2009: A Review or Keep yer Govnin't hands of my Medicare

I'm sitting here waiting for my frozen dinner to cook for 40 minutes in my conventional oven when it would take three and a half if I had a damn microwave, but so it goes I guess. While waiting I'm sitting here reading about how fucked the health care reform thing got now that it's about to pass and listening to that Dillinger Four song about New Years (December drags on/it's thirty one days too long...) and I had that moment we all have at the beginning or end of the year where you go, "Gee wilikers this year sure did fly by!"

Usually that statement is just bullshit we spew to keep up small talk with people we don't really have much else to talk about with. And then you go, "It seems like just yesterday an illiterate war criminal was president/we were huddling around a space heater and drinking whiskey to keep warm/you were giving BJers at the train station for cash/etc." And again, usually that's a load of crap, but while reading about the same debate I've been reading about all year I realized this year really did fly by because nothing happened. The health care BS has been stagnant pretty much since the spring... Democrats are too chicken shit to pass something that actually fixes anything, Republicans yell loudly until the pants peeing Dems give in, and rednecks hold misspelled signs arguing against their own self interests. That's it. That was 2009. That's all that happened all year.

The past few days I was going through different publications' "Best Albums of 09" lists and checking out all these "hot artists" and found more and more of the same uninspired technically proficient and intricate, yet soulless, ambient mumblings of hipsters trying to be inspired to create the next "Pet Sounds" or "OK Computer". There's nothing going on out there. It's a wasteland! Even the things I saw promise in like the alternative folk/country movement that's been brewing for the past few years was pretty lackluster in 2009. Lucero and the Avett Brothers both hit the big time this year with their first major label releases and while I haven't heard all of the new Avett album they both seem underwhelming and have traded in quite a bit of the grit that made me love them. I tried to make my own "best of" list for the year and really couldn't come up with much I loved other than Bomb the Music Industry's "Scrambles" and the Dopamines "Soap and Lampshades". I'm sure there's plenty of stuff I'd like that I just never got around to, but seriously? I remember doing a best of 06 or 07 radio show back when Chris and I did Bearcast together and we had trouble narrowing it down to 25 or so. Am I just out of touch or is anybody with me here?

I'd also like to contribute my general living situation to the fast and lame year that was 2009. This was the first year of my life where nothing major changed. My first full year out of college working the same jobs with no major change. It's a strange feeling to know that I plan to wake up and do that same thing with no major change for another 365 days... there's no more grades or classes to move on to. Just tasks to be accomplished and checks to be cashed. Is this what I have to look forward to in the way of having a career? The years flying by with you sitting around waiting for frozen manicotti to heat up wondering how you wasted 365 days farting around harboring in paycheck after paycheck just to pay for the place where you sleep in between working for those checks? Okay... that's a bit more pessimistic than intended, but seriously, I'm not used to so much regiment in my life. I mean, I also love my job and am damn lucky to get paid to hang out and make music... the other one's usually okay too, but it's retail at Christmas time, so fuck off for a few weeks and get back to me on that.

On a brighter note I got pretty decent at the drums in 2009 and am about to finish one EP of new music. I can also actually can see the light at the end of the tunnel that is the first EP or full length of a new era of the Best Revenge and songs that were written nearly three years ago now.

Where am I going with this? Well I get a week's vacation to sit around finding new music, bitching about the government, and trying to write music in the quaint little town of Lima. It should be good. There will be whiskey and music released prior to 2009.

See you there nerds!

Why my Nails is Nubs Today

First off Empire State of Mind is a really good song. Now that that's taken care of, why can't I stop trying to figure out my god damned network at work?! This thing is driving me crazy!

A quick rundown... We have four iMacs that students produce (mostly) loop based GarageBand projects on. I had this bright idea that if they save their projects as an Archive, meaning that any loops used are self-contained within the project rather than referring back to that particular loop's original location, they could save their projects wirelessly to our Time Capsule storage device and pull them down no matter what computer they're on. Wow! Problem solved! Aren't I a genius!?

You're right! I'm really not. This worked fine when most of the kids weren't quite tech-savy enough to figure out how to use the Time Capsule to move back and forth between machines and only one computer was really using it at a time. Now however, most of the projects are pulled from it wirelessly and I've run into a SNAFU (that is an acronym right?) in which, what appears to happen is that the wireless bandwidth of the Time Capsule bottlenecks anytime files are moving or the internet is in use. This causes a 10 or so megabyte GarageBand project take 10 or so minutes to open or save.

This is not an ideal situation when you already have a legion of kids who are already frustrated with you because you only give them an hour in the studio at a time. From there it just gets better. I was under the impression that GarageBand, once loading a project that had been saved as an Archive, was done with it's source folder and was running the show strictly from the computer's resources. Well, I'm assuming now, this is not the case since several students' projects that were only running five or six tracks in total slowed to a halt and could not play back because, according to GarageBand's error message, they had "too many tracks".

So now it's solution time and the first thing to try is drag and drop files to the desktop temporarily while working with them and then save back to the Time Capsule. Well, I tried that and sure enough the time to pull the relatively small files down was about 1 MB per minute, which is something I'm not willing to work with.

Next in line are tinkering with and resetting the settings of the Time Capsule to ensure that the problem is indeed a bandwidth issue and not an issue with the device settings or software that just so happened to kick in right when our usage started going up. That seems too good to be the true fix so then we start hitting some more pie in the sky plans. That's my phrase of the week by the way: Pie in the sky. Delicious. First line of attack in the war on load time and latency is a wired Ethernet connection run through the ceiling. I'll give it a shot with the computer closest to the Time Capsule and see what we get. If that doesn't work I have this crazy idea about a FireWire network, also through the ceiling, all daisy chaining to one or two external drives in an office somewhere, but that seems unreliable and costly because apparently FireWire only carries about 15 feet at a time before you need some sort of repeater (you learn something new everyday!).

After that I'm pretty lost... Media Bridges has a pretty awesome set up where users have a hard drive that pops into a sled at the front of the building and is then somehow wired to whatever computer they're using in the building. Something like that would be awesome. Can I have that? Last is consulting with good old Bill at the Apple Store and seeing if the file sharing capabilities of a server machine that we can't afford is the answer to all of our problems.

Oh, and did I mention that the whole time I've been trying to fix this problem there are approximately twenty or so teenagers yelling for my attention to help them with about a thousand different things.

There's never a dull moment I tell's ya'!

Back in Business

Look, I moved, I got lazy, I got an iPhone, discovered twitter, and decided that I no longer need to communicate with people and convey my ideas in more than 140 characters at a time! What's a guy gonna do?

But I'm trying to get back in the saddle for the sake of introducing you all to my new project tentatively titled "The Rotting Pizza EP" by the Solution (oh I'm back baby!). It's pie in the sky man, I know, but there's a taste of it here. The goal is to have at least five songs inspired by and primarily featuring samples from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. I'm about half way through three songs and thought, "I'm sure this has been done before..." and well, it had. But go Google that trash. Nothing but over compressed garbage and the same old beat playing over one or two tracks of badly sampled crap. I only bring the sweetest of melodies to my beats... or something.

Anyway, I'm posting the first mix of the first song today just to get some of it's juicy flavor on ya'lls lips and to get some feedback. Tell me what you think kids because I honor and consider your criticism valid. Unless it's negative. Then keep your mouths shut. Just kiddin'. Not really.

No. I am.

The Bottom FREE DOWNLOAD!!

Also, holla' when you hear that 808 kick in on the hook.

Also, I'm going to try to stop booking Best Revenge shows for a few months so we can try to crack down and finally record and am trying to get this new band going where I just get to sit there and play drums while other people tell me what to do. Backyard Hooverville... or Pontius and the Pilots if I can talk Kyle into it. But they're both good. Keep yer' heads checked.

They Say it Takes More Certainty than Talent to be a Star... Look at John Stamos

I missed a lot of quality post worthy stuff over the past few weeks because I was busy moving and getting my life situated which takes forever. I've been here over two weeks now and am still unpacking and moving things.

I don't really have the energy to rap with you guys for long right now, though I do want to give everyone a quick rundown of references to Lima, Ohio that have shown up in the show "Glee" so far. Also, I should note, the show is pretty awesome... Albeit that I am a bit biased because it's about a guy who teaches music to a bunch of under privileged misfits and is based on the show choir I was in at my own high school.

Anywho...

Episode 1 - Not a whole lot going on here... The high school colors are the same. They established that it was a small town in Ohio and one of the kids speechifies about how he doesn't want to end up like all the other jerks in his school who don't go to college and become townies and notes that only half go to college and maybe two will do it out of state. I don't know if our numbers were quite that high...

Episode 2 - It's officially established that Washington McKinley high is supposed to be in Lima, Ohio! When the glee club does their routine of the song "Push It" in the school gym check out the right side of the screen. That's right, the official city of Lima, Ohio flag is hanging on the wall.

Episode 3 - At one point in the counselors office a few penants with college names on them are revealed hanging on the wall. They're all Ohio colleges, but one specifically is UNOH, or University of Northwestern Ohio right off Cable Rd in Lima. Others include Purdue, Kent State, and perhaps Bowling Green, which is also close to Lima.




