Al Green-Lay It Down

So today I got this phishing email:

MOSTAPHA CHAMBERS & ASSOCIATES.SOLICITORS, ADVOCATES TRADE MARK AGENTS.RUE ST LOUIS 1425 BP,LOME TOGO;

ATTENTION FRIEND:

RE TEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND United Sates Dollars (US$10.500.000.00)

My Name is Mr Alima Mostapha.I am a Legal representative, an Attorney an private account manager to my late client in the Year October 2007, my client by name is Mr. Ambrovic who passed away, leaving behind a cash inheritance of TEN Million Five Hundred Thousand United Sates Dollars ($10,500,000,00).

My late client and bosom friend grew up in a Motherless Babies Home. He had no family, no beneficiary nor next of kin to the inheritance amount left behind in a commercial bank.

The Financial law of inheritance clearly allows for the deceased Bank to use deceased money as deemed fit, should the inheritance money be left unclaimed for a period of thirteen months after the death of the account owner.

The reason that you have been contacted now is because I want to present you as the beneficiary and next of kin to late Mr. Ambrovic .

The Inheritance Law clearly leaves the bonus of proof of who is or is not the next of kin, to the deceased Lawyer to prove. As the deceased Lawyer, the Law says l have the final say of who is the beneficiary of the deceased estate. This is 100% percent legal. As a lawyer I know this.

If you are interested in this proposition and you are ready to keep this proposition in absolute confidentiality and trust, then contact me at once, and we can work out the details, and the issue of your compensation.

I have documents of proof to this.

Regards,

Mr Alima Mostapha,

And I decided to respond to see what happens. Here is my response:

How did you get information to my name? I do not know Mr. Ambrovic so I do not comprehend I could be the benificiary of this welcome happening. Perhaps there is some confusion with the routing director at the Motherless Babies Home? I am sad to hear of the loss of your bosom friend and sorry I could not be of most appropriate assistance in this definitive matter.

Murray David Murgason

I will let you know what happens next. How long will they keep speaking to me?

This Al Green album was actually pretty great. It sounded just like a classic Al Green album, but in some way better because it was more consistently good. I give it 4 Hats!

Coldplay-X&Y, The Buzzbombs-San Diego Shindig

Going out tonight with T-Bull who is visiting from SF. Criff Dogs and then who knows. Perhaps I will score a hit on the LPM. Murray has fallen into a deep depression. I am not sure how to snap him out if it. I guess I might have led him on a little when I hired him, but how was I to know my blog was not about to blow up! He actually tried to quit yesterday (I got sidetracked talking off the ledge, which is why I didn't blog yesterday). Oh, congrats to Will's Brother's Wife or girlfriend for getting written up in the NEW YORK TIMES. That is pretty great. Probably the publicity of that piece, and the mention in my blog, is going to make your show a huge smash hit.

Coldplay was exactly as expected. I guess if you like that sort of thing they are the greatest, although that could probably be said about any band, but certainly a lot of people seem to think they are the greatest. For me they are not. The Buzzbombs was some pretty good garage/retro rock. 2 and 3 stars out of 4.

Heart-Little Queen, Melissa and the Moguls-Ooh La La Hamptons, Foxboro Hot Tubs-Stop Drop and Roll!!!, The Ting Tings-We Started Nothing

Well the long weekend has resulted in a serious lack of Blogging. So much happened this weekend I don't know where to start. Hillary suggested that she is staying in the race in case Obama gets assassinated, Chevy Chase explained to me where the clef in your chin comes from, I went to the sub-basement, saw fireworks, had dinner and two breakfasts at the Red Hook Diner, had a mini high-school reunion/cookout at my house and I walked all over NYC just to find a broken viewmaster. Also I saw gas at over $5 a gallon, I saw a little person selling pretzels (the LPM is now at 4) I saw a skin care place called Skintology (what is the "t" all about?), I heard Charles Rangle speak, and played a few games of 4 square.

I also listened to 4 albums. The Heart album was pretty good, and I also discovered that they were Canadian. Melissa and Moguls started out real good and the took an turn for the much worse. Foxoboro Hot Tubs was fairly solid retro rock and the Ting Tings were really excellent. 3,1,2.8 and 3.5 stars (out of 4).

