You'll never get the paw prints out of the hen house now

...aaaaand THIS is why OK Go & dogs will always win over anything & cats.



White Knuckles
You'll never get that taste, out of your mouth
You'll never get the paw prints, out of the hen house now
And you can't go back, same way you came
Round all the pieces up, but they just dont fit the same

White knuckles
Maybe it's not so bad
So let your hair down now

White knuckles
Yeah, maybe it's not so bad
Aww, go ahead and let it down

So come and let it all out, let it bleed
Did you get what you want? Did you get what you need?
Behind the lines, behind the wall
Tell me what's the bet you made, was it that bad after all?

White knuckles
Yeah, maybe it's not so bad
So let your hair down now

White knuckles
Aww, maybe it's not so bad
Just let it all come down now

So just have fun, it's far enough
Everybody needs to sleep at night, everybody needs a crutch
But couldn't good, be good enough?
Cause nothin' ever doesn't change but nothin' changes much

Yeah, maybe it's not so bad
So let your hair down now

White knuckles
Aww, maybe it's not so bad
Just let it all come down now


More OK Go awesomeness HERE.

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The Sad Vuvuzela (#SadVuvuzela) is now "a thing"!

On Monday, I wondered to myself (and to anyone following me on Twitter):


You know, like the sad trombone. Wah-waaaaaah!


I didn't find anything online, but I kept it going on Twitter whenever it was appropriate:




Not quite a "sad" vuvuzela reference, but a fun one all the same.


Then, today I had to go to the place I bought my tires earlier this year because I had a flat that needed repairing. I sent out this tweet:




...and then these back & forth tweets between @JWiltshire & I:








So, your wish is my command:

The Sad (or any emotion, really) Vuvuzela IS A THING! OUTSIDE OF TWITTER! AT YOUR DISPOSAL!

Sad (or any emotion, really) Vuvuzela

See what happens when you follow me on Twitter? I can make your wishes come true*!

Click HERE to follow me if you aren't already!



*Sometimes


sound source
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Rube Goldberg machine & a marching band? Ok, Go buy their album!

Who has more fun with their music videos than Chicago's own OK Go? Nobody. You remember their treadmill video for Here it Goes Again, right? I'd embed it but their record label won't allow it, and that has been a source of some aggravation for the band. Their new single, This Too Shall Pass has not one but TWO kickass vids, both of which I *AM* able to embed for your enjoyment purposes. I'll let OK Go's Damian tell you why, right after this cool-as-hell Rube Goldberg machine version of their video. The marching band version is after the band's open letter to "the people of the world".

To the people of the world, from OK Go:

This week we released a new album, and it’s our best yet. We also released a new video – the second for this record – for a song called This Too Shall Pass, and you can watch it here. We hope you’ll like it and comment on it and pass the link along to your friends and do that wonderful thing that that you do when you’re fond of something, share it. We want you to stick it on your web page, post it on your wall, and embed it everywhere you can think of.

Unfortunately, as of now you can’t embed diddlycrap. And depending on where you are in the world, you might not even be able to watch it.

We’ve been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can’t be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can’t be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we’re sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it’s now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.

See, here’s the deal. The recordings and the videos we make are owned by a record label, EMI. The label fronts the money for us to make recordings – for this album they paid for us to spend a few months with one of the world’s best producers in a converted barn in Amish country wringing our souls and playing tympani and twiddling knobs – and they put up most of the cash that it takes to distribute and promote our albums, including the costs of pressing CDs, advertising, and making videos. We make our videos ourselves, and we keep them dirt cheap, but still, it all adds up, and it adds up to a great deal more than we have in our bank account, which is why we have a record label in the first place.

Fifteen years ago, when the terms of contracts like ours were dreamt up, a major label could record two cats fighting in a bag and three months later they’d have a hit. No more. People of the world, there has been a revolution. You no longer give a shit what major labels want you to listen to (good job, world!), and you no longer spend money actually buying the music you listen to (perhaps not so good job, world). So the money that used to flow through the music business has slowed to a trickle, and every label, large or small, is scrambling to catch every last drop. You can’t blame them; they need new shoes, just like everybody else. And musicians need them to survive so we can use them as banks. Even bands like us who do most of our own promotion still need them to write checks every once in a while.

