Rock and Roll Will Never Die, But It Will Probably Get Really Old and Wrinkly and Just Gross Looking In General

In my English class today, my professor briefly ripped on the mortality of rock and roll. Because we were talking about Oscar Wilde. Anyway, her quick joke about rock and roll music being middle aged, citing The Rolling Stones a being more of a brand than actual rock, reminded me about all those other signs of mortality in the music scene. Most discussions about the death of the music industry tend to be about the death of the album, or the death of the record label, and so on and so forth, but very little seems to be about the death of the band itself. Let’s look at three recent-ish examples of this: the “wait, they’re not actually dead yet?” band, the “oh my god, they’re finally dead?” band, and the “is nothing sacred anymore please oh please stay dead” band.

• The “wait, they’re not actually dead yet?” band

The most recent of all the following examples (I’m in college, guys. It’s hard to stay punctual! P.S. Scribblenauts first impressions coming soon!), apparently Steven Page left Aerosmith earlier this week or last week or something (interestingly enough, to work on “the brand of myself – Brand Tyler”). Well, since I couldn’t actually remember when it was, I Googled it, and since then the statements have been revised to say the opposite, that Steven Tyler’s “not quitting Aerosmith”. So… there you go. I mean, sure, from what I understand, they’re still a good show, but I’m reasonably certain they’re not really doing anything new and exciting in the music industry. I mean, their last album of original material was released in 2001, and Wikipedia claims they’re working on a new album for 2010, but are people terribly excited about that? Will a single song off of that album really be incorporated into their canon?

• The “oh my god, they’re finally dead?” band

So Oasis broke up. Noel quit the band, and then Liam announced Oasis “is no longer”, so, yeah, it sounds like that’s about it for Oasis. Although apparently this isn’t anything terribly new for them. I wasn’t really around during their heyday or anything, but from what I’ve picked up on, the two of them kind of hate each other. So who knows if they’re coming back or not. I just think it’s interesting that even though they’re mostly notable for their early 90s material, they actually do have new stuff from last year or so on the radio. So they’re somewhat topical? I guess?

• The “is nothing sacred anymore please oh please stay dead” band

So apparently Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson tried to pull off a Sublime reunion. Yeah. What can you say about that? You know, aside from how singer/guitarist/creative force/frontman Bradley Nowell died thirteen years ago, and it’s kind of hard to really pull together a legitimate reunion when you have to replace all those things. And, also, the legal rights. This one was kind of silly and almost worrying, but I guess it could have been worse. This Rome Ramirez guy doesn’t really sound too much like Bradley, but, all things considered, the music didn’t actually sound that bad (as I can tell based on the three or four songs I saw on YouTube), and trying to take Nowell’s place probably took some serious balls. Still, that being said, it’s a good thing a judge banned the new lineup from actually performing as Sublime, because, well, it isn’t. It’d be like if Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl grabbed a new singer/guitarist and claimed Nirvana was reuniting, except Sublime wasn’t really as good or important as Nirvana. Yup. I went there. Let’s see the fight in the comments, people! Or just comments, really. Or at least some views on an article I’ve written that isn’t that Pokemon thing that’s gotten 2000 more hits than my next most popular article. Seriously. The internet is weird.

It’d Be More Mysterious If It Weren’t For Those Meddling Kids

I’m not really the person to bother to stay particularly up to date on the happenings on the internet, so for all I know, this might be old news, but a few days ago I rediscovered the joy of Mystery Google. Almost. The concept is simple and wonderful enough. It looks like Google, you type in your search term like in Google, except the results you get are what the person before you searched for. It’s a great concept, and I rather like it because if you keep using it for ten minutes or so, you notice enough trends and actually walk away with a rather naked glimpse at humanity.

I first discovered Mystery Google about a month or two ago, and typed in those normal, silly searches you used the first time someone told you about Google, like “hello”, and “funny”. Then when you get the search results for things like “<O.O>”, you realize that what’s even more fun that getting the previous person’s results is that the next person gets yours. Naturally, I typed in things like “the inescapable futility of existence” (and did some shameless self-advertising by searching for this blog), but lost interest pretty quickly, without paying much attention to what I was getting.

