On Radar: Sean Hayes

Sean Hayes MySpace

On a Mission

Here's an entertaining video (in a Jon Stewart kinda way). Some Australian dude does a rant about Morman missionaries and then heads to Salt Lake City and tries to convert people to atheism by going door to door.

Link of the Day

Just in case you have a craving for some chopped meat smothered with processed cheese product and onions, here's a great resource Philly Cheesesteaks

The Beatles on iTunes?

If true Paul, Ringo, Yoko, and Mrs. Harrison are about to get a lot richer.

Beatles on iTunes

Worth a Buck

Here are five more for songs your listening pleasure:

Old School

Rockin' In the Free World (live) *** Pearl Jam
This Old Porch *** Lyle Lovett

New School

Aftergow 61 *** Son Volt
Faultline *** Eliott Morris
Tinfoil Hats *** Rocky Votolato

Finally!!

Due to the fact that I have been in triptophan stupor the last couple days, I have not been able to post.

Now that my mind is starting to clear, here's a little program for mac users that float around looking to mooch on someone's wireless sigal. iStumbler is a nice little program that identifies and helpd you log onto available wireless networks

Link of the Day

Baby Boomer Nirvana! Wolfgang's Vault rocks. Literally. The site contains a vast library of concerts that you can stream. I'm listening to a Who concert from April 1968 right now. Most of the concerts come from Bill Graham's archive of tapes from the Fillmore, so there is some legendary stuff here.

Juan Pierre 5 yrs. $45M

It's a great day to be a Padre fan.

Link of the Day

Like a breadmaker that sits somewhere deep in a kitchen cabinet, The Cook's Thesaurus might come in handy some day. The site has a nice compilation of food definitions plus a list of substitutes you can use. Next time I run out of clabber, I'll know to use ricotta instead.

Burn Baby Burn

If I do say so myself (and I will) my Worth a Buck song suggestions make a killler playlist. In case you missed them, here's a recap:

Franklin's Tower *** Grateful Dead
I Will Keep the Bad Things from You *** The Damnwells
Honey I Been Thinking About You *** Jackie Greene
Willin' *** Little Feat
Come Pick Me Up *** Ryan Adams
Vincent O'Brien *** M. Ward
Long Way Home *** Tom Waits
Goddamn Lonely Love *** Drive-By Truckers
Ain't No Reason *** Brett Dennen
Love Sick *** Bob Dylan
Desire *** Ryan Adams
Slide Away *** Joseph Arthur
The Weight *** The Band
You Don't Make It Easy Babe *** Josh Ritter
Twenty-One *** The Red West
Wild Horses *** The Flying Burrito Brothers
Arms of a Woman *** Amos Lee
Orange Sky *** Alexi Murdoch

Beer Pong

The US may be losing ground to the rest of the world in education, but our beer pong scores have never been higher.

Here's some video evidence that the youth of America are spending their college years productively.

Will It Blend?

Here's a marketing success story for the digital age.

Blendtec, a maker of indutrial blenders, makes of few videos of putting random stuff (rake handles, marbles, pens, etc.) into their blenders and posts them on YouTube. For a $50 investment, they got 5 million views and thousands of comments.

I think I'm going to buy a video camera.

Link of the Day

If you have any interest in new music, The Hype Machine, is a great site. It's a music blog aggregator that also has a very nice flash music player. The player can run independently on your desktop.

I'm writing this while listening to My Morning Jacket (Field Trip: January 2 San Diego HOB. Just search for an artist on The Hype Machine, launch the music player, and enjoy

Now, This Is Cool!

This is an embeddable video wall created by the video search engine Blinx. The video wall below is the result of a search for Ryan Adams.

Another Padre Trade

The Padres who have been talking about giving Ben Johnson significant playing time for the last year or so evidently didn't hold him in such high regard after all. The Padres sent him and Jon Adkins to the Mets for Royce Ring (SDSU) and Heath Bell.

The trade gives the Pads two unproven relievers that had good strikeout to walk ratios in the minors. Now that the Pads have a surplus of relievers you'd have to guess that Linebrink will be the next to go. I vote for a trade for Burrell with the Phillies picking up a chunk of his salary.

The Tesla Roadster

Expect to see a lot of celebrities driving one of these this summer in an effort to soothe their consciences for taking trips on private jets.

The Tesla Roadster

I Got Nothin'

So, here's some cool juggling.

cFares

I have been looking for an airline reservation service like this. cFares I think cFare could make it much easier to save a significant ampount of money for airline tickets. Check out Guy Kawasaki's Blog for the details. (note the password for getting a year's membership for 1/2 price)

Dylan Tribute Concert

Having seen Dylan in concert last year, this might be a better way of enjoying Dylan's music live. There was a tribute to Bob Dylan last week in NY with 22 different artists performing Dylan classics. Evidently there were peaks and valleys, but from all reports The Roots absolutely killed. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals did their jam thing with a mash-up of Isis and Love Sick.

