I’m sitting here.  In front of the computer.  With the lights off. (Not that it matters, it’s daytime…but the blinds are closed too so…?)  Listening to TANcast.  Drinking…sprite.  From a bottle, so there needs to be alcohol involved somehow.  Just paints a better picture in my mind.  Like a swig of…I dunno.  Even something ‘lame’ like Mike’s Hard Lemonade would do.  I really like Mike’s, actually.  Anyway, none of this matters.

So this blog doesn’t cover the 4 book reviews I owe you.  But I guess I’ll tell you which books I’m going to be covering! First is going to be Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  Hooray hoorah!  As most of you know, I read this as part of my list, and now I’m on to Sense and Sensibility.  Which I can’t manage to finish.  Second I think I’ll do this one random book I randomly read.  I don’t really know why, but I found it in my house.  And I read it.  It’s called Spiral Hunt (by Margaret Ronald).  Third will be Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.  I might combine that review with the fourth book’s review, because I read them back to back.  The fourth book is No Impact Man (The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process) by Colin Beavan.  Aaaand I might throw in a very brief review of a book that I’ve read about 20 bajillion times over the years, because Spiral Hunt referenced a lot of the same characters.

For now, we shall discuss Zombieland.

I normally don’t endorse anything that ever in any way, however remote, has anything to do with zombies.  Zombies are one of my greatest fears.  Irrational, yes.  But zombies scare the shit out of me.  But for whatever reason, the first time I ever heard of this movie…I just knew I had to see it.  And I am SO glad that I did.  I wasn’t scared for a second.  I was a little grossed out at times, but all in all, it was brilliant and mostly just hilarious.  There was a great cameo that I thoroughly enjoyed.  Like hella.  There was one moment where [character name] [verb] [famous person (cameo)] that I was laughing so hard I was almost crying.  I cry a lot, but rarely from laughter.  So there ya go.

The acting was pretty swell too.  Woody Harrelson was super funny, super weird, and it worked so well for him.  I don’t really know him as anything but Woody from Cheers…and this was definitely different from that.  Jesse Eisenberg was cute.  Very Michael Cera, but I forgive him.  He isn’t quite as much of a pansy as Mr. Cera.  Which is good when you have to kill zombies.  Emma Stone is my new lesbian crush.  She plays the badass really well, she’s hot, and she does a really great impression of [actress/character] from [famous movie].  (This extremely spoiler free.)  And I think I’ll always love Abigail Breslin.  She’s just too cute.

So, yea, as I accidentally told Jeremy via text last night… “Dude.  If you haven’t seen Zombieland get your ass to a movie theatre STAT.  That movie is a requirement for life.”

And now for something completely different:

Recently, one of my favourite albums turned one. It seems that 2009 hasn’t brought much in the way of rad music. Zombie Ghost Train broke up, Muse released an apparently disappointing album, Vera Fucking Lynn beat the Beatles, the guys from Green Day aren’t dead, many people think the Mars Volta is losing its touch, Eminem wasn’t gunned down and the Black Eyed Peas are still shit.

Compared with last year, with releases from the Cure, Bauhaus, Alice Cooper, Amanda Palmer, AC/DC and the Kaiser Chiefs, 2009 is a pretty shitty year for music. My favourite release for 2008 is the excellent View Monster, the sixth album from Neil Cicierega’s microband Lemon Demon.

View Monster starts with the vibrant instrumental titled “Kaleidoskull”. The track is short, about 2 minutes long, but is a great appetizer, so to speak, for a great album. The track is synth-heavy, with many tracks of synth piano and harpsichord layered for a baroque feel. The next track, “Amnesia Was Her Name”, is a love song, which revolves around a man with amnesia who falls in love with his nurse. It’s quite straightforward, uncluttered and simple.

The tunes are overall excellent, although there are tracks without the finesse of the majority. For example, “Man in Stripes and Glasses” sounds out of tune and features weirdly placed speed changes, and “The Afternoon” is catchy, but you really don’t want it to be. Nonetheless, even the two vaguely mediocre tracks are totally enjoyable at the right times.

