Snow Contest Winner! or Will Anyone Believe Me? Please? With nobody picking the first day of snow, November 22nd while we were home, I had the next closest date by picking 11/23. I'm pretty sure you can't change the date in the comment area, so suck on that, unbelievers. Stay warm and stay young.
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The 2007 HMA Nominations or Right On Time, As Always Going in to this year, I didn't expect these awards to be so difficult. Then I discovered a few thousand new bands and things got hairy. It can't be avoided any longer - the mainstream and indie "Song/Album of the Year" categories have to diverge. The line is fine in some cases; don't leave irritating messages about how you think Wilco should be considered mainstream: these decisions are final. I'm also thinking about an additional modification to the normal award format, so when the awards arrive during the first week of January, brace yourselves. One further note: these are all fantastic achievements in their respective media formats. I'd encourage all of you to check out each of them Song of the Year [Mainstream] All U Can Eat ~ Ben Folds Kiwi ~ Maroon 5 Atlantic ~ Keane The Little Things Give You Away ~ Linkin Park Reckoner ~ Radiohead Song of the Year [Indie] Culling of the Fold ~ The Decembe...
2007 Snow Contest or This Should Have Been Posted Sooner Some of you might have already seen snow this year. I noticed that northeastern Indiana received some flurries yesterday morning. But remember: you're aiming to pick the day on which it first snows here in Indianapolis. Get in your votes - early voters get best pick of the days! Leave your pick in the comment box.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know or No, Seriously, Tell Me I really shouldn't complain much when a professor in graduate school goes to great lengths to prove exceptionally easy facts. The catch to this scenario is that it rarely ever happens: there are no exceptionally easy facts in any graduate math course. Anyone who has spoken to me of grad school knows that I pull my hair out over some of the crazy things that these people do at the chalkboard (and then expect us to follow with smiles and nods). But last week was different. Maybe the cold snap got to my analysis professor's brain. It didn't have much hair to push through, so I really believe this to be the cause of the mind-numbing stupidity that he vomited onto our impressionable young minds. In essence, he proved 1 + 1 = 2. At first I was stunned. What could I make of this fact? What sort of history-changing applications could I find for this incredible breakthrough? Would solving this problem at math cockt...
The LP4 Curse or If Anyone Says 2009, I'll Die From a bulletin that was sent to Elbow's friends over MySpace (which subsequently got to me through the Powderblue fansite's message boards): dear chaps in the last two years: 2500 hours spent writing and recording. 2500 sandwiches eaten 500 bottles of milk 8000 brews 20,000 cigarettes smoked 2.3 metres of fingernails grown 21 feet of hair 21000 miles commuted 3000 of them on foot 90000 stairs climbed to make 55 minutes of music. as of 22:17 tonight 24th sept 07 album 4 is complete but untitled release date 2008 thank you for your patience and see you very soon. love elbow x Just today, I caught this note from one of the band members of Doves. It's less promising: Hi all So we've been hauled up 4 some time in the studio . We've done 8 tracks We will be recording another 8 tracks so we still have some way to go .Again thanks for all your words of encouragement it means a lot to us . When we finish this album and ent...
Governor Daniels, What The Fuck , Man? or Not My Man From WNDU.com: Governor Mitch Daniels told us on Tuesday that he still believes Indiana did the right thing in approving the permit. “The city of Chicago puts more ammonia in the water than BP would. The city of Detroit puts more ammonia in the Great Lakes than BP would, the city of Saginaw, Wisconsin, so I really think that its important to try to deal with the facts and the science here, and maybe that can come starting at tomorrow’s hearing,” said Governor Daniels. Look, your way of looking at this is completely backwards. What you're saying is equivalent to saying it is okay to "merely" shoot someone in the shoulder if someone else is shooting that person in the face. Why do we even have to be compared to other states? Be an example instead of a moron - force BP to lower their toxic output. Be the cleanest state in the Great Lakes. Also, either your grasp of geography or English leaves much to be desired. Ther...
