Entertainment

Country Music is like tomatoes.

Entertainment, music

It’s amazing what kind of music I like now… well not really amazing, just interesting. It’s just like food tastes, I used to only like french dressing on salads, now I can’t get enough vinagrette. In high school I hated country music, but now I still don’t like it… so that hasn’t totally changed. But I do like the fringes of country. (bluegrass, alt-country, cowpunk, etc.) Country music is like tomatoes, I don’t like them by themselves, but I like everything made out of them (salsa, pasta sauce, etc). I just got an album from [W:The Beat Farmers] and it’s totally awesome. I’m a little behind the times because it came out 13 years ago and 2 of the band members have died since then. But it’s just really good music, just enough country, just enough rock.

I’ve been on a very alt-country kick recently.

CNN.com has the best comments of the web.

Entertainment, The Interweb

Emily Perkins wrote…

As a Christian, I am often frustrated by the media only choosing to show extremists and wackos as opposed to those who actually follow the teachings of Christ. I can’t imagine, however, how it must be to be a Muslim in the United States today, where the term itself is used to try to disqualify and smear a presidential candidate. I pray that the voice of Muslim-Americans across the nation will be heard as clearly as any other. Freedom of religion is supposed to be a fundamental of this country. Maybe we will live to see the day when this is a reality.

via CNN.com

I don’t think it’s that the users of that website are more intellegent than others, I’ll bet its that the comments are more heavily moderated because they are a very visable website. I don’t know what website has the best community of commenters but if I had to list the bottom 3 it would be…

  1. IMDB.com
  2. Youtube.com
  3. Fark.com

Wretched hives of scum and villany

Later!

Nothing like a funeral to brighten your day!

Entertainment, The Interweb


I found this video on Boing Boing today. It’s Big Bird preforming a song at a memorial service for Jim Henson. It’s really touching, It makes me think back to all those Henson produced shows I loved as a kid (and still do!). It’s funny that I know there is someone inside that suit, but I’ve always thought of Big Bird  (and all the muppets) as their own people. Laurel and I went to a Jim Henson exibit at the Ripley Center in the Smithsonian this summer. It was a brief retrospective of his career, from high school through his death. It was amazing to see his early works and the creativity that drove him. It really inspired me to get creative, since then I’ve tried to make something, anything, every day. It’s not the easiest for me because as the youngest child in my family I don’t have the drive my older sisters do. But I am trying!

I’m totally watching Fraggle Rock when I get home

[via] Boing Boing

The Final Opus.

Entertainment, Random

I read an article about Berkeley Breathed ending the “Opus” comic strip. I really haven’t followed his work much since the end of bloom county in the early 1990’s. The “sequel” strips, Outland and Opus really didn’t have the draw for me that Bloom County did. But it was always reassuring to know that they were out there, they’re kind of like old friends that you don’t talk to much anymore.  I do remember my parents having the big collections around the house when I was a kid. I think I’ve read “Bloom County Babylon” 10 times (the one with Opus in a top hat on the cover) and I remember making a Bill the cat name tag for my desk in 5th grade. I’m not sure if I knew what the comic was really about when I was little, but I knew it was funny. I think it’s done a lot to shape my view of politics and fame in general.

I’ll miss you Opus.

via NPR

“Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he’s a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you’ll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you’ll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I’d be a Libertarian, if they weren’t all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.” – Berkeley Breathed