It's in vogue, of course, to bring in the New Year with superlatives of 2008. Most (whatever) Politician, the perennial favorite Most (whatever) Political Scandal, and new for 2008, the Most Historic Political (whatever). Politics are, of course, not the domain of Isoceleria, so I've come up with some some superlatives of my own that are more comfortable in the "marginal relevance" landscape.
Most Strike-Proof TV Show: Lost
The disastrous 2008 Writer's Strike left television as we know it in total disarray. Some of TV's best shows (eg, House) decided to push through it and run the episodes they'd planned on anyway. That left us anachronistically watching the Christmas episode in late January, and not really remembering who these roomful of fellowship candidates were in the first place. Some others (eg, Battlestar Galactica) just took a figurative cleaver to their seasons, with ten episodes now, ten later, and an implied Gallic shrug somewhere in the middle. Still others, like 24, washed their hands of 2008 completely, choosing instead to focus on the 2009 season. (It might have been odd to call it 11 for a season anyway.)
Not Lost, though. The show was coming into its fourth season with a renewed sense of purpose, with the mythical End Date only a few years off. Three seasons to introduce some more new wrinkles, kill off a few main characters, give the faithful plenty to speculate about, and finally wrap everything up. So Lost was already in a "cut the crap" mode, even before the strike hit. It was one of the few shows to make it out of the strike an even better show than before, mostly because the "streamline" mentality was already very much a part of the show's philosophy.
The V For Vendetta Memorial Award: The Dark Knight
The V for Vendetta Memorial Award is presented annually to the most over-rated film based on an existing comic book or graphic novel. Last year, it would have gone to 300, hands down. This year, none other than The Dark Knight takes home that prestigious award.
To reiterate, The Dark Knight was not a bad movie at all. The acting was mostly overdone, whatever attempts it had at philosophizing or "commenting on the human condition" were dime-store at best, and what should have been one of the most interesting character developments (Two-Face) felt rushed. But for those faults, this movie might have been able to live up to its hype, right?
Absolutely not. I'd heard so much about how wonderful this movie was--particularly Heath Ledger's performance in it--in the weeks and months leading up to my watching it that there was literally no way it could have been as good as everyone was saying. So this V for Vendetta Memorial Award is not so much for the low quality of the movie--because it wasn't a low quality movie--but more for the downright unrealistic expectations I had after two months of Dark Knight hysteria.
Best Three-Hour Board Game: Imperial
Imperial's not a new game, I don't think, but I played it for the first time this year. In the grand German tradition, here's a board game that takes no less than three hours to play, can only be played by three or more people (of course, six is preferred), and has absolutely no element of chance, just careful planning and reacting to what the rest of the players do. It's way more fun than it ought to be, and it's one of the best ways I know of to kill a sleety Sunday.
Best Wii Party Game With Innuendo Gestures: Mario Party 8
The Mario Party games are always a lot of fun for big gatherings; they succeed mostly in that you don't have to be good at Mario Party to enjoy Mario Party. There's no competitive cult that exists with most of the popular shooters, and let's face it--it's not nearly fun enough to play as a single player game that you might want to "practice".
As with any series of games, you're going to get some (unnecessarily) impassioned arguments about which game is the best. I've only played a few of them, so I'm a poor judge of that. I can say for certainty, though, that the eighth installment is clearly the most impressive when it comes to innuendo hand gestures, mostly because it involves the use of the Wiimote. Can anyone say "Shake it Up"?
Best Contribution to My Writing: Jacqueline Snedeker, Georgia Tech School of Chemical Engineering
If you read through earlier Isoceleria entries, you might notice a tendency of mine to start sentences with "this". I was swiftly and completely broken of this habit over the semester by Ms. Snedeker, who's the closest thing to an English teacher most Tech upperclassmen will ever have. "It's ambiguous," she assured me. "You don't know what the antecedent is." Too true, Ms. Snedeker. And I did it a lot, or used to, but I quickly got a lot better at not doing it. At one point, I even challenged her to find a sentence starting with "this" anywhere in my most recent lab report, to the tune of $20 if she could find one.
I kept my Jackson squarely in my wallet.
Best Place to Pretend to Be a Hipster: Starbucks in Tech Square
Though, I'm forced to admit, that Starbucks by Lake Lucerne and Starbucks in Athens and even Starbucks in Schererville, IN are close runners-up.
