May 2006 Archives
Walking down Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg on Sunday, I happened upon a
little sign reading "City Reliquary: $.50". Fifty Cents? I said, "Yes sir!", quarters in my little outstretched hand. The teeny tiny room was set up like an old sideshow thing (or how I imagine them to have been) with a red velvet rope before you enter, velvety red stuff everywhere, glass cases lit romantically with Edison bulbs, old wornout carpets, dark wood, you get the picture. Nice. Old. A little creepy.
Dylan and I wanted to be all cultural-like this weekend, so we decided to take a trip to Queens and check out P.S.1. And what were our findings? The silly nonsensical paintings of actor John Lurie (who you may have enjoyed in such films as Wild at Heart, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Stranger Than Paradise) were by far the most interesting thing in the old school turned contemporary art museum. Granted, we seem to have visisted the museum in the midst of a change-over, but really. Really.
One of those big Critirionical Kollection style 12 disc set DVD versions is getting released for the gold standard of sweetness: Blade Runner. Its going to have all of the various versions, plus a new one that is re-mastered. There is also a possible theatrical release. I want to know when the soundtrack is going to get a proper release...
CNN has the story
Picked up the moped this morning, with the help of Charlie. Even picking it up was pretty cool. The couple I bought it from are a couple of college kids and total grease monkies (and I mean that in a flattering, mechanic-sex, sort of way) who helped drain the engine and talked shop with Charlie for a while, as I stood silent with a shit eat grin. We also all ignored the man in the wheelchair who was trying to buy imaginary marijuanna from us. They even took photos of it before we took the handlebars down to fit it in the car. My bike was a restored Murray 1980, which was made by Puch for Murray. He had gotten it as 50$ junker and fixed it up for his cousin who is a fireman, but decided he can't be a moped enthuisist anymore. He had a siren horn, a place for a fire extinguisher, a small ladder and authentic fire hose and appropritate decals. They were a bit upset that I am not an active fire fighter, though I was quick to note that I did support fire (just not in my nieghborhood. Property values and all)
Next stop was Myron's Mopeds where Charlie talked more shop, I got to see nice musuem of mopeds, get an abbreviated history of Puch, which has a very regal logo. I got a helmut, some DMV paperwork and some other doodads, and we headed back to Camp Serrano in Ktown.
Charlie let me syphon some of his mixed oil and we took off, or vroom-putt-putt'd, to the gas station (3 blocks) so I could fill 'er up. I got that high octane shit for my red baby. .73 gallons, 2 buck. Should last me at least 60 miles. Then he hit the more or less open road, wih my strong opine to take Frost's advice and moped the path less taken.
Have I mentioned that while I had had a moped in CT, in CT we had to ride in bike lanes. Here it's the street. My acceleration is poor and I have to pedal a bit to get it going. Have I mentioned I haven't been on a bike in a solid decade? It's not like just riding a bike. So we cruised the less popular streets of Koreatown and Hancock Park. Charlie's Puch has a pipe and a kit. Think of your moped as a JRPG character, and those things being really good equips that give your bike +5 MPH and acceleration, even better gas mileage. 28mph vs 35mph becomes apparent very quickly, even on short blocks.
We hauled ass to Charlie's girlfriends apartment and then took off to a bike shop when I realized my bike didn't have a mirror. Oops. We ended up taking a road with lots of speed bumps taht don't really slow us down, but makes cars crawl. It was a short stretch of Oppositeville. We made it to the bike shop unscathed, which sat very close to a tantalizing Taco Bell, which we decided to dine at. Charlie took off, while I meekishly teetered out of the alley when I was ltierally GOBSMACKED and BRAINED by an unseen force from the sidewalk. Perhaps, i though as I came crushing towards the ground, a localized earthquake had singled me out, cascading the pavement, like a wave or shitily designed suspesion bridge. Or maybe one of those localised tornados, or a really big dog. It was worst. As I regained composure, I saw the force of my fall was a Tween, bedazzled in bedazzler made Bratz shirts with pom-pom flair extruding from her handlebars like vindictive whiskers searching for prey. She had a stony look on her face, as I lay crumpled under the fiery frame of my fallen pedalable motor bike. Her friend, some sort of homespun femmonculus was laughing at me. Realizing my life was spared, I continually asked if she was ok. She just stared into my soul through my good eye, and peddled down the alley to the bike store. Probably to get a really nice basket or maybe a horn that resembles a unicorn.Like so many men before, I picked myself up, dusted myself off and walked the moped to the TB to get a bean burrito (no onions) and look at the wounds.:
Ok my knee doesn't look this bad, but it hurts like a bitch. This isn't quite so bad as when I was highsticked in girl's floor hockey in 5th grade and lost a totoh, but it ranks. I sit now, nursing my knee with a Lawson Creek Red Ale, hoping I'm up to snuff for the 80 goddamn mile trip The Late Birds, my new moped gang which ::Nneba Ehryy gur thl jub cynlrq Xvc va Anc. Qla. vf va gur tnat::. Wish me luck and PRO-TIP buy stock in Band-Aids.
