Linkstew

The other day, a few of us got to discussing what Buffy one-liners would make good t-shirts, and as it happened the two best ones we came up with were Willow lines:

"Standing right here!"

"Bored now."

Admittedly, that second quote is a Vampire Willow quote, but that doesn't make it any less good. After that, we realized that while it wouldn't be as good as Kevin's "GRR ARG," "BORD NOW" would still be a pretty good vanity plate (with a nice double meaning for the snowboarders in the crowd traffic). Too bad it's not available.

Oh well, in this case I was probably saved from myself.

Oh, and once you get to the page where you've found an available plate, there's this cute note:

Note : If the plate is on a registered vehicle, you will be charged an Annual Renewal Fee of: $25.00. If the plate is not on a registered vehicle, you will be charged an Annual Retention Fee of: $25.00.

In other words, you'll be paying $25 a year for this privilege no matter what.

Ain't it Cool News interview with Jane Espenson

This is a pretty good interview with Jane Espenson that clears up a question we had about "Conversations with Dead People," which is one of my favorite Buffy episodes.

Buffy Postmortem: Is Spike Dead?

This is a good interview with Joss about the end of Buffy, and it shed some light on some things for me. Yay Spike on Angel.

It's actually been an embarrassingly Buffy week, to the point that when I saw Lauren use line "Where do we go from here the words are coming out all weird..." my first though was "Wait, that's not how "Where Do We Go From Here?" goes." Of course, it is how The Bends goes, but it took me longer than it should have to figure that out.

What made this week any more Buffy than normal, besides the obvious? Let's see:

• Monday: Rewatched the last two episodes of Buffy, in preparation for the finale on Tuesday.
• Tuesday: Participated in a public display of Buffy geekdom: Went to the Parkway and watched the finale while drinking beer and eating pizza. And they showed Once More With Feeling afterwards, which was awesome.
• Wednesday: Buffy free. Well, except for all of the conversations about the Buffy finale.
• Thursday: Saw Ghost of the Robot (James Marsters' (aka Spike) band) at the Great American Music Hall. It was fairly fun, and the music was fine, though nothing fantastic. Unsurprisingly, it was approximately five girls to every one guy, and the collective squeal that went up when James came on stage was just as predictable. It was kind of surreal seeing him in person like that. He was actually shy on stage, in a strangely endearing way that even I thought was kind of cute. All things considered, he handled a crowd full of people who obviously had huge crushes on him relatively gracefully.
• Friday: Spent awhile at Amoeba deciding not to buy the Once More With Feeling soundtrack before going home and watching two episodes of 4th season that my TiVo picked up.

So, yeah. Buffy overdose.

So I don't like watching previews, and I especially don't like spoilers when it comes to things like the Buffy series finale. So I didn't watch the preview for tonight's episode last week, but then they showed a little teaser right before the episode, letting me know that Angel was going to be in the episode.

Now, people know that that the Buffy series finale is coming, so they're going to be watching anyway, so why spoil Angel's appearance for those who have been avoiding spoilers, two minutes before the episode starts!?

It's like sitting down to see Episode I, and right after the previews there's a short teaser for the movie showing Qui Gonn getting killed.

Okay, I admit that that analogy is a little flawed, because TV is trying to retain viewers while the theater already has the customer trapped. But that's what commercials during the preceding show are for. And they should put the last teaser for the next show (at the latest) before the credits role. If the preceding show were Friends, for example, the teaser should be before the last joke that Friends has during the credits.

Any which way, it should not have been attached to the episode, right before the recap.

So of course it gets on to be the last fight of the episode, and of course Angel hasn't shown up yet, so now not only do we know Angel going to be in the episode, but we now of course also know that Angel is going to step in and upset the balance of the fight, spoiling the end of the episode.

Imagine how much cooler that would have been if I hadn't fucking known he was going to be in the episode.

And I won't comment on anything else, because though you probably already knew that Angel was in the episode, the preview thankfully didn't say anything else.

I'm still irritated, though. Stupid UPN.

Last night was TMBG concert #3, and while it was better than last night, it still wasn't as good as Monday. Just as I was leaving I had the great idea that I should borrow Mike's camera (the one we use to take snowboarding videos) to just record videos and capture the banter that way instead of scribbling notes like mad. But I called Mike and he wasn't home, and I didn't have time to walk any further away and pick up a camera, so I ended up filling up an entire sheet of paper (front and back) with notes, which was twice as much as last night. Hopefully by the next time TMBG comes around I'll have a nice new little camera which I can use for recording.

The opening band was Common Rotation, and when I first heard they were opening I thought the name sounded familiar. Before Common Rotation came on, Danny Weinkauf (TMBG's bass player) came out and plugged Common Rotation, and mentioned that Dan and Dan and John Linnell had played on the new album, and that it had been produced by Danny and TMBG's sound guy. But when they came on stage I was surprised to see Adam Busch (he played the character Warren on Buffy) standing there. Regardless of the fact that it was Adam Busch, Common Rotation was surprisingly good. I enjoyed them so much that they now have the honor of being the only opening band I've ever bought the CD of at the concert. I even got the insert signed by Busch and the rest of the band.

