Stratovania

I got a plain yellow card in the mail today, which read as follows:

Dear Nathan

We are trying to reach you with Good News! It is real important that you call Toll free 1-800-963-1967

Thanks
Amanda Walters

Call 10 am to 8:30 pm EST
Monday thru Friday

Based on the capitalization of "Good News," I initially thought it was somebody who was going to try to convert me to their religion. But apparently it's actually a scam to steal credit card numbers, and it's been going on for over a year. I wouldn't have called regardless (hey, do YOU typically call numbers on plain yellow cards that you get in the mail?), but closure is always nice.

They Might Be Giants finally have a new podcast up, so I guess I should say something about it. It's a special Halloween podcast, which is a cool idea, even though I've heard most of it before. Songs include "Skullivan," "Headless," "I Am A Human Head," the theme from The Oblongs, "25 O'Clock," and "Canada Haunts Me." There are also "Haunted Eye" and "Phone Cord," both new ones, and some not-so-great number by a band called the Jickets. Not a bad mix of spooky-type songs, but there are some obvious omissions. What about "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" or "Hall Of Heads"? Of course, if they HAD included them, I probably would have been complaining about how we already HAVE those songs on the albums, so there's no point in putting them in the podcast. It's impossible for TMBG to win, isn't it? :P If they're doing what's essentially a mix CD in podcast form, though, they might as well go all out, right? I also think they probably should have thrown on "Hell Hotel." Why does that remain the only song from the demo tape not to be released? It's a good song, and could easily have fit on some of their recent projects.

I watched bethje play a little of The Windwaker last night. The Zelda games are really cool, but I suck at actually PLAYING them. I have to wonder what the deal is with Tingle, a grown man who's obsessed with fairies and dresses like one. I think he's Hyrule's answer to Michael Jackson, except with Flava Flav's clock. Apparently he's the most hated character in the series, which doesn't surprise me. What does is that he's apparently supposed to star in his own game.

The new They Might Be Giants podcast doesn't have much in the way of new songs, but there are a few short songs recorded for contest winners and one from a radio spot, as well as another clip from the infamous Gloria conversation. It's weird that more of that is being released after so many years. There are also Last Car and Corn Mo songs, which I was already familiar with, but it's cool to hear them again nonetheless. And hey, Cecil is back! (k1cup might not be so happy about that, but I am. {g})

Well, unlike I had guessed, the new lineup of Queen DIDN'T actually play on Wednesday's American Idol episode. Incidentally, next week, the contestants will be singing Rod Stewart songs. I guess that it's an attempt at balance, since hardly anybody can sing as well as Freddy Mercury, while, on the other hand, hardly anybody can sing WORSE than Rod Stewart. And that's pretty much all I have to say on that subject. Well, okay, I also have to ask why Ace Young is still on the show. I don't really care THAT much who wins and who loses, but I just don't understand that guy's appeal. Who's voting for him, aside from his five brothers and Paula Abdul (assuming she's eligible to vote, which she probably isn't)?

I heard on the radio that Michael Jackson might be selling the rights to the Beatles catalog. If anyone has a spare billion dollars lying around, this could be a great investment opportunity! {g}

The new They Might Be Giants podcast is kind of mediocre. It's mostly just live recordings of familiar songs. But it's cool to hear "Contrecoup" and "Chaos By Design" again, even though I'd heard both of them before (many times in the case of the latter, but only a few for the former).

I don't think I'm going to be doing the weekly posts on lyrics and other song-related issues anymore. I've been consdering doing an entry about my favorite lyrical puns, but I can't really think of that many examples offhand. I'll probably do this eventually, but not this week. I also sort of want to do a post on my favorite album covers. And beyond that, who knows? Does anyone have any ideas? Or, for that matter, any ideas as to non-music-related topics I should address? Yeah, I know. It's my journal, and you have enough trouble coming up with topics for your OWN journal entries. But if you DO have any suggestions, let me know.

Okay, I might as well post this now.

bethje and I watched two movies this week. On Tuesday, we saw Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, the sequel to a Canadian werewolf movie that we saw a few months ago. I liked it, but I don't really have anything specific to say about it. I will say that it seemed less complicated than the first one, being fairly narrow in its focus. The third movie, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is next on our Netflix queue, so we should be watching that soon.

