The Best $15 Ever Spent

This Sunday I managed to really accomplish something that I had been unable to do for a while. No, I don't mean study for finals or prepare myself in any way or anything ludicrous like that. No, this Sunday I finally got to see The Dillinger Escape Plan in all of their math-coresque glory. Granted, there were a few other bands there. Let's discuss them, shall we?

Shat: yes, as in the past tense of "shit". These guys actually feature what I believe is a former bassist of Dillinger, but it may have been a guitarist. DEP has had so many lineup changes that only one of their guitarists has appeared on every album. Anyway, shat was shit. I think Ryan put it best in saying that they were like GWAR minus 100 IQ points and a lot more dildos. Seriously, they were strapped to like every part of the singer's body. In fact, apart from dildos and a jock strap, guy was nude. We only saw like one song of theirs, and it was funny, but I imagine an entire set from them would grow tiresome.

Genghis Tron: These guys are very respectable on their studio releases. A good combination of synth and grind. A few problems though: they had no drummer, just a drum machine, which felt a little bit like cheating to me. Also, their two keyboardists/samplers didn't really seem into the show, they just kind of wanted to do their own thing, which made their guitarist (who was into the show) seem just kind of poorly matched. Still, a decent opener.

A Life Once Lost: I've never been particularly impressed with A Life Once Lost on their studio releases. The opposite is true for their live show. Their music, while generic, was enough to get some heads banging and some pits started and they just kept up some good energy. They played just the right amount of time so that when their welcome was worn out, they were finished and we could move on to the main event...

The Dillinger Escape Plan: The more I listen to them, the more I love them. I realize that mathcore (especially DEP style) is an acquired taste, but my god, this was the SHIT. It is also worth mentioning that Greg Puciato (their singer) looks like Henry Rollins after a few doses of steroids. The man could sink a battleship using nothing but his biceps. They opened with "Panasonic Youth", and from there played a myriad of songs new and old alike including "43% burnt", "Fix Your Fucking Face", "Lurch", "Milk Lizard", "When Good Dogs Do Bad Things", and closing marvelously with "Sunshine The Werewolf". There were other songs too, but I don't remember all of them. All I know is the band never stopped moving, the playing was spot on (which, considering the energy they kept up the whole show, was a very impressive feat). Greg Puciato at one point climbed a ladder up to the ceiling and finished a song up there, he brought out a torch and breathed fire over the audience, and stage and amp diving abounded throughout. I am still on a high from that show, and it is now 3 days later. You simply have not lived until you have seen The Dillinger Escape Plan live.

I guess that's about it. I finished my finals today and am heading home early tomorrow morning. I'll be back for 10 days, then it's off to Baltimore for New Years. Get your time in while it lasts, for it is a limited commodity.

Musical Superlatives (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Put Off My Term Papers Just A Little More)

So, Allison has been doing a bunch of stuff for City Paper/Idolater over the last month about her musical superlatives of 2007. This of course got me thinking, what would mine be? Well wonder no more, good readers as I take you through the magical wonderland that is my musical preferences of the year.

Top 10 Albums of 2007
10. Untitled - KoЯn: They may have lost almost half of their original lineup, but perhaps that was the kick start the band needed to finally realize a sound that could be both experimental and yet true to their roots. A solid evolution for the band. There is actually a full review featured on this blog. Just check the tags. You'll find it.

9. Colors - Between The Buried & Me: Given that Alaska was more a step backwards for the band than anything, and Anatomy Of... was quite possibly the biggest blueballing of 2006, it's about time that BTBAM came out with something that possesses both the accessibility that they were shooting for with Alaska and the ferocity of their crowning achievement The Silent Circus. Finally, a return to form after almost 4 years of teetering on the edge.

8. Lies For The Liars - The Used: Catchy, Poppy, and juuuust the right amount of wailing from Bert McCracken without it becoming trite and cliched (well, more cliched. Emo wailing is in and of itself a cliche, but if you do it right, it sounds good and raw). The band added a little bit of a swingy element to most of the songs and gives them a distinctive danceable feel.

7. Mongrel - The Number Twelve Looks Like You: Each album from these guys gets better than its predecessor. Just the right amount of spastic without getting too repetitive, clever song titles and lyrics ("All Right, I admit it: It was a whorehouse" being my favorite) and great use of both of their vocalists.

6. Zeitgeist - Smashing Pumpkins: This album could have been really bad. No James, no D'arcy, no pumpkins right? Well, given the sound of this album, apparently you kind of only need Billy Corgan to make a Smashing Pumpkins Album. While it's not Mellon Collie... to be sure, it was nice to finally have some new SP back in my life.

5. Ire Works - The Dillinger Escape Plan: This is my last tech/prog/grind album, I swear. DEP really looked like they were headed the way of the dodo given how long this album took to come out, but it was worth the wait. This runs the gamut of "ambient white noise" to "club danceable" - to "grind your fucking face off".

4. Cex Cells - Blaqk Audio: OK, I admit it, the deliberate mis-spelling in the name is really retarded, but the music more than makes up for it. The band consists of Davey Havok and Jade Puget from AFI, but the music is more like early to mid 90's Depeche Mode if Davey Havok sung for them. I'm normally not huge on electronica, but this album blew me away.

3. The Big Dirty - Every Time I Die: No one does southern style hardcore as well as these guys, which is odd since they're from Buffalo, NY. Still though, the riffs on this album are ferocious, catchy, and always keep you guessing where they'll go next, and Keith Buckley's writing is as tongue in cheek as ever. Nothing quite matches "Hey there! Girls! I'm a cunt!" from "Bored Stiff" (off of Gutter Phenomenon, their previous release) in terms of laugh out loud hilarity upon hearing, but one of my favorite gems is "you know it gets so hard, it just gets so hard going limp in your arms". Poetry come to life, ladies and gentlemen.

2. The Marrow of a Bone - Dir En Grey: A lot of J-Rockers would probably try to have me excommunicated for this, but whatever, fuck em. I goddamn LOVED this album. Kyo goes from haunting and melodic to horrifying and screamy with incredible ease, making for a great mish-mash of different elements. The guitar work is some of the most solid I've heard from the band to date, and much like they did with Withering to Death, DEG takes the heaviness up a notch.

1. New Maps of Hell - Bad Religion: I'll be the first to admit that the members of Bad Religion could probably just record themselves pooping and I would probably lap that shit up like anti-freeze at a petting zoo, but this is really a legitimately fantastic album. Hell, it even made Allison's top 10 of '07 and she doesn't even really listen to the band. Anyway, it had been way too long since I heard anything new from Greg and the gang and I had been anticipating this the better part of a year. Blending elements from their early Suffer through Stranger Than Fiction days, deftly skipping over their Mr. Brett-less lulling middle years, and continuing on through Process of Belief and Empire Strikes First, this Album quite literally has everything that makes Bad Religion awesome, and while some tracks are slightly less awesome than others, I wouldn't say there's a bad one in the bunch. I would bear its babies then get a second job to support them through college. Definitely number 1 of '07.

As an added bonus, here are the albums that almost made the cut, but due to space constrictions, I had to leave out. Still quality albums, but maybe not top 10 quality.
*The Blackening - Machine Head
*The Last Kind Words - Devildriver
*Elect The Dead - Serj Tankian (it really killed me to have to eliminate this one)
*An Ocean Between Us - As I Lay Dying
*Rise of the Tyrant - Arch Enemy
*The Black and White Album - The Hives (I will probably catch hell from Allison for eliminating this one)
*Danza II: Electric Boogaloo - The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza

Feel free to comment with what you think your top 10 albums of '07 are. I feel like it would be fun to get a few different perspectives here (note: if you're reading through facebook, please comment on my actual blog page. Gracias!)

