Ranteumptom

Music Monday (on Tuesday)

2012-01-24T11:03:00.002-07:00

I was on call yesterday and am unable to pre-plan blogging like a functional person.

I'm working my way up to writing on this thing again. In the mean time, yet another youtube video. But the very least I can do is find you some enchanting Spanish melodies painted on a disturbing/whimsical dreamscape. So I'll do that.

El Rey del mambo y la Reina de Saba

The Witch is Dead

2012-01-20T10:27:00.003-07:00

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead. Which old witch? The Step 3 witch. My exam is over, and although I have little feeling for how well I did on it, the important thing is that it is done and I can stop looking over my shoulder, suspecting it to be lurking behind me.

My brain has been sufficiently fried that I don't suspect I'll write anything interesting for the next couple days. But I can at least post something interesting. I'm starting a new blog segment called

Crazy Internet Things

In CIT I'll introduce you to bizarre things that could only be made popular via the internet. This week the entry is Pogo. Pogo takes movies and remixes the movies into songs. He also uses television shows, compilations of different movies, and sometimes just footage he shoots himself. His most recent one uses The Fresh Prince.

I've included some of my favorite. He has a particular fondness for Disney movies, which I don't share. But I've included a bit of his more typical Disney ones, as well as some Mighty Boosh and LOTR to manly up the place.

New Year

2012-01-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

One day back in elementary school the teacher did a poll of the class and asked everyone their favorite genre of music. I don’t know if she thought she was teaching us about music, or about statistics, or was just bored. But I answered what any 5-11 year old kid from suburbia would answer: reggae.

I was in my Beetlejuice period, and I thought Harry Belafonte was the coolest guy in the music world. I was incorrect, because that would be David Bowie. I was also incorrect in believing that Harry sang reggae. He sang/sings calypso primarily. Before I move on with my actual point, some Belafonte trivia:

He won a Tony.
He took acting classes with Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, Bea Arthur and Walter Mattau.
His appearance on The Muppet Show was Jim Henson’s favorite episode.
He is from New York, though spent part of his childhood in Jamaica.
He was bffs with MLK and supported King’s family financially as King didn’t make much money for his preaching/civil-rights-ing.

Anyway, I bring up Mr. Belafonte because I bought my first record this weekend, Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. I did this as part of my 2 New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Start a Vinyl Collection.

Technically I guess I have already accomplished this resolution, in that I now own a vinyl. But I will get some more, as well as a record player. This is impractical and not remotely cost effective, but I feel like doing it, so I’m going to. I’ve been a little hobby light in recent years, and this will bolster my eccentricity and elitism quotient.

2. Write more

There’s actually a good chance that this will be my last post for January as I’m looking to eliminate distractions for the next few weeks. But come February, I want to spend more time writing. This writing may make it online, and may not. I want to get back to some short stories, essays and maybe even a novel. These may pop up on my blog, but may not. But the goal is to write more, and write more creatively.

So until February, keep an eye out for some vinyl for me.

Every song

2011-12-31T18:00:00.001-07:00

Every song from 2011

ChrisMix: Dark

2011-12-29T16:23:00.002-07:00

ChrisMix 2011: Dark
Madder, Sadder, Friskier.

1. T.O.R.N.A.D.O. – The Go! Team

If I ever become a boxer, or have to run a marathon, or really do anything in which I need to be pumped up, this is the song I’ll pick.

2. One Foot Before The Other – Frank Turner

I dig the way Frank says capillaries. Also, I dig how he takes a simple human desire, wanting attention, and then manages to extrapolate it onto all of the human race.

3. Colours – Grouplove

I thought this was a pleasant enough song at first, then really listened to the lyrics. Which isn’t to say the lyrics are negative. They’re not clear to me, but there is definitely frustration, confusion, resentment and a bit of suicide in there. But at the same time there is acceptance.

4. Get Some – Lykke Li

This song sounds grungy and grimy before Lykke starts singing about prostitutes and shotguns. A lot of these tracks depict people in nonideal situations, but surviving. The darkness allows them to show their strength and determination in a way the light never could.

5. Virgin – Manchester Orchestra

I really like the video for Simple Math, but I don’t love the song. I love this song. It’s one of the ones that I’m sure many others won’t enjoy, but it’s my mix not theirs. The plodding beats and children’s choir paint a haunted house filled with the unsavory and macabre. Perfect Christmas music.

6. Buy My Love – Wynter Gordon

As with her track on Bright, this is a pretty fluffy piece. I can’t tell whether she is being ironic about materialism and exploitation, or reveling in it. But in either case she’s fully aware of it, and enjoying the power that comes from this knowledge.

7. Hold It In – Jukebox the Ghost

Is the quality of a band's name enough to get them into the ChrisMix?
Not quite. But it certainly helps. They also have a good pedigree,
having toured with Moldy Peaches, Barenaked Ladies, Jack's Mannequin
etc. Also the song is great.

8. When the Night Kills the Day – Lauren Pritchard

The asyncopation of the chorus is a powerful engine propelling this song forward, and that momentum it builds make the conclusions seem inevitable. It’s a great album all around and Painkillers or It’s Not the Drinking could also have made it. They also seem to indicate Lauren has some substance abuse issues.

9 L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. – Noah and the Whale

Here we are, back in the gutter. Just as Grouplove told us that we call this life because we can’t call it hell, here Noah paint various depressing pictures of failure, but comes to the same conclusion, spelled out no less. Life goes on. It’s dark, but somehow still motivating.

10 How Can I Say I Love You – Girls

As a perennial single person, I love the songs of unrequited love. Less common are the songs of lingering love, the affection that has outstayed its welcome. You want what you don’t want what you want. It’s painful for both parties but one usually gets the brunt. The boys from Girls know this well.

11 Sun of a Gun – Oh Land

I have a hard time imaging Oh Land ever getting too angry. What could a beautiful Nordic songstress get too mad about, other that the inevitable Gaga and Bjork comparisons? But she does her best to give a brush-off here to some Viking lover.

12 My Fault Your Mistake – Lex Land

Oh’s little sister Lex knows a thing or two about regret. She’s not actually related to Oh (to the best of my knowledge) and in fact her style is quite the opposite: simple melodies, little accompaniment, wailing rather than chirping. But beautiful is beautiful.

13 Poison & Wine – The Civil Wars

I'd say this dark ChrisMix has more straight forward lyrics than most
mixes. A lot of the tracks are almost too repetitious for my taste. But in tracks like this one, you really need the repeated refrains to help strengthen the message. The words seem like a series of paradoxes (paradice?) but by the end of the umpteenth you know what “I don’t love you but I always will” means.

14 Skinny Love – Birdy

Bon Iver didn’t qualify for ChrisMix since he’s been on my radar for a few years, so I’ll sneak some in using this cover. Honestly I prefer Birdy’s version, which I know is blasphemy to the Iver faithful. And while it’s true that I doubt her 15 year old mind can comprehend the song as well as Iver (especially considering he wrote it) but her young voice makes it all the more poignant.

15 Poor in Love – Destroyer

This song makes the list just for it’s opening line. “I was poor in love, I was poor in wealth, I was ok in everything else.” Certainly a sentiment people in their 20s may relate to well.

16 Blue Jeans – Lana Del Ray

People went crazy over Lana’s song Video Games, but I just wasn’t feeling it. But this song I feel. Also Diet Mt. Dew and the previously mentioned Kinda Outta Luck, but mostly this one. I don’t know if Lana is going to explode in 2012 like people predict she will, but if it gives us more of these tracks, I’ll be ok with it.

17 Manners – Icona Pop

I love everything about this song. I love the beats, the chorus, the lyrics, the bitter tone in her voice, the video, everything. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you should too.

18 Someboy That I Used to Know – Gotye

I loved the whole of the Gotye album, partially because the songs showed some nice range. But this was definitely the standout. It starts so mellow, but then crashes down into the anger of a failed relationship. He’s not ranting and raving, just in pain and angry about that pain. And rather than have it be a one-sided argument, then Kimbra comes in with her brief verse. But she too conveys the pain, and you see it’s just a bad situation for everybody.

19 Suicide Policeman – Yuck

Generally I try to include songs where I like the whole album. So if you like a track, you can go out and get the whole thing and have yourself a new favorite artist. But I really tried to like this Yuck album, because lots of other music savvy people did, and I wasn’t able to. But you might. I like this particular song a lot though.

20 Breakfast – EMA

I don’t have much to say about this one. I like it. I’m not sure what it means, but it manages to be both soothing and vibrant simultaneously. See what you think.

21 Hurt – 2cellos

I’d say it’s a toss-up as to who is more famous for this song: Nine Inch Nails or Johnny Cash. I know, you probably don’t think of them together too often. But Cash covered this NIN tune, and did so magnificently. This cello version brings Cash’s version to my mind more than the original, though all 3 bring the melancholy pretty effectively.

That’s it for this year. Hope your year had more Bright days than Dark. And if not, there’s always next year.

2011 Movies (not really, just 11)

2011-12-27T17:24:00.003-07:00

I'll get back to the ChrisMix: Dark shortly. But here's a brief palette cleanser.

Somehow my movie patronage dropped considerably this year. I would've guessed I'd only seen a handful of movies, though in the end the total was 11 which I'd guess is pretty typical. But it's low for me. But I'm sure that if you, or myself for that matter, were to guess which 11, you'd be wrong. The movies are almost all obscure, cultish, non-starter affairs. But I'd have to say it was a 100% success rating for me. So while I'll now rank those 11 films, they're all winners.

The time of the year when I rank all the movies I saw in the theater in 2011.

11. Sherlock Holmes 2.

I don't care what the actual title was. Friends were seeing it, so I went with. If nothing else it has Stephen Fry, so that makes it worth seeing. It's fun and forgettable.

10. The Adjustment Bureau

Again, friends. It was an interesting concept that never quite congealed as I hoped.

9. Horrible Bosses

It's only goal was being funny, and it succeeded. It was the first time I didn't hate Jennifer Aniston, so that's an accomplishment.

8. Fright Night

Fun, funny, creepy at times. It might have scored higher if I hadn't had to leave the theater several times to answer pages.

7. Tabloid

Very interesting, though uncomfortable at times. Uncomfortable is fine, but it felt needlessly so.

6. Tree of Life

A great film experience (that I probably won't ever watch again.)

5. Hanna

We need more indie action flicks dagnabbit.

4. Melancholia

Beautiful, sad (duh), too painfully slow to be riveting but the painful slowness was intentional. I think.

3. The Muppets

It has been a long long time since I've enjoyed a non-R comedy this much. I'm not saying the R is necessary for something to be funny, I just find the two things tend to go together. In any case, this movie showed me I'm not completely jaded to family fun.

2. Trollhunter

This movie was so fun. It probably could have been a bit shorter, but I enjoyed every minute.

1. Attack the Block

I didn't walk out of the movie thinking it was the movie of the year, but I can't say I enjoyed any movie more. They made a great action comedy, with aliens, with plenty of Britishness thrown in for good measure. What more can I expect?

ChrisMix 2011: Bright

2011-12-26T19:32:00.004-07:00

It was kind of an interesting year. My resolution was to listen to less music, mostly so I could do some more thinking. Sometimes this thinking lead me to a negative place. I’ve always had a predilection for some dark, melancholy music, and I certainly found some this year. But on the whole I don’t feel like these tunes represented my year. So while I wanted to share them, I didn’t want them to be THE ChrisMix.

At the same time, I found that a lot of my favorite albums this year contained both feel good tracks as well as some bummers. Beautiful, but bummers. So I decided I could have both too. I made two mixes, each adhering to the rules of ChrisMix. But about half of each mix are the same artists from the other, just different in tone.

ChrisMix 2011: Bright

1. Don’t Say Oh Well – Grouplove

I think this song is actually pretty autobiographical, about the band’s first year together. But the sentiments of the song can be universally applied. “This year has been a big one . . . following what we don’t plan . . . Will you follow your heart’s plan? Oh, why not jump in to that ocean, and run your fingers through your hair? Don’t say oh well.”

2. If Ever I Stray – Frank Turner

Another song about counting to 4 and jumping in the ocean. What can I say, I love both of those things. I really like Fran’s mix of melody and growl, as well as his insistence on mentioning England in every song. He’s British and don’t you forget it! I also like that the song is a motivational speech, but it’s not overly cloy. Pick yourself up, get on with it, don’t feel entitled. Now start.

3. Blue Eyes – Destroyer

The first lines of the song sound like gibberish, but at the same time do seem evocative. He then states “I write poetry for myself” and you get the sense that he’s definitely saying something, it just wasn’t aimed at you. The whole song, and indeed album are that way, and constantly leave you wondering, but listening all the closer for it. Because it’s something you’re pretty sure you want to know.

4. Hope It’s You – Lauren Pritchard

Although this is the bright mix, the songs aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. This song is definitely not a rosy picture, but it feels empowered and confident to me. It doesn’t hurt that the drums, piano and handclaps provide a driving beat that propels the whole thing into a groove party.

5. We Turn It Up – Oh Land

The first of our numerous Scandinavian acts this year, Oh Land was a challenge. I liked every song on the album, so which to pick? Clearly, in the end it was this one. It’s a bit light lyrically, but to be honest, so are most of her songs. But the jangly happiness of it compensates for this.

6. Magic – Girls

Often the track I pick to represent a band is their single. After all, that’s why singles are selected, because they seem to be the standout track. But I didn’t like the first single from Girls, nor the second. But it turns out, I love a lot of the tracks that aren’t “single-worthy.” Such as this one. I am starting to rebel against my own apparent predilection for retro, but I can’t deny the charm of this track.

7. Ready to Go Steady – The Go! Team

What to say about The Go! Team? They have an exclamation point in the middle of their name. They work with bands like Best Coast, Deerhoof and Soko. They have 2 tambourine players, one of which is named Ninja. They list the inspirations as blaxploitation, Bollywood and double dutch chants. They’re fun.

8. Waiting for My Chance to Come – Noah and the Whale

I didn’t want every track on this album to sound like a pep talk, but lots of them do. This one does. But so far every song on this album has a mirror track on the Dark album, which I think validates the pep talks. If they never admitted to the darkness in other songs and were relentlessly positive, I wouldn’t trust their pep talk.

9. Tonight – Atoi

Another proud contribution from Denmark. Their citizenship was enough to get them on the mix. Well, that and this track is pretty great..

10. Barton Hollow – The Civil Wars

I maintain that I hate country music. So the fact that this song/album/band has been nominated for multiple country music awards, and they just released a song with Taylor Swift, and they kind of sound like country will all be ignored. It’s not country. It’s folk, and folk I can live with.

11. Be Brave – Love Inks

I have no idea how I came across this band, as they don’t have much of a web presence. So clearly they must have hacked my iPod and put this track in there so I’d promote it on my blog. I see no other possible explanation.

12. Go Outside – The Cults

If nothing else, this song made me research the Jonestown Massacre, something on which I was sadly uninformed. And while I can’t say that I completely understand or agree with the sampling of various cult leader’s speeches in the album, the contrast with the music can be striking. The reminder of the darkness doesn’t really mar the cheery veneer of the song, but certainly grounds it. I think some might find the imagery of the video exploitive and insensitive, but I think it lends some earnestness to the sentiment of the song.

13. Baby, We’re Refugees! – Jon Fratelli

This is a bit of a cheat. The Fratellis were a favorite debut from a few years back, and here is Jon doing a bit of solo work. I considered doing a track from Codeine Velvet Club, Jons other band, since it would be more of a departure. But this is my favorite song from either the latest Fratellis album, CVC or Jon, so why not go with the best. The song starts catchy, and continues to add layer after layer of catchy hooks as it progresses. It won’t change your life, but it will get you humming pretty darn quick.

14. Mexico – The Staves

The Staves are 3 British sisters singing American harmonies. Hopefully you don’t like the song too much, as you’ll only be able to find a handful of Staves tracks anywhere. But they recently started touring with The Civil Wars, so hopefully they get their act together and put out a full album. Women.

15. Drunk On Your Love – Wynter Gordon

There was an Onion piece a while back satirizing pop nothingness with a new song called Booty Wave. They released the .mp3 of the track on their website, and it got so many downloads that the question arose whether it was really satire or just an actual pop song. I can’t say Wynter Gordon is any “better” that a typical Spears or Perry. But she puts together fun pop that’s at least as good and much less ubiquitous.

16. Ungirthed – Purity Ring

I’m going to be honest, I’ve never listened to the lyrics of any Purity Ring track. They may be singing about stepping on kittens. The only part I know of this song is “Ears ringing and teeth clicking and ears ringing and teeth clicking.” I just like the sound of the whole jumble of notes, words, tones, beeps, clicking and ringing.

17. Revolution Girl – Marsmobil

A lot of these songs have already been shared on my blog over the course of the year. But this one never was, primarily because the album cover has a topless woman on it. You’d think there would be a way around that, but I haven’t figured it out. In any case, click through with caution. But the song is great.

18. Good Intent – Kimbra

Kimbra is featured on Dark, and nearly got a third nod for a contribution to a Miami Horror track. She’s been all over the place this year. She also has a number of videos out, and I’d say both the Settle Down and Cameo Lover videos are more interesting than this one. But ChrisMix isn’t about videos. This is my favorite track. But now you know that there are plenty of other ones to look into if your interest is piqued.

19. Tesselate – ∆

Yes, the name of the band is a triangle. They’re also known as Alt-J, which in case you’re not a huge huge huge nerd, is how you type triangle on a mac. But I’ll overlook the stupidity of their name (though they also single about triangles in the song, so it must be near and dear to their hearts) and also that the song sounds a bit too Radioheady, because I like it.

20. Jubilation Day – Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers

The first thing I noticed about Steve Martin’s 2nd bluegrass album is how it’s not a joke. Yes, a couple of the songs are amusing, such as this one. But most aren’t, they’re just bluegrass. But if you like bluegrass, or the fact that Steve Martin is a stud, that should be fine with you. It’s fine with me. Though I’d be happy if he did release a comedy bluegrass album.

21. Don’t Stop Me Now – Sandra Bae

It’s my favorite Queen song, receiving a quality reimagination. I don’t know if I have more commentary for you than that. Enjoy.

22. White Winter Hymnal – Birdy

All my favorite Birdy tracks are covers. Indeed, half her debut album consists of covers. Which would be more of a problem if they weren’t so good. Here she covers Fleet Foxes, who had a great album this year, but sadly didn’t qualify for this mix since they’ve been around a couple years. I’m also counting it as my Christmas track, even though it’s just winter-related. Close enough.

23. Sadness Is a Blessing – Lykke Li

As previously stated, Lykke Li is my artist of the year. And not just because her name is fun to say, though that helps. And not just because she’s Swedish, which is almost as good as being Danish. But because she’s great. This song isn’t exactly bright, but it has a brightness to it. She has problems, and they hurt, but she’s making something beautiful from it all. The line between Bright and Dark isn’t always clear.

BONUS TRACK
24. America’s Song – Air Review

The only reason this is a bonus track is because I forgot to put it on the first dozen ChrisMixes I handed out. It’s just as good as the rest of the songs, if not better. But I just love the environment and my wallet too much to go back and remake all those cds.

Stay tuned tomorrow(ish) for ChrisMix: Dark.

Lazied

2011-12-23T13:56:00.002-07:00

Who knew my Forever Lazy story would have a denouement?

So I ordered a pink Forever Lazy as a gag gift. Unfortunately when my 2 comedic pink body bags arrive, they are not medium sized bags, but instead XL blue ones. There's a note included saying in essence "We didn't have what you ordered in stock, so instead we gave you something else. Merry Christmas!" To their credit they did include a Snuggie, so I now have 3 useless things rather than 2.

It was a gag gift and the gag event has passed, so a normal person would let sleeping dogs lie. But I got out of work early and having nothing to do this afternoon so called up their customer service department. From them I received such gems as, and these are quotes not paraphrases: "Yes. Some of our customers are happy and some are not," "Our policy is that it is more important to get it to you by Christmas than to get the order 100% correct" (my order being 0% correct) and "If you hadn't opened the box you could have returned it without paying shipping and handling. (Me) Then I wouldn't have known that it contained the wrong items. (Her) Yes, that's true."

So rather than going to the post office, paying shipping and handling and waiting a 4-8 weeks for them to replenish their stock, then receiving comedic pink pjs, I got her to give me $20 back, and I'll keep these XL blue pjs. To be fair, the size of these XL versions, which according to the box will fit someone that is 6'5'' and 260 lbs, makes them fairly comedic as well.

But still, Forever Lazy, good job living up to your name.

ChrisMix Rejects

2011-12-21T18:46:00.003-07:00

ChrisMix is complete. Most won't get it in time for Christmas, so my apologies. You'll get it before New Years.

Below are 18 songs that didn't make it. The reasons why are delineated. All songs are linked to youtube videos.

