While the album leak is noteworthy, what is perhaps more interesting is Daft Punk’s reaction to their own album: they say it sucks. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have called Random Access Memories the Scream 4 of sequels (if you aren’t familiar with Scream 4, it is not a flattering comparison).

Bangalter continues, “The thing we can ask ourselves at some point is like: We’re making music for twenty years. How many bands and acts do you have that are still making good music after twenty years? It always sucks—almost always, you know?”

“So our new album is supposed to really suck,” concludes Homem-Christo.

Why is Daft Punk dissing their own album? I’ve listened to it a number of times and while it doesn’t reflect the same force and passion that their earlier work does, it is far from sucking. At worst, I’d label it mediocre and even that is difficult given that there are at least a couple very solid tracks (I’ve caught myself singing them to myself more than a few times).

Is Daft Punk’s stance some form of reverse hype? As they say, any publicity is good publicity and Daft Punk will definitely attract more attention by saying their album is bad than they would if they said it is good.

A large part of me hopes that the leak itself is a publicity stunt: Daft Punk leaks a mediocre album themselves and then — just when people are thinking “this is it?” — blows everyone away by releasing the actual, epic album. Although it would be an amazing troll, I’m not holding my breath.

Neither is TriceraHOPS, “The uber collaborated effort covers one’s ass when it comes to being held accountable for fully original content.  Regardless, I think the new stuff will slide in smoothly to the mega stacked catalog when it comes to live shows. The follow up release, albeit awesome, is fairly unlikely.  The quote that stands true, ‘Daft Punk hasn’t been the same since Disney bought them.’”

Daft Punk fans can take solace in the fact that there are already rumors that the band is planning to remix Random Access Memories to give it more of a “Daft” feeling.  Numerous other artists have already made their own remixes available.

I wonder if any of those were a result of a…dead…mouse?

You can get the full version of the film on DVD or for iTunes at Sherpas Cinema.

Running from March 8, 1993, to November 28, 1997 on MTV, the original Beavis and Butt-head episodes won a cult following with its off color humor, profligate farting, complete lack of intelligence, and (frequently scathing) music video reviews.

MTV has released a preview of the first episode, Holy Cornholio (see below), which it describes as “the bold new standard by which all of television will be judged,” saying that “MTV’s first foray into Emmy territory is a remarkable one.”

Beavis and Butt-head are up to their usual shenanigans in the preview scenes from the new episode that have been released.  In one scene, Beavis has screwed any army man to his hand and Butt-head springs to the rescue with a screw gun:  ”Settle down Beavis, okay this is gonna like hurt you alot more than it’s gonna hurt me”.  In the misguided attempt to extract the screw, Butt-head instead screws it in further.  A hilarious trip to the hospital ensues.  Check out the full preview below:

The preview is only about 5 minutes long and just leaves me wanting more. Unfortunately, I guess I will have to wait until next week. In the meantime, here are the Beavis and Butthead Top Five Music Videos for those who need more:

Psilocybe mexicana is one of over 200 species of mushroom in which psilocybin can be found.

The study measured personality changes in 51 participants who were given high does of the hallucinogen psilocybin.  Better known to many as “Magic Mushrooms,” psilocybin is a compound that occurs naturally  in varying concentrations in over 200 species of Basidiomycota mushrooms.  Documentation of human usage goes back thousands of years and includes Mayan depictions of ceremonies involving hallucinogens, rock art in the Spanish village of Vilar del Humo that was created over 6,000 years ago offers evidence that Psilocybe hispanica was used in religious rituals, and murals dating from 7000 to 9000 BCE have been found in the Sahara desert in southeast Algeria and  suggest prehistoric usage of psilocybin mushrooms.

Hallucinogens, including psilocybin, were often used in shamanistic cultures where shamans or similar leaders would ingest them to engage in spirit quests that would offer glimpses of the culture’s gods and provide insight into its history and future.

For a substance that has been featured with such prominence throughout human history, we know very little about it.  The Johns Hopkins study is a start, but it’s conclusions — e.g. participants in the study who displayed showed measurable personal changes all reported having ”mystical experience[s]” — are far from groundbreaking;  many college students or Phish followers would likely report similar findings (albeit, perhaps not as scientifically:  ”Dude, you see all these colors and things moving and it makes you feel like, you know, how amazing the world is and how interconnected everything is, but that we’re, like, pretty insignificant.”).

Hopefully the John’s Hopkin’s study will fuel further inquiry into hallucinogens and people respond to them.  An except from the study is included below as well as a link to the full summary:

A single high dose of the hallucinogen psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called “magic mushrooms,” was enough to bring about a measureable personality change lasting at least a year in nearly 60 percent of the 51 participants in a new study, according to the Johns Hopkins researchers who conducted it.

Lasting change was found in the part of the personality known as openness, which includes traits related to imagination, aesthetics, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness. Changes in these traits, measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory, were larger in magnitude than changes typically observed in healthy adults over decades of life experiences, the scientists say. Researchers in the field say that after the age of 30, personality doesn’t usually change significantly.

“Normally, if anything, openness tends to decrease as people get older,” says study leader Roland R. Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The research, approved by Johns Hopkins’ Institutional Review Board, was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

The study participants completed two to five eight-hour drug sessions, with consecutive sessions separated by at least three weeks. Participants were informed they would receive a “moderate or high dose” of psilocybin during one of their drug sessions, but neither they nor the session monitors knew when

Lasting change was found in the part of the personality known as openness, which includes traits related to imagination, aesthetics, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness. Changes in these traits, measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory, were larger in magnitude than changes typically observed in healthy adults over decades of life experiences, the scientists say. Researchers in the field say that after the age of 30, personality doesn’t usually change significantly.

