dr. horrible, part 2?

...okay, not really. but it IS another video of NPH dancing and singing. love. him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaszN9ByxM

on a side note, what's with disabling the embedding? this appears to be the official youtube outlet for sesame street videos, so why make it difficult for the kiddies to share?

also, while I hesitate to overuse the "awesome" tag, I believe mr. harris deserves his very own tag, as he has of late personified awesomeness.

oh, and while I'm thinking of joss whedon (NPH --> dr. horrible --> joss whedon), I was recently introduced to the short-lived television series firefly and I recommend that all of you check it out. if you're turned off by the whole "futuristic western set in space" thing, the always funny alan tudyk (also known as the pirate from "dodgeball") and the very, very attractive nathan fillion make it more than worth watching.

meep meep!

...wait, is that the road runner? or maybe that's "beep beep!" hm. either way, some muppet-y goodness for you:

crossposting from my other blog...

...every YouTube meme EVER--I recognize most of them, but there are some references I don't know--in the new Weezer video for "Pork and Beans":

oh, god...the pain...kill me now...

one would think that any cover of "the final countdown" would be inherently awesome enough to make up for any musical lapses, but...no.

*shudder*



before your brain explodes from the sheer badness of it all, here's some original-artist awesomeness in all of its big-hair glory:

brilliant mix tape idea (I think)...

... but I need your input to fill it out. The concept is: the most misguided attempt at a gettin'-it-on mix ever. As in, the songs are all about the topic of gettin' it on or persuading someone to get it on, but they are not actually the sort of songs that would ever put someone in the mood to get it on.

The only examples I have so far are Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch" (aka "that Discovery Channel song") and Jimmy Buffet's "Why Don't We Get Drunk" ("...and screw"). But I'm sure there are more. A possible addition is Flight of the Conchords' "Business Time," but I am hesitant there because 1) it is more intentionally ironic, insofar as it is trying very hard to be an unsexy parody of sexy music, and 2) as such it actually sounds kind of sexy if you blur your ears a bit and don't listen to the lyrics. Whereas the first two don't have a trace of the sexy sound, even though the lyrics are quite pro-gettin' it on.

Other suggestions?

first post in february!

...and it's already the 21st. what's happening here, people?

I'll let you watch this while you ponder your next witty post :-)

some truly awful songs make me twitch, but this is ridiculous

hey, brainman, want to weigh in?

woman cured of seizures caused by reggae

yeah, so this woman really likes sean paul (pre-wikipedia'ed for your convenience...you're welcome, dani :-P), but when she started having mad seizures whenever she listened to his songs, she started getting suspicious. I don't know if it's more ridiculous that she thought her seizures were caused by this one particular singer or that it actually turned out to be true.

I guess this just goes to show that one day, if you're not careful, the rhythm *is* eventually gonna get you. be careful, kids.

hopeful rembrandt vindication

BTW, before I jump in -- Erica, did you mean Toad the Wet Sprocket for the one-hit wonder award, or the belongs-in-the-pile-of-shame-inducing-albums award? I certainly HOPE it's not the latter... and if you meant the former, they totally had at least two songs ("Walk on the Ocean" and "All I Want"... and I seem to remember "Good Intentions" getting a fair bit of airplay, although Wikipedia claims it didn't chart very well...).

Anyway, here are some Rembrandt trackses for your enjoyment. Blah blah blah fair use, blah blah blah I'll take them down if anyone complains... but seriously, the guys can probably use the publicity. I'm also assuming there will not suddenly be a rash of piracy of a 2001 album that no one's ever heard of.

Links to some favorites:

Track 01: Lost Together
Track 02: St Paul
Track 10: Big Plans

If they are interested, the truly clever amongst us may be able to discern from these links where the rest of the album might be found (coughhintcough), but I shall say no more.

The only other thing I'll say about this band is I think they do the two-man John/Paul type harmony thing quite well... how come nobody does that anymore?

An example of my non-hipsterity

All right, I'll just come right out and say it: I like the Rembrandts. (hops deftly onto soapbox)

What's that, you say? The guys who did the Friends song? The one they played 800 times an hour on every radio station in America during the summer of 1995? What the hell is wrong with you???

Well, I'm here (or herre, as Nelly and my sausage fingers would say) (Nelly and the Sausage Fingers would be a great band name) to tell you that the Rembrandts are about way more than "I'll Be There For You" (which, as I just learned from a little all-knowing oracle I like to call Wikipedia, was originally offered to They Might Be Giants, of all people). In fact, they didn't even really want to put it on their album coming out that year, but there was so much pressure from fans and the label that they eventually had to tack it on as a bonus track.

Anyway, this now comes up because I recently re-discovered them... after my 14-year-old self bought the album with the Friends song on it solely for said song and discovered that I actually liked the other songs on it OK, I went back and bought their first two albums and liked them OK too. Unfortunately, then they split up for a bit and one of the guys released a TERRIBLE album as "Danny Wilde + The Rembrandts" which ruined the franchise for me forever... at least, so I thought at the time. But I just learned the other day (also via Wikipedia) that they in fact reunited and released another studio album in 2001 called Lost Together. I was dubious, but a sense of nostalgia and a few amazon.com reviews swearing up and down that this album was a true return to form, much better than that "Danny Wilde + The Rembrandts" crap, were enough to convince me. I ordered a copy, and you know what?

... It ain't half bad. No Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper, perhaps, but it's pretty good. The first two tracks are very catchy, as is another located somewhere in the middle. The production throughout is excellent... very crisp, so all the parts stand out from each other *just* enough to create a nice, nuanced polyphony. But not overproduced, no no... there's still a bit of rawness there. And there's not a droner in the bunch... even the non-standout tracks are perfectly acceptable examples of 2-man singer/songwriter type acoustic rock.

At any rate, I know these guys are going to be another Chumbawamba (not just one-hit wonders! not just one-hit wonders!) for me, but I wanted to take a second to recognize these guys for writing some decent songs in their time, even if they were overshadowed by one enormous (and admittedly, insanely catchy the first 12,000 times) hit. Next time, I will not be so quick as to drop a band from my radar the first time they stumble.

And if a hipster thinks he's too cool to ever like the Rembrandts, you know what? His loss.

(hops off soapbox, nearly stumbles over point-undermining pile of albums including selections from Matchbox 20, Hootie and the Blowfish, Avril Lavigne, and the Spice Girls, but manages to catch balance by grabbing onto a nearby copy of a hipster-envy-inspiring Corn Mo CD and sticks the landing)