February 11, 2011

Greg Dulli’s a genius, if you didn’t already know.

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February 10, 2011
More Amor - Thanks?

It’s hard not to like something your friends create. Whether it’s good or not is often arbitrary; we all want to support one another and do things that we’re passionate about. (Like this blog. By all accounts this blog is an abomination, but if I tried harder to blow it up I’m sure my friends would get behind me.) Still, every once in a while some friends’ passion will manifest itself into something you actually want to associate with because it actually is good. I feel this way about More Amor.

The band’s debut EP is about as sugary as pop rock music can get, but that’s not such a bad thing. Tom and Kyle’s harmonies are simple, song structures are expected, and the lyrics are about the only thing they truly know: themselves. But simplicity and expectedness are also the strongest attributes of Thanks? because every one of the six songs here are cute (in a ‘you’re so stoned, let’s make out’ kind of way) and earnest (in a ‘I’m so stoned, let’s be honest’ kind of way).

My favorite is “Young Hollywood,” a sort of ode to all the things that remind me of being in LA myself. And that’s the beauty of Thanks?: there’s probably something lyrical on the record any 20-something can find which reminds them about themselves.

Side Note 1: Dubstep breakdown in “Miss Martyr.” Get into it.

Side Note 2: The site hosting the free album download is Is Anyone Up?, the best NSFW site on the internet. Get into it. 

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February 7, 2011
“ As conquistadors go, I’m more of a Don Quixote than a Hernán Cortés.
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February 4, 2011

That Group of Girls

That group of girls always has one that comes close, time and again, to making you shun the whole clan forever. That group of girls always seems to eventually end up in a little ball, telling inside jokes that you wouldn’t even find funny if you had context. That group of girls always seems to have a hidden agenda that doesn’t mesh with your own hidden agenda. Everyone in that group of girls has just the slightest something wrong with them, physically, like they’re on holiday from the Island of Misfit Toys. That group of girls gets drunk, yells inaudibly, gets in fights with other groups of girls and one another, dumps out buckets of tears and makes up all in the span of three or four minutes.

Best group of girls ever, if you can get through the first few sentences.

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January 25, 2011
Ladies with cute butts, buy these.

Ladies with cute butts, buy these.

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January 24, 2011
The State of the Union is...

This is a very interesting (and at times, harrowing) compilation of State of the Union addresses since 1973. Read this, and tell me: how unsettled are you now that you know Gerald Ford is the only president on this list who ever told it like it was?

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January 21, 2011
“ I mean, you can have sex anytime you want. Why mess it up by getting emotionally attached to someone?
Sage advice from MTV’s Undressed
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I’m really late to the Olivia Munn party (because I’m not a nerd who watches TV shows about video games), but seeing this picture on The Superficial today sort of convinced me I’m now holding a membership to the international league of fanboys. It all started with a video I saw a few days ago, entitled something to the tune of “Olivia Munn’s sexiest moments!” The video carried a simple yet effective theme: clip after clip of Munn moaning, stroking things shaped like penises, grinding her crotch into things and stroking things shaped like penises whilst grinding her crotch into her co-host and moaning. And in every clip, she was making this face—the face she’s making in the photo above, with varying degrees of intensity—and maybe I never noticed it before, but I finally started to understand what sad, lonely gamers sitting alone in their basements love so much about her. It’s reckless abandon. It’s the kind of emotion that most women I’m familiar with don’t have; a sort of ‘I can play harder’ mentality that, apparently, has me about as interested in what she might be like to kick it with as I am in whether she’s as good at choking that chicken as it seems. If she were one of the boys, she’d be the cool one. But she has a vagina and a kick-ass rack too, so, game over. (Also, this.) Anybody know her personally? Is she as ridiculous in person as she appears to be on TV? If so, send her my regards (and maybe a picture you copped off my Facebook page). UPDATE: Found it!

I’m really late to the Olivia Munn party (because I’m not a nerd who watches TV shows about video games), but seeing this picture on The Superficial today sort of convinced me I’m now holding a membership to the international league of fanboys.

It all started with a video I saw a few days ago, entitled something to the tune of “Olivia Munn’s sexiest moments!” The video carried a simple yet effective theme: clip after clip of Munn moaning, stroking things shaped like penises, grinding her crotch into things and stroking things shaped like penises whilst grinding her crotch into her co-host and moaning. And in every clip, she was making this face—the face she’s making in the photo above, with varying degrees of intensity—and maybe I never noticed it before, but I finally started to understand what sad, lonely gamers sitting alone in their basements love so much about her.

It’s reckless abandon. It’s the kind of emotion that most women I’m familiar with don’t have; a sort of ‘I can play harder’ mentality that, apparently, has me about as interested in what she might be like to kick it with as I am in whether she’s as good at choking that chicken as it seems. If she were one of the boys, she’d be the cool one. But she has a vagina and a kick-ass rack too, so, game over. (Also, this.)

Anybody know her personally? Is she as ridiculous in person as she appears to be on TV? If so, send her my regards (and maybe a picture you copped off my Facebook page).

UPDATE: Found it!

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January 20, 2011

On Reading

“I’m reading The Stranger by Albert Camus right now. It’s boring the shit out of me, but I imagine at some point I’ll gain some kind of knowledge that I didn’t know before….I don’t know, it’s like torture, reading, but I do it and then eventually I think that it’s good.”

That’s a quote by George Lewis, Jr., singer of a cool new band called Twin Shadow. It’s a really horrible thing to say. It resonates with me, though, and I think I know why.

Reading has become an obsolete practice for the born-digital generation. Given that the time we spend between the time we spend with our devices in front of us—from smartphone to iPad to laptop to TV and around again—continues to shrink, reading for education’s sake has begun to feel more and more like a misappropriation of the few precious hours we have to consume content every day.

I, for one, spend so little time reading for pleasure that when I do pick up a book, it serves more as a surefire sleep aid than anything else. It makes me sad.

I think I’m going to try and read more books starting now. But I’m no fool and I care about the environment, so I’m going to do all my reading on the iPad.

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