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Well, most of you already know this, but here goes anyway; I'm going to Europe in three weeks to tour with Imperative Reaction as they open for VNV Nation. I'm filling in on keyboards for Clint. The dates are: 08 May 07 - Germany : Losheim (Saar), Eisenbahnhalle 09 May 07 - France : Paris, La Locomotive 11 May 07 - Germany : Stuttgart, LKA Longhorn 12 May 07 - Switzerland : Pratteln, Z7 13 May 07 - Germany : Munich, Alabamahalle 17 May 07 - Germany : Hannover, Capitol 18 May 07 - Germany : Krefeld, Kulturfabrik 19 May 07 - Holland : Eindhoven, Effenaar Needless to say, this kicks the ass off of everything I've ever done. Anyway, just thought I'd make it official. Current Music: Elliot Smith - Coast to Coast
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I was at the Radio Shack on Ventura Blvd. earlier today in order to buy a new phone that has tons of features I will never use but will satisfy my ever lustful geek need to have the top-of-the-line, well, everything. At any rate, as I was standing there, I overheard a conversation between two employees going on behind me: Radio Shack Guy With A Horribly Stereotypical Mexican Accent: (in reference to the new Evanesence song being piped in on the decidedly tinny in-store speakers) Yo, mang, dees song ees like a streepper song, eh? Radio Shack Guy That Cannot Be Identified With Racial Slurs: What? Radio Shack Guy With A Horribly Stereotypical Mexican Accent: Come on, mang! You can't see a girl speening on a pole to theese song? Radio Shack Guy That Cannot Be Identified With Racial Slurs: Nah, man, this is like that vampire music. Radio Shack Guy With A Horribly Stereotypical Mexican Accent: Yeah, mang, those vampire girls are crazy, right? I love them. They're like so exotic. So, congratulations ladies. You're exotic. Radio Shack guy says so. Their conversation stopped shortly thereafter, only to be replaced by glowering looks in my direction because I started laughing really hard. I couldn't help myself; I am not made of stone. I felt like I'd just taken a walk around inside the head of every random dude who walks into a club thinking he's going to get laid, only to leave roughly twenty minutes later because he's so invisible people are trying to walk through him the way a bird tries to fly through clean glass. Incidentally, after Radio Shack I went to the bank. While standing in line and listening to their tinny in-store speakers, it occurred to me that if you're a musician whose music is being played in a bank, you have pretty much failed as an artist. Yes, I know I'm within earshot of Hootie; I don't care. Current Music: The Violent Femmes - To the Kill
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MTSU Votes To Keep Name Of KKK Founder On Military BuildingMan, I love Tennessee. Best quote in the article (after declaring that Forrest Hall is not a racial issue): "On July 13, 1862, Forrest led a raid on Murfreesboro to capture it from Union troops and set Confederate supporters free from imprisonment, Hurtt said. "He saved Murfreesboro," Hurtt said. "You can see how he contributed directly to Murfreesboro." Riiiiight. See, the Golorious Confederate Army SAVED Murfreesboro from those evil Union soldiers. I love those guys. Good thing my 11th grade history teacher was right and they won the war. Second Best Quote: "If it was a cultural learning center, it would probably be inappropriate, but it's not," said Hurtt, a sophomore history major. "It's a military science building." Oh, gee, well in that case, since he was such a brilliant strategeist watch for Hitler Hall, coming next semester to a University near you. Current Music: The Pixies - Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf Edit)
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my bank account is now $400.00 lighter. why? good quesiton. on the way out of tijuana last night after the grendel show, me and dana got pulled over for running a yellow light. not a red light, a yellow light. after getting me out of my car, searching my trunk, frisking me against his car (with an extra-special amount of attention paid to my wallet while he searched it for "drugs"), the head pig claimed to smell alcohol on my breath and handcuffed me. he then tried to put me in the back of his pickup truck to "go to the station". all i knew was that i couldn't let them take me anywhere. after some arguing (he started getting very angry, i think because i wasn't scared of him and i kept denying that i had done anything wrong), i asked him what i could do to fix the situation. he looked at me. "what?" "well, i mean...what happens when you take me to the station" "we ticket you and fine you" "okay...can i pay the fine right now?" "what do you mean?" "how much is the fine?" "400 american" "fine. i don't have that much on me, but if you let me go to an ATM, i will get it and give it to you. that should take care of everything." "...you fucking disgusting pig", i failed to add. "i would break your fucking skull open if i could. how dare you put me in handcuffs? i've never been in handcuffs in my life," i also did not mention. so, they took the cuffs off and kept my driver's license and registration while dana drove my car to an ATM where i removed four hundred dollars from my checking account. i take it back to the pig and he makes me sit in my car before handing the money over (there were some regular mexican citizens talking to the other pig and i guess he didn't want them to know he was shaking us down. he has morals, obviously). then he let us go. then we got lost in mexico for thirty minutes trying to find the 5, worrying every time we made a turn that some other carload of fucking corrupt pigs would pull us over. so yeah. FUCK MEXICO. p.s. - all of you people that were telling me not to go; please don't gloat or say, i told you so. i'm angry enough. Current Location: not in fucking mexico