But where are they gonna find money if no one buys music? One target is radio stations (there’s lots of articles out there. here’s one: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/20…ouse-senate.ars ). And another is our friend The Internutz. As you’ve no doubt noticed, sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Blahzayblahblah.cn run ads on copyrighted content. Back when Young MC’s second album (the one that didn’t have Bust A Move on it) could go Gold without a second thought, labels would’ve considered these sites primarily promotional partners like they did with MTV, but times have changed. The labels are hurting and they need every penny they can find, so they’ve demanded a piece of the action. They got all huffy a couple years ago and threatened all sorts of legal terror and eventually all four majors struck deals with YouTube which pay them tiny, tiny sums of money every time one of their videos gets played. Seems like a fair enough solution, right? YouTube gets to keep the content, and the labels get some income.

The catch: the software that pays out those tiny sums doesn’t pay if a video is embedded. This means our label doesn’t get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won’t let us be on your blog. And, voilá: four years after we posted our first homemade videos to YouTube and they spread across the globe faster than swine flu, making our bassist’s glasses recognizable to 70-year-olds in Wichita and 5-year-olds in Seoul and eventually turning a tidy little profit for EMI, we’re – unbelievably – stuck in the position of arguing with our own label about the merits of having our videos be easily shared. It’s like the world has gone backwards.

Let’s take a wider view for a second. What we’re really talking about here is the shift in the way we think about music. We’re stuck between two worlds: the world of ten years ago, where music was privately owned in discreet little chunks (CDs), and a new one that seems to be emerging, where music is universally publicly accessible. The thing is, only one of these worlds has a (somewhat) stable system in place for funding music and all of its associated nuts-and-bolts logistics, and, even if it were possible, none of us would willingly return to that world. Aside from the smug assholes who ran labels, who’d want a system where a handful of corporate overlords shove crap down our throats? All the same, if music is going to be more than a hobby, someone, literally, has to pay the piper. So we’ve got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It’s like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.

So what’s there to do? On the macro level, well, who the hell knows? There are a lot of interesting ideas out there, but this is not the place to get into them. As for our specific roadblock with the video embedding, the obvious solution is for YouTube to work out its software so it allow labels to monetize their videos, wherever on the Internet or the globe they’re being accessed. That’ll surely happen before too long because there’s plenty of money to be made, but it’s more complicated than it looks at first glance. Advertisers aren’t too keen on paying for ads when they don’t know where the ads will appear (“Dear users of FoxxxyPregnantMILFS.com, try Gerber’s new low-lactose formula!”), so there are a lot of hurdles to get over.

In the meantime, the only thing OK Go can do is to upload our videos to sites that allow for embedding, like MySpace and Vimeo. We do that already, but it stings a little. Not only does it cannibalize our own numbers (it tends to do our business more good to get 40 million hits on one site than 1 million hits on 40 sites), but, as you can imagine, we feel a lot of allegiance to the fine people at YouTube. They’ve been good to us, and what they want is what we want: lots of people to see our videos. When push comes to shove, however, we like our fans more, which is why you can take the code at the bottom of this email and embed the “This Too Shall Pass” video all over the Internet.

With or without this embedding problem, we’ll never get 50 zillion views on a YouTube video again. That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn’t as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in “viral marketing” and the success of our videos is now taught in business school. But here’s a secret: zillions of hits was never the point. We’re a rock band, and it’s a great gig. Not just because we get to snort drugs off the Queen of England (we do), but because the only thing we are expected to do is make cool stuff. We chase our craziest ideas for a living, and if sharing those ideas takes 40 websites instead of one, it doesn’t make too big a difference to us.

