vinegar

I'm in a horribly pissy mood this morning. Pretty much everything is bugging the shit out of me. Right now I'm listening to Rochester's show, which, it's not pissing me off per se, but he just played "Decatur" by Sufjan Stevens (and no, I won't type out the full name of the song, because it also annoys me, mostly because it's so self-indulgent and pretentious, and it makes no sense anyway). But that song pisses me off, because it's probably the worst on the album, which is so mammothly overrated in the first place that it sickens me. Actual line from the song: "Steven A. Douglas was a great debater, but Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator." Seriously. That's a lyric? No. That's a fucking BOOK REPORT by a 5th grader that's probably been held back. Sufjan is such a candy-ass.

Plus, I've been assigned to work on a proposal at work. I pussed out on the kick-off meeting yesterday afternoon, but they scheduled ANOTHER meeting for this morning, and it conflicts with ANOTHER meeting I already have scheduled. So, for this proposal, for which nobody has yet written a word, they've had two meetings that have lasted a combined 3 hours. No fucking WAY am I going to work on this.

Anyway. Go about your business.

live from beantown

Smallcabbage is hosting a fun thread about breakup-song lyrics.

'roobloggin'

The Long Winters put out one of my favorite albums evs, "When I Pretend To Fall." The lead guy, John Roderick is an awesome songwriter. Apparently, he's also a pretty good blogger. CMJ magazine sent him to Bonnaroo this year, and he's bloggin' about it. Not only are the entries (two so far, here, and here) fucking hilarious, he actually seems like a good guy, too. He dislikes all the right kinds of music, too (reggae, modern blues, Coldplay, etc), so it's a fun read.

Can this be right?

This can't be right. I mean, they didn't even ask any questions about Star Wars, or how I organize my CDs, or the last time I kissed a girl, or if I know what HDMI stands for. This quiz is rigged. I'm way nerdier than that.

link via smallcabbage

WMD found in Iraq

US-led coalition forces in Iraq have found some 500 chemical weapons since the March 2003 invasion, Republican lawmakers said, citing an intelligence report.

"Since 2003, Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent," said an overview of the report unveiled by Senator Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra, head of the intelligence committee of the House of Representatives....

"Weapons have been discovered; more weapons exist. And they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq."

Uh, this kind of seems like a big deal to me. But there is no story on either the NYT or Washington Post sites as of the time of this post. If you read the transcript of the press conference, you'll see that the report has been in production for some time, and what's been released is apparently only a small part of the whole report, so we're likely to hear more about this, I'd think. I'm just kind of fascinated by the lack of headlines about this.

Am I missing something? The President said before we went to Iraq that there were WMD. Lots of intelligence agencies said that, in fact. Since the war started, lots of people have been like, "There are obviously no WMD. Therefore, Bush lied, our troops died for an illegal, immoral, and unjustified war." They want to impeach him over it. Ok, so, now we find them, and everyone's like, "Whatever"? How does that make sense?

fan-fucking-tastic

I don't know if any of you cares about the NBA, but, shit, what a fucking travesty of a Finals this year. You gotta read Bill Simmon's article about this; he's dead on about nearly everything he says in the article.

Look, Dwyane Wade is an incredible player, obvi. No one is disputing that. But the levels the league has gone to in order to assure a victory for him and the Heat is absolutely disgraceful. Simmons is dead on when he says this is all about the NBA protecting its outdated superstar-driven money machine. It's short-sighted, wholly appalling, and compromises the integrity of the sport, the fans, and degrades us as a country and a people. David Stern may, in fact, be an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. Why do you hate our freedom, David Stern? WHY?!?!?!

most impressive

Ann Coulter* on the politics of empire:

"The liberals hate Darth Vader just for being a strong leader and trying to preserve traditional values in the Empire. At least in the Empire, they supported their troops, which is more than you can say about Cindy Sheehan and the blue staters. But no, these Blame The Empire First liberals would rather cheer known smuggler Han Solo (how do we know he doesn't smuggle drugs in the Millennium Falcon? Or worse, steroids? I mean, look at all the hair on Chewbacca's back) and that twisted pervert Luke who tries to kill his father and wants to sleep with his sister, and the so-called Rebel Alliance, which is nothing more than a bunch of terrorists with good PR. Their idea of a dream world is the ice planet Hoth, where there is never a threat of global warming. And why do the liberals bash the Death Star so much? At least it put people to work instead of having them stand around waiting for a welfare check. Repeat after me: Death Stars don't kill people, people kill people. Not that the residents of Alderaan were necessarily people in the sense they possessed the same DNA and precious stem cells as us. But how do we know they wouldn't have destroyed Tatooine if Darth hadn't launched his preemptive attack?"

