More Ways to Profit From Dogs

I already posted about an idea to rent puppies so guys can pick up girls, now Chapman University is taking a more therapeutic approach and offering puppies to students to relieve stress. This would have been totally awesome to have at Eau Claire. In fact, why not have dog vestibules all over? Having a shitty day? Stop by the Dog Cube in the US Bank skyway and frolick with some puppies! Plus, it would double as a dog daycare for people who don't want to drive home on their lunch break and let their dogs out to pee and poop.

New Motion City Soundtrack Goodness

Hey all, swing on over to Spin and listen to another track from Motion City Soundtrack's new album out January 19th. They're also kicking off their tour here in Mpls at First Ave. that Saturday, the 23rd. I'm not saying that you totally suck if you don't go but I'm just sayin'... I mean, I'll be there and I don't suck, so I guess I don't really know where the sucky people will be that night.

Your Words Destroyed My Planet - awesome name for a song, awesome song. Much better than their other sneak peek song, Disappear, which is out on iTunes now and is not too shabby in its own right.

And Out Comes the Nerd

Yes, I know. Months since the last post. Again. I had to throw this up, though. One of the ways I find new music is through Hype Machine, a pretty decent music blog search engine. So I go on today, planning on finding the new Netherfriends song and the latest post just happened to be a cover of a Weird Al jam.

Turns out there's not just one. This guy over at Cover Me compiled like 15 Weird Al covers for my nerdy listening pleasure. Does it blow anyone else's mind that people are covering Weird Al!? I feel like it gives him some indie cred and I love it. If anything, this is a great way to relive the days of sitting in my room playing with M.U.S.C.L.E.S. and rocking 'Dare To Be Stupid' on my boombox.

Two-Toed Nerdery

I just about shit my pants when I was beer shopping in Rhode Island last week and came across this lovely concoction from Shipyard. It totally stroked two of my nerd sweet spots - beer and the Civil War. I'm probably one of three people in the country to own Gettysburg on DVD (starring Jeff Daniels) and if you put me on the spot and asked me who my favorite Civil War personality was I'd probably say Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

See? Nerdy.

I know that Shipyard is available around town here in the fall because I've seen their Pumpkinhead Ale on shelves. Now I'll have to ask around for this but can't see myself buying a lot of it because it wasn't that great. Maybe I'll need a second tasting...

My Dream Concert Crumbling

All tour details for Blink 182's reunion tour have been released on Mark Hoppus' blog and this is turning into a sick practical joke.

As expected, Weezer and Fall Out Boy are splitting the tour's opening duties with Weezer taking over on a swing from the east coast across down through Ohio and Missouri and over to Cali. They're joined on this leg by Taking Back Sunday and at some point Asher Roth's broke ass will join up. Fall Out Boy will be with Blink most of the rest of the dates, except the opening date of the tour in Vegas, when they'll be joined by Motion City Soundtrack. They are, of course, my favorite band and Mark Hoppus produced their 2nd album Commit This To Memory. Other opening acts include All-American Rejects, something called Chester French and Panic At the Disco.

So, to recap, barf. All of the moving pieces of this tour have made it impossible to see these guys without sitting through a band that I hate. Of course the best date is the Vegas date and I sure as hell can't afford to go to that. If I go to the show at the Xcel I'll have to focus so intently on not cutting myself during Panic's set that it'll talk all of the fun out of ripping on the little punk kids. My best bet is to take a road trip to KC or St. Louis and catch a favorable combination of Blink, Weezer, Taking Back Sunday and that thing called Chester French.

Boo.

SHUT. THE. F. UP.

Per MFR, Blink 182 will be joined on their reunion tour by Fall Out Boy and Weezer!  This is the mutant fanboy-geek amalgam concert I've been praying for since 2003 when Take This To Your Grave came out.  My only beef is that Weezer shouldn't be opening for anyone.  Co-headlining with the Foo Fighters was ok since they're alt rock pioneers but opening for Blink 182?  Not ever.  No way.  Get real.

In the Event of The Zombie Apocalypse...

Eat dog food. Apparently most people can't tell the difference anyway. Honestly, some of the stuff we give Cheese and Hiro looks like it would be pretty good if I cooked it up.

What kills me about this test is not that only 1 in 6 people recognized that they were eating dog food but that they had to have some sort of angry reaction to that. "Um, this is dog food, assholes." Plus, for the other 5 people, did the scientists tell them after it was over?

Subject: "All of that shit was terrible!"

Scientist 1: "Well, it should be. It's fucking dog food."

Scientist 2: "Can you believe they ate that stuff?! Chumps!"

So I Probably Don't Need This Product...

But what a feeling, right?

So This Is Kind of Prejudiced + a Fun Rant

The Star Trib, my paper of choice, has an interesting article up on their site today.  I was drawn to it's headline - "Flu can't stop Cinco de Mayo."

