Rock-o-Matic: Looking Good

As the spring and summer months arrive, I'm feeling a bit dandier in my steps. I've always said the key to feeling good, is looking good. Ugly people are almost always unhappy. As I've always said, if you're ugly, you might as well be dead. Thankfully, people like Tommy Hilfiger are around to offer guidance to looking sharp. Here's a few of his tips, from style.com:

1. It’s a sign of insecurity if you’re overdressed.
5. The weekend is about comfort. I think a certain amount of wrinkling is okay, like a rumpled shirt. But during the week, I don’t think so. I don’t know why. It’s just an old-fashioned thing.
7. I was brought up wearing preppy clothes and I always went back to them. Preppy is the easiest way to dress. When in doubt, wear a button-down shirt, a V-neck sweater, a blazer, and a pair of jeans—it’s foolproof.
9. I prefer East Coast style, but when you’re in L.A., you almost want to wear khaki cargo pants and a T-shirt just because it’s so accepted there. Nobody shaves; nobody combs their hair; nobody wears socks.

And from my music collection, this week I feature another swell band that gets my weekend shirt rumpled: The Rapture. I encourage you to buy this album.

The Rapture - Don Gon Do It

The Rapture - Whoo! Alright, Yeah... Uh,huh

-Josh

Three Cheers!

Since the first humans left the trees and their monkey ancestors (sorry creationists but pull your heads out of your asses) they have enjoyed a good stiff drink. Cromagnum people were the first to discover the enticing delights of poppy juice and the Egyptians were notorious for their month-long beer parties. The ancient Greeks and then Romans worshiped wine with Bacchanalian feasts (now there is a religion I can get behind). Even through the dark ages, when people were dropping like flies thanks to the plague, wine, beer and mead were staples of every mans diet. Columbus added "new vineyards" to his list of reasons why the Queen should finance his cruise and although our history books may credit Lewis and Clark for their adventure you can bet those two men would thank whisky for getting them through. The popularity of a good drink has only risen in modern times despite the puritan zealots who invaded our government in the 20th century and had alcohol outlawed.

Alcohol is the great unifier giving men, women, and children of all races, nationalities, religions, sexual orientations, and political backgrounds something in common (except for the crazy religions that think drinking is a sin but who really wants anything in common with those nuts?).

Where would we be today without booze? Living in a dull and dreary world that's where. Many of our most famous works of art from paintings to theatrical productions would never have been created were it not for the alcohol infused visions of the masters. When looking at the current crop of crap infesting Broadway I can say without doubt that the problem is lack of drunken creativity. Stop letting Disney and bankers create musicals and give them back to the alcoholic playwrights and drama queens who know what they are doing.

So I say that the next time you belly up to the bar, raise a glass and give a cheer to alcohol! Now would someone please pass me some aspirin because my head is throbbing from all the vodka I drank last night.

Overheard In Old New York

Angry Latin Man:

"Do you have an expression for whenever a husband is tired of playing hide and seek and is just about ready to hit the wife in the nose?"

Fiesty Wife:

"Not up to now we don't."

Lucas And Hamill, Together Again!

George Lucas and Mark Hamill* will reunite for Robot Chicken": Star Wars," a special 30-minute, Star Wars spoof.

The special makes fun of popular scenes and characters from the "Star Wars" movies and was done in collaboration with Lucas' production company Lucasfilm. George himself, will provide the voice for, uh, himself and Hamill will once again play everyone's favorite whiny Jedi, Luke Skywalker.

The special is set to premiere at 10 p.m. on June 17, and will also include the voice talents of Conan O'Brien, Seth MacFarlane, Malcolm McDowell, Hulk Hogan, James "I don't want your life"** Van Der Beek, Breckin Meyer and Joey Fatone.

*If you follow just one link in this post, make it this one!
**If you follow just two links in this post, make this the second one!

Twisted And Evil

What is it about a person in an over-sized, cartoony suit that makes me want to run up to them and knock them over? Even when I was young that thought was always in mind at theme parks.

This giant red ball with legs has been handing out fliers near my office for the past few weeks. Every time I see him, I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to knock him down. I know, I know - I'm a thoughtless little pig but I can't help it.

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture. For the ball's safety, I thought it best that I not get too close.

Super Happy Terrific Products

One of my life ambitions is to someday be an evil genius living in an incredible apartment at the top of a New York City building. This apartment would have a pool, helipad, movie theater, down-hill sky run and this folding bookshelf door.

Triple Word Score

In addition to this blog, I also right for a consumer, product-driven blog and web site so I'm always on the lockout for interesting products. This morning I found this Scrabble furniture (pictured), which was designed by Stephen Reed Industrial Design for employees at the London offices of Bloomberg.