Last night, we saw Word Wars, which is a documentary about participants in Scrabble tournaments. Some of them seemed to have no real life beyond Scrabble, with no real jobs or anything. One guy seemed to do nothing but smoke pot and play Scrabble. Another one took a whole bunch of medicines that were supposed to increase his brainpower. There was a comment from a woman about how Scrabble is more mathematical than linguistic, since the definitions of words aren't important. This makes sense, but some of the tournament participants were really good with definitions as well. There was a lot about how important it is to be able to figure out anagrams (and all there were anagrams for the names of all of the cities visited, which was a cool touch). I can sometimes figure out things like that, if given enough time, but I don't think I could ever do it on the fly like the guys in the film did. I also couldn't imagine being that competitive about anything. I've never really been much one playing Scrabble anyway. My dad used to play it a lot, though, and even has the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, which was featured quite a bit in the movie.

Today on the radio, I heard about how they're banning peanut butter jars in prisons in Tennessee, because people smuggle contraband (including cell phones, bullets, and drugs) in them. They also mentioned that they've cloned a horse. I think there might have been something else I wanted to mention, but I forget what it was. I DO, however, remember another thing that I heard on the radio a week or two ago, and wanted to write about but forgot. Apparently, the guy who made Supersize Me spoke at a school, and got in trouble for using profanity and insulting minority workers at McDonald's. I wonder what he actually said. I was inclined not to like the guy much anyway. I mean, come on! Eating nothing but McDonald's for a month is essentially a circus sideshow act, not a reputable scientific study. I haven't actually seen the film, and I think some people on my friends list liked it, but the descriptions make it sound preachy and obvious.

A new They Might Be Giants podcast is now up. "Diving Board" is another one of those cool John Linnell songs about mundane topics that seem to be par for the course in these podcasts. "Lesson 16" is pretty amusing. "Words Are Like" is a good song that I already knew. It's interesting that they credit it to "They Might Be Giants," rather than the Crummer Family (the fake band name under which they originally released it). It's kind of weird, because I was just thinking of that song yesterday when watching Word Wars (since, you know, it has "words" in the title). I'm not sure I've ever heard of Michael Levine, but the song of his that's featured is pretty good, and it's nice to hear a non-TMBG artist in the podcast. And I love the old political songs that they often include in these things. I give Podcast 5B two thumbs up! Or I would if I were Roger Ebert, but then I would have hated UHF and thought Caligula was one of the worst movies ever made.

Speaking of TMBG, I heard that Dial-A-Song was working for a brief period of time a few days ago, but now it's down again. Why must the Johns and their unreliable technology taunt us so?

I guess I should get some food now.

The new They Might Be Giants podcast is up, but it's not all that great. Most of it is just made up of Venue Songs performances from one of the New Year's Eve shows. As much as I like the songs, they're pretty much identical to the versions on the Venue Songs CD and DVD, which makes the release somewhat pointless. Okay, I guess it wouldn't be pointless if you hadn't heard the songs before, but if I like a band enough to check out their podcasts, I'm probably going to have most of their released material. Maybe it's different for other people. And it IS nice to hear Robin Goldwasser's introductions to the songs, even if they're nowhere near as funny the second time, let alone the third.

Speaking of podcasts, the latest frankblack.net podcast includes a cool country version of "Fiddle Riddle," which I think I like better than the official recording on Teenager of the Year (or, as bethje calls it, "King Frank Black on Valentine's Day"). And speaking of Frank, the release date for his next album has been...uh, released. Fastman Raiderman (I'm still not so keen on that title) will be out in North America on 20 June.

I've filed my federal and state taxes. I still have to pay my local taxes and file my non-resident return for New Jersey. Working in two states is kind of a pain. It's also a pain that New Jersey won't let non-residents file online. Anyway, it looks like I'm getting a little more back this year than I did last year, which is good. It would really help matters if I didn't have to pay those local taxes. Lousy Pennsylvania.

I should re-read The Magical Monarch of Mo soon, so I can contribute to the discussion on Regalia (my Oz e-mail list). That shouldn't take long, though.

Finally, Beth and I will be seeing Belle and Sebastian in Philadelphia tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to that.

The new They Might Be Giants podcast is out. This one is pretty cool, and definitely better than the last one. "Miniature Sidewalk Whirlwind" is a weird and amusing song about getting a plastic bag stuck to your leg. I'm not sure how to describe it. It reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger on what. It just has to be heard, I suppose. There are also three songs about Mr. T by The Last Car [1]. The last one has kind of a Mono Puff vibe to it, and makes me think of Hello the Band's "Town To Town." The Deranged Millionaire interview is pretty amusing, too. And it ends with a recording of "Now Is Strange" that gets cut off before it ends. Does that happen for everybody, or was there something wrong with my download?


Here are five questions (one less than the Millionaire had to answer), courtesy of travspence:

1. Can you dance?

No, I can't say I can.

2. Who is your current crush?

Does bethje count?

3. Tell us about a dream you remember.

You've all heard about my childhood dream where Grimace (yeah, the purple McDonald's character) wanted to eat me, right? I think it was actually a recurring dream.

4. Do you live with anyone, or do you live by yourself?

I live with my mom and sister, as well as my brother, when he's home from college. And my sister has a cat.

5. When is the last time you bled from an injury?

I'm sure it involved shaving.


( A quiz result, and a few things that annoy me )

I got a $5 Wawa gift card in the mail (courtesy of a Tastykake sweepstakes), as well as two March Laumer Oz books. I'm sure reviews will be forthcoming after I've read the books, but I don't know that I should expect anyone to actually read them. The reviews, I mean. I don't expect anyone to read the Laumer books either, but I guess if anyone does, they'll probably read the reviews as well.

And I have to get up early, so I should probably go to bed very soon. I think I'll check my friends page again first, though.

[1] I usually don't capitalize the word "the" when it appears in a band name, but "The Last Car" just looks wrong without it. Maybe because it looks like more of a title, or something.

So, I've now listened to the first podcast by They Might Be Giants. I'd been hearing a fair amount about podcasts in the recent past, and I had no idea what they actually were. Apparently it's just a downloadable sound file that's arranged somewhat like a radio broadcast. "Podcast" is a pretty inscrutable term for this. I guess we have Apple to blame.

The first song on the podcast is a parody of "It Was A Very Good Year," which kind of sounds like John Linnell made it up off the top of his head. There's stuff in it about Maggie Thatcher and sexual intercourse with dodecahedrons in a state of quantum uncertainty.

Up next is a cover of the Banana Splits' "I Enjoy Being A Boy." I've never heard the original, not being in the right generation to have watched the show. I find the song to be surprisingly TMBG-ish, though. Yes, I know it predates TMBG, but I still think it's reasonable to call it TMBG-ish.

The thing about North American turtle songs is pretty weird. Linnell seems to really have had his weird rambling vibe on while making these new recordings. I can't imagine listening to this regularly, but it's pretty cool just for its sheer ridiculousness factor. This is also a free download on TMBG's website, which I was eventually able to download, but I had trouble with it. On the site, it says to give them your e-mail address, and they'll filter out duplicates. But when I put in my address, it says they already have it on file. They really need to get that fixed.

The turtle speech segues surprisingly well into a version of "Particle Man" that's heavily reminiscent of "Strawberry Fields Forever." I'd heard this before, but I still feel it worth mentioning that it's really damned cool. It's quite possibly my favorite version of the song, which has been performed with so many different arrangements throughout the years. I guess since they feel they have to play it at every single concert, they have to keep switching it up to avoid getting bored. I kind of have to wonder why "Particle Man" is so popular, anyway. I know there's the whole Tiny Toons thing, but that was so many years ago that I tend to doubt the people who want to hear it at shows nowadays are the same ones who saw it on the show.

Speaking of Tiny Toons, I saw their Christmas special on Thursday night (bethje had it on one of her many tapes of Christmas episodes), and apparently Hamton is Jewish. Who knew?

Anyway, getting back to the podcast, it also includes "Minneapolis," "Tippecanoe And Tyler Too," and "The Bloodmobile." I already knew all of those songs well, though, so I don't have any comments on them now.

Winter still sucks just as much as it did the last time I complained about it. Since I'd been able to park without much trouble last night, and it hadn't precipitated since then, I figured it would be easy to get back out of the space. Boy, was I wrong! It somehow got stuck (on what, I'm not sure, as there didn't seem to be much snow behind the wheels), and it took a few minutes and some burning rubber to get the vehicle moving. There's yet ANOTHER irritating thing about snow that I tend to forget about during the warmer times of the year.

I really need to start Christmas shopping. I don't have that many people to buy for, but it's better to do it sooner than later, isn't it?

By the way, thanks to shadarko for the Christmas card.