Disks in Rotation:
DVD • Cowboy Bebop
CD-ROM • D2X
CD Carousel
• System of a Down - Toxicity
• Exodus - Force of Habit
• Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
• Soil - Scars
• Tool - Undertow

Books Lying Open
• Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Brothers Grim

Soul-Devouring Worry
• There are like, really a lot of band names out there.

When I Grow Up:
• I will no longer blame the dog.

Curse of the Day:
• May some scuzzy guy be sighted "casing" your apartment complex.

Daily Blog
Did my usual Saturday routine, which consists of getting about 4 hours sleep, not eating all day, gobbling something just before work, feeling hungry and weak at work due to low blood sugar, working too hard since I need the money, coming home and diving into the shower, and then falling asleep on my bedroom floor while rodents scurry hither and yon and my hair dries into some unbelievable pompadour and my odd sleeping position hardens my neck like cement.  Hey, it's about the only routine I have.

I was planning on a nice Sunday evening, with plans to watch LotR on DVD at my dad's house.  He's got a semi-giant screen, and a really great stereo system that's all hooked together expertly, and I thought parts of the movie would be tremendous with his sound system.  The drums in Moria, the Balrog, battle scenes, etc.

I've not really been paying attention to the LotR DVD release schedule, but have seen ads and signs about it, so knew it was coming up soon.  I've heard of people who have it already, got it mail order from various places with a preorder, and a friend of mine who works at Blockbuster mentioned to me 2 or 3 days ago that he'd seen it, for the first time.

Of course I got the news at last, that it's not out officially until the 6th, AKA Tuesday.  So that's it for my Sunday evening plans, at least for this Sunday.  I think I'm going out to eat instead. Dad never saw LotR, and I don't belong to any movie rental stores, so maybe he'll want to get it during the week and watch it Thursday or else over the weekend.   I'd like to see it on his bigger screen/speaker set up.  I can't just go join Hollywood Video (I loathe and boycott Blockbuster, when possible.) and rent it myself because, um, well just because.

"But," you say, "aren't you a big fantasy fan?  Didn't you love the movie?  Aren't you going to buy it?"

You have a point.  However New Line has a goddamned Enron business planner designing their DVD release system, and they're putting out three versions of the movie on DVD, all of them with different bonus features.  You can see a detailed description of them here.  From what I grasp, the one coming out now has zero extra footage, but has some extra features, and the big 10 minute preview of TTT.  Then Nov 12th two more versions come out, both with extended footage, making the movie about 30 minutes longer, and also various bonus features.  One is a deluxe gift pack thing which comes with trinkets or action figures or something.

In any event, the one I'm going to buy and own forever and ever, or at least for the 5 or 6 years until new technology obsoletes DVDs, is going to be one of the extended length versions, with 30 minutes more movie footage.  But I want to watch it again soon, and I want to see the 10 minute TTT preview, hence renting this one ASAP.  I never watch bonus DVD features more than once, if that often, so I can live w/o the extra stuff on the first version release.

Various news items, as usual.

• The joys of bureaucracy.  I'm surprised the work crew didn't just pick up the car and toss it over to the side, being as it's about the size of a golf cart.  When they pave roads in the US, any cars in the way are moved immediately; they have tow trucks on call.  Duh. The picture with the article is funny though.

• It was big news here last week when 9 guys got stuck in a coal mine, and were eventually rescued safe and sound.  We might be a bit spoiled in this country:

China’s notoriously dangerous coal mining industry claimed yet another 18 victims in the closing days of July when a methane gas explosion ripped through an unlicensed mine in the country’s southern province of Guizhou.

Official figures show that in the first six months of this year 3,393 miners perished in accidents that occurred on an almost weekly basis.

• The last few Molly Ivins columns have been really good, and the current one (August 1st one, check the archives at the bottom of the page) carries on that streak.  She talks about the Sarbanes Bill, which is the new legislation that slaps a bandaid on the corporate corruption problems by undoing some of the industry-sponsored deregulation legislation of the past decade.  Nothing has been done about the Telecommunications Act yet, and if you don't think any of this touches your daily life, remember that radio industry deregulation is almost entirely responsible for why all the radio stations such so hard now and are all owned by a few soulless conglomerates.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act may actually be the single worst piece of legislation passed during the entire Newt Gingrich era. It was written by lobbyists for telecom, and lobbyists for telecom bought it through Congress.

Sen. John McCain, who to his eternal credit voted against the bill, tried to salvage one good thing out of the whole deal -- a pledge from the industry to wire schools and libraries for computers, gratis. One of the people who pushed hard for that little saving grace was then-Vice President Al Gore.

Lo and behold, less than three years later, the telecom industry reneged on wiring schools, listing the expense -- which it had promised to underwrite -- on its bills and calling it "the Gore tax." I have never met McCain in my whole life, but he called me one day in 1999 -- after I had written an angry column about the industry's "Gore tax" ploy -- and said: "This is John McCain. You were right. I was wrong." And then he hung up

• Phallic-shaped lollipop with a jelly center that oozes out a hole in the tip.  Uh huh.  It's being marketed in Singapore and selling tons to children, to general parental disapproval.  No photos of hot 14 y/o's working one, tragically enough.  I mean that's a good thing, since it would be kiddy porn, and that's always very, very wrong.

The funny thing is they say the sugar sticks are imported from the US.  I've never heard of the damn things.  Not that I'm exactly on top of the new lollipop market.

I talked to a friend today who is much more knowledgeable about Classic Rock than I am, and she was willing to give me some actual factual info about the bands I know little to nothing about.  However as I thought about it, I realized that the ones I actually know well are the least-interesting write ups on the band names page.  I'm funnier when I'm talking out of my ass and making absurd allegations and inaccurate comments.  Plus you have the added bonus of potential angry emails from some fan of the band who would write a long rebuttal of my (admittedly erroneous) comments.  And that would be hella funny to post.

• Boston -- 5
Bands named after cities show a profound lack of imagination, coupled with an overabundance of civic pride.  It's one way to pick a name that will certainly be memorable, but has to piss off others in your town.  Imagine you're in a band that's been around for 20 years, playing everywhere in your town, and some other band comes along and makes the very town their name, and then becomes popular?  That has to piss you off, with hecklers at every show asking why you guys didn't call yourselves the city's name.  As for the actual town of Boston, I don't think of rock and roll.  I think of tea parties and shooting British troops, and funny accents.

• Kansas -- 3
Perhaps the most boring single word rock band to date. Let's pick the flattest, least-happening state in the Union and name ourselves after it!  Whether they were actually from Kansas or not is unknown, and frankly it doesn't matter for my purposes.  When a state is known only for one city, and that city has the state's name in it, and is actually half in Missouri, you lose points.

• The Doors -- 6
Not much of a name, but at the same time it's sort of clever. If you're going to pick a dumb noun for your name, pick one with some interesting connotations, and "The Doors" have those.  Do they open?  Do they close?  Where do they lead?  No one cares really, but at least there are questions to be asked.  If they'd called themselves "The Coffee Tables" would they have been as famous?  Of course not. Plus they had that junkie guy for a lead singer, whose name I can never remember correctly, merging him with another mopey singer, another hippy rock star, and thinking he's "Jimi Morrisey".  Close enough.

See my point?  I don't know a goddamn thing about any of those bands, could only name a song or two by The Doors and none by the other two, and yet it didn't slow me down a bit on my evaluation.  In fact, it made things easier.

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