planetdan

Saturday, August 27, 2005 :::

The Crue

T-Bone was nice enough to give me a ticket to the Motley Crue concert at the Minnesota State Fair last night. Even better, he gave me a ride to the ultimate 80's concert in the ultimate 80's vehicle: his black corvette. It was almost too perfect. I didn't have any leather or faded black jeans to wear to the concert, so I wore my new Greasy Cooters track jacket. Then I tried to pose all Fonzi-like by the car, but I just don't have the modelesque instincts to pull it off:

When I naively asked who the guitarist was on stage with the stupid-looking top hat, T-Bone replied with utter contempt, "That's Mick Mars, you dumb bastard." People take their Crue so seriously. Here's us rockin' to "Home Sweet Home" at the great Minnesotan get-together:

Then afterwards we went to some biker bar on the other side of town, where lead singer Vince Neil was rumored to be making an appearance. Needless to say, I didn't exactly feel comfortable in that environment, but I made the most of it, and eventually got this shot:

Thick blue eye-shadow and a sports jersey is always a nice look. And apparently Vince got paid $7,000 to show up at the bar and shout obscenities over the microphone for 30-seconds. Or at least that's what the way-too-talkative man at the urinal next to me said.

Anyway, I'm all Crued out.

::: posted by dan at 5:22 PM :: [ link ] :: (11) comments

Knowledge Transfer

Continuing on with the series about making sure other people learn from my mistakes:

Tip 1: Don't store your Maalox Max next to your Listerine Whitening Mouth Rinse because the bottles are quite similar and one of them will actually make your stomach feel worse if you accidently swallow a mouthfull. Trust me.

Ok, so the bottles aren't that similar, but I was hungover and was not exactly at my peak mental capacity. Geesh.

Tip 2: You can't use toilet bowl cleaner to clean off an actual toilet seat, as it will almost immediately eat through the toilet seat's paint and create awkward colored drip stains all over the seat that look suspiciously like diarrhea. Toilet bowl cleaner apparently belongs inside the bowl and nowhere else. I learned this the hard way a couple years ago. Then my roomie K-Mack learned it the hard way last week, and I was forced to make an emergency trip to the Home Depot for a new seat before her parents arrived for a fancy dinner event. And then she was forced to explain exactly what I meant when I announced to the entire dinner party that she had "made a mess of the toilet seat so bad that it required replacement."

Consider yourself informed.

::: posted by dan at 5:09 PM :: [ link ] :: (7) comments

Friday, August 26, 2005 :::

I guess the dingo didn't eat your baby.

In case you were unawares, back in the 1980's, an Australian family claimed that a dingo stole and ate their baby while she was asleep in a tent during a camping trip. Speculation arose and rumors flew that the parents actually killed their baby; the main rumor usually involved some crazy religious ritual. Dingo experts weighed in. The parents were eventually convicted and then released on appeal. Finally, they made a movie about it with Meryl Streep, which was eventually parodied on Seinfeld and in a Far Side comic. Which means that dingoes eating babies is now a funny concept, and not a grotesque one.

Suddenly, though, this lady comes along and claims to be the long lost eaten baby, with some convoluted back story about being rescued and adopted by an abusive religious sect. Read all about it.

But after seeing her picture, my theory is she was actually sired by dingoes, or at the very least raised by them:

Was that too mean? Dead baby dingo jokes are funny now, remember?

::: posted by dan at 5:42 PM :: [ link ] :: (20) comments

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 :::

Prized Possessions

I like to sit and think about what I would grab from my house in a mad dash if it was being consumed by fire. I like to be prepared like that. Mostly I just imagine grabbing my laptop and maybe a few precious vinyl LPs because I am an unsentimental jackass with solid stone for a heart. But I would also at least make an attempt to grab my photo albums, because I'm honestly not as bastardly as I just portrayed myself to be. Oh, and I should probably save K-Mack, too. There are only a few other items I own that I would make an extra effort to save as well. Everything else can burn.

