AquaMunkee Sighting!

AquaMunkee Sighting!
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

Looks like AquaMunkee escaped from the studio for Halloween!!

Drunk Dialing

Our man Dino from Citizen Wausau discusses one of his drunk dials to us that we recorded for posterity. And he's right, we will send a copy of the MP3 to anyone that picks up an album!

Next

I saw Next last night with Nicholas Cage. Peter Falk has a sweet cameo too. I thought it might be cheesy because of the PG-13 rating, but it was still really exciting. What would you do if you could see 2 minutes into the future? :)

Happy Halloween!

This year I'm going as an ugly bass player from before the Millenium!

The Scottish beret was a gift from a friend overseas who heard us over Napster back when it actually was a danger to the record industry.

WI Ghost Site

Here's a Traveler's Guide to Haunted Wisconsin Sites that's perfect if you're looking for something fun to do on Halloween. I've been to five of the sites on the list (I worked at one of them, Heaven City in Mukwonago, which closed its doors a coupla years ago but recently reopened under new (and probably less stoned) management. It was a pretty spooky place, all the other waitstaff had ghost stories except for me, I didn't see anything.) I'd be interested to see if anyone else has been to any of the sites and has any stories.

Bigfoot? Oh yeah!

From Pennsylvania in September. A hunter set up a camera to look for deer, but came up with this shot. Unfortunately, this is the best one I can find right now because the Bigfoot Research Organization website is down because of all the traffic (anything related to cryptozoology is gonna be a big topic on the newswires during Halloween season.) If more pics show up on the net, I'll post em.

It doesn't look like a sasquatch to me (I always thought of them as more ape-ish), but I'm not an expert, I just think Bigfoot is frickin' sweet.

Our tour guide.

He fed us beer from his udders and then showed us Bernie Brewer's original house from county stadium. (if you are reading this out of state, Bernie slides down a slide when a Brewer hits a home run.)

Larry curly and moe

On the beer vats at lakefront brewery tour in milwaukee.

More Runners

More Runners
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Here's a guy not afraid to make an "ass" outta himself...

And my Dad got second place for his aqe group!

Lakefront Finish!

Lakefront Finish!
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Now it's time to drink!

Milwaukee Lakefront Discovery Run #2

Milwaukee Lakefront Discovery Run
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Milwaukee Lakefront Discovery Run

Milwaukee Lakefront Discovery Run
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

It's fricking freezing out here, Mr. Bigglesworth, but the 15K has begun. My girlfriend and my father are running, so whichever one finishes first there's bound to be some issues that arise, ha. But it's all for a good cause and there's even some costumed runners (I'll try to get a shot of the Fred Flintstone if I can catch him at The Milwaukee Ale House where the race finishes. I'm gonna head there early and have my own race to see how many glasses I can down before the runners get there!)

Science Imitates Art

The Time Machine for real.

But what about The Borad?

We're all stars now...

We're all stars now...
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

AT THE DOPE SHOW!

We're all stars now...

We're all stars now...
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

AT THE DOPE SHOW!

Middleton townies stole my quarter.

After being told we'd have to win the table, I put up a quarter to play the next game and one of the a-holes ran off with it. I wonder if it was the same guy whose face the cops put on the pavement for resisting arrest as we were leaving the club tavern.

No, my name is barf, I'm a mog

Somebody had too many half priced 100oz beers. Impressive amount of barf. Like 10 piles, inside and out.

Family feast in Wendy's hometown

Before and after pics. And the waitress said that next door at the Sybaris you can go for a soak and poke (hourly hot tub room rentals)

14 Songs About Vampires

The Onion's usually reliable AV Club kinda let me down with this list of vampire songs. Sure, they didn't forget The Misfits, but adding Future Bible Heroes (who I kinda like) instead of The Toadies is an unforgiveable four-eyed-record-store-employee-sized mistake. Check the list out, though, plus the comments section has a great list of other vampire songs for you.

And of course, Bruce Dickinson's ridiculous "Dracula" is a lovely bit of 70's heavy metal cheese that could make even Rob Halford wince.

Speaking of vampires and musicals, has anyone been to a late night Buffy screening of "Once More With Feeling"? Are they even having them around here?

West Side Andy

West Side Andy
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

Workin' it!

