Opening the Can

From Madison's (liberal rag) The Capital Times:

"In April, Kevin Diaz, 20, earned himself a trip back to jail after he and two friends pulled up alongside a man who was taking a bike ride on Madison's east side. Diaz leaned out of a back window of the sport utility vehicle and began hitting the man on the bicycle with a 32-inch ice scraper, authorities say.When the man on the bicycle asked him why, Diaz said,'I just got out of jail. I'm trying to have fun and whoop some ass.' Diaz is back in jail on a probation hold."

tv used to be awesome

Help!

Okay, here's a new use for a blog:

I need some help from a New Yorker with a camera, and I know that there are a few of you who write for or read this blog.

If you happen to find yourself on 5th Ave this week, in the area of high-end 5th Ave shopping and holding a camera, could you take a few pictures and send them to me at the highest resolution possible. Seriously, I only need like 3 or 4 shots.

You will find yourself published in China and definitely with a photo credit. And I promise to buy you like 10 drinks when I see you in New York (100 drinks if I see you in Beijing).

Please help if you can!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!)

Variety Amateur Hour

Like I was tellin' Ricky Saturday,

Salons: people with bad haircuts giving people bad haircuts.

Also, has any guy ever gotten a good haircut? I don't think that has ever happened.

How much would you have to pay an NFL official to celebrate along with that team that just scored the touchdown?

Beyonce is the hottest woman ever and the Single Ladies video is conclusive evidence.

I think I tried sometime last year to get people all worked up about Fishers. Consider this the Fisher revival.
Facts about Fishers

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
Genus: Martes
Species: Martes pennanti
Makes noises like: the squeal of a baby placed naked on its back on a cold rock with a pipin' hot BBQ skewer shoved in its foot.
Its teeth are so sharp that: it can enter your house by chewing through your foundation.

Milwaukee is a segregated city. The anecdotes and statistics in this article are difficult to stomach, but I suppose it would be naiive of me to be surprised. Neighborhoods there are homogeneous. I experienced an instance of this when I went to an art show on the South side in a Latino area. We saw some interactive video installations done by UW-Milwaukee art students, and there were some inspired projects. The art department has some nice display areas. This one was the lobby of an apartment building with white plaster and pale limestone walls. Anyway, we left the show and wandered the neighborhood in search of a tavern. We stopped to spend a few minutes basking in stony-white, twice reflected light - once off of the moon, which was full, and then off an old limestone church. Unadulterated light. Don't-make-them-like-that-anymore churches abound in Milwaukee. A tavern's red neon lights were barely visible two blocks down a sidestreet. It looked like a brothel. And we expected to be the only three white dudes there. Turns out we were the only three white dudes there, but there wasn't a hostile crowd giving us the eye: there wasn't a crowd. There were three 45-50 year old women and an older male bartender, who was Colombian. He nursed from an enormous mug aggressively. On two non-plasma roundscreen TVs, numerous scantily clad Latina vixens gyrated. There was a small wood floor for dancing, and two of the women would dance drunkenly while the other sat at the bar and smoked. After a few minutes, the sitter would tap in and a dancer would take a break. There was a disco ball and several sets of primary colored lights adorned the corners of the ceiling. We talked with the bartender, who was hard of hearing (initially we thought he didn't speak English). Apparently he just opened the bar two weeks ago and only keeps it open on Fridays from like 5-11 pm. Hell yeah, just give 'em what they need: them's the glory hours of any week! The bottom line is, this bar is fucking tight and I wish I lived in Milwaukee so I could go there every single Friday. A Miller Lite bottle was $3 though. Kind of weak.

This has been a heartbreaking season for the Green Bay Packers.

I really like this video. I saw it on Sasha Frere-Jones' website. I think this band reminds me of a hybrid Kings of Leon (when they were good) and The Libertines.

EDIT: Whoa I didn't realize this band was a little bit older than I thought. Formed in 1999, albums in '03, '05, '06, '07.

2ND EDIT: I still stand by A.R.E. Weapons - "Fuck What You Like," but either I don't get the irony or their song about Times Square is terrible.

Also, French Horn Rebellion are tight! You gotta watch their videos - the songs themselves don't do the guys justice. They're from Milwaukee but apparently they live in Brooklyn a.k.a. the center of the entire fucking Universe.

WHERE DOES EGGNOG COME FROM?

Little miss Thu Tran is my new favorite person. Ever. Creator of the blog Food Party, cuisine imagineer, and prop designer for Girl Talk's last tour, here is her Holiday Special Episode. Excuse me while I go make myself some gingerbread **bling**.



(STILL HUNGRY!? learn how to make "snow balls" with jack frost [who pisses me off and that's why i don't feel like including him] and learn Thu's secret holiday ingredient in part 2 of this webisode)

whats better than one ninja? two ninjas. whats better than two ninjas? three ninjas. whats better than three ninjas? NOTHING

list of things noted while watching 3 ninjas tonight (its on youtube in full glory!)

- one of the basic traits of a master ninja is the ability to disappear in mid-conversation when the person you're speaking with turns his head or loses focus for just one fwiggin moment just one tiny fwiggin moment. they turn back and you are gone

- also, learn to use your environment, i.e. find funny stuff around you to bash your opponents with or about. examples: flower pots, a grand piano, a telephone.

