January 2007 Archives

If you don't share Defense's point-of-view about music / concerts, you may want to check out the list of albums being released this year over at Metacritic.  With a new Pixies, Radiohead, Wilco, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Interpol, Blur, Spoon, Bright Eyes, Wolf Parade, and Wu-tang album on there way, this could be one of the best years of this decade to be a fan of music.

And yes Defense, there is even a new BRMC coming in May for you to play over and over again.

The video is out of sync, but man this reminds me of glorious I.V., and what made it less glorious.

I come to offer all you ministers out there, from the North to the South, East to the West, an alternative to the titillating sounds of the such rock superstars as the Rapture, Rage, the Black Keys, LCD Soundsystem, Ghostface Killah, We are Scientists, and or course, Bjork.

I, the Minister of Athletics, Coordination, and Gift Cardery, the most athletic minister in the organization, will be attempting to do what no other minister has done, and probably will never do; run a marathon. I will be competing in 22nd running of the Big Sur International Marathon on April 29. This marathon is described as being "Hard, grueling, mountainous, windy, spectacular, unforgiving, rewarding, spiritual, mystical and unforgettable", and more importantly, 26.2 miles. In the training phase alone, this marathon claimed the pride and $100 non-refundable entry fee of two fellow ministers (Stinkleman and Pooman), but my name is Athletics, not Finance Monkey.

With all joking aside, mostly all, I strongly urge all ministers to think about coming up for the marathon, it would mean a lot to me. The race starts at Pfeiffer Big Sur Ranger Station winding along the beautiful Highway 1 on the Pacific Coast and ends 26.2 miles later in Carmel. Along the way there is entertainment including "The Yamaha grand piano at Bixby Bridge, Taiko drummers at the foot of Hurricane Point, belly dancers at mile 25 and much, much more. An eclectic mix of classical, jazz, and rock and roll provided by musical groups unique to our area." For as much excitement as there is in 4,500 people running 26.2 miles, there is even more for those who smartly chose not to run and just to watch and enjoy the festivities. And you will get to watch me representing our great organization with my custom made IFS running suit.

-Athletics

Dear I.F.S. brothers. As many of you probably already know I, along with Estebrand, participated of the show Top Chef on Bravo. The episode that I was envolved aired last wed at ten and it'll be on again tonight at 9pm for those who missed out the great opportunity of seeing a fellow minister on national television.. fame jam.. Also, Christie and I are most probably going to get married on the may 6th. And it'll most probably be at butterfly beach. We're doing it!! Wedding jam..

Cheers

If you missed this special when it first aired on Comedy Central, make sure you have those DVRs set for 1/29/07 at 10:00PM.  This guy is a genius...  A Yale graduate that dropped out of NYU Law to pursue a career in comedy.  His CD is great and this special is great.  Make sure to watch if you missed it a couple weeks ago.   That is all..

-Trade

April 27th, 28th and 29th promises to be a weekend to remember.  Three days of today's (and yesterday's) most acclaimed musical acts.  This is merely a suggestion regarding our next gathering, post super bowl.  I'd love to turn it into a meeting, but if not, it would still be amazing to have as many of us out in the desert as possible.  Not only will we witness the likes of The Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, Interpol, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Keys, The Rapture, (for you Baumann: Teddybears) and LCD Soundsystem just to name a few, but we will also bear witness to the one time, one night only re-unification of Rage Against the Machine.  I will now leave this topic open for discussion.  Meeting? or just a good time with a shit load of us?

love letters

Normally I look for any excuse to put an image of a clown on the site, but the clown episode isn't that funny, sorry Baggs.  Check out the guys website for a couple others, the one about old-timey barbers is pretty funny too.

A while back I setup email, a calendar, and chat for all members, so that we could organize future meetings with the calendar, and use the chat functionality to distract us from our everyday jobs.  The email was not as crucial, but makes it easy for anybody to email all I.F.S. members, and the email page is where you can chat without a special program.

While a select few have been using these features, overall feedback was that it was too hard to access email, as the URL was more than just a www.___.com, well this can no longer be used as an excuse.

As of today, we all have customizable homepages which can be accessed here: start.wedoiteverymonth.com

All homepages come with a list of most recent posts on the site, a recent email list, and the IFS calendar in the left-hand column.  Each member can then customize the rest of the page with whatever content they want.  If you don't know how to use a Google or Yahoo homepage, you need to read the help section.  You can add, edit, delete, and drag and drop all of the content, other than the right column, to make the homepage more useful.

