Fucking Asshole

Thanks for driving drunk, Mr. Asshead.

Thanks also for smashing my van while I'm driving with the baby actually on-board.

Thanks. Really.

Last I checked your wiper isn't supposed to be inside the fucking car. Neither is the back window. The paper thing which appears to be a french fry wrapper is actually an 8-speed bike cassette for the rear wheel. In the box. Which is destroyed. Like my van. Fucking asshole.

How hard do you have to hit somebody to compress the whole length of the van so that at first glance the rear end almost looks normal save for the smashed in hatch? The frame is buckled, the suspension is fucked. The rear fenders are too close to the tires which are also too close to the front of the van. Fucking asshole.

Little Miss Sunshine

I don't even know what to say here.

I'm still fucking laughing and the movie's been over for twenty minutes.

So, yeah. If you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine yet go out and get it. Watch it. Make sure you pee first or you'll need to change your pants.

Stick it in the Slot

Someway back (can't have been too long ago, cuz my foot is still in this fucking GIANT BLACK VELCRO BOOT) I mentioned about a new washing machine.

As in many cases, the new washing machine did in fact replace an old washing machine.

I am back today to show you pictures of the old, quarter-eating, non-spinning washing machine.

Here you go:

There it is, sitting by the trash cans. Even before we moved it out there, the front was already kicked off of it. I'm kinda sad you can't see the sign taped to the front. "Do not put feet on washers," it said. I'm guessing people didn't listen or else the front wouldn't have banged around all the time like a wounded asshole.

Here is a bigger shot showing the fancy Computer Control Pad and the quarter slot.

If you open the lid (which required some prying) you can flip a button which lets you reprogram shit. I only ever figured out how to make it not take quarters. But it only stayed that way until the power went out, then I'd have to fix it again.

Pleas write soething else!

It has been brought to my attention that Pleas write soething else.

What are these Pleas? And how is a verb able to write?

As for "soething else..." I guess I can't be too surprised. What else do you suppose a poor little Plea, struggling with pen in hand, should manage to write?

So, I will now share this with you all. Please spread the word.

The Pleas are able to write "soething else."

I wonder what kind of paper they used...

How important is Snacko?

snacko serves snack soup

snack soup is wholesome goodness

snack soup is a good friend of mine

snack soup is very liberated

snack soup stands up to opression and tyranny

snack soup is the source of freedom in war-torn countries.

snack soup is the breath of life in a firey building

snack soup is a parachute when you find yourself ejected from a spacecraft

All's not quite so well.

I am on drugs. Currently it's Oxycodone which is secret generic slang for Percoset. Priorly it was Hydrocodone which is generic slang for Vicodin. Both are good.

You see, about four hours after we achieved our new washing machine, my right foot started hurting. To properly describe the sensation in my foot you would need to imagine what it would feel like if you dropped a washing machine on your foot.

HOWEVER.

I did not drop a washing machine on my foot. I'm sure of it. I don't recall doing any wrong whatsoever to my foot. But it's damn busted nevertheless.

Actually, it's not busted. I got x-rays. Here are x-rays:




The x-ray came back negative for breaks and positive for nothing wrong.

So they said maybe it was a STRESS FRACTURE. And I got sent for a BONE SCAN. I will have to post the bone scan pictures later because I didn't scan them yet - but trust me -- they are definitely worth posting because they are some strange shit.

And still they show nothing is broken.

But my foot hurts, so I get to take pain medicine for a week and then wear a dumb foot boot for two weeks.

I'm really glad we didn't spend the money for FREE DELIVERY of that new washing machine.

All's well.

We got a new washing machine.

Brand spankin' new. Our old one took quarters. This one doesn't. I could get the quarters out, or even set it to not take quarters but it still only had 6 buttons so you couldn't run just part of a cycle. And if the power went out (like it does here in the sticks) then it went back to requiring $0.75 to do a load.

Our old one didn't have any dents. This one does.

Our old one didn't have a whole front panel thus leaving the guts exposed. The new one has a front. Which is dented.

Brand new. In the box. Dented. Thanks, Home Depot.