1. My Broken Decemberists Tambourine
So generously donated to me by BigDubb after he swiped it from the last Decemberists concert I attended.

2. My autographed copy of In The Presence of Aliens
One of my former coworkers wrote a nonfiction book about her experiences being abducted by aliens. Contrary to what Fox Mulder might say, I don't want to believe, but it still makes her one of the coolest people I've ever associated myself with. On one of the final days before getting the big shove-off from the doomed dotcom we were both employed with, she gave me an autographed copy. I have since read it into tatters.

3. Black sand from some beach in Hawaii
There's nothing special about this sand, and it really holds no special place in my heart, but replacing it would take an 8-hour plane ride, followed by another inter-island plane ride, followed by a weavy three-hour motion-sickness-inducing car ride (most likely while hungover) to a remote black sand beach somewhere in Maui. Not that I wouldn't want to make the trip to get more if I had to.

Speaking of dirty Hawaii and aliens, here is a picture of me putting the moves on a sexy grey-face islander. No anal probe jokes, please:

ps. Blogger spellcheck is such a goody two-shoes. It doesn't even recognize the word "hungover". Don't drink, don't smoke, what d-do you do, Blogger Spellcheck?

::: posted by dan at 5:03 PM :: [ link ] :: (34) comments

Monday, August 22, 2005 :::

Oopsies

When photographers come to your house for an interview about selling your old furniture in the classifieds, be wary, and maybe think twice before you volunteer to pose by your dedicated bondage apparatus:

[view the whole article][FP]

Read the whole story about all of the subsequent embarrassment here.

::: posted by dan at 6:00 PM :: [ link ] :: (10) comments

Sunday, August 21, 2005 :::

Abomination

NO NO NO NO NO.

Strawberry. Cheetos.

A review from Kibo.com:
I don't know the actual name of these, as the package was in Korean and did not have the sticker that foods imported to the USA are required to have (ingredients in English, etc.) These are genuine Cheetos brand snacks that are not cheez flavored, but strawberry... these are bright pink puffs. (Shaped like Chester Cheetah's paw.)Glossy with sugar, they taste no different from, say, Frankenberry or any other artificial strawberry snack.

::: posted by dan at 11:23 AM :: [ link ] :: (20) comments

Saturday, August 20, 2005 :::

What to get dan for christmas.

I saw this on Presurfer and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Sure, some people might consider it narcissistic to decorate your mantle with your own profile, but I bet the majority of people probably wouldn't even notice the negative space anyway, so you could conceivably admire your own image in almost total secrecy, as if you were simply admiring an oddly shaped wooden chalice. I totally want one. At $150 bucks a pop, though, it might be a little out of my means:

Buy one here.

::: posted by dan at 1:24 AM :: [ link ] :: (15) comments

Friday, August 19, 2005 :::

Juked

Stacy "tagged" me with a song poll last week, and my jukebox needed a refill, so these are the songs that are gracing my playlist lately, which you can listen to over on the right:

Get it Together by The Go Team - Because they are finally releasing this CD in the US, and because every single song on this CD makes me happy. Yay for whistles and flutes!

The Predatory Wasp by Sufjan Stevens - because it builds to an emotional coda that almost makes me a little misty. * sniff *

This Will Be Our Year by the OK Go - Because they are an underrated band who write underrated pop songs.

The Bleeding Heart Show by The New Pornographers - Because it's interesting and unpredictable.

It's the Nightime by Josh Rouse - Because it makes me happy to sing along.

The History of Lovers by Iron and Wine with Calexico - Because even with all the pedal-steel twang goin' on, it's still the perfect collaboration between two great bands.

The Trapeze Singer by Iron and Wine - Because it's almost 10 minutes long and basically repeats the same melody over and over and over, yet I still can't stop listening to it.

Born in the 70's and The Wind That Blew My Heart Away by The Fruit Bats - Because I currently play this CD more often than any other, which was a complete surprise, and because I actually was born in the 70's so it gets a little added undeserved appreciation. And because I love the falsetto.

