Today's Sign Of The Apocalypse

Our thermometer outside reads 36ºF. Meanwhile, it's 53 in Blacksburg, VA.

Did I Miss Something?

Approximately a 16 block area of Koreatown today reeked of burnt weed.

Laughlin is the new Vegas.

Thanksgiving '06

Sean's post basically covered it. I'm off to the Hoover Dam, where I plan to somehow make everyone I know jealous.

I wanted to eat an entire pumpkin pie yesterday, but I fell tragically short.

We're Glad He's Gone Photo Of The Day

I was rooting through my hard drive and found this picture from a couple years ago that I ripped off the cover of the Washington Post. To this day, I can't imagine what the context was.

Additional Feedback

rorschachfauxpas: i read your blog, i find it informative and stimulating

That's a comma splice, but I'll overlook it.

How I Spent My Weekend

Caveat Emptor

If you buy the LA Times at Starbucks today you don't get the section containing the crossword puzzle. Fair warning for those whose daily 50 cents is allocated mostly for the crossword.

Oh, and the new Blood Brothers record is shockingly good. The video for "Laser Life" isn't so hot, but I really don't know what to expect from music videos anymore.

Alright, and one vaguely-titled link to an amusing news story.... I would have voted for him for president.

Unnecessarily Enthusiastic Speech Of The Day

This really makes Howard Dean look tame, especially since Dean was supposed to be fired up. Steve Ballmer? I'm not so sure. There's a bunch of half-assed remixes on YouTube as well, but you can find those on your own.

ATTN: Peanut Gallery: I know this video isn't exactly new. KTHX.

Paranoia and Pharmaceutical Reviews

After going from 1997 through 2005 without taking any over-the-counter medication (other than the occasional Nyquil blast), I can now safely say that, while it's fun to hit your chest and listen to whatever evil spirits acid reflux had conjured up just dissolve (the grammar in this sentence really is in a rapid downward spiral), Prilosec OTC is a must have if you've adopted a lifestyle that involves 40-60 ounces of coffee every morning.

I'm not entirely sure why so many hits to ebay come up when you search Google Images for Prilosec. Maybe I could be turning the 7 bucks I spend at Ralph's into easily 9 or 10.

Lagwagon - Mr. Coffee


An overly suspicious friend of mine strongly believes that, while the Democrats' recent victory may be good in the short term, the election was all simply part of "the plan," and that voting in most states was actually rigged. He then lent me a book called Rule By Secrecy by Jim Marrs, which presents evidence that the Illuminati and Freemasons really do control all world events. I'm naturally dismissive of these all-encompassing secret society conspiracy theories, but you have no idea how badly I want to believe that there's a one world order meeting in an underground hideout in the Southeastern part of the Czech Republic planning the path of the globe for the next thousand years. The book gets a little absurd when Marrs begins to travel down the "aliens developed the Mesopotamian civilizations" path, but I suppose you can't say for sure unless you were actually there. All I know is the Babylonians brought us Gilgamesh, and I didn't like it.

It's Official.

USC is shipping me off to Cuba in May. I hope they let me in.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, But Not As Strange As Lies (Or As True)

You can lecture me to your heart's content about the injustices I may impose on a bar by adding "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Right Now" to the jukebox queue, but there's never been a time in my life I've wanted to start an unruly bar brawl more than tonight when a drunk girl and her intoxicated boyfriend found the skip button behind the jukebox to jump over the Smiths, Elvis Costello and INXS selections (it was the best they had) to play "Love Song." Like the bartenders hadn't already endured that song eight times tonight (and probably have eight more time since I left).

Dreadfully Behind On The Times

Has anyone ever played the Howard Dean For Iowa game?

I can't say I was missing much, other than my generic missing of the candidate himself.

Teasers and Things Learned on Dictionary.com

The definition of the word myriad has a few main points:

An indefinitely large or unquantifiable amount

Composed of numerous diverse facets

Ten thousand

My question is, if myriad has an assigned numerical value (even though that contradicts many of its definitions), how come there's no value assigned to, say, plethora or multitude? (By the way, plethora is a pathetically overused and annoying word - please just say a lot). So anyway, in the interest of using a bunch (there's another one!) of obnoxiously large and nerdy words for the sake of it, I bring you:

The Hybrid Verbal and Mathematical Value Assignment Theory

I haven't actually written it yet, but it's going to be fucking complicated.

Addendum

After that last post, we went on a six hour roulette binge at New York New York that led to me nearly falling asleep on the table and being asked to leave by the pit boss (thankfully not alcohol related). The lack of sleep during the week has officially ruined me.

Ten-Second Borrowed Laptop Vegas Post

Down 100 bucks, only slightly intoxicated, and we sat in the "dragon" section at Medieval Times (which means you get to root for the bad guy, who obviously never wins).

Yesterday I took 150 at craps and threw up on the monorail. I think I'm ready to go home.

