The Sky is Rye!

ryesky.com

2011-01-29T11:16:00.002-05:00

By the way, if you're viewing this, be aware this is my old blog site. Please, see ryesky.com for the newer version.

When blogger removed ftp support, I had to migrate to wordpress, and parked my old blogger files at this address.

The Stooges Finally inducted into the Hall of Fame

2009-12-27T08:39:00.002-05:00

After being nominated seven times to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Stooges finally made it! Congrats guys!

"Indiana Jones IV" makes "The Godfather III" look like "The Godfather II"

2009-08-20T11:55:00.002-04:00

****CONTAINS SPOILERS****

Okay, I decided it's time for a trivial post nobody cares about. I recently watched the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series. Like the title says, it makes The Godfather III (which is a clear example of why casting/hiring based on nepotism is a bad idea) look like The Godfather II.

To slightly go off on a tangent:
I think there should be a rule that if you have a movie franchise or series, and don't come out with a sequel (or prequel) within ten years, then the MPAA should barre you against making another sequel to it. Case in point: The Godfather, Star Wars, Terminator, Indiana Jones, and probably some more I can't think of right now. Maybe throw some less notable movies like Karate Kid and Dumb and Dumber in there.

The main problem with the Indiana Jones series, though, is that each movie contradicts each other regarding relics and religious beliefs. The first and third movie, the Ark and Holy Grail, respectively, verify Christianity as a religion. While, the second movie verifies some West Asian beliefs. Then, this, the fourth one, verifies the existence of aliens. None of these beliefs can coexist with each other. I should mention that by "verifies" I merely mean in the movies' realm of belief. I guess one could argue the old saying that "perception and belief create one owns reality" (loosely quoted).

Anyway, the ending of the Crystal Skull movie is basically a child's "...and they lived happily ever after" cop out ending with no sense of satisfaction. Putting in over the top fight scenes such as fencing from the back of a jeep didn't help much either. If the kid was really Indiana Jone's son, he would have just shot Cate Blanchet.

Totally stupid and trivial post, I know, but thought I'd put it down on virtual paper.

Obama vs. Birthers

2009-07-30T20:24:00.004-04:00

So I guess there is this vast movement, the people of which are called "Birthers" apparently, that believe Obama wasn't born the US and thus, via the US Constitution should be thrown out of his presidency.

I'm firstly reminded of the 2000 election of Bush vs. Gore. You know, the whole Gore and Democrats wanting a recount. Many Republicans started saying "Sore/Loserman" as a (rather weak) play on words of Gore/Lieberman. Well, wouldn't you know it, the pot once again calls the kettle black.

Despite Obama releasing his proof of birth certificate from Hawaii, Birthers are now claiming it's not actually a birth certificate. Why can't these people just admit that they are crybabies and are looking for any means necessary for another Republican "dynasty" (if you will).

The Constitution does claim that you have to be born in the US to be president, yes, but didn't it once claim that purchase of alcohol was illegal via an amendment, only to be repealed by another amendment about a decade later? My point being is that the whole idea of a candidate's requirement to be President that they must be born in the US is vastly outdated and no longer relevant. It was put in the Constitution during the infancy of the nation to protect the colonial interests. The US is no longer in need of fear of a foreign leader reigning tyranny on its people, and if you believe Obama is doing this already, perhaps you should look at other Presidents' actions throughout history (and you don't have to look far backwards beyond 2009).

Jingoism is perhaps our greatest threat now, and has been since W Bush took office in 2001. If you really want to make a statement against Obama, please find something a bit more realistic and more intelligent than the following:

1. Obama wasn't born in the US
2. Obama is a socialist
3. Obama is a nazi

For claiming any of the above will only hurt your reputation as someone who knows anything about politics.

Idea for the RIAA

2009-04-24T10:57:00.003-04:00

RIAA: I think a good way to get more people to buy CDs rather than to download them is to make them easier to fuckin open. Without a knife, scissors, or razor blade handy, it takes longer to open the plastic wrap and take off that exasperating sticker at the top than it does to listen to the whole album all the way through... Okay maybe that's an exaggeration. It takes longer to open the plastic wrap and take off that exasperating sticker at the top than it does to listen to a whole EP album all the way through.

Stop!

2009-04-24T03:04:00.002-04:00

Please stop the propagation of unicorn porn!

2009-04-01T00:31:00.001-04:00

Mistah Kurtz--he dead

My Bloody Valentine + Pixies tour

2009-03-29T19:59:00.000-04:00

As some may know, My Bloody Valentine, one of the founding fathers of the shoegazing rock movement of the 80s, started touring again in 2008. The recordings of shows I've seen on youtube don't really utilize the best recording equipment (cell phones, ew). MBV is a band that plays very loud, and those wimpy cell phone mics aren't designed for that shit. I will say this though: Belinda Butcher looks absolutely stunning even after all these years.

Belinda Butcher

Another band who's apparently going back on tour is the Pixies. They went on a reunion tour back in 2004 and I guess they're at it again. After watching the loudQUIETloud documentary of the 2004 tour it really seemed to me they're all incredibly depressed. Each of them were battling their own demons it seemed.

Maybe there will be some new material, but I doubt it.

Journey Through My Fears

2009-03-13T10:33:00.002-04:00

Probably the second "real" song I wrote was "Journey Through My Fears." I wasn't too good at guitar back then, and I thought the lead guitar playing was weak. I listened to it again just now and actually enjoyed it, so I added it as the sixth track of the "A Window To The Soul" album. It really doesn't epitomize most my compositions though. Instead of being just a depressing song in a minor key, it's more "dark" than "depressing."

It has an organ playing on it which I did with a guitar tabbing program and just changed the instrument to "rock organ," then recorded into my PC mic into Soundforge.

Finally Joined Facebook

2009-03-13T07:04:00.003-04:00

I've been trying to improve on my OCD and social anxiety disorder lately. I thought what better way to tackle the latter of those than to join Facebook. Not having a lot of "in person" social contact the past 9 years or so has drained me in ways. I didn't really create the Facebook account to meet anybody in person, though I'm not ruling it out either. I imagine in most cases I'd be overwhelmed with anxiety. Picked up smoking again just to deal with some anxiety I've had lately.

Will see how things go.

Conan's Last Late Night

2009-02-21T01:48:00.006-05:00

I just watched the last "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." It was very sad to see the show to come to an end. Although he's taking over the "Tonight Show," I'm wondering if a lot of his type of comedy will connect with that earlier audience, or if he will be able to do a lot of the more "provocative" bits. He already said he couldn't bring the Masturbating Bear to the earlier time frame. At the end of tonight's show, he said something along the lines of him not going to "grow up" for the "Tonight Show" which I'm glad to hear.

Something else he mentioned at the end of the show, alluded to the fact that show became "cool to watch" at one point. I take pride (although little) that I started watching the show back in 1993 when it first came on television. It was the summer before 5th grade for me, and I would watch a lot infomercials late at night on the TV in my bedroom. The one I remember most is a Time Life "Best of the 70s" infomercial, but I digress. In most cities, Conan came on right after Leno, at 12:35 AM EST. However, in Detroit, the NBC affiliate (WDIV I think are the call letters), thought it was a better idea to put on a rerun of "Jenny Jones" at 12:35, and showed Conan at 1:35. This lasted until sometime in the early 2000s.

That particular time slot he was in made it difficult to watch him during the school year. I was always a night owl regarding sleep. I usually didn't get tired until very late. Though 1:35 AM in middle school was pushing it a bit, I watched him very often during the summer. Starting in 8th grade, I did start staying up until about 2 AM, to catch the first two comedy bit segments he'd have on, and did that virtually every day until about the year 2000. I stopped watching TV for the most part and would listen to radio shows more, partly because of my OCD (OCD? why? that'd take a long time to explain.)

I remember feeling bad for him those first few shows I watched back in 1993. As I mentioned earlier, his comedy was a bit more "off the wall" and was either something people would find hilarious or not funny at all. If I remember correctly, his audience would hardly laugh at anything he did. I "knew" his show wouldn't last, but I'm glad I was wrong about that.

It will be interesting to see how the "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" will be, and I'm looking forward to it... nervously. Thank you Conan for making me laugh so much!

Privacy < Bill O'Reilly's Need to Know

2009-02-14T07:26:00.006-05:00

I'm not really one to post more "political" type articles and such on this blog, at least not in a long time. Though I was watching some "Daily Show" early this Saturday morning (which I assume was a rerun from Monday?), and I saw something to which I could relate -- the idea at least. For about the past year or so, I've grown incredibly angry with America's obsession of celebrities. E! is one of my most disliked networks, except for the great show "The Soup" which actually makes fun of it's own network on a weekly basis. I'm really not quite sure why stories of Jessica Simpson gaining five pounds is worthy of anybody's attention, but I digress.

On the "Daily Show" episode I mentioned, host, Jon Stewart, began showing a montage of clips of Bill O'Reilly's stance against paparazzi, concluding with O'Reilly stating that they're "the scum of the earth." I knew, however, being that this is the "Daily Show," that there was more to come. Well, here's the video:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Bill O'Reilly's Right to Privacy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Youtube Account and New Music Video

2009-02-11T00:31:00.006-05:00

I made a Youtube account to share some videos. Although I've had a couple accounts previously, mostly just to comment and troll people, I thought I'd make one for personal videos. Right now, I have up my music video for "Melanfrost" and a new video I just made not more than 30 minutes ago for "Poppyseed."

My YouTube page can be found at http://www.youtube.com/lendryesky.

As for the music videos, you can download them on the right sidebar in VCD/.mpeg format, or view them at youtube at:

Melanfrost
Poppyseed

Or...

Melanfrost

Poppyseed

ryesky.com

2009-02-07T13:48:00.003-05:00

I got my hands on a new domain for my site, ryesky.com. Some of the links on previous blog entries will no longer work as they're still linked to pennyroyalfrog.com.

The Pennyroyal Frog is now known as Rye Sky + "I love the power glove, it's so bad"

2009-01-31T00:18:00.011-05:00

I decided to dump the long pseudonym "Pennyroyal Frog" and opt for a much shorter, simpler one, "Rye Sky." I'm going to keep my one man band name as "The Pennyroyal Frogs" aka "PRF."

