Author name: hubs

Freakshow

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My weekend started off with a Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, a super band consisting of Les Claypool (Primus), Brain (Praxis), Buckethead (Guns N Roses), and Bernie Worrell (Parliament Funkadelic). The show was great, they played a really long session, had some wonderful solos, a couple of good covers and it was basically a full-on freak show. I went with A.P., my bro, Pandy, and a bunch of friends and I think we all had a blast. Opening the show was Gabbylala. She put on a great show playing all kinds of instruments; look for her album in 2005.

I slept in on Saturday consisted of yard work (raking leaves) and lazing around. I am still on the verge of a cold so I went to sleep early. By the way, that new doublemelt pizza thing from Dominoes is disgusting. Don’t try it. The chicken kickers, however, are wonderful.

On Sunday I ran a bunch of errands and then we had a pumpkin carving party. The weather was perfect to sit in the backyard with all the leaves falling around us making jack-o-lanterns. It was tons-o-fun and we have a whole bunch of freshly roasted and liberally salted pumpkin seeds to boot.

Feed Me Seymore

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I’m looking at using a news aggregator or similar type of service to start reading blogs. Has anyone had any experience using bloglines or kinja or any other type of service? Is there any other services that are better? How do you read your favorite blogs, by simply clicking on the links of your own blog, or do you use a “feed” service?

KHUBS Radio And Twink

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I can’t remember when or how I stumbled upon Twink. It was through the internet a couple of years ago, but I have no idea who to give credit to so I’m just going to go ahead and give all the credit to the one who most deserves it: Mike Langley. He wasn’t the first. He is definitely not the last. But from what I’ve heard, he is definitely the best: A musician specializing in using children’s toy instruments.

Mike and his friends create a weird, whimsical, dreamlike, fantasy-land inhabited by teddy bears, play-dough snakes, laughing clowns, decapitated Barbies, GI Joes with lit cherry bombs taped to their backs, and the Easter bunny handing out nitrous balloons. Twink’s music jumps from carnival music to new age penny-whistle to plushy rave party to a dark terrifying cartoon theme. Twink’s music spans inconceivable distances in genre which makes for an incredibly interesting listen. Aiding in the incredible diversity in style is the huge variety in children’s instruments used to create Twink’s two albums Supercute! and Twink. Instruments/toys such as the hurdy gurdy, jaymar brownie, the pling plong, giggle sticks and the see-n-say all get used. And they all get used to great benefit through the imagination, skill, and musical sophistication of Mike Langley. KHUBS Radio is providing you with a stream of the majority of Twinks self-titled début album and, per usual, a hard to find track by Anaphylaxis that features Twink.

And I know that you’re expecting Kitsch, but trust me, it’s not. Enjoy.

The Good People Of New York

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First off, I loved Thisbe Nissen’s first effort, a collection of short stories entitled “Out of the Girls Room And Into The Night“. Go buy it. Now. But I’m disappointed to announce that her début novel “The Good People Of New York” just didn’t do it for me. It just fell flat. Glossing over he fact that at least two chapters of this novel were taken nearly straight from her collection of short stories, the story just didn’t seem to work. Thisbe Nissen seems to be long on incident and short on plot so I would suggest sticking to her short stories. Thisbe’s writing remained strong and there are moments of true brilliance, and more rarely, heart felt emotion. But the books downsides outweighed the upsides in my opinion. The pacing seemed strange, granted it’s difficult to encapsulate 20 plus years in less than 300 pages, but the speed was jerky; it slowed and accelerated awkwardly.

For a book that is about relationships, in “The Good People Of New York” Nissen did little to develop the relationship between the main characters Roz and her daughter Miranda. And to further muddle things, several characters created brief emotional relationships with each of the main characters but none of these interactions or affairs were built upon with conviction. Individuals simply breezed in and of the novel making impacts whose craters Thisbe neglected to explore.

The novel, however, was enjoyable and worth my time. I didn’t hate it but I surely didn’t love it. There were sections were Thisbe really shined (see below). I’d recommend this book to those interested in reading about mother/daughter relationships but I definitely won’t be reading it again.
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My Netflix Lists

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Sorry guys, it took me a little while to figure out how to get this to work, but this is a continuously (dynamically) updated list of my netflix info. Special thanks to Oscar for the plug-in.

UPDATE: Since Netflix changed there API the plugin no longer works. Sorry again.

Spilt Milk

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Did you know that Frank Black broke up the Pixies via a fax? That’s fucking brilliant. I wish I broke up with my exes via a fax. Why didn’t I think of that. Oh yeah, cause I always the one getting dumped.

The Pixies show last night pretty much kicked ass. Watching a show at Magnus Arena is pretty much like watching a show in a large tin box, thus, it’s like listening to a show in a large tin box. Sound quality left something to be desired. I saw Jane’s Addiction there before and didn’t notice the sound, but it was Jane’s addiction, and it was Halloween, and it was my birthday – I probably didn’t notice much of anything. Despite being inside a giant Altoids container the sound was decent. It was loud. Just like it should be. And they Pixies put on one hell of a rocking show (or rawking is how I think the kids are spelling it these days).

They must have played for about an hour and a half and played 20+ songs. I don’t have a set list but I knew most of the songs they played. Apparently they played everything everybody wanted to hear. But Tony’s Theme. Honestly I wasn’t that familiar with the Pixies before this summer so I feel like I’ve really been invited to sit at the same table as the cool kids now. God I hope I don’t spill my milk.

Tending To The Toad

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Wednesday night was a historical event to go down in the annals of history forever and for all time. Breaking a 21 game (or something like that, three full seasons) losing streak, Backwash has won there first regular season game in the history of the league. I couldn’t be more proud of my kickball team. Well actually I could, if the fuckers would actually volunteer to umpire every now and again I would be happier than any proud new parent on earth. Afterwards we headed out to The Toad (which was once called the Horny Toad back in the day. It seems the new millennium is much to p.c. for such innuendo) for a celebration which involved a few pitchers of beer, a pizza bigger than me, and some wonderful karaoke acts.

Last night we hit up Dazzle Supper Club for some free jazz and expensive yet incredibly weak drinks which I am now calling “Dazzle Camouflage” in reverence of the Work Of Terrible Beauty by Lynda Barry. Afterwards we headed over to the Candlelight Tavern for $2.00 hamburgers, which are delectable in every way that a hamburger can be. A large group of us stuck around and played shuffleboard late into the night.

100 Things

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Typical of nearly everything on this blog, and in my life, I’ve decided to once again just simply follow the crowd and do the cool thing. Also typically, I’m doing it about 2 years after the fad has been killed. You call it retro, I call it old. So ladies and gentlemen, it is without the appropriate fanfare, without further ado, and without an ounce of dignity that I present to you my 100 things list:
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MT V3.0

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I’m considering moving to MT V3.0, has anyone had any experience with the new version? What do I have to look forward to? What do I have to fear?

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