Coming Soon

I don't want to give anything away, but foreshadowing can be effective, so interpret this post as you may. You'll be wrong, but it's cool - at least it got you thinking. I'll be back this weekend.

Flashbacks In Lieu Of New Material

Date: 11-22-2004

n0carri3r: you and i need to do a joint feature of the top 20 breakdowns of all time
kevwad: yes
kevwad: i'm way down
kevwad: a-ha has to make top 5
n0carri3r: and if that's popular we can move on to the more controversial top 20 squeals of all time
n0carri3r: dude!
n0carri3r: a ha!
kevwad: hahaha
n0carri3r: start making a list of any good ones and we'll just keep adding as we think of them
n0carri3r: then we'll refine it down
kevwad: we can, for sentimental purposes, place the san diego breakdown as an honorable mention
n0carri3r: i'm down
n0carri3r: do we have any pictures from that tragedy?
kevwad: unfortunately i don't think so
kevwad: man we slept on the street that night too
n0carri3r: all of the others on the list would have links to mp3s of the breakdown, and the san diego breakdown could just have a link to our journal entry from then
n0carri3r: yeah we did
kevwad: haha, good idea
n0carri3r: woah, deja vu
n0carri3r: and the weird part is i had deja vu of having deja vu of this moment
n0carri3r: weird...
kevwad: hahahaha
n0carri3r: any idea why you have a water droplet next to your name on my buddy list?

* * *

n0carri3r: i'm gonna run to the bathroom
kevwad: mmmk
n0carri3r: hopefully nobody takes computer
kevwad: haha
n0carri3r: if i start talking shit, it's not me
kevwad: haha okay
kevwad: if i start talking shit, it is me
n0carri3r: typical

Tie Me Up To The Radiator

My blog is officially being neglected. It's finals time. Sorry guys.

Today's Sign Of The Apocalypse

Our thermometer outside reads 36ºF. Meanwhile, it's 53 in Blacksburg, VA.

Did I Miss Something?

Approximately a 16 block area of Koreatown today reeked of burnt weed.

Laughlin is the new Vegas.

Thanksgiving '06

Sean's post basically covered it. I'm off to the Hoover Dam, where I plan to somehow make everyone I know jealous.

I wanted to eat an entire pumpkin pie yesterday, but I fell tragically short.

We're Glad He's Gone Photo Of The Day

I was rooting through my hard drive and found this picture from a couple years ago that I ripped off the cover of the Washington Post. To this day, I can't imagine what the context was.

Additional Feedback

rorschachfauxpas: i read your blog, i find it informative and stimulating

That's a comma splice, but I'll overlook it.

How I Spent My Weekend

Caveat Emptor

If you buy the LA Times at Starbucks today you don't get the section containing the crossword puzzle. Fair warning for those whose daily 50 cents is allocated mostly for the crossword.

Oh, and the new Blood Brothers record is shockingly good. The video for "Laser Life" isn't so hot, but I really don't know what to expect from music videos anymore.

Alright, and one vaguely-titled link to an amusing news story.... I would have voted for him for president.

Unnecessarily Enthusiastic Speech Of The Day

This really makes Howard Dean look tame, especially since Dean was supposed to be fired up. Steve Ballmer? I'm not so sure. There's a bunch of half-assed remixes on YouTube as well, but you can find those on your own.

ATTN: Peanut Gallery: I know this video isn't exactly new. KTHX.

Paranoia and Pharmaceutical Reviews

After going from 1997 through 2005 without taking any over-the-counter medication (other than the occasional Nyquil blast), I can now safely say that, while it's fun to hit your chest and listen to whatever evil spirits acid reflux had conjured up just dissolve (the grammar in this sentence really is in a rapid downward spiral), Prilosec OTC is a must have if you've adopted a lifestyle that involves 40-60 ounces of coffee every morning.

I'm not entirely sure why so many hits to ebay come up when you search Google Images for Prilosec. Maybe I could be turning the 7 bucks I spend at Ralph's into easily 9 or 10.

Lagwagon - Mr. Coffee


An overly suspicious friend of mine strongly believes that, while the Democrats' recent victory may be good in the short term, the election was all simply part of "the plan," and that voting in most states was actually rigged. He then lent me a book called Rule By Secrecy by Jim Marrs, which presents evidence that the Illuminati and Freemasons really do control all world events. I'm naturally dismissive of these all-encompassing secret society conspiracy theories, but you have no idea how badly I want to believe that there's a one world order meeting in an underground hideout in the Southeastern part of the Czech Republic planning the path of the globe for the next thousand years. The book gets a little absurd when Marrs begins to travel down the "aliens developed the Mesopotamian civilizations" path, but I suppose you can't say for sure unless you were actually there. All I know is the Babylonians brought us Gilgamesh, and I didn't like it.

It's Official.

USC is shipping me off to Cuba in May. I hope they let me in.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, But Not As Strange As Lies (Or As True)

You can lecture me to your heart's content about the injustices I may impose on a bar by adding "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Right Now" to the jukebox queue, but there's never been a time in my life I've wanted to start an unruly bar brawl more than tonight when a drunk girl and her intoxicated boyfriend found the skip button behind the jukebox to jump over the Smiths, Elvis Costello and INXS selections (it was the best they had) to play "Love Song." Like the bartenders hadn't already endured that song eight times tonight (and probably have eight more time since I left).

