I Watch the Weather Channel

Thanks to Blogger being down for the past four or so hours, this post is late in coming, but whatcha gonna do, eh? The Eagles are probably asking themselves that same question right now, considering they're down a hefty 42 to Seattle in the 3rd quarter.

These past two days have been eyeball killers for me as I've spent an average 9 hrs/day in front of this damn laptop, churning out a 30 page paper in the process. I need to get me some of that Fake Tears stuff that the Weather Channel was talking about this morning. Yeah, that's right, I watch the Weather Channel.


Being that I couldn't blog, the Eagles were getting killed, and I wasn't going to write anymore tonight, I drove over to Walmart to pick up an envelope, some ass tissue, and a Christmas present for the little lady. One of the benefits of going to Walmart past 9 pm is that there is about 5,000 less people in there that were inhabiting the stinkhole all damn day long. The bad part is that you then have to deal with the "after 9 pm" Walmart crowd, which usually includes a couple homely fellas, some drunk/and or stoned goth teenagers, and the 400 pound guy smelling candles. Who needs Monday Night Football when you've got that crowd?

Let's see what's going on around the web . . .

In case you're still looking to get The Goose a Christmas present, might I suggest this little lady?

According to this study, Pittsburgh is the 8th most literate city in the US. Have you ever been to Pittsburgh? The only explanation I have for this is that they polled only college students. Nothing against Pittsburgh, but top-10 in the literate category is a little hard to believe. That's like saying Milwaukee is the 5th healthiest city. And we all know what Milwaukee is not the 5th healthiest city.

Entertainment

The Simpsons Christmas Stories will air December 18th on FOX. Still doesn't make up for them canceling Arrested Development.

Can't wait for the new My Name is Earl and The Office tomorrow. On The Office,

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO SCRANTON -- Morale at the office Christmas party hits an all-time low after Michael (Steve Carell) suggests a game of "Yankee Swap" with the $20 secret Santa gifts - and everyone vies for the ipod he bought for Ryan (B.J. Novak). In an effort to raise his staff’s sagging spirits, Michael introduces vodka shots and things liven up while Jim (John Krasinski) worries that the sentimental gift he got for Pam (Jenna Fischer) will end up in Dwight’s (Rainn Wilson) hands.

Make sure you stop by Dwight's Space (hilarious) and check out the deleted scenes.

Music

• Metafilter links to the BBC's look at Lennon: The Wenner Tapes.
  

• If this is true, the world just might be coming to an end.
  

• Peter's got his Best of November mix up, and as per usual, it's worth your time.
  

• Stylus looks at Radiohead's 1993 album, Pablo Honey (via Largehearted Boy)
  

• Albums I picked up yesterday:
  

Pennywise The Fuse
Motion City Soundtrack - Commit to This Memory
The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
The National - Alligator
HORSE the Band - The Mechanical Hand

Featured Artist: James Blunt

If you missed this past Saturday Night Live when Dane Cook was the host, you missed out on some prime-time funniness. You also missed out on two pretty good performances by this lad I had not heard of before Saturday named James Blunt.

James Blunt’s family have served in one kind of army or another since 995A.D. A long line of warriors. Savages really. Not a musical bone in any one of their bodies. The only music he heard growing up was “Happy Birthday” and “Silent Night”. His father considered all music, even classical, to be unnecessary noise. Although James was not one to rock the family boat, he didn’t really think he was going to join the army – it sort of crept up on him. Plus his family didn’t have a boat. Aged fourteen he just held the teenage conviction that he would have an interesting life – maybe that’s why he picked the guitar? Then again, maybe if he hadn’t, he would have tripped over it. He went to University and studied Aerospace Manufacturing Engineering and Sociology, spending most lectures asleep on the floor at the back. In much the same way, he ended up in the army. In essence, one day he was sleeping off a hangover at the back of a sociology lecture hall and the next thing he knew he was in Kosovo with a gun and a guitar strapped to the side of a tank, wondering who he could possibly sleep with to get out of this war. To break up the super attenuated monotony, James would sometimes stroll through Serb villages wearing an East German cap singing, “All we are saying is give peace a chance”. “We were peace-keepers at that point,” he explained, shrugging helplessly.

So how did the music get into him, you might ask? Well if you were sent to boarding school aged seven, studied Engineering by mistake (“I thought we were going to fly planes, but we just pulled metals apart – the brochure was very misleading.”), joined the army by default, guarded The Queen, buried The Queen Mother and pranced around London like a tit for Japanese tourists to photograph, what you’re going to want to do very much after that, besides getting stoned and laid, is put your gun down, pick up a guitar and make an album in America with Linda Perry. So James came to Los Angeles in September 2003 to record with Tom Rothrock et al. At night he’d go to bars, bringing with him his valuable British accent (in the U.K., too posh for some people – in LA, the best thing she’d heard all night) and the fact that like 50 Cent he’d been shot at numerous times, but unlike the Cent, had dodged the bullets. One song, “Goodbye My Lover”, was recorded in his landladies’ bathroom (“She was a frequenter of mental hospitals and in general, a freak – but pleasant”) where, naturally, she kept a piano.

From birth in a military hospital in Tidworth, to Harrow School, to Aerospace Manufacturing Engineering, to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, to The Household Cavalry, to Kosovo, to Buckingham Palace, to a recording studio in Los Angeles. How did James get from there to here? Only James Blunt’s hairdresser knows for certain, and either he isn’t talking or James cuts his own hair, and it’s up to you to join the dots – there are ten of them on the album.

James Blunt - "High"
James Blunt - "You're Beautiful"
James Blunt - "Out of My Mind"
James Blunt - "Billy"
James Blunt - "Tears and Rain"

Bonus:
Talib Kweli - "Some Kind of Wonderful"
The Ponys - "Little Friends"
Antony and the Johnsons - "What Can I Do" (feat. Rufus Wainwright)
HORSE the Band - "Birdo"