Colbert Roasting Bush

Part 2
Part 3

This is priceless. Colbert better watch his ass. Thanks Greg for the links.

Colbert at.... The Whitehouse?

That's right, Steven Colbert was the guest of honor at the recent whitehouse (my spellcheck doesn't recognize whitehouse, and instead suggests "whitewash"... interesting) press correspondents dinner, along with a Bush impersonator that did a bit with the actual Bush, which I'm sure elicited some truly hearty knee slapping from the well fed audience (that included George Clooney, Morgan Fairchild and one of the Dubie Brothers wearing a kilt). When it was time for Colbert to do his bit, Fox News cut away to some statistical bullshit, and only came back to the event for a few minutes... luckily it was a press event, so there was plenty of unbiased coverage. *cough*

source: editorandpublisher

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, and reality has a well-known liberal bias.

He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the Rocky movies, always getting punched in the face and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "You should spend more time with your families, write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know-- fiction."

As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and left immediately.

(More)

And then there's the Conservative spin:

Fox then broadcast three of the most laugh-free minutes of comedy seen on national television since Chevy Chase fancied himself as the new Johnny Carson. Colbert barely garnered even polite laughter for his banal and obvious schtick, and eventually Fox returned to its obviously embarrassed anchor.

Now that was funny.

(Link)

And here's the AP article (link)

With a little help from my friends....

I am 8-bit. I got 16/16 on the 8-Bit Gamer test. Take the test!

Remember to Vote for the First Bi Weekly Seamonsters Movie Night, just to wet your appetites here is a list of the scariest movie scenes ever (according to someone, but I quite agree with a lot of them.)

UN CHIEN ANDALOU

What do you think?

The last couple weeks I've noticed a few different articles about strange atmospheric disturbances in the southwest, one regarding large blocks of ice falling from the sky,

"the ice was clear or whitish -- not bluish, as one would expect of ice that had leaked from an airplane's restroom, for instance."
"They described it as the sound an artillery shell would make -- shoosh, shoosh,'' he said. "They looked up. They didn't see the ice, nor did they see a plane.'' (link)

And another regarding large Sonic Booms felt in the same region,

Whatever it was, it caused a woman's bed to shake in Lakeside. It created waves in a backyard pool in Carmel Valley. It set off car alarms in Kearny Mesa and rattled windows from Mission Beach to Poway to Vista. At various spots throughout the county, people reported a rumbling sound or a booming noise. (Link)

Being a member of the Junior Sleuth's of Vermont; it's my duty to look into this one... Can anyone say "Secret government UFO testing!?!!"

(actually someone did:)

Asked whether a flying saucer might have caused such an event, Peter Davenport of the Seattle-based National UFO Reporting Center said, "“Probably not."”“UFOs almost never generate sonic booms or shock waves,"” he added. "“They accelerate so rapidly that they leave a vacuum in the sky, much the way lightning does."

well, DUH.

Reguardless, what i find out, may very well shake this nation to its core. Stay Tuned.

(Source)

Senior Sleuth Gahlord D. informed me of this disturbing information reported by our Agents in the UK:

"Red Rain could prove that aliens have landed"

'If you look at these particles under a microscope, you can see they are not dust, they have a clear biological appearance.' Instead Louis decided that the rain was made up of bacteria-like material that had been swept to Earth from a passing comet. In short, it rained aliens over India during the summer of 2001. (link)

Very interesting Agent Dewald, very interesting, indeed.

Eva takes a lickin' keeps on Blogging.

Over at the Deadbeat Blog, Eva's posted about her run-ins with the downside of minor webfame; immature anonymous insults and general retardedness:

"As is the way of the internet, next came the "haters", the "flamers," and the "missing a sense of humor-ers" and I began to wonder about the glories of youtube. The comments became cruel and personal and they seemed to be centered around the Britney Spears and Green Day segments. I was skewered for being a "bug-eyed, frigid man troll crack whore" (not necessarily in that order) and other such lovely descriptive terms."

It's a great read, but a little one sided, for instance Ivan over at "the wonderful world of Ivan" had a few things to say regarding the sexkitten Eva.

This lady is my new found love (not literally.)
She has lovely mannerisms and a sexy voice ;) *rawr*

I concur, Ivan. I Concur.

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In Other News

recognize this guy?

take the 8-bit testGet's 157 MPG

Costs less than 11 Gs. Berkeley is offering free podcasts
of their curriculum. Free School!

