SemiConscious Dot Org

Yeah, I’m sure my wife will love reading that title.

In all seriousness, though, I’m not having an affair. Kate is not a woman; she’s Kate the Great, the rare, highly sought after Russian Imperial Stout from Portsmouth Brewery that attracts beer geeks in droves. Kate makes her appearance once or twice a year, in batches so small that the supply of bottles is sold out in less than a day, and the taps at the brewery run dry in a week or two. Our good friend Tannhauser is a grizzled veteran of Kate the Great Day, fighting his way through crowds of carpetbagging beer tourists and living to tell about it, or at least mock.

This year, the Russian trollop will be tarting herself around on February 9th. Tannhauser and I have already taken the day off from work, the better to be seduced by her dark wares. I figure that several hours of standing in line outside on a freezing cold New England winter morning is a small price to pay to score the precious tickets that will earn us our alloted two bottles each. Hopefully, temperatures won’t rise out of the single digits that morning, and a bit of snow to scare off the dilettantes wouldn’t be unwelcome either. It’s an hour drive for me, but my Subaru will cut through anything. Oh yes, I’ll be there.

Hey, thousands of nerds camped out overnight in front of movie theaters nationwide, in costume, to watch George Lucas’ uber-crappy Star Wars prequels. Why can’t I do the same for an infinitely more worthy goal? As Aristotle famously opined, “Life is too short to drink bad beer.”

If you’re still wondering what to buy me for Festivus, you could do worse than this.

(link via Information Junk)

It was all so innocent when Jesus, Devil Gumby, and Smoking Baby sat down to take their Christmas card picture. But then Moses and Karate Guy had to get in on the act, and they brought booze. Lots and lots of booze.

The results…well, you can see for yourself. It ain’t pretty.

Merry F&%!in’ Christmas.

Who says conservative Christians don’t like sex?

Michelle Duggar has given birth to her 18th child.

The Arkansas supermom delivered the baby girl by Caesarean section Thursday at Mercy Medical Center in Rogers. The baby, named Jordyn-Grace Makiya Duggar, weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and was 20 inches long.

“The ultimate Christmas gift from God,” said Jim Bob Duggar, the father of the 18 children. “She’s just absolutely beautiful, like her mom and her sisters.”

The Duggars now have 10 sons and eight daughters.

Jim Bob Duggar said Michelle started having contractions Wednesday night. She needed the C-section, her third, because the baby was lying sideways. Jim Bob said both baby and mother were doing well Thursday night.

“We both would love to have more,” he said.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “So what? So a couple of deluded dipshits keep pumping out kid after kid, most or all of whom will grow up to be emotional cripples. It’s a free country. If morons want to Fuck For Jesus and stack the resultant cabbages ten deep, why should I care?”

Because they have a reality show, that’s why. Their lack of ability/interest in controlling their rutting provides entertainment fodder for millions of slackjawed vidiots, some of whom may start to absorb the terrifying thought that this type of behavior is any way normal or, Gawd forbid, something to be emulated.

Also, they gave every single one of the little critters a name that starts with the same letter. You know, to enforce their individuality.

Anyone want to wager an over/under on the number of years before one of the Duggar spawn goes on a three state killing spree? Sad thing is, when that day comes, the progeny will be shuffled off to jail forever, but the parents won’t be punished at all. Hell, they’ll probably use the occasion as an excuse to squeeze out another miracle from God…you know, to replace the one that got locked up.

(pic and links via TBogg)

Although two more weeks remain in this, the Two Thousand and Eighth Year of Our Lord, I’m jumping the gun and doing my year end Best Of music list right now. And owing to my laziness our ongoing economic nosedive, this one won’t be 30 items long like last year’s. How about a Top 10?

In another break with Ghosts of Lists Past, this one is also unranked. I just couldn’t choose a final order, and there wasn’t one dominant album that I favored above all rivals. These are just the ten cd’s I found myself playing more than all other new releases in 2008.

You’re welcome.

The Black Keys – Attack & Release
After reaching the stylistic limitations of the guitar/drums garage rock duo, the guys must’ve sensed things were getting stale. So they brought in Danger Mouse to produce, and he threw the kitchen sink at it: keyboards, banjos, samples, bass (finally!) The band responded by bringing their best songs to date. The result is their magnum opus.

TV on the Radio – Dear Science
These guys have the hardest job of anyone on the list: following up a masterpiece. The awe-inspiring Return to Cookie Mountain might just be the best damn album of this entire decade. Dear Science doesn’t quite scale those rarefied heights, but it’s very good nonetheless. “Golden Age,” in particular, might be the single of the year.

