And I Dream of the Rain

This Gun's For Hire

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:41:48 -0500

When I was a kid I remember liking Born in the USA. I never really considered myself a Springsteen fan, but that was a huge song in the early 80's. Fast forward to the 90's and I remember watching him getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was more excited to see Max Weinburg since I had become a fan of him on the Conan O'Brien show. Boy was I ever disappointed. I don't even remember what they played (probably Born in the USA) but damn, that song went on for.ev.er. I started to realize that all the Boss really ever had were a couple of really catchy riffs, sexeh charisma and twenty musicians who only knew the basics. I mean seriously, maybe it's only because I've only had exposure to the singles and the popular tunes, but I can't recall any stand-out musicianship in any of his stuff.

Regardless of that, I can't help but still like a few of his tunes. They're catchy, what can I say?

Bruce Springsteen - Hungry Heart

Bruce Springsteen ♫ I'm On Fire ♫

Bruce Springsteen Dancing in the dark

Ha - at the end of Dancing in the Dark the crowd is going nuts doing that oh-ay-oh-ay-oh-ay-oh-ay thing. They do that at a fuck ton of Maiden shows too. I seem to recall finding out it was a soccer thing.

These songs are nothing more than simple riffs and are easy to sing along to and remember. I suppose that's what can make someone a success on the road. Despite my appreciation for much more complex musicianship like that shown by Zeppelin, Rush or Maiden, for example, I suppose I can still see the appeal of this too.

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Bitchin'

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:38:11 -0500

I know this is old news on the Internet but in case you missed it, a few guys are traveled across the country in a Delorean and an Ghostbusters truck.

Greatest Roadtrip Ever

My favorite part is when they convince the one dude at the gas station that they're hauling their friend's dead body from Vegas (s'ok, he's really only sleeping) and the guy is all sympathetic and offers some air freshener.

I was disappointed that I didn't see a flux capacitor or flames on the highway.

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Awww...Da Widdo Bunny

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:24:53 -0500

I've posted about my love for Rooster Teeth before. [The DVD featuring all of their recently released short films is now available, or you can watch them all for free on their site.]

The dudes over at RT make a variety of videos including the Achievement Hunter series. I'm not a big gamer on new systems, but apparently in X-Box games you can seek out various achievements which give you a great amount of personal satisfaction and some gaming cred. The Achievement Hunter video series documents how to gain some of these achievements.

Now normally I don't watch these videos because it's not my bag, but this one cracked me up to no end. It's really short and worth a watch if you love cute animals. Also, it's not safe for work, or children (yay!).

Fairytale Fights: Good For Your Eyes! Achievement Guide

I had not heard of Fairytale Fights before today but after watching this video I'm dying to play it.

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It Was WAY Too Early For That Shit

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:54:09 -0500

Co-worker S and I ventured out for early morning coffee shortly after the work day began on Tuesday. We cut through the parking lot of the office to get to the bakery, it's only a two minute walk for primo coffee. I was a zombie that morning and not feeling very chipper yet. I was sipping my brain juice as S was telling me about something when I first caught site of the horror.

When I first took this job, I mentioned the pay-by-the-hour motel out behind the office. It's also the place where the old farts were sitting when I was sexually harassed on my first day of work. It's a really run-down place and masses of losers hang out in front of it during the day. I'm glad the police patrol the block in the evening because I hate walking by it to get to my car now that it's dark at 5. I recently got an office upgrade so no longer have to look at this monstrosity from my window, but S and I had to walk by the back side of the building when returning from the bakery.

Not quite awake yet, something at the top of the fire escape caught my eye. I noticed the door on the third floor was opening and a head popped out. In fact, it was a head and shoulders that looked quite a bit like Cranky's scary bear of a classmate. A look of terror crossed my face and I made a noise that sounded like, "oooeeegaaauuuh" as I caught site of the dude's bare ass as he turned to go back in the motel. Had I been in my old office and peering out the window at that exact moment I would have seen far worse than bare ass. Thank dog for small favors.

