Hipster Christmas: Coachella 2012 Lineup Announced! 9:46 PM

It's 2012, the sky is blue, Nick Saban is covered in Gatorade, Coachella has announced this year's lineup (see below), and I'm already applying my sunscreen.  Good times.

I'd like to put a little more thought (not to mention humor) into this post, but the LSU-Bama rock fight I just watched beat it out of me.  But as a disclaimer, let me just say I'm not the type to instantly poo poo every festival lineup, and say things like "2006 was so much better", or "this doesn't compare to the year Arcade Fire headlined."  With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on this year's desert offering:

1. As always, there's plenty of good stuff -- certainly enough to keep one entertained all day long.  Here's my nerdy breakdown of the bands worth seeing on each of the three days.  Seriously check it out, I converted from Excel to Google Docs and everything.
2. When I said it's "enough to keep one entertained" I wasn't counting Friday.  I'm just one man, with one opinion, but Friday's lineup strikes me as extremely weak, if not horrible.  Granted, I'm not a Black Keys fan, but even if I throw you a bone and call them good, that leaves a murderers row of M83 (should be really cool, at least for a couple songs), Neon Indian (ditto), The Rapture (fun if they play at night), LA Riots (a dance band playing sometime around 2 in the afternoon), and that's about it.  I'm gonnna talk myself into GIRLS and The Horrors, but talk about a throw away Coachella day.  So glad we're still forced to buy 3-day passes.
3. Saturday is VERY STRONG.  Like "best Coachella day I can remember since they went to three days" strong.  The full list of bands I "Really Like" consists of Bon Iver, The Shins, Kaskade, Miike Snow(!), Feist, and SBTRKT.  Oh, and Radiohead is headlining.  Great bands, great variety, great Saturday.  I can hardly wait until Miike Snow, Bon Iver, and Feist are all playing at the same time, and I'm left missing two of them and furiously punching the shirtless douche in jorts standing a little too close.
4. Amazed at the billing given to Kaskade.
5. I could do w/out the obligatory rapper headliner--this year handled by Dr. Dre and Snoop.  Let's move on.
6. The rest of Sunday is pretty solid, with Justice, Florence and the Machine, La Roux and Calvin Harris being my personal must sees.  If memory serves, I closed out Coachella a couple years ago w/ CH and Justice back to back and couldn't have been happier.  I wouldn't mind a repeat in 2012.
7. Speaking of headliners, I'm bitter about whiffing on my Van Halen headlining prediction.
8. To recap, one epic day (Saturday), one epically bad day (Friday), and one good day (Sunday).  I'd call that par for the course. (Although, part of me wonders if filling the lineup was tougher this year given that bands had to commit to two straight weekends.  I suppose they could still fit in mid-week gigs in SF, Arizona, etc...  Someone look into this for me!)
9. That's all I've got.  Let's see if I actually sack up and buy tickets.  Good day.

Robyn doin' work 10:14 PM

Watch this:


Then watch this:

It's like she made that [super awesome!] video hoping it would be mocked.

Note to readers: the preceding dance is an integral portion of my typical morning routine..

Skechers redux 6:58 PM

It's nice to see Skechers is still two steps behind the competition.¹

It's nice to see I still regret passing on this investment opportunity.

It's nice to eagerly await their next release.  Stay tuned!

¹ Seriously, this company doesn't know what the fuck they're doing.
 

Quote of the day 9:31 AM

It's half a week old, but delightful enough to start a new one-time-only daily feature.  Enjoy:

"Mark Dantonio rides with the motherfucking devil on a motorcycle made of dynamite and tears." -- @edsbs

Wanna meet hot chicks? Join the Team! 7:54 PM

Wow, Team in Training¹ is really playing up the whole "this is a great way to snag a girlfriend (or boyfriend), and she's probably in shape!" angle with their current website banner. See below:

Sure, they probably could have chosen a non-ginger fist-pumping "stud", and the cyclist has that gross "cyclist arm"² thing going on.  But get a load of the sweaty, olive-skinned beauty in the center! Not only does she look like she just finished up a 10-mile jog through the back roads of my dreams (thus further sculpting her finely toned upper arms), but her lips look poised gently blow on the nape of my neck.  I'm in love.  Team in Training Lady, I don't know who you are, or where you've been all my life, but I want to train with you.  I want to donate to your cause.  I want to buy you shoes.  And roses.  And energy gels.  Run on.

