small town outside of boston

Why ESPN Sucks

2010-08-23T20:22:00.005-04:00

From the day that I could walk, and probably before then, sports have been a huge part of who I am. One of the earliest memories of my childhood is walking across the street at dawn every morning during baseball season at my first home in rural New Hampshire to get the Boston Globe each day. I would look to see if the Red Sox had won the night before. On days after the Sox had a West Coast night game that didn't finish before the Globe went to press, I'd sigh and flip the page to the stats page, peering over the batting averages and ERAs of my heroes.

I can remember being four years old, hopelessly shooting at my neighbor's ten-foot basketball hoop alongside my older brother, praying to make my first basketball in front of him, but never coming within feet of the hoop. When I wasn't working on my two-handed heave of a jumper, I would take swings at teed-up tennis balls with my Fisher Price plastic baseball bat, hoping to put one over the "Blue Monster", a tarped wood pile on the outskirts of my family's yard.

For the past ten years, Sportscenter has been as much a part of my morning ritual as eating breakfast or showering. Over the past few years, however, I've found myself straying more and more from that ritual. The tiresome annual Favre storylines, which have unapologetically focused vast amounts of attention on one of football's most shamelessly arrogant figures, force me to change the channel daily throughout football preseason. The LeBron debacle, including ESPN's widely-criticized Decision, repelled me for much of July with its overanalysis and self-importance. Their insufferable NFL analysts such as Chris Mortensen, Ron Jaworski, and Jon Gruden, are no more than meat-headed old boys who spew machismo and cliches ad nauseum from the months of August until December, suffocating coverage of the MLB, NBA, and NHL during those months. While the channel still offers exclusive broadcasting of some of the biggest games of the major sports, the reporting has becoming downright atrocious and its play-by-play announcers are amongst some of the worst on television (with Jon Gruden and Mark Jackson leading the way).

One of the biggest issues with ESPN has been its lack of credibility in the way that it covers the stars of the sports that it covers. Take for instance, the LeBron and Favre stories. Rather than chastise these stars for their selfish, prima-donna tactics, the network plays right into their hands, giving them spotlights to masturbate their egos into, while refusing to acknowledge America's boredom with the story. In a sense, ESPN has a low opinion of the intelligence of its viewers. Besides the youngest of its viewers, anyone watching Sportscenter knows the absurd amount of money that the top players of the major sports are making and the sense of entitlement that comes along with their star power. Viewers don't need are fan-boy anchors and analysts like Stuart Scott and Chris Berman, who act like total lackeys to the stars, refusing to ask tough questions and challenge players to hold themselves accountable for the way that they act.

Beyond its "flagship" program, SportsCenter, ESPN has little credible non-event programming. While the 30 For 30 series has been a huge success and PTI benefits from decent interplay between Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, SportsNation is an abomination. Colin Cowherd might be the most obnoxious sports personality on television, and with Michelle Beadle as his playful minx, the show is an air-filled gimmick chockful of polls and YouTube videos. The Sports Reporters takes itself seriously, but is hardly more credible, with pompous assholes Mike Lupica, Mitch Albom, and Stephen A. Smith sucking the air out of the room and turning to studio into a vacuum of douche. Anything involving Jim Rome or Rick Reilly is, predictably, a flaming bag of shit. 1st and 10 showcases Skip Bayless, who makes Gary Busey's rational prowess seem Aristotelian. Most of the league-specific programs do little more than re-heat the days' top stories; even the excellent Baseball Tonight has started to crumble since the departure of Peter Gammons.

All that I ask is that ESPN make a bid to smarten up its programming and improve its credibility. ESPN clearly is in a power-position in the global sports broadcasting market and has had (and used) the power to withhold stories to maintain its relationship with stars and Disney image (ex. covering up the Harold Reynolds and Steve Phillips sex scandals). If ESPN can challenge itself to improve its reporting, over a more diverse array of stories, and avoid conflicts of interest in siding with the athletes that it reports on, it can make huge strides to improve its journalistic integrity. Until then, I'll be spending most of this fall watching NFL highlights with the TV on mute.

Ranking the Pizza in Westford

2010-08-18T23:37:00.005-04:00

On November 21st, 1996, I moved to Westford, Massachusetts. Since then, several things have happened, including:

Getting kicked in the nuts by classmate Craig Gattel during after-school indoor soccer in 3rd grade
Witnessing Steve SicHenry poop his pants in the 8th grade hallway during 6th grade Scoail Studies
Hearing about Mandy Alino pooping his pants in the WA weight room during junior year
Eating a lot of pizza without pooping my pants

Westford has a good amount of pizza places for having a relatively low Italian-American population. The quality of this pizza ranges from pretty solid to AIDS. Being really hungry at the moment, with only Domino's open, I give you an ascending order ranking of Westford's finest slice.

1. Presti's: There's a lot of people out there who don't like Presti's. To me, it's everything that you want in a serviceable pizza joint. Good sauce (sweeter than most in Westford), a nice, soft crust that is rarely burned, and modest cheese-to-sauce ratio. Toppings are generally put on liberally. It doesn't taste like Jesus, but you'll be glad you did it. The train-tracks location is aesthetically unpleasing, but you might as well eat it in your post-yuppie Westford palace anyways.

2. Willow's: This is a good pie, in a similar vein to Presti's. However, this is the gambler's pizza. You order from Willow's and you're at the end of a Caesar's Palace craps table. On one hand, you could get a great pizza, save a puppy from a fire on your way there, and make out with a busty babe in the parking lot. But there's also an equally good chance that they'll burn your pizza or you'll witness a robbery in their ghetto lounge. You yourself might get robbed or carjacked in Nab. However, a good Willow's can match or better Presti's in its prime.

3. Westford House of Pizza: You go to WHOP, you're going service first. Sammy is the epitome of a professional. Everyone in Westford always goes, "OMG I luv WHOP, me and Sammy are BFF, he's so great yadda yadda." Sammy doesn't know your fucking name. Sure, he might recognize you and even know a few things about you, but the fact is that he's a stone-cold marketing genius. He saw that Westford pizza needed a Clooney and he filled the role.

Anyways the pizza is good, if you're into Greek-style crust, which most people around the country would think is an abortion. Sammy's charm and WHOP's ability to make calzones that taste like Bar Rafaeli bump the stock up.

4. Nashoba Pizza: Same exact food as WHOP minus the charm. This place is so boring, me and my buddy Andrew once ate a pizza here, left, drove home without paying, realized we didn't pay, and then were just bored thinking of it. Nashoba Pizza, do you really think you need 900 square feet of room for your dining lounge? WHOP's dining area is the size of a midget's broom closet and there's still more people in there at an off-hour than Nashoba has at rush. Pathetic.

5. Silver Palate: Now we're getting to the dogs. Close geographically to Willow's, but what it lacks in overbearing ghettoness, it makes up for in shitty eats and rude staff. Their pizza tastes like a cardboard bandade. The people there are always greasy and wear shorts that don't proportionally match their lower body. It's only saving grace is that you can get Slush Puppies at the convenience-store-formerly-known-as-Lil-Peach next door. You could also probably buy drugs off the staff here.

6. Pizza Express: If you've lived in Westford for more than 12 months and order from Pizza Express, you're either an invalid, a Filipino, or you have the culinary senses of a toddler. This pizza tastes like the Super Mario Bros. bukkaking onto a sheet of construction paper during an oil spill. The fact that this restaurant is still in business is one of the better arguments against capitalism. In fact, I'm almost certain that this business is a drug front because rational people wouldn't eat food that tastes this fucking horrible. But then again, Westford is a town where a Wendy's went out of business while a WacArnolds and a BK are still in business, so leave it to these morons to allow this offensive establishment to survive.

A Kid in the Crowd Excerpts

2010-01-02T22:12:00.009-05:00

Excerpts from a fictional screenplay based on infamous Westford punk band A Kid in the Crowd. The names have been changed for Google's sake.

Heralded rock producer/Westford scene historian Archie Zimmerman on A Kid in the Crowd.

“I mean, they were really just revolutionary in what they were doing for their time. The scene at the time…you had band like Goblin Tear Goblet…they were blazing the trail for pre-goth, post-emocore progressive funk. You had Scrotal Skid…they were the first death metal band that I’d ever seen utilize the bass sitar. Another seminal act was Philip Mayhem and the Handjobs. I’d heard of three-chord punk, but this band…some of their songs only had three notes in the whole thing. They were a very rest-heavy outfit. "

“The lyrics of Nixon Serby more or less changed the game in the Westford scene forever. Lines like “They wanna hurt you/Wanna bring you down/They’re gonna desert you/Gonna make you frown”…I mean, before that, you just didn’t see the ABAB rhyme scheme at all. Before that, it was all just a bunch of limerick punk, haiku death metal, and diamante jazz."

“Corey Sullivan…now that was a lunch pail, clock-punching bassist right there. Find me another man in the scene who could keep time on the sausage strings like that…you just couldn’t. Of course, most people just hear the name and think of his later political career, taking the Krist Novoselic, bassist-turned-politician route. Some call it selling out, but just think…where would we be today with him presiding over the Pumo Resolution of 2005. Those Graniteville drug wars had gone on for too long…all that young blood flowing down River Street, a damn shame…”

“Ah yes…(chuckles)…Benji D. on the keys. You know, I talked to the old sound guy at the Mosh Mosque…guy by the name of Antony Teejadero. Anyways, guy told me out of all their shows they played there, not once was Benji D’s Casio plugged in. Legend has it if you’d done just enough blotters, you could hear the soft clicks of his fingers jamming the keys in tune to the beat. Truth be told though, Benji’s bloodstream was such a traffic jam of chemicals at all those shows, he couldn’t have care either way. And the band knew it. He was really their own sort of “Bez” figure…go out there, work the crowd, get the girls dancing, cash his paycheck, blow it up his nose, repeat.”