The Importance of Being An Earnest Re-Reader or Under the Microscope First, let me pimp Stephen R. Donaldson. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant struck a deep chord with me in high school, and they remain one of the most challenging set of books I've ever read - both in terms of vocabulary and in terms of what the characters endure. They're not for the faint of heart (or the light of dictionary), but they are well worth the effort. It also should be noted that they are a far cry from the generally formulaic fantasy books that tout men that look like Fabio in leather armor on their covers; this is a few steps away from the norm. * Now to the point. Have you ever thought about the things in life that have defined your character, your attitudes, and your general frame of mind? Just tonight, someone was drawing parallels between a friend of his and a character portrayed in a movie. Donaldson's TC books offer several glimpses into why I am the way I am. I see in myself Foa...
News You Need To Know or Get Intrigued, Amazed, Pissed, and Thrilled(In That Order) 1. Are We Failing Our Geniuses? - This story looks at the plight of gifted children across the country, reflecting a problem I've been complaining about for years. In essence, "No Child Left Behind" is strangling the gifted budgets across the country by diverting money to programs to help students that are mentally incapable to achieving the standards set forth in NCLB's benchmark system. 2. Inorganic "Life" - Have we finally found a way to explain the birth of life on Earth without relying on an omnipotent being? This is probably the most interesting article I've read all year. Obviously there is still a huge gap between the observed phenomena and actual spontaneous generation of life. However, it's undeniable that this is a huge piece of one of the biggest questions that plagues our species. 3. BP Hates Hoosiers - Certainly it's not just Hoosiers, ...
This Movie Is Too Cool For You or Ah, Nostalgia Look, if you weren't into Transformers when you were a kid, you were either born before they were cool or you were a loser. Those toys were at least a cool as your mom was last night. And if you didn't like the Transformers movie, you're either a girl or extremely retarded. That movie owned. Period. So let's stop talking about how maybe it was a little long or how the little band of kids working for the DoD was terribly underdeveloped and focus on the fact that Optimus Prime * will kill you in your sleep if you don't stop complaining about your wasted seven bucks. Because he will. He will. Haven't seen it yet? No problem. It'll be in theaters for a while yet. Go watch it. If watching Transformers on a big screen doesn't encourage you to stay young, I don't know what will. * - The flame job on this guy was sacrilegious and wrong. Discuss.
The Bright Side of Filesharing or Brief RIAA Rant It's not often that I buy an album from a band that I'm not very familiar with. I've heard of Travis before, but aside from the two radio friendly singles "Sing" and "Side," I had little idea what to expect from them. I kept seeing two copies of their "12 Memories" album at the used music store down the street, so after some preliminary research online, I downloaded a low-quality copy of the album to find out what it was like. Holy crap. The next day, Sarah and I went back there and I bought the album and their most popular release "The Man Who." Even though technically the band doesn't see a penny of the money I spent to buy the album, they can bet that I'll be purchasing their next release on the same day that it hits shelves. I can't even list how many artists I've found this way - use a torrent site to find an album that fans recommend, listen to it a few times,...
The Myrtle Beach 2007 Music Video or You Want To See My Monkey? I dumped the contents of our cameras onto the computer a couple days ago and realized that I probably had enough to make a short video out of it all. This was a lot of fun to make. A lot of the music I used is there for lyrical content that matches what you're watching, so even if you don't think the video clips/pictures are funny enough, you should at least appreciate it for that fact. YouTube distorts things a little bit, as far as timing and clarity go. If there's any kind of demand, I could probably upload the whole 100MB file to some other sharing site that would allow you to download it. Rated PG for crude humor, at least one drug reference, and about 30 seconds of watching my backside while I simultaneously cook supper and dance. Watch it. Enjoy it. And stay young.
Our Dream Come True or We're All Gonna Die Straight out of the Holy Fucking Hell Department (thanks to Heaton) comes this amazing tale of the realization of our high school lunchtable's dream - making salt water burn . While it doesn't look like this means the end of the world, I think it's pretty awesome that our long-standing joke actually became a reality. As many people have said in the comment area for all of the You Tube videos of the topic, it's probably a little too early to say whether this actually stands a chance of being a feasible alternative to our current fuel sources. I would imagine that the energy required to produce (and maintain) radio waves of the proper frequency would be greater than the thermal energy produced in the reaction, although one story indicated that the discoverer and some other team mates are looking for ways to make the process more efficient. Salt water for fuel - sure as hell beats $4/gal for gasoline. It also means we shoul...
