So Time Magazine came out with it’s “All-Time 100 Albums” list, which is a very good name for it. Admittedly, the first thing I thought when seeing that was “It should be called the “Top 100 Albums We Can List That Will Suck Up To Everyone” list. Normally these “of all time” lists are just a weak attempt to give something to everyone.

Well I was wrong. Sort of.

First, I’m very pleased to see that the list does contain a Pavement album. Slanted and Enchanted. If you don’t get the significance of this album, I’m not going to tell you. You get it or you don’t. Way to go Time!

Second, there are two… TWO Elvis records! As if that wasn’t bad enough, one of them is a “Greatest Hits” album that was released in 2002!! What could be less significant than a hits compilation from an overrated lounge singer released 25 years after his death!? To be fair, the other Elvis album, Sunrise, is a collection of truly important recordings released 45 years late.

The rest of the list is pretty mundane. I’m glad to see John Coltrane and Carol King, Parliament/Funkadelic and Eric B. and Rakim. These influential artists rarely make any lists beyond their own genre.

Where it gets interesting is what’s NOT on the list. No KISS?! No Black Flag!? No Steely Dan?! No Van Halen!? No Chemical Brothers?! Who’s making this list!? Like almost everyone, I’m sure they’ve never heard of Pink Martini, but like everyone, they’ve definitely heard them.

First of all, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. This album was a defining moment for Pink Floyd and really, for music. It formed a perfect transition between the Pink Floyd of the 60’s and early early 70’s and the Pink Floyd of the mid-70s and beyond. They did nothing like it previously and nothing like it since. It’s an absolute masterpiece of an album and a sin to listen to a single track. Dark Side of the Moon MUST be heard from the first soundscape, Speak to Me, that crescendos to a goosebump inducing release that begins the first real track Breathe to the epicly orchestrated finish that is Eclipse in one sitting. Fortunately, no expense was spared during the recording making it a joy to listen to from an audiophile perspective as well. When you add in the fact that it spent 14 continuous years on Billboard’s Top 100 chart, it really makes it a no brainer for Time’s list. An argument could also be made for Pink Floyd’s The Wall… maybe another time.

The next conspicuously absent piece is Guns and Roses Appetite for Destruction. Again, a defining moment for the artist and the art form. At a time when hair bands peaked and then plateaued, GnR hit the scene as sort of another hair band, but these guys were fucking crazy… like criminally insane crazy. The songs on Appetite weren’t about good times and loose women, like every other hair band played out for the last decade, but instead were about mentally ill women and junky life. Guns and Roses were the hair band for the homeless addict. They looked filthy, they sounded filthy and they were filthy! GnR was thankfully the bullet that put glam metal bands out of their misery and they belong on the fucking list!

My final bitch about this list (at least for now) is the fact that in the 2000 section, four of the nine albums listed are greatest hits or anthologies from now dead musicians. Could someone please explain to me how the hell a greatest hits album from someone who’s been dead 30+ years is significant now? I’m sure there are at least 4 very significant albums from this decade that could replace them. Below are a few albums that could very easily replace the 4 shitty anthologies on the 2000s section of the list:

First, Tori Amos‘ Scarlett’s Walk (2002). Anyone who knows me knows that Tori does no wrong in my book. She is a musical mind with absolutely no equal and could easily be in the 90s section as well. Scarlett’s Walk may be one of Tori’s most cohesive albums ever, probably due to the fact that it plays out a story of a cross country journey starring her alter ego, Scarlett. Interestingly, Tori’s piano isn’t as prominently featured as in previous releases, probably because it’s not really her, if you follow me. A masterpiece, but definitely not her first.

Second, Sonic Youth’s Murray Street (2002). Sonic Youth should be on that fucking list in 80’s 90’s AND 2000’s!! Sonic Youth is a band that defies description, which I guess you’d expect from a band that is 100% original. I mean they’ve invented EVERYTHING about their sound, their look, their instruments, their everything. Shit, even their cover songs are like brand new originals! Murray Street was a really refreshing departure from some of their earlier noise. These songs are well crafted and even a little… dare I say… polished(!)… but not too much! God, I can’t believe I said that…

Third, M. Ward’s End of Amnesia (2001). With his highly unique guitar stylings and beautifully written lyrics that he almost mumbles or whispers at times, this album is a beautiful masterpiece in a genre that has yet to have a name, as far as I know. Some might say “Alt Country“, but I don’t think that accurately describes it. It’s dark and smokey and yet pure and simply complex. See what I mean?

Ok, there’s three for now… Gotta get breakfast…

I just read this article from the Arizona Republic. Apparently there’s a restaurant in Tempe called the Heart Attack Grill. I’ve heard about this place. They have some kind of hospital theme going on there. Now why anyone would want to go to a restaurant that pretends to be a hospital is a mystery to me.

Then I saw the above article about the waitresses and looked at their website… Now I get it.

The funny thing is that the Executive Director of the Center for Nursing Advocacy Sandy Summers (a pornstar name if I ever heard one) thinks what the waitresses wear, make real nurses out to be sex objects.

All anyone has to do is walk into any hospital to see that real nurses are anything but sex objects. Saying these waitresses make real nurses out to be sex objects is like saying the waitresses at Hooters make lunch ladies out to be sex objects. It’s a VERY fair and accurate comparison and totally fucking ridiculous!

The first thing you’ll notice of any real nurse is that they don’t wear the proper sexy nurse uniforms but instead they wear the most unflattering, un-sexy clothing on the planet (next to a burqa, of course)… scrubs. It also bears mention that I’ve yet to see an actual nurse wearing heels.

