Can You Dig It?

R&B Jesus has risen

2012-01-31T20:07:00.000-05:00

There have been all kinds of great videos posted from Europe in the last week proving that D'angelo is back and bad as he ever was. While it's not much to look at, the sound quality on this one from Paris is great.

Sofia quote of the day: Santa

2011-12-05T20:33:00.002-05:00

Me: I'm proud of you and I'm going to go tell Santa you've been a good girl.

Sofia: He already knows.

Rapping in a British accent: Mikill Pane

2011-12-04T11:14:00.001-05:00

It always sounds so cool and intellectual, even when the lyrics consist of tales of farting in a movie theater. I guess that should be "theatre."

Thanks to the Umbro web site's music player for the tip-off.

The Almighty Tanya Morgan: You & What Army

2011-11-28T20:58:00.000-05:00

Tanya Morgan hold a special place in my heart as the group that reignited my love of hip-hop music after years of apathy.

I think it was 2006 when their album Moonlighting was heralded by that evil Bachmann basher, Questlove, as one of his year-end favorites. That co-sign was enough for me to take a listen and what I heard instantly connected with me. Von Pea, Donwill and Ilyas were smart, funny and funky... just like me. What!

Five years, a slew of Tanya Morgan and solo albums and EPs later, they're still trying to carve out a spot for themselves in the music industry, but their art hasn't suffered in the struggle. They continue to grow artistically, even if they're shrinking in number. Ilyas has left group -- a fact that is played out in a really clever (and pretty damn heatbreaking) skit in the intro to "You & What Army?"

It won't be the same without him, but it doesn't have to be. Von Pea and Donwill are two creative cats and they're moving forward with more high quality hip-hop. No, no. Don't believe me. Listen to it yourself. It's free, Emmer Effer:

<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://tanyamorgan.bandcamp.com/album/you-what-army"&amp;gt;You &amp;amp;amp; What Army by Tanya Morgan&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</p>
Like it? Go to their bandcamp page and buy a T-shirt. I'm putting one on my Christmas list.

"That's a bunch of bull, like Jordan in a steakhouse."
-- Donwill

Sofia quote of the day

2011-11-27T20:10:00.001-05:00

This came tonight while Sofia was chomping on a cherry Starburst candy cane:

Sofia: Mami's the boss, right?

Me: Yep.

Sofia: Mami's the boss because she says she's the boss, but God is the real boss, right?

Me: Who told you that?

Sofia: Nobody. I just believe it inside my head.

Where does she get this stuff? Not from home.

Sofia quote of the day

2011-11-24T10:39:00.000-05:00

Watching the Thanksgiving parade: "That's cool that the Kool-Aid man showed up."

Good News/Bad News

2011-11-21T22:23:00.000-05:00

Good News: We actually had chocolate sauce in the fridge to spruce up that remaining vanilla ice cream.

Bad News: It was really just "chocolate flavored syrup."

Good News: It's a "fat free food."

Bad News: The "best by" date on the bottle said November 10.

Good News: Still smells OK.

Bad News: That's actually November 10, 2007.

Good News: Tasted just fine.

Bad News: Tasted just fine.

Good News: Purchased for less than $2 sometime during George W. Bush's second term, Publix brand chocolate flavored sauce survived the worst economic downfall in decades and is still yielding great returns.

Bad News: None. It's all upside.

Getting out of the funk with The Original 7ven

2011-11-20T12:44:00.000-05:00

The last couple of months haven't been the greatest and I've been struggling a little to get back to my amazingly upbeat self. Tough times like these call for the right music, and the way I see it, you have two choices: 1) You can dive head first into your pity party with something whiny and sorrowful, and most likely British; or 2) You can try to pull yourself out of the funk with a double dose of the funk.

I didn't think I was quite ready for Option 2, but like a funkin' miracle from above, the Minneapolis branch office of The Adjustment Bureau saw fit to reunite the original seven members of The Time after 21 years to record a new album that makes me smile, dance and laugh every single time I play it.

My friend Prince tried to stomp his pointy heels all over my comeback and theirs by not allowing them to use their Prince-given name, The Time. But just as Prince's other revered side project, The Family, did this year when they regrouped and recorded their own new music under the name fDeluxe, The Time just moved forward and renamed themselves "The Original 7ven."

Although Prince wrote and basically recorded all of the songs on their first three albums, the seven members of The Time were -- and still are -- talented musicians in their own right. Jimmy Jam (keys) and Terry Lewis (bass) wrote and produced a million hits after Prince fired them and they're responsible for producing most of the new album; Morris Day is coolest, most pimping and self-deprecating frontman in the world, not to mention a funky-ass drummer with enough personality in his voice to pull off any line; Jerome Benton is the greatest hype man ever, always stealing the show; Jesse Johnson is an amazing guitarist and should be a household name (Quad Cities, U.S.A., represent!); Monte Moir, who wrote Janet Jackson's "The Pleasure Principle," can play the Minneapolis sound's signature keyboard lines like nobody else; and Jellybean "Don't Be So Mean" Johnson is the drummer in one of the tightest live bands ever to do it.

With all of that said, if they had never recorded this new album, Condensate, their legacy might have been misinterpreted as solely the best band to play Prince songs. Condensate disproves that argument.

While the new music still adheres to the template Prince set out for them in the early 80s, Condensate is slick, funky and really adventurous music for fans of the genre, not to mention way more fun than anything Prince has released in a long time. They don't take themselves too seriously, just the music.

Don't be tempted like I was to judge the album by 30 or even 90-second snippets. There are funky little surprises around every corner that show off their musicianship and make for a great listen all the way through. Also, go to Best Buy and get the CD with special DVD documentary featuring the guys telling their own history. It's really well done and kind of sweet (Morris delivers another classic Morris line when, describing his normal childhood growing up in Minneapolis, he says in his Mr. Day voice, "A new bike for Christmas and shit like that.")

And if this song -- the greatest social media jam ever written -- doesn't pick you up, put a little hop in your step and make you feel like dancing, you might as well just retire and go to bed:

Netflix abandons Qwickster

2011-10-10T13:35:00.000-04:00

I just got my e-mail from Netflix saying that they've decided against the Qwickster thing. As a man who took the Netflix Instant Queue Challenge and won, I feel like I'm qualified to say this is a good move.

I love Netflix. They saved my soul from Cockbusters just a couple of years ago, but what's going on? Is it that they have no backbone or are they just great listeners?

It seems like a focus group might be a good idea. Maybe they haven't seen Mad Men? It's available to watch instantly.

If not, I hope they've at least seen this unaired SNL skit from two weeks ago: Web Exclusive: Netflix Apology

Late pass: Breaking Bad

2011-10-03T20:17:00.000-04:00

Although it's really depressing, Breaking Bad is my latest Netflix instant queue addiction. That Bryan Cranston deserves every acting award ever awarded for this. Plus, he's got his own website.

Lounge Act with Sofia

2011-10-02T10:40:00.000-04:00

A little Sunday morning grunge dance off:

Malcolm Gladwell on sports franchises

2011-08-22T19:49:00.002-04:00

Very good article by Malcolm Gladwell on the NBA lockout, the Boston Red Sox's racist past and sports franchise owners who say they lose money.

Read it here at Grantland.com.

Sofia quote of the day

2011-08-22T18:13:00.001-04:00

This afternoon, while sitting on the throne: "Daddy, I think we need to take a break from the tacos."

Netflix Challenge: The Final Breakdown

2011-08-18T21:07:00.004-04:00

It's all over. Che is done and I even knocked off a few re-adds and automatically added films -- Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun, the awful Goya's Ghosts and the totally awesome Oceans for good measure. I highly recommend Oceans.

I started the Netflix Instant Queue Elimination Challenge back on Aug. 10, 2010, as a way to clean out all the films I was hoarding on the queue, but not actually watching. I vowed to not add any new titles until the backlog was cleared.

Exactly one year and four days later, on Aug. 14, 2010, I was done.

A lot has happened since then, including one very nasty price increase, and I'm glad it's finally all over. Here's a little breakdown of the experience

Total Films: 54

Average Watch Rate: One movie every 6.8 days

First Film: Wonderful World with Matthew Broderick

Last Film: Che was the official end, but Goya's Ghosts was the last to be watched after it somehow sneaked back onto the queue.

Best Film I Hadn't Seen Before: Based on my Netflix ratings, I guess it's got to be Mary and Max, since it was the only one to get the hard-to-come-by 5-star "Loved It" rating. I don't just hand those out, unlike my wife who gives five stars to entire seasons of Roseanne.

Worst Film: I'll Believe You. This was horrible. The only Netflix Challenge film I couldn't finish, despite it featuring Chris Elliott.

Surprise Film: All of the Ramin Bahrani's U.S. immigrant story movies: Goodbye Solo, Chop Shop and Man Push Cart. I had never heard of this guy before, but I'll be sure not to miss any of his movies in the future. No wonder Ebert called him "Director of the decade."

Late breaking Netflix Challenge news

2011-08-14T23:24:00.003-04:00

Che is off the queue. The Netflix Challenge is history!

More analysis to come...

OK, this is bullshit

2011-08-09T19:54:00.004-04:00

After a long, fun summer away from here, it's time to finish off the Netflix Challenge tonight. No more bullshitting around. You're going down, Che, you two part, 4.5 hour biopic.

In the meantime, I wish I had HBO so I could watch this:

Ep. 75: Clip - Larry on… Pig Parking

It's scary, but I become more like Larry every day.

Netflix Challenge: The Final Countdown

2011-05-30T11:18:00.003-04:00

It's been nearly 10 months since I first accepted the Netflix Challenge (Aug. 10, 2010) and I'm proud to say we're down to the final film.

At least I want it to be the final film. I'm not sure what the rule book says about this, but a few films that were initially on the 73-deep queue when the challenge was first issued (Goya's Ghosts, Manhattan Murder Mystery)but then disappeared, have now magically reappeared, while a couple of films that were in the DVD queue (Cold Souls, Tetro) have now popped up in the Instant Queue. Crap.

So, while we wait to convene a bipartisan panel to rule on whether or not the queue is down to one (Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che) three, or five, here's the breakdown of what we've recently eliminated:

The White Ribbon
Just like director Michael Haneke's previous entry on the Netflix Challenge, Funny Games, The White Ribbon is physically draining to watch. It's also painfully German.

Chop Shop/Man Push Cart
Two great American immigrant stories from Ramin Bahrani.

Broken Embraces
It's hard to go wrong when you get to spend two hours with Penelope Cruz, including a few seconds of bare-chested Penelope Cruz, but this one definitely falls into the Pedro Almodovar-Is-Overrated category. Just not that entertaining.

The Beaches of Agnes
An autobiographical documentary by the really interesting Agnes Varda. I didn't fall asleep once!

A Nos Amours
French awesomeness from the early '80s about a young girl from a dysfunctional family blossoming into womanhood with promiscuous sex. Not sure how the French get away with filming a 16-year-old girl all naked, but they do. It's art.

Here's the trailer in French. It's more fun without the subtitles:

Hounddog
Dakota Fanning in a dark Southern tale featuring Elvis and rape. Why do we put ourselves through this shit?

Just one, three or five to go!

Woody + Owen

2011-05-21T09:41:00.002-04:00

Two of my favorites in a movie set in Paris.

If there's one actor that I could stand performing the Woody role in a Woody Allen movie, it would be Owen Wilson.

Doesn't look like it's scheduled to hit Greenville anytime soon.

Raphael Saadiq's Stone Rollin'

2011-05-16T19:13:00.003-04:00

While I was a little worried he was just going to retread the Motown sounds of his last awesome album, the new one is so good and a lot more rock 'n' roll than a lot of rock 'n' roll. It's like Saadiq does The Rolling Stones. But again, just like on The Way I See It, Saadiq doesn't just imitate the influences. He uses them as inspiration. And that's why it's awesome. Everybody agrees.

I listened to the album for free all the way to Nashville and back on NPR Music's great album preview feature. Catch it while you can.

Daytrotter has a good live session for free.

