So I got Red Dead Redemption a few days back.

Which means that most of my free time has been given to that.

Much to the chagrin of my ongoing search for better employment.

And to the chagrin of my attempt to keep writing.

AND to the chagrin of everything else.

It's a pretty fantastic game, however. As it turns out, marrying GTA and the West was an amazing idea, and I'm really enjoying the "anything goes" mentality the game possesses.

If there's one problem so far, it's that there's this cougar. And it hates me.

Which might not be a problem if it didn't also insist on mauling me to death (I can live with the cougar hating me yet passively harbors feelings of contempt and not gnawing on my leg). And he does it JUST as I skin and kill a few wolves so my master hunter rating will go up. Or when I collect another red sage to improve my flower collecting rating (or whatever it's called), meaning that all the stuff I had just done gets wiped out. Grr.

I can see if he's got some type of pact with the wolves where if any hostility is acted upon the wolves, he (and I'll just go ahead and assume it's a he) comes in and protects them. You know, going against the common enemy and stuff. But WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU ATTACKING ME WHEN I'M PICKING FLOWERS?

It doesn't make sense. I searched for "Cougars like flowers" in Google and no results were found. And even if it did hold a particular fondness for red sages, it's not like I'm picking the entire f'n patch. I'm doing it so people all around the area will know me for my intense flower picking capabilities. Also I'm helping some old guy out and grabbing some flowers so he can give them to his wife. Why would he be so opposed to a guy giving his wife a gift? Was he heartbroken by a dashing female cougar and now hates the very concept of love, thus ruining any opportunity where love might flourish?

It might just be because he thinks I'm weak for picking flowers. But this is silly. I'm a badass with huge scars on my face, and I tried taking you on with a knife. Which was stupid, yes... but weak? Well... if you consider stupidity and weakness pretty much the same, I suppose.

I'm trying to figure out a way to get back at the cougar, but as of right now I don't want to go anywhere near them. I'm kind of fearing that it's just going to roll into town one day while I'm playing horseshoes and beat the crap out of me. Obviously I'm not in the right state of mind for battle.

I've heard there are bears in the game too.

I hope they are cuddlier than the cougars are.

Is it bad that in the World Cup match between Brazil and North Korea... I'm kind of cheering for North Korea?

That must be a bad thing.

Cause... you know, North Korea= bad and grr and super evil and such. But the only reason I would watch these games is to hope for massive upsets that totally confound expectations. It's kind of like the NCAA tournament... when in doubt, ALWAYS cheer for the underdog.

Plus, I figured that Brazil would be up at least a goal half an hour into it, so the fact that it's still tied pretty much forces me to cheer for the underdogs.

But... you know.

Wah wah wah

Sara and I were supposed to watch some movie before heading to the restaurant down the street for some late night appetizers, but she is taking a long time emailing/internetting. So I'm jumping at the chance to update this place.

Maybe she's just killing time.... and expecting me to grab her when I'm ready to watch something. Hmm.

I bought another bobblehead today. Last time I wrote about this I had one. Now I have six. By this time next week I might have 322. I just bought a bobblehead of the Empire Today guy for $3 at a thrift store while killing time waiting to pick up Sara from work. And then I bought an Iron Man bobblehead for $8 at work. AND then last week at a garage sale, I found Colonel Sanders, Count Chocula and Popeye for $3 each.

Just so you know, I'm going full out hardcore on this.

Seriously, I plan to have a huge collection-50 by the end of the year and 500 by the time I'm 30 or so. It's probably going to be all I talk about at some point and you'll probably want to spend less time interacting with me as a result, but nonetheless I DON'T CARE. The things are kitschy and weird and I'll collect a bunch of pop culture characters and mascots and presidents and obscure pitchers for the Kansas City Royals and it's going to be great.

I'm going to try writing more often.

The other day I woke up and my fish tank was on fire...

True story.

Well, I didn't necessarily see any fire. But I saw smoke. And old sayings are always correct.

I've been away for a while. This is because I have been moving/going out of town/hanging out and such. Thus I haven't really had time for anything other than that stuff. But things are sort of slowing down now, which means I might be able to toss off a few posts every now and then.

Except that I've been playing a lot of games recently. Plus I haven't picked up Super Mario Galaxy 2 yet. Plus I've heard really good things about Red Dead Redemption. So... yeah.