This one is a tough call because I don't have HD TV and just watch it at 480p on my laptop, but later as Mr. Schuster is reading the review of Acafellas in the local paper for a brief moment the front of the page is shown which appears to say "The Lima News" on it in the top left. If anyone else is a nerd with better HD resolution than mine please verify or correct.



That's it for now. Later nerds!

All the people who have BBQs to feed their friends and family say SHUT UP THE PUNX!

So Facebook has been pretty entertaining today. At the top of the list was some guy who got extremely "butt hurt" (as so eloquently put by Wyatt) over a status update by a friend. For anyone who hasn't already experienced Leyla's massive comment thread of comedy from earlier today it transpired a bit like this:

"Oh. My. God. Who ARE these kids who are too indie to function??? Cincinnati has an underground spawn of pseudo-snobs running around. It's terrifying. Buy something at Wal-Mart. Eat at McDonald's. Go to Springdale Cinemas. Get a fucking grip."

Okay. So she says that, and there's a few hostile reactions; this being the first of many by one poster:

"Don't do any of those things. Those are fundamentally immoral institutions, all of which America would be a better country without. I won't deny there's a definite fashion in denying such things, but if the result is that a few less dollars contribute to the perpetual declination of quality goods and services in this country, than by all means. Your call for "getting a fucking grip" is the opposite of intelligent."

And on and on it goes as he continues to get more and more angry and tell people they're unintelligent for telling him to get over it and not taking him seriously on the internet in a forum that is limited to a hundred some characters in each conversation. So some dude is flipping his shit at anyone who's ever eaten a cheeseburger or worn pants that weren't hand sewn from hemp in their backyards or some bullshit like that. Although this guy consistently told people these were "just empty words" or some BS every time someone said it to him I'd like to once again re-iterate, "get over yourself".

So here's what's up... sure you eat and wear only things that grow in your backyard, but WHOOPS!! You accidentally rode in your friends car to the exclusive all night dance party at the bar the other night where you totally sweated it to ironic eighties pop songs with your friends. You're part of the problem maaaaan! Using gas!? Oil consumption!? What the fuck is wrong with you dudes!?!? Oh and remember when you smirked at the joke some guy made about racial stereotypes last week? Oh shit!? You're a racist!! Or when you drove by that homeless guy and didn't take him home and offer him a permanent home on your couch?? Or the fact that you have enough money in your bank account to travel to India and live in poverty and try to fix the world but you're not doing it?? What the fuck guys?! You're all pussies!

Okay, enough sarcasm. This is why the phrase "get over yourselves" is not a cluster of "empty words" they do have meaning when you're pissing all over people with the assumption that you're the perfect little lefty revolutionary who understands and tends to all the worlds problems. That's right. You're the one fucking guy who has it all figured out. You're the ONE fucking guy who's doing every little thing you can to fix the worlds problems. You're the ONE fucking guy who can do no wrong. Right? Wrong. Because guess what... you're not. So indeed, "get the fuck over yourselves".

I mean, fuck man. Life's hard enough. Let people pick their battles. There's no sense wasting time doing the same thing the people you say you're fighting are doing and looking down on people for not supporting or hating the same things to the same degree as you. If you're going to be so militant about things, simply staying in America and not packing up and shipping off to bring aid to people in Africa, India, China, what have you, makes you a hypocrite because no matter what, if you are in any way a part of American society you're nothing but a drain on resources. Even if you did go to those places, you're still just a drain on resources... a smaller one, but still a drain. Humans are parasites and if you have that big a problem with it then off yourselves because that's what we're here for... to leech off the planet. We're born, we consume, we die. Nothing more, nothing less.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be less of a leech but like I said before, either put your money where your mouth is and go all the fuck out, or just let people pick their battles. For example, I teach kids how to play and write music after school to keep them off the street and try to provide a positive environment and role models so they'll stay off the street. That's my thing I'm trying to do because I believe in it and it's the right job for me to be doing. And sure, I also try to eat local when I have the time and money for it, I tried to ride my bike more before it got stolen, I wear the same clothes for years and years, etc. But at the same time, I'm pretty broke and I have to work a second job and that makes things hectic. In that time racing back and forth, yes, I have to drive a car and use that evil substance "oil", and yes, sometimes I buy shitty environmentally unfriendly cheeseburgers that I was conditioned to love since birth (even though the fast food ones are pretty gross) because I don't have the time, money, and energy to cook up something with your approved ingredients list. That's why I do the music education thing... it's something I can do to try and improve the world and it's what I'm good at. That's my attempt to improve the world and I'm not going to give you shit for not doing it too. In turn it also takes a lot of the energy I'd have to put into other "fights for justice". I'm not good at taking the time to shop around and learn how to, first enjoy, and then cook local vegan food or whatever else it is you people demand that we do to be accepted as intelligent equals. If your thing is supporting local business or whatever that's your thing and I don't expect you to moonlight as a mentor or any of the stuff I do for a living to consider you "intelligent" or my "equal". Not being a vegan local-voire in no way makes someone a lesser person, un-intelligent (yes, we all read Fast Food Nation... get over it), wrong, or evil.

There's a difference between being completely and willfully ignorant of problems in the world and simply picking your battles and being understanding and tolerant of others who have chosen theirs. To judge others like this makes you sound like an ignorant and idealistic 15 year old yourself. One person can change small pieces of the world, but that one person can't fix every god damn problem on the planet. It's too much and a lot of us are trying. So either get along with the people who are trying or get out of the way with your self-righteous "look at me I'm doing the right thing" fashion show so the rest of us can get back to work.

So once again, yep, "get over yourselves".

Riding the Dragon! Chasing them Fairies!

I just started to pack about an hour and a half ago and feel like I've gotten nowhere. It's really quite obnoxious how much shit I've managed to accumulate in my life that has to follow me around. So far I've got a pretty solid pile of gear and toys packed up and ready to go, so I've just got to keep telling myself that looks good so I can give up for the night.

Mostly I wanted to take a break and spend a moment to review my first experience with the, now legal, Absinthe that I had last night. I'll preface this by saying up front it was nothing special. I did not "hallucinate" and didn't even get particularly "out of the ordinary" drunk. That seems especially odd since it was preceded by the always awesomely terrible experience of grape flavored Four Loko. I figured this would be an absolute recipe for disaster, but it really wasn't. To any of you who are now probably concerning yourselves with my health because I drink silly things like this I'd like to also note that this is the first time I've had so much as more than two or three beers in a night for the past several weeks since today was my first today completely off from both jobs in about three weeks. So no. I'm not a drunk.

But anyway, Absinthe... the magical blue and green legend from France or wherever they drink the stuff. It in no way lives up to the hype, but I also only had one glass of it. So what I can tell you is that it's probably not going to make you hallucinate like they say it will, but I can see how it'd get you dangerously drunk. The reason for this being that the stuff is about 100 proof, but in no way has any of that alcohol "bite" and "burn" that you're used to with other more familiar drinks in that alcohol content range. The reason for this is most likely because it's actually a spirit and has no added sugar until you do the whole silly sugar dumping ritual. Thus, it's flavor is pretty mild, like a not very sweet sugar water. It does however smell delicious. It has a very strong scent of licorice which is really all that makes it enjoyable. If you didn't know any better you could easily plow through several glasses or shots of the stuff and not realize that you were even drinking until it smashes into your face like a brick wall thirty minutes in. I think that's where all the hype comes from.

I did however notice after glancing through Absinthe's Wikipedia page (yeah, I said it) that it was as described on there a much more "lucid" or "clear-headed" feeling of drunkenness, which I definitely felt. But as I only had one glass, that's pretty inconclusive. I think I was mostly just in a real good mood on account of having a day off. There's that and the amount of sugar involved between that one glass and the Loko I had before it... that can all make one quite wired. Also there was a tiny dopey puppy there which is always exciting.

So in conclusion, Absinthe tastes somewhere between "mediocre" and "terrible", in no way lives up to the hype... but made for an enjoyable evening... until I woke up on Joe's couch and groggily realized how much crap I had to get done on this one day off. I managed to sign my lease, pay all my rent and utilities, drop all my library materials off, schedule a doctors appointment, make some pretty sweet quesadillas, get my electric service switched over, order some internet (which takes way longer than it should), get a hold of Doug to pick up his drums, and do some packing. Sheesh! I did not however get around to posting all that stuff I was talking about earlier on Craigs List, which was kind of my main goal. I guess there's always tomorrow. But I seriously need to get rid of some of this crap in my life! Please. Just take it!

Linoleum. Supports my Head.

Hey guys. Guess what. I have to move all my shit up a hill in the next two weeks and into two tiny rooms half the size but double the cost of what I pay now. Why you ask? Because it's all mine! MINE I TELLS YA! Plus a solid five to ten minutes off the drive to work. Oh yeah, and no gang warfare being waged a block over from my house. That's always a plus too right? There's also a hospital right behind my house for when I feel like using the "health care everyone has access to" and stopping into the emergency room to go bankrupt over getting a few tests and check ups done over having the flu or a cold or something. That all being said, I'm thinking about trying to get rid of some possessions to try and make this whole thing go a little smoother... plus I want that cash. Not only am I in the market for a new phone because mine can barely type, which is a major problem because for some reason no one knows how to make calls on phones anymore and only texts, but I'm also fittin' to get a new amp that actually sounds good instead of just super loud. All in toll that's about $900 of stuff. Shit man. I don't need $900 worth of stuff in my life!

