above are a few scenes from what we affectionately (and falsely) call "the farm," on whose acres live seven lawnmowers, three pick-up trucks among a grand total of ten vehicles, and innumerable tractors and tractor attachments. i have no terribly exciting stories to tell, so all you get are these pretty pictures.

oh, and do not go see alexander. there are only a couple psychedelic oliver stonedisms near the end, and between angelina jolie's comical slavic accent, colin farrell's distractingly bad bottle blond, and jared leto's exquisitely smudged eyeliner, it's just a travesty. avoid.

finally, a little tune in celebration of the amazing $25 bargain i scored at target this weekend. (thanks krucoff....)

::: The Chills, "I Love My Leather Jacket" :::

it's been a while since we had some good tongue pics on the pita, right? hey, i had to get some solid partying in before the frightening quiet of freehold, new jersey. started out at the FHM party at eugene where there were many poorly mustachioed men in attendance. (it was a fundraiser for some police charity; even commissioner kelly was there!) closed the night out at the iBlog party at apt, featuring iPod djs stereogum and fluxblog. there was dancing, mini beers, rastas and dorky asian boys. it was fun. christmasy fun if you know what i mean.

whee, rhett miller plays fez on tuesday, december 7. with my faith restored by "drag it up," i have no hemming and hawing to do anymore about going to his solo shows. who wants to eat hummus and listen to some new rhett tunes? don't worry, you can still roll your eyes if he plays "come around." i will, anyway.

it's too late for a weekend report, right? i spent it being very, very lazy notwithstanding a valiant saturday-night trip to hoboken (in the rain!) to see american watercolor movement at the behest of a friend who described them as "the arcade fire fronted by mark e. smith, with visuals." it was a little, how you say, hippieish for me. but often good. this review is now over.

reminder: santacon is december 11. i am actually going to have existing friends with me this year. one of whom i found out already owns a velvet santa suit, purchased at an antique store just in case (!). so great. it is going to rule. let me know if you want to join us.

related fun santa quote from head queen of the stone age josh homme: "If I were a woman for a day I would also try to fuck Santa Claus, because I'd get all those presents after it was done. And think of all the elf help!" i am not sure what that elf comment is all about, but everyone knows josh homme is a little freaky.

what else do i have today? well, nothing. i have like five writing assignments due tomorrow so i am now going to research hot club of cowtown (lordie).

p.s. it is amazing to me that people still give a shit about U2.

::: Travis Morrison, "My Two Front Teeth Pts. II & III" ::: that first line is so great: "the second i saw, but the first was suckerpunch city." just draws you in immediately. and i love the end. and don't you just wonder what Pt. I is? okay, go download. travis said it was okay, i swear. he also has a bunch more mp3s on his newly (and nicely) designed website, so check those out if you haven't already, too. and then go see him on tour with a full band. he plays northsix on december 14, peeps.

more cowbell has put together a fun indie christmas mix. downloadable!

how great is the times's front-page photo today? hello, that is not presidential posture, dubya. and damn, chelsea is looking hot these days!

lindsay has a good story about jared leto being a jackass.

roommate-in-absentia kurt has been strangely silent over the last week or so, but he finally released his latest dispatch from somaliland. i have highlighted my favorite phrases and sentences from my two favorite paragraphs, below. enjoy:

I have exciting news! There is alcohol in the house! Akbarat, HALO Somaliland's other Eritrean employee, returned from her South African vacation and brought back some wine and a bottle of Baileys. Last night, for the first time since November 1st, I had an alcoholic beverage‹a Baileys on ice. It was pretty decent though it reminded me of high school when we used to drink the most candy-assed drinks. The four of us also ventured out to the grocery store. We purchased sick amounts of candy, Pringles and cookies. After several cups of Eritrean coffee, a Bounty bar and six cinnamon-apple cookies, and the Baileys, I felt so jittery and nauseous that I couldn't fall asleep. I have been craving egg salad so I went to make some using the shady mayonnaise I purchased at the supermarket. Some of the eggs here are fertilized and contain oozy particles of would-be chickens.

