Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium

I just picked up the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Stadium Arcadium. It had gotten some good reviews and I enjoyed the album Californication, so I decided to take a chance. In the end, this 2 disc album, isn't too bad, but it's not that great either. Considering the four other RHCP albums that I own (Blood Sugar Sex Magik, One Hot Minute, Californication and By the Way), this one feels redundant. The group's sound hasn't changed too much and towards the middle of the 28 track album, I really thought I had heard a lot of these songs before. In a way, this album reminds me of how I felt about the Smashing Pumpkins 2-CD set, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, because it's just too much overload. Too bad they couldn't have trimmed this down to an extra long CD (16-17 tracks).

Have any rock groups really ever put out a really successful double CD? Excluding compilations, of course. Guns N Roses came pretty close with their simultaneous release of Use Your Illusion 1 & 2 but this RHCP CD isn't quite there. I enjoyed the Foo Fighters' In Your Honor, but it also isn't a classic. Then there's the aforementioned Smashing Pumpkins' disc, which like I mentioned before, was just Billy Corgan overload.

Tags: music, Red Hot Chili Peppers, rock, Stadium Arcadium

NSA Surveillance and Guns

Today the President acknowledged that the government had received phone records from phone companies regarding calls that terror suspects had made. USA Today suggests that the calls weren't just those of terror suspects, but also those of ordinary Americans.

Now let's say the government is creating a large database of phone records. This will likely infuriate liberals and the ACLU.

Those who see no problem with this measure will likely be conservatives and say that this is necessary to protect our citizens, and that anyone who isn't doing anything wrong will be fine.

I'd like to see if those same conservatives support firearm registration. After all, what I've heard about firearm registration is that citizens are concerned the government would then have a list of people with guns who it can go after. But if you aren't doing anything wrong, and just hunting, why should you worry? For that matter, why doesn't the ACLU oppose firearm registration? After all, every citizen has the right to carry a firearm.

A similar sort of inconsistency always struck me with those people who are anti-abortion and pro-capital punishment (a common set of opinions?). After all, if it's not ok to kill a fetus, why is it ok to kill an adult, regardless of what awful thing they've done?

Tags: firearms, guns, NSA, surveillance

David Blaine

Thursday night we saw David Blaine while he was at Lincoln Center preparing for his latest ABC special. He was sitting down by the time I took these pictures. Is what he does magic or is it more like daredevil-type stuff? I guess it doesn't matter, it's kind of cool and kind of excessive at the same time.

Tags: ABC, David Blaine, Lincoln Center, magic, TV

New Mets Song

In the grand tradition of "Go NY, Go NY, Go!," "Meet the Mets," "Lets Go Mets Go" and "Here Come the Yankees!" is a new and hilarious theme song for the Mets.

New York Mets: Our Team, Our Time!

An aside, while looking for audio of the songs above, I stumbled across the new Nets song, "Go N-E-T-S!"

Tags: baseball, basketball, Knicks, Mets, MLB, NBA, Nets, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, New York Mets, New York Yankees, sports, theme song, Yankees

Ain't Wet

I don't know why I find this so funny, but I do.

Tags: wet paint

Awards

The Barry Bonds player profile on ESPN.com has a section for Awards, including his many MVP awards, Gold Gloves and... ESPY awards?


Who cares about the ESPY's? I really hate this sort of artificial inflation of these stupid award shows.

Thankfully his CBS Sportsline page doesn't include this faux honor.




Tags: Barry Bonds, baseball, ESPN, ESPYs, MLB

Barry Bonds and Perjury

I don't really understand what the big deal about Barry Bonds and perjury is. The case that's being investigated is whether or not he lied to a grand jury in 2003. It's been reported previously that Bonds told the grand jury that he used the "cream" and the "clear" which turned out to be steroids, but didn't know what they were. The question is whether or not Bonds knew that these were steroids. Seems pretty hard to prove.

But is ignorance any excuse for breaking the law? I always thought the answer was no. If you killed someone and then said, "well, I thought it was ok" you wouldn't gain any more sympathy. Likewise if Barry Bonds had been smoking crack. In other words, who cares if he lied, he took steroids, that should be the end of the question. While we may wonder about the duration of how long he took steroids, it seems to me a more constructive question would be to find out who else was taking steroids.


Tags: Barry Bonds, baseball, MLB, perjury, steroids

Double Meaning?

Let's just say that for a moment, I thought this headline on CNN.com was about Venus Williams.

Probe photographs Venus' south pole

I know, this is a really classy operation I've got going on here.

Tags: CNN, Venus, Venus Williams

Fox News Ratings

I just heard that the President's approval ratings, along with the Republicans in Congress were at an all time low in a recent Washington Post / ABC News poll.

