Month: September 2004

Here’s my obligatory link to Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam – Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

Elliott made stuff like this sound so effortless, but gosh it’s hard &#151 I slapped this a capella thing together and posted it last November, not because it turned out particularly well, but because it almost killed me. In case you missed it, here’s a link to Chris Benson sings I Didn’t Understand badly. Some parts are pretty painful, but I guess some other parts are accomplished passably well.

I wonder if Bill O’Reilly will ever figure out that if you’re going to keep going around confronting people, you need to pick on people who aren’t your intellectual superiors like Al Franken and John Stewart. If you ask me, Mr. O’Reilly is proof positive that there are worse things to be than a “stoned slacker.”

(Thanks to Maya at Postcards from Sacramento for the link to Yahoo News.)

This little drawing from Reality Carnival makes my brain feel good.

We watched the season premiere of Joan of Arcadia last Friday, and once again, I urge all of my loyal Asparagus Pee readers to make this a must-see. It bothers me a little bit that whenever they are in the police station where her dad works, the whole scene is filmed in NYPD-blue, but other than that, this show is near-perfect.

I mean, where else are you going to hear God advise a teenaged girl, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. That’s Sartre. Or was it Zappa?”

UPDATE &#151 This is in fact a Frank Zappa quote, and there’s a pretty concise list of good ones over here.

My spambox, sorry, I meant to say my “inbox,” is filling up now with stuff about refinancing my house “the Christian Way” and getting out of debt “the Christian Way.”

What the bejeebus is that supposed to mean?

I’ve always kind of imagined that the Christian way to get out of debt would be to pay back the money.

And why do these spams always have the cross or the bible against a backdrop of an American flag? Can’t the Canadians get out of debt the Christian way, or must they pay off their debts shamefully as the heathens do?

Awhile back, I wrote about the wonder of writing my initials on the copper bottom of a Revereware pan using ketchup, and I’m sure everyone is dying to know how that works. Here’s a link to a guy who’s devoted way too much time to the phenomenon of cleaning pennies with taco sauce.

I’m thrilled to hear and report that on October 19th they’re releasing From a Basement on a Hill, the album Elliott Smith was working on last year when he allegedly took his own life. There are links to several stories on Google News Search.

Unfortunately, it’s only one CD, not the double that was originally a possibility, but the good news is that it’s already #113 on Amazon, and it’s not even out yet.

I’d sure rather have Elliott back.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going over to Amazon and order it now.

For more information, here’s a link to his main fansite: Sweet Adeline.

I’d like to rant about politics, but I don’t have time right now, so I’m going to let Michael Moore’s Message do it for me.

Here’s a sample:

“WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street — and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS — YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT?”