Stuff To Buy
July 14, 2007
New Golf Clubs, Sonics, And Photos Of Food
And the only reason I'm even writing this is that there's a game on that I'm interested in watching Were it not for the US U-20s playing in quarterfinal of the U-20 World Cup this fine morning, I probably wouldn't have even gotten my act together for even this meager post. Such is the unique combination of too much salaried activities and the traditionally delayed commencement of summer here in C@L -- it's just been tough to find too much time to play with the electric internets. (Actually, that's not entirely true. I spent a lot of time on the electric internets last weekend, but that was in the service of commerce. I finally dealt with myself and bought a proper set of golf clubs. My current clubs were fine, I guess, but they were older than I am, and, well, I wanted the new hotness kind that (a) go...
Posted by thatkid at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2007
The Wow Is NOW, Mother******s!
That's right, I am now running Vista on my home PC -- and I live to tell about it Against my better judgment and in the face of general skepticism from a number of folks, I went a little loony last night and installed Windows Vista on the new home computer. This had been the plan for a while (and by "a while" I mean since my old computer died and I came up with my "buy a new computer" plan), but I finally got my act together this week (and by "this week" I mean "Friday after work"). The good news is that Vista is now alive and running on my PC. Granted, I just bought this machine and it has healthy specs (dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, nifty graphics card), but still, I'm almost a little surprised. The bad news is that it wasn't exactly easy to get...
Posted by thatkid at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2007
Failure To Deliver? Or Flowers That Disappear?
Why I won't ever be ordering flowers from FTD.com again. Ever. Again. File this one under "Grumble comma grumble." So you figure that a nationwide network of florists complete with a major e-commerce presence and a heavy Valentine's Day marketing push would be able to deliver flowers in New York City if you give them two days lead time? Right? If they're sending me e-mails with attractive offers and they have a well-recognized brand name and they're telling me they can make me a hero on Valentine's Day, you think they could sort it out? I can understand if it was some fly-by-night organization or if I needed some sort of exotic and/ or rare flowers, or even if I had called them the morning of Valentine's Day. That raises the degree of difficulty somewhat. Fair enough. But two days notice for roses? That should be well within their capabilities....
Posted by thatkid at 12:23 PM | Comments (2)
January 12, 2007
Laughing With Or Laughing At?
I rented two movies this week. The first was essentially about the second, and wasn't terribly kind about it. I enjoyed both. I have no idea how this Idiocracy movie snuck beneath my radar. That is, how did I not know about an allegorical sci-fi parody from Mike Judge starring Luke Wilson? That's like putting ranch dressing on bacon cheese fries. It's almost too much. And yet, were it not for a rather overdone Slate article showing up in my RSS feeds as well as a commercial on ESPN Wednesday night, I might have missed it entirely. Luckily, advertising really works on me, and I hustled my little behind down to the Hollywood Video so that I might rent this product STAT! If anything, we might even blame the overall tepid levels of media/ advertising overexposure in the greater C@L area (yes, I did just complain that I'd like more...
Posted by thatkid at 7:19 PM | Comments (0)
January 1, 2007
Music I Bought and Enjoyed in 2006
In the interests of brevity, I'm keeping this to five (5) and only five (5) albums Really meant to fire this off last week, but I was on an extended East Coast jaunt and wasn't really spending much time at the puter. At least I wasn't typing too much. My carpal tunnel syndrome was thrilled. Still, I wanted to do some sort of year-end music review, as it tends to be my second-favorite topic for extended orations this time of year (and if you don't know what number one is, you really don't spend a lot of time around me). Also, I did one of these last year and a couple people actually made a point of telling me they liked it. When you only have seven readers, you need to keep at least two of them happy at all times! So I put together a little top-five albums list....
Posted by thatkid at 5:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2006
Cross-X: Book Report
Oh, the hours I spent at the goofy forensics tournaments! I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by how much I enjoyed Cross-X by Joe Miller. Given the amount of time and energy I devoted to the speech and debate team in high school (and, ahem, grade school), it's kind of a no-brainer that I'd be into a year-in-the-life story of an inner-city debate team from Kansas City. Oh, you're going to devote swaths of text to descriptions of van rides to debate tournaments, complete with details on the battle for control of the stereo? Check. You've got complicated theories about the evolution of high-school debate and the competing philosophies therein? Uh huh. You'll even include a couple pages of back and forth with Jim Copeland in re: the state of high school debate? Umm, yeah. That sounds about right. For the avoidance of doubt, I was very very into...
