9/28/2006

Anarchy is the Hanging of Pound Puppies

I take Metrolink to work. I think alot of people in St Louis do now, because they opened up a new line snaking down to the south towards Webster Groves. The net effect of this expansion is more horrible, horrible graffiti.

I don't mean offensive. Hell, I remember seeing the word "Sexcellence" sprayed on the brige over a creek by my parents house when I was little. And it was the coolest thing I saw for at least a few weeks. But, it's just an offense to art when somebody takes a red Sharpie down to the tracks at 12:30 am (keep in mind the trains don't run that late, kids!) and writes "JOE BLOW ESKIMO" in bubble letters. Maybe it's because I read that book about tagging rail cars in the 80s in NYC and how kids died trying to mark their turf.

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I mean, there's just some piss poor graffiti around. I'm looking at you, "ANARCHY IS THE UNION OF LOVERS" (from that alley by Booche's and Quenton's in Columbia, MO). Oh and if you want to see more like this picture, just go to this site. It's like Hot or Not, but with graffiti!

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In related public transportation news, there's a pound puppy hanging in a bus stop on my walk with a bunch of sheets of newspaper that say NO, NOT ON THE CARPET over and over again. I took a picture with my cellphone, but I don't think it quite captures the madness of the whole piece. Down the next street there's a house with a related yard installation (NO, NOT ON THE YARD!, etc.) And that is why I like living by an academic institution.

9/25/2006

Programming You Can't Set Your Watch To

I'm about 4 or 5 posts behind lately, so I'll bang out two for one. First off, sometime in the past month, my mom, dad, brother (and by consequence, his son) have all watched episodes of the tv show "Cheaters." Oh you've seen it, it's the one that plays on a station that doesn't come in right, maybe only when a tornado hits the area. Or maybe it's on the station that has Mass 12 hours out of the day. But the gist of the show is that somebody knows their spouse/significant other/ex is cheating on them and the SWAT team of Joey Greco collects a weeks worth of PDA in Mickey D parking lots to prove it.

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After the viewing, or "consultation" (there are also "dossiers" and "briefing" sections to the shows), there's a confrontation between the cheater and the person cheated upon. Well, I've seen plenty of episodes, and let me just say no two confrontations have been alike. Once I saw a confrontation in a club, where the dude ran into a bathroom to avoid the show's thugs, only to be followed, and have a bunch of guys at the urinals yell at his girlfriend. Then they bought him shots.

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There was another confrontation on a soccer field where a high school soccer game was stopped as a CHOPPER flew overhead, beaming the cheaters fleeing on foot. As if the two people making out needed the entire force of the LAPD! But I don't mock, because as illustrated in this infamous confrontation, Cheaters isn't just exposing the seedy underbelly. It cooks the seedy underbelly and serves it in a nice dish!




***If it's not working properly, post a comment, but I think Internet is just slow around work today.

This brings me to my next point. When I was in Columbia a few weekends ago, I got hooked on their local access channel, CAT 3TV. CAT TV is a station that usually plays little banners with some nice shadow font in pastel colors that say "Bakesale to Benefit Hickman High" or something. But for some reason they were playing Gangster Rap videos the night I flipped by it.

The first video, and I wish I'd gotten the name of the group, involved a drug deal atop a parking garage (one on Cherry St no doubt). It was between the dudes in the rap group and an female Asain gang that drove red Dodge Neons, as in, souped up '98 Neons. Anyway, there was a briefcase full of cash and it was a decent beat. It reminded me of BET around 3 am on the weekends, which I can't get anybody to watch anymore. Anyway, I found this vid online, I think it might have been these guys, I mean, how many rap acts does COMO have?



The second thing I saw was the next morning, and it was some show about a guy's search for a band in Moberly, MO, a small town just up the road from Columbia. There were tons of interviews with people who just talked about how the only thing to do in Moberly is drugs. There was a kid who said, "Well, I'm sure I'll be here when I grow up, workin' in a factory, hangin out with most of these numbskulls, drinkin'." Or something like that, and it just kind of hit me, it was a really interesting show, I'll have to check it out more next time I'm in town.

If I can squeeze it in between episodes of Cheaters.

PS Cheaters now has a dating service. For people who don't cheat. Good Luck!
PPS I don't think the link works

9/21/2006

Why Eat with a Steady Diet of Arcades Around?

