"Jews hate Christmas..."

So before you think I'm a racist although it's not race is...anti-sematic...anywho...that quote is from Jon Stewart

Links for funsies...

If what you drank was food, this is how much you would have eaten.

I don't know if like this video for genuine reasons, or if it's so absurd it's enjoyable.

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Nothing about the song/video for Poker Face by Lady Gaga makes any sense. It blows my mind that this song actually made it on the album, let alone is a single. And the video, oi vay!

Stephen Colbert is apperently nominated for a grammy.

• 
  

Rick Rubin

• Death Magnetic (Metallica) (A)
  
• Home Before Dark (Neil Diamond) (A)
  
• Mercy (Dancing For The Death Of An Imaginary Enemy) (Ours) (A)
  
• Seeing Things (Jakob Dylan) (A)
  
• Weezer (Red Album) (Weezer) (A)

That's copied from the grammy's site about Rick Rubin being nominated for producer of the year.


Users seeking Top 40 songs, for example, or the latest release by Modest Mouse, are certain to be far more numerous than those seeking a free Decameron, and Grokster and StreamCast translated that demand into dollars.

Supreme Court name drop of Modest Mouse...cuh-ray-zee.

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I don't think I can adquately describe how stoked I am for the ghost busters video game.



Resident Evil 5 is going to be so fucking legen...wait for it...dary! Legendary!

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Favorite quotes of the moment...

"When you see this movie you're going rip your nipples off and run into traffic." Jim Carey on his new movie.

"That's insanium in the cranium."

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So Alex of Damnwells fame posted a blog about the bands/his plans. New record is done, and has been handed over to label for further developments(ie release) and he wants to do a NY show sometime in February which I refuse to miss. I've passed a few oppurtunities to see this band the past few years and it's been bothering me ever since. Now if I could just get acceptance to play a show(s).

I was willing to tolerate Laguna Beach, really I was, but now that there's a second spin off I'm done. "Bromance" or whatever it's called is one of the reasons why the economy is failing, the earth's average temperature is rising and we've never encounterd another living being in the entire universe. Side note, how great would it be if it turns out global warming is really being caused by a heat beam built by amphibious aliens from another planet who want to melt our ice caps because there's is over populated and they need a new (mostly if not entirely) submerged planet to live on.

I love the Rangers dearly, truly I do, but they are an awful team this year. I know their record is good, but this team is seriously flawed and if Lundqvist is going to allow 8 goals a game while his teammates give up two shorthanded goals while going 0-9 on their own powerplay chances something needs to change.(end pessimism)

I already told Nate about this dream I've had a few nights now, but I feel it needs to be documented so I can enjoy it for years. So here it goes...

Me and three other people are in Germany(supposedly although it looks suspiciously like Mt.Lakes camp nearby). We're part of a small military group on a very dangerous mission, not sure of what, but I do know we're in Nazi territory and being heavily pursued. So it's me two random guys and a token hot chick, and things are looking bad. The Germans are close to surrounding us, then out of nowhere Gary Busey, comes flying out sniping Germans and temporarily saves the day. As we make our getaway to nearby cabins knowing more Germans are closing in on us we start to formulate a plan. Inside the cabin Busey booby traps a light switch, which causes me to blow my head off the first night I have the dream. Pull the string to turn on the light, bang goes shotgun into the face. The following time I use my past expiriences to avoid said beheading. Then with the Germans closing in we need to stealthly sneak out the cabin window, and as I'm doing so I see someone and shoot first, ask questions later. Turns out it's the groomsman at one of my friends wedding, and he's wearing a hat that the captian of the loveboat would wear, fortunately despite the proximity and the accuracy of my shot he is unharmed an apperently good buddies with the buse(that's what I call Gary Busey now, we tight). Anyways that's about where my dream ends. Now why was I fighting the Germans, how do I know they were Germans? I don't know, but I've been playing call of duty a lot lately and they seem like good enemies to have, you know pretty even with soviet russia.

As follow up to that, I've had a few people at work tell me that they think I'm older than I actually am because I act rather mature. Which is alarming because I try pretty damn hard to act like a twelve year old at all times. I think they're confusing maturity for apathy.

