in a couple min. Chicago here i come (well...via Milan).

I found this today on the NY times and thought it was a cool piece. It is about the New York City sets that the major movie studios maintain in Hollywood. Enjoy.

I'm really into the song "All My Only Dreams" by The Wonders. Always have been (and how cheesy is that?). I can understand why Jimmy wanted to get a few more takes of it, but I really think it turned out fine with just the one take (it's the b-side to the song "That Thing You Do"). Is it a problem that the band doesn't really exist?

by dust. It got in my computer and caused a few problems, so I had no internet access for about 24 hours. I'm a bit too computer dependent, I think (but my computer is my phone, tv, stereo, newspaper, and white noise machine when I sleep). Guess that's what happens when your geographical region is an effing desert. Oh well, at least it didn't cost anything to get fixed.

This is one of the most amazing hip-hop albums I've ever heard. It's actually a good argument for modern music having real artistic expression. Basically, DJ Danger Mouse took Jay-Z's swan song, "The Black album," and mixed it with the Beatles classic "The White Album" and called it "The Grey Album" (Rolling Stone review). Other than Jay's rapping, not one sound on that record comes from anywhere other than The White Album. Only 3000 copies of the original exist, and EMI has pretty much destroyed any chance of there being more copies, but it's available for download FROM THIS PAGE (right-click and "save as" each one of those songs, kids). Also, this tuesday is being called "Grey Tuesday" (follow that link for more info). If you love music, you really have to get this album. Seriously. I've just listened to it four times in a row and am still completely in awe of it. I'm gonna have to check Jay's original version now just to see what his vision was before Paul and John had their say.

(btw, if you aren't hip enough to appreciate The Grey Album album think about this: When I heard this album I thought to myself "My mom is gonna love this!")

Look! It's my old building and neighborhood! Many a good swim was had on that deck...

I hate the fact that there are some things I can't blog about cause if anyone Googles me they will get this www page. Anyhow, it's a funny story that I can tell you if you ask me.

I found this in the NYTimes and it made me very happy...

about American Pie is that after it came out, previously unfunny people crowned themselves the next Chris Rock just because they could say the line "This one time at band camp..." Further, everyone else would react with a fit of pavlovian laughter at this random (and still thoroughly unoriginal) reference. I prefer a world where it takes a bit (even if only a very small bit) of talent to be funny. This is one of the minor reasons I never bothered seeing this movie.

Over the weekend I came across two stories that, together, struck me as interesting. First, the NYPost did a piece about how "shocking" it is that American Idol judge Simon Cowell said that last years Idol winner Ruben Studdard is "fatter than he's ever been." Simon then went on to say such "shocking" things as "Britney Spears can't sing" and "Mariah Carey has a great voice but needs to lose the attitude." (In a related story, I would like to shock you with this piece of information: 2 + 2 = 4. You heard it here first!). Here is the pic of Ruben:



Later that day, I meandered my way over to the Sun and saw a somewhat similar article in which the paper itself was calling english pop-tarts Girls Aloud "porkers," and applauding the fact that their fatty-mo-matty-ness has gotten so out of control that they are being shipped off to a military-style boot camp for big-boned girls in order to get the girls to "shape up" in a literal sense. Here is the pic they ran with the story to make their point:



See any difference here? When I think of girls who are so large that they warrant being sent to boot camp for fatties, I can't say girls that look like them spring immediately to my mind. Scroll back up and compare these two pics again! Does anyone actually think these girls are fat? Does anyone actually think that Ruben is not fat? It's even funnier when you read the articles and see that the Post is writing from the perspective of "Simon is an asshole for calling our beloved Ruben fat" and the Sun writes from the "It's about time someone did something about these fatties" perspective.

(Does this post make me a "crusader for women's rights?")

...and the car ended up taking all the damage. So it was dark, cold, and rainy as I was walking to a friends house when, while in a crosswalk, I saw a car coming towards me out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't going too fast, and my only reaction was to jump. I landed (on my feet) on the hood of the car in a crouched position. At this point I looked in the window to see a pair of stunned elderly people. I stood up (still on the hood) and held out my hand as to say "don't hit the gas now" and stepped off of the car (leaving a huge dent behind). I started to walk away and the old man driving rolled down his window, so i told him that I'm ok, but he needs to pay attention and be careful. Then I just walked away and thought that it would've been more interesting if it happened during the worst two hours I ever had.

