What's the Deal With CPUs?

Welcome, friends, to another episode of Andrew Explains Stuff To You. This week, our topic is processors! Computer processors, I mean, not food processors or word processors - this week I'm all about the Pentiums.

Computer processors are mysterious things. They have to be relatively efficient at processing everything from typing to streaming video to image editing to gaming, and they've got to keep getting better at it while also consuming less electricity and taking up less space. This all ties into something called Moore's Law, which you should totally read about.

While the fundamental architecture of a given computer's Central Processing Unit is the same now as it was three decades ago, its efficiency has increased dramatically, and what's coming down the pike is only going to change it more drastically. This is going to enable all of the tiny, speedy computers that you'll all be buying in the next few years, and this post is all about what's enabling that technology.

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The Art of Good Threadiquette

In today's technologically-advanced world, more and more communication takes place over email. And why not? Typing a few words on a keyboard and hitting send is easier, cheaper, and faster than composing a letter on paper, stuffing it into an envelope, putting a stamp on it, and dropping it in the mailbox. And I'm not just talking about business-related exchanges between two people sitting at their desks in their respective offices - with the advent of smartphones, more and more people have access to email at all times. And when sending an email has the same basic structure as sending a text message, you can bet there will be some residual decline in the class and reputation of the medium.

Seeing as how easy it is to compose a message, type in a recipient's email address, and hit "send," it's easy to overlook some of the more old-fashioned polite aspects of letter-writing. Remember when we spent hours learning in which situations to use "Dear Sir or Madam" or "To Whom It May Concern"? Or how to correctly format your return address in the letterhead? In emails, the only formality left is a pre-fabricated signature, if that. Yet emails are certainly less clear and direct than a conversation on the telephone or in person. They occupy an awkward middle ground.

So what is the proper way to comport ourselves in an email thread? Should we treat them like correspondence, with the proper salutations and formatting? Or should we approach them as we approach text messages, as an extension of a casual conversation? As always, it depends on the situation, but here are a few things I've learned about Proper Email Threadiquette.

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Album Review: Beyoncé - "4"

Sometimes the most popular people really are the coolest. While paint-by-numbers lothario Trey Songz, Eurotrash rap-singer Taio Cruz, and popular convict Chris Brown continue to go through the motions, hip-hop/R&B's true leaders remain restlessly innovative. In a trend reminiscent of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder's rebellion against Berry Gordy's iron-fisted grip on the Motown sound in the early '70s, today's titans (and especially titanesses) have evolved from boardroom-controlled automatons to truly unique artists.

Five years ago, Rihanna sampled Soft Cell and was distinguished primarily by her lack of singing ability. Today, she's putting out S&M-themed videos and belting with the best of them on songs like "Only Girl (In the World)." I've made plain my appreciation for both Drake and Kanye West - and, to be fair, they were pretty cool to begin with - but they've only improved (and gotten weirder) with age.1

Beyoncé, diva though she's always been, has lagged behind slightly album-wise. The girl's always put out great singles ("Single Ladies," "Ring the Alarm," "Irreplaceable," "Crazy in Love", "Halo"), but her irritating habit of sounding like Celine Dion from time to time kept her full-lengths back from greatness.

With its consummate balance of fun and maturity, 4 is far and away Ms. Knowles' best record and a piece of work that cements her status as the diva to beat.2

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Supreme Court Rules to Protect Videogames Under First Amendment

In a 7-2 decision yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that a California law restricting the sale of violent videogames to minors violated the First Amendment. The Court’s ruling on Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association upheld a previous decision by a federal appeals court and deemed California’s ban on violent game sales unconstitutional.

By extension, videogames are now officially protected as free speech. From the syllabus of the Court Opinion:

“Video games qualify for First Amendment protection.  Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium.  And “the basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary” with a new and different communication medium.”

It’s a major step forward for a nascent form of expression, but before we commence the hoot-n-hollering, let’s dig a bit deeper.

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A Decade of Dreck #56: Godsend

Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.

Scary little kids are going to be the death of horror movies, I swear to God. Once, long ago, a spooky kid could give you some genuine scares. Think back to Damien in The Omen, or those terrifying girls from The Shining (still one of the scariest things I've ever witnessed in a film). But somewhere in time, everything went off the rails and there were way too many scary kid movies; I blame The Sixth Sense.

Kids can be scary: something about that combination of supposed innocence and our inability to, you know, kill them, compounds to make a murderous/Satanic child one of the freakier things your horror movie protagonist could go up against. But of course, once you let the evil kitten out of the bag, you wind up with diminishing returns; hence, Godsend.

Everything about Godsend feels like disappointment. The movie is a ninety minute shrug. Look at the cast: Greg Kinnear? The man might as well hyphenate his name to "Greg Kinnear-What Is He Doing In This?". Rebecca Romijn? Having come of age during her tenure as Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model, she is a very important woman in my life, but a great actress she is not. Robert De Niro? What was his last great movie? Casino? Couple this a tired trope and you have the makings for a Decade of Dreck entry.

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 112 - Franz Ferdinand

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

I didn't really hear a bad song by Franz Ferdinand this week. Every track was catchy, most were suitably energetic, and all of them sound like a band having fun. But as the week wore on, everything started to blend together. By Wednesday, I was convinced that all of the group's output was just a variation on their first self-titled album. By Friday, I was convinced that every track on that album was just a variation on their most popular hit, "Take Me Out."

Now "Take Me Out" is a great song, and its justifiably landed at the top of a lot of "Best Songs of the Decade" lists. It's one of those songs that will please everyone from hardcore music snobs and your grandmother, with a bouncy guitar line that's hard to dislike and impossible to dislodge from your brain. It's the best thing the band ever did. But it might have well been the only thing the band ever did. The rest of their output sounds like a band circling "Take Me Out," hoping to find a path back to that fabled center. 

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After the Jump: Poopsteak

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Poopsteak I guess? Also, Cars 2, Google's FTC probe, and a bunch of other stuff. I don't even know.


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Sunday Reading: Filmmaker Liz Garbus on Bobby Fischer

I’ve never been great at chess. I like it well enough. I enjoy the strategy, the cool-headed combat. The potential moveset feels both limitless and incredibly specific. Then there’s the aesthetic, the trappings of the Renaissance - when kings and queens did more than give speeches and get married.