Bob Schieffer makes it plain

2011-04-27T21:21:00.001-04:00

Have always loved Bob Schieffer and will continue forevermore.

Netflix Challenge: Under 10

2011-04-16T19:08:00.005-04:00

We need to catch up on the Netflix Challenge. In the last two weeks, it's been all about the French frogging up our queue. But now, les films sont retirés de la file d'attente.
Thank you, Google Translate!

The Horse Boy
A documentary about a family of an autistic boy as they travel to Outer Mongolia in an attempt to heal their son. Still not quite sure how I feel about this one. Is the effect real or wishful thinking?

Swimming Pool
Whoah! A good Hitchcockian thriller about a cranky, middle-aged British mystery writer who travels to France for peace, quiet and new literary inspiration. She finds it, along with a heaping helping of bare French breasts, sex and big tubs of yogurt.

Delicatessen
Before there was Amélie, there was Delicatessen. This is a visually striking and funny French movie about a retired circus clown who finds work at a strange apartment building full of hungry tenants.

Dark Matter
Didn't really know what to expect from this one and it ended up shocking me right out of my pantaloons. This first film by opera director Chen Shi-Zheng provides a look into the world of academia and the hidden lives of all those genius foreign students who come to the U.S. to study. It won a Sundance award for best feature film about science or technology.

The Stranger
I got on a real Orson Welles kick and knocked out two of his noir films I'd never seen before. This one has the great Edward G. Robinson, the realy nugly Loretta Young and Welles with a great mustache and haircut. Robinson is a UN war crimes commission investigator and Welles is a Nazi war criminal hiding out as a professor in a small Connecticut town. I highly recommend this one. Apparently, you can watch the whole thing for free right here on the YouTube.

The Third Man
Another classic noir with Welles playing the bad guy. This time he's Harry Lime, a suspected black market profiteer in post-war Vienna, who also happens to make one of the best, most dramatic screen entrances ever.

To Be and To Have
This is a sweet little documentary about a tiny, one-teacher school in the French countryside with a bunch of sweet, tiny French kids. There's just something about little kids speaking that poo-poo, oui-oui French that gets me every time. Although, the whole thing is spoiled a little when you learn that the nice teacher sued the filmmakers after the fact.

Just eight titles to go. We can do this.

Great things accomplished today

2011-04-16T18:10:00.004-04:00

What a Saturday!

1) After about eight months of dumbly looking at the all dried up tube of Crazy Glue, I finally bought a replacement. I went with Super Glue. I'd had enough of the crazy.

2) Super-Glued the knob on the kid's underwear drawer. Wood on wood action! And it stuck. Now, for the first time in four years we can open the drawer the way it was meant to be opened.

3) Super-Glued the Elvis '68 Comeback Special Christmas ornament. It's like Elvis' patella is brand new again.

4) Struck Record Store Day gold when I picked up a near-mint copy of Terence Trent D'arby's "Introducing the Hardline" on vinyl for $4. God bless the poor soul who parted with that one. Their soul is that much poorer now.

What could Sunday possibly have in store?

Netflix Challenge: We're under 20

2011-03-20T11:10:00.004-04:00

SNL: The Best of Dan Aykroyd
An excellent reminder of the genius of Dan Aykroyd, whose sketches hold up better than many of his SNL contemporaries of 35 years ago: Irwin Mainway and his dangerous Halloween costumes (Invisible Pedestrian); Fred Garvin, the nerdy male prostitute serving the entire Quad Cities area; pitch man for the Bass-O-Matic 76; and the list goes on.

Goodbye Solo
Director Ramin Bahrani's critically acclaimed film about Solo, a Senegalese cab driver in Winston-Salem, N.C., who takes it upon himself to prevent an old man from committing suicide. A great, great movie that lets you take a peek into modern immigrant culture in America, far away from the big cities. Plus, Red West, a key figure in Elvis' "Memphis Mafia," plays the old man.

The Messenger
A tough-to-watch drama about two soldiers assigned to the casualty notification unit. Amazing movie with great performances by Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster, but I'm glad it's no longer on the queue.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
I'm ashamed to say I didn't know very much about Hunter Thompson, this documentary rectifies that. Features interviews with Jimmy Carter and Jimmy Buffett, not to mention readings by Johnny Depp.

Shanghai Kiss
Based on the poster that features a big picture of Hayden Panettiere, I thought this was going to be horrible. It wasn't. In fact, she's barely in it, and the movie is pretty interesting.

Despite what the poster implies, the film is actually about a Chinese-American actor in Los Angeles, suffering in his career due to Asian stereotypes in the industry. He does have a weird, unhealthy relationship with a teen girl (Panettiere) who obsesses over him. When his grandmother dies and leaves him her home in Shanghai, he visits China for a view days just to sell off the place and make some cash. Instead, he meets a nice Chinese girl and finds himself longing to reconnect with his ancestry.

According to Wikipedia, this went straight to DVD. It's better than that.

16 titles still remain...

Netflix Challenge: European, I'm-a-peeing

2011-03-06T10:17:00.010-05:00

In an attempt to cleanse myself of this Oscar mess, I crawled back into the loving arms of heady European cinema.

First, it was the 1929 Luis Buñuel/ Salvador Dalí collaboration, Un Chien Andalou. Sixteen minutes of surrealist goodness -- razors to eyeballs, ants crawling on hands. Fun!

Then, it was on to one of my all-time favorites, Jean Luc Godard's masterpiece, À bout de souffle (Breathless). It's an important film in the history of cinema for many reasons, but if it were nothing more than just 90 minutes of staring at Jean Seberg, I'd still love it. She's a 1960s intercontinental American Dream.

Take a look:

21 to go!

Crud

2011-03-06T09:46:00.004-05:00

It's taken a week for me to get to a place where I can write about it, but Carolina won Oscar Smackdown XII.

She had a great night, correctly picking 21 out of 24 categories. That's impressive and I graciously congratulate her.

On the flip side, I had what can only be described as an average night for a genius like me. I hit 16 out of 24 categories -- not great, but good enough to beat Roger Ebert and win a free, three-month subscription to this arthouse movie site, MUBI.com. I'll take it.

For her efforts, Carolina won The King's Speech-themed first place prize package featuring a King George Harrison iTunes card, a bottle of London Pride beer, a tube of UK-made McVittie's Hob Nob biscuits and tea.

I took home the Social Network loser prize featuring a box of Sour Patch Kids, a bottle of He'Brew Messiah Bold beer and a Napster card.

I'll get over it.

Oscar Smackdown XII

2011-02-27T13:08:00.004-05:00

Tonight, Carolina and I will do battle in our 12th Annual Oscar Smackdown competition. After another loss by a sizable margin in the Grammy challenge, I once again find myself with my back against the wall.

Let's do this:

Short Film (Animated): Day & Night, Teddy Newton
Actually saw this one.

Documentary (Feature): Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Actually want to see this one.

Short Film (Live Action): Na Wewe, Ivan Goldschmidt
Heard this is good.

Documentary (Short Subject): Killing in the Name
Looks Oscar-worthy.

Film Editing: The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter
You notice the editing in The Social Network, in a good way.

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
British+handicap+ royalty = Oscar Trifecta

Sound Editing: Inception, Richard King
Inceptions sweeps the technical awards

Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Body change (weight loss) + Crack addict = Oscar

Foreign Language Film: In a Better World, Denmark
The Danes are so hot right now.

Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Momentum+Body Change+Oscars Need Natalie Portman = Win

Sound Mixing: Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick

Makeup: The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey
Thriller x 2010 = Oscar for Rick Baker

Actress in a Supporting Role: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
I probably should have gone with Melissa Leo, who was great in Frozen River last year and didn't win. This could be the make-up year.

Visual Effects: Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

Music (Original Score): The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
It's recognizable and set just the right tone for that film.

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3, Lee Unkrich
It's an unwritten Academy law that some geek from Pixar must take a break from Segway-ing around the office to deliver an Oscar acceptance speech.

Art Direction: The King's Speech, Production Design: Eve Stewart, Set Decoration: Judy Farr
Period + British + 11 other nominations = Oscar

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
The Social Network needs to be acknowledged with at least one major award. This will be it.

Cinematography: Inception, Wally Pfister
I like his name.

Music (Original Song): If I Rise (from "127 Hours"), Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
Shot in the dark. Rahman won for Slumdog and I don't see Randy Newman getting up there for another Toy Story song.

Costume Design: The King's Speech, Jenny Beavan
Period + British + 11 other noms = Oscar

Writing (Original Screenplay): Inception, Written by Christopher Nolan
Personally, I prefer "The Kids Are All Right," but this is my official pick.

Directing: The King's Speech, Tom Hooper
Uncle Mo'

Best Picture: The King's Speech
British + World War II + Handicap = Oscar

Netflix Challenge Update

2011-02-20T11:13:00.004-05:00

Oscar season has taken up all of our movie-watching time, so it's been slow going on the Netflix Challenge.

Here's a quick recap of what's been taken off the list since December.

I'll Believe You
This one made the queue because I saw Chris Elliott on the cover. It was horrible. I couldn't finish it.

Taps
A good cast featuring Sean Penn and Tom Cruise early in their careers, but its only value today is as a document of the crazy return of "tough guy" military war mongering of the Reagan '80s. Sucked.

Kicking and Screaming
Finally, one I sort of liked. Not to be confused with Will Ferrell's very funny film of the same name, this is writer Noah Baumbach's (The Squid and the Whale, Margot at the Wedding) first movie. It's about a group of guys in the mid 1990s who can't quite move away from their college campus after graduating. It's one of those, "I wish I'd written that" movies. There's definitely room for improvement, as a lot of the dialogue sounds very written in the way that Kevin Smith's movies always sound very written.

Capitalism: A Love Story
A good Michael Moore movie. If you like him, you'll like this.

Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams
I remember seeing this a long time ago and thinking it was funny. Stone sober, the comedy has not aged well.

Downtown 81
The real Jean-Michel Basquiat hangs out with artists and musicians in New York in 1981. Super cool with good music.

Others removed from the list before viewing:
Paloma de Papel
Dirty Harry

Just 25 titles remain.

35

2011-01-27T20:29:00.005-05:00

Continuing a weird tradition I started a couple of years ago (33, 34), today is my Reggie Lewis birthday.

It was hard finding a good No. 35. It's not a very popular number. Reggie Lewis was a great player, but he died from cardiac arrest at age 27 -- not exactly the type of thing you want to think about as you turn a year older.

Here's to No. 35...

A wonderful story about a lady falling

2011-01-22T09:24:00.003-05:00

Have you've seen the story about the lady who fell into the mall fountain while texting? Of course, you have.

It's one of those great viral videos that has turned into one of those great fables of modern America:

Lady absorbed in technology makes an ass of herself
Lady gets digitally shamed on YouTube
Mainstream media sees lady's video and gets excited
Lady comes out of hiding to do interviews
Lady ponders lawsuit on morning shows
Media digs into lady's past and finds out she's got a rap sheet
Lady is currently facing charges for going on a Target spree with a coworker's credit card

It's classic fun and a great distraction from that messy "Man With the Golden Voice" scenario from two weeks ago. That guy's problem was he just did Dr. Phil's show too early. He should've at least waited until the Entertainment Tonight crews lost interest.

Anyway, this screenshot pretty much sums up the whole experience:

On Sarah Palin, dingleberries and improving civil discourse

2011-01-16T10:10:00.004-05:00

I think the President and my daughter were trying to teach me something this week.

First, it was the President with his perfect speech in Tucson. It reminded us all why he was the only choice two years ago and proved he's still got the right vision for this country -- no matter how difficult it will be to make a reality over the next six years.

Then, it was Sofia with her commentary on this morning's Meet the Press.

During a brief break from begging me to "turn on some kids' cartoons," she spotted some Sarah Palin b-roll.

Sofia: Hey, that's Sarah Palin.
Me: Yeah, she's a dingleberry.
Sofia: Why is she a dingleberry?
Me: Because she's stinky and not very smart.
Sofia: Pew!But, I think I like dingleberries a little bit.
Me: Why? They're so stinky.
Sofia: Well, I like their glasses.
Me: OK.