Wanna know what I did during that long stretch?

-Drove down to lower Wisconsin with the girlfriend! YEAH! It was exciting... except for the fact that I had to deal with a flat tire. I mean, that was exciting, but in the wrong kind of way.

-Visited the Spam Museum, which is probably the greatest ridiculous and inessential museum out there. I mean, it's pretty essential if you want the history of Hormel and Spam. Cause you get to learn about the founder of the company through puppets and telephone conversations. But other than that... it's kind of silly... and amazing. There's a Spam quiz that you can take in this studio that's kind of awesome. Plus you can see who is able to can Spam the fastest. I won the Spam can-off by a second. It was intense.

-Helped out on Sara's grandmother's farm. Which by that I mean... sat around mostly while other people worked. So her family might secretly resent me. I have no way of knowing.

-Went to a drive-in theater and saw a double feature. Mini-reviews on both:

Shrek 4: I liked the first one, hated the second one, never saw the third. So I thought this would be terrible. Imagine my surprise, when it actually turned out to be bland and inessential instead of offensive and annoying! I thought pop culture jokes would trample all over the entire film, but thankfully it was all kept to a minimum. The story is kind of underdeveloped and the characters seemed rather one dimensional, but hey... guess ripping off "It's A Wonderful Life" grants you a decent amount of mileage. RATING: 5 OUT OF 10 OR SO.

Iron Man 2: I heard this was going to be disappointing... and it was. Didn't seem nearly as fun and exciting as the first one. Plus, I was totally digging Mickey Rourke as the bad guy, and for the first 20 minutes it seems as if he might develop into someone cool... but then he gets relegated to the background for the rest of the movie. And then the final fight he's in is pretty much the least climatic final battle I've ever seen (SPOILERS: Mickey Rourke rigs a bunch of bombs, Iron Man dodges them in about 5 seconds, and that's it. (What?)). It was another film that seemed sort of underbaked, but perhaps I was missing some crucial information by having the drive-in experience (with the crappy radio sound and all). But then again... probably not. RATING: 5 OUT OF 10-ish.

Oh holy balls.

Nickelodeon's classic Nicktoon lineup is (for all intents and purposes) on Netflix's Watch Instantly now.

Now, it doesn't have ALL the seasons of Rocko's Modern Life (and it probably doesn't have other seasons of other shows), nor does it have Doug (assuming it's because they lost the rights to Disney or something), BUT:

The good seasons of Rugrats, Angry Beavers, Hey Arnold, some probably censored episodes of Ren & Stimpy, the first season of Rocko, and Invader Zim for good measure.

This is fantastic, in case you didn't know.

Not just because I get to effectively relive my childhood and all, but also because they're all quality cartoons. I mean, Rugrats sucked for the majority of its run, but before the movie it was actually a pretty well written show. Hey Arnold had a cool, relaxed vibe to it (or maybe my perception of it is just clouded by its jazzy theme song...), Angry Beavers was fun as hell, and Invader Zim had the stigma of being worshipped by a few too many annoying teenagers... but it still had that great twisted, bizarre sense of humor.

It doesn't have everything though. Like Doug, which is unfortunate. Or Rocket Power, Wild Thornberrys or Catdog, but screw those shows. It also has Aaahh Real Monsters, but f*** that. IT'S GOT ANGRY BEAVERS! I HAVEN'T SEEN THAT SHOW IN YEARS!!

Collections

Like most people who have nothing better to do with their lives, I like to collect stuff.

Unlike most people who have nothing better to do with their lives, I am too lazy to devote much time to the stuff I'm collecting, so my collections end up being more ideas rather than actual physical groups of stuff.

I hope to change this at some point... you know, once I have a disposable income (and become a teenager again), but as it is, I am going to have to slowly chip away at these collections while I try to fill them out.

That said, I decided to start a new collection today.

My birthday present was a Squidward made out of beads. It pretty much looks ten kinds of amazing.

How amazing was it? Well, so amazing that I thought to myself "Hey! I should start a Squidward collection! Cause he's awesome and stuff."

So I did.

I went to the Mall of America looking for Squidward related items, since I knew they'd have something after Nickelodeon crushed my memories of Camp Snoopy. The problem is that SpongeBob merchandise is inexplicably mostly centered around SpongeBob. SpongeBob and Patrick. So out of all the stores that was filled with SpongeBob and Patrick crap, I found three Squidward items-a pin, a coffee thermos, and a plush toy.