Sunspot Road Mania - Ep. 65

Hanging out after practice and October updates from the band!



Direct download link:
http://sunspotmusic.com/roadmania/sunspot_rm_65.m4v

The Pyramids of Lake Mills

Since Weird Wisconsin has been down for months now and we're getting closer to my favorite holiday, I'd be interested if anyone knows anymore about this.

I tend to think of Lake Mills as the place where the van needed to be towed after the axle came flying off and almost murdered a biker and killed Wendy but more interestingly, there's supposed to be an underwater pyramid located there (the link goes to the cool Burlington, WI UFO News site that has a great overview but there's the Rock Lake Research Society purely dedicated to the pyramids at the bottom of the lake.) My old roommate, Brian, told me about them a long time ago, but I never thought much of it. But if anyone wants to go on a diving expedition in the Spring, let me know. I'm in!

So far, the only pyramid in Wisconsin lakes I've seen is this one:

Extreme Geekery

The Doctor as Hamlet and Captain Picard as Claudius.

These shorts are ruined.

Rocker and UFO Expert?

I was listening to Coast to Coast last night and they had on Timothy Good a musicians who's performed on recordings with U2 and Depeche Mode (and a poop ton of others) who's now a UFO Authority and writes books on the subject. He, my friends, is a man who's living the dream (well, my dream, anyway.) It was a good interview (but you need to be a Coast to Coast subscriber to listen to the podcast) and I just thought I'd share the link.

Recommended Reading

I just finished reading So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star, the book by Jacob Slichter, the drummer for Semisonic.

It paints a fascinating picture of the music industry circa late-1990's. I found it especially interesting since the band is from the Midwest...

Anyway, if you're looking a good & entertaining read, I recommend it!

Put on your aluminum foil helmet

It's got a touch of conspiracy theory but America: From Freedom to Fascism successfully bridges the gap between hippies (anti-globalization) and libertarians (tax protesters). It's not as entertaining as a Michael Moore film, but it certainly brings up points that are worth thinking about. Plus, it's from the guy who brought us The Rose and I love that movie (Wow, that's ambiguous. I might as well have said that I like show tunes and watch Absolutely Fabulous.)

Sex Offender Trailer Park

You can't make this stuff up, it's an adults-only (that description always makes things sound dirty) trailer park that welcomes predators and molestors. I don't know if I'd want to hang out there, but you've got to hand it to the woman who runs the park, she's doing something for society that most of us would never even imagine.

Wendy's DrummerCam: Wednesday 10/17/07 @ The Dry Bean, Fitchburg, WI

I hate to hate

but where is Casa Bianca? Ian's is kinda crap.

Star Wars TV Show

They've been talking about this since right after Episode 3 was released but here's the real confirmation for the new Star Wars television show. I think the idea of focusing on minor characters is a great one, I just hope it's AFTER the second Death Star is destroyed because I'd love to see a continuation of the universe into an area that we don't know enough about (the EU novels notwithstanding.) Lucas says it's going to focus on "the life of droids", which could be cool as long as it's nothing like this:

You don't know jack

Just played "You Don't Know Jack" dis or dat and got three wrong in the Crayola Crayon vs 2007 adult film awards. I scored incorrectly on Banana Mania, Raw Sienna, and Beaver. Damn.

The Face in The Rock

The Face in The Rock
Originally uploaded by sunspot_mike

Looks like someone was frozen in carbonite at Devil's Lake!

Weird News: Message from the Dead Pope?

Is Pope John Paul II saying hi from the afterlife? Or are the Polacks just living up to their reputation?

Unbelievable Rubik's Guy

Man, I used to think that I was good at the Rubik's Cube, but this guy's insane. I'd laugh at being a Rubik's Cube champion, but then again, I laughed at my friends who thought they could make a living playing Magic: The Gathering, and some of those guys are cleaning up.

Snoop Dogg's Real Name Is...

Cordozar? What?!? I guess I'd go for Snoop too. Check out his pic on that story as well, he looks gross, man.

Whatever happened to his cousin, Warren G? That guy was smooth. I was always more of a regulator anyway.

meijer

Mike likes shopping.

Another 100 oz at quaker steak.

Fanboy Erection

Simon Pegg as Scotty!

MTV Actually Reports on Music News...

