like a shotgun filled with handjobs

1. Kings of Leon
'Because of the Times'
I got a hold of this a few days ago, played it a few times over the weekend and on my way to work today. It's good so far. Their first album ('Youth & Young Manhood') didn't do too much for me, but their last one ('Aha Shake Heartbreak'), aside from having a great title, was pretty good. It's basically a diary about being on your first big tour, doing way too much blow, and ending up with the wrong girls in every city. It's really jittery and nervous. Catches the mood of its subject matter perfectly. And "King of the Rodeo" is just an excellent song (complete with handclaps).

But the new one sounds like they traded the cocaine addiction for a strong affinity to Jack Daniels and pulled out their old Zeppelin albums. It's a lot heavier and a lot better. They're definitely growing as musicians. They're making the progression The Strokes should have made, developing the "nu garage" sound and taking it further. Rather than getting nervous about it and putting out an album full of new ideas that unfortunately have nothing to do with each other, leaving a disjointed, fan-alienating mess. (Not to say 'First Impressions of Earth' is bad, it's just not a Strokes record... or a very solid record.)

2. Flaming Lips 'Zaireeka'
5.1 Ultimate DVD Experience
If you know what 'Zaireeka' is, you know that it's damn near impossible to properly enjoy the album without a lot of hassle and free time. Well, imagine a world where you can put a single disc into your dvd player, hit play, and enjoy all the wonders of 'Zaireeka', all 4 discs not only perfectly synced to one another, but also dynamically mixed in the vein of the official Flaming Lips 5.1 releases ('The Soft Bulletin', 'Yoshimi', 'At War with the Mystics', 'V.O.I.D.'). Now, once you've wrapped your head around that, imagine that all of the songs are synced up to clips of some of the most bizarre images from a variety of films from the past 25 years. Now, imagine all of this, plus a big spliff. Are you interested? Enter the 'Zaireeka 5.1 Ultimate DVD Experience'.

I can tell you from experience that this shit will blow your fucking mind. I reccommend track 5, "The Train Runs Over The Camel But Is Derailed By The Gnat". Totally awesome

3. Grindhouse
Fuck yeah. This shit is gonna be so awesome. I'm gonna be there at the midnight showing on opening night with a bottle of wine and a straw. And maybe an empty quarter gallon milk jug or something, it's over fucking 3 hours long, man.

4. Winter is finally over.
I can't wait to look at the indoor/outdoor thermometer in my living room and not see any numbers below 57. I'm tired of winter. It fucked us this year, it made us believe it wasn't gonna come. It was unseasonably warm in november and december, then the new year rolls around and what happens? Fucking ice storms! What the fuck? Fuck winter, we're not friends anymore.

5. Marijuana.
Let's just take a moment to appreciate it. Good times.