The Q Continuum

After reviewing several commenting systems, I've selected HaloScan and embedded the code in the posts. So, if ya wanna leave an opinion on a particular post, now you can. Joy.

Yesterday, I picked up a couple of things at Best Buy (thanks, KT!) for my birthday. One of those items was the long-overdue acquisition of "Poodle Hat," the latest CD from "Weird Al" Yankovic. A friend of mine got the CD when it first came out and shot me an e-mail with his observations. He wasn't that high on it. That really didn't have anything to do with my delay in getting the disc (money was, however). So I got the CD, I've listened to it a few times, and I've reached my conclusions on this offering from one of the kings of comedy.

What follows is a serious review of the CD. If you don't think such a thing is possible, you can stop reading now.

Let me start off by saying that I own every commercial Al recording on CD. There may be a compilation or two that I've passed on, but I believe that I have a complete library of all his published work. At some point, I'll sit down, in homage to my friend James, and rank the albums in preferential order, but that day is not today. This exercise is limited entirely to "Poodle Hat."

I'll save my overall summary for the end. But I'll detail my observations as I came upon them, ironically, in album order. First, the title: "Poodle Hat." I must not get it. I can give you a good reasoning behind the names of each of his other albums (with the possible exception of "Polka Party") but not this one. On initial observation, it's uninspired. I'll grant that he must be making reference to something, but it's lost on me. OK. No big deal. On to the music.

The CD opens with "Couch Potato" - a parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself." I don't care much for Eminem, and I really don't know his music, but this seems a reasonable song to use as a parody basis. It's got a nice beat and if you can tolerate "song speak," you can even "sing" along with it. Once again, Al targets the barren landscape of Television for the basis of his lyrics. Once again, he's right on the money. Favorite line from the song: "Network execs with naked ambitions: 'Next week on FOX watch lions eat Christians.'"

Next is "Hardware Store" - a style parody, but I'm not sure who is the parody source. I like the tune, though. The beat is catchy, and Al is one of the best at stringing along long stretches of multi-syllabic words without breaks. Here, the singer awaits (for a long time) the opening of a new hardware store in town. Musically and lyrically, I really like what he's done with the chorus. There are multiple voices singing broken lines that eventually end up telling us they're going to the hardware store. Not only was that creatively written, but it must have been a bitch for the singers to learn and get right. Favorite line: "Trailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumcisers, tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers."

Then comes "Trash Day" - a parody of Nelly's "Hot in Herre." I don't care for Nelly, I don't like the original of this song, and the parody of it is lost on me as well. The songs tells the tale of a guy who doesn't want to take our his trash and it keeps piling up for weeks, giving us the chorus line "There's something rotten here." The lyrics seem to go nowhere in the song, and while that may be a play on the original (cf. "This Song Is Just Six Words Long"), I'm not familiar with the original so I can't say for sure. At any rate, this is the first track on the disc that comes off as trite.

What can I say about "Party at the Leper Colony?" Hopefully as little as possible. It's a style parody that reminds me of a late-50's or early-60's dance number (yes, dancing, not just gyrating body limbs wildly as is the practice today). The lyrics are clever, but maybe I'm getting a little old, because the mental image of body parts getting passed around on a Saturday night is just a little much for me. There are some great puns in here, though, given the topic. In any other song, they'd just be cliche. The beat is really nice, although it feels slow and bland at first. By the end of the track, the energy kicks in, and you can't help but feel like top-tapping to it. Favorite line: "She oozed up beside me; I turned on my charm; Well, pretty soon she was completely disarmed." See?

The polka mix on this disc is the "Angry White Boy Polka." I've never said anything bad about any of his other Polka mixes, and I won't about this one, either. It's catchy, and once again, I don't know any of the songs that he's pulled for it. That's not a bad thing, actually. I've discovered that I like a number of artists simply because Al has included one of their songs in a Polka (that's where I first heard Alanis Morisette). I admit that I had a little time to get used to this tune, though, because someone created a Flash animation for it. Watch it - you'll enjoy it. Just be careful of the surrounding content. *sigh*

Next comes "Wanna B Ur Lover" - a style parody. I don't know whose style he's working on here, and I really don't care. I hate this song. I have never, EVER, said that about an Al tune, but I HATE this song. The lyrics are a bunch of bad pick-up lines strung together. The music is uninspired. The song feels completely over-produced. Can I say enough bad things about this track? Probably not. If I never hear it again, that will be too soon. Next.