Category 1 - Band known previous to 2011

1. Rox in the Box - The Decemberists.

I quite liked this album. You'll probably like it to. Go get it!

2. Blue Spotted Tail - Fleet Foxes

On the surface this is just a pretty little ditty. Below the surface it's an interesting commentary on atheism, happiness, astronomy and Carl Sagan. Also, it's pretty.

3. Immigrant Song - Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross/Karen O

Holy hannah. Liked the original, love this cover.

4. You Make It So Hard - Ivy

I know that you needed something to wipe the dirt of the Reznor away from your synapses.

5. Second Chance - Peter Bjorn and John

Like that Youngfolks song, it's almost incomprehensibly catchy, but not as overplayed.

6. Lotus Flower - Radiohead

I didn't love love love this album at first, but I've worked my way up to 1.5 loves. I think by March when I go to the show I'll be up to 3. At the very least, Thom's dancing has "improved" over the years.

Cateogry 2 - Band known before 2011, and song is profane

7. Rocket Scientist - Teddybears

The swearing is of the tamer variety, but is fairly consistent throughout. But if you can see through that flaw, it's got some dang good beats.

8. Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys

This particular video bleeps out their hijinks, but you know they're being rowdy. But I also think it's their strongest single since Hello Nasty. And the video is a who's who of comedic cameos.

Category 3 - Just profane (suggest skipping if sensitive to such things)

9. Snapped - Jhene Aiko

One of my favorite songs of the year, hands down. But the description of romantic cruelty begs for expletives. Too bad.

10. Das Racist - Michael Jackson

I hated this song at first listen. Why did I change my mind? I couldn't tell you honestly. It just seems like some ridiculousness spouted by drunk guys at 4 in the morning, and the ridiculousness is contagious.

11. Eid Ma Clack Shaw - Bill Callahan

I love this song. Curse you one curse word! It's a simple piece about dreaming, imagination, remembrance and gibberish phrases. All great things.

12. Felicia - The Constellations

This song is dirty. Most every line is a euphemism, or at times not even a euphemism, just an outright description. So while there is no actual swearing, I couldn't help but classify it as profane. And uber-catchy.

Category 4 - Overplayed

13. Call It What You Want - Foster the People

The degree to which Pumped Up Kicks was overplayed was quite remarkable. We haven't seen the likes since, I don't know, maybe Umbrella. Especially considering it's about a school shooting, it was just an all around odd bit of zeitgeist acceptance. Which is unfortunate, as the whole album is quite good.

Category 5 - A 2nd (or 3rd) song after another was chosen for the ChrisMix

14. Love Out of Lust - Lykke Li

I was asked who my favorite artist of the year is, and I'd have to say Lykke. She has two other songs on the ChrisMix, but this one is fantastic as well, as is Youth Knows No Pain. And I Follow Rivers. And Jerome. And every other song on the album.

15. Kinda Outta Luck - Lana Del Rey

There's a surprising amount of internet contention regarding Lana, but I for one think she's da'bomb.com.

Category 6 - Just not the best

16. Keep on Trying - Lanterns On the Lake

I like the video as much as the song. They're saturated with lazy-day nostalgia of events that I never experienced.

17. Amor Fati - Washed Out

I quite liked this whole album, it just all fades into background music for me. But very good background music.

18. Normal - Ximena Sarinana

I'm sure the song isn't terribly profound, but I'm going to pretend it is.

Dreaming of a White Elephant

2011-12-17T23:04:00.002-07:00

You can’t go into a white elephant gift exchange hoping to give someone a gift they’ll really enjoy. The odds of the particular gift reaching the particular person and touching their heart are just too slim. And you can’t participate in a white elephant gift exchange hoping to actually benefit from the exchange. The chances of the gift you take home being better than what you could have bought yourself is even lower. The only reason to participate in a white elephant is for the entertainment value of the event itself.

The most popular items at our work white elephant exchanges are invariably gift cards. We have a 20 dollar limit, so people buy 20 dollar cards for Best Buy, Target etc. These are feverishly stolen back and forth until they are no longer stealable. But again, wouldn’t you rather have 20 dollars to spend wherever you wish? So if you’re going to fight over these, why even enter? Instead, contribute something ridiculous, and expect something ridiculous.

This year’s most ridiculous item: the Forever Lazy. My issue is not so much in the contraption itself, but in the name. The item is silly to be sure, but the name is just horrendous. And the commercial looks like it’s an SNL parody. But no, it’s real. And so I bought one. And since it was only economical to buy 2, I bought 2. And since it was most comedic for it to be pink, I bought 2 pink ones. And since they have poor customer service, my 2 Forever Lazies arrived the day after my white elephant gift exchange.

So I was left at the 11th hour giftless. I’d made a valiant effort to provide a comical gift, of this year’s most recent novelty item. And with this effort expended, albeit futilely, I felt justified in resorting to contributing a gift card. I’d already spent the money on my Forever Lazies, so I felt further justified in not spending money. And since I had one a Dominos gift card the year prior, that is what I was going to contribute. I’m sorry Dominos, but if I’m going to spend money on chain-quality pizza, I’m getting Papa Johns. So the 20 dollars had sat on my shelf for the last 365 days, and now I’d give it to someone else.

The white elephant exchange had few surprises. A gift contained lotto tickets that ended up paying out $40 dollars, so that was a quality win. A gift card was paired with a tube of Mandelay, which is a sexual enhancement product that you can research on your own if you so desire. I put my Dominos gift card in a Victoria’s Secret bag, which had the intended effect of making the men hesitant to open it. But the biggest surprise came when we came to the end of the white elephant with only one person left to draw, and no gifts remaining. Who participates in a gift exchange and doesn’t contribute a gift? Whoever it was did not choose to speak up when the conundrum arose.

The last person to draw was of course myself. At this moment I felt especially glad that I had not contributed the awesome Forever Lazy I had originally intended. I was doubly glad that I had contributed a gift card that I had won and not wanted the year before. There was some brief discussion as to what I could receive, but my repeated statements that I didn’t care were ignored. One resident gave me the tube of Mandelay, despite my earnest efforts to refuse it. Then another gave me his gift, which he assured me he wasn’t going to use. It was a Dominos gift card.

Pretty pretty

2011-12-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

Pretty pretty.

Look who's talking now

2011-12-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

I gave a talk yesterday. Like most people, I’m not enthralled with the concept of public speaking. Seinfeld famously noted that more people list public speaking as a fear than death, so people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. If you were to ask me “Hey, do you want to talk to a large group of people?” my answer would be not particularly. But if you were to ask me “Hey, do you want to talk to a person?” my answer would also be not particularly. My desire to communicate is conditional on the person, or in this case, the group of people. But my ward is a group of people that I’m generally interested in communicating with/at/for.

I don’t think giving a talk is very hard. Ten minutes is not really that much time to fill. Certainly giving a worthwhile talk isn’t about filling ten minutes of time with anything that comes to mind, but the fact remains that you only need two or three points to express and then you’ve run out of time. So here is a quick guide of what I generally try to include in a talk:

1. I don’t start with “I was assigned to talk about”
2. I generally start with some sort of obvious joke. This is a general practice many will follow, but I do it specifically for my own reasons. Some people can’t tell when I’m joking, so I start with a more obvious joke so they’ll pick up that there will be jokes along the way and that I’m not being entirely serious throughout.
3. I like to have an actual thesis.
4. I try to include a scripture not from the main section I’m referencing.
5. I try not to read more than 2 scriptures verbatim.
6. I don’t quote scripture mastery scriptures, or other commonly referenced verses. I may reference them, but not quote them.
7. I’ve learned not to get too abstract. I initially wanted to talk about how we each had our own personal “wicked traditions of our fathers/selves” but scrapped it for being too nebulous.
8. I try to quote a general authority. Extra points for Bruce R.
9. I try to quote a non general authority, but never CS Lewis or Dr Seuss. This week it was Rasputin.
10. I try to throw in bit of medicine or psychology. This week I had comments regarding scorpion induced pancreatitis, behavioral replacement and decreasing drug resistance to antibiotics, but sadly had to cut them due to time constraints.
11. I tell a personal story, 2 if they’re short. I generally try to avoid mission stories (as they are more things that happened to me, rather than things I have intentionally done.)
12. I like to throw in references to the other talks given, if applicable.
13. I try to incorporate testimony into the message of the talk rather than have a whole mini-talk at the end of my talk for my testimony.

If I do all those things, I’ll run over. Which is itself a problem, but it means I’ll have a serviceable talk that just needs some winnowing.

Sleepy Carl is too clever for me

2011-12-04T16:56:00.002-07:00

Blanket non-blogging apology. With that out of the way, and speaking of blankets:

Sleep.

I love sleep. If you're someone who doesn't, I'm sorry for you. I also don't really understand where you're coming from. I guess you like being awake, which is fine and all, but just isn't my thing.

Mike Birbiglia has a bit about Sleepy Carl, which goes something approximately (exactly) like this:

I actually haven't remembered my dreams with any frequency since my mission (the last time I got as much sleep as I was supposed to), so Sleepy Carl has to be more devious with me. He doesn't tempt me with dreams, but he makes up reasons why it's a bad idea for me to get out of bed.

Most often he says I'm sleep deprived, which is true. The trickiest tricksters throw those truths out there to snag you. But in my early morning thinking I should always go back to sleep, because some time in the next few days I'm going to have to be on call and could potentially be awake for 30 hours. Stockpiling sleep has no physiological evidence, but Sleepy Carl doesn't rely on evidence based research for his arguments.

Even though I live in Arizona, the hottest state in the union (maybe, I have no proof of that) Sleepy Carl always convinces me it's cold outside. So of course it makes sense to stay under my covers for as long as possible. I have been entirely convinced that it's freezing outside of my bed, only to step outside into 90 degree weather. Now currently my heat isn't working and it is actually 50 degrees outside of my bed at night, and unfortunately Carl is able to keep this memory in my head all year long.

Sleepy Carl sometimes convinces me that I have a headache, and the best way to deal with a headache is to not be conscious. It's relatively rare for me to actually have a headache in the morning, but I can't reliably tell if my headache is in my mind, or just in my head, until I'm in the car on the way to work. Only then will Carl give up and admit that my head hasn't been aching all morning, it's just been a ploy to keep me asleep.

I'm sure Sleepy Carl has other tricks up sleeve, but for now I'm on to him.

Music Monday, er 2011 / ChrisMix

2011-11-30T00:46:00.002-07:00

Lauren Pritchard - Not the Drinking. Seemed like a good choice to end my addiction medicine rotation.

I've narrowed my ChrisMix selections down to 365 songs. In case you were wondering, I'm significantly behind schedule. But I'm confident I'll get it down to 20 by Christmas. Whether I get it down to 20 in time to mail it to you by Christmas remains to be seen.

Caveats: my New Year's Resolution was to listen to less music, and I was moderately successful. Also, if you've been reading this blog all year, I've posted 50 or so songs, and many of those will likely make it into the final 20. But if you want a copy of ChrisMix 2011, just send me some manner of communique.

Thankful for too much television

2011-11-25T12:01:00.001-07:00

A friend asked me the other day how many tv shows I watched. I didn’t know, but answered about a dozen. Which is more or less correct. Last week’s Funny Rumble includes the following 10:

1. New Girl
2. The League
3. How I Met Your Mother
4. The Big Bang Theory
5. Community
6. Modern Family
7. Parks and Recreation
8. The Office
9. Whitney
10. It’s Always Sunny

That is the order of their funniness by the way. I don’t want The New Girl to win every week, but it was hilarious. The League was inconsistent, but gut-busting when it was funny. It has an excellent cast, which was bolstered by guest stars Sarah Silverman and Jeff Goldblum.

But those are just the 30 minute sitcoms I watch. Add in Dexter, X-Factor, Chuck, Supernatural, Psych, Castle, House, Doctor Who, QI, Fringe etc I go well over a dozen.

There’s a good chance that I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t. I watch what I consider to be either entertaining, educational, important or worthwhile. Some shows I watch only while working out, others only while emailing. Some I watch only with friends. Some I save up for months until there’s a day I’m post-call or otherwise too tired to do anything other than watch tv. Also there’s the fact that I rarely feel guilty.

In any case, I’m thankful for television. It’s not only a past-time for me, but a hobby. It is something I enjoy, and while I can’t say it’s important, my life would be more bland without it.

Some other lists for you:

Shows I’ve given up on:
1. 2 Broke Girls – I liked the different tone, but the laughs are too few and plot too dumb.
2. Up All Night – I love Will Arnett and like much of the rest of the cast, but they forgot to put jokes in this comedy.
3. Whitney – Again, liked the different humor, but I feel like they have used up their best jokes in the first couple episodes. The characters are all ridiculously 2D.
4. Burn Notice – It took too many seasons, but the formulaic nature of the show finally got to be too much for me.

Shows I haven’t watched yet, but will at some point
1. Terra Nova – at this point I’ll likely wait until the summer, and see if it is renewed.
2. Ringer – bad reviews, but we’ll see.
3. Homeland – I’ll probably wait and have a marathon.
4. Person of Interest – looks interesting, I’m just busy.
5. Walking Dead – Yes, I still haven’t watched season 1.
6. American Horror Story – even if it gets cancelled I’ll still watch it, but not right now.
7. Bedlam – Maybe I’m just stockpiling horror shows.
8. Luther – looks so good.
9. Grimm – I’ll watch this one. I likely won’t watch Once Upon a Time.
10. Boardwalk Empire – once I’m rich probably.

The VA

2011-11-15T18:51:00.003-07:00

Now if I were to guess I'd say the following 3 events had more to do with the part of town I was in than the fact that I was working in the VA. But still, it was weird.

Event 1 - Because I have no badge, I can't get any free food from the cafeteria. This may seem like no big deal, but to me the free food the hospital provides is essentially half of my wage. In any case, no food means I have to walk across the street to Jack in the Box, but it's not like I'm going to start buying food to keep in my home so I can make lunches to bring to work. That's crazy-talk. I digress. I exit the hospital to go to the nearest purveyor of fast food. As soon as I get to the street I see two young guys yelling at each other. One then stabs the other. HE STABS HIM. To be honest it looked like he punched him, but then the guy yells "I've been stabbed!" and I gather that he's been stabbed. On the plus side, it was relatively kind of the attacker to stab someone right in front of the hospital. I'm doubting the stabbed fellow was a veteran, but I guided him into the Emergency Department anyway.

Event 2 - As I walked back into the hospital after getting some tacos (no, watching someone get stabbed doesn't keep me from eating lunch. He wasn't bleeding significantly and it's unlikely any organs were punctured) a gentleman in a Rascal yells out to me. He uses the exact same tone as the guy that had been stabbed. But rather than say "I've been stabbed!" he says "Doctor, I have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving!" I'm not sure if he was making smalltalk, or wanted me to invite him over. But since I'm not having Thanksgiving, and because I'm not a good enough person to invite strangers into my home, and even if I were I have no way of getting him to my 2nd story apartment, I didn't. But I did help him find the number of a steakhouse in the phonebook that he thinks is open on Thanksgiving.

Event 3 - As I was leaving work, I hear a honk. I don't think anything of it as I don't think it was directed at me, and I was rocking out to my new lesbian blues CD. A minute later, sitting waiting for a green light, someone walks past my car and knocks on the driver side window of the car in front of me. I have my music on so don't hear what he says. But the driver has foolishly lowered his window to talk, and the other fellow uses this to his advantage as he punches the guy full force in the head. He then walks away. The light turns green.

Also, I saw the mentally ill during my normal office hours.

Same old

2011-11-14T09:56:00.001-07:00

This weekend:

I ate at an exclusive/famous/infamous/pretty good pizza place.
I ate at an unknown/homey/pretty good coffee shop.
I tried New Mexican food.
I pretended to dance.
I pretended to know about teapots.
I watched When Harry Met Sally for the first time.
I watched Tremors for the 132nd time.
I bought a giant cookie (who does that?)
I gave away the giant cookie.
I got Radiohead tickets.
I set up an hypothetical boxing tournament.
I got 2 new roommates.
I decided I don't want roommates.
I was accused of being a lawyer (I wore a suit to work.)
And most importantly, I got hooked on lesbian blues.

A Funny Thing Happened

2011-11-13T21:10:00.002-07:00

I remember the first joke I wrote.

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Dragon Boss?
Dragon Boss Who?
You're fired.

I don't remember how old I was, but I'm going to be generous and say I was 5.

I attended a lecture at BYU where the speaker expressed his view that a joke is when your mind connects two previously unconnected points of data forming a new synapse. To be honest, I'm not sure I can get behind his neurobiology, but I like the idea. My attempt as a child to connect office procedure and mythical creatures failed in that it wasn't funny, but it followed the basic formula of a joke.

I don't think I was funny until I was about 16. Obviously some would argue that I never became funny, but I think I did. Before that I tried connecting these data points and only produced weirdness. I remember having a running joke about mutant mice with my friend Jeremy, which just consisted of drawing deformed mice on each other's papers. I had a joke with another Chris where we'd chant "WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY HOW" during dodgeball games. Why did I do those things? I don't know. As I said, I only succeeded in being weird.

But in late highschool I figured out ways to connect things that other people found humorous, not just disconcerting. I started testing myself by seeing how many different variations on a theme I could make, such as different campaign posters, or different answering machine messages in college. I started understanding what I thought was funny, and how this material wasn't the same as what most people thought was funny, and started to be able to decide which type of joke I wanted to make.

I told a joke this morning at a breakfast gathering and a friend asked me how I could tell the joke without laughing at it myself. My answer was that I had told the joke in my head a few seconds before, so had already heard it by the time I told it. This is true, but also I think it was just a joke that wasn't one of MY type of jokes, just one I knew other people would connect with.

I want to be funnier. Some people are born funny, but most are made funny by their life. Some become funny instinctually, others as a concentrated effort. I think I am funny, but I need more variety. Some people don't react to witty or droll or sarcastic, and I don't have a lot of range beyond that. And if humor is just a skill, it's one that I haven't spent much time practicing in recent years. And it's one I'm going to start practicing.

Bonus Post:

Funny Rumble

Contenders:
1. Always Sunny
2. The League
3. New Girl
4. Community
5. The Office
6. Parks and Rec
7. Whitney

Winner: New Girl (with a close 2nd to Always Sunny.) Schmidt is hilarious. He's not believable as a person, but as a character he has a lot of opportunities to amuse. Having Zoey step back and become the secondary story was a good choice. Always Sunny was also very funny, with an in medias res approach. If you hadn't seen the show before it would be confusing, but if you have, you can clearly understand each characters dysfunctional thinking. Worth noting, Parks and Rec had some great Denmark bits, as well as Model UN jabs, so is worth watching as well.

Alt November

2011-11-01T23:39:00.003-07:00

Things that people do in November:

They eat a lot.
They are thankful for things.
They watch football.
They write novels.
They grow mustaches.
They shop for Christmas.
They are cold.

I'm not going to do any of these things.

I'm going to grow strong enough to wrestle a bear.
I'm going to be proud of my bear-wrestling strength.
I'm not going to watch any football that doesn't involve flags, people I know and questionable half-time shows.
I am going to write a novel, but only after my next movie is finished, so maybe in March. Maybe.
I just shaved off my stach, and while I'm having some phantom beard syndrome, I'm not missing the soup strainer.
I've finished my Christmas shopping.
And being cold is for non-Vikings and people not living in Arizona.

Music Monday: Halloween Edition

2011-10-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

Choose how dark and creepy you want your Halloween.

Option 1: Not at all dark

Air Review - America's Son

Option 2: Creepy video, non-creepy song.

The Cool Kids - Sour Apples

Option 3: Dark video, dark song. But so so good.

Grouplove - Colours

What I Was

2011-10-30T19:26:00.006-07:00

I have some costume philosophies, for Halloween in particular, but also just in general. I don't generally like wearing a costume that you've seen before. IE apart from thinking that dressing like Steve Jobs is a bit tacky, I wouldn't do it because you'll see other Steve Jobses at the party. My costume should be something you won't see from anyone else.

Preferably, it would also be something people would recognize. If I dressed as Soren Kiekegaard that would be kind of cool, but no one would get it. I don't care if most people don't get it, but at least my target audience should get it. I don't have a lot of philosopher friends, so Soren is out.

I don't like spending a lot. I don't mind spending a bit, for instance my welder goggles for Dr. Horrible weren't inexpensive. But I don't think would makes the costume special is the cost. It's the thought of the costume, which may translate into cost or time, but it's nicer if it doesn't. My costume cost 3 dollars this year.

I don't intentionally do so, but the majority of my costumes come from pop culture. In the last few years I've been Zach Galifianakis, Robin Sparkles, Dr. Horrible and Jemaine Clement. All are from recent film and television, but that's nearly happenstance. Nearly, but given the amount of time I devote to following such things, it's not surprising that the costumes end up coming from there.

