Garbage
McDonald’s, the burger chain we all grew up visiting at one time or another, has a new bunch of ads out pimping their McNuggets. One ad has some guy singer bawling out cliche’d lines to some girl about how she won’t share her McNuggets. Some idiots say it’s racist. Oh, it’s not. What is does show is that R&B music is now complete garbage.
Check it out now:
Now let me break it down for you.
R&B music in the 50’s was doowop. Slickly produced with studio musicians who got screwed out of royalties. The 60’s moved more into individual singers and groups who played thier own stuff. I tend to feel that the first half and the second half of the 60’s were completely different, almost like it took 5 years for the 50’s mentality to wear off. Rolling into the 70’s, there was more of a funk sound in R&B, again with studio musicians. All of these decades also included singers dying penniless, drug abuse, studio musicians getting screwed and other agregious (sp?) acts of the music industry.
Also?
It was a time where professional songwriters blossomed and wrote some amazing songs that have really stood the test of time. Carole King and all the gang over at the legendary Brill Building created some of the soundtrack of the baby boom generation. Thousands more toiled to bring you memorable hits. Those studio musicians put out some work that today is still considered the epitome of awesome. See “Standing In The Shadows Of Motown” for some background on that.
Record companies always, from the dawn of that era, considered that type of music disposable pop music. Disposable. You never, however, picked up on that from the writing or the band or the performances. They might have considered it garbage but they definately put a shine on it.
Going into the 80’s, the emergence of electronic music and the greediness of record execs made R&B worse but cheaping out on talent and turning to music videos to sell records as opposed to quality recordings. Selling the sizzle, not the steak, as one could say.
Into the 90’s, computers became more prevalent in the studio, turning singers who could barely sing into superstars. ProTools makes it all possible. Autotune makes it all possible. MTV makes it all possible. Instead of hiring quality musicians, they are replaced with synthesizers and drum machines (drum machines have no soul).
The one thing left was quality songwriting. But like the rock that is worn away by a slow water drip, this, too, is a thing of the past.
It was bad enough to have to witness the end of awesome musicians. But the end of quality songwriting is truly depressing.
R&B music is indeed, complete and utter garbage.
This fast food commercial inadvertently proves this point by putting together a standard R&B loop with lines that appear all over R&B songs. Think I’m kidding? Listen to your local R&B radio station and check it out.
For some reason, no one will say that the emperor has no clothes.
And this…is a damn shame.
A Giant Cheeseburger
There is a burger chain, built in the 50’s style called CheebugerCheeburger. They have this one pound burger that, if you can finish it, gets your picture on the wall for a month. They then transfer the month’s pictures to big albums that stay in the place forever. It has always been my weird dream to get my picture or name on a wall for eating something ridiculous.
Today….I reached that goal.
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- My pic that’s on the wall
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- Before the eating
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- Here it is, the big ass burger
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- This is a tasty burger
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- Last bite
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- Goofing with the fake cheeseburger
Some Thoughts From A New Driver
This month marks a year that I got my driver’s license, and in July I got my car (yeah a ‘97 civic hatchback. It rules). I noticed people doing weird stuff on the road when I first started driving, but at first, you think it’s you. That it might be jut that you aren’t, if you pardon the pun, road tested.
I know now it’s not just me. People seem to drive with thier heads up thier asses.
1. TURN SIGNALS PEOPLE!
I don’t know about you, but my tinfoil hat is in the shop and I don’t know you want to turn unless you telllllll me by….wait for it…..using your turn signals! Jesus!
2. Put down the phone.
It’s not that people can’t talk and drive at the same time, far from it. It’s that they can;t hold up the phone to thier face and talk at the same time. So people, go get a bluetooth headset. Keep it in the car. Easy! And text messaging? Leave it alone. Or call them with your spiffy new headset.
3. When I put my blinker on to change lanes, that is not an invitation for you to speed up.
I almost slammed into a Mercedes because at the last minute, with lots and lots of room on the road, he decided to speed on up so I couldn’t change lanes. Not necessary.