Two things I have to try:
1. Black Thorn Pizza
The alleged best pizza in town that takes 45 min - 2 hours to cook ONCE YOU'VE BEEN SEATED. Guiness on tap, Missile Command in the arcade... I just hope they have pizzeria style red plastic cups.

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2. 1984 Arcade
Springfield, what's up. Apparently the trend in arcades now is to charge a cover, and just turn the dip switches to 0 cents per play. Personally, I used to not eat on vacation if I had a nice handful of shiny quarters in my Umbros. I mean, no contest. So this kind of setup is designed for me. The type of person who'd hide a salami sandwich in his jeans pocket and play Hard Drivin' and Star Wars for 6 hours. A piece.

Sometimes You Wear Stretchy Pants in Your Room

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I came across this blog when I was trying to find The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. After a few minutes on this blog, you notice that the blog hosts files to help you out in any situation. For instance, if you go back into the blog's archive to 9/10/06, you can find the full new version of Labview (what I use to write my programs on here, but newer), a password "grabber," a documentary about jumpers from the WTC towers, and even a DVD version of Nacho Libre. My favorite is downloadable love letters for the man who doesn't speak English so well. But hey, if I'd met Cassidy and she spoke Swahili, then who's to say I wouldn't have Googled "blank Swahili love letters."

9/19/2006

Taste the Rainbow

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If it looks like i'm colorblind, then it just means I'm still working on colors and fonts. This might be a long process but hopefully the blog will look cool when I'm done.

***EDIT: Ok, I think it's mostly done, I'm sure I'll change stuff tomorrow, let me know what you think, if you want. (You can even leave an anonymous comment if you want to tell me it blows!)

9/18/2006

Like 3 Centipedes, Bending around Town

I went to Chicago a couple weekends ago to visit some friends from Mizzou, have some laughs, and check out a few concerts. I took Metrolink and Megabus the entire way there to save some dough, but I was surprised that I wasn't even within 10 feet of anybody else on the bus either direction. I rolled into town Saturday afternoon and my buddy Tyler picked me up from the station. After hitting up Borders to use the best public restroom in downtown Chicago, we checked out a couple things off Michigan Ave. We met up with the resident fashionista Angie and the two took me to the giant silver bean shaped monument in the park by Lake Michigan.

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Next we walked over to some sort of monument where two giant faces had a staring contest on the sides of black monoliths. But the monoliths were waterfalls spitting water on kids. Uh, ok. haha.

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After the emotional shock of this, I needed to sit, so the three of us went to Wicker Park and had some white pizza at a place called Piece. Then we hit up a comic book book store with so much more called Quimby's down the street.

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After Wicker Park it was a bus ride back to the Metro and Tyler's pad a little north of Wrigley Field. I liked the place alot, hardwood floors, a nice paint job in each room, portraits and books in the living room. It felt like a cool library as much as a living space.

Tyler showed us some videos, and I'm not going to link to the majority of them here for the sake of decency but the one that kept cracking me up was House of Cosbys. Check this episode out if you want a taste of how we relaxed. (5 mins)



And that's just the first episode. I think there are 5 episodes and a sixth bootleg, controversial episode that is basically just a middle finger to Bill Cosby's lawyers.

On to the show, though. Tyler and I headed down to the Empty Bottle and got there when the place was about 1/10th full. So we played some Centipede until a couple girls came over and talked to us. One of them knew him, it seemed, and the other was her friend from Columbia College. By the time we finished with the niceties, it was time for the opening act.

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CX Kidtronik is supposedly better with his partner. But his partner got detained by the police or something. So the whole performance consisted of spoken lines like "these drums are by Trent Reznor" and screams and Kidtronik jumping into strobe lights. He even had a participatory chant that was more complicated that any one I've ever been involved in. Just think the game Simon but a gangster chant version. Oh and his big song was Krak Attak. Check his Myspace(NotSafeForWork) for an explanation on that one.

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Then out came Girl Talk, Greg Gillis. Check the last post for a Pitchfork review on this one, complete with video. The man is Clark Kent AND Superman. Bioengineer at Case Western U by day, International Music Superstar by night.

Sunday, well Sunday was football. Tyler had Trent Green on his Fantasy team. Trent Green got creamed on Tyler's fantasy team. Tyler hoped it was just a bad dream.



We also saw Idiocracy Sunday night (see the last post). Which made us feel barbaric for the whole obsession with YouTube and sports injuries. But then we just watched more House of Cosbys.

