PURVEYOR OF FINE WORDS

September 16 2002

RIAA paranoia

Epic Records turns to glue to defeat pirating. Journalists are getting pre-release CDs for review that are glued shut inside a discman — further evidence that record execs have no contact with reality. Geffen Records is now rumored to begin using hired goons to personally deliver pre-release CDs to journalists to ensure that, 1) the CD is not pirated, and, 2) the album is given a favorable review, or else you beady-eyed Atari shirt-wearin’ punk is gonna be eatin’ filet mignon through a straw for the rest of yo punk-ass life.

One lonely comment

September 15 2002

Operator?

Bush Jr, getting advice from Bush Sr. (via Gary Turner)

One lonely comment

September 14 2002

Over the hill

It’s only been a measly two years since college and I’m already losing touch with the hip generation, unknowingly descending into the ranks of new-fashion naysayers who regularly lament the demise of fashion sense by contributing to the chorus of, “what the hell are they wearing?” I wasn’t always on the bleeding (sometimes literally) edge of fashion but I certainly was aware of what was in and what wasn’t — not like today, where I found out about new trends in the back pages of Newsweek (you know, the same pages where they talk about things like new organic foods you can buy that help lower your cholesterol.) I suppose that admitting to reading Newsweek precludes me from even trying to say that I’m any sort of fashionata, but that’s not even half of it. The clincher was while I was recently standing in line at American Eagle and realized just how un-hip I was compared to the other 18-to-22-year-olds-with-unprecented-purchasing-power. Such is the reality for those of us who have fallen from the golden demographic and don’t work at Gap.

What really shocks me about these new hipsters, though, is the emerging phenomenon of teenage boys and their obsession with fashion.

It is not unusual these days to see teenage boys roaming the malls in packs, just as girls do, chattering animatedly among themselves and spending their weekly allowances, along with their own meager earnings, on jeans, designer sunglasses, roomy logo T-shirts and loose-fitting khaki-tone cargo shorts, sneakers and square-toed leather shoes.

On second thought, maybe it’s not so bad that I’m out of the hip generation, because shopping with a pack of guys is so uncool. Besides, I can’t stand shopping anyway.

Do you feel lucky?

September 14 2002

High times indeed

City officials to hand out marijuana. Santa Cruz city leaders plan to take part in a public pot giveaway next week to protest a recent federal raid of a medicinal marijuana cooperative that served mostly terminally ill members. In an unprecented showing of solidarity from the stoner capital of the West, these rebellious stoners are busting their image of inanimate sloth-ness and proving to the world that they won’t be pushed around by the government when it comes to one thing: access to more precious, precious pot.

Do you feel lucky?

September 12 2002

Best. Trailer. Ever.

For those of you like me who rely heavily on sarcasm to get through the day, watch the trailer for Comedian (Jerry Seinfeld’s upcoming movie) because I fell over laughing. Its simplistic genius of taking the cliched voice-over and exposing it as some guy who can only begin sentences with phrases like, “In a land before time…”, is what makes watching movies worthwhile. With other movies like feardotcom and swim fan out in theaters, I can only imagine the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel material that Hollywood will scrape together and make us endure.

Do you feel lucky?

September 12 2002

Pretty damn big XP hole

Windows XP users: A one-line URL that can delete your entire hard drive — read the info and quick fix.

Do you feel lucky?

September 12 2002

Hard Candy

Hard Candy, the Counting Crows’ latest album serves up some much needed refreshment among the recent morass of poppy pop and American Idol rehash. The band’s fifth album delivers a solid performance from Duritz, who has definitely backed off his overly self-reflective tones from August and Everything After, and produced a sound that is unmistakably all-American rock. It’s so good, in fact, that even their hidden track — a remake of Janet Jackson’s Got Till It’s Gone — is worthy of repeated listening.

Do you feel lucky?

September 12 2002

It wasn’t me!

Florida still unable to do anything right. In its first chance to redeem itself after the 2000 Presidential election debacle — that left the rest of the nation with no doubt that Florida should be forced to secede into the ocean — the sunshine state permanently lost credibility as it once again screwed up its elections, despite sinking $32 million into a new election system. Although blame was spread among poor management, broken touchscreens, and torn ballot cards, the real culprit was that Dubya’s niece was driving drunk at 8am on I-95, swerving into Ethel Weinberg who was carefully commuting at 45mph, causing her fuschia 2002 Grand Marquis to sideswipe the very truck that was carrying the 2 people who knew how to work the new high-tech polling machines. Subsequently, they had to corral environmentalists from the nearby manatee perservation park to stand in as polling attendants, causing mass confusion at the poll when a group of septuagenarians mistook the environmentalists for Jehovah’s Witnesses and began shooing them around the room.

Do you feel lucky?

September 11 2002

Already a year

Do you feel lucky?