“Normally, if anything, openness tends to decrease as people get older,” says study leader Roland R. Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The research, approved by Johns Hopkins’ Institutional Review Board, was funded in part by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

The study participants completed two to five eight-hour drug sessions, with consecutive sessions separated by at least three weeks. Participants were informed they would receive a “moderate or high dose” of psilocybin during one of their drug sessions, but neither they nor the session monitors knew when.

Full summary here.

I was considering recently that as automatic electronic payments on smartphones, ipads etc. become more prevalent, and paper money and coins slowly go the way of the dodo, how the tipping habits of customers in establishments where gratuities aren’t necessarily standard will be affected. For instance, it’s not commonplace to tip in places like pizza joints, Subways, delis, etc. If you’re paying for a slice or a juice box on a credit card, I’d venture to say that it almost never happens. But what is commonplace in these establishments is for cash paying customers to drop their change into the TIP JAR, if for no other reason than because they don’t want change they will most likely lose jangling around in their pockets. But it’s also a nice gesture – instead of feeding them to your living room sofa, why not give these soon-to-be-lost coins to some poor immigrant working on minimum wage who just provided you with a needed service?

Furthermore, doing so combats a sort of arbitrary imbalance in the world of quotidian tipping. If you’re supposed to tip a bartender for opening a bottle top for you, it seems slightly unfair to me that the sandwich maker assembling your sub at Subway doesn’t deserve a gratuity for their services. I’m compelled to draw this even further and submit that my enjoyment of a Subway sandwich is more dependent upon a capable employee, than my enjoyment of a beer or a whiskey is determined by a proficient barkeep. A skillful oil-and-vinegar-ing of my tuna on honey-wheat footlong determines the product quality much more so than does the way in which a bartender twists off my Miller Lite cap. I can, however, appreciate that if you’re an Old Fashioned or martini drinker, the way in which these drinks are prepared is at the crux of your ability to enjoy the beverage. Breaking it down to a more micro-economic level, the tip (and the implicit understanding that the customer can over, under or even not tip depending on the quality of service) is designed to ensure high quality products and services at bars and other establishments. Customers will continue to patronize these high quality establishments, which enable them to stay in business and pay their employees, who – in turn – continue to make proper Old Fashioneds and martinis during work hours and pump money back into their local economy during their free time. And so we carry on and avoid turning into the Soviet Union and everyone is happy and so on and so forth.

Now I’m not a Subway menu adventurer, but I’d imagine that if I were to order, say, the new BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich a proper layering, heating, and application of the bbq sauce would greatly determine the outcome of the sandwich. As much as a tyro bartender can fuck up a martini?–I don’t know. But while they are still around, let’s continue to drop those unwanted 7 cents into the tip jar.

PS i also wonder how a decrease in the use of change and the near extinction of payphones will affect homeless persons revenue from pulling stuck and loose quarters out of city payphone deposit slots.

A quick recap by way of keywords (because I know all you kids hate reading): Fat Mom, Subway Seat Refusal, Mace, “Where the Baby?”, Fight. Done deal. Another instant internet classic brought to you by the folks at Mostly Toasty.

But this got me thinking about the proper rules and codes of conduct in any mass transit situation. There needs to be a freaking manual titled: “How to not ride the Subway like a retard” printed out and given to every mouth-breathing mongoloid that I share a train with every day.

Here are 5 absolutely crucial rules that I’ve come up with, as a jumping off point:

1.) You should give your seat to very old and young, injured, or pregnant people, and that’s it.
The lady in the above video wanted a seat solely because she shot something out of her vagine. The kid’s sitting down, so I’m with the lady in white: go fuck yourself. As for the whole “chivalry” nonsense, I’m all for holding doors and whatnot but listen ladies, equality is equality. Do you want a seat, or do you want rights? Enough of this having your cake, so to speak.

2.) Wait until everyone that is getting off the train has exited, before you try and enter.
Oh man, these people kill me. Whats the motivation here? You know who is the worst offender of this? Little Asian ladies, hands down. Listen toots, whatever disgusting thing that you purchased in your specialty store on Canal St isn’t going to dry out any more, settle down and be courteous to your fellow human beings. Jeez, didn’t these people invent the practice of meditation?

3.) Wait until the train has stopped to position yourself by the door.
Similar idea. Are you afraid that that you will miss your stop? I’m sorry, but if I’m standing up, reading, I like to have a hand on something that will keep me from stumbling onto other passengers when the train stops, so no, I won’t move my arm for you.

4.) If the train is crowded, move all the way in.
Morning trains are always the worst for this. Some sassy fat bitch parks her ass right by a subway pole, and refuses to move. Thus creating a logjam at the door that she’s closest to. Stop doing this.

5.) If you don’t have headphones, don’t play music.
If I see one more Boost Mobile subscriber playing their latest crappy mixtape out loud through their cell phone, I’m going to freak out. Although, I did bond with an older gentleman over the prodigious 36 Chambers-era Wu Tang Videos. (Me: They were so good. Him: Right?)

Anyway, this is just the beginning. What else am I missing?

You’re welcome MTA patrons.

Addendum:
6.) Don’t stand in front of doors on the side where they open.
This one is pretty self explanatory. Who wants to squeeze by someone to get on or off the train? It disrupts the flow. On crowded trains, this cannot always be avoided, but when I see people doing it on empty trains, it’s really annoying. Move 5 ft and make everyone’s life better.

Little Bastard

(via Fazed)