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New themes

June 9th, 2009 aaron 34 comments

Things have been a little slow here at McCrappy lately, so I took the downtime to update the site’s wordpress installation. In the same vein, our theme was looking a little bland and outdated, so I started playing around with some new themes. I’m not a huge fan of the one I currently have up, so if anyone has a favorite, point me at it. Maybe we’ll have to have a vote if there’s a couple of popular options.

You can check out possibilities here: WP Themes.

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New House of Blues

January 29th, 2009 aaron 7 comments

HOB Boston
The new House of Blues is opening up in Boston next month, where the Avalon and Axis clubs used to be. I’ll definitely miss the old clubs, they hosted a level of artist that won’t be able to book the new HOB. The good thing is that Boston has a good number of smaller capacity clubs like the Roxy or the Middle East that hopefully will pick up the slack, and the lineup for the opening month at the HOB is pretty sweet:

B.B. King, P Funk, Gypsy Kings, and The Disco Biscuits, along with the St. Patty’s day shows of the Dropkick Murphy’s.

I imagine things will slow down, but it’s great to have another pull for shows to come to Boston.

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Friday experiment!

December 12th, 2008 aaron 23 comments


How many times do you think you’d have to listen to a song to be completely sick of it? Could you go crazy? I hear they do this kind of thing to ‘enemy combatants’ to keep them up. I was thinking about it when we were watching possibly the best Family Guy ever, the Surfing Bird episode.

So in honor of Peter’s love of Surfing Bird, I’ll try to listen to the song 100 times in a row today and see what happens. 100 plays comes out to something just short of 4 hours of playtime. Will I go mad? Possible, for sure. Will I burn an undying fear of Surfing Bird into my conscious? Likely. At least I’ll be able to rock this song for karaoke. I’ll write a quick summary at the end if I make it that far and I’m still able to visualize the keyboard.

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Africa Pictures

September 10th, 2008 aaron 4 comments

Oh no, get in the car!

Well I finally managed to sort and upload the pictures to Flickr of my summer in Africa. It was an unbelievable time, and some of the pictures really came out great, especially the wildlife. Check them out here:

My Flickr Collection

For some reason, one of the videos wouldn’t go up on flickr, so it had to go up on the blog I used during the trip:

http://labaokenya.blogspot.com/

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It’s only proper etiquette…

June 6th, 2008 aaron 4 comments

It’s only proper etiquette to know which hand shake to use when accepting a new job, and which to use to celebrate when KG dunks over an accused rapist from the foul line. In case you didn’t know, simple hand shake for the first, possible death metal hands for the second. What about the kid n’ play heel-kick-lock spin? When can I use that you ask? Oh don’t you fret, someone’s laid it all out for you; explaining all the in’s and out’s of acceptable (and unacceptable) male greetings. Check it out here. Oh, and just in case you don’t have time for the read: a big no to the sideways peace sign, unless you want to end up hotchickswithdouchebags.com…

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In the spirit of the games…

May 7th, 2008 aaron 21 comments

everest

For all the trouble the Chinese have had so far on the Olympic torch relay, they apparently have learned one thing: the less people the better. So how does Mt. Everest come into play? Well that was going to be the crowning achievement of the torch relay, to carry the flame (or at least the flame’s half-cousin twice removed) to the summit. The problem? Well, pesky Tibet has some pretty decent climbers in their Sherpa ranks, not to mention international mountaineers who sympathize with the cause of Tibet.

The solution? Close the mountain to all people not associated with the torch, in the very few weeks of the year a summit attempt is possible. It’s not like the Olympics were devised as a way to bring peace and togetherness to the world after all…I’m glad I’m not 3 years of training in and 60K spent on something that’s going to fail because of China’s fear.

The Independent has a great write-up of the situation here.

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Possible move…

April 1st, 2008 aaron 20 comments

fenway

Well it looks like the current owners group, as much as they’ve said to contrary, is going ahead with plans for a new stadium on the Southie waterfront. Now I’m not a fan of the tight seats in Fenway, or how ridiculously hard it is to get seats these days, but I don’t think they could ever make the new place the same experience as Fenway. Check out the Boston.com article, it’s looking like they plan to have it up for 2011 if development goes as planned.

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Yea Reason!

March 27th, 2008 aaron 4 comments

What can giant mutant space hamsters tell you about global warming? Watch and learn. This is a great video focusing on what we can really affect in climate change, and what our practical choices really are. Reason to the rescue.

