wow... so...

... been a while since i posted here, neh?

So the past year went kinda sideways on me. not in a bad way tho.

I got in to law school, packed up the whole Seattle-shop, and relocated inland two thousand miles to Iowa, the land of Corn and Soybeans. As much as they like, here, to distinguish themselves from Kansas with protestations of 'but... we have hills!' it is FUCKING FLAT up in here. Seriously, when i went snowboarding over spring break (yes, snowboarding on spring break, that's what we do in the northwest) i nearly died from lack of visible horizon.

Ok, that's not actually true. And depressingly flat though it is, Iowa City and its surrounding environs actually dont suck to a surprising degree. Whitman peeps, you would feel remarkable at home here. Though IC wants to get you drunker, faster than Many Waters.

Chill people have been met, befriended. You know who you are. Unchill people have been met as well, and snarkily derided from behind my facade of west coast arrogance and silly shirts. You probably *dont* know who you are, and lets just say that that is part of the problem. Everyone else: you know how there were both a surprising number of people you jived with, yet a concurrently larger concentration of That Guy when you went to undergrad from high school? ...yeah... well higher higher education is even more like that. yes, gerry, things are more like they are now than they have ever been.

But, first year has been survived, feathers in cap have been acquired, and hopefully second year will not suck overly hard.
Now, I really dont want this to become one of those tiresome 'durr i'm in lawschool so now i'm gonna be all deep and not tell things, people, incorporeal entities to fuck off when they need to fuck off, because i'm being super conscious of my web-presence and blah blah blah blah' blogs.

no.

This is my private space, published under my nom de plume which, of course, is more top secret than Cheney's Secure Undisclosed Location, and while many of the ventings contained herein I would not necessarily print out and take as a writing sample to an interview, neither would I be ashamed to have an interviewer ask me, "So... uh... we've been looking at your blog. Who exactly _is_ That Guy, and why do you have such a problem with him?" Explaining the concept of That Guy, and how nobody wants to be him would make such a more interesting and memorable interview than me prating about attention to detail, my passion for a well-constructed argument and any number of other true yet trite typical topics.

Therefore, I say, let the ranting and giggling return.

I leave with possibly the greatest t-shirt of the past year.
http://www.nerduo.com/thebattle/
those PSAs utterly pwned those lame-ass 'knowledge is power' ones.

Tags: iowa, law school, ire, G.I. Joe

Attention: are you a moron?

Do you also own a Wii? If so, you might want one of these. Yes, it only took a year and a half, but someone has finally realized that they could profit off the poor coordination of rondo Wii owners and decided to market plexiglass shields for your television.

I got a Wii at launch (vaguely nepotist connections FTW!) and though I've never felt in danger of throwing a wiimote through the TV myself, there have been some drunk and uncoordinated friends I was a little concerned about. Thus far the only casualties of careless wiimote usage in my apartment are two Belgian beer glasses and about seven serious dents in the front of my coffee table. No wiimotes were harmed during any of this, of course, as wiimotes are nigh indestructible.

Tags: giggles, wii

BUNNIES!!!!1!

I just watched the Lost Season 4 finale, and I'm feeling a little OMGed out at the moment. If you are currently one of the many* people who recently decided to start watching lost at the beginning after growing fed up with having all your friends blathering on about some island and a bunch of assholes keeping secrets and fucking everything up, you have no idea what show you're even watching. Its like you already drank the kool-aid, and while it hasn't started yet, pretty soon things will be getting a bit weird.

So, suffice to say, my mind is awhirl with theories, guesses, and plaintive cries of WTF, mate? As luck would have it, the internet, via Scanner has provided me with eerily well integrated soothing images and light chuckles to get me through this difficult time of withdrawal while I steady myself for the reality that I will have to wait another crushing seven months before there is new Lost.

Go check it out.


*ok, I'm extrapolating here. I know of several people who fit the description and therefore I am assuming that based on the sample size of people I know or know of that there must be many more. Yes, its armchair statistical analysis, and fuck you for questioning my logic.

Tags: lost, wtf

lolsluts

Just thought I'd draw your attention to lolsluts, a nice site started by a few young ladies of my acquaintance. For those of you familiar with lolcats, its basically the same thing, but with pictures silly girls being silly with silly captions. And you know anything that silly is going to be excellent.

