This list of “secret menu” items from various eating establishments is pretty awesome. I’m particularly impressed to find out that Chipotle and Starbucks actually have an official policy of doing whatever the hell you tell them to with the available ingredients, although I can imagine myself spending way too much time contemplating my next order at both of those places now…
Archive for February, 2007
I’ll have 44 non-dairy creamers and a straw, please
Published February 28th, 2007 in Uncategorized. 1 CommentWell I guess I just had my first taste of the filthy side of this business
Published February 22nd, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments
Man, I had to deal with some crazy stuff while playing Paperboy back in the day, but this shit is ridiculous!
In Collinsville, Ill., Daniel Burrus scrolled through digital photographs of bloodied faces as he described how, on a crew he helped manage for several years, men who missed their sales quota were forced to fight each other.
In Flagstaff, Ariz., Isaac James sat with his wife and newborn daughter as he told how he and others on his mag crew — as they are typically called — stole checkbooks, jewelry, medicine-cabinet drugs and even shoes from customers’ homes.
[Update] I was just reading through the rest of the article and had to share this quote that I came across, from a manager at one of the “clearinghouse” companies:
Mr. Smith said he viewed most stories of drug use and physical abuse as exaggerations. “I don’t put a lot of stock in them because, to be brutally frank with you, abuse is like beauty. It’s in the eyes of the beholder,” he said.
[Update 2]: Ok, and furthermore, what about this one:
“I know it sounds crazy,” Ms. Steele said. “But I believed my manager when he said he would never let that happen again, and I believed him when he said my mom had told him she didn’t care about me.”
Isn’t “Your mom says she doesn’t care about you” what Creepy Guy #2 says in like, the “McGruff Takes a Bite out of Kidnapping and Molestation” comic book that they hand out in 3rd grade or whatever? I think that if I was ever forced to utter or hear such a cliched thing my head would explode!
I read a kind of weird article on the internet this evening, and it made me wonder if a new Avalanches album was ever going to come out.
Turns out things are looking good for 2007. As a “Chinese New Year’s Greeting” on the official forum reads:
its a really thrilling time for us right now as this record comes together, its so fuckin’ party you will die, much more hip hop than you might expect, and while there is still no accurate estimated time of arrival, were sure you’re gonna love it when it arrives.
much of last year was spent cutting up the spoken word/instructional records we need to tell the albums musical story, and we have some 40 odd songs we’re narrowing down and finishing. so its real, it exists, and you know we wouldn’t be serving anything up unless it was gonna give you that same special feeling that “since…” has. funnily enough its ended up sounding like the next logical step to since, we just had to go around in a big circle to get back to where we belong.
and one day when you least expect it you’ll wake up and the sample fairy will have left it under your pillow.
In the meantime, they’ve posted a couple of mixes:
Did I hear a sample from “Somebody Just Poop!” in that first mix? Do mine ears bewitch me with whispers of Xanadu?!?
A little late as usual, but here is the Best Music of 2006 list that I have been collating for the last several weeks. Enjoy!
Dorothy at Forty - Cursive - Happy Hollow
I’ve never really gotten into Cursive before, but this album is pretty damn irresistable. It’s equal parts of Manic Street Preachers, Blood Sweat and Tears & Tim Kasher’s Cursive side-project, The Good Life, all rolled into one crazy funk-rock hybrid. The lyrics are brilliant as well, covering such topics as the Iraq War, sex scandals in the church, creationism v. evolution and a variety of other such politically charged areas. Surprisingly, it’s not at all dull, and as an added bonus, the last track recounts the themes of the ones that precede it, just in case you missed them the first time around. =)
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
I like this song a lot, but it’s really here due to popular demand. Every once in awhile I check my server logs, and ever since I first posted a couple of Muse tracks earlier this year, this one has been consistently near the top of my “frequent http requests” list. In fact, along with another track I’ll get to in a moment, I think it’s been responsible for something crazy like 80 or 90 % of total traffic to my site this year. That’s measured in kilobytes, of course, not individual requests. But still! At any rate, this is a great song to play while you’re destroying galaxies.
Fuck Forever - Babyshambles - Down in Albion
Most of the Babyshambles album was pretty forgettable, but this one and the other single (Killamangiro) stuck pretty good. Fuck Forever gets the nod here mainly due to having “Fuck” in the title, and also for Pete’s delivery of the line “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand….. To make you toe the line.” The slightly unhinged drumming didn’t hurt either. But I could do without all of that stuff if Pete would just clean up a little bit and cut an album that sounds anywhere near as good as the Acousticalullaby demos from several years back, because the version of “Albion” on Down in Albion blows major ass compared to the one on the demos.