Which blows, because my Squidward collection won't thrive without a handy convenient location for all my Squidward needs. All it means is that I will have to work much harder at continuing this collection than I had previously realized.

Which means the collection is screwed.

(Also... Squidward was the start of another one of my collections, when I bought the Squidward Lego keychain at the Lego store and found myself collecting Lego keychains. I now also have a Santa Lego keychain and a Lego Rock Band generic character, which I got for free at work.)

(Squidward did not start my other other collection of bobbleheads. Although that would have been amazing... I only have one bobblehead, though. It's of Kevin Garnett as a Timberwolf that I found at a Goodwill for $2. I've had plenty of opportunities to buy other bobbleheads before Garnett, but the circumstances were never quite right. Oh well.)

LCD Soundsystem-This Is Happening

Apparently no one is going to say this, but this album kind of blows.

I mean, it's got its highlights, but for some inexplicable reason the press is going wild and giving it absurdly high scores. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the fact that the dude is the same age as most of these writers and is still making what appears to be "hip" music. Whatever. All I know is that I'm not getting it AT ALL.

I like Sound Of Silver quite a bit. Sure, it sounded derivative or whatever, but the songs that really work (Get Innocuous, Someone Great, All My Friends) sounded fresh enough that it seemed as if he had moved on from his influences and created something that was entirely his own. I'm not getting that vibe from this album. Things sound like a retread. Things sound as if on cruise control.

All I Want sounds like Bowie's Heroes. Which is good, right? Cause Heroes is an amazing song, you know? Well, it is. This is not. There's the underpinning sadness that popped up in Someone Great and All My Friends, but it doesn't make the same kind of impact. Maybe because it just builds up to some annoying synths being laid over the repeating Heroes riff.

Drunk Girls is terrible. It sounds as if he wanted to write a dumb frat boy anthem--but with IRONY!!! Except... you're still trying to write a dumb frat boy anthem.

Pow Pow and One Touch are pretty much retooled versions of songs released on prior albums, but not nearly as well executed and sounding mostly like 16 minutes of filler. You Wanted A Hit is a blatant f-you to the record company or something, which immediately turns me off. Plus it just goes on for 9 minutes without really doing anything interesting (maybe that was the point... how provocative).

I think what I'm getting at is that the album feels LONG and not nearly as inspired as the previous album. There are redeeming moments, but it's just that the songs that I would deem legitimately great (Home) or near-great (Dance Yrself Clean) bookend the album, which means it's a tough slog between the two songs. I Can Change has a nice chorus, but the NES-esque synths prevent from really connecting with me.

But about the two songs I really enjoy: Dance Yrself Clean is a great opener, starting with this great minimalistic groove before the synths take over, which along with the vocals actually transforms the song this desperate and plaintive giant. The only negative is that it returns to the minimalism of the first section around the six minute mark, which I thought made a great ending. But then the synths come back... which is OK, but you know. A bit excessive.

Home sounds like the followup to All My Friends, except with a warm and comforting vibe (which I guess is fitting for a song called "Home"...) that sounds so amazingly refreshing after about 6 songs I feel for all intents and purposes middle-of-the-road about. So maybe that's the reason why I like it so much.

Here are some videos to make up for the fact that I wrote this at a way too late hour:

It's my birthday soon...

Not that I am announcing this just because I like to draw attention to myself (even though I do... and secretly this is why I'm saying this), but I'm pretty excited for it.

No particular reason why. In fact, I should be kind of dreading pretty much everything right about now, because:

1) I have to move all the big stuff home.
2) I need to cancel my internet service, which has turned out to be a problem because Comcast's website NEVER EVER works when it's supposed to.
3) I struggle with procrastinating, so "moving stuff home" and "trying in vain to cancel internet service" is a lot for me to do without me taking a mental breather. Which prevents me from looking at jobs and cars... which is what I need to do ASAP.

Not that I need to do all this stuff before the 20th, but... this all seems kind of daunting. Or at least it should seem daunting. Instead, my birthday is in 6 days. So I'm focusing on that and the positives of birthday stuff, which is:

1) I'll probably get treated to dinner somewhere.
2) People on Facebook will write happy birthday on my wall as part of their yearly communication with me (because... you know, my social life has hit nadir that this is something to look forward to).
3) The past few Mays I've had to worry about both school and moving. Well, now I only have to worry about one of those! Yeah!

