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“A year ago my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone,” President Bush said Wednesday night during the annual gathering.“Ah,” he said, “those were the good ol’ days.”
(link and picture via Liberals Must Die!)
Well, here we are, almost three full months into 2007, and thus far the quality and quantity of new music just doesn’t seem to be up to the same level as last year. In particular, the pickings for metal have thus far been mighty slim in comparison to 2006’s metallic motherlode.
Last month’s new music roundup included another release from Japanese sludge kings Boris (their third new album in 13 months) and a comeback cd from stoner rock pioneers Fu Manchu. Other than those two, however, the new releases were pretty mellow stuff.
This month, we have a few more tasty new releases:
Clutch, From Beale Street to Oblivion
15 years and 10 albums into their career, Clutch just continue to churn out winners. From decidedly Helmet-ish origins, they have slowly incorporated more blues, funk, and Southern rock elements into each successive release. Some longtime fans were upset with the addition of a keyboard player for 2005’s Robot Hive:Exodus, but it fits perfectly with their changing sound. From Beale Street to Oblivion completes this evolution. Somehow, it manages to swing, while still rocking like twelve bastards. Clutch can do no wrong.
Jesu, Conqueror
It’s a shock to hear Justin Broadrick, the mastermind behind such seriously abrasive bands as Napalm Death and Godflesh, sound this relaxed. Perhaps, after so many years of shredding listener’s eardrums, he just wanted to kick back with a fattie and chill. Jesu treads similar “shoegaze metal” territory as bands like Isis and Pelican (who also have a new album coming out next month.) The songs are slow, heavy, and take a long time to build. Perfect for headphones.
Alabama Thunderpussy, Open Fire
Yes, these guys would make anyone’s “Worst Band Names Ever” short list. If you can force yourself to get past the name, however, you’ll discover a pretty addictive Old Skool metal album; loud, angry, fast, pummeling. Hell, they even have a picture of a Viking on the cd cover. It doesn’t get much more Old Skool than that.
And now, for the new non-metal:
Kings of Leon, Because of the Times
KoL released one of 2003’s best debut albums, and then took a detour for 2005’s Aha Shake Heartbreak, which sounded like a bizarre cross between Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Strokes. Thankfully, they’ve dropped the latter for this excellent return to form.
Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall
Squealy Neily has an entire warehouse filled with tape of concerts and unreleased demos, and he’s finally getting around to releasing some of it. A few months ago, it was a fantastic 1970 Fillmore Show with Crazy Horse, and now, a solo acoustic show from 1971. The Crazy Horse show kicked serious ass, but this one is even better.
Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Longtime fans of Modest Mouse will tell you that they were way better as a struggling indie band, as that as soon as “Float On” became a huge hit in 2004, they started going straight downhill. Longtime fans of Modest Mouse are full of shit.
And lastly, as a public service, here’s what NOT to buy:
The Stooges, The Weirdness
Ye Gods, this is a truly wretched album. Obviously, I never expected another Raw Power or Fun House. And 34 years after their last album, with every band member pushing 60, it was doubtful they had anything left. But even I never expected it to be this bad. Iggy, Iggy, Iggy, what were you thinking?
And now I have the proof.
(link via Soxaholix)
The post you are currently reading is the first one composed on my newly Microsoft-free laptop. Yes, that’s right: after years of grumbling about The Redmond Borg Collective and their crappy, bug-ridden, vulnerable, proprietary OS and software, I finally took the plunge and installed Linux. I’ve always been attracted to the idea of Open Source software and have used it with Windows whenever possible, but I was leery of Linux. While I’m reasonably tech-savvy, I had little interest in an OS that required me to constantly type in command prompts and scour the interwebs looking for drivers, and the concept of installing software by downloading and compiling tarballs (or hairballs or whatever the hell those things are called) made my eyes glaze over.
The beauty of Open Source software, however, is that someone is always working on it and figuring out new and innovative ways to make it better. There are many different versions of Linux, but Ubuntu is the one I settled on, because it seems the most user-friendly and similar to the familiar Windows or Mac “point and click” environment. And it’s easy to install; simply download it from their site, burn it onto a cd, pop the cd in and reboot your computer. During the install, all you have to do is enter a few basic configuration details (username, password, time/date, language, etc) and it does the rest for you.
