I want to hang Paul McCartney.
In my defence, this is not a recent development. I've wanted to hang that twit since I first heard "Hey Jude" and "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" back to back. But his latest album, Memory Almost Full just takes the di'kutla cake.
The only reason I have any measure of familiarity with any of his post-Beatles work aside from the Christmas song he did, Live and Let Die, and Band on the Run is because I work at a bookshop. We have a very large CD collection as well though, and we have a muzak system. We used to be able to select our music based on whether it was something we liked and thought other people would like as well. Lately, we got a new manager who believes we should only play between four to six tracks from a selected twelve albums.
This would be okay to me if it was shuffled. I've made mix tapes with less diversity than our current playlist. However, all selections are played in 4-6 song blocks, which repeat in the same order. Which brings me to Sir Paul. Macca's latest album is one of the twelve current discs in the cycle. He's got a few decent songs on the record, but not the track our Macca Block starts with. This track is titled "Nod Your Head".
An iTunes search reveals "Nod Your Head" is also the title of songs by Will Smith, Ava Johnson, 617, Spun, the Kongregashun, and Neph-U feat. Dem Hoodstars. I would not listen to ANY of them. Macca's is no different. Contrary to my desire to avoid the hell out of this song, I will include lyrics to illustrate my point.
If you really love me baby
Better than staying in bed
If you really love me baby
Nod your head
...
Nod it up
Nod it down
Side to side
Round and round
What the hell happened?!
I'm not saying Macca knows how to write good lyrics. I never would say that, for want of never being called a stupid fucking liar. All you have to do is listen to "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" and you'll know "Nod Your Head" is kind of a step up. But I honestly think it's a direct result of giving up drugs. That or it's a leftover of all the drugs. I'm betting the latter, honestly, because "Yesterday" was good. "Ob-la-di" was when we knew it was all going to end in tears. But "Nod Your Head" is simply inexcusable. Its only saving grace is that it's two minutes long. But that doesn't help, because next in the queue is "House of Wax", which is all manner of cliché.
Just retire, old man. Even Pete Townsend doesn't make new music anymore. He knows he's past making anything good, and he never made anything particularly great in the first place. Just effing retire.
22 June 2007
06 May 2007
Spider-Man 3, or how I learned to stop making Dr Strangelove jokes because they really aren't funny anymore
Last night, Elizabeth and I, along with several friends and half the city of Evansville, went to see Spider-man 3 in Imax. I enjoyed it overall; I would in fact say it was a good flick. But that's not what this review is about, is it? This is the review where I nitpick the stuff that caused me pain or just generally pissed me off.
The first problem was Peter Parker is not supposed to be such an annoying goody-two-shoes. Well, he is, but he shouldn't be the kind of goody-two-shoes that goody-two-shoeses want to beat the crap out of and steal his lunch money. When nerds want to reenact their own life story, starring themselves as the bully and the superhero as them, it's a step too far. I also never really remembered Parker being an attention whore. He seemed to thrive on the Spider-man attention, and it seemed either forced or out of character, or both.
Kirsten Dunst "can't fucking sing", to borrow a quote from KT Tunstall, who can. The song Drunkst does in the first scene is badly lip-synced to the point that I absolutely could not WAIT for it to be over. After the plot dragged a bit, we meet Topher Grace's character, Eddie Brock ... Jnr. Grace was AMAZING as a bad guy in the last act of the film, and awesome as a not-really-bad-guy-but-kind-of-a-douchebag in the rest. The black goop plotline took like INFINITY to develop. As I typed that last sentence I really couldn't remember what the hell took up so much of the time in the movie while the black goop thing wasn't happening, but now I remember. SAND GUY.
Yes, I called him Sand Guy, because I refuse to call him Sandman out of respect for the infinitely superior Neil Gaiman character. Sand Guy AKA Flint Marko is played by the guy from Wings who played the retarded mechanic. At this point of the story, he escapes the police by getting over the fence at a testing facility for a particle accelerator (which proves the writers sure didn't do ANY scientific research beyond "What sounds cooler than 'experimental nuclear reactor'?"
