I long for a permanent salad revolution

Isn't there anything new in food? Maybe I should qualify that: something that doesn't involve ball bearings and motor oil, isn't called "carneplastico" and doesn't in any way involve Filipo Marinetti? Something I could eat for lunch today?

Oh the hell. Enchiladas it is.

bollywood bollywood bollywood

I found this facial recognition thingy that claims to analyze a photo of you that you upload and then tell you what celebrities you most look like. My first 3 results for this thing were just so fucking awesome that I began to question life as I knew it.

But then the next three were a little confusing. Don't get me wrong, I'm awfully complimented by that last one (apparently a Bollywood actress), and Bette Davis looking sinister I have no complaints about, but Diana Ross? Seriously? Whatever.

Aaaaand then it got ugly. This one just can't be right, she is so way more punk than me!

Number eight: now that's better.

And number nine is a person in a baseball cap (another Bollywood actress). Yeah, no, something's wrong here, I think.

the island of SUCK

After watching Michael Bay's The Island last night, I have a few questions (and trust me, it wasn't necessary to be any more clever than that with the title of this post).

Oh, um, spoiler alert, but I don’t think you really want to watch this movie, so never mind.

• This bastard child of Brave New World, Logan’s Run, and Bladerunner has cleft my spirit in twain and left me forever in ruins. Just an observation.
• Ewan McGregor, why don’t you get those protuberances removed from your face before people start mistaking you for Robert Redford? I know you’re Scottish, but that doesn’t mean you have to look like a haggis.
• If, even after years in Clone School, the clones are still only at “Dick and Jane” reading level, what exactly do their minders feel they’re accomplishing by flashing subliminal-type words onto the brainwashing screens they use to indoctrinate new clones before integrating them into Clone Society?
• What happens to the moth when Clone Ewan McGregor lets it go? It’s the most sympathetic character in this whole movie, and we get no closure.
• Does mainstream American society still consider it funny to make jokes about how you shouldn’t give a woman your credit card? How about making fun of men who get beaten at virtual reality fighting video games by “little girls”? As far as I could tell, these constituted the sum total of all attempts at humor in the entire movie.
• Related: the clones are called “agnates” by the Evil Corporation. According to Webster’s, this word means “a relative whose kinship is traceable exclusively through males.” Whaaaa?
• Why, exactly, does Clone Ewan end up with Hepatitis Ewan’s memories (and fingerprints)? In any other movie ever made, I would assume this was some attempt at metaphor or allegory, but I’ve just watched all of L.A. and everyone in it go up in flames and I have to think the real answer to this question is “to freak us the fuck out.”
• Related: Have you ever seen so much shit blow up in your life? Unholy mother of god.
  
• Okay, in the 14-years-from-now future, when there are videophones and hovertrains and crazy flying jet motorcycles that look like those thingies from Return of the Jedi, are we to believe that the super rich Evil Ewan McGregor With Hepatitis won’t have had Lasik surgery or something? Why is he wearing glasses? What’s wrong with the traditional skinny moustache to distinguish Evil Doppleganger With Hepatitis from Good Clone Doppleganger? So obviously there’s a standoff scene in which one Ewan has a gun pointed at the other Ewan’s head, and Clone Bounty Hunter is trying to decide which Ewan to take down, and he’s having trouble because oh god they look so much alike, but if it’s supposed to be important that by the time we get to this scene Hepatitis Ewan has lost his glasses and therefore even the audience at home can’t immediately tell which Ewan is which, why didn’t Michael Bay attempt to create some kind of tension resulting from the confusion of identities during this scene? -- Oh wait, he was trying?
• Another observation: the scene in which Hepatitis Ewan professes himself shocked that Clone Ewan has been hanging out with Scarlett Johannsen for days and hasn’t boned her yet took 10 years off my life.
• Are all cars in the future Chryslers? Yes, all cars in the 14-years-from-now-future are Chryslers. Just like all shoes are Pumas, all water is Aquafina, all phone booths are MSN-branded, and all virtual reality gaming systems used in secret illegal cloning facilities are Xboxen.
• Can anyone think of a watchable movie Ewan McGregor has been in since Trainspotting? Nope, didn’t think so.

