so i keep getting the stupidest spam. luckily my filter gets most of it, but i still can't understand how people would open this stuff. For one thing, they are always from bizarre random names, like Winfred Taitague or Hilda Nesby. "Ooh, Uncle Winfred wrote me a letter!" What are the odds that any of those names will be recognizable to anybody? It sounds like the Belgian Embassy staff or something. And now they've started to try to avoid the spam filters by having really bizarre subjects, like "disambiguate Ci@lis". Is that really a good sales pitch? Even if I were looking for Cialis, I probably wouldn't click on it if it had an @ symbol instead of an A, and I have no clue what disambiguate means. It sounds like it'll make something fall off, which I think is the opposite of what Cialis does. When i looked it up, it means "state unambiguously or remove ambiguities from." Which is kind of funny, considering what it's attached to.

And then there are the spams with ... in between words, which make the subjects sound like someone doing a William Shatner impression, "Look..younger Be..more Active." I can hear Shatner saying that. However, the divisions of words sometimes make the subject mean the opposite, such as "Bigger..larger in 30days..or Less." I assume this is supposed to mean you can get a bigger ding-dong in 30 days or less, but the way it's written, it looks like you can either "get a bigger ding dong in 30 days, or maybe a smaller one." I mean, i guess there's no smart way to make spam, except for maybe random normal names "Steve Jones" rather than bizarro ones like "Marlana Knapko" and have subjects that have good grammar and no misspellings. Or maybe mention stuff I like in them. I would click "Beer from all over the world!" for example, or "I saw your resume on Hotjobs," since I, and probably lots of other folks, have a resume on there. Of course, you might get sued if you used a company name like that, but I think it's pretty clear that spammers don't care for the law much anyway. Otherwise they wouldn't be sending me emails for their products, they'd be selling them in stores.

so i just discovered that it's not always the best thing to look at Friendster at work. one of my coworkers from my other job added me, so i clicked her profile and the first thing I saw was a picture of a girl in a bathtub. I don't mind that per se, but it might be a little odd if one of the lame dudes at work saw it.

"Hey Andrew, I need you to-- What are you looking at!?"
"N-nothing boss. Just my friend in the bathtub."

But luckily nobody was walking by or anything. Next, I decided that it'd be funny if I added Brian Fellows as my friend, as in Tracy Morgan from the SNL sketch: "I'm Brian Fellows! That bird is a liar!" I typed in Brian Fellows and the first picture that popped up was a picture of a guy's penis. so i think I will stick to using friendster at home.

so i was thinking: what's a sesame? i know what a sesame seed is, but what does that seed grow? i've never seen or even heard of a sesame plant. I wonder why. maybe it looks like a boulder in front of a cave and moves when you talk to it.

(get it, open sesame)

so i went to a concert yesterday, The Thrills and Ambulance Ltd. I went to see the Thrills, I have their CD and I really like it (there's a review down the page somewhere), but both bands were excellent. I'd never heard of Ambulance Ltd before but I really liked them, and I would have bought their CD if they hadn't already sold out. They sound sort of like Teenage Fanclub, melodic fuzzy rock, good stuff. Everybody should check them out. The Thrills were also really good in concert, though I was disappointed that they didn't have a banjo player, because lots of their songs have a banjo on them. They did have one of the guitars tuned to sound kind of like a banjo though, which was still cool. I saw the lead singer in the bar downstairs after the show and talked to him a bit, which was pretty neat, he was a nice dude, and he said the reason they didn't have one was that it would be hard to hear, which makes sense. And I still really enjoyed the show anyway. They played all the songs I liked and some new ones that I hadn't heard that were good, and it was the most excited I had been at a concert in a long time. Some guy next to me said "you are liking it huh" and gave me a fist bash, or whatever when you hit your fists together. So anyway, I urge you to check both of these bands out if they come to your 'hood.

so i read this article on Yahoo the other day. It says that the U.S. is going to send some troops from the North Korea border to Iraq. It was interesting because the day before there was an editorial in the Washington Post by John McCain and Joe Lieberman saying just that, that we should move troops from other places and send them to Iraq. I agree with them, I think if we're not going to leave, we need more troops over there, and we might as well take them from Korea, where they're just sitting around. We needed more troops about a year ago, but now that we're in a big mess, I think more would be good to protect what we've already got over there. It's interesting that the government did this the day after this bipartisan editorial, maybe they're trying to placate McCain so he doesn't become Kerry's running mate or vote against them on stuff, since that's what he usually does.