Dreadfully Behind On The Times

Has anyone ever played the Howard Dean For Iowa game?

I can't say I was missing much, other than my generic missing of the candidate himself.

Teasers and Things Learned on Dictionary.com

The definition of the word myriad has a few main points:

An indefinitely large or unquantifiable amount

Composed of numerous diverse facets

Ten thousand

My question is, if myriad has an assigned numerical value (even though that contradicts many of its definitions), how come there's no value assigned to, say, plethora or multitude? (By the way, plethora is a pathetically overused and annoying word - please just say a lot). So anyway, in the interest of using a bunch (there's another one!) of obnoxiously large and nerdy words for the sake of it, I bring you:

The Hybrid Verbal and Mathematical Value Assignment Theory

I haven't actually written it yet, but it's going to be fucking complicated.

Addendum

After that last post, we went on a six hour roulette binge at New York New York that led to me nearly falling asleep on the table and being asked to leave by the pit boss (thankfully not alcohol related). The lack of sleep during the week has officially ruined me.

Ten-Second Borrowed Laptop Vegas Post

Down 100 bucks, only slightly intoxicated, and we sat in the "dragon" section at Medieval Times (which means you get to root for the bad guy, who obviously never wins).

Yesterday I took 150 at craps and threw up on the monorail. I think I'm ready to go home.

I haven't checked my email or turned on my phone in 36 hours, and it feels pretty great.

Ten-Second Show Review

Any sense of eloquence or flow fails me this evening. I have a midterm in the morning.

Minus the Bear put on a sensational live show. Dave Knudsen is probably the most underrated musician to come out of Seattle in the last ten years. He's managed to raise the proverbial bar in two entirely different genres between Botch and Minus the Bear, and his playing style is nearly impossible to replicate. They're supposed to be releasing a bunch of remixes from Menos El Oso this year... I'd rather they just put out a new record.

P.O.S. has come a long way since he did a half-hour set on our stage a few years ago. He's now a fully-functional indie-rap operation (his 5-gig ipod has been replaced with an actual DJ), although he continues to throw in some incredible a capella sequences that were the original reason I began to enjoy his music. He coaxed a room full of 800 "impatient hipsters" (his words) to almost unanimously nod in approval by the end of his allotted hour. Scheduletwo.com has a bunch of live videos from earlier this year (and surprisingly the sound quality doesn't suck). I wish his actual albums were better...

The Velvet Teen and Russian Circles also played. I didn't watch (although I highly recommend checking out the Velvet Teen for a less masturbatory version of the Mars Volta).


Minus The Bear - The Game Needed Me

"The Election In Virginia Is As Tied As The Bible Is Bound"

HA!

I Like The Old Days, But Not All The Old Days

Considering the overall horrible crop of music that's come out this year, it's quite a relief to occasionally find a good record, even if you're four months behind. Alaska's Long Winters released a pretty great record on Barsuk (a label that managed to elude me in the promo department) over the summer. The record is very similar to Nada Surf's most recent offering, which probably isn't all that surprising to anyone. The lyrics are on the jaded and despondent side, but far too eloquent to be considered "emo." I'm impressed.

Pitchfork Review
Full-Album Stream

Studying Is For Loosers

Looking back on it, this blog is already packed full of lies. Well, one specifically. Didn't my first post say something about not talking about myself? That promise is really looking like a bust, given the number of sentences on here beginning with "I." I'm sorry that I'm not sorry.

Probably almost everyone I know would benefit from subscribing to the Grammar Girl podcast. The music is cheesy and the host is dull, but having the ability to know the difference between "affect" and "effect" is priceless.

Corrections

I actually did see Borat. It was funny until I fell asleep. One should not go to a movie when his only consumption of the day is two Strongbows and a few Eclipse mints.

I Might Be The Only Person On Earth Not Seeing Borat This Weekend

I'm pretty sure I saw the guy who played Batmanuel on Fox's short-lived live action version of The Tick driving on Highland a few minutes ago. Then again, it also could have just been a random mexican.

The newly-remodeled Griffith Observatory (founded by the particularly redundant Griffith J. Griffith) has exactly two statues on its grounds. The Albert Einstein one makes sense, but I'm a little more confused by James Dean's presence, particularly in the absence of, you know, Copernicus or Big Bird. I also have rotten things to say about the "Galactic Express" bus that picks you up from Hollywood and Highland. But yeah, cool place.

The Borat movie looks great, but I'm a bit disenchanted by the overealous frat-boy crowd that has latched onto it as a way for coping with the demise of Chapelle's Show. I'll go on a weekday afternoon.

What's So Funny About Depression-Era Institutional Pedophilia?

We're playing a competitve simulation game in Marketing class, and I have twice this week completely and unilaterally overhauled our group's strategy. We went from 36th place to 3rd place, and still fear I may be deposed as group leader (although that fear is based on absolutely nothing). School's weird like that.

