chicago VICE

darrenrobinson:

Squirrel eating a lemon. Yep.

July 04, 2009, 11:49am  Comments

My 3rd favorite band is Blur. They reunited in the past month. This past sunday they performed at Glastonbury (England’s biggest rock concert). Here they are performing my favorite Blur song “Beetlebum”.

xx

July 01, 2009, 2:29am  Comments

from: BBC NEWS and psfk.com

To observe the thirtieth birthday of the Sony Walkman, BBC News Magazine persuaded a thirteen year old iPod user—reared with the coddling comforts of touchscreens and 10,000 song playlists—to trade his player in for its stark ancestor. The piece is an interesting examination of not simply the obvious changes in industrial design and device function since the late 70s, but the ease with which we’ve taken these changes for granted.

As the teen revisits (or more properly, visits for the first time) the dinosaur Walkman, his digital naïvety—the horror that the tape player would be without a shuffle function—is matched by a fascinating study of how people encounter and learn interact with their things; the boy devises an improvised “shuffle” function by holding down rewind and releasing it randomly. It’s worth noting that the teen’s first impressions of the Walkman, for all of the ways it is different from an iPod, are responses to its physicality: its largeness, its boxy form, its dull grey color.

But despite looking like something from The Empire Strikes Back when compared to the svelte, resplendent iPod, the boy is able to find not charm in the design of the Walkman—as he is without nostalgia for the era of the cassette—but outright good function, noting the satisfying click of its physical interface and the humane thoughtfulness of its dual headphone jacks. The essay is mostly the expected combination of generational curiosity and “I can’t believe people used to use this!” bemusement, but there is poignancy in the respect the boy has for this strange box—a device he comes to refer to, with deference, as an “antique.”

June 30, 2009, 12:57am   Comments

So I saw Transformers 2 this weekend. I didn’t like it. I give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars. Why? Well, below I have a review from a random guy (from www.joblo.com) who feels almost the same way I do.

xx

BE WARNED THAT IS FULL OF SPOILERS!!!

from: joblo.com

BojacRedleif on Jun 28 2009, 5:13:34 PM writes:
0/10 HERE’S MY SPOILER/EXPLICATIVE LADEN REVIEW.
Ugh, I liked the first Transformers, I really did. In the theater I saw it 4 times (I worked there). Believe me I was so excited to see this, and then as it got closer to release I got less and less interested; and then I saw it…

Wow Michael Bay, I’ve defended you so much because I loved The Rock & Armageddon. But now I don’t think I can do it anymore.

First off Megan Fox, why are people obsessing over her? Yes she’s very attractive, but there are many good looking actresses out there WHO CAN ACT. She literally sounded like she was reading her lines in her sleep, it was that bad. I didn’t hate her in the first (probably because I was awestruck at seeing Optimus), but man did she suck hard in this one.

Shia Labeouf, no problem sir. Obviously you were contractually obligated and did the best with what you had.

Now we get to where things get really, really stupid…the plot.

Sam finds a piece of the Allspark on his jacket that he even says he WEARS ALL THE TIME! The movie takes place 2 years later and he never once checked the pockets?

Also why the fuck does the Allspark turn shit into ONLY DECEPTACONS? Then we’ll address that why is it that when shit comes to life from the Allspark IT IS ALWAYS PACKING!?!? Nowhere in a Coffee maker are there bullets, or fucking missiles!

They use “Orion’s Belt” to direct them to the place that the “Matrix of Leadership” is hidden. The Matrix was hidden thousands of years ago, STARS SHIFT POSITIONS! Hell they don’t even stay in the same spot over one night! The only one that stays in the same spot is the North Star and even that thing will move over thousands of years.

So both factions are searching for the “Matrix of Leadership”, Sam finds it and IT TURNS TO DUST! The Deceptacons needed that shit to turn on the machine that would eat the sun. PROBLEM SOLVED. Then at the end Sam “dies” and sees the 6 Prime brothers in heaven and they tell him that the Matrix had to be earned through courage and the thing reforms itself and Sam comes back to life… So even if the Deceptacons got the dust of the Matrix IT WASN’T GOING TO REFORM ITSELF! But no Sam fixes it and then it is promptly stolen and used to turn the fucking machine on! Albeit they had to use the Matrix to bring back Optimus (btw he dies at like min 45) but at the cost of maybe having the sun turned into energon? But couldn’t they just stab Optimus and all the dead Autobots with the shard of the Allspark like the Deceptacons did with Megatron?