The Storm by Doves - Because it has an undeniably cool vibe.

Different Names for the Same Thing by Death Cab For Cutie - I'm not the hugest fan of this band at all because they are kind of the definition of wuss rock, but every once in a while they record a song that makes me not care.

Fix You by Coldplay - Because even though it is really cool to hate Coldplay right now and even though the lyrics are embarrassingly trite, the bombastic melodrama of the last half still somehow appeals to my inner drama queen.

Between Us by Brendan Benson - Because it is the perfect pace for jogging in synch with my stride.

Chewing Gum by Annie - Because I can like retarded pop music just like the next guy, and because it will piss B* off.

MX missiles by Andrew Bird - Because I get to see him live next month, and I've heard he's an idiot savant, only for music, and because this is from one of the best CDs that I've purchased all year.

Ride a White Swan by T Rex - Because I think T-Rex was an underappreciated genius. Mix this with Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man and you got the start of the best 70's mix tape evar!

When I Go Deaf by Low - Because I don't know why. Hometown pride, I guess.

Sugar by Ladytron - Because Ladytron is 80's new wave retro in a very very good way.

Gold Digger by Kanye West - Because this Jon Brion produced track is infectious like the flu in kindergarten, as they say.

I'm also sad, because I'm way too embarrassed to put Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights in there. Because yes, I do care what you think. Damn my insecurities. Damn them all to hell.

::: posted by dan at 6:22 PM :: [ link ] :: (13) comments

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 :::

Mac Attack

After reading this article about the recent riot in Virginia over $50 Mac laptops, there was one line that stuck out for me and got me pondering:

...A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.

I would never even consider wetting myself in public for the opportunity to buy a crappy four-year-old iBook. But I would be happy to wet myself in public for the following:

Front row tickets to a Beatles concert, with a resurrected John and George.
Unfettered access to this WB party, which was literally bursting with Gilmore Girls. [thanks jeremy]
The opportunity to tour as a back-up singer with Sufjan Stevens. C'mon, Feel the Illinoise!
A time machine to go back in history to kill Joe Cocker before he has a chance to record that You Can Leave Your Hat On song.
To be granted the superpower of invisibility.
Any amount of money over $10,000 (which I've recently decided will be the official asking price for my dignity).
Just for the sake of doing it.

What would it take to get you to wet yourself in public?

::: posted by dan at 8:09 AM :: [ link ] :: (38) comments

Tuesday, August 16, 2005 :::

The Dancin' Foo'

I really don't like to imagine how many videos might exist of me dancing. Someone always has a video camera at weddings, parties, on vacations, or god knows where else. I already know that Stacy has one of us from her wedding, alone together on the dancefloor, attempting a speed-polka. The worst would probably be when I was 15 and drunk off table champagne at my cousin's wedding. I ended up slow dancing with my aunt to Angel Eyes by the Jeff Healy Band. We swayed back and forth dramatically. I had my eyes closed and was singing along. I feel sick to this day just thinking about it.

Speaking of unfairly capturing the drunk and uncoordinated on video: over a year ago, the night before departing on a cruise out of Jacksonville, Florida, my travel companions and I witnessed a phenomenon unlike anything we've ever witnessed before. Alive with energy and apparently uninhibited by any sense or shame or fear of public humiliation, one undaunted dancer entertained and captivated an enthralled audience of onlookers for at least thirty spellbinding minutes.

As I took a video of her startling performance, the old man next to me, who reminded me of Sanford from Sanford and Son, said "That lady sure is a dancin' foo'," which I'm pretty sure is a direct quote from Billy Elliot. This lady was no Billy Elliot.

Anyway, I never posted it before because it was not the best quality and 7MB large and not all that great. But now that my bandwidth is unmetered and thereby free, I can post anything I damn well please.