I may not like Sarah Palin's glasses, but I know a lot of very decent people who do. They're good, honest, hard-working Americans. I understand that their beliefs about her frames come from an earnest place. At the end of the day, we can respectfully disagree about the merits of her eyewear, but understand we must find some common ground to move this country forward. Afterall, we're all Americans.

Some of us just have perfect vision.

Lance Cpl. William H. Crouse IV

2011-01-11T11:33:00.004-05:00

I knew him as Billy, a sleepy-eyed new student in my second period American Lit class during my short-lived career as a high school English teacher.

Billy and I bonded because he was from northern Indiana, just like me, and I knew what it was like to be the new kid in high school. I distinctly remember the look on his face when he found out I was from Indiana. It was that look that teachers talk about when they talk about "the light bulb coming on." Unfortunately, it wasn't because I actually taught him something. It was just the surprise of being from the same far away region of the country. It was enough to wake Billy from his slumber and get him to listen to me ramble about some boring ass Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," hell-is-real Puritan sermon bullshit. And that was enough for me.

I didn't last long in school. Billy did better. He was the big fullback on the football team that needs a big fullback. He graduated, became a Marine and recently died a hero while searching for bombs in fucked up Afghanistan.

It makes me angry. It's sad. It sucks.

Here's part of the story.

Rest in peace, Billy.

New Quadron video

2011-01-10T12:43:00.002-05:00

I really enjoy Coco in that marching band jacket.

Quadron - Tone [ Directed by Joslyn Rose Lyons ] from Joslyn Rose Lyons on Vimeo.

Mecano

2011-01-10T09:55:00.004-05:00

Snow day today in South Carolina, so we might as well enjoy this awesome song from the Spanish new wave group, Mecano.

WARNING: This video includes mimes and mime-on-mime situations.

The Dude on PBS

2011-01-05T17:58:00.002-05:00

I'm on a Jeff Bridges kick right now, so this episode of PBS's American Masters, titled "The Dude Abides," is kind of exciting.

Watch the full episode. See more American Masters.

My Favorite Things 2010

2010-12-31T00:00:00.001-05:00

Favorite Songs
Download, listen and enjoy a mix of some of Can You Dig It?'s favorite recorded music presented by Lambda Lambda Lambda's in-house DJ, Lamar Latrell.

2010 Favorites Side A by canyoudigit

Groove Me/Maximum Balloon
Dave Sitek from TV On the Radio teams up with Theophilus London and you're gonna have to wipe the funk off your face.

Got Nuffin/Spoon
An epic song from Spoon's really, really good album, Transference.

I Wanna Be Your Telephone/Jamie Lidell
Funky in his own right, Jamie Lidell channels Prince/Morris Day grooves from the golden Purple Era.

Everlasting Light/The Black Keys
I love falsetto rock.

Doin' It Again/The Roots
Black Thought kills it, once again: "Dear Diary/The fans still swear by me/Even though I'm late night now, like 'Here's Johnny'."

The World (Is Going Up in Flames)/Charles Bradley
62-year-old soulman brings the heat!

Flying Overseas/Theophilus London
It's usually a no-no to have two songs from one artist on the same side, but since the first one is officially Maximum Balloon and this one is officially the hotness, I made an exception. Also, go download all of Theophilus' mixtapes. They're all free and full of great music. I can't wait to hear the music he actually sells.

I Can Change/LCD Sound System
Straight up British retro dance pop.

Think It Over/Bilal
Any of the songs from Bilal's innovative album Airtight's Revenge could be here, but this one gets special placement because it's not every day that a love song references the assassination of Dr. King.

Forget/Twin Shadow
I can't help but love Twin Shadow.

2010 Favorites Side B by canyoudigit

Never Tear Us Apart/Beck's Record Club (Beck, St. Vincent, Liars)
While re-recording the entire Kick album, Beck and his friends make this INXS song beautiful again.

Glass Mountain Trust/Mark Ronson & The Business Intl featuring D'angelo
D'angelo makes a triumphant return on this wild Mark Ronson song.

Power/Kanye West
Need a pick-me-up on the way back to work from lunch? Let Kanye be your guide.
"Screams from the haters/gotta nice ring to it/I guess every superhero need his theme music."

Black Magic/José James
Great voice on a great track.

Flash Delirium/MGMT
The video really brings this song to life.

Games You Can Win/RJD2 featuring Kenna
Flawless, all the way around. Listen, repeat. Listen, repeat.

Simili Life/Quadron
Again, any song from Quadron could get on this list. This one does it for me every time.

Headphone Rock/Donwill, Von Pea, Che Grand
Three of my favorite MCs rock the mic over one of The Roots' Late Night with Jimmy Fallon "sandwich" songs.

Loving You Is Killing Me/Aloe Blacc
I'll wait while you pick the soul outcho teeth.

Jupiter and the Moon/Los Lobos
These guys just do no wrong in my book. David Hidalgo's voice dynamite.

Favorite Things 2010

2010-12-30T22:40:00.009-05:00

Favorite LPs
No Glee compilations here, you've got to have artistic vision to make it on this list.

Gorillaz/Plastic Beach
Maybe the best Gorillaz album so far... and that's high praise.

John Legend & The Roots/Wake Up!
The Roots take some of the polish off of John Legend on this gritty album of covers.

Quadron
For the record, I bought this Danish album in late 2009, but it qualifies for this list because it didn't officially get released in the U.S. until 2010. That's good enough for me. Truly, this record is one of my all-time favorites. Perfect from start to finish.

Twin Shadow/Forget
New Wavey, emo soul that sometimes sounds like Morrissey, but I don't hold that against it.

Janelle Monae/The Archandroid
Spacey, cinematic soul that plays to the film studies nerd in me with references to Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

She & Him/Volume Two
Zooey Deschanel's voice makes me tingly like a schoolboy who needs a minute before walking up to the chalkboard. She and M. Ward make sweet rocking songs with references and influences that span decades of good popular music.

Spoon/Transference
Forward-thinking rock-n-roll.

Kanye West/My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye harnesses his demons into an entertaining hip-hop masterpiece, complete with all the crazy, cringe-worthy moments you would expect. But in the end, it's all worth it.

Jamie Lidell/Compass
Not a one-trick pony, Jamie Lidell shows his command of a variety of musical stylings all anchored by his powerful voice.

Airtight's Revenge/Bilal
Record label and record leaking issues tried to eff-up the career of one of my favorite singers. Thankfully, the setbacks didn't stop Bilal from creating a genius work of inspired music -- no classification available or required.

Favorite Things 2010

2010-12-29T14:07:00.004-05:00

Favorite Actor
I haven't seen Tron, and probably won't, but I'll be damned if Jeff Bridges isn't my favorite actor of 2010. He deservedly won the Oscar for Crazy Heart this year and was just as amazing performing the Cohen brothers' astounding Old West cowboy dialogue in True Grit. On a side note, True Grit is great mostly because of that dialogue and the actors who deliver it -- all of them, even Matt Damon. On a side, side note, I just saw The Informant, and really enjoyed Matt Damon in that, too. Still, it's Jeff Bridges for favorite actor in 2010.

Favorite Unintentional Insult
An old lady who kind of looked like Joan Rivers wins this one just under the deadline for a comment made today at Chick-fil-A.

As Sofia and I were finishing up our lunch, she stopped by our table and said, "Oh, I've been watching this little girl. She's so beautiful and well-behaved, and that's a rare gem these days. She's going to be Miss America someday. Are you related?"

Favorite Things 2010

2010-12-29T11:12:00.005-05:00

Favorite Meal
I'm definitely a creature of habit. If I go to a restaurant and like what I order, I'll order that same thing on every return visit for years. Too many times I've tried to be adventurous and switch up my order, only to be disappointed.

Fortunately, that's not the case with our friend Chin's restaurant, Sweet Basil. Everything they serve is dynamite, and if I can bring myself to venture away from my current standing order, whatever I select becomes my new favorite. It started with the green curry, moved on to the mussamun curry, and then the pad see-u. But in 2010, the new best meal at Sweet Basil or anywhere else in the greater Greenville area is the curry/green beans/red and green pepper/lime leaf stir fry, pad prik-king. It's fun to say and it will blow your effing socks off.

Favorite Scheme to Get Fit
Somehow I was able to convince Santa Claus that the only way I was going to get fit in 2011 was if he brought me an Xbox Kinect in November. So, he did, and now I have a chart to log the future hours I will spend sweating without a controller in my living room.

Although a month-long sinus infection has me off to a slow start, I remain hopeful primarily because of the genius game that is Dance Central.

I used to get frustrated that Dance Dance Revolution severely limited my talent on the dance floor because it simply measured whether you could step on the right buttons in a pre-determined rhythm. But now, thanks to the technology of Kinect and Dance Central, I'm finally able to use all of the vast tools with which I've been blessed to totally smoke the competition and garner accolades from the game's choreographer/hype man: "You got this on lock!" he frequently cheers while I try to keep my husky jeans from falling off my ass.

Using the Kinect motion-sensor camera, the game tracks how accurately you follow the choreography -- from the hands to the feet to the hips. Each of the 32 songs has different moves, which you learn in "Break It Down" mode. Once you've run through the steps, you put them all together and perform the song.

It's fun even to do the queeny dances to the Lady Gaga, but what makes the game great is the awesome soundtrack selections. All of those hours spent in the early '90s dancing to Bell Biv DeVoe's "Poison" and Wreckx-n-Effect's "Rump Shaker" have finally paid off for me.

Another important feature for professional dudes like me is the freestyle breaks included in each song, where you get to break loose and shake it while the Kinect camera records video of you for everyone to admire, study and/or laugh at. I would share some of me droppin' it like it's hot, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet. Here's one of Ellen:

My Favorite Things 2010

2010-12-27T09:56:00.006-05:00

It's one of the oldest tricks in the book: Create lists of "the best" or "the worst" this or that of the year and let the debate rage in the public square or the comments section. Rolling Stone has a long history of creating lists of the greatest somethings of all time, Huffington Post does it every day for the dumbest things, and during this time of year, it only gets worse with every blogger in the world releasing best of the year lists.

I'm not going to claim to have the depth of knowledge that would be required to form an educated opinion on the best/worst any thing (save maybe the Best Prince Songs Released in 2010), so I won't be doing that here. Instead, I'm stealing a page from Oprah's book (club) and just announcing my favorite things of the year. There can be no external debate. These are just my own very personal favorites.

So, let's get this rocking:

Favorite Loaf of Bread
Got-dang! The Pillsbury people are geniuses. Maybe "How It's Made" has already done this episode, but I would love to see how they get their delicious dough in those cardboard tubes.

Regardless, from the cinnamon rolls to the crescent rolls, I've been a big fan of the Pillsbury folks for many, many years. My admiration was only further cemented when Carolina brought home their Crusty French Loaf. Just pop open the cardboard tube, bake for 25 minutes, and you have a simple, hot, delicious crusty bread. It's magical.

Eat it. You'll love it.

Favorite Technological Innovation
Hooking up the internet directly to the TV and being able to instantly stream Netflix titles has saved my whole family from the dangers of crap television and, thanks to the Netflix Instant Queue Challenge, prevented this blog from drying up without new content.

Netflix now offers a streaming-only package for $8 a month that includes lots of great TV shows and films and absolutely no Snooki.

Elizabeth Edwards

2010-12-07T19:52:00.004-05:00

A lot people in this world are dealt a pretty crappy hand, but Elizabeth Edwards had to have one of the shittiest ever: Her eldest son died in a car accident, she got cancer, her husband cheated on her and fathered a child with a sleaze-ho while she had cancer, and then everybody found out about it.

Sad, but she seemed to handle it the best anyone could. She didn't run out to get a reality show.

Unfortunately, her death gives me another reason to revisit my John Edwards campaign stop photos from the '04 Democratic primaries. I was all proud of them (check out John's glistening wedding ring). The one above is not a great one, especially of Elizabeth, but I guess she survived worse tragedies.

