Friday Five 7/27/07

Top Five Lightsaber duels, from the Stars Wars movies, not the books, or comics, or some geeks on YouTube!, in order from good to best:

#5. Darth Vader vs. Obi Wan, Episode 4 - This is the first time you actually get to see a lightsaber duel. Pretty cool symbolically too, since Obi Wan's death is the catalyst to Luke's pursuit of the force.

#4. Yoda vs. Count Dooku, Episode 2 - Sure, a little green dude-thing that can barely hobble around with a cane all of a sudden can flip and jump and what not. It's pretty cheesy and I'm sure some real fans of the franchise chuckled when Yoda went all apeshit. I did. But through out all the movies you constantly hear about how awesome of a jedi Yoda is, and finally, you get to see it. I liked that.

#3. Yoda vs. Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine), Episode 3 - Again, Yoda goes all nuts, but this time, it's against a better bad guy. I also like this fight for reasons similar to #4. In the original trilogy, why would this awesomely bad ass dude like Vader serve some crusty old raisin faced short dude wrapped in a blanket? In the duel against Yoda, we get to see that Palpatine really can whoop up on some jedi trader punks if he needs to.

#2 . Darth Vader vs. Obi Wan, Episode 3 - During this is battle, Darth Vader is still mostly human. This fight is not only wonderfully choreographed with great special effects and cool music, but it's also highly significant to the plot of the story. Without the defeat of Anakin here, who knows if Darth Vader would ever become beaten down enough to be subservient to the emperor enough to go along with the emperor's plans.

#1. Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker, Episode 6 - How can this not be the top lightsaber battle? It's the climax of the story, and it restores order to the galaxy once again (until all the damn Expanded Universe books came out.) Luke shows he has become a true jedi and the good that's still inside of Anakin is finally set free. I especially love the part after Darth Vader has been knocked down by Luke and the emperor is using force lightning to kill Luke. Even though he has a helmet on, the camera angles and music make the emotions on Darth Vader's perfectly clear. It's such a great scene. Thinking about it now brings a tear to my eye. R.I.P., as one with the force, Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker.

May the force be with you.

Precautionary measures

Sometimes, I think to myself, "I can tell you're reading my mind," just in case someone nearby is actually reading my mind.

Suck it, beotch

WTF?!

The other day, while I was making a martini, I spilled some dry vermouth on my shirt and my shirt actually got wet! How can that be?!

Friday five 7/20/07

Five delicious beers that are not big time commerical beers (in CT):
- Barrington Brewery Nut Brown: Tasty brown ale, like Newcastle, only slightly better
- Thunder Hole Ale: Frighteningly named brown ale (not about your butt), again better than Newcastle.
- Stone Ruination IPA: Excellently hoppy and bitter, drunkness inducing brew. Not distributed in CT.
- Sierra Nevada Porter: Good in late Autumn and winter, by the fire, with a naked chick by your side- reminds of Robots due to Vermont vacations and reading selections
- Long trail Hefeweizen - an actual, real, (but introductory), hefeweizen! Long trail is pretty big in CT, but I doubt anyone drinks this particular style of beer.

That's all, piss off.

Friday Five: The new Movie

Not really a movie.

Here is a list of the Friday Fives so far.

11/06/2009
04/04/2008
12/07/2007
11/30/2007
7/27/2007
7/20/2007
6/22/2007
6/15/2007

"I'm the one who wants to be with you"

The 80's rocked.

Seriously.

Just look at these dudes (I think they are dudes?) and tell me the 80's didn't rock.


The best thing about the 80's was that bands actually had musicians in them back then. At some point in the early or mid 1990's bands started focusing on passion and emotion in their sounds and thus, popular music shifted towards feelings.

Feelings in music are great, but it still has to be music for those sounds to count, right?

Anyway, I recently realized that Paul Gilbert is one of the best guitarists ever. He is a virtuoso. He can play guitar at close to 845.2 beats per minute.

Plus, he wears a spacesuit around, which is just generally cool.

And he lived in Japan for a while, so it's probable that he's a quarter to a third ninja as well, and that's totally sweet.


I never knew back then how awesome he was. I only sort of knew of him because he was in Mr. Big, and they had that sissy hit ballad that was all over the radio, and MTV (back when MTV had music on it), and at high school dances. It was terrible.

I stumbled upon another band he was/is in called Racer X. These guys were totally 80's: big hair, leather jackets, bulge inducing ultra tight jeans, huge dangly earrings, etc.

To summarize, they rocked major ass.



I got to wondering why bands without musicians in them become popular. I recall Kim Thayil of Soundgarden commenting on a visit to a music store once. Apparently a young guitarist played circles around him there. Kim scoffed and said something like, "I made more money this year then you will your whole life, so who cares how much better than me you are."


Now, I doubt he meant to be an major asshole, and I think he made a good point: most listeners don't care if a band has ability. To be fair, I think Kim Thayil got lucky and Soundgarden only got popular enough for it matter after: a.) Nirvana, and b.) Chris Cornell learned how to play guitar and starting writing their songs.

In my experience, lots of times people have no idea what talent or ability is necessary to make certain sounds occur. Once even, a guitar player in high school demeaned Metallica because all they did was "play powerchords." Yeah sure, but they played powerchords, but they played them really, really fast and really clean. (Plus they played other things too, but this buttmunch was too busy strumming open chords to notice.)

Someone like Buckethead is a great guitarist as well, but what's it worth to him. I guess he tried to play in Guns n' Roses, but it didn't work out. I can imagine that Axl is a real dick to worth with, maybe because he has such a clear idea of what he wants out of his music. (Or maybe because he's just a dick.) Anyway, Buckethead could easily hold chops against Izzy or Slash (though Izzy can really write great songs) and he'd likely get really famous and rich if he played in Guns n' Roses long enough.

Maybe he doesn't care because he just likes making music and challenging himself. I don't know. I sometimes wonder if it's like the guy who holds the Guiness World Record for most items stuffed in his anus, or like most olympic sports. How valuable is the fact that you're the best at something if only 5 people even try (or care to try) to do it?

Now, it might sound like I'm advocating a shitass, "feelings" band like Staind. No. They suck balls. I hate them like Anakin hated Obi Wan after he cut all his extremities off. If I ever saw them, I would crap on their heads. I just wonder why Mozart can last so long, but modern talent, hard work and ability can easily be dismissed for a dude sounding like he's dropping a deuce in his pants.

Number 2!

P.S. Irony is this: as awesome is as awesome is, the hardest thing for a drummer to do is play 1 beat every second for 5 minutes straight, without a metronome, and still be on time when the 5 mintues is done. That is such a simple sounding thing, but so difficult. Go figure. I'm off to bed.

(A G-run plays in the breakground now. G-A-Bb-B-D-E-D-G.)