ih8music

streaming off his website. about halfway thru... not too bad.

Via Chicago for me. There's nothing quite like Jeff smoothly strumming along while the rest of the band does a sonic interpretation of WW3. They kicked off one of the LA shows with it, and I couldn't have been happier.

looks like public pressure worked in the favor of liberals for a change... Reid says that the public option w/ an "opt out" clause for individual states will be included in the bill he takes to the Senate. He's banking that this will be enough of a compromise to prevent a filibuster, and something that can get 50+ votes to pass. http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/1009/Reid_to_announce_push_for_optout_option.html kinda cool if it works out this way... Medicaid also has an opt out clause, but no states have done that (who's going to vote to take away someone's health insurance after

I wasn't following that thread too closely (thankfully), but if it was locked simply because people were tired of the debate going around in circles then that's pretty silly. just ignore it and it'll fall off the front page in no time. Worst case, people will continue to bicker - but as long as no one is violating any of the rules (threats, insults, etc), I don't see what the harm is. this is the internethingy, after all...

Great article about the band, Ben & his family http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=9a166cdf-802d-4c80-93fb-b2fad72ba66f

indeed, one of my favorites: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AJKWJO

How did it go? I'm kinda in the same boat - promised my 5 yr old that we'd go... but I can easily tell him he'd be too scared. Even though he loved every other Star Wars movie, The Phantom Menace freaked him out. I think he doesn't do well with scary-looking guys (e.g., Darth Maul) doing bad things. Sounds like this movie is pretty dark and sometimes violent.

absolutely shocking... they've been trying to get their own reality show. http://www.tmz.com/2009/10/16/heene-familly-balloon-boy-richard-heene-reality-show-tlc-tom-Reality-Real/

lucero live on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113838323

I think he meant that the "best" bands from the 80's (incl. the awesome Replacements) were much better than the "best" out of the 90's - which I think I would agree with...

got this from a buddy and when you factor in the weight of the balloon and compartment itself, it would have almost certainly been impossible for the child to be up there.

this

great. now I'm second-guessing my intention of taking my easily-spooked 5 yr old to this movie. he LOVES this book, I'd hate to ruin it for him.

Thanks for the input, guys (& gals?). I grabbed Separation Sunday and gave it a couple of spins. My initial reaction is pretty much holding steady (har de har har) - this is a kick-ass band with a very distracting (to me) lead singer. Not sure if I'll be able to get past that - not quite as bad as fingernails on a chalkboard, but pretty damn close. Such a shame.

I keep seeing people hype these guys up, but I've never really been exposed to their music. I finally decided to check out some of their stuff. Based on my extensive research (ok, 5 or 6 youtube videos), my initial impression of them is that I really like the music and their overall sound, but I can't stand the lead singer. I don't have any issues with the voice (Paul Westerberg and Ben Nichols are two of my favorite singers), it's the talk-singing shtick that I dislike greatly. Seems like he's trying too hard to be the next Bruce. So did I just pick a few bad songs, or is that kind

Out of curiosity, when did Wilco stop doing covers at their live shows? Probably the only complaint I have about the current band's live shows. I'd gladly exchange a random cover or two in lieu of one of the 'old standards' like Jesus, etc. or Kingpin. The videos of Jeff doing Fake Plastic Trees at the 7 worlds gig are pretty incredible.

I'm still a relatively big supporter of the president, but this makes absolutely no sense. Hopefully, he'll deserve the award a few years down the road, but he doesn't deserve it yet. The Nobel committee jumped the shark on this one.

After listening to it almost non-stop the past few days, I'd definitely add Lucero's 1372 Overton Park to the best of '09 list.

finally got this. LOVE the horns... especially how they didn't half-ass it. Full-on, big-sounding Memphis tunes here - great stuff.

I think they would have a lot more credibility if they were going back to the original Greek/Hebrew/etc. texts and doing their "correct" translation from those... but from what I can tell, they're basing everything off of the King James version and wordsmithing passages here and there to fit their ideology. That's not translation, that's re-interpretation of a translation.

Joe Scarborough, once again proving that there is still a place for a sane voice or two on the right wing. Boggles my mind that pundits like Limbaugh are cheering that a US city didn't get the olympics. All because they dislike the president? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-scarborough/thank-you-mr-president_b_308022.html

Agree about the mistakes of omitting AGIB and DBT entirely. I also think Westerberg's Stereo/Mono is a big omission, Dear Science is way too low, and I don't really get the appeal of Jay Z. That being said, this list is the closest one I've seen so far as to how I would rank music from the past 10 years.

what he said.

No kidding. I can't believe people are excusing his behavior. Sure we can debate whether punishment 30 years after the crime was committed makes any sense, but to say that sex between a 44 year old man and a 13 year old girl can be ok depending on "circumstances" is utterly incomprehensible. And I am FAR from a right-wing religious zealot.