Is it the sushi?
Yet again, Japan proves itself to be the country with the highest Insanity per capita of the entire world. For some reason, the Japanese nerds have latched onto a former gay porn star and have turned him into a strange internet meme.
This is weirder than that muscle game I posted about a few months ago.
Put down that bong and pick up that guitar
Today’s song is by Monster Magnet. It’s called Ego, The Living Planet. It’s an instrumental. It’s from the album Dopes To Infinity. It’s ridiculously repetitious. It’s stoner rock.
The title refers to Silver Surfer comics, if I remember correctly. (Checks Wikipedia…) Nope, Ego originated in the Thor comics, and also appeared in other Marvel publications.
Monster Magnet has a habit of referencing comics and other bits of nerdity.
I don’t know why I like this song so much, but I do.
Okay, this is a weird one, in that I’m not entirely sure that I like it. But I can’t get it out of my head.
La Roux is a duo comprised of Elly Jackson, the musician and Ben Langmaid, the producer. Elly is the visible component of the duo. She’s got a strange eighties androgynous style, with weird upswept hair and bizarre clothing. The music is also very eighties, reminiscent of The Human League, Sparks, The English Beat, etc.
So, here’s the absolutely ridiculous earworm that I can’t get rid of at the moment. (I’m liking it more and more as I listen to it.)
La Roux - Bulletproof
Sometimes you don’t expect it
Fred was laid off from his job today. Kinda came out of the blue.
They gave him a nice severance, and his boss is giving him good references. (This is almost unheard of in the retail world.) So it’s an amicable parting. But it’s still a bit of a sock to the stomach.
I have no doubts that things will be fine. We’ve been through this before; we’ll go through it again. Luckily Fred had just signed up for his Social Security benefits, so we’ve got that coming in a couple of months. We’ll be good.
Boy, do I need a vacation. Hey! We start one tonight!
Good timing, that.
I am easily amused
Eartha Kitt. What can you say about her? Exotic? Sensual? Deceased?
Yep, all those things. She left behind a legacy of highly unusual work; unusual and varied in scope and seriousness. How many performers can you think of that were big cabaret performers in Paris, and were also in an Ernest movie?
Naturally, her music runs that kind of wide sweep. I’m especially partial to this song, in which she extols the virtues of potentially misbehaving. Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Eartha Kitt singing I Want to be Evil.
I’m enjoying the process of annoying my brother with my music. Here’s another one.
I really like The White Stripes. They’re a bizarre garage-band throwback with a primitive sound and a lot of ability.
Okay, let’s be a bit more honest. Jack White is the one with a primitive sound and a lot of ability. Meg White has less ability than Jack. But the two of them create music that really makes me happy.
Jack, having loads of talent, also participates in side projects and whatnot. One of his side projects is a band called The Raconteurs. They have a great sound with blasting guitars and occasional horns. The song I’ve posted is called The Switch and the Spur, and has a weird spaghetti western vibe that I really like. Click the little play button, and enjoy a song by The Raconteurs.
I’ve got a thing for Pop Rock, and have had for a long time. I like hooky melodies, and guitars. Not sure what it is that grabs me about it, but it generally makes me happy to listen to.
So here we have a nice little earworm by Mike Doughty, the man who created Soul Coughing, that weird “deep slacker jazz” band that I have a strange fascination with. But he also has done some more accessible albums on his own, including this piece that he’s reworked a number of times. The song is called 27 Jennifers. This version is from his album Golden Delicious. Go buy it; it’s a good album.
It done been sawed
Excellent movie. Thumbs up. No surprises if you know the book, but well executed anyway. They did a great job of packing everything in, without it feeling rushed.
Looking forward to the remaining two.
Our long national nightmare is over
Tomorrow, Fred and I are going to see Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.
We like the Potter movies. Good fun. I’ll be very interested in how much of the book they manage to cram into the movie. They’ll definitely have to trim some stuff.
And this one has Jim Broadbent in it, who is one of my favorite character actors.
Yes, I know. La-dee-dah.
That Michael Bay sure can make things loud
We went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen yesterday afternoon. Seemed a good use of our day off. We weren’t disappointed.
It was exactly what we expected. A big, loud, dumb spectacle. We enjoyed it. What’s not to love about giant robots beating the crap out of each other?