Will Ferrell's next movie, Blades of Glory, has a trailer, check it out over at IGN.  This will be one of eight movies that Will Arnett will be acting in over the next year, on top of his already busy voice-over schedule of GMC and Lamisil commercials.  I guess Arrested Development getting cancelled isn't such a bad thing, with Arnett starring in 8 movies, Bateman starring in 4, and Michael Cera starring in 4 as well.   

The United States' Major League Soccer has just aquired it's most famous player.  David Beckham has signed a 5-year (approx.) 250 million dollar deal with the LA Galaxy. 
That's about a million a week.  Beckham will join American "superstars"  Landon Donovan and my personal favorite, Cobi Jones.

I'm not sure if the LA galaxy discovered a secret cash deposit somewhere in the LA basin or if they think a big name star will draw more super rich fans to Galaxy games.  I have trouble believing the LA Galaxy team has $250,000,000 lying around, but apparently they do.
Either way, I'm stoked and will be cheering on our new British acquisition, and think all the Mexican-American soccer fans in LA will be cheering with me.

For those of you who are truly manly men that enjoy manly things, you also know that divisional playoff weekend is the manliest football weekend of the year.  Of course, only one of the remaining 8 teams moves on to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy the first weekend of February.  However, the divisional playoffs this year present 4 intriguing games that are worthy of wasting away the day full of nothing but Adolphi and football on your new DLP 1080i HDTV, which according to that cute little girl in the pink dress, "It's amazing, it's the meers."   Typically, wild card weekend turns out to be a bust with numerous blowouts, although the N.F.C. games didn't play out that way this season.  Traditionally, these divisional match-ups separate the men from girly men and the contenders from pretenders. 

Let's start with what analysts are referring to as the stronger of the two conferences this year, the A.F.C.  Saturday pits "Maybe like Peyton Manning's team maybe," the Indianapolis Colts against the "I named my N.F.L. organization after a poem written by a former resident of Baltimore," Baltimore Ravens.  For those of you that have been following the season so far, this match-up comes down to whether or not the Baltimore Ravens can stop that 6'3" 230 lbs. quarterback with a LAZER, rocket arm with their secondary play and whether the Colts can contain the run defensively like they did last weekend.  I feel the Colts defense won't be able to hold up again this weekend and the Ravens will go up early causing Indy to press.  Manning chokes per usual and the Ravens win at home to move on to the A.F.C. Championship game.  I also feel the Ravens cover the spread (-4).

On Sunday, "Mr. Playoff" Tom Brady and the New England Patriots are set to battle NFLMVPLT and the San Diego Super Chargers.  Shawne Merriman decided to give up steroids to play the rest of the football season and is one of the keys of this game.  Will Merriman and the front 7 of the San Diego Bolts be able to disrupt Tom Brady in the pocket?  On the flip-side, the key for New England will be to limit LT's production.  I believe that if New England can limit LT's production to 100 yards or less and limit him to 1 touchdown or less, they have a great chance in this game.  I'm sure some of you are Chargers fans and might be a little upset with my prediction.  Vegas has this spread at -5 in favor of the Bolts.  I feel that New England CAN limit LT's production.  If this is so, then I agree with Dan Patrick and say that if this turns into Belichick vs. Shottenheimer and Brady vs. Rivers which is what it comes down to if you can limit the San Diego running attack, this match-up is ripe for an upset.  I'm taking New England.. If you're betting, take the points for sure.

Turning to what the media is calling a weak N.F.C., the first match-up is set for Saturday night with the Fox Robot in full effect.  I'll let the comments to you guys on this one as I hate to talk about the team I'm root for and giving you a prediction is pretty much pointless.  I just have one gentleman that needs to grace the our beloved I.F.S. website, and man is he solid..  Just as a side note, if he and Lindsay Lohan were to procreate, that'd be cruel if they named her, Dottie.

Last, but not least, the N.F.C. match-up on Sunday night showcases last year's M.V.P. Shaun Alexander against that behemoth, Brian Urlacher.  The Bears defense looked suspect the last few weeks of the season and their offense has been anything but consistent all year long.  The Seattle Seahawks, on the other hand, are dismantled on the defensive side of the ball and with Hasselback only a few games off of injury, his play is slowly starting to improve.  Vegas has the Bears by -8.5 which I think is way too many points for a divisional playoff football game especially considering you never know which Rex Grossman will show up for the Bears.  I'm taking the Bears to win this game, but I believe it will be far closer than what the spreadmakers think.  I'd take the Seahawks with the points, especially after the way they played last weekend in the second half against the Cowgirls.  Thanks Mr. Romo, you made my weekend.

