Mike Salsbury’s Blog

If you’ve never heard of comedian Rodney Carrington, that’s unfortunate. Carrington had a sitcom on television for a couple of years. Before and since then, he’s done a lot of stand-up comedy and other work. Carrington’s comedy is very “blue collar” like that of more well-known comedians like Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall, though more “off color” than Foxworthy or Engvall. His act is part traditional stand-up comedy and part country music. I’ve been a fan of Carrington’s since the first time I heard him perform on The Bob and Tom Show several years ago. His latest comedy album “El Nino Loco” was just released this week.

(If you don’t enjoy off-color humor you may want to stop reading at this point.)

The album starts with the title track (”El Nino Loco”) about a man who’s normally mild and reserved at home, but who gets drunk acts crazy while on a vacation in Mexico (this earning the nickname “El Nino Loco” from the natives). The track is a country song infused with Mexican instruments and backing vocals. The musical style is reminiscent of country singer Marty Robbins. It’s a pleasant song to listen to, but not Rodney’s funniest work by far.

In “Drink More Beer”, Carrington suggests that you can relieve life’s stress by drinking more beer. A typical line from the song: “When your truck keeps overheatin’ cause your radiator’s leakin’, grab the brown bag at your feet ‘n’ drink more beer.” It’s an exaggerated parody of more traditional country songs about drinking, making the ridiculous point that “Bud makes you wiser, Bud Light makes you lighter” and wine coolers make you less likely to be straight.

“If I’m the Only One” tells the story of a loving, dedicated husband troubled by his wife’s “wilder” past and current exploits. Musically, it sounds like a traditional country song. Carrington’s vocal performance is excellent, and makes for a very enjoyable listen if you have any appreciation of country music. Carrington’s stand-up humor slips into this song better than the first two, with lines like “If I’m the only one you ever loved, whose underwear are these? If I’m the only one you ever loved, how come you got so many Mardi Gras beads?” and “I came by your office with some cookies I baked. I walked in and I saw him and his hands were in your hair. Both your feet were pointed in the air. If I’m the only one you ever loved, how come your boss is all over you? If I’m the only one you ever loved, how come his pants are down around his shoes? I’m just askin’ questions, I don’t mean to pry. You got all the answers, so baby just tell me why…” The video for this track was a free iTunes download recently. The video ends with all the scenes of cheating being just a bad dream Rodney had after eating a “Pita Pocket” before going to bed, and his many children (none of whom look like him) being the result of adoption (and of course his wife being faithful after all). It’s definitely the stand-out track on the album.

The next track, “Wish She Would Have Left Quicker” tells how a man’s wife has left him unexpectedly, but “Now I’m just wishin’ that someday she’ll listen ’cause I know just what I would say… I wish she would have left quicker, I would have had lots more fun. There could’ve been shots of tequila, with Sherry and Sheila, bikinis with bottoms – no tops, and one happy man… with no ring on my hand.”

“White Shirts & Rain” discusses how women in wet white T-shirts are more attractive.

In “The Best You’ll Do Tonight” the singer tells us how a very attractive woman in a mini-skirt spent the evening turning heads and flirting with the menu in the bar, but took too long to find the one she wanted to take home and now has to settle for those who are left. Carrington tells her “I know you had intentions of goin’ home with Mr. Right, but it’s last call for alcohol and I’m the best you’ll do tonight.” To help the woman save face, he tells her “Hey, we can leave in separate cars and no one has to know. I hope you don’t live too far from here, my gas tank’s runnin’ low. But if all goes well and I close the deal and you’re lookin’ for a date next week, you can come right back to the same old bar and I’ll be sittin’ in the same old seat.”

In a turn of phrase worthy of the best country songwriters out there, “Bowling Trophy Wife” tells the story of a man who’s found a woman to make him happy even though she “weighs a buck ninety” (190 pounds). He tells us he asked her to marry him when she belched out his name. “Yeah, other guys like trophy wives with tiny little waists, they’ll buy ‘em yachts and caviar to suit their champagne taste. Me, I like ‘em husky with an appetite for life. I thank God for givin’ me my Bowlin’ Trophy Wife.”

