After several attempts over the years to complain to companies I have learned that they don't care. Which is fine because most of the time I don't care about them either. Some people still think this is the 50's however. As if you could pull into a gas station and be swarmed by men in white paper hats going through the checklist of good automotive maintenance. One checking the oil, one the tire pressure, another pumping your gas while another cleans your windows. The last gas station I was at sold me new wipers. A sweaty oily man proceeded to toss the new pack of wipers into my passenger seat. Now that's service. Here is a video of why they don't care.
Speaking of things I don't care about, here is an interesting bit on Chuck Norris. You know, the martial artist who became so cheesy that even he isn't sure who he is anymore? Well he and his trophy wife (if your a Nazi) have a video describing how they think we should have more Jesus in schools. As if the kids these days don't have enough lies coming at them. Chuck says... "Our forefathers founded this country on biblical principals..." like the separation of church and state? Asshole? I have no problem with peoples opinions or beliefs as long as they don't force me in any way. Teaching god in school is just that, forcing one point of view. I don't understand why they can't see that. It's not like I am promoting forcing an agnostic viewpoint, just a choice. They are probably afraid of what people will choose if given all the options. Look around people. We don't need more religion in schools, we need more facts in schools. We need more teachers in schools and we need more money in schools. Pass the freaking plate that way.
According to this CNN video report, this Glendale Arizona man had over 30 movies online of his masturbating in public. He calls himself "Baseball Playah" and he is not someone you want to bump into while trying on slacks. Do you suppose it's the thrill of punching the clown in public, or is it even sicker than that? Could he be turned on by folded and stacked denim? Does the though of socks connected by thin pieces of plastic somehow arouse him? Who can tell. Funny (but not really) that this is even on the news. Not that if a war wasn't going on it would be left out but I guess that just makes it more apparent.
Speaking of total and complete bullshit in the news, this story was also on the front page of cnn.com. A boy in Cambodia who has a huge snake that "let's" him ride on it. Personally I think it's a snake that is too fat to want to eat him or get away. Don't get me wrong, I want to see stuff like this, and this but not on a news site. Never on a news site. This is also the first time in a long time that Brittney Spears has not appeared on a headline. I guess I should be thankful for small miracles. (the rant continues) I'm sorry, were you guys running out of stories? How about...... oh I don't know, let's see.... Iraq, Afghanistan, Bush's foreign policy is going to get Americans killed, people with great power in America are promoting religious interests, kind of the opposite of what the rules say, power is too expensive and dirty, corporations are corrupt and growing, were starting to plan for a mars trip and a moon trip, JESUS there's enough to talk about without telling me about Joe Bob Henry Smith in Nevada who collects Nerf balls. (oh yeah, whats the name of that guy you were hunting for a while there? Osama something?)
So I am name surfing, a term I just coined, where you simply search your friends names all over the place and see what you get. I usually search one or two random names from my past and then get diverted to some totally random search string. I guess thats the beauty of it. It can't fail to entertain. (insert Mitch Headberg joke: "...escalators can't break but only become stairs..... sorry for the convenience"). So I am name surfing and I hear on the t.v. an awful recycling add. It's an animated rap (always a red flag) that tried so hard it's frustratingly sad. "recycle Rap" can be found Here. David Cross says it better in is Heaven and Squagels bit (obviously the squagles part), which is good for him because he is a professional comedian and I am not. This commercial pissed me off so badly I had to watch a fat kid fall into a river again.
After that I tried one more name and *BINGO* I get a relevant match. The name is not important but the video I found is. I used to live with this fella and had seen many of his old school pictures, some of my favorites were of his dance group where he could be seen busting out choreographed boy band moves in 80's gear with 3 of his mates to cheesy house music. Just like some of his favorite old school pics of mine were the old school mullet days. Apparently they took video of this monstrosity and unfortunately for them someone uploaded it. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that my mullet days are thinly documented on video. If you look me up you get something quite recent and quite flattering. Thanks again XversusY.
According to the Dodge Challenger Countdown Clock, only 70 days until it rolls off it's production line in Canada and onto American highways. I am seriously contemplating purchasing this vehicle. It will be my first car purchase as my previous vehicle Darth Vader (R.I.P.) was bought by my parents back in 94. Up until Darth's untimely un-demise only a year ago thats what I was still driving. (Thy giveth and thy taketh away) My brother and I share the family's old car here in the city now. It's a Toyota Avalon, it's nice and cushy but it's not really the car for me. I often say it's not a drivers car. It's got all kinds of fancy stuff in it like an lcd screen with navigation (that is ironically hard to navigate) and a suspension that is practically a magic carpet ride and all sorts of other positive amenities and qualities but it's not for me. After driving it for a few years I just want the car I wanted when I was 17, an ear splitting rocket ship. Damn the gas prices, damn the luxury, damn the "right car for you now" attitude I hear from some people I explained my dream to. I want a reliable car yes, but why can't it be asphalt splitting powerful? Or really really mean looking? You can't die with your money or your stuff but you sure can die so I say screw it. If I like the test drive I may just lay it all down for one of these bad boys. Here is a great blog with a great video straight from Dodge. The Dodge Challengers make great bad guy cars too so it's a perfect replacement for Darth Vader. God I miss that car.