“What a lot of people didn’t realize with A Kid in the Crowd is that they actually used a drum machine on their debut album. But when they were playing their first shows at the Mosque, things just didn’t feel right…the crowd wasn’t getting into it…let’s face it, it’s not rock and roll if you don’t have someone mashing drumheads. Anyways, there was this little punk at these shows who called himself “TK the Dream” and would do some sort of B-Boy freestyle shit on the mic between sets, getting bottles and syringes thrown at him from the pit…he mostly just did it to piss off the junkheads. Before the Mr. Lucas Rehab Benefit Show, the band saw this kid shotgun a can of Surge and start raging on a kit in the practice room backstage. He was doing fills that made Buddy Rich look like Meg White. Benji D dropped his bowl of Cup Noodles on the floor right then and there...probably because he was loaded, but he had to have been shocked by the carnal kitwork, too. Serby swears to this day TK was doing something like 500 beats per minute. Right then and there, they all looked at each other and agreed, they had to get this kid on stage.

They went on stage ten minute later, TK, real name was Thom Kenneary…Christ, he was shit. The Surge wore off and TK lost his rhythm…he sounded like a series of car crashes in a china store. After that they kept him full of Yellow 6 and caffeine for shows and the rest is history. You don’t end up as Nickelback’s touring drummer if you don’t have natural talent.”

Horribly Named Technology

2009-07-30T12:19:00.009-04:00

Via Wikipedia: "The vCard is a file format standard for electronic business cards. vCards are often attached to e-mail messages, but can be exchanged in other ways, such as on the World Wide Web. They can contain name and address information, phone numbers, URLs, logos, photographs, and even audio clips."

Hands down, the vCard is the most poorly-named piece of tech in human history. The double entendre of the name must create for incredibly awkward business scenarios:

Guy 1: But really...great meeting you, Rich.

Guy 2: My pleasure, Bill...say, do you have a vCard?

Guy 1: Excuse me?

Guy 2: I was just wondering if you had a vCard I could take down.

Guy 1: I'm not really into...do you even know what you're asking me right now?

Guy 2: Um...well I mean I saw your BlackBerry, you seem like a tech-savvy guy...

Guy 1: What, a straight man can't keep up with the times? And why would you even think I'm never gotten...I have a wife and kids, goddamn it. You disgust me.

There's gotta be legions of young guys out there, black-suited, slick-back hair, bursting at the seams to gush out how many vCards they've taken in their careers.

But the vCard also brings on deeper issues, which I fear for greatly.

I can't even imagine the shmorgasbord of emotions that a man must feel in leaving a convention, realizing that he's just had his vCard taken by two men.

The thought of a young lady leaving her BlackBerry unattended, only to find a man stealing her vCard from her...her eyes well up into tears in front of the detective...the echo of the gavel sounding through the county courtroom...her blank stares into the distance at the dinner table until she finally comes to as her husband asks her what's wrong.

The vCard must be stopped. We cannot allow thousands of people to be forced to repeated re-live the forfeit of their innoncence. It is a violence against mankind. And just fucking terrible marketing.

Bathroom Blunders

2009-07-23T14:48:00.002-04:00

The men's bathroom in my office has only two toilet seats, one tight traditional stall and one more spacious handicap stall. While on the john, I enjoy a certain environment condusive to tranquilty and solitude. The claustrophobia of the smaller, tighter stall does not provide this in the same way that the open terrain of the handicap stall does.

The past two days at work, when I've entered the men's room to conduct my daily business, I've found the handicap stall occupied, with the smaller stall left open. Dejected but nonetheless resolute, I've settled for the smaller stall. However, each time, perhaps rushed by my presence, within thirty seconds, the adjacent occupant has finished up, flushed, and left quickly before I've even finished sanitizing the toilet seat for contact. And being the strange character that I am, I've gotten bold and made moves.

I call this move the Chamberlain Right Wheel. With belt buckle dangling down, fly open, and hands holding my pants above my backside, I quickly force open my stall down, flank 90 degrees to the right, throw open the handicap stall, and lock it before anyone else can enter the bathroom and wonder what the hell's going on. So far I'm 2-for-2 on not embarassing myself on the manuveur.

However today, I was forced to retreat by an enemy presence. Following digging into the trenches in the handicap stall, I released that the TP had run-out at a particularly inopportune time. I scampered back to the smaller quarters in the next stall over, fortunately avoiding giving away my position to foreign invaders who could have entered at any time.

It was shitty in general.

Friday Fragments

2009-07-10T13:11:00.003-04:00

Today is Friday. While Friday is technically 20% of the working week, I'd say I'm not too far off in estimating that it provides for about 4-5% of weekly productivity. After a moderately productive morning (I read 50 pages of an e-book and did about a solid hours' worth of work), I'm gonna give myself some "me" time this afternoon and go on auto-pilot. Since auto-pilot requires a lack of focus that doesn't allow a cohesive thought to exceed a paragraph, here's a couple of brief stories that have kept me entertained:

I spent most of the morning believing this story that a friend sent to me about Coors inventing a new can with an extra tab for shotgunning. Way too good to be true. This would surely be the defining invention of the 21st century and the greatest thing to happen to college since the latex condom.
Last night, in the continuation of a suspended Pirates/Nats game from May 5th, Joel Hanrahan got the win for the Nats despite having been traded from to the Pirates in the time since the game began. Nyjer Morgan, who started the game for the Pirates on May 5th, scored the winning for the Nats. Thank God for baseball.

Someone posted a note on the microwave in the break room this morning that reads "Do not leave unattended. Possible fire hazard." But when I took lunch break, no one was in the room. Looks like I'll have to spend the rest of the day keeping it company.

My Awful Start to the Morning

2009-07-08T08:39:00.006-04:00

There are few worse feelings than the pit in your stomach that erupts when your alarm goes off in the morning on a weekday. In my case, this feeling reaches extreme levels during the summer months, when I generally run off 6 hours of sleep and have to be up at the crack of dawn for my summer job. While I'm usually reasonably pleasant when I wake up later in the morning, all bets are off before 8 A.M. My parents have learned to just leave me alone before I go to work or expect curt, dismissive responses to whatever conversation they try to start.

While much of the 45 minutes that I spend prior to leaving for work is devoted to my daily routine, I find solace in the 5-10 minutes that I spend eating breakfast in front of the tube. Its my time to wet my palate, perform one of my three favorite bodily functions, and get lost in SportsCenter for a few brief moments before sliding in the dark chasm of the daily grind of the real world.

But like clockwork, ESPN chooses to take away this pleasure from me for one week each year. Every summer, they choose to fill my morning with agony and guilt, topped with the syrupy-sweetness of fleeting hope. Every summer, my morning breakfast collides with each of the five segments of SportsCenter's week-long My Wish series.

The My Wish segment is a week-long SportsCenter special that shows terminally-ill children having their sports-related dreams fulfilled with their favorite pro athletes/teams via the Make-a-Wish Foundation. ESPN does a great job milking the melodramatic and using cheesy, obnoxious music to help paint the tale of these young tikes who get to live their sports fantasy, such as playing catch with Marion Barber, betting on pit bulls with Michael Vick, or taking a highway booze-cruise with Charles Barkley.

Don't get me wrong: I do have a soul. Do these kids deserve to have an awesome day in between chemo treatments? Absolutely. Is it great that this program for the kids exists? Certainly. Do I applaud the athletes for participating in it? Of course. Does it make for this make for good television? Well...

I'm sure there's an audience for this kind of fluff, namely the soap opera crowd or those who relish in having a good cry or heart-wrenching Holocaust film. But goddamn it, that's not the target market for SportsCenter. That market is young-to-middle-aged males looking for sassy commentary over sports highlights. Great ESPN, you get to improve your imagine. Meanwhile, I have a stomach ache because I just saw a kid get to walk out of Cowboy Stadium knowing that he just lived the best day of his life at age 6. That's not what I need in the morning. That makes me feel like shit. What I need is more Name That Molina or jokes about Livan Hernandez being fat. Sure, I could change the channel over to NESN for five minutes, but that's like trading in a Corvette with a engine trouble for a Toyota Camry.

So come on, ESPN. Hock this thing off to the Hallmark Channel. Let SportsCenter be for sports and give me my mindless sanctuary of box scores and Bottom Lines back.

Initial Real World: Cancun Reactions

2009-07-03T18:25:00.005-04:00

MTV reality show The Real World premiered its 22nd season last Wednesday. 22 seasons! I thought the multiple VH1 Flava Flav spinoffs were excessive, but this is insane.

To its credit, The Real World was one of the earliest group-home reality shows. It has remained watchable over the years thanks to the simplicity of its premise, the new cast of personalities each season, and the fact that you can start watching at any point in the season and immediately understand what everyone's schtick is within about ten minutes.

I DVR'd the first two episodes and watched them on Wednesday and was pleasantly surprised. I normally hate the cast and stop watching after about 3 episodes, but this year's cast seems generally more real and likeable. Plus, there's a hot chick from Boston and a dude from Lawrence.

Basically, if you're bored most Wednesday nights during the summer like me, there's certainly worse TV to be watched. Anyways, here's my analysis of the character's so far:

CJ
From the first line he spoke all season, CJ completely carved out his character and made it clear he was going to be the Alpha Bro of the house: "I'm an NFL free agent and what that means is that I'm not tied down to one particular team. When I came out of college football, I was the number four kicker in the country." And perhaps the number one tool.

That being said, CJ is the most interesting person on the show, hands down. He seems genuinely nice even if he's shallow as a kiddie pool. He's the house heartthrob and all the girls love him for his wavy locks, dreamy smile, and ripped physique. He's pretty dumb when it comes to handling girls (i.e. sleep-spooning with Emilee, then telling his girlfriend via phone the next day...effectively ending the relationship) but he's managed to avoid serious drama. He's been macking out Jonna and the adventurer in me really wants to see him bag her. All the guys in the house get along with him and clearly wish they were him.

The Gist: Toolish in nearly everyway, but loveable.

Emilee
The Bahston princess. As Barstool pointed out early this week, Emilee is a former Smokeshow model. She's hot as shit, but she doesn't dress well enough to flaunt it. She's shy, seemingly unintelligent, takes no initiative, and is generally boring in every way. If CJ didn't chase her and she didn't obnoxiously defend Ayiiia (who can go suck a nut), MTV would have no usable footage of her.

