man, i’ve been doing so much actual work, i haven’t been able to use much time at work to do any link collecting, and even my favorite link mining sites are bookmarked at work, and not here.

however, real quick like, you can check the hot shit from slashdot (i should just let brl take over since he provided this one, too) on the robotic tagger. the movie is pretty boring but the che mural is ill. check it out at hektor.ch.

-i’ve been absolutely loving the tivo, even though i haven’t paid for a subscription yet (tomorrow). but ever since last week, it’s been simpsons, futurama, family guy, seinfeld, and good eats, with the occassional first run episode.

speaking of futurama, how cool is it that al gore used a clip to explain global warming in his moveon.org speech on jan. 15th?

-me. sleep. now.

jade tree (pronounced paco style, a la jackie chan adventures, which would mean “yade tree”) just recently released the other guy from desaparecidos, denver dalley’s album. the band, statistics, has a song up at jade tree called a number not a name. take a listen, it ain’t to shabby.

-matt’s got a nice review of transatlanticism up, which brings up some good points, regardless of whether or not you’re willing to agree with them. i especially like the “here we are” part, because it’s oh, so true.

and can i just keep fucking harping on this whole indie 103 thing? what with the dcfc on the OC and what was it, bright eyes, too? and now indie 103 wants to commidify that? fine, fine, whatever.

-i haven’t been reading all that much on wesley clark, and a lot of what i’ve read hasn’t been substantial– there was that big thing in the nation a while back about him being nothing more than a republican in democrat’s clothing, and then just this week there was a short article from lt. gov. barbara lawton (wisconsin) that’s called why i’m for clark, which was mildly convincing, but overall, i think one of the most persuasive has been 1115.org’s wesley clark endorsement.

-i only browsed this list of the top 101 dumbest moments in business long enough to catch them make fun of some quiznos commercials and talk about how a mcdonald’s food prep area was backed up with raw sewage, but i got one for ya, how about letting people blow snot on the walls in the elevator?! that’s gotta be a bad business moment, right?

anyways, i was in the elevator and was <----this----> close to getting some nasty fucking looch on my shoulder. oh well, at least it wasn’t pee, right? i can’t find my mufucking post about it, but remember when there was a pee bandit loose in the building? you could see the pee stains on the wall, right by the buttons. that sucked.

-everyone’s going crazy over this dj dangermouse grey album shit, for good reason. it’s pretty hot. check fluxblog for a piece while you can. change clothes.

so, i’m a rube that missed craig kilborn’s show featuring death cab for cutie’s national television debut, but thank the lord, for it has been found. check out death cab live on craig kilborn, and revel in its weirdness.

-this shit is kind of scary, but kinda cool in the way where you thought that plastic gun that john malkovich used in in the line of fire was kind of cool. that’s right, more videos for your bored ass at work, ladies and gents the cell phone gun.

-i was checking out listings on craigslist for places in The City (that’s right, capital T capital C, angelenos and seattlites), san francisco for the non-snobs. anyway, i ran into an ad that has quite the wit to it, in a foxtv sort of way. the loft is bitchin’ though, but that’s oakland (smokin’), not The City.

-james mercer is featured in the new tape op this month, and he talks about a lot of stuff that he did on the new record, and how his basement studio was robbed, and uses the oft misunderstood and over-the-head derogatory term “hesher” a lot. hell, i’m not from albuquerque so i guess i’m not really the man to judge that shit. bmp, thoughts? fucking southwesterners and all their cheesy mexican food goodness.

-shit, for the life of me i couldn’t figure out why i had this article on electronic pony express in with my links i collected yesterday, but all i can really think of is just wanting to be the guy on the scooter roaming from town to town all day. i think i’d also dress in a clown suit and eat circus peanuts while i was on the scooter, leaving a trail of them so i knew how to get home.

actually, that picture there in the article (ny times if you’re not reg’d, then i’d skip it, because it’s not THAT interesting) looks kind of ominous, like the guy on the bike is about to tear ass through the building straight up, street hawk style.

-there was this one time where i let jason into james’s room and jason changed all of the backgrounds on james’s computer to tony danza related stuff. i don’t know how he found it, but there was a nekkid picture of tony sitting in the background, and every time james tried to change something back, the computer would start playing the theme to who’s the boss. the computer would just lock up then, because every alarm was set to play the theme, and it would die trying to respond to every request for the .wav file. i thought it was kind of funny. i think james did, too.

i’ve got links up in here, but no time to post them with my usual witty commentary. but tomorrow. damn, you, inconsistency. damn you to hell!

I figured there was a ton of other stuff that I enjoyed last year but haven’t had the time to mention it. Here’s some of things I left out that I really liked about 2003, and then I’m gonna leave that shit alone, because it’s already like a month into 2004.