4. Pedestrians indeed always have the right of way.
However, either cross the street or stand on the sidewalk. I was trying to turn onto Walnut street last weekend and this guy is standing on the sidewalk and the girlfriend is in the street. Lots of cars on a saturday nite. Make up your mind!
5. Let’s all take our time in parking lots, shall we?
People in mad hurries to get out of parking lots bother me. I am against driving like an old lady but if there are lots of people around, take your time. You wanna be responsible for killing some little kid? I doubt it.
6. When you park, feel free to pull up to the car in front of you so there is not enough room behind and in front of you to combine for another car. This is a pet peeve of mine. Even tho I drive a small car that can fit almost anywhere, it’s still annoying. Will it kill you to walk 8 feet to the left to your house? Come on!
This is all I can think of right now, feel free to add stuff in the comments!
How To Not Piss Off Your IT Person
As someone who has worked in the IT biz for almost 15 years, people tend to to ask me why their IT people are so grumpy all the time. They also ask how to avoid the wrath of the IT person in the office they work.
The reasons your IT person might be grumpy, crotchety, irritated or annoyed almost all the time come from several different sources. To understand this think of it this way: people tend to think of IT workers as they do car mechanics; that we are all liars and want to get as much money as possible from unsuspecting clients. Imagine dealing with that day after day while just trying to do your job and you would be irritable as well.
Now here are 4 tips to not only avoid the wrath of your IT person, but to actually get help faster when you really need it.
1. Back up your information regularly. It’s worth it to take some time to sit down and back it up. It makes the IT guy happy to know you are being conscientious, and when something goes wrong, and it will, that is one less thing to worry about.
2. The next time something goes wrong, pay attention and ask how you can prevent it from happening again. Take notes if need be. IT peeps get really pissy if they have to keep coming back to fix a problem that they know is not only user caused but the user doesn’t seem to care. It might just take longer and longer for a response from the IT peeps if you keep it up. Plus, we really do appreciate interest in computer stuff.
3. Stop acting like you are working in the IT dept. While we like people who are interested in not screwing up the machines and would like to learn, we also hate that smarty pants person who thinks they know more then the IT department. I used to work in a law office with a woman who thought she was the world’s smartest woman because she knew how to use Word Perfect. She flaunted it and it was annoying. I also worked at a newspaper where a (non IT) coworker kept telling my boss his opinions on everything and ended up getting me fired. I found out what that guy was saying, and since the boss had no IT knowledge, that grain of doubt festered. Nothing that guy was saying was any good, viable info. If you do not work in IT, keep your mouth shut. The IT guys have no control over budgets to buy stuff, when you can get a new machine or program or any other thing really. We fix things. Cut us a break. We don’t tell you how to do whatever it is you do, so lay off.
4. Treat us like people, not your slave to snap-to. When i worked at an Ivy League University, we had professors who would scream to the Dean if we didn’t get to the office they were at fast enough. I have had that happen plenty of times at all sorts of places. That’s just not cool and makes us even more grumpy because we do have other things to do. For the most part, we will get to you as soon as we can. If the problem means you cannot do work on your computer, take that little bit of time to take a walk, stretch your legs or call your family. Either way, we are working on it and complaining just makes us hate you.
So I hope this helps with your relationship with the IT Department. We also love cookies during the holidays!
Adios To The Shield
Vic Mackey is one in a long line of anti-heroes. There is something about a character who is bad that we all seem to be intrigued with. Maybe it’s from growing up being told to be good, to do the right thing, that people who do bad thing will have to pay for them eventually.
We see characters like Tony Soprano, Eric Cartman, Archie Bunker, Larry David & Vic Mackey and we not so much root for them, but are wrapped up in the worlds they seem to create in the craziness they release upon the world.