This year I was Ron Swanson. Chances are, you don't know who Ron Swanson is, and that's fine. That indicates you probably have more of a life than I do. But if you want to understand the various bits and wonder of my costume, you can watch the following clips:

Tv, racism and more Tv

2011-10-26T18:50:00.003-07:00

X Factor ran for 2.5 hours last night. I watched it in about 45 minutes while writing emails. I love the internet.

My horses all made it through. I'm not going to link to videos, as they're not too tricky to find. But Josh did well, Canty similarly, and Drew dominated her competition. Simone, Tiah and Dexter all crashed, burned and were eliminated. It really annoys me that they didn't fall out sooner, but the universe caught up with them I guess. If the universe is fair Rene and InTENsity will be the next to go. I'm going to re-pickup LeRoy Bell, as he's a champ, and am going to pickup Lakoda Rayne, because they sang Come On Eileen and are the least annoying group.

Reading a bit through internet commentary last week after the people I liked best were all sent home I came across something interesting. Racism. I find racism very interesting. Clearly I'm not a proponent, but it's interesting. Turns out some of the crazy internet trolls think this show is racist. It is interesting to note that 17 people/groups made it into the most recent round, and 11 were African American (or in the case of groups, contained African Americans.) Has race played a role in who gets into this competition? Is this balancing out American Idol? I don't watch Idol, but it seems like most of the people I've seen it turn out have been white. Is 65% African American representative of the acts currently in the music industry? If not, is it good that this bucks the trend of the current music business? Anyway, I'm new to the talent show tv thing, so I'll let you know what my research shows.

As predicted, Funny Rumble didn't make it 2 consecutive weeks. But HA, it will. Last week's contestants were:
1. How I Met Your Mother
2. The League
3. Always Sunny in Philadelphia
4. The Big Bang Theory
5. Modern Family

The winner is: The Big Bang Theory. Honestly, it wasn't an amazing episode, but everyone seemed to be having a down week, so it ended up winning out. A default victory is still a victory.

Music Monday

2011-10-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

State of the Art - Gotye

What a weird weird weird song. Good luck getting it out of your head.

The following song contains swearing. And phat beats.

Rocket Scientist - Teddybears

If you're tired of vocoders, here's another Gotye that eschews technology.

Thailand from your Living Room

2011-10-23T19:13:00.006-07:00

I have a journal of notes which I intended to use to write a travelogue. But chances are high that this will never happen. So in place, in lieu and instead of that, here are the sum of my pictures.

Thailand: Getting There
Thailand: Bang Pa and the Emo Temple
Thailand: Sex, Violence, Food and Fire
Thailand: Water for Elephants
Thailand: Something Clever
Thailand: Bring on the Opium!
Cambodia: Another place in Asia
Cambodia: My Favorite Place on Earth

With all the pictures posted, I need to start planning my next trip in earnest.

Not today

2011-10-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

Most days I think the guitar is a highly overrated.

Not today.

Spelunking

2011-10-21T07:52:00.001-07:00

When a particular friend of mine became frustrated with the unfair struggle with the fairer sex, he’d say he was going “into the cave” for a while. Ultimately he was full of crap, because he’d always spring from the cave almost immediately when a new girl piqued his interest. It was more like he was standing in the cave’s entrance, ready to flee it at the first possible opportunity.

I don’t know whether he knew it or not, but the cave is a concept most famously used in Men Are From Mars, Women are from Venus. To quote Wikipedia, paraphrasing the book (which is a fairly silly book in my opinion, but it does have an interesting point here and there)

Another major idea in Gray's books are the differences he believes operate in terms of the way the genders react under stress. He believes that many men withdraw until they find a solution to the problem. He refers to this as "retreating into their cave". In some cases they may literally retreat, for example, to the garage or spend time with friends. The point of retreating is to take time to determine a solution. In these "caves", men (writes Gray) are not necessarily focused on the problem at hand; many times this is a "time-out" of sorts to allow them to distance themselves from the problems so their brains can focus on something else. Gray posits that this allows them to revisit the problem later with a fresh perspective.

Gray holds that this retreat into the cave has historically been hard for women to understand because when they are stressed their natural reaction is to talk about issues (even if talking does not solve the problem). This leads to a natural dynamic of the man retreating as the woman tries to grow closer. According to Gray this becomes a major source of conflict between women and men.

I am currently in the cave. I have been for the last couple of weeks, and being a cave-dweller has treated me well. After a series of unfortunate events (ie girls turning me down) I decided to throw in the towel. Or at least throw in the towel to pick up at some point in the future, most likely December. If a girl were to pick up the towel and return it to me before then, I’d be hard pressed to refuse the gesture, but I have no intention of picking it up until then.

I don’t like being unsuccessful. Few people do. Maybe unwilling suicide bombers. And this last decade or so I’ve been largely unsuccessful in the dating arena. It’s not my poor stats that bother me, because I only need to be ultimately successful once. It’s just tiring. I imagine the feeling of powerlessness of being a girl and not being asked out would be frustrating. But the male problem of being an active participant in your rejection particularly annoys me. Getting punched in the face hurts (or so I’ve heard, I’m far too endearing to have been punched) but how much worse is it to have to walk up to people and ask them to punch you in the face.

So I’m just living in my cave for a while. I’ve always been an introvert, and I’m just promoting some super introversion. Actively dating and being unsuccessful has filled me with dissatisfaction these last 8 years, and I’m tired of being dissatisfied. In my cave, everything on my to-do list is actually in my power to complete. I don’t have to define myself as failure, and ultimately am not defining myself as much of anything. This cave is very zen. It’s a cave of wonders. And it might take a bit of prodding to get myself out of it come December.

Blarg

2011-10-20T16:55:00.003-07:00

I understand now why people get so impassioned watching American Idol. The judges are infuriatingly inept. The producers have an exceedingly low expectation of their viewer’s intelligence. And contestants are more repetitious than professional athletes in their analysis of their performance. What I don’t understand is why people are impassioned in a positive way towards these shows. My brief foray into reality television may be at an end.

When I picked my favorite performers previously, I mentioned 11 out of the 32 currently in the running. I wasn’t exactly dead set on one person who NEEDED to be the winner of the contest. But it turns out that the judges read my blog (Hi Paula!) and let almost none of these 11 through. They also looked down at my list of 5 people I hated (as performers, not personally) and let all 5 of them through.

The biggest mistakes were cutting Caitlin Koch and Tora Woloshin. These two actually had some personality, quite a bit of talent, were gorgeous and had what I would call “The X Factor.” I almost turned the show off when they were cut.

Brennin Hunt was a douchebag, but I’m positive he would make a lot of money as a professional douchebag, so cutting him was a mistake. Jazzlyn Little was the oldest of the little girls, and seems much more marketable to me than the younger bunch.

I picked up Christa last week, after a great Radiohead cover, only to have her cut. Sorry Christa, it was my fault for liking you. Anser was the least annoying of the groups so I thought about adding them, so again, they were cut.

I understand Dexter making it. He’s a sob story, so people will like to watch him. Problem is, no one is going to listen to a Dexter Haygood album. He’s not very good, but the judges don’t seem to mind that. Simone FORGOT HER LYRICS in the last round and is still going through. Brian Bradley can’t sing, only rap, and is going through. Hopefully they won’t ask him to sing, dance or not be conceited, because he doesn’t have any of those skills.

Blarg. Anyway, I do still have horses in the race, but they’re not my favorite horses.

Girls category – Drew.

Boys category – Marcus Canty and Chris Rene. I’m dropping Chris Rene due to his sob story, and I now refuse to support anyone with a sob story thanks to Dexter. So Marcus is my pick.

Old category – Josh Krajcik, LeRoy Bell and Stacy Francis. I’m going with Josh as he is the least sobby of the three.

Groups – No one cares about this category.

My problem

2011-10-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

My problem is not this video. I think it is catchy, colorful, and if the blacklight isn't flattering on Ms. Minaj, well I don't think it's flattering on anyone.

My problem is not this video. Children doing/saying inappropriate things is pretty funny. See The Landlord.

My problem is not this video. I don't understand where the random stay in school plug came from (seriously Nicki, do you think she's going to go professional with the tutu thing?)

My problem is this: Nicki Minaj won't date me. But the problem here isn't me for once, it's her. According to the lyrics of the song she is looking for the following qualities in a potential partner:

They use their air conditioner when the windows are down. That's just irresponsible.
Smokes weed. No can do.
Is rich. Not yet.
Right kind of build. Probably not.
Is the following - cold, dope, real, ill, trip, sailor, pelican fly
Sells cocaine, or at least might sell cocaine.
Doesn't fly coach (I can only assume this again refers to his wealth.)
A heck of a guy. I got this one. 1/dozens.
He's shy (because there are so many rich shy coke dealers.)
He wears ties. Score, 2/dozens.
Slicker than the guy with the thing on his eye. Your guess is as good as mine. I think Nicki might not like men in glasses, or know the word for glasses.
He wears polos and fitted caps ( I don't, but I could change.)
Entrepreneur/mogul. Again, rich. I think I'm sensing a pattern in one area at least.
He can both be alone, and at times be in a group. I can do that one.
He's dolo. No idea.
He can give her the look that renders elastic useless.
In touch with his feminine side. This doesn't seem to jive with anything else in the song, but ok.
American. Ethnocentric much?
He's got the super bass.

So, probably not me.

Funny Rumble

2011-10-16T21:38:00.003-07:00

Now for a feature that there is approximately zero chance that I will keep up regularly: The Funny Rumble.

Each week I'll tell you which television comedy was the funniest that week. You know, in case you feel like waiting until Sunday night to have me pick the funniest 22 minutes of television programming from the previous week. I'm here to help you out.

The 9 Funniest Sitcoms Aired This Week:

1. How I Met Your Mother
2. The Big Bang Theory
3. Modern Family
4. Always Sunny in Philadelphia
5. The League
6. The Office
7. Community
8. Parks and Recreation
9. Whitney

(Other shows that will be in contention on week they air, Raising Hope, Archer, Wilfred, 30 Rock, The New Girl. Eventually I'll get around to watching Up All Night and Workaholics, but I haven't seen them yet so they are not in contention.)

So who won the first Funny Rumble?

Community.

Community has been jumping the shark since halfway through the first season. Abed allows the show to be extremely meta, which they've taken full advantage of. This week they roll a die early in the episode and create 6 different time lines. Some of the repetition got old, but the different timelines created the chance to have recurring jokes that technically only happened once. The following clip really requires you to watch the episode to fully enjoy it, but it made me LOL, which is an achievement few can claim.

FYI: 2nd place would go to an above average episode of The Office, or a surprisingly well structured The League.

FYI2: Last week's winner would have been Parks and Recreation. If I'd been doing this way back then.

Soft in the head

2011-10-11T21:00:00.003-07:00

On June 11th, 2002, I was a missionary in Idaho. A missionary in Idaho who had no appointments on his blue planner that night. So I started hitting up the regulars: recent converts, ward leadership, past investigators, whoever would listen. Turns out none of them would listen, because every single house we stopped at was watching this new television show: American Idol.

Over the years I've seen hundreds of little bits and pieces of Idol. Mostly I like the beginning of the year when half of the contestants are so horrible you wonder why anyone lets them leave the house. But I've never gotten into the show, mostly because I'm a heterosexual male. Also because Ryan Seacrest fills me with an irrational anger.

So it's difficult to explain why I've started watching The X Factor. I'd like to say that I'm doing so because of it's named after the X-Men's sister team, but I don't think anyone watching the show also reads semi-obscure comic books.

Mostly it's the fault of Viral Viral Videos. I'm a busy guy, so I don't actually have time to cull in internet for all the inane things that I post for other people's amusement. So I let VVV do the work for me. Lately they've been posting whatever X Factor contestant is trending most on the internet, and like a sucker I watch the clips. And now, I want to see who wins.

Turns out I like Simon Cowell. This isn't too surprising because I like quick witted sarcastic truth tellers, and that's what he is. Turns out I also like Paula Abdul. She's about as lovable as a raving lunatic can be. The Pussycat Doll is fine enough on the eyes and L.A. Reid serves as good foil for Simon. And generally I skip through all the intros and fluff and hugging and junk, because I like these judges better than most of the contestants. So just watching the actual songs and the judges saves a considerable amount of time.

So without further ado, here are the people I like. So I'm guessing they won't make it far.

Top X Factor picks, in no particular order.

1. Caitlin Koch. She's a rugby player from Western NY. Win.
2. Tara Woloshin. From Tucson, and she may be the hottest mechanic in the world as the clip states.
3. Josh. I'm not going to bother to learn to spell his name, I'm not that invested. But he's from Columbus and dresses like a schlub so I like him.
4. Leroy Bell. The most interesting thing about him might be his refusal to age, but that's still pretty interesting.
5. Brennin Hunt. I'm quite confident that he's a colossal douchebag, but I really want to see him explode in national tv so I don't want him eliminated yet.
6. Marcus Canty. Vanilla, but likable and talented.
7. Talented youngins. I don't imagine these three will be able to play with the big dogs, but Drew Ryniewicz, Rachel Crow and Jazzlyn Little are all pretty impressive.
8. Stacy Haygood. I'm only going to pick one sob story, and she gets my vote. Chris Rene is a close 2nd, and Dexter Haygood would be a contender except I don't like watching him.

And for good measure, the people who I want to get off my tv quickly:
Simone Battle, Tiah Tolliver, Brian Bradley, Phillip Lomax, Dexter Haygood

Sweet

2011-10-11T15:45:00.001-07:00

Music Monday: So I don't have to actually blog

2011-10-11T00:27:00.002-07:00

Sorry, it's been a weird week. There will be a semi-post tomorrow. But today, here are some songs I like:

Snapped - Jhene Aiko. It contains haunting melodies, dark imagery and swearing so beautifully rendered that you may not notice it. I've got it on pretty heavy repeat.

Icona Pop - Manners. Another juxtaposed set of lyrics with chirpy pop sound. The Chiddy Bang rap that samples it is ok too, but I much prefer the original.

Music Monday: The Usz

2011-10-03T11:58:00.003-07:00

How do you spell usz, as in the abbreviated form of usual?

Not sure if I'm too late for this bandwagon, but you should check out Lana Del Rey.

If you have heard Lana Del Rey and currently furious at me for suggesting you hear something you've already heard, here's something from a band who's name I can't type. I'm guessing that fact alone will have kept you from hearing of them.

Funny Girls: Part 2

2011-09-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

As a footnote to yesterday's post:

The Time of the Week when I list Funny Female Celebrities

There are plenty of actresses that are given funny lines by funny writers. And delivery is not an unimportant element of comedy. But while Emma Stone or Kaley Cuoco do a fine job entertaining, I don't really consider them funny. And when you narrow the field of celebrities to women who are primarily comediennes, well there aren't many. And of that small number I don't think most are very funny (Sorry Chelsea Handler, Wanda Sykes, Margret Cho etc.) Here are ones that are funny, in no particular order:

1. Kristen Bell - She gets an automatic spot on every list where she remotely applies. But if you youtube any of her talk show appearances, she actually is funny.

2. Maria Bamford - I generally don't care for impressions or funny voices, but Maria is just so dang likable.

3. Jane Lynch - To be snotty, I liked her before Glee. She's great in Party Down, Role Models and A Mighty Wind. She has a pretty extensive improv background, and I hear she handled herself pretty well at the Emmys this year.

4. Ellen - Another funny lesbian. Her wife Portia is also someone who almost would have made the list despite no formal comedic training.

5. Kristen Wiig - I had a Tina Fey v Kristen Wiig debate with a friend once. Summary: Fey is the better writer, Wiig the better performer. Both are very talented.

6. Amy Poehler - I'd given up on Parks and Rec until this clip. But despite Leslie Knope not being super compelling, Poehler is. She does some of my favorite improv.

7. Mindy Kaling - She's not my favorite character on The Office, or even in my top 50%. But she's one of the writers and she writes some pretty good episodes. And she convincingly plays someone that couldn't write a good episode.

8. Sarah Silverman - I have a very high threshold for shock humor. So I certainly understand people that hate Sarah, but I think she's pretty darn funny. Being funny is hard. Being funny while saying horrible things is harder. Being funny and adorable while saying horrible things? She must be a witch.

9. Kristen Schaal - Honestly, I haven't seen a ton of Kristen Schaal, but I've liked everything I've seen. She shines on Conchords of course, but also does very well on Bob's Burgers and The Daily Show.

10. Paula Poundstone - She's a little hokey, but she's definitely got her own style, or lack thereof. I'm pretty sure she's given up her stand-up for full-time WWDTM, but I always thought her bits were good.

11. TIna Fey - Last but not least, comedy goddess Tina Fey. Loved and respected by all, and with reason.

Funny Girls

2011-09-26T22:36:00.001-07:00

One of my fondest memories is making several of my friends regurgitate. One night four of us were dining at the fine establishment known as The Spaghetti Warehouse. Admittedly, the fact that it was The Spaghetti Warehouse may have contributed to the regurgitation. But over the course of the night I was successfully able to make each of the other three laugh hard enough to cause them to spit, vomit or otherwise emit their food. It was a proud day.

I’d like to claim that the sheer magnitude of my wit caused this, but this was not really the case. It’s extremely difficult to keep up a string of jokes resulting in the loss of control of body function all on your own. The group included two of my more amusing friends. And with the momentum the three of us provided, I was able to capitalize. The four of us spent the night eating mediocre food, cracking each other up, and at times losing the mediocre food, and it was glorious.

Dates often pale in comparison. I love women, and enjoy the company of men considerably less than the average bloke. My use of the term bloke may contribute to this. But how often have I laughed uncontrollably on a date? I’d have to check my archives, but without doing the research, I’d say never.

For some reason, I’ve never thought to combine the crackup with the date, or at least to attempt to combine it. By and large, it’s because I don’t find women to be as funny as men. I’ve blogged for many years now and have covered the subject before and in more depth, but I think men tend to be funnier than women. I think it’s due to societal incentives more than inherent qualities, but it’s just there. I laugh at things men say and do much more often than what women say and do. And I’m sure part of it is that I’m a guy, and it’s not entirely that women aren’t funny, but that women aren’t funny to men.

In general, I’m in the business of removing criteria from my dating standards rather than adding them. That’s horrible advice for some people, but good advice for me. But I think I may need to add a criterion to my dating checklist. It’s not that funny women don’t exist, they’re just less common than funny men. But I like laughing. And I’d like dating more if I were laughing more. And what would be better than a couple who make each other vomit every once in a while.

Tales from the Vault

2011-09-15T01:34:00.001-07:00

As a man, I generally have control over the horrendousness of my dating. Which is not to say that women don’t have control, but they are at a distinct disadvantage when they are primarily being asked out and not doing the asking. I don’t ask out girls when I have reason to believe we’d have a horrible date. But some girls feel obligated to say yes when asked out, and consequently, horrendousness may ensue.

So my repertoire of dating horror stories is less robust than I’d like it to be. But after a decade in the meat market, I’ve accrued a fair number or interesting tales. Sadly, I’m too good of a guy to immediately blog about a bad date, providing real time awkwardness to the world. But I’m not too good of a guy to relate a story that happened some time in the last ten years.

The Picture

At various times and places I’ve ventured into online dating. I have my reasons. My failure at offline dating primarily. But I feel like it’s a good medium for me as I’m far wittier with a time delay between interactions. And so long as online dating doesn’t replace my efforts in regular-type dating, I see no problem with having it as a hobby or series of social experiments.

I’m a horrible commuter, and terrible long distance friend, so I never bother to contact anyone outside of my state. And I’m doing this mostly as a hobby or Hail Mary pass, so I’m not going to actually spend money to be on a legitimate dating site. So my pool of local people on free Mormon dating sites that I don’t already know is generally pretty small.

In that pool was Becky. Her name wasn’t Becky, or at least I don’t think it was, as I don’t actually remember it. She was cute enough and local enough and so I contacted her. If I remembered what we small talked about I would tell you, but since I can’t remember it was probably quite dull. Turns out that Becky didn’t live close by me currently, as she was at college, which was at another location. But our small talk was successful enough that she wanted to exchange numbers, and we left off saying one of us would call the other one sometime, maybe, if we got bored enough.

A couple months later I got a text message with a picture attached. The picture was of Becky modeling a thong.

Now I hadn’t actually entered Becky into my phone, so it took me a while to figure out who this girl was that was sending me pictures of her in her unders. She hadn’t included this photo, nor any photo of her at this angle, in her online free Mormon dating profile. But with the grainy photo and my wit I figured out who this was from. There was no message, only the picture. A mystery.

I don’t know what your first reaction would be, but mine was to immediately go to my roommate’s room and show him the picture. It helped that it was the night before a test and thus we were both keenly excited to do approximately anything other than study. And looking at innocently obtained pictures of girls in lingerie and debating their meaning fit the bill.