Films:

Love Actually - A pretty surprising film, considering its ability to transition from story to story like water from glass to glass. The water may look like more or less in varying sizes of glasses, but the liquid gets to its place.

In America - I misspoke the other day and said that this movie wasn’t sad at all. That’s not completely true, in fact, there’s some terribly painful moments in the film, but without them, everything else would flop. It’s a pretty simple concept, it’s amazing that rarely does anyone do it in mainstream film today. And that’s all this film really did, and it did it well. That was more than enough.

Lost in Translation - The Golden Globes were on tonight and seeing Billy Murray turn on his subersive charm was lovely. If you’ve read here before, I didn’t initially love this movie, until I thought about it, and then realized that I was holding all the cheap culture shock shots against it. But Bill Murray’s ability to make anyone feel comfortable through his own ability to feel comfortable is amazing. And the ending whisper, so enigmatic and wrongly satisfying. mutherfucking sigh, man.

God, I can’t go through all these movies, and I’m sure I’m missing something, but I also liked A Mighty Wind, Finding Nemo
School of Rock, and Spellbound.

Best Building I Pass On My Way To/From Work:

A tie between the building at the horizon of the 105 exit on the 405 and the See’s Candy Factory on La Cienaga. I don’t have a great picture of the glory that is the former, but you know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever been on that highway. But the latter, every time I go home, I crack my window a bit so I can smell the candy cooking, which I thought at first were the smells of McGriddles, but was gladly mistaken. And I’m fat, so I love candy. And oh yeah, food.

Food:

Hamburgers:
I know, you’re thinking, what about Mad Cow Disease? Yeah, I wasn’t really worried and still try not to be. When I think about it, I try to remember that a million cows were infected when the outbreak killed 153 people in England. We got one here.

Father’s Office in Santa Monica has an exquisite bleu cheese burger and the best french fries I’ve tasted in Los Angeles. Nevermind that they’re technically frites, the thin finely fried crispy seasoned french fries, I’ll take them over thick mushy steak fries any day. Nice selection of micro brews, but crowded, crowded, crowded. Next time, I’m going on a Tuesday, rather than Friday.

Jaxx, right in West Hollywood next Book Soup has a comparable hamburger, though sans bleu cheese, lettuce, really, everything but cheese and meat (cheese, cheese, meat, cheese, meat and that’s all! thanks jack in the box and the meaty cheesy boys), but the ground beef seems to be hand packed into patties with some onions, garlic and seasoning that pretty much makes that other stuff extraneous. They also have frites, though sans seasoning. I will say they’re cheap, and were pretty empty when I stopped by and I’ll be sure to stop there again if I’m at Book Soup someday.

And I can’t talk about burgers without mentioning In and Out, but you know that already. Cheeseburger animal style, please.

Burritos:
There’s a TON of good places for a burrito, I’m sure, but none of them come as cheap and as good as the cicharon burrito from Guillen Family’s Mariscos in Venice. It’s right on Lincoln, next to the car place. Seriously, ask disposable. He always buys them for me anyway.

Sushi:
That place on Main Street in Santa Monica (oyaku?), is usually not crowded and give generous portions of fresh tasting fish (read: non-fishy fish) and their non-sushi selections are glamourous. Good sized plates of teriyaki and tempura baskets, and good effin’ unagi, man. Good prices, for sushi, I guess.

Octopus Bar in Manhattan Beach is a bit on the fancy side. Everyone yells, welcome in Japanese when you walk in. Really, it’s like that place I just mentioned, with less pleasing interiors and a little pricier. But it’s closer to my house, damn it.

The California Roll Factory in Westwood is probably the least authentic of the three here, but it does have its fair share of interesting rolls. The non-sushi fare is a bit on the skimpy side, but the unagi is good. Sushi is so damn expensive in Southern California, though.

Quickly, my picks for Italian: Mama D’s (Manhattan Beach) for the service and the warm complimentary chocolate chip cookie at the end, La Vita Bella for their Vodka Marinara, C&O Trattoria for the atmosphere and to get drunk.

Also quickly, some randoms that necessitate mentioning: Asian Noodles in Chinatown has some damn fine Filipino food. Great lechon (roasted pork), siopao (a few different kinds), and hot damn desserts, including halo-halo, and ube ice cream. The Chicken Katsu Loco Moco at King’s Hawaiian in Torrance? Or is it Hawthorne? Either way, it’s good. Artery clogging good. THAT good.

Still looking for teriyaki and good Thai, Indian in the South Bay.