Jake Shimabukuro-Gently Weeps

One of the drawbacks of having an imaginary intern, as opposed to a real intern is that they can't actually do an work for you, unless your really do it yourself. Today would have been a perfect day for Murray's Musings, because I am trying to leave work early and get out of town, but unfortunately I don't have time to write this imaginary guest column. It is coming though I promise!

Jake Shimabukuro is some sort of Hawaiian music star who play a mean ukulele, or so I have read. This album is almost all acoustic guitar. It starts out with a pretty great instrumental acoustic guitar cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by the Beatles. Unfortunately the rest of the album does not live up to the promise of the first track. 2.5 Hats.

Roxy Music-Roxy Music

Well it seems the press, or the interpress (not sure what we are going to call the press once presses becomes things of the past, I guess we will still them the press, like Films, Albums and TV Dials, or maybe "The Media" but I am not sure that works) is finally catching on to Hillary's wonky popular vote count. Slate has a few pieces outlining how her claim to be ahead in the popular vote requires giving her the votes in Michigan, and giving Obama no votes from Michigan. I am sure I have covered this before, but this whole popular vote argument in bunk anyhow. Caucuses are representations of popular vote and should not be counted as single votes but as representation of a larger whole, which is why we have delegates in the first place. The general election is a different story, because there are no caucuses, so the popular vote is a true representation of the will of the people. Boy I could go on about this stuff for hours, but I won't because Murray needs to use the computer. I will just make one more point, which is if Hillary is so worried about counting every vote, and disenfranchising the people of Florida and Michigan, why did she sign an agreement before the elections stating that those votes would not count? Where was her outrage then? It seems to me the only votes Hillary wants to make sure get counted are the ones for her.

I was avoiding this Roxy Music album, I guess because of that song Avalon, which I find pretty boring. The first couple of songs off of this album I liked quite a bit though. After that less so. C+ for Roxy Music.

Sweet-Desolation Boulevard

Well Murray is pretty bored today. I basically promised him he would be really busy managing my comments section, and then today, nada. I am trying to keep him busy doing little things around my office, but he is protesting. He claims that he was hired in a "management" position. He asked me to have his own feature in the Blog, called Murray's Musings. I am thinking about allowing it...

Sweet I think is a one hit wonder, Ballroom Blitz. Which is on Desolation Boulevard. The rest of the album is not nearly as good as the one hit. It is always interesting how a band can have one great song, or one great album and then totally suck. It doesn't seem to happen to much in other art forms. Sure I can think of some examples, The Warchowski (sp?) Brothers in movies for example, but not like music. Anyhow one hit does not a 4 hat album make. 2 hats.

Ian Hunter-Ian Hunter

Today is a big day. It is the first day I got a comment from somebody I did not know. So for the folks over at the Tokio Hotel America blog, I WILL listen to the album again, and yes I am intrigued to hear the album in German. I am not sure if this is a fluke, or the beginning of my blog becoming an international sensation, but either way I think I will probably need to hire an intern soon to start managing the comments section. Until that time I am creating a fictional intern named Murray. Murray will now respond to all comments on behalf of me. Also Murray is managing my new project, the "Little People Meter". The "Little People Meter" or LPM will be tracking how many little people I have I have seen. I started this project on Friday May 9th, and I have seen 3 little people so far. At some point I will have Murray create an actual meter which I will somehow embed on this page so you can track the LPM in real time.
Ian Hunter was in the Mott the Hoople who I can't really say I know anything about. If I didn't know any better I would have said Mott the Hoople was a band from the 80s, but Murray has informed me that Mott the Hoople was formed in 1969 and broke up in 1974. In 1975 Ian Hunter released his self title debut album, which was pretty boring. 2 stars (out of five).

