Music Video #30

Our penultimate video of the month is called "Like a Feather." Not a very good sequel to Madonna's song. It's sung by Nikka Costa, who I don't trust thanks to most of the letters in her first name. It's four minutes long.


Hmmm, I wasn't expecting any music videos with women shaking their butts towards the camera, but I guess we couldn't escape the month without doing one. Costa dances with her microphone stand while she wears a scarf/vest thing that's just plain ridiculous. Behind her is a screen that flashes various patterns and her name. The video will divide into several screens from time to time. Nikka has long, red, curly hair while the lights and her clothes are different types of blues and reds.

She starts singing about coming out of a wishing well because she found it too lonely. She's been leading some kind of resistance, but now she's going to sit back and let all the pieces fall into place. Hopefully I'm not making a mistake by taking the lyrics literally.

The refrain starts and it reinforces the idea of her passiveness. She's just going to let it, whatever it is, be set free like a feather and go from there.

Nikka has an interesting voice. It sounds unique even though I'm very ignorant about these kinds of things.

Second verse seems to reinforce the first verse, as she sings about giving up waiting for the sky to fall and she's putting her feet up. She's so calm that she's on stage shaking it.

When she finishes singing the refrain again, she actually starts straddling the microphone stand. Lucky microphone stand. The song ends with Costa singing about pulling back some metaphorical blinds.

Nice song. As for the video, although I'm not a fan of red heads or the first four letters of this woman's name, I do approve of women with noticeably wide hips. I give it a thumbs up.


One video to go!

Music Video #29

Did we have a Weezer video this month? Because today's video is done by them and is called Hash Pipe. It's 3 minutes short.


I see. Lita is punishing me for something, because she's given me a video with sumo wrestlers. That's a lot of cellulite I had to watch wobbling. And those diapers are always upsetting. I can't wait until they remake Street Fighter for the XBox 360 and they make E. Honda glossy and cellulitey.

Holy cow. I was too busy watching the video to hear the high-pitched lyrics, but watching a second time it seems to be about a hooker. The singer talks about how all the men want this person's behind, and he/she mentions the word business. (Since it's around Santa Monica, I can't rule out that it's not a guy.) Meanwhile the sumos do sumo stuff. Throw salt, cause earthquakes, look fat, etc. There's a rather unneeded zoom into a butt. The refrain has the singer asking to be kicked and being on a hash pipe. Being a hooker sucks. The sumos follow each other around like elephants.

The second verse starts, but it seems nonsensical. I'm not sure what knee-flavored stocking means. Anyway, the rest of the video finally has a couple wrestlers wrestle. But first, they sissy slap! And then a few sumos even pick up some guitars and contribute! I'd guest they have to if Weezer keeps playing in their sumo circle. The video ends, appropriately enough, with one sumo falling on the other.

I'm not a fan of the video. There, I said it. It certainly can't be the best video featuring sumos ever. The song is catchy, but it's dark, given how it's about a prostitute doing drugs.

And I think I remember which video Weezer did. The one with the milk cartons going to heaven. I remember the geeky singer's face.

This Week In Entertainment (7/30/07)

My Pick of the Week is Picross DS for the DS. I was a big fan of the original Mario Picross for the Game Boy but I never picked up a copy. This version allows you to download custom puzzle, too.

Out on DVD, it's the Popeye 1933-1937 collection. These are the black and white cartoons that (I think) start with the "Strike Up the Band" theme song. I still remember watching a few of these on Cartoon Network with Lita. I teased her by suggesting that Popeye was right when he sung about how fickle women can be. This would have been the Pick of the Week during most other weeks.

Back to video games, we have Mario Strikers: Charged for the Wii. I didn't get the GameCube version, so I might think about this one. I don't have time to try the online option, though.

Here I found an odd entry for a couple fifties game shows. I used to watch Game Show Network a lot and liked it back when they showed a ton of fifties game shows on Sunday night. The people were polite and classy even when they were doing goofy stuff.

NFL Greatest Follies 3: And on our next dvd, the signing of Vick's contract!

History Channel 2 (the non WW2 channel) presents: The secrets of Fort Knox. You see, one time this British agent and this big asian guy with a killer derby...

Music Video #28

Today's video marks the return of Gorillaz. Let's hope the imagary they use is less creepy then an anime girl/boy thing dancing with a severed head. It's called Clint Eastwood and it's four minutes long.

Ok, so the plus side is there is no severed head. Anyway, I assume we get the entire band in their anime forms onscreen as they start their song. The ugliest among them is naturally the singer, so we'll spend most of the video with him. He sings the refrain a few times, about how he's feeling glad and how he's going to not be uselesss in the future. I guess he's a slacker or something. At one poin the above photo happens, which made me consider bailing for a second. Suddenly the big drummer turns into a blue ghost and starts rapping.

Oh wait, the ghost comes out of the drummer's hat. The ghost boast and brags, because that's what rappers do. The ghost is out of the cage and...I'm not sure. I'm having problems following what the ghost is saying. He seems to be the type of rapper who add rhymes just because he could. At one poin he pounds the ground and starts an earthquake which head towards Gorillaz. It stops just at ugly's feet.

The refrain plays while we see a graveyard jump out of the ground. I like the animation of the thunderstorm and graveyard better than the animation for the band.

Zombie arms shoot out of the earth. One grabs one of the band member's crotches and pulls him to the ground. Ouchie. The second verse is sang while gorillas shoot out of the ground. Zombie gorillas, probably. The ghost talks about how rhythm is in everything. I think it's rhythm. The gorillas get together and dance, probably a reference to Thriller. Disturblingly, the gorillas have pink nipples. Some Gorillaz gets strucked by lightning. Meanwhile the ghost seems to have become a revolutionary or something and raps about seeing corruption everywhere. The ghost mentions someone named Russ, so I guess they're best buds. The ghost and Russ are going to hang out and rap and probably spit spree onto the sidewalk to make art.

Totally not paying attention, the ugly kid sings the refrain again. Some new kid in red skips along happily until he jumps at a gorilla and kicks him in the face. Soon all the zombillas are defeated. So is the ghost, who goes back into the hat of the drummer. One of the gorillas fades into blood and muscle, then bones, before disappearing, which is one last nightmarish image for the road.

It's daytime now. The video ends by giving the names of the band members. Russ turns out to be the drummer. Ah. I guess hiding in someone's hat is a kind of hanging out.

The song is ok, even if someone as dense as me can't figure it out. The video is better when there aren't any living things in it.

I'm not really sure why this song is called CLint Eastwood, unless it's a tribute to him for the Anywhich Way You Can/Every Which Way But Loose monkey movies.

Music Video #27

Today's video is about a band who has a good eye for blondes. Fatboy Slim presents "Weapon of Choice", which lasts for four minutes.

Hey, this video stars Christopher Walkin, best known for falling off the Golden Gate Bridge. He'll be our president in 2009. Here he's in a giant office building and dancing his butt off.

The video starts with Walkin sitting in a chair looking old and tired. Fourty seconds the music starts to play, and Walkin starts busting a move. Seriously, I'd vote for him right now. He would throw Ahmadinejad right into Jong-Il and they would both explode. On his first day of office. The singer talks about his new weapons of choice. I'm guessing this weapon is dancing. Maybe that's his plan for diplomacy. "Speak softly, and DANCE!"

There's a part where Walkin does a cartwheel. I was going to say it wasn't him, but of course it was. He's too awesome to hire a stunt person.

He starts dancing in front a mirrored hallway. WOW, it's like a bunch of Walkin clones dancing it up! Four more Walkins equals four more years!

Next up we see where Walkin stands on the issues. The song talks about how Walkin can go with this or that. Walkin makes a choice to go into an elevator and sticks to it. That's how great a leader he is.

