August 2006 Archives
Long live James Tenney. One of my favorite modern composers, and one of the first boys to go to Bennington (MFA,) he got fed up with computer music early on but For Ann (Rising) and it's use of the Shepard Tone was one of the first moments of pure awesome I had. Audio illusions. Sigh. He also composed the fantastic Having Never Written a Note for Percussion which Sonic Youth played on Goodbye 20th Century. I was supposed to see him play gamelan stuff the summer I spent in North B, but I got a speeding ticket and sat on a chair and felt shitty instead. For what it's worth and not in the tiny obit., he also dated cat lady artist Carolee Schneemann and they did a nifty eros filmy at Bennington (I think?) called Fuses that I have somewhere. Also, he was in some early Stan Brakhage [also dead] films. Art super star. I think Heather even liked him.
Expect MP3s and youtube clips later. Frames from Fuses above.
Reading Nylon usually makes me want to perform hiri kiri for not being über famous at 24, but you gotta hand it to Rebecca Turbow, her clothes are super cool.
A cross between Judy Jetson, baby-doll bumpkins, 50's housewives and a flower, Turbow makes her Safe Cloting line out of soft, snuggly materials and sothing colors, often with protective features like a tummy pouches and knee pads.
Also check out Shabd Simon Alexander's new line lederhosen 
I found Sometimes I Feel Like I'm the Only One Trying To Gentrify This Neighborhood to be a DOOZY!
Artist/Inventor Bruce Shapiro uses his home-made motion machines to manipulate materials making morphing art.
Shapiro, both excited by the possibillites of robotics as a new art form, and disapointed by the expense deterent, has spent the last 15 years building his art machines out of inexpensive or free materials and publishes both the projects and workshops on his website. His works deal with the fluidity of time it takes to make a project and often the final product is the process itelf, putting the art machine creating the work in progress on display. His mediums are also time based and efemeral materials, such as eggs, sand, bubbles and wind.
Yesterday's Mandy: Moore, Please entry (I didn't think to call it that until this morning, hindsight is a bitch) was supposed to be more of a review of Comic Life than a tribute to my BFF, Mandy, but I got so into it that I worked on it till 6:20, and if you know me, you know I stay late at work for nothing. NOTHING! Perhaps that in and of itself is my review. It's so much fun that it will make you stay late at work.
Basically, as soon as you open it up and take a gander at the interface, you already know how to use it. I mean, a computer wizzz like me knows how to use every application in the world after a quick looksee, but I'd venture to say that any goon out there can figure this one out. Here, Download your free 30 day trial, you goon, and see for yourself.
Today at Bumble and bumble, where I work, I saw Mandy Moore. I sidled up next to her, we made eye contact, and in that moment, we shared all of our secrets, we had pillow fights, we cried in each other's arms, we shopped, we fought, we talked on the phone for hours. We were BFFs.
Please Enjoy the following graphic novel about our friendship after the jump. Please. I worked on it all day.
New announced songs for GH2:
1. You Really Got Me - Van Halen
2. Strutter - KISS
3. Who was in my room last night - Butthole Surfers
4. Warpigs - Black Sabbath
5. Arterial Black - Drist
6. Psychobilly Freakout - Reverand Horton Heat
7. YYZ - Rush
8. John the Fisherman - Primus
9. Shout At The Devil - Motley Crue
10. Madhouse - Anthrax
11. Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart - Stone Temple Pilots
12. Sweet Child O'Mine - Guns N' Roses
On August 27, 2006, around 6:01 a.m. local time, a Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100ER flying the route crashed after attempting to take off from the wrong runway at Lexington. The first officer was the only survivor among the 47 passengers and three crew on board. The flight was scheduled to land in Atlanta at 7:18 a.m. local time.
Hey Folks, The Kiss-Off is playing the following shows this month:
Wednesday 8/30-Death Disco party at the Annex. Probably going to be $5, but I can put anyone on "The List" if they let me know before hand, so leave acomment if you want to skip the cover. possible drink specials. From the website:
BUNNY ZED 10.30pm
THE KISS-OFF 11.30pm
Plus! Back from Ireland!
