What is Your Ecological Footprint?

Ever since the launch of Planet Green, I've been glued to my couch, wasting energy with the tube on all day. I wonder if they were prepared for this spike in electricity usage. Anyway, like any guilty, self-hating liberal, I felt bad about what a wasteful little piggy I am, so I decided to find out what my ecological footprint is. As it turns out, we would need 4.4 planets if everyone maintained my level of environmental abuse. I'm going to work on lowering this and let you guys know how I manage to do it. I mostly need to work on what I eat, since it's the majority of it is processed junk. In all fairness, though, I would say at least 60% of my processed junk comes from the Central PA area. I also have to think about recycling and what I am going to sort. The verdict is still out on whether recycling is actually beneficial in terms of energy usage, but aluminum seems to be a safe bet at least. And Central Pennsylvanians, I hate to tell you this, but our region ranks 9th worst in the country for our carbon footprint. We need to push for more public transportation, lobby to shut down the Harrisburg incinerator, and buy more local products to cut down on the truck traffic. I would love to see the fabled train service between York and Carlisle go up already. In the meantime, take the footprint quiz and see how you fair.

Calling all Satellite Radio Listeners

I like to turn on my XM Radio boombox while I splash around the pool, and I discovered something totally delightful today. XMU, channel 43, has a show called AIRTime, (Artists in Residence), every Tuesday. For the month of June, The Black Keys are hosting, and these guys know how to make a playlist. XMU was rerunning last night's broadcast, and among the artists the bluesy duo selected were My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, Gorillaz, Brian Eno, The Stooges, LCD Soundsystem, T. Rex, Luna, The Kinks, as well as some 60s soul, jazz, and blues that I wasn't familiar with but definitely enjoyed hearing. While I don't have anything against The Black Keys, I was surprised and impressed at our mutual affinity for 70s glam. So I recommend those of you with access to this musically delicious (almost like Lucky Charms) program to tune in next week for more musical goodies. XMU is also available through DirecTV and online. I'm not sure if it's available as a free channel over the internet, but it's almost worth paying to hear it! Happy listening!

Prank Text Messaging

As I was sitting at the table eating dinner with my family this evening, I received a text message from a number I didn't recognize. Ordinarily I would have just ignored it, but I decided to have some fun with it. Enjoy!:

7175551234: Are you going to the school physicals?
Me: What?
7175551234: Are you playing tennis this year?
Me: Yeah, and i just made the hooger team. What about you?
7175551234: Hooger team? Theres the school physicals at 6.. R u going?
Me: I've already had my hooger physical for this year
7175551234: Ooohh. Booo.

Ok, so not the most clever thing in the world, but I like to think I just made someone think that a snobby high school tennis player is high as a kite. I'm even more excited about the prospect of the person whose messages I intercepted actually showing up for the high school physical and having his or her friend ask how to try out for the hooger team.

Who's Going to Toronto? I am! (I hope)

Our friendly neighbors to the north are putting our Virgin Mobile Festival to shame again, just like they did last year. But I'm thinking, it's not a bad drive, and tickets aren't too expensive, so why the hell not?!

Also added were The Kooks, Shudder to Think, The Fratellis, The Cribs, and a few others. I've already seen Spiritualized, Oasis, Stereophonics, and unfortunately the Foo Fighters, but I'm making a pilgrimage for Weller, my Modfather. Now I just have to renew my passport. Maybe this isn't going to be as cheap as I hoped...

A Diamond What?!

I've been anticipating this one since March, and it's finally available to us Americans as of today. Yes, boys and girls, Supergrass are at it again with Diamond Hoo Ha! I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but from what I've heard, I'm quite delighted. If you're craving the quirky early 1970s inspired mash up of glam and mod from the Grass's earlier days, though, I think you'll be disappointed with this release. If you were to put Supergrass in a 70s glam rock continuum, you could say their early days were more Cockney Rebel, but they're more on the Iggy Pop end now that they've reached adolescence (yes, Supergrass is 15 years old. Jesus Christ). Their signature ability to weave a catchy pop-tune into a rock song is still present, and this album isn't as raw as Mr. Pop by any means, but it is more narrowly a rock album than anything they have previously released. It sounds like something my dad would have listened to in high school, but that's not a bad thing. I dare say that it could easily have mass American mainstream appeal with the popularily of The Raconteurs in recent years, so we'll see what happens. It's no Life on Other Planets, but it's a good change of pace.

