Top 5
I'm currently reading Nick Hornsby's High Fidelity, which I highly recommend. Even if you've seen the movie a million times, the original is British, which in itself makes it different enough from the film to be worth a read.
One of the things in the movie that I had totally forgotten about until I read the book was the top 5 lists that Barry, Rob and Ed entertain themselves with while hanging around the record shop. Being music geeks, most of their top 5s center on obscure B sides by artists most people in the world have never heard of, and the whole point of the things is usually to "rubbish" everyone else's picks.
All the same, it reminded me of a time when my friends and I would play this game on every topic under the sun. In fact, we used to have these things called "pop books" in grade school. Someone would staple together a bunch of pages of blank notebook paper, and at the top of every page would be a heading, usually something really lame like, "5 favorite foods" or "5 boys you like." The book would make the rounds, and you could read everyone else's answers and add your own. Good times.
So, I decided to come up with some top 5ers of my own, for shits and giggles. Feel free to add your own in the comments section, or rubbish mine, or whatever.
First off, an easy one.
TOP 5 SUPERPOWERS
1. Flying. Obvious, yes, but still and eternally the coolest.
2. Invisibility
3. The ability to talk to animals and make them do your bidding. Granted, not the most useful if you live in a city, but in Africa or Alabama or somewhere like that it would totally rule.
4. Invincibility.
5. Spidey sense.
TOP 5 SONGS THAT MAKE ME WISH I WERE DEAF
1. Big Time, by Peter Gabriel. Or Sledgehammer. They might as well be the same song.
2. Walking on Sunshine
3. Kokomo
4. Anything written by Phil Collins for a Disney movie.
5. Anything sung with a German accent. Yes, even that one by The Scorpians.
TOP 5 FAVORITE MOVIE FIGHTS
1. Uma vs. The Crazy 88 in Kill Bill
2. Bruce Lee vs. Han in Enter the Dragon
3. Jen vs. Li Mu Bai in the bamboo in Crouching Tiger
4. Ash vs. his hand in Evil Dead 2
5. Roy vs. Deckard in Bladerunner
TOP 5 WORST WAYS TO DIE
1. Starving. Hell, I get cranky when I haven't eaten in a couple hours.
2. Being pulled apart by 2 transfer trucks like Jennifer Jason Leigh in the Hitcher.
3. Boiled like that guy at the beginning of Shogun
4. Skinned
5.
This way Sorry, I guess those last 2 were a bit dark. Here's a picture of a puppy sniffing a flower:
There, now isn't that better?
This is my last post until Tuesday- I'm off to Coachella. Have a wonderful weekend folks. Oh, and if you're looking for something to do on Saturday night, I know where I'd be if I were in town- the last party ever at The Catclub is being thrown by Eklectic, and they've put together one helluva breaks and DnB lineup.
Details.
WTFU
Welcome to the What the Fuck University newsletter. Devoted to all things absurd that make you glad you're not in college anymore.
First off: What ever happened to "thank you sir, may I have another?"
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The University of California, Berkeley has suspended a fraternity whose members hazed a pledge by repeatedly firing a BB gun at him, the school said on Monday. link
What a wimp. In my day we used buckshot.
Next up: what to do when you and your sorority sisters want to get, like, totally wasted, but you hate the taste of alcohol? Vaporize it, baby. You'll be waking up in the "mattress room" with your panties around your ankles in no time. And you, like, totally won't be hungover.
The design team (pictured right) had this to say:
Drinks including vodka and whiskey can be inhaled into the mouth through a tube using a new device known as an Alcohol Without Liquid (AWOL) vaporiser.link
Um, yeah. Ok. I think I'll stick to absorbing my alcohol in the traditional way-
through an enema.
AWOL link via
boingboing
Student profile of the week:
This marine horticulture major lives in Mushroom Dorm with his roommate Hashbrick. He enjoys... um...(blank stare)... wait, what were we talking about?