DEUTSCH NEPAL

For the last few years one of my biggest musical influences has been the German Psychedelic freakout band Amon Duul 2. Started as simply Amon Duul, in the mid 60's by a group of like minded souls interested in communal living and freaking out, they later split off with some members continuing on a more freeform path; putting social experimentation and politics on an even ground with the music they were playing, while the other members wanted to continue into a more structured psych format, dropping the overt hippy dippy stuff, politics and what have you - all the while, trying to get a little recognition, and probably a little cash to boot.

Thus Amon Duul 2 was born, cause apparently they liked that name, a lot. (Just for the record, I don't know how to put umlauts over the U's but their are, infact, umlauts over the U's. Both of them.) (update: figured it out, it's "alt+numbers." go forth, spread the word.)

While they are quite prolific musically, releasing over twenty albums in the last forty or so years, they're exists very few visual documents of the band, of the few there are, i will link to at the bottom. Recently I found this video, scored by Amon Duul 2, but consisting of animation done by the infamous Ralph Bakshi, the man responsible for (in some peoples minds anyway.) totally butchering The Lord of the Rings, as well as the much despised Rotoscope animation technique, which is pretty much tracing, but is kind of trippy regardless.

Anyway, before LOTR Bakshi directed a film called "Wizards" which was about an epic battle in a post apocalyptic world concerning humanities fight against technology using, of course magic, and thus blogging was formed. (No that's not true actually, the blogging bit...) But he ran out of money half way through and because of that he had to use stock footage of WWII as the basis for his animations, so as you can imagine, and can see in the video, there is a very overt and bizarre Nazi theme to the whole shabang. Footage from Wizards, was used by Amon Duul 2, for this video.

Enjoy.

Amon Duul 2 video collection

Animation is cool.

link

Eva just posted a cute little montage (Morrissey Alert) and some
pictures of our jaunt up to Franklin County last week; why does
it always seem to be overcast when I'm up there? Odd.
link

Collected Noise

"The plague! the Bubonic plague!"

933|<'$ j0Ur|\|4L #6

If anyone's spent much time at all on the interweb (or checked out nest material's \/\374P|-|'/51(4L 9R4Ph1771) you may have run into the language of "Leet Speak". I've been interwebing for a while now, yep... You might say I'm a bit of a old hand at this here crazyland, but from time to time, even I run into something so completely leet, I have no fucking clue as to what it means. Well, for those of you \|00B's in the same position, I've assembled a few links to help you on your way to Net Leeteracy. (I made that one up, right here on the spot.)

First on the list, the Wiki entry. This has to be hands down the most comprehensive wiki entry I have ever read (second only perhaps the entry on how to never have a girlfriend.) and has opened up entirely new doors of perception and time wastage to me. I'll let you go ahead and check it out, and when you're done there, come back here are test yourself on how well you've learned.

Leet Test
or
"ph34/2 m`/ 1337 sk1llz"
Translate the following:
----------------------

[at the Council of Elrond]
Gimli: "dwarves pwn!"
Legolas: "Sif, Elves pwn!"
Boromir: "OLOLOL noobs, men pwn!"
Elrond: "STFU tards!!1!"
**Frodo puts the ring on the plinth
Gimili: "Sif ring pwns all!"
**Gimli swings his axe at it, which shatters
Elrond: "**sigh, noob"

[Frodo meets up with Bilbo]
Bilbo: "OLOL, me = 10th level thief!"
Frodo: "OMG, u r teh pwn!"
Bilbo: "Do u still have teh ringz0r?"
**Frodo shows Bilbo the One Ring
Bilbo: "OMG u tard, I want to TK you!"
Frodo: "sif!"
Bilbo: "ph34r my mithril"

[stopping at the banks of the river, the Fellowship sets up camp]
**Frodo goes off looking for firewood, Boromir follows and confronts him
Boromir: "Gimmie teh ringz0r so ** hax can fight teh boss!"
Frodo: "Sif, foo. Punkbuster will pwn joo!"
Boromir: "Naw, we play on non-pb servers"
Frodo: "STFU noob"
Frodo has left the server
Boromir: "***! FRODO! Bring teh ringz0r back, faghat!"
**A group of Uruk Hai encounter Boromir
Boromir: "OH FFS, TEAMS!!"
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Uruk Hai [arrow] Boromir
Boromir: "****ing campers"
**Aragorn comes across the battle
Aragorn: "Boromir joo noob! ***!"
Uruk Hai: "Hah, pwn!"
Aragorn [broadsword] Uruk Hai
Aragorn: "I bring joo teh pwn!"
**Aragorn goes to Boromir
Boromir: "Damn lag!"
Warning: Connection problems detected
Boromir has disconnected
Aragorn: "FFS!"