My Apologies

So, haven't updated in like a month and a half almost. Heh heh... sorry about that. I have come back with 2 today though, so when you're done with this jewel, make sure to read the one below it, as it is new too. I would say that I've been busy with class or really stressed, or sick, or whatever, but you and I both know that's a lot of bullshit. Truth is, I just haven't really felt like writing. If you were looking for a more exciting explanation, I was in rehab for the month of November after I was caught servicing a pre-op transsexual for crystal meth. Whichever story you go with, the outcome is the same. Lo, I have return-ed (see, I put the hyphen there so that even when you're reading this, you'll hear me pronouncing that "ed" with some kind of biblical emphasis).

Anyhoo, I find that I always write best when something is sticking in my craw, and frankly I just haven't been crazily annoyed with anything enough to share it all with you. Well, no more! Hello dwindling primetime lineup!

See, I thought that this writer's strike was going to put a serious cramp into my life because there are quite a few shows that I follow rather avidly. The Office, Scrubs, Lost, Boston Legal, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives (those last two to indulge my dormant queer side. I don't do theater anymore, so I have to vent my gayness elsewhere), and most recently Heroes. That's a lot of television hours. It's a wonder I get any work done at all (that was a lie. I don't do any work.). Anyhow, imagine how distraught I was to hear that some of my shows might not even make it to Christmas because of this writer's strike. Then I managed to get caught up on all of these shows. Know how many I'm going to give a shit about now? 2. Heroes and The Office. And do you know why? they're the only shows where the writing doesn't suck balls.

See, the problem is that no writers seem to think that's OK for characters to ever be in a happy relationship, so more often than not, they resort to continual will they/won't they plots and wind up losing the audience. Certainly the case with my *ahem* less manly indulgences. The problem is that this has been going on for 3 years now (with Grey's and Housewives anyway) and quite frankly it has to stop. I've gotten to the point where I don't care who gets together with who anymore. I would rejoice the Death of over half the cast Housewives of and all but about 3 of the characters on Grey's. Lost has not had any informative plot developments since the beginning of season 2, just the writers jerking around the audience like their mysterious "monster" (which we have now learned is apparently sentient smoke or possibly a polar bear with a cigar...?) beating down Mr. Ecko.

So, writer's guild of America, I have a proposition for you. I'll support your cause to stop getting screwed by corporate fat-cats, and you guys stop treating your audience like chimps, come up with plot points that actually develop characters and make me care about them again, and for the love of god make Lost a good show again. Heroes and The Office are still OK, so changing those at all immediately removes my support. And you know how important that is. Be afraid, be very afraid.

The Spike Video Game Awards had as much to do with video games as the Oscars have to do with kickboxing

So, I fell victim to a bout of work ennui last night (read "laziness") and watched a shitload of television. The block from 9:30 until about 11 had about nothing on, so I decided to watch the 2007 Video Game Awards on Spike. Oh man, that was a horrible idea. While they most certainly could have been far worse (I imagined a conglomeration of people repeatedly honoring Halo 3 and Madden NFL 2007 for every category, including best RPG) they also could have actually had a damn thing to do with video games.

The show was basically an excuse to get celebrities to parade onstage and talk about how with it they are and how much they looooove video games yeah yeah alright whoopie mazeltov. They were hosted by Sam Jackson, and while I love the man's films, being the voice of one character in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas makes you far from a sage on the subject. Nay, one might even say ignorant, as he somehow managed to mistake a Playstation controller for an Xbox while commenting on a photoshopped picture of George W and Saddam playing video games. Allow me to show you something:

This is a Playstation Controller. It is grey, a comfortable size, has pretty shapes to denote buttons, and no matter how much you want it to, it will not work with a goddamned xbox.

This is an Xbox Controller. It is larger than a baby's head, has the usual ABXY button configuration, is black, and differs most from the above in that it is NOT used with a god damn playstation.

The important thing to take away here is that, to paraphrase Dave Grohl, one of these things is not like the fucking other you ignorant twat! But the stupidity does not stop there. Also paraded onstage was Kristen Bell (as the award winner for "hottest voice actress" for her work in Assassin's Creed. She beat out no one because there were no other nominees), the guy who voiced the rat in ratatouille, some guy from Harmonix who was wearing a fedora, apparently uninformed of the fact that it is no longer 1950, Hayden goddamn Christiansen (the proof that no actual nerds were there was that he wasn't booed and egged for making what were already 2 horrible movies about a thousand times worse), and scantily clad, painted hoochies. They used the exact same stock footage (sometimes from previews that were literally over a year old) every time they announced a game, regardless of what category it was for. Almost no in-game footage was shown, so nobody even really knew what kind of games were winning, just that they had flashy previews that have been available for public viewing across the internet for years. The Orange Box got nominated so many goddamn times that I can still recite precisely what happens (Shot from team fortress two of guy using a shotgun, followed by shot of guy receding into shadows, followed by shot of turret and general carnage, switch over to Half Life 2 Episode 1 show a tower exploding, a robot pounces on a guy, and Michael throws something at the fucking screen).

My point is that gamers are nerdy enough to know players from the industry. I might actually care about Nintendo's newest game if it was presented by Shigeru Miyamoto or one of his proxies rather than some half assed Jimmy Fallon looking motherfucker. Would it be so hard to get someone from Ubisoft, or 2K Games, or even fucking Infinium Labs (nerd points to you if you got that one) rather than having Annakin Skywalker tell me the game of the year? (It was Bioshock, by the way. There is some justice in the world, as it is probably better in every way shape and form than any game I have played this year and possibly in the last couple of years.) Shallow as it may seem, I don't care about an "exclusive premiere" of some game when it's being presented by flashy celebrities. If the company cares as little as they do about this content to not handle it themselves, is it really worth watching? And if this was targeted at casual gamers, not hardcore audiences, why all the hype that this was "the most important night in gaming" (you know, fuck PAX, E3 and the like. Real Gamers watch a shitty show on Spike TV). And if it was for hardcore gamers, why the shitty celebrities instead of industry figures? Kid Rock, Tila Tequila, and Tony Hawk probably elicit less excitement in me than would a root canal.

And lastly: please, please, please, someone show Sam Jackson what an XBOX looks like.

In Lieu of Anything Substantial

So, I feel like I owe all 2 readers I probably have left an update of some kind, given that I haven't said shit since my diatribe on elevator etiquette (not my best work either. I'm actually considering taking it down.) The problem, of course, is that I don't seem to have anything of great substance to say, so I'm going to try a little experiment where I just start blabbing and see if I can find any diamonds in all of these turds.

It's been a fairly shitty few weeks for Allison, what with her bronchial death cough followed by the death of her grandma. Unfortunately, the trite saying seems to hold true in shitty times as well as good: "when it rains, it fucking pours." Anyway, it was a lonely weekend for the both of us, but I met her at the train station on Wednesday morning and she seems to be doing much better. Her years of Jew-Rage make her a very tough cookie I guess.

Oh, I also got to go see Bad Religion this monday last, which made up for the debacle that was this year's warped tour ("Oh god! Rain! Being an all summer outdoor show traveling around the country, we never possibly considered that we might encounter inclement weather! Planning ahead so we don't have to delay the show for over an hour then switch everything around without telling the audience won't possibly be necessary). I also got to take Megan's concert virginity with this one, and let me say what a show to do it with. Opening with "Fuck Armageddon This Is Hell", then a spectacular combination of new and old songs (including, but by no means limited to "Suffer", "Recipe For Hate", "Come Join us", "The Defense", "New Dark Ages", and my personal favorite addition, "Dearly Beloved"), closing with "Infected" and "American Jesus". I had my tickets for this show about a month and a half in advance and it was completely worth the wait.