If I had three wishes right now, I would use the first one to wish that I’d never seen this godawful movie, another one to wish for a magical bottomless coffee cup, and the last one to wish that the British court system would STOP GIVING THIS MAN BAIL.

listing to one side and the other: episode 2

Meme, meme, meme, meme, meme.* Ugh, I hate that word, it sounds so pretentious. It’s like saying “trope” or “Nabahkov” or “I am a vegan.” But there it is, and here I am participating in one. Because it tickles my fancy. But I’ve given it a twist! I favor bold moves, folks, and so I am hereby officially announcing an Irregularly Repeating Segment at WFTM: Listing To One Side And The Other.© Read the first installment, read this one, and feel free to make suggestions about the next one, which I will probably ignore.

10 Things I Believe Without What The Scientific Community Would Consider To Be Conclusive Evidence:

1. My car knows when I’m rude to it, and will purposely malfunction in order to exact revenge.
2. My crooked teeth are endearing.
3. Morrissey knows it's not pronounced "excet’ra" but makes a conscious aesthetic choice to say it that way.
4. By the end of this year, I will no longer be working in the insurance industry.
5. If I get something wrong, as long as I adamantly refuse to admit it, no one will notice.
6. In the usually-not-so-long run, people get what they deserve. But you probably won’t hear about it when bad things happen to people you hate, so it’s best just to assume they do and get on with your life.
7. Glasses make me look like a boy.
8. Being unable to make proper use of one’s native language is an infallible indication of both mental retardation and profound moral corruption.
9. Someday, Pete Doherty will get off the crack.
10. Each time you press the crosswalk button, you cause the light to change a fraction of a second sooner.

10 Things I Refuse to Believe Despite a Preponderance of Evidence in Their Favor (Or At Least A Bunch Of People Telling Me They Are True):

1. Velour pants are tacky.
2. The “close door” buttons in elevators are connected to some sort of electronic or mechanical device which causes the elevator doors to close when the button is pressed.
3. The New Pornographers are worth listening to.
4. Bowling is fun.
5. Not every Republican is a demon whose veins are filled with pure viscous tar-like evil.
6. Sometimes it’s too cold for flip-flops.
7. It’s possible to get up when your alarm clock goes off, rather than lying in bed moaning and feeling persecuted by the beepy thing for an hour and a half every morning.
8. I might die someday.
9. I would enjoy Hawaii.
10. One day my employer will figure out that I spend approximately 70-90% of each working day on the internet.

Bonus! A Thing In Which, In My Experience, A Staggering Number Of Otherwise Rational People Refuse To Believe:

Evolution. People, I don’t care if you have a hard time conceiving of how “we came from salt water” (as one supposedly intelligent person I know scornfully put it). It’s a Scientific Fact.© Deal with it. I am descended from monkeys, you are descended from monkeys, Jesus was descended from monkeys, Jude Law is descended from whore-monkeys, and George W. Bush is descended from monkey poop. The more you know.


*Links to other iterations of this meme are presented for shits and giggles only and do not represent an endorsement of any blogs linked to. Because in most cases the only thing I’ve read on those blogs is their version of this meme. This is probably a total violation of blogging ethics but I’m new here, and also... I don’t care.

crunky popjoy

Since it's a crunkin' kind of day here at WTFM, I give you:

Yeah, it's a Crunky Popjoy. Don't even pretend like you don't get it.

Image from Kid Ethnic on Flickr, but I first saw it through the ethnic kid's blog. Which I have no clue how I first got to, but which I enjoy very much. Please do yourself the favor of reading this post. Then you'll finally be able to get all my references.

crunky pup joy

He he he, OMG this puppy totally found the Crickle-Crack tree. Ah, crickle-crack. My mom sent me the Crickle-Crack book in a care package one time while I was in college. A little under my reading level, but it was pretty good. I think she was trying to warn me about cracked-out squirrels on campus. Ha ha, how crazy!