I've cleaned up a lot of the obsolete links I had on the right sidebar and updated a few things.

Besides all this, I've been discovering a lot of bands/music that I haven't listened to before. Some worth mentioning are:

(contemporary)
Sigur Ros - ambient, dream pop, post-rock
Deerhoof - indie
Deerhunter - shoegazing
Vivian Girls - indie, riot grrl, (cool vocal harmonies)
Liars - ???

(retro)
Wire - punk, post-punk
Magazine - post-punk
The Fall - post-punk
Buzzcocks - punk
The Wipers - punk
Polvo - indie
Slint - math rock
June of 44 - math rock
Rodan - math rock

You may be wondering how I haven't listened to some of these bands before (esp Buzzcocks), well, I work slowly.

And while speaking of indie rock, I was shocked to find out that Jenny Lewis, the lead singer of the indie band Rilo Kiley, was in the classic 1989 Nintendo promotional full-length feature film "The Wizard." My favorite scene from the movie (which also features Jenny Lewis):

Nice to see Nintendo's use of late 80s hip-hop argot to appeal to the young ones. I admittedly have used that ironic slang around that time.

New PRF Songs

2008-04-26T03:37:00.005-04:00

A couple new songs on the "A Window to the Soul" album:

Open
Opossum With An Iron Nose

New PRF Project/Song

2008-01-20T07:59:00.000-05:00

I organized my favorite songs into an album, "Lend Rye Sky", which is around 80 minutes I think. That's not why I'm posting though, (and by the way, all the songs on that album are on this site, just not organized) I've started a new album, titled "A Window To The Soul". The first song of the album is finished, titled "Off On A Tangent" and can be downloaded now. I'm continuing my somewhat avant-guard style with a plethora of influences. I, again, make use of a droning song structure which I've grown to like, along with my trusty Ebow.

Download it now!

Some New PRF Songs

2007-12-27T04:24:00.000-05:00

So I recorded a few songs these past few months:

Hypnotize
Fulcrum Thoughts (Part 2)
Sound 1
Processed Meat
Unprocessed Meat

Hypnotize: Just recorded it now. I tried something a little different. I had my guitar tuned to EEEBBB, but that's not to what I'm referring. The 1st string was tuned half a semitone sharp, so was really in between B and C. The 6th string was tuned half a semitone flat, which means it was between D# and E. I liked the way this tuning sounded open. It had a droning tone but with some interesting dissonance.

Fulcrum Thoughts (Part 2): I really liked the arpeggio I came up with for the original Fulcrum Thoughts song, so I a variation of it in, a perfect 4th higher in pitch, in this song. It was originally named "The Mouse", but since it was derivative of Fulcrum Thoughts, I decided to make it a sequel. In fact, I've used that arpeggio with the D note pedal, or in this case the G note pedal in an early song I wrote, and also in my song Crumful (figure out the anagram?). I was watching part of a movie or TV show, and they had a song playing that very much resembled this pattern I've used so often. Don't know the name of the song or artist.

Sound 1: I can't remember much about this song at all except that I think it was in an Ostrich guitar tuning (DDDDDD).

Processed Meat: I can't remember much about this either except that I double tracked the whole song twice, once modifying the pitch to make it a major 3rd higher, and a second time making the pitch a perfect 5th higher, making every note a major chord and hence chords into polychords.

Unprocessed Meat: This is the same as above, just without the double tracking.

See the C - New Song by ME

2007-11-14T20:52:00.001-05:00

So with all the RIAA bullshit that's been going on the past few years, I figured that since you can't beat them, you might as well join them. That's why I'm releasing my new single, "See The C". It consists of one chord (C major). Anybody who uses this chord from now on is in violation of plagiarizing my whole song. I'll leave it up to the RIAA to take the necessary legal actions.

Download it here: See The C

The iPod Touch

2007-11-02T22:53:00.001-04:00

So after Apple released the hyped up iPhone, I was curious when they'd release a similar version of the iPod. For those familiar with the iPhone, you know that it already plays music files. The thing is, I don't want a phone and a wimpy four to eight gig hard drive.

So Apple, much to my pleasure, releases the iPod Touch... but wait! Only 16 gigabytes of storage? My music collection, which is 99% from CDs I own and a few files purchased from the iTunes store, (and not to mention video files)is well more than 16 gigs.

What's the deal this?

Jam Session 3

2007-06-18T07:22:00.000-04:00

'Nother jam session. Ostrich guitar tuning. Acoustic.

Download

Jam Session 2

2007-05-08T19:46:00.000-04:00

I felt so good about the previous jam session I did that I did another one shortly after. Here it is:

Download

Jam Session 1

2007-05-08T18:57:00.000-04:00

I've decided to record some of my jam sessions while playing guitar. The first one starts off with the Animals version of "House of the Rising Sun" as a warm up. The rest is just somewhat improvised material, including lots of noise. My dog makes a cameo on it by barking at somebody at my doorstep dropping off a "Neighborhood News" newspaper type thing. Her barking actually compliments the music really well.

Oh, and by the way, the circuit switch on my jazzmaster is really dirty and cuts out a lot, so there was a part where i edited, but you probably won't notice it. There still is a part of a similar situation that I left in that sounded kinda cool (and coincidently I was whistling the riff at the same time the guitar cut out).

Get it now!

Download

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

2007-03-01T08:55:00.000-05:00

This post will make me sound nerdy and humorless, but I need something to post as activity on this site has been quiet lately.

There's this new show on some network coming out called "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" with Jeff Foxworthy as host. Now, if you're going to make a show based on knowledge, at least get the knowledge of the vocabulary correct. "Smart" refers to intelligence and not knowledge. And for those who don't know, the show is about asking trivia questions to 5th grade students and also adults to see who's more knowledgeable, the kids or the adults.

Smart/Intelligent mean you can process information quickly, effectively, and efficiently. Knowledge is what you know, such as facts. Generally smart people will be more knowledgeable because they can process the information so effectively and retain it as well, but still it's not really the correct terminology. Also, "ignorant" and "stupid" are two completely different words. Ignorance is lacking of knowledge, while stupid is the lacking of intelligence.

Sure, you could argue that language is meant for communication and as long as the word or phrase gets across what it's intention of meaning is, then everything's alright. I still think that it undermines the point of a trivia show though.

Like I said, totally nerdy post. ;)

Awoken, Confused

2007-02-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

I've been having a lot of vivid dreams lately. When I awake, I'm utterly confused. Both to my surroundings and to my emotions. It takes me about 15 seconds to realize what's been going on in my life the past few days, weeks, and even years.

It may be because of my sleeping schedule this past week in which i've been up about 18 hours then slept 12 hours, actually skipping a day if you think about it. I woke up today at around 7AM and I guess I'll see how things go this coming week.

Stop the Cat Box?

2007-01-01T13:14:00.000-05:00

I forget the company or what exactly is advertised in this commercial I often see. The one in which I'm referring to is the one with the two nerdy dipshits who put The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" on one of their phones.

Riddle me this: they download (or rip the song from a CD?) and put it on the phone, so they must know the name of the song, right? How the fuck can they then not know the lyrics to the chorus? They're the same as the name of the song! One starts singing, "Rock the cashbox" or something like that, then the other douchebag says "are they saying 'stop the cat box'?" Give me a fuckin' break. WHO ARE THE AD WIZARDS WHO CAME UP WITH THIS ONE?????!?!!!

It's simple another instance of lazy writing (plus a lack for rationale).

I took a Diddy in my pants after these thoughts

2006-12-27T01:31:00.001-05:00

I was recently thinking how all the "artists" that would appear on the MTV show "Super Sweet Sixteen" are money whores. In other words, pretty much any band/musician that appears on MTV on a regular basis.

This, then triggered my disgusts of Sean "Diddy" Comb's diamond encrusted ipod. How the fuck do people spend so much money on the most trivial things. It's really nice to know that African men who are subjected to slavery-like conditions for little or no pay are doing their work so that Diddy can "pimp up" his little piece of electronics that will be obsolete within two years (Please, note the sarcasm).

I don't mean to pick on Diddy specifically, but rather to people who have more money than they know what to do with that they have the need to build their ego by spending money on such nonsense. Perhaps to compensate for a small penis?

Kimmy Gibbler on Wikipedia

2006-12-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

After I asked a random question about Kimmy Gibbler to a friend, he searched for her on wikipedia and found this creepy entry on the site. For those who don't know Kimmy Gibbler, she was the annoying neighbor on the sitcom Full House.

I don't know if that wikipedia article is intended to be a joke, or if it's really written by somebody whose life apparently revolves around the sitcom.

XBox 360 Prooves Unreliable

2006-12-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I bought an xbox 360 about a month and a half ago. After playing Call of Duty 3 for awhile I got an error, "Disc is unreadable". I thought it was just an anomaly. Then after playing Gears of War I got the error again. So I called up the xbox support line and they said it needs to be repaired. They said I had to cover the cost of shipping and that's it. It cost $17 to ship it via UPS Ground. (Apparently, they used to just send you a pre-stamped/pre-addressed box and you put it in and ship it, so it would cost nothing out of your pocket, but they stopped doing that in the US.)

Well, I got it back within seven business days and after playing some more Gears of War, I got the same error. So as you can imagine I'm pretty pissed off at Micro$oft. But then again, when am I not? After minimal googling, I discovered lots of people have had this problem. I also doubt the PS3 will proove much better as far as reliability.

The 360 was actually the first gaming console I've bought since 1996 (the N64). I did enjoy playing it and the controller feels very comfortable, but I'm going to have to cut my losses I think.

Ugh, MySpace

2006-12-09T20:08:00.000-05:00

Well, after months, maybe even years of despising myspace, I've decided to make a profile. You can find it at www.myspace.com/pennyroyalfrog. Its content is very minimal at the moment, and don't be surprised if it stays that way for awhile.

pennyroyalfrog.com is my main site of which I maintain, and as you can tell there's been over a month of no updates in October through November.