(MORE.)

-----------------------

if you actually read all of that than congratulations, you are now |337 and as big a dork as i am. for further assistance use this translator.

Cream Cycle

I get the impression sometimes that my true nature is a complete mystery to myself. That the more i dig the more i really am just constructing an elaborate scafolding, that i time to time take a look down through... But then again i wonder, who really wants to know what's going on in there anyway; and further more, what good is it gonna do me here in this world... the way i figure it, it's stays hidden for a reason right? I mean, chances are if i "Saw god" or "figured out my shit" than i'd just end up bored and disinterested in the rest of life. Maybe, i mean isn't art just convoluted attempts at expressing the ineffable and unexplainable that is inside us all? And isn't this picture fucking outrageous!? Seriously who writes this shit. Yeah girls, bend over like that.... with the ice-cream, smile, bigger... that's it, and *Click* lovely...

Listening to / Thinking about

sometimes, I'll think about something, in a certain way, and then I'll sort of well up and I'll shiver for a second, and it's like I just shivered off a thin layer of ice, and for the next few minutes, I feel like I think it must feel to be completely new.

---------

So fun to watch everyone scrambling to file there Taxes... Meanwhile I was able to get my 4 month extension forms mailed out a whole two days before they were due. Who's a responsible grown up? That's right Tanner is.

--------

Want to get a cat very badly, a Russian blue, preferably... But I don't think the land lady is gonna let us, is land lady proper these days? Land lord? Is that right? Not land person. That is ridiculous, I'd go with land baron, or Land's End catalog, before that. Todd doesn't like cat's either, I think he caught it from Sarah.

-------

Very often, when I get up to go to work, and Eva's already hit the road, I find a couple of fruit leathers tucked away in my shoulder bag, and it reminds me that I have to give her more kisses, and to make the bed.

------

My hair has gotten pretty damn long, but i said "fuck it" i wanna see how far i'll let it go... but if someone has a good idea for a hair cut, let me know you might have a willing victim.

-----

Mandy finished casting my charts, and i got to see the results tonight, we sad down and had a nice chat, which was nice cause i don't think i've ever really talked to her one on one before, she's fun! reminds me of the time years ago when Angela gave me a hair cut, i hardly knew her or Ben then, but boy did we dish; She knew my whole story by the time she was done cutting. I'll post more about my charts soon, but here's a tidbits:

Sun sign: Virgo
Rising sign: Aries
Moon sign: Gemini

keywords: Intense, Poised, observant, self involved (what!? yeah.. ok.), detached, investigative (i am a private eye...) Emotionally blocked (eh. sorry ladies.) overy-analytical, obscure.

truely the keywords of a real douchebag.

Day Late Easter Link Dump

God Help Us All
(Happy Easter!)

Old man #1: Do you know why a bunny is connected to Easter?
Old man #2: No.
Old man #1: It's because Easter is about fertility and rabbits are animals that are always copulating.
Old man #2: Huh, I never heard about that.
Old man #1: Think about it. On Easter, you have the bunnies and the bunnies have eggs and the eggs have children in them...

-Penn Station

-----------------

So the Webby Nominees have been announced and here's a few of my personal favs.

We make Money not Art
Google Maps
Tree Hugger
Idealist
Dragon Fire
Lonely Planet

and finally,

The Bonless Pig Farmers Association of America

----------

Vermont Blog of the week

Together at last: Mac/Windows

If Roe V. Wade is over turned...(!)

Best New Music: Not Alone Comp.
(features among many others, new music from Will Oldham)

sick of the decimal system?
Introducing "Octomatics"

I wanna live in this Tree house!

Chernobyl

All the recent talk of nuclear proliferation in Iran has me thinking about Chernobyl. It's always horrified and fascinated me; an amazingly large area of countryside, towns and a city, completely evacuated within a few days - and left empty and poisoned for centuries. Now with it's 20th anniversary approaching on the 26th of April; I thought I'd see what I could find out about it. I started first with the latest edition of National Geographic. The print edition has a great article, but it isn't featured on the website, but I did find this flash movie titled "sights and sounds of chernobyl" that gives a brief overview of what happened then and now.

I also came across "GHOST TOWN" a website maintained by Elena, and is an amazing record of her adventures motorbiking through the Dead Zone, as it's called;

Excerpt:

This is a Belorusian Cemetery. In many villages, hasty scratches on wooden crosses are the only chronicle that remains of the rich lives that dwelled here. Many of the loved ones who prayed over them are probably here, too.

