Songs that Will Make You Need to Call a Waaambulance

Grant and I roadtripped it the other to the Texas vs. UW basketball game from Milwaukee. It was during a pretty sweet snow storm, so it took us about two hours, which gave us plenty of time to listen to music. I couldn't find my iPod hookup, so I had to rely on old cd's. I was running out the door when we left because we wanted to beat the worst of the storm, so I just grabbed my old cd case from high school. Admittedly, in high school I mostly liked emo music until my senior year or so, so there wasn't a great selection, but I at least had a few decent albums in there. After maxing out Brand New, we listened to the Format, which was the first time for me in about a year or so. The song "On Your Porch" came on, and I remembered that I once dubbed it the "Most Beautiful song of all-time". Grant, an avid reader of this blog, said that I should make a post of the most beautiful songs known to myself, and I agreed. As I'm in Michigan right now visiting family and have nothing else to do as they're all early sleepers, that time is now. I won't rank them, I'll just throw them out there and give you videos/streams.



On Your Porch - The Format

Basically the lines that get me are "My dad was sick/ my mom she cared for him/ her love it nursed him back to life. / But me I ran / I couldn't even look at him / for fear I'd have to say goodbye / And as I start to leave / he grabs me and he tells me / What's left to lose? / You've done enough / and if you fail well then you fail but you gave it a shot / Cuz these last three years / I know they've been hard / but now it's time to get out of the desert and into the sun / even if it's alone.











The Great Unrest - Mugison

This song is a repeat offender on the blog. It gets intense at the end, but the orchestration and buildup throughout the song is the beautiful part. And Mugison just has a raw, emotional voice that represents a broken, weathered man, and it's just beautiful in itself.







Poor Celine - The Velvet Teen

Pretty much any song off of Elysium could be on this list. Judah's voice is at its best in this album, as there's no distortion on it and he's not straining it. Don't mistake that for a lack of emotion, because you will feel a range of them within this album, but the absense of a not-even-a-single guitar on this album makes Judah's voice more prominent, and the orchestration adds a new dimension as well.


Poor Celine at last.fm

It's Okay - Land of Talk

Who here's down with Fleetwood Mac? This song could so be sung by Stevie Nicks, but it's way better because while Liz Powell might have some vocal similarities, her voice is in no way obnoxious like Stevie's can sometimes be. The song is so raw, and the lyric "Maybe when I die / I'll get to be a car / Driving in the night / lighting up the dark" just puts you in the body of someone that is giving up on this life and looking towards the next. I think there's a sort of beauty in that kind of honesty, and even though it's a kind of dark hope, it's still undeniably hope.

It's Okay at imeem.com

Annuals - Sore

Another repeat offender. The video itself is beautiful, but the song just to me seems to be about a need to express love daily. Whether with a significant other or offspring (in the video it seems to be about both), its a beautiful sentiment. The highlight lyrically: If I ever let out of bed / Without a kiss to the center of your head / Then I never deserved you from the start /And you can let loose the wall around my heart.

All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun - Jeff Buckley

There are quite a few Buckley tracks that could make it on this list. The obvious choice would be Hallelujah. The song is not originally Jeff's (it's Leonard Cohen's), but his version is the version that has been played by numerous other artists (Before you ask, the version on Shrek is Rufus Wainwright, who had a huge crush on Jeff Buckley) and trillions of YouTubers. However, being an owner of quite a few Jeff bootlegs and B-sides, the most beautiful JB song is All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun. I have two versions of the song, never released or recorded, one very fuzzy, distantly recorded live solo version, and one where he duets with Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. Both are amazing. The duet gives the song a whole new dynamic and meaning. Here's both versions:

(With Elizabeth)

(Without Elizabeth)


All Flowers in Time at imeem.com

All I Need - Radiohead

This song is hauntingly beautiful. It's obsessive. The song is basically saying that the protagonist's only reason for living is the existence another person. It's beautifully desperate. He sounds desperate to try to put into words just how much this person means to him, but like he can never accomplish that task to the extent he wants to. He feels he can't get through to him/her the way he wants. The lyrics are so simple, but they say more than a whole novel could.

That's all I've got for right now. I'd be interested to know what songs you all think are the most beautiful songs you listen to, but I've never been one to ask for comments. If you feel like it though, go for it. I'm going to make a non-related song of the day just because I've been so obsessed with Land of Talk Lately. Elizabeth Powell is the newest member of Broken Social Scene, and I saw LoT open for them and her sing with BSS, and her cuteness is undeniable, but her voice is what gets me. I like it way better than Amy Millan, and she gives Feist a run for her money in my humble opinion.

Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones

Epic rant!

Okay, that title hypes this post up to be really good, but it probably won't be because I don't swear and I don't think rants can truly be epic unless they have swearing. But it's a stressful time of year, and I think complaining to my computer will be therapeutic. So here it goes.

1. HISTORY TA's - This is not directed at one TA in particular, but more so the natural tendencies of history TA's that grade papers and exams. Someone that is a history TA is mostly a graduate student studying the area that the class falls under. So a History 115 TA, a broad Medieval Europe class, is probably studying something like the relationship between serf (although they wouldn't call it a serf for reasons I am to annoyed to explain) and landlord in Medieval England. Anyway, the point is, they are extremely knowledgable in their field. Thus, some TA's uphold an unfair standard when grading papers that anything they can think of that we have left out should have been included in the paper.

More than that, what bothers me is when a TA writes "Good" at the end of an essay, doesn't write that you've forgotten anything, that you've gotten a date wrong, that you've spelled something wrong, that you've used passive voice... hasn't made a single mark on the essay... and then somehow you get an 80%. To me, this is like a cashier handing you a cheeseburger that costs $3, you taking a bite, saying "This is good", then slapping down $2.40 and walking away.

I guess this is the burden of choosing such a subjective major. If I were in math, there one be one correct solution. I also have had some great TA's as well, so I can't complain too much. But this is an epic rant, so I'm ranting.

2. THE IRS - The IRS has added an unneeded stress to this holiday/exam season. So I send in my taxes by mail. Everything's been checked. Everything's right. Records are kept. One of my jobs is tax free (Fun fact, if you work a campus job and are a full-time student, you are exempt from taxes on that job). My summer job is not. I work full-time over the summer, so this actually adds up to quite a bit of money. Well, I end up getting a far larger refund than I should have. I look at my taxes, very confused, and it says I have made a mistake, my summer job IS exempt from taxes. I know this is wrong, but I think What am I supposed to do about this? They made the mistake. They can't fault me for this. So I let it go.

Well, last month, I get a statement saying that I claimed myself as exempt. No... no I didn't. You guys changed this. I call the IRS very fed up. I get connected to a lady that says she can change this without a problem... I'll have to pay the money back, but she can fix the fact that they entered the information wrong into the system. Fine, I can deal with this. I get put on hold. All of a sudden, the phone hangs up. I have to call back, sit through 30 minutes of Tchaikovsky, and get connected to another, much less helpful lady. She says that I have to refile my taxes. No! No I don't! I was just connected with a lady that said she'd fix it for me! She puts me on hold again. She says she'll send my case to Fresno, CA for review. Today, I got in the mail that I owe $250 with $6 interest, because they assume the money's been sitting in my savings account for six months. I'm glad this is over, but screw you for costing me money for your mistakes, IRS. I hope you don't come after me for writing about my discontent.


