jack saturn’s going on a west coast tour with a media showcase in january, make sure you check it out, here’s the dates:

jan. 12 | confounded books, seattle, WA — 7pm free

jan. 13 | evo’s cafÈ, eugene, OR — 7pm free

jan. 14 | modern times bookstore, san francisco, CA — 730 pm free

jan. 15 | flor y canto, los angeles, CA — 7pm free

jan. 16 | anno domini, san jose, CA — 8 pm free

jan. 18 | reading frenzy, portland, OR — 7pm free

jan. 19 | the butchershop floor, vancouver, b.c. — 8pm $5

more information at nomediakings.net, and you can still listen to some of the songs at the online romance site.

-john vanderslice posted another song from cellar door yesterday: pale horse. that fuzzy acoustic and pang of the snare sounds so incredibly industrial and dark, great stuff.
-gear freaks will want to check out this thread on james mercer’s basement studio they used to record the shins’ album chutes too narrow.

-so i’m one of the unlucky few working today. if you’re reading this right now, you probably are too, so don’t feel so bad about it, eh? christmas was a success, and now we’re working on new year’s at the murmur. get your new year’s resolutions ready, and maybe there’ll be a year in review. now, take the rest of the day off if you can. i have to watch joe lewis and max schmeling fight.

all right, so i straight up lied about having a post up yesterday, but how many people checked this junk anyway? well, for those that did, they’re probably gonna check today, too. wish everyone a happy whatever they want to call it, i’m gonna leave a little snl cheer for everyone (like last year). have a good one, see you on monday.

there’s all this crazy stuff about saddam having already been captured by the kurds and how the picture of the spiderhole being taken in august, though none of it is getting coverage. conspiracy theories aside, it’s still a little disheartening that not even this shit goes down without some weird shadow being cast on it– funny, someone a lot of people wouldn’t trust to drive you home is running the country.

-i saw the new terror alert chart and all i could think of was the conan o’brien skit where he was saying there was some crazy product placement in halle berry’s movie gothika. it showed halle berry in the asylum, and then all of the sudden, frankenberry walks by her cell. conan says, “frankenberry? halle berry. frankeyberry? halle berry.”

-oh yeah, there was a 6.5 earthquake here in l.a. today, actually it was felt all up and down the west coast. weird shit, especially being on the 12th floor. i got up and stood in the doorway while everyone else just looked around, it was pretty scary. the last time i was in an earthquake, i yelled at josh to stay watch the light and telephone poles, because we were outside on the corner of 50th and 5th.

-a list of the year’s worst movies at darkhorizons.com. i have a few on my mind myself, but i think i covered that last week.

-billy west, otherwise known as fry from futurama, has his own billy west website with a bunch of songs from his cd and other funny stuff.

-and for the nerdy types that care about usability (i have a slight desire to have good usability, but at a certain point, it gets kind of ridiculous) , but here’s a quicklist on the top
web design mistakes of 2003. there’s some more on homepage design mistakes, too.

-i’m totally slacking on posts, since i missed the post last friday, but today, you get to look at the music list, and listen to my “interesting” cover of the postal service song. lots of work this week, that’s why all this shit is coming to you so late. maybe tomorrow the post will be a little more timely, but don’t count on it, you fucks very nice people! happy holidays!

lucksmiths - naturaliste
Every time I hear The Sandringham Line, I think of driving on the highways of the Mississippi Delta, going 75 heading towards a setting sun, the black of the asphalt a stark contrast to the deep greens reaching up from the ground to the trees. All of them had ivy moving its way up towards the sky, and it was so hot and strange, and I could smell the plants growing.

I wasn’t originally going to include this album in the tops of my list of the year, but when I was struggling to find other things to include, I put this back in and started listening to all the slightly overdriven bass and kick on the tracks and realized how much I’d listened to it this year. How can a band take babysteps for 10 years and still have something refreshing to offer release after release? I don’t know, but I do know that if “What You’ll Miss” doesn’t make you get a little sentimental like that first paragraph, I don’t know what will.

The Lucksmiths | The Sandringham Line

weakerthans - reconstruction site
Regardless of length, I want an album to stay in my car for weeks at a time while still remaining somewhat fresh, and this did just that. Rich with literature and poetic intelligence, tracks in iambic pentameter, reference to Raymond Carver and Michel Foucault, and a cat’s unabashed championing of its owner. All hidden well under catchy pop songs and diverse production.