In NYU news, I fucking loathe my comparative politics of the near and middle east class. The professor is a big British windbag who prides himself on giving crappy grades, all the while mentally jerking himself off by assigning us things he wrote himself (asshole, you goddamn wrote it, why are we the ones who are reciting it back to you? oh right, you're a pompous windbag.) I just can't seem to do well in this class (I think my grade is presently a C). I know what you're thinking, it's probably because I spend too much time killing my liver slowly and not enough studying. Then explain my A's in Russian, Russian Lit, and International Politics, asshole. Yeah, that's what I thought. The man assigns reading loads that I would consider drastic for 2 combined classes and goddammit I just can't keep up. Apparently, the field of comparative politics is not for yours truly.

I seem to have hit a block on shit to say, so I guess that I'll conclude here for now. Time to get back to my exciting and fulfilling office assistant duties.

A Qualm of Sorts

Living in New York is goddamned awesome. The people at the college are a fun bunch and the ordinary denizens of this city have a certain flair that goes unrivaled in any other part of the country. Also, there are a lot of really fucking impressive buildings (probably designed by overcompensating pencil dicks, but whatever, they're nifty to look at.) The cool part is that we get to use a lot of these cool huge buildings, not just look at them. That having been said, there are a few things I need to get straight with the general NYU populace.
Most of the buildings in this area are 10+ stories. Hell, my dorm last year was 7 and is one of the smallest buildings in regular use on campus. With such large buildings, it is only natural that there would be some accompanying elevators. These are there so that people don't have to run up 10 flights of stairs every day when they have spent the whole goddamned day walking all over the fucking village. However, there are a few things that need to be made clear so that everyone can live in harmony and, more importantly, so I don't start strangling people on my way to class.
*If you are going to the 2nd or 3rd (sometimes even 4th if it's a large building) floor of any building that is over, we'll say 7 or so stories, it is simply unacceptable to use the elevators. Obviously this doesn't stand if you have a medical condition of some kind like a shattered kneecap, or if you are carrying something heavy and/or unwieldy. However, on my way to work (7th floor of the Ed building, so I'm well within my rights to take the damn elevator), without fail I am subjected to lazy assholes, obviously not hurt and even more obviously not burdened with heavy objects simply wasting my time by not manning up and fucking walking up 2 flights of stairs. I'm aware you are only costing me about 10 seconds of time total, but goddammit it's the principle of the matter here.
*In a similar vein, it is simply retarded to take the elevator if you need to go up or down a couple of floors. Laundry in my dorm is done on the 3rd floor. I can understand taking the elevator if you are taking down your clothes or taking them back, but for fuck's sake any other time, do you NEED to get on and press "4" while I'm waiting to get back to 10? I am the laziest human being alive, and I am hardly what you would call a picture of healthy living, but jesus christ, some of these assholes are making me look like a damned olympian.
*To digress from that train of thought, did you know that repeatedly pushing the door close button every time somebody gets off just makes you look like a moron? Here's why: in most of the buildings, the door close buttons are disabled you daft twats. I may be an impatient asshole when it comes to elevator etiquette, but fuck, I'm not broadcasting it to the rest of the car. You're not making it go any faster, so please, lay off the damned buttons.
I realize that this rant seems almost petty and juvenile, and while my life has never been thoroughly inconvenienced by a lack of elevator etiquette, this is still my damned blog and I will rant about whatever I goddamn well please. So nyah.

Big Problems and a Bigger TV

So, it's been an...interesting week to say the least. It all started on Monday night when Allison (who had been feeling a bit under the weather for like a week and a half) and I started feeling like total absolute shit. I could barely breathe, she was alternating between fever and chills, and suffice to say, 1002A looked like a fucking sick ward. So the next day rolls around neither of us go to class due to a severe case of "I feel like I've been hit by a fucking truck-itis". The next morning we both went into the health center and wound up being treated by the same doctor in adjacent rooms. The doctor tells Allison she might have mono. She tells them that she is in so much pain that she can't swallow, and after getting short of breath, the docs give her a saline IV. They let me in to see her after they put it in, which was cool because I was really worried about her. I tried to negotiate some painkillers for her because she was crying every time she swallowed, but to no avail. They gave her tylenol, an oral steroid, and an antihistamine. Anyhoo, a few days go by and the steroids start to make a difference and I'm starting to feel better and be able to, you know, breathe. We were all relatively confident that Allison didn't have mono since it has an incubation period of 1-2 months, so she would have had to contract it before she even came out to New York. She was also starting to feel significantly better. Then Friday rolls around and Allison's phone rings.
It's mono. Fuck. So that means I've probably got it now too. I went in to get some bloodwork done, got my results today, and they came back negative. That could just mean that i have it and it's lying dormant. Either that or I have the immune system of a GOD. On the plus side, this means that I can consume alcohol (you can't if you have active mono because it fucks with your liver) for a while longer, and we all know what a happy camper alcohol makes me. Unfortunately, now Allison can't partake, which means no drunk sex for like a month. Conversely, that makes me a very UNhappy camper. Oh well, shit happens right? And she's been getting slowly but surely better, so it's nice to know that my girlfriend isn't going to, you know, die of malnutrition or anything.
On to the next part of the week though (on a much lighter note). We got a new TV in the apartment. Ryan found a craig'slist ad for a 36 inch TV in good condition for 120 (which we deftly haggled down to an even 100). So on Friday we went up to 41st st. to acquire our AWESOME purchase.
Turns out that if a TV is not a flatscreen, 36 inches at the diagonal makes the whole unit weigh like 200 fucking pounds. We had come equipped with a dolly meant for about half that and one bungie cord. I think the guy who we bought it from thought we were retarded. It barely fit in the elevator doors for the building, but we finally got it down and onto the corner. Then we all realized that we lived 27 blocks downtown plus about 6 avenues over and couldn't possibly get this thing into a subway station, much less onto the car. So I ran over to 8th ave, hailed a van taxi and brought it back. The guy took a look at our TV, told us it wouldn't go because it wouldn't fit in the trunk (never mind that it would have fit across the middle seats. This guy was a fucktard.) took my 5$ for getting me over there and left.
At this point, we were fucking panicking. Moving services were going to cost like 70-150 bucks and we had about 32$ between us. As we pondered what to do, however, an escalade limo pulled up. Apparently he was there to pick someone up, but we asked him what it would cost to get us downtown. the answer? 30$. Fuck. Yes. So we got it into the spacious trunk where it just barely fit and hoofed it downtown. 1 scary ass trip on and off the elevator and through the door of the room, however, and we had THIS
Trust me, the picture does not do it justice. But seriously, it is fucking enormous. Combine that with the fact that we have the audio running to Ryan's stereo speakers (visible in picture) and can run a laptop to it so that we can watch pirated TV shows for hours in addition to the wii, Xbox 360 and PS2 we have running through it, and it's a wonder that our room didn't collapse from the sheer volume of awesome flowing throughout it. That's about it for now I suppose. I'm gonna go sit and wish that I have a genetic immunity to mono so that I don't have to go sober for a month. Have a good day.

I Am Sweating Like Rush Limbaugh Going Through Withdrawal (Or, Why I Hate Vocal Studies Majors)

Before I begin my tirade, I will point out that, while I do generalize, I'm sure there are some voice majors who don't fit these blanket statements, I don't need to get inundated with comments like "fuck you, you just wish you were as good as I am you political science cocksucker." I'm talking in terms of vague generalizations, not in terms of the individual, so before you start whining, don't.
Since I work for Steinhardt's music and performing arts professions office, vocal studies majors are a rather large part of my life and, thusly I have slowly but surely come to loathe nearly everything about them. In fact, on Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm over at the Lafayette building on the 4th floor where, you guessed it, they all have their classes and lessons. Suffice to say, I see a lot of them. So what's not to like about these charming and talented individuals? Allow me to elucidate:

1) The guys and the fag-hags that follow them. You know what I'm talking about. The ones that put on the really effeminate demeanor but are probably straight. Then the girls who follow them like mindless, vapid harpies who think that they're "just like one of the girls ZOMG!!!111oneoneone". I'm a pretty animated speaker (as most of you know), but these motherfuckers put me to shame. Stop flopping your wrists around for 5 fucking seconds and maybe you assholes won't get carpal tunnel from carrying on basic conversations. Also, every sentence does not need to begin with "oh my god, so...". We get it. You're a teenage girl. Shut the fuck up now.

