Thursday, March 31, 2005
my favorite singles of the first quarter of 2005:

1. Amerie - "1 Thing"
2. The Game f/ 50 Cent - "Hate It Or Love It"
3. System Of A Down - "B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bombs)"
4. Tweet f/ Missy Elliott - "Turn Da Lights Off"
5. Ying Yang Twins - "Wait"
6. Snoop Dogg f/ Justin Timberlake and Charlie Wilson - "Signs"
7. Cassidy - "I'm A Hustla"
8. R. Kelly - "Sex In The Kitchen"
9. U2 - "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"
10. John Legend - "Ordinary People"
11. Juelz Santana - "Mic Check 1,2"
12. My Chemical Romance - "Helena"
13. Lee Ann Womack - "I May Hate Myself In The Morning"
14. The Killers - "Mr. Brightside"
15. Juvenile f Wacko - "Sets Go Up"
16. Nivea f/ Youngbloodz and Lil Jon - "Okay"
17. Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz f/ Usher and Ludacris - "Lovers & Friends"
18. Ludacris - "Number One Spot"
19. Tyra - "Country Boy"
20. T.I. - "U Don't Know Me"
21. Will Smith - "Switch"
22. Fat Joe - "So Much More"
23. Bobby Valentino - "Slow Down"
24. Nine Inch Nails - "The Hand That Feeds"
25. Marques Houston - "All Because Of You"
26. Trick Daddy f/ Cee-Lo and Lil Kim - "Sugar"
27. Lil Webbie f/ Bun B - "Give Me That"
28. Kelly Clarkson - "Behind Hazel Eyes"
29. 3 Doors Down - "Let me Go"
30. Good Charlotte - "I Just Wanna Live"

Although it was on my '04 list, "Since U Been Gone" seems to be getting a lot more love on '05 lists, so I may yet give in to peer pressure and put it at the top of my list this year (it hadn't been out long at the time, otherwise it would've been much higher than #18 then). As for albums, I really haven't heard enough to make a list yet, but I can say that my current top 3 is stuck in the B's (Beanie Sigel, Bossman and Brendan Benson).

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Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Lately I've been kind of fascinated with Desmond Child, ever since that "Remaking Vince Neil" special that was on VH1 a few weeks ago where a large chunk of the program focused on Vince trying to get his solo career off the ground by recording a power ballad with Desmond. I'd known of DC's numerous songwriting credits and reputation as one of the biggest MOR hacks in the business before that, but didn't really know anything about him, or even if he was a man or a woman. And really, no matter what your opinion of assembly line pop is, it's hard not to find several songs he wrote that you like and probably even more that you hate. I mean, this is the guy responsible for "Livin' La Vida Loca" and all those 90's Aerosmith ballads (although I give him credit for co-writing a couple of my favorite songs on Pump). I tend to think of him as some kind of pop music equivalent of Dick Cheney, a force of evil making all kinds of shady deals behind closed doors. I mean shit, his name is 2 letters away from DEMON CHILD, that has to be a sign.

He was great in the VH1 thing, though: this effeminate middle-aged guy who was completely merciless to Vince, telling him how much his voice sucks and how bad every take was. Later, he told the camera, "at this point, Vince is getting very frustrated, he's complaining, that's code for 'I'm mad at you for writing such a hard song...oh I feel for you...NOT'". He was so awesome. Another choice quote: "I don't feel sorry for stars, they get their picture on the cover, and I get my name maybe printed on the tiniest corner of the product. But it's ok, as long as they put my tiny little name on the big check, I'll be fine"

So I was pretty excited last week when I heard Desmond as a guest on World Cafe on my local college station (which I almost never listen to by choice, but I'm a university employee and they literally pipe it into the lobby in the building where I work, and I just happened to catch it one day while going about my business). I wish I could find the audio somewhere online. He told great stories about the origins of some of his biggest hits, including a longer version of the story he told in the Vince Neil special about how "Dude Looks Like A Lady" was inspired by Vince. Apparently it was originally called "Cruisin' For The Ladies", but Desmond pushed for the change of direction for the song despite the band's hesitations about making it about gender ambiguity. He also talked about his sometimes competitive and sometimes collaborative relationship with Dianne Warren, and how her writing methods differ from his, which was actually pretty interesting. During the interview, Desmond also played piano and sang solo renditions of some of the hits he's written, including "Livin' On A Prayer" and Hanson's "Weird", which he said was his favorite song. Apparently he wrote that from the perspective of growing up gay, but he made the lyrics more universal so that Hanson could sing it, and had a good chuckle over the subversiveness of it all. Simon Cowell and P. Diddy have already proven that mean music moguls make for great reality TV, so seriously, someone give this guy his own show.