The Weakerthans | Plea From A Cat Named Virtue

ted leo and the pharmacists - hearts of oak
I don’t care what people say about the live show not holding over to the album, this record shakes shit up like crazy and I won’t hear otherwise. I listened to “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone” on headphones for the first time the other day, and heard the bass panned pretty far to the right and the drums on the left, and right at the breakdown the song just builds on every bar with another vocal track alternating from the right to the left. Besides that badass subtlety, the record contains more intelligent and political lyrics without the weight of conscientious whining or trite political incorrectness as rebellion.

Ted Leo and the Rxs | Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?

postal service - give up
I worked the night/swing shift for months, and every night between 12 and 130 am, I would head home and listen to this album. While not as disarming as the dntel/gibbard track on life is full of possibilities, there are moments that come close, the last two tracks, mostly. Really though, I think one of the most valuable things about this album is its timing, what with all the retro-rock revival going on, a blip-pop album hits the spot. And having said that, I completely took out all the blip and recorded a cover of it, because it was fun: brand new colony.

death cab for cutie - transatlanticism
I wonder how uncool it is to have two albums with the same guy on your favorites list? I don’t really care though, seeing as I tried to be honest about what was going up here, and Transat spend a lot of time in my car CD player this year. I’ve already gone over a lot of what I did and didn’t like about this album, but when it comes down to it, I can still sing along to every song. Go figure.

outkast - speakerboxxx/the love below
Nothing to say that hasn’t been said already. I bought this when I was in Bellingham in September and someone popped it in the CD player and I couldn’t figure out what it was at first. Later, when “Hey Ya” came on, we all flew around the Brandon’s kitchen washing the dishes and cleaning the counters. A month later it never made its way out of the CD player, even first thing in the morning, driving to work at 5 a.m., I thought about listening to NPR to catch up on the news, but “Ghettomusick” started playing right when I got in and I couldn’t take it out. Best damn way to wake up in the morning.

other albums that I listened to, but am too lazy to write something up on:
the strokes - room on fire, jay-z - the black album, explosions in the sky - the earth is not a cold dead place, nada surf - let’s go, exploding hearts - guitar romantic

probably would have made my list if i got off my lazy ass and bought them:
non-prophets - hope, sun kil moon - ghosts of the great highway, the shins - chutes to narrow

things on everyone else’s list that i couldn’t get into:
the constantines - shine a light, broken social scene - you forgot it in people,
my morning jacket - it still moves.

Seeing as it’s way past my bedtime and there’s no way I’m going to finish this list today, I’m going to save other list items for the next few days. More stuff I liked in 2003, including film, television, food, and randoms! Coming soon!

i’m watching i’m trying to break your heart right now, and it’s a pretty eye-opening experience. i’m pretty surprised at bennett’s abrasive production control obsessiveness about yankee hotel foxtrot, but kind of expected tweedy’s, which is pretty welcome, when you think about the difference between mixes and tracking of the songs in the film and on the record. anyways, the best part is when tweedy says something about there being holes in the songs and someone subsequently asking him if courtney love is on the record (queue rimshot).

i can tell i’m ready for holiday right about now, seeing as this week has already been so fucking long and there’s still one more day to go. too bad for me i only have two days off next week, it’s kind of drag knowing that you have to work the day after christmas, when you know everyone else will be sleeping in and shit.

-but, that doesn’t prevent me from sharing some christmas spirit with you all, here’s some free cards you can print out and give people. my favorite is the santa that eats children.

-dear nora is going to be in long beach on monday, dec. 22nd, and i’m going to do my damndest to get down there and support them at the new koos, which i think is the same koos people that used to be in santa ana. you’re welcome to come along if you want, just drop me a line. it will be a good show.

there’s a poll up at forbes where you can vote for your favorite apple ads. honestly, i don’t remember half the ads they list here, but i remember the apple ipod/vw bug ad with polyphonic spree that made me want to blow my brains outout after hearing it 50 times a day. of course, if i watched less tv, that point would be moot.

-josh flips off every h2 we see on the street, and sometimes i hope that it’s arnold rolling around in his stupid huge car, and that he wants to pull over and fight, so that he could beat our asses and we could make some fat cash off that fucker. stupid h2’s! stupid arnold!

