Articles by Aaron

I heard about this little video clip while listening to the Don & Mike Show today and it’s up PCWEI and personal favorite Christopher Walken. He is a true American original, an eccentric, and a pop culture icon for utter such lines as “What I need is more cowbell” while on SNL.

Or who could forget this memorable moment as the couragous Captain Koons in Pulp Fiction

Well now we’re given this treat straight from YouTube. Yes it’s Christopher Walken cooking chicken. It’s rather low-fi, and the production values are well frankly no existant. But who the hell cares is Christopher Walken cooking a friggin chicken!!!

As Sean so eloquently wrote last night, those of us who are affiliated in someway with Virginia Tech are reeling right now. Words can not describe the pain and anguish I feel for those on campus who have survived this ordeal or for those whose lives were ended in a senseless act of extreme violence.

I spent three years at Virginia Tech in graduate school and I consider them to be 3 of the most enjoyable years of my life. Even in the proceeding 4 years when I was a student at the “other” University I spent a great deal of time in Blacksburg hanging out with my friends. In fact many, many of those happy moments were spent on the 7th floor of West Ambler Johnston.

I have had the honor of being affiliated with three wonderful universities in my lifetime and each of my experiences are special to me, and Virginia Tech is no different. My memories of my time there are vivid and enriching. It is where I feel I truly began to understand the profession I have chosen to pursue as a career. It was also a quiet, serene place that I love dearly. Football aside a crisp fall weekend on the Drill Field is about as perfect as perfect can get.

As we learn more and more about this senseless act of violence and the person who perpetrated this, my thoughts turn to the Virginia Tech of the future. Virginia Tech & Blacksburg are safe places, I still believe this despite what happened yesterday. I also know that Tech and the surrounding community will get through this and become stronger because of it. If I have learned anything since I left in 2001, the alumni are spread, far and wide and have the fervor and love for Tech that rivals all others. As I write students, and alumni are banding together to provide support for the grieving Tech community.

For those interested in donating to the university I direct you to this site for the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

For those of you interested in seeing the stirring memorial service held this afternoon on campus I direct you to HokieSports.com

God bless Virginia Tech, the students and the families of those who perished.

From CNN.com filmmaker Robert Clark and his 22 year old son were killed in a head on car crash early Wednesday morning. Clark, 67 a horror film director in the 70′s came in to prominence with 1981′s “Porky’s” but will most like best be remembered for his film “A Christmas Story” based on the short stories of author Jean Shepard. Christmas with my family isn’t complete without at least 1.5 viewings of the movie during the 24 hour marathon run on cable every year on Christmas.

So in honor of Bob Clark here is the wonderful “Santa Claus” scene…

and my personal favorite. The “Triple Dog Dare” scene….

We all of course remember the song “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. There was a time last summer when you couldn’t turn on the radio without running into that song. While the song was a little bit on the catchy side it wasn’t until I saw this that I realized how unbelievably inane the lyrics were…… WOW….

Courtesy of the wicked satirical wit of Alanis Morissette we have her stripped down, piano drive “parody” of “My Humps” a great video too!

And for those of you in the mood for a flashback, lets take you back to First Year of college (1994 Yikes!!!!) when Miss Morissette floored MTV with “You Oughta Know” and “Ironic”. Has it really been 13 years?

Of course she was also on the 80′s Nickelodeon Classic “You Can’t Do That on Television”…. Now THAT was a show!

Wow, didn’t realize how very Monty Python-esque the title sequence was……

OK, I’m getting too random here….. I’m stopping now!

From the Washington Post today:

EMI Records, the home record label of such bands as The Beatles, (They’re gonna go places, they’re good!) has made an agreement with Apple & i-Tunes to begin releasing higher quality music files without the DRM lock. For those of you who don’t know DRM is essentially the thing that “locks” your music files from i-Tunes and prevents them from being played on any device you want. With in the next few weeks EMI will release and re-issue these DRM free tracks at 256K bps in the i-tunes AAC format. Normal locked i-Tunes files are 128K bps AAC format.