Compared with previous releases like Hip to the Javabean, Damn Skippy and Dinosaurchestra, the newest album, View Monster,is more consistently dark. Despite this, the album is still appropriate music for your local kindergarten. (Except maybe “The Machine”, “Spring Heeled Jack” and “Bill Waterson”, the creepy song sung from the point of view of an obsessive fan of the guy who writes Calvin and Hobbes.)

Once again, Neil Cicierega provides us with consistently clever, fun, funny and cute songs, lyrics with interesting instrumentation and fantastic storytelling in skillfully-crafted 2-5 minute works of art. View Monster is a great album and you should absolutely buy it.

Fun Fact:  Every so often, just for shits and giggles, I’ll play my entire iTunes library on shuffle.. 95% of the songs I don’t particularly want to hear in the moment, but it’s worth it for that occasional song it will stumble upon that I love (or is just hilarious) and haven’t listened to in forever.. and it gives me the serious happy.

Remember this little bit of awesome by Lemon Demon?

(Just for good measure, I’ll throw in another awesome Lemon Demon video:)

And then there’s this neat Eels song:

This Rapture video has embedding disabled, but damn if I haven’t listened to this song in forever.  This used to be my go to album!

Along that vein, this Hot Chip song is another fun blast from the past:

Cake!  Yum!

Guilty pleasure: Electric Six.  I’ve never seen this video until just now, and it’s kind of creepy and awesome.  But mostly creepy.

Awesome awesome awesome Gogol Bordello.  I think I drove my housemates insane listening to this song so many times.  (Note to self, see when they’re coming around next.)

I could go on.. but that’s more than enough, heh.  Try it sometime!

-bex

I don’t know about you so much, but hey, I enjoy this stuff.

Since this is a new blog, I need to explain my intense love for a band called Lemon Demon. On my iPod (not counting iTunes, for there are songs not uploaded) there are over 150 songs by this band. Neil Cicierega, the genius who created Potter Puppet Pals, animutations, New Kids on the Rock (well, he’s in it, it counts for something, even if he didn’t create it) is the backbone of this band.

…Whoops, forgot to mention that of his earlier works Deporitaz/Trapezoid has 60ish songs on my iPod as well.

He’s pretty good, needless to say.

Anyway, what I wanted to share were these videos of covers and things Neil related because, hey, its my blog. I find this stuff interesting. You probably do too or you wouldn’t be here.

“Robot Roman Statues”: Nicely intrumentalized version of RRS. My favorite part about this video (besides the fact that he’s playing the kazoo and guitar at the same time) is that of Neil’s comment: “Wow woah. This is quite impressive, especially since I wrote the song without regard to whether it would be playable by real instruments. Nice chord work.” If I were that dude, that compliment would make my life, especially the bolded part.

Original “Bad Idea”: I have SO MUCH RESPECT FOR THIS GUY. I’ve tried to sing “Bad Idea” at the pace of the original track (for about a year now) but I haven’t been able to until I saw this. The thing was that I would always stop at the same rate in the original track instead of just plugging through. Also, he had to change some of the tune/song in general because the new background track in the actually vocalized version is different in comparison to this melody. Make sense? Probably not. As I’m rereading this, its not making much sense to me.

Neil Interview: Really neat to see the creative process here. It’s also interesting to notice his “normal” voice. I’ve only seen/heard him in stuff like “New Kids” where he was acting the part of himself, which can be totally different than just being yourself. One can almost be a caricature of yourself….Anyway, it is also interesting to note how much of a haircut he needs in this vid. (Who knew the Puppet Stage was so big?) You can also “see” about 2 minutes of “Bill Watterson” pitch black, for some reason….

“Pumpkin Pie” Frets on Fire: (FYI- Frets On Fire is where Guitar Hero got their idea, but people can chord their own songs) The Frets video for “Kitten is Angry” is more impressively intense, but I like “Pumpkin Pie” better. It was in my head this whole past week. Probably the only thing that kept me from going insane from all the annoying choir music. Also, this guy misses only ten notes. Jeez o’ flip.