Suddenly, just to prove how awesome he is, he jumps off a ledge and starts flying. Damn the 22nd Ammendment! Our country needs this guy! The lyrics seems to talk about drugs at this poin, or maybe I'm taking "organically grown" too seriously. Walkin finishes the one and only campaign commercial he needs to do by floating in front of large painting with several boats on it before flying towards the camera.

This post is not paid for by anybody. For real.

Music Video #26

Today's video features the return of White Stripes. The video is named "Seven Nation Army" and can be found here.

Whoa, that's not a bad video, but I felt like I was going to throw up if I watched for two long. The video's gimmick is that it starts with an upside-down V, and several images of White Stripes appear underneath each V. It's almost like they're trying to look up each other's clothing. Good thing they're both wearing pants, since they're no longer married. The video only uses reds, white, black, and a really washed out green. There are a couple other images with marching skeletons and a red elephant. That's the whole visual part of the video in a nutshell.

The song's refrain is entirely instrumental. Too lazy to write one, no doubt!

The song is catchy with a memorable background beat. I just can't figure out the lyrics. I'm staring at them right now and I'm drawing a blank.

Watching the video again, I just noticed that sometimes the White Stripes flash. Great, this video probably caused a few seisures.

Ok, this'll probably disappoin Lita, but I went to an unofficial website to figure out what the song is about. According to JAck White, it's a song about a guy showing up in a town who gets cranky about the gossip about him. Now the lyrics are making more sense, especially the second verse where he talks about how everybody has a story to tell. I just wish it was a little better explained for someone as thick-headed like myself.



Pictures later. Update: Pictures now.

Music Video #25

Today's video marks the return of Beck. It's called Girl and it includes closed captions (or so they claim!). It's three and a half minutes that can be viewed here.


The theme of the video is that Beck is traveling around some place with a large hispanic population where he finds a lot of Mad Magazine style fold ins. Even entire walls fold in. Meanwhile, Beck sings about a "sun-eyed girl" who he doesn't seem to care for.

The music video starts with a tune that could have been taken from a NES game. At least that's what it sounds like to me. When the song breaks out, the guy that Beck sits next to bugs his eyes out like he heard the background music kick in. Beck sings about a girl with a black tongue who walks crookedly and spits on the beach. So, did he just break up in real life or something? Our first fold in is of a flyer for a limosine that becomes a car. I wonder how long it took to come up with all these.

Beck goes to a pharmacy looking at several shelves full of bottles of pills. This suddenly folds into itself to reveal that the bottles are arranged to look like a skull. Now he won't be able to cure the girl's sun-eyed-ness! Later Beck orders some food and sits next to a wall with the Virgin Mary on it, only it folds on her, and suddenly we notice a toy truck on the ground that's now half yellow and half blue. Jeez, what did Mary ever do to you, Beck? Suddenly Beck is now driving in a similar colored truck. He drives around wherever he is, but there's not much to see other then a few trees and one building.

Next fold in is a drawing on the sidewalk. It turns into an outline at the crime scene. I guess they were planning another CSI spinoff. Beck comes to the scene. Why? Because it's Beck! Beck goes to eat with a family, but there's no fold-in so I'll move on.

Several quick fold-ins include a bum's sign, at ad at an auto repair place followed by the place itself folding. Beck is too busy rocking out with some guys to care. Beck folds a map that tells him he's lost. Beck then watches a woman dancing. Is she the girl he's singing about? I hope not, since he next starts singing at the party. Let her go! She's not worth it! I heard she spits at beaches. The music video ends with a fold-in with a smile that looks a bit like Alfred E. Neuman.

The song is real upbeat, but the lyrics seem to be really dark. Beck comes off as a stalker almost. The music video is fun.

Music Video #24

Today's video is November Rain, which is the lame sequel to Purple Rain. It is done by Guns and Roses. It is a really long 10 minutes. It can be found here.

Ok, so I apologize for not working on this yesterday, but real life got in my way.

The video focuses heavily on a wedding at a small church in the middle of a desert, but constantly returns the a Gun and Roses concert. The last third of the video goes from a wedding to a funeral. There is in fact rain, which is good. An orchestra adds to the band as they play the song.

A minute and a half in the lyrics start as the bride goes down the aisle. She's wearing a ridiculous dress that seems to exist only to show off her garter belt. Nice legs, but that seems inappropriate for a church and a wedding.
Maybe she was really, really worried about tripping over her dress on the big day. I'm tempted to capture of picture of it. The groom is Axl Rose, who is best known for being one of the bosses of Mega Man X5. There's a quick flashback too a smokey bar where our couple hang out, I guess to show their carefree days. Back at the wedding Slash is responsible for the rings but some other band member is wearing the one Slash is looking for. Should I question the appopriateness of Slash wearing a hat at church, or should I never question the hat?

Slash leaves early to rock out outside the church. Since the building is in the middle of nowhere, his recruitment strategy isn't going to work, but I have to give him credit for trying.

It just occured to me that there are two churches, because the next scene has the couple coming out of a different church. Cut to a party where the bride is wearing a tight outfit that still seems more appropriate then her wedding dress. People do stuff. Some dance. Some eat. Some have big hair.

Finally, IT RAINS! Didn't you guys hear the title? Clearly this song is about hubris. It's a really wild rain, because waiters start crashing into tables and some guy launches himself into the cake for no reason. Now I can see why this video is seen as a classic.

Suddenly, the song changes in tone. The lyrics were all about how nothing lasts forever, so I guess if they ended it happy it would contradict the song. (Also, these are real rockers, not those wuss pop music bands that make "soft" "rock" stuff that get played four times a day on wussy radio stations you can play at work because it's so inoffensive!) Anyway, we're now at the funeral for the bride. When did she die? Was she killed by the rain or something?

Slash rocks out at the concert. Guns And Roses follow the coffin as it's carried out of the church. It rains at the funeral. The music video ends with the bride tossing her bouquet. When it lands, it falls to the ground in the rain with nobody around it.

The song is about a relationship that has really had many ups and downs. The singer is willing to give his girlfriend some time alone if she comes back to him.

The song is very good. It took me a while to warm up to it, but that's probably because I was worried that it was going to take me forever to write about this video. The video is also well with all the scenes where Slash rocks out. Good stuff.

The Blonde from The Rockafeller Skank Video Fact of the Day (7/24/07)

The blonde and Nuveena walks into a bar. It explodes because one building can't hold that much awesomeness.

Of course, they're both unharmed.

Music Video #23

Today's video is called Knights of cydonia and it's made by a band called Muse. It's 6 minutes that can be found here at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV1bRfLHA3A


Wow, that video was crazy. In a good way, of course. It takes some cowboy cliches and mixes them with modern stuff, and even fantasy/sci fi stuff. And I didn't quite catch what a Knight of cydonia was. Maybe it's in the lyrics. This video had a good looking blonde, but she still doesn't match the blonde from Rockafeller Skank video. (Yes, I have a crush on her, so what?)

The video starts with a "Presents" which leads us to believe that we're about to watch a foreign film. We see short glimpses of the hero, villian, and a robot that has nothing to do with anything. Still, a robot, eh? PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT! Mustached cowboy hero imagines himself in a stockade at the middle of a generic old western town. Then he sits up, because he's too cool to wake up first, then sit up. He practices martial arts, because he's too awesome to simply shoot stuff.

He practices several martial art styles that I recognize from the later Mortal Kombat games. Except for the 'flaming energy ball.' What is he, a monkey anime thingie? Cowboy takes off on his horse, and from some angles I'm seeing Bruce Campbell. Just saying.

