A Remake I Can Approve Of

If you don't know from reading my past blogs (like The Curse of the Remake), you know that I don't take too kindly to people remaking things. Whether it be movies, or music, or toys or commericals, or whatever. When that stupid kindergoth band Orgy remade New Order's "Blue Monday", I about wanted to drop kick my radio everytime they played it. Then this douchebaggy 12-year old emo pop punk band The Ataris takes Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" (one of my all time favorite songs) and changes the lyrics from "I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac" to this oh-look-at-us-we're-so-cool, "I saw a Black Flag sticker.....". Puh-leeze. Like any of them knew who Rollins was before it was cool to know who Rollins was.

But I digress. I have found a remake that has passed my strict hatred of "the remake". Now, we all remember Depeche Mode's incredible album, Black Celebration, and this little ditty (another one of my all time favorites):

Stripped (Depeche Mode)


Fucking fantastic song, right? I mean, look how cute they were. All young and pre-strung out on heroin. Dave Gahan still had that fresh boy look and Martin Gore was rocking the bondage. Those were my Depeche Mode boys. LOVED them. Still do. And Stripped makes me tingle.

Then, I came across this recently by Shiny Toy Guns, whose album "We Are Pilots" is so awesome that I feel the need to dance everytime I hear it. I think we can agree that their remake of an already amazing song is truly, truly, amazing in itself. The video is lame (it's not the band video so bear with) You be the judge:

Stripped (Shiny Toy Guns)


I rest my case

Red Sky: Redux

With apologies to Love the Eclectic Life, whose Red Sky post inspired me to think of this and now it is stuck in my head. Here's to sharing it with you.

Common Sense and Consideration

It's 4am. It's 4 effing am. Ask me what the hell I am doing "blogging" at this hour. The old me, (read: pre-kid me) would usually just be getting home from dancing all night to Covenant's "Dead Stars" or the latest release from VNV Nation. But this is the new me, the mom, the old lady who goes to bed at 10, reads her book club assigned reading, and is asleep before 11.

I'm awake and blogging because some idiot 2 STREETS OVER has decided to party like it's 1999 and blast this reggae/hip-hop/techno/rick james/sean paul club remix from

• their car?
• their house?
• a bad radio?
• 2 turntables and a microphone?

No clue. I have no clue what Mr. DJ over there is playing this shit from but it woke me, woke Randy, and caused the neighbor's dog to start howling right by the window Dante's room faces, and guess what happened then? Fucking asshole. Right now, I've got The Smiths running through my head with choruses of "Hang the DJ" repeating themselves over and over again.

Who, in their right mind, looks at their watch and says, "Hey look, it's 3:30 in the morning, let me blast my music so the whole neighborhood can know that I have both bad taste in music and little or no consideration for the fact that it's 3:30 in the FUCKING MORNING and people are probably sleeping." Really. Who does that? I bet it's the same guy who drives in the middle of the road instead of picking a lane. Or the guy who throws their trash all over a kid's playground. Or the guy who sits there in a public place, like a restaurant or shop, on their cell phone and talks so loud about "bid'ness" or "bitches" with no regard that there are little children near them. Or even These Guys over at Nanny Goats in Panties.

What ever happened to common sense and consideration? Where is the logic in blasting your music in the middle of the night? Who thinks that this is ok? Even if you come from Broken Home Town and your name is Orphan McLonelyton, and you've been raised by wolves and have no social graces, what could possibly compel you to think that "3:30 am" plus "stereo" plus "this one goes to eleven", is a good and sound choice?

The irony is always this: I call the police to report noise violation and by the time the get their derrieres over here, the music is either turned down or Lawrence Welk has decided to turn in for the night. Either way, no citation is issued, no wrists slapped, no evidence of noise, and I look the "that crazy lady who hears things in the night". I wonder if that happened tonight as I was sitting here with my watery eyes, staring at this bright white computer screen.

I guess I'll go read until Reggaefest Craputron 2008 ends.

July 11, 2008 Year Two in Pictures

Happy Birthday to my Pickle

Two years ago today, my life became just that much better.