Plus, Super Mario Galaxy comes out 4 days or so after my birthday. And although it'll be hard to justify spending $50 on it when I should be thrifty... maybe I'll get $10 or so from a relative. So that makes it pretty much $40. Which is somewhat better.

Also, Macgruber comes out the day after my birthday. Yes, I'm excited. No, I don't think that's something to be ashamed about.

I'M GONNA BE YOUR LOVER BABY I'M GONNA BE YOUR MAN
I'M GONNA BE YOUR LOVER BABY I'M GONNA BE YOUR MAN

....

GONNA BE YOUR MAN!
GONNA BE YOUR MAN!
GONNA BE YOUR MAN!
GONNA BE YOUR MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

It goes something like that.

After playing about 10 minutes of Beatles Rock Band, this got stuck in my head. It will never leave. Never ever.

High Violet

The National's new album comes out today. Of course, since I am a bad person, I've already digested it a couple times. But I'm only choosing to write about it now, because I didn't want you to know that I am a bad person and listened to it early.

So, expectations were not all that high on my end. Which might sort of be untrue, since their previous two albums probably would have placed #1 and #2 on my "best-of-decade" list (which I am sure I wrote at some point, but I'm too lazy to look for it right now). But that was it: they released two absolutely amazing albums in a row, so making and releasing a third consecutive amazing album--all the while dealing with the added pressures that a booming popularity and that audience's heightened expectations--seemed unlikely to happen.

And it didn't. Quality stuff though it is, it didn't give me the same thrill that the punch of Alligator and the drive of Boxer gave me. But I'm OK with that, you know? They crafted a solid piece of music, didn't embarrass themselves. and made a record that won't turn off any of the prospective listeners while still maintaining their overall sound.

It's weird, though. It seems as if they're making a play for the limelight by creating such a lush, epic and grand album... but overall everything seems much more refined and restrained. Case in point: they played Terrible Love on Jimmy Fallon a month or two back, and while it had me excited for the album, it sounded slightly off. Mainly, it sounded as if they were trying a little *too* hard to make this big, epic rock anthem that 30 somethings would be pounding their fists to at the 20,000-seat arena concert. So what they do on record is pretty much ruin the song by using a demo-esque recording and de-emphasizing the guitars in favor of a much more moodier sound. It loses the sheen the song seemed to have developed while also making it much more powerful in the process.

Overall as well, the guitars and drums have been de-emphasized in favor of more intricate arrangements. It's a move that fits the batch of songs that they have, but it does lead me to miss the Apartment Stories and Mr. Novembers. Which is probably why I love Bloodbuzz Ohio so much, simply because it seems like a song written during the sessions of Boxer and comes in at the exact time when I'm yearning for something sounding like a Boxer track. I heard the song a month or so back, and while enjoyable, I was hoping that there were much stronger tracks in store for me. It sounds much more magnificent in the context of the album.

Other highlights: England takes a while to build up, but by the end it's grand and bohemian--aiming for the bigger sound I assumed they'd go for, but in an intricate manner. Which is usually preferable to having the song beat you over the head about how it is about to change the world or whatever. (Basically, I'm basing my opinion on this album based on my opinions on Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, which tried to sound bigger and more important--and eventually ended up just pissing me off to no end).

Lemonworld I go back and forth between love and hate. I hate how it starts out (with the simple one note guitar strumming and all), but it ends up picking up steam... plus the chorus is pretty much the best thing on the album. And Afraid Of Everyone seems to drift pretty heavily into Radiohead territory--which is a good thing. It's menacing as hell. And Little Faith again takes a while to get going--but the arrangement is just dark, sinister and lovely.

Not a huge fan of Anyone's Ghost, which sports a terrible chorus and doesn't have the pulsating beat to make it work as either a rock song or something more dense and atmospheric. And Runaway's pretty, but sounds too much like Racing Like A Pro (not one of my favorites--plus this song's about twice as long).

All in all, though--pleased. Not wowed nor disappointed, rather just happy that it will hopefully convert more people into fans. Which will then lead people to discover how awesome Alligator is, since that's the most commercial-sounding the band will probably ever get.

It's 2 AM. This is enough.