Spongebong Hemppantsthat one's for Ding Dong and Stefbot, duh. via (ima git some)
Milk and Cookies
Joe Frank
You ever been in a situation where you find out about something, a TV show, a band, it can be anything, and you know immediately that this is going to be one of your new favorite things? And then you find out that it's been around forever, and you're just now finding out about it? You know, like the first time you discovered
Aquateen Hunger Force. Or sex.
This happened to me just this past weekend. Grabbing a beer with some friends after seeing
Kung Fu Hustle (which is hilarious- go see it), one of the guys says, "hey, it's Sunday night, we should go listen to
Joe Frank."
"Who's that?"
"He's good. He tells stories."
When is the last time you listened to "stories" on the radio? I remember listening to Paul Harvey's "
The Rest of the Story" as a kid, and Garrison Keillor's "
A Prairie Home Companion" later during my college years, and loving them. I was just hypnotized by the power of those men's voices to simultaneously delight and soothe the nerves. Stuff that would have seemed quaint in the worst possible way if seen on television was somehow completely enthralling when beamed out over the radio.
Joe Frank is even better. And he's been doing this for the better part of 20 years, so maybe I'm the only one that hadn't heard of this guy already. His voice has the power to capture your attention, and, like good music, or nitrous oxide, to just sweep you along for the ride. His comedy is so deadpan that you don't even realize that you're laughing until you're surprised and delighted at the sound of your own laughter. Seriously, check him out. His show airs on Sunday nights at 9pm on 94.1 FM. If you visit
his website you can hear some of the archived shows for free after registering. I heard part of The OJ Chronicles this morning, and I highly recommend it. His interview with OJ Simpson's "manservant" shortly following the murders is classic. The conversation just keeps getting more and more bizarre until Joe delivers the final line. So simple. So strange. So perfect.
Oi, Frankie!
I'd like to tell you about a film that touched my heart, if I may. Very seldom, if ever, have I seen the issue of rodent-induced drug use handled with so much sensitivity and understanding as it is in
It's All Gone Pete Tong. I mean, who doesn't know someone who's been manhandled, nay, assaulted, by a giant rodent with a coke encrusted snout? But yet we never discuss the topic. It's taboo in our society. Until now.
IAGPT is set on the idyllic and quiet little island oasis of Ibiza. It's about a nice young British man named
Frankie. Frankie is a DJ with simple pleasures, like licking toads and collecting flip flops. Life was good there on the island.
Then, let's just say it all goes bad (Pete Tong= wrong in Cockney rhyming slang). Picture
Sid and Nancy, only Sid is a superstar DJ and Nancy is an 8 ft. tall badger. Oh, and Sid goes deaf. Come to think of it, Sid's being deaf would explain a lot. But I digress. Go see the movie. It's good stuff-
Paul Kaye* gives a brilliant performance as Frankie. And there's a free screening tomorrow (Wednesday night) at the
Embarcadero Cinema at 7:30. You can RSVP
here Thanks to Jeffro for the heads up and link.
And while you're there, check out the flocks of wild parrots in the park outside the theater. We noticed them when we pulled up, and then on our way in to see the movie we saw that there was a
documentary about the birds playing at the theater as well. Don't let em shit on you though. Cause they'll shit on you in a heartbeat.
*just found out that Paul Kaye also plays a zombie in
Shaun of the Dead. And the post below contains a link to the
coke badger's personal website. Coincidence? Yes. But don't you love it when things come full circle like that?
Zombie Killa
Hey, Shaun, you've got red on you.
For some reason, since I was about 16 years old I've had recurring zombie dreams. Now, these dreams are not just any run of the mill nightmares- they are full on, hours long zombie attacks that I have to fend off singlehandedly. These dreams occur on average about once every 6-8 weeks. They are not particularly scary, more just a pain in the ass. I never get eaten, and the zombies are surprisingly easy to kill, but there are just so damn many of them that I always wake up exhausted. Add to that the fact that they are always different- different location, different number of people to protect, etc, so I'm constantly having to come up with new ways to kill the hordes of undead and fend off the assault. I don't know why I have these dreams- they started before I had ever even seen my first zombie movie. Maybe someday I'll be able to afford a therapist who can help me get to the bottom of it, but for now I just figure I'm stuck with them.
