Mental Medley

Mental Medley
by Martell

Here are some various recommendations I have for the masses, along with a few of the curious thoughts that have been running through my head recently. I cannot promise that any of them will be interesting.

Before I start, I would like to recognize the dangers of recommending things to people before having the opportunity to fully investigate them (the things, not the people). Specifically, I would like to apologize to anyone that watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force last night at my behest. Last night's episode was not only disgusting, but it was so random that it made The Brak Show look like Three's Company by comparison. Again, I apologize, and I hope I have learned my lesson. And now, on to the recommendations!

American Idiot, the new album from Green Day, is better than I expected it to be. Perhaps because I hadn't heard anything new from them in seven years, I didn't know what to expect. (I completely ignored their 2000 release Warning, and I don't really have a reason why. Maybe it was good.) I frequently hear it being referred to as a "rock opera," which I guess fits; many of the songs blend together, making the album much more than simply a collection of songs. But I haven't found that much of a narrative yet, at least not like you find in Tommy or The Wall. Perhaps after a few more listens...

Something else that is better than I expected is the show Desperate Housewives. It's like a combination of Sex and the City (it's no accident that it airs Sundays at 9pm) and Twin Peaks, which I know is hard to imagine. Amazingly, though, they pull it off. There are no superstars on the show, but all of the acting so far has been superb, and the writing is funny without sounding like a sitcom. I would highly recommend making time for this show. Anyone who wants the first four episodes sent to them on DVD so they can catch up, e-mail me. I'll try and get them out to you before next Sunday.

The latest football season fad over the past few years has been the Death Pool. Basically, everyone puts in some money and picks one winner each week. As long as your team wins that week, you move on, but once you pick a team, you cannot pick them again. Miss a game and you're out. It sounds simple enough, but I've done about eight of these pools over the past few years and have yet to make it past Week 6. Should you decide to do one of these pools next year, here are a couple of bits of advice:

1) Don't plan ahead. That is the classic trap. This year, I made it to Week 6 having not used Philadelphia or the New York Jets (who were both undefeated). Looking ahead at the schedule, I decided I wanted to use Philly in Week 7 vs. Cleveland and the Jets in Week 8 vs. Buffalo. So in Week 6, I picked Tennessee, who was favored by 6 over Houston and had just trounced Green Bay the previous Monday night. Of course, Tennessee lost. Which leads me to...

2) Don't pick a game that involves Houston. Don't pick them and don't pick against them. Just steer clear of those games. They have knocked more people out of the pools I've been involved in than any other team. I think since they're a new team, the public perception is that they're still really bad, so Las Vegas jacks up the line to try and balance their betting action. Then, people like me end up thinking, "Tennessee is favored by 6? Then they definitely should at least win the game!" Trust me, just stay away from Houston.

If you have a couple of hours or so and like playing video games, visit The Kingdom of Loathing. Technically, it's a role-playing game, but it's really just incredible. Once you visit, many of you will have the same question, so I'll answer it now: No, this site wasn't created by Jeff Lewis, as far as I know. All I can say is that it's really, really great and (for now) it's free. Click the link above, save it to your favorites and then come back to the article. Then, tonight or a month from now, you'll see that link and you'll check it out. And then you'll laugh your ass off.

Here's are some interesting things I learned in my Marketing class regarding Botox: 1) It is the most deadly toxin known to man, 2) while it is marketed as "relaxing" your frown lines, what it is actually doing is paralyzing those muscles for up to six months, 3) it is technically only FDA approved for the area above the bridge of the nose and between the eyebrows, and 4) a unit of Botox is, by definition, the amount necessary to kill a mouse.

Another recent album I like is Pressure Chief by Cake. It doesn't have those two or three super-catchy songs that the typical Cake album has, but overall it's a solid production. It's the kind of album that you start listening to, and the next thing you know, it's over. Nothing really jumps out at you as being amazing, but nothing about it makes you want to turn it off either. Hopefully that makes sense to somebody.

Finally, I'm kind of afraid that my article on the Curse may have put a curse on curses, and I'm not quite sure how to reconcile that.

Martell can be reached at martell@babblog.com.