Thinking about this some more, I was curious to find out if there was any relationship between the ratings of Fox News Channel and the general negative perception of the Republican Party. Since Fox News is generally perceived to have a conservative bias, it would seem to me that either 1) ratings would not change if a loyal base of viewers are responsible for most of the audience or 2) ratings would drop if their viewers represented a broader spectrum of attitudes. Of course, there's some other data that would be necessary to fully relate the two to each other (increases in ratings with improved approval ratings, current affairs, changes with other news networks).

My personal suspicion is that the ratings are fairly immune to the approval ratings but I could be wrong.

Tags: Fox News, George W. Bush, politics,
President, ratings, Republicans, tv

Snow Doubt

Snow on April 5 in New York City?



Yes. I can't believe it!


Tags: New York City, snow, weather

Boot Camp

Apple is introducing Boot Camp, a program that allows new Intel Mac users to run Windows XP if they'd like. While this is a nice idea, since so many people are familiar with the Windows OS, it's sort of funny that a new selling point to a Mac will be that it can run a somewhat inferior product. They should market this as, "You know all those crazy viruses and trojans that keep cripping your friends' computers? Well now you can get them too!"

Tags: Intel, Macintosh, Microsoft, OS X, Windows XP

Enter Sandman

Do yourself a favor and go to the WFAN webpage and listen to: Joe Benigno "Tue. Mar. 4th - Joe is invaded by Mike Francesa and Don Imus as they discuss Billy Wagner and his 'Enter Sandman' theme song." This stuff is hilarious.

Here's the issue. When Mariano Rivera enters a Yankees game at Yankee Stadium, they play Metallica's "Enter Sandman" to the game. It's actually pretty cool - the place goes wild and they even now put the lyrics up to try and get everyone to sing along. When Billy Wagner entered games for the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies, he too, played the song "Enter Sandman." So on Monday, when Wagner was asked to get a save for the Mets, "Enter Sandman" was played and sports talk radio went crazy! How it's inappropriate, how it's ridiculous, and that Wagner should change his song.

Yes, it's probably not the best move for Wagner to be playing the same song as Rivera but who really cares? I suppose people would see it the same way if the Yankees got a big top hat in center field with an apple popping out of it after every home run, or if the Mets started playing Cotton Eyed Joe or YMCA at every game.

Great stuff. Talk about a meaningless argument!

Tags: baseball, Enter Sandman, MLB, New York Mets, New York Yankees

Flight 93 Movie

A movie dramatizing Flight 93 (the one that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11) is on its way. The Daily News reports that the trailer brought some filmgoers to tears.

I know it's Hollywood's way to take any tragic / historic / heroic event and turn it into a film. There's no event that is immune from being turned into a film. Also, regardless of when it is turned into a movie, there's also no doubt that there will be questions that it is "too soon" or "insensitive." But this still doesn't sit well with me. Maybe it's because this was so much closer to me than a World War 2 film, but something about this film bugs me a little.


Tags: 9/11, Flight 93, movies

D'Oh!

A Simpsons movie? I love the show but is this really necessary? It looks like they are just trying to milk the franchise for every last drop before they let it go.

Tags: movies, Simpsons, TV

Jimmy Rollins' Hit Streak

There's a lot being written about Jimmy Rollins, the Philadelphia Phillies shortstop, who got a hit last night in his 37th consecutive game. This of course, brings up the topic of Joe DiMaggio, who managed to hit in 56 consecutive games. DiMaggio had his streak in one season, where Rollins is running his streak from the end of one season to the beginning of the next. Does that make a difference?

I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about. Yes, what Rollins is doing is remarkable and would approach the "most consecutive games" streak in a literal sense. But what DiMaggio did is quite different since it was all in the same season.

I guess it boils down to baseball being a game where everybody loves to talk about records. The DiMaggio record is pretty hallowed ground. One thing I'd like to note is that we don't ever discuss most of these "records" as over more than one season. We never say, who has the most consecutive wins (not necessarily in one season) or HR / RBI in a 162 game period. I guess we might have to make that distinction now. For Rollins, while the winter break between seasons is certainly a big hump to overcome, I think he will certainly benefit from decreased media coverage since he isn't doing this all in a single season.


Tags: baseball, hit streak, MLB

Opening Day

It's Major League Baseball Opening Day!

Yay! Now ESPN.com's front page can remove all their *yawn* Women's NCAA Final Four stories (no offense, but nobody's watching) and focus on MLB (which admittedly, fewer people are watching these days).

Opening Day is always exciting, especially this year, when a lot of teams have much higher hopes than in the last few years. I think it was a little silly for there to have been a game last night (White Sox / Indians) only because it seems a little bit isolated.

A few years back (2001, I believe), I skipped work in the afternoon and was lucky enough to go to the Yankees season opener. That was probably my favorite opening day. Tonight, the Yanks start on the west coast, with the A's. They had been starting the year on the left coast for a while, but then in the last few years were on the east coast. Now I guess they're mixing it up again.


