All Posts from April, 2009

Techno Tuesday Amuse-Bouche: Rave Party!

April 23rd, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Techno Tuesday | No Comments »

To play you into the weekend, I thought I’d offer you a piping hot slice of dance nostalgia. Bedrock is an absolutely legendary DJ duo (John Digweed and Nick Muir) which has made some of the best rave music of all time. Way back in 1999, they released ‘Heaven Scent’ and made me into a little raving machine in my Jakarta living room. That melody still gives me goosebumps:

                                    

This song served as the climactic moment of ‘Groove,’ a great movie about a rave in San Francisco released in 2000. Check out the trailer for a slice of turn-of-the-century Americana, or peep this re-cut version of the ‘Heaven Scent’ video with some film footage and a cameo from Mr. Digweed. (P.S. If you’re into that sort of thing, these guys also produced one of the songs in ‘Trainspotting’).

Hope you enjoy this as much as I still do. Rave away.

Wednesday Time Wasters: Did You Miss Us?

April 23rd, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Wednesday Time Wasters | No Comments »

wtf-pics-connery-gun

I know you missed this. (Source)

What, you thought that this would always happen on a Wednesday? How naive. While you get wise, a buttload of links:

  • Madeleine Albright was on the Craig Ferguson Late Late Show last week, and she was witty (look at the related videos for the rest of the interview). Yay Georgetown!
  • Remember when those Navy Seals killed those Somali pirates at the behest of Barack Obama? Well here’s that episode in graphical, historical context once and twice. Suck it, Nixon.
  • A chronicle of various stories from people who are bad at sex entitled i’m so bad at sex. Internet = great.
  • Memo to Audi: never get into a d*ckish advertising war with BMW. You will lose.
  • So the Mythbusters decided to strap rockets onto a car and shoot it down some train tracks into a wall. This is so awesome, I want to go that fast NOW.
  • In honor of the NBA playoffs: a brand new way to look at the Chicago Bulls logo.

Hit the jump for an amazing ad for TVs and the best prank ever.

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Senior Citizenship: I Haven’t Posted in a While

April 17th, 2009 | By Ben Foster in Senior Citizenship | No Comments »

Today, I went to Glover Park Hardware to buy superglue to reattach the door handle to my freezer. The glue didn’t work. FML.

I don’t even know how the handle came off in the first place. These things happen. Coincidentally the drawer next to the freezer crumbled into uselessness a few days ago. Maintenance came in this morning and took the drawer somewhere. Not sure when (if?) we’ll get it back… I feel like a pet owner bringing his pet in for surgery and just sort of leaving it at the vet, unsure if I’ll ever see it again. I don’t know where I’m going with all this. Our Village B is literally coming apart, though. Maybe I can work that into some kind of metaphor… after the jump.

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You Said It Brah: Fast Friends.

April 16th, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in You Said It Brah | 1 Comment »

Heard from my 3rd-floor Nevils apartment, around 11:30 pm last night. Straight from the mouth of a real bro:

“The first time I met CJ, he was passed out on a toilet seat. Naked.”

Isn’t it nice how intimate details can be yelled out on N Street?

P.S. Welcome to our party, Vox Populi!

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Language Pulsations: Amazon rank

April 14th, 2009 | By C. Puls in Language Pulsations, Past the Page | 2 Comments »

Amazon, my favorite recourse when the textbooks offered in the bookstore are too pricey, has recently been showered with heavy criticism for removing rankings from books it deems to have “adult content.” Rankings are what get an author’s books into search results and bestsellers lists, so it is frustrating for any writer to have that taken away. However, when “adult” is defined as “containing LGBT/homosexual content,” which is essentially what seems to have happened, then there is ample room for the Internet to be indignant.

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Easter Break: Play Us Out, Craig.

April 9th, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Holidays, Techno Tuesday | No Comments »

You may remember a certain blogger extraordinaire posting about UK Garage, the turn-of-the-millennium dance craze on the other side of the pond, not too long ago. As it turns out, the story of this genre is not quite finished.

It seems that my man Craig David, best known in the U.S. for ‘7 Days,’ has not been resting on his sexy laurels after failing to reach worldwide superstardom. Back in 2008 he released a ‘Greatest Hits’ album, complete with two new singles. ‘Insomnia‘ is a contemporary R&B track, but ‘Where’s Your Love?’ takes us right back to the days of The Artful Dodger. Get ready for a blast from the not-too-distant past:

For proof that this actually was a hit in Britain, check out this performance at the MOBO Awards last year. Man, this whole thing gives me a heter-oner.

This is also our very long way of saying, have a happy Easter Break. We here at the Daily Monthly will be back to keep you company next week. Don’t miss us too much.

Wednesday (or Thursday?) Time Wasters: PEAK STATE.

April 9th, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Wednesday Time Wasters | No Comments »

                              

Just look at the video above and tell me you’re not ready to attract some quality women over Easter Break. As for the women out there, just stay away from this dude and I think you’ll be fine. In the meantime, linksss:

  • It looks like men shouldn’t have babies as they get older, according to the New York Times. What happened to this being a man’s world?
  • No offense meant to devout believers out there, but this sex advice is so gloriously funny in its basic missteps. Make sure to stick around until the end. NSFW language.
  • This is how they sell bananas in Japan. It is not like they do it here.
  • Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, “Inglourious Basterds,” comes out this summer. Vanity Fair got some neat pictures of the cast, including super-hunky Brad Pitt.
  • Burger King pairs “I Like Big Butts” with Spongebob Squarepants. Hilarity ensues.