Tokio Hotel-Scream, Jason Mraz-We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, Spanky Wilson-I'm Thankful

OK so sometimes people tell me they have read my Blog. Well if you read my Blog PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT. Otherwise how am I supposed to know people are reading? I am operating under the assumption that I have two readers, one who doesn't live in this country, and one who live in my room. If I was aware of more readers I might TURN MY GAME UP a little. I might not, but you won't know until you tell me. Oh I mentioned this to one of my readers yesterday (the one who lives with me), but I was thinking about how when you are in the checkout line at the supermarket and you put your stuff on the belt, how the person in front of you often makes a big deal of making sure it is clear your items are separate (even if you have already place that bar on the belt). So the question is what they are afraid of. It seems like they think I am trying to run a scam where they pay for my groceries. But of course that would not work because they would take my groceries home with them. So shouldn't they accept that we both have a vested interest in keeping our groceries separate.
Tokio Hotel felt like the soundtrack to some bad movie with a bad soundtrack. It was overwrought, and just not that good. Jason Mraz was actually surprisingly good. I feel like I need to listen to it one more time to give a final opinion, but I liked the music and the lyrics were humorous and fun. Spanky Wilson is I guess an soul/R&B singer from the 60's who put this album out in the Aughts, but it sounds like it is from the 60s. It was very good. So the scores are D, B and B+.

Randy Newman-Sail Away

One of the things about blogging is that you feel obligated to blog even when you don't feel like blogging at all. Today I am very tired because of poker last night, plus I have a whole lot on my mind which is not blog appropriate, which leaves me with not much to blog on. I did want to thank Gene for giving me an umbrella today, that was very nice. Bumped into him the lobby of my building and he just gave it to me. Also I guess I should mention how good I am becoming a Foosehockey. We have a table here at work, and I am really playing some good foosehockey. Anyhow sorry today isn't more interesting.
Everybody knows Randy Newman from Short People and from his academy award winning music for the animated movies. As a singer/songwriter he is really quite good, and his funny voice adds something to the music. Three hats.

Elvis Costello-Momofuku, No Age-Nouns

Well first of all I would like to pat myself on the back for my bold prediction last week. Clinton did win WV by a landslide and a fair number of articles did pop up questioning what the big loss meant for Obama. It was not quite the "comeback kid" articles I had feared, but there was enough in there to support my point, that once again there was NO SURPRISE in the final numbers in WV, Obama didn't even go campaign there, so why write an article about the surprising implications of the Clinton landslide. What I found most interesting was the 7% who voted for Edwards. I read that 7%, or 70% of that 7% as voters who hate Clinton but refuse to vote for a black candidate. That is a pretty scary number because if you have to figure a large percentage of the people who are Democrats who wont vote for a black guy would vote for the person who might have a chance (albeit infinitesimally small) to win. I am hoping that huge turnout from the black community will offset this in the General election. The one other political point I wanted to mention was this question of how Clinton can win the popular vote. When referenced in the news they usually say something like "by some counts, Clinton still could catch Obama in the popular vote". Now I haven't actually seen what these counts but I SUSPECT that the count in which Clinton wins includes counting the pro-Clinton votes in Michigan (where Obama was not on the ballot) and NOT COUNTING the "Other" votes in Michigan for Obama. Well to me that seems like a really big stretch. If anybody knows anything more about this please let me know.
The new Elvis Costello album was supposedly recorded in something like 2 hours on minidisc player and is being heralded as a return to his roots. Well usually when you listen to those types of albums "returns to greatness" they suck just as much as all the other recent albums by the aging artist. In this case though I think this is a little better than that. It was pretty good, and sounded close to a classic Elvis Costello album. I don't know much about No Age but I didn't really like them too much. The man is applauding happily, and the 1 hat.

Van Dyke Parks-Discover America

I had an all day meeting today so not a lot of time for blogging. I should mention my daughter Lucy went bowling yesterday for the first time ever with her school, and she told me she got two scores, which I think is about as well as Barak Obama did, but I am not sure.
Van Dyke Parks was pretty great. This album is described as a tribute to calypso music, but to me it was just pretty unusual and cool. 3.5 stars.