So, for now, here’s the bottom line: EMI won’t let us let you embed our YouTube videos. It’s a decision that bums us out. We’ve argued with them a lot about it, but we also understand why they’re doing it. They’re aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.

Here’s the embed code for the Vimeo posting:

<object width=”400″ height=”300″><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”movie” value=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8718627&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1″ /><embed src=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8718627&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”400″ height=”300″></embed></object><p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/8718627″>OK Go – This Too Shall Pass</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user2495615″>OK Go</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

Go forth and put it everywhere, please. And buy our album. It’s great.

Yours Truly,

Damian (on behalf of OK Go)

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

****

Newton's Third Law of Motion

When you're behind a senior citizen who is fumbling through the motion of sliding her card through that payment machine at the register (due to a combination of painful-looking arthritic hands and the fact that she's from a different era, before slick technology took over everything), let me suggest that you conserve your energy.

Rolling your eyes, tapping your big black boots, sighing heavily, or going so far as to say, "C'mon! hurry up, lady!" under your breath--but loud enough for those of us behind you in line to hear--because she's not moving fast enough for you is either totally lost on the old person you're annoyed with or will make her even more nerve-wracked.

Be as irritated as you damn well please, but you best KEEP IT ON THE INSIDE because as you've just experienced-- if I'm around and you're acting like that-- I will step to you and you won't like it*.

Chances are that one day, you will be old and judging by your attitude, really lonely. BE A LITTLE BIT HUMAN.

If you can't handle that, tough guy, order your Arizona Iced Tea** online.

*Or maybe he did like it, because he actually apologized to her.

**For the record: I like Arizona Iced Tea. What I don't like are assholes.

****

The 2nd Best Thing I've Ever Put In My Mouth*

One night several years ago, my sister happened to call around dinner time and this is how the conversation went:

Her: Whatcha doin'?

Me: Making dinner. Can I call you back later though, because I'm right in the middle of things.

Her: Sure, but what are you making?

Me: Tacos!

Her: Really? Tacos? {pause} For... ONE?

Me (feigning insult): YES, "TACOS FOR ONE"! What are you saying? Single people aren't allowed to make themselves tacos? GOOD DAY, SIR! {click}

In her defense, I think my answer caught her off guard, not that I was cooking something for myself. She'll be the first to admit that I love cooking--whether or not Jeremy is here to cook for-- and that I'm even pretty good at it. Her momentary shock at the idea of "tacos for one" and my immediate cobra-like strike back response was classic.

Whether it's "tacos for one" or something more elaborate and challenging, I never need an excuse to cook for myself or my loved ones. When I find something I want to make, I do it as soon as possible, which is why it's out of character that for 2 years I've been looking for a reason to make a certain recipe. This straight forward, moderately simple-sounding recipe intrigued me so much that after I did online research and came up with my own adaptation using different versions of it, I kept even the idea of making it to myself.

This was something that demanded the perfect opportunity to bake. Luckily--and without her realizing it-- my sister came up with a dinner party theme (is it just our family that does this?) that fit the bill. She decided to have a "Goodbye Beijing, Hello London 2012" dinner party on the night of the Olympics closing ceremonies, featuring traditional London eats.

My contribution (in a nod to all the pubs I enjoyed in London), and the reason for this post, was to be the famed Chocolate Guinness Cake, otherwise known as The 2nd best thing I've ever put in my mouth*.


The view, if I were an Olympic high diver on my way towards the most delicious pool in the world.

This recipe is not difficult, so don't be intimidated by the number of steps I've broken it down into. As the name suggests, you can make this cake with Guinness or any stout of your choosing. As mentioned above, I did a lot of research because there are so many iterations of this recipe online. The chocolate stout cake recipe listed on Epicurious has 300 reviews alone, many with helpful tweaks and nearly all with strongly-worded advice to cut the recipe down by half unless you plan to serve it to an army; advice that I took to heart and we still had a bigger cake than anticipated. There are a handful of ways you can frost this cake, or you can dust it with powdered sugar and call it a day. I went with my go-to ganache, which is super easy.