The Gist: I'd fall asleep having a conversation with the chick. Step up the slutty attire or go home.

Bronne
I don't know how this guy got on the show, but I'm glad he did. Pronounced "Brah-nee" ('like the paper towels'), Bronne's a down-to-earth, average-Joe-looking dude who adds a positive energy to the house. He seems like the type of guy you'd want as a bench guy for your beer league softball team. He seems to hit it off best with Derek, the gay guy, but he gets along with everyone.

In what is the highlight of the season to date, Bronne hilariously started making out with a no-go Sharon Osbourne lookalike cougar on the dancefloor of a club one night. Joey was hooking up with a middle-of-the-road brunette roughly fifteen feet away, when she stops, looks over, and tells Joey, "That's my mom." Comedic gold.

The Gist: Going to be a dominant leader in the Drunken Mistakes stat category.

Jonna
Holy shit this chick is hot. Out of the coveted Rihanna mold (sexy complexion + striking eyes), she dominates the rest of the girls in the house looks-wise. She loses big-time points for having a home birthday who she calls three times a day (they must be a fun couple to be friends with). She's been falling hard for CJ's Dream Team-calibur game, letting him snuggle with her on the hammock, buying matching bracelets with him, and presumably using his tongue as a washcloth in the shower.

She seems like a real clingy girl who needs a guy nearby. It's just a matter of time before the hunter bags him game and Jonna appears in the CJ box score.

The Gist: I'm in love with her.

Derek
Derek is gay. That's not a condemnation, but simply the reason he's on the show. He seems like a really nice guy and is the house mediator. But the fact is, it's blatantly clear he's on the show because he worked at the same bar as Jonna.

Here's my guess about the dialogue that locked Derek a spot up:

MTV RW Recruiter: So Jonna, we think you're great and we'd love to offer you a spot on the show
Jonna: Oh my god! Thank you so much. (cleans her face off and gets off her knees)
MTV RW Recruiter: There's just one thing. We're kind of strapped for time since shooting starts next week. Do you have any friends of alternative ethnicities or sexual orientations?
Jonna: Well, at the bar I work at, there's this one gay guy named Derek who...
MTV RW Recruiter: Would you mind texting him and asking him if he'd like a spot on the show? I really don't have time to interview for this last spot and I mean they're all the same anyways right?

The Gist: The gay guy

The Black Chick
Does it make me a racist that I don't know her name? No. Does it make me a racist that I don't even care enough to look it up? Probably.

Shawty is terrible annoying because she hits it off with Ayiiia, who is the Antichrist. She doesn't act ghetto all the time, but has the annoying quality of turning her Jive Dial up to 11 when she gets mad. Which is a lot because Ayiiia caused more problems than unprotected sex with Magic Johnson.

The Gist: A waste of the black niche spot. Should have gone for more ghetto/booty.

Joey
With Fall Out Boy and pop punk doing relative well on the charts in recent years, MTV needed their emo kid. Joey's skinny frame, multiple tattoos, lip ring, alternative clothing, straight, greasy hair, and armada of guitars sufficed for the role.

That being said, he doesn't fit the punk rocker stereotype (which must have been pretty clear if he accepted a fucking role on The Real World). He admitted to being very proud of being the first to fuck in the house, which is pretty bro. He also doesn't seem to mind CJ's unbelievable levels of brohood. He seems to get along well with most people in the house, except Ayiiia (which he deserves major daps for antagonizing her). He loses points for playing guitar too much, being in a pretty shitty pop punk band (that somehow impressed most of his housemates), and crying when Ayiiia fucked up his guitar.

The Gist: I don't like Joey, just like I don't like Mark Hamill. But in the fight against the evil Empire that is Ayiiia, we need a Luke Skywalker.

Ayiiia
I don't know what dipshits voted this devil-woman in as the Real World Online Casting Winner, but they should repent. She thinks she is awesome, probably doubly so because her best friend in the house is black. She has told Joey repeatedly that she hates sarcasm and sarcastic humor. In terms of humor, that pretty much leaves Carrot Top prop jokes and The Three Stooges slapstick jokes, so she clearly is not a fun person to shoot the shit with. Admittedly, she has a nice body, but her teeth are disgusting. She thinks its a funny joke to crawl into peoples' rooms when they're fucking and spying on them. That's pathetic.

Another classic line by this Queen Bitch was what she told Joey on the beach after he earnestly apologized for spitting in her tacos. Keep in mind, she had it coming. She pretty much had treated him like he was a Mencia-level asshole because she couldn't take him picking on her innocently, as he does with all the other housemates. But on the beach, she tells Joey that she forgave him but admitted she wasn't interested in being friends with him. Her explanation: I'm genuinely a nice person, but I need to keep my guard up to prevent myself from getting hurt. No, Ayiiia, you're not a nice person. Just because John Wayne Gacy entertained the neighborhood kids by dressing up as a clown, doesn't mean we're gonna give him the Neighbor of the Year award.

The Gist: If God is just, swine flu or the Mexican drug wars will put her six feet under by season's end.

End of a Great Run?

2009-06-26T14:20:00.003-04:00

To begin, let me get one thing straight. Achewood is probably the funniest webcomic of all-time, and certainly the funniest comic strip that I have ever read on a day-to-day basis in my life. The run of consistent hilarity that the strip had from 2002 to early 2008 is pretty much unparalled.

The comic, which takes place in the fictional town of Achewood, revolves around a cast of talking stuffed animal and robots. The characters all have unique adult qualities, whether it be the entrepreneurial, thong-wearing, jive-talking cat Ray, his programming, depressed best friend Roast Beef, or cocaine-snorting, wild child Todd the Squirrel. The characters grow on the reader over the years, each earning laughs with their own distinctive brand of humor. The ingeniusly utilized alt text also provides additional insight from the creator, Chris Onstad, on the strip and often earns a bigger laugh than the final panel.

If you have at least 10 minutes of free time right now, do yourself a huge favor and read a few strips from the beginning. The only real way to read the strip properly is chronologically. While the humor is slightly more offbeat towards the beginning, it picks up in a real way after a few months of material. Pretty soon you'll be addicted.

Unfortunately, over the past nine months, the quality of Achewood output has considerably declined. Some pretty bad storylines regarding Cornelius' girlfriend, Lyle's origins, and Little Nephew traveling back in time to Wales have really weighed it down. I trace this decline in quality to three main culprits:

1) Focus on Merchandise: Onstad has posted free strips to his site for almost seven years with no advertising, so it's understandable that he wants to make some money (especially now that he has a kid). However, with the release of the Great Outdoor Fight book last fall/early winter, he decided to go on a book tour. This resulted in a decline from roughly 4 strips a week to 1-2 strips per week. Additionally, the quality suffered. January of this year only featured two strips the entire month. That's thin even for an Olson twin.

2) Premium Content Segment: Achewood also features a premium content section, which gives paying subscribers access to exclusive strips and character blogs. While I can't blame Onstad from making a buck off this, I can't help but be convinced that this has taken away from the soul of Achewood, the main storylines which remain public. A detractor from both quality and quantity.

3) Fatigue: In any sort of art or entertaining, a common wall is simply ideas. There's only so many things you can do with the same characters to draw laughs without it becoming overly repetitive. There's a reason Fawlty Towers and The Office (UK) kept themselves to twelve episodes. Between the pressure of being consistently funny 100-150 times a year and having to raise a young kid, it looks like Onstad's head might be out of it. This might also explain the excessively haughty, boring language that's been used in some of the recent storylines.

In any case, I could never bad-mouth Achewood. I've bought merch from the store (which has excellent and friendly customer service), read the site almost daily for over four years, and still love all of the characters. I will always still read the site as long as they continue to offer free content. I just wish the characters would wake up from almost a year of being boring as a group of Saturday night stoners and get back to being the fun gang of the days of yore.

Middlesex Follies: Breaking News...Ed McMahon Eats Hot Dog 15 Years Ago

2009-06-24T11:13:00.004-04:00

This was the front page photo for the Lowell Sun today. The lead article describes a 1994 visit that Ed McMahon made to Lowell. The late Johnny Carson sidekick started his career in radio in Lowell.

I guess it's nice to pay a tribute to the guy's life, but this is really scraping the bottom of the bag. The guy liked hot dogs. So do about 100 million other American guys. Maybe pay some sort of tribute to the guy's radio career or give him a nice half-page obituary, but this? As the lead story? Were there really no drug-deal-orgy-turned-triple-murder cases in Lowell this past week?

Come to think of it, this is a priceless photo. Ed McMahon sure could stuff a weiner in his mouth.

Throbbing Steeds

2009-06-22T13:27:00.005-04:00

For those of you who I've seen this summer, I've most likely made references to the Adam Carolla Podcast, which I listen to about five hours per week at work. It's a pretty hilarious show that gives Carolla the opportunity to rant and riff with various different comedians or performers about whatever interests him.

One of the funnier theories that Carolla has presented in the past month or so of his podcast is his "Good for the 'Stang, Good for the Wang" theory. This notion is that historically, a large number of Triple Crown race-winning horses have had names that sound a lot like something that you would name your johnson. Using this theory, he postulated that, therefore, top horses have dick names and then attemped (unsuccessfully) for each of this year's Triple Crown races.

