Almooost theeere...

Today's the last day of March, get some while it's hot...




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Hyph go da weasel cuz' da weasel go HYPH!"
I'm finding myself "goin' retro" lately with using hyphens in phone numbers again (313-555-9999) rather than the internet/email/I.P. era "." between them that I started doing years ago. 212.555.

It's no Miller trucker hat, or Atari iron t-shirt, but I'm tryin.


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Really fun UK commercials for Skittles gum.

wa wa wa Wednesday

I think this urban remake of the Honeymooners just might work. Like in a "Grumpy Old Men" kinda way; funny goofy guys getting into trouble. Cedric as a black Ralph Kramden comes off pretty good (from this trailer at least.)

Thanks Easter Bunny...BAWK! BAWK!

The best part is I don't even have to explain it:
www.leiasmetalbikini.com

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Then there's this guy's home-built Solar Death Ray.

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Going for the 3, we'll merge Star Wars and radial destruction together with me telling you how awesome this new Star Wars Republic Commando game is. I played a level of it over the weekend on my Xbox. It's like Halo, but you're leading a crack squad of Clone Trooper commandos running around, blowing up stuff. And to be honest, the battle droids actually seem intimidating and cool in this game. I think the computer dudes drew them better and bulked them up. You'd think leading 3 other dudes and remembering the commands and button combos to remember what thing does what to make who go where would be a jones and frustration, but it's really user-friendly/you pick it up quick. Sweet visuals too.

One of the coolest things is when you get walloped by something, or almost killed. ('Incapacitated' the game calls it) Your 1st person p.o.v gets blurry and dizzy looking thru your helmet visor as you lay wherever you went down. You can move your head slowly, still seeing this acid-trip like visual of the action still around you. It's really cool when you see your squadmates kneel over you and talk to you while reviving you (then they may turn for a sec to blast something coming at both of you.) Then you get up and there's this woozy vertigo moment where you regain your balance for a second before getting your posture and facilities back. The screen sways and swoons aruond a bit. Sounds simple, but you have to see it. The programmers did it just right inducing that "coming to" feeling in the game viewer.

I'm no hardcore gamer and I'm sure some other game did this years ago, but I'm just saying, it's pretty damn cool and well done in this one too.

Why am I defending myself to you?

Geez, sorry so long since

Been out of town in Dallas, walking around where Kennedy was shot and enjoying wearing shorts in March.

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This takes ya back...

My oldest friend, Star Wars Mike, so named because of his massively impressive collection of mint-condition sci-fi merchandise toys (especially Star Wars), his wife Melissa teaches elementary school, 6th graders. Every semester they do a project where part of the process is watching a movie on the subject as a treat afterwards, to see about what they learned from the books (and have fun.) They learn about dinosaurs, they watched Jurassic Park, learn about the Titanic, watch Titanic. And talk about the differences and what they noticed in the movie from their studies.

Well lo and behold, this semster the project was on folklore and mythology and the kids got to watch the Star Wars trilogy. Mike and I were chomping at the bit to go to her class one day and play 'Stump the Old Nerds' with the kids. Many of these kids never saw the original trilogy. So as the kids have watched it, Melissa emails us questions the kids came up with (very sharp ones at that) that we'd ponder and answer back. Questions I think Lucas would even stop and wonder "Hmm...kid's right. That don't make sense."

Aaaaaaanyway... They finished the trilogy. Melissa sent us an email sharing the answers her kids gave about what their favorite parts were. It's like the sci-fi version of how kids are pretty pure and honest with their feelings.;

"My favorite part of any of the movies is when Luke fights Darth Vader at
Cloud City..."

"Episode 4 when the first Death Star is blown up by Luke."

"My favorite part was when Yoda trained Luke because Yoda is my favorite
character."

"My favorite part in the movies is when Luke takes off Vader's mask and Luke
said, "I must save you," and Vader said, "You already have...""

"I liked all of the battles."

"I liked the part where Darth Vader and Luke make peace."

"My favorite part is the ending of Return of the Jedi. You can see Yoda,
Obi-Wan and Anakin all together, and you can tell they are proud of Luke."

"I like at the end when the Emperor was torturing Luke and Darth Vader kept
looking back at the emperor and then at Luke again and again until he
finally picked up the emperor and threw him in the hole. I was happy he
turned good again."

"I liked when the Ewoks thought that C-3PO was a god."

"I liked all of the action with the light sabers."

"My favorite part was where Darth saved Luke and Luke carried Darth through
the space station to safety. (kind made me get a little teary.)"

*Melissa's giving extra credit to kids who watch Episodes I and II over Easter and write up questions about it tying it into the original trilogy.

Life is Good.

Fried-day

The two best lines uttered today at work, provoking hails of laughter:


"Well enough about me, let's hear you talk about me."
- Jokingly said by Mike during a meeting when topics shifted.

"Thank God he didn't ask me anything more. My brain just shut down, there was no more, I blew my conversation wad..."
- A massively hungover-on-a-Friday Steve describing his near career crash&burn conversation with a higher-up, who surpise-ambushed him with priority questions regarding a major account.


I love Life.

Good words

Words of Robert Fripp, guitarist/leader of King Crimson, from a roundtable discussion he sat in back in 1982. Someone on the panel mentioned they were a law student and the discussion later touched on corruption in politics and law:

"When legal firms in the process of law have little or no regard for either the provision of justice nor the establishment of truth, ordinary people will seek natural justice in their own way. This is dangerous. Since legal institutions are not concerned with either the provision of justice nor the establishment of truth, let us sound this as a warning.