She and Him-Sentimental Heart, The Last Shadow Puppets-The age of Understatement, Neil Diamond-Home Before Dark

Happy day after mothers day. Our mother's day weekend was kind of shot by the fact that Sarah and I both got sick. On the plus side we both got some antibiotics and are starting to feel better. Monday's is usually free food day in our office. They have a weekly meeting on Mondays, and they always get too much food, and we all wait around until we get the word that it is OK to go scavenge for food, then we all go freaking nuts! Usually by now I have gotten the word, but today no such luck. Oh, and I saw parts of Evan Almighty last night, and that is one crazy religious movie. I kind of enjoyed Bruce Almighty, but if I remember correctly Bruce made his girlfriends breasts larger with his almighty powers. Well first of all Evan doesn't really get Almighty powers, he just gets a long white beard, and he turns into Noah, kind of. But more importantly he learns a lot about how great god is. Anyhow don't see it if you don't have to.
She and Him is the album by Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward. Deschanel is an actress you may know her from Elf and I guess M. Ward is some sort of indie star. Anyhow the album was really quite enjoyable. Last Shadow Puppets is also a supergroup of sorts, with the lead singer from Artic Monkeys and a guy from The Rascals. This one was not as good. It seemed more like a vanity project than a good rock and roll album. Finally Neil Diamond continues his collaboration with Rick Rubin and it is another fine album. These albums are not as good the Rick Rubin/Johnny Cash albums but they are way better than anything Diamond has done in years, and they kind of grow on you. Two Thumbs up, Two Hats (remember the hat lady!) and Three Stars!

David Cassidy-Rock Me Baby

I have a bit of a headache today. But I am looking forward to night out with a group of people who are not parents. No kiddie talk tonight! Also perhaps a chance to play some poker this weekend which would be nice. Oh I watched that guy who hates bloggers last night (see my earlier post) and boy was he one angry dude. I know I linked to some follow up on that, but it also fits nicely with my post the other day about the media. The traditional media reacts to blogs like it is the "wild west" without "ethics", but the traditional media, in my opinion, is pretty bad these days, so I am not sure Blogs (with the exception of this one) look much worse. Facts don't get in the way of either medium (with the exception of this blog of course, which is thoroughly fact checked, or at least usually spell checked) and bias is evident in all forms. I don't believe in the "liberal media bias" or that is to say, I do believe the media as a whole is probably made up of more liberals than conservatives, in the ranks of reporters and editors, but of course the conglomerates that own the are by and large run by conservatives. AND I think the liberals feel a duty to try and be "fair and balanced" and often err on the side of actually being too conservative, especially in regards to not being critical enough of the information they report. If somebody is lying (say the president) you should report that he is lying, not just what he said. The story is not his words, but his actions, his lies. The media rarely does that.

David Cassidy of the Partridge Family was also a solo musician. He was not very good. 1.5 stars.

Mudcrutch-Scare Easy

$1 off Any Combo. The Best Grilled Chicken on Earth. Chicken Tenders Combo, Crispy-breaded all-white chicken tenders served with your choice of dipping sauce. Served with medium drink and medium fries. Chicken Teriyaki Rice Bowl Combo, Sliced flame-grilled chicken rice and our signature teriyaki sauce. Served with medium drink. I got this crazy religious flyer on the street yesterday and I planned on reprinting (republising) it here today but somehow I lost it, and all that was in my bag was a $1 off coupon for Ranch 1, so that's what you get today!
Mudcrutch is Tom Petty's band before the heartbreakers, and they just reformed to put out this Scare Easy album. It was pretty good rock and roll, better than most Tom Petty if you ask me. Two thumbs up.

PS "Teriyaki" is not in the spell checker, but "eat her" is...

Stanley Jordan-Magic Touch

Time for Hillary to give up. She can't win. She is making herself look bad and hurting the democratic party. The national news media has seemed to finally turn the corner on this. BUT here is my bold prediction. Hillary does not drop out, she wins West Virginia and whatever the next primary is by fairly large margins (as predicted based on the demographics) and the media starts reporting how Hillary is the comeback kid once again. And this to me is really what the problem with the media is these days. They know NOW that Hillary is going to win those contests by a wide margin, so either they should not be writing today that Hillary is done, or they should not act surprised or like the story has changed in two weeks when Hillary has swept those contests. AM I BOLD OR WHAT?
Stanley Jordan is some kind of Jazzy guitarist who doesn't strum (hence the magic fingers which tap on the fret, I think). It was somewhat promising eventually ventured too heavily into the light jazz arena. The little man is asleep in his chair (graphics coming, I promise!)