Current Music: PAL - Wasteland
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for some bizarre reason, the state of modern music (or rather, the fact that i hate so much of it) has begun to make me feel really old. when i go to amoeba, i almost never buy anything less then six years old anymore. case in point; the last time i went, i bought pantera's cowboys from hell, slayer's south of heaven, and sepultura's arise. basically, a bunch of great albums that i never actually got on cd. i walk past kids clutching the latest my chemical romance, cursive, and hawthorne heights records and wonder...why? what the hell could you possibly like about she wants revenge? recently, my friend adam sent me a link to the billboard top 100 and after reading through it, i realized that there was exactly one album on there that i would pay for, and it was weird al. my confusion deepened and i began to give up hope and accept my fate as "out of it". then...a light. i thought to myself, wait a minute. when i was a teenager, there wasn't a goddamn thing on the billboard top 100 i would've bought either. i've never listened to music that popular. ever see front line assembly on the billboard list? what about deicide? of course not. so why should i care now that the billboard list has a bunch of crap on it? it always did. fantastic! problem solved! but...wait. i still feel...out of touch. old and crotchety. why? then...a light. i remember when, it must've been 1998 or 1999 when those metal-studded belts started getting really popular outside of the punk/metal girl sub-genre. i have distinct memories of walking down the street, catching a flash of a metal-studded belt and black pants out of the corner of my eye and instinctively turning to look, because, well, i wanted to check out the punk girl. though when i turn to look, i don't see a punk girl, i see...a cheerleader? huh? then i would sit and stare for a minute, trying to unravel the conflicting signals my brain was receiving. this new music is like that. it is a serious of conflicting signals. for example, take a band like she wants revenge; dressed in black, keyboards, drum machine, lyrics about self-destruction and loathing, and i instinctively think, "i'm supposed to like this". then, i stop and listen, and think, "but...they SUCK. do these assholes think i've never heard bauhaus before?" but that's the point; much like the cheerleader in the punk clothing, this band is dressed up in a style that for years has attracted me and people like me, but it is not for me. these new bands have co-opted our look, our sound, our style, and everything else but they are the cheerleader in the punk clothes. they are for the guy in the girl pants in the avenged sevenfold t-shirt. and avenged sevenfold is another prime example; they claim to be metal, they're bringing back guitar solos, they wear black and have demons on their album covers...but, they also sound like what would happen if you gave that metal-studded cheerleader a guitar and told her to write a song about her diary. they wear eye-liner, they sing about their feelings, and they have fake names that haven't been even remotely original since marilyn manson, and really, weren't even that clever then. these new bands are simply the same soulless, tired crap that the record companies have been pushing on us for ages; the difference is that they and their fans have co-opted the "freak" look and just fucking run with it. it is merely a case of conflicting signals; it used to be, you saw a kid with black hair, boots, and makeup and you would assume there was a siouxsie shirt under that trenchcoat and self-inflicted cuts under that. now, that kid is on his way to a kegger with the football team. it's time to re-think our perceptions. Current Location: work, but not working
Current Music: Neurosis - Lost
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So, as some of you may recall, I briefly dj-ed an all-request club at the Standard Hotel on Sunset Blvd. called "Democracy". Well, it seemed to follow the same pattern every week; the first few hours were mostly requests for new songs, generally more down-tempo. However, round about midnight (conveniently enough, when my set started) and the alcohol started kicking in, we would get flooded with requests for every cheesy 80's and early 90's song you could think of; I distinctly remember one night where we received five separate requests for "Baby Got Back". Therefore, I spent a lot of my time during the week on Limewire, wracking my brain for every half-forgotten one-hit wonder of our collective youth to download in case it got requested. One such song was Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up", a fairly odious song at the time of its release and even more heinous now as it is wretchedly dated. Of course, it's also fun as hell. So, since we dj-ed off of iPods, all these songs ended up on my iPod. Yesterday at the gym, I had the thing on shuffle and while I was stretching, I heard the tell-tale, "To the tick-tock, you don't stop...oh, to the tick-top you don't stop". I chuckled to myself and let it play. Now, I only vaguely recalled the words, but I couldn't help but noticing that the falsetto guy sings first and says something to the effect of (in a very high-pitched feminine voice), "Cause I've been waiting for you, girl, to make love to me". That must be the single gayest thing I've ever heard in my life. I have mental images of a really femmey guy being lain down next to a fire on a bear-skin rug as his lover gently caresses him while he breathlessly whispers, "Take me now!" The overt lack of anything