Posts from November 2011

Carrie & I made Thoinksgiving din-dins this year!

[Insert juvenile penis joke here]

Your Highness is a comedy. It made me laugh. There ya go! Mission accomplished. Anybody looking for anything more out of this movie will be incredibly disappointed. It is not really a good movie at all. But I found it thoroughly enjoyable and funny. [Read my full review]

A while back I started running some Google Adwords ads on my website. Specifically two types: the tall tower ads and the biggest box ads that they offer, and only in visual format (no text-only ads).

I didn’t do this to make money. I have no illusions on that. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t make more than $5 or $6 a year running ads on thisischris.com. No, I did it as an experiment…
More… »

Is the title of this post a little much? Have I been on twitter a bit too often?

Anyhoo, last night my wife and I went with @Jayseman and the Unintentional Housewife to Showbox SoDo to see a musical-type performance show.

The opener was Mr. Jonathan Coulton!

JoCo at ShoBo SoDo

He brought out a special guest for the song “Nemeses” — Mr. John Roderick!

JoRo joins JoCo at ShoBo SoDo

Then after they were done out came Mr. John Linnell and Mr. John Flansburgh!

JoLo & JoFo followed JoCo & JoRo at ShoBo SoDo

It was a very good show and a very fun everning! Of particular entertainment were an epic version of “Ana Ng” (which I don’t think I’ve seen them do live in a decade), and the Avatars of They performing “Spoiler Alert.” They did a very good job of mixing the olde and the newe in their set.

We hadn’t actually had a chance to go see They for many, many years, so it was great to have They back (on the other hand I think I’ve seen JoCo four or five times in the last couple of years—not that I’m complaining).

How awesome is it that I am actually friends with these guys?

Yeah, the Cortese brothers pretty much kick ass. I can’t wait for this full album to come out.

"Who are you?" "I’m THOOOOOOOOOOOR!"

Thor is ostensibly a movie about an arrogant, selfish prince who causes great ruin to himself and his kingdom through his thoughtless actions and then has to learn his lesson and redeem himself. Indeed, the movie does follow the beats of the story, but the main problem is that it just feels way too easy for Thor; I never felt that he actually earned his redemption or really learned his lesson. [Full Review]

Link of the Month:
Retro Game Master on Kotaku
My new favorite thing on the internet, Retro Game Master (GameCenter CX as it is originally known in Japan) is a show about watching a man, Arino “The Kacho,” play video games. That’s it. At the beginning of the episode he’s given a video game he’s never played before, and he tries his damnedest to beat it. You wouldn’t think watching that for an hour would be at all entertaining, but you’d be so very wrong. Here’s the thing: Arino is not very good at video games. He’s not really an expert. So it’s fascinating to watch him struggle and figure out how to do things. Secondly, Arino is the very definition of affable. He is just so easily charismatic and likeable that you get drawn into his struggle and each small victory on the way to beating a game becomes your small victory, and each defeat becomes your defeat. Arino also is so good-natured about the whole affair; he never gets angry when things don’t go his way, he just makes a little self-effacing jokes and little sighs. No matter how bad things get for him, he never allows it to bring him down. And that’s what in the end is worth watching.

Album of the Month:
Brite Futures: Dark Past
Brite Futures used to be known as “Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head.” They changed their name for obvious reasons. This is their second album, and it seems like a straight-ahead extension of their first, Glistening Pleasure. And I mean that in a good way. This album is just pure, giddy fun. It’s excellently-crafted disco-pop-synth-rock straight out of the ’70s and ’80s. But all of the songs are from a slightly skewed point of view or are about subject matters that are just slightly… off. They’re funny, but they’re sung with such earnestness that the tongue is planted firmly in the cheek, like Flight of the Concords, Jonathan Coulton, and Tenacious D. I love it.

Movie of the Month:
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
A fascinating documentary portrait of a man who is so driven to make people have a good time that he just cannot stop. At all. And it’s so frikkin’ hilarious. It’s like Conan is a man who knows his purpose in life, and every instant wherein he is not fulfilling his purpose to his utmost feels wasted to him. Throughout the course of this film he routinely wrings himself dry onstage to the point of utter exhaustion, then goes backstage and greets fans and fellow celebrities with just as much (if not more) gusto. It’s like a never-ending fountain of manic entertainment. He periodically complains about it, but he never actually intentionally snubs anyone (even in one terribly awkward exchange with a racist young man). You get the sense that Conan O’Brien is the kind of man who would run across no-man’s land in WWI just to get to a soldier on the other side and make him laugh. It’s a good thing he’s so funny.