Überthuggin

I was listening to Noreaga's Superthug (or as I knew it growing up, The What What What What What Song) yesterday. There's a line in that song that always gets me.

Aiyyo, we light a candle, run laps around the English Channel
Neptunes, I got a cockerspaniel

How the fuck do you run laps around the English Channel? By definition, it's impossible to run a complete lap around a channel of water! Does Nore have Jesus-like walking-on-water powers? Seriously, that always bugs me. Otherwise, it's a great head nodding song.

It's the 6th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. It surprises me that I even care. Maybe because she was always there when I was growing up, or because her wedding was the first "big" event I sort of remember watching on TV. The news of her death was huge for me, bigger than I expected. But I find it unfortunate that she's known more for the accident and her marital troubles than the work she did to raise awareness of AIDS and to reach out to the lower classes/third world nations.



The new iMac, y'all


That's seriously badass looking. Seriously.

- So I'm a little grumpy. I woke up early this morning because Maureen -she's staying in midtown with her mom who's in town for a couple of days- wanted me to meet her (realatively) early in the morning so I can bring her suit that she was going to wear for an interview today. Now she calls me to let me know that she won't need it.
That's the reason for my grumpiness. No, I'm not pissed, and certainly not at her. It's mostly morning grumpiness. I only ended up being about 45-30 minutes earlier than usual.
I'm really not a morning person, especially when I don't hear the sweet, soothing voice of Robin Lustig reading the headlines.

Ben Folds - Adelaide

Oh yeah, I'm pretty peeved

Can't believe I forgot to mention this, but Bolton Wanderers 0 - 1 Liverpool.

I mean, what the hell. I know, I know, the season is still young, Bolton are always tough at home, the Spanish kids haven't settled in it etc etc. But still, I want always want LFC challenging for the title. It's 3 matches into the Premiership season and we have 4 points to show for it, from Tottenham, Man City and Bolton, none of whom we should be losing to. I wanted a win here, I would've been okay with a draw, but a loss?

Sigh.

It will take four months to get it right says Benitez
I have faith in Rafa, but that's little consolation on Monday morning. We'll see how I feel next weekend.


Most underwhelming product release of 2004: the HP iPod - it's just like the Apple iPod, except, well, it is the Apple iPod.

Did anyone else catch the nice little Lomu tribute in the Sunday funnies?

(source: Get Fuzzy - Sun 8/29)

Seacrest out.

I ♥ Republicans

So the weekend went by pretty fast, even though there were some lulls. Friday was more or less chill. Went down to Good World Bar & Grill, a nice little joint just down the block from me on Orchard St. Have I mentioned I love my neighborhood already? God, I love being able to walk, nay, stumble to a drinking hole. I haven't even begun to explore my neighborhood yet.

So met a few of Maureen's law school friends. Apparently, they were the only nice people in school. Fantastic.

Saturday, went shoe shopping for M. There was a fat green/red Puma Anjan she would've gotten had there been a pair in her size. Seriously. Green/Red. It was awesome, dude. So after much ado, I ended up getting a pair of winter boots. I know, it's still August and fucking 85 degrees out. But I like to be prepared, and I've gone 3 New York winters without a pair of true winter boots. Hey, I'm worth it, or so says my shampoo bottle.

Then, we hit the farmer's market at Union Square. Now, this is the difference between me and Maureen kicks in, or maybe it's the difference between men and women. When I go to a grocery store, I already have a mental list of what I want and just check things off the list one by one. She prefers to see what's good and take time browsing.
Anyway, I didn't know what to do for dinner, so I basically said "Dude, I'm ceding all control to you." It didn't help that I was getting dehydrated and closer to a heat stroke than I realized at the time, so I increasingly felt the urge to get the hell out of there, and she thought I was spacing out and generally being difficult.

But all's well that ends well. We ended up getting a bunch of cherry tomatoes, and she went all out and made a kickass tomato/basil/mozzarella salad thingy and an even more kickass pico de gallo you will see pictured here:


Saw Hero later that night. Seriously incredible. I went in half expecting a Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon redux, but got something way better. Beautiful cinematography - who could've thought violent swordplay could be so beautiful? Great storytelling as well.

Anyway, I wanted to hit a bar for a couple of drinks, but we ended up getting a six of PBR and chilling with some chips and the aforementioned pico de gallo.

BTW, did I mention how much I love Republicans? I thought I would hate having the RNC in NY. Well, I still hate it. It's sickening the lengths they would go to exploit the memories of 9/11. But it appears to have sparked a good amount of dissent on the part of the previously latent liberal/activist element in the city. So far, the protesters have been the news of the day - and for the most part, not negative. We'll see how this plays out over the course of the week though.

But as of this weekend, I've seen about 200 anti-Bush t-shirts to absolutely zip zero for Republicans/Bush. Though that may be because I rarely venture above 23rd St and I think the RNCers are too squared to come downtown.

A link for y'all, y'all:
The Sports Guy - 8/27/04
On Ashlee Simpson

SG: You forgot to throw in the weird "I know she's not that cute, but the more I'm watching this, the more I'm talking myself into it" phenomenon that's uniquely peculiar to both Ashlee and the WNBA. Also, neither of them actually have next. Although they think they do.

See, I find Ashlee Simpson more attractive than Jessica. But that may be because I simply don't find Jessica that attractive. She seems so... packaged. Sure, she's pretty and has big boobs. I don't know if it's the personality (or the absence thereof) but she does absolutely nothing for me. Maybe Ashlee appeals to me simply because she's different. Jessica is so unattractive to me that any alternative will do, perhaps?