Last nite we saw the consequences of Vic Mackey’s foils: one dead former strike team member (and wife and child), one that’s going to jail, his wife and kids in witness protection and now the contract that wiped his slate clean of all the heinous things he had done has castrated him. Vic now is a work-a-day shlub, having to watch his step every single day because one step over the line and he loses his immunity and goes to jail until 6 days past forever.
As far as the rest of the crew…Ronnie ends up in jail. The evolution of Ronnie from a no line character to a main one over the seasons really was interesting to watch. And Shane. Walton Goggins facial expressions when he was using the payphone to talk to Vic were great, you could see his character finally break when Vic not only rubs the deal with the feds in his face but threatens to go see little Jackson and unborn Francis Abigail to tell them all about thier parents. That was the end of the line for Shane Vandrell.
Dutch and Claudette dealing with Lloyd, knowing he killed his mom, was chilling. CCH Pounder nailed that kid and her performance with Vic, from making him sit on the perp side of the table, to reading Shane’s letter and laying out the pictures, was amazing.
I really have nothing bad to say about this finale. It was everything you could have asked for, with a fitting finale for the king of the antiheroes: stripped of everything he ever loved: police work, family and friends.
Some people have compared the end of the episode, where the lights in the building go out and Vic sticks his gun in his waistband and goes home to the ending of the Sopranos. To both, it’s just that life goes on, wether you have learned your lessons or not and wether you are suffering or enjoying life. However, Tony continued his life as it was, sitting there and enjoying his family (it’s the little things) whereas Vic is completely alone and shut out from all angles of his life. He is paying for his deeds via a virtual jail….and stuck in a cubicle.
If The Shield does not win numerous Emmy awards this year, something is seriously wrong.
My hat is off to Shawn Ryan.
I cannot wait to see what he does next.
Put Me In Coach!
During the Eagles game yesterday, versus the Ravens, Donovan McNabb sucked. I’m not gonna sugar coat it. He had numerous picks and just could not seem to do anything right. Was it just him or was it the shitty playcalling coming somewhere from the sidelines (altho today in a press conference, Andy took the blame)? Either way, he could not get anything done.
So, Andy sent in the backup Kevin Kolb. Kolb didn’t do much better and even threw an interception in the endzone that was run back for a touchdown (and set a record for a runback). The kid was thrown into a game in a hostile environment, and let’s face it, the game was already in the shitter. Unless that kid came in and threw for a thousand yards, he wasn’t going to save the game.
But back to Andy Reid. Good lord. He can’t do anything right. Run the ball, throw the ball, put in your backup qb, nothing at the right time and it’s all wrong. He also didn’t even have the nerve to tell Donovan to his face he wasn’t going back in, he had the quarterbacks coach do it. That’s just a dick move. There are obviously other things going on here.
My thoughts on this are clear: this is the end of the road for Andy and Donovan here in town. It’s been 10 long years and it’s just not working anymore. Andy was phoning it in last year and this year is just a complete mess. How many more years is this going to go on? And how many years do we have to listen to Donovan say in the beginning of the year that this is the time for the Eagles?
While in real life I am sure they are lovely people, they need to go.
Who will take over?
I was told by a friend of mine that it was all over sportsradio in Pittsburgh that Bill Cowher has interviewed for the job. Jon Gruden isn’t getting along with management. Steve Spagnuolo could come back from the Giants to run the ship. Who knows.
As far as Quarterbacks go, we have Kolb and Feely. Could Kolb turn into a Matt Ryan or a Joe Flacco? Who knows. The kid is a second year rookie with no playing experience from a little college. He could develop into something cool or he could be Ryan Leaf (haha, ok no one sucks as bad as Ryan Leaf, but you get my point). It’s all a roll of the dice. But you can bet the fans are dreaming of Jeff Garcia under thier Christmas tree this year. And on a side note, has any QB been as disrespected as Garcia has been in thier career? Ridiculous.
Anyway, this season needs to be taken out back behind the shed and shot.
Let’s start on rebuilding asap!