2) They are all under the impression that I want to hear them sing. Listen, you're all going to school to sing, so I'm sure your voices are lovely, but while I am filing a seemingly endless supply of private lesson request forms, the last thing I want to hear is endless belting of Rent songs, the same 3 songs from wicked again and again and again, or really just whatever showtune kick you're currently on. When you're in your lessons, your classes, or someplace that isn't a public office, go fucking nuts. When you're in a place where actual work needs to be done, leave the showtunes to the professionals and put a goddamn sock in it for 5 fucking minutes until you're not in the building anymore.

3) They are spoiled brats. See, when I'm working in the Lafayette building, I'm on the 4th floor (the top). There is a single control for the AC for the entire goddamned floor (which in and of itself is just stupid, but I digress). That means if one room doesn't want AC, the whole floor doesn't get AC. Apparently, in one of the rooms, the air conditioning is just too darned loud, so they whine and their professor gets us to turn off the AC. It is mid-September and by no means cold in New York, so picture the scene: I'm at a desk by the window (where the sun shines through, especially towards the end of my shift) and the AC hasn't been running basically all day. Why? because the vocal studies majors might actually have to shut their traps and LISTEN instead of adding their jabber to the noise of the room, then complaining that they can't hear. And please, if I can hear every fucking room on the floor from my desk, even though their doors are shut, I simply find it impossible to believe that the AC could be so loud that they need to turn it off. This isn't policy for the whole building. 3rd floor is the jazz department, and they get AC. Why? because the jazz majors (even though many of them are severely ADD, which you kind of have to be to do jazz right) aren't whiny, spoiled, effeminate little shits.

Thank god I get out of here in 20 minutes. Any more than that and I might just melt into this chair. Then a class would get out and I'd hear the vocal studies majors start to sing "One Song Glory" and it would reverberate the jelly that used to be my body into an explosion of catastrophic proportions that would shower my work station in my remains. Then one of the boys would flail his arms and whine about how "oh my god, he TOTALLY ruined my khakis!"

You Have Been Warned

Or rather, you are about to be warned. Depending on what academic institution you attend, somebody may approach you someday and tell you about a great service called collegeboxes that will store your things for the summer at a reasonable price, then deliver them to your dorm when you move back in. Should you be approached with this offer, whatever you do, NEVER TAKE IT. It's like a game of three card monte. You can't possibly lose, right? Just find the queen! WRONG! Before you know it that dealer has taken your money and shanked you in the thigh with a filed down toothbrush. OK, I don't know how much that actually happens, but my point is this: Collegeboxes is shit.
I moved into my dorm on Sunday afternoon after getting into NY on Saturday. I picked up a set of sheets to use in my room and figured hey, whatever, collegeboxes is delivering my shit on Monday between 8:30 AM and 1 PM. I'll have a night of uncomfortable sleep, but it saves me both money and space. So I slept on a sheet with a wad of sweatshirts stuffed in a pillowcase upon which I could rest my head. REALLY not comfortable because i have no climate control in my room that I know of, so the AC is always running. Great when it's hot as balls out, not so much when you're sleeping fully clothed covered in a sheet. Anyway, Monday rolls around and motherfuckers haven't come. I woke up at 12:30 in the afternoon and it seemed somewhat odd that they hadn't come yet. Upon checking my email, I saw that they were running a couple hours late and apologized for any inconvenience. Whatever, I say, I'm not sleeping for at least 12 hours and I can just shower whenever they get here (all of my towels are in storage too). I have no roommates yet who I can offend with my odors.
Well, about two hours later, motherfuckers call me and tell me that my boxes will come at the same time tomorrow. I am pissed off. My friend Louisa and I went into storage together, so her shit is AWOL right now too. Her mom calls them to see if there's anything we can do. Her english isn't great though, so I figure that since it's my storage account, I may have better luck. Apart from telling me that "the truck couldn't make it out", I can't get an answer out of these jackasses as to why my shit isn't here. I kindly let them know how much they're fucking me and if I die of a skin borne parasite that I can't wash off that i got from sleeping on my 10$ k-mart sheet, it's their asses. They tell me they are refunding my account 10% for the inconvenience. That's 45$. Oh fucking boy. Between LuLu and I, that's 22.50 apiece! I could buy a small bottle of scotch to drink away the rage from NOT HAVING MY SHIT. Anyway, It is presently 1:20 PM on Tuesday and still no sign of them. I want to leave and buy books and guitar picks, but I have to stay in the dorm until I hear from these people. Fuck.

*An Addendum*
Here is a copy of the email I wrote these clowns.

Your alleged "service" has caused me nothing but trouble. I was fine sleeping on a sheet purchased at k-mart using a wad of sweatshirts as a pillow for the first two nights, but you have absolutely torn it for me. I will dedicate the rest of my academic year to ensuring that nobody I know ever uses your "services" again. I have been jerked around by your call centers for 3 days straight waiting for boxes that contain all the little things in my life. Bedding, towels, clothing, school books. You know, the little stuff. I have been forced to steal my roommate's towel in order to stay clean. Dirty clothes are piling up around my room because my bin is (you guessed it) with you incompetent buffoons. I have to wonder if you even bothered to store my items, or they are simply on a truck bound for New Jersey, pawned off to the lowest bidding mafioso. My wish list is as follows: 1) I want my boxes. Since I paid 450$ to have you pick up, store and deliver them, I feel like that's not asking a lot. 2) I want a 33% refund. This seems fair, as you assholes pulled off 2/3 of what I paid you to do. 3) I want everyone in your call center fired. Obviously you're paying them to do nothing given how helpful they've been. 4) Your warehouses should be burned to the ground so that you can't perpetrate this nonsense ever again. 5) Your founder should be shot. In the face. Repeatedly. I am livid and incensed at the fact that you feel like you have earned my money at all, or are still performing any kind of "service". Some day, I will look back on this with something other than blood boiling rage and have a good laugh. You know, when my things are in a real storage company, not a fucking circus sideshow where the monkeys seem to be in full control. I wish nothing but the worst upon all of you. Good day.

If The Last Legion was in fact the LAST legion, it's still debatable as to whether or not I'd fuck it

Seriously, this movie was awful. God-fucking-awful. It was a seemingly endless parade of shitty characters, predictable plot developments, and bullshit. In case you're not familiar, the last legion is supposed to be a precursor to the Excalibur legend that coincides with the fall of Rome to the Visigoths. Let's meet our cast ladies and gentlemen!
*Steadfast and headstrong commander, loyal to duty, but with much to learn about people beyond the battlefield
*Soldier that everyone thinks is a man but turns out to be a hot chick. She teaches the steadfast and headstrong commander about people beyond the battlefield. You know, with her vagina.
*Young boy thrust into a position of power which at the time he is not ready for, but through his experiences becomes the leader he is supposed to be.
*Public official, who while no good on the battlefield, proved to be an able senator. Sells his friends out to those in power out of self interest.
*Sage and mysterious old man who couldn't POSSIBLY be an incredibly thinly veiled Merlin from the King Arthur stories. That would have been far too predictable and the writers would never insult their audience like tha... oh wait. If you're angry about spoilers here, don't worry, you would have figured it out in like 5 minutes if you're actually masochistic enough to attend this movie.
*Also there are the faceless soldiers who blindly follow our steadfast and headstrong leader as well as the boy he defends. One is young, one is kind of older, and one is black. Diversity? Check.
*Let's not forget the evil power hungry warlord who is apparently a major player in the backstory of "not-merlin", but who has about 5 minutes of combined screen time in 2 hours. Also, he wears a really fucking stupid mask the entire movie that is apparently bolted to his face or something.
*Also, there is a magic sword that was forged from a meteorite. Apparently, that makes it the best sword ever, so a lot of people want it.
Basically, imagine the fellowship of the ring combined with a steaming pile of dog shit (oh wait, that was redundant), replace elijah wood with a 12 year old boy (woops, there goes my redundancy again), make the fellowship a little less gay, but somehow even more 2 dimensional, throw in a moderately ok battle scene, and you have this walloping turd of a film.
In other news, I'm leaving Colorado in 3 more days. This is 3 days too many, but being in single digits is a big plus for yours truly. Get your Michael time in while you can!