A Hairy Ass - Sean Morey

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Insert Your Own Cornholio Joke Here

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:55 -0500

Man, I didn't sleep well last night at all. I swear I woke up at 3:49 three times. I don't know how that's possible but it was sure fucking with my head. I eventually dreamed that some guy came into my office and starting asking me ridiculous questions about my job that didn't even apply to me. He was really angry that our retirement plans didn't offer an investment in oil. He got really confrontational, so I just got up and left. I ended up having to face an inquiry over my actions. I called my HR director, who for some reason was Fred Willard in a pair of leather short shorts. He wouldn't listen to my plea of innocence and insisted that I had to face a public inquiry no matter what. I'm in a very small town now so I packed up my office and was calling it quits. No one would survive that kind of shit storm in a small town and live to tell about it. It was so stupid but I woke up in such a bad mood. No more 9PM therapy sessions for Val.

Anyway, onto something else that irks me. Northern Toilet Paper. Man, I used to like Northern. It was the perfect tp and usually reasonably priced. When I got my latest 24 pack, though, I was pissed to open it and find these rolls small enough for the Barbie Dreamhouse. I still had one of the pieces of cardboard from my last package for comparison.

I thought it was important to put something else up there for scale so I used the ever-important bacon lip balm.

Teepee-0

Look at how much shorter that is! Ladies, I think you can especially relate on this one that those extra few centimeters make the difference.

Teepee-1

You can't tell from this too well, but not only is it shorter, it has a greater circumference, which means less t.p. overall on the roll.

Here's a better example of this.

Teepee-2

What the hell, Northern? I'm totally switching to another brand after this is gone. I can understand prices going up in times like these and I would rather see that than this. This diminishes the quality of your product and brand reputation.

/end rant

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Carnivore

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:32:54 -0500

I'm sure I've posted this bit before, but the Price Chopper grocery store chain has the most sexually tilted slogan:

We know meat so you can too...at home, where it counts.

In the commercial it's always a butcher giving the sexeh eye to a milf.

It is true, though, Chopper does have good meat. In fact, I went there last night purely for a meat run. Steaks, chops, chicken, fish and even some sushi. And that's it. The poor bagger was this teenager without two brain cells to rub together. My entire purchase slid down the conveyor toward him at once, it's not like I had a huge cart full of groceries. As it did, he looked up at me earnestly and asked:

Do you want all of your meat in one bag?

Blink. Blink. "Uh sure..." I told him. The reason baggers ask this question is so they know whether or not to, say, put meat with canned items or whatever. I only had meat so I was so thrown by his question.

When he'd packed three bags full he looked at me quizzically again and inquired:

Do you want these in your cart?

Blink. Blink. I was nice and replied with a polite, "Please." But WTF? Did he want me to push their gigantic carts to the cart return and carry three heavy and awkward bags at the same time? I could see that if I had only picked up a loaf of bread or something, but these were bulky bags of meat (that sounds nasty).

Anyway, I had just gotten off work and my brain was spent already, but this just seemed like such a weird exchange. Poor kid, probably isn't even 17 and he's already turned off his brain and switched to auto pilot.

01 Meatplow

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I Myself Am Strange and Unusual

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:36:42 -0500

I finally watched my first blu-ray last night. Instead of starting with something spectacular that was filmed digitally I decided to revisit a favorite film from my childhood.

After watching Beetlejuice (it looks like one on the box, but IMDB lists it as two words) I realized that if it were to come out in the theater today, I'd think it looked ridiculous and stupid. I'd never even give it a chance. And while I still found a good deal of it to be charming and funny, I don't think it really held its own over time the way I wished it would.

In the end, I realized that Winona Rider and Danny Elfman's score were truly the best things to come out of Beetlejuice.

The Blu-Ray even came with a cd containing a handful of songs from the movie.

First, the obligatory Banana Boat Song (sadly, the only Belafonte track included).

05 The Banana Boat Song

Harry Belafonte

And here's my favorite of the included Elfman tracks. It's the bit where the Maitland's jump into the car and head to town right before that fateful trip over the bridge. Without the normally included dialog you can hear just how good this piece really is. It's less than a minute and a half, but it's very nice.

03 The Aftermath

Danny Elfman

Oh yeah, the blu-ray also came with three episodes of the animated series. I watched that when I was a kid and boy does it explain why my brain is mush today.

