Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2012

Badass Jfro's 2012

Format once again ripped off shamelessly from the Librarian in Black Books-- Bring Up the Bodies, Zero History, the Old Kingdom Trilogy, The City & The City, Rule 34 Comics-- 20th Century Boys, Library Wars, Wandering Son, Busty Girl Comics Magazine-- The New Yorker Movies (theater)-- The Avengers, The Master Movies (DVD)-- Life Without Principle, Cabin in the Woods, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, The Raid: Redemption, Heavy Metal in Baghdad TV Shows (streaming)-- Breaking Bad, MI-5,  Burn Notice, Green Wing TV Shows (live)-- Community, Fringe, Parks & Recreation, 30 Rock, Mad Men TV Show (DVD)-- Archer, Leverage, Mildred Pierce, Justified, Homeland, The Walking Dead, Falling Skies Items of Clothing--Engineer boots, red jeans, tiny top hats Tabletop Games --Agents of Oblivion, Cards Against Humanity Computer Games -- Plants vs Zombies, World of Goo, Zuma's Revenge Albums/EPs: The Sword: Apocryphon , The Wedding Present: Valentina , Rye Rye: Go!

DUDEBROS DISCOVER NEW RIGHT: RIGHT TO NO CONSEQUENCES, EVER.

  Illustration from Poetry Comics by Dave Morice. The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Dudebros, LULZers and Y U Mad Trolls has discovered a new civil right--the right to do whatever you want on the Internet with no real-world consequences until and unless it is proved illegal. Check out this opinion piece comparing a guy who posts upskirt photos on the Web to era-defining poet Allen Ginsberg:   http://www.corvallisadvocate.com/2012/1101-doxxing-freedom-of-speech/   I guess I missed the part where he included photos of dead children (without permission) in each copy. By the way, dude, you know people who hated "Howl" had the right to snub Allen Ginsberg at parties, accuse him of destroying America, and not publish him in their poetry journals, right? I may disagree with their opinion, but they had the right to air it. What they didn't have was the right to arrest Ginsberg or keep other people from reading him. Pretty much everyone agrees that things

I MADE YOU A DIAGRAM

I made you a diagram. I hope you find it enlightening. The format was, of course, shamefully ripped off from Indexed .

FALL

Moody Autumn from ash966 on 8tracks Radio . Sorry, it's been a while. Fall is always a busy season chez Jfro, plus my Internet and my intercom weren't playing nicely. Other than that, it could be fall all year as far as I'm concerned. Sun is overrated. I'm for foggy mornings, rainy afternoons, and walking on leaves. I suppose it's the nearness of winter than makes fall so beautiful. The Japanese have a word for that , of course. In the meantime, one can enjoy stylish coats, thin gloves, short scarves, and boots unmarred by a disgusting mixture of dirt, snow and rock salt.   The season seems to go with dreamy, fuzzy music, like local shoegaze combo Chatham Rise, who played an awesome set at the Turf Club a few weeks ago. Check out their bandcamp page for more. Shoegaze passed me by the first time, so I had to do some research . I almost went to see the Jesus & Mary Chain, but then I remembered they sucked live the first time around. Oh, we

SPIN'S BEST GUITARIST LIST PRETTY GOOD ACTUALLY

I am not a big super fan of best guitarist lists as a rule, but Spin's   is more focused on creative and influential sounds than how many notes somebody can play per second. Best guitarists lists usually remind me of self-proclaimed "music experts" in high school who said you "had to appreciate Rush, because they can play, man." I mean, if that's your criteria, wouldn't ANY CLASSICAL MUSIC be automatically better than rock because of all the training and competition the musicians have to go through? Yes, early 70s prog-rock values survived in my town way through the 80s. It doesn't matter how well the band members play if they don't do anything interesting with it. My main criticisms would be that somebody is suffering from severe grunge nostalgia to put Pearl Jam on the list of anything great except for their amazing ability to convince people that imitating Bad Company was alternative in any way. Also, Kurt Cobain wrote some good songs, but I

A CLARIFICATION

I was just thinking that my old post on nerd rage at non-nerds rejecting them romantically was a little unclear.  I wanted to say that, though I do think Hollywood hypes opposite attraction too much, the aforementioned investment banker/Magic-the-Gathering champion had as much right to want to date a non-nerd as the non-nerd had a right to NOT want to date him, Maybe he liked her because of her commitment to her job, her sense of humor, religion, or hair color. I am all about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- everyone gets to decide their own criteria, and you only say boo about your friends' relationships if there seems to be abuse or serious deception (mild deception in the beginning of dating is encouraged in our society, though Jfro fans know I'm no good at it). I don't even think the government should investigate couples for possibly marrying for a green card -- the idea of the government investigating someone's personal life like that makes me il

HIJACKED

I apologize if Jfro fans have missed me, my blog was hijacked by spammers. That is why I'm now available at badassjfro.net .  All I wanted to do was stop giving money to Godaddy because they suck . That will show me to be a good Internet citizen! I hope Google comes to its senses someday and drops them as a partner (they make it much easier to buy a Blogger site from Godaddy than the Lifehacker-approved Dreamhost.) I guess $10-a-year hosting is pretty much all up to the end user except for actual hosting part. Of course, Godaddy had no incentive to tell me it didn't go through for some reason. Instead, they sold my site to a spammer who is trading on my Internet good name. I don't want to know what they'd want me to pay for my site back. Badassjfro.net is fine, except for having to make up new calling cards. If you have old links that go to the original ash966.blogspot.com, they probably still work. Also, my Google Groups mailing list for the blog has

