The Dude’s Neighborhood

What's the worst book you've ever read?

If a book is really, really crappy I will put it down. Crappy as in bad prose and a boring plot. So "worst" to me means books that I have read all the way through and still hated. Wuthering Heights is definitely up there. I hated all the characters. I mean, really loathed them. I wanted them all to die horrible deaths. Heart of Darkness gets the prize for most boring book. It wasn't very long, but good heavens was it tedious.

• 15:53 Xmas has warped me! I have lights & a tree up at home, listen to carols, and even enjoyed the €6 gouging for gingerbread latte at Starbucks.
• 15:56 @Spainkiller @Pawelotti It takes a really brave man to teabag anybody in this weather! Brrr! You might just freeze your chesnuts right off.
• 16:04 @Spainkiller You should wrap yourself in clingfilm and do a lap around the office because we can clearly see your nuts!
• 16:09 @Spainkiller But are you The Juggernaught? bit.ly/7Dijt8
• 16:13 @Spainkiller Respect. Gotta keep a strong cane hand if you gonna keep those haters in check.
• 16:23 Saw this bracket on Dam Square the other day and now kn ow what it's all about. WK 2010! Bleed Orange @nalden - bit.ly/66ad9z
• 16:27 @Spainkiller Every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man! Guess you found a top hat. I prefer to roll with a pimp hat twitpic.com/tr22z
• 16:37 @Chrisvdberg Tomorrow I'm going to New York too!
• 17:14 @Spainkiller Not outpimped - just pimin with a different style. Tux & tails is high $$$ ho range. Mine is more RLD window girl €€€ range.
• 17:38 Oh great, just discovered that no one here in the office has a key to lock the place. Everyone thought everyone else did. Doh!
• 17:39 @Rachael Spiked eggnog is the right way to start the day when you don't have to work during the holidays.
• 17:54 Damnit! I stayed late at work so I could checkin online and now Delta pulls this BS that says I can't. LAME! It better be due to an upgrade.
• 19:09 Damnit! Another day that my bank didn't get my bank pass to me. How is it they get me my credit card a week ago, but still wait 4 ATM card?
• 22:13 Almost all done packing and home alone for my last night in town before the holidays. Seriously wonder how long that will last...

Thanks for keeping tabs on the Party Robot. This socialite thanks you!

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As the pipe clamp blisters began to pop and heal on my hands, I knew I was in a race against myself to find my next gig in woodworking. I had just quit my job after I was put on a mandatory 72-hour work week schedule, which was neither safe nor necessary in the warehouse where I was a full time furniture maker. From my first taste of sawdust, I was hooked. I loved everything about it, especially the aches & pains associated with putting in a hard day of manual labor.

I had moved thousands of miles from my industrial Michigan factory roots, only to go to college and decide the blue collar life is what I wanted. I quit my job, only when it was obvious that it would either kill or permanently injure me...but it was still one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Besides the fact that I love it, I realize now how wrapped up I was in the identity of being just one thing...In my working life, I have always had to have at least three side hustles going on and I've done everything from nude modeling, to being a maid, a well-paid executive assistant, an extra in movies, a make-up artist, to an apprentice sander in a woodshop.

When I call home to update my family, typically, whatever it is I describe is met with unconditional love & acceptance, even if there is a tinge of it not necessarily being understood. As a woodworker, I was finally able to align myself with an identity - one thing that I loved being and doing...and it was so much easier to explain that!

Predictably, when the job fell apart, I scrambled for any paying gig I could find on craigslist. As it turns out, it was a good time to be involved with film making and I even signed up for acting classes. Being involved in the process is as exciting as it seems like it would be - even the long hours of waiting, while being completely dressed to the nines for a 6:00 a.m. call time, shouldn't be exciting, but it still is.

Around this time I also found work as a fit model, working for a local design house. It's a job that pays very well but the work is inconsistent. Still, I am extremely thankful to have it, even if it is a bit weird for me to use it as an identifier at the dentist's office and have the receptionist squeal and ask me a bunch of questions about the job. That's a rock star moment, I'm not going to lie, but it's completely foreign to me to identify myself as "model" in any capacity...especially when "factory rat" was a closer signifier just weeks ago.