Not long after showing him the picture and earning his jealousy, a flood of texts came in. To paraphrase: Oh my gosh! I didn’t mean to send that to you! So so sorry! Don’t hate me!

I’ve often wondered if this was actually an accident, or a ploy to gain my attention. If it was an accident, who was the intended recipient for such a text message of her bared buttocks? What’s the point of modeling a thong? You might as well be modeling a bookmark. So many questions, which never were answered.

To further complicate this complicated situation, I didn’t text. Up until the last year I adamantly refused to text. So here I was with an inflammatory text, a whole series of apologetic texts, and I was going to be forced to call someone I’ve never talked to before to discuss the issue of her bared behind. But my alternative was to do nothing and leave her dangling in the wind, so to speak.

So I called her and she apologized again. She didn’t want to talk about the picture, which to a large extent invalidated the apology in my eyes. Turns out that she was in town for the week, so we again left off that maybe one of us would call the other and we’d get together. I said I needed to get back to studying, which, in fact, I did.

A few minutes later I got a text: Take a walk with me? This concept of studying didn’t sink in with her. Also the fact that it was 1 AM and taking a walk with someone without other tasks to accomplish is still an odd activity. I wish that I’d blown off studying for a couple hours and had let this train wreck occur, but sadly I was responsible. I had images of her throwing me against a tree and again inappropriately displaying her various items of clothing. She was a hockey player, which somehow made this a more likely scenario in my mind. But no, studying would be my fate that night.

I still have the picture on my old phone, as a memento. We did get together later that week, but she didn’t throw me against a tree or show me anything scandalous. She did turn out to be an odd rabid Obama supporting, Jack Mormon kind of girl with limited social skills and no driving skills. But the lackluster quality of that date pales in comparison to the bizarre first text. To this day, every time I get a text with a picture attached, I wonder to myself, is Becky back? Or more importantly, is her backside back?

Suits Me Fine

2011-09-08T20:23:00.002-07:00

A couple years back I made my mTV movie, and it occurred to me the other day that the different segments have something in common: an infatuation with suits.

Barney is of course the world's premiere suit enthusiast. And if there's anyone that I model my life after it's Barney Stinson.

Suit Song and Dance

Only slightly less enthusiastic about the suit is Gob.

Admittedly, Michael Scott is less vocal about his love for suits, hence the horribleness of this clip.

I guess this post had little point other than youtube theft, and for to say that I bought some new suits this week. I've been trying to motivate myself for several months into making this purchase. Generally I like suits, I was just hesitant for a several reasons.

1. I don't like buying expensive items.
2. I especially don't like buying expensive clothing.
3. I live in Arizona, and buying extra layers of clothing in 120 degree weather seems daffy.
4. Jos Banks is on a neverending sale cycle, so I could never be sure when it would be a good deal to buy one.
5. I've been waiting for white tuxedos to come back into style.

But Jos Banks came up with a 3 for 1 sale and I figured I wasn't going to do any better than that. I very nearly made the mistake of buying the exact same suit I already owned because it seemed so familiar, and thus appealing. The saleslady suggested I throw out my old suit and buy the new one, but since I'm not made of money I told her to shove off. I did however pick up a nice grey, brown and blue pinstripe triple threat. That's right, brown! I'm a crazy person. Here's hoping I don't get laughed out of church this week.

Music Monday: Things you won't like

2011-09-05T22:50:00.003-07:00

Last time I highlighted some bands that I think everyone would like. Here's some tracks that I think are pretty nifty, that most of you probably won't like.

Purity Ring: Ungirthed

Bonus track: Belispeak

2Cellos: Hurt

Wynter Gordon - Buy My Love

Bonus track: Drunk on Your Love

Noir Desir: Le Vent Nous Portera

If you like all 4 artists, well, you may well be me.

In depth analysis of shallowness

2011-09-04T20:07:00.001-07:00

A friend recently called me shallow. This is the kind of things my friends do frequently. She drew this conclusion because she couldn’t make any connection between the girls she’d seen me with, other than the fact that they were attractive. Clearly there weren’t enough data points for her to draw any sort of accurate conclusion.

But rather than argue my intense depth, I readily admitted my shallowness, which took away her burning desire to prove my shallowness. But my point wasn’t how shallow I am, but that we’re all shallow. I don’t think I’m more shallow than average, though I don’t think I could argue that I was significantly less. I would say I’m equally shallow as the average guy, I’m just more honest about it.

Indeed, probably the only thing the girls I’ve asked out in the last year of her observation have in common have been that they were attractive, or at least were so to me. And they were Mormon. And if you wanted to be technical they were all between 5 and 6 feet tall, none were bald, none were of Sri Lankan descent, none were dolphin trainers etc etc. But generally speaking, attractive Mormon girls pretty well describes them.

She felt this was noteworthy in some way, but why would it be? The only thing I can definitively know about a girl I meet at church is whether or not I find her attractive. So who will all my dates be? Attractive Mormon girls. Or attractive girls hanging out in Mormon churches.

I try to gauge other things ahead of time, but you never know what you’re going to get. First I have to decide how much of flirt-mode girl is real, then how much of 1st-date-mode girl is real. I can try to find interesting, compelling, smart, talented, fun girls from the start, but you can’t really tell those things from the beginning. So you start with attractive, and search for the other qualities as you spend time together. But we don’t all wear our ingenuity or compassion or other non-obvious qualities on our sleeves, so sometimes it pops up later and sometimes it doesn’t.

Am I shallow? Yes. Are all guys? Yes. Are all girls? Yes. I guess I can’t say all, because if multiple choice has taught me anything, it’s that the answer with all, always or never in it is wrong. But most.

Another friend posted this facebook status this week: “Funny to girls is like boobs to guys!” [sic]. I think we’d have to have a bisexual officially state whether that comparison is accurate, but I’d have to call bull. Attraction is to girls as attraction is to guys. Shallow is as shallow does.

Some women do favor funny men, but I hardly think it replaces physical appearance in their priorities. I know funny guys and I know attractive guys, and I know which get more women. Obviously both humor and beauty are very subjective, but I’d say the beautiful people are doing a lot better than the funny ones, whether male or female.

I’ve written bitter posts before, and this isn’t one of them. I’m not mad about this particular subject. I just think both guys and girls need to realize that they are in fact shallow. And we shouldn’t expect them not to be. Certainly we can be overly shallow, but using attraction to dictate dating isn’t really being shallow. It’s dating. Do your best to be attractive, to be appealing, and to be honest with yourself.

Consumer Consumption

2011-09-01T00:32:00.001-07:00

I feel that as a physician I should have some kind of advice for weight loss. But unfortunately I don't. I don't even have any very consistant or relatble personal experience. I have at various times and to varying degrees sought to lose weight, but I haven't done the same thing twice.

When I first moved away from home, simply being away from prepared meals helped me lose weight. Later in college, saving money restricted my intake. In China I was only partially able to digest my food for 5 months and got to my lowest adult weight. When I was preparing for my first board exam in med school I made a point of biking into the middle of Columbus each morning, to some success.

I suffer from many kinds of blindness. I don't notice what color people's eyes are. I can tell you when a girl is flirting with someone else, but often not when she's flirting with me. And I suffer from near total me-blindness. I don't notice when I need a haircut, don't notice when I'm getting sunburned, and don't notice when I'm gaining or losing weight. So when I went to the doctor a few months ago, primarily so I don't "lose" the money I pay for health insurance, my current weight came as a near complete surprise. As a result, I came up with a new diet: The capitalist diet.

I gained weight because of work. I don't have a lot of time away from work, and my work is often sedentary. And most importantly, I get free food at work, and as a capitalist when I'm given something for free, I take a lot of it. So I have to use capitalism for my benefit. I hate paying money for things I don't particularly like, such as vegetables. So rather than buy vegetables, I can get them for free at work. I hate buying food at all, so when possible, I've been eating exclusively at the hospital. And when I intentionally choose protein, vegtables and low calorie drinks, this works out pretty well for me. A free diet that saves me money and calories, and is usually convenient.

There isn't much to losing weight other than diet and exercise, so the other half is exercise. I have been making playlists that are exactly 40 minutes long. I have to shoot hoops until the music ends, or I accomplish a set of goals (this many around the worlds, 3 point shots, free throws in a row etc) that I determine before I start exercising. I hate running, and love television, so I have paired the two together. I've picked certain shows that are very cliffhangery (Game of Thrones, True Blood, Supernatural) and I'm not allowed to watch them unless it's on my iPod as I'm running on a treadmill or eliptical.

I've been following these strategies since May. The best way I've found to keep this program running is again using my consumer greed. For every 2 pounds that I lose, I buy something. Often it's something practical. Shoes, a wallet, some new shirts or ties. But every other time or so it's something more fun. An ice cream maker, some Blurays, some new headphones etc. When I reached my halfway goal I bought a moderately ridiculous 27 inch iMac. I'm not a huge fan of the diet or the exercise, but I am a big fan of getting to buy something new every week or so, and justifying it with the money I've saved and the theoretical health I've added.

I can't really reccomend this program to anyone else. It has no specific principles, and at the same is extremely personalized to my own current lifestyle. I don't intend to keep it up longterm and the fiscal responsiblity of it is highly questionable. But it's working for me. And in the end that's all the advice I can give my patients. Do what works for you. Set a diet, set the exercise, and set some rewards. If the first two are healthy and the last effective, it'll work.

Approximations of Popularity

2011-08-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

When I was at BYU I formed what I called the DVD United Order. Basically I made a website with all of my DVDs, categorized by name, genre and rating. Because I love categorizing something fierce. Then I got others to add their DVDs to my list and I entered them on the website. Eventually we had a list of a thousand or so DVDs amongst my friends and ward members. So when you wanted to see a movie you could look on the list and see if someone around you had it, and then you could watch it together or borrow it, or simply judge people for owning Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Which is a horrible example because that movie is great.

It worked well at the time. Everyone lived within a minute of each other and we all had no money. Now my friends are scattered throughout town and we have some means. More importantly, the age of Netflix, torrenting, Blurays and other such modern wonders have rendered this venture obsolete.

But 5 years ago when I moved to Ohio, the idea wasn’t entirely antiquated. I tried to get another DVD United Order started, but was stymied. My bishop gave permission for me to send an email around, but the person in charge of the email list refused to allow it. Now, I don’t agree with her ignoring the bishop’s permission and wielding her limited authority like a cudgel of fun-hatred. But she was right about one thing: my intentions weren’t entirely altruistic.

It’s often seemed odd to me that girls don’t have more movies. Most of the contributors to my DVD United Order were men, though there were select ladies who contributed generously. But in general, men accumulate movie collections and women not nearly so much. Part of this is a certain predilection men have to visual stimuli in general, and film in particular. But part of it is simply about having something wanted.

In every prison movie you’ve ever seen, there’s a guy that can get you whatever contraband you want in prison. Perhaps the most famous example is Red in The Shawshank Redemption. Now admittedly, Red would probably be popular in his own right. But otherwise, these characters become popular/important due to their supply of goods. Providing a service towards others increases their social standing.

I love movies, but I don’t rewatch them overly often. I’d say a great many of my DVDs I’ve only seen once, if at all. Why do I have them? To show to other people. Part of this is to share something that I have enjoyed. But realistically, there’s always been an element of wanting to be Red. Wanting to have something that others want, and forcing an association because of it. It’s never really been intentional, but I think it’s always been there. I find myself wanting to buy things, then realizing I have no real reason to have them. I just think others might want them, and I could be their source.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a movie collection, or that you shouldn’t share what you have. It’s just something that I think we all do. Maybe we collect movies. Maybe we collect board games, that we can’t possibly enjoy independently. Maybe we have coffee table books that are there purely to grab others’ attention. These aren’t bad things, or bad reasons to have things. They may simply be purchases that we subconsciously hoped would lead to human contact. A better course would be to focus on the socializing, and let the purchasing come naturally thereafter. But don’t let MGM know I said that.

Ununlikable: Music Monday

2011-08-22T12:01:00.003-07:00

Oh blog, my August stats are going to be something terrible. Luckily, I no longer check them. And I'm going to blame the fact that I live in Arizona in August, and living is all that can be expected of me.

One of my strengths in trivia is that I have a pretty good understanding of what is common knowledge, and what is uncommon knowledge. Trivia tends to come right from the boundary of the two. Similarly, I think I'm pretty good at knowing what will be commonly liked, and what will only be appreciated by a niche audience. I'm not using common to say lesser or base, only universal. There are things that most everyone should like pretty well. I'd reccomend Community to most anyone, but Louie to only a select few. I'd reccomend Ender's Game to most anyone, but Clockwork Orange to only a few.

I'm far too late to give you the indie endorsement of Foster the People; I think they're on the radio and even commercials by this point. I saw Fright Night this weekend (niche endorsement to fans of horror comedy) and they popped up in the soundtrack. So if you're at all current with music you've likely heard Pumped Up Kicks. What I would like to say for them is that the whole album is quite good. The songs are all quite varied, which is both good and bad. I like that you can always tell that a song is a Pixies or Offspring or Flaming Lips song. I think having a certain sound is important. Each track on Torches sounds like a different band, whether it be Death Cab or The Eels or Spoon or nearly a dozen others. And while I appreciate the diversity, I do hope they settle on a particular sound by their next album. Anyway, most everyone will like Foster the People.

Another band that most everyone will like is Cults. They've been pretty heavily buzzed over the last year, so if new music is your thing, you probably already know them. But if you don't, you should get to know them. They're fun, and if fairly innocuous, they have a good sound. I'm always a fan of female vocals and the washed out Supremes sound present on most of the tracks is endearing.

Another reason I'm not famous

2011-08-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't want to work my way through scenes like these:

Indie Cred Revoked

2011-08-15T09:33:00.003-07:00

It's very possible that I have no indie cred. I'm a SUV-driving chubby Republican physician, living in the Southwest, who owns approximately zero vintage clothing. But if I do have any indie cred, I may have traded it in last week when I went to a Katy Perry concert.

There are mitigating factors. I went with 3 girls, and I feel most any behavior is validated if you do it with multiple women. I want to say that I went to The Decemberists the next week to balance it out, but sadly I had to work that night so missed the concert. The fact that I was working rather than seeing the Decemberists is probably another strike against me. But the most important mitigator (surprisingly not a word) is that the opening act was Robyn. So in my mind, I went to a Robyn concert and Katy Perry happened to be there.

Robyn is awesome for several reasons. First, she sings pop that isn’t popular, which is my favorite kind of pop. She’s Scandinavian, which is always a plus. She has sweet hair. She sings at least 4 songs about robots. She sang last year at the Nobel ceremony. You’ve got to be doing something right when they ask you to be the entertainment at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Or it could have been because she lives down the street from the convention center.

In any case, Robyn is great, and she was great in concert. It was a short set, but high energy and fun. She dances much like Thom Yorke, ie not at all with the music. Which is odd, considering she is performing the music. But it emphasizes her independent spirit. The audience clearly didn’t understand what was going on, but they clapped politely.

The audience was a major benefit of going to the show. Where else can you see hundreds of people, mostly girls but not entirely, dressed like Katy Perry? How weird would it be to be an artist and have people dress EXACTLY like you at your shows? Some were “run of the mill” with some kooky hair and a wedding veil but there were a surprising number of girls wearing only candy, and whatever adhesive was required to keep it in place. Maybe only sugar. There were a lot of girls dressed for the club, a gaggle of tweens and somewhat disturbing number of kids 4-10. Seriously parents, you suck.

Katy herself was Katy, which is to say, attractive and fairly entertaining. She showed up on stage with spinning pinwheels protruding from her breasts and singing about feeling like a virgin and I had a moment of sadness for her parents. Then I enjoyed the show. It’s ridiculous, frothy nonsense, but it’s fun to hear and fun to watch. She show occasionally devolved into overt weirdness (giant pork chops floating down from the rafters?) but was generally just bright colors, energetic if uninspired dancing and irresistible hooks. Although it detracted from the overall audio quality, it was fun to have the entire audience "singing" along. I didn’t take any pictures or video, as every picture I’ve ever taken from a concert has been complete rubbish, but you can image what it was like. And if you can’t, you can probably get tickets for when she comes to your town.

The most important things I learned today

2011-08-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Things you probably didn’t know about Clue:

Outside of the US, Clue is known as Cluedo. This is a bizarre play on words, as they call it this because ludo is Latin for “I play.” This is not obvious, not entertaining and honestly doesn’t make much sense in the first place. Congratulations on America for changing it to Clue.

The original name was “Murder!” Hey kids, let’s all play Murder!

It was invented in England as a game to play to pass time during air raids. Let’s distract ourselves from the possibility of being killed by playing a game about somebody being killed.

There were originally 10 characters, including Mr. Brown, Mr. Gold, Miss Grey (cat lady?), Mrs. Silver, and Nurse White. The VCR version of the game included M. Brunette (hermaphrodite?), Madame Rose, Sgt Gray and Miss Peach.

Other weapons included in the original: axe (messy), bomb (messier), syringe, poison, shillelagh (I need a better vocabulary) and fireplace poker.

Mr. Green is Reverend Green in some versions. Figures.

A remake of the movie is scheduled for 2013. The director is the guy that made the Pirates movies, which may make you more or less excited at the prospect. He makes movies out of amusement park rides and board games. Originality thy name is not Verbinski.

In 1997 a musical version of Clue started off Broadway. The audience chose cards to determine the ending, meaning there were 216 different versions of the play.

There have been hundreds of versions of Clue, some of the sillier ones including Simpsons, Dungeons and Dragons, Disney, Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, The Office, Seinfeld, 24, Juicy Couture, and Biblical artifacts editions.

The movie made 14 million at the box office. It cost 15 million to make.

There was a British tv series based on Clue in the early 90s. Each season a different cast played the characters, including one British celebrity. But the British threshold for celebrities is pretty low.

Other board games that will soon be movies: Candyland, Monopoly, Ouija and Battleship. The world will end soon after the Battleship movie is released.

Maintaining islands

2011-07-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

I’m exceedingly bad at meeting people. Really it’s a wonder that I know anyone at all. Like most things in life, this impairment is multifactorial. Factors include:

I don’t remember names well.

I don’t remember faces well.

I have horrible eye contact.

More than not remembering faces, I Just don’t remember any of the common descriptors. I can’t tell you if a person’s hair color, eye color, height, ethnicity, anything. I can generally tell you whether I found them attractive and whether they shop at Old Navy.

When I go to a party, I always spend all my time talking to people I already know but don’t see often.

When I do meet someone new, I don’t instinctively tell them my name, or ask for theirs.

When people tell me their names, I don’t like storing that information until I’ve determined if they’re interesting or not. Then it’s rude to ask again later.

I prefer my own company over that of most others, so it’s hard to motivate myself to meet new people when the odds are against them.

I don’t drink.

I’m a visual learner, so nametags are enormously helpful. Except when nametags are involved I don’t store the information because somehow I think their names will always be available on their chests.

Favorite topics of small talk include: nothing than people normally talk smally concerning.

I don’t naturally say hello; I jump to what I consider to be the matter at hand.

I have a beard.

I’m biased, but I think I’m an excellent person to know. I’m just horrible to meet.

The time of your life when I rank things

2011-07-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, because you were living your life, Amy Winehouse finished living hers this weekend.

My facebook status said "RIP Winehouse. You were interesting." I realize the astounding levels of coolness displayed by quoting my own facebook status in case you were thinking that yourself. However I feel like that is actually the distillation of what I feel/felt about Ms Winehouse.

I hope she finds some peace, and I do think she was interesting. If I knew her personally this would be more tragic, but I didn't and my long distance empathy is pretty limited. As a potentially future addiction psychiatristI could take an opportunity to step onto the soapbox about the dangers of addiction, but I'm not going to. I could point out the dramatic structure of someone who's first US hit proclaimed "They tried to make me go to rehab and I said no" dying of an overdose 5 years later, but I think I already have.

Amy Winehouse was unique, and I value that. She wrote much of her own music, and I value that. She was very open and truthful about her life and who she was, and I value that. She was flawed, and made a lot of mistakes, but she seemed like a genuine person, which so many people don't.

So, RIP Winehouse. You were interesting. Here are my 5 favorite Winehouse tracks.

5. Rehab. Her breakout for a reason.

4. Stronger. Not remotely PC. I hate PC.

3. Valerie. A fantastic track, not from either of her albums.

2. Tears Dry On Their Own. She didn't do a lot of chipper songs.

1. You Know I'm No Good. True in some ways, not in others.

People I like

2011-07-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

I’m going to interrupt the interruption of my blogging to blog about my appreciation of blogging. Not all blogging of course. To say you appreciate blogs is like saying you appreciate books. You appreciate some, and not others; and blogging is even more varied because there is no hurdle of being considered good enough by someone to be published. The blogs I like best don’t simply regurgitate events: for instance I went camping last week, but I didn’t post about. I may in the future, but only if I have something to say about it. The blogs I appreciate most take the events happening to the writer, and dissect and analyze them, and comment on what the writer feels is important, interesting or noteworthy. I want the writer to take the minutia and the milestones alike, and create a narrative. It’s the creation that’s interesting.

