by rustedrobot | Dec 22, 2004 | Sarcasm
Washington, D.C. (AP) – A routine FAA briefing in Washington, D.C. turned odd on Wednesday when Christmas icon Santa Claus dropped in and began acting strangely. Keiko Fukinawa was nearing completion on his weekly address, discussing changes to FAA flight regulations upcoming in 2005 when Santa Claus landed directly in front of the FAA podium, disembarked from his flying craft, threw his arms up in the air and shouted “Where’s my bitches?”
Fukinawa stared, speechless, while Mr. Claus went on inquire about when, for once, he would be the one receiving some “goddamn Christmas bling” and then threatened to steal one of the modern day aircraft in the hangar (pictured) and “buzz some little punks who deserve it.” He then softly asked if anyone had seen his socks, then sighed, sat on the ground and began asking if he could see Rupert. Mr. Claus was detained and released later.
“Hey, it’s a stressful time for him,” said Thomas Underacker, Chairman of the FAA, “we’re going to cut him a break this time.”
“We also have given orders to shoot Cat Stevens on site,” Underacker added, “he is one dangerous Islamic leader of peace.”
The identity of Rupert was never divulged.
by rustedrobot | Dec 20, 2004 | Music
UPDATE: added a couple of additional albums into the list below.
There are now 11 days left in 2004. All the things adults used to tell me as a kid about aging and how fast time passes – it’s all true. They were right. It’s quite difficult to really step back and ruminate on the past year. It’s been a year filled with very dramatic highs – namely my engagement and wedding day. But there were other wonderous moments – the Red Sox incredible run through the playoffs, the continued amazement I get watching nieces and nephews grow into, uh, people. I also started playing hockey again, which is really comforting, actually. It’s been more fun than I thought, because I take it less seriously than I used to.
It wasn’t all great. We re-elected George Bush. The NHL isn’t playing because players and owners can’t find common ground in seperating billions of dollars. Billions. With a B. The Ramones kept dying. Ray Charles left the building. Britney Spears is still in the news. All these are sad, but all in all, I loved 2004.
That said, one of the few constants in my life remains music. I can’t claim to be nearly as voracious with my music appetite as I was in previous years (or decades), but I still manage to find a few records each year that just kick my ass. Here they are, in order:
Anders Parker – Tell It To The Dust – it’s been a while since an album was such an easy decision for my favorite of the year. Hands down, this one nails it. Parker’s ability to kick out a fantastic rock jam reminiscent of the best stuff Crazy Horse had to offer is only trumped by his ability to sit down and write a stunning ballad on a piano. In both instances, his voice recalls the warmth of Levon Helm (not the same style, persay, just the feeling)and his songwriting is right up there with anyone today. If you take a chance on anything this year in the music store, I cannot recommend this enough.
Mark Lanegan – Bubblegum – There’s always that one baseball player through the years who plays extremely well in the field one year, then hits like mad another year. Finally, after a couple of seasons, the law of averages comes through – that player puts it all together and has a monster season. Bubblegum is Mark Lanegan’s monster season. Lanegan’s made some brilliant records, but none that combine his two talents like this one does – his raw, whiskey-sour voice doing a neo-blues number and his other persona, the tortured Screaming Trees, rusting, aggressive arena rock. The thing that ties it alltogether is the voice – it’s one for the ages.
Franz Ferdinand – self-titled – Oh, how I missed you, 80s snotty rock! Franz Ferdinand’s debut knocked me right on my ass as soon as I heard the chorus of “Take Me Out.” It was one of those rare occasions when I bought an album based on one song. Usually that gets me into trouble, so it was a hell of a nice surprise to get an album full of quality pop-rock that sounds like Duran Duran in a streetfight with Pavement. “Matinee” might be one of my favorite songs of the new century so far.
Sloan – Action Pact (U.S. Version) – I know, I know. They were on my list last year. But how many times do I have to remind you all that this is my blog? Huh? Last year’s version was the Canadian release. The U.S. version contains “Step On It, Jean” – an extra track – so I am qualifying it as a multi-year release (sticking my tongue out at you, too). The truth is that this might not have made it had I not seen Sloan play two amazing shows to support the album back in the spring. They cemented themselves as my favorite live band for now. Maybe ever. You are really depriving yourself of something special by not witnessing the live spectacle of this band. Oh, the album is totally kick ass, too. Really.
REM – Around The Sun – In addition to making their best song in over ten years (“Leaving New York”), REM put together this mostly dour, sullen set of songs more or less as a trio and it ended up being their best album since “Automatic For The People,” and that’s saying a lot. They seem to have really been set adrift since Bill Berry left the band a few years ago. A couple of albums which were, at best, experimental, had me wondering what was up with these guys and hoping we’d get something real good to chew on eventually. Well, a band this good cannot be adrift that long. It’s more than safe to say that their best music is long behind them, but Around The Sun did restore my faith. It’s a good, solid set of songs.