It's Official

Only 365 more days until I'm able to drink. I would say that 20 is the second most useless age after 19 to be. The one perk is that now I'm able to say "pffft...teenagers" at people who, while they might be my peers, did not have the privilege of their parents fucking as early as mine did. I guess something should feel different, but I have the sneaking suspicion that I am going to have to wait 365 more days until I feel that anything in my life has really changed. Still though, I get presents and a whole host of facebook wall posts to make me feel special for 24 hours, so that's something right there. Really, as an obsessive email checker, my birthday is the day that I will, 9 times out of 10, not be disappointed when I check to see if I have anything because of the glory that is the facebook birthday notification. Anyhoo, thank you all for your well wishing on this, the anniversary of my being more than a uterus borne parasite!

Colorado Gets A Little Class For A Few Days

OK, so It seems that I've been updating horribly not a lot lately, and while I do partially regret it, part of me says fuck it, I've got an excuse. So I guess I'll just fill in the main happenings of the last few days. We'll start with the August 8th, which was Sounds of the Underground. I've mentioned it a few times before, and for the most part, it was a damnedably awesome time. A few things worth mentioning though: While staples like Chimaira, Every Time I Die, GWAR, and Darkest Hour were expectedly awesome, acts that should have been awesome such as Heavy Heavy Low Low and Job For A Cowboy kind of blew. A lot. Also, as awesome as The Number 12 Looks Like You was, the crowd at SOTU is not a jazz fusion/grindcore crowd and thusly, their set was not appreciated. Bunch of fucking heathens if you ask me.
Anyhoo, onto the real reason that I haven't gotten around to this in a damn long time. Allison came out here to visit my sad self the 9th thru the 14th. Given that I have been less than happy the entire time I've been out here, this was a MUCH needed reprieve from the monotony of Colorado life. You know, that and I might kind of like her just a little. Anyhoo, let's get right down to the visit:

Thursday 8/9: Allison's plane was supposed to arrive around 4:30 in the afternoon. Due to weather in Baltimore as well as the midwest, Allison does not arrive until after 7 PM. No one is happy about this development, but we each have a cigarette, head home, and get ready to crash. First, Allison gives me the birthday present she made me: A knit cap to match my tattoo! I love it and am a little sad that it's like 90 fucking degrees out because I can't show it off.














Friday 8/10: With Allison's pending visit, I realized how little there is to do in Colorado. So, with the question "how do we occupy 5 days with something other than illicit bedroom activities?" looming large, I decided to plan a trip to the zoo. Some friends of mine from high school accompanied us. We saw animals. They were in cages. That's about all there is to say. It was a fun time though. David, Andrea, Allison, and I then went to the cherry creek mall and just chilled with some starbucks. That night, Allison and I decided to break out a bottle of Rasberry Smirnoff I had acquired. Family Guy, while already a pretty genius show, is even more genius when you're hammered. We then snuck out to smoke, because being drunk without nicotine is like having a sandwich without lunch meat. You can do it, but why would you want to? Afterwards (overshare alert! you have been warned!) we had really epic sex for what was essentially an entire "Spoon" album. Have I mentioned how much I love alcohol sometimes? Needless to say, I had the best sleep I have had, arguably all summer.

Saturday 8/11: Knowing Allison's love of tea, I took her on the tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. I picked up some tea you can only get at the factory that has almost as much caffeine per 8 oz. as a double shot of espresso. I then took Allison to Boulder to introduce her to the glory of Wahoos Fish Taco. We were going to peruse pearl street afterwards, but due to a hot sauce mishap, we just went home, then hung out with some of my high school friends in Longmont. August 10th was a somewhat special night, however, because it marks Allison's and my first real "date" (things like this are what happen when your relationship begins as a series of drunken hookups, you're together for 5 months total, dating for 3 of them, and it takes you that entire time to go on one date). Anyway, we perused the shops on Pear Street after getting tapas at The Med. Later that night we went to a party at Josh Wise's. These functions tend to be pretty epic and awesome, and for the first 3 or so hours, it totally was. Everyone was drinking and having a good time. So good a time that no one noticed how fucking trashed Ryan Orendorff was getting until he was practically unconscious on the trampoline. He then started yelling about how he needed a hospital, but he also kept insisting he needed to be intubated. Since that's what they do if you have a collapsed lung, I knew I was more sober and could be of help. Allison, Josh Lostroh, and I were the only ones who fucking did anything though, and after that Allison and I headed home because it was fucking exhausting. Unfortunately, Allison had had a bit much, so it was not straight to bed, but rather straight to the altar of the porcelain goddess. We waited it out though, and eventually got to sleep.

Sunday 8/12: Allison awoke on Sunday with the worst hangover I've born witness to in a good while. Bad enough that my mom instantly knew she was hungover when we came up. More vomiting came this morning, but eventually she felt good enough to go to the Jesters Dinner Theater performance of The Wizard of Oz (hey, if I could have taken her to a show that didn't blow, I would have, but it couldn't be helped). It was fun introducing her around, as I am something of a staple there, so I got to feel like a bit of a big shot. WOOT! Anyhoo, that night we decided to head out to the Simpsons Movie, as she hadn't seen it. This marked time #3 for me, but i didn't care because we had 2 free passes. That night, however, Allison's uber hangover made a lot more sense. See we hadn't been drinking at all Sunday night, yet somehow around midnight I wound up hurling anyway. So we're thinking that the epic hangover may have been part stomach bug as well.

Monday 8/13: Monday morning blew. I felt like shit and just kind of stumbled around the house. We were supposed to go boating with my sister and her boyfriend around horsetooth reservoir, but I felt like too much crap. I hear it rained up there anyway, so we wouldn't have been able to boat. Anyhoo, we just kind of hung around the house most of the day. Allison got to try buffalo burgers that night, which are always delicious. Got coffee with Joe and Liz Lembo that night, then just kind of chilled and went to sleep.

Tuesday 8/14: The day Allison left. boo... Anyway we got her stuff ready to go, got ice cream at Glacier with Steph and Will, and I took her to the airport and we had our goodbyes. Now lonely Michael is lonely again. shit.

Oh well, I go back to NY in 9 days, which is not nearly soon enough, but then I'll get to see everyone within two weeks of today.

SMB Does Naughty Things To My Man Parts

And no, I am not making a reference to "super mario brothers", although the congruity of the initials is not accidental. No, I am referring to the band "Screaming Mechanical Brain" (formerly "Screaming Monkey Boner", but they changed it because they wanted to attract label attention, which is a bit hard to do when you're named after a loud primate's phallus, or possibly an unusually quiet primate's SCREAMING phallus...). I saw these guys play the Iliff Park Saloon last night and they fucking blew me away. I really wish I had brought my camera, because they were moving around too much for my cell phone to take pictures that didn't just turn into colorful blurs. Instead I invite you to check out http://www.myspace.com/smb for a taste of their music as well as any pictures, as my descriptions will fall horribly short of their true glory. Imagine if Primus, System of a Down, and American Head Charge formed a supergroup that was occasionally joined by Mindless Self Indulgence and you have a good idea of the awesomeosity that is SMB.
The show really got me thinking though, these guys are touring out of a broken down van, playing to bars containing maybe 30 people, yet Cannibal Corpse is capable of selling out arenas. Really makes you think, don't it? There is no fucking justice sometimes. I keep talking about how I fear that metal is dying, and a good reason for that is that the bands that could help keep it alive and relevant no one has heard of.
Oh well, I'm heading to Sounds of the Underground tomorrow, so that should be a good time, then Allison comes in for a few days. Expect few, if any updates before 8/14, as I will be *ahem* indisposed. Excited Michael is exciiiited... Then it's just a couple weeks till I'm back in the city and all will be as it should.

