Happy Holidays, yo

Whatever your holiday, or even if it's just Sunday for you, hope it was good.

Keep waging that good war on Christmas.

My Favorite Songs of 2005

My favorite songs of 2005.

A handful of rules:

1. I must own the song
2. The song must have originally come out in 2005
3. Only one song per album

The rules eliminate some fun songs. No Kelly Clarkson "Since U Been Gone". Only one song from The New Pornographer's Twin Cinema album. Nothing from The Killers.

Here we go, in no particular order:

• Taxpayer - When They Were Young
  Taxpayer's a local band, and this song is just getting some airplay on FNX here now. It is well deserved. It's the song the stuck out the most when I saw them in person. I just love the hook.
• Stellastarr* - Sweet Troubled Soul
  Stellastarr* might have been my favorite live act from 2005, and this is probably the best song off the new album. It encompasses what the band does well: the fun call and return, the overlapping vocals, the sound stuck somewhere between The Killers and Interpol.
• The Perceptionists - Memorial Day
  I'm a big Mr. Lif fan. I was sorely disappointed by The Perceptionists album, which doesn't hold up to what Lif has done as a solo artist. That being said, this is the closest stuff to what Lif does solo, and that's why it sticks out. Best track on the album.
• OK Go - Do What You Want
  Pretty much everyone hates OK Go. They can be grating, but at their best, they're really good power pop. This is really good power pop. Probably should have been the second biggest hit of the summer.
• The New Pornographers - The Bleeding Heart Show
  Tough decision on this one. Damn near every song on Twin Cinema would rate in my top 20 songs of the year. My favorite changes each time I listen. I think this captures the sound the best. It's got the witty Carl Newman lyrics, the Neko Case vocals, and it just sounds great.
• Metric - Monster Hospital
  Another disappointing album, but for whatever reason, this song catches my ear every time I hear it. This would have fit in nicely on Metric's last CD.
• Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
  A toss up between this or "I Predict a Riot". This wins because it references Pac Man.
• Ivy - Thinking About You
  Ivy can be pretty hit or miss, but this year's album was great atmospheric pop. "Thinking About You" was the lead single, and deservedly so.
• Hot Hot Heat - You Owe Me an IOU
  I dug a couple of songs off of Elevator. I think this is my favorite because it was on MVP Baseball 2005 and I've heard it a million times and still dig it.
• Harvey Danger - Cream and Bastards Rise
  Harvey Danger release an album for free and still no one cares. That's just criminal. HD are such a great band, walking the line between emo and power pop better than anyone else, yet Jimmy Eat World get all the hype. This is the only non-piano driven song off of Little By Little. How can you not love a song with a title like that?
• Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
  No sophomore slump here. There's 4 or 5 great songs off the album, but this is the one I always end up coming back to.
• Fountains of Wayne - Maureen
  One of two new songs off of this year's compilation and B-sides release, this should have been the biggest hit of the summer.
• The Decemberists - On the Bus Mall
  It's hard to know what to do with The Decemberists. They sound quite different than everything else on this list, but they're right in the same vein of indie pop, just on the other end of the spectrum. Picaresque has a handful of good, Decemberist songs. This is my favorite. Yes, I am a huge pussy.
• Death Cab For Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
  It just builds and builds and builds.
• Danger Doom - Old School
  MF Doom brings it on the whole Adult Swim album, but I actually think he gets held back a bit by Danger Mouse's beats. This track, with Talib Kweli, is a rare exception. Great from top to bottom.
• Josh Rouse - Winter in the Hamptons
  The final entrant on my list. Josh Rouse's Nashville is the album that every girl and Abercrombie-wearing preppy should have bought instead of Jack Johnson. The fact that Josh Rouse toils in obscurity while Dave Matthews has a huge hippie following and Jack Johnson gets to do movie soundtracks is a traveshamockery. A bigger travesty than the "War on Christmas".

There you have it.