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Mixtape Tuesday

Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Feetnik made this tape for me a couple summers ago, and it's one of the best mixes I've ever received.

side 1:
1. Lyn Collins - "Think (About It)"
2. The Chambers Brothers - "Funky"
3. Barry White - "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe"
4. Rose Royce - "Car Wash"
5. Ohio Players - "Love Rollercoaster"
6. The Four Seasons - "December, 1963 (Oh What A Night)"
7. Electric Light Orchestra - "Evil Woman"
8. Andrea True Connection - "More More More"
9. Brothers Johnson - "Stomp"
10. Kool & The Gand - "Hollywood Swinging"
11. Stevie Wonder - "If You Really Love Me"
12. The Clash - "Magnificent Seven"

side 2:
1. Tones On Tail - "Go"
2. Matthew Wilder - "Break My Stride"
3. The Waitresses - "I Know What Boys Like"
4. The Go-Go's - "Head Over Heels"
5. The Flying Lizards - "Money"
6. Human League - "Don't You Want Me"
7. Information Society - "Pure Energy"
8. Missing Persons - "Words"
9. Nu Shooz - "I Can't Wait"
10. Murray Head - "One Night In Bangkok"
11. Rockwell - "Somebody's Watching Me"
12. Rod Stewart - "Young Turks"

I was rocking out to either "Evil Woman" or "More More More" last week when I got stopped for rolling through a stop sign, so I blame this tape.

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Monday, March 28, 2005
On paper, Grand Buffet is probably the kind of thing I wouldn't expect to like at all: weird underground hip hop by two white guys from Pittsburgh who have an absurdist sense of humor and like to express leftist ideals with sarcastic exaggerations of the religious right. But they're fucking great at what they do and I love them. Easily one of my favorite live acts. Tom and my friend Mike and I saw them for the first time at different shows all around the same time 3-4 years ago and have been showing up faithfully every time they play Baltimore ever since, which is pretty often. They're tight with a lot of other weird white rappers from Baltimore like Cex and Height and Bow'n'Arrow and have amassed a pretty big following here thanks to countless opening sets where they upstaged the headliner. I don't know if they even get as many people at their shows in Pittsburgh as they do in Baltimore. And on Sunday we were all at the Ottobar to see Grand Buffet headline for once.

I drove up for the show from Delaware after spending Easter with the fam, and got stuck in really heinous traffic and ended up getting there later than I expected to. When I got there, one of the openers, Big In Japan was playing. BIJ is comprised of 3/5ths of Lake Trout, who are a Baltimore band that I've seen live a bunch of times, and the 3 members who are in BIJ are the best thing about Lake Trout, but Big In Japan is generally a lot more laid back and boring. So when Mike challenged me to a game of Ms. Pac Man upstairs, I went and did that during their set. And then while waiting for Grand Buffet at the bar we ran into Tom. Turns out that Tom interviewed GB before the show for a feature in the City Paper that's going to run in a couple months when their new record comes out. All of Grand Buffet's CDs so far have been self-released, but now they're finally on a label with national distro and are putting out a CD/DVD in June featuring a greatest hits of stuff from the previous records. I always kinda wished they'd reissue their amazing trilogy of EPs (Undercover Angels, Cigarette Beach and Pittsburgh Hearts) on one disc, but this should be just as good. Judging from their setlists, they're pretty good at picking out their best material. And their show last night was as awesome as ever. Maybe the only band I've ever seen where the between song banter is as entertaining as the songs. I hope the world's ready for Grand Buffet, if not it's their loss.

