Incredible Fireworks Crotch Fail

Oh man, this is great, just in time for the holiday!




via the consistently incredible Sportress of Blogitude [SoB]

Sixty Symbols (of Physics & Astronomy)

Tonight I got one of the best assignments I've so far received writing for Tilzy.tv (My review is now up here); I got turned onto Sixty Symbols. A project by Brady Haran, filmmaker-in-residence at Nottingham Science City, Sixty Symbols is a series of short primers that explain the significance of some of the most important concepts in physics and astronomy. Let me tell you it's absolutely fascinating and completely brilliant. At the moment I've only had the time to watch a few of these (and there are still more being produced), but I'll be spending an inordinate amount of my upcoming free time checking the rest out.

To get a taste watch this one one Jupiter:

Kids In The Hall - Potato Salad

I've been watching the NHL Playoffs on some feed from Canada. 1) I love that the commentators are so polite with one another; they're very agreeable (one of them is even named "Gord"!). 2) Listening to them and then seeing the Canadian commercials has made me nostalgic for my formative years:

Powell To The People!

Yesterday I had the good—and random—fortune of meeting actor Keith Powell when he came into my store looking for an Edward Albee play (I forget which one now). You may recognize him from 30 Rock and/or Law & Order and/or some commercials, but I recognized him because I wrote the review of his hilarious web series Keith Powell Directs A Play for my Tilzy.tv gig.

Normally I don't try to chat up the celebrities that come into the bookstore, but since I had a "personal connection" I felt it was a no-brainer. He seemed genuinely enthused that I had liked his little pet project (and probably also that I recognized him) and told me that he's waiting to hear back about financing for a possible second season of KPDAP. It was one of those "Hey, people can be really cool!" moments that kinda made my day. In return I thought I'd try to spread the word about Mr. Powell's talents, so go check out his website, www.PowelltothePeople.net, where you can find a bunch of shorts he's done. In the meantime, get started on KPDAP right here with the first episode:

I'm An INTRONAUT Fanboy!

This weekend I became calendrically older and, thus, had to drink excessively, which I'm using as my excuse for not posting. But the real reason for my lack of anything lately has mostly been because I've been listening to the same 20 songs over and over again. (I also read Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake which was incredible, but as I have the galley of her fall release, Year of the Flood on the way, a future post will be dedicated exclusively to that...).

For some folk listening to the same fists-full of songs is commonplace. Not for yours truly, as I, to keep from "overdoing it", am chronically compulsed to listen to something different (not necessarily new) every couple days. The last two months have been completely different, however, as I have listened to at least 1 Intronaut song per day. I've never done this before, as far as I can recall, even when I had my first musical crush on Dinosaur Jr when I was 13.

I first saw Intronaut in 2006 when they played Rocky's (or Rockstar or "the mermaid bar" or whatever name of the week it had at the time) here in Brooklyn with Mouth of the Architect and a few other bands. For whatever reason I kinda forgot about them until late last summer, just about the time Prehistoricisms came out. Of course, I was unaware and didn't hear that album until January, but by that time had completely digested the Null and Void eps and chewed the cud several times over.

This past weekend, for my birthday, they came through NYC opening for Mastodon alongside Kylesa, though I wasn't there because Mastodon's new album is garbage and a few of us stubbornly refused to get tickets until it was too late. So I missed out on seeing them. Anyway, hopefully they'll be back around this way and I can fully appreciate their extraordinary aurallingus skills live. Maybe someone will make a new music video for one of their songs, say..."The Cavernous Den of Shame". That song is awesome. Here's one for "Australopithecus" done by Sera Timms. It would appear she took filmmaking lessons from Adam Jones (of Tool, not "Pacman" Jones).

Bernie "Pretty" Purdie - 16th note shuffle

Thanks to Chris for this; it'll put a little air in yr high-hat...

Rep. Alcee Hastings Seems Like A Cool Guy

This is awesome. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fl.) reads a bunch of...well, just watch, it's great.



I highly recommend watching the other video in the original post, too. [kissingsuzykolber]

Hammer, Zubaz & Legititude!

Yeah, Yeah, it's been waaaaay to long between posts here, but I've been busy and also (pat on back forthcoming) I got into the New School's creative writing program. Hooray for me! That doesn't justify the non-posting, but I was both excited and not thinking of here.

Anyway, per my usual morning routine I checked out Deadspin this morning to find this post on Hammer's "2 Legit 2 Quit" video. InGameNow put together the lineup of then-stars featured in the video to see how "legit" Hammer's picks were back in 1991. Looks like Hammer was a better judge of ability than of finances (or religious philosophies). As the proud owner of an authentic MC Hammer tshirt (that I wear as regularly as it's washed, which is often) and former youthful owner of several pairs of Zubaz brand pantaloons (apparently they still make these...frightening!), my interest was immediately piqued and my blogmuse (bluse?) beckoned.

