Seems as though the people at MTV have finally come to their senses and realized that they have a treasure trove of great material on their hands. No, I'm not talking about the first two seasons of The Hills.
They're finally putting up the videos they have amassed over 25 years online on a new website, mtvmusic.com. I'm assuming that this is definitely a work in progress, since I can't find some of my favorite videos of all time, such as U2's "All I Want Is You," or lesser known bands from the 90's that did get a song or two played on MTV, like the Chicago greats Fig Dish.
I was at least able to find two of my favorite videos ever so far, Sigur Ros' "Glossoli," and Nine Inch Nails' "Wish." Not the best audio or video quality, but hey, at least it's out there. I'll be wasting plenty of time tracking down some old videos on here for sure.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The eels on Nova
I completely blanked, I meant to post that the documentary (Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives) on Mark Oliver Everett from the band the eels and his father, which I mentioned a few months back, was playing last night on Nova on PBS. Crap.
The good news is that they are repeating it a couple of times this week, at least according to the TV Guide online. I believe it should be on Saturday night at 9 pm, so set your DVR's (or VCR's if you have one of those old fashioned things), it is definitely worth seeing.
The hour long documentary follows Everett, better known simply as E, as he heads to the college where his father formulated theories that became the basis of the idea of parallel universes. It contrasts the academic brilliance of his father against the life at home for the family, which has helped E to cathartically write some incredible albums.
Also, if you go to this website, you can download 4 songs from the eels acoustic tour completely for free, but the download is only available until next Tuesday, Oct. 28th, so download it now!
The good news is that they are repeating it a couple of times this week, at least according to the TV Guide online. I believe it should be on Saturday night at 9 pm, so set your DVR's (or VCR's if you have one of those old fashioned things), it is definitely worth seeing.
The hour long documentary follows Everett, better known simply as E, as he heads to the college where his father formulated theories that became the basis of the idea of parallel universes. It contrasts the academic brilliance of his father against the life at home for the family, which has helped E to cathartically write some incredible albums.
Also, if you go to this website, you can download 4 songs from the eels acoustic tour completely for free, but the download is only available until next Tuesday, Oct. 28th, so download it now!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Catching Up
Have a few minutes to breathe finally, so might as well post...
Pretty much finished with my mid-terms in my classes at this point. Finished my first project for the semester, it's a lovely, incredibly useful crystal radio. Basically, in theory, it's supposed to pick up AM radio signals, without the use of any AC or battery power at all. Sounds good in theory, doesn't seem to work out that way though. Oh well, my teacher gave me an A anyways.
It was a good but pretty busy 3 day weekend for us. We took off Friday to take Bella to go and see the Disney tour thing going on right now, since it has people "performing" 3 of Bella's favorite shows: Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Handy Manny. Sadly, I say "performing" because every single moment was pre-recorded, and the "actors" couldn't even perform any of their actual lines.
Okay, I get it that you wouldn't want the guy in the Pooh costume trying to read his lines, but come on, you can't have the people playing the Einsteins and Handy Manny actually saying their own lines? Sad. (Oh, and if Bella or someone else her age is reading this, I'm completely wrong, they really were talking and singing their own lines, ignore me!).
Bella helped me out with raking a bunch of the leaves in our front yard, that was pretty fun. She dove into the pile of leaves about 20 times, and was trying to use the rake and put leaves in the bags the rest of the time, so that was a lot of fun.
I even got to go and vote on Friday while Michele took a nap at home. Of course I say Michele was the only one taking a nap, seeing as Bella has decided she won't nap at home on the weekends anymore. What fun. But Bella did help me out with the voting, she was the most popular person at the polling place near us that day. She was very happy to cast her vote for our future president "Obamba" as she says it.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Some new pics
I've been neglecting to put some new pics up in a bit, so here you go. With Bella and mommy sick on and off the last two weeks, we haven't had a lot of chances to take new shots...