even remotely resembling masculinity was utterly shocking to me, particularly in a song that was touted as being totally hetero, sung by guys who were supposedly getting laid 24-7 and went out of their way to broadcast just how straight they were. But seriously; what kind of a fag says something like that? (It is worth noting at this point that when I say "fag", being gay has very little to do with it; I use that word to derisively refer to overly misogynistic closet-cases who would make themselves and the rest of us so much happier if they just admitted they wanted dick and lots of it. At that point, they become gay, and we all love them for it. Now, of course, one could make the argument that this method of misogyny masquerading as heterosexuality [these same guys go to my gym; everything is "fag" this and "fag" that; then they go ahead and lift their shirts to show off their abs to each other and invite each other to "feel how hard these things are". That sound you just heard was Freud's corpse exploding] is really just a symptom of our homophobic culture as a whole and how for some moronic reason, being gay is seen as being somehow less of a man. Obviously then, these guys who don't understand basic tenets of human sexuality think the only way to compensate for the fact that they want dick and lots of it is to jump to the far end of the masculinity spectrum by disrespecting women and gay-bashing. Really, sexual repression is the worst thing one can do; that shit will fuck your head up. Regardless, I hate those guys; their repression of any latent homosexual urges they have [another thing these neanderthals don't understand; being attracted to a member of your own sex at one point in your life or being curious about what it would be like doesn't make you gay. It makes you human. It's perfectly natural and everyone has homosexual feelings at one point or another in their lives] always amounts to three things; misogyny, over-compensation, and really creepy looks at me when I'm taking my shirt off in the changing room. There is something overtly leering about it that really freaks me out. I've been checked out and hit on by gay guys before and it doesn't bother me; when these cats do it, it makes me feel dirty - like the guy who asked me how long I'd been working out for because apparently i "have a great physique". Ew.) Anyway...shit. where was I? Oh yeah. Color Me Badd. Buncha fags. Addendum: And what is it with gangsta guys dressing in outfits that a 1970's era NYC drag-queen would call ostentatious? Current Location: work but not working
Current Music: The Pixies - Gouge Away
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i was going to refrain from this. other bulletins have been posted, and i prefer to keep my pain to myself. however, as i was sitting here, trying not to cry for what seems like the fifth time today, i thought of the last time most of us got to be around jason; namely, the party at dana's house and watching jason teabag mike haff's head. in spite of the grief, that brought a smile to my face as i have no doubt that that is how jason would want us to remember him; drunk and pantsless, yes, but also...laughing. having fun. having fun with his friends, and making us all glad that he came up that weekend.
i've never understood the phrase, "it is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all". i always thought, well, the person who said that has never lost. but, we've all lost today. and i've realized that all this pain, this grief; if abandoning it meant never having known him, i wouldn't surrender it for a second. i would take all this and more, i would break my heart again and again because i know that i am amongst a lucky few on this earth; to have known jason mashburn and to have called him my friend, well...there is nothing i would trade that with.
we've all experienced loss today, yes, but even in my grief, even as my eyes are welling up again, i know that the greatest loss is not for us: it is for those who never had the honor and the privelege of knowing jason mashburn. safe travels, my friend. we will meet again.
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1. never hit the convention floor sober. an inebriated state of mind is necessary to deal with the combined body odor, crowded alleys, and sweaty man-boobs that jiggle on your shoulder while 150 nerds try to take a picture of that one girl who is showing her stomach, and you will be the only one who notices that it's not like she has a choice, as science has not yet invented the shirt capable of containing her stomach. 2. if you must hit the convention floor sober, do not flinch from cross-checking nerds out of your way. they are kittens when it comes to confrontation and will in fact sacrifice physical safety and balance to protect their autographed headshot of that guy who was in the beastmaster. 3. when it's 105 degrees and humid, do not walk around the gaslamp for forty-five minutes just to find the sun cafe. it will not be worth it and when you have to walk back, you'll be sweating grease instead of water. 4. when it's 105 degrees and humid, avoid the 40th floor hyatt bar with no air conditioning. comic con attendees tend to adopt a disconcertingly blase attitude towards "deodorant" and "bathing". 5. before attending a comic con-related "goth club", do not leave your hotel room without taking several shots. when the dj switches to his 3-hour trainwreck of a techno set, you won't notice and will in fact be able to dance for at least an hour before the music penetrates your haze and you realize that you're dancing to the worst music you've ever heard and yes, you are familiar with my chemical romance. 