- knives, blades, shurikens, nunchuks, etc. are all ok, but if you even pick up a gun you are so banned from being a ninja. gunkata doesnt count. that being said, evil ninjas carrying ak-47s looks cool as all hells

- this movie has managed to combine backwards caps, vinyl scratching sounds, and ninjas. if only it had dinosaurs


- colt (the moody middle brother) spray paints his mask white to hide in one scene. wtf kid? your grandfather painted that thing as part of your naming ceremony and you just turn it into a crappy mime mask? no wonder no one remembers you

- it seems as all traces of the asian genes have been lost in two generations. besides ninja skills, obv. maybe they wont ever hit puberty?

- i am now spending much time photoshopping something awesome that will be posted above re: backwards hat, vinyl, ninjas, etc. of course this doesn't make sense now because you've already seen it so i assume it came out awesome (also, i managed to get anime porn searching for 'cartoon mountain' on the 3rd page)

- jon turteltaub, the director of 3 ninjas, also directed cool runnings. game over.

Dark Knight

I am curled up in a fuzzy blanket on the couch. I face my HDTV mounted on the wall above my recessed fireplace with the last large log only glowing. I realize that this movie is a ratcheted up version of children's movies that adults can enjoy in parallel. The action is primal; the plot twists are signified. Then one may peel subtleties as one's fingers operate on a block of mica. The sound arrangement leverages silence tremendously. The Joker's games are merciless, intricate. A study of inmates and civilians bidden to choose self-mercy at the expense of the other provokes contemplation. What mercy could be granted? The result is faith. This action movie provoked thought.* Forgive me, I may be too excited, for I'll meditate on anything these days.

The frosting on top was my familiarity with the Loop: downtown Chicago, where the movie was filmed. Spoiler alert: I caught a few minutes of the filming of the scene in which Police Commissioner James Gordon is shot. Rows upon rows of Gotham policemen and policewomen. Actual GPD squad cars. I used the ATM inside the glass US Bank doors that flashed briefly.

Brag, brag. Hopefully I don't get coal in my stocking. Wait, hopefully I don't get OIL. I would rather bet that the guy with the marker from UPS ads wins People's "Sexiest Man Alive" than bet on OIL. LOIL!

*For inflection, see baby from E-TRADE ad say, "You just saw me buy stock."

The New Puppy Cam

When I was 4, I got a box of Trix cereal for Christmas. It was basically the best present ever - a perfect technicolor consumable accessory to the 90's holiday television specials on my family's busted television. After too many tiny little fist fulls of the sugar enriched crud, rainbow crumbs speckled my face and the empty box lay on the floor. It was then that I knew pure joy.

I can never go back to that. Never.

The closest I can get is perhaps betamaxmas.com ... and a box of honey nut cheerios.
Channels of snowy-screen holiday reruns to flip through (they have commercials too!), and adjustable rabbit ears make me feel a little less dead inside this time of year.

A Morning Story

So today I was rocking out on my headphones (bundled and bustling towards the Broadway 4/5/6 as I opted for a longer walk versus a longer train ride) when a car stopped on the corner of the street I was crossing. A dude jumped out, and I noticed that a big coffee was left sitting on the top of the car. As I've been the douche who's left shit on top of vehicles many a time, I urgently pulled out an ear bud and scampered over to the car in an attempt to save this guy public humiliation, a few bucks (the coffee was a grande starbucks, that's what like $10 right?), and a trip to the car wash. But when I grabbed the cup, I realized that it was actually attached to the car. The driver handed me a $5 starbucks gift card, wished me Happy Holidays, and the guy who had previously jumped out, got back in (to what I then noticed was a zipcar...oh i just noticed i got $75 to zip car too. jeepers).

Basically it was a really warm-hearted marketing ploy that has made it even clearer to myself and the word around me that I might never be a 'real' New Yorker. Psh THX ALOT ZIPCAR.

Turn that mother out

http://www.manbabies.com/

Thanks to The Big Rig for the tip. You out there dude?

December 6, 2008: Best SNL Ever

I added Kristen Wiig to my interests on thefacebook.com.  Will we ever see Ricky on SNL?  WRITER?

I'm trying hard as hell to learn Needle in the Hay by Elliott Smith.  It's too bad that song has such suicidal connotations because it's really beautiful.  I really love that song.  I am curious whether anyone recorded the Look, Orion! cover of it.  Look, Orion!  Look,OrionLook,OrionLook,Orion.  Look, Orion!

Christmas is coming up.  Who's delivering my McDonald's Dollar Menu (the entire thing) by 8 a.m.?  Ketchup packets and salt shaker, please.  Coke for the soda.  Coke is the best soda in the world, and anyone who argues otherwise clearly has poor taste.  Are you crazy?  Pepsi?  Its taste is thin and dishonest.  Coca-Cola is a company I can believe in because it has invented the best flavor since BBQ which was naturally occurring.  Neanderthals had BBQ, and it was better than today's BBQ.  Any hipsterthal could tell you that.  But seriously, folk stars, your genre is going the way of ska.  Mix it up a little bit.

Did they only have Keenan and Kel dude play Plaxico Buress because he's the only black dude on the cast?  Is the guy who plays Barack Obama black?  It's difficult to tell.

Seth Meyers fucking sucks.