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Free Stuff 2: Electric Boogaloo Redux

  • Jul. 12th, 2009 at 11:58 AM
 Since we got rained on yesterday we're doing the free sale again today. More free stuff going out on the lawn! 

We still have: computer desk (bonus if you will haul it off the porch, the sucker is HEAVY) 
More books, tapes (audio cassette and VHS), assorted housewares including dishes, brick-a-brack and chotchkies galore! 

Yes it's all REALLY free. Take it away and give our stuff a good home. 

713 S State St in Champaign 
Starting nowish until whenever. The stuff will likely stay out until dark or later.

ETA: Lots of craft supplies too! Paints and beads and radom stuff.

postsecret winners

  • Jul. 12th, 2009 at 8:27 AM


"But I have a lot of black frenz!"



Totes me.



Someone saw Idiocracy.



Yikes.

Tags:

Wasilla? Meet auto-wah.

  • Jul. 12th, 2009 at 9:40 AM
NOW THAT WE'VE GOT THAT HORRIBLE BLOCKAGE out of our lower intestines, would someone do me a favor and permanently ban that infernal machine?


Auto-tune the News: Sarah Palin put to music, via the wonders of the auto-tune machine.

This Summer in Toronto

  • Jul. 12th, 2009 at 9:00 AM
IT'S TWELVE FUCKING DEGREES RIGHT NOW!!! AT 9AM!!!

Day to day storage?

  • Jul. 12th, 2009 at 3:06 AM
Hello all. I'm moving out of my current apt. on August 15th and am not able to move into my new one until the 18th. Does anyone know of any storage facilities where you can pay by the day?

Baby, we were born to add!

  • Jul. 12th, 2009 at 12:06 AM

PICTURED: The Hold Steady at the Basilica Block Party


THE HOLD STEADY, 2009 BASILICA BLOCK PARTY, ST. MARY'S BASILICA

Compared to last month's "Rock the Garden," just across the street, the the organizers of the Basilica Block Party did a much better job in terms of masking the fences and blocking the sight lines (with well-placed tents and rows of port-a-potties). But from where we were standing (either directly behind or slightly to the right of the stage) it was still possible to see the band from the sidewalk, without paying the outrageous $40 ticket charge.

[info]yooniehatesyou was right: the Hold Steady are much better live. The big rock gestures and the classic rock radio references are better suited to the exaggerated stagecraft of an outdoor concert than they are to the meanness of iPods or CD players. The adulation of the 15,000 screaming rock fans really suited them, as the band fed off the energy of the crowd, and threw it right back to them, overly-rehearsed stage banter, electronic organ, and all. The weirdness of Craig Finn dedicating "Stay Positive" to "...all the mothers in the audience who brought their kids tonight..." didn't seem quite to weird.* And while I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a fan, I will admit to liking precisely 2.5 Hold Steady songs.** (Given a choice, I would have rather seen Cheap Trick.)


The first portion of the concert was better than the second half, when the Bruce Springsteen-isms and the overwrought electric piano gave way to "searing" blues-rock riffs and painful vocal harmonies.

Chief lyricist Craig Finn is the consummate suburban punk, and it's important to write what you know, but a song celebrating Bloomington, Minnesota's ugliest outdoor shopping center? Really?! ("Southtown Girls" would be kind of funny for the novelty factor, if the music wasn't such a bloody icepick-to-the-ears).

Binge-and-purge Catholic guilt was in full effect as Finn and Co. paid tribute to sex and sin before signing off with "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost -we are the Hold Steady!", a statue of St. Francis leering over their shoulders.


QUOTE-OF-THE-DAY:

"I think this is the song where they list off all the drugs!"

("Which one?!")





* [info]yooniehatesyou: "They're really pandering tonight!"

** I say "2.5" because just when you think that the song is really going someplace, the Hold Stead starts to undercut its own music by "blowing harp," or attempting to channel the spirit of the late Stevie Ray Turd -totally ruins the song!



Your Mask, It's Slipping...

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 11:10 PM
Thanks to [info]jonquil who pointed this out with a really great essay.