It's disturbing to the point of amusement (well... almost) that people in places of political prominence like George Allen and this guy can launch themselves over the handlebars and people are still convinced that a Freudian slip from the eternally idiotic John Kerry can actually hamper the Democrats' bid to reclaim Congress. I'm sure if we looked at video footage of that Kerry speech, you'd see a disguised Karl Rove lurking behind stage with whiteout and a sharpee.

The OC is done. Details (in the form of 24 more poorly-written episodes) to follow.

Even after a reported 18 gajillion youtube streams of Ok Go's treadmill performance on the MTV whatever awards, they've still only shipped a paltry 230,000 records. Viral marketing is an urban myth.

If you hang around the USC business school enough, you'll start to wonder why you overhear "what's your vertical?" throughout the halls. I'm not a particularly athletic person, so I can't say I'd be comforted by people being so concerned with my vertical leap, but this buzzword replacement for "major" is sort of a silly concept. Instead of "majoring in" something, you are "aligned to" your vertical. People actually talk this way. Hi, I'm Kevin, and I'm aligned to the Entreprenuership, Small Business, General Management and Nonprofit vertical.

Gawker's "Great Moments in Journalism" feature has been somewhat enjoyable recently. I still have trouble remembering the site exists, however, so I occasionally have to mention it here. This blog is here for me, not you.

I'm considering just starting to lie a lot on here. Thoughts?

Yikes

From the Washington Post:

You're chambered into this dimly lit tunnel of truth like a shell into a shotgun. First you are instructed to twist plugs far into your ears. Then you lie on a gurney narrower than a stretcher. A woman in a lab coat slides a helmet over your head. It is not really like a Hannibal Lecter mask, although the researchers like to make that joke. Your nose barely clears the equipment, your eyes can only look up, and your head is cradled to discourage movement.

Traditional polygraphs are long, frustrating and uncomfortable. The idea that the tiny rooms that are always just a little bit hotter than they should be (don't forget the looming two-way mirrors) are now evolving to these infallible truth tubes of patriotism makes me all that more relieved that I no longer have an active clearance. The current technology involved with polygraphs is dated and hopelessly subjective, but imposing a more invasive treatment on prospective employees is not going to help the government's recruitment problems (nor will airing 30-second spots for the clandestine service during Grey's Anatomy - I LOVE the "world of ambiguity" line). I needed three polygraphs to get my security clearance, even as a nineteen year old whose worst offenses related to the polygraph probably involved rampant cheating in high school computer science class. This new system would have tossed me in the reject pile after fifteen minutes.

I haven't spoken to any of my friends from my time at the CIA in years, but for all the ones that accepted full-time offers - good fucking luck.

If It's Any Consolation, I Don't Begin To Understand It

My iTunes has evolved into a regular three-song playlist of The Replacements "Bastards Of Young," The Pixies "Planet Of Sound" and Elvis Costello "Moods For Moderns." I apologize in advance for any negative externalities I impose on surrounding bedrooms, as well as for any economic terms I accidentally slip into regular life.

I attempted to listen to a couple of Dillinger Four songs earlier, but it didn't work out. Are they ever going to release a new record? It's been four excruciating years, and the fact that their homepage still resides on angelfire is a terrible sign.

Dillinger Four - Noble Stabbings!!

What's Better Than Dressing Up As A Rock Star For Halloween?

When a rock star (term used loosely for effect) dresses up as you.

(No Chewbacca jokes.)

Grasping At Straws

I made one half-hearted (is that word really hyphenated?) attempt to subscribe to the Washington Post out here, because I enjoy it more than the LA Times (it also frequently has multiple crossword puzzles, Scrabblegrams and various random logic puzzles that help prevent Alzheimer's and coolness). Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the online edition. Since I did very little yesterday, I read just about everything available on their website. I had a few problems with it.

Initially, MySpace drew her in, and she spent lots of time looking at her friend's photos or leaving comments on their pages, she said. Now, only a year or so later, ennui is setting in. She spends a lot less time on the site, instead listening to music or talking on the phone, she said. (In Teens' Web World, Myspace Is So Last Year)

Apparently Friendster (remember it?) hit a traffic peak this year. Seriously? Neilson reported their average user session as over three hours. What they didn't mention was that (at least when I used it eight years ago) it takes two and a half hours just to login. As nice as it would be to imagine a post-myspace world, I think we're stuck with it for longer than we'd care to think about.

"Whatever happens in your past, you get second chances," Arenas said. "Basketball is where I put all my pain and let it go. The court became my sanctuary, my outlet. Most males, we don't have outlets. A lot of females don't realize we can't go and tell our friends our problems. We don't talk about that. That's why a lot of men have stress. Some golf, some do strip clubs or whatever. Mine was going on the basketball floor. (The Psychic Scars That Shaped An NBA Star)

I think they mean "psychological scars." This piece on Gilbert Arenas' deadbeat mother that magically resurfaced after he became a wealthy NBA star actually paints a pretty good picture of his past. I don't usually care much about phenomenally wealthy basketball players' personal problems, but since Arenas' has single-handedly resurrected the Wizards, I'll try to care a little bit.

Ban proponents contend that indoor smoking imposes externalities on the nonsmoking patrons and employees of public establishments and is therefore an appropriate target for government regulation. But that's not right. When it comes to indoor smoking (as opposed to pollution outdoors), there is a single individual who ultimately bears the costs and benefits associated with smoke-filled air. (Against Restaurant Smoking Bans)

This is an obnoxiously economic commentary on the negative effects the public smoking ban will have in DC. Maybe he should have written this before they passed the upcoming ban.