Anyway, I'd write a couple more, but I have to get back to writing a 9-page paper that will undoubtedly be thuroughly analyzed for things I missed. Guess I'll just have to take pleasure in people slipping and falling on the crazy ice rink known as "the streets and sidewalks of Wisconsin". Even funnier is the human response to the slip. I've narrowed it down to two circumstancial reactions. 1) If you save yourself, you do six or seven running steps like it was part of the plan, and 2) If you fall, you get up, and you just smile as if to say "If I act like I have a sense of humor about it, you'll all think that I'm not really embarrassed at all".


Song of the day, the hottest indie band out there: Lazytown featuring Lil Jon. Warning: Vulgar language.

See more of the internets best videos at CollegeHumors Web Celeb Hall of Fame.

Low Gas Prices: Enjoy Them While They Last

Gas prices are the lowest they've been in years. While this is fantastic, you must take this with a grain of salt because it's not a coincidence that it's happening in the months before Barack takes office. It's no secret that a lot of powerful Republicans have links to oil (to use a drastic understatement). My theory is that they are lowering prices before Obama takes office so that when they raise them to record highs during his term he will be blamed and they will regain power in the next. I am by no way extremely left, but it has become evident to me that this is a definate possibility. It's scary to think that about the possibility that the Republicans may cripple the U.S. economy even worse to take power back, and I hope I'm wrong. It would go to show that democracy definitely still has its flaws and power is not necessarily very well checked in America.

Now that I've depressed us all, I'll give you some amazing music to cheer up with. Annuals has toured with a lot of the bands I love, such as Manchester Orchestra and Minus the Bear. Yet I held off on getting their stuff for a while for some reason. But in three days I bought much of their library because every one of their songs enthralled me. They're so unique and have such a big sound when they want to, and no phrase of their music is the same. But they can also turn around and write some amazing slower music, that plays like an epic. I'll give you two examples.

Sore is a slower one that builds beautifully:

Carry Around is a more fun, bizarre song:

Confessor is their newest one. It displays their big sound:

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

No, that's not my emo title so I can write some rant. Although, I am going to fail a test tomorrow. But I just wanted to stop by and throw you a video, because I can't get this song out of my head. I don't like hip-hop. Well, I don't like hip-hop with rapping. For the most part. But Mark Ronson's blending of multiple genres including jazz brass and hip-hop beats makes for some seriously sweet music. It's like, blending a '30's big band with ODB. I have his album Version, which he is clearly seriously protective over because they take down mp3's on blogs in seconds flat (not that I put any up on my blog) and won't even let me emb a video. Anyway, Version is a bunch of his arrangements of other peoples' songs sung by guest vocalists. It's majorly awesome. It's got Lily Allen, Kasabian, Amy Whinehouse (unfortunately) and even ODB (which is weird because I forgot that when I made the previous reference) performing songs by some seriously awesome artists including the Smiths, Radiohead, and... Kasabian. Anyway, the song I can't get out of my head is Stop Me, the song originally by the Smiths, who have influenced some amazing bands like Radiohead and Brand New. It's performed by Daniel Merriweather, who I had never heard of before this song, but has a seriously awesome voice. Seriously. Awesome. I guess those are my words of the day.

Mark Ronson featuring Daniel Merriweather - Stop Me at YouTube

P.S. I'm going to start embing the vids that I use for the song of the day. This one I couldn't but you already know that because you've read this post. Also, sorry for the run-on paragraph, but I didn't plan on writing that much.

Nostalgia

That was your song of the day.

Crazy thought

I'm sure many of you are aware of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), otherwise known as that thing that is colliding particles together at just a smidgen below the speed of light (it's currently broken down and will not be restarted until Spring, 2009). The reason you are all probably aware of this contraption is because of the thought that it could possibly create a black hole. Now, this possibility has been disregarded by many of the smartest minds in the world, but I had a thought today, or maybe more of a crazy daydream.

What if a bunch of George W. Bush-like aliens looked down on Earth and head about this LHC and saw it as a threat to their well-being as it could create a black hole that would annhialate their existance? Would they invade and destroy this thing, as Bush invaded Iraq to prevent their nuclear capabilities? What if there are aliens watching intently from billions of miles away watching closely to see what our next moves are? What if Earthlings are having an impact on beings that are not even in our solar system?

Would I put my money on it? No. First off, if aliens do exist, I doubt they have the power to watch a planet light years away in real time. I know people try to imagine aliens as having crazy powers, but I imagine them being not unlike us. To support life, planets would have to have makeups much like ours, and would thus create beings probably similar to us. But, if they were watching us, they'd probably be intellegent, so they wouldn't follow the Bush Doctrine. Furthermore, I don't think the LHC is really anything to worry about.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw an alien-themed song in here, so here's Subterranean Homesick Alien (live) by Radiohead

Brewers checklist for the offseason

I have to say, I am really happy with the Brewers season, despite their 3-1 exit in the first round of the playoffs. "Playoffs" is a word that didn't get thrown around a lot when talking about the Brewers in my lifetime. I've been waiting for this since I was three years old, and the fact that we can finally say that we lasted longer than the Cubs is priceless.

Here's what I think the Brewers need to do in the offseason. I'll probably make a post at the beginning of the season to grade their performance.

1. Re-sign CC. His agent says he loves Milwaukee. We'll soon see how much he loves it, whether he's willing to give up $20+ million in New York, Boston, or L.A. for $12-15 million in Milwaukee. But if the Brewers complete step 2 of my plan, we might be able to hike that up a bit.

2. Get rid of Gagne, Suppan, Riske, Weeks, and Hall for a bag of balls. This would free up $25 million dollars (and a bag of balls) for us to go shopping. Obviously, it's going to be tough with Suppan due $27 million over the next two years, a deal no team would be willing to pick up, and Riske making around $3 million a year for the next two years, but getting rid of any of these players, with the exception of Weeks, would at least free up some salary.

3. Let Sheets go. $12 million dollars. Listen, the guy has averaged 23.5 starts in the last four years. While he usually put forward a great start, the reality is that when we really needed him, he has not had a great track record. Besides, even if we wanted Sheets back, I don't think it's going to happen.

4. Shop for a third baseman, starting pitching. Our fielding at third base was beyond horrendous this year, probably costing us a substantial amount of games. I'd even be willing to give up some a hitting spot for a good defensive third baseman, because Lord knows that we had neither a good hitting or fielding third baseman this year.

5. Start calling up a first baseman and third baseman. If the Brewers don't make Fielder happy with a new contract, he's going to be ready to leave at the first chance. He'll probably take us to arbitration court this year anyway, which could put a strain on our budget and may lead to a trade. Brad Nelson looks like he has some power potential, but he needs experience. Mike Lamb has had some decent fielding stats in his career, so who knows.

6. Make Ray Durham a full-time starter. The bottom line is that the man is consistent in everything he does, something that no one in their right mind would say about Rickie Weeks. It's hard to give up on a young player, but Weeks has shown absolutely no maturing whatsoever. I don't even know who would be interested in taking him.

