I don't like this game...

Andrew Root -- [noun]: A person who falls into an outhouse and dies 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I am Kreskin!

Remember how a few hours ago I mentioned You Say Party! We Say Die! ?

Well on May 28th they play the Townehouse! Zounds!

Q: Will I be there?

A: Does Tim Allen make mediocre movies?

A couple of Stuffs

1) I tried to book my flight to France today. It didn't work out exactly as planned because my passport isn't back from the gov'y worker elves yet. So I shall wait. But I know for sure that I'm flying with Zoom Airlines on September 26th. All in all it was a thoroughly nerve-wracking endeavor.

2) Facebook. Creepy at first, leading into pretty fun. I recently added Krista Loewen, star keyboard player from You Say Party! We Say Die!, aka the current bespectacled indie rock musician of my affection. It's just as awkward as meeting a famous person in real life! And makes me feel really nerdy & stalkerish. If/when I see them live again I hope I can think of something better to say than "I'm that guy you don't know from Facebook!"


Le Sigh...

Either way:


Gods Facebook Page - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

By the way, my entire family comes here every so often. Hmm...

Recently...

...there was a shooting at a school in Virginia.

It's difficult to know exactly which emotion to whip out of the closet for this one. I can only try to relate to it in a vague "what if it had happened here?" type way. It's absolutely terrifying in every possible scenario I can come up with. I've been listening to the radio coverage of the whole shamozzle and noticed a disturbing trend. A call-in show this afternoon confirmed this trend:

Host: What's going through your head right now?

Caller #1: I'm deeply saddened, but (insert gun registry issue here)

Host: What's going through your head right now?

Caller #2: It's absolutely horrifying, but (insert comparision of American & Canadian society here)

Host: What's going through your head right now?

Caller #3: I'm very sad, but (insert alienated youth overgeneralization here)

People jump so quickly from sorrow to anger, as though pointing their finger takes away the sense of general dread one can't help but feel after something like this happens. It's the police officer's fault for not entering the classroom building sooner, it's the university's fault for not evacuating the campus after the initial shooting, it's the gunman's friends fault for not noticing that their friend was acting in an anti-social way!

The gunman is dead. There's no great rush. It is known (or at least announced) who the shooter was. The gunman is dead, and so I am sad.

I am angry too, but my anger seems to centre around my inability to comprehend what would drive a person to do this. I am angry that he turned the gun on himself. I feel a great swell of anger when I think of his cowardice, of his inability to face up to what he has done. Of his inability to deal with whatever the issue was in the first place.

He was powerless over whatever "it" was, so he took power into his own hands. We are powerless over what has happened, so we point our fingers at seemingly dangerous targets; the government, the gun owners, the campus security, the countless other targets who might share in "the blame."

I am divided on the issue of gun ownership. I doubt I will ever own, let alone fire a gun. I think guns should be difficult to acquire, but I don't think that owning one should be prohibited. I have seen no evidence that proves that all gun owners are dangerous. It's the anger, the sense of helplessness that comes with thinking that a gun will "protect you" that I fear.

When I was seven I went downstairs late at night to get a snack. It was dark and scary, so I thought I would take a knife with me back upstairs, because that would protect me from whatever I was afraid of. I ended up having a full-blown nightmare, a staying awake all night long. A weapon didn't make me feel safer. It made me feel like there was something I should be afraid of, something I needed protection from. In the end, there was nothing there in the dark that wasn't there in the light. I just couldn't see it clearly.

So, after it all, I am not "sad, but..."

I am just sad.

I'm already a proud uncle!

This gets pretty loud towards the middle, so keep your speakers down!



Has anyone else heard of the cat analogy as it relates to positive/negative particles? It basically states that there is an imaginary cat in an imaginary box with an imaginary vial of cyanide which may or may not have cracked open. Therefore until you look in the imaginary box, the imaginary cat remains both alive and dead at the same time! (The point of the analogy being that until you study a particle's charge it remains both positive and negative at the same time).

Essentially this is the quandry I find myself in with my new niece/nephew. Jess & Jon aren't going to find out if it's a boy or a grrrrl until little Baby Knoyle pops out into the world on or around September 20th (which is maddening!). Hence, for the meantime I am left with an asexual hermaphradite for a niece/nephew.

That is all. Seems just about as pointless as the cat analogy, doesn't it?

Lollapalooza 2007! Man, I wish I could go.

The Lineup for August 3 - 5th in Chicago's Grant Park:

Pearl Jam, Daft Punk, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Muse, Iggy & the Stooges, Modest Mouse, Interpol, My Morning Jacket, Satellite Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Snow Patrol, the Roots, Patti Smith, Kings of Leon, the Black Keys, Regina Spektor, Spoon, Lupe Fiasco, TV on the Radio, Pete Yorn, G. Love & Special Sauce, Paolo Nutini, Amy Winehouse, LCD Soundsystem, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Silverchair, Femi Kuti, Yo La Tengo, the Hold Steady, Jack's Mannequin, Stephen Marley, Sound Tribe Sector 9, M.I.A., Slightly Stoopid, Blonde Redhead, Sparklehorse, Sean Lennon, !!!, Blue October, Son Volt, Motion City Soundtrack, Polyphonic Spree, Peter Bjorn & John, Silversun Pickups, CSS, the Rapture, the Wailers, Roky Erickson, Tapes n Tapes, Heartless Bastards, the View, the Cribs, the Fratellis, Ghostland Observatory, Tokyo Police Club, Rhymefest, Soulive, Cold War Kids, Annuals, Fields, Electric Six, Jim Noir, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Sam Roberts Band, Black Angels, Charlie Musselwhite, Aqueduct, Juliette & the Licks, Dios, Viva Voce, David Vandervelde, Los Campesinos!, Chin Up Chin Up, Ryan Shaw, Colour Revolt, Satin Peaches (??), Illinois, Arckid, Mickey Avalon, The 1900s, Bang Bang Bang, Bound Stems, High Class Elite, Carey Ott, Matt Roan.

Andrew's reactions:

Really?, Wow!, Cool, ?, !!!!!!!!!!!, *GASP!*, *Gasp!*, Hmm cool, ?, HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD I WOULD WAIT ALL DAY TO BE FRONT ROW AT THIS ONE, !- uh..., I'm a Root!, WOAH, Patti FREAKIN' Smith!!!!!, hmm... maybe, ?, I would definitely check this one out, Neat-o!, etc, etc, etc. I got lazy and am just bolding the ones I would really like to see. But you can tell from the amount of exclamation points just how much I'd like to go.

I'm surprised though! No Arcade Fire, No Decemberists, No Bjork, No Cat Power. Hmm, I must be slipping.

Mariachi Meg?

I'm excited, but also confused! June 19th is the day of days this summer, and will be very enthusiastically welcomed by yours truly, and yet I question as to whether or not that's actually Meg White on the cover...

In unrelated news, here is a remix of "Your Ex-Lover is Dead"

Oh wow...

This is right up there with that "Hey Ya" acoustic cover.