The next track on the album tells of the regrets of a man who had lots of women in his life but “got down in the wrong one’s pants” and is “married now, three kids and dog” but says he’d “love to have the chance to go back and do you all”.

“Don’t Tell My Wife” exaggerates on the typical country music theme of a husband away from home who does things he shouldn’t.

The final track, “Funny Man” is a relatively serious one, about how a funny man is sad when he’s away from his family. This is probably based on Carrington’s own life. After his sitcom deal ended, Carrington returned home to Bixby, Oklahoma. He told Tulsa World in August 2008 that “Two years (in Los Angeles) doing that TV show (the sitcom ‘Rodney’ aired on ABC from 2004-06), and I learned my lesson. I don’t want any more of that, and there won’t be anything like that again. Tulsa suits me fine.” He said that “It was a great experience, and I met a lot of great people, but I was actually thrilled when it ended because I got my life back. Before I started doing TV, I had a successful career, and I was making a lot more money touring and selling comedy albums. When I went to do the TV show, I not only increased by 80 hours a week my workload, but I took a pay cut. It was a bad deal all the way around.”

Musically, this a great album to listen to. Carrington’s vocals and the accompanying instrumental work is as good as you’ll find on any current country album. From a comedic standpoint, it isn’t his best work. That’s not to say it’s a “bad” album at all. It’s quite fun to listen to. I find his stand-up (spoken) comedy much funnier than his musical work, though I do enjoy both. His 1998 album “Hangin’ With Rodney” might be his best work overall, as it contains several of his signature bits like “Dancing with a Man”, his country cover of “Purple Rain” and “Kiss” by Prince, “Fred”, “Little Things”, and “Letter to My P*nis.”

admin humor, music El Nino Loco, review, Rodney Carrington

I first discovered The Proclaimers when they released a 1990 single entitled “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” to some critical acclaim and Top 40 success (it was the #3 single in 1993).  Since then, I’ve tried to keep up with them and check out their albums as they’re released.  While surfing Spiralfrog.com’s library, I ran into the 2007 album “Life With You” and decided to give it a listen.

If you’re not familiar with The Proclaimers, they’re a Scottish rock band composed of two identical twin brothers, Charlie and Craig Reid.  Unlike some bands, their Scottish accents come through loud and clear in their music, as do their political views.  They support Scottish independence from Britain and are politically active in that regard.

One of the things I really like about The Proclaimers is their ability to turn a phrase.  Where some bands would take the cliched route in a love song and describe a woman in a red dress by comparing her to a rose or some other red object, The Proclaimers describe a pale woman in a red dress as looking like “blood lying on snow” (in the track of the same name).  While I celebrate this as an interesting turn of phrase, I have to wonder how a woman would react to being described as looking like blood on snow.  But this isn’t the only unusual choice of words in the song.  Later, they say “It’s taken generations of lucky breeding to make you” to the woman they’re interested in. I’m not sure how many women would be swept off their feet by such phrases, but they are fun to listen to.

I found “Harness Pain” to be a very strong track.  The listener is told they must harness pain if they want to hold “the flame” and “tell the truth about love”.  They’re told that “when you try to succeed you mostly fail” but you harness the pain and become stronger.

“The Long Haul”, “S-O-R-R-Y”, and perhaps certain other tracks seem to take on the Iraq war and its supporters, saying “I miss the days when the threat to our position didn’t come from some religion but from godless communism.”  We’re told “we’re not barbarians like we were way back when, we’ve learned from history, so we get to go around again” and “tell your sons not to bother with football, get a backpack on and crawl, we’re in this for the long haul”.

In terms of music and performance, this is as good an album as any other from The Proclaimers.  However, in terms of its content, it’s a far more politically charged piece than earlier albums like Sunshine on Leith.  