Avril Lavigne get indoctrinated into the world of Al Parody with "A Complicated Song" - based on, you guessed it, her award-winning song "Complicated." I like Avril. Really. I'm not ashamed to say it. She's a solid young songwriter, and I hope she continues to generate material like she did for her first album. I can't say that I want any of her other material to get the Al once-over, because he didn't do a very good job with this one. Granted, this was a very difficult song to parody, and I think Al chose it because it was really popular with the teenage crowd. But the song feels so rushed and undeveloped. Most of the time, Al and his band to a better-than-average to outstanding rendition of the music backing of the original song. Not here. The music on this take is flat, like weeks-old cola. It never even glimpses the energy that the original has. Now, the lyrics. This isn't one song, it's really three song snippets. Al couldn't come up with one idea that could cover the entire piece, so he settled for telling three stories, all of which have chorus lines that rhyme with "complicated" - constipated, related, decapitated. Yes, he really, REALLY had to reach for this one. I am no fan of potty humor, so the first verse of the song almost had me putting this track in my trash pile forever. Fortunately, I stayed around for the second verse, which had nothing to do with constipation. I really think he might have been able to stretch the concept in the second verse to fill the entire song, but maybe he didn't think he could. Anyway, this particular verse and chorus is enough to keep me listening to this track. The lyrical turns in the chorus are very clever, and still fit with the groove of the original. And has nothing to with Al liking potty humor. He definitely likes dismemberment, as the lead in the third verse get his head lopped off on a roller coaster. It's a nice turn on words, but it's really not funny. Marks for creativity, maybe. Humor, no. Favorite line - the second chorus: "How was I supposed to know we were both related; Believe me, if I knew she was my cousin we never would have dated; What to do now? Should I go ahead and propose and get hitched and have kids with eleven toes and move to Alabama where that kind of thing is tolerated?" I think Al knows this song was a lot of work that may not pay off. "A Complicated Song" indeed.

"Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" is what I was thinking about now in my first listen to the CD. This is another style parody, I'm guessing of Ben Folds, since he plays on this track, and the music is OK, but not great. I don't like the lyrics at all. It's a slam on ultra-self-centered people. In the first verse, the singer complains because "The Simpsons" was interrupted by a newsbreak about an earthquake in Peru. There are more dismembered bodies in the second verse, and a knife to the face of the boss in the third. I don't find this kind of violence humorous, and for me, it's in poor taste. I'm probably in the minority in that, granted, but this song now falls in the same category as "The Night Santa Went Crazy" - I'll make reasonable efforts to not listen to it again. It's not in my iTunes list, it won't make it on any mix CD I make, etc. But I'm not going to get up and walk out of a concert when it's played. (I would if he played "Wanna B Ur Lover" in a show - I think I'm glad I missed him this last time around.)

Billy Joel gets the treatment in "Ode to a Superhero" - a spin on "The Piano Man." I was about to give up on this disc when this track came on. Not only do I like Billy Joel, but I used to be able to play this song a long, LOOOOOOONG time ago. This track harkens to the Al tradition of taking an older, classic song and using it as a movie parody as well. His most famous songs in this vein were "Yoda" and "The Saga Begins," both about the Star Wars movies. This one is as well done as those, but suffers from the release date. If this album had been release a year earlier, to coincide with the release of the Spiderman movie last summer, this would have been the leading cut on the album. Instead, it's relegated to the last third of the disc. That's sad, because I think this may be the best track. Favorite line: "But to his great surprise it seems she prefers guys who can kiss upside down in the rain."

