Thanks for the clarification (not that this is any of my business, but I was curious about what happened). That sounds... not sure what the right word is... petty of them?... but not having heard the other side of the story (and, again, it not being my business anyway), I won't weigh in further.
It's a shame to see you go, and I still hope you don't (maybe just take a break?), but do what's best for you. Regardless, I'll still follow your blog.
Best of luck/rock on/keep on truckin'/knock 'em dead/some stupid goodbye phrase,
dbr
Michael, I can only surmise the timeline and nature of the events from your Twitter account (which I was led to via your blog), but from what I can tell, you made a provocative comment that rubbed the person (avoiding any identifiers here) the wrong way, and then, after the person unfollowed and blocked you (which admittedly seems an overreaction, but hey, this is the Internet; overreaction is not exactly unusual), you made a somewhat dickish remark about it, which provoked them. There seems to be a bit more to the story than you're letting on...
In any case, I hope you don't actually leave over this, because the whole thing seems kind of silly, and you'd be missed.
I'll probably want to change this 5 seconds after I post it, but here's my list as of the moment:
10. Dramamine
9. Never Ending Math Equation
8. The World at Large
7. Cowboy Dan
6. Blame It on the Tetons
5. Trailer Trash
4. Broke
3. Lives
2. 3rd planet
1. Paper Thin Walls
lol, from now on, whenever I rip into someone, I'm ending it with that line: "you're an asshole for this reason and that reason, and I feel sorry for you, because you don't even see what an asshole you are and probably won't ever—but I wish you the best!"
At least the ad is informative. I learned that if an attractive, put-together-looking young woman wears Converse shoes—excuse me, SNEAKERS—then she'll suddenly look like a drunk party girl who just came inside after getting caught in a torrential downpour without an umbrella.
This is so last week, but my comment from the previous Shut Up, Dude finally made it through moderation the other day.
It has a link to one of the earliest, most elusive* Phoenix songs and chronicles the epic journey that I undertook to find it. (*For me and my shitty interweb search skills, at least.)
Here it is, if anyone's interested: http://stereogum.com/1268381/shut-up-dude-this-weeks-best-and-worst-comments-65/franchises/shut-up-dude/comment-page-1/#comment-8031662
So, after I made my post, I actually got interested in the first Phoenix song, and I went on a little Google quest. Here’s what I found…
Okay, so the band put out a 7″ single (Party Time / City Lights) on their own label (Ghettoblaster) in 1997, which was their first release, so I guess one of those counts as the first Phoenix song. (In any case, the idea is that every new Phoenix song is made up of a *couple* of old Phoenix songs, so the paradox also applies to the second song, whichever one it is.)
Now, Party Time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msdu4WobIPY) also appeared on their first album, United, so that’s easy to find, and I’ve heard it before.
But the B-side, City Lights, is another story. Phoenix made only 500 copies of the single, so it’s pretty rare, and the only other place where the song appeared was Air’s Deck Safari Part One mix (which is like a tour of Air’s personal record collections, looking at the inspirations behind Moon Safari, and is also rare; it was a promo-only CD made for European radio stations, although some copies ended up on store shelves; Stereogum covered it way back in the day: http://stereogum.com/387/airs_deck_safari_the_best_cd_youll_never_buy/news/).
I searched and searched all over the Internet for this #$@% song, and I FINALLY found it: http://goo.gl/ltUwo
tl;dr: follow the link right above this for one of the first Phoenix songs.
It's so common that it's listed as the first definition of the phrase in the New Oxford American Dictionary, which notes that it's "widely accepted in modern standard English."
Here's a linguist's take on the issue: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290
To be fair, most people also haven't seen an F-14 and thought, "oh, this F-14 would be so much better if a FRIGGIN' TYRANNOSAUR WERE FLYING IT!!!!!!!!1!!!!" And that would still be pretty awesome.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm5/Zamkaizer/CalvinHobbes-TinyT-Rex.jpg
Damn do I need to start eating more fruit. Look at those things; they're awesome! (Which I'm guessing may have been the same thought that led to the cover art.)
Hmm... white corn (which is technically a fruit) in a blizzard. An interesting choice, Simon.
I can't wait to get the special edition 7" Kiwano version of this single!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y3SYHIMscA0/UAqB8dD28YI/AAAAAAAAB4c/w0mZHf9BbkY/s1600/kiwano.jpg
The snippet of the other song that we've heard so far is a little more subdued and wistful (while still sounding big and anticipatory, which is one of things I love most about some of their songs), so I'm hoping that this is just them trying to start the album off with a bang and that things will cool down soon after that.
I love the violinist who looks at the camera and gives a "yeah, this shit's awesome" smile around 7:09: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnOmrDzRrGQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=429s
He appears to to be saying that we are exceptionally large or solid bundles of sticks, iron rods or homosexuals for not giving public recognition or a provision of money, goods or services with the expectation of future payment to some unspecified location to which he believes such recognition or provision is owed.
I dunno; he was kind of ambiguous...
Jardan, there are times in life when...
(5 minutes later)
...so you see, when you make a comment like that, it's like attacking a bad album by saying "this album's going to get the lowest Metacritic score of the year," rather than...
(Another 5 minutes later)
...so next time, just let the badness of a comment speak for itself, unless you have a funny or insightful response to it.
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