For no reason whatsoever except sometimes you just need to hear it:
The Clash - I’m not down

If it’s true a rich man leads a sad life
That’s what they say, from day to day
Then what do the poor do with their lives?
On judgment day, with nothin’ to say?

In Williamsburg on a Saltwater Sandal and bike part hunting trip, we found ourselves hungry and annoyed at being in Williamsburg. Parked squarely in front of Kitchen Delight, just off of Bedford, we looked at the shiny metal walls pronouncing the wonders of their menu (mouth watering burgers, grilled hot dogs, sliders), we thought to give it a shot.

The place is small, a hole in the wall, and it was mostly empty when we showed up. They’re open really late, but there’s not way I would dare go there late-night after binge-drinking with everyone else in the neighborhood. I entertained the idea before I ate, but was less inclined afterwards.

The menu has a pretty wide variety, and I almost opted to go for the Pastrami Poppers, but thought it best to stick to what I know, and got a Super Delight Burger. It didn’t strike me until now, but using the word “delight” in everything makes me think of Sunny Delight. Sunny D! Y’know? Do they still make that stuff? We used to have to cut it with some water, because it felt like drinking syrup. Incredibly viscous stuff.

Sunny D isn’t on the menu, but A&W Root Beer is, and I hardly see that anywhere around here (I bet if I started looking, I could find it in a half dozen places though). As far as the major producers go, A&W is up there in the Top 5 root beers. We also got a Black & White shake and the burgers came with fries.

Now, the burger: On a brioche bun! What is the DEAL with brioche buns? I understand wanting to have a little heft in the bun, but I just don’t agree with the waxy stiffness of the crust. This bun is by far better than Stand’s, because it has enough give and tear to it that it doesn’t make a mess of the burger, but the consistency still leaves something to be desired. The meat was standard — I’d have ordered mine medium rare if they asked, but they didn’t. Not much else special about the burger, the 1000 island sauce they used was forgettable.

Everything else: Fries were thin-cut McDonald’s style fries that were over-salted (sea salt means use less!). Three sauces on the tables were great, as I am a sauce glutton (perhaps just a glutton), but barbecue sauce, hot sauce, and ketchup were all freely available. I love me some BBQ sauce and hot sauce. But the bad news: The shake was weak and thin, and left me feeling like I was drinking a bit of chocolate milk with a little vanilla ice cream in it — The kind of shake I make at home, only skimpier on the ice cream.

I gotta say, I rarely find myself in Williamsburg, and this place isn’t a destination place by any means, so probably not a repeat visit. That said, if the circumstances are right and we need something quick and cheap (by NYC standards, it is cheap) and are in the neighborhood, maybe we go back. But there’s so many other places to try, why go back to a place that is just mediocre?

Here’s the two new ones. Again, Rick did all the keyboards and beats on Garageband, I added live instruments to everything where I thought it was appropriate (and some of it is not appropriate). The lyrics are at home, I’ll post them when I get the chance. Lyrics are up.

The Wizard of Menlo Park
[audio:The%20Wizard%20of%20Menlo%20Park.mp3]

he was the wizard of menlo park
i always thought there was only one and it was on the west coast

it was not.

The handclaps at the end are suspect, and could be removed. bmp has the Garageband file, so if he ever does anything to it, I’ll post the results. If anyone else is interested in getting the file to manipulate, let me know and I’ll get you the means.

Jeanne d’Arc
[audio:Jeanne Darc.mp3]

what would you say, if i told you
i’d been having visions from god

jeanne jeanne jeanne d’arc

I enjoy the brevity of songs sometimes, that’s why I like this one better than the one about Tom. I know my French accent is pretty atrocious, but I’m working on it, okay?

This is a difficult debate — I use Thomas Edison’s inventions a lot, but I also thought Milla Jovavich was wicked bad in The Messenger, so, uh, I don’t know if I can say I prefer one over the other.

So, the battle is on: Tom vs. Joan — Who will be the victor?!

Waiting for people to do card sorts here at work, so I got the great idea to try and zero out my RSS feeds, since I’ve got what I think is a wicked migraine (never had one before), and thinking about anything for a prolonged amount of time is painful. Times like these are when the Internet is most helpful.

