JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IT'S COLD!

what a way to greet us. and yes, maynard, it was pretty fucking cold last night. TK and i had a really good time last night seeing Tool at Great Woods. 5 years and 8 days ago, i saw Tool for the first time there and it was an experience, and last night was even better. so bear with me as i try and spew thoughts and details out.

the good:
suprisingly well behaved crowd, Tool, no rain, Tool, discovering going in from the south is a better approach, Tool.

the bad:
parking, traffic, parking, mud, parking, the cold, parking, the fucking talkers behind us during Wings For Marie (Pts 1&2), and did i say parking?

TK and i spent nearly 3 hours in that fucking parking lot. 45 mins getting in, and then just over 2 HOURS to get out. so, we missed the opening act Isis, which i wanted to see at least some of. never heard/seen them before so i was curious. i figured once we got there, it wouldn't take so long to park, but we were dead wrong. they parked us in the middle of fucking bumblefuck. the farthest, back corner of the parking lot they could (lot 13). where it wasn't paved. and had mud. which some inexperienced girl in a black 2000 ford explorer sport managed to spin onto the passenger side of TK's car. had i known we were going 4 wheeling, i would have driven, but what the FUCK. not to mention, lighting was non-existant so as we were walking to/from, we were hoping that we wouldn't step in a mud puddle. fucking nuts. as we were driving in, we saw that Premier Parking was $35 and laughed at that idea. by the time we got to where we were parking, we both agreed that we were idiots not to do it. (that is right off the entrance, paved and would have had us on the road in far less time) it was most certainly a scam, but for $35, it would have saved us a ton of sitting. waiting. twiddling our thumbs. so we spent more time the parking lot than the entire duration of the concert.

the concert:
we had pretty good seats all told. i thought we were going to be under the pavillion, but we were a few rows back from it. oh well, but we still had a pretty decent view of the stage which was cool because they actually projected stuff onto the stage itself (it was white and we laughed at the stage guy dusting the stage with his booties on). no real backdrops, and 2 screens on either side with projections (that was also projected onto the stage)

so, at 908pm, house lights dumped and we enjoy the following:

Intro Bass Drone
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IT'S COLD!
Stinkfist
The Pot
Forty Six & 2
Jambi
Schism
Lost Keys
Rosetta Stoned
Wings for Marie (Part 1)
10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2)
break
Lateralus
Vicarious
Aenema

one hell of a set. it is their current standard set, so no suprises for me in what they played, but hearing it and experiencing it are two very different things. MJK's vox were pretty good which very few missed words, no breaks in his voice (he was sick 2 weeks ago, and has recovered well). Danny is a fucking madman on the drums. Justin (looking a lot like Jesus) was great. Adam was Adam - didn't move a whole lot, but what comes out of his guitar is incredible.

9:08pm

Stinkfist - had the extended bridge, MJK kicking, having a good time

The Pot - very cool live. danny's bass drum at the beginning adds some more power to the song. the crowd loved singing (out of key of course) along with this one

Forty Six & 2 - extended keyboard intro is very cool, another crowd pleaser

Jambi - goddamn the opening bass is powerful. it's a powerful song to begin with, but that opening bass is fuzzy and it just rattles your ribs. loved it.

Schism - another good one. the opening noodling had me thinking we might get Right In Two, but we didn't (and i had even heard that from the Toronto show and knew they didn't play it). i loved the overdrive breakdown in the middle of the song. another song that needs to be experienced to fully appreciate it.

Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned - to steal MJK's words again, HOLY FUCKING SHIT! people actually started to leave during Lost Keys, which is pretty much controlled feedback, so i turned to TK and told him it's going to hit like a ton of bricks. and HOLY FUCKING SHIT! it does. very intense song, loved experiencing it. love the vocal effects box MJK uses.

Wings For Marie/10,000 Days - we got lasers! beautiful. it's a very emotional song, and i just stood there soaking it in. i'm glad they are playing it, because it is a beautiful song, and one that just is. i really don't have the words. at the end, the crowd was really quiet which was amusing. blew us all away.

a brief break - a sea of lighters, and seeing it reminded me of seeing Pink Floyd in 1994 during Wish You Were Here. it was a very cool sight to see the entire place lit up with lighters. MJK then said something about pre-marital sex and finishing up. and then told us that Pittsburg was louder, so we obliged and he said that we were. we'll see on later shows if he said Pittsburg again, or says Boston/Mansfield.