Posted by thatkid at 8:05 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2006
Hollywood Celebrates ThatKidInTheCorner Day!
In which I go to see Invincible and wonder, What if the entire world really does revolve around me? You'll have to forgive a bit of narcissism on my behalf this Saturday morning. On August 25th, Hollywood released both a Disney film about the Philadelphia Eagles, Invincible, and a Broken Lizard movie about drinking games, Beerfest. The trailer for Invincible features guys in a bar doing an E-A-G-L-E-S chant; the Beerfest commercial shows a guy shooting quarters. Birds and drinking games. On the same day. So you really can't blame me if I think this is all somehow about me. (Do you ever secretly wonder if all the other people you encounter on a given day are actually robotic drones filling out the ranks in the gigantic RPG simulation that is your life? Me neither. Never once.) Admittedly, I have yet to see the Beerfest movie (though late-night text messages...
Posted by thatkid at 1:02 PM | Comments (1)
August 20, 2006
Talladega Chili Peppers
I had no idea it would be so appropriate to combine reviews of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Talladega Nights So I guess other folks have been hip to the whole Chad Smith - Will Ferrell thing for years. Or at least that's what the reactions of friends as well as the results of a couple web searches have led me to believe. But I can't say I've ever really paid attention to what the Chili Peppers' drummer looked like, and as this was the first time I'd seen them live, I really had no idea. That is, Red Hot Chili Pepper drummer Chad Smith is an absolute dead ringer/ separated-at-birth/ evil twin for Will Ferrell. When he came on stage, I turned to my buddy and exclaimed, "Holy sh*t! The drummer looks exactly like Will Ferrell!" To which he replied, "Yeah, no kidding, I've thought so for years."...
Posted by thatkid at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2006
My Incredibly Successful Trip To The Record Store
Six for six at Easy Street Records So I can't in good conscience go on and on about my big haul at Easy Street Records and then not tell you what I picked up. (Note: if you've spoken to me in person in the past two weeks, some of this may sound familiar. But you can probably say that about most of what you find here. Anyhoo.) As I said the other day, I bought six CDs without a single dud in the bunch. It was quite the haul. Details on my record-store booty: Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam. The Pearl Jam thing is probably what got me in the door that day. I mean, sure, I hadn't bought a Pearl Jam record in a good long while (I think my last one was Vitalogy). But the buzz was that this one was different. Also, how do I say this...I NOW...
Posted by thatkid at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)
May 17, 2006
Why Do I Still Buy CDs?
I should have gone completely digital years ago; what's the problem here? I had a killer trip to the record store a week and a half ago. Absolutely killer. Six CDs purchased, all winners. Seriously, not a dud in the bunch. I really couldn't have been more pleased about the whole mission. I imagine the music industry is quite pleased with me as well. Six CDs? That's quite a haul for a single trip to the store. The question is, what the hell am I doing going to store? This is 2006. Shouldn't we all be buying all of our music through online download services by this point? At the very least, shouldn't I be buying all of my music though online download services by this point? I actually worked for a digital music retailer in 1999. It isn't that I like CDs. Actually, I've been keeping all of my...
Posted by thatkid at 7:42 PM | Comments (2)
April 3, 2006
Sunday Having Been Taken Back
Whoa, I am waaaaaaay too old for this Lovely evening in C@L this Monday. Caught the national championship game at the Pike Place Brewery, which at least had the good sense to offer enough ambient noise to drown out head blathermonkey Billy Packer. Then we headed across the street to the Showbox to see Taking Back Sunday at an all ages show (doors at 6, first band at 7. Admittedly, I didn't know too much about Taking Back Sunday. A friend sent a website, but mostly all I knew was that they were "the band from the snowboarding game." That's all we had. The snowboarding video game. But hey, music's music, and I was happy to check it out. What I learned at Taking Back Sunday: (1) I just walked into My Space!: I've been too old for rock shows before (most notably I tried to see Weezer a few...