I hope you all get shnockered this weekend watching football and if you take my literal word on these predictions and you lose some money, don't bet enough to get pissed about.  Wish I could be out there this weekend for the best football weekend of the year.    Comment on what you think will transpire this weekend.  Miss you brothers...  Go Eagles..   Oh yeah, and my Super Bowl prediction..  Pats vs. Eagles in a rematch of Super Bowl XXXIX.

Well for all you nerds out there, Apple announced their new iPhone today.  It won't be cheap, $499 (4GB) and $599 (8GB), but it looks to be the coolest / most user-friendly / fully functional cell phone ever made, and it comes with more street cred than a pair of Dior sunglasses.  You have to sign a two-year contract with Cingular, and to take advantage of all of the phone's features you will have to pay $40 / mo. just for data, and another $40-60 / mo. for a regular voice plan, but what's money worth if you aren't spending it on gadgets that will be outdated in a year.   You can check out apple's new page for it here to see how sweet it looks.  Expect to see everyone in the world carrying one of these by 2010, or start saving your couch pennies for the June shipdate and be one of the first people in the world to have a cell phone that people will want to talk with more than you.

  Our next meeting is still on for Super Weekend (Feb. 2-4). Everyone should already be planning ahead and getting off work for this so make it happen. Also, for this year's stripper cocktail waitress I'm working on getting Miss Lyla Garrity, and you don't want to miss that.

As one television viewing chapter of our lives comes to a close, it's time we look toward the future of teen-angst drama ridden primetime shows. This fall most of you likely have been missing out, okay, avoiding NBC's lineup. However, amongst all the game shows lies hidden a diamond in the rough. Friday Night Lights, aka FNL, is by far the most entertaining new program hitting the tube. The adaptation is fresh, the writing is witty, the camera style is gritty and well, there is a ridiculous cheerleader on the show, just ask Towers...Gentleman, I ask you to give FNL a chance, (seriously ther are signs of cancellation due to the constant change of airtime) it may never fill that void left by that county I never mention, but it just may inspire you to pick up the pigskin and a nice cold Adolphus. I recommend posting up at your local Applebee's establishment bar (bigtime sponsor) with a bacon-cheeseburger and bask in the acting skills that are Kyle Chandler, one hell of a father, coach and American.   

There has been a silent murmur of a journey, a whisper of a great quest that is so immaculate it becomes difficult to wrap one's head around the possibilities.  Yes brothers I am referring to, Amsterdam to Ofest: The Fellowship of the Pan.  I will let the minister of Rousing take care of most of the details, but I just wanted to sum up some of the logistics. Five days off work in September total of eight days in Europe.  Arrive on Sat in Frankfurt, leave Sunday evening for Amsterdam (5hr train ride), comeback to Frankfurt on Tuesday evening, leave for Munich (5hr train ride) on Wednesday, hit the Haufbrau house where Hitler started the Nazi party on Wed night,  Thur 7am hit Ofest (made for us), comeback to Frankfurt on Friday and leave Sat or Sun.  Total cost including ticket roughly 1,800-2,000.  Let me know who is serious.

I brought the picture, you bring the caption. The winner will be awarded a great prize...

Someone has put together the top 10 opening credit sequences of film.  The order is pretty worthless, but all 10 deserve to be on the list.  You can check it out here.

Say it ain't so, The OC has gotten the axe.  No more side-eyes, no more Sandy Cohen surf sessions, no more Phantom Planet theme song, and no more drinking games.  All we OCer's will be left with is an undeniable urge to put a "the" in front of the name of our county whenever people ask us where we are from.

While the show went from bad to terrible in the last three seasons, there was always the hope they would return to their over the top cheesy ways, but like Saved by the Bell, the show couldn't overcome the dilemma of young actors / actresses getting too big for their britches, and the inevitable high school graduation / college move.  I'll always remember the countless Thursday nights that we boozed to the show.

I will be drinking to the last episode on Feb. 22nd if anyone wants to join me, 1st season rules, but 4 drinks for every side-eyes.

We have all had too many drinks on New Years, here's what happens to us now.

Contrary to popular belief, more of the "hair of the dog that bit you" only delays the inevitable. One of the reasons hangovers are so unpleasant is the liver is still processing the toxins left over from alcohol metabolism. Drinking more alcohol can make the symptoms seem to lessen at first but will only make the situation worse once the liver breaks the alcohol down, because it will have even more toxins to deal with.