• speaking of the internet, this sentiment over at ask.metafilter is becoming all-too-common: ruined attention spans. “out-of-tempo living” is a great way of describing one of the remedies. honestly though, the first time i read the post, i was laughing. maybe it was the desperation in language: “How can I regain the tolerance for tedium I used to have…”
• on the same topic — i finished reading steven berlin johnson’s “Everything Bad is Good for You” a few weeks ago. the wikipedia page does a decent job of highlighting the major ideas about television and video games that are worth considering. i’m reading de zengotita’s “Mediated” right now as well, which is difficult in its complexity but more so, its relevance.
• software translators are pretty poor all across the board, but ajaxtrans.com is a good use of AJAX and probably does the job just well enough for emergency translations. anyway, it’s fun to play with for that 30 seconds that it can hold your attention.
• word on the street, or rather, from this Matt Groening Interview is that Futurama will be back in early 2008, with the first DVD release (confusing TV/DVD release thing going on, check the interview for elucidation) at the end of this year. but the cool thing: there’s gonna be an entire show on the DVD of “Everybody Loves Hyptno-Toad.” oh, and al gore will be on again!
• one of the most interesting things about andrew sullivan’s blog, is watching his transformation from pro-Bush to anti-Bush. it didn’t happen overnight. here’s what he has to say about Gore. for the most part, i think he’s right, Gore doesn’t want to subject himself and his family to the terrors of presidential campaigns — and that’s what i fear most about Obama’s campaign and the news of Michelle Obama stepping down from her position at UofC; it’s a fine line to tread between ambition and passion in politics.

I didn’t even come close to getting through all my RSS feeds, but the pain seems to be dulling a bit. We’ve got a couple new songs to showcase, I think we’ll do it on Friday.

I took pictures at the show, but they’re not very good. Seriously, there’s only one that I can just barely stand to look at. That’s this one:

Despite my crappy photos, I’m happy to report that it was great, and I have a song for you just because.

Lake - Behave

I’ve been really happy with music lately, because I have a lot of it to listen to (new stuff!) and a lot of it is turning out to be really, really good.

I went inside the building and came out and it looked like the apocalypse had made its way to Brooklyn. Dark, windy, and thankfully, not until after I had made it to the subway station, rainy.

Here’s the 6ths - In the city in the rain

So much has happened! You’ll probably get a better idea of what if you look at the Flickr pictures, right? For those of you wondering where Jon Spencer (of ye old Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) went, you can find him on the great soundtrack to Hot Fuzz, which was a masterpiece in its own right. We’re off to see Laura Veirs tonight, and maybe, just maybe, I won’t forget the camera.

Is this considered From the Archives even if the song was only recently recorded? B-dogg recently sent me a Garageband file, and we’ve been trading them around the country to get things recorded. This song is old, from the My Little Brother days, and we’re missing some of the instrumentation — All, in fact at the end. It sounds great to my ears. bmp is coming into town today, and 3/4 of MLB will head to Philadelphia for GW’s wedding and some Phillies/Cubs action. At this rate, I’ll have all the stadiums under my belt by the end of the summer.

School’s out! And Black Label, in a can, from the GYC. I have found my summer watering hole. Saturday night. Anyone? Anyone?

I just started thinking about how nice it was out here and I just want to listen to this song over and over again as loud as I can. People can walk by our house and hear it coming out the windows, but no one will be mad because it’s such a great song (until the 500th time I play it, when someone will call the cops and I’ll get arrested. Remember when someone did that? I think it was to a Whitney Houston song). It’s the drums and all the little flairs — The hand claps and the little guitar hook that works its way in and out, the violin riff that tapers and the heavy/bouncy little bass line, and that male choir-chorus; and the production! Listen to the snare hit at 2:24 and how it dissolves and comes back in. Amazing.

Now you can really have a good weekend. Really.
(Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers)

Well, that last bit of silence there signaled the end of the semester and now, summer is upon us. We had a pretty busy week: We caught a sneak preview of Spider-man 3 on Monday, and we liked it, overall. Maybe more on that later.

We also hit up the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the Cherry Blossom Festival last Sunday and the Plant Sale on Tuesday, so we have a bunch of plants sitting in our through-way (I don’t know what to call that area — Between the outside doors and the inside doors), and we have a ton of nice pictures we’ll put up sometime.

This weekend: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Also coming up: Laura Veirs, Dear Nora, Al Gore, Phillies game, Mets Game, and a wedding or two thrown into the mix. And oh yeah: London & France! I leave in the middle of June. This will be an eventful summer and you can read all about it in my oh so dry and boring manner.

bmp was supposed to post a song that we all worked on and he mixed just recently. It’s an oldie (MLB oldie), but a goodie. If he doesn’t post it soon, I’ll do it!

I think now that Macs and Garageband are so ubiquitous, it’s the easiest way for all of us to continue working on tracks together, since we all (now) live in many varied parts of the country. Anyone that wants in on the Garageband thing, you let me know and I’ll send some info to you so you can play with the files we have.

Doing well? Good. Then have a good weekend.