Clouds - Go Betweens - Striped Sunlight Sound
I had never heard of these guys before one of the founding members died in mid-2006, shortly after the band released this career spanning live album. Their music may be a little too wuss-rock for some tastes, but hey… you don’t have to go around *telling* everybody how much you like it, just keep it on hand for when you need to de-stress. =) This particular song gets high marks for borrowing a few lines from one of my favorite Dylan songs (Love Minus Zero/No Limit) and also for having god-damn perfect harmony vocals.
Let Down - Toots & The Maytals - Radiodread
You could be forgiven for assuming that a reggae tribute to Radiohead would suck but I’m here to tell you that it’s actually, shockingly good. This track in particular is absolutely amazing in it’s ability to transform one of the biggest downers in the Radiohead catalog into something resembling pure joy. One wonders about the type of music Thom Yorke might have produced if he’d grown up in a less rain-soaked climate.
Seven Day Smile - Jane Weaver - Seven Day Smile
A bit of a cheat here, as I believe this album was recorded several years ago and shelved for some reason. But it did get an official release this year, so I’d say it qualifies for the list. As I said when I posted some tracks from the album previously, it features production work by Andy Votel and the session band is the frickin’ Doves. What else do you need to know?
Nature’s Law - Embrace - This New Day
Here’s the other half of my “bandwidth-hog” award. This song has been downloaded an extrodinary amount since I first posted it and so I think we should all listen to it now and try to work out why. Did Embrace make it big in the US off this album? I kind of stopped paying attention. At any rate they really deserve to because this rocks all over Snow Patrol and all those other British “string rock” bands that have successfully gained a foothold here of late.
Nettie Moore - Bob Dylan - Modern Times
You could *also* be forgiven for ignoring Dylan’s recent output for any number of reasons (his voice, his early-to-mid 80’s work, etc.) but again, I’m just here to say… Give it a shot. Dylan’s been in some kind of deep groove lately and this album, recorded with his touring band captures it pretty well. His voice is in surprisingly good shape, and he takes it easy for much of this album, letting songs slowly stretch out to 6+ minutes. Nothing fancy at all going on here; just subtle, bluesy playing and some more of Dylan’s usual quasi-apocalyptic lyrics. Is he singing about a failed relationship, his own advancing years or just the end of the world? It’s hard to say.
Golden Cage - Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
Erlend Øye *is* a total (white) nerd, but I think that the combined output of his various musical projects qualifies him as one of the “coolest” people alive too, so he can pretty much do what he wants. This album fits nicely between his super-folky stuff as part of the Kings of Convenience and his more dance-oriented solo work. There’s a beat, but it’s totally your call on whether you want to dance or just sit and listen to the music. I recommend trying each way a couple of times. Also good for bike riding when it’s warm outside.
Yo-Yo Tricks - Fred Thomas - Sink Like A Symphony
Probably sometime in the next few years Fred Thomas will get his “Saturday Looks Good to Me” project back together and they’ll have a huge breakthrough album, a la Modest Mouse’s Good News for People who Love Bad News, but in the meantime we’ll have to content ourselves with this solo album (and 2005’s Every Night). It’s hell of unpolished, with vocal and instrumental cock-ups all over the place but that doesn’t mean it’s not perfect.
Everything - Casey Dienel - Daytrotter Sessions (also Wind-up Canary)
Songs about the sea make me happy, I have to admit. Songs that draw big, sloppy parallels between the sea, music and love & life itself get bonus points. Add in a nicely restrained self-accompaniment on solo piano and you’ve created a perfect storm of awesome.
Dead End Mystery - Sondre Lerche - Duper Sessions
While waiting for the “rock” follow-up album to Sondre Lerche’s 2004 album, “Two Way Monologue,” we got to enjoy this collection of jazz covers and originals that he cut with his “other” project, The Faces Down Quartet. It’s a nice mix of uptempo tracks and slower songs, like this one. His vocals are kind of Chet Baker in style, but a little less rough around the edges.
Baby’s Coming Back to Me - Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
I wish I could post more tracks from Jarvis Cocker’s solo album here, but in keeping with the format of the list I will post just this one. But perhaps a follow-up post is in order because this album is all over the map. And is it cheating if I insist that you watch the music video for another Jarvis song? I think not!
That’s How Things Get Done - Howe Gelb - ‘Sno Angel Like You
Seems like forever ago that this album came out, but I checked and it was actually in 2006. Crazy. Anyhow I’ve posted on this one here before, but it’s easily among the best from the past year, so here it is again. Howe Gelb of Giant Sand got together with the Voices of Praise gospel choir, after meeting them at a blues festival and the result was this album. I never really got into Giant Sand before this album, but now I am totally sold. Awesome stuff!
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - J Spaceman - Live at Salford (boot)
J Spaceman of Spiritualized had a brush with death last year. More than a brush, I suppose, as he was revived on two occasions after his heart stopped beating, during a case of double pnuemonia. Anyway, he made a complete recovery and headed back out onto the road with a band consisting of himself on acoustic guitar, a keyboardist, a few gospel singers and a string section. The results, as you can hear, were pretty spectacular. This is a nice (quieter) companion piece to the previous Spiritualized live album, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1997.
