Holiday Movies that Don't Suck.

Some of us are getting a little tiresome of just seeing It's A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street every holiday season - here are some alternatives.

1. Scrooged - If you're a little sick of the normal telling of the Charles Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol" - and it's ok to admit; it's not actually a declaration of war on Christmas - you should definitely take a look at this update. For those unfamiliar, Bill Murray plays Frank Cross, a "work around the clock" money miser who dodges his nearest relatives for the holidays and works his underpaid assistant to the bone, completely ignoring the assistant's troubled child. And his secret regret is not sticking with his kindhearted young adulthood love. Sound familiar? Well, the differences are Frank is a high-powered TV exec, his Jacob Marley is his old boss - "the man who invented the mini-series" - and the whole movie takes place in 1980's New York. The always-genius Murray is complemented by wonderful performances from Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, Karen Allen and Buster Poindexter. The script manages to keep the heart and meaning of Dickens' tale and put it in such an unfamiliar setting (and more adult humor) that you'll find yourself looking for parallels to the original after your 20th viewing. My favorite? Taking Scrooge's "A bit of undigested food" explanation for Marley and referring to the warning spirit as "A hallucination! Russian vodka...poisoned by Chernobyl!"

2. The Nightmare Before Christmas - One of the highlights of Tim Burton's career, Nightmare is the story of the king of Halloweentown, Jack Skellington, as he and his spooky friends try to adopt Christmas as their own holiday. Released in the early '90s, this is a gleefully CGI-free stop-motion feature, and one of the few musicals with tolerable songs (all by Danny Elfman).

3. Love, Actually - This English ensemble romantic comedy shows the lives of over a dozen characters intersecting and humorously finding their true loves. I'm not a romantic comedy person at all, but the charm and fun throughout Love, Actually - from Hugh Grant's new prime minister with a boyish crush on his assistant to Liam Neeson's absurdly supportive stepfather helping a little boy get the attention of the object of his affection - win me over every time I see it.

4. Trading Places - Definitely a classic, though not much about Christmas. Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy play perfect opposites - the former an upper-class milquetoast with a butler, the latter an impoverished con-man. Aykroyd's evil bosses decide to place a bet on nature vs. nurture: if they ruin Aykroyd's life overnight and hire Murphy as his replacement, will the men take to their new roles or were they "born into" their places in society? Jamie Lee Curtis plays Aykroyd's would-be girlfriend - a prostitute who takes pity on him and helps him get his life back, for a percentage. It takes place around Christmas, of course, and one of the highlights is seeing Dan Aykroyd go back to his office completely drunk, in disguise as Santa, and seeing the mayhem that follows.

5. Elf - Will Farrell is Buddy the Elf, who, as a baby, snuck into Santa's sleigh and hitched a free ride back to the North Pole from an orphanage in New York. He's twice the size of everyone else there (including his foster father, Bob Newhart) and at one point he decides he has to go back to meet his real family in New York - including his real father, James Caan, a children's book publisher with a heart like a lump of coal. Zooey Deschanel shines as the cynical department store elf whose lack of enthusiasm is eventually warmed by Buddy's faith and naivete about the holidays. I wasn't crazy about Elf when it first came out, but Newhart's deadpan delivery starts a snowball (no pun intended) of great performances throughout.

6. Bad Santa - If you'll excuse one more awful Christmas reference, you'll want to make sure the kids are nestled all snug in their beds before popping in this adults-only R-rated comedy with Billy Bob Thornton as an alcoholic burglar who uses his gig as a mall Santa to rob department stores blind every Christmas. Directed by Crumb and Ghost World's Terry Zwigoff, Thornton is supported by Bernie Mac, John Ritter, Tony Cox, Lauren Graham and Brett Kelly as he moves in with a loser kid (Kelly) under the guise of being Santa. This is about as funny as it gets, and it could make a veteran sailor blush. One of the darkest comedies I've ever seen, but definitely one of the best Christmas movies too.

7. A Christmas Story - Jean Shepherd wrote (and narrates) this amazing narrative non-fiction film about a nine-year-old kid growing up in the '60s who wants a BB-gun for Christmas. Originally published as a series of stories in Playboy from 1964 to 1966, this was adapted into the now-classic movie starring Peter Billingsley as the kid and Melinda Dillon as his mother in the early '80s. Besides a child's love of presents above all else, Christmas Story explores such classic childhood themes as being bundled up in winter clothes to the point of immobility, tongues sticking to frozen poles, fathers battling decades-old furnaces and lying to your parents to get out of trouble.

8. 200 Cigarettes - This ensemble dramedy takes place on New Year's Eve, 1981 and revolves around the lives of a couple dozen people trying to reconcile love and growing up while the clock ticks down. This is a decent flick worth a watch to break the George Bailey Doldrums.

9. A Charlie Brown Christmas - One of the few awesome classics (in my opinion). Join the Peanuts gang as they search for the true meaning of Christmas and belt out one of the most excellent Christmas songs ever, "Christmastime is Here." I'm also a sucker for that song's use in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, but it's a testament to its timelessness and nostalgia for a childhood classic.

Sneaking A Couple In for the Men

I'm becoming convinced that casting directors hire awesome actors for small parts in sub-par romantic comedies to keep the men interested - which is what I thought would happen with Liam Neeson and Alan Rickman being in Love, Actually except that it turned out to be fantastic. It seems that every time my wife wants me to see some train wreck about true love, she becomes the world's quickest salesperson. "Hey, let's go see New Year's Eve!" "Screw that!" "But it has Robert De Niro in it!" Considering that, I think the shoe is on the other foot when it comes to sliding a couple non-Christmas movies into our "Holiday Movies that Don't Suck" list simply because they take place on or around Christmas.

Die Hard and Die Hard 2 - If you find yourself scraping the bottom of the barrel to avoid your 156th showing of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - and every channel seems to be showing nothing but Miracle on 34th Street - you can convince your family on the facts that both movies take place during the Christmas holiday. This is more like the Lee Marvin spoof The Night the Reindeer Died as featured on Scrooged than anything else, but what the hey - it's Christmas.

The Long Kiss Goodnight - Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson kick ass in this action-comedy about a thirtysomething suburban housewife with amnesia who suddenly regains her memory and realizes she's a high-ranking spy for the U.S. government. Sam Jackson is her low-ranking private eye who gets dragged into her world of espionage and uzi-happy action scenes. Not only is this movie full of hilarious jokes and convincing action, but the whole thing revolves around Christmastime.

Gremlins - A little fuzzy creature who pops out rapidly-multiplying green homicidal monsters? Well, they are green...Gremlins takes place on Christmas and is as typical '80s horror as you get - think Critters but with an adorable little mascot, whose species was later co-opted for one of the best post-rock bands on earth: Mogwai. Much like the Bill and Ted movies, the first Gremlins seems to almost take itself as seriously as it can, while the sequel is so self-parodying and -referential it's great if only for its mockery of the sub-genre.

