ANDREW I know, I saw it in the paper this morning. I’m glad, it worked so well last time.
MIKE Shit.
ANDREW But Al-Qaeda is there.
MIKE Right.
Apparently, Somalia is one of those “ungoverned” places where we can bomb anytime. Cool. So this time it’s not a war crime. Thats good. We make progress everyday.
My job is proving to be quite time consuming. I spent the evening writing up two stories and filing the police and fire reports. Not exactly how I want to spend a weekend evening, but oh well. Tomorrow I have two more stories to write as well.
But, I spent the morning procrastinating. I watched the Oregon/UCLA game. It was a great game. Oregon upset number one UCLA at the last second. Wow. Oh, and the beavers lost. Huh.
Thursday I took my Dad to the USC/Oregon game at Mac Court. Now, don’t get me wrong, I bleed black and orange (eww.) but I love the Pit.
Mac Court is old, loud, and really sexy. If a basketball court can be sexy. It is a fun time, no matter who’s playing. It makes you feel like you are in an old Roman arena. We watched the ducks grab their first loss from the front row of the top level and it was great. I had fun with my dad that night in a way I haven’t for years. We even got Taco Bell on the way home!
Anyway, after the UCLA game today, I helped my Dad play with his new Tivo. It will now record all the CSI episodes. Sweet…
Also… it is grabbing Seinfeld and The Office episodes. That’s for me.
After that I went shopping. I love paychecks! I have food!
This makes me happy.
On my way in to Fred Meyer’s, I dropped off film for work at the one hour place. It took about two hours and I had to kill an hour so I went over to the St. Vincent DePaul’s thrift store across the street.
I got sucked in. They had an awesome book section. Well sorted and cheap! I walked out with about 17 books for about $20. All good ones too. I took home five or six philosophy books, an old Bob Woodward expose of the Clinton White House, a collection of Ibsen plays, a great politics text book and a photography guide from the sixties. Sweet.
At the checkout, the employee was great. He was the down-on-his-luck-yet-optimistic type. Apparently his student loans caught up with him that morning and he was getting yelled at by his boss when I walked up to the counter. But he was cheerful and went on a rather funny tangent while overcharging me about $2 for the books. Oh well. He was nice, and the money goes to the homeless. No big deal. No wonder he was getting yelled at though.
Okay. A day in the life. Back to trying to make straight this complicated weave of Grange-related controversy. Ask me about it sometime.
Oh, by the way. Norman is doing better every day, and soon he will move to a recovery center.
I am a subscriber. I love paper media, especially when it comes right to my door. Currently, I get three subscriptions at home, and as soon as this paycheck clears, I hope to add a few more. First I get the Eugene Register-Guard, a fair-sized daily that, while it isn’t the Oregonian, keeps me informed on the local news and is also a direct market competitor for my paper, even though we have a slightly different focus when it comes to the rural areas. Second, I get the miserable Rolling Stone. I hate Rolling Stone, the MTV of music publications, for their horribly biased reporting. But, it is a mindless read and there are some factors I enjoy.
Every morning I get the Wall Street Journal. I love reading this paper. It makes me feel smart, it informs me, their editorial page is a different view for me. Recently, the Journal went through a redesign, switching to smaller pages and taking a new approach at their Journalism. This is direct a response to new media, they are trying to compete with online media outlets that allow people to catch up on he news all day. Thus, they have added summery boxes to the stories and are giving more “explanations on what the news means.” I am curious how this will work out. How a journalist can stay unbiased when they are predicting the future, I am not sure. But we will see how it goes. There have been some interesting reactions. I like it for the most part. I like the smaller, thicker paper. But… only time will tell how the new reporting will affect my views… stay tuned.
The Bush Administration just decided to make the American Polar Bear a threatened species and moved to add it to the endangered species list. Read about it here.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported today in their staff editorial, polar bear populations happen to be up over the last 30 years, drastically in fact. One Canadian researcher admits there are too many bears. Too many.
Anyway, it seems that the decision to add the bear to the list is a political one. The WSJ claims by adding the bear to the list, the government is then required to make movements to protect the animal’s habitat. And, what is the habitat? Polar ice, of course.
So, the addition of the polar bear to the list works for the government in two ways. First, the administration can set aside lawsuits in the name of the bear. And second, if allowed to the list, the polar bear will be to global warming what his cousin Smokey is to forest fires. Indirectly, steps will have to be taken to stop global warming, without actually “stopping global warming,” but preserving the polar bear.
It’s all rhetoric people. No matter what you call it, Al Gore wins.
This is a happy time of year for egotistical, elitist, music-nerd-types like myself. It is year-in-review time. The time of year when we release our top 10 lists and then argue about it and make fun of each other and all that jazz. Well… bring it on. The following lists 11 albums I listened to the most this year in no particular order. I couldn’t do just ten!
1: The Greatest — Cat Power Released in early 2006, this is Cat power’s best album to date, and by far, my pick for the best album this year. I spent hours listening to this disc. Her voice is angelic, the backing is subtle yet powerful, the lyrics are spot on. Get this album, discover Cat Power, my pick for the next great American artist. She has staying power, and this album proves it.