Currently listening: Metro Jazz Club, Live at the Aurora Theater
Showing posts with label Starbucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Starbucks. Show all posts
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Friday, June 23, 2006
Primacy and Recency
Two bands to whom I have been introduced over the last year have recently released new CDs. Here follows the reviews of both of them.
First, a bit about steak.
I ate dinner at a restaurant called Stoney River yesterday. A steakhouse, kind of a hunting lodge style atmosphere, with standard fare. Lots and lots of wine, probably very good, which I will be more qualified to comment on in a year and a half. Salads and appetizers, from which I chose the lobster bisque. Wonderful, and along with the bread, a great first course to the meal. A page of "entrees" including chicken, fish, etc. dishes, which might be decent, but I'll never know because eating anything but steak at a steakhouse is heretical.
The steak I ended up with was advertised as the house special. (No, it wasn't cojones, for those familiar with one of my favorite jokes. If you've not heard the cojones joke, ask me to tell it to you sometime.) This steak, a filet, was very good. Stoney River apparently has a Secret Blend of Seasonings they put on all their steaks, and it was delicious. But eating this filet just served to confirm for me that I like the ribeye a lot better. A filet is probably a better cut if you want a single piece of ultra-high quality meat. It's probably healthier, as a large portion of the ribeye's flavor comes from the marbelization (ie, the fat). But as long as I'm going to order three quarters of a pound of meat anyway, I'll take the ribeye and six dollars over the filet any day.
Now, a bit about quasi-coffee.
Starbucks, contrary to popular opinion, is only halfway a coffeehouse. The other half is "purveyor of all drinks wonderful, warm, and cold, that may or may not tangentially involve coffee as one of their ingredients." One of these (that can either be ordered with or without a coffee base), new for and limited to the summer, is the banana coconut frappucino. I've had both the coffee-based and the creme-based, and it's hard to say which is better. But it doesn't matter, because both are amazingly good. It's refreshing, perfect for 96-degree summer days. This is the sort of thing that probably actually exists in the Caribbean, except it's probably half rum and half all that other stuff. Despite its lack of rum, the Starbucks version is certainly worth a drink, with the caveat that if you don't like coconut, you may want to request the drink without it, and if you don't like banana, stick with something else. All in all, though, this (in addition to the Blackberry Green Tea frappucino) makes summer second only to Christmas as Starbucks' best season.
Review: Ganging Up on the Sun
Guster's latest release was sadly underreported. I looked in a Best Buy ad, and saw that the CD was now for sale. I thought this was probably a recent development, and headed to iTunes to buy it. As it turns out, it had been out for like two weeks already, with no iTunes coverage at all. (And yet, we see Nelly Furtado's mug all over that enterprise. That "Promiscuous" song really, really grates on my nerves. It needs to go away. And is it just me, or does she look positively mentally retarded on the cover of her new album? I digress.) Some of the user comments said that this was a slight departure from old Guster, but most everyone gave it a really great rating.
Deservedly so. Ganging Up on the Sun a worthy followup to Guster's other great albums. My biggest (and really only) complaint is that it lacks the band's trademark bongos in most of the songs. But aside from that, nothing to complain about at all. "Manifest Destiny" is the mosy readily listenable song on the album, with a pleasantly pop-ish piano line in the background for almost the entire song. Think Ben Folds, or maybe the Decemberists at their most bright and happy. Interestingly, the parallels to other songs does not stop there. "The Captain" is a Western fantasy, and would be as easily in place on a Rilo Kiley CD as where it is. We even get a female vocalist (but she's probably not as good as Jenny Lewis). Subsequent songs evoke Coldplay and Muse in places and Sufjan Stevens in others.
Remarkably, all of the songs have a stylistic element in common. They all sound like Guster. The band's sound is there on all of the tracks (minus the bongos), the vocals are still solid, and the styles are more varied than they've ever been. Fans of the band, assuming they're not stuck-up "purist" fans of the band, as in "they don't sound exactly like they used to so I don't like them anymore" will love this release.
Review: Under the Iron Sea
Keane's second release has been lauded as being more adventurous than the band's first. That's probably true, if only marginally so. The album has a different collective "feel" about it, but the actual sound of what's going on it largely the same as it ever was. For the unfamiliar with Keane, think Coldplay minus a guitar, and you've got it. There are people out there who would decry that estimation as ignoring certain nuances of sound, and they might be right. But that's the parallel that I drew upon hearing the band, and that's the one that makes the most sense to the most people.