Right click to download The Dancin' Foo' (7MB)
[it's better viewed at full screen with the sound on]

Oh, and Dancin' Foo', if you're out there somewhere reading this and you recognize yourself, don't worry because it's not really you. It's just someone who looks and moves and dresses like you. You're actually a really really good dancer.

::: posted by dan at 12:24 AM :: [ link ] :: (21) comments

Monday, August 15, 2005 :::

Neato Insurance Ads

I think these billboards are super cool. I forgot to post them when I originally found them online months ago and now I can't remember where they came from in order to give due credit:

• Neato Billboard #1
• Neato Billboard #2
• Neato Billboard #3

::: posted by dan at 10:11 PM :: [ link ] :: (1) comments

Roger Ebert lays the smackdown...

Sometimes I love Roger Ebert. I emailed him once and he actually replied. I considered printing out the email and framing it for my wall, but then I thought better of it. I don't want to seem like a freak, after all. This is an excerpt from Roger Ebert's review of Deuce Bigelow 2:

[Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo] created a spot of controversy last February. According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year's Best Picture Nominees and wrote that they were "ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that ... bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to 'Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,' a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic."

Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: "Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind ... Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers."

Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out but he can't take it. Then I found he's not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists' Guild award for lifetime achievement.

Schneider was nominated for a 2000 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor, but lost to Jar-Jar Binks.

But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" while passing on the opportunity to participate in "Million Dollar Baby," "Ray," "The Aviator," "Sideways" and "Finding Neverland." As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

::: posted by dan at 10:06 PM :: [ link ] :: (5) comments

Sunday, August 14, 2005 :::

Too Old for This

We went to the Pizza Luce Block Party on Friday. T-Bone wore his Har Mar Superstar T-shirt for the occasion. It's generally considered pretty lame to wear a concert T-shirt of the band that you are going to see, but when it's Har Mar, and when you bought the shirt for $40 off of a roadie's back, then somehow it's cool as hell:

Har Mar put on a good show, as usual:

I got some better pics of him, actually, but they didn't seem very suitable for work:
1 2

Finally we ended up at a bar for the rest of the evening, which is really hazy, and where this was typical:

Sunday was not a good day. The shame of my embarrassing behavior is compounded by the fact that my boss was there. Let's hope his memory is as hazy as mine.

::: posted by dan at 11:06 PM :: [ link ] :: (15) comments

Wednesday, August 10, 2005 :::

Your three dollar gas station purchase is an...

It sucks to have to be so cynical, but it doesn't get any more truthful than this.

Not that I'm trying to be self-righteous. An empty gesture may very well be better than no gesture at all. I dunno.

::: posted by dan at 10:53 PM :: [ link ] :: (25) comments

The Not-So-Funny McSweeney's Test

I actually don't think this recent McSweeney's post is funny. In fact, only one of them made me laugh. So I thought I would post it, obviously not as a tribute to its worthiness, but more as a test for anyone who thinks they might understand my sense of humor enough to know which one I thought was funny. If you want to, leave your guess as a comment. So here goes:

Lesser-Known Movie Prequels
by Sarah Garb

Ocean's Three
Borderline-Inappropriate Dancing
There Are Plenty of Mohicans
Charlie and the Limited-Production Chocolate Startup
Thursday the 12th
Four Bachelorette Parties and a Friend in the Hospital
Babette's Snack
Joseph and the Nondescript Monochrome Sportcoat
My Brunch With Andre
Triassic Park
The Upwardly Mobile Tenenbaums

::: posted by dan at 10:40 PM :: [ link ] :: (29) comments

Saturday.

Live in Minnesota? Free Har Mar Superstar on Saturday night!

::: posted by dan at 12:44 AM :: [ link ] :: (7) comments

Tuesday, August 09, 2005 :::

Belly Button Monkey Anus

I don't have any tattoos. I remember when my friends Stacy and K-Mack went to get tattoos and Stacy came back with a black hole sun smack-dabb in the middle of her forearm. The black hole sun was probably chosen to represent her obsession with grunge music and her favoritest band of all time: Soundgarden; but the forearm placement was a mystery. After she picked the scab while it was healing, I had to take her back to the parlor to get it re-inked and the substitute tattoo artist said "Oooo, it's on your forearm. What a badass," with so much sarcasm that you could almost taste the bitterness. To this day she wears a band-aid to hide it, even though I kinda like it.