Since the school I work for is nonprofit and has to generate all its operating expenses through fundraising, I had a further reason to mess with Linux: to save money. Microsoft’s exorbitant costs, licensing fees, and ever-more odious “validation” requirements are a major concern to an organization as cash-strapped as ours. Sure, Microsoft does donate a lot of software to schools and libraries, but each new version of Windows gets exponentially larger and hogs more system resources and processing power, necessitating the purchase of newer and faster computers. It’s an expense we simply cannot afford.
Because this is a school, the version of Ubuntu I eventually gravitated to is Edubuntu, which comes with quite a bit of preinstalled educational software. It also comes with Open Office, a free software suite that replaces Microsoft Office (which retails for anywhere from $200 to $500 per copy, depending on the version.) Open Office can save documents in Microsoft Office formats (meaning you won’t lose all your documents if you switch over) and has versions available for both Windows and Linux. For my browser, I use Mozilla, and after consulting with always-helpful tech guru Kables, I settled on Amarok and VLC as my music and DVD players, respectively. Linux is much more virus-proof than Windows, but I installed the free version of Avast Antivirus just to be safe.
The greatest aspect of this conversion is that my laptop, an old Gateway Solo 9300 with a Pentium III chip and a 20GB hard drive, now runs much faster than it did with Windows 2000. (Due to its age and lack of RAM and processor speed, I never even bothered trying to upgrade to XP.) My home computer, on the other hand, is fairly new and came with XP installed. Since I’ve had no major problems with it so far, I will probably leave it as-is for awhile. However, once Microsoft stops supporting XP in order to force everyone to upgrade to that turd sandwich Vista, I will ditch The Borg entirely and never look back.
So I’m sure all you young, hep kids have already heard of The Wayback Machine, the website that caches and archives web pages for posterity, so that future generations can see how bad your HTML skillz used to be. I have, on occasion, used it to find posts from my old site that would otherwise have been lost in the mists of time. Yesterday, however, I hit upon the idea of checking out the archives from a site started by my good friend Kables way back in the halcyon days of 2003. It was a grand, ultimately failed experiment, one that, if successful, would’ve established a bold new paradigm for the future of the internet and zzzzzzzzz…...
Sorry, drifted off there. No, it was just a group of us crazy kids goofing off. The site was called Bloglists, and the name pretty much describes it: the ten or so regular contributors would make up and posts lists of stuff. The site enjoyed a relatively short run. Its useful lifespan was about two months, March and April 2003. Then, the original contributors ran out of ideas, and our lack of ability to recruit new blood doomed the site. But in those two, glorious months, we posted almost 100 lists. Said posts usually came in the form of a Top 5 or Top 10, after which the poster would describe the rationale for choosing each item. Then people would argue about it. Music was, not surprisingly, a very popular topic, and there were downright hilarious lists posted on the general topic of Religion. Other popular points of discussion and contention included Sports, Booze, and Sex.
But for my money, the best (and usually funniest) category was All-Star Basketball Teams. The premise was very simple: you would take five of any particular person, place, or thing, and assemble them into a basketball team, providing rationale for why one particular person/place/thing should be the Center, another should be the Point Guard, etc. Bonus points were awarded for picking a sixth and seventh thing and making them the Sixth Man and Coach, respectively. The arguments could get rather heated, such as when Kables and I squabbled over his leaving Mayo off the All-Star Condiments Team, or not including The Melvins in his All-Star Indie Rock Old-Timers Team. Of my own teams, my personal favorite was the All Star Pasta Team. My finely reasoned rationale for placing Lasagna at Center, Manicotti Shells Stuffed With Ricotta at Power Forward, Tortellini at Small Forward, Fettucini Alfredo at Shooting Guard, and Linguini With Clam Sauce at the Point was truly a thing of beauty.
Sadly, as previously stated, the sight very quickly ran out of steam. May 2003 saw only three measly posts of dubious quality, and then…nothing. The concept of blogging lists of stuff lives on in Kables’ current collaborative site, but they’re usually straightforward lists related to music or sports, without the zaniness of the classic Bloglists post, and without nearly as much arguing.
Perhaps someone should revive the site and/or concept?
Well, it only took six years, a disastrous, failed war launched on a pack of baldfaced lies, a colossal natural disaster that was made infinitely worse by incompetent federal agencies, and an uncountable number of mindbending scandals, but the Democratic Party has finally started to grow some testicles:
A House panel today authorized the issuance of subpoenas for top White House and Justice Department aides as it investigates the firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year.(snip)
In authorizing the subpoena power over the objections of Republican members, the subcommittee rejected an offer by President Bush yesterday to allow the officials to testify under strict conditions. The White House is demanding limits on the kinds of questions they would answer, opposes having them testify under oath and does not want their testimony to be recorded or transcribed.