Despite the fact that I am a horrible speller (thank god for spell check) I love Scrabble. My friends and I frequently use board games to make important decisions for us. Such as, the looser of this game of Trouble has to make the next beer run.

When I was preparing to move into my first apartment after college with my best friend Heather, we had to determine who would get the larger bedroom in an apartment we found in Jersey City. It wasn't just a question of a few extra feet as the larger room was nearly twice the size of the smaller one. So we agreed to let a game of Scrabble decide the bedroom fate.

We had a heated game at my parents house with members of my family frequently checking on the status of the game. By the time the felt bag was out of tiles our scores were nearly neck and neck. I had no more possible word combinations to make, which gave Heather the last go. She plopped down the word "FAX", which put her score above mine and awarded her the larger bedroom.

I quickly contested that "FAX" was not a word as it is actually an abbreviation for "Facsimile". We asked my family members for their opinions and even made a bunch of phone calls for a greater polling audience. In the end, more people agreed with Heather than me and she moved into the larger room while I begrudgingly took the smaller.

To this day I still refuse to accept "FAX" as a word.

Fight!

Of all the things I saw and heard at last year's E3 (May 2006), one juicy tidbit lodged in my brain when a rep from Midway Games mentioned in passing, there was talk of a new Mortal Kombat movie in development. Almost a year later, some more details of that movie are emerging and it seems that it is definitely going to happen.

The new movie will be a restart for the brand rather than a prequel or sequel to the two films released in the 1990's. It's still too early to talk about release dates but it appears that a script is in the works.

Flawless Victory!

There Goes The Blogosphere

For the past few months the question that everyone has been asking is "Is Jen moving to Singapore?" Well, I can finally put the question to rest with a definitive answer of "Yes"!

In order to keep us all abreast of her time in the far east, Jen has launched her own blog today and even asked me to write the first entry. So check out Take A Chance You Stupid Ho at http://takeachancestupidho.blogspot.com/ and don't forget to bookmark it.

Shall Wii Play A Game

Since Seth's birthday was last Wednesday, he decided to hold the official celebration on Saturday, and celebrate we did. Seth had to work at the Met until around midnight so Jen and I started earlier in the evening with dinner and a mini bar crawl until it was time to meet up with Seth and his Met friends at Stereo sometime after 1am. I'm not sure what time we left (somewhere between 4 and 6am I'm guessing) but we had a blast and even managed to entice Jen, Erik and James back to Brooklyn for a late night/early morning Wii playoff. Either James didn't play any games or I was too drunk to capture it on film.

Round 1, Erik battles someone.


Round 2, Jen and her fists of glory!


Round 3, Admiral Ackbar vs. Jesus.


Tired of all the violence, Mii go bowling.

You Don't Want to Piss Me Off

If you do, I'll call you my new favorite insult - a thoughtless little pig.

Super Happy Terrific Products

For years Ive been scouring the emails and interwebs in search of things to buy. Now I'm sharing my finds with you here in Super Happy Terrific Products. It's just like the Home Shopping Network without the Network or Shopping.

Fire Table

Nothing says disaster like an open fire in the middle of your living room. For anyone looking for the camp-out convenience of a fire pit that matches their modern, danish decor, Fuego (British design firm) has the coffee table for you! At $1800-$2200 a piece this alcohol-based gel (think of a giant Sterno) doesn't come cheap but think how much money you will save by making your own smores.

Must Have Slipped My Mind

Oh man! I had such a great idea for a pot today, a story that Salinger would be envious of, but after waking and baking, it totally slipped my mind.

This story has something to do with my teenage years, when me and a group of friends at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California, used to get together every day after school and smoke marijuana under the Louis Pasteur statue. We even had a name for our group, we were "The Waldos"! Man, I wish I could remember that story.

The only thing I can remember is how once me and the Waldos took a road trip to Ontario for a festival or something and on the way we had an adventure with Captain Cannabis and Method Man. Maybe we were going to a Phish show or something. Oh well, I gotta go "mow the grass". I promise I'll tell you that story as soon as I remember it.

Rock-o-Matic: Ugly Like Me

On my other blog that I do, we just finished up our wonderful ugliest building in LA contest. In the end, the ugliest building was the Hollywood & Highland complex in Hollywood at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, also in Hollywood. It takes a lot to be declared the ugliest building in LA. I personally think it was the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency that put it over the top.

All in all, the contest turned out really well. I was interviewed on the radio and just wrote an op-ed for the LA Times. I'm hoping to next roll my fame into an appearance in the audience on Live with Regis & Kelly, but only if Regis is there.

