Without You We Couldn't Do What We Do

Yes, it's time again for another post about my favorite Canadians, Rush! I'm a bit late on this one, actually. Last Friday, a super awesome thing happened. Rush got its star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! Check this out! And here is Geddy stealing a baby! Sort of. The only trouble with this is that tons and tons of people--Rush fans, fanatics, and people who have just heard of Rush--saying that now they should be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Well, I call shenanigans, because that's ridiculous. It is the opinion of many, including myself, that to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, while still alive, anyway, is to destroy your career, or to signify that you are now washed up and done with recording. For example, years ago, when I was off my nut about AC/DC they were inducted, and basically stopped recording. When they came out with Black Ice, it sounded like the same songs they had produced earlier, with _{sort of} different lyrics. It really hurt to see them fall from grace like that. And the Iron Man 2 soundtrack--because I know someone will mention it--is mostly made of songs already recorded. Including Highway to Hell, which is secretly on every AC/DC album ever made.
The best thing to do is induct the artist posthumously; that way they can't do anything to make people wonder how they ever got into the Hall of Fame in the first place. Take Elvis Presley, for example. He was on a downhill spiral by the time he died in 1977. Imagine if he had been alive in 1986, when he was inducted. Would he still have been cranking out albums of himself talking (and shamelessly insulting) the audience at his concerts? [I wish I could say I was kidding around.] It's probably safe to say he would, because people will buy ANYTHING that has to do with The King, and thus, it made the most sense to induct him after his death. Many, many years after, when people had forgotten all the dumb shit he did toward the end of his life, and were able to only remember his pure awesomeness during the '50s and '60s.
I don't want Rush to be inducted until one of the guys dies, because then, Rush will be done. There is no Rush if Lee, Lifeson, or Peart is not still alive and kicking. Yes, there was once a Rush without Neil Peart, but that didn't last for long, now did it?
~Sushi

Stuff You Didn't Know

I am super bored right now. I saw Shrek 4 today, and that was awesome, but other than that... bored bored boredy bored bored. Cracked can't keep me interested tonight. Even the sweet new Lady Gaga song was only enough to hold me for five-ish minutes. And yes, I just posted about a minute ago, but that was purely to invoke the wrath of the Biebertards. Free publicity, you know. So, being completely bored, I've borrowed a post from one of my DA friend's blog, in order to thoroughly immerse myself with nonsense. Or something like that.

STEP ONE:

Spell your [real] name out in [Rush] songs.

E - Earthshine
R - Roll the Bones
I - I Think I'm Going Bald
N - Natural Science

STEP TWO:

– Name: Erin [You would have found out eventually.]
– Birth date: September 13, Nineteen Aught Eleventy-Twelve
– Nickname: Top 3 - Sushi, Teddy Bear, Cook
– Eye Color: Green
– Hair Color: Dyed red; unsure of natural color
– Zodiac Sign: Virgo

STEP THREE:

– The shoes you wore today: Black lace flats
– Your weakness(es): Short temper
– Your fear(s): Loss
– Your perfect pizza: Soooo much cheese
– Goal you’d like to achieve: Doctoral degree

STEP FOUR:

– Your best physical feature? My eyes. They won't ever get fat.
– Your bedtime? 2 AM, on a good night
– Most missed memory? I miss hanging out with my Grandma Jean

STEP FIVE:

This Or That...
– Pepsi or Coke?: Pepsi
– McDonald’s or Burger King: Steak 'N' Shake
– Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Lipton.
– Chocolate or Vanilla: Vanilla.
– Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee

STEP SIX:

Do You...
– Curse: Shit no. What the hell are you talking about, you fucking asshole? [Don't be sad; I'd never call you that for real.]
– Sing: Yes, and I'm pretty good from what I hear
– Dance: Not near other people
– Take a shower everyday: Uh, no.
– Have a crush: Hmmm... Yes.
– Do you think you’ve been in love? A couple times
– Want to go to college: Well, I did already. How about university?
– Like(d) high school: Sometimes
– Want to get married: I surely do
– Get motion sickness: Only when I walk on glass floors
– Think you’re attractive: Depends on the day
– Think you’re a health freak: In some ways
– Get along with your parents: Mostly

STEP SEVEN:

In the past month...
– Gone to the mall: No, amazingly
– Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No
– Eaten Sushi: YESSSSSSS; and no, that's not cannibalism
– Been on stage: I don't recall
– Gone skating: No, but I went on bike rides
– Made homemade cookies: No
– Gone skinny dipping: Not yet
– Stolen anything: No

STEP EIGHT:

Ever...
– Played a game that required removal of clothing: Strip poker!
– If so, was it mixed company: Yes!
- Flashed anyone: Also yes!
– Been beaten up: Nope
– Shoplifted: Only at the flea market

STEP NINE:

– Age you hope to be married: 26
– Number of Children: 2
– Describe your Dream Wedding: Outside. Lots of Rush. Marrying my best friend. Rainbow bridesmaids!