Webb, a former U.S. Navy secretary, responded angrily Friday on Washington Post Radio, defending his novels as "serious" works and calling Allen's attack part of the senator's negative campaign that is devoid of ideas. "To take these things out and pull excerpts out and force them on people . . . is just a classic example of the way this campaign is run," Webb said. "Literature is literature. I've made my career as a novelist. George Allen doesn't have a record to run on." (Allen Blasts Webb Novels For Sex Scenes)

That's the sound of George Allen's political career going from presidential hopeful to teaching polysci 101 at The University of Richmond. Jordan wrote a good commentary on this issue Allen seems to have with fiction.

For Griffin, it is a tough choice -- balancing the undeniable success of the Hubble against the equally undeniable risks to the astronauts who would fix it, as well as the unforgiving schedule of shuttle flights needed to complete the international space station. (NASA Deciding Whether to Close a Window Into Space)

NASA is strongly considering letting the Hubble Space Telescope run its current battery to extinction (it reportedly has one or two years of power left) and simply letting it float in space as a shining beacon to the only project NASA ever completed that wasn't both a financial and scientific disaster. Instead, they'd apparently rather spend the money on continuing to fix the useless International Space Station. This shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose.

I don't like the web version's crossword puzzle at all.

Suck Failure

USC lost their first regular season football game in something like 48 years today... to Oregon State no less. I love it.

Under Construction

I mentioned tehnoobz before, and against all better judgment, threw it into my links area (it's over there on the right, if you haven't noticed). As such, I feel like I should justify it by occasionally mentioning one of their "articles." For this particular entry, I'll point you toward an article on HOW 2 TALK 2 CHIX @ SKOOL. It seems they have taken care of their original problem of 4-6 month gaps in content by post-dating articles as well.

They're currently running a contest for a 9-pin "cereal" cable. Get on that.

My Phone Is Famous

It was used for internet-related purposes.

On a more general note, Suburban Home's idea for creating a public drunk dial hotline and turning it into a podcast is a fantastic idea.

Damaged Goods

Education is the only good for which people will pay top dollar and refuse delivery.

My economics professor threw in this aside to a lecture on whoknowswhat last month, and it has stuck with me more than any other topic from that class. I guess I just illustrated his point.

I know people can get stressed out by minimal things, but hearing that there are students in our school blowing rails in the parking garage before class because they just can't handle the socratic method makes me chuckle. School isn't hard, and class is definitely not hard. This holds especially true for a department that requires teachers to curve grades up to an absurd degree. People spend far too much time confusing hard with time consuming and misallocate their stress; I just wish it weren't so contagious. I'd much prefer to reserve my stress levels for things like traffic, bad grammar and the obnoxiously high price of Morningstar Farms products, not largely intuitive Marketing assignments or -- even worse -- coordinating various school spirit-related activites. Please.

I'm quite amazed by how much the 30-40 hours a week I spend on campus right now exceeds the three hours a week I spent on campus in my final semester at Virginia Tech (by 27 to 37 hours?). I'd skip entire weeks of class in undergrad. Actually, my perceived work ethic is probably still in the bottom 10% because the business school is rife with ass-kissers and overachievers, so I guess nothing's really changed. In fact, you can see from the picture to the right that one such overachiever arranged for our entire class to wear the same shirt to our first exam, and you can further notice that I clearly (excuse the upcoming cliché) didn't give a shit.

Eighteen months from now, we'll all get the same 8.5"x11" sheet of paper with the USC president's signature on it. The only difference is that I plan to accomplish this without cannibalizing my normal daily life of nothing in particular.

Maybe I should just write a manifesto for marginally motivated pseudo-academics. People love books justifying their less than perfect existence.

Uninspired Book Reviews

A rundown of my reading crusade from last week, in six words or less:

Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Neverending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems (David Rakoff)
Not bad, but a bit dull.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson)
You've probably already read it.

Barrel Fever and Other Stories (David Sedaris)
Outstanding.

The Areas Of My Expertise (John Hodgman)
Talked enough about it.

The Washingtonienne (Jessica Cutler)
This bullshit is in French now?!

I swear there was a sixth book in there too. It must have left quite an impression. I read a lot of Cometbus as well, but that behemoth is more of a perpetual work in progress (and has extraordinary reread value).

I Finished My Homework In Record Time

Actually, finishing my homework at all is a milestone.

I'm getting the tattoo bug in the worst way again. I already have a lot of work to complete on my cold war tattoo, and now I've decided that I badly want a huge snowman chasing a bunch of smaller snowmen. Don't try to tell me it's a lame idea.

The Departed lives up to all of the other Scorsese movies, and is well worth the price of admission. He always manages to take organized crime to gruesome new heights. It looks an awful lot like they found the same alley that The Boondock Saints opens in. Very useful trivia.

The new Tim Barry record sounds pretty refreshing after hearing him write the same Avail record 14 times.

There's a fascinating article in the new Working Mother on saving money around the holidays! They also have an advertisement for a fabulous new toaster that toasts smiley faces into your bread.