My fave thus far:

That's right, its a samwell reference.


Now, for those of you feeling lost. First, check out icanhascheezburger. Its the source of lol. Second, check out the below video of samwell. He's French, and he wants to do it in his butt.


And just for good measure, South Park riffing on samwell:

Tags: giggles, lol

hulu.com's advertising is weird

I'm in the middle of watching through a couple episodes of House I've not seen on hulu.com. For the shamefully uninformed, Hulu is a joint venture by Fox and NBC to attempt to prevent Apple from utterly dominating the online video market in the same way it dominates the 0nline music market. So, both networks have put a vast store of television and movies up online at, again, hulu.com, where you can go watch on-demand HD streaming video content for free(!). The thing they fail to realize, at least superficially, is that as long as the experience of watching streaming content fails to parallel or exceed that of watching the same content off physical media or in an HD television broadcast, we, the consumers will continue to demand that our video entertainments be commodified rather than, erm, servicized (yes I realize this isn't a word. What the fuck do you want, I'm pausing House to write this) Don't show me a choppy, 300x540 video and tell me you're streaming real-time HD content. FUCK YOU.

House is a perfect example of why FUCK YOU as well. Its a good show, but inherently episodic and some of the episodes are not gripping enough to justify repeated viewings which in turn makes me very, very unlikely to buy it on DVD. But I'd certainly like to have that episode where Hallucination Cuddy gives House a strip-tease while helping him with a diagnosis. But I can't, because Fox thinks that somehow letting Apple sell me that individual episode in downloadable HD video will somehow eat into their profit margin. Well, fuckers, why are you not offering such a product yourselves?

This is why I said they at least superficially fail to realize that when it comes down to it we will continue to demand video entertainments as a commodity rather than as a service. Hulu is not competing with downloads or DVD set sales, it is supplementing broadcast as advertising for the DVDs. That's why there's only one season of House available, so people like me watch the episode they want to watch, then, shit, what the hell, another. And my, wasn't that episode also very enjoyable, perhaps I will go buy the DVDs after all.

Well, guess what, Hulu? I'm not buying it. Tough. No matter how tempted I am by the ability to go and watch the first season of Babylon 5 or The A-Team I will not be buying the DVDs. Sorry. Still, you get to recoup some of your 'losses' or whatever it is we're currently calling profiting less than you'd hoped, by plying me with *the same* fucking ad for His and Hers lube. Couldn't there be a few non-lube related ads? Please? First of all I'm a fan of House, and am therefore scientifically minded enough that the idea of lube which does something "special" when combined with its companion lube conjures up images not of sexiness, but of epoxy. Two complementary gels, mixed, Science! Well, not anywhere near my man-parts thank you very much. Second of all, I already have the lube front covered and you'd be better off with the one about the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with the sexy music and wrapper slowly magically being peeled off. Its the perfect mix of food-porn, actual porn and satire of both food and actual porn. Full marks all around.

Tags: rants

DVD Packaging Can Go Suck A Fuck

I am so seriously, what the FUCK is up with DVD packaging?
I cannot fucking stand it.

With the help of a few Borders coupons, I picked up a few (more than I should have) DVDs over the past couple weeks. I still havent watched any of them, of course, I've been to busy playing GTA IV and Mario Kart Wii, both of which are hands down the best of their respective franchises, by the by, so they'd been sitting on my table just waiting to be unwrapped. Normally, this just would not stand. I would have to immediately unwrap them and re-alphabetize my collection to accommodate the new acquisition. I have, shamefully, reached critical mass on my bookshelf and will, on pain of OCD, have to reorganize the whole damn thing to make room. So: stack on my coffee table. Just for the time being. I fucking SWEAR. Really.

But back to the topic at hand, I took the time to unwrap a few the other day and nearly had to go score some mood stabilizers after being sent to the fucking moon on a spaceship constructed solely of frustration, obsession, and murderous intentions toward every single last fucking person who had anything to do with the decision making process that lead to the current design of DVD packaging. I say decision making process because nothing this evil could have come to be without the help of a committee, a flow chart, and probably several very poorly executed powerpoint presentations.