STEP TEN:

In a boyfriend/girlfriend...
– Best eye color?: Doesn't matter, as long as I can lose myself in their eyes
– Best hair color?: Also doesn't matter, as long as they let me play with it
– Short hair or long hair? Preferably long, though short haircuts are fun, too, sometimes
– Height: Taller than me


STEP ELEVEN:

– Number of people I could trust with my life: One
– Number of CDs that I own: Legitimate or burned? Either way, it's a lot.
– Number of tattoos: Zero
– Number of piercings: Seven

PERSONAL QUIZ:

Who were you with yesterday? Severe, Mama Bear, Ladybug, and Sunshine - aka my family
What woke you up this morning? My mom, to get me to fix the pool
Is tomorrow going to be a good day? Hell yes; Beatles Rock Band ALL DAY!
Do you like anybody? No, I hate everything. Just kidding.

THE PAST:

Ever thrown up in public? A couple times
What’s on your mind RIGHT NOW? FREAKIN' ROCK BAND! Oh, and my new Etsy account. BUY MY SHIT!

THE FUTURE:

What kind of home would you like? One that's not overwhelming
What do you want to be when you grow up? A marriage and family therapist
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Almost married, and almost done with school

IN GENERAL:

Do you like candy necklaces? They hurt my teeth
When was the last time you fell over or ran into something? Recently
Do you still go trick or treating? Yes! Younger siblings mean I can trick-or-treat for years!
What was the last thing you ate? Melty ice cream
What's your favorite type of soda? Pepsi
Have you ever moved? Three times
Have you ever won an award? Bunches. I'm not even showing off; I have no idea how many.
Are you listening to music right now? No, iTunes is being a bitch
How long til your birthday? Lesseee..... 77
When were you the saddest in your whole life? Wow, that's a tough one. I don't think I want to talk about that.
What time is it? 12:17 AM
Do you use ebay to buy or sell? Both
Ever heard a song written about you? No
Something you want to happen in 2010? I'm finally going to university, after waiting two more years than I should have had to.
Honestly, do you miss 2008? A little bit; I graduated then, so I have a few found memories.

HONESTY SECTION:

1. Honestly, what color is your underwear? Black
2. Honestly, what's on your mind? iTunes, and it's suckishness
3. Honestly, what are you doing right now? Doing this so I can read the six Cracked articles I have tabbed
4. Honestly, have you done something bad today? I wasn't very nice today.
5. Honestly, who is the last person you talked to on the phone? Freak
6. Honestly, are you jealous of someone right now? Not especially
7. Honestly, what makes you mad most of the time? Family
8. Honestly, do you bite your nails? All the time
9. Honestly, have you had an eating disorder? I BEAT ANOREXIA. Not really, though.
10. Honestly, do you want to see someone this very moment? This moment, and the next one, and the one after that...
11. Honestly, are you keeping a big secret now? Nah.
12. Honestly, do you have a friend you don’t actually like? I try not to bother with people I don't actually like
13. Honestly, what was the last text message you received? It was too long ago to remember
14. Honestly, are you in denial? About what?
15. Honestly, do you get up in the middle of the night? I'm already up in the middle of the night
16. Honestly, do you like anyone? Yes
17. Honestly, does anyone like you? Maybe

RAGE SECTION:

1. What do you do when you’re mad? Freak the hell out
2. What’s the worst thing you’ve done when you were mad? Throw one of my sisters at a wall
3. Ever made anyone cry when you were mad? Yes
4. Do you swear when you’re mad? I just swear in general

CRYING SECTION:

1. When was the last time you actually cried? During Toy Story 3
2. Ever cried yourself to sleep? Many, many times
3. Do certain songs make you cry? Yes
4. What usually makes you cry? Pretty much anything

HAPPY SECTION:

1. Are you usually a happy person? That depends on who you ask. I don't think I am, but Spock begs to differ.
2. What makes you the happiest? Things going the way they should
3. What song makes you always happy? Hope, by Rush - it's our song
4. Do you believe in yourself? How corny. But yeah, I do.
5. When people say they think you are good looking/pretty, do you get happy? No, I generally don't believe them.