Lateralus - fucking incredible. the closer last tour, but the last 3 songs could be inter-changeable as closers. loved the visuals, one of my favorite songs anyways, but it can only be described as powerful.

Vicarious - another with an extended intro, and lots of power and energy. another strong song that was very cool live.

Aenema - one of the few songs they play that can be properly used to close a show. again, great song, lots of energy, people loved it. and MJK didn't screw up the words by repeating them (fuck your tattoos) which made it even more cool.

fin. 10:58pm - lights come up, band hugs, danny tossed drum sticks and a drum head, adam tosses 2nd drum head, MJK tosses water bottles. exit stage left.

i'm pretty much out of words, but this was the best Tool concert i've seen (of the 4, so that doesn't mean much). i love all 4 shows for different reasons, but this one was really good. can't wait til they come back again. i plan to be there.

thank you Tool.

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on the ride home today, i was listening to the Zeppelin Box Set (cd2), and while waiting for traffic to move, i happened to see a black dog taking a walk with his owner. the song playing?

Black Dog

i smiled and laughed.

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random journal hopping

talk about rose tinted glasses

no wonder the rest of the world thinks we're fat, bloated, uninformed, fucking idiots.

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the things you see sometimes

i'll see if i can't find a shot of the ad, but i was just watching House, and Dockers has a commercial that ends with a shot of a road, and a pier extending out onto (what should presumably be) San Francisco Bay, with a nice shot of the Golden Gate bridge.

the only problem with the shot is this:

i walked that stretch of road when M&i were in San Francisco. i recognize the palm trees, and that stretch of road with the trolley car (not one that goes up and down the hills). it's actually along the piers between Pier 39 (w/all the famous seals) and the Embarcadero. (~1/3 of the way up from Embarcadero. actually, thinking about it, i may have actually stepped on some of those stone blocks...)

and to make things worse, when you are looking out that way, you don't see the Golden Gate bridge. you see the Bay Bridge going towards Oakland.

plus, there isn't a pier that juts out into San Francisco Bay like the one in the ad. at least not from the shot that they are using.

i thought commercials were supposed to be truthful. how disappointing.

all hail the home of the mighty eyeballed ones

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best. drummer. ever.

"We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend, and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were."

R.I.P. Bonzo

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just because you can...

doesn't mean you SHOULD.

someone (looks like it is over in Japan) decided that they would see if they could generate enuff power to cook meat using 30 USB connections. well, duh....

usb ports have a low voltage of ~4v (nevermind the wattage) so 4v x 30 = ~120v.

that should be enuff to power a small george foreman grill. and that's just my electrical idiocy thinking here. (i make no pretense that i know much about electricity, watts, amps, volts, etc, but i can manage basic math.)

so rather than spend money on 6 5-port USB cards and associated cables (which aren't that cheap), i'd rather break down and buy a george foreman grill. a device i have decided i do not need, nor plan on purchasing any time soon.

you can view the stupidity here

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heh...

fark was asking what some of the weirdest things people have found on Google Earth were, and someone posted a picture of this. (central Britain, south of Great Houghton, west of Hull) like another farker, i didn't think it was real, but he looked it up and there it was. so i looked it up and here it is.

pretty farking funny.

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what a waste of 1's and 0's

i like The Doors. but if i were to put together a list of their 10 greatest songs, i'm not sure all of these would have made the list. and looking at the list, i think Mr. Andrew Perry (author of the article) took the cheap way out, because ALL of these songs are the ones that everyone knows. it's a cop-out if you ask me. and all of these are on The Best of The Doors. i wonder what album he listened to for this list.

so here's the list, click the link above for his explanation of why he thinks these are 10 of the greatest.

Break on Through (To the Other Side)
The Doors, 1967

Light My Fire
The Doors, 1967

The End
The Doors, 1967

People Are Strange
Strange Days, 1967

Hello, I Love You
Waiting For The Sun, 1968

Five to One
Waiting For The Sun, 1968

Touch Me
The Soft Parade, 1969

Roadhouse Blues
Morrison Hotel, 1970

LA Woman
LA Woman, 1971

Riders on the Storm
LA Woman, 1971

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caption contest time

CRandall posted this one, but i figured it was worth sharing.