Two stories of interest from Page Six... First, while whale-watching on a boat with other like-minded Scientologists, Tom Cruise got so excited by the whole thing that he "spontaneously flung himself into the water" to "play" with the whales. Upon investigation, Adi Eliyahu (dot blog) has learned that this seemingly bizarre move was inspired by an early screen test Mr. Cruise did for a never-made Flipper movie in the early 80's. Turns out Mr. Cruise learned how to talk to dolphins for the audition, but lost the part due to "lack of sexual chemistry" with the dolphin who had already been cast as Flipper's daughter. Apparently, Mr. Cruise thought that his experience with speaking to dolphins would help him communicate with whales, but was pulled from the water before he discovered that "I'm an overpaid two-dimensional actor who would like to play with you" in dolphin translates to "I'm an overpaid two-dimensional actor who would like to be eaten by you" in whale.

Also, we have the news that the infamous Paris Hilton tape is now available in its entirety on the internet for $50. Now, I can understand (only vaguely) that someone might not want to download an illegal copy of Lost In Translation or Return of the King for fear of getting sued, but to actually pay $50 for pornography just seems stupid. Is someone worried about the Pornographers of America taking them to court for illegal downloading? It's hard not to find pornography on the internet, so to actually pay for it just sounds to me like something a only guilty person would do to make himself feel better about having porn (cause at least they didn't steal it!).

I got this yesterday. It is really easy, but it came to me with comments making it sound like it would be hard. I had finished before even half of the time was gone and it still said I failed?!? Also, I tried to put Michigan on the U.P. and it said it wasn't the right place. Haters.

(link from Sharone)

Something happened at work yesterday. I can't really say what (for aforementioned reasons), but it wasn't really my fault. I can tell you that a lush like Sarah would probably laugh at it, though. Oops, I think I've said too much! Ask me on AIM or something and I'll tell you all about it.

I had my first earthquake today! I mean, my first real earthquake. A 5 on the Richter Scale. Noice. I was sleeping when it woke me up and lasted for about 20 seconds. I had no idea what was happening at the time but was slightly freaked out. When it was over I just thought "what the hell was that?" and went back to sleep.

So I know that Members Only jackets were coming back, but now I saw Seth Cohen wearing one on the latest "The O.C." Are these things becoming the next "trucker hats"?

Apparently, a woman's chastity belt set off a metal detector in an airport in Athens. Her husband made her wear it so she wouldn't cheat on him during a trip to Greece. First of all, I thought these were only worn in movies. Second of all, how does a woman pee in that thing? I mean, if she took it off it would kinda defeat the purpose. For real-sies, what's the deal here? I'm confused. Is there an adult diaper going on under there? If so, I think the smell is how the chastity belt actually does its job.

Uncle Grambo nails his first Grammy summation (obvs).

The Aquariuspotting birthday party turns into an attempt to reconstruct K-2 in Brian Battjer's bedroom.

Sarah Jessica Parker has the hands of an 80 year old woman.

It's been easy to remember why I moved here the last few days. Mid-70's and sunny every day and 60's in the evening. I'm so happy.

No. He is old. Really old. Has a face like an effing catchers mit. Bad hair, too. Looks more like feathers. Anyhow, the NYPost has a story about how he is "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" at the Grammies, and how poor Rod just won't be able to stop his children from teasing him for not having 300 Grammies like Sting unless he finally wins this year. I can understand that. I give my dad lots of shit for not having a bookcase full of Oscars like Jack Nicholson. They also ask ole' Rod what the secret to marrying beautiful women is. He lies rather than just admit the whole "big pile of cash + fame = hot chicks will marry you" equation. Also noteworthy is his nomination in the "Traditional Pop" category (against Tony Bennet, Bette Midler, and Barbra Streisand among others). Why can't we just call this category "used to be popular, now just old"? Oh, yea. Egos. Forgot about that. I just had no idea that the long arm of the AARP reaches all the way to the Grammies.