In case you're not familiar with the work in question, it is about:

Succinctly put, Powells Books. Couldn't have said it better. Well, actually I would have said "Fucking Tweaker Squirrels" but I won't quibble.

p.s. Just look at the other puppies here. So cute they made me say "OMG." If you don't think that takes a lot of cute, then you don't know me very well at all.

males and unmarried females

First of all, please tell me, on what planet does it make sense that it should cost more to insure one car than to insure two? I recently sold one of my two cars and when I called my insurance company to remove the sold car from my policy, I was told that my premium would increase by about $80 per year. Yes, I understand the concept of a multi-car discount, but it just seems like some really flawed logic is involved here.

But what I really want to talk about is this. It's State Farm's definition of their "good student" auto policy discount, which I happened to read while getting a quote on their website. It begins, "All males and unmarried females with less than 9 years of driving experience..." [outraged emphasis added] At first I thought they meant "unmarried males and females." But wouldn't they just say "unmarried individuals"? Plus, the same phrase is repeated a few sentences later. I also assume that this wording has been inspected with electron microscopes by throngs of uptight tie-tacked lawyers. So this has to be what they actually mean to say.

Obviously my question is, why do married men qualify for the good student discount while married women do not? I can't come up with a single plausible explanation for this. Not even an implausible one, actually. I'm pretty sensitive to gender discrimination issues, and it seems like there's got to be some kind of discrimination going on here, but I can't even figure out what the discriminatory logic would be for this. On the other hand, insurance companies are required to file their rates and discounts with a state's Department of Insurance in order to be "admitted," and the state DOI supposedly examines the information they submit very carefully -- so presumably State Farm was able to justify this qualification to the California DOI in some way. I've sent State Farm a message asking them to clarify, because I'm just that baffled. I don't expect an actual answer, but we'll see.

For shits and giggles, I looked at a few other insurance carriers' websites, and the only other place that mentioned marital status in conjunction with a good driver discount appeared to be saying that anyone, male or female, would have to be unmarried in order to qualify. So... I guess my conclusion here is, State Farm is on crack.

UPDATE: It's bizarro world and State Farm is definitely on crack! I got a call the next day from an Autumn at State Farm, who explained to me that according to their actuarial data, married women have fewer accidents than unmarried women, single men, and married men do; and therefore married women are already getting a discount to their rates, so they don't qualify for the additional discount. This still doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I'm so shocked that someone actually called me back about this (and what's more, had a conversation with me without trying to sell me insurance!) that I'm willing to overlook it for now.

whatchoo talkin' 'bout

Skating With Celebrities is what I'm talkin' about, Willis! I turned this thing on just now out of desperation -- yes, and because I have a secret fantasy of seeing Dave Coulier in a gruesome zamboni accident. It took me and the boyfriend several minutes to figure out that that the "Todd" we were watching stumble about the ice was none other than Todd Bridges -- i.e., Willis from Diff'rent Strokes. In fact, it took us until he used Gary Coleman's catchphrase. How sad it must be to have to use Gary Coleman's catchphrase in order to get people to recognize you! Still, not as sad as being Gary Coleman, so I guess Todd got hit with the better end of that stick. Gosh, I want him to win so bad. Although I'd settle for Debbie...orah Gibson, if only because she inspired "Electric Fish," my childhood friend Larry's touching lament on the tragedy of seafood allergies.

Best quote so far comes from Scott Hamilton: "You guys are so hot, you could melt all this STUFF!"

In other news: Jared Leto, you've taken away my will to live.

word of the day

Today's word is animalcule.

Today's animalcule is this little guy (from Cute Overload):

I'm not a hamster person, but this picture is so cute it makes me want to spell it "hampster." Like how, after reading Flannery O'Connor's letters, I liked her so much that I wanted to adopt her spelling of cheese: "cheeze." Okay, I guess that comparison only makes sense if the hamster spelled it "hampster." Anyway, look at him, he's eating corn with his little hands!