The better part is that the right rear corner looks like sombody dropped it off of a fucking fork lift about two or three feet too soon. Thanks, Home Depot.

But it works, so who gives a shit.

It fills up with water. It is not anything at all near as noisy as I expected a $300 washer to be.

AND. It's one of the four top-rated in the ACTUALLY WASHES CLOTHES WELL cagegory of Consumer Reports. The other ones cost $599, $999, and $1099.

So that was an easy decision. I guess the $700 discount is automatically figured in when they slow down the truck and kick it out the back rather than actually stopping to deliver it to the store.

And now I feel slightly less worthless but I really wish my wife would stop asking me "So what's dinner going to be?" every two fucking seconds.

never gets finished

Last night I was revisited by an old feeling. It was one of those I really didn't miss having.

Last night was the first time in a very long time the thought crossed my mind that it would be easier to just fucking end it all.

It didn't come along full-formed with a plan, but it was there and it didn't go away for quite a while. Actually, it's still kinda hanging out in the back of my head almost like it pulled up a chair and decided to stay for awhile. I think it still has its coat on, tho, so maybe I can kick it out today.

Maybe I'll come back and edit this later to try to go through what brought about this feeling. It might be helpful to me to spill my thoughts out. Maybe not. Who knows?

Inspiration can strike anywhere

Burnt out signs may make for good album titles:

INTE TIONA
FURNITU

Holy oldshit, Batman!

D'ja ever notice how when a band plays a song sometimes (most times) it's faster than on the CD? This is the result of syncing the CD track to the faster live performance and using everything under the sun to disquise the fact that you only shot with one camera and you have to keep backing up a few frames to line up the lips.

Like it really matters.

It also benefits from fantastic video capture software and a fabulous 3rd generation VHS copy of the live show. And it benefits even more from the fact that Eyes Wide Shut was playing on the TV so every time I stopped the tape the computer kept capturing... um... other stuff.

And that's some squub guy on bass. For sure.

And you better know I bought that S.O.D. shirt from Billy Milano himself. He's a hell of a salesman.

"If a fat fuck like me can fit into an XL then a fat fuck like you won't have any problem at all."

How can you turn down a line like that? He got my $20. I got a shirt and had to cut off the sleves to fit my fat self into it.

Then later I got to see him sing about FUCK THE MIDDLE EAST.

But the biggest tragedy is that you can't see my pants.

They were made of cut-off pants.

How many days until...

1. I am not ready for Christmas. Somebody else is.



2. Did I mention about The Beatles' LOVE thing? I can't stop listening to it.

I realized why it sounds as good as it does (then I went and verified by finding some interviews with George & Giles Martin...)

When this stuff was initially recorded, the technical limitations of the time meant that these songs were recorded to 4-track tape -- at least up through Sgt. Pepper's. By the White Album they were up to 8-track recording.

But the majority of this stuff is from 4-track masters. Since there are more than four things recorded, there was a lot of jockeying and jostling of sounds. Sometimes things were recorded at the same time though a mixer to one track on the tape. More often, The 4-tracks on one tape were mixed down to 1, 2, or 3 tracks of a fresh tape so that there was more room to put overdubs - like strings and vocals and other guitars.

All the past Beatles releases have been from the final 4-track master - after all the bouncing and combining had already been done. This tape could be three or four generations removed from the original tape. Meaning that whatever was recorded first -- likely drums, guitars and pianos and things -- has been COPIED three or four times.

How does it sound when you copy a tape on your stereo? How about when you copy a VCR tape? Then what happens when you copy it again? And again? At what point does it look too shitty to even watch?

Granted -- the equipment used at Abbey Road is a far cry from the home dual-cassette deck, but it's still a copy of a copy of a copy and by the nature of the medium it loses some gloss and sparkle with each copy.

NOT ONLY THAT -- but these final 4-track masters are what the original records were duplicated from, what the CD's were duplicated from... They have probably been played more times than any other tapes in the history of modern recording. Playing tape degrades tape -- plain and simple. It wears out.

So our good friends the Misters Martin went back to the ORIGINAL TAKES. Before the bouncing and combining.

