’s just a movie.” Not so with this Easter bunny. The knowledge that this diabolical, costumed menace will haunt me until the end of my years. Fighting terrorism starts at home, folks. Easter bunny, beware, you’re on notice!
Speaking of people in creepy animal costumes, the Bat for Lashes video for “What’s a Girl to Do” keeps popping up on various bicycle message boards and blogs I frequent. It’s for good reason, too; even if you’re not a big fan of the music (like a lot of the punk-centric urban cyclists that populate aforementioned boards), you’ve got to admit this video is pretty rad.
Myself, I am seriously digging the new album, Fur and Gold. I managed to catch the band when they played at Spaceland a couple of weeks ago. I snapped a few pictures that I need to get around to tagging and organizing properly in my Flickr.
Filed under Bicycles & Scooters, Music, WTF? | Comment (0)Mic Check 1, 2 - An Introduction
I’m a web designer by profession and a couple of years ago I wanted to have a side-project just for fun. One of my favorite bands, Headlights, had recently put out their first EP and I, enthralled by the release, decided I wanted to make my side-project a fan site. “The joke is up” is the opening lyric to a song off of that EP.
I emailed the band, who are all super nice people, and I had all these grand schemes going on in my head about what I was going to do with the fan site, but as it turns out I ended up being too busy with my actual work. Ah well, so it goes.
The domain name sat unused for years with nothing more than a “fan site coming soon” image. Fast forward to today and the Headlights have a mighty fine looking site themselves, plus a myspace page, plus a virb page. All that makes a fan page a little obsolete. So instead, I’ve decided just to make this a blog. What about? I’m not sure, really. Music, bicycles, scooters, design, food, beer, bourbon, random YouTube videos… I guess we’ll find out as we go along.
Filed under Music, WTF? | Comment (0)