Dante: The Omen Revisited

First things first. Whoever coined the term "terrible twos" needs a swift kick in the face. The twos aren't "terrible". "Terrible" is a cutsey word that reminds me of something in a Maurice Sendak book, or the sound of the Heffalump in a Winnie-th-Pooh book, or something that Alice would mutter as she's falling down the rabbit hole. "Terrible" is certainly not the correct adjective for describing the dispostion of a two-year old.

Here are some words that I think would be better suited:

• possessed
• demonic
• incorrigible
• obstinate
• intolerable
• cancerous
• exhausting
• debilitating
• dumbfounding
• fucking ridiculous

See? "Terrible" is such a wimpy word. It's as though whoever coined it had a child who wouldn't eat their peas and then went to bed ten minutes later. "Oh look", they probably said, "Miffy is being terribly awful and she shan't have dessert". Yea. Dessert this, and here's a shovel to your face.

Let me elaborate:

What was once this precious little lima bean of a baby boy has become this grouchy, grumpy, satan spawn from the pit of Hades who says "no" every other word, runs about the house screaming and breaking things, has developed selective hearing especially when he's smearing yogurt all over himself and the floor, who cries and stomps and screams if he doesn't get his way, who pouts and kicks, and hits (yes, he hits despite the fact that no one in this house has ever raised a hand in anger toward him...well except for that one time he broke free from me and ran into the middle of the street and he got a potch on his rear). As a matter of fact, he's throwing a tantrum right now as a type this because I won't let him play with the telephone cord and a pair of scissors. Yes, I know, I'm a horrible mother because I won't let him play with scissors. At least, that's what he thinks at the moment. Oh look, now he's thrown himself on the floor and is screaming "right now" at me as though that would suddenly make me say, "Oh, the scissors! Sure go ahead".

Fat chance kiddo.

Now he's screaming at Randy because he wants to be pushed around the house in one of our office chairs and Randy, having worked all day on his feet, wants to sit and relax before dinner. "More Daddy! Right now!" are the melodious sounds I am currently hearing from the living room and my poor husband sighing after each scream.

Where the hell is that cute kid I gave birth to? Where did that curious infant and toddler go who was just learning words and how to walk and would take in everything we said and did and think we were the coolest things ever? No, now we have Mr. Yelly McYellerton who throws tantrums. We have Mr. I Will Make You Want to Rip Your Hair Out every ten seconds with my incessant whining (which I totally blame on that STUPID FUCKING idiot show Caillou that I made the mistake of letting him watch one morning while I took a shower where the kids whines every six seconds about crap).

They say three is worse. I don't think I'm going to make it.

Another One Bites the Dust....

Jesse Helms, so sad to see you go. It's times like these that I wish I believed in a hell so I could tell ol' Jesse to say hello to Jerry Falwell. Ah, Jesse, they say one shouldn't speak ill of the dead, so I'll let you do the talking for yourself.

I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners, or niggers.
-- Jesse Helms, North Carolina Progressive, February 6, 1985, quoted from the Democratic Alliance, "Yes, They Really Said It!"

Nevertheless, if the Administration insists on funding these programs I shall not stand in the way, so long as you agree to the following conditions: 1) that no funds be obligated to any affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) in Haiti, including PROFAMIL; and 2) that no funds be provided directly or indirectly to any group whose programs include producing material intended to be used in a voodoo ceremony ... AID is funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft."-- Jesse Helms, quoted in Mat Honan, "Jesse Helms' Political Voodoo," Mojo, March 23, 1999


This bill attempts to make sure that President Clinton is not allowed to do by Executive Order what Congress has declined to enact in the past two congressional sessions namely, to treat homosexuals as a special class protected under various titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
-- Jesse Helms, introducing an anti-gay bill in January, 1999, quoted from Rhonda Smith, "Jesse Helms Introduces Anti-Gay Bill," The Washington Blade, February 26, 1999

Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade school classes that teach our children that CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING, and the MURDER of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior.
-- Jesse Helms, part of the text of a fundraising mailer sent out by the Helms campaign, quoted from House of Crooks

Fuck You Jesse. The world is a better place without you. Unfortunately, there are still more of you yet to snuff it. *cough cough Bill O'Reilly cough cough*