Hologram Tupac is Our Only Hope!

Hitler hears Frontside Ollie

Here's a little something for our readers in Finland.

Funny Football Videos

My brother sent me this on facebook, and I know it is pretty much everywhere, but I will still share it with you.



Also, I got this one from Rumbunter, which is also pretty funny.

2011 in review

Another year gone by. What did we get up to in 2011?

* We did our best to promote Goblin Camp, with a let's play kind of thing and a bunch of other posts. The game is still a going concern, and although there hasn't been an update for a while, I'm assured there will be. Eventually. Back in February, I put together really epic camp. The website is here; if you haven't tried it, do.

* There was an election in Finland, that led to no noticeable changes in Finnish politics. We have some really good-looking athletes, though.

* They killed 'Usāmah; I was skeptical about that being the death-blow to terrorism. Sadly, terrorism took a different turn shortly thereafter with the senseless attacks in Norway, the background to which we discussed. Steve Jobs also passed away, and we felt that his eulogies went too far.

* Throughout the year, we were alarmed by the police, as despite the death of "Osama", new threats to our precious bodily fluids continued to emerge. To combat these, we got everything from American police UAVs and the German police going all Gestapo on the German Pirate Party to the Finnish police hacking your phone. I also lost faith in Radley Balko, of The Agitator, for hithcing up with the Kremlin's propaganda machine, and my post on the topic inspired a TV show host to discuss my underwear.

* There was a lot of Minecraft. At the beginning of the year, I was still hanging around Epic Island, and we were impressed by music. We also weighed in on the Mojang - Zenimax legal battle.

* Apart from Minecraft, we liked Harms Way, but were disappointed by Mass Effect 2 being a sexist white supremacist game and by EA's various antics. The future looked bleak. In other media, we liked Detroit 1-8-7 and Sucker Punch, as well as the fantastic Robot.

* We all enjoyed some excellent music!

* Some memes were participated in, and scientology was addressed. We also started a series of posts on the Bible.

* There was, of course, a lot of hockey. At the very beginning of the year, the wrong guy was made MVP of the World Juniors, and later on Winnipeg got an NHL team. Sadly, our favorite NHL player called it quits. However, there were the world champs. In my preview, I had a good feeling about Team Finland, and even though Mats Sundin assured us it was impossible, Finland actually won. We were a little disappointed by the overblown coverage given to one particular goal, though.

Sadly, in the words of Jonathan Toews, the summer of 2011 was the worst ever for hockey. Not only did three NHL players pass away during the summer, but the plane carrying the KHL's Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team crashed, killing the whole team. Earlier this month, the New York Times published a series of stories on Derek Boogaard, an NHL enforcer who died last summer. I highly recommend reading them.

**

Maybe that's a bit of a sad note to end this post on, but as the new year comes around, it won't hurt to take a moment to remember those who aren't around to see it happen. Having said that, though, I'd like to thank everyone who read this sorry excuse for a blag over the past year, and wish you all a happy new year! See you in 2012.

Bathroom Oddities

I think the title says it all.  Let us begin.

Q-Tip
When you use a Q-tip for your ear, do you use one for each ear?  You take the one side, clean the ear, and then use the other side to go over again.  Ever notice that there is pretty much nothing on the second pass?  I notice this all the time.

I have tried to just use one Q-tip, one half for each ear, yet my ears do not feel clean afterward.  I really do not have a solution to this problem.  Does anyone else?

Fear of Death
I hate when I am in the shower and there is no one else home and I hear a sound.  Immediately I think that someone might be breaking in and they are going to try and stab me.  Probably from watching horror movies and whatnot.

How do I prepare myself for this inevitable attack?  Naturally, I try to keep my eyes open and on the door.  That means when I rinse my face off, I end up doing it in an odd way.  I keep putting my face in the water and quickly remove it.  The funny thing is that it probably takes longer to do it this way.  I never said I was smart, and come on, at 5:00 a.m. who can really be rational?

Also, if someone were to break in and try to kill me while I am in the shower, what the hell does it matter if my eyes are closed?  What am I going to do, fight them off?  I am naked and wet.  Not really a good combo for hand-to-hand combat.  Yep, I am an idiot.  And I know that everyone has done this kind of thing before.

Singing in the Shower
I like to sing in the shower.  Who doesn't?  Unfortunately there only a few songs that I actually know the majority of the words.
Incubus-Pardon Me
Ekoostik Hookah-Loner
Bob Dylan-The Hurricane
Our Lady Peace-Superman's Dead
The Hellacopters-By the Grace of God

I know...what an odd mix...

Musical Voight-Kampff test

Go listen to some Blast Surf on Grooveshark. It's music by a friend of mine; Finnish readers can read his "press release" here.



In our opinion, this album would work perfectly as a musical Voight-Kampff test. If the first song doesn't make you smile, there's a very good chance that you're a replicant.



Enjoy.

Crosy, Nash, and Young Together Again...

Thanks to my brother for sending this to me...pretty funny. 

Brand on Winehouse

I'm shocked, depressed and generally bummed out by what happened in Norway, but I'll get this blog on track in a bit. In the meanwhile, here's a great piece by Russell Brand on the late Amy Winehouse.

