.:DataWhat?:.

Best Stuff Evar!!!1!2006!!!1!1

               Hank the Tank

                      No question about it.

PJ
Best girl around

Tivo
I do watch a lot more TV (which was my fear all along) but I feel like I watch better TV.

Heroes
Save the cheerleader, Save the Fall season.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
I don't care what everybody else on the planet says, I like this show.

Mythbusters
I never really caught it much before I had Tivo, but now I think I've seen all of 'em.

Seinfeld
I was always a casual fan, but now Tivo delivers four episodes every day and I have fully immersed myself.

The Office
Can somebody lend me season one of the US version?

Bear Cavalry
and other funny images from Soundmurder via DetroitLuv.

Vanilla milkshakes
This pregnant lady I know was really into vanilla milkshakes this year. McDonalds, Denny's and Outback Steakhouse all ranked highly on her list.

Detroit Tigers
Bless You Boys!

Sara Lee Deep Dish Apple Pie
In your freezer section.

Smokey Robinson's frozen red beans & rice.
The soul is in the bowl.

White Castle Frozen Cheeseburgers
In your freezer section.

Sco-Jo nekkid on the cover of Vanity Fair.
Fair indeed.

Ikea opening in Canton.
A little piece of Sweden in Southeast Michigan.

Little Superstar
Lockin' & Poppin'

Seeing Porchsleeper from the audience for the first time.
Hey, that band's really good!



Blogs:

Junkiness
Kind of like People Magzine meets The Onion (back when The Onion was funny)...but meaner...like they don't care that they're going to Hell.

Neatorama
Kind of like Nova meets BoingBoing.

Hollywood Tuna
Babes, with the occasional funny.

BabyRoadies - My Dad-centric website.
Ironically updated less frequently now that Matt and I both have kids.



Music:


Neko Case - "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood"
Stark and beautiful Americana from a beautiful voice.
Listen Here:



The Hold Steady - "Boys & Girls in America"
Totally well-written lyrics and a distinctly blue collar indie rock sound.
Listen Here:



Keane - "Under the Iron Sea"
Like Coldplay minus guitars. That's all.
Listen Here:



Jenny Lewis - "Rabbit Fur Coat"
Sweet and Spooky. Jenny Lewis is the woman who shows up on several of the Postal Service songs, but this is decidedly less electronica and more alt-country.
Listen Here:



Built to Spill - "You In Reverse"
Another solid record, including my Summer 2006 anthem "Conventional Wisdom."
Listen Here:



The Dixie Chicks - "Taking the Long Way"
Not as moving as "Home" but that string/horn section in "Not Ready to Make Nice" was my most goosebumpy moment in music this year.
Listen Here:



Bedouin Soundclash - "Sounding a Mosaic"
Reggae? Singer/Songwriter? Canadian? I don't really understand it, but I like it.
Listen Here:



The Pretenders - "The Pretenders [Bonus Disc]"
Finally finally finally remastered and re-issued. This album should be given to every girl in her junior year of high school. Mandatory.
Listen Here:
Choice Video from 1980 Here:



The Fluoride Program - "Roadside Flowers"
All of the best parts of sprawling inventive rock music without any of the stupid bullshit.
Listen Here:



The Beatles - "LOVE"
Not earth shattering as far as mash-ups go, but hearing this stuff re-mastered and cleaned up is a real treat.
Listen Here:



Willie Nelson - "The Complete Atlantic Sessions"
Two of Willie's best albums (1973's Shotgun Willie and 1974's Phases and Stages) plus a solid live disc.



The Replacements - "Don't You Know Who I Think I Was?: The Best of the Replacements"
Nice to have a single-disc "Best Of" plus the two new songs are pretty decent.



Hem - "Funnel Cloud"
Hasn't grabbed me like the first two albums did, but maybe I need to give it a little more time.
Listen Here:



Movies:

The Prestige
Vintage magic, David Bowie as Nikola Tesla and Sco-jo in a showgirl outfit? Ok.

