People I wish would swallow razor blades for the week:

Katy Perry.

The person who shut the door in my face when my hands were full the other day.

People who cannot distinguish to/too/two.

People who run in zero degree weather to make it all about themselves.

People who bring their dogs to Petsmart and then don't have any idea how to control them.

Wine nerds. Especially wine nerds.

Is it too early to start talking about game of the year? I say this because I don't know how anything could be better than SF IV. In my review I mentioned how good it is, but after playing it online multiple times I've realized how amazing the game truly is. Dan Hibiki is now my favorite character. His moves rule against a Ryu or a Ken (which means 95% of all people online). He has the best ultra by far where he slow motion punches the opponent in the face, kicks and punches them 845,672 times really fast, and then turns around and smiles and gives a thumbs up to the camera (as seen above). There is nothing better than ending a match like that. Boy, does it make people mad!

The Bird and the Bee - Ray Guns are not Just the Future.

This is my favorite new album for the week. I don't know how to describe them, except for maybe a more electronic Garbage/late nineties Madonna/. The stand out song on the album would be the second track, "My Love". It manages to sound retro and futuristic at the same time. That's actually a great description for the band. Some of these songs remind me of James Bond themes from the sixties and early seventies, but very modern and stylish. It's almost like an electronic Belle and Sebastian.

Another song I really liked was "Diamond Dave", an ode to the famous Van Halen front man, David Lee Roth. It's fun and playful.

The Bird and the Bee aren't doing anything new here, really. They are making great music using a sixties sound with 2000's beats. It's a nice effect, and very fun. Thumbs up all the way.

It's here again. After waiting an agonizing 4 months or so, baseball is back.

Of course, yours truly is a Cub fan. Make your jokes now and get them out of the way, please, because we have a lot of ground to cover here. Ok? OK!

Being a Cub fan means that you've at least thought one time or another that it was never going to happen for you. The despair and gloom can come easy for us. But we roll on. We're Cubs fans! Next year is just around the corner. Go down ten games early in the season? Who cares! Wait 'til next year! We're great at having losing seasons. The Cubbies can lose 100 games and Wrigley's still going to be packed and cheering.

Last year hurt more than the others, though. The Cubs finished at a NL best 97-64. They were unstoppable during the regular season. They had home field advantage in what should have been an easy playoff run for them. I was making plans of watching the first world series since the 50's to feature the Cubs. It was not to be.

In the worst three game span of my life, the Cubs ruined all of the good will they had built up and completely blew it. The Dempster game was good until he gave up the grand slam. The Zambrano game was ok until the 34 errors. The Harden game was just a sigh of resignation. In three games the Cubs just about made me quit watching baseball forever. The losses were the hardest thing I've dealt with being a sports fan.

It was our year! Zambrano threw the no-hitter! We were dominant! We were 33 games over .500!!!! I watched all the games that were on national tv, starting from the season opener where old Slumpdog Millionaire Fukudome looked like he was going to be a baseball god to the end. I made the trek to Cooperstown, which seemed appropriate in the year that the Cubs were going to win it all. It was all over in three games.

Now it's 2009. Mark DeRosa is gone. My favorite player for the last two years was shipped off uncerimoniously to the Indians for three minor league scrubs. Our big free agent pickup was MILTON BRADLEY. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that losing DeRosa is going to cost the team 10 wins at least.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned Kerry Wood. Kerry spent his whole career with the Cubbies. I watched in his rookie season when he struck out 20 in one game and freaking out because he was ours. We had a dominant rookie pitcher!!!! I then watched as Wood fought every injury known to man and made his miraculous comeback in '07. I watched in '08 as he regained his old form and became an amazing closer. I then watched as the Cubs kicked him to the curb. It was extremely hard to take.

I don't have the same excitement for the Cubbies this year, and I feel guilty about that. I think they aren't going to be the world beaters they were last year. The pieces are still there (I mean, we still have Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Soto, Dempster, Zambrano, Harden, Lilly, and Marmol) but it all seems different somehow. I waited 'til next year. I guess we'll see how it goes.