* Note - I Googled some other cool winter holiday movies, as I was hoping to find some bitchin' Hanukkah or Kwanzaa flicks, but apparently there aren't many. I've seen plenty of great movies based on Jewish and black/African-American culture and history in general, but upon further reflection I don't feel that shooing them in as general consolations would be doing either people justice. My apologies.

Why Tori Amos's 'Night of Hunters' Might Be the Best Album of 2011.

I was as excited as any average Tori Amos fan when I heard she had a new album coming out this year - well, to be fair, about as excited as i was to hear about new music this year from Bjork, Saul Williams, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Skinny Puppy, Junius, Radiohead and everyone else whose albums I awaited with bated breath in 2011.

I was, subsequently, so intrigued by the concept and composition of the new Tori Amos record as to say my intrigue was only matched this year by Bjork's Biophilia - which involved bespoke instruments and aural interpretations of natural phenomena (like using a Tesla Coil to make a bassline for a song about electricity). The structure of Tori's Night of Hunters, as I've come to understand it, is that it is a 14-track song cycle in the tradition of classical collections like Franz Schubert's Die Winterreise - a sort of allegorical mini-opera. The story behind this album finds the female narrator on the eve of the end of a relationship, suddenly whisked away by a spirit on a journey across 400 years to see herself and her partner's earlier incarnations throughout fantasy and history.

Surprisingly, your or my opinions on subjects like fire spirits, mythical goddesses and peyote rituals - all of which are explored on the album - or concept-based albums at all are rendered irrelevant by the next trick Tori had up her sleeve in Night of Hunters' composition. All 14 songs, without exception, are either based upon or at least inspired by classical pieces from the last 400 years. It's no coincidence that the history of music she explores matches in time with the journey on which the narrator travels - nor is it coincidence that such subject matter would find itself on Tori's first release under contract with the classical-based German record label Deutsche Grammophon - but it's the near-tribute to some of the world's most renowned classical composers that acts as adhesive bridging each track into a full-length quest to the 17th century and back.

My one complaint with Night of Hunters was that as truly classic (excuse the terminology) as it sounded, I didn't recognize any of the reference material as I listened - until I realized that was really a problem with my rudimentary experience with classical music, not Tori's selection. A quick YouTube search, the benefits of which you're about to reap, quickly revealed to me the intimate and respectful true nature of the album towards Tori's predecessors - who include Chopin, Schubert, Schumann and Bach, among others.

Consider Tori's new song "Battle of Trees." Here's a link to it on MySpace (just click the "Play" button, and try a couple times if it doesn't work the first time).

http://www.myspace.com/toriamos/music/songs/battle-of-trees-83864619

It's instantly memorable for several of its chord and singular note progressions. "Battle of Trees" is based on Erik Satie's "Gnossienne No. 1," written over a hundred years ago. Give it a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFVGwGQcB0

Not only is "Battle of Trees" a faithful reproduction of "Gnossienne No. 1," but Tori adds her own style and flair to it as well - and the whole album follows suit! Not all songs are as similar as their inspirations, but listening to the reference material and the Tori Amos song back-to-back are a real treat.

The amount of work that's gone into the reinterpretation and production of these songs to bring them up to the 21st century is daunting enough without considering that it manages to flow as a unified whole, and not just 14 random songs sequenced together. If it's not the most impressive and ambitious endeavor in music this year, it's certainly near the top of a short list. Night of Hunters is an absolute odyssey from front to back, but one worth hearing again and again.

One final note - an Amazon.com reviewer known as T. Fisher, in critiquing the just-released instrumental version of Night of Hunters, tracked the entire album to its sources. For your enjoyment, I'll list them as follows, with thanks to him or her for the information.

1. Shattering Sea (Alkan: Song of the Madwoman on the Sea-Shore, Prelude op. 31 no. 8)
2. SnowBlind (Granados: Añoranza - from 6 Pieces on Spanish Folksongs)
3. Battle of Trees (Satie: Gnossienne no. 1)
4. Fearlessness (Granados: Orientale from 12 Spanish Dances)
5. Cactus Practice (Chopin: Nocturne op. 9 no. 1)
6. Star Whisperer (Schubert: Andantino from Piano Sonata in A major D 959)
7. Job's Coffin (Inspired by the next song, Nautical Twilight)
8. Nautical Twilight (Mendelssohn: Venetian Boat Song from Songs Without Words op. 30)
9. Your Ghost (Schumann: Theme and Variations in E flat major WoO 24 from Ghost Variations)
10. Edge of the Moon (Bach: Siciliano from Flute Sonata BWV 1031)
11. The Chase (Mussorgsky: The Old Castle from Pictures at an Exhibition)
12. Night of Hunters (Scarlatti: Sonata in F minor, K.466 and the Gregorian Chant "Salva Regina")
13. Seven Sisters (Bach: Prelude in C minor)
14. Carry (Debussy: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, from Preludes I)

How iWish You Were Here.

Yesterday I read an article in Side-Line stating that by 2012, all major record labels will stop supporting cd's. An hour after this, I was reading an issue of Sound + Vision featuring interviews with and features on Pink Floyd, in respect to their series of box sets called Immersion, which feature 5- or 6-disc deluxe reissues of Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. And it got me thinking.

I think giving up on cd's is a misstep - and yes, I've heard of iTunes. My problem with digital distribution for music - which includes Amazon, iTunes, 7digital, p2p sharing, torrents, whatever - is twofold. First, it ruins the experience of an album as being larger than life, with the artwork, the liner notes, the whole visual experience. But that's besides the point.

Just as importantly, I'm one of those "weirdos" who still thinks an album is an album, and should be listened to at least a few times through from start to finish as a whole. Even though only a small percentage of released albums qualify as "concept albums" - in which every song relates to and helps explain a specific concept, point or theme - most songs still sound different when taken in the context in which they're recorded and released as part of a series by an artist. I don't read individual chapters of books when I'm bored, or watch individual scenes in movies. I don't watch just one play from the middle of a game either. I don't go so far as to plan car trips to be long enough that I know which albums to listen to and which ones "not to bother starting," but if I've got an hour to kill, an album's going on and it's likely not leaving until it's finished. Sometimes I do listen to one or two songs from an album and change it out for something else, and I do love making mixtapes - which is where my single-song buying comes into play - but not only do I want to hear an album in its entirety, I'm not the only one.