On the work front, I have been focusing on organizing certain areas of our compound. Our storage areas are crammed with ratty, unused tents, second hand spare vehicle parts, and mysterious demining tools. HALO Somaliland should consider having a yard sale but since this is not an option, I have been systematically organizing areas of the compound. Sorting through all of this old junk has led to countless cockroach and rodent encounters but I am really enjoying the work. It is a pleasant change to be away from my desk and there is something satisfying in ending each day covered in dirt and grease. Furthermore, I am getting a good tan and I enjoy wearing my navy blue mechanic's onesie. To date, I have freed up five large storage areas.

i love this: one member of asobi seksu, when asked what his goal for the band is, says: "i wanna make albums that suburban skaters listen to when they smoke pot at a friend's house while the parents are gone for the weekend."

best new grammatical trend: referring to the internet as "the internets." never has improperly pluralizing something been so fun!

tonight it's party time at the 12-inch, with krucoff celebrating #2 in his "the other page" print series at his posse's "no data" party. you get "digital swag" if you get there early. who doesn't like digital swag?

new cozies! and a new frankensweatshirt! go buy one for your special sweetheart. at catherine's pita shop.

dick cheney is not.

then it was the hidden cameras, who were really effing good. not only do they have the most vibrant, life-affirmingly poppy songs about gay sex ever, but they really pay attention to the visual element of a show. they had a couple of crazily dressed dancers in ski masks come out, throw streamers from the balcony, and proceed to dance like maniacs, not to mention disrobe to a frightening degree. they did one "no looking" song, for which the entire band (about seven people) donned red blindfolds. and the lead singer looks sort of like an even more mentally unstable, way skinnier henry rollins, and makes all sorts of retarded faces. he also inserted a few well-placed screams that served to de-gay the performance. in short, they are freaks. i kinda think they stole the show, at least for me.

the arcade fire were pretty great, though i did not fall to the ground in a quivering heap of religious ecstasy as the hype might have you believe. the best moment was when billwerde was like, "it would be so cool if they played a talking heads song." (david byrne was lurking in the back.) and what was played next? "this must be the place," a sort of restrained (respectful?) version that was still quite wonderful. good star-spotting, too, with david bowie, eric clapton, and mac from superchunk all reportedly in the house. i told you it was a hot-shit show!

and the two best nonmusical moments of the night: 1) bill's coining of the phrase "merch purch." i made a merch purch of possibly the most emo shirt ever, a turquoise hidden cameras tee featuring a crying freckled girl. best. 2) asking the bouncer for a few over-21 bracelets so i can make more cuff bracelets and receiving a whole stack of them featuring orange guitars! score!

and finally i have one link, which you have probably seen, but maybe not! it's a collection of alternative election-results maps, showing the country represented by county returns and corrected for population size (because guess what, there's a lot more people in tiny rhode island than there are in, say, wyoming), so it gives a better look at americans' politics. instead of a big red swath with a few spots of blue, we're actually mostly purple, proving that the country IS as divided as they were saying before bush won this supposedly so "decisive" victory.

shop shop shop! paris does!

i entered the dirty on purpose contest so i could get more friends into the hot-shit show tonight, which features DOP, the hidden cameras, and the arcade fire. and i won! check out the fab-o-lous winning t-shirt i made, my first (very crude) attempt at stencilling. we're talking old-school, bought-in-the-hardware-store stencils. and panda-print vinyl from a dollar-store water bottle, as seen in the "panda panda" cozy! it was fun. and i won the contest! yay for winning stuff.

cityrag is the new lockhart, getting the scoop on what's going into the new living room space: a burger joint! wooooh meat!

speaking of flesh, scott sent me chicken porn, which is both funny and gross. and totally not safe for work, suckers.

here's a weird, fun story by bob powers of girls are pretty fame and fortune: "Testimonial from a Moderately Satisfied Customer of Singles Canoes."

more evidence that "america's next top model" is the best show on tv: last night tyra instructed one of the contestants to apologize TO A HAT. a kente-cloth hat. so effing best!!

finally, i saw a bunch of bands at mercury lounge last night. the scene was, as leigh ann put it, "very park slopey." here are my lazy two-word reviews of each band:

maplewood: verrrrry jangly.
silversun pickups: missed 'em. (bought a cute t-shirt, though!)
earlimart: good. ish.