Lady Antebellum-Lady Antebellum

So what the heck is a cyclone? Am I crazy, or is this the first news story to talk about a cyclone instead of a hurricane or a tornado? According to wikipedia "A tornado is also commonly referred to as a twister, and is also sometimes referred to by the old-fashioned colloquial term cyclone" so are we talking about a colloquial tornado? There also seems to be something called a tropical cyclone (or hurricane). Anyhow am I the only person who has noticed this? Are we moving back to the colloquial? Also according to wikipedia "The generic term covers a wide variety of meteorological phenomena. These include tropical cyclones,and extratropical cyclones, so meteorologists rarely use "cyclone" without additional qualification." Now I don't expect the world to follow the strict rules of meteorologists, but this is really strange, and I want to get to the bottom of it. PLEASE if you READ this BLOG opine in the comments section as to why the hell all of a sudden this thing is called a cyclone. Based on your feedback I will determine the correct answer and let you know (shortly after the awards are announced!)
Lady Antebelleum is New Country. I have tried a few times to give this New Country business a chance, but every time is disappoints. New Country sucks. The little man has left his chair.

Flight of the Conchords- Flight of the Conchords, Supertramp-Breakfast in America, Kansa-Audio Visons

Tomorrow is yet another day of voting. Indiana and North Carolina are up for grabs. Sadly my prediction is Clinton ekes out a victory in Indiana and stays in the race FOREVER. For good analysis of the polls check here. In the news Roger Clemens apologizes for mistakes (she was 15, although he denies that "mistake") he has made in his personal life. I know I covered this before, but Clemens is a scumbag and it drives me crazy that he has gotten such a free ride from the press (and the politicians) while Barry Bonds is vilified. To me it reeks of racism. The white guy can do no wrong while the black guy is Public Enemy #1. Also there is a news story about a priest disappearing after taking flight with thousands of balloons. I am not sure if I believe this one, if you can prove it wrong please do!
Flight of the Conchords, if you like the show, you will like the album, although you would have already heard all the songs so you may like it less. Still some of them are quite funny and good. Supertramp was surprisingly good. You know when you put on an album and it sounds like a greatest hits album but it isn't. Well this Supertramp album is just that. Kansas was not as good. I don't know why Kansas was so popular, but this album was not the key to understanding that.
Two thumbs up, B+ and 1 and 1/2 stars.

Lil' Wayne-Like Father Like Son

Have I mentioned that I like survivor? Well I do, I have not missed a single episode since the show started. I like it this year too, but there is one woman who I really hate. Her name is Natalie. She is what I call a monster face, although now that I look back at the real monster faces, I am not sure she qualifies. Maybe a rat face, or Monster Rat Face, or Sourpuss. I am hoping that somehow a giant piece of the set fall on her. Hey I just realized why I was not able to do links for so long! Now the links will be back so hold onto your hats! For now here are few links for you to enjoy! (some may be more enjoyable than others).
Lil' Wayne is one of those dirty south rappers with the drawl. never been my favorite kind of rap but I did enjoy this one, maybe I was just in the mood. C+.

Madonna-Hard Candy

For some reason some new albums are not fully available from Rhapsody. All you get is a few stinking sample tracks. So I had to get a copy of this album from another source after listening to several tracks, and then I had to listen to the whole damn album again! Anyhow such is life. What are you going to do, you know? Oh BTW did you hear us bloggers are under attack! It is true, this dude Buzz Bissinger was on Costas Now last night and he totally attacked some guy who runs a blog called Deadspin. Now Bissinger was talking about sports blogs I guess, but I would say his attack should get all the bloggerians upset. One of my favorite "blogs" is http://www.firejoemorgan.com/ which is a sports blog, but really is about how bad most sportswriting is, and I say I agree, really most journalism at this point is either regurgitating press releases or extremist opinion pieces. Real reporting is pretty rare these days, and Mr. Bissinger is no exception. Anyhow if you are interested you can read the recap on Deadspin, FireJoeMorgan, or King Kauffman on Salon who is a writer, or maybe a blogger I am not sure. Long live the Blog! Death to media!
Madonna's new album is perhaps her worst yet. It is sad to hear her trying to stay relevant by working with Timbaland et al. Perhaps it is time for her to do an album of showtunes, or do an album with Rick Rubin. I don't know, but this one gets a little man who has walked out of his chair.