German prog-metal outfit The Ocean have released five full-length albums. They encourage their fans to listen to them straight through to the point that their liner notes request that you do the same. Their third major release, Precambrian, is the clearest example of this reasoning. Each song is named after a period of the Precambrian age - yeah, that's right; there are songs called Rhyacian and Neoarchean - and are written to represent this, and sequenced chronologically. A double-disc, Precambrian boasts a 25-minute EP-style disc ('Hadean/Archean') and an hour-long album-style disc ('Proterozoic'). Hadean/Archean is five blasting metal tracks, meant to aurally represent a chaotic and fiery time in geology; Proterozoic is more tempered, with some classical instruments peppered throughout, to simulate a time when life began on earth and there was some tranquility.

Strange as it sounds, listening to it straight through just makes sense. Much the same as when you hear Radiohead's 1997 OK Computer and the first crunchy guitar and supporting cello and tambourine on "Airbag" start an adventure that doesn't end until the triangle fades at the end of "The Tourist," each of The Ocean's albums are clearly planned to be front-to-back journeys.

So what if digital distribution and all its necessary technology - iPods, computers, etc - had existed 50 years ago?

Let's look at Pink Floyd again, upon whom I'm focusing for today in light of the Immersion sets and the fact that they're a perfect example for this point. If iTunes existed 50 years ago, you'd have kids across the nation in high schools saying "Pink Floyd sucks. I heard Dark Side of the Moon was supposed to be like the best album ever, and I bought a song from it on iTunes and it was just like clocks going off or something. Why would people buy that shit?" ...which they do now, but their parents smack them on the back of the head and tell them they're morons. Instead of The Wall being an 85-minute descent into madness, and one of the greatest concept albums ever made, it would just be one entry on 20 million iPods - "Another Brick in the Wall (Pt. 2)," or as my generation knows it as, "We Don't Need No Education." It's poppy, short, has a nice guitar solo, and teenagers like it because they think it's all about skipping school.

But it's not just the 25-and-under crowd. I was talking to a middle-aged friend about new albums this fall and how I was falling short on picking them up, and she said "Well you just need to get over the whole 'album' thing; you should only get one or two songs." I can't imagine any piece of Dark Side missing (nor of a specifically defined concept-based album) let alone the majority of it. Plenty of albums tell a story and every song is like a chapter in a book. To discard any one piece of The Wall is to lose a legitimate facet of Pink (the main character)'s personality and tragedy. For example, f you were to only take out "Mother" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Pt. 1)," Pink almost seems like a bratty, anti-military asshole rocker who just can't stand his own fame. You lose the roots about his father dying in the war (an unnecessary victim of Operation Cinder, we found out in the song "When the Tygers Broke Free"), his overbearing and traumatizing mother and how these influences on him shape his inability to have fully-functioning relationships with women, trust his local authorities and finally have a nervous breakdown - only to be cast aside with disdain by the world that sent him there. It's a tragic story, and one that would be sorely missed without the entire album.

The Dark Side of the Moon Immersion Box Set is a real beast. Disc 1 is the original album, digitally remastered this year. Disc 2 is the entirety of the album performed live. Disc 3, a DVD, contains a 5.1 surround version of the album from 2003 and the original Alan Parsons quad sound version, each with standard- or high-resolution options. Disc 4, a visual dvd, includes live performances, a documentary and some other press stuff. Disc 5 is a blu-ray of Disc 3 (the surround/quad disc) and Disc 4 (the live/visual stuff), and Disc 6 is an early stereo mix of Dark Side by Alan Parsons along with some bonus/live/alternate/etc tracks. The set also comes with two booklets, an art print, a replica tour ticket, replica backstage pass (so you can your friends can play "I'm Meeting Pink Floyd" in your basement), a scarf, collectors' cards...and nine coasters and three marbles, because hey, fuck it, why not? (Thanks for the item description, Amazon!) So it's $120 for seven mixes of the album, some live stuff and a bunch of ridiculous crap. It actually sounds pretty awesome; it's what I'll end up using to get my kids into Pink Floyd when they're old enough. A similar package for Wish You Were Here was released this past Tuesday and next year, The Wall will follow suit.

Now, there are a lot of other avenues worth discussing in this topic.

1. How is one song on an album affected by its neighbors.

2. What tone does the artwork set for the album.

3. Is the outsourcing of physical album production (by bands to indie presses like TuneCore) as democratizing as it sounds.

4. Why is the job market doing the exact opposite.

And this is setting aside the issues of

1. Sound quality, which has been in decline for the last four musical formats (we piqued at vinyl, kids; even Beats headphones can't save crappy frequency cutoff points on mp3's).

2. What positive and negative effects the collapse of the music industry is having on bands.

3. What will be the next billion-dollar idea that introduces up-and-coming bands to the world.

and so on. But those are topics for another day and other people much smarter than myself. I'm just a kid who loves some Floyd and "the album experience."

Milagres - Glowing Mouth review.

Just prior to kicking off their fall 2011 East Coast tour, Milagres released their full-length LP Glowing Mouth this month. By the time the listener is two minutes into the first track, "Halfway," it's clear this is a band who knows how to write a song.

The title track "Glowing Mouth" is as laid back as it comes, evoking shades of darker Blur throughout its six-minute journey, along with a falsetto croon that would make Bono blush. Some earlier tracks, like "Here to Stay" and "Gentle Beast," would be comfortably at home on a Danger Mouse project or Adult Swim compilation. Throughout the vast majority of the album I found myself hearing an undeniable fun factor and earnest humility in the music and lyrics.

With big drums and tambourines and clean, echoing guitars - and swimming in reverb - it would be easy at first listen to label Milagres as a more energetic Sparklehorse, or The XX's older, cooler brother - they've earned comparisons to Grizzly Bear in the past as well - but anyone insisting Milagres is 'just that' would be committing a crime against a five-man act of beautiful spacepop and thoughtful 21st-century songwriting.

Glowing Mouth is available now on Kill Rock Stars directly from their site as a CD, vinyl and digital download, or from iTunes. Punch that shit!

5a7 review.

Matthew Thomas (alias 5a7 - five alpha seven) is a fellow Valdosta State University alumnus and a graphic designer and visual artist. He set up a shop on zazzle.com - which, as far as I can tell, is like a print-on-demand version of Etsy - and I bought one of his t-shirts this month.

The interesting thing is, you can customize the shirts how you see fit - I could've added an image to be printed onto the original design, or text. Different brands of actual shirts with the same design on them differ in price according to what you want. In fact, another product - a pair of low-top Keds with the same basic logo printed overall on it - goes so far as to allow the customer to choose the color of the base, the sole, the eyelets, the shoelaces, etc. But I stuck with Matthew's original design on a normal American Apparel shirt.

It arrived in a timely fashion. Zazzle under-promises and over-delivers, leading to positive mental feedback. The shirt material was sturdy but comfortable, and the design wasn't a cheap silkscreen by any means. It's tagless, which I love, and fits perfectly. Not only did Matthew's masterful graphic design shine through on this zombie-slaying "battle tee" (his words), but the quality of the print is really up to snuff.