I initially made this blog to complain about things. This is what I’m best at, and what I’m naturally inclined to do. But today I’m going to tell you something I like: creative people.

Something I dislike: people that call themselves artists. I think it’s very difficult to call yourself an artist without being pretentious. You can call yourself a painter or a sculptor or a graphic designer and that doesn’t bother me. But just calling yourself an artist, one who produces art, it just bothers me. If you work in mixed media and there’s no more specific term for how you earn your livelihood, well, be creative and figure out something else to call yourself other than artist.

So I don’t like “artists” but I do like creative people. And I don’t just mean painters/sculptors/violinists/writers. Again, if your creativity is your livelihood, I think that too makes you less interesting to me. I like amateur creative people. Blogging is to some extent an outlet of narcissism (my own blogging has been waylaid these last couple weeks because I have a limited amount of time allotted to narcissism and have been using it toward captioning pictures on facebook) but in its best form also an outlet for creativity.

So being a painter is fine, but I’d rather have you be an accountant that paints in your free time. Chances are much better that I’m going to like that person. And being an accountant that paints still-lifes in your free time is good, but even better being one that doodles. In Never Let Me Go, Tommy is mocked by the other students because he can’t paint or sing or write. But he creates highly detailed miniature doodles of imaginary creatures. And the fact that he created his own form of creativity makes him much more likable to me.

My friend Mark made a mixtape recently. I consider a mixtape in and of itself creativity. In this particular mixtape he took a story he liked by one of his favorite authors and inserted songs into the story that he felt emphasized plots elements, themes, and the feelings of the characters. Primarily he chose songs from 1967, the year the story took place. While I’m not sure if I’d call this art (there’s very little that I do) it’s most definitely creativity. The story was good, the songs were good, the project was great. And while there are other reasons to like Mark (he has a beard for one) his creativity is a pretty good one.

On Futurama this week Leela professed “Stealing is a form of creativity!” And to me (in some cases at least) it is. Mark stole the songs and stories of others and made it into something new. Bloggers take the events of their lives and of the world at large and create their own constructs. Tommy created what he felt the urge to create, without any personal benefit and without any potential audience. He did it for the sake of creation.

It’s hard to say who I’ll like. Sometimes I like someone that is generally disliked, for some little reason. Sometimes I’ll dislike someone generally found appealing, for no apparent reason at all. But I think an element may the creativity. Do they see world as a picture? Or do they see the world as a billion bits and pieces, waiting to be twisted and turned and stolen and combined. Do they, in some way, produce new and better and different things to be added to that world? If so, the chances are much higher that I’ll like them.

Scandinavian Sunday

2011-07-10T11:35:00.002-07:00

In my efforts to promote all things Danish, here's Atoi. I can't say that these are my favorite music videos ever, but I quite like the band. Plus, they're Danish.

The Fight

Tonight

FYI: I was in Thailand

2011-07-09T11:15:00.002-07:00

If you're not on facebook, you may have missed my Thailand pictures. The first three albums can be found here:

Thailand: Getting There

T2: Bang Pa and the Emo Temple

T3: Sex, violence, food and fire

My So-Called Life

2011-07-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

A friend threatened that he'd call me so we can catch up if I didn't blog about my actual life more often rather than pop culture fluff. So, here's some stuff.

I've been in Arizona for a year. The other day I was running some errands and realized that I was doing so at noon. When I first got here I'd make sure that anything that would require leaving the house would be done in the early morning or evening. A year later it didn't even occur to me to avoid the 117 degree middle section of the day. So, I guess I'm acclimated.

I still haven't hiked, which clearly shows that I'm not an Arizonan. Hiking may be the only qualification on the Arizona citizenship exam. So really, I don't know what all this immigration hubbub is about.

I had my first call the other night training the new interns. The good news is that I know a lot more than the interns. This is also the bad news. Training caused what may have been 10 hours of work to grow to 20. Until 2 AM I think I was a pretty exemplary teacher. After 2 AM I started losing the drive to educate. I'll be training for most of the month of July, and I think this may be a very long month.

In the olden days, ie 2010, the change from Intern to Resident was a joyous occasion. Gone are the frequent calls. Gone is being lowest of the low, with no perks, benefits or seniority. Now, not so much. I'll be doing approximately the same number of calls this year. But whereas the majority were Friday, Saturday and Sunday last year, they should be primarily weekdays this year. So socializing may be making a comeback. And I'm done with the Emergency Department and Pulmonary Clinic and titrating insulin scales. From here on out it should be much more psychiatry based, which will be a welcome change.

Socializing though, likely needs more than just an infusion of free time. The number of new people I've met in the last 6 months has dropped precipitously from the previous 6. I think I've gotten so bad that a couple friends have taken to playing Haaaave you met Ted? for me. So along with upping my time socializing, I definitely need to up my effort.

I've started studying for Step 3. There's nothing interesting about my studying for Step 3.

While studying commences, my latest movie will go on hold. But to be honest, it's been almost entirely on hold for the last 9 months, so this isn't much of a change. My travel memoir from Thailand will also be on hold, potentially indefinitely. But to compensate, I'm going to start posting pictures in the next couple days. I've narrowed it down to my favorite thousand images. My narrowing skills need work.

Until next time.

Haboobed

2011-07-06T18:28:00.002-07:00

So last night we in Phoenix were trounced by a haboob. It's been my life long dream to see one. I kid of course, I've never heard of one. But generally speaking, I think inclement weather is pretty grand. So when I heard the wind outside I should've have gotten out of bed and seen what was up. But of course, I didn't.

I missed the haboob.

I hate you J.D. Salinger and your engrossing books.

Sex and violence

2011-07-02T18:41:00.002-07:00

Really, sex and violence shouldn't need any help promoting themselves. They are what other mundane things use to advertise. But if there's anything that can ratchet up the appeal of sex and violence, it's a killer soundtrack.

I love a good trailer. I think movie trailers should have their own category at the Oscars. Because a great trailer will give you goosebumps. A great trailer gives you the essence of a film and distills it down to a couple minutes of tantalizing hints and clues of what is to come. A great trailer takes a movie that you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, will be horrible, and for a minute makes you want to see it.

I saw this trailer this morning, and found myself thinking, why isn't it December yet? It also helps that it's July in Arizona, and December is a beautiful thought. In any case, this trailer is a clusterwin. Great book plus Daniel Craig plus Fincher plus Karen O plus Trent Reznor plus one of the few Zeppelin songs I do know.

Dragon Tattoo

Here's another one I came across earlier in the week. Lykke Li plus Batman plus Catwoman plus video games? Even if most of that equation is of no interest to you, I think the music sells it.

Arkham City

Trailers. They're a thing of beauty.

Man-Crush Island: Things just got Crushier

2011-06-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

I know, you’ve been waiting with bated breath. You’ve probably even had time to look up what bated breath even means. Without further ado:

4. Nathan Fillion

Nathan Fillion is one of those actors that are so likable, I’ll see most anything that he’s in. Even when he plays jerks, idiots, cowboys, adulterers, narcissists and murderers, he’s still likable. I’d say that Nathan could take over the world, but he can’t even keep a tv show from being cancelled, so he probably can’t.

Runners up for Nathan’s spot: Joss Whedon, David Borneanaz.

5. Jemaine Clement

Jemaine may be riding Bowie’s coattails, as he’s been known to do a pretty spot-on impersonation. He never fails to crack me up. I’m pretty deadpan, but Jemaine’s deadpan is just immaculate. He’s not the most versatile actor on the planet, but range isn’t really a requirement for my man-crushes.

Runners up for Jemaine’s spot: Bret McKenzie, Rhys Darby, Noel Fielding.

6. Michael Palin

John Cleese is the most famous alumnus from Monty Python. And honestly, he probably makes me laugh the most. But who would I rather be hang out with? Michael Palin. He’s a world traveler. He’s a team player. He’s hilarious in his own right.

Runners up for Michael’s spot: Cleese, Idle, Jones, Gilliam

More next time.

Skills to the pay the bills

2011-06-26T22:45:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, after performing Albi the Racist Dragon, I was talking to an associate. She said to me “It’s impressive you went as far as you did [in the competition] considering you didn’t really have a talent.”

I think this was a compliment, that could have been seen as an insult, but in either case it was food for thought: what is a talent?

What she meant was that I didn’t play the piano, or know how to do tricks with a jump rope. But neither of these are really talents. These are skills, and skills that lend themselves to public performance (the piano more so than the jump rope.) And it is true that I didn’t demonstrate a skill, nor do I have one that lends itself to performance.

Talent, to me, is inherent. It is being good at something without having specialized training. Sure, you can increase your proficiency with training, but there should be some spark to start with.

Skill, is something that you’ve trained yourself to do. It’s a set of capabilities, built over time. Maybe you were talented to start, maybe you weren’t. But through effort and education you’ve become capable of doing something others generally aren’t.

The winner of the talent competition played the piano, and played it very well. And one of the judges made the point during her scoring that after that performance, he could have any lady in the audience. This struck me as odd.

Do I find piano playing attractive? No. I think I value the ability to play the piano as much as the next person, but I don’t find it attractive. I don’t find guitar playing attractive either, but I see its seductive appeal more than playing the piano.

I’m not bashing on the piano, or the piano player winning the competition. That’s fine. I just came to realize that I don’t find talent attractive. If talent is inherent, it’s hardly praiseworthy. Should we praise someone for being tall? For being of Romanian decent? No, they didn’t do those things. They were born that way. We can be more attracted to blonde hair or attached earlobes or nimble fingers, but they’re not praiseworthy.

Skill though, is praiseworthy. But even though I value skill, and the dedication and drive it represents, I don’t think I’m inherently attracted to it either. I’ve dated musicians, artists, athletes and academics. It wasn’t their skill set that I found attractive. It was their passion. Sure, a passion in taxidermy may not be attractive. But generally, I value that the girl is interested and invested in something, but the actual focus of her effort is often inconsequential.

Someone asked me the other day what I was passionate about. I didn’t have a good answer. Dragons I said. The fact that this was my answer, and that I didn’t have a better one, are likely part of my problem. And not my problem losing talent competitions.

A quick trip to South Africa

2011-06-21T10:25:00.000-07:00

I can't remember if I posted this previously. In fact, I can't quite remember why I made it. A blow to the head? It must have been for school since half the pictures are in the hospital. Anyway, here it is.

Poseur

2011-06-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

What a poseur I am. Here I am, listing off books, music, movies and television for you to better your life. When, in fact, I have gaping gaps in my pop culture education. This situation requires rectification.

My list of books to read posted previously should help me on the way to literary literacy. But what of film? Left to my own devices, I tend to veer into cult cinema. A movie being interesting is often more rewarding to me than it being good. So I’ve seen Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Repoman and Eraserhead, but have never seen The Godfather. Here are 10 films that I haven’t seen, that I will see, some time in the near future. Maybe by the end of the summer. Or maybe by the time I’m 50. I don’t want to strain myself.

1. The Godfather (And Part II, I can’t make any promises about III.)
2. Casablanca (I’ve seen bits, but never more than 5 minutes at a time)
3. Raging Bull
4. Annie Hall (I’ve seen other Woody, but never this defining film)
5. Top Gun (yes, I see the jump in quality from previous entries)
6. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
7. Amelie
8. The Graduate
9. Seven Samurai
10. Reservoir Dogs

My rock snobbery is also a bit of a lie. A fib at least. This summer I will also be listening to these 8 groups to help better round out my musical education. I certainly know some songs from each, but don’t know nearly enough to consider myself well versed.

1. The Rolling Stones
2. The Who
3. Led Zepplin
4. Pink Floyd
5. The Velvet Underground
6. Simon and Garfunkel
7. The Grateful Dead
8. Iggy and the Stooges

I’m open to comments from the peanut gallery. But hopefully I’ve successfully tricked you over the years into thinking I knew about movies and music so you wouldn’t know of any other lapses in my education. I’ll let you know how summer school goes.

A barrage of reviews of sundry things

2011-06-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Edge of Glory music video – I like it. I wasn’t a huge fan of Judas, but Born This Way actually grew on me. I think it was a wise step for Lady Gaga to dial back the crazy for a minute, and this is the pleasant result.

Born This Way album – I’m not feeling it so much. I think that I rely on Lady Gaga’s visuals to make her fully enjoyable. To some extent this is true for all female vocalists, but doubly so for Gaga. The songs are fine, but the presentation is the important thing.

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues – Their first album didn’t wow me, but I like this one more. I have to be in the mood, but when I am, it hits the spot.

Submarine – I thought this movie was the bee’s knees. I missed a special preview because I was on call, so was glad that it returned to the local art theater. I think the director is hilarious (Richard Ayoade, Moss from I.T. Crowd) so I was interested to see if a hilarious person would direct a hilarious movie. Hilarious is the wrong word, as it’s a dramedy, but it was quite funny. It’s a borrows a fair bit from Harold and Maude, Rushmore, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite and various other quirk-classics, but these are good sources to borrow from. All in all, very enjoyable.

The Wise Man’s Fear – Patrick Rothfuss. This book was a page-turner in it’s own right, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the first book in the trilogy. It felt overly long, often getting bogged down on side trips that were enjoyable, but felt like they were treading water. So good, but not great.

True Blood – Season 2. Not as good as season 1, but still fairly addictive.

Bob’s Burgers – it’s a cartoon sitcom, so I’m automatically on board. H. Jon Benjamin is good, as always. But what really makes the show are Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal as his kids. Sometimes I couldn’t even tell why it was funny, it just was.

Not quite timely

2011-06-18T11:23:00.002-07:00

If you think that LeBron James is a douchebag, you're not alone. And you're probably right. And it's your fault.

How can you expect someone to NOT be a pompous arrogant narcissist when you provide this kind of ego fuel?

Video

How can you not be completely detached from reality, believing yourself to be that important?

To address my bias, I am whatever the opposite of a sports enthusiast is. But I am willing to admit that participating in sports makes people healthy and anectodally at least can help promote values. Watching sports can be an enjoyable past time, and provides a worthwhile ocassion for you to gather with your friends and family. Professional sports are a big bloated mess of misappropriated money, attention and acclaim.

Putting a ball through a hoop does not actually help humanity. It doesn't matter. LeBron James is less important to society than any other gainfully employed individual in America. I guess you can say he's more valuable than people than are actively detrimental to society (career criminals, lobbyists, serial rapists, insert-joke-profession-here) in that he is only not helping rather than hurting people. But at the end of the day, he's someone that gets to do a leisure activity all day long. How much should we pay someone who performs a leisure activity all day? The answer: enough to keep them from starving, if anything.

So Cleveland, yes, he was a douche. But he was a douche because you stuffed his head and wallet so full he couldn't help but be one. Care less about sports and you'd have more respectable athletes.

Albi

2011-06-13T13:03:00.002-07:00

Here's the latest in my Conchords tribute series. It's the first Conchords song I heard, back in July 2007. It didn't lend itself to a public performance as well as my previous numbers, but I'm glad I worked something out.

The performance turned out well. We had hid jelly beans (aka dragon tears) under the chairs in the audience, but unfortunately the MC made a joke about hiding things under the chairs so people found the beans before the act started. But otherwise, no major snafus.

We hadn't counted on a non-YSA judge. Our 2 peers gave us 9s, but the elder statesman was going to give us a 6, but at least bumped it to a 7 due to crowd response. But he did call the act one of the weirdest things he'd ever seen, and something that would terrorize any child, so I'll take that as a 10.

Albi

The Time of the Week When I Rank Things: Adult Swim

2011-06-09T14:07:00.001-07:00

I’ve been watching some odd television lately. I happened across someone that liked The Mighty Boosh, which has only happened one other time in my life. So we’ve been watching that, and Snuffbox. I’ve been watching a bit of Wilfred, a show soon to be imported to the US. And while I’d be hard-pressed to say I’ve been culturing myself, I think there’s something to be said for experiencing intentionally novel, unique and bizarre things. Today I’m going to rank some of my favorite bizarre shows, that have been conveniently compiled into Adult Swim.

I’m not always a fan of avant-garde comedy. As much as I admire Andy Kaufman, I don’t necessarily laugh at his bits. But Adult Swim is just the right mix of highbrow, lowbrow, bizarre and sublime. But even saying that, I don’t like a lot of their programming. Squidbillies? No thanks. I’m only a lukewarm fan of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, one of their most successful enterprises. But below I’ve listed my Top 10 from Adult Swim. Every entry here would bear the warning “Most people won’t like this, but some people will love it.” And that’s the programming I most enjoy.

1. Space Ghost: Coast to Coast

Why do I love this show? I’m not sure. The pacing is often poor. The visuals are atrocious. But it’s got just the right mix of nostalgia and post-modern flair that cracks me up to this day. No one I’ve ever shown it to has liked it other than my two best friends when I was 13, but we loved it. And that’s enough.

2. Sealab 2021/Frisky Dingo/Archer

A bit of a cheat, since these are 3 entirely different shows, and one of them isn’t even on Adult Swim, it’s on FX. But it’s the same humor and it’s out of this world. Frisky Dingo is like Arrested Development, only dirtier, more esoteric and with superheroes. Sealab 2021 was my friend litmus test for several years. Archer is the new kid on the block, but it often makes me laugh with single words of dialogue, like a character saying “Danger-zone.”

3. FLCL

For the most part, Adult Swim gets anime shows years after they’ve hit it big, so I’ve seen them and already given them a thumbs up or thumbs down. FLCL came out of nowhere, and remains a favorite of mine. To people that complain about Inception being confusing, I invite you to try FLCL. It’s extremely confusing, but extremely stylish and very rewarding.

4. The Venture Brothers

This was a strange one because I hated the first couple episodes and left it alone for years. A Johnny Quest knockoff? Who wants to watch that? Turns out, me. This show is hilarious. It doesn’t have machine-gun rate jokes like other comedies on this list, but it’s just resoundingly clever. It’s a spoof of a pastiche of an homage of a knockoff. It’s got a gigantic cast of bizarre, endearing characters. It’s got David Bowie. It’s great.

5. Home Movies

I used to watch this show every Sunday night with a group of friends, and the socializing is part of the enjoyment. It’s a much kinder, gentler show than many on this list. But it’s definitely a quality contribution to animated television, especially to squigglevision.

6. Children’s Hospital

I’ve never actually watched this show on Cartoon Network. I first came across it on the internet, but then Adult Swim saw the same gem I saw and snatched it up. Your jaw will drop with the number of funny people crammed into one show. Then it will drop again by the horrible things they say. And then maybe you’ll start laughing.

7. Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!/ Tom Goes to the Mayor

I think I may have posted about this before, but TaEASGJ is the strangest television show I have ever seen. And if you can think of a strange show that I haven’t watched, hats off to you. But truly, the amount of talent required to make this show this weird is breathtaking.

8. Samurai Champloo

This is from the same group that made Cowboy Bebop, one of the greats of anime. It’s not as good as Bebop, but it’s close. And it has samurais and ninjas and rap music and flying squirrels. It’s a success.

9. Robot Chicken

The 12 minutes of each RC episode flies by like 12 seconds. They cut from joke to joke so quickly, you may not register your laugh until the episode is over. And honestly, at least half the jokes are obvious, sophomoric or just uninspired. But the episode goes so quickly, that you’ll get back to a funny joke before you can groan. If you need a show to test your nerd knowledge, this is a good place to start.

10. Paranoia Agent

Considered by some the masterwork of Satoshi Kon, this show is a trip. I realize that 99.5% of you don’t know who Satoshi Kon is, but trust me, he’s talented. And this show demonstrates the complex stories possible on television if you let a talented guy run wild.

Honorable mentions:
Shows that are very entertaining, which have aired on Adult Swim, but which I watched elsewhere:

Cowboy Bebop
The Mighty Boosh
Futurama
Family Guy
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Death Note
Shin-chan

Malaise

2011-06-03T11:27:00.002-07:00

When I have multiple projects to do, I tend to not do any of them. My projects currently running are:

Star Search performance tomorrow -including costume, AV presentation, and debating how much I want to offend the audience.

Thailand Travelogue - I haven't written much about my trip on the old blog, because I'm writing a little book.

Thailand Movie - I'm making little slideshows of the pictures.

These projects have sapped my creative energy (which is finite) and left my blog a bit bereft. If this has had a detrimental effect on your well being, your well being isn't doing very well.

