Archive for 2009

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Best & Worst Of The Best & Worst Of 2009

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 21, 2009 by admin in Best Of 2009, Popular Media

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Do we really care what Tim Gunn’s favorite red carpet looks are? Are aporkalypse and Chimerica really buzzwords?

Santa isn’t the only one who’s makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice this time of year. With the end of the year and the end of the decade with no name upon us, every media operation in the western world is making some kind of “Best Of” or “Worst Of” list. One of the only ones I personally care about is Pitchfork Media’s 50 Best Albums of 2009; it helps me sort through the otherwise overwhelming barrage of amazing indy music that floods the market the past few years. Which highlights the problem with these lists: Ideally a list takes a lot of information and simplifies it to make it useful. But in a desperate attempt to capture web traffic, the lists you’re likely to find do just the opposite. Either you’ll find the same list “re-purposed” hundreds of times across the blogscape with titles like “10 Best Celebrity [Insert One: Meltdown, Rehab Story, Nipple Slip, Oops] of 2009″ or major media companies make lists so long that you need a list to sort out the best items on their list – as in the case of Time Magazine’s Top 10 Everything – or lists so contrived that you wonder who it is that really cares about – out of the hundreds and hundreds – which 10 Red Carpet Looks That Tim Gunn loves most. One list that usually manages to avoid these pitfalls is the incredibly comprehensive and well-categorized Fimoculous end-of-year list. I also personally find lists like the NYT end-of-the-year buzzword list fun, though I’m not so sure that the words “aporkalypse” and “Chimerica” hit the streets hard enough to be called “buzzwords”. So if you have any suggestions for best of and worst of lists, please share them with us. Until then I’ll be digging through the wasteland of lists like 10 Coolest Book Titles That Have ‘F***’ In Them (NSFW) or Nine of the Weirdest Restaurant Names in Existence or a good friend of mine’s personal favorite, The 22 Most Sensational Midgets Ever. Thank God someone finally came up with the short list on that one.

Pitchfork Top 50 Albums of 2009 – With Torrents?

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on December 20, 2009 by admin in Music

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

Pitchfork’s annual list of the 50 best albums of the year is out, and we’ve summarized the list with torrent links, Amazon previews, and free downloads. Enjoy some of the best music you’ve never heard!

Christmas came a little early for me this year; I was just complaining recently that Pitchfork’s annual staff picks of the the 50 best albums of the year wouldn’t be out until almost 2010, and lo and behold, they posted the list last week! If you’re not familiar with Pitchfork’s list, check it out; their staff’s wide-ranging tastes and opinionated reviews will expose you to music you may never have heard of, or would have never thought of listening to if you had. As usual, they spread the list over five pages with no summary, so we’ve done the dirty work and summarized the list for you below. Last year we posted the 2008 list with both torrent and Amazon links, and we’ve done the same this year, but have a suggestion: We know some people torrent so they can preview music before buying, and last year that actually made some sense, because it was hard to track down a retail source for so many indy acts. Things are VERY DIFFERENT this year; bands and small labels are getting MUCH better at marketing and distribution, so EVERY act on the list is available on Amazon, and almost all of them with AUDIO PREVIEWS. Which pretty much negates the need to “borrow” the music via torrents. Several of them also have “Amazon Exclusive” releases, with material you won’t get anywhere else. At least legally. So in the interest of the bands making money, and in the interest of US making money (we get a small percentage if you buy through our links), we encourage you to do all the previewing through the handy Amazon links we’ve provided, rather than the torrents. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »

High Tech Christmas Gifts I Wish I’d Received As A Kid

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on December 19, 2009 by admin in Technology

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

With some random musings on why today’s kids shoot each other, why marshmallows are the new pink, and the fat old bastards who blocked my view at the hobby shop when I was little.


Marshmallow is the new black.

If your dad was anything like my dad, he walked 17 miles to work every day in 6 feet of snow, barefoot, with a headwind both ways, and ate boot broth soup for lunch, so he could make 13 cents a week. He also might look at you funny when you used a calculator to do some multiplication and say “Puh! We didn’t have them things in MY day“, and prove it by asking for some big numbers and then piss you off by easily multiplying pairs of two-digit numbers in his head. My dad could do pairs of three-digit numbers, but would have to stare off into space for a second mouthing and moving his finger in the air. My generation – on the whole – couldn’t do this, but seems to me to be a little more in possession of average intelligence across the board. But when I meet today’s kids, I don’t meet many “average” kids, they all seem to be vidiot savants who can’t spell but can ace you on any video game known to man or fix your wireless network, or Einsteinian freaks who get Montessori training, business and accounting tutoring, and therapy twice a week. I personally think this can all be explained by the toys we had or have. And I have to add that if you ever want to take control of my mind, set me loose in a toy store for about an hour, and after the spontaneous hypnotic age regression that occurs, I will be a pliable drooling zombie drone that will do anything you say. The same thing happens when I browse the doodads on Amazon, which I made the mistake of doing yesterday, and which led to this roundup of high tech toys I wish I had when I was a kid. Read the rest of this entry »

Did You Check The Elf-Help Section?