Get inked:

• Never ever ever forget.

• Not everybody loves Raymond.

• Belly button monkey anus.

I couldn't find any more info on the Raymond tattoo, which is by far my favorite. If I ever did get a tattoo, it would have to be something totally random and absurd like that, because even tribal armband tattoos were cool at one point. You just never know what's going to end up being embarrassingly, permanently lame.
*cough* tazmanian devil *cough*
*cough* panther clawing at skin *cough*
*cough* dolphin ankle *cough*
Just kidding K-mack.

ps. I wondered if I was the first person ever to use the words "belly button monkey anus" in that particular order, so I googled it and it seems that I was, at least on the traceable internet. So I'm trademarking it. Hands off bitches.

::: posted by dan at 11:41 PM :: [ link ] :: (16) comments

Woah nelly.

The WNBA, unphotoshopped:

You can read about it here.

It scares me. And reminds me of this picture:

...which also scares me. And for some reason reminds me of Silly Putty.

Unrelatedly, here is a photo gallery of stills from the movie Freaks.

::: posted by dan at 12:01 AM :: [ link ] :: (9) comments

Monday, August 08, 2005 :::

Er, duh.

"Men who feel anxious about their masculinity are more likely to support war, buy SUVs and be hostile to gays, according to a new study from Cornell University. Robb Willer, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell, gave men and women a gender-identity survey in which they received feedback saying that their answers were either masculine or feminine. Women's responses weren't affected by this feedback, but men whose manliness was threatened reacted strongly. "I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," Willer said. He plans a follow-up study on men's attitudes about violence toward women, and another to see if testosterone levels are a factor." [ the story ]

I suspect at some point someone must have threatened Bush's masculinity. Although, you'd have to be pretty secure in your masculinity to dress like this. Gayest president ever.

::: posted by dan at 7:58 AM :: [ link ] :: (16) comments

Sunday, August 07, 2005 :::

Immortalized in print.

I wasn't exactly popular in highschool. People seemed to know my name, but not for good reasons. That's why it seemed like an advantage to have K-Mack, one of my best friends, be named Photo Editor of my senior class yearbook - Class of 1993. If I didn't have someone on the inside, there wasn't a chance in hell I'd be pictured anywhere in that book. Turns out maybe it wasn't such an advantage after all, because not only did K-Mack get to choose the pictures of me that would be featured in the yearbook, she also took it upon herself to completely make up my quotes out of thin air. This one in particular has always bothered me:

Life's a beach, too bad we're not on it. It echoes in my head like a bad memory even though I've never uttered such a stupid phrase in my life. And that picture makes me look like like a post-facelift Greta Van Susteren. Thanks for nuthin' K-Mack.

::: posted by dan at 11:02 PM :: [ link ] :: (18) comments

People Falling Down

In honor of America's Funnies Home Video 300th Episode Special that aired this week (Shut up, a Saget-less AFHV is comedy gold), I take pleasure in the misfortune of others:

• Uh Oh #1
• Uh Oh #2
• Uh Oh #3
• Uh Oh #4

Yeah, one of these images is not like the others. It's a fake, taken by a photographer who has a whole series of people in various states of unbalance. You can view the whole portfolio here.

::: posted by dan at 9:03 PM :: [ link ] :: (4) comments

Wednesday, August 03, 2005 :::

Swasticomedy

It's too bad that those damn nazis had to go and claim the swastika as the official symbol of their evil deeds, because it's actually a pretty cool shape, design-wise. They've gone and sullied its image. You could never ever use it in a design without offending 95% of the planet. (The non-offended 5% would have to include neo-nazis and those no-bra jungle tribes). So that cool swastika shape is lost, to be forever associated with the grand pooh-bahs of evil. But if you look around, you can still see swastikas everywhere. I don't know if it's actually true, but read about the legend of the Swastika forest:

[from Cynical-C blog, one of my favorites]

Other places you might not expect to find swastikas:

• Your birthday party.
• Your gramma's house.
• Your mailbox on valentine's day.