Personal Studies in Sleep Deprivation

It is 3 o clock in the morning. I have to be up at 10 to go tutor a kid in Niwot. I cannot sleep. Something is going on here that I am not a fan of. I am on my 3rd cigarette of the night, which by my standards, when I'm not drinking, is incredibly excessive. Usually I'm lucky if that is a couple of days' allotment. And yet here I sit. Nothing in my head, but nothing better to do other than sit here and vent about whatever pops into that cavernous waste of a cranium of mine.
I miss New York. I miss my friends there. I miss Allison a lot. She's coming out here in less than a week, so that makes me a happy panda. Lately, though, it has felt like there is absolutely nothing here for me. After all, there's really something to be said when your highlight of being home doesn't even involve the people there. I hate being at home, where the novelty of seeing my family has become a drag rather than something to be happy about. I left this place last summer and I really feel like I left it, so much that coming back here seems almost like a punishment. I have friends who I see every now and again, but the fact that most of them are employed and I am not any longer makes hanging out with them when I really need it the most very difficult. So I watch a lot of movies, play video games, and contemplate making an advent calendar of colorful paper rings so that I can tear one off every day that I am closer to abandoning this god-forsaken wasteland. Hell, even the theater I worked at for 10 years isn't fun anymore because I have approximately one friend who still does shows there.
Sounds of the Underground is in a few days, so that at least is something to look forward to. I only got to see about 10 minutes of Every Time I Die when they played warped last year and I look forward to a full set from them. The other bands on the bill should be awesome too. I've seen all the other headliners (GWAR, Chimaira, and Shadows Fall) at least once (in the case of Chimaira, 4 times) and the lesser knowns like Heavy Heavy Low Low and Job For A Cowboy should prove to be entertaining. So the real question is how do I occupy myself until then? This is the first summer vacation in the history of my schooling that I have been wanting time to speed up so that school can start again. Weeks like this make me understand how people turn to drugs and alcoholism. Seriously, what the hell else is there to do?
Wow, I've gone back to read some of this. If there wasn't that handy picture of me in the top right corner, people might think I was a 15 year old girl. I guess this is what they would call an "emo moment", but fuck it, everyone needs to vent and it's been a while since I've done it in writing. It's my blog after all, I can post whatever the fuck I want. I took a couple of antihistamines about 15 minutes ago, so now I'm just killing time until the drowsiness of over the counter goodness ends this funk. I'm scrambling for something entertaining to write about so that this post isn't an epic waste of time to anyone who reads it, but so help me nothing's coming up. Usually when I'm in moods like this I play guitar, but it's 3:30 AM and my good headphones (ie, the ones that have the right sized jack to will plug into my amp) are in a storage facility roughly 2000 miles away because I didn't have room in any of the 3 suitcases I brought home for them.
Fuck it, if this goes on any longer I will actually turn into a 15 year old girl. 22 more days until I'm free.

"Untitled" - FTW?

So you know who the world hasn't heard much from lately? Korn. I mean, last anyone really checked, all that was new was that Jon Davis recovered from some kind of debilitating blood disorder. Then they dropped off the face of the earth. That was why I was so surprised to find out on Tuesday that they just released a new album. I have been relatively pleased with Korn's latest efforts. Not thrilled, but at the same time I didn't resent having spent money on them. Anyway, I had just gotten paid and figured given that I've pirated what probably amounts several hundred if not a thousand or so dollars worth of music this summer, maybe I'll throw the RIAA a bone and actually buy it, sound unheard (get it? like sight unseen, but for MUSIC).
What is interesting to note is that, while Korn made it to 2005 without any lineup changes, since then they have lost a guitarist and much more recently their drummer. I hadn't heard about David Silveria leaving until after I bought the album, but it's true. Korn is essentially a three piece right now consisting of Jon, Fieldy, and Munky. Percussion on their latest album (cleverly titled Untitled) is handled by Jon Davis himself, a techno-ish trio called The Matrix, and perhaps most surprisingly, Brooks Wackerman from the one and only Bad Religion. So with all of these dynamic shifts, what pray tell has happened to Korn's sound?
Let me preface this by saying that old Korn fans, much like with every album they have released since Follow The Leader will do nothing but bitch about Korn changing their sound and how this album isn't nearly as good as the self titled one or Life is Peachy. Well, it's also not 1994. Flannel is no longer all the rage, Layne Stanley is 6 pushing up daisies, and Nu-Metal is now a subject of mockery rather than something to be excited about. Of COURSE they sound different. If you want an album that sounds like their self titled album, then listen to the self titled album. I hear that one sounds the most like it.
If the album is approached with an open mind, however, the results are very surprising and quite pleasant to listen to. The influence of electronica and the like is incredibly evident from the get go with the intro and the first real track "Starting Over". The sludge guitars and incessant slapping and popping on the bass are not gone, but they are definitely sharing the songs with other elements rather than overpowering them. Honestly, it's nice to see that Fieldy CAN do something other than pop and slap. There are still some characteristically heavy songs (almost reminiscent of Follow The Leader, just less 1990's) such as "Bitch We Got A Problem", and "Hold On", but the album is also full of little goodies that are almost a throwback to Depeche Mode's glory days (if they had a very very different singer anyway) such as "Kiss" and "Hushabye". The variety is really the saving grace of this album, as the truth of the matter is (for me anyway), Korn was starting to stagnate simply because the music felt like feeble attempts to recapture their fickle 90's fanbase. The second they let go of those trepidations though, they put out an album that I can really get behind and has held my attention fairly thoroughly for the past 2 days (which is quite a feat given how quickly I acquire new music).
It does give me pause to think about the future of the band though, as this album will probably alienate more fans than it brings in (since let's face it, metal fans and Korn fans in particular are incredibly picky and tend to be quite closed minded) and the rate at which members are departing after so much stability is somewhat alarming. However, it will be interesting to see whether or not Korn rises from the ashes stronger than before and can stand a chance at keeping metal relevant, or if they'll simply go the way of the dodo like so many of their contemporaries. I'd say this album gets a solid 8/10.

Feel Like Cheapening Your Webcomic?