The 5a7 store features a wide variety of goodies all based on the same motif: Zombie Suppression - 147th Task Force, with a skull and crossbones logo - but the crossbones have been replaced by assault rifles and a large blood spatter adorns the top left corner of the logo. There are t-shirts, hoodies, shoes, fridge magnets, buttons, bumper stickers and more. The design and quality are about as good as it gets; I highly recommend stopping by for a visit at zazzle.com/5a7design.

Zuckonit - FaceBook's Ten Deadly Sins.

I was never as interested in FaceBook as I could've been until I saw The Social Network, which was amazing. I hate that some people didn't go see it because it was "a movie about FaceBook" and must therefore be as intellectually stimulating as John Tucker Must Die or I Love You Beth Cooper. Instead it was a mature story of greed, betrayal, friendship and business. Since then, I've held a strong respect for FaceBook, Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin.


So I love FaceBook. I love what it took for it to be made - all the insanity, the backstabbing, the three-day stretches in front of computers without sleep and the verbal contracts. God bless 'em. Having said that, besides nearly taking the place of casual e-mail and reuniting me with some favorite long-lost buddies, FaceBook is not without its unfortunate by-products.

What killed the Yahoo! chatrooms for me was the gradual and overwhelming rise of sexbots. In high school I'd get in a room to see if anyone wanted to talk about music and get barraged with "hi im a lonely 18yo in your area wanna cyber?" Of course the same thing happened to Yahoo! Messenger. MySpace soon followed suit, with fake profiles hosting spyware. FaceBook hasn't been completely aped yet, but the real viruses are spreading amongst its users, not malware.

1) Life: You're Doing it Wrong. I find myself fighting the urge to block my profile from old college buddies as I'm told more and more often, through their reposting of various links to opinion articles, how much of an awful person I am. In the last six months alone, no fewer than three of my friends have indirectly told me what a terrible mother my wife is because we had to switch to formula, and because we believe that the baby should sleep in a crib in her own room instead of in our bed with us...and that no father in America is a stay-at-home dad, nor do they spend time with their children.

This last one raises my point. A close family friend and excellent mother posted an article the day before Father's Day called "A Father's Day Wish: Dads, Wake the Hell Up!" which detailed, for no fewer than 1,500 words, the columnist's experience being the only father he knew who did more with his kids than the occasional ride to school. As a stay-at-home father who is frequently insulted for "making my wife work" and "doing nothing at home all day," since evidently raising a baby requires no effort, patience or time, I found "Wake the Hell Up" hard to ignore.

2) Hashtagging and Using Unfamiliar Acronyms. It used to be people could express their short opinions on FaceBook without rerouting them through Twitter and categorizing them with the pound sign at the end. My friend Jasen is worse than anyone about this. "Wow, nice fumble, Favre. #NFL #footballfail #superbowl" I don't know if hashtagging is like that fitness program where you earn points by walking and work towards rewards, or if it's just to make certain popular topics "trend" on Twitter, but I wish it could be kept off my news feed.

The other one in the same category is this regression in internet acronyms. I was sad that L died out for "Laugh," and that only "LOL" remained for "Laugh Out Loud," because now I worry my friends are really laughing that much. Greg Giraldo (rip) had a bit where he was making fun of Tweets and how insane people are if they're really laughing out loud that much. "It's like, 'in line at the supermarket HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!' What the fuck?!"

While we're talking about LOL, let's talk about LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!! What in the hell happened here? I'm assuming the idea is to replicate laughing, like when people say "hahahahaha" and actually intend that they're saying "ha ha ha ha ha," with individual "ha"s, but if LOL is supposed to mean "laugh out loud," the only thing LOLOLOL means is "laugh out loud out loud out loud" or "laugh out laugh out laugh out loud," which sounds more like a sample in a drum and bass song than anything else. It's like "LMFAO," which meant "Laugh My Fucking Ass Off," devolving into "LMFAOOOOOOOO" which I can only assume means "Laugh My Fucking Ass Off Off Off Off Off..." Nor do I understand all these new acronyms that are popping up. It took me forever to realize that "TBH" meant "To Be Honest," and I was sad that /facepalm replaced BHIH (or "Buries Head in Hands"), but what can you do? I just gave up when I started seeing SMH and SMDH. I have no clue what they mean, and I hope I never do. Also WTAF.

3) Farm/Fish/Cafe/Mafiaville. Holy shit do I wish I'd invented Farmville. Games with no ending, with the exception of classics like Asteroids, remind me of soap operas. In the Farm/Fish/Cafe worlds, you just keep leveling up your little virtual zen garden of middle-class wage earning, and it just keeps going. I'm very glad that my family members' notifications have stopped showing up on my FaceBook, and in turn I've synced my account to my PlayStation Network account so I can return the favor and spam my friends and family with the fact that I just Platinumed Heavy Rain.

4) Dartboard Photo Tagging. I started to notice a year or two ago that people were downloading pictures on the internet of little 4x5 sets of text blocks. They'd say things like "Nerdy" and "Cute" and "Ambitious" and "Crazy" and the person would upload them to his/her profile and then tag 20 people, one per block, as they felt applicable. So I'd log into my account and see "____ ______ tagged you in a photo!" and I'd click the link and have to hover my mouse over 15 tags before finding out that one of my cousins thinks I'm smart. Then I'd get notified every time one of these 20 people commented on the photo, which (to return to an Office reference) is like being Wuphf'ed. Every 30 seconds I'd get a hit on my notifications that some teen I didn't know had commented on a photo I was in, and continually see a barrage of "LOL" and "WTF, you're so crazy! LOL!"

5) Fishbait Drama Club. You know this one. "God. Fuck My Life. I swear, I just can't take it anymore, that stupid people have to talk shit." Then there is at least one comment. "Oh, sweetie, what's wrong? Don't worry about the drama; you're amazing and you know it!" Yeah. I don't understand the circumlocution of making a vague distressed statement just so one's friends will ask one what's wrong, then you say what. I'd like it if my friends - mostly younger friends - would just update with, "Work sucks today; catching lots of attitude from co-workers" or something as direct instead of saying "Screw this," so some poor bastard has to ask what happened, then get in a whole big hullabaloo of feigned sympathy for someone because they stubbed their toe. It's the social networking equivalent of Marilyn Manson posting videos on his website promoting Eat Me Drink Me of people blaming him for Columbine around the release of Holy Wood, or Lady Gaga performing in a wheelchair. If you need attention so badly, just say so.

6) The Fake One. Every list of things I've ever read akin to this article has to have at least one bullshit fake thing I've never heard of. So this is that one thing - and originally, this was "The Seven Evils of FaceBook," but I thought of two more, so don't think I've run out of points. Man, screw that thing. Screw that one thing that's so ridiculous it makes me mad. Since this is fake, I'd like to direct it at my Best Man, Frodo, since he never does anything irritating on FaceBook.