I couldn't find this village on my map, but the town cemetery tells the tale that from the early 1800's, until 1986, all of the people who lived in this village were Smirnovs.

It must be sectarian village, where brothers married sisters and all have the same last name.

I put this village on my map and named it Smirnovka. It is how we call a famous vodka. I wonder if there is a connection to the people who lived in this place and the people who make Smirnoff Vodka?

I can only guess, because there is nobody here to answer the question.

Finally, "Nuclear Nightmares" dedicated to all the people who's lives have been fucked up by this event, and other Nuclear disasters, in and around Russia. Some of these pictures are quite terrible; the amazing reach the fallout from this accident has through time, is astonishing - I have no clear political stance at the moment on Iran developing nuclear capabilities, nor on the Western worlds nuclear dominance; It does seem clear to me however, that we're heading for alot of trouble if the people that are in charge keep running things the way they are.

My Brother, isn't the Meat man.

So tonight after work Herb and I went around the corner to the 3 Needs for an after word drink / bitch. Nothing to new or bitchable really though; mostly we talked about how apparently Pure Pop sold the most copies of David Gilmour's (aka, sexy Floyd.) new album; out of any of the other stores in its.... thing... group.... Whatever. At any rate that means that Mike (our boss.) and someone else from the store gets to go to L.A. next week and see him play, all expenses paid, including airfare, hotel, food and travel! That is pretty awesome, even if it is to see David Gilmour. We were debating on whether they were gonna just hand over tickets, or if it was some sort of label party, obligation thing, if it was just regular paper tickets, than the best plan of action was scalping the fuckers and taking the 400+ bucks (yeah... sold out, and EBay's selling them for up to 600.) out on the town... think of the possibilities, Herb and Mike 400 bucks, Los Angeles... Actually I don't want to think about it. Of course, Herb got picked to go. I would have gone, but apparently the word is out that Herb gives better head than I do... Either way, herb has been contracted to keep a journal of the whole trip, and I have the exclusive publishing rights, right here Highgate baby!

So anyway, I went out to have a smoke, and this creepy guy that I just knew listened to a lot of B.T.O. came up to me and was all "Hey man.... You got any weed..." and I since I don't smoke it, for serious, I was like... "No man, sorry...." And he was like, "that's cool, that's cool...If you don know someone, I got some good stuff to trade..." That piqued my curiosity, so I asked him what exactly he had in trade, I was thinking like, a 90 minute maxell with Lita Ford on one side and Pat Benatar on the other, but then he was like... All quietly...

"I got some... Steak... Man."

"Some what?!?

"steak man... some real prime steak...."

I just nodded slowly and tried not to look like I had no fucking idea what he was talking about... cause I wanted to be hip you know... I'm down with the street lingo, I know what the kids are into, apparently it's steak. But I needed clarification...

"you mean like.... (makes "staking" motion into forearm...)

"what? I also got Chicken and Shrimps man, real good, high quality stuff..."

I stopped making the hand gesture....

"You mean MEAT?"

And he did... he really meant it, he pointed across the road to this refridgerator truck and we walked over to it, and he opened up the back; it was full of vacuum packages filled with cutlets and "bacon wrapped filets", spicy shrimp, and cordon Bleu... I didn't get to close to it, cause I've seen how this movie ends, I'm in the back of with the frozen meat, knocked out cold and bleeding, two hours later some dude's wearing a Tanner skin suit... But he seemed serious, and the meat looked good; but I didn't have any money, not for Meat, but I was getting pretty hungry.... We struck up a deal, I bought him and his girlfriend; some super trashy broad from Jersey who talked like "The Nanny", a couple of shots, and in return he hooked me up with Four killer center cut filet Minot... Individually packaged! I gave one to Herb, and hit the road.

The whole exchange felt kind of seedy, even though it was a legal barter.... Regardless, me and Todd ate like fat rats later! Thanks weird New York Meat Man!

Rant.

I just got back from seeing "Clap your Wolf Parade say Tapes and Tapes" and i gotta say, "PPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHH..." eh. whatever. Though i only saw the last half hour of the set cause i was busy smoking cigarettes and talking stupid po-mo shit with Todd about the weight of past generations; going to Al's french fries and drinking whiskey on Ice with Eva and Margot, checking the status of my meager bank account (didn't do to bad last month, can spend a little this month) and violently coughing up jack daniel's in the parking lot cause i forgot to swallow, instead inhaled. They sucked though, anyway, and as a blogger and a douchebag i just wanna say, i stand firm in not using the blogosphere to support mediocre indie rock. Even if that means i don't get to write "Oh my fucking god LOL WTF here's the greatest band ever" posts. I will however, keep going to indie rock shows, so that maybe better indie bands will come... Art Brut Please, Oneida? Nada Surf even?