Mobile Google Maps / Google Local

The other day I poked on over to Google Maps to find out exactly where a particular store was so I could finish up some Christmas shopping. I noticed a new link to download Google Local to my cell phone. Being curious, I clicked on it and found that they had a version that worked on my Sanyo MM-7400.

I've had a couple of days to play around with it and it's pretty amazing. There are times when Google does things really poorly (Google Reader) and times when they get it right (Google Maps). This falls in the latter category.

The download is about 100KB, and they've got a little wizard that lets you pick your mobile provide and phone to make sure you get the right version. Google even lets you give them a cell number so they can text message you the link.

Once downloaded, you load it up, and after a few seconds, there's your map, looking damn near like it does on your computer monitor. You can do local searches to find local restaurants and shops, just like on Google Local. It does driving directions, just like Google Maps.

Oh, and it even has the satellite view. Yep, I can see my house on my phone.

There are some minor quibbles I have.

• The interface to enter addresses is pretty crappy, since it doesn't support T9 (as far as I can tell).
• It'd be nice if it could pull addresses from my address book, so I could say "I want to go here" and then have it give me directions.
• I'm not completely sold on the directions interface, since I couldn't seem to zoom out far enough to get a good idea of the scope of the path. The interface is pretty nifty in that you click a button and it takes you to the next step of the directions (actually travelling along the map path).

Combine this Google Maps Mobile application with the new Yahoo! RSS feed notification and SMS services, and it's becoming pretty nice to have a decent mobile data plan. I can set up my phone to send me a score alert anytime the score of the Celtics game changes, or at half time, or only at the end of the game via Yahoo! When the Celtics lose, I can search for local bars on my phone, get directions there, and head over to console myself, knowing that I'll find the place using the Google Map and Satellite views. If only they could triangulate my position and let me use that as the starting point for any map ...

The Funniest Bit from The Colbert Report

I TiVo The Colbert Report every day, generally not watching them until the weekend. The show is quite funny. Yeah, it's a one note gag (making fun of Bill O'Reilly), but it's a funny gag nonetheless. Almost without fail, the best moment of the show is "The Word" -- The Colbert Report parody of O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo."

Last weekend, I was chugging through episodes when I watched the episode from December 7th. Colbert was talking about the Hugo Chavez offer of cheap heating oil to a handful of US cities (Boston, New York). Colbert's O'Reilly-like take was that the cities should tell Chavez to screw.

Honestly, words can't do the bit justice. So, I've encoded a video of it. And now that YouTube is huge, I've replaced my video with a YouTube link.
Watch "The Word" from the 12/7 episode of The Colbert Report.

2006 Red Sox Tickets

Red Sox tickets went on sale today for next season. Well, for part of next season. It's also the day that Sox Pax go on sale, so they can bundle 3 crappy games with 1 good game.

Last year, through the help of what's affectionately referred to as "the magic link," I was able to get in and get the Opening Day Sox Pack. It was a combination of having good resources and a bit of luck that got me past the hell of the "Virtual Waiting Room," and into the ticket buying screen. They only give you like a minute or two to decide how many you're going to buy. I hadn't talked to anyone beforehand, so while I knew people would want to go, I didn't know who could go, or who would be willing to pay. Plus, you're limited to 4 tickets at most. Surprisingly, I do know more than 4 folks who would want to go . . .

So I just bought myself a pack. I don't mind going to games by myself, and it worked out pretty nicely, minus the crap I took from everybody for not getting them a ticket. I really got the last laugh though, as you can see here.

I haven't been as lucky today. No magic link, and no getting through on any of the Sox Pax that I tried (I've still got two browser tabs open trying in vain to get through).

I did get through on a Friday night game in May versus the Rangers though. And I bought four tickets, so no one can bitch. Dead centerfield bleachers. Not really great seats, but whatever.

Let the attempts to win my friendship begin!

UPDATE (12:25): Someone found the new "magic link" and I picked up 2 seats to the Beltway Pack. That's 4 more games for people to attempt to convince me they deserve a ticket!

Is it the avian flu or a normal cold?