The reason why you're licking your screen.


For some ingredients, I specified which brand I used, in case you're anything like my friend--and great cook--Scooter (of "Half-n-Falf" fame) who wants to make sure if she follows someone else's recipe exactly and it doesn't turn out, she can blame them. Just kidding, she doesn't really do that, but that woman likes me to get specific, so I'm doing the same thing for you to use as a recipe guide, not recipe law.

One final thing in this all-too-long preamble (I edited it down 3 times, I swear!): I realize that Scharffen Berger unsweetened cocoa powder is ridiculously expensive compared to what you'd usually have on hand. My grocery store had it marked down from $10 to less than $3, so because it's supposedly the best and because I'm not an idiot, I snapped it up immediately**. But that's just me.


Now calm down & get ahold of yourself (oh, please click that hotlink, you won't be sorry!) so you can get to baking!

The 2nd Best Thing I've Ever Put In My Mouth* Cake
If you're sharing this recipe with your mother, I suggest calling it "Chocolate Guinness Cake". It requires less awkward explanation, and you can trust me on that.

For the Cake:

• Three 9" pans or 1 bundt pan
  
• 1 cup stout (Young's Double Chocolate Stout); You'll need to pour closer to 2 cups FOAM INCLUDED from the bottle to the measuring cup to equal the 1 cup needed for this recipe.
  
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
  
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Scharffen Berger natural unsweetened)
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups CAKE flour (Swan's Down)
  
• 2 cups superfine sugar (Domino's)
  
• 1/2 Tablespoon baking soda
  
• 3/4 tsp salt
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 3/4 cup sour cream (I used light sour cream, as kind of a joke, because have you read this recipe?)

For the Ganache:

• 2 cups heavy cream
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 18 oz. Semi-sweet chocolate chips (Guittard) Don't cheap out now! Use anything less than Nestle & you'll be sorry.

Note: If you bake this cake in a bundt pan, you can cut the ganache recipe down by one-third or in half since you won't have the layers to fill.

--

Cake instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 
2. Butter three 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper. Butter paper. You may be tempted to forego the parchment paper and buttering, but DO IT ANYWAY. Alternately, you could probably use a non-stick spray on the pans and parchment, but you're in this far already.
3. Sprinkle about 1 Tablespoon of cocoa powder (totally separate from what recipe calls for) in each pan, and shake around to coat buttered pan & parchment with a thin layer of cocoa. Tap out any extra. Set pans aside. The butter will help ensure this notoriously sticky batter doesn't stick, and the addition of cocoa powder dusting to the buttered coating helps the cakes release from the pans without breaking. I recommend doing this cocoa-powdering step over the sink or you'll have a big mess to deal with after you put the cakes in the oven, when you could instead be relaxing with your feet up while drinking the remaining chocolate stout out of a frosty mug.
4. Bring stout & butter to simmer in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and cinnamon; whisk until mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
5. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in separate large bowl to blend.
   
6. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. 
7. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. 
8. Divide batter equally among 3 prepared pans, filling halfway or less. Do not fill more than that because this recipe will rise more than you think. 
9. Bake until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 35 minutes. 
10. Transfer cake pans to rack; cool at least 30 minutes. 
11. Turn cakes out onto rack, remove parchment and cool completely.

Ganache instructions:

1. Put chocolate chips in pyrex bowl, set aside. Bring cream and vanilla up to a slow boil in saucepan, then remove from heat. 
2. Immediately pour over chocolate chips and let sit for 5 minutes. 
3. Whisk until smooth. 
4. Refrigerate for up to an hour (or however long you can stand it), then whip for 2-5 minutes with hand mixer.
5. Place 1 cake layer on plate. Spread 1/4 of ganache over. Repeat with 2nd cake layer. Top with third cake layer, spreading remaining 1/2 of ganache over top & sides of entire cake. 
6. Optional: In addition to the ganache, add raspberries, strawberries, blackberries or maybe even snozzberries in between each layer and on the top.

