My mother is in town for the weekend, so the quality of my writing (which is already atrocious, trust me I know) might take a slight hit as I am pressed for time. We’ve got big dinner plans tonight, and a day of catching up tomorrow. I think it’s been seven months since we’ve seen each other. Hopefully she won’t say, “You’ve changed son.” That’d make me feel like such an L.A. asshole, I might not be able to live with myself. Speaking of being an L.A. asshole, a woman at my bank in Glendale today stopped me to ask if she had seen me in movies. Instead of laughing loudly in her face and punching her in the vagina while calling her a stupid little cooze, I simply said “No,” stared at her awkwardly for five or ten seconds, then turned around left. Getting back to my original point, if any of you want to send a special shout-out to my mom, please feel free to drop a comment in the comment box and I’ll pass it along to her.

In keeping with yesterday’s list entry, here are a few more fascinating lists that were published this week by various news sources. I’m still waiting on Ian to send me his own top ten list (inspired by me, of course), but I assume he won’t get it finished anytime soon, so I’ll probably have a new top ten in time for tomorrow’s entry. Remember, if you’ve ever stumbled across what you think would make a good topic for a top ten, just e-mail me or leave a comment. I’ll add my own special flavor (it’s like an ice-cream sundae mixed with Robitussin).

First, a list of 50 weird science-related facts that you may not know. The oddities that you may not have known include really cool ones like, “a naked tiger still has stripes”, “giant redwood trees are fireproof” and “most of our bodies cells aren’t ours.” Stupid oddities include well-known tidbits such as “bugs outnumber us” and “ostrich eyes are bigger than ostrich brains”. One of the coolest items on the list mentions that truffles are more valuable than gold. Anyone reading this who has ever shopped at Wegmans has surely glanced at the price of their imported truffles. I’m pretty sure that for every Wegmans I’ve entered, I’ve scoped out their selection of truffles and pondered stealing as many as I could fit in my pocket. No doubt they have cameras set up specifically to monitor the truffle display. Lastly, if you didn’t know that poppy seed bagels can cause false positive tests for opiates, you’re a moron.

The next list (courtesy of Blender) lists the twenty biggest record company screw-ups of all time. It talks about how the death of the single is most responsible for a generation of children who do not buy albums, the lawsuit Geffen brought against Neil Young for not sounding like Neil Young, Decca turning down the Beatles, and the RIAA suing Napster. Noticeably absent from the list is the singing of Vampire Weekend to XL Recordings. Of all the reviews I’ve read regarding this stunningly atrocious pop band, the best one by far was, “Inspiring, in the sense that this is what’s become of the Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Gang-Of-Four-Joy-Division-Revival scene. It’s gone so far as to produce this band, this perfect mess of useless songsmithing maneuvers. No point to their music. Nothing remotely interesting. No edge, no balls, just a series of wimpy, douchebag cliches that are perfectly in line with what’s become of popular music in the past few years.” Listen to the Antibalas record and tell me Vampire Weekend still hold your interest. Fuckin’ yawn-inducing ivy-league-sweater-wearing bullshit. When is this atrocious “indie” pop music trend going to end?

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