Music Video Friday: R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion"

I don't know, which is cooler: the winged sculpture at the end, or Stipe's dance moves.

Of all the music videos I've ever seen, this has to be the greatest, from the colourful costumes of the wingéd, to the whole story of a man fallen from the sky.

Another Site to Look At

So, while I'm not writing about coffee mugs in English, I'm practicing my Spanish. I consider myself an okay Spanish student, and since the only way to get better is with practice, I thought I could help myself and others by making a site on learning the language.

My site, Spanish Assist!, is a way for me to practice what I know, and also learn more about the Spanish language. Not only do I try to share some fun vocabulary terms, but also try to explain the bits and pieces of the language so that it makes more sense to other students whose first language is English.

So if you've ever been interested in learning a thing or two about Spanish, visit there. I should note that I do not update it too frequently, and I've still got a lot of things I'd like to do, so it's far from complete, but I do hope it lives up to its title.

Music Video Friday: Blind Guardian - "Mr. Sandman"

This week's video in the Friday night spotlight is that for the Blind Guardian rendition of "Mr. Sandman."



The video opens with the members of the band dressed as uniformed women, an obvious play off the Chordettes. This cover of the song, however, is markedly different in every other possible way, namely that it is headbang-able. Certainly, it starts off somewhat sweet, but once the clown comes in, the whole song takes a turn for the hard and rockin'.

Little Billy (we'll just call him Billy because I certainly don't know his actual name) is fast asleep, when a clown pops out of a giant Jack-in-the-box. Why a kid would have any toy that big is beyond me. Do kids that age even play with Jacks-in-boxes? At any rate, the Pandora box of evil clowns has been opened, and apparently, this somehow wakes up Little Billy. He quickly sits upright, just in time to see the Clown with a Billy Idol sneer use his evil powers to slam the windows and doors shut.

The Clown then climbs out of the box and heads for Billy, presumably to eat his soul and see if he "floats." Our hero seems to have defeated the Clown by simply throwing his blanket over the masked menace, but was instead lulled into a false sense of security: for, just moments later, three more clowns come out from a well-lit closet (or closets, there were three sets of doors). The coolest part, though, has to be the strobe lights flashing and confetti falling downwards (at least I think I'm seeing confetti, but correct me if I'm wrong). By far, this must be my favourite cover of this classic song.

August Animals!

So I put off any mug-related writings just so I could make the title with two words that began with the same letter. It's not quite assonance, since that's with the same vowel sound, and "au" sounds different from "an". But enough with the technical stuff, let's get on with the mugshots!



Our first mug of the day is a really groovy black-on-blue vessel. It is round at the top, yet tapers down the bottom into a rounded-square base. The "front" of the mug depicts a pair of blue-eyed, pink-nosed black cats; on the "back" are four black paw prints. I particluarly like the mug's handle, which isn't completely round, but instead bends as it goes down; it reminds me of the sort of lines in a piece of art nouveau (which is so much cooler than deco, but don't tell that to mi padre, who set the whole house to deco).

The material of the mug is a bit thin, so it's not good for coffee, unless you're one of those folks, like myself, who put a lot of milk/creamer in your (de)caffeinated beverages. I also use a ton of sugar, but that's another issue I'll tackle another day. I first got this spiffy mug as a birthday present from a family friend. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for it, as I use it almost every morning.



The next mug should look very familiar for those of you who've read my previous posts. This is the very same mug that I saw in Tuesday Morning. This was a gift from the same person who gave me the above mug, only this time as a way to reward me for my hard work in my education. He was there when I took pictures at the store, and I'm pretty sure he reads this blog (but if he doesn't, he should). I'd like to thank him again, this time for getting me such a cool mug. I use this one pretty frequently, too (in fact, I'm drinking from it, right now). My previous assertions on how good the mug is against coffee scalds have proven to be correct, in that if there's not enough milk in the mug, someone's gonna get burned. Not too badly, though, but enough so that one would want to hold the handle in a manner that one's fingers are a good distance from the body of the cup.


This mug is another good mug of mine. It's dark-blue-on-white, with little cartoony kitties (who are apparently sleeping) all over the body of the mug. The material is very thin (even the handle is thin!), so it's not good against coffee burns. Its relatively small size makes it for a good mug when I just want a quick cup of coffee before hitting the road. I can't quite remember where or when I got this one, but I'm pretty sure it was another Tuesday Morning.


