I stumbled upon this video yesterday on YouTube, just by chance. I'm scarred for life and inspired at the same time. I just wish I could find out more information about Tom Rubnitz, since there isn't much about him on the internet. I think I have found my Halloween costume for next year though - I'm totally going to be the Pickle Surprise guy.
Yeah, that is RuPaul and Lady Bunny in the video.
I feel like crap.
My eyes burn like someone poured hydrochloric acid on my contacts. My lungs are burning, and I keep coughing, which makes my lungs burn worse. I'm having random nose bleeds, and worse than that, my gums started bleeding badly again. I started coughing up blood earlier today, but I'm not sure if that's from my lungs, or from the bloody mouth. Either way... not good.
Jesus, I hate the student health services here. I don't feel like they ever do a thorough job, and I'm tired of them acting like I'm just making shit up. Then they wonder why I only go there when things get really bad.
I'm off to watch the stupid film for film class, and then off to bed. I'm craving a hamburger... probably due to the blood loss. This sucks.
Here are some bands worth checking out. I'm too lazy to write a whole lot, and include links, but you're a big kid now, so find it your damn self.
!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Myth Takes Great dance/rock from a NYC band. They're kind of like The Rapture, but a little harder on the rock end of things. Trust me though, your booty will still have a mind of it's own after you've heard just a few measures of any song.
The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible The follow up from this sexy Canadian band isn't nearly the disappointment I feared it might be. Is it as good as their first album? No. But it's still pretty damn good.
Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City This follow up is definitely different than their first album. It's not bad... just different. After a few listens, I realized how good this album really is, and absolutely LOVE it now.
Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards Alternative rock that doesn't sound like every other generic alt rock band out there. It's not the best album I've ever heard, but it's not too bad either.
Feist - The Reminder I just blogged about this a little while ago. Much different than her first album, and I like it much more. I still listen to "I Feel It Now" on repeat.
Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds I didn't know about this guy until I finally got my first copy of Butt Magazine, where he was interviewed. He wrote all of the string arrangements for the first Arcade Fire album, and he makes some trippy music. Kind of like a male, stoner, violinist version of Bjork or something.
Mika - Life in Cartoon Motion Hailed as the "Next Big Thing" in the UK, I'm not really seeing why there's all the hype. It's ok, but a little whiney for my taste.
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black Now this is what Neo-Soul is supposed to be. Imagine Nina Simone singing about going to rehab, but making it modern and fun. Yeah, you actually want to dance to lines like "they want me to go to rehab, but I won't go... no no" This is hot.
The Bird and the Bee - TBATB Trippy folk rock that occasionally surprises. "Fucking Boyfriend" is kind of about a girl asking a guy if he wants to be her fucking boyfriend. Whether that's figurative or literal... I can't quite tell you.
Freemasons - Shakedown Some of the best dance music out there, in my opinion. I'd much rather dance to these two discs for a few hours than listen to the crap most club DJs play, and have twice as much fun doing it. Definitely good for workouts and your home dance party in your underwear.
I can't believe that the end of Civil War was so damn anti-climatic, and that this was then followed up with the assassination of Captain America by a sniper. LAME. LAME. LAME. Cap'n was that perfect combination of cool and sexy that rarely comes along, and they kill him with a sniper. Arrrgh!
Rui has a good suspicion that the Punisher will take over as Captain America for a while, which could be cool if it was the MAX version of Punisher, instead of the milktoast regular Marvel Punisher. And no, not just because MAX Punisher swears and has sex; he's just infinitely more macho.
Someone else pointed out to me that as with all "big events" in comics, 90% of the events will be overturned in the near future. Sheesh... back to soap opera story arcs where people arise from the dead and someone sleeps with a distant (or not so distant) relation. If someone wakes up with amnesia, I'll vomit.
DC is gearing up for their Countdown/WWIII thing in May. I hope it's not as lame as Civil War ended up being. Hopefully Black Adam goes totally bonkers and wreaks some serious havoc. I wasn't all that into him, but during the course of 52, I've come around to liking him, and liking him best when he's a little psycho/angry. Kind of how I best enjoy myself, ironically enough.
I've made no bones about the fact I have a huge online-crush on the super Mr. Chris Glass. What's most important is that I love him for his MIND. Yes, his mind. And his talent, and his creativity, and he's kinda cute... but mostly for his mind. Mostly.
After he designed one of my favorite shirts, the "Make it Work" Tim Gunn line drawing shirt, I thought he couldn't top himself. Yeah... I was wrong. He's now created the Ladies Hair Shirt, and trust me, this is hotter than Knight Rider era David Hasselhoff in a speedo. What's that? You doubt me? Fine, check out this amazing video, and then even attempt to tell me I'm wrong.
