Video Of The Week: Weezer

Look, by now you've all heard Weezer's note-for-note perfect rendition of Toto's Africa (and probably their cover of Rosanna as well), but since they haven't officially produced a video for either yet, I thought I could feature their sublime (and again, note-perfect) reprise of Radiohead's best-written guitar-driven song, Paranoid Android:

This is a pretty complex song, and Weezer usually fuck around better than they play/write (although they've gotten pretty fucking impressive with the covers in recent years, particularly leader Rivers Cuomo in his solo shows), so I wasn't exactly thrown out of my chair when I noticed the best guitar parts were actually being played by drummer Pat Wilson while session superstar Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, The Vandals, Devo, Guns N' Roses, Paramore, Sting...) took to the skins.

Revenge Of The Sea

When a seafood restaurant named Moby Dick offers a full window view of its ''right on the ocean'' location, you kind of have to expect Murphy's Law to play its odds at some point, right? Well, it did.

A winter storm in the entire Southern California region generated waves so strong that they shattered a picture window in the dining room, causing salt water to barrel in and customers to flee their seats.

 And this being now, here are the images:



Here is my favourite part of the article:

According to Yelp reviewers, the place usually lacks ambience (sic) “other than the view.” While the food is “overpriced,” the seafood is “fresh” and the clam chowder is “pretty darn good.”

With the cost of rebuilding an entire dining room, expect the prices to rise even higher, though the ambiance will now be enhanced from being associated with a piece of minor local news. Ghost story fans and gossipers welcome; now mentioned in your tourism guide.

Too Soon?

By now you all know Paul Walker (the undercover-cop-turned-car-thief in the Fast & Furious series) died this weekend. In a car crash.

Some nut jobs are comparing it to James Dean's, because both crashed a Porsche. That's where the comparisons end, though, because Dean died at 24, with three masterpieces behind his belt (well, two, plus one that people changed their minds about post-mortem, Cobain-style). Walker died at 40 (though I hear it's the new 30), with a film resume that wouldn't even make Ice Cube blush.

That being said, here's the funniest picture found online yesterday:

''Not'' Guilty

I am just as angry as the next guy that the ''justice'' system has excused George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. But unlike most of my friends, from what had transpired surrounding the case of late, I kind of knew that's where it was going to go.

But the shock is epic. Even The Huffington Post decided to get opinionated:

The Michael Moore quote up-top is quite true. Not just that, but Trayvon Martin's actions that night were scrutinized way beyond what normally transpires in ''normal'' murder cases. As a matter of fact, it was treated a little in the same way rape is, where they have more questions about the victim than they do the culprit (What was she wearing? Had she been drinking?), and the jury's fear of ''a Black man'' overshadowed the facts.

Because what this verdict means, pretty much, it's that since Black people appear more dangerous, it is excusable to kill them even if/when they're unarmed, teenagers, and coming home from the convenience store. Especially if they're wearing hoodies. A good lawyer could still get you off for killing one in a suit, but ''street'' wear is a no-brainer.

It has stopped being a ''Justice system'' and has become a ''criminal assessment system'' instead, where one type of victim is more complicit in their fate than others, and aggressors can be cleared of charges despite all evidence pointing to the contrary if they can arise enough suspicion on the victim.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for ''Innocent Until Proven Guilty'' - when the rules aren't rigged. This is exactly what I was referring to two weeks ago when I said:

with a legacy that lives on today in the disparity of the applications of the Law codes and how minorities are targeted most by the police and ''the system'' in general in the U.S.

And you can't ''just'' blame Florida, either. Case in point: this black woman mother who got a 20-year jail sentence for firing warning shots. WARNING SHOTS. At her abusive husband. And guess who's going to take care of their child now?

 There is a Mahatma Gandhi quote that goes along the lines of:

"There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts."

But not only does it not apply to this situation, it doesn't even apply to this generation, because whenever shit like this happens, those in the wrong are convinced they're right. Say what you will about Barack Obama, he's always trying to choose between the lesser of two (or four) evils; Fox News, George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Rick Perry, Stephen Harper: these people either deliberately force the choice to be between two evils, or just create one themselves.

And there are too many of them with too wide a platform to spread their stupidity around to masses who are unable of critical thinking (or too blinded by their stance on smaller issues to change sides for the larger ones). And that leads to this. And the system once again proves it's fucked.

Against The Institution Until The Need For Said Institution

Conservatives in general have a nasty habit of being against ''big government'', subsidies, taxes/services... until the need to use them, themselves, arises. We witnessed that in the wake of Hurricane Sandy when a few of the Republicans who denied expediting relief aid to New York and New Jersey victims were the same who'd received it in the past for other natural disasters.