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here we are five years later.

and is it really any better? i started regular blogging just over 5 years ago, immediately prior to the events of nine-eleven. much like i did in 2002, i'm refusing to watch the news today, as the media seems to enjoy this beating of a dead (and now rotted) horse that is nine-eleven.

the only real serious reference i will make about the events is what i'm copying below. i wrote this in my hotel room in atlanta on 9/12 (day after), but rather than forget to post it tomorrow, i'll just post it today. it's been a while since i re-read it, and just now was the 3rd or 4th time since i wrote it. so with nothing else to say, here's what i wrote on 9/12/2001.

fucking insane

below you'll find something that i wrote, and i can't really bring myself to read it again.

like most people in the states, and i presume a good chunk of the world, i am in shock over what happened this morning/yesterday morning.

i commented to some of the friends here, that our parents generation will remember where they were when JFK was shot, our generation will rememeber where they were when the world trade centers exploded.

i had walked into the CNN tower in atlanta to goto dunkin donuts to get breakfast. i managed to order breakfast w/o to much problem, but i could not help but shake the image on the montiors of the world trade center in a huge plume of smoke.

the first thing i tried to do was call jj, but failed in that, so i called my mother, who was a native new yorker. the first words out of my mouth where something along the lines of:

hi mom. it's me. turn on the tv NOW. a plane just crashed into the world trade center.

while i was talking to her on my phone, i saw the explosion of the second plane. my initial reaction was that was some unburned fuel or something from the first plane. the showed immediately afterwards the wider angle shot that showed plane #2 crashing thru the other tower. i'm not one for swearing in front of ones parents, esp my mother, but i swore four times while i was on the phone with her.

the shock of what happened cannot be described. i am sure that other people have posted their thougts and feelings, but for me, i was genuinely spooked. i'm not someone who spooks easily. i'll jump if starteled, sure. but spooked, not me.

this spooked me.

around 930 (eastern time) i headed towards the booth. i needed to get away from this tragedy. i called my girlfriend, and made it to the booth.

it wasn't long before the rumors of a 3rd plane hitting the pentagon started flying. and they weren't rumors.

what scared me, is i have a very dear friend who works very close to the pentagon, and i knew that if he wasn't at work, he would be driving by around the time the 3rd plane hit.

by this point, i was terrified. never in my life have i ever, EVER been terrified. and i was. i tried calling his cell, i tried calling his home, and i could not (understandably) get ahold of him. it wasn't until we were walking back to the hotel after the show closed at 2pm, that i got ahold of him. i spoke with him for no more than 5 mins, but it was some of the most relieving 5 mintues in my life.

he had heard and felt the explosion, and raced to the top of the building he works on, called his wife and said the following:

i'm coming home.

i think those three words were some of the sweetest words i have ever heard.

i knew that i did not know anyone in any of the crashes, but i knew that a very close friend was way to fucking close to one of the crashes.

hearing him answer the phone, and take a moment to figure out who was calling meant the world to me. he was safe. his family (most importanly) was safe. and if i need to stay in atlanta, i have a place to stay. he has family here, so if i should need it, i just have to call him.

that feels good, but knowing that he was safe, and his family was safe meant a great deal.

i'm not a praying man, but when he asked me to pray (knowing my beliefs), i said i would, and i have. i honestly have. i prayed for him, his family, my friends and those who have suffered a loss in this mess.

my heart goes out to anyone who is directly affected by this. except the families of the terrorists who committed these incredible acts. to them, i shame. and to those who actually comitted these acts, i condemn your souls, or whatever you believed in to hell. i believe that there is some sort of hell, and i hope beyond hopes, that hell was able to construct something more than fitting in a very short moment of time.

i do not believe in a "God" per se, but i believe that there is something. and i genuinely hope, that whatever may be out there, tortures your damned soul for eternity.

you are a coward.

you are a shit.

you are NOTHING.

you do not deserve ANYTHING.

all you deserve is torment, torture, and whatever hell it is you believe in.

i am really fucking exhausted. time for bed.

the following is what i started write this morning, but never finished. i felt that i need to post this as it contains the feelings i felt at the time. this was written prior to the collapse of the world trade center.

ok. now i'm spooked.

i get to the cnn tower to have bfast, and the first thing i see on the tvs is the world trade center, in smoke with the words 'a plane has crashed into the world trade center'.

i'm not one for getting spooked. sure, if something startles me, i'll jump, but i don't spook very easily.

that just freaked me out. (plane #1)

so, i call jj to tell her to turn on the news, but get her answering machine, so i call my mother (NYC native)

the first words out of my mouth are:

hi mom, it's me. turn on the news now. a plane crashed into the world trade center.

so we are talking about it, she gets CBS turned on (CNN has an ABC feed) and while we are talking, they have a close up on the tower and then you see another massive explosion. i thought it was just more fuel from the plane going off.

i was wrong.