I’ll periodically make video-devoted posts, but I’ll try to keep them at a bare minimum. This post was originally for my LJ, but it kept wigging out on me, hence why this post.

Toodles.

Technology my usually loyal friend has turned against me this week. Youtube has some issues and it won’t let me upload my video cause its too long then when I go to change the channel type it tells me NO! The NERVE! Apparently those nameless people of youtube caretaking are on the problem but until then I will be extremely angry at them. Also Anna’s computer has once again tried to commit suicide. She hopes to have  it up and running by Monday or the end of this week at the most. 

Alright now lets talk about something relevant to this website. Okay so Anna and I both love this video/song though why neither of us can say we just do. Kayla will more than likely be WTF-ing at it but well that’s Kayla. This is Toy Food by the one man band Lemon Demon. I think it speaks for its self.

I hope you enjoy it as much as me and Anna or be like Kayla and just go Whoa…

Eller?

Jag tycker det är askul att bygga modellplan, och gjorde jättemånga då jag var mindre XD Då man gör ett plan så måste man vara drygt koncentrerad i typ tre timmar, och oftast blir man smått påverkad av de starka limmångorna. Förutom de roliga ångorna, så behövs ungefär samma koncentration för att sy något, enligt min lilla hjärna. Att sy är nice

Och Neli Cicierega är awesome, han har lagt ut sina tidiga skivor gratis till nerladdning. Äntligen kan man få dem i bra kvalité Måste ta filerna från systers dator, hon har redan laddar ner dem och det är snabbare att jag tar dem därifrån.

SNART GÖTEBORG!

HI everyone I am rosevictor and i Love to blog so if you want to talk about anything just give me a message and I will do it well okay maybe do it.

Toy food By lemon demon

As you can see, if you watch the earlier render before this one, I have added a lot and changed a lot.

Consistancy became a problem after I started playing about with styles. My skillbase had grown and it meant I had to keep going back to the original parts and changing stuff.

Eventually I decided to change style in the whole composition, because I could bring it around at the end by pulling everything together in my final scene as the whole house.

Hey hey folks! I’ve finished my motion graphics project and… well, here it is! Might as well check it out, as you’re here, right?

Oh, and Chris:

“The treasure you seek is hidden in a famous market,
Below the bridge a tunnel leaves where my finely crafted friends mark it”

Here is an old video by Lemon Demon that I was showed to by Zac’s girlfriend a while ago. It’s really juvenile, but for some reason or another I just find it extremely funny every time I watch it. It won’t be very hard for you to understand whats going on in the video, but just don’t your let children watch this Sesame Street. Happy $%&#*ing!

I mean two things by this post’s title.

First of all, my post about Neil Cicierega’s 123456 Pokemon has become my most viewed post ever in very little time, and shows no signs of slowing down. Seriously? It’s passed a post titled “Japanese Scientists Invent Magic!” and my Wall-E review. You know, things I actually wrote. How is it that I can post an inane YouTube music video and make a joke about it, and that becomes bigger than things I actually put effort into? As much as I’d like to just attribute the oddity to the wonder that is Neil Ciciergea, I’m pretty sure this says more about blogging, the internet, and media in general.

I’m not doing the Song That’s Been Stuck in my Head of the Week anymore. Not just because I’m kind of annoyed with how that’s become my most viewed post and it doesn’t really say anything (although I’m glad I could lead so many people to the mp3), but because I have so little time, it’s become one of the only things I actually post on my blog, and that kind of cheapens the experience. So until I become less crazy busy and can actually update this thing somewhat consistently again, I don’t think I’m doing Song of the Week for a while.

(This also serves as an apology to anybody who actually reads this thing with some regularity for not updating ever anymore. Semi-kind-of-hiatus-but-not-really?)