7) Idiotic Likes/Reposts. I could've split this into two, but I'm going to keep them as one so I can make up some length I squandered on #2. When I see a "Repost this if you or someone you know has suffered from cancer/rape/abuse/poverty/deportation/etc, because 97% of people won't repost this and if you believe that cancer/rape/abuse/poverty/deportation/etc is terrible, you'll repost this." It reminds me of Andrew Dice Clay's thoughts about the red ribbon for AIDS. "Wearing the red ribbon for AIDS don't help nobody except the guy who owns the red ribbon factory." This applies the same for "Repost this if you're a true Christian" or "if you've never beaten your spouse" or whatever. The little parodies of it, like "Repost if you know someone who's ever been eaten by dragons," were cute the first month but now chap my caboose as much as the originals.

Neighboring this are all the terrible pages that people "Like." My list of likes on FaceBook is about 6 things long, and are devoted to people I really think need/deserve my free advertising: 12 Rounds (band, not movie), Eli's Dirty Jokes, Jhonen Vasquez, E.G. Gauger, Milagres, ACT, Defective Geeks, The Ocean Collective and jonny Lupsha (my writing page, not me). I own about 3,000 albums and 100 blu-rays (and 300 dvd's), but are people really not going to be aware of The Dark Knight without my support?

Anyway, nobody needs to be as restrictive as I do, because if you really aim to voice your support for the music, movies, tv, books you love (and the people who make them), God bless. What I don't get is when I log in and see "___ _____ likes 'That Moment When You See Someone and Go 'Uhhhh...' LOL!'" or "___ _____ likes ''Why Are You Staring At Me?' 'Because ur ugly LOL'' and 314 other pages." I imagine these people's news feeds are just incessant tickers of bullshit from their random pages. This is the real reason kids are social networking 6 hours a day; they're just trying to get caught up and sort through their own mess.

8) Checking In with Foursquare. Even if my wife had Foursquare, I'd make fun of her about it. Loudly. My friend Patrick works in Tysons Corner, so it's fun that he checks in at La Sandia and Gordon Biersch and I get to tell him how much I hate him since they're 130 miles from here. Failing that, I see no reason on Earth for Foursquare. No matter how much I love you, I don't care that you just got to Friendly's, or are grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, and I can only assume it's leading to a hike in local burglaries. "Oh, Kayla's at the movies seeing the 2.5-hour Harry Potter finale? Time to steal that XBox."

9) Ambiguously Song Lyrics. I regularly find myself halfway through a status update that is otherwise terrifying, only to realize it's some kind of song quote. "I killed my mother with a gun." Sweet Jesus! "...Now me and my Smith and Wesson are on the run." ...Oh. Please stop scaring me. Just put 'em in quotes.

10) The Open Letter to Random People or Organizations. Ah, the kicker. I have to end with this because it's the worst - and most frequently recurring - of all my FaceBook Pet Peeves. Nothing drives me up a wall more than "Dear Guy in Line in Front of Me at Wal-Mart: Please get off your cell phone. kthxbi." There are so many things wrong with that status update, I don't know where to start. From top to bottom: a) The Guy in Line in Front of You at Wal-Mart is not your friend on FaceBook, so he'll never read your little rant-and-rave column Tweet-length horse puckey. b) Just start a page with that status update and have people "like" it since you obviously learned the "Dear Random Person" trick from someone. c) You're updating (via FB for Android or FB for iPhone) for someone to get off his/her phone? Really? d) If you had the brass to ask the guy to get off his phone in real life (or IRL if you prefer the acronyms), you may end up on ABC's What Would You Do? and get some of that attention you're looking for. But you don't. e) Nothing says "I think I'm better than you" than "kthxbi," which - for those lucky enough not to have heard it - loosely translates to "Ok, thanks, buh-bye." Sadly, if one's main form of stress ventilation is rooted in mobile FaceBooking, which is essentially the new version of pushing a pen real hard in a diary (Composition Book wuuut? LOLOLOLOL), one mustn't believe in his/her own superiority.

Of course there are a lot of variations. "Dear Republicans - You're insane." "Dear life - please stop sucking." My wife and I laughed halfway to buying our Harry Potter tickets tonight (seeing HP & The Deathly Hallows pt. 2 at Regal Cinemas 20, Commonwealth Center Pkwy Midlothian VA with 239 others) when we were talking about the angsty anonymous letter and she came up with "Dear Upstairs Neighbors - You don't need to stomp around on the floor so hard at 3 a.m.."

If Mark Zuckerberg can find a way to stop these 10 (well, 9) flies from getting in my ointment, I'd probably vote for him for #president. Of course he'd have to supplement my friends list to compensate for my buds who will be offended by this and defriend me immediately, but I have faith in the guy - he invented FaceBook, for Christ's sake.

Spoiler Alert.

This longform thought contains plot details that could dampen your experience with The Sixth Sense, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If you haven't seen any of those (or read the latter two books), stop here.

My first encounter with "spoilers" - or details that could ruin someone's enjoyment of a book, film, video game and so on - was in 2002. I'd read on a film website that The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers would open with Gandalf the Grey fighting the Balrog he encountered in the mines in Fellowship of the Ring. Excited, I started my next shift at Starbucks and told my shift manager about it.

And he looked at me like he wanted to punch me in the face.

It turns out he was the type to run out of the movie theater when a preview for a movie he wanted to see came on. He told me never to talk to him again about movies.

Later that year, my friend Walt told me he never saw Fight Club because someone had ruined the ending for him. This astonished me. It's not as though someone had told him "Oh, in the end of (insert romantic comedy here), the guy gets the girl and they live happily ever after." It was a real shocker. Fight Club, Fincher's finale of hat-trick 1990's surprise-ending movies, had one of the craziest climaxes of any film I'd seen up until that point. His previous dark mysteries, The Game and Seven, were just as jaw-dropping when their end credits rolled, and at the top of a short list of movies I wish I could see again for the first time - along with The Usual Suspects and The Prestige, Christopher Nolan's 1900s-based suspense drama about rivaling magicians.

I remember in 2005 going with an ex-girlfriend to the midnight release of the sixth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Information had leaked the day before that a main character would be killed in the book. Further, what page the murder would appear. Even further, this information had been broadcast across major news networks the entire day. So we get to the bookstore hours early and I'm with a girl in her mid-20s and we're surrounded by teenagers dressed as residents of Gryffindor and Slytherin, a head shorter than us. Midnight rolls around and everyone gets their copies of the book. Half the readers, ex included, sit down on the floor to start reading, while I look around pretending to admire the front window setups in various stores in the mall. Then I notice that out of the camped bookworms, many of them - again, ex included - have decided to turn to the page where _______ is killed by _______ and just read that page repeatedly...which seemed strange.