The catalyst for this spontaneous testicular regeneration seems to be yesterday’s press conference, in which DubYa essentially dared the Congress to call his bluff. Well, you got your wish, Mr. “President.” A bit of free advice: when your approval rating hovers around 30% and you face a hostile Congress elected for the specific purpose of putting a stop to your Reign of Error, it may not be such a hot idea to go on national television and tell them to go fuck themselves.
As the inimitable TBogg (the source for these links and the priceless moniker which titles this post) so eloquently puts it:
One thing that is fascinating about George Bush is how little he has grown in office. No, that’s not right. It’s not that he hasn’t grown, he has gotten smaller; less Presidential, more sad little man watching his paper boat circle the drain. After six years of playing The Decider he should at least have a thin candy shell of gravitas as opposed to coming across like one of those guys on People’s Court who not only has an unshakable belief that people won’t see through his bullshit, but that no one will notice his artful comb-over either.As bad a president as George W. Bush has been… he is a worse person and it shows whenever he is under pressure; he melts down into a greasy little puddle of glares and smirks and incipient panic. But tonight was special. Tonights performance lays to rest any notion other than the fact that he’s not a very bright man who has nothing but contempt for a world that refuses to dumb down for him.
The sewer rats currently infesting the White House have another 22 months in office to destroy everything they touch. So, um, could we start the impeachment proceedings now?
After yesterday’s depressing anniversary, I scanned the news in a forlorn attempt to find something, anything, that would give me a smidgen of hope that the world isn’t doomed, that we’re not on the verge of World War III.
Now, I’m not greedy; I wasn’t expecting to see headlines like “Bush Resigns, Joins Trappist Monastery” or “Al Qaeda Gives Up Jihad, Opens PC Tech Support Center in Islamabad” or “Israelis, Palestinians Sign Historic ‘No Way We’re Fighting Over This Stupid Fucking Desert Anymore’ Accord.” I just wanted to find any good news out of the Middle East, anything that would indicate that folks over there occasionally think about other things besides blowing each other up over their differing interpretations of the Invisible Sky Buddy.
And finally, I found that news.
Hooters To Open Restaurant in Holy Land:
“International expansion is a major focus for our company and we are very happy to add Israel to our family,” Hooters’ executive vice president of franchise operations John Weber said. “The vibrant, fun-loving Israeli community suits the all-American, casual-dining theme that Hooters restaurants are known for. I am positive that the Israeli’s quest for great food and atmosphere will end at Hooters.”
So there is a sliver of hope for mankind after all. If there’s one thing that might provide common ground for Israelis, Palestinians, Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis etc., to come together in a spirit of peace and brotherhood, it’s the opportunity to consume crappy, overpriced food and watered-down beer while ogling scantily-clad hot chicks with big fake boobs.
Halle-frickin-lujah.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer—the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it—that part which the pastor—and also you in your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so!
“You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
- Mark Twain, The War Prayer
Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, a holy day observed in honor of the missionary who converted the Hibernian pagans to Christianity during the first half of the fifth century A.D. And what better way to mark this auspicious occasion than in a way St. Patrick himself would have heartily approved of: with a noisy blast of Celtic-infused punk rock, courtesy of Youtube!
First up, Boston’s own Dropkick Murphys:
Followed by some Flogging Molly:
But there’s more!
(more…)Bad news, kids. In an age when your every movement, transaction, purchase, debt, statement, and/or bowel movement is recorded somewhere for future use by Shadowy Persons Unknown, here’s yet another one:
Most digital copiers manufactured in the past five years have disk drives – the same kind of data-storage mechanism found in computers – to reproduce documents. As a result, the seemingly innocuous machines that commonly are used to spit out copies of tax returns for millions of Americans can retain the data being scanned.If the data on the copier’s disk aren’t protected with encryption or an overwrite mechanism, and if someone with malicious motives gets access to the machine, industry experts say, sensitive information could get into the wrong hands.
Well, that’s just great! When I run for President, the opposing candidate’s political operatives will go over every record of my life with a fine toothed comb, looking for dirt to smear me with…and eventually, they’ll stumble across all those xeroxes I made of my ass on copy machines in every library and organization I’ve ever worked in.
Be prepared for the “AssGate” scandal, starting around, oh, 2016 or so. It’ll make Watergate, Iran-Contra, and DubYa’s nonexistant WMD’s Look Like fratboy pranks in comparison.