And for the second thing I meant by my title, that was my reaction to today’s Ctrl-Alt-Del. This is a post I’ve been meaning to do sometime, so here I go. My friend and I were talking about webcomics the other day and briefly touched Ctrl-Alt-Del. Today’s comic is actually a good example of what has become my main gripe with the comic: this was horrendously anticlimactic. This recent storyline has actually been pretty emotional, but has been cheapened by Buckley’s inability to actually write a decent narrative. Ethan runs into Lilah at the airport finding the conflict magically resolved within a day? “Unexpected, hilarious, and extremely satisfying” in what way, exactly? Unexpected like how the storyline resolved itself immediately after the plot twist? Hilarious in how lame it is? Extremely satisfying in how… it isn’t? Like, at all?

This isn’t a recent problem with Ctrl-Alt-Del. Take a look at the controversial miscarriage storyline the strip tried last summer. Personally, I didn’t see a problem with the topic, I can respect a writer or an artist trying to tackle a serious matter and trying to make a moving and emotional story, even if it’s not something they usually do. Which is, of course, exactly what Tim Buckley failed to do. After, I kid you not, three strips that dealt with the tragedy in a serious and surprisingly emotional manner, Buckley went right back to the jokes. That number works regardless of whether or not you count the strips that aren’t part of the storyline. Also, the second strip after the last of this was nothing more than a poster with four of the strip’s other characters killing each other. Also also, once Buckley got back to the storyline with the normal characters, he started making jokes in the last panel again. Buckley failed to handle a serious topic with any sort of tact, and while he could have proven his critics wrong, he proved them right all too quickly.

So what am I getting at? Basically, the only reason why I’m still reading Ctrl-Alt-Del is the same reason why I watched the last season of That 70’s Show and my family is still watching Smallville. We sort of remember it being good a while ago, but now we’re mostly just watching because we’ve stuck with it this long, so we might as well.

Who creates a blog in the middle of the night? This menopausal mom does, but I’ll use  the correct diagnosis just this once – I’m peri-menopausal.  I’ve been waiting for the “pause” in menopause for what seems like an eternity.  What a fun bunch of symptoms per WebMD, so let’s see how I currently measure up:

• Hot flashes – Yes, I’m becoming a serial pillow flipper.
• Breast tenderness – Yes, but this has been going on since I was 11 so unless I drop to the floor, writhing in agony as I put on the under-wire one of these days, how would I know?
• Worsening of premenstrual syndrome – My grown kids tell me “yes” although I think they’re ungrateful wretches (see Mood Swings below).  But In all fairness, they may be right.
• Decreased sex drive – A resounding NO, which is ironic since I’m celibate but I’ll address that in a future post.  I know you’ll be as excited to read that as I am to write it.
• Fatigue – Yes, I’ve become a Diet Coke fiend in the last 2 years.  64 blessed oz. of awake always available at the mini-mart.
• Irregular periods – Yes, I’ve sliced a week off in between cycles and added to Tampax’s corporate profits.
• Vaginal dryness – No, but I’ll be merciful and leave it at that.
• Urine leakage when coughing or sneezing – Yes, and it’s embarrassing but happening with most of my same age female friends so we just call ourselves The Pad Brigade.  The fact that the term weirds out our daughters is frosting on the cupcake.
• Urinary urgency – Sometimes, see above.
• Mood swings – Who?  Me?  My friends say “no” but my kids say “YES” and they’re the arbiters of everything that’s wrong or insufficient with me.  Just ask them.
• Difficulty sleeping – Yes, I’m still typing in the middle of the night.

_______________

I’m all about the links and here’s one for a product I’ve never tried but sounds interesting.  It was developed for dogs but they saw the practical applications for hot-flashes, which in and of itself is funny:

http://www.chillow.com/chillow.html

The little bit of heaven that keeps me relatively sane, 85% chocolate mouth watering ganache:

http://www.godiva.com/godivaCollection/chocolate_piece.aspx?id=25

And finally because music is life and humor is living, the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny by Lemon Demon. I’ve tripped over, walked on, and thrown out so many of the toys in this vid and even survived showings of the Care Bear and Power Rangers movie (barely) but never found them as entertaining as they are here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Nqguav6nE&feature=related

_______________

Stay tuned for further mom musings, unsolicited advice and object lessons…

123456 Pokemon

I’m a little embarrassed, but it is catchy. And it has a good message too! (“Don’t worry. Bill Murray.”)

