A King Rules the Kingdom. A Ran Rules the Random. Call Me "The Ran".

Take a look at that post title. Don't mean to toot my own horn, but I thought it was pretty creative. For the record, I came up with that around 10pm, while eating a delicious California navel orange. Glad that's on the record.

- I was quoting Teen Wolf earlier today, and I'm still not sure why. Let's be serious, it involved Michael J. Fox as a werewolf. It doesn't get any better than that. Regardless, a great character in the movie is Coach Finstock. A few of the great Coach Finstock quotes:

"There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese."

"What is it, gambling? Drugs? You know I'd really like to help you but I'm kind of tapped out this month. The IRS is coming down on me like it's some personal vendetta against Bobby Finstock."

Coach: Look Scotty, I know what you're going through. Couple years back, a kid came to me much the same way you're coming to me now, saying the same thing that you're saying. He wanted to drop off the team. His mother was a widow, all crippled up. She was scrubbing floors. She had this pin in her hip. So he wanted to drop basketball and get a job. Now these were poor people with real problems. Understand what I'm saying?
Scott Howard: What happened to the kid?
Coach: "I don't know. He quit. He was a third stringer, I didn't need him.

Great movie.

- My feeling is this: If you are going to be homeless, you have to make an effort to get a job, unless you are either disabled or elderly. If you can't get a job, then at least do something to earn the spare change of the city dwellers: play an instrument, do a dance routine, sing, whatever. If you can't do that, and must resort to making a sign asking for money, at least make it humorous. This guy chose option 3 and succeeded.



(picture courtesy of Gawker)

- Alright, so I don't watch "American Idol". Never have, never will. Many of you have heard my "Why I Hate American Idol Rant" and so I won't revisit that issue. I forgot to mention last night that I was flipping through channels, and stumbled upon one of these Idol clowns singing "What If" by Creed. I mean, come on. I'll admit that Creed was good in the mid-to-late 1990's when we all liked them and bought their records. And then we realized not too long after that the music was garbage and that listening to Scott Stapp's singing was almost as torturous as sitting through a root canal. The funny part is that I watched just long enough to hear Simon Cowell make fun of this guy for picking a Creed song, which simply solidified this contestant's status as The Worst of The Worst in "American Idol" history. I then promptly changed the channel to something that wouldn't cause me to rip my eyeballs out.

- Individual people only have 2 eyes. Therefore, the maximum number of black eyes they can have at any one time is two. However, professional sports teams, and the cities which they are based in can have multiple black eyes at once. Here's another one for my beloved Philadelphia: A fan ordered a Phillies DVD, and instead of receiving a promotional DVD, he received footage of illegal cockfighting. Needless to say, this fan hasn't yet renewed his season tickets. Way to go, Phils!

- Lastly, a music update: One of my favorite records of 2006 thus far is Everything All the Time by Band of Horses. Interesting story about these guys. I had come across a few mp3's of their music earlier this week, and as I'm listening to it, I noticed that one of the songs sounded very familiar. Then it dawned on me that I had downloaded a handful of demo tracks for a band called 'Horses' about a year ago. Sure enough, I fished through my iTunes library and found that I had downloaded the songs under the name 'Horses' in March 2005, but these guys changed the name to 'Band of Horses' when their record came out in 2006. Everything All the Time, although it only runs 36 minutes in length, has an absolutely compelling sound which emulates a mix between My Morning Jacket and The Shins, with a little bit of Arcade Fire and Neil Young mixed in.


Check out a few of their demo tracks, and also read the record review on Pitchfork. Then, also check out one of the best tracks on the record, in my opinion:

The Funeral - mp3 (Right Click - "Save Target As")
[Free track courtesy of SubPop Records]




That's all for tonight. Back tomorrow night for some more.