I've added a new category for things I'm going to do once this crazy life-chomping job I have is over in early-to-mid July.
I will spend one day on a corner with two nintendo DSes, two cheapass folding chairs, and a sign that reads: "I Will Kick Your Ass at Tetris For $1 (Take your dollar back if you win.)"
I will do as the sign says until the batteries run out on the DSes, and then I will blog about it.
Watch this for 9 minutes. If you like it, go to Illegal Art's entry page for Wzard People, Dear Reader and download the audio, then go rent/torrent Harry Potter and watch the rest. I was sitting in a small, salty puddle of tears, tears of joy. 
Harry Potter always need more Mugwamps.
Icarus Line "Big Sleep" 2004
It's RaWK day on thatsplenty, and frankly I am shocked that the sheer, brutal force of Icarus Line hasn't made them super stars. This band blisters. Its all there, the falling-apart rhythm section, the atomic battling guitars, and the menacing and incredible singer. After being taken on tour with Ink and Dagger before any of them were 20, the Icarus Line went on to eventually record the incredible Penance Soiree LP in 2004, confirming themselves as the greatest working band from California.
Turn Pale "Slow to Drown" 2004
Turn Pale is one of the best gothish bands running around today. What is so refreshing about them is that although Joy Division is vaguely involved in their music, they obviously really don't give a shit about any of the now-hip goth sound IE: they sound nothing like interpol. Fantastic live.
I would like to humbly thank Ryan for writing his post about the Books show many months ago. I liked with Books, but without his glowing review, I probably wouldn't have bothered to sit in line for 2.5 hours last night for their free show at the World Financial Center. And I wouldn't have gotten to see their spectacular projections. Ryan, do you know if they did their own editing? I assume they did, in which case they are really creative editors. As a video editor myself, I was really impressed with the amountof time, effort, and thought that must have gone into those. The video was at times hilarious, quiet, and touching. Some great wordplay too. I can't imagine how many hours went into just watching all the footage they used. They said they had just sent home over 200 hours of new found material from thrift shops for their next tour. I appreciated that they seemed to put as much work into their visuals as they do with their music. I was at the back, standing room only, in really uncomfortable shoes for 1.5 hours, in a hot, ugly room, being crushed against the wall by the moron who got a seat in front of me, who kept backing his chair up out of his row, plus I had to pee, and The Books totally made it worth my while.
i have shrunk my world
to the size of five close friends
but miss everyone
So, I've been playing around with Sphere now that it's in open beta. I sphere'd the word Vectrex and found listing number two very interesting: Hidden Village at Tyndall Assembly concert 5. Now this was odd, since I did some Vectrex-y videos for our own Tyndall few years back. I was hoping maybe I ran into Sam's parents' (who are awesome, even if they love Sam tooooo much.) blog. But no, its some experimenal sound guys from Australia (dime a dozen there) who have been doing some cool things with videogame music, including the awesome Atari 2600 Synthcart, and visuals with a Vectrex and Vectrex Logo, which is news too me and now I fiend over. Check it out.
Oh, and to auto-felate myself: Small, soundless excerpt of some of my old Vectrex animation. Whee. I got a replacement lightpen a few months back; I need to start doing some more stuff.
is a great book by John Perkins, former economic hit man (EHM). From the back cover:
EHM's are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex and murder. They play a game as old as Empire but onethat has taken on terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I couldn't put this down, the author is a likeable guy doing dispicable things. It has opened my eyes to the evil behind the country I was already ashamed to live in. Especially recommended for people (like myself) who are embarrassingly ignorant of what goes on here in our bad bad country.
Also for your enjoyment:
"Humans"- directed by Three Legged Legs
I wrote the previous Verizon post on Monday before going to work, and forgot to post it.
Anyway, I have new news. This morning, Karen called me to tell me that the connection went down in our apartment. We were now without internet.
