Chairlift

We saw these guys the other night opening for Peter Bjorn & John. They were pretty lame at first but they kinda grew on me by the end of their set. I still wouldn't really recommend seeing em live though, since they were pretty boring. I couldn't figure out why they sounded so familiar until I looked them up and realized that not only were they in an Ipod commercial that I must have seen, but I already watched one of their videos like a month ago, and its a pretty cool video so check it out.


(high def version).

But are you a bug Bill Murray?

"Y'know, before I gave that up, I used to drink it every night. Every single night up until it was time to go to sleep, just to make me dream faster. You know like when they flash those cameras on those Indy 500 cars? That's how my dreams were, just whizzin' by."

Trees & roots & caves

Playing around with monochrome effects and shading and contrast. There's really nothing interesting about any of these, but I like em anyway.

Where The Wild Things Are

I don't even remember anything about the book, but this looks hella awesome. Sure its a kids movie, but the main character doesn't look like an annoying bastard like most child stars, its directed by Spike Jonze, cowritten by Dave Eggers, and yknow, Arcade Fire.



This is all I've really got on the horizon, movie-wise. Everything else I wanted to see has already come & gone. Anything else good coming out this year?

I spent a few days down in Asheville NC this weekend, taggin along with my dude while he got his back piece worked on at Empire Tattoo. Its definitely one of the weirder towns I've been to in a while, simply because its this hip bohemian bubble in the middle of the one of the most ignorant white trash redneck states I've ever visited. No offense North Carolina, but you really do suck. Quite literally, one minute you're passing the usual crappy Walmarts and McDonalds, and then you go through a tunnel and you're in Toontown, full of head shops and sushi bars and cafes where you can get vegan breakfast burritos.

I'm kind of at a loss when it comes to this place.. because on one hand, its an incredibly cool town in a gorgeous mountain setting with a ton of great restaurants and shops and bars and people and a pretty strong local culture.. but on the other hand.. hippies. Well, not real hippies, but remember back in the mid 90s when there was this huge throwback fad where teenagers wore baja hoodies and burned incense and listened to the Grateful Dead & Bob Marley and hung out in New Hope? Yeah well, that spirit is still alive and well in Asheville. On our way to get some sushi, we passed by a small square in the middle of town to find this scene goin down.



That's right, a drum circle.. and in the foreground a bunch of guys in sandals playing hackey sack. In the middle of the picture you'll notice a guy in a black t shirt who looks like he's tripping balls and twirling around to the drums. That is because he was tripping balls and twirling around to the drums. And boy was he getting into it, he even did a couple of cartwheels. When we passed back an hour or so later, it was still going on, and I can only assume it continued well into the night. I was a little mindblown by the whole spectacle, but hey.. it still beats my crappy town, where the biggest gathering of people you're bound to see is near the sandwich counter at Wawa during lunch hour.

Anyhow, we spent the rest of the trip at Chimney Rock, climbing around where we probably shouldn't have and likely putting ourselves in mortal danger. Lots of jagged rocks and slippery ledges. I felt like I was ten years old again.

Then the drive home the next day which turned into a 16 hour ordeal full of junk food, caffeine, the Natural Bridge, bourbon, Nascar traffic (seriously North Carolina, what the hell), and mind bending delirium. And that's what road trips are all about.

Time To Party

Say what you will about Andrew WK being a gimmick one hit wonder or whatever, but I truly believe that this man is a national treasure. Here's a video of him trolling the hell out of an entire crowd of Insane Clown Posse fans until he gets pulled off of the stage.



God bless you Andrew WK

Watchmen

Wow Zach Snyder really outdid himself. and by that I mean he somehow managed to shoehorn in an even more awkward & drawn out sex scene than the one in 300. If he had to breeze through a super abridged version of the story to fit it all into a three hour film, did he really need to turn what was literally one panel of the comic into three full minutes of Patrick Wilson's ass pumping on top of Malin Ackerman? I've seen softcore porn on late night Cinemax that was less explicit (and less eye rollingly corny) than that. And according to one interview, the inevitable director's cut will be "sexier".. so hey maybe we'll just get a full on slo-mo shot of Nite Owl climaxing all over Silk Spectre's face or something.

Otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised at how not completely terrible Watchmen was. So long as you view it as the slightly inaccurate and soulless Cliff Notes version of the real story (with almost all nuance, subtlety, character development, and build-up hammered out in the name of time constraints and pacing (but what can you do, it very much wasn't written to be made into a movie.. they did the best they could)), it can be enjoyed as a collection of cool looking scenes that remain mostly true to the source material. Jackie Earle Haley was great, Patrick Wilson was great, the special effects were cool, the soundtrack was unexpected but mostly good, and the opening credits montage was worth the admission price alone.

I'm sure it won't hold up to repeat viewings at all, and it'll be mostly forgotten within five years (hey remember Sin City?).. but at the moment, this is pretty much the best Watchmen movie I could have expected a major studio to produce. Worth my six dollar matinee ticket, and considering how much I was expecting to full-on hate it, that's the best compliment I think I can give.

I got my hair cut the other day, and tonight my mom said that I look like Justin Timberlake. This was probably the highlight of my entire week.

Ugh.

My mind doesn't get blown that often, since I know almost everything about everything there is to know (about everything).. but this morning before work, my mind was indeed blown... by an article on fark 2.0 of all things. This is probably ancient news to everybody except for me, but I just found out that the lead guitar player from 1960s pop group The Grass Roots is now..






fucking Creed from The Office.

WOOOOOOOOAH


Anyway its his birthday today so happy birthday Creed.