Looking at the new Challenger got me looking at the current Charger Super Bee which is on the same assembly line the challenger will be built on. It's pretty damn impressive. That got me thinking about retro things which lead me to the back end of my website looking through old swf (Flash) files. I found some may remember. Whats better to reminisce with than old photos? Here is an old album. And here was a current event piece I did a couple of years ago. It's called "What's Going ON?" which is something I am afraid I will be asking myself if I don't buy that car.
I am kind of stuck in the middle with the new clear pass @ flyfree.com. Before all that here is the deal on this thing. Basically if your a frequent air traveler you can sign up for this card which bypasses the security line at some airports in some terminals. To apply you have to fill out all this personal info and get your fingerprints and iris scanned. I know, total multi-pass shit right? So heres my dilemma. While on the one hand I would absolutely love to never wait on another security line again I also don't want to blow up. My friend Steve is in the music industry and on tour half the year so he is a Clear Card carrier. He loves it and says it saves him tons of time but more importantly aggravation. He has tons of bags and crates to clear so I can see him getting a bit more out of carrying one than say, a normal person lugging a Newsweek or a Gameboy but I imagine it holds true for anyone. It also bothers me anytime one organization gathers that much personal information on you. Not to mention anything electronic can be faked, something people seem to forget from time to time. Last thing that urks me about this card is not something I am surprised by but it urks me all the same. This card is yet another way to separate the haves from the have nots. Granted that is kind of the general theme of our country the last 25 years, but again it urks me. First class, priority seating, frequent flier upgrades, business lounges called "clubs" with free frumpy food and cable, I mean when is it going to end? You can sign up for $100 a year but only if you shell out the first 2 or 3 years at once. We will see, I figure if it goes down like EZ-Pass, that is to say not everyone gets one and you often fly through wondering why, then it could be cool I guess. If you don't mind mystery people knowing all your what nots.
I am quoting here..."The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit
that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access
for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical
collections that exist in digital format." Okay, so for historical purposes, and strictly for research, the Internet Archive has a great live music archive where you can download some incredible live shows without Metallica kicking down your door to arrest you.
It is hard to find shows at smaller venues but I have found many on this site. One of my favorites is a show I actually attended that I can not believe I found. It is DJ Logic with special guests Miri Ben-Ari on violin, Casey benjamin on keyboards and Brad Jones on bass. There are a few more special guests, like a sick guitar player, but I can't remember what his name was. You can find the show in shn format here. Do yourself a favor and download it. As long as you consider listening to music research, which how can you not, well you get the picture. After you have funked yourself up enough try this show @ the Knitting Factory too. Good stuff!
** UPDATE** Just found the best audio quality live Dj Logic show here. It's from Mercury Lounge. Sound board quality and all mp3's. Also the live music archive search is borked. Search, but use the drop down and select live music. Why are you not dancing yet?
Leave it up to the Fox network to bring you the lamest, cheesiest and most annoying self promotional song since The Superbowl Shuffle. Below is only half the song because the whole thing will make you vomit and fire your agent. What I want to know but not really know, is who is responsible for this? What genius thought that this would be cute? Or funny? Or god for bid catchy? Why didn't the whole news team say "I don't think so?" Maybe we will never know but it is funny that it is Fox who is coming out with this type of crap. Possibly the philosophy is if they come out with enough of this cutesy self promo garbage the country wont realize that it is getting it's news from a right wing asshole named Rupert Murdoch. This guy was a supporter of Pat Robertson for christ sake. Here is a nice quote from this ass hat describing Feminism... "a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians". Yeah, so our news is coming from a supporter of THAT guy. I may not be the most religious person of them all but I do know that if there is not a place for these people to realize the pain and the hate they have caused (not to mention misdirection and delusions of grandeur) then there truly is no god at all. Funny, you would figure in a country that is supposed to have a separation of church and state this type of information manipulation would be strictly labeled, but then again, nothing this country does lately shocks me all that much. I wonder how much land is in Canada?
Let's face it, life can be monotonous, even dull. Waiting for the elevator or stuck in traffic it is easy to see how this can seem so. We have often tried to invent devices to distract us but boring situations are likely to remain a part of Humanity. Which makes the story of NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft even more amazing. The very bare bones basics of this ongoing saga are more incredible than most tried and true, time tested fables. For starters it was a projected 5 year mission which last year celebrated it's 30th year in operation. Sound familiar?
