Zeitgeist

Posted on July 27, 2007 at 08:58 PM EST

Since the Smashing Pumpkins broke up in 2000, Billy Corgan has hardly been hiding. He formed a short-lived band called Zwan, wrote a book of poetry, and released a solo album TheFutureEmbrace. The same day the album was released, he ran a newspaper-ad in the Chicago Tribune and announced that he wanted to revive the Smashing Pumpkins. Two years later the band’s sixth commercially-released studio album, Zeitgeist, was released.

Tracklist

Bonus Tracks

Death from Above (Best Buy)
Stellar (iTunes)
Zeitgeist (Target)

Three special edition Zeitgeist albums were released that each contain a unique bonus track. They are exclusive only to Best Buy, iTunes, and Target. It is unclear if this decision was made by the band or record label, Reprise, but it just seems like a lame attempt to increase the overall number of albums that were sold.

The album has received mediocre reviews, which usually cite the lack of two of the original members, James Iha on guitar and D’Arcy Wretzky on bass. Corgan not only fronted the band but also wrote the majority of their songs. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin remained close to Corgan after the band’s breakup and was a member of Zwan and played drums on a few songs for TheFutureEmbrace. While it would have been be great if Iha and Wretzky were involved, it’s great that the Pumpkins are back and that Corgan and Chamberlin are still creating music together.

Zeitgeist has a sound that is familiar to some of their old music, despite the lack of half of the original lineup. Corgan’s razor-sharp solos and grinding chords remain utterly unique, while, Chamberlin thrashes impressively at his drums and continues to have the same enthusiasm of his younger self.

With songs such as “Doomsday Clock” and “God and Country”, along with lyrics like “I want to fight, I want to fight, A revolution tonight” from “United States”, the album’s political focus is extremely evident. It addresses the political and social upheavel that has occured since MACHINA: The Machines of God was released in 2000.

The illustration on the album cover, created by Obey Giant’s Shepard Fairey, is the Statue of Liberty being swallowed by the ocean. This seems to emphasize global warming due to the melting ice caps along with our country’s drowning civil liberties, in the blood of the fallen, no less.

This is the Pumpkins’ most aggressive metal album to date and should be a part of any Smashing Pumpkins’ fans’ collection. If you never liked their music before, then there really isn’t anything groundbreaking on this album that will help change your mind.

Zeitgeist Release Party at the 9:30 Club

On July 10, the day Zeitgeist was released, the Smashing Pumpkins had a “surprise” release party at the 9:30 Club. While it may have just been a coincidence, I believe they intended on having the event in Washington DC, since the album has such a strong political focus.

The first hundred people waiting to get into the show were given picketing signs that read, “I said YES to the mighty SP!” in a mock campaign for the Pumpkins’ return. Behind the crowd was a giant black and white Pumpkins flag that hung down from the roof of the 9:30 Club. A barbershop harmony quartet wearing red and white striped jackets sang to those waiting in line and also on stage just before the band came on the stage. Right before the show started, the band drove up in a a couple of antique limousines. I heard they had originally planned to do a video shoot, but decided to cancel it at the last minute.

I noticed something very strange when I got in line. The guy directly in front of me was the exact same guy who was right in front of me at the show that I attended in Asheville, NC. What are the odds? It’s a small world out there.

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Tagged with billycorgan, music, review, smashingpumpkins

Corpse Bride

Posted on September 24, 2005 at 07:46 PM EST

This afternoon I went and saw the movie, Corpse Bride. I was expecting to see mostly adults in the theater since the tale is rather gothic and dark, but surprisingly there were many kids in the audience.

The movie is based on a 19^th century Russian folktale of a groom who marries a zombie. The story was well written and the animation was absolutely flawless and smooth. It was so good that I found it hard to believe that it wasn’t entirely computerized. It was only 75 minutes long, which was rather short, but understandably so. There were many tech firsts for this movie, one of them being that it was the first feature-length movie shot using stop-motion animation, which is the most labor-intensive method of making a film. The figures have to be set in position, photographed, then moved a fraction of an inch then shot again, and the process is repeated again and again. A minute or so of footage can take an entire week to produce.