I've always thought that someday I should compile all of my experience into the definitive Zombie Survival Guide. Don't get me wrong- I'm not one of those fanatics that spends hours in internet chat rooms debating whether zombies can roller skate, or whether dogs and cats can become zombies. Frankly, I could care less. My interest is purely a selfish wish to kill those bastards a bit more quickly so that I can go back to dreaming about, well, about whatever the hell I dream about when I'm not battling the undead. But having the unfortunate wealth of practical experience that I now possess, I was understandably a bit skeptical when Dr. Otto sent me
this link this morning.
Now, with all due respect, seeing a couple of zombie movies does not qualify you to write a piece on surviving zombie attacks. Even though I have to give him credit for figuring out that red staters are going to be better prepared for survival than blue staters (more Wal-Marts, canned food, and guns), there's really no question about whether zombies are fast or slow. C'mon, they're dead. Dead humans. They are certainly not going to be faster after death than they were when they were alive, and the longer they've been dead the slower they're gonna move.
Then he even goes so far as to suggest that perhaps zombies are edible. This idea is patently ridiculous. Even if it's "not really cannibalism," would you eat a cow that had been lying dead in a field for days on end? Ok, now assume that cow has a highly contagious virus that can spread through just one bite, like, oh I don't know, like MAD ZOMBIE COW DISEASE? Not so eager for that cheeseburger now, are ya?
I did discover through this posting a really good link to someone who appears to know a helluva lot about zombies. This guy has obviously put a lot of thought into this thing, which may make him even weirder than me, but I would highly recommend that you all familiarize yourselves with his
Zombie Survival Guide. You know, just in case.
Of course, like vampires, perhaps the only real way to truly kill all the zombies is to take down
the source. Oh, c'mon, admit it- you saw that coming.
It is good, yes?
After sifting through so much virtual crap in the hopes of finding something worth posting on this rainy San Francisco Saturday*, I finally struck gold.
They are making a Borat movie. That's right. The mahn from Kazakhstan is getting his own joint. I give it an advanced 2 thumbs up. Way up.
Via
Thighs Wide ShutAnd speaking of Borat, how much does
this shirt rock?
*It may be raining now, but we are a mere 7 days from those hot hot Palm Desert nights. If you haven't seen the final Coachella lineup,
here it is. So nice of them to put everyone I want to see on Sunday so that I can spend all day Saturday sipping
God juice in the pool.
Let's go shopping
Don't worry, it'll be fun. I promise that none of the products that appear here will make you look fat (except maybe the pork rinds- but I'm getting ahead of myself). And fellas, I'm not going to make you hold my purse while I try on bathing suits. But it's not very often that you find products that exhibit such creative genius that it makes you proud to live in a consumer society. This, my friends, is the cream of the crop:
First off, for my friends who have just recently entered the realm of parenthood, Pottymouth. Knowing that these clothes exist could almost make me look forward to "that blessed time." In the same vain as the super dope "Daddy drinks because I cry" T-shirt that was recently given to some friends during their baby shower, these Ts are for the toddler with attitude. And believe me, if there's two things my kids are gonna have plenty of, it's ass and attitude. Assitude? I should trademark that. Anyway, check em out. My personal favorites are "Quit talking to me like a retard" and "My daddy is a motherfucker." That's class, people.
And when my kids fall down and hurt themselves, as kids are prone to do cause they walk funny, we'll not be using those little pussy bandages featuring Donald Duck or Snow White and the seven freakin dwarves. Nuh uh. My little bundles of joy will be sporting bacon on their booboos. Damn, that's cool.
