July 20, 2013
Sounders v Rapids
1-1
These kinds of games stink.
We played well enough to get three points.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
7/19
July 19, 2013
Justin Townes Earle - Slippin' and Sliddin'
Long Way Down on Hulu
Jimmy Fallon
Jesse and the Rippers Reunion
Long Way Down on Hulu
Jimmy Fallon
Jesse and the Rippers Reunion
7/18
July 18, 2013
Carlin Isles - USA Rugby
Grantland
A year later, Isles is an oxymoron: He's an American rugby player with fans. A YouTube video of Isles blowing past tacklers — he runs a 4.2 40-yard dash — has 3.3 million views. With its Pulp Fiction soundtrack, the footage is perfectly calibrated for American NFL fans. If you have no clue what Isles is doing, or how many points a try is worth, you can still appreciate that he is running to daylight and that he is, in some inscrutable way, awesome. "I do feel like a kick returner, like Devin Hester," Isles told me. "I see that space and my eyes light up like silver dollars."
Calvin and Hobbes Documentary
Grantland
A year later, Isles is an oxymoron: He's an American rugby player with fans. A YouTube video of Isles blowing past tacklers — he runs a 4.2 40-yard dash — has 3.3 million views. With its Pulp Fiction soundtrack, the footage is perfectly calibrated for American NFL fans. If you have no clue what Isles is doing, or how many points a try is worth, you can still appreciate that he is running to daylight and that he is, in some inscrutable way, awesome. "I do feel like a kick returner, like Devin Hester," Isles told me. "I see that space and my eyes light up like silver dollars."
Calvin and Hobbes Documentary
Dear Mr Watterson
PBS Teases Carmen San Diego
The Mowglis
San Francisco
PBS Teases Carmen San Diego
The Mowglis
San Francisco
Local Community
July 17, 2013
The Way Way Back
A walk to a small movie at a small theater followed by a craft beer and locally sourced ice cream.
Community.
Review
A walk to a small movie at a small theater followed by a craft beer and locally sourced ice cream.
Community.
Review
Friday, July 19, 2013
Jeagers
July 16, 2013
Pacific Rim
Few movies take such joy in knowing exactly what they are.
A weirdly ultraviolent game.
Stylistically similar to "Drive"
Fantastic music.
Ichiro Will Always Be My Hero
July 15, 2013
The Oatmeal - Blerch
Jon Stewart on Crossfire
Jon Stewart on Crossfire
There's an episode of Fresh Air where they interview Jon Stewart. It's been on my iPod for 3 years. I finally got around to it today.
He mentioned this interview, and that this was not what he planned to do.
If the hosts had been cool, Stewart would have been cool.
I'M TRYING TO LIKE BASEBALL AGAIN!!
WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO MAKE HIGHLIGHT HARDER TO WATCH!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Today's Photos:
MLB2012 (a video game) has a Mariners roster filled with dorks.
The only way to get excited for my team was to trade immediately for Ichiro, Mike Cameron, Raul Ibanez, and Joel Piniero. I miss Ichiro most of all. He was my hero.
The only way to get excited for my team was to trade immediately for Ichiro, Mike Cameron, Raul Ibanez, and Joel Piniero. I miss Ichiro most of all. He was my hero.
The only way I'll ever see the Mariners win the World Series is in a video game.
Start Watching This!
July 14, 2013
Naked and Afraid Marathon
This show is crazy. It's not lewd or salacious. It's a survival challenge where the two people have nothing, not even clothes on their backs. They get to bring one survival item and have to stay out there for 21 days. All the episodes are on Discovery Channel and they are pretty amazing.
The guy from the clip above is kind of a jerk and gets a massive sunburn that puts him out of commission for a week.
Today's Photos:
My phone ate all my contacts again.
Blerg.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Lose Yourself To Dance
July 13, 2013
Daft Punk w/Pharrell - Lose Yourself To Dance
Neko Case - Man
Kacey Musgraves - Follow Your Arrow
Phosphorescent - Song for Zula
San Fermin - Sonsick
Today's Photo:
Bastille Day at Bastille
Backup Singers
July 12, 2013
Every Pixar movie is connected. I explain how, and possibly why. Several months ago, I watched a fun-filled video on Cracked.com that introduced the idea (at least to me) that all of the Pixar movies actually exist within the same universe. Since then, I’ve obsessed over this concept, working to complete what I call “The Pixar Theory,” a working narrative that ties all of the Pixar movies into one cohesive timeline with a main theme. This theory covers every Pixar production since Toy Story.