Looking at Wikipedia pages of past Triple Crown race winners, I now present the Twenty Greatest Stang Wang Names of All-Time:

20. Bold Venture
19. Black Gold-The ebony prince
18. Needles-Long-but-thin gets the win
17. Pleasant Colony-Your cock is a wonderland
16. Commando-Anti-underpants artillery
15. War Admiral
14. Stage Door Johnny
13. Empire Maker-Probably what Travis Henry named his
12. Duke of Magenta
11. Bally Ache-For the frequently blue-balled
10. Colonel Holloway
9. Chateaugay-For the Brokeback crowd
8. Tobasco Cat-Sure to leave girls burning for weeks
7. Commendable-Well done, genetics
6. Regret-The low-standard love pump
5. Majestic Prince-I bet Shakespeare called his junk this
4. Ruthless-Rarely takes Tenacious D's advice to heart
3. Big Brown
2. Lemon Drop Kid-When life hands you balls, make lemonade
1. Genuine Risk-Neglecting to wear a rubber since 1978

Honorable Mentions:
Conquistador Cielo (The Latin lover)
Agile
Phalanx (Sounds pretty phallic)
Assault
Foolish Pleasure

Maine Outing

2009-06-21T19:25:00.002-04:00

All the men from the last two generations of my dad's side of the family went up to my brother's godfather's place in Maine this weekend to lamp. Pretty solid weekend drinking Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat from the kegerator of one of the finer man-caves southern Maine has to offer. A few firsts went down, including beer pong game with the pops, boosting our life-time record to 1-0. Also, I never thought I'd smoke up with uncles, but I guess I just didn't give credit where credit's due. These dudes lived through the 70's. They had to grow up in an era without cable television or internet porn. And if that ain't hardcore, then at least this is:

Just Back

2009-06-20T05:42:00.007-04:00

Colin said go abroad and he's right. He pretty much covered it all so it's not worth beating a dead horse. Just do it.

And just as Colin mentioned, a lot has happened since we have been gone, like me discovering that there is a National Sleep Foundation. Did you know this? It's nonprofit and was started nearly 20 years ago. Check it out.

Off Road Classiness

2009-06-19T15:32:00.002-04:00

Done with work for the week, I pulled out of my company's office park and accelerated towards the first set of lights. When there's a red light and I've got 50 or so yards before the nearest car in my lane, I like to coast in. There's no rush in these situations since I'm going to have to wait for the car ahead of me to accelerate anyways and get up to speed when the lights finally do turn green. Add the ever-increasing price of gas into the equation, and coasting is just the economical way to go.

On Fuck You Fridays, however, Dan Douchebags don't agree with me. I caught a black Toyota truck 30 yards behind me as I start my coast, rapidly approaching within seconds. The truck quickly switched lanes and began accelerating towards the red light in the vacant right side of the two-lane road. However at the last second, instead of opting to be first in that right lane, the truck switches back into my left lane behind the only car waiting at the light. Taking this as a "fuck you grandpa" message to me, I threw my hands in the air and slammed on the breaks behind this Toyota.

I knew the driver of this truck was not bourgeoisie material. Anytime you see an off-roading roof rack with a light cage, you know the guy behind the wheel most likely is the sort of fella who brought a crib sheet to his GED exam. But nonetheless, his trashiness managed to surprise me when I caught the sticker on his back windshield:

Cape Cod Nude Beach
#17937
Parking Permit

How do I compete on the road with that kind of man. Touche 1992 4WD Toyota. May the summer grace you with the divine imagery of sagging tits and furrowed ball sacks.

7 Reasons Why Golf is Great Television

2009-06-18T10:22:00.005-04:00

Before USGA officials selfishly suspended play of the 1st Round of the US Open at Bethbage Black earlier this morning, it had been a great day at work. Thanks to a live video feed at the official US Open website, I was able to watch the group of Tiger Woods, Paddy Harrington, and Angel Cabrera play their first six holes of the day. This, along with a handful of lazy Sunday afternoons spent on the couch this spring, got me thinking about the reasons that golf is amazing to watch.

1. The Courses

The golf courses featured in PGA events are some of the most beautiful pieces of landscaping mankind has ever seen. The advent of HD television has only made the vibrant green fairways and wooded surroundings easier on the eyes. And there's just something so soothing about the Masters' theme playing just after commercial break with those close-up shots of azaleas.

Additionally, the wide variety of courses play makes each tournament unique. Each new course has its own personality and distinctive holes, such as Augusta's Amen Corner or the island par-3 at Sawgrass. Whereas in most sports the field of play is a merely a boundary, golf is a unique sport in which the terrain is the adversary.

2. The Personalities

While golf doesn't necessarily feature the outrageous trash-talking wide receivers of the NFL or the egomaniacal, motormouths of boxing, the independent nature of the game of golf allows players to develop their unique personas. Whether it be the boyish energy of Sergio Garcia, the chain-smoking huskiness of Angel Cabrera, or the crush-brews/crush-drives attitude of John Daly, its exciting to watch the wide field of PGA members week-in, week-out.

3. The Meltdowns

Golf meltdowns are the equivalent of big crashes in NASCAR; you feel bad for the guy involved, but you get a kind of sick pleasure out of it. Whether it be Jean Van de Velde triple-bogeying the 72nd hole of the 1999 British Open or Retief Goosen firing a final round 81 to blow his lead at the 2005 U.S. Open, golf fans love to see the world's best players show their mortality.

4. The Cinderella Stories

As is the case in any sport, people love to see a dark horse storm to the front of the pack. Who could forget #1-ranked Tiger Woods being forced into a playoff round (and forced to win the 18th and 19th holes to win that round) at the 2008 U.S. Open by Rocco Mediate, who was ranked 158th at the time. Or Ben Curtis winning the 2003 British Open as a rookie ranked 396th in the world. Team sports involve playoff systems that keep the Washington Nationals or Los Angeles Clippers from having their moment in the sun. Contrarily, each golf major bring the promise of introducing a player that you have never heard of, performing at the top of his game and surprising millions of fans.

5. The Championship Putts/The Playoff Holes

For my money, nothing in sports surpasses the tension of a player needing to make a putt on the 72nd hole of a major to either win or extend the tournament. You can see and practically feel the tension in his face and body language as he lines up the putt. Thousands of hours spent on the range and course, all building up to this defining moment in his career. It makes me rattled enough to watch it from the couch; I don't even think I could hold a putter with the kind of pressure, let alone stroke the thing, without Parkinson-esqe trembles. The triumph of draining the putt is pure ecstasy; the emptiness of missing it must leave one wondering if they've just blown their last chance at glory. It's pure melodrama--what is more entertaining than that?

Playoff holes are nearly as exciting, although generally less climactic. They're at their best when three or four different leaders are forced to play together, effectively turning pars into necessities, birdies into Holy Grails, and bogeys into death certificates.

6. Players' Wives/18+ Year Old Daughters

Try Googling "Elin Nordegren" or "Kenny Perry's daughter" and you'll get the idea. As proven by the Hotness/Television Face Time ratio, the hotter a spouse, the more the camera flocks to the wife when her man is leading the pack. Fortunately for viewers, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are usually leading the pack.

7. Tiger Woods

What can be said about Tiger Woods that hasn't already been said? He will doubtlessly finish his career as the greatest golfer of all-time, if he isn't already considered it. He already has 14 majors, putting him only four behind Jack Nicklaus for the majors record of 18. Nicklaus did this over a span of 26 years, winning his last major at age 46. Tiger is 33...and getting better at the game.

He is young and black, with a great public image in a gentleman's sport, making him a media darling. His wife is smoking. He is jacked and could definitely beat you up and steal your girlfriend. He delivers in the clutch, being basically automatic when he has the lead going into Sunday and never missing a putt when he needs it on 18.

And most importantly, people watch him. TV ratings for the PGA Championship were down 55% last year with Tiger out recovering from knee surgery. Meanwhile, the final round of the U.S. Open last year drew more viewers than the competing Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Love him or hate him, you still watch him.

Middlesex Follies: Yes, That Is a Nightmare

2009-06-17T15:08:00.017-04:00

I'm going to try to make a do a segment in this blog where I analyze some of the headlines from local paper, The Lowell Sun.

Today's front page article front page blurb read as follows:

It was something straight out of a nightmare. Except Debbie Voisine was wide awake. The clock read 1 a.m. on May 19 when Voisine awoke to a horrible smell. Her mobile home was dark.

That's literally as far as the blurb elaborated. It does sounds like a nightmare. If I ever had a dream about living in a trailer park, I'd probably wake up in a cold sweat. I'd hit the library for six hours the next day and diagram up some better life goals. Even still, cheap rip at the Middlesex County's unwashed, Lowell Sun.

The article continues:

She climbed out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. When she entered the room, Voisine says she slipped and landed in a couple of inches of raw sewage.

So not only does the lady get shit on in a quite literal sense, but she goes to the papers to get her story out and gets another heap of journalistic dung poured on her person.

But wait, park maintenance to the rescue!

When park maintenance showed up, Voisine said they used duct tape to fix the pipe and seal her heating vent, then used her garden rake to pull toilet paper from under the trailer.

Great service, guys. You eff up her pipes to the point that her midnight bathroom trip turns into an anecdote from The Things They Carried. But thankfully, you come in with the rescue plan on a twelve-year old: put tape on the hole and throw TP on the mess.

Chalk that up as reason #7,894 to not live in Chelmsford.

Back...Again

2009-06-17T12:33:00.004-04:00

It's been almost a year since I last posted here. A lot has happened in this year. The United States now has its first black president. The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. Paul Blart: Mall Cop was released to universal acclaim.

In any case, as the summer brings more time to my hands, I'd like to update this a bit more. I'd say my intent is to provide an eclectic mix of whatever I feel is interesting and, preferably, original. I feel like a lot of the stuff I read on blogs are just tiresome rehashes of stories, bogged down by even shoddier writing. Even I have been guilty of this trend. But no more. I'm going to bring straight fire, Dylan-style, and hopefully induce a chuckle or two along the way.

Gone

2009-01-10T00:51:00.007-05:00

I caught up with an old friend recently. It was good. It opened my eyes. Today he said to me from far away, "you ready for this?" Him saying that to me felt comforting. It's been over four months since I've last written in this. Over four months since the summer. A lot has happened, some good, some bad. Thought: I don't think there's hardly any time to waste anymore. Shit just seems to fly by. I don't know what to make of that. But I think I'm ready. I think I need this.

photo by Frank Winters

Back

2008-12-18T17:29:00.005-05:00

Damn. Europe was rockin'. There's no real way to recount four months of crazy cultural experiences and unbridled fun in a single post, plus I'd just feel like I was bragging. Along the way I saw some of the most beautiful places in the world, met some of the coolest people I could ever hope to meet (many of whom I hope to remain close with for the rest of my life), partied my ass off, traveled to incredible foreign cities nearly every weekend, and spent about a life's worth of savings.