Some of the tracks on this CD fail to deliver. The first, "Atlantic," is steeped in tritonic dissonance and gave me serious doubts about the ultimate quality of this album. Most of the middle of the album--after "Is It Any Wonder?" and before "Crystal Ball," is okay but rather uninteresting. But there is a lot of good to hear as well. The aforementioned "Is It Any Wonder?", which will probably become the best-known and most-played track on the CD, is a fun one to listen to. And the album gets really good toward the last few tracks. "Crystal Ball" all the way up through "Let it Slide" (which apparently is an iTunes exclusive?) is awesome. My favorite track is "The Frog Prince" which is musically superb and tells a fascinating story at the same time.
I suppose this entire album can appeal to certain people, though probably not all at once. There are tracks that I find boring and unmusical, but that others can probably draw a parallel to Radiohead (which I also find boring and unmusical) and immensely enjoy. The ones I like, certain fans are probably going to denounce as being too "mainstream" and easily musical. The point is, any given listener is going to like at least half this album.
Currently listening: Under the Iron Sea, Keane
First, a bit about steak.
I ate dinner at a restaurant called Stoney River yesterday. A steakhouse, kind of a hunting lodge style atmosphere, with standard fare. Lots and lots of wine, probably very good, which I will be more qualified to comment on in a year and a half. Salads and appetizers, from which I chose the lobster bisque. Wonderful, and along with the bread, a great first course to the meal. A page of "entrees" including chicken, fish, etc. dishes, which might be decent, but I'll never know because eating anything but steak at a steakhouse is heretical.
The steak I ended up with was advertised as the house special. (No, it wasn't cojones, for those familiar with one of my favorite jokes. If you've not heard the cojones joke, ask me to tell it to you sometime.) This steak, a filet, was very good. Stoney River apparently has a Secret Blend of Seasonings they put on all their steaks, and it was delicious. But eating this filet just served to confirm for me that I like the ribeye a lot better. A filet is probably a better cut if you want a single piece of ultra-high quality meat. It's probably healthier, as a large portion of the ribeye's flavor comes from the marbelization (ie, the fat). But as long as I'm going to order three quarters of a pound of meat anyway, I'll take the ribeye and six dollars over the filet any day.
Now, a bit about quasi-coffee.
Starbucks, contrary to popular opinion, is only halfway a coffeehouse. The other half is "purveyor of all drinks wonderful, warm, and cold, that may or may not tangentially involve coffee as one of their ingredients." One of these (that can either be ordered with or without a coffee base), new for and limited to the summer, is the banana coconut frappucino. I've had both the coffee-based and the creme-based, and it's hard to say which is better. But it doesn't matter, because both are amazingly good. It's refreshing, perfect for 96-degree summer days. This is the sort of thing that probably actually exists in the Caribbean, except it's probably half rum and half all that other stuff. Despite its lack of rum, the Starbucks version is certainly worth a drink, with the caveat that if you don't like coconut, you may want to request the drink without it, and if you don't like banana, stick with something else. All in all, though, this (in addition to the Blackberry Green Tea frappucino) makes summer second only to Christmas as Starbucks' best season.
Review: Ganging Up on the Sun
Guster's latest release was sadly underreported. I looked in a Best Buy ad, and saw that the CD was now for sale. I thought this was probably a recent development, and headed to iTunes to buy it. As it turns out, it had been out for like two weeks already, with no iTunes coverage at all. (And yet, we see Nelly Furtado's mug all over that enterprise. That "Promiscuous" song really, really grates on my nerves. It needs to go away. And is it just me, or does she look positively mentally retarded on the cover of her new album? I digress.) Some of the user comments said that this was a slight departure from old Guster, but most everyone gave it a really great rating.
Deservedly so. Ganging Up on the Sun a worthy followup to Guster's other great albums. My biggest (and really only) complaint is that it lacks the band's trademark bongos in most of the songs. But aside from that, nothing to complain about at all. "Manifest Destiny" is the mosy readily listenable song on the album, with a pleasantly pop-ish piano line in the background for almost the entire song. Think Ben Folds, or maybe the Decemberists at their most bright and happy. Interestingly, the parallels to other songs does not stop there. "The Captain" is a Western fantasy, and would be as easily in place on a Rilo Kiley CD as where it is. We even get a female vocalist (but she's probably not as good as Jenny Lewis). Subsequent songs evoke Coldplay and Muse in places and Sufjan Stevens in others.