I'm not sure if all the discomfort in lacking a fixed occupation or identity squarely rests on my shoulders, or if I am reacting to other people's confusion when I try to explain, "Well, I'm actually a furniture maker, but I'm out of work, so I'm doing the acting and modeling thing, while looking for another woodworking gig." Who does that? I'm not sure if I even understand myself anymore.

In the long run, it's probably a good thing that I am so versatile & adaptable - I always have something relevent for any type of resume I'm creating for myself (and I have at least 3); but I long for the day when I have a short answer to the question, "So what do you do?" 

Franz Ferdinand - Can't Stop Feeling (Emperor Machine Remix)

Franz Ferdinand

In the spirit of giving, below are some free music. It's their gifts to you.

DOMINO? YOU MEAN DOMI-YES
dominorecordco.com

You know, I honestly don't know how Ryan does it, keeping up with the various 'tweets'. I personally think twitter become absolutely useless if you have more than 50 friends. There's also so much spam on twitter!

So, I mostly just have it filtered to reading our own twitter to discover new freebies. So below was sent out a few days ago:

weheartmusic
We♥Music

Check out the @DominoRecordCo Xmas Sampler - http://bit.ly/53Thv0 - Final Fantasy, Wild Beasts, The Kills, Franz Ferdinand & King Creosote.
11:49 AM Dec 14th from web

So I did download the eight-track sampler at dominorecordco.com, and was pleasantly surprise to hear a really nice long remix of "Can't Stop Feeling" by Emperor Machine. I normally don't even like remixes, but this one had my head bopping and really appreciating the song... it's like hearing an old song and suddenly it's new again.

I also really dig Joker's Daughter (for non-comic book nerds, yes the Joker had a daughter - I think she mostly fought the 70s Teen Titans). I love "classic" pop girl-group sound, and this band has the vocals and melodies. Although the subject of Gremlins and "Bouncing Liquorish Bears" may be on the weirder side.

OF DOVES AND FISH
harveysidfisher.com

Dovecote Records gathered three of their recording artists to do a mini-tribute to Harvey Sid Fisher. While I don't know much about Fisher, based on hearing the three covers by Mason Proper, Tim Williams, and Trevor Giuliani, I have concluded that Fisher was a bit of a strange songwriter and has a bit of an interesting "older" man's vocals... each of the modern artists do try and emulate the singing style.

My personal favorite is Tim Williams' rendition. Nice backup vocals and the repetitive "hit another wall" refrain.

If you want to hear these songs for yourself - head over to dovecoterecords.com and click on the "Download Now" link. There's no catch either, none of that "give us your email" thing. Just a nice little free EP.

OLD WAVE MIXTAPE
nouvellesvagues.com

Cover lover band of approval, Nouvelle Vague, made a 10-track free mixtape at whenyouawake.com.

Most of the tracks are by American artists, some classic from Roy Orbison ("You Got It"), Louis Armstrong ("We Have All The Time In The World"), Johnny Cash ("Ring Of Fire"), etc. There are a few weird ones (weird as in didn't fit in) like Sufjan Stevens and Rolling Stones... however, I will admit tapping my feet when I heard the intro to "Let's Spend The Night Together". There is the token French artist Serge Gainsbourg on the mixtape for good measure.

While I'm not entirely sure about the legality of this free download, I think it's good promotions for the bands mentioned on the tape. Plus, it's a nice boost of ego, you know?

daffodilpublicity.com confirms these are their forth-coming North American tour dates:

Friday, Jan. 22, Philadelphia, PA, World Café Saturday, Jan. 23, New York, NY, Webster Hall Sunday, Jan. 24, Boston, MA, Somerset Tuesday, Jan. 25, Montreal, PQ, Metropolis Wednesday, Jan. 27, Toronto, ONT, Opera House Thursday, Jan. 28, Detroit, MI, Crofoot Ballroom Friday, Jan. 29, Chicago, IL, Logan Square Monday, Feb. 1, Denver, CO, Bluebird Tuesday, Feb. 2, Salt Lake City, UT, Urban Lounge Thursday, Feb. 4, Seattle, WA, King Cat