I’ve just never been able to think sufficiently in advance. I can’t retain a strategy once I’m in the thick of battle. Put bluntly: I’m no Bobby Fischer.

Bobby Fischer, the chess star of the twentieth century, shone incredibly bright as a prodigy before burning out amid paranoia and disillusionment. The United States wielded him like a weapon in the Cold War, fighting the Soviets on the chess board rather than across the globe. Fischer would later come to despise the United States, even calling into a radio show post-9/11 to say that “what goes around, comes around.”

Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus’s Bobby Fischer Against The World (recently on HBO) chronicles Fischer’s ascent and decline. In an interview with Paste, Garbus spoke about what the crucible of success in the spotlight can do:

“You see that in other disciplines as well, great artists who go crazy, or composers, or child actors today. I think we see it across disciplines, and it’s not unique to chess, but that expertise and mastery, and especially from such an early age that mono-focus on your chosen field, can be tough on people. Especially people that have heightened sensitivities or tendencies toward mental illness. Not developing those other parts of yourself can be dangerous. And Bobby himself says when he gets to Iceland, "I thought maybe I could write songs, but then I realized I had nothing to say because I haven’t lived." Bobby himself was aware of the fact that he had no other life outside chess. So when he reached his life’s ambition, he had nowhere to go.”

Garbus set out to make her film after reading Fischer’s obituary, and it sounds like she’s done everything she could to paint a fair portrait of a man who left this world an angry, unlikable ex-pat. All this Fischer talk may even make me try chess again.

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Saturday Morning TV: SpiderMonster, the Musical

This has been making the rounds, I realize. But it’s still good. By the way, when did Sesame Street turn into Saturday Night Live?

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"Game of Thrones": A Look Back at the First Season

(Only minor spoilers until the last paragraph)

Last Sunday, HBO's Game of Thrones wrapped up its first season. True to the tradition set by its spiritual predecessor, The Sopranos, the penultimate episode was filled with twists and turns, while the finale adopted a slightly more relaxed pace, spending more time setting up the pieces for the game's inevitable second season. But the finale garnered the show's highest Nielsen ratings of the season and, while not quite approaching a True Blood level of popularity, it does demonstrate a slow but steady rise in viewership, and the water-cooler talk about the show seems to have only grown as the season progressed. (It's been fun to watch my friends' reactions on Facebook). 

It still strikes me as strange that the series seems poised to be a success. George R.R. Martin, the author of the original books, worked in Hollywood as a TV screenwriter in the nineties. Because of frustrations over budget restraints, finite casts and specific script requirements, Martin left the industry to write books that were the complete opposite of his television career. His books are gargantuan, feature thousands of characters, and Martin shoved in all the subplots, tertiary characters, graphic violence, and local color that he had been forced to leave on the cutting room floor with so many of his television scripts. The books were a reaction to the world of screenwriting, and were meant to be literally unfilmable. 

I've been reading the books for a good ten years, so when I heard the plans to create an HBO series, I was more than a little anxious. On the one hand, I knew that Martin's sizable list of dramatis personæ and seemingly endless array of subplots couldn't make it to the screen without shedding some weight. On the other hand, when you take away the convoluted plots and the colorful cast of secondary characters, was there anything left of the books worth translating onto screen? The books work in part because of their excess.

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A Few Questions for AMC’s The Killing

Five days later, I’m still not sure how I feel about the season finale of AMC’s The Killing. And the more I ponder the finale, the less sure I am of how I feel about The Killing’s entire first season.

AMC’s most recent foray into original programming billed itself as a cut above your average police procedural, similar to how last fall’s The Walking Dead was billed as a horror serial that you cared about for more than just the gore. This would be more than just an episode of Law & Order stretched out over thirteen episodes. This wouldn’t just be half a season with 24 with less than half the action.

The Killing promised to set itself apart from the Law & Orders and CSIs of the world by marrying the influence of its Swedish predecessor Forbrydelsen with the small-town mystique of Twin Peaks. The deliberate, meticulous pace of the early episodes felt so…European. Each frame bears the weight of a particular Mood. And the oppressive rainy skies and lakefuls of red herrings harkened back to Twin Peaks, the seminal serial drama of the early 90s. If you set a murder mystery in the Pacific Northwest, chances are you’ll warrant Twin Peaks comparisons.

To cut through all of the context and expectations, The Killing pressed ahead on the strength of a single question: “Who killed Rosie Larsen?”

After thirteen episodes, I have a few more.

[I’ve tried to keep it relatively spoiler free after the jump. I discuss the season-ending cliffhanger without revealing any specifics.]

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Ultrabooks: The Future of Netbooks

Netbooks, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

First off, you're exactly as slow as balls. Like, exactly. That's because you all use identical, anemic Intel Atom processors, slow-spinning cut-cost hard drives, and a mere 1 GB of RAM. Just because Windows will run on you doesn't mean that it should - in fact, part of the reason the netbook experience is so bad is that Windows 7 was, at its heart, designed for computers with more oomph.

But, netbooks, it's not just your wimpy internal hardware that makes me cringe: it's also that you're so damn cheap. Not, like, cheap in price, which we'll talk about later, but cheap in construction, all flimsy plastic chassis and bad, washed-out screens, and cramped keyboards are the order of the day.

Netbooks, as originally conceived, were about running a simple OS designed to check email and browse the Internet, while maintaining good battery life. Netbooks, as executed, are disappointing, cheap, hard-to-recommend little machines that try to do everything a PC can do and fail miserably and only last for a few hours while they're doing it.

The failure of netbooks as they are shouldn't distract us from the real market demand for a computer that does what the netbook set out to do - deliver the essentials of the computing experience in a small, lightweight form factor with good battery life. Enter Intel's Ultrabook, which aims to be just such a product.

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I Pledge Allegiance to the Ads: The Cannes Lions Festival

As anyone even remotely interested in the Advertising Industry should know, it's time for the Cannes Lions  International Festival of Creativity (formerly the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, but who wants to limit themselves these days?). As you read this, all the biggest of wigs from the most prestigious ad agencies around the world are gathering in the South of France for awards presentations, workshops, networking, partying, and general patting each other on the backs behavior.