That's all for now, folks.
~Sushi

I stealz the basis of this blog post from

Bieber Fever

Okay, shortest post EVAR. Can someone out there please explain to me what the deal is with Justin Bieber? Why is he so popular? I mean, I love Canada with a burning passion, but that kid just has no appeal to me. Hopefully, I have called down enough Bieber-tard wrath that one of you people will explain this to me. And possibly call me a Nazi. I quite enjoy that.
~Sushi

Ready, Set, Please Don't Make Me Watch This Again!

When I was younger, I was absolutely mortified by a movie called The Halloween Tree. I can't even remember why, but I couldn't watch it without crying, and I've never seen the end. The reason I'm telling you this is because I happened across The Halloween Tree while doing a library search for media involving Leonard Nimoy but not Star Trek. [Taking Trek out cuts the list down by about 90%, in case you're wondering.] I had no idea Leonard Nimoy was in The Halloween Tree, because the last time I tried to watch it was at least a decade ago. So, I put the movie on order, mostly because I wanted to figure out why it's so damn terrifying, and of course, because Leonard Nimoy is, in my world, the human equivalent of God. The movie came in, I popped it into a VCR, and...
90 Minutes Later
I am almost twenty goddamn years old, and that movie is still scary as shit. But, now that I am an articulate adult, with a pen and paper sitting right beside me, I can tell you precisely why I was afraid to walk up my stairs in the pitch-blackness of my house after watching The Halloween Tree.
First off, it's a cartoon based on a book by Ray Bradbury. I've read a lot of Bradbury's work, and while I enjoy it, most of it is not suitable for children. He's a spooky guy, even if he's not exactly trying to be. Oh, he's also the narrator of the movie. The Halloween Tree also features one of the spookiest soundtracks I've ever heard for a cartoon; those vocalists haunted my nightmares. Then, after the intro, the children show up. These kids, apart from the token fatty, are skeleton-thin, and not just the one actually dressed as a skeleton. Then, when the kids gather into their little clique and realize their buddy Pip, the "greatest kid on earth," is missing, they take a trip through the forest from Snow White to get to his house. I am dead serious; this forest wanted to eat those kids alive. But all that weirdness seems minor when compared to Leonard Nimoy's character, Mr. Moundshroud. He is, among other things, a "scary yellow pointy magic bastard"--at least, that's what I have in my notes. When the bony kids make it to his house, which also wants to eat them, they see Pip, who is clear, climbing a tree growing pumpkins, which are apparently souls, and then flies away clutching a pumpkin that looks like his face. Oh, and a sidenote: in order to get Pip back, Moundshroud and the band of anorexic children must go to the "Undiscovered Country". Yes, like in Star Trek. Oh, and in order to get to the Undiscovered Country, they have to fly a time-traveling kite, made out of pieces circus posters that are alive and trying to eat them. Fun. Thankfully that gets torn to shreds when they land in Egypt. Okay, at this point in my notes, I wondered if I was just a sissy when I was little, and I decided to stop writing things down until I was truly spooked. But then, Moundshroud's cape turned into bat wings and he started to fly. Maybe every single thing that happens in this movie really is disturbing as hell. Later in the movie, in France, it is revealed that Moundshroud can't walk on holy ground. Is he the Devil, or the Grim Reaper or something? Nothing extraordinarily bad happens until they get to Mexico, during Dia de los Muertes. There we find Pip in a crypt, stuck in a giant spider web, surrounded by animated corpses. When the first of the skinny children tries to touch him, he turns to dust. I have pinpointed this as the exact point in the movie where I ran screaming from the room. Right about there. Well, not this time. This time I just watched in awe, wondering why the film was ever made. That, and why it features, among all those other frightening things, soul-sucking sugar skulls. Try saying that ten times fast.
Here, I made this for you:

