X-Entertainment.com X-Entertainment.com A Proud UGO Affiliate
My dying wish is for an owl/camel hybrid, which I call camowl.
« [Main Index] »

Landlubbin’.

Just got back from a weeklong cruise that left from New York and made all-too-short stops in Florida, Nassau and some wacky private island filled with crude shacks selling ten dollar Mai Tais that probably didn't have any alcohol in them. I'm too tired to do anything more than blurt out random goodnesses right now (Cuban cigars, flying fish, smuggled liquor), but hope to cull together an article detailing the ins and outs of fine quality cruising in the next week or so.

Oh, we picked an overpriced Disney World excursion for our Florida stop, which probably won't make the article because I already wrote 72,000 words about Disney World last year. But! Whereas Pirates of the Caribbean was closed for movie-related renovations last year, now it was open, and I finally got to ride it for the first time. Gotta be honest...it's really nothing special. I mean, I love all dark rides -- especially ones with a creepy slant filled with ugly animatronics and shadows and echoes -- but there was something hilarious about standing on an hour-long line filled with kids who adored the movies and who had every reason to expect something more than an enclosed space filled with decades-old pirate statues singing the "yo ho ho" song. At least they added a couple of Jack Sparrows and a pretty neat holographic Davy Jones waterfall.

While I really want to tell you about love bugs smashing against bus windows and the ten thousand hand sanitizing machines that littered the ship, it'll have to wait for the article. Happy SNT.

Posted by Matt on 06/02/2007. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 303 comments

I had a chuckle when the song “Breed” by Nirvana was used in that baseball video game commercial…I’m sure when Kurt Cobain wrote that song his intentions were commercially licensing it to promote a baseball game…I hate to sound like some typical Nirvana fanboy but I’m sure Courtney Love was behind that since she needs money for drugs and whatnot and controls a third of the Nirvana library (or something around that figure).

Chestnuts roasted by phunqsauce @ 06/09/2007 2:46 PM

dohopoki,
I LOVE the theme to Doctor Who. It has to be as easily identifiable to fans of that series as the X-Files theme is to X-Files fans.

Chestnuts roasted by Thomas @ 06/09/2007 3:40 PM

I respect that Bill. It’s really easy to say “Fuck Yeah! Right on!” when someone you enjoy agrees with you politically. It’s also just as easy to right off someone because they disagree with you. Ideally, we’d like to be able to say “I like this person’s music, but I don’t like their opinion on issue XYZ,” but how often are we that objective?

It’s one thing to like what an artist says on an idealistic level, and another to blindly grant them the status of a political expert. That goes for all artists on both sides, not just Green Day. I’ve actually used it as an insult: “you sound like a 13 year old who’s taken American Idiot a little too closely to heart.” I see kids running around on forums STILL with AI sigs and avas and acting like they know the way the world should run. Pedantic little idiots.

Tonic has ONE phenomenal song. You Wanted More. God I love it. Takes me right back to the days of American Pie (the movie).

Chestnuts roasted by K- @ 06/09/2007 4:25 PM

“I like this person’s music, but I don’t like their opinion on issue XYZ”

Man, don’t get me started on the XYZ Affair. :shock: (Click my name for an education)

Not trying to be Johnny Affable but I agree with a lot of the opinions and the key points on this topic. Viva Bill, Shuanfu, Kneg, Muppet Baby, and the rest!

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 06/09/2007 5:16 PM

It’s one thing to like what an artist says on an idealistic level, and another to blindly grant them the status of a political expert. That goes for all artists on both sides, not just Green Day.

What a great point. As I said before, I’m a long time Pearl Jam fan and this is something I’ve had to deal with in ‘defending’ them to family and friends. Just because they have strong political beliefs does not mean a) ALL their music is tinged with political debate and b) just because I like a bands music does not mean I have to always agree with their social beliefs.

I know people that won’t listen to Green Day and Pearl Jam because they consider them ‘anti-Bush’ or ‘anti-American’ and that they should not be stating their political opinions. I disagree with that outlook. Sure, if you don’t like certain songs that may have an opinion you disagree with, don’t listen to it. But they have the same right to speak their mind as anyone else does, they can just do it more publically. But when people aren’t willing to educate themselves and form their own opinions and instead only believe what they feel the band ‘taught’ them, then the original message becomes watered down and lost.

And what good music was not inspired by the artist’s passionate feelings about something? Why can they only be passionate about love and not so much the happenings of the world?

“The function of art is to disturb.” ~ George Braque

Chestnuts roasted by Shuanfu @ 06/09/2007 6:00 PM

To add to it:

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” ~ Paul Cézanne

Chestnuts roasted by Shuanfu @ 06/09/2007 6:03 PM

All of this talk makes me want to watch SLC Punk because ” after all was said and done, I was nothing more than a god-damn, preppy-ass, poser!”

Chestnuts roasted by citygirl @ 06/09/2007 8:45 PM

Haha. SLC Punk is in my Top 5.