7. Re-sign Kendall. There are some Kendall haters out there, but you can't argue with his defensive stats. He had the best throwout percentage in the majors, and his pitch-calling was exceptional. I feel like the Brewers will have even more success with him with a new manager because you can be darn sure that the next manager will know to take a pitcher out before he's given up seven runs in an inning (see July 7, 2007 , fifth inning, and Yost even had Suppan pitch in the sixth!), so pitchers will still be hitting the spots that Kendall sets up for them. Yes, he's old, but he's cheap and he gets the job done. For a defensive catcher he comes up big offensively when we need him most.

That's all for now. I may add later. Here's the two subjects I'm undecided on: Should the Crew spend a lot of dime on Fielder and make him happy? I don't know. When the man slumps, he slumps. We already have a power-hitter in Braun and we could use more contact hitters. At the same time, he carried us through September. It's tough to say. I think it could be disasterous if we hold on to him for a long extended period but he could also do a ton of damage somewhere else. The second is that I could not tell you who we should sign as manager. Sveum showed that he knows when to take a pitcher out. But his lineups are sometimes cooky, and his demeanor reminds me a lot of Yost. My initial guess, before he was even bench coach, was that the Brewers are planning on making Yount the manager. The thing is, players don't always make the best managers, and Yount has no experience. You could get an Ozzie Guillen, or you could get a Alan Trammell.

I'm not going to throw up too many hyperlinks because you can find these players' stats and stuff pretty much anywhere.

Song of the day will be another Mugison song because I didn't really explain much about him with the first post, and I've been listening to him a lot lately. Mugison is an Icelandic indie artist, who is actually very popular on the island. However, that's not saying much, as you only have to sell 5,000 albums to go gold in Iceland. People compare him to Beck, as his music is very experimental and sometimes trippy. His portfolio is extremely diverse, from highly electronic stuff, to good ole blues, to amazing acoustic songs, to songs with orchestras. I'll give you three songs to display his range.

The Great Unrest (official video) - Mugison - Youtube (Slower orchestral, acousticy song that builds beautifully)

I Want You (semi-official video. Mugi made this for his grandparents' 50th Anniversary) - YouTube. *This isn't the greatest example of his trippy stuff, but it suffices. For better examples, see "Sad Like a Truck", and "The Chicken Song". There just are no videos on YouTube for these. The Chicken Song features an amazing line. "The chicken is one of few birds that never can fly / but even with his head chopped of he'll still give it a h--- of a try / How beautiful is that?"

To the Bone (Track only) - Mugison - Youtube

Don't vote... unless.

Song of the day: Murr Murr (acoustic) - Mugison at YouTube

Re: Elevator Ediquette

I've decided you can tell a lot about a person just how by they act on an elevator. The gems are the people who see you walking down the hallway and know you're going to use the elevator, and even though you may not be looking at them, they hold it for you anyway. I've also witnessed the people that press the "door close" button as many times as they can in the same instance. Also, whenever somebody has also pressed "6", and I'm going to floor five, I will take the stairs down to five because I don't want to stop the elevator a floor before a person's destination. This does not take any effort at all because I'm going downstairs, and if I'm going to seven, I will press it because the person has already gotten off the elevator so it's not an issue. Finally, if there are stairs (and there should be, otherwise it's pretty much a fire hazard) and you live in a 12-floor dorm or apartment, if you're going to two or three, take te stairs for God's sake. You're young, you have two legs, unless you have something that weighs more than 30 pounds in your hands you should be able to walk up 15 stairs. Most peoples' houses have two stories, so you should be used to it.

Today's song of the day is Death From Above 1979's "Pull Out". The band was a duo with just a bass and drummer, the drummer also serving as a singer. Every song on the album "You're a Woman, I'm a Machine" is intense (and creepy), great for pre-game music. Unfortunately, they broke up after one album and pretty much hate eachother's guts. This is a classic video, though.

Death From Above 1979 "Pull Out" at YouTube

Nice Dream

Hey, if you haven't already, check out my new blog called "Dreams of People You Will Never Meet". It's my new experiment of gathering dreams that people send me by e-mail for others to read. They're put up anonymously, and my friend Scott is going to draw illustrations for some of them. It's turned out and should continue to turn out pretty cool. To find out more, click on this link to go to the site, and join this Facebook group while you're at it.

Despite the Radiohead-themed title of this post, I'm going to make the song of the day "Future Foe Scenerios" by Silversun Pickups. Some people think of Silversun Pickups as just a Smashing Pumpkins rip-off, but Brian Aubert isn't as overdramatic as Billy Corgan is (not that I don't enjoy some Pumpkins stuff, but he is over the top sometimes).

"Future Foe Scenarios" at YouTube

Why Watch Hockey?

In a couple weeks now, the NHL will be back. Now, most of you are probably saying "Why should I care?" Even though the NHL has spiked a few more people's interests with the likes of Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, I still often get asked why I love the game of hockey. I thought I'd supply you with a few links that will illustrate why, and I promise you, you will not get bored.

1. Scott Stevens was probably the greatest hitter to ever play the game. When he retired in 2004, Sportscenter put together this compilation as an ode to his knack for causing destruction.
Scott Stevens' Top 10 Hits

2. Pavel Datsyuk can puck-handle in a phone booth. Watch as he dekes the crap out of a goalie in a shootout against Nashville.
Pavel Datsyuk's Sick Deke in a Shootout against Nashville

3. The rivalries in hockey are like no other sport because fighting is allowed. In my case, the Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche rivalry is the most exciting rivalry. In 1997, 1998, and 2002 the Red Wings won Stanley Cups. It just so happened that in those three years, the Red Wings' starting goalies (Mike Vernon, Chris Osgood, and Dominik Hasek respectively), fought Patrick Roy during the regular season.
Patrick Roy vs. Mike Vernon
In that same fight, Darren McCarty annihilated Claude Lemieux, a fight where Lemeiux was labeled "The Turtle" because of his fetal position.
"The Turtle Fight"
When the teams met the following year, off the opening faceoff the two squared off again. It is a classic moment, as you watch them calmly planning the fight before the faceoff is dropped.
Lemieux and McCarty fight off the faceoff

4. Obligatory "Best Fights" compilation

5. Along with Bobby Orr's famous photograph (above), one of the images in NHL hockey that will probable stick forever is the goal Alexander Ovechkin, who is thought by many as the greatest combination of speed, puckhandling skills, and shooting ability ever to play the game (he's not a bad hitter either, scored against the Phoenix Coyotes in a regular season game in 2006. While Orr's meant a lot more (it was an overtime goal that won the 1970 Stanley Cup, while Ovechkin's scored was to put the Capitals up 6-1 in a regular season game), Ovechkin's goal captures all of his insane skills in one play. I don't want to give anything away for people that have never seen it (or at least known what they were seeing), so just watch it.
Alexander Ovechkin's epic goal

6. There are few things as beautiful as an amazing save... unless you've just been the one stoned. Here are a couple of the greatest saves ever.
"Not Today" (See Crosby's reaction at 0:44)
Martin Brodeur is a legend
The Dominator Tribute Video

7. Sometimes people embarrassed themselves:
There's a reason Gretzky only dropped the gloves once in his career...
Goal from the other red line on Toskala
In the 1998 Stanley Cup, the Red Wings were up on the Washington Capitals one game to none. Esa Tikkanen would have iced game 2 for the Capitals if he had made the following shot. Just know that the Red Wings swept the Capitals, 4 games to none.
Esa Tikkanen misses open net
Patrick Stefan channels Esa Tikkanen
When the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup last year, Marc-Andre Fleury was pretty much the highlight for the Pittsburgh Penguins, partly because of the amazing saves he made, but largely in part because of what happened to him before game 2
Fleury's Bad Omen

Please watch all of those. They are amazing, emotional, and hilarious.