I'll eat anything you want me to eat. I'll swaller anything you want me to swaller. So come on down, now. I'll chew on a dog, now. Arroooo!

Edit: After much internal struggle I went back to Beetlejuice as one word instead of two because it looks stupid as two and I agree with the commenters that IMDB is plain wrong. There is that scene where BJ plays charades with Lydia and he's getting her to figure out his name and says it's two words, but that could just be for the purpose of charades. Man, I am way overthinking this. Also, I should mention that every.single.time I start to type Beetlejuice I spell it Beatle. Sigh. It was probably junior high before I realized I had never spelled "beetle" correctly. Damn records.

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I'm Gonna Wash That Rock Right Outta My Hair

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:54:30 -0500

I really should wash my hair. The last time I did it was on a day that rhymes with Pie Day. Oooh...pie!

It has been a productive day, I am ready to crack open a beer and go to bed shortly (despite the fact that it's not even 2 pm yet). Was up at the new buttcrack of dawn, rolled outta bed around 5:15. Damn body clock. It ended up working out. We had an open house down in Albany today and there was yard and house work to be done. I managed to fill four refuse bags with leaves and clippings - and that was just from the landscaped area of the yard. I've filled 10+ bags in the springtime doing work, but today was a lazy day I guess. Fuck raking the regular yard. It's mulching mower all the way on that. Now I can't move from all the hedge trimming, using those giant sheers is empowering but painful.

So, onto the real point of the title. You've heard enough of the rawk from me lately. Hows about we change it up a bit?

12 Midnight Sun

Ella Fitzgerald

Happy Sunday folks.

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Paul's Broken A Glass, Broken A Glass

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:31:19 -0400

No matter where you are in life or what you want to do in a day, there is a Beatles song or record to suit your needs. So I present:

Val's Handy Guide to Listening to the Beatles*.

Beatleband

Has your best gal broken things off? Just feeling down in the dumps? Reach out and pick up Beatles For Sale.

02 I'm A Loser

The Beatles

Wanna get high? Wanna do something trippy? Go rent Yellow Submarine. Those Blue Meanies will totally fuck with your head.

Yellow Submarine

04 Hey Bulldog

The Beatles

Wanna get Naked? (Naked deserves two)

1-09 I Me Mine

The Beatles

1-06 I've Got A Feeling

The Beatles

Want to feel happy? Listen to Abbey Road. All of it.

07 Here Comes The Sun

The Beatles

Want a good study of the Beatles? Listen to all of the White Album. Oh look, I've already loaded the entire thing on Vox before. Click here to listen to the whole thing.

In addition to this, if you want to pull yourself out of a funk, head straight over to Dear Prudence.

Instructions for listening: Bop along and when you hit 2:50, crank it really loud and and I dare you not to sing out at the top of your lungs.

1-02 Dear Prudence

The Beatles

Want to hear the best thing on Anthology? Listen to this sweetened version of I'm Looking Through You. Pay special note to the beautiful acoustic guitar throughout. Perfect.

1-15 I'm Looking Through You

The Beatles

Feeling German? You know, German's don't only love David Hasslehoff and The Lumberjack Song but they're also known to be big fans of the Beatles.

08 Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand

The Beatles

Need more cowbell?

12 You Can't Do That

The Beatles

And lastly, the Same Time Last Year: the whole end of Abbey Road all spliced together in one track. Happy Beatles Day!

*Incomplete for sure!

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This is the Mystery of the Quotient

nobody@vox.com(Valerae) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:21:31 -0400

It's damn hard to pick out a Zeppelin song. I thought maybe I'd post all of Houses of the Holy but then I realized I posted The Song Remains the Same last year, which is the first song off of HotH. So instead, I think I'll hit up the next song off of the album, it's fitting anyway. If Rocktober, dog forbid, were to drag on for six more years, I'll get the whole album posted.

02 The Rain Song

Led Zeppelin

Have I mentioned before that I was born at almost the exact moment of Bonzo's death? I always wondered if his spirit was reincarnated into my wee baby self...I think, though, that he used up all of the rhythm that is allocated to one soul.

Same time last year: Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!

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