Posted by thatkid at 11:27 PM | Comments (3)
April 1, 2006
A Bag Of Dick's
Nothing Satisfies Quite Like A Nice Big Bag Of Dick's! One of my favorite things about living in C@L is the easy availability of what has become my favorite treat. It's the sort of thing that you can't get just anywhere -- in fact, I'd never even tasted it before I came to C@L. But an important part of moving to a new town is being open to new experiences. You need to challenge yourself to try new things -- things you might not necessarily even be so comfortable with. That is, after a long day at work, a night at Key Arena, or maybe even a hard-fought game of footy, nothing hits the spot quite like a nice big bag of Dick's. I remember the first time I had a bag of Dick's. It was before I moved out to C@L. I was visiting a friend. We spent a...
Posted by thatkid at 1:10 PM | Comments (1)
March 26, 2006
Pouring Some Out For Mike Missanelli
WIP Puts My Favorite Host On Waivers I will admit to being genuinely bummed out by last week's news that Philly sports-talk-radio station 610 WIP fired mid-day co-host Mike Missanelli. And not just because Missanelli has long since been my favorite WIP personality -- though that's a big part of it. I'm actually more pissed off because Missanelli's firing directly impacts my everyday quality of life out here in C@L. I've been a loyal WIP listener for longer than I should probably admit. As in, since the seventh grade, when I would tune into Rob Charry's post-game show after Sixers games. I listened all through high school, quite possibly the Golden Years of WIP: before Cataldi got too big, and while Original Enemy Norman Braman still owned the Birds. Back then, they didn't have an overnight show, so we got syndicated national shows (would you believe I was an overnight...
Posted by thatkid at 5:18 PM | Comments (2)
March 1, 2006
The Sopranos Do C@L
The Things You Don't Notice When C@L Isn't Even A Glint In Your Eye Having spent the better part of my life in the Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York areas with an Italian surname, I've heard my fair share of Sopranos-related humor. And that's understandable, if not completely fair. People who aren't from the Northeast part of the U.S. just typically don't know that many Italian people, so I'm willing to cut them some slack when they ask dumb questions about New Jersey and Italian people. And, of course, I'll admit that I always got something of a kick out of seeing so much New Jersey (New Jersey! And not even the fashionable parts!) on TV, ethnic stereotypes and all. (I definitely get a kick out of the fact that no one out on the left coast seems to know what to do with my last name. This typically...
Posted by thatkid at 2:45 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2006
Imperial Grunts: Book Report
You Really Just Don't Think About All The Places That The U.S. Has A Military Presence After promises to make them a semi-regular feature, it's been a while since I posted a book report. It's not that I haven't been reading; more that I haven't read anything particularly inspiring, or at least inspiring enough to convince me to stop and write about it before I started the next book. Luckily, over the past few weeks (helped in no small part by a not insignificant amount of time spent on airplanes), I've done a lot of reading. And so the semi-regular feature returns! Perhaps I'll even fill in some of the gaps with other recent reads. Anyhoo, here we go. Title:Imperial Grunts Author: Robert D. Kaplan Tags: United States Military, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, Special Forces, Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Philippines, Fort Leavenworth, Empire, United States Military...
Posted by thatkid at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2006
My Favorite Nerdy Thing In The Nerd Museum
What You Need To Know About The Sci-Fi Hall Of Fame and Museum After six months of living in C@L, I finally took the plunge last weekend and made the long-awaited and inevitable pilgrimmage to what might be the nerdiest place in an admittedly nerdy town. That is, I finally went to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall Of Fame. A bit of full disclosure before I proceed: I'm a gigantic sci-fi dork. I grew up reading science fiction, and although I don't tear through it like I once did, I'm certainly not above the occasional schlocky sci-fi epic. (That's right. I said sci-fi epic. And I'm not above it!) So the trip to the sci-fi museum is something I've been thinking about for a while. I mean, I'm familiar with the subject area; I wanted to see what this museum thing was all about. Right. So if I had...
Posted by thatkid at 10:47 PM | Comments (1)
January 7, 2006
House Of Sand And Fog: Book Report
File under "I saw the movie before I read the book" So I was about to hop on the C@L - East Coast flight, more in need of a book than I should have been. Or, rather, more in need of a book I knew I would probably like that I could read on the flight. (I get real antsy about getting on long flights without ample reading materials. Antsy. Ample.) I had other books, but I worried they might not preoccupy me as well as I would have liked. So when I saw a copy of House Of Sand And Fog sitting on a end table at a buddy's place, I knew I had a winner. (And no, I'm not so proud that I won't read books emblazoned with the "Oprah's Book Club" logo.) I had seen the House Of Sand And Fog movie and liked it. So I...
