If I may be so bold...

Mayer's Letterman performance was on some shitty shit.

And this EP is really, really good.

http://grahamwright.bandcamp.mu/

I'm posting this again because if I didn't it would be What the Buck! instead.

Happiness is a song about a dog even though I'm a cat person.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=FBqpqg16b-4

I promised I'd stop posting about a certain musician, but surely it's okay if I'm appreciating their smarmy and poppy (or should that be 'puppy?) efforts at making a non-Pixar Disney animated movie acceptable.

Palling around with other websites.

-http://www.avclub.com/content/newswire/according_to_tim_kring_the

Tim Kring can eat a dick. Then next week he can go back in time and explain how that dick is special to other dicks and is related to another dick even though such a link seems impossible.

He's lucky that Kristen Bell is on that show and I that I don't have any other way to look at her otherwise I would never watch Heroes again.

Oh wait, I do, and it's called the internet.


Actually scratch
-http://stereogum.com/archives/wheres-the-beef/ryan-adams-disses-rem-the-killers-not-oasis_036761.html?utm_source=bb&utm_medium=mc

Ryan Adams speaks. I swoon and go buy every Oasis CD.

ALSO, POSSIBLE ZINGER OF THE CENTURY:
"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unfortunately with the exception of the Killers."

Ha, I sure wouldn't want to be Brandon Flowers right now. Or ever.

Gears of War 2 isn’t the kind of game that’s going to win ten shitloads (or even one shitload) of awards for its story and. I’m sure you agree with me. It’s a perfectly reasonable statement, backed up a gag (that’s still new and original!) about one the best lines of dialogue ever said by anybody anywhere. I mean, when the one of better plot points involves the somewhat interesting death of a nonewhat interesting character who you have no investment in what so ever and if it was a screenplay that he would be called ‘dude who looks gets attacked by elite-looking thing’, then you know you’re in for a story worth hiding from anybody who you think may value your opinion.

Still, I can’t help but thinking that Gears is being a little too harshly treated. Looking at it for what it truly is- a bromance (oh god, I hate that that term, but it perfectly describes it) between Marcus and Dom- it succeeds in pretty much every category. Yeah, it’s not going to win whatever irreverent award videogames are backing as being ‘this year’s Oscars’ but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad story. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s good- maybe even verging on great- story.

Now before I go any further, let me make something clear; No, I haven’t just moved into a trailer surrounded by Two and a Half Men DVD’s. But it’s fun to slum sometimes- just ask Guy Ritchie (I’m here all week!), and Gears is the virtual equivalent of the Material Girl.

Here’s the thing. We’re humans, and we like to make reason and find themes in things that we don’t understand fully. Take me for instance, I’m convinced that every girl that’s every smiled at me has loved me, even though it’s probably not true. Or you for instance, you’ve probably taken that fact to mean that I have insane social problems, when in reality I’m just so good looking I just assume that girls want to have sex with me.

I could keep going, but I’ll just get to the point: To realty enjoy Gears of War II I had to stop looking for themes.

See, when you ignore whatever real world conflicts Epic was trying to include in the game (wait a second, so is it the locusts or the humans that are meant to represent America?) and treat it as the videogame of equivalent of a buddy movie, then Gears of War is fucking awesome. Ten. Shitloads. Of. Awesome.

What makes it work are the way that story and gameplay are so closely related. There are never any questions about what exactly what you’re doing/why exactly you’re doing it/ yeah I guess it’s cute but would a 300 pound black dude really use the word ‘horsey’ multiple times?

. If Gears had been a scattered mess of missions that didn’t really work together and had no real story tying them together, then Marcus and company would have been laughably one dimensional. You’d be laughing you would. Instead the story plays out like a crazy homo-erotic roadtrip with four all American (or it’s planetary equivalent) dudes who are opening a can of whoop ass on the ugliest things alive (technically Stevie Nicks is classified as dead, so my point is valid.)

It’s the videogame equivalent of Tango and Cash, and when it’s not in an Xbox 360 you can probably find it drinking whiskey with Charles Bukowski and not smiling at girls even though they’re crazy about them (OMG! Is Marcus made of stone? Show that girl your pearly whites!)

That’s not to say that it’s only worth liking Gears of War II ironically because:

1- That doesn’t even make sense

2- Liking things ‘ironically’ isn’t even liking something, it’s the cultural equivalent of sleeping with a fat girl because all the hot girls have left, but you could like, totally get them if they were still here.

3- Nobody likes people who like things ironically, not even ironically.

All I’m saying is that it’s best to turn your brain off while you play Gears. All I’m saying is that it’s best to play Gears 2 drunk. You can cheer when you’re killing, cry during the two moments when the game really succeeds (you know them both) and forget that Epic is trying to tell you something important.

Hilarious (not really) out of context A.V Club Writer comment of the night

http://www.avclub.com/content/newswire/friday_buzzkills_we_all_want

One such guy was Joe Hyams, a journalist and accidental confidante to the stars who (legend has it) while on assignment covering illegal immigration for the New York Herald Tribune, also managed to rack up interviews with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Frank Sinatra in one week. (While we, as total lightweights, require at least a half-day’s prep for 10 minutes with Kristen Bell.)


LOL, I'd only need ten seconds.

Fuck Warm Weather.