6. after shattering a handle of mandarin vodka poolside, do not listen to dana's repeated assertions that if you allow him to push the broken glass into the pool itself everything will be fine because "it will totally float to the bottom". 7. watching drunk people clean up said broken glass is much like watching monkeys trying to fuck a doorknob. though you've never really wondered what monkeys fucking a doorknob would look like, you will know instantly when you see the equivalent. 8. stepping over your friends passed out on the bathroom floor without offering to help just so you can urinate is not disloyal. it is in fact hilarious and worth repeating to others so that they may do the same thing. you will also curse yourself for not having a camera. 9. when you abandon a poolside at 4am and leave a mix of cups, broken glass (which, incidentally, does not in fact float to the bottom), empty bottles, and one to three articles of clothing the hotel staff will not be as understanding or willing to allow you to return the next night. calling them "assholes", "power-obsessed no-dick losers", and other epithets will in fact only strengthen their resolve rather than resulting in making them more willing to concede. 10. while a viable alternative to returning to the pool may in fact be purchasing a nine dollar pack of winstons from the front desk and smoking the entire pack in a four-hour timespan until 6:30am while drinking vodka the whole time, other options do in fact exist. for instance, "not doing any of that and just going to bed" is a rather attractive one. Current Music: Alkaline Trio - Radio
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conspiracy theories aside (mine personally being that was no natural death), kenneth lay was many things in life. we only got to know him as the fun-loving, destructive and Machiavellian leader of the energy company responsible for the california blackouts due to gross incompetence and corruption. apparently, we didn't know that kenny boy was also a saint and a civil rights activist. no, really. from cnn: The Reverend Dr. Bill Lawson compared Lay with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ, and said his name would eventually be cleared. yes, the REVEREND bill lawson. compared kenny boy to JESUS CHRIST. i'm no christian, but i can still spot the text-book definition of heresy when i see it. i can definitely see the martin luther king thing too. i mean, martin luther king selflessly and tirelessly put his life on the line for many years in attempts to bring equality and basic human rights to an entire population of oppressed citizenry, and kenneth lay...made a lot of money. by taking it from other people. oh, and he had a home in aspen. jesus fucking christ in sidecar, the comparisons are remarkable. Current Music: Mr Bungle - Desert Search For Techno Allah
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(1) Bruised Neck (1) Bruised Shoulder, Left (1) Gash, Ball of Left Foot (1) Black and Blue Mark, Right Side of Middle Back (2) Chunks of Flesh Missing, Right Elbow (2) Chunks of Flesh Missing, Left Thumb (3) Bruised Ribs, Right Side happy july fourth, everybody! while i can't with any accuracy say that these are the reasons i dislike swimming, they certainly seem like valid reasons to add to the list. oh, kicking and screaming is finally coming out on dvd. Current Music: 16 Volt - Downtime
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saw the proposition for the second time last night. christ, i love that movie. yesterday, after cleansing my apartment of the various dirts and filths that had accumulated in my two-week absence, i headed down the street to pick up a few necessities at ralph's. while there, i decided to go and get myself a sandwich from togo's. after collecting my food i headed out the door, where i ran into a small middle eastern man in a security guard uniform. i held the door for him, and he looked at me, smiled his thanks, and quite clearly said, "why, thank you, nigger." .... i don't know if you've ever been completely frozen in place by something someone has said to you before, but my brain pretty much said, "what? what did he just say? did he just call us a nigger? i...i...i don't..." and then just utterly shut down. i had begun smiling in response to his thanks before i actually heard his thanks, and so i stood there with my hand on the door, a half-smile locked on my face, and my eyes, no doubt, clouded over with the sheer shock of the damned. finally, my brain sputtered back into life and i stared after him as he went to order his own sandwich. it was about that time that i finally succeeded in a.) processing his comment, b.) realizing that there was no way he said anything else, and c.) doubling over in uncontrolled and hysterical hyena-like laughter at the sheer absurdity of the whole situation. i don't know why this stuff always happens to me, but i hope it never stops. Current Music: Fellway - Despair of Thought
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Europe is just not as cool as my iTunes shuffle. seriously. slayer's "hallowed point" followed by the door's "the end" followed by joy division's "disorder" followed by pearl jam's "even flow"? god bless you, you wonderful piece of technology, you. anyway. europe. europe is big. and pretty. that's about it. seriously, though, i took over nine hundred pictures in just two countries. leipzig and wave gotik didn't really lend itself to picture taking since you couldn't bring cameras into the venues (generally). so all my pictures are from florence and prague, which is fine, since those are two of the most gorgeous cities ever, with prague narrowly edging out the number one spot for my favorite. of course, in prague, we stayed in "praha 4" which is maybe ten minutes from city center (by bus) and where they feature this nifty lack of curbing