And why not? Advertising is a $300 billion industry. It's the driving force behind what we watch on TV (and why it comes on when it does), what we see on billboards as we drive through the city, what we have to click through while we surf the web, what we hear during the breaks in our Internet radio stations, and what we have to avoid accidentally hitting with our thumbs while we use our mobile phones. It determines pop-cultural phenomena and, whether we like to admit it or not, seriously impacts our actions.

You hear it all the time: advertising is manipulation. But doesn't advertising make use of art (and creativity)? And isn't it true that all art is manipulation - of the mechanisms which trigger human emotion, (to paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder)? But in advertising all that artistic and creative energy is used with the express purpose of supporting the machine of capitalism. Does that preclude advertising from being considered as a true art form? Probably. Does it make ads in themselves any less creative? Not in the slightest.

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The Joy of the Summer Read

The summer sun warms your skin. The smell of salt is in the air. The ocean, that perfect natural white noise, crashes in on itself ad infinitum. You're sipping a margarita as you cool the tops of your hot feet by burying them in the sand. Everything is perfect... and you're reading a book about a serial killer who puts pieces of glass in his victims' eyes. Or maybe you're reading about a child wizard who has to kill the freak who killed his parents. Or a book about a guy uncovering major vatican secrets. Whatever the case may be you're hooked on a summer read. But why? Why are we drawn to a particular type of book while vacationing or relaxing by the pool? Summer's here, readers, we may as well dive in!

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"James Drake" and the latter's weird prescience

The first time I heard Drake's "Best I Ever Had" all the way back in the winter of 2009, I remember thinking, "Really?" This was rap's new wunderkind, the kid who would unite the mainstream and the blog-trolling hipsterati and bring balance to the Force? Kid Cudi was the next big thing to beat, I thought. He had a flashier sound and an absolutely killer first single ("Day 'n' Nite"), and he didn't get his start on a Canadian teen drama.1

But Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi's ambition, though grand, turned out scattershot results. 2009's Man on the Moon: The End of Day was just as bloated and pretentious as its title would suggest. It flirted briefly with greatness (second single "Pursuit of Happiness" was nearly as good as "Day 'n' Nite"), but the rest of the album seemed limp and unfocused.

Drake's So Far Gone, meanwhile, turned out to be so popular that he could hold off his debut proper (Thank Me Later) until June of 2010. The opening salvo from the album (the admittedly great "Over") turned out to sound like little else on the record, even if it evinced the same kind of "whining about being famous" aesthetic that the album did as a whole.

It was the "deep cuts" on the record that signaled a forward-thinkingness that one rarely sees outside of albums not released by somebody named Kanye. Cuts like "Fireworks," "Shut It Down," and "Karaoke" were glorious slices of barbitural electro 2, the kind of music that made you feel sexy and ennui-ridden at the same time.

And now that seemingly everyone in the slightly-not-mainstream - Odd Future's Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, How to Dress Well - is on the sad 'n sexy electronics train, Aubrey "Drake" Graham is beginning to look like he could really bring balance to the Force. This suspicion is given further credence by James Drake, a new mashup album by Philly DJs Bombe (Tim Shaw) and Mr. Caribbean (Luis Angel Cancel) which combines Drake's music with James Blake, another purveyor of electronic existentialism.

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Consider The Onion: A Pulitzer Plea

Fake news isn’t new. Satirical jibes at journalism masquerading as journalism date back to at least 1835 when Richard A. Locke created the Great Moon Hoax in the New York Sun. Not only was Locke looking to increase sales of the upstart Sun, he was ridiculing contemporary theories in astronomy – including one Scottish reverend’s assertion that upwards of four billion people (or whatever they were) lived on the Moon.

The Onion isn’t that far removed from Locke and his hoax. Started in 1988 by two University of Wisconsin students, The Onion rose from its clever college rag roots to become an international brand of news-related comedy under the direction of founding Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers. Dikkers oversaw the launch of its website in 1996, which proliferated the publication’s classic style of deadpan satire.

Its imitation of actual print journalism – Associated Press formatting, a mix of editorial and on-the-street reporting – is The Onion’s greatest asset. They’ve so mastered the art of the headline that you rarely need read past “U.S. General Jealous That Syrian Army Allowed To Attack Citizens” to have a good ouch-too-true chuckle.

And now The Onion staff would like to be recognized for their efforts. Having just celebrated their 1000th issue yesterday, they’ve contracted serious Pulitzer hunger. They want the Prize, and they’re mobilizing the Internet on their behalf.

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Movie Review: Super 8

So, this is summer. As time goes by and one gets farther and farther away from their school days salad years, summer seems to be less of a thing. When you're a kid, this means there's no school, you can play outside, and you can see your friends whenever you want. By adulthood, summer tends to mean nothing other than it getting hot out and gas prices going up. You still have to go to work every day but at least you can drink on a patio.

I think I must have really become a grown-up this year: the scale I use to determine this is that this is the first year I can remember where I was more excited about the Awards Season Oscar contenders than about the big summer tentpoles. I've always loved summer movies but now Fridays come and go and on many days I couldn't tell you what big blockbuster came out. Wasn't Green Lantern out this weekend? Whatever.

In this day and age of bald face studio calculation, the summer movie experience can be especially soul-crushing. Two months so far has only yielded a handful of memorable movies alongside a veritable barrel full of disappointments and misfires (looking at you Hangover Part 2). And the worst part? They're all sequels or at least tangentially related to a well-established money-making property. Nothing original has come out it years.

And now J.J. Abrams' Super 8 comes along and while "original" might not be the best way to describe it, it's definitely the best movie of the summer so far.

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 111 - Faust

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

I believe that the term "krautrock" originated in Britain as a pejorative term for the weird avant-garde stuff going on in Germany in the late 1960s and early 70s. Anglo-American rock critics have always harbored a vague suspicion toward the experimental and those musicians who move too far away from the bluesy template that tends to define the genre. But the German krautrockers didn't just move in a different direction; they abandoned the blues entirely, moving straight into long, meandering instrumental drones, new instruments and weird sounds. There was an appreciation for pure sound that outweighed any sort of worries about song structure, marketability, or whether or not the final product was palatable to listeners. 