(pardon the following pun, as it isn't)

dead wrong.

they zoom back and show a second plane go flying into the tower.

NOW i'm spooked.

they replay it several times, and i'm still getting chills thinking about it.

but that isn't the end of it. JT was talking to someone who said that one of the planes flew out of boston.

so, how has my day been you ask? pretty fucking scary. a national landmark has a plane crash into it (one that i have been up). a national landmark has a SECOND plane

Current Mood: angry, hurt, spiteful, & more

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boy oh boy, was Black Moon Rising a QUALITY movie. i would like to thank the Speed Channel for airing this high quality movie. not only was it entertaining, but they showed trailers for 2 other high quality movies.

the first was Viva Knievel!

what a winner that looks like.

the second was for Freejack, yet another wonderful movie. the best part? when alex (emilio) is walking down some alley or something and the music in the background is Ministry's Thieves. best part in the whole movie.

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nitwit

according to the clock on my laptop, it's 735am. i should still be asleep, but thanks to the holiday we call 'labor day' and a nitwit, i'm up.

i'm not annoyed at the garbage men for picking the trash up on a morning when i'd rather be sleeping, i'm used to it so i'm generally pretty good at falling back asleep. like most areas i've lived, if there is a holiday, trash gets bumped a day, and friday is our usual day. so a few times a year, garbage is picked up on saturday. it's worse in the summer because i'll have a window open (my problem this morning), but then they go away and i'll doze off.

this morning however, they came a little later than usual (45-60 mins later) and just as i was dozing back into blissful slumber, my phone rings. so i groggily reach for it and make a vain attempt at recognizing the caller, but as i'm also on call this weekend, if someone else in the department calls me, it might be their number.

so i answer it only to have someone ask me if linda is here. so in a very groggy voice, i reply, no, wrong number. he did at least say he was sorry. and i spend the next 10 mins trying to fall back asleep. didn't happen and rather than try and force myself to go back to sleep, i am now up.

tired.

groggy.

and annoyed. this will pass, but for the moment, i'm annoyed.

the only saving grace is that the pager didn't go off at some ungodly hour. i should be mostly safe for the rest of the day now. mostly.

(points to someone who picks up that modified reference. now i'm less annoyed.)

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at last...

after taking the last month to reread Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, i am now prepared to read Hunters of Dune.

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feeling better

lotsa sleep and some lazy laundry seems to have helped, so i'm not feeling as shitty as i was. unfortuately, it appears that M caught my bug so she's starting to feel how i did the other day. and she's overseas on business so she can't call into work sick. sorry dear :-(

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fucking sickness

i'm not quite sure what it is, but at least in part i'm feeling a little better. this weekend i seem to have contracted some bug that reminded me that i really can get sick from time to time. saturday/sunday were nothing more than a little tickle and the occasional cough, but by sunday, i was becoming congested.

yesterday was pretty miserable all in all. fortunately i have stuff to help with the congestion and pressure, but for much of the afternoon i was out of it. and now this morning, i'm up early, and my throat is scratchy because i've been coughing up a pretty storm.

whee.

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no more croc hunter.

Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed today by a sting ray.

the offical statement is here

Australia Zoo

Media statement – 4 September 2006

Steve Irwin

At 11am today, the 4th September 2006, Steve Irwin was fatally wounded by a stingray barb to his heart whilst filming a sequence on Batt Reef off Port Douglas for his daughter’s new TV series. Emergency services were called from Cairns Rescue Base and met Croc One, Steve’s rescue vessel at Low Isle on the Great Barrier Reef. The Croc One crew performed constant CPR during the thirty minute dash to Low Isle, but the medical staff pronounced Steve dead at approx. 12 noon.

His producer and closest friend, John Stainton said on Croc One today, "The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest Dads on the planet. He died doing what he loves best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. Crocs Rule!"

looks like word is getting out. a few minutes ago i could hit his site with the official statement, but not any longer.

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