Happy Birthday Björk!

Happy 43rd birthday to Björk! Since I can't make it down to Iceland for her party, I'll have to celebrate in my own way from home. I am currently streaming a playlist that was on WMFU today. It's 3 hours of Björk, with songs from throughout her entire career (including Sugarcubes of course).

Check out the playlist here and or stream it through iTunes by clicking here.

Enjoy!

The New Xbox Experience

Yesterday, Microsoft released the much-anticipated New Xbox Experience yesterday. It's basically a fancy term for the new 360 Dashboard. The old one seemed a bit clunky and dated to me, so I love the new look and features. In addition to menu's facelift, you can now:

- Create an Avatar for your gamertag, which is already integrated in some games
- Stream your Netflix queue directly from your 360
- Create parties to chat and game with up to seven friends at once
- Install games onto your hard drive for faster load times
- Play new Community Games, which is a new section of the Games Marketplace
- Purchase games, themes, etc. from http://marketplace.xbox.com to have downloaded the next time you sign on to Live



Free updates like these are why the 360 is my favorite console that I've owned at this point. I love how the system was created to be able to change and update through software. Who knows how different the system will be in a year from now. Plus, check out my avatar! I actually had a lot of fun making him, although I wish they offered a bigger beard selection.


Check it out, my avatar was featured on an awesome gaming blog Joystiq.

The Future of Food in Japan

The following is an animated video released by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries about ensuring the future of food in Japan. It's very entertaining and informative, and is applicable to most countries. Japan has, for the most part, abandoned much of its traditional diet and replaced it with more of the bad, fatty food we tend to eat more of here in the U.S. This poses many problems, but I'll let the video explain why we should all eat local:

Get Up Kids Reunion!

According to the music blog of the Kansas City Star, The Get Up Kids are playing a show this Sunday! It'll be their first show in 3 years. Vocalist Matt Pryor told the blog:

"Next year is the 10th anniversary of our second record, 'Something to Write Home About,' which was our most popular record. We talked to Vagrant about doing a 10-year anniversary edition with a DVD and a photo book and all that stuff. Then we thought, 'Hey, we should play some shows.' This summer we got everybody on-board. Then we basically told a bunch of people about it and then denied it, just to be contrary.

"We weren't going to do it until next year, but we decided it'd be funny if we just showed up and played a show. We thought about doing it Thanksgiving, like, 'Hey, we all happen to be home for Thanksgiving ...,' but that didn't work out."

They've also released new shirts with the words "Be Prepared." Could this imply a full reunion tour or maybe them getting back together? This all makes this guy pretty damn stoked. They were the band responsible for getting me into independent music and away from the shit flooding the airwaves and MTV. Sure the band's last couple albums weren't my favorites, but "Something to Write Home About" is still at the top of my favorite albums list.

Super Street Fighter II HD Remix

I spent a great deal of time and money in the arcades growing up playing a much less awesome-looking version of this game. The bowling alley across the street from my house had a machine that I poured countless quarters into (along with the Stargate Pinball game) with friends when we'd stop after school. I also remember getting Street Fighter II Turbo on the Sega Genesis as a gift when I came home from getting my appendix removed. It made being bedridden a much more pleasant experience for sure.

Because of the demand from fans, Capcom decided to make a high-res HD version of Super Street Fighter II. If this game isn't a good enough of an excuse for me to finally make the jump to an HDTV, I don't know what is. According to Wikipedia, it will be out sometime this month. I haven't been able to find an official exact release date yet, so let's just hope it's out by the end of the year.

Role Models

Friday night was spent in Seattle with great friends, fantastic beer and a hilarious movie, to celebrate Eric's 25th year of birth. We started with dinner and drinks at the Hale's Ales Brewery & Pub. The beer was great (Mongoose IPA, mmmm), the portabella mushroom burger decent. Next we saw "Role Models" starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, directed by David Wain (of Wet Hot American Summer and Stella fame). The movie started slow and wasn't all that funny, but it really picked up, especially when it started to focus so much on LARPing (Live Action Role-Playing). David Wain's directing is always a hit (WHAS) or miss (The Ten) for me, and this one falls more toward the hit side. Definitely check it out.


Eric, Julie and Lauren outside of the Metro Theatre on Capitol Hill.

Election Night

We really did it. America has elected Barack Obama to be it's 44th President. I couldn't have been more happy about that. For the first time in my adult life on November 4, 2008, I truly felt proud to be an American.

I spent the evening with the Whatcom Democrats at the Lakeway Inn. Food was provided and the night was hosted by Congressman Rick Larsen. It was really awesome to be around a whole bunch of passionate people from the community who supported Obama. Folks were cheering, crying, calling loved ones, hugging each other... Because not only did Obama win the election, but he won by a landslide like I was hoping for. He took over what were past red states across the country, and is sparking a new political landscape.

Lakeway Inn:




We headed downtown after getting some food at Boomer's to find another large gathering at the corner of Railroad and Holly. I honked the horn, parked and joined the celebration. We chanted, danced, cheered and had a good time. Eventually the group started heading up Holly, completely blocking traffic. We turned onto Samish and heading back down Chestnut, gathering once more at the corner of Chestnut and Railroad. Here is an awesome video from the march, a few more photos I took, followed by a few from Lauren. It was a total blast and a night I'll never forget.

My Morning Jacket Vinyl Collection

So I've basically spent all day and night helping a friend list her record collection on ebay. There's lots of good stuff at great prices, so check out the selection here: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/thegetupkid69

In the process of taking photos of her stuff, I decided to take the photo above of all of my My Morning Jacket records. I am pretty sure I have all of their stuff now minus the spoken word LP they put out, but I don't really count that ;)

I was inspired to take a photo like that because of a thread I saw on the deadformat.net message board. People are posting their collections of a single artist and this one made me INSANELY JEALOUS. Easily the best collection on the internet:

The Get Up Kids

I don't even like to imagine how much that is worth.

Torche at El Corazon

Both Torche and Coliseum put on kick-ass shows at El Corazon last night in Seattle. First of all, it was crazy to be back at that venue after so long. It takes a special band or two to get me to drive down for shows lately, usually due to work or lack of people to come with me, but I am glad I made the effort last night. Both bands had a ton of energy. Torche was heavy as shit and I think Coliseum played faster live then on record, which was impressive. The show wasn't totally packed (which was nice), I got some sweet merch, and I even got to meet fellow homo, Steve Brooks, who sings for Torche and was a really nice guy. Seattle's The Stranger published this roundtable discussion about being gay in the music scene. Brooks is interviewed along with Brian Cook of These Arms are Snakes and Juan Valezquez of Abe Vigoda. It's a pretty interesting read, but maybe just because I can relate.
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