Basing my argument solely on the information in the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (I admit, I read that awful thing, but this makes a point), a particle accelerator would not only have to be something like 26 miles in diameter, but would potentially create matter as well as antimatter, which would then collide with each other and destroy everything made of matter in the area. Marko, instead of antimattering into oblivion, is hit by a grain of sand, which goes through his skin, stripping down to its silicon base, and bonds with his body somehow. He is torn the hell apart, as we'd expect, but then a three minute scene has him gathering his sand!body together and walking out of there. Irradiated sand still sounds better, dammit.
Eventually, the movie gets bloody moving along already, and Parker/Spidey is taken over by the black goop, which creates Black Suited Spider-man. Black Suited Spidey is quite naturally less of a pansy, and confronts Sand Guy, whom he finds out is responsible for Uncle Ben's death. This throws off the entire story, apparently, because every time over the past forty years that Spidey has wavered, he thinks back to when he let the guy go, and the guy goes on to kill Uncle Ben. It kind of makes sense, I guess, but I don't care. It worked for this particular movie. After a very cool subway fight (and I mean making use of the WHOLE subway, not just one car like most other films have to) Spidey returns to the surface and rearranges his hair in that god damn Connor Oberst style. There were groans.
He hides away the black suit and has his physics professor study the goop. Meanwhile, Harry remembers all the stuff he's forgotten (which consists basically of the first two movies and reel one of the third) and takes vengeance on Parker. All I can really say is he's GOOOOOOOOOD. He's the best villain I've seen since the first movie. He'd give Darth Sidious a run for his money. Naturally, this drives Parker into a vengeful rage and they beat the crap out of each other in the Osborn Family Study. Peter goes next onto a nice run of douchebaggery that, if it weren't for the painfully craptacular dancing in the street, pelvic thrusting, and gyrating, would've been a refreshing change from Pussy MacWhineyface from earlier in the film. But no, he had to walk down the street like he's John Fucking Travolta. I'm honestly surprised they didn't use the Bee Gees for it. Nonetheless, there were groans.
The "Fancy New Peter Parker" street sequence finishes with the stereotypical "main character walks into a shop and comes out wearing his new threads to reflect him getting his groove (back)" scene. Followed by more dancing. Followed by me shouting "DONE."
Not much else can be said without significant spoilage. Oh, there were cringeworthy scenes, few of which involved EmJay anymore, because her part in the movie by this point was of course the Damsel In Distress. But we get to see Sand Guy, Venom, New Goblin, and Spidey some more. We even get to see Spidey running past a strategically placed American flag.
There were groans.
The first problem was Peter Parker is not supposed to be such an annoying goody-two-shoes. Well, he is, but he shouldn't be the kind of goody-two-shoes that goody-two-shoeses want to beat the crap out of and steal his lunch money. When nerds want to reenact their own life story, starring themselves as the bully and the superhero as them, it's a step too far. I also never really remembered Parker being an attention whore. He seemed to thrive on the Spider-man attention, and it seemed either forced or out of character, or both.
Kirsten Dunst "can't fucking sing", to borrow a quote from KT Tunstall, who can. The song Drunkst does in the first scene is badly lip-synced to the point that I absolutely could not WAIT for it to be over. After the plot dragged a bit, we meet Topher Grace's character, Eddie Brock ... Jnr. Grace was AMAZING as a bad guy in the last act of the film, and awesome as a not-really-bad-guy-but-kind-of-a-douchebag in the rest. The black goop plotline took like INFINITY to develop. As I typed that last sentence I really couldn't remember what the hell took up so much of the time in the movie while the black goop thing wasn't happening, but now I remember. SAND GUY.
Yes, I called him Sand Guy, because I refuse to call him Sandman out of respect for the infinitely superior Neil Gaiman character. Sand Guy AKA Flint Marko is played by the guy from Wings who played the retarded mechanic. At this point of the story, he escapes the police by getting over the fence at a testing facility for a particle accelerator (which proves the writers sure didn't do ANY scientific research beyond "What sounds cooler than 'experimental nuclear reactor'?"
Basing my argument solely on the information in the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (I admit, I read that awful thing, but this makes a point), a particle accelerator would not only have to be something like 26 miles in diameter, but would potentially create matter as well as antimatter, which would then collide with each other and destroy everything made of matter in the area. Marko, instead of antimattering into oblivion, is hit by a grain of sand, which goes through his skin, stripping down to its silicon base, and bonds with his body somehow. He is torn the hell apart, as we'd expect, but then a three minute scene has him gathering his sand!body together and walking out of there. Irradiated sand still sounds better, dammit.
