Saturday Morning Song Fun

I'm bored. It's Memorial Day and everyone's away for the weekend. Hence... more Saturday Morning Song Fun...

Click below for a fun depressing reworking of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone"...

Since U Been Gone



When Flynn and I play this we like to Kurt Cobain it up by inserting "All Apologies" into it too.

ONN: In The Know, War On Terror

The latest! What about the ghosts of terrorists?


In The Know: War On Terror

Some Coney Shots & Pat Baer, Master of DDR

I'm late with this. But here are some pics from Eliza's bday excursion to Coney Island.

A lot has been made of things that are going to be different next year with Coney. Here are some things you'll miss possibly NEXT year.



Does this look appetizing?



Some key artwork behind one of the rides....



Awesome rocket burger place. Note the bald guy serving the burgers and then the giant rocket behind him. Aren't rockets more like hotdogs though?



A great style picture you get. Notice little Tego a prominent part of this pic...



What do you do if you work at Coney Island? It's all the way at the end of the trains. That's a long way to go if you live in Manhattan or Queens. Well, screw that. Why not have your house above the ride?



And finally, not from Coney but from last week. We went to see Elvis Costello and in Grand Central we stumbled upon the world's largest wheel of cheese. Check it out. And check out it next to me for some perspective on how large this cheese is. (And me.)




Oh one more thing... check out this vid I took of Pat Baer destroying Eliza at Dance Dance Revolution!

Movie Watch

Hey kids! For those that love music, movies about music, ro-cos, movies about romance and music, and Ireland... Check out this movie:



It's good! I saw it at Sunshine last night.

I also watched National Treasure on TV. And I was amused at the purported romance between Nick Cage and the starlet. I looked it up on imdb and was surprised there was only a 12 year age difference between them. It looked more! But don't watch National Treasure. It's not good. Go watch Once!(It is MUCH better than Music & Lyrics. I give Once an "A".)

TWIB Notes

A few things...

--I went to San Loco today where they had 20 cent tacos in honor of their 20th anniversary. YUMMMM!! I had three tacos and it was less than a dollar. That's what I call a deal.

--In the process of writing that first sentence, I realized that the cents symbol is no longer on the keyboard. This is sad as it means it is no longer useful. Oh Inflation! I hate you.

--Watched a whole special on Houdini today and saw something amazing. No, it wasn't something Houdini did(although he did a lot of amazing things.) No, it was the fact that one of the talking heads on the program was Teller from Penn & Teller. Yes, THAT Teller, the one who's whole bit in that magic duo is that he never talks. So I heard Teller talk. As you might expect, it's not that exciting. If you thought that he had some sort of screeching banshee wail of a voice? Well, he doesn't. The funny thing though was that they blacked out his face. As if that saved the secret of him talking, and yet they still had the little byline underneath his blacked out form saying he was Teller. Weird, right?

--The most interesting thing learned about Houdini is that he always said that no one could ever hurt him by punching him. I guess he had really strong abdominal muscles or something. So when he's over 50, he gives a speech at a college and later that day, some college students come by to visit him. And one of them wants to test his lifelong challenge and asks if he can punch him. Houdini agrees. And the dude punches him. Not once but three different times. And apparently Houdini wasn't ready for one of the later punches, he hadn't tensed his stomach muscles. And as a result of this he has appendicitis.

Well, Houdini has a show to do. And he refuses to go to the doctor, he decides to finish the show first. And he ends up dying as a result. Some people say he would have died anyway. But the punch story is interesting.

--In the topic of most annoying cheapie cable commercials, there is a new contender in the field. I was at an audition the other day with Anthony and he mentioned the Sir Charge(Surcharge) commercials for Time Warner. And yes, those are ridiculous. But there's also commercials for Daisy Mae BBQ. Now, if you haven't been to Daisy Mae, it's some tasty 'cue. Let me get that off my chest, before I trash their awful commercial. They must spend all their money on tastiness and none on ad budget. Because the commercial has this lame theme song that I suppose is supposed to sound like the Pogues or some sort of Irish band. But that's not the worst part. No, the worst part is this girl who is playing I guess a waitress and she's using this really weird lame faux put on Southern accent. It's actually hard to tell what sort of accent she's using. It's the sort of Southern accent one might encounter in 7th grade while taking Speech & Dramatics or something like that.

Which makes me wonder about these commercials, and the actors in these commercials. Who are they? Are they really actors? I am hoping instead that they are friends of these places. I hope that Sir Charge and Daisy Mae girl are just good friends of Time Warner and Daisy Mae BBQ. Maybe they work there. I mean, we KNOW Nino is invested in Nino's because he's NINO. So that makes sense to me. But when it's someone that isn't easily identified as belonging to the company?

I also wonder about all of those testimonial commercials. Because after awhile you realize that a lot of times, commercials are just filled with actors, even when they say or seem to represent normal people. But I can't believe that the person who was in those famous Broadway commercials("we laughed, we cried, it was better than Cats") are actors. If they are, they are awful. And if they are awful, why are these companies hiring them? But maybe they can't tell? I don't know. The whole thing just bothers me.

ONN: In The Know: Teenagers and Alcohol

Here's the newest In The Know clip from ONN. Check it!


In The Know: Teenagers and Alcohol

Another Virginian Makes Their Way North

Well, this news should make all of my fellow DC expatriots happy. Five Guys is coming to NYC! Five Guys make one of the most delicious burgers known to man. I first discovered them because they were within walking distane of my very first grown-up apartment in Park Center back in Arlington, VA. It's messy. But it's GOOOOOD.