If you want great acting and plausible stories, you’re making a mistake picking one directed by Michael Bay, let alone one starring a Hasbro line of toys. If you just want stuff to explode, he’s your guy.
The 4th of July baby
My Sister Barb is celebrating her birthday today. I would like to take a moment of your time and set out some of the really cool things that I’ve learned about her over the years.
1. She’s dead-center middle in our Sibling Hierarchy.
2. While a teenager, she was convinced that I was the most annoying thing in the world.
3. She once killed a bear with her bare hands.
4. She’s fluent in Portuguese.
5. She accidentally invented Brylcreem while trying to fry up some chicken.
6. Her name is banned on three continents due to awesomeness.
7. Her arms are detachable, though she will vehemently deny this.
8. She once stopped a bullet just by glaring at it.
9. She’s waiting for the Statute of Limitations to run out, but she won’t tell us why.
10. And finally, she can crack walnuts with her mind.
Happy Birthday, Barb! Thank you for not killing me every night!
I have waddled down to the basement
Status update: Fred’s tooth is completely fixed. Last Saturday the dentist told him that his tooth was infected, gave him antibiotics, and referred him to an endodontist for a root canal. On Monday, an endodontist did the root canal and charged us a rather daunting $530. (That was half the bill. Our insurance paid the other half.) On Friday, the original dentist did the permanent filling on the tooth. Today, Fred took the last of his antibiotics.
Problem solved.
So today has been a lazy day with lots of laying about. I did a fair amount of shopping for groceries, since I hadn’t been up to it last weekend. And just a bit ago I cooked up some brats, potatoes and corn on the cob on the grill. We’re both fat and happy, and later we’ll go out for ice cream. Fred has a gift card for Cold Stone Creamery.
Plus my A1C is 5.5, which is a fantastic blood glucose reading. The ice cream will not present a problem for me.
Life is good, bitches.
When life hands you lemons, make whiskey sours
First off, Fred is already feeling much better. A handful of pills and a two hour nap have helped him tremendously. Much less pain, and the swelling has already gone down.
Second, it was time to bake. So I made these:
Can’t you just smell the cinnamon in the air?
Third, the Catawba is in bloom. I love this tree, and feel blessed that we have it in our yard.
The blossoms are like orchids, and have a sweet scent. It’s a wonderful tree to have.
Hooray for Summer.
It’s like someone unleashed a clown during a dinner party
Well, it’s Saturday. And the fun has been going all day.
Fred has an infected tooth. So we spent a good share of last night and this morning trying to find a dentist who can see him. His regular dentist (who as of now is no longer his dentist) was vague and unhelpful, just as she has been for months. Fred has finally decided to fire her and find another dentist that he can actually speak to without getting annoyed. (It’s a very oil-and-water relationship between them.)
In the meantime, we found a clinic that was open this morning, and got him in to see someone. He’s now on an antibiotic, and will be making an appointment for an Endodontist on Monday to schedule a root canal. Once that’s done, we start shopping in earnest for a new dental clinic. If he’s not going back, I’m not going back.
I brought him home, and got him comfortable. Poor thing, he’s all swollen and tender on one side of his face. Then I took off to pick up his meds. Halfway there, I heard a horrible SKKRRRRRRRNGK from under my car, and looked in the rear-view to see a piece of metal cartwheeling along the street. Turned around, and discovered that the metal shield from the catalytic converter had decided to jump ship. I left it there, because NO WAY was I going to try to pick up a screaming hot piece of metal from the street. Later, returning home, I discovered that the formerly bowl-shaped piece was now quite flat, and once again cartwheeling about as another car hit it.
My poor car. I’m coming close to squeezing the last bits of use out of it, I’m afraid. And I’m just 3000 or so miles from turning over 200,000. Can I make it?
So now I’m in the cool of the basement, poking at the computer and doing laundry. Not the most exciting way to spend the day, but there you are. At least I’m indoors with a working air conditioner.
Let’s hope that the rest of the day goes better.
My little (snort) brother is a year older as of yesterday. He’s a workin’ man, with a burgeoning landscaping business. He tends bar occasionally, he’s a volunteer firefighter, he mows lawns, he runs a garden nursery, he builds walls. He has an awesome wife, and a beautiful little boy.