Let me give you a little insight into my mind the past ten seconds or so...
"Stupid Giants, whenever you want to block someone that's be great..."
"Ooooh, cheerleaders changed outfits! Festive!"

Speaking of the cheerleaders here's what Antonio Pierce had to say about them...
"They got the best cheerleaders in the league," he said. "Six-foot stallions. Six-foot things. Whatever they feed 'em, it's working."

On the note of cheerleaders and such, let me just say how much I appreciate tv shows/movies that include hot women in (next to) nothing in an effort just to appeal to our(meaning men) most basic of interests. That should be the resolution of every tv/movie exec: more t and a. And before I sound like a horny teenager let me say that I perfectly alright with the occasional male nudity, ie Forgeting Sarah Marshal. Although I would have rather seen Kirsten Bell completely naked but you can't win all the time.

As you may or may not I've been working quite a bit lately and I've noticed some things.
1. People are very patient walking around the store, if I sit down and have a tea party in an aisle people would wait ten minutes before complaining they can't get by. But put them in line for more than three minutes and vast majority of them can't comprehend simple things and wonder why when they wait to the second to last weekend before Christmas do their shopping things are busy.
2. An alarming number of people are genuinely awful human beings. You would like to think that people can generaly be trusted to do the right thing, but nine times out of ten they will do whatever is best for themselves. It's almost a little depressing with how little people seem to care about others. Granted there have been a few times I've been surprised by how caring people can be but it's far less frequent.

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I've taken some time to throughly think this over, and I've decided my favorite holidays are...

1. My birthday, obviously I'm pretty vain.
2. Christmas
3. Halloween

Now I know you're thinking, but Dan how could you argue with a holiday that promotes girls "releasing their inner hoebag?" I'll tell you how, because that same holiday promotes my friend Jake who has been described as being "so fucking manly" to release his own inner "hoebag." As far as I'm concerned that negates the good. And that's the begining of Halloween's give/take greatness. Think about it, you get lots of candy...but you have to walk for it. A lot of the candy is delicious, but a lot of it is also candy corn. You carve awesome/funny/disturbing faces in pumpkins...you have clean up after you rip the guts out of the pumpkin.

Christmas on the other hand is just a classy holiday. Everything is simple and elegant, from the tree to the lights, Christmas exudes class which is a good thing considering you should be celebrating the birth of your savior. Also think about it, how many good Halloween songs are there? If you can think of more than one you've got me beat, Christmas on the other hand has the Boss and you can't argue with that. Also it may be a bit of a bias because of my location and the way the seasons unfold but there's something to be said for a nice clean sheet of snow(admittedly driving in it sucks) but once again it comes back to class. On a grander scale it is by far the most consumer driven holiday, and that's a good thing because without it I'd be out of a job, unable to pay for classes or my car and I might actually end up living unvoluntarily on friend's couch for a while.

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Speaking of more t and a...

Thoughts on the LFL, the Lingeries Football League for those not in the know...
-Of the teams assembled thus far I'd bet the Chicago Bliss are the best.
-Of the teams assmebled right now I'd say the hottest are the Tampa Breeze. I think it's the number of blondes.
-The Phoenix Scorch appear to be in trouble on both counts(by LFL standards, by real world standars the women are still plenty attractive)
-I think the hottest player in the league thus far is either Los Angeles Joey Davenport or Seattle's Alicia McLaughlin
-I will be fully supporting the New England Euphoria, as they are the most local of the teams. As of now they haven't annouced their players so I can truly say I was a fan from the very begining. I may even get myself a shirt...
-Or beer pong balls


Side notes...
The league is sponsered by none other than foxers.
"Finally a reason to watch American football"- The Sun

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So I'm sure you've all been anxiously waiting my end of year lists, where I tell you what I listened to and liked so you can like the same things too.

