Audio Laundry List

I need to buy these. So do you. Best get on it.

Gaslight Anthem - "American Slang"
Against Me! - "White Crosses"
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - "Mojo"
The Black Keys - "Brothers"
Gogol Bordello - "Trans-Continental Hustle"
The National - "High Violet"
Delta Spirit - "History From Below"
The Like - "Release Me"

Dorothy White Budge - Beloved Matriarch, Funny Old Gal

Dorothy White Budge passed away of natural causes at her home in Graham, Texas, on June 8. She was 96.

Dorothy White was born Oct. 26, 1913, in Logan, Utah, to Joseph Barnard and Rachel White. Along with her four brothers and two sisters, Dorothy was raised on a family farm in Paradise, Utah. Growing up with such a large family, Dorothy learned at a young age how to be both tough and nurturing as the situation warranted, defining her demeanor for the years to come.

She attended South Cache High School in Hyrum, Utah, where she played saxophone in the school band. After graduation, she joined an all-girls jazz band and traveled through Utah and Idaho playing music, making friends and generally enjoying the adventures of her youth. She returned to Logan to attend Utah State University where she pledged to the Chi Omega sorority. It was at Utah State where she met her future husband, Omar Sutton Budge, a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. After Omar graduated, the two got married on May 12, 1934, and made their way to St. Louis where Omar was accepted into medical school at St. Louis University. While Omar worked toward his M.D., Dorothy worked at a local stationary store and the two enjoyed their time together as newlyweds. While living in St. Louis, Dorothy gave birth to two boys, John and James. The couple returned to Logan after Omar completed medical school, where they had three more children - Richard, and twin daughters Susan and Dorothy. The youngest child, Dorothy, died soon after childbirth.

Dorothy was famous for knowing her way around a kitchen, effortlessly cooking extravagant meals without ever seeming to run out of recipes. She cooked everything from scratch and her home was a popular mealtime destination for friends, family and anyone else looking for a quick snack. She joked that she was so used to the traditional style of cooking that the first time she tried to heat up a dinner roll in a microwave she stuck it in for five minutes and it came out "rock hard and on fire."

Dorothy and Omar often played host to their many friends, frequently inviting people into their home for dinner and drinks and playing Nat King Cole records into the wee hours. The Budges were also members of the Logan Golf and Country Club, and for years Dorothy was active with her women's bridge group. No matter what the occasion, Dorothy was always the life of the party and never anything less than fashionable. Whether having company over to the house, dining at a five-star restaurant or simply picking up groceries, Dorothy could always be counted on to sport big, shiny earrings, perfectly tailored outfits, and one of her many matching handbag and shoe pairings. And of course, she was never seen without her jet-black hair neatly pulled back into a bun.


The Budges loved to travel, and every room in their home was decorated with paintings, statues, vases and other unique items they acquired on their adventures to Haiti, Egypt, Europe, Mexico and Hawaii. After the couple's children were out of the house and Omar retired from medicine, they moved to Palm Desert, California, where they enjoyed the hot weather, numerous golf courses and great array of restaurants. After Omar's death on July 12, 1988, Dorothy continued to live in their Palm Desert home for the next 18 years. During that period, her home was the rendezvous point for dozens of Budge family members for various holidays, vacations and long weekends. In 2006, after a number of health issues, Dorothy moved into an assisted living facility in nearby Temecula, California, where she was only a few minutes away from her son, Richard. In 2008, she packed up and moved to Texas in order to be closer to her son, James.

Dorothy will be remembered for her quick wit and biting sense of humor - a genetic trait that continues to thrive in the collective Budge DNA. Dorothy cherished and was beloved by all of her family, particularly her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She never missed a chance to tell them how much she loved them and was everything a grandmother should be - loving, patient and just the tiniest bit crazy.

Dorothy is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, John and Linda Budge of Cave Creek, Arizona; son and daughter-in-law James and Sherry Budge of Graham, Texas; son and daughter-in-law Richard and Greer Budge of Temecula, California; daughter and son-in-law Susan and Thomas Ballew of Elko, Nevada; sister June Squires, 99, of Ogden, Utah; nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, with one more great-grandchild on the way.

My Back

I've gone and fucked up my back again. As I write this I am holed up in the house, lying on the couch with the shades drawn, making the house as dark and dreary as possible. As I alternate hot and cold packs on my aching bones, the light of my laptop is now the only thing illuminating the room. I'm sure that only the perpetually hungover and bat people will relate, but there's something really nice about a room devoid of natural light when you're feeling especially shitty. A cozy blanket of blackness to wrap around your body and mind that meshes with your soul and coagulates with the absolute shittiness eminating from within your aching body. For now, I am one with the blackness, and until I can get in to see the goddamned doctor tomorrow, it is my one true friend.

The Black Keys are here for you

Keep it cool, babies.

Catfood looks complicated

I don't know much about cats or what they want when it comes to canned food, but this is the goddamned funniest thing I've seen all day. I wish all advertisements were so fantastically nonsensical.

