my boy don over at driving to oahu has been blogging about music lately, which reminded me.... i fucking LOVE the song "B.Y.O.B." by system of a down. anyone who knows me knows i'm not AT ALL into metal or punk or any other jangly white-guy guitar rock, but i can't help it, i love "B.Y.O.B." i think it's the chorus...the band gets a little soulful and funky during a chorus that strangely reminds me of "My prerogative" by bobby brown. and i mean that in a good way.

i'm also diggin "Hustla" by cassidy. what a bomb-diggity song. swizz beats took a sample of Jay-Z singing "I'm hustla" and just tweaked it upside down. i just downloaded a sweet remix of that tune that adds a nice layer of keyboards on top of it all.

di and i are trying to figure out what we want to do for our honeymoon. we're definitely not going on a cruise, though. it's just a little too....cheesy. i also got quite a laugh out of all those whiney cruisers who were on the boat that got hit two weeks ago by a huge ocean wave. people on cnn were acting like the cruise line HAD PLANNED FOR THE BOAT TO GET HIT!!!! I mean, this ain't enron, people. it' s not like the friggin boat captain was drunk at the wheel (at least we don't know of anything like that). thankfully the black list puts it all in perspective for us:

"I understand that we are all very sensitive to the idea of waves taller than three feet these days, thanks to the tsunami of last December, but do we really have so little to talk about on the news that some waves battering a cruise ship that did NOT involve any casualties NOR more than four injuries actually achieves that status of major headline? Where was all the high tech equipment that should have warned the crew about the impending doom? Or were they all too busy circle-jerking their sailor selves to notice that a massive storm was on the way? And why, with reports of people having to swim for their lives, are we presented with footage of the event where there is no more than two inches of flooding -- New Yorkers without access to suburban private swimming pools know that counts as a puddle and not an opportunity to practice your breast stroke. And here's the clincher: Reports say that passengers huddled together in the hallway wearing life vests while the ship served FREE DRINKS!!! That is not an emergency -- that is a free party. It happened on their way back from vacation, so no fun in the sun was lost, and all passengers received a refund. Free cruise, a good story to share with friends, and a night of free drinking ... sounds like a good way to welcome spring."

say hello to my little friend...

we live in an age of state-sponsored terrorism paranoia...where even burrito can be a weapon of mass destruction.

Are you a Republican? i took the quiz and came out to oly 3% republican. that's still a bit too much. i'm gonna go chop off a couple toes now.

who knew the accordian could rock so hard...apparently earlier this month the 2nd annual rock accordian summit of providence was held. this is how the festival's organizers described the man who inspired them by composing rock and punk arrangements on the least sexy of all instruments.

"BENJAMIN ICKIES was a one-of-a-kind composer. He dedicated his life to a music nearly nobody wanted to hear."

my boy hoppo just gave me a call to ask my why i described his mix as "rough." to clarify...the mixing itself was incredibly smooth. like a baby's butt, hoppo. nothing rough about it.

a quick note...if you really want to get sucked into wasting lots of time on the web, try clicking on the "next blog" button in the top right corner of this page. i swear, you'll see some of the world's dumbest fugging blogs, but it's fun. just don't forget to come back to the pub.

i found out that i've won an award from the state press association for environmental reporting. i actually thought i submitted far better stories, but this is the one that won. oh well. better than nuttin!

not that there's anything wrong with that, but here's yesterday's dallas morning news...

who should be the referee?

here's an interesting story about Daniel Okrent, ombudsman for the new york times.

a group called "if americans knew" met with him to complain that the nyt only reports on israeli children killed and ignores palestinian children who mostly die of "gunfire to the head."

here's an excerpt from what they wrote...



"Even before we had finished presenting our findings, Okrent interrupted to ask us why there was such distortion in Times coverage, what was causing the bias. He asked what we would suggest doing about it.