I'll make the song of the day "Hey Hey Hockeytown". I have no idea who wrote or performs it, but it's the Red Wings' theme song.
"Hey Hey Hockeytown" at YouTube

Watch now, die laughing.

This is the funniest unintentionally funny commercial I have ever seen in my life. I saw it on t.v. today and I immediately ran over here to post a link so you could laugh along with me.

Barilla pasta commercial

Song of the day: If this song does not get you pumped up, I don't know what will.
List of Demands - Saul Williams at Youtube

Forget Sarah Palin For a Second, Let's Talk About Me

Alright, so school's back in session meaning that I should get some more posts in, especially since I'm living alone this year. So hopefully I've heard the last complaint about how I don't post enough.

Let me tell you my top 5 complaints about this school-year so far.

5. Now that I'm a junior, I'm starting to feel stupid for being in classes with freshmen. I have two 100-level classes because they were the only two that I could find that fulfilled some requirements. The first day I walked into these classes, it was practically silent because they were full of freshmen that knew nobody and were afraid to talk to their neighbor. I've never had the hatred towards freshmen that others have felt, but my being in the same learning space as them is now starting to make me feel like the creepy old guy. All I need is to have my hair start falling out and to be the guy to stare at a female a little too long after she's finished answering a question in discussion.

4. My TA's are starting to look closer to my age. Maybe I'm having a middle-age crisis of the college variety, but jeez, I feel like these people will be applying for AARP cards at the same time as me.

3. I love Asian people. Please don't get me wrong. But basically my entire floor is made up of people who I can't speak with. I don't know what it is about this building, but it's made up mostly of people that are not from the U.S.

2. The person who lived in my apartment last did not cancel their cable and internet. Now, when I called from my hometown, I was told that I would need to bring a lease in to be able to get service. Well, lucky for me, I had to work in my hometown until Labor Day, meaning that the only time I could get in to Charter would be when school started. So when I got here, I hooked up the internet and cable and it was working. Sweet, free internet and cable. But yesterday the cable went out. Well, today I went to the nearest Charter office... 8 miles away... and set up cable. It's only going to be 6 more days before I have cable. Luckily, I have That 70's Show Seasons 2 and 3 to keep me preoccupied.

1. I miss living with people.

Song of the day: We Looked Like Giants by Death Cab for Cutie. I just really like the line "You'd skip your early classes and we'd learn how our bodies worked". Even though Ben Gibbard seems a bit pretentious, a lot of my bands have ties to Death Cab, especially Chris Walla, and their songs are amazing productions. They are so well arranged, and a lot of that has to do with Chris' production skills and Jason McGerr's knack for picking the perfect drum beat for a given song. I have to give Gibbard credit for writing some amazing lyrics too. Going back to the bands with ties to Death Cab, The Dismemberment Plan were amazing friends with Death Cab, which is interesting considering that their music is quite different. Walla has produced albums for many of my favorite bands, including the Velvet Teen (Out of the Fierce Parade), Tegan & Sara (The Con (which McGerr also played drums on)), and Hot Hot Heat (Make Up the Breakdown and Knock Knock Knock).

We Looked Like Giants by Death Cab for Cutie at Youtube

Wanna See Me Do a One-Eighty in Five Months?

Brett Favre is a douchebag.

Yeah, five months ago I wrote about how the game would never be the same for me without Favre. But at that point I had accepted that this was how it needed to end. Brett could not turn back and decide he wanted to return because his retirement marked a point of no return for the Packers organization. The Packers outright warned him that if he came back, they could not guarantee a spot as the starting quarterback. He retired knowing this full well.

So screw him for expecting the Packers to embrace him with open arms when it turned out he had only cried "Wolf!" like everyone thought he was going to. Rodgers was our starting quarterback from the moment he cried his little eyes out and said it was over. Playbooks were changed, chemistries were explored, plans were made. You don't just turn around and say "Oh, you want back in, poof, it's back to how it was". The Packers drafted two of the top quarterbacks in the draft in Matt Flynn and Bryan Brohm. If Favre were to come back, one of those guys would have been a wasted pick. Anyone who blames Ted Thompson for the fiasco can jump off a cliff.

Brett showed no regard for the Packers organization throughout this whole catastrophe. He represented a distraction as a 5-year old who didn't get his way. He threw a hissy fit because we wouldn't trade him to our competition and he entertained the notion of throwing away 16 years of the Packers catering to his every need in the blink of an eye. His character that was nearly spotless for the entirety of his career is now in shambles. Worse than that, Brett became bigger than the organization itself. Brett's stupid ESPN Bottom Line category to himself just irked the crap out of me. It made it seem as if Brett made the organization. This is why the coverage of our fans annoyed the heck out of me, too. Did anyone notice that they only seemed to pick the mindless, one track-minded people who thought Favre was a god, who seemed to be more interested in Brett's well-being than the club's? I never once saw people with my opinion represented, and I'm sure there are many. They chose the fanatics, the hicks with four teeth in their head and beer bellies painted with "We Want Brett!".

No, maybe Aaron Rodgers won't turn out great. Maybe there will be some years of struggle ahead. But sooner or later, the process has to begin, and the earlier it does, the earlier we get closer to glory. For these reasons, I say "Good Riddance, Brett Farve" as he moves on to the New York Jets and the Green Bay Packers move on without him.

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In happier news, the Toadies are putting out a new album at the end of the month. You may have read my earlier post about how I wish they'd get back together. Well, good news, they did, and I saw them last week. The concert was amazing, and Vaden Todd Lewis' voice (at 42) sounds as good as ever. The dude has a glint in his eye when he sings that makes it clear that he still loves what he does. Thus, I am making the song of the day "Backslider" by the Toadies.

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"Backslider" by the Toadies at YouTube

It's my 7th day in Hawaii

Suckers. Too bad it's my last. But lots has happened.

The night we arrived... we ate McDonald's. $9 for an extra value meal. Insane. But they still have a dollar menu, so if you're sneaky you can get a meal for 4 or 5 bucks. But yeah, that was pretty much all we did the first night except for watch the sunset, which was awesome. The first couple hours you're in Maui you're just in awe of your surroundings if you've never been there. We stayed at the Ka'anapali Beach Club all week, where we have a time share (so, ladies, if you're looking to get to Hawaii, all I'm saying is I will be inheriting said time share).

The next day we went snorkelling in a harbor. There were as many 400-pound sea turtles there as there are squirrels in a park. It was awesome, and if you're lucky you can get up to one before it dives to the bottom and holds its breath for an hour. But if you touch one I guess it's a year in jail. At night, we went to Lahaina, which is your stereotypical surf town. In fact, they did the reality surf show from MTV, "Living Lahaina", there. This will come into play later... Anyway, Lahaina is kind of the State Street of Hawaii. It's shopping central. We ate at "Cheeseburger in Paradise", the restaurant Jimmy Buffett owns. It was real tasty stuff.

