One of the nice things about a week of working in an office -- besides new opportunities to whine and excuses to skip the gym -- is the Tower Records in the building lobby. So, two micro-reviews for you guys:

Rilo Kiley's just-released More Adventurous must have been named ironically. This is their major label debut, and as you might expect they've traded some guitars for cheesy string arrangements and ditched Jenny Lewis' cute-as-a-button profanities. In general it seems like a bid for adult-contemporary crossover success. I can't begrudge them that; their previous effort, The Execution Of All Things was outstanding. I hope they find enough success with this album to be able to afford to return to the sound of that album. If not, go pick up TEOAT, and download "Portions For Foxes" from the new album. I hereby officially absolve you of any guilt you might feel in doing so -- "Portions For Foxes" is a great song, but the stuff surrounding it is pretty weak.

You wouldn't think it from reading Catherine's posts, but I didn't own Ted Leo's The Tyranny Of Distance until this week. Well, I had a copy my sister burned for me, but I was kind of disappointed in it: the sound was pretty lousy after who-knows how many CD->MP3->CD conversions within her college buddies' music-sharing ecosystem. And the album just didn't grab me the way Hearts of Oak did. Well, what a difference clean audio makes. I still like Hearts of Oak's rhythm-heavy experimentation a bit better, but this is a great rock & roll CD, with Mr. Leo in full guitar-hero mode. Definitely recommended.

Another Wednesday, another issue of The Onion A.V. Club, this one featuring one of their interview non-sequitur roundups: a bunch of interviewees were asked "If you could send one message to the children of the world, what would it be?" Their answers are compiled here and are an interesting read -- they usually illuminate some aspect of the subject's personality. Except for Arthur C. Clarke, who's just a fucking liar. His actual message to the children of the world would probably be closer to "Would you like some candy? I have some right here in my van."

Anyway, the good folks at The Onion have done this before, asking "Who could you take in a fight?" once, and "Is there a God?" twice. Those features are worth a read, too.

And while you're at it, why don't you check out some of the other A.V. Club Greatest Hits: the Evil Clown Band roundup, a guide to celebrity blogs, or a hilarious series of Leprechaun-centric interviews from the Idle Hands press junket.

Unfortunately, it looks like the few transcripts of Mike Loew's crank calls to the Office of National Drug Control Policy have been pulled from the site, presumably since he collected them with others and published a book. You can get an idea of it from Amazon's look inside the book feature, but unfortunately the NDCP call isn't there. That's too bad, but I think this should probably still be enough material for you to waste a Wednesday afternoon.

did kerry have a dog in vietnam or not???? how can we trust this man to be president??? we should thank the press for staying on this canine issue. i would also like to thank matthew yglesias for keeping up the pressure on the cheez whiz story, without which we might never know the true character of bush.