Okay, it's official. ISU can go suck a big horse cock and choke to death in the process. I'm so tired of idiocy here at this university.
Today is re-elections day for ISU Student Senate, since the two lead contenders for Pres/VP were so close in votes. It wasn't until I got the Student Union Building that I discovered just how crooked things were this year.
One of the guys running for VP had a booth set up to campaign in there, and had two laptops set up for people to vote. So, as he hands you candy, pens, and other assorted worthless shit, you can handily vote for him!
Disgusted, and thinking that they're doing something wrong, I go to the ASISU Student Senate office to let them know what's going on. There, I'm told that since voting is online, and they can't control who campaigns near any given computer, they decided to allow people to campaign anywhere they damn well please, and can even have their own little "voting booth" of laptops set up for online voting. I asked the Electoral Committee chair why this was even an acceptable option, to which he replied, "well, we get nearly twice as many to vote online as did when it was on paper." Gee, I wonder why. People now get paid to vote, and there's nothing like selling your soul for a handful of cheap-ass candy. I told him that this was morally reprehensible, and that they should be abashed. He told me that I should email him with some suggestions, and then turned around and walked off. Here's an idea, let's not allow our campus to sink into moral bankruptcy and allow bribery for votes. That's disgusting and demeaning.
I can't believe that elections here have sunk to such an all time low on the sleaze factor. There's a very real and important reason that in any other official election, people are banned from campaigning within certain distances of voting booths, including intimidation, bribery, and other morally flawed factors. It's ridiculous that this is allowed to go on with the campus, just because they're too fucking lazy to work on proper electoral methods and are willing to see votes being bought just so that they can brag that they increased voter turn-out.
Thank you, ISU, for proving to me that I hadn't even scratched the surface of reasons to be disgusted with you.
Yeah, so I was bad and got a "preview" of the new album of Feist. I wanted to see how she'd matured as an artist, and if I liked her any more than I did on her first album. Don't get me wrong... I loved the first album, but I found myself a little bored with it after a while. It just didn't have the repeatability factor that some albums have.
Anyway, I just realized I'd been listening to the song "I Feel It All" on repeat for nearly 20 minutes, which is pretty remarkable. Admittedly, there was that day I listened to Travis's "Love Will Come Through" for an entire day, but that was a fluke, rather than the norm. I swear!
Yeah, her new album is pretty damn good. It's mellow like her first album, but seems to be better produced and some better self-editing seems to have taken place. I'd definitely recommend giving it a listen at some point.
Get this stupid song by Justin Timberlake out of my head! It's been floating around my head for about 8 hours now, and this was made worse by the fact that one of the twinks had it as a ringtone for their texts tonight.
What's the giggling cracked out ferret sound in the chorus? Heee - ee- eee- ee- eee - eee....
Arrgh!
Two references to Duran Duran this week so far, and I'm running to get my hands on their Greatest Hits. Duran Duran is great! My sister Jan had a huge crush on them in the 80's, so it wasn't cool to like any band who your older sister has giant wall posters of. I missed out on some good music because of her. Why couldn't she have been all about the Judds like Amy?
The first reference to Duran Duran this week was in Layer Cake, where a guy beats the crap out of another guy to "Ordinary World" and I'm left thinking to myself, "why don't more people get beat nearly to death to Duran Duran songs?" Personally, if someone decides to give me a severe beating, I hope I hear "Come Undone" in the background.
The second reference came this afternoon from Syndie, telling me something about getting "No. No. Notorious!" I guessed the band, she was supposed to drink. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if she did or not, but it was 4:30 in the afternoon, so I'd feel like an alcoholic enabler if I was forcing her to drink dirty martinis before dinner.
Next karaoke session, I might stick with KT Tunstall, but I'm definitely dropping Pete Yorn for Duran Duran. Hells yeah.
For the discriminating shopper who wants to be hip, but much hipper than their hipster counterparts, I have discovered the Sketchel.
The Sketchel is a one-off specially art designed satchel that you can carry "a laptop or old vinyl in." (Their words, not mine.) It's actually pretty cool to think that for $150, you can get a special bag that you, and only you, will ever have. Well, you can get on if you have money, which I don't, due to two posts down. You get the picture.
Sketchels
Tonight reminded me that I'm crap when it comes to small venue entertainment. After our HIV/STD testing got canceled by the district health department, ironically due to their health issues, we had to come up with something to do for tonight.