We did head back to the little farm near us on Sunday to pick out Bella's pumpkin for this year. Bella had fun as usual during that, they added a slide for her to play on this year. Plus, she got to do her (probably) last pony ride of the year, which she enjoyed again.
The first shot is her current favorite thing to do in the car, she just got a new plastic bucket, and decided to put it on her head and say "helloooo, bucket
head!" to us while we're driving.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Broken Social Scene at the Vic - 10/9
I just noticed that the Bush out of office countdown is almost below the 100 day mark. What a beautiful sight...
Anyways, last night I headed over to the Vic Theater in the city to see the great Canadian band Broken Social Scene once again, despite just seeing them at Lollapalooza in August. I figured it would be a pretty safe bet, since I've never seen them in a place as small as the Vic to this point, it has only been the two Lolla shows so far.
As a brief history lesson, BSS is a Canadian collective, with a rotating membership of around 16 or 18 members. Their most famous member to this point is Feist, who has been going on to bigger things in the last two years. The main members are Kevin Drew (who writes the best songs for the band) and Brendan Canning, who have both released "solo" albums in the past year, with the rest of BSS performing as their bands on their respective cd's.
The band Land of Talk opened the show, and their lead singer stayed on with BSS to handle all of the female vocals in their songs. There wasn't much to say about Land of Talk's set, it was pretty forgettable and uninspiring, expect for a few moments when the band decided to rock a bit.
BSS came on at 8:30, and much like Sigur Ros a couple of weeks before, decided to say damn the curfew, and played on to 10:30. Their set was very similar to the one they performed at Lolla this year, but unfortunately songs like "7/4 Shoreline" and "Fire Eyed Boy" lacked the energy they had there. They performed all of their "hits" (well, to their fans anyways) like "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" and "Cause = Time," but all around the songs seemed to be lacking in energy and excitement.
One of the few interesting moments came near the end of the show, when during one of Kevin Drew's solo songs, there was some feedback circulating around the stage. The drummer and Drew got into a slightly heated arguement, before walking off the stage together while two of the side members did a goofy little song by themselves. All seemed to be resolved after a minute or two, and the band concluded the show with some of their best songs, like "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" and "It's All Gonna Break."
It wasn't a great show, it definitely was not the best I've ever seen BSS play, especially since their performance at Lolla 2006 was incredible. Maybe they're just getting the early tour kinks out (this was only the second show of this leg of the tour), but we'll see how they do again next time.
One amusing side note: Drew, a noted Obama supporter (despite being Canadian) joked mid-set that he heard Illinois was a pretty strong McCain state. Only about a quarter of the crowd booed, I'm not sure if the other remainder were just stunned, didn't know that he was joking, or actually support McCain, but it was pretty amusing anyways.
Anyways, last night I headed over to the Vic Theater in the city to see the great Canadian band Broken Social Scene once again, despite just seeing them at Lollapalooza in August. I figured it would be a pretty safe bet, since I've never seen them in a place as small as the Vic to this point, it has only been the two Lolla shows so far.
As a brief history lesson, BSS is a Canadian collective, with a rotating membership of around 16 or 18 members. Their most famous member to this point is Feist, who has been going on to bigger things in the last two years. The main members are Kevin Drew (who writes the best songs for the band) and Brendan Canning, who have both released "solo" albums in the past year, with the rest of BSS performing as their bands on their respective cd's.
The band Land of Talk opened the show, and their lead singer stayed on with BSS to handle all of the female vocals in their songs. There wasn't much to say about Land of Talk's set, it was pretty forgettable and uninspiring, expect for a few moments when the band decided to rock a bit.
BSS came on at 8:30, and much like Sigur Ros a couple of weeks before, decided to say damn the curfew, and played on to 10:30. Their set was very similar to the one they performed at Lolla this year, but unfortunately songs like "7/4 Shoreline" and "Fire Eyed Boy" lacked the energy they had there. They performed all of their "hits" (well, to their fans anyways) like "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" and "Cause = Time," but all around the songs seemed to be lacking in energy and excitement.
