POLARITY 155
this entry brought to you by postal service, "the district sleeps alone tonight"
THE GOOD
Postal Service, Give Up Let me first say that I've heard three or four Death Cab for Cutie songs, and they bore the hell out of me. I'm happy for their success because I like Ben Gibbard, but if Postal Service was opening for Death Cab, I'd pay to see the former, would leave half-way during the set of the latter. Postal Service may just be the side project of Death Cab singer Ben Gibbard and producer Jimmy Tamborello, but for a side project, it certainly rocks. Or rather, does not rock. Combining Gibbard's dreamy, whimsical voice and dark, depressing lyrics ("We Will Become Silhouettes", complete with its sweet "bah bah" backing vocals, is about surviving nuclear winter; "Clark Cable" is about not letting go of a defunct relationship so much you'd be willing to make a movie of it just to pretend it could go on) with Tamborello's sugary-sweet, innocuous, yet mathematic and precise beats and synths, make for what at first appears to be the sugariest nerd-pop possible, but keeps you coming back for more because of complexities that bely its initial innocence.
Treasure Planet For some reason, this Disney movie did not do well in theaters. I do remember seeing trailers for it at the time and being extremely unexcited. Disney retelling another classic story, this time on another planet with, apparently, way too much CGI. Yay. For the record, the movie does not exactly have that classic Disney feel, as there really is too much CGI. But once the movie got flowing and the characters got enough room to breathe, I found myself quite enjoying it. Captain Silver came off as a pretty deep character (and was wonderfully animated) and his relationship with the boy genuine, and although I've never read the book, this aspect was obviously the most important part of the story, and they hit it on the head.
Optical illusions Who amongst us doesn't like optical illusions? I don't think many. Personally, if you give me a collection of optical illusions, I will spend way too much time on them. I love that semi-high you get after experiencing them, when your mind has been blown. To get you started, try this one first. Keep in mind that spot a and spot b are the exact same shade of grey.
Disney Wobblers in Kellog's cereal There's these toys-- well, I can barely call them toys-- that came in my cereal, and they're basically weebles, only with Disney characters on them. They're sturdy plastic capsules with a weight on one end, so no matter what you do to them, they end up upright. Like I said, like weebles. And, for some reason, I'm completely addicted to them. I have like, four. Seriously.
The Quote Cache It's a user submitted site, and they don't seem to go in and edit the submissions, so spelling can be wildly inconsistent and the lack of punctuation can kill the effect that some quotes have, but still, it's nice to go and have a site that's nothing but quotables.
THE BAD
The second terrorist attacks on London last week Jesus Christ. What the fuck is going on here?
President Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court You mean George Bush, the guy who promised to "unite not divide" nominated a supremely evil fucker to our highest court, while touting him as a man with great morals and great character? Wow, nothing shocking there. The worst thing about the most evil people in power is how predictable they are in their behaviors. They're like worker bees. Evil worker bees. The only thing surprising about John Roberts' nomination is how goddamn handsome he is. Compared to all the other slugs that tend to relate themselves to Camp Bush, I mean.
The Island opening in 4th place Believe it or not, despite the fact that Michael Bay only makes the worst kind of Hollywood films (that is, huge, terrible, mindless, explosive-laden films, the kind that critics of Hollywood point at when they accuse them of melting America's brains), I kind of wanted to see The Island, because it honestly has a pretty cool plot, involving an island filled with clones. I mean, yeah, Blade Runner already exists, but that didn't stop it from seeming kinda cool. When it got lackluster critical response, I wasn't surprised. This is the guy that brought us Bad Boys II for Chris' sakes. But The Island, which opened last weekend, not only couldn't beat Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it came in fourth. That's not only a flop, that's a mega-flop. And I'm, honestly, a little disappointed. Just a little.
Caillou on PBS I doubt you watch PBS Kids, you, being a free-spirited single non-parent, who goes to bed whenever the hell you feel tired and wakes up, looks outside, sees it's bright and shiny, then goes back to bed anyway just cuz you don't feel like it. I'm sure you never watch PBS Kids, and frankly, I probably wouldn't either. Except I have a two and a half year old, so there are days that will go by where the channel never switches from PBS. Anyway, if you do have kids, I'm sure you've seen Caillou. And at first it was a really cute show with good lessons, but after a little while, good lord, would somebody shut that kid the fuck up? I swear to God, if I was Caillou's dad, I'd keep him in his room all freaking day.
The storm the other night We had a terrible storm, and it kinda sounded like a hurricane. It sounded like hell out there. When we got out the next morning, turns out it was much worse than we had thought. Lightning had struck a bush next to the house. The tree in our front yard was split. Neighbors fared much worse, with trees completely uprooted and others split in half from lightning. Keep in mind, I live in Arizona.
