Pre-work ramblings

Just finished off a box of those new strawberry milkshake Pop Tarts and the consensus is that they're not bad, but I probably won't make them a regular purchase. My favorite Pop Tarts flavors are still brown sugar cinnamon and s'mores.

I have to go to work early today and, right now, I'm tired as f*ck, so I'll make this quick. There's a good chance I won't be finished on a new episode of Jump Cut Radio until around the middle of next week. It's just that I have so much on my plate right now that podcasting is not that high up on my priorities.

I recently received an e-mail by the band Parker Street Cinema about a song they wanted me to use in my next episode. Here's the link:

"Midnight Shakes the Memory" (MP3)

You can download a couple other tracks by the band here.

Prairie Home Companion: The Movie

Here's an excellent New York Times article on the new Robert Altman film, an adaptation of Garrison Keillor's famous radio show A Prairie Home Companion.

Being an avid listener of the show myself, I was blown away when I first found out about this project. While I admit I'm not too familiar with Altman (I've only seen "The Player," "3 Women" and "Gosford Park"), I have faith in his direction. Hey, if you have Paul Thomas Anderson as a "backup director," that's saying something.

OK, here it is in black and white and it's serious!

Kudos to Stereogum for reporting on the corrupt business practices of the major record labels. For some time, most of us have known that a lot of music gets played on the radio because some major label had bribed the radio station to do so. Well, thanks to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, this practice is finally out in the open. Stereogum posted some e-mails that were revealed in a press release by Spitzer and, I must say, they are quite hilarious.

The devil's waiting...

otis
Originally uploaded by Grevel.

Thanks to the FlickrBlog for pointing me to this really cool new club on Flickr called Entrance to Hell. Check it out and look for my entry as well!

New Photo!...sort of

Alright, so I know it's kinda lame to have one of my own photo's as the Photo of the Week but I just couldn't find anything on Flickr that looked good enough. I guess I need to post the guidelines I follow in deciding a Photo of the Week:

1. Must be a good photo.

Duh. Though everyone's idea of "good" differs, since this is my blog, my opinion is what sets things in motion around here.

2. Needs to be readily available in a downloadable format (preferably JPEG).

If I'm unable to download it, I won't be able to insert it into the header of my website now, would I?

3. Preferably, the photo needs a Creative Commons license.

With a couple exceptions, all the photos I showcase have been licensed with Creative Commons and most of them are available on Flickr.

So, if you've got some photos you'd like me to take a look at, lemme know by sending a link or something to devin@dimattiafilms.com! Thanks!

P.S. I'm currently listening to a podcast called The Dorktones Podcast. It's a lot of fun, with the bulk of the show focusing on retro music. In their new episode, they play the theme song to "The Blob"! I think that's all you need to know.

In this post: cool t-shirts, shows about funeral homes, and what I bought recently!

I know y'all are utterly fascinated by my day-to-day exploits but it's my blog and I do what I want! Don't worry, though; I'll try to make things interesting for you!

I've discovered this kickass website called Threadless T-Shirts where people submit t-shirt designs in the hopes of being picked up and mass-produced on the website's online store (like the design pictured above). I must say, a lot of the designs are really awesome and I just might have to invest in a couple. Not like I don't have enough t-shirts already, though. My brother and I recently went on a trip to Goodwill and came home with a few t-shirts and some old vinyls (my brother got live Queen and Led Zeppelin albums, I got a double album by ELO). Just felt like adding to the already overflowing pile 'o stuff in our house, I guess.

I "netflixed" the first season of Six Feet Under, the main reason being I was looking at the tracklist for their new soundtrack and couldn't find a single song I didn't like. It's amazing how the musical tastes of a movie or television show will get me interested in the actual movie/TV show. (case-in-point: I'm seeing Wedding Crashers tomorrow. Reason? The soundtrack.) Anyway, the show is awesome. I absolutely love it. Only problem is I now have to sift through FOUR SEASONS of the damn thing to get caught up. I hope my campus library has the DVDs available. UNCW's pretty good about keeping their stock of DVDs up-to-date.

And finally, I pre-ordered the new...um, New Pornographers album Twin Cinema, which I played the title track to on episode 9 of Jump Cut Radio. If you pre-order the album of Matador's website, you'll get a free 7" with an exclusive track on it. Yippee! (That was a slightly sarcastic "Yippee!" if you couldn't tell. I do like free vinyl though...)

UPDATE 7/20: I altered the link to the Threadless website so that if you guys buy something from them after clicking on my link, it gets referred back to me, scoring me points so I can get free t-shirts! You can do the same by registering with them and referring your friends.

I know my dad is gonna love this one...

"I've invented a new game-- X-treme Backgammon.

X-treme Backgammon is when halfway through someone explaining the rules of Backgammon to you, you bite them and then eat the dice.

The X-treme part really comes later, when you're passing three dice out your urethra. The bad news is that it irreparably damages your ability to pee. The good news is that I rolled an eleven in the toilet."
--from Acid Zen Wonder Paint

The Daily Show...need I say more?

The new set on Comedy Central's The Daily Show is, I'm sorry to say, pretty over-the-top. Jon Stewart is right smack in the center of the thing and, like he said in yesterday's episode, it looks too sci-fi. "I've been promoted from fake anchor to starship commander."

So, let's take a trip in the wayback machine to see some recent highlights of the old Daily Show set. Oh, old Daily Show set...we hardly knew ye.

Guatanamo Baywatch and Noodles Jefferson (QuickTime movie)

A Relatively Closer Look at Hitler References (QuickTime movie)

Share the Love COMPLETE Mix Now Online!

Hey, folks! I finally got around to uploading a ZIP file of all the MP3s in my first indie mix, "Share the Love". You can check out the tracklisting, the artwork, and of course, download the album by clicking here.

I sent it on to Yewknee.com in the hopes that he will include it in his Summer Mix Series. Here's hopin'.

Back from Ohio!

Entrance to the Dragster
Originally uploaded by devpd.

Finally back, boys and girls! I said I was gonna post updates while I was over in Sandusky, Ohio, but sadly, our hotel had no internet access. :-(

The good news is I am back from my exploits in Cedar Point and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and have returned with a gaggle of photos for your viewing pleasure. Take a gander.

I'm going to go ahead and get started on the next episode of Jump Cut Radio where I will review War of the Worlds and (hopefully) Dark Water. Laters!