Today's good news is: The Sisters of Mercy are coming back to California. Huzzah!

dopplegangers

Remember when I said there was something else awful that happened to me yesterday, something so dark and terrifying that I couldn’t bring myself to speak of it even 24 hours later? Well, I think I’m ready to talk about it now, but I hope you’ll pardon me if I need to stop and scream into my pillow a couple of times.

The thing that happened, okay, was that during Monday's two-hour department meeting, I was introduced to a potential new salesperson in our department. This is bad for two reasons. In the first place, it means more work for me, which, whatever, like I do any work at all anymore anyway. In the second place -- and this is the thing, the awful thing -- her name is the same as mine. I have a major complex about this. You see, from the time I started school at the age of 4, until about the time I turned 14, I had to be referred to by my first name and last initial since there was always, always, always at least one other girl with my name in my class and in my group of friends. And because I was super-shy, and the others weren’t, whenever someone used my name, it was a safe assumption that it wasn’t me they were talking to. I was dispossessed of my own name. It was degrading, humiliating, enervating. Of course, all of this is in retrospect (and there's some hyperbole involved); at the time I just knew it was annoying. It's only now as I'm considering the possibility of once again sharing my name with someone else on a daily basis that I'm realizing how much I hated it before.

Anyway, this phase of my life ended when I moved to a benighted backwater town where everyone was named “Billy Bob” or “Sue Bob” or “Billie Jean” or whatever the hell. To be honest I wasn’t really paying attention to anything much except hating the place. The name thing was the only silver lining about the move, and it was the one thing I had to hold onto during my high school years: I no longer had to qualify my name. It was incredible, it was magical, it was thrilling. What was it like exactly? Oh, it was like the first time after moving into your own apartment that you realize you can leave the bathroom door open when you’re peeing. Freeing, empowering, vaguely transgressive. Fucking awesome in other words.

And then after high school, I went to college (briefly), and from there into the sexy-sexy world of insurance, and up to this point I've been the only me I know. Now, just when I'd almost forgotten how bad it feels to share your name, I'm in danger of having to do it again. (Weirdly enough, my boss did actually try to hire another woman with my name a couple of years ago, but it never got that far, much to my relief.) Granted, I already hate this job and have a firm plan either to leave within the next year or kill myself, but I just don’t know if I’ll be able to stand it any longer if they hire this woman.

By the way? I realize I'm taking this harder than most people would. But if you think I’m being unreasonable about this, well, kindly bugger off and leave me alone with my neuroses.

in which I present my readers with the gift of puppies

Hi, hi, hi! Hello there. I'm doing much better today than yesterday, thanks. Never mind that the toilets at work are broken right now (and we won't go into my boss's involvement with this little problem because I am a lady and do not discuss such matters). I am in a good mood! Partly because I bought myself some new underwear today, partly because I saw the cutest puppy ever (climbing in a fountain! so sweet I almost went into convulsions!), partly because my boyfriend Philip Seymour Hoffman won a Golden Globe last night, and partly because I got to talk about Henry James this morning. Or at least, I got to talk about my eternal and undying love for Henry James. Cheery cheery. I do have one more horrific thing to talk about that happened yesterday, but I'll tell about it later. It's too awful and I'm not psychically prepared yet.

Ooh, and! on the way home in an hour, I get to pick up my Christmas presents from my brother at the post office. I love presents!! And I kind of love that my family is hopeless about sending presents on time, because it means I get about two months' worth of Christmas every year. In fact, the presents for my birthday usually stop trickling in around the time the Christmas presents start arriving. Holla!

In commemoration of my good mood, I present to you some of my favorites from Overheard in New York and Overheard in the Office:

• This kid is so awesome. If I ever have a child, I want it to be just like this one: endearingly retarded. Also plump and juicy for good eatin', which I assume any child named "Milo" has to be.
  
• I've often thought this about banana bread. (About 2/3 of the way down the page.)
• Another thought I've had so, so many times.

And, as an extra special bonus for you, my favorite postcard from PostSecret:

• Me too. Only not with the whole teaching thing. But yeah, the other part.

Extra extra special bonus: here are some puppies for you. I was going to put in only one, but I couldn't decide which. Just look how cute. (There were actually even more adorable ones, but they were wearing sweaters and that's not how I roll.)