My Favorite Albums-
1. The Gaslight Anthem- The '59 Sound
2. Augustana- Cant' Love, Can't Hurt
3. Forgive Durden- Razia's Shadow
4. Man Without Wax- Anchor
5. Jack's Mannequin- The Glass Passenger
6. Underoath- Lost In The Sounds of Seperation
7. The Airborne Toxic Event- The Airborne Toxic Event
8. Butch Walker- Sycamore Meadows
9. Tiger Lou- The Loyal
10. Valencia- We All Need A Reason To Believe

My Favorite EPs-
1. The Gaslight Anthem- The Senor And Queen
2. Northstar- Broken Parachute
3. You, Me and Everyone We Know- So Young, So Insane
4. Mercy Mercedes- Casio Rodeo
5. Saves the Day- Bug Sessions EPs

My Favorite Songs-
1. The Airborne Toxic Event- Sometime Around Midnight
2. The Gaslight Anthem- Wherefore Art Thou Elvis
3. Butch Walker- The Weight of Her
4. Jack's Mannequin- The Resolution
5. Coconut Records- West Coast


Favorite Vocals-
1. Augustana
2. Jack's Mannequin
3. Ours
4. Butch Walker
5. House of Heroes
6. Anberlin
7. Anathallo
8. City and Colour
9. Thrice
10. Funeral For A Friend

Note: Sigur Ros is not included because they exist on their own playing field.


My Favorite Movies-
1. The Dark Knight
2 . Tropic Thunder
3. Iron Man
4. Pineapple Express
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
6. Cloverfield
7. Wall-E
8. The Mummy
9. Speed Racer
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
11. Journey To The Center of the Earth
12. Role Models
13. In Bruges

It's like high definition, for your mind

So I'm not really going to recap my Oswego/Syracuse adventures but I will give a few quick thoughts.
-Central NY sucks
-Driving in the snow sucks
-The Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is really good.

More importantly everytime I go up there it just reminds me of how much I miss those guys and how badly I screwed everything up.

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So I'm here listening to Yelle, who is(are? They may be a group) a french pop act. And it almost makes me wish I paid more attention in French class. I'm only able to understand like 1 out of every 10 words.

The fact that Augustana didn't hit it big with Boston blows my mind. Their lead singer had the edgy crooner look, a great voice and it's piano pop. Just amazes me how this band never took off, although being the selfish ass that I am I must admit I appreciated being able to see them at the Knitting Factory because of their lack of commericial success.

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The movie the Chase is awesome. It has Flea and Anthony from Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's clearly making a statement about the news coverage in this country. Ron Jeremy makes a cameo. And Charlie Sheen is the man. Canadian Band Alexisonfire has a song called "Charlie Sheen Vs. Henry Rollins" based on the film. Which is a great song btw.

Awesome. The chick just fired one shot at a helechopter from like 100 yards away, and not only did she hit it. But it blew up! Chick's like a sniper. Which makes me a little jealous because I'd love to have deadly accuarcy with a firearm. Not that I need it, I just think it'd be cool to have Nate put an apple on his head, have him stand sideways towards me, shoot off his soul patch and then calmly remind him I wasn't aiming for the apple. It'd be sweet, and a baltant rip off of NY Rangers commericial featured in this here blog a few months(years? Weeks maybe?) back.

This really only applies to Jake, not that he reads this but, the chicks who sang backup vocals for Death on Two Wheels' record are sisters. Well 3/4 apperently. Actually they share the last name so they may not even be related. What if they all married the same dude and not in a pologmy way, more in a two of your exgirlfriend's going to the same school nto knowing the other dated you and then living on the same floor kind of way. Not that I would know anyone who that happened too, at least not anyone who reads my blog.

Also you know what's great, lying to people. I don't do it often(with the intent of hiding something, if you ask me something I will most likely blatantly lie to you), but when I do it's a ton of fun. It's great to see how guillable your friends are/how believable you are as a liar. I'm thinking I'm gonna do it more often. I get bored, and it seems like a good harmless way to have fun. And besides it's a win-win, I get to have fun, and my friend gets to learn something new like Lance being a perfectly acceptable middle name for a female from Germany.

How much money did Adidas have to spend for this new commericial with David Beckham, Missy Elliot, Katy Perry and a ton of other people. Recession my ass. Side note, I can only spell adidas correctly when I think to myself that it stands for all day I dream about sex. True story, it's a little trick I learned many moons ago that was further reinforced be a Korn song aptly titled A.D.I.D.A.S. Clever huh?

