JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)

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  • Crap 2001-11-26 13:56:50 Gahhhhh. tanigUN. Geez. Some time ago I could actually type. :)

    (Sorry everyone..) 
  • I open up my eyes, I think I'm blind... 2001-11-26 13:54:03 Thanks for the link, tanigen. Ya' know, I think I musta passed over that exact album half a dozen times in various stores, but managed to convince myself that it was a country group when I couldn't find anything remotely familiar in the song list on the back. Ever catch the video? They succeded in making a strange video out of a straight session through the addition of a little digital warping.

    To return the favor: Ever heard of a group called Bicycle? The one song they had on the air a few years back was "Electrolux" (Rest assured I was pathetic / Throwing out this cold prosthetic heart I ordered long ago...), an odd little tune about an old vaccume cleaner. That was probably the most normal song on the album. Filled with strange, rather fast paced, neat little alliterative lyrics that'll get stuck in your head. Or at least got stuck in my head, and we've already established that I can't tell good music from bad.

    Whoo. Three posts in two days. Maybe another tonight as well. This oughta artificially inflate my hit count. 
  • Krispy Krunchies are the best/look delicious on your vest/serve them to unwanted guests/stuff the matress with the rest... 2001-11-26 09:37:53 OK, apparently my adequate skills with grammar and spelling desert me until AFTER I hit the "enter" key.

    "mediochre"

    Gahhhhh..... 
  • ..and the mourners are all sangin', as they drag you by your feet... 2001-11-25 18:07:11 Neglect, neglect, neglect....

    'Course, this time I have a reasonable excuse, what with the thanksgiving holiday and all. Rather mediochre year on that front. Went over to the relations' for dinner along with my parents. Nothing really to report.

    I've been feeling remarkably uninspired recently, unable to get up the creativity to do much more than sit around and read. (A real danger considering the report I have coming up due the week after this.)

    I've also come to the inescapable conclusion that I have terrible taste in music. No, really. I try to broaden my horizons, look around at stuff that's considered "edgy" "groundbreaking" "unique" "revolutionary," or, at the other extreme, "classic" "foundation-establishing" etc. I really can't afford much of a music collection, but I will occasionally go through a period of buying CD's from a wide range of artists, stretching from poppy banality to truly artistic (ie, non-commercial) individuals, and listen to them intently for a while. Nearly infallably, I like them. Eventually. The problem is that, apparently, I can come around to liking nearly ANYTHING. I pick up a list of "good music" from friends and off other boards or from single videos on MTV2, pick one at random, and check out an album or two. I listen to the album, and decide that I only really liked the song the video was to. A little while later, they release another video, or another friend points out their favorite track, and I, in disbelief, go back and listen to it again. After the third listen, it's suddenly ultra-cool. The most extreme examples are with videos. I love three tracks off of the Gorillaz album. Care to guess which ones? Yup. "Clint Eastwood," "Tomorrow Comes Today," and "2000-19." The three songs they have videos for. (Whoops, looks like I spoke too soon, they've got a new video out for "Rock the House" http://www.gorillaz.com/index_N_mie45.html) Sarah Brightman's "Dive" album? Only the songs that have had AMVs done to them (plus "the second chemical"). The first time through Bjork's "Debut" album, the only song I could even minorly stand was "Human Behavior"...the one with the video of the killer teddy bear. I wouldn't even know the name of that song "Weapon of Choice" if it wasn't for the video with Christopher Walken in it. Music I hated as a teen, but went on constant rotation since then, I now adore. Apparently I'm such a strong visual learner after so many years sitting in rapt fascination before saturday morning cartoons that I am incapable of processing musical lyrics as pleasant without either an associated bright shiny image or repeated (repeated repeated) runnings of the song.

    I am MTV's target market. Somebody shoot me.

    Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everything that shows on MTV is commercialized crap, lowest common denominator, etc. Nor am I saying that the more experimental artists are all ivory tower dwellers who are off making "artistic" noise that no one really wants to hear. I'm saying they might as well both be crap because I've somehow lost the ability to tell the difference between pretentious crap or marketing drivel and honest-to-God good music.

    How's that for disaffected?

    To back off a little from this, I should point out that my exposure to popular music has been a little over-saturated recently. I do a lot of driving around the city and don't have a CD player. At work, my labmates INSIST on listening to the radio while working, and flip around between a couple of top-40 stations. By the time I get home, the last thing I want (or have time) to do is listen to a CD. Also, the "hear it over and over" method hasn't worked with everything. I am immune to the charms *snark* of Red Hot Chili Peppers, was unable to find any merit in an album of "Manic Street Preachers" (...waste of such a cool name too...), and I hate everything Madonna has made since she had a kid. (Crowned by the unspeakable abomination that was her version of Don McClain's "American Pie." In my opinion, she had twins....."and the second resembled the father more.")

    (On that note, does anyone know who sang the song with the following lyrics "...open up my eyes/I think I'm blind (think I'm blind, think I'm blind)/...I can't get outta my head." I wanted to hunt that song down after seeing the video, but I remember the artist as "Tin Star" which keeps dumping me in the country section.)