Your DJ and host BP FALLON
with The Queen Of The Hop
MATHILDE HILDEBRANDT
Friday 9/1Party Below party at the Culture Project. Pretty sure this one is free. Pretty sure its free beers too. Here's the Flyer.
and Tueday 9/12 Playing at the Annex again. Its gunna be way sweet though, cause not only is there an open bar but all of the bands playing are totally rad: The King-Left, Sigmund Droid, and The Urgency. Here is the silly Flyer I made.
This is my dad coolin' on the block with Stephen Hawking and two people I don't know. My father is a speech synthesis engineer and has been the head engineer on DecTalk since the 80s. He recently did some work to update Stephen Hawking's voice, which is why they are together for the picture.
My dad is the one with the beard that I am inching ever closer to resembling.
That's basically it.
This is a page that has completely captured my attention.
So as not to ruin your own particular experience of the thing, I will say no more above the jump and merely post the link.
Democrat vs. Republican, Rural vs. City, White vs, Black, Rap vs. Country, but there is one great American pursuit which unites us all. Big banging asses. So in this time of a divided country, I felt it my civil duty to unite us in this, the greatest of American loves: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Assyness.
Today we share "Entering Yellow Stream and Hearing an Ape" by Liu Zongyuan, who, was, sadly, "another victim of political intrigues." Sometimes I think I am like the ape, who will probably never get the servant to fetch him his primal-slippers...
The road and stream bend for a thousand li,
Sorrowfully, an ape somewhere calls.
The lonely servant’s tears are now exhausted,
The heartbreaking sound is in vain.
I know how extremely difficult it is to find affordable studio space in the city, so this summer i did a residency program in Elk Horn, Iowa. In exchance fot helping build studios and a gallery at The General Store, I received room and board, studio space to work on a project, and a show when my project was completed. Check out my installation "Insideouthouse"
The General Store Gallery and Residency Program will be accepting applications for next summer's program in all mediums (fine art, music, film, writting, etc...) in the fall and winter. We will have a website up in the next few months with details about how to apply, or look for a link through my website http://www.senaclaracreston.com
you can read more of robert sergal's comics at http://www.idiotcomics.com/ and http://www.robertsergel.com/indexx.html
We officially lost a planet, there's only 8 left.
If they can take a planet out of the Solar System, then why can't they make a licorice flavored milkshake? Or put a stop to Lifetime, the Network for Women? Or do away with Mariah Carey, once and for all? Priorities, people!
Last night Katie and I watched the 9-11 conspiracy video, Loose Change, that's been circulating on the internet for awhile now. I had never heard of it, but a co-worker of Katie's said it changed the way she viewed everything. I doubted I would agree, but my interest was definitely piqued. So we sat down and watched the hour long video which went point by point through the Twin Tower attacks, the Pentagon attack, the hijackers, Osama's confession tape, etc etc. And I have to give it to him, I was calling bullshit, but I couldn't stop watching it either. Conspiracys are fascinating, and I almost wouldn't put it past the Bush administration. Almost.
So, a good portion of Thats Plenty lives in the same building as Four Eyed Monsters, the more-indie-than-indie film makers/video podcasters. Their stuff is crazy entertaining, and they are awesome folks aside from that. That being said, this post is a more general shout out to all Bennington College alumn who frequent Thats Plenty to check out the new episode, as it features one of our own fairly prominently.
Oh jeez. Next season's Survivor is the worst idea ever. There will be four teams...broken up by race! That means whites, blacks, latinos and asians. Perhaps an intersting social experiment, but I have a feeling it's going to be nasty. My vote is for the blacks. Survivor doesn't have a lot of math problems to do, so that pretty much counts the Asians out. The Latinos will be busy sweeping the sand off the white team's hut doorstep and cleaning their coconut shell bowls, so they won't have time to compete. And the Whites can't win, because black people would be PISSSED! First slavery, then segregation, I figure at least one of them's got a million dollars in game show money coming to him.
Doesn't it seem creepy that viewers at home will be rooting for their "team" to win? It just doesn't feel right, does it?
Weeeeeeeee
My friend Claire Square (an excellent director in her own right) turned me on to Supercar this Japanese band who does excellent videos. Here is a great one.
"One of Dr. Smith’s favorite venomous fishes is the stargazer, which buries itself and can fire electric shocks as well as venom. In some cultures it is a delicacy (cooking destroys the venom, and so does the human digestive tract), and Dr. Smith has seen it for sale in fish markets in Chinatown in Manhattan, with the electric organ carefully ripped out by fishermen."