Anyway, I still don't know why the name was familiar, because I might have heard of them because of TMBG's involvement, or I might have heard of them as Busch's band. I have no idea.

They actually covered TMBG's Don't Let's Start in their set (they also covered it on the album), which I thought was a pretty damn brave thing to do when opening for TMBG, because if you fuck up a song like that, the fans will hate you. But the cover was well done, and all was well in Common Rotation land. Busch introduced the song by saying, "this song is about what it's like to open visually and sonically for tmbg."

A few other quotes from Common Rotation:

"This next song is about where we come from, which is Hollywood CA."
-- adam
cheers from the audience.
"There's no reason to applaud that. This song, like the others, is vaguely sarcastic."
-- adam

"I just wanted to comment that there are some very snappy hairstyles out there... and thanks for coming out for us."
-- common rotation's bass player
"So says the guy in the hat."
-- adam

I wore my earplugs for most of the first half of TMBG's set, taking them out at Ana Ng and leaving them out for most of the rest of the concert. Here was what they played, complete with a lot of quotes:

• Santa Claus
• Bed Bed Bed
• "Tonight is the third of three shows here, and we've been saving everything for tonight. We've only been giving it 45-47% the last two nights, but we've got a night off tomorrow night."
  -- flansburgh/linnell (not sure)
  "For example, I've already blown out my voice."
  -- flansburgh
• New York City
• "The guy with the really shitty stinky pot from Monday night is back. I can tell it's the same stash."
  "Tonight is that stash's 25th birthday."
  "We just got rid of smoking in New York City, but then we come here and you're smoking your stinky pot in public. You've got this whole bohemian thing going on..."
  -- flansburgh/linnell/flansburgh
• Wicked Little Critta
• John Lee Supertaster
• "I'm just checking out the infinite sustain on this guitar. I feel like I'm Carlos Santana."
  -- flansburgh
  "I've got that too. Check it out. It just keeps going."
  -- linnell, while playing his accordion
• "It's a sign of the apocalypse. An expressionist painter has come back from the dead."
  -- flansburgh, on the grandson of James Ensor, who is apparently a reporter for NBC
• Meet James Ensor
• Birdhouse in your Soul
• "So we're skipping the song that's listed?"
  -- linnell
  "What? Oh, I see.... I can't read my own writing but apparently everyone else can. Well, what do you want to do John?"
  -- flansburgh
  "Istanbul!"
  -- the audience
  "I'm not asking you... When I need your advice, then I'll ask you."
  -- flansburgh
  [Flans tells a story about Jim O'Conner getting on an airplane and the guy next to him making a loud noise and Jim saying "Imagine there's an invisible wall between you and I" and Flans suggesting that the audience think about that idea.]
  -- flansburgh
  
  "Pst! Note to the lighting guy!"
  -- flansburgh
  "winky winky!"
  -- linnell
  "We're going to do the song that's on the setlist, the one we almost skipped over!"
  -- flansburgh
• Hypnotist of Ladies
• No!
• Clap Your Hands - "everybody swear!"
• I've Got a Fang
• Dr. Evil - performed by Robyn Goldwasser.
• In the Middle In the Middle In the Middle - also performed by Robyn.
  
  "This is a public service announcement, but the subtext of the song is love... loss... disillusionment... you know."
  -- Robyn Goldwasser
• "That was amazing. That song invites the kind of white person clapping where it goes like this: [ flans demonstrates someone attempting to clap on the downbeats but missing] -- But even on that song y'all were rocking so hard that you were still on the backbeat."
  -- flansburgh
• Ana Ng - "This song is about love... disillusionment..." -- linnell
• Man, It's So Loud In Here
• "I was reading this article about us in Variety today that was so... confusingly incorrect that I started doubting everything I know about us."
  -- linnell
• "I would like to draw the audience's attention to the audience around the perimeter of this beautiful theater... They're like the audience's audience. Give yourself a round of applause for giving yourself a round of applause. This theater really is beautiful though... how'd that happen, anyway?"
  -- flansburgh
  "Earthquake!"
  -- some girl in the audience
  "Earthquake?"
  -- flansburgh
  "What, like it went crunch and suddenly an opera house sprang up from the ground? I don't know, I'm kind of skeptical about that... But I did just read an article about something like that in Bull Shit magazine."
  -- flansburgh
• Dead
• "Can we have the spotlight guys shine their lights on each other?"
  -- flansburgh
  "Okay now we can see them. Are they wearing sunglasses?"
  -- linnell
  "Oh my god they're so close together? Normally they're across the theater from each other, but tonight they're right next to each other... I'm so sorry!"
  -- flansburgh
• Pet Name
• Spin the Dial:

  "Apparently we're listening to Eugenics radio..."
  -- flansburgh
  "KUgenics... We're playing there tomorrow, actually... in Eugene, OR..."
  -- linnell

• Older
• She's An Angel
• Cyclops Rock - "Give me a C. Give me a Y. Give me another C. Give me an L. Give me an O. Give me a P. Give me an S. Give me one eye." -- flansburgh
• The Sun - "Everything on it is a gas... copper, wood, wood chips, etc, jewelry making tools, and kilns.... yes, even kilns are a gas on the sun." And nuclear estrogen reactions.
• While Linnell was putting on his accordion, Flansburgh flipped on the radio again, and The Beatles' Tax Man was playing, which Linnell immediately began to play on his accordion and sing...
  