For these reasons, krautrock is often lumped in with the bombastic prog rock or the fledging electronic scene. But, listening to krautrockers Faust this week, I was struck by how much the band (and genre) owed to the German classical music scene - perhaps as much, if not more, than they owed to rock music. Faust may have been using drum sets and electric guitars, but a lot of their music falls more in the tradition of the avant-garde classical music that came out of the fifties. 

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After the Jump: Spam Sliders

Subscribe to the podcast via the feed, find us in the iTunes store, or download the MP3 directly!


Another week, another 'cast! This is up late, so I'll cut to the chase: This week, we talk about Burger King, LulzSec, McDonald's coffee, the Wii U, and more!

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Sunday Reading: How Success Killed Duke Nukem

So Duke Nukem Forever came out. That’s right, the game that took over 14 years of development across multiple studios is finally on store shelves. You can pay $60 dollars for it. The general consensus, however, is that you shouldn’t.

Almost every review of DNF cites the painfully visible seams in its patchwork structure. Three years of development here, an engine upgrade there, a new level designer brought on here, another batch of ruddy textures there.

This is unsurprising, given how long the game took in coming. Clive Thompson’s 2009 Wired article, “Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem” chronicles its Sisyphean development process.  A mix of perfection and George Broussard’s too-deep pockets forever prevented DNF’s release. Thompson writes:

“Broussard simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of Duke Nukem Forever coming out with anything other than the latest and greatest technology and awe-inspiring gameplay. He didn’t just want it to be good. It had to surpass every other game that had ever existed, the same way the original Duke Nukem 3D had.”

Looking at the Duke Nukem character now, it’s hard to imagine why someone would fight so hard to keep him on top. But in the late 90s, Duke’s Grade-E humor and interactive environments set bars few games had reached. Being in the lead is addictive. I can see why Broussard wouldn’t want to give that up.

Thompson wrote his article almost a year before Randy Pitchford and Gearbox Software announced their grand plans to ship the unshippable game. Reading it now, it’s an excellent primer for the glut of scathing reviews that hit the Internet this week. With its unique trials and tribulations documented, how could anyone expect anything of this game?

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Saturday Morning TV: HBS

The Internet is weird, you guys.

HBS from Eric Fensler on Vimeo.

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Book Review: Paul Theroux - "The Tao of Travel"

Paul Theroux likes to travel alone. Not just on your average vacation, but on lengthy, continent-spanning trips. He has a disgust for tourists and a lot of the people he meets along the way. And while many travel books do their best to paint every foreign country in a positive, semi-exotic light, Theroux holds no punches; if he doesn't like a city, he's going to lay out exactly what he doesn't like about it. 

Such an attitude can be (and has been) mistaken for misanthropy. But while Theroux's writing can be barbed, dismissive, pessimistic and overly critical, his keen eye for detail, love of traveling, and occasional moment of bliss are what prevents his books from descending into pure vitriol. And Theroux is just as critical of himself as he is of his fellow travels and destinations. Much of the time he struggles with paradox of travel writing - how to accurately describe your own experience in a location without devolving into narcissism. 

This strange combination of cynicism and persistent curiosity is what makes Theroux one of my favorite travel writers. And because he's been writing accounts of his travels for the past thirty-five years, there's a lot of books to choose from, though this can be intimidating to the newcomer. Theroux's latest book then, The Tao of Travel, can be seen as both an introduction to the man's work, as well as a summary of his career as a travel writer. 

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LulzSec – The Lulz-Focused Hacktivist Successor to Anonymous

Shh. No, really. Quiet down. If anyone finds out I’m writing this, this website may cease to exist – for a few hours, anyway.

I want to talk to you about LulzSec. Yes, that LulzSec. Shhh! If they hear us, they’ll shut us down. They’ll use their network of botnets and whatever-the-hell-else-they-use to slam the site with traffic. They’ll find our phone numbers and unleash outdated auto-dialing machines to tie up our phones like that episode of The Simpsons.

Why? Why would they deliberately screw with strangers on the Internet, potentially damaging digital commerce and divulging private information?

For the lulz.

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Blogging About the Blog: A Note on Charge Shot!!!

Hey guys!

If Google Analytics is to be believed, there are quite a few of you out there who come to our merry little site on a pretty regular basis - you're well acquainted with our crack writing team, our regular features, and our rakish good looks. Thanks for reading! You all make this worthwhile.

For the rest of you, the brand-new readers and the people who have been around for just a little while, I wanted to take a second to show you around and tell you about all the stuff we're doing. I'll keep it short.

Most of our posts (and we try to have at least one, if not two a day) are editorial or review-style writings about the pop culture issues of the day, we do have quite a few running features that you should know about: First up, Chris Holden guides you through popular music from the perspective of an outsider every Monday in Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob, and you should read it whether you're an aspiring music snob or a full-on Pitchfork acolyte.

Our next feature runs on Monday afternoons, and it comes courtesy of our own Alex Boivin: take pleasure in his pain while you read the hilarious, masochistic Decade of Dreck posts that take on the Rotten Tomatoes-sanctioned list of the 100 worst movies of the '00s. The other side of that coin is snootier, but no less essential: Jordan "Jordasch" Pedersen's Art House in the Middle of the Street, which combines a love for classic film with a love for flimsy puns.

If none of those features are doing it for you, you could always read stuff that our talented writers do elsewhere - Andrew Pankin covers baseball in what I assume is great detail over at Thoughts About Baseball and Life, and relative newcomer Giaco Furino wants to combine poetry with partying in a way that Science said couldn't be done over at Giaco's Poetry Party. Or maybe if you just want to be like "what just happened" you could go look at the webcomic that Craig and I do called Hey Look, It's Cranston!

Last but definitely not least, Craig, myself, and a revolving door of third parties all get together to bring you After the Jump, our weekly pop culture newscast. It's an hour-long show full of cussing and diversions peppered among genuine insight, and you owe it to yourself to subscribe to us on iTunes.

