Tomorrow I Golf. For Charity.

Poor, poor charity.

I Am Alive. Barely.

As I have mentioned on many past occasions, I spend a decent amount of time in my kitchen, and not just because that is the room of the apartment which contains the designated Catan table. As a result of this, combined with my eternal absent-mindedness (Which I also hold responsible for the fact that anytime I hold a marker for over thirty seconds, half its ink winds up on my hands), I am usually dealing with between three and five minor hand injuries at any given time, ranging from slight burns to small cuts, which are prevented from becoming large cuts primarily by the fact that my knives were all ridiculously cheap due to the fact that they are slightly less sharp than Mark Twain's wit (Present-day dead version). So it is no real surprise that last night I suffered a cut on my thumb. However, the specifics are slightly out of the ordinary. I was not cut by a knife, you see. Rather, my knife performed its primary job (Not cutting me) admirably. My thumb was cut by a carrot.

Like this. But evil.
Okay, maybe just like this.

How did I manage this?, you may well ask yourself. And was the cruel perpetrator captured, sauteed with dill and served with catfish? The answers are, respectively, that I was evidently holding the foul vegetable with the point of my thumb on the cutting board when my knifework caused the carrot to slide, making me bleed a bit from under the nail, and it's kind of creepy that you knew that much. I have got to start closing my blinds at night.

Update: YOU FOUND IT! CONGRATULATIONS!

'Tis A Special Day

Happy Birthday, sis.

Delicious Cake

I'm very late to the party on this one, but it is a party I am unwilling to miss, regardless of severe tardiness issues. For those of you who don't know of it, there is a cable television channel out there called Food Network. And a decent amount of the time, its shows are actually about food. Not necessarily good types of food, but food nonetheless. Then there are their other shows, about Guy Fieri buying coke in seedy diners or whatever. And then there are the unclassifiable shows. Foremost amongst these is the wonderful/reprehensible/nauseating Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. This show, Sandra claims, will teach you how to make delicious meals that are no fuss out of 70% store-bought ingredients and 30% fresh ingredients, because who has the time to cook these days? The answer: obviously not Sandra.

You see, the premise for the show is reasonable enough for a certain target market. The problem lies in the fact that Sandra has no idea whatsoever how to cook (If you would like proof of this, here is a recipe she made on-air for a skirt steak flavored with 1/4 cup of taco seasoning, then topped with a chocolate-merlot sauce. Really. I swear to god. The users' comments on the recipe might be even funnier than the recipe itself). She simply throws things together at random and then either fakes a foodgasm when she tastes them, or eschews the tasting of her terrifying creations altogether in favor of moving on to her favorite portion of the show: cocktail time! This is the part of the show that explains the whole thing. Sandra's drinking habit. She excitedly makes a cocktail on every show, and then even more excitedly consumes it. Based on how the shows go, it's entirely possible that this is how she prepares for them as well. Not that these are necessarily any better-tasting than the food, but at least if you drink enough of them first, the rest of the mess might seem palatable (You think I'm kidding about these being bad? Oh no. Here is one that combines lemonade, heavy cream, and vodka. Oh yes, you read that ingredient list right. Sandra is evidently not familiar with the term 'curdle').

But then, why does she have a show? I am not entirely sure. But she is blond and prettyish, which apparently goes a long way when combined with rampant alcoholism and a total disregard for the stomachs of her viewing audience. This probably has something to do with it. However, where her show absolutely shines is in her favorite thing other than booze, her 'tablescapes'. Every episode she coordinates things so that her entire dining room is filled with randomly-glued-together items from a craft store designed to accentuate the 'theme' of whatever terrifying menu she has concocted (If you're feeling really motivated, Youtube has a video of the time she covered her christmas tree with all the glasses from her bar. "It shines just like real crystal!" Amazing). Her kitchen will inevitably match whatever she is wearing. It is terrifying. She is essentially a completely over-the-top stereotype of a bored 1950s housewife with a severe drinking problem frozen and then brought back to life in this century and thrust directly in front of a television camera. She simultaneously terrifies and amuses me. Why this lengthy preamble? To give you some context for the greatness that is to follow. Behold: Sandra Lee making a Kwanzaa cake.



You're welcome.

These Guys Are Probably Tired

These two tennis players are John Isner and Nicholas Mahut (Isner's on the left. He's tall), who were slated to play each other in an early round of Wimbledon yesterday. And they did, but they weren't finished yet when it got dark, so the match was suspended until today, when they went out to play the fifth set, tied at two sets apiece. And they played the fifth set until it got dark, at which point it was again suspended, and now they will attempt to finish it tomorrow. In case you aren't familiar with how the scoring works here, each set in tennis is won by the first person to win six games, with there being a tiebreaker if the players are, well, tied. Except in the fifth set, which goes until a player leads by two games or someone collapses and dies on-court, whichever happens first. As it stands right now, this match is tied 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 59-59. That last bit is not a misprint. They have now been playing this match for over 10 hours, 7 of which was spent on the fifth set today. Yes, seven hours of tennis in one day. Isner was tired enough today that he swung and missed at the ball. Twice. Mahut fell down.