::: posted by dan at 9:06 PM :: [ link ] :: (17) comments

One of a kind.

This video has seen all sides of the internet. It's been around the block more than a few times. But I love it and I wanted to store it on my server so I could watch it for always no matter where I am. I figure I may as well share it. Right click to download.

One of a kind. (1 MB)

::: posted by dan at 8:53 PM :: [ link ] :: (7) comments

Now, with more funny!

The awful new Shoebox greeting card commercial actually promises "new, funnier Shoebox greeting cards". They make it sound like it's as easy as adding more stuffing to an Oreo. Now, with more funny! If it was that easy to be funnier, why didn't they do it years ago. Was it a trend thing? Were lame greeting cards all the rage last year? So that must mean being unfunny isn't "in" anymore. Being unfunny must have had a long run at the top, though, because I honestly haven't read a truly funny greeting card in years.

Unrelatedly, I bought some new Listerine Teeth Whitening Pre-Brush Rinse. In my head, it was the best idea ever: whiten your teeth with a one-minute minty fresh rinse! Not so much. Sure, there's a trace of mint somewhere in there, but even more prominent is the taste of sea water, peroxide, and just a hint of pickle. Not to mention the strange sudsy action, which makes it akin to gargling handsoap. Anyway, it's not getting the planetdan stamp of approval.

::: posted by dan at 7:55 PM :: [ link ] :: (7) comments

Monday, August 01, 2005 :::

It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.

I know that the title to this post is the worst pun ever, but it was like 95 degrees by 9am today. I swear to god that all this heat has totally retarded my brain processes. I honestly stood by the keycard-accessible back entrance of my work this morning and tried to deactivate the card reader with my car remote for like 30 seconds before I realized that building doors cannot be opened with car key remotes. I stood there, all sweaty and slackjawed, just pushing the unlock button over and over again, waiting for the familiar click-clack of the unlocking mechanism, until out of frustration I finally thought "What the fuh, why won't this op..." and then suddenly I snapped back into reality for long enough to get out my card key. If it gets any hotter, I'm going to have to start pinning my name and phone number to my shirt like in the first grade. I hate the hot.

Since it's supposed to be in the 90s tomorrow, too, I better make myself a reminder:

::: posted by dan at 9:20 PM :: [ link ] :: (11) comments

9 to 5

I made myself a T-shirt this weekend featuring the whole clan from 9 to 5. I don't know why, I just did. I get a happy wave of nostalgia every time they play 9 to 5 on the television, so I figured why not make it into a shirt and wear the happy around all day long?

So I wore it out on Saturday night, and I was impressed that my friend Trevor recognized the image from twenty paces away. But that's where the recognition stopped. One person asked if it was "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas". On the way to the bathroom, another random person asked "Hey, is that Klute?" Now, I've never seen Klute but I can bet that Dolly and Dabney aren't in it. Whatever, as long as I know what it is, that's all that matters.

But what I really want to do is buy some cheap colored T's at Target, then create a whole set of absurd T-shirts featuring something ridiculous or pointless, like my big face, and then sneak them back into Target (with the price tags still on), and slip them onto a store rack as if they are regular merchandise. It'd be an interesting social experiment to check back daily to see if they've been purchased or removed, and maybe if I'm really lucky even see one being worn on the street someday. Heck, half the people who purchase those Che Guevara T-shirts don't know who he is anyway, so why can't it be my beeming face instead?

I can't work out how to get the Target hangers I would need for the quick switcharoo, though. Hmmm.

::: posted by dan at 12:38 PM :: [ link ] :: (29) comments