Cowboy rides around. We see the blonde and the villian again. Muse makes an appearance. Then the cowboy pulls out his gun and shoots at a shrub. Only, the gun shoots a laser. No wonder why he has to learn martial arts. Anyone who has seen a scifi movie with a million laser guns know that they never can hit anybody. Still, that shrub will never ^$#@@$ with him now, am I right?

YOU MANIACS! YOU'RE MAKING A REFERENCE TO PLANET OF THE APES!

Cydonia turns out to be generic old west town. Cowboy beats up some random bad guy, using the Matrix 'come here' fighting style. He celebrates by going to a saloon. However, this is a futuristic bar. The important thing is that the song finally starts two minutes in. Holograms of Muse play in the background. If hologram technology ever takes off for the masses, let's hope it's better then static-y blue stuff.

The song is about the singer inviting you to go on a trip with him through history. Meanwhile the video has the cowboy playing poker with the blonde. He's purposely losing, which shows that he doesn't get the rules to strip poker. Singer continues to sing about how God and government are useless to him, and he offers the listener a chance to fight for survival and stuff. The song repeats itself after that.

Next up the cowboy proves how impressive he is. The blonde is not happy with him, and when he goes up to grab her arm, she turns to slap him three times. The first two times it happens the setting changes while he takes it, but he stops the third one and they begin to make out. I'll have to remember the three slap rule. While the half-naked couple make out, their are clips of him also fighting at the bar. That's how awesome he is.

Villian rides up in a car. This causes some locals to pray, which I guess is funny, or something. Cowboy looks at the hologram machine of Muse, and takes away a cd for some reason. Villian shows up and reveals that he's holding blonde hostage. Cowboy and villain gets into a Three Stooges fight that cowboy loses. You should have brought a pie, you fool! Or do the 'around the world' bop!

Cowboy is in a stockade, and some creepy locals throw some rotten stuff at him. The stuff looks really gross. Suddenly cowboy is in the desert, dying. He looks forward and sees a woman riding a unicorn. That would be a nice way to go, but it turns out to be real, I think. Cowboy gets to hang out with unicorn woman, an asian martial artist, and the robot from earlier.

Villian drags blonde to be executed by noose. Villian seems to be the type of guy who hisses a lot. Villian licks the blonde because he's creepy and it's the old west. Blonde tells the gathered crowd to %@$#@ off, or something. At the last moment, a laser is shot by someone while she falls through onto the motorcycle of the cowboy. Cowboy is wearing a Lone Ranger mask while blonde is shooting people with laser guns. I'm not making any of this video up.

Villian and hero have a standard showdown. Villian misses a dozen times (told ya!) and he's defeated by...the cowboy's badge. Cowboy Badges!, coming this fall...spring to CBS...CW!

Remember when I watched the Michael Jackson video and noted that the awesome part was also ridiculous, and that's what made it awesome? This whole video is like that!

This Week In Entertainment (7/23/07)

Today's Pick of the Week is a movie featuring one of the iconic monsters created by Hollywood. The Gillman went on to be tortured by Jon Agar with a globe on a stick. Poor guy. He deserved better.

Also out on DVD is the Woody Woodpecker collection. If these cartoons are what I think they are, they are cartoons that I used to watch as a kid. The way they were presented in syndication was annoying, because they would cut-up cartoons and show a few clips before a commercial. Those cut-up cartoons always looked more interesting than the cartoons they would show in full.

You know what I find funny about the Ultimate Underdog Collection Vol 1, 2, and 3? The upcoming movie looks to be nothing like the series, so why bother trying to cash in on it?

You know how Star Trek season dvds are really expensive and the studios released a few dvd collections that were cheaper so you can own a few "best of" episodes? Now you can own all those mini-collections!

Not to be cruel, but wouldn't the top ten Bela Lugosi movies be depressing? It's a good thing that they can just be labeled as ten horror films.

I used to watch reruns of Benson (Season 1) on some UHF channel, but now all I can remember is that there was some sort of race for governor or mayor.

Elmo is going to teach you how to laugh and look at the camera and not really do much else!

Now they have cliff notes for movies?

Here's some classic monster movies.



In theaters this week is The Simpsons Movie. I guess.

Music Video #22

Today's video is also about Matthew Good Band. It's called Rico and it was so special that Lita had to email me the video. So no link today. Go find it yourself. It's four minutes long if you're curious.

At first I was wondering if I had gotten the same video as yesterday by mistake. The video starts with the janitor guy from the last video, and suddenly Apparitions plays in the background. But that's just a joke, as it's just playing on the radio of the red car that just pulled up. It's turned off as janitor guy gets out of his car. I've had a matchbox that looked like that car. Just saying.

Janitor guy who is actually Matt Good walks by a line waiting to go inside a building to some party. He's allowed in, which annoys the brunette from yesterday's video. I think it's the same brunette. I'll just pretend they're the same and move on. The song is faster and more upbeat than Apparitions. Brunette looks OUTRAGED!

Song starts. Rico was a shorty who wanted a woman with long hair. Rico wants a boring life with his honey. However, his woman will probably run away from him. With a parrot. Poor dope. The singer is his own man, though. Take it or leave it.

The rest of the video is about Matt walking around the party which is shot in a blue color with a camera that can be pushed from left to right whenever someone new enters. For example, the annoyed brunette helpfully lip syncs the refrain. There are all kinds of attractive women sitting in booths, some with some guys. A trio of blondes took notice of Matt Good. When brunette is walking around, many loanly guys stare at her with their mouths wide open. Because they're guys, you know.

Suddenly the brunette is waving wads of dollars around. And there's a lot more booths around the place, like this was more of a nightclub. Some gothy looking brunette enters. She sits down at a table and quickly gets to drinking. But that doesn't matter suddenly we cut to everyone crowding behind the brunette, laughing it up. That is until someone off camera pushes her. She becomes OUTRAGED again and punched the off camera person. It's Matt Good! More like Matt Jerk! Suddenly everyone is fighting! This is awesome! All we need are a few pies. Some blonde walks up to a bald guy to splash alcohol in his face. Brunette is now bragging about her wads of cash while everyone else is fighting around her. Depressed gothish babe throws a couple guys out. The video ends the same way it started, only with brunette and Matt Good switched.

You know, brunette is a bit too skinny.

The awesome thing about this video, besides the random poinless violence, is the mention of the vespa. Lita should like them because she thinks mopeds are cute. (Motor scooter, motor bike? Same thing!)

Good song. I like it more then Apparitions.

Music Video #21

Today's video is Canadian. And it has a pretty woman. And that's all I need to know. It's called Apparition and it was made by the Matthew Good Band. It's 6 minutes of whatever they have in Canada. Mounties playing hockey, I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t7X1ZoYq3k

So, it's office stuff, huh? And I have to watch this on a weekend!

There's some janitor guy who goes around and does stuff. An elevator plays a prominent part in the whole thing. Some brunette shows up and a sex movie seems to break out towards the end. The old guy dies and the brunette seems to be really upset about something.

We start with a security camera looking at a vacant room. Then we look at a few more rooms while a phone rings. THRILLING START to your video, guys. The music starts as we see various bit players. There's janitor guy. There's security guy. There's blonde office worker. There's old guy in security room. We see an email that says that the head of security was fired.

The song is confusing but the singer seems to be addressing a person with a rat in their brain. The person is in a bad situation where they're stuck. I guess they're like a ghost, or something. I had to look up apparitions. It certainly not an upbeat song.

Janitor guy fools around in the elevator while security guy watches. They have a fake draw which janitor wins. Meanwhile the brunette enters through a revolving door. The blonde plays freecell. Man, this video is taking its sweet time.

