Thursday, March 26, 2009

Golden Brown

Golden brown texture like sun
Lays me down with my mind she runs
Throughout the night
No need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown

Every time just like the last
On her ship tied to the mast
To distant lands
Takes both my hands
Never a frown with golden brown

Golden brown finer temptress
Through the ages she's heading

West
From far away
Stays for a day
Never a frown with golden brown

Never a frown
With golden brown
Never a frown
With golden brown

Wow, what a cool song. With that mysterious evil carnival organ and the barely veiled lyrics, The Stranglers wrote this one with a purpose. "Le'es righ' a song 'bout 'eroin 'ey can play on th' radio, eh?", right? It'd take a moron to not figure out what this song is about after about two seconds of vocals. Belt your arm, make a fist, pop in the needle, and watch that tea-toned river of impending immediate and visceral pleasure course its way down the thin clear tube and into your soul. I know you can see it, but can you feel it?

No. Idiot.

I don't mean to be an asshole, and if you've never experienced the substance that could be responsible for inspiring such a perfectly-crafted and poetic pop song, you are forgiven and are not a moron (at least not due to misinterpreting this song).

Those who know me know I do not have an addictive personality, but rarely does a song about a dangerous intoxicant chill me to the core as much as this one does.

And as thinly veiled as the song's lyrical subtext, so is the underlying subject of this review:

That's right! It's a Chick-fil-a chicken biscuit.

"Throughout the night, never a fight, never a frown, with golden brown." There's nothing better than waking up from a nightmare and realizing that once 6:30 rolls around you are on your way to breakfast bliss. Throw a little honey on it for comfort, but make no mistake, this sandwich stands on its own.

And beware the temptation of imitations, as they are a trap by demons to fool the weak.

4.999 anti-bears.
4.5 bears, due to unavailability between 10:30 am and 6:30 am the next day, and all day Sunday.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Fantasy Baseball


The draft for the Charz2k Fantasy Baseball League is tomorrow! If you wish to be a part of it, you must sign up as soon as possible. Here are the stats:

Website: http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/charz2k
The League ID#: 136277
The password is: Chuck Knoblauch
(it's best to just copy and paste)

The draft is tomorrow night at 9:30 CDT! SO SIGN UP!

Thursday, March 19, 2009

March Madness

I'm not sure if charz2k still does good old-fashioned concert reviews anymore, but I'll try throwing one out there. This post involves a concert AND a decent roadtrip, hence the March Madness title. I don't like basketball enough to write about it.

I caught the Black Lips last night in Lawrence, KS, which was obviously a good show. Lawrence is four hours away, so I started out at noon yesterday. There is a local radio station that was awesome in 6th grade but not too grand these days; nevertheless, they do a "Flashback Lunch" hour from 12-1 which is pretty cool and it was a rare time that I got to hear all the old songs that you completely forget but miraculously come right back to your memory. Yesterday's program included Green Day's "Nice Guys Finish Last"; the Breeders' "Last Splash"; Eels' "Novocaine for the Soul"; and Weezer's "My Name is Jonas." It was a good start to the trip.

So the road up to Lawrence is just two lane highway pretty much all the way, which is awesome. I like looking at the country and going through all the little old towns. Check out the sweet courthouse building in Ottawa, KS; I totally pulled a Garz to stop and take a photograph:





Anyways, I got to Lawrence and found a pretty tasty Italian place to eat at, and the waitress knew of a good record store that I hit up before the show, which was at the Bottleneck, a bar/hole-in-the-wall type joint. Simply put, I'm jealous of you guys who will get to see them at SXSW, because we all know how good they are. Things kicked off with "Sea of Blasphemy," which, along with "Fairy Stories," "Buried Alive," and "Juvenile," I think sounds ten times better live than on record. The high points for me were "Short Fuse," which comes across as slightly more "punk" rather than "Nuggets" sounding like on the new album, and of course "Cold Hands," which is arguably their best song. My new favorite live song is "Time of the Scab," which is in Spanish and involves Jared shouting out Spanish phrases right before the guitars kick in with their main lick. I don't know Spanish so when I sing in the car I have to make up my own phrases ("Tostitos!"; "Arriba!"; "El Garzo!"). Other songs that I normally don't like that much, like "Hippie, Hippie, Hoorah," are completely enjoyable live by the time Cole adds all his useless, pointless sound effects and theatrics.