Oh wells, maybe I'll enjoy myspace.

Childhood Memories, Nostalgia, and Feelings

2006-11-28T00:43:00.000-05:00

I was recently reminded of the old 80s film "The Never Ending Story". It was the first movie I ever remember seeing, and I can remember watching it on my family's beta-max VCR when i was around 3 or 4 years old. Hoping to stir up some nostalgia, I went to youtube to search for any videos of the movie. Little to my surprise there was a music video for the theme song by whatever that guy's name is from kajagoogoo. Limahl?

Anyway, I was instantly stricken with a mysterious, magical, and haunting feeling. Something more than just mere nostalgia. This feeling is what prompted me to post this. There are some feelings that are extemely powerful, especially as a child. One I can remember besides what I just mentioned, is when we were on a family vacation on a Cruise in the Carribean.

I was maybe ten years old at the time. We docked at one of the Virgin Islands and my parents had in mind to go to a beach spot on a small island. While on the small passenger boat that took us to the island, I saw a girl about my age (at the time). She was dancing with an adult and I remember just watching her. Not in a creepy way. I was becoming totally infatuated with this girl. And as soon as I saw her, she disappeared after we got off the boat.

It could have just been a feeling of my first crush, maybe (my first) love at first site, or maybe something more. I vaguely remember what she looked like, and haven't even thought about the situation in years. But it was that strange feeling from watching that "Never Ending Story" video that made me think of it. Not to be trite, but it's more so the feeling I had when I was watching her dance than what she looked like that I remember.

These emotions are very bitter-sweet. On one hand, it makes me feel very human, alive, and somewhat joyful, yet on the other hand I feel a little bit of pain. It's so hard to explain.

New PRF Song - "Crumful"

2006-11-13T05:58:00.000-05:00

I recorded a new song this morning titled, "Crumful". It's in a standard tuning unlike many of my more recent songs. It's very textured and droning, which I like :P. This was recorded on my Epiphone Sheraton II (w/ Gibson '57 Classic Pickups) although I played it as well as all my more recent music through my solid state Peavey Rage 158 amp instead of my good Fender Deluxe Reverb tube amp.

This is mostly because the Fender amp is too far away from my computer to record through and I'm too lazy to move it back and forth. When my Windoze machine was in the attic I also had the Fender amp up there and they were right by each other. Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent.

This song was partly composed and partly improvised like most of my "Unstructured" music. I'm sorta recycling old material (ie: Fulcrum Thoughts) with this tune. Of course, following the tradition of being too embarrassed by my vocal limitations, this, among all my songs which are on this website, is instrumental. Download: Crumful

My First Music Video, "Melanfrost"

2006-11-13T02:09:00.000-05:00

Here comes Penny-Frog again. I created my first music video a few weeks ago. It's really just something I threw together and is very minimalist, yet maybe you can capture the depression in the song through the imagery. I used the video option on my digital camera which captures at 10 frames per second and looks very much like 8mm film.

The (little) editing that was done was done through VirtualDubMod. Then converted to MPEG-VCD. Download: Melanfrost

Music Update

2006-09-24T03:45:00.001-04:00

I recieved the rest of the CDs I bought from Amazon. I did so quite awhile ago in fact, but never posted about them.

Glenn Branca's The Ascension is really captivating and is probably my favorite out of the three. It's very "no-wave" sounding (no, not new-wave, but no-wave). Lots of texture to the sound. It's the first purely instrumental album I have bought in my life and well worth it. I give it a 5 out of 5 easily.

The Velvet Underground's Loaded is their fourth and probably their worst out of their four main studio albums. John Cale really added a lot of influence to the band, and after his departure before their third album, the music didn't become as interesting. Although I must say their third, self-titled album was still pretty good. Anyway, on Loaded the music is more commercialized and "rock n' rollish" than their previous three. I give it a 2 out of 5.

The Velvet Underground's "lost", album VU did not impress me as much either, although it's a lot better than Loaded. There are a few good songs on it, but a fair amount is just mediocre. I give it a 3 out of 5.

As for the other albums mentioned in the previous post, which I did not rate:

The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground: 4 out of 5
The Stooges's The Stooges (Deluxe): 4 out of 5
The Raconteurs' Broken Boy soldiers: 3 out of 5

Note: I will only give out a five for suberb albums with the majority of the tracks being really good songs. I want to mention that I give The Velvet Underground's first two albums both a 5 out of 5 easily and they are now one of my favorite bands.

Music and Stuff

2006-09-06T18:43:00.000-04:00

I've been buying a fair amount of CDs and also some songs off iTunes. Some new music I've bought have been:

CDs (From FYE)
-The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground
-The Raconteurs' Broken Boy Soldiers
-The Stooges' The Stooges (Deluxe)

CDs Still in the Mail (From Amazon.com)
-The Velvet Underground's Loaded
-The Velvet Underground's VU (The "lost album")
-Glenn Branca's The Ascension

Songs on iTunes
-Sleater-Kinney's songs "Oh!" and "Words and Guitar"
-Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick"

I've really been enjoying everything I've got so far, with the exception of the Raconteur's album. It doesn't really impress me that much except for a few songs. All in all it's mediocre. I'm not somebody who's content with just having two or three good songs on a whole CD, especially since this CD is rather short (under 40 minutes I think).

The first album I mentioned, The Velvet Underground, is not to be confused with the album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, AKA The Banana Album which I bought months ago.

The only "new" album I bought, as you may or may not notice, is Broken Boy Soldiers. There aren't too many new bands out there that catch my attention too well. Although, all I'm really exposed to that's new is the shit they play on MTV, which in the past five or so years, I've only seen maybe three new bands I like on it.

"The times they are a changin'." -Bob Dylan

Anyhoo, give some of this music I've listed a listen, it's good stuff. If you're one of those people who only listens to music that's under a year old to fit in and be cool, then please don't even bother reading my blog.

Some Words of Wisdom

2006-09-05T16:25:00.000-04:00

Don't change your style unless your style is changing.

Another new PRF song - "Wake Sleep Power"

2006-08-29T07:25:00.000-04:00

I felt good about the song i did about three hours ago so I thought I'd do another one. The tuning is D-F-A-D-D-D, the bottom three strings make a D minor chord, and the top Ds just make a drone. I think it turned out really well. Download: Wake Sleep Power

New PRF Song - "Tuned" + More

2006-08-29T04:51:00.000-04:00

Made a new song called "Tuned". It's another Ostrich guitar styled song.

For those who might care: In lieu of a high E string, I had to use a G string (no not that type of G-String) I tuned it lower than the 2nd and 3rd (normal G string) strings to balance the tension on each side of the neck. The 1st string slot on the nut was fortunately wide enough to accommodate the wider string gauge.

On the "table of contents" (right) side of my site, I made two sections for "My Music". Phase 1: Structured and Phase 2: Unstructured. The former consists of more traditional "verse chorus verse" type songs, hence "structured". The latter is moreso experimental type crap that's mostly improvised. I say "crap" because that's what most people would probably find it, but to me, it's "music to my ears" (pardon the obvious pun).

When I first started writing music I used structure in my songs, but now I'm kind of bored of all that and find improvised, unique, music a bit more interesting to play and listen to.

I also added a couple older songs of mine that I've never put on this site. Dream of My Dreams and (You Can't Get Too) Far Behind

Anybody notice I used a lot of quotation marks on this post? Anyway, download the song: Tuned

Einstein Robot

2006-08-26T20:05:00.000-04:00

WTF? http://youtube.com/watch?v=vx35zMyFJ94

Pretty creepy. Now only if we (as in humans) could make AI with the same intelligence as him.

MacBook, I Want One

2006-08-24T18:45:00.000-04:00

The new MacBooks look very nice. I've never owned a Mac, but I pretty much like anything other than Windoze. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you all the problems Windoze has, and infact the main reason why I started using Linux was just to try something different.

Mac OS X has always been "pretty" to me. I tend to try to spice up KDE a lot, and right now I even have an OS X Panther GTK theme and also Baghira, a KDE theme that resembles OS X. Changing my icons has been a habbit of mine too. I'm always looking for something new.

It's not just the OS that lures me into purchasing a MacBook, but also the new Intel Core Duo Processor. The benchmarks I've seen show that they outperform AMD. Not to mention the actually laptop itself looks rather good aesthetically.

I would really like one of these MacBooks, but I don't know if I'll be able to afford one for awhile. Feel free to pitch in ;)

That Legal Age of Consent Chick Has a Popozao!

2006-08-23T23:02:00.000-04:00

Kevin Federline: for ruining Britney Spears's career, I give him a pat on the back. But, he was a joke since he first said he was going to rap. (Or was it when he left his pregnant wife for Britney? Yea, probably the latter) As for Paris Hilton's frivolous attempt to become a singer, I find it very comedic that MTV takes her seriously. They actually play her video and apparently people request it on TRL. How do I know this? After Syd Barrett (original frontman of Pink Floyd) passed away recently, I went to mtv.com because I THOUGHT they actually might have some info on him. When the site came up, it listed the top five "hottest" videos, and Paris's song was #1.

I've come to this conclusion. Since only 14 year olds actually tune into TRL, and Kevin Federline performed at the Teen Choice Awards the other night, it's no wonder why parents are so wary of their kids' decisions.

A prime example from my own experience is when I dyed my hair bright red when I was seventeen. My parents strongly opposed it, and they were right. A few days later it faded and turned pink. Pink hair does not look good on a guy. I was fortunately mature enough at the time not to care if people thought I was gay or not, but it still looked bad. Teens should have no right to choose anything. Keep that age of consent up into the later teens you fat cats in [your state's capital here]!

My final words: "Popozao!"

Windoze Decides When it Needs to be Rebooted

2006-08-21T20:44:00.000-04:00

Found this post on digg, which mentions this article about a guy's hard work lost due to windoze automatic updates. Sorry for all the links there. Just wanted to post the digg page too incase if you wanted to digg it.