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Saturday, March 26, 2005
My favorite thing about the Carmelo Anthony episode of Cribs is that there's enough window shots that I can actually recognize the view and figure out what part of Baltimore he lives in. I'm pretty sure he's in one of those tall buildings I can see from the hills in Patterson Park when I'm walking my dad's dog.

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Friday, March 25, 2005
My heart really goes out to this sexy librarian, and I feel deeply about the plight of sexy librarians everywhere. I wish I could do something for (okay, to) each and every one of them.

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Thursday, March 24, 2005
in my stereo:

DJ K-Swift the Club Queen - Strictly For The Streets Volume 1
Prince - The Hits/The B-Sides
Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die
Grand Buffet - Cigarette Beach EP
Pearl Jam - No Code
Tim Trees - Dalton, Vol. 1
Jadakiss- Kiss Of Death
Mons - Stimulus Frequency For The Localization of Sound in Space
The Oranges Band - On TV EP
Elvis Costello & the Imposters - The Delivery Man

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Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Today Stylus gets the Pitchfork award for managing to fit a factual error into even the one-sentence headline on the front page, for the Brendan Benson review:

"Power-popper gets cleaner and polished on his major label debut..."

(One Mississippi was released on Virgin (and furthermore is arguably as polished as, if not more than, his new record.)) So far I've only listened to Alternative To Love once, so I don't really have anything to say about it, although I suspect it will be a grower like Lapalco. Also, Stylus is forgiven because the Cibula piece was nice and reminds me that he is missed in the world of music blogging.

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Mixtape Tuesday

Tuesday, March 22, 2005
About 2-3 years ago I was hanging out a lot with a friend of mine named Chris in York, PA and playing drums in his band (I live a half hour from the MD/PA border so it's not a long drive). Chris strummed really slowly on an acoustic guitar and ran it through a bunch of effects and delay and I just played along and sometimes we had a keyboardist and/or a bassist and/or a violinist. Chris was a cool guy, I liked hanging out with him, although I wasn't really on the same wavelength with him musically at all. I don't think he was at all aware of how indifferent I was about some of his favorite bands (Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, etc.). But in a way I'm more cool with people like him who are kind of naively enthusiastic about their generic indie taste than cynical or really trying to be cool. Anyway, I kind of regarded it as a fun challenge to play slow, pretty shoegazey music, even if that's not really the kind of thing I actually listen to. Actually, come to think of it, all 3 of the bands that I've played in for a significant amount of time and accomplished something with (i.e. play in front of an audience and/or record original material) have all been rock subgenres that I don't really listen to (my last band was a metal band and in high school I played in I guess you could call it a 'screamo' band, although again I know nothing about that stuff). That's kind of the gift and the curse of being a drummer, though; you can have a completely different background than everyone else in the band and it doesn't matter if you can keep a beat. But it also means you rarely get to play what you really want to play. This is pretty much the reason why I'm taking a break from playing drums in other people's bands to make a solo record so I can actually figure out what kind of band I really want to play in by making one up.

Anyway, where was I? The band in York...Nice folks, although everyone I knew up there seemed to be a morbid alcoholic, and to this day my general impression of York is that it's this really depressing little college town where everyone drinks too much, although for all I know that's just the people I hung out with there. But Chris was a nice dude, I haven't seen him in a while and keep meaning to hang out again. At one point while we were doing the band thing he asked me to make him a mixtape, and I kinda tried to go for some of that slow pretty guitar music he likes, but from some indie-ish bands that I like (plus the Built To Spill stuff because he was really into them). I think it came out pretty well.

side 1:
1. The Posies - "Coming Right Along"
2. Ted Leo - "Parallel Or Together?"
3. Shudder To Think - "Red House"
4. The Geraldine Fibbers - "Outside Of Town"
5. Ben Folds Five - "Twin Falls"
6. Built To Spill - "By The Way"
7. Cat Power - "Rockets"
8. Jeff Buckley - "Mojo Pin"
9. Death Cab For Cutie - "Styrofoam Plates"
10. Sonic Youth - "Rain On Tin"

side 2:
1. Lake Trout - "Holding"
2. The Dismemberment Plan - "The Face Of The Earth"
3. The Minutemen - "No Exchange"
4. The Minutemen - "History Lesson - Part II"
5. Ted Leo - "Biomusicology"
6. Ken Stringfellow - "Your Love Won't Be Denied"
7. The Geraldine Fibbers - "Butch"
8. The Posies - "Every Bitter Drop"
9. The Posies - "Fall Song"
10. Chris Lee - "Dixie's Door"
11. Two Dollar Guitar - "Stones Vs. Zep"

