I'm So Getting One

Hasbro is putting out the Power Tour Electric Guitar next month. I need one to go with my One Man Jam. Go to that link to see this horrendous tool give lessons on using one. He talks about two-handed hammer-ons in the Advanced Techniques section.

Tiny Horses

So, in the last 72 years while you were a gleam in your father's pants, maybe born, got housebroken, learned to throw a ball, and grew up into the wonderful person that I assure you you are; in that 72 years there have been seeing eye horses. WTF?!?!?! you say? Yes. So did I, but it's real. I saw a picture of one in action and sent it to a friend who then sent me back a link to the Guide Horse Foundation's website and I stared at my monitor like I was seeing a UFO land in my backyard (if I had one). The term used was "bedazzled."

I've seen miniature horses before and I'm a big fan. I mean there are cat people, dog people, and even bird people. Then you get to the less common, fringe animal owners. These are your reptile and ferret people. Cat people are usually weird. Dog people are usually trying to fill a gap in their lives. Bird people...Weren't there bird people in Flash Gordon? God, Queen is awesome.

I don't know what to say about bird people. I had one and it died after it ate guacamole. Guacamole doesn't kill birds, people who give guacamole to birds kill birds. Anyway, he was named Tweety and after he died he lived in our freezer for months or maybe a year. The go-to joke was to pull him out of the freezer in his freezer bag home that had expanded with air death particles and throw him in someone's lap during a family party. As a family, I'll admit that we are twisted and dysfunctional, but it's kinda like when you are walking around in the Winter time and you just plant one shoe about 4 inches deep into a puddle. At first, you're all pissed off and your foot is cold and your sock is wet while your other foot is completely dry and normal. After about 17 steps you come to grips with the fact that that's your shoe now and that's just kinda how it is. Once you accept that you have a fucked up shoe, it's usually not as bad as it was initially.

So, bird people are like that. Whatever that means. The fringe animal arena is filled with people that are craving attention. That's why they are on the fringe and own illegal animals like ferrets. One popular ferret owner is none other than Perres Helton (that's misspelled on purpose to avoid getting picked up in search results of people looking for that name. I learned an important lesson when I namedropped Sisqo). So, yes, ferret people and reptile people are weird, attention cravers.

Now, I will fully admit that I'm making broad accusations almost to the point of being specist, but using the broad generalizations depicted above have got me this far and been in the area of 97% accurate. Broad generalizations rarely fail in the realm of Tommy Bahama shirts, tribal armband tattoos, guys that wear visors and are not golfing, people that drive large trucks, hippies, uber-recyclers, Prius drivers, gingers, people who wear eye patches, people who wear stunna shades in a club at night, croc wearers, people in sandals and socks, guys in moustaches who are not cops or firefighters, cops or firefighters without moustaches, guys in fanny packs, anyone from Orlando, anyone in Orlando, office talkers, etc...Broad generalization is a proven system that works.

So, anyway, what I was trying to say and totally getting sidetracked, was that out of all of those animal people it would be cool to be a mini horse owner. I'll acknowledge that it's totally in the fringe subset of animal owners and probably has elements of all of them wrapped into one. It would be weird, attention craving and filling a hole in my life that a human has been unable to do. So, I guess now is the point where I let everyone reading this know that I'm a huge hypocrite and have no right to judge weird cat people...and did "Don't Stop Believin'" really just come up on my iPod while I was shuffling? All of a sudden I feel like I'm in the work montage from a romantic comedy that has some guy writing on his computer as seen through the window by the camera. At the end of the montage it has him running through the rain while he's holding his trench coat in his hand. He turns the corner and goes to the spot where he met the girl interest in the movie because they had a fight over a misunderstanding and he chose his job over her. He sits there for a minute and looks down as the montage turns into the real scene and the girl gets out of a cab and runs to him. Pro tip: This does not happen in real life. Second Pro Tip: It would be The Shins or anything with Ben Gibbard in it instead of Journey.

So, I'll sum it up by saying that miniature horses are awesome.

Is This Really Necessary?