However access to these new files will come at a price. EMI will still continue to offer locked 128K bps files at the standard rate of $0.99 on i-Tunes but the new file format will cost you $1.29. But then again that’s a steal for twice the sound quality and total control over the file. In addition for those who already own EMI released song files there will an option of “upgrading” the song files by paying the additional $0.30. According to many in the industry they see this new file format as a sign of the impending release of the entire Beatles catalogue on i-Tunes in the coming days and/or weeks. And for that I say FINALLY!!!…… Then again I already own the entire Beatles catalogue on CD. (Maybe EMI could work on re-issuing remastered versions of the Beatles Catalogue as well!)

And for those of you not up to date on this new hot act out of England (The Beatles, silly!) Here’s a clip from a local live performance…. The kinda sounds like that 60s super group “The Monkees”!

(OK seriously, we here at PCWIE are HUGE Beatles fans, just having a little fun. The clip is from the Famous Rooftop “concert” in 1969 (I think)).

So loyal PCWEI readers, you may or may not know that Sean (our fearless leader) is in China for the next week or so channeling his inner Mao. So your’s truly has decided to actually post something for the first time in well…. who the hell knows how long!

I saw the teaser trailer for “Ocean’s 13” last night and I’ve got to say I’m intrigued. I absolutely LOVED Ocean’s 11 when it came out in 2001. It was well written, had a great cast and took place in one of my favorite places of all time….. That’s right VEGAS baby!!! Come to think of it I believe I saw Ocean’s 11 shortly before my first visit to Sin City. Anyhow then a few years later Ocean’s 12 came out. Same stellar cast, funny moments (The whole Julia Roberts being Julia Roberts thing comes to mind) and an interesting story, but there were some plot holes and it was quite as exciting as the first.

Now coming to a theater on June 8 we get the next installment of this powerhouse franchise. I’m not sure what the plot line is, and frankly it’s better that way. But I do know that the cast is back pretty much intact, with the exception of Julia Roberts I believe. However the addition of Ellen Barkin could prove interesting. However the biggest name to be added to the list is Michael Corleone himself…… That’s right Al “Hoo-Ah” Pacino is in the flick as well.

So will I go see this latest George Clooney/ Steven Soderbergh crime caper? You’re damn right I will! Will it live up to Ocean’s 11 (one of my top 10 favorite movies from the past 10 yrs or so?)? That remains to be seen. So here is the teaser trailer…. and I’ll see you at the theater on 6/8/2007

For nostalgia here ais the trailer for Ocean’s 11

As heard on the Tony Kornheiser show on Washington Post Radio this morning, ABC television is planning to produce a 30 minute sit-com featuring the Cavemen from the Geico commercials. It could be interesting, but it remains to be seen how well a 30 second skit can translate into a 22 minute television show. Lest we forget the numerous Saturday Night Live skits that failed as movies…..

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re watching TV but only really half paying attention? Well tonight during American Idol during a commercial break I was chatting with my roommate when an ad for Target came on. Normally I ignore or fast forward through the ads but this one caught my ear. Playing in the back ground was a phenomenal cover of “Hello, Goodbye” by The Beatles. The original version of the song is great but this cover version blew my mind. It’s really, really good and the singer has a great voice, and well anytime you can find a way to get a vibraphone into the mix it’s all good. I searched on iTunes for the song but came up empty. However the artist’s name is Sophia Shorai. I’ve never heard of her, but based on the cover of that song, I’d like to hear more. Anyhow here’s the commerical courtesy of YouTube:

From Liz Kelly’s great “Celebritology” blog at WashingtonPost.com we bring you the “Madonna of Wal-Mart”. (Well at least that’s what I’m calling it).

Yes your eyes are not deceiving you. That is indeed Angelina Jolie and her children in oil and acrylic on linen by artist Kate Kretz. I think the Velvet Elvis may have met it’s match…..

Yet another great find on YouTube courtesy of ebaumsworld.com it’s Live Action Super Mario Brothers. I’m guessing this was from a college talent show of some sort but regardless this is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.