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McCrappy Music Outreach Program (McMOP)

March 12th, 2008 aaron 20 comments

That makes it sound way too official, but I’ve been burning through new music lately at work, and I’m always looking for more suggestions. Though I’m not here to reveal some of the shameful crap I listen to day-to-day, I am willing to share some of the better stuff that’s made my playlist lately. Without further ado, here’s a short list of who’s playing today at my desk:

Adem
Jamie T
Waylon Jennings
Tom Petty
Planet Smashers

Share up anything good you’ve heard recently. That way if I catch myself cranking some sweet tunes from Hootie and the Blowfish, I’ll have only myself to blame…

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Making friends into enemies…

March 6th, 2008 aaron 2 comments

tapeworm shot

For some reason the beginning of March is birthday season for a bunch of folks in the McCrappy family. Well, we all know what goes with mid-twenties birthday parties: crappy shots. Most people know some of the common ones, like the three wise men or the four horseman. Well how about the smokers cough? Or (as pictured) the tapeworm? Didn’t think so. Thank god no one had this list back when we all were celebrating our 21st birthdays, or I would never be able to stomach Hellmann’s or Tabasco again.

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Raise one up for Sam Adams

February 18th, 2008 aaron 19 comments

Sam Adams

Apparently this last summer was brutal on the hops harvest: bad weather in the Northwest, a fire at one of the largest hop warehouses, and high demand have made it impossible for small brewers to get their hands on the good stuff. If you were wondering (like I was) why a six pack went up to 8-9 dollars this winter, the shortage is apparently the biggest reason.

The good news: Sam Adams is selling a portion of their supply, to make sure the small breweries can stay in business. It’s really generous of them considering this isn’t exactly excess. Currently, it’s only available to registered brewers (I don’t know what a home-brewer would do with 88 pounds of the stuff). So next time you’re out it might be worth picking up something of theirs for the good deed.

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Upcoming shows

January 22nd, 2008 aaron 9 comments

Hundred Years War

Though this list is far from exclusive, here are some great shows coming to Boston. I’ve pulled any that I know would be sold out (that means you Dropkick Murphy’s), but all-in-all some great music coming through here:

Daniel Johnson – Roxy 2/20
Northern Mississippi Allstars Paradise – 1/27
Winger (sweet) – 2/23 Middle East Downstairs
Piebald’s final shows 4-18 – 4/19 Middle East Downstairs
Jonathan Richman 3/6 Middle East Upstairs
Coffin Lids @ Abbey 1/26 Lounge (PBR sponsored, should be interesting)
The Ramoniacs – 1/31 @ TT the Bears (local favorite)
Hundred Years War – Every Tuesday in January @ Abbey Lounge (my brothers awesome band)

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Save Mr. Splashy Pants!

December 5th, 2007 aaron 8 comments

splashy pants
Now that Japan has decided to start adding Humpback whales to it’s annual “scientific” whale hunt, Greenpeace has been working to prove how unscientific the research really is (Sadly eating something doesn’t automatically make it science). They’ve decided a better approach is to team with scientist and tag the animals, tracking their movement through the ocean. Unconventional, I know. To draw attention to their effort, Greenpeace has put up a contest on the web to name one of the tagged Humpbacks, with traditional names like Aiko (Little Love in Japanese) or Babu (means ‘grandfather or old man’ in Swahili). Well thanks to the power of the internet, the current naming front runner by a wide margin is Mr. Splashy Pants! So hurry up and vote, because nothing makes a day at the beach better then knowing Mr. Splashy Pants is out there having a splashtastic blast under the waves.

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Not the same street

November 20th, 2007 aaron No comments

SesStreet
The New York Times has a good review of the newly released DVD’s of original Sessame Street episodes. Apparently the original episodes had a definite edge to them compared to the modern incarnation; Ernie the grouch was actually miserable, and cookie monster slammed back treats like there was no tomorrow. No matter your take on the evolution of the show, the article has some interesting facts about the original focus of show and the huge percentages of kids in NYC that watched it.

Check it out here: NY Times

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Canada is out of control!

September 10th, 2007 aaron 6 comments

Oh American Dollar, what have you become. One of the best parts of heading north was the ability to throw Canadian cash around like it was the final minutes of a drunken Monopoly game. A pitcher of rum and coke for 30 of these weird bird coins? How can I lose! Well, it’s been two years since I’ve taken in the sights and sounds of Montreal, so the current exchange situation came as a shock to me today. Let’s let the graph do the talking:

Yahoo Graph

After exchange fees thats pretty much on par. Poor Vermont high schoolers, I have no idea what you do for fun now. I’m guessing the stripper barn across the border isn’t on the list anymore…

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