Hey

I think I'm back at this thing.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

the freshly sworn-in Mayor of Philadelphia....Michael Nutter!



Top that, Bloomberg!

GMAIL LIKE ITS YER JOB

My Gmail tells me I received and sent 108 gmails today! HOORAY FOR GMAIL! GMAAAAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL is the greatest.





I'm also blind.

The Sunset of Dissolution

"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the gullotine."

- Milan Kundera, Unbearable Lightness of Being

"Here’s the thing: they can write a mean letter, they can write a mean memo, but these guys don’t have any real fight in them. If you’re an artist, as opposed to a careerist, and your movie is more important to you than a career in this town, they can never beat you. You have a loaded gun, and you know you’ve got what it takes to put it in their faces and blow their heads off."

- Quentin Tarantino

Me oh my oh, how the time does fly. Whenever there is an extended gap in between my posts on this blog it usually occurs for one of two reasons.

One: I'm bored and understimulated and have no desire to share anything. All I want to do when I'm in this mood is cook interesting new frittatas and go for long walks.

Ah wash mahself with a rag on a stick...mmm...thai shrimp frittata.

Two: I'm super-busy and overstimulated and can't find the time to post any of the excitement here.

I have no explanation for the latest gap though as it fits neither of the above categories. Lately I've actually been holding off on the bloggery until I could get more pictures to go along with my stories but if I wait too long then the stories are so old they stop being interesting. Unfortunately, they're just going to have to wait a little bit longer.

I'm really feeling both of those quotes up there these days. 2007 is shaping up to be a big year. Not only is the number at the front of my age odometer about to flip up one digit higher in a little over a month, but I'm coming up on a handful of meaningful 10-year anniversaries. I swear I will write more about these soon but let me just say I've decided to honor the 10-year anniversary of the year of my first cigarette by quitting. It's been 11 days since my last smoke and I ain't looking back. TAKE THAT WINSTON LIGHTS!!! And I'd appreciate it if you would stop calling me when I'm drunk - it's not polite, I'm serious this time and frankly I'm just not that into you anymore.

As for the other anniversaries, well...I think I'm going to hold off on saying anything more about those until a little later. It'll be a good one when it comes out though so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I've spent the last few days listening to the new Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky. The album won't appear in stores until May but true to form Wilco "leaked" the album by streaming it from their website a few months in advance and it's out there on the internets in mp3 format.



This album marks the first time the band that's been touring for the past few years on A Ghost is Born has gone into the studio together. It's been a relatively stable period for the band, no new additions or subtractions from the lineup, and this is the first Wilco album that Jeff Tweedy has made sober and post-rehab.

My personal experience with Wilco albums is that each album is different than the last and that you have to sit with it and listen to it 25 times or so before it's really revealed itself to you. Having said that and having listened to the album a dozen times from start to finish, here's my take:

It's mellow. It's soulful. I love the sound of Jeff and Nels' guitars together. There are some classic Tweedy deliveries:

"What am I gonna do when I run out of shirts to fold?
What am I gonna do when I run out of lawn to mow?"

and...

"Why is there no breeze, no currency of leaves?
No current through the water, why no feelings I can't see?
I trust no emotion, I believe in locomotion."

and when Tweedy starts wailing "Everybody's feeeeeeling all alone, can't tell you who I am" over smoky Garth Hudson organ fills, my body contorts with delight. Check em out for yourself:

You Are My Face - Sky Blue Sky - Wilco



Wilco - Hate it Here - Sky Blue Sky

I'm the one you're looking for, I'm-a doing 90 in a 54

Who needs a new best friend? Buy me this and you've got a deal, partner!

1. Intelligence Test - I scored a 28 (29 after a helpful hint). If I had made the test it would have included "1 D in a B" though.

2. Not only have the assholes at Marvel Comics squandered the chance to make excellent movies out of some of their best characters (Punisher, Daredevil...haven't seen Ghost Rider, but cmon now, fuhgedaboutit) but now Captain Fucking America is DEAD. If it's a metaphor to our current national situation I can get with that but did it really have to go there? Cap shoulda just checked out, maybe hung up the ol' cowl and shield and sat in a bar, mourning his loss until January 2009 - Anchorman-style.

3. Some cool sites for Readers - my friend Nicole turned me onto GoodReads the other day and it's pretty cool. "It's what your friends are reading!" aka MySpace for the litterati crowd. Also, Netflix for Books!

Vote Different

So, to my knowledge, no one has taken credit for creating this very-smart take-off on Ridley Scott's 1983 SuperBowl ad for the first Mac computer. Using Hillary's on-going "conversations" as the axis for political commentary, Hillary's front-runner status gets framed as oppressive, monolithic authoritarianism and Obama as the door-opening suffragette.



I can't wait for the inevitable, follow-up "Hi. I'm a Hillary voter. And I'm an Obama fan" Mac-PC ad take-off.

Why's It Gotta Be Portland

I saw this happen live on C-Span following Barack's announcement in Springfield, IL. So glad someone clipped this for YouTube.