¹ This is sophomoric, unoriginal, and beside the point (or is it?), but it bothers me to no end that Team In Traning uses the "acronym" TNT rather the more (i.e. totally) accurate TIT.  How is an acronym that conjures images of Al-Qaeda, Wile E. Coyote, and my dad's insurance agency more PC than a slang term for boob?  Ugh.
² I retract this statement if the cyclist in question is suffering (or has suffered) from cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, or any combination of the three.

Who knew?! 3:02 PM

Who knew the little triangle/arrow next to the gas pump icon actually serves a purpose?  Who knew it indicates on which side of the vehicle the gas cap resides?  Who knew I needed to dust my instrument panel (innuendo?) more often?

Things I will never purchase, Volume 1 3:53 PM

Whole Foods--you loveable bastards--you've done it again! The only thing more preposterous than buying almond butter for $16.99 is buying almond butter for $22.99.*

In unrelated news, I'm quitting my day job in order to focus on a drupe-related venture.

*As the grandson of an almond farmer it pains me to say this, but we now have an obvious candidate for Undeployed's first OVERappreciated Produce blog entry.

Separated at birth? 6:00 PM

So we have seen Mitt Romney and Rick Perry in one place. I was convinced they were the same person. If the Republican party could only combine them into Mick Permney they might have one viable candidate.  My worst case scenario?  The Permney twins split the "I'm only voting for a presidential looking, former governor, white male" vote; the door opens for Michelle "not all cultures are equal" Bachmann; the Democratic party is too busy laughing at the Republican nominee to actually cast their votes; Pantene Pro-V trucks line up for miles outside the White House; Sarah Palin refuses to have sex with me--in a dream.

The college-student-inspired savings plan 6:00 PM

As I approached my final semester at UC Berkeley--In effort to save money, and avoid the hassle of finding a residence for four measly months--I strongly considered¹ becoming homeless.  No, I was not going to panhandle on Telegraph, or "service" truckers along the 680.  But I was very much prepared to live (nay, enjoy!) the twilight of my college career lease-free.  I had it all mapped out:  I'd sleep in my architecture studio on the 6th floor of Wurster Hall, shower at the gym (I'd still pay the whopping $35/semester dues), mooch eat at the dining common that had employed me the previous three years, and use my Jeep Cherokee as a mobile storage locker/closet.  Foolproof, right?

In a surprise to no one, I wussed out, hitched up with the seedy underbelly of Berkeley that is the co-op system, and never looked back.  It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.  And if you want to get technical, living in the co-ops is about as close to being homeless as it gets for a Cal undergrad--unprotected sex and all!  Still, despite having the time of my life (and probably shortening it in the process), I wonder what might have been for that all-too-short semester.  Imagine the stories that would have come from living in a haunted chambers² of Wurster Hall.  And if you think my foot fungus is bad now, only God knows what 120-plus showers at the rec center would have done to my poor tootsies.  I'd probably have ended up like this guy.

