Stupidfool.org

Turtles all the way down

FakeLocke.com:

Here are the ten things I hated about last night's LOST episode, in no particular order.

And here's mine: What I hated the most about last night's episode was that they replaced a mystery that I found interesting--the backstory for Jacob and the man in black, how they came to be on the island, &c.--with a mystery that I don't care about, i.e. how the Mother Earth character came to be on the island. I'm not of the camp that all questions need to be answered; in fact, I'm perfectly fine being left with some mysteries, but let them be interesting mysteries!

Devil Horns Best Friends

Fluxblog:

6. Let's stop for a moment to reflect on the finale of "Infinity Guitars." You know, the part where it comes back even louder than before, and the BASS OF ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION kicks in? That is so so so so so awesome.

So true. This is my favorite musical thing so far, in 2010!

Sleigh Bells - Treats

From Maura's review of Sleigh Bells' Treats:

One of the things that I bemoaned about "indie" for so long was its overly mannered nature — bands that would garner accolades from critics seemed to me like music made for droning one's life away in a vaguely creative cubicle farm, full of beautiful, correctly executed moments that had zero resonance except to serve as placeholders until the next batch of aesthetes came along. Sleigh Bells feels like it was created as a direct protest against this type of music — the songs that spill out of Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss are vital and fun, maxing speakers' volume in a bone-shaking way that can't help but transfer outward to the rest of one's person.

It's true. This is the funnest album I've heard in so long (it feels like I've been waiting for it forever, though it's only been seven months, for me), and I've been listening to it all day, today.

My favorite moment? The 1:50 mark in "Infinity Guitars"; up til then, the track's sounded just like the demo from last year, but at 1:50 it just explodes in this glorious way, and it's louder than anything I've heard in a long time. I love it.

The album's streaming on NPR's site, and it's available for purchase on iTunes.

Quadron - "Buster Keaton"

via lizzyville.blogs.com

A lovely video for a great song. Quadron is one of my most-played albums this year, easily.

Data is pretty!

Hummingbird from Michael Nutt on Vimeo.

via sippey (hummingbird)

Bass

Paul Rudd may be the most fearless actor of our generation (see also Celery Man, and the full, non-embeddable scene from "I Love You, Man").

January-March mixes for 2010

Eric Harvey of Marathon Packs has posted two mixes for the first 3 months of 2010 (one, and two).

Both are great, but I'm partial to the second (probably because it more closely matches my iTunes for 2010), particularly for this great four-song sequence in the middle:

5. Vampire Weekend, "Giving up the Gun"
6. Yeasayer, "O.N.E."
7. Big Boi, "Shutterbugg"
8. Fat Joe f. Young Jeezy, "Ha Ha (Slow Down)"

I'd never heard "Ha Ha" before. How had I never heard "Ha Ha" before!?

"Now Tayne I can get into!"

Paul Rudd in "Celery Man", from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job. I love this. (via perpetua.tumblr.com)

Ole, ole! It's showtime!

The LA Times writes about the after-hours cleanup work at Disneyland:

The work can often be tedious and occasionally bizarre. At the Enchanted Tiki Room, a 17-minute musical show features 225 robotic birds, plants and singing tikis. Patrick Pendleton, the show's primary mechanic, has seen it more times than he can count.

To make sure the characters work properly, he plays the show repeatedly, watching each closely. "It's hard to catch everything in one show," he said.

This is the sort of thing that seems like it'd be lovely during the day (I'm a fan of the Tiki Room), but kinda nightmarish in the middle of the night.