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Monday, March 21, 2005
this past weekend, while visiting my girlfriend at the all-girl private college she goes to:

me: (picks up whistle from her desk, gently blows into it)
her: um, that's my rape whistle
me: oh. crap! (puts down whistle)

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Saturday, March 19, 2005
Kinda digging the new NIN single "The Hand That Feeds". Of course, it honors the tradition of bad Reznor angst poetry (bite the hand that feeds, something til it bleeds, something on your knees etc), and is even worse in combination with the album title With Teeth (which I thought was a cool title at first, but c'mon, bite the hand that feeds WITH TEETH?). But it also reminds me that for me what always set dude apart from the dozen clones that invaded alt-rock radio in the mid-90's was that he wasn't just setting distorted guitars to industrial drums; the other guys got down the heaviness, but he's the one who had the skronk. He just has a great ear for weird bendy noise. And the bridge-y part on the new song sports some beautiful skronky guitar (synth?) textures. Of course, I've only heard it coming out of the little boombox at work from across the room, so time will tell if I actually like it beyond that awesome bridge. Also, heard "Hurt" the other day, which was kind of nice and refreshing since I've scarcely heard it the past couple years and almost forgot that I think it's ten times better than the Cash version.

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Thursday, March 17, 2005
Rupee's "Tempted To Touch" = Hammer's "Pumps And A Bumps". Listen to the choruses, they're identical!

Wednesday, March 16, 2005
I spoke too soon, this is my favorite ILM thread ever. Derailing yet another stupid M.I.A. debate to talk about short-lived 90's sitcoms = classic. Also, this is the best music writing I've read in a while. Are eBay pages eligible for those Da Capo books?

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Mixtape Tuesday

Tuesday, March 15, 2005
A couple years ago I made a Morphine mix to listen to in the car. I managed to fit almost all my favorite songs. A 5 album career is probably about the perfect-sized catalog to draw from to make a good 90-minute tape.

Morphine mix

side 1:
1. Honey White
2. Have A Lucky Day*
3. Come Along (live)
4. You Speak My Language
5. Thursday
6. So Many Ways
7. French Fries w/ Pepper
8. I'm Free Now
9. The Saddest Song
10. Scratch
11. Eleven O'Clock
12. Sharks
13. Cure For Pain
14. I Know You (Part I)

side 2:
1. I Know You (Part II)*
2. I Know You (Part III)
3. Super Sex
4. Pulled Over The Car
5. Yes
6. Good
7. All Your Way
8. All Wrong*
9. Candy
10. The Night
11. Lilah
12. Rope On Fire
13. In Spite Of Me
14. Dawna
15. Buena
16. Sundayafternoonweightlessness

* live KCRW versions from the B-sides comp. I like those performances a lot.

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Monday, March 14, 2005
In a weird way, this is probably my favorite ILM thread that I've ever started. Vedderiffic!

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Sunday, March 13, 2005
Weird thing I noticed in The Sun the other day that I think must've changed in just the past week or two (I only read the paper a couple times a week, usually when someone has one at work): first, that Doonesbury and Boondocks were missing from the comics section, and then that they'd been moved to the Op-Ed section. I'm just curious whether they did that just to save space in the comics section, or if it's supposed to be some kind of subtle statement that those 2 comics have too much socio-political commentary to be shown alongside all the strips about talking animals and frazzled old married couples.

