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Airplane shuffle!

Few things are as enjoyable as a long plane ride with an iPod on Shuffle mode. [1] Here's some of what I heard during my flight yesterday.

The Go-Betweens, "Clouds" (from 16 Lovers Lane)

This is the version from 16 Lovers Lane, but last weekend I bought the new Go-Betweens live DVD/CD, That Striped Sunlight Sound, and I actually watched the DVD. I don't generally watch concert performances, because I don't find them all that interesting to watch from home. But this show is just so amazing, & warm, & fun, that I watched it, and loved it.

The Fiery Furnaces, "Black-hearted Boy" (from Bitter Tea)

Now that almost all of Bitter Tea has leaked, I'm just even more excited than ever about the new album. This is a fairly typical song from what I've heard of the album—quite poppy, but still with some crazy keyboard action. And backwards-singing.

Guns 'n' Roses, "Mr. Brownstone" (from Appetite for Destruction)

Listening to this all I can think of is just how much the Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists sounds like Guns 'n' Roses. It's really quite amazing: it's the exact same guitar sound, which I suppose is exactly what the Manics were going for.

Busted, "Thunderbirds" (from Thunderbirds / 3AM)

I can't easily explain why I like Busted. Under many other circumstances, I just really can't stand their brand of aggressively sterile post-punk. But this song is just so fun!

Kelley Stoltz, "Ever Thought of Coming Back" (from Below the Branches)

I love this song. Love love love it, & in all of its Beach Boys-sounding self. [2]

Clay Aiken, "Solitaire" (from The Way / Solitaire)

Oh dear, oh dear. I've written about this before, I'm quite ashamed to say. And I still love it. [3]

Celebration, "Diamonds" (from Celebration)

Celebration sounds like a scary carnival ride, with howling, and wild animals, and creepy keyboard-playing carnies, and drunks lurching towards you out of shadows.

But in a good way!

Dusty Springfield, "Breakfast in Bed" (from Dusty in Memphis)

I think this may be one of my favorite songs of all time. "She's hurt you again, I can tell—oh, I know that look so well."—you can almost hear a sly grin on Dusty's face.

[1] Not to mention that plane flights just make me so productive—in part, it's the fact that I have my computer, but I don't have a network connection, so I can actually get things done without getting swamped and/or overwhelmed with incoming email.

[2] And, since I now appreciate Pet Sounds, I'm equipped to make that judgment.

[3] BTW, I am just so fucking sad that Bobby Bennett was voted out this week! His "Copacabana" made me so happy. He was just so awesome.

I want my giant furry coat!

So I was watching XXX: State of the Union tonight, and Mena came downstairs:

Ben: I think they killed Gibbons!
Mena: Oh, really?
Ben: Yeah, and they killed Xander Cage, too!
Mena: ...
Ben: And do you know where? In Bora Bora! It's so sad! He was just on vacation, & so happy!
Mena: ...
Ben: I'm really, really sad about this.
Mena: I'm sensing a post.

I was somewhat disappointed with XXX: State of the Union. I really do love Ice Cube, & there are a fair number of clever references both to the first movie & to other movies, but really: there's no replacing Vin Diesel, is there?

That giant fur coat, that lovable irreverence, that snowboarding down the avalanche scene, &c. So good!

"The geek at your feet says you're neat..."

I can actually write (marginally) technical posts, too!

• Six Apart's first (no, second, or perhaps third) child grows up! I'm thrilled about the idea of people taking a look at TrackBack, improving it, standardizing it, and the like. Ping!


• Plagger (by Tatsuhiko & others) is a fantastic idea. Having developed a bunch of miniature feed-related apps, what I love most about this is that it's essentially the perlbal/qpsmtpd of RSS/Atom feed frameworks.


• Okay, one non-technical link: OMG Girls Aloud reality series! (via)

"Play it over & over again..."

An unexpected but so wonderfully happy thing that I chanced upon today: Green Gartside is back! He's playing his first shows in more than 25 years, as Double G and the Traitorous 3.

& the best part: he's recorded a new album, which will be released April 2006 in the UK!