But what I really thought was interesting about the Yahoo article was the Pentagon spokesperson's name: Flex Plexico. That's the most ridiculous name ever. I can't tell if it sounds more like a superhero or a plastic manufacturer. Save us, Flex Plexico! Then I can go to my job making Saran Wrap at the Flex Plexico factory down on Industrial Park Blvd.

so I think I have uncovered a diabolical plot to fund terrorism. All over the halls at my work, on the elevators, and on bulletin boards there are announcements for lots of events, like people's retirement dinners, baby showers, promotion parties, etc, and they all cost money. I've been working here about 10 months and I've never heard of any of these people, and there's a new one every week. First off, it's crazy that our workplace is that eventful. It's like the Bartlett administration on "The West Wing", some once-in-a-lifetime occasion happens every week. Plus our building has 9 floors, and these announcements are posted on every floor - I doubt these supposed employees go to every floor of our building. And furthermore, why do these events all cost money? Some of them are 40 bucks! that's a lot of dough. If 20 people come to this thing, times 40 bucks, that's 800 dollars! does it really cost 800 dollars to get a caterer to make some pasta or dry chicken for 20 people? I think not. I've been to company parties and stuff and I've been better off bringing my own food. I better contact Rumsfeld, quick.

so my new favorite thing is to find weird news articles or photos and send them to my roommate with some message about his dad. like i found a picture of Urkel holding the NBA championship trophy and sent it to him saying "wow, your dad really does interesting stuff" or something like that, and then i sent him a picture of a guy with nails in his head, "you dad sure is unlucky!" today i was looking through news of the weird-type stuff on yahoo and found an article about Singapore offering maps to the best public toilets in the city, and it quoted a guy who ran the World Toilet Organization. What a shitty job! ha!! really though, how does one acquire that job? "Well I've been to the bathroom many times in my life, and I have always been interested in toilets and bringing together people from around the world to talk about them." The article also included the council's website, which is funny, because it so seriously deals with toilets.

The news article

World Toilet Organization

My favorite part of the website: there's a world conference in Beijing in November where they say you can meet the "MOVERS & SHAKERS" of the toilet industry!! what a great web site.

so I saw "Envy" last night and i was disappointed. It's the movie with TV ads out now with Jack Black and Ben Stiller. Black invents a spray that makes dog poo disappear and Stiller, his neighbor and best friend, gets jealous. It's a funny idea and has funny stars, but it wasn't that great of a movie, I would say it was "amusing" more than funny. there were some amusing parts and some pretty funny images, like a horse running through Stiller's lawn, tons of telephone and high-voltage wires over his little crummy house, and Jack Black's weird clothes, but nothing was laugh-out-loud hilarious. And considering it was directed by Barry Levinson, who did movies like "Wag the Dog" and "Rain Man" and "Good Morning Vietnam" and it was produced by Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, it had me thinking it'd be really funny. It seemed like it was rushed or something, I saw the boom microphone a couple times in the shot and some of the storylines just sort of trailed off such as (warning, skip this part and go to the next paragraph if you don't want it to be ruined) people always ask "where does the poo go?" but the question is never answered.