So Sarah's blog has the option of comments now, too. Here is the story of how these comments came to be:

Yesterday, Lindsayism had a bit with a random link to a blog called "Hot Abercrombie Chick" and I, being the curious person I am, followed the link. Turns out the Abercrombie girl (who, it seems, only picked that has her title to get people to come to her blog...so it's just marketing) linked to HaloScan (a place that provides the code and hosting for comments free of charge), so I went there to investigate. I liked it, so I used it and added the comments section to my page and thought it looked pretty cool. Then I thought to myself "well, not too many people will use my new addition, but Sarah is actually popular so I'll tell her about it too and people will actually use it to write real comments!" I did this, and then she added the section. Making it even more confusing is the fact that Sarah is the one who told me to read Lindsayism in the first place, so if she never woulda told me to read it I never woulda told her about the comments. Now my question is this: Who gets the credit? Lindsayism? Abercromie Girl? Sarah? Me? HaloScan? Who?!? It's a very sci-fi paradox.

I was listening to this song (by Caviar) and thinking to myself "you know you have an amazing album when this song isn't good enough to make the cut." Enjoy.

This site has so many answers to life's questions that I felt it was my duty to pass the knowledge on to all my friends. Enjoy.

I would never believe that this wasn't photoshop'd if the link wasn't from the Associated Press. I have Sarah to thank for this link (who btw, will be appearing on The O'Reilly Factor this friday, so set your TiVo's...and I'm totally not kidding).

I have comments now! Cool, ahh? So now whenever you read a post of mine, you can comment on it and tell me what you think. FYI, you don't have to write your email address and what not, your name will do just fine for me. In the end, I'm not sure how many of my friends actually read this, so I may not get any comments. Mom, don't comment -- I love you, but I'll feel lame if you are the only person who writes anything.

I am listening to "Pop" by U2. I have to say that even though they were generally slammed for this album, I think it is my favorite of theirs. There are so many amazing songs on this album that I really have no clue what everyone was up in arms about.

I was just thinking to myself of the bands that have influenced me the most in my life, and decided that it might be worth committing to record to see how it looks. Here is what I came up with:

Letters To Cleo
Fig Dish/Caviar
Triple Fast Action
Veruca Salt
Local H

That is the short list of the bands that have had the biggest impact on me. Four Chicago bands, one Boston band. Guess its clear where my musical heart is.

So last night I did actually decide to watch BBC Learning (but not before seeing Janet Jackson's boob), but the order of programming left me quite taken aback. They showed an hour long program about how Hitler and the Germans came to the "Final Solution" followed by (I kid you not) a half hour show for learning German. Should I read anything into the order of programming there? Guess they thought to themselves "I don't think anything could better convince someone to start learning German than an in-depth look at how they viciously murdered 6 million Jews." Bizarre.

The NY Post wrote an article about how blogging can ruin lives, end friendships, and get you fired from your job. Am I at risk? I guess I'm not if I can remember not to say every little thought that occurs to me in a public forum.

It's really lame trying to watch the Super Bowl on ESPN here. First of all, they don't have any of the cool commercials. It's just commercials for fishing shows that will come on here at about 4am next Thursday. Not so interesting. Also, they explain every little thing about football in depth (because it is obvious that anyone with the wherewithall to stay up till 2am to watch the Super Bowl obviously knows nothing about football). I don't even like football, I just wanted to see the commercials. Maybe I'll watch BBC Learning now or something.

Lemme give you the highlights...

-Was hit by a tidal-wave of water by a passing bus (seriously...it was like something from a movie...it looked like I stood in the shower for 5 minutes with my clothes on)

-Witnessed 3 car accident ten feet in front of where I was standing (and which blocked the bus I was waiting to catch)

-Barely survived ride with what I can easily call "the worst and craziest driver I have ever seen"

-Had the top part of my umbrella fly off the stick when it started pouring rain (thus forcing me to get soaked AGAIN after I had already changed my clothes because of aforementioned tidal-wave)

-Was chased down street by huge rabid dog

-Got locked out of my apartment because my flatmate left his key in the other side of the door (thus preventing me from being able to insert my key to unlock the door)

-Oh, and did I mention that this all happened in only two hours?

Not my best day ever.