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Saturday, March 12, 2005
in my stereo:

Huli Shallone - It's My Turn
Trick Daddy - Book of Thugs: Chapter AK, Verse 47
Chisel - Set You Free
Travis Morrison - Travistan
Rod Lee - Operation: Start-Up
Enon - High Society
Nas - It Was Written
Superchunk - No Pocky For Kitty
Nels Cline Singers - The Giant Pin
Steely Dan - The Royal Scam

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Friday, March 11, 2005
"Attention animators: Please stop creating wondrous alternate universes for the sole purpose of scoring easy jokes off their resemblance to the real world. When you make Shrek 3, for instance, Shrek should not eat at the Unicornia Pizza Kitchen. When a Shark Tale sequel comes up, the finny Will Smith should not shop at the Sturgeon Megastore. That joke just isn't funny anymore. The Flintstones did it first and nearly exhausted it. Recent big-screen cartoons have pretty much finished the trick."

I don't really have anything to add to that, but it was so perfectly on the money that I just had to quote it. I think people take for granted the idea that comedy, more than other art forms (and don't even try to tell me it isn't) has pretty reliable rules of what works and what doesn't and isn't really held to the same ideals of creativity and progress. You can say that some things will always be funny, but I definitely think it's possible to kill a joke or a style of humor with overuse. The element of surprise isn't always integral to whether something is truly funny; sometimes I laugh at a Seinfeld rerun I've seen a dozen times in anticipation of the funny parts. But if you can see the punchlines coming before the setup's even finished then really what's the point?

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Thursday, March 10, 2005
About 5 years ago, I was pretty into Enon's first album, Believo!, which I'd checked out mainly on the basis of the involvement of ex-members of Skeleton Key. It was like an ideal combination of tuneful indie rock and chaotic samples and percussion. And at the time I really wanted to see them live, but it seemed like every time they played in the area it was on a night when I had some other commitment or was out of town, there must've been a half dozen times I just barely missed seeing them in the course of a couple years, including once when I went to a Dismemberment Plan show they were supposed to open but there'd been a blizzard in NY and they didn't make it to DC. In the years since then, they've undergone a few lineup changes, and released a couple more albums. I was initially pretty disappointed by High Society, mainly because the addition of Toko Yasada meant that suddenly half their songs were synth pop with chirpy emotionless female vocals, which wasn't really what I was expecting or in the mood for. It seems to be their most popular/acclaimed album, though, go figure. It grew on me eventually, but after that, my interest was diminished and I didn't even bother with their next album.

But last week Enon played at the Ottobar, and I figured what the hell, I might as well see them live finally. I got there after the last opening band while they were setting up, so I don't know how long they were setting up before I got there, but it was a good 45 minutes before they started playing, which is about as long as they actually played once they got going. They seemed to be having a lot of technical difficulties. I hope for the sake of the band and their fans in other cities that that isn't a common occurence. The first half of their set was heavy on the chirpy synth pop stuff, and they played along to backing tracks from the records for a lot of songs. I get annoyed with live bands that rely to heavily on that stuff, especially when they have an awesome drummer, which Enon does. For the 2nd half their set, they dropped the loops and really let the drummer loose with a lot more of the guitar-driven stuff. They played a lot of High Society songs, which was alright with me (although they neglected my favorites -- "Diamond Raft", people! "Window Display"!). It's a good thing I didn't get my hopes up for any Believo! songs, which they didn't play at all. Not bad overall, though. "Old Dominion" is ridiculously heavy live.

After the show, I went to the merch table and bought their new CD, Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence, which is a compilation of a bunch of rare and previously released stuff, although not nearly all of it. I could be wrong, but it seems like relatively few indie bands are constantly putting out 7"s and appearing on compilations at the pace that Enon does, that seems like such a 80's/90's thing. But they have so much stuff out there. Lost Marbles is getting praised in a lot of places for being as cohesive and consistent as their proper albums, but that's not really saying anything, since Enon's albums are kind of erratic and all over the place, which is what I like about them anyway. I kinda wish they'd tried to be more comprehensive, though, instead of just selecting enough to make a 40-minute album. Jeffy is totally right that "Kanon" is a standout, although it was even better live.