Hey, how come there's no "Animals" category?
I know I've slacked off on the music section here on thats plenty, I've gotten quite busy with non-blog music projects. But fear not music fans! I am currently at work on a three volume Mix CD for a friend of mine, and I shall share it here for the common erudition. The theme of this anthology is simple: a chronilogically ordered history of music that I think is sweet from 1967 to present day.
Why does everyone think this movie is such a masterpiece? It's like someone woke up one day and said, Waaah, I wanna make a Noir film. Too bad all I have is these teenagers in 2006...wait a minute, that's it! and then proceeded to take said teenagers and make arrogant attempt to copy noir's one-of-a-kind style.
Noir is known for the dark. The use of dark and light is a key feature in these films; characters exist in the dark with their dark souls, hiding in the shadows from whatever they're hiding from, and beam of light at the right moment reveals secrets, intentions, deceits.
Brick borrows the use of dark for a few intense scenes, but it's so intentional that it takes away from the action. It works like a gimmick instead of an art.
I was very excited to find myself at the Junk Food news page. Searchable by catagory it keeps you in the know about, the Grilled Cheese Competitve eating circut, the worlds longest hot dog (16 feet, come on, thats not that long) and the woman who has eaten over 50,000 Ho-Ho's. What interested me most however was who the hell reads the Junk Food News? Are there fat shirtless men covered in cheetos perusing the pages exclaiming out loud "Huh! Wingtop launched new boneless chicken wings!" I hope so. I want to be one of those men. I particularly reccomend the world records section.
Last night Dylan and I were jonzing for some cookies. My roommate, Tara, has these delicious Waffle Butter cookies that are so good they taste like the majesty of the crane and the dignity of the unicorn. But alas, I knew if we broke into them, we would promptly devour them all. So I cam up with a novel thought, let's make our own butter cookies! And that's just what we did. And you can do it too. You too can achieve instant gratification and instant mouth-to-stomach satisifaction in just a few simple steps. Here's how:
Remember when Sam and Dylan were so into Victoriana? I mean, there's even a catergory on this blog for Victoriana. What happened, guys? Remember how you were going to start dressing like Victorian gentlemen (who, by the way, only wear silk, anything else would be below them). You really fell off on that, huh? It's always disappointing to find that your friends became temporarily obsessed with something just becauseCostume National had a collection inspired by it.
Let's face it, you guys just love fashion and want to look like hot guys that all the chicks want to bang. I suggest finding out who makes this beautiful watch and starting there.
Google Just launched a online Word processer. I am not too surprised as this is further proof of my theory (And others as well) that Google is slowly assembling an online OS. I suspect that in few years Google is going to partner with a cheap PC maker like Lenovo to make super cheap (I'm thinking around 100$) computers that are made with the sole purpose of running the Google online OS.
Heres Writely!
Here is a google oriented blog http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/
This is how they roll during street fairs in Mississippi, apparently.
Somehow I doubt that town has a lot of Mexicans running around, anyway.
Fucking with Mexicans in Mississippi is like picking a fight on the internet. It's easy to act tough and be a douchebag because you're unlikely to ever meet your opponent.
From some guy's blog, located while doing a google image search for UNCRUSTABLES, a Smucker's product which is (this is true) a freezer box of individually-wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that already have the crusts removed which you merely have to thaw before eating.
I went in not expecting much, and left giggling with joy. I can't remember the last time I felt so happy about seeing a movie. It's is no illusion..it's a great movie. The Illusionist is based on a short story by Steven Millhauser, who if you haven't read, you should because his stories are bizarre and funny and wonderful. The acting was superb. Not only that, but each character just looked and sounded great on screen. I can't explain it. There were a lot of tight shots on the characters thinking or reacting or talking, and everyone just had such an interesting looking face. And the voice acting was done nicely. The voices sounded so important, so...crispy. There was a lot of emphasis on the characters themselves, almost more so than the story itself, which makes sense since the story was very character driven. The Cinamatography was beautiful, and the sets were detailed and pleasing to the eye. (of course, who doesn't love Victorian Vienna? Who?) The story had a beautiful arch, the plot kept me wondering where it could possibly be going next, I loved and cared for Edward Norton's character, Eisenheim, the script never felt forced or weird, and the magic tricks were original. A lot of slight of hand, but also a lot of fascinating stuff I've never seen before that gave it a really special feeling. And like Dylan said in his post about Ricky Jay, all of the tricks in the movie are real tricks that could have been done at the turn of the century. There is no CG. The music also had a huge effect on my love for this movie. Of course it did, it was done by Philip Glass. The ending was truly satisfying, and I found myself thinking about the movie all that night and the next day.
the only part I didn't love was the sex scene because it was corny and not very imaginitive, but they kept it brief so I forgive them.