This is definitely one of my favorite animated movies and I highly recommend going to see it, especially if you’re a fan of Tim Burton. Also be sure to check out the website as it’s one of the best Flash sites that I’ve seen in a while.

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Tagged with movies, review

My Name is Earl

Posted on September 21, 2005 at 11:09 PM EST

Last night was the first episode of My Name is Earl, which stars Jason Lee. It is Blue Collar TV at its best and is a mix betwen “King of the Hill” and “Raising Arizona”.

The premise of the show is that Earl, a raggedy guy, watches TV host Carson Daly tell a guest that he attributes his success to karma, the notion that good things happen to good people, bad things to bad people. Earl decides that karma is the secret to life and that he needs to be a better person by making up for all the bad things he’s done in the past. While picking up trash he finds a winning lottery ticket for $100,000 that he had previously lost, shortly after he almost backs out of his plan. He decides to keep his goal and ends up taking a guy that he used to pick on all the time when he was little to a gay bar so he could meet a guy.

I thought it was well written and was funny all throughout the show. I have high hopes for it and hope the rest of the episodes are as good as the first. Here are a few lines from the show that I found to be particularly funny:

Ain’t no use running fool, i know where your momma parks your house

Patty doesn’t care if a man has muscles, muscles can’t buy Mad Dog

I tried Earl, I did, towards the end I even pulled out my good boob

Earl, I think you’re trying to sell a cat to a man who fancys dogs

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Tagged with review, television

Fantastic Four

Posted on July 11, 2005 at 10:55 PM EST

Last weekend I went and saw the Fantastic Four which wasn’t so fantastic. It was probably the worst comic book movie I’ve seen. With a 100 million dollar budget, I really thought that it would have been a lot better. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t even bother until it comes out on DVD.

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TheFutureEmbrace

Posted on June 21, 2005 at 08:54 PM EST

TheFutureEmbrace

Billy Corgan’s debut solo album TheFutureEmbrace was released today. It contains 11 songs that were written by Billy as well as a cover of the pre-disco Bee Gees classic “To Love Somebody” with Robert Smith of the Cure on backing vocals. Jimmy Chamberlin, the former drummer of the Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan, also adds electronic percussion to the song “DIA” and it’s good to see that they are still working together.

Tracklist

The album contains a nice mix of songs that are similar to the Smashing Pumpkins, which is no surprise since he was the driving musical force behind the band. The majority of the songs have a futuristic, electronic style and a few are sing-songy melodies. My favorites are “Pretty, Pretty Star”, “All Things Change”, “The CameraEye”, and “Walking Shade”. I especially like Walking Shade which was the first single from the album. This song has a lot of meaning because he sings about how his old bandmates from Zwan used him and how he was a “shade” or helping hand for them.

Billy’s really done a lot to help promote his new album. He had a contest which gave away a pair of tickets to any one of his shows on his North American tour for the person who refers the most amount of visitors to his website; he played “Mina Loy (M.O.H.)” on the Late Show with David Letterman last night; he appeared on WGN Morning News this morning; he had a release party for TheFutureEmbrace at the Alder Planetarium in Chicago tonight; and he also ran a full-page ad in today’s Chicago Tribune.

The Smashing Pumpkins have been my favorite band for the past 12 years ever since they released Siamese Dream, which is my favorite album of all-time. I was really disappointed when they broke up back in 2000 then when I heard Billy was putting together a new band, Zwan, I had high hopes for them. They didn’t really come close to the Smashing Pumpkins and had only released one album before they broke up. It’s great to see that Billy is back again and on his own (at least for now). In his ad in the Chicago Tribune today, he stated that he’s made plans to revive the Smashing Pumpkins and is breathing new life into an old dream. What great news!!!

For a year now I have walked around with a secret, a secret I chose to keep. But now I want you to be the first to know that I have made plans to renew and revive The Smashing Pumpkins. I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams. In this desire I feel I have come home again.

