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Hipsters

/ Shane / 10 Comments

Wikipedia gives us a few definitions for a Hipster:

“The term became a blanket description for middle class young people associated with alternative culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, independent film and a lifestyle revolving around thrift store shopping, eating organic, locally grown, vegetarian, and/or vegan food, drinking local beer (or even brewing their own), listening to public radio, riding fixed-gear bicycles…”

Alternately, Hipsters can be defined as young people with:

“… mop-top haircuts, swinging retro pocketbooks, talking on cell phones, smoking European cigarettes,… strutting in platform shoes with a biography of Che Guevara sticking out of their bags.”

And if you are interested in becoming a Hipster yourself, it only takes 5 easy steps. Finally, you can check out the Hipster Olympics:

Okay, so now that we are all on the same page as to what exactly a Hipster is, we can discuss the mystery that brought up Hipsters in the first place…where are the Hipsters in Fort Wayne? And more specifically, where do they eat breakfast?

Allow me to explain.  We had recently gone to a couple of really awesome breakfast places including Over Easy , a place in Philly, and another place in Grand Rapids whose names I can no longer remember (Sara and Anna? Can you comment?). These places were awesome and had really interesting unique items, for example basil omelets and blue berry pancakes with granola to make them crunchy, egg and bacon breakfast sandwiches on spicy focaccia bread, etc. I was sure that there must be a unique breakfast place in Fort Wayne with the same kind of vibe, but I didn’t know how to describe that exactly, other than to say that Hipsters would eat there.

After much discussion over the course of the weekend, we determined that not only were there no Hipster breakfast places in Fort Wayne, but the Hipsters seemed to be missing altogether. Chris was especially bothered by the fact that Grand Rapids had Hipsters and at least one Hipster breakfast spot, meaning that Hipsters are not confined to large cities. I even asked someone at the local health food store, and they didn’t know where to get a good Hipster breakfast.

So, Fort Wayne, where are your Hipsters? Are they there but hiding, longing for a breakfast spot? Do they leave and go else where? Is there anywhere to get breakfast that is a little more unique than your standard bacon / eggs / pancakes?

I should say for the record that we ended up getting breakfast at Flatop Grill, and it was really good. I didn’t know they had breakfast, but they do and in particular my toffee-butterscotch chip-almond pancakes were sooo good.

Kate Micucci

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Today’s post is dedicated to Kate Micucci.  You’ve probably seen her before.  She has been on several T.V. shows, but she was recently on Scrubs and you also may remember her from that Movie Phone commercial where it is just her sitting in a car eating a candy bar and we can hear her thoughts. She is one of those sort of odd looking people where you can’t really decide if she’s attractive or not (no offense intended of course, I myself leave no doubt).

Her character on Scrubs sang and played the ukulele in a way that made me think she must do that in real life.  Sure enough, the songs she played were actually songs of her own that you can see on youtube.  I really like them! They are interesting and she has a good voice.

Here is an example.  Be forewarned that this video is almost too cute for your mind to handle and I think that’s why it ends the way it does, to balance things out.

You may also want to check out her comedy group Garfunkel and Oates (not quite as clean as the above video!)

What I’m Doing

/ Shane / 4 Comments

What I’m listening to:

Such Great Heights by The Postal Service

You can also go check out Ben Fold’s version of the same song. Legend has it that he forgot he was supposed to show up on the program. Such Great Heights was the first song on his iPod, so he grabbed a couple of drummers and they used anything they could find in the studio including forks, a wine glass and even one guy playing a box covered in a towel with a wooden spoon (you can see him in the video). I like it almost as much as the original!

What I’m reading:

I’m about halfway through Just After Sunset by Stephen King.

It is a nice change a pace, not too Stephen King-y actually. This is more the kind of straightforward stuff he usually writes under Richard Bachman. The stories are simple and short. Sometimes I think Stephen King can out-King himself, for example, Rose Madder which I thought worked better when it was just about spousal abuse before it got weird. Huh, apparently Stephen King agreed with me on that one, calling it “overwritten” and “working too hard”.

I’ve been listening to lots of Neil Gaiman and loving it, including Coraline (now a major motion picture!) and Anansi Boys. I have not managed to get my hands on American Gods yet, but I’m dying to.

I’ve enjoyed all of them, but I listened to 2 books of short stories that I particularly liked, Fragile Things and M is for Magic. Who am I kidding, I always like books of short stories. They are so varied and if you don’t like one, there is always another coming up. Each story has the sense of promise that you get when you start a new book. Plus, I think the concise nature forces them to be better, not get bogged down. As far as Coraline, I liked it and as I was listening I always envisioned it as anime, so I’m glad to see that it is animated in a sort of creepy style.

I just started Dream Songs Volume I by my other favorite author, George R. R. Martin. The first part is sort of his life story as far as his writing is concerned and it is surprisingly compelling and inspiring. It makes me want to start writing!

What I’m watching:

I was a little disappointed with Wall-E actually. It was a pretty well put together movie, and the stuff they did with with expression, etc. before there was any talking was pretty amazing. I sort of wished the whole movie was sans talking. That being said, I kept hearing how great it was and I don’t know ::shrug:: it’s probably not in my top 20 of animated movies.

Kid after Dentist

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Okay, you’ve probably all seen this already since it has been all over the Internet. I always feel like I am the last person to post these things, but then again maybe my readers aren’t internet nerds.

It seems awful to laugh at this poor stoned kid, but man is it funny. I feel so bad for him, especially when he says things like, “Why is this happening to me?” and “Is this forever?”

Playlists

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I want to give a shout-out to Youtube Playlists.  Fantastic!  I listen to my headphones a lot at work and sometimes I want to hear something different.  Usually, if you search for any song in the world you can think of on youtube, you’ll get a video of some sort.  So basically you can hear any song you want.  The only problem is that when the song is done, you have to find a new video. So, every 3 minutes or so, you have to go back to the webpage and at least click on another video (if it is related) or do another search.  Not very productive!  But now you can search for a playlist.  So people make lists of whatever they want and the videos will play consecutively.  So now I can listen for hours without having to do anything!  Lovely.

In other news, I saw this trailer for a movie during the superbowl and I thought to myself, “Hmm, this looks like a pretty cool movie.” And what should the movie be other than G.I. Joe the movie!  Arguably the best cartoon of my youth, although I am not willing to put it above He-man. So I’m singing the theme song today and I keep singing “He’ll fight for evil, whenever there’s trouble, GI Joe is there!” So either I’m remembering it wrong or I was seriously misunderstanding that cartoon…here I thought they were the good guys! Whenever there is trouble GI Joe is there indeed. The weird part about turning a cartoon into a live action movie is that I can’t imagine that theme song playing without being cheesy.  I’m sure that means we will be treated to a special rap version of the song or something, ruining our collective childhood once again.

So enjoy it while it lasts I guess:


(and by the way, he fights for freedom)

And, just to tie everything together, here is a playlist of those hilarious re-dubbed G.I. Joe PSAs.