Netflix Challenge: Romance and stuff

2010-12-07T19:14:00.004-05:00

We're over the half-way hump on our quest to whittle the Netflix Instant queue down to zero, so it should be smooth sailing from here.

David and Layla
Another indie culture-clash (American Jews vs. Iraqi immigrants) romance film, but without all the stuff that would make it enjoyable. It received decent reviews, and Carolina liked it, but I thought the lead actor was a little over-the-top and the writing not so hot. The only enjoyment for me was seeing a street and some shops very near where I once stayed in Brooklyn. Besides that? Blah.

Jerry Maguire
This is almost a better football movie than it is a romance -- and that's a compliment. It's one of the Cameron Crowe movies that's Cameron-Crowey in a good way. People will watch this one in 40-50 years on the future version of Turner Classic Movies and get nostalgic for the 1990s.

But don't believe me. Listen to my hero, Harold Ramis:

The Headless Woman
Arthouse Argentinian movie about a woman who hits something with her car, then gradually begins to think she killed someone. There's an interesting subtext here about class and race in Argentina, but I haven't quite figured it out yet. Maybe you should give it a shot.

Just 37 to go.

Netflix Challenge: Tell No One & Black Dynamite

2010-11-21T18:40:00.002-05:00

Tell No One
An interesting thriller from France featuring Mary Sharon from Under the Cherry Moon, aka Kristen Scott Thomas. I liked it.

Black Dynamite
To fully appreciate Black Dynamite, you need to have some experience with the cliches of the Blaxploitation genre. But even without, there are some good laughs to be had and plenty of "Can you dig it?" references.

Forty-one titles left to go.

Sofia Quote of the Day: Something Gross

2010-11-16T19:13:00.008-05:00

The following conversation occurred on the car ride home today.

I will refer to it in the future every time she tries to bring a boy home.

Netflix Challenge: The King of Kong

2010-11-12T22:37:00.004-05:00

The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters is, perhaps, the best movie featured so far in this Netflix Challenge. It's a riveting documentary detailing one mild-mannered, OCD father's quest to beat the 25-year-old world record high score in Donkey Kong. The original record holder, Billy Mitchell, is one of the all-time great film villains, and the supporting cast of classic video game nerds are hilarious.

Thanks to my boy, Mike Little, for recommending this one to the queue.

Watch it now!

Bill Maher gets it right

2010-11-11T22:11:00.004-05:00

This great "New Rule" from Bill Maher isn't as much of a critique of the Rally to Restore Sanity as it has been billed. It's actually a message that any good progressive/liberal should hear. The right keeps moving farther to the right and we're supposed to meet them in "the middle" which isn't the middle any more? Forget it.

Bilal's 'Robots'

2010-11-03T19:39:00.004-04:00

I love Bilal's music. His new album, "Airtight's Revenge," is great from start to finish.

This is his new awesome video for "Robots."

Here's a live cover of "Tainted Love."

FULL SCREEN
The Sounds of VTech / Bilal: Tainted Love

Netflix Challenge: Halloween Wrap-Up

2010-11-01T18:17:00.005-04:00

Teeth
Just your run-of-the-mill tale of a pretty and chaste young high school abstinence advocate who discovers she's got Vagina Dentata. Three weenies get chomped by film's end, including one attached to that weird dude from Nip/Tuck.

Legion
I fell asleep during this one. Carolina says she liked it, and I have to admit, the trailer makes it look pretty cool.

Removed by Default
Two of the three films in German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's BRD trilogy, Marriage of Maria Braun and Veronika Voss, made an artsy exit from the queue without getting watched. Seemingly out of the blue, Netflix decided Oct. 31 was the last day for these films in the streaming catalog. If you're interested, someone posted all of Maria Braun on YouTube.

Also eliminated by default is The International. The only reason this one was added in the first place was because I liked the look of the poster:

And unless I get to it tonight -- and right now it's not looking good -- The International will be joined in the default bin tomorrow by Sidney Lumet's version of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.

Thank you, Netflix. Only 44 more to go.

Happy Halloween from the Netflix Challenge

2010-10-31T12:32:00.003-04:00

I'm not a big gross-out horror guy, but this funny and scary Norwegian Nazi zombie movie, Dead Snow, is a whole lot of fun.

Just 49 titles remain on the queue.

Blogger slams use of 'slams' in headlines

2010-10-24T10:16:00.015-04:00

If I read one more "So and So slams So and So or Such and Such" headline, I'm going to puke on the computer.

It's indicative of two things:
1) The laziness of contemporary journalism, where it's much easier to write and report on "he said this quote, then she responded with this quote" stories;

2) The public's appetite for gossipy personal drama over facts that might actually impact them. Somewhere, somebody has done a study that shows headlines that include "slam" generate more clicks.

Here's a random sampling from the past week or so:

James Carville slams Obama

Deputy FM slams Vatican communique as libel against Jews

Taylor Swift slams Kanye West

Iraqi PM Slams Timing Of WikiLeaks Revelations

BJP slams Kashmir interlocutors for Pak remark

Archbishop Dolan Slams New York Times for Bias

Glenn Beck slams Tides Foundation, George Soros over boycott threat

Zaragoza Coach Jose Aurelio Gay Slams Referee In Wake Of Barcelona Loss

Steve Jobs SLAMS Competitors In Lengthy Rant

Sharron Angle SLAMMED By Tea Party Rival Jon Scott Ashjian: 'She Lies'

Conway's Attack On Paul Slammed By Fellow Dems

Arianna Slams Wall Street On CNN's 'Parker Spitzer': They're Not Making Things, They're Making Things Up

Olbermann Slams O'Reilly For 'View' Comments: 'Bigot And Islamophobe'

Gardner Slams Markey On Immigration Stance

Marijuana Legalization Group SAFER Slams Hickenlooper, Lauds Tancredo

Brewer Slams Mexico for Legal Brief Criticizing Immigration Law

Watchdog Slams Companies Hired To Prevent Foreclosures

Karl Rove Slams Fox News Hosts For Bringing Up Anti-Rove Protesters

Netflix Challenge: Super High Me, Singles and SNL

2010-10-12T19:03:00.004-04:00

While a couple of weeks have passed since the last update to the Netflix Challenge tally sheet, that doesn't mean we haven't been hard at work whittling down the queue.

Super High Me
This one has been on the queue almost since the beginning. We finally got to it, and it wasn't too bad. Inspired by Super Size Me, comedian Doug Benson (who High Times magazine called the second best "Pot Comic" working today) begins an experiment where he'll spend 30 days without smoking weed, followed by 30 days of intensive weed smoking. The results of the experiment aren't that interesting, except he did score higher on the SAT while high. What is interesting is his tour of the legal grass dispensaries in California. The sticky icky is lovingly photographed. Makes you want to move to Cali with back pains.

Singles
Members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains (Nirvana said no) all make appearances in this Cameron Crowe movie that's a little too Camerony-Crowey for me.

SNL: The Best of Commercial Parodies
The commercial parodies are often the best part of any SNL episode. This compilation includes some of the best of all time: Bass-O-Matic, Buckwheat Sings, Oops I Crapped My Pants ("imagine this pitcher of iced-tea is really a gallon of your feces"), Mom Jeans, Chris Farley's "Hibernol," and maybe my favorite:

Doubt
I've been wanting to see this Philip Seymour Hoffman movie for a while, but when it comes down to it, you're just never in the right mood for a drama about priests and sex abuse. So, it gets pushed farther and farther down the queue until one day Netflix removes it from the Instant catalog. Thanks, Netflix. That takes off a lot of the pressure, not to mention one more film from the queue.

Countdown: An even 50 remain.

Jamie Lidell & Twin Shadow

2010-09-22T20:04:00.006-04:00

I put on my brand spanking white Nikes, called up my sister-in-law and jetted up to Asheville last night for a great concert.

Jamie Lidell is all the modern blue-eyed British ElectroSoulFunk you'll ever need in this life. His last album, "Jim," reached classic status in my house, and now that the retro-Motown sound has just about been done to death, he comes back with "Compass," which sounds completely different-- the only common denominator being his amazing voice.

He's known for his ability to be a live sampling one-man band during his shows, but he had a full band with him last night and they were super funky, especially on the Prince-inspired "I Wanna Be Your Telephone."

Prior to the show, I hadn't heard of the opening act, Twin Shadow, but he was cool.

I say "he," because "Twin Shadow" is really just George Lewis Jr. His given name sounds like he should be challenging for the heavyweight title, but he's just a transplanted Brooklyn hipster doing cool new wavey songs, so he's (say it in a whisper) "Twin Shadow."

That's the latest trend, solo artists giving themselves band names. As far as I know, it started with Bright Eyes. That's just one dude, really. Sam Beam is a drink your grandpa would order, but then again, so is his stage name, "Iron and Wine." Conor J. O'Brien sounds like your Catholic bishop, so instead he's "Villagers."

I don't know. Look for it on Stuff White People Like soon.

Anyway, I like Twin Shadow. He didn't seem as pretentious as his name would suggest. You can get a free song here. This video makes me uncomfortable, though.

Netflix Challenge: Moon

2010-09-13T21:48:00.004-04:00

I really, really liked Moon. It's a dark thinker full of Stanley Kubrick references (Kevin Spacey does the voice of a HAL-like robot) and a great performance by Sam Rockwell.

I was interested to learn on the old Wikipedia that the budget was $5 million. It seemed way more expensive.

This was director Duncan Jones' first feature. His next one is Source Code and will come out next spring. I'll go see it.

A good one and now it's gone: 55 remain.

Giant bubbles in slow motion

2010-09-13T21:41:00.002-04:00

I see why this has 1.2 million views. You should see it, too. And take the extra time to let it download in hi-def.

I want to shoot in slow motion.

Netflix Challenge: 1990s Flashback

2010-09-12T09:56:00.005-04:00

We're still slogging through the queue.

Last night it was Edward Burns' She's the One, starring Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz in all of their mid-90s glory, followed by the always entertaining Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley.

I'd never seen an Eddie Burns (as Drama calls him on "Entourage") movie before. This was his follow-up to the Sundance award-winning The Brothers McMullen, so I'm sure everyone was real pumped to see it in 1996. Fourteen years later, it serves as a nice time capsule for Aniston's legendary haircut. Tom Petty also did the music with the same haircut he's always had:

The Chris Farley compilation always makes me laugh and wonder what he'd be doing nowadays.

Side note: In searching for that Farley video, I landed on SNL's site, which implores visitors to "Check out" this or that link seven times on the front page. Too much!

Just 56 titles remaining.

Bad sideline reporting

2010-09-11T19:23:00.004-04:00

I think I just heard the Notre Dame network's sideline reporter conclude her post-game interview of Michigan's coach with "keep doing your thing."

Netflix Challenge: Triple Feature

2010-09-06T16:50:00.005-04:00

The titles just keep falling off the queue.

Funny Games
This Austrian film was one of the last movies to get piled on the queue before the start of the challenge and now I regret it. It only got there because we had recently watched another in the Netflix recommendation category "Foreign Film Featuring Crazy Kids Tormenting Rich People in Big Houses For No Apparent Reason," and I just wasn't in the mood.

The strange thing is I vaguely remember seeing it before and enjoying it. It's intentionally painful to watch at times as this dim-witted family fails to rise up against two not-so-intimidating kids in short white shorts wielding only a golf club as a weapon. It's not scary, just hard to watch, as they fumble with duct tape and never run away fast enough. What makes it sort of different than other voyeur torture films, though, is that the fourth wall is broken down a few times by the lead bad guy, who'll turn to the camera Ferris Bueller-style and wink or ask the audience if they think the family will survive until morning.

The director, the respected Michael Haneke who won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film last year, actually did a shot-for-shot remake of his own film ten years later with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.