*-I reserve the right to redact any and all of this should the Cubs win 100 games.

When I started this entry, I wondered if google would have any pictures of yawning grizzly bears. Success. This fella right here is conveying my thoughts on the band Grizzly Bear. YAWN. They are supposed to be the next big musical geniuses. Judging from what I've heard, I'm wondering where this is all coming from. I mean there's one track callzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZzzzzz

Sorry. I dozed off. Not the band for me, friends. Thumbs down.

RANDOMNESS

Song lyrics of the week:

"...my favorite words were the ones I couldn't spell..."

"Goodbye, Berlin. Hello Autobahn"

"...and if I see Van Helsing, I swear to the lord I will slay him..."

Song trivia of the week:

The song "Teenage Riot" by Sonic Youth is about a future where Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis is the president. What a wonderful future that would be.

Animal Collective is still a little too much for me. I know that the future wife loves them, but sometimes they make my head 'splode.

Watchmen comes out in less than two weeks. I will most likely pee myself when it starts. I've been waiting for this for years.

Miroir Noir

It's impossible for me to be unbiased regarding Arcade Fire. They are the most talented band out there right now. I proposed to Sara at their concert! They, to me, are the best band to break onto the scene since Radiohead. They are the band of the 2000's.

So, when I heard there was going to be a documentary released about them, I just about lost my mind. Miroir Noir follows them as they tour for their last album, Neon Bible. This isn't really a documentary as it is a concert film. Lots of live performances (including ones from the proposal concert). Also you get to see them in the studio and lots of rare footage. The highlight of the film for me is a performance of the song "Neon Bible" in an elevator where Regine plays the ceiling and Richard Reed Parry plays a magazine. I believe this performance is on youtube if you want to look it up and see how awesome it really is.

I feel blessed to have gotten on the Arcade Fire bandwagon at the beginning. If you've never seen them live or haven't checked them out, you should see this film to see what you're missing. If you are a fan and you haven't seen this, then shame on you. Thumbs up through the ceiling!

PS-Their new song, "Lenin", is on the Dark Was the Night compilation. It's fantastic.

So, the Oscars are coming up this weekend and I have no basis on which to judge them. I've only seen a handful of the roles that people are nominated for.

I would find it absolutely amazing if anyone had a better performance than Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. The night that I saw that movie I think I maybe got one hour of sleep. I couldn't let go of how good he was in the movie. I felt like I was watching a documentary of one of my favorite wrestlers who I had idolized in the 80's. The wrestling business isn't kind to it's veterans, sadly, and I imagined the ones who were not dead and gone to have met a similar fate.

As for best supporting actor, I think it's legally mandated that you must say Heath Ledger deserves the award. Does he really, though? Did anyone actually see all of his competitors? Ledger played a character in The Dark Knight like he was written in the comics. I would have liked to have seen someone else in the role to judge how well he did. Oh, wait. I did. I saw Nicholson in the role in 1989. I think if Jack in '89 had been given the Joker role in TDK he would have been better. He was a scary mass-murdering anarchist who was also funny. I think that's the one thing missing from Ledger's performance...the Joker's sense of humor. Ledger doesn't have half of the timing that Nicholson did. So, I would like to see someone else win the award, if not only to spite all of the millions of people falling all over themselves to name him best supporting actor.

Don't give it to Robert Downey, Jr. either. I hated Tropic Thunder more than most movies. I have never been so disappointed in my life. I love Cable Guy and Derek Zoolander, so I was excited about another Ben Stiller written and directed movie. Oh, man, was I wrong. It was so BORING. Tom Cruise SUCKED SUCKED SUCKED in it. The movie had a good concept but was just executed poorly. Don't give Downey the award. Give it to the best actor of our generation, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

So, with all of that said, here are my winners from the films I have seen in 2008.

Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Best Supporting Actor: Paul Rudd - Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Best Actor - Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best Actress - EVE - WALL*E

Best Film - You Don't Mess With the Zohan

Agree? Disagree? I don't care. Nothing made me laugh harder than Zohan this year and I haven't watched a movie as much as Zohan either. So, screw you. It's my favorite. :)

Street Fighter IV

I love Street Fighter. I love the series. When I was in high school nothing was better than going to the arcade and putting my quarter on the machine to indicate that I "had next". Well, after many years Capcom has finally released Street Fighter IV. Would it be a return to the classic speedy arcade roots of Street Fighter II or would it turn into a human chess match full of parries and combos like Street Fighter III?

I'm happy to say that it took what made Street Fighter II great and amplified it by 100%. It's fun again and boy, is it pretty!

Let's start with the new characters. We have Abel, a french MMA specialist with no memory; Rufus, a rotund fighter obsessed with fighting Ken Masters; Crimson Viper, a female spy; and El Fuerte, a luchador who's also a chef. Apparently Viper is now an elite character, capable of a lot, but I haven't seen it yet. She's way too floaty for my tastes. Gouken, Ken and Ryu's trainer is unlockable, but I haven't unlocked him yet.

The original cast of Street Fighter II returns intact. A few people from the Alpha series (Rose, Gen, Sakura, and Dan~!) show up, as well as Fei Long and Cammy from Super Street Fighter II. Balrog seems to play a little bit different, so I've been playing as Zangief and he seems to be working pretty well for me.

The art style is incredible. I've never seen a game this pretty before. It's like watching a watercolor painting in action. When the camera zooms in on Ryu, you can see the pen marks on his neck. This game is a walking ad for HD tv.

The only cons I have with this game involve the difficulty. The final boss, Seth, is impossible on anything harder than easy. Seth may very well be the cheapest character in a video game ever. His moves all take precedence over yours and he moves at twice your speed. He's also a boring Dr. Manhattan ripoff, but that's beside the point. I thought I was really bad at the game, but apparently everyone is having trouble with him.

Online play works very well. I played ten matches and lost 9 of them. That's about par for the course when I play online. People there are incredibly skilled and will wipe the floor with you every chance they get. Oh, and sadly they all play as Ken or Ryu. I played against 5 Kens, 4 Ryus, and an Akuma.

This game gets a huge thumbs up from me. Street Fighter IV is everything I wanted and more. It's fun, quick, and has an amazing learning curve. I'll never be an elite fighter, but I'll win one once in a while. If you want to play, put your quarter up. That's how it works around here.

Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes)

Cloud Cult is an interesting band with a great sound. They are like the bastard children of The Flaming Lips and Arcade Fire. Their songs are epic and open. They are extremely melodic and clean, fast and controlled.

They begin their album with the song "No One Said It Would Be Easy", which lets you know what you'll be in for with this album. It's fast moving and fun, but still manages to be pretty. That's a hard thing to do, but Cloud Cult manages to pull it off quite deftly. "Everybody Here is a Cloud" has Animal Collective style beats and chanting. Their song "Love You All" starts electronic and robotic, switches to beautiful strings and synth that ends acoustic and simple. It's a gorgeous song that reminds me of "Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space" by Spiritualized.

I have a soft spot for bands that make heavy use of strings non-traditional rock instruments and Cloud Cult uses them to full effect. I recommend them to fans of the Flaming Lips, Arcade Fire, or Sigur Ros. I give this album a thumbs up and hope to listen to more of their stuff soon.

Ok, so apparently I'm a big uninformed idiot who doesn't know jack about music.  Cloud Cult has been around for 10+ years.  I can't believe I've never listened to them before.  I listened to their newest album today and really enjoyed it.  I believe I'm going to listen to more of their stuff.

Oh, and I really want the song "Surf City Eastern Block".  Someone gift that to me pronto, plz.

When I work at the bookstore the bosses let me pick what I want to listen to on XM.  I listen to the indie rock station there.  Here are some bands that I've recently discovered that you should check out:

The Bird and the Bee

Cloud Cult

Man Man

The National*

*I actually saw The National open for Arcade Fire a few years ago and forgot about them.

I like working at the bookstore an awful lot.  It's not too bad.  I get to listen to good music and let my brain rest by doing lots of brainless work.  It's kinda relaxing.

Well, Hell.  Everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?