...on a story about Radiohead fans feeling duped after the whole "free record" thing that was in the news last week (I've kinda felt duped by every album after OK Computer.)

The story's kinda ridiculous but the fans do have some reason to be upset. If you paid more than $1 a song for something that you'll have to re-buy on iTunes or on CD when it comes out and you're not gonna get the quality you want (and 160K isn't bad quality by any means), then well, you probably did get ripped off. But if you didn't pay shit (45 pence, guvnah!) then you got what you paid for, so um, shut up. Radiohead deserves to make some money after working hard on an album and they've got mortgages and entourages that need to be paid. So what? The download release was a cool idea and they're bypassing record companies, which is an awesome idea. It's the first time someone's done something like this, so it's going to take a little sorting out. It was a bit of marketing, but also a bit pioneering. And if you paid for the deluxe set, you're getting the full-quality CD anyway. And if it was a scheme just to keep their songs off of P2P sites, well, then it was a great scheme. Music shouldn't be free, it's not fucking charity. And if your product is good (like The Bends) then people should pay to enjoy it. Of course, record companies jacked up the prices too high and now everyone acts like art shouldn't cost anything.

It's worth something and letting people pick the price they're willing to pay for it is a cool experiment. Of course there's going to be some snags but if this is the opening shot in the war to end the music industry as we know it, then I say sally forth.

I hope I don't turn out like those South Park kids

I reinstalled some old video games about three o'clock this morning when I couldn't sleep.
Quake III Arena is pretty tight, but I think back nostalgically to the dorm days of playing Quake I on a high-speed connection when everyone else had dial-up and walking around putting a stop to the trash-talking campers.
The other one I played was Starcraft. I know World of Warcraft is ginormous (just got added to Webster this year) these days, but I just can't get into any of those type of games without the aliens in Starcraft.

The State Plays Parent So You Don't Have To

California makes it illegal to smoke in a car with minors. That's not state-owned cars, that's your car.

Drugs do a body good

Bobby Brown has a heart attack! (and not the sweetcheeks from the Warrant "Cherry Pie" video who used to go out with dupek Janie Lane.)

It's Beer 30 at Beck's in Harmony Grove

And some sweet Karaoke.

Wicked TV Application

For those of you who watch a lot of movies and TV on your computer instead of a traditional entertainment center (like me), you have to check Miro out. It's kinda like Tivo for your computer, but it's open source and platform(!)

Booze News

"This is a publication that clearly condones high-risk behavior" is how it's described by a "peer educator" (whatever that is) at the University of Missouri. Umm, yeah. But that's what the wink-wink-nudge-nudge college system has become now, anyway. That behavior's expected now once you get into school. Parents who went to college know exactly what their kids are getting into. It's not just the first experience of leaving the nest, it's like leaving the nest and moving into Studio 54.

Well, that's what it's like in Madison anyway. And I know that our experiences here weren't very unique. And I saw plenty of educational careers get flushed down the drain by drugs and alcohol. It is high-risk behavior and it ruins lives. But for awhile at least, it's fun. More education and less abstinence, maybe? I dunno. But it's a culture of excesses anyway. You're either a smoker or a non-smoker, an alcoholic or a teetolaer, obese or anorexic, a religious nutcase or a arrogant atheist, a red-stater or a blue-stater, right?

There's less and less balance every day and I'm not sure why. The only good thing to ever come from polarization is Santa.

The article says that you can get the Booze News (which doesn't seem a clever enough title to make most people want to pick it up, anyway) here, but I haven't seen it in any stores yet. If anybody's read it, is it even funny?

pulse

Went to quaker steak tonight.

One of these propellers is doing its own thing

Can you tell which one?

Last of the Time Lords

Doctor Who season finale is tonight on Sci-Fi and I can't wait. We're only two months behind Canada now!

Also, anybody notice that Sci-Fi censored Sharon Osbourne saying that Harold Saxon "can check her box anytime"? It's a double entendre, yes, but needs to be bleeped? Also, they cut where Captain Jack reveals that he's got feelings for The Doctor to Martha. The show is only 45 minutes long in the first place, why do they need to cut extra to show us a commercial for their godawful Flash Gordon? If it wasn't a Sci-Fi promo, I would understand, because they need the money to pay the bills. But for promos? L-A-M-E. And we still don't get Confidential (narrated by Giles from Buffy!)