Anyway, before you rush to judgement, read the whole article. Windoze has been really pissing me off lately with the obnoxious rebooting at 3am. Yes, you can turn that feature off, but it still does it! I'm sleeping and all of the sudden I wake up to the sound of "Dee dah doh doo", ugh Windoze rebooting because of a patched security flaw, AGAIN! (I could go on a tangent about "why does Windoze need so many security updates", but I'd rather not)

I never really have lost work due to this issue besides having to reopen all of my programs. I never use Windoze for anything i need reliability on, cuz let's face it, windoze is the most poorly designed piece of software ever. I'm more impressed with the classic "Hello World" program.

What gives Bill Gates the right to decide when my computer reboots? Save your work often, yes, but what about if you're capturing or encoding a large piece of video and want to do it over night? Maybe, you log IRC chats or run an FTP server. I thought I was alone with this crap happening because I never hear anybody else having problems with it, but now I know that I'm not alone.

The Chuck Norris Bridge - Has a nice tone to it. Huh, Hungary?

2006-08-14T20:54:00.000-04:00

After watching an episode of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, I just thought I had to blog this. A bridge in Hungary might be named after Chuck Norris, the action star of such films as Delta Force and his show about Texas justice, Walker, Texas Ranger.

People are voting at http://m0hid.gov.hu for the new name of this bridge, and surprisingly Chuck Norris Bridge is ahead with 11% of the vote (at least at the time this article was written), three times more than the first Hungarian leader's name. How great is that? Who knew good ol' Chuck Norris had such an impact in Hungary? The Total Gym must sell like hot cakes there. They should invite him to do a roundhouse kick to drive in the last rivet, that is, as long as it's below his waist.

Most likely, Chuck Norris Bridge is probably ahead because of one or more of the following:

a) Hackers
b) Utter discontent for the delay of the construction of the bridge or other failed gov't ideals/projects
c) Lots of kids with a sense of humour

If it were up to me, I would name the bridge the Do Lung Bridge, for those of you who actually get that reference (from one of my favorite movies). I won't try to influence you to vote for the Chuck Norris name, but man, that'd be cool if it wins.

New PRF Song - Mental Shift

2006-08-03T18:38:00.000-04:00

I recorded a new song with my new guitar today. I do all my recent recordings on a solid state amp so I can't get great tone. My tube amp is too far away from the computer. Anyway, this is another instrumental jam with not much composition. It's about seven minutes long. In my opinion, it sounds great. I make music that I like and I'm trying to be a bit different now than with some of my older songs that just use "verse chorus verse" type structure. My recent songs (Poppyseed, dunno, and this, Mental Shift) don't really have structure and usually have an erratic tempo/bpm. I'm just having fun. Download: Mental Shift

The WTF Moment of the Year

2006-07-31T23:41:00.000-04:00

Somebody pointed me to an article about a new Dakota Fanning movie where she (who is 12 years of age) has a rape scene where she is topless in it. WTF? I wonder how many Gary Glitters are going to rush to the theater to see this one. The director will probably argue it's all in the name of art. Bullshit! This is about capitalizing on taboos. The controversy around the movie will surely draw enough attention to it for both to be a relatively successful film at the box office and an Oscar for best film and best actress (Fanning).

Cynical am I? Quoted from the article:

"Fanning's mother, Joy, and her Hollywood agent, Cindy Osbrink, see the movie, written and directed by Deborah Kampmeier, as a possible Oscar vehicle for the pint-size star."

Nice parenting there, Joy. Moves like this just remind me of parents who were unsuccessful their whole lives and have to live through their childrens' success. I realize that such moves have been made before. Such as Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver where she plays a twelve year old prostitute. Although, there were no graphic scenes of Foster participating in sexual activities nor nudity involving her. The most graphic thing involving sex and Jodie Foster in that film, that which I can remember, is her unzipping DeNiros pants for fellatio.

Now, back the whole Oscar begging issue. The "academy" doesn't give a shit about who's a good actor. It's all about "who's brave enough to do such a role" and "how much does the actor change the way he/she looks or talks". That's why so many actors have won Oscars for playing mentally challenged people. When the "academy" refused to make Raging Bull the best picture of the year in 1981 in lieu of some movie that nobody even remembers now, they lost all credibility with me. And I wasn't even born yet.

Personally, if I saw a 12 year old getting raped, whether it were real or not, I'd probably vomit. That's just the reaction a pretentious film maker wants though I guess.

New Guitar

2006-07-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

After selling about half my guitar collection over the past year, I decided I need to rebuild. I've never owned a semi-hollowbody electric nor a hollowbody electric so I thought an Epiphone Sheraton II would be a good choice.

I got one yesterday and I'm very pleased with it. It's nicely built and sounds good for a non-American (made) guitar. I do plan on changing the pickups in it (two humbuckers). I'm going to use a Gibson 57 Classic Plus in the bridge position and a Gibson 57 Classic in the neck. It should have an even nicer tone after that upgrade.

Pretty much every part of the guitar has a nice binding around it (even the f-holes), which is very nice aesthetically. The huge headstock is a plus too as I don't like small headstocks on any type of guitar. Quality Grover tunes are another nice feature. Everything was just assembled very nicely. I've owned two Gibsons in the past and this guitar seems just as good except for the boring stock pickups, hence the upgrade I'm going to do.

Another Ostrich Guitar PRF Song - "Poppyseed"

2006-07-14T01:16:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm really liking this ostrich guitar tuning I have on my strat right now, so I wrote a another song. A quick review for those who didn't read my last post about my last ostrich guitar song (nor listened to it):

Ostrich guitar was used a fair amount by Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground. It has every string tuned to the same note. In the case of my guitar, It's probably a little out of tune as I've had to retune it so much and haven't had a tuner handy.

It may come off a bit pretentious, maybe something like, "I'm thinking outside the box because I'm using alternate tunings!" I'm not claiming I invented the tuning, but my song probably is, in some ways at least, unique. There are two instruments on the track. The one dubbed in I use an Ebow, which is sorta like an electronic bow for guitar that coninuously vibrates the string. I'm not the best guitar player though so bear with me on this song: Poppyseed

Oh, by the way, it's instrumental. Some songs on the right of my page do have vocals, but none of the versions of those songs on this site have vocals. I am very embarrassed about my vocal limitations. In other words, I suck. Anyway, enjoy.

And one last thing to mention. That's my dog in the background near the beginning. I wasn't sure if she was going to continue barking throughout the song but figured I'd let that bark in the track go and just continue playing.

Sleep Deprived

2006-06-24T11:52:00.000-04:00

I was up north at our cottage this week. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to pack my medication, which I blame for me only getting 8 hours of sleep (out of 70 hours) while there. On the car ride home yesterday morning my throat closed up and it became hard for me to swallow, and I felt miserable. When I got home, I had a few things to do, such as get my dog from Camp Bow-Wow, and after that I took my medication plus a sleeping pill. It was sweet dreams there.

I slept 12 hours and I think somebody came to my door thinking she was my housekeeper or asking if I needed a house keeper or something like that. She sounded East-European and had a thick accent. I just shook my head, "no", and closed the door. I can't figure out if it was all a dream or if it actually happened. After the 12 hours I got up for a bit, but how long exactly I can't remember at all, then just ended up in bed again for another six hours until about 6am today. I'm still a little tired but not too badly. I guess my medications are habbit forming because I did not get tired without them. They are not for sleeping either. It's just a side-effect is sedation.

gemm.com - Rare LPs

2006-06-18T14:47:00.000-04:00

When I have the money, I collect rare vinyl records. Ebay may seem like the most logical choice to find rare LPs and it probably is. The only problem is sometimes I cannot find what exactly for what I am looking (I tried not to use a preposition as the last word in the sentence). I was googling around and found gemm.com.

It has lots of sellers... doing what? why, selling LPs, some of them rare, out of print LPs. Just for what I was looking! (Again with the preposition.) The only problem is these are all "Buy it Now" type listings so you can expect to pay a fair amount more money than you would on an ebay auction. For cheaper LPs ($5-$10), maybe two fold. For more expensive ones maybe about 1.2-1.5 times more than on ebay. At least it's an automatic win and there's no chance of getting sniped at the bidding page.

To me, vinyl records are like baseball cards, they each have their own condition and can only rise in value over time. I don't really do it for an investment, however. Never-the-less it's a fun hobby. I guess it's sorta esoteric in a way.

MEPIS Linux: Good for n00bs and Veterans

2006-06-17T01:15:00.000-04:00

I've used Gentoo Linux since October of 2004 with much satisfaction. My oldest comp, which I never use much anymore, had an old installation of Gentoo on it, however, things were getting messy and unorganzied on it. In addition, it was running slowly. I've wanted to try some other linux distributions but wanted something extremely simple to install because I didn't want to put a lot of effort into it (Gentoo is a bitch to install -- well compared to other distros).

Mepis Linux seemed like a good choice. I've read it's effortless to setup and it's also based on the ever so popular Debian distro.

The setup was extremely easy, perhaps easier than RedHat/Fedora Core, as this site here shows in detail. Because it's based on Debian, you get the stability, binary .deb install files, and apt (Advanced Package *Something*). For those who don't know much about linux, apt is a package manager, making it easy to download and install packages and their dependencies. For example, in a console/xterm:

apt-get install kaffeine

This will install the media player kaffeine and all the packages it requires. Pretty much every *nix distribution has a package manager. Gentoo's, for example, is called "portage" which uses the "emerge" command to install packages. The main difference between apt and portage is that apt installs packages from binaries (.deb), while portage compiles packages from source (mainly). Each of these has its advantages. But, if you want something simple, then apt is what you want.

One big advantage for using Gentoo for linux n00bs though, is that the installation process, although tiring and potentially lengthy, will teach much about the inner workings of linux. Something I probably never would have learned if I stuck with my Fedora Core 2 installation back a couple years ago.

Hooters Has Morals

2006-06-16T19:57:00.000-04:00

With all these reports of Katrina survivers/refugees/etc misusing their money they got from FEMA, I found this report from CNN especially interesting.

