Category: Enjoyed

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Enjoyed Narrated

This Is The First Day Of My Last Days

Ithaca Festival, 1996. A young unsuspecting fiften year old boy walks into the horribly-named “Sounds Fine” on the Commons and, on the recommendation of a close online friend, purchases The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. He takes it home and listens to it.

This was the point in his life that his musical tastes would change forever, swinging from – well, let’s be honest here, mostly crap, to industrial rock and a wide range of electronic music. He would obsessively collect every album by Nine Inch Nails, even the obscure (both halves of the Closer single) and the mundane (the Down In It single with a whopping three tracks, all repeated on the Head Like A Hole single). T-shirts were purchased and worn proudly. Bumper stickers were put on cars. Lyrics were memorized.

You get the picture.

Tonight, after nearly ten years of on-again off-again fan-worship and countless money spent, this slightly older, much more cynical twenty-five year old man will walk into Madison Square Garden to finally see the band he’s been obsessing about for all this time.

Excited? You bet your goddamn life I’m excited.

Categories
Enjoyed

Eugene Mirman CD Recording Report

So, tonight was the first of two nights of taping for the next CD from the very funny Eugene Mirman. Here’s the notable bits:

Leo Allen opened with about 15 minutes of material, including a good bit about trying not to eat babies, even when they’re smothered in delicious baby sauce.

Eugene ran through a lot of his recent bits – the Edinburough hand-washing, the Planned Parenthood, a few others – as well as plenty I hadn’t heard before, which is always a bonus. Seeing the same comedians a lot in NYC can lead to recycling of material, so getting fresh material during tapings is always good – my laughs are a little more spontaneous, anyhow.

The thing I’ve grown to really enjoy about Eugene is his ability to stay aware of what’s going on. He chuckles as he goes, obviously enjoying himself. He’s aware when jokes aren’t working, and is able to cut himself off and playfully note that he’ll “fix THAT one for tomorrow night” or taunt “for those of you listening on the CD, you won’t hear this, as I’m cutting it out”. When technical difficulties abound, he can bounce back with some grace.

And boy, did he have to bounce back tonight – when he started one of his closing bits, which involved audio being played from the soundboard, he first managed to get the microphone stand wedged, unable to move with even the mightiest of forces. Then, while the bit was playing, it mysteriously crapped out, with the audio equipment breaking horribly. The solution? To have someone run downstairs and grab his bag from the coat room, bring up his iPod, and play the bit from there, which he had loaded on “just in case”. It ended up being smart thinking, and even with a low battery charge, he was able to get through the bit the second time.

It was a very good time, and hopefully the jokes that fizzled (and there were, sadly, a fair number) will be repaired tomorrow night for a nice full CD of material. Also making things enjoyable was the never-resting Kathryn Yu, who I do not actually disapprove of.

Eugene’s previous CD is, inexplicably, available twice from the iTunes Music Store, and highly recommended. The new CD will be available on SubPop sometime in the near future.

Categories
Enjoyed

Vacation Postcard

Dear World,

I’ll have you know I am most enjoying my week off. My percentage of vacations being at least slightly derailed continues to hold at 100%, although to be fair it was not a complete derail this time, nor am I in any way miffed or upset by the circumstances.

I’ve had two lovely, relaxing days strolling around NYC with [Suw](http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog) in her post-conference state, and I am lucky to have another two or so ahead. I do find it slightly odd how we endlessly have blog-related matters to debate, as I typically don’t find much cause to talk about blogging with the people around me – but no matter. (Suw’s recap of today was also [just posted](http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/21/1313691.html)).

I’ve also been finding myself purchasing a number of items I had been looking forward to – a new [iPod Video](http://www.flickr.com/photos/remydwd/54113978/), [The Warriors](http://www.flickr.com/photos/remydwd/53800446/), and Shadow Of The Colossus. To capsule review all three:

– The iPod fills all the major gaps in functionality I had with my existing iPod (album art, battery life, click wheel, another 20GB of space) and the video capability is a nice bonus. My only major complaint is the lack of a remote port. Oh well. Full review coming next week.
– The Warriors, while not a perfect game, is probably the most enjoyable beat-em-up I’ve played since Final Fight. I just tore through the movie tonight, and Rockstar really has got it down to an almost uncanny degree. Full review coming in the near future.
– Shadow of the Colossus deserves to be sleeper hit of the year. I don’t have the patience to play it for long stints of time with company around, but I’ve burned through the first two colossi, and this game is a huge breath of fresh air. Anyone who appreciates games as more than mere entertainment – and who can stand a game that discourages ADD-style playing – owes it to themselves to pick this up.

I apologize for the lack of pictures as of late; I seem to have lost my battery charger for my camera, and I am nearly out of juice. I will be running to the Sony store any day now to buy a new one, I promise.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Keep in touch, won’t you?

Warm regards,
Dan