They imported the four tracks from that first tape into ProTools. They went on to the next tape and added whatever overdubs it held. And the next tape. And the next tape.

This way, instead of only have four tracks to work with on say, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, now they have eight or ten, or more. And all the generation loss is gone. And it's very likely these tapes HAVE NOT EVEN BEEN PLAYED since the day they were recorded and then bounced to another tape. Sure, Mark Lewisohn may have played with some of them when he combinated all the Anthology stuff, but he tended to work with more completed things, so there's gotta be stuff that hasn't been touched since 1964 on there.

And it sounds AMAZING.

I want more.

Giles Martin's next task should be the creation of 5.1 mixes of the whole fucking catalog. Thanks. I'll be waiting for that right over here.

I'm stunned. Floored. Holy shit.

I must be living in a cave or something. Up until now I'd only heard a few rumblings about The Beatles: LOVE project.

This project somehow involves legendary Beatles producer George Martin, his son, Cirque du Soleil, and the original recordings made at Abbey Road Studios during the 8 year period the Beatles were active.

I had heard a small rumbling about somehow mish-mashing songs together and making a new album, and I really didn't think much of it. They're always trying to grab more money from Beatles fans around the holidays, so I pretty much dismissed it as another throw away.

But today I heard it.

And all I can really say is...

HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

For real. I put the disc in the car while I was driving earlier today but I had someone else in the car, so I turned it down to just barely audible and didn't really note much detail on the first half of the thing.

But on my way home from work today, I was alone. I let it play from where it was and turned it up so I could really hear it. And at some point I looked at the CD player and noticed it was on track 11. It started playing John Lennon's demo recording of Strawberry Fields. At least I'm pretty sure it was the demo version featured on Anthology.

And the first thing I noticed was the fidelity. It was unreal, like I was totally immersed in the sound of this man and his guitar -- a sound which was recorded seven years before I was even born. This sound, as old as I know it is, sounded like it was recorded five minutes ago, it was so alive and real... but before I could marvel any more about the overall sonic quality of the thing, I realized the studio recording of Strawberry Fields was now playing. But it still had the vocals from the demo. Music from the studio version. Vocals from the demo - which was cut with one mic in a Spanish bedroom recording a voice and guitar. Over the studio music. And it fucking works. It's like magic. And it just keeps going, on and on. Songs seque into songs and parts from the wrong songs flow in and out of the thing and it's all in key and sounding... I dunno... RIGHT. It sounds right.

It sounds like what would have happened if these songs had been recorded now and The Beatles not only had full access, but the whole bag of skills, to twist and edit their music in a modern digital workstation.

BUT IT DOESN'T SOUND FUCKING DIGITAL. The sound of it utterly crushes me.

The songs here are presented in a more modern light. The odd stereo panning of the old songs -- which was never an artistic decision in the first place, it was purely commercial so that consumers with a mono record player could still listen to the Stereo version of the LP -- is tossed away. The songs are mixed with a modern stereo image in mind. Drums and vocals are firmly in the center of the image. Guitars, bass, pianos, and all kinds of shit flitters around on the outer edges of the speakers.

These songs done this way are powerful. They certainly don't sound 40 years old. The edits and layering are astounding. Not only is there more going on than you could ever absorb in a single listen, but it's also presenting things in a new light so you're hearing things which were buried way down in the original mixes shining through loud and clear.

Do yourself a favor (and contribute to Mr. McCartney's next tropical island) and go get a copy.

Going solo

I tried. I really, really tried.

But I think I found the key to the whole thing.

See -- last year when I did NaNoWriMo, I had other people in my immediate circle doing it, too. I could check their stats and see that they were creeping up on the big lead I created early on, so I would write more.

After week 2 when I hit the wall, I could check stats and see I was completely caught-up to and passed by friends. So I really had to write more.

This year it was just me. Only me. No other stats to check, no nagging voice in the back of my head saying, "open it. type. every little bit helps."

This year I was looking for big blocks of time to write big blocks of text.

I found one such block over Thansgiving -- I knocked out 5,000 words in just over two hours one evening. I did a thousand more the night before that.

But, when added to the 7,500 words I had prior to that, I only manged a total of 13,684 words for all of November.