Another Love - Tom Odell
GTA 5 Trailer
Today's Photo:
20 Feet From Stardom
GTA 5 Trailer
Today's Photo:
20 Feet From Stardom
Go see this now at Guild 45th.
It's amazing.
"WE'RE GUARANTEED A RECORD DEAL! OUR STUFF IS THAT GOOD!"
July 11, 2013
The Touch & Feel My Heat
YP MP
Opening Steadicam Shot
Sister Christian
(I was under the weather today)
Frye Art: Mobius Sawblade
The best and worst of art.
Foreground: A Mobius Strip Sawblade
Background: A Lead Toilet Seat
"FUZZY PICKLES!"
July 9,2013
By the time the fourth season of The Wire rolled around, it had already become a cocktail party cliché to say that the show operated like “a Dickens novel.” In many ways, this was totally apt, considering the show’s serialized nature, its liberal political conscience, and its sprawling canvas. But David Simon found his literary reference point centuries earlier—centuries, even, before Shakespeare. The Wire, he said, was essentially a Greek tragedy.
“The ancients valued tragedy, not merely for what it told them about the world but for what it told them about themselves,” he said. “Almost the entire diaspora of American television and film manages to eschew that genuine catharsis, which is what tragedy is explicitly intended to channel. We don’t tolerate tragedy. We mock it. We undervalue it. We go for the laughs, the sex, the violence. We exult the individual over his fate, time and time and time again.”
In his Baltimore version of Olympus, the roles of gods were played by the unthinking forces of modern capitalism. And any mortal with the hubris to stand up for reform of any kind was, in classical style, ineluctably, implacably, pushed back down, if not violently rubbed out altogether.
“The ancients valued tragedy, not merely for what it told them about the world but for what it told them about themselves,” he said. “Almost the entire diaspora of American television and film manages to eschew that genuine catharsis, which is what tragedy is explicitly intended to channel. We don’t tolerate tragedy. We mock it. We undervalue it. We go for the laughs, the sex, the violence. We exult the individual over his fate, time and time and time again.”
In his Baltimore version of Olympus, the roles of gods were played by the unthinking forces of modern capitalism. And any mortal with the hubris to stand up for reform of any kind was, in classical style, ineluctably, implacably, pushed back down, if not violently rubbed out altogether.
Sometimes I wonder what Kim Sears thinks. It's hard to imagine being Andy Murray, playing for Great Britain's first Wimbledon men's singles title since 1936 — hard to imagine the pressure of that moment, the ambient crackle of having 60 million people look at you not just as an athlete to root for or against but as some kind of living test of national destiny. It's hard to imagine because most of us, day to day, are not followed by solemn voices intoning that the hopes of a country are resting on our shoulders. Our empathy for anyone who is in that position is probably doomed to remain theoretical, like the laugh lines in a Jonathan Franzen novel, or Manhattan if you've never seen Manhattan.
It's easier to imagine being someone who cares about that person. After all, as fans, we're already accustomed to a certain kind of highly charged powerlessness. It's only a medium-size leap between that feeling and putting yourself in Andy Murray's box during Sunday's Wimbledon final between Murray and Novak Djokovic. Being Kim Sears,1 say, or Judy Murray.2 Going through the agony of watching someone you love endure a terrific struggle, knowing the outcome will change their life, knowing you're helpless to affect it. Trying to stay composed through the stomach-punch of Djokovic breaking your loved one's serve in both the second and third sets. Figuring out what to do with your hands as the anticipation tightens. And then — finally — the flute riff of pure joy that shoots up your spine when Djokovic's backhand ducks into the net and you realize he's done it, Andy's done it, he's won Wimbledon, he's lifted the curse, he's made history.
Lorde - Royals
Cumulus - Do You Remember?
Today's Photo:
Earthbound
Cumulus - Do You Remember?
Today's Photo:
Earthbound
Get On The Bus (Remix)
"Bandera Mountain? Is That A Flat Hike?"
July 8, 2013
Savages - She Will
Savages - She Will
Night Beds - Even If We Try
Civil Wars - The One That Got Away
Valerie June - You Can't Be Told
Blurred Lines - Mario Bros
Civil Wars - The One That Got Away
Valerie June - You Can't Be Told
Blurred Lines - Mario Bros
Today's Photos:
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Dissenting Opinions
July 7, 2013
The Last of Us
A video game without the game.
I'm completely zombied out.
I found nothing new, original or fun here.
I didn't want to spend any time in this bombed-out husk of a world.
But the game has earned UNIVERSAL ACCLAIM and a 95 Metacritic score.