So, there is a Grease 2 fan site. Technically, the ultimate Grease 2 fan site. Granted, Michelle Pfeiffer helped me discover my special purpose during the ladder riding, cool rider scene and Adrian Zmed was brilliant, as usual, but does it warrant a fan site. Could/Did the Internet go to that place that TV did? I'm not one of those Kill Your TV shirt wearing hippy elitists, but I will admit that it is just fucking cluttered with crap. Somebody needs to clean the cat box that Comcast calls digital cable. It's not that TV sucks, but so much sucks on TV. Hate the playa, not the medium that it's transmitted on. Guns don't kill people, etc...So, when there are fan fiction sites for Good Times and extreme erotic guilds in web based RPGs, it may be time to build an app that will sift through the crap. I know there are some things out there that can help, but that's the Google killer, it's the application that cleans up your path down the WorldWebSuperHighway. Not censorship or rating systems of any kind, but simply streamlining. Now, here is Michelle Pfeiffer on the ladder. Thank you YouTube. At 1:32, you get jazz hands and the ladder. That's so rad.

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is going to be cooler than being born:

I'm Really Glad That I Read This Today

Not only will you die alone, but more quickly than non-alone people. That's great. At least the doctors figured out why. Might as well keep up the smoking.

Also, for the ladies that have participated in the sanctity of life: TrueMomConfessions.
And for those about to rip their office phones out of the wall and throw them down the stairs at work: TrueOfficeConfessions.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Drinks

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What is a Pinback?

Pinback is releasing Autumn of the Seraphs next week. I've been listening the shit out of the album and just have to say that these guys are such a breathe of fresh air and are truly unique when compared to emo, indie, or whatever term the rack at Target that houses their album calls their music.

Basically, there is tons of interplay between the bass and guitar utilizing a gang of syncopation, dissonance and resolution. Lyrically, they are extremely interesting and the delivery is usually subdued and mellow even when they are yelling.

So, here's the tracks:
1. From Nothing To Nowhere - The introduction almost sounds like it could be a Police song. It's got a driving guitar line that pushes the song through while the bass line just wrecks it through the verse and then players reverse positions while the bass plays it straight through the chorus while the guitar just riffs. Also, if you've got heeadphones listen for the organ low in the mix.

2. Barnes - Quintessential Pinback. It sounds like the bass and guitar are fighting playfully in this song. They really push that syncopation thing. It's almost like a King Crimson song or something. Totally prog-rock.

3. Good To Sea - The drumbeat on this song sound like it's coming off an old organ's presets, in a good way. It's just chill. "It's really not that kind/To terrorize one in one's sleep/And if you really tried/You'd probably cut the chase to deep." I care for that line. There is something truly nautical about this keyboard line, too. It sounds like it's being played on a submarine barely submerged. Don't ask me why.

4. How We Breathe - Dude. Rob Crow and Zach Smith are so better than you. I love the way this song starts. Again, the drum line is so subdued, but perfect for the song. Do they seriously say "Overneath" in this song? This song is about having anxiety I think. Not much to say about this song except the guitar tone sounds a bit like a grandfather clock at the end.

5. Walters - This song has a verse about a guy who tied balloons to a lawn chair until he floated away. The balloons pop and he comes back to the ground. It's a tribute to him. His name is Larry. One of the simpler Pinback songs I've ever heard. Then, it gets all hard in the last minute or so. It's kinda cool.

6. Subbing For Eden - Spoken verse. Has a line "Folder reference cache/zeroes, ones and tildes." Pinback uses words in songs that Bad Religion couldn't even use. Kinda short.

7. Devil You Know - This has a cool rolling guitar line. Riffs. The verse has that in the round thing that Pinback do where they sing syncopated verses. It's really cool, but I don't know how these dudes can do that and still play at the same time. That's really hard to do. The first verse, I believe, is referring to leaves as the tears of trees. That's good writing. a piano line follows the verse really effectively on the chorus in this one.

8. Blue Harvest - Wasn't this the code name for Return of the Jedi while it was in production? You can totally hear the Police influence in this song. The guitar line evokes "Message in a Bottle" a lot. I'm not calling biters or anything. I'm just sayin'. Plus, if you are biting a little bit of The Police, you are paying homage.

9. Torch - This is probably my favorite song on the album. It's totally a sci-fi nerd song. Check this line "You're close to me/I push you away." Speaks volumes in the middle of a sci-fi nerd song. I think there might be something else going on in this song under the surface.

10. Bouquet - The keyboard intro on this song made me think that my computer was scanning me and importing me into a world run by an entity called CPU and I would have to fight other programs for users in the real world and perhaps fight Sark and play electric jai-alai and light cycles...Oh shit. I thought I was in TRON again. My bad. Pinback is Nautical. That's all I'm going to say.

11. Off By 50 - What's up King Crimson? Cool guitar line at the beginning. "Mindless Hateful/There's no such thing as a free lunch/No such thing at all." Syllabically, this line is delivered brilliantly. These guys are good. Everyone should buy this album. I really care for it.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Popcorn will kill you. I knew it.

Official Laugh At The World Day Is Today

Because of a three day weekend and a brain damaging Sunday bout of day drinking, today is official laugh at the world day. Yes, I just invented it.

First, Friday night? I don't remember what I did. Oh, wait. It was beer Friday at work and then I showed up on my bike drunk at my team's soccer game that I took the night off from to actually do something, but it just turned into a Plan B night. Plans have been very difficult to make as of late, however, there has been an increase of spontaneity and mostly pleasant surprises.

Saturday? Pappy came over and watched me play Guitar Hero until he got bored (2 songs). Pappy does not like video games, so we drank vodka and tequila drinks while we waited for a couple of friends. A trainwreck developed while we discussed how much of a pussy Ozzy Osbourne was and how we were dumbfounded that anyone thought that he was a satan worshipper and instead it was because of his album covers. Then, we decided the same thing happened to Maiden, but they rocked a little harder and never recorded a song called "Mama, I'm Coming Home."

Woke up Sunday morning to find that a piece of my dash had been forcefully dislodged from my car. Drunk strength can be compared to adrenaline. How come you hear stories about women lifting cars off their kids in emergency situations, but never a drunk picking up a houseboat to get a horseshoe? That's a really good question I could sit on for like an hour. Sunday afternoon was a pretty intense situation of day drinking. A lot of it will remain untalked about. A lot of blurred faces like on Cheaters or cops due to incriminating actions. We drank dollar beers out of styrofoam cups, saw a Bay Bridge half-dollar from 1936, met Dennis and his wife, met Gabe and Devon, I got invited to a fight club this weekend in Oakland, lost my sunglasses, and managed to find transport to a friend's house to have a barbeque with her mom and sister while we were mostly drunk and some slept.

So, by Monday evening, my brain was suffering in like a manic way. You get all wasted for 48 hours and then your brain starts putting the pieces back together and none of them fit and you get all bummed because the euphoria can not be maintained of being wasted and not really thinking about all the stuff that you are doing wrong or at least not right in your life. This version was especially bad for some reason and still was lingering Monday morning. Nothing going to bed at 8:00 pm Monday night couldn't fix, though. Binge drinking is not what it used to be, but I still think that the press is unfair to it. It's not as bad as binge eating.

So, what am I saying? I know there are things going on right now that are not what they should be for a young, "marketable" (my old doctor called me that), 32 year old male like myself. I can do way better than putting up binge tabs every weekend because I don't want to put the effort into anything else productive outside of laundry and vaccuming. It just makes my head cloudy and prevents me from getting smarter and moving a step closer to world domination. Seriously, if you are reading this, I am like -(negative)685 beers away from running your life. If I quit drinking, I will eventually become the equivalent of a Bond villian or a superawesome ninja. You've been warned.

So, instead of sitting there thinking about how bad stuff is and taking it personal, I'm just laughing about it and it makes it feel so much better. Try it next time you walk by your couch and catch the corner of it between your big toe and index toe. Instead of yelling "Shit!" because it hurts hecka bad, just start laughing. Or, when someone comes up to you at work and asks you the stupidest fucking thing that you have heard that would sound cute coming out a five year old, but when it comes out of an adult you want to punch them in the fucking face, just laugh. You'll start to build a weird association between anger, pain and funny. Do it enough and it sticks. Yeah, it sucks to be the guy laughing at a funeral, but it's the price you pay. It's really a better alternative to feeling any type of pain, trust me. It's worth the price of everyone thinking that you are absolutely shithouse rat crazy.