Our third day, we took a party boat out to different spots in the Pacific to snorkel. It was lots of fun. There was lots of fun stuff to look at (off and on the boat if you know what i mean), but there were no sea turtles, and other than the fact that you can see fifty feet below you, it wasn't much different from the fish we saw in the fifteen feet below us in the harbor. It was a sweet experience nonetheless.

On the fourth day, we took the road to Hana. This is a crazy experience. The road to Hana takes you through 50 miles of rainforest, where you climb more than 1,000 feet on roads that are 1 1/2 car-widths wide with two-way traffic. According to the shirt I have there are 617 curves and 53 one-car bridges. Often, you take a turn and are staring straight at another car. Hence, you have to take the whole trip at 10-15 mph. But it's definitely the most "Hawaiian" place in Hawaii. Along the way, you see many waterfalls. You can swim in the pools that most of them make. Probably the coolest are the "Seven Pools", which are basically just 7 tiers down the side of a mountain. Supposedly if you swim in all seven you make it to heaven. We only made it through three, so I guess I'm out of luck. Also on the road is Charles Lindbergh's grave, who is actually buried in the same graveyard as monkeys (it's a long story). He's also buried sitting up so he can watch the waves of the ocean.

On the fifth night, we went to a Luau. There were many attractive women in grass skirts (see video). It was beautiful. Additionally, I tried poi and Mahi Mahi. Poi is made from the tarot plant. It tastes like the materialization of air AKA nothing. Mahi Mahi is a large fish that, in my opinion, tastes a bit like string cheese.

On day six, my sisters and I took surfing lessons in Lahaina. We took them from an instructor from Outrageous Surf. His name was Kaye or something, I can't remember. He was a real cool dude, and a good teacher. Anyway, I was talking to him about "Living Lahaina", which was about the surf shop "Royal Hawaiian Surf Academy", which is two blocks away from OS. Apparently, MTV made Outrageous Surf look like the bad guys on the show. However, this is not the case, so if you're ever in Maui take classes from them.

Finally, on day seven, we jet skiied. Tons of fun, especially with Maui as your backdrop. In the afternoon, I finally got to rest and work on my tan. Now I'm getting yelled at that I have to go pack.

The only thing you can listen to on the radio in Hawaii is reggae or Jack Johnson, so even though I've moved on from his music since high school, I'll make the song of the day a Jack Johnson song. It really is necessary to listen to his music to get the whole "Chill Hawaii" experience.

"Sitting, Waiting, Wishing"- Jack Johnson official music video at YouTube

"You Wouldn't Happen to Have a Ladder?"

So, my buddy Mark is in the forces in Qatar, and we still talk over AIM. The other day, we were talking about an incident on Prom night of Junior year. A bunch of us didn't want to go or didn't have dates, so we made a plan to toilet paper 96 houses of people that were at Prom. I mapped it out and divided it into sectors. Well, about six houses in we got caught after someone saw us running away from a house that we saw someone move in. Hilarity ensued. I found the transcript I wrote of the dialogue between us and the cops. Here it is:

"You Wouldn't Happen to Have a Ladder?"

A nine-act play based on a true story
The night of April 14th, 2005
As told by T.J.

ACT 1: AT HOME
TJ: I'm going T.P.ing
Dad: Don't take my car
TJ: OK.

ACT 2: IN TJ'S DAD'S CAR WITH FOUR FRIENDS
Policeman: Get out of the car.
TJ: OK.

ACT 3: ON THE STREET
Policeman: Do you know why I stopped you?
TJ: No.
Policeman: People described five young men getting out of a van fitting the description
of yours, walking up to a house, and running away. Do you know anything about that?
TJ: Haha, yeah. We were scoping it out.
Policeman: Like you were going to burglarize it?
TJ: Haha, no. Like we were going to T.P. it.
Policeman: Alright, is there anything in the car other than TP (He flashes the flashlight into TJ's eyes)
TJ: Like...
Policeman: Drugs or alcohol?
TJ: Ha, no, we were just out to get people while they were at Prom.
Policeman: (Laughing) Are you the guys that couldn't get dates?
TJ: Haha, no, I could have gotten a date. I dunno about the rest.
Policeman: Oh, I gotcha. You didn't want to spend $90 on a girl that wouldn't aprreciate it.
TJ: Exactly.
Policeman: Alright, you can go back to the car.

ACT 4: BACK IN THE CAR
Policeman: Alright, you guys have two choices. 1) I give you all $160 citations. 2) You clean the houses off while we watch.
Matt: Choice 1!!!
TJ: Haha, no. We'll take the other one.

(Policeman starts to walk away)
TJ: Wait! You wouldn't happen to have a ladder, would you?
Policeman: Haha, nope. You're gonna have to use your imagination.

ACT 5: TAKING THE T.P. DOWN OUTSIDE OF JULIA'S HOUSE
(TJ and the police officer watch as Dan Sleider is hoisted into a tree by Matt and Cox. He gets stuck and hangs like a monkey in the tree to get some TP. TJ turns to the officer and says...)
TJ: This is more fun that the actual T.P.ing
Policeman: After we're done, I've got a lawn that needs mowing(Sleider gets down and shows them his wrists, which are all cut up from the branches)

ACT 6: STANDING BY TJ's CAR
Policeman: I still see a strand of TP in the tree.
Sleider: If I try to get it, the branch will break.
Policeman: No license until you get it.
(All the guys go "awwww")
Policeman: I'm just kidding. How many rolls did you guys buy?
Dan Brown: 120.

TJ: Haha, yeah, we had a 96-house plan.
Cox: It's all the cheap kind.
TJ: Yeah, like half-ply.

ACT 7: FLASHBACK TO PICK 'N SAVE
(All five guys walk up to cahier with 120 rolls of T.P.)
Cashier: Going camping?
TJ: Um, no. We're... building a float.
Cashier: You're lying. You're going t.p.ing, aren't you?
TJ: Yeah, but if we get caught, we'll say we got it from Sentry.

ACT 8: STANDING BY TJ'S CAR
TJ: We got it from Sentry. Can we donate the TP to the police station?
Policeman: Ha, no, we're all set. But you guys are free to go.
TJ: So we can go back to T.P.ing now, right?

ACT 9: BACK HOME

Dad: You took my car?! You're grounded for two weeks from car, internet, and cellphone. You're gonna have to gain our trust back... (Fades out)
FIN

Possible Casting
TJ: Jude Law
Matt B.: Jim Carrey
Sleider: Some unknown gymnast that can hang from trees
Dan Brown: Steve Buscemi
Stock: Andy Dick
Cox: Mark Cox

Policeman: Himself. He was like 25 with a fauxhawk. Chicks would go crazy for the guy.

Haylie Duff - Foremost expert in singing and acting

Okay, I've caught some of the search for the next Elle Woods from Legally Blonde on MTV. Whatever. A lot of annoying voices, etc. But you do have to feel terrible for these girls because it seems like Broadway is the most cutthroat business ever.

