another sign of the apocalypse

yea, we're doomed.


"if you buy food, because of the hack celebrity tie in... you might be a redneck"
and dont tell me this is more proof that the glass is half empty.

Glass contains 50% of its capacity (part 2)

rita chimed in on the subject, but with a little bit of PMS.
rita: Your glass theory doesn't hold water
me: heh
rita: the whole point of the "glass half full/empty" is to determine one's outlook on life
me: but its flawed because you shouldnt be able to say it is or isnt.
rita: you dont always have more information, but you must always make determination regardless
me: my answer is "i dont know"
rita: No, your constant answer is half empty
me: i guess its kind of an analogy on faith.
rita: because you are pessimistic. just like we like you to be
me: no its not, i'd like it to be half full, but i just cant say.
rita: You don't get my meaning. Every day, through your words and actions, you proclaim loudly that the glass is half empty... it is a metaphor
me: im not denying that im pessemistic, im just saying that a glass of water isnt a way to determine that
rita: arrgh
me: im pessemistic about the whole analogy
rita: it is only an an idiom. that is what I mean to say
me: i dont believe in idioms
rita: it doesnt matter whether you believe in them or not, they exist
me: dont ask me a question for which there is no answer.
me: stop calling me an idiom
diaryadiva: LOL Good Lord
me: look, i "Get it" i just dont like it. and yes, im being difficult
rita: and that is why you are a glass half full guy... you dont like anything
rita: well, wait. except Wierd Al and Funyuns
me: look either way it sucks to NOT have a full glass of water.
rita: and because you think it sucks EITHER WAY. that is further evidence of your "glass half full"abilty
me: but that throws the whole "idium's" validity out of the, pardon, water.
rita: Look . . the point of the idiom is . . . even in something as inocuous as a glass of water, you would see the downside. it has NOTHING to do with your ability to verify how the water got ther. it has nothing to do with your lack of additional information. it is a commentary on your general outlook
me: my point is, there IS ONLY a downside to see. regardless.
rita: and THAT is why it is an idiom
me: there is still half the maximum capacity. there is no more or less positive connotation to the glass being half full or half empty. the whole idium, anaology whatever.. is bullshit
rita: again, you are concentrating on the theory of the presence of the water.
me: what Ms. Oracle?
rita: LOL.... you are dodging the unavoidable fact that you are a pessimist by shitting all over the idiom
me: im not denying the fact that i am a pessemist. im using my pessemism as a reason i dont buy the glass analogy.
rita: no, your pessimism doesn't discount the idiom
me: im saying, that i AM a pessemist, but dont use the glass idium as a way to define it. because the glass is bullshit.
rita: that is why peole USE idioms. its a lot faster way of saying that you are a pessimist. otherwise, they'd have to have these long pointless discussions
me: lol... why is a glass half full an optimism? its still only got 50% water in it... im just sayin'
rita: (sigh) Jesus
me: there is nothing good about a glass that has 50% water in it. even if you call it half full. its still HALF.
me: why are you arguing with me!?
rita: cause I dont have the strength to continue... perhaps this would be a good followup blog
me: im already on it sister
rita: and Im on the rag, remember

further more, i still stand by my opinion on the matter. I stand by science and logic.
What is better? a glass full of water or a glass that is half full of water? A full glass of course. Now, how can you differentiate that half full glass into a negative or positive thing? half full or half empty its the same thing. By definition (mine) if you pour 50% of the water out its half empty. if you pour 50% of the water into the glass its half full.
Niether is better or worse, its still the same amount of water.

I know its an idiom and youre supposed to feel better about a glass thats half full, but half of something is always a lesser value and referring to the nectar of life, water. its a bad thing to have less of.

just in case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom

The glass contains half the amount of its capacity.

Me: ...I'm always pissed at something
jimbo: yea, I know this. You hate the world
me: only select parts of it. You could say my world is peppered with hate
jimbo: heavily peppered?
me: regularly peppered but with fresh, ground pepper from a grinder. Big chunks
jimbo: lol big chucks of hatred.
me: I'm not that bad, am I?
jimbo: lol, not always. But I think you might view life through tainted lenses.
me: yea I'm a pessimist
jimbo: but that's ok it makes you funny
me: I'm such a pessimist I hate the glass half empty analogy.. The glass being half full or empty is relative to how it got to that state.. If you fill a glass halfway, its half full. If you pour water out, its half empty.
jimbo: this is true
me: so when someone asks me if the is glass half empty, I say it depends. I cant make an assumption without further information. So people that just say it is half empty or half full aren't pessimists or optimists, they're just guessers.
jimbo: good point. I never looked at it that way
me: no one does.