law which enabled the varied residents to allow their dogs to literally shit all over the streets and sidewalks. i've never really seen anything so filthy in my life then this particular (iTunes just gave me the dillinger escape plan's "i love secret agents". i swear this thing is trying to seduce me) section of town. however, our hotel room was in fact three rooms; a sitting room, two bedrooms and also a full, private roof-top patio from which you could see the st. charles bridge and the prague palace. yes, i spent a lot of time sitting out there and reading. (fiction 8's "i scare myself" - keep this up, iTunes, and i will in fact allow you entry to my pants) one of the best parts of prague was taking the train about an hour outside of town to a little place called kutna hora, and the kostnice ossuary; also known as the bone church. for the uninitiated, the bone church is a several hundred year old church decorated with over 40,000 human bones, including a chandelier made entirely of skulls, femurs, and shoulder blades. i took almost a hundred pictures just in there alone. i also bought a plaster replica of one of the skulls used, as did my friend dylan. dylan then proceeded to pack his in his carry-on so that when we got to paris, they x-rayed the bag and saw the skull and made him take it out. good times. there are so many little stories to tell, that i will be making periodic updates and whatnot to fill you all in. i'm also going through my pictures and shaving them down to reasonable sizes for posting. ...and the last song of this post, the pixies' "levitate me". i'm going to go and sleep with this software now, excuse me. *update* - right after i hit "update journal", "levitate me" ended and otis redding's "these arms of mine" came on. i am in fucking heaven. Current Music: The Pixies - Levitate Me
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i'm leaving for europe in just over a week. i might as well say that i'm leaving for the moon in just over a week. it just doesn't seem real; i have nothing to compare it to. i've never been off the continent. the only time i've even left the country was to go to tijuana, and that hardly counts (despite the fact that a mexican midget followed us around all night - i tried to pay him to go find a jester hat and dance for us but he wouldn't). i just have no idea what to expect, and i still have so much to do before i leave; i have to get another memory card for my camera, i have to get more rechargeable batteries for my camera, i have to get those power adapter things 'cause european voltage is all wacky, i have to get a backpack, i still don't know how we're getting from florence to leipzig, we never actually bought tickets to wave gotik (though the ir boys might be able to get us in), and a whole host of other problems. going to the moon is hard! oh, and my quest thus far to get pit tickets to the bauhaus/nin show has failed. i got pretty good seats, but they ain't the pit. oh, and we saw trent at e3. he looks old. oh, and e3 was awesome. the ps3 sucked. maybe i should post about e3. Current Music: Jawbreaker - Face Down
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no, really. personal responsibility doesn't actually exist, didn't you know that? so when you lie about your age and enter a wet t-shirt contest then try to sue the people who videotaped it, don't worry. some dumb-ass fucking attorney somewhere will actually say something like, " "Sometimes what happens in your childhood should stay in your childhood," said Arthur Tifford, Pippin's Miami attorney" and you will be able to try to get money from playboy because of a choice you made. then, there will be talk about how you were exploited after you voluntarily entered the contest, and then some more talk about how you have to take medicine to get over the decisions you made while being of sound mind and body and purely motivated by the greed of wanting $100. you know, because that's what anti-depressants were designed for; those people who say they were designed for people born with actual chemical imbalances in their brains are just suckers. no, anti-depressants were designed for young white chicks who enter erotic competitions for the sake of money and then decide five years later that they wished they hadn't. god bless america.
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so, united 93. i'm not terribly interested in the whole "is america ready for a 9/11 movie". i'm more interested in the "why on earth would you feel the need to make a movie out of this?" question. there are several reasons why a movie of this sort just should not have been made. one of the main reasons is that the purpose of historical films depicting events is to inform those who weren't there of things they may not have known. the problems inherent in a united 93 film are immediately apparent; one, what story there is is well-known not just by americans but by the world as a whole. second, what story there is is not much; everyone who knew what actually happened on that plane (other than the alleged fighter pilots who allegedly shot it down...allegedly) were the people on board and i'm pretty sure they're all dead. so, what we actually have is not, as the tagline suggests, "the story of the fourth [plane]" but rather an entire film that has been largely invented in the screenwriter's mind. what is the point of that? never forget that this film is, at base, an entirely fictional account of the events aboard that plane. which is interesting, since universal, and everyone else involved, are pimping the shit out of this thing as a "true" story. well, it's true insofar as there was a hijacked plane and the passengers died. other than that, who the fuck knows what happened. you hear the filmmaker say things