Ten '90s acts we want to see at Celebrate Brooklyn

As we told you yesterday, Ben Folds Five, Barenaked Ladies, and Guster are coming to Celebrate Brooklyn this summer as part of their "Last Summer on Earth Tour." The trio of bands, who grew to popularity in the '90s, will play the Prospect Park stage on July 30. Tickes go on sale today at 11am. They even made this cool little video to help promote the tour:

Now, Ben Folds Five, Barenaked Ladies, and Guster won't be the only '90s boy bands touring together this summer. 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men are also going out on the road together (along with '80s supergroup NKOTB) on "The Package Tour." And there are more '90s stars hitting Celebrate Brooklyn this summer:  Belle and Sebastian and Yo La Tengo are playing the bandshell July 11. Which got us thinking: With so many '90s stars touring this summer - and so many of them coming to Celebrate Brooklyn - surely we could get a few more acts in there, huh?

Here's 10 on our wish list (in no particular order). 

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We're all getting new driver's licenses and they're ugly

New York State is rolling out some new drivers licenses this July. And guess what? They're ugly as fuck. 

The motivation for the redesign? To combat forgeries of New York's current ID. The result is what the State Department of Motor Vehicles tells the Times will be "the most counterfeit and tamper-resistant document technologically available." New licenses will be laser engraved in grayscale on rigid polycarbonate that cannot be separated into layers, on material so stiff, "they sound like a compact disc when dropped." Some 30 security features, including "embedded fine lines, variable patterns, and micro-lettering" will be in place. There's also a second portrait of the driver (or a "ghost image") that float in a transparent window, viible from the front and the back. 

And if all that added security weren't enough, apparently the high cost of the production process might be enough to thwart the counterfeit market. Machinery to make this specific type of card is expensive and "not something a college student is going to be able to go out and get." (For what it's worth, new licenses will cost "almost $1 more per license to produce and print." But don't worry. "The department said that cost would not be passed on to drivers" and "the waiting time for new licenses would not change." A likely story).

Apparently Virginia did all of this in 2009, and since then they have not seen a "credible" forgery of of a Virginia license. 

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The Only Brooklyn Nets T-Shirt We'll Probably Ever Get

We may not all be big sports fans here at FIPS. But that doesn't mean that we don't want to support our local team. Which is why we're mad for this "Brooklyn Internets" shit by Frank & Jan. Sure, it may not be those nets. But for those of us who write and read Brooklyn blogs pretty consistantly, it's the only 'nets we really care about.

You can get your own "Brooklyn Internets" shirt for $20 on Frank & Jan's website. 

Why is buying concert tickets so fucking hard?

image via flickriver.comWhen I was a teenager, I lived on Long Island and used to go to a ton of concerts. Between Jones Beach and MSG and Nassau Colosseum, all the big tours with the most popular artists were always a quick ride away. And then there were smaller venues like The Vanderbilt (RIP!) that always seemed to have amazing up-and-coming acts for $10 a ticket. I saw a lot of live music back then. Devoured it, even. 

But the last time I saw a live concert was just about a year ago. And that's because a friend had extra tickets. 

Part of the reason I've removed myself from the live music scene is because buying tickets has become an impossible experience. Back in '90s Long Island, I'd wake up early on a Saturday morning and go to Tower Records and wait in line for the Ticketmaster booth to open up. You'd get there at 6am or so, wait in the cold with the rest of your favorite artist's die-hard fans, and when the booth opened at 10am, you'd have your pick at prime tickets. Sometimes, your big sister would hang back at home, trying on the phone line (not my sister because she was a total bitch). And if your mom let you borrow her cell phone (which was approximately $100 a minute and was as big as a brick), you'd sometimes wait in line while being on the phone at the same time. It was a race to the finish line, but when you got there, there were pretty much always tickets. 

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This is what 12-year-old kids do with their free time these days

Emily and Gala, owners of "Spa Piggies." I'm too lazy to figure out which one is Emily and which one is Gala, though.

When I was 12 years old, I spent the majority of my free time outside of school watching television. It was 1994, or as I like to call it, "The Golden Age of Television." My So Called Life, ER, Friends, Party of Five, and Sister, Sister all premiered that year. Seinfeld, Fraser, Roseanne, Home Improvement, Mad About You, Murphy Brown, Blossom, Ellen, The Nanny, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Full House were the top sitcoms. Beverly Hills, 9.0.2.1.0. and Melrose Place served up steamy 90s soap realness. It was the heyday of the "T.G.I.F." lineup (Family Matters, Boy Meets World, Step by Step, and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper), the "Disney Afternoon" (TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck), and "SNICK" (Clarissia Explains It All, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Roundhouse, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and All That). There were future cult favorites, like The Critic, Beavis and Butt-head, and Saved by the Bell: The College Years. And then there was the best Saturday morning cartoons of all time. Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, Doug, X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, Rocko's Modern Life, Bobby's World, The Tick, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There seriously wasn't enough time in the week to take it all in!

And keep in mind, this was pre-internet. Unless you count Prodigy, which we never got to use for long because my mother was always picking up the phone. 

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