Another reason to hate Owl City

This is silly. Owl City, who already amassed a Number 1 hit on iTunes by copying the style of the Postal Service with that "Fireflies" song, is now apparently accused of stealing album art as well. Adam Young, the 'mastermind' behind Owl City, released the hit album Ocean Eyes in 2009, with this image on the 2nd page of the booklet:

Looks neat. Too bad it is just a LITTLE BIT similar to this photo taken by some guy named Ben Eubank:

So....this Owl City dude likes ripping off guys named Ben (as in Ben Gibbard from the Postal Service/Death Cab for Cutie)? I guess? or else...what? There's no escaping the fact that this is exactly the same image, just with some Photoshop tweaking. Shameful.

And yet Owl City continues to rise and rise and rise in popularity.....sigh.

this was first brought to my attention via Stereogum, a marvelous site.

I hate Hollywood sometimes

A couple years back I saw a delightful British comedy called Death at a Funeral. It was an offbeat tale of a bunch of odd people and the catastrophes that happened at their father's funeral...it was distinctly British, with the same type of humor I love (and some people in the US just don't appreciate). The film seemed to slip under almost everyone's radar here in the US, which was sad.

Yesterday, at the movie theater waiting for Up in the Air to start, I saw a trailer that made me uncomfortable. It opened with Chris Rock at a funeral for his father, but it wasn't his dad in the coffin! This seemed familiar because this was, in fact, A REMAKE OF DEATH AT A FUNERAL. Starring Rock, Martin Lawrence (ugh), Danny Glover, Tracy Morgan and Jason Marsden. Oh, and the little person who was in the original film is the same actor this time around, the guy who was also in Nip/Tuck. And what the HELL is Luke Wilson doing in this mess??


Words couldn't express my confusion as the trailer continued. Why did someone think it necessary to re-make Death at a Funeral? There's NO reason to do that, let alone junk it up with Martin Lawrence and his nonsense. This just made me sad. While this version will probably do well because of the names attached to it, I wish people could just have seen the original, vastly superior British version....or just LEARN TO APPRECIATE BRITISH HUMOR. Gah.

I feel sick now. =/

I'd hate to live next to this house

For the sheer reason of being upstaged every year when it comes to Christmas light decoration.



That's just unfair. And this is a real thing, one of my friends says he's been to the house.

I don't even know how you'd set something like this up...but it looks pretty rad, however it was done.

I wish science/technology didn't hate me. =/

haha

SNL still has hope sometimes....

As evidenced by this skit from last week's episode, which parodies the trailer for the Gathering of the Juggalos event that was so hilarious a couple of months ago....



See? they CAN be funny once in a while! I had almost completely lost hope.....

Now that Thanksgiving is over...

...we can legally play Christmas music.

Anyway, the Men's chorale sang this at my school's Christmas concert a couple years ago. It wasn't on the program, which was the best part haha. The director sat down after they finished their last song and were supposed to leave, but then one of the students ran down and started off this piece. We're singing it again this year, only it will be on the program this time.


We got the song from a group called "Straight No Chaser" who is from Indiana University, I believe. They were the first to do it. You'll see that they do it a bit differently, including an a capella rendition (with the lyrics changed to suit Christmas) of Africa by Toto.


...annnnnnd just because Africa is such a great 80s song, and because I know you're not sick of listening to choir music, here is a mixed choir rendition of it. They create this rainstorm effect by snapping their fingers and hitting their legs and finally the thunder by jumping on their risers. It's a bit cheesy, but if you can get over the cheese factor it's actually pretty cool. I'm not convinced that the thunder sound is completely from the risers, though...

OK Go makes the best videos

even if their songs are sometimes a bit iffy, the band does videos RIGHT. observe:



Edit: Gah, you can't embed the video. So go to YouTube itself and watch. It's rad.

Awesome, right? Well HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT?

this is how. They were nice enough to do a behind the scenes video. And you CAN embed it. bam.



I wish I was that creative. le sigh.

And people say Twilight isn't good literature...