Traci Lords kicks ass

I understood from Traci Lords's Twitter that she's going to be releasing some music again this summer. You know Traci Lords, the famous underage porn star, who used to be really hot:

Heck, for all I know she's still really hot. I don't keep up. I recommend her autobiography, Underneath It All; it's a fascinating, if at times slightly grim read.

If she does release some music this summer, it won't be her first foray into the music business. Back in 1995, she released an album called 1000 Fires:

The album was produced by Juno Reactor, and it's through them that I can make the perhaps unexpected connection between Traci Lords and Laibach. On their 1997 album Bible of Dreams, Juno Reactor published a song called God Is God, which I can't embed here because YouTube is stupid. I have to admit that I'm more familiar with this version of the song:

So there. Didn't expect that. Perhaps an even stranger connection is that the female vocals on the Juno Reactor original are supplied by Natacha Atlas, and one of her songs is on the soundtrack to Project Gotham Racing 4 on the XBox, a game that I play like alot.

The first single from 1000 Fires was Control, which some of you may remember from Paul W. S. Anderson's movie Mortal Kombat. It's an awesome song with a great music video.

Lady Gaga? Fuck Lady Gaga.

New Cardigans album

The Cardigans are back with their latest album, Angry Birds!

Commenting on the title of the album, Peter Svensson said: "The title can be interpreted in many ways but I think we only thought of a few ones we liked." Nina Persson explained: "we talked about having like English title and Angry Birds came up and it sort of felt really good." Svensson continues: "You know, we were thinking like with what everything that's happening with global warming and everything with the environment, that if you were a bird and you knew about it, would you be like really angry? So I guess it's kind of an environmental thing."

"I think that also the title suits this very album extremely well because the album is pretty much about being a bird, and also being angry. I think sometimes you can always compare living to being a bird in the world," Nina finishes.

The first single will be the song "Stupid Pigs". The band declined to comment on the name of the song or its relationship to the album title.

The music video, directed by Jonas Åkerlund, features singer Nina Persson as a demonstrator taking part in a riot, and the rest of the band as riot policemen. The video was shot entirely in the Czech Republic, at a cost of 2 million USD, and includes brutal scenes of rioting, with protestors overturning police cars and setting them on fire, and being assaulted by officers in riot gear while helicopters circle overhead. Fifty-eight different versions of the video were shot in an effort to get MTV to play at least one of them. The eventual MTV video features Nina Persson walking along a city street and singing the song.

Bonus interview footage for Finnish speakers here!

Josh Harrison's Minor League Song

This was the song Josh Harrison used in the minors.  Apparently his brother recorded it for him.  It was pretty cool to hear when he was at Altoona.  Does he still use this for the Pirates?

Happy birthday Marie Fredriksson!

Today I get to say happy birthday, if only through the medium of a blog, to a woman who shaped my sexuality when I was growing up by being damn hot and fronting one of my all-time favorite rock bands: Roxette's Marie Fredriksson.

Several decades later, I'll be damned if she doesn't still look pretty good. (What's the polite way of saying "for a woman of her age"?)

Roxette are actually in the middle of a comeback, with a new album coming out and a tour! In the course of putting this blog post together, I found out they're coming to Finland this summer. One of my July weekends just got booked...

Kylie Minogue: still hot

Today is Kylie Minogue's 42rd birthday. Here's some pictures of her from this year.

Still hot. Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Ruslana!

By a curious coincidence, today is Eurovision Song Contest winner Ruslana Stepanivna Lyzhychko's birthday! By our verdict, Lena's Satellite is the best Eurovision Song Contest winner ever, and Ruslana's Wild Dances comes in second:

She's a Eurovision winner, and a former member of parliament for Ukraine who participated in the Orange Revolution which successfully overturned a rigged election. Not to mention the fact that she's hot, and along with Sage from GTA:SA, she's our favorite Grand Theft Auto radio host.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Lena!

It's German singer Lena Meyer-Landrut's birthday, but we love her so she gets first-name privileges on our blog.

We all fell in love with her last year because she was so darn cute, and this year, she's grown up to be hot:

Sadly, her entry at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest didn't do nearly as well:

For what it's worth, I think it's a good, clever pop song, but in the Eurovision environment I suppose one expects a bit more bombast, and we found ourselves waiting for the song to take off. When it didn't, it felt a bit anticlimactic. Also, I think most of Europe fell in love with her happy, quirky stage personality, and when that was missing, it sort of contributed to the anticlimax.

But anyway, not only is she the most beautiful ESC winner from this millennium, she also won with the best song. Happy birthday Lena!

Dead economists

Here's a couple of educational videos from Econstories introducing the principles of Keynesian economics and Austrian School, and their takes on economic cycles. Enjoy.

We love Mina Špiler

We saw one of my all-time favorite bands, Laibach, live last week.

That was pretty sweet. What was even better was that Mina Špiler was with them. I absolutely adore her.

Mina, you're awesome and we love you.

GOTW

"Well, my telephone rang it would not stop
It's President Kennedy callin' me up
He said, "My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow" ?
I said, "My friend, John, "Brigitte Bardot,
Anita Ekberg
Sophia Loren"
Country'll grow."
            --Bob Dylan--"I Shall Be Free"

One of my favorite Bob Dylan songs...which leads me to this week's GOTW:  Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren

This Sums It Up

I am going for a beer.  Enjoy!

Moving on

Here's a video someone put together for the best song in a long, long time.