One final note here, I've sort of convinced myself that I have some sort of telepathic power. First I was driving home one day and thinking that a certain sign on I-84 needed to be changed, and the very next day indicating my control over the cosmos the sign was changed. A few days later I was talking to a lady on the phone and she wanted to have something held for her at toys r us, while I asked her for her name I thought it should be Diane and then...voila or is viola? anywho, she was like my name is Diane. Needless to say it blew my mind.

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Damn you Glassjaw. Damn you.


Go there, listen to new Gj, "You Think You're John Fucking Lennon."


Beware.

But it is pretty solid. Although I never was a huge glassjaw fan, but I do enjoy a few jams.

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I've noticed a recent trend of people calling my house and not comprehending this new fangled technological device my family has, it's called an answering machine, and clearly it's too advanced for our own good. Now people call and leave messages that serve absolutely no point. I'm not sure what's better, not getting any voicemails or getting several that are of people talking to the answering machine as if were in someway human, or at the least capable of human like interactions. Most of them don't even get to leave a name or a number, which is fine because anyone who gets confused by our answering machine clearly is too stupid to have any worth to me.

While not listening to voicemails that aren't I've been acquiring christmas music like it's my job. I'm up to about 130 songs in the last few days. Should be more, I don't have Bruce singing Santa's Coming to Town yet which is frustrating because it's my top three Christmas songs of all time. And I don't have any of Butch Walker's Christmas stuff. Shenanigans!

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Odd things I like
-On ramps that are long and downhill, more like launch ramps amirite?
-Clever away messages.
-Being the subject of the clever away messages.
-Puns.
-Things flying with great force towards the crotches of other people.

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So I'm currently in a pretty lousy mood, and the fact that the Rangers are getting completely outclassed by the Canadians certainly isn't helping things. And I'd feel a lot better if I had something sweet to look forward too. Fortunately South Park/Comedy Central has come to my temporary rescuse with the help of Al Gore and Manbearpig.

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I decided on the way home from work today that I'm going to listen to more Dropkick Murphys, simply because I like the Boston accent and Nate's a giant tool who spent years in Boston and didn't even pick up the slightest accent. I hate you for it. You say car keys, not khakis and it annoys me. Also I'm almost finished with my Decemeber Mix. Just needs a few finishing touches and a bitchin' title. Soon enough though, soon enough.

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I don't think my love affair with Lord of the Rings is a secret so here a few more things I've found interesting about the movies, courtesy of imdb.

It is estimated that filming of the trilogy pumped about $200,000,000 into the New Zealand economy. The New Zealand government even created a Minister for Lord of the Rings, whose remit was to exploit all the economic opportunities the films represented.

During filming, most of the members of the Fellowship took up surfing in New Zealand in their spare time. Among them was Viggo Mortensen, who wiped out terribly one day, and bruised one whole side of his face. The next day, makeup tried to mask the bruising and swelling, but were unsuccessful. Instead, Peter Jackson opted to film Mortenson from one side for the entire scene. In the scene in the Mines of Moria when they find the grave of Gimli's relative, Aragorn is only seen from one side in the whole scene.

Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), who is trilingual in English, Spanish, and Danish, requested the script be revised to let Aragorn speak more of his lines in Elvish.

Over 12.5 million plastic rings were made in order to fabricate simulated chain mail for the movie. Two crew members spent the length of the shoot linking the rings by hand into suits of armor. By the end of production, they had worn the fingerprints off their thumbs and index fingers.

While filming Saruman's death scene (now on the extended DVD), Peter Jackson tried to tell Christopher Lee how to react and breathe after he was stabbed in the back. Lee, a WWII veteran with British special forces, assured the director that he knew what a man sounded like when stabbed in the back.

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Editors Note: For those of you reading this on my livejournal... This will be the last entry on my livejournal as it is easier to archive on blogspot. Adjust your bookmarks.
For those using myspace, continue doing so, but be aware past entries will now be tagged by subject for easier access of previous goodies.




I used to love what I used to love
moving on was a chore I was never quite ready for
they used to say I was a cautious man
it's been weeks since I looked both ways or gave a damn