Power was also one of my favorite shows of the year, it was her first recent solo show and the first show f a Portland double-header. She was great, if not slightly crazy. But that added to it. Perfect, beautiful show.
She also released two exclusive EPs this year, one to iTunes and the other to eMusic. The iTunes EP, the better of the two, has on it a version of “Wild as the Wind,” my favorite Cat Power cover, which she updated this year on tour. This is also worth getting.
2: We are the Pipettes — The Pipettes
Storming into my life this year was the Pipettes, a hot trio from England who sing old-school Doo-Wop/indie while clad in cute dresses and doing little dances. This music is infectious and I constantly have a track in my head. “Pull Shapes” is by far the poppiest song of the year.
My love for this band might be grounded in how freaking cute these girls are. And the fact that they look like two of my favorite people in the world. And of course, “glasses” looks like my favorite person in the world.
3: Crane Wife — The Decemberists Well, it was a big year for the Decemberists. A major label debut, thousands of hopeful fans. One great album. They get a little progy and kick up the volume a bit. The songs are great. “Sons and Daughters” literally gives me chills it makes me feel so hopeful. I know that a lot of people don’t feel the Decemberists are worth a damn, but I think they are one of the best bands of the decade. They are intelligent and pop-o-rific. It’s hard to combine those two things. But they do.
Also this year, they battled Colbert and killed with two back-to-back shows at the Crystal Ballroom. Woot!
4: Paper Television — The Blow
This Portland band blew me away this year. (Sorry about the pun.) It all started a year ago when I heard “Pile of Gold” on a comp CD. It was a great beat-pop song and I was in a huge beat-pop mood that year and i wanted more. I searched everywhere, but only came up with Blow albums that, while good albums, were collections of often-acoustic folk. But then I was walking into Jackpot on day not all that long ago and this album had dropped! Thank heaven, it is fantastic. “Parentheses” is a fantastic track that will leave you wanting more.
5: Bring Me The Workhorse — My Brightest Diamond I stumbled across this album online and I am thankful I did. I believe Colin Melloy said he loved it in Rolling Stone… sweet. Anyway, she is another beautiful singer and part of the Sufjan crowd. This album is sometimes somber, sometimes hectic and always satisfying with truly composed music.
6: Ys — Joanna Newsom Five really long songs. Five really great songs. Monkeys, Steve Albini and a harp. What more could be desired? What?
7: The Life Pursuit — Belle and Sebastian Another great live show from this year. I didn’t think B&S could follow up their last album with anything as good, but they did. Again fully embracing pop and putting out catchy, beautiful music. There is a great DVD in one package of this disc and it is worth watching.
8: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood — Neko Case “Teenage feeling” is a song that has it right on. This disc brings everything good about America out, with country guitar, beautiful vocals and great lyrics. Case is sultry and sophisticated and this disc is fun to listen to. This is what all adult-alternative should sound like. If it did, the world would be a better place.
9: St. Elsewhere — Gnarls Barkley I would be ‘crazy’ not to have it on my list. HA HA HA! So funny. Anyway, this disc was hot this year, and I think it was my most frequent driving record of the year. It made trips to and from Portland quick and fun.
10: He Poos Clouds — Final Fantasy Final Fantasy gave me something great to listen to until the new Arcade Fire comes out. As the touring violin player for the Fire, FF, kills on the violin. His live show consisted of only him, a violin and a keyboard… and then super foot peddle layering skills. This is one-man-band at its best. Fragile and haunting. Great… and really not for nerds.
11: I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat your Ass — Yo La Tengo This disc had to make it on the list because it woke up my love for Yo La Tengo. The band woke up a little from their last album and Mr. Tough is so fun it hurts. Also, a great driving record.
Thats it… there they are. Pretty mainstream this year.
Oh… and I want to add, I was terribly disappointed with the new Cursive album. I need to listen to The Avalanche by Sufjan again and also to Post War by M. Ward. The new Thermals still hasn’t made my rotation and I feel that is a shame.
Washington Post and Newsweek have an ongoing series on Faith being published online right now. This article is a good read on current atheist attacks on religion. It is a most comforting read actually, as the author really comes off as a rational person. It is more arguments and dialogs like this one that we need in the current politics/religion debate.
One thing that this author really hits on is the vast misconception we have of what God is, what Jesus is. There is a quite broader view of God available than what many churches keep in stock. So the author asks:
The theological question that needs to be explored in both church and state is this: Can God be understood in some way other than through these infantile and tribal images? Can Jesus be seen in some way other than as the divinely appointed sacrificial victim who paid the price owed to God for our sinfulness? Because I believe that both God and Jesus are so much more than these distorting images suggest…
And I agree, how can we begin to talk about God in a way that is separate from the rhetoric of the church, the rhetoric that puts God and Jesus into neat little boxes. They leave no way to question without disbelieving. But, many believe outside the box and are not the type to express that in a way that is accessible to others. How can we re-work the rhetoric of God so it is available to a new population of spiritual Americans?
