Darla posted a nice self-portrait of the two of us from our recent outing to Red Rocks (of Nevada fame, as opposed to U2). Teh w00t!
The Beatles’ Anthology Rocks my World
The Beatles’ Anthology — how in the hell did I miss this collection? Dave Bonora played 30-40 tracks from this incredible collection during our drive to Vegas last week, and man-oh-man is it incredible.
When it was released, I had thought it was nothing more than yet-another-greatest-hits collection, but as most likely everyone else on the planet knows, it’s a collection of outtakes, alternate versions, live tracks, and even a dozen or so unreleased songs.
This is, of course, the kind of thing I enjoy more than just about anything else from the bands I love, but to hear this stuff from The Beatles is just incredible. "Because" without instrumentation (I had heard that long ago on a radio special), the grooviest and most awesome version of "Helter Skelter" (a 5 minute sample from what was a 12 minute jam on the song — I WANT THE FULL 12 MINUTES!), an acoustic version of "While My Guitar gently weeps" that is George alone, a wonderfully slow version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," and a host of other amazing tunes.
OH MY GOD, WILL YOU SHUT UP?!?!
Darla and I saw Jet Li’s Fearless in the theatre a few days ago. Great flick, if you’re into epic martial arts movies — and I am — but it was what occurred in the seats that I thought I’d write about.
First of all, there were only about 20 people in the audience, yet four of them — a full 20% of those present — felt it was OK to talk during a movie. The two folks behind us were clearly discussing the movie (I could be wrong, as my Chinese isn’t so hot, but the rhythm and flow of their talk suggested as much), while the two numbnuts a few seats away and a row down to our right were just chatting away.
The Latest Bill O’Reilly & Fox News Lie
The most recent lie from the crazy whack job known as Bill O’Reilly and his employer, Fox News, is almost too much to believe. During a recent O’Reilly Factor broadcast, these un-American pigs labeled Republican congressman Mark Foley a Democrat during a report about Mr. Foley exchanging sexually suggestive IMs with a 16 year old male former page. Mr. Foley is, of course, a Republican, the party for whom Fox News and O’Reilly work so hard to spread propaganda.
Fortunately, John Amato at CrooksAndLiars.com got a screen shot — you know, for posterity. My good friend Greg Snyder suggested we all help spread it far and wide for people to seem, and I think that’s a fine idea. Accordingly:
Life, It Seems, is Indeed Good
Listening to The Church’s excellent cover of "Cortez the Killer" — what a great song, and what a great cover — and it occurs to me that life is indeed good. I have an amazing woman that loves me, great friends, a great job that affords me absurd flexibility, a wonderful dog who’s greying faster than his pop, and (good) little things like great music to listen to and Battlestar Galactica to watch.
With the assault on America being lead by the Bush administration and the Repbulican party, the destruction of our environment, religious zealots from many faiths trying to enslave us all in their preferred theocracy, and even (bad) little things like wanky people to get us irritated…Sometimes it’s good to stop a moment from dwelling on all the negative things around us in order to take stock of the good things in our lives.
Bill Clinton WTFPWNS Fox News & Chris Wallace
Bill Clinton has what no other national Democrat seems to have, and that’s backbone. He demonstrated that on September 24th, 2006, when he opened a can of whoop-ass on Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, indicting both Mr. Wallace and Fox News in the process. Oh, go ahead and throw the neocons in the WTFPWNage, too.
Pop Goes the Question!
At long last, I have officially asked Darla to marry me. Oh sure, we agreed the time had come back in March, and we had the date set almost immediately. But, I hadn’t asked those words — "Will you marry me?" — and she didn’t have a rock on her finger.
I did. She said yes. Now she is.
w00t!
I think I’ll have to change my blog to "luckyfuck.com." Wait, that one is, shockingly, taken, so I won’t make it a link.
TV Newsman Calls a Spade a Spade
Ken Olbermann? Where have you been all my life? Peter Cohen sent me a note this morning saying, "Keith Olbermann is a fucking ninja rockstar superhero," along with a link to commentary from Mr. Olbermann broadcast on MSNBC.
I fear I wasn’t familiar with Mr. Olbermann before this, but Peter is so right…
The Façade
It sometimes amazes me the depths of crappiness to which people can sink. This was brought to mind recently when I saw two different women at two different grocery stores parking in the handicapped spots in front of the stores. What upset me was that while both had the handicapped parking permit on their rear-view mirror, neither was handicapped. What’s more, though, is that both were wealthy, in very expensive cars, and I think that this is maybe the biggest reason I was mad.
Why? The conclusion I immediately jumped to in both cases was that money bought their handicapped permit. I have zero evidence of this, of course, other than they fact that their cars were expensive (a new Vette and a new Mercedez convertible). That said, I’ve gotten angry at plenty of poor(er) folks misusing a handicapped spot in the past…
In any event, what’s more likely is that they have a handicapped member in their families, and got the permits legitimately. Even then, however, I get very tense at the fact that both of these women clearly feel that having their permit is what is important when it comes to parking in a handicapped spot, as opposed to a legit need to use it. Both were walking at a brisk pace, carrying baskets with groceries, and clearly, clearly not physically handicapped in any way.
And Now For Something Completely Different
Yeah, I know I’ve been on a bit of a pedestal of late, so it’s clearly time for something completely different. In keeping with Darla’s list of 25 favorite TV characters (read her entry for details on where the list originated), I put together my own list.
As with her, the rules are one character per show, and they are listed in no particular order. The only caveat is that I know I am leaving out favorite characters from shows I just can’t bring to mind. I’ve thought about this for a week, and I am sure some other characters will pop into my head in the coming weeks, so I may have to edit this list. :)
- Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation) – Because’s he so cool! Yeah, Jean-Luc would rather talk his way out of a problem than fake-punch his way out, but damnit, he’s just so cool! Smooth, suave, cool-under-pressure (as opposed to "just so cool"), respect through force-of-will instead of brute force…He’s just so cool!