That's all the big stuff! You should also make sure to enjoy our new, much more readable mobile site for use on iOS and Android phones, follow the site on both Twitter and Facebook, or subscribe to our ever-updating RSS feed.

There you have it - every possible way to enjoy our ever-expanding library of great, thoughtful writing by great, thoughtful people. As always, thanks so much for reading, and thanks even more for commenting (which I'm sure you'll do!). Continue...

Modern Day Theme Parks: Where's the Character and the Class?

When I saw J.J. Abrams's Super 8 on Friday, I was excited to see the Amblin Entertainment logo in front of the credits. I'm sure you know the image of Steven Spielberg's production company (or would know it if you saw it - picture provided after the jump): it's the silhouette of that lovable little alien, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, riding in the basket of Elliot's bicycle as they fly in front of the moon. I was never all that attached to the movie itself, but a Spielberg production is always deemed exciting and relevant by the entertainment industry. Plus, it seemed extra relevant for me, because I had plans to visit Universal Studios: Hollywood - where the offices of Amblin are located - the very next day!

But my excitement was quickly replaced by a pang of nostalgic despair. Amblin's offices and the odd souvenir doll are now all that remains of the E.T. tradition at Universal, as the former dark ride bearing its name, E.T. Aventure, shuttered in 2003 to make way for Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride. Wow, talk about backing the wrong franchise. That would be like if Disneyland replaced Star Tours with Avatar: Pandora's Pride. (In fact, Star Tours was just given a recent 3D update, so the comparisons to Avatar are not that far off.)

E.T. Adventure was not an amazing ride, by any means. It didn't have breathtaking visuals or gut-wrenching drops and turns. But it did have character (such as when your multi-person bicycle turns into a spaceship to take you to E.T.'s home planet) and class (such as when an animatronic E.T. personally says goodbye to each and every person on the ride before you disembark). However, progress is progress, and I suppose it's the natural order of things for class and character to gradually give way to thrills and chills. And it's my feeling that the changing layout of the Universal Studios theme park - as well as the evolving slate of Universal's films - reflects that.

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Review: Kurt Vile and His Wall of Sound

In the proper sense of the word, a wall of sound was a musical/recording technique first pioneered and championed by Phil Spector. Whether you think of him as a genius or insane (or both, I mean, dude did shoot that actress) he's certainly left his mark on the soundscape of popular music. The wall of sound originally meant dense music, with multiple guitars playing the same riff while other instruments filled the sonic space behind it. You can hear it on a lot of songs by The Crystals and The Ronettes, on a ton of Let it Be and to an extreme in this George Harrison song.

Now what does this all have to do with my review of Kurt Vile and the Violators live at the First Unitarian this past sunday? Maybe a lot! I had the pleasure of seeing two very different bands perform live this weekend at the same show. Pissed Jeans opened for Kurt Vile in the basement of a church in Philadelphia and I couldn't help but be smashed by both bands' takes on the wall of sound. While Pissed Jeans hit the audience with distortion and volume, Kurt Vile and the Violators added layer upon layer of instrumentation until the audience wasn't sure they could actually hear!

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Art House in the Middle of the Street #15: The Rules of the Game

There's no grand philosophical project behind Charge Shot!!!'s new feature. Jordasch's mom got him Janus Films' absolutely untouchable Essential Art House box set, and he's going to watch the whole thing. It's a behemoth set, collecting 50 films released since 1956 by one of the first distributors to bring honest-to-goodness world cinema to U.S. shores. The films contained in the collection serve as a crash course in world cinema, encompassing everything from major works of the French New Wave and the Italian Neorealist period to films from lesser-known corners of the filmmaking world, including Brazil and Poland. The collection is 50 discs, weighs 16 pounds, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

The Art House is getting an (extreme) makeover! I'm tired of the old format (or lack thereof), so I'm shaking things up: instead of just writing a traditional long-form review, I'm gonna split my pieces into subheadings, a la my fellow blogger Chris Holden.

In terms of formulating the headings themselves, I tried to think about the purpose behind my writing these pieces. After thinking for a few hours and failing to come up with anything other than "to listen to the sound of my own voice," I decided to focus on why you, the reader, should be reading these pieces. What information do you want to know about these weirdo movies full of funny-talkin' foreigners?

I thought about that for a while longer, and after again failing to come up with anything, I just made up some shit. Enjoy.

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Obscuring the Word of Notch: Minecraft and the Xbox 360

One of the few true surprises of last week’s Microsoft E3 keynote was the announcement of Minecraft for the Xbox 360. We’ve talked a lot about Minecraft on this site, and with good reason. Its accessibility, its LEGO-like appeal, its constant stream of new content: they all keep Minecraft fresh and appealing months after its initial “release”. Odds are, that as I type this, someone on our writing staff is building or planning to build a new crazy structure on our multiplayer server.

Minecraft for the 360 makes a certain amount of fiscal sense. Let’s assume it’s a downloadable release. According to Xbox mouthpiece Major Nelson, Xbox Live has 35 million active users. If even 10% of them buy Minecraft (a tall order, no doubt), that would more than double the current number of paid Minecraft accounts (roughly 2.5 million).

Making the deal more enticing is the rumor that Minecraft would feature cross-platform play. You could play on your PC; I’d join you from my 360.

On paper, everybody wins. But a closer look at the logistics required for this to work makes me wonder if we aren’t undercutting one of Minecraft’s primary appeals: the undiluted whims of its creator, Notch.

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A Decade of Dreck #55: 88 Minutes

Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.

Pity poor Al Pacino. Still widely considered to be one of the greatest living actors of stage and screen, the guy can't seem to pick good movies to star in. His 1970's heyday well behind him, Pacino still pops up in a great film every now and again, but he acts like a major league batting champion: he only scores a hit a third of the time.

The real tragedy that separates much of the Worst of the Worst featured in this project is not just that the films are ineptly scripted, directed, and acted; it's that they oftentimes represent a squandering of prodigious cinematic talent. Any given Syfy Original Movie or Asylum output is truly terrible and worthy of mockery, but at least they're aiming low and have their tongues firmly in cheek (one hopes). A thriller like 88 Minutes, however? It stars Al Pacino.

