Laziness, Work, and Sandler?

It's admittedly been a while since my last post, but I've been *gasp* working full time, and just lazy to boot. But some things of note that I should bring up:

Trip to Pensacola was great this past weekend. Went to a concert at some bowling alley, and while most of the bands sucked, the last two, Cruiserweight and Second Saturday were both very good. SS especially - I can't wait to hear more of their stuff. Great harmonies.

After "orienting" on day shift (7a-3p) at work for the past week, tonight (Monday) marks my return to the graveshift (11p-7a). I'm a night owl, so the shift better fits me [if you don't believe I'm a night owl, check the timestamps of most of my posts on Blogger] - though the 11p-7a shift does tend to hurt the social life. All that means is that I won't be participating in things like Thursday Night Drinking - which is fine by me, as TND's dead in my mind. I enjoy traditions, and to see TND die the quick and brutal death it's died in the past month is just sad. Nobody cares about it, or wants to have it. Same thing is happening to some extent with the Sunday Frisbee Games. Oh well, if they're not happening, then I sure won't miss a thing being in the ER all night. I've got the one job where I never want to see friends come and visit me.

I need to get a damned cell phone again, not having one is just getting annoying. Coupled with the fact that I can't depend on a good number of my friends lately to keep their word and show up to things, the lack of communication is driving me batty.

NBC Home Video and Lion's Gate recently released 8 or 9 "Best of" sets for different SNL alums - I picked up the Chris Farley and Eddie Murphy ones last night. Murphy's is the best by far, and if you haven't seen it, well - you're doing yourself a disservice.

Speaking of disservice, Fahrenheit 9/11 was a complete piece of shit. Boring as far as documentaries go, the amount of sheer sensationalism that Moore piled in there was just too much to take at times. I downloaded it (thanks for the permission, Mike) and my family watched it - and not a single one of us (we're a half republican, half democrat family) thought it was worth anything. On the other hand, 50 First Dates was enjoyable. Adam Sandler 1, Michael Moore 0. It's odd, but I can think of at least 5 Sandler movies that I've really enjoyed: Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, 50 First Dates, Punchdrunk Love, and Mr. Deeds. Odd, eh?

Alcohol and Aquatics, Lists, Orkut

One thing that the Tallahassee crowd tends to do is end up swimming during a night of drinking. It's almost like we're magnetically drawn to them. But honestly, is there anything more fun than swimming around with friends, all boozed up? The Pensacola trio consisting of Melissa, Meghan, and Anthony have come to town both last Monday and yesterday for concerts, and both times drinkin' and swimmin' have been part of the night. Good people, and they're a lot of fun to spend time with. Melissa came back from Will's CousinFest with me, and stayed the night over here [along with Will] on my couch. It's been great getting to know her - a real cool girl. There's a standing offer to her to be my roommate if we're both in Tally next year. That could be a blast.

After seeing High Fidelity for the umpteenth time, I'm reminded how much I like lists. So here's a quick list of songs that I've come across recently that I enjoy. Some you've heard, some you haven't. Look at the list, fire up SoulSeek and go get some of them:

"C'mon, C'mon" by The Von Bondies
"Shanty for the Arethusa" by The Decemberists
"The Chimney Sweep" by The Decemberists
"The Soldiering Life" by The Decemberists
"For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" by Sufjan Stevens
"Starting Five" by Dios
"Lightness" by Death Cab for Cutie
"Title and Registration" by Death Cab for Cutie
"Carry Me, Ohio" by Sun Kil Moon
"Every Year You Wasted" by The Wrens
"Bandages" by Hot Hot Heat
"Adapt" by Cursive
[There's a bunch I'm forgetting, they'll get posted some other time]

Melissa told me to go test out Orkut which she described as "less gay than Friendster" it's essentially a tool to chart, track, and build relationships online. You basically list your friends and your interests, and through other friends, online communities, and the like you can link up with friends, some long lost, and keep up relationships. I found communities for the High School I went to, my college, my hometown, for my favorite bands, and for people who think the New York Yankees can suck it. Go give it a shot. If you want to add me, send me an email or an IM. [Wow, that description didn't do it much justice, but trust me, it's a cool thing. Just go sign-up for it, already.]

