Supergenius note: a couple of friends of mine were able to attend this concert, much to my jealous regret. Here is their review.

I have a hard time getting pumped seeing bands perform new music live. When I go to see Counting Crows, I want to see “Mr Jones.” When I go to Grand Archives, I want to see “Torn Blue Foam Couch.” Grand Archives was hesitant to cater to my hopes and expectations. This being a CD release party, they were pretty set on playing stuff from their new album, “Keep In Mind Frankenstein.” It’s definitely a departure from their first, self-titled disc. (more…)

Ok, The Edge used to look like the old guy in U2. I just saw U2 perform on Saturday Night Live. Nearly thirty years after the band appeared on the scene The Edge looks exactly the same and the rest of the band looks thirty years older. He now looks like the young guy in the band. You would think an immortal would choose a less high profile career, no? Surely other immortals are out for his head at this point.

Half of you will probably say I’m a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to U2 fandom, half will call me an old-timer. I’m a member of the “Third Round” of U2 fans, the ones who came of age and discovered U2 during the Achtung Baby years (as opposed to the First Round Boy through Unforgettable Fire fans, or the Second Round Joshua Tree fans).

The days of great U2 albums might be long gone, but I still shell out money to see the band play whenever they come to town. I saw them just a few hours ago at Giants Stadium (in the hideous freeway junction known as East Rutherford, NJ), and I have to say, while it’s been years since the band has made any relevant, interesting music, they’re still playing relevant music every night.

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Famous for it’s well preserved, unique Roman and Medieval fortifications, the southern French city of Carcassonne is the setting for one of the best introduction to euro games in all of geekdom!

There are perhaps two euro games generally known to the public, Settlers of Catan (and all its expansions) and Ticket to Ride (and all its variations). Carcassonne seems to be third in this area (and itself has multiple expansions and variants, but I’ve never played any of them yet). It’s the game of city, cloister, farm and road building and most people’s first acquaintance to this funny little wooden character: the meeple. (more…)

I’m a sucker for mashups. In fact, almost any rearrangement of a song makes me happy if it is cleverly done. I found one recently that had me thinking of rearrangements of rock/pop songs into country. We’re more used to this going in the other direction, thanks to Taylor Swift, Faith Hill, and Shania Twain. Country is seen as a fringier market, I suppose, so it makes sense to make country songs sound poppier. However, I was cruising youtube looking for songs by one of my favorite “bluegrass” bands, Nickel Creek, and I found the following:

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I “couldn’t” attend this one, so my pal J. Stapley went instead. Below are his findings.

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Review: Love Happens

First, let us state a cinematographic truth: Seattle is a good place to find hot chicks if your wife dies. (more…)

One of the fascinating features of boardgames I continue to marvel at is the ability of designers like Uwe Rosenburg to turn the most mundane topics into interesting, entertaining play. Such is Bohnanza, the bean counting game. How boring is that?! As it turns out, not at all.

The goal is to make as much money as possible by planting, trading and selling fields of beans.  Each bean is illustrated as a goofy cartoon on standard euro cards (slightly smaller than American standard) and also gives information on the bean’s rarity and cash exchange rate. (more…)

but THIS is going way too far!

(Ahh the never-ending awesomeness of the interwebs)

So this is an open thread for TV for this week, last week, and upcoming. I’ve been so busy I’ve not watched a lot of TV of late. But I have a few musings.

First, anyone watch Leno? I haven’t yet, but then the only part of the old Tonight Show I could stand was the opening monologue. His sketches always seemed horrible to me (except for stealing Carson’s bit about funny advertisements). I can’t imagine liking this show and despite what Time says, I think it’ll flop within a month.

But then I’m hardly the target audience, so who is to say? I will say that I think TV is collapsing and needs to find a new business model. Hulu is inventive, but I can’t play it on my TV.

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Yes.

And they’re more popular than ever.

That’s right, we’re talking about BOARD games here. Leave your fancy shmansy HD screens, hi-res graphics cards, anonymous teenage angst and ego, arbitrary ratings systems and all other techmology behind. Here we are into cardboard pieces of varying size and thickness, wooden bits, plastic baggies, plastic miniatures and these weird little objects called meeples.

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9 is a small film, about burlap puppet creatures struggling to survive against the machines that caused mankind’s apocalypse. I say it is a small film because the puppets are little and because the movie itself is very brief (88 minutes). Despite its brevity, however, the movie shows some good thematic depth and some visually amazing sequences. While not for children, 9 shows genuine creativity is still possible within the dystopian genre. (more…)

Really, Steve? That’s it? No netbook, no touchpad…. just converting the nano into a smaller, music-playing version of the Flip?

The magic is slipping away.

Sure there are a lot of good Flight of the Conchords songs, but in my opinion this is the bestest, funniest, mostest awesomest of all:

I laugh hard every time I watch this and I have seen it scores of times now. Here is why it gets the gold medal in my opinion:

Tribute quality score — 10 of 10. It sounds just like one of those Marvin Gay early 70’s tunes
Song quality score — 9 of 10. The song is not only a good tribute but the actually has enjoyable melodies and harmonies in its own right. (Whereas something like Inner City Pressure is high on Tribute quality but has a melody that is lacking in my opinion)
Lyrical/comedy quality score — 10 of 10. Hits the perfect combination of subtlety, cleverness, and absurdity with the lyrics. Not as ham fisted as, say, Business Time and therefore remains as or more hilarious on the 50th hearing as it is on the first hearing. (Come on — forks? sick monkeys? overheads? “technically I am”? Brilliant.)

So do you agree that “Think About It” takes the gold medal? Or do you have other nominees for the bestest, funniest, mostest awesomest Flight of the Conchords song? Include your nominees for the top prize or for runners-up in the comments and be sure to include the YouTube links.

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So I pre-ordered a CD recently, and as a bonus Amazon gave me a $1 credit for an mp3 download. I’m a big fan of Amazon’s music store. Not being an Apple person, and as someone who has always viewed iTunes as annoying bloatware, Amazon is a wonderful alternative. They were offering high-quality, non-DRM mp3s long before Apple finally gave in.

So now I’m looking for suggestions. What should I download? What mp3 would you bring onto a desert island with you, assuming you had the world’s smallest mp3 player and an unlimited supply of batteries? What song gets stuck in your head for weeks at a time without bothering you?

Help me out here people. This store credit isn’t going to be around forever.

(Want your own free song from Amazon? Go here. Thanks to Slickdeals.)

First there was She and Him.

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Lost in a flurry of uncanny celebrity deaths a couple months ago was news that effects anyone who loves movies. (more…)

Story here. I watched Reading Rainbow as a kid. Now my kids love it. It’s hard to believe they are failing to renew it due to bland stuff like Word World and Super Why. Why, PBS, why?