My ass has been getting kicked this week by a cold. It's probably the avian flu. It started last Sunday - woke up with a sore throat and quite congested. Downed some Dayquil caps and I was good to go. I even took part in my normal Sunday basketball game.

Monday was more of the same. Wake up a few times during the night because I can't breathe normally, go grab a couple of bills, sleep another hour or two, shower, and then I'm fine.

I figured I'd be through it quickly.

Almost a week later, I'm still repeating the same daily routine. Normally stuff like Dayquil or your normal cold medicine is enough to knock it out, since I take medicine so rarely my body hasn't developed an immunity (or so I like to convince myself). It's just not working this time. I think this big, crappy snow storm is probably for the best. I'll take it easy, catch up on some Netflix movies that have been sitting here for a while, and try to get rid of this annoying cold.

Except . . . I need to go buy a shovel, since the one for my apartment died last night when I was trying to clean up after I spent 30 minutes trying to get the snow blower to start, and then an hour actually snow blowing everything. Yes, I managed to complain about using a snow blower. I really do think I should get a wovel.

So, instead of just relaxing, I'll probably make a Home Depot/Target run, maybe stopping off at Best Buy to tempt myself with the Nintendo DS/Mario Kart bundle. Then I'll sit down with some tea and maybe something nice to eat, watch one of the movies I've got from Netflix, and attempt to defeat this fowl sickness.

I really hope someone gets that joke.

Late Night Infomercials

Last night, as I was heading to sleep, I flipped around the TV looking for something to watch. I don't generally watch a lot of random TV, as TiVo has kind of removed that from my life. But there I was, flipping from channel to channel, looking for inspiration and entertainment.

First I stumbled upon this wonderful little informercial for Sea Vegg, pills that contain sea weed/kelp. According to the creator of the product (Scott Kennedy), eating kelp is the reason that Japan is kicking our ass in math and science. Really. Kelp is the reason that all Asian people live so long! Here's the hook:

Humans cannot consume the seven rays of sunlight energy. Due to the miracle of photosynthesis, ocean plants consume both the Sun and the Sea. Healthy humans can then consume these powerfully potent plants which concentrate chemical energy from the Sun and the Sea. With Sea Vegg â„¢, you can feed your cells the most nutritionally potent and mineral rich family of plants on Earth.

See, we can't absorb the seven rays of sunlight energy! I'm assuming they mean the seven colors of the visible light spectrum, but, if i remember my science correctly, there's not really 7 "rays" -- it is a spectrum of wavelengths that changes gradually. So there's actually infinite rays! Where are my extra rays? Why do I get only 7? What a rip off!

Now, it's not to say there's not possible health benefits from eating kelp, just like eating any plant. It's quite possible that kelp's environment does give it certain benefits. But I just wanted to make fun of the informercial, as the guy came across as a borderline racist ("seaweed is why all Asian people look young ... it's a fact!") and I like to make fun of pseudoscience. Plus, when I tried to find any reviews of the product, everything I came across was written by either whack job super-hippies who claimed that it changed their lives, or by whack job religious nuts who didn't care what the science said, they'd seen it work first hand.

I think I'll conclude that Sea Vegg is a crock of shit.

Moving on, a couple of channels up the dial (ahh .. old timey TV vernacular) was Dr. Ho and his miracle massage system. Awesome, Dr.Ho! First, that's a pretty great name. Second, I love informercials when they get doctors on, as it's fun to guess what they are a doctor of and where they got the doctorate from. In this case, Dr. Ho is a Doctor of Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Rock on! So not really a doctor at all!

Now, I'm not going to knock massages or acupuncture. I love me a good massage, and I have no doubt they are helpful in making folks feel better. I know some people who swear that acupuncture works -- and it's possible that it does help in releasing tension in the same way a massage does. But as a health cure? Ehh .. the jury's kind of out.

I don't have as much contempt for Dr. Ho. He seemed like a nice guy. And he's Asian and looks really young, so he must eat kelp. That means he must be a genius! I take it back, I'm going to order me a double massage chair.