When political institutions lack credibility and belief, when legal institutions lack credibility and belief, when financial institutions have been distrusted, the last remaining pillar of the culture of a society, in my view, is our artists. Now at the point at which an artist will lie to their public for money, the civilisation has just died. So, ask yourself this question: did John Lennon lie to you for money? Did Jimi Hendrix lie to you for money? Did Dylan lie to you for money? And go down the top twenty albums, and ask: which one of these singers sings to me true, despite any financial or other pressure made upon them? You might be as concerned and worried as I am. Because if you don't provide me with justice, nor tell me the truth, I will seek justice and truth in my own way, and that will necessarily be outside the process of law. And that is dangerous."

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I smile-frowned in a skeptical "Hmmm" at this description of a new soul diva on iTunes. A free download 'Single of The Week' at iTunes. The wording didn't really make me think "Now THIS sounds like something different!"

It's rare to find an unsigned R&B artist with the same skill and quality of today's top-shelf urban acts. The flavored skills from newcomer TaMara on "What We Shared" make her the exception. The R&B chanteuse tells her man how it's gonna be on this funky track with her straight up vocals over some excellent '70s-vintage Wah-Wah scratch guitar and a big bass beat."

But I must say I downloaded it and it is a nice little groove. The pocket and Wah-Wah guitar is more sneak thru the alley up to the bad guys/paying a visit to Huggy Bear than it is highway car chase/hanging on to the car hood to not the bad guys get away.

Bonham!

Drummer John Bonham, of Led Zeppelin fame; think about what he sounds like, his drum sound, the way he hits, the power. His name sounds like how he drums. Say it with me kids: "BONHAM!" [BA-NUM]

Let's have more fun with the Drumset Haiku Translator:
Those phat thundering tom-tom triplets he rips at the end of 'Stairway':
"Hidderit-da, Hitterit-da, Hitterit-da, Hitterit-da Hittera-BOP!"

The solo fill at the end of "Rock 'n Roll":
BA-DOP!
vlaROP boom DOP boom DOP Dadaboom ba-
Bidderit-da!
Bitterit-da!
Bitterit-da!
Bitterit-da!
Bitterit-da!
Bitterit-da!
gooodalaHROP gooodalaHROP TOP
TOP TOP Huddalaroom...

Boosh.

It ain't a Dead Sea Scroll transciption, but hey.


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Speaking of beautiful things, this morning I enjoyed the 2nd half of Fat Bottom Girls enroute to McD's for a pre-work breakfast burrito, and while waiting in the drivethru, was bestowed with the majesty of 'Lick It Up'.

That song could be used in physics and art seminars to explain perfect composition. It's a diamond edition Lexus of Big Party Pop Rock. The balance, the integrity, there's no waste in its structure. It's a 3 minute audio science fair. From the mix to Paul Stanley's howls, it's perfect in every way for what it's designed to be and do for its intended recipients.

It won't win the Nobel, but neither did the can opener. When the alien armada sifts thru what they anniolated to colonize this planet and find the buried canisters of film and audio masters in those Kansas vault mines, they'll hear LIU and say "this works." Because it truly does.

Wouldn't it be funny, if like in Demolition Man with Taco Bell being the finest and only dining experience on Earth in the future, the alien armada picked up the LIU canister instead of the Mozart one? They go to grab the Mozart, but a rat scuttles out from under it, so they blast it, thereby forgetting what original canister they went to grab. So they grab the LIU and thus institute the music of KISS as the planet's most holy and sacred form of music in some kind of retro-homage to the cultures who once lived here.

The beauty is they won't have to sculpt their own statues of Gene Simmons to erect in the Temple. They'll just U-Haul over the ones from Gene's mansion he had made of himself in the late 70s.

And yet again, Gene Wins.

Bastard!

March Through The Snow

The Real British spy stuff that inspired James Bond

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Senator: Decency Rules Should Apply to Pay TV, Radio
Hey Senator, since it's PAY TV and Radio, and it's been taken off the FREE channels that the kids have access to, maybe your tactic of paying off your brats to stay out of the cigar parlor should be re-examined so they can't use that money to see the indecency. God forbid you protect your own kids before "protecting" everyone else's. Yeah I'm generalizing, but this shit pisses me off.

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The new 2-minute Star Wars Episode III trailer starts showing March 9th.

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Check out how sweet Apple's new iChatAV video chat is in the next OS they are set to unleash, codenamed 'Tiger'. Notice the reflections of the people who are video conferencing on the "floor" of the chat area.

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So this past Saturday at 3am I'm pulling up in my driveway, home from a hang with some friends. CBC RadioTwo is playing this jzzzJAM! that bound me inside the car. I went inside after, booted up the computer to see the playlist (CBC does an awesome job of showing you what's being played) and learned it was this Bootsy Collins/Bernie Worrel tune from the soundtrack to a documentary about the Moog keyboard. The song is called 'When Bernie Speaks' and Glory B, the fonk was indeed on Bootsee. I highly recommend acquiring this song, you can get it for a buck from iTunes Music Store, just look up the Moog soundtrack.

Fyi, Bernie Worrel was the black guy playing guitar and dancing along in the Talking Head's 'Stop Making Sense' concert film. He's played with all the greats who could jam. And of course you know who Bootsy is.


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My Carlin desk calendar today:
" People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think."