That's Al Pacino, Academy Award winner. Al Pacino, Michael Corleone. Al Pacino, Method actor extraordinaire. He's definitely above a gimmicky murder mystery. Or is he? I'm sure that if you raised a human being in an isolated bubble and only let them view Al Pacino's films from let's say the 1990's on, they would imagine that he was a moderately talented actor with sparks of greatness, but nothing remarkable. A future answer to a trivia question perhaps. The truth is Pacino, much like his Fokker-fied Godfather co-star Robert De Niro, may be a relic of an earlier era of cinema. Or maybe he's just struggling as he ages. I probably couldn't say, but he surely deserves better than 88 Minutes (or Gigli, for that matter).

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 110 - The Flaming Lips

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

 

I had never heard of Zaireeka before I started doing some reading about the Flaming Lips in preparation for this week. But once I knew of its existence, I knew that this week wouldn't be complete without listening to the album at least once, the way it was meant to be heard.

 

For the uninitiated, Zaireeka is a quadruple album that only managed to sneak into existence because record company politics at Warner Brothers were tumultuous enough in 1997 that the Lips could sneak this under the radar in the guise of preparing for their real next album (which would eventually become 1999's The Soft Bulletin). The four CDs are meant to be listened to simultaneously, on four different sound systems. Each CD has one-quarter of the album's music; listening to a single disc will merit only long silences and bass riffs without context; all four discs will yield a surround-sound experience that allows you to utilize volume controls to bring out certain aspects of the music. No one seems to know what to make of the album; NME called it a "work of genius" while Pitchfork dropped the 0.0 hammer, putting it in the category of "completely useless things no one should have bothered with."

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After the Jump: Not the Normal People

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Craig and I were gone this week. We were at a lovely, lovely wedding for two of our lovely, lovely friends while all of you losers were sitting at home watching Squidbillies reruns. Do you like apples? Well how do you like those apples?!

Special occasions or no, the podcast must go on, so we enlisted the help of three of our finest flunkies (Boivin, Giaco, and Jordasch) to make the 'cast happen in our absence. I have not yet listened to the result, so what you're getting is pure and uncut and completely not my responsibility (unless it's great, in which case you're welcome).

On their docket: Tracy Morgan's homophobic rant, E3, the DC Comics reboot, the (adjective) death of one of the creators of Mad Libs, and more.

Thanks for listening, as always! See you next week! Continue...

Saturday Morning TV: Windows 386

This was used to sell W-W-W-W-Windows to businesses.

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Television Review: BBC's "Sherlock"

Sherlock Holmes is one of those subjects where the concept has long outgrown the original source material. People who have never read one of Doyle's short stories still can pull up a detailed image of Holmes and Watson in the mind's eye. The fog-laden streets of Victorian London, the cool demeanor of the pipe-smoking detective, the flustered, bumbling, easily befuddled sidekick that is Watson, the magnifying glass used to hunt down those elusive clues, and the cries of "Elementary!"

Except that, well, most of these traits, considered the bedrock of Sherlockiana, really stem from the Bruce/Rathbone films of the 1940s. Doyle's original stories, on the other hand, featured a womanizing ladies man of a Watson, a cocaine-addicted Holmes who was ignorant of heliocentric theory, and a good deal of shoot-outs, boat chases, and fistfights to accompany the ever-important science of deduction. 

As a kid, I loved reading the Doyle stories, and in turn I became something of a Sherlock Holmes hipster, criticizing any Holmes adaptation that was not akin to the original books, and bitching about Watson used to be cool until Nigel Bruce came along and ruined everything. I flat out avoided the 2009 Robert Downey, Jr. film, even though it looked like fun, because of my dislike of turning my beloved Sherlock Holmes into some sort of farcical romp through a whitewashed London. The original Holmes fought against Germans, bigots and Mormons, among others, and if the film wasn't based on Doyle's stories, I wanted none of it. 

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E3 Recap: BioShock Infinite: EFFIN HOT INDEED

I've never played any of the BioShock games personally. The closest I've come to the franchise is watching an esteemed editor of this blog play the first installment on his Power PC, and I remember being genuinely wowed by the smooth design, cool special powers, and creepy ambience of the underwater city of Rapture. I didn't have a next-gen system at that point, and thus didn't consider the game for myself. Repeat that line of reasoning for last year's sequel, BioShock 2. But today is a new day, where I have access to the necessary hardware to play the newest game in the series. And I had the good fortune to have my interest piqued by the very people who developed the game itself!

BioShock Infinite was originally (2008) set to be a big-budget studio movie with Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) at the helm. But his proposed $400 million budget and inability to dumb the mature content of the game down to a PG-13 rating insured the project's demise earlier this year. The new game version from Irrational Games and 2K Games is still going strong, however, and thanks to a boatload of hype and a super-sexy demo, is quickly becoming one of the hottest topics at E3 2011.

The screening room for the demo was modeled after a smoking lounge of the early 20th century. Dim lighting reflected off plush, red leather couches, all facing a cabinet of rich wood on which was mounted an anachronistic HD TV monitor. The room was packed with VIPs and journalists, so packed that even such entertainment heavies as Jon Heder had to settle for standing room only. Adorning the walls were authentic-looking posters for "Murder of Crows Vigors" and "Bucking Bronco Finest Vigors," which I could only assume referred to items in the game (most likely power-ups). A hush fell over the room as a PR rep warned us not to take pictures or film during the demo, and then turned the presentation over to Shawn Robertson, lead artist at Irrational Games. What he told us contains plot spoilers, but only up to about 1/3 of the way thru the game, where the demo takes place. If you want to be truly surprised by every moment, stop reading here, but know that my overall take away was TWO GIGANTIC THUMBS UP!

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E3 Recap: LittleBigPlanet on the Sony Vita

"So, what game are you interested in playing?" asked the PR rep for Sony who was showing us around the upstairs VIP Vita area. (It's amazing how well you're treated when you have a media pass, a legitimate-looking business card, and are hanging out with the right people.) It was a little overwhelming, surrounded by programmers and developers and celebrities (Zach Levi was broadcasting for Nerd Machine, and Greg Grunberg was enjoying his private demo), not to mention the library of games: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Little Deviants, Virtua Tennis 4... so I decided to go with an old favorite: LittleBigPlanet (working title) from Tarsier Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment.

