The Basterds

Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945"

Neutral Milk Hotel - "The King of Carrot Flowers"

When you were young
You were the king of carrot flowers
And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees
In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet

And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for

And this is the room
One afternoon I knew I could love you
And from above you how I sank into your soul
Into that secret place where no one dares to go

And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking
And dad would dream of all the different ways to die
Each one a little more than he could dare to try

I love you, jesus christ
Jesus christ, I Love you
Yes, I do

I love you, jesus christ
Jesus christ, I Love you
Yes, I do
And on the lazy days
The dogs dissolve and drain away
The world it goes
And always waits
The day we are awaiting

Up and over we go
Through the wave and undertow
I will float until I learn how to swim
Inside my mother in a garbage bin
Until I find myself again

Up and over we go
Mouths open wide and spilling snow
And I will spit until I learn how to speak
Up through the doorway as the sideboards creek
With them ever proclaiming me

Up and over we go
The weight it sits on down and I don't know
I will shout until they know what I mean
I mean the marriage of a dead dog sing
And a synthetic flying machine

Okay

-Neutral Milk Hotel

Surf City

Can you believe I don't have tickets to see them yet?!

-Matt


See also: Stereogum

Music Downloading Penalties Harsher Than Arson, Theft, or Starting a Dogfighting Ring

Jesus Diaz looks at the $1.92m fine Jammie Thomas faces for downloading 1700 songs and compares it to the penalties for other crimes in America:

-Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total: $175,699.

-Steal the CDs: A total of $275,000, $52,500 fine for the CDs.

-Start a dogfighting ring: $50,000.

-Murder someone on the second degree, a Class 1 felony: $778,495, which accounts for a $25,000 fine and four to 15 years in prison.

Link: Boing Boing

Ethier homers twice as Dodgers beat Rockies

Andre Ethier continued his August tear by ripping a pair of home runs that drove in the first three runs of a 6-1 victory over the second-place Colorado Rockies, extending the Dodgers' lead in the National League West back to three games on Wednesday night at Coors Field.

Ethier's 26th and 27th homers of the season set the stage for the Dodgers' highest run output in six days, as James Loney had a three-run blast in the fourth inning that ended a 46-day homerless streak for the slumping first baseman.

Randy Wolf (9-6) did the rest, earning his fourth consecutive victory by limiting the Rockies to a run and five hits over 7 1/3 innings and handing them only their second loss in their last 10 games.

Link: Los Angeles Times

Pearl Jam - "Supersonic"

Radiohead - "These Are My Twisted Words" Live @ Frequency 2009

Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession

Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency. | The New York Times via Slashdot

To Catch a Thief

SNL: La Policia Mexicana

This just about covers the extent of my Spanish fluency.

-Matt

The Big Pink - "Dominos"

I love this new song "Dominos" by The Big Pink, but I've been accused of being into Brit-rock before, so judge for yourself. The track is from their upcoming debut album "A Brief History of Love" due out September 22, 2009 in the US.

Watch the video above and download the mp3 HERE.

-Matt


See also:

THE BIG PINK | MySpace Music

The BBC Names 2009's Most Likely Breakout Acts | Stereogum

Pitchfork: Video Premiere: The Big Pink: "Dominos" | Pitchfork

New Big Pink - "Dominos" - MP3 | Stereogum

Martin Grand Slam Gives Dodgers Victory

Russ Martin, having the worst season of his career, blasted a grand slam over the left-field wall to give the Dodgers a 6-2 lead in their 7-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night. He drove in more runs than he had in his previous 21 games combined with the sixth-inning blast. See video highlights HERE.

-Matt




See also:

Russell Martin's grand slam lifts Dodgers | LA Times

Martin Busts Out In Grand Style To Beat Cubs | True Blue LA

Chicago Cubs vs. Los Angeles Dodgers - Recap - August 20, 2009 | ESPN

Russell Martin... | dodgers.tumblr.com

Dead Body of Illegal Mexican Immigrant Found on Chipper Jones' Ranch

The body of a 22-year-old man was found Thursday morning on Chipper Jones’ family ranch in southwest Texas. “He was in a part of the ranch we don’t go to on a daily basis,” Jones’ father, Larry Jones Sr. said. The extreme heat and the drought would have made it difficult for anyone to survive without food or water. The man’s body was discovered around 6:30 a.m. by a ranch foreman. | Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Not an Onion article...