This was a bit of a shocker since he was quoted as saying “you won’t see the four Smashing Pumpkins onstage again” to MTV news about two months ago. Way to go Billy! I could not be happier with his decision and I really look forward to what the future beholds of the Smashing Pumpkins.

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Tagged with billycorgan, music, review, smashingpumpkins

Lost: Season Finale (Season 1)

Posted on May 25, 2005 at 11:03 PM EST

I just finished watching the season finale of Lost and I must say that I was extremely disappointed. I thought since it was a two hour episode, a lot more answers were going to be revealed, but instead they just piled more questions on us. It could have easily been made into an hour long episode since most of it was just useless dialogue.

When I first started watching it in the beginning of the season I wondered how long could a show like this really go on since it was just about a plane crash on a deserted island. At the rate they are going, it could go on for several seasons. All throughout tonight’s episode, I kept thinking they weren’t going to blow the hatch until the last minute and the camera would just zoom inside and not really reveal much - sure enough that’s exactly what happened. We are now left hanging with three major cliffhangers for the next few months:

Walt being taken from the others.
The tunnel in the hatch that had a broken ladder.
The mysterious thing that keeps appearing.

I think Walt has special powers because he told Locke not to open the hatch (as though he knew something bad would happen) then he told his Dad they had to get off the island like there was going to be trouble, he wished the birds outside the window would die when he was doing his homework and they all the sudden died, and also because the polar bear that was on the island came from the one in his comic book shortly after the book was thrown into the fire. It seems like the men who took him are somehow aware that he is special. I believe that the tunnel in the hatch leads down to a scientific lab and the thing on the island is something that was created by the scientists.

Overall, I really enjoyed the first season. Lost is without a doubt one of my favorite shows of all-time. I just really wish they would have clued us in on a lot more than they did to keep a lot of these questions from being unanswered until next Fall. Sure they opened the hatch but instead of answering the question of what was inside of it, they created a new one by showing a deep hole. They also revealed who the others finally were, but I think there’s more than just those three guys. I can’t wait until next season!

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Tagged with lost, review, tv

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Posted on May 19, 2005 at 06:14 AM EST

My wife and I just returned home from seeing Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith one and a half times. Since it was the most anticipated film of the year, we purchased our tickets in advance for the show at 12:01 AM It was a good thing we did because the theater managed to sell out of tickets even though the movie was being shown on six different screens. About halfway through the movie, it kept cutting off and the lights kept coming on. The manager informed us that the projector could not be fixed and said we would have to return at 3:00 a.m. if we wanted to see the rest of the movie. He ended up compensating everyone with three tickets per person for the trouble. I estimated that they had given out over $15,000 in tickets since there were two rooms affected by the problem. The free passes will certainly come in handy since there are several other movies that I would like to see that are coming out in the next two months.

I won’t reveal any plot points so don’t worry about reading any spoilers. Going into the theater, my expectations weren’t that high since the last two prequels weren’t all that great. George Lucas has finally come through by delivering a film that fans have long been awaiting. I think out of all the Star Wars films that this one was the best laid out story. The opening battle sequence was jaw-dropping, the lightsaber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi was excellent, and all the visual effects throughout the movie were stunning.

Whether or not you liked the last two movies, this one is definately worth seeing. It is full of action and is a great film from beginning to end.

Update (May 20th, 2005)

Star Wars Day 1: A Record $50 Million

The final chapter of the “Star Wars” movie saga grossed a record $50 million from its first 24 hours in North American theaters, the highest box office tally for a single day, according to studio estimates issued Friday.

Update (May 22nd, 2005)

Star Wars’ Reigns Over Box Office

“Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” sold an estimated $108.5 million worth of tickets for the Friday-to-Sunday period, taking its total to $158.5 million since it opened after midnight on Thursday.

Its four-day haul sets a new record, surpassing the $134.3 million tally of 2003’s “The Matrix Reloaded.” Its Thursday tally of $50 million also set a one-day record, beating the $44.8 million sum for “Shrek 2” last year.