Anyway, to whom it may concern, here's what I'm thinking about Craigslisting in the coming weeks:

-2.0 GhZ Pentium 4 tower, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HD, DVD-R/CD-R plus I'm throwing in a fresh install of Windows XP, mouse, keyboard (no monitor, I'm keeping that) and 5.1 Surround Creative Labs desktop speaker set - $275

-Excel Acoustic Guitar w/gig bag - It's in fine shape for beginners, I just have other nicer ones. - $75

-Fender FM 210R - 60 watt, 2x10, solid state combo. Like I said above, it's super loud and stays clean loud (a little bity on the high end, but you'll never have to turn it up past 3 on the volume) - $200

-Nintendo Gamecube - In perfect shape. it's worthless to me since my Wii can play all my GameCube games. - $10

-Stuffed Noid - AVOID THE NOID! No seriously. I have one of these. I'll post pics to prove it later - ONE HUNDRED AMERICAN DOLLARS (Euros preferred) final offer SON!

I'm keeping my eye out for more... I'm sort of looking forward to living like a hermit as I'll have no TV or furniture at all so I figure I might as well get rid of some other junk while I'm at it.

Oh, and to all of you other people who supported and put your faith into Obama and the Democrats to get us a single payer or public options in health care... yeah, I got duped too. They sold us out and are compromising to people who yell out "socialism" in a crowd without having any idea what they're talking about, carry assault rifles to town hall meetings, and pretend that being loud and rude makes them the majority. Oh. And there was also that lady who yelled "heil Hitler" at an Israeli Jew for supporting public health and then proceeded to sarcastically yell "waaahhhh!!" at him when he got offended. There was that lady.



But I guess that's what I get for trying to play nice with the two party system... It's back to being a godless, socialist, fringe, commie pinko unpatriotic traitor for me.

Nader 2012 ay?

Keep Yer' Web Hosting Hands off my Free Blog!!

Arghhh... I really wanted someone to sit on a porch and drink beers with me tonight. I mean, it is Monday after all.

Lacking that I sat here staring at the same internet I've been reading all day, listening to NOFX and thinking of witty quips from their songs to use to keep Adam entertained for the rest of the month (happy late August 8th to you all by the way) and when all was said and done I landed here on old Front Porch Affairs.

Well, this wasn't entirely spontaneous. My sister gave me a digital nudge to get back at it and I figure I'll see what I can do. In the meantime here's a quick throw down of what the happenings are. You guys ready? Let's rap.

-I'm almost making money for the first time in my life. So much in fact that I might actually buy an iPhone. Then the internet will know my overbearing and domineering presence! The downside is I actually have to spend time at work now to get that money. I've only had one day a week off for the past couple months when I got so used to four or five. Ain't life a sum'bitch?

-I just put on the album "Pump up the Valium" for the first time in a while and realized that whatever I did while importing or downloading that album several years ago to my library absolutely destroyed it and made it low-resolution unlistenable garbage. I might have the CD somewhere and could resolve this. The same thing happened with "The Greatest Story Ever Told" by the Lawrence Arms.

...that last bit wasn't really any new news. Moving on.

-We just had the grand opening for my job that I actually look forward to going to which is more than most of you schlubs can say! Now when people ask what I do I no longer have to go, "well, um... er... I kind of do this thing, where all this stuff goes on, and I run such and such... it's confusing." I can just be like, "I'm the Dumbledore of the school of rock". (Credit goes to Mike Sarason for that one)

-I recently signed a lease for a smaller and more expensive apartment than the one I currently live in. That was either a brilliant or terrible idea. Not really sure yet. But I move out in about three weeks which means no more living in a sea of beer cans, bugs, bad smells, and dude sweat. On the down side I'll no longer live in a sea of beer cans, bad smells, and dude sweat... but the bugs I can definitely live without. Seriously, I'm afraid some of the spiders on our front porch are going to fully evolve into demons and devour me one of these days.

-The Best Revenge is relatively back in full swing as we've been practicing for the recording of our full length and played our first full band show with Bomb the Music Industry a few weeks ago. Our next show is this August 16th (soon!) at 345 Warner (house show!) with a bunch of stupid good bands. We've got new songs, new songs, new songs galore! The best part is we get to practice at my work for free which means I barely ever have to leave if I really don't want to. For the recording of the album we're trying to sneak our way into the tracking room of my old Alma Mater at CCM and knock out drum, bass and guitar in there over the course of a weekend or so. Wish us luck!

-Speaking of BTMI, I'm totally digging this music video they did. It totally captures the aesthetic of the album which in turn did a great job of capturing the mentality of an entire, albeit relatively small in comparison, sub-counter-culture to the counter-culture. (Also, LOL at Jeff's face on the word "closed")



-That being said, as per usual I doubt my musical abilities and have recently started to force myself to practice any instrument for at least 30 minutes or so any time I have the energy for it after work before I go home. Lately it's been drums which are entirely self taught and probably quite hilarious to hear. I could also really use some piano lessons or something. My playing is pretty stagnated by playing Slackers songs with just the right hand and the left can no longer keep up.

-I'll probably never be able to get health insurance because I'm terrified that the people in charge are big pussies and will cave into the loudest opinion of the craziest mother fuckers lobbyist money can buy. I've had this rash now for like five months. My looks are important dudes.

So that's me. How are things with you?

Oh, hey Chris. It's 12:08.

Shaking off the dust, Stretchin out them Bones!

I was ready to have at it about tipping today after being demonized over on the Bad Sandwich Chronicles blog for posing a simple question about tipping to bartenders.

Should people tip $1 per drink no matter what, no questions asked?

I also posed the question to a number of online social hot beds and the consensus was that bartenders agreed 100% of the time, "Minimum $1 per drink NO MATTER WHAT" and pretty much everyone else agrees, "...well it all depends, but as long as it's 20% it's fine". I was ready to drag this out for the whole days post, but in lieu of that I just want to leave it at this; I already give you 20% no matter how shitty your service was because that is the "social norm" for service... don't throw this "the bartender gets stiffed when you tip anything less" or "if you can't afford the norm then you can't afford to go out" or "he/she will be a dick to you if you don't do it" crap at people (I'm not looking for a friend anyway... I'm looking for a drink). You want to talk about "getting stiffed" working at a bar... try working the kitchen. I got $6.25 an hour doing that. No tips. I also left an hour or two after the bartenders and servers had to do dishes and mop floors while they all yucked it up behind the bar having drinks. (For the record and to be fair, that was an exceptionally shitty bar.) If we come off as "cheap", then the bartenders come off as "greedy". I don't mean for this to be mean to my bartender friends out there... I know it's a shitty job and there's nothing wrong with wanting more money. We all want more money for what we do. I'm just saying, it's my personal opinion that it's one "social norm" that I, and apparently most people, disagree with. No one is saying "don't tip" we're just saying we think 20% is more than fair.


Okay, that dragged on a little longer than planned. What I really meant to get to was this...

I don't really talk about my music that often on here and I just finished my first blog update in like six months over on MySpace and then thought, "Does anyone still use MySpace?" So I figured I'd get a bit more exposure over here on the ol' BlogSpot and Facebook from the two or three of you who might read this and more importantly the one or two who might still be with me after I just went ball's out on bartenders.

If you don't already know, to bring you up to speed, I have a solo "project" called the Best Revenge. I was pretty active for about two years there and then kind of fell of the face of the Earth and have played a grand total of like 10 shows in the past year to year and a half. But I've still been writing and wanting to get back in to playing out regularly. So anyway, here's what I had to say over on the MySpace about a new album I've been working on:

Just finished our second practice for the new album recording... which I'm now starting over on from scratch and wow dudes! I think we'll actually have something that sounds pretty dope when all is said and done.

For those not in the know, which is pretty much everyone, my old college chum Zac Schmidt has graciously offered to step in on drums so that we can finally get this thing off the ground. Let me tell you, finally putting the right beats to these songs that have been sitting around for nearly two years is bringing a lot of life back into them. It's also awesome to be playing with someone who is a fellow recording nerd so that I sound less crazy when I talk about "here's what I envision for the part..." instead of "here's how it goes...". It's been pretty fun so far. He and I will be spending the next few weeks hashing it out and nailing down parts so we can begin the recording process all over again and do things right. Good stuff man. Good stuff.