-Matt

Mets Retaliate For David Wright Beaning By Murdering Pablo Sandoval

NEW YORK—After a 94-mph beaning last weekend landed Mets star David Wright on the 15-day disabled list, his teammates retaliated Monday by ruthlessly stabbing San Francisco Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval to death. "Hey, it's just part of the game," blood-soaked pitcher Mike Pelfrey said at an evening press conference. "If your pitcher is going to hit one of our guys, we're going to react. And we'll do that by cornering one of your guys in a dark parking lot at night, slamming his head into a car door, thrusting knives repeatedly into his chest and stomach, and leaving him there to bleed in silence until he's found dead the next morning. That's baseball." As of press time, both teams had been warned by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi. | Onion Sports

Cat Saves Man from Burning Home

From BBC NEWS via Neatorama:

With most “pet saves family from fire” stories, it’s easy to assume that the pet woke someone up because it wanted OUT of the house. In this case, the cat came in from outside, and it didn’t even live there!

Engineer Andrew Williams was asleep when the fire broke out at his bungalow in Bracknell in Berkshire. As black smoke filled the property, his neighbour’s cat Hugo came through a cat-flap and raised the alarm by clawing at the father-of-two’s face. Rescuers said that the fire could have killed Mr Williams if he had not been awoken by Hugo. A smoke detector had been moved during work on the bungalow.

Hugo had been in the house before, and was in fact a regular visitor. He was not in the habit of clawing Mr. Williams’ face.

Link: Cat saves man from burning home | BBC NEWS via Neatorama

Mocking The News Is Hard Work

Here is quick read about America's Finest News Source, The Onion. I wish it had been longer...

-Matt

Link: Mocking the news is hard work at satirical newspaper The Onion | Ode Magazine

Mountain Goat Fail

WTF?...

mattmaison.tumblr.com

I'm tumbling now.

mattmaison.tumblr.com

For now I think I'm just going to take pictures with my iphone and tumbl them. We'll see where it evolves from there. It's going to be just images, no text, links or videos.

-Matt

Favorite Active Baseball Players

My brother Tom and I started this conversation over texting last night and I thought I'd bring it up again here, especially because Tom's list was pretty week.

So, here are my favorite players that are still active. Feel free to post your own list in the comments. I did it standard rotisserie roster format, but I don't have that many pitchers. Active players only.

C Russell J. Martin
C Pablo Sandoval
1B Todd Helton
3B Adrian Beltre
CIF Ryan Zimmerman
2B Ian Kinsler
SS Rafael Furcal
MIF Troy Tulowitzki
OF Andrew Jones
OF Matt Kemp
OF Andre Ethier
OF Nick Markakis
OF Carlos Gomez
U Larry Wayne Jones, Jr
U Miguel Cabrera

P Jake Peavy
P Tim Lincecum
P Clayton Kershaw
P Joba Chamberlain
P Neftali Feliz
P
P
P
P
P


-Matt

Kuroda Hit In Head By Line Drive

Last night, Hiroki Kuroda got hit in the head with a line drive off the bat of Diamondback Rusty Ryal. The ball hit off his head and bounce almost all the way to the dugout in the air. Test showed he was fine and he was released from the hospital this morning, but it looked pretty horrifying when it happened. Here is a video from YouTube:


If the video above gets pulled from YouTube, which is likely, try searching for it HERE, or watch it HERE.

-Matt

Real Life Twitter

Radiohead - "These Are My Twisted Words"

Despite talk that they were not going to come out with a new LP for a long while, Radiohead has released a new track. It's very Radiohead-esq.


You can download the mp3 HERE.

See also the song they released last week "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" HERE. And hear Thom Yorke's new solo song "The Present Tense" from the U.K.’s Latitude Festival HERE.

Finally, I'm seeing Animal Collective tonight and tomorrow night in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I was going to do a post for them, but I've already had a few and Radiohead took priority.

-Matt


Links:

New Radiohead - "These Are My Twisted Words" | Stereogum

New Radiohead Song "These Are My Twisted Words" | Rolling Stone

New Radiohead Song | Spin

Thom Yorke Solo NEW SONG - The Present Tense | YouTube

Radiohead Release New Song | Spin

Lost Generation

Using only narration and text, this inspiring video uses a clever trick to make its point about being alive in this generation.