The whole concept of the Voyager spacecraft were to take advantage of a celestial event that happens once every 175 years. In 1977 the planets were in a certain alignment that allowed engineers to plot a flight path that would use each of the target planets gravitational forces as boosters cutting travel time drastically and with much less of it's own power. This is commonly referred to as "gravity assist". This would allow close fly by scientific crap to be done in far less time and without the scientist being 150 years old when they finished. Some of the tests and goals were to record the sounds of space, capture images of our celestial neighborhood and to carry our first multimedia message to the rest of the universe out of our solar system and into the unknown. So thats just the concept.
When you look up Voyager stuff on the internets you get bombarded with crazy facts. Facts that bend your perception of normalcy. Things like finding out the winds inside the black spot storm on Jupiter's face travel 350 meters per second or simply that the Voyagers are the furthest man made objects from Earth ever. The coolest part to me is The Sounds of Earth golden record (left) on board each probe. This held some cool data including how to decode the video and audio and a mathematical map of sorts pinpointing Earth along with an images of what we look like. (a more advanced version of the plaques Carl Sagan helped devise on the previous Pioneer probes) Now who knows weather we will make friends or just tell some huge cockroach race where the free food is but I love the audio recording that was on this thing. A greeting from the children of earth. Just listening to it makes me think there is hope we end up more than charred embers waiting to become fuel for the next species to fight over. I guess I also like the juxtaposition. Billions spent and countless invaluable data collected and something as simple as a kid saying hi is really all that needs to be said. I suppose if one wanted to get all philosophical and shit you could argue that we are kids and were currently sending a message across the sandbox to see if anyone else wants to play.... That or we just threw a thermos at the fat kid, who knows.
So the next time you are waiting for an elevator and you swear you can feel your hair growing or your stuck in the back of a cab and you are actually contemplating a scene, think of the lonely pair of highly cost efficient robots floating on the edge of our solar system looking for any sign of life, billions of miles from anything, speeding toward the unknown in a space larger than anything we can fathom... and how much more that sucks than your stupid cab ride. And to all the Creationists out there remember: They were launched for our sins folks, our sins.
*SIMULTANEOUS UPDATE*Watch my latest Video Slop edit about space so when they come you will not be unprepared and perish.
Powell Peralta, you know, the skateboarding company that started the careers of greats like Steve Caballero, Lance Mountain, Rodney Mullen and Tony Hawk to name a few. They called themselves the Bones Brigade and their VHS videos are probably coolest of the 80's skate movies. All of them stared the very best skateboarders at the time but maintained a quirky feel. I felt like they never took themselves too seriously, a common occurrence in modern skate and snowboarding films, always aware that they are skateboarding for a living and that you should be having fun above all else. No matter what kind of skater you were there was someone like you on the Powell team. Ray Barbee was the smooth king, Mullen was freestyle, (Still one of the best in the world) Caballero and Mike McGill would rip up the pools and Hawk was the vert master even back then. Ban This (1989) was one of my favorites. In high school I used to go to my friend Marc's house and watch skate vids in his basement/bedroom/tool shed. Me and Marc and this kid Rat (yes rat) would watch bones videos until we got rallied enough to head out for the evening to skate. We would skate almost ever day. Anyway, Ban This was a great movie to watch because it starts off with a great scene staring Frankie Hill, one of the scariest skaters to watch as he was constantly on the brink of mutilation and often failed to land, roll or bring his board with him off a jump. He'd eventually pull off all the tricks though, he just bleed more than most. This was not just my opinion it was widely known how bail oriented Frankie was. His pro model skate deck had a 911 where you mounted the trucks. We rarely got past that scene and wound up having more time to skate. Check out the clip below.
Not speaking of really random web chicks, I ran across this on YouTube and it scared me a little. Your thoughts?
After several attempts over the years to complain to companies I have learned that they don't care. Which is fine because most of the time I don't care about them either. Some people still think this is the 50's however. As if you could pull into a gas station and be swarmed by men in white paper hats going through the checklist of good automotive maintenance. One checking the oil, one the tire pressure, another pumping your gas while another cleans your windows. The last gas station I was at sold me new wipers. A sweaty oily man proceeded to toss the new pack of wipers into my passenger seat. Now that's service. Here is a video of why they don't care.
Speaking of things I don't care about, here is an interesting bit on Chuck Norris. You know, the martial artist who became so cheesy that even he isn't sure who he is anymore? Well he and his trophy wife (if your a Nazi) have a video describing how they think we should have more Jesus in schools. As if the kids these days don't have enough lies coming at them. Chuck says... "Our forefathers founded this country on biblical principals..." like the separation of church and state? Asshole? I have no problem with peoples opinions or beliefs as long as they don't force me in any way. Teaching god in school is just that, forcing one point of view. I don't understand why they can't see that. It's not like I am promoting forcing an agnostic viewpoint, just a choice. They are probably afraid of what people will choose if given all the options. Look around people. We don't need more religion in schools, we need more facts in schools. We need more teachers in schools and we need more money in schools. Pass the freaking plate that way.