Nickel & Diming It

Did you notice that Roger Clemens was signed for $28 million for this year? Well not quite. It was actually $28,000,022. Yes, that's right. Twenty-eight million and 22 dollars. I want to know who tacked that on and what is it for. Is that something that their agent put in there? Or was Steinbrenner like, "No, I won't pay you $28,500,000. I'll give you you $28,000,022 and that's my final offer!"

It's odd.

Death and Taxes, What About Refunds?

Because I was curious. I decided to investigate where my GA state refund was today. You see, I've already received my Federal and NY state refunds. But those were electronic and GA I mailed. Well, I've just been told that I had to wait 12 weeks before making an inquiry. Also, that it might not post for 12 weeks and then after it posts, they have 8 weeks to pay it. So that's a grand total of 20 weeks that I might be waiting for this refund. What does this all mean?

It means I can look forward to some awesome extra cashola on Labor Day. SWEET!

Girls, girls, girls

I was listening to some Counting Crows this morning. And I was contemplating something. On one of their songs, he sings, "I wish I was a girl/So that you could believe me". Ostensibly, he believes because he's a guy he is inherently untrustworthy? Youch. But doesn't he see that if he was a girl, then she would have to be a lesbian for his romantic thoughts to make sense? Or maybe she IS a lesbian! Dun-dun-dun.

Also, this song is one of the 4 or 5 songs that Adam Duritz wrote about a girl named Elizabeth. Is this just a name he likes? Or is there really an Elizabeth out there that he's pining after? Or is there a girl but her codename is Elizabeth? If so, is it one of the Friends' friends he has? He was purportedly friends with both Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox.

I feel like it would be rough to date a songwriter that had written 4 or 5 songs about a girl that was named in his song. If it's unnamed, then it could be about anyone and is sort of universal. But if it's named, you can't even pretend it's about you. Because it's so clearly not. So I wonder if girls that date Adam Duritz secretly seethe into the night about this Elizabeth and want to kill her wherever she is.

I also think that the songs always outlast the girls. And often times, the girls actually could care less about the songs. Which is what makes the whole affair Quioxtidian in nature. They're chasing after something that no longer exists.

Consciously or no, I have never named a real girl in a song that was written about a real girl. You know, that could be a fun book or tv show---to go and track down all of these girls(or guys, let's not be sexist, Shelkey). But let's think about them:

Jenny(867-5309)
Rosalita(Bruce)
Sarah(could be any number of ones.. Sarah Smiles, or Sarah)
Brandy(you're a fine girl)
Sherry(4 Seasons)
Donna(Oh Donna by Richie Valens)
Ray(by Aimmee Mann)
Martha(by Tom Waits)

Who else?? Write more in the comments and I will start compiling them and then contact you when we do the tv show. Tell me you wouldn't watch this on VH1.

This Is Going To Sound Wrong But...

Can you pick a scarier, uglier guy than this to kidnap and rape you? That's Peter Braunstein by the by, for those non-New Yorkers. He's a fashion reporter who posed as a fireman at an apartment building of someone he used to work with, set off some smoke bombs and then forced his way into her apartment. Chloroformed her for like 13 hours. And then left. (I guess it was proven that he didn't actually rape her. But still.) Anyway, my point is---if you had to choose who would kidnap and rape you, you couldn't pick someone scarier than this guy. Look at the mug!

Here's a second one. Yeesh.

Geeking out with Blake

Last night on American Idol, Seacrest asked Blake how he came up with these remixes and he said he uses a program called Ableton Live. I realized that I have that program too! I normally use Pro Tools proper but that comes as a plug-in with the gear I got. So I fired it up last night and it is indeed pretty cool. So begins a summer of experimenting with "beats"! I'm trying to figure out how you import a song first though.

Child's Play

Linus(aka Caroline aka Liney) and I were playing Memory this weekend. Only she was cheating. She'd get a lot of matches legally. But then if she messed up, she'd keep looking till she found the match and then celebrate. I never know when to clamp down on the rules of games with kids. Because Linus is 3.

But still, I feel it's important! And mostly, I think it's more fun when you play Memory by the rules. So I would tell her that was cheating and try to get her to play right. But mostly, she didn't. Am I a stick-in-the-mud uncle? Or merely, a defender of fun? I still can't decide.

But it's pointless really. All little kids cheat. Kayla, my other niece(who's 6), likes to cheat at Candyland. And sure, it can be tempting to skip over the molasses the swamp if you draw that card. But it's not fair. And so I remain vigilant. Ready to cry foul. As I play children's games, with children. Someday they will thank me. Until then, I will possibly cause tears and temper tantrums. Such is the lot for Uncle Nay.

When do you think is too old to innocently cheat? 10? 12? I think maybe 10 should be the cut-off.

Also, do you let little kids win? Do you let girls win(I don't mean little girls, I mean big girls, I mean grown-up girls I should say)? Maybe I'm hardcore, but I don't. I feel like it's better if I try, because then when they do win, it's a feat! (I should note, I mean with little kids when you play board games, where anyone can really win. Not like say, playing basketball or something. I'm not going to reject my nieces and nephews shots in their faces or anything, so don't worry.)

ONN: Life Before The Segway

I forgot to post this last week. Latest installment of "In The Know"...


In The Know: Do You Remember Life Before The Segway?

Chlorine Not Just For Pools!

Today, Fox News is going to stage a simulated chlorine gas attack on the Fox News Plaza. It will be just "harmless white smoke". This is classic Fox News! What next will they simulate?