Stop listening to Ke$ha

Actually, I don't give a good goddamn if you listen to Ke$ha or the Black Eyed Peas or whatever new pop starlet RCA has unleashed into the wild. But, just like popping a few oranges in your mouth can help stave off that cruel mistress that is scurvy, adding some good music into your life can help keep you from overdosing on all the sugary sweetness pop radio crams in your ears on a daily basis.

So here are some of the best new albums I've heard in the past week. Give them a listen. It'll be good for you.

Gorillaz - "Plastic Beach"
The Besnard Lakes - "The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night"
Drive-By Truckers - "The Big To-Do"

The Big To-Do - Drive-By Truck...

Broken Bells - "Broken Bells"
Alkaline Trio - "This Addiction"

Tell your friends

1, 2, 3, ah ah ahhhhhh

I just love this painting for so many reasons. It's titled "Down for the Count." Team Edward not getting a lot of respect here. Brilliant.

March Mustache Madness Monday

Tomorrow is Monday, March 1. I will wake up at 6:30 a.m., hit the snooze button a few times, and finally make my way into the bathroom to shower at about 7. At some point before I emerge from the bathroom, refreshed and ready to take on the day, week and month, I will shave my face. This is all pertinent because it will be the last time I shave my upper lip before March 24.

In three and a half weeks I will be meeting my dad, brother and friends in Salt Lake City for the Sweet 16 portion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. We will eat. We will drink. We will watch a lot of basketball. But most importantly, we will all have mustaches. All of these mustaches will be born tomorrow, and will mature through the rest of the month until we all convene upon Utah soil, at which point we will compare mustaches and declare a champion of March Mustache Madness. We will most certainly crown a loser as well.

There are a few things you may be wondering:

1) Who will have the worst mustache? -- My brother Joey. His mustache will look like he accidentally rubbed some dryer lint on his face. Its coverage will be sparse, its thickness will be that of fine rabbit hair, and its color will be dependent on the sun's position in the sky and the refraction of light through his wispy whiskers. In other words, it will be an abortion of a mustache. He will curse the genetic hand he has been dealt, and hilarity will ensue.

2) Why Mustaches? -- This should be obvious. Mustaches are awesome. Awesome Mustaches are the thing of legend. They inspire awe in all those who pass through their orbit. They are the subject of song and dance, and make ordinary men extraordinary. Fun fact: the authenticity of old-timey photographs is determined by the number of mustaches in frame. If there is less than 90-percent mustache coverage in photos taken before 1931, there's a good chance it's been faked. Totally true.

3) So, a contest eh? Aren't you getting a little old for this type of thing? -- First of all, fuck off. Secondly, if the Vancouver Olympics have taught us anything it's that friendly competition and good-natured mustache growing are part of what humanity should strive for. If we are going to usher our species toward the next logical evolutionary step -- hyper-competitive, mustachioed bipeds who enjoy watching other people be athletic -- we need to be a part of the mustache solution, and not part of the lack-of-mustaches problem. We're rocking the vote, except we're doing it with mustaches.

4) Seriously, why mustaches? -- Because we can, and we will. You're on notice Salt Lake. Consider your cookies dusted.

Big Love is dead to me

Obviously, there are no new Big Love posts. I got sick and fell behind. Read the avclub blog if you want witty commentary on the goings on surrounding the increasingly poor decision of Bill Hendrickson. Stay tuned to this blog for dick jokes and beer recommendations.

Hooray for Premium Channels

I'm sick. Not in the sense that I'm a pervert, but in the sense that for the past week I have been on the couch with bronchitis and the flu. It is by far the sickest I have been in at least a few years and I've had to miss too much work and haven't really been outside except to hoist my sorry ass into the car so I can get driven to the doc.

A big sign on the front door said that if I was experiencing any of the following symptoms: severe cough, fever, body aches, etc., that I would have to alert the front desk IMMEDIATELY. I was experiencing all of these in spades, so I let the nice lady at the front desk with the mustache know that yes, I was sick, and indeed, I had these symptoms -- right away the office went into full alert. They sent me to my own corner of the waiting room and told me that I NEEDED to put on a mask so as not to infect the other sick people with my sickiness. I've had never been instructed to put on a mask in a doctor's office before, but I guess with all the swine flu fallout of the past year this is the only way they can think of to keep sick people from spitting in each other's eyes. I would hate to be responsible for igniting a worldwide epidemic, and I'm sure without the masks there would be a sever spike of sick people spitting on healthy people and turning everyone into coughing, feverish, achy drones who crave Tamiflu and popsicles. I'm just glad that my doctor is doing everything they can to help stall the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

The bright side of all this sickness? I've watched a lot of movies in the past week. Some of them have been great. Others have been not so great. When you're as sick as I've been, your ability to discriminate between quality cinema and pure pap is somewhat diminished, and since contact to the outside world has been at a standstill, I've watched them all. Here's the list so far:

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
Persepolis
Max Payne
Signs
17 Again
Temple Grandin
Ghost Town
You Don't Mess With The Zohan
The Squid and the Whale
Cop Land
The Net

It's all good.

UPDATE FROM THE WEEKEND!!!

Coraline

Frost/Nixon

My Cousin Vinny

Yes Man

Role Models

Lakeview Terrace

The Taking of Pelham 123