The Best Of Missing Persons by Missing Persons

I came to this 80s new wave band in a weird way. I bought a compilation album Sonic Youth did a song on, and some band covered Missing Persons great song "Destination Unknown," which I loved, so I looked it up on youtube and then we got married. By married I mean I bought the album, and I guess it was pretty good, although to be fair I was kind of listening to it in the background. I'm a pretty amateurish reviewer I guess. But it turns out I love synthesizers, which they use a lot of since it was the 80s and communism.

RATING: 63%

Wild Goods by Denise Newman

Sorry this pic is so small, but it's the best I could find. Anyway, I just read this book for a class, and I have to say it's pretty great. Denise Newman emotionally navigates the boundaries between birth and death, and the religious implications of good living. The most powerful section is the second section, in which she uses the chapters of an old monastic guide as poem titles, and questions the emotional ramifications of the finite. It's imaginatively powerful, and you should buy it right now why don't ya.

RATING: 83%

school brand water

My law school has it's own brand of bottled water. That is, when you buy a water from the caf, instead of it being a Dasani water or a Fugi water, the label has our school's name and logo on it. It's pretty tasty and I have to admit I think it's neat that we have our own water. Even the super big undergrad school Glenn and I went to did have that shiz. It doesn't make up for the fact that they only ever have caffeine free diet coke instead of regular coke (which I'm convinced is a cruel joke), but it does give the otherwise terrible cafeteria a few points of cool. I think someday I'd like to have a fridge full of Laurie brand water. That would be sweet!

Rating: 54%

Speed Limit 140 BPM And Up Vol. 4

Back in high school I used to listen to a lot of electronic music, because I used to track electronic music myself. It was what a bunch of us did on local BBS's before the internet hit it big, and I kept doing it pretty regularly until my computer was stolen in 2000. Anyway, this CD is one of the main ones I listened to at the time, and going back to it I guess it's pretty decent, although all of the songs use the same samples it sounds like. It's still pretty good, and I think I've grown to appreciate simple songs more as the years have ravaged me.

RATING: 59%

Cleaning

Cleaning itself is totally lame. I hate doing it, and will procrastinate by virtually any means to get out of it (including updating blogs). However, it's really satisfying to have a clean apartment, or a clean house for all you rich homeowners unlike me. So that's one good aspect about cleaning, and also if you have cats if you don't clean regularly then your allergies get really bad like me.

RATING: 36%

Star Trek: To Boldly Go

The first comics I remember buying as a five or six year old kid were Madballs comics and comics from the old DC run of Star Trek from the 80s. I jumped in around issue 38, so I missed a whole lot of story (there were continuing arcs unique to the comics during that time). Luckily, this British company Titan Books has begun collecting that run in trade paperback form. These books really capture the crazy spirit of the original series, with weird planets and space gods and cowboys. I was just watching TNG earlier, and it's way too talky and makes too much sense, which are two things I like about TOS, that it doesn't explain its campiness and doesn't make very much sense, so anyway I'm out of sentences and this is already grammatically incorrect - in conclusion this is good.

RATING: 62%

Cracklin' Oat Bran

Cracklin' Oat Bran is the best cereal that uses colloquial speech in its title. Except for Honey Motherfuckin' Nut Cheerios. I don't usually buy this cereal because it is expensive, but it was on sale the other day and I felt like having some dense oats for breakfast. They are tough to eat a lot of because they are really thick, but if you like your cereal to look like robot mouths then this is the product for you.

RATING: 60%

Nectarines

When I did a google image search for nectarines I came up with this hippie woman eating a nectarine from Whole Foods. Give me a break! Whole Foods isn't that much better than working class grocery stores, you hemp clad bourgeoisie. Anyway, nectarines aren't that great, and they should choose to be a plum or a peach already. To be fair, the batch I just bought was pretty bad in general, but maybe if I was rich I could afford to shop at whole foods like this broad.

RATING: 38%

Last Splash by The Breeders

I always used to think this Breeders album was terrific, probably fueled by the fact that I lost my copy for years. But then I bought it last year for super cheap on Amazon, and I have been kind of underwhelmed ever since. There's some great songs on it, like Cannonball and Divine Hammer, but there are some real boring songs too. So it's not the big hit I remember. Oh well.

RATING: 60%

Golden Grahams

General Mills knew exactly how to rope me in. I was at Target yesterday, just buying a sandwich and an envelope, and I walk past this end cap of Golden Graham boxes, except they're the design from the 80s. Usually I don't buy name brand cereal if there's a comparable generic version, but I had to participate in this bit of nostalgia which is what the company knew. Anyway, I don't know why I felt nostalgic about it because we never had Golden Grahams when we were kids, and I always considered them a fancy cereal along the lines of Lucky Charms or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. But I like them a lot better than La Lechera Flakes.

