To commemorate that I just realized it's been 10 years since Boris the Sprinkler's last album.

When I was in college I had this silly experience that can only happen in those teen years.  I had just started working at the radio station at Elmhurst College and I was dropping anything into the disc player to check out.  I had found this awesome band on a Mentos music sampler - Boris the Sprinkler - with the track Weird Lookin' Woman.  It really fit in with the Church of the SubGenius vibe I was digging those days.  Rant of the underman.  Are we not men?  We are Devo! 

At the time there was a nice little eco-system of used and new music around oak park.  There was Music Recyclery in North Riverside.  Disc-Go-Round outside of the mall.  2nd Hand Tunes on Oak Park Avenue.  Some random little place on Roosevelt near the Game Stop.  Val's Halla on South Boulevard.  A lot of options that I made the rounds of.  Napster was still 2 years away.

I didn't find Boris the Sprinkler at any of those places.

So I was in Val's Halla, trying to find some new stuff.  The girl at the register happened to be pretty cute.  Val's was the only place that had any cute girls working there, but they were really expensive.  So I tried to save my 'impressive' purchases for when I was there so I could get a chance to talk about the weird or classic stuff I was buying.  Odd TMBG stuff, Devo, Pixies.  All of that.

I decided to bring up Boris the Sprinkler to see if they could order any for me - they're always aggressive with the fact they can order things.

Girl pulls out the distributor catalog.. "Boris.. Boris.. Boris.. OK, here they are, what disc are you looking for?"  "I dunno, what are the options?"  Here's where it gets awkward..  "There's.. uh.. Eight Testicled Pogo Machine.. or.. Mega Anal?  There's the… Drugs and Masturbation single?"

 "Uh." 

One syllable was all I could really get out. 

Needless to say, I didn't try that route any more at Val's.  Who knew you could get so burned at lame flirting attempts just asking for album names?

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
- George F. Will

Just unfinished thoughts on some random stuff I've consumed lately

The Room – Tommy Wiseau lives in some bizarre alternate reality.  I cannot conceive of the source of his accent.  I can’t comprehend how his worldview is compatible with the rest of the world, who are all pretty much agreed that his movie is a bizarre and unredeemable piece of shit.  How the hell does a guy like this scrape up seven million dollars to bank his own movie and decide that’s a good way to blow his money having NEVER DIRECTED ANYTHING EVER BEFORE.  Blah!  The Rifftrax kinda helped, but even they didn’t seem to know what to do with the numerous and overly long sex scenes between completely unattractive people.

D-Wars – I can see how this would have done great in South Korea in spite of it seeming to be a totally American movie.  One of the Korean mythologies takes form and fucks up Los Angeles?  No matter how crappy the script, I would be psyched about that as a South Korean.  I imagine in North Korea they would have maybe done this as a puppet show or cave paintings.  As an American, however, by the time the details of the mythology were needed, I had completely forgotten what I should even care about happening.  Movie best put on if you don’t plan to be in the room – then you can just wander in and out saying ‘oh, hey, those effects are pretty good.’  Rifftrax still not enough to mitigate the pain.

Alias Compendium – better reviewed along with Volume 1 – must reread all at once.  As a standalone – very excellent.  As complementary to Marvel Universe as a whole?  Very good in complementing Bendis’ run on Daredevil.  Good mesh between the two.

All Hail Megatron – apparently volumes 1 and 2 are the sum total of the All Hail Megatron story.  These two volumes are a collection of the relevant Spotlight issues and a collection of some, possibly unpublished, vignettes in, around, and after the events of AHM.  After reading these back to back I decided I really wasn’t sure what all happened in the total of the run of Transformers.  Consulted the Wikipedia page for the plot summaries and determined that it’s all just batshit crazy.  I mean, wow.  Even if all of these stories had been numbered in the proper reading order this is some truly nutty stuff to be trying to digest.  So many bots, so many stories to follow, so much that requires extensive background.  I enjoyed reading them, but am starting to rethink the idea of getting the collected hardcovers coming out that reprint the stories in chronological order.

(500) Days of Summer – I liked it.  A decent story is told about an ultimately doomed relationship.  It was all done from the point of view of the guy chasing Summer and I could totally see where he was coming from.  But I could also see where the people around him were coming from in questioning what the hell he was doing and why.  Sure, he wasn’t getting what he wanted, but he also was not being deprived of anything that was promised to him.  He ended up barging into the relationship and trying to dictate new terms when there were already very clearly defined terms.  I could also see it from the point of view of Summer.  She’s a really conflicted character with a lot of defense mechanisms.  She experimented and was lulled by the painting that the guy was painting of what things could be, but didn’t know how to handle it properly when she needed to pull the eject lever.  

The tubes are clear, captain. Ready to fire.

Oh, hey.  I don't even need to post my witticisms directly to Buzz.  THE MAGIC TUBES OF THE INTERWEBS REDIRECT THEM AUTOMATICALLY!