Shins Album Review Drinking Game

I drink alcohol. I like alcohol. If a party is running low on alcohol, I make more alcohol. It tastes really good. Alcohol is a gift from God. Granted, back in My day, you drank either wine or grainy sand water… but even with all the different drinks out there today, wine is pretty special. However, I’m not too keen on drunkenness, so try to drink in moderation people. Some people might tell you that friends of Mine should be above reproach, and this is true, but drinking alcohol is not a sin. Drinking alcohol with little flakes of gold in it, however, that’s a sin.

That being said, it’s time for the Shins Album Review Drinking Game, the game where you have to drink a beer when you find any of the following in a Shins album review. The blogs are full of Shins album reviews now, and a lot of things from the list below can be found in those reviews, so if you want to stay above reproach, you might not want to play the Shins Album Review Drinking Game. Here we go!

01. If the Shins Album Review mentions Natalie Portman, Zach Braff, or The Garden State, drink 1 beer.

02. If the Shins Album Review mentions the 3 album old song “New Slang”, drink 1 beer.

03. If the Shins Album Review mentions some sort of embarrassment for liking the new album, drink 1 beer.

04. If the Shins Album Review uses any type of term that makes the band sound hugely popular or successful, such as “the indie darlings” or “giants”, drink 1 beer.

05. If the Shins Album Review wrestles with the possibility that the band is trying to sell more albums or sell out, drink 1 beer.

06. If the Shins Album Review references the band clearly trying to evolve on this album, drink 1 beer.

07. If the Shins Album Review mentions their possibly boring stage shows, drink 1 beer.

08. If the Shins Album Review compares the new album to their attempt to sound like some other artist other than themselves, drink 1 beer.

09. If the Shins Album Review mentions whether or not the author thinks this album will make their top 10 albums of the year list, drink 1 beer.

10. And finally, if the Shins Album Review ends by giving the album a cautiously positive review, drink 3 beers.

Special thanks goes to Stereogum for pointing the way to the hilarious blog post regarding the Pitchfork music review drinking game, that inspired this post. The new Shins album is great, Ms. Portman will love it, there’s nothing quite as good as “New Slang” on it, and it’s surprising how much I actually like what these indie giants are putting out, although they are clearly trying to sell as many albums as possible by evolving into more of a Weezer sound, if their concerts could be as wild as Weezer, they might be able to make some money, so all in all, the new album is actually pretty good but it’s no Grizzly Bear or TV On the Radio, and it won’t be nearly as high as those two albums on My top 10 albums of 2006.

Skin Deep

I made you look the way you do on purpose. Unique is beauty. If I wanted everything to look the same, I wouldn’t have made so many insects. If you want to look your best, just stay healthy. I take care of flowers and I’ll take care of you.



(thanks BWE)

Musings

Throwing your way some random thoughts and links you might find interesting.

First of all, if you have the time, head over to Good Weather For Airstrikes and download anything you can find on their blog. They currently have a live Maximo Park show that's impressive and quite possibly the best B-Side of 2006.

Apparently, the Force is the tool of Satan, which I guess could be argued but I'd rather it not be.

If you like taking My words out of context, then head on over to the humorus God Hates Shimp website.

Thanks to the neato website DataWhat, they pointed out that you can buy milk at Amazon.com, now. Not only that, but it has over 700 reviews! Most of the reviews are comedy gold, such as "this milk was so good, I passed out."

How cool would Jericho be if the civilization slowly deteriorated into post apocalyptic Road Warrior, and Skeet Ulrich became a Mad Max-like character?

I recently saw a bumper sticker that said “God is Pro-Life.” I don’t recall mentioning My thoughts on the abortion debate. Please stick to quoting Me only when it's actually a quote and not a guess. For the record, Stereogum is Anti-Asian.

Awhile back, I posted My favorite Taco Bell condiment packets. If that's the sort of stuff you're into, and I'd argue that most people are, then head on over to The Condiment Packet Museum website!

Here's a blog regarding the end of the world oddly named Signs of Witness. Read it and freak yourself out. It's sooner than you'd think so keep your shoes by your bed.

For further proof that a lot of people who love Me are totally crazy, check out the site entitled "Was Jesus Christ A Christian?" Make sure you have your volume turned off and enjoy the coolest mouse arrow effects since the computer people figured out how to give the arrow a shadow. This site is scarier than the above End Of The World site.

The above image of Me is by the artist Luc Freymanc. He's good.

Some guy who say he loves Me says that I hate bloggers. Be sure to check out God Hates Blogs and be offended and then please feel free to take two steps back from Me.