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with love from CRS @ 6:20 PM
Monday, July 25, 2005
THE GOOD
Postal Service, Give Up Let me first say that I've heard three or four Death Cab for Cutie songs, and they bore the hell out of me. I'm happy for their success because I like Ben Gibbard, but if Postal Service was opening for Death Cab, I'd pay to see the former, would leave half-way during the set of the latter. Postal Service may just be the side project of Death Cab singer Ben Gibbard and producer Jimmy Tamborello, but for a side project, it certainly rocks. Or rather, does not rock. Combining Gibbard's dreamy, whimsical voice and dark, depressing lyrics ("We Will Become Silhouettes", complete with its sweet "bah bah" backing vocals, is about surviving nuclear winter; "Clark Cable" is about not letting go of a defunct relationship so much you'd be willing to make a movie of it just to pretend it could go on) with Tamborello's sugary-sweet, innocuous, yet mathematic and precise beats and synths, make for what at first appears to be the sugariest nerd-pop possible, but keeps you coming back for more because of complexities that bely its initial innocence.
Treasure Planet For some reason, this Disney movie did not do well in theaters. I do remember seeing trailers for it at the time and being extremely unexcited. Disney retelling another classic story, this time on another planet with, apparently, way too much CGI. Yay. For the record, the movie does not exactly have that classic Disney feel, as there really is too much CGI. But once the movie got flowing and the characters got enough room to breathe, I found myself quite enjoying it. Captain Silver came off as a pretty deep character (and was wonderfully animated) and his relationship with the boy genuine, and although I've never read the book, this aspect was obviously the most important part of the story, and they hit it on the head.
Optical illusions Who amongst us doesn't like optical illusions? I don't think many. Personally, if you give me a collection of optical illusions, I will spend way too much time on them. I love that semi-high you get after experiencing them, when your mind has been blown. To get you started, try this one first. Keep in mind that spot a and spot b are the exact same shade of grey.
Disney Wobblers in Kellog's cereal There's these toys-- well, I can barely call them toys-- that came in my cereal, and they're basically weebles, only with Disney characters on them. They're sturdy plastic capsules with a weight on one end, so no matter what you do to them, they end up upright. Like I said, like weebles. And, for some reason, I'm completely addicted to them. I have like, four. Seriously.
The Quote Cache It's a user submitted site, and they don't seem to go in and edit the submissions, so spelling can be wildly inconsistent and the lack of punctuation can kill the effect that some quotes have, but still, it's nice to go and have a site that's nothing but quotables.
THE BAD
The second terrorist attacks on London last week Jesus Christ. What the fuck is going on here?
President Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court You mean George Bush, the guy who promised to "unite not divide" nominated a supremely evil fucker to our highest court, while touting him as a man with great morals and great character? Wow, nothing shocking there. The worst thing about the most evil people in power is how predictable they are in their behaviors. They're like worker bees. Evil worker bees. The only thing surprising about John Roberts' nomination is how goddamn handsome he is. Compared to all the other slugs that tend to relate themselves to Camp Bush, I mean.
The Island opening in 4th place Believe it or not, despite the fact that Michael Bay only makes the worst kind of Hollywood films (that is, huge, terrible, mindless, explosive-laden films, the kind that critics of Hollywood point at when they accuse them of melting America's brains), I kind of wanted to see The Island, because it honestly has a pretty cool plot, involving an island filled with clones. I mean, yeah, Blade Runner already exists, but that didn't stop it from seeming kinda cool. When it got lackluster critical response, I wasn't surprised. This is the guy that brought us Bad Boys II for Chris' sakes. But The Island, which opened last weekend, not only couldn't beat Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it came in fourth. That's not only a flop, that's a mega-flop. And I'm, honestly, a little disappointed. Just a little.
Caillou on PBS I doubt you watch PBS Kids, you, being a free-spirited single non-parent, who goes to bed whenever the hell you feel tired and wakes up, looks outside, sees it's bright and shiny, then goes back to bed anyway just cuz you don't feel like it. I'm sure you never watch PBS Kids, and frankly, I probably wouldn't either. Except I have a two and a half year old, so there are days that will go by where the channel never switches from PBS. Anyway, if you do have kids, I'm sure you've seen Caillou. And at first it was a really cute show with good lessons, but after a little while, good lord, would somebody shut that kid the fuck up? I swear to God, if I was Caillou's dad, I'd keep him in his room all freaking day.
The storm the other night We had a terrible storm, and it kinda sounded like a hurricane. It sounded like hell out there. When we got out the next morning, turns out it was much worse than we had thought. Lightning had struck a bush next to the house. The tree in our front yard was split. Neighbors fared much worse, with trees completely uprooted and others split in half from lightning. Keep in mind, I live in Arizona.
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