The movie reminded me of "Head of State", the movie where Chris Rock runs for president with Bernie Mac as his running mate. Again, two funny guys, but not that funny of a movie.

so i'm sitting at my desk listening to this tool contractor from accenture say all this cliche corporate-speak crap. it's bizarre, I didn't think people actually existed who talked like this outside of TV commercials, and it's apparent the guy is really into it too. which is weird, because if he's at my office he can't have that high of a position. anyway, he's talking to some new employee of accenture about how great the company is, how he's "on the ground level" and "the sky's the limit," and profits are up and "we're playing the big boys now, IBM, Microsoft" etc etc. It's kind of surreal, like how did I get to this point? I expect him to give the new employee a poster of a crew team or a flying plane or something, you know, the ones with the black background and "TEAMWORK" or "MOTIVATION" or whatever underneath. weird.

So I got The Thrills' debut album, "So Much For the City", and it's excellent. I figured I'd write a review, sort of to practice if I want to write reviews in the future:

The Thrills are an Irish band with a thing for California. The fivesome's debut album, "So Much for the City," sounds a lot like early 60's pop music, especially the Beatles or the Monkees, with a healthy dose of modern-day California thrown in. The songs are well-crafted pop with frequent Beach Boys-style harmonies, catchy choruses and a mostly optimistic, sunny viewpoint. The CD is almost a tour of California, both geographically and of the Golden State's rock music. Like many Beach Boys songs, most of the songs either mention or are about some location in California, like "Big Sur," "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)," "Hollywood Kids," and the choruses of others, and The Thrills even sing part of the chorus of "Hey Hey We're the Monkees," replacing the "we" with "you." It's hard to tell if the reference is tongue-in-cheek or actually references a love for the music, or a little of both. The song "Big Sur," one of their singles, is excellent. It's up-tempo, like many songs on the album, and is very catchy and happy sounding but not corny or cliche. A rolling banjo plays a big role, and helps add to the song's laid back, sunny vibe. Lead singer Conor Deasy's voice is reminiscent of Jason Lytle, the lead singer of Grandaddy, mixed with the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and Stephen Malkmus of Pavement. It's high, almost falsetto, though it's soft and whispery at times, especially on slower songs like "Travelling Through" and "Deckchairs and Cigarettes" (which, as usual, mentions going to San Diego while adding the sounds of waves and seagulls).

The band also reminds me of Pavement and Grandaddy with the same easy-going vibe, sometimes self-referential lyrics, a sense of place, and mentions of dead-end jobs ("I can't see you smiling pumping gas" on the Thrills' unnamed last track compared with Grandaddy's songs about work orders and supermarkets and Pavement's about minor league baseball players.) Interestingly, both Pavement (Stockton, CA) and Grandaddy (Modesto, CA) are from agricultural cities in California's Central Valley, and both cities are far from the major metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and San Diego. That distance, or maybe life in the valley itself, seems to temper both bands' songs, leading to introspection and interest in the subtleties of everyday life, which The Thrills also deal with. However, most of the songs on "So Much for the City" (which is also the first line of "Big Sur") are much more linear and less experimental than those of Pavement and are happier than most Grandaddy songs. It's tempting to say this is a concept album about California, that maybe the title "So Much for the City" is a dig at New York City in favor of California, or that The Thrills are a California band who just happen to come from Ireland, being that pretty much all of their songs are about the Golden State. Or maybe the band just wants to reflect a love of California and its rock music.

The main difference from the California strain is that "Santa Cruz," "Big Sur" and other songs involve a banjo as one of the main instruments. It seems like a lot of English and Irish rock bands, such as Coldplay and Travis and the Thrills, use the banjo, a traditional Irish instrument which was brought to the U. S. by immigrants. Most American rock bands avoid the instrument, maybe because of the hillbilly/Deliverance connotations. In fact, there aren't many American rock bands since 1990 or so that have used one, besides Beck occasionally. But it fits in well on these songs, adding both to the happy feeling on the sunnier songs and a somber feeling on the slower, sadder songs. It's one of the few connections with Ireland on the disc besides Deasy's occasional accent, which is hard to place anyway.

In any case, "So Much for the City" is an excellent debut album with really no weak tracks and some that are magnificent. With such a focus on California, it's hard to say what the Thrills may do on their next album (maybe they'll move up the coast and write about Oregon,) but this album should be on many best of the year lists. The Thrills play May 22 at the Black Cat in DC.