Furthermore, if you really wanted to analize it, you could say that the glass being half empty is the result of you just taking a drink and replenishing yourself. since you've just quenched your thirst, you are in a positive state and therefor being optimistic about the glass. I think the whole "glass half empty" analogy is just too full of holes to be accepted so widely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pessimism

Hollywood Chainsaw Massacre

as you know I'm sick of remakes. and I am sick of horror movies that rip off Texas Chainsaw Massacre. remember this old blog?

"if i see another "students go into rural area and get cut up by some psycho, family, mutant, imbreds etc" i will fucking shoot someone. How many movies can get away with blatantly ripping off Texas Chainsaw Massacre? this movie, House of 1000 corpses, that one Wrong Turn or whatever about the kids in the forest. and probably a hundred others i've luckily never seen."

While I'm excited that the latest horror movie they are starting to market down my throat isnt a Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip of perse, but Jeebus Haettenschweiler Christensen George Effing Lucas, Batman! A fucking prequil to the remake of a movie from the 70's that had like 4 sequels already. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 'The Beginning' ??? hey, uhm, yea. it "began" in 1974 assholes. get a new idea! Not to mention ...When will filmmakers realise that sex and the cutting up of young people with power tools doesnt make you unique or shocking anymore?

We have Netflix and I've been having a hard time finding anything to rent. The new release section has been a bust for like 6 months now. We end up getting Carry Grant and Audry Hepburn movies. And wait for Rocky 6 to come out.

candy heaven

Megs dad called unexpectedly on saturday saying he's in town on business and wanted to hang out. He and his girlfriend met us up in Old Sacramento. if you dont know what that is its the OLD part of sac. they've tried to keep it all old timey. its on the sacramento river and theres a ton of novelty shops and stuff. its pretty cool actually. anyway, when you get there theres these hoodlum lookin kids handing out "free candy sample" fliers for this place called candy heaven. we took note and met her dad for drinks near by. He was all gung-ho about doing something really "old sacrament0ie" so he bought tickets to ride the river otter. its a litte water taxi that runs up and down the old sac area of the river. we took it to a seafood resturant that looked like a school portable classroom on pontoons. they had this sign up in the outdoor patio we ate at.
It says "NO SMOKING DURING BREAKFAST LUNCH OR DINNER" I'm definatly not coming back there for brunch, the smoke is irritating. since the whole place floated it had an old airport jetway that connected the front door to the land. we didnt use the jetway since we came by river. The Otter guide kept pointing out that during the floods of last year the water was like 20 feet higher than it is now. the jetway was underwater. the Otter picked us up after dinner and took us back to old sac. here's a pic of the sun setting on the river.
(thats the Virgin Sturgeon resturant on the right. 4 big hardcore looking gangstas rolled up in that boat. something you dont see everyday.)

there was a mentally challenged kid on the boatride back. by kid i mean probably 32 but acted 10. he kept sayin "hi" and "how are you?" he tapped my shoulder as we got off the boat and said "bye" he tapped megs niece too but she snubbed him. we saw him later in town and he tapped megs neice again. this time she turned and he gave a little wave and said "bye" damn, i wonder if he can help me cheat in Vegas?

Next we wander the wooden sidewalks of old sac. we see a handpainted wooden sign that reads "Candy Heaven" Celeste freaks, since she's had this "free candy" coupon burning a hole in her pocket all evening. we go in and its got big barrels of all kinds of hard candy, gummy and chewies. Another, but older hoodlum looking guy sees us come in and tells us we can sample any candy from certain barrels, as many as we want inside the store. then i saw it.

