And I Like The Show

No spoilers! I'll be watching last night's episode this evening.

November 9!

This looks goooooood. For comparison, I'd rate Casino Royale a solid A and Quantum of Solace a B-.

October 16!

Anybody gonna watch season two? I'm in.

Tao Of The Dead

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead's newest. It's good. It has synthesizers and a 16 minute track that is in 5 parts. The tracks are listed by letters of the alphabet instead of numbers. There's a 14 page digital book that singer / guitarist Conrad Keely wrote and illustrated (he also did the cover -- again with the talented people). I think I sat next to the girl on page 14 of the book on a plane on my way to ACL a couple of years ago. No, seriously. Buy me a beer someday and I'll tell you about it.

Fear The Post-Modern.

Ha Ha

Comic strip based on old Nancy Drew cover. Click to embiggen.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation Pt. 1

0 to 120 in less than ten seconds. Awesome.

Hold Fucking Steady!!!!!!!!!!!

New Hold Steady Album!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Streaming here!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, it turns out one of Famous Jay's famous friends is touring with them as their second guitarist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jim Carroll

First To Play 'Catholic Boy' and 'Dry Dreams (vinyl rip)' will enjoy. I have a greatest hits comp, but it won't rip for some reason and it really doesn't have anything these two don't (Jay actually gave it to me as a gift one year, funnily enough).

I remember reading an interview with Joe Strummer where he talked about he and Pete Townshend sitting in an apartment listening to 'Catholic Boy' and going nuts about how great it was and how it didn't sound like anybody else out there. You will recognize 'People Who Died' from its being covered by a million bands (Drive-by Truckers included) and playing in a handful of films, including 'Basketball Diaries' and one of the Living Dead movies.

My favorite by him is 'It's Too Late,' which is below.

Nothing's scarier than people..

Summers in skool were the shortest of seasons, but with yards to mow, houses to A/C and road trips to pay for, summer in the south now seems to last forever. Just took the garbage out, nearly 11 pm, and I was sweaty before I got back to safety. Except for movies and baseball, summer is an unwelcome house guest that stays and stays and stays.

This from an OK but under-managed site www.scaryforkids.com. Batman out this weekend. Looks good, they should consider hyping it a bit.

Fuckin' Mother Fucker

They fuckin' had 'em.

Tamiflu 1, Flu 0

Tamiflu is a wonder drug. I felt crappy Wednesday, but Thursday morning I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a hearse. I've never, NEVER been that sick before. I got my son to school and then slept an additional 5 hours, then off and on the rest of the day. If I sat down, I fell asleep. I mean, fucking scary sick. My head throbbed, I was dizzy and weak, breathing was painful, I had a fever of 101 ...

After another full night of sleep and two Tamiflu capsules, I felt just regular sick. No fever today, just congested and slightly out of it. I tell ya, it's a miracle.

Anybody else have similar Tamiflu experiences?

My Tuesday Afternoon

We had a pretty good Toronado scare yesterday. We're okay, but there was extensive damage to other parts of Memphis with one fatality, I think. These old cars are more powerful than they look.

Lurker, how did you fare?

Actual photos here.

39 And Fit As A Fiddle

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
My best friends are bastards
Happy birthday to me

64!

'Appy birfday, to you
'Appy birfday, to you
'Appy birfday, dear Keef,
'Appy birfday, to you

Yikes

Better add Amy Winehouse to your dead pool. According to the Daily Mail (which I assume is some British rag):

Onlookers said she appeared disorientated as she wandered around on the pavement for several minutes in the freezing cold before disappearing back inside.

"She came out of the house, walked down the drive and wandered around on the pavement for a bit.

"She looked upset and agitated but there was no obvious reason for her to have come outside. It was weird."

Maybe rehab wasn't such a bad idea.

Say, this suicide really is painless!

Wonderful scene from a fantastic movie. Great Last Supper imagery + the song sung as it was meant to be.

I'll see your crappy cover and raise you one.......

This abomination is A Perfect Circle covering 'Imagine'. The vid is kind of cool, but taking this song of peace and hope and casting it in minor key veiled-threat mode really, really sucks. Great song, shit band.

Now this is entertainment!

This was a terrible thing to do to a child, but you've got to hand it to those Japanese and their TV shows! Anything for a laugh! Thrill to the hilarious antics that ensue when someone dresses their child as a seal and puts them in front of the polar bear exhibit! God bless America, and God bless Japan!

Lovely

We had an inspection on the little house we wanted to buy. Turns out that termites have not suffered the slump in the real estate market that everyone else has, especially where this house is concerned. The inspector deemed it "major structural damage" and showed us a couple of spots where you could step on the floor and potentially open up a new access point to the crawlspace. We're dropping what we're willing to pay to ridiculously low levels - so low the owners probably (and maybe hopefully) won't take it. So we're back to square one. Or maybe two, since we've got a couple of other potential places identified.

The best part is that when we went out to look at the place again after the inspection, I was walking around the house and noticed a bunch of wasps on a window. Hmm, there are a lot of wasps on that window, I thought, just as one stung me RIGHT ON THE FUCKING FOREHEAD. So that evening and the whole next day, I was uncomfortable and had a little bit of a headache, but no big deal. Until around 8pm when I looked in the mirror and noticed that my forehead was swelling around the sting spot. By around 8:45 it was starting to spread around my eyes. I iced it down and that seemed to help a little. I woke up yesterday morning and my whole face was puffy. I felt really crappy, so I did the walk-in to the Doctors office. Three hours and a steroid shot later, I walked out with a prescription for allergy medicine and slightly less discomfort.

All seems okay now. Not that you care.

And Then There Were Three

I invited my friend Ian to play HL2DM with us last night. He graciously accepted, and then proceeded to kick both our asses. (Lurker is much improved, might I add.) The good news is, there were no lags on the listen server that I could detect. Lurker, did you notice any weirdness? More boring highlights follow ...


My graceful descent.


Check my health.


Almost looks like I'm doing this on purpose. I'm not.


Long distance death.


I probably need to get that leg looked at.


Man, that's a lot of blood for such a little lady.