Now we're at some party in the building. But who cares? What matters is that the brunette walks into the room of old man, who maybe is the big boss of the place. The brunette isn't wearing that many clothes. Cut to someone opening champagne. Get it? There's a bunch of stuff happening in a bathroom that I don't think means anything. Brunette climbs onto old guy and they kiss a bit. Old guy drinks, followed by a zoom on the cup. Something is up with the cup. Or not, because there's a sudden shot of a gun.

Janitor has fun in the hallway pushing his stuff around. Brunette rushes out of some room and knocks over the janitor. Blonde overhears this and looks. Brunette rushes into the elevator. She's upset, or humilated, or something. Security guard looks into a monitor and sees that old guy is dead, although I have no clue how. Brunette sinks to the floor before we fade to the champagne bottle with foam shooting out of it. Hmmmm... It's applied that she's soon to be arrested. The video ends with janitor pretending to shoot himself.

The song is one of the many songs that I find ok but I'm sure I would enjoy it more if I wasn't so clueless with lyrics. The video also confuses me. It'd probably make more sense if I could understand the song.

Music Video #20

Today's video is a return to Cake. Here they sing about Jolene. Get ready of four and a half minutes of second helpings. It can be found here at the url I'm about to post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W92VXNHUf4

Huh. I'm not sure how well I'll do describing the video. It seems rather random, until the end where Cake plays at a concert. The only theme I got was some random office related stuff, like an obvious secretary sitting on a desk taking notes. All throught the song someone is playing a guitar.

The lyrics are about Jolene. After listening a couple times and looking at the lyrics, I'm wondering if Cake should have added another verse. Here's what we learn about Jolene:

1) She's unlocked some door a hundred times.
2) The singer wants her in bed.
3) She smells like a cream rinse and tobacco.
4) Always.
5) Her father's snores convinced her she could do something more.
6) She heard some singing and went to the forest in the night.

The singer is singing about a woman who smells but he doesn't care because he really wants her. She has a boring life but she just had a revelation and she's now going to wander off alone. Darwinism will probably follow. I made up the last sentence.

So the video itself mixes images of office scenes, guitar playing, and one of the member's of Cake playing that guitar while singing. There's other stuff, but I don't think I can describe it chronologically. And the video doesn't seem to show any woman who we can assume is Jolene.

The song is ok, but not as memorable as Sheep Go To Heaven. The video confuses me, but maybe I'm just expecting something when I shouldn't.

Music Videos #19

Today's video marks the return of Fatboy Slim. Lita's totally running out of ideas! The music video is the director's cut of Bird of Prey which was briefly on The WB. It's six minutes and can be found here at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT3bu5lAlJk


Hey look, the infamous Daisy commercial! P. Diddy totally stole from LBJ.

Anyway, the video is about a pilot who watches that commercial, then gets into a plane and flies around. Eventually he parachutes and lands on the ground. This is all going on in his head. He ends up back at the tv watching Suzy pick a flower apart.

This video reminds me of the Funk Soul Brothers song in that there are very few lyrics. Mostly Fatty sings about the bird of prey flying high in the summer sky.

After the pilot watches the commercial, he drinks a cup of water next to him. Several edits imply that this is some kind of secret government test. It's used to explain the end of this video. We cut back to the cup several times.

He imagines himself in a hanger and OH NO! That plane is going to impale him! Or, the camera is just zooming in on it. The music starts a minute and a half in. He takes off and flies into the sky. Sadly, whenever I see these kind of planes flying, the first thing I think about is Hot Shots.

Eventually his eye turns red and he starts blowing up houses. Or, he's unblowing up targets. He seems to be going forward while the explosions are going backwards in time. And then missiles go backwards and end up where they were launched. This is mixed with some images of the flag and goverment documents. Are you paranoid yet?

He flies the plane before the sun before he ejects. That plane cost a ton of taxpayer money, ya jerk! He falls towards the ground, and even though I hate heights, skydiving does look like fun. Anyway, (SPOILER ALERT!) it turns out that that was all a fantasy. Some military guys take him away.

The video seems to be about a guy who fantasizes about being allowed to do greater things. Unfortunately for him, he can only fantasize about it. Plus he's bald.

The song is more serious then The Funk Soul Brothers song. The clouds look great, but I never cared for them. These things I listed doesn't make the video bad, but there's one thing that this video lacks that clearly cripples it.

Where's the cute blonde?

Rifftrax Review: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

So I finally got around to buying a riffrax yesterday. In fact, I got two. The other one is Attack of The Clones, but I haven't listened to that yet. Today I'm going to talk about the one I did listen to.

I wanted to listen to this one first because I could still remember a podcast made around the time MST3k was going off the air and Episode 1 was in theaters. Two guys were interviewing Mike Nelson and they asked him about this movie. Mike's reply was that he had never seen a Star Wars movie before. While he and Kevin Murphy went to opening day for The Phantom Menace to push the cosplay* people over, he fell asleep during the movie.

I personally find this movie superior to the next one, but that doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to people who think this is the worst Star Wars movie. I think I was just willing to ignore the crappiness of this movie if the next two movies turned things around, and Episode 2 let me down. It let me so down that I can't get angry at Jar Jar because he's just a scapegoat for the second trilogy's crappiness.

Anyway, I still don't have an mp3 player, so I decided to play the movie on the computer in my room while listening to the mp3 on my Wii in the Photo Channel. The problem with this method is that it didn't let me fast forward or even pause the rifftrax. So it took me about six tries to get the rifftrax to sync. Annoyingly, I had it working fine at the second try, but then the movie slowed down on my computer and threw the timing off. Very annoying.

Appropriately enough, Kevin Murphy joins Mike for this commentary. Kevin just seems to be the big fan of the original trilogy type. Rifftrax seem to start with a brief intro which is the closest thing we'll get to host segments. Kevin and Mike introduce themselves, make light jokes, and talk to DisembAudio, the Rifftrax mascot. As explained at the site, this toaster thing will speak lines every once in a while so you can tell if you're still synced. I think he also riffs when Mike goes solo.

The pacing is a bit more relaxed then on MST3k. It's still rapid fire, but there are more pauses. Since Kevin is one of the riffers, the s-word makes a few appearance, although I think it was only during the 'What are midi-clorians?' scene, so I don't think anyone will complain. The riffers acknowledge that they have seen the movie before, and have a couple small conversations, which doesn't happen on MST3k.

My favorite riffs would have to be any of the riffs when the Chinese frog things were around. The ethnic stereotypes in the movie didn't really bother me but the riffing on them are hilarious. Early in the movie when the bad guys threaten to attack Naboo, one of the guys use a fake accent and say something like, "Now to invade Okinawa!"

Speaking of Naboo, one of the reoccuring gags is about how stupid that name is, as well as Padme Amidala. Many times the riffers ask whether Lucas is actually four years old, because who else would have written this movie. Another reoccuring riff that's more weird then anything is Kevin's love of some South Dakota city.** When finally asked why he keeps namedropping it, Kevin replies that he rather be there then watch this movie.

While I was watching this rifftrax, I noticed how dull this movie was. It's not like I didn't check my watch during the podrace the first time I saw this movie in theaters, but I was laughing real hard when the guys were like, "You know what I would put in my action movie? A scene where all my characters stop and talk about trade negotiations!" With the sound of the movie turned down, you notice how static most of the movie is. It's like the whole movie is a bunch of special effects leading up to a cool but someone poinless lightsabre fight.

A couple more riffs I enjoyed: The droopy-voiced podracer. Mike's outburst about the movie ten minutes in. Who Boss Nass was modeled after. The lack of excitement during the cool Darth Maul fight. Jokes lamenting the death of peripheral characters. All the Yoda jokes. ("Biggest crap I heard load of That is!" or something like that after the fear leads to the dark side speech.)