Seriously. Fuck it and the Daisy Duke wearing horse it rode in on. My cat hates it, I hate. Nobody likes it except for pretty girls, and only then so they can try and make uglier girls hate summer becasue they can't wear revealing clothes. Fuck Summer.

-I'm considering never using capital letters again so I can be more like Ryan Adams and his blog. I love that guy's music so much I want to make a woman out of it. Hell. He can watch if he wants. There, I said it.

-I'm curious about Kanye West's next CD. A CD full of of Autotune? I admire the dude's hubris/ability/illusion of ability.

-I am now dedicating my life to bringing the stage mannerisms of Craig Finn into everyday life. More on this as it develops. First thing is that sweeping hand motion he does when he say 'dude' during Sequestered in Memphis on Letterman.

-I am going to buy one of those hat's like Conor Oberst wore on Conan. I'm also going to get one of those freakish masks that Conan was wea...oh, you mean that's his real face? ZING! HEY MARGE I ZINGED ZOMBIE CONAN!

-After his upteenth awesome appearance on Letterman I am considering asking Brice Willis to adopt me. Also, why wasn't Jenny Lewis playing guitar when she was on this week?

According to rule 715 (Every girl's hotness is automatically doubled when they play a guitar) that's means that her rating went from a possible 180% out 100% to a smaller 90%.
Also, I'm deducting points for having her douchebag boyfriend there. Seriously, what a dick. That guy is more of a girl than me, and that's including the time my belly button turned into a vagina becasue I forgot to take my hormone pills.

Douchebag.

Still, if was offered a chance to have my way with Jenny but I had to go through him first I would consider it. Maybe. I guess I could close my eyes and imagine him being a more femenine version of Angelina Joile. HAHAHA, Seriously, I'm here all week.

Anyway, my headphones are trapping me so I'm going to write your name over the Savannahs. That's right. Yours! No, I was really kidding. I'm going to write Ryan Adams'


PS: I swear to god this is the last time I'm going to mention Jenny Lewis in a sexual manner on this blog. It's totally not cool- she's a very talented songwriter and it's not her fault I get randy when I drink (here that ladies? Suds me up!). Also, when she says 'Hey Boy' on Carpetbaggers it gives me a bit of a boner. There I said it. But then Evlis Costello starts singing and it's like 'Bro, you're totally killing the mood here."

But she really is talented. I'd kill to be able to write songs like she does.

Lewis/Costello no longer on Letterman- Life possibly no longer worth living.

I miss yesterday, and it fucking kills me. If I could I’d live in some kind of machine where I lived my life backwards. See, I’m always nostalgic for the past, and if I lived my life backwards then I’d be always looking forward to what’s going to happen next (or what happened before, depending on your view). I’d probably be happy until I was fifteen and I started getting nostalgic for being able to buy alcohol (you heard me! It makes perfect sense).

So about six months ago I made an unofficial rule (side note: what exactly is an unofficial rule? And what are my official rules?) that I decided I was gong to try and live my life by: From now on, I’m not going to be nostalgic about things that can be deemed as happening within the current U.S Presidency.

I mean, it’s a pretty simple premise. Most Presidential terms are around eight years (I mean, if Bush can make two terms with his support base then nobody has an excuse), and that’s a pretty good term for the statute of sentimentality to last. So why not combine them? Not only do they go well together, but in the future you’ll be able to back on the Bush years and have a personal connection with them.

So, in lieu of me shouting this from the rooftops, here is a list of everything that I’m now officially allowed to be sentimental over. Think of it as some kind of public service announcement.

My college years (which were mainly spent playing Unreal Tournament over the school LAN, skating and fawning over girls that I *may* have been able to get.)

Good Ben Folds CD’s (Way to Normal? Really? Really?’)

Arrested Development

Veronica Mars’

The OC. Especially the first two and a half seasons. Think everything up to senior prom.

It’s no longer excusable for people to not know that Elliott Smith isn’t alive.

It’s now permissible to say “They don’t make shows like The Wire Anymore”

First celebrity crushes- It was Natalie Portman and I’m not ashamed to say it, that PG-13 Esquire photoshoot changed my life.

Max Payne! Which I’m playing again right now.

Learning to play Mrs Jones By the Counting Crows (which I still probably cannot do.)

Falling in love with the Tondeff song ‘Porcelain’

Becoming totally indifferent to the Tonedeff song ‘Porcelain’

A term when the youth actually knew what the word ‘seedy’ meant. No, my cat does not look seedy

So tomorrow, when that last ballot is cast, when that one last opportunistic ‘Fuck Bush’ protest song is written, it feels a little like the last seconds of my youth will be playing out as well. For better or worse, I’m a product of the Bush years, and even though I was thousands of miles away, he made a man out of me (there has to be a better way to say that). When I entered I was a self loathing fourteen year old with anxiety issues and nobody what he wanted to do in the world, and now I’m a self loathing twenty two year old with anxiety issues and a vague idea on what he wants to in the world.

It’s gunna suck, but maybe I should learn a thing from the Obama camp and try and find hope in tomorrow. If I don’t then I’m going to look like some wacko who thinks that 2000-2008 where the best years of my life ,but it’s probably gunna turn out that way, so I had better just keep my mouth shut and get to work on that machine.

But until then I’m going to put on Dre’s 2001, watch Sarah Chalke’s eventual growth into a fox on Scrubs, and wish I was sixteen again.