*not really

when old people imitate art

He was a teenager when he wrote the tune for "When I'm Sixty-Four," and only 24 when the Beatles recorded it in 1967 for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." But just as George Orwell's "1984" proved to be an abiding prophecy of a dystopic future for so many impressionable readers, Mr. McCartney's lyrics delivered to a self-consciously youthful generation an enduring if satirical definition of what their golden age might be like "many years from now."

Paul turns 64 on Sunday.
His newest album is actually pretty good, too. Nigel Godrich, who produced a bunch of Radiohead and Beck albums, produced it.

A little lovin'

Congrats to our very own Rochester, officially the best DJ in the Triangle! Stop by and give the boy some love, y'all.

John Adams' Gremlin?

Cool idea, for sure; a definite sign that we live in the future. But I'm still cold on the idea of renting music.

oh my god it's a mirage

Zarqawi: the Airstrike Remix

crap

Do your part for the advancement of scientific knowledge today by taking The Toiletpaper Survey.

ooh hell is a place on earth

I can't believe it's the Apocalypse already... feels like a Tuesday. I can't believe it's the Apocalypse and I'm stuck at work. I won't even be able to watch it cos my stupid office doesn't even have a window. Shit, Jesus will come back and I'll probably be stuck on a conference call.

more noise

So, new shit in the BlogRadio. Check it:

• Editors- Munich. This is a bad-ass band, and they've put out a bad-ass album. You'll listen to it and think, "Oh, it's an Interpol ripoff." Well, no, because they're much better players than Interpol, and the singer guy isn't so annoyingly dramatic all the time.
• Matthew Sweet w/ Suzanna Hoffs- Different Drum. This is a cover of the song by the Stone Poneys with which you're probably familiar. Hoffs was in the Bangles, Sweet is a power-pop force all his own. They played together as Ming Tea in one of the Austin Powers movies. In any case, a terribly shallow song, script-flipped for our shallow age. Uh, I mean our "empowered" age. Sorry.
• Eels- The Last Time We Spoke. Sad bastard music.
• Cocteau Twins- Rilkean Heart (acoustic version). Sad bastard music for girls.
  
• Goldfrapp- Slide In (DFA remix). Cos you gotta fuckin dance once in a while. Dig the cowbell solo, too. It's the only prescription. You should listen to Goldfrapp's "Supernature," on account of it being awesome.
  

don't say I didn't warn you

From NYT:

PARIS, June 1 — Rising consumer popularity is turning AllofMP3.com, a music downloading service based in Moscow, into a global Internet success story, except for one important detail: The site may well be illegal. ...

Music industry officials say AllofMP3, which first came to their attention in 2004, is a large-scale commercial piracy site, and they dismiss its claims of legality. "It is totally unprecedented to have a pirate site operating so openly for so long," said Neil Turkewitz, executive vice president of the Recording Industry Association of America, who is based in Washington.

Read the whole article. Perhaps because it's actually reprinted from the International Herald Tribune, the article has no specific discussion of the site's legality in America. It seems to be perfectly legal in Russia, although the article lamely makes it out to sound really shady. The claims of it being "a pirate site," though, are baseless and lame. My advice is get yourself some cheap music before the lawyers get to it.

worst band names

The Onion compiles a list of some truly horrible band names. My faves from the list:

• Mariospeedwagon
• Bonerama
• Americans UK
• Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

I still think Trashcan Sinatras is one of the worst band (names) I've ever heard. But this list is just from bands that started this year, I guess.

vindication

"We believe our readers are the most knowledgeable music fans in the country so for them to have decided that Definitely Maybe should be the Number One album is really something."

Greatest 100 Albums of All Time

1. Definitely Maybe, Oasis
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, The Beatles
3. Revolver, The Beatles
4. OK Computer, Radiohead
5. (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis

Awesome.

Although the fact that that stupid Killers album ranks ahead of Pet Sounds is a bit disturbing.