I haven't seen a movie in the theater in many months, so I'm greatly behind. I still need to see Sucker Punch, Thor, Bridesmaids, Hangover II and X-Men First Class. But you don't need my help finding any of those films. Some that you might not have heard of, but that I think are going to be varying degrees of good and entertaining include:

The Beaver

The Trip

Trollhunter

Also, Insidious, Midnight in Paris and The Immortals.

Man-Crush Island

2011-05-28T09:01:00.001-07:00

Some time ago I was trying to convince a girl to watch Fast and Furious 5, and I tried to woo her with the prospect of Paul Walker. She then accused me of having a man-crush on Mr. Walker. This is not remotely accurate. To the best of my abilities, I would estimate that Paul Walker is an attractive man. There are always flukes out there that girls seem to like that seem entirely unattractive (Jack Nicholson, manatees, Robert Pattinson) but generally at least, I can tell if a man is classically attractive. But I don't think that man-crushes have any relation to attractiveness. Generally a celebrity man-crush is attractive, because generally we don't want ugly celebrities, but that aesthetic criteria really doesn't carry any weight where man-crushes are concerned.

I have also been accused of having a man-crush on a certain individual, simply because I made an unsolicited biography of his life. Again, interest in an individual doesn't a man-crush make. You can have a legitimate, academic, ironic or self-centered interest in someone, and have it not relate at all to man-crushing on them.

Some time ago I had a feature on my blog called My Island. It involved picking 10 women from television with whom I'd like to be stuck on a desert island. I think it started by talking about Kate from Lost, or else I was just day dreaming about women and/or islands. The list ended up including:

1. Kristen Bell
2. Evangeline Lily
3. Tina Fey
4. Gillian Anderson
5. Olivia Wilde
6. Kristen Chenoweth
7. Jenna Fischer
8. Tricia Helfer
9. Jennifer Garner

As with many projects I start, I never finished it. And I'm not going to now. Instead I'm going to provide you with a list of men with whom I'd want to be stuck on a desert island. I think that's probably the easiest way to define a man-crush. It's someone that you would want to hang out with, especially if that association was forced to be exclusive (such as being stuck on a desert island together.) Ideally I'd get to hang out with these guys when and where I wished, and even more ideally, we could all hang out together. But the reason for that is mostly because it might attract some of the original 9 girls from My Island. And no matter how cool I think the following 10 men are, I'd pick any of the women to be stranded with first. Hos before bros. But here would be the bros:

1. Stephen Fry

These aren’t necessarily in any order, but it’s well possible that I’d pick Stephen as my first choice. There’s a good chance that you don’t know who Mr. Fry is, but he may be the world’s most likable man. Just watch any video of him; I’ve never seen him NOT being charming. He’s a polymath, a polyglot, and a paragon of curiosity. Who better to talk to until you both starve to death.

Runners up for Stephen’s spot: his partner on QI Alan Davies, and his partner on Fry & Laurie Hugh Laurie.

2. David Bowie

I promise that not everyone on this list will be British. But in all honesty, lots of them will be. Also, I promise not all will be homosexual, as Stephen Fry is, and David once claimed to be bisexual (though he has backed off that claim in recent years.) What David Bowie is, above all else, is cool. I most definitely have a man-crush on the Thin White Duke. Plus, it would probably help to have someone of his massive fame stranded on the island as it would make people look harder to find us.

Runners up for Mr. Bowie’s spot: Thom Yorke, Wayne Coyne, Beck and Damon Albarn.

3. Bill Murray

You may notice, that these people are all old. This is partially because I’m old. But even more importantly, young people are often dull. Who wants to hang out with Shia Labeouf? Maybe in 30 years, but I highly doubt it. Bill Murray on the other hand, is eight kinds of awesome. He’s so cool he probably wouldn’t hang out with me even on that desert island, but I’m going to give him a spot anyway, just in case.

Runners up for Bill’s spot: frequent collaborator Wes Anderson.

Stay tuned for the remaining 7 members of Man-Crush Island.

Emo Music Mondays

2011-05-22T23:46:00.002-07:00

Don't worry, not actually emo. And sorry to be back on the topic of music already. Work is boring at the moment, socializing is in the process of being jumpstarted, and deep thoughts just aren't deep enough to warrant posting. So, we're back to music.

Here are 3 songs about/relating to emotion.

1. Hooverphonic - Anger Never Dies

Hooverphonic has a new lead singer since the last time I listened to them. But they have the same slow-burn symphonic grandeur, so I'll allow it.

2. Lykke Li - Sadness is a Blessing

Lykke Li has been on my to-listen-to list for probably a year. I finally did, and she's awesome. She has happier stuff, if that's your bag.

3. King Charles - Love Lust

Ignore the hair, and just enjoy the song. Or, alternatively, enjoy the hair.

As a bonus, here's Lykke again, performing Sadness is a Blessing live, which gives it a bit of a different feel.

Cross-sectional analysis of annual nativity congratulations

2011-05-19T22:26:00.002-07:00

A couple months back it was my birthday. I decided to do a little study of my friend demographics via facebook. Which state likes me best? Which gender? Which socioeconomic class? Inclusion criteria: being on facebook and posting on my wall on 3/22/11 from 0000 to 2400. Exclusion criteria: If you said happy birthday to me in person, via phone or text. I can't process the variables of these different communication techniques. Only facebook posts will be counted.

Results: 53 people responded to facebook telling them it was my birthday. At the time I had about 390 friends (in theory I was sticking to my friend cap of 365, but in reality that limit had been irreparably damaged) meaning this represented about 14% of my friends. I think I'm on the cutting edge of facebook sociology, so I don't have anything to compare this turnout to.

Gender breakdown: 77% female responses, 23% male. This isn't very surprising. For one, I'm sure my friend list skews heavily female, as my actual friends skew female, and the people that I add on facebook skews heavily female. Even if my female: male ratio was 50/50, it would be surprising if the men said happy birthday at the same rate as the women. It's kind of a girly thing to do, commentating on someone's birthday.

Marriage breakdown: 34% married response, 66% single response. These numbers are a little fuzzy, but I ended up including engaged responses as single, unless they got married by the time the study was performed, ie, this morning. I often defriend married people, so the fact that I have any response from them at all is somewhat noteworthy. But at this point the vast majority of my contacts over the years are married, so they have numbers on their side. And those marrieds I still talk to are among my closest friends, so this result isn't too surprising.

Mormon breakdown: 87% LDS, 13% non-LDS. Clearly, I need to stop hanging out with so many Mormons. But this isn't a surprising result when you take into account the years at BYU, on a mission, family members and current social circle in Arizona.

Location breakdown: 11% New York, 13% Utah, 4% Idaho, 28% Ohio, 34% Arizona, 9% Other. This isn't where the people currently live, but where I met them. This was kind of an interesting one, because the percentages relate to how social I was, I popular I was, how long I lived there, how long ago it was, and how well I've long-distanced. For instance, I know a lot of people in NY, but I haven't been back in years and have done a horrible job keeping up contacts. In fact, I had zero contacts from my years in Virginia. I would've expected Utah to be higher, as that was a very social 4 years, but again, I haven't kept up contact well. And as I've cropped my friends over the years to stay under 365, my Utah peeps have been thoroughly thinned. Ohio is about where I'd expect it, but Arizona was higher. Work has kept me minimally social over the last year, but I guess my periodic appearances have been enough to keep me in the general consciousness of the state. Other is mostly family members, so I couldn't well quantify where I met them.

Family breakdown: 9% family, 91% non-family. Not surprising.

Age breakdown: 91% of responses are from individuals within 5 years of my age, 9% are significantly older or younger than me. I've always been pretty agist, so this wasn't too far out of whack.

Medical breakdown: 13% medical professionals, 87% non-medical professionals. I included doctors, nurses and pharmacists. I'm surprised the med numbers aren't higher, but I've generally kept a little distance between my work associates and friends.

So there you have it. I'll let you know how next year turns out, though that study will not be blinded like this one. I'll also let you know what major medical journal this study will be appearing in so you can rush out and buy a copy.

Grey Music

2011-05-15T19:06:00.002-07:00

The world is grey. Or gray, if that’s your preference. But it’s not black and white. Or, it’s rarely black and white. The portions of the world which are either black or white pale in comparison to the portion grey.

You could argue that seeing things in grey is a sign of being jaded or compromising, and in some cases it is. I really can’t make any definitive statements here when my point is that almost nothing is definitive. But more often than being a sign of a loss of clarity, I think seeing that things are grey is due to increased clarity, and in fact of maturity.

As a youth, I would have labeled music as good or bad. Now admittedly, I would have been a bad judge of what is bad. I distinctly remember us taking a poll in elementary school of our favorite types of music and I listed mine as reggae. Which wasn’t even accurate, because I meant calypso. Which isn’t even accurate because I was stupid. But at some point I started listening to music of my own volition (approximately 1994) and started to decide what was good and what was bad. I knew Achy Breaky Heart was bad. I knew Elastica’s The Connection was good. Black and white. (Incidentally, Black and White was good.)

Now I know that music is grey. Bad music has good bits; it’s black with islands of white. And I don’t just mean ironically bad: Insane Clown Posse and Rebecca Black are so bad they’re entertaining. I’m not necessarily looking for redeeming qualities in them. But music doesn’t have to be sublime masterpieces of tonal elegance to be worth listening to. They can be deeply flawed, but entertaining. In August I’m going to a Katy Perry concert. Is it going to be a masterclass of class or music mastery? Not remotely. It’s going to be a cute girl dancing to dance music. But I certainly expect that it will be fun.

In Thailand I’d sometimes watch MTV-Asia. Partly this was because it was the only channel in English, and partly because it was novel to see music videos on MTV. Now they did spend a lot of time playing Katy and Lady Gaga (one night they actually played Born This Way on repeat for an hour) but they did throw in some actual Asians every once in a while. The only one which I remembered enough to download when I got home was this:

There is no way anyone could describe this as a good song. Unless you speak Korean, you don’t understand the lyrics, but trust me, they don’t matter. There’s something refreshing about this manufactured pop nothingness. Somehow J-pop and K-pop and whatever other pops Asia makes seem even faker than ours. You just know that the groups are put together based on pictures of the members, not audition tracks. And the goofy little dance (how is it that they never jump in a song called Jumping?) is almost more of the video than the song. And while the popping and shaking was enough to grab my attention and lodge itself in my memory, it in and of itself is pretty inane; these girls don’t have the curves to be doing dance moves emphasizing their curves. But does the fact that this song is bad, and the video is bad, and really the whole industry producing this song is bad mean it can’t be enjoyed? No. I bet the song is already tunneled into your brain.

If someone told me that Jumping was their favorite song, I’d be sad for them. I’d probably also be talking to a 14 year old Korean girl. But if they told me they liked this song: great. So do I. It’s a fun piece of fluff. In the murky greyness of the musical spectrum, it’s on the whitish end.

Originally I’d intended to present further examples of grey people, situations etc, but I’m done. Extrapolate on your own.

Semi-Professional

2011-05-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

My friend wanted to make this video for her mother. I helped her. Here it is. I think it turned out pretty well.

Well unread

2011-05-09T11:50:00.001-07:00

I have been surprised by the strong response to my last poll. Everyone seems quite concerned about which Union Jack may or may not grace the walls of my home.

A previous poll concerned what I should read while in Thailand. Suggestions included:

The New York Singles Regional Mormon Halloween Dance
The Lincoln Lawyer
The Hunger Games
Imperial Life in the Emerald City
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour - Salinger
Moonwalking with Einstein
The Year of Living Biblically
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Why Men Love B*****s
The God of Small Things

It likely surprises none of you that I ignored all your suggestions with reckless abandon. My actual trip reading list was:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Larsson
Invisible Monsters - Chuck Palahniuk
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

My point here isn’t to review these books (they were varying degrees of excellent) but just to point out my lack of faith in democracy. Also, to publically state that I need to read more.

In the past I was a voracious reader. I often blame med school/preparing for med school/recovering from med school as the reason I no longer read recreationally. It is very true that reading so much in a working capacity seems to tarnish the shine of reading recreationally. But it’s also true that I’m focusing too much on alternatives to reading. In an attempt to stay up to date with the cultural zeitgeist, I watch an obscene number of television programs and movies. Less obscene these days with my work schedule, but still, if you ask me about a television program, there is a good chance that I’ve at least previewed an episode or two.

Reading, so say the studies, is good for you. I should do more of it. I’m not going to make a resolution about a book a month. I’m not going to add one of those bars on the side of my page about what I’m currently reading. I’m just going to have a book, in my home, that I’m currently reading. And I’m going to have an actual list of books that are on my to-read list. And the books that are going to start off my to-read list are the following:

The Terror – Dan Simmons
The Wise Man’s Fear – Rothfuss
Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
Fry: A Memoir
The Blank Slate – Pinker
Catch 22
Gravity’s Rainbow – Pynchon
The Grapes of Wrath
Portnoy’s Complaint – Roth
Ubik – Dick
Catcher in the Rye
Moonwalking with Einstein
The Book of General Ignorance – Mitchinson
More Information Than You Require - Hodgman
Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Feel free to keep recommending things, and I’ll at least read the Wikipedia article and call it good.

Freak Flag Fly

2011-05-08T07:05:00.002-07:00

Like most heterosexual males, I receive a weekly newsletter from Bed Bath and Beyond. Recently in that newsletter I saw an add for a wall mural depicting a half dozen scenes from the United Kingdom. Doubledecker buses, bulldogs, Union Jacks etc. Self, I thought to myself, don't I need this?

The answer is no, I don't. To a large extent decorating in a guy's apartment is pretty counterproductive. I hardly notice the decorations that I buy, so they're not really attaining much value. And although the argument could be made that girls would notice the decorations and raise their esteem of the flat's occupant(s) I don't really believe that.

In my particular case, I doubly didn't need the mural because I have a bunch of South African stuff that I have never hung up; it's just sitting in my closet. And I have a lot of Japanese/Chinese stuff that I have previously hung up, but is currently sitting in my closet. Adding British stuff to the mix, that will almost certainly spend some, if not all, its time in my closet, just isn't cost effective.

YET, I decided I wanted it. So of course, it went out of stock. Which then led me on a search for new British paraphenalia that I could put in my closet. The top contenders are included below. Vote for one, or more importantly, vote that I be sensible and not buy one.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C

Prepare to hate me

2011-04-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

Clockbusters is addictive.

My score is 48. If you get all 50, I need your help figuring the last couple out.

In other news, I'm leaving for Thailand tomorrow. I had planned on pre-writing a couple weeks of posts for you, but they're still in my head. And my computer's telepathy is lacking, which is disappointing since it's a Mac and I thought they could do everything.

There's some chance that I'll post in Thailand, but more likely you're just going to have to wait. In the mean time though:

Check out my blog archives
Check out my China blog archives
Check out my youtube channel
Go outside

Performance Art

2011-04-12T18:50:00.003-07:00

So the variety show is coming up. Except it isn't a variety show, it's Star Search, which I feel focuses more on talent than variety. And whereas ChrEte had a small, but loyal fan following, here I don't have that same cult of personality. So I'm not sure if I'm going to put anything together.

But if I did, I was thinking of retooling one of these songs:

Buffy

Hugh

NPH

Or I could start a new Flight of the Conchords tribute band. I've always wanted to try my hand at Hip-Hopapotamus.

I'm not sure yet. But your opinion matters. You should vote for:

1. Buffy, Hugh or NPH
2. Which Conchords song I should do
3. Something else entirely
4. That I should retire from the dog-eat-dog world of the variety show circuit.

2006
2007
2008
2009
2009 pt 2

Matchy Matchy

2011-04-09T18:32:00.002-07:00

In 500 Days of Summer, JGL’s love for Zooey really stems from 2 things: she’s cute, and she likes The Smiths. One of the reasons I like this movie so much, and sometimes get frustrated watching it, is that I relate. If a girl is cute, and has good taste, I’m done for.

In a perfect world, I’d see a cute girl wearing an AD shirt sipping on some bubble tea at a Radiohead concert and boom, match made, the deal is done. Maybe I’d ask her opinion about her favorite Wes Anderson movie or make sure she hasn’t seen Cats, but generally speaking, I’d consider us compatible.

Unfortunately, loving the same music, movies, books and/or food doesn’t mean we’d love each other. It’s a hard thing for me to face because liking all the same entertainment would be such a fantastically convenient quality in a spouse, and I love convenience almost as much as I love Radiohead. And I love my media, and sharing it with others, so being with someone that didn’t like what I like, well, that’s a hard pill to swallow. But, sadly, media preference is a shallow criteria for a relationship. What if Radiohead breaks up? What then?

I was out with a ladyfriend the other night and we ended up doing dinner and a movie. Cliché, I know, but if there is a pair of activities I like better than eating and watching movies, I don’t know what it is. Or I do, but it’s not an option. In any case, the movie bit was fairly impromptu, so we hadn’t chosen something ahead of time. So we show up at the theater and perused our movie options. Incidentally, yes, I have made fun of people before who just go to the theater, hoping to find something that tickles their fancy. Do your research people! As previously stated, this was impromptu.

Because I was not on a date with the female version of myself, Paul and Sucker Punch were out. And because she wasn’t on a date with the male version of herself, Hop and Soul Surfer were out. I’d mentally prepared myself for Source Code as a compromise film, but surprisingly she suggested Hanna. To be honest, I don’t think she knew anything about Hanna, and maybe thought it was a sister film to Pollyanna and Annie. So I should have explained “little girl assassin techno soundtrack.” But I’m a bad person, so I took advantage of her selection and we watched it.

Turns out, we both liked it quite a bit. While I can’t say it’s a great movie, I can say it’s an interesting one. And I’m not saying interesting patronizingly, as if to spare the film’s feelings. It was actually a pretty interesting movie. And while I might not have drawn the comparison if they weren’t by the same director, but it was a very similar movie to Atonement. The only thing I remember from Atonement are the visuals (and I’m including Keira Knightley under the category of visuals) and the music. I found the plot pretty secondary. The plot in Hanna is pretty secondary as well, but the visuals and music were great. The film looked beautiful, was frequently funny, featured competent to good acting, had some great action and some nice structural symmetry. It’s hard to ask for much more. A worthwhile story and better editing would have pushed it into greatness.

So it was a happy ending. Not necessarily in Hanna, but for the evening. Two sets of fairly disparate interests, overlapping. I would love for the circles in our venn diagram to completely overlap, but this will likely never be the case. Because my circle is not a circle, but a somewhat cynical octopus of far-flung eccentricities, never to be replicated. It’s a fingerprint, as is everyone’s. And our fingerprints will never match up. But even though fingerprints are never identical, hands can be held.

Quote of the week

2011-04-07T17:34:00.002-07:00

"I think we're all on the same team here, and that's the no pie and no sledgehammer team."

I don't know why that's so funny, but trust me, it is.

And the number of funny people in this video (though admittedly, not doing anything terribly funny) is startling. I'm startled.

Also my sister emailed me a leaked Beastie Boys single today. If you scour with the internet with any type of proficiency, you can find it. But don't tell them I sent you. Also she had a typo in her email of Beatsie Boys, which is such an obviously great name for a Beastie Boys cover band, that I certainly hope it exists.

I know, I've been posting a lot of videos lately. But tomorrow, or maybe later today, or at the latest Saturday, you'll get something better than posted videos. That's right, statistics!

Good, Bad, Ugly, Empty

2011-04-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

Somehow wedged between watching Conference and a game of Mafia (most Mormon morning ever? Quite possibly) we ended up watching Colbert and Fallon doing their version of Friday. Turns out some people hadn’t seen Friday, so then we had to contribute to the 80 million views of the video by watching it.

Friday is old news on the meme circuit, but for what it’s worth, I think it’s kind of a remarkable song. It’s just so empty. It’s not bad per se, there’s just nothing there. Yes, the lyrics are ridiculous; you shouldn’t write a song about choosing between sitting in the front seat or back seat. But all things considered, they’re not that much more ridiculous than most pop. The major difference is this is just some girl who’s parents have bought her a music video: ie, she has zero stage presence. Keisha is annoying and talentless, but she has some modicum of stage presence. The lyrics of Friday are only a bit worse than Party in the USA, but the presentation is just nonexistent.

I bring up Party in the USA, because it was cowritten by Jessie J. I really wanted to like Jessie J. She’s attractive, British, and she writes her own songs. But it turns out the songs aren’t very good. I do find this video kind of fun, but the best part of the entire song is her spiky lips. And if your makeup is the best part of a song, that’s a problem.

But if you shouldn’t listen to Rebecca Black, Miley or Jessie J, what else is there to listen to?

1. The Go! Team

The Go! Team provide you with a awesome retro wall of sound. Need some workout music? Just try not to accelerate to this.

2. The Civil Wars

I think with the popularity of Mumford, we're going to be getting some more of these ube-retro bands. Which is a good thing provided they're this good. Sorry Decemberists, you don't get your own genre anymore.

