so DCist.com reports that the Mayor has a blog now, on dc.gov. It's not half bad either, kind of funny stuff. I wonder what he'll do with it? I also wondered what if he had a Livejournal? Then I found this. thank you, whoever.

Mike and Ikes

mikeandikes
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

so I got these today, they were pretty tasty: Tangy Twister Mike and Ikes. I don't know if they're that new, but they were new to me, at least. I love normal Mike and Ikes and can eat them like candy (ha, get it!). These ones were surprisingly sour and pretty good. They came in a small bag, which is good, since I don't think I'd want to eat a big box of them all, since towards the end I was hoping for more cherry ones, since they were the least sour. If you like sour stuff though, then I recommend them. I would probably get them again if I were in the mood for a chewy, fruity candy with some bite.

so I saw this linked from Yahoo: Walken 2008 - as in Christopher Walken for President. I assumed it was a joke and expected to see somebody doing a Christopher Walken impression, like one from SNL, with him talking about taxes and getting more cowbell and so on. However, it seems fairly legit, which is odd. Either that, or the way it's written is supposed to remind people of how he talks, but it doesn't really. If it's a joke, it's not that well done, I guess. The platform is pretty normal, but some of the quotes from him are little weird, like "I believe in saving money. I believe in having a house. I believe in keeping things clean. I believe in exercising." And the FAQ doesn't have "Is this a joke?" which was my first question. Well either way, kind of kooky.

And it looks like the site just went down. Weird.

so I saw that movie The Island the other day. It was stupid. I guess most popcorn-type action movies are not overly smart, but this one was particularly dumb and cringe-causing. I don't think I've ever seen a movie with more obvious and annoying product placements. It made me wonder if this was just one giant commercial, that the movie studio got these companies to give lots of money, then had to write a movie around them. The first ad was at the very beginning of the movie, with some obviously displayed Pumas as the only shoes we wear in the future, apparently. It went downhill from there, with pointless close-ups on Aquafina bottles, the MSN Search logo (what we use instead of phone books in the future), those new metal Michelob bottles, Honda Elements, etc etc. And in some cases the ads didn't even make any sense: this movie is supposed to take place in 2019 or something, but everyone's still driving 2005 Dodge Chargers and Cadillacs. And just in case you didn't notice what kind of cars these are, they zoom in on the Cadillac logo and Ewan McGregor's character made sure to extol all the virtues of his new Caddy. It was ridiculous. The rest of the movie was pretty corny too, with way too many pointless slowmos and zooms and really lame dreams and brainwashing segments with montages of different images, stuff that might have been scary or interesting 30 years ago. And there were lots of stupid, annoying characters who suddenly became smart, and just general logical inconsistencies. That being said, Scarlett Johannson was looking good. Though I could have done without her character watching her real life Calvin Klein commercial on TV. The one that she was in from this year. Come on.

Update- the Onion has a funny fake editorial by director Michael Bay.

New Skittles

skittles
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

so I got these new Skittles the other day at the hot dog stand, they are "Fruit Smoothie". They smelled a lot like smoothies, but they tasted like scented candles, which was pretty gross. I love candy but couldn't even finish the bag. So I guess smoothies in solid form are not a good idea.

so I found this hilarious video the other day, it's a live action version of Paperboy, that video game. Awesome stuff. It was on Ultragrrl's blog, who used to write for Spin and I guess is sort of a famous blogger. She's on "Best Week Ever" and stuff sometimes.

In other news, I was listening to LL Cool J's first album, "Radio" awhile ago. It's so awesome. The beats are really sparse and simple and catchy, and they're all from the old 808 drum machine. They're so cool sounding. There's a bunch of samples here. My favorites are "I Can't Live Without My Radio," "You Can't Dance," and "Rock the Bells." And he was only 17 when he made it, which is pretty impressive. Most reviews give it five stars, and Spin named it to their top 100 of the last 20 years. The weird thing is that most of the songs are about how def he is, and the rest are these very shy, teenagey songs about him trying unsuccesfully to get girls. And this is before his mom told him to knock you out.

so my pal Jess's sister Alexis sent me this. Funny ad for an Australian beer.

Manassas

manassascannons
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

So my roommate and I went to the Manassas National Battlefield the other day, it was pretty neat. There were two battles on the same battlefield, the first battle of the Civil War and another one later on as the Confederates tried to get towards DC. Casualties were about the same for both sides, but the South won them both. The battles are also called the First and Second Battles of Bull Run, after a nearby creek. The south named their battles after towns, for the most part, while the North named them after creeks and rivers. Thus Antietam (a creek) is the same as a Sharpsburg (a town). But anyway, the park was pretty nice, but their explanation of the second battle left a lot to be desired.

The park has a small museum at the Vistor's Center which was pretty neat, and there was a cool electronic map of the first battle with a narrated program telling what happened. It was definitely useful, as it said and showed what happened during the first battle. Then we took the walking tour around the first battlefield. These cannons were part of the Southern line, and behind them was where Stonewall Jackson earned his nickname. Walking around the field made me wonder what it would have been like to fight in it, and it would not have been fun. It seemed like the first battlefield was pretty small, and a lot of back and forth fighting took place across a few hundred feet, with cannonballs bouncing everywhere. Something else interesting was that once the North had been beaten in the battle, their retreat was slowed by all the people who came down from Washington to watch the battle, expecting a quick victory. Families, congressmen, and so on, had brought their carriages down and had picnics. Seems pretty stupid to me. "Oh, let's go watch the battle! I'll make sandwiches!"


This poster was in the museum. It's hard to read, but it was encouraging people to fight for the Confederacy, saying the Northerners are trying to tell them what to do and how to run their economy. Thought that was interesting.

The second battle seemed to take place over a much larger area. It didn't have an electronic map, but did have a driving tour. However, the driving tour didn't really have a lot of information on it, besides the blurbs in the brochure about each site, so it was pretty hard to follow what was going on. Each stop on the tour only had a sign with the park rules and no map or even a time period, so I guess I have a much cloudier view of the second battle. The website has a little virtual tour of both battles, but it's still a little hard to follow. And Wikipedia has a bit on the first and second battles.



The fence was part of the driving tour of the second battle. The Southerners lined up in a railroad grade behind and surprised the Northerners as they walked by.

so I just became one of those white cord people, I got an iPod. i wonder if i'm going to run into stuff and miss my metro station. But in other news, I saw that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are going on tour, but there is no DC show. However, I emailed them, and they got back to me really soon, saying they'll probably play one in mid October in DC. so that's pretty cool. At the risk of contributing to the buzz machine, I like their stuff, it's pretty good.

Also, Google Maps has a new feature, "Hybrid" maps, which are the satellite images with streets and buildings drawn over them. For example, here's my freshman year dorm. Pretty cool.

so I was watching the new Missy Elliott video, "Lose Control," and I really like it. The song is really cool, it's very catchy and has samples from Cybotron and Les Rhythmes Digitales (the "music makes me lose control" part). And as usual, the video is kooky, with weird images and things. It's a little bit Daft Punky at times, which is a good sign. Check it out here. And apparently she produced the song herself, which is pretty cool.

And that, along with a conversation with my pal Sarah, got me to thinking how the Newport News area has a lot of famous hip-hoppers, like Missy Elliott, Pharrell from the Neptunes, and Timbaland. I guess it's a big area, but it seems like a random place, especially when places like Baltimore and DC don't really have that many hip hoppers. I guess part of the reason in DC is because of the go-go scene, but still.