The problem is that I can think of the elaborate things, but can't think of even a semi entertaining small scale thing to do. For the record, we ended up watching my copy of Layer Cake but our tv/dvd player at the GP space is messed up and you couldn't hear the dialogue through the music. It was frustrating as hell.
So I came up with a great idea for an elaborate Monday night event. (And no, you may not steal my idea for your future party... wanker.) I want to rent out the local old school skating rink one monday night, and have a Madonna "Confessions On the Dance Floor Concert" skate-o-rama party. Rolling around on old school skates while the Madonna concert is being projected on the walls sounds pretty kick ass to me. Hell, I might even whip out a purple leotard for the last part of the concert/skate party. Whoohoo!
They're mine! Finally, they're mine!
I've been drooling over Frye boots for a long time now, and have been tempted to order some online, even though I couldn't really afford it. Then, this weekend I came across a killer deal and got a pair of Frye's for less than 1/2 price! You never find Frye boots for less than 1/2 price!
Here's what they look like:
Yeah, these babies are smokin' hot.
Films that make you sympathetic for terrorists are hot. Urban terrorism a la Fight Club? Hell yeah... that was some glamorous terrorism.
Sadly, this was not the case for Catch A Fire, a film about a man in South Africa during the age of apartheid, who becomes a terrorist/freedumb fighter after he and his wife were kidnapped and tortured. It was the wife issue that really pushed him into terrorism. Apparently, them smacking his wife around a little was reason to grab a bomb or two. You can tell his rage about the wife issue because he howls with extra special anguish and double spittle this time. I think he was just pissed that they didn't have the decency to smack her around while wearing white tank tops and holding a Pabst Blue Ribbon. I know I'd go Rambo if someone smacked my wife around, and did a half-assed job like that. What, no Pabst? It's on!!
The guy, who I cared so little about I didn't even learn his name, moves to some country to join some terrorist group to blow up the Secunda factory. Hmm... on further reflection, I only remember the wife's name, Precious, because my friend's mother had an obnoxious poodle named Precious whom everybody hated. And it's sad I can remember the name of the factory, but not any character except the wifey with a dog's name. That's always a good sign that this was a bad movie.
So Mr. Terrorist plants a bomb and Tim Robbins chases him with bad clothes and some undiscernable/contantly switching accent. Then, Tim magically happens on the bomb and disarms it at the last second. They then catch Mr. Terrorist, and I'm thinking Tim Robbins' character is the hero of the movie. Nope. I was wrong. Suddenly there's some stupid epilogue about how Mr. Terrorist was sent to and released from prison and how he was somehow like Nelson Mandela, and then how he could have killed Tim Robbins, but valiantly doesn't... and then there's footage with the real man this story is based on... and suddenly I'm on the couch wondering what the hell happened to the end of this story, and why I actually watched all of this drivel. Damn, somehow I missed all the cues I was supposed to feel sympathetic towards this guy.
Catch a Fire? No thanks. I'd rather feel the burn from catching syphilis than watch that crap again.
I can't even begin to express how busy and stressful this week has been. I thought last week was bad, but it really doesn't compare to this week. Work, homework, class, projects, etc... it's been non-stop. I feel like I've ran a marathon and no one was even nice enough to provide Gatorade along the way.
Anyway, I've noticed that when you're really busy and can't be bothered... everyone feels the need to bother you. You'll get about 5 IM conversations going at the same time, two text messages, and two call-waiting calls on your cell phone. And during this time, you're trying to work with some damn photo in Photoshop for your book project. *sigh* It's just the way these things work out.
Then, when you're finally free for a bit and able to communicate like a normal human being... nothing. No texts, no phone calls, no IMs... nothing. You're stuck home alone watching Doctor Who waiting for people to respond to your communications while fighting off sleep because you were dumb and only got about 5 hours of sleep last night.
Tracey Thorn finally is coming out with her long-awaited solo album! The first single, "It's All True" is now available for purchase.
The new single's pretty good, and reminiscent of her work on Everything But the Girl. I'm excited about the new album.
I want to do a personality test on people in Idaho Falls sometime, mainly to find out why a good proportion of the people there don't seem to have one. Tonight was the second coffee night my work hosted up there, and I'm just amazed at the people up there. Don't get me wrong, there were some great guys who showed up, but there were at least 4 of them who had as much charisma as the chair I was sitting on. I just don't get it, and it seems like I meet quite a few people up there who are similarly lacking in any signs of life.