Mmmmm, all that talk of bacon has made me hungry. Should we stop for lunch? What do I feel like, hmmmmmm, oh I know! How bout some
chocolate covered pork rinds? They're low in carbs, big on pig.
And finally, this is unrelated, but I'll be your BFF if you can figure out how to turn
this into a ringtone for me.
UPDATEOhm'god we gotta get
this. We gotta we gotta we gotta!!!
links via
Josh Rubin,
J-Walk and
Boingboing
Holy See, holy do
Don't you think that would be a great name if the Pope started a blog?
This makes me proud to be an American.
Pope not Porn
ROME (Reuters) - An American who registered the Internet name BenedictXVI.com before the new Pope was chosen said on Wednesday he had not worked out what to do with it but was pretty sure it would be a sin to sell it to a pornographer. link
What would you name a porn site based on the Pope? Most original idea wins fabulous door prizes such as "one of those hats" and "world peace." Runners up will receive shirts from the pope's official fan club that read "Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981."
I shit you not.
Pope Benedict promises to be a lot more fun than the last one. Often referred to as
"God's Rottweiler," this is one German who loves to pahtay. Despite the taint of his alleged
links to Hitler Youth (hehe, they said "taint"), people around the world are celebrating his election.
One town even named a beer after him.
Aw, isn't that cute? He's all lit up with the holy spirit.
Others are not so excited, saying the new Pope is going to be "a total buzzkiller." They cite as evidence
his first miracle in office.
Awwwww, you a freak!
It's really hard to work out who's crazier in this trial, MJ himself, or any parent who would leave her children alone with him. Case in point:
SANTA MARIA, United States (AFP) - The mother of Michael Jackson's young molestation accuser claimed that she feared her children would be spirited away from the star's Neverland Ranch in a hot air balloon. link
Aaaaand, we're off:
What to Michal Jackson and Caviar have in common?they both come on white crackers
What did the lady say to Michael Jackson at the beach?Excuse me sir, you're standing in my son
Who does Michael Jackson consider a Perfect "10"? Two 5 year olds.
Who's Michael Jackson's favorite poet?Emily Dick in son
That is all. Trust.
Happy 4/20
Anybody wanna get high?
The origins of 420:
420 is not so much a time or place as it is a state of mind. A stoned state of mind, to be specific. In the past, HIGH TIMES has reported on various competing theories surrounding the appearance of this unique bit of smoker slang, but as the following timeline clearly shows, the controversy has been resolved.link
Water blogged
Of all the posts that have made it to the ghost, the one that I've gotten the most feedback by far from has been about the Liger. Now, I realize that could be because none of you have read the blog since that particular post. But I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and hope that it's just because you are all either huge animal lovers, or huge dorks who worship Napoleon Dynamite. Or both.
Anyway, as a follow up to the Liger story I give you
the Wholphin:
A RARE whale-dolphin mix has given birth to a playful female calf, officials at a Hawaii water life park have revealed. link
Do you think she gave birth by sea section? Somebody stop me...
via
You Can't Make it UpAnd in Australia, this guy's my new baby daddy:
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- A surfer fought off a two-meter (7-foot) shark with his board at an Australian beach Saturday -- then continued surfing, a life guard said. link
Achieving heights of bad ass hotness heretofore only glimpsed in this guy:
and this guy:
.jpg)
oh, and of course,
this guy.
Final link courtesy of
MV Galleries, where you can see more pics of our Saturday night post Golden Gate Park drunken hotness
here
Varmints rock
A small step for tech geeks, a huge leap for rodentkind. It's only a matter of time before the woodland creatures stage a hostile takeover of the decks.
Intelligent MIDI Sequencing with Hamster ControlThat'll do, squirrel. That'll do.
via
boingboing
And another cool gadget that I'll probably never use:
Numark's dueling iPod DJ MixerThanks to Tamo for the heads up.