    Master AMV tapes should go out to C-ko on Monday. I'll announce in the forum when he confirms recieving them. I may send another set out to another distributor later if he gets swamped. 
  • Inkx, Ninkx, the old witch winks, the fat begins to fry... 2001-11-18 19:13:06 As expected, I am beginning to neglect this Journal. Updates may be rather irregular from here on out...and longer when I do get around to writing. Oh well.

    Proof positive that some people have a vocabulary to large to be of use to anyone. Also proof that someone will always be able to wildly misinterpret anything. And that the overzealous English and Film Study students are still finding work:
    http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1109769/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=1&rid=260193

    I got to that page from rottentomatoes.com, a website that compiles all avaliable online movie reviews. Curious at what the few negative reviews found objectionable in "Monsters Inc." I looked them up. (Actually, I usually judge whether or not I should see a movie by the content of the negative reviews...the people who hate the movie are usually more honest than its fans.) The review above crams more five-dollar words into a paragraph than I've seen outside of my lab texts. Worse, where even comprehensible, they're just wrong. Here:
    "Maximal miniaturists, the Pixar crew exploit the mythic impulse to imagine synchronous faerie worlds; the results can be Swiftian."
    Who was this written for? Kids won't understand it, and adults either won't or won't care. I'll tell you who it was written for, elitist art snobs who wouldn't be caught dead being entertained at an amusing film that happened to be made by the great beast; the cultural homogenizer and destroyer of all things elevated and incomprehensible; Disney. Here's another:
    "A tabloid headline mentions a baby with five heads—its "parents thrilled," presumably because the spawn's capitalist usefulness as a terrorizer of slumbering tots is assured."
    To quote Scott McCloud: "No, ya yutz, it's a JOKE!" Ya know, funny? Because a human parent would be shocked at a child with five heads? It's not a commentary on the productivity impetus of the post-industrial world, it's a JOKE!

    On the subject of movies that are going to be terribly misinterpreted by the nationally-apointed worriers of the public psyche, I went to see Harry Potter this weekend. Good movie. Not great, not fantastic, but good. I really liked the CG in the film, if only for its fairly seamless matching at the edges (where it switched between live action). Movement was screwed up a bit when the CG kicked in, and people had a tendancy to get flung around like rag dolls during the high action (whiplash galore), but for all that, I though it matched pretty well. The other problems with the film can be ascribed to two sources. 1) They are working with child actors. No one was a really bad actor, but nearly all the children had a nasty habit of being a little too over-emphatic all the time (especially Hermionie). Ironically, Draco was the best actor of the kids. 2) They followed the book almost exactly, and the first book really isn't the best written of them all. I've always felt that the two plotlines (introducing all the major characters and the everyday occurences at Hogwarts, and, second, the battle with Voldemort) felt rather roughly stitched together at the junction. The later books show a massive improvement in technique and style on the part of the author, but the movie followed the events of the first book exactly, and suffered a bit for it. It's definitely worth seeing if you liked the books, and just seeing the game of Quidditch will help your understanding of the game.

    Oh. I was the only one (from my lab) who went to see the film on opening night because "who wants to see a film with all those whining kids in the audience." Well, at the showing I went to, the kids were all shushing each other AND the parents. Kids are only unruly when they're at films they don't want to see.

    On TV, I highly reccommend The Tick to anyone who liked the cartoon. They did an amazing job with the transfer to live action thus far, and the first two episodes are hilarious. My favorite part was when The Tick tried to hurl another (deceased) superhero in the window of a 4th story Hotel room. He missed. Also, lest anyone get the mistaken impression that "The Simpsons" skirts the edge of what is acceptable on US TV, "The Family Guy," on a half hour before "The Tick," manages to be an order of magnitude more offensive towards nearly every group you could name. Not for everyone, but the rate at which slapstick and offensive digs come flying strikes me as absolutely hilarious.

    Yah know, I really don't normally spend this much time in the theaters or in front of the TV, but the other events of my week really can't be talked about at length without boring everyone concerned.

    Oh, finished up the latest Acme Novelty Library. Sucked out roughly half of my present will to live. Wow, this one was harsh.

    Picked up the new TMBG album today. "Mink Car." Hadn't even heard it was coming out.

    I understand that there have been a few anti-war protests around the country (most notably around Berkley). While I fully support their right to protest, my personal response can best be summed up with the following comic strip I tripped over wandering around online:

    http://www.itswalky.com/d/20011104.html

    How. Terribly. Apt. It helps to understand that Mike, the guy with blond hair, has been established as the most dislikeable member of the cast.

    Finally, as a reward to those who read this far, the AMV tapes have been masered and checked. The problem is that no one seems to know where to send them now. All of the distro lists I have access to are hopelessly out of date, and, from recent reports, there are enough unscrupulous distributors out there that I can't just entrust myself to anipike's listings. I'm looking for any not-for-pay distributors (SASE or similar) that any of ya'll can personally vouch for. I'll e-mail them to see if they think they can handle the job and then send the compillation masters off to the "winners," announcing it here after they are recieved. I'll be posting in the forum as well, but anyone with a couple of good, reliable distro sources please send me their contact information at: gte106k@prism.gatech.edu 
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