Yearly Archive: 2008

17
Jul
2008
23:49

iHaiku

I have an iPhone
It’s as awesome as I thought
Filled with iRapture

03
Jul
2008
10:46

Chipmunk Punk

When I was a kid, I had the album “Chipmunk Punk”. This was a 1980 album of Alvin and the Chipmunks doing 9 songs that were not really in any way, punk, but were pretty cool and influential to me. This album actually introduced me to a lot of songs that I would later come to really love. At the time, I had never heard of “The Knack” and I don’t think I had heard of most of the other songs on the album either. I just knew I liked the Chipmunks as we had a cool clear red album of theirs from 1969.
Recently I was thinking back on this and realized just what a weird album this was. The track listing was:
Side A

  • “Let’s Go” by The Cars
  • “Good Girls Don’t” by The Knack
  • “How Do I Make You” by Linda Ronstadt
  • “Refugee” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
  • “Frustrated” by The Knack

Side B

  • “Call Me” by Blondie
  • “You May Be Right” by Billy Joel
  • “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen
  • “My Sharona” by The Knack

Now the first thing I noticed is that one third of the songs are from The Knack. Now don’t get me wrong, I love The Knack’s debut album “Get The Knack” which spawned all three of these songs, but to have three of nine songs by The Knack, who I had never even heard of at that time, seems an odd choice. Were the producers friends with The Knack? Did they get a hellaciously good deal on song rights?
Secondly, though I remember very specific changes they made to the lyrics to make them more kid friendly, those three songs from The Knack are racy! They’re all about trying to get laid. Sure they changed “Til she’s sitting on your face” to “Til she’s sitting in your place” but a few lyrical changes do not change the overall subject of the song.
I don’t really remember realizing at the time what these songs were about, but again in hindsight, WHOA! How did this album get made?
“You thought you heard her saying ‘Good Girls don’t’…but she’s been telling you ‘Good girls don’t but I do.”
“Frustrated” is all about blue balls, basically. Some girl not putting out.
“My Sharona”, all about lusting after this young teenage girl.
Again, I ask, HOW DID THIS ALBUM GET MADE AND RELEASED? All I know is I’m glad it did, because I played the hell out of it and was introduced to some awesome music. I own every one of those songs on CD by the original artists. Except for “How Do I Make You”. I can’t remember how that one goes but I remember I liked the Chipmunk’s version of it. Somehow I listened to this album repeatedly without ever really realizing how inappropriate some of the songs probably were for a nine year old boy.

03
Jul
2008
10:12

Prejudice

I had an experience a few weeks ago that made me realize just how lucky i am to live a fairly prejudice-free life. I am generally surrounded by non-prejudiced people in a fairly non-prejudiced town, at least to the point where something like this actually took me by surprise which is a good thing.
I was at a band gig when one of my band mates was talking about his family trip to Disneyworld. This individual is a very generous generally great guy but he’s also an old country boy farmer. Sometimes these things just don’t seem to go together, such as when him, his wife and their teenage daughter were talking about how they happened to be at Disneyworld for gay pride day. And, oh my goodness, they were surrounded by GAY PEOPLE! Shock! horror! And, I quote, “It was disgusting!”
I sat there kind of fuming trying to figure out exactly how to handle this. I had no idea what to say or do. I wanted to speak up but in a non-confrontational way that would hopefully reach them and make them think instead of just alienating them but I just couldn’t think of anything to say. I ended up muttering sarcastically, “Oh no, gay people,” but no one really heard and I didn’t want to make a point by repeating it or whatever. I think the real shame is that their daughter, who is a bright, intelligent girl, is having this kind of thing put in her head.
There are so many people in the world and the vast majority of them are going to be different from you in at least some ways. Sometimes you have close friends who are good people and yet have some pretty major differences from you. Sometimes that can be really hard. I actually wondered, albeit only briefly, “Do I really want to be in a band with people like this?”