But this is what's ridiculous: About every ten minutes or so Haylie Duff says something about how hard it is to be an actress and how good singers do this and that and blah, blah, blah. This is hilarious. There is NOTHING hard about Haylie Duff's life. She rode her younger sister's coattails to... Napolean Dynamite. I want to see her sing one of the songs from Legally Blonde. She would get laughed off the stage.

I dunno, that's my random injustice I thought I'd share with the world today. I haven't had a lot to write about lately because I work and sleep, and that's about it. I have listened to music, though, so I'll make the song of the day "Fools" by the Dodos. The Dodos are a two-piece band with a guitar player / lead singer that plays some crazy, intense, difficult riffs all while he sings some crazy rythyms. Fools is the most intense song with an acoustic guitar you will ever hear.

The Dodos' "Fools" at YouTube

Chris Osgood: Most Valuable... Goalie?

Messed up. Listen. I'm ecstatic that my favorite hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings, won their fourth Cup in 11 years. Let me just say that I have been a Wings fan since I was in kindergarten, before they had won their first Cup in 42 years, because my whole mother's side of the family lives in Michigan and are Wings fans. But this is my beef: How did Chris Osgood not get the Conn Smythe trophy as MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

Henrik Zetterberg got it. Zetterberg was tied for first in the playoffs with 27 points, along with "the Next One", Sidney Crosby of the Penguins. He was tied for first in goals with 13, along with Johan Franzen of the Wings. He was third in assists with 14, 7 behind Crosby's 21.

Osgood was passed over in '98 when he was starter for the Wings in favor of Steve Yzerman for Conn Smythe, which was probably the right call. But consider this: Chris Osgood is 35. He got traded away from the Wings to the New York Islanders and St. Louis Blues, teams that clearly had no shot at Stanley Cups. It looked like Osgood was on the downswing. Heck, when he came back to the Wings, and even this year, he was supposed to be Dominik Hasek's backup. But no, he led the regular season in goals against average with a 2.09 goals-against average. When he got to the playoffs he again did not start as the Wings chose to use Hasek. But after game four, with Hasek having lost the last two games as starter, Osgood got the job and never let go. He went 14-4, with 3 shutouts (T-1st), .930 save percentage (3rd), and a 1.55 GAA (1st), .42 ahead of the second place holder. By comparison, in 2006 the Conn Smythe trophy was given to Cam Ward of the Carolina Hurricanes, who had a 2.14 GAA and .920 save percentage.

I have nothing else to say. I think the numbers speak for themselves.

Song of the day: Hospital Beds by Cold War Kids at YouTube

I'm Gonna Be a History Geek for a Second

Anyone who took a high school history class knows the Soviet Union sustained the worst death toll in World War II (about 23 million total). But can you tell me who sustained the second most?
I bet more than half of the U.S. population didn't even know that China was an Ally. 20 million Chinese died in World War II. Why the heck don't we learn this stuff in high school? The bottom line is that, though we believe we are the land of the free, one of the most accepting and cultured countries in the world, our high school history cirriculums are western-focused. Where are the primary sources from Chinese civilians talking about the death all around them? It just confuses me. Is non-Western history not important? We trace Soviet progression into Communism but not Chinese. It just blows my mind.

Let's face it. White history is still the history of public schools. Sure, we throw in some black history. But so-called "Global Studies" are usually a look at Europe, or the events that effected the United States. We may talk about Japan, but only because they were a major player against us in World War II. We may talk about the Soviet Union, but that's only because they we our opponents in the Cold War. Our education system still looks at the world as it affects us. We disregard Africa because we look at it as a tribal continent that doesn't have a lot of interaction with the United States. We look at the east and see cultures that are far different than ours, and that alarms us. For these reasons, we choose not to explore and discuss them, and that's just sad. 20 million lives is an insane number, whether they are Europeans or not. The value of a life should not change based on the culture from which it came from.

Did the Foo Fighters Kill Grunge?

This is something that's been bothering me for a long time.

Basically, I've been home since Tuesday because I had early exams. The majority of my friends are still in school so I've been playing a lot of video games and listening to music. Well, I am currently what is known as "broke", or something like it, so I haven't gotten new music for a month or so. Well, except for the new Foo Fighters album that I bummed off someone else because I didn't think it was worth buying, but that doesn't really count because I don't see myself listening to it. The last two albums have had no character whatsoever, with the exception of the song "The Pretender". I can actually tolerate that song, but songs like "Best of You" and "Long Road to Ruin" are death. I will not even honor them with links. The Foo Fighters have been reduced to watered-down "hard rock" that really has no traceable structure and is boring as heck. It kills me because the Foo Fighters were the second band that I was ever obsessed with (after Creed, so really I should say that the Foo Fighters were my first favorite good band). But obtaining the album was enough to thrust me into nostalgic stage of listening to the first four Foo Fighters albums. Even then, though, you can trace a downward spiral of quality.

This spiral has led me to ask myself the same question for years; Did the Foo Fighters, namely Dave Grohl, kill grunge music? I feel terrible thinking that because I like the guy. However, after Kurt Cobain died, and Dave Grohl formed the Foo Fighters, the movement was really placed on Dave's back. As the Foo moved out of their grungy ways from their first album and into the ballads and "hard rock" songs, did the crowd move along with it, or did they become disgusted with the way it was going and move on to other things? OR did Cobain's death signify that the style was dead with him, or leave grunge fans thinking that no one could ever do it better? I was six when the guy died, so I really can't use myself as an example to answer these questions. I knew Wierd Al's "Smells Like Nirvana" before I knew "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

But grunge's legacy lives on in the crappy post-grunge bands like Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd and Seether (again, screw you, no links), who do their best to sound like Kurt Cobain. This is why I fret over the Foo Fighters. They could have taken it in a respectable direction. Instead, one of the most influential bands ever, the "Beatles of the 90's" now lives on in "How You Remind Me" (please do watch that link, because it helps my argument).

I'll make the song of the day a Foo Fighters song, which seems to be inconsistant with my rant, but my qualm is with their new music, not the early stuff. "Everlong" is one of my favorite songs of all-time. So "Everlong" it is.

"Everlong" by the Foo Fighters at YouTube.

What I REALLY Learned from Exams

Let's be honest. Exams are a time where we do hardcore studying for 48 hours or so, throw it down on paper, and then forget what we learned. At least that's the way it is for a lot of history classes. I'm sure engineers have to remember things as they go along, and blah blah blah, but ask me how much I remember from Chinese History last year. It's hard to remember names with 3 X's and 5 U's in them.

Here is what I really learned over exams:

-I'm going to warn you ahead of time that this is going to be a run-on sentence: When a TA gives you a review with 10 essay questions on it and says five will be on the exam, two of which you have to answer, and then he gives you the five essays that he can "almost guarantee" will be on the test, it is not safe, in fact, to only study three of those essays. This is what I did and only one of my essays made it onto the exam. With it being a cumulative exam, I had absolutely no idea what the answers to the four remaining essays were. I wrote one Bluebook page on the one I finally picked would do the most damage, and then I had nothing left. So this is what I wrote: "I'll be honest, I studied three of the essays you said would probably be on the exam, and that backfired. So I will conclude my essay by saying 'Have a Great Summer', and here's a picture of a missile blowing up my grade." The grade was depicted by a cartoon A with a face screaming "Noooo! But the first essay was so good! How could this happen?!"