Once I got home, at about 10am, I called Verizon. The polite, though incompetent, yahoo I got on the phone ran me through his troubleshooting script for a good twenty minutes. He was clearly new on the job, perhaps even on his first week, because he kept thanking me for every piece of information I gave him, even thanking me whenever I told him that I had followed his latest instruction in the troubleshooting script. I held back the urge to say, "Sweetie, I'm a problem customer with special needs. Please put someone on who knows what they're doing." Bitch out a guy on his first week at a new job - it's like kicking a dog.
So, after what felt like hours waiting for him to finish reading his script, he called on actual technical support.
I have to call Verizon every two or three weeks due to connectivity issues. Sometimes my downstream rates, according to their own website, are closer to dialup than they are to the pitifully low speed I'm paying for (768kbits). Other times, I have no connection at all. Each time I have a problem like this, I have to call them three or four times because their woefully unqualified tech support staff insist that the problem is on my end. On the fourth call, I always manage to convince the representative to get a network technician on the phone who, whoops, finds out that something was wrong and fixes it. Until the next time...
Karen and I have had verizon DSL since February. Ironically, every time we move to a better neighborhood, our service worsens. In Bed-Stuy, we had OptimumOnline at the blistering speed of about 5mbits(!!) per second and I never once had connectivity issues. In Greenpoint, Time-Warner fed us a regular throughput of 3mbits(!) a second, and we had to call once when the wiring outside was shorting. Since we started Verizon DSL, we have downgraded from 1.5mbits to 768kbits at the suggestion of a network technician for the sake of "connection stability." We have called Verizon no fewer than fifteen times with problems on our connection. Now, the problem has spread.
....so after me and Michelle saw Beruit and Sunset Rubdown, we had planned to leave, having listened to a song off of Frog Eyes myspace page and not having been all that wowed. But we decided we should stay for at least a song, especially since about half the crowd cleared out when Sunset Rubdown was finished (if only those Wolf Paradeaphiles had known that Spencer Krug was playing keyboards for Frog Eyes the little sycophants would have stayed.) So we stayed and wow.....
I'm not quite sure why there is an abstract look of disgust on my face. Possibly the stale smell of 60,000 nerds in a temporary terrarium? I didn't get to play Zelda: Twilight Princess but it sure looker'd fun.
Last night Dylan and I could be found at Mercury Lounge, watching two of my favorite bands, Beirut and Sunset Rubdown. It was incredible.
If you don't already know them, Beirut is 19 year old Zach Condon along with some members of A Hawk and a Hacksaw and one from Neutral Milk Hotel. The music is reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel, but it seems more true to traditional Balkan/Polka type stuff. And his voice I think is really beautiful. They got a subpar review on Pitchfork which was then reiterated by Tuningfork. Basically what they said was that Beirut is more or less mimicking traditional polka, and since indy music fans don't normally listen to polka while cracking open their PBRs, they give Beirut a credit to a type of music that is not new at all, just new to their ears. Well, maybe that's so, but after seeing them play last night I decided that it's a good thing to bring traditional music to a crowd that never hears it. Who cares if their mimicing something else, all music does, doesn't it?
Best part of the whole/horrible ordeal was when a msytery ebayer tried to butt heads with me, and with a bit of googling I discovered it was a friend of a friend. The 1 degree-er was called in to talk to Mr. 2nd, and he backed the fuck off.
EDIT: Yes, it has a fire hose.
I remember seeing this painting in some text book in high school. Turns out the admiral's race was painted on in the 70s. Very odd. Link to NPR story.
I usually don't follow Eurovision, because it usually isn't much more interesting than American Idol. I mean sure, its been around since our parents were born, and sure its country VS country, AND SURE its whole bands instead of prancing pop stars, but by in large it usually ends up being the same thing. ANYWAY, this year a band called Lordi won, apparently on costumes and make-up alone. If we must have competetive "music" shows, please let us see a demonic/silly "metal" band go up against TATU or whoever. I want to see pre-teen blood.
fuu xvqf v unid fhcde fdpedg vagdy gung CNEdAGF ner ednqvat guvf. fb qbag gnyx nobhg gung ubbxde lbh xvyyrq. nyy 'r'f ercynpdq jvgu d'f
I actually got to see J when I first moved to LA with Virgil and H Dog at a comic book store (he writes comic books in Europe.) I took a photo of his crotch, see below, and the nice picnicy tarp that draped his table.