Eventually, the movie gets bloody moving along already, and Parker/Spidey is taken over by the black goop, which creates Black Suited Spider-man. Black Suited Spidey is quite naturally less of a pansy, and confronts Sand Guy, whom he finds out is responsible for Uncle Ben's death. This throws off the entire story, apparently, because every time over the past forty years that Spidey has wavered, he thinks back to when he let the guy go, and the guy goes on to kill Uncle Ben. It kind of makes sense, I guess, but I don't care. It worked for this particular movie. After a very cool subway fight (and I mean making use of the WHOLE subway, not just one car like most other films have to) Spidey returns to the surface and rearranges his hair in that god damn Connor Oberst style. There were groans.
He hides away the black suit and has his physics professor study the goop. Meanwhile, Harry remembers all the stuff he's forgotten (which consists basically of the first two movies and reel one of the third) and takes vengeance on Parker. All I can really say is he's GOOOOOOOOOD. He's the best villain I've seen since the first movie. He'd give Darth Sidious a run for his money. Naturally, this drives Parker into a vengeful rage and they beat the crap out of each other in the Osborn Family Study. Peter goes next onto a nice run of douchebaggery that, if it weren't for the painfully craptacular dancing in the street, pelvic thrusting, and gyrating, would've been a refreshing change from Pussy MacWhineyface from earlier in the film. But no, he had to walk down the street like he's John Fucking Travolta. I'm honestly surprised they didn't use the Bee Gees for it. Nonetheless, there were groans.
The "Fancy New Peter Parker" street sequence finishes with the stereotypical "main character walks into a shop and comes out wearing his new threads to reflect him getting his groove (back)" scene. Followed by more dancing. Followed by me shouting "DONE."
Not much else can be said without significant spoilage. Oh, there were cringeworthy scenes, few of which involved EmJay anymore, because her part in the movie by this point was of course the Damsel In Distress. But we get to see Sand Guy, Venom, New Goblin, and Spidey some more. We even get to see Spidey running past a strategically placed American flag.
There were groans.
12 April 2007
Privacy in bookshops is completely imaginary
I have no idea why people try to talk to me in public.
This isn't a frequent occurance, but sometimes I'll be sitting (usually in Borders or Starbucks) at my computer internetting and some dude will come up to me and tap me on the shoulder. At first, naturally, I'll think it's someone I know. This would be welcome, because many people I know come to Borders and I know few people who don't go to Starbucks. Nope! It's some dude. Just some random person I've never met and will probably never meet again. They will ask me things like 'Where'd you get that computer!?' or 'Where'd you get that jacket!?' or 'What are you listening to?!' (thankfully, the latter has never happened, but I'd not put it as 'unlikely as hell').
Honestly, I don't have a huge problem with this when it's prefaced by 'Excuse me' or 'sorry to bother you' or 'can I ask you a question?' or a combination of the three. However, this is rarely the case. It's usually 'Where'd you get that', lunging right into their bloody topic that I don't want to talk to them about. Then they proceed to talk to me even after I've answered their question (I tend to answer them in a fairly standoffish fashion to see if they'll go away; they don't.) usually for a minute or more. Yes, I know, a minute is not what one would call a long period of time, but damn it if I value my minutes, and especially ones in which I want to have my privacy.
Just because I'm in a public place doesn't mean I should have to sacrifice my personal space and listen to people talk about stuff I don't care about. I know for a fact that if I wanted to piss off random people, solely for the purpose of spreading irritability throughout the city for a day, I would randomly talk to people who are sitting in public places, minding their own business. I would walk up to families and say something random, like 'how about that weather' or something equally irrelevant that families eating dinner together wouldn't want to be interrupted for. I'd make it clear that I'm in possession of all my mental faculties and proceed with annoying the hell out of them.
On a tangent, why is it that when people see someone wearing a name tag and wireless with attached earpiece (the kind that only employees of stores wear in their workplace) they go up to them (not the problem) and say (this next part is the problem) "Do you work here?" Quite frankly, no I don't, I just enjoy wearing the name tag which I shouldn't have been able to get without first at least breaking in to the back room where they keep spares of such things.