In the mean time the books are coming to Higherground, w/ greg davis (nice set at pearls get, thanks for playing 100 years for me.) and friends opening. That, will be good.

Otherwise, save up some money for Terrastock. That will also be good.

Goodnight.

Lets play a Game

Yesterday evening was so nice, what with the company and the delicious food; Pefectly cooked Turkey by Ben + Todd, not to mention potatoes and artichokes, stuffing by Andrea and Athena, Beet Salad by Megan and Gahlord, Stuffed Mushrooms by Eva and I made some Candied Yams, and to top it all off - Michelle brought a flower, there was also some various booze going around. For dessert, there was Godard's Weekend; I think only a few of us were able to make it all the way through, not that it wasn't a great flick, but the food comas were greater... I was in and out of it most the time. Which made it feel even more disjointed and surreal than it already was - whatever was in that bird, it did me good, so good that today I woke up with a renewed sense of vigor;

What am I going to do today, on this fine sunshining Monday. (Mondays where you don't have to work, are doubly good.) A walk is in order, as well as a huge latte or perhaps my super (not so secret) iced coffee blend (one shot vanilla, one shot orgeat, half n' half.) maybe then I'll even pay our utilities!

But first, a little game called:
"What am I listening to these days!"

AMT - Starless and Bible Black Sabbath
Pretty much perfect; one giant riff over and over again,
often times almost completely obscured by crazy ass swirling
(squinting modifier) pysch guitars and weirdo noises.
Plus Sabbath references!

Wooden Wand + Vanishing Voice
These guys are my current favorites in the "freak Folk"
universe, this album and the Flood are just amazing
You put them on, and at first you're underwelmed, like
Ok... Sounds like muddy noodling w/ pretty girl vocals here and there.
Then it goes on and on, and all of a sudden
it's an hour later and you're thinking.
That was fucking gorgeous!


DFA Remixes Vol. 1
This stuff is pretty killer, I have mixed feelings
about the DFA label, but these remixes are phenomenal
Best tracks #2 Mars, Arizona's remix of Blues explosion and
Chemical Brothers' of "The Boxer".

Mord - Christendom Perished
Southern Lord Black Metal w/ a subtle twist. This is a
Chris Miller Recommendation. Chris could tell you more about it
Me, I wanted to hear the new Lair of the Minotaur, but it
kind of sucks. So I took it out and put this in. See also,
Wolves in the Throne Room.

Parts and Labor - Stay Afraid
Johnny Aquadora came down to PP the other day and
asked me what I was listening to and if I could recommend
anything, which I hate to do cause I mean, just cause
I like it doesn't mean the next guy will. So I gave him this album
and Pink Mountain Tops -Axis of Evol, he liked PM alright,
but really fucking loved this one - He said it was kind of like
music he's doing right now. no kidding...
I actually prefer Axis over this one.

Mammatus - S/T
This is another Chris Miller recommendation, and now one of mine
This is heavy in the best ways - Epic, Sludgy, Rocking, Freaking, thundering
It makes me feel like the first time I listened to Comets on Fire and said
"Wow, people are making this kind of music still, wicked!"
Aquarius records streams:
MPEG Stream: "The Righteous Path Through The Forest Of Old"
MPEG Stream: "Dragon Of The Deep Part One"

The Essex Green - Cannibal Sea
When I heard this album was coming out I personally wrote them
and asked them to send me posters to put up at Pure Pop
We've only sold one copy so far, but damn this album is good.
Now that it's spring time I think it'll sell more - this album is
perfect warm w/ a cool breeze music.

Pulp - Countdown
compilation of Early Pulp tracks, going into a more
80's British club and folk sound that is just as amazing and engaging
as any of there later period work. A close proximity would be the Mag Fields.

The Grey Daturas - Dead in the Woods
They just released a new album, but this one still stands as
one of my favorite listens in the the whole, post-noise freak
genre - if you can call it that. Super heavy, super stoned, and
super duper. They did a split with the ___ Yellow Swans that
is also a must have... terror noise drone.

Neil Young - Comes a Time
What can I say about this one, perfect Eastergiving music.
If Neil can sing about hopefull things than maybe I can think about them too.

Thanks again to everyone who came over!