-i checked out the short article on the terror sheets they did at lost at sea today and found two of their songs for download over there. good stuff, chris has certainly come a long way from his afronaut days. listen to same roads and what this means.

anyways, while you’re there, you should read the short interview with john vanderslice, too. while we’re on topic, everyone’s gone over to johnvanderslice.com and listened to they won’t let me run, right? i love the song, but i’m still trying to figure out if it’s about donnie darko. this one actually sounds like frank’s story, no? maybe?

-i haven’t seen these yet, but jack black in his underwear with a computer screen on his head looks funny enough, so why not? anyways, someone watch these and get back to me, huh? can’t watch them at work and my router is still fucking broken.

-here’s an article with lars von trier interviewing pt anderson. did i mention i liked magnolia? i’ve never seen dancer in the dark, however, but i hear it makes you want to waste away in a dark room until you die. that’s why i didn’t want to see it, i think.

-enter a song contest! they do this every week, and they get some pretty decent entries and it’s like nanowrimo, you know? the more you write, the better you get, so get cracking! i’m talking to you, fuckers.

-i took this quiz, too, which i stole from chromewaves (again), and i got the same results: indie pop boy. i got the same reaction: hardly emasculating, isn’t it?

-wily filipino pointed out that that bright eyes christmas song, blue christmas, is downloadable from saddle creek. he’s also got another song up, direct from wf, a cover of white christmas. things gettin’ all christmas-y up in herre.

-wow, man, we’ve got a bevvy of talent residing in the quiet confines of our cubicles here at work– another co-worker’s band with some good tunes over at thingsexplode.com. enjoy!

-ugh, i caught the last half of 24 last night and gotta say that yes, it’s jumping the shark this year, though they can still redeem themselves by killing jack bauer! that’s all i ask for this season to be good and i’ll forgive the boring and annoying characters and droll storyline. really.

-yes, this is me still not done with my christmas shopping and complaining everyday about traffic and broken wireless routers. jeese, is everyone dead out there? what the hell is going on? is still shock-settling saddam’s capture week on the internet or something, man, i swear.

for fuck’s sake, the mariners are going to hell in a handbasket. move after move they’ve been downgrading the team ever since the offseason started. signing ibanez and letting cameron walk downgrades defense and gives a negligible increase in offense. coming from a hitter’s park, you won’t see the same numbers ibanez put up in kc. not to mention the m’s overpaid for his services. getting rid of their only big bat on the bench, colbrunn, for a player that had a worse on-base percentage than cirillo last year and has failed to hit more than 7 homeruns in a season (including TWO seasons in homerun heaven, colorado). re-signing guillen was cool, but not to trade for vizquel, another overpriced non-hitter. they’ve effectively paid more to get worse.

oh, fuck it. you don’t care, so why should i?

anyways, here’s the deal: last night i tried to poke holes in my firewall at home so people could share my itunes library over the internet, and now i can’t get my router to work properly. i’ve condemned belkin before, and then took it back because i thought they were all right, but they’ve got serious compatibility issues with macs. stupid bastards.

the internet was dead yesterday anyway, i couldn’t find anything going on. i said to disposable:

“AND what is it with the fucking internet today? shit is DEAD, man. i can’t find anything interesting, i’m so bored with it right now, which is a royal pain, because now instead of avoiding work looking for cool stuff, i end up looking at boring stuff avoiding even more boring stuff, so i feel it’s less justified.”

and it was so.

-i been streaming that rocky votolato album a lot lately. chris walla recorded it, a lot of acoustic rock stuff that is catchy and serious. you’ll probably have to be in the right kind of mood to listen to it.

-holy crap, dude. it really WAS zooey deschanel singing in elf. antipopper drops the bomb, for a limited time only, zooey deschanel and leon redbone singing baby it’s cold outside, via the all-powerful fluxblog. and the zooey-props factor is on the rise.

-via chromewaves, i took the music nerd test and scored a 64.97585% - Mega Music Nerd

-ted leo is so insane that he’s going on tour *again* in january. anyway, i’m just dropping in to say i’ve got quite a bit of work to do but will make sure to drop something here later if i find it. say hi and drop something yourself if you’re so inclined.

1. Politics and Death. First of all, this list is going to be filled with a number of trivial things, so let’s get the serious shitty things out of the way, including the California recall, the war in Iraq, and the death of some great entertainers including Elliott Smith and Johnny Cash.