Metallica – Death Magnetic
Yeah, I’m as shocked as you are. After releasing a series of classic albums (and one genre-defining masterpiece) in the 80’s, Metallica went on a 20 year losing streak: from The Black Album on, every release was worse than the one before it. They tried new styles, haircuts, albums with gobs of sperm on the cover, group therapy, and finally, nu metal. All were unmitigated disasters. I gave up on them for good…and then Rick Rubin dialed the clock back to 1986, and suddenly Metallica rock again.

Q-Tip – The Renaissance
We’ve been waiting almost ten years for this, the second solo album from the former Tribe Called Quest leader. It was totally worth the wait: relaxed, confident, catchy, and optimistic, with just enough sonic curveballs to keep it from getting boring or predictable. Hip hop for grownups! What a concept.

The Aliens – Luna
The late, lamented Beta Band may be long gone, but three quarters of its former lineup press on as The Aliens. While the Betas mixed their psychedelia with trip hop and electronic elements, their progeny ditch modernity and go straight for the Sgt. Pepper at the Gates of Dawn vibe. And truth be told, Beatlesque space rock sounds pretty fresh in 2008.

Eagles of Death Metal – Heart On
Here’s your party album of the year. Josh Homme’s side project to Queens of the Stone Age has gradually taken on a life of its own, now on its third album of sleazy, smarmy, tongue-in-cheek Stones-worshipping boogie. This time around, they’ve mixed bits of new wave, glam, and even funk in with their cock rock. This is the album that Chinese Democracy could and should have been, if only Axl Rose wasn’t such a flaming douchebag tortured artist.

Opeth – Watershed
What Metallica was to the 80’s, Opeth are to the 00’s: a band that towers over all others in their genre and remakes it in their own image. On this release, they’ve toned down the death metal portion of the folk rock/death metal hybrid they created and perfected. There’s quite a bit less growling than on previous efforts, but it’s still heavy as hell. Just don’t expect a quick listen: tracks average over nine minutes each.

The Roots – Rising Down
Here’s another group attempting to follow up their masterpiece. This one is quite a bit darker than 2006’s transcendent Game Theory. The raps are angrier, and the classic soul samples have largely disappeared. But it’s informed, articulate anger, the anger of people who want the world to be better—now.

Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life
Once upon a time, punk rock was dangerous. Then, Green Day and Rancid and Sum 41 and their countless followers shat onto the scene, and punk instantly became safe and sucky. Fucked Up aims to make it dangerous and angry again. In the process, they’ve managed to invent their own genre. I don’t even know what to call it: “prog-punk?” This might be the first punk album ever to open with a flute solo, and it still rocks like eighty seven bastards.

Black Mountain – In the Future
Twenty-something Canadian kids mixing equal parts Pink Floyd and Pavement. What could be better?

The best of the rest:

Flogging Molly – Float
The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely
The Melvins – Nude With Boots
Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

I’m sure there must be someone out there who doesn’t already know that some Iraqi dude threw a shoe at Dear Leader during what will almost certainly be his last public appearance before he shuffles off to a life of historical ignominy and boozy seclusion in Crawford. A few months ago, I would’ve been all over this the second I heard about it, but now, as the final, wretched days of The Worst President Ever™ grind towards their inevitable conclusion, I’ve been trying very hard to think as little about him as possible. Why won’t he oblige me and just slink away quietly?

Besides, it’s not like this is a case of Karmic Justice or anything. He’s not going to be subjected to the War Crimes trial and painful public execution he so richly deserves. Somebody just threw a shoe at him…and it didn’t even connect! If anything, the Shoe Throw provides a grim analogy for George W. Bush’s Presidency, and indeed, his entire existence:

Judged as a display of alertness and ninja prowess, the President’s dodge is, indeed, impressive. But George W. Bush has spent most of his life fucking things up horribly, and then escaping any consequences for his incompetence and indifference. This is who he is. What you have seen is not a moment of quick thinking, it was the man’s essence. He always escapes unharmed.

Nevertheless, the Interwebs have rendered their judgement on DubYa’s Near Earth Encounter with a Size 12, and as always, the judgment of the Interwebs is swift and merciless.
(link via Smarmy)

Don’t like those pics? Throw your own shoe at DubYa!

