BANANA GRABBERS DOT COM

Social networking is everywhere, so I shouldn’t be too surprised that Netflix has such a network built into their site.  But I am.  I’m giving it a shot, even though my queue is already much too long.

Want to be my friend?  Click here.

Like last year, I decided to browse the past year of photos on my Flickr page and build a set of my favorites. Unlike last year, it was an even longer task this go-round: I scanned close to 400 Flickr pages over the course of 2 weeks. In the future, I should probably start building this set as the year goes on, eh?

There are 106 photos, plus the mosaic above. You can view them here, or as a slideshow here. There are a lot of friends, and a lot of Phillies. I’m sure both are self-explanatory.

Enjoy, and let me know if I omitted anything you particularly liked this past year.

Dear readers of BANANA GRABBERS DOT COM:

Today, I present you with a difficult question. Look at the album cover above. Does it belong to:

a. Beck
b. The Black Keys
c. Lil Wayne
d. Barbra Streisand

Answer in the comments!

Courtesy of The Continental Review, here’s a video by John L. Roberts, featuring a poem by friend of BANANA GRABBERS DOT COM Michelle Taransky.

Rivers Cuomo recently participated in Stereogum’s Decomposed series, which invites artists to play some tunes in a stripped down setting. While this usually involves acoustic guitars, Cuomo mixes it up a bit — his three Decomposed videos include an a capella group, a flautist, a pianist and Jermaine Dupri.

The site has three videos up, all cuts from Cuomo’s recently released demo compilation Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo, which I posted about a few weeks ago. The three performances are:

• Can’t Stop Partying
• Don’t Worry Baby
• I Was Scared

If external links scare you, or you’re just not sold, try this:

At last night’s party, BANANA GRABBERS DOT COM pal Jamie-Lee brought a disc of Christmas tunes titled “A Very Jossie Christmas.” The disc featured a lot of Streisand (a favorite of hers), and led off with Babs’ tune “Jingle Bells?” No, I’m not really sure why it’s a question.

Anyways, many of Seth’s guests were enamored/disgusted with the song, which was played (quite literally) dozens of times. The song, which features a mostly quick run-through of the Christmas staple, is pretty amusing and interesting. I had several conversations where I mentioned I want to manipulate the song’s speed even more than Streisand herself did. Several of these people thought I was joking.

I was not.

Before I get to the “remixes,” listen to the original if you’ve never heard the song:

The joke in the room is that Barbra was on cocaine while recording the song. But, that’s probably not true. But what if she was? Check out “Jingle Bells (Cocaine Remix)”:

Now, considering the song is a much quicker version of the standard tune, I was more interested in slowing it down. What if Babs had chugged a lot of NyQuil before recording? Find out by listening to “Jingle Bells (NyQuil Remix)”:

That’s pretty slow. But not slow enough. I wanted to hear a real slog. I wanted Streisand in an experimental phase. Aphex Twin Streisand, if you will. Take a listen to “Jingle Bells (Funeral Dirge Remix)”:

If you enjoyed any of those so much that you want to have a copy, you can download them:

Jingle Bells (Cocaine Remix)
Jingle Bells (NyQuil Remix)
Jingle Bells (Funeral Dirge Remix)

On Friday night, my pal Seth and I went to 40th and Lancaster to pick-up a Christmas tree for Seth’s apartment. Seth then had a bunch of people over (including Arielle Brousse, above) last night to decorate his very first Christmas tree. For the record, I classed it up with a Phillies World Series ornament.

I took some a ton of photos last night, since Seth indulged us with some performances that begged for the speed shutter setting on my camera — namely, an egg nog chug, a cranberry toss and a caramel toss. You can view the photos here, or by clicking the image above.

I’ll be posting about this party again soon, as I left Seth’s home with an audio project on my plate. So, more to come…

Something I’ve been getting a kick out of all month long: Hulu for the Holidays. First: I love Hulu. Seriously. I’m there every day to catch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and the site even allows me to pick at the bones of Saturday Night Live, which is the only thing worth doing with that show these days.

Hulu for the Holidays is allegedly some sort of holiday treat. Each day, the site unveils some new programming, feature film or site feature. Thus far, we’ve been treated to: CNBC programming, a buffer progress bar and Fatal Attraction, among other things. Happy holidays, folks!

I’m amazed, impressed and amused that they’ve avoided the typical holiday junk for … a different kind of junk entirely! I suppose that’s truly what the holidays are all about. The best part of all this is that there are ten more days of “treats” awaiting us.

Just because.