01
Jul
2008
23:10

My top 10 favorite robots

After seeing “Wall-e” (which, by the way is one of the best movies ever) my brain decided to start thinking about my favorite movie robots. So here’s my top 10 favorite Movie/TV robots (not necessarily in any particular order):

  1. Wall-E: this movie kicked so much ass in so many ways I don’t know where to begin. The virtual camerawork was better than most actual camera work in most movies. Wall-E himself was just awesome beyond words. EVE (or I-Bot as I called her) was also pretty damn awesome
  2. R2-D2 (honorable mention to C-3PO): While I think R2 is the far cooler bot, you gotta give props to his robot life mate too. These two are robot royalty. Star Wars was just full of so many great bots. The Gonk droid, the mouse droid; you could probably fill a list with just your favorite Star Wars droids.
  3. Tom Servo (honorable mention to Crow T. Robot): MST3K was just brilliant and Kevin Murphy’s version of Servo will always be one of the great bots for me.
  4. Maximillian (honorable mention to V.I.N.CENT.): “The Black Hole” is one of those movies that holds a special place of childhood nostalgia for me despite the fact that the ending is an absolute bizarre cinematic drug trip. These two bots are each worthy of their own place in robot history with more honorable mentions to Bob and S.T.A.R. but in the end I think Maximillian with his spinning blades is the more memorable and iconic robot.
  5. Yul Brenner in “Westworld”: A classic.
  6. Robot from “Lost In Space”: There was always something about him that I loved. What boy didn’t want a best friend like that!
  7. The Iron Giant: Vin Diesel’s best role to date!
  8. The Terminator: While the T-1000 may have been cooler in a lot off ways, it was the original Arnold-nator that will always be the classic.
  9. The Cylons: There was a time when I would have said the original series’ centurions but the new BSG is such an awesome show that I gotta go with those fleshjobs now. The new centurions are pretty sweet too.
  10. HAL 9000: I’ve never even actually seen this movie but that glowing red circle and eerily clam voice have so permeated pop culture that he makes it to my list

I’m sure I’ll probably think of a ton more that I’ll wish I’d put on here as soon as I publish this, but those are the ones that first came to my head so that says something about them. Keep in mind these are MY favorite robots. The ones that for whatever reason made an impact on me. Many people may cry “Where’s Johnny 5? Optimus Prime?” Etc., but there are many famous and iconic robots that just don’t hold any personal value to me. I never saw “Short Circuit”. I never watched “Transformers”. Daleks and “Blade Runner” replicants aren’t actually robots. So those are my picks. Feel free to add your own in the comments!
Random bonus tidbit:
I always thought “Gort” was cool too but I never actually saw “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” In fact I think I first became aware of Gort on the cover of a Ringo Starr Album.

21
Jun
2008
19:18

48 hour film competition

The 48 hour film competition is going on again this weekend. Once again I had a gig on Saturday so I couldn’t be in any films so instead I offered to help my friend, Greg, write his.
Last at 7:00 P.M. Greg received his info. His genre was “Road Movie”, the character we had to include was “Zack Needham, take-out delivery driver”, the prop we had to use was a baby block, and we had to use the line “That was a good one.”
Me, Jess, Larry, Greg, Hillary and Chris all went to eat and brainstorm, then we adjourned to Greg’s house to start writing.
Me, Jess, Larry and Greg then proceeded to write from about 9 P.M. to about 2 A.M. I have to say I think we wrote a pretty damn good 7 minute film. Absurd, crazy, funny, and out there. I then emailed Greg a bunch of music I’d compsed for past projects that he could use in this one for various scenes. This will be the first thing I’ve ever helped write without directing and starring in it too. It’s kind of weird but kind of cool too. can’t wait to see what we have at 7 P.M. tomorrow!

16
Jun
2008
0:21

Comments are GO!

After an epic battle involving support tickets with my web host and Movable Type, we finally slew the goblin that was eating my comments. I believe that everything is back in working order. If not, feel free to email me.

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