http://bballog.tumblr.com/

“And then: That team that spent $50 million more than any other team, that team with three sure Hall of Famers and as many as four others, that team that bought Milwaukee’s best pitcher and Anaheim’s best hitter and Toronto’s No. 2 starter and Boston’s favorite Idiot and the most expensive player in the history of baseball and so on, that team will win the World Series, and spray champagne on each other, and they will tell you that they won because they came together as a group and kept pulling themselves off the ground and didn’t listen to the doubters.“

Read more:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/11/05/yankees.payroll/1.html#ixzz0W74U08MJ

New EP from LA's No Age continues their raucous road to success.

I'm about 15 years late on realizing why Jawbreaker was an amazing Bay Area influence on the post-hardcore/emo scene

The Strokes are just one of those bands that actually gets better over the years when you go back and listen to them after all the hype. Heavy anticipation for Julian Casablanca's solo album next week

One of the great things about small movie houses are the consistent screenings of older films. Rear Window has always fascinated me with its timeless portrayal of society and voyeurism. This movie was originally suggested to me at the end of college as I was finalizing a photo documentation project of random houses at night. But recently I got to see it on the big screen, and it reminded me of my fascination with voyeurism. The concept of what happens in the comforts of other people’s homes is an integral part of the film as the main character is temporarily ridden to a wheelchair with nothing but a window to the outside. He becomes engulfed in the lives of those around him; strangers, neighbors, and people whose lives may be less interesting than his own state of seclusion. But the more he indulges, the more he starts to make assumptions about those who have their lives on display.

Meanwhile, the whole time he feels no remorse for his invasive “spying”. These people could close their windows, but they want to see outside their own lives too. They want to be the subject as much as an observer. It’s interesting because this same duality exists in contemporary culture with social networking sites and technology. It’s completely feasible today to intentionally let someone monitor  your location based on GPS in your cellphone. You can Twitter every mundane detail of your life for the world to read. I can write this blog projecting that I may have an audience. So in the same ways as looking through a window to watch your neighbors, we are all voyeurs in the ways we pry through the assumed realities of someone’s facebook profile.

As a result, should it be assumed that our privacy should be honored. In the film, the main character’s voyeurism leads to suspecting murder which toggles his morals about whether his “peeping” has a purpose. The suspense of this crime being real or a paranoid observation is how Hitchcock successfully arcs the storyline. But our real lives don’t offer that sense of excitement, solving crimes for our voyeurism. We just find out things we probably would be better off not knowing to satisfy our boredom with ourselves.

Former members/assholes of McLusky continue on with witty and sardonic post-hardcore best described by the song Chin Music.

Once upon a time post-hardcore was only for idealistic punks and former idealistic punks in bands like Fugazi. But that changed when prep-school style resulted in nerd hardcore of the early 90's. While Nation of Ulysses had a short run, their disregard for the rules and abrasive loudness made other heady punk like Mission of Burma and Gang of Four seem lame. Their chaotic sound is later perfected by bands such as the Refused and Les Savy Fav.

Filmed with the Nikon D90 so there’s still some issues with camera shake. Locations include San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Walnut Creek, Novato, and San Jose.