It’s a funny thing:
The Phils are sitting on top.
The Sixers and Flyers are on thier way.
The Eagles…need to catch up.
Fingers crossed.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
The Whoo Girls
Last nite’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was definitely a step back to what the show was about, which was funny and off the wall stuff mixed with some sad truths. If you missed the episode, it was called “The Woo Girls”. Robin starts hanging out with a coworker of Lily’s who is a Woo Girl (those girls you see in bars and clubs who are always yelling “whooooooo”) and Ted gets his big chance to design a big building for Barney’s (and Marshall’s) company Goliath National Bank.
Everyone has seen these Woo Girls. They are all over bars, clubs, weddings, anywhere there is alcohol and music, there is some girl with her arms in the air yelling it. Some men like them, as they tend to get a little rowdy and the rest of us roll our eyes. Robin and Lily run into some Whoo Girls, and much to Lily’s surprise, Robin joins in. After explaining to Lily that since she got married, Robin feels like a third wheel, so the Whoo Girls are a kind of short term kryptonite to her feelings of being rudderless and single. It was actually kind of sad but completely understandable and relatable. Also, we got to see subtitles to what each Whoo girl really means when she whoos, and Ted popping up was hilarious.
On the Ted/Marshall/Barney front, Barney gets to give Ted his big shot to design a new building but then get hoodwinked into voting for Sven, the Swedish design firm who crates a building t look like a T. Rex, giving Barney the office in the brain (which Marshall points out is very small) and a strip club in the “N” of GNB that revolves around the head. Oh, and it shoots fire out of it’s mouth. Marshall finds out, calls him on it and Barney fixes the mistake (and then gets tied to a mechanical bull, causing him to miss out on a threesome. Punishment enough for him!).
While obviously this episode was a bridge of sorts to more things happening in the Ted and Robin world, it was a nice setup in terms of how the two of them are feeling in general without being super-uber serious, which sometimes can drag this show down a little bit.
Best line of the nite:
Marshall shows up at the bar with a pink cowboy hat on.
Marshall: “These testtube shots are great and I’m sure there’s even liquor in them”
Lily: “Where’d you get the hat?”
Marshall: “What hat?”
So Far This Season: HIMYM and The Big Bang Theory
I didn’t get on board with How I Met Your Mother until summer reruns of Season 1, so when I saw that CBS felt so good about it’s new show The Big Bang Theory that it would pair it on monday nights, I bought an advanced ticket.
Ok, so that’s not entirely true. I had read about the show and was happy Johnny Galecki got work (as Leonard), as he was great paired with Sara Gilbert on Roseanne (who, coincidentally, is now a recurring player on TBBT). I also was looking forward to a lot of geeky jokes (of the comic, scifi, and even science persuasion). The way they were pitching it at first was “one geek pines over the hot girl” and I pictured dorks with a hot blonde who had 5 brain cells. I was super surprised to find that Kaley Cuoco as Penny, the hot neighbor, has her own sense of smartness and can hold her own with the geeky gang next across the hall.
Of course, the first season had a lot of “Leonard pines for the hot girl” storylines, but as the writers began to really get on a roll, the geeks and the hot girl came to life! This year Penny got addicted to online gaming, Leslie (Sara Gilbert) as Sheldon’s Arch Nemesis and we finally get to hear about Leonard’s lack of a love life when he gets a stalker. This is all rounded out by the hilarious sidekicks Wolowitz and Raj, one is a creepy (yet hilariously so) kind of lech and the other cannot talk to women unless he’s completely hammered.
As you can tell, I am really into the show this season. The only problem I can see is if the show becomes a little toooo Sheldon specific. As in: Sheldon can’t drive, Sheldon gets a stalker, Sheldon moves out because he cannot keep a secret, you get where I’m going. The character of Sheldon is played to the hilt by Jim Parsons. Besides his friendship with the guys, there are no real redeeming qualities about the guy, but his cluelessness is almost endearing and you really feel for his friends when they have to deal with his…ways. I just hope it doesn’t start that slide into the “Sheldon Show”.
