• a variety of fine pickles •

redecorating and crap

sayra redecorated her blog the other day, and it looked so pretty i had to rip off the idea as well. thank you sayra for the inspirado.

the cool jackson pollock thingy was made with this, which is so addictive i had to share it so i wouldn't be the only dork who has loses countless hours of her life to it. just drag the cursor over the screen, click the mouse to change colors and hit the spacebar to clear the palette and start over. have fun with the time suckage!

jack black-tastic!

so just bear with me and my deep and abiding love for jack black.

he's got two new movies coming out this winter that both look great.

be kind rewind, which opens january 25th:

which looks pretty damn funny, but this one - this one looks GREAT.

margot at the wedding opens dec 26th, and i'll be there with jingle bells on!

happy birthday, jack black!

JACK BLACK: HOLD THE ONIONS

FURTHER PROOF that jack black, the sexiest man alive, should have married ME.

anybody who knows me knows that i don't eat onions. my official stance is "i hate onions", but i don't, really. read on. whenever i actually say that i hate onions, i get gasps of horror followed by "you DON'T eat ONIONS?" here's my regular response:

"i cook with onions. i like onion flavor, just not the texture. biting into an onion makes me gag. so when i cook with onions, i cook with big pieces that i can just yank out when it's done. flavor yes, texture no."

i ran across this tonight, and it just proved to me once again that jack black should have married me. the whole thing is great, but my point is made at right about 3:36.

see? that's ME, baby. ME.

one day he'll wise up and send that cello-pickin' old lady of his packin' and come looking for me.
and i'll be right here.

with no onions.

the pick of destiny: the verdict is in

from whence you came you shall remain, until you are complete again!

vulgar. obscene. rude. tasteless. off-color. crude. scurrilous. awesome.


i give this audacious effort to bring ROCK AND ROLL back to the american mainstream a shining, shiny demon of a TEN STAR RATING.

...but i am a hardcore, longtime D-sciple. those who aren't might not quite "get it". all the more reason to begin your D studies. you will be tested on this.

Tenacious D in The pick of Destiny is high-larious . there are lots of subtle and not-so-subtle references to past albums, Mr. Show and their HBO series, and anyone familiar with the album "tenacious d" and the song "tribute" (formerly called "the greatest song in the world") will be waiting with baited breath to hear it at the end of the movie. alas, it is only referenced; still, the feeling never progressed to "gyped", but developed into some sort of weird tenacious-d gratification. it was like i had gotten the joke. the inside joke.

there is little previously-released music in this movie, but be assured, D-sciples, that this soundtrack, even if unfamiliar to the ears, does rock. it rocks hard. you'll hear familiar riffage in many of the songs, but it never feels like a ripoff from previous songs because they've freshened up the tasty riffs to make them fit perfectly into their new tracks. jables and kage burn the roof off of the joint with the help of meatloaf (his dad), dave grohl (satan) and ronnie james dio (as who else?) as well as tim robbins, ben stiller, amy pohler and an uncredited john c. reilly as "sasquatch".

favorite scene: jables eating mushrooms in the forest (of hollywood, california) because he was "(eff)ing hungry" without being aware of there being any psychedelic side-effects. haha. here comes the hilarity. side splitting. don't blink or look away or you'll be sorry. the strawberry river? awesome. just awesome.

jack black is and will always be the man of my dreams.

this is a must-see for any one who considers themselves a fan of the D. this will be in my DVD collection as soon as it's released. until then, i'll gladly go back to the theatre, and see it again. and again.

let's rock. let's rock today.

PS - at the beginning of most movies shown in theatres, you've seen the "dts... the audience is listening"... right? be sure to catch the D's version of this before the movie starts. and trust me - the audience definitely was.

the best part of a roadtrip

... is always the soundtrack.

music will make or break a roadtrip. there is no gray area, only black or white.

me & my best friend corey - whom i love with all of my heart and all of my soul - are famous for our roadtrips; since the world revolves around the two of us, then it would be fair to say that we're world famous for our roadtrips. there is always music involved.

me & corey (who now lives in atlanta) had something like a 5+ hour marathon phone conversation this evening, into the wee morning hours, which is nothing out of the ordinary really, we just haven't done it in a while. it was GREAT!

we're taking a roadtrip to marfa & marathon, texas in october, so that means only 2 things:
1) *hotel reservations (which are a new thing for us; more on that later) and
2) SOUNDTRACK.

i started compiling the songs for the soundtrack while we were still on the phone. this is no ordinary compilation; indeed, this is a roadtrip soundtrack extraordinaire. it's not just one disc, either. this will take, when it's all said and done and burned, many many discs. the goal is to only repeat a song if we just have a hankering to hear it again.

here's what i have so far:

9 to 5 - dolly parton

atomic dog - george clinton & p'funk

baby I'm a star - prince

blue Monday - new order

brand new lover - dead or alive

brass in pocket - the pretenders

bring me some water - melissa etheridge

canned heat - jamiriquai

chains of love - erasure

closer to fine - indigo girls

coal miner's daughter - loretta lynn

dirty man - joss stone

easy (like Sunday morning) - lionel ritchie

feel so good - jamiriquai

head over heels - tears for fears

heads carolina, tails california - jo dee messina

hold on loosely - 38 special

I would die 4 u - prince

immigrant song - led zeppelin

johnny are you queer? - josie cotton

kielbasa - tenacious d

kiss - prince

leroy brown - jim croce

love will tear us apart - joy division

mad mrs leroy brown - loretta lynn

nutbush city limits - tina turner

raspberry beret - prince

river deep, mountain high - ike & tina turner

rock me baby - ike and tina turner

rocky top - john denver

rose garden - kd lang

sausalito summernight - diesel

sex (I'm a…) - berlin

something about you - level 42

stoney end - barbra streisand

super duper love - joss stone

tell mama - etta james

thank god I'm a country boy - john denver

they don't know about us - tracy ullman

time & tide - basia

two more bottles of wine - emmy lou harris

we got the beat - the gogos

who wouldn't wanna be me - keith urban

whole lotta rosie - ac/dc

why georgia - john mayer

you ain't woman enough - loretta lynn

you gotta sin to get saved - joss stone

i'm no where near being done. sure, it's random with no rhyme or reason; corey and i are random with no rhyme or reason. the songs will be in random order, but i've alphabetized this list because it's on a spreadsheet on my laptop. i'm totally anal retentive about this soundtrack. this is going to be the stuff of legends. we're going to have to schlep this soundtrack around in it's own cd wallet. roadtrips are meant for singing at the top of your lungs each and every time the tires hit the road, and corey and i are experts in that arena. i can't wait.

*hotel reservations: corey and i are going to be staying at the gage hotel in marathon, texas. hotel reservations as i mentioned, are a new thing for us; our normal, wacky modus operandi was always to find the cheesiest motel we could find and stay there, because they made for better stories, and certainly better pictures, including:

º the thunderbird motel, santa fe, nm. creepy.
º the rip van winkle motel, niagra falls, ny. way creepier. ultra creepy.
º some random motel whose name escapes me in nacogdoches, tx. somehow, i got crabs there.

each of these motels are a story in themselves; another blog, another time. if i'm feeling ambitious later, i may tell the stories...