We Share Our Mother’s Health - The Knife - Silent Shout
To paraphrase Barney Gumble: “I don’t know where these pixies came from, but I like their pixie drink!” (Sweden, I think… actually) This song is a bit… unsettling at first. But don’t worry, your brain will reconfigure itself pretty quickly and you’ll eventually reach the point where “We came down from the north… Blue hands and a torch…” starts running through your head at stoplights and on elevators.
Don’t Need A Leash - The Tyde - Three’s Co.
Another seafaring song of sorts here. I was initially super impressed by The Tyde’s 3rd album, but on further reflection there’s nothing as classic as “Silver’s Okay Michelle” from Once or “Blood Brothers” from Twice here. Regardless, the whole set is catchy as hell and I’m still shocked that these guys haven’t sold more songs to movies and commercials. Or maybe they have and I just wasn’t paying attention. But anyway, the production work on this album is gorgeous. Check out the quiet synth and guitar textures on this song.
Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up. It was a pretty good year, dontcha think? (Parts anyhow…) Guess the only thing left to do is download the whole thing as a ZIP.
Also, in the event that your collection of my previous “Best of…” and other MP3 compilations is perhaps incomplete, I have created a new category for easy access to past (and future) complations. Here it is:
Was discussing the “Don’t ask employees to be passionate about the company!” link from a previous post with Mike the other day and we got off onto a tangent about the difference between “managers” and “other employees.” The gist of our discussion was that managers don’t actually “produce” anything, but that’s OK because their job is not to “do” work, but to facilitate the work being by artists, programmers, file clerks, & etc. When this dichotomy is working properly, it frees the “non-managers” up to geek out on the technical or creative aspects of their work, without worrying about mundane details like whether there’s enough blank CD-Rs in the supply room, or big picture issues like whether all the parts of the project fit together as a coherent whole. Not to say that artists and programmers *can’t* figure this stuff out for themselves, or *shouldn’t* have an idea what’s going on outside their area of specialization, just that it shouldn’t occupy the majority of their time at work.
Joel on Software wrote a pretty great article on this topic awhile ago, and even though it’s targeted largely at issues that pertain specifically to programmers, I think his points can apply equally well to other disciplines that require a high level of concentration. For a slightly broader look at the situation, we can turn to this recently published essay by Paul Graham about the difference between “wisdom” and “intelligence.” It’s a deliberately provocative look at whether wisdom, which has traditionally been regarded as the more balanced and “virtuous” of the two traits, is facing obsolescence in our highly specialized society. I can’t bring myself to agree with everything Graham writes here, but I don’t think that’s really the point of his argument. The more clearly we understand the difference between wisdom and intelligence, he hypothesizes, the more comfortable we will be with the role each plays in our work and our lives.
Reading Chowhound today about a new meat-pie place in SF and I found out that there is *another* meat-pie place that has been here the entire time I’ve lived here! How is it that nobody has told me about this?! Am I not always going on and on about how much I love meat-pies and how the place in Alameda with meat-pies is the only one I know of around here?!
Went to go pick up the keys to my new apartment (yay!) today and they said they didn’t have them! Apparently some workman was over there cleaning up and hadn’t brought them back yet. Whatever, that’s fine. I’m not planning to move until this weekend anyway and they said they’ll call me once they track the guy down and get him to bring in the keys. But anyway, so I walk outside to where I’ve been parked at a meter for all of 3 minutes and find a guy putting a ticket on my car! I walk up and say, “Good morning!” in my friendliest voice and he’s all, “Just a minute, sir.” while he finishes writing out the ticket. Then as he hands it to me, he says, “Sorry…” Yeah, I’m sure you are. Finally, as I got to get back on the freeway to go to work, I find the ramp blocked by some crazy accident and I have to go down several miles to the next entrance. Anyway, point is I am *still* in a good mood because I am going to be moving into my new place soon and that is basically all I have wanted for the last several months. But why must I be fortune’s fool in the meantime?!
Slashdot thread from 10/23/01 (Birth of the iPod)
I’m using this crazy thing called IMified that lets you post to blogs and / or To Do lists directly from IM. If this actually works as intended, I am pretty much hooked. Yay for XML-RPC!!
The British are coming:
Until now, Britain’s largest retailer has been tight-lipped about its entrance into the United States, where it will first put stores in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas
The chain’s emphasis will be on fresh produce and healthful, ready-to-eat meals sold for affordable prices, Mason said. It will stock common American brands and Tesco’s private label products, plus beer and wine, but not British food.
“It is not a funny specialty store that sells imported things that a few Brits have a hankering for,” Mason said. “It is very deliberately designed to meet the needs of the 21st-century American consumer.”
Listen you Tesco bastards… You better bring me some goddamn squash or there is going to be trouble!