Superman Returns
I thought it was super, man.

V for Vendetta
E for Engrossing.

Caddyshack
Just that one Chevy Chase scene over and over again.



Books:

Blankets by Craig Thompson
Not just a graphic novel, maybe the best book I read all year.

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.
They should make this into a movie.

Company by Max Barry
An infuriatingly hilarious look at modern corporate culture.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Kinda like if The Da Vinci Code was written by J.K. Rowling making out with Anne Rice.



Stuff That Sucked:

McDonalds constantly cleaning their shake machines.
Don't get me wrong...I'm glad they clean 'em, but it seemed as though every time we went to get my unborn son a milkshake, they had the whole machine torn apart. It got so bad that I would call ahead to see if their shake machine was working before we left the house.

Those god-damned little ads for upcoming shows that pop up in the corner of your TV.
We were watching "Oceans 11" the other day, and Kyra Sedgewyck kept wandering onscreen with a flashlight to tell us about "The Closer." And it's not like these ads are just in the corner anymore...they're right in the bottom third of the screen to catch the eye of those nitwits who don't have the aspect ratio set correctly on their big-screen TVs. STOP IT TV!!!

Andre Agassi retired.
Made for some compelling tennis though.

Britney Spears' vagina
Y'know, for quite some time I thought I'd like to see it, but as it turns out I wish I hadn't.

The Tigers lost the World Series.
Next year...

James Brown, Don Knotts and my Grandpa Johnson died.
Each of whom had varying influences on who I am today.

The actual process of giving birth.
Some people say it is a beautiful thing, but from where I was standing for 36 hours, it seems more like moving a piano up three flights of stairs by yourself.

Thanos closed
Man I could go for a slice of deep dish Sicilian right fucking now.

Wait a minute...Pluto isn't a planet?
Screw you, science.



One last great thing from 2006: This Gif



God bless America

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"I'm out on love"



full five-minute interview here


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Festivus For The Rest Of Us!



The "Seinfeld" Festivus episode developed from series writer Dan O'Keefe's childhood experiences. His father invented the holiday in the 1960s.

"As a kid, we'd come home and there'd be weird decorations," said the 30-something O'Keefe. "There was the playing of strange German and Italian pop music from the '50s. And the airing of grievances was a real thing."

Instead of a pole, his family celebration featured a clock and a bag. (O'Keefe said his father won't say what they symbolized.)

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The reason for the season:



Peace, harmony and disturbing inflatable flags with bi-racial arms.

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Speaking of unintelligible strangeness, Justin uncovered this Swedish video of images and sounds...you kinda gotta see it for it to make sense.
Ooh, wait: Drop acid first. Yeah, that may help it all come together.

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Great new video by U2 where they cut a lot of classic performances together (The Ramones, Nat King Cole, Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, John Stirrat From Wilco!) to make it seem like this awesome band is singing and playing their song, then the members of U2 show up in the audience at the end.
Very reverent.

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Good cheer indeed.

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Natalie Portman & Scarlett Johansson in Elizabethan dress? OK, who's been reading my journal?
H.U.G.E. photo here:

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My friend Jesus pulled together his Top Albums of 2006 and wishes everyone a happy His birthday.
My list is shorter but will be coming soon.


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Annual Detroit Sounds & Spirits show Friday Night.
One billion bands will be playing, Porchsleeper will be loudest.

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Terrific headline: "Sundance Slate Boasts Horse Sex, Dakota Fanning."
They may have made some changes to Charlotte's Web that I wasn't aware of.

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Awesomely nerdy Back To The Future timeline chart.



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Thanks BoingBoing
Thanks Justin
Thanks Rachel
Thanks Paul
Thanks Neatorama
Thanks Mark


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Thanks David


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How-to here:

Any savvy knitters out there could pretty much name their price for hooking me up with one of these.

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Thanks BoingBoing


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A DataWhat Classic:

A brilliant photo collection of Kids who are terrified of Santa

uh...I'm an adult and I'm scared of that Santa...

