LO2

Holy freakin' crap! I'm #1 on Yahoo image search for the word "blog"! Whee!

P.S. - Sorry for no entries in awhile. It's been a loooooong holiday. Lots of stuff coming soon...

*I couldn't wheedle it down to 10.
**Not necessarily released in 2004. Also includes older albums I'd never heard before, only heard parts of, or rediscovered.

Combos are the cheese filled snack of Nascar.

Marlboro sent me a pack of cards for my birthday.

There's nothing quite so sad as the sight of a guy who has a driveway that crosses a railroad track, unable to get to his house because of a passing train. A really long passenger train. That stops.

Scary = A tanker truck passing you, coated with those little red "Flammable" squares, and the words "Lil' Bit Crazy" scrawled on the back (Really. Rick's LP Gas, Pine Bluff Arkansas.)

Funny = "SAE Cockmobile" written on the back of a passing BMW.

Heroin is really easy to come by in Memphis.

Fried corn on the cob. Battered, fried corn on the cob. Really.

McDonald's outside of Waco give you ketchup and napkins without having to ask.

A sign on the highway announced that I was passing over Wallflower Creek. There was no creek. Nor was there a place for a creek.

There's nothing quite so "Mad Max" as an 18 wheeler barreling down the road with a load of wrecked cars.

Two things children can say and get away with: "I eat my friends so I can get stronger," and "If you can't beat it, eat it."

Children open Christmas gifts really fast.

Apparently, RoseArt sucks.

Razor scooters come with the warning label, "This product moves when used."

The term "Phantom truckstop" exists.

It was so cold in Mississippi this Christmas, that when I returned to my father's house one night, I found a bird right by the front door, jammed into a corner so tightly, that I wasn't even sure it was a bird. I gave it a little nudge with my foot, he pulled his head out to give me a look I could only describe as annoyed, before jamming his head back in the corner. He was gone the next morning.

The owner of Vicksburg's Battlefield Inn highly reccomends Vicksburg's Battlefield Inn.

Want to buy a mocha while on a road trip from Texas to Mississippi? Good luck.

Stopping at a Wal-Mart to get a new FM transmitter to replace the one I broke (which I borroewd from a friend who will soon get a new iTrip), I went to check out at a line manned my a woman with an astonishing amount of little bows in her hair (20+). I asked her if there was a Starbucks nearby. This (to the best of my memory) was her response: "Sure! You just come out of the Wal-Mart parking lot and head that-a-way. Go under the highway, and keep heading in that direction. You'll pass a McDonalds and a Wendy's, just keep going. There's a Sonic, then you pass an Eckerd's, then a Target, just keep going straight. There's um, there's a Taco Bell and a movie theater and a Blockbuster, just keep on going past the light with the Blockbuster. You'll get up near the mall, you go past the Home Depot, then the Old Navy and the Best Buy, and there's the Starbucks. It's about 20 miles."

There's a game called Super Dumbass Ball.

On the first day of class, the Visual Arts building reclined before me like an old brick whore, egging me on to show her one, last, good time. I doubted I was up to the task, but regardless, I entered it from the rear, just to give myself the slightest mental edge.
Chip Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys

Luck is probability taken personally.
Penn

All bands ply the quiet-to-loud dynamics these days, copying what Kurt Cobain copied from The Pixies.
Scott Frampton, "The One Band You Must See Next Year"

She has at least four gold teeth.

Apparently, it was the day before I was to marry Jill, the owner of Common Grounds, a coffeehouse I frequent. Mainly, I remember a lot of panic, worrying about how I would explain this new development to my girlfriend.

I've always felt that Johnny Carson represented the biggest gap of relation to most of the friends I have now, most of whom are too young to remember him. Johnny Carson represents a great deal of different things to me that I can't quite put across to people. Mostly I remember Charlie, this woman from home who baby sat me and my sister every once and awhile, and how she'd let me stay up past my bedtime to watch The Tonight Show. My sister would get so pissed that I got special treatment, and I simply didn't care. I just wanted to watch Johnny.

There are several people whom I'd like to have lunch with, just ask a couple of questions, hear some stories. Nothing fancy, just lunch. Now there's one less on that list.

Matrix, Schmatrix. If the Wachowski brothers mess this up, legions of rabid comic fans are going after them with sticks. With nails in them. And guns on the end that shoot bears. Bears that are on fire.

The Virgin Suicides
Solid work from Sofia Coppola, but it's no Lost in Translation. Wish I had seen it first.

Igby Goes Down
Some great writing, some great scenes, and some great acting, but I find it really hard to empathize with "rich kid having a hard time" movies.

Honey
Kind of a bad movie, but the dancing was fun to watch. Jessica Alba is fun to watch. Hopefully her work from this will enhance Sin City.

MADRAS, India -- C. Manoharan Snake Manu practices with a garden snake by running it through his nose and out his mouth in an attempt to create a Guinness Record. Manu plans to set the record by using a live cobra. (09/02/04 AP photo)

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Police on motorscooters attempt to pull over an ostrich who escaped from a children's petting zoo. The ostrich eluded capture. (05/09/04 AP photo)

Grey Album, Schmay Album. It's 2005, and it's Beastie/Beatles mashup time.

I started watching Huff for three reasons: Hank Azaria, Oliver Platt, and the hope of seeing Paget Brewster naked. What I got is one of the best shows on television, and yet another nail in the coffin of FCC controlled broadcast TV. And Paget Brewster naked (whee!).

Aside from the fact that every person on this show gives a near perfect performance, the most startling thing about it is the brutal honesty. Every situation is carried out with the character's most personal moments put on display not just for others to see, but for others to empathize with. The amazing thing is that the smaller the moment is, the more powerfully it comes across. Truly great TV.

The first season is nearly over, so I would suggest snagging the DVDs when they come out.

Mmm. Paget Brewster. I should note that aside from Andy Richter Controls the Universe, she's really done a lot of crap. Hotness aside, I'm really glad to see her in something good.