Joe: Why Do You Live In That State Again?

Seriously. We may have to perform an extraction.

By the time I get to Phoenix

Here, from our friends at I Am Fuel, You Are Friends, is a pretty cool video of Noel Gallagher of Oasis performing his mega-hit Wonderwall, but covering the arrangment of the song that Ryan Adams featured on his album Love is Hell.



Here's Ryan's version. Not much to look at, but you'll be able to hear what Noel was going for.



And here's Oasis live, playing the more familiar version.



By the way, Noel has said that he doesn't want to perform the song anymore unless its the Ryan Adams version. Evidently he said that's the way the song needed to be. There's an mp3 of the Noel version at the Fuel blog.
I'm off to Phoenix for a few days of R and R with the folks. I'm putting Joe in charge of supervising Jay who in turn will mentor Lurker who will oversee Andrew.

364 Days To Go

To celebrate the one year countdown to release, Zack Snyder has posted some first looks at a few Watchmen. And may I just say Gawd-Dayum! This film may well meet or exceed my expectations.

Lurker, you got an opinion?

See the rest here.

Ah Ha, Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha, Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha, Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha, Oh Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho, Ah Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha, Ah Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

Kill me.

Classic Sesame Street

Not sure if Andy had Sesame Street, but here's "Pinball Number Count" from our collective childhood.

As a bonus, here's a letter from the composer and producer, Walt Kraemer.

Power Pop & Tron Can't Lose

All this talk about power pop got me thinking about the best Cars song they never wrote. I'm not a big Strokes fan, and I didn't even acquire Room On Fire when it was released in 2003, but I could not stop listening to "12:51." The video sealed the deal, as I'm "of a certain age."

Anyway ...

12:51

Talk to me now I'm older
Your friend told you 'cause I told her
Friday nights have been lonely
Change your plans and then phone me

We could go and get forties
Fuck going to that party
Oh really, your folks are away now?
Alright, let's go you convinced me

12:51 is the time my voice
Found the words I sought
Is it this stage I want?
The world is shutting out for us
Oh we were tense for sure
But we was confident

Kiss me now that I'm older
I won't try to control you
Friday nights have been lonely
Take it slow but don't warn me

We'd go out and get forties
Then we'd go to some party
Oh really, your folks are away now?
Alright I'm coming

Are We Not Men?

Mention Devo to the average joe these days, and if he remembers them at all, he'll recall the hats. And maybe "Whip It." But Devo wasn't really a one song novelty act. Truth be told, they were a performance art group with a fully formed philosophy, based on the basic premise that man had accidentally evolved from brain-eating apes.

Oh, and that we were actually de-volving (de-vo), as evidenced by our pop-culture consumerism, loss of individual identity, and blind surrender to authority. The inspiration for this idea came from Oscar Kiss Maerth's book, The Beginning Was The End, a pseudoscientific anthropological thesis. (Maerth suggested that apes ate their rivals' brains to enhance sexual pleasure.)

Devo's cynical outlook was also colored by the fact that, while a student at Kent State University, Devo member Jerry Casale witnessed first-hand the National Guard's student massacre on May 4, 1970. Two of the four killed, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were his friends.

Says Devo bassist Gerald V. Casale:

From the beginning, on purpose, Devo was a multimedia idea. There was no name for 'Performance Art' at the time. That term didn't exist, although I think that's what we were doing when I look back at it. It's exactly that, Devo represented an attitude, a point of view, a philosophy. It was like combining film-making and theatrics and cutting-edge kind of synthesizers and rock beats all rolled into one big performance with a lifestyle message behind it, which was basically to beware of illegitimate authority and think for yourself. Hardly a revolutionary idea, but it turns out to be more revolutionary as people's freedoms are slowly eaten away.

Continues Devo lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh:

We saw Devo as something bigger than a rock band. We thought that was he most boring thing you could do. We wanted to be a clearing house for concepts and ideas. That's where art de-VO came from. That's why we made films: Even though we had no money, we made the film The Truth About De-Evolution. We designed our own costumes, designed our own artwork and graphics. We designed every album cover that we ever had control of. The downside of doing everything ourselves and directing our own films and producing our own films and going out and getting the props and coming up with the concept and the ideas was that we didn't really collaborate a lot.

I was exposed to Devo's oeuvre during my formative high school years, and their impact was substantial. Devo underlined the absurdity of society's rules and values during a time in my adolescent life when I was already beginning to question authority, and the band's philosophy was a private joke that I could share with a few of my friends.

Devo's best work spans 1978 to 1982.