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Tagged with movies, review

Thoughts on Tiger

Posted on May 04, 2005 at 11:25 PM EST

I finally got around to upgrading both of my Macs to Tiger. The PowerBook was updated on Friday and the iMac was done yesterday afternoon. It only took about 30 minutes to install and everything went nice and smooth.

Spotlight

Although, it’s really nice to be able to instantly search files wherever they may be on your computer (separate partitions, external hard drives, etc.), it is not as fast as I thought it would be after all of the marketing hype that I read about it. Spotlight includes a feature called Smart Folders, which contain files grouped together based on search criteria instead of physical location. If you wanted to keep track of all Photoshop PSD files, you can simply create a Smart Folder that will search for this type of file and they will instantly appear after clicking the folder.

Automator

Automator is great for repetitive tasks such as moving specific types of files around, renaming files/folders, scaling images, etc. Rather than having to do this manually like in the past, this will definitely help save me a lot of time in the future.

Dashboard

Dashboard is pretty cool and has some nice animation and effects. One thing that bugs me about it is that it doesn’t have an option to turn each widget on/off so it is permanently displayed on the desktop. Currently, you have to click the Dashboard icon to make them all appear then they all disappear when another application is selected. You can hold down F12 and drag a widget out onto the desktop, but you have to do this each time you click on the main Dashboard icon which is a pain and you can only select one widget. Here’s a list of my favorites:

Weather - Displays your local weather conditions and forecast for the next six days.
Unit Converter - Converts units such as currency, temperature, time, weight, length, etc.
Package Tracker - Track packages that are sent via FedEx or UPS.
Hula Girl - Adds some good fun to your desktop.
Translation - Translates 13 different languages.
Dictionary/Thesaurus - Looks up word definitions and synonyms.

Preview

Preview now offers enhanced PDF abilities, screenshot options, and saves screen captures as PNG files instead of PDFs. It also offers support for RAW camera images which is great for viewing photos that are taken from my Canon Digital Rebel XT.

Safari RSS

Safari is definitely a lot faster than it was in Panther. One of the biggest new features in it is support for RSS. This is one feature that I don’t particularly find useful since I use NetNewsWire as my news reader.

I like that it finally has an option to import/export bookmarks under the File menu. In previous versions of Safari, a separate application had to be installed in order to copy or backup your bookmarkes, unless you went into the Library folder and copied the files. I also like the option to be able to save a page as a Web Archive which will save the entire page, complete with images and links in case you would like to save it for offline viewing or save an older version of a webpage.

Mail

Default Icons

Mail

Cage Fighter Icons

Mail

The first thing I noticed after launching Mail for the first time was the tiny, hideous buttons for the mail controls. Luckily, someone created a tiny application called Cage Fighter that will remove the ugly backgrounds and just display the plain icons. One big improvement from the search functions that were in previous versions is Spotlight and also the ability to create Smart Mailboxes.

Overall Thoughts

Many of the new features that are included will help speed up the amount of time that it takes to get things done which is certainly a big plus in my book. There are also hundreds of small improvements everywhere you look that really make a noticeable difference from Panther.

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Tagged with apple, osx, review

Logitech MX1000 Laser Mouse

Posted on April 03, 2005 at 07:45 PM EST

Logitech MX1000 Laser Mouse

Over the years I’ve used a lot of different computer mice and have never really been completely satisfied with any that I’ve used until now. About two weeks ago my Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer stopped working so I had to find a replacement. I decided to order the Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse mainly because it has a laser instead of an optical sensor which means much more precise tracking. Here’s a list of features that it has which really make it stand out among other mice:

Logitech MX Laser Engine - The world’s first laser mouse making optical mice obsolete. This makes it 20 times more sensitive to surface detail and also so it will work on glass and polished wood-grained surfaces without requiring a mousepad.
Lithium-Ion Battery - Say goodbye to AA batteries and say hello to a battery that never needs replacing.
Illuminated 4-level Battery Indicator - Easily tell when the battery is about to die so you can charge it before it runs out of juice.
Rapid-Charging Base Station - A slick looking recharging station makes it so you don’t have have to worry about plugging in any wires to recharge it. Just set it on top of the stand and it will start charging.
Superior Grasp - Perfectly contoured to the shape of your hand…not too big nor too small.
Application Switch - A button in between the forward/back buttons that opens a window of the programs that are running so you can quickly change over to a different application.