This isn't something specifically related to my current workplace. This happened when I used to work at National Electronics Superstore. We were provided (and by provided I mean we had to pay for them out of pocket) blue polo shirts for the uniform. They had the name and website of our employer monogrammed on them, of course. Nevertheless, with that fairly obviously on the shirts, the shirts fairly obviously on the employees, and the bright yellow nametags also fairly obviously attached to the shirts, we would frequently be asked if we worked there. I just don't get it. It's not even the problem of people not reading, because the colours, I would think, should take care of it all. I know that when I see someone in there wearing the company colours, I sure as hell think "He works here; he can either help me or help me find someone who can".
This isn't a frequent occurance, but sometimes I'll be sitting (usually in Borders or Starbucks) at my computer internetting and some dude will come up to me and tap me on the shoulder. At first, naturally, I'll think it's someone I know. This would be welcome, because many people I know come to Borders and I know few people who don't go to Starbucks. Nope! It's some dude. Just some random person I've never met and will probably never meet again. They will ask me things like 'Where'd you get that computer!?' or 'Where'd you get that jacket!?' or 'What are you listening to?!' (thankfully, the latter has never happened, but I'd not put it as 'unlikely as hell').
Honestly, I don't have a huge problem with this when it's prefaced by 'Excuse me' or 'sorry to bother you' or 'can I ask you a question?' or a combination of the three. However, this is rarely the case. It's usually 'Where'd you get that', lunging right into their bloody topic that I don't want to talk to them about. Then they proceed to talk to me even after I've answered their question (I tend to answer them in a fairly standoffish fashion to see if they'll go away; they don't.) usually for a minute or more. Yes, I know, a minute is not what one would call a long period of time, but damn it if I value my minutes, and especially ones in which I want to have my privacy.
Just because I'm in a public place doesn't mean I should have to sacrifice my personal space and listen to people talk about stuff I don't care about. I know for a fact that if I wanted to piss off random people, solely for the purpose of spreading irritability throughout the city for a day, I would randomly talk to people who are sitting in public places, minding their own business. I would walk up to families and say something random, like 'how about that weather' or something equally irrelevant that families eating dinner together wouldn't want to be interrupted for. I'd make it clear that I'm in possession of all my mental faculties and proceed with annoying the hell out of them.
On a tangent, why is it that when people see someone wearing a name tag and wireless with attached earpiece (the kind that only employees of stores wear in their workplace) they go up to them (not the problem) and say (this next part is the problem) "Do you work here?" Quite frankly, no I don't, I just enjoy wearing the name tag which I shouldn't have been able to get without first at least breaking in to the back room where they keep spares of such things.
This isn't something specifically related to my current workplace. This happened when I used to work at National Electronics Superstore. We were provided (and by provided I mean we had to pay for them out of pocket) blue polo shirts for the uniform. They had the name and website of our employer monogrammed on them, of course. Nevertheless, with that fairly obviously on the shirts, the shirts fairly obviously on the employees, and the bright yellow nametags also fairly obviously attached to the shirts, we would frequently be asked if we worked there. I just don't get it. It's not even the problem of people not reading, because the colours, I would think, should take care of it all. I know that when I see someone in there wearing the company colours, I sure as hell think "He works here; he can either help me or help me find someone who can".
09 April 2007
omg u r0xx0r
Muchos thanks to Devi/Ravenclawdevi/Katya/etc for setting up the feed for me because I'm either clueless on that level or don't have the ability or something :p
If it's a paid LJ thing, lemme know, I'll figure something out :p
Anyway, this is more a test than anything.
If it's a paid LJ thing, lemme know, I'll figure something out :p
Anyway, this is more a test than anything.
No, I would not like to type in hindi please stop asking argh
I am going to be using this blog more often. I will still be using my livejournal, but I'll be Xposting as often as I can. I'm keeping LJ mainly because so many of my friends and interesting folk use it, so yeah. However, if you want to read new stuff sooner, this is where to find it.
If all else fails, I'll try to Xpost a link, or possibly connect a feed as soon as I figure out how to connect a feed.
If all else fails, I'll try to Xpost a link, or possibly connect a feed as soon as I figure out how to connect a feed.
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