Here's one report: Concert Review

I haven't found any good recordings of the show yet, but there is a poor quality video of RA's performance. Here's the link: Ryan Adams Video

I'm adding these three songs on my Worth a Buck list:

Isis Bob Dylan
Love Sick Bob Dylan
Masters of War Bob Dylan

Field Trip: The Damnwells and The Fray

Remind me not to go see anyone opening for a band (The Fray) whose primary audience is girls ages 15 to 22. It wasn't that the music was bad (vanilla rock competently played) the mistake was due to the fact that I was about the only male in the audience over the age of 25. Which made me the creepy old guy.

On the bright side, seven or eight years ago you would have found this same audience at a 98 Degrees concert, so at least this demographic's taste is getting better,

The Fray's legacy cover: Eleanor Rigbby

The Damnwells played a nice set.

Links of the Day

Here are a couple of sites worthy of a bookmark.

Do you hate websites (newspapers) that force you to register befor you enter? The solution is BugMeNot.com. The site lets people share logins to avoid registration.

BugMeNot

Their new site is a place for finding and sharing online stores' coupon codes.

RetailMeNot

Field Trip: Flags of Our Fathers

Excellent movie. A good story well told. The centerpiece of the movie is the exploitation of some soldiers at Iwo Jima in an attempt to manufacture and market American heroes. The great irony is that by telling the true and somewhat trivial story of the raising of the flag that genuine heroism is revealed.

A Borat Update

Slate has detailed the back stories to most of the bits in Borat. Surprisingly, most of those involved don't seem to mind being in the movie very much.

Slate

Tis But a Flesh Wound

Possibly the funniest movie scene ever.

Padres Trade Barfield

to Cleveland for 3B Kevin Kouzmanof and P Andrew Brown.

I like the trade, although it's not without significant risk. Josh Barfield is a good player and had a very good rookie season, but Kouzmanof has better plate discipline, strikes out less, and has much better power. While Kouzmanof's major league production is potentially much higher than JB's, he is unproven. Therein lies the risk.

Brown is an interesting throw in. He throws smoke.

Note to KT: Send Linebrink to the Braves for Marcus Giles

Kouzmanoff's stats:

2004 (A) - .330/.394/.526 with 35 2B, 16 HR, in 473 AB
2005 (A+) - .339/.401/.591 with 20 2B, 12 HR in 254 AB
2006 (AA) - .389/.449/.660 with 19 2B, 15 HR in 244 AB
2006 (AAA) - .353/.409/.647 with 9 2B, 7 HR in 102 AB

Worth a Buck (Old School)

Other than a symptom of a mid-life crisis, it ocurred to me that my renewed interest in live music is at least partially due to the fact there is a lot of music being played today that could easily have been coming out of my stereo in 1970. The musicians certainly have made the connection. Recently I've heard Ryan Adams cover The Dead, Joseph Arthur do a Stones classic, and last night Jackie Greene broke out The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down. I'm kinda hopeful that popular music will become listenable again.

So, my young friends here are a few songs you might want to add to your ipods:

Franklin's Tower -- The Grateful Dead
Willin' -- Little Feat
Wild Horses -- Flying Burrito Brothers
Long Way Home -- Tom Waits
The Weight -- The Band

School Night

I just got back from the BellyUp where I caught Jackie Greene's last show of his tour. Quite entertaining, but it's a school night and I'm up way past my bedtime. So, details will have to wait for tomorrow.

Worth a Buck.

Here are another 5 songs worth a buck:

Desire -- Ryan Adams
Mountains of Mexico -- Jerry Jeff Walker
You Don't Make It Easy -- Josh Ritter
I Will Keep Bad Things From You -- The Damnwells
Goddamn Lonely Love -- Drive-by Truckers

Missed Belt Loops

It's been a couple days.

Wednesday night David, Jeff, and I let our stock broker wine and dine us. The evening consisted mostly of a lot of talk about market capitalizations and price earning ratios. During most of it my eyes glazed over amd my mind drifted to more interesting matters like wondering if I should tell the guy at the next table that he'd missed a belt loop.

Eric did tell a couple of good stories about dad, and the Gordon James Grill was pretty good. I give them extra credit for finding a way to make green beans unhealthy (taste good) - they deep fry 'em. And, they make a damn good corn chowder.

Last night was tennis. I sucked, and we got our asses kicked -- nuff said.