I have been happy thus far and am very impressed with this mouse. If you’re not pleased with your current mouse I highly recommend picking one up as you will not be disappointed. It is compatable on both Windows and Mac platforms. It retails for $79.95 but I was able to find it on Buy.com for only $54.97 shipped!

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Tagged with hardware, review, technology

Meet the Fockers

Posted on December 28, 2004 at 10:15 PM EST

Meet the Fockers

My wife and I saw Meet the Fockers tonight. It set the record for the best Christmas weekend opening ever by earning $44.7 million over the holiday weekend which had previously been held by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Since Meet the Parents is one of my top 20 favorite movies, I couldn’t wait to see the sequel.

The Byrnes family along with Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller) take a road trip down to South Florida to meet the Focker family who are quite the opposite of the Byrnes. The tables end up being turned around at the end of the movie when Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) is the one who does not belong just like Greg in the first movie.

Overall, it was pretty good, although I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one. If you liked Meet the Parents, then you should definitely go and see Meet the Fockers!

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Tagged with movies, review

The Day After Tomorrow

Posted on June 04, 2004 at 11:51 AM EST

Last night I saw The Day After Tomorrow. The trailers did a superb job of making this film appear to be one of the biggest blockbuster movies of the summer by including just about everything good in the movie. The special effects were amazing, but the plot was full of holes. It started out with American cities being demolished far beyond Al Quaida’s wildest dreams then went from one far fetched thing to the next. Listed below are some of the things that really bothered me throughout the movie:

All of the major disasters, tornados in California, a tidal wave in Manhattan, cantaloupe sized hail in Tokyo, a blizzard in New Delhi, the largest typhoon in the world in Australia, all started occurring simultaneously. If an Ice Age did occur, it would take generations, not hours to develop.
A Russian freighter managed to find it’s way through the city and stop at the New York Public Library (where the main characters just so happen to be hiding out).
As the super frigid air rushed down freezing buildings, breaking windows, the characters managed to outrun being frozen to death by just a few feet and ended up hiding from it by closing a wooden door.
Cell phones, radios, and cable news networks, continue operating despite the fact that the city had been ravaged by a high tidal wave and an ice storm.
The number one paleo-climatologist in the world, decided to go and reunite with his son rather then help save the world. He decided to walk impossible miles in the middle of a sub-sub-Arctic storm from Philadelphia to New York City to save his son. Why couldn’t he just wait until the storm was over? Did he really think people would be saved just because of his presence in the city? Why would he need to save his son when his son had no problem fighting off rabid wolves and outrunning massive tidal waves and the lethal cold?

One of the most amusing moments in the film was when thousands of Americans were fleeing the invasion from the north and began illegally crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico instead of the other way around. The President then forgives Latin America of all of their debt in exchange to allow Americans over the border.

There’s a political message in the movie which attacks the Bush administration for refusing to reduce greenhouse emissions. For this reason, MoveOn.org, an Internet-based liberal advocacy group, is calling it “the movie the White House doesn’t want you to see”. They are also using the film to help give them a backing in the fight against global warming. It also seemed kind of coincidental that the only villain in the movie is the U.S. Vice President, who strongly resembles Dick Cheney.

The film seems like it was created in part to make the general public think the world is going to end if something isn’t done to stop global warming soon. If you like special effects then this would definitely be a good movie to see on the big screen. Otherwise, I recommend going to see another film such as: The Terminal, Spider-Man 2, or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and waiting until it comes out on DVD.

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Tagged with movies, review