This baby is named Dozer and is allergic to grass... what a sad puppy!! From interspectrum on Flickr.

Chips!! From Cordelya.

Oh me oh my, it's a puppy in a chair!! From bulldog1.

update on the shittiness

Because it’s important that I share every last assy detail, no matter how small:

• Spilt coffee on my (light blue) pants, which I clearly put on this morning when I wasn’t thinking straight, because I look awful in pants, especially light-colored ones, plus also I drink three buckets of coffee a day, and I am spillage-prone.
• Went home at lunch-time to pick up my purse so I'd have lunch money, then went to Taco Bell (in itself a grievous error, but I’m having a bad day, so please cut me a little slack) where I discovered I had forgotten I didn’t have any cash with which to purchase myself cheap-ass “Mexican” “food.” There’s an ATM at the Taco Smell but it charges $1.50 per transaction. $1.50 extra for a smarmy burrito? Homie don’t play that.
• Went to the ATM, foolishly choosing the drive-through. I hate the drive-through ATM. In anything other than an eighteen-wheeler, it’s impossible to get high enough to access the keypad without opening your door and leaning out of the car. I forgot about this until it happened, just like I’ve forgotten eeeeeeeeverything else today.
• Case in point: when I got back to work, discovered I had completely forgotten about a two-hour department meeting and also about an hour-and-a-half meeting that came immediately after it. Three and a half solid hours during which it was impossible for me not to work. I’ll never get that time back.
• After work, went to sign up for a membership at the kickboxing place, but was nastily surprised to find that the cost to sign up is, like, twice what I thought it was. Didn’t sign up, didn’t take tonight’s class.
• Went running instead, re-injured various body parts (mildly? let’s hope).
• Saw an Excedrin commercial with the actress who plays Zoey Bartlet on The West Wing in it. I hate those commercials. Thought about how horrible The West Wing is now and how I hate it too. I mean, for Christ’s sake, this one time, Kate Harper (a character I also hate, by the way) seriously used the phrase “doth protesting too much.” I played it twice, and that’s what she actually said. That was the exact moment that The West Wing became dead to me.
• Read this story about how the last four episodes of Arrested Development are going to be shown in a two-hour block, on Friday, February 10th, during the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Now I know Fox is just being mean. Mean, mean, mean, mean, mean.
• Read this story about how Pete Doperty was arrested again two days ago. Seriously, you have to read the story for how it happened, because I can't even talk about it. At first, it made me giggle, but then it occurred to me that people are probably making bets right now about how long it is until he overdoses. So, not so funny after all, and in keeping with today’s theme, actually quite depressing. Also, in keeping with today’s other theme, which is forgetting things, I had a moment of intense déjà vu while telling the boyfriend about this, and became convinced I had read the story earlier and told a friend about it, and then forgotten.
  

So, in conclusion, I think something is wrong with my brain. Could I have brain cancer? What’s encephalitis, could I have that?

I’m going to bed now.

my employer is racist, and deserves to be shot

I am required to work today because the legacy of one of our country's most important civil rights leaders is apparently not something my employer considers worth celebrating. We get President's Day off, we get Memorial Day off, we even get a half-day on Good Friday for Christ's sake (sadly). But not MLK Day. In the company's defense, it doesn't really win you a lot of brownie points (ha!) to close for MLK Day in a town with a population of approximately 3 black people. Anyway; employer: j'accuse!

I'm going to blame the way my day is going on being made to work when by rights I should still be in bed. Many, many, petty, petty things have gone wrong already. Firstly, I forgot to condition my hair this morning so it looks like I just kind of threw a haystack on my head before I left the house. Secondly, I realized about 3/4 of the way to the office this morning (and 20+ minutes late, but you knew that already, because it's me we're talking about here) that I had left my purse at home. This means I have no wallet, I have no cell phone, I have no lip gloss. I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like, well, I feel like I left the house without my purse. Ladies will understand. Gah.

