quarter23cd

Really, the only "please, god, kill me now" moments I can remember ever having at concerts were both at festivals where I was trapped too close to the stage for artists I don't like--Blink 182 and Barenakedladies. I'm not sure either can be said to have been totally horrible, I just don't care for them and had a hard time fighting my way through the crowd to get the hell out. Funny story about the Blink 182 one--this was at the Warped tour sometime around '99 or so, and at one point I was hanging out way near the back of the pack and ended up chatting with members of the Black Eyed Peas, wh

Doing That

Yeah, I had to call you on the "intellectually inferior" thing. Sorry. But I do know exactly what you mean. A lot of times, stuff like Pynchon--its just not what I'm looking for unless I am in a very specific mood. Its not a very "immersive" experience for me, except when it reaches the point where its just words and ideas whizzing past me and I can feel and appreciate them (which can be a cool thing, in itself)...but I generally don't retain much of it. And so when I go to move onto the next chapter, my mind is so trained that it is supposed to be building on whatever came before, that

Your poll needs work. I voted for both. Thanks for not making me choose!

Moby-Dick - Melville East of Eden - Steinbeck Vonnegut. If I have to choose, I'll go with Cat's Cradle just because too many people chose Slaughterhouse Five already. The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway Continental Drift - Russell Banks Any one of those books on the list could easily be substituted for another one by the same author. Except Melville, maybe. I mean, Typee is interesting and all, but the big whale story pretty much crushes everything. Putting Steinbeck and Hemingway on there seems almost too obvious, but its hard not to include them. For newer stuff, if you haven't read anyt

I will admit that I've yet to make it all the way through any of the titles mentioned above, and most likely at some point I have said the same thing about books that make you feel "intellectually inferior", although I think that sentiment misses the point. In some ways I think I approach these kind of books the same way I would a jigsaw puzzle. It is simply a different kind of storytelling than reading, say, Stephen King, where everything happens in a linear pattern and the story is the thing. Frequently, the story is secondary to the method of telling it. The "difficulty" is that the mi

Wayne Coyne's quote about Beck putting his pants on is still probably my favorite rock-guy interview quote ever. Dude cracks me up. I don't even care that the Lips themselves haven't really interested me since the mid-90s, as long as that dude keeps spitting out quality soundbites, I'm down with it.

I know it. Its been a long time since I've seen a team swoon over a catcher like this. I hope he is everything he is hyped to be...

Argh. Thanks, you guys. I had been approaching this season from a healthily-detached perspective.(actually, trying NOT to think about it at all too much) Not expecting too much from my team that has had a horrendous decade, with little reason to believe that improvement will happen at least for another couple years. I was being a realist. I'm not supposed to be susceptible to pre-season optimism anymore, but this thread got me reading some baseball blogs again. I was just reading a series of posts from the Roar from 34 O's blog that damn near brought a tear to my eye--talking about th

I guess since I still maintain my loyalties to all the DC-area teams I grew up with, people frequently ask me if I'm excited that the Nats are in town now. Huh? Even if I still lived there, my loyalties are still with the O's (god help me). The Expos Nats are for newcomers to the area or people who are old enough to remember the previous incarnations of the Senators.

Good point. Whatever sports magic that exists in that city is mostly housed in RFK Stadium. Maybe the Nats shouldn't have been in such a rush to build their new park...

Eh, I can't speak to the baseball woes of the past, but DC sports, in general, have been cursed at least since Jack Kent Cooke died. Whatever curse currently lingers over the area probably has to do with the overabundance of bad sports mojo in the air wafting down the road from Peter Angelos and Daniel Snyder across town. Personally, I grew up in DC during the time when there was no baseball in Washington and I had to convince myself that "Baltimore isn't that far away", so baseball in DC still feels like a strange concept to me.

Well, like you said, it is pretty much impossible to know what will click for each person. Like you, I was a latecomer to the band. I saw one show in person around '90 or so, but it was before I was really a fan and didn't fully appreciate the band's latter-stage sound (still kind of don't, to be honest). But I went along for years mostly just knowing American Beauty and Workingman's Dead and liking them, but never had that "wow" moment. Really, for whatever reason, it was Europe '72 that finally did it for me. One day I borrowed it from a friend and had one of those great epiphany moment

Does his wife still have the same goofy haircut she had when they used to show her on tv every 5 seconds when he was with the Rams?

As I told a friend recently, I am so out of touch with the NFL that I thought it was a joke when I was told the Cardinals are in the effing Super Bowl. The Cardinals! The mind reels...

Like Jimi says in his song, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a frustrating mess.

Ok, so I'll throw this one out there. Am I the only one who, every time I hear the intro of "The Blue", sort of expects him to break into a cover of "Sexual Healing"? That is neither a criticism or a compliment, just a funny thing I noticed. Perhaps he is saving that one for the live show. The Blue>SH>Blue transition would be allsome. You heard it here first.

It helps to be wearing a clever t-shirt.

The Cooley songs are almost always my favorites on every album, but maybe especially on SRO.

Ok, Peel, you hooked me. How has he not hired you as his manager/publicist yet? This is a darn good record. (No Choice In the Matter is my personal favorite after once through) Now you just have to tell me where the hell this place is and maybe I'll check him out live:

Can't do YouTube at work, but I will have to check this out--if for no other reason that I have a daughter named Jolene who loves songs that are named after her. (the Ray LaMontagne song is different than the Dolly Parton one, correct?)

and/or lack of cash flow

There was a pretty cool punk cover of this song by Avail. Not sure if it is angrier, but it is definitely faster. I get what you're saying, but I don't think this is exactly meant to be the kind of protest song you are looking for. Its not glorifying having an interstate running through your front yard, but there is definitely some admiration of the ability of these people to see beyond the limitations that surround them and still find happiness in their lives. I don't think its necessarily a complacency thing. Especially set against the backdrop of the yuppie-tastic '80s (those people

I used to roll my eyes at Macaholics. Well, I still do, but after spending the last year using a Dell laptop loaded with Vista, I simply have nothing good to say about it. I've never been anal enough to actually hate an OS before, but OMG that was terrible. Shortly before Christmas my 2 year old niece decided to dump an entire bottle of shower gel on the keyboard and fried the hell out of the thing. You'd think I'd be pissed about having to replace a still-fairly-newish computer, but I have to admit there there was a part of me deep down that was dancing and singing "ding, dong, the witch