Posted by thatkid at 4:26 PM | Comments (0)
January 2, 2006
On Beauty: This Is More A Book Report Than Review
I did not expect to read two (2) Zadie Smith books in See Why Ought Five So in re: previous posts where I talked some game about how I was going to try to post reports and/ or reviews of books I'm reading, I guess I've already missed some milestones. That is, I've gotten through four books since then, and haven't so much posted about any of them. Sigh. But I'm going to try. I may be a few titles behind, but I think I can catch up (or at least find a shortcut) and get these things up to date. For the record, ThatKid operates on a FIFO inventory system, so I'll have to power through a couple to get myself current with CY06. By way of introduction, I'll say that I resisted reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith for a good long while. It just seemed like it...
Posted by thatkid at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2005
Holiday Album Guide
Five (5) Albums For Holiday Buying, Giving (and for Real, Keeping It) I shall officially pat myself on the back for being let's-call-it 98 percent finished with my Christmas shopping a full week before the 25th. I really can't remember the last time I was this far ahead of the game. And it's not even like I had a good excuse the past few years -- I was in school and certainly wasn't lacking for free/ shopping time. (However did I spend my time?) But for those of you who aren't quite finished, I thought I'd hook you up with some gift ideas. Since I spend a lot of time in the car these days, I've been churning through music a little more aggressively than I have in the past. So you're getting five (5) albums I think would make a excellent gift this holiday season. All are albums that...
Posted by thatkid at 9:05 AM | Comments (0)
October 2, 2005
Who Needs Andy Gray And Martin Tyler?
When are we getting Fanzone for American sports? It wasn't until he hit the crossbar midway through the first half of the Spurs - Fulham match from Monday that I figured out who the hell this "Santa Claus" character actually was. I suppose I should have been a little more clever; it wasn't like I was unfamiliar with the fellow in question. He might have even been on my imaginary soccer team at some point. But it took a closeup shot of his bald pate and post-crossbar grimace for me to realize that the Santa Claus in question was actually Danish international Claus Jensen. Of course, once I saw him, it all made sense. I mean, if I was into Fulham, Santa Claus is the sort of thing I might come up with for Claus Jensen. So I shouldn't have been so shocked that Fulham supporter manning the mike for...
Posted by thatkid at 9:55 AM | Comments (1)
September 25, 2005
The Agony and The Irony?
Harvey Danger lives! And they hate playing "Flagpole Sitta"! Of all the mid-90s-one-hit-wonder-alterna-pop songs that were permanently carved into my brain while schlepping Chinese food in college, "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger was definitely among the least offensive. That is, I'm able to listen "Flagpole Sitta" today without gnawing my thumbs until they bleed; I might even sing along. A bit of context: I worked as a food-delivery dude for four years in college. Said job involved driving around central New Jersey from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. ferrying food from local restaurants to campus dorm rooms. At this point, the car I was driving had the sort of tape deck that ejected the tape every time you started the car. And since delivering food means you're starting your car every couple minutes, using the tape deck wasn't an option. So I listened to the radio. A lot. The problem...
Posted by thatkid at 2:03 PM | Comments (3)
August 21, 2005
The Highbrow Horror Show
In which we reflect on five years of Six Feet Under and acknowledge that, more than anything else, the show was really scary No more Six Feet Under after tonight. This is it: the "series finale" (and a tip of the cap to whichever Hollywood marketing department came up with that phrase -- it really communicates the gravity of the whole enterprise...). After five seasons of death, death, mourning, and more death, we can all pay our final respects to the Fishers (I bet that phrase shows up in at least 85 percent of the accounts of tonight's show). Admittedly, I had a mixed run with Six Feet Under. I was a huge fan of the first couple seasons, I think because it was the first of the big HBO dramas that I started with from the beginning; we got HBO just a few months before the show premiered. It...
Posted by thatkid at 7:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2005
Definitely Let The Island Go Til The Sixth Day
In which my plans for a fun juxtaposition of Never Let Me Go and The Island are scuttled by the massive brainlessness of the latter This was the plan: I would go to see the new Michael Bay wannabe-blockbuster "The Island" and then write up a comparison of the film to Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go. Both tackle the implications of human cloning, but in wildly different ways -- "The Island" as a FX-laden popcorn movie and Never Let Me Go as a fancy-pants piece of literary fiction -- and so I thought the juxtaposition thereof would make for a fun column. After all, cloning is one of those extra-juicy AND topical sci-fi subjects, loaded with all sorts of meaty thematic possibilities. I thought I was set up for a killer piece: high and low culture, Hollywood verus the publishing business, all centered around a soon-to-be-very-real bioethical debate....
