Thursday, July 19, 2007

Wizard needs food badly

A. Once upon a time, I rather liked Dilbert. I thought it was generally pretty funny and even applicable to me, who had never inhabited a cubicle. Yet slowly, like the, uh..."rainy miasma that darkens my soul," a haze of lousiness crept over it and made it not-funny.
Likewise, I recently watched via YouTube part of a recent Simpsons episode. For ten long minutes I stared at the screen, having little else to do. The animation was pretty good; I don't usually notice such things, but it's as good as it's ever been. The voice actors were familiar and I felt like I should laugh. However, IT WAS AS FUNNY AS A WEEKEND TRAVEL PACKAGE TO THE GULAG. Anyways, my point is that things deteriorate.
But not always. MST3K managed to stay funny until the end, probably thanks a lot to Mike Nelson. Futurama? Heck yeah. I haven't seen an unfunny episode of Space Ghost, though I have seen plenty that are outright malicious toward the viewer. And to complement Dilbert, we have the excellent Calvin and Hobbes.
Maybe the constant theme is that of dropping out or getting canceled before you grow stale.

2. Having listened to some songs recently (namely, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand and "At Least I'm Not Like All Those Other Old Guys" by Five Iron Frenzy), I suddenly have a burning desire to write a bunch of music that combines disco beats with rock vocals and guitars. This, friends, would most likely be awesome.
Is there any other examples like this? First off, I'd like to listen to more of this stuff, and also I don't want to make the raddest record in the world, then look in the papers and see that everybody's already jumped on the disco rock bandwagon.

3. I'm going to Las Vegas tomorrow. It's been a while since I last went, so I'm kind of excited. It's good to see my dad, anyways; I don't like the city itself that much.
I love all of you. Except Murray.

4 comments:

Rachel Helps said...

I have more Franz Ferdinand, if that's what you're asking for.

Ben said...

The feeling's mutual.

-Murray

Clumpy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Clumpy said...

Disco beats with rock vocals? What about "One Better" by Les Claypool of Primus? I have the two Franz albums and I wouldn't say that "Take Me Out" is faux-disco, but whatever blisters your crystal is fine by me.

I have to agree with your first comment. The first ten years or so of Dilbert were great. The last eight or so years? . . . Not so great. I've long since stopped reading it. It's because he changed the strip from an offkilter commentary on the absurdity of life to lame jokes about budgets submitted by readers.