Foremost on the list of motives for justifiable and righteous manslaughter: the shrink wrap. Now, shrink wrap is nothing evil in its own right; it has been perverted by the forces of darkness for their own evil purposes. "Now wait just a second, weirdbeard, shrink wrap is on a lot of things, and isn't really that bad," I can hear you muttering in protest, but you know what? FUCK YOU. DVD shrink wrap is shat straight from Satan's rectum. It comes without a rip-enabling strip, and it nearly always gets melted to the spine of my DVDs. Ever smoked? Or watched someone smoke? Or, *gasp* seen someone open a pack of cigarettes? Rip-enabling strip, all the way around those fuckers. You know why? Because the tobacco industry, whatever other faults it has, isn't so completely rondo as to sell a product that may not be opened as easily as possible. But even if you cleanly open DVD shrink wrap, you've still got a 50/50 chance of ending up with the spine trailing little streamers of plastic, where it melted to the case. What the fuck is that? Why am I paying for the privilege of having to work at preventing large sections of my DVD collection from looking like they've been bukakked by a plastic monster?

Once you're past the shrink wrap, there's still the theft-prevention tape to deal with. That's right, one layer of defense from me watching the movie I just purchased isn't enough. At least one more is required. Clearly a piece of tape over the top of the case is required. On principle, I'm OK with this. But is using adhesive so strong that pulling the tape off can actually stretch the cover of the case really necessary? I don't think so. I shouldn't need to bust out a sharp knife to surgically open the tape just because picking up a corner to pull will be so difficult and require so much pressure with the fingernail that half the time it leaves a huge divot in the case. But its OK, because once you get it started, the perforations in the tape will tear, so you have to repeat the process two more damnable times. And if THAT weren't enough, some DVDs have THREE pieces of theft-deterrent tape, top, side and bottom. Just in case. Assholes.

So, if you had anything to do with the aforementioned frustrations in my life, you may now rest easy in the knowledge that you sir or madam, can just go suck a fuck.

Tags: wtf, rants, movies

Seattle Concert Scheduling is teh Stoopid

I just acquired the most recent Cut Copy album, In Ghost Colours. It's pretty rockin'. I'd never really heard them before and I can't remember if this is a result of me scoffing at a recommendation like a tool, or just happenstance. I hope its the latter, I fucking hate realizing I've been a tool.

In Ghost Colours is a great album. I'd throw down a review, but really, pitchfork said it pretty well in the review linked above. Its a happy, fun album of technopop and you should go track it down.

As I was about halfway through my first listen last night, I vaguely recalled seeing Cut Copy on a concert calendar, and went to Neumos' website to see if I'd already missed it. Sweet! I'd not. Shit! Its on a Wednesday.

Now, as a 9-5'er, this presents a dilemma: is the show going to be worth another zombified day at work? I've been to a number of weeknight shows lately and they've been pretty universally awesome. The Shackletons, British Sea Power, and The Super Furry Animals at Neumos, and Le Loup and the Ruby Suns at Chop Suey have all be excellent weeknight shows in the past month or two. But the next day I am, without fail, a solid wreck. It seems like I should be able to handle getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep after a night of drinking and rocking out to awesome music without any problem, right? Despite the clear intuitiveness of that situation, quite the opposite is the reality.

So, concert promoters and bands I like, What The Fuck is the deal with all the weeknight concerts? I realize that based on travel times and other scheduled shows and the various other logistical facets of planning a tour, some shows will have to be on weeknights. I get it. Seattle isn't New York or L.A.. Fine.

But at the same time, Fuck That. At one of the above-mentioned shows, a friend and I found ourselves chatting with the drummer afterwards. He was full of praise for Seattle, how they always had their most solid, best-attended shows here. How KEXP was the greatest radio station in the country. That's all well and good, sir, but then why the fuck are we having this conversation at 1:30 am Wednesday morning? I know its not his personal responsibility, and he was a sick drummer, and they put on a ridiculously good show, and all the rest, but I still cant shake the feeling that it somehow shouldn't be the case that seeing a good small show in Seattle necessarily comes at the expense of my ability to function at work the next day.