Friday, Feb. 5, Vancouver, BC, Venue Sunday, Feb. 7, San Francisco, CA, Regency Monday, Feb. 8, Sant Cruz, CA, Rio Theater Tuesday, Feb. 9, Los Angeles, CA, Henry Fonda Friday, Feb. 12, Dallas, TX, Granada Saturday, Feb. 13, Austin, TX, Mohawk Sunday, Feb. 14, New Orleans, LA, Republic Tuesday, Feb. 16, Miami, FL, Revolution Wednesday, Feb. 17, Orlando, FL, Firestone Thursday, Feb. 18, Atlanta, GA, Loft Saturday, Feb. 20, Washington DC, 9:30 Club

Too bad they're not going anywhere near Minneapolis, I would love to meet the band.

YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY TO SAVE MONEY

Playing Hellboy II via HDMI at 1080p, the beautiful Marie-Josée Croze in an episode of "The Hunger"

www.hannspree.com

I don't work for Best Buy, but I wanted to pass along this deal, since it is almost a crime to not buy it. It is $140 for HANNspree 23" HD LCD 16:9 Widescreen Monitor. That's cheap, considering the same monitor would've cost at least $700 a few years ago.

I did buy it and setup was very plug-and-play easy. It came with a disc for a Windows Vista driver, but if you just have XP, it would just recognize the monitor. Hooking it up on the PS3 using the HDMI cable (not included) was also easy - however I did not like the long pauses as PS3 auto adjust when it plays bluray discs (I suspect this has to do with determining that it's a compliant display since HDMI is notorious for anti-piracy junk).

Compare to the old CRT monster monitors, this 23" is superlight - even Mr Burns can easily move the monitor around. The product page lists 9.9lbs, but it feels like it's only one or two pounds.

The monitor does have built-in speakers, but it sounds tinny. Not exactly awesome audio, but for $140, that's just a bonus. I recommend buying monitor headphones and plugging it in the monitor for clearer audio. And speaking of audio, since this is marketed as purely a monitor - there is also no remote control access. If you need to turn down the audio, you have to adjust it on the monitor itself.

Despite my complaint, this is one of best image display I've own. It's native 1920x1080 is pretty sweet when I'm playing Dragon Age (since now I can have more items in the "quick" slots at the bottom).

* practically free

 12/16/2009 11:25:14 ♥ vu () ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com

What is the difference between soup and stew?  Anyone know?  I made a chicken barley soup/stew yesterday that was a variation on my chicken noodle soup and it was souper (oy) yummy.

First I chopped some carrots and onions and minced a couple of cloves of garlic.

IMG_2556

I heated some olive oil in a dutch oven until it got shimmery and threw in the carrots for a minute...then I added the garlic and stirred it around for about 30 seconds and then added the onions for about another 30 seconds.  I left everything in just long enough for it to release a bit of juices but not brown.  You don't want to cook garlic for more than a minute either or it will burn, I just wanted to mellow the sharp garlic flavor.

IMG_2557

I then cheated and made broth with water and Better Than Bouillon, added a bunch of dried thyme, parsley and a bay leaf.  I threw in three boneless, skinless chicken breasts which are expensive, but really easy and who doesn't love big chunks of white chicken meat in soup?  I also threw in a half a cup of barley.  Apparently barley's not just for beer anymore in this house.

IMG_2558

You'll note that I had to switch to a bigger stock pot because I ended up making more than I originally planned.  After about 40 minutes of simmering, I took out the chicken and cut it into big chunks and popped it back in.  Cooked it for another 15 minutes and viola!

IMG_2564

The difference between this and my chicken noodle is, well, I use noodles instead of barley, the noodle soup doesn't have garlic or thyme in it either, but instead I use dill. 