3. Oh Land

Points for being Danish. Points for being the lovechild of Splashdown, Lady Gaga and Bjork. Points for being awesome. This whole album is great, and I couldn't decide which song to post, so here are a couple.

Public Service

2011-04-03T16:37:00.002-07:00

I don’t actually like Chuck Norris. Despite the fact that I have seen Sidekicks on more than one occasion, Chuck is not going to get a spot on Man-Crush Island. Yes, Man-Crush Island is going to get a post in the near future. But it’s funny to pretend to like Chuck Norris. In a similar vein, I don’t actually like bacon all that much. Sure, generally speaking, a bacon cheeseburger is better than a cheeseburger. But I get offered bacon most every day at work, and I have accepted it 0/270 times. I don’t know if they offer bacon to everyone at the hospital, or if my build just indicates an enthusiasm for bacon.

Generally speaking, I don’t watch tv on tv. I watch it on my computer, or Netflix or in some means whereby I can bypass the commercials. But when I’m on call, I almost always choose channel surfing over being productive in between seeing patients. So I find myself channel surfing for the first time since high school. And during that channel surfing the other day I came across a commercial for Denny’s, and the Bacon Sundae.

Now, I don’t endorse Denny’s. Not that they’ve asked me to be a spokesperson or anything. But if they did, I wouldn’t. Which is a lie because of course I would. But generally speaking, I don’t support eating at Denny’s unless it is 3 AM, or you’re a missionary. Then it’s ok. The only good thing I can say about Denny’s is this viral video campaign has been fun so far:

AND, that they’re brave enough to have a Bacon Sundae. And I am just the person to try that Bacon Sundae, so you don’t have to suffer through it.

When we ordered the sundae, the waitress gave us a withering glare of disgust and revulsion. Hello lady, you work at Denny’s. You are partially responsible for the creation of the Bacon Sundae, so don’t glare at me for getting one. Though admittedly, Ms Possible was also glaring at me a little bit for ordering it, and if I had a mirror I may have been glaring at myself for punishing myself in this fashion. But soon enough, the sundae arrived.

It was pretty plain as far as a sundae goes. It only had 3 ingredients, which I think is the minimum for a sundae. Vanilla ice cream, maple syrup and bacon. So, in case you’re too embarrassed to be seen in a Denny’s, you could easily make one at home.

The review: not bad. I can’t say that I’d ever order one again, but it tasted pretty good. I like maple syrup, and it does a reasonable approximation of chocolate syrup, but it’s not quite as good. It makes all the ice cream taste like pralines and cream. Occasionally you’d hit a rich vein of syrup and that bite would be overpowering. But it was generally pleasant. The bacon wasn’t terribly noteworthy. I think if it had been chewy bacon it would have been gross. But the crisp bacon was less enjoyable than sprinkles, but more enjoyable than frozen gummy bears. So all in all, neither amazingly terrible nor terribly amazing. If you can handle the more outlandish Ben and Jerry’s or Jeni’s flavors, you can most definitely handle, and enjoy, the Bacon Sundae.

The waitress who had previously stinkeyed us later said we were the first people to order the sundae at their Denny’s. I question her authority; I don’t imagine she gets the weekly spreadsheet of who has ordered what. But at our lukewarm endorsement she made herself a little Bacon Sundae platter and actually became a raving fan. It was kind of a Green Eggs and Ham moment, and I considered not leaving a tip since I had already shifted her world paradigm. But then I thought that I might be hungry at 3 AM one of these nights and have to face her again, so I left the customary gratuity.

The Bacon Sundae: edible, enjoyable, slightly embarrassing.

Ahem

2011-03-30T19:45:00.001-07:00

It's National Doctor's Day. I know I didn't give out any hints or reminders, so I'll accept presents any time over the next week.

Cheating Heart

2011-03-29T14:03:00.001-07:00

I've been cheating on you.

For years, I've been telling you that you're my one true love. I've shouted it from the rooftops. I briefly considered that tattoo. Sure, I've dabbled. I never claimed monogamy was my cup of tea. Only that you were my cup of tea, and that I would always come back to you.

Sorry Diet Dr Pepper.

I'm not sure how it happened. I think part of it was being in South Africa last year. They didn't have Diet Dr Pepper. What was I to do? Drink water? Like a poor person? Or alternatively, like a rich douchebag? I think not. So I turned to what was available, the cheap and easy town bicycle of international sodas. Coke Zero.

Sure, Diet Coke is now the #2 soda in the US, after Coke and before Pepsi. But internationally, Diet Coke has no game. Coke Zero is the latest and greatest way to fend of dysentery and unwanted sucrose.

At the hospital I have the following options: Diet Coke, Diet Dr Pepper, Diet Sprite and Coke Zero. Sometimes I have Powerade or VitaminWater and I don't feel bad about that. That's not cheating, that's just . . . swinging maybe? Diet Sprite is rubbish, I'd never cheat on you with that floozy. And Diet Coke gets a swig every now and again, but it might as well just be the secretary at the Christmas party. So it comes down to Diet Dr Pepper, the approved beverage of the modern day physician, and Coke Zero. And it breaks my heart to say so, but Coke Zero often wins. 62% of the time it wins. Sure, that's not a landslide victory; we're pretty much in a polygamous relationship Diet Dr Pepper. But you get 3 days a week, and Coke Zero gets 4.

I'm not saying I'm going to leave you Diet Dr Pepper. Just that you're the soda de jure, but Coke Zero is the soda de facto. Maybe things will change. Maybe you'll add a 24th flavor. But I don't think it's your taste that has to change, it's mine.

Help Wanted

2011-03-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I'm going to Thailand in a couple weeks. Which is awesome, btw.

However, I'm in need of some assistance. If you're in the Phoenix area:

1. Do you have a Type A or Type C socket adapter? They're the two equal sized prongs similar to ours, and the two cylindrical ones.
2. Do you have a neck pillow?
3. Do you have a suggestion for a good book to read? Keep in mind that for all intents and purposes I haven't read anything in the last decade, and I am primarily interested in books under 200 pages to better fit in my restricted luggage.

If you're not in Phoenix:

1. Have you been to Thailand? If so, any suggestions?
2. Do you have a suggestion for a good book to read?

Fashion Late

2011-03-28T18:51:00.001-07:00

I am a novelty glutton. Whether it be the latest in food, music, birthday parties, whathaveyou, I want to experience it. So when I heard there was a fashion show going down in Scottsdale last weekend, I was all in. Not that I’m that into fashion; I’m pretty sure the last article of clothing I purchased was from a grocery store. Socks by the way, not a suit or anything. But I’ve never been to a fashion show, ergo, I must go. Plus it was a friend’s birthday celebration, and fashion is her thing, so all the more reason to try it out.

Venturing into Scottsdale on a weekend night is always an experience. Short skirts, polo shirts, fake tans and fake boobs. It’s not a bad place by any means, just a place where a lot of attention is paid to the veneers and exteriors. Where better to hold a fashion show? But I knew that I was venturing out of my element, and wanted a partner who’s fashion savvy would balance my naïveté, so invited Scrappy along to help me from embarrassing myself.

The show was at The W, which is by far the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in. Nicer than a Marriott you guys. Though mostly when I travel I stay in hostels, or in the back of my car, so the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in is not the greatest of praise. But there were sports cars out front, bouncers at the door, multiple concierges and make-out music in the elevator, so it was fancy to me. And then we got to the rooftop. (Fake) white sand beaches, filled with the aforementioned fake tans, boobs and perhaps fake people. There were multiple bars with a multitude of drinks, with numerous tipsy drinkers and strangely, girls in slutty softball outfits serving them. It was an odd contrast to see the clearly expensively attired party-goers mixed with workers in sorority Halloween costumes. But the night was nominally to a baseball theme, so I guess that’s the best that could be done.

We explored the roof for a while, a bit shell-shocked by the surroundings. The night became a bit of a contest, so spot the highest heels, biggest biceps, most outrageous dress etc. We met up with some friends and our party party gradually grew. Eventually we made our way over to the pool where the actual show would occur. We didn’t know when the show was going to start, but it turns out fashionably late is actually a real thing. The show started around 11 PM, which kind of blew my little Mormon mind. Hadn’t these people ever heard of 7 PM tip?

The show itself probably would’ve been a bit awkward if I were someone prone to feeling awkward. Though there was another guy or two around, I was mostly watching the show with 6 girls. The show that consisted of 90% naked women doing nothing but strutting and posing. Yes, there were some male models, and sometimes the women had on more than a bikini, but not that often. So it was a bit odd, but definitely a novel experience. I didn’t really know what the appropriate commentary was, but Scrappy and I made it through without saying anything too inappropriate. I was hoping one of the high-rollers would invite us into one of their luxury booths so we could scale the social ladder, but no such luck. So we had to stop by In and Out on the way home to prove that the show hadn’t completely obliterated our body image.

So now I’ve been to a fashion show. What’s up next? I missed the Renaissance fair last week so I’ll have to keep looking for something suitably unfashionable.

Bad Omens at the Barbershop

2011-03-24T19:48:00.001-07:00

1. I walked in and there was no wait. DUH duh DUHHH. Shows how popular the place is.

2. After inquiring about what I wanted done, the cutperson’s opening line was “Man, technology these days huh?” Clearly I was going to have write a thesis of small talk with this guy.

3. During the haircut a 70 year old guy walks past points to my in process haircut and says to his stylist “I’ll have what he’s having.” That’s right, I’m a trendsetter for 70 year olds.

4. My haircut winds down with a conversation about how my stylist was recently fired from his job . . . in construction. Guess Bob the Builder is looking for extra tip.

You might take these bad omens to mean I got a bad haircut. Because I’m hair-blind, I don’t know if that is the case. And since people universally compliment haircuts, I’ll never know.

Daily Laugh

2011-03-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not just posting this because Dan and I have the same favorite dinosaur. But it certainly helps that we have the same favorite dinosaur. He swears a little bit, because it's hard not to when discussing the passionate topic of dinosaurs.

As a bonus, here's Paul F. Tompkins, being hilarious, as he often is. Fair warning: he is going to spend the entire 5 minutes discussing fake peanut brittle.

Ambiguously Gay Weekend

2011-03-14T09:26:00.002-07:00

Squeeky Pete came down to Phoenix for the weekend. I’m a notoriously bad long distance friend/friend/person so we haven’t really spoken much after 4 years of doing most everything in tandem, but he had a couple days to kill and Phoenix is admittedly better than Ogden.

Because we lived together for 4 years, and went to school together, to church together, to most social events together, and on some dates together, it had sometimes been joked that we were, in fact, together. Sadly, we’re both heterosexuals, we’re just not terribly good at it. But as if to defy people to believe that we in fact like women, we spent the day together, enjoying stereotypically homosexual activities.

We started by going out to breakfast together at US Egg. At least it wasn’t brunch. But it was actually pretty great, especially the protein pancakes. On the way back to my place we happened across the Scottsdale Art Festival. And being an ambiguously gay duo, we decided to spend the next couple hours at the art show. I came across some pieces I quite liked, but decided not to buy anything until I actually have an office in which to put them, which will be in another year.

After the art show, we went to a musical. Not even a manly drama, a musical. Though, it was Avenue Q, so it was hardly a girly musical. I’d seen it before in NYC, and thought the local troupe did a great job. Other than a couple slight prop blips and a little bit of toned-down dialogue, it was just as good as the original production.

We did try to be at least a little bit social and went to our ward activity. There we enjoyed the company of women, some tense pinewood derby races, and our daily dose of white trash hair metal. We didn’t stay too long as we went to The Adjustment Bureau shortly thereafter, which I wouldn’t qualify as stereotypically gay or straight. It was however an interesting, if flawed, film.

Anyway, that was my ambiguous weekend. I should point out that Squeeky is now back in Utah, so any women in Arizona who would like to take his place on similar days of brunch, art, musicals (and pinewood derbies) are welcome to apply.

Bi-winning

2011-03-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

Would you make fun of a blind person? I would.

I suspect the Charlie Sheen media circus will continue for some time, but I, for one, am mostly over it. He's now TRYING to sound crazy which isn't nearly as interesting as just being crazy. But that doesn't change the fact that he may well have an underlying mental illness. It's unethical for me as a psychiatrist to attempt to diagnose someone I haven't examined, and it would be unethical for me to relay that diagnosis to you if I had examined him. But let's just say that he is currently acting a lot like various people who I have diagnosed as having a particular mental illness. That being the case, should you be mocking him?

I say you, because you, who are reading this, probably have mocked him. I know I have. But would you mock someone who was blind? Would you make fun of someone with diabetes? Would it matter to you whether that person had Type I or II diabetes? Who is it ok to ridicule and who is it not?

The safest/best route, which I have no intention of following because I'm a bad person, is that we shouldn't make fun of anybody. Sick, crazy, lazy, annoying, no matter, no mocking. I'm not prepared to be that good of a person. But not only am I not ready to be that nice, I'm not ready to be that unobservant.

Having a fault doesn't make you a bad person. Being bipolar doesn't make you a bad person, nor does being blind, nor does liking Two and a Half Men. It makes you a flawed person. That is to say, it makes you a person.

I make fun of people I don't like. I don't feel good about it, but it certainly helps me vent and be more relaxed. I also make fun of people I do like. Because the fact that they have a mockable foible doesn't mean I don't like them. It means they are a person. And as a person, I don't expect them to be perfect. If I did, I'd be constantly disappointed. And I'm not. I'm not disappointed because I remember people's faults very well. I have a friend, who we'll call Yogi. Yogi is a fantastic person, who at the best of times has a 50% success rate at doing what she has committed to doing. She's the consummate flake. And because I know that about her, and joke about it, I'm not disappointed when she flakes. Yes, I don't rely on her much, and it's one of a variety of reasons that I'm not interested in dating her, but I don't hold it against her. She's a person, and is one who happens to be unreliable. And she's my friend.

So if I know you well enough to notice your flaws (this generally takes 3 minutes or so) I'm going to make fun of them. But it doesn't mean I won't like you. It means I see the world as it is, and I accept a great many things. Some people are flakey, some people are crazy, some people are blind. Ridicule and gossip are very similar to jest and truth telling. The flaws may well be the same, it's your attitude about them that differs. If you can be happier by accepting and making light of the imperfections inherent in the world, more power to you. Just make sure the blind guy has a sense of humor. And don't party with Charlie Sheen.

Self Censor

2011-03-11T09:32:00.002-07:00

I got a text this morning.

Japan hit by 8.9 earthquake. Pray for people in Japan. 5th largest earthquake in world history!

What I wanted to say is:
1. It's the 5th largest earthquake since we started recording earthquakes, which started in 1900.
2. The earthquake hit 200 miles off the coast of Japan. The tsunami is likely to cause as much if not more damage than the earthquake.
3. Scientists don't use the Richter scale anymore, they use the MMS.

What I said was: nothing. See, I'm becoming a better person. I will pray for Japan, and I won't be a know-it-all to everyone, only to you.

Broken

2011-03-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

My life is slowly crumbling around me. Soon I'll be nothing but forgotten ruins, ash, and other post-apocalyptic type imagery.

First, my desktop had a stroke. I turned it on one morning to discover a yellow line down the middle of the screen. Some tube or diode or pixel string has burned out, resulting in an ugly yellow line traversing everything I do. Sometimes I forget about, until I'm watching something and wonder why there's a crack or streamer or something in the middle of the video. Then I remember my screen is broken. Sometimes I get distracted from the video by waiting for the line to perfectly transect a character. In any case, the screen is broken, but I highly doubt it's going to be worthwhile to pay someone to repair a 5 year old Mac. So I'll just have to deal with it.

Then the corruption spread. My PC has fallen prey to a virus. And not your standard, run-of-the-mill slows down your computer virus. This is the cartoonish crashes-everything virus. This virus causes pop-ups to pop up almost as quickly as I can close them. It prevents me from opening my anti-virus software, claiming that the anti-virus software is a virus. The computer has become effectively inusable. Which means . . . I've become a Mac person. Gasp! With the death of my PC I have, by default, become someone who only owns a (functional) Mac. Some of you may have noticed how much more smug and annoying I've been the last couple days. It's because I'm a Mac person now.

Yesterday I left work only to discover that my windshield is cracked. My windshield was not cracked when I went into work, but evidently someone went rally racing in my Subaru while I spend my day in lectures. Upon closer inspection I find a chip below my wiper blades, which I'd assume is the was the source of the crack that now arcs across my passanger side.

Clearly, the end is near. Bit by bit my life is lapsing into disrepair and destruction. My toys are just unable to keep up with my rock and roll lifestyle. Or that gypsy curse has finally caught up with me. Or maybe I'm an adult. One thing's for sure. I don't like it.

Things you didn't know existed:

2011-03-07T08:41:00.004-07:00

Chap Hop.

It's steampunk hip hop. That is, it's people pretending what it would be like to rap in Victorian times. And forget Biggie and Tupac, chap hop has it's own feud: Mr. B versus Professor Elemental. If you're only going to watch one video, watch the last one, as it has a sick hook.

Professor Elemental:

Mr. B:

Now the feud begins:

I'm on team Elemental btw.

Stamp collecting

2011-03-02T08:15:00.002-07:00

I was going to post something, then realized it was immensely nerdy, and that my last post was immensely nerdy, and the quantity of nerdiness would have caused my blog to implode. Much like that previous sentence. So tomorrow you’ll get an immensely nerdy post, and today only a moderately nerdy one.

Hobby updates:

1. Watching movies – I successfully saw most of the Oscar movies. I may get around to The Kids are Alright or 127 Hours still, but I wouldn’t count on it. My next cinema goal is finally watching Twin Peaks. I need motivation, so if you’re living in Phoenix and want to watch Twin Peaks, let me know.

2. Making movies - My next movie is written, but it needs some work. I’m going to clean it up over the next couple weeks, then I’m going to send it out for some punch up. So if you’re interested in doing some punch up, let me know. This will probably appeal most to the people who know what punch up is. Because I’ll be out of town for half of April, filming will probably occur in May.

3. Trivia – After our triumphant victory earlier this year, we have failed to make it into the top 3 in subsequent outings. But last week we only got 3 questions wrong all night, which I counted as a success. Plus we had fun, so I guess that’s important too. But if you know where Dirty Dancing was set, where 12% of teenagers first have intercourse or who the first two dogs inducted into the Animal Hall of Fame, you should come to trivia with us.

4. Travel – It’s March, which means I’m going to Thailand next month. Sweet. I guess I could’ve written a post about the whens/whys/whatnots regarding that trip, but I’ll do that some other time, preferably before April.

5. Napping – I read the other day that the human brain may function better with two 4 hour periods of sleep a day rather than one 8 hour period. Which may explain why I enjoy 4 hour naps.

I think it would be funny if you said your hobby was stamp collecting, but your actual hobby was taking pictures of tramp stamps and then scrapbooking those pictures. In fact that would make a great coffee table book. If you want to do that and give me 10% of the proceeds, I support you.

Meme Girls

2011-02-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

For some, the thirst for knowledge can be a great character trait. Not so much for me. Mostly because I tend to thirst for knowledge about stupid things.

Like memes. I hate it when someone brings up a meme and I don’t know about it. Can you think of something less important to know about than an internet meme? An internet meme is never going to save somebody’s life. It’s never going to make the world a better place. It’s never going to imbue your soul with a quintessential truth about the universe. But I get annoyed when I don’t know them. Memes are like internet gossip and fashion and inside jokes rolled into one, and I must be in on it.

I was at Matsuri yesterday, which is Phoenix’s Japanese festival. It was successful in that I went with a girl and I added eel to my list of animals I’ve eaten list. It was not successful in that everyone knew a meme that I didn’t know. Admittedly, there’s no way you’re going to keep up with a cosplaying otaku on knowledge of internet culture. But the fact that everyone except Integral and I knew to start doing this stupid dance when a stupid song played was disappointing to me. The dance was the following:

And no, I wouldn’t have started doing the dance if I knew it. And yes, it is one of the more ridiculous things that I could possibly conceive of. But still, everyone knew but me! Embarrassing. More embarrassing though is the fact that I spent 30 minutes last night investigating the dance. But really, how was I supposed to find it in less than 30 minutes when my only clues on what to google was “Japanese dance.”

One of my favorite memes of the last month or so is Hipster Ariel. I’ve included some of my favorites below:

And best picture goes to . . .

2011-02-27T12:11:00.001-07:00

Come on Academy Awards. You can’t expect me to see 10 movies by show-time tonight. Especially considering the fact that I’m at the hospital. I had a hard enough time seeing the top 5 in years past, and 10 is just out of the question.

Earlier this week I invited some folk over and we watched The King’s Speech, seeing as it had such Oscar buzz around it. For months, every single person I’ve talked to about it has had nothing but praise. And honestly, I don’t have anything very critical to say about it. Other than there are 4 movies, only counting the ones that were nominated, that I think are more deserving of being named the best picture of the year.

