CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Monday, September 05, 2011

this entry brought to you by red hot chili peppers, "dani california"


THE GOOD

Labor Day A coworker came up to me the other day and asked if I knew what Labor Day was all about. I explained that President Grover Cleveland had sent in the military to break a strike, and in the process, American workers, whose only crime was to demand that they be paid and compensated better for their work, were killed. Labor Day was his way of apologizing for this tragedy. And yet, for all the symbolism Labor Day is supposed to represent, in the year 2012, it is a symbol of everything that has been eroded from the modern worker, and worse, it represents the general apathy of people towards what's being taken away. And obviously I don't blame this coworker for not remembering what Labor Day is-- I don't know which war Memorial Day is for, and what war Veteran's Day is for-- are they both for World War 2? But I found her not remembering what Labor Day was for as a very good metaphor for America in general. Oblivious to Labor Day itself, but also oblivious to what's happened to laborers.

Glenn Beck off Fox News When I first learned this joyous news, that public nuisance and all-around madman Glenn Beck had lost his job at Fox News, I was pessimistic. I thought that he would immediately find home on some other lunatic network eager for the ratings associated with controversy, or that his already-popular radio show would shoot through the stratosphere, and that I would still be hearing from him just as often. It turns out, miracles do happen. Oh sure, there's been the occasional news item about some crazy shit he said, but the daily deluge of utter insanity has disappeared. Thank Jesus.

St. Vincent on the cover of SPIN I've been fond of St. Vincent's big, expressive eyes and freckly face ever since I laid eyes on the cover of her first album. To see her on the cover of a magazine-- albeit the magazine most likely to put her on the cover-- brought me much surprise. Also a surprise: I bought the last copy of the magazine within a week of it being put on the stand-- I haven't seen any magazine I buy sell out at the local newsstand, unless there's like, the cast of True Blood naked on the cover.

Google + I don't know what the fuck Google + is, or what it's for, or how it's different. But I'm there. I've been there since a few weeks after the Beta was unveiled. So when everyone got on Gmail and was sending me invites, it took me years to finally get one. I'm there, though. So when I know what the fuck it is, I'll totally be there and ahead of the curve. I guess.

Weird Al Yankovic, "Perform This Way" I'm a sucker for Weird Al, and his videos are genius. In this case, I actually much prefer Weird Al's video to the original-- it's somehow even more disturbing.


THE BAD

Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" I want to specify that I do not hate Lady Gaga, and I don't hate this song. But my god this video is overblown. Firstly, there's two minutes and thirty seconds of the most obnoxious pseudo-spiritual nonsense babble setting up the mythos of the video. A mere few seconds into the video I was rolling my eyes and saying Oh god, just get to the damn song. And then more than two minutes later, it finally does. I think the song is okay-- it's certainly not my thing, but it doesn't have anything to do with why I didn't like the video. There were a couple of images I thought were interesting once it actually got going, but jeez louise.

Star Wars new editions Because George Lucas is a fucking maniac, there's yet more edits and shit in the Blu-ray versions of Star Wars. But honestly, this is the worst one yet-- well, after the CGI Jabba the Hutt in the re-release of A New Hope. Although Return of the Jedi is the worst of the first trilogy, I've always really liked the final climactic scene where Vader chucks Emperor Palpatine off the ledge. He's a cold dude, and when he finds a sense of right and wrong inside him, he still does it in a cold, robotic way. Only this time for good, instead of evil. To me it felt like a specific directorial decision, that Darth Vader hadn't turned into this completely different person int he blink of an eye, but he had finally gotten a concious. But George Lucas doesn't like artistic integrity, and he really really likes his new trilogy, so he retroactively makes Darth Vader yell "No! Noooooooooooo!" in the new new version, just like he yells "Noooooooooooo" at the end of Revenge of the Sith. What an asshole.

Shit disappearing from Netflix Streaming Do you have Netflix streaming? Of course you do; it's fucking awesome. Sometimes when you highlight over something it'll say "Available until a month from now", and you think, ergh, how annoying, I don't know why a studio would let a thing be put on Netflix without just letting them keep it there, but whatever, it just means you have something you need to do during the next month at some point in time. What's even more frustrating, though, is being in the middle of something when it gets removed without any warning whatsoever. I'm willing to bet this hasn't happened to you, or at least didn't realize it, but it fucking happens, and I have absolutely no why, and it infuriates me.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Do you know what I realized? I am not crazy about RHCP. I like all their singles just fine when they're played on the radio, but I've tried repeatedly to listen to their albums, and I just cannot get into them. I respect them a lot, and like I said, their singles are great. I wanted to try to like them, but listening to Stadium Arcadium I felt like I was forcing myself to listen to something I utterly didn't have any interest in simply because I thought it was "okay". I wish it weren't so, but I just feel like I'm going through the motions of listening to music whenever I hear their albums, and that part of my booty that shakes when I listen to something I genuinely enjoy just doesn't trigger.

People complaining about the media "overplaying" Hurricane Irene Have you heard people talking like this? There was a possibility that Hurricane Irene would have been devastating-- but it only killed 21 people! So it wasn't that bad! Was Hurricane Irene ove rhyped? Was this just a case of the media making too much of something? I've actually heard people saying that! Twenty-one people died!! Are you freaking kidding me?
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with love from CRS @ 6:00 PM 

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