the "launch party" was a raging success, you know, not that you came. holly and krucoff almost came to blows over the important election-year issue of whether one ought to order or make one's own breakfast, and then the rest of us went and played bingo at the 12-inch bar. we are young manhattanites living the high life; are you not jealous??

and then this weekend my dad, normally a bastion of a healthy amount of new york snobbery, having lived in the city for quite a few years, made me eat at pizzeria uno after our brief viewing of the marathon. i have to admit, the pizza was quite good. the children screaming, however, were not. i once again forgot to upload pics from home; you will just have to use your imagination. there was a dude running with metal legs! very impressive.

also, should i out my nonvoting family member? i thought everybody knew they had to vote! and this family member knows what is happening! unacceptable, paul! everyone send politically themed forwards for the next eight years to commishx@aol.com. next time i will personally escort him to the polling place.

this is the weirdest promotion i have seen in some time. rhett miller interviews tom wolfe about his new book, "i am charlotte simmons" (out tomorrow). because rhett is all literary and shit, ya know. i have not had time to listen to the extremely long mp3 yet, but i'm sure it contains treasures aplenty.

and finally, for your pleasure, here is an excerpt from the travelogues of my absent roommate kurt, currently working in somaliland for the halo trust. he is not doing any actual demining and spends most of his time in "the compound." here he discusses the food situation:

The staple of my diet here is Nescafe with fresh milk (or that horrid powdered milk when we are out of the real thing). The HALO Trust maids seem unable to comprehend my request for "extra strong" coffee. I remain vigilant.

Though the maids might not be able to make a good cup of coffee (which is mind-boggling as they are Ethiopian) they can make tasty meals. Our hot lunches usually consist of chicken with one or more of the following: potatoes, rice, breads and pasta. A legacy of Somalia's colonial ties with Italy, pasta is consumed in great quantities and spaghetti has even been named one of the country's national dishes! Suffice it to say, followers of the Atkins diet should not seek employment with HALO Somaliland. As bland as this might sound, our lunches are served with various spicy sauces. I have not yet seen any red meat.

The expatriate staffers are responsible for fixing their own dinners. We can opt to eat leftovers from lunch or more often than not, raid the HALO pantry that has a fine collection of USAID, and military issue rations from all over the war-torn world. You want biscuits from Kosovo? How about peanut butter and jelly from Afghanistan? My suggestion is do not try the red beans and rice. The khaki packaging and lack of taste ensure for a markedly bland and depressing dining experience.

Even if these rations were delicious, I cannot ever bring myself to enjoy them because there is something unnatural about eating a product that was packaged a decade (or more) ago. I keep imagining that the chicken soup I am eating contains chicken that may have been rocking out to Rick Springfield during the Reagan administration (or at least the person who wrung its neck was). I have also discovered Fray Bentos, the amazing potpie in a can. They come in three delectable flavors: Steak and Ale (yum), Chicken and Mushroom (so-so) and Steak and Kidney (yeah right). Simply remove the top and bake. They are tasty enough, though admittedly I make them for the entertainment value. A pie in a can! What will they think of next!

i would fully disagree that rockism "permeates the way we think about music," in fact i would argue that "popism" pretty much rules the world, but kelefah sanneh has written a good article about this word, this attitude, this "rockism." the thing that galls me, and if this makes me a "rockist" then so be it, is the idea that ashlee simpson is at all valid as an artist. she is a no-talent hack and has no business being in the public eye. it's shameful. the other thing that irritates me about sanneh's position is that he sort of sounds like he is defending the worst practices of big-ass music mags like rolling stone -- note the respect given to "glamorous layouts." right, because beyonce in a thong with all her body hair airbrusehd out is totally valid and "interesting" to music journalism. ugh. i also can't stand the attitude of the totally anti-rock (not just anti-rockist) majority over on i love music, who of course creamed their pants over this article. it's fine to like britney, boys, but do you have to be so fucking superior about it?

here's a great interview with craig wedren, and a really well-written, thoughtful, moving history of shudder to think written by guitarist nathan larson.

also, everybody should know that team america, while possessing a few genuinely funny moments, is generally, well, not good.