And finally, what's a Jesus post without a youtube link? Nothing says "Hey Google, Don't screw up our Youtube" quite like this video of Conor Oberst karaokeing with some little girls to the song YMCA in a driveway.

I am totally head over heels in love with you.

Fill 'er Up

I hope your life is fulfilling. I have made it so it can be. Try to do something today that you will brag about with your grandkids. They're closer than you'd think. Watch the below video for inspiration, then do something with today.

Trick Questions And Bad Juice

Could I create a rock so large I couldn’t move it? This is the sort of question that really has no bearing over if one wants to be in a friendship with Me as much as the question is said to be playful or annoying. I call these “Jesus Smart-Alecky” questions, and I get them all the time.

Another common Jesus Smart-Alecky question I hear said about My rules is regarding if one was in a situation where one rule must be broken in order to follow another one of the rules. For example, what if your parents asked you to murder somebody? You’ve been told that I want you to obey your parents, but you also know that I don’t want you to murder. Now what?

The answer is simple. I don’t want you around sin. If your parents are trying to get you to sin, try to honor them in a way that doesn’t include sinning.

For example, “Hey son, kill our neighbor.” “No, dad. Meet this psychologist I hired for you.” “No, son, I’d rather you not hire a psychologist for me and instead kill our neighbor.” “I know you do, dad, but I don’t think I should break the law for you, even though I love you, so instead I hired this psychologist with my past two summers of lawn mowing money.” “Up yours, son.” “Sorry dad, I love you too much to let you through your life and mine down the toilet.” “Well, shoot.”

If you have a friend that tells you that they think I am telling them to break one of My commandments, they are probably lying in order to do something they really want to do. For example, some people will argue that getting drunk helps them share about their relationship with Me to their friends who also like to get drunk. I would never ask somebody to sin in order to talk about Me. They just want to get crunked up.

Here’s another toughie some people throw at Me. What if you were alive and in living in Germany during World War II and you were hiding some Jewish people in the basement, when all of the sudden, some Nazis knocked on the door and said “Have you seen any Jews around here? We are looking to round some up and murder them.”

Now, I don’t like people lying and I like it when you obey your government, but I also don’t like murder too much either. So, what’s the right thing to do here?

You lie right in the face of those Nazis! Either way you would end up in trouble, so pick the option that you’d think is the more righteous one. Play your cards right, and I’ll not only forgive your decision, I’ll probably even bless it enough to get you out of that mess.

The government wanted to kill Me, too, you know. And that ended up pretty good. Well, maybe not for Judas, but for the most part, I’d argue that humanity is much better off for it. The government also went after Moses, and that turned out alright, too. I’m not as fundamental as some might argue. Not to brag, but Me and the gang healed on Sundays you know.

That being said, I tripped across one of the freakier things I’ve found on the web lately. It’s an audio recording of the last 45 minutes of the sermon given by Jim Jones before he lead his congregation to mass suicide. This recording is fascinating and absolutely terrifying. A lot of horrendous things have been done in My name, and honestly this doesn’t even make the top 10… but it’s up there. So, just for the record, I would never lead a person to suicide. If you are hearing voices telling you that you should try to talk a large group of people into killing themselves, that voice ain’t Me. If you don’t know much about the Jonestown cult that lead to mass suicide, read up via its very own wiki!

The Reverend Jim Jones – Last Jonestown Sermon Death Tape.mp3
(mp3 brought to you via archive.org because EZarchive is a thorn in My head)

The Brian Jonestown Massacre – The Ballad of Jim Jones.mp3

So here’s My Jesus Smart-Alecky question for you… you wanna be in a friendship with Me and change the world together, or are you going to use some lame excuse to justify why I’m not real just so you don’t have to accept that fact that you’re screwed up and I’m the only think that can save your sorry soul?

Tarako!

Tarako! God bless youtube! I know everything, so this above video makes perfect sense to Me... but for some of you, this is really going to freak you out. Tarako! I am in love with this clip to the point where I might go back and add this into one of My parables. If you can think of a way to make this fit into some sort of moral lesson about how I love you, please feel free to help Me out... not that I need your help, I just like to include you. Tarako!

Look At Me With Starry Eyes

OK, let’s say you’re at the mall with your 5 year old sister. Maybe you have a sister, maybe not, but for this scenario, you do in fact have a sister and she is 5 years old. The two of you are walking around the mall, just kinda killing time, and to both of your surprise, you notice there is a woman leaning against the wall, wearing some low riding jeans and a bra… and that’s it. She’s just standing there, leaning down a little, looking totally bored and nonchalant, but is wearing nothing but jeans and a bra. She’s pretty good looking, she had a nice figure, and she seems clearly comfortable enough in her skin to be hanging out in the mall without a shirt.