It's an all-around well-crafted movie driven by good storytelling and good characters. It's like a really awesome kids movie for grownups Don't believe what the crappy Trailer makes this movie seem like.
If you like Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, good plotlines, Steven Millhauser, magic tricks, Victoriana, Philip Glass, or things that are awesome, you should see this movie. (And don't worry, I know you don't like Jessica Biel, but believe it or not, she's pretty decent in it). Yay Illusionist!
Zombie Letters from e-zombie.com
I haven't posted in awhile because I've been home sick for the past few days without internet (Damn you, Time Warner Cable! You replaced our broken modem with another broken modem and then said you wouldn't have time to give us another (probably broken) modem for two and a half weeks! Don't you know we're living in the age of the information superhighway?! How am I supposed to function?!) Aware of my circumstance, our very own angel, Stephen, brought me over a handful of DS games to occupy my many lonely, tea drinking, kleenex crumpling, vitamin c popping, mucus hawking bed ridden hours. Among others, he brought the intriguing "Trauma Center: Under the Knife". The game reminded me of this game for my old PC that I used to love where the rules made it too complicated to actually play, but I spent a lot of time carving my name into the patient's stomach with my trusty scalpel. He would scream something awful (early 90's computer screaming just wasn't what it is today). Then the screen would show my dead patient with the toe tag and that death song would play. (you know, dum dum da dum, da da da da dum da dam) Anyway, Trauma Center is nothing like that.
I hate existentialism. I hated Camus' "The Stranger" (which by the way the President just read), I think Nietzsche is full of shit. Jpod was in my view was a completely existential book. It filled me with "anxiety, dread, awareness of death, and freedom. " Which is apparently what existentialism fills you with. The wierdest part was I really liked it. It caused me to have a small existential breakdown, but it was really funny while it did it. Now, I am no Coupland connoisseur, having only read Microserfs. It felt both utterly ridiculous, and very accurate about the time and place of 2006. The thing that kept getting me was that there is no moral center, no moral viewpoint in JPod. Everything just...is. Now even Coupland (who writes him self in as an amoral character) has said the book has "no socially redeemable value." But thats just what's so weird about Jpod. It nails 2006 and part of that hitting the nail on the head is that the whole book is just...amoral. So while I highly reccomend it, I must warn you that it may make your whole suddenly feel a little lost in a sea of pointless minutiae and nonsense...but in a good way.
Also Doug Coupland is Canadian.
Here is a link to an interview with Coupland
Its "Rick Rubin" by Spank Rock
I admit I subscribe to Merriam-Webster's Word a Day. Today's is fantastic. It's "thank-you-ma'am." Please, before clicking the linky, why not guess what this means.... perhaps via comment below.
Michelle and I have been watching Deadwood recently. It is a great show and has a excellent cast. While I knew I recognized and liked the actor playing "Eddie Sawyer" I had no idea just how cool he is. Ricky Jay is both an actor and magician. He is a favorite of director David Mamet (he is awesome in "The Spanish Prisoner") but has been in countless other films, such as Boogie Nights and Magnolia. This on its own simply makes him a good actor, but aha! There's more. According to the wikipedia article on him (as well as his own site) "Ricky Jay is widely considered one of the most knowledgeable and skilled sleight-of-hand experts in the United States. He is now well-known for his signature card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and inimitable stage patter.Until recently, Ricky Jay was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing a playing card 190 ft at 90 miles per hour (the current record is 216 ft, by Rick Smith, Jr.). Ricky Jay can throw a playing card into a watermelon rind (which he refers to as the "thick, pachydermatous outer melon layer" of "the most prodigious of household fruits") from ten paces." He is also an expert on the history of magic, and is was magic supervisor for "The Illusionist". Aperrently all the tricks in the illusionist are real and done by hand not CG. He also appears in the upcoming "The Prestige" (Which could really use a better website.) For more info on the awesome Ricky Jay. Link I particularly reccomend checking out his Deceptive Practices Business.