RATING: 63%

Midnighter: Killing Machine

This is about the first 6 issues of the new Midnighter run, which was also collected into trade as Killing Machine (though I'm not sure if the sixth issue was or not, since it was a stand alone). Anyway, Midnighter is everybody's favorite gay Punisher/Batman analog from The Authority, and whenever Wildstorm got rebooted a year or so ago he got his own book. I bought it because I always felt he was kind of a bad ass, and Garth Ennis, writer of Preacher and the best run on Punisher ever was writing it. It turned out to be pretty good, and the only new Wildstorm book that sells well. In this first storyline, a rich guy basically kidnaps Midnighter and tells him he has to go back in time to assassinate Hitler, which ends up with some hilarious twists because Hitler is comedy gold.

RATING: 62%

Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago

A friend of mine recommended this last night and it is by far the best album I've downloaded purchased lawfully since Burial's Untrue (which is also awesome for different reasons). It's kind of a folk-y ambient, layered cinnamon roll of musical awesomeness. Beautiful, soulful, lonely, addictive. All that stuff. Everyone should go buy it now. RIGHT NOW. GO. NOW.

Rating: 71%

My day today

I think it's safe to say I had a pretty sucktacular day. I was stood up twice, had an emotionally vexing phone conversation with my ex that had me crying in a library study room, got mild food poisoning from some lox, and when I bought my new Metrocard this morning I discovered that the price has gone up five bucks. Therefore, today sucked. Boo today.

Rating: 16%

Spider-man: The Other: Evolve Or Die

This storyline is without a doubt the second worst storyline in Spider-man comics history, just ahead of Maximum Clonage and behind One More Day. Anyway, the plot is that Joe Quesada, the EIC of Marvel Comics, wants to get a lot of meaningless money so he makes a long ass crossover that gets a lot of media hype but ultimately sucks balls. The real plot is that Spider-man gets killed, but comes back to life because of spider gods, then he has a bunch of new powers that no writer ever really used in the comics and got retconned out two years after he got them. Reading back over these infuriated me, but in retrospect Regie Hudlin wasn't really bad like I thought he was. My anger was probably out of his disrespect for Black Panther, which he had just started, but now he has the hang of that series and it's pretty good.

RATING: 7%

Eating

Eating is obviously great but on the other hand I tend to eat non stop whenever there is food in my house like there is now. I guess it's because I don't usually tend to buy groceries very often, and just buy single meals. So when I have food I eat a lot and then feel like I might explode or something but not literally. Anyway, eating is probably a good thing so try it if you have time.

RATING: 89%

Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout

This is probably one of the most delicious beers I've ever had, although I don't really feel like drinking it that often. It's really dark, so it's almost like drinking a nice cool bottle of molasses or something. Hey, did you ever hear of that terrible molasses flood that killed all those people? That was bad, but this beer is good.

RATING: 80%

Grapefruit

Grapefruit is I think the only fruit that has a utensil named after it, so I guess that makes it famous or something. I love grapefruit, probably more than oranges, but it is not very easy to eat them. The skins are super thick, and if you eat them with a spoon like you are a senior citizen then you don't get all the meat I feel like. So let's work on that, ok, science?

RATING: 73%

Strange Brew

Well this is a Canadian movie following the exploits of two alcoholic brothers in their quest for beer. It's pretty stupid, but it's also really funny, and loosely based on Hamlet. We'll see how my students like watching it next week.

RATING: 71%

Mean Girls

I have to admit that this movie was better than I thought it would be, although I wish that it was a lot more vicious to the titular mean girls rather than trying to make everybody feel happy in the end. Anyway, the plot is Lindsay Lohan signs up to do a movie, but unknown to her it will be the high point of her career. Just kidding, but everybody knows the plot to this movie. Good to see Tim Meadows getting steady work.

RATING: 66%

Houston Radio

Houston radio stations are the worst on fucking planet Earth. If you like oldies, too bad because there's only one station and they mostly play 70s classic rock; if you like good rap too bad because there's only three rap stations and all they play is southern garbage except for the TSU station for two hours Friday night and the rest of the week they play smooth jazz; if you like rock there's a lot of stations but you'll probably just hear Nickelback or whatever; and if you like indie music then also too bad because the Rice University station just plays ambient tones for 95% of their broadcast day. There is a good station for classic country, though, so that's fine, and if you like Tejano music then there are about 40 choices. Mainly just get a cd player in your car is my recommendation if you're going to move here.

