StumbleUpon | ElForko's blog posts

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/31604143/

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:16:57 -0700

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html

"What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?

Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest."

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/25237223/

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:23:54 -0700

They run around the country spreading lies and don't care when the media (rather timidly) calls them out on it. They just ignore it. Palin will never have to give a serious interview so why does she care. In the debate she'll just hide these lies with other lies. Anyway, the Obama campaign is hitting back:

Here are the facts ...

Sarah Palin was a vocal supporter of the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" -- the symbol of the Republican culture of corruption -- turning her back on it only after the project's bloated pork-barrel waste was exposed.

Their ad also claims John McCain has "reformed" Washington -- which would undoubtedly come as a surprise to the Washington lobbyists who are running his campaign and the special interests who have been funding it.

The most "maverick" thing about these two politicians right now is that they continue to support George Bush's disastrous policies long after we have all seen the damage they are doing to our country."

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/23384248/

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:17:03 -0700

Oh oh, I just hit the friend limit. I guess it's a good idea to have one, but this means I either need to clean house or stop stumbling people/adding those that add me. OH THE HUMANITY!

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/22416529/

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:29:15 -0700

The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

[A rather unprofessional and recreational review of an album by a band that I like. I'm not even going to edit this baby.]

Recommended Songs:

One For The Cutters

Stay Positive

Slapped Actress

It didn't seem much different, up until this one little song...

The Hold Steady really did everything right in making Separation Sunday [and before that, to an extent, Almost Killed Me]. Sounding rather unique and weaving an amazing tale of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and ... Catholicism at the same time really doesn't seem like a easy thing to do, but they made it seem easy.

Then they released Boys and Girls in America. The bar band, speak-along, everyman band turned preachy and rather bland to me. I know some people liked it, but I did not. Maybe I'm just fickle, or I'm not a die hard fan, but whatever. That's my position and I'm sticking to it!

No more, however! Their new album isn't perfect as several songs just don't hold up to the pressure, but as a whole this album has made up lost ground from their previous endeavor.

The title track - Stay Positive -, while still somewhat preachy, is actually one of the best songs. The closing track Slapped Actress is my favorite, while One For The Cutters has a terrible title but is a wonderfully interesting song where the band gathers some of their great narrative skills and puts them to good use [I won't mention if any previous characters return, though he has to reference his previous songs at least once as you well know.].

Joke About Jamaica, Constructive Summer, and Lord, I'm Discouraged are second tier but still great. The rest are either good or the one or two bad apples in the bunch.

They also manage to recover the religious organ/piano/overall sound and reclaim it after a lull.

Also interesting and somewhat new is the use of background vocals [I've grown used to the weird sounding dude who sounds as if he got punched in the balls before singing his part. I don't even know who that is]. I think they've used this previously (in the same way), but I'm not entirely sure. Either way the choir is also a good touch. Especially the conclusion of the album. That's not new either, I'm sure, though I need to listen to the previous albums again before I get really concrete on the details.

The last song is very important to me liking an album, and this one really pulled it off. Overall I give this album a 3.5/5, but I'm terrible at ratings!

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/20663229/

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:09:13 -0700

ElForko's Musical Extravaganza!

So the Wolf Parade album is out in the wilds of the Internet. Clearly the expectations were high and everyone so far has jumped to the comparisons with Apologies quickly, but that is clearly the wrong course.

So, this is actually Sunset Rubdown...
...I have no pictures of Wolf Parade live.

Since 2005 the members have had all these other projects which impacted this new direction and its pretty easy to hear. All of Spencer's songs seem to sound like Sunset Rubdown; all of Boeckner's is Handsome Furs. Of course that's an oversimplification and completely untrue in my eyes. I remember this quote from the beginning of the year: "There's more Marxist collective-style collaboration on this one." The band is like a "man who lives in a cabin in the woods penning letters to God with dirt and tree sap."

That's completely right (he should know, he worked to make the whole thing!). It's a collaboration, stupid! No one should have to say these things.

Anyway, first impressions were high for Language City and California Dreamer (which I have been listening to for a few days or perhaps a week so far). California Dreamer, to me, is like Sunset Rubdown being asked to create the soundtrack to a cop comedy from the 80s (Beverly Hills Cop, anybody?) or, perhaps less hilariously, the music for the videogame Crusin'. (I played a lot of that in my younger years.)

The Grey Estates was one of the two songs that I hadn't heard in live version before today. It's a very strange song to look at through the normal Wolf Parade lens. There's a whole poppy sort of floating melody going on in the background that is rather alien to Wolf Parade (...say it with me: collaboration!).

Kissing the Beehive is the epic of this album. It has so much going on that I haven't had a chance to understand it at all. I feel like Hiram Bingham! Anyway, it's symbolic of this collaboration idea and really shows the different approach to songs this time around. They're longer, for one, and seem to (on first impression) be less guitar based. And no, I haven't read the book it takes its name from.

In looking at length, I note that the At Mount Zoomer has only 9 songs yet is only ONE MINUTE shorter. That's very unimportant, though, in the grand scheme of things. You can tell without looking at album length that the songs are longer!

Despite what a lot of people have said and will say on first impression, this album is still Wolf Parade. It is deeply textured, the songwriting is solid, and it rocks hard. At Mount Zoomer (or Kissing the Beehive [or Pardon My Blues]) has been so worth the wait. Now I wait until I can see the band live in July and treat myself to the real thing!

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/15161741/

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:26:36 -0800

It's amazing how many random things get the "Pornography" tag these days. Every day I see more and more of these horribly mistagged sites. What's up with that? Did the default tag get changed from unknown to porn?

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/13563111/

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:34:34 -0700

I just received my copy of The Broken Remotes' most recent album, Tonight's Last Stand. I recommend anyone who likes my music taste check it out, they're cool. They're also rather unknown by most, though they did get on a CW show (Like that helps?) and are now on itunes, so you can check it out there if you would like. It's strange to say, but I found out about them thanks to some last.fm spam a year or so ago. Yeah.

Another random music comment: if you like things like this you should check out Radio UTD (college radio, so if you're into that at all). They play some good music (into indie, anyone?).

Random real post, but I thought I'd throw it out there since apparently a lot of people have somehow found their way to my page over the past week or so (23 in 1.5-3 days?!).

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/8176674/

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:04:50 -0800

So a huge dust storm blew through earlier. Here's a picture:

And, the sun:

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/7494920/

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:22:59 -0800

Snow day (even though there's no snow)!

http://ElForko.stumbleupon.com/review/4866023/

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:57:58 -0700

Bush is usually the one spying on the media and television viewers, not the other way around. It's ironic, no?