Chestnuts roasted by K- @ 06/09/2007 9:25 PM

I agree that celebrities are as entitled to their opinion and as entitled to speak it as anyone else. What bothers me is when so many of them begin to flount themselves as though they were some sort of political expert. (And I’m not speaking about Green Day specifically here, I’m sure we can all think of people on both sides of the aisle that statement applies to.) Sure, they’re entitled to speak, but it bugs me when their opinion is given such gravity, be it by the media or by any guy on the street. They know just as much about the situation as we do — what makes their opinion any more valid than the guy three cubicles down at work?

Geez — these SNTs start to get heavy after a week, don’t they?

Chestnuts roasted by Blake @ 06/10/2007 12:41 AM

Happy SNT- This has been a good conversation week!

I agree that music/art comes from opinion and emotion, and hence gets political. Since all art comes from this, than the most popular artists will therefore have their opinions listened to most, and they then get deemed ‘experts’ and the media puts them and their ideas on TV more than non-famous yet smarter, ACTUAL experts on things…sorry I just hate when the news is all about celebrities instead of actual NEWS…makes me sad.

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 06/10/2007 1:19 AM

I hate all of you.

Chestnuts roasted by Bizarro Murphy @ 06/10/2007 2:32 AM

Tonic also did ‘If you could only See’ which was pretty good…at least I think it was them.

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 06/10/2007 2:38 AM

It was them. But that was played 1 trillion times, to the point where me and the Colonel were making threats on their lives.

Then You Wanted More came along and all was forgiven :P

Chestnuts roasted by K- @ 06/10/2007 2:42 AM

Mystie Loved the Transformers head :)
Shuanfu Loved the quote it’s going on my myspace

someone commented about Paris Hilton being on Fox news 24-7 and how horrible that is, that person should watch a documentary (everyone else is welcome to watch as well of course last time i checked it’s a free country)

goto video.google.com and type in outfoxed and watch that documentary it’s about the biased republican slant on fox news. that’s as polictical i will get here i know this is a distraction from the real world for most people.

I can’t tell you about all celebrities but i know the reason why Rosie is a “loudmouth” about politics she feels it’s her job to scream and jump up and down to get the troops home and to get Bush inmpeached. celebrities have a bigger voice then we do so they take it on themselves to say bravo your doing a great job or this is a horrible job see what i am saying? I hope what i just said here was worth it.

And by the time the robots take over we’ll be listening to techno so who cares right? lol love that song…

Chestnuts roasted by Goob @ 06/10/2007 4:16 AM

Why is Twilight Princess depressing the hell out of me? I mean the control set-up works well, Midna is fetish-inducing, and the story is much more compelling and visually impactful than any other entry in the series.

So, why am I so displeased with it?

Chestnuts roasted by K- @ 06/10/2007 4:43 AM

I don’t know how far you are K-, but one depressing fact is that the last 6 dungeons and everything inbetween them takes an equal amount of time as the first 3 dungeons and everything inbetween to get through. If you’re past dungeon 3, you might be dashing through the game much faster than you’d like. I spent the entire last boss thinking “this isn’t it, there’s more to it than this after this, this can’t possibly be it, it can’t be over already.”

Chestnuts roasted by dohopoki @ 06/10/2007 5:31 AM

… and the the credits rolled.

Chestnuts roasted by dohopoki @ 06/10/2007 5:32 AM

For all interested: Don’t forget the Tony’s are tonight at 8pm EST on CBS…support live theatre!

Chestnuts roasted by Shuanfu @ 06/10/2007 11:09 AM

Goob- I frigging love that song too! ;0) It’s such a wicked video as well.

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 06/10/2007 12:29 PM

I’ve accidentally broken through the social conciousness (sorta) ! At least Matt was citied as a source. ;)

Click my name

Chestnuts roasted by The Manimal @ 06/10/2007 1:47 PM

Click my name and try not to laugh. I dare you. I tried but I lost it on “my golf friends.”

Chestnuts roasted by Bill @ 06/10/2007 4:15 PM

Hey Manimal- That’s great! I was also quite the video connoseuir (sp) when I was younger…I had an illegal satellite dish and so I had over 200 movies without commercials and many PPV WWF events…my house quickly became a popular hangout in junior high.

Chestnuts roasted by Muppet Baby @ 06/10/2007 4:29 PM

I spent Thursday and Friday night horribly bored in a hotel room and went through somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 X-E articles. Some were old favorites and others were ones I hadn’t read yet. They were nice nights. My Saturday night and Sunday morning consisted of a 15 hour drive. That sucked. I can’t sleep in moving vehicles. Needless to say, I am now SO tired that I can’t sleep. When I do fall asleep, maybe I’ll have a nice, weird X-E dream, like I did on Friday.

Chestnuts roasted by MissJess @ 06/10/2007 4:46 PM

So I think me and some buddies are going to Atlantic City tomarrow. Any suggestions Matt?

Chestnuts roasted by Joker @ 06/10/2007 4:50 PM

Joker: Check out the Tropicana. Probably the best in AC at the moment. The Borgata is technically the nicest, but it’s not on the boardwalk, and it’s really f’n bright. Trop has a good casino, really diverse bars (try out their Irish pub for easy drinking) and other fun stuff. Plus, it’s on the boardwalk (albeit it far away from anything fun).

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 06/10/2007 5:24 PM

Add A New Comment!


This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.