Monthly Archives: August 2009

put that needle to the groove

  By Sarah | August 18, 2009 - 11:45 am | Reviews
View Comments

There is something about Ithaca that makes me feel welcome. Well I have been coming here for eight or so years (with an older sibling as an alumni) and even though its been that long, any amount of time can go by and it always feels like home. It is hard to feel like an outsider here. There will be someone stranger, larger, smaller, normal, crazier, older, younger, someone more uptight or loose— someone is always flying their freak flag. And I LOVE IT.

Being just three blocks from the commons- the walks over are so pleasant. Having too much time to think can go either way, but right now its definitely a good thing. A way to get your mind in order before classes start and before your every day commitments (for the first time in eight or so months!) lie ahead. Even though this long summer is coming to an end and we will all miss it VERY MUCH- I am definitely looking forward to getting my brain in gear and having some serious fun.

Until then I plan on spending all of my time and money milling around ANGRY MOM records. It’s in the basement of Autumn Leaves and they have a sexcellent selection of serious vinyl. Check it out- it’s never too late for a beautiful hobby like records in wax.

ithaca is terrifying

  By Riley | August 18, 2009 - 11:36 am | Reviews
View Comments
The gorges, third dam to be precise, is a wonderful place to cool off. With a 92 degree day (which only occurs in late August and mid-April for some reason I can’t fathom,) everyone and their mother had to cool off. While guys were jumping off the cliffs, girls were floating in the water, and townies were either ripping joints on the rocks or scoping out girls to masturbate to, I went hunting.
There’s a lot to see beneath the surface at the gorges – like this freshwater lobster:
epic

epic

Measuring an astounding fourteen inches, it’s among the largest to be caught this season.

Also found under the surface was a Zona can and a lot of cigarette butts.

More alarming, though, was an aforementioned townie who decided to bring his pet snake to the gorge for the day.

A few problems with this: Don’t carry something that a large amount of people are terrified of. I’m not bringing my pet gun or a clown in public.

What if he let’s go? Snakes swim, and I bet they do so faster than me, especially while I’m panicking.

Thirdly, while he took a break from cooling off his snake, and retreated to the aforementioned rocks, I didn’t see the snake. That’s not to say he didn’t put it in a cage, I wasn’t watching too attentively – I was hunting lobsters – but when I see a guy playing with a snake in water, then see him, snakeless, smoking on a rock while I’m swimming, I get a little frightened.

If you’ve read down this far, I’ll tell you a secret – the lobster is really just a crayfish.

is this a g-d joke?!?!

  By Riley | August 14, 2009 - 6:35 pm | Food & Drink
View Comments

Zona is a beverage whose charm lies in its price. At a mere 99cents, it’s cheaper than water.

Which is why I was dismayed when I saw this:

wtf

wtf

On his face, no less.
If you’re driving to Ithaca from points east, far east, do yourself a favor and skip over the Lee Plaza on the MassPike. It’s a damn rip-off.

Confessions of a Teen Movie Junkie

  By Jordan | August 12, 2009 - 10:52 am | Rants
View Comments

After a few days of mourning, allow me to reflect on John Hughes, one of the most criminally under-appreciated producers, a man who polarized filmmakers from the last 20 years. What made John Hughes so great was his ability to write a realistic teen movie. I will admit that I love teen movies and have seen almost all of them. But many of them do a TERRIBLE job of depicting what high school is really like. The jocks and cheerleaders rule the school and the entire world revolves around these seemingly perfect kids. The guy always gets the girl, class never exists, and everyone comes to some profound realization at the extravaganza that is prom.

But is high school really the plastics in “Mean Girls” ridiculing the student body by chronicling their flaws in a burn book? Is it really Preston Meyers carrying a pathetic letter around for four years before finally presenting it to Amanda Beckett, and without ever meeting, the two fall passionately in love in “Can’t Hardly Wait?” Is it really this status-obsessed, image-driven environment that all the movies paint it as? Or is this just what the movies make us think high school is?

Why do I have such cynicism towards the teen movie? Why am I so passionate about something as trivial as the elements and stereotypes presented in teen movies? Perhaps I have too much time on my hands. I have seen way too many teen movies in my time. It was not until I lived the life of a high school student that I saw just how silly teen movies really are compared to the reality of the daily grind. Every teen movie seems to be the same thing. They share the same plot twists, their characters come to the same realizations (that beauty is not skin deep, that social status doesn’t matter, blah blah blah) – and they even play the same corny songs over the credits. These illustrations are what I based my beliefs on the social aspects of high school on.

