Lots of Monkeys

National Novel Editing Month.

Well, it’s not like I was doing anything for the month of March, anyway.

There is a point that every society strives towards. A point at which the members of that society take a good long look at all that they have accomplished and they can say to themselves, “We have done a fine job. Our people are well fed, they are happy, healthy, and enjoy a government based on intellectual freedom and basic human rights.”

America is never, ever going to get to that point. There are little events that indicate that America will never do anything of import, other than throw its military might around and pretend to be the last bastion of civilized democracy while at the same time whittling away its own citizens’s rights.

Signs that your society is misappropriating its money, time, and energy:

Pseudo Meta-Chinese Takeout.
I don’t know what else to call it. We are all familiar with the shape of the Chinese Take Out box. We know it in our sleep. We root through the fridge in the middle of the night, half conscious, our fingers exploring the deepest recesses of our refrigerators in search of the familiar shape. Past the jar of pickles, past the cheese, past the four pack of beer with a widget, and the pizza box from last Tuesday which may or may not actually contain pizza, lies the white box with the reassuring red pagoda on the white background.

The waxed cardboard trapezoid has saved us from the pangs of late night hunger on many occasions. We pick up the box and play a very strange and not so deadly version of Russian roulette. “Is this the beef with broccoli or the steamed pork dumplings?

The sad part is, the box doesn’t even contain real Chinese food. I knew Chinese food. Chinese Food was a friend of mine. That stuff in the white box–that sir, is most definitely not Chinese food.

So you understand my consternation and incredulity when I spotted this box “in my grocer’s freezer.”

Note the Chinese lettering on the side, lending the box an air of authenticity.
This is a box, shaped like the takeout box from bootleg Chinese restaurants, that doesn’t contain fake Chinese food, but some form of frozen food like substance that is based on fake Chinese food.

My head hurts.

And the Russkies–the frickin’ commies, mind you–have better pop music than we do.

What the hell happened to America?

Yes, the CD gets better and better. What’s incredible is that the whole CD, each and every single track, is above average, in terms of listenability. I’ve been playing it here at work for a quite a while now, and I haven’t found a track that I find annoying.

The Russians may have lost the Cold War, but I fear that we have sadly “misunderestimated” their pop music production abilities. If America doesn’t strike right this minute and contain these girls, I fear for the future of American pop music.

Then again, maybe I just don’t care.

In light of the coming “war” with Iraq, the threat of terrorist acts on our own soil, and shuttles exploding for no good reason, I have to say this:

I think that t.A.T.u is the finest Lolita Lesbian Pop Group to ever come out of Russia.

Right. That said. Over the last few days, t.A.T.u. has been the topic of choice for me and my more music oriented friends. There is certainly no lack of controversy. There’s a brunette. A redhead. School uniforms. There’s some rain. Watch the video. I really don’t have to say much of anything if you watch the video.

Intrigued with the background traffic regarding t.A.T.u. that I picked up talking to people on the ‘net–I bought the CD. I even went to one of those, “music stores” instead of buying it online. It was humorously humiliating. I’m not sure if that was more from picking something up from the “Hot Hits” rack, or the withering look I was getting from the cash register girl. Regardless, on to a quick take of the music itself.

The CD is only eleven tracks, (more like nine, really–two of them are the original Russian versions of the US Releases) but like I stated above, there’s a music video because it’s an “Enhanced” CD. Mostly, it’s eurotrashy catchy goodness. They can’t really sing, as they constantly stay in the little girl register. Apparently this is something that’s typical of female Russian pop stars, according to explodingcat. On the other hand, can American popstars really sing? t.A.T.u. has a good beat and it’s well produced. Some vocoding hides the fact that they can’t sing, and I can’t see myself really getting sick of it yet. This is the third fourth listening, and no signs of stopping.

t.A.T.u. is something I’ll be popping into my MiniDisc and listening to in between all the other pop music that I have from Japan and. . . uh, Japan.

In summary: If you like eurotrash (and who doesn’t every now and again?) and a really, really good Marketing Gimmick (krasota calls them, “Mmmm, yummy”), give them a listen.

*cough* Lolita Lesbians

Snow day.

But if you’ve been keeping up with the weather in the region, you’ll find that even those of you with, “grown up jobs” probably got the day off as well. It’s been snowing continuously for what feels like at least, forty-eight hours. There’s a foot and a half of snow on my window ledge. I look out the window, and it’s still snowing. It’s supposed to keep snowing until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning!

I haven’t seen this much snow since ’93.

Even the very crux of our consumerist society, the shopping mall, is closed.

Staring out the window I see more cars on Connecticut than I should. Not just emergency vehicles and snowplows, but just plain cars.

People: Stay home. What’s so important out there? Read a book. Play some video games.