The definition of “Hack”.

Can someone explain to me again how this loser Carson Daly got his own television show?  The only merit he has is that he’s great at interviews.  The rest of his show is garbage.  Especially his skits.  Even more especially his attempts at filling time since the writers’ strike.

Can’t have a blog without a good old-fashioned rant, can I?  Anyways, things’re are coming back up to normal speed lately.  Jackie’s been calling out on all of her applications this week, and it’s yielded some results.  She has a couple call backs in the works, an interview on Saturday, and as of tonight an updated resume courtesy of yours truly.  I think it’ll help her out a bunch… at least I hope it does.

On my job scene, I went in tonight to fill out paperwork for my new side job at Gamestop.  One thing I’ve noticed already is that everyone there is a character, and I think it’s going to be fun as hell to work with some (if not all) of those people.  The manager Geoff is a no-bullshit kind of guy, and that’s definitely the kind of person I work well with.  I go in this Saturday already to do some training – a whopping 12-3pm shift.  It should be fun.

As weird as it might sound, I’m really into having another job on the side.  It’ll give me something to do, and like I said before, it’ll make my hobby not so damn expensive.  Plus, I’ll actually be able to discuss video games with other people IN PERSON!  No one I work with at the station is into video games at all (the only person I’ve heard mention it is Blair playing Rock Band).  To be honest, I feel kind of ashamed to even bring it up at work – for some reason, it seems like something that no one else takes as seriously as I do.  I don’t know if it’s that notion of “video games are for kids” or what, but yeah.  I don’t know.

I hate that I’m hooked on reality television right now.  It’s sick, because I really, really, deep down don’t like it.  It’s really devoid of any kind of intellectual merit – to me, the definition of “mindless entertainment”.  I guess if I believed in calling things “guilty pleasures”, that’d be it.  At least with American Idol, I can use the excuse that I really should keep up on it for the on-air portion of my job. I guess I can’t feel too bad about it – I know that if Jackie weren’t here, I wouldn’t even be giving it a second look… but I feel bad about enjoying it when I do watch it.  Odd.

On the topic of television, I posted a bulletin today about songs on commercials that I love, and there really have been a lot of them.  I feel like they deserve a repost here.  All the songs are really music that I normally wouldn’t be into, but I guess I have been on a softer music kick lately, so it makes sense.  I’m wondering if all these marketing people are really hipsters, or just relying on advice *from* hipsters to find this music, because it’s all really obscure, unheard-of stuff.  The commercials and songs?  Thought you’d never ask:

1. From the Apple Air commercial: “New Soul” by Yael Naim
http://www.myspace.com/yaelnaim

By the way, if anyone has a spare $1800 and wants to buy me an Air, I’d totally accept it.  That thing is SO.  DAMN.  SEXY.  Couple that with the fact that I’ve really always wanted a Macbook, and it just instantly became my next gadget crush.  (Is it possible to have a crush on a piece of tech?)  The song is, as my sister Steph described it, “cute”.  She’s got a real Regina Spektor vibe to me.

2. From the Toyota Sequoia commercial: “Going Whichever Way The Wind Blows” by Pete Droge
http://www.myspace.com/petedroge

The song really wasn’t that memorable to me right away.  After a while though, I heard Jackie singing along to it every time it came on.  Soon enough, I was singing along too.  It’s really a nice, catchy, laid-back kind of song.  Also, anyone who has “what it is” for their official Myspace quote (he does) has gotta be cool, right?  I don’t think I’d ever buy a Toyota, but the song definitely fits the feel of the commercial.

3. From the Dentyne Ice commercial: “Stuttering” by Ben’s Brother
http://www.myspace.com/bensbrothermusic

Definitely the weakest song out of this bunch, but still something I felt worth mentioning.  I found the song a while ago, and for a little while I was putting it on mix discs.  It’s just poppy enough to make it to radio if it wanted, but 1.) looking at their Myspace, they’re not pushing it as a single 2.) being such, the only exposure that band has here in the States *is* that commercial, and while it’s a good form of exposure, it’s not the best.  I still find myself singing along to the hook whenever I hear it (on my computer OR on TV) so it’s definitely catchy enough.

Jackie’s asleep, and I’m jacked up on caffeine.  I should really take this time to get some video gaming in, but I think I’ll just surf Evil Avatar until I get tired.  Waste of time?  You be the judge.