A Kurt Vonnegut for the short-attention-span generation. He always writes about the most dysfunctional details of the members of his family, I would hate to be one of them – but sometimes I feel like maybe I am. :P And he started off skewering me with horror stories of my most extreme phobia… I’ll leave it for you to discover.
Category: Consumption
Amazing Race scorecard
UPDATE: WE HAVE A WINNER!
Best choice of winners goes to… Larry, with only 2 team changes and 3 stage wins, barely beating out Jane, Wren, Reiley and Nick by one stage win, and tying me (but I’m disqualified since I’m the scorekeeper!).
Best choice of losers goes to… Larry by a landslide, with 5 correct eliminations!
I’m heading over to deliver Larry’s prizes now…. :>
—
Trying to get everyone hooked into an Amazing Race contest…
- Pick the team you think will win, and pick the team you think will be eliminated next.
- If your winning team is eliminated, you have to pick another. Least picks wins!
- If your losing team is eliminated, you score, and get to pick another. Most scores wins!
Hopefully simple enough, here we go!
| Team | Symbol |
|---|---|
| Yoga vegans | V |
| Asperger brothers | A |
| Gay brothers | G |
| Dad/son opposites | O |
| Harlem GT’s | H |
| Poker pro women | P |
| Miss America interracial | I |
| Weighlifters | W |
| Nashville Christians | C |
| Columbian fire couple | F |
| Internet 50’s | 5 |
| Young soccer stars | Y |
WINNER PICKS
| Viewer | Ep01a Y |
Ep01c O |
Ep02 H | Ep03 G |
Ep04 Y | Ep05 Y | Ep06 G | Ep07 H |
Ep08 Y | Ep09 Y |
Ep10 Y |
Ep11 Y |
| Larry | P | Y | win! | |||||||||
| Jane | H |
|
Y | |||||||||
| Andrea | G | |||||||||||
| Mike | P | Y | ||||||||||
| Wren | H | Y | ||||||||||
| Reiley | H | Y | ||||||||||
| Nick | H |
|
Y |
ELIMINATION PICKS
| Viewer | Ep01a V |
Ep01c F |
Ep02 5 |
Ep03 A |
Ep04 W |
Ep05 C |
Ep06 P |
Ep07 (O) |
Ep08 O | Ep09 (I) |
Ep10 H | Ep11 I,G,Y |
| Larry | F |
F |
5 |
A | W | O | O | O | G | win! | ||
| Jane |
V |
P | P | I | ||||||||
| Andrea | W | W | I | |||||||||
| Mike | C | C | I | |||||||||
| Wren |
V |
P | I | |||||||||
| Reiley | W | W | P | P | I | |||||||
| Nick | W | W | P | P | I |
9.5 Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
I’ve always enjoyed bands that obviously put their time in composing their music. It’s especially fun when the sound can be converted to something that sounds more live. Bands like The Strokes and Collective Soul and The The sound like guitar bands, but they are so tight and orchestrated that you know there’s more going on below the surface. These guys can handle sequencers as well as Mark Mothersbaugh.
Here, Julian skips the conversion of his compositions to shiny homogenized guitar strumming, and this time it’s all the better for it. All kinds of sonic textures to enjoy.
9.0 LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum
These guys have that great slightly-polished-chaos sound of bands like the Dandy Warhols and the White Stripes. Rock on!
Music is a gift of God…
…to quote the baptist preacher in a Pop Will Eat Itself sample. When Sufjan Stevens’ “Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for…” transitioned perfectly into The The’s “Dogs of Lust” on the old iPhone, it was so beautiful that God had to be involved.
Big Weekend
Had a great weekend, starting a little early on Thursday with dinner with Sammy at the Raleigh Times. A great veggie burger with great toppings (avacado, grilled mushrooms and onions, lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mustard, mmm), and the beer list is to die for. I had a Belgian triple – three times the hops and barley of a normal brew. It was delicious and effective, one beer was plenty. Then we went to Escazu, the chocolatier I’ve been obsessing over for a year or more. They have the best bars at Whole Foods (out of 200 or so, it seems), and the actual shop, on Glenwood Avenue, is adorable – a converted house with a display case full of painstakingly handcrafted chocolate delights. Then it was time for Halloween, and we partied like twentysomethings. You’ll have to hook up on Facebook to see all the good semi-clean fun we had. :> Except for this one blurry picture I found on my iPhone…
Wrenny and I get bohemian
Wrenny and I spent Sunday afternoon at the local coffeehouse. We had a great time drinking a “frappé” (latte blended with ice) spiked with chocolate syrup, yum… Kept us fuelled up for a nice long game of Elfenland. In the end it was a dead even tie, broken by Wrenny smashing my remaining pieces before I could get hers. :P
We also played Bluetooth games across the iPhone and iPod touch. Whee!
8.0 Outsourced
At times too close to reality for comfort, the laughter in this one was a bit strained. But that’s its charm, too. Globalization here we come! A nice easy primer on Indian culture that turns into a romantic comedy. And there’s music and dancing, too, of course. One thing’s for sure – I am heading to Udipi for lunch this week!
9.5 RockNRolla
1080p lookin’ good. Guy Ritchie has never failed me (sorry Madonna). Not sure where he finds his motley crew of supporting actors but I bet his house parties rival his best scenes. Our favorite part is that he focuses on the wit and leaves most of the gratuitousness for other ‘hot’ directors to use as a crutch to keep up with him. Win.
9.5 Watchmen
1080p is a beautiful thing. This was an interesting character study with an action movie injected in bits into the middle. As in the-director-of-300 beautiful-physics-in-slomo action. I didn’t follow the original, and I’m not burned out on the ‘conflicted hero’ theme – ergo, I loved it. I really really loved it.