like, "i wanted to tell their story" as though this were a tribute to the passengers. well, sorry guy, but you don't know their fucking story. all you have is what you made up, and shame on you for pretending it's anything else. your actions are helping to bring about an absurd re-writing of history. i'm sure the filmmakers had many reasons for wanting to make this film, but if i were a cynical man i would say it all boils down to money and recognition. oh wait, i am a cynical man. every hack in hollywood has been drooling over the chance to make the first 9/11 movie. fuck, they were talking about it within weeks of the attack. do you think any other film this year will have a chance in hell of competing against a 9/11 movie? this is such a transparently shameful money grab i can't believe more people aren't talking about it. the only thing those who've seen it have to say is, "oh, it's so powerful." really? a film based (albeit loosely) on the most horrific act of violence on american soil in centuries? probably ever? i wasn't fucking expecting it to be "fun" or "a wild romp". can't you come up with something more original to say than "powerful"? this is nothing more than a shameless and despicable money grab from people too corrupt to know any better or to even give a shit if they did. Current Music: Nitzer Ebb - Hearts and Minds
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so, apparently scientology had its first legally owned child yesterday. a lot of people are talking about various aspects of the situation, things they find offensive, reassuring, or surprising. personally, the thing that i am most surprised at is that it's been a whole nine months since i started studiously ignoring this mind-numbing bullshit excuse for news. i mean, really. where does the time go? it seems like only yesterday my conversations were going like this: "Have you seen the latest round of pictures from the Houston Astrodome? It's mind boggling that this is America and not some impoverished third-world nation. I can't believe it. This 'Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job' shit is even worse. What is wrong with these people? Do you think we finally have all the ammunition we need for impeachment proceedings?" "Well...have you heard that Katie Holmes is pregnant? Really." "..." "Yeah, I saw it on Oprah." "..." "You know, I've always liked Katie Holmes, ever since Dawson's...hey, where are you goi...HEY! Stop it! Don't bang your head agains..Dan! That's brick! Stop it!" now, though, now we can ignore all manner of other important issues in favor of wondering about what kind of baby food TomBenKatiffernilina will be feeding their putrid offspring. hot damn. Current Music: Tool - Vicarious
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Last night at the Barnsdale Art Center in Hollywood, I had the pleasure of meeting and watching a live interview with Ray Bradbury. Check it!   This man has had the most amazing life. He talked, off-handedly, about being good friends with Felini and John Huston, as well as Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Heinlein. He's designed buildings, written movies, novels, poems, short stories and plays. He helped design EPCOT in Florida and he helped to design space travel. At the age of 86 and confined to a wheelchair, he showed more exuberance and energy than most children I've seen. He is, in short, an amazing man and it was absoultely stunning to be in his presence. I jotted a few verbatium quotes down for y'all: "Come to the end of your life celebrating" "Why are we here? The universe needed us to see it, to witness it; to be alive, if just for one time." "Space travel is an endeavor to replace war with a substitute" "I decided on that day that I would go into the future and never come back" (on what advice he would give to young writers) "Fall in love and stay in love. It doesn't matter with what, but never let them touch it." (on the world's fair) "If they're gonna tear down the future, I'm going to build it back up" Current Location: work
Current Music: Alice In Chains - Down In A Hole
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went and saw the devil and daniel johnston the other night. phenomenal. even if you're not a fan, you'll be stunned by the documentary. the really interesting thing is that he had an obsession with media from a very early age, and so documented his own life pretty much from the time he was about 12 or so. the documentary is loaded with video and audio footage from his life, concert footage, the whole works. oh, and daniel johnston is even fucking crazier than i ever thought. when me and my friend matt picked up "fun" in high school, sure we thought it was funny; especially when we started hearing all the stories about how crazy the guy was. it wasn't until several years later that i really gave the thing a serious listen and realized that there was quite a lot more going on on that record than i picked up on when i was 16. the movie really clinches it. the man is indeed a genius, albeit of the most tortured variety i've ever seen. a friend of daniel's makes a very interesting point about that. he says, generally, that we all honor and respect and admire the concept of the "tortured" genius...until that tortured genius is one of your friends and you get called to the university of austin campus at one in the morning in the dead of winter to find your friend splashing in the water below a bridge and shrieking about satan and demons. after that, the idea of the tortured genius seems a whole lot less romantic and a whole lot more "get this freak away from me". indeed, the earlier moments of johnston's life seem marked by misunderstanding and a lack of sympathy, though of course the scenes of his father sobbing over his son's condition are more likely to break you down then just about anything else. however, one interesting, or as i say "suspicious", omission from the film are the whereabouts of conner oberst during the portrayed events. in fact, he's never mentioned once. hmmmm, very very interesting. nice try, film makers. thought i wouldn't notice, didn't you? you can't hide the truth forever. it will come out. could it be, then, that bright eyes and daniel johnston really are the same person? i think we all know the answer to that. Current Location: work