This time, irony caught up with famed Libertarian and former Republican candidate Ron Paul, who had said this about the United Nations in 2003:

The UN increasingly wants to influence our domestic environmental, trade, labor, tax, and gun laws. Its global planners fully intend to expand the UN into a true world government, complete with taxes, courts, and a standing army. This is not an alarmist statement; these facts are readily promoted on the UN’s own website. UN planners do not care about national sovereignty; in fact they are actively hostile to it.

Yet, Paul registered a grievance this week to the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization to obtain the rights to to websites created by fans, RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. The owners of the domain names - obviously fans of free enterprise - are willing to sell him the rights, but he wants them for free.

I guess he wants to use their ''courts'' to win an exemption from his ''domestic trade laws'', under which both sites' names were rightfully purchased, and fails to acknowledge the ''labor'' the webmasters have put in it - obvious thousands of hours of it, filling the website with content and managing a 150,000-strong mailing list...

And that's the main problem with these failed politics of the Right, in general: by lacking the foresight to legislate/prevent/save, they're always caught back-tracking when Life hands them a curve ball.

This is a relatively cute, unimportant subject for which the loser will just be left empty-handed, but when it's applied to big stuff, like health, hard individual economics (bankruptcies), the quality of food and water, crumbling infrastructures - stuff that can be of ''life and death'' importance at the end of the day, then their politics become dangerous.

Inevitable Irony

Just hours after I'd posted the Vote With A Bullet video, a man erupted at the Parti Québécois' victory celebration, shot two people and started a fire with a molotov cocktail. One died, the other is in critical condition; someone else is treated for extreme shock.

Newly-elected (first female) Prime Minister of Québec Pauline Marois was escorted off mid-speech, but returned a few moments later, asking attendees to leave the place calmly, because ''that's how a Premier reacts''.

More to come as it develops, probably.

Oklahoma State And The Number 10 (R.I.P.)

10 months after Oklahoma State commemorated the 10-year anniversary of a plane crash that killed 10 men associated with the school's men's basketball program, another plane crash killed its women's team's head coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna.

I'd say the irony is killing me, but I'm not going to tempt Fate on this one.

Sara C. Blasse Is A Stupid Woman

You have got to love the internet. It allows the general public (i.e. you and I) to receive news at a breakneck speed, so fast, in fact, that all the facts are not fully in place before you get the news, and then it has to be corrected afterwards.

It's insane, and it's awesome. And you get someone's name smeared forever, their stupidity in the ethers for eternity.

In a case that could only happen in New Jersey (when in doubt, watch this short video) and that rivals that of the bullshit story actor Jeremy London tried telling a few weeks ago, a woman, Sara C. Blasse, claimed she was carjacked. At first.

Then she said that was a front, that she was actually giving someone - a male prostitute, no less - oral sex in her dad's car, and that that person crashed said car. Blasse - that's Sara C. Blasse, from Vineland, New Jersey, lest you forget, there's a classy picture of her right here - would rather her father think the reason for his car being totaled was she was giving someone head in it, instead of her being robbed. Kudos for the honesty.

Except it wasn't honest at all. Turns out that was a front too, as now the story goes like this: she and her boyfriend stole a laptop from a parked car, and the owner saw them flee, and as they were trying to get away, they crashed the car at an intersection, breaking her arm in the process. Then the dude proceeded to try to set the vehicle on fire, first by stuffing paper towels in the fuel tank and lighting them on fire, then doing so on the back seat.

The cops arrested and charged both.

He's accused of aggravated arson, burglary, two counts of theft and two counts of hindering apprehension; she's accused of aggravated arson, burglary, two counts of theft, hindering apprehension by destroying evidence and hindering apprehension by filing a false report.

Yet another ironic twist: she was released on bail, and he's in jail, despite she having more (and more serious) charges against her. That's Sara C. Blasse, from Vineland, New Jersey.

I love life, and the way it handles people.

Foxing Up The Hartford Whalers

It's a slow summer on my blog, I must admit. May and June were relatively productive, but July, because I'm way too busy renovating my house so two roommates can move in (including one of my brothers).

But I don't want to leave you hanging with nothing, so I'll give you Megan Fox, sporting a Hartford Whalers t-shirt, which is special considering the team hasn't been in existence since 1997, when they moved to Raleigh to become the Carolina Hurricanes. The link is here.

So, either she is well versed in hockey, or has someone who takes care of her wardrobe who is very indie - or she is one slick woman with a definite sense of style and irony.

Either way, I got to plug Megan Fox once again.