Anyway, he's been working on Abelcain/Sons of El Topo for a gazillion years, and it looks like Marilyn Manson is attached. This is going to be like a magnificent carcrash with maimed rickshaw drivers and those elephants with the little cabs on their backs. Anyone see The Heart Is Decietful? How was Mary Man in that flick?
i worked 19 days in a row, two 100 hour weeks and a shitty 25 hour day (also I'm day rate) where I then catnapped for 15 minutes to awake to find I had lost all of my humanity. I was marched into the tape room to qc tapes, snarling and drooling the entire way, untill someone put a digibeta in my hand, and like monoliths and monkeys, something happened. My cold, reptillian brain melted a little....."I remember this" I remembered, this was food for the mouthy thing in front of me... the vcr...
anyways, I got to play the Wii on Friday for 4 minutes. Believe.
Go see The Proposition. Its awesome. Real awesome. I think it ended up awesome because there are a few topics that Nick Cave is qualified to write about:
1)Cowboys
2)Murder
3)Evil
4)PJ Harvey
5)Australia
This movie contains 4 out of 5 of those things.
Our own Sena Clara Creston's last show of her photography just got reviewed in New York Arts magazine, on stands now. Check it out! Way to go Sena!
So, this isn't really the biggest news, but the last and largest human chromosome has been sequenced. Link to Reuters
Brooklyn Artist and inventor Heather Dewey-Hagborg explains her recent project on "Emergence," the principal where the acts of the group or flock are undeterminable by the actions of an individual within the group. Heather made 10 autonomous robots and gave them a few simple instructions such as "seek light" and "avoid obsticles" and observed how the simple robots seemed to form complex anthropomorphic relatinships with one another, without communicating. you can see her site and watch the video or watch a shorter version on you tube
The previews for Art School Confidential had great promise, anyone who went to art school knows that making fun of art school can be hilarious. Remember the art class in Ghost World where the teacher shows her film, and she's repeating Mirror, Father, Mirror. Mirror, Father, Mirror. And the girl shows up with a tampon in a teacup? The dialogue in those scenes...it's classic. Art School Confidential is the same idea as Ghost world, adapted by the same guy, Daniel Clowes from his short comic, and directed by Terry Zwigoff, who also directed Ghost World. They should have stopped at Mirror, Father, Mirror. Art School Confidential was bitter and contrived. The movie didn't respect it's characters, and didn't reveal a humanity about the struggle of a disillusioned artist. It tried, but it only succeeded in displaying surface level contempt for the art world. Every character in the movie, every character is basically a talentless, pretentious asshole. Could be funny (I mean, we are talking about art school here) but it forgot to put in something to like. The film ends up coming off as more pretentious than the guy who's art is a fishtank filled with yellow pingpong balls. It's critique on the grandiosity of the art world simply comes off as a worse form of just that.
I think the lady behind me in the theater broke it down pretty well. "Why bother making a 2 hour movie about half of a 6 Feet Under episode?' Ha ha ha. LOL.
Aside from what I didn't like, there were some fairly humorous jabs at art school. While they weren't all that original, I did rather enjoy the lisping fashion major who kept whining about his girlfriend back home. And some of the classroom dialogue could have come straight out of Bennington. "My work isn't about color, form, style, or material. But I thought the class would like to see my process, so I brought some unfinished work." (Pulls out a canvas with gum or something smeared all over it.) There were funnier quotes, but I'm not good at remembering quotes, so sorry. Anyway, the story is dumb, and the kid who plagurized ended up getting famous and getting the girl. So there is hope for us all!
p.s. Anjelica Huston and John Malkovitch, come on! And Steve Buscemi! What?
Savior Scraps, a brooklyn artists collective that creates projects with all donated material, has made a rustic log cabin and store in the middle of Secret Project Robot, a Williamsberg gallery. The pieces for sale are small art pieces and hand crafted clothes, jewelery and furniture
I got this email about a child that was lost in a Tsunami, pleading help with her to be re-united with her parents, but according to snopes, the girl's identity was discovered a few days later, and she was reunited with her relatives. I guess it doesn't hurt to fact check these things, but it also doesn't hurt to take the time to do what you can to help.
The Camel Girl: had an unusual orthopedic condition resulting in knees that bent backwards.
When I was about 6 or 7, I happened upon a PBS documentary that was about sideshow freaks from the days of yor. Never having had seen people with such deformities before, I was fascinated. For the next few years, I sought out surgery shows where conjoined twins were being separated, watched Ripley's Believe It Or Not religiously, and fanatically tried to pop my eyes out of their sockets like "Popeye" from the documentary who could do just that.
