And with that any punk rock points that ever existed were removed from the ledger, annihilated by a distressing number of suburban resident points.  After downloading the Economist Audio Edition(SHUT UP ABOUT PAUL RYAN HE IS A HACK) and putting it on my phone, I mowed my yard while I listened to it.  Following mowing my yard came the final nail in the coffin.  I opened my garage door with my automatic garage door opener, backed my car into the driveway, and my son and I washed my car in front of my house.  For the second time. 

This morning I forgot to make a new cd of this week's Economist audio edition and so I started rifling through cds in my car from years back when I used to actually listen to music in the car. My parents had my car detailed while I was in Greece on my honeymoon, and one of the consequences of that awesome thing happening is that my cd case is in the trunk in a bag with all the other things that were in my car except for things in the dash compartment. This left me with Margerine Eclipse by Stereolab, and a Cd of many albums by NOFX, Randy, and Rancid. I ended up listening mostly to songs from Rancid's Life Won't Wait which I had forgotten is one of my favorite of all time. Rancid completely backtracked from that awesome still developing new awesome sound they had on that album and all their albums after that are... just fine. Or bad. Mostly they decided that new fun sounds were not cool and they would make songs like people have made in the past though. That album is so good! It reminded me of the best job interview I ever had for a job I didn't end up taking(because at the time I was holding out for $6.00/hr and they were only paying $4.75). I was interviewing at a blockbuster music and right off the bat, BOOM, they asked "Ok, so let's start with your top five. Go." I was dumbfounded. Completely unprepared for such a great question. I remember I said 30 Something, and probably the Pink album, and then I think I started talking about what I was listening to right then so as to have some modern relevance at all in my answers. I know I said Reel Big Fish and probably also mentioned I was listening to alot of Less Than Jake at the time. Great question for a job interview, but, from High Fidelity...:

'What are your five favorite records of all time?' she says.

'Pardon?'

'What are your all-time top five records? Your desert island discs, minus - how many? Three?'

'Minus three what?'

'It's eight on Desert Island Discs, isn't it? So eight minus five is three, right?'

'Yeah. Plus three, though. Not minus three.'

'No, I just said . . . anyway. Your all-time top five records.'

'What, in the club, or at home?'

'Is there a difference?'

'OF COURSE . . . ' Too shrill. I pretend I've got something in my throat, clear it, and start again. 'Well, yeah, a bit. There's my top five dance records of all time, and then there's my top five records of all time. See, one of my favorite-ever records is 'Sin City' by the Flying Burrito Brothers, but I wouldn't play that at the club. It's a country-rock ballad. Everyone would go home.'

'Never mind. Any five. So four more.'

'What d'you mean, four more?'

'Well, if one of them is this 'Sin City' thing, that leaves four more.'

'NO!' This time I make no attempt to disguise the panic. 'I didn't say it was in my top five! I just said it was one of my favorites! It might turn out to be number six or seven!'

I'm making a bit of a fool of myself, but I can't help it: this is too important, and I've waited for it too long. But where have they gone, all these records I've had in my head for years, just in case Roy Plomley or Michael Parkinson or Sue Lawley or whoever used to do My Top Twelve on Radio One contacted me and asked me in as a late and admittedly unknown replacement for someone famous? For some reason I can think of hardly any record at all apart from 'Respect,' and that's definitely not my favorite Aretha song.

'Can I go home and work it out and let you know? In a week or so?'

Seriously, Nick Hornby has this exactly right. I can't just spit out five records all the sudden like that! COME ON! Anyway. Fun memory. This has been my me channeling Wil Wheaton post.

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.