What do we find here? Mostly Bay Area athletes and a couple random folks like "Dush" Clemens, Neon Deion and both the Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons cheerleaders. Hammer also tossed a bone to us white dudes with the Chris Mullin cameo, an awesome pick since I used to rock Mullin's Golden State #17 jersey through most of middle school (along with various flannels that I still possess).

Watch the vid and go check out the Legitness rankings at InGameNow.

New Converge Track

In my roundup of the Converge/Genghis Tron show from last Friday I mentioned that Converge played two new tracks from their upcoming album. Turns out Metal Injection filmed the set and will be posting it in installments, which is pretty rad. Here's one of them, head over there to check out the rest of the set as they get it up (tee hee)...

Homo Evolutis

This talk is beyond fascinating; the implications of Enriquez's predictions are sure to cause a minor tempest in the coming months and years. Also, he has nearly the same voice as Thomas Lennon, which is mildly disorienting.

Inside Steve's Mind

I'm watching this for my Tilzy.tv gig, so I won't be writing about it here, suffice to say it may be the funniest thing I've ever seen:

Enjoy Your Friday

I have to admit Waffle House is pretty stellar, but this is the most redneck wedding I've ever seen.

Something From LA Worth Paying Attention To...

As far as I'm concerned, and I've never been there, Los Angeles is a cesspool of filth flarn filth. However, that doesn't preclude a few beautiful flowers rising out of the poop from time to time. For anyone who lives out there, there are a couple comedy groups worth paying some mind...

Chad, Matt & Rob (and Jonah, too)

I wrote about these guys about a month ago for Tilzy.tv and thought their stuff was great. Unfortunately it was my first article for that site and pretty much a piece of turd. So my apologies, fellas, for being a shitty writer. Anyway, the other night I went back and watched some of the shorts that I hadn't had a chance to view. Great stuff.

Keep an eye on them because, according to Rob, they're working on another interactive feature, a tv pilot and maybe more episodes of The Alibuys (which is hysterical). I'm excited, you should be as well.



Convoy Improv

Alright, so this long-form improv trio happen to be good friends of mine from college. They're also fucking improv champions. How good are they? Well they won the UCB cagematch 44 times in a row. If they had continued their streak they would have broken a little-known physical law established Richard Feynman (Fernie gets his science wrong here) which would have caused the trio to implode immediately upon their 45th victory.

Anyone who lives in LA needs to go see these guys so you can say you knew about them before they blow up (possibly literally) to become supergiants (although they will inevitably become white dwarf stars).


Luckily for anyone reading this (especially Mr. Alex Berg, the blonde one above) I'm not at home or else I would definitely post a picture of Berg's nuts on the internet (yes, I do have one, it's awful). But I'll save that for any future blackmail purposes. WATCH YOUR BACK, BLONDIE!

You Can't Eat This Much Precociousness!

Liam interrupted an ongoing email discussion about the current situation in Gaza with a link to this youngster. Not only can this kid cook (what is he, like 5?!), but I'm sure he'd figure out a way to mediate a cease-fire and broker peace between Israel & Palestine while telling a story about cookies.

Take it away, Julian...

Comments on the Society of the "Best Of..." (Kind of)

Late December is the time of year when people who write about things make up lists about the best things (or worst) things they had to write about for the previous 360 days. I'm not really going to do that because that's not something I enjoy doing. However, I am going to write about a few things I missed over the course of the year.

This mostly refers to music, as I try to keep up, but even people who make that their full-time addiction do it with great difficulty. For a great compendium of this year in metal, go check out Brandon Stosuy's "Show No Mercy" column at Pitchfork. I don't generally follow that site, but SNM is worth keeping tabs on (in this "Best of '08" he got some lists from players themselves). What follows are some of the things that either completely passed right by my broken radar or things I didn't get to say enough about earlier in the year.

Krallice. Local Brooklyn supergroup makes epic "transcendental" black metal. It has been noted elsewhere that American black metal bands tend to be much more experimental with their compositions. There's a good dose of truth to this, as they're not bogged down with the need to be "trve" or "cvlt" in a manner that hinders European outfits. I was fortunate enough to see these guys at Silent Barn in April and it was, literally, jaw-dropping. The album, which I only recently got my hands on, has rightfully made a bunch of "Best of '09" lists and is phenomenally beyond words. Here's video of them from September, when they played an empty lot in Bushwick right around the corner from my apartment (while I was at work, of course).



Nachtmystium. Speaking of American black metal, I never got around to doing a proper review when Assassins came out earlier this year. I began one and apparently forgot to finish, because I just found the unfinished and unpublished post while looking for my own link. Mea maxima culpa. When I heard Instinct:Decay I thought that was progressive for the genre, but for sheer out-of-the-box thinking their latest album surpasses that effort by quite a margin. Assassins makes no bones about being a Pink Floyd-inspired work where, in a few tracks those psychedelic overtones lead toward Kylesa territory: sludgy yet vaguely anthemic. In the final reckoning the Chicagoans produced one of the most intruiging albums I've (and others) heard in quite a while.