And finally, because no public event can be considered important until it inspires a commemorative t-shirt, our good friend Cardinal Ugenesis emails us his current slogan ideas:

* “I Took A Shoe For the President”
* “No WMD? So Shoe ME.”
* Shoeicide

Feel free to add to the list. This recession ain’t gonna fix itself, people! We need to start selling shit, pronto. And wouldn’t it be fantastic if public ridicule of the guy most responsible for destroying the economy helped to fix that economy?

Ha! You probably thought this was a post about Bush leaving office in January. No, the error of which we speak tonight has been in existence far longer than DubYa’s doomed, stupid disaster of a Presidency. Our good friend Cardinal Ugenesis alerts us to the demise of an American legend:

The brand was then hailed as a marketing coup, an ingenious way to sell beer—or rather, a clear, beerlike solution—to consumers who eschewed traditional suds. But virtually overnight, Zima was done in by its medicinal taste and girly-man rep: After selling an astounding 1.3 million barrels in 1994, the year it went national, Zima’s sales fell to just 403,000 barrels in 1996.

Many drinkers assume that Zima vanished shortly thereafter and has since existed solely as a punch line. But Zima actually survived for more than another decade, until MillerCoors pulled the plug on Oct. 10. Rarely has such a famously maligned product enjoyed such a lengthy run—a testament to its brewers’ Madonna-like knack for reinvention. The Zima that died a quiet death last month bore little resemblance to the malternative that swept the nation during President Clinton’s first term.

(snip)

For a brand that was selling tens of thousands of barrels per year up to the bitter end, Zima’s demise has inspired surprisingly little anguish among its fans.

This online petition aims to send 1 million signatures to MillerCoors headquarters; as of this writing, it’s just 999,947 names short of that ambitious goal.

There are surely more than 53 Zima lovers in America, and many of them are doubtless male. But that’s a love that dare not speak its name.

It’s worth noting that, in the week since this article appeared in a web-based magazine available all over the world, the number of signers to the Bring Back Zima petition has risen to the dizzying total of…407. Just 999,593 more emasculated girlyboys iconoclastic rebels to go!

So pour out a forty for the late, great Zima. Or better yet, just pour out the rest of the Zima. Please. For the love of God.

(That goes for you too, Nate. Don’t think I don’t know about the secret stash in your basement.)

“We really need you to be a Team Player on this one.”

is Meaningless Happy Horseshit Business-speak for:

“I outrank you, and I want you to perform this demeaning, demoralizing, soul-shrivelling task, that I would never in a trillion years stoop to performing because I am far too important.”

You’re welcome.

I must say, I’ve been in a much happier mood since November 4th, when the American voters came to their senses and voted to put the adults back in charge. A great wave of sanity and normalcy has swept the nation; people are thinking concretely and logically again about the challenges facing us and how to combat them. Hell, even the media is starting to act sane again and—

Hello, what’s this?

Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University’s law school, says he does not believe Obama is the Antichrist, but he can see how others might. Obama’s own use of religious rhetoric belies his liberal positions on abortion and traditional marriage, Staver says, positions that “religious conservatives believe will threaten their freedom.” The people who believe Obama is the Antichrist are perhaps jumping to conclusions, but they’re not nuts: “They are expressing a concern and a fear that is widely shared,” Staver says.

(link via Sadly, No!)

Yes, you read that right: people who think Barack Obama is the Beast from Revelations, sent to Earth to bring on Armageddon, are not nuts.

Now, an article like this wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if it appeared in the National Review or the Weekly Standard or WorldNet Daily or some other wingnut fishwrap. But this is Newsweek. You know, the dreaded Democrat-coddling, objectively pro-terrorist, America-hating Liberal Media personified.

Good luck, Mr. Obama. You’re going to need it with “friends” like this.

Many of you may not have noticed, but today is more than your normal Veteran’s Day. Today is the 90th anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I, and which gave this holiday its original name (it was known as Armistice Day in the US until after World War II.) Amazingly enough, there are still 10 surviving WWI veterans left in the world, including one in the United States.

As Barack Obama prepares to take on the responsibility of figuring out some way to extricate us from the nightmarish clusterfuck in the Middle East, it’s instructive to reflect on how much of said clusterfuck ultimately derives from a war that ended almost a century ago. For instance, have you ever wondered why Iraq consists of three separate ethnic/religious groups that have all hated one another since roughly the eighth century? Thank the British, who invented the country out of whole cloth in the aftermath of World War I. Hell, Britain and France were so eager to carve up the remains of the Ottoman Empire for themselves that they didn’t even bother waiting until the war was over to divvy up the desert.

Funny how these things have a habit coming back to bite you in the ass, isn’t it?