Also, Jack Wright, of Pinstripes and NYC reggae act the Forthrights (in)fam(y)e has graciously offered to do keys and organs whenever he's in town. I think I've got Joe Powell, formerly of Brian's Moving Out, to drunkenly agree to play bass once or twice... I really need to nail him to that, but it shouldn't be hard seeing as he's also in my other new project (The [1985] Bears... keep an eye out!). Let's see... who else? Chap Sowash, also of the Pinstripes and Duppy'a Jamba has offered up his awesome talents in the brass section, so I'm trying to find all kinds of places where I can just let him rip because he's stupid good. And I think Robby Sager from Atomic Potato, or whatever they're calling themselves these days... and also formerly of the Best Revenge now that I think about it, might lay down a few things. Oh... I also talked to Jon (sorry I forget your last name right now) from Andy! (what a confusing phrase) several months ago about maybe playing banjo? That would be sweet. Holla' back at me dude.

All others, feel free to apply. I really want this thing to just be a massive smorgasboard of people who are more talented than I making my mediocre songs sound AWESOME! What I think would be really awesome would be a real good female voice to counter all my manly growlings. Anyone?

I also hear Butch Vig is on board to produce.
Really? No.

You're more than welcome to check out what The Best Revenge already has to offer on MySpace I guess... www.myspace.com/bestrevengemusic.

Remember when MySpace was all the rage and only really nerdy college kids used Facebook? The times man, the times!

"Things You Should (Not) be Doing with Your Food: Ish #2" or "My White Whale"

Now my other sister has also started a blog (awesomely titled Pizza Bribe) which she is academically obligated to populate on a semi-regular basis for school it seems. Hopefully having that competition will motivate me to keep up with this guy up to date a little better.

And now I'd like to talk about meat.

I cooked my first steak ever for my girlfriend Jen (<--- see I mention you!) on Memorial Day and it was amazing... despite the fact that I dropped it onto our soggy deck after I finished cooking it. But still we ate it... and legitimately it was one of the best steaks I've ever tasted. Apparently all it takes to make great steak is $3, a $30 charcoal grill, and eight or so minutes on each side. Seriously, if you like steak, I don't remember what it was called or the brand or anything, but we found it at Kroger. It's some kind of organic brand and you get two cuts of it that are correctly proportioned so that it doesn't make you TOO fat and it's only $6. The same steak I cooked for $3 would have easily cost $20 to $30 in a restaurant. Good lookin' out!

I on the other hand did not have quite as much success with my Memorial day meal... I attempted, for the second time, to create the Minneapolis staple Juicy Lucy, as made famous by "Man vs. Food". As you can see from the image here it's a burger in which the cheese is actually cooked into the burger and it's supposed to pour out all steamy, hot, and liquefied when you bite into it... Mine did not.

I believe my first problem is that I used Kroger's pre-rolled patties of ground chuck which is both not very good and not very moldable. I used two patties that probably came in a little under a quarter-pound each, seasoning both sides and topping one with cheddar cheese. I then attempted to simply place the second patty on top of the one with cheese and mold the edges together with my hands to seal the cheese inside. So now I had a burger that was a solid three and a half inches thick with some cheese in the middle that I expected to cook through.

Well I threw it on the grill and cooked it with the lid closed for a good eight to ten minutes. At this point all was well. It was in tact and I figured it was about time to flip it because eight minutes on one side for a burger already seemed like overkill. Well I scooped it up, tossed it over and low and behold, the outer layer of the thing is barely done and the side starts pulling apart revealing that the middle hasn't even started to brown over. I attempted to get it back to the first side for a few more minutes but I was already starting to lose hope. Four or five more minutes with the lid closed and I figured the sum'bitch had to be done on at least that side. I open the lid and smoke is simply pouring out everywhere. Pieces of the burger had started to slide off and detach falling onto my charcoals. I figured, "No big loss, this thing was too big to cook all that junk anyway," so I went ahead and gave it a flip... the other side starts pulling away into the grill and I'm now starting to see the inner core of cheese.

God damn it!

Well, this went on, back and forth to each side trying to get the damn thing to cook through; each time checking it a bit more meat falling on to the charcoal and stinking up the place. Finally I was left with a shell of a disfigured burger; cooked well done on the outside and still mushy and very pink on the inside with no signs of gooey cheese anywhere.

My second attempt at the Juicy Lucy was once again an utter failure. I nibbled on the cooked edges of it for a minute and then decided it wasn't even worth it at the risk of food poisoning as raw meat tends to do to me and tossed the thing. It was a sad day for meat.

I bitterly munched on my baked bean with potato chips on into the night wondering how the Lucy had evaded me once again and dreaming of our next bout together...

Old Games Mean More Old Truths!

First off. You chumps have been slacking. And by you chumps, I mean the other blogs I am subscribed to. I just scrolled through my Dashboard reading list thing and the top ten or so most recent posts all belonged to Brendan Kelly... I can only read so many posts full of references to male ejaculate before I need something else thrown in the mix. So to you five or six other people I'm subscribed to, get posting.

I have more news in video games this week because for some reason playing through Zelda just got me way back into older games. There was that and a long discussion about how X-Wings work. Mitchell, Kyle, and I were all discussing the finer points of how specific space crafts in Star Wars work and after a while we all came to the realization that our common knowledge on this subject was derived mostly from the Windows 95 classic "X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter"... I had to play it again. Well, we were at Mitchell's house and found that he still had a retail copy of the original X-Wing, which would have to do for the time being. As it turns out, when you pop the disc for a 17 year old DOS based video game it a computer running Windows XP it doesn't really care to work so well. I then had a project for the night. It seems the primary issue was that Windows only allocates a very small amount of RAM for the DOS command prompt and it's not enough to launch X-Wing. That was all fine and dandy so we altered a Windows Config file to tell it to take some more ram... that didn't work either. After a solid two hours of wrestling with this and scouring the internet for clues I sadly gave up for the evening and went home.

As a fun side note, I did temporarily break Mitchell's computer so that it no longer knew how to launch Windows... Oh man. That would have been funny if I didn't know how to fix it.

When I got home I went ahead and downloaded a torrent of X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter... Yup. I illegally downloaded a 15 year old video game that I owned at one time... so sue me. The next day I burnt the ISOs to a disc, launched it up, and! ....nothing except a frozen installation menu. Well crap.

Thankfully a bit more searching found me a couple patches, one to make the game able to be read in XP instead of Windows 95, and another to make the audio work with newer versions of Direct X, and I was installing the greatest space flight simulation combat emulator OF ALL TIME! And I must say, while graphic enhancements haven't been kind to this game; the ship models are rigidly polygonal and "flight simulation" means little white dotsfly past your face and every now and again a clunky 3D model of a ship comes into view, but the gameplay is still actually kind of amazing. There's a pretty stiff learning curve which keeps you engaged for quite some time. I also remember the "realism" that I felt from playing it and what made it so much better than any console game being the amount of things I had to do to maintain control during flight. Pretty much every key on the keyboard has a useful function and many two button combinations also have a function and you have to learn them all swiftly maneuvering and dodging Proton Torpedos to stay alive and complete mission objectives.

The biggest downside of this game is the fact that we'll probably never see anything like it ever again. I don't think there's been a game ever since that required such an intricate mastery of controls. Everything now a days is, "right trigger right trigger, look around for new bad guy with joystick, move around with other joy stick to dodge... Oh shit there he is! RIGHT TRIGGER! RIGHT TRIGGER!! Blow his fucking head off!" Seriously, I'm so sick and tired of the same old re-skinned first person shooter/war game. How did the video game industry dupe us into this trend? Why are people willing to drop $60 plus $5 in presale reservation and then wait in line at midnight the night of launch to get "Shoot Dudes in the Face Vol. 187: This Time it's Aliens and a Few Different Guns!"?

Video game nerds are constantly fussing about going, "Why does Nintendo make so much damn money? They don't make 'hardcore' games for 'hardcore' gamers." When they say "hardcore" they mean those same old first person shooter rehashes because these games generally have the biggest developers attached to them, they have 'realistic', adult characters encountering 'adult themes' and the most up to date graphics... this apparently makes a game "hardcore". Nevermind the fact that Nintendo created a game and exercise device that is so fun to use that it got millions of people who normally sit on their ass blogging and watching Scrubs to not only get off their ass and use it, but they fight over the limited supply of the damn game. A tiny bit of innovation people... that's all I'm asking for. Then maybe I'll rejoin the Non-Nintendo or Square-Enix-"Games that were made after the year 2000"-Circuit.

Until then I'll stick with my DS and playing ROM emulations of my old favorites. By the way, I just beat Mega Man X3 the other night and god damn, does my thumb ever hurt. More on that later maybe... For now, I need to find something more useful to do.

One Down... 59,999 to Go!

How on Earth did Nintendo ever expect anyone to beat the first Zelda game without spending 99 cents a minute on the Nintendo Hotline (with your parents permission of course). On top of that... how the Hell did I ever do it?

I actually remember the first time I beat it because it was the first video game I ever "beat". It was totally awesome. I vaguely remember my mom being pissed because I stayed inside all day on a summer day to finish the last level. I was totally in awe, as if there should be some further reward for BEATING A NINTENDO GAME aside from a scrolling screen of text or two and then the words "The End". The real question though, is how the hell did I do it?