Somebody used $200 of FEMA money meant for hurricane Katrina relief and spent it all on Champagne at the popular restaurant chain, Hooters. However, that's not the interesting part. Hooters wants to give $200 back to FEMA because of this misuse. Kinda ironic that Hooters has such high morals (or would that be considered ethics). Now, I, myself don't think Hooters is some evil corporation, although they might be I don't know much about them, but many people would think of them as being so (*cough* feminists). Which leads me to think a few things...

a) Hooters is doing this to earn respect because they think they are unjustly judged.
b) Hotters is doing this to earn respect because they just want more business.
c) Hooters is doing this for publicity.
d) There are other comanies doing this but all the media finds interesting is that Hooters is doing it.

It's probably a combo of two or more of those. In fact "B" and "C" are similar but I wanted to put them both down for completeness.

Smashing Pumpkins Reunion

2006-06-16T12:17:00.000-04:00

I've been a Smashing Pumpkins fan ever since I saw their video for "Today" on MTV in 1993. I got "Siamese Dream" later that year (or maybe the following year) for my birthday. As most know, they went seperate ways after their tour in 2000-2001.

A few, maybe more than a few, months back I went to www.smashingpumpkins.com to see any news, and much to my surprise Billy Corgan just made a post on the site that he wants to reunite SP. Then, just a few days ago, I re-checked the site and the following is stated on it:

it's official, The Smashing Pumpkins are currently writing songs for their upcoming album, their first since 2000. no release date has yet been set, but the band plans to begin recording this summer.

I still am curious if D'arcy will be the bassist or if Melissa Auf Du Mar will. I haven't really researched and I really don't need to know that badly. Either way, I'll be looking forward to their new album.

New PRF Song: dunno

2006-06-14T15:13:00.000-04:00

I made a new song just within the past hour or so. It's one of my experimental noise jam type songs using an "OSTRICH guitar" (a guitar that has every string tuned to the same note) ala Velvet Underground. Anyway, it's probably not worth listening to most of you out there unless you like experimental-instrumental-guitar music. But here it is: dunno

Me Trying to be Intellectual

2006-06-12T03:38:00.001-04:00

My proverb i made up while laying in bed:

Blamed once by one, forgotten
Blamed twice in public, blamed forever

10 Year Monitor

2006-06-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

Just about an hour ago my 10+ year old Gateway 2000 (back when Gateway had a 2000 after its name) monitor is finally getting to the point where it's becoming unusable. There are waves "waving" around on it (very noticable on white backgrounds of websites and konsole) and there is a a blurry ghost image of everything slightly to the right. I don't mean burn in but sorta like when you can't get a good reception on UHF TV.

So, it's the end of an era. And, with no money, I'm stuck with this 15" monitor for now. I'm really surprised that monitor lasted as long as it did cuz it's been on more than it's been off all these years. Probably been on about 60%-75% of it's lifetime.

Dinosaur Jr.: Brought Back to Life

2006-06-04T17:13:00.000-04:00

Many of you have probably never heard of Dinosaur Jr. They were an indie (dunno what genre to put them in exactly -- labels are for jars, man! -- that was a joke btw) rock band in the 80s, 90s, and have made some appearences in the 00s such as perfroming at Lollapalooza in ?2005? (i don't feel like researching it and my memory sucks). Now, I don't know too much about the band, but I did pick up their album "You're Living All Over Me" a few weeks ago, and just gave it a good listening to now.

The album starts off with "Little Furry Things", When I first started listening to the song i thought it was gonna be some hardcore sounding song with screaming through it, but it quickly changes to melodic vocals. It sounds like J. Mascis, the frontman, sings the lead and harmony in the chorus, and it really sounds great. "Raisans" is another favorite of mine on the album, but really, every song is at least a three star song or above.

The band really combines an eclectic mix of styles. At some points it sounds as if J. Mascis is just playing the Kurt Cobain method, and not trying to get every note perfectly, then at some points he does a very smooth solo on a ?Fender Jazzmaster? (it's what's pictured on the insert of the CD). It has a very "raw" feel to it like a CD you put on to just get rid of frustrations. If you don't want to spend the $15 to pay for the whole album, start out with downloading "Little Furry Things" from an online music store.

mk's Back

2006-05-20T20:10:00.000-04:00

After a short stint after a problem with various blogging utitilities, my net-bud, mkzelda and his site are back. Check it out for some interesting rants, a day in the life topics, linux guides/info, info on sports from his friends, and other such blog posts.

As for me, I haven't had much material to blog lately. But check back periodically for updates. Thank you kind sir/ma'am.

Velvet Underground: Surfaced in My Music Collection

2006-05-08T14:00:00.000-04:00

I've heard of the Velvet Underground ever since I can remember being into music, but never really heard any of their material. So I previewed some of their songs on iTunes... I bought the Velvet Underground & Nico's self-titled album from Amazon, and just got home from up north yesterday to find that it had came. It's really amazing and unique, but if you know anything about the Velvet Underground, then, I don't have to tell you that. Many of their songs dealt with social and adult topics which wasn't really common for most bands at the time. They were also really revolutionary with their timbre/tone and sounds. Probably the first band to widely use non-standard tunings for their guitar(s), they paved the way for many bands to follow in their experimental footsteps.

My favorite song on this album is "Venus in Furs" which is a Lou Reed song. There are basically two different lead singers in the original Velvet Underground: Lou Reed and Nico. Most would agree with me that the Lou Reed songs are better and that Nico cannot really sing too well, although her songs are still pretty good. In fact, I really don't mind shitty vocals as I usually prefer songs with good riffs, licks, melody, instrumentals, or just the sound of the song.

In case you're wondering what's behind the infamous Andy Warhol banana on the cover of the album, it's not what I expected, but close. You'll have to find out for yourself.

Iconoclasm = Cool?

2006-05-07T21:37:00.000-04:00

I consider myself to be a conservative-liberal, that is leaning just a little bit to the left on the political spectrum. I do have some conservative beliefs, but they're outweighed by my liberal ones. To get to the point of this post, I've noticed something the last four or five years I've been following politics: A lot of people are liberal just to be "cool".

When you think about it, what's cooler to the youth than being iconoclastic? Not much. People sometimes take liberal beliefs which are iconoclastic, such as communism or marijuana legalization, take a metaphorical hammer and pound them those beliefs into their head until they believe in them. I for one believe in marijuana legalization. However, I feel a lot of teens just say they support the topic just to be iconoclastic and not really understand the social or economical benefits of legalizing it.

All this could be why so many young people are liberal or Democrats, although a bigger contributer would probably be all the messages kids see on TV now and for the past who knows how many years. To be honest, these two things have probably shaped what my political beliefs are now. So yes, I might have subconsciously or even consciously believed in certain issues just to be cool. As much as people trying to be cool all the time annoy me, I myself am just as guilty (like the picture of myself playing guitar on the "Pretentious pic of myself" link on the right).

I could rant forever about society molding the drive for youth to be cool and fit in, but it's probably nothing you've never heard before.

Gooogle.com's New Scheme

2006-04-30T22:13:00.000-04:00

Google's newest attempt to (metaphorically) take over the world is now known. Actually, they might have been doing this for some time as I come along typoed sites fairly often and have been for years now.

From article:
"Google, which runs the largest ad network on the Internet, is making millions of dollars a year by filling otherwise unused Web sites with ads. In many instances, these ad-filled pages appear when users mistype an Internet address, such as 'BistBuy.com.'"

"When Web surfers arrive at those sites and click on those ads, Google and Yahoo! get paid by advertisers for that click and share their revenue with the owners of the domain names."

From the looks of things the past couple years, it's becoming clearer that Google truely is the next-gen of uber-capitalism, ie: Microsoft. Only difference is that Google's services are usually useful and nice, while M$ on the other hand... Don't think I need to say anything there.

Celebrity Baby Names

2006-04-26T22:36:00.000-04:00

Okay, I know I complain about celebrity bullshit a lot and would like to add another post to the collection. What is the deal with these celebrity baby names. Most know by now that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had their baby and named it "Suri" which means some pretentious crap in about 5 different languages. And not to go off on a tangent, but why do I need to hear that they had a baby, I mean, is it that important news? Maybe, hearing it on E! or E!2 (aka VH1) would make sense -- but on CNN?

Alright, back to the point. As for what angers me about this, it's not that fact that the children have weird names and they might get picked on or mocked because of them, but rather because the parents give these kids the names to feed their illustrious egos (at least that's the way I see it). I think to them it's almost like giving a name to your band. It has to be very unique and draw attention, but yet be meaningful... oh and make us sound cool. I did a quick google search and found a site with the top 20 'weirdest' baby names.

If I ever have a daughter, I might name her Penny (although i doubt it), but i wouldn't go as far as naming her "Pennyroyal" or go the extra step and make her middle name "Frog". And btw, Pennyroyal is a plant sometimes used as insect repellent. My name isn't Penny, and infact, I'm a guy, contrary to popular belief of people doing a /whois on me on irc.

Vacation in Florida

2006-04-24T13:14:00.000-04:00

I was in Florida last week with my whole immidiate family. My Brother's wife was there also. We stayed at the Old Key West Resort in a time share condo. Had some of the best meals ever, and I think I gained about 5 lbs while there.

I drank a lot of Corona at the condo (that's all the store at the place sold in bottles, and I don't like canned beer as much). At restaurants, I also had some Red Stripe, which is my favorite beer, and also tried something new to me, Sam Adams White Ale. I've had the Boston Lager before and Sam Adams light, but White Ale is the best out of the three. It's very smooth. Also, I had my first Swedish massage at the Seratoga Springs Resort. That was fifty minutes of pure Nirvana.

My dog, Poppy, also stayed at a (dog) resort while I was gone, Camp Bow Wow. It's basically a kennel but the dogs get to socialize with each other and run around most the day. She always seems to have a good time there playing with the other dogs, although she's reluctant to cooperate when a staff member takes the leesh and takes her back when we (my Parents and I) first drop her off. They told me she gets nervous/anxious at first but then she has a great time there.

It was a great trip and was nice spending time with my family. I don't see my Brother too often, and getting to see him for about four or five days was awesome. My Grandparents and I are probably going to open the cottage up north during the middle of next week and I'm looking forward to that too. Until next time, later.