"Bob" is, duh, a Bob Dylan style parody. But how do you parody a guy who's best known for his inability to sing intelligibly? Why, by noticing that his name is a palindrome. So since you can't understand what Bob the Palindrome sings, why not make the lyrics nonsensical by just stringing together a bunch of palindromes? On paper, this must have looked like a great idea. And conceptually, it's genius. The realization of the idea, however, just doesn't live up to the potential. Granted, there are palindromes in here that I've never heard of (and I'm sort of a fan of odd word activities, such as palindromes). But I have to agree with my friend Billy on this one. Why would I want to listen to someone trying to sound like Bob Dylan and making about as much sense as Bob Dylan instead of listening to Bob Dylan? For me, the idea of using palindromes as the basis for a song could have been done some other way, and might have been more entertaining. Favorite palindrome, uh, line: "UFO tofu."

Following that is another short song title, "eBay" - a parody of the Backstreet Boys hit "I Want It That Way." This song gives the Spiderman song a run for the "best track on this disc" title. I enjoy this song, and it's probably going to make it into my permanent Al rotation in iTunes. It's another formulaic song, but like many of his other formulaic songs, it works. Everything included in the lyrics are items actually found available on eBay. Plus, the chorus of the song really lent itself to the new lyrics: "What I bought on eBay." Again, I don't care much for boybands, including the back street variety, but this is a good song, and both versions are really well done. Favorite line: "Wanna buy (a Kleenex used by Dr. Dre)?"

The collection concludes with "Genius in France" - another style parody, I'm guessing Dewwzil Zappa is the artist being targetted. Like Ben Folds on the earlier track, Dweezil plays the intro. The style, tempo, texture, and so on, change constantly throughout the track (all 8+ minutes of it). Being the longest track on the disc, and the last, don't make up for the fact that the song is incredibly insulting to the French. I guess that's the point. I don't know. Without knowing for certain who he's parodying on this track, I'm left to judge it on its own, and on its own, it stinks. There are some nice moments of vocal harmony scattered through the track, but they are few and far between compared to the endless comparisons of how the singer is dumb, stupid, ugly, dumb, idiotic, disgusting, dumb, slow, annoying, dumb, and how the French worship the ground he walks on, for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. I recall a track from the "In 3-D" album called "That Boy Could Dance" where he tells the story of a really ugly kid in school whose one redeeming quality was that he could dance well. In this treatment, however, we're told in no uncertain terms that the singer has no redeeming value whatsoever, except that the French love him. Whatever.

Overall, I'm disappointed in this offering from Al. There are some bright moments on the disc, but there aren't any real gems on here, either. Granted, Al hasn't had much to work with in terms of parodying popular music over the last few years. The radio landscape has been pretty dry. The general feeling I get is that this project was rushed out the door, and I can't find the reason why. There's not a track on here that just screamed to be released at any particular time. None of the parody tracks were overwhelming radio hits where he could capitalize on the popularity to increase sales of the disc. It really hadn't been that long since his last release, and I really wasn't aware of any earth-shattering cry for more "new" Al. I've come to expect more from Al than what was delivered on this collection, so I'm even more disappointed when I can't understand why an unnecessary collection was pushed out the door.

To date, "Polka Party" is Al's least commercially successful release. I'm afraid that "Poodle Hat" may well compete for that spot on the roster. At least "Polka Party" had its reasons for being put out when it was. It was the fourth in a string of yearly releases from Al, so there was momentum at the time to get the next album out the door and quickly. Three years passed before the next album, and the quality returned.

Do I regret getting "Poodle Hat?" No. Am I glad I got it on sale? Yes. And with a gift certificate? Absolutely. Hopefully, Al will return his focus to what made him successful in his more popular days. Having seen the guy perform live, I am in awe of his musical skill. Does he have the best singing voice on the planet? No, but he doesn't need it, either. That's the only component in his musical makeup that is less than stellar, and he is still able to pull off a two hour concert night after night after night. But his songwriting and arranging skills are where his true genius lies. On "Poodle Hat," unfortunately, it seems that genius was wasted, even in France.

