Sitting at Boston Stoker right now, experimenting with the extremely awesome Last.fm and putting the finishing touches on a short story.

Last.fm is pretty damn cool. It’s an online music service which tracks what you’re listening to, based on that, recommends other music to you. So you search for a band you like, listen to a couple of their songs and create an online playlist, and then other similar bands are recommended to you. For instance, I was listening to some tracks by the Queers and clicked on a similar band, Teenage Bottlerocket. Like Ron Burgundy, they’re the balls (and I just discovered they’re made up of some former members of the the Lillingtons).

This shit is addicting. I wish I’d discovered it sooner. I’ve been really tired of all the music I’ve been listening to lately, and want new stuff to listen to. But it’s hard to just walk into a music emporium and find a new band to like. Last.fm actually seems like it might do the job.

Interesting. By signing up, you also create a public profile where others can see what bands you’re listening to your favorite tracks. If you wanna see what other swill I like, you can find out here.

JAB

Looks like this summer Ben Weasel will be releasing a new album, entitled “These Ones Are Bitter”:

A bunch of people have written to ask what the new album (These Ones Are Bitter) is like. That’s a hard question to answer because I’m about the last guy who could answer that objectively. Using my past records as a measuring stick, it’s more in the melodic/poppy My Brain Hurts camp than, say, Wiggle or Emo. Lyrically, most of the songs involve the ugly break up of a relationship (hence the title) though there a couple of sidetracks. It’s very polished and produced but not really in a Bark Like A Dog way. I think “Bitter” is more aggressive than that one. I Love Bark like A Dog but this one has a different feel and sound.

[...]

There are fourteen songs on the album. Mike Kennerty and Chris Gaylor from the All-American Rejects played guitar and drums respectively (Mike also recorded most of the album and produced it). Dan Andriano from the Alkaline Trio played bass. The tracking and mixing should be done by the end of the month and released in early June.

This is exciting to me because Screeching Weasel remains one of the handful of bands whose CDs I still take out a couple of times a year and listen to. Aside from old-school Incubus*, Reggie, and a couple of others, that’s pretty much it. Ben Weasel released a solo effort that came out at the beginning of the millennium, and it was pretty damn good too, so “These Ones Are Bitter” is a (hopefully) tasty treat that I’m really looking forward to.

JAB

* It should be noted that by “old-school Incubus” I mean mostly “S.C.I.E.N.C.E.” and, occasionally, “Make Yourself.” Everything that came out after the latter licks my taint.

Holy shit.

Jackson Publick and the guys at Astrobase Go! have created a Venture Bros.-themed rendition of the song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas Time At All,” for Quick Stop Entertainment. It’s fucking brilliant.

Go listen to it here. Goddamn, do I love the Monarch.

Equally excellent are Venture Bros. versions of “Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy” and “Hard Candy Christmas” from years past.

JAB

If you haven’t listened to Weird Al’s new song, you really should. It’s quite catchy, and more than a little acerbic. The accompanying video is pretty sweet, too.

JAB

God damn it. I just had to — had to — click the play button. It sat there on the video, taunting me, and not wanting to be branded a pussy, I clicked on it. I clicked on the Ooga Chakka. And now my dreams will forever be haunted by its ghastliness.

And since I am a despicable person, I’m going to give you the option of clicking on it and hating yourself:

So go ahead. Click on the Ooga Chakka. Or are you a pussy? That’s what I thought.

JAB

Once more, that great bastion of freedom, the weekend, is upon us. Or at least for me it is, what with me not having school on Fridays and all. This is going to turn into a busy quarter in a few weeks, but for now, all is quiet.

I finished “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis” last night. Considering that I had school and work mixed in there, I finished it in only four days. That’s pretty good for me. My “Indy Quotient” (IQ, get it?) was 583. I’m not sure if that’s very high, since there wasn’t any scale to compare it to, but I like to think I rocked the hell outta the game.

I was listening to the radio today — which is a somewhat rare occurrence — and this interesting song came on that I haven’t heard before. It was real catchy and sort of a blend of rock, pop, and a wee bit hip-hop (Hmm…that last sentence was sort of Dr. Seussian. Odd.). I didn’t hear what band it was, but I caught the name of the song, which was “Hey Ya.” Since the song was on Z 93, which is Dayton’s popular music station, I assumed the band would probably be on MTV. So I went to MTV.com and searched for “Hey Ya” and was extremely surprised to see that Outkast performs it, and I *also* discovered that they perform one of my most hated songs ever, that being “Ms. Jackson.” After learning this, I became slightly worried that the paradoxical quandary of liking one song while utterly despising another by the same artist would overload my brain, and I would then promptly combust. Fortunately, it didn’t.

Okay, time to watch “The Daily Show” then work on the “Destiny” comic.

JAB