And in the summer we would make meat helmets
It's a lovely day. I came into work this morning to find that our resident tooth decay fairy Amy has stocked the candy table with little baby peppermint patties. I love these things like nobody's business. As we speak I'm sledding down a frosty Swiss Alp, bitches. And to top that, Otto just handed me the new Fabric Live Meat Katie CD. In honor of Meat Katie, and Kirsten's most recent post, I did a google image search for 'meat slap' (google image searching is my new hobby, in case you hadn't noticed). I didn't find the desired meat slap, but I did find this photo of a meat hat. Which is fine, so fine. Kirsten, consider yourself served with a meat hat. Now put this on and go stand in the corner and think about what you've done.
And there are some huge developments in the news that have just been sitting in my blogsave file waiting to see the light of (virtual) day.
First, I hate to beat a dead honeymoon stallion, but our congratulations to the Hesses:
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION STATING LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS AND COMMENDING JARED AND JERUSHA HESS AND THE CITY OF PRESTON FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THE MOVIE "NAPOLEON DYNAMITE." link
Thanks, Colin
And in religious news, the pope died. Yeah, no shit. Oh, and also, the Unitarians have declared Jihad. Here's an excerpt from their communique:
Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. link
Thanks, Brother Ass Bomb of Snarkiness (Jeffro)
Ok, take my word for it- you DO NOT want to do an image search for the word Jihad. Trust me. The meat helmet was nothing compared to that. I'm probably on some Department of Homeland Security list now, too.
Happy Friday, all. Have a great weekend.
Tax Breaks
I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time Before we were born
If someone asks, this is where I'll be
(The Talking Heads, Naive Melody)
This week marks a pretty big milestone for me, so you'll have to forgive me if I go all squishy for a moment.
The Brass Tax crew has been a very significant part of my life for several years now, since I first met these guys back in the spring of 2001. I had only had a brief introduction to the electronic music scene at that time, so it was amazing to me to see these folks who enjoyed their music and being with their friends so much that it was completely infectious. With these guys on the decks and the extended crew of degenerates they called friends holding down the dancefloor, you couldn't help but rock the fuck out with a huge goofy ass grin on your face .
I was home. The words 'renegade', 'burning man' and 'crackhead mafia' first entered my vocabulary at this time. It wasn't long before I knew that I had to learn how to do what they did. DK helped me buy my first set of turntables and mixer. Mike, Fred and Dave all patiently explained the ins and outs of beat matching, as frustrating as that must have been for them most of the time ("I'm not sure what you're listening to, Jess, but it's not the beat"). Greg and Stef came along soon after, and I was introduced to this music called "breakbeats". Oh damn. Thas some good shit.
Over the years these guys have become hands down some of the best DJs in the city. And the whole time they let me follow them around like an obnoxious kid sister tugging at their shirt sleeves. I've had opportunities as a DJ that I would never have had otherwise, and a
crew of friends that couldn't be more my family if we shared the same blood.
This week these guys have given me a great honor- they've made me a Brass Tax resident DJ. It's official, and I'm psyched. I hope I can live up to the level of ass reaming that this crew has established. I'm sure gonna have fun trying. Put me in coach!
And it couldn't happen at a more appropriate time, what with Tax Day upon us. You got one tax man off your ass, now how about letting a whole bunch more jump on? Hope you can join us
tomorrow night at 1015 for the what is possibly the sickest kid-in-a-freakin-candy-store lineup I have ever seen under one roof. Let's get down to...well, you know the rest.
In honor of my crew, here are a few of our favorite things:
Bacon
Budweiser
...and ass
I have only 3 words for today
Fuck. You. Wisconsin.Wis. Considers Legalizing Cat Hunting via
boingboing
Lazy ass linkdump
Sorry all. It's tax time, so I'm gonna have to go for the lazy ass linkdump. But rest assured that they all are at least loosely related to sex, drugs, or robots.