My only bears to give to this show were that I don't think they played as long as they normally would, because they had to get on the road to SXSW, which was kind of a bummer. Other than that, I think they remain my favorite current band. Despite their stage antics, in seeing them twice now I never have felt like they are gimmicky. It would almost seem disingenuous if Cole didn't get on stage wearing a white smock and a buckle-at-the-front pilgrim hat.


Anyways, I started my drive back to Oklahoma this morning, and what seemed to be crackling through the static on my radio right around Coffeyville, KS? Another Flashback Lunch? What luck: the Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary"; Poe's "Angry Johnny"; "Longview" and "Rock the Casbah" were the highlights (in contrast, the first song after the Flashback Lunch was something by the All-American Rejects). 4.5 anti-bears / 2.1 bears (no "Boomerang"?)

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

I can remember the first time I played Street Fighter II: My friend Ellis' birthday party back in 4th grade. Eventually we had to implement a "no dhalsim" policy, because back then we could not defeat dhalsim's long limb attacks. The game blew my mind. Street Fighter II was THE game... until next year's birthday party, when Mortal Kombat came out.









Anyways, movies adapted from video games are generally not very good. When I see a movie based on a game, I typically want a high camp-factor, with lots of cartoonish action. Both Mortal Kombat films provided this, as did the classic Street Fighter movie with Jean Claude Van Damme as Guile. But unfortunately, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (SFLCL) did not. Let me state plainly: DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. I expected a movie with a 0% Rotten Tomatoes Rating to have a "so bad it's funny" element. There was very little funny about this movie. It was just unbearable.

Problem 1: Very little action. For a movie called street fighter, there was maybe one street fight that lasted like 1 minute? Uggh.

Problem 2: Too much plot and charater development. We don't give a shit about that- show us some people beating the crap out of each other! And if you are going that route, at LEAST make it interesting.

Problem 3: A retarded side plot. The movie had two main story lines going on. First there was Chun-Li attempting to find her father. Secondly, there was an INTERPOL cop and a Bangkok cop teamed up trying to bring down Bison. Way too much time was spent on these cops. We don't give a shit about that!

Problem 4: Not enough Street Fighter charaters. There was Chun-Li, Bison, Balrog, and Vega (briefly). That's it. I mean, come on! You were in frickin Thailand, at least have Sagat.

Problem 5: Horrible casting. Bison: Band of Brother's Lt. Buck Compton. He's just some white American dude who doesn't even know martial arts, making the final showdown totally lame. Chun-Li: Smallville's Lana Lane. She's not even fully Chinese! Chun-Li is from China. I know that, because on the game you fight her on the streets of China. She is not half-Chinese, born in San Francisco. Balrog: Michael Clarke Duncan. Okay, this one was a good choice. But I wonder why he got involved in this pile of crap. Stupid INTERPOL cop: American Pie's "Oz." Man, this guy cannot act! He was just painful to watch. And the "chemistry" between him and the Bangkok hot girl cop was so not there.

I did though like that Chun-Li's teacher was the guy who played Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat movies. Nice crossover. And when Chun-Li fought Bison, she hit him with a bicycle kick- an homage to Liu Kang's signature move, perhaps???

So do not see SFLCL. Please do not see it! See anything else instead. The movie sets up for a sequel, with Liu Kang telling Chun-li that he's heard of a good fighter in Japan named Ryu. God I hope they don't make that movie. Perhaps a better route would be a sitcom with Zangief, Ken, E Honda, and a hilarious nerd sharing a small Brooklyn apartment and chasing girls. I'd watch!