-Honestly, my only initial concern with the recall was the affect it was going to have on recalls elsewhere and the sway of governships towards Republicans. After Schwarzenegger was elected and he forgave loans to the fuckers that milked Californians for every cent they had in order to power their homes, rescinded the car tax so local communities won’t get the money that was supposed to give them (even though he had promised to keep the communities funds intact), and now he’s on the verge of suspending prop 98 which guarantees schools a certain amount of money. Having done exactly what he said he wouldn’t do by becoming a regular deceitful Republican politician, Gov. Schwarzenegger makes my shit list.

-It’s hard to believe that the war started this year. What with “major combat” having ended so quickly, it’s even hard to believe that only today did they find Hussein hiding in a fucking hole. Regardless of what can only be a good thing (aside from the boost it’s likely to give the administration), the war has been (until now) a complete fucking quagmire. No WMD’s, no justification for the urgency, fucking up foreign relations, Bush went ahead with the “regime change” and has cost, to date, thousands of Iraqi civilian lives, hundreds of soldier’s lives, and billions and billions of dollars.

I could go on about other things the administration has done to make this such a bad fucking year, but I don’t have all night.

-When Johnny Cash died, all I could think of was going to a bar in Greenwood in Seattle and playing “I Walk the Line” multiple times. Every time I’d walk in the bar, I’d play some Johnny Cash before we left. At the same time, thought of the slatch anecdotes from a couple years back.

While incredibly sad, Cash’s death did not have as much affect on me as Elliott Smith’s. I still haven’t figured out what exactly to say about it, but I do know that his music played an important part in a lot of people’s lives, mine included.

2. Traffic. It almost doesn’t seem right to continue this list with trivial things, but for fuck’s sake, this isn’t what you would call a quality website, so I’m going to continue the list with one of my least favorite things of the year, my commute. I take three freeways to get to work, the 105, the 405, and La Cienaga. The trip is roughly 20 miles, but on a good day, I will get to work (or home from work) in 35 minutes. On a bad day, it takes more like an hour. An hour to drive 20 miles is so excrutiating, I cannot complain and whine about it enough, as indicated by my consistent bitching and moaning about it.

Aside from the time I spend on the road, I would also like to mention the increasing amounts of idiots on the road, not just here in Los Angeles, but everwhere. And in all likelihood, I’m talking about YOUR driving, because when I’m in my car, I hate 95% of all the other cars on the road and will make it clear that I do. Glad to say, though, that my audible and usually visible vexation has only gotten me chased around the streets of LA once. (”Naw, due, I was saying VACUUM.”)

3. TV. I’ve only caught one episode of this show all year. I missed all of last season, thank God, but the season before that, the first one, James made it a point to catch Smallville every Weds. Last week, though, because Ed was a re-run, I caught an episode featuring Clark Kent tousling with Lana Lang whilst Chloes watched secretly and sobbed dramatically. Then something caught on fire, Kent saved someone’s life, and Lex did something mean. It’s amazing how WB can ruin a franchise, just like they ruined Batman, and while it’s not the Steve Harvey Show, Smallville is still very, very bad.

Other bad shows included a wide variety of reality television, including Joe Millionaire, Joe Average, Joe Blow, Joe Mama, and Cuppa’ Joe. Though I will admit that I have not seen many of the shows because I refuse to watch them, I will say that since I can barely sit through the commercials, I can see how a half hour of the show would make me want to poke my eyes out, then poke your eyes out for making me watch the show. So watch your back, because I’d probably poke your eyes out first.

4. Baseball. While I know none of you care, and even if you HAVE gotten this far on the list, I must mention how much this year sucked for baseball. Red Sox and Cubs was a no go for the World Series, Sammy Sosa corked his bat, the Mariners didn’t even make it to the playoffs, and now the Winter meetings are making them look like they’re going to suck even worse next year. Seriously, though, a couple years ago I would have give a SHIT about what’s going down in baseball, but now that I got all interested, stupid things start to happen. You know why? Because I care, and the baseball gods hate me.

5. Movies. I enjoy a bad movie every now and then, but every now and then does not mean there needs to be a bad movie out all that often, and this year was full of shitty flicks, including but not limited to Gigli, Kangaroo Jack, From Justin to Kelly, Dreamcatcher, Darkness Falls and Belly of the Beast. In any case, for all intents and purposes, that last movie is the fucking bomb if you wanna have a few riotous laughs at Steven Seagal’s expense (I snicker just thinking about the soundtrack of Seagal’s heavy breathing), but Kangaroo Jack isn’t even funny to watch for it’s awfulness. So the next time you see either Anthony Anderson or Jerry O’Connell, punch them in the neck for me and demand recompense for time allotted to that piece of shit. And for your information, I was PAID to watch that movie, and I still want my money back.