They've passed some silly law in Dubai that says you can't duct tape 2 year old children to camels anymore even if it's for a good reason, so now they're going to use
robots as camel jockeys instead. In related news, we just sold Stefbot to some really rich guy in Dubai. He's either gonna use her for the camel races or prostitute her to visiting businessmen. We don't speak Arabic, so we can't really be sure. Anyone know how much 5 dirham is worth?
Zaxxon wanted me to be sure to tell everyone that
Russian men are now growing penises on their arms, and it has nothing to do with Chernobyl. It's just a hobby they have. I spared you the image on this one cause I like you.
Wow, these taste just like the
pot cookies that grandma used to make. Go ahead, eat up.
They're good for you.
Love's soundtrack
I was talking to my friend Erin the other day, and the conversation turned to relationships- you know, what we want, don't want, etc. Then she dropped one of the most inspired lines I’ve heard recently: “I just want a relationship that sounds like Yo La Tengo’s
'And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-out’ album.”
I responded, "you mean you want a guy that likes that album?”
“No, you know, I want a relationship that an album like that would have been written about.”
I instantly understood exactly what she meant, and it struck me as being a pretty cool way to think about what you expect from a relationship. I mean, it just seems so much more precise than thinking of a list of attributes or something, and infinitely more flexible and realistic. It’s based on a feeling or an atmosphere more than anything concrete. Like love.
So, it got me thinking. Who would write the soundtrack to my ideal relationship? I think I’ve decided it would be
Damien Rice. His music makes me want to rip out my heart, douse it with Irish whiskey, set it on fire and hand it to the person sitting next to me. It’s sincere and sometimes melancholy, but without wallowing in itself or being sappy and wimpy. And it’s also goofy and hilarious at times. This music has a backbone, a sharp wit, and a heart. And huge balls. This music knows when to whisper in your ear, and when to grab you by the hair and throw you against the wall. Wait, are we still talking about music? Ehem. Anyway…
So, who would write your love’s soundtrack? If you’re already in a relationship, you can still play. Does waking up next to your mate make you think of Cat Power, or is it more like a
Snoop Dog/ Huey Lewis mashup?
PS- why does this post make me feel like Carrie Bradshaw without the Manolo Blahniks or tight abs?
(What, were you expecting more ninjas and SouthPark references? I'm still a girl, ok?)
Body Worlds 2 Specimen Stolen: Please Help
The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the weekend theft of a plastinated specimen. The 13-week-old fetus, acquired from an old anatomical collection, was taken from Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS 2:The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies at the California Science Center. link
I haven't been to see the Body Worlds exhibit in LA yet, but I've heard from folks who have that it's amazing. Well, now it's one fetus less amazing than it used to be, thanks to the crazy goth chicks that stole the
plastinated infant from Gunther von Hagans' LA show. I understand that their biological clocks are probably ticking, but that's just wrong. Go buy a cabbage patch doll, ferchrissake. Or get a
cat, like the rest of us.
If you haven't heard of the exhibit before, check out the
website. The pictures are mesmerizing, in a 'this is what I would look like without skin...riding a horse' kind of way.
via
boingboing
We're not scaremongering
But thought you should know that the Japanese are planning to take over the world. Again.
Keanu Reaves is our only hope. Admit it, you knew it was going to come to this eventually, didn't you? We certainly don't keep him around for his acting ability, k?
Sony patents the matrix
Once they have control of our brains via these "video games" and our hearts via "sushi" and "cute high school girls," they will swoop in and enforce total control with their
robocopsI couldn't make this shit up if I tried, people.
President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently met with the Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, to discuss these developments and their possible implications for US national security. Koizumi quickly reassured the president that there was no way that the Japanese who have "
such a small penises" could ever hope to conquer America, with their "
such a large American penis."
Bush and Rumsfeld quickly saw the logic inherent in Koizumi's argument, and assured the American people that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
Happy Birthday, Freddie!
More to follow later today. In the meantime, have some cake.