Surrogates
An interesting idea, and I'm a Bruce Willis fan, but this one was a little on the hokey side.
It's the future and nobody does any thing for real anymore, they just link their bodies up to life-like robot surrogates who go out and do all the fun stuff. People live longer, but only because their robots do all the drinking and driving, coal mining and soldiering.
Everybody is real pretty, too, and Bruce's surrogate even has hair.

Independent Lens: Between the Folds
Who thought a movie about folding paper could be entertaining? Not me. Interesting, but definitely not a laugh-a-minute thrill ride. Too much paper folding.

Netflix Challenge: Off and Running

2010-08-30T20:18:00.004-04:00

The Netflix Challenge continues on the non-fiction tip with the powerful documentary, Off and Running.

This is the very interesting story of Avery, a young girl struggling to find herself. Nothing super special about that, except Avery is the teen-aged African-American daughter of two white Jewish lesbians.

We meet Avery as she begins efforts to contact her birth mother. The decision to do so effects everyone in the family, including her multiracial older brother and Korean younger brother, and the film deals heavily with questions of race, identity, culture, religion and sexuality.

My mind is still reeling a little bit from this one, so I called upon Carolina to sum up the message:

"Adopting a kid and loving that kid is not enough. That kid might need more and you have to make your peace with that. No matter how loving and giving your home is, that kid will always have questions."

The most important thing is Off and Running is off the queue and we've got just 60 more titles to go.

Netflix Challenge: Modify

2010-08-29T18:48:00.004-04:00

We've lost some ground on the Netflix Challenge this week and I blame my wife. She's the one who put Modify on the queue and Modify is the reason I've felt sick to my stomach for most of the week.

This is a documentary featuring interviews with people who have engaged in various forms of body modification -- that can mean anything from simple makeup, tattoos and piercings to branding, those giant earlobe stretchy things and horn-like forehead bump implantation.

And that was all well and good, but then they started with the plastic surgery footage, penis piercings and other genital oddities, and I just couldn't stand to watch.

Honestly, I missed a good bit of this movie because I had to close my eyes. There were even moments when Carolina felt it necessary to cover my already closed eyes. I don't even want to imagine what was going on then.

This one is definitely not for the squeamish, or anyone with a normal gag reflex.

If you must see the trailer, here you go:

Netflix Challenge: Revenge of the Nerds

2010-08-23T19:46:00.010-04:00

Among the small number of movies I find entertaining enough to justify repeated viewings is the 1984 screwball college comedy classic, Revenge of the Nerds.

Once we hit puberty, my best friend Erick and I would watch this movie every chance we got. And we weren't even high. I know we truly and soberly believed every bit of it was hilarious, but let's be honest, our devotion probably had as much to do with the Tri-Lambs' panty raid and Betty Child's ass than the witty repartee between Lamar Latrell and Wormser.

Until I hatched this scheme to watch every title on my Netflix instant queue, Nerds just sat there like an old jar of icy hamburger dills in the back of the fridge. I didn't necessarily plan to use it, but it made me feel safe knowing that it was there and ready if I ever needed it.

After watching it last night, I'm pleased to report that while some of the jokes have grown a little stale, there's still genius to be found in Revenge of the Nerds.

Filmed right smack dab in the middle of the Reagan '80s, an era ruled by hard-bodied heroes like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Lewis Skolnik and Gilbert Lowe blazed the trail for what would be termed "geek chic" in the new millennium. You can get the commemorative bootleg T-shirts here.

We first meet Lewis and Gilbert as they head off to their freshmen year at Adams College. Maybe they should have gone to City Tech? Nah! Adams has the best computer department in the country!

Although the two nerds are hoping for a fresh start in college, they quickly learn that the campus is dominated by the good looking and athletic party crowd in the Greek system, specifically the Waspy Alpha Beta fraternity and Pi Delta Pi sorority. When the Alpha Betas burn down their frat house and push the freshmen out of their dormitory and onto cots in the college's gymnasium, Lewis, Gilbert and a group of other social castoffs (a sleazy nose picker, an allergy-prone geek, a Japanese guy with broken English, an effeminate gay African-American) band together to form their own fraternity.

Only one national fraternity agrees to give them a chance at a charter, the all black fraternity, Lambda Lambda Lambda. Sensing a brotherhood in the shared torment and injustice suffered at the hands of the white majority (a point driven home when the Alpha Betas burn "Nerds" on their front lawn), Tri-Lamb chief U.N. Jefferson agrees to make the nerds full-fledged members of the fraternity.

Using the talents that God gave each of them (and some muscle from their Tri-Lamb brothers), the nerds are able to rise above the Alpha Betas' brutality, win the prestigious homecoming carnival and control of the Greek Council. It's an underdog story for the ages. With plenty of T&A, to boot!

Supporting Evidence:

1: During the party the nerds' throw to impress U.N. Jefferson and the Lambda Lambda Lambda brass, Dudley "Booger" Dawson saves the day by breaking out the "Wonder Joints." Soon, everybody's high, horny and dancing to "Thriller."

Example 2: Sometimes the cheapest jokes are the best and what's cheaper than poking fun at the way Japanese speakers have trouble pronouncing Ls and Rs. And, WTF are "robster craws" anyway?

Gilbert: I just wanted to say that I'm a nerd, and I'm here tonight to stand up for the rights of other nerds. I mean, all our lives we've been laughed at and made to feel inferior. And tonight, those bastards, they trashed our house. Why? Cause we're smart? Cause we look different? Well, we're not. I'm a nerd, and uh, I'm pretty proud of it.

Lewis: Hi, Gilbert. I'm a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news for the beautiful people. There's a lot more of us than there are of you. I know there's alumni here tonight. When you went to Adams you might've been called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Any of you that have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down, whether you think you're a nerd or not, why don't you just come down here and join us. Okay? Come on.

Gilbert: Just join us cause, no one's gonna really be free until nerd persecution ends.

Take that, instant queue! You just got one shorter.

Netflix Challenge: Sunshine Cleaning

2010-08-22T21:50:00.003-04:00

Sunshine Cleaning was eliminated from the queue Thursday night.

Pretty dark and enjoyable independent dramedy about a single mom who takes on a new career as a crime scene cleaner.

Amy Adams is a great actress.

Get off my queue!

Netflix Challenge: The Damned United

2010-08-17T21:03:00.003-04:00

Another night, another Netflix instant queue title obliterated. This time, it was the 2009 British film, The Damned United.

If you ask me, never has a better movie been made about late '60s, early '70s English professional soccer. It definitely made me want to go out and learn more about the whole Premier League set up.

Not quite a drama and not quite a comedy, it is a good sports movie without the usual cliches found in American sports movies. Plus, Peter Pettigrew is in it, as well as the guy who plays Liz Lemon's bad British date.

Trailer:

68 to go.

Netflix Challenge: Mary and Max

2010-08-16T18:21:00.003-04:00

Mary and Max is the latest movie to fall from the Netflix instant queue.

This one was a Carolina addition, which usually means we're in for something light and sweet or dark and filled with crazy people. Mary and Max manages to balance all of that in this truly amazing claymation animated feature about the pen pal relationship between a lonely little Australian girl and an obese, middle-aged Jewish atheist New Yorker with Asperger syndrome.

Directed by Oscar-winning (Harvie Krumpet) Australian filmmaker Adam Elliot, the film deals with very intense issues like mental illness, alcoholism, suicide, bullying and a bunch of other craziness without losing its sense of humor.

It's sad, funny, amazing to look at and no longer in our queue.

69 and counting...

Trailer:

Soul Power

2010-08-13T23:25:00.008-04:00

The Netflix Challenge continues full-steam ahead tonight with the 2008 documentary Soul Power.

James Brown, sporting a killer mustache and wearing a navy blue and black jumpsuit with "GFOS" stitched on the front, leads a group of the hottest American R&B acts of 1974 (Bill Withers, B.B. King, The Spinners and Celia Cruz) to Zaire for a joint music festival with Africa's biggest performers to coincide with Ali and Frazier's "Rumble in the Jungle."

The film is edited together from footage left over from the Academy Award-winning documentary, When We Were Kings, which focused more on the Ali-Frazier fight.

There's some great stuff from the plane ride over featuring Celia Cruz and her band playing mid-flight. Azucar!

A highlight from Bill Withers:

And The Godfather:

The best part, though, was right at the very end. After the credits roll, James tells the camera, "I hope this can be put at the tail end of this thing. When you walk out this movie, or you walk away from your television, if there's one thing you walk out with in your mind when get up and walk out in the street, you say to yourself, 'Damn right, I'm somebody'."

Down to 70 titles and counting.

Ladies, let's have a party

2010-08-13T23:15:00.006-04:00

Scottie Pippen's getting inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, so I guess that's reason enough to post this:

I like that one of Mr. Submarine's offerings is something called "Assorted Sub."

Scottie went on to win six NBA championships with the Bulls. The two Luvabulls, Kim and Cheryl, got a free lunch.

A new, totally self-inflicted challenge

2010-08-10T21:24:00.006-04:00

If I weren't a lazy ass, now would be a great time to challenge myself to get fit. Maybe run a 10K or some shit like that and put a sticker on the back of my car so everybody driving behind me would know that I, or perhaps some other person frequently associated with my vehicle, was physically fit enough at some point in time to run that distance.

Or I could sit down and try to write something. Really write something with some depth. A big project that I would write and revise and rewrite. It doesn't have to be a novel, necessarily, but something big that would earn enough money to pay for a trip to Hawaii or Peru or another exotic locale of my choosing.

Those are good, productive goals to strive for and would be very satisfying accomplishments, to be sure.

Unfortunately, that's not the journey on which I've chosen to embark.

The family Netflix Instant Queue has gotten completely out of hand. Not counting the 10 entries for various television programs, the queue (or the movie lineup for those of us outside of Great Britain) has grown to 73 items of filmed entertainment just waiting there to be watched. Some of it (Super High Me) has been there since the day our Netflix account was born, continuously getting passed over by newer, more intriguing additions to Netflix's streaming library.

Long story short, the wife and I have challenged ourselves to see how fast we can watch every film in the queue. We will not be allowed to add any additional films onto the pile until the current slate of titles has been wiped clean. It will be a sometimes tedious and mostly pointless exercise, save for the kind of pleasure you get after dumping a big load at Goodwill, or in your own toilet, for that matter. Regardless, it's the mission we've given ourselves, and one we must accomplish.

I'm pleased to report the big number has already been reduced by one. Last night, the Matthew Broderick film, Wonderful World, went down without a fight. Nothing groundbreaking here -- just another down-on-his-luck grumpy guy getting his life changed for the better when a hot foreign lady (Sanaa Lathan with a Senegalese accent) unexpectedly shows up on his doorstep. Carolina says that sounds like our story.

Anyway, if you like Matty B., you won't be disappointed.

Come back for more later. We've got a lot of work to do.

A break from my inadvertent hiatus

2010-08-04T20:03:00.007-04:00

Oops, it's been too long. Let me post the following stuff before this blog becomes dormant:

Just a couple of weeks ago, I went camping for the first time in 20 years. It was 99 degrees that day. I thought it might be cooler because we were camping on Paris Mountain. Turns out, we were just closer to the sun. The experience did provide a good opportunity to reconnect with Mother Nature and wear my captain's hat.

I went to see the big summer buzz hit, Inception, last weekend. It was good. Definitely more thoughtful than your average summer blockbuster.

I just watched an episode of "Go, Diego! Go!" about a green iguana who has to suffer through a long journey with Diego before he can shit out strawberry seeds at Abuelito's farm. And not a moment too soon, because the big strawberry festival is just around the corner.

Prince released a new album this summer, not in America, just in Europe and only through print newspapers and magazines because he said the internet's dead. He's a dynamo, that Prince, but the album's better than I thought it would be. Lots of old Prince sounds without being too forced. But don't take my word for it. Go to Belgium and get yourself a copy of Het Nieuwsblad!

Quadron in Atlanta

2010-06-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

I've been shouting about Quadron for awhile now. In this age of throw-away, digital music, it's rare and exciting to find a whole album of songs that I -- if I can borrow a phrase from Sir Anthony Michael Hall -- just glom on to.