Grant Lee Phillips – Virginia Creeper – Since splitting from one of my favorite ’90s bands (Grant Lee Buffalo) a few years back, Phillips has also been a bit adrift. A couple of solo albums were digestible, but spotty, so I wasn’t expecting much from Virginia Creeper until I slapped on the headphones and listened to it – and I haven’t stopped. It’s as close to a Grant Lee Buffalo album as we’ll get, in fact. He’s pretty much back with a full band, great songs, solid melodies and a knack for making appropriate music for both parties and quiet Sunday mornings. Phillips is back to being one of my longtime favorites. Welcome back, friend.
Preston School of Industry – Monsoon – I bet you anything Cheap Trick smoked some pot in their day. Now imagine if Cheap Trick wasn’t from Illinois, but from Southern Cal. And they were real stoners. Now you’ve got yourself some Preston School of Industry. Headed up by Spiral Stairs, he of Pavement (whoo! another Pavement reference!), this album floats and flutters it’s way into your brain and leaves you with a dopey smile on your face. This will definitely, um, Tyde me over, if you know what I’m saying. You don’t, do you?
Wilco – A Ghost Is Born – I listened to this enough for it to qualify. While nowhere as close to the excellent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Experience, this experiment still contained enough great stuff to add to the list. “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is as Kraut as a bunch of white dudes from Chicago can get. “Muzzle of Bees” is simply beautiful, while “At Least That’s What You Said” is beautiful in its own cockeyed, indecisive way, brutal in some parts, beauty in others. Pretty much like the band, actually. Once again, though, the centerpiece for me was “The Late Greats” and “Handshake Drugs,” two songs that slowly crawl in through all the orifices in your head and probably never get out. Simple pop songs. Yum.
Two other albums I want to mention – Elliot Smith’s “From A Basement On The Hill” and Earlimart’s “Treble and Tremble” are worth mentioning here. When you hear a song like “King’s Crossing” (Smith) you start to really question just how much money the police are wasting looking into his death as a homicide. The song is so goddamn great, though, that I start to feel guilty because I’m enjoying the 4 minutes he put together about a lifetime of what seemed to be crushing, painful addiction. We’ll miss him. Earlimart’s album was one I was really looking forward to and I did enjoy it quite a bit. I hadn’t known, however, that it was a tribute to their fallen friend Elliot Smith and it ended up coming off as a bit too much like an Elliot Smith album. A small complaint, though. I mean, if you’re going to imitate and tribute, that’s not a bad place to do it.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The Autumn Defense. Their album was released late last year and made it onto my Tops of 2003, but they didn’t tour on it until this year, and the two shows I saw, as I documented here on 2/14, were simply Earth-rattling. Easily two of the best shows I’ve seen in ten years. Who would have thought an unassuming little band could be so……big. They were unforgettable, and then some.
So there you go.
by rustedrobot | Dec 17, 2004 | Sports
I find that in regards to baseball, at least around here, the season never really ends. They all just kind of meld together. The winter sees no on-field action, but there’s action aplenty everywhere else. The last few days around the league has been a headspinner, both for the hometown Red Sox and for the rest of the league.
First off, the Montreal Expos finally found themselves a home in Washington, D.C. recently. They had a splashy coming-out party, named themselves the Washington Nationals, unveiled their logo and colors, starting staffing up, put tickets on sale and planned to reveal their new uniforms today in a ceremony. Then, more or less out of nowhere, the D.C. Council chairwoman introduced a vote for half of the new stadium to be privately financed. The vote won and you could almost hear the screeching of the brakes. The uniform ceremony? Cancelled. Tickets? You can get a refund. Staffing: put on hold. There’s even a chance that there will be no baseball in D.C. this season. What an absolute embarassment for everyone involved here.
The Red Sox have made plenty of news themselves. I love the Edgar Renteria signing, but there’s one problem: last time I checked, he can’t pitch. Yesterday Pedro Martinez introduced himself to Shea Stadium. Good riddance, amigo. I was really hoping he’d sign back on with the Red Sox for 2-3 more seasons – they really could have used him – but I give all the credit in the world to the Red Sox for not bowing down (or bending over, perhaps?) to Martinez’s asking price. I think, oh, about three seconds passed after word of the deal came down before the Red Sox front office was waving goodbye. A good move to deliver the message to the Dominican Diva that there was no coming back. They played it beautifully. I would have never signed him for that long or for that much and the Mets seem to keep falling into the abyss each offseason with their mystifying approach. The problem here is that the Sox are down two very important arms in their rotation, and David Wells is not the answer.