A few days ago, being the good college students that we are, we were messing around with Mystery Google, and this is when I started to really pay attention to what other people were searching for. For every handful of search terms most likely done by people showing Mystery Google to their friends and pissing them off with things like “Mary likes monkey balls”, we got the occasional “You are a good person.” Briefly motivated by this, we decided to try our hand at setting up positive searches for people too. We typed in “People need you.” We got search results for “edward cullen doggy style”. This was short lived.

So I guess you can kind of learn a few things about people from things like Mystery Google. People enjoy making fun of other people, occasionally inspiring them, and hot fictitious vampire sex.

Enlightening!

Response To Yesterday’s Post

In between yesterday and today, I have actually seen the wedding episode. I haven’t caught up any further than that, but I felt I should respond to what I wrote yesterday in light of having actually seen the episode people have been watching six seasons of The Office for.

Well, I know semi-reviewing a three week old episode is kind of silly, so I’ll be brief. It was better than I thought it would be. It was actually pretty funny and hardly boring at all, even if it wasn’t quite as funny as the show might have made it in its prime. And even if they stole the whole “let’s have a different wedding by ourselves away from how terrible this wedding everybody thinks will be the real one is going” from How I Met Your Mother two years ago.

That’s about all I feel like writing about. I’m sure you’ve seen it by now. I’m a college student now. I don’t have time for this!

So… I guess that’s it? How have you been?

Even Further From World’s Best Boss

I’ve watched the American version of The Office from day one, and watched it religiously. I saw every episode from that initial, “oh ho ho, Jim put Dwight’s stapler in Jello, but he’s in love with an engaged woman, oh dearie me!” pilot episode, to the “Jim kissed Pam!” second season finale, to the “Jim and Pam are finally going to go out!” third season finale, to the “Jim and Pam actually are going out!” fourth season premiere, to the “Jim proposed to Pam!” fifth season premiere, to the “Pam’s pregnant!” fifth season finale.

I still haven’t seen the wedding episode.

It’s ironic that I’ve followed the show, admittedly mostly because of these two characters, for so long, only to stop watching it right at the episode the show’s audience has literally waited six years for. But wait!, you might be thinking, I actually read your blog quite a bit and now that you’re in college now! You don’t always have time to rejoice in the merriment that is a television programme! And to that, dear figurative devoted reader, I respond with true, but the thing aired weeks ago. I’m sure I had time somewhere between now and then to catch up to this moment so eagerly and patiently waited for. There’s just not as much reason to. The fact of the matter is, like I said around the end of the last season, the show has been showing its age, and it’s only getting older.

The season premiere was funnier than I expected, even if it did absolutely nothing to significantly develop the story. While each episode after that did the opposite and worked on very significant changes to the story, and made the show less and less funny. Jim and Michael both being manager didn’t make things any more entertaining, and on the contrary made them worse. Like I’ve also said, every season of The Office, Jim’s character becomes less and less likable. As one of the office’s new bosses, Jim is just as much of a moron as Michael, except he’s even more awkward to watch.

Granted, I’ll still catch up on the show eventually, but it’s hard to feel like doing this with the show’s long decline into boredom. I honestly don’t know how much longer the show can last. The initial premise the show began with obviously had to change. I mean, six seasons of Jim being in love with Pam who’s engaged to Roy while they pull hijinks of all various manners on Dwight while Michael makes life a living hell for everyone who isn’t the viewer wouldn’t have been any better. But those two seasons were far and away the show’s best years. I’ll even say that the third season was wonderful too, and was a good example of how the show could evolve and age well. Right now, however, it’s not aging well. It’s just getting boring.

Evolution of an Afterthought

In other words,

It’s like finally getting to the gym and exercising,

And feeling great about yourself

Until you struggle to push the door open again.

And you’re too busy to go again the rest of the week.

In other words,

It’s like being at a classy restaurant,

Being offered none but the highest culture in a rented tux,

And having what you want to drink read to you.

