Buffy vs. Edward

Jonathan McIntosh mashes up Buffy and Twilight (with a little Harry Potter thrown in) in a hilarious "critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior." (H/t: Eugene Woodbury)

Read More......

How to make TV golf more interesting

I've often said that golf is like sex: fun to do, but boring to watch. But here's a way to make golf on TV more interesting: add basketball announcers.

Read More......

In the meantime...

I probably won't be posting here much for the next couple weeks, but in the meantime you can enjoy my other blog, This Day in History Blog, which I've revived and plan to keep going for a year or so to see what happens. It's a parody of those "This Day in History" things that you see all over. That means it's funny. And each entry is only two sentences long, so it won't take much of your time when you read it every day.

Read More......

Going home

My mother died yesterday of breast cancer. As some of you may recall, she was diagnosed only a few months ago, and her cancer was already stage IV when it was discovered. It had spread to her bones and bone marrow already.

Her other health problems prevented aggressive treatment of the cancer. She was in and out of the hospital several times over the past few months. Last week she went in again, seemingly no worse than before, but a few days ago her condition began to rapidly deteriorate.

This song captures what she believed about death. It's a comforting thing to believe. And Mom always loved a good boys choir. I think she would have liked this a lot.

Going home going home
I am going home
Quiet like, some still day
I am going home

It's not far, just close by,
through an open door
Work all done, care laid by
Never fear no more

Mother's there expecting me
Father's waiting too
Lots of faces gathered there
All the friends I knew

I'm just going home

No more fear No more pain
No more stumbling by the way
No more longing for the day
Going to run no more

Morning star lights the way
Restless dreams all gone
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life has begun

There's no break, there's no end
Just living on
Wide awake, with a smile
Going on and on

Going home Going home
I am going home
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life has begun

I'm just going home

(Music by Atonin Dvorak, lyrics by William Arms Fisher, performed by Libera)

Read More......

'80s Monday: The Cramps

The Cramps are a little different from most of the bands I've written about in a couple of ways. First, they never had much success in terms of record sales in the US or the UK. Second, they never broke up, mainly because they were headed by a married couple, singer Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy. Lux and Ivy were together for 37 years until Lux's tragic death from an aortic dissection earlier this year. (RIP, Lux.) Other members came and went, but Lux and Ivy stayed together through it all.

The Cramps were are one of my favorite bands, and when I was young I could never understand why they weren't more successful. Today, it's kind of obvious to me, though: they were just too extreme and too unique. They rocked like hell, and they rocked like nobody else. They blended punk and surf guitars with rockabilly, coining the term "psychobilly" (although what they did was a little different than bands that fit that genre today). Their sound was unique, often featuring two or three guitars, a stripped-down drum kit, and no bass. Their lyrics often referenced old B horror movies from the '50s and early '60s, or were filled with sexual innuendo.

Above all, their live shows were insane, mainly because of Lux. He's one of the few performers who bear comparison to the heyday of Iggy Pop. Lux may never have engaged in the kind of self-mutilation that Iggy sometimes did, but other than that, anything went. And Ivy, by contrast, mostly affected boredom, with an occasional sneer at Lux's antics. The effect could be hilarious, as you'll see in the "Tear It Up" video (if you're up to watching the whole thing).

They never had much success selling records, but these videos will show you why they were able to keep making music and selling out shows for 30+ years. Enjoy.

"What's Inside a Girl?" (c. 1986). This is actually a little subdued for Lux (though not for 99.9 percent of other singers) -- maybe because it was for TV -- so it makes for a nice warm up.



This isn't really a video -- "She Said" was the B-side on a single, so of course there was no official video for it -- but I love this song. And my five-year-old daughter loves to sing along with the chorus: "Woo-ee-ah-ah! Woo-ee-ah-ah! Woo-ee-ah-ah! Woo-ee-ah-ah! Woo! Ee! Ah!"
"She Said" (1981)



"Human Fly" live (filmed in 1981). This one gives the full Lux effect, although unfortunately the sound is a little bad.



"Tear It Up" (1981). This was the first Cramps song I ever heard, but I'm playing it last. For a reason -- Lux's performance is insane. And by insane, I mean obscene. And by obscene, I don't mean the language, I mean the performance. Actually, this video is a pretty good test. If you really and truly, deep down in your soul, ROCK, you'll think this is great, and you'll turn it up. If you're a normal person who just kind of likes rock music (not that there's anything wrong with that), well, you'll probably turn it off. So let me know in the comments: did you turn it up, or did you turn it off?



If you want to hear more of the Cramps, I recommend starting with Bad Music for Bad People.

Read More......

The Cookie Cake Pie!

My family and I made the Cookie Cake Pie today (recipe h/t: CakeSpy). A Cookie Cake Pie is a pie crust with a layer of cookie and a layer of cake (and frosting on top).

We changed the recipe a little, though, and made it with a cookie crust, chocolate cake, and chocolate frosting.

Here's the finished product.

 

 

Here's how we made it.

We decided to start with an "Oreo" pie crust (actually we used some off-brand cookies rather than real Oreos).

We took off the cream filling...

And ground up the cookies. There was lots of grinding, so we took turns. The kids enjoyed this part.

Once the cookies were all ground up...

 
We added the cream filling back in...

And mixed it up so it would be gooey enough for a pie crust. It was a bit dry, so we added a little milk as we went along.

The we formed a pie crust.

And added a layer of chocolate-chip cookie dough. (We made this from scratch, using a Betty Crocker recipe.)