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Monday, everybody was working except me (22 paid vacation days, have to use them sometime!) so I rolled down to the art museum to check out the famous works like American Gothic and Nighthawks. But my personal favorite was Venus de Milo with Drawers by Dali. Lately I've just been picturing people as little lockboxes of hidden emotion, and people just put their worries inside them as if they have drawers.

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Monday night was Ratatat at the Empty Bottle and they were ok I guess. They came out, played guitar, and said "This is our last song" repeatedly. I wasn't expecting too much. On the plus side, however, I got a Ratatat #1 foam finger that had been dropped in price because the roadie said "we sleep on them in the bus." Somehow, and it boggles the mind, I was the only person with one. But we had some fun with the finger on the ride back.

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Tuesday morning Tyler and I met up with Angie at a place called Toast by Depaul. Great pancakes, great service. The only problem was I had to sprint to catch my bus. You know, like in the movies when somebody is running down the street of a big city so they're not stuck in a big city one more day? Yeah that was me. And my sprinting paid off. I made it by a minute thanks to some dispute with the Megabus people and a customer. The bus left a couple minutes late, and I was a little early. Gorgeous.

9/14/2006

Chicago in a Nutsack

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My trip to the Second City was a blast. I caught Girl Talk in concert and managed to see the new Mike Judge movie, Idiocracy, about human de-evolution. Don't look up a trailer for it, because it's not being promoted. As soon as I get my pictures back I'll put up a proper post, but for now I'll leave you with a picture from someone's flickr that Tyler and I are in (bottom left), Pitchfork's review of the show with video, and a couple reviews of Idiocracy.

Pitchfork's Girl Talk Review
The Onion's Review of Idiocracy
LA Times Review

9/08/2006

Little Dogs and the Girls that Love Them

Cassidy sent me this. She likes poodles. It terrifies me more than Cremaster and Trapped in the Closet. Combined.

9/07/2006

Robert Kelly's Sexual Differentiation

I saw Cremaster the other night. Well, saw part 1 and the first few minutes of part 2, hoping they would be better than part 3. The third section I'd seen a few years back, and I figured, "Hey, maybe this guy is just too far over my head, give it time." I think I thought that when a girl dressed up like a hyena was swimming in a baby pool of Vaseline.

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Well the first part started with two blimps (with flight attendants transporting genetalia) over a Bronco Stadium in Boise, ID. And there was some dancing. Forty minutes later, there were two blimps with some flight attendants looking at some genetalia and more dancing. That's it, it's very neutered. If you read reviews, this is supposed to be because in the womb, we either develop nuts or not. My thinking is that maybe it should've been a little shorter, since we're in the womb 1/100th of our lives.

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The second one deals with Gary Gilmore. I read a few hundred pages of the Executioner's Song in high school because I liked the writing style. This one was slightly more interesting. There was dialogue, some sex, and they were going to execute Gilmore. But as soon as the vaseline came out, and got plopped down on everything, it lost me again. If you look at Matthew Barney's website, he claims this too is about sexual differentiation. Well, I think this video was showing sexual differentiation about as well as It's Pat.

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So maybe it's all over my head. Because Matthew Barney was in our Art History book. But read this review of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet." And tell me that you don't want to just go out and show THAT in your art gallery.

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They made a South Park episode out of that? I have to check it out!

9/01/2006

Just Razzin Me, back in the 19 Eightyyyyyys

I was reading about the Razzies today, and found an interesting bit of trivia. In 1998, a guy won both an Oscar and a Razzie for two scripts, LA Confidential and The Postman, respectively. One day they love you, one day they hate you, I guess. I didn't think the Postman was that bad. I mean, people don't really read anymore for fun, do they? So it's not that far from the possibilities of the future.

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Another thing about the Razzies. Look at 1985's award winners. Rocky IV? Rambo II? Perfect? Turk 182? A Godzilla expounding on nuclear weapon theory? The Fat Boys in a music category? Thomas Dolby (She blinded me with science?) in the musical score section? Are you kidding me? Those things didn't win Oscars! Next thing you know, Talladega Nights and the TI song from ATL are going to win.

And what was the Oscar committee slobberin all over? Witness, Out of Africa and Cocoon. Maybe if Harrison Ford had moves like Travolta in Perfect, there could be a discussion. Damn, looks like I need to have an 85 Razzies party.

PS and the worst of all... Rob Lowe in St Elmo's Fire... Jesus Christ. Just for that I'm gonna get a hanging cross earring.