Buzz Guide

The Internet truly is a terrifying place. I mean, there's an entire legion of people out there who willingly enjoy Twilight. Sheesh. Lucky for you, you've got your friendly Buzz Guides to help you find all the wonderful, positive, and joyous things in the world. Each week, we'll bring you the stuff that gets our gears turning and our hearts melting. And this week, PanasonicYouth pens his second entry into the series. Don't miss out!

INTERNET

Let's just start off with the best. If you follow me on Twitter (WHICH YOU SHOULD, BECAUSE I BASICALLY DO A VERSION OF THIS EVERY DAY. GOD.), you'll remember this.

Ah yes, The Juggalog. It's just about complete, so you'll have the extreme pleasure of getting to read the whole thing. Basically, a guy gets a job selling merch for the Insane Clown Posse. He takes photos. He gives you insight into the most bizarre and fascinating subculture of all time. Enjoy the ride.

TECHNOLOGY

Yeah, I'm inventing a new category simply because I can. Last week, Netflix sent out these nifty discs that allow you to play anything in their Instant Watch catalog on your PlayStation 3. I bought a PS3 earlier this year because I wanted to JOIN THE 21ST CENTURY and because I grew up being denied video games because they were SATANIC. Plus, I live off Netflix! So now I can watch thousands of movies and tens of thousands of episodes of television shows on my TV. And the quality looks like a DVD. It's wild. Which brings me to my next category!

TELEVISION

This. This is what is consuming my life right now. All TEN SEASONS of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are available for me to watch at any time of the day and I've watched 15 17 episodes since Sunday night. I plan to finish the second season by Sunday night. I don't know what precisely appeals to me about this show. Maybe it's that Olivia Benson (played beautifully by Mariska Hargitay) is such an outright feminist and there aren't many of those on TV. Plus, IT'S SO ENTERTAINING. Anyway, the 11th season is currently airing and I'm on my way to catch up with it. By the end of the month. Oh god HELP ME.

MUSIC(als?)

Something happened a week ago. Before coming home from touring with AFI, I went to my friend Kat's house in Michigan. And we watched RENT. I was a fan of the musical but, somehow, I had never seen the movie adaptation. IT IS SO GOOD. Not the same as the original production, but still, it is QUITE AMAZING. And since I got back on the 10th, I have done nothing but listen to the soundtrack for RENT. Guys. I really want to cover the theme song. And now I'm seriously considering a way to be in a production of this musical before I die. Also: JESSIE L. MARTIN. I NEED NOT SAY ANYTHING MORE.

FOOD

I don't think I can be an atheist anymore. Because, ever since going vegan, there's been on thing that just isn't right with the world: vegan cheese. It's just not that good. Follow Your Heart makes a decent substitute, but it has a strange taste to me. But now, the heavens have answered: Daiya Cheese. It stretches. It melts. And it is so ridiculously delicious. It is the best vegan cheese on the entire planet. LOOK AT THIS PIZZA RICHARD MADE WITH IT. Seriously, guys, if you were worried about giving up cheese to go vegan, you need not worry. Daiya is here and it is wonderful.

VIDEO GAMES

You get two of 'em today.

Let's start with the old one. I do not and have not ever played a first person shooter aside from Silent Hill like....8 years ago. They're generally not my thing, I'm weirded out by realistic killing in video games, and most of them are too SUPER MASCULINE for me to care about. But my friend got me into Resistance: The Fall of Man last weekend and I just beat it last night. WHY IS THIS SO FUN. I've never been good at dual joystick controls, yet I was able to get the hang of it. The game was smart, creepy, fun, and the other main character (the narrator) was actually a smart, non-sexualized female! Hurrah! Plus, you get to blow up SUPER SCARY ALIENS.

Katamari Forever, only available on PS3, is the greatest video game of all time. The King of The Cosmos needs your help repairing the solar system, so you, The Prince, must roll your "katamari" around and pick up all sorts of garbage and miscellaneous items. And that's it. You roll a ball around different "worlds," collect stuff, get bigger, and collect more stuff. Deceptively simple, absurdly hilarious, and insanely addicting. You will not regret it.

Enjoy!

Signing off,

Mark

The internet is a scary place. It's full of photos of celebrities doing drugs while probably naked and Big Bad Courage Wolf. Thank the dickens that you have us, your friendly Buzz Guides. Every week, we bring to you things that really turn our cranks and get the gears in our head moving. Without much further adieu, I bring you..

This week in the internets..

I’m proud to follow your beloved bear of a community manager in presenting the second ever Buzz Guide. If you totally missed the christening of this feature, this is the 411: each week, a different Buzznet staff member (and sometimes, a band member or community member) will give praise to the best in music, movies, art, television, books, and whatever else they're digging. AND YOU WILL LIKE IT! Or not. But come on in and enjoy the fun!

Music: Say Anything

When was the last time you got a taste of an album that was so pungent and perfect and addictive that you wanted to slather yourself in every atom of it? This is a different experience than I have from Fall Out Boy albums—with Folie and IOH and FUCT I just found myself having torrid relationships with each song. “27” and I spent days in bed pawing through old journals; “XO” and I took more than a few aimless drives looking for places we’d happily overthrow and call home (yea, Goodnight Moon reference WHAT). But this Say Anything album is something else entirely. “Do Better” makes you thirsty for the next track—should you just skip to it now? No, no the lyrics are too good right ‘til the end. You want to ingest the next track before you’ve even really put your toes in the current one. And you start wishing songs were like marshmallows you could just stuff in your face all at once. Oh, bet your bottom dollar that every individual track is worth savoring but which one first? They’re all terribly interesting children you want to dote on, endlessly. Oh, God. It’s just THAT GOOD.