That's the go get 'em attitude that writers like in us Mexicans.  Against all odds we're getting together to celebrate a major cultural holiday!  The pluck!  The nerve!  The tenacity in the face of certain death!  The massive amounts of hand sanitizer!  Good thing the 4th of July is still on, right?

If this was Kholrabi Day or the Raspberry Fesival or something this wouldn't even be a story but Oh My God the Mexicans are gathering en masse and who knows how mayn of them are newly arrived illegals so this is apparently amazing that Cinco wasn't cancelled?  Right.

Never mind that barely nine people may have been infected in MN and seven of those didn't need any sort of hospitalization.  Or that Mexico has experienced a whopping 3% fatlity rate from it and here in the old USA it's .5%.  Or that this "pandemic" hasn't affected anyone you know.  Or that if you ask your grandparents they could probably tell you about a real epidemic that affected their friends like polio.  For God's sake, there was hand sanitizer all over the Cystic Fibrosis walk this morning!  I didn't use any just to freak people out, but now I'm barfing and coughing up pig parts.  Psyche.

This might be a terrible thing to say and if I die from a horrible strain of  moose flu or some dumb bullshit I guess that's karma, but bring on the REAL epidemic.  Thin the herd.  Traffic sucks and I'm sick of ice shelves the size of Rhode Island falling into the ocean.

Hipster Fail Times Infinity!

OMG, thanks to Nicole for this amazing site.  Look At This Fucking Hipster just went to number one on my Google Reader.

BloggieBlog Post

As my coworker Cody points out, it is indeed a bloggieblog world out there.  It's full of tons of ramblings that are usually completely worthless to anyone's point of view but our own.  But I love this world.  And you should know that Cody is one of three or four hipsters that I like, mostly because she's agreed to dress up like a Tanooki Suit Mario.

You have dysentery.

If you loved playing the old Apple IIgs in school with games like Number Munchers and Oregon Trail you have to check this site out.

If you didn't love those games, you suck.

The Week In TV...

I watched a lot of TV this week.  Between the final episodes of Battlestar, the season premiers of Big Love, Flight of the Conchords and Lost, the Innauguation and the shows I already watch like Top Chef I have had little time to spare doing important stuff like working or going to class.  Let's recap, shall we?

In BSG, Earth turns out to be a nuclear wasteland and everyone is totally bummed.  Especially D.  Answers better come quickly because they're still revealing new questions.  Like what's Starbuck's deal - is she dead or another ancient Cylon or some third option I don't even know about but is really cool?  Is that really the final Cylon?  I hate that character.  When's Gaeta going to be cool again?  I used to like him so much but now he's a sweaty one-legged bitch.

Big Love gave us some glimpses at what's going on with Roman and seeing Albie get his ass beat is always a pleasure.  All I could think about the whole episode was that Bill Paxton looks really old this year.

Flight of the Conchords started out strong with a nice Greg Proops cameo and the fall of the Crazy Dogs.  Brit's hand-woven pants were classic.

Leah needs to get her ass off Top Chef.  Radhika blew it so I wasn't sorry to see her go but we really need to keep weeding out these crappy chefs from this season faster.  My ever-changing final four prediction is Fabio, Stephan, Jeff and Jamie.  Carla can only do desserts, Leah is a hack and Hosea is probably interchangable with Jeff but I think Jeff is better in quickfires and it'll give him an advantage.

And oh boy, Lost... I love that they're jumping through time.  I think, though, that I am going to be totally bored with the goings on in L.A. thanks to how intrigued I am with the island antics.  This time jumping is a great way to show us the origins of the Dharma Initiative, give us some insight into everyone first known as "The Hostiles" and then "The Others," and even might let us catch a glimpse of an early smoke monster.

Ever since Alex was killed I'm liking Ben more and more, and I really like how Locke's journey  could position him to be the next Ben.  I feel like Richard is a more open Jacob-like island manifestation that is charged with choosing protectors for the island.  I think it's interesting that he gave Locke a compass, one of the items Locke chose as his own when Richard visited him as a child.

Tonight is the next Battlestar episode, which I will be DVRing.  More updates next week...

So Anxious...

Lost season 5 premiers to night and there are still so many questions to answer!  It looks like this is the season where everyone tries to get back to the island to save everyone.  Is Locke really dead?  Does Jin find his way back to our time?  How much ass can Sayid kick?!  Only time will tell!  I'll be rewatching the last half of the last season to formulate some pre-premiere theories this afternoon.

One More Music Site

If you haven't checked out Daytrotter, you must. The basics is that this guy gets some serious indie artists to do live studio shows that he can post for free on the interblogs. That's cool in itself, but his archives include Merz, Okkervil River, Ben Kweller, Bishop Allen, Minus the Bear, Tokyo Police Club and Yeasayer. The sheer multitude of kickass music on his site is sick.

Daytrotter - http://www.daytrotter.com