And as an added bonus, you can download the song for free from his website! Now you can listen to it on your iPod when you run around a lake in gym class. Like I totally haven’t done.

Culture Lobster loves the Internet

David Sedaris has a new book! Unfortunately, I have not read it yet. Unfortunately, I have only recently read Me Talk Pretty One Day for the first time, making my presence on the David Sedaris train a little tardy. My apologies. Please accept this hilarious interview stolen from Joey Comeau’s Livejournal as an apology. The Matt Damon rant is particularly noteworthy.

Do you like Joey Comeau? He and Emily Horne make A Softer World, and it is funny and nice and poignant. Anyway, Joey writes things, and he just released all ten chapters of his novel Lockpick Pornography FOR FREE ON THE INTERNET, and you should probably check it out. It’s a story about angry people finding nice moments and gender identity, which are two of my favorite things.

In other Internet news, Neil Cicierega’s musical project, Lemon Demon released another album, View Monster. Cicierega used to be best known for Lemon Demon because of the video that circulated for “Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.” Now he’s probably best known for Potter Puppet Pals, which is very funny. Anyway, Lemon Demon is evidence that Cicierega is a massive, lifelong They Might Be Giants fan – he’s been making music since age 12, and of the previous eight albums he’s released as Lemon Demon, most of the content is nerdy, clever pop songs that are fully of whimsy. They’re like less good They Might Be Giants songs, essentially. But every once in awhile, a moment or lyric or idea will hit as hilarious or poignant or something otherwise great. I haven’t ordered View Monster, but the tracks I’ve heard from it show that Cicierega has hit the great part of his ten year stride. Check out his videos and whatnot here.

Previews!

-of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping - of Montreal seems to have become everything that glamorous art rock should be. Their old stuff consists of light-hearted, poppy, weird concept albums. Their breakout stuff consists of innovative, almost psychadelic pop tracks. Their last album Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? returned to the concept album base, but blew it away with dramatic glam and flair. How does a band follow that up? Kevin Barnes gave some insight into what we can expect from Skeletal Lamping, saying, “I wanted to do something that didn’t ‘work.’” The blog post on of Montreal’s Myspace expresses Barnes’s frustration at predictable songs and albums, and states his intentions to avoid these tropes with Skeletal Lamping. Now, obviously mission statement aiming to create an album that doesn’t work can backfire horribly, but I still have high hopes. Here’s his take on the album’s title:

“i spend most of my time in a state of mild confusion and pensiveness. i imagine most people do too. this record is my attempt to bring all of my puzzling, contradicting, disturbing, humorous…fantasies, ruminations and observations to the surface, so that i can better dissect and understand their reason for being in my head. hence the title, Skeletal Lamping. Lamping is the name of a rather dreadful hunting technique where, hunters go into the forest at night, flood an area in light, then shoot,or capture,the animals as they panic and run from their hiding places.

this album is my attempt at doing this to my proverbial skeletons. i haven’t yet decided if i should shoot or just capture them though.”

If that’s not the spirit of a guy who creates great art, I can’t imagine what would be.

-Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins – Acid Tongue – Rabbit Fur Coat was one of the best albums of 2006, and it came shortly after Rilo Kiley’s More Adventurous, an album whose name really meant “more country and folk-influenced.” In her solo debut, Lewis whittled down the sounds in More Adventurous and streamlined them into a beautiful folk/gospel album that embraced everything that the singer/songwriter genre should be. And from there, nobody really heard from Lewis or Rilo Kiley until Under the Blacklight happened, and everybody was kind of confused. “Moneymaker” was like if Rilo Kiley performed a Britney Spears track. And while I wouldn’t say Under the Black Light was a bad Rilo Kiley album (which, admittedly, is maybe only because I don’t have it in me to say that about any album by Rilo Kiley), I’m not sure where that leaves us so far as direction. Will Acid Tongue be Rabbit Fur Coat Goes Pop?