I had the luxury of seeing Mew for the second time in a couple months last night. Given the brevity of their current tour, I'd say that we might not see them in the states again for a while, so you might want to go out of your way. The changes they make to their songs in a live setting make me crave a live record greatly, although I've yet to figure out why "Snow Brigade" isn't a part of their set.

I found a new way to USC from North Hollywood: 107S->Burbank Ave. -> Lankershim Blvd. -> Turn around at campo de Cahuenga -> Cahuenga Blvd. -> Hollywood Way -> 5S -> Los Feliz -> Vermont Ave. -> Boom. You're there. It takes two and a half hours, and is supremely helpful when the 101S, 170S and Lankershim (all integral parts of the regular route) are all closed. I think the gods of traffic sneezed on the map of Los Angeles on Friday.

On the subject of gods in a plural sense, has anyone ever considered polytheism? I mean, other than the Pagans and such like. It seems like it could be sort of fun, albeit overwhelming.

I took a few days off from reading and, as a result, have lost the ability to say anything meaningful. Sorry people.

Underrated HBO On Demand Selection Of The Day

Little Big League

"If I owned the Twins, I'd just hire a bunch of scientists to do my homework for me."

Feedback!

[screen name withheld] (7:57:08 PM): thanks for starting your blog... it's inspired me to care more about jordanbaker.com -- it actually got a real post tonight

If I can make a difference after just a few weeks, why am I even in grad school?

By the way, for those not "in the know," the Jordan Baker referenced is not the well-known damsel in distress character in The Great Gatsby, although I do hope to one day transcend the boundaries of real life and classic literature.

Kind Of Cool...

IMG_0187.jpg
Originally uploaded by kevinpwade.

I kind of have writer's block this afternoon. I just cranked out an uninspired 1400 word piece on Trustkill Records, and have to return to school right now, so I'm just going to show you a picture that I took in Vegas about two months ago. Ignoring the fact that the complete line is "an all new kind of cool," leaving kind of cool alone on a line is a risky marketing choice.

Forget Your Platitudes

Have you ever noticed that most of the upper echelon of heavily-trafficked blogs are simply a flamboyantly represented digest of links to other authors' rigorously-generated content? Of course you have; what am I talking about? (Side note: have you ever noticed how bad english can sound if you just keep piling on the adverbs?)

These editors must get some euphoric feeling after posting a few links, a couple of cleverly-photoshopped pictures of themselves with Jared Leto, a recap of how much they drank last night and, if they can't keep their ego at bay, a scan of their most recent monthly $68,000 Google AdSense paycheck (someone actually did this, although five minutes of searching for it has already taken up enough of my time). Let's give it a shot.

Book Soup posted a recording of the John Hodgman performance from last week. It's about an hour long, and I'm quite certain that none of you have "better things to do."

Latvian researchers have pushed the bootlegging business to wildly new frontiers. The mere idea that a bootlegging industry still exists in some nations will make me sleep well tonight.

Any fans of the Kirby's Dream Land series on NES/SNES (or just GameBoy, if you had mean parents) should probably check out the new version.

Gawker editor Jess Coen quit last week to a sea of "who cares?" from the greater internet public (other than from the people that saw her go on the air on CNN to staunchly defend the social relevance of Gawker Stalker). I wouldn't even mention this except for the fact that the current guest editor is actually quite good.

Since I doubt I'll find a more appropriate space to mention this, I'd just like you to point your various trendy Mozilla-based browsers to animalshirts.net for a moment to observe the stiff competition Paul Frank, Ed Hardy, etc. will be facing in the upcoming years.

The new Jeremy Enigk record came out yesterday on some label I've never heard of. People seem to like it.

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a vacation spot in Italy that allows you to rent an "entire village." Apparently he never learned that there's a fundamental difference between the words village and villa. I'm pretty sure the only entire village I'd ever want to rent is Colonial Williamsburg, anyway.

How exhausting.

How'd They Guess?

I received the new issue of Working Mother in the mail today, specifically addressed to me. I know I do a lot of dishes and all.....

(Somewhat) Massive Nights

Over the past few days I've spent a lot of time rambling about bands that probably mean very little to most of my friends, so I'd just like to briefly (term used in a very liberal fashion) point out that I had the privilege of seeing The Hold Steady perform to a sold-out Troubadour tonight, and I can now finally start to grasp Pitchfork's undying faith in the new "indie sensation." This band better get all the same rewards that came to all those other overhyped bands like The Decemberists, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Interpol, Modest Mouse, etc. Vocalist Craig Finn has one of the most intriguing and unique lyrical dispositions I've encountered (that's been the case ever since he sang for Lifter Puller). His drunken eloquence is light years beyond simply reading words on a page or hearing melodies on a record - this is a must-see show, even if you don't much care for their records. Oh yeah, Kiefer Sutherland was at the show and, as a fan of 24, I thought that was pretty cool.

Tomorrow I promise to write about celebrities or politics or offer some flowing stream of consciousness piece on nothing in particular. I'm pretty sure 5/7 of my crowd bolted for the exit already anyway.

The Hold Steady - "Stuck Between Stations" (Live in NYC)

How To Make School Seem More Thrilling: Volume 1

Show up for your first day of class having bought none of the required textbooks.