Not that everyone needs to reach consensus, but it feels strange to be such an outlier on something like this.
There are moments of beauty and grandeur.
But for most of the game, the scenery is piles of rubble and junk.
And every conceivable shade of brown and grey.
The gameplay is largely an excuse to take you from cutscene to cutscene
They managed to make a game where you don't play and it's not fun.
Great job?
Today's Photos:
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Box McFlipperton
July 5, 2013
3. Washington – ***BIAS ALERT*** Yes, I was born in this state. Yes, my parents live there now. Yes, I am a Seattle sports fan. But but but: snow-capped mountains, rain forests, coastline and countless sheltered bays, coffee empires, relaxed cities, excellent wineries, and an emergent Mike Leach offense. That reputation for rain? A bluff to keep you away from majestically sunny summers.
7. Rainier. This is on the sweet side of mediocre, but it's a bright, clean kind of sugar that tells soothing lies about freshness and purity.
When did restaurant meals become marathon events? Fine dining has long been a form of entertainment, with its twirling servers and momentous dessert carts. (See: any old-guard French restaurant.) But as the cult of the chef has grown, so have the stakes. It is no longer enough to enjoy a steak and a slice of cake on a Friday night with a couple of close friends. Today's near-religious obsession with food and the people who prepare it demands a perverse form of asceticism. It is to indulge like few are willing to do.
Looking to up the ante, I took on what could only be described as insanity: a 40-course, eight-hour meal centered on the cuisine of a little-celebrated Italian region.
Today's Photos:
"InstaFaceBler photos always make it seem like people are having a great time. No one takes photos of mundane repetitive tasks."
That discussion led to this photo.
Box McFlipperton was proposed as the name for a pet.
It's a very silly pet name.
'Merica! 2013
July 4, 2013
Daniel G. Harmon and The Trouble Starts
"I Am Black Waves"
Grantland
There were some inherently notable obstacles that hindered then-undefeated Nebraska in the final moments of the 1984 Orange Bowl, trailing one-loss Miami 31-24 with one minute and 47 seconds to play. The first was that Nebraska was attempting to overcome this deficit against the Hurricanes in front of its home crowd in Miami; a coach with a more combative nature than Osborne might have argued that the nation's no. 1 team — a squad that had averaged 52 points per game and was already acknowledged as among the greatest of all time — probably didn't deserve to play a road game for the national championship. The second obstacle was that the Cornhuskers were without Mike Rozier, who, in retrospect, may have been the greatest running back in college football history; he was on the bench, his ankle sprained,5 while his team drove downfield for the potential game-tying or game-winning score.
America
There were some inherently notable obstacles that hindered then-undefeated Nebraska in the final moments of the 1984 Orange Bowl, trailing one-loss Miami 31-24 with one minute and 47 seconds to play. The first was that Nebraska was attempting to overcome this deficit against the Hurricanes in front of its home crowd in Miami; a coach with a more combative nature than Osborne might have argued that the nation's no. 1 team — a squad that had averaged 52 points per game and was already acknowledged as among the greatest of all time — probably didn't deserve to play a road game for the national championship. The second obstacle was that the Cornhuskers were without Mike Rozier, who, in retrospect, may have been the greatest running back in college football history; he was on the bench, his ankle sprained,5 while his team drove downfield for the potential game-tying or game-winning score.
America
Today's Photos:
Sounders 2 - Worst Team in the League 0
July 3, 2013
Sounders v DC United
Triangle gave us free hot dogs at the end of the night.
I knew I loved that bar.
WHD Redux
July 2, 2013
Below please find my version of this article, that I want to share with you, the internet. May it bring you all the inner peace you can cram into your backpacking gear right before downward dogging it atop that mountain at sunrise.
1. Do whatever the fuck you want.
2. Do whatever the fuck you want.
3. Seriously, do you want that burger? Then just fucking eat a burger. Don’t be gross about it, and don’t eat a burger three meals a day. But I beg you, women and image-conscious male humans of the world, stop beating yourself up about it and just eat the fucking burger.
4. Do whatever the fuck you want.
5. Have good friends. Call them. Complain a little. That’s what friends are for. Return the favor. Don’t be a shitty friend.
6. Learn how to laugh about farts. Fart more. Laugh about it.
7. Be incessantly curious about the world around you! Experience art, science, beauty, and nature! But stop beating yourself up on those nights when you just want to sit your ass on the couch and watch reruns of Friends.