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David Below (who is probably the world's biggest advocate of real music and exposing the bullshit for what it really is) sent me this little video of Steve Poltz sitting down and barfing out an impromptu insipid pop tune about "come on over, my mom is not at home" to which they put a bikini model in a recording studio, Pro-Tools/Auto-Tuned the hell out of her (admittedly awful) vocals and created an MTV-ready pop tune out of it, complete with American Apparel-esque video.

Oh, and Steve Poltz?
The guy with the acoustic guitar?

He kissed me once.

He was in a band called The Rugburns and they did an in-store performance at Tower Records in East Lansing. I worked there in '95-'97, was in charge of all of the "Local Music" and did all of the in-stores and that kinda thing.

I was introducing the band in front of 30-50 people and as I was stammering and goofing my way through "Let's give a big East Lansing welcome to..." Steve Poltz came over and kissed me. Hard. Like he meant it...

Granted it was only on the cheek, but there were some real sparks there.

He also co-wrote "You Were Meant For Me" recorded by Jewel (back when he and Jewel were banging each other) and appeared in the video viewable here:

Anyhoo: The above clip seems to be from a movie called Before The Music Dies which might be interesting.

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This original test pressing of a Velvet Underground record was purchased for 75 cents back in 2002, and is now up for sale on eBay. Check out the price it's going for now.
I'd be interested in hearing that alternate version of "Heroin."

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So her's an awkward situation: This guy finds out that long ago while his parents were seperated his Father knocked up some lady and they had a daughter, so this guy has a half-sister. Well, as it turns out, they meet at Thanksgiving and the guy recognizes his half-sister as a porn star. How exactly do you broach that conversation?
P.S. The Internet is no help in this situation. Witness the brutal-larious comments: (nsfw)

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Firefly Fans Rejoice! Apparently the Firefly universe is going to be available as an online game.
I won't play it 'cause I can't be arsed, but it's nice to know the Browncoats are still fighting the nerdy fight.

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The newest contributor to DataWhat comes in with a whopper: This game called Yes I Am Working cleverly/virally marketed by Office Depot (side note: Ha! It is actually from Office Max...shows how good this brand extension is working) which looks like an Excel Spreadsheet is actually a game of Super Breakout.
The fact that it even sounds like you're typing is brilliant. "No Boss, I'm working! Can't you hear my typing and see that I have an Excel Worksheet open???"


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.:DataWhat?:. World Headquarters

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Thanks Matt
Thanks David
Thanks Steve
Thanks Goody
Thanks Ryan
Thanks Dadid


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Some great examples of English subtitles in Hong Kong movies.
"Same old rules: no eyes, no groin."

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A buddy of mine puts together PitchforkWine which is a blog about wine in the same way that this is a blog about data, mixing educated but non-snooty wine reviews with albums that might match the delicate bouquet.

"The latest effort from The Decemberists, The Crane Wife, is analogous to my experience with Viña Esmeralda. Those bookish, cardigan-wearing kids from Portland have always had one foot in the old world while turning out contemporary pop (a genre which seems to be undergoing a renaissance worthy of no longer using the term as a pejorative). Elitists be damned, their folk-meets-prog major label debut is as much of an excercise in accessibility as it is in esotericism. Chamber pop melodies, kick-ass guitar solos, and a track so long I momentarily thought I was at a Yes concert when I saw them live last month. They deserve all the air-play they can get, just as this interesting white blend is a worthy competitor of other less-interesting wines in its price range."

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Speaking of intelligent insightful websites, here is a video of a guy wacking a flaming can of WD-40 with a stick until it explodes.
Note the quick "Stop, Drop & Roll" he employs, narrowly cheating him out of a Darwin Award.

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A little late for Halloween, but here is what Mary Poppins would look like as a horror movie.
Jesus Christ, I never realized how much freaky shit is in that movie.

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"It's fun to pray at the Y.M.C.A."

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Thanks Chris
Thanks David
Thanks Steve
Thanks K


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