The cardinal rule of The Simplification Project is Reduce Or Remove What Is Unnecessary.
On more than one occasion when I have seen someone so morbidly obese that they merit a mention to my friends, a quick elbow and a subtly pointed finger, I think to myself, "How do you ever reach that point? When you hit 250, shouldn't alarm bells be going off? You don't get that fat overnight. Once you hit 250, you go 'Holy fuck. Things are getting out of control. It's time to rope it in and shut it down.'" I thought that to myself, marveling at the overwhelming girth and often horrible stench of someone so fat that moving across a small room caused them to breathe heavily, never thinking that I, myself, would get to that alarm bell moment.
But I have.
I started planning for the simplification project in May, around the time of my 26th birthday. I am married, very busy, and no longer in school. But I do not feel challenged in my personal life, intellectually and spiritually. I wanted to change that. So the first of what I plan to be many projects is the simplification project.
Let the Matthew Barney flood gates open up and swallow the world:
Not even a IMDB listing. Website here. I dig the soundtrack roster; Nurse With Wound makes great artsy background music. No wiki entry either, but I've found Mr. Greif's bio at his record lable.
I before E
Not for Me
Whether or not you think graffiti qualifies as art or if it merits jail time, you should be appalled by the tactics of the NYPD Anti-Graffiti Initiative. The campaign's newest posters are all over the subways: bright yellow background with a graphic of handcuffs next to bold black letters that proclaim "VANDALISM IS A CRIME." That's not the worst part. The NYPD is offering a "reward up to $500 for the arrest and conviction of anyone who commits Graffiti Vandalism." (And yes, in case you were wondering, the G and V are actually capitalized on the poster. If capitalizing random words makes them more important, I would think that rape should be capitalized before graffiti vandalism ever is). Not to mention that the only other NYPD posters offering rewards are for information leading to the arrests of wanted criminals. But that's not the worst part either. The worst part is that the NYPD is asking citizens to "call 911 to report crimes in progress." Really? You want people to tie up 911 operators with phone calls reporting petty crimes when no one's life is actually being endangered? Why can't all graffiti informants call 311 whether the crime is in progress or not? If there is a dedicated graffiti clean up Task Force that has access to the 311 system "to track and monitor all graffiti complaints on a daily basis", why should anyone divert the city's emergency resources for something which doesn't really qualify as an emergency? God forbid that the latest victim of violent crime in NYC can't get help because the emergency operators are busy coordinating with the police to take down the latest tagger in the neighborhood.
I am really excited to get my new iBox and play Sensible Coop Driver.
For others http://www.macspoofs.com/
Did you have somthing to do with this Ryan?
Take a dash of Google Maps, toss in a pinch of Craigslist, stir it up, add some love, and you get My Apartment Map. It is what it sounds like it is. Not a lot on there right now, but I'm sure it will beef right up. i think it's a pretty handy idea. New York's on there, as well as Boston, LA, Philly, San Fransisco, Seattle, and a bunch of others (Dallas? Puh-lease! No one wants to live in Dallas!) So next time you find yourself on Craigslist apartment search typing in key words Bushwick, L Train, Giant, Loft...just go to My Apartment Map and save yourself the trouble.
When I was on the Grave of the Fireflies page in Wikipedia, I saw that in the See Also section, it linked to the Greatest Movies of All Time list (because Roger Ebert considered it one of the greatest war movies of all time). From there I linked to the worst movies of all time list which includes a list of movies disowned by their makers. That's gotta sting. The list includes such gems as Caligula, where the screenwriters sued to have their names taken off the credits (as the movie originally was to be a morality tale but was completely changed by re-writes, re-shoots and re-edits.) Malcom McDowell (my first movie star crush, incidentally) and his female costar publically apologized for the film.
