One of my favorite recent Internet memes is “Chuck Norris Facts.” They’re so stupid, they’re wonderful. Here’s a sampling. Enjoy!

• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris
• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits
• There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live
• Remember the Soviet Union? They decided to quit after watching a DeltaForce marathon on Satellite TV
• Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet as Chuck Norris
• Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship
• Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants
• Chuck Norris counted to infinity – twice
• There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist
• Chuck Norris’ calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd; no one fools Chuck Norris
• Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried
• Objects in Chuck Norris’s rear-view mirror appear at their correct distances
• Chuck Norris has only one hand: the upper hand
• Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas
• The reason newborn babies cry is because they know they have just entered Chuck Norris’ world
• When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down
• There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up
• Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, he decides what time it is
• Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door
• Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost

Two nights ago Steph and I headed down to Santa Cruz to see my favorite artist, Beck. He played a show in a small auditorium there, and Jamie Lidell opened for him.

Overall, it was a really fun show. The venue was smallish. There were probably only 600 or so in attendance since not many more would fit in the room. It was an interesting change from the show in L.A. that Steph and I saw last summer.

Warning: Beck spoilers. If you’re going to see Beck perform soon, you may want to stop reading and just let the show be a surprise.

Continue reading “Santa Cruz and Beck” →

I had the iTunes album art screen saver running today, and I saw Chris Rice’s “Short Term Memories” album come up. Only I didn’t think it was “Short Term Memories” at first. My brain immediately said “Odelay.” The more I looked, the more freaked-out I got. Check this out.

Could it be coincidence? The only thing that scares me more is that this must mean Chris Rice is actually in my music collection.

Neologisms of The Simpsons. Good reading.

OK, there were a lot of bad commercials tonight. But the worst is when a company with an already-lame commercial has the gall to play it twice. Just stop while you only have a little egg on your face. And more than one company did this!! Seriously, what marketer has their head up where? The only excuse I could give them is that they weren’t able to test their commercials back-to-back with the commercials of their competition. I could personally write something better and more effective than at least half of what was on the screen tonight.

On a more positive note, which of the superbowl ads were your favorites?

Tonight at dinner Steph and I chose three albums that represented each of our tastes and who we each are (and tried to guess the other’s before we revealed our choices).

You might say we were giving our three favorites, but there’s a nuance to this list, too. I specifically wanted to avoid albums that were really famous, simply because it’s hard to say “This extremely well-known album is really me.” When an album rises above a certain level of fame, it becomes both more difficult and less imaginative to claim it as “yours” unless you have very specific justification for doing so. I think most people understand that contract instinctively, but in this case we made it part of the idea. The most important thing, though, is the album’s match with you and who you are, not the relative obscurity of the album.

Now that I’ve explained all that, here are mine. I was surprised to find that two of my three were made in 2005. This year has been amazingly deep for me, musically.

3) Illinois; Sufjan Stevens I discovered Sufjan back in September through a friend of mine named Gabe. I enjoyed his music immediately, but didn’t realize how much I would grow to love it over the next few months. I know Tim also loves him some Sufjan. Eddie choreographed an entire (totally awesome) dance to the song “Chicago” from this very album. Metacritic, a site that collects and averages dozens (hundreds?) of critical reviews, also likes Sufjan. Look who’s on the top of their Best of 2005 list. When I hear his music, I hear careful, lush compositions. But he’s not so careful as to remove the humanity from his sound. As I explained it in a comment on Tim’s blog, “Sufjan embodies how I wanted to learn to write when I was in college studying composition. Obviously I never did learn such a thing, but when I hear it, I hear my own desires for the progression of music.” (Side note: how pretentious do you have to be to quote yourself?)

2) Discovery; Daft Punk To be totally transparent, I initially wanted to take this one off the list and replace it with United State of Electronica. But after thinking about it some more, I have to admit that Discovery is closer to my heart. Or at least the first four tracks are. Their use of the vocoder is masterful. They’ve got incredible videos. And two of the first four songs on this album, “Digital Love” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, are in my ten most listened-to songs in iTunes (at 146 and 105 plays respectively). They’ve been there for a long, long time. These songs are a permanent part of me.

1) GameBoy Variations (Hell Yes Remix) – EP; Beck (Yes, the review of this EP on the iTunes Music Store by “JL!” was written by me.) I thought about putting Guero in this spot, and in a sense I’ve done that vicariously. I’m proud of Beck for being brave enough to make an entire EP using music of this sort. Most of my friends, while they might enjoy Beck, found this album to be almost completely unlistenable. With me, it’s different. This album hits me on a primal level. It’s like my deepest geeky id was cracked open and poured out in musical form. There, I said it. Please, enjoy. His beat is correct.

I’ve got much more important things to say than this, but they’ll take longer to say, so I’ll just blurt this out for now. I just got Animal Crossing: Wild World. If you know what that is, and you want my friend code, just email me at [email protected] and ask for it! I’d love to have yours.