The Purpose of Art or Episode III: Revenge of the Cubist It sounds strange to say, but I love the power of Picasso's Guernica . In searching for a high-res shot of it for my desktop today, I came across this quote. Ol' Pablo scored a couple of cool points for this one. "What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far, far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." --Pablo Picasso For reasons that I...
Sex Education for Parents or No, My Wife Is Not Pregnant One of the latest crazes sweeping the nation for 10 year old girls (1) is having a Purity Ball . Far right evangelical Christians bring their daughters to one of these balls where the father pledges to be a good role model (faithful to the wife, no pornography (2) , etc.) and the daughter promises to wait until she's married to have sex. Sounds like a good idea, if a little corny, right? Then you get to the end of the article: 88% of those girls lose their virginity before marriage . So it works! In fact, it works so well that the number of Purity Balls across the county this year is expected to double from last year! Idiots. If you're a father concerned about your daughter's willingness to remain a virgin until wed, I have a better solution for you. This summer, I will be hosting the first annual Fugly Ball. I'll be renting the Indianapolis Convention Center for one weekend in July, where eligible young ...
Paranoid Copulating Androids or I Don't Understand Either Music is orgasmically wonderful all on its own. Personally, I think having sex with music playing would be awfully distracting. Chiming in with me is Thom Yorke, who revealed in an undated video clip that he is confused by people who tell him they love to shag to the sound of Radiohead. He mentions Paranoid Android in particular. What the hell? (brought to my attention by http://www.greenplastic.com)
And Then I Blew Up The Indians or Rage, Rage Against The Occupancy of the Handicapped Spot A couple of months ago, a new family moved into the apartment below ours. They looked harmless at first - a young couple with their toddler and a pair of grandparents. In fact, for a while, we never heard a single peep work its way up to our domain. Even the baby was silent. This is probably the closest I've ever been to a baby without making it cry. One night I was out at Kroger picking up some snacks. It was around Christmastime, so the weather wasn't bitterly cold, but definitely cold enough to make a jacket a must-have. I gathered my bags, locked the doors, and walked up to the sidewalk leading to our stairs. Then crazy Grandpa India comes charging out of his door in a skirt. You're probably shaking your head, calling me ten different kids of culturally intolerant. But I'm telling you it was a skirt. I walked within three feet of the man when I went up the stairs, but ...
A Quote or Another Tidbit "Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are." --St. Augustine Normally I'm one to rant against hope, but this is a brilliant statement nonetheless. Stay young. (That's another brilliant statement, in a less obvious way.)
Tidbits or Minor Updates Thomas Covenant - The second book in The Last Chronicles, Fatal Revenant , is due out this October. This is exciting for me, because for me, the Covenant books are one of the most well-written trilogies ever. While you do have to read the books with a dictionary at your side, I don't find that too distracting. Under Construction - I want to find a way to bring good music to you, my Gentle Reader, without beating you over the head with it. So this section of this particular post is going to be tweaked over the next couple of weeks as I work at embedding some simple media player into the page. Eventually it will probably find a permanent home in the sidebar. Right now, the test track is a leaked track from an upcoming Nine Days album. The song is called "Favorite Song." Catchy title, no? Edit (2/27/07): For some reason, I just discovered that the autoplay option isn't working the way it was supposed to. The song is not supposed to st...
The 2006 Ho Media Awards Bringing You the Best Since 2002 It was a tough year of judging in the Ho household. There were a number of new releases in every category. This is also a tough post to create because as of right now, my entire archives seem to have disappeared (Update: A number of other people have reported the same problem, so hopefully it's just a widespread but minor snafu.), which would have made formatting this much easier. We've got new categories this year, so let's start things off with one of those. Website of the Year - Obfuscated Thought OT was gently laid to rest earlier this year, but it was long the home of some of the weirdest science/tech news you could find at the time. The layout was tastefully simple and easy on the eyes, which is something 9 out of 10 MySpace users could learn a lot from. OT, you will be missed. Book of the Year - Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon This book is a brick . Some reviewers have said that there are parts th...