  "Wasn't there a jam song released about 10 years ago that was basically a repackaged Tax Man?"
  -- linnell
  "I think Tax Man is rereleased by some band every 10 years or so labeled as an original composition."
  -- flansburgh
  "This is a Jam Song... yeah, this is a jam song... insert political commentary here..."
  -- flansburgh
  "Let's do this next song in the style of Tax Man... [discussion] C'mon, let's just try it."
  -- linnell

• Particle Man - in the style of Tax Man! Ha, this was great. It seemed like Linnell was having a little trouble with the key for the first verse, but after that they settled into a tempo and key that worked.

  "And you're working for no one but Triangle Man!" -- linnell, at the end of Particle Man

• Dr. Worm
• Encore 1:
• Istanbul - with the long Dan Miller acoustic intro
• Fingertips
• Encore 2:
• Hey Hey We're the Monkees
• Sleepwalkers

Okay, I might write more about all three concerts as a set later, but for now, I'm too tired to write much more. I did enjoy this concert more than Tuesday. By the end of the concert, my legs were completely dead, and I haven't been at all productive this week on account of being exhausted every day... but in the end, it was worth it.

Oh, and thank god they didn't play The Guitar or James K. Polk.

So at the end of the last new Buffy episode -- the one where Dawn thinks she's a potential slayer for awhile -- Xander and Dawn have a heartwarming little talk about how you can still be important without having any superpowers. Xander talked for awhile how he'd been helping Buffy for 7 years, and at the end Dawn said "Maybe that's your power... Seeing, Knowing."

And I sat up straight and were anyone else in the room, I would have commented on Xander's stint as a bartender back in season 4. But since I didn't have anyone to talk to, I wrote down this sentence on my laptop instead: "Xander was a bartender, and bartenders are romanticized as seers and knowers! Xander's stint as a bartender was a metaphor for his role in the group!"

Which, rereading the script for Beer Bad is pretty obvious, but that sort of thing is one of the reasons I like the show: various themes continually reoccur in different ways throughout the show, and sometimes subtle references to other episodes happen all the time.

And, woohoo, new Buffy tonight. Pity I already accidentally saw a preview, which spoiled the surprise for me.

Well, I'm not out partying the night away tonight -- I'm a lot exhausted after today's sprint midterm composition, and I find parties more stressful than relaxing -- but I was at a party on Saturday, and I wore a costume! Check it out, I was A Guy with Short Hair:

Heh, as much as that qualifies as a Halloween costume all by itself, I actually had a costume in addition to that. I was Oz, from Buffy:

Of course, as Mark pointed out, I kind of dropped the ball, as I had an opportunity for an even more meta costume that I overlooked. If I'd really been on top of things, I could have worn the same Halloween costume as Oz wore in Fear, Itself: A name tag that said "Hello, my name is: God." That episode had a lot of good moments, not the least of which was the "Actual size" punchline at the end.

(And on the synchronicity side of things, when I was getting my haircut, Lonnie said "Y'know, it's funny -- I have another client named Ben who had all of his hair cut off just last Saturday." Funny how that works.)

Gah, I put this entry off back when I should have written it, because I was really busy with a combination of work and school and fun and games. And then I put it off longer and longer, and now I've forgotten a lot of the summer, and at this point all I can do is respond to my stated goals in the Summer 2002 Future post. So here it is:

• Whew, I read a lot in the first half of this summer, but I haven't actually read anything since July 10th. It added up to something like 5000 pages in a little more than a month, but I forgot the exact number. Anyway, in no order, here are the books I read before July 10th: Microserfs, House of Leaves, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, The Dark Side of the Sun, Smoke and Mirrors, Coraline, and, I'm very embarrassed to admit, five Star Wars novels that I got cheap used.
• As much as I read, though, I didn't actually get around to reading Ender's Game or Moral Politics: How Conservatives and Liberals Think like I wanted to.
• Game-wise, I only actually finished Jedi Outcast and ICO as planned, though I also played Pikmin. Everything else in my queue, including (most notably) Golden Sun and Eternal Darkness remain unplayed.
• In the second half of the summer, I ended up watching more TV in the evenings than I would have liked. In particular, I watched all of Babylon 5 on reruns, and seasons 1-4, 6 of Buffy. I also saw a few assorted episodes of season 5 Buffy, leaving the other 2/3 of season 5 for me to patiently watch on the painfully slow weekly rerun cycle. Stupid syndication.
• I don't really know how to measure how successful I was at saying "hate" less, so I'm not not going to comment on it either way.
• I fixed what was broken with Linkstew.
• Uh, I didn't study for the GRE, because I haven't registered for it yet. And by that I mean I still haven't done either. I should get on that.
• And overall, I think I was fairly less successful at work than I was hoping to be. In particular, LDAP kicked my ass.