I haven't checked my email or turned on my phone in 36 hours, and it feels pretty great.

Ten-Second Show Review

Any sense of eloquence or flow fails me this evening. I have a midterm in the morning.

Minus the Bear put on a sensational live show. Dave Knudsen is probably the most underrated musician to come out of Seattle in the last ten years. He's managed to raise the proverbial bar in two entirely different genres between Botch and Minus the Bear, and his playing style is nearly impossible to replicate. They're supposed to be releasing a bunch of remixes from Menos El Oso this year... I'd rather they just put out a new record.

P.O.S. has come a long way since he did a half-hour set on our stage a few years ago. He's now a fully-functional indie-rap operation (his 5-gig ipod has been replaced with an actual DJ), although he continues to throw in some incredible a capella sequences that were the original reason I began to enjoy his music. He coaxed a room full of 800 "impatient hipsters" (his words) to almost unanimously nod in approval by the end of his allotted hour. Scheduletwo.com has a bunch of live videos from earlier this year (and surprisingly the sound quality doesn't suck). I wish his actual albums were better...

The Velvet Teen and Russian Circles also played. I didn't watch (although I highly recommend checking out the Velvet Teen for a less masturbatory version of the Mars Volta).


Minus The Bear - The Game Needed Me

"The Election In Virginia Is As Tied As The Bible Is Bound"

HA!

I Like The Old Days, But Not All The Old Days

Considering the overall horrible crop of music that's come out this year, it's quite a relief to occasionally find a good record, even if you're four months behind. Alaska's Long Winters released a pretty great record on Barsuk (a label that managed to elude me in the promo department) over the summer. The record is very similar to Nada Surf's most recent offering, which probably isn't all that surprising to anyone. The lyrics are on the jaded and despondent side, but far too eloquent to be considered "emo." I'm impressed.

Pitchfork Review
Full-Album Stream

Studying Is For Loosers

Looking back on it, this blog is already packed full of lies. Well, one specifically. Didn't my first post say something about not talking about myself? That promise is really looking like a bust, given the number of sentences on here beginning with "I." I'm sorry that I'm not sorry.

Probably almost everyone I know would benefit from subscribing to the Grammar Girl podcast. The music is cheesy and the host is dull, but having the ability to know the difference between "affect" and "effect" is priceless.

Corrections

I actually did see Borat. It was funny until I fell asleep. One should not go to a movie when his only consumption of the day is two Strongbows and a few Eclipse mints.

I Might Be The Only Person On Earth Not Seeing Borat This Weekend

I'm pretty sure I saw the guy who played Batmanuel on Fox's short-lived live action version of The Tick driving on Highland a few minutes ago. Then again, it also could have just been a random mexican.

The newly-remodeled Griffith Observatory (founded by the particularly redundant Griffith J. Griffith) has exactly two statues on its grounds. The Albert Einstein one makes sense, but I'm a little more confused by James Dean's presence, particularly in the absence of, you know, Copernicus or Big Bird. I also have rotten things to say about the "Galactic Express" bus that picks you up from Hollywood and Highland. But yeah, cool place.

The Borat movie looks great, but I'm a bit disenchanted by the overealous frat-boy crowd that has latched onto it as a way for coping with the demise of Chapelle's Show. I'll go on a weekday afternoon.

What's So Funny About Depression-Era Institutional Pedophilia?

We're playing a competitve simulation game in Marketing class, and I have twice this week completely and unilaterally overhauled our group's strategy. We went from 36th place to 3rd place, and still fear I may be deposed as group leader (although that fear is based on absolutely nothing). School's weird like that.

It's disturbing to the point of amusement (well... almost) that people in places of political prominence like George Allen and this guy can launch themselves over the handlebars and people are still convinced that a Freudian slip from the eternally idiotic John Kerry can actually hamper the Democrats' bid to reclaim Congress. I'm sure if we looked at video footage of that Kerry speech, you'd see a disguised Karl Rove lurking behind stage with whiteout and a sharpee.

The OC is done. Details (in the form of 24 more poorly-written episodes) to follow.

Even after a reported 18 gajillion youtube streams of Ok Go's treadmill performance on the MTV whatever awards, they've still only shipped a paltry 230,000 records. Viral marketing is an urban myth.

If you hang around the USC business school enough, you'll start to wonder why you overhear "what's your vertical?" throughout the halls. I'm not a particularly athletic person, so I can't say I'd be comforted by people being so concerned with my vertical leap, but this buzzword replacement for "major" is sort of a silly concept. Instead of "majoring in" something, you are "aligned to" your vertical. People actually talk this way. Hi, I'm Kevin, and I'm aligned to the Entreprenuership, Small Business, General Management and Nonprofit vertical.

Gawker's "Great Moments in Journalism" feature has been somewhat enjoyable recently. I still have trouble remembering the site exists, however, so I occasionally have to mention it here. This blog is here for me, not you.

I'm considering just starting to lie a lot on here. Thoughts?