Here's a preview that someone made on YouTube that does a good job of summarizing the first two parts:

This guy must have been listening to Sunspot

His iPod set his pants on fire!

Looks Like Red Dwarf Is Done For

There won't be a ninth series and the movie still doesn't have any funding.

The BBC has a deal with YouTube so there's a ton of Red Dwarf (and Doctor Who and Life on Mars (for you Master fans!)) content on there if you need to get more familiar with a great show. Now why can't the American companies wise up and do something similar?

How many gay asteroid jokes are we going to have to hear now?

Now that they named one after Mr. Sulu, George Takei.



Now I love George as much as the next guy (well okay, I guess that depends on who the next guy is), but every time I see him now I think of that film Oblivion which was a wretched sci-fi Western that came out at the dawn of Direct-To-Video.

Here's a clip from the sequel (which was slightly better, but that's saying extraordinarily little):

And we thought the beer challenge was fun.

We gotta get this guy out to a Sunspot show.

Pavarotti dead

Why didn't somebody tell me sooner? It took me like three weeks to find out. I remember listening to him sing the tenor aria from Donezetti's L'elisir d'amore in my college voice class and thinking he was awesome.

Meet The New Low, Same As The Old Low

I watched the Rock of Love season finale and while I was still trying to keep a cool ironic distance, I enjoyed some of its salaciousness and the fact that these whores were throwing themselves at Bret Michaels (I felt almost misogynistic watching it.)

Bret Michaels didn't come off as too much of an asshole on the show, but you know he broke a million hearts and hymens between 1986 to 1992, so if he doesn't have a girlfriend now, it's probably just some karma biting him in the ass. I felt like I was watching the television parodies in Robocop. Let me apologize on behalf of the human race.

Our culture's never been that high-brow. It's the same as the disappearing middle class, because some aspects of television have never, ever been better. There's more great television now than there ever was (and the shows are better), but there's also much more complete and total rubbish. Not everything can be brilliant, but just because it can't be awesome, doesn't mean it has to be Rock of Love. There's just not a lot much in between. TV's as bipolar as society, the highs are dazzling but the lows are mortifying.

itas

So, I loves me a good steak, so Johnny Delmonico's is one of my favorite restaurants, along with the Edgewater (also downtown Madison) and the Signature Room at the top of the Hancock building in Chicago (best.lobster.ever), but for more weekly than once-a-year dining, I turn my attention to my fav west side establishment, Laredo's. Mike will tell you that Pedro's is the ballz for their veggie options, but Laredo's has the market cornered on service and Ranchero sauce. The special tonight (and every Tuesday at Laredo's) was Fajitas and Margaritas for two and then I hit the gym and watched the South Park episode with the brown note. Good thing I was watching with the closed-captioning on!

Now I'm Stranded!

Flight delays in Dayton (sigh). I best not miss my connection in Detroit Rock City!

People who can't be parents shouldn't.

That's it for Britney!

Update- Home Safe!

I apologize for leaving you hanging last night (thanks for your concern, renaeen!) - but my phone battery died and, of course, there was no where to charge it in the plane. After a couple of hours sitting on the tarmac in Chicago, they announced that no one was there to let us in at O'Hare (wtf?) so the only option was to turn around and go back to Milwaukee.

I felt particularly great when the pilot announced that "hopefully" we would land there.

We made a terrifying blind landing into the fog, about 3.5 hours later than originally scheduled.

I'm just glad to be back on solid ground! :)

Trapped on O'Hare runway

Trapped on O'Hare runway
Originally uploaded by Wendy Lynn

My flight was diverted from Milwaukee due to the fog, but now we're just sitting on the tarmac (we landed over an hour ago). Nobody knows what's going on, including the pilot & flight attendants... They just said they called the city? Hopefully the kind City of Chicago can get me outta here, I'm tired and starting to get surly. At least they could give us some peanuts?! Sheesh!

Oil

I'm getting my oil changed right now and was hoping for some friendly smiles or something and instead got the spanish inquisition before I could even exit my vehicle. I guess they're not messin around when they say instant. I just got ths car and I bet they're still going to try to tell me my air filter is dirty. They like to do that. I should put some amsoil in so I don't have to come back for 20000 miles.

You can't make this stuff up, either!

What if he just used all that toilet paper in one sitting?