Lost Marbles came with a DVD, too, which was one of my motivations for picking it up instead of the last album I initially skipped. The videos are nice, and it's kind of admirable for an indie band to even be making 3 videos per album. But I have to admit that if I saw any of them on MTV2 without having heard the band already I'd probably be turned off by them. There's also some decent live footage and a lot of montages of silly sub-Year Punk Broke tour antics. The live stuff from back when Rick Lee was still in the band really makes me regret that I didn't see them back then, though. Enon, Skeleton Key, Butter 08...why can't that dude stay in a band for more than one record?

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Mixtape Tuesday

Tuesday, March 08, 2005
About 2 years ago, I was hanging out with my brother, and he let me go through the mp3 folder on his computer and pick out a bunch of songs and burn myself a CD. It was fun, and I was pretty pleased with the result. I wish I could do that more often, just rummage through someone's hard drive for an afternoon and make a mix from it.

1. The Clipse - "Grindin'"
2. Elvis Presley - "In The Ghetto"
3. No Doubt - "Sunday Morning"
4. Bruce Springsteen - "Rosalita"
5. Coldplay - "Shiver"
6. The Clash - "Lost In The Supermarket"
7. The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"
8. Memphis Bleek f/ Jay-Z, Twista and Missy Elliott - "Is That Your Chick?" (The Lost Verses)
9. The Dismemberment Plan - "Can We Be Mature?"
10. Justin Timberlake f/ The Clipse - "Like I Love You"
11. Elastica - "Stutter"
12. The Descendants - "I'm The One"
13. Josie and the Pussycats - "Three Small Words"
14. State Property - "Roc the Mic"
15. Jay-Z - "Streets Is Watching "
16. Memphis Bleek f/ Jay-Z - "Murda Murda"
17.The Dismemberment Plan - "Since You Died "
18. Usher f/ Ludacris - "U Don't Have To Call" (remix)
19. Queen and David Bowie - "Under Pressure"

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Monday, March 07, 2005
Update on the Y100 situation: wow, it's not just the music, alt-rock diehards really are angry. I know a guy who was on TV shouting into a bullhorn! HFSers sure aren't putting up a fight like this.

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Sunday, March 06, 2005
So this semester I'm taking a Friday class, just one weekly 3-hour class in the afternoon. Two Fridays ago was to be the first test. The day before was one of the many semi-big (for Maryland) snowfalls we've had lately, so campus closed early. I really wasn't ready for the test, so I was hoping school would stay closed the next day, but there was only a delay, and my test was still on. So I showed up, about a half hour before test time, so I could sit in the classroom and fit in some last minute studying. But when I got there, there was a note on the door that class was cancelled. Which wasn't too surprising, considering the roads were still icey and maybe the professor lived far away. So I counted my blessings and got out of there.

This past Friday, I showed up to the next class, assuming the re-take for the test would be the week after. I got there early again, and sat in the classroom studying with 3 other people. But then when the rest of the class assembled in the room, the professor announced that last week's note was a hoax, and that class had not been cancelled. And I was one of only 4 or 5 people who had left without knowing what happened and hadn't taken the test. In a way, I felt lucky, because it was an honest mistake that gave me an extra week to prepare for the test. But since noone knew who did it, and only a handful of people 'fell' for it, it was a little uncomfortable to be in that room with everyone no doubt suspicious that one of us was the culprit. When the prof went over the test with the class, the 4 of us who hadn't taken it yet were asked to go out in the hallway for about 20 minutes. We were all kind of bewildered by it. We were asked to schedule time to take the test on Monday. So really I ended up getting 2 extensions on my studying time. But the really pathetic thing is that I still probably won't do good on the test. I took horrible notes in all the lectures.

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Saturday, March 05, 2005
A while back Jeffy told me about his idea of photoshopping a Capri-Sun in T.I.'s hand to illustrate how much he looks like a six-year-old, and I'm so glad he finally executed it. He forgot about The Game and Popeye, though.

I YAM WHAT I YAM!

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Friday, March 04, 2005
Anthony will be thrilled to learn that the new Mariah video "It's Like That" (which premiered on TRL and 106 & Park today, don't think it's online anywhere yet) features Eric Roberts. It's not as insane as his appearance in "Mr. Brightside", but he's pretty much playing the same character. But isn't this, like, the 3rd rap/R&B video with an Eyes Wide Shut homage now? It's too bad Roberts is so underused on Less Than Perfect, because his mere presence is comedy gold (totally mediocre show, but I [heart] Sara Rue (and Patrick Warburton)).