Remarkably, all of the songs have a stylistic element in common. They all sound like Guster. The band's sound is there on all of the tracks (minus the bongos), the vocals are still solid, and the styles are more varied than they've ever been. Fans of the band, assuming they're not stuck-up "purist" fans of the band, as in "they don't sound exactly like they used to so I don't like them anymore" will love this release.
Review: Under the Iron Sea
Keane's second release has been lauded as being more adventurous than the band's first. That's probably true, if only marginally so. The album has a different collective "feel" about it, but the actual sound of what's going on it largely the same as it ever was. For the unfamiliar with Keane, think Coldplay minus a guitar, and you've got it. There are people out there who would decry that estimation as ignoring certain nuances of sound, and they might be right. But that's the parallel that I drew upon hearing the band, and that's the one that makes the most sense to the most people.
Some of the tracks on this CD fail to deliver. The first, "Atlantic," is steeped in tritonic dissonance and gave me serious doubts about the ultimate quality of this album. Most of the middle of the album--after "Is It Any Wonder?" and before "Crystal Ball," is okay but rather uninteresting. But there is a lot of good to hear as well. The aforementioned "Is It Any Wonder?", which will probably become the best-known and most-played track on the CD, is a fun one to listen to. And the album gets really good toward the last few tracks. "Crystal Ball" all the way up through "Let it Slide" (which apparently is an iTunes exclusive?) is awesome. My favorite track is "The Frog Prince" which is musically superb and tells a fascinating story at the same time.
I suppose this entire album can appeal to certain people, though probably not all at once. There are tracks that I find boring and unmusical, but that others can probably draw a parallel to Radiohead (which I also find boring and unmusical) and immensely enjoy. The ones I like, certain fans are probably going to denounce as being too "mainstream" and easily musical. The point is, any given listener is going to like at least half this album.
Currently listening: Under the Iron Sea, Keane
Friday, March 17, 2006
In Defense of the Green Circle
At dinner last night, one of my friends attempted to tell me about a "really funny Starbucks rant" that he'd read on some website. Disregarding any sense of diplomacy that I usually try to carry, I went straight for flippancy: "I don't deal well with Starbucks rants." You see them all over the damn place. In the Technique. In sketch comedy. In stand-up comedy. And, yes, in blogs. And my first reaction to any of them is always the same: "If you don't want to pay $4 for a cup of coffee, then you don't have to."
My second reaction typically goes a little something like this: "You're wondering where they 'get off' charging that much for coffee? If you knew the first thing about economics, you would know exactly why they have the right to charge that much. It's called the market." I could get groteqsuely in-depth and sart busting out elasticity of demand and marginal cost/revenue curves... but that's not necessary. Starbucks charges exactly how much for a cup of coffee that will maximize their profits.
One of the points that the aforementioned rant brought up was apparently that some guy paid seven bucks for a piece of cake and some coffee at a Starbucks, and immediately regretted the decision because he could have gone next door and paid that same amount for a meal that would have filled him up. Well, yes. He could have. As a rational consumer in a market economy, that choice is inexorably his to make. But "personal choice as part of a market economy" doesn't make for a very sensational rant, so of course we must shift the blame from ourselves to some evil external source.
I leave with a quote from Adam Smith: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Id est, we do not expect Starbucks to sell us coffee for the purposes of doing anything nice or kind for us, but for them to provide a service that makes them money.
My second reaction typically goes a little something like this: "You're wondering where they 'get off' charging that much for coffee? If you knew the first thing about economics, you would know exactly why they have the right to charge that much. It's called the market." I could get groteqsuely in-depth and sart busting out elasticity of demand and marginal cost/revenue curves... but that's not necessary. Starbucks charges exactly how much for a cup of coffee that will maximize their profits.
One of the points that the aforementioned rant brought up was apparently that some guy paid seven bucks for a piece of cake and some coffee at a Starbucks, and immediately regretted the decision because he could have gone next door and paid that same amount for a meal that would have filled him up. Well, yes. He could have. As a rational consumer in a market economy, that choice is inexorably his to make. But "personal choice as part of a market economy" doesn't make for a very sensational rant, so of course we must shift the blame from ourselves to some evil external source.
I leave with a quote from Adam Smith: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Id est, we do not expect Starbucks to sell us coffee for the purposes of doing anything nice or kind for us, but for them to provide a service that makes them money.
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