TV: Lie To Me

This is a hard category for me, seeing as that I don’t own a working TV or cable or anything of the sort—HOWEVER, I will give props to Fox’s Lie To Me because full episodes are available shortly after airing so I can get my fix of non-verbal manipulation and decoding in all it’s complicated glory. The Lightman Group are the world’s leading deception experts and are called in to catch BS on a variety of cases. The program is based on the very real work of Dr. Paul Ekman. Another cool feature of the network website is a regularly updated collection of real-world stories with a bit of commentary on bodily expression.

Also, I couldn’t put Criminal Minds here because of one of my other Buzz Guide picks. Wouldn't want to overdo it.

Book: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I haven’t read this, but I’m basing this recommendation on “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” being one of my favorite fictional novels and I know a lot of you are vegan/vegetarians who hate being preached to—from what I can tell, this is a non-fiction exploration from a man who just rules at storytelling, point blank. Plus, Natalie Portman likes it. And who am I to argue with Natalie Portman?

Blog: Life Lessons From Andrew WK

Well of course Andrew W.K. is a motivational speaker. I think he’s single-handedly starting a new wave of “posi” music. It could even be a religion. Yes, everything IS a party!

Boy: Matthew Gray Gubler

I’ve had a crush on MGG for awhile, since he plays adorkable Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds, but you know how sometimes you’re more in love with the character and you feel like a foray into their personal life might leave plenty to be desired?

NOT THE CASE FOR MGG. He is a special prism of eloquence and cuteness and you kinda want to shrink him down to a pocket-size version and keep him forever BUT he also kinda gives you jello knees because you know he makes every girlfriend he’s ever had feel like a princess and then you read this interview that Mademoiselle Robot did with him and it makes you melt like butter (OMG THE DISNEY PRINCESS PART!) and THAT makes you think of how jealous you are that he has a Twitter-relationship with Vicky-T of Cobra Starship and oh, you are head over heels in love with the idea of him. You wish this was elementary school so that you could spend months figuring out which valentine and what candy conversation heart to drop in his hand-made mailbox. OH IF ONLY.

Do you think if I made a youtube video titled “MGG, please go out with me” he’ll go for it? I mean, it worked for prom-date-turned-boyfriend. (Who may or may not read this, but if you are, just know I grant you the same gushing leniency for Regina Spektor. Have at it.) And I'm pretty much Belle, with all the book-reading and whatnot. We could make this work. DM me. Wink wink.

I should stop now.

Until next time,

-Bree

We're starting a new weekly feature here at Buzznet in an effort to spread propaganda share with you things that we think are awesome. Each week, a different Buzznet staff member (and sometimes, a band member or community member) will give praise to the best in music, movies, art, television, books, and whatever else they're digging. AND YOU WILL LIKE IT! Or not. But come on in and enjoy the fun!

So I'm (Panasonicyouth) handling this week's inaugural run of the Buzz Guide. Expect the unexpected!

MUSIC

There's few things I am more excited and enthused by right now than Strike Anywhere's Iron Front. Released less than a month ago on Bridge 9 Records, it's a refreshing and inspiring slab of incredibly catchy melodic hardcore. Half this site listens to pop "punk" and completely ignores melodic hardcore. WHY. I am changing that. If you like your music to be infectious, fast, and thoughtful, get into this.

BOOKS

So, reading the Twilight series is painful to me, so I need something to wash away all the bad feelings. I've been doing that with John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let The Right One In before I go to bed. It's incredibly haunting, poetic, and terrifying. I've got less than 60 pages left and I'm in love. THIS is how you write about vampires and love. Also, it's all about being bullied and we all know my childhood was TRAUMATIC, so this book has already earned a soft spot in my heart.

MOVIES

Look, call me a hipster. I DON'T CARE. This movie is so wonderful for expanding on the subtext in the children's novel to create a two-hour extravaganza of joy, anger, fear, and sadness. THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN'S MOVIE, ALSO. It's a movie for adults who read the book as children. And it is glorious. Near tears? Yep. Smiling ear to ear? Gotcha. Wishing it never ended? That makes a fine movie. Go see Where The Wild Things Are.

TELEVISION

I don't actually have cable (THANK YOU, HULU), but I don't miss this show. GLEE is not perfect, but what it does get right redeems everything else. Subversive, hilarious, and wildly entertaining. It's an appreciation of music and, to a greater extent, of all of us in high school who did what we loved, even though it made us unpopular. Also: Jane Lynch. I'm a fan.

ART

The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles (located in Little Tokyo) just started their sequel to their 2007 Giant Robot exhibit. Let it be known: I LOVE GIANT ROBOT. This exhibit is a celebration of all things Giant Robot and focuses on artists who have either appeared in the pages or on the cover of the magazine. If you live in Los Angeles or you're going to be here before January 24, 2010, make a point to go.

INTERNET

And the best thing I've come across on the Internet this week is Movember, a movement to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer. Grow gross, disgusting, and slightly ironic mustaches during the month of November for a good cause. I'm sorry, that sounds like the best idea of all time. Head on over to the Movember site and see how you can help!

Signing off,

Mark/Panasonicyouth