-Listen to music you are very familiar with while you study. If you listen to music you've just purchased, you get distracted far too easily, especially if you're like me. I pick apart music and analyze the crap out of every aspect, so my first 20 listens or so I pay attention. Additionally, I do a lot of studying at my computer, and when I start listening to a new band I do more research than the FBI. I need to know how many albums they have, how old are their members, what are their grandma's names, etc. It's even bad if you listen to music that you haven't listen to for a long time, like I did with Funeral for a Friend this weekend. I wanted to know if they were putting out an album soon, and sure enough they are. This led me to studio videos, articles, etc. Don't throw that stuff in front of me or I won't be able to stop. So usually when I study, I go with one of my favorite bands, like Radiohead or the Velvet Teen, or whatever I've been listening to over and over again for the last four weeks.

-E-mail your TA's. A lot. It makes it look like you care a lot. Bonus points if you actually do. It wasn't my intention to, but I also impressed them by handing in take-home exams the day after I got them. This was more convenience than initiative, as I had exams on Sunday and Tuesday, and the take-homes were due Monday and Tuesday.

- Don't moon your roommate as you walk out the door on the way to the library. You might break your fly button and have to use a safety pin to keep your pants together.

I guess I'll leave you with a song by Funeral for a Friend since I mentioned them earlier. FFAF are a bunch of Welsh guys, who have the greatest accents ever in real life. But if you heard them, you'd think they were an American band because they don't have a UK feel. They're one of the few bands from my emo/screamo phase that I still enjoy listening to because Matt Davies has a pure, beautiful voice, which contrasts with the moving, intimidating guitars beautifully. It's not whiny at all like other emo bands, and by their third album they had matured a lot over the years, although they've stated that with the new album they are going to bring it back to more complicated riffs and some harsh vocals, like their earlier albums. Their last album was made entirely without any screaming, which is done by their drummer, Ryan Richards. Apparently, this is not going to be the case for the new album. I had a scare two days ago, though, because Wikipedia suddenly said that Matt Davies had left the band. When I got to their Myspace people were already freaking out all over their wall, as they are a huge band in the UK, somehow with relatively unknown status in the U.S. Well, as Wikipedia is fan-edited, my suspicions that it was contrived were confirmed when Gareth posted that it was something someone made up. It hadn't made sense to me since they had just announced that they were filming the video for the new single on May 17th. Anyway, I'll leave you with two songs, because I want to show you the something from all three of their albums. I feel like Matt's voice really matures between the second and third albums. They're in chronological order.

"Juneau" by FFAF at YouTube
"Streetcar" by FFAF at YouTube
"Great Wide Open" by FFAF

Poor commercial directors

The most unappreciated job in show business. Do they get a credit at the end of each commercial? I think not. Can you name a single commercial director? No. Who are the genius' behind the Berries 'n Cream Starburst commercial, or the Robert Goulet Emerald Nuts commercial? We may never know. Oh, the lack of fulfillment they must feel. In this coming election, I will pledge my support to whatever candidate takes up this issue and finally frees the commercial director from the chains of despair that they have endured for over 75 years (don't forget about radio commercials).

College Comic Strips: An Opportunity for the Sucky to Be Published

Listen, I love the Daily Cardinal and the Badger Herald. I even love the comics as I read them everyday. But there's GOT to be some requirement for people to be allowed to make comic strips for these papers. Basically, I'm pretty sure they're so eager to fill a page that they don't care who draws for them.

My first grievance as against the comic strip "The Crackles". There is no originality to this strip. First of all, they are pacman-type characters (and believe me, he tries to milk the jokes out of the resemblance, as if it's coincidental) that just stand around and talk. Fine. Whatever. Kevin Smith makes his living by making movies where people just stand around and talk. It's just got to be funny. But the guy clearly can't draw. So you would think that he would make up for it by being funny. Well, I submit to you this comic. Haha, it's a hippo. Wait what's that, the hippo's hungry? Oh, I get it! Hungry, hungry hippos.

Let's just review. The usual requirements for comic strips: Good drawings, good story-lines, usually funny. Crackles? 0 for 3.

But the crappy comics aren't limited to the Daily Cardinal (see also "Square and Cone". I can't find a good link right now, but I'll find one.) With the Badger Herald, we have Milk. Here is an example. The thing I hate about comic strips is for some reason, about half of them like to talk about World of Warcraft, and other RPG's. This girl is clearly among that demographic. The thing is, most of her comic strips nobody gets unless they play them! There are a couple of other comic strips like this, but the one's like Yourmometer and C'est La Mort are occasionally funny and are not limited to that subject.

So many of you would say, get out there and do it yourself if you could do better. And to be honest, I've thought about it. But then I realized... I AM LAZY. It would be tons of fun, don't get me wrong. But to make them to my standards, it would take a lot of time. I would not be happy putting forth some of the stuff these people are doing.

But I do have to admit there are some very funny comics in the papers. Everyone loves and raves about White Bread and Toast, but I think it's on and off, and it mostly does the one frame with different dialogue thing. The one comic strip I could see getting national syndication is Green Planet. The drawer's talents are not limited at all, and the plot lines are hilarious. And although the subject matter of many comic strips, like Rehablilitating Mr. Wiggles, is funny because it is inappropriate and could never be put in a national paper, Green Planet's is for the most part just clean, witty humor.

So that's it. I was just taking a dump and reading the papers and I got frustrated with some of the comics, so I thought I'd rant. And my whole weekend was spent reading a book on the role honor played in the foundation of the U.S. and writing a 10-page paper on the subject, so I needed a stress reliever.

I thought I'd go with an animated music video for the song of the day. So here's my favorite song ever, Paranoid Android by Radiohead.

Paranoid Android at Youtube

Minus the Bear Concert an Intense Ride

Minus the Bear encountered a bunch of problems at their concert in Madison on Thursday. One band got pushed out of the lineup by the sponsors. Then, Portugal the Man, who actually drew a significant chunk of the crowd, had to pull out because their van broke down in Chicago. Thus, the people that traveled showed up for an 8:00 show that got pushed back to 9:30 due to unforeseen circumstances.

Club 770 is literally a cafeteria by day. It's placed in Union South and has a capacity of like 450. Well, I'm pretty sure they overflowed this place because there was absolutely no room, but due to our early arrival my friend Jenny and I were able to get front row. Worse than that, there were kids that were clearly on acid or something of that nature jumping around and into people, even before Minus the Bear was on and the Big Sleep had the stage. There was a drunk girl that I couldn't shake that kept playing drums on my back and trying to get me to dance crazily (Her name was Regina). Jenny found this hilarious, and due to my extremely muscular back I was able to tolerate it.

Once the Big Sleep was off, everyone tried to rush to the front. It was basically like trying playing Red Rover for an hour-and-a-half. I am a small guy of 5'6" but I was not letting anyone through. Jenny, on the other hand, got pushed out. She was gone before I knew it, something I felt terrible about. She ended up watching the show from the side. The reality was, I could not have gotten out if I tried, so we kept communications by text message. The entire concert was spent with the entire weight of the crowd pushing against the front row, causing them to be constantly bent over onto the stage that was only a foot-and-a-half off the ground. It was also really tiny and I'm amazed they got five members on it. It was like clowns in a clown car.