Now, let’s say you and your sister are a little surprised at this, but you really don’t want to make a commotion about this, so you just sort of try not to make eye contact and lead your sister further down the mall and past this uniquely dressed woman. Once you get out of ear shot, your sister asks you “why did that woman not have a shirt on?” At which you reply that you have absolutely no idea.

Would you agree that if this situation were to actually occur, somebody would probably end up telling somebody else about this and eventually some sort of mall security would walk up to this woman and politely ask her to either put on a shirt or she would have to leave the premises? This makes sense, right? Her being partially unclothed definitely makes this shopping experience more awkward for you and your sister, and it is probably doing the same for many other people as they walk pass her.

However, now let’s say that right before the scantily clothed woman left the mall, and employee ran out of the store where she was leaning against, and this person quickly asked if they could take a photograph of her. She complies and this employee gets a picture of her leaning toward the camera and smiling. Then this employee takes this photo down to Walgreens, blows it up to be about 7 feet by 4 feet, and puts this now giant photo of a woman in a bra in the window of the store they work at, which is Gap Body. So, here’s the question… what’s the difference between a woman standing at the mall in her underwear and a giant poster of the same exact image?

Regarding your 5 year old sister, was your first instinct to protect her from seeing a woman in a bra? And if so, why? She, too, will one day be a bra wearing lady. May as well get comfortable with the idea now. Or maybe she is too young to have to think about that. If so, when would be a time to wrestle with that and why wait?

I like it when people try to be pure. What do you think about that? Perhaps it’s impossible to be pure and a little bit of impurity makes one more well rounded? Do you try to be pure? Do you go out of your way to protect yourself from becoming less pure? Do you know anybody that you would consider to be a pretty pure person, and would you consider that this trait has been good or bad for that person?

You are at the beach, reading a book next to your wife. A gorgeous girl in a bikini walks by as you nonchalantly look up from your book. You notice that she seems really “well made”. That is holy. That is righteous. She was well made. I spent a lot of time making her just right, and you should stare in awe of My creation. However, it’s what you do with that image of her, now floating in your mind, that makes all the difference. I made beautiful women, and I think you’d agree that I’m pretty good at it. I hope you enjoy them. I hope you can see Me through them.

The Lightning Seeds - Pure.mp3

The Western Desert Lives And Breathes

I’d argue that Midnight Oil is one of the more underrated bands of the past 20 years. You want to argue Me, do ya? Feel free, argue with God’s kid. What’s another year of purgatory? It’s probably not too bad, right? Or maybe you agree, Midnight Oil deserved more props that the world gave them. Or perhaps they don’t need praise from man, which is fleeting at best, and it is only heavenly praise they seek… well, fine. I praise Midnight Oil. They were really good. Below is some mp3’s of an acoustic show from back in 1993. It’s worth the download just for the rant alone Peter Garrett shares with the audience at the end of the “Sell My Soul” track. Right after the song, he starts the unintelligible conversation with the following…

“Well, thank you very much. I think it’s probably the ultimate test, you know really, for people who’ve grown up with the idea that any sort of alternative of presenting yourself as a method as subtlety or art is to make it bigger or louder than anybody can.”

Couldn’t have said it better Myself. Enjoy this great show, from back in the days when shows like this were called “unplugged”.

Midnight Oil – Acoustic in 1993

01 Feeding Frenzy
02 The Dead Heart
03 My Country
04 Blue Sky Mine
05 Sell My Soul
06 Truganini (UPDATE: Track fixed, take that EZArchive!)
07 Warakurna
08 Short Memory
09 Beds Are Burning
10 Earth And Sun And Moon

Now, I know your every little thought (yeah), and therefore I happen to know that many of you, when you hear the classic Midnight Oil track “Beds Are Burning”, like to picture that song being a soundtrack for the Autobots and the Decepticons fighting in an epic Transformer battle. Well, now, thanks again to youtube, your dreams have become a reality. I hope you enjoy the below video. Try to quit thinking about sex so much.

GW and Me

I love photoshop. This cracked Me up. Sad but true, I actually was there for a lot of these pictures, but the real Me is a little more buff... being a carpenter and all (not the band, smarty pants). George W. Bush and Jesus Christ, we make quite a pair, don't we?