Well, good news, all you have to do is decide to do guest strips! You all know what I'm talking about, right? You have an awesome webcomic, then if you decide to take a vacation or something, rather than simply taking a break, you get other artists to write the comic for you, using your carefully created characters, settings, and plot points. My new favorite comic (www.questionablecontent.net) is the reason I bring this up. It is basically a 100% continuity strip with incredibly well thought out characters, snappy dialogue, and fantastic plot lines. This, however, makes for a not fun time when the continuity is broken. The artist (Jeph Jacques) occasionally does panels at cons and the like and rather than taking a week long break, institutes "QC guest week". These are the bane of my existence. I hate them about as much as I hate genocide.
When you have characters that have as dynamic personalities as the cast of QC it is dangerous to ever relinquish control (even though the guest strips don't have any bearing on the current plot line) because the bottom line is that no one but the creator will be able to write them well. Instead they are demoted to 2 dimensional caricatures of what some other hack seems to think the characters should be. The strips simply devolve into nonsense as everything familiar that we know and love about it is burned to a charred husk right before our eyes and the individual comics start to look like the schlock that appears all over the internet. The vast graveyard of shitty comics that nobody reads anyway. Real Life Comics is also guilty of this from time to time, and what's worse is that the artist (Greg Dean) decides that, in an effort to reach out to his readers, he will take their submissions. This seems like a fun and inclusive idea, but ignores the crucial fact that lots of people have an IQ with a shoe size to match and no real sense of how to write, particularly anything funny. I love webcomics, but have no desire to start my own until I feel that my writing is at a good level and I have a concept that will work and grab readers. Most people recognize this, that's why we read comics instead of make them: We rely on other, better people, to be funny FOR us.
Mr. Jacques and Mr. Dean, if this ever comes to your attention I beg of you: PLEASE stop letting 2-bit "artists" mangle your creation that so many people have come to love. Penny Arcade, Least I Could Do, Control Alt Delete, and Nothing Nice To Say (as well as a host of other comics) don't do guest strips and simply choose to let the strip lie dormant until they can man the helm once more. I certainly wouldn't care if the strips had to take a week or two hiatus while your batteries recharged or you reached out to your fanbases. Nothing saddens me more than these pitiful wastes of space. If I may steal a line from Penny Arcade (originally used to describe the games Sega has released in the last decade, but just as applicable here), Guest Strips "are like the videos terrorists release. The characters you love draped in rags and humiliated." Need something shorter? "[Guest Strips] are MURDER PORN. Their legendary properties are getting fucked and murdered."

At Least You'll Know That Warranty Was Worth It...

So now that I have finished the 7th Harry Potter book, I can finally get back to letting my life get slowly sapped away by the evil force that is my television. Specifically, my television in conjunction with video game systems of some sort. I have recently added to my somewhat sizable collection an Xbox 360. Now let me say that as far as game libraries go, the 360 has the market cornered. Hell, Gears of War and Dead Rising alone make your purchase worth it, not to mention titles like Crackdown, Call of Juarez, and the aforementioned The Darkness. Why then, with this library, am I ready to tear my damned hair out?
Well, it seems that the infinite entrepreneurial spirit at microsoft has led them to design sub-par systems (insert spooky music here). Most gamers have probably at least read about, if not experienced the 3 red lights of death. This is when three red lights around your power button light up, signaling that your CPU has just been fried beyond repair. This has been happening to approximately one in every four 360's. Why is this happening? Microsoft decided not to spend the extra 50 cents to use cooling gel that didn't harden into a heat conducting crust. No problem though, I've bought an external cooling unit, so hopefully that at least prolongs the damn thing's life span.
My gripes however, much like my balls, are twofold. Apparently, the skimping has not stopped with cooling gel. The disc trays being used are faulty as well. How do I know this? Well after owning the game for less than a week, my copy of Gears of War ceased to work, saying the disc was "unreadable". The game had been precisely two places: in its case (where it was purchased brand new), and in the system. Suddenly, after playing the game for about 10 hours in total over the span of about 5 days, it will no longer play. When the games cost up to 70$ apiece, this is about as pleasing as waking up to find my kidneys gone. Lucky me I can get the disc replaced for $20 If I send it to Microsoft. God forbid they do something like own up to their shitty workmanship and not nickel and dime me to death for something that I have absolutely no control over.
I Like my 360, really I do. It lets me play some fantastic games. But so help me god, I just know that once my warranty is up, I'll have like 6 months before I am left with a 400 dollar paperweight. Oh well, they've been having to extend the warranties so long to avoid lawsuits, maybe that day will never come. Oh right, it's Microsoft I'm dealing with...never mind.

My Thoughts on "The Darkness"

So, thanks to the people at gamestop, I've been a subscriber to Game Informer for the last year (their discount card used to be 5$, now it's 20 with a mandatory G.I. subscription). This means, however, that I'm actually paying attention to games that come out. For some reason, I've never been able to get hooked on checking out joystiq or IGN or any of those sites. Too much pointless garbage with actual news hidden in the cracks. Anyway, this magazine is how I heard of The Darkness, a game I probably wouldn't have taken much note of otherwise. While I was out a couple nights ago, I decided to indulge myself and pick it up, figuring that it got awesome reviews and looked sick as hell from the screenshots. Although I must say, now that I have acquired a 360, impulse buying games is just getting more and more expensive. Soon I will have to file for credit checks before I can make these kinds of purchases.
Anyway, the game is pretty fucking awesome. You're a mobster named Jackie who gets double crossed and starts on a quest for revenge. Sounds pretty standard really, nothing the grand theft auto franchise hasn't done before. The twist is that you get taken over by a force called the darkness and granted the ability to rip off people's faces and eat their hearts. I have yet to get sick of simply doing that over and over. I mean, they give you guns, but I just don't understand why anyone would ever want to use some lame ass pistols when they can just as easily summon a demon from the ground to maul the motherfuckers shooting at you. Man, imagine if you could do THAT in the grand theft auto series...
Anyway, the game plays pretty nicely, but there are some flaws. Your HUD is confusing and nigh uninterpretable at times. You have no idea what your health is, ever. You have a store of "dark energy" but no way of seeing how much of it you have because there is no meter. You can get a vague sense of how much ammo you have, but for some reason they could not bother to give you an exact count. The other main flaw is the circumstances under how you use your powers. You can activate them at anytime, provided you are standing in the dark. Given that you are inside or on city streets the majority of the game, this means that you spend a goodly amount of time CREATING darkness so you can commence with the face ripping/heart eating. The game should have been titled The Darkness: We hope you like shooting out lights. I think the only reason guns are even IN the game is so that you have something to shoot out the millions of lights in each environment.
Still though, in spite of these annoyances, the plot is great, the darkness abilities are imaginative, and the characters (though poorly voiced at times) are pretty gritty and make for fun vessels through which the story is conveyed. Also, there's a fun bit for any music nerds because the voice of "the darkness" (the evil force running through your character) is none other than Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Fantomas, and one collaboration with The Dillinger Escape Plan. I really want the demonic voice to tell me that something is "so groovy it's out of sight" or that I want it all, but in fact, cannot have it. If I had to quantify my enjoyment here, I would say 7/10. Worth the 65$ impulse buy? Hard to say. It might have been nice if the price had dropped a little, but hey, you can't always get what you want. I'm gonna go devour some hearts now.

The Beginning of the End

So, I've come to a genuinely terrifying realization: The metal scene has been in a state of horrible stagnation for years, and I have simply failed to notice. It all makes a horrifying kind of sense though, like this illusion spanning many years has just come crashing down like Michael Jackson dropping a baby off a balcony (too soon?). My realization has been cued by a few key events, which I shall lay out thusly:

1) Press. I doubt too many people read that many metal rags like Revolver or Hit Parader, but I've read them for a few years now. I picked one up for trashy airplane reading the other day and about halfway through it hit me: every interview is exactly the same. Regardless of the artist, they always have some new album coming out and they talk about how amazing it is and how they really poured a lot of themselves into it and it's the most personal thing they've done to date. Think about it. Isn't that EVERY interview with a musician you've ever read? Then you actually listen to the album and realize it sounds like everything else they've released. Look at Lamb of God's "Sacrament" or Shadows Falls' "Threads of Life". They sound almost exactly like the albums before them, yet somehow right now they are "unique". I just downloaded Devildriver's new album, "The Last Kind Words" and while I find it quite enjoyable, it basically sounds like "The Fury of our Maker's Hand" (its predecessor). The fact that these artists seem to view this as change is frightening though, because it means that the scene isn't going to evolve. And what happens to things that don't evolve (with the exception of the troglodyte that became president)? THEY DIE!