Black Swan was simultaneously beautiful and horrifying. It kept you guessing and thoroughly invested for the entire time. It had great acting all around. It was filmed in a great claustrophobic, surreal style. It was a much much more interesting movie than The King’s Speech.

The Social Network was an incredibly clever movie. I didn’t get around to seeing 127 Hours (again, 10 movies?) and I hear Boyle does a great job of keeping you glued to a guy that’s glued in one place. But The Social Network does a great job of keeping you riveted by facebook. It’s a commentary of life now. My roommate thinks this movie won’t matter in ten years, but if that’s your argument, The King’s Speech doesn’t matter either. The movie is ostensibly about facebook, but the plot isn’t really what it’s about. It’s about geniuses and narcissists and loneliness and greed and those things aren’t going anywhere. The writing and acting were excellent as well.

The King’s Speech was a great feel-good movie. Do you know what was a better one? The Fighter. I don’t care about boxing, I don’t care about Lowell , I don’t care about crack. But I cared about the characters in this movie because they were so well realized. And it’s predictable, but who cares? It makes you feel good.

True Grit was one of the most fun movie experiences I’ve had this year. It’s hilarious. Much funnier than most comedies I’ve seen this year, or any other. Add to that the Coen’s attention to detail, the terrific acting and the strong character studies, and it’s just a gem all around.

It’s not that The King’s Speech was bad. It was in fact very very good. I’d love to see Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth win some awards. But I just can’t say it’s the best from the list of movies, and I didn’t even see Toy Story, Winter’s Bone or the Kids Are Alright. And if you think Inception is the best movie of the year, well, you’re wrong. It was an interesting concept, admirably translated into a competent blockbuster, but it’s not a great work of film. In any case, I wouldn’t pick The King’s Speech. I’d have a hard time choosing, but for me it would come down to Black Swan and The Social Network. Emotion and art or intellect and import? It’s hard to pick, but sadly The Academy didn’t ask me to.

Post script Post
Movies that are excellent that didn’t get best pictures nominations:

Never Let Me Go
Let Me In
Shutter Island
Get Low
Scott Pilgrim
Animal Kingdom
And of course, Burlesque

I'm a neurologist. Psych.

2011-02-23T15:41:00.003-07:00

I tend not to talk about work when it’s something I dislike (eg ED) to keep from sounding like the male equivalent of a negative Nancy. But I sometimes forget to talk about the work that I like. Perhaps that’s because I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about work when I’m not at work, which is when I blog. Because blogging at work is discouraged. But as it so happens, I’m currently blogging at work.

I’m able to do this because I’m on a Neurology rotation. Neurology isn’t inherently easy, in fact it’s inherently kind of complicated, but this particular rotation is pretty laid back. The doctor I work with likes to dictate all his notes, so doesn’t need me to write any notes for him to use for his notes. And since there are 3-5 residents and students working with him, we each have relatively few patients to see. Which makes this a pretty sweet month. When you can blog at work, you can’t complain too much.

But even if I saw more than 3-4 patients a day, which I don’t, neurology would still be great. To be honest, I’m probably a better neurologist than a psychiatrist. When I first told people that I was thinking about psychiatry, I often got “Really?” as a response. Some of this is probably due to the general view of psychiatry as quackery. But some was undoubtedly because I’m a bit Aspergers. I’m not terribly good at reading emotions, which you might imagine is a good skill to have in psychiatry. But I am a good listener, pretty good abstract thinker and am generally good at being objective. So I’m not a complete loss as a psychiatrist, but I’m probably better at Neurology. I did a fair amount of neurology as a neuroscientist major, I did an above average amount at med school, and I took some neuro electives. The brain is kind of a squishy mishmash of shapish blobs, but it still makes a certain amount of sense to me.

But I didn't go into neurology. Although I'm probably a better neurologist than a psychiatrist, I don't enjoy it as much. There is a near infinite number of strokes you could have, but I don't find one much more interesting than the next. But psychotic people, they're all different and all interesting. Both fields have pretty poor outcomes; you don't cure schizophrenia, and you don't cure seizures, you just treat them as best you can. But of the two, I feel like successfully treating psychiatric conditions is more rewarding.

So if you've seen me in the last month you may have noticed I'm liking my job. But more likely, you didn't notice any difference. I'm greatly enjoying my neurology vacation, but it will be nice to get back to psych in a couple months.

Shortcut

2011-02-19T09:55:00.002-07:00

Normally I like to watch the Oscar nominated films before the Academy Awards. But I'm busy, and there are 10 of them now, which makes everything much harder. A friend told me about a local theater is showing all 10 movies for one ticket price the day before the Oscars and if I'm feeling insane then maybe I'll do that. But more likely I'll just watch The King's Speech and call it good.

But last night I found a theater that's showing all the Oscar nominated short films. How cool is that? Who ever gets to see the short films? So Shawty and I grabbed some Greek (with flaming Feta cheese!) and hit the theater. Turns out half the showings were the live action shorts and half were the animated ones, and we were there in time for the animated ones.

The best one was The Lost Thing. It won't win, but it was the best. Whereas a number of the pieces were very heavy-handed or simplistic with their messages, The Lost Thing was a little more subtle. It wasn't exactly obscure, but at least it wasn't patronizing like Let's Pollute!. It had a hint of Douglas Adams to it, with just a hint of snark and a dab of wonder.

The best visuals were Madagascar, A Journey Diary. It was like a living scrapbook. I don't really understand everything that it depicted, but it all looked fantastic. The artistic style changed from second to second, with sketches, watercolors, rotoscopes, CG etc all used to great effect. The whole thing is available online:

Pixar's Day and Night was entered. It'll probably win because the world is infatuated with all things Pixar like a 12 year old Bieber groupie. But, I must say that this was the most interesting thing I've ever seen Pixar do, so I'll rank it third.

I think Shawty's favorite was The Gruffalo. Other than the Pixar contribution this was the biggest production. It features a variety of British actors (Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, Rob Brydon, James Corden etc) voicing the roles. Evidently this is a popular book among children, and it seems like it's probably an exact adaptation. It was well done, just aimed at 6 year-olds.

We got two bonus films that didn't make it into the top 5, both of which I'd place above the actual 5th choice. One was called URS and was a typically German German film. It was pretty good, if a bit depressing. The other was called The Cow that Wanted to Be a Hamburger, and it was pretty great. I'd include a clip but the only I can find is of a calf sucking on an animated teat, which doesn't do the film justice.

Finally, Let's Pollute! It was fine, just kind of dumb. And not because it was environmentalist, but because it was environmentalist and had nothing to say. Being satirical and saying the opposite of what you mean isn't clever unless you include some actual content.

So rather than see all the Oscar noms, I took the shortcut and just watched the shorts. Maybe next year I'll take the scenic route.

Happy VD!

2011-02-15T13:32:00.002-07:00

I’m sure that last year was my oddest Valentine’s Day. I met a bunch of AIDS orphans, wandered an African casino drooling over Indian girls, culminating in a romantic devil’s threesome dinner at a restaurant decorated with pinups and meat hooks. Hard to beat.

This year was an odd mix of appropriate and inappropriate activities, along with appropriate activities done out of context.

On Friday I participated in a Battle of the Sexes. As I have thrown a couple BotS before, I offered the use of my trivia bank. But as I knew all the answers to the gender trivia, I couldn’t participate on the men’s team. So I was appropriated into the activities committee for the evening and became a judge/scorekeeper. I got bored and started writing jokes on the scoreboard, which eventually resulted in the girl’s protesting my credentials. Evidently they didn’t like it when I vandalized Ladies, changing it to Rabies, and when I posted the comment “Haven’t scored in a while” after they hadn’t scored for 15 minutes. So half the girls in my ward don’t like me anymore, but realistically they wouldn’t have liked me if they knew me better anyway. And the other half gave me some compliments on my shirt and some beard rubs so it all evens out in the end.

Saturday, well I may have drunk myself into a stupor because I don’t really know what I did on Saturday. But I know I did decide to watch a movie and it happened to be Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And only afterwards did I realize I’d selected a movie about a painful breakup for my Valentine’s weekend. Apropos. As always, a fine film.

Sunday, I had intended to throw a Pal-antine’s Day movie night. Unfortunately due to roommates’ illness, absence and disinterest, my little movie night became a very little one as it was just The Historian and myself. But since I like The Historian more than most people, it all worked out fine. We watched (500) Days of Summer, which was an intentional choice of a movie about a painful breakup, so was again appropriate. In addition to our bittersweet movie, we made some bittersweet Frozen Lemon Cream, which I hadn’t had in a decade or two. It is as good as I remembered.

On Valentine’s Day itself, I had pre-arranged to have a girlfriend. Months ago I had been discussing my Love Sucks Party tradition with the Dirty Lunchlady (before she protests, it’s only a temporary pseudonym) and we decided we’d be a couple for Valentine’s Day. So after I presented her with a lovely bouquet of pickles, we went to get some Thai food. Partially this was in preparation for my trip to Thailand, and partially to try to satisfy her insatiable lust for spicy food. It was a pleasant evening with fine conversation, far too many old white Scottsdalians for an ethnic restaurant and an overly loud jazz band. After some discussion of our mutual love for NPH we ended up watching Dr. Horrible. Turns out I had selected yet another movie about a painful breakup, proving that my subconscious and/or my movie collection is highly fatalistic. But despite this, it was great evening, made even better because I didn’t have to go to work until noon today.

I’m not saying that there won’t be a Love Sucks VII next year, but turns out there are lots of other ways to celebrate the birth/death/existence of Saint Valentine.

The time of the week when I rank some neo-divas

2011-02-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

At trivia a couple weeks back they asked which artist had 4 #1 Singles in 2010. After a bit of lively debate we narrowed it down to Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Keisha, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj as the contenders. And I figured that you wanted to know my opinion of these “artists.” So I’ll rank them.

1. Lady Gaga. I non-ironically love Lady Gaga. I don’t love all her music (I wasn’t a big fan of Telephone, but it did grow on me a bit) but I really like her presentation. Yes, I think her weirdness is prefabricated, but that makes it even better to me. It’s a bit fake, but she has to figure out how to be fake in the right ways. Anyway, she’s great. Bad Romance remains my favorite song of hers, as well as my favorite video of the last few years. She’s the only artist of the 5 that I could really say is good at this point.

2. Katy Perry. I like Katy, but I’m not sure why. I absolutely hate, California Gurls, with a passion. So the fact that I still feel positively towards her is an impressive achievement by her marketing team. Also she doesn’t interview well, which is usually a big negative for me. And she did pretty horribly on How I Met Your Mother last week. Yet, I still like her! Amazing. I’m not even overly attracted to her, which would be the normal explanation for ignoring her other faults. Positives though: she’s married to Russell Brand, who I like in small doses, and I think she has an interesting non-pop voice.

3. Nicki Minaj. I like Nicki, but I do think she’s a bit of a novelty. I think ten years from now if you hear a track with Nicki on you’ll be able to say “Oh, that must have been from 2010-11.” But I’d be happy to be proven wrong. She’s not a great lyricist, but she has some fun voice inflection that makes her mundane rhymes more interesting. Kind of like doing impersonations while rapping. Plus she held her own on a couple SNL sketches a couple weeks back, which gives her points. Her guest work is still stronger than her solo work, and I suspect it will always stay that way. Check out Monster and Bottoms Up for my favorite Nicki bits.

4. Rihanna. I’m not big on hip hop generally, but I like Rihanna well enough. I wandered into a Rihanna concert on OSU campus once. True story. Her music is very hit or miss for me. Even though I think everyone on this list has dozens of people crafting their music and presentation, I feel like Rihanna doesn’t really have a personality. She just gets put into songs, and some are huge hits. Her favorite of mine at the moment is Cheers, which I don’t think has been a single yet.

5. Keisha. Not surprisingly, Keisha is last on my list. I don’t feel like anyone really likes or respects Keisha, and I don’t feel like anyone should. There’s no denying that her songs are uber-catchy, but they’re just gibberish.

So our group answered Lady Gaga. My personal vote was Rihanna. Katy and Keisha pretty well split the difference and no one really thought Nicki had been in 4 #1s. Turns out I was right; Rihanna had Rude Boy, Love the Way You Lie, What’s My Name and Only Girl (In the World.) Props to her, but I still think she’s kind of boring.

Spring cleaning

2011-02-12T22:43:00.000-07:00

I realize that 90% of you read this on facebook or on Google Reader. But if you're one of the remaining people, you've already noticed that I changed the format of my blog.

Maybe you'll like a picture of me on a horse better than me at the Cape of Good Hope. I very nearly put a picture of Kristen Bell there instead, but decided a picture of me was more accurate given the blog's content. But you can vote for a picture of Kristen Bell if you want.

Maybe your blog appears along the side now. Kudos. If not, update it more often.

I got rid of the fish. Sorry if that's why you came here.

Endorsement

2011-02-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

I don't endorse things lightly, but I'm going to endorse Myq Kaplan.

I like his delivery and wit, if not always his subject matter.

And in case you are too lazy to look up another video to double check whether you like him, here's another one:

Stronger (sorry if that put Britney in your head)

2011-02-10T18:46:00.003-07:00

Yesterday you got a teaser for today's post. The actual story is that I tried to be fancy and set a timer for my post like some of my more blog-savvy friends, and then became too busy to finish the post. In any case, the graphic included the quote from Gauguin:

"One must be strong to endure solitude, and to work alone."

Now many of you may have an issue with 18 year-olds getting married. Not me. Admittedly, an 18 year-old is hardly a person. As a general rule anything with teen in the title is not a person. So you might think that it's not responsible for an almost-person to get married. Because chances are good that they will eventually become a person, say 5 years or 5 babies in the future. And that person 5 somethings later may not like the spouse they picked out back when they were a person-in-training. So while I certainly don't think it's ideal for an 18 year old to get married, I'm not willing to say this is always, 100%, most definitely a bad decision. But, honestly, it probably is.

I point this out, because I'm about to report one of the few advantages to not being married at 28, and I don't want it to seem that I advocate staying single until you're 28 always, 100% for everyone. I don't.

However, if through circumstance, location, personality or hairline you are single at 28, you've experienced a decade that those love-stricken 18 year-olds will never experience. A decade. Apart from my own stupid field of medicine, where else do you set aside 10 years to train for something? You've spent your 20s with only yourself to learn, analyze, train and improve. Sure there are friends and family and potential beaus that you work on along the way; but the time and effort you spend on others isn't nearly as encompassing as when you're married. You have only yourself to grow.

And often, it sucks. Some spend this decade in solitude out of personal choice, but mostly we don't. But the fact that it often sucks is why it's strengthening. As Gauguin said, you're enduring the solitude, but you're also working. And the happily-marrieds certainly get a decade of training as well, and from the whining they do I'm sure it's hard as well. You'll get their decade of training a little later, but they'll never get this one.

Happy Valentine's Day.

(And no, I didn't try to time this post to pop up on Valentine's Day; I'm just leaving my weekend open for a surprise elopement. Hope springs eternal.)

2011-02-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

Must See TV

2011-02-07T23:40:00.002-07:00

For twenty-some years people have been harshing on Saturday Night Live. Dana Carvey was on this week and did a facetious song about how his years were the best years. For at least the last ten years have complained about the decline of The Simpsons. For the last three or four people have done the same about The Office. It’s true, The Office isn’t what it used to be. But it’s also true that The Office is something else entirely.

I love the original UK Office. Its one-two punch of cringing and laughing was something to behold. And I greatly enjoyed the US Office following suit in their early seasons. But as the years have gone by the cringing has gone. One of the unique elements of the show, the awkward humor, has taken a back seat, only popping up once in a great while. And while I liked the awkwardness, I like the characters more. I think the main reason the cringing had to go is the writers couldn’t make us pity Michael Scott the same way we pitied David Brent. Because we don’t pity Michael, we like him; and we don’t want to see him go through what we wanted to see David go through.

The same is true for everyone else. Dwight is a creep, but he’s not Gareth. We wanted Tim and Dawn to get together, but it would’ve been much worse if Jim and Pam hadn’t. We root for pretty much every character in The Office. Many characters started out as punching bags, but have become lovable. Michael is the best example, but think how annoying Andy was at first. Dwight has come a long way. Gabe is currently getting punched but even he is fairly likable. Old minor characters are now likable (Daryl and Oscar) newer characters have jumped right into likable (Holly and Erin), even characters like Angela are as often likable as not now. In short, they’ve taken a mean show and made everyone so likable that any real meanness is unpleasant.

And while that makes the show less edgy, I can’t really say it’s worse. I thought watching Michael and Holly on the roof last week was very rewarding, more so than if there had been some intractable foot-in-mouth situation. If I ran The Office, I would end the show this season when Steve Carell leaves. But if they keep up the consistent charm, I’ll keep watching The Office.

Post Script

I shouldn’t encourage you to watch more television, but here are some reasons to watch the other members of NBC’s Thursday lineup.
30 Rock – the best show of the evening, if not the week. The characters are surreal caricatures, but they’re very entertaining ones. You can’t predict what will happen next on 30 Rock, and the interconnection between diverse comedic elements is downright literary.

Community – this show jumps the shark every week. Is it jumping the shark if you do it every single time? Whereas 30 Rock throws 30 kinds of jokes at you every episode, Community picks one topic/genre/theme to skewer and sticks with it for 22 minutes. It’s nearly as inventive, and sometimes more funny.

Parks and Recreation – Season 2 was roughly 30 times better than Season 1. Season 3 looks even better. Adam Scott has become the new straight man, allowing Rashida Jones to become more interesting. Aziz is still hilarious, Andy has become extremely watchable rather than painful, and Amy Poehler, though still handicapped by her character, is more enjoyable. But the real reason to watch is Nick Offerman, who deserves his own show, or even his own network.

Party Philosophy

2011-02-06T09:23:00.002-07:00

I threw a Provo Party the other night. I was talking to Turkish Delight about it beforehand, and she wanted to know what you do at a Mormon party. My answer: talk mostly.

I have in the past planned parties with elaborate activities. Costume contests, croquet tournaments etc. And I've found that people tend to enjoy the pre-activity and post-activity portions of the evening most. It's possible that all my activities have been bad, so the non-activity portion of the night is the highlight. But I suspect it's mostly that they activity is unnecessary. What people want is a time and a place where they know they'll see people they like. That is the essence of a good party.

So now when I throw a party, I plan relatively little. I need the following: time, place, theme, decorations, music, food, people. Generally I wouldn't say 7 ingredients makes a simple recipe, but these 7 get sorted out pretty quickly.

Time and place - Hard to have a party without these. But there are things to consider (central location, parking, space, lack of conflicts etc).
Theme - I am a strong believer in themes. It doesn't need to be a good one, eg Provo Party, but I don't just like Party.
Decorations - Ultimately, optional. But it is nice if there's some indication it's not a typical Thursday morning.
Music - Sometimes tricky. You want quality music, but also music people are familiar with. You should also match to your theme as much as possible. Music is really the main decoration for a party.
Food - Again, match to theme. For Mormon parties food also has to double as the replacement for alcohol, so don't ignore this category and don't skimp.
People - Pick the right number for your activity and venue. Dance parties need more than potlucks. Movie nights get crowded. Know who is likely to actually come versus just say they will.

For instance, the Provo Party was planned thusly:
Time and place - My place, as it's a reasonable space, centrally located, and generally I want people to know where it is. I purposely picked a time when little else was going on.
Theme - We have a lot of BYU grads in Arizona, so I thought it would be fun to reminisce a bit. It works equally well if you liked or disliked BYU.
Decorations - I printed out the dozen most recent Police Beats and layed them throughout the apartment as conversation pieces. I threw together a slide show of Provo landmarks to play on loop on the TV. I put up some BYU hats, ties etc around the apartment.
Music - Admittedly, people didn't really get the subtleties of my mix. 1/3 was corny BYU-centric material (Singles Ward soundtrack, Rise and Shout, swing music, a capella), 1/3 was ironic music about drinking and 1/3 was the least objectionable selections from the Top 40. But really once we had a couple dozen people in the apartment the music was drowned out so it didn't matter much.
Food - We made J-Dawgs, drank Apple Beer and Martinellis, had fries with fry sauce, had some jello shots, mint brownies, ice cream and M&Ms. It was very Provo.
People - We ended up with a good mix of people that had spent time in Provo and those that just wanted to get together on a Friday night. Kickoff for the party was a little later than anticipated, but we met critical mass quick enough and held it until the end.

So, that was by far the least fun way to describe a party ever. Point being, throwing a party is relatively easy and you should do it more often. Also, Provo Party was successful in my eyes, but I do have a lot of J-Dawg sauce to use up so you should come by and help deplete it.

Needlenose Ned

2011-02-02T22:40:00.002-07:00

I didn't have time to watch Groundhog's Day today, but you'll probably have time to watch this video.