Thirdly, I found out this morning that all the salespeople at my company were treated to a weekend at Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, which is I hear is quite swank (I wouldn't know). Meanwhile, I spent the weekend watching Nero Wolfe and biking through gravel-storms. Not that I would have traded it for weekend time with those fucktards, but it's incredibly frustrating that this company doesn't want to spend the money to give their people MLK Day off, but they have no problem treating their salespeople to chi-chi spa weekends.

And! Lastly (so far), I've already been sexually harassed (mildly) and referred to as a "girl" by salespeople in the office twice this morning. I love Mondays. Fuck.

Did I mention that I once heard my boss tell a virulently racist joke? And another time refer to a black woman as "Aunt Jemima"? I'm going to suggest now that certain people ought to be shot. They ought to be lined up in front of a ditch and shot three at a time to save bullets, because they are not worth an entire bullet apiece.

That is all.

update re: portmanteau words

Wow, so, like, it seems I'm not as original as I thought. Okay, I never thought I was at all original actually, but I figured those snarktards at Wanker, I mean Gawker*, were easy marks and I could steal from them -- err, write an homage to them -- without fear of repercussion. Well, recently I discovered the word fucktard's (apparent) true source, and it is this guy. He seems to use it primarily to describe the imaginary people who write letters in to Parade magazine, and he uses it so much that I suspect the word was actually born out of an authentic urge towards a more efficient use of the language. Anyhow, to all the millions of fans I've garnered because of this post of mine, please transfer your allegiance to Mr. Tod Goldberg immediately. Sorry for pegging my pants like you, guy. By the way? Love the Bon Jovi subhead. That takes some onions.

Hey! Wanna hear something that I consider marginally weird? Mr. Goldberg's first post on his blog, much like my own first post here, seems to indicate that he, too, tried as long as possible to stop his ears 'gainst the siren's song of the blog, but eventually had to cave, like me. Just about one full year before me, in fact. (Although he also says that he's had a website since 1999.) Are there more of us who feel a little dirty about doing this? Have I stumbled into a majority somehow? If so, how do I get out of it?



*I read Gawker with embarassing frequency, as well as about 4,000 of its sister sites, and if you were like me -- that is, desperate to fill the 7.5 hours a day, five days a week, during which you would otherwise be staring into the pant-soiling abyss of a future in the insurance industry -- you would be just as happy as I am to find anything on the internet, anything at all, however starfucky, which you could surreptitiously read instead of working and which was at once moderately witty and not at all self-pitying. So, "snarktard" is at least one half a term of endearment. Oh, and "wanker" means "extremely worthwhile publication" in Chinese.

time to change my homepage

Today's award for Most Vacuous Yahoo! News Headline goes to:

Bush to Democrats: Don't Slam Iraq Policy

other people's lives

This is the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

And this is the saddest.

tapes 'n tapes

This band is in the opening stages of its bid to take over the indie music blogs. For the record, I have totally known about them for like two and a half weeks now, so I was ahead of the wave. In other words, I'm better than you.

Seriously, though, check them out. I swear, this is close to the dumbest band name I've ever heard, but Tapes 'N Tapes are excellent. At least the 4 songs available online are. Check out their website, MySpace page, and this interview with *Sixeyes (an extremely prolific mp3 blog which I recommend checking out only if you have no job). You can buy Tapes 'N Tapes' full-length album on their website (which I just did). They're touring on the east coast right now, but not coming to California anytime soon (sigh). Right now I am wishing so hard that I ran a club and could try to entice them here with buxom tube-topped California college girls, because in about 2 months they're going to be untouchable. Anyway, listen now while I will still think you're cool if you like them, cause you've got a narrow window here.

a fellow of infinite jest

This guy does Hamlet way better than Kenneth Branagh.

I want, I want, I want

Like Henderson, I have a voice in my head going I want, I want, I want. But, unlike Henderson, I think I've figured out what it means. Please, please won't someone buy this thing for me and save me a lot of angst and possibly a trip to Africa?:


You can find it for only $619, here.

Or I'd settle for this one:


Which you can get even cheaper, at $465, here. In eggplant, please.