Band That Everyone Likes But Nobody Loves Of The Day

How many times in the last six years have you flipped through your records and thought to yourself, "I could really go for some Samiam right now." Yeah, probably less than once. Maybe, if you were really nostalgic, you tossed "Capsized" on a mix cd. Their breakup a number of years ago was vague at best, and didn't exactly spark any suicidal dread in listeners. It's with that same sort of exuberance from music fans that Samiam reunited - with a collective "oh, that's kind of neat." In fact, a more common response would be, "who?"

I always loved Samiam, but I loved them like I'd love an aunt or uncle I see only on holidays. I understand their relevance and recognize that there are few bands that have sounded like them, and I'd even sing along if one of their songs came through when iTunes was on shuffle, probably remarking "wow, I forgot how good this band was." Unfortunately, this is one of those bands that wouldn't be on anyone's top ten list, but probably would slip in between 20 or 25 on almost everyone's list. I had the pleasure of seeing them at the Troubadour this evening (supposedly their first LA show since 2000), and they performed like a band ecstatic to make their return, even if only to a limited audience. Their singer's passionate performance drove an impressive show (said performance being largely driven by the bottle of red wine he polished off during the set). It's really a shame that their new record has the production of a basement recording from 1986, so the band remains unlikely to emerge from the realm of obscurity. For fans though, the band's reunion is a welcome addition to an otherwise festering music landscape.

Samiam - Dull

Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan opened the show with half an hour of inspired blue collar folk songs that sound suspiciously like Hot Water songs without the drums and distortion. He's releasing all of his music exclusively through a regular 7" club on No Idea right now, although I believe the entire lot of songs will be released on CD sometime next year. Or you can just listen to his myspace songs and artificially inflate his play count. With The Draft recently releasing a great debut, it's a lot easier to confess now that Hot Water's final album really wasn't all that good.

Crime Update

Leonid Breshnev has returned to my mantel, concluding a brief and mysterious absence. Evidence indicates that he was, in fact, stuffed inside Gorbachev. If that's true, this whole story really just degrades us all.

Quote Of The Foreseeable Future

"I make more money than God."

That bit of honesty came from an elegantly wasted West Virginian at St. Nick's in Beverly Hills last night, after insisting that he buy a round of beers and shots for everyone. When I gave him a cigarette in return (I've discovered that offering people cigarettes is the easiest way to get them to leave), he finished it in less than 30 seconds and nailed a passing car with the remains. He later departed the bar in a frenzy, leaving a wadded pile of 20's on the table and an open tab at the register.

I'm pretty sure he drives trucks for a living.

54-second Song Of The Day

The Nerve Agents - Planet Frankenstein

Earlier this week, someone commented on the Nerve Agents button I wear on one of my jackets. Truthfully, I have little idea of what buttons reside on what articles of clothing of mine most of the time, so I'd forgotten about why I even wore the button to begin with - it certainly wasn't their cliché ghoulish logo. Traditional punk rock doesn't thrill me, but there was something about The Nerve Agents' awkward vocal delivery and unrelenting urgency that made them one of my favorite bands for quite a while (this was in the 1999-2001 area, before Revelation and Epitaph forgot what music sounded like). Their cover of Bowie's "Suffragette City" has always been my benchmark for a great punk rehashing of a classic.

If you happen to own their sensational Days Of The White Owl, give it a spin today and think about all the East Bay bands that could never play in this league.

The Nerve Agents - The Poisoning
The Nerve Agents - So Very Avoidable

Scandalous

Seriously, who the fuck stole my Breshnev? Of all the ones to take....

Lost

Can anyone explain to me how an entire nation of people has become mesmerized by a show whose entire premise is that nothing happens? Is this some twisted corollary to the Seinfeld "show about nothing" phenomenon? Because at least that show was self-contained and (according to some) funny.

Exciting Statistic! I've now used the word "phenomenon" twice this week, and it's only Wednesday... and I haven't even thought about the fact that the John Travolta movie by the same name is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Doesn't he gain the ability to levitate from a beam of moonlight or something?

My First Catastrophe

Having stored some of the images seen on this fine example of web design on my old server, I promptly discovered this morning that my hosting account expired sometime during the night. I'll fix this eventually, but I don't intend to make it a priority, because I absolutely do not care.

Transubstantiation

I believe the so-called "industry" refers to a quietly-publicized website unveiling as a soft launch. With my decision to mention this blog on a few websites, I started to ponder what you'd call the, umm, launch that isn't the soft kind?

"Hard launch" is too sexual and "public launch" sounds like something that goes on in Cape Canaveral or Kitty Hawk. "Debut" isn't really appropriate since I've been posting here for a couple weeks, even if only for experimental purposes. Technically, my "debut" (as far as the internet is concerned) came whenever I started getting in message board wars in high school. You could call it sort of a "reissue," but that's a dirty word for people that have worked in music, particularly given the recent and horrifying trend. Shame on me for even mentioning that one.

You could probably run down a huge list... Re-launch, second wind, proper release, ground-rule double... whatever.