Quadron's debut definitely got in my brain like that, and continues to do so six months later. So, when I heard they were coming to play in Atlanta, it was deemed a babysitter-worthy excursion.

The night was memorable for several reasons:

1) It was nice to go on a date with my wife without worrying about booster seats.

2) I ate two squishy white things before realizing they were sauteed garlic cloves. (I'm sure the people who stood within smell-shot of me later that night will remember this as well.)

3) The fashionable, young Atlanta hipsters in attendance. It was like a casting call for Theo Huxtable's post-Gordon Gartrelle posse. Or maybe a scene out of She's Gotta Have It.

4) The black rock group Jimi Cravity opening the show with a cover of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida."

5) The front woman of the other opening act ego-tripping on stage, talking 'bout how she's "in a cocoon" phase right now in her "artistry" and what a great opportunity it was for us, the audience, to be there to witness it. Her on stage banter ruined what could have been something interesting.

6) Meeting Coco and Robin from Quadron and finding that in addition to being talented artists, they're good people who deserve to have their music purchased, not stolen.

7) Learning I can still stay up until 4:00 a.m., if I want to.

Here's a couple of videos from the night:

What happens if I wear this?

2010-06-29T21:03:00.004-04:00

OK, I'll be brief. Ca-ching!

It's called "The Active Leisure Brief." I'm not sure that's even physically or metaphysically possible, but Puma claims it "allows you to move around freely all day long during your athletic activities."

That's a lot of pressure. My athletic activity rarely goes plural, let alone "all day long."

$28 at Zappos.

The kid was in rare form tonight

2010-06-29T19:40:00.005-04:00

Three Sofia moments to remember from dinnertime tonight:

1) Dora the Explorer is on in the background and blabbering, "How many giraffes are there?" Sofia, sitting on the toilet but within earshot of the TV, yells back, "I'm in the bathroom, Dora!"

2) "I want to listen to Alicia-kira!"

3) "Do you think Prince likes purple?"

Father's Day stuff to remember

2010-06-20T20:02:00.004-04:00

Sofia: (touching her ribs) These are my longs.
Me: Your longs?
Sofia: Yeah. They make you breathe.
Me: Who taught you that?
Sofia: Some kind of lady with a pink shirt on.

Today, we were walking home from the neighborhood pool and Sofia spotted a dead, dried up worm on the sidewalk. "Ah! That worm's broken," she said. "It's not moving."

Please believe me: Quadron is where it's at

2010-06-09T19:26:00.003-04:00

Good gawd, y'all. When are you going to believe me about the Danish duo Quadron? Coco's voice is like hot butter drizzled on cinnamon Viagra! Yes, exclamation point!

She destroys all contenders.

I'm going to ask her to move in with me and my family.

Here they are performing live on KCRW. Watch it only if you want to fall in love.

Happy birthday, Prince

2010-06-07T19:22:00.003-04:00

Don't tell any of his Jehovah's Witness friends, but Prince Rogers Nelson turns 52 glorious years old today. As always, I'll be celebrating in various nerdly ways. Right now that involves a quick listen to the "Gett Off" maxi-single (whatever the hell a maxi-single is), including the ridiculous "Flutestramental" version.

Despite some difficult artistic and business decisions as of late, this is actually a great time to be a Prince fan. After years of stomping on and suing anyone who posted anything on the internet featuring his work (his internet cops even asked YouTube to take down a video of my toddler daughter swaying to his music), he's either fallen asleep or seen the light because there's a treasure trove of unreleased concert videos and songs being posted and watched right now. It's crazy, amazing, genius stuff I never even knew existed.

If you have a minute or two, check out the Minnesota Dance Theater Benefit show from August 1983, where he and the Revolution debuted the songs that would become "Purple Rain." Prince even used some of the tracks recorded live that night as the foundation for the album. But besides its historical significance, the show is also just totally amazing to watch. This is Prince before he became all manicured. He's raw, sweaty and sleazy. Watch it while you can.

Amazing new World Cup ad from Nike

2010-05-21T09:50:00.003-04:00

The Nike people are probably evil, but damn, they're good. This is really cool.

New Quadron video

2010-05-19T11:51:00.001-04:00

Have no idea what she's singing on this one, but I like it.

quadron "herfra hvor vi står" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

'Machete'

2010-05-06T10:48:00.002-04:00

Pulled a hammy

2010-05-02T08:14:00.002-04:00

What level of offense should be taken when a practicing jew calls you "a real ham?"

Mark Sanford on '30 Rock'

2010-04-22T20:57:00.003-04:00

We were catching up on 30 Rock episodes the other night and noticed the framed photo behind Jack's desk of him and a teary-eyed Gov. Sanford.

That's all.

Boycott Chief's Wings and Wingnuts

2010-04-19T19:27:00.002-04:00

Today, I'm issuing a call to all Greenville area wing-eaters to boycott Chief's Wings and Firewater.

Apparently, for the second year in a row they hosted a dumb tax day protest organized by the Upstate Young Republicans. That group likes to party, I assure you. And they're free to do so wherever they choose, but thankfully, we're also free to not spend our money at Chief's. I never have and now I never will. I ask you to join me in this bad bar food fatwa. And tell your friends.

There's a lot to laugh at with these tea parties, including the fact that this one at Chief's was the only one officially sanctioned by the Republicans. The other one on Saturday at the BI-LO Center was apparently organized by the real crazies, the type who criticize Lindsey Graham for being too liberal. But I thought this line from the story by the local Fox affiliate was pretty funny: "Organizers said everyone had the opportunity to sign a resolution speaking out against wasteful government spending on a 20-foot banner..."

Damn misplaced clauses! Those 20-foot banners are expensive, though.

Again, if you like your wings apolitical, don't eat at Chief's. Go to Wild Wings.

145th anniversary of Lincoln assassination

2010-04-14T22:14:00.002-04:00

Honest Abe was shot and killed by a Ben Affleckish mutha 145 years ago today -- practically to the minute.
By chance, this week I started reading the amazing book, "Manhunt," which details the whole saga, including the chase to capture Booth and a whole bunch of other stuff I never knew or forgot about. This guy's blog has a good rundown of the shooting.
http://abrahamlincolnblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/lincoln-assassination-145th-anniversary.html
Did I just coin the term "Affleckish?" Oops.

Enough!

2010-04-11T17:36:00.002-04:00

I finally remembered to get to the bottom of this "ABC" package store mystery. It stands for "Alcoholic Beverage Control," and here are the details.
South Carolina isn't an ABC state, but there's still a ton of them around.
I still don't get it.
And what about ACME?

Line dancing generals, singing dummies and phalluses abound

2010-03-31T12:31:00.003-04:00

As I've said before, I like this group. But I really like this new video.

College sports madness

2010-03-19T21:26:00.003-04:00

I love the NCAA men's basketball tournament as much, if not more than, the next guy, but I agree with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's idea to require teams to graduate at least 40 percent of its players to be eligible to compete in the tournament.

As Duncan said, 40 percent is "a low bar," it's not even close to a passing grade, but 12 of the 64 teams in this year's tourney would not have qualified.

The dumb asses at top-seeded Yucky-Kentucky only graduated 31 percent of its players. The other teams under the 40-percent dumbass threshold are: Maryland (8 percent graduation rate), California (20 percent), Arkansas-Pine Bluff (29 percent), Washington (29 percent), Tennessee (30 percent), Baylor (36 percent), Missouri (36 percent), New Mexico State (36 percent), Clemson (37 percent), Georgia Tech (38 percent) and Louisville (38 percent).

Dumbass Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, threw a hissy fit about Duncan's idea, saying "I don't mind reminding the secretary that one of the greatest disservices that take place in our country is the difference in secondary education," Pearl said. "If you want to fix it, fix it at the high school level, at the middle school level, at the elementary school level."

No doubt, Bruce, our schools are in trouble all the way around, and athletes get a free pass in their secondary years to stay eligible and get a scholarship to college.

But you know what? If college coaches and their universities were held accountable for getting their "student"-athletes to graduate, maybe they'd be less willing to take a chance on a kid who can't make it the classroom. Then, if college coaches were less willing to take chances on kids who can't make it in the classroom, maybe the athletes, their high school and middle school teachers and coaches, and quite possibly their parents, would see to it that they were at least passable students.

And if you're a highly compensated college basketball coach who's paid to win, get in the tournament and expose your program and school to the world, you might take a little extra care to ensure your players are in class, majoring in something, anything, and making progress toward receiving some sort of degree that they can use when they don't get drafted by the NBA and they drop out of the Jordanian Professional Basketball Association after a single season.

Of course, as with all things involving college sports, any change would create great drama and debate. Would you count players who move on to the NBA as failing to graduate? According to this AP story, the numbers cited by Duncan do not penalize the schools for athletes who transfer or move on to the NBA if they were in "good academic standing" when they left.

The same AP story says, "an NCAA spokesman said the sports governing body shares Duncan's concern about low graduation rates of some tournament teams. But he said the NCAA believes a ban based on graduation rates wrongly penalizes current student-athletes for the academic performances of those who entered as freshman eight to 11 years ago."

Typical. No one asking anybody to penalize the current athletes. Penalize the coaches, athletic directors and universities who will allow this to continue another eight to 11 years from now if the NCAA doesn't step up to do something about. They need to institute the rule effective five years from now and stand back and watch the schools and programs scramble to meet the deadline.

Imagine how great it would be if ESPN and sports talk radio had to cover graduation rates and classroom performance when breaking down bubble teams. Wouldn't it be cool if the in-game graphics showing a coach's stats against ranked opponents also listed his graduation rate?

Unfortunately, if the NCAA were ever to make a change and actually care about the education of its athletes in the big-money sports, it would probably just inspire the coaches to find better ways to cheat the system. I'm sure John Calipari has some great ideas already.

Here's the link to the complete study of graduation rates among the men's and women's tournament teams.

2010 Oscar Predictions

2010-03-07T13:09:00.006-05:00

Last year, I nailed 18 out of 24 categories and still lost our annual Oscar Smackdown to my wife....on a tiebreaker. Coming off another loss to the wife in the Grammy Challenge, I really need this one. Desperately.

So, here we go:

Leading Actor: Jeff Bridges

Leading Actress: Sandy Bullock

Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz

Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique

Animated Feature: I didn't like Up at all, but it will win. It didn't offer anything new to the Pixar canon, just the same old sentimental, nostalgia for childhood button pushing. Fantastic Mr. Fox was much more fun to watch.

Art Direction: Avatar

Cinematography: The Hurt Locker

Costume Design: The Young Victoria. Haven't seen it, but it's a period piece about royalty. It's required to win.

Directing: Kathyrn Bigelow. She's come a long way since Point Break and James Cameron hasn't.

Documentary Feature: I already told you The Cove was great.

Documentary Short: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

Film Editing: The Hurt Locker. Great tension in the editing.

Foreign Language Film: Peru is nominated for the first time, but will lose to Germany and The White Ribbon.

Makeup: Star Trek, I guess.

Original Score: Up

Original Song: "The Weary Kind" Again, there's some Academy law that says T-Bone Burnett is required to win when nominated.

Short Film Animated: A Matter of Loaf and Death. You can't go against Wallace and Gromit.

Short Film Live Action: The Door. This category is where Oscar championships live and die. It's a crapshoot.

Sound Editing: Avatar

Sound Mixing: Avatar

Visual Effects: Duh. Avatar.

Screenplay Adapted: Up in the Air

Screenplay Original: Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

Best Picture: Up in the Air is my kind of movie, The Hurt Locker was just OK, and Inglourious Basterds was really fun and entertaining, but I can't deny the power of Avatar.

You can hear a recap of the results tomorrow morning at 7:05 a.m. right here on WPCC Sports Radio 1410.

My Toyota Morning

2010-02-27T08:26:00.005-05:00

So, I'm sitting here at the Toyota dealership waiting to get my brakes fixed.