For the love of God, if you ever have the chance, study abroad.

So I'm left here in America with a study abroad hangover (more so figurative, but literal to an extent as well). I'm definitely by no means depressed like I thought I'd be, heck I was even getting burned out from traveling. I'm going to miss the hell out of the friends I made and the novelty of being able to travel and spend money without thinking. I'm going to miss the raw energy of the clubs, being able to actually get beers at pubs, and walking by the Colosseum on a weekly basis. Already, all my memories of massive nights across Europe are developing that sort of hazy, epic aura that typify memories of the best days of your life.

I'm an optimist and I can't wait for what life has in store around the corner, but the past four months, without a doubt, have been highlights of my life. Specific highlights would have to include clubbing in Madrid, hiking through Cinque Terre, Oktoberfest(!), biking through Amsterdam, pub golf through Rome, and having only three days of "class". To say that my experiences changed me and my outlook on life would be an understatement.

So now it begins: Life after Europe. It will take some adjusting (I've pretty much put a permanent indent in my couch during the past three days), but I'm ready to tackle it with the words of a wise man in mind: "Try to remember always just to have a good time".

A Goodbye

2008-08-30T00:41:00.013-04:00

Today was my last day of work in Boston and tonight is my second to last night in Westford, my home you could call it. I could write this tomorrow night but I feel as though I will be too busy packing away. It's funny to think that I am now upon the second half of my college career and have lived 20 summers here in Westford. Will I be here next summer? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. That's partially why I am writing this.

I think Colin and I started this blog to document our lives in this small town. Not necessarily the town itself but what we as kids who had grown up here are doing now, what interests us, what makes us laugh, what pisses us the fuck off. The blog itself is aptly titled "Small Town Outside of Boston," the title of a song by the now defunct local band, Piebald, a past favorite of Colin and mine who are ironically not from Westford but from the small town of Andover, just east of here.

Now, 9 years after having met Colin on the tetherball courts when we knew nothing more than Westford, we write in this blog currently 4,000 miles apart from one another taking on the rest of the world.

This town isn't anything out of the ordinary. It's just a suburb. Yet, for me, it has sentimental value. I grew up here. I have met some interesting people, done exciting things, and have been bored as shit. But after having left to go to college, meet new people, travel to new places, I find myself at peace here, at ease. It now acts a place for me to collect my thoughts, serving a purpose as a place of comfort. I get a sense of nostalgia. But it's bittersweet. Do I want to come back here? No, not really. But I can never forget it. Coming back, I see the way things have changed, but in the end, I see the ways I have changed, the ways I have grown old being in Westford, have gotten wiser (I'd like to think so.) But I'll always be young at heart and there will always be elements of Westford that will never change, they too will always remain young.

Come Sunday, I have to get going. Do I want to? Yeah. This town can't offer me what it used to, though it's not its fault. Maybe it's just me. I'll never know. Yet, in some peculiar, inexplicable way, Westford, you will always remain a beautiful place to me.

photo by Frank Winters

The Italian Job

2008-08-28T20:50:00.002-04:00

I've been in Italy a week and it's been good. I've only found the time to write this as it is 3 AM and, having just gotten back from a 6th straight night at the bars, I have found it is the only spare time to recount one of the funnier stories of this past week.

After a sleepless 13-hour journey to Rome and a shuttle ride to my university, I was left with a John Cabot University rep to take me to my apartment and get helped get myself acclimated to the Roman lifestyle. Unfortunately, after taking me to the 8th floor of my apartment building, the chick had no idea how to open my door. To call the key to my apartment medieval is to call Leslie Neilson the future of Hollywood. The picture above reallly doesn't do justice to its 6-inch length. The door would not open. After about twenty minutes of futile twisting, we went back to the shuttle van. The driver, realizing that we couldn't open the apartment door, insisted that he give it a go. He opened the fucker within 20 seconds. After brief translingual lesson, explaining how I need to more or less jimmy my apartment door with my own fucking key, I was left alone with an empty apartment and no idea what I was going to do for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, that question answered itself rather quickly. Having scoped out all the rooms and deciding on the nicest single room (the one upstairs with the desk and closet), I lugged my bags upstairs and got ready too unpack. Before unpacking anything, however, I needed to take my first look out of my apartment window to the beautiful city streets of Rome. I set down my suitcase, shuffled to the nearby window, and lowered my head to the pane in a brisk, overexhausted motion. CRASH. Before I noticed that the sheet of glass from my window jutted out I had already shattered the damn thing. Glass exploded on and around my face. Fuckinghell.

Fortunately for me, I had been given John Cabot's emergency maintenance number in a packet less than an hour ago. Unfortunately for me, I began to notice a steady flow of blood dripping from face to hand. I looked in the mirror of my bathroom for the first time. Blood streamed down from my nose, through my fingers, into the sink. I called the maintenance number, explaining my ridiculous situation. They called a taxi for me to take from the apartment to the hospital, suggesting that I not look overly conspicuous and have a "big smile for the cab driver". As I dribble blood into a stained maroon t-shirt with a gash the size of a small canal. Sound advice.

I get into the cab and fumble through my own shit Italian to let the driver know that I basically need to get somewhere before his seats turn crimson. He looks pissed but understands and drives me to the hospital. After excessively tipping him for having to transport someone bleeding steadily into a rag, I exit the taxi and enter the hospital. Before reaching the front desk I check my pockets. Motheroftits. I left my phone in the cab. I earn myself an English-speaking doctor by confusing the women at the front desk. She washes off my face, periodically accidentally spilling unknown chemicals in my eyes and nervously asking her assistant for confirmation that these aren't damaging chemicals. She appplies gauze to the suture and bandages my nose like something out of Revenge of the Geeks.

After getting a ride back to my university and having them call the cab, whose number I miraculously remembered, things began to look up. Since then I've only washed my phone in the laundry and had to spend $40 on a replacement. But besides having a stupidly memorable introductory story to tell people I've met here and and hefty early repairs tab (both reparational and medical), it's been one hell of a first week and I'll have more stories to come as more time to reflect represents itself. Seacrest out.

It's Showtime!

2008-08-28T12:09:00.008-04:00

"Two sexy young black men from New York City." I ride the T (Boston's subway system) three days out of the week. It is slow, cramped, never on time, and boring as hell. The T sucks. A couple days ago I get on the red line coming home from work and these two kids get on and put a boombox in the middle of the aisle. One kid, sporting a New Era Yankees cap and an I "Heart" Boston t-shirt says, "It's showtime people! Two sexy young black men from New York City." The same kid proceeds to do a backflip in the aisle, lands flawlessly, then grabs onto the railings and does a front flip into the worm, again flawlessly, never hitting or bumping into anyone. The other kid steps up to do a one-handed handstand followed by some other crazy shit.

This sort of thing went on for about 20 minutes at which point the two kids stopped and asked for donations and I was surprisingly almost home in what felt like no time. Yeah, I made a donation. This was the coolest T ride I have ever been on. If the subway was smart, they would start hiring these kids. I had never seen a whole T car full of smiling faces until that day.

You're Not Dying Yet, Bitch

2008-08-15T13:33:00.005-04:00

There was a sense of foreboding leaving work yesterday, even though I knew I was headed to BC to drink with my friends from school for one last time before I leave for a semester in Italy next Friday. Well that's a pretty gay way to start a story, let me re-phrase that: I was mentally committed to grab a sub from Quizno's in Newton on the way to BC (I'm trying to eat at all my favorite American staples before my 4-month hiatus) but I forgot to print out Google Map directions on how to get there from work. I knew the it was on, however, and didn't want to look like a douche and go back into my office after leaving for the day, so on I went to my car.

I got off the highway at the Newton exit and onto the rotary and then drove into this kind of crazy part of Newton I'd never been to. One of those semi-urban neighborhoods with a lot of traffic, shops, and clutter. I frantically looked around for the Quizno's but after going through 3 sets of lights I realized that I'd missed it. At the next light, I banged a U-turn and started to head back towards the rotary.

My iPod shut off after I made the U-turn. I tried to turn it back on a made sure it was plugged in but I noticed the radio had turned off and wouldn't turn back on. The car was eerily quite. All of a sudden, the radio turned back on and my iPod started played again. I rolled to the next intersect and was the first in line at the red light. The radio turned off again. This time, I realized that the engine had turned off too. Removing the key and trying to start the car again, the engine choked with a grinding hiss-like noise. After freaking out for a few seconds while cars behind me honked angrily while they missed their green light chance, I got out of the car.

Conveniently, there guys on the median next to me holding signs to promote a local political candidate, so I got them to push my dead, shitty ass '99 Ford Windstar while it was in neutral. They gave me a good thirty-yard boost and started to walk back. I waved and thanked them and turned to pull into a Staples parking lot, the only lot I'd be able to reach with my car's quickly fading kinetic energy. Unfortunately for me, getting into this parking lot required going up a slight hill. My pathetic van lost all its momentum about ten feet up this small incline and started to drift backwards. Fuck.

With my van parked at an angle to completely block the entrance/exit to this parking lot, I asked a Staples copy kid who was taking a smoke break if he could help push my van into the lot. He got a couple other copy kid who generously obliged, but seemed to be in a tremendous amount of pain pushing me about 50 feet to a parking spot. After thanking them I called my dad, who works in the area, and AAA. They both said they'd be there in 45 minutes, so I hung out for a bit until AAA won the race.