What I learned though, is that high school is not jocks and cheerleaders. It is not freaks and geeks. Prom is not some epic life-changing experience. Students do not break into random song and dance in the middle of geometry. Teachers actually teach. The skewed world of the teen movie where we all fit a distinct mold and where the guy always gets the girl is not reality. These are not accurate descriptions of high school. Teen movies see high school students in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.

John Hughes did not boil them down to their lowest-common-denominator. For that, we should be eternally grateful.

so, you drink bud light…

  By Riley | August 12, 2009 - 6:40 am | Rants
View Comments

Congratulations, you’re a victim of advertising. And corporate America.

Imagine you’re with your friends, sitting outside at a party, and you see some contemporaries approach. You haven’t seen each other for a little while, a few weeks at most. Time to move your beverage of choice from your right hand to your left, get ready to shake some hands – or so you think.

But this contemporary of yours may have had a few too many beverages of choice – in this case, bud light. Fuck a hadnskhe he thinks. Im’ goann slamn his botlle and make his beer foamd aeverywhere. With my right arm outstretched, expecting a firm grasp, I get a slam to my bottle resting in my left hand. Unexpecting, I drop my beer – one valued at more than seventy-five cents, which is what I estimate a bud light to cost (a ridiculous price to pay for a shitty beer, there are plenty of light beers you can get for $15 a 30). Beer all over my shoes, glass everywhere. I’m one less beer deep than I wish.

i”m so sorry dude,. here, have sopme of mine. He offers some bud light to me. “No thanks.” Oh, come on, yuou don’t liek bud light? At this point of the conversation I walked away.

I’m not saying I don’t drink cheap beer. I love a good Natty. But if I’m going to drink beer from a bottle, I’ll be damned if it’s a light beer.

That’s the essence of a bud light drinker. He’ll fuck you over, and for compensation, won’t even offer you a full one of his – just a sip.

budlight-2.13.08-thumb

I’m not drinking it.

end of an era

  By Sarah | August 11, 2009 - 7:54 am | Reviews
View Comments

the beloved character master of some of the greatest movies ever made has left behind his legacy. john hughes died of a heart attack. he was 59.

he wrote the Vacation movies bringing Chevy Chase to life on the big screen, broke down high school barriers with the brat pack and made kevin mcallister a household name. let’s not forget about the perfect day off with the mastermind of Ferris Bueller. hughes created some of the most memorable movies that will be passed on forever. how many more times will you sit down to watch Home Alone every Christmas? or maybe you can’t resist dennis the menace and the beethoven movies. i know i can’t turn the channel once uncle buck has started.

john hughes is in the category of defining a generation; his films manifest coming-of-age. it is a small list and an honored list. if he had been more of a sex symbol, he’d be on the front page of magazines everywhere.

since you don’t see him while you’re checking out of wegmans, here’s what he looks like:

hughesslide6

let us learn from his modesty with this parting quote: “I stumbled into this business, I didn’t train for it. I yelled “Action!” on my first two movies before the camera was turned on.”

a liberal coating of sugar

  By Riley | August 6, 2009 - 11:50 am | Reviews
View Comments

I made a trip to the registrar’s office after having forgotten my login for homerconnect. The office has moved to the new Park building. No, the other Park building not for communications. Wow, freshman are gonna have a bitch of a time getting to the right places the first week of class.

Anyways, I had just finished a Zona and needed to use the bathroom, and it’s all state-of-the-line. X-Celerator dryer that makes your skin wiggle, no-touch faucets, nice stone countertops. Two urinals, a no-peep wall, and a luxurious handicap stall.

There’s more. The flusher in the stall has two options. Up, for piss, or down, for shit.

piss/shit

piss/shit

My problem is the ambivalence of the Sloan company. You don’t have to sugar-coat it and write (liquid waste) (solid waste). We get it, people piss and shit in bathrooms. If you get close enough to read the sign (it’s right above the bowl) you shouldn’t be offended by such words.

