New Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens!!

For those of you not already drooling over the "Dark Was the Night" compilation here are two excellent reasons to start doing so: "Lenin" by the Arcade Fire and "You are the Blood" by Buck 65 (remixed by Sufjan Stevens).

The Arcade Fire track is classic Arcade Fire and while very good in its own right, it is easily overshadowed by the epic "holy-fucked-ness" of "You are the Blood." Listen to that sucker, Sufjan really let loose his inner editor on this one and the results are beyond epic.

Ticketmaster fucks everyone over (again)

How's this for the latest chapter in Ticketmaster's horrible, shameful legacy (via the ever-lovely AV club):

A bunch of Bruce Springsteen fans tried to buy tickets for an upcoming show at the Meadowlands through the Ticketmaster website. They were taken to a screen that claimed that tickets weren’t available from Ticketmaster, but could be purchased for many times their face value from TicketsNow, a ticket resell outfit currently owned by Ticketmaster. In response to fan outrage, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey is lobbying for the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to look into a possible conflict of interest. For its part, the company said through a spokesman that only a few fans reported problems.

Whether this is a mistake or not (my money's on not) it's just gross of Ticketmaster to contemplate ripping off their customers to such a horrific degree. Having worked for a Ticketmaster outlet in the past I can say with absolute certainty that the company is about as blatantly unethical as you can get (old news, I know) and I'm surprised that both the US people and US government have failed to rise up and depose it at some point in the past.

Maybe this will finally push things in that direction...

The lovely Laura Gibson

You should check out the interview with Laura Gibson in today's issue of the Vanguard. Not only is Ms. Gibson insightful and interesting but there are some excellent revelations about her academic endeavors as well.

In the mean time here are a few videos of Portland's foremost chanteuse:

With Colin Meloy:


All on her lonesome:


and on top of construction equipment (thanks to Live from the Wreckage!):

Dead Space to take gore-filled, interstellar horror to...the Wii

Remember Dead Space? One of the scariest, (and definitely goriest) games to come out last year. Good game. Filled with claustrophobia and panic moments. EA Redwood Shores did a good job.

Now then.

You remember the Wii? Nintendo's cute 'lil family-oriented console that's largely geared towards kids and casual gamers? The one that has probably five good games for hardcore gamers that aren't ports from other systems?

Well, as weird as it may sound, there's going to be unholy marriage between them. That's right: today EA announced that a new Dead Space game is coming this year to Nintendo's child-friendly console.

The news broke during the company's fiscal third quarter earnings call today, when EA CEO John Riccitiello said that the intellectual property will be making its way to the Wii sometime this year. Riccitiello also stressed that the new game will feature the same elements that made last year's adventures through the abandoned Ishimura so damn scary on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Although no other details are known at this time, the new title will be its own unique take on the series built to take full advantage of the Wii's motion sensitive controls, according to an article on IGN's Wii page.

I want what he's having

Little kid goes to dentist, gets powerful anesthetic for surgery, Dad films him on the way home. Hilarity ensues.



"Is this real life?"

Yes, yes it is little buddy.

(Hat tip: Slog)

All the ads, none of the football

Not a football fan but still want to watch all the sweet new teasers for this summer's movie lineup. Save yourself the 4 hours and check out some awesome new spots from some of the summer's biggest blockbusters here.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen - The sequel to the obscenely successful 2007 movie about giant robots.

Star Trek - J.J. Abrams' questionable reboot of the Trek franchise. Although only questionable if you liked Star Trek in the first place, otherwise it looks pretty sweet.

Land of the Lost - A remake of the 1970's children's show starring Will Ferrell playing Will Ferrell.

Year One - A clip from the new Harold Ramis directed, Jack Black and Michael Cera starring story about lazy hunter-gatherers. This clip features David Cross and Paul Rudd as the biblical characters Cain and Abel.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Cobra Commander. 'Nuff said.

Up - Disney/Pixar's new flick. All recycled footage from previous teasers (except for about 5 seconds at the end). Visit this website to watch some irritating clips from what may be Pixar's first ever critical and commercial failure.

Fast and Furious - In this fourth installment in the successful franchise, Vin Diesel drives your dad's old car under a giant flaming gasoline rig. As Paul Walker tells Diesel in the trailer "a lot has changed." Yeah, well probably not enough to make this movie any good.

Race to Witch Mountain - Something about clairvoyant adolescents and The Rock having to drive them around. Honestly, when I first heard about this movie I thought it was another movie adaptation of a theme park ride (a la Pirates of the Caribbean). 

Slacker post of the week....

For those of you who hang on this blog's every word, and there aren't likely too many that don't have the last name of Archibald, I must first apologize for not posting at all this week.

Between the GRE's, extra classwork and a bunch of other busy things going on I haven't posted but wanted to get this up before Super Bowl Sunday.

I also had tickets to the Blazers game tonight and the Rose City's finest put on a great show. Even with the disappointing outing from Greg Oden, Brandon Roy, Rudy Fernandez and LaMarcus Aldridge were enough to get buy a pretty crippled Jazz team.


I was most impressed with point guard Sergio Rodriguez who seems to be finding his own during this Steve Blake injury. Tonight he did a pretty good job controlling the tempo of the game, making good decisions with the ball and hitting a couple of shots. He also set up Przybilla at least a couple of times and hit Fernandez for a couple of highlight reel dunks.

Still think that the Blazers are better off standing pat, or making a move for a legit starting small forward/point guard/backup power forward if they are going to do anything over the next few weeks.

I still think Richard Jefferson would be a great get for the Blazers but at this point it seems unlikely that that big of a deal would go down. I also wouldn't mind seeing a push for Rudy Gay, although it would take a ton, or David Lee.

On to Super Bowl news....

A couple of years ago, my twin little sisters were pretty good basketball players at Seaside High School and their basketball team made it to the state playoffs. I traveled with my parents to watch them play in their first round game at Junction City High School, which they won.

Then, by some OSAA scheduling miracle, the Gulls had to travel back down the I5 corridor to Roseburg to play Douglas High School.

Most of you probably know that Douglas, a small school about five miles from Roseburg, is the alma mater of Troy Polamalu, the now safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

While at the game, I couldn't help but notice the insane amount of Polamalu jerseys being worn by students at the game and the similar hairstyles displayed by some of the young men.

Thru a friend I was introduced to the Douglas High School Athletic Director who was relating a story about Polamalu.

Apparently, every off-season Polamalu makes a trip back to Southern Oregon and always stops by the high school. He doesn't come to be recognized at an all-school assembly or even to make an appearance to speak to an athletic team.

He always requests that nobody in the media know about his visit and often doesn't even warn the school when he is coming. When he gets to the school, Polomalu heads straight to the Special Education classroom where he spends the day working with the high schoolers with some sort of disability. The athletic director said that he is the most gentle and caring volunteer that the school has.

Now, some of this may be urban myth, or a high school athletic director exaggerating the truth a bit. But from everything I have seen or heard of Polomalu, it could just as well be true.

My point in sharing this is that the guy, despite his big hits and aggressive nature on the field is a pretty good guy. I will be rooting for him as much as anything else on Sunday. Maybe you should too.