I despise David Brooks and pretty much everything he writes. This week, during a discussion about sexual mores in Washington on MSNBC, Brooks said the following:
You know, all three of us spend a lot of time covering politicians and I don’t know about you guys, but in my view, they’re all emotional freaks of one sort or another. They’re guaranteed to invade your personal space, touch you. I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here...I can only imagine what happens to you guys.
This is pretty startling and, dare I say, close to enlightened as Brooksian utterances go.

Edited to add: I'm not saying his sharing had pure motives or point of view, and he was being jocular about it, but it was as much acknowledgment of male entitlement as a guy like him will make.

As one might expect, since it's a guy, the gay baiting and victim blaming bubbled over on some blogs. Here's a sampling.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
Yet you refused to say, "Take your paws off of me."

Was it good?
***
Way to go, Brooks.

There are ways of saying NO...and meaning it.

If a big macho guy like you has an unwanted hand on his inner thigh (the whole time, no less), I guarantee you welcomed it.

Now tell us what happened after dinner.
***
Did David Brooks just quasi-come out on national television? Cuz...if you don't like the hand being there, remove it. Letting it stay there the whole time indicates enjoyment.....just sayin.
***
in the immortals words of Riley of The Boondocks cartoon N***a you gay
***
and he loved every minute of it - I bet he said to the senator - "I'll give you till tuethday to get your handth off my legth" - and anyway, where was barnyard Cranks all this time?
There's more, if you want. )
Sweet huh? Can you guess the sites?

Free Republic? Little Green Footballs? Ace of Spades?

Why no. It's Think Progress and Huffington Post.

UPDATE: Here's the headline from Pandagon: "...And Then He Jizzed In His Pants". The post, which is not by a female writer, sneers at David for not naming who groped him. That's right, Pandagon has a post in which not naming your harasser means you liked it. Again, not Amanda or Pam but come. the. fuck. on.

Photography people!

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 11:25 PM
Hey, friends with actual knowledge about photography!

Can any of you tell me anything about this rather elaborate Cokin filter set? Like, what does it do? Is it just a silly gadget or is it worth keeping and trying to use?

Also, by some miracle I've also uncovered a mid-80s (I think) Minolta Maxxum hot shoe flash that magically works with my D40. How is that craziness possible?

ETA: Am at NJ house helping with cleanouts, to clarify.
Look at these GQ motherfuckers:





Together in Extras:

oh ontd

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 11:37 AM
I am making a GREAT POINT here.

Srsly MJ's death is turning into the greatest tragedy of the century, worse than 9/11 :P where's my cane?

ETA: You know who reminds me of post-op, white Michael Jackson? Michael Fielding (Noel's half bro), aka Naboo from the Mighty Boosh:

Jul. 11th, 2009

  • 8:31 PM
Through the aid of google I finally found an mp3 of the Russian children's version of "Bella Ciao"--there was a Russian adaptation that was more or less faithful to the original, but the children's version changed the refrain to "Mama Ciao" and was all about forest camps, sunlight, flowers and love for one's country and not so much about dying partisans and flowers growing on the graves.

Here it is, if anyone is curious, of if anyone, like me, learned it in the Soviet school choir in the 1980s, and wants to hear it again:

http://ars-r.narod.ru/audio/cd2006/08/15.mp3

Also I want to just say that in the course of looking for this I stumbled onto a website of soviet songs, arranged in the following categories:

Songs about the Motherland
Songs about Labor
The International
Revolutionary Songs
Songs about Che Guevara
Songs about Cities
Songs about the Sea
Sports Songs
Komsomol Songs
Young Pioneer Songs
Songs about Leaders
Military Marches
Military Lyrical

...

other representatives from the "songs I learned to sing in Soviet Choir and are thus now lodged in my brain forever" collection:
http://download.sovmusic.ru/m/3tankist.mp3
http://download.sovmusic.ru/m/belarmia.mp3

jesus shoes

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 11:08 AM

Image009.jpeg
Originally uploaded by wring

T-Mobile

Since u miss my shoe posts so much.

rr r r rr r rr r rr r rr r rr rrr rThe Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is writing to express its grave concern about your upcoming appearance in the “Festival Argentina-Israel” in Israel on 14 July. As an artist with a great following because of your commitment to justice, we are writing to urge you to cancel your participation in a festival sponsored by a state that is complicit in some of the worst human rights abuses of our modern era.
This 100% real story falls somewhere between The Onion and Lovecraft:
WASHINGTON – CIA Director Leon Panetta has terminated a "very serious" covert program the spy agency kept secret from Congress for eight years, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a House Intelligence subcommittee chairwoman, said Friday.