I decided on transubstantiation, which is questionably offensive I guess, but I'm not much of a religious person. At least, I haven't been ever since I got really boring presents for my Catholic confirmation, while all my Jewish friends were raking in thousands of dollars from their various mitzvahs to spend on things like college and nice shoes. I consider this the transformation from a blog known by less than six people to an internet portal frequented by as many as twelve people, and I can't call it simply a transformation, because transformations give me terrible flashbacks to my differential equations textbook.

Anyway. For those who are new here, enjoy. For the people that have been here before, I'm sorry you read this post. For those who really hated all those reviews I wrote about Finch and Strung Out and Copeland and whoever else... get over it. You'll occasionally see similar types of things here, so you might want to pursue other options.

Illustrated With A Reasonable Number Of Tables And Figures

I arrived home from school today feeling sick (probably from eating Taco Bell a day earlier) and remarkably annoyed. Without going into any of the gruesome details, I'd like to mention that school today included a two-hour session on "dining etiquette" and an hour of some old guy on a computer, for lack of a better term, fucking around with charts and graphs in Excel.

So, when I found out that John Hodgman was doing a book signing at Book Soup in Hollywood tonight, I was thrilled to think about anything other than having to go to school tomorrow. I've had his book for a little while and have heard him on NPR and on Comedy Central a great deal, so I knew the entertainment portion of the evening should be at least marginally stimulating.

With Book Soup being neighbor to the now famously shipwrecked Tower Records (this particular location on Sunset is apparently selling for thirteen million dollars), I decided to stop in to take advantage of the free parking, and possibly find some hidden gem. Unfortunately for Tower -- and I'm not an executive here, so I guess my opinions are shrouded in ignorance -- not very many people will be inclined to help the company liquidate their assets at $13.49 per cd oh-so-generously marked down from $14.99. Zines and books are 30% off, but even the most thoroughly-stocked Tower location carries about fourteen titles (thirteen of which are either about the Beatles or by Nick Hornby). Long story short, I didn't buy anything (which technically meant by walking to the bookstore, I was now parking illegally. To ruin the suspense for you - nothing happened to my car).

John Hodgman stepped to the podium with a ruggedly-dressed acoustic guitarist (coonskin hat included) in tow performing Hodgman's "theme song." Hodgman continues early in his talk that to be a true writer, all you really need is stationery that has your name followed by ", writer" and a theme song. He spoke for about 45 minutes, shifting between some passages in Areas..., along with some accompanying anecdotes and information (term used loosely). One of the quirkiest moments, however, was the twenty minute Q&A session that he conducted entirely via walkie-talkie. Someone from the doorway asked about Hodgman's role in Bruce Campbell's book If Chins Could Kill (he was the literary agent), and someone standing in the biography section asked if Hodgman had a problem with people taking him seriously (his response: "It sort of goes with the territory when you're always lying"). He refused to answer questions that did not end with the word "over."

Now, I don't attend book signings often, so I can't say whether this is normal, but any event at a bookstore that involves engaging humor, walkie talkies and an acoustic show at the end sounds good to me. The guitarist (who I have just now discovered was named Jonathan Coulton) performed one solo tune after Hodgman was done speaking. He introduced it by saying "this is a song about a girl that dumped me. It's called Skullcrusher Mountain."

At the end of the whathaveyou, I got Hodgman to sign my copy of the book (he wrote "Nice suit, Kevin" and then crossed out his name in the book and rewrote it. It would seem more amusing if it weren't so obvious that he's done that in every copy of the book he's signed).

I recommend both the book, and the book tour, if it comes through your town. If nothing else, remember that book signings are always free.

Nothing Is Random...

nerd alert...

For the record, I have absolutely noticed this phenomenon on my iPod and in iTunes, although I don't seem to have quite the same problem with Steely Dan.

Seriously?

From ESPN:

BILOXI, Miss. -- Yet another newborn has been named ESPN.

Leann Real promised her avid sports fan husband that if they had a son he'd get to pick the name. ESPN Montana Real was born this week at Biloxi Regional Medical Center.

Husband Rusty chose ESPN (pronounced Espen) after the sports network and Montana after football legend Joe Montana.

The youngster isn't alone. Three others were cited in a 2005 Web site story about the network's 25th anniversary: Espn Malachi McCall and Espn Curiel, both of Texas, and Espn Blondeel of Michigan.

Penn Jillette's kids (Moxie Crimefighter and Zolten Penn) will probably never be out-named.

Rotten News Of The Day

From HITS:

TRANS WORLD TAKES TOWER: Trans World emerged yesterday as the winner in the derby to acquire Tower Records. Following an announcement yesterday that white knight bidder Radius Equity Partners---the only entity other than Trans World bidding for the entire chain, which included music bizzers Michael Ostin and Nile Rogers---had failed to raise the capital needed to enter the auction, TW outbid all other companies that were seeking to buy disparate parts of the legendary chain. No figures were immediately available. More to come.

That'll be really comforting to go back to Virginia to find the Fairfax Town Center Tower Records (a location carrying tremendous sentimental value for me) turned into an FYE.

Update: I realize that Transworld was outbid by a liquidator shortly thereafter. Whatever.