8. Smile when you feel like smiling. Laugh whenever you fucking feel like laughing. Pro tip: Being told to ‘laugh more’ is not going to make you laugh more. Being told to ‘smile more’ is not going to make you smile more.
9. Make time for yourself. After you’ve run that 5K, started a load of laundry, harvested your organic vegetable garden, run to the bank, paid the bills, dazzled everyone with recipes that are cost-effective, healthy, and delicious, thought of something witty and clever to share with your social networking site, caught up on current events and politics, and cleaned all of the house, that special hour set aside just for you is so critical to your well-being.*
10. Do whatever the fuck you want.
11. Don’t care what other people think. Unless they’re right. In which case, fucking humble yourself enough to listen to them.
12. Do. Whatever. The Fuck. You Want.
White House Down... Again
It's like a desert pizza
It sounds stupid but it's so delicious.
Today's Photo:
It's like a desert pizza
It sounds stupid but it's so delicious.
Today's Photo:
Trivia Is No Longer Trivial (Now You Earn Badges)
July 1, 2013
The thing that doesn’t really get discussed amidst the endless (and well-deserved) praise for Who Framed Roger Rabbit‘s technical accomplishments is its brilliant, albeit downplayed, allusions to racism in America. That’s right: Who Framed Roger Rabbit is kind of about racism. For anyone who read the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit (which the film was based on), this is no surprise. From separate elevators and drinking fountains for Toons (a label eyebrow-raisingly close to the outdated racial slur “coons”) to restrictions on buying human-made liquor and a human servant being described as “the ultimate status symbol,” the book jabs at the separations that exist within a racially charged society. It’s more subdued and re-interpreted amid the live-action/animated world of the film, but the story couldn’t exist without it.
Dentist
Normally, my hygienist is great. But she was coming off a vacation, and clearly wasn't back in the swing yet.
Ouch.
Also, Metta World Peace said "Little Shop of Horrors" was his favorite movie.
White House Down
Like a paint by numbers Picasso, you know exactly what's coming and there are no surprises.
White House Down
Like a paint by numbers Picasso, you know exactly what's coming and there are no surprises.
But at the end, you still have a masterpiece.
Today's Photo:
Sporcle now has badges.
This is dangerous.
Treatwave
June 30, 2013
What's interesting about this article is that Goodell does an amazing job tracking the economic and urban infrastructural efforts to preserve Miami in the face of rising waters. He makes it clear that this isn't some pie-in-the-sky problem — or something to be debated in Congress. It's a problem that's as concrete as preparing for the next earthquake in California or the next round of tornadoes in the midwest.
(Link from i09)
Even more than Silicon Valley, Miami embodies the central technological myth of our time – that nature can not only be tamed but made irrelevant. Miami was a mosquito-and-crocodile-filled swampland for thousands of years, virtually uninhabited until the late 1800s. Then developers arrived, canals were dug, swamps were drained, and a city emerged that was unlike any other place on the planet, an edge-of-the-world, air-conditioned dreamland of sunshine and beaches and drugs and money; Jan Nijman, the former director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Miami, called 20th-century Miami "a citadel of fantastical consumption." Floods would come and go and hurricanes might blow through, but the city would survive, if only because no one could imagine a force more powerful than human ingenuity. That defiance of nature – the sense that the rules don't apply here – gave the city its great energy. But it is also what will cause its demise.
Today's Photo:
It's so hot.
Taco Truck Fiesta
June 29, 2013
Should Mad Men's Season Finale Be The Series Finale?
But that's also why I think the ending of "In Care Of" might have been the perfect one for the series. Whether it was the Don of the early seasons, paranoid of being discovered, or the drunken lows of Seasons 4 and 6, or the temporarily "changed" self-deluded Don of Season 5, everything has been building to that moment where his facade collapses in the Hershey's meeting, everything has been driving towards the moment where he really, truly, needs to make peace with himself. And it's hard to picture Mad Men offering a resolution as beautiful, as simultaneously complex and simple, as when Don and Sally share that look outside of the old whorehouse. You can walk away with the hope that they'll be okay. It's not a guarantee, but nothing in life (or advertising) ever is.
David Aja on Writing A Comic From A Dog's Perspective
Suddenly, I started going what if --? I managed to explain everything with pictograms, everything the dog was smelling or hearing. It's a difficult comic, I think. There are lots of little details. It's the first time I have done lettering myself. I love Chris Eliopoulos, but in this issue, I put all the text in the balloons first and then erased all the words a dog would not understand. You'll see. It's something crazy. I can't believe they've let us do this stuff.