Schakowsky is pressing for an immediate committee investigation of the classified program, which has not been described publicly. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said he is considering an investigation.

"The program is a very, very serious program and certainly deserved a serious debate at the time and through the years," Schakowsky told The Associated Press in an interview. "But now it's over."

Democrats revealed late Tuesday that CIA Director Leon Panetta had informed members of the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 that the spy agency had been withholding important information about a secret intelligence program begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Schakowsky described Panetta as "stunned" that he had not been informed of the program until nearly five months into his tenure as director.

Panetta had learned of the program only the day before informing the lawmakers, according to a U.S. intelligence official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Friday because he was not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

Panetta has launched an internal probe at the CIA to determine why Congress was not told about the program. Exactly what the classified program entailed is still unclear.

The intelligence official said the program was "on-again/off-again" and that it was never fully operational, but he would not provide details.
Um...the fuck was "on-again/off-again"? The mind reels between punchline and horror.

It's like we're on the wrong side of one of those laughingly obtuse briefing scenes in television shows. The one's which exist to set up something else, so characters utter phrases which only make sense as part of a larger explanation, but the scene is poorly structured so they just walk in, offer a vague statement, say "that is all for now" and leave. And you think, "Wait, they didn't..." Which may fit a world where newspapers contain headlines like INVESTIGATION CONTINUES but in this one we're all the hell aren't you telling us? Maybe that's how residents of TV New York feel all the time. I'm pretty certain they do in Horatio Caine's Miami.

Which makes me long for flip side of that trend, where news stories contain precise details no reporter on earth could have gotten in the sequence of events as shown. And I could turn on the TV right now and see news story right at the point where all the key details are being provided. And then I could call my friends, and they could turn on the TV and find another channel with a similar report at the exact same point, right now.

But no, instead I'm all WHAT? Like my life nothing but a series of macros indicating confusion.

omg i'm wired

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 9:45 AM
- auuuuuuugh sipping a large McDo iced coffee and frickin wired. The impending crash is gonna hurt.
- the 90s radio station was playing Savage Garden's I Want You and I mistook it as Roxette and now I wanna buy a Roxette cd. It's a good thing I don't live near an Amoeba. Damn I love that store.
- My tooth is feeling a little OK today. Let's see for how long I can hold off on the acetaminophen.
- It's Saturday and I'm working. There will be flood, oh yes.

Vet Recommendations...

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 11:11 AM
Does any one know a good Vet or even a Human Society type place where I could take my cat? His one eye is swollen and I think he may have an eye infection or something. I'm a grad student, so money is tight, but I do want to have him seen.

Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thanks

beep beep beep beep

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 8:47 AM

Image002.jpeg
Originally uploaded by wring

T-Mobile

Mcdo breakfast is srs bzns. Ugh that infernal beeping is driving me mad! Pretend I'm saying that in Killface's voice+accent.

Tags:

"Status: Looking at trees!"

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 8:37 AM
[info]docmanhattan comments on a dubious metaphorical claim in ads for Coleman camping gear:
You didn't really invent "social networking" either. Camping can be social, but it's the exact opposite of a network. If there were a trail in the woods where I would randomly run into people from my past, who would then shout what they were doing every so often, believe me when I say: I would not hike that trail.

Parramatta to Sydney - last stage

  • Jul. 11th, 2009 at 8:07 PM
Winter sky.


Goat Island. Part of the Sydney Harbour National Park. These islands in the harbour are mysterious. It isn't quite clear if or how one can reach them.


Heading into Circular Quay under the Bridge.


Destination.