Anyway, can't wait to listen to Episode 2!






* - Cosplay convention? More like, a body of butterfaces! Am I right?

** - This kept distracting me since as a MSTie, whenever I hear Mitchell I want to break out into a chorus of 'wakka-chicka' like the guys did during that episode.

Music Videos #18

Are we really at eighteen already? Today's video is done by the Beastie Boys and is called "Body Movin.'" It's five minutes of beastiness. It can be found here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6z0IC2FBHs



wow! This video centers around the Diabolik movie. It mixes scenes from the movie with the Beastie Boys playing Diabolik and a couple of henchmen. During the first minute of the video "body movin'" is repeated a few dozen times. According to the copyright, this video was made a year before MST3k made it's final episode. Odd because Diabolik is well known in Europe (somewhere. It's all one big continent.) but not in the US.

The beginning of the video has Spider-Diabolik (slooooowly) climbing up the tower of the castle that hid some jewels. Two of the Beastie Boys play the old man, who replaces the old woman with the jewels, and a security guard dressed like an English fop. Diabolik walks up to a safe in a room that's much brighter then the one in the movie. The wall is blindingly yellow. Diabolik blows up the safe with some wire and explosive putty. This wakes up the other two Beastie Boys and a fight breaks out. We're a minute in and we still only have two words making up the whole lyrics.

Suppose to be old guy poins a sword at Diabolik, who grabs a sword when the lights go on. Finally, we get new lyrics. Although not much. After some sword play, fop distracts the other guy who gets his head cut off with cheesy blood effects.

Diabolik runs up some steps. Both guys follow. It's amazing what bandages can do. Beastie Boys continue to sing in that way where they emphasize all their rhymes. Diabolik escapes by catapult, and we immediately cut to him driving the car. The Beastie Boy who plays him looks nothing like John Phillip Law. Just saying. The other two guys follow by helicopter. Diabolik drives off a cliff after getting shot at. For some reason we now cut to the plane scene from Diabolik.

BB Diabolik has his hands bound. The boss of the plane looks even less like #2 from Thunderball then the BB Diabolik looks like the 'real' Diabolik. Anyway, the boss stupidly opens the trap door like in the movie and Diabolik escapes with a parachute and the fop. The boss dies in the plane explosion when a bird flies through the trap door and hits him. I didn't make that up.

By the way, I think the McGuffin of this video is some photo.

Fop and Diabolik wrestles. Diabolik wins but fop survives the fall. Diabolik drives into his cool but ridiculous lair. It turns out that the photo is some kind of recipe.

I'm cheating by looking at the lyrics, but there doesn't seem to be any meaning to the song. It just seems to be about dancing. "Yeah, dance! Your body is movin'. Whoo!" If there's any deeper meaning then that, I don't see it.

Anyway, it's cool that they saw how silly the movie was before MST3k got it's hands on it.

Avoiding Spoilers

The much anticipated and ultimately disappoining (this hasn't been confirmed yet) last novel in the Harry Potter series is coming out this weekend. Fans have been pouring over every detail looking for clues about what's going to happen. I can't wait to find out who the heck R.A.B. is. I also bet you Hagrid dies.

The only thing that we can all count on is this: there's going to be spoilers everywhere on Friday, if not sooner. I try to avoid spoilers as much as possible when it comes to something I really anticipate, so let's look at some ways to avoid spoilers.



1) Stay the hell away from television news. Now, up till Friday the news won't give away any big spoilers. Still, it will talk about the book and probably hint at some rumors mentioned by some big fans who got early copies. It won't be until next week, or maybe even this weekend when news reports will start talking about major spoilers. They'll try to diguise them as fans' shock or disgust. "Harry Potter fans were disgusted at the revelation that Harry shot Abe Lincoln." "Kids were upset to find out that Hagrid was arrested for arranging dog fights." So avoid the news.

2) Avoid tv in general. For the big networks, the news is advertised all day, so you can't watch them or you'll run into annoying teasers. I also recommend staying away from sports channels because sportscasters are so trendy that the Harry Potter jokes will be numerous, especially as early rumors surface.

The old movies channel might be a safe bet for now. Unless they mix old movies with trendiness.

3) Avoid the friggen hell out of forums. Not any specific forums. Just any forums. Spoiler jerks are going to post "_______ KILLS ______!!!!!!!" in the topic header everywhere they can, so forums are your worst enemies. Even if you think you can cherry pick your forums and get to a topic that has nothing to do with Potter, you still have to worry about signatures and avatars. Those can sneak up on you.

4) Avoid websites which display the latest headlines in news. Just yesterday I was going to my favorite website for news and politics and one of the headlines mentioned the possible tone in Deathly Hallows. Now, the headline was probably speculation and the website is a partisan one, but I really want to go into the last novel without anything influencing my anticipation. I don't want to become defensive and start lowering my expectations.

5) Avoid jokey websites. I would definitely stay away from sites like ytmnd.com, which quickly had the big spoiler for the last Harry Potter book. Also avoid encyclopedia websites. Wiki spoiled Half-Blood Prince for me.

6) Avoid loud-mouth friends. Not a problem for a loner like me, but I have one solution for this. Guns. Lots of them. Hopefully you live in an area where you can get a permit to carry a lot of guns. Like, in your arms. All at once. And make sure to tell your friends ahead of time that you don't want to hear any spoilers at all or you'll shoot someone. They have to believe you'll really shoot them for this to work.

7) Avoid overhearing conversations. One time I was on a bus going home, and two guys started talking about a movie. I eventually figured out that they were talking about the big spoiler to Sixth Sense. I recommend sticking cotton in your ear when you go to the mall or book store to buy the book, since you never know when you'll run into a spoiler jerk.

8) Avoid kids. They can't read, but they sure can gossip.



I'll end it here. I think my poin is obvious. Just buy a book quickly and lock yourself in a sound proof room until you're done. I prefer to wait for the paperback, but this weekend I'll pick up a copy and read it as fast as I can.

And now, I'll avoid reading comments to this post.

Music Video #17

Today's video marks the return of David Bowie. Here he teams up with a Queen. They are both "Under Pressure" to make a four minute long video.

It can be found here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdaHCLlBkWU .


Wait, was that the music they use in Ice, Ice, Baby? Yikes. Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer stole their beats from other sources!

Anyway, the video is a sum of many parts. Some parts seem to show work related stuff, which I guess lead to the social change footage. This is mixed with footage from old horror movies. I recognized the Screaming Skull at one poin. Also there's a brief montage of collapsing buildings.

Anyway the song starts with people shuffling around after work. This is mixed with a woman screaming, which I find comical. I think it's suppose to show how rough work is and how it makes you want to scream, but I think it was overdone. As the video goes on, we go from modern workers leaving work to turn of the century people barely making it. However, the song doesn't seem to be about how better off we are now. It seems to be about people who are stressed out by their jobs and are about to snap. Cue montage of buildings of collapsing. Right now I can't help but think of some dumb conspiracy theories, but I'll avoid making jokes about them.

But wait, here's David Bowie telling us that it's ok. Thank goodness! I'll go now. Except the video isn't over. Anyway, today sucks, blow some steam, tomorrow might be better.

I guess when I said turn of the century, I meant great depression. Oh well. Everyone knows that life on earth sucked for all of history up to the invention of the video game. It still sucks, but now we have a wonderous invention that distracts us from the suckiness. Ahem.

Go cops! You beat up those hippies!

In the montage of old horror films, I also see The Beast of Yucca Flats attacking a woman. There's also the most ridiculous looking spider monster ever. I think it has a bat face.

I think this is the first song with Queen I've heard that doesn't involve immortals or sports.