And that brings us to How I Met Your Mother.
Sigh. Where to begin. How about the beginning?
Ok, so HIMYM is a show about a bunch of friends living in NYC. Ted is telling these stories from the future to his kids leading up to….How He Meets Thier Mother (duh). Ted is a romantic, he believes there is one out there for him. His friends Marshall and Lily are supportive and thier friend Barney, well, Barney helps out when he can, or, when he’s not being awesome. For a few season now, the writers have given us some hilariously great episodes, such as Slap Bet (featuring Robin Sparkles), but it seems this year the show has hit kind of a skid.
In the first episode, Ted and (Sarah Chalke) Stella get engaged and Ted realizes he doesn’t know too much about her. This leads him to find out she has never seen Star Wars. Ok, this is completely impossible, but I let it go for the sake of television. Also, Barney confesses to Lily he loves Robin. What? Exactly. Marshall lies to Ted and tells him Stella loved Star Wars even tho she said it was stupid (What? Exactly!).
In the second episode, Marshall is freaking out because he cannot find the best burger in NYC that he had found right when he first moved to town. They spend the whole episode looking for it, there is alot of yelling but way less funny, and Regis Philbin has a cameo that could have been a little funnier.
In the third episode, Ted doesn’t want to move to Stella’s house in Jersey because he hates Jersey because he is a New Yorker. He goes on a huge rant about Jersey and then when he realizes Stella doesn’t want to move because of her kid, all the sudden he does a 180 and decides to move. This decision is done in the last 2 minutes of the episode and feels ridiculously rushed, almost like the writers weren’t sure which was they wanted to go until the last second. The selfishness of Ted can’t be switched off like a light switch, life just does not work that way, and while tv is not real life (I know!), they could at least try and pace it better.
The fourth episode, everyone starts freaking about moving: Lily and Marshall to Dowsitrepla, Ted to Jersey and Robin to Japan (because she quit her job). You could tell this was a bridging episode to the wedding and not really very funny.
The fifth episode dealt with the wedding of Stella and Ted, who use her sister’s wedding plans as her man broke it off with her. She gets mad because Robin was invited and Ted ends up bringing her exhusband and daughter to the wedding. Stella ends up reuniting with the ex and leaves Ted at the alter.
The last episode to air was this week and had to do with Ted not being angry about Stella until he sees her and, after hiding from her under a table, decides to confront her. He refers to pushing his emotions down deep as “Ohio style”. Now which one is it? Are you from Ohio Ted? Or are you a New Yorker (as in the RANT from the third episode)? The rant really pissed me off personally, not that I have any tied to NYC or Jersey, but it really makes me angry when someone who lives a few years in a city thinks they were born and bred there. We get a lot of that in Philly and frankly, you people don’t have a clue. Very rarely do transplants *get it*.
But the trouble with this season on a bigger level is that the focus needs to get off of Ted so much and more onto the larger scale of things. Slap Bet was one of the best episodes of the whole run and not only was it great to see people slapping each other, but it had a huuge character reveal that Robin was a Debbie Gibson-esque pop star in Canada in the 90’s (which was explained as the 80’s didn’t get to Canada until the 90’s, which was a stroke of genius on the part of the writers so they didn’t have to cheat her age.).
If the writers could work on that, to add more fun to the sow instead of just Ted’s love life all the time, the show could be back on track. Of course, this is just 6 episodes into the season so we will see how the rest of the season goes. I have some faith in the creators and writers and hope one of the best shows on tv gets back on track!
What A World!
I was sitting in a bar, waiting for my friend Steve to break down his equipment, when I looked up and saw that they declared Obama the Presidential winner. There weren’t many other people in that bar, but the ones who were there slowly turned around and watched people freak out all over the country, right on that tv that hung in the corner of the room. Smiles all around.
