New Album

I recently bought a new cd. Yes, I actually bought a cd instead of downloading the songs from iTunes (or equivilant).

The cd I purchased was Eliot Morris’ first complete album entitled “What’s Mine is Yours.”

I had originally heard the song “Faultline” a few months ago and instantly dug it. I waited to get the cd, though, because I don’t like to dump money for one song.

Well, this past week I utilized a $5 Reward Zone Gift certificate along with a 10% coupon to pick the cd up.

Upon further listening, I have to say that Faultline is the tent pole of the album, but the rest of the album is also pretty good. Eliot Morris’ vocals kind of remind me of Adam Duritz (of Counting Crows fame).

The stand out tracks on the album for me are:

1) Faultline

2) No One Has To Know

3) This Colorful World

I would highly recommend checking these songs out on your Rhapsody account (25 free plays a month, dude!). You should think about buying it if you are into the Counting Crows, John Mayer/Jack Johnson, or indie folk-rock (yes, I know that this isn’t technically an independant release, but it has some of that sound to it…or maybe I’m just terrible with all the millions of music genres there are now).

Psych

The first season of Psych came out on DVD today (6/26/07).

Definitely worth looking into. The only thing holding me back from a straight out “buy it” is the fact that it is coming in with a $40 price tag for the 4 disc set. That’s a little pricey, but it is still probably worth it.

In case you didn’t watch it while on air last season, Psych was the best new tv show of 2006. Yes, better than Heroes. Yes, even better than 30 Rock. Yes, it’s better than Ugly Betty (but honestly, what isn’t?). Psych has everything you could want in a comedy/mystery show. The comedy is sharp, the mystery have you guessing, and most of all the characters are exquisite. James Roday (you might remember him as the messenger boy in Beerfest… but most likely not) is the star of the show and he is more than capable of leading the cast. If you don’t like his character, Shawn Spencer, then I don’t know what to tell you. In my opinion, Dule Hill is even more impressive. He plays the role of Burton “Gus” Guster in such a way that he doesn’t overshadow the lead, but still really adds a lot to the show.

So, if you get the chance, at least go out and rent the First Season of Psych. Also, look for the second season to start on July 13th.

Wow, that Holy Grail really works

In case you have missed it, here’s a pic of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in the upcoming 4th movie.

The 4th movie has been in production for a long time and has led to numerous bad title jokes such as: Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair of Destiny, in reference to Ford’s old age.

Let me go out and say that this picture lays to bed any questions about having Ford come back and play Indy in the 4th movie. He looks just like he did in Last Crusade, but with a little more grey.

This single picture has made Indiana Jones 4 my most awaited movie of ‘08 (they’re saying it’s supposed to come out in the summer of ‘08. If not, it’ll be my most awaited movie of ‘09, ‘10, etc.).

“The wait is the hardest part.” – Tom Petty

TBS kills your favorite sit-coms

According to this report, TBS has purchased to cable rights to My Name is Earl and The Office.

After seeing how syndication has left Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Drew Carey Show, and even the likes of the King of Queens, consider me less than enthused. The oversaturation leads to staleness. That’s why when the Seinfeld/Simpsons dvds came out, it garnered a “meh.”  Everyone’s already seen every episode, now they play them everyday, what’s the point of owning it on dvd?

To think that our beloved Office or Earl will soon be getting the same treatment makes me weep inside. Okay, maybe not weep, but I don’t like the idea.

The New Atlanta Hawks!

In case you missed it (and I’m guessing everyone outside of ATL did), the Hawks introduced there new brand image and uniforms today.

After looking over the pictures, it appears that the Hawks have decided to become the Nets of the South.

As you can see, their new logo is completely bland. All they did was take all the vibrancy out of last season’s logo. Really lame.

As you can see with the uniforms, they look almost identical to the Nets unis (which I always thought were hideous).

So congratulations Atlanta, the worst NBA franchise has now gotten stuck with the worst NBA logo and uniforms.

Hmm…Maybe they Hawks owners are pulling a Rachel Phelps here. Try to lower the game attendance to the point where no one cares if the team relocates to another place where they can get a new arena and then flip the team for a profit.

I guess we will find out on Thursday if they tank the draft or not. If they don’t take Al Horford and a point guard with the 11th pick, they are tanking.

Strat-o-Matic and More!