Posted by thatkid at 3:06 PM | Comments (1)
July 15, 2005
Wonka Industries, Banglore
How Willy Wonka might evolve in a post-industrial world That Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (1964) continues to enchant children some 41 years after its initial publication is certainly a testament to both the timelessness of the book's themes as well as the charm of its prose. There's magic in those pages, and something about this parable packaged in a fantastickal romp (be a good little boy and maybe you too will win a candy factory!) genuinely resonates with young children. For a dude from the 60s, Willy Wonka is still pretty cool. Of course, while the core themes of the story continue to enchant young readers, a more detached examination of the text clearly demonstrates the obsolescence of most of the elements of the narrative. Even if the reader is not inclined to contextualize a children's fantasy story in a strict geopolitical and/ or economic framework, it...
Posted by thatkid at 1:29 PM | Comments (1)
May 22, 2005
Psssssst! Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader!
In which I try to talk about the new Star Wars movie without ruining it for people who didn't make it on opening day I suppose there was at least an off-chance I wouldn't see Revenge of the Sith on opening day. Like if they lost all of the copies of the film that were supposed to be shipped to New York. Or if I managed to contract the Ebola virus. Given my current circumstances (those being "Man of Leisure who's been reading every article/ review of the new Star Wars movie as I basked in the radiance of my recent graduation from b-school"), my general geekiness/ enthusiasm for the Star Wars thing, and the fact that I'd seen both previous prequels on opening day despite being gainfully employed, my attendance at a Sith screening was pretty fait accompli. Right. So we got tickets, day of, for the 7:15 showing...
Posted by thatkid at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2005
Fake Revolutionaries Need Not Apply
In which I (appropriately enough) hide in the corner at the Immortal Technique show Immortal Technique's "Dance with the Devil" is one of the most disturbing songs I've ever heard. The synopsis: enterprising young gentleman from compromised socio-economic circumstances decides to pursue opportunities in the narcotics sales and distribution space. He enjoys early success, but decides that he would like to advance into the ranks of management. To do so, the hiring committee insists that he demonstrate his commitment to the firm's objectives by participating in a sexual assault and first-degree murder. He complies, but is soon disappointed to discover that the victim of said sexual assault and first-degree murder was his mother. In despair, he leaps from the roof of a building. The narrator uses this incident to illustrate the presence of "the devil" in the ambitions of certain wicked young men. In fact, said "devil" is probably here...
Posted by thatkid at 5:23 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2005
Torture-People-Until-They-Talk City
In which I admit that I'm something of a sucker for revenge fantasies with lots of special effects; that is, I really liked Sin City Way back when, the first time Hollywood decided that it was a good idea to make big-budget movies based on comic books, the challenge seemed to be translating the universe created within the comic book into a familiar (and filmable) reality. How do we make Superman look like he's flying through a real city? What do the Daily Planet offices look like? (Mostly like a cube farm in a New York office.) The next time through, they riffed on the comic book world a bit more, and allowed it to inspire a creepier take on reality -- and it was cool. Batman's Gotham was the twisted, haunted-house version of New York. Cheap digital effects and the realization that comic-book stories and themes tend to resonate...
Posted by thatkid at 1:15 PM | Comments (1)
March 23, 2005
Chasing Shadows, Part 2
Finally, we learn why Peter Wiggin wasn't such a bad guy after all On the off chance that you missed Part 1 of the ThatKidInTheCorner Ender Wiggin Spectacular, allow me to quickly summarize: in Part 1, I tried to go through the broader context of the Ender Wiggin books to date and applaud the coolness of the idea of future world wars in Asia. In this posting (Part 2), I want to think a bit more about the latest book (Shadow of the Giant): what worked, what didn't, what was cool, and how it fits in the grand scheme of things. I'll try to keep it as non-fanboy as possible (Buy Dragon Army schwag here! See the latest update -- from last week! -- on the Ender's Game movie here!), but I can't make too many promises. As they say, I'll try to try. Shadow of the Giant is essentially...
Posted by thatkid at 6:33 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2005
Chasing Shadows, Part 1
In which I geek out in re: Orson Scott Card's four-volume addendum to the Ender Wiggin saga From a character development perspective, it's quite a challenge to top Ender Wiggin. In four volumes (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind), Orson Scott Card took the Ender character from a shy child who becomes the leader of all the world's armies into a quasi-Messiah who unites all intelligent life in the universe. Then, in an additional four volumes, he returned to the same fictional world and retold the same story (at least the first part), only from the perspective of the Bean character, an important (but certainly not central) character from Ender's Game. Certainly an ambitious project, and one which -- mercifully -- can confidently be labeled a success. I plowed through the latest (and possibly last?) installment of the Ender Wiggin saga last week; that...
Posted by thatkid at 2:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2005
Consumer Semi-Durables
In which the wireless router breaks. Again. Our wireless router broke last week. Super Bowl Sunday, to be exact. (Call it an omen.) Though losing the router isn't a completely crippling equipment failure at my residence (the cable modem still worked and we could poach other wireless networks from our unsuspectingly generous neighbors), it certainly qualifies as inconvenient, requiring multiple calls to the broadband provider and the equipment manufacturer and the attendant arguments with customer service representatives. If you're keeping track, that brings us to four (4) wireless routers killed by our apartment over the past three (3) years. Said apartment has also killed a Playstation 2 (we're on our second one of those), a couch (BrownCouch, we miss you so!), a nintendo chair (these little things that sit on the ground and rock back and forth -- it makes sense when you see it), two remote controls (we thought...
Posted by thatkid at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2005
The Life Aquatic With James Cameron
No, I mean, it really was The Life Aquatic with James Cameron; also, it was like Armageddon "I've never seen a biomass that large!" --James Cameron, Aliens of the Deep So I guess if you make a lot a lot a lot a lot of money as a relatively young man and you're not necessarily into owning a professional football team, you can do things like make a 3-D IMAX special-effects-laden "documentary" film about deep-sea exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life and cast yourself as the lead. Such is most certainly the case regarding Aliens of the Deep, James Cameron's (relatively) new documentary now showing on IMAX screens. From the start, it's clear that the film's auteur and finacier, Mr. Cameron, is also the star of the show. After a breakneck opening title sequence, we cut to James Cameron in the high-tech control room of a ship at sea....
Posted by thatkid at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2005
Somethin' For the Kids
In which I admit to a rooting interest in an entertainment industry awards show; let's go Kanye West! Kanye West's The College Dropout was the best album I purchased last year. Beyond the numerous listens on my computer and my MP3 player, almost 12 months after I acquired it, the album remains one of the seven CDs I'm sure to grab if, say, I know I'll need music for a car trip. At first I thought it was just my favorite recent hip-hop album; then I realized that it was one of the best hip-hop albums I owned; then I realized it was one of the best albums I owned comma period. I liked the album so much that the news of Kanye West's ten Grammy nominations actually led me to GET EXCITED ABOUT AN AWARDS SHOW. While I usually reserve my snarkiest levels of snobby disdain for entertainment-award television...
Posted by thatkid at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2005
AVP Line Extensions
In which I admit that AVP wasn't actually that sweet but hold out hope for additional product extensions I really enjoyed AVP when I saw it this past summer (opening night, no less!). Sure, as a big fan of the two franchises in question, I was something of an easy mark. Naysayers told me it was just going to be tacky like Freddy Vs. Jason, but I wasn't having any of that. Jason and Freddy are downmarket slasher films that lucked into a series of unremarkable sequels; Alien and Predator are seminal science fiction landmarks that were having fun with their brands in a fun and engaging way. And I did enjoy the film. Sure, the first half was, ahem, a bit slow, but once the Predators started to fight the Aliens, well, THE PREDATORS FOUGHT THE ALIENS. That was more than enough for me. I enjoyed it so much...
Posted by thatkid at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Through The Wire
It seemed realistic, but not that realistic Among the many charms of HBO's The Wire (now on hiatus -- BOOOO!) is the detailed realism offered in its portrait of the big-city drug trade. Beyond focusing on the power struggles among the rival drug gangs or the drug dealers' relationships with their community (both legitimate and criminal), The Wire offers a view into the quotidian mechanics of selling drugs in Big City America. Viewers are shown the drug-dealing supply chain starting from the sourcing of The Package through the intermediate distributors all the way down to the street-level retail trade, complete with the local managers, their muscle, and their middle-school runners. Though the details serve mainly as a backdrop for the dramatic action, they're nonetheless a fascinating, if not essential, element of the show. Much of the detail apparently comes from creator David Simon, whose prior life (before he became an...