--

After that, you should:

1. Serve immediately or refrigerate until serving
   
2. Unleash the motherf**king moonwalk!

--


*I know what you thought after reading that title, but you should give me a little more credit than that and get your mind out of the gutter. The first best thing I ever put in my mouth was THIS, though I realize you know me well enough to not be surprised at all if I said that I wish it was THIS. Drool.

**Come this winter, I'll use it in a 3:1 ratio with sugar to make Spammon's recipe for crazy-good hot cocoa, which along with one song in particular are nearly the only things that got me through the endless snowstorms of last winter.

Pouring honey from a jar, any car in front of me when I'm in a hurry, the current administration coming to an end

What do all of those things have in common with April's Hump of the Month post? The progression is much slower than anyone would like. It's too bad all of these things can't balance themselves out with the supersonic speed at which the past few days have kicked my ass unleashed the motherf**king moonwalk on me. My head is spinning, mostly because of my 11th hour tax adventure on Monday night, which I will not get into because I'm fresh out of vodka.

So, I'm putting Javier's Humpday off to avoid a hastily-written post that doesn't do him justice, because he deserves better than that. This way I can watch the other 2 Bardem movies that just arrived in my mailbox, which will allow for a more informed opinion on his hotness acting. It will also allow the shoulders that used to be at the base of my neck to (maybe, possibly, hopefully?) drop down from the top of my head.

Because it's not my style to leave you high & dry, here's a little somethin'-somethin' that can best explain why sometimes slow & easy is better:


Awww yeah. I'm talking to you, Bardem.

So you can prepare yourselves for Wednesday

Think of today's post as the warm-up (pun intended) for tomorrow's Hump of the Month post featuring my boyfriend, the SMOKIN' HOT Javier Bardem* (Mr. Leather-Smoke-and-Berries himself!); which I have been doing research on forever. You can see proof of that if you scroll down the page to my I JUST WATCHED... section in the sidebar. I have Netflix'd Javier movie after Javier movie (7 so far, not including the ones I've already seen him in), and I still have 3 more coming my way. Most of these movies feature him all sexy and manly and speaking español; showcasing his best features... and if you don't already know which features are his best ones, they are: ALL OF THEM. 

In short, it has been torturous to put myself through these long hours of watching him on my TV, in addition to all the quality time we spend together when he comes over, but it is the length to which I dedicate myself to the Humpday post every month. I do it for you. You're welcome.

So, in that same theme of hot international heat; here is a 3-minute video of someone eating a Bhut Jolokia chili from India, which is the world's hottest pepper. You have to watch this until the end (there's no puking!). His running dialogue and vivid descriptions are cringe-worthy and hilarious (but mostly cringe-worthy). This dude has balls and a sense of humor; neither of which do him any good when the world's hottest pepper unleashes the motherf**king moonwalk:


Double click on either play arrow if you have trouble with the video.

You should now be prepared for the hotness that will be tomorrow's "Putting the Hump in Humpday" post.

*Don't feel the need to mention fish-face's Penelope Cruz's supposed involvement with my boyfriend. I know the press makes it seem like she's dating Javier, but this is a lie perpetuated merely to sell movie tickets. It's sad, really.

Unleash the Motherf**king Moonwalk!

I found this spoof on the Ad Council "Parental Guide" posters and knew it would be the perfect thing to carry you through the rest of your workday and into the weekend. Even if you don't have any kids you will enjoy it, as evidenced by the fact that I laughed for probably MUCH longer than the average stressed-out parent. Or maybe because I'm not a stressed-out parent, I laughed at this. Either way, I laughed and I hope you will, too:


Click for maximum enjoyment.


While we're on this subject, here is proof those clever Brits can also think up new ways to get old messages across:

Here's a tip... try counting out loud (even if you have to do it under your breath).

You're welcome! Now get out there and unleash the motherf**king moonwalk!

Source of brilliant motherf**king moonwalk unleashment.