There was an episode of The Office in which Steve Carell referenced The Sixth Sense, and Dwight (Rainn Wilson) nods knowingly and says "I see dead people," one of the most recognizable movie quotes of the 1990s. As soon as he says it, Steve Carell scoffs and says "Thanks spoiler alert!" and tries to divert the cameraman's attention away from Dwight, who then blurts out "He was dead the whole time!" What makes it funny is that probably everyone watching The Office has seen The Sixth Sense, especially considering it came out 10 years before the episode in question.

With next July's release of the third Christopher Nolan / Christian Bale Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, the anticipation has reached a fever pitch. I thought long and hard about what to look at and avoid and came to the decision that the details and media released on purpose will suit me just fine, so I've already downloaded the teaser poster (which is amazing) and looked at the picture of Tom Hardy as Bane that was released a month or two ago. When we go see the last Harry Potter movie this weekend, I won't run out of the theater when the teaser comes on. However, I'm avoiding the frequent headlines on movie sites like "How Badly Will Bane Hurt Batman? Info Leak!" I shouldn't have watched the fan-filmed youtube clip of one take being filmed of one shot outside a building with Christian Bale and another actor.

Ok, that's enough. Now for The Seven Evils of FaceBook.

jonny Lupsha Cookbook Entry Four - Orange Ninja Teriyaki Pork Roast.

I hate to get too fancy for some of you men out there, but this recipe requires a crock pot.

Foods:

for marinade

15 oz. teriyaki sauce

12 oz. ginger ale

10 oz. soy sauce

8 tsp. orange marmalade

1.25 cups white wine or sake

2 tsp. wasabi

for pork

~ 3 lbs. pork tenderloin, trimmed

4 tsp. wasabi

for rice

2 cups long grain white rice

1 tsp. ground mustard

Pour all liquids into crock pot for marinade, add marmalade and wasabi and stir until liquified. Filet, rinse and trim pork into two long tenderloins, rub with wasabi and put into marinade. Cook on low for about 3 and a half to four hours - flip pork over at halfway point.

About 45 minutes from the end, get that rice going. Pour 4 cups water into medium pot, add mustard, add rice, heat on medium. When the water starts to boil, turn to lowest setting and cover for about 30 to 35 minutes. You'll know the rice is done when you can spoon up some from the bottom and there's no more water and the rice is starting to stick to the bottom.

When pork is done, remove from crock pot, shred, ladle sauce over and serve in bowls over rice or on plates next to it. For color, add some parsley or broccoli to the side. Easily serves 4 with sauce and rice leftovers.

Note: If you don't have a crock pot, you can probably slow cook the pork in the oven at something like 250 for an hour or two, or let the pork marinate in tupperware with the sauce overnight then grill it, but I've never tried that so make sure you play around with it before breaking it out in front of company.

Radiohead - The King of Limbs.

Here's a photo essay inspired by Radiohead's new album, The King of Limbs.


01. Bloom








02. Morning Mr. Magpie







03. Little by Little







04. Feral







05. Lotus Flower






06. Codex







07. Give Up the Ghost

08. Separator

jonny Lupsha Cookbook Entry Three - Shrimp Caesar Lettuce Wraps.

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. whole or detailed cooked shrimp

- 1/2 head of lettuce

- 16 to 18 croutons

- 12 grape tomatoes

- 1/2 cup Caesar salad dressing

- 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

- 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Cooking utensils:

- Chopping block

- Mixing bowl

- Butcher knife

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: N/A

Okay! The great thing about this recipe is that it's all prep, no cooking, can't be made wrong and makes you look like a culinary champ. If you've got a date you need to impress, fire this up with or without his/her help, and don't forget the fancy serving dishes and two appetizer plates. You add a movie and a classy drink to this meal and you're in great shape.

First, a pre-prep warning. Everything in the recipe besides the lettuce and croutons are mushy and squishy enough that A) you need to crack, rinse and drain your lettuce an hour or two in advance and B) you can't skimp on the croutons, but you should save them for last.

So pull those tails off the shrimp and throw them out; pre-cooked tails are shit for frying. You can cut them or buy de-tailed shrimp but that means less shrimp meat for dinner. Cut each shrimp into three or four pieces; if you segment them along the body they'll each be almost marble-sized. Throw them in a mixing bowl.

Measure and add the dressing in, then quarter each grape tomato and add them, then the pepper - and don't skimp on the pepper. The shrimp and Caesar are just salty enough that you need that pepper to balance them out. Add the parmesan.

Prep your lettuce leaves. My best luck has been to gently pull one entire leaf off the head, rip the white/stem portion off then carefully tear it in half to get two wrap leaves. You'll want about a dozen total.

Count out 16 to 18 croutons, put them in a small Ziplock and beat them with the back of a butcher knife. Yeah, you read that right. Don't make bread crumbs out of them, but break them down a good deal. Pour them into the bowl and mix it all up.

That's about it! No ovens, stovetops, slow cookers or broiling. Spoon some of the mix into a wrap, roll it up and enjoy. If you want to make this recipe your own, feel free to get adventurous by adding some fresh-cooked bacon or trading out Caesar for a vinaigrette with some wine-soaked pine nuts. If that doesn't wow 'em, s/he's not worth wowing.

Music Awards 2010.

Employee of the Month

(Song of the Year)

Winner: Nine Inch Nails - "Theme from Tetsuo: The Bullet Man" / Gorillaz - "Doncamatic" (Tie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu9bm-RJMWM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJQyTnD74gk

"Theme from Tetsuo: The Bullet Man" and "Doncamatic" are two amazing, amazing songs for practically opposite reasons. Each of them deserve thorough explanation.

It's no secret that Nine Inch Nails are my favorite band, but I try to exercise a healthy caution of that when considering and broadcasting my favorite music of the year. Having said that, "Tetsuo" is a brilliant five minutes of music. As near as I can tell, the film is the third in a trilogy about a man who finds himself partially changing into a machine. I don't know if it's closer to Kafka's Metamorphosis or id Software's Quake 4, but Trent Reznor's theme for it is pretty bang-on. It gets off to a rough first minute, but it's all smiles thereafter. Part throbbing electronics, part solemn piano, part crashing horns and cymbals, it's as juxtaposed as music comes, but its chord progressions and themes collide perfectly in an acquired, but worthwhile, taste.

"Doncamatic" is almost the opposite. I didn't think I'd find an easier-to-hear song than "Broken," on this year's Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, but then "Doncamatic" was released as a stand-alone single themed on PB. Daley is a great singer by himself, but for once in my life I find myself enjoying the use of autotune in a song. The verses groove and shimmer, the pre-chorus brings the energy up effortlessly and just enough, and the chorus is sexy without being slutty, catchy as can be and silky smooth. Great production, great songwriting, great performances. It's simple, sure, but it's been stuck in my head every day since it came out, and isn't that what pop music is for?