I like the montage of horror movies. It doesn't have to do with anything, but it's the best part of the video. I say more old films and less hippies!

Harry Potter Spoilers!

You heard them here first!

MAJOR SPOILERS ALERT!

Lucius Malfoy kills Draco Malfoy
Lee Jordon kills Neville Longbottom
Zombie Serius Black rekills Zombie Dumbledore
Severus Snape commits suicide somehow
Ron Weasley kills The Dursleys
There's a flashback of when Bellatrix Lestrange kills Serius Black
Angelina Johnson kills Hermione Granger
Minerva McGonagall kills Peter Pettigrew
The zombie Dursleys kill Molly Weasley
Minerva McGonagall kills Angelina Johnson
Remus Lupin kills Bill Weasley
Ginevra Molly Weasley kills Charlie Weasley
Luna Lovegood kills zombie Molly Weasley
Minerva McGonagall kills zombie Charlie Weasley
Angelina Johnson unkills Moaning Myrtle
Zombie Snape kills Rita Skeeter

That's just the first half of the book!


These spoilers were all made up by a random number generator and a list of characters.

Music Video #16

Today's video is done by the White Stripes, which is either a type a gum or a song featured in a movie about a janitor strangling teenagers. The song is called "Fell In Love With A Girl" which is something a person can do.

It's a lean 2 minutes long and can be found here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWHyNnsjsJQ

Neat. The music video is gimmicky in the same way the 3d pin art one was and the keleidoscope of inkblot tests by Gnarls Barkley. I guess I'm a sucker for neat visual gimmicks. Everything is done by legos. Sometimes the White Stripes are shown in real time in lego form, other times little stick figures are beating on drums. The stick figures remind me of Videlectrix graphics.

The video starts with a little kid building stuff while the camera is undercranked. We eventually see a countdown, which leads to some transparent, glowing blocks that look like a part of some music equipment. Then we see stick figure girl play the drums as the song starts. We go back between her and a non stick figure of the guitar player. Some stick figures walk in the background. The lyrics are sung really fast, as if White Stripes were in a hurry the day they recorded this song.

Suddenly lego people jump into a blue background. Then stick figure White Stripes run back and forth. Then they ride bikes! The non-stick figure guitar guy reminds me of Kiss if only because he has white lego skin and black hair. Suddenly theirs cars driving in the background. They don't animate well, but if you stop the video you can catch a couple good instances of them. A bus drives by, and then we see pedestrian signal lit up. Then there's some really weird stick figures followed by a crosswalk sign.

I'm skipping a bit, but there's a scary scene where we see a non-stick figure version of the drummer. Yikes.

I had to listen to the lyrics a few times, but it seems to be about a guy who falls in love with a girl who sees him as a brief fling. She already has a boyfriend, and she's ok with cheating a little. The guy, being a guy, can't get his mind off her.

I love the use of legos. I should have written about legos before. Too bad the video is short, but I can understand why given how long it would have taken.

This Week In Entertainment (7/16/07)

I'm going to hold off the Pick of the Week for now.

Update: Duh. How could I forget? My Pick of the Week is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm going to buy a copy as soon as possible so I can attempt to avoid the spoilers that will be everywhere in a matter of days. Let's hope J.K. doesn't stoop to an ending where Harry and Voldemort talk out their problems.





On DVD, we have Space Ghost and Dino Boy. I remember watching Space Ghost (probably on Cartoon Express) but I don't remember Dino Boy. It's nice to see his humble, pre-talk show origins.

The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog was the "comedic" Sonic series that ran along side the more serious Saturday morning series.

"Honey, I'm pregnant." "Aww, shoot. We better pick up a video that'll teach us how to be good parents."

Pardon my anti-soccer bias, but is there really a such thing as a list of greatest goals?

Dude, it's just stretching.

There were a number of DVDs listed as "Totally Awesome 80s double features, but I'll just list this one because I've seen it and it stars Jim Carrey. I had to laugh that another set had Last American Virgin. From what I heard, it isn't exactly totally awesome.

In theaters this week is Hairspray. From the clues I've pieced together, it's about John Travolta doing his version of Weird Al's Fat video.

Don't!

Good idea, Adam Sandler! The gay humor well worked for Cuban Gooding Jr., right? I predict the last fourth of the movie will be a cya message.

Update:

I would have made this my pick of the week if it wasn't for a certain book. Paper Mario is coming out for the Wii Virtual Console. The Paper Mario series isn't as great as Mario RPG, but they're still fun. I haven't played this one in a while.

Music Video #15

Tonight's video is about Johnny Cash, who is best known for the episode of Columbo where he was the murderer. It's called Hurt and can be found here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO9dbmJ_2zU . It's four minutes long.


Man, if I had the ability to cry, I would. So I'll just be a little depressed.

The video is about a very old Cash singing about how little he has now that he's old. Oh sure, he has stuff, but since he's old it doesn't mean much.

His voice sounds different, softer. It certainly doesn't sound like the same guy who sang Ring of Fire or tried to throw Columbo off the trail.

Hey, wait a minute! I just started listening again, and the first thing out of his mouth is some emo "I hurt to see if I feel" crap. Seeing how this song was written by the NIN guy, they could have changed those dumb lyrics. And who uses a needle to hurt themselves? I think Trent was trying to do two things at once and got confused.

The rest of the song is ok, except for the crown of thorns line. Was it really necessary to add the Christ imagary to the video?

The video has Cash singing the song sitting in a room full of food, gold statues, and a broken record here and there. There's many flashbacks to his career, and even to home videos of him and his wife. I'm sure if this video hadn't been made, these very same clips would have been used in a much more upbeat tribute after his death.

The part where Cash pours the wine out over the table is the saddest part.

Lita, how dare you try to make me feel emotion!

Music Video #14, for real

Ok, so I didn't mention it earlier but this video has Black Jack. Now I'm sure my friends are fans but I can't take him seriously. I saw a commercial about some global warming "awareness" special for some crappy cable network and it just rubbed me the wrong way. Plus, the only movie I've seen him in is Cable Guy, which doesn't help.

The video is about some fat guy and Jack Black going into a booth to record a tribute to the greatest song ever, which they sung to beat the devil. The song is easy to follow. The devil is the goatman variety. Tenacious D and Jack Black rock out and defeat Satan, even when Satan fights back with his guitar. Back at the booth, the guys burst out and attack some people walking by. Some old lady is the devil, for no reason.

The song reminds me of The Devil Went Down To Georgia as it starts. It's probably intentional.

According to Black, the devil has an annoying voice. Doesn't that make it hard for him to trick people with his lies?

Anyway, good song, even if it's not the greatest. The video could have used less Jack Black.

By the way, I'll admit that I was expecting someone not fat and not white when I saw the words Tenacious D. I guess I've learned a big lesson today. Never judge a person by the color of their name. Or something.


(Side note: I have a horrible memory, but I think I remember Lita mentioning that one of their songs almost made her die the first time she heard it because it was so filthy. Do I have the right band?)

Music Video #14...?

Today's music video is about some sorta orange drink. It's by Tenacious D and it's called Tribute. It's a five minute video filled with Vitamin C.

IT can be found here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R70V1Yz-dZ4 .


Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it now. I'll do it late tonight, maybe just before the midnight deadline! (Not that there's a deadline, but it's more fun if we pretend there's one. Here's a couple pics I took.

