Oh...And another thing

I don't usually follow 'best of' music lists, but it's been a dry year, and I tend to trust the A/V club for their reviews. I usually just listen to Phil and Dave to make some good recommendations, but thought I'd try something different this year...And it's now a very clear fact that I am old and do not like new music any more :) That's a bit of an exaggeration, obviously, but dude..I was hardly impressed with any of these releases. Sorry. In rant mode, and sorry Brooklyn, I've always thought 'The Hold Steady' sucked and this latest outing from them confirmed it. Vampire Weekend (yeah, I know i'm about 8 months behind the times) sounds like the bastard love child of Paul Simon circa 'Graceland' and a camel. Sucky. Wolf Parade...Super sucky. And on my suckiest of all list....The Gaslight Anthem rounds out my sucky list. Yeah, it's good. It's catchy. But it still stucks.

I really wanted to like Black Mountain, and I kinda did, but again, nothing crazy new there. I mean, certainly not bad, but mediocre.

I've always really liked The Helio Sequence, and their new album is no exception. Check it out. TV on the Radio. Didn't love it, but think it's a really amazing piece of work. Fleet Foxes. Jeff Forrest got me into these guys, and I'd been reading about them for a while. Good good stuff. A more ethereal, if possible, Midlake.

Thus enduth my music reviews for 2008...

Game over, man. Game over...

When people look back on 2008, I think the summary might look something like this...

Banks collapsing, savings disappearing, values plummeting, stocks dying and now...Killer f***ing mice...


what's next, man? One of these things??? RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

Whoops

Ummm...I guess we all slept through this one...Whatever. It was cheap beer and wings night at the Reub on Thursdays, and it was so damn cold...Did anyone GO to this?

http://apps.carleton.edu/news/news/?story_id=475508

From the Brilliant Minds Who Brought You Credit Derivatives...

From an e-mail I just received on my Citibank checking account (which at last look, has 14 cents in it)...

Dear BENJAMIN RUSSELL,
Good news! Citibank is participating in the FDIC's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. Through December 31, 2009, all of your non-interest and interest bearing checking deposit account balances are fully guaranteed by the FDIC for the entire amount in your account. *
And as a reminder, in October the FDIC increased the amount of insurance on eligible savings accounts -- such as savings, market rate, money market accounts, club and holiday accounts, and certificates of deposits -- from $100,000 to $250,000 through December 31, 2009.**

Dude. How is that "good news"? When my bank is so screwed that they are like, 'don't WORRY, the GOVERNMENT will guarantee your money", you are in deep shit. People are gonna take this as a sign to go to the bank, withdraw everything, and keep it under the mattress...I know i'll be doing that with my 14 cents. Now that I'm a communications professional, I'll re-write this little e-mail for these jokers, cribbing from a classic of our youth...
______________________________________________________________
Dear Benjamin Russell,

I know you've seen some negative coverage about citibank. I'm here to tell you that you ain't got no problem. We're on the motherf**er. Go back in there, chill them boys out and wait for the FDIC, who should be coming directly.

Ridonculous...

I lived in NYC for six and a half years. For over four of those years, I had a car. I parked that car outside, on the street, every day of its miserable existence in the city. I mean, i'm sure some homeless person probably lived in it. But that was pretty much the extent of the damage (though some jackassside-swiped my mirror off at one point)...Today. In front of my apartment. In freaking LAUSANNE 'WE HAVE NO CRIME' SWITZERLAND, some no-talent assclown fucking DESTROYED my driver's side window with what I can only assume was a bazooka. In the middle of the afternoon!! Can you BELIEVE that shit? Granted, I left an ipod sitting in there (yes, i know, not smart) but man, it's been in there for, like, a year and is an old crappy one...I just spent an hour at the police station. NOT an exercise in Swiss efficiency....

PAIN IN THE ASS!

In other news, rugby season in Swiss National League A ended. We had a good run, but due to many injuries, lost the last three games, one quite badly. THat's the one I played in. Coincidence? I think not...

More later.

The Great Hotel "Save the Planet, Asshole" Rip-Off

Oh man. I've ABSOLUTELY had it with this nonsense. I'm in Rome right now for work at an unnamed big chain hotel.

It's a big-box conference center type of place, but that is not what concerns me. For the SECOND DAY in a row I've gotten some card on the bed that reads "Thank you, you make the difference - Upon your request we did not change your linen. Should you choose to have your linen changed tomorrow, please place the conserve card on your bed." There are so many things freaking wrong with this, man...

1. First of all, placing a 'conserve' card on the bed would imply that, in fact, you'd CONSERVE your sheets and the planet, and not want them changed.

2. I did place a card on my bed! And a note. That said "PLEASE CHANGE MY SHEETS". In perfect Italian. (Please-a change-a my sheetz-a. Grazie). Maybe my Italian is off...

3. This is some bullshit conspiracy nonsense, man. First they started with the towels. Now they are onto linen. It's goddamn nefarious is what it is. Ok, I agree it's a good thing to conserve our precious resources and stop sending rivers of soapy acid into our wetlands, maiming, like, little beavers and shit. I do. And I don't need my sheets changed every day (though it's nice). But this freaking 'program' or 'initiative' has NOTHING to do with the environment. The HOTEL saves money, time, and labor, yet gives you no discount. If, for example, they said 'oh, keep your sheets for 2-3 days, we'll knock 5% off of your bill', i'm DOWN with that. Hell, if they even DONATED 5% of my bill to Greenpeace or some other furry-animal saving hippies, i'd do it. I'd even feel GOOD about it. I'd be super down with saving some beached whales. But no. The hotel saves money, continues to charge you 280 billion euros a night, 6 euros for a coke (no shit, by the way), and laugh all the way to the bank because they've convinced their guests to save them work and effort. It's so brilliant, I almost respect it.

Anyway, tomorrow i'm going to take the sheets off the bed and put them in the bathtub because my handy-dandy card says 'your towels will be changed when placed in the bathtub'. I'm putting the whole bed in there if i can.

Sweet

America. Hell yes.

Why Christopher Hitchens is a Writer and I'm a 'writer'...

"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. "

Well-stated, Sir. I was just having a conversation the other day after hearing more and more about this Joe the Plumber (wicked nickname, by the way. I hope that dude at least gets to appear in a Little Caeser's ad and make a few bucks for this) and how Joe represents honest, hard-working, normal Americans as compared to 'the rest of us'. And it's true. He does represent a lot of people in the states. And that's cool. But it's not an 'us vs. them' situation. As I like to tell folks over here (who continually ask me if I support the war in Iraq, own a handgun, and like my women-folk barefoot, knocked up, and dumb -- (the answer is 'perhaps')), there are 300 MILLION of us...There is room for Joe the Plumber, Joe the Mechanic, Joe the Brain Surgeon, Joe the Professor, etc. etc...

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at here, but it's been bugging me lately. When people talk about 'real americans' (implying that if you, you know, went to college, have a white collar job, speak a foreign language and like wine you are some sissy nancy-boy), they seem to forget that America was FOUNDED on intellectualism. I have a news flash. You know the Constitution? It was written by a bunch of reasonably smart, well-educated, french-speaking, enlightenment-loving people. That's WHY IT FUCKING WORKS, DUDE!!

Anyway, whatever. I hate politics, so shall stop writing. Poorly :)