Current Music: Neurosis - Takeahnase
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Dear Sirs, Imagine my surprise on returning to my car after a night spent at that fabulous industrial club, Das Bunker, and finding an entire window of my car missing! Well, I suppose "missing" isn't really the right word, as it wasn't technically missing; the window itself was quite clearly on my seat and on the sidewalk nearby, albeit in a somewhat more fractured state than i remembered leaving it. At any rate, I didn't see that coming! Well...again, i guess that's not entirely true; Das Bunker is located in a questionable neighborhood (hereby referred to as "shit-hole") and it is generally populated by unsavory characters (hereby referred to as "douchebags who think they're hard but are really over-compensating for a lap pinky", or "douchebags" for short), so noticing the vanadalization of my car was not necessarliy a surprise. However, my dismay soon turned to relief as I realized that you douchebags (hereby referred to as "fucking retards") really did have my feelings in mind! What else could be the explanation for the fact that my $400 stereo remained completely untouched, my $80 Ray-Ban sunglasses remained in place, my car registration remained in my glove compartment, and my trunk was completely unopened? Nothing short of humanitarian concern for your fellow man, you fucking retards (hereby referred to as "bonus chromosomes")! Generous to a fault, you are. You have certainly earned the fruits of your spoilings; I hope, with all my heart, you enjoy the bag of change totaling at least three dollars, as well as the 13-year old cassette copy of that seminal album by Megadeth, Rust In Peace. Oh, and I am certain that you bonus chromosomes (hereby referred to as "disabled monkies") will also enjoy that 12-year old dubbed cassette copy of Floodland by The Sisters of Mercy. I know blank tapes are hard to find these days, and I hope your access to several that are so worn out they are stretched to breaking is beneficial for you and your disabled monkey offspring. In short, sirs, I thank you. It is a rare occasion that the spoilings of a break-in do not even exceed the cost of an un-Super Sized meal at McDonald's, but that is the beauty of disabled monkies (hereby referred to as "crackheads"). I urge you to get on with your funky ghost busting and celebrate! This is a time of joy for both of us. Shine on, you crazy crackheads. Current Music: Fortification 55 - TIbet Gate
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i don't know what it is, but i totally love john frusciante. his music is not "good" by any standard, yet there is something totally compelling about it nonetheless. i guess there's something fascinating about a guy who clearly has so many demons and so much to say that it just has to come out and he doesn't give a fuck if anyone buys it or likes it. there's something about his records that make you realize he's not doing any of this for you; he just figured out that he could buy more high-quality horse if he sold his shit. plus, it totally reminds me of summer school at agoura high; my friend sean and i used to ride to school every day listening to all of these random frusciante records. this does really beg a more important question, though; why am i so obsessed with all things junky? seriously. i've never done a single drug in my life, but if you throw something junky-related at me, i devour it. burroughs, clevenger, baer, frusciante, jourgensen, lanegan, pop, bowie, reed, you name it; if they were heroin junkies or wrote about heroin junkies, i love them. like, a lot. it's creepy. Current Music: John Frusciante - Skin Blues
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so, i have a question for the geeks (well, let's be real; ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) earino, the_pan, sean1072, nidawi6 and panguar mainly). i am trying to write a visual c++ macro to create still galleries more easily. in the DVD language script file, the text that equals a blank button command is "nop". what i am trying to do is write a macro that performs three find/replace over and over until the end of the file. so, i need to grab the first "nop", replace it with command one, grab the second and replace it with command two, then grab the third and replace it with command three. then, upon finding the next instance of "nop", i need to start over again with command one, then command two, then command three, etc. until the end of file. it's been so long since i've worked within a language other than DVD that i can't remember even the basic loops; pathetic. i could've banged this out in thirty seconds when i was in college, but now i have to ask for help. ugh. this is what i have: Sub LeftToRight() 'DESCRIPTION: Still Galleries Where the Button Order is Back, Next, Main 'Begin Recording ActiveDocument.Selection.FindText "nop" ActiveDocument.Selection = "LinkPrevPG, button=0" ActiveDocument.Selection.FindText "nop" ActiveDocument.Selection = "LinkNextPG, button=0" ActiveDocument.Selection.FindText "nop" ActiveDocument.Selection = "{ SetHL_BTNN HL_BTNN=2 ; LinkPGCN 13 }" 'End Recording End Sub obviously that isn't working. help, anyone?