Music Video #13

I have a confession. I peaked at today's music video before I started righting this. And it's a song I've actually heard before, although I could have swore it was released earlier then the date wiki lists. It is Crazy by the Round Mound of Rebound, Gnarls Barkley. It is a slim three minutes and can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w

I'm trying to figure out where I heard the song before. Is there a commercial that features this song? Anyway, the whole music video is like a kaleidoscope of Rorschach inkblot tests. Right now I'm wondering if Lita chose this song so she could analyze whatever I say. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Gnarl basically sings about going crazy. The first verse is about him losing his mind. The second verse he's telling the listener that they are crazier then they believe. Third verse he talks about his heroes, who sound like war heroes but it's not really clear. He wants to be like his heroes. Sorry if that's not a huge explanation, but I'm starting at the lyrics right now and I'm not sure what he means in the first verse. He just seems to be describing what it was like for him to lose his mind. If there's anything more I'm missing it.

Anyway, the visuals are a simple, neat idea. Gnarls appears in the inkblots, similar to the video I watched earlier this month with the 3d pin art. We get the usual inkblots, like one that look like butterflies and some devil imagary (and I'm not including the part where Gnarls becomes a devil.) I could have sworn I saw Osama at one poin, but maybe I'm weird. One looks like a kingdom with it's drawbridge down and a rainbow over it.

HEY! He just poined to his head and made a circling gesture, then poined to me! Jerk.

The awesome part of this video is when the inkblots burst into other creatures, except the spiders. This is a good song, good video, and one of the best music videos I've done this month.






But before I kill you Mr. Bond, I want you to tell me what you think when I show you this picture.

Music Video #12

Today I'm watching a video by Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson was once so huge that when I was a kid, even I knew about him. Some old guys were playing Bad on WMAL back when it was a local station. This video is Smooth Criminal, which I don't think I've heard of. It's nine and a half minutes long?! It can be found here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mfQn3pYwKM

I feel ashamed right now. I can't remember this song at all, but I recognize this video for having a lot of the iconic Michael Jackson stuff. I never played the Sega Moonwalker game but I know it takes a lot from this video, down to tossing quarters into juke boxes and the way Michael is dressed. The video includes Michael spinning around and poining a dozen times, and then pulling out a tommy gun when he gets bored and wants the video to end.

Do I even have to say much? Let's just freeze the guy in the eighties.

Anyway, white suit and hat Michael Jackson enters a club with a lot of 1930s gangsters. Some kids watch him enter, which only lead to some uncomfortable feelings giving what we know about the guy from the mid-nineties on. For some reason the music is cutesy and Michael is blasted with air when he opens the door. It's a bit Steven Spielberg-esque. Finally he enters and the music goes blank as Michael stares at the crowd before scaring them slightly with an MJ move. He tosses a coin into the juke box. The only way it would be cooler if he took out a gun that shot coins.

I just listened to it again. I had a hard time making out the lyrics the first time since he was singing really fast and Michael's voice is a bit rough the entire time. Anyway, Annie gets attacked. Is she ok? Is she ok? She was attacked by a smooth criminal. That's the whole song. I guess it explains why everyone is dressed like gangsters.

If you had a blue filter, could you do anything with it besides having a music video or fighting a climatic sword fight?

Haw, that one guy got shot in the middle of a flip.

Ok, what's funnier? Michael Jackson flirting with the women or Michael Jackson beating up that one guy with one punch?

I can't really say much about Michael's dancing because I could never do them justice. Seriously, let's freeze this guy in time.

Anyway, about the five and a half minute mark, the song stops and a window breaks. It gets even bluer then before. People start screaming in unintentionally funny ways, and they start yelling the refrain. Yes, I think that questions been asked already. Then back to the song and more dancing. Again, I can't do the dancing justice. He does the moonwalk, naturally, and leans forward until he's 45 degrees from the ground. Yep, he's an alien all right.

Then back to the kids watching. Blah. One kid does a good impersonation of MJ's moves but let's move on, shall we?

After more dancing, the kids get kidnapped by some offscreen menace. So naturally, MJ's reaction is to pull a tommy gun outta nowhere and shoot at the ceiling. See, he was crazy back then. We just didn't realize it yet. (Psst, the kids were kidnapped outside. Or are you shooting inside because you don't want to hit them?)

I apologize to Lita if she expected a longer post, but my ignorance of dancing and music videos in general would lead me to butcher the description of MJ's dancing, so it's better this way. The song isn't as good as Bad, Beat It, or Billie Jean, but it's ok. The dancing is great.

The awesome part is when he breaks the pool ball in his hand and blows the dust in the pool player's face, and by awesome I mean it's sooooo absurd, it's awesome.

Clarification

I've noticed some comments from other places where people don't seem to get me. So let me clear things up.


If you don't get me, tough.


Nobody does! I'm the wind, baby!

Music Video #11

Do electric sheep dream of an electric heaven? I have no idea what I'm talking about. Here's "Sheep Go To Heaven" by Cake and it's a good four minutes long. It can be found here, yo.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1WdRfI9yZs

Ah, South Park animation. I guess we're going to have ourselves a time. Anyway the video is about the characters going to some party and some go to heaven and some go to hell. I've already forgotten the lyrics.

Oh, and Cake is dressed up as Kiss, for some reason. Although they call themselves Kickz. Take that, copyright!

Anyway, after a second go through, it starts off with some kid thinking of an idea for a card. I can relate, because I always took forever to think up creative crap. The kid starts writing the lyrics on the card, which is helpful for a dope like me. Anyway, the kid apparently is feeling down today.

The refrain starts and the singer talks about a gravedigger, a stonemason, a barber, and a carpenter. We never find out what happens when they all go into a bar. Rip off! I'm sure the carpenter is a reference to Jesus, although I'm not sure why other then the references to sheep going to heaven.

The singer, who apparently speaks for the kid, just wants to play some panpipes (demon!) and drink some wine. The video has a full party break out in some bar where Kickz plays. There's cheerleaders and nurses but no lingerie models. There's goth babes, and I hope those are part of the goats that go to hell. The guys include football players, romans in togas, centurions, and vikings. Everybody rocks out except for the kid who's a bartender.

The second verse repeatedly talks about how the singer doesn't want to go to Sunset Strip because it's all cold and empty. Either the band is talking about the suckiness of the place or they're making some commentary about the music industry that I wouldn't understand or care about in a hundred years.

Oops, the bartender is different from the kid at the beginning. Sorry about that.

Anyway, kid walks away from the party and sits in front of a tv next to his poodle. He turns on the tv and sees what a huge success the party is. Unfortunately, he sees the goth babes, which drives him to kill. He picks up a scimitar (where the heck did he get that?) and goes to the club and kills everybody. Cops soon arrest him. Meanwhile the poodle eats rat poison and dies.

Everybody floats towards heaven, and have fun doing so. The trial doesn't go well for the kid when the jury and judge sing the "goats go to hell" part of the refrain. Kid fries.

The slain partiers now do jumping jacks in heaven. There's some guy in a speedo there (the bartender?). Kid goes to hell. It doesn't look pleasant, but it's not too scary. I expect more then a wheel and a conveyor belt. By the way, is the kid suppose to be Davey, and the poodle suppose to be his Goliath?

The song seems to be arguing about having fun. The kid is miserable and lonely and decides to kill the party goers for no apparent reason. The video argues that he should have rocked on with these people but now he's in hell.

The awesome thing about this video is the part where the gothy girls get killed. The reason why Lita likes it is because it has a lot of clones and it has a poodle (although that's negated the way it died.

E3 for the Big N

Do I need to go further then this?

Anyway, I listened to the Nintendo presentation today and watched some of it when I thought I could get away with it. Here's what I remember.

It started with spokesman Reggie talking about how awesome video games are and how this bar graph shows how great Nintendo is, blah blah blah. It was surprising that Nintendo started this way, since last year they brought out that nerdy guy and made him wave the Wii remote like a baton and got the crowd excited. It seemed like Nintendo was content to just state it's business plan this year.

