Switzerland Legalizes Heroin

While also - in the same vote - choosing to uphold laws against marijuana.

Tunes of the Days 24 & 25

No internet the past 36 hours means today's a double feature.

Zero 7 - The Pageant of the Bizarre

Fun track from Zero 7's third album, "The Garden".


Aesop Rock - Pigs


The hidden track from "None Shall Pass", also the coolest song on the album.

Tune of the Day #23

Jeff Buckley - Moodswing Whiskey

From Mystery White Boy Live.

Macy's Parade Gets Rick Roll'd

Exactly how it sounds.

Tune of the Day #22

Björk, Mark Bell, Sjón & Lars von Trier - New World


From Selmasongs, a collection of re-produced songs from the movie Dancer in the Dark. Even if you don't like Björk, it's hard not to like this expansive, definitively European orchestral trip hop tune. Freaking awesome finale.

Note: the posted track has all kinds of errors in it, both tagging and encoding. For better quality, try this ogg file instead (you'll need a plugin to play this in most commercial audio programs, like iTunes or Windows Media Player).

Tune of the Day #21

Wynton Marsalis Septet - Local Announcements


From Live at the Village Vanguard. (The single disc, not the 7-disc set. Although presumably it's on both.)

Because We Can Never Get Enough...

....we are reading about the life story of...
COBRA COMMANDER

A Nice Trip Down Memory Lane...

....for those of us who were kids in the 80s and early 90s. Classic GI Joe vehicles, and why they're stupid.

Tune of the Day #20

Wilco - Hell is Chrome

From A Ghost is Born.

Thank you... Sarah Palin.

These ads, they're crazy. The PAC says their only spending millions upon millions of dollars putting them out to raise more money to put more ads out.
Note: "You've gotta raise money. Ask Barack Obama: he raised a billion dollars to BUY the presidency."

Best staircase ever

I want to go to Columbia just for this.

Big walrus

I don't know what to say to this.

Edit: Also, this.

Tune of the Day #19

Richard Cheese - Down with the Sickness


This Disturbed cover is probably the best thing Lounge Against the Machine ever put on tape. (Yes, this is the track from Dawn of the Dead).

Tune of the Day #18

Ralph Vaughan Williams' Youth and Love (from the Songs of Travel)

Bryn Terfel sings, Malcolm Martineau plays. This has been my song of the month. Absolutely stunning.

Tune of the Day #17

Smashing Pumpkins - The Beginning is the End is the Beginning


This is the song that totally made the first trailer for Watchmen. It's an alternate B-side version of that song from the Batman & Robin soundtrack, The End is the Beginning is the End.

Stop or I will shoot

Here's a helpful language guide: "Somali-useful phrases". They might come in handy if you end up sailing the Gulf of Aden.

Tune of the Day #16

The Postal Service - Be Still My Heart


A Postal Service B side. Also possibly the best song they ever recorded. You can find it on the "We Will Become Silhouettes" single. But don't take my word for it: Pitchfork gushes, "[Be Still My Heart] sounds more or less like a Death Cab demo with a few anxious clicking noises added to it." What are you waiting for?

Tune of the Day #15

Soul Coughing - Screenwriter's Blues


Just a great song.

Tune of the Day #14

Calexico - Black Heart


Awesome song from "Feast of Wire". I am still upset about missing this band a few weeks ago.

Lullaby of Cain

Don't mean to step on the Tune of the Day posts, but I just freakin' love this this song. So haunting, so beautiful. Wish I had written it...

Tune of the Day #13

People Under the Stairs - Acid Raindrops


My new favorite, PUTS is an awesome retro sounding hip hop group from LA. They just released a new album called Fun DMC that you can buy for $6.99 on Amazon.com (MP3). This song is from an earlier album, Original Sound Track (O.S.T.)

Tune of the Day #12

Lulu-vise by Knutsen & Ludvigsen

Performed by Erik Halvorsen with Sondre Lerche and his band, "The Lulu Song" is a fun little Norwegian kid's song that I like. It's the hidden track on the album "Duper Sessions". Translation here.

Tune of the Day #11

Brahm's Ein deutches Requiem, I. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen


Simon Rattle conducts the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in this fantastic recording of the German Requiem. I had a hard time deciding which movement to post, because they are all so incredible. I was leaning toward IV for its unparalleled choral fugue, or II for its sheer drama, but the first movement ("Blessed are those who mourn") won out for its simple beauty and excellent introduction of the dramatic musical language used throughout the work.

Tune of the Day #10

Of Montreal - Montreal


I saw this band in Dallas last night, and it was a blast. Two and a half hours of completely over-the-top super-surreal, ambiguously sexual psychedelic performance art with a bizarre disco funk sound track. So today I've decided to post their namesake track from their debut album Cherry Peel, recorded more than a decade ago when they were just another part of the Elephant 6 collective trying to sound like the Beatles.

Tune of the Day #9

Rozhdestvensky/Tariverdiev - Gde-to daleko


My choice today is a Russian pop song from World War 2, performed by Dmitri Hvorostovsky on his live DVD "Songs from the Russian War Years" as well as the album "Where are you, my brothers?", which you can buy on Amie St for like a buck. The title translates roughly to "Somewhere far away", but I don't speak Russian and can't find a full translation anywhere else, so you'll have to take my word for it that every song on that album is really, really depressing (there are translations provided in the amazing concert DVD, all of you should watch it immediately).