Get up, wuss.

The match is scheduled to resume tomorrow, so please, if you're a fan of great tennis or watching people die on-court for the amusement of spectators, tune in.

The Truth

Pre-introductory note note: Apparently something has changed in the default blog layout so that embedded videos are now cut off on the right-hand side. As much as I don't want to change my blog layout due to familiarity and/or laziness, this may necessitate it. It shouldn't matter too much for this video, but let me know if it's irritating you like it is me and I'll see what I can do.

-The Management

Before you click on that play button sitting there so temptingly below, I just want to say that this video comes with both a language and content warning. From me. At the same time, it is possibly the funniest thing I have heard this year, even though it was originally released in 2004. This makes me ahead of the times as far as the Midwest is concerned. So now, please enjoy the vocal stylings of Mr. Greg Giraldo, if appropriate for your sensibilities.



And in doing some research, apparently the guy behind Lazyboy was originally in Aqua. Yes, that Aqua. I don't really know how I feel about that, but I definitely like this much better.

Indiana, You've Got A Problem

As I'm sure you all know because everybody who reads this knows me (Feel free to point this out in the comments, Isaac), I recently drove a U-Haul from Vermont to Minnesota, which is only marginally more fun than it sounds. Due to a tragic error on the part of the founding fathers, this meant that I had to drive through Indiana on my journey. Now, having grown up in Vermont, I never paid much attention to Indiana during my younger, more vulnerable years, knowing it only as the place where Hoosiers was filmed, I think, and where John Mellencamp probably came from, and hopefully can be sent back to. Having spent somewhere upwards of two hours in the state, I am now a fully qualified Indiana expert or something of the like, and would like to share my misery with you. So please, join me as you learn everything there is to know about the only state in the union to rival Delaware in terms of utter dullness! Hey, where did everybody go?

The first thing I noted upon driving through Indiana was that there was absolutely nothing there, an observation that the remainder of the trip would utterly fail to contradict. In fact, I believe that on I-90, Indiana actually had more rest areas than exits. Which is amazing. Fortunately, the horizon does not detract from the nothing throughout the state, as anytime I stood up I immediately became the tallest thing in sight. I thought I saw a hill once, but it turned out to be a dream I had. About Indiana. Worst. Dream. Ever. But despite all of this, there is something very distinct about Indiana beyond the remarkable number of Christian rock stations on the FM band (Many of which were absolutely hilarious. Picture a more bombastic version of Creed. Now don't picture it. Aren't you happier the second way?), and this is the number of public service/notice posters at each and every rest area, all of which were about meth. Specifically, the fact that you should not do or manufacture it. Now, I thought this was a fairly well-known sentiment due to meth's rather severe effects, but apparently after spending enough time in Indiana, these start to look rather appealing, which I can actually understand.

So that's Indiana in a nutshell. Jesus rock and meth. Thanks for joining me as I experience bad travel-related flashbacks. You are now a fully qualified Indianaologist or something. Someone should probably give me a government grant for all I'm doing to publicize the state here to only people who know me.

As a postscript, Indiana also did feature the city of Gary, but I'm going to file that under 'meth'.

You Are Here

And you may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

For Other Purposes:

Heaven Is Whenever

It's like a white, middle class dork's dream at the moment, with new albums out by indie royalty The National, The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene (Who somehow manage to be good in spite of that terrible name), and the ever-mighty The Fall, as well as the latest disc from The Hold Steady, who have just put out their fifth studio album, Heaven is Whenever. And as much as I'd love to tell you my impressions of their direction gleaned from the recent concert I attended were wrong, I cannot do so in good conscience. But, as much as I hate to acknowledge that eternal bastion of pretentiousness, I must agree with Pitchfork in their assessment of this album, namely, this is very clearly a transitional album for the band, moving from their past awe-inspiring awesomeness into whatever brave new world awaits, and until that endpoint becomes fixed, it's hard to entirely judge this album. But while future offerings may lead to a re-considering of Heaven is Whenever, at the moment we only have the available information to go on, and that information is not good.

Since their last album, 2008s Stay Positive, the band featured a slight lineup modification, as they lost both keyboardist Franz Nicolay and his awesome mustache:

Win

The general thinking out there was that this would signal a return to the guitar-based sounds of Almost Killed Me, losing the keyboard flourishes that had populated recent offerings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than continue with what they've been doing or return to the past, the band instead chose to take an abrupt left turn, as they have incorporated their familiar sound with what sound like the guitars U2 stopped using in 1991 (Admittedly, they found them again in 2001, when, presumably, someone in the band had gotten behind on his mortgage). In concept, this sounds like a rather awkward marriage, which is fitting, because that rather perfectly encapsulates what it turns out to be in practice.