They blatantly cut out the Autobots to make room for 2 fucking Jar Jar Binkses one is called Mudfalps and the other? Who gives a shit (the one that has a Gold tooth). Ratchet (the medic) is never named in the movie and is probably in the background for like 5 minutes. Iron Hide gets about double that in screen time. They had Arcee in the movie but she’s also in the back and later gets shot in the face. There was some other Autobot who was awesome (in fact his one line was something around “I am awesome!”) and he could cut Deceptacons in half, but no! Back of the bus he goes. If you think about it OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME, THE LEADER OF THE AUTOBOTS gets less screen time than Jar Jar 1 & Jar Jar 2.

There was way too much stupid shit going on, Devastator had two wrecking balls for nuts. One of the minideceptacons had a Penis Cannon. The Mom ate a brownie with weed in it. (The parent’s by the way also got way too much screen time)

I’m beginning to see a pattern; the writers literally took everything good about the first movie and doubled it in an effort to make it “Twice as awesome”. Instead of 1 smoking chick, we get 2. Instead of 1 jive Autobot, we get 2, and so on and so forth.

I wanted this to be good, I really did. The Transformers were pretty but you never got a clear look at any of them. $200 Million dollars just can’t buy you a friggen Steadicam these days. Even when the humans were talking (and believe me they do it alot) they had the cameras spinning around them and shit like that. This movie was easily an hour too long, and probably about 45 human characters too many.

This ties with Wolverine for the stupidest movie of the year. Ugh 2009 had so much promise but aside from Star Trek, Up, and The Hangover this summer has been a giant shit fest…

June 29, 2009, 12:25am   Comments

stephenkrose:

quite unbelievable.  top albums on itunes today.

June 28, 2009, 2:42am  Comments

June 26, 2009, 2:44am  Comments

elclinto:

kevin:

soupsoup:

Large portion of Beatles catalog to return to McCartney through Jackson’s will.

Michael Jackson arranged to give Paul McCartney the rights to the Beatles back catalog through his will according to reports published earlier this year. The pair who scored hits together in the mid-1980’s with Say, Say, Say and The Girl Is Mine had been feuding for years after Jackson won the rights to the Beatles back catalog because of legal wrangling between Macca and John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono.

McCartney for years expressed his dissatisfaction with Jackson’s maneuver and the two were never on speaking terms again. Previously, the pair collaborated on Jackson’s 1982 ‘Thriller’ extract ‘The Girl is Mine,’ and McCartney’s 1983 single ‘Say, Say, Say’ from ‘Pipes of Peace’ and forged a close friendship.

This was one of the first things I was wondering this afternoon.

June 26, 2009, 2:40am  Comments

makingofmovies:

arianduzi:

via media2.slashfilm.com

More from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bohnam Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathway as the White Queen.

June 22, 2009, 11:22pm  Comments

Being in SoTex [south texas] I find it funny that there are many many spanish radiostations on the dial. Why? Because they all play the same thing! Except for one small station that plays Indie/Alternative Rock en Español. I love it because it reminds me of a time when I was a teenager in the mid 90’s in Chicago trying to get into that scene. I am also reminded of some interesting people that I met, it felt all new to me and exciting.

So recently as I was driving home [I drive an hour to work and back!] and I caught the middle part of this song. I thought that it was unique and interesting how the dynamics of this song change. I love women singers, there’s something about a womans voice that I really love. I liked how the song sounded really pretty too me, I guess some call it pop music but this was not slick, it was formal, cute and pretty. I immediately thought of the woman behind the voice, picturing how she might look like. The image was of a spañish version of Lily Allen. Well, she kinda is. After listening to a few tracks I was hooked.

Down below is a video of her single “Ella es Bonita”. The song is about a a woman whose boyfriend is stolen by another woman. It’s funny how this song reminds me of me, I broke a girls heart [as a teen into the spanish rock culture] for another. Yep, typical guy move. This is the only girl that I broke up with and I still feel guilty about it! I feel guilty because I lied to her, made her cry and broke her trust. I often think about her and wish to see her again so I can apologiez. Maybe an apology might not smooth things over and trust me, this isn’t for my selfish closure rather I want to make things right. Anyhow, this video is cute and it’s dedicated to a special person.

The album is great, pick it up even if you don’t speak Spañish!

For more info on the artist: here and here

Here is the video:

June 18, 2009, 9:21pm   Comments