They've got sausage and egg biscuits to help ease the suffering of all the folks with recalled cars, a little computer lab for web surfing and whatnot, a machine that brews single cups of tan coffee, a comfortable semi-private bathroom I've already had the pleasure of christening thanks to those tans cups of coffee, and a sitting room now showing the 2006 Robin Williams flop, "Runaway Vacation."

I may never go home.

I wish I knew more about car repair, specifically, how much things should cost, because no matter how much fun I'm having here, I know when they finally come to me with a rundown on the repairs I came to get and the repairs they think I should get, I'll feel completely helpless and ignorant.

Here's another thing I'm unsure about: When Kiichiro Toyoda founded the company in 1937 , why did he choose to name it "Toyota" with a "T"?

Maybe I'll ask somebody here. There's a Japanese guy at the computer next to me, maybe he knows?

OK, I'm not going to ask him. I'm sure he already feels "great shame" about this whole recall debacle. What he really needs is a friend, not another inquiry.

I've been here an hour already, had two cups of tan coffee and one sausage and egg biscuit. I've checked the three web sites I usually visit, listened to a demo of XM radio, sauntered around the new Scions in the showroom and sneaked a few peeks at what the people next to me are doing on their computers. The Japanese guy is looking at something titled "Laboratory Tests."

I'm ready to go home.

Winter Olympic fever

2010-02-14T09:08:00.006-05:00

I always say I'm not going to catch it, but here I am again watching these damned Winter Olympics.

It's a joke, really. All of these made up sports.

Last night, I watched the women's moguls, which I Googled to discover had nothing to do with the non-wizarding world of Harry Potter. Instead, it's skiers zig-zagging over a series of bumps, or "moguls," with a couple of well-placed ramps that launch the racers skyward, enabling them to do various flips and spins on which they are judged by an international panel. The competitors' total scores are based on their technique on turns and in the air, as well their speed down the hill.

It's a strange little sport, but pretty damn riveting.

What gets me most intrigued during the Winter Olympics is all the whacked out jargon NBC's commentators throw out during the competition. After a couple of runs down the hill in last night's women's mogul event, I completely understood what they meant when they said, "She's coming down with a lot of heat into the kicker, but was still able to stick the Heli."

It will get crazier as the games go on, and by the end of these two weeks, I should feel quite comfortable throwing out a "Salchow" in conversation here and there. Oh, you thought it was sow-cow?

I can't believe you've never heard of Swedish figure skating pioneer Ulrich Salchow. Sad.

Savannah Culture

2010-02-02T17:02:00.007-05:00

We experienced a little culture last weekend in Savannah thanks to the Telfair Museum's very free Jepson Center.

The coolest thing was definitely an installation by Taiwanese artist Shih Chieh Huang callled "Counterillumination (C-2010)." It's hard to describe and the pictures available online don't do it justice, but basically he uses lights and a bunch of cheap little electronic gadgets, including synchronized computer fans that inflate and deflate plastic baggies, to create these futuristic looking creatures that resemble primitive life forms.

I did find this video that shows how he makes these creepy eyes.

Here's another one that shows the breathing baggies:

The Jepson Center also had these interactive game installations that read your movements. The first one made me feel like I was in a cross between Tron, Pong and the Billie Jean video.

The second one placed you in front of this streetscape background, then produced a musical note based on your height. The note was accompanied by pretty bubbles that floated over your head.

34

2010-01-28T09:06:00.004-05:00

The year of Larry Bird is over as yesterday marked my Charles Barkley birthday.

I've started measuring my age by the numbers of NBA stars from the '80s because it somehow keeps me young.

Barkley feels appropriate, more so than Hakeem Olajuwon, who also wore No. 34, because 1) I'm more round; 2) I feel more likely to say outlandish things; 3) I have an uncanny nose for the boards.

Thankfully, I still have my hair.

Who doesn't love a good dolphin?

2010-01-24T08:34:00.005-05:00

You should see the movie, The Cove.

It's an exciting little documentary by a group of Steve Zissou-esque underwater activist/adventurers who set out to expose the practices of the dolphin fishing (really, it's more trapping and stabbing, than fishing) industry in Japan. After watching it, you'll never want to eat another dolphin burger again.

Obviously, the filmmakers have an argument they're trying to make and they're not much interested in giving the other side of the story. Still, they do a fantastic job of making their case, answering all of my cynical questions.

How is this different from what we do to cows? It is.

Hey, the Japanese just eat weird shit. Maybe it's a cultural difference? It's not.

Maybe they're really, really delicious? Nope.

Nutritious? Full of mercury that'll mess you up.

Just dumb animals? Actually, they're ultra-smart, super-amazing, self-aware swimming mammals.

On top of showcasing an important issue, The Cove is entertaining movie-making, filled with strange characters, whack jobs and corrupt government officials, a little action and some suspense, not to mention really cool dolphins.

Links:

The Cove
Take Action

Trailer:

Quadron is my new favorite

2010-01-20T21:28:00.005-05:00

Why is it that Europe is making all the best R&B these days?

If I had heard them just a couple weeks earlier, Quadron would have easily made my best of 2009 list. They're two funky Danes: a 21-year-old girl named Coco with a dynamite voice and a supercool producer named Robin Hannibal, previously of Owusu and Hannibal.

If you have the time, go listen to a couple tracks on their Myspace page. In the meantime, here's their video. It's a nice tale of love and horses.

Conan, Jay and Dave

2010-01-20T18:22:00.004-05:00

This whole Conan and Leno thing is getting embarrassing, with each of them milking the attention for all it's worth and beyond.

My main interest in this is that, like millions of Americans, I can't stand Jay Leno. Not only is he not funny, but he's also a tremendously annoying kiss-ass. Late night talk shows that serve solely as a promotional tool are bad enough, but Leno does it with such gusto and phoniness that it becomes unbearable.

Conan's act used to be wonderful, back in the esteemed days of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear, but now he spends a little too much time doing funny little voices on the side. It's annoying, too, but I still like him.

My allegiance, though, will always be to Dave Letterman. He's smart (although the real Conan is probably smarter), he's not afraid to be outspoken or poke fun at his inane guests or ask a tough question of others, and his sense of humor is generally more in line with my own.

Plus, he hates Leno about as much as I do.

The Hawk in Hall of Fame

2010-01-06T20:22:00.008-05:00

One of my all-time favorite Chicago Cubs, Andre "The Hawk" Dawson, was finally voted into baseball's hall of fame.

Dawson joined the Cubs after nine years playing on the Astroturf in Montreal. He still had a rocket arm, base-stealing speed and a powerful swing. He hit 49 home runs and was the MVP of the 1987 season, and the Cubs still finished in last place.

I'll never forget listening to Harry Caray's radio broadcast the day some chump San Diego pitcher, Eric Show, beaned Dawson in the face with a fast ball after Dawson had hit three home runs on the Padres over two games. He was knocked out, bleeding, but got up moments later and started chasing Show. Harry, of course, went nuts. It was wonderful.

I couldn't find any audio of Harry's call, but I did find this commercial for Pizza Hut's Harry Caray-Out Special:

Here's another nice article on Dawson from 2008 on MLB.com: Dawson commanded fear, respect

Grand time

2009-12-31T21:01:00.006-05:00

It was two years ago, January 2008, that Che Grand first came to Can You Dig It? to help spread the word about some of his great new music. Amid the glut of do-it-yourself, independent hip-hop hopefuls hocking their wares on the internet, Che Grand's music stood out for its cleverness, style and production quality.

Can You Dig It? became a big fan, and along with a legion of devoted supporters online, waited and waited for the release of his full-length debut, Everything's Good Ugly. We followed his blog, Zimbabwe For The People, and saw the ups and downs of an independent artist struggling to get his music out to the people. A target release date would come and go, he'd post about his frustration, threaten to give it all up, then come back rejuvenated with more music. One song collaboration, "Hagler" with super-it-artist-of-the-moment Jay Electronica, gave Che Grand a big boost in exposure and was highlighted on Kanye West's blog last January.

As for his own solo project, Grand took matters into his own hands, started his own label, ZFTP, and released Everything's Good Ugly via iTunes and Amazon on August 18. The full album proved pre-release jams "Swing" and "Crash" weren't flukes. EGU reveals an eclectic and talented MC who is comfortable working in a range of musical styles, successfully orchestrated by up-and-coming producers and musicians, including Aeon, Brian Brizzo, Von Pea, Wale Oyejide, Benny Sings and Colin Munroe.

The album is a must-listen for fans of the kind of fun, funky hip-hop that should be all the rage.

Che Grand was gracious enough to take break from his holiday revelry to pop some champagne and sit down for an interview with Can You Dig It? in celebration of his placement on our year-end top 10 list.

Can You Dig It?: 2009 was a big year for you with the long-awaited release of your true debut album, Everything’s Good Ugly. It seems like it took a lot of hard work and patience to get it released, so looking back now five months later, was it worth it? Would you consider it a success?

Che Grand: The month of the release was a beautiful and strange time, but definitely a success. I look at it as the end of one chapter and start of something new. Even though it got hectic towards the finish, it felt great to finally reach the point I could share the project with everyone and the response was uplifting. But as I was going through the crazy last minute promo process, I realized, "Oh shit, I'm going to be promoting this album forever!" That's a win though.

CYDI?: How have things changed for you since the release? Are you on the career path you imagined?

Che Grand: Everything's still good ugly. It's weird, even though it's available for purchase I haven't really stopped working on it. Physical copies and videos are on the way. I'm building a home for my releases (and hopefully some other artist's projects) with ZFTP Label and I've started to focus on various paths I can take in the future, all music related. I have some interesting ideas up my sleeve. Stewfuzz on steroids.

CYDI?: A lot of good hip-hop albums have a short shelf-life. They’re great for about two years, then get stale and sound dated pretty quickly. What impresses me about Everything's Good Ugly is that although the songs have been around for a while waiting for the release (we’ve been listening to “Swing” and “Crash” in my house for more than two years), they still sound fresh today. What do you attribute that to?

Che Grand: I think the good energy used in creating the album over the years made tracks come out the way they did. Plus, I had all the time in the world to work on it. I'm constantly training my ear, listening to great music of all genres. If it's dope it never gets old, soon it becomes timeless. I may have been a better songwriter when I wrote those joints (laughs). They had some "hit" qualities, now I only write raps bout drugs and prostitues (laughs).

CYDI?: Another quality of a great hip-hop album is that every time you listen you pick up a new line. Just right now I listened to “Chateau Gold” and heard “Got a Swisher, got a bowl, whatchu know, Scrapper? This Dominoes got me writing bangers on the crapper.” Do you have rhyme you’re particularly proud of on the album? What’s the last good line you heard from another MC?

Che Grand: Swisha Hause! Ha! I'm glad you dig that line. It was really just some random shit I was actually doing in real-time; writing raps on the toilet. I have a bunch on the album that I'll personally always love - "more than one or two screws loose in my brain, it looks like Home Depot got hit by a hurricane."

I've heard way too many crazy lines this year... Danny! Lupe Fiasco, Blu, Elzhi, just heard one from Phonte "Nigga I'm black, I was born in financial crisis!" The whole Lessondary has too many. And this one shook up the world: "Call me Jay Elec-Hanukkah, Jay Elec-Yamulke, Jay Elect-Ramadaan Muhammad Asalaamica RaSoulAllah Supana watallah through your monitor." WTF?

CYDI?: Let’s just clear this up right now. In your first verse for “Walking Under Ladders,” you say, “For anonymous fans of mine, you aint got hide, you aint got to buy, you aint got to lie,” and then either “Greg” or “Craig.” If it’s “Greg,” I just want to confirm that it's some other dude, because I’m not an anonymous fan and I did buy, albeit on Amazon cause it was a little cheaper than iTunes. If it’s “Craig,” then that guy’s a jerk.