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Thursday, March 03, 2005
Good cover story in this week's City Paper about the complex relationship between server and diner, as told from the POV of the waitstaffs of 4 unnamed Baltimore restaurants, and half the fun is trying to read into what details are given and figure out what they are. The other half, though, of which there is plenty, is some good old-fashioned sociology. I've worked in the food service industry on and off for a sizeable chunk of my adult life, although I've never waited tables, just because I don't think I'm built for it. First impressions are not my strong suit and I would hate for my wages to be determined by how well I get along with a table full of strangers. The article, however, brings into stark relief how being on the tip-giving rather than receiving end of the power structure doesn't exclude you from being observed and judged. After reading it I'm probably going to be a lot more conscious of making eye contact with waiters and waitresses, which is apparently a huge deal. I think usually I'm bad about that just because they're standing and I'm sitting and I feel weird about looking up (maybe because I'm tall and am not used to looking up to address people, unless I'm talking to Tom or the one guy at work who's taller than me). And/or sometimes they're standing very close to the table, compounding the awkwardness. So I probably have a bad habit of hiding my eyes in the menu. Otherwise I think my restaurant karma is pretty good. My philosophy is: if you can't afford to tip generously, you can't afford to eat out. So either be prepared to shell out 15-20% (even if they lack people skills or make mistakes; hell, especially, they probably need it more), or just go to Taco Bell.

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Wednesday, March 02, 2005
In the Longest Yard trailer, Adam Sandler derisively refers to a bearded old man in a white suit as "Colonel Sanders". Didn't he do that in The Waterboy too? WTF? I can't figure out if it's supposed to be self-referential, or if he honestly doesn't know when he's recycling gags from his old movies. There's something wrong with his medulla oblongata!

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Mixtape Tuesday

Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Now and then I have to make a mix just of stuff I've downloaded that I want to listen to in my car. This is the most one of those, with mostly new/recent stuff on side 1, and older stuff on side 2:

side 1:
1. Amerie - "1 Thing"
2. Ying Yang Twins - "Wait"
3. Memphis Bleek - "Yes"
4. The Game - "Church For Thugs"
5. The Game f/ 50 Cent - "Hate It Or Love It"
6. Jin - "Tsunami Response"
7. Jadakiss f/ Styles P, Common, Nas and Anthony Hamilton - "Why" (remix)
8. 2Pac f/ Raphael Saadiq - "Crooked Nigga Too"
9. Ice City f/ Freeway - "Lock It Down" (remix)
10. Joe Wales f/ Jay-Z and Freeway - "Higher"
11. Jay-Z - "I'm Not A Writer I'm A Biter" mix
12. Timbaland sample mix

side 2:
1. R. Kelly - "Sex In The Kitchen" (live, a cappella)
2. R. Kelly - "Sex In The Kitchen" (studio version)
3. Nivea f/ R. Kelly - "Laundromat"
4. Isley Brothers f/ JS - "Busted"
5. 112 - "Anywhere"
6. N.E.R.D. - "Run To The Sun" (original version)
7. T.I. f/ Beenie Man - "I'm Serious"
8. T.I. - "Be Easy"/"We Gonna Make It" (Gel & Weave blend)
9. Lil Mo - Ja Rule Diss
10. Eminem - "Invasion (The Realest)"
11. 50 Cent and Notorious B.I.G. - "The Realest Niggas"
12. Notorious B.I.G. - "Party And Bullshit" (Lord Finesse remix)
13. Nas - "One On One"
14. Main Source - "Live At The Barbecue"

I'm especially proud of the part on side 2 where I put 3 tracks in a row with the same beat (the Lil Mo, Em, and 50/Biggie). I just made this tape like 2 weeks ago, and it already feels out of date and there's a bunch of newer stuff I wish I'd put on it. Guess I'll have to make another tape!

(EDIT: upon request for Hillary and whoever else wants it, mp3s of both versions of "Sex In The Kitchen" now added)

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