May I recommend the ’84 regrets?

’84 was a great year for regrets.

In other words,

It’s like your computer not working all of a sudden,

As it gives you an indecipherable error message,

But wants to convey it was probably something you said.

This action cannot be undone.

In other words,

It’s like writing a poem backwards,

Where you have a great idea of where you want to go,

But you have no idea how to start.

I loved thee once, but your friend is really cute.

In other words,

It’s like the alarm going off

Just an hour after you finally fell asleep,

And you want to get more sleep,

But you suppose you should probably be awake.

For some reason.

In other words,

I read my poem about the girl I never thought I’d see again

And didn’t think to look at her in the crowd.

- – -

Thought I’d write up a nice, happy little poem for you guys to say sorry about the unexpected and unannounced mini-hiatus. It’s a long story involving many phone calls with Dell, untimely purchases, and broken hearts, but it seems that my technical difficulties are finally resolved in that my Studio 15 laptop finally turns on again. Not that I can recommend that anybody buy a Dell. They have the shittiest technical support and customer service I’ve ever dealt with, and it took a solid month to get this issue resolved, and from what I hear, many other Dell consumers have the same problem. Next business day repair, my ass.

Attempts to update more frequently begin anew.

Technical Difficulties, Part 2

Today’s post was originally written as a satire piece for a currently unpublished issue of my school’s alternative paper, but seeing as how 1) it elaborates on my last post, 2) I’m reasonably certain I can use it both on my blog and in the paper, 3) it’s styled like something I’d write here anyway, and 4) it provides a little more clarity into why exactly I’m not updating very much right now and why you should never EVER buy a Dell, I’m posting it here. You kids have fun.

- – -

Thrilled as I am that I’ve made it through my first month in college, the same can’t be said for my laptop. Last week my barely three month old Dell Studio 15 laptop decided that turning on was no longer something it was particularly interested in doing, and after another week of Dell sending a tech guy (twice) to ultimately not fix my laptop and then sending me an empty box, vaguely symbolic of my faith in the company, to send it back, it’s now sitting in the mailroom where FedEx picks it up the next business day and Dell probably fixes it in 2011.

It’s fitting how Dell’s commercials for their Studio series are lollipop themed, since the one they sold me was a lemon.

But as much as I’d enjoy bashing Dell for its incompetence (the Styrofoam cutout in their box didn’t even fit my laptop – learn the dimensions of your own products!), I’m much less thrilled with Dell’s inconsideration. They’re perfectly content letting their customers wait 8-14 days for repairs and playing that damn lollipop song while you’re on hold for half of the two hours you spend on the phone with tech support, but do they understand how inconvenient this is? I mean, sure, I can just go to the library to print out my homework and write papers and such, that works just fine, but going to the library ever other day to read the new XKCD? The new Penny Arcade? Clearly no one at Dell understands what a hassle it is to keep current with Questionable Content every day without your own computer you can read it on without feeling vaguely self conscious reading a giant, occasionally risqué comic in the library.

Now, sure, webcomics are one petty complaint, but then you have your tv shows. If you miss the new Office episode and don’t have access to Hulu or a sketchy Korean Youtube-knockoff to make up for it, then how are you going to be able to complain about how much worse the show gets every season? Not to mention how you’ll also have to do this in real life too, where you usually have considerably less anonymity.

It’s not even the absence of the internet that complicates matters, because even without it, you’re still going to have procrastinated enough to have to walk over to the library at 1 a.m. to check for that email your professor sent the class about what to bring to class tomorrow or to write up that paper or alternative newspaper article you put off to the last minute, and then when you suddenly have that internet access you’ve been cut off from all day, you know you’re just going to be on Facebook the whole time.

Oh? That’s right. The thousand pound gorilla in the hypothetical room. Facebook. I went there. It’s no secret we need instant access to Facebook nowadays. If you can’t constantly check Facebook to see if you’ve been tagged in any new pictures, then how are you going to know what you did last night? How are you going to write yet another status update complaining about how much work you still have to do or how you want to strangle whoever’s blasting “Boom Boom Pow” at this time of night? How are you going to play Farmville? Does Dell have any idea how many damn people are playing Farmville? Eight to fourteen days, my ass! I need to start playing Farmville!