The other night I made really awesome restaurant quality garlic mashed potatoes.  I toasted the garlic in its skin for about 20 minutes over low heat while the potatoes were boiling.  Then I removed it from heat, covered it and let it sit for ten minutes.  It got really soft and I minced it and added it to the potatoes when I added the melted butter (butter before half & half).  I added a ton of salt and pepper and a bit of rosemary.  I wish I had fresh rosemary, that would have been perfect. They were amazing.  I ate way too much, but they were really good.

Here's a bit more from Live at Leeds for the Who "fans" in the hood.

Oh, and in honor of the title of this post, I could at least put an entertaining version of Barley Mow from local Irish band, Hair of the Dog.  This was probably recorded at the Parting Glass in Saratoga, a great little bar where I saw Vic Wooten the first time.

14 Barley Mow

Hair of the Dog

Greetings, dear readers.  I hope you are well.

I had a couple of vertebrae fused last October, and so I've been away on a health sabbatical of sorts.  The cold weather is not helping!  I feel so odd saying that I will welcome some warm temperatures again, especially after we got some lovely snow in my home area last weekend.  But when you have metal in your body, or nerve damage, or both, you start feeling the barometric changes more.

I wanted to take a moment to share some other music blogs I have been reading here at VOX.  I promise I will be back with more music, including 2NU's last offering.  (Who is 2NU?  Stay tuned...)  But until then, allow me to share some other blogs of interest, including a side project of mine.

Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Burl Veneer’s blog was spotlighted at [music is good] recently, with his observations on genre labels as a guide to exploring music, particularly with spiritual jazz.  It's a retrospective look; according to his profile, he is "recapturing the thrill of [his] college radio years, on a smaller scale." It's a very nice sentiment for those who have become rather jaded with corporate/mainstream music as of late, and are still looking back to younger days when one's music experience was more visceral.  I don't mean to say that such leads to an abandoning of new territories in listening opportunities, but for those of us who have outgrown commercial markets and are generally exasperated with what's on the radio airwaves, there is a shift in perspective, is there not?  I remember that for myself, I went back for a time to what I had discovered musically in eight long years of college and university and when I had expressed similar thoughts.

(On a side note, it seems to me that many of the resources I looked at when writing reviews here seem to be very similar to what friends of mine looked at writing for university and college publications, or what they played for college radio.  But I digress...)

Those that have followed my reviews here know that I'm a big fan of mashups and bastard pop.  It's always been a satirical commentary for me, in some part, on how the commercial industry likes to come back to familiar hooks and "radio-friendly" licks-- how else can two or more songs, especially when they seem so radically different, come together?  They can come together, all right, in a rather slick way that can express an entirely new idea that is different from the sum of the mashup's parts.

Mashup Fans

Mashup Fans is one VOX group devoted to the mashup genre.  For a time it was active, but sadly, due to recent inactivity ( it appears to have succumbed to the splogger disease that has been infecting VOX like a cancer.  If you stick to the Media section, however, you'll find some great mashups and other mixes.  Do me a favor, if you're a mashup fan, won't you?  Go see if you can turn the tide.  Upload some stuff and send Darren a message to see what you can do to revive the group.

Monday Monster Mashup

Monday Monster Mashup is my side project.  When I started the group, the idea was I would post something every Monday, although clearly, I haven't kept it that regular as of late.  I've included video mashups that accompany mashup tunes whenever possible, although there are some obstacles.  Since Warner Media Group has been throwing its weight around like a 800-lb. gorilla, some of the YouTube videos I've been using have been muted or audio swapped.  I don't think this bothers many mashup artists too terribly much; the savvy ones cover their buttocks by urging listeners to support the original artists.  Even if they don't make such a noble token gesture, most see the genre as transitory-- if the corporate suits kill a work on grounds of copyright infringement, they will have moved on to something new anyways.