First think about this compared to most of today's games. Ummm... Lets see... what have I played recently? It's not the greatest example but it still follows most of the current game trends; I played Portal about a month ago for the first time. In that game the first few levels are there to orient you with how the game works... shoot this hole thing here, you'll go through it and end up there. From there on the whole thing is pretty linear... "No seriously shoot THAT portal HERE, then shoot the other one HERE! I SWEAR! It'll get you where you need to go! (BTW the cake is lie)" Three hours later I was done. I'll admit I did have to use GameFAQs for one puzzle, but aside from that the "hardest most mind boggling game ever" (as it had been hyped up to me) proved nothing but a fun physics toy that I was done with in one evening. Most of that was due to the fact that the whole thing is pretty damn linear and straightforward even with all the physics mind-fucks thrown in. That and I'm 23 years old. I can follow directions, even if they're subtle. A picture of a dude falling out of one portal into another to gain momentum at the start of the level means, that's what I'm gonna have'ta do to pass the damn level!

Now... Let's go back to another time called "1991 or so" where a precocious five year old was plopped down in the middle of a seemingly massive world with absolutely no directions and basically told, "figure that shit out!" That world was called Hyrule and the game was Zelda. Months and months, possibly years later... I don't remember when, but somehow I beat it before the internet existed. No internet. No directions. No Nintendo Power. No nothing... except for a tattered overworld map that may have shown entrance locations for the nine dungeons and nothing more that I remember coming with the game. I'm not sure if that actually existed or I'm making it up. Can someone confirm that for me?

To give you an idea of the sheer difficulty of this game lets take this scenario... My sister recently bought me the original Zelda for Nintendo Wii on virtual console. I'm currently blowing my way through it to reorient myself and then I will try to take on the secret second quest that I still to this day, two decades after the games release, have not beaten. Everything was going all right until I got to the seventh level and you go to a room which you can not pass and are faced only with a single Moblin (or whatever they're called) saying "grumble grumble". Oh shit! I forgot to get the meat, an item which only has one use in the whole game, you put it in front of this guy in this one dungeon to advance. For the life of me I could not remember which store it was in, and some of the stores are hidden under rocks, bushes, and bad guys that you either have to bomb, set on fire, or push to find. This item is sold in one of those stores. Well, after about ten minutes of globe trotting I remembered it's in the same store as the Blue Ring. Simple enough. I go and buy it, give it to the guy, and I'm moving right along.

Now lets think of that scenario from the perspective of the five year old who has never played this game, lives in a time when the internet does not exist, and can barely read, let alone make sense of what this monster thing means by "grumble grumble". To really blow your minds, consider the scope of this game. That item, should the dumb kid be able to figure out that the monster is indeed asking for something to eat, is sold in one of those hidden shops I mentioned earlier.

The way older games worked is that each screen was tiled and active object that could be affected were called sprites. Generally a sprite was either a character that moved, something that could be moved or acted upon in some way, or designated a border which can not be passed. In Zelda each screen of the overworld is about 20 tiles wide by 16 tiles high. This means that each screen of the game has about 320 tiles on it which could contain sprites. Of those sprite containing tiles lets say about half of them on each screen (give or take) are on a border or out in the open so that they can be pushed, blown up, or lit on fire by Link. And before I go on, here's another kicker; it wasn't until the third Zelda game that surfaces with secrets behind or under them were cracked or altered in some way to give you visual hints. These things were 100% hidden. There were no hints whatsoever to tell you "hey, bomb this wall!" So anyway, now we're down to 160 potentially active tiles per screen. But the overworld map is 24X18 screens so... now we have somewhere in the area of 69,000 tiles that maintain sprites that may or may not have secrets hidden under them that you may or may not to get to, to obtain an item that you may or may not have to feed to some monster, who then may or may not let you pass and complete the dungeon you've been stuck on for days. And the only clue, direction, hint, whatever you want to call it, that you have is "grumble grumble".

What the fuck?!

Before I go on... for those of you who have lived under a rock for the past twenty-two years and never played this game, here's the map I'm talking about:

Legend of Zelda Overworld Map

Now, the Angry Video Game Nerd recently had a gripe about a simillar issue with the game "Milon's Secret Castle" (yup, here comes another link... no embedable video for this one):

AVGN takes on Milon's Secret Castle

So in my honest opinion, the odds of finding what you need in Zelda seem way more stacked against you then they are in Milon's... however, I must admit that I didn't make it past those first two door's he mentions in that video in MSC at about the same age when I somehow plowed all the way through the original Zelda... it's a mystery I've yet to figure out.

So all this ranting and the original question still remains... How in the hell did I ever beat this game?!

All I really know is that the Zelda series is either the best or worst game series ever created. There's no grey area there... but I'll continue giving them my money because the bastards have had me mesmerized for damn near my entire life.

Apparently Mr. Mann Isn't Grading This... Who Knew!?

I am slacking so bad on this thing! So much for New Years Resolutions! Amirite guyz?! I finally got back around to updating because my friend Megan told me I needed to get back to work on it...

Oh also, before we go on, I need to mention that I have an adorable girlfriend named Jen and a pretty bad ass roommate named Kyle. We're all buds.

Okay. Hopefully that will cut down on some serious bar ridicule!

Back to what I was saying. I've been putting off updating because every time I go, "oh yeah! That's what I want to ramble about today." I then go, " Oh man... I have to go through all this hassle to cite my sources to prove my point and find fun videos and pictures to keep it interesting. Then I need to pull quotes from the videos or articles and talk about them..." What a minute that all sounds very familliar...

Megan pointed out to me what I've really been treating my blog as, a high school research paper!! A high school research paper that I can say "fuck" in all I want... but a high school research paper none the less!! No wonder I procrastinate on this thing like it's my job! Like last week, I had the misfortune of being sick on the day of and the day after those dumb as Tax Day Tea parties... Wow, what a frustratingly comedic sham that was! But the point is, the more I watched the train wreck of what all the networks claimed to be "coverage" the more reference materials I had that I would have to go back and dig up to refer to and cite and pick apart line by line. That's just way too exhausting to put together a couple pages worth of poignant laughs that only a few people will read and in all cases will just be preaching to the choir.

Now that we've identified the problem here how do we solve it? The obvious solution, I figure, is just stop doing research. I could just talk out of my ass and pass my opinions as facts like every other "news source" on the internet... on cable... on broadcast... and in print for that matter. It seems like that's fair game these days. Sorry Ed Murrow, but I think I'm just as lazy as everyone else. I think I'm just going to rant like the rest of them from now on.

With that in mind, here's my opinion of what happened last week on tax day...

A bunch of wealthy white people and idiots who just like to protest their own well being got in their cars and drove on roads maintained by their public works department and hung out in publicly funded parks and spaces to claim that they were bitching and moaning about paying taxes that all go to "the multinational banks and corporations". What they were actually doing is venting their frustration over the fact that THEY LOST and they are now the MINORITY.

One certain cable news station spent a lot of time and money conning these people into attending and convincing them that they're actually the majority and that their voices are ignored (elections don't count). This network used a number of key phrases and talking points to convince a few idiot viewers that the events they were sponsoring were non-partisan and truly of the people and by the people any time they were questioned about why they had these protests now instead of a few months ago when another dude was president. They were lying. They did it because they are mad that THEY LOST and they are now the MINORITY... that and Rupert Murdoch sent them memos telling them what buzz words, phrases, and stories to focus on just like he does any other day.

There's just too much frustrating absurdity to address in this whole situation that I'm going to give my self an aneurysm if I continue, so I'm just going to leave it with a quote from Jon Stewart to the Tea Party goers and their proponents...

"You lost. It's supposed to taste like a shit taco."

Sometimes a bit of vulgarity is just so satisfying...

Maybe if I tried making this blog more about stuff that I like it'd be easier. So let me just end this with, I saw the Slackers last night and Vic is still one of my top personal heroes and an inspiration. Man I love that band.

This Tired Old Argument...

So my friend Leyla and I have this habit of starting stupid arguments over pointless crap. The latest is what I view as the trend of being nostalgic about crappy TV shows that stopped running not long after you were born. The origins of this latest tiff are way too nerdy, but if you search hard enough on Facebook you'll find it. But I'll get you up to speed quick...

[Insert Leyla talking about a bunch of 80s cartoons here]

Me: ....you are not nostalgic about 80s cartoons. You were two.

Okay. Okay. That's kind of a dick thing to say, and I did overlook the part where she admitted most of them were shitty and I meant to put it more jokingly... anyway. Yeah. I am a dick and sorry about that, but I still think I have a legitimate point to make here.

There's a difference between legitimately remembering the mundane things you did as a child, like what shows you watched and whether or not they were good, and researching them later in life and then forming an opinion on it. Thanks to the monstrosity that is the "I Love the [Insert decade here]" series on VH1, my generation (people born in the late 80s) has decided that they are the authority on all things pop culture that happened when we were two or three years old. There's science that says "No" to being an authority on that subject by "memory" like so many of us love to claim. Until you're at least three or four at the very least you're brain is too busy learning things like motor skills and the language that all the people around you are spewing to vividly store things in your long term memory like mundane details about what crappy TV show our parents sat us in front of to make us shut up.