It’s readily apparent just how great student need for a computer is, and if you don’t have your own, you either spend seven hours a day in the library, or you’re going down that proverbial creek without that proverbial paddle, or, worse still, you’re typing up your alternative newspaper article on your friend’s MacBook that half the people who listen to your story about your broken laptop inform you that you really should have gotten instead. In other words, don’t get a Dell, because Dell clearly doesn’t care about you getting to play Farmville with your friends.

Technical Difficulties

You may have noticed I have not updated in a week. This is partly because I’m busy with college (hahaha college! whoo!), but mostly because a few days ago my two-month old Dell Studio 15 laptop decided to inexplicably not turn on anymore. Hopefully it’s getting fixed this week.

Although I could update from another computer, like I am right now, I’d much rather not make the time to do this, so I’m just going to let the blog sit around until my computer woes are over. Since roughly 90% of my hits are drawn in by that six-month old Pokemon thing anyway, I think I will manage just fine in the meantime.

Glorious and Bastardly!

But fear not, anyone who for some reason felt sorry for me that my last post was about seeing Gamer, for the very next day I got to see a good movie! And, as the title would imply, it was, in fact, Inglourious Basterds, which was just as much fun to watch as it is to spell all artsy and/or incorrectly.

As is usually the problem with my blog, there’s not much to say about the movie that hasn’t already been said in the few weeks since it came out, or that people would really go running to my blog to read up my specific review about the movie, but Inglourious Basterds is so much fun that you feel compelled to describe just how awesome it is anyway. So much is going on in this movie that even though it’s nearly three hours long (which, I might add, is fairly tricky to fit into a college schedule), there is quite literally never a dull moment. It jumps around from comedy and cheese (being a WWII spaghetti western) to genuinely poignant and beautiful tragedy, both of which strictly stick to their own narratives, the Jewish-American take-no-prisoners Inglourious Basterds and Shosanna, sole survivor of her Jewish family’s massacre, respectively, and the movie juggles both beautifully. Following the Basterds is about as fun and hilarious as a WWII movie can get, not to mention completely ridiculous, as a scene with them will suddenly go from a funny whilst unsettling interrogation to a hard rock guitar riff lead-in to Samuel L Jackson narrating a character’s back-story completely out of nowhere. On the other hand, Shosanna’s story works in a completely different direction, going for the moving narrative. While the Basterds tend to frolic about and raise hell, Shosanna deals with her tragic past as an opportunity for the greatest possible extent for revenge presents itself.

Although I wasn’t too crazy about how the film ended without either narrative actually meeting the other, rather just running up against each other for extreme overkill, the sole element tying the two together, aside from what’s ultimately a common goal, is Nazi Standartenführer Hans Landa a.k.a. “The Jew Hunter” a.k.a. thebestcharacterinanymovieeverohmygoodnessgracious. The movie’s main antagonist, simultaneously single-minded and multifaceted, deadly and goofy, and sadistic and charming, is acted by Christoph Waltz, who plays the uber-nuanced character to perfection. While saying that his character “makes” the movie is a bit much, he is essential to just how good it is.

So although the ending (spoiler) isn’t quite as good as I’d have hoped, since, like I mentioned before, it feels like the two narratives don’t actually meet up, and also because of its firm location in alternative history, given how the movie basically ends with Hitler being riddled by machine guns and then exploding, which by itself is a little hard to swallow that the security would actually be that bad, but I’m also iffy about it just because I’m iffy about alternative history, so your mileage will vary at the ending.

Aside from that, though, the movie is entertaining and deep with hilarious and nuanced characters that never stop to surprise you. Except Brad Pitt’s character. He’s just silly.

And It Actually Was Seven Bucks

As it just so happened to work out, a few days ago there was a new Strong Bad email on Homestar Runner that contained the phrase “This suckquake of a movie is a complete wastenado of my seven bucksonsoon.” I thought this was hilarious, and wondered if I would get the opportunity to use it anytime soon.