Music I Hate, Music I Love

I love punk rock - that's been well established. So what kind of music rubs me raw? What kind of music gives me waves of nausea? What kind of music inspires a murderous rage deep within me? Shitty pop-punk. I even feel dirty having to put "punk" on the description of that shitty, shitty music. Who are these musical offenders? A list:

1. New Found Glory [the worst band in the world]
2. Good Charlotte
3. A Simple Plan
4. Bowling For Soup
5. American Hi-Fi
6. Stroke 9 / SR-71 / other pop-punk of 1999
7. Bowling For Soup
8. Yellowcard
And countless, other shitty bands who I can't recall the name of other than as "that shitty pop-punk band with that one really fucking annoying song."

But don't get me wrong, pop-punk itself isn't a bad thing. Good, fast punk songs with pop-sensibilities are a great thing, but it's just hard to pull it off without sounding whiny or stupid [see above list - especially NFG, whose lead singer's voice makes me want to murder someone] - but some bands pull it off well. Examples:

1. Green Day
2. Sum 41
3. Rancid
4. Blink 182 [I'm not a fan, but they don't deserve to be in the earlier list]
5. The Offspring
6. The Living End
7. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
And a few others, but those just popped into my head at the moment.

Since looting the Zack/Nathan/Glover/Will compound of their digital cable box, I've been able to get 50 or so more channels on my TVs - including a long-awaited return of MTV2. M2 was part of basic cable in Atlanta, so I watched it and TechTV a shit-ton while at GT. It's good to finally have them back, but with TechTV merged with G4, I doubt I'll watch it much. But in one 15 minute span on M2, I saw the following videos: "Float On" by Modest Mouse, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand, "All Caps" by Madvillain, "Mass Destruction" by Faithless, and "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West. That's five incredible songs, all in a row. From August 2002 through May 2003, I would go to MTV2's online playlist and download all the tracks, and it was a good source for new music. Sure, they play some shit [the new Ludacris is awful, anything by Juvenile, and a fair share of shitty pop-punk], but there's some gems in there too. Download those five songs and judge the quality yourself. Of course, this amazing streak of 5 videos was ended by the 6th video being a New Found Glory video.

New Found Glory...what an awful fucking band. The fact that they're going to share the same stage as Pennywise, NOFX, and Bad Religion on this year's Warped Tour is fucking bullshit. Can you possibly listen to one of their songs without wanting to obliterate their lead singer? How fucking whiny can you get? That guy's voice is fucking atrocious, and their lyrics are fucking cotton candy - no substance. As somebody who's listened to (some) Bright Eyes, I can honestly say that I would rather hear Conner Oberst cry into a microphone for an hour than listen to one minute of a NFG song. [And yes, Conner crying into a microphone is a good way to describe any Bright Eyes album ever released. Fucking emo.]

Recently downloaded albums [within the past week, a fucking long list of stuff to catch up on]:

Beastie Boys - To The 5 Boroughs (2004)
Dead Prez - Let's Get Free (2000)
The Von Bondies - Pawn Shoppe Heart (2004)
Desaparecidos - Read Music/Speak Spanish (2002)
The Elected - Me First (2004)
Rilo Kiley - The Initial Friend EP (2001)
Rilo Kiley - Take-Offs & Landings (2001)
Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things (2002)
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (2003)
The Decemberists - Her Majesty The Decemberists (2003)
Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State (2003) [what an album...]
Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway (2003)
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
The Wrens - Meadowlands (2003)
Madvillain - Madvillainy (2004)

So as far as new music goes, I think I've got a backlog. And jeez, Jenny from Rilo Kiley is freaking hot. Go watch the video for "The Frug" and you'll agree with me. God I love redheads.