Five.... Five Dollar.... Five Dollar **SHUT UP**

A fairly long time ago (blogger code for "there's no way in hell I'm looking up exact time measurements), Subway debuted the now-famous 'Five Dollar Footlong' song. If you've forgotten how the original sounds, here's your chance to catch up.



This commercial obviously had several things going for it.

1. It was hypnotic.
2. It was catchy.
3. It sort of reminded me of Viva Voce (never a bad thing).
4. It had cute Asian chicks and Godzilla in it (they must have gotten in trouble over that, because later versions of the commercial had Godzilla removed, but cute Asian chick remains. I guess if you have to remove one.....)

It ranked right up there with 'Gimme Back That Fillet-o-Fish' as one of the better jingles to come out in the past few years.

Fast forward a few months, and Subway has turned a simple jingle into a huge advertising campaign. Needless to say whatever qualities the original may have had have.... faded.

The newest commercial features Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, and Jared Fogle fake singing the song in bizzare baritone voices. So, how far has it fallen?

1. It is in no way hypnotic. In fact, the only positive application the commercial could possibly be used for would be to snap people in comas back to waking life.

2. It is not catchy. It is the anti-thesis of catchy. It's as catchy in the same way Kidz Bop rendition of Mastodon would be - as in, not catchy.

3. It does not remind me of Viva Voce in any way.

4. It features a grand total of zero cute Asian chicks. It also features a conspicuous lack of Godzilla monsters.

Subway, you have destroyed what should have been a simple "one and done" jingle. Stop. For the love of all that is good in life, just stop.

Ten Random: "Been a While" Edition (12/10/2009)

In honor of me kicking off the 'Ten Random' thing for the first time in three months, we're doing something a little different. This list is ten random songs, taken from a playlist of songs in MediaMonkey that I've rated 4 stars or higher, but haven't listened to in over 3 months.

1. The White Stripes - Little Cream Soda (Icky Thump)
2. Lupe Fiasco - Streets on Fire (The Cool)
3. The Hold Steady - Slapped Actress (Stay Positive)¹
4. East West - Closure (The Light In Guinevere's Garden)²
5. Little Boots - Meddle (Hands)
6. Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard - Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight Soundtrack)
7. The Bobby Fuller Four - I fought the Law (I Fought the Law)
8. Jars of Clay - Fade to Grey (Much Afraid)
9. The Avalanches - Since I Left You (Since I Left You)
10. The Killers - Smile Like You Mean It (Hot Fuss)

¹ - I can seriously not believe I haven't listened to that song (or that entire CD, for that matter) in three months. I must rectify this immediately.

² - I'm more surprised that this song was rated 4 stars. I might also have to rectify that...

One More Reason to Hate MySpace

Now they've gone and swallowed iMeem.

I'm not a big fan of LaLa (what? only one listen per song unless I pay? nonsense)

I guess it's off to grooveshark.

Doomtree Blowout V

Branny and I attended the annual Doomtree blowout on Saturday night. It was easily one of the best, most energetic concert experiences I've been a part of.

I enjoyed the format of the show, with the entire group performing for about a half an hour, then splitting into individual sets for each of the members (with extremely short interludes in between), before coming back together for the grand finale. The group has great chemistry, and since this was the first time they'd all been together since the previous year's blowout, you could tell they were really feeding off each other and the excitement of the crowd.

I've been a big P.O.S. fan since seeing him live a couple years ago, but I had no idea that the rest of the Doomtree crew was that good. Cecil Otter had a great set, playing with live instruments, which really accentuated his metered spoken word style. Dessa commanded attention every time she opened her mouth, I'll definitely have to hunt down some of her stuff. Sims and Mictlan put on good shows, too (even if the planned world premiere of Mictlan's new music video kept experiencing technical difficulties - it got funny toward the end, when the show was effectively over, the problems let up and we got to see what ended up being a fairly blase video).

P.O.S.' Never Better will almost certainly (spoiler alert!) be my number one CD of 2009, but it still can't even touch the raw sound it has when he's rapping live. He has a fire that I haven't seen from many other performers. He only did 5 or 6 of his own, songs, but he touched on all the biggies (thankfully, he got everyone together to sing "Low Light Low Life", a personal favorite of mine off Never Better.)

The crowd knew every word to every song (seriously, I'm not sure I've ever seen such audience participation at a show before), and more than once, you could see the performers looking at each other in disbelief at how stoked the crowd was to be there.

Seriously, anyone from the Cities area who's even remotely a fan of this group owes it to themselves to check out next year's blowout. For fans of the Doomtree collective or any of the individuals that make it up, it is not to be missed.

Chip Caray: Epilogue

I had this post saved instead of posted for whatever reason. Still relevant, and I still think kittens are awesome... so... it gets posted. Joe Buck sucks.

You may remember that I spent a good deal of time complaining about TBS' coverage of the baseball postseason - Chip Caray in particular. Therefore, Monday's news that Mr. Caray and TBS have 'parted ways' makes me extremely happy.

How happy?

Almost as happy as this GIF makes me. Not quite, though... kittens are awesome.



Also, I find it amusing that every time the baseball playoffs rolls around, searches for the phrase "Joe Buck Sucks" skyrocket.

To all those who have happened upon this very blog because of that search string I say this...

yes... yes he does.