There was also a closet case in the Quiznos we stopped in for dinner. He kept staring at us the entire time he was there, including the long, deliberate walk past our table while he made sure to make lingering eye contact with all of us. Ben said the guy looked like a "camping buddy" and we all laughed, knowing exactly what he was getting at.
On to book making. The mock up is due on Thursday for the book I proposed this afternoon. This is seriously getting to me. I have 48 hours to make a quick version of my final book, including the materials I'm supposed to use on the final project. Um... I don't even have time to go look at materials in the next 48 hours, let alone plan out the entire project. Some of us have 6 hours of work tomorrow or more, 5 hours of class, and a whole bunch of homework for other classes. Not to mention the fact I've had class and work tonight after I left book making class. Arrgh... I hate that the Mass Comm department still refuses to be realistic about students' schedules.
I just got a surprising email. I got asked to join a movie blog, where I guess I'm supposed to blog about films that I've seen. Apparently they found Blandella and thought I'd make a valid contribution.
I balk though, because I seem to have vastly different tastes than the average film consumer. I agreed with Lisa Schwartzbaum when she said that Little Miss Sunshine was tired. Maybe if Thumbsucker and The Squid and the Whale hadn't both come out recently, it might have seemed a bit fresher, but I just felt like I'd seen LMS before, because it felt like recycled bits of dysfuctional-family dramedy mixed together for something new. I do, however, concede to the fact that the final dance scene was one of the funnest scenes I've seen in a long time.
I also look at what's playing at my local theatre, and realize that I'm surrounded by asinine twits in the general community, at least here in Pocatello. They love to settle for the worst of the worst, and support it wholeheartedly. Perhaps I just don't understand the common man. Does that automatically make me uncommon?
Anyway, I don't know what to do... so I'll just waffle in the mean time, and go watch Catch a Fire for my class on Wednesday.
Yesterday, I was busy working on both my film and book-making project proposals when I suddenly remembered the film Submission, part 1 by Theo Van Gogh. Theo was the great-nephew of Vincent Van Gogh, but was more famous for his vicious murder in Amsterdam a few years ago due to his involvement with Submission.
Anyway, this made me think of other films I watched in the UK, which made me remember the French film La Haine. French for "The Hate," La Haine is one of those brutal films that makes you cringe, think, and get all emotional at the same time. For some reason, I think about this film over a year after I saw it, which is fairly remarkable considering all the foreign/indie films I watched in just that one class.
The story follows three disaffected youth growing up in the ghettos of France. The story follows their brushes with the law, Parisian art snobs, and life in general. The film's most notable for predicting the race riots that would tear through France only a short time after the film aired, for nearly identical reasons to the riots shown in the film. It was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, who's most recognized for playing the boyfriend of Amelie, another great French movie.
Sadly, La Haine has been unavailable in the US for over 10 years now. However, I discovered last night that it'll be available on the Criterion Collection DVD set in April. I know it's a ways off, but keep it in mind for a few months from now.
I wanted to go to the movie theatre and see a good film this evening. Oops. Nevermind. Two big problems there. 1) No movies were playing after 7:10, and I didn't think to check on them until 7:30. How foolish of me to expect a movie to play at 9pm in Idaho. Arrgh. 2) There are no good movies playing here in Pocatello. I really wanted to see Children of Men or Notes on a Scandal or The Queen or anything with some class to it, but instead, I'm presented with the following:
Code Name: The Cleaner Films like this remind me the general public is idiotic.
Eragon It looks like Dungeons and Dragons, and there will be no "fool me twice" shame-shaminess this time.
Happily N'Ever After Just go rent Shrek instead.
Primeval That Lake Placid and Ghost in the Darkness hybrid we never needed to see made.
Rocky Balboa Does Stallone know someone stole his Madame Tussaud's wax figure to make a film? I'd be pissed.
We Are Marshall (Remember the Titans - race issues + sadness) x (Waterboy - funny) = We Are Marshall = hell no.
Dreamgirls The only desirable option, thanks to Bill Condon, but Beyonce's obnoxiousness gives me shingles.
Freedom Writers Dangerous Minds without the great Coolio song on the soundtrack.
Night at the Museum Ben Stiller plays Ben Stiller, yet people still find it fresh. *sigh* He's the new Kevin Costner.
The Pursuit of Happyness The fact that they spelled "happiness" wrong drives me crazy, almost as crazy as Will Smith does.
Stomp the Yard Ugh. Stomp my balls if I ever even entertain the thought of seeing this.
So, what's the lesson about films today? Obviously, derivative is the new imaginative. I support recycling, but this is just sad.
