Andrew W.K. - 55 Cadillac

This album is pretty entertaining.  As an upfront, I am a HUGE fan of the album I Get Wet, I tried a few times to listen to The Wolf, and never got through it, and I haven't listened to anything else Andrew WK did since.  I recently found out he is a classically trained pianist, which makes this album make a little bit more sense.  He described 55 Cadillac as a collection of "spontaneous solo piano improvisations" inspired by his car.  It is somehow, despite being almost exclusively piano, pretty true to Andrew WK.  Fairly repetitious.  Most of it is really nice though.  The track "Night Driving" is the biggest exception for me.  It really dares you not to skip it.  SUPER ANNOYING for about 2 minutes in the middle.  Definitely worth a listen.  I rate this album a 7: good solid set, but too short (8 tracks), and I had to struggle to get through one track. 

Star Trek the Next Generation, Season 6, Episode 22 "Suspicions"

I call BS. In this episode there is a ferengi scientist who makes some kind of new super awesome shield so you can fly into a star. Other scientists don't believe him, probably because he's a Ferengi. So they do a test and some other scientist flies a ship with his shield into a star, he gets all messed up, barely makes it back to the ship, then dies. Ferengi man says no no no, not my shield, sabotage, my shield is awesome, I'll fly it again myself. Crusher says no, no one else flies the ship into a star, too dangerous, forget it. Immediately after the ferengi guy gets killed. They find he's holding a plasma whatsis that made him die, everyone says well he probably killed himself. Crusher says no, he didn't kill himself, someone killed him. Picard says well, we don't think so, and you can't autopsy him because his family says no, what's more, if you want us to investigate this, you have to find some evidence. WHAT? Dude, even if EVERYONE thought it was a suicide, there should obviously be an investigation. No investigation unless the Doctor can find evidence? No investigation at all by security? That's crap. POLTFAIL.

I just stopped reading The Machine Crusade by Kevin J. Anderson about 4/5 of the way in. That guy uses characters in stupid ways, thinks that he is writing emotional scenes with characters he made you hate long long ago, and LOVES LOVES LOVES torture. I've never stopped reading a book I was so far into before. Such a piece of crap though. TERRIBLE book. Everyone I could tolerate in the story was dead anyway, might as well stop reading. Reading the wikipedia article on that book pretty much confirms nothing else was going to happen anyway, he was just going to blather for a while to set up the next book. Terrible.


But Andy, what did you really think?

Seriously, how many takes do you think they had to do before the guy was able to say "now thanks to McDonald's you don't have to be an olympic athlete to eat like one," without choking on the words? Chicken nuggets? Kids, if you want to be an Olympic athlete, make sure to take your vitamins and eat trash.

Wandra is a horrible name.

I find myself unable to stop reading these terrible Dune Prequels. Is this Kevin J. Anderson guy always this sick, or did he just feel these books had a particular need for all things gruesome? There are numerous extended torture sequences, and he seems to delight in thinking of ways to do terrible things to people. They don't prove some meaningful point; they seem to be just horrors for their own sake. I wish I could stop.

Owl City - Ocean Eyes:

Pitchfork Review

Sadly, this review nails it. These songs all sound good, and I would like them if I didn't speak English. I am not opposed to someone sounding EXACTLY like the postal service since the postal service has decided not to make albums any more, but these lyrics are at best average and at worst trite to the point of being offensively bad. I was on the "these songs have very average lyrics" fence until I got to "Dental Care," which is just bad. A song about how much going to the dentist sucks and dentists are evil and like hurting people? Paging really bad stand up... Anyway. This album is rated a 4 for tolerable music, with badly written lyrics about lame subjects.