Runner-up: Dillinger Escape Plan - "Farewell, Mona Lisa"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q5qvft2i-s

Dillinger's jackknife prog-metal isn't for everyone, but once you've heard any one song by them a few times, it's worth getting used to for the payoff. There's no better example of that (besides "Baby's First Coffin") than this year's "Farewell, Mona Lisa." I knew as soon as I heard Greg scream out "You should never have put your trust in any of us" this was a song I had to listen to on repeat until I knew it like the back of my hand.

Back from the Dead: The Zombie Award

(The Comeback)

Winner: Massive Attack - Heligoland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Cqyq4gj-w

Maybe you'd argue this can't count since Massive Attack technically came back in '09 with their EP for "Splitting the Atom," which led up to Heligoland, but these are my awards so I'm breaking the rules. Do something about it.

After releasing 100th Window in 2003, it seemed as though Massive Attack would never release their next album. Reportedly it was Blur/Gorillaz man Damon Albarn who got 3D and Daddy G together working in the studio and they dropped Heligoland in February, nearly seven years after Window. Opting to provide each song on the album as a soundtrack for a short film rather than produce music videos, Massive Attack also enlisted guests from long-time collaborator Horace Andy, TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, Martina Topley-Bird, Hope Sandoval and Guy Garvey. It trades in Window's electronic-based droning for frequently (but not always) organic sounds: The Albarn-led "Saturday Come Slow" and Adebimpe's crooner "Pray for Rain" are testament to that. All in all, a great return from a great band.

Runner-Up: Stone Temple Pilots - Stone Temple Pilots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnjISLJLQKI

Ah, Stone Temple Pilots. Ever since they cancelled a concert I was supposed to go to on Maui in the late '90s, I always got more enjoyment than I should've out of their trials and tribulations. Even still, when they disappeared after 2001's Shangri-La Dee Da I found myself missing one of the few remaining grunge-era bands still in existence. So when they suddenly announced that they were reuniting and happened to have a new album in the chamber to fire off last summer, it was good news all-around. They returned with their country-laced garage rock a la Tiny Music and, despite lagging a bit in its second half, tracks like "Take a Load Off" and "Maver" really help make this album a frequent spinner for lazy weekend afternoons.

Licensed to Ill

(Soundtrack of the Year)

Winner: Normand Corbeil - Heavy Rain / Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network (Tie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woMbRTBWJQs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SBNCYkSceU

Another tie. Normand Corbeil's score for David Cage's mind-blowing interactive drama Heavy Rain on PlayStation 3 isn't merely guilty by association of being great; its themes and fully-orchestrated pieces give weight and meaning to the game unlike any other supporting music I've heard in 2010. The 16 tracks on this score are full of loss, sorrow, hope and tension and deserve to be experienced alongside the game on a great sound system.

Reznor and Ross do an equally impressive job scoring David Fincher's Oscar-hopeful film about greed, self-delusion and technology. They said they tried to utilize a mixture of organic and electronic instrumentation throughout, and as the script constantly bears down on the viewer with threats and tension to its characters, so does the score complement that sentiment with sounds "fraying around the edges." Easy to hear with or without the movie, but each song plays a pretty perfect part alongside the film.

Runner-Up: Anamanaguchi - Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Video Game)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RmrMOEo1VI

How do Anamanaguchi make their 8-bit-inspired action music for this old-school beat-em-up? They use a hacked NES. Need I say more?

Annual Employee Pot-Luck

(Collaboration of the Year)

Broken Bells - Broken Bells

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWBG1j_flrg

The Shins' James Mercer teaming up with Danger Mouse? Yes, mate! I've considered making a Danger Mouse mix recently, as his full, organic sound is instantly recognizable. He may go down in history as the guy who mashed up Jay-Z and The Beatles, or as half of Gnarls Barkley, but it would be a sin to dismiss his work with Gorillaz, The Good The Bad & The Queen and DangerDoom. Broken Bells follows suit, and I feel like his production and James Mercer's vocals are everything that a lot of bands are trying to be but aren't. This album trots along from start to finish and is more than worth your hard-earned dollars.

Honorable Mentions

(Honorable Mentions)

None of these quite fit into one category as a winner, but I'd like to point you to some of the following efforts in music. I feel they're more than worth their salt and have happily earned their place on my mix of my favorite 2010 music.

Deftones' Diamond Eyes is a fantastic rock album. I personally think a few tracks lag here and there, but a new friend turned me onto it at its release and I'm glad he did. Tracks like "You've Seen the Butcher" and "Rocket Skates" stand out immediately, but easily 80% of Diamond Eyes is a real treat. I also really liked the soundtrack for the film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which has music by Scott's band Sex Bob-Omb (written and mostly performed by Beck). Producer extraordinaire Nigel Godrich has his hand in there too, as do Frank Black, The Rolling Stones and Plumtree. Finally, against all odds, Soundgarden returned with a new single, "Black Rain," which sounds instantly classic. If their rumored reunion album sounds as good, they may win Back from the Dead next year.

Juiciest Brains 2010

(Album of the Year)

Winner: The Ocean - Heliocentric + Anthropocentric

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9LUw2JWLkI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyTQ6rrmW6A

Oh man. What can I say about The Ocean's two-album concept ruminating on mankind's and Earth's place in the universe? When the first disc, Heliocentric, was released in February, I initially heard it at work. It was about halfway through and I turned to a co-worker and said "If Anthropocentric is half this good when it comes out this fall, they may be my album of the year." And it was, and they are.

As you can tell by the disparity between the two songs linked above, The Ocean aren't afraid to take chances. Some may argue that the source material for their contemplation of Christianity, Anthropocentricity and morality is lofty or convoluted (from Darwin to Dawkins, from Nietzsche to Dostoyevsky), but the sheer volume of research and quality of lyrical and vocal content represented across these 20 tracks outweigh any complaints to be made. New vocalist Loic Rossetti screams, croons and vibratos his way across Robin Staps and co.'s 100-minute masterpiece of prog-metal, classical ballads and post-rock. All musicians are always on point and right where they need to be, and producer/guitarist/chief songwriter Robin Staps delicately balances up to 20 tracks simultaneously. From five-part vocal harmonies to string sections and waterfalls of guitars, it's a real orchestration from front to back. Get it immediately.

Runner-Up: Massive Attack - Heligoland

I think I said enough about Heligoland earlier, but I would like to add that it's a terrific listen all the way through and pleases the ear oddly at times, obviously at others. All killer, no filler. If you'd like to purchase it for me on vinyl, I wouldn't say no.