HOAXED AGAIN

So, this happened .   I feel bad for Metafilter, because although I've only made one comment on it, I've read threads seeking advice and they seem like really cool people, especially librarian extraordinaire Jessamyn West . I've never been part of an Internet community where we really discuss personal stuff, it's always been around an interest, so I don't know what it's like to be betrayed like that. Hoaxers have always fascinated me, because I have barely the energy to live one life, let alone two. It's all I can do some days to say "fine" to "how are you", living a lie would just take so much energy. Hoaxing on the Internet is easier, because people can't see your body language and you don't have to provide anything physical. On the other hand, there's rarely any money in it. Traditional hoaxers (and the recent group of alleged memoir hoaxers ) usually are paid for their trouble, though fame is undoubtedly a consid

THE NERD POLICE

Note: This is an amazing costume. The post below is not meant to be derogatory of the person above, or any other awesome nerds I know. These days, the lines between nerds, hipsters and the mainstream can get awfully blurry, Hence, I suppose, the flurry of articles policing and building a giant border fence around Nerd Nation. Tara Tiger Brown is all exercised about a supposed epidemic of women pretending to be geeks to get attention, and Patton Oswalt wants to set off the apocalypse so kids will no longer have it so easy finding cool stuff and perfectly ordinary office workers won't think they can spend their spare time writing Twilight fan fiction without being shunned like an Amish stripper. And then there's this: Watching movies and miniseries based on fantasy novels and comics doesn't make you a nerd. They just make you late to the party. — Spike ( @Iron_Spike ) April 12, 2012 Yes,  Iron Spike and only Iron Spike can say who is truly a nerd. If you we

*SLOW CLAP*BRAVO, BIG MEDIA, BRAVO!*SLOW CLAP*

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones So, the Oatmeal posted the above webcomic and some hailed him as a hero, while others said he was no-good pirating scum.  What I don't understand is, even if you put pirating aside as a consideration, because pirates are all EVIL and will never give HBO any money ever, their approach still makes no economic sense. Last summer, I had no shows to watch, so I thought I'd download Game of Thrones from iTunes, like I do with Mad Men and Doctor Who . I pay $10/month to get network channels from Comcast (no reception where I live), so I figure I can afford to pay for a show or two. But no, it wasn't available on iTunes until last week, at the same time my library has it ( right of first sale , bitches!). I was able to get pretty high on the waiting list, so why the hell would I buy it now? Even if I lived near only poor libraries that couldn't afford DVDs, it's on Netflix as well.

JUST STOP IT ALREADY: FILMING THE UNFILMABLE

So, this is happening . In spite of the fine cast featuring every Irish actor ever, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a metafictional novel about an author's characters coming to life and interacting with the real world is unlikely to make a good movie. Why do filmmakers have such a compulsion to film unfilmable books? Why don't they pick on unfilmable plays, or comics or paintings for a change? Does the novel still have such a high place in our culture that movie makers have to try it "because it's there" like Mount Everest?  TOP SIGNS THAT A BOOK IS PROBABLY UNFILMABLE 1. It is just a series of events or arresting images without much of a narrative through-line ( Orlando, Naked Lunch, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues , Catch-22 ). Plotless movies can work, but the director has to set the rhythm to keep them from becoming either dull or frenzied, hard to do with someone else's material. 2. It's mostly about the author's style or a

BELATED YEAR IN REVIEW

Format blatantly stolen from the Librarian in Black : Books- -Ready Player One, Wolf Hall Comics-- 20th Century Boys, Mr Wonderful, Ooku, Starstruck Magazine- -The New Yorker Movies (theater)-- Hanna, Trollhunter, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame Movies (DVD)-- Summer Wars, Attack the Block, Bellflower Movie (Streaming/On Demand)-- Margin Call TV Shows (streaming)-- Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Eden of the East, Breaking Bad, MI-5, Burn Notice, Party Down TV Shows (live)-- Community, Fringe, Parks & Recreation TV Show (DVD)-- Archer, Leverage Item of Clothing--Corset Tabletop RPG -- Agents of Oblivion Mobile Game -- Chuzzle Albums: Wo Fat: Noche Del Chupacabra , Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats : Bloodlust, Lo Pan : Salvador Song –Valkilly: "Love Via Revolver", The Vaccines: "Post Break-Up Sex" Radio-- Radio K, Mirrorshades Web sites: TV Tropes, Good Show Sir, Bitch Blogs , Chunket, Fast ‘N” Bulbous Twitter Twerps: Snarkey’s Machine, Ke

THE ALCHEMY OF COVER VERSIONS

Cavalcade of Cover Versions from ash966 on 8tracks . I love a good cover version. I have a playlist of 133 on my iPod.  Yet TV shows like Glee and movies like Across the Universe make me gnash my teeth in annoyance and stab my pillow. Why is that? I’m going to try to explain, but I don’t entirely understand myself, so bear with me.  I don’t actually hate musicals. I have seen Singin’ in the Rain , The Bandwagon , and Meet Me in St. Louis a total of 20 times at least. If there were a new version of The Carol Burnett Show where they did a combination of standards and top 40 hits between skits, I would be all over it. ( Kiki and Herb: The Series !) I do believe there are very few good ones (Hi, Hedwig and the Angry Inch ) ever since Rodgers & Hammerstein decided they had to be about Serious Issues and the songs had to come out of the action organically and stuff, which is just no fun to watch.  So, basically in the 60s music started changing (ye