Posted by thatkid at 4:37 PM | Comments (0)
December 2, 2004
Most Callow Real Worlder Comma Ever
This is what I get for watching TV outside my demographic I really wanted to like Real World Philadelphia. Finally, they had come to my home town! And fresh off the heels of the always-drunk-and-always-mating San Diego edition, I was actually somewhat engaged by the Real World franchise; it was the sissy reality show that I was unashamed to watch. But oh, what a disappointment. As if it wasn't bad enough that the cast was actually not half as good-looking as the San Diego kids, it turned out that the Philadelphia Real Worlders were unbearably boring and boorish as well. No good drama, no sense of humor, and a even more tenuous connection to standards of reasonable adult behavior than your typical Real World cast. Which is all fine. I mean, it's a crappy reality show for teenagers. I shouldn't actually like it all that much. That said, last night's...
Posted by thatkid at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2004
Make Mine A Double Shot Of Addictive Chemicals
Seven Products That Don't Have Caffeine, Yet From a product development and positioning perspective, one of the more reliable methods for encouraging repeat purchases is to engineer your product to be physically or emotionally addictive. Emotionally addictive products are admittedly a bit less obvious (few realize that their self-esteem actually does depend on a certain sort of makeup or brand of garment) but are at the same time beset with vulnerabilities; quite simply, customer switching costs do not include physical illness. If you want people really hooked, you're going to need something that really puts their body chemistry in a choke hold. Depending on conventional wisdom and the feelings of the authorities, addictive products are either evil and illegal (cocaine), evil but legal (tobacco), or served for free in the workplace to make us all more enthusiastic factors of production (caffeine). Caffeine, chemically a bitter white alkaloid, is clearly the...
Posted by thatkid at 4:35 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2004
You Can't Be Him, He's A Rockstar
Greg Dulli still has soul Perhaps the most obvious hint that the October 16, 2004 Twilight Singers show at Irving Plaza was going to be something special was the start-time: midnight. Or, rather, the doors opened at midnight. This wasn't a situation where there were four other bands playing and they wouldn't get started until late, or where the, ahem, young people were bouncing in the dark to throbbing electronic music all night. Nope. No opening act. No partying 'til dawn. Just a regular rock show in a non-traditional time slot. Why start your show at such an hour? Maybe because there were issues booking the hall. Maybe you wanted to afford the CMJ folks the opportunity to see a bunch of music in a single evening. Or maybe you're Greg Dulli and you know your fans like to stay up late. The Twilight Singers is Greg Dulli's post-Afghan Whigs...
Posted by thatkid at 7:03 PM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2004
Oh Right, I Know Where I've Seen This
MTV takes a tip from Internet porn! Daring to venture beyond my demographic (nothing good on ESPN), I actually watched Laguna Beach, MTV's new reality show about the mating rituals and imagined disappointments of outrageously good-looking rich kids in Southern California. Apparently, this is supposed to be the "real" version of the OC. I can't so much comment on that, as I haven't so much ever really seen said OC show. I wouldn't say I was terribly engaged by the content of the first show, but that really doesn't say very much about said content, positively or negatively. It's not really for me. Mostly, all I could take away from this thing is that dem kids are awful good-looking! Yikes! There was like one dude at one of the parties who looked like the awkward adolescent that I once was. The camera did not linger with said dweeb for long...
Posted by thatkid at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2004
My Favorite Unit Of Entertainment Product, 2004
The Earl of Upnor, The King of the Vagabonds, and my infatuation with Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle Some four days prior to the lay-down date of The System of the World, the third volume of Neal Stephenson’s gargantuan (a scant 2,704 pages) The Baroque Cycle, I’ve taken a better-to-have-it- and-not-need-it decision on how I plan to consume the book: upon completion, I will proceed directly back to the beginning of the first book in the trilogy, Quicksilver, and plow my way through all three volumes a second time. So great is my anxiety about this saga and these characters disappearing forever (barring some of sort Star Wars-style resurrection twenty years hence; but I know better – only EXTREMELY profitable entertainment franchises can indulge in that sort of longevity, and thousand-page books set at the turn of the eighteenth century ain’t that kind of profitable) that I’ve been forced to...
Posted by thatkid at 7:05 PM | Comments (0)
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