On a related new release note, I still haven't heard the new Coldplay. I guess since I use Microsoft and not Apple for my music, I may be waiting for a while. But that's ok. I will not break down and buy it, I will not break down and buy it, I will not break down and buy it...

One week later...

I just thought I would drop a line to let you know that I haven't gone anywhere. As I mentioned last week, I got the pool swim-ready, and on the days that it hasn't been raining, I have literally been outside splashing around and reading until the sun goes down. I've been averaging one book about every two days, and maybe at this point I'm just so consumed with someone else's words that I have none of my own. I also had a pretty insane week with my family, so I've been distracted. I'm trying to avoid my usual pitfall of divulging too much personal information in this blog, and since that really has been the only thing on my mind for the most part, it's been hard to write. That, and I think the sun has probably fried a lot of my brain cells. The utter relaxation in the sun has made me want to start writing creatively. I've been bouncing a couple of ideas around in my head, so if anything comes of that, I will be sure to keep everyone posted. I've just in a weird, listless, nostaglic kind of mood. I'll snap out of it. I'm still drunk on summer, but once the hangover ensues, I'll be back to my normal self.

Fun with Yahoo's Babel Fish

Ok, I knew I couldn't stay away very long. I'd like to share with you all a game I play online whenever I'm bored out of my mind and can't think of anything better to do. First, you take a line from a song you like (the more slang in it, the better). Next, you plug that lyric into the Yahoo! Babel Fish text translator (I usually do English to French). Then you copy the translation, paste it into the text box, and translate it back into English. What you get is a beautifully hilarious jumbled version of what the original lyric was.

My personal favorite is from Pulp's "I Spy"--"Grass is something you smoke, birds are something you shag, so take your year in Provence and shove it up your ass."

After the French translation back into English, this is what we are left with: "Turf is something which you smoke, the birds are something you shake, thus take your year in Provence and push-that to the top of your ESA."

The line was much funnier when it was run through Altavista, but the Yahoo! crew still manages to butcher it splendidly.

Also, here is the butchered translation of the opening lines to the Buzzcocks' "Orgasm Addict":
"You l' tested just for once, noted qu' well; it is well for eruptions, but you now found outside that c' is a practice which sticks. and you are a fanatic d' orgasm."

Try it out yourself. Let me know which hilarious linguistic debaucles you encounter!

Apologies

I've been a little quiet these past couple of days, but I promise I won't be for long. I've been enjoying hiding in solitude reading the Orson Scott Card Ender series, but once I'm finished frolicking with dorkdom, there will be more of my political lamentations and oddball miscellany. I've finally gotten my pool to swim-ready status, too, so I'll be working on not looking like a shut-in that blogs all day and reads sci-fi in her spare time. But until next post, ladies and gents, I wish you happiness in your own adventures, whatever they may be.

Fluffy Post

In light of my recent angry posts, tonight/this morning I have decided to forget about the big, ugly world out there and take you all on a video-filled journey through the world of Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy. May music warm your souls, my friends. Goodnight!

This video alone demonstrates why this is my favorite band. It's silly, it's smart, it's catchy. Perfect. "Trafalgar" was written as a joke of sorts, in Neil Hannon's attempt to show BBC viewers how to compose a perfect Eurovision song:

The next clip is taken from the Father Ted episode 'Song for Ireland.' The song was in reality composed by Neil Hannon, but in the episode, Fathers Ted & Dougal came up with this ditty to win the Eurovision song contest for Ireland. The "My Lovely Horse" video comes to us courtesy of Father Dougal's fucked-up dreams. I've seen this countless times, but I can't stop laughing at the psychedlic horse head at the end of the video:

The next song is a cover of a rock song that was very popular a few years back. When I saw The Divine Comedy in 2004, Neil told us this exact same story as he's going to tell in the video. I was thrilled (the brooding gaze... the cheek bones... it kills me). I don't want to ruin the "punchline," so check it out and enjoy:

Finally, this song is the culmination of everything this band is. "Tonight We Fly" is arguably one of the most beautiful pop songs ever composed, and I am putting it in writing that it's to be played at my funeral, right after the champagne flutes and cigarettes are handed out. 'This life is the best we've ever had':