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jesus h. christ. hollywood is calling? really? yes, really. now you too can get a personal call from real "celebrities", such as that guy who played the bachelor on that one show that one time. or, you could also get a call from the one and only warrington gillete, the guy who played jason in friday the 13th part 2. yes, that's right, part 2, motherfucker. that's what i call a celebrity. they also have sonny londham, the guy who played "billy" in predator, but really, i'll let their website speak for itself on this one:
Appeared As The Spiritual Warrior Named Billy In What Many Experts Believe Is The Greatest Action Movie Ever Made. Sonnys Real Laugh Is Also The Predators Laugh In The Movie.you heard it here first, kids: experts. many of them. agree that predator is the greatest action movie ever made. do you dare argue with hollywoodiscalling? yes? are you an expert? no? exactly. shut the fuck up. somewhat hidden amongst their $20 options, is the marriage proposal option. from their faq:
What is the Marriage Proposal call order option
Would you like to propose to your sweetheart in an incredibly unique way? Well now you can have a real celebrity call your sweety and tell them that you'd like to marry them. This will be so fun and memorable that you'll be telling your grandchildren about it someday. the best part about this option, is that since the "celebrity" is calling from their own home, your "sweety" will then have to call you back and let you know her decision. oh, and since they can't guarantee what time of day or night the "celebrity" will call, your "sweety" might very well wake up in the morning to a voicemail marriage proposal from the one and only K.C. Armstrong! then you two can head on down to the waffle house and she can accept over a big ol' plate of scattered, smothered, and covered! yeee-hah! Current Music: David Bowie - Cactus
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i watched "domino" the other night; crap. that is all. so, my ipod did something really weird. as you know, i dj every sunday night at democracy. it seems that most of the sunset crowd digs hip hop; no worries, i like hip hop. the problem is that i don't have much, so on saturday i went to amoeba and bought a bunch of hip hop; kanye west, dr. dre, snoop dogg, and a box-set called "the hip hop box". i ripped this stuff onto my hard drive, then uploaded it to my ipod. i didn't actually wind up playing most of it, but yesterday at the gym i decided i wanted to listen to the kanye west record. so i look for it; it's not there. i think, well this is strange. how about dre? it's not there. snoop? snoop is there. as is the box-set. just not the other two. somehow, my ipod decided it didn't really want those albums so it just forgot all about them. i've seen my ipod do some really weird shit, but never anything like that. the space on the internal drive that contained those files must have somehow deleted itself...either that or kanye and dre eloped and stole away under the cover of darkness to head off into the romantic night and explore their forbidden, saucy love. oh, and this code i just wrote is elegance defined: 1. if (GPRM11==0) LinkPGCN Transition_Main-t-pgc 2. Add GPRM11, 1 3. if (GPRM11<6) GoTo5 4. Mov GPRM11, 1 5. Link PGCN Transition_Main-t-pgc Current Music: Kanye West - All Falls Down
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from the new york times:
WASHINGTON, March 11 — Inside the White House, the staff is exhausted and the mood is defiant. Republicans are clamoring for a new chief of staff, the West Wing just cut its losses on a deal that would have given a Dubai company control of some terminal operations at six American ports and President Bush's approval rating is at record lows.
"You know, people say to me, my buddies in Texas, 'How do you handle all this stuff?' " Mr. Bush said at a gathering of newspaper editors Friday in Washington. "You know, it's just after a while you get used to it."not "you begin doing things that the majority of the public, who are the real power in a democracy, want me to do" not "well, i am unhappy with the way things are and i will do some serious soul-searching to determine the source of my problems" not "perhaps i'm not an autonomous ruler who answers to no one and i should listen to my polls" no, we get, "You know, it's just after a while you get used to it." gee, i 'm not sure, but i think i may be beginning to see the problems with ol' george w. could it be maybe that we have a president sitting on top of massive fiduciary and political corruption, the largest out-of-control federal deficit in the history of the united states, and, consequently, some of the lowest approval ratings ever and his answer to all of this is not to change anything, but rather to plow ahead in the same course and detractors be damned? this is the president of the united states, folks; he was "elected" (granted, i hesitate to use that term) by a populace of citizens. this is the same populace of citizens that he is beholden to for approval; the president doesn't just get to do whatever he wants. this is, as he keeps screeching, a democracy. so, if the majority of people in this country (63% according to the latest gallup polls) disagree with a war in iraq, for example, do you think that he has any right to continue on with it? to lobby congress to increase the federal deficit ceiling again? we have a rogue government, acting totally without check from a largely apathetic nation. they do not listen to popular will, they do not listen to popular mandate, and they certainly don't listen to anything even remotely approximating popular common sense. the world is collapsing around his ears, the public is screaming for his blood, his buddies are being indicted left and right, he is dodging accusations of illegal wiretapping and lying to everyone from the senate to your mom, and his answer is "you just get used to it."
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from The Onion:
"For a while, I wanted more fuel for the fire, to really get my blood boiling," said Madison, WI resident Dorothy Levine, a reproductive-rights activist and former Howard Dean campaign volunteer. "I read the policy papers on the Brookings web site. I subscribed to The Progressive. I clipped cartoons by Tom Tomorrow and Ted Rall. I listened to NPR all day. But then, it was like, while I was reading Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked, eight more must-read anti-Bush books came out. It was overwhelming. By the time they released Fahrenheit 9/11, I was too exhausted to drag myself to the theater.
"It used to be that I would turn on Pacifica Radio and be incensed at the top of every hour," Levine added. "Now, I could find out that Bush plans to execute every 10th citizen and I'd barely blink an eye, much less raise a finger."
Current Music: Hungry Lucy - Open Window (Chandeen Mix)
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