Via: Geeks Are Sexy

Tulowitzki Hits for Cycle, Drives in 7

Tulowitzki completed his cycle with a triple in the seventh and then added an extra two-run single in the eighth for good measure, finishing with five hits and seven RBI -- both career highs.


Link: Chicago Cubs vs. Colorado Rockies - Recap - August 10, 2009 | ESPN

The Best G.I. Joe Commercials Of All Time

To kick off "G.I. Joe Week" here at Bam!Kapow!, we figured why not start where a lot of us first got plugged into the whole Joe universe in the first place? The toys? And how did we know about the toys? Why, the commercials, of course! No, I’m not talking about the 22-minute cartoon that SERVED as a commercial, I’m talking about the actual commercials themselves. | Bam! Kapow!


How sad is it that I still have the Tomax & Xamot commercial memorized...

-Matt

Quiz: Name That G.I. Joe

Three-and-3/4-inch G.I. Joes have been keeping kids busy for over 25 years now. How well do you remember the names of the characters that let you enact countless imaginary battles as a child, though? Hope you can recall their names because, as we’ll never forget, knowing is half the battle. | mental_floss

I missed one out of the 14.

Knowing is half the battle. The other half is rockets and lasers.

-Matt

On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Over the next decade, systems which create and store digital records of people's movements through public space will be woven inextricably into the fabric of everyday life. We are already starting to see such systems now, and there will be many more in the near future.

Here are some examples you might already have used or read about:

* Monthly transit swipe-cards
* Electronic tolling devices (FastTrak, EZpass, congestion pricing)
* Cellphones
* Services telling you when your friends are nearby
* Searches on your PDA for services and businesses near your current location
* Free Wi-Fi with ads for businesses near the network access point you're using
* Electronic swipe cards for doors
* Parking meters you can call to add money to, and which send you a text message when your time is running out

These systems are marvellously innovative, and they promise benefits ranging from increased convenience to transformative new kinds of social interaction.

Unfortunately, these systems pose a dramatic threat to locational privacy.

Read the report HERE.

-Matt


Link: Electronic Frontier Foundation via Wired

U2 - "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"

Ethier Hits Third Walkoff HR of Season to Beat Braves

Last night, Andre Ethier capped a three run Dodger ninth inning rally with his third walkoff homerun of the season to beat the Braves 5-4. The HR was Ethier's major league leading fifth walkoff hit of the season.

-Matt


Watch video highlights here:

Atlanta Braves vs. Los Angeles Dodgers - Recap - August 06, 2009 | ESPN

See also:

Never Fear, Andre Ethier Is Here | True Blue LA

Ethier Named NL Player of the Week | mattmaison

Andre Ethier named the National League Player of the Week | mattmaison

The Goods: Redband Trailer

21 Office Supplies Too Awesome To Exist

Number one is the best, but only appropriate for mature audiences. See all 21 at Cracked.com

The Baseball Card Brand Quiz

If you’ve ever collected baseball cards, the names Donruss, Fleer, Topps, and Upper Deck elicit memories of different card designs, which have varied through the years from simplistic to futuristic and everything in-between (including painfully tacky). How well can you identify the brand and year of the following baseball cards?

Link: The Baseball Card Brand Quiz | mental_floss

Topps reaches exclusive multiyear deal with MLB

NEW YORK (AP) -- Topps has reached a deal with Major League Baseball to become its first official baseball card company in almost 30 years.

Topps Company and Major League Baseball Properties announced the multiyear licensing agreement Thursday. The first product to fall under the deal will be the 2010 Topps Baseball Series 1.

Commissioner Bud Selig says MLB is looking forward to partnering with Topps to restore baseball cards as the game's premier collectible.

The deal gives Topps exclusivity beginning January 1 for the use of MLB and club trademarks and logos on cards, stickers and some other products featuring major league players.

Link: Sports Illustrated

Video: Prince Fielder tries to get into Dodgers locker room to fight

With a number of his teammates in pursuit, the Brewers' first baseman stormed into a tunnel leading to the Dodgers' clubhouse following the final out of a ninth inning in which he had been hit on the right thigh by a pitch from reliever Guillermo Mota. | Los Angeles Times

Having Puppy = Having Baby

Via G4

Never Gonna Give You Up Teen Spirit

Holy crap this is f'ing awesome.

Steve Zissou

Two Free Tacos on 8/4 at Jack in the Box

Link: Two Free Tacos on 8/4 at Jack in the Box