-Check back next week for 2003’s Useless List of Things I Liked!

In January, 2002, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, spoke at Georgetown University. There he urged Afghan-Americans, especially young ones, to move back to Afghanistan.

It’s possible that the very first teenager to heed his invitation was Hyder Akbar, seventeen, from Concord, California. In the summer of 2002, he travelled with his father to live in their home country.

i heard an excerpt of this on morning edition. damn good stuff. the archive is at this americanlife.org, and part II will be playing all weekend on this american life, usually on saturday mornings.

-so the dodgers send brown to the yanks in return for weaver and some cash, which will free up money for the dodgers to pursue tejada. i’d be lying if i said i don’t want the dodgers to pursue tejada. if that gets the mariners a step closer to vlad, then so be it. if that doesn’t happen, i’d like tejada signed, and in a fantasy situation, a trade to cincinnati, cirillo and garcia for griffey, put leone in at third and carlos still at short.

that said, this weekend is baseball’s winter meetings, which are a lot like presidential politics. with gore’s endorsing dean, i’d like dean to get clark in as secretary of defense, like disposable says. clark was on the daily show recently.

-owl and i were looking for quilts the other day (don’t ask), and i ran into the design within reach website, and found ourselves looking at $1500 rugs and exorbitantly priced but cloyingly hip furniture. they’re also holding a contest for champagne bottle wire chairs.

-i didn’t read this shit, but i know some nerd wants it, so i got it for you. a spoiler-laden plot synopsis of star wars episode III. i’m pretty sure i didn’t read it not because i didn’t want spoilers, but because i didn’t really care. boo, lucas. boo. unless he gave me a job at lucasfilm presidio. then hooray, lucas. hooray.

-and if you really wanna nerd the fuck out, you can be a cheap-ass dude and build your own wi-fi access point. nevermind the fact that with parts and labor, it’ll probably cost more than if you had just dropped some cash on one, but i guess if you’re geek enough, that’s not the point.

-holiday party action tonight. going to amoeba beforehand, (they have their 2003 list up, it’s really long). this weekend i need to get some serious holiday shoping done, and you probably do, too. monday, though, i promise, promise, promise, i will have some sort of list up to replace those stagnate reviews in the mid-section. have a good weekend and get some fucking holiday spirit for chrissakes. jesus.

i was gonna link this thing from gizmodo about the heads-up display on motorcycle helmets, but nytimes is register only, and i didn’t really want to take the time to try and recall my nyt account, so i’m just going to mention it and be done, even though the amount of time i’ve just taken to explain my action (or rather, inaction) would have gotten me into the paper and you the link. take that!

-tell me, why does disdain for an audience sound so much funnier than adoration for it? ahh, nevermind. i’m really ADD’d out today, man, i can hardly keep a single thought in my head.

-i’ve been going back to the tapeop message boards pretty much daily listening to people’s recordings of stuff and have found a lot of good songs. so, long overdue, here’s a quick playlist of a few songs that i found, including a couple holiday tunes. enjoy!

international falls | the plateau
very elephant 6ish indiepop, tambourines, beach boy harmonies, and fuzzy guitar and drums. enjoyable all around.

the king and caroline | mortality classes
gbv inspired acoustic rock. lots of phasing, hooks and inspiring in its simplicity.

the monolators | santa vs. dave matthews
the drums are pretty hilariously sloppy on this, and the vox have a nice lennon-ish reverb. i love that you can hear the smile at the end.

tincantelephone | christmas is warm
very mothersbaugh-ish glockenspiel/organ based tune with some nice vocals and definitely a good christmas vibe.

-i was thinking about using this timeline tool for something, but as usual, think i don’t have enough time to devote to something like that, and ended up just posting it here instead.

-this weekend in seattle is the hi five to i-5 compilation release party at the vera project. there’s going to be a lot of good bands there, so be sure to check it out if you’re in town. life and times of you | everyplace is like anyplace else is still hosted here if you want a preview of what’s on the comp, which has an amazing list of bands. if you didn’t click that link you probably should.

-can you believe how much work it is to bring you the rock? i can’t, and i fucking write this shit. ahh, back to paid work for me.