Holding All Other Variables Constant

I've spent the last week sleeping on an entirely too confusing schedule for my body to comprehend. I wake up at 6am every day, alarm or no, and after my few hours at school, I return to the sanctuary of my bed for another, oh, six or seven hours. With the completion of my statistics exam this morning, my first quarter of graduate school is officially over. I attended the post-exam reception, featuring a wine tasting with our Microeconomics professor, for about fifteen minutes, before taking off. The emotional high of finishing the exam an hour before 98% of the other 220 students in our class kept me moving in the direction of the parking garage so I could get another afternoon's worth of rest. Plus, the wine sucked.

After an incredibly liberating nap, I woke up just in time to stroll down to the Key Club (we'll ignore the return trip I made to the house because my roommate misplaced his wallet) to see the Riverboat Gamblers, who until a week ago I never would have thought about going to see live. Volcom has a reputation as a label for putting out utterly terrible records, so that stigma remained with the Gamblers when I started to hear their name in the press, even after I read that they put on the best performance of anyone at this year's SxSW festival. I'd just like to personally thank everyone that steered me back towards the band. The Gamblers' live show has the urgency of a hardcore show and the fun factor of a skate punk show. There are enough singalongs to keep the songs tenaciously stuck in your head for weeks, and the singer's distaste for remaining on stage reminded me of the first time I saw Death By Stereo (in front of a crowd of, oh, twleve people at a cafe in College Park, MD about six years ago). Many thanks go out to Mike Cubillos at Earshot Media for the free beers.

The final paragraph of this entry has been removed because I'm not ready to offend people here... yet. It concerned a record label I used to shame on the internet quite regularly.

I Don't Write Reviews

It's been a bit of a rough year for new music, but recently a few bands have accidentally let decent records slip out. I guess they didn't get the memo.

The Hold Steady Boys And Girls In America

Do you ever stumble into a karaoke bar just after happy hour to hear a group of people having the time of their lives belting out "Born To Run?" It sounds like a trainwreck, but that's the last thing on anyone's mind. That's the sort of feeling I get from The Hold Steady. It's straightforward, uplifting rock in the vein of Springsteen with unabashedly alcoholic sung/spoken vocals. I absolutely love the piano scoring. Pitchfork gave this record a 9.4, so apparently it's okay to like this band and still maintain your coffee house credibility.


Cancer Bats Birthing The Giant

The new Cancer Bats record (which I believe has been floating around the internet for months now) basically sounds like the Suicide File mixed with Doomriders.... in the same vein as Bars or The Bronx, but much, much better. These guys are getting a ton of hype by sharing members with Alexisonfire, so I'm sure this record will blow up. Additionally, clocking in at over 40 minutes, Birthing The Giant is a shockingly lengthy hardcore record, although entirely engaging the whole way through.

I'd write about the new Killswitch Engage too, but I can't find the artwork, and that's just unforgivable.

Flashbacks

Although it's mostly sort of stupid, tehnoobz.com started updating again. I'm ashamed to say that I did stuff like this when I was 14, although not with all the h4x0r language. I could never quite figure that stuff out. I had plenty of angelfire pages loaded with midis, animated gifs, frames, obnoxious starfield backgrounds and any other stereotype you could think of. It appears angelfire has deleted all of my old accounts (I think I might have had some stuff on geocities too), so thankfully I can't show you what I wasted my time on in high school. Those sites made punkrocks.net look like the New York Times.

In other news, you should read the Platelets blog. It's supposed to be a band, but mostly it's just an amusing, albeit rarely-updated, blog.

what?

what?
Originally uploaded by kevinpwade.

I'm not sure where to start, but needless to say, this is where I wash my clothes. I have yet to use the money changer however, since I'm not in the costuming business.

Hello

It's a more than a little amusing to think about how many people continue to write to me saying that they check my old website every day hoping for new content, despite a lengthy and crude goodbye message residing on the front page since May. As much as punkrocks ungracefully faded away throughout the last two years, I feel like I may have gotten the last laugh. In the four months since we shut down, I've done a fair amount of writing for Alternative Press, which is fulfilling from the standpoint that they pay me, but one can only attain so much levity from a one-page puff piece on Ernie Ball guitar strings.

I avoided starting a blog for a long time due to a lack of focus; no one wants another livejournal that just happens to be hosted on blogspot, and I feel no obligation to start another website dedicated specifically to music... or more accurately, a website dedicated to a very small and mainly-popular-on-the-internet niche. I still listen to plenty of music, but have found it exhausting to not only keep abreast of what's new, but figure out some way to run a zine that differentiates itself from the other 300 that copied our site to begin with (just kidding, sort of). If you want music news, read coolfer, stereogum, pitchfork, pastepunk, blabbermouth, mammoth press, the org or the brand new idolator... or one of those other ones.

This is the last post with so many sentences having the subject of yours truly. In the future, I'll try to occasionally just write about things that bother me. That generally doesn't extend past unfortunate spelling mistakes these days, but we'll see what happens.

If I may conclude with just a moment of opinion... Everyone is talking about the new Saosin record, including some people whose taste I greatly respect. I think it's an overproduced mess with no good songs. It'll probably go triple platinum. As for music that I enjoy - the new Decemberists record is rather good. They toned down the pretentiousness a little (which could be good or bad depending on how much you care what other people think about your musical tastes) to write a record that is genuinely entertaining from beginning to end.