i've at work much too late by usual monday standards. my "key deal points report" looked like "kelly deal points records" for a second. i need to stop drinking so much on the weekends. :)

wilco have done and incredibly kewl thing. after cancelling the release of their new e.p., they're putting the material and cover art up for free on their website, which you can download as long as you have the original yankee hotel foxtrot cd. man, if only broadband was around when i was hunting for and spending way too much dough on all those nirvana and radiohead b-sides.

also of note is ween's cheese song, which must be listened to three times in a row to fully appreciate. here's their fascinating story on the whole thing (from ween.com):

Earlier in 2002 we were hired by the largest advertising firm in the country to write music for a Pizza Hut commercial. Pizza Hut had hired them to come up with a whole new image to promote their new Pizza, "The Insider" which had all the cheese inside the crust. In keeping in line with their new cutting edge image, the agency hired Ween to do the music, and we delivered in a big way. Unfortunately, they didn't like a single piece of the 6 tunes we submitted and they had us rewriting the song every day for a couple of weeks before they hired someone else. In my opinion, it is one of the best tunes we wrote all last year.

there's also a version unsuitable for work here, but it's really just a bit sillly.

sometimes my life feels like its spinning absolutely out of control and i don't know what to do. it kind of feels like i'm going too fast and i've got no brakes on my roller skates, you know? ok, maybe not, but do yourself a big whopping favor and check out hot skates 3000 and their fabulous new tune (click soundclips at the bottom of the page).

keep your eyes on the field day music festival, which, if preliminary reports are true, will have just about the greatest music lineup for a festival ever (radiohead, beasties, interpol, flaming lips, beck, sigur ros, liz phair, blur, underworld, belle and sebastian, sasha and digweed, the strokes, nerd, the rapture, ben lee, etc.). yee haw!

apple is in talks to buy vivendi/universal music. could this be the move that reinvents the music industry? after using one just about every day for the past four months, my slogan has become "thank god for the ipod".

also, please note that once again i have predicted the future in my blog postings. for a relatively small subscription fee i will launch a blog spinoff titled "who wants to be a space girl?", where i will correctly predict winning lottery numbers and the latest stocks about to go through the roof.

is my blog this boring?

today, the monday gods are really trying their hardest to make me hide inside my apartment for the rest of the week and not come out. it's snowing. in april. my shoes are soaked and freezing. i'm very very tired. is tomorrow friday yet?

ok, i must clarify that when when i say i hate "an" and h words together i mean those words where the h is not silent. for instance, one would of course say "an hour". but why in the more upscale press are people writing things like "an humble individual"? i'm still really angry about this!

by the way, when did people start using "an" in front of a word that begins with h? it really bothers me. "an" is for when the following word begins with a vowel. h ain't a vowel, so i isn't gonna say it.

as the year goes on it looks like this will be the year that we really begin to see major shifts in the music industry. i'm realizing that every album i'm anticipating will be available for download weeks, if not months, before the actual release date. case in point; radiohead. the new album isn't due until june, but it's already being traded in its entirety all over the place.

the up side to this is that lately when leaks like this have happened, the record company will throw in a bonus cd of b-sides (which would be great since i'm sick of buying those 2 part uk import singles) or a dvd with random material. people like me just can't get enough radiohead anything.

and how is the album? some stuff is really amazing, some other stuff is just too wierd for me to have an opinion on after a couple listens.

kurt and courtney seems to be on the sundance channel this month, and it is such a bizarre film that i highly recommend anyone watch it. when two of the people this guy interviews flip out on camera, a handful are too drunk/high to talk in cohesive sentences, and another one gets hit by a train days after getting interviewed, you have quality journalism on your hands.

you can download "march of death", the new single by zach de la rocha produced by dj shadow. not bad, hella better than any of that audioslave stuff.

here's something pretty interesting; a documentary on press your luck. the best part of staying home sick from school was always the game shows, and press your luck was my favorite when it was on. i guess i figured there had to be some sort of pattern to the board, but with all the flashing signs and that "do do do do do" noise i got distracted. then again, if i was an unemployed ice cream truck driver from ohio i guess i would have had more time to memorize the darn thing.

okay, you really have to check this thing out. besides the frozen green beans and garden burgers, most items in the frozen food section completely baffle me. but, i know they're convenient so what the hey.

but, man, this thing is just crazy! first of all, breakfast has got to be the quickest, easiest meal to make. say it takes three minutes to heat this thing up in the microwave. for two extra mintues you could have the real deal! and you won't have a heart attack within an hour!

dk might be enjoying going back to school, but i feel like i'm walking around like arnold schwarzenegger in t2 when they're in that crazy molten iron building saying "i need a vacation". i made the mistake of taking an intense mini-semester class over christmas break, so i've been going full steam since last january (that whole gmat thing). between my new duties at work and my professors that teach with a cat o' nine tails ("you didn't amortize for this year's depreciation!" *smack!* "no weekend for you!"), as that lady said in airplane 2, the pilot's turned to jelly.

so, my only break from the land of numbers and economic concepts has been a few head-clearing minutes here and there with super mario sunshine. that's right, mario. i traded in my ps2 for a gamecube, and the half hour i spent at gamestop while they checked everything out was one of my most bizarre shopping experiences ever. kevin smith should do a sequel to clerks, and instead of the two protagonists working in convenience and video stores, they should work at a video game store. the socially inept critters that dwell in these places boggle the mind.

por ejemplo:
-i've been in this particular store twice, both times there was this one guy trying to chat it up with the guys behind the counter. this last time, he sees that i'm going to be there a while and starts chatting with me. he is dressed in full army gear for absolutely no reason. he owns no video game consoles but spends half his time hanging out in this store. dude, you're in new york, there's stuff to do!!
-then, some random teenager comes in off the street:
kid: "did you get any new xbox games in?"
counter guy: "yeah, just (blah blah blah)"
kid: "how is it? have you read the reviews?"
counter guy: no response
kid: "i hear you don't identify with the characters and the tasks become menial and repetitive" (okay, wtf?)
counter guy: no response
kid: "oh... ok, thanks" he then, literally, walks out the door backwards, trying to get some ackowledgement from counter guy.
-3 middle aged women came into the store to buy games for themselves. who knew?

motto: stay away from these stores like the plague!

the village voice's pazz and jop 2002 poll is online now, along with a good article about the neptunes, also known as the guys that made britney and n-sync sound good.

it's also fun to look back at the lists from the past 25 years. it's amazing how many of the top albums were on major labels compared to now. have music freaks gotten that much geekier, or have major labels completely switched focus from artist development to quick flash-in-the-pan moneymakers?

when i first heard johnny cash's cover of depeche mode's "personal jesus" i was like "hmmmm.....this is pretty good"
then i heard his cover of u2's "one" and i was like "that's quite nice as well"
then last week i heard his cover of nine inch nails' "hurt" and i was completely blown away. it's truly amazing.

i believe you can see the video here.

ahh, a site dedicated to old cook books. we have an old chicken cookbook on our shelf that just defies logic. first of all, the photography is horrible. the chicken looks purple no matter what the recipe is. then, the "recipes" are basically "put chicken in oven. serve". for an added twist it's "add three sticks of butter, put chicken in oven, serve over pasta!"

there's odd stuff here too, like jello, the delicacy of the rich and famous or add that extra twist to your "stag" party by serving franks and beans in the most peculiar, suggestive way possible. and what on earth are these?

by the way, lollapalooza is coming back. so far the line-up doesn't look too exciting, but i guess nothing can match the beastie boys at lolla'94. as information society would say, it was "pure energy".