Some funny links and a sad story

First, a sad story. Look at this map... and yes I realize that the date is from 1996. The point is that the map is about fire ants... and the county I live in is red. Aka, infested.
So, the other night it was misting/light raining and I needed to add a little oil to the car. Since I tend to be in a hurry in the mornings and the rain was light I figured I'd take care of it then even though it was dark. This was a bad idea. The grass I was standing in at the end of the car might have looked something like this.There are a few more things you should know... first that it has warmed up quite a bit here recently, so these hills are newer. And I was wearing sandals with jeans at the time. I'm sure you can see where this is headed.
Now I want to be clear here... (so I'm using caps) THIS IS NOT MY LEG (if you know me well you can tell... it's not hairy enough to be me). I got bit on the tops of my feet, and nowhere near as many times as this poor fool I found off google images.

The other night it itched so bad that it woke me up at 2am and took me an hour to fall back asleep. They are so aggressive they were all over my sandals when I came inside. Even in the legs of my jeans so I put them straight into the washing machine. I hope many ants died a painful soapy death that night for the suffering they've caused me.

But enough about me.

Here's some funny stuff to cheer you up after my tale of woe.

First of all today' s Dinosaur Comic. You might be sick of me always bring this up, but guess what... I started this blog and I think it's funny! So here, read this.



Next a link. This one to another staple of funny internet stuff. Woot. They are in NYC for a big toy show and have been having lots of write-ups about it. I thought this was one of the funnier ones. And I can't seemed to make a post unless it at least casually mentions zombies in it (mentions zombies in Woot's write-up, if didn't you read it). Hope you like it.

It's your window to weight gain!

Well, I read this story today. Seems like the folks at KFC take the "original recipe" pretty seriously. Personally, I don't see what the big deal is... I prefer Popeye's. So anyway, it reminded me of this scene from "So I married an Axe Murderer" that's pretty funny (taken from IMDb) See the picture below to get a look at the beady eyes for yourself.

Stuart Mackenzie: Well, it's a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Tony Giardino: So who's in this Pentavirate?
Stuart Mackenzie: The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee *beady* eyes, and that smug look on his face. "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!"
Charlie Mackenzie: Dad, how can you hate "The Colonel"?
Stuart Mackenzie: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!

The zombies are everywhere

This weekend I heard mention of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on NPR's quiz show "Wait, Wait, don't tell me" (which is actually a pretty funny show) and now today in Dinosaur Comics. Click here to hear the "Wait, Wait" bit about zombies. Click the link and then click "Bluff the listener" it's pretty funny.

"So ya thought ya might like to go to the show"

Yesterday, I was talking with Sarah about "The Wall". I had a song from the album in my head and couldn't remember which one it was. It turned out to be the first track of the album In the Flesh? The ablum was released before I was born so I don't really remember the first time I listened to the whole album, and learned it more by hearing the songs as singles. So my question is... when "The Wall" came out did people listening know how good the songs were? Did they hear them and think... "this song will be played on rock radio stations for years to come", or "someday my kids will know the words to these songs"? This is just one example of an influential album that I was thinking about. What about the the first time people "Sgt. Pepper's" or the "White Album" did they know?

So the question for you dear readers is, what album have you had this experience with or have you ever had it? A time when you remember where you were the first time you heard a CD and knew during that first listen that you were listening to something that would transcend generations and genres. I can remember getting a sense of that feeling with "Nevermind." I can think of a few other times too, but I'd like to hear your comments on the matter, even if you've never really had that sense or felt an initial listen to an album was going to be huge. Also when I say huge, that doesn't have to mean commercially successful. I'm more interested in the influence of the album either on other artists or even just on you as a person.

Don't get me started... oh, wait this time it's ok

It's easy to get me started on something... and sometimes that's a good thing. So I got an email from Grant about Sun Kil Moon, the guy with an album that has a lot of tracks about dead boxers. Anyway, I guess he wanted to hear some more of the tracks... and how could I deny him when he emailed me on his birthday? So today I'll tell you about Tiny Cities. So this album consists entirely of Modest Mouse covers. Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon) does a nice job of putting his own spin on the tracks, so the covers have a completely different type of music and feel. To show you what I mean, I put the first track I heard from this album (heard it playing on the impact back in 2005) onto the SPs. First, I put the Modest Mouse version with Sun Kil Moon version right after. I'm also putting up a poll to see which one people like better, so vote on that too.

"Local" NBA teams

I thought this was pretty interesting. I found it through the True Hoop blog on ESPN. I guess someone had a little spare time on their hands. Looks like the Detroit area team is not too bad.

great northern

great band from cal i saw recently in boulder. have 2 talented singers, a guy and a girl.
http://www.myspace.com/greatnorthern

Jane Austen is rolling in her grave...

or about to climb out of it to look for brains. Woot likes to have photoshop contests from time to time (they're usually pretty funny). So that's why they mention specifically that this is not a contest... but in fact a real book. Here's the link to the book, if you're too lazy to click my link to the woot article. Just had to throw the cover picture up too, in case you can't be bothered to click either of the two links above.