If you like The Proclaimers’ unique sound and can stomach their political views (whether you agree with those views or not), you’ll find this an enjoyable album and fair amount different from mainstream pop music.

admin music album, Life With You, music, review, The Proclaimers

About 25 years ago, my family and I lived in Brazil, where my father worked on that country’s first nuclear power plant. One of my fondest memories of that time is a visit to a Brazilian restaurant called a “churrascaria”. These are a uniquely Brazilian invention which, in my opinion, would do well in the USA. They are an “all you care to eat” style restaurant that features barbecued meats of every variety. In a typical churrascaria, you are seated at a table, partake of a salad and vegetable bar, and when you’re ready for meat, you have a device (typically a card) on your table that indicates you’re interested in meat. Roving servers will drop by to tempt you with various cuts of steak, chicken, pork, lamb, sausage, etc. If you like what they have, they’ll slice some off the skewer they’re carrying and you grab it with tongs and put it on your plate. When you are full, you use the device to tell the servers you’re finished and they stop bringing the meat.

I’ve just returned from “Sal & Carvao” (Portuguese for “salt and charcoal”), a restaurant located at the intersection of Finley and Butterfield in Downers Grove, Illinois. This churrascaria is one of three I’ve visited in the United States. The others were located in Washington, DC, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It’s definitely a good one.

My vegetable plate included asparagus, roasted spring vegetables in a balsamic vinaigrette, and jambalaya (technically not a vegetable dish). I also had some proscuitto and salami. All of it was first-rate, fresh-tasting, and delicious. This was followed by the meat courses, which included “bottom sirloin”, marinated chicken breast, linguica (sausage), lamb, chili-lime chicken, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, and probably one or two other meats I’m forgetting. In addition, there were three side dishes offered. These included garlic mashed potatoes, a vegetable medley, and truffled french fries.

The service at Sal & Carvao is great, easily an 8 or 9 out of 10. I rarely wanted for anything.

The side dishes weren’t bad, but not my favorites of the meal. I don’t care much for garlic mashed potatoes, though theirs were better than average. The vegetable medley was good, but I’d gotten my fill at the harvest bar (salad bar) earlier. And the fries, well, I didn’t care for them but they were OK. (The side dish concept, by the way, is something I’ve only noticed in the U.S. churrascarias. I assume they’re provided to reduce the guests’ intake of meat items, which are probably cheaper in Brazil than in the U.S.) I generally ignored them during my dining.

The meats were all good. The filet was probably my least favorite since it was a little dry, but even that was good. The marinated chicken breast was excellent. The bottom sirloin was great. The linguica was perfect. The lamb was the second-best I’ve ever had (the best, interestingly, was at a churrascaria in Washington, DC).

On balance, I’d have to give Sal & Carvao at least an 8 out of 10. The service is excellent. The food is really good. The seating was comfortable. The “harvest bar” was very good.

I have only two real complaints about the place. The music got a bit loud during the latter part of my visit, and took away some from my enjoyment of the food. My other complaint is that they don’t have a location in Columbus, Ohio. If they did, I suspect it would become one of my regular haunts at home!

admin Food barbecue, brazilian restaurant, churrascaria, downers grove illinois, restaurant review, review, Sal & Carvao, Salt and Charcoal

Over Thanksgiving, I purchased Stronghold 2
for $19.99 from Office Max. I was in the mood for a real-time strategy
game, something a little different than my usual sci-fi fare. Stronghold
2 certainly seemed to fit that bill. It featured medieval castles,
catapults, trebuchets, archers, polemen, etc.

The graphics
in the game are 3D and more than adequate to the task. It was very easy
to tell units apart on-screen, buildings looked unique and recognizable,
etc. Rotating the camera in the game proved to be rather difficult, so I
rarely tried. It just wasn’t worth the effort.

The sounds
are also adequate and not overdone.

The controls are a bit
strange. To select a unit, you left-click on it. To move it, you
left-click where you want that unit to go. Most of the time, this works
fine. Sometimes, however, this makes it difficult to select and move
units that are located close together.

There appears to be
a “tech tree” of sorts in the game, where you can initially
make only spearmen and archers. Supposedly you can also make armored
troops, swordsmen, and a variety of others. Unfortunately the manual
doesn’t explain this well and it’s certainly not clear in playing. After
playing several levels of the single-player campaign, I still can’t make
a mounted unit or a sword-swinging unit. I’ve no idea why or how. Worse,
my AI opponents all seem to be able to produce these units in quantity,
and their units seem to take 2-3x the damage mine do before dying.