Followed by a layer of devil's food cake (store-bought mix). It's ready to bake!

We had so much cake mix and cookie dough left over, we made two Cookie Cake Pies (and still had enough left over for six cupcakes and five big cookies). My daughter said she didn't want frosting on the second one, so we sprinkled ground-up cookies on the top. It came out like this:

She's going to take it to school tomorrow.

We frosted the other one with chocolate/cream frosting and ate it with ice cream.

How was it? Delicious. Wonderful. Awesome. But it's almost too rich to eat. Even I could only handle one piece. (And usually I only stop eating stuff like this when it's all gone or when my wife starts yelling at me about my cholesterol.)

So I recommend making a Cookie Cake Pie only if you have a lot of people around to eat it. Each person will probably only eat about half their normal portion of cookie/cake/pie. But they'll enjoy it.

(Check my Facebook for more pictures.)

Read More......

Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (6/1/2009)

I'm too busy for real blogging, so here are some links.

I'm going to make this this weekend, but with an Oreo crust, chocolate cake, and chocolate frosting. And homemade ice cream.

Sounds good. Maybe FAIR is hiring. I kid, I kid -- FAIR doesn't hire scientists. ;)

Steroids: not all that bad?

Stop pronouncing Sotomayor's name correctly!

Read More......

Good Reads/Random Cool Sites (5/26/2009)

I generally relate better to intellectuals and artists than to workers, but I've never understood the way some of my peers look down on manual workers. I can't understand looking down on someone who has a skill, especially one that you lack yourself and have to pay someone to use on your behalf. Anyway, here's a thought-provoking look at manual labor: The case for working with your hands.

Noah deals with escaping marsupials and other post-flood difficulties in Noah's Lament.

Resolved question: Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?

Photographs of African kings

Read More......

'80s Monday: Bow Wow Wow

My three biggest celebrity crushes of the '80s were actress Phoebe Cates, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's, and Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow. Annabella had the world's most beautiful Mohawk, and an awesome English accent -- one video and I was in love. But Bow Wow Wow suddenly broke up in 1983, and that was pretty much the last anyone heard of her in the USA for many years, except when MTV happened to play a Bow Wow Wow video. (Remember, there were no interwebs in the '80s, kids.)

There was always an aura of hype and artificiality about Bow Wow Wow. They were put together by Malcolm McLaren, who previously managed the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols. He somehow got all the entire band from Adam and the Ants to defect en masse and join Bow Wow Wow instead. He was one of those guys for whom any publicity was good publicity, and his strategy for hyping the band was to exploit Annabella's underaged sex appeal. She was 14 when the band formed, and around 16 during their heyday. (And, BTW, I'm only four years older than she is, so there was nothing creepy about me crushing on her back in the day.)

Many of Bow Wow Wow's songs were about sex, with titles like "Mile High Club" and "Aphrodisiac." Their most over-the-top song was "Sexy Eiffel Towers," which is so exaggerated that it's funny (probably unintentionally) rather than sexy. (No video, but you can listen to it here. Maybe not safe for work, but it's a lot of fun to play at parties.) She was 14 when she recorded that, BTW.

But McLaren's most notorious act was producing this album cover. That's 15-year-old Annabella naked in the photo. It's an artistic pose -- a homage to Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass -- and all Annabella's naughty bits are strategically covered, but still, she was only 15 years old. Understandably, Annabella's mom went ballistic, and she even managed to get a police investigation going, but that was all just good publicity as far as McLaren was concerned.

Anyway, as I was watching these videos, I realized that Bow Wow Wow was actually a lot better than I remembered. It'd been years since I heard anything but their "I Want Candy" cover, which is a catchy tune but not their best. They weren't just hype after all, but in fact were actually a pretty tight band. The guys were good musicians, and Annabella could sing just fine. And damn, she was pretty. (And still is actually. She's still quite good-looking in her 40s.)

On to the videos:

"I Want Candy" (1982)



"Do You Wanna Hold Me?" (1983)



"Aphrodisiac" (c. 1983)



Here's a little bonus. Annabella's on some music show hosted by a guy named B. A. Robertson, who apparently was some kind of English pop star himself back in the day. He gives a very patronizing intro, and the thoroughly pissed-off Annabella goes off on him before storming off the stage. Sure, she took herself a little too seriously, but hey, that's what's being young is for (see Dylan, Bob). She was fierce as well as beautiful. And poor dorky Robertson was probably having flashbacks to high school, when all the pretty girls used to make fun of him. Served him right for dissing her though. (Guess you can tell whose side I'm on. ;) )

Read More......

Good Reads/random Cool Sites (5/23/2009)

It was just another bad t-shirt, until some guy wrote a hilarious review at Amazon.com. Now people are competing to outdo one another in the hilarity of their reviews, and the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt is the number-one selling item in apparel at Amazon. I'm going to buy one and wear it ironically. To Wal-Mart. And buy pork rinds. (What are pork rinds, anyway?)
(H/t: murketing)

How your favorite sneakers got their names. Did you know that Chuck Taylor was on salary the whole time he worked for Converse and never got royalties for letting them use his name? Me neither.

Ordinary "supermax" prisons are obviously not secure enough for TERRORISTS, so Hunter has designed the world's first Super Extreme Maximum Security Prison.

Finally, small penises are a problem in India. One in five condoms falls off or tears during use, because "about 60% of Indian men have penises which are between three and five centimeters shorter than international standards used in condom manufacture." I guess they should start importing them from Japan. (Condoms, not penises.)

Read More......