We’re all so proud of him. Happy Birthday, Wayne. Hope you get the chance to celebrate with a cold beer and a steak, once you get the lawn mowed.
Can I touch ‘em?
Here’s a little boy seeing lobsters for the first time. So cute you can hardly stand it.
It’s like a little slice of my childhood
This weekend was the Father Hennepin Festival here in Champlin. It’s a three-day festival that purports to commemorate the crossing of the Mississippi river by Father Hennepin back in the 1800s. Mostly, it commemorates the beginning of Summer, cheese curds, beer, and fireworks.
We live a block from the route that the parade takes, so on Friday night we grabbed our deck chairs and a cooler and headed up to the route. One of the neighbors flagged me down and invited us to sit on their lawn, since they’re right on the route. They also served us hot dogs and burgers, as they were grilling up a storm. Nice folks. We also sat with Betty from across the street. Lovely lady. The parade was about 90 minutes long, and the kids all went home with lots of candy. (We got some too.)
Saturday I spent under the car, banging on a stubborn bolt. Finally gave up and put the car back together, unfixed. Dang it. I’ve lost one of the rear strut mounts, and don’t fancy paying $700 to have it replaced. But so far I’m stymied by a single bolt that just refuses to come out. It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some trick I’m missing. But I managed to get its partner out, so I think it’s mostly a matter of applying force in the right way. A ten pound maul doesn’t seem to be the right way. (No, I didn’t damage anything. Yet.)
Saturday night we went to the festival grounds, and watched the kids making themselves sick on funnel cakes and carnival rides. We also sat at the edge of the pond and watched the fireworks. Great fireworks, easily as good as any I’ve seen in downtown Minneapolis, and a hell of a lot easier to see. Perfect weather, fireworks in front of me, shrieking kids on the Tilt-A-Whirl behind me, and Fred beside me. Absolute joy.
The fresh-cut fries and the lemonade were pretty good too.
Today has been a low-key day, other than a run to the grocery store for a couple of things, including some grapes that I frosted with Jell-O. (Pluck all the grapes off the stems, wash thoroughly, sprinkle with Jell-O gelatin mix, toss and chill. OH MY GOD.)
And that’s a pretty good weekend.
For some reason, the comment notifier on this here blog seems to be not working. So don’t be surprised if I don’t respond to you.
Working on fixing it.
There’s a gentleman named Scott Nesin, who runs a website called Games By Email.
The site does just what it sounds like; it facilitates the playing of games by email. You supply the friends, it supplies the mechanics. You can play a variety of games, including checkers, Reversi, backgammon, and the like. You can also play clones of Risk, Axis & Allies, etc. All free, all via email.
Mr. Nesin has used various online services for providing random dice rolls, and has run into the usual pitfalls of randomization. Mathematical randomization is tough. You can get pseudo-random numbers, but you’ll never get true random numbers. The numbers tend towards patterns. Some of the pseudorandoms are very good, but geeks tend not to trust them, and complain bitterly.
Scott decided to take his dice rolls into a new and interesting direction, one that would come as close to appeasing the players as possible. He begged donations, and built a massive dice-rolling machine called the Dice-O-Matic.
This thing is awesome. It’s beautiful in a Geek way, and also somewhat sinister. Seven feet tall, and capable of rolling nearly 1,500,000 dice in a single day. It runs a continuous spiral waterfall of dice, scooping them up with conveyor buckets at the bottom, and scanning them at the top just before they get dumped again. The connected computer reads the dice, and shoves the numbers into a massive online database. All dice rolls for the website pull from this database. When the database gets low, the Dice-O-Matic starts up again and refills it.
I love machines like this. Love ‘em. Scott, you did great.
If Aretha is the Red Queen, here’s the White Queen
I’m a big fan of Annie Lennox. She’s an amazing vocalist, and a performer who’s full of actual personality, as opposed to all the pop slags who think a performance consists of lip-syncing while they shake their asses like cheap hookers.
Not that shaking one’s ass like a cheap hooker is necessarily bad.
Annie has released a small group of albums since The Eurythmics broke up. Of those albums, my favorite by far is Diva. It has great songs and showcases her voice nicely. But she has other works that are damned good, and this is one of them.
Here’s Annie Lennox, singing Love is Blind from the album Songs of Mass Destruction.