The original LittleBigPlanet was one of the main reasons that my girlfriend was willing to supplement our previous console of record, the Nintendo Wii, with a PS3 last holiday season. She had played through the game before (on a friend's system), found it adorable and intuitive, and thought that maybe those big scary high-powered HD systems weren't so bad if they could come up with charming material like this every now and then. My goal was to see how the intuitive charm and fun carried over onto a brand-spankin'-new handheld system.

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The Consoles of E3: Thoughts on the PlayStation Vita and Wii U

Last week, I wrote a bunch of doom-and-gloom stuff about the state of the dedicated gaming console, using Sony's new NGP and Nintendo's Project Cafe as a jumping-off point. There's still a lot of stuff there that I think is accurate, but being in the midst of E3 as we are, those feelings have at least temporarily been replaced by the more traditional "NEW CONSOLES OMG."

The NGP is now the PlayStation Vita, and Project Cafe is now the Wii U. Nintendo continues to clear its own path forward with slightly more powerful (though otherwise unremarkable) hardware combined with a crazy-ass new controller, while Sony continues to use its technological superiority as its primary selling point.

The new consoles are really playing to different segments of the gaming market, but they're both new and we're getting new information about both of them at the same time, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to channel my new-gadget-lust into a series of Astute Observations.

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E3 2011, Day 2, 9:19pm

Greg Grunberg is sad that Duke Nukem
Forever is never coming out

Whoo, what a day! After a full day on the show floor and full losing effort at softball, I'm totally wiped out! But I saw a lot from both Nintendo and Sony, and also watched a demo of my nominee for "Best in Show." SPOILER ALERT! It's Bioshock Infinite from 2K and Irrational Games. More about that in my full recap tomorrow. Since I am trying my best to masquerade as a contributing member of society, I have to return to my real job tomorrow, so I won't be at day 3 of the expo. Thus I'll miss a lot of the free stuff - apparently people tend to want to give their shit away rather than pay to ship it back to their home base.

Anyway, I'll start you off now with what I didn't see. Sadly, circumstances prevented me from playing either the new Wii U or Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the regular, dumb Wii, although I did see a lot of both. Zelda looks like a lot of fun, but I've had that type of fun before, and I'm skeptical how this could offer more fun than Ocarina of Time... but we've all been surprised by Nintendo before. The coolest thing I saw regarding the Wii U was how two players could play against each other: one using the Wiimote to control the TV screen and another using the new controller to control the very own personal LCD screen contained in said new controller. Nintendo said they were laying off the gimmicks for this one, and yet... more gimmicks? We'll see how it goes over.

Mars, locking down the
Arkham City demo area

I was lusting after Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but Bethesda was only showing it behind closed doors and all the spots were booked for today. Neither did I get to sample any Kinect titles, although the people in the pods looked so rigid and cramped that I wondered if I would really have that much fun. Apparently Zach Levi played Fable: The Journey and liked it just fine. He and Greg Grunberg were both there, hanging out, taking pictures, and lending a classy celebrity air to the proceedings.

Also, today they opened up the Arkham City demo to the public (any member of the public willing to wait in Disney-esque lines). I didn't get in to see it again, but I did make friends with Mars, one of the gigantic Arkham Security dudes guarding the demo area. He turned out to be pretty chill for someone who could snap me like a twig. I wasn't able, however, to make friends with either of the Duke Nukem girls or Chun-Li over at the Capcom booth. Just my luck...

So tune in tomorrow as I write in-depth about my two most meaningful experiences of the day: playing Little Big Planet on the Sony Vita, and two brand-spankin' new demos from 2K. Continue...

Review: X-Men: First Class

Out of all the Charge Shot!!! writers on our wonderful staff, I wonder if I was the right choice for this review. I don't really know all that much about the X-Men comics (but you can ask me anything about weird second tier Marvel heroes like Sleepwalker or Darkhawk). I grew up, like a lot of us, on the animated series alone. And I have a history of liking any and every type of movie. Be this all as it may, I have seen all four of the other modern X-Men films and this one blows the rest out of the water. No contest, this is the best of the franchise. And you don't have to be a comic fan or purist to like what this movie has to offer. I'm not going to mince words here: this is a cool flick.

I gave an honest go of trying to figure out the actual origins of X-Men. It's the type of thing you have to spend a good week reading and cross-referencing. Some comic fans are bemoaning  the line-up they've put together in this film for the "original" X-Men. But I suppose everyone has a right to complain about everything.

The original line-up in X-Men #1 featured Professor X in charge of Jean Grey, Iceman, Beast (hairless), Cyclops and Angel. The line-up for the new origin film features Professor X leading a young (and good) Mystique, Magneto, Havoc, Banshee, (female) Angel, and Darwin. I'm a fan of a classic story, but this movie has a pretty good line-up of heroes.

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Art House in the Middle of the Street #14: M

There's no grand philosophical project behind Charge Shot!!!'s new feature. Jordasch's mom got him Janus Films' absolutely untouchable Essential Art House box set, and he's going to watch the whole thing. It's a behemoth set, collecting 50 films released since 1956 by one of the first distributors to bring honest-to-goodness world cinema to U.S. shores. The films contained in the collection serve as a crash course in world cinema, encompassing everything from major works of the French New Wave and the Italian Neorealist period to films from lesser-known corners of the filmmaking world, including Brazil and Poland. The collection is 50 discs, weighs 16 pounds, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

Oh the procedural: so formulaic, yet so stunningly popular. The new millennium has yielded an embarrassment of innovative television riches, but it's the procedural that has kept the vast majority of drama-watching Americans enthralled. CBS's slate of grotesque crime dramas has captivated America for the better part of the last decade: CSI, CSI: NY, CSI: Miami, NCIS, NCIS: LA. It almost seems like Jerry Bruckheimer could pick three letters at random and toss a Who song at the front of the credits, and he'd have another hit.

Fritz Lang's M, then, pulls off a neat trick: it is perhaps the founding document of this most odious of genres, and yet it entertained me in a way that no modern crime procedural could approach. It's probably fair to point out that the founders of a particular genre often do it better than any of their imitators, though. If the crime procedural is grunge rock, then NCIS and CSI are Nickelback and Seether.