Yesterday I was clicking around on baseball-reference.com (a most visit site for any baseball superfan) just to waste some time. In my clicking, I came across their wikipedia section (entitled the Bullpen). In the bullpen, they have a section for fictional baseball characters. For the most part I not only knew the character I knew where he/she was from and who played him/her (if from a film). But there was one name that I had never heard/seen before. Here is the article for the name (taken directly off Baseball-Reference.com’s Bullpen section):

Rutherford Family

Brock and Damon Rutherford are characters in a baseball novel by Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, J Henry Waugh, Prop. Waugh is a mild mannered accountant who fills his free time with a fictional baseball game played with paper and dice. The game is played in a superficially similar manner to games such as APBA, Strat O Matic and Replay Baseball, in the sense that players make hits, runs, and outs, depending on the rolls of dice and readings from charts. However, unlike these simulations of real baseball, Waugh’s game is completely fictional-the players, franchises, umpires, game mechanics, and league history are a complete creation of Waugh’s imagination. Waugh’s game contains rules for player aging, and even player retirements and deaths. The Rutherford family are fictional players that feature prominently in the novel, Brock Rutherford as a retired great from the early days of Waugh’s league, and Damon as Brock’s son, who emerges as a young player and is tragically felled during the novel with dramatic consequences.

Reading this article brought a rush of nostalgia to me. Growing up, my Dad and I played hundreds of hours of Strat-O-Matic baseball. We planned out entire seasons. We would start off with all of the player cards we owned seperated into their different positions. From this we set up a draft order with each of us getting a certain number of teams. Then we would go throught the draft selecting the best players out there (we actually mixed in al the player cards we had – Want Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, and Whitey Ford all on the same team? It’s possible in out set-up).  From there we would play out the season; including trades, injuries, stats, and so on. At the end of the season, we would choose 3 players to keep for each team and start the process all over again. It was my introductory course into statistical analysis of baseball.

After realizing the power of the subject of the book, I decided I needed to read the book. First I checked the library system with no avail. Next, I checked amazon. It was there for sale at a good price. But I wanted to read it now. So, I checked the online inventory of the local bookstores. Unfortunately, it was not in stock in the area. So, as of right now, I have the book on order at Amazon with it shipping out soon. I’ll keep you updated on whether the book lives up to my hype.

On a seperate but kind of related note, have you heard about All-Pro Football 2k8? It is the newest football game being released by 2k sports. I know what you are thinking, “I thought EA Sports had bought the rights to be the only football game maker out there.” Well you are half right. EA Sports has all the rights of the NFL. So, you won’t see any other game out there with the Chicago Bears name, players, or logos in it (as well as every other NFL team). So, why should we care about APF 2k8?

It has HUNDREDS of ex-NFL players in the game (in their prime). The list includes a huge amount of hall of fame players and record holders. The game also has lesser celebrated ex-NFLers (Brian Bosworth?).  So, like the Naretta Strat-O-Matic league, you get all of your favorite players from history and you get to draft them however you’d like. Then play out the season. You say you want Dan Marino throwing to Jerry Rice with Dick Butkus manning your defense? In this game it’s possible (they are all officially in the game).

So, looking at the football games out there. You have Madden which is all about the current year’s roster and all the NFL teams. Then you have APF 2k8 which you get to create your own team, set up the league how you want, and participate in a hall of fame draft. I don’t know about you, but I personally like creating my own team, players, league, and doing a draft. Using players I actually know is a huge bonus (i.e. I stopped paying attention to football when Madden bought the licensing rights).

To check out more information on APF, go to 2k Sports website.

Upcoming Kevin Smith Movie

As you may know by now, Kevin Smith’s next movie is a horror film entitled, “Red State.” When he announced the title for Red State, Kevin also mentioned that he was planning a comedy set in Minnesota to film after the horror flick is done.

Today on LAtimes.com’s Scriptland section, there is a post on what this upcoming Minnesotan Comedy will be about:

After six little words, Harvey Weinstein is sold

By Jay A. Fernandez, Special to The Times
June 6, 2007

It’s rarely a good idea to greenlight a movie off of a title alone (unless it includes the words “Pirates” and “Caribbean”). That’s like falling in love with a MySpace photo.

But when Harvey Weinstein pulled the trigger on the latest raunchy comedy idea from “Dogma” and “Clerks II” writer-director Kevin Smith after Smith had written only six words of it, Weinstein’s $15 million looked like a pretty good bet.

The title? “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”

For a certain stripe of moviegoer, that’s a sure thing.

“A bawdy sex comedy with heart,” as Smith describes the just-completed script, “Zack and Miri” is about two friends who have managed to trudge into their 30s with a satisfying lack of accomplishment. But a 15-year high school reunion and dire rent problems spark the novel moneymaking idea of pulling together an amateur porn enterprise. As for where it goes from there, just think of Smith’s characteristic sexual verbosity finally coupled with matching imagery.