If I were you, I wouldn't bother with these three short horror films from Asian directors. But unfortunately, I'm not you, I'm me. And me, I had to see it because I love the idea so much. Getting three different directors to make three horror shorts, how can you go wrong? By making Three Extremes II, that's how. If you must, watch the first Three Extremes, which features Tikashi Miike and is definitely watchable. Not all the awesomeness that the trailer had promised, but decent. So I tried out the second, and holy timewaster, what a waste of 2+ hours. The first film, Memories made no sense whatsoever (not in a good ambiguous way, but in a who's that? why's she doing that? where is she? why is the guy telling that story? kind of way), and consisted mainly of three-minute-practically-imperceptible zooms on a guy sleeping on the couch. Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-Woon's idea of scary here was having his editor take out frames here and there (OMG she moved like 2 feet in a split second!) Once he reveals what's happened at the end, you're like "Oh wow, that's probably the most unoriginal story I could have ever thought of, in fact, I wrote a story just like that when I was 2, and I crumpled it up and threw it away because I knew it was a recycled paint by numbers kind of story even then." I will say that it's beautifully shot. If you're interested in seeing a Kim Jee-Woon film, watch A Tale of Two Sisters instead...it's equally confusing but about 300 times more intriguing and bloody.
For all you guys looking to make moral purchases, Cambodia has amazing labor laws, such as 40 hr work weeks,unions, mandatory overtime, proper lighting and ventilation, 16 year age minimum, some health benefis and A 44 DAY PAID VACATION. Check out is episode of "This American Life" episode at htp://www.thislife.org
episode 303 in the 2005 archive "David and Goliath"
Perhaps the saddest exhibit this year at E3 is a videogame version of Desperate Housewives. 
Apparently you sit around and talk shit about the other housewives? Well, I guess techincally here in the screenshot they're standing around. I bet the first development meeting went something like this:
"Okay. So Vivendi wants us to make a Desperate Housewives video game."
*groans*
"I know. But they've given us the money already. No, the president of the company signed off on it before leaving for some golf tournament somewhere. So. How are we going to make this happen?"
"Why don't we just, like, have some women standing around talking shit?"
"It'll be just like the TV show!"
"That's a horrible idea, John, but I can't think of anything else so we'll have to go with it. You start programming the 3d engine, make it look six years old like the original Sims. And then, uh. David? You can, uh. I don't know. Write some bitchy dialog."
"You know I'm no good at that crap!"
"Watch some episodes if you have to."
"Oh no! I have to watch the show to get ideas? I quit!"
How they ever got the game done, I don't know.
Also, on the E3 page, Tylenol has begun marketing itself as an EXTREME product.
Finally, a miracle product for the fat bastards who play so much they develop callouses and carpal tunnel? I guess sitting on your ass passes for extreme these days.
If you can get around the really annoying girl screaming, plus the "Gimme horns! Gimme horns!" clip looped no fewer than three times during the segment, you can watch a video about Guitar Hero II from the floor of E3. The most exciting news was that Primus not only agreed to include a song in Guitar Hero, but they gave Red Octane a MASTER TRACK, so the song we hear will not be a well-done cover, but the actual album version of the song.
SWEET.
To accomodate my cute dog, I am playing PS2 upside down and sideways. Also, if you look closely, you will see that my dog is spooning me.
He is cute.
This is so awesome:
German "Robin Hoods"
A group of Germans dressing up like superheroes, robbing luxurious food from top eateries and giving it to the poor. (But not before presenting the cashier they're robbing a bouquet of flowers (they are so ripping V's style))
I felt a little sad today when I read that Activision bought Red Octane today. It makes me a little scared that a big corperate company is taking over the little guys who produce yours and my favorite video game. RedOctane is one of the most dynamic, innovative and energetic companies in the games business. They were the world’s first online video game rental service when they started in 1999. Two years later they developed the first non-slip dance pad (for DDR). Two more years later, they launched the Get Up & Move! Campaign to highlight inspirational stories of kids losing weight playing dance video games. In 2005, they were granted PS2 publisher license, and released their first video game, In The Groove. And then, of course, GH. Going on to win awards aplenty.
And then there's the big coorperate Activision. The strategic director of Activision says of Red Octane:
"The success we are seeing today is a strong indicator that Guitar Hero and the many potential extensions, new platform exploitations and international versions appear to be somewhat transition proof, as consumers are responding to this product on current-generation platforms in a manner that defies traditional late-cycle behavior... We think the online capabilities of the next-generation platforms offer new and well differentiated opportunities to create additional revenues from downloadable music, which today represents one of the most popular downloadable content categories." (from kotaku.com)
Oh, Red Octane, why did you have to sell out?