Enter Gamer.

The basic concept is that bad fake science is used to make two video games where a person literally controls the actions of another real person, in a The Sims meets worldwide orgy game Society and a shooter game called Slayers, both of which are somehow endorsed by the government, although the not-so subtext more or less spells it out for you that the man in charge of the company behind these games is actually THE BAD GUY and actually controls just about everyone! Who saw that coming?

Nothing in this movie makes any sense. The world rallies around the main character Kable (whose real name is something else I can’t be bothered to Google) for his unprecedented success on Slayers, as he nears the number of rounds needed to earn freedom, even though, if anyone in the audience stops for three seconds to think about it, it really all comes down to the guy who’s playing him (another name I’m not Googling), who more or less gets pushed out of the spotlight and his importance ignored, but he’s an irritating little self-proclaimed BAMF about as unlikeable as the hundreds of “please silence your cell phones” spots they play before the movie starts, so it could be worse. But of course, it is worse. The acting and the script are in constant competition to see which can be worse, with the semi-exception of Michael C Hall playing the villain, although his character is so grating and nonsensical that he’s only barely the most interesting person on the screen.

There are so many things I could say to stress my point that Gamer is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but really, all I have to do is mention that after the hour of almost constant shoot-’em-up mixed with fat people doing fat people things while controlling sexy people doing sexy people things, the movie’s grand climax is Gerard Butler beating up people performing a dance number while Michael C Hall sings along, and then gets talked into stabbing himself.

You just can’t make up crap that bad. Except someone actually did.

That Silly Operator!

Ok. So I just wrote a filler post about how I’m in college and I don’t know how that’s going to affect the blog, but I’m not going on hiatus, but what with everything going on, I don’t feel like I have anything to put here that I can do at this time. I’d rather not do a filler post, so ideally the kind of thing I’d do at this point in time is write up a haiku or post an old short story, but I don’t feel like writing a haiku or any kind of poem for that matter, and I don’t actually have all that many short stories to throw up here to begin with.

And, of course, today is a Wednesday, and I always feel discouraged approaching my blog on Wednesday because I’d have watched the new Zero Punctuation earlier today and then suddenly feel incapable of putting anything worthwhile on the same internet.

So I wrote that much of this post without any idea about what I was actually going to write this post about, and then did some digging through old word documents on my computer, and decided on posting something, well, exceptionally different. This is a skit I wrote for a Spanish class in my sophomore year of high school. I believe we had to do something along the lines of use some set number of vocab words and use the future tense and reflexive verbs and stuff. I didn’t really feel like writing a skit, though, and this is what happened. If you don’t speak Spanish, I’ll throw in a translation after each line. So here you go. An example of how much better a writer I’ve become in just two years and totally not a filler post. For extra fun, grab some friends and act it out! It’s educational!

(Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Timo picks up the phone]

Operador: ¡Aló! Yo soy el operador.

[Hello! I am the operator.]

Timo: ¿Me lo conectaría a mi amigo Marticio?

[Would you connect me to my friend Marticio?]

Operador: Sí. Te conectaré a él.

[Yes. I will connect you to him.]

(El Operador trabaja. El bombero descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. The fireman picks up the phone.]

Bombero: ¡Aló! Esta es la estación de bomberos. ¡Estaremos allí pronto!

[Hello! This is the fire station! We will be there soon!]

Timo: ¡No! ¡Lo siento! Yo tengo el número equivocado.

[No! I'm sorry! I have the wrong number.]

Bombero: Entonces… no estaremos allí pronto.

[Then... we will not be there soon.]

(Cuelgan. Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Hang up. Timo picks up the phone.]

Operador: ¡Aló! Hace bien tiempo hoy, ¿verdad?

[Hello! It's good weather today, isn't it?]

Timo: ¡Usted me conecta al número equivocado!

[You connected me to the wrong number!]

Operador: Lo siento, probaré de nuevo.