Yes, for the record, I'm embarrassed now. You know what would take my mind off of my embarassment? Ridiculously expensive handbags.

I am super lame

I had a ticket to see Wolf Parade at the El Rey Theatre in L.A. this past Tuesday, with Chad Van Gaalen opening. I'd heard Wolf Parade is really great live and they've been one of my favorite finds of the past year, so I was really looking forward to this show. And I was even looking forward to Chad Van Gaalen, because although I'm on the fence about him, it's always fun to see Canadian giants sing in high voices. But then it got to be Tuesday afternoon and I decided it was way too hard to go, so I wussed out. In my defense, I would have had to go by myself, and for me going to a concert in L.A. involves driving 2-3 hours from Santa Barbara to L.A., in rush hour traffic, then standing around for something like 6 hours, then driving 2 hours back to Santa Barbara and getting home at like 3 am. All this is, you know, daunting on a work night, but not impossible if I have someone going with me. But by myself, the sheer and utter boredom of the wait at the venue I think would kill me. Anyway, I am super, super lame.

As a poor substitute, I've been trying to find at least a review of this show somewhere. But apparently no bloggers in L.A. saw this show, or at least haven't written about it yet. Or maybe there just are no music-loving bloggers in the L.A. area, which wouldn't surprise me at all. The closest I've found to a review of the show is this from MerrySwankster.com. (Cool site, by the way.) Short on details, no kidding. Come on, blogosphere, help me to experience vicariously what I was too lame to experience in person!

My favorite Wolf Parade song, by the way, is still the first one I heard: "You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son." (It just took me about 5 minutes to type that song title because I'm apparently retarded.) I heard this song and seriously stopped what I was doing (which was crunches, so, you know, I actually was looking for an excuse to stop, but still) and sat there with my mouth open when I heard the lines:

I will build a house inside of you
I will go in through the mouth
I will draw three figures on your heart
One of them will be me as a boy
One of them will be me
One of them will be me
Watching you run

I'm going from memory here so I might have that slightly wrong. I just love it though. It's like, I am so obsessed with you that I like to imagine climbing down your throat and carving pictures of myself on your internal organs. Fucking awesome.

why am I always on a plane or a fast train?

I'm completely in love with Rufus Wainwright's Want One right now. It's my boyfriend. Or I'm its boyfriend. Or something. Whatever, it's super awesome. I mean, I shouldn't have to tell you how hot it gets me to hear someone quoting the theme song from Three's Company (in "I Don't Know What It Is"). I'm actually being serious here, although it concerns me that I seem to be developing a weakness for music that sounds like showtunes. I've read some less-than-rave reviews of this album, but it's instantly worked its way into my consciousness. Time and more listens may work it right back out the other side again (like a porcupine quill) but right now it's occupying a big part of my brain.

Also, consider this a plug for AllOfmp3.com. It's a Russian mp3 download site where you can purchase entire albums for under $2 (you pay according to the file size you're downloading). It's apparently perfectly legal (I have links explaining why, but they're not handy, just do a search for "allofmp3 legal" if you're interested) although after learning more about how it works you may want to consider using another service. In a nutshell, it's a company that has purchased the legal right to broadcast songs from the Russian version of BMI or ASCAP. According to what I've read, there is no legal issue with this Russian company re-selling these songs in electronic format and in fact, the RIAA actually encourages this sort of thing, although not in the U.S.

I dunno, but my rationalization for using this service is that I have a finite amount of money to spend on music, so I can either choose to purchase less music and (probably) give each artist more money, or I can purchase more music and give more artists less money apiece. I like music, so I'd rather get more music. With this particular service, I also get the added bonus that none of the money I'm paying is going to the record companies (at least that's my understanding). Oh yes, and AllOfmp3 has some endearingly questionable English usage, if you're into that sort of thing.

While I'm on this topic, I also like emusic.com a lot. They give you a free trial with 50 free song downloads when you sign up, then you pick what pricing plan you want after that. It's at least worth signing up for the free trial.

Anyway, Rufus Wainwright. AllOfmp3. Emusic. If any of this isn't already old hat to you, get to work, people!