Messed Up Toe

2006-03-17T10:13:00.001-05:00

I was walking around my house the other day when hit my toes on the bottom of an opened closet door. The doors in my house have a big gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood floors, so it's a real hazard for fuckin up your toenail, which is what I did. Part of the toenail came off from the base. It's not too bad but I thought I'd share a pic I took shortly after it happened.
Like I said it's not too bad, but if you have a waek stomach you still might not want to look at it.

Here's the Pic

I decided to post on this stupid topic cuz I haven't posted in awhile and also was inspired by my Something Stupid post I did last May which displayed a pic of my burnt hand after something you'd never expect to happen.

RIAA Tries to Send America Back to Stone Age (again)

2006-02-23T05:02:00.000-05:00

Well, some news from Washington or where the fuck ever. RIAA is again planning to try to take America back a few million laps in the race for technological superiority. According to the article, they are claiming that copying files to your harddrive/iPod is NOT fair use -- Yes, even if you bought and own the CDs.

What's next? We won't be allowed to tape shows off TV or fast fastforward through previews and ads on DVDs? Oh, wait MPAA is/(was) trying to make both those against the law too. So, perhaps we'll have to carry around those old, bulky, skipping portable CD players and scratching up our CDs from carrying them around everywhere. Then, we'll have to buy new CDs after the old ones become scratched beyond laser recognition.

I don't know if the RIAA are just a bunch of egotistical douchebags who can't swallow their pride and admit their war on all this shit is stupid -- or if that they're people who are so out of touch with the world and technology today that they actually think what their doing is good for recording artists -- or if they're just assholes getting back at the wold cuz they have lously lives.

I don't know which of these it is as I don't know the people. There could be a reason that I haven't yet pondered of. All I know is that they really don't do what's best for their customer's interests or their employees's interests, and well, for anybody's interest.

Opinions

2006-02-22T01:47:00.000-05:00

Intelligence and knowledge do not out-weigh opinions, however, sanity does.

Google "Hacking"

2006-02-16T15:21:00.000-05:00

It's not really much of a secret you can find lots of interesting stuff on google -- if you know how to use it. For instance, you may have tried looking for nude pics of celebrites by going to google and typing "celeb name nude", but only finding sites that ask for your credit card. But, click on "images" for an image search through google and you'll probably find what you're looking for (you may have to turn Safe Search off).

This site shows how vulnerable password files and other confidential information are via google searches. Remember to use robots.txt people!

HL Rube Goldberg Device

2006-02-12T11:58:00.000-05:00

I found this on digg.com. A Rube Goldberg Device using Garry's mod for Half Life 2. Pretty crazy stuff.

Digg This

2006-02-12T11:14:00.000-05:00

There are so many tech news sites on the net that it's kinda a pain to go to everyone. I find that digg.com is now my favorite. I know it's been around for awhile but it's hard for me to get into new things. It works differently than other tech news sites in the fact that it shows how many people "digg" an article, so you can view the most intriguing articles first if you want.

They also release weekly "diggnation" episodes which explore some of the top stories of that week. You can get them in either audio or video. They are podcasted as well.

Kevin Rose is the main person behind digg (as far as i know) and i've always enjoyed different projects that he's done over the years. Yea, i know some of you may say that "the broken" or his dark tips on TechTV's "the Screensavers" are kinda too "script kiddie" like and come to the conclusion that he actually doesn't know as much as it seems. Well, I don't know how much he knows, but he knows enough. Plus he's got a good on-air personality which most geeks don't have.

Poodle Workout Video

2006-02-09T16:52:00.000-05:00

This might be old news for some but it's certainly a gem. Some may find it creepy, I just find it weird in a fun way. The title of this post sorta explains it but you have to see it yourself. Check it out.

Enzyte vs. Girls Gone Wild

2006-02-09T05:21:00.000-05:00

I recently was pondering what's worse, Enzyte commercials or Girls Gone Wild commercials/infomercials. They both really piss me off.

Enzyte is the "natural male enhancemnet" drug that claims to enlarge your penis size. You have probably seen the commericials with the guy with a constant, creepy, huge smile on his face. It's what nightmares are made of.

I can't pin down exactly what pisses me off about Girls Gone Wild infomercials. Could be the fact that they censor out everything. Perhaps, the same annoying island music song with steel drums playing in every one. Maybe, it's just that I feel bad that all these girls are pretty much being exploited. I actually don't really find the GGW DVDs that sexy. Probably because I'm so desensitized to them because of the fact they've been showed repeatedly every night for the past... well who knows how long. What's also funny is how GGW raises the bar that they set themselves each year. First, they just showed chicks taking off their tops. Then, they showed some/more lesbo stuff. Now, since people are bored of that, they got some GGW Games that just looks really weird.

Anyway, I'd like to see this shit off the air as both Enzyte and GGW really annoy me. It's a good reason to go to bed early everynight.

Okay, I'm Back

2006-01-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

I've been a little apathetic lately about my site lately. I haven't been up to much in the past month really. I recently auctioned two guitars, my Gibson SG and Gibson Les Paul Studio, on ebay which leaves me with no more Gibsons :(. With that money I bought parts for a new gaming computer but haven't had many games I've wanted to play lately. Although, now I can play FEAR again, but I got bored of it pretty quickly.

I installed Gentoo on my old gaming computer and will probably use it as my main machine for now. Gentoo is always a pain to setup and to get everything working properly, but I didn't run into any major hitches this time.

Oh, I also got the new video iPod which is pretty amazing. Only downside for the videos is you have to encode them all into the apple format. A good tool for doing this I found to be Videora iPod Converter. Of course, most video podcasts and all videos you download from iTunes are already encoded in the apple format. But for your home movies and such, Videora is what you want. Also, something that frustrates me is that it doesn't always turn off when you want it to. Normally you press and hold the play/pause button for about 2 seconds. Well, it doesn't always work (and no I don't have the hold switch on).

That's about all I have for this post. Dunno how often I'll start posting again. But check back every so often.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2005-12-21T21:07:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all you out there.

In Memory of Dufus and Emily

2005-12-19T18:50:00.000-05:00

At my family's cottage in Presque Isle, MI, our neighbors always had dogs that would come over and beg to be petted and to get some treats. Dufus was the main dog who was 14 years old and we've known for awhile and everybody liked. He was rather overweight and would just waddle up to us. There was also a newer, younger dog, Emily, who was just a year and a half old. Then there was Onyx who would always fight the other two dogs. Dufus was a basset hound and black lab mix, and the other two dogs were also lab mixes, Emily was blonde and Onyx was black (hence the name Onyx).

Unfortunately, it seems that Dufus and Emily have disappeared. It seems the word around town up there is that they were shot by who knows who. They never caused much trouble and were never bothersome to anybody. It really sickens me that somebody would shoot these two, poor dogs. I really don't know how anybody can kill any creature like that. Whatever they did that bothered this person surely wasn't enough to have been payed for with their lives.

Thanks, Dufus and Emily, for the memorable times you provided with all of us at the cottage.

Dufus
1991-2005

Emily
2004-2005
(no picture)

What I've been up to

2005-12-17T12:21:00.001-05:00

Know I haven't been posting much lately. Haven't really had much to post about. Been up during the night mostly the past few weeks, but I've since changed that. Also in place of FEAR, i've been playing Call of Duty 2 for PC, which is probably better than FEAR anyway.

I'm still using gentoo linux on my main machine, and windoze xp on my gaming machine. People claim that linux is hard and all that shit but if you ask me... Gentoo is a lot easier to maintain and to use than any windoze OS. People think that Linux is harder when they first try it cuz they have learned it yet. Everybody had to learn windoze in school, and some people think that anypart of Linux that's not like windows is automatically harder.

F.E.A.R.'s fall

2005-12-06T22:23:00.000-05:00

After my post glorifying FEAR, I must now make one to bash it. This game seems to have a crash problem. I've read many posts about this on the net and can't seem to find a solution. The Problem:

The game crashes after about 8-12 minutes on easy difficulty and almost immediately on moderate difficulty. I have the latest drivers and the latest patch for the game, and have also tried older versions/patches and older video drivers. It really pisses me off. It seems like a lot of people have this problem and there's still no solution.

FIX IT VU!

F.E.A.R.

2005-12-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

I recently purchased the PC FPS game "FEAR" and lemme tell you, it's great. (But you don't have to take my word for it!). Has both realistic weapons and also "futuristic" ones which I like. It kinda rips off the Matrix by letting you slow down time via the ctrl key, but it does it so well it doesn't matter who they copied, it's tubular (yes, i said tubular). I'm anxious to play multiplayer with it as soon as some, if any friends purchase it as well, or at least download the demo (see below for website).

The graphics are amazing as well are other effects such as the lighting and water reflections. At some point you almost get frightened by your own shadow in the game. The game play is really nice and the "SlowMo" feature, mentioned above, really adds dynamic and interesting play. FEAR will definitely require a high end system with a good vid card. There are some points in the game where you are temporarily in a "paranormal" scene and it gets a little freaky at that point. Only problems I have with the game so far are the redundancy of the maps, brief periods of the game where there's no action, and also there seems to be lot of places i get stuck at, however a walkthrough found on the net can guide you through those parts.

Anyway, I'm too lazy right now to post links to screenshots or whatever, but you can download the demo(s) (both single player and multiplayer) from www.whatisfear.com.

AOL Shop Bots - WTF?

2005-11-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

Apparently AOL introduced some new gimmicky bots to everybody's AIM buddy list. Here is an odd “convo” I had with one.

(15:08:15) PennyroyalFrog: a book on how to become an AOL employee, then rise to the top of the company within two years, then take over the company and give free internet away to the world

(15:08:15) ShoppingBuddy: OK, I'm searching for matches 4 U. Gimme a sec...

(15:08:16) ShoppingBuddy: I didn't find any good matches 4 U but may I ask you a question?

(15:08:24) PennyroyalFrog: yes
(15:08:24) ShoppingBuddy: Want to know how to make your gift even more special?