Here are some facts that a friend of mine showed me about that piece of crap ... wonderfully written ... Oh who am I kidding? We all hate that freaking book. I don't know how accurate they are, but they're quite entertaining:

----------------------------------------------
Number of Pages in the Book: 498
The First Hint of a Plot that Is Not Bella and Edward's Romance: page 328
When the Plot Actually Arrives: page 372

Boys that Totally Love Bella (Including Edward Cullen): 5

Approximate Amount of Time Bella and Edward are Romantically Involved Before Bella Is Begging Edward to Turn Her into a Vampire so They Can Be Together Forever: Like, two weeks. Maybe three. The timeline's a bit fuzzy.

References to Edward's Beauty: 165

Broken Down into the following categories -

* Face: 24 (Favorite adjectives: glorious, heavenly, seraphic)
* Voice: 20 (The voice of an archangel, donchaknow.)
* Eyes: 17
* Movement: 11
* Smile: 10
* Teeth: 8
* Muscles: 7
* Skin: 7 (Note: This only contains accounts of Edward's skin being beautiful. I didn't count references to it as "pale," "cold," or "white." If I had, this number would be about ten times larger.)
* Iron Strength or Limbs: 5
* Breath: 4 (EVEN HIS BREATH IS AMAZING.)
* Scent: 4
* Laughter: 3
* Handwriting: 2
* Chest: 2
* Driving Skills: 1


The Number of Times...

* Bella Is Clumsy or Makes a Reference to Her Clumsiness: 26
* Bella Sneers at Forks or Its Inhabitants: 22
* Bella is "Dazzled" or Rendered Speechless by Edward's Beauty or Touch: 17
* Edward Tells Bella to Stay Away from Him While Completely Contradicting Himself with His Behavior: 16
* Bella is Utterly Desolate at Edward's Absence: 12
* Edward and Bella Kiss: 8
o Bella's Hormones Get the Better of Her and She Attacks Edward, Almost Causing Him to Eat Her: 2 (She's not even allowed to kiss him back! Where's the fun in that?)
o Edward's Kiss Makes Bella Faint: 1
o Edward's Kiss Makes Bella's Heart Literally Stop: 1
* Bella Thinks She Isn't Good Enough for Edward: 6
* Edward Is Referred to As Godlike: 5 (Note: This number might be off, as I didn't start counting until three or four mentions in.)
* Edward Tells Bella She's Unnatural: 5
* Edward Sparkles: 3
* Bella is in Mortal Danger: 3
o Edward Saves Bella from Mortal Danger: 3
* Edward Stalks Bella, For Real: 2 (Note: One of these instances involves watching her sleep every night for, like, months.)
* Bella says "Holy Crow!": 2
* Bella and Edward Argue About Who Loves the Other Most: 1
* Edward's Inability to Read Bella's Mind is Explained: 0

sELF rocks, this is pretty accurate too

This is pretty cool...sELF was a very underrated band from the mid 1990's. Basically just Matt Mahaffee, the band released some pretty rad albums....this is from Ornament & Crime, an album that wasn't actually released. Thanks to the Internet, of course, this is hosted somewhere. It's the last track on that album....and it's a pretty accurate depiction of LA radio...ahha

Autotune Explained....with Weird Al!

The folks at Know Your Meme put together this information and funny video highlighting the exploitation of Auto-Tune in popular music today...check it out! There's even a little snippet of Eenie Meenie's own Wallpaper. and their remix of Jay-Z's "Death to Autotune" song....cool!

This video is great.

No, really. It's fabulous. The plot is just fantastic.

The Internet is Amazing

Umm.....where to begin? What/who/why is this? I have no clue. This guy's look reminds me of...



Chris Tucker from the 5th Element.

Not that that helps explain what the hell is going on in this video/song....but....it's entertaining, to say the least.

Them Crooked Vultures finally have a real song out

and here it is:



If anyone still cares, that is. The hype seems to have died down, as they just teased us for months until now, when there's finally a real full song out....and it's pretty cool.

I'll admit I'm not as super excited as I was two months ago, but I'm still looking forward to hearing the album and seeing them live.

jazz... and beatboxing?

I've never heard of Iiro Rantala or his new trio, but it's certainly an interesting combination: Piano, Guitar... and Beatboxing. They're completely different personalities, and it's great. It's really a fun song, but it feels a bit more like a jam session to me. Anyway, check it out:


Iiro Rantala New Trio - Shit Catapult