But all of a sudden you sit some celebrity in front of a camera who's younger than I am talking about this stuff and you get an entire generation of "Nostalga-ists". Just because you sit someone like Hillary Duff in front of the camera and have her say, "That whole Iran-Contra thing that happened when I was like six months old was crazy as hell. People were like totally freaking out!" Doesn't mean you're an authority on the subject by memory. That's not to say you can't do later research on it and form an opinion or in the case of TV see it in syndication and then form an opinion, but the trendy attitude that it represents our childhood is absolutely silly. The first TV shows I can vividly draw from my own long term memory are Animaniacs, X-Men, Spider Man, and Mega Man. All of those are from about 1993 at the earliest. I was a solid seven or eight years old. I had a long term memory that could store the fact that I would come home from school and those shows were on FOX from 3 PM till 5 PM. That is nostalgia.

But to defend Leyla's comments from earlier, there is also reinforced memory that can be indoctrinated into us by the people around us. For example, I only remember specifics about Pee-Wee's Playhouse and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure because the show returned to syndication on Adult Swim a few years back and I continued to watch the movie until I was seven or eight and then recently watched it again a few years ago. But I have an understanding that I have a "memory" of those things because my parents and older sisters would constantly tell people while I was growing up about how much I loved Pee-Wee Herman when I was two or three years old because it's funny to tell your friends about how your son loved the show with the guy who later got caught jerking off in a porno theater. After hearing that I liked those things so many times I sort of decided I remember it... but I can't honestly remember a specific instance about how scary I thought Large Marge was from before I was six or seven years old. I don't remember it the same way I remember waking up to watch Mega Man on Saturday morning at 7:00 AM because I was such a nerd that I loved to see anything Nintendo related come to life.

And it's based on THAT argument that I apologize to Leyla for my earlier comments. You may indeed know that you were in fact sat down in front of the Thundercats before you had any concpet of memories because of family stories or an action figure left over from a sibling or something and that I understand. That's fair. But to compromise, I'm just saying it's not the same as something you may legitimately be nostalgic about like, I dunno, Power Rangers. That came out when you were like eight or so right? Were you into that? I wasn't. It sucked... just like almost every other children's show that isn't Sesame Street.

...but those Spider Man and X-Men series' are still pretty awesome.

And to any fan of those stupid VH1 shows... there's a difference between thinking some joke a comedian makes about a crappy show that first ran when you were an infant is funny and "nostalgia".

So Go Ahead...

...and get fucked.

That's right. Go ahead and do it.

That comment was spawned by how depressed I've been since listening to this weekends episode of "This American Life". Seriously, if you're a fan and haven't heard it yet, don't listen unless you love to be miserable. But I'm going to go ahead and talk about it anyway because I can't stop thinking about it. Plus, let's be honest, a small part of me DOES love to be miserable. The episode was called "Scenes From a Recession" and included three acts. The first was about people who got fucked by buying condos from slumlords who took their money and ran, literally, out of the country after leaving them with dilapidated pieces of crap that were again, literally, sinking because they never bothered to lay concrete foundation. On top of that, they left these people with all the unpaid utility bills of other units in their buildings that had been foreclosed on. One lady had to pay a $3000 water bill to keep her condo that was sinking into the ground after the owner of the whole complex fled the country.

Next was the story of a local bank that went under two months ago and was gobbled up by the FDIC... a somewhat necessary thing to happen but the people worked there, again... got fucked. They'd been told they'd simply merge with another bank in the area and it wouldn't be a big deal. Then one Friday afternoon 80 FDIC agents slowly rolled into the place, proverbially and pyshically surrounding them and saying, "You're now owned by the US government and we're converting you to another bank. It has to be done by Tuesday so no one's going home. You will work round the clock till Tuesday morning." FUCK! It's Friday afternoon... you're putting your coat on to go home and spend the weekend with your family, and BAM! You're told you need to stay all weekend even though you may not have your job anymore on Tuesday. Dick move. One guy started crying when he was telling his story of that weekend because he missed his daughter's seventh birthday party.

Dudes... Fuck.

Then finally the one that was most depressing to me because it hit the closest to home was the stories of Circuit City workers who had basically been conned or forced by circumstance into riding the sinking ship into the sea. Holy shit... These guys got FUCKED. It makes me feel extremely lucky to work for the only electronics retailer that hasn't posted major losses yet and was listed by Forbes as the second least likely place to lay people off during the recession. It's not the greatest job in the world and it doesn't pay the best but at least I've got security and a good business model that doesn't force me to fend for my job by selling people shit they don't want or need. On top of that these people were taken for a ride all the way through the store's liquidation sale. All the employees interviewed said the mantra of customers had become, "... and that's why you're going out of business." Most of these guys are getting paid $8.50 to $9 an hour with no benefits and no severance pay, and nowhere else to go because no one is hiring, and they know their jobs are going to be gone in a couple months and all the while they have to deal with dickweeds shitting in their mouths going, "You can't sell me this HD TV for a hundred bucks? That's why you're going out of business! This is all YOUR fault asshole! Yes you! You punk ass twenty year old who's just here because he needs to pay his tuition and rent!" Okay. I made that one up, but I gaurantee that's how all these guys felt every time a customer asked about discounts. Although one employee did recount one experience where a customer lost his wallet somewhere, not necessarily in their store. The customer came back to check for it and it wasn't there so he told the kid at the door, "That's why you're going out of business!" The kid replied, "Yes sir. 30,000 people are losing their jobs because you lost your wallet." Fucking-a dude! At least someone stood up for himself, if only for a second. Like I said, I work for a place that isn't going under and I still deal with customers on a daily basis who say, "Why can't you guys give me a discount? Don't you know there's a recession going on?" or "That's ALL you can discount this for?" It's shitty. Some customers just have no concept of the fact that you have no control over these things and that you legitimately are doing your best to help. I can't imagine how these guys had to feel at the end of each day.

One poor kid kept talking about how he constantly had to say he was sorry and he was "doing his best" and the question at the end of the day was, "Why?" Why did anyone do their best or apologize to asshole customers when on the last day all the higher ups at the store said, "Ok kids... go ahead and GET FUCKED." After all the extended warrantys and extra computer peripherals and cables they had been forced to push onto customers or they'd be fired for all those years so the store could make more money whether the customer needed that shit or not, Circuit City simply said, "We'll take that cash, now go get fucked."


Have a nice day guys. The sun is shining!
Oh no wait... it's supposed to rain today. My bad.

Dude the Coloring of this Mic is Like SO Warm!

Ughhh... Oh my GOSH dudes! I need to talk on this thing more often. I keep telling myself, "dude, go write stuff. Go write stuff now!" and in reply I just go... "Nah... I'd rather spend three more hours perusing what the pretentious dicks over at Gearslutz have to say about the HK235AZ-2000 Jiggawat Tube Pres blah blah blah..." What a fucking waste... I keep telling myself. That's something I never really understood about the audio world... people's obsession with gear and making recordings that sound 100% polished like they were recorded in outer space.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Good song + good musicians + semi-decent room and mic placement = GOOD RECORDING. PERIOD. No ands ifs or buts about it.

All the Auralex bass traps and diffusors and Grace pre-amps in the world won't make a bad song good and they won't make a bad musician play well.

These dudes spend hours arguing over what the best sounding mics, compressors, and pre-amps are and who has the best tubes for whatever, yadda yadda, but a lot of them are just recording in their basements or bedrooms so it really doesn't matter. To an extent, discussing this stuff is like a painter sitting around for days on end trying to decide which paint brush to use instead of thinking about what he's going to create with it. I just don't get it.

Lately I've had this fear of turning into the guys on those boards who spend so much time bragging about the tens of thousands of dollars they've poured into their gear and then when you go listen to the stuff they've recorded it's all clean and polished... but it's lifeless and their songs and the songs of the bands they work with are all terrible because they spent so much time obsessing over gear and getting clients to come pay to use their gear so they can buy bigger gear and on and on and on... and then they spent 30 years never bothering to listen to or write good music so now they blow their families money turning their basements into the ultimate listening station and their wives all hate them... and on and on and on... again.

Ugh... please tell me I won't end up like that.

But I mean, it's not all bad. There are some legitimate professionals on there... somewhere. Because I have found a nugget of insight on these boards every now and again. But for the most part it's all just one big pissing contest to see who can do the most name dropping. Not for me. And yet I still waste so much time perusing that crap. It doesn't make sense. Sometimes I really hate having access to the internet.

On another note, I've saved up a bit of cash and between all my experiences in teaching and recording and such, I think it might be a good idea for me to put a couple hundred more bucks into outfitting my own collection of recording gear (I'm gonna buy the warmest pres man!) and my goal is to offer the most cost effective and helpful way for young people to record demos and get on their feet. It seems to me that there's way too many people out there who are preying on young musicians with a couple hundred bucks to throw around and either over charging them or giving them a shitty project but convincing them it's awesome... or both. I'd like to be the dude who's like, "straight up dudes, we're just recording in my bedroom, so I'm barely going to charge you shit... and if you aren't good enough to make a good recording yet, I'm not going to lie, tell you it's awesome, and then take the money and run. We can work that shit out."