To my ears, this does not bode well. They better not fuck up GH for me.
Reverend Horton Heat - "psychobilly freakout"*
KISS - "Strutter"
The Kinks(van halen version) - "you really got me"*
Black Sabbath - "war pigs"*
Butthole Surfers - "who was in my room last night?"
Rush - "YYZ"*
Drist - "Arterial Black"#
* denotes sweetness
# denotes fake band from first game
Screen shot? Sure:
I'm going to be awol for the week. E3. I just worked 98 hours. I am not an hourly employee. If all goes well I will get to try the Wii for 5 minutes.
Also, all DS owners: New Super Mario Bros. is childhood on an SDRam card. Bliss.
You may have heard of the Raconteurs, Jack White's side project with Brendon Benson and two other guys (Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of The Greenhornes). Their first single Steady as She Goes is pretty great, but what's really great is their website. You should go check it out: www.thereaconteurs.com. It looks and functions like the first Commodore computer (you know, popular 1982-1993, the first personal computer with an integrated sound synthesizer chip? You know, the best selling single computer model of all time with it's own Commodore DOS?) Anyway, its neat. Check it out (but don't feel the need to bother watching the Steady as She Goes video. It's totally lacking in concept.)
My top ten list of songs I want in Guitar Hero.
The Stranglers "Nice and Sleazy" 1978
Man, listen to that bass. Every now and then I hear a song where all the instrument tones sound exactly right. This is one of those. Getting all the tones right is one of the trickiest and most over-looked part of making rock music, yet all the greatest bands of all time are masters of it. I think it counts for like 75% of that feeling you get when listening that says "This song I'm listening to right now, a real band made it." It's whats lacking in your roommate's brothers band who writes really good songs, but something's missing. Its the reason the Strokes are famous. Check it out, want to hear another example?
Love & Rockets "Mirror People" 1987
My friend Kelly had an allergic reaction to some meds and we took her to the ER. Then we played some guitar hero.
Kelly got better.
I rocked out.
Last weekend was a great weekend for horror movies for me. (It was also great because it was my birthday and there was pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and goodie bags and pop rocks and I got to go to the zoo!) On Friday night I watched The Changling, which I had never even heard of before, and it was totally kind of scary, and totally awesome. Then on Sunday I watched Polergeist, which, surprisingly, I had never seen before (all thee years I'd thought I'd seen it), and Pet Semetary, which was a favorite as a child. (Oh god, my ancle tendon feels so tender!) But I want more. I want to know what you think the scariest movies are. Here are the ones I like the best.
I read an article about graffiti on gothamist.com today and started posting responses to it.
Here, go check it out.
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/05/02/scratchitti.php
I just read all these comments about how offensive and terrible and awful graffiti is in the city, and I posted a response. I liked it so much I wanted my friends to read it here.
Stephen, how can everything be bad? Look at the kittens. Look at them! Everything will be okay. The kittens promise.
And it will never get any better.
Maybe I should save this for notbreastmilk.com.
It's my birthday soon.
Happy Birthday!
Ign put up an in-depth interview with RedOctane's Exec Producer about new stuff in GH2, including the new songs (Toadies anyone?), the different instrument parts, and the feauture I want the most, the practice mode.
I'm a 9-5er. (Well, honestly, a 10-6er, but you know, it's a coined term) I work 40 hours a week or more every week on salary. Most people at my office work closer to 50 hours a week. We do not get overtime, yet are expected to stay as late as it takes to get projects in on time. To suggest otherwise would threaten our jobs. We have two weeks of paid vacation. This is normal. That is to say, this is normal in America. I am terrified every day at the prospect of working on and on without a break. The freelancers life seems so magical to me, taking months off at a time. Except I don't want to be a freelancer. I like my job. But how can I keep trucking on like this without a break? I'm not sure that I can.
I did a little research and discovered that Europeans don't. European companies are required to give employees a minimum of four weeks paid vacation time. And in many European countries, it is standard to receive more like 6 weeks. Paid. Vacation.
How big are the balls on this man? As big as they need to be. Watch now, as Stephen Colbert makes the President and 1,000 invited cronies very uncomfortable. Today the man is a GOD. My question is, who is the genius who booked him to speak at the White House press corps dinner?