Supposedly it uses less water if you just use the piss-flush, pardon, the “liquid waste” option. The new building is 100%green, even the handle of the flusher is!

green handle

And I don’t believe green paint protects against germs.

funny person

  By Riley | August 5, 2009 - 2:46 pm | Reviews
View Comments

now trust me, no one was more excited for this movie than i was. since the trailer came out in late march i was anticipating this movie- and even bummed that i had to wait until late in the summer to see it. and i’m not saying that it wasn’t good because it has a lot to offer and there is a lot to say about it.

after following all of the terrific press from TIME magazine, to the New Yorker– even the View, i knew all the details about the movie going in, the back story, why apatow wanted to make it and what he wanted from it. but now, after seeing this movie i see how flawed it is. and maybe that is because it isn’t at all what we expected from him. apatow even said himself that he wanted to make a movie that could be funny without a chest waxing scene, or the crowning of a birth. he is the man of dirty humor (this movie certianly confirms that), stoner magic, and- for god’s sake he created the modern day bromance that we all love. but in the end, it’s hard for me to say that he successfully made this new type of humor effective. you can’t let your previous engagements with his stories impact your expectations. and i can admit that i knew all of this from studying up but i may be guilty because of my love for him. in the end the story was messy and the chemistry wasn’t right at all. and when a movie is long enough for you to forget whole parts of it, its hard to completely focus on what’s going on because you can’t remember the beginning of the plot.

i am not disapointed and i am not overjoyed. my biggest concern is critics and reviews giving it too much praise because of who made it. not everything this man will make will turn to gold. we need to remember that. and i have to fight that within myself, trust me.  in retrospect it wasn’t his movies that made me fall in love with apatow– i am a Freaks & Geeks nerd to the core. so all i can hope that comes of this is great conversation- because that is why people create media: so we can talk about it and let it simmer into something new.

fng

now don’t let me discourage you from seeing it. that is the last thing i want to do. please go see it, talk about it and decide for yourself. until then….

National Pride

  By Riley | August 5, 2009 - 8:39 am | Rants
View Comments

I consider myself, like most Ithaca students, liberal. I think I’m the smartest person in the room , I don’t buy things from Wal-Mart, and I listen to the Grateful Dead. But I am not a fucking hippie. I shower.

A few weeks ago, I worked for a food vendor at the Grassroots Festival with a few other kids around my age, whom I got along with pretty well. Our supervisor was a man of middle-eastern descent. I got along with him too. A very easy-going man, we could joke around and give each other a hard time. I soon learned that he nearly used the guise of being a vendor to enjoy the music scene.

falafel grassroots

One day at the festival, after getting off the phone with someone, speaking in a different language, he instructed me to rinse something out using a colander, ya know, a strainer. But with his accent, the word ‘colander’ sounded like ‘calendar,’ ya know, a dayminder. I wasn’t even the first one to joke about his accent, but I’ll admit that it was humorous. It was one of the other kids that said, “You mean a CAH-LINDER, boss?”

Then, hippie-bitch that worked with us tried to pull the righteous card. “Real mature guys, make fun of a man not from this country about his accent.” I was okay with this, everyone has those few words we can’t say right. But then she came out with, “Let’s see how good your Hebrew is.”

Furious. Go take a shower, hippie.

speak english patch

I need a co-pilot

  By Riley | August 5, 2009 - 8:12 am | Rants
View Comments

I listen to a fair amount of music. When I’m on my computer, it’s coming from my computer; iTunes, Pandora, whatever. When I’m at a party, I’m listening to music only made tolerable by Natty Light. But when I’m in my car, that’s when I pay some respect to radio and tune in to WICB.

I generally like the music on WICB, plenty of Jane’s Addiction. Jazz Impressions is great, too. The station is very accessible if you want to make a request, you can IM the station (wicbrocks) or call the DJ. Since I solely listen to the radio in my car, I have come across two (maybe three) problems.

1- I don’t have a computer in my car. Ergo, I cannot IM in a request.

2 – In New York, a driver cannot use a cell phone behind the wheel. Ergo I cannot call the station.

(3) – I’m a big Jane’s Addiction fan, my only request would be more of it.

In the great state of Massachusetts, you’re allowed to talk on your phone while driving. Massachusetts has more requests per radio station than any other state in the country. I just made that up, but you get the point – no cell phone use in cars means less interaction between radio and audience. So if you’re a proponent of radio and you think iTunes and mp3 players are to blame, think again. It’s the police that are oppressing your medium.

I wouldn’t be caught dead using a bluetooth headpiece and I think that doing the maneuver where you put the phone on speaker and hold it away from your face is lame as hell.

lame manuever

lame maneuver

Until then, I guess I’ll just keep up with Jane’s Addiction and Regina Spektor.