Some weirdly-accented guy with a tow truck from a nearby auto joint suggested trying to jumpstart the battery. He attached a power source to my battery and told me to turn the ignition. The car turned on and stayed on as he immediately removed his power source. He told me that my battery would be fine to drive on, even as far as 45 miles back to Westford, as long as I didn't stop my car. I questioned him, saying that my car had stopped in the middle of a road with the engine running. He said he didn't know why it would do that (oh that's just super) but that he was confident that I'd be alright. I called and told my dad, who was almost at the Staples, about this, after which tow guy asked if he could leave. I thanked him and said that he could. Thirty seconds after he left the parking lot, the engine cut out and the battery died.

I should mention that this van has got about 145,000 miles on it and has been on the verge of death for roughly 2 years. I was amazed it didn't die on me earlier, having put about 4,500 miles on it this summer, but for it to go on my second-to-last is just being a prissy bitch.

Once my dad showed up, we went a bought a new battery and some wrenches. After about twenty minutes of tedious loosening due to the fact that one of the bolts needed a ratchet wrench to loosen it easily, some Staples guy came out with a toolbox for us to use. We got the new battery in and my dad and I went separate ways. Three hours had passed since my breakdown.

Heading back to the rotary, I saw the Quizno's. I pulled into the parking lot, ordered a large Chicken Carbonara combo, and got the fuck out of Newton.

The Malibu Knight

2008-08-15T00:40:00.009-04:00

The Malibu Knight (in order to protect his identity), a good friend of mine and Colin's and a good man, posted an entry in his livejournal today. This may seem very insignificant. However, I will have you know that Malibu was known to have one of the most entertaining/witty/funny/offensive Livejournals of the Livejournal era/area here in our small town outside of Boston. This is probably his first post in three years. Why I know this and why I still check my Livejournal friends page from time to time, I do not know. But today, it paid off just to see that. Nostalgia rules.

A link to The Malibu Knight's Livejournal: Apples, Guitars, and Monsters From Mars

Beach Bummin'

2008-08-12T14:42:00.007-04:00

I've been in New Jersey two of the past three weekends. The combined powers of Jesus, Mother Teresa, and Morgan Freeman wouldn't be able to save my soul from this fact.

The first of these two trips was to Wildwood Beach in South Jersey for a beach frisbee tournament. Me and a few of my buddies from school rode down that night stopping in Atlantic City at 1 AM to gamble. Well, two of the guys played 21 while me and another looked on. All of the the people in the casino looked like the kind of people who buy Teenies for their pre-schoolers lunch boxes instead of 100% fruit juice. I understand that many of the people who work at these casinos are Native American, but they all looked like awkwardly-shaped, inbred Asians. This sounds extremely offensive (in fact, it is) but I can think of no better way to describe it. The whole thing depressed me.

At this point I was getting tired and bored (blackjack is probably the most boring game ever invented besides NFL Quarterback Club '98) so I went to the parking garage to sleep. The car being about 90 degrees, I rolled down the windows and got maybe half an hour of ungratifying sleep while drunken thugs and trisomy-inflicted pseudo-Asians howled through the halls of late-night garage. Not my life's brightest moment.

After getting in the motel (this is Jersey, people) at about 4:30 that morning, I crashed on the floor and pass out quick for a refreshing and deserved rest. It was also short-lived because just hours later I was woken up to a rousing rendition of "B-Double E-Double R-U-N" by a few fellow BC chums who had arrived earlier that night. The two had woken up ready to start drinking. I covered my ears and tried to get back to sleep, only to have my nutsack trampled in a loutish attempt to reach the kitchen by the main culprit, who I will refer to as Jay. This is the one who had been blackout drunk, offending every women in his site the night before, and was passed out beyond revival by the time we rolled in earlier that morning. A typical night for Jay.

I should mention that Jay is a great, genuinely good guy and a legend on my frisbee team for the standard he set on the team in terms of drinking and throwing parties. But that weekend, he wasn't just off the wagon. He fell off the wagon, got hit by Kia Sedona and knocked onto some train tracks where the 6:50 to Newark hit him and derailed killing a family of woodland critters.

Jay, though still drunk from the night before, started drinking by the time we got to the beach at 10 that morning and by 2 PM was chugging vodka from a bottle. He was seen shotgunning at random times throughout that afternoon, which he still did impressively (he is a world-class shotgunner). By the time we left the fields at 5, he was so far gone, you couldn't find him with a Hubble telescope. He was passed out in a chair, not moving hardly breathing. I've seen a lot of passed out, belligerent kids in my life, but never had I seen anyone with such blatant disregard for his own body through such a prodigious amount of drinking.

Being a big dude, no one could move him, so a few good men stayed with him to wait it out. At one point, a police officer approach the group. Noticing that the kid passed out was hopelessly obliterated, the officer asked if he wanted medical help. After being woken up by one of his friends, Jay saw the cop and immediately called the man in blue a faggot. Ignoring the insult, the officer offered Jay a ride to the hospital, which he angrily refused and even signed a medical release waiving the officer's liability in the case of serious harm done by the drinking. Telling them that they needed to get off the beach, the cop helped drive the group back to the motel.

I've witnessed and heard of some terrible things related to drinking, but never had I seen anyone as drunk as this sad fellow. At one point he started peeing his pants and needed the help of a friend to bring him to a toilet and undo his pants. He crashed hard in one of the rooms and slept for the next 14 hours. He slept on the floor during all of this because whenever he tried to get on the bed, he kept rolling off and onto the floor. The manager of the motel kept a vigil on the room, coming in hourly to make sure that his surly tenant was alive. I think Jay had a headache that morning.

Two other quick things:
1. Seeing Radiohead and Animal Collective play at the All Points West Festival last weekend may have been the single best live musical experience of my life. I came into the concert thinking that Radiohead was the best band in the world, and left in awe of the fact that they sound better live than on their records. Animal Collective's new songs sound incredible, their next record is gonna be huge.

2. I posted my own Muxtape. If you haven't heard of Muxtape, you can set up an account to post a playlist of mp3's from your computer to this website. The playlist is open for streaming to the public. I'll probably update it periodically.

New Direction...Perhaps

2008-08-05T13:06:00.002-04:00

I enjoy a good story more than I enjoy people telling me what music to listen to, so here's a good one from earlier this summer:

Me and some of my friends from back home have been having this summer series called the Man Games on Saturday afternoons where there's some sort of ridiculous challenge. This past week was the Gallon Challenge. Terrible idea. One quiet dude (who I think was in my class but I hadn't talked to since middle school) showed up randomly and did the whole damn gallon without ralphing. He couldn't have weighed more than 225...he didn't even puke afterwards and drank half a 30 that night. Fucking impressive. I digress.

Anyways, there was this one shifty kid in this challenge, who I'll call Chuck to protect his identity, who did not fair so well. Dude puked at like the 45 minute mark, he's a little tyke so he didn't really have a chance. Anyways, he's driving home afterwards on the phone with his buddy who was away in California. As he's driving through the middle of town, he knows he needs to hit the can in the worst way. He pulls over into the library parking lot and just starts booking it. In the words of Glenn Frye, the H is O and he needs to find porcelain fast. Still on the phone, the business starts pouring out his anus and down his leg. He swears into the phone and tells Mikey, the kid on the other line, that he just shot Cosbys to his calves. Mikey loses his shit laughing and calls everyone in the tri-county area. I find out, chuckle, and continue to live life.

I mean, this dude was like 21 years old, too. He's had a long time to figure out how his ass works. I guess all is well though, he made it to a shower and everyone who knows him now has enough material to make fun of him with for a lifetime.

Hip Hop Mix

2008-08-01T15:13:00.009-04:00

It's Friday, I'm bored at work, what better time to run through the classics.

1. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five-The Message
2. Nas-The World Is Yours
3. Mobb Deep-Shook Ones Pt. II
4. Ice Cube-It Was a Good Day
5. GZA-Liquid Swords
6. Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth-They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)
7. Jay-Z-Dead Presidents II
8. Raekwon-Incarcerated Scarfaces
9. Notorious B.I.G.-Warning
10. Dr. Dre-Fuck Wit Dre Day
11 .OutKast-Rosa Parks
12. Ghostface Killah-Daytona 500
13. A Tribe Called Quest-Electric Relaxation
14. De La Soul-Me, Myself, and I
15. The Pharcyde-Drop

Ice on Mars

2008-07-16T10:46:00.007-04:00

First, big ups to The Hold Steady for their 88 score on review-compiler MetaCritic. They've been my favorite rock 'n' roll band since last summer, so it's nice to see them getting the respect they deserve with this unanimous critical acclaim.

In crazier news, this story broke about a month ago, but I just found out about it today and thought it was really cool: Scientists Find Water on Mars

Scientists have found ice beneath the surface of Mars, beneath the planet's dusty surface. They have expected to find ice there for years, but this confirmation is nonetheless a major discovery. They also have yet to find out what other sort of chemicals or components might be in the water. It doesn't sound like the sort of stuff I'd want to melt down and drink out of a Welch's jelly glass.

It's pretty crazy though to think that Mars could be a potential second home to the human race if we blow it here on Earth. Scientists have found that Mars has an alkaline soil, which could potentially also sustain the growth of many plants (many places on Earth have alkaline soil).

I guess what I'm getting at is, do NOT watch this movie. It sucks.

Punk Rock Changed Our Lives

2008-07-12T18:55:00.004-04:00

Lately, I've been reading a book called Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad. The book chronicles the stories of a range of bands from the emergence of the indie scene in the 80's, including Black Flag, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and several others.

I've particularly been fascinated with the story and music of the Minutemen, a three-man punk band from San Pedro, California. A self-distributed, self-promoted band on Greg Ginn's (the guitarist of Black Flag) SST label, the Minutemen weren't afraid to mix funk and jazz elements into their sound. Their mantra of "jamming econo" and DIY ethics really set the bar for thousands of bands that woould follow them.

I think what I really love about the Minutemen, besides their great music and brilliant lyrics, is their overwhelming sense of optimism, something that isn't always on the forefront in a counter-cultural movement like punk rock. These guys just fucking loved being in a band and when frontman D. Boon said "our band could be your life", he really meant it. He and Mike Watt openly stated that they thought every neighborhood, even every house, should have a band. I really couldn't agree more with him. Music has such a powerful way of bringing people together that such a society would be undoubtedly be a happier and friendlier one.