So I've got the first quarter of a story here... I dunno when I'll finish it, but I need to figure something out before October of next year cuz I don't want this one to be on my mind when it comes time to start up a new one.

Hopefully next year my peeps will be back in action. I really hope so, cuz while I'm not really bummed out, I do miss the feeling I had last year when I actually managed to write a novel.

Where's Ringo?

Virgin says there are 74 bands in this image. How many can you find?

(click the image for the full resolution graphic or you'll be missing half of the easy ones...)



My finds are in the comments so as to not spoil all your fun with the easy ones.

"And in my dying breath..."

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and it was brought to the forefront of my actual conscious brain today when I got an e-mail reminding me of a very specific event in my past. We're talking a split-second, blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of thing. It is the kind of thing that brings back a flood of memories -- all of them good -- and it made me give voice to what I had been going over in my head.

As I look at all the things I've done -- including all the stupid shit, terrible decisions, bad choices, and horrible people I've put up with over the years... I realize that every bit of that stuff, no matter how terrible or how amazingly fantastic all adds up into what I am today. If you take away any part of my past experience, I would not be the same person. If you were to take away just one wrong choice or derail one thread of unhappiness, where would that leave me today?

It's something I've often pondered - and moreso since getting the lyrics to "A Question" stuck in my head over ten years ago. But now there's a physical manifestation of these thoughts.

When I look at my little boy I see the sum of all the things I've done. I see the toll of all the choices I've made.

And I see without a doubt -- I have no regrets. Given the chance, I wouldn't change anything. I would love to go do some of those thing again (and again, and again,) but I see no need to change any of it.

The question that lies within
Is so hard to understand
It still tears at me
And in my dying breath
My heart holds no regrets
I wouldn't change a thing

Failing at not sucking

I stand by my previous posts about NaNoWriMo - sit down and write your story. It's not too late, but you'll have to work extra overtime to ever get finished.

But, as I say that, I have to admit that I am sucking big time. I should be at around 20,000 words in my NaNo Novel. I'm about a quarter of that. And you'll even just have to take my word on it because I haven't bothered to update the word counter thing.

It's not a matter of drive or lack of ideas - I actually had less tangible story when I got to this point last year. All I knew when I started that one was where it was going to end up and that it needed to take the most ridiculous route possible to get there. I had no idea what that route would involve, but I slogged through it and I was pretty happy with what I got out of it.

This year, I started a new one on an old theme -- one of my seminal ideas going back to a WordStar document on my old XT Compaq Luggable. I got about 1500 words into it, thinking to myself that I really might have it this time -- I might be able to take this one all the way to the bank, er, word counter. Whatever.

The second day of working on it, I was blindsided by a whole new idea - one that came fully formed with opening paragraphs and a pretty good idea of where it was going and how it would get there.

So -- I scrapped the first one. Again. I started up the new one about a guy who wakes up with a lump on his forehead. I started writing about how he doesn't understand why his house isn't what he remembers his house to be. And I've got more. It's waiting to come out. But holy shit is it ever hard to write on my current schedule. I've been tapping away on breaks at work (and I should be tapping away here - how many words are in this post which could have been put to better use?) which is why my word count isn't updated... I've got little text files scattered here and there (which my fancy new USB flash drive thing should remedy) and I haven't yet combinated the whole thing back into one document.

I feel compelled to write this novel for many reasons, and most of them selfish, but thanks to Kingo I may have found a bit more inspiration. I'm not sure if it's enough to push me over the top, but it's certainly enough to kick it up a notch and try a little harder.

Kingo sent me a link to Sarahdigm Shift. Now I'm linking right back so you can see what he said she said.

I don't even know what to say here. What I want to do is go find her house and knock on the door and say, "Thank you," in person. I'm sure after reading any part of that book she'd never even unlock the screen door, but I would still offer my thanks for her comments. I also owe her a corrected copy of the book when I get around to it -- that one's got quite a few typos in it.

I'm going to stop blabbering here and go back to the guy with the bump on his forehead. He's about to meet Ted S. Edwards, in the flesh.