OK, it's happened. I'm officially giddy. I'm beyond amazed at what's happening on Mars right now, and I'm not even associated with the missions. I can only imagine what's going on within the project team. Here I was thinking that the really exciting stuff has only happened in the last few weeks, but there's actually been very cool stuff going on since the probes left Earth less than a year ago. In fact, only a couple of months after launch, one probe took this amazing Earth and Jupiter picture. Wow!

Any open jobs at NASA? Sign me up!!!

We had a blast at the Magic Time Machine Sunday night for my birthday. As luck would have it, our server was none other than Captain Jack Sparrow. Anna and Sharon both have this "thing" for Captain Jack, so they may have had more fun than I!

The lucky ladies pose with Jack:


Everyone posing in front of the school bus, where we ate:

Yes, that's me in the balloon hat.

All the excitement about the varying successes of recent (the last 2 weeks) Mars probe activities has somewhat overshadowed yet another amazing mission, one that's been in the sky since 1999 - Stardust. On 1/2/04, Stardust flew through the tail of a comet and collected samples that will be returned to Earth for study. This is the first time any mission has collected samples from an off-world body and returned it to Earth since the lunar missions.

It's a very exciting time to be an American and take pride in the space program again. The last few years haven't reflected well on NASA and ancillary programs: the loss of the Pathfinder probes to Mars several years ago, the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in its return to Earth not even a year ago. But it appears that we learn from these mishaps and better the program as a result. In the last six months, Japan has lost a probe destined for Mars, and it appears that the European effort has lost the lander Beagle 2, despite the successful deployment of the orbiting Mars Express.

I for one am looking forward to the arrival of the Opportunity probe in just under 3 weeks. And I'm very anxious to see what was collected from the comet Wild-2 by Stardust. That's going to be a long 4 years to wait for the comet chaser to return!

What better birthday present could I get than a successful landing of a Mars probe? Thanks, NASA/JPL!

OK, so maybe they didn't plan the landing specifically to celebrate my birthday (but it was a nice thought). But the fact that Spirit is just the fifth probe to successfully land on Mars in nearly 30 years of trying is just amazing. The astronomer inside me is just giddy with excitement!

If you want to keep tabs on the Mars missions like I am, there are two great sites:
Space.com Mars Rover Coverage
NASA/JPL Mars Explorer

While the images coming back from Spirit and breathtaking, there's more excitement around the corner: the second of the Mars Explorer pair, Opportunity, is scheduled to land in a few weeks. The European probe Mars Express just entered into orbit around Mars, and it will be taking radar readings under the surface of the planet. More importantly, though, it will spend the next several days attempting to regain communication with the lander, Beagle 2, that should have deployed on the surface on Christmas Day, but hasn't been heard from since.

As much trouble as I've had navigating back and forth to work in the past, I cannot even imaging the effort that has gone into getting these probes even close to Mars, much less landing Spirit in a crater the size of Connecticut. Unbelievable!

We're just about to head out to the Magic Time Machine. This has been a favorite destination of mine for, well, let's just say a very long time (like 18 years, perhaps). There are only two of them now, one in Dallas (Addison actually) and the other in San Antonio. I had been to the one that was open in Austin, but it closed down quite a while back.

One memorable moment was the night my mother and I went for dinner there. It was the night of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. We talked with a gentleman at the next table who was from San Fran, but was in Dallas on a business trip.

While in college, we had some friends that worked at the restaurant. We would make fairly regular trips out to have fun with them.

My favorite memory from the Time Machine was the night a good friend got into an ice fight with Luke Skywalker. There were about 12 of us sitting in the School Bus, and Luke was waiting tables in the adjacent area. He and one of my friends got into some good-natured verbal sparring, which culminated with my friend starting to toss ice cubes at Luke whenever he walked past. The game ended, however, when Luke brought a bucket of ice and dumped it on my friend. Once we got over the initial shock of "I can't believe that just happened," we couldn't stop laughing. There wasn't a dry eye at the table by the time we finally left.

Always a great place for fun. And when you visit, be sure to ask your server where the restrooms are...