Recent Articles and Reviews

The Urge: Receiving the Gift of Flavor

Information: 
The quintessential album of a band that never quite made it.

Receiving the Gift of Flavor Album Cover

Overview

The Urge was a St. Louis-based Rock/Punk/Ska band that started making noise in 1989, but didn’t really hit their big acclaim until the mid ’90s. While their most commercially-successful single was easily “Jump Right In” (man, that video is terrible) from Master of Styles, their most complete and consistent album, at least in my opinion, is Receiving the Gift of Flavor.

The Good: 
Dark, soulful sound of Steve Ewing, a killer horn section, and surprisingly good musical composition.
The Bad: 
Live 'party' songs don't jive well with home-listening; some shaky mastering; the band is not around anymore!
Conclusion: 
I can't give this album any more rating than I have, simply because of the rough edges - but the innovation alone carries it far.
Rating (out of 10): 
7.5

Death at a Funeral

Information: 
Frank Oz's 2007 British Dark Comedy

Death at a Funeral Poster

This weekend my fiancée and I took a trip to Houston to meet with some friends. While there we decided to partake in a movie, and found ourselves, simply by the nature of timing, buying tickets for Death at a Funeral.

Synopsis

The Good: 
Belly-Busting Humor. Lots of Gags. Like-able Characters
The Bad: 
Somewhat Predictable. Over-the-top at times. Elderly Poop.
Conclusion: 
Definitely worth the price of a ticket. Smarter than your run-of-the-mill Summer 'blockbuster' or 'shock comedy'.
Rating (out of 10): 
8

Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight

Information: 
Linkin Park's 2007 Rock Return

Overview

The Good: 
This is not a corporate-driven rehashing; the music is new, inspired, and a totally different direction for LP.
The Bad: 
The good is very good, but some of the music on the album takes a very bland turn. Also, as with almost all of their albums, it's pretty short.
Conclusion: 
Well worth the $9.99 Best Buy will charge you; as usual, be discriminating about your music purchases - don't feed the machine if you don't have to.
Rating (out of 10): 
7.5

Tuning Drupal for a Weblog

Choosing Drupal (or another similar technology such as Joomla) for producing a community managed website is generally a fairly easy process. Content management systems have become so mature and configurable that there is little they can’t do when it comes to a content-oriented presence.

ThinkGeek.com Annoy-A-Tron

Information: 
$9.99 for Endless Hilarity

Annoy-a-tron

Recently, I went out to ThinkGeek.com and bought two of their Annoy-A-Tron gadgets for hiding in unsuspecting co-workers cubicles.

The Annoy-A-Tron is an extremely effective clandestine device for infuriating co-workers, friends, and family alike. Aside from the subtle, yet thoroughly obnoxious noises that this little slip of silicon produces, you also get the enjoyment of participating in a covert-op to install the gadget in the victim’s workspace.

The Good: 
Annoying co-workers, no discernable evidence, spooky looking techno-gadget, cheap.
The Bad: 
Not many options, still a little big.
Conclusion: 
At $9.95 a piece, these are well worth the price of admission.
Rating (out of 10): 
9

The Original Northwood Pentium 4

Information: 
Made by Intel - Also known as the Northwood

Hi, my name is R.J. Lorimer, and I own a 2.66GHz Northwood Pentium IV.

“Hi R.J.”.

Bad AA jokes aside, I want to review one of the most disappointing computers I have ever bought, my last desktop before my new 3GHZ Core 2 Duo. My Northwood almost pushed me away from Intel for good.

The Good: 
It's prevalent, parts are *still* available, and it was relatively fast for the price.
The Bad: 
Umm... third degree burns?
Conclusion: 
This thing is so hot, I'm surprised the earth doesn't start revolving around my Antec case.
Rating (out of 10): 
3.5