(15:08:32) PennyroyalFrog: okay
(15:08:32) ShoppingBuddy: Check out How to Give a Favorite Gift from GAP to find ways to make it more special.

(15:08:36) PennyroyalFrog: cool!
(15:08:36) ShoppingBuddy: I'm shop-o-rific.

E-Mail to half.com

2005-11-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

I am really not satisfied with half.com. Out of the 7 or so orders i made these past few weeks, i got one wrong item, and it appears i am not going to recieve two of the items, and will not receive refunds for either one either. The whole feedback system is flawed because I know as soon as i leave negative feedback for these sellers that I will get a retalitory negative feedback in return.

Additionally, not knowing half.com had a shopping cart, I bought two of the same items after what I thought I did was opt out of a purchase, only to find out I bought both the DVDs. Never did it show my shopping cart in a clear fashion, nor did I expect a site like this have a shopping cart.

Also another of those 7 or so purchases I made, one item was not the same item as was listed, but rather what appeared to be a Chinese import version of the DVD and the seller never specified this. An instance of this also occured to me when purchasing a CD about a year ago, except, even worse, it was only part 1 of the CD instead of both parts as listed at the site. This makes 4 items I am unhappy with out of 7, this is unaccpetable.

I (used) to be an avid user of ebay and have both bought and sold items there, but with all the money I lose from buying at half.com with the items I never get, wrong itmes, or items that plain are just in shitty condition, why not just buy from a reputable place like amazon.com? I would really like a refund for at least those two items. and at least something in return for that double purchase crap.

------------------------

UPDATE: I got a reply, a nice one actually. Wasn't too helpful but I sill appreciate the effort.

Doom + Win95 + Bill Gates + Camera = Lame

2005-11-13T22:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my bud ehkz for giving me a link to this interesting video featuring bill gates talking about the future of gaming with windows 95. I'm not 100% sure it's real, but it really appears like it is.

New Domain - W00T!

2005-11-12T20:17:00.000-05:00

I now have the domain www.pennyroyalfrog.com thanks to my friend mkzelda, who's always been a help with various stuff.

DVD Complaints

2005-11-09T08:55:00.000-05:00

There's a couple issues about DVDs that piss me off.

1. Releasing a DVD, then a year later releasing an "enhanced special ultimate limited collectors director's cut redux edition" of that DVD. It pisses me off.

2. Menus on DVDs are getting too flashy. With some menus on some DVDs I have I select something such as "Scene/Chapter Selection" and it plays some animation as that menu goes away, then maybe showing a short scene or montage from the movie as it transitions into the scene selection menu. After that, it does some animation as it begins to show each scene. Sometimes there are only 4 scenes for each page to choose from, so you got to go through the whole shit again to go to scenes, 5-8, 9-12, etc. This is beyond obnoxious.

Aeon Flux 2005

2005-11-04T03:06:00.000-05:00

I remember the good ol' days of MTV when they had music videos and creative shows on it such as Liquid Television. On this show was an onslaught of creative and warped animation where, in fact, Beavis and Butthead got their start. One of my favorite shorts on this show was "Aeon Flux". You never really knew much about what the fuck was going on, it was just captivating with a lead character who was a very limber, sexy (for an odd looking cartoon character), indepedant secret agent of sorts. They later went on to make it into a weekly series on MTV but don't think it lasted long as it was ahead of its time. Infact I almost totally forgot about it till I saw that they were coming out with a movie for it later this year.

It appears to be a live action movie rather than animated which disappoints me as the animation in the orignal show, created by Peter Chung, was very unique and like i mentioned before, captivating. Apparently it stars Charlize Theron so doesn't look like it's some straight to video crap. I doubt it will do well at the box office as most futuristic movies don't. Whether I'll see it or not, I am not sure. But maybe I'll pick up some Aeon Flux DVDs sometime soon.

Additional Links:
www.aeonflux.com
Stills From Original Series

Uncyclopedia

2005-11-04T01:26:00.000-05:00

Thanks to mkzelda for pointing out this site to me. It's Uncyclopedia. It's a parody of the useful, but not as funny, Wikipedia. Here is a link to the best entries in the site.

Some excerpts:

Air Guitar:
...Finally, you are ready to play. Pretend that you know what you are doing and it will sound great as long as you try to kiss your ear and sometimes lie down and kick yourself around on the ground in a circle...

Banned From the Internet:
How to get banned...
...Refusing to Forward Chain Mail - The integrity of the systems that forward email around the world depend upon everyone diligently forwarding every interesting email to at least their twelve closest friends...

I kept the excerpts in good tastes. Lots of internet and warped humour on the site. Be sure to check it out, but you don't have to take my word for it! (Reading Rainbow reference)

(Im)perfect Looks, part 3: How Beauty Affects the Young

2005-11-03T23:13:00.000-05:00

I wanted to make, yet, another post on this subject. This post was also influenced by whether or not Hillary Duff had plastic surgery. How do our priorities on beauty affect our young and eventually shape them into what is now our high beauty prioritized culture?

First thing that comes to mind are parents who put their children into beauty pagents. Great way to warp your daughter's mind, people. These parents always seem to have the excuse when their quality of their parenting is questioned, "She likes to do it." Maybe, but probably because you taught her to like it, whether it be literally or subconsciously. I think the message that doing this gives is something along the lines of "Let's teach my daughter that being beautiful is the only way to 'win' in life."

One may make the argument that putting your child on an organized sports team teaches them that winning is important. That's not really the point though. The point is in beauty pagents you win by being beautiful. While, in sports, you win by being athletic, practicing, and in most cases working as a team.

I am also reminded of a "Full House" episode I saw in syndication recently (don't ask why I was watching that show). DJ, played by Candace Cameron who was about 10-12 years old at the time, got what she thought was a boyfriend. He later dumped her because he said he thought she was funny and had a good personality, but thought some other girl was pretty so he wants to date her. I really can't imagine WTF the writers were on when they wrote that. Imagine these adult writers of the show calling Candace Cameron "ugly" when she's only about 12 years old. I really wonder what effect this had on her. She might have just thought at the time it was just written for a TV show and that's all it was, but I think subconsciously it did seep into her in some way. Was she a unique case? No. I think all children have something like this happen at some point, but maybe not as blatant.

This is probably the last post in my trilogy of the subject. Just some stuff to think about.

(Im)perfect Looks, part 2: Social Role in Beauty

2005-11-03T22:36:00.000-05:00

I didn't intend to write a second part on the last post, but I heard Hillary Duff had plastic surgery. Whether this is true or not I am not sure, but I do know that some teens do have plastic surgery. This, personally, sickens me -- where we put beauty as such a high priority that we're willing to go through harm's way at such a young age just to look that much more "perfect".

"Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder." Okay, we've all heard this yet I think it's only partly true. Yes, there are individual tastes (like I talked about in the previous post), but people's interpretation of beauty is largely dependent on the media, celebrities, and society as a whole. This is almost a circular dependency, each needs the other to exist as a role in beauty.

The media generally creates trends in style/fashion and sets standards of beauty, which celebrities follow and society feeds upon. Where is beauty first learned by an individual? By seeing celebrities on billboards, in magazines, on TV or movies being labeled "pretty". Although it may not be the celebrities directly at fault, how many attractive "A List" female celebs are there for every non-attractive one by social standards of beauty? maybe 10:1? if you don't include older (why is old not as beautiful?) celebrities then maybe, what, 20:1? Notice I mentioned "by social standards". Are these women beautiful because society says so? Or, does society say these women are beautiful because they are rich and famous. Or, perhaps it's because the media tells you these women are famous.

I can't sit and tell you that I'm more sophisticated than society and that I find EVERY woman beautiful, because I'd be lying. Although I don't like Barbie girl looking women, I do like a thin, healthy looking figure, big breasts (not excessively/novelty big), and most importantly a pretty face. How can I define what a "pretty" face is? Hard to explain isn't it?

Now, you may be some macho college kid who might think, "Oh, this guy must be a faggot to be making such a statement." In response to people like you. Grow up.

(Im)perfect Looks

2005-10-31T22:02:00.000-05:00

For the last 3 or so years I've been really liking "girl next door" or "simple" looking women. To me, barbie type girls like Playboy Playmates just don't do it for me anymore. I find women, such as Jorja Fox mentioned a few posts ago, who aren't perfect barbie doll looking, very attractive. I think Jorja Fox would be attractive to most any man but probably not in comparison to women such as Pamela Anderson, who in my opinion, I think looks so over the top that she looks like a drag queen.

I guess the point with what I'm saying is that imperfections sometimes only add to the perfection of aesthetics. Whether it be a small scar on a face, to a sticker on a guitar, to whatever. I think the Japanese word for this is called "wabisabi". Although you would have to research that a little further as I think there's more to that word than just that.

M$ Threatens South Korea Like a 10 year old

2005-10-28T17:01:00.000-04:00

Was reading slashdot, and although I typically don't like to post a lot of shit I see on slashdot cuz it seems like so many people do that with blogs, but this article was sorta funny as it's typical of what microsoft would do. Basically m$ is threatening to take Windows off the market in South Korea if they lose the antitrust suit.

Another antitrust suit? naaaaahhhh can't be. M$ acting like 10 year olds? nooooooo. (note the sarcasm)

TV Channel Niches and Names

2005-10-27T01:04:00.000-04:00

As we all know, there is a reality revolution going on with TV, and there has been for about five years now. I'm very tired of these "reality" shows no matter how creative or intriguing they might be. Furthermore, it's metamorphosed TV networks with their niche into totally new channels.

One I've been ranting about for years now is MTV. It seems to consist of nothing more than cheezy, apparently scripted dating shows, and other reality shows, with some music played from maybe 4am to 10am. THE "M" STANDS FOR "MUSIC" RIGHT? I saw some ad for MTV claiming something along the lines of "Don't believe everything you hear, MTV plays music". Is that why only about a third of MTV's schedule is music videos according to the MTV's website here? Plus, about six and a half of those hours are at a time when very little of the viewing audience is available to watch. Let's call Comedy Central a news channel now because it has "The Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report", sure that's only two shows but each are shown twice a day at a reasonable hour so that more than validifies Comedy Central as a news network. Even MTV2 plays a lot of non music related shows and I don't want to subscribe to digital cable just to get MTV5 which I hear still plays music videos most the day.