2) Artists that try to change just fuck everything up. I had some prime examples this summer when Marilyn Manson and Linkin Park both released new albums (yes, I liked Linkin Park back in the day, and I still like most of Manson's old stuff even if he is just trying too hard). Like other artists on the scene, they said that their stuff was "radically different". I wasn't too worried, I'd heard that line before and usually I was a fan of the results. Manson's new one had one good song. ONE. LP have an album that has some ok tracks, but after about any given 3, I get bored and change albums. So when the artists are trying to evolve, they're not even picking up on which traits to take with them, they just do artsy bullshit without realizing that metal is not an artsy crowd. And yes, i know calling Linking Park metal is like calling Slayer soft rock, but bear with me here. After all, nu-metal still has "metal" in it.

3) Bottom line, I just haven't been listening to newer metal that much. My latest acquisitions tend to be garage rock from Allison or Japanese Rock from Mike and Ryan. Hell, my favorite CD's I've gotten all summer were Bad Religion and Smashing Pumpkins (the latter is kinda metal, but kinda moreso grunge, so I don't count it fully). I figure I've got a hefty collection of awesome metal, but why keep paying for the same damned album over and over again? What's distressing is that this really only seems to be happening in the metal scene. SoCal punk has taken a really favorable turn lately, the more indie rock I listen to, the more diverse it seems, and what with having gotten into J-Rock last year, I now have an entire other country's scene and evolution to explore.

I really don't want to be the guy on the street corner trumpeting that the end is near, calling out the harlots, blaming the guv'ment for lack or morality etc....and say that metal is dying, but look at it rationally: Do we have a Led Zeppelin or Iron Maiden from our generation? Fuck, we don't even have a Poison or a Warrant. In 20 years, is anyone even going to remember this scene?

The Maryland Chronicles

So I decided that this whole thing needs more than a paltry introduction. To the meat of the matter, say I! So recently (as in a few hours ago) I returned from a trip to Maryland. The purpose of this visit: see my friends Megan, Ryan, and Beast, visit the lovely ms. Allison Levin (the woman not ashamed to be associated with me for the time being), meet said lovely girl's parents, avoid castration by her father. So, without further ado, here is the breakdown:

Monday (7/9): I get in to Maryland at like 2 in the afternoon. Several empires both rise and fall while I wait for my bag. I rue that not all airports are as efficient as DIA. Seriously, as much as Colorado sucks a major dick, DIA is far and away the best airport I've ever gone to, in spite of its lack of a starbucks. Anyway, my buddy Ryan is waiting for me in a jeep covered in bat shit, and we head off to his house. Allison meets us at Ryan's house, we watch Ryan teach kids how to jump into water with style for a couple hours, then convene with Megan and Mike and get some of the most spectacular pizza I have ever imbibed. Like an angel coming in my mouth. Anyway, we go back to Ryan's and get his HD projection tv going and get our guitar hero on. I quickly realize how long it has been since I have played this game. The fact that I have recently helped kill a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka probably isn't helping. Anyway, we all turn in eventually, Allison and I crash in what might be the hottest room in Ryan's house for a night of questionable sleep.

Tuesday (7/10): Allison and I awake to an empty house. Taking pity on me, she takes me to her house a day earlier than anticipated. We catch up on sleep (Ryan's house, while a nice house, did not have the greatest sleeping arrangements), then spend pretty much the rest of the day running errands for her family. I meet the parents, her mom is a very nice woman, and her dad is a frightening man. As the boyfriend, it's always good to have a healthy fear of the father. It doesn't help when his first experience of you is the time you accidentally called their house line drunk at 3 in the morning thinking it was his daughter's cell phone. Still, I think I managed to at least reset the man to "neutral" towards me, so that's a plus... We get gelato with some of her friends later that night, they are very nice people. Megan's friend Colleen spends over an hour talking about her boyfriend. Allison and I listen patiently and leave as soon as we get an opportunity. I can only listen to stories about how huge some dude i don't know's dick is for so long.

Wednesday (7/11): Allison managed to score me a gig helping her merch a show for Nickelback, Staind, and Daughtry. I hate all of them (well, there are a few staind songs I like, but other than that, hatred), but basically I get paid to hang out with my girlfriend all day. Anyway, I could merch shows as a damn profession. You're under no obligation to be friendly or treat people well, so if they're dicks, you can be a dick right back. Prime example: A guy walks up to me, asks me to throw away a crumpled bag he has in his pocket. There is a trashcan 10 feet to my left easily accessible to all patrons. I looked at the bag, looked at him and said "I'm not your trash service sir". He's pissed, but his kids want to buy shirts and the other merch folk are busy, so he's stuck with me. I sell him the shirts and as he hands me his card he goes "real helpful with the trash there. great customer service". I smiled, took his card and said "your trash disposal is not my fucking job." I've never seen a man sign a receipt so angrily. POWER TRIP!!! Anyway, idiots listen to Nickelback. Over 50% of the people I sold to did not know their t-shirt sizes. WHO THE FUCK DOES NOT KNOW THEIR T-SHIRT SIZE? Other people would look at the display, which consisted of nothing but t-shirts and sweatshirts and ask "do y'all have tank tops?" Do you fucking SEE any tank tops, asshole? No, we have a secret stash only available to shrewd individuals such as yourself. Idiots. Anyway, show ended, went back to Allison's to crash.

Thursday (7/12): Allison had work most of the day, so I spent the day in Towson with Megan perusing shops and such. We went to see the new Harry Potter movie that night once Allison was off work. Kind of disappointing, but I didn't shit myself with rage or anything. We try to make plans for later that night, but nothing works out. Allison, Megan, and I return to Allison's house and make delicious lava cakes (chocolate cakes with liquid chocolate centers). I O.D. on cake batter. In spite of the sugar high, eventually Allison and I crash.

Friday (7/13): Friday the 13th- OOOOOOO! Allison tries an experiment where I wear her pants as we had originally intended to go to some indie dance club. The plans fell through, and there is no evidence of me in the pants, but they fit disturbingly well. More room for my junk than I would have thought... Anyway, the plan to go to the club falls through, but we go to an Orioles game with some of Allison's friends, followed by a visit to a dive bar with the most erratic pricing ever. I got taxed for not having boobs as well as probably being very obviously under age (let's face it, I'm 19 and goddamn look it). Still, my liver had been getting complacent since I got back from NYU and I needed to make that fucker earn his keep.

Saturday (7/14): Same routine as most of the beginnings of the days. Lounge around at Allison's, go out at night. We go to Georgetown with Megan to meet Beast and go to a hookah bar. This place was probably the hottest location in Georgetown. Not stylistically. I mean that this is a place full of burning and smoking hookahs and NO AIR CONDITIONING. And terrible service. We tipped like 8%.

Sunday (7/15): Same morning routine as usual. That night we go with Megan, Molly, and Rachel Ellis to a roller derby bout. This is basically a mosh pit on roller skates with a scoring system. Fun for a while, but it kind of turns into a nascar event after a certain point: people turning left ad nauseum. We then go to an artsy diner called paper moon, which must be a hipster's paradise. Lots of kitchy shit on the walls and a vaguely pretentious air to all of the staff. Still, they make a fine grilled cheese.

Monday (7/16): I meet Allison at her internship at city paper (she's a fact checker there) and head to the airport. Leaving sucks. I miss everyone again. Still, good times, and I go back to New York in a little over a month. This was a lengthy post for a first real one. Kudos if you made it all the way through... I'll update if I have something relevant to say.

The Reason For My Being (here), As It Were...

OK, so anyone who has read my shit knows that for like the last 2 years I had a blog on my myspace account. However, I will be 20 soon and simply do not want to be one of those over 20 year olds who still frequently uses myspace. As a social network, facebook is far superior anyway, so I kind of had to wonder why I was still on myspace in the first place. The only thing really tying me down was my blog, so I thought, "well fuck man, just start a new one". And hey, now I can regulate a bit more carefully who reads this shit so I can be much more candid. Updates will come whenever I damn well feel like it and/or get bored.