Where's Nate?

living large in the four-oh-eight. wicked large.

5.27.2005

go ahead, tax my latte.

Off to Seattle tomorrow to see my nieces. It's such a killer town, with the mighty Puget Sound within arm's reach of every element of the city. I can't wait to head to the Pacific Northwest.

5.23.2005

large bucket, extra butter.

Americans love to rank everything. The top universites, the best hospitals, the loudest heavy metal moments, the most flatulent-inducing chili. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw Time Magazine's All Time 100 Movies list.

Wait. Time Magazine? That's like Sports Illustrated ranking the top sous chefs in the world, or Reader's Digest ranking the greatest moments in NASCAR history. (Note: If you want to see a list with legs, check out the AFI list. Even though it's 100% Bush-friendly, it's only mildly sucky.)

The Time list is just that, a "list". No order, no sorting. It's an exercise in indecisiveness.

This is not to say that Time is off base. The editors clearly read the AFI list and were sure to include "Citizen Kane" and "On the Waterfront". I was even surprised to see some of my favorites included, like Bergman's "Persona" and the original "Machurian Candidate" (starring Frank Sinatra!). But where's "Rashomon" or "The Seventh Seal"? Who fell asleep halfway up the AFI list?

OK, I admit it, I'm a movie snob. But this "list" sucks. Anytime "Finding Nemo" is on a Top 100 list and the readers pick "The Lord of the Rings" as #1, you'd better head elsewhere. Even that pimply 15-year-old at Hollywood Video can point you in a better direction than the geniuses at Time.

5.16.2005

sneak preview.

Living on the West Coast has it's privileges. One that I've noticed recently is that the iTunes Music Store releases new albums before the Monday/Tuesday cusp. I used to have to wait until Tower or Rasputin's opened at 10:00am on Tuesday to pick up new albums. With iTunes, that experience has gone the way of liner notes and scratched discs.

So I just downloaded the new System of a Down. I've been a fan since the guitar player from my college band ("Dorm Damage") told me about a killer band he saw at Ozzfest back in 1998. If you're unfamiliar with these crazy-ass Eastern European-American hardcore artists, you should probably go backwards from "Toxicity" to the self-titled debut.

"Mezmerize", released today (errr, tomorrow), maintains the haunting melodies of "Toxicity" with equal helping of the metal-up-your-ass from the debut. It's not for everyone, but it's worth a listen.

Oh, and get your tall boots shined up. These guys are going out on a summer tour with The Mars Volta. Holy crap, Batman.

5.06.2005

kill the lights.

Last year when I was backstage at the Warped Tour in Boston, I ran into a crazy kid wearing a t-shirt that said "From First to Last".

"Amazing f'in band," he said between healthy sips of Budweiser. The kid was probably 17.

So I did what any self-respecting married suburbanite would do in this situation. I took the advice of the underage-drinking-potty-mouthing-second-
hand-clothing-store-wearing-kid. And I bought this track, "The One-Armed Boxer Versus The Flying Guillotine." Whoa.

Oh yeah. The kid also recommended Killradio, Rise Against, and S.T.U.N. So I checked them out. And you should, too.

5.05.2005

just maui-ed.

I've been to weddings all across the United States. From Vermont to California, Massachusetts to Missouri, Pennsylvania to Michigan. But this was a first.

My first beach wedding. My first wedding on a weekday. My first wedding where a primary instrument was a conch shell. My first wedding in Maui.

newlyweds
(click to see wedding pix)

Congrats to you, Reed and Jessica. What a perfect day for my favorite new couple!