Anger Management - Step by Step

1. Grab your guitar. Tune it to standard intervals. The fat string should be tuned to C#.

2. Grab your amp. Turn the pre-gain up all the way. Try to twist the fucking knob off.

3. Still at the amp, turn the post gain or master volume up to a very loud level. From prior experince you should know which point on the indicator summons the cops. If you're only kind of pissed, put it a hair below this point. If you're really pissed, just go a hair past that point.

4. Cue up the CD, record, tape or MP3 of "I'm Broken" from Pantera's Far Beyond Driven album. Make sure it's loud enough to be heard along side your blazing guitar amp.

5. Get ready to go - the guitar starts on the fucking downbeat.

6. When it gets to the halftime part be sure your head swings forward on the kick drum and snaps back (hard) on the snare. Be careful with the string skips, but don't stop the neck snapping.

7. Repeat. Maybe try it with Cemetery Gates or (if your wrist is up to it) the Cowboys.

7a. Kick stuff.

just another day

Thirteen years ago today I had a busy day. I remember very clearly that it was a Friday. I had just had the transmission replaced in my fabulous '81 Buick Century. When I picked it up, the brakes still didn't work worth a shit, so I ended up taking my mom's car to work. I was working at the college campus in the shitty convenience store they had wedged into a double-sized closet and on Fridays I had to arrive early to unload the weekly delivery truck.

The Friday before, I had gone to work aiming to win the Halloween costume contest. I showed up at work dressed as a buxom bimbo - and I neglected to take any other clothes with me so I got to go to a meeting at the radio station and hang out with my friends in the afternoon wearing my mother's skirt which I could barely pull up over my fat ass.

Despite my ridiculous attire, my best friend Paul still stopped by and dragged me out of that shithole so we could go have an ultra-healthy Marriott fried lunch nextdoor. But, the whole thing was worth it. I weathered all of the, "Holy shit that's one ugly fucking woman," comments and ended up with a gift certificate to the mall (which was promptly exchanged for a Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.)

But thirteen years ago was the week after Halloween. As I said before, I had a busy day. I had to go to work and unload the truck. I had to actually pick up my car after work, then I had to drive back to the college to pick up my share of band crap because we had a show that night.

My band played every year for some fraternity's benefit party. You probably know the fraternity even if you didn't go to our college -- it was the one which not only admitted girls, but didn't haze or initiate or turn anyone away. All geeks welcome.

We had one of the better (at least better attended) shows that year. I remember my brother dragged a bunch of his friends out to see us play. I remember my friend Trevor showed up toward the end of the evening. When I saw Trevor I remember that I had a brief realization that Paul hadn't met me for lunch that Friday and he had said he was going to come to the show, but I hadn't seen him there. I also remember going home and collapsing out of sheer exhaustion around 4 A.M.

Sometime early the next day, I was aware of someone knocking on my door. My stepfather was telling me to get the phone. I don't think he said who it was, but he might have said something about it being "some girl."

As I reached for the phone, I was overcome by a very real sense of dread and somehow I knew who it was and what she was going to say even before I said, "Hello?"

The phone call was from Paul's girlfriend. She told me he had shot himself the night before. I didn't have to ask if he was OK. I knew he wasn't.

I spent the next period of my life in a daze - that period lasting for around ten years. Throughout the year I would battle low periods and thoughts of suicide. The only guarantee was every year at Halloween I would become incredibly depressed and suicidal. I came very close on a few occasions, but something always stayed my hand.

A few years ago my wife talked me into seeing a counselor. I was reluctant, but I eventually gave in.

Thirteen years ago I lost my best friend. I spent the next decade of my life trying to follow his path. This year is the first time I can look back to that day and remember the songs I played with my band and the fun that we had without thinking about how, at the same time, my best friend was dying.

So on this Guy Fawkes night, do me a favor and raise a glass to your heroes whoever they may be. You can also do yourself a favor and get some help if you're being crushed by depression. Try this for a start:

Post Secret

Write it. Now.

If the image doesn't show up, try again. The NaNoWriMo server appears to be getting slaughtered by page requests.

(which is just a fancy way of saying, "Everybody else is doing it, why aren't you?")

remember...