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 18, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Friday, December 18th, 2009

In spite of the limited career options, a lot of people dream of being an elf. Or maybe obsess would be a better word. Elfing yourself is one thing, but maybe elf ear body mods and elf sex fan fiction is going just a little too far?

I saw the first few minutes of the movie Elf at a friend’s house the other night, and Papa Elf’s outline of the career options for an elf caught my attention, since I had recently referenced the racial oppression that Santa’s elves have to endure. Papa Elf only mentioned Keebler Elves (who of course have to be on guard for marauding squirrels), the shoemaker’s elves, and Santa’s elves. He left out the really freaky aspects of the shoemaker’s elf story, i.e.: two nude elves slave away night after night, making shoes that make the shoemaker and his wife filthy rich before they think to bother to repay the elves by making them ONE outfit of clothes. And he didn’t say anything about the the tragic exploitation of Santa’s elves. You think they enjoy living in the coldest, most isolated place on the planet, working in toy factories year ’round? Hardly. The fact is that they’re being exploited for their OCD-like industriousness and pathological positivism. Tragically, this abuse sometimes leads to insane and criminal behavior. But in spite of the obvious career dead-end that being an elf seems to offer, there are still plenty of people who dream of being one, so we’re here to help. First of all, you’ll need a special elfin name. Thanks to the Elf Name Generator I will have to insist that henceforth you shall refer to me as “Arthanu”, which means “Exalted Male”. Notice how I already started using words like “shall” and “henceforth”? It works! Next, you’ll need to choose a level of commitment. You could do the virtual thing and Elf Yourself, but you’d just be taking part in the terminal stages of a five-year-old Office Max viral infection. One alternative would be My Face LOL, which offers more video choices, and a little less brand-building. If virtual elfing isn’t your thing, you could implement instructables.com’s realistic elf ears in 5 minutes guide, and then just pick up a sleazy elf costume from Amazon. But for some, this simply won’t be enough. You may not realize how deep this obsession can go; there are elf sex fanfiction sites, people who spend all their time subtitling Lord of the Rings clips in Elfish, and really bad Flash games where you dress scantily clad elf chicks. But for the truly commited, the only option is elf ear body mods. And if you’re going to go that far, it might be pretty cool to see if this woman will make you an amazing set of elf wings like these to expand on the getup. As crazy as her expensive and meticulously executed idea seems, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that – like some kind of LOTR nerd – I briefly “fell in Internet love” with her. She’s not only gorgeous, but clearly a hardworking obsessive genius (and since I’m drawn to her, almost certainly married or a lesbian). In any case, see the “making of” video here. Pretty impressive. So in spite of the fact that we’ve wandered away from the realm of the “cute and tiny” variety of elves a bit here, I was left wondering: has anyone done a reindeer antler body mod? This is the closest I could find. A body mod not to be confused with ass antlers. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget Festivus, Global Orgasm Day Is Coming!

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 17, 2009 by admin in Holidays

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Between Festivus and Global Orgasm Day, you can rest assured that the North Pole isn’t the ONLY pole that’s getting some action this time of year.

Christmas is just around the corner (which is why we’ve provided so many offbeat shopping suggestions recently), but let’s not forget that Christians and capitalists aren’t the only people who celebrate a holiday in December. I know, you’re saying to yourself “I’m an educated, culturally sensitive individual, I know all about Festivus, The Holiday for the Rest of Us! “, but do you? Take the quiz and find out. And let’s not forget that it’s also time once again for the world to come together and, er, come together. Yes, for some of us, the real climax of the holiday season is Global Orgasm Day, which is on the solstice, which – as all you heathen pagans probably already know – is the 21st at 17:47 GMT. Give or take a few seconds. Personally, I like to combine these two holidays by buying my own very special Festivus Pole (the Peekaboo Hot Pink Party Pole Dancing Kit will usually suffice) and hiring a hooker. I’m sure some of you find that idea offensive, but spare us the comments here; you can share theme during the “Airing of Grievances” at Festivus Dinner, okay? Read the rest of this entry »

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