[I'm sorry, I will try again.]

(El Operador trabaja. El Comunista descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. The Communist picks up the phone.]

Comunista: ¡Aló! ¿De parte de quién?

[Hello! Who's calling?]

Timo: ¡Hola, Marticio! Es mí, Timo. ¿Podrías ir a un partido de hockey conmigo mañana?

[Hello, Marticio! It's me, Timo. Would you go to a hockey game with me tomorrow?]

Comunista: Lo siento. No soy Marticio. Soy una comunista y no iré porque no creo en una economía libre.

[Sorry. I'm not Marticio. I am a communist and I will not go because I don't believe in a free economy.]

(Cuelgan. Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Hang up. Timo picks up the phone.]

Operador: ¡Hola Timo!

[Hello Timo!]

Timo: ¿Me conectaría ya?

[Would you connect me again?]

Operador: ¡Esta vez, te conectaré a Marticio!

[This time, I will connect you to Marticio!]

(El Operador trabaja. Claude descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. Claude picks up the phone.]

Claude: (En Francés) Bonjour! Je m’appelle Claude. Qui est ceci?

[(In French) Hello! My name is Claude! Who is this?]

Timo: ¿Me conectó él a Francia?

[He connected me to France?]

Claude: ¿Habla español? Lo siento. Me gustaría hablar español.

[You speak Spanish? I'm sorry. I would like to speak Spanish.]

Timo: Pero Ud. puede habla español.

[But you can speak Spanish.]

Claude: ¡Hoy es un día increíble! ¡Diré a mi cartero!

[Today is an incredible day! I will tell my mailman!]

(Cuelgan. Timo descuelga el teléfono)

[Hang up. Timo picks up the phone.]

Operador: Hola Timo. Yo lo haré este tiempo.

[Hello Timo. I will connect you this time.]

(El Operador trabaja. Marticio descuelga el teléfono)

[The operator works. Marticio picks up the phone.]

Marticio: Aló. Este es Marticio.

[Hello. This is Marticio.]

Timo: ¡Marticio! Es mí, Timo. ¿Podrías ir a un partido de hockey conmigo mañana?

[Marticio! It's me, Timo. Would you go to a hockey game with me tomorrow?]

Marticio: Lo siento, Timo. No iré porque tengo que usar el vocabulario del capítulo seis. Ahora colgaré mi teléfono celular y llenaré una formulario tan yo puedo envolver y mandar un paquete por correo urgente.

[I'm sorry, Timo. I will not go because I have to use vocabulary from chapter six. Now I will hang up my cellular phone and dial a number so I can wrap and send a package by urgent mail.]

(Cuelgan. Timo sale y su hermano Nacho descuelga el teléfono)

[They hang up. Timo leaves and his brother Nacho picks up the phone.]

Operador: ¡Aló, Timo! Soy el operador.

[Hello, Timo! I am the operator.]

Nacho: No soy Timo, soy su hermano, Nacho. ¿Podrías conectárseme a Rusia?

[I'm not Timo, I'm his brother, Nacho. Would you connect me to Russia?]

Operador: Lo siento, Nacho. Lo haré immediatemente.

[Sorry, Nacho. I will do it immediately.]

Comunista: ¡Aló! ¿De parte de quién?

[Hello? Who's calling?]

Nacho: ¡Aló! Nuestro plan tuvo mucho éxito. Mi hermano no tiene nadie para ir al partido de hockey.

[Hello! Our plan was very successful! My brother doesn't have anybody to go to the hockey game.]

Comunista: ¿Te dio los boletos?

[He gave you the tickets?]

Nacho: Sí, los tengo aquí.

[Yes, I have them here.]

Comunista: ¡Vamos al partido de hockey!

[Let's go to the hockey game!]

(Más tarde, al partido de hockey)

[Much later, at the hockey game]

Comunista: ¡Este es mejor que el comunismo!

[This is better than communism!]

Nacho: Sí, el hockey es muy emocionante.

[Yes, hockey is very emotional.]

(Los dos gritan)

[They cheer.]