Today I feature one of my favorite newish artists, RJD2. Kind of like R2D2, but human, and real.
Via WikiPedia: RJD2 (born Ramble John "RJ" Krohn on May 27, 1976) is an American hip hop producer, singer and musician. RJD2 was born in Eugene, Oregon, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. He was signed to the Definitive Jux label where he released two largely instrumental hip hop albums and has produced tracks for many prominent rappers. However, he has now left Def Jux and has signed with XL Records.^[1] His latest album, The Third Hand, is a striking departure from his usual style and features RJD2 singing and playing instruments on nearly every track.

RJD2 - Sweet Piece

RJD2 - Just When

- Josh

I Want One!

I'm reluctant to share this tasty morsel because I can think of a few people who read this blog that may be receiving this item from me for their next birthday. But I've never been very good at keeping my mouth shut so let me tell you all about the most bizzar thing I have seen today.


It's called the Bacon Wallet and yes, its for real. Don't worry, I don't mean that its actually made of bacon but rather it's a real wallet. Made of leather, the Bacon Wallet is sure to garner you grossed out looks when you pull it out of your pocket at the checkout line.

It Must Be Friday For Me To Feel This Bad

One of those old rat-pack crooners, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin or maybe Shirley McClain, once said that they feel sorry for anyone that doesn't wake up with a hangover because that's the best they can expect to feel all day. I can't think of a clever way to tie that into this post but those are words I like to think about on hungover mornings such as this one.

As if the throbbing headache, physical and mental exhaustion weren't reason enough to stay in bed this morning, I should have instantly returned there when I switched on the teli and was greeted by this dire prediction.

Of course, I didn't bother to turn up the volume or even keep that channel on because I figured, if we really were on the eve of Armageddon they probably wouldn't have the
weather lady covering the story.

There are a lot of people I have to thank for today's hangover, starting with the inventors of vodka. Only a gifted genius could figure out how to get drunk off a potato. Next, the brewers of that beer I was drinking after responsibly deciding that I had had enough vodka. I still don't remember your name beer but it had something to do with a tiger. Of course none of the drinks would have been served (except for the ones I had at home before and after going out) without the help of the ridiculously unpleasant lady tending bar at Barcade last night. Lighten up sweetie, you'll never catch a man with that sour puss. Many thanks go out to Adam, Kelly, Cyndi and Seth. Guys, if it weren't for you I would have been drinking alone.* And finally, my deepest thanks to Seth's mom. If she hadn't given birth to baby Seth on April 18th, none of us would have had such a great excuse for getting drunk on a Wednesday.

In parting, I'd like to accept this hangover on behalf of the Gowanus whale. Your camporing and cavorting won New York's hart but ultimately, New York's shit would stop yours from beating.

Gowanus whale, April 17 - April 19, 2007. R.I.P.



*Not that there is anything wrong with drinking alone.

Happy Birthday . . .

SETH!

*Please note, this is not a photograph of your cake. Its just an image I found on the interwebs and I'd hate for you to be disappointed when this cake doesn't show up.

Tax Day Resolutions

I resolve next year to NOT wait until the last possible day to mail my taxes. There's now way I'm going to be stuck in line with the rest of those procrastinating slackers again.

I swear, this year was the last time you will find me at the post office within hours of that dreaded deadline. Next year, I'm going to begin organizing my receipts and paper work on January 1, and meet with Rita as soon as I receive all my forms.

Hmm, this resolution sounds familiar. Oh yeah, I made the same one on April 15th of 2006. Shit!

Grap A Cup Of Joe

Good morning gang! I thought I would start the day off with a little coffee talk, literally. Check out this limited edition (only 1,000 handmade) Lamborghini coffeemaker.



And it can be yours, as long as you are one of the first 1,000 idiots to act, for the low low cost of just $1,750! At those bargain prices why not buy two just to to piss off one of the other 999 fools out there.

Things That Make You Go That's So Stupid

I was standing in line at the supermarket the other day when I noticed Vanity Fair's latest "Green Issue". While I think dedicating coverage to environmental issues is a great idea, it seems odd for a magazine to call itself "Green". All those millions of copies are printed on paper that used to be trees until they were chopped down. After everyone reads their "Green Issue" of Vanity Fair, all those tons of dead processed trees will end up in the garbage.

If Vanity Fair really wants to put out a "Green Issue", why don't they take one month out of every year and publish the entire magazine on the interwebs. No paper, just digital.

Of course I still bought this "Green Issue", I couldn't resist Leonardo's piercing eyes, but I plan to tell as many people what's in the magazine so they don't have to buy one also. If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem.