I'm Moving!

Ha. I bet those of you who know me even remotely well are expecting this post to contain some big news. Not yet. :)

I've actually moved Expo86 to Wordpress, having tired of Blogger after three-plus years (although they are adding some cool widgets).

So please re-direct your bookmarks, feeds, and links (ahem, Paul & Jeff!) to:

http://expo86.wordpress.com

See you there!

And the weiner jokes keep comin'....

We gettin' old, y'all.

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[Jam of the Day]: Tori Amos, Wednesday

DUI v. Treason?

Paris Hilton did more jail time than Scooter Libby.

Although I will say that Libby became a bit of a scapegoat for Cheney's bad behavior. Nonetheless, something seems slightly askew...

Tastefully Thick with a Watermark

[From 7.2.2007]:

I’m a ridiculously huge fan of Scott Adams’ blog (yep, the guy who draws Dilbert…been meaning to post some of his genius here before). Today, he eerily posed a question about the fans of horror movies:

Do you enjoy horror movies? If so, what the f*ck is wrong with you?

The question is only eerie because my friend M and I had this morning discussed the strangeness of the superfans of American Psycho and Grindhouse. And two days before, D and I had talked about our total refrain from horror movies.

I operate under the assumption that some of us find these books and movies entertaining because the content so damn absurd. Most of us are reading and viewing these materials thinking, holy sht, who thinks of this stuff?! Or maybe some of us just enjoy the feeling of being scared out of our minds. Maybe scary movies and books are appealing because they prolong that about-to-dip-and-dive feeling you get at the top of a rollercoaster. Maybe this is why as a youngster you and your siblings chased each other in the dark—you knew you were actually safe, but Oh, God did you want to turn on the lights.

Anymore though, I sorta side with Adams’. I find myself questioning the motives of people who seek out horrifically scary/violent movies. (Especially since of one of them is my baby brother.) What makes a person enjoy watch the retch of humanity in 90-minute sittings?

From Adams’ post:

By process of elimination, I assume fans of horror flicks are imagining themselves as the killer, thinking how cool it would be to disembowel attractive teenagers. Jeezus-frickin-christ! There are millions of these psychopath movie-goers. And they look just like normal people.

I wonder how many times in my life I’m at a store, for example, swiping my debit card, and the cashier is looking at me and thinking “It sure would be fun to drive a spike through his forehead and make a vest from his skin.” It probably happens more often than I’d like.

Is the web killing our culture?

Nice post over at 37Signals addressing just that. I gotta say, I agree with Matt on this point:

[...] Culture was suffering before the internet too. As far as I’m concerned, the death of the crappy sitcom, bad Hollywoood movie, overproduced major label schlock, etc. is just fine. And viva enthusiastic amateurs creating amazing stuff like this handmade Modest Mouse video.

Check out the full post here.

I Don't Get Starstruck Anymore

I'm coming up on 1,000 posts on this blog (yes, it's shockingly true), and that seems like a good benchmark at which to change things up a bit. More to come there.

For now, enjoy my new music discovery for the week. This band hails from Seattle and is called Natalie Portman's Shaved Head.

Sigh. I wish I could tell you it wasn't my bag, but I pretty much dig it. If you even remotely like !!!, then you may find something to love about Natalie Portman's Shaved Head as well.

Sample a few tracks here.

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[Jam of the Day]: NPSH, Iceage Babeland

Barfy McBarf

I know, something's wrong with me. But I cannot stand the new Toyota Camry hybrid commercial. You know, the one where it drives underneath the road and becomes encased in speckled pavement. Ugh. My stomach churns and my skin starts itching just thinking of it. And it's on ALL the time. I'd spend the money on TiVo just so I could avoid catching this commercial 'til the end of eternity.

Puke your guts out Watch it here. And you can tell me what a loon I am for hating this ad via comments. :)

Uncomfortably Energetic + Menergy = The Strength of 400 Babies

For all you energy drink connoisseurs, please enjoy Powerthirst. :)



Big hat tip to D for finding this nugget 'o fun.

[Jam of the Day] Tarkio, Mess of Me

Crazy Sunday Link

I'm scared. Hold me.

You Are So F'ing Obscene

Good article by Mark Morford last week about the FCC.

Highlights include:

But maybe that's beside the point. Because as far as Bush's God-spanked FCC is concerned, it is, always and forever, all about protecting the children. Or rather, it is all about protecting some imaginary Christian Everychild, some sort of perfect hypersheltered dovelike organism made of spun glass and delicate bunny hearts and little golden crucifixes, a fragile, blessed thing whose happy, unblemished life had been completely free of blood or spit or pain right up until he overheard Bono say "f--" at the Golden Globes and his precious virgin heart shattered forever.

And:

See, most people seem to get it: As is always the case in things prurient and dirty and fun, it all comes down to balance. Too many gratuitous f-bombs and you sound juvenile and uneducated and mean. Too few (or too awkwardly placed, or unearned) and you sound prudish and awkward and far too much like, say, Jerry Seinfeld.

Read the whole thing here.

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Check Yo'Self

Email is a tool most of us are now unable to imagine are lives without, especially in the business world. But when it comes to mass family emails, I've learned to totally abstain from any of it.

At first, our family started emailing as a fast, easy method to keep everyone in touch with family happenings--much as it should be. Happy Birthday, Christine, Uncle Jim's knee replacement went just swimmingly, etc. My 80-year old grandfather even took computer classes at the university so that he could email with us. (Cute!)

But then people started emailing 62k about their day's activities. And entire essays about the state of the country, which yes, leads to discussion about things like religion and politics. Which obviously leads to people saying some ignorant ass shit.

The last time I dare partake in a family discussion was about SUVs and gas mileage. Knowing that most of my relatives still live in the midwest and find it perfectly acceptable to drive huge ass vehicles around town (Kansas and Iowa rarely have poor air quality days like we do in Denver), I approached the subject scientifically. Like, pulled stats and shit. In fact, I spent 30 minutes putting together a table of statistics so as to speak logically and not emotionally to folks who had trouble understanding the impact of fuel emissions on the air.

The next day I got a non-scientific, emotionally-charged email from my uncle (who, by the way, got stinking rich as a contractor during the first Gulf War) telling me that I needed to read more and listen less, you know, to those damn hippies. Because I clearly, (a) don't write and read FOR A LIVING, and (b) didn't assemble scientific facts from government sites in my SUVs-are-pretty-dumb-argument.

Nowadays, I route most family email to my SPAM box. I also opened a separate email account, and the only family members who know about it are my parents. But with an impending cancer death in the family, I've been checking in to see what people are talking about.

Which was why I was so horrifically amused to find that my great aunt in California, who incessantly forwards handfuls of random and inaccurate shit to the entire family, had been publicly chastised by her daughter-in-law for sending us "A Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins."

Her daughter-in-law responded by saying:

Elaine,

Found this on snopes.com. [link] This email is not from John Hopkins and they do not endorse the contents. We'd appreciate it if you'd do a little fact checking around before you send this stuff out to the whole family.

Sigh. Just another day on the family eWaves.

Say Goodnight

Sigh. If you're not listening to The National by now, consider my feelings hurt.

I'm currently listening to their live set at the 9:30 Club in D.C. via NPR. I don't quite have words; it's fucking amazing. I feel good and warm; like pliable dough.

You might be able to listen to a few live tracks here post-show, here. But you should really consider scooping up their stuff. Hell, most of you know me personally--I'll loan it to you.

[Jam of the Day]: The National, Green Gloves

[Previously]:
The Boxer: Preview
Arcade Fire Ruled

All Hail The Onion

Haha.

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Bloc Party at The Ogden Theatre

Miss Bloc Party in Denver last week? I did too. Boo. But I was quite pleased to find a sprinkling of show details at JoshSpear.com. Check out some rockin' photos here; I'll keep checking around for the acoustic set they played at KBCO Boulder's Studio C.

[Jam of the Day]: Arctic Monkeys, 505

ShePrez

I haven't yet made my choice about who's going to get my vote in 2008, but something is sort of annoying me--not about Hilary Rodham Clinton, but about some of her supporters. And that thing is that they can't stop fixating on the fact that she's a woman.

I don't know why this bothers me. It will be a great historical and sociological benchmark when a woman becomes president. But some of her supporters seem on par to the whole BlogHer movement, which I find to be sort of silly (as previously noted here). She's a politician who happens to be a woman. Which is cool. But does everyone have to harp on it?

Or maybe it's me that has the issue, me that can't reconcile the disconnect there seems to be between wanting (and achieving) equality and retaining one's womanhood.

Always An Edge

I realize a lot of people are suckers for the middle--I used to be. But nowadays, I like a brownie with an edge on it. If you're like me, you'll probably want to pick up the Edge Brownie Pan: "The first and only pan for edge lovers."

Looks kind of funky; I could get over it.

Her Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day

D's asked me to post stuff, mainly videos, on ol' Expo86 before. The only one that I really remember vetoing was some six-minute montage of WWF matches gone awry (and that's only because I vetoed it on multiple occasions).

But I was pleasantly surprised when he sent me this link tonight. It melted my frozen heart a bit—especially after seeing this nightmare (around 2:00) a couple weeks ago. So I'll indulge him this time 'round. :)

[Jam of the Day]: Pedro the Lion, Priests and Paramedics

Barack Me All Night Long

This is probably old news to you folks, but I just peeped "I Got A Crush on Obama," a video starring a Temple University undegrad. It's been on the front pages of FOX, CNN, ABC news, etc.

I'm pretty ambivalent towards the video itself, but I am impressed with its viral abilities...and the line, "You can Barack me all night."



Thanks to Jeff for filling me in. :)

The Divide

"Okay. We're going to do it short and sweet."

D and I are pre-planning our goodbye as I drive him to the airport this morning. It's five after six, and the sun is so bright heading east that I can barely see my odometer creeping past 80.

"We'll see each other soon," he says.
I nod in agreement, but then reconsider: "I mean...not really." He is moving to Brussels next week.
"'Soon' is a relative term," he explains.

We have a relatively quiet drive, which allows for us both (I imagine) to feel the weight of Fruit Bats singing:

I'll do my part/Not to break your heart/So baby, please don't break mine
Cuz I adore you/And I know for sure/You're the spark on the sun

I agree to a short goodbye, but as usual it's hard to let go. As I steer the car west, now alone, I find myself trying to grab on to a linear model for coping, for crawling out of the chasm that comes with resuming every day life without my favorite person. Somehow everything I come up with seems wrong. Like a turned ankle in the eighth grade, this, I suspect, is just something I'll have to walk off.


[Jam of the Day]: Fruit Bats, Earthquake of '73

Sorry I had sex in your bed. But be nicer about it or I won't let you use my fridge anymore.**

Need to kill 20 minutes? Hit up PassiveAggressiveNotes.com.

I stumbled upon this gem today, and laughed for a long, long time. And while some of the notes get pretty saucy, I found this one hilarious:



I also really appreciated the Cap'n Crunch note:

If you can't read that, it says:

"Ian: If I catch you eating this delicious cereal, I'll kill you in your sleep. Love, Dan."

There are too many greats to list here; head over and check them out. Just don't be pissed at me when you've realized you spent a half hour of your life on this site. :)

**The jist of a note left to me by my roommate during my first year of college. After she had sex in my bed with her gross boyfriend (named Duffy if you can believe that). In my bed, when hers was a mere 12 inches away. Maybe I'm missing out because I've never been so heavily engulfed in the sweet throes of passion that I couldn't make it to my own quarters. Whatev. I'm totally over it.