What I find funny is that the Red Sox are so “talk to the hand” on Derek Lowe. Why? He undoubtedly has shaky confidence, but does anyone realize what he’s done for that team, especially in games that matter? If you step back and think about it, he’s a poor man’s Tom Brady. Serviceable during the season, invaluable when it counts. He’s most definitely not an ace, but man, I don’t get the aversion. I always think about that pitch to close out Oakland in the 2003 playoffs – that moment was as captivating as any.
The rest of the league is the usual ferris wheel of player movement. The Mariners spent $80 million dollars – yesterday. Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre are now Mariners. Sexson’s a good choice, Beltre, I don’t know. One season with big numbers….I’d be careful there. Tim Hudson was traded to his hometown Atlanta Braves yesterday – that was a hell of a move by Atlanta. Hudson has long been one my favorite pitchers, mostly because I claimed him on my fantasy team one month before he was called up to the majors a couple of seasons ago. Yes, I am bragging. The Diamondbacks are just idiots for signing Russ Ortiz.
The signing that is most mysterious to me, however, is Carl Pavano. He had a great season as a Florida Marlin this year, can’t take that away. But up until then, he’d been kicked to three different teams, been plagued by injury, and his overall record is under .500. Is his one season enough to justify the money he got? Time will certainly tell.
Anders Parker here in Boston on Sunday night. I’ll post a slideshow.
by rustedrobot | Dec 16, 2004 | Travel
It’s been a whirlwind couple of days for yours truly. Had to get up at 4am on consecutive days (Tue-Wed) to catch flights to and from Austin, Texas on business. It’s funny how a single, hour-long meeting can totally mess with your body clock and affect the other 46 hours. It didn’t help that you simply cannot fly to Austin direct from Boston (or Manchester….or Providence…..or even Hartford), so what should be a 3-4 hour trip turns into a six hour trip because of layovers in places like D.C. and Houston. Regardless, I’m alive, even after getting home yesterday, then going right back out to play hockey at 9pm last night. I slept ok, yeah.
Austin is the only place in Texas I really like. It’s truly one hell of a great city, so I was a bit excited to go, although I knew I wouldn’t be spending much spare time there. The fact that it’s also in the south and warm was a bonus. That “warm” part, however, turned out to be a cruel, cruel joke. When I left Texas yesterday morning, the temperature was 29 degrees. They actually had to de-ice the plane. In Texas. Just doesn’t sound right, does it? They said on the news last night that those kind of temperatures rarely ever get to that point in Texas. Of course, it’s when I had to be there.
Much more tomorrow.
by rustedrobot | Dec 10, 2004 | Internet
I’m getting all nerdy today. Over at Kottke.org yesterday, a post regarding RSS advertising appeared and the comments started to fly in. It’s a pretty fascinating discussion on what has started to develop into a full blown issue. Maybe not a controversy yet, but an issue. Check out some of the reader comments.
For those unfamiliar with RSS, think of it as a central place (in this case, a software program) to collect all the things you are interested in online. For example, almost every day for work I used to visit all the blogs I could which were related to search engines and search engine news. Now if any of those blogs get updated, the blog post automatically appears in my RSS software and I can read it right from there. No more going to a thousand different websites to check for updates. It’s kinda like the U.S. Mail, except you direct the postal service to deliver only what you want to see. Hope I explained that okay.
Anyway, I’m torn on the issue of advertising in my RSS software. On one hand, I love the RSS service (I use the fantastic Bloglines), but the Bloglines of the world aren’t making money just delivering me blog updates. They need to monetize it somehow. Hello, advertising. Although I’ve yet to experience it in Bloglines, in addition to receiving the content you’ve set up to receive, you might get another line item which contains advertising. Many people in that Kottke post I linked to above are adamantly against this and I’m not sure I agree with them.
I mean, pop-ups are incredibly annoying. Banner ads? I’m convinced 95% of the surfers out there have just mentally programmed themselves by now to ignore them. I know I have. I’ve even started to hear rumblings out there about sponsored links – I have mentioned before that I believe at some point people will be mentally blocking those, albeit probably not at the level of banner ads. Time will tell on that end. For now, Google can keep their Grateful Dead chef, though.
So how is this RSS advertising any different than your U.S. mail, to close the loop? It’s not. In fact, one could argue it’s an even better form of junk mail than what you get in your physical mailbox. If you’ve subcribed via RSS to any travel weblogs focused on Paris, wouldn’t you be a little more accepting of an RSS ad (or any ad, for that matter) which offers you a deal on a Paris hotel? Maybe. Seems reasonable. But the second I get a Viagra ad in my RSS reader – forget it.
It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out as blogging/RSS keeps growing.