Che Grand: "For anonymous fans of mine you aint got to hide. You aint got it, you aint got to buy. You aint got to lie, Craig"

If you've ever seen the movie Friday (I assumed everyone on the planet had as I wrote the verse) you might know the line "you aint got to lie, Craig" The scene where Ice Cube is talking to his extra hood ex-girl on the phone while Luke blasts in the background. I always thought it was hilarious. From a fan aspect, what "Craig" reps in the line isn't a jerk. I'm not calling him (or her) out, they may not have funds to buy, but with that said they shouldn't be anonymous. It's good to put others onto music you enjoy, especially if it's an artist without much exposure that you feel people should hear (or see for all my visual brethren...).

As for you, Greg, thanks for copping. I never had a doubt. And I couldn't diss you, I hear you got battle raps for whole crews!

CYDI?: “Gold Chains (Part Deux)” is a great statement of independence, as well as a fantastic car sing-along song because they do “be wanting me to stay in my lane” and yet I also “swerve on them non-stop.” Who is it that’s holding you back?

Che Grand: I don't think anyone can hold you back more than yourself, but there's always other forces out there working together to hold all of us back. Certain douchebags in high positions. Just keep switching lanes, think with your own mind.

By the way, EGU is for big speakers and car stereos only.

I'm going to encourage my mom to play this when she's driving, I just noticed over the holidays she has road rage.

CYDI?: My research says that super-cool DJ/producer Mark Ronson shouted you out and said he was going to start spinning “Too Much Too Soon.” What does that kind of exposure do for you? Are there any other big-hitters on the Che Grand team?

Che Grand: He shouted me out via Twitter. Diplo did, too. I've had a few nice co-signs on the innanets. Oh and Kanye put me on his blog. So that's my team right there, along with Oprah, Quincy Jones and Russell Simmons' nieces.

CYDI?: Are you plotting your next release?

Che Grand: The Fixtape Two: "I'm Only In It For The Drink Ticket" with DJ Low Key will be available before winter is over. And I've started planning out the sophomore album, but that probably won't drop until 2011. You can expect a bunch of ZFTP side projects: EPs, podcasts and mixes on the way as usual.

CYDI?: Any New Year’s resolutions?

Che Grand: Top 5 in no order: Learn how to play piano. Learn how to DJ. Record a new album. Read. Tour.

CYDI?: I’ll turn 34 in a few weeks and I’ve been thinking a lot about this myself, but what do you not want to be doing when you’re 40?

Che Grand: I don't want to be worrying.

CYDI?: As the father of a toddler daughter who I also called “So-So,” I’m not ashamed to say that “Soraya’s Jam” makes me a little emotional. It’s a beautiful song. So, let me tap into Che Grand’s inner Bill Cosby and get your thoughts on how we can prevent our daughters from wanting to be a princesses and start wanting to be presidents? Or at least maybe a Queen Latifah.

Che Grand: Shouts to "So-So!" I don't think there is anything wrong with being a princess, she has to understand that she already is one. As long as they continue to also be geniuses, value their minds. In the end, princesses become queens. A smart and brilliant queen is a powerful one.

CYDI?: Have you seen Avatar, yet? I’m a little obsessed with the similarities between it and the James Cameron-produced surfing bank robbers movie “Point Break.” What did you think?

Che Grand: I watched it twice. On Christmas day my sister's friend came by with a bootleg. I was way too drunk off egg nog to pay attention to the plot, but the blue folk riding around duck/dragon mash-ups looked cool enough for me to catch it again in 3D. Then I realized them big blue mofos were supposed to represent Africans. Huh? Disney's take on colonialism....the main Avatar chic got me aroused a bit I guess, yay for special effects.

CYDI?: Who will you be rooting for at the Grammys?

Che Grand: Anyone that's dope and deserves the award. I don't know all the nominees, but I heard Foreign Exchange is nominated, which is awesome. I love that album. It got me some.

CYDI?: What’s the best thing you heard in 2009?

Che Grand: "Che, I've finished mastering your album" - optix

CYDI?: Isn’t it a huge honor to be on my 2009 10-best list?

Che Grand: Bigger than a Grammy. I truly feel honored. Thank you, Greg!

Resolution: Launching SmokingPriests.com

2009-12-31T16:02:00.014-05:00

I'm finally going to cash in on this internet thing.

There's a fortune being made out there right now with all of these user-submission focused sites:
awkwardfamilyphotos
Peopleofwalmart
Sexypeople
WeHaveLasers!
Failblog
Cakewrecks

The list goes on and on, covering everything from grammar ("blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks) to failures in conflict resolution (passiveaggressivenotes.com), but the best I can tell, the formula goes something like this:

Very Specfic Imagery (Mostly photos, but some video as well) + Quick and Easy Witty Commentary = Internet Gold!

So, starting in 2010, my million dollar venture is SmokingPriests.com -- a Web site devoted entirely to photos, videos, art and any other form of digitized multimedia featuring men (and potentially women) of God smoking cigarettes, cigars, peace pipes, bongs, joints, etc. If you've got a picture of someone wearing a robe, a collar or some other vestment while puffing on some smokeable material, we want to see it. Submit now!

I've gotten us started with Two Greek Orthodox priests, but remember, the key is you've got to do all the searching for me.

Can You Dig It?'s year-end top 10 lists

2009-12-31T12:40:00.014-05:00

Any blogger worth his or her bandwith posts a year-end top 10 list about something, so here's mine.

10 Favorite Albums of 2009

10. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros/Self-titled

Their weird hippie vibe really got in my brain. Not every song on the album is listenable, but the unbelievable opener "40 Day Dream" and the amazingly catchy "Home" make up for the clunkers.

Sample lyric: "She got jumper cable lips/She's got sunset on her breath/I inhaled just a little bit/Now I got no fear of death."

9. Mos Def/The Ecstatic

I guess if you're a white guy who listens to hip-hop and writes a blog, it's required you make some reference to Mos Def, but even so, The Ecstatic is more than deserving of placement here. "Casa Bey," "Quiet Dog" and "Life in Marvelous Times" are just great songs.

8. Monsters of Folk/Self-Titled

An indie folk supergroup doesn't sound like my sort of thing, but I like this one.

7. Coconut Records/Davy

Jason Schwartzman released his second album as Coconut Records way back in January. It's one of those records that gets more enjoyable with every listen. You should check it out.

6. Little Dragon/Machine Dreams

When are you going start listening to me about Little Dragon? It's nasty, new wavey Swedish electro-funk with sweet singing by half Swedish American, half Japanese frontwoman Yukimi Nagano. They really turn up the Prince influences on this one and it works. You must check out "Feather" and "Looking Glass."

5. Bob Dylan/Together Through Life

It wasn't the greatest Bob Dylan album, but it's Bob Dylan.

4. Norah Jones/The Fall

Your mama likes Norah Jones and so do I. The Fall was a free listen on NPR's music site for a couple of weeks and I got hooked. Don't front and you'll like it, too.

Chasing Pirates video

3. Tanya Morgan/Brooklynati

Von Pea, Donwill and Ilyas managed to improve upon their debut, Moonlighting, with more polished productions on this concept album that takes place in the fictional city of Brooklynati. It's Fresh! with an exclamation point.

2.Che Grand/Everything's Good Ugly

Fans of Can You Dig It? have been hearing about Che Grand for a long time and this year we finally got to hear his debut album, Everything's Good Ugly. It was worth waiting for these 18 songs, but if you've only got a couple of bucks left on your iTunes/Amazon gift cards, get yourself a taste with "Swing," "Gold Chains: Part Deux," "People Bowling," "Crash" and "Girls Talk."

Sample line: "And I could never finish watching Gummo, but I saw enough to know that those cats got handled."

Listen to a few tracks here.

1. Maxwell/BlackSummers'Night

I'm not ashamed of my affection for R&B crooner Maxwell.

We have a long history together, dating way back to 1996 when I bought his debut Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite simply because the cover looked cool and Best Buy was selling it for $5.99. I've followed his career ever since and waited patiently during the eight years it took to release BLACKSummers'Night.

The time off was good for Maxwell, as it turned out to be his strongest album yet, with his best song yet ("Pretty Wings"), and earned him six Grammy nominations. BlackSummers'Night achieved the rare feat in 2009 of actually being an artistic, critical and commercial success, debuting as the No. 1 album on the Billboard album chart, and was the 16th highest-rated album of the year on metacritic.com's year-end music list.

But maybe the higest praise for Maxwell came yesterday from my wife, who said, "I wish I knew how to paint, just so I could just paint his face."

Avatar vs. Point Break

2009-12-28T09:47:00.007-05:00

Carolina and I went to see Avatar on Christmas, the three-dimensional version no less.

I haven't seen a 3-D movie since I was little, back when the glasses were those cardboard things with the red and blue plastic lenses, so I was blown away by how much the technology has advanced. It wasn't like the old days, when you might see a couple of things that kind of popped out at you. This was really like you were inside the movie. At a couple of points, I thought movie bugs were going up my nose.

Unfortunately, this was the only depth that was achieved in Avatar. Still, I can't say I didn't enjoy it. In fact, I can't stop thinking about it. I was so transfixed by the visuals and the awesomeness of the 3-D that I didn't pay much attention to the dialogue or the beat-you-over-the-head James "I'm King of the World" Cameron allegory.

It's interesting that so many of his movies are about the shortcomings of technology (the Terminators, Titanic) because you could say the same thing about his films -- groundbreaking visual effects, but filled with empty emotion, cliched dialogue and rehashed plot points that leave you feeling gypped.

I was shaken out of my 3-D daze long enough to recognize that Cameron basically recycles the same undercover-character-meets-girl-under-false-pretenses-but-truly-falls-in-love storyline from a million other TV shows and films, including 1991's Point Break, which Cameron executive produced.

Instead of a hobbled (old football knee injury) FBI agent who goes undercover as a sky-diving surfer to catch a crew of bank robbers in ex-president masks, Avatar has a paraplegic ex-Marine going undercover as a blue-bodied Na'vi on the planet Pandora to catch a bunch of scientific data and precious metals.

While Keanu Reeves' Johnny Utah gets schooled in the art of surfing by surfer girl Lori Petty, then falls in love, in Avatar Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) gets schooled in the art of being a big blue alien on Pandora by Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), then falls in love. Like Johnny Utah, Jake Sully becomes unnaturally obsessed with the characters on which he's supposed to be gathering data, despite protestations and warnings from their co-workers. This all leads to the hackneyed old climax scene where the truth about the undercover agent's identity is revealed and that person desperately pleads with the object of his/her affection that "it started out as just a job, but it became so much more and now I really love you. Honest!" The loved one runs away crying, but not before gurgling an impassioned "I trusted you!"

Devastated, the undercover lover retreats, gets depressed and almost abandons the whole thing, but some big event occurs that endangers the loved one and all of his/her people, so the undercover lover comes back, puts his/her life on the line to save the day and in the process proves that he/she really does love her/him.

It doesn't matter if it's 1991 on the beach with a scruffy Patrick Swayze and a gang of bank robbers or 2154 on Pandora with very tall and slender blue people, but it helps tremendously if it's in 3-D.

Palabritas Beach House

2009-12-27T20:18:00.010-05:00

I thought all of my Christmas dreams came true this year until I saw this house.

I want it.

It's on the Palabritas beach in Lima, Peru, and was designed by Peruvian architect Jose Orrego of the firm Metropolis in Lima.

You can read about it at this site, +mood, but check out these photos:

Colbert continues to be the best

2009-12-19T10:35:00.002-05:00

An amazing performance with Alicia Keys.

www.colbertnation.com

This was a good one

2009-12-19T08:34:00.008-05:00

I love movies about journalism and last night we watched a good one.

"State of Play" with Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams and Ben Affleck had everything a good journalism movie needs: a crusty reporter, a grouchy editor, intrigue, phone calls, typing. What made it unique was how it worked in the current issues facing the industry, especially how online reporting has changed print journalism.

Want other great movies about journalism? Here's a list of some of my favorites.
Citizen Kane
Network
The Shipping News
All the President's Men
The Insider
His Girl Friday

Proud Papi

2009-12-18T12:09:00.004-05:00

Unbelievable talent, grace and charisma on the stage!

Hey

2009-12-10T20:56:00.002-05:00

What do you want for Christmas?