Bootlegs and Mashups

BOOTLEGS and MASHUPS is more oriented to bootlegs, according to the description, although, really, I'm not sure what the focus is right now.  If you can follow the rambling posts of late, you're doing better than me.  Anyways, two of the hosts, moien and Ground Countrol To Major Tom, run music-oriented blogs in French, and it turns out there is a sizeable community of French-speaking music bloggers here at VOX.  The following are written in French, unless otherwise specified:

• 

  blog de The Dude
  The Dude’s Blog (Blog de The Dude) has a general focus-- nothing too specific, but that's fairly within the spirit of things at W♥M-- write about what you like.  Obviously, his username is taken from The Big Lebowski, which was referenced by Vu in Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).  His latest post covers his album picks for 2009.
• Aurelio’s blog is a little more general than even that--"Un cocktail de musique, ciné, bouquins, bonne bouffe et rigolade" (A mix of music, film, books, good food, and comedy).  He hosts Albums 2009, so some of his latest posts have also been about his selections of music in 2009.
• niggytardust writes in English and French, so if you don't speak/read/write French, you have an English option.  More of a rock focus.
• Ground Countrol To Major Tom focuses on new artists and independent music.
• Music Is My Radar is written by moien

There are probably some ones I'm forgetting to mention, but I trust that you may explore their Neighborhoods and discover more.
 

Novelty Records

Novelty Records is hosted by W. B. Mook, who wrote reviews for W♥M for a time.  You know what "novelty songs" are, right?  Sure you do!  If you don't, according to Wikipedia, it's a genre of music that was coined in Tin Pan Alley to describe a division in popular music that started in 1910 and continued in the '20s and '30s.  But to put it more simply, the term includes most anything that has been classified as parody or comedy music.  In short, it's just about everything that Dr. Demento has spun on his radio show-- you know, that funny-looking bearded guy with the top hat that helped launch Weird Al Yankovic's music career.  (Look for him-- Dr. Demento, that is-- in his music videos and the movie UHF.  Have a Twinkie weiner sandwich while you do so, okay?  It's good, but not like Yappy's Dog Treats-- I promise!)

So there you have it.  I'm probably just scratching the surface, but most of these bloggers and Vox Groups specifically mentioned (if not all) have contributed to W♥M in some form or another, so have a look around.

 12/15/2009 23:56:22 ♥ jaklumen ( / jaklumen.vox.com)

• 02:08 I can hardly believe my ears, but the ESPN crew is actually showing the Cardinals some respect. Hope they crush the 49ers & clinch the div.
• 03:16 TIMMY! Damnit man, another first quarter lost fumble. Doubly bad as it means seven points for the 9ers and - points for my fantasy team.
• 09:07 @Rachael It's very frosty here! -3 degrees in fact. Brrrrr! Sleep well and may visions of sugarplum fairies grace your dreams tonight.
• 09:12 Totally regretting the fact that I was awake to see quite possibly the worst half of Cardinals football ever. 5 turnovers and 0 poins! #FAIL
• 09:28 @Vespa59 Dude! WTF? Why is your wife following me, but not you? Strange days my friend, strange days. Hope all is well on the Islands. Aloha
• 09:54 @thri veinlife Do you know anyone that needs a ticket? I'm away working and can't go tonight. I even have a spot for the cocktail course
• 09:58 @thriveinlife Free for her as an Xmas gift! DM me and let me know who I should email the ticket to.
• 10:05 I'm off to a customer site in Eindhoven today via the train. Tried for the first time the NS eticket service and it works surprisingly well.
• 10:12 @ChadSavage What is her dog food tastes delicious when served out of her own butt? Two great tastes that taste great together?
• 11:21 RT @danwet Is anyone familiar with an old DOS program called Q&A by Symantec (early '90s)? Searching for v4 or v5 here! Plz RT!

Thanks for keeping tabs on the Party Robot. This socialite thanks you!

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Woot! Way Hay! And lots of other shrieking sounds.

Birmingham City, the butt of many a joke such as "They are a reet strong team, they are holding up the whole Division", are SIXTH in the Premiership.

Sixth!

Ahead of Liverpool (who are scum because they stole the Worthington Cup from us on penalties).

SIXTH!

Goal difference of 1 is pretty shite.

But SIXTH1

Can you tell I am both happy and slightly drunk?