• Q:Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, July 1978
  
• Duty Now for the Future, July 1979
  
• Freedom of Choice, July 1980
  
• New Traditionalists, August 1981
  
• Oh, No! It's Devo, October 1982

Everything else is crap.

The Original Devolutionary Oath

1. Be like your ancestors or be different. It doesn't matter.
2. The fittest shall survive yet the unfit may live.
3. Grow big or stay little.
4. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. So shall your species survive.
5. Unused organs shall disappear or persist.
6. Win a mate by combat or not.
7. Fight with your neighbors or unite them.
8. Wear gaudy colors or avoid display. It's all the same.
9. Develop legs, wings, tail or not -- they will help or not.
10. We must repeat!

(Reprinted with kind permission from iamascientist.com.)

Firefox 3 Beta!

CNET is reporting that Firefox 3 beta has been released. I'm a huge Firefox fan, so this is exciting news. Generally, other, more popular browsers steal all their best ideas from the Little Mozilla Browser That Could, but I'll stand on the highest mountain in the land and proclaim that IE7 sucks whale dicks. It's slow, insecure, and its mother smells like potted meat. (Hey, kinda like Joe!)

Besides Gecko 1.9, there are a number of areas of change for Firefox 3. Among them:

• Security. New features include the ability to integrate antivirus software with downloads; one-click Web site identity verification; automatic testing to make sure plug-ins aren't older versions found to be insecure and automatic disabling if they are; and support for Windows Vista parental controls.

• Ease of use. Touted improvements include downloading that can be resumed after the browser has been restarted or network connection reset; users can zoom and out of Web pages in their entirety, including layout, text, and graphics; plug-ins can be managed centrally with the Add-On Manager; and mailto links can now launch Web-based e-mail applications such as Gmail, not just local applications on the PC such as Outlook.

• Personalization. Web pages can be bookmarked with one click and tagged with a double-click (though the interface looked rough to me); the aforementioned feature provides a list of possible matching Web pages based on what you type in the location bar; and a new Smart Places folder provides access to pages that are frequently visited or that have been recently bookmarked and tagged.

Read the article here.

The History of Viral Videos

Like the Makers? Follow The Predator!

The Wilhelm Scream

The Wilhelm Scream is a 56 year old sound effect that has become something of an in-joke in the motion picture industry. Watch the clip and realize how many times you've heard it ...

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa

I am a dull and simple lad
Can not tell water from champagne
And I have never met the queen
And I wish I could have all that he has got
I wish I could be like David Becker

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa

And when I lie on my pillow at night
I dream I could fight like David Becker
Lead the school team to victory
And take my exams and pass the lot

(Wish I could be)
Wish I could be like David Becker
(Wish I could be)
Wish I could be like David Becker
(Wish I could be)
Conduct my life like David Becker
(Wish I could be)
I wish I could be like David Becker

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa

He is the head boy at the school
He is the captain of the team
He is so gay and fancy free
And I wish all his money belonged to me
I wish I could be like David Becker

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa

And all the girls in the neighborhood
Try to go out with David Becker
They try their best but can't succeed
For he is of pure and noble breed

Wish I could be like
Wish I could be like
Wish I could be like

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa
(repeat)

Because if I was, I could go see the Hold Steady and Band of Horses at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh.

Army of Darkness

Tonight I'm trying on the idea that Army of Darkness is the pinnacle of western civilization. I have the deluxe boomstick edition rented and I mean to use it. Just ya'll steer clear of my house tonight, there's going to be bloodshed.

Found this old trailer last night that got me craving it.

Jackass of the Week

Meet Coach Gundy of the Oklahoma State football team. Coach Gundy is very, very angry with a reporter from The Oklahoman newspaper. Evidently, the columnist reported that one of the quarterbacks on the team was a real momma's boy and played scared and was a chicken and yadda, yadda, yadda. Coach Gundy is incensed and goes on this three minute diatribe at the unfortunate reporter. A couple of things he clearly doesn't realize:

1) He is proving the columnist's point every time he refers to 'crying home to your momma' over being criticized.
2) Yes, he is an amateur athlete. However, who the hell are we kidding? Division I College Football IS pro sports as far as I am concerned. If you can't take the heat.....
3) This whole thing about having kids. This female reporter probably doesn't give two shits about all that. And who knows, maybe she DOES have kids? Wouldn't he feel like an ass if he found out she'd had one die or something? Give this schmuck a valium.

Hilarious clip Joe is lucky he can't see. Or smell.

sick on air
Uploaded by krs601

Hi-lar-i-ous. Yechh.

Those Crazy Dutchmen

A song from a Dutch kids program, but with very nice phonetic subtitles.