Best Produce:
Marina Farms in Marina del Rey/Mar Vista I dunno where exactly that place is, but it’s right on Centinela near Jefferson. Whole Foods is expensive and I haven’t been to the grocery store in months, but can still safely say that Marina Farms produce will beat that crap. Also, the Hermosa Beach Farmer’s Market kind of sucks.

More Randoms:
You Shall Know Our Velocity was a good book I read last year. I read some more, but right now I can’t really remember any. Traveling 6000 miles back and forth from Los Angeles to Bellingham twice was fun, too.

Really, there were so many random things I liked about last year, that this list has become pretty pointless. I liked everything, all right? Is that what you wanted to hear? Damn, gimmie a fucking break. At least I updated this spot, dookie-face.

a couple days ago brl emailed me about casiotone for the painfully alone whom i’ve heard of several times but never actually took the time to find the website and listen to the songs. a lot of them actually remind me of atom and his package, but there’s also a real indie rock as opposed to punk rock vibe to it and sometimes i feel it’s a little too serious, but overall, there’s some good songs to be heard.

-the past few days i’ve been collecting links to music related items that make it easier for the lazy to provide much more music content.

«magnetlink.org is an application that allows website to link directly to files located on p2p networks. i’m not exactly sure how it works or how well it works, since i haven’t had the time to try it, but it does connect to kazaa, morpheus, limewire, and all the other p2p regs. also a sourceforge project. might be worth checking out someday.

«TunesAtWork is something that i did get the chance to download, but in the process of setting it up, i fucked up my router (again). it was simple to set up, but if you don’t know how to do port forwarding and you’re sitting behind a built-in firewall on your router, you might want to figure that out first. my stupidity has to benefit someone, right? anyway, it basically sets up a server on your mac that converts your entire itunes library into a browsable website, so you or your friends can listen to your itunes library while not at your own computer.

«soundblox is a flash jukebox that you can set up on your site, and it includes some pretty flash interfaces and is browseable by playlist, genre, or author. all it takes is some xml changes to customize, and seems pretty solid. again, haven’t had a chance to try it yet, though.

-there’s a ton of shows coming up in los angeles, including ted leo at the echo jan.30th, mates of state feb. 12th at the troub, john vanderslice and the wrens at the knitting factory, john vanderslice and the wrens at the knitting factory feb. 24th, and i’m sure there’s some others that i’m missing.

the jv record is amazing, obviously.

-i watched some of the debates last night, but not all of it, though i have it taped, so don’t go trying to tell me i’m uninformed. if by election time i still haven’t watched it, then go right ahead.

quickly though, my impressions were that kerry is still going strong and probably is going to win the new hampshire primary. clark won’t take many vet votes away from him, especially after what seemed like a rather poor performance last night. anyone that is not hardcore dean will also probably end up choosing kerry unless they’re from the south, then edwards will be it, though edwards has a little too much opie in him to take away too many votes. al sharpton kind of made himself look like an idiot, and kucinich, while as idealistic as ever, also remained as harmless as ever.

i’m still pulling for dean, if only for the honesty and humanity he’s shown the past couple days since the iowa caucus. kerry’s humanity only seems to show when vets stand up for him but seems like a thin veneer to what i think is egoistic political ambition. but i could be wrong.

if you’re too lazy to get out and convince someone to vote and have a few dollars burning a hole in your pocket, feel free to hit up amazon’s one-click donations for presidential candidates.

-for the first time in i don’t know how long, i’m actually delving into two books at once. depending upon where i am, i’m alternating between enjoying we ain’t got no car #7 and moneyball.

the former is basically a journal of jack saturn ’s (saturn.org) covering a few years. i’ve always enjoyed jack’s writing, and there’s some pretty poignant writing that never gets to weighty. i’m specifically talking about his september chapter, which is a 2001 september and very lucidly puts what i and i know a lot of my peers felt at the time. all without being preachy or whiney.

the latter is my new attempt at reading more about baseball and pretty much has solidified my resolve to fucking clean up in fantasy baseball next year. though the writing is at times too stat geeky for me, it’s interesting to see how much stats contribute to a person’s love of hitting a freaking ball with a stick.

which brings me to a particularly interesting and optimistic look a probable batting order for the mariners next year.

-a quick look at a doc that made it to sundance this year, super size me explores what would happen if you ate mcdonalds three times a day for a month. the results aren’t surprising, but still drastic. after a month, i can’t tell you the dude was certainly NOT loving it.