Anyway...now that I'm becoming increasingly domesticated, it's unlikely that homelessness is anywhere near my immediate future.  Damn.  But that doesn't mean I'm not still one parsimonious sonofabitch.  There have to be ways we can buck convention and/or do without everyday niceties and conveniences to save a few bucks.  Let's take a look:

"Free" Internet at Starbucks - See image above for the quasi-inspiration to this post.  Every Starbucks has their own Free Internet Guy.  You know the type: mid-40s; not afraid to set up shop for hours on end (I swear I've seen someone doing their taxes); nursing the world's coldest small tall coffee; social pariah.  All to keep $40/month out of the hands of Time Warner.  I'm sure that most of the time Free Internet Guy is doing his thing to stave off the crippling sense of loneliness they feel during their hours of non-public browsing, but there have to be more than a few penny pinchers forcing their browsers upon the masses solely to save a couple bucks.  (As you can see from the calculation below, I fail to see how any actual cost savings is taking place.)

Potential savings:  ($40/mth x 12) - ($1.40 (after $0.10 reusable cup discount) x 365) - $6 (for reusable cup) = -$37.  Ok, we may need to rethink this one.
Downsides:  becoming a Starbucks "regular", porn sites blocked (Uh, I assume...), identity theft

Outdoor Workouts - It's ironic that the gym, while integral to my collegiate hobo plan, is now seen as eminently give-upable.  How give-upable, you ask?  Boom.  And I've never looked back.  Well, except every two weeks when I consider joining a gym...and every night when I pray that my boss will bless me with a monthly gym stipend.  Alas.

Potential savings:  $30~$150/mth x 12 = $360~$1800/yr
Downsides:  Cat calls³, melanoma, rain

Public Transit and the Library⁴ - Well, I just purchased a new car (a year, and one catalytic converter replacement, too late to take advantage of Cash for Clunkers--one of the shrewder personal finance decisions in recent memory), so I'm not about to ditch it.  That said, I find an excuse to join my Depend-sportin' brethren on Los Angeles' buses once every couple weeks (often much to my girlfriends chagrin). Maximum savings are derived from avoiding DWIs.

Ah, the library.  Finally something we can all get behind.  What's not to like?  Not only are books way overpriced (and eReaders--or at least their owners--oh so annoying), but is there anything more overrated than a bookshelf full of unread (or read, and now worthless) books.  You know what a book is good for once it's been read?  Donating to a library.  I've checked out a half-dozen trashy DVDs classical literary works from Santa Monica's LEED Certified, ultra-modern house of books over the past year, and it's a pleasure every time.  Good show, William Ewart.

Potential savings, public transit: $9641 (ave car ownership/yr) - $1008 ($84/mth  x 12) = $8633/yr(!)
Downsides, public transit: opportunity cost, hepatitis contraction, hangin' w/ this woman
Potential savings, library: 1 book/month x12 x$25 = $300/yr
Downsides, library: waitlists, overdue fines, hangin' w/ this guy

Cable TV Theft - I hypothetically can't recommend this highly enough.  Hypothetically speaking.

Hypothetical savings:  $40~$120/month x12 = $480~$1440/yr
Downsides:  "limited" channels (only 70?! I demand satisfaction!), hypothetical fines/jail time

The Top Ramen Diet -The I'm-so-poor-I'm-eating-nothing-but-Top-Ramen college student lament is one of my favorite ongoing TV/commercial cliches.  I've lived 27 long years, and I've never met a single person subsisting off this generation's Soylent Green.  I'm not saying they aren't out there, but if you're eating Ramen more than three times a week I'm guessing you're not attending a private school, and have bigger things to worry about than the signal strength of Starbucks' wi-fi.

Potential savings:  quite a damn bit.  Let's say $150 x12 = $1800/yr (conservatively)
Downsides:  Goiters, loss of dignity, succumbing to a cliche, death


¹ "Strongly considered" in this case = jokingly pondered whilst [very] drunk.
² Wurster Hall is not haunted, so far as I know. Nor does it have chambers, er, so far as I know.
³ Note - not actually a downside.
⁴ I lumped public transit and the library together because they're cut from the same mold:  obvious ways to save cash; slightly (sometimes highly) inconvenient; will probably be eliminated after Mitt Romney Republicans take over the white house in 14 months; completely unused by Caucasians people of means.