2nd Runner-Up: Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

I've always been impressed by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's animated zombie-pop project. Since its release in 2000, they've been on my radar and have yet to disappoint. They return this year with Plastic Beach, boasting a guest list including half of The Clash, Lou Reed, Snoop, Mos Def, Bobby Womack, Little Dragon, three different symphonic ensembles and more. This is the perfect springtime album: it's bright, light and to the point. I'm also enamored with the idea that the cartoon characters who represent the band have washed up onto a floating island of humanity's flushed detritus (hence the title). Not a bad track on it.

jonny Lupsha Cookbook, Entry Two - Avocados del Media.

Cooking Appliances -

- Oven

- Double Boiler

- Microwave

Ingredients -

- 1 avocado

- 2 strips bacon

- 1/2 habanero pepper

- 1/2 jalapeno pepper

- 8 oz. monterey jack cheese

- 1 thick slice of tomato

- a handful of cilantro

- 1/4 lime

- 1 tsp. ground cumin

- 1 serving tortilla chips

Ok, this one has a lot of prep/cook time (by the standards of someone with an infant to entertain, anyway) so let's get right to it. The good thing is, about half the ingredients here will be diced, chopped or minced and thrown into the rest. This is a great lunch for one, but read through before trying yourself - you may want to switch around the order of some of the prep and cooking so you can have it all hot and finished at the same time.

Remove the seeds from the habanero and jalapeno and de-vein them - if you can't take the heat. Otherwise, leave them with the flesh of the peppers. Slice and dice both and mix them up together.

Now, pull the cilantro leaves off the stems and mince the shit out of them. You want almost all the pieces to be the perfect size to stick in your teeth and ruin a first date or job interview.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 and continue the recipe as follows. When the oven reaches 350, put the bacon in for 10 to 15 minutes, flip it, and let it go for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Throw your half-pound block of Monty Jack in the double boiler on low-medium heat. It's probably a good idea to slice it into small cubes or shred it. Keep an eye on it and stir it while you prep the rest of the ingredients.

Halve the avocado and use a spoon to get that enormous pit (and its skin flakes) out of there. Then keep using your trusty spoon to get the pulp of the avocado away from that dark green skin. Throw away, or burn in your backyard, the skin and the pit.

By now the Jack should be near melted. Pour in the cumin, peppers and most of the cilantro (saving two pinches for later), and of course, keep stirring. Yeah, we're making awesome from-scratch pepper jack sauce.

As the bacon finishes, put your avocado halves in a microwave for 45 seconds (with an apple, if possible - the chemicals will keep the avocado extra moist while they're irradiated with warm, nuclear delight). Take this 45-second opportunity to cut the tomato slice into six wedges (like pizza slices), chop the bacon into little bacon flakes and quarter your lime. Take the quarter of lime you're using and cut it in half as well.

Ok, now it's mostly a matter of presentation. Place the avocado halves, insides facing up, on your serving plate. Fill the pit holes with generous scoops of the pepper jack, then three tomato wedges apiece, then one more layer of pepper jack, some bacon flakes and the remainder of the cilantro. Squirt those lime wedges onto each and serve with the chips. If you're like me, you probably have plenty of pepper jack leftover, and maybe some other ingredients, so feel free to pour those over your chips and make some quick nachos alongside your avocados.

Huck and Jim.

As a fan and student of literature, and as a person who liberally curses, I am appalled and truly disheartened by a new edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, headed by Twain scholar and Auburn U professor Alan Gribben, that removes all uses of the words "nigger" and "Injun" and replaces them with "slave" and "Indian," respectively. Someone said it's offensive, to which I point the episode of The Simpsons in which they considered putting a pair of pants on Michelangelo's David.

I'll leave the actual reporting to the BBC article on the subject dated 01/06/11 and save all my space here for editorializing. It makes me groan enough to begin with that I should have to preface this discussion by proclaiming No, I'm not a racist, nor do I want those words remaining in Huck Finn to offend the peoples to whom they refer, which I think should be taken for granted. Now, I don't use "The N-Word," and I don't like when people make up cheap excuses to do so. I thoroughly enjoyed Saul Williams' attitude that it's a word that needs to be fully explored for its historical, cultural and sociological significances (and even purposes) in order to be understood. But even that isn't the issue with Mark Twain's novel. The problem with the Huck Finn edit is threefold: allowing censorship, altering history and affecting impact.

Since my wife and I had our daughter, I've been quietly tiptoeing from my extremist "free speech uber alles" stance on what is commonly referred to as "bad language" ("sure, let the kids hear it; what harm could it do?") to a quietly indecisive procrastination ("eh, we'll figure that out when the kids start talking"). I still believe wholeheartedly that as much as one can teach a child right from wrong and how to behave, offensive language is a part of that package as much as chewing with your mouth closed, not saying anything if you have nothing nice to say, keeping your pants up and boogers in tissues and not running amok in the grocery store. There's no reason on Earth to suddenly change 219 "niggers" to "slaves" just because it reddens a cheek or two. The word has been "nigger" for 140 years for a reason.

Slavery in any part of the world is one of the great atrocities. In my opinion there should be no pissing contest between "what's worse" - slavery, genocide, AIDS, child or animal abuse, whatever. They're all, in my eyes, pandemic horrors that truly need champions fighting to eradicate them from civilization, as do a dozen others. Nobody wants to celebrate subjugation of a race and the abominations that come with it, but that's no reason to ignore that it happened or what the attitudes of a people towards it were like at the time. As near as I can remember, part of the irony that Twain carries brilliantly throughout the book is that Jim, who ends up more of a father and friend figure to Huck than anybody else would care to, is constantly greeted with offensive slurs, derision and slave duty for his troubles. It may not make us happy to know he's been treated that way, but the fact is that he has been - until he's only referred to as "slave," which is not the word I've been told was snarled at hatefully in the 1800s at Africans/blacks worldwide. Reminding ourselves of the prejudice and injustice suffered by a people is good practice to avoid its recurrence.

And why not call them "African-Americans?" I'm glad you asked. Socially, that's an American-centric name that has evolved to referring to all people of African descent, but the United States hasn't tried to annex the rest of the planet yet so until we do, there's no logical reason to call fine African descendants in other countries "American."

Hearing Africans and American Indians called "niggers" and "Injuns" so frequently still makes me fidget a bit. I feel a little poorly reading, in the voice in my head, the parts of men and women who have the disdain to disregard Jim as one of those. But the reason I don't skip it is because of their very purpose. Removing such epithets would wear down Huck Finn's sociological impact to a nub. It's a fun adventure story, no doubt, but underneath it all beats the seething heart of satire and morality. To remove its anti-racist narrative (by removing its very racist dialogue) is to finally and utterly condemn it to be a children's book. And while there are some great lessons to be learned from children's books, I don't want one of those lessons to be that being a minority during the Civil War was really not that bad.

The pen is only mightier than the sword until you cork the tip. Leave the fucking book alone.