Tags: baseball, Major League Baseball, MLB, Opening Day, Yankees

Basic Instinct 2, Sequels

I don't follow movies as closely as I used to, but I was surprised to hear that this weekend, Basic Instinct 2 will be opening. Upon further research, I confirmed that the first movie was made in 1992, nearly 15 years ago! I don't like when sequels come out so far after the original. That got me thinking about other films. Long gaps like this aren't as uncommon as I had thought. Unfortunately it looks like the movies that come after the long gaps are rarely as good as the previous installments.

There were 8 years between installments of Bad Boys. The Terminator franchise had two big gaps - 7 years between 1 & 2, then 12 years between 2 & 3! Checking further, Godfather 3 came out sixteen years after Godfather 2. Likewise sixteen years passed between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. Ten years separated Get Shorty and Be Cool. Fourteen years passed between Predator 2 and Alien vs. Predator, (7 years between AVP and Alien Resurrection) although now it's more of a stretch to find the relationship.

Eight years passed between Fletch and Fletch Lives, the same amount of time as two other Chevy Chase movies, Christmas and Vegas Vacations. Eddie Murphy waited 7 years to make Beverly Hills Cop 3, and 8 years to make Another 48 Hours. Eleven years passed from The Mask to Son of the Mask. 1980's Blues Brothers had a sequel in 1998, aptly named, Blues Brothers 2000.

Kevin Smith's Clerks 2 will be due out 12 years after the original. If a fourth Indiana Jones feature were to happen, it would be eighteen years since the last one. It will be about 16 years if Rocky (as rumored) hits the screen again. Die Hard 4, also rumored, would be 11 years after the last installment.

By the way, Bambi got a direct-to-video sequel 64 years after the original. I guess the Basic Instinct gap shouldn't have surprised me.

I'm sure I've forgotten critical

Side note: While we're talking about Sharon Stone films, the movie "Slither" that opens this week keeps making me want to say "Sliver," the movie about the voyeur that Sharon Stone was in following the original Basic Instinct.

Tags: Basic Instinct, movies, sequels

Music Releases

It seems to me that all the bands I listen to tend to release their albums all at the same time. Last year, Dave Matthews Band and Audioslave released albums within a few weeks of each other. This year, it looks like a banner year for Pearl Jam, Audioslave and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The hype machine seems to be in full force. I know that no artist would suggest that their upcoming album is not something fans and the public would enjoy, but it is interesting to hear bands say that the next album is always the "best one yet."

That stretch in May-June will be a pretty exciting musical month for me. I'll be seeing Pearl Jam at Continental Airlines Arena on June 1. Pearl Jam's upcoming album can be preordered at their website with the bonus of receiving MP3's to the album at 12:01am on the release date, as well as an additional live recording from a New Year's Eve concert in 1992. I'm leaning strongly towards picking that up, since those Ten-era concerts were probably pretty wild.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers just released a good portion of their recent catalong on iTunes with some pretty intriguing bonus songs from their albums Blood Sugar Sex Magik, One Hot Minute, Californication and By the Way. Unfortunately the bonus stuff is only available if you purchase the album digitally. Since I already own those albums, it's too bad. I wish I could purchase those tracks (2-3 per album) individually.



Pearl Jam - self-titled album, release date: 5/2/06
"It's easily the best stuff we've done but also some of the hardest stuff." -Eddie Vedder


Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium, release date 5/9/06
"...the best thing we've ever done." - Flea

Audioslave, Revelations, release date June 2006 (album art not available)
"My vocal cadence is different, my approach to the vocal is different. And with this band, we have the ability to go into more of a soul/R&B direction and have it be authentic. It's exciting." - Chris Cornell

Tags: Audioslave, Chris Cornell, Eddie Vedder, Flea, music, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, rock music

Yao Ming Playing Well

Yao Ming is playing well, but the Houston Rockets are not. It's too bad for Yao, who is putting up the best numbers of his career, that Tracy McGrady is out. While the games might be relatively meaningless for the Rockets at this point, Yao is playing great, with double-doubles in 12 of his last 14 games, scoring 20 points or more in every game during that stretch. I might have to try and catch a few Rockets games on TV while their season's still going.

Tags: basketball, NBARockets, Yao Ming

Knicks Beat the Pistons

What's that? The basement-dwelling Knicks beat the Eastern Conference Champion Pistons? I would have never believed it. They won the game in green uniforms? Wait a second, isn't there another team (in the same division) that wears Green, Irish-influenced uniforms?

Is this a new Knicks tradition? Those are ugly uniforms. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if they played the Celtics on St. Patrick's Day and broke those green duds out?

Tags: basketball, Detroit Pistons, NBA, New York Knicks, St. Patrick's Day, uniforms