So that's what I want to do... but it's kind of hard because I never really live in the same place for more than a year at a time at this point in my life so I can set up a decent place to work. Plus the fact that I already work with teaching kids to record at my job... so I can't really take money from anyone under the age of 18 to do a recording for them from my house. We have rules against that and stuff. Plus I don't want to use my job as a funnel to further profits for me down the line... that's kind of scummy. But whatever... that's what I've been thinking about these days.

First I need to get a bigger hard drive in my computer and then upgrade to the full Logic Studio... cus it's sweet.

I am now the Grumpy Old Man Shaking His Fist

First I want to quickly note that if you enjoy this blog but you're reading it on Facebook, come on over to frontporchaffairs.blogspot.com to see the original post because I think when I post videos they don't carry over to Facebook on the feed. Anyway, I wanted to try and finish up that list of life changing albums, but this shit is just annoying the hell out of me...



So first there's this fear mongering propaganda... Glenn Beck's rallying cry of "We Surround Them" and "The 912 Project".

And then there's this...







These are scenes from a rally in downtown Cincinnati yesterday where a bunch of yuppies who would normally accuse people of being "jobless hippies" for being involved in this kind of thing came out to bitch and moan about how the government is taking ALL of their hard earned money and putting it directly into the pockets of crack dealers and hookers... no seriously, I just wasted the last twenty minutes of my life reading their comments on the situation and I very badly want to get in all of their "don't tread on me" and "git r done" faces and say...

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Why do I want these people to shut the fuck up?


-First, Glenn Beck and his bullshit fear mongering. Seriously. For a minute I thought this guy was kind of funny because he was so crazy. But now people are actually listening to him, he's referring to himself as a televangelist, he's on TV shouting and waving his arms because "the government controls your lives and is taking all your money!!! We have to stand up and FIGHT!!" PUNK RAWK DUDE!! Where were you when the government was taking our money, and instead of spending it on us in our own country they were using it to blow up and kill those people who had nothing to do with 9/11? Where was your nationwide protest then asshole?! You were surely one of those people referring to anyone who disagreed with it as a "jobless hippie".

-Another thing, Beck calls this his "912 Project" because according to him we all woke up on September 12, 2001 and instictively "knew what to do". That's what he wants to get back to to solve this "problem" of "big government". We all apparently stood up, waved flags around, sang country songs, and yelled, "Fuck yeah America!" And then what? What did that solve? Well... now more people hate America than ever and as a matter of fact, this attitude was a catalyst for the real problem we face today... you know, the whole "world being out of money" thing, not the "big brother" conservative talking points... Anyway, yeah. Alan Greenspan even admits it. Those historically low interest rates that got the wheels turning on the downfall of the economy were set in place by him as a direct response to 9/11, right in step with the drum beat of jingoism that was going on at the time.

-Next, the distribution of the stimulus that those people are so pissed off about? Here's the general gist of it...




A big chunk of it is going right back to them. Jackasses. But what really offends me on a more personal level is that most of these people take issues with money for "protecting the vulnerable" AKA social programs. As someone who works and has experience in the non-profit industry I can tell you first hand that YOUR TAX MONEY IS NOT PUT DIRECTLY INTO THE HANDS OF CRACK HEADS. That argument pisses me off to no end. So many of the people protesting yesterday commented that they are tired of paying for hand outs to their neighbors because they work hard for their money and their neighbor needs to as well... well yeah, your neighbor should, but some people need help getting there or else they will become or remain those crack heads who continually try to drain the system. So why not invest in helping them get out of that situation, so you can stop complaining about giving your "hard earned money away to crack heads"?


-And in line with my last point, I'm going to go on a limb and assume most of these people would claim to be Christians. Isn't Christianity all about community and helping your neighbor? Propping up the less fortunate and not getting rich and such? And then comes the obvious argument to that point, "Well yeah, but why should the government tell me who I help with my money and how!?" The simple answer to that is "because you are a greedy asshole." Yeah, I'm a bit of a Hobbesian when it comes down to it and I still believe that the average individual is inherently evil and instead of actually helping the less fortunate like they all claim they would do if it weren't for those gosh darn taxes... that they'd just buy a bigger TV or give it all to their church so they can buy a bigger Jesus statue at best. Thus, call me a square because I know it's not very "punk rock", but I still have faith that a group of elected officials has much better a chance of investing our money in "protecting the vulnerable" than the individual "Christian" left to his own devices. Besides, even if these people do donate their money, a donation to godhatesfags.com is considered "charity" by many people, so...


-Finally, if these people are so adamant about "laissze-faire" and the "government is ruining and controlling my life! (...even though I was willing to let them get away with anything they wanted when I was scared of brown people dropping a plane on my house a few years ago)", then that's fine but, if that's how you all want it then...

-Don't take any roads on your drive to work tomorrow.
-Don't save hundreds of thousands of dollars on your childrens' education.
-Don't call the cops next time you get robbed.
-Don't call the fire department next time your house is on fire.
-Don't drink tap water or bottled water anymore... or take a shower for that matter.
-Don't take your trash out once a week to have it magically get "taken care of". Same goes for your sewage and flushing the toilet.
-Don't complain when there's no gas left in twenty-five years because no one bothered to figure out a better way.
-Don't complain when you lose your job and can't afford to find a new one.
-Don't get pissed when you get foreclosed on because the banks inevitably screw us all over again.

...figure all that shit out yourself assholes.

More Life Changers

So I slept till noon today and ate me some Strawberry Eggos and that was about it. Then 5:30 rolls around and I'm packing up after finishing teaching my class and GOD DAMN I AM STARVING! You know that 'about to pass out and unable to focus on anything' kind of starving... it me hard and fast like never before. These moments motivate me to do things like spend 15 bucks on pizza for just myself... which I did and now I feel just as tired and lazy except that I never want to think about pizza again, but I still have four massive pieces left... so I'm bound to eat them sooner than later. Sike! I'll save most of them for Jen because she works till midnight and will probably be that same kind of hungry when she comes home.

But anyway, what you're here for. Picking back up with the list of "Life changing" records, and note: that's not current favorites or all time favorites... they're "life changing". You know, after the first few times you hear it you know some small or even very large part of your life will never be the same again. It's that kind.

So here we go...

11 - Refused, "Shape of Punk to Come"



This is another of many on the list that I was late to getting around to. I started listening to this band a lot more when I was in college and getting more and more into recording. Nowadays this is the album by which I quality test all other recordings (production wise). It's perfectly cohesive, fantastically produced, and a big part of what makes those elements so good is how well written and thoughtfully planned every detail of it is. It kind of proves the old saying of "good songs + good musicians = good recordings". Well the actual saying goes "good songs + good musicians + good mic placement + one or two other things I don't remember off the top of my head = good recordings"... the other stuff is important... but not that important.


12 - Tom Waits, "Blood Money" ties with "Rain Dogs



I had heard a few Tom Waits songs before I got "Blood Money" but not a whole lot. I was very intrigued though. Once I picked up this album I was hooked and now am convinced he's one of the greatest song writers ever because aside from his voice he's unique in that he can get away with anything and do it well. I got "Rain Dogs" shortly thereafter and just couldn't bring myself to shun it because while my life was changed and my mind was blown by the seemingly melodic dissidence throughout "Blood Money" that was so foreign to me until then... "Rain Dogs" is just perfect and I got them pretty close to the same time, so... s'all good.


13 - Rancid, "And Out Come the Wolves"


Every fan of punk rock no matter how "advanced" or "adult" they like to pretend their tastes are; all of them have to admit that this record was in their library at some point and they listened to it a lot. The first time I heard it was at a swim meet where my sister's friend Allie, who knew I had just started listening to punk rock, played it for me on my Sony Discman (rofl at the 90s). It was totally awesome and just last week Kyle played "Journey to the End..." on the jukebox at Murphy's, which reminded me that I can't deny that I still kind of love it.


14 - Mos Def, "Black on Both Sides"


I wasn't really that into hip-hop for a long while after seventh or eighth grade aside from the occasional awesome release like Outkast's "Stankonia". But somewhere in the past three years or so I stumbled upon this album and got myself re-hooked on the stuff. It inspired me to go back and explore a lot of stuff I've been missing out on and rediscover the awesome jams that are...

15 - Public Enemy, "Fear of a Black Planet"


Like I was saying, after getting back into hip-hop this album is pretty much the epitome of what hip-hop should be, to me. Somewhere in the 90s, about when I stopped listening for a while, rap music got caught up in the game of money, money, MONEY! RAP ABOUT GETTING FUCKING MONEY!! Every 50 Cent and Gucci Mane wannabe (or even those guys themselves) out there needs to go back to this record and remember what hip-hop has the potential to be, a platform for a misrepresented culture to make it's voice heard. It's a platform from which you can be pissed off and be yourself but still get your point across in an intelligent manner whereas the "get money/my swag" generation is just perpetuating a negative stereotype over and over and over again... but Lil Wayne says some wild shit, so I'm okay with him.