In the same column, Simmons lists Donald Williams and Joe Forte in his "Miles Simon/Bo Kimble All-Star Team for College guys whose pro potential I totally misjudged." Now, I'm as big a Tar Heels fan as the next guy, but I knew when they were coming out of school that they absolutely no chance. They were both undersized shooters who couldn't handle the ball or create their own shots. Good college guys, fish out of water in the NBA. Simmons should know NBA well enough to know that they weren't going to make it.
You know, kids like Trajan Langdon and Forte and Shawn Respert, they do well in college because if you can shoot, you can kill. But at the pro level, the athletes are simply better. They're bigger, faster, quicker, and if you can't create your own shots, then you damn well have other dimensions to your game beyond scoring.

Okay, that's it. I gotta get dressed and stumble to work.

Today's song: The Roots - Stay Cool

Links, bitches, links

- Jim Caple on the Iraqi Olympic soccer team
This is where an asshole might say something like "Well, if only they'd played like that when Saddam was around, maybe Uday would have been nicer to them." But I'm not an asshole so I won't say that.

- Corvette ad pulled because of a few dozen whiny moms
Not surprised about whiny moms, but I continue to be amazed that, yet again, a Fortune 500 firm that is more than happy to trample on its workers and consumers loses its spine when it receives a few complaints over the phone. Seriously, they think kids might try to fly with their Corvettes? Would it have been better if the commercial showed the kid wearing a seatbelt, operating the vehicle at a safe speed, and taking all safety precautions? Where is the outrage over the Hummer ad showing the kid cheating to win a soapbox derby? Where, I ask! Outrage! I want outrage!

- Duke freshmen got their "free" iPods last week
Look, I love my iPod more than life itself, but if I'm paying $40,000 a year in tuition (well, that's my conservative estimate) to go to Dook of all places, I would expect, nay, demand a $300 freebie. Also, I'm waiting for the first report of a stolen freshman iPod. It's got to have high resale value - the engraving alone should make it a collector's item. Plus, the clickwheel seems pretty cool.

- You have got to be fucking kidding me

- New York Times review of Vincent Gallo's "Brown Bunny" (registration required)
This film is better known as "the worst rated film at this year's Cannes Film Festival" or "the one with the billboard showing Chloë Sevigny going down on Gallo". Apparently, Gallo chopped off a significant amount of self-indulgence and the film now runs at a very reasonable 90 minutes. Excerpt from the review:

Neither an atrocity nor a revelation, "The Brown Bunny" is a very watchable, often beautiful-looking attempt by Mr. Gallo to reproduce the kind of loosely structured mood pieces that found American and select foreign-language cinemas of the 1960's and 70's often at their most adventurous, with Monte Hellman's 1971 "Two-Lane Blacktop" the most obvious touchstone.

Like Mr. Hellman's laid-back masterpiece, "The Brown Bunny" begins with a race (Mr. Hellman's driver wins, Mr. Gallo's motorcyclist loses) and quickly tries for an air of cool detachment. But while Mr. Hellman's directing remains consistently detached no matter how hot the cars or emotional entanglements, Mr. Gallo is happy to lavish his lead performer with love, perhaps because in addition to serving as the director, writer, producer, editor and director of photography on "The Brown Bunny," Mr. Gallo is also the film's star.

Superb.

- Finally, no link, but USA men's hoops upsetting Spain? Who woulda thunk it? And Stephon Marbury didn't suck. Fantastic.

It's that time of the hour

- You know, my health could be a bit better. I don't eat as well as I should -living on a budget in Chinatown can do that- and I'm not excersing at all. Well, living in a city and not driving helps a little bit, I suppose. So I figure drinking as much water as possible is the least I could do, so I try to make frequent trips to the water cooler.
But that also means I make frequent trips to the restroom. My coworkers must think I'm either frighteningly prone to diarrhea or on my period. Well, it can't be the latter because I'm bitchy throughout the month.

Okay, that made no sense at all.

- Me need new music. As soon as I get the internet working at home, I'm going to download the new Ben Folds EP, Super D and I'm completely enthralled by the Hasidic reggae guy I saw on Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week, Matisyahu. I'm sure the whole gimmick of a Hasidic Jewish kid getting all rude boy helps, but he can really flow. I love this guy already.

- Congee is the greatest all-purpose all-day food known to mankind. There is no point in arguing this. It's just true.

- Watched Kill Bill Vol 2 last night. Okay, first things first. Two Boots is the greatest cajun-inspired pizza known to mankind. Well, I'm now a 10 minute walk away from the original Two Boots location, but Maureen and I went there for the first time since my move. BBQ shrimp pizza, y'all.
Well, Two Boots also happens to have an independent movie theater and video rental. One thing I missed living in Astoria was the complete absence of an independent video store, so I'm beyond thrilled. I mean, seriously, pizza and independent video store. It doesn't get much better than that. So Kill Bill is what I rented.
What did I think of it? 1.5 thumbs up, I think. Vol 1 was so action-packed and considerably less verbose than previous Tarantino films, so it was a little strange to go back to the chatty Tarantino film. It seems QT packed all the badass action sequences in the Vol 1, then packed all the backstory into Vol 2. Which is fine, I guess. Just a little let down. Overall, I enjoyed it, though I wish I could watch the whole thing in one sitting. C'est tout.

- Texas: crappy state, great band.

- As good as Outkast's output has been for the past few years, I don't like how their earlier stuff has been pushed aside. They came out when the West Coast was into the whole P-Funk fad, though I always felt that the SoCal P-Funkers only made superficial use of funkadelica (with the notable exception of Dr Dre), Outkast were elbow deep in it.
Then there was "Benz or a Beemer" off the New Jersey Drive soundtrack - a great marriage of intelligence and nihilism. Then, ATLiens was the last album before Andre really dove in the deep end - not that there was anything wrong with that.

Seriously, if you haven't already, get your ass over to iTunes and check out Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and ATLiens. I mean, really.