So far, signs look good. Like Rabbit Fur Coat, Acid Tongue is reported to feature lots of musician friends helping out, including Elvis Costello, M. Ward, Zooey Deschanel and of course, boyfriend Jonathan Rice – not a bad lineup. So while Reuters quotes Lewis as saying Acid Tongue “rocks a little harder,” hopefully any changes will be for the best.

A throwback

Speaking of Rilo Kiley – I recently discovered the band’s “Initial Friend EP,” which is super fun for any RK fan. The record includes Sweet Jenny, Angry Jenny, Soulful Jenny, Young Jenny – it hits just about every range that the band has taken over its career. It’s versatile and nostalgic at the same time. Awesome.

Remember how I told you about Neil Cicierega’s band Lemon Demon? Well today I was reading Japanese poetry (aka NOT reading) when I stumbled upon the Downloads page on Lemon Demon’s website, where there are several songs downloadable for FREE from each album, so go have a listen and if you really like it (like I did) go buy the rest of the album.

Ps. If you’re too lazy to go all the way over to the website, you can preview some of the songs through this promotional video for the latest album, View Monster.

umm oky doky doo well idk now cuz shannon is going to miss it and im going to watch another TV show (b/c it rox!!!) well yea have fun pompom( yes that is now ur nickname!!!!) and ill see you soon for potloaf!

Lemon Demon – Fine

A worthy inclusion in your summertime playlists, this song could hardly be any more cheery. 21-year old Neil Cicierega is at his poppiest here, conjuring up all sorts of extreme situations that would warrant the refrain: “everything’ll be fine” – a sentiment few could tire of hearing.

MySpace

Photo by monikaelena

Well, I had planned to start playing The World Ends With You and write up a first-impressions sort of post, but I’ve spent the past day and a half trying to fix my iPod, which it refuses to allow to happen (I don’t care if they start selling world peace in a box, I am never buying an Apple product again), so I’m only 15 minutes into the game, which would probably make for a less than fascinating read. So instead I’m writing up about what I hope is the beginning of a new internet trend: parodies of popular shows/movies… with puppets.

Obviously, the first thing to do this was Potter Puppet Pals, made by Neil Cicierega (who inexplicably broke the “one hit wonder” rule of the internet by making Mysterious Ticking Noise and The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny) which, just like it sounds, is Harry Potter… made with puppets. It’s a great parody too, exaggerating Ron’s idiocy, Dumbledore’s lunacy, and Snape’s state of continual depression, but the defining factor is that it’s done with puppets.

A lot of people already know about that though (and yes, I know there’s a new PPP video out, but that one is still my favorite), but I just recently found another parody, making fun of Nickelodeon’s Avatar:

It’s slightly weaker than PPP, but has a lot of potential, especially with the promise of more to come. But what I find really interesting is that now Harry Potter isn’t the only popular culture icon to be parodied with puppets, and what would be even more interesting is if this is the start of a trend of puppet-themed parodies. What about puppet versions of Lost? Pirates of the Carribean? There Will Be Blood?!?!

At any rate, anything’s better than RickRolling.

Not that I think that Neil Cicierega needs any help gaining fans, but he has a certain knack for cheering me up in a Liam Lynch kind of way. Neil is the creator of the Potter Puppet Pals for those of you who like that sort of thing and has been making youtube videos since who knows when. He also has a band called Lemon Demon. I haven’t listened to a ton of his Lemon Demon stuff, but the few songs that I’ve heard have been really funny and clever. My favorite is Knife Fight which you can listen to here on Lemon Demon’s myspace. My friend Tiffany says it reminds her of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song, but I’ll let you guys be the judge. Neil also has a song and video called Word Disassociation, a song which pretty much makes my head explode every time I hear/try to learn the words of it.

This is probably Neil’s most popular Potter Puppet Pals video: The Mysterious Ticking Noise

This is the Lemon Demon song Word Disassociation

www.potterpuppetpals.com
www.lemondemon.com