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Trivial Pursuits
141-character minimum.
Saturday the Second of February, Two Thousand and Eight
The out of order light on the change machine burned out.
That was just about the crappiest laundromat I have yet encountered. However, I was able to dry two loads of laundry with a single quarter, which was kind of fun.
facetiously posted by Martin Marks at 2:36 in the afternoon // two comments by:
Thursday the Thirty-First of January, Two Thousand and Eight
Bandwagon redux.
Alright, well, my last quote list was highly disappointing, largely because of the songs WinAmp picked out for me. So I sat down and went through, pulling twenty of the best quotes I could find in a quick and slightly incomplete perusal of the history of music. Some of these are probably incredibly obvious, some a bit more obscure, but all have in them a certain kind of perfection.
I. "Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?"—It is indeed Zappa, as Anne guessed, but I'll see if anyone knows which song.
II. "He bought me a soda and he tried to molest me in the parking lot, yup yup yup yup." The Pixies. Remi is totally the bone machine, and gets 18 points. (Moss gets three half-points for knowing the artist.) Would you like to see a live version or "A picture of some weird guy with Bone Machine in the background"?
III. "Lie down, gel, mek me push it up, push it up, lie down." Max Romeo tried to tell the BBC that "Wet Dream" was about a leaky roof. They were not convinced. Eleven points to the old man.
IV. "She took me to the cleaners, and other misdemeanors, but I got right up between her rum and her Ribena." Ian Dury's masterpiece of innuendo, "Billericay Dickie"—though actually I was listening to a Billy Bragg cover. Another 5 points to Dad.
V. "B-more, Maryland, we servin' up essential medicine, bright pink sweatsuits, and Timberlands!" Cex's "Stamina" is not to be found on the YouTubes, but here's one that's about 1000% different. (One point to Anne. Don't blame me, blame the random number generator.)
VI. "Back on the road, not a moment too soon, dish ran away with some other spoon."
VII. "I don't believe it! There she goes again! She's tidied up and I can't find anything!" She may have blinded Thomas Dolby with science, but not Mirabai, who gets 4 more points!
VIII. "Now these points of data make a beautiful line, and we're out of beta, we're releasing on time." If the only thing this quote game accomplishes is getting Jonathon Coulton's "Still Alive" stuck in someone else's head, it will be a triumph. Watch either the evil computer version or the sensitive acoustic version, or preferably both. Man, do I ever want to play Portal. (15 points to Mirabai.)
IX. "Well, guy in a skeleton costume comes up to the guy in the Superman suit, runs through him with a broadsword." The Mountain Goats, "Oceanographer's Choice", which John Darnielle doesn't know the words to. Interestingly, "Jenny" would probably have been my second choice for a great Mountain Goats quote. (19 half-points to Patrick.)
X. "Now my helmet's on, you can't tell me I'm not in space!" I found a machinima version, but it faded out halfway through the song, so enjoy this blatant abuse of YouTube. (Anne, who is controlled by gamma light, gets 14 points; Moss, who is armed with six rounds of space doo-doo pistols, gets half of seven.)
XI. "We'll karaoke all night long! We'll macarena 'till the break of dawn!" This is Electric Six's "Future is in the Future", which gets its charm mostly from the earnest sincerity. The only other song of theirs I really know, "Jimmy Carter", is arguably better, in an extremely creepy fashion. Whichever the case, they clearly inspire some interesting YouTube videos. And by "interesting" I mean "terrible, but in a good way". (9 points for Julia, who got it all on her own without Anne's help, thank you.)
XII. "We're the enigmatic panda team." Sadly, the Internet's only response to the Super Furries' brilliant "Night Vision" appears to be some dude playing Duke Nukem. Still a good song, though. (2 points for Anne, who's having terrible luck today.)
XIII. "'Till I went home with a six foot girl from the south side of Chicago—but it turned out she was a man, oh can you imagine the disaster?" Black 47's "Different Drummer". Here's a majorly lo-fi live version. (8 full points to Dad, 9 half points to Neil and 16 to Moss.)
XIV. "No one can beat us, we drink beer and wear Adidas." What could be better than The Bouncing Souls and Godzilla? And hey, it beats "Vindaloo". (Anne does slightly better this time, scraping four.)
XV. "I'll fuck you up like you had chicken pox and got your ass thrown in a piranha tank."
XVI. "It's a good thing you don't have bus fare. It would fall through the hole in your pocket and you'd lose it in the snow on the ground." Apparently Waylon Jennings was the first to record "Love of the Common People", and Paul Young's version might be the best known, but it's Nicky Thomas's version for Trojan Records for me.
XVII. "I drop science in my rhymes cause I'm fly like Bill Nye."
XVIII. "And when we've had a couple of beers, we'll put on bunny suits." Stephin Merritt longs to nibble your ears. (8 points to Mirabai.)
XIX. "Everybody feels like Gary Coleman sometimes, except the actual Gary Coleman, who finds he almost always feels like Gary Coleman." No, YouTube, I did not mean '"ookla the monk" "a.m. suicide"'. But you can and indeed should download the song here. (6 points for Anne, who would probably get better if she didn't diss on the Ookla.)