While I did vote for him, as did most of the people I knew, save for my diehard republican mom and stepdad, I had a lot of doubt he could pull it off. Racism is not something that just goes away. I know a bunch of guys who think it’s totally ok to be flagrantly racist in front of me because we both happen to not be black. These guys, and other people like them, are all over the place. They keep thier racism more under thier hat, not like days of yore, but that doesn’t mean it does not exist. It’s just more…covert. Still kind of offensive tho. I wonder what they think of the new President? I bet they will have some sort of nickname for him and roll thier eyes anytime his name comes up.
The only way to make people forget your gender or skin color is to do a kick ass job in whatever you happen to be doing. While I am not black, I am a girl, and that’s always worked for me. Obama has a big job ahead of him. People are gonna be coming after him on all kinds of issues (and I hope the FBI keeps him safe, because god knows how many wingnuts are out there). Good luck to him, but I feel like, while it is impossible to fulfill all your campaign promises or to push things thru without revision, some great stuff is on the horizon.
I’m 33 years old and I have seen some crazy elections, but I have never seen this many people come out to vote in such a wide variety then this year (I am including the first Clinton election as well as the Gore campaign). I never play party, I vote people, and it looks like more people did that this year then ever before.
Fingers crossed.
January is right around the corner!
So to recap the last 2 weeks:
1. The Phillies win the World Series
2. Obama becomes the first African American President
3. Guns and Roses Chinese Democracy is slated to come out in a few weeks
What a world!
I can’t wait to see what’s next!
Random Thoughts On A Rainy Election Day
I did go and vote today. I vote at almost every election and it’s kind of annoying me that people are yelling at me to vote. I’m not your target market, people.
It also irritates me when people on both sides are like “the opponent wants to *insert badbadbad ideas here* and it’ll bring down the nation”. First of all, there is a series of checks ad balances here in the states. You can have a ton of ideas but try getting all of them thru the senate and congress exactly how you want them. Not gonna happen. So relax, even if the candidate you are voting for loses, the other guy won’t pass that bill requiring guys named Tom to wear purple tshirts on rotating tuesdays (which will be a relief to guys named Tom but a bummer to the purple shirt company).
You know what I’d like to hear from a candidate? What they’ll do for the single people. Single people get screwed all the time. From less money back on thier taxes to a take out food minimum. A friend of mine is married and has 3 kids and they got enough money back to take a trip (driving but still) to Disneyworld. I got enough back to pay my cable bill (and not the overdue part, just the monthly part. also, not the dirty movie rental part…). There are baby showers and wedding showers, but no “hey! congratulations on not populating the earth and also for apparently not finding a mate!” shower? So unfair. So why doesn’t a candidate ever offer an earned income credit for not reproducing (ie: “congratulations on understanding the role of birth control in your life!”)? Or an IRS tax credit for buying over 45 “Dinner For One” frozen dinners over a year (or Red Baron personal pizzas)? It’s hard being single. There are no extra cheerios to steal off a highchair in our homes, no one to pawn off doing the dishes on. And if the phone rings, we have to screen it *ourselves*! Anyway, they would totally have my vote. Hold on one second while I pop my “lunch for one” in the microwave.
Ok, I’m back, burned tongue and all.
Why are sports talking heads allowed to be on the field when a team wins the World Series? For instance, Howard Eskin (king of all douchebags) was pictured drinking champagne on the field when the Phillies won the World Series. He spent all season (and every season of his entire life) tearing down each and every player and managerial choice (and the manager). King of the negative and bad facial hair, and yet, allowed on the field? He’s like the kid that beats on you at school but when he finds out you have the new Super Mario 3 game, he wants to all the sudden be your BFF. They both should both get the same response: “go find someone else’s underwear to yank on” (and a swift kick to the nuts wouldn’t be so bad either). What is great is that as an adult, you won’t have to hear a lecture about sharing from your drunk dad.
Thats all I got right now.
Comments?