I replied that I wondered if there was a lack of diversity in the reporters and editors working on the issue. I pointed out that since this was a conflict between a state whose identity and purpose of existence was to be a Jewish state, it seemed to me that the number of Jewish-American reporters covering it should be balanced by approximately an equal number of Arab/Muslim-American reporters, or that there be reporters and editors working on it for example, Asian-American or African-American journalists without predisposition to partisanship toward either side.

Okrent said that it was impossible to find equal numbers of Arab/Muslim journalists of sufficiently high quality to balance out the number of Jewish reporters available to cover it, and ignored the suggestion that other groups be included in the reportorial/editorial pool. He said that there shouldn't be an ethnic litmus test? and that Jewish reporters shouldn't be excluded just because there weren?t enough Muslims for the Times to employ. I agreed with him that there should not be a litmus test, and then asked him if he thought only Jewish reporters could cover it.

No, he said, the problem, he felt, was that Times reporters only lived in Israel and didn?t live in the Palestinian territories. He then said that when he had suggested to reporters that they also live in the West Bank or Gaza, a person he trusted told him that this was too dangerous; they would be kidnapped. I then said that he needed to reconsider the reliability of this anonymous person, since I myself had traveled throughout Gaza and the West Bank as a freelance journalist."



i do think this is a major problem with lots of u.s. media companies. why give people the appearance of favoring one side by assigning jewish reporters to cover the conflict? no arab-american would EVER be given that job. it would never, ever, ever happen. a similar situation came up recently when condoleeza rice appointed former world bank prez james wolfensohn (who is jewish) to the post of chief negotiator between the israelis and palestinians.

the man is obviously very talented and smart, but didn't anybody stop and ask why we're appointed a jewish person to this post? how is much of the world going to trust our intentions?

nintendo power....
i need this shirt. i always knew those hours mastering spy hunter, baseball stars and metroid would pay off.

beer of the week...
i haven't written about any beers in a long while, but rogue dead guy ale (oregon) is one friggin amazing brew. i've been lucky enough to drink it on tap here in rhode island twice in the last few weeks and it's blown me away. a nice sweet maltiness, plenty of body and bitter west coast hoppiness all balance each other out perfectly. so so nice. if you see it.... dont' think, just drink.

this search for a wedding photographer is getting ridiculous. i might just have to kill someone. i'm actually thinking of just saying "fuggit" and having the guests shoot the wedding and reception.

in other wedding news, i was talking to future sister in law adrienne, who lives in montreal. i think i want to have my bachelor party up there. she asked if she can come. i said yes, but she has to sign a confidentiality agreement beforehand. and the judge WILL enforce this gag order. ha.

ron mexico for president! a woman recently filed a lawsuit against atlanta falcons star michael vick alleging that he gave her genital herpes. apparently he used the pseudonym ron mexico during this whole debacle. well, now you can have a ron mexico-style name, too. just go the ron mexico name generator and you'll get one. from now on call me jeremy lithuania. ha.

my co-worker doug and i had a big argument about the future and oil. i believe that the world will essentially "run out" of cheap, readily-available oil as soon as billions of indians and chinese are driving cars and using more electricty at home. it turns out that yet another oil expert predicts the end of oil sooner than many of us want to think.

my co-worker don, who also happens to be a singer-songwriter, has a great blog with some funny anecdotes from our office. we're hilarious. at least we think so.

my boy john hopkinz (who also happens to be one of my groomsmen) has his new website up promoting his work as a deejay for hire. check it out. just make sure you turn up the volume first.
i recently heard a rough mix he burned for me and it rocked. nice funkity house sound.

i hope everyone likes the new look. i already tell everyone i meet that they should make the switch to firefox. so when i saw this firefox-themed template at blogger-template, i thought it gave the blog a really clean and interesting look.
so with all the aesthetic improvement, i also promise to improve the content and update joe's pub more often. stay tuned.

well, i gotta say. this is FINALLY a decent looking blog. stay tuned.