Seth McFarlane owns Fox.

Notice anything here? This is Fox's sunday night lineup, or 'Animation Domination' as they call it. Please take a moment and grieve the passing of King of the Hill.

Anyways, three quarters of the shows are all from Seth McFarlane, creator of Family Guy. Now don't get me wrong, at one time Family Guy was hilarious. Now, he's just getting his wallet fatter with all of these spin-offs. This is fucking ridiculous. Please, Fox, find some new shows that are witty and creative, like the first three seasons of Family Guy. Don't just regurgitate the same animation style, the same jokes, and the same creator over and over and over. Thank God for the Simpsons.

Progression or Regression?

This is what comes to my head while I listen to the new Brand New album, 'Daisy'. This is one of those albums that will definately polarize their fans. The first glance at the album artwork struck me as weird right off the bat. On one hand, 'Daisy' is an incredible departure from their previous work. As musicians this must have been very hard for them because they were great at their style of post-hardcore/rock. Not to say that this album isn't crafted well, however. 'Daisy' is fast, heavy, and angry. They incorporate more noise and distortion into all of their songs, which is awesome in my opinion. Any emo band would love to add this album to their discog. But then there are the fans looking for a follow up to Brand New's last album, 'The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me'. I'll be honest; at first, I was lumped into that second category. When I heard the aggression and noise in the first song on 'Daisy' (Vices) I thought to myself "Who the fuck is this? I thought I downloaded the new Brand New???". It is that much of a change in their sound. No joke. After listening to it pretty much constantly over the past few days however, I realized what a monster of an album this is.

God damn, is 'Daisy' dark. I thought TDAGARIM was dark but this is just heart-wrenching stuff, and that is what I love about Brand New. This isn't emo, this is beyond that. They are pushing the genre into new territory. Emo as we knew it in the early 2000's is dead. This is the new sound. There are still songs that sound like Brand New (Bed, You Stole, Sink) but the others are heavy hitters. The track that will be hardest for fans will be 'Be Gone', a dark effect-riddled journey into a man's pain. The vocals are so fucked up and I LOVE IT.

This album combines my love for weird and angry music. I'm giving it four confused looks out of five. If you have an open mind and open ears, this album will grow on you. 'Daisy' cements Brand New into that category of bands that will always be evolving on their own terms, like Radiohead, Queens Of The Stone Age, and Beck. The future is bright for Brand New.

Reoccuring Dreams

The other night me and the roommates were watching season 4 of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". It was the episode where Mac and Charlie fake their deaths, respectively. During the part where Charlie is pulling his teeth out, I made the comment about how I have reoccuring dreams about my teeth falling out.

One of my roommates, a psychology major, told me this might because I subconciously feel that people don't listen to me. For some reason this really hit close to home for me. I realized that for a while now no has really listened to me. Whenever I talk to people, I always feel like they aren't listening just waiting for their turn to talk. Maybe this is why I feel alienated from everyone around me. I mean, I have a few close friends, but it feels like I'm only their friends to help them out, for favors. They might ask me how I'm doing but it's just out of pity or they feel they need to, not that they're genuinely interested. I just need to find my niche. For now, I'll just keep walking.

The Road Is Long... But The Wait Is Longer.

I don't know how many of my readers are fans of an amazing film that came out a couple of years ago called "No Country For Old Men", but if you are you should definatly check out the newest movie based on one of Cormac McCarthy's amazing novels called "The Road". It's a bit of a hard read, but if you have any interest in post-apocalyptic literature this should be high on the list. A movie has been made based on it starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Therron but it hasn't seen mass distribution yet. Right now it's playing at the Toronto Film Festival, one of the many reasons I want to move to Canada. Here's a link:

LINK

I know that it won't be anywhere near as good as No Country but that's because the Cohen brothers are fucking brilliant. But I am nevertheless excited for this movie. Here's the trailer:

TRAILER

P.S. If you haven't heard KiD CuDi's new album, do yourself a favor and get it!!

God, I wish we had cable....

Yeah. New Sunny starts really soon. I think I might have to start coming over to a friends house who has cable...

Secret Machines are bigger than I thought...

So big, in fact, that Jay-Z has ripped off some cover art for his new album. Check it:

Ha... Sweet. Anyways, I'm seeing the Secret Machines for a third time this month. Pretttty fucking psyched, no joke. Playing with Trail of Dead. In honor of that...

Yeah. This concert will be all sorts of epic. Oh, you want more?

FiRsT dAy?!?!?!

Ugh... First day of school left a bad taste in my mouth. Don't worry, I'll post a classic album tomorrow. It's just that I felt like I was going to destroy this year, you know, end college with a bang. The TA thing was on the right path, my job was decent, good friends, etc. Well, the TA thing is all fucked to hell. I'm completely lost with no one to guide me. Without this, I won't get my service learning requirement, which means I won't be able to graduate. Awesome. Then today at work I got knocked down a few pegs. Lately I'd been given a stronger leadership position amongst the new employees, which I thought I was accepting quite well. To be quite honest, I thought it was really cool. Everyone kind of looked to me for advice because they knew that I wouldn't shoot them down like a supervisor or manager. Now that school has started, my schedules all fucked up and I'm back to working by myself and doing little odd jobs again. God, I was really looking forward to all this. This just means I'm going to have to work harder, and prove them all wrong.