Listen to "Boom Boom Bap", one of the new songs. As with Anomie & Bonhomie, I was at first apprehensive—but just as I love that album, I'm already loving "Boom Boom Bap". April can't arrive soon enough! [1]

[1] Being as how it also brings the new Fiery Furnaces album & the US release of the Ark album.

Amazon knows me so well!

See:

Buy some Jonathan Product at the Sephora Store on Amazon.

It's a motherfucking drinking game! [1]

So, per my last post: Having found a sufficiently interesting drinking game, Mena, Krissy, & I decided to have a wild night of watching Project Runway & drinking Pomegranate cosmos.

Fearing that the drinking game as written might leave all of us a bit too drunk for a work night, Mena thought of a nice twist: after eliminating all of the no-longer-relevant prompts, we printed out the remaining ones in enlarged type, cut them up, and put them into a bag (a Jay McCarroll bag, no less!), then selected one by one our individual prompts, thus dividing up about 40 prompts between the three of us.

Some prompts, of course—e.g., Tim says, "Make it work"—are better than others. We each ended up with about 12, half of which turned out to be relevant in this week's episode.

Mena's ready!

Having selected the prompts, we headed to the television with a pitcher (yes, a pitcher!) of pomegranate cosmos & three glasses [2].

About 20 minutes later, the pizza arrived!

Some notes on the game:

• A good prompt that we didn't have, and which you should include in your PR drinking game, if & when you decide to play it: Tim says, "Gather round, everyone."


• It's surprising how mentally exhausting it is to play a drinking game! We were fiercely concentrating for the entire episode, watching out for both our own & one another's prompts. It was a real team effort.


• One of the prompts I had was A designer's sketch is shown. This turned out to be surprisingly popular, because there's a segment of the show where they basically show every fucking designer's sketch, like four times each! That was a fun part of the show, for me.


• Another popular one: Tim looks concerned. When doesn't Tim look concerned?


• As a bonus, we saw a commercial for the new season of Blow Out. I'm so excited!

Drinking games are so fun!

[1] See this. Thanks to Mena & Krissy for the title!

[2] Mena decided that tumblers would be better than martini glasses, since the latter tend to be fairly easily spillable, & really not right for a drinking game.

"Absolve, absolve, absolve..."

This post is for Mena & Krissy. [1]

I fear I've been remiss—& now quite publicly scolded—in my lack of Project Runway blogging. There is a notion, it seems—quite unjustified, but I suppose not entirely unfounded—that I'm keeping many wonderful links and/or posts to myself, rather than sharing them around. Specifically, w/ the above.

& here, I do so make my penance.

• Krissy made a request for a Tim Gunn drinking game [2]. I don't have a great drinking game of my own to offer, but I do have this link to a PR drinking game, which is, at least, a start. The biggest problem w/ this game, frankly, is that it offers so many drinking opportunities that anyone would end up with alcohol poisoning by the end of an episode. A more finely-tuned game is definitely needed.


• The Project Runway LJ community is incredibly vibrant—10-15 posts per day, hundreds of comments, &c.


• The greatest userpic in all of history, capturing one of the best quotes of the season: "It's a motherfucking walk-off!"


• And, finally, for anyone wishing to buy some PR gear, check out this CafePress store for Project Runway shirts, &c.. "Obey Tim Gunn!"

[1] & also, all of the others at the office who watch Project Runway, a total which is just somewhat incredible to me. It seems that any conversation in the last couple of days will eventually turn round to "OMG Nick, no really!" or "Andrae & Tim at Red Lobster, oh noes!" It's quite fun.

[2] &, btw, is now the top Google result for "tim gunn drinking game".

Zombie Head!

While watching Survivor tonight, & seeing that the reward for the first challenge was the ever-familiar spear & fishing gear, I thought of what would make a great reward for a reward challenge:

A gun!

So many interesting things could happen!

Sometimes, I'm rather pathetic.

On Sunday I was watching the Super Bowl, and I was making myself another margarita—you know, to celebrate the Big Game, &c.—& in order to do that I had to open a new bottle of tequila. So I did, and after a lot of tugging, I pulled out the giant cork-like thing from the bottle.

In the process of which, I spilled tequila all over the v-neck undershirt I was wearing, which Mena thought was quite trashy.

That's all.