RATING: 29%

Days Of Heaven

Allow me to sum up the plot of every Terrence Malick movie for you: pretty. They're all pretty much excuses for 2 hours of beautiful scenery, and this one's no different. I guess there's some kind of story about sharecroppers and a rich farmer (I find it difficult to watch movies or tv shows where somebody who's totally nice is deceived by the people you're supposed to be rooting for, but I suppose that's what makes things complex), but basically this movie is just an excuse to show the natural scenic beauty that is north Texas, and by north Texas I mean Alberta because that's where it was shot.

RATING: 64%

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy

You might think this video game is stupid, and I guess it kind of is, but it's also really hilarious, and pretty fun for a 3D platformer. I wouldn't say it's the greatest and most fun game of all time, but I got it used for cheap and there's a ton of secrets to find. So if you've played pretty much every other game you feel like playing then maybe give this one a shot, who am I your mother?

RATING: 66%

Firefly

I just finished watching this tv show for the first time (despite seeing the movie in the theaters when it was released) and I have to say it's pretty great. It's no original Star Trek, but it was still a lot of fun to watch. Based on this show and Whedon's comics, I might even be willing to give Buffy a shot. For those of you who don't know, this is basically Han Solo the tv series set in the outer space wild west. Too bad it only lasted 17 episodes or whatever, because there was a lot more they could have done that would have been cool.

RATING: 74%

Sonic Youth by Sonic Youth

Originally Sonic Youth's first EP, this was rereleased a couple years ago with additional live tracks. I have to admit, it's really strange to hear drums with such high-tuned toms on a SY record, but I think just taking into consideration the original 6 tracks this is pretty good. I might even like it better than Confusion Is Sex, if just for the track I Dreamed I Dream alone. So check it out if you have the time and/or money.

RATING: 68%

Spam Email

Well we all hate spam, but remember last year when that dude somehow got caught with all those computers sending out spam and got prosecuted for it? That felt kind of like one of those revenge movies where the hero shoots the guy who killed his wife. Anyway, I don't really ever get spam in my regular inbox anymore, but I keep having to check my junk folder to make sure important things didn't go there, as they often do. Also, who falls for those phishing scams, anyway? Sure, a millionaire in Africa wants to give you a million dollars, granny.

RATING: 8%

Daredevil: Yellow

Sorry to review all these Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale books. But for the most part they're pretty excellent. This one doesn't hold up to the same sort of scrutiny that their Batman collaborations do, largely because it doesn't really have a overarching storyline like those. Basically it's just 6 tales from the early days of Daredevil, when he wore the lame yellow costume pictured to my left, loosely connected by the theme of Matt Murdock's love for Karen Page, his former secretary, who is dead in present continuity. Oops, spoilers.

RATING: 79%

Stones' Beast of Burden

I can't quite put my finger on what it is that makes this song so damn catchy, but damn, it's catchy! "I love how it's all bom bom bom all I want for you to mAake love to me..." Oh Mick Jagger, if you weren't a scary old man with giant lips I would totally make love to you. (As long as you didn't actully call it "making love.") Walk for miles, my feet are hurtin...

Rating: 74%

Unravelling Words & The Weaving Of Water by Cecilia Vicuna

No, that's not the book cover, but the book is way out of print so I couldn't find a picture of the cover on the internet and I am also inept with my camera and couldn't take a decent picture of it. Anyway, this book is by Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuna, and it's pretty decent for about 70 pages, which is how long a poetry book should be so I can't fault her for that. But unfortunately the book is 156 pages long and it kind of starts repeating itself (although perhaps with the recurrent theme of weaving and language moving in circles this is intentional?). The questioning of the origins of language are really engaging in the book, and I'm usually kind of resistant to poems that deal solely with the idea of language/object relation. But this is good.

RATING: 66%

Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question, Holidays, Central Park In The Dark

(I wasn't too sure how to do this review, so I sort of am doing it based on the recording from this Bernstein album, rather than taking each piece on its own. Also this stuff in parentheses doesn't count as sentences). I have never really given Charles Ives a thought. I heard a violin piece he wrote and found it unbearable. But these orchestral works conducted by Bernstein are pretty terrific. They're sort of ambient, kind of like Hindemith or something, but there are a lot of moments of excitement, and the balance between ambiance and pressure creates some excellent emotional crescendos. Definitely check out this dude, particularly the Holidays Symphony.

RATING: 76%

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7

For years I've alternated between Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky as my favorite composers, but strangely I've never bought any of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, and while I've enjoyed Shostakovich's symphonies, I've never bought or heard a recording of his most famous one, the 7th. Anyway, it's great of course. It was written early in World War II, commissioned by the Soviet government as a propaganda/motivator piece for the citizens and soldiers. So it's pretty upbeat. I have to say I like his 8th a lot better, but this one is pretty great.

RATING: 82%

Punk-O-Rama Vol. 5

This is pretty much exactly the same as vol. 4 except I like it better because I don't feel like skipping as many songs.

RATING: 67%