One of the few interesting moments came near the end of the show, when during one of Kevin Drew's solo songs, there was some feedback circulating around the stage. The drummer and Drew got into a slightly heated arguement, before walking off the stage together while two of the side members did a goofy little song by themselves. All seemed to be resolved after a minute or two, and the band concluded the show with some of their best songs, like "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" and "It's All Gonna Break."
It wasn't a great show, it definitely was not the best I've ever seen BSS play, especially since their performance at Lolla 2006 was incredible. Maybe they're just getting the early tour kinks out (this was only the second show of this leg of the tour), but we'll see how they do again next time.
One amusing side note: Drew, a noted Obama supporter (despite being Canadian) joked mid-set that he heard Illinois was a pretty strong McCain state. Only about a quarter of the crowd booed, I'm not sure if the other remainder were just stunned, didn't know that he was joking, or actually support McCain, but it was pretty amusing anyways.
Friday, October 3, 2008
I'm Changing My Name
to Baretta Hockey Palin.
That's my name, according to the incredibly useful Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. Check it out and find out your new name!
That's my name, according to the incredibly useful Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. Check it out and find out your new name!
Happy October
This will be shocking news I know, but we have been completely swamped as of late as predicted. School is going well for me, making progress, should be finished by the end of 2009 at the very latest as planned, so I'm pretty happy about that. Work has been crazier than ever as of late, but I guess it's better than the alternative.
We had one of those great parental moments last Thursday that you learn to treasure. We were getting Bella all ready for bed, got her jammies on and read her her stories. She was then getting ready to get off the bed for her attempted bathroom break, when she stopped for a second, then, without warning, proceeded to vomit all over the bed, herself, me, and a couple of her stuffed animals.
Ahhh, parenthood.
She's doing fine though, she must have just ate something her stomach didn't like. Bella's been having a pretty good week as of late, she's been a pretty happy girl, running around like a maniac and having lots of fun. We'll be heading out to the farm near our house (yes, there is one left) and picking out Bella's Halloween pumpkin on Sunday. Bella still isn't 100% sure what she wants to be for Halloween yet this year. We're trying to let her pick, but there's been nothing definite yet.
After my two concert week last week, I'll be trumping that with a three (yes, THREE) concert week next week. Thursday night I'll be going to see the great Broken Social Scene at the Vic, then the usually great My Morning Jacket (although the majority of their new cd is tossable) at the Chicago Theater, and then most likely The Kooks with the Whigs on Saturday at the Riv. I don't have much planned for concerts for the rest of the year, so Bella will get plenty of daddy time then.
Scary fact: Tomorrow (Saturday) marks the day 11 years ago that Michele and I went on our first date. Egads I'm old...
We had one of those great parental moments last Thursday that you learn to treasure. We were getting Bella all ready for bed, got her jammies on and read her her stories. She was then getting ready to get off the bed for her attempted bathroom break, when she stopped for a second, then, without warning, proceeded to vomit all over the bed, herself, me, and a couple of her stuffed animals.
Ahhh, parenthood.
She's doing fine though, she must have just ate something her stomach didn't like. Bella's been having a pretty good week as of late, she's been a pretty happy girl, running around like a maniac and having lots of fun. We'll be heading out to the farm near our house (yes, there is one left) and picking out Bella's Halloween pumpkin on Sunday. Bella still isn't 100% sure what she wants to be for Halloween yet this year. We're trying to let her pick, but there's been nothing definite yet.
After my two concert week last week, I'll be trumping that with a three (yes, THREE) concert week next week. Thursday night I'll be going to see the great Broken Social Scene at the Vic, then the usually great My Morning Jacket (although the majority of their new cd is tossable) at the Chicago Theater, and then most likely The Kooks with the Whigs on Saturday at the Riv. I don't have much planned for concerts for the rest of the year, so Bella will get plenty of daddy time then.
Scary fact: Tomorrow (Saturday) marks the day 11 years ago that Michele and I went on our first date. Egads I'm old...
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