Today's Photo:
Friday, July 5, 2013
Paseo Putt Putt
June 28, 2013
IN THE ANNALS OF DENIAL, it doesn’t get much more extreme than the Seekers. They lost their jobs, the press mocked them, and there were efforts to keep them away from impressionable young minds. But while Martin’s space cult might lie at the far end of the spectrum of human self-delusion, there’s plenty to go around. And since Festinger’s day, an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called “motivated reasoning” helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, “death panels,” the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.
Also, the perch where I'd landed to eat this 6:15 a.m. meal offered a unique perspective on the casino. There were things that I never noticed about the casino as a member of the gambling community, but were revealed to me as a member of the dining community.
Like the gigantic Judge Judy game. Or the Deal or No Deal game. Or the Pawn Starsgame. And, at that point in the morning, each game was occupied.
Someone was playing a Judge Judy game for financial gain and/or loss at 6:15 a.m. on a Saturday.
I'd vacillated all evening and morning between finding joy and feeling devastatingly sad that this was a daily routine for some people. Watching someone become enraged by Judge Judy, however, mixed with the fatigue and the "chicken" and the sadness that is my gambling luck sent me over the edge.
I couldn't stop laughing. Probably seven straight minutes of giggling in the Seminole Casino restaurant area.
I was staying until bingo started.
Today's Photos:
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
12% and 40%
June 27, 2013
Personal Yeezus Remix
The video is super weird but the remix is DOPE!!
Lego Arms Dealer
Ruffneck Scarves
Adam Scott Interview
Today's Photo:
The video is super weird but the remix is DOPE!!
Lego Arms Dealer
Ruffneck Scarves
Adam Scott Interview
Today's Photo:
12% on Infinite Jest.
and 40% on my Prost punchcard.
Summer Is For Crossing Off Lists
June 26, 2013
What Kind Of Game Is Earthbound?
Boss Fight Books is writing books about video games.
Eleven seconds into EarthBound's opening, a high-pitched whine fades in. A glitchy bloodstream of red and yellow static fills the screen. The whine is matched, doubled, synced—for fifteen seconds, it sounds like a chorus of car alarms, dying satellites and falling bombs heralding in some chaos.
Boss Fight Books is writing books about video games.
Eleven seconds into EarthBound's opening, a high-pitched whine fades in. A glitchy bloodstream of red and yellow static fills the screen. The whine is matched, doubled, synced—for fifteen seconds, it sounds like a chorus of car alarms, dying satellites and falling bombs heralding in some chaos.
The static's replaced by an image of a city street at dusk. Its vanishing point is down and to the right. A placard—G A S—on the building in the foreground, frame left. Set against the purple and yellow sky are three flying saucers, each firing a ropey bolt of some energy down to the ground and into unseen buildings in the distance. It feels cinematic—the scene's letterboxed with odd concave lines, as if we're viewing it from the safety of a visored helmet, or from within some faraway theater. Capitalized and urgent red text at the top of frame reads: THE WAR AGAINST GIYGAS!
At twenty-five seconds, the sky sparks. You feel these attacks, these strikes, the flashes of white light—both in the painted sky and reflecting off the buildings—each scored with a thump of bass. Then tighter thumps, and tighter, nonrhythmic. Explosions. The music's pure dystopia now—minor notes and the convincingly rendered sound of a panicked crowd—yelling, screaming—the lightning quickens, the explosions burst closer together, the sky quickly strobes and the sound rises—the whole screen goes white—
Less than two seconds of black later, EarthBound's jazzy and Latin-neighborhood-wakes-up-to-a-glorious-sunrise-after-a-nightlong-block-party-esque theme music plays, the deco title card swings in, and you're thinking: what the fuck kind of game is this?
Burger Hero
Bob's Burgers
It's on Netflix
Today's Photo:
Schindler's List
This is exactly what summer is for.
Getting things done that you don't have time to do during the year.
But this is also not what summer is for.
Because this is not exactly a popcorn friendly summer blockbuster.
Though I didn't hate being human after watching this.
I thought it would be much more depressing.
But I found it uplifting.
Goodness wins.
Oh, I also saw The Bling Ring.
Don't bother.
(And the title of this post seems too clever and too on the nose.)
(ugh.)
Getting things done that you don't have time to do during the year.
But this is also not what summer is for.
Because this is not exactly a popcorn friendly summer blockbuster.
Though I didn't hate being human after watching this.
I thought it would be much more depressing.
But I found it uplifting.
Goodness wins.
Oh, I also saw The Bling Ring.
Don't bother.
(And the title of this post seems too clever and too on the nose.)
(ugh.)
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