The album begins with what sounds rather like a dobro on The Sweet Part of the City, a surprise after the last disc came out blaring the fire-breathing Constructive Summer. This is mixed in with acoustic guitars and backwards plucking, as Craig Finn revisits his by-now traditional themes of kids drinking and playing music mixed in with the requisite religious imagery/references. It's by no means a failure, but at the same time, it never manages to really be interesting either. Finn, now showing more confidence in his expanded range after the years of vocal lessons he has been taking, sings rather than sputters, and nothing of note ever happens. What is noteworthy is that there are far more background vocals than were present on past albums, a trend that will continue (And become increasingly more obnoxious) as the album progresses. Yet this is still better than track two, Soft in the Center, which attempts to bring back the guitars to restore some sense of normalcy to the proceedings, but falls flat on its face. This highlights a disturbing fact: The band has not completely turned its back on rocking out, but throughout Heaven is Whenever, they often sound awkward when they attempt to bring back the guitars. Of course, considering a decent amount of the slower songs are also off-putting maybe it's simply the songs themselves. But the fact that The Hold Steady no longer seem able to slide back into what made them a name in the first place is rather disconcerting. Anyway, Soft in the Center is a fairly generic ballad, featuring stilted riffing under Finn's singing throughout the verses, which really could be played by almost any band out there, something that simply could not be said about past offerings. But so far we're in boringly inoffensive territory. It is what used to be the band's highlight that moves this track over the line to outright awful. Over syrupy oohs and ahs, the chorus finds Finn crooning "You can't get every girl, so love the one you're with the best". Excuse me, but when did this turn into a Jimmy Eat World album? Beyond my absolute hatred of the use of the second person in music, this brings out a major break with the band's past, as Heaven is Whenever shows Finn moving away from the third-person tales of former songs. Rather, on this album he is directly in the songs, as first-person narrative dominates. Combined with the occasional second-person bits, it sounds that, rather than telling stories, Finn is now speaking directly to the audience, trying to connect with them. When he references Pavement on the dreadful ballad We Can Get Together, it isn't that they're a good band. It's that he likes them, and you like them, so won't you like him too? It's cloying, and it comes off as a desperate and disturbing attempt to keep ahold of the fanbase they've built as they abandon the very things they did to build up that following.

This is not to say that the album has no redeeming qualities. The Weekenders is a highlight, combining the now-requisite backing vocals with a wonderfully-delivered rollicking chorus which seems to feature the horse-racing clairvoyant from Chips Ahoy!, and the chorus is so wonderful that it takes multiple listens to even find the verses, which drift aimlessly along over The Edge's best atmospherics, disappearing from memory as soon as they end. The absolute highlight is Barely Breathing, a minor-key staccato affair featuring Finn's best spitting over the top as the band breaks loose. But even this is not perfect, as the random clarinet solo halfway through adds nothing to the song, save to serve as a good point to stop listening before the completely unnecessary and dismissable minute-long outro begins. Maybe I've been spoiled, but in the past they just made the whole 'playing music' thing seem so effortless that I'm rather shocked by the fact that even the minimal triumphs present on Heaven is Whenever are so hard-won. I never really thought about it when it was happening, but now that it's done, I'd love to be spoiled again.

And now let us no longer mince words: the middle of the album sucks more than a Brendan Fraser starring vehicle. The Smidge and Rock and Roll Problems both try to bring back the familiar sounds of past albums, but even musically, the band just sounds awkward, and Finn's vocals on the latter track especially are among the worst he has ever penned, and the delivery only highlights this. The band then moves into the aforementioned We Can Get Together, whose minimal goodwill is completely destroyed by the outro that takes up almost half the runtime of the song, and features a disjointed backing vocal chorus which merits the burning of the masters on its own, though nothing the band does really makes a case for saving them. And then we get Hurricane J, so generic a song that all it does for me is make me think of Jessie's Girl, hardly a masterpiece of artistic achievement (This is understatement, in case you're in the slow class). This is the song the band chose to play to a national television audience on The Colbert Report last week, as damning a sentence as I can think of. On an album full of mediocrity and worse, The Hold Steady seem to believe that the worst of the batch is what they want to put out there. Going forward, this seems like a rather bad omen.

Closer A Slight Discomfort, while still moving away from past glories, at least leaves the listener with some fond memories of the album, as it goes through a slow build over its first five minutes until it climaxes in chiming keyboard and pulsating drumming surrounded by a massive wall of sound, and it is only after it all fades out that you are struck with the realization that at the climax of the album, where everything should be peaking, Craig Finn, center of The Hold Steady, has checked out and left you with an instrumental coda. For a band whose reputation was built on Finn's firecracker persona, this is outright shocking. From here on out, the odds are the bandwagon will only get bigger, but while I still intend to watch from afar, I have officially left it.