In addition to the “invisible” tech tree, the game
also suffers from a “wash, rinse, and repeat” mission design.
That is, at the start of each mission, you begin with almost nothing.
You have to scramble to gather resources, build defenses, and construct
units to defend and/or attack. Meanwhile, the computer throws wolves
(which eat archers and spearmen for breakfast), bandits (who can kill
several of your units with one of theirs), enemy forces (which can kill
several of your soldiers with one of theirs), time limits, and more at
you. Once you’ve managed to beat the level, the cut scene explains that
you’ve decided to move to another castle for the next mission (i.e.,
rinse away all your progress) where you start all over again (i.e.,
repeat).

Sometimes, the cut scenes make some very lame
excuses for the “rinse” part. For example, after fighting my
way through one map, my “character” and another decide that
they need to use their enemy’s castle because it’s better located and
will be easier to defend. Below is the castle they think will be easier
to defend:

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admin Games 2k games, Firefly, game, pc game, review, stronghold 2, windows

I’ve been in Washington, DC, this week attending a technology class.  The location of the class is very near a small shop called “Julia’s Empanadas” at 1000 Vermont Avenue NW.  I’ve had empanadas in the past and enjoyed them, so this sounded like a good opportunity to try them again.  Yesterday for lunch I went in and ordered a couple “Chorizo” (sausage, black beans, and rice) ones.

From the first bite, I have to say that I was disappointed.  The breading along the outer edges was extremely dry, like a saltine cracker.  The filling inside did not have any chorizo flavor that I could detect, though there was a reasonable quantity of rice and black beans inside.  I ordered two, but ended up eating most of one and throwing away the rest.  There wasn’t much flavor and they were just disappointing all the way around.

Given the number of people going in and out of the place, some of whom seemed to be regulars, my assumption is that I may have simply made a bad choice.  I was there near the start of lunch hour and perhaps mine had spent the most time under the heat lamps.  I don’t know. 

Regardless, I’m in no hurry to go back.  It wasn’t a very enjoyable experience and I’ve no interest in repeating it.

admin Food Julia's Empanadas, restaurant review, review, washington dc

So I was playing “The Godfather” last night on my friend’s xBox. Besides the fact that the xBox controller is the most evil and insidious invention on the planet, the controls were pretty straightforward and easy to use (but they’re better on a PS2 controller, I’m sure). To start off with, the beginning cinematography is absolutely outstanding! Graphics, story, voice acting, all the elements needed for a great game are present right from the very start. The story starts off with (extremely minor spoiler) a brief tutourial that ends with a man being gunned down in front of his young kid. Guess who that kid grows up to be? That’s right, he’s our main character and I’ll bet he’ll want a little taste of revenge before it’s over.

To begin with, the world is HUGE, looking like something that came directly from Grand Theft Auto. Starting off you’ll create your own character from menus that look very reminescent of Tiger Woods golf. I didn’t mess with this too much and just hit “randomize” to continue on (God was he ugly lookin’)….but character creation is very in-depth and looks like it could take quite a while to perfect.

Read more…

admin Games game, godfather xbox game review, review, The Godfather, XBox

As you may be aware from elsewhere on this site, I’ve recently acquired a “free” Sony PSP from internetopiniongroup.com. During my holiday shopping, I had the opportunity to pick up a USB link cable and Datel Max Media PSP software for $12.88 at Target.

The cable worked perfectly, and the software was FAR better than I would have expected for the price. It allows you to transfer just about any digital movie format you like to your PSP memory card (AVI, MPG, ripped DVD “VOB” files), as well as most digital audio formats (e.g., MP3, WAV, etc.) and digital pictures (JPG, etc.). You can also backup and work with game save files.

So far, I’ve only worked with the digital video transfer. Using it, I was able to take an episode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” show in a few minutes from MPG format to the PSP’s MP4 format. I also transferred the entire movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” from a ripped DVD to the PSP memory card over a longer period of time. The video transfer supports both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, so wide-screen source material looks wide-screen and normal material looks normal (albeit with some black borders on the PSP display). At “high quality” mode, each 1GB VOB file became approximately a 56MB MP4 file for the PSP. That means you should be able to fit a typical 100-minute movie into about 256MB of PSP video data. With mono audio and a lower bitrate, you might get quite a bit more on there. Quite impressive.