Hit the jump for the insane ending to this week’s episode of ‘The Hills’ and some intense cereal consumption.

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Techno Tuesday: Daft Punk, Meet Anime.

April 7th, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Techno Tuesday | No Comments »

In all of my previous weeks of posting house goodness, you may have noticed a gaping hole in my artist anthologies: Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, better known as Daft Punk. Sure, they popped up in one of the precursor posts to this column, but a group this big, this important, this… French deserves something special.

Before they went on their much-publicized Alive tour, the boys of DP released ‘Discovery’ and changed the world in 2001. To accompany this album, the group teamed up with Japanese anime maestro Leiji Matsumoto to create “Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem,” a space opera action cartoon. Makes total sense right?

In any case, ‘Discovery’ served as the soundtrack to the movie and the movie was the source of the music videos for each single. We can sort of follow along with the plot of the film, starting with the soundtrack of my life, ‘One More Time.’

Looks like the set-up to a great movie to me. Let’s see what happens next in ‘Aerodynamic.’

Ooh, the plot thickens. And synthesizes. To see how the story ends, follow the jump.

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Language Pulsations: Swearing? Why the $*!% not?

April 5th, 2009 | By C. Puls in Language Pulsations | 1 Comment »

“The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it,” said George Washington. He may be the namesake of the District we live in, but he could still be a real downer. In fact, when used intelligently and sparingly, swearing offers college students a myriad of benefits.

Dr. Kate Burridge, a professor of linguistics at Monash University, explains: “Studies show that if you’re with a group of close friends, the more relaxed you are, the more you swear. It’s a way of saying: ‘I’m so comfortable here I can let off steam. I can say whatever I like.’” This use for swearing is more common among guys and, in general, women and men report feeling more shocked when they hear a woman swear than a man. This response certainly hearkens back to the traditional role of females as keepers and transmitters of manners and social values. I think it is safe to say that those days are over.
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Senior Citizenship: Knock Knock, Who’s There? Spring

April 3rd, 2009 | By Ben Foster in Senior Citizenship | No Comments »

You know it’s spring when the day begins with pouring rain and it’s sunny and 70 by noon. The Village A rooftops come alive again at night, and Village B parties once more spill into the courtyard. I opened all the windows in our apartment, all the better to hear the frat stars on the other side of the fence who start at 1pm on a Friday. (My other motive is to rid our place of the lingering bacon smell. I’ve been legit dreaming of meat and that may be why.)

Spring is in the air, all right. All of a sudden the trees are more flowery than my prose. I put in an appearance at Tombs last night for the first time in, like, ever. And the other day I tipped scotch while watching a Gossip Girl rerun—inspired, maybe, by the fact that the characters (high school students) drink more than I do as a college senior. So I am, slowly but surely, building my tolerance back up. I’ll need it for Wagner’s 2-thirties-of-Stone-for-$23 “get retahhhded” special.

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Guilty Pleasures: Kim Jong the Il-est.

April 2nd, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Guilty Pleasures | No Comments »

After entering the world of an ex-spy two weeks ago, what could possibly be a guiltier pleasure? Allow me to present “The Official Webpage of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” otherwise known as ‘the best site Kim Jong-Il could build in an afternoon with HTML code’:

Not pictured: happiness.

Not pictured: real happiness.

That’s right, you’re about to have a very particular feeling: humanitarian guilt. On the one hand, how can we laugh at a country that has had repeated struggles with famine? On the other hand, how can a nation possibly hope to make us believe it is more than just the starved plaything of a louche despot when this video is part of their big propaganda push on the internets?

The colors of despotism? Purple and turquoise.

The colors of despotism? Purple and turquoise.

There are so many things wrong here. First, haven’t they heard of YouTube? Second, is there not a single modern camera in the country to film this sort of thing? Third, where in the hell is the context? Is this supposed to be a demonstration for our sick viewing pleasure, or was it held during a conference? On a site that is almost entirely in English, how could they have dropped the ball at such a crucial juncture?

In fairness, I highly recommend that you play your favorite song in the background while watching this video: it somehow makes everything poignant.

For more on why this is the greatest/worst thing to happen to your conscience in a long time, hit the jump.

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Wednesday Time Wasters: This Makes Total Sense.

April 2nd, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Wednesday Time Wasters | No Comments »

fire-thong-man

That dude has the right idea. When life lights you on fire, strap on your thong, helmet and clog-like shoes and get to walking. While you think about that, link away:

  • A bunch of kids make a really cute song about netiquette, so that you don’t insult your “personal internet friend.” They have no idea what’s out there, do they?
  • Vintage Web gives us a glimpse into the distant past of the internet, way back in the 1990s. 
  • Wabi-Sabi art combines water and ink in motion to create something really cool. It looks like there are normal people in Japan after all! Via Urlesque
  • Look at this dog floating in mid-air while a plane creates zero-g forces, and tell me it’s not the cutest thing you’ve seen all day. Go ahead.

Hit the jump for some very suave French parodies of ‘Die Hard,’ ‘8 Mile’ and ‘24.’

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Truer Words Have Not Been Spoken (By T-Rex).

April 1st, 2009 | By Greg Gangelhoff in Holidays | No Comments »

We here at the Daily Monthly do not have an official policy on April Fools’ Day — unlike St. Patrick’s Day, for which opinions vary wildly — but I think that Dinosaur Comics gets it right:

Happy Disappointment Wednesday, people.