Enslaved. While my head was focused on books (where it's spent a great deal of the latter part of this year), Norwegian viking-prog-metal geniuses Enslaved put out Vertebrae. Very little of what these guys do nowadays could be even remotely considered "black metal" other than some vocal passages. But as far as being a progressive metal powerhouse is concerned, few outfits can match their combination of awe-inspiring harmonic beauty and intricate rhythmic changes with sheer head-banging rockness. Generally when people say a band "is maturing as songwriters" said band is just getting old and lame. Instead, Enslaved are perfecting the methods mastered by Unwound, though hopefully they continue to make amazing albums into the forseeable future. Vertebrae hasn't made the same immediate impact on me that Ruun did, but it's still a new listen and my affection is growing by the listen.


Torche. I don't think I need to say much more than what I already said here. Now you can use the time you would have spent reading to watch this live video of them that happened to be shot on my birthday. And then watch more.



Mouth of the Architect. I didn't realize it until this past week, but MOTA's album Quietly was released this year. When I got my hands on it a couple months ago I thought, for whatever reason, that it had come out last year. Not realizing how recent and relevant it was I failed to write up a proper review. These Ohioans have taken the path I wish Isis would have taken after Oceanic and may have just claimed the heavy-ambient-metal genre all for themselves (Pelican is crap and can suck it). This band is criminally underknown and deserve far more attention than I've seen them receive.


Melvins. In the grand scheme of things, as awesome as Nude With Boots is, it may not stack up as one of the best albums of the year. Then again, just because it failed to make most lists doesn't mean it wasn't awesome. I've realized lately that a good number of noteworthy albums were released this year, more than I had initially remembered. Then again, I had noted in my review Buzz's lament that this album would be overlooked as just another great Melvins record. I fear his take was all too prescient. Regardless, the ferocious 1-2 of Melvins/Big Business live continued to demolish all comers, so there's that at least.


So that's my shortlist of awesome things that happened in 2008. Here are a few other notables worth remembering:

• Dinosaur Jr live. I finally got to see my favorite band.
• At The Gates reunion tour. Incredible.
• Metallica released a pretty good album and it only took 20 years.
• Made Out Of Babies released The Ruiner which was a damn fine album.

Now I have a mission to go get a bunch of new releases that I've yet to hear and have a listening party with myself. These bands also released new stuff in 2008: Jesu, Boris, Earth, Harvey Milk, Mogwai, Electric Wizard, and Meshuggah (which most everyone says is awesome).

Here's to everyone that put out great music in 2008 and hoping for an even better crop in 2009 (Mastodon, I'm looking at you).

Happy New Year, everyone!

Prepare To Shatter Your Brain

If any readers out there doubt the veracity of the claims that Japanese aquifers have been spiked with hallucinogens, please watch the following video. I'd like for anybody to come up with a plausible explanation for this:



I still can't believe what I just watched. That drummer is so good, too. What? Why? Huh?

If I Had An Oscar Vote...

The winner, hands down.





(Incidentally, this video can also be used to further demonstrate the idiocy of creationism.)

Cellphone Popcorn

Update: I posted this video without conducting due dilligence. Apparently what follows was busted on Mythbusters at some point and does not work. Now I want to know how they staged these videos...

* * * * *
My dad just sent me this and it's awesome. Know how much radiation your phone gives off when it rings? Well, enough so that...aw just watch the video...

Pop Corn téléphone portable micro-ondes
by sassiere

Luckily I keep my cellphone away from corn and in my pocket next to my...oh...

I Was Hungover Today So Just Hold Your Horses

Tomorrow when I'm at work I'll write up a little thing about Friday's show, but for now you can just content yourself with this video I stumbled upon. Ever wonder what J and Uma Thurman talked about when they dated in high school? I do, though I'm sure Uma did most of the talking.

Katie Couric v. Sarah Palin

I don't watch the evening news on television, nor did I ever watch the Today show when Ms. Couric was on that, so my ability to compare interview styles and/or toughness are lacking here. But let's face it, no matter how Couric stands up, the real focus here is on Sarah Palin.

She's had a couple weeks since that Charles Gibson interview to hunker down and cram on policy issues, though clearly whatever she studied for wasn't on this "test". Frankly, this is just embarrassing and she's gonna get her ass handed to her when she finally debates "Screamin' Joe" Biden. Four years of McCain/Palin is stacking up to be even worse than what we have going on now. Hear that? WORSE!

This interview is cringeworthy and anyone who seriously believes this woman is qualified to run anything needs their head examined. To paraphrase my man Dennis Kucinich: WAKE THE FUCK UP AMERICA!