I guess I found the procedural's Nirvana, then.

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E3 2011, Day 1, 6:53pm

Wow, the Trade Show floors were more hectic than even I was imagining! I'd been to a car show at the LA Convention Center before, but nothing like the wall-to-wall booths packed with exhibitors, fanboys, journalists, booth babes, and tourists (many of whom come from parts of the world where it's socially acceptable to not wear deodorant) just itching for a glimpse at everything new and exciting in the videogame world. I had no time to park myself down and liveblog, but you can follow my adventures via Twitter: @Hunter_S_Batman

Today, I followed by entourage through the West Hall: location of Microsoft's booth and a plethora of third parties, including EA, Activision, Square-Enix, Sega, Ubisoft, THQ, and (wait for it) Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment! In said hall, I witnessed or played such games as Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, and (wait for it) BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY OH YEAH THAT'S RIGHT!

Follow me through the jump for a blow-by-blow account of some of the most exciting/newsworthy events that I was privy to on this, the first day of the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011. Or just skip to the very end for my experience with the Arkham City demo...

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E3 2011, Day 1, 9:51am

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."

-Old Chinese fortune

In college I studied Philosophy, which comes from the Greek for "love of wisdom." Whatever path I was heading towards when I picked that major, careerwise or otherwise, I knew I wanted it to involve this kind of wisdom - the kind attained through journeys and contemplation. And it just so happens that journeys and contemplation are two hallmarks of some of my favorite video games.

So as I commence my trip into E3 2011, I will go as one seeking after wisdom. This could come in the form of knowledge about the videogames and the industry, and insights gained through playing the games themselves.

Because I've never yet played a videogame where I didn't learn something in the process. I don't know if games are art, but I've definitely felt some games affect me in the same way as certain other artistic pursuits.

But enough about how games are enriching, valuable, and wisdom-enhancing activities, time to descend into the madness of the Trade Show Floors.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

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The Sony and Microsoft Keynotes: Two out of E3 Ain’t Bad

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is this week. You may have heard.

It’s tough to find an analogue for E3 in other industries. It’s not an awards ceremony, so toss out the Oscars, etc. It’s not really a celebration of daring new work, so toss out the movie festival circuit. It’s not community-oriented, so toss out your PAXes and your Star Trek cons or what-have-you.

E3 is a commercial. A week-long commercial for what’s coming next in the videogame industry. And because people are actually there and can actually get their hands on the games, it’s sort of like an interactive infomercial.

What would an infomercial be without the peddlers? The suits, the celebrity guests, the enthusiastic extras paid to communicate to the audience just how freakin’ awesome the product on display is.

E3 didn’t officially open until today, yet already a number of companies have delivered their annual keynote addresses. Hit the jump for some reactions to two of the big three: Sony and Microsoft.

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A Decade of Dreck #54: The Perfect Man

Charge Shot!!! is celebrating the end of the decade in the most masochistic way we know how - by watching and writing about the 100 worst movies of the last ten years as defined by film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Click here to see RT's complete list, click here for more about the Decade of Dreck project, and click here to see all of the movies we've done so far.

The Decade of Dreck project takes me to a lot of filmic places I wouldn't normally venture: Yu-Gi-Oh movies, Paris Hilton vehicles, too-many-kids films, Doogal. This week, I go upriver into the heart of darkness that is heartwarming mother/daughter movies. Since I am neither a mother, nor am I a daughter, this one is, once again, outside my area of expertise. There's another one coming up soon, so...ugh.

Remember Hilary Duff? Lizzie McGuire herself? Last time we heard from her here she was one of Christian fundamentalist maniac Steve Martin's dozen children, and apparently 2005 was really a banner year for her because she starred in back-to-back Rotten Tomatoes worst movies of the Aughts!

The Perfect Man (not to be confused with the fourteenth century Sufi philosophical text or the joke from The Venture Bros.) stars Hilary McDuff as Holly, a teenage girl who is sick of her mother (Heather Locklear) moving her and her kid sister to a new town every couple months due to her breaking up with her boyfriends (more on this later). In order to build up her mom's confidence and prevent her from shacking up with the first heartbreak-inducing guy she finds (Mike O'Malley!), Holly invents the titular paragon of masculinity and begins romancing her own mother under via an anonymous secret admirer. But can she keep the charade up? Is Heather Locklear a terrible parent? Do we care?

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Thoughts of an Aspiring Music Snob: Week 109 - Fleet Foxes

Chris is trying to compensate for his lack of musical knowledge by immersing himself in one new artist each week. At the end of the week, he will write up a brief summary of his opinions. You can read about the origin and parameters of this project here.

Sometimes it's fun to go and read music reviews that attempt to play the [Influence A]+[Influence B]=[Current Group of the Week] game. I know from experience that it's difficult to convey what music sounds like through a short critical review, but sometimes I feel that the critics go too far in grasping for comparisons. It's also an easy way to avoid talking about the actual music; I remember when I wrote about Interpol, wading through scores of reviewers arguing over how much of a debt that the band owed to Joy Division. 

Enter the critical reactions to Fleet Foxes. Admittedly, with a band like this, it's fun to play Name the Influence. But there's a point where the equations grow too complex to adequately describe anything. Pretty soon, you're reading about how the band represents something like "Brian Wilson meets Harvest-era Neil Young, with a twist of the Zombies and a dash of Bob Dylan and maybe some Crosby Stills & Nash but not too much." This might all be true, but you could just as easily say that the Fleet Foxes have adopted their own distinct musical style. 

Ultimately, I've found, learning to be a music snob requires learning this sort of language, and quickly being able to grasp what is meant when the critics inevitably bring up Byrds-style guitar work or Pixies-loud-soft-dynamics. The terms aren't necessarily bullshit, and the influences are certainly real. But there's a fine line between using a musical shorthand and completely dropping the ball on even trying to describe the music in question. 

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After the Jump: Aw, Here it Goes!

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Craig and I unite to bring you the podcast on time this week - imagine that!


On the docket: Hot dog cakes, cell phone radiation, Mac viruses, auto tune, E3, and more!


Thanks for listening! See you next week! Continue...