~Sushi

Facebook Obsession Quotient

Created by Oatmeal

The Invisible Child-Eating Crocodiles that Live Absolutely Everywhere

Have you ever gotten a forward filled with funny, Photoshopped versions of children's books, all with seemingly the worst possible content and titles? Well, I get them a lot, and they never fail to amuse me, almost to the point of falling-out-of-my-chair laughter. ROFLing, if you will. I've written a half-dozen or so unpublished children's books, mostly for school, but I've never reached the raunchy caliber of some of the 'Shopped horrors that I have found while trolling about the internet. I hadn't thought about them for a while, but today I ran across another or Cracked.com's Photoshop contests. I'd like to share that, and a few more links to awful conceptions of books that should never be read by anyone, let alone children.
Just as a warning, a lot of these may be NSFW. _{That is, Not Safe for Work, for the less acronym-savvy among my readership.}
Books Your Local Library Will _Probably Not Have in Their Children's Section
Cracked: The 40 Most Inappropriate Children's Book Covers
DeviantART: Evil Children's Books
TresSugar: Recalled Children's Books
SlashFilm: Pixar Artist Josh Cooley’s Lil’ Inappropriate Golden Book Movies R Fun
Listverse: Kids Books Your School Doesn’t Stock: Part I & Part II
Something Awful: Children's Books: This goes on for 10 pages. And they are all awesome.
Huffington Post: The Creepiest Children's Books EVER: They all exist. For real.
For those of you who don't have the greatest internet connection, here are a few list-only links
1Funny: Top 50 Children's Book Title Ideas
Lots of Jokes: Children's Books Not Recommended by the National Library Association
University of Michigan: Children's Book Titles You'll Never See
Facebook: Children's Book Titles Never Published
For people with quick, amazing, awesome internet _{unlike me}, here is a video.
Strong Bad E-mail: Kid's Book
And yes, I know that there are some repeats across these lists. But how many awful parodies of juvenile literature did you honesty want in existence?
~Sushi

The Feverish Flux of Human Interface and Interchange

Time to start talking about Rush again. Today was the one and only American screening of Beyond the Lighted Stage, the Rush documentary. I, for one, am glad I was smart enough to pre-order tickets online. When Spock and I got to the theater, the show was sold out. There were maybe three seats left by the time everyone got there. I severely underestimated Rush's impact on northeastern Illinois, I guess. There were so many of us! But, in retrospect [pun intended], I'm not all that surprised. The movie was great. It's not getting that great of reviews, but then, Rush never has. And they make a point of saying that. Giving Beyond the Lighted Stage bad reviews is along the same lines as burning copies of Fahrenheit 451; the action only serves to drive home the point that the movie/book is making.
But, back to humor. I've never been in a theater that was so... loud! Well, apart from Rocky Horror and Repo! shows. But those are meant to be especially raucous. This was like going to a concert. Which reminds me... Spock and I decided to split the cost of tickets to one of the shows Rush is doing in Chicago. This morning I found tickets on Ticketmaster that are $49.50 each, which, while it might sound expensive to some, are the cheapest tickets I have ever seen for a Rush concert. Ahhhh... Now that that's over with, I have a little bit more to discuss about the movie. Okay, Jack Black is great and all, in his own right, but I really didn't want to see him in his usual semi-retarded state in a movie about my favorite band. He's more of an irritant than an actor. Other than that, most of the people who were interviewed behaved fairly well. And the home videos and childhood pictures that were shown were practically a treasure unto themselves. We got to see Rush perform when they were younger than I am, in basements and bars. Not basement bars, though; at least, I don't think so. Sorry, no more puns.
The musical selection was good, although most of the tunes are the same few songs that show up on every greatest hits album Rush has ever made-- Chronicles, the Retrospectives, et cetera. I think that, with the extensive catalog Rush has put together, there could have been a lot more deep tracks. After all, this is a movie made for Rush fans, by, presumably, Rush fans. With that, I present to you my suggestions for...
15 Rush Songs that Should have been Included in Beyond the Lighted Stage
^{Alphabetized, in order to avoid a ruckus}
1. Available Light, from Presto
2. Chemistry, from Signals
3. Cinderella Man, from A Farewell to Kings
4. Different Strings, from Permanent Waves
5. Digital Man, from Signals
6. Here Again, from Rush
7. Hope, from Snakes and Arrows - Spock and I were sad that our song wasn't included
8. I Think I'm Going Bald, from Caress of Steel
9. Leave That Thing Alone!, from Counterparts
10. Madrigal, from A Farewell to Kings
11. Mission, from Hold Your Fire
12. Resist, from Test for Echo
13. Summertime Blues, from Feedback
14. Tears, from 2112
15. Vital Signs, from Moving Pictures
And some Lerxst rants! _{That last one is totally worth the wait}
So, apart from Jack Black and a lack of deep-cut tracks--wow, that's a lot of rhymes-- I absolutely adored Beyond the Lighted Stage. And I can't wait for the VH1 premiere on June 26th, so I can watch it again!
~Sushi