[tws]

Son of a bi... has it really been a few weeks since I've written anything here? Sorry. February's been really long for the shortest month. The 18 feet of snow that crippled DC and exposed just how incompetant the city and surrounding municipalities are has finally almost melted short of the mountainous snowbanks that aren't going anywhere until April. A friend sent me this really neat time lapse video someone made.



Did that really happen to us?

LIFETIME

I submitted Lifetime's s/t album as my favorite record of 2007 to ZME, but I don't see it making the collective list we get to choose from, so I'm going to write about it here. I forgot about this album by the time the culture-wide "all-musical-hands-on-deck" of this past fall. But, I revisited it, and depending on the time of year (kind of), it should have been in my top 20, maybe top 15.

At any rate, this record holds my personal record for "actual satisfaction" vs. "expected disappointment" ratio. I saw the band tour in 2006, and they were still great for a bunch of guys in their mid-30's, some of whom had slowed down musically considerably since the halcyon days of the 90's. When I heard they were recording a new album, I was a little bit concerned that it would be a mediocre comeback record. When I heard it was on tyrannical douchebag Pete Wentz's label Decaydence, I became even more concerned that everything the band stood for and their lasting legacy on sweet, sweet heartcore would be tarnished. But as the year 2007 proved through both this record and Dinosaur Jr's Beyond, great bands made great records regardless of how long their hiatuses...hiati...breaks had been. And Lifetime, after a series of listens, I'm convinced is better than anything they did when they were just a bunch of Jersey kids with some form of dream. Classics like "Turnpike Gates" and "Rodeo Clown" still scorch, but I'm amazed it took Dan Yemin until the latter half of the 2000's to come up with the opening lead to "Haircuts and T-Shirts." Damn what a great hook.



It's one of the very best examples of how no matter how much talent there is, maturity and experience always trumps talent in the end. And wouldn't you know it, experience and maturity led them to Pete Wentz's big-money production sheen, so you can actually understand some or Ari Katz's words. It's safe to say that they made the right choice by getting back together and making this album. Massive thumbs-up for the dudes. Here's their only official video from their self-titled, "Airport Monday Morning." Bonus points for Ari's Waldo hat.

OLYMPICS

I'm amazed and pissed off I haven't written anything about the Olympics on here. Team USA is still in it to win it. I'm really impressed by how well guys like Phil Kessel, Zach Parise, and Dustin Brown are able to keep it together as a haphazardly thrown together team. Having probably the best goalie in the world right now (the other being Switzerland/Anaheim's Jonas Hiller) is a big confidence boost. If it turns into a US-Canada gold medal game, there may be some serious fires in the streets of Vancouver. And I may fly out there and light one of them.

Congratulations to Shani Davis for winning yet another gold, Apolo Ohno for getting the hell out of Dancing with the Stars, and all of the Olympic Curlers, for doing what they do. I love hearing people say, "Man, I could be an Olympic Curler." No, you couldn't. That's like being one of those bowlers on TV who gets 8 strikes in a row then start crying when they have to get a spare instead.

In tribute to one of my favorite US Olympians of all time, Bonnie Blair, I've decided to post her old band REO Speedwagon's video. She looks really great singing here.

COMING SOON

It's February, and that can only mean one thing...



Hours and hours of editing! I'll try to post various clips over the course of the next few weeks, but probably won't. 

[tws]

I'm riding that name for the great DC-paralyzing snowstorm for a while. Especially since the guy got to his 500th career point last week. And in case you didn't see it, the Caps won their 14th straight, shooting a hot one in Cindy Crapsby's Pens' eyes. I know that the spring is when the games really count, but this was unreal.



Oh, and the Saints for the effin' Super Bowl! How ridiculously great is that!? I've never been a big football fan, but I have always like the Saints. I just couldn't come out and say it this year, because, you know, frontrunning is never cool. But congratulations to Drew Brees, his teammates, and all the grateful people of one of the coolest places on Earth, NOLA.

And with the Super Bowl comes super commercials, which this year were a mere 55% of the attraction for me. The Game actually took 45% where it normally takes about 10%. And they didn't deliver. Honestly, I can't remember a worse year for commercials as long as I've been watching TV. It is just me, or did a lot of the ads seem more chauvinistic and/or misogynist than usual?

This one may have been the absolute worst:



YEAH! BUY OUR CAR, FAGGOTS! YOU MISERABLE, WHIPPED, PIECES OF SHIT WHO MARRIED EVIL WOMEN WHO MAKE YOU DO THINGS THAT PEOPLE SHOULD NORMALLY DO ANYWAY BECAUSE WOMEN ARE EVIL AND WE CLEARLY HAVE NO CONCEPT THAT THEY MAKE UP A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF SUPER BOWL VIEWERS!?? FUCK THOSE HO'S! YOU CAN MAKE UP FOR YEARS OF BAD DECISIONS BY SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY ON OUR CAR, YOU SPINELESS TWATWADS!

This one pissed me off to no end, too:

In other words, if you go shopping with your significant other instead of watching the game like a manly man, you obviously have no spine! Thanks for the homophobia and condescension, FLO TV. That's also a terrible name for a mobile TV watching service. Ignore your wife! At least they made the woman in this ad seem kinda sweet...

I want to end this on a positive note, so here are two that I really liked. Here was what I thought was the best Doritos ad. The cuteness and genuine laugh wins out over horrible editing and poor timing.


This one, in a way, is completely legitimized by a completely predictable celebrity cameo at the end. Self-aware ironic figure status, meet T-Pain (again).


And this one was just outstanding. Put Betty White and Abe Vigoda in anything and I'm on board. I'm glad this was for Snickers, which I eat often enough anyway.

[tws]

For those of you who don't know, I've become the lovely Mariya Alexander's co-host on her Sunday afternoon program on WEBR in Fairfax. It's on the internet. We probably won't have a show this Sunday because the Snowpocalypse 2 is coming (or as I like to call it "Snowvechkin500") and people are massive wusses about it. Here are a couple of recent episodes. On this one, we talk about this guy we know who asked Mariya out, get advice from Mike the Love Master, and get yelled at by an old piece of shit for saying things about his hero Glenn Beck.


January 31, 2009

In this one, we talk about the "Pants on the Ground" guy in a more entertaining way than anyone on the internet has talked about this guy, and we talk about how much of a shitstain Jay Leno is. I'm sure you could agree.

January 24, 2009 Part II

Anyway, I hope you guys all survive the incoming blizzard, and to anyone who makes any sarcastic remarks directed at Al Gore (which would fail to distinguish between global warming and climate change, which are two different things, but FOX News told you that, right?), it's not Gore's fault that you're an asshole.