In another passage in the book, Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye talks about his early days in punk, when he and his bandmates would shave their heads and wear chains and tacks to intimidate people:

In our shows and within our community, we were totally goofy guys. We were painfully honest--we didn't shoplift, we didn't vandalize, we didn't spray-paint. We were just good kids. That was our whole joke. We don't do anything--everybody hates us just because of the way we look...If you do something so dumb as spray-paint your hair, then the next thing you know you have grits from southern Maryland chasing you down the fuckin' street just because you chose to do something a little different. You realize just how fucked up our society is.

Besides being an excellent commentary on the deficient judgmental tendencies of the human race, I think that this passage further highlights the benefits that having bands in every neighborhood would have. I doubt that those "grits" would have treated MacKaye and his friends so poorly if their kind, courteous teenage next-door neighbor started a punk band our of his garage (beside their probable frustration with having their peace and quiet disrupted). Art is culture and culture humanizes us; I'm all for more of it.

Gettiing back to the Minutemen, D. Boon died in a car crash in 1985, effectively breaking up the band. What amazes me about the Minutemen however is that there isn't the same sense of tragedy around their existence as there are with other bands associated with death like Nirvana and the Exploding Hearts. The message of D. Boon and his band was so positive that people cannot help but celebrate his inspirational story and life, rather than dwell on his terribly premature demise.

This video is an acoustic version of their legendary biographical anthem "History Lesson Part II", taken from their 2005 documentary "We Jam Econo".

Truth

2008-07-03T14:50:00.006-04:00

Colt 45 Commercial With Billy Dee Williams

To Beat a Dead Horse Pt. 2

2008-06-30T14:26:00.014-04:00

I won't continue on the first rant on Pitchfork's antics. I think the nail was hit on the head with that one. However, after reading Colin's post and thinking about how cool of an idea this is, I have decided to compile my own list of albums that have more or less changed the way I think about music. I'm sure that I have left some out, but here are five that initially came to mind:

1. Michael Jackson - Dangerous
Date Acquired: Sometime in 1993

I don't know if this album changed the way I thought about music but it was the first piece of music I could call my own. I didn't actually have the album, it was on a tape that was recorded from my dad's vinyl version. I remember having written the title of the album on a paper insert myself then wearing the black gloves to my kindergarten classes one day. I feel like I listened to this thing every day for a year. I probably did since I didn't know much back then. Rather than changing the way I listened to music, I'd say this album marked my beginning into music. From this point on, I knew that I loved music. And yeah, I got Thriller, just after this one.

2. Green Day - Dookie
Date Acquired: Sometime in 1995

I remember being at this kid's birthday party at Roller Kingdom a few weeks into the 2nd grade. (Those kinds of places were big in the '90s.) I didn't roller skate nor blade because, let's put it this way, I wasn't a balls to the wall kind of kid. So I sat on the side by myself for awhile and skated back and forth on the rug like a loser. Then blasting out of the speakers came "Basket Case." I listened for awhile then got this urge to go out on the rink and try skating a bit, so I did. I fell and that sucked because I didn't like getting hurt so I went back to the rug again. After that, I don't think I gave a shit though because I had just heard Green Day for the first time. I didn't understand early adulthood problems of anxiety but the song stuck and marked my beginning into alternative music.

3. Saves the Day - Through Being Cool
Date Acquired: Fall 2000

I think more than anything, my phase in pop-punk/ska was my most important phase in music. It was my attempt to express who I was to others through music, dress, and social attitude. However, it is because of this that no single band really stood out to change my attitude. It wasn't until the summer before 7th grade that I went to a small local show in which I heard a kid say, "Yeah there's everything, punk, ska, and emo," referring to the music to be heard that night. The next day, I asked an older more knowledgeable friend, "What is emo?" She said it stood for "emotional", as in emotional rock and sent me the song "Shoulder to the Wheel" off of Through Being Cool. It wasn't until a few months later that I purchased this album and begin to leave behind my pop-punk/ska roots. From this point on I was taken to other acts such as The Get Up Kids, The Annivesary, and the Midwest scene. It was at this point that I began to appreciate going to shows more. I felt as if I had become a true member of the crowd.

4. Orchid - Dance Tonight! Revolution Tomorrow!
Date Acquired: Spring 2002

While I wish that some things would never change, I have to admit that I tend to look for changes. Early on in high school I was introduced to hardcore, more or less the now defunct '90s scene of "screamo." Early acts included Saetia, The Kodan Armada, and Amherst, MA's Orchid. Although an inaccessible style of music, the raw sound of it struck me and I was intrigued by it. I enjoyed following smaller shows and loved the energy behind the music and the intimacy between the band and the small crowd. This would forever influence my continued interest in the DIY/punk culture, from which I expanded my taste from not only the '90s but from the the late '70s until now.

5. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
Date Acquired: Winter 2004

With age comes a certain sense of maturity, I think. With time I have found myself to have an ever-expanding open mind about like, stuff. One day a few years back, a friend of mine told me about the album You Forgot It In People by Broken Social Scene. He said, "I think you'd really like them." What I don't think he thought is that they would become one of my favorite bands of all time, or maybe he did. I think more than anything, while remaining one of my all time favorite albums, You Forgot It In People represented a yearn for new sound. It was at this time that I was beginning to discover post-rock and alternative country/folk, two genres I enjoy to this day and both incorporated into BSS's style. I didn't so much as follow one scene anymore as I was simply trying to discover what other scenes were out there. What hadn't I heard of yet that could change my life? Broken Social Scene was just that.

RIP Flash (1/4/98-6/27/08)

2008-06-27T19:20:00.006-04:00

This morning, one of my buddies who I've lived with for more than half my life passed on. His name was Flash, he was my dog, but all-in-all, he was one of the friendly and happiest creatures I've ever met. I'm gonna miss the guy a lot, but it sure helps to think of all the hilarious, joy-bringing things he did in his life. Like bringing back a dead snake once to scare the hell out of my mom. Or when he was a puppy and had never been to a pond before, dunking his head in the water and being freaked out when he pulled his head out because he had never been in the water before. He lived a great life and I think pretty much everyone who knew him can attest to that.

ChaCha

2008-06-26T08:58:00.002-04:00

Last week I first heard about the ChaCha text search service where you can text any question to the number 242242 and receive an answer within three minutes. The service is completely FREE and is great for clearing up arguments when you don't have a computer at hand.

My friend Scott mentioned that he was working for the site as a guide. They pay 20 cents per answer you take and can work whenever you feel like it by logging on. Payment are made by direct deposit through checking accounts. I decided it might be a fun, lucrative way to spend time at home (and when I'm bored at work).

Three days in, I have to say it's pretty entertaining, although definitely not an ideal stand-alone summer job. On average, it's probable that you'll get 20-25 searches assigned to you per hour, so that figures to $4-5 an hour. It's not too bad though because the searches can be really fun and you can just use the internet normally until something comes up.

Best question I've been asked so far? "wat do u think about wen u masterbait?" I got that question while at work and laughed out loud until I had to go to the bathroom to regain my composure. And then proceeded to think about Kathryn Bates in "About Schmidt" and heat up some kids.

Disney World Culture

2008-06-23T18:25:00.004-04:00

I was talking to my friend Jimmy last week about the time he spent studying abroad in China. One question I asked him was: why was it that you wanted to study abroad there out of all places? He said that he had always wanted to go there since he was a little kid and saw that crazy panoramic IMAX of a trip down a Chinese river in the China area of Epcot. I kind of laughed when I heard it, then thought for a second and vividly remembered myself being six years-old in Epcot, seeing that same video and being absolutely blown away by this foreign environment and culture that I had never seen before, with exotic instruments playing music in the background.

I never really thought about it until just now, but I find it pretty amazing that six year-olds can have moments like that when the world just seems kind of infinite.

Speaking of being blown away by new experiences, I haven't been completely floored by a new album in about four months (by Olivia Tremor Control), until today when I listened to this little 1990 gem by British band Ride.

The closest I can come to describing it is My Bloody Valentine meets The Stone Roses, but I honestly don't think that anyone who likes 90's alternative rock would be disappointed.Unbelievable stuff.

To Beat a Dead Horse

2008-06-18T20:34:00.007-04:00

Lately I've been thinking about how questionable the whole music blog/Pitchfork hipster scene is. While I'd be a hypocrite to say I didn't read Pitchfork daily for music news, updates, and reviews, I'm starting to think that the site is basically mind control for a whole scene of young people. I mean, mind control may be a bit strong, but it is pretty ridiculous what sort of hype-creating power that site has. They generally are pretty conservative with what they give the "Best New Music" title, but when they do give it, it's basically a coronation and an instant catalyst to overnight indie stardom.

From a personal standpoint, I generally do enjoy the albums that Pitchfork gives good reviews, but I guess I just question how serious kids take the site. This sort of attitude seems to be the failing of the whole music blogosphere in general. I mean I really love hearing new, interesting music but it just seems like people these days are just posting new music and mp3s like they are trying to keep up with the Joneses. When it seems like the music is a chore over a pleasure, that's a bad sign. I mean don't get me wrong, there's some really damn good sites out there like Gorilla vs. Bear, but 90% of these blogs are just shit...(this one too maybe?)

Anyways, I was listening to the Stone Roses' first album at work today, spaced out, thinking about all this and I started thinking about albums that actually changed the way I listened to music. Here's five I could think of, in chronological order of date bought:

1. Michael Jackson -Thriller
Date Acquired: Sometime in 1994

My first memory of being in a record store was me and my mother in the "J" section. I don't remember why I wanted a Michael Jackson album, but it probably had something to do with a first-grade friend digging his stuff (my mom must have hated that her 6-year old son wanted music by a recently-accused pedophile). I remembered being enthralled by the cover art of the 1991 album Dangerous, but my mom, being a responsible parent, told me that I should get Thriller. My first glorious exposure to pop music at it's finest. I would later get Dangerous and eat that shit up for breakfast and love it. Still do. But Thriller is Thriller.

2. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Date Acquired: Sometime in 1996

In first grade, one of my best friends used to talk about the Beatles seriously all fucking day. He said he had all of their albums. His name was Shawn and he was Indian. I got a Beatles' Greatest Hits cassette for Christmas in first grade and dug it. Upon the advent of the CD, I got this for either my birthday or Christmas in third grade and ever since then, it's been my favorite Beatles album. And in one of the more obvious statements ever, I would probably have to credit the Beatles as much as any band for making me love rock and roll.

3. Saves the Day - Through Being Cool
Date Acquired: Spring 2001

In late 7th grade, I got hit by the pop-punk bug, which probably changed the way I thought about music more than anything in my life. No longer sufficient was the shitty metal and mainstream rap that I heard on the radio. It was now all about the raw pubescent emotion of these "punk rockers" like Saves the Day and New Found Glory. This Saves the Day album in particular blew away 12-year old Colin, and I still can listen to it at any hour seven years later and love it. In the words of D. Boon, punk rock changed my life.

4. Radiohead - OK Computer
Date Acquired: Christmas 2003

Well I am a hypocrite. Before I knew what the hell Pitchfork was, I remembered stumbling onto its "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s" and seeing this at #1. I didn't know any of these so-called "best" albums of the decade that I grew up in. Having heard decent things about this "Radiohead" band and not having much to ask Santa for, I threw this on my Christmas list. I ended up on December 25th with OK Computer, Slanted and Enchanted, and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea...if I had only known that days like that are one in a million.

5. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Date Acquired: Winter 2004

I really don't remember why I ended up downloading Wu-Tang's debut album. was I trying to give hip-hip a chance? All I know is that before it, I really had limited respect for rap music beyond its catchy dance floor hits. Before I heard this flow, intricate rhyme schemes, bangers...it meant nothing to me. I think it took RZA's grimy, challenging production and some of the rawest lyricism to ever grace hip-hop to scare the living white kid out of me and into loving the genre.

So yeah...that's how I'm me.

What Makes Me Happy

2008-06-17T00:54:00.005-04:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yv-kbt_VXSk

I find this video funny. I would have embedded it but embedding has been disabled by the user's request. I watch videos a lot at work.

"Rock and Roll is Very Simple"

2008-06-15T14:11:00.003-04:00

Check out this Asian dude laying down the Truth on some keyboard drums. The dude spits knowledge and then proceeds to take it to funky town. Domo arigato.

Yo yo yo

2008-06-12T10:55:00.004-04:00

I'm at work right now and all I call think of is how funny a word "stakeholder" is.

In other news, fat kids falling:

And best of all, fat kids thinking they are going to fall and being terrified of it:

Clark and Michael

2008-06-10T22:43:00.003-04:00

I may be the last person on the planet to find this, but Clark and Michael, a ten-episode webisode series starring Michael Cera and his friend Clark Duke (who made the first episode as his senior thesis). The show is about the two friends trying to pitch their TV show to network executives and failing miserably.

Michael Cera really is one of the funniest things in comedy right now and this series doesn't disappoint. Plus each episode is roughly ten minutes long, so you can plow through all ten in the time it take to watch a feature-length film. The highlight to me is episode six, when Clark treats Michael to a day at the minigolf course. Just watch the damn thing.

Alien Ant Farm Would Be Proud

2008-06-10T14:53:00.008-04:00

I've had a subscription to NetFlix for the past two years, and I have to say that I love it. They have a super fast mailing service, unbelievable scale in terms of movie choices, and a convenient unlimited online viewing service.

One of NetFlix's other great features is its movie recommendation feature, which personalizes your account to make recommendations based on the ratings you give. This feature has helped me find some absolute gems that I otherwise never would have gotten to see.

One of such movies is Cinema Paradiso, a 1988 Italian film (Best Foreign Film Oscar winner that year) about an Italian filmmaker who reflects on his childhood when he fell in love with cinema. It is a comedy, drama, and romance film all at once and has to me the most powerful ending sequence of any movie I've ever seen. Any who loves film really cannot go without seeing this.

Another incredible movie that I found with NetFlix is Das Boot. This one is a bit more famous, especially after Beerfest referencing it, and is a 1981 German film about the adventures of a single WWII U-Boat crew. The acting is unbelievable, there is plenty of action, and the captain is one of the great badasses in film history. Like Cinema Paradiso, it is of epic length, but a must-see.

So watch 'em.

Pharmaceutical Phun, Pt. 1

2008-05-28T18:45:00.005-04:00

My summer internship thus far involves me basically going through the websites of several thousand companies and evaluating whether they are a "target candidate" for buying our product (aka salespeople call the target companies up and pester them to buy). Having made it through over 700 pharmaceutical/biotech company websites in the past two days, here are two of my favorites:

AllerPharma: While at first glance, an innocent enough allergy research organization, clicking on the "About Us" section of their website, shows their true colors: extremist Canadian nationalism. Selfish Canucks that they are, their entire mission is to prevent Canadians from the sneezes and sniffles, while leaving the rest of the world at the mercy of its own genetiic unfitness. And for awhile I thought Canada was cool just because Michael Cera, and Ellen Page, and Broken Social Scene are from there...

AnalTech: Alright, the name sort of says it all. I cannot look at the people on this page without laughing, knowing that their lives' work is spent on the cause of anal advancement.

And because I'm all about chords and beats, here's one from the post-rock-and-rollers-turned-Paw-Tracks-poseurs, Sigur Ros. Plus, a video with naked chicks and dicks. Alright.

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T00:59:00.006-04:00

This weekend I realized a few things: I can perpetually watch Arrested Development and not get tired of it. I can also eat lots of fried food and feel great. Mint chip ice cream is okay when it's free.

This is wacky.

Portraits of Past - A Reunion

2008-05-20T23:49:00.014-04:00

Legendary San Francisco hardcore punk band, Portraits of Past, will be playing a reunion show in their home town this August, their first show in over 14 years. Following this will be a gig at 924 Gilman St. in Berkeley, CA with supporting acts: Comadre, Phoenix Bodies, and La Quiete. TBA dates to be held in New York and elsewhere. Shows not to miss.

Portraits of Past circa 1995

La Quiete in 2006 with Westford's own Ryan Greaves
(I was also at this show.)

First day of work tomorrow. (Wish me luck.)

Portraits of Past (San Francisco)
La Quiete (Bologna, Italy)

Sequestered in Westford

2008-05-20T19:21:00.007-04:00

Just finished watching Juno...a pretty solid flick, hard not to fall in love with Ellen Page watching it. Movies like that always leave me not fully impressed by the end, but put me in a state for awhile afterwards. Hard to describe, but I'm kind of jazzed out right now.

Then I get back to my computer and what do I find, but a new track by the Hold Steady. And boy howdy, it's the good ol' boys at it again. There's something about the Hold Steady that always gets me, just great lyrics about getting kicks and the sadness of life mixed with heavy riffage...it's like Kerouac fronting a lunch-pail rock band. Anywho, here's the tune.

The Hold Steady-Sequestered in Memphis

Well That Was Boring

2008-05-14T16:37:00.007-04:00

I spent five and a half hours today at the Suffolk Superior Courthouse in Government Center doing my civic duty of sitting around being really fucking bored while the State meticulously chose juries for its cases. When I finally got called along with over 100 other people to be screened for the selection of a jury of 14 for a criminal case, I liked my odds.

The case was basically about a middle-aged Latino man from Jamaica Plains (who had an interpreter...he didn't seem to speak English) who alleged raped his girlfriend's 14 year-old daughter in their house. I really didn't want to be chosen and have to sit and listen to the graphic details of such a sensitive case, especially since it was estimated to last about 4 days.

But I didn't get chosen and I'm finally settling in for the summer. Let's hope it's a good one.

Derrick Morgan-Tougher Than Tough (Rudie in Court)

Go Eagles

2008-05-13T13:06:00.008-04:00

Went to BC to visit Colin then saw Cut Copy with Black Kids at the Paradise. Not what I expected but still a decent show. Had one of these:

(Seagram's Green Machine) Yep.

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T19:10:00.009-04:00

Today is Mother's Day. I love you mom. In other news:

Don Caballero (Damon Che: drums, Jason Jouver: bass, and Gene Doyle: guitar) is set to enter the studio this week to record their new full-length album, titled Punkgasm.
Don Caballero will return to Rust Belt Studios in Michigan with producer / engineer Al Sutton to record Punkgasm. Working song titles include: “Slaughbaughs Ought Not Own Dog Data," "Aw Man, That`s Jive Skip," and "Bulkeye."
Founding member Che comments on the new material; “I know this sounds like an obligatory and potentially phony statement but, I at least, firmly believe this will be the 'best Caballero yet'. All clichés be detonated.”
Punkgasm is expected to see a late Summer ’08 release via Relapse. Further album details will be made available shortly.
Cool.

Tapping at the speed of sound.

Formed a Blog

2008-05-11T14:19:00.006-04:00

In order to compete with the hippest and most literate minds of our generation, I have signed on to participate in this internet blogging experience. I have some pretty important things to say, so this should be a great privilege for all. While I haven't talked it over with Ben, I think the vibe we are going for on this thing is Perez Hilton meets Gorilla vs. Bear meets To Catch a Predator. All in all, this should be a very enlightening and exciting adventure in art and culture.

As the formation of this blog is only Stage One of our conquest of the scene, Stage Two will involve us rapidly ascending the charts of the Hype Machine and Elbo.ws as an mp3 blog of unparalleled eclecticism and timeliness. During Stage Three we will emerge as one of the most reliable remix/mashup duos to ever grace the realm of blog house. Stage Four will be marked by incessant touring and festival-headlining for our LPs that will redefine the way that people think of music in the context of their lives.

Until then, stay tuned.

Art Brut-Formed a Band

Turnarounds

2008-05-11T02:50:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I went to visit Alison at Wellesley with Ali. We played a long game of catch up in the car and visited Providence on the way. Incidentally, Providence is not on the way to Wellesley.