Yacht Rock 2011 Announced

Yacht Rock 2011 has been announced. Get your calendars in order. This year's Yacht Rock party is set for this coming Monday. The musical guest will be Ambrosia and they'll sing their classic "Biggest Part of Me". In case this song isn't familiar, this might help: the song should be titled "Make a Wish, Babay".

Here's a preview. Or something to play while you get your Captain's hat and blue blazer out of storage.

NTYCTWD 2K11

Today was National Take Your Child to Work Day 2011. I enjoyed it but I feel the name should be changed to the more accurate "National Torture Your Child Day". Maybe that's too accurate. Maybe "National Bore Your Child to Death Day".

When I was a kid my parents showed me around where they work and introduced me to their coworkers. It was fun and fascinating. Even if your parents have the most boring job in the world it seems exciting and important. At one point my dad worked for a printing company and I got to see the giant printing press with gears and levers and it was cool. But it was a visit. It was a tour. It was a look around. I was there for about a half hour... maybe 45 minutes. Tops. Do you have any idea how long an 8 hour work day is when you're a kid? You're a little kid and you spend 8 hours sitting in a chair staring at a cubicle wall. That's TORTURE. That's the adult equivalent of 3 days in a desensitization chamber. And that's illegal! Even I'M watching the clock in that cubicaled, fluorescent light environment and I'm an adult and I've got something to do... And I'm getting paid to be there.

Poor kids.

I Would Do Anything For Lunch

Meatloaf, fresh off his trip into the dark abyss of arts-and-crafts-induced insanity, rises like a bat out of hell and joins Jimmy for a rousing tribute to Bagel Bites.

Soak in the passion:

You might remember these commercials (among others referenced). The song STILL gets stuck in my head.

Everlong

Anything more needed?

Well, in a web-only, exclusive clip, the Foo Fighters perform their hit "Everlong" with a special introduction from Dave. It's a very special episode.

[Original Link is Broken, Replacing with a Youtube Playlist]

Youtube Playlist.

Did you notice that the name of the band on Taylor's bass drum is in the "Beatles" font? I did. Turns out that is was specially done for the "Live on Letterman" webcast. You can watch that here. They play their new album in its entirety for the first hour. But you can skip to the 50:00 mark for all the classic hits.

RIP Fred (2002 - 2010)

In the Summer of 2002, I was working a Spring/Summer Co-Op in which I was paid to do nothing. I, of course, didn't actually do "nothing" - and so I should say that I was paid to drink free soda and surf the internet for 8 hours per day exactly. No overtime! If I wanted to surf the web for more than 8 hours per day, I had to do it on my own time! Actually I don't know, I could probably have stayed longer, shipped a few more "units" but I'm not a human dynamo and it's the Summer and I got friends to hang out with.

My personal PC of the time (the Gateway GP6-233), an Intel Pentium II with a 233 MHz processor, was beginning to feel old and with a steady stream of money and plenty of time on my hands I got the particular type of fever for which there is one cure: a new computer.

I threw my self headlong into research, finding that Intel had recently re-asserted superiority and the new Pentium 4s were faster than the latest AMDs. The fastest type of RAM? RDRAM. The best ROM? DVD-RW - but hold on there, I don't need THAT much awesome power, the 16x/48x DVD-ROM is just fine for me (albeit with a 40x/12x/48x CDRW). The 2.6 GHz processor was just about to be released and so, in a shrewd business move, I decided to wait for that release, and buy the no-longer-cutting-edge 2.4 GHz model for cheaper.

And then it was just a waiting game.

Finally, on September 5th 2002 I purchased the Gateway 700S:

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz with 533 MHz Front-Side Bus.

RAM: 512 MB RDRAM (800 MHz)

HD: 120 GB (I'll NEVER use that much memory!)

Video Card: 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 4 (with TV Out)

Disk Drive: 3.5" 1.44MB

Modem: 56K PCI Voice Modem (ooh, fast!)

Total Price: $1,544.00.

After years of enjoyment, all good things must come to an end. Recently the C: drive failed and became totally unusable, rendering the computer (arguably) dead. I mean, if I put another drive in, it would still be working today but I think it was time to let go. But I should say that it speaks well for the oft-dissed Gateway brand. Due to my participation in distributed computing projects, I can honestly say that I had a Gateway computer running at 100% CPU capacity for 24 hours per day, 7 days a week for 8 YEARS and the first thing to fail was the hard drive. You don't get stress tests like that every day.

The computer, Fred, made it from Sim City 3000 to Sim City 4... from Warcraft 2 to World of Warcraft...from dialup to DSL.... Windows 98 to XP... countless all-nighters for college... and probably most importantly - all the fun days of the internet(messageboards, instant messaging, file-sharing, MP3s. MIDI files, Windows "Themes", WinAmp Skins, and on and on).

[Pictured: Fred Desktop Screenshot Circa 2000-Something]

'Dance Avenue' Out on DVD

Jimmy's excited that the "Soul Train" clone "Dance Avenue" is finally being released on a DVD boxset. Somehow Questlove seems to know everything about music and yet, for some reason, he's never heard of "Dance Avenue". I don't get it. It's weird.

Here's a funky, funky dance down memory lane:

Conan Lumbergh

Conan explores the Office space and has conversations with staffers' parents in order to gain valuable advice as to how to improve the show.

If you want advice to help you improve a show, why go to the parents of your employees? I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

Fun Fun Fun Fun

This week "Late Night" and Stephen Colbert did a cross-show promotion in order to raise money for charity. The end result of this was that Colbert had to sing Rebecca Black's biggest hit "Friday".

With backing from The Roots, he did just that:

The previous night the following dialogue took place on the show as Jimmy announced how much money they had raised:

Jimmy: $50,000!

Announcer Steve Higgins: You could buy a lot of Soul Patrol sweatshirts with that.

Jimmy: Yeah, you could- you could- I lost a lot of money; you made me invest in Soul Patrol sweatshirts.

Higgins: Yes.

Jimmy: Taylor- Taylor Hicks.

Higgins: Taylor Hicks... Soul Patrol... you gotta remember they're hyper--

Jimmy: Hypercolor sweatshirts that they don't make anymore.

Higgins: Yeah. But--

Jimmy: You made me lose a lot of money.

Higgins: The money's still there! That's an investment. In the future. Soul Patrol.

Jimmy: Taylor Hicks is- is- he's a great talent, I love that guy--

Higgins: What about the Sanjaya hair clips? And hair extensions?

Jimmy: I lost a lot of money.

Higgins: That's like money in the bank.

And you'll find in the "Friday" performance Jimmy is wearing a Hypercolor Soul Patrol sweatshirt.