Retraction: DO NOT Listen to MacGruber

MacGruber is currently working on some self-esteem issues.

Once he pulls through this midlife crisis, we can safely say that the guy's a freakin' genius!

Happy Birthday to all you youngsters born on February 29th! You finally get to not share a de facto birthday with those born on March 1st - your own official day (of course you know that already). The above embedded MacGruber midlife crisis sketch is for all you Leap Year tweens and early teens! And all you Leap Year four year olds can finally get your driver's licenses! Woo-hoo!

Nuanced Note to Everyone: Only Listen to MacGruber When He's Sober

He'll pull through and go back on the wagon...I know it!

The guy's still a freakin' genius!

Note to Everyone: Listen to MacGruber

When MacGruber tells you to do something, you do it...or else.

The guy's a freakin' genius!

"I Drink Your Milkshake" SNL Sketch

Happy Academy Awards Day! There will be milkshakes for old men, Juno.

moxy phinx "dozhd edyot"

This is beyond awesome:

dozhd edyot

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Stephen Colbert's "A Brief History of Time"

Check out this how-to guide to become an astrophysicist and otherwise educational video about the universe:

I'm sure you're crapping your pants right now reflecting on the immenseness of the universe.

Happy Vday (Strike Is Over)

Happy Valentine's
The writer's strike is over
Here's John Lennon's song.

Translated: (1) Happy (early) Valentine's Day, (2) the Writer's Guild strike is (essentially) over, and (3) moving on to the realm unresolved global/human issues, here's John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)":

Podcast #25: Of Hiccups and Neologisms

Ryan goes into a hiccup fit whilst spieling about politics 18 minutes into the show; he also dabbles in would-be neologisms (saying analysist instead of the actual term analyst).

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1. Wolfkin "These Are Illusions"
2. Snake and Jet’s Amazing Bullit Band "10 Cities Beyond" More Music
3. Lionel Neykov "I Need You"
4. moxy phinx "hyln" MySpace
5. ANTIQCOOL "When Your Down"

The Chronicles of Colbert and Conan: Who Made Huckabee?

For the first part of 2008, there has been a comedy feud between Conan O'Brien and Stephen Colbert, regarding the answer to life, the universe, and everything (without being 42): Who made Mike Huckabee?

I first blogged about the Huckabee causality conundrum on my currently politically-tinged blog DeRamos.org after Conan mentioned re-energizing Chuck Norris, who in turn re-energized Huckabee to win the first caucus of the election season in Iowa. Little did I know that my humble little blog entry caught the attention of Stephen Colbert and/or the bloggers at Comedy Central (not the writers, as they were supposed to be on strike at the time). The screenshot at the beginning of this entry shows a link from the Colbert Nation to DeRamos.org's article "Huckabee's Caucus Win, Conan's Causality."

Much has been said about the Colbert Bump - that is, being interviewed on The Colbert Report invariably bumps up the interviewee's popularity - and my other blog experienced something like that in terms of blog traffic for about a week. In gratitude for this third-tier quasi-Colbert Bump, and with my inner comedic muckraker never letting go of a funny story, I have followed the entire story at DeRamos.org: Check out part one | part 1.5 | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven for in-depth reference.

Otherwise, here are the videos (catch 'em while they are still hosted by Hulu and Comedy Central) telling the epic story in its entirety:

1. Conan made Huckabee (currently unavailable on Hulu so check out the later videos for context).


2. No, Colbert made Huckabee.


3. No, Conan made Colbert and therefore made Huckabee.


4. No, Jon Stewart made Conan and therefore made Huckabee.


5. No, Conan made both Stewart and Colbert and therefore made Huckabee. Evidently, he also shaved off his strike beard between the previous Late Night video and this one.


6. The final battle, part one, on The Daily Show.



7. The final battle, part two, on The Colbert Report.



8. The final battle, part three, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.


9. The epilogue, multiple endings a la The Return of the King, on The Daily Show.




10. A summary of the events, courtesy of Comedy Central.


The screenshot is from ColbertNation.com.

"Yield" at Ten

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the release of what I think is the finest Pearl Jam album to date - Yield. To me, it represents a culmination of the whole "grunge" phase of the band - from the out-of-the-gate commercial successes of Ten / Vs. / Vitalogy to the shedding of fair-weather fans (who moved on to the next MTV trend of the '90s) with No Code. Yield marks the beginning of the an era of sum-of-its-parts synergy from the band. Instead of being merely Stone's album (with Ed's lyrics) or Ed's album with some collaborations, each band member contributed to album with their own songs, in their personal style:

"Brain of J.," "Faithfull," and "Given to Fly" are Mike McCready's wailing rockers. Stone Gossard's penchant for groove and rhythms butting against each other are evident in "No Way," "Do the Evolution," "In Hiding," and "All Those Yesterdays." Jeff Ament contributes yet another melancholy song in "Low Light," and the emotional residue thereof is also glimpsed in the rocker "Pilate" and the spoken-word groover "Push Me, Pull Me." Of course, Eddie Vedder lent a hand in several of the aforementioned tracks, as well as penning some minimalist rock 'n roll with "Wishlist" and "M.F.C."

Not to be left out, then-drummer Jack Irons wrote a transitional track - the one labeled with a red dot - and in future albums, current drummer Matt Cameron has had several songwriting contributions.

Pearl Jam has since left their previous record label Epic (Sony BMG) in favor of a quasi-a-la-carte distribution deal with J Records (another Sony BMG label) and other media outlets (like Rhino/WEA), so consumers will probably be spared from some sort of special anniversary repackaging of the album with a bunch of bonus material or whatever record companies do these days to siphon money from people. It's something neither the band nor its fan base probably will tolerate, in any case. However, if you want to celebrate the album Yield with auxiliary material, the band released such material throughout the calendar year 1998:

1. In August of '98, the band released a making-of-Yield documentary film called Single Video Theory.
2. In November of '98, the band released a Yield Tour compilation called Live on Two Legs, which features the band in another transition, with former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron keeping the beat.

So here's to my favorite album by one of my favorite bands. If you follow the syllogism, then Yield would have to be on my list of favorite albums.

Homer Simpson Rocks

Last Sunday's episode of The Simpsons totally rocked. While there have been issues about series continuity, everyone needs to realize that the children (at the very least) haven't aged in 18+ years...I mean, how many last day of school episodes for the same school year did they produce? Exactly. So roll with it, identify with the parody, and laugh. A lot. And possibly cringe. A little.

Here's a selection of songs by Homer Simpson's grunge band Sadgasm (check 'em out while they are still on Hulu):

"Politically Incorrect" sounds like Nirvana's "Lithium" with a bit of "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle."

"Save Me" is reminiscent of an L7 song and Nirvana's "Rape Me." Stick around a few minutes after the song for Weird Al's parody-of-a-parody "Brain Freeze."



Homer goes post-grunge - or as Spin magazine once called it, scrunge - with "Margerine," which is obviously is a reference to the Bush song "Glycerine" (ah, most of the '90s, when Bush meant the band Bush).



And for context, here's the entire episode, entitled "That '90s Show":