Our final mug of the weekend was found in a floor-based cabinet in the kitchen, right behind the coffee grinder and a bag of tea lights. It was given to me by my great-aunt, who knows I like cats. This white mug is simple in design, in that it has an image of the famous orange tabby Morris, as well as his name beneath his face in red text. Morris the cat, for those of you unfamiliar with cat food commercials, Morris is a finicky cat who will only eat Nine Lives cat food. Now, folks seem to think that all cats are as stuck-up and choosy as Morris; however, my cats are definitely not snooty and most certainly aren't picky. The Misha-cat will eat cantaloupe and will kill for peaches -- or at least he'll try to knock one out of my hand. They also must have their water in a glass, to be refreshed every three or four hours, most preferably with ice. They're not picky, at all.

So that's it for this weekend's Mugshots. If you have any comments/questions/random verbiage, feel free to comment, or e-mail me at metal_enthalpy@yahoo.com. Also, if you've got any mugshots you'd like to see here, just send 'em over, along with your name (or nombre-del-Internet), and you'll see them up here. In fact, the next post will be reader's mugs, since one regular reader and commenter (er, the only one with both those titles) sent hers in. I hope to see yours, too!

Some More Filler: Music Video

I still need to round up all the mugs for the next round of Mugshots, and I just recently got new batteries for the camera. Oh yeah, and there's Otakon, which is rockin' the box, so far. So, with all those excuses blended together in a nice little potpourri of procrastination, the caffeinated collection will be added virtually in another little while.

In the meantime, however, I've come upon the idea of having at least one aspect of the blog to update regularly: Music Video Friday, whereby I post a groovy music video every Friday. I could make this a tad challenging by selecting videos of non-R.E.M. songs, and then force myself to research new music, but I'll hold off on that concept for later. At least after "Losing My Religion", anyway.

The first video for this new to-be-regular feature is for a nice little tune, "Peaches", by The Presidents of the United States of America.



The video starts us out in a peach orchard, or at least one that grows canned peaches. The song, in itself, is awesome enough, considering it's about the greatest fruit in the world. Sure there's a mention about an ant crawling inside (I'll explain my Communist ant conspiracy theory later), but that can be forgiven. If there were any songs dedicated to a specific fruit and its greatness, this has to be the best. The words "nature's candy in my hand, or can, or pie" really express the many ways the peach can be eaten.

Peaches come in two varieties: white and yellow. Yellow peaches are commonly grown in Georgia and New Jersey, and have yellow meat, while the white peaches, grown in California, are much paler. There are also taste and texture differences: yellow peaches are more likely to have bits caught in your teeth, and white peaches have a more subtle sweetness and flavour. Both types, in my opinion, are simply awesome. Even my cat likes peaches (he'll try to knock a peach out of my hand)! Certainly, all these must be evidences as to why the peach deserves such a rockin' song about it.

Oh yeah, and in the video, there are ninjas. Apparently, The Presidents of the United States of America had to protect the nation's peach supply from a band of swift and cunning interlopers! For this, the band should surely be rewarded, possibly with a cartload of peaches.

This wraps up today's postings, unless I get the urge to write another. If you have any mugshots you'd like to submit, e-mail them to me at metal_enthalpy@yahoo.com.

Desktop Backgrounds!

Yep, my last post was a bit different from the usual "lol coffee mugs" fare, but I'll have a special set of mugs in an upcoming post.

Now, sometimes I feel artistic, or just plain bored out of my socks, so I'll fiddle around with Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 and come up with nifty little backgrounds for my desktop (I used PSP 9 to make my banner, too). I've got a bunch just sitting around, so I thought I'd share 'em with you.

To download a background, just click on one of the thumbnails below, which should take you to the full-size version. Then, right-click on the full-size image, and select "set as desktop background".










Again, the next post of Mugshots should be up, soon. If you have any mugshots of your own, please send them to me at metal_enthalpy@yahoo.com. It also might be a good idea to write "Mugshots" in the subject line, so that way I don't immediately consider it possible spam. Not that I'll delete it, I just won't touch it.