During the second song, probably over the previously mentioned pushing, a fight broke out about 5 feet to my right. Cory, the bassist, jumped out. He had clearly been uneasy about the pushing right off the bat. It's funny, because last year at the Lussier Teen Center, Cory had to keep kicking kids off that ran onto stage. Anyway, Cory jumped out, then Jake, the lead singer, also jumped out to stop it. There was no security, so I guess they felt it was their job, and I guess no one would have been able to see it from the back, so really they were the only authority figures to do it.

The rest of the concert was amazing. They played The Fix (link to the Youtube video of them playing it at the concert), which is my favorite song of theirs, and they played a bunch of songs off the new album. In fact... you can see the entire setlist because with two songs left I asked Cory for it after the concert. At first I didn't think he heard me, but right as the song was starting he bent over and handed it to me. Before the last song I showed him it in case he forgot what the last song was and he laughed. Encores were "Fulfill the Dream" and "Absinthe Party at the Honey Warehouse".

Overall it was an amazing concert. I hope they still come back considering the problems they've had their last two concerts out here. I wonder how they feel about playing small venues like this when they could easily fill larger ones.

I'll make the song of the day Knights, because it has a sweet music video and is the best song off of Minus the Bear's new album, Planet of Ice.


"Knights" by Minus the Bear at YouTube



Oh, and I made it in a couple of pictures. I can be seen in one on Mixtapes|Heartbreaks (although Cory's blocking out my face), and there's this one that the writer of that blog sent to me. Thanks Stacey!

Also, the top picture looks kind of cruddy because I didn't take any pictures with the flash on. I didn't want to blind them because I was literally that close.

4/20 is on a Sunday this year...

... This really poses a conundrum for Christian pot-smokers. Do you observe the Sabbath or smoke your brains out?!?!?! Is Communion good munchies-food?

Bjork - Grade A Pimp

Yeah, I said it. The lady has balls. Declare Independence is a fantastic song, and she's been using it for inspirational purposes. She used it in a couple concerts to praise Kosovo for their new Constitution in Tokyo, a move that kept her from being allowed to play her show in Serbia. But this one takes the cake. In China, during the song she clearly says "Tibet, Tibet" on three different occasions. Just awesome.

YouTube video of Bjork's "Tibet, Tibet" version of "Declare Independence" in China

About the Name Change

I'm distancing myself from the "straightedge" name. Let me tell you why. For a while I've heard of the militant movement with the straightedge label. Tonight I watched a documentary on National Geographic (narrated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth). Apparently this militant movement has grown over the years as a social-cleansing type movement. I'd known about it, but thought it was relatively uncommon. Turns out it's pretty much evolved into gangs all over the country. Basically, I only ever related to the straightedge ideals of abstaining from drugs and alcohol. I never listened to the "straightedge" music or even contacted another "straightedge". There is a sect of the movement called "posi's" (for positive livestyle) that do peacefully pursue a clean life. However, the posi's have been overtaken by the militant movement in the media. I am esentially a pacifist, so I would never condone any of this activity. Thus, I will no longer identify myself as a straightedge.

"Feeding Milk to Chickens" is something I came up with one day in class that has personal meaning to me, but I'll let you interpret however you'd like.

Here's a picture of a smashed guitar I found on my way to class today.

Off the Schneid

I went to the Brewers game yesterday. Be jealous. There is nothing like a baseball game. I said to Grant as we were walking up to the stadium, "I feel like I'm going to Six Flags." A baseball game IS the grown man's theme park. It has its distinct smell, distinct noises, distinct feeling.

I smelled somebody grilling about 3 weeks back in Madison and i had an urge to run the 70 miles to Milwaukee and pick up a Smoky Joe along the way. When we got into the place, though, we were disappointed to see that hot dogs had risen to $4.50. Insane. Right then, I said "We're coming to dollar hot dog day." Four hours later, we had ordered tickets to one of those games.

We ended up sitting at the end of one of three rows occupied by someone's 30th birthday group. Naturally, the friends of this guy were trashed. Well, one ended up sweating profusely. Not cuz he was fat. No, cuz he was plastered. The guy looked like death, and naturally, his friends found it funny. His girlfriend came down from the two rows above his and tried to help him out. Well, the dead guy suddenly came to life when he grabbed an empty large cup in two milliseconds flat and filled it about halfway with his own personal fluids. Naturally, rather than help him to the bathroom, his friends were merely blurs as they fled their seats for the aisles. They were more worried about their beer than their friend who quite possibly had alcohol poisoning. Basically, the rows around them cleared out too because they were disgusted by the amount of sweat and puke on the floor.

Me and Grant? Not disgusted at all. I labelled the man "Steve Barfman" This was a sign of the baseball season starting. It was highly amusing. This guy was apparently 32 years old and wasted at one o'clock in the afternoon. There's a college saying: "Enjoy it now, because after college it's called alcoholism."

At around the sixth or seventh, two guys jumped onto the field and ran from the third baseline towards the bullpen. I've never seen so many security guards on the field. They were chasing from behind, from the sides, from everywhere. But the ones that caught them came flying out of the bullpen. One guy got the classic spear from the guards, where it looked like Brian Urlacher taking out Mother Theresa. But the second guy didn't get caught from behind. No, he tried to break through a line of the guards that had come from the bullpen. Well, he tried doing this by bowling over one of the guards. This guy would have none of it, and he actually threw a haymaker at the guy before he had the chance. Yes, this guy got punched. Hard. And it was beautiful.

The baseball was beautiful, too. Ryan Braun's my favorite player (I used the second pick in my fantasy draft to get him even though he was ranked about 17 in the league). The guy finally got off the schneid on home runs. It wasn't a ball that barely cleared the fence like Kapler hit later in the day, it was a rocket. Parra had a no-hitter through five. We ended up winning 5-4. Gagne (pictured) was lights out in this save opportunity.

Last year, the Brewers were 8-1 with me in attendence. I was hoping the Crew would give me free tickets as a good luck charm, but this has not been the case. Nevertheless, I couldn't have asked for a better game to start out the season with.

Rather than have a song of the day today, I have to make an album of the day. I have been a fan of Colour Revolt for a couple years now. Up until April fools day, they only had an EP of 6 songs to listen to. Although this EP is one of my most prized posessions, I longed for more. Well, I got it last Monday at 12:01 am, as I downloaded their new CD "Plunder, Beg, and Curse" off of iTunes. In five days I've listened to this album 21 times. These guys are going to make a big name for themselves in the months to come. They are a mix of Modest Mouse, Brand New, Minus the Bear, and an old blues musician. Jesse Coppenbarger has one of the best voices in music. The guy is so young, but he's got such a booming voice for such a scrawny body. They have three guitarists, but as so many reviewers have written before, they are not obnoxious at all and are each necessary to make the music what it is. Check out their myspace and see for yourself.

Colour Revolt's Myspace

By the way, Geoff Jenkins looks weird in red, it's weird that our catcher can run faster than a snail, and it's great that the Cubs are 2-3.

Pictures of the Brewers game will be put up when I get back to Madison.