Runner up: "The last battle", from the same album.

Tune of the Day #8

Tom Waits - The Hokey Pokey


This NSFW live recording will forever change the way you think about the Hokey Pokey. If you're curious, most of the words to this unique interpretation come from another Tom Waits song, "Pasties and a G String".

Tune of the Day #7

Massive Attack - Silent Spring


Today's TOTD is a trip hop B-side. I like it.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I'm finally coming to terms with how awesome this webcomic is.

Tune of the Day #6

Arnold Schoenberg, Op. 1, No. 1: "Dank"


Tove Loenskov accompanies baritone Lars Thodberg Bertelsen in Schoenberg's first published piece, a Brahmsian epic lied that just kinda rocks. If you like it, check out No. 2, "Abschied".

Get Your War On - New World Order

This is the first episode of GYWO that I've actually laughed at.

Tune of the Day #5

Wir sind Helden - Gekommen um zu bleiben

I haven't really heard anything else by this band (German for "We are heroes") that didn't suck, but this tune ("Came to stay"), which hit #24 on the German charts in 2004, is pretty fun.

Key quote: "Ist dieser Fleck erst in der Hose, ist er nicht mehr rauszureiben."

Song of the Day #4

E lucevan le stelle


This is Franco Corelli singing under Franco Ferraris with the Philharmonia Orchestra the aria that begins the final act of Puccini's masterpiece Tosca. In this aria we hear the condemned painter Cavaradossi writing one final letter to singer Floria Tosca, his love, basically saying "I don't want to die". The important thing to note is that Franco Corelli can do things with his voice we mortals can hardly comprehend.

Song of the Day #3

The Mountain Goats - No Children


John Darnielle ends every show with this tune from the album Tallahassee.

Dumb joke

Sorry.

Shiba Inu Puppy Cam

Here you go. (Thanks to HighFB)

Film School

The next time you watch a film, notice if there are lobsters in it.

COMPRESSED SONG COMICS "WOULDN'T IT BE NICE" BY THE BEACH BOYS

The Beach Boys... well, it seems the Beach Boys wish they were older, living together, and sleeping with each other.
They describe such a scenario as "nice"!
Other scenarios they describe as "nice" include all five Beach Boys waking up together, spending the day together, and then holding each other close. They also wish their kisses were neverending, as that would be nice, and they wish they were all married, because if they were married, they'd be happy. "Wouldn't [that] be nice?", they ask each other in the chorus, largely rhetorically.
(more)

New Favorite Pasttime

Google Trends. this morning, the number one search was definitely "what weapon is synonymous with samurai warriors"
CRAZY!!!

Facebook status update

A friend of mine who formerly attended UGA compiled the following list of remarkable Facebook statuses from her deep south friends on hearing Obama won:

1) "i need to lock the door so that the terrorists don't get me"

2) thinks the world has never seen a blind following like Obama has since the likes of Hitler. be afraid america cuz here comes the USSA.

3) Palin is still hott...

4) is not proud of america right now but is damn proud to be from Georgia! At least we didnt help put that idiot in office!

5) will be glad to stop hearing uneducated political comments and urges anyone who has nothing but negative things to say to feel free to leave the US.

6) is no worries Texas will succeed from the nation.

7) is really?! ok buckle up, America.

8) is its ok im from Texas were going to secede from the Nation then take over America to expand the Republican Empire of Texas 08.

9) is remembering that at the end of the day, it is still God's plan.

10) wishes people knew what they really just elected... Romney 2012.

11) yknow what the awesome thing about this is? Another four more years of people shitting their pants cause they didn't get their way.

12) is PALIN 12!!

13) is in Arkansas with a black man just elected. oh i hope i don't get lynched!


14)This is ridiculous. Packing my bags for the DR.

15) thinks Jesus is coming back soon since Obama won the election

16) IS moving to mexico and is going to build a tree house like in the swiss family robinson. Whos with me?

17) Learn about real socialism.

18) is praying for our country...

19) is DEAL WITH IT AND SUCK MY DICK.

20) don't worry about the terrorists...just shine that big ol' rock on your finger...it'll blind them! well, maybe not, they may try to figure out a way to redistribute it to the poor.........

(Thanks to Ro)

A few results from last nite...

to offset your overwhelming joy:
al franken lost minnesota, while ted stevens (convicted felon) held his seat.
california, in a vibrant display of contradiction, voted for an amendment banning same sex marriage and against a law saying that minors should have to notify their parents before getting an abortion. effectively pissing off everyone.
way to go california. what the crap?

Help me Wolf Blitzer, You're my Only Hope...

Wolf Blitzer took CNN to it's nerdcore max: interview via hologram.
not even joking.
And that's not the only techno-show off of the night: Ann Curry reads exit polls in a VR room.
thank God they finish this video by dispelling the illusion and showing that she's just standing in a green room... that green screening was so good, it was like she was a real person in a real room... almost.

Did anyone else catch McCain's concession speech?

If so, do you know what his exit music was? Because it was fantastic.

Update: It was the theme from Crimson Tide, a Hans Zimmer tune called ... "Mutiny". Listen away.

I'm a...

Uh... ...PC?

Song of Tuesday

They Might Be Giants - I'm All You Can Think About

Local Hero Of The Day

Here