Monday, March 31, 2008

AB

I've just been reading through Anheurser-Busch's beer fact sheets and find them to be an amazingly frank description of their beers. I think maybe these descriptions are for stock-holders and not beer drinkers?
Introduced in 1955, Busch has a smooth, light taste. The brand is the country's largest-selling subpremium-priced beer in all major demographics.

I mean, who calls their own beer subpremium?

In other news, the Pirates just blew a five run lead in the ninth inning on opening day. All is normal in the universe.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Yeah Bro!

So we did in fact end up playing the SIGBOVIK pre-party last night. I have to say I enjoyed myself. One of the great things (in my own, unbiased, opinion) about Sick Ridiculous is that our songs are all pretty short, so you don't have to invest too much to watch us play. If we happen to suck, well then it's not really going to be all that long until you get to go back to the party.

I was a little bummed when we forgot the melody of the chorus of our brand new song, Theme From SIGBOVIK, but later on we remembered it and had a special encore for those who were still loitering in the basement. Which reminds me; we plan to record and release an MP3 of Theme From SIGBOVIK some time this week so that you can begin to get pumped up.

In other news, I'm currently reading a pretty interesting book about the history of beer in America entitled, Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Definitely a read for all you self-identifying beer snobs out there. One of the most interesting parts of the book thus far has been reading about German immigrants to the US. It's particularly amazing how WWI and the German-American's association with beer was used by the temperance movement to further their goals. Here's a quote:
A Methodist* Bishop denounced beer as, "the most brutalizing" drink available. " The unthinkable barbarism of the German armies in this present war," he wrote, "is, in all reasonableness, to be accounted for largely by their centuries of beer drinking, which has deadened their moral sense and coarsened their moral fiber."

Wild, huh?

(*Also interesting to me because, given our tendency to use grape juice to this day at communion, I had long suspected the Methodists played some role in the temperance movement.)

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Ridiculous de Sick

There is a definite possibility that Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous will be playing at the SIGBOVIK party tonight, FYI.    

Monday, March 24, 2008

This Weekend in Music

This weekend there were some fun music developments:

Friday Night Cappy-oke:
Friday night I joined Marcus et al. at Cappy's for their weekly karaoke extravaganza. I sang two songs. Neither of them actually went all that well:
Graceland, Paul Simon. I had been looking for this song at Karaoke for a while now. Finally found it. Sang it. Great song, but doesn't work too well for me for karaoke. First off, it's a little too low. Second, it's a little too long, and there are too many parts where I don't sing.

California, Phantom Planet. I sang this song with Marcus, and we were both convinced it was going to kill. It did not. Again, this song was too low, but this time way too low. Considering how slow the song was playing, I suspect we had some version of the song that was actually lowered in key. I remember singing this song in my car, and it went a lot better than this attempt. Oh well...

Monday Night Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous:
Tonight, my band Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous went to open mic night at the Rex Theater on the south side. It was fun. We played two songs, 737 and Two Mellow Bros. (or whatever we call it). For our first time ever playing live, we both thought it went pretty well, and we even had a few people tell us that they enjoyed it. If you're pissed because we didn't tell you, don't worry. We're just trying to get a little bit more comfortable with ourselves and our live persona.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Did you know about this?What about this?Why didn'...

Did you know about this?

What about this?

Why didn't you tell me?! This is huge!!

In unrelated news, I will never finish my PhD.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

In Deference to XKCD...

My Hobby:
Editing wikipedia articles to change references from "The Bay Area" to "The San Fransisco Bay Area."

No Soap?

I am so happy that there is a wikipedia entry for the No Soap Radio joke. I like how they call it "anti-humor" and a "sociological experiment."

Rand, this one's for you.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Floria-dah!

I've struggled in the past to explain to people why Florida is not often considered to be "part of The South."

(My dad, somewhat hilariously, refers to people from Florida as Yankees. I think this was where I inherited the idea from.)

But I think the diagram accompanying this wikipedia article explains it all. They don't talk like us!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Ridiculous!

Okay, took a little longer than I hoped, but it's worth waiting for...

Check out the first two Completely Authorized Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous demos: 737, and Muse... You can get then on our SICK myspace site. They are just demos, but they give you a little taste of what we're up to.

WORD.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Nels and TomFunkel


Nels and TomFunkel
Originally uploaded by oatmeal2000.
Check out some promo shots for Sick Ridiculous and the Sick Ridiculous. Print them out and make your own 8x10 glossies.

Thanks to Mike for the brilliant camera work. Demos coming real soon. Seriously. Like in hours.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Movie Time!

In the past two days, I've seen two movies! Let's break 'em down:

Be Kind, Rewind
Reasons why you should like this movie: It's got Jack Black and Mos Def recreating all the movies from their video store after a freak incident with some magnetic fields with hilarious results. In fact, the movie doesn't really hit its stride until the movie-making, or "Sweding" begins. (Check out the Sweded version of the movie trailer.) Jack Black plays, well, the same character he always plays, which is a plus for me. Mos Def plays a surprisingly interesting character who is neither sarcastic nor wise-cracking. And as we all know, white people love Mos Def. This movie is also big on the community/racial harmony tip, which is subtle and sweet.

Reasons why you might not like this movie: Well no one has seen it, so there might not be anyone else in the theater laughing with you (there were 4 other people when we went). Also, the aforementioned Jack Black; some people don't like him! Finally, the end is a little bit over-the-top (although in my opinion, not as bad as I was expecting, given the lead up). If you can handle a little sentimentality, this won't be a big deal.


Easy Rider
I had never seen this supposed classic so I was very excited.
Reasons why you should see it: Peter Fonda is a bad-ass in this movie! It's got New Orleans/Mardi Gras as its Zion, which I appreciate. There are some cool scenes of New Orleans. According to what I've read, the French Quarter was a pretty rough place in the 60s. Lots of sailors coming out of bars and beating people up, etc. This movie has great music, and I thought, many well-conceived parts. Even the acid trip at the end, a cause for laughter in most movies, was well-done. Seeing Denis Hopper and Jack Nicolson as young dudes is worth the entire experience!

Reasons why you might not like it: While at the time, the idea that tension between normal people and hippies would obviously turn into violence, it seems a little unreasonable from a modern perspective. You kind of have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about here... This movie can be slowwwwww at times. It doesn't have much of a plot, I guess.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Relentlessly Parallel!

As part of my contribution to this year's SIGBOVIK, I have invented a brand new concept in computer science, Relentless Parallelism. Full details to follow. However, I do want you to know that those who cannot wait can already download the Eclipse plugin, which will effectively make your Java code Relentlessly Parallel, from my web site here.

Currently, if you Google(R) Brand Web Search the terms Relentless Parallelism and Relentlessly Parallel, you get a bunch of random links about literature, Japanese and otherwise. My goal is to become the number one hit for either (or both!) of these terms. Wish me luck! (Of course, links from your site wouldn't hurt either...)