After observing in my queue Howl's Moving Castle, Netflix decided to recommend to me Grave of the Fireflies. So I stuck 'er in my queue, and about a month ago, it popped up in my mailbox. Then I let it sit around for a month, the paper sleeve getting ripped and dirty. Last night I finally felt like being depressed by a cartoon, and I wasn't disappointed. I can't remember the last time I saw something so sad. This movie made me sad about war more than any other war movie I can think of. It's graphic in a soft and horrible way. It looks like Miyazaki, minus the fantasy and plus a lot of suffering. (It was actually shown with my My Neighbor Totoro as a double feature when they were released in 1988, because it was thought that Totoro wouldn't stand up on it's own). It's sweet and beautiful, which of course, makes it more heartbreaking. It seems to not only be a commentary on war, but also on pride.
Hello GameTrailers.com and MTV. Or Viacom. Hmm that's a lot of coms.
No more Cinematech. I will be the features editor at gametrailers. I am very scared and have lost the ability to use contractions. 
I am taking a week off before my new job where I will bless you with my presence and burden your couches.
The plan is I will be in CT working at the hospice till Tuesday the 22nd and choo-choo on up to visit the kids (you.)
Plans include buying Sam dinner, buying the Juggernaut a lot of booze and creative face shaving. Fuck yeah. Get somes tats. Full sleaves. Coat tails. Ankle links.
Also work on my decanter gun collection
I will not wear shorts.
Please remain in NYC Aug 22-25th. Please?
He always had Hammer eating in diners rather than restaurants, he liked to say, because he wasn't sure how to spell "restaurant."
(Wrote this a while ago and never posted it:)
'What bores they are with their politics!' said theh notary Cardot. 'Close the door. There's no science or virtue that is worth a single drop of blood. If we were to call on truth to settle its accounts we should perhaps find it bankrupt.'
'Ah! It would no doubt have cost us less to enjoy ourselves doing evil than to quarrel about doing good. And so I myself would swap all the last forty years' speeches in Parliament for a tasty trout, a fairy-tale by Perrault or a sketch by Charlet.'
'You're absolutely right!...Pass me some asparagus...For, after all, liberty engenders anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings us back to liberty. Millions of people have perished without being able to establish any one of those systems. Is not that the vicious circle in which the moral world will always turn? When man thinks he has brought things to perfection, all he's done is to shuffle them around.'
I am going to be building some simple electrostatic devices, starting with a Leyden Jar (the very first capacitor ever made), moving to a Wimshurst Machine( a electrostatic device that makes a continuing current when you crank it), and finally making a Van De Graff generator (that one that makes your hair stand on end). They are all relativly simple to build, and are great ways to learn about the basics of electricty. This is an open call to those interested in doing said science, and owning an awesome, sparking piece of electrostatic history. Who's in?
Snickers's new ad campaign with made up words is assaulting my eyes. Satisfectellent? What the hell is that supposed to make me think? Nougatocity (i'm thinking Nougatoxity)? Substantialiscious?! Hungerectomy (hung erect o my)? Peanutopolis (a metropolis made of peanuts)? These are the lamest madeup words freaking ever! And they didn't even bother to make them googlable! That's just bad Marketing. When people see words that make no sense, they google them, and that's when you're all like, Hungry? Why Wait? (which, by the way, was an ad campaign that made a lot more sense...it says "snickers are filling", which is true. Satisfectellent means nothing. To anyone.)
Here, I have some suggestions for words that make you want a Snickers, instead of words that were clearly made up by people who don't know how to make things up:
How about Choclorgasm? Peanutakesitintheass? Caramellatio? Snickersgivesgoodhead?
So I got my DS Lite (my d-slight) and it's truly a thing of beauty. Slim, shiny, white, elegant, dead pixel...Wait, what? Dead Pixel? That's right, my D-slight came complete with Red Dead Pixel. I tried to take it back and exchange for alive pixels, but the store informed me it ain't their problem, and that I would have to send it to Nintendo. And wait longer and longer for gameplay heaven? I decided that my D-Slight's dead pixel displayed a kind of beauty that only a mother could love, and chose to keep him, to protect him from those cruel people who don't accept him for his differences.
But yeah, DS rules! Thank you for all the suggestions, I ended up going for 2 standards for the time being, Brain Age and New Super Mario Brothers. I can't wait till I have enough money to buy more. I played Brain Age on the commute this morning (I got a 25...not bad for first thing in the morning, huh?)