Whenever Nintendo took a half minute break, they showed a lot of clips from the news or online of people enjoying the Wii. Kinda neat, I guess, but not really what nerds are looking for.

After that, we get to our first product, the Wii Zap-PAH! I think that's how it was pronounced, anyway. Instead of the gun shaped thing showed the previous year, it seems like Nintendo made a casing that turns the Wii remote and nunchuck into a smaller Super Scope. See above picture for the awesomeness.

Speaking of accesories, they also mentioned a steering wheel. That was for the next, inevitable Mario Kart game. It's online, so I can't wait for my friend Lita to pick up a Wii. I'm not sure if she's a Mario Kart fan but I could totally kick her butt at the game anyway.

Speaking of online, Reggie starts to talk about Nintendo's rep for not embracing online. Actually, he basically dodges the past and poins out the DS online success, and shows a bunch of future online Wii games. Madden 08 and some online soccer game are mentioned, as is Super MArio Strikers, which I might keep an eye on. I think Super Smash Bros. Brawl is online and so is some FPS.

The first eye bulger is when Super Smash Bros Brawl is given a Dec 3 release date. PLEASE HAVE NESS!!!

Then Zelda for the DS is shown. I'm sure it'll be good, but I don't like the idea of playing an action game entirely with a stencil.

Some babe from some nerdy online blog gets to demonstrate Metroid Prime 3, a must-have on my list. I couldn't watch at this poin, darn it, although what I saw made it look like she was having problems. They said she could change her visor, and she didn't, and they cut her off before she could fight some enemies, or something.

Wii Guitar Hero was announced (online too) and it has a guitar specially made for the Wii remote. I'm too shy to play this game in the stores and it's too expensive for me so I'll probably avoid it even if I heard that they had the Trogdor song on one of the editions.

Another thing about Mario Kart? Online battle mode. I LOVED battle mode in the original Mario Kart. My sister and I used to divide the arena in half and launch banana peels at each other while staying on our sides.

Super Mario Galaxy also got a release date, some time in November. I hope that game is much better then Super MArio Sunshine. Right now it looks good but I don't like the way you run under planets. I hope the controls make sense.

Some game (Mario Picross DS?) was dated for my birthday.

The big event at the end was ........ Wii Fit! Nintendo is taking advantage of the hype about Wii making people get up and are going to introduce a game that uses a scale that you stand on. It can detect your weight and the way you shift your body. It measures your BMI over time like Wii Sports measures your whatever age. That thing is going to sale like hotcakes. MMmm, hotcakes.


Hmm, I wish I took notes while it was going on. Instead of poking some fun while giving my thoughts, this just sounds like nerdy shilling. Oh well.

Afterwards, a lot of nerds complained on comment sections everywhere. Welcome to the internet, Web 2.0!

Quick Notes (One day later)

The NL lost. LOSERS!!!!!!

Turns out that the E3 presentation for Nintendo is for 9am PACIFIC Standard Time. I should have known that 9am was too early. Stupid west coast. Get a real time zone!

Music Video #10

Today's video is by Beck, who is some kind of robot guy according to Futurama. I figure that's why Lita picked him anyway. The song is called Where It's At, which is hopefully not Greece or Japan. We have 3 and a half minutes that can be found here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQ9W4KexnA .


Ok, I just watched it and it starts off with convicts picking up trash. Then Beck sings and the scene shifts to a stage next to the street and then it gets weird with a belly dancer and forest background. After a couple skips in a meadow, the music video ends with a hoedown. Camera work by Verne Troyer.

Beck sings fast so I'm going to have to watch this several times. Ok, first verse, he's sticking it to the Man by not picking up trash and singing about some destination. It's some place away from town where people go to dance and drink. It even has two turntables!

Ok, so for some reason a robot voice came out of a stick robot with a glowing human brain. And then there's some belly dancer. I guess the next verses will amend these things to the list of what is at where it's at.

Elevator bones? What the heck are those? I'm looking at the lyrics and the context suggest a vehicle but that doesn't seem right at all. I guess it fits with the sudden shift in the video to the surreal pirate Beck in a forest. Anyway, after some stuff I can't understand, Beck mentions more stuff about what it's like to be at the where it's at place. He mentions passing a dutchie, because all bands eventually do and or promote drugs. It's one of those rebel by being a conformist thing.

Oh, the place where Beck sings during the refrain seems to be in a parking lot in front of a store. So people wanting to get to the Home Depot have to get around him.

Next up is a couple skipping through a meadow. I failed to mention earlier that they have the multiple boxes effect like in The Hulk.

Now Beck is wearing a tuxedo. And his voice is all synthesize, making him hard to listen to! Whee! Oh, he's just repeating the first verse. I guess we arrived at Where It's At Land. Which is the hoedown place. What a letdown, although if this is the kind of music they have at hoedowns maybe my opinions on them is wrong.

GAH! A guy holding orange peels in front of his eyes pops out of nowhere!

Ok, I've missed this in previous music videos so I better type it now before I forget, but the reason why Lita posted it is because there's a couple clones of Beck when he's wearing a tuxedo. (It's a riff on Shatner's Rocketman thing, meaning it's another drug reference.)

I wish I didn't suck at hearing lyrics because I'm sure I would enjoy the song more. The video could have used less hoeing down and surreal forest king pirate and more belly dancers.

Quick Notes

E3 starts sometime this week. Last year when the hype about the Revolution (Wii? I forget if the name was announced yet) was huge, I decided to watch the Nintendo presentation while at work. It was fun watching it while making sure nobody saw me. Tomorrow at 9 Nintendo has their show and I'll try to watch or at least listen to it. I'll give my brief thoughts on it, maybe. The Nintendo show is between the Microsoft and Sony one. Seems like Sony learned not to go first.

I predict that the NL will win the useless All Stars game tonight. If they do, you heard it here first folks, and if they don't, then some guy cheated.

I'm getting tired of youtube. I once was searching for the opening to The World Is Not Enough, which was taken down. Instead I got a bunch of anti-semetic videos only two pages in. If youtube is going to leave this kind of garbage in they might as well allow nudity, "hate" speech, and graphic violence.

Music Video #9

Can you handle four and a half minutes of Bjork? Let's see if I can. Here's Army of Me and it can be found at this url

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1tVQ7L_cs0

The video is over and I think I saw a few themes. Mostly about teeth and trucks and blowned up art.

It's nice to see Fatz Geromino still getting work.

Anyway, the first part of the video is creepy with metal and rotten teeth everywhere. At one poin there's a scene that reminds me of the poster for Saw 3. The second half of the video has her planting a bomb next to Lenin-esque guy to wake him up or something.

I didn't really catch the lyrics but it seemed like she decided to sing a song that didn't really match the beat.

Take 2, now to soak in the lyrics.

Ok, so the song is about Buh-Jork telling someone to quit whining. OR ELSE, they'll meet an army of her. In the museum it almost seems literal.

I just noticed that the person at the beginning at the video is probably the guy she rescued by blowing him up. So I guess that ties the whole video. Bjork is a heroine driving her giant stealthy truck but has to get a diamond at some poin with the help of a gorilla dentist to refuel her cars rotten teeth so she can rescue the guy in a terroristic fashion. Makes sense!

Was there some poin to the museum becoming the "mum" at the end?

The song is ok, but I'm not a fan of the video. The cross between the cold futuristic setting and the surreal could have worked better without the gross teeth. Seriously, the zoom from her smile into the metallic teeth is freaky.

You know what would have made it cooler? Bjork beating people up bullet-time style.

The cool part of this video is the refrain, because that's how I feel when I hear people whining, although the "army of me" line probably works better for her then me. Lita likes it because it has a dentist.