One last thing. On Dr. Ho's site, there's a link to testimonials, the usual "Nothing else worked, but oh lordy, your stuff makes me feel like a young hippie again." My favorite is this one though:

I want you to know I tried other massages with six electrodes thinking that six was better than two and nine volt batteries would last longer than the two "AAA" batteries. I bought the six electrode massage and tryed it,l was shock by the massager and put it in the return to sender box. l saw the DR-HO'S massager on MSN and I bought one to try because my kids started charging me for massages. WOW! I am hook on the feeling my DR-HO'S massager gives me. My kids have meet their match and I save money which gives me less stress. l bought the double massager so I would double my pleasure.The features I like the best are the Pocketsize, how long the batteries last,the timer,the massage modes,the electrodes are not in your way,the carring case,the relief I get from all and any pain I feel!!!

Glenn Contreras, Garyville, LA, USA

You know ... if I didn't already know what this person was talking about, I'd definitely think they were talking about a different kind of massager. Which makes the comment in the middle about the kids charging for massages make sooo much more sense.

In conclusion:

Thumbs Up!

Thumbs Down!

David Cross is Right

Over at Mike Meiser's blog, he's got a post up commenting on a clip from the Arrested Development Season 2 DVDs (which I've mirrored here) with David Cross just railing on the Fox marketing team for being unable to bring viewers to a show that's won numerous awards. Mike then goes on to discuss the possibility of Arrested Development continuing on as an internet show (with iTunes possibly being one delivery mechanism ... but there are a billion ways to deliver television over the internet).

The point I wanted to make is that David Cross is right. How hard is it to get people to watch a show that has basically been called the greatest show on TV? How difficult is it to market something that is that successful? Just put it after The Simpsons and before Family Guy and let it be the funniest 90 minutes on TV. This isn't a failure of the show, it's a failure of Fox marketing (and a failure of the stupid people in America watching tripe like Nanny 911 and Trading Moms for Goats or whatever that show is.

It reminds me of the absolutely fantastic line that Aaron Sorkin put in the final episode of Sports Night. The storyline as the show ended vaguely mirrored real life, as Sports Night -- the critically acclaimed SportsCenter-type show running in 3rd place amongst sports networks -- was being sold by the network that owned it, much like the critically acclaimed Sports Night on ABC was running behind in the ratings and was in danger of being cancelled. The buyer of Sports Night, commenting on the show, said "Anyone who can't make money off of Sports Night should get out of the money-making business," an obvious shot at ABC for being unable to get the well written, well acted show, any traction.

Anyone who can't make money off of Arrested Development should get out of the money-making business.

Cate Blanchett - World's Greatest Actress

I just finished watching The Aviator, which I've had via Netflix for about 3 months. What can I say, I've been busy. While the movie was quite good, the absolute best part of it was Cate Blanchett's performance as Katherine Hepburn. I don't think there is another actress today who can so seamlessly flow from one performance to another, never making you say "hey look, it's Cate Blanchett playing a role" but always making you believe the part.

It's quite stunning, really. From Elizabeth where she played the titular (heh ... titular) character, to The Gift where she played a southern mother, to The Aviator, she simply outacts everyone around her.

Of course, I'm a little behind as she already won the Oscar, but I felt like sharing.

Invasi .... [snore]

I'm trying. Really, I am. Invasion, the show that airs after Lost, has a decent premise, some moderately interesting characters, and ok writing.

But the show is moving so damn slowly that I can't even get excited to watch it. Each week, you hope they're going to shine some light on the main mystery.

"Maybe we'll find out if there really are aliens this time!"

"Maybe we'll find out what the ultimate objective is!"

42 minutes later, the credits are rolling and the storyline has managed to double back on you, putting you right back where you started. It's not following the Lost/X-Files "answer some questions, only to open up brand new questions" model of storytelling. It's just not answering any questions, period.

Each week, I say to myself "I'll give it one more week."

I think this time I mean it. Invasion, you've got one more week.

← Older Newer →