-i got the new tivo in the mail yesterday. it was sitting on the deck just waiting for me, i got it set up pretty quickly and now am sitting in tivo heaven. not really, i’m actually sitting at work watching bad movies and cursing my stupid arms for being sore for no reason whatsoever (or apparent to me).

last thing: thanks so much to chris from indie pages for making circus of the stars demo of the week! hooray!

you did listen to those hydra songs i posted yesterday, didn’t you? so glad that it’s friday, anyway, and i hope everyone has a good weekend. by and by, this is something like the 803rd post on heart murmur. thanks for reading.

all right this isn’t the full update ’cause i got work to do, but i just had to absolutely drop every-fucking-thing to tell you to drop absolutely everything and listen to these three revolutionary hydra songs off the new album out soon on skrocki records. listen and be amazed.

Binary Thoughts (4:35) 6.3MB

Misfortune (4:01) 5.6MB

Frenchies (2:55) 4.1MB

now go order it at skrocki right now or head down to your favorite local store and buy, buy, buy!

your favorite and mine, patric m. verrone, has been nominated for a writer’s guild award for best animated show writing for “the sting” episode of Futurama. i swear, one of these days, logan and i are gonna grow some cojones and go down to that wga animated show writers meeting and tell him how much we love him, which, in turn, will directly lead him to hiring us as writers for some hilarious new show where we will shine like the brilliant writers we are. nootch.

check out the other nominations for the wga awards.

-the anime appleseed is getting a cg makeover. the trailer looks pretty hot, but don’t bother looking much at the site if you can’t read japanese. but the trailer does look pretty hot. check that shit.

-ever wonder what the origin of cobra commander was? yeah, me either, but now, gi joe is getting all serious on your ass in the comics, check a few pages and the plot synopsis for the comic that’s coming out. i’d buy it, but i stopped buying comics years ago, and if i started again, i’d be even more broke than i already am.

-speaking of being broke, i finally dropped the cash on a tivo last friday, just waiting patiently for you it to arrive so i can get my tivo on. BUT what is really disappointing is that there’s going to be one less show to tivo next year, as Ed has been moved to fridays to die. yeah, it looks like this is the final season because rating shares have dropped so they’re going to get rid of it and replace it with some shite like the apprentice. fuck those fucking fucks at fucking nbc. may that network rot in hell, excepting, of course, the west wing. and maybe scrubs.

anyway, if you’re looking for some tivo deals, check out servicedvr for philips authorized refurbished series one tivos. seriously, a 120 gig (hour) tivo for 180 bucks? i didn’t go for that one, i figure 80 hours is decent. 80 hours? 150 bucks.

-it’s late, this post is late, and i’m hitting the mutherfucking sack.

kaz sasaki’s leaving the mariners next year, mosreports say because he has some personal issues that are calling him back to japan. one has to wonder whether or not the death of his father this last year has him wanting to movei back and be with his family.

while this is a good thing for the mariners, i, personally would have appreciated sasaki’s announcement much earlier, allowing evern more fodder for mariners fans to hold against GM bill bavasi and his lack of planning this offseason. by that, i’m talking about the huge loss out on vlad guerrero.
at this point, i’m very wary to hope for anything to come of this 9 million dollar lottery the m’s just won, but a nice offensive addition– a considerable offensive addition would include free agent pudge rodriguez or even eric karros, or trades for magglio ordonez or carlos beltran.

regardless, i will miss kaz. i missed him all last season, especially when he was just not there when he was pitching. i’ll miss his bows to ben davis at the end of a saved game, and i’ll miss his scared-as-hell look every time he came into the ninth, and his ecsatatic glad-to-be-alive-and-pitching when he made that last out. dozo, sasaki san.

-well, the iowa caucuses are over, and kerry won. i was trying to figure out what happened there, and one explanation is that dean and gephardt’s attacks basically destroyed each other’s campaigns. gephardts attacks on dean slowed his momentum considerably and basically destroyed hi own campaign which enabled kerry and edwards to pull ahead.

kerry’s earlier campaign persona has taken turn and i haven’t been exposed to much of what he is doing now, having vets speak for his integrity. while i can’t say that will make me like him any more or less, i can say that edwards positivity is refreshing. what really sticks out for me most about kerry the botox and the “bring it on” speeches, which i can’t say are very endearing.

-saw along came polly this weekend and have to say that i was mildly disappointed, but it did have quite a few good moments. lots more fart jokes than i would have thought, which in itself isn’t a bad thing because most of them worked. i was, though, more excited by a couple of the trailers, namely starsky and hutch and dawn of the dead. the latter kind of blew me away, but i think it may have been partly a benefit of being the kicker to a long line of comedy trailers then being hit with a zombie one out of no where. check out the site for the trailer and let me know if i wasn’t just being a big wuss.

-not much in the way of links today, mostly commentary, which is funny, since you probably know that already if you’ve read this far.

there’s some wacky shit going down with the server, but it’s getting resolved slowly. i got the day off today to celebrate mlk’s birfday. hope you’re not working, because i’m not.