I plan to do a more thorough review after I’ve spent some more time with it.

admin Cool Electronic Gear analysis, Datel Max Media software, examination, review, Sony PSP

Morrissey fans haven’t, in my experience, been very easy find.  Aside from the few people I’ve introduced to Morrissey’s music, I’ve perhaps only met a couple.  Because “The Mozzer’s” fans are so few and far-between, it’s fun to encounter another one.  I’d never heard of Colin Meloy or The Decemberists prior to seeing this album, but he’ll get some of my attention for no other reason than releasing this disc.  It’s a pleasure “meeting” another fan.

Listening to this disc, you will not at all be confused as to whether it’s Morrissey himself or a cover.  Meloy’s vocals are quite a bit higher-pitched and perhaps even a bit strained compared to Morrissey’s.  The instrumentals on the album consist solely of Meloy’s acoustic guitar.  You won’t find any of the trademark Morrissey sampling of obscure sounds, electric guitar riffs, etc.  Just a man, his guitar, and some songs by Morrissey.

Meloy chose some interesting tracks.  Most are B-sides and less commonly played songs, with the exceptions of “I’m a Poet” and “Everyday is Like Sunday”.  In some ways, this serves him well.  Since the songs aren’t “mainstream” Morrissey pieces, it’s less likely you’ll mind as much that it’s not Morrissey singing them.  One of the more interesting things to me about this album is the fact that Meloy’s vocals are much more distinct and easier to understand than Morrissey’s (or at least they’re not covered by a lot of instrumentals).  This is also a failing of the album, in that when Meloy goofs up a word here or there it becomes incredibly obvious (like when he sings “share some please tea with me” instead of “share some greased tea with me” in “Everyday is Like Sunday”).

While I would give Meloy an “A” for effort, an “A” for coolness in choosing to cover Morrissey, and at least a “B-” for picking the right kind of songs to do acoustically, I’ve got to give him about a “C-” for his vocals.  Having not heard The Decemberists, I am curious now to see how well suited those same vocals are to Meloy’s own music, since they really don’t fit in with Morrisseys.  His performance almost sounds like it’s causing him physical pain at times to reach the notes he tries (but doesn’t quite manage) to reach.

Sadly, other than as a nostalgic tribute to Morrissey, this album just doesn’t quite succeed.  I enjoyed listening to it the first time, if only to hear another artist’s interpretation of Morrissey’s work.  But as a work in itself, I’m just not that impressed.  On a 1-10 scale, with 10 being “excellent”, “Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey” gets about a 5. 

admin music Colin Meloy, Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey, Decemberists, Morrissey, music, review

Being a night-owl, I was up late one evening when MTV2 ran an infomercial for this DVD set.  Remembering all the laughs I got from this series when it originally aired, I decided to buy the DVDs.  The best price I found at the time was on DeepDiscountDVD.com.  Now that it’s been out for a little while, you can probably do better through Amazon.com’s Marketplace (click the picture of the set at the left to visit their site and look at the pricing).

Today I sat through the entire 3-DVD set.  Many of the episodes I remember are here.  Some are not.  For instance, I thought “Frog Baseball” would be here.  It isn’t.  That’s the film that actually convinced MTV to do Beavis and Butt-head in the first place.  You’d have thought it would be on the first set.

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admin television beavis, butt-head, butthead, collection, contents, critique, DVD, episodes, evaluation, listing, mike judge, review, series

Having just dinged Southwest Specialty Foods, Inc.’s “Whoop Ass Chili Mix” for being neither “chili” nor “whoop ass” hot, I feel like I now owe it to them to tell you about one of their products I really DO love, which is their “Original Ass Kickin’ Habanero Popcorn“.  And at a retail price of $1.95 (plus shipping) for a bag, it’s not terribly expensive, either.

As you might be able to tell from the picture, this is a microwave popcorn like any you might buy at the grocery.  Unlike the ones you’d buy at the grocery, however, this one includes a moderate portion of habanero pepper to spice it up.

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admin Food ass kickin popcorn, ass kicking popcorn, critique, evaluation, hot popcorn, review, southwest specialty foods, spicy popcorn