Ms. Summers goes on to say “When they see these sex object images, they don’t think of us as life saving professionals, so we would encourage people to get their sexual thrills elsewhere because we’re really trying to solve the global nursing shortage.”

I would encourage Nurse Summers to really try to focus on the global nursing shortage rather than worry about what fun a restaurant is having.

Well the magical GoogleBot finally got around to visiting me! I’m listed! A search for “danielbrasic” or “daniel brasic” gives me the top spot. No surprise there. A search for “brasic” shows me on page 10.

Now I begin the slow and steady march to the top! I WILL SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS THAN POSITION NUMERAL UNO IN GOOGLE!!

So if anyone wants to link to my kick ass little blog, feel free! Hell, if you ask nicely, I’ll even make you a banner!

I had guests in town this weekend and they talked me into going to Alice Cooper’s Town restaurant. Apparently, they read a positive review in Spin(?) magazine. I searched Spin’s website for the blurb, but couldn’t find the review. Anyway, we headed down for lunch on Sunday.

We arrived to a small crowd… mainly bikers there to watch whatever games were on the big screens. Got seated. Our waiter looked like that kid from Goth Talk on SNL, and acted like he was on a low dose of Thorazine. In fact, the entire staff seemed to be acting as though they just had their pay cut. We ordered drinks (2 Corona’s and a soda) and approximately 10 minutes later, the soda arrived. The Corona’s took another 5 minutes with no explanation. It was just… waiter takes order, 10 minutes later a soda appeares and 5 minutes after that 2 bottles of beer appear.

Shortly thereafter, we ordered an appetizer combo called “Coop’s Combo”. On the plate were wings, skins, chicken tenders, pork sliders and fries. All pretty good, but nothing spectacular. For entrées we ordered a Ceasar’s Salad with chicken, a Fitzies Fish Sandwich and a Kid Rock Rib Combo.

The person with the salad reported that the chicken was rubbery and “fake” tasting. My fish sandwich was fine, no complaints, and the waiter screwed up the Kid Rock Rib Combo by omitting the ribs. That’s correct. The rib combo was served sans ribs. As soon as he brought the plates we inquired about the missing ribs and he said he’d bring em right out. About 20 minutes later we asked again. We finally got the ribs added to the to-go box as we were leaving.

It also bears mention that our server never bothered to clear any empty bottles or used plates from the smallish bar style table. We found ourselves stacking dirty dishes on an ajacent table just to make room.

Alice Cooper’s Town has some cool memorabilia on the walls and that’s about all it has to offer. Stop in sometime to walk around and kill 10 minutes in the museum like lobby. All in all not a HORRIBLE experience, but definitely not worth a second trip. The food is of the same caliber as any other sports bar in America, but more expensive, the service was barely adequate, and parking is a pain in the ass too as the restaurant has no parking lot of their own. Our bill for one appetizer, three entrées, and a few drinks came to $95 before tip. I can think of many, many places that I’d rather spend $32 for a meal. I suggest leaving Alice Cooper’s Town to the tourists.

I talked a good friend of mine, illustrator and fine artist Jon Arvizu, into letting me put his bio and some samples of his work on Wikipedia. He forwarded me a modest bio, which I placed up on the site.

Within minutes it seems, the page was flagged for deletion for the following reason:

It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern:

Does not meet WP:BIO, no sources - only 49 Google results.

What?! Only 49 Google results?! That’s their reason?!

I find it a little troubleing that a serious artist with a real bio gets flagged for deletion, yet Bridget the Midget, with a few sentences that appear to be written by a fan with a 4th grade education, seems to have firmly secured it’s place in the online encyclopedia.

To her credit though, “Bridget the Midget” does return 172,000 results on Google.

I wonder what Jon would think about doing a series of midget pinups?

These things are amazing. Fried corn mash droppings uniformly coated with concentrated artificial cheese powder. The words “Krisp Delicious” that adorn the front of the package don’t even begin to describe them.

I grew up with the fluorescent orange fingers that Cheeze Kurls provide. I found out about a year ago that Cheeze Kurls are only avilable in a very small portion of the country, basically near the factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan

About a week ago, I received three bags of these in the mail from my mom. I planned on giving 2 away. Yea.

I just opened the third and final bag today. I can’t help it. I’m like Tyrone Biggums, but I have orange shit all over my mouth instead of white! I’m an addict and my mother is my dealer.

Please send more!! C’mon moms! I’m sick!

With the help of my conceptual brain trust, I have a concept for my Flash class midterm project. I cannot reveal too many details just yet, but I will tell you that it involves a rocket, sock monkeys, and a flying cigar smoking pineapple. Stay tuned.

I tell ya what… after a couple install and configuration projects with b2Evolution, this Wordpress thing is a snap!

The install really does take only 5 minutes and the interface and admin tools are super clean and simple. It only creates 10 tables in your MySQL database. I do however recommend that you immediately set up a different images folder than the way the install wants to run it.

I’m sure b2Evolution does lots of cool stuff that Wordpress doesn’t, but for setting up a simple blog like this, Wordpress rocks!!

This is the first post to my blog. I decided to write a blog because A, I don’t like the results Brasic returns in Google and B, everyone needs to know what I’m thinking.

The banner pic at the top of the page was taken from the top of Camelback Mountain on Saturday morning. Nice day for a climb it was. The full picture is below…