“It’s … dirty, with nudity,” says Smith. “But funny nudity, not gratuitous nudity.” Well, leave it to Smith to choose a plotline that kneecaps the issue entirely. (The civilians-making-a-blue-movie conceit also drove the narrative of writer-director Michael Traeger’s “The Amateurs,” which played festivals last year.) Because the story unfolds during a snowy Minnesota winter, Smith plans to film “Zack and Miri” there in February (although, Smith jokes, global warming may force him to shoot at one of the poles).

In the intervening months, Smith is publishing a book of reprinted blog entries from SilentBobSpeaks.com called “My Boring Ass Life.” And he hopes to squeeze in filming of his low-budget ($3 million) horror script, “Red State,” by the end of the year. Smith is aiming to give the politically charged screenplay, about outsiders who stumble into “fundamentalism gone to the extreme” in Middle America, a naturalistic, drive-in feel.

“Horror is more than a dude with a chain saw,” says Smith, who engaged the Christian right promotional machine for the release of “Dogma.” Given his rabid fan base, Smith is keeping the screenplay on lockdown at his Hollywood Hills home, so agents, actors and executives have needed a personal invitation to see it. Rosario Dawson, a “Clerks II” star, is supposed to give it a read this week.

After her vampy turns in “Sin City” and “Grindhouse,” it sounds like a perfect trilogy.

I guess this is another flick to keep an eye on for the upcoming months/years (however long it takes to get to it).

Work Computers

Computers are part of our daily lives. If you work in an office, they are part of your work. I, personally, have worked with computers my entire post-college career.

One thing I have noticed with computers at work is that they tend to be out of date.

We all know that the life span of computers is very small. They do retain functionality, but things start slowing down.

Right now I am working on a computer that up until a few months ago was running on Windows ME. Let that soak in. 2007 and there is a computer running on ME. ME = Millinium Edition = 2000. So, we were running on an operating system that was about 7 years old. Nice.

To add to this mess, I require at least 4 internet explorer windows open at all times to do my job. Not surprisingly, we have an old ie on the computers as well. This means no ability to do tabbed browsing. So, we end up with multiple copies of ie running and sucking up all the system resources.

Throw in the fact that we still use CRT monitors and I end up feeling quite unprofessional any time comes in to meet (i.e. if our computers are crappy and old, what does that say about our company/products/etc?).

All this is bad but it’s no where near the atrocity that was one of my former jobs.

A few years ago, I worked in the home theater section at Best Buy. You know, the leader in consumer electronic retailers.

In our department we had computers that were on par with the old Commodore 64s.

Anytime we wanted to look up what the inventory was it would take us 5-10 minutes. Thus cause the clients to get exponentially frustrated that the deal is taking so long.

The problem then becomes, do I tell the client how bad our computers are or would saying that make Best Buy look bad?

I just find it interesting that such a big name in technology can give there employees so little technology to work with.

Anyone else have a technology a work horror story?

Whistling Songs

Check out this list.

They cover the greatest songs with whistling in them. This is one of the few lists that I can actually agree on.

1) I actually know just about every song on the list.

2) When I heard the list title, the pick that popped into my head first was on there (Sitting on the Dock of the Bay).

3) Every song that I knew, I instantly knew the whistling part.

The only downside to the list is that it stays very mainstream. I personally like the mainstream, but I think most people view music as a great exploration. They need to be the first to find a great song/band/album/whatever. The list won’t aid you in your pursuit.

While we are covering lists of music, check out this list on PopCandy and originally posted on the PasteCultureClub.com.

This list covers the best screams in all of music. Here’s my thoughts on the list:

1) The Who NEED to be #1 on the list. That is the Rock and Roll yell. It is the first and only yell I think of when you say screams in music.

2) Out of all the songs listed, I could only recreate 3 of them in my mind: a) The Who – Yeah! – “Won’t Get Fooled Again” b) The Doors – Neeoww – “When the Music’s Over” and c) Little Richard – Wooo – “Every Little Richard Song Ever Made”. All the others I just couldn’t hear, even the ones from songs I know very well (Welcome to the Jungle, Helter Skelter, and Whole Lotta Love in particular).

3) Too many of the songs on the list I was unfamiliar with. As I discussed above, some people love that sort of thing. I personally don’t care for it.

So, we have two lists, one I really liked and the other… well, not so much. What do you think of the lists?

New Post

Chuck Klosterman posted a new article on Page 2 today. It is about the formation of a new spring football league (not Mark Cuban’s league).

I don’t care about football, college or professional, but about half way through the article I all of the sudden started getting into the idea of the new league.

Maybe this league or Cuban’s league will provide a basis for a future 2k sports football game (In case you don’t know, 2k has always made the best football video games. They blow Madden out of the water.). I would think a real football league would be a little bit better than the made up league with retired all-stars in their prime as 2k is doing with “All-Pro Football 2k8.”