16 - Kid Dynamite - "Shorter, Faster, Louder"


Before this album the only hardcore I was really into at all was Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys (do they count), and Gorilla Biscuits, so I thought all hardcore after the 80s was just the tough guy, muscle bound, straight edge, way too expensive clothing, BS that is still kind of the trend these days. Then I got this and found out that there's still awesome hardcore out there (since this album, this band and the surrounding scene has split off to form and inspire a lot of really good bands). It showed me that it can be melodic and thoughtful, but still fast as hell. And that's pretty sweet.

17 - The Slackers, "Wasted Days"


I'd heard the Slackers on all the Give em' the Boot compilations and kind of bobbed my head to their songs whenever they came on. I also had their first record "Better Late Than Never" before I got this album and wasn't quite hooked yet. But this album had "The Nurse", a song which is still mind blowing every time I hear it (as you can see this is makes a lot of things life changing... it's ability to still blow my mind over time). It is now my theory that the Slackers are the most objectively good and likable band since the Beatles... It's just that no one knows it yet.

18 - Bob Dylan, "The Free Wheelin' Bob Dylan"


Growing up my parents were always into "that old timey stuff" and had us listening to it, and I was always okay with it because I figured I could have grown up in a house with parents who were into Christian Contemporary or something worse. Is there anything worse than that? I dunno... I never thought much of Bob Dylan aside from him having a pretty good voice for a guy who can't sing until I started checking out his bootleg release series that started a few years ago and reading up on the guy. During the period at which this album came out he was still awesome, but I honestly don't care too much for the stuff that came out after he didn't want to be stereotyped as a "folky". The lyrics are great because people think of them as being iconic of the generation in which they were written, but for myself getting into it about four years ago, I was identifying with a lot of what Bob Dylan was saying, even though I'm pretty sure if you ask him to this day what his lyrics mean he goes, "I don't know what they mean! They're just words! I wrote em' down and sang em'! They don't mean nothing!" (no seriously, he says that).


19 - Defiance, Ohio "Share What You Got"


This band is what I listen any time I need a good old fashioned "heart warming"... I really don't know any better way to describe them. It's a bunch of midwestern kids who see the same problems with the world that I do, so it resonates pretty well with me. But they have a way of looking at things with a bit of an optimistic hopefulness through their music that I am never able too. And I like that. I on the other hand am usually a pessimistic bastard about everything... Not nearly as cool. Plus I love sitting on porches and there isn't much better porch sitting music than this. PLUS, "share what you got"... what a nice little motto to live by... If you've got more than enough... why not just share what you got? You'll find that not only does it make life more enjoyable, but it comes back to you when you don't "got".

20 - The Lawrence Arms, "The Greatest Story Ever Told"


This was another band I was kind of late getting into as this was one of the first albums I heard and now they, and all their side projects, are among my favorites and one of the biggest influences on our new greatest band ever... Bears. Sloppy drunken live shows aside, this band puts together thoughtful and fresh songs in a genre that many people think has been beaten to death. Well sucks to all of them, because bands like this (and D4, like I said yesterday) show us just how good and diverse punk rock can be if you take the time to write some good songs.


All right. That's ten more down and I'm getting tired and I want to drink beers and i want some one to get me the Micro Force shaver so I can shave my face in the swimming pool. Guys. That's awesome.

25 Life Changing RECORDS!! Or at least the first few...

I hate doing these stupid "chain letter" type posts, but my cousin who has a way of forcing me to do things because she's kind of like your mom, if all the stuff your mom sternly told you that you had to do was "come visit me and drink beers" type of things.... well she "tagged" me in one of these on Facebook. So whatever. Here goes.

Anyway, it's the "25 Albums that changed your life" deal or whatever. I also decided to do it because it's something that's legitimately interesting to dwell on for a few minutes.... it's not your "Top albums" or "Favorite albums" but ones that changed your life. Interesting. So let's take a gander shall we... Also, beyond the first few these probably won't be in any particular order.


1 -The Queers, "Love Songs for the Retarded"



The first punk rock record I ever heard. It was the beginning of my eighth grade year I believe and my friend's older sister went to school at the University of Cincinnati at the time. She lived at (or near and hung out a lot) a house known simply as Glendora around here which was famous for putting on tons of punk rock shows. Anyway, she bought this record for her brother Brie's birthday to introduce him to punk rock. He brought it over and we listened to it in my tiny bedroom a couple times and my mind was blown. Until then I had no concept of "punk" I thought it was dudes throwing up on each other or something... I dunno. Some shit like that. But this was different. These dudes were pissed off like I was, but they were having fun and making jokes about it... just like I liked to do. I was hooked, and still am. Six or seven years later I found myself hanging out with the new residents of that house on Glendora and seeing and playing shows there myself. Small world.


2 -The Vandals, "Hitler Bad, Vandals Good"



Brie also got this album from his sister on his birthday and was part of that same listening session. Again... minds blown. Life changed.


3 -Beastie Boys, "Licensed to Ill"



About two years before those first two albums I was getting more and more into different types of music and thought, "Maybe I should start building a collection of my own music to listen to outside of MTV (they still played music videos at the time) and the radio. This was the first album I ever bought, and it is perfect.


4 -Mighty Mighty Bosstones, "Let's Face It"



I haven't heard this record in a while, but it has influenced my taste more than most. My sister bought it when "Impression that I Get" was a big radio hit. We listened to it a few times and didn't really get it... but we really liked that song because it was on the radio. A few years later after I'd learned a bit more about punk rock and had at least heard the word "ska" tossed around we went back to it and were like "Ohhhh! This is fucking awesome!" Plus it taught me that you can use music as a platform to say "Hey dudes, being an asshole isn't cool" because there were a couple songs on there about fighting racism and such.


5 - Streetlight Manifesto, "Everything Goes Numb"



This record came out right before I started college and was pretty much my anthem for the first year or so of it. It also sort of started to show me the difference between "ska" and "punk with horns"... this album is more of the latter but it's so good and the songs are so epic and diverse (even though most of them are the same chord progression in the same key) that it makes you realize that most "punk with horns" bands aren't that good.


6 - Against Me!, "Reinventing Axl Rose"



This was also one of the anthems for my first year of college and as much as I hate to admit it, was the first step towards my musical tastes that make up The Best Revenge. Until then I didn't know that there was any way to combine the folk and blues music my parents had made me grow up on with punk rock. This album was like dipping a pinky toe into the pool of that whole idea I guess.


7 - Bomb the Music Industry! "Album Minus Band"



Two exclamation points in a row! Rumor has it that Jeff Rosenstock wrote and recorded this album by giving up drinking for a month and locking himself up in his apartment and doing the whole thing on a Mac laptop with a mic or two and a drum sequencer in his living room... and the songs were absolutely awesome. Sure the sequenced drums and amount of high end screeching from the synths is a bit grating to listen to these days, but the guy felt how I felt about the music industry, politics, the world in general and he expressed it all without help from anyone else... pretty inspiring stuff. And still today, every new album he puts out seems to be keeping up with where I am in my life and I'm like, "yeah man."

8 - The Clash, "London Calling"



I was a little late getting on board to this record. I bought it when it was re-issued with all those scratch recordings or whatever and before that the only Clash record I had was "Sandanista", so it didn't really make sense to me. Once I got into this followed by their self-titled I was like, "Oh. I get it now. Joe Strummer is my hero!" and he still is. Plus, just look at that fucking album cover.


9 - Dillinger Four, "Midwestern Songs of the Americas"



When I first started college I didn't really know much about punk beyond the NOFX, Rancid, Bad Religion, what-have-you more mainstream stuff that most people are into at first because I was in a small town and bands didn't just show up all the time. So while I was assimalating myself into that culture my first few months of college I made friends with Dan who conveniently enough booked all the good punk rock shows at Radio Down (R.I.P.) which meant I got in for free since he was my only friend in the music scene at the time so he had to take me to every show. Anywho... he took me to see Dillinger Four and they're one of those bands that if you don't really know the songs ahead of time you can't really "participate" in the show... but still I saw that something pretty important was going on here. Plus, the bass player had a tattoo across his chest that just said "HOW MUCH ART CAN YOU TAKE" in big bold letters. Fucking rock and roll. I was sold. I bought this record and realized how much more there is to punk music and how diverse it can really be... and on and on and on. If you ever see me at Murphy's with an extra dollar in my pocket, you will hear a song from this record.

10 - NOFX, "So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes"



At Christmas dinner for whatever reason we were talking about music and my parents were like, "so who is your favorite band?" I sat there for a minute and decided if we're going with most listened to and overall consistency in taste it'd probably have to be NOFX. That and the fact that they've always known exactly who they are and don't give a shit otherwise. They're drug sniffing punk rockers who are pretty into politics and sometimes just like to get drunk and play lousy... and that's perfectly fine. I bought this record when I was in eigth grade right after I heard those Queers and Vandals records and last March I got to see them play "the Decline" in it's entirety, which was one of the best shows ever. So... ten years and running as a huge fan... I guess I have to give them props.


Okay... this is taking way too long and I have to go teach kids how to make beats and get an oil change still today... So I'll do the next ten or so in the next post. Word dudes.