As for VH1, I'm not really sure what their original niche was supposed to be, but I always though of them for music aswell. Now it's "Celebreality" and other bullshit shows.

How about TLC aka "The Learning Channel". What is there to learn on here? How to build a bookshelf in my neighbors house while they make some retro looking table in mine ala "Trading Spaces".

ESPN, yea, instead of showing real sports they decided to create a fictional series based on professional football. Really genius guys. At least the audience was smart enough not to watch that show.

I know these companies are just trying to make a buck, or shall I say "fortune" off edgy or intriguing shows, however, like the one argument that sexist men give about wives trying to change their man, "You liked the way he was when you met him enough to Marry him, so why change?"

CSI

2005-10-26T16:25:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite shows to watch now is CSI on CBS. I usually only watch the reruns on SpikeTV cuz I forget when to watch shows when they're only on once or twice a week. It's on SpikeTV usually every weekday at 7 and 8pm Eastern Time.

Plus Jorja Fox is purty. You may also remember her from the movie Memento as Leonard's wife.

Yea, the red haired chick that plays Katherine is hot too.

I know this post was a little bland, but wanted to post something. You really should watch CSI if you've never seen it before. If you're into mystery/forensic type shows you won't be able to stop watching it.

Pump Up the Volume

2005-10-23T09:54:00.000-04:00

It's become an all too often event that I see some teen at an intersection with their music playing really loudly with their windows open, even in the winter. I know what they're trying to do is let everybody know what they're listening to because in their self-righteous way, they think they have the best taste in music and want to show how cool they are by letting everybody around them know.

I'm all for playing music loudly (depending on what the song is), don't get me wrong. However, rolling the windows down even when it's freezing out is ridiculous, and I see it a lot. I know the very objectice for teenagers is to be ostentatious, but c'mon kids. So to you (predominately) teens out there, you just make yourself look stupid, not cool, so stop.

And yea, I was a teen only until 3 years ago.

Cig Cravings

2005-10-18T07:12:00.000-04:00

I quit smoking about two years ago, it actually wasn't hard at the time because I was smoking only about a pack a week average. Lately though, I have been craving a smoke like crazy. One episode of the Simpsons really got to me where they show an old episode of Itchy and Scratchy and they do an ad on it where they and I think Loise Armstrong (i forget) are each smoking and you can hear the sound of the inhalation of the cigarette. They then begin coughing up lots of phlegm, but that didn't stop my craving.

However,
It seems ever since I was little I would crave cigarettes, not as much as I do now. I guess the smell of tobacco smoke was always pleasing to me. Sure, I get buzzed on alcohol now and then but there's something about the whole routine about smoking that I think makes it so addictive. Put cig in mouth, inhale, take cig out of mouth, exhale, snap or tap the cigarette to get the ash off, repeat. At least that's the way I did it.

I've also chewed on pens and pencils my whole life, even before I started smoking. I wonder if that was a sign of my future "addiction". The reason why i put it in quotations is cuz I don't really think I had too big of a problem. Like I said, I was only smoking about 1 pack a week, which compared with an average smoker's 2 packs a day or so, seems trivial. Trivial, dunno if one cig really takes 7 seconds or minutes off your life like they say in those PSAs but i dunno, I'm just rambling so I'll stop now.

My Music

2005-10-18T04:52:00.000-04:00

I put some links to download some of my music on the right (as in the opposite of left) portion of this site. I only put up the instrumentals because I'm too embarrassed by my voice when I sing.

Enjoy them, or don't, I don't give shit. I like my music. And that's who I made these songs for. :)

Oh, and thanks to DJ Farm for playin' drums on "Taciturnity" and "Blue, Grey"

Google Adsense Scam?

2005-09-26T17:34:00.000-04:00

I direct your attention to this thread on the gentoo forums. Apparently, by the way google's adsense works, you can go to any site that uses this service and click repeatedly on a link within the Google Adsense on that site and render the site's earnings useless. The webmaster will get an email explaining that "invalid clicks" were being used to hike up earnings and google will consfiscate ALL earnings.

So... Does this mean that google's adsense bot engine is severely flawed? Perhaps, it's just google trying to rip you off. Whichever it is it's not right, and it should be fixed. So beware before using this service.

Also, note that I have no personal expercience with google adsense and to read that thread before you jump to your own conclusions, as I personally am just summarizing what the thread was talking about.

G4 TV and Drift Racing?

2005-09-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

If you've read my older posts then you know I'm no fan of G4. I don't really watch anything on that channel except "Call for Help" which they brought back from G4 in Canada (used to be on TechTV).

Anyway, it seems like now they have a lot of drift racing stuff on, and just now the network is showing you how they are building their own drift racing car. I thought this was a video game network. I don't know wtf is going on here. I guess they realized that you can't have video game crap on the whole day everyday, but drift racing? Drift racing seems like the most pointless car activity there is. I don't understand how the audience of 12 year old dorks can like cars.

What is also funny is that they're showing that twice failed show "Fastlane" that I think was originally on FOX but then moved to some cable channel then it failed on that channel also. Probably because of the high budget it takes to make that show. I'm guessing G4 won't be making new episodes of "Fastlane" cuz I hardly think they have the money to do so.

My point of this rant is that G4 doesn't know what they are doing and don't know what good TV is. I think I even read that the CEO of G4 has been let go. So maybe they'll have shows that are worth watching instead of pointless stuff like showing other people play video games the whole day mixed in with the occasional drift racing shows.

What Friendster/MySpace Photos Really Mean

2005-09-08T21:23:00.000-04:00

I had a good laugh at this especially since there's one photo that alludes to the photo on this blog of myself.

iPod (mini) Battery

2005-09-07T22:51:00.000-04:00

I've heard/read reports about iPod batteries not lasting for many recharges. Now, I can say that I personally have had this problem. I have an iPod mini and got it at the end of 2004, and about 2 months ago i noticed i could only get about an hour of battery time between recharges. It seems to be getting less and less now. it's only been 8 and a half months since I've had it and now need to spend $40 on a new battery and battery replace kit. If I sent it to apple it would be a reletively lot more to get it replaced, so I figured I might want to try it myself. I can't stand this shit about Apple products, seems like they always make it hard for you to change or replace anything; Mac Mini and iPod for example. Sounds like stuff that m$ would do.

If I remember, I'll post how the batter replacement goes, but it probably won't be for a long time cuz I'm very low on money at the moment.

Hurricane Katrina

2005-08-31T17:03:00.000-04:00

My sympathy and condolences to the victims and victims' families of this recent hurricane. Here is more info.

Donate to the relief effort here.

In Lieu of Creativity, Sexuality

2005-08-28T11:57:00.000-04:00

95% of pop stars.

Kurt and Courtney - www.cobaincase.com

2005-08-26T07:28:00.000-04:00

My cousin recently told me about www.cobaincase.com that gives evidence that Kurt Cobain was murdered and did not commit suicide. I've heard about such evidence implicating Courtney Love and the male nanny in the conspiracy since the movie 'Kurt and Courtney' came out a long time ago. A few years ago I found the site www.justiceforkurt.com which actually explained some of the evidence to me, but I was still skeptical. The Cobain Case site mentioned above, which is supposedly done by a private investigator, is more intriguing. As with all conspiracy theories, they are interesting but rarely valid. This person could have some kind of conflict of interest and such, but like I said, it's worth a read.

Stuff Wrong With Mainstream Rock N Roll Today

2005-08-24T02:54:00.000-04:00

I've been really upset with rock music lately. So here is a very opinionated list making a list of what I think is wrong with it today:

1. Pop Punk - An oxymoran. There is no such thing as pop punk. It's either pop or punk. Music that I see labled as "Pop Punk" is generally just bland cliche pop music with guitars. This type of shit is giving rock music a bad name.

2. Songs are too Focused on Polished Vocals - A rock song should have a strong emphasis on the actual music of the song: Guitar, Bass, Drums, Organ/Piano/Keyboards, whatever. Making a song almost all (as in length) vocals is boring. A good rock song should have at least 20% of the time being just instruments, whether it be an intro, interlude, or solo. To add to this, when there are vocals have the other instruments stand out as well.

3. Cliche Song Structures - I'm tired of the basic "intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, solo, verse, chorus, outro" song structuring. I know most classic songs are based on this and even some of my songs are too, but it's getting kind of old.

4. Shredding and Right Hand Tapping - This stuff which you hear from artists such as Steve Vai or Van Halen is rather boring to me. Sure they are extremely skilled to play like that but it lacks emotion and is very robotic. No thought is really put into each note and it just seems like they are playing that quickly to show off.

5. MTV and VH1 - These channels are many times responsible for putting bands into the mainstream. What they play is often geared towards young teenagers and is many times poser like edgy shit.

6. Image - I'll probably have a fair amount of people disagree with me on this one. I'm not a fan of people wearing makeup or masks to make an image of themself to look edgy and cool to sell their music. Yea, a lot of great artists have worn makeup and costumes and such, like David Bowie. But I'd rather everything just be focused on the music instead of image.

7. Releasing A Cover as a Single - This doesn't happen too often but it still pisses me off. I can't stand it when a band (or the record company) releases a cover as one of the singles. A lot of times the band becomes famous, if not more famous, from doing this and wrongfully so in my opinion. Seems like just as many times that those bands become one hit wonders. Soft Cell, Orgy, Alien Ant Farm to name a few off the top of my head. Limp Bizkit also became mainstream by a cover. Sure they had a couple songs before that but nobody really knew who they were until that song came out. Then what do they do years later? Butcher another cover and release it as a single. From what I've read Limp Bizkit's new game plan is to sound exactly like Rage Against the Machine.

That's pretty much all I can think of as of now. If I think of more things that bother me I'll post them

EDIT: http://mkzelda.com/node/388 Good on-topic read.