XX. "I'm well known to the cops in this section, my expired tags give them all an erection." Neil clearly knew it, though he was unable to identify it as Optimus Rhyme's "Fuzzy Dice". No video, but here, watch "Obey the Moderator" (with helpful subtitles!). I guess I can spare Neil nine three-quarter points for that.
Nota bene: Because I eliminated randomness from the quote selection process, and clearly something about this process has to be random, I am assigning each correct answer a random number of points, with the help of random.org.
Only three and a half left! Go team!
precipitously posted by Martin Marks at 8:15 in the evening // twenty-eight comments by:
Boundstyling?
The Front vaguely freestyling! (Actually mostly just reciting, but hey, it's good stuff.)
(Via Jeffery Rowland.)
begrudgingly posted by Martin Marks at 6:47 in the evening // comment? by:
Wednesday the Thirtieth of January, Two Thousand and Eight
I need a new damn knife.
I just want to tell the world that despite my many and varied colcannon castastrophes, I am capable of making a dang fine soup. Mushrooms, celery, carrot, kale, onion, tofu, peas, itty-bitty pasta bits, and a splash of Heavy Seas winter ale to keep things interesting. I made the mistake of cooking when hungry, though, and doubled the recipe, so now I have enough soup for basically the rest of my natural life. Good thing it turned out so well, really.
piquantly posted by Martin Marks at 8:57 in the evening // two comments by:
Bandwagon.
1. "'Cause it's exciting and adventurous and—it's a tonic for the troops!" The Boomtown Rats, "She's So Modern". Great dang song. Points to Anne.
2. "This is Joe Public speaking."
3. "The money's clear, the sky is bright, I'm happy as the horse's shite." The Pogues, "Bottle of Smoke". I am deeply saddened that only my father knew this.
4. "It was a hand came down, and pow, I got illuminated."
5. "He wants his money or we go to trial; he's got penis envy denial."
6. "What is happening to my skin?" "Air" is what is happening to it, David Byrne of the Talking Heads! Full points to Moss.
7. "Yo man, how was your blackout?"
8. "All people fall into two camps, that ever twain shall be." What the hell, I'll give it to Tim—"Two Kinds of People", by the Magnetic Fields.
9. "I'll be home, waitin' by the phone for you." This is Save Ferris covering the Foundations classic "Build Me Up, Buttercup". Tim gets it by insinuation, which is good enough for me.
10. "Love that fits like a wet glove." Helium's "Silver Angel". If Anne didn't get this, no one would have.
11. "I'd come up with ten tunes a day, keep them ever coming for but a modest wage."
12. "There's panic in my ankles; gosh, this sea ain't got no law." (I swear!)
I would not be able to get quite a few of these myself. Blame pseudo-randomness.
vertiginously posted by Martin Marks at 8:02 in the evening // twenty-one comments by:
Monday the Twenty-Eighth of January, Two Thousand and Eight
I'm not actually very hungry.
That was probably the most ill-fated meal I have ever attempted. I managed to almost kill myself in the process of breaking my only non-butter knife, and then dumped half my potatoes down the drain. BUT I persevered! And it probably sucks. But hey, now I know what blanching is!
scrupulously posted by Martin Marks at 11:29 at night // nine comments by:
Sasha is intrigued.
My living room is currently even more of a shambles than usual, but this is a good thing, because it is an intermediate stage required to deshamblify it. I bought two eighteen-gallon recycling bins today, which were enough to about 75% empty the Big Huge Box o' Recycling I've spent the past two months filling up. (Baltimore just inaugurated curbside single-stream recycling a couple of weeks ago.) Tomorrow I'll find out whether my best guess as to where I'm supposed to put the damn things is correct. I also have two real live chairs and an as-yet unassembled table, courtesy of my stepsister. Tomorrow I'll steal some screws from work and put it together. And my despartification project (which has been going on in parallel with the deshamblification) is also going well; I now have several photographs framed (though I've given up on the dream of cutting my own mats) and have a couple of cast stone pieces by my stepfather hanging up now too. Woo living room!
blithely posted by Martin Marks at 7:44 in the evening // four comments by:
Technically, four of them.
I need a screw.
abstemiously posted by Martin Marks at 7:03 in the evening // comment? by:
Sunday the Twenty-Seventh of January, Two Thousand and Eight
"And the ghosts are rattling at the door, and the devil's in the chair."
Man! I was all revved up to make myself a totally sick bed of colcannon for dinner tonight, but when I went out in search of kale I discovered that the closest thing to a supermarket in pretty much all of downtown Baltimore closes at five on Sundays. Five! O'Clock! PM! I'm slowly getting used to the fact that everything closes on Sunday in Mt Vernon, but this reaches new heights of absurdity. I was seriously jonesing to attempt this, too. Guess I'll just eat pie.
unwittingly posted by Martin Marks at 7:55 in the evening // five comments by:
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