The wall of PEZ! the whole eastern wall of this place was PEZ PEZ PEZ. unfortunatly i had most of em.. everyone in our party helped me scour for ones i didnt have.. "you got this one?" yea "what about him" ooh no. rad thanks. I ended up spending like $20 on freakin PEZ dispensers. fucking score tho. I'll take pictures of my collection one day for you all. anyhoo, I also saw this. once i saw it i knew i had to get it.
It was an almost actual size gummy marshmello cheeseburger! it tasted kind of like ass but it was funny. speaking of funny, we found a halloween shop in old sac. It was a pretty rad one. I got the beginnings of my Halloween costume there. all i can say is Lederhosen.

fewtewshop and dumping

ok so I had my photoshop class again last night. I could have slept through it this time. I dont know if she's holding out on shit because its a beginner class but I'm constantly asking her questions about shit i know and then her saying "thats a really good point kirk" as if i reminded her of something important she forgot about and then tells the class. I swear i think i could teach this class. at least at the level she is anyway. (mcdonalds coffee got way better by the way. mmm) She showed everyones homework on the projector and when they got to mine everyone ooohh'd and aaahhh'd. It was pretty validating. I got grilled with questions on my technique but it was hard. It was like trying to describe grade A prime rib to 5yr olds that like nuggets and hot dogs.

The first part of the homework was the hourglass thing from before. the second part was something we had to come up with our own source images. I used these.




I made this out of them.
next week's homework is basicly the same thing but most of the class will be using some new things they learned last night. things like text and layer effects. gey. We touched on filters because some people used them in last weeks assignment. she said she wasnt going to even teach filters in the class. I can understand why because they can be really cheesy and obvious if you dont know what youre doing. She said we're gonna talk more about em in the advanced class. cant wait.

speaking of computers and pictures on the screen of computers... i saw this while i got gas this morning.
anyone need a free monitor that might not work? Its at the Valero station on Alhambra Ave off Hwy 4 in Martinez.

spam.

sorry for the spam... this is a test message for the google group subscription thing. i changed the group email addy so we stop getting spammed.

remember, if youre not into getting spam (by that i mean lame blogs in your email) you can have it fed into your home page or RSS reader. just put this into your reader thing. http://kirknoggins.blogspot.com/atom.xml

if you dont know what that is forget it, youre stuck with email until you can figure out feeds.

thanks.

snack machine update

last night i went to the snack machine mentioned in my last post (below). This time i wanted Ruffles. mmm cheddar & sour cream. anyway, I put in my money.. punched in the code. clunk clunk... sweet, change! then the ruffles fell.. nice! then i looked up at the Funyuns and remeniced about our last encounter. as i looked i noticed that it looked like someone else had been taken by the funyuns in the snack machine slot machine. It was hanging there by the skin of its green bag. Whoever got ripped off obviously didnt want them bad enough. All it took was a couple of shakes and a slam to the glass and, plop, there it was. FREE FUNYUNS!! hell freakin yea.

take that snack machine!!

on a side note, I asked my friend Jer if he wanted some of my free Funyuns and he declined respectivly stating "no, thanks, I havnet smoked any weed today"

take that, snack machine!

I put my money into the snack machine at school to get some Funyuns. I'm already apprehensive because this machine never gives change. It's like DVC is paying for thier new Book Store 15 cents at a time. fuckers... anyway, since i was paying attention to the change thing, I was excited to hear the "plop plop" of my nickel and dime. but then realized i didnt hear the sound of my chips falling into the bay at the bottom. as i look my Funyuns are hanging by a thread up in the dispenser. I yell loudly, "You gotta be kidding me!" scaring the freshman girl getting a soda. I slammed and shook the machine thinking to myself, the one time i get my change, they still fuck me by not giving me my chips. I hit and shake violently some more. the girl next to me is getting nervous. I say "what the fuck? damnit!" then as if God heard me or something, a bag falls. but its not my chips its lame ass pretzels.. as i've blogged before, no one likes pretzels. so then i shake some more and i can see my Funyuns wriggling from thier coily springloaded grasp... clunk! HA! sweet retribution! not only did i get my change, i got my Funyuns and FREE pretzels! even tho i hate pretzels, I enjoyed those damn salty sonsa bitches like they were the best pretzels i ever ate!

That warm onion flavored breeze you felt graze your nose last night at around 7:00pm pst. was the wind of justice for everyone who's ever been ripped off by a snack machine.

It's Official!!!

It's Official! PC World put out thier Top 25 Worst Websites and guess who made number one?

thats fucking right...

Worst Sites #1 - Myspace.com

thanks Kara for having such a shitty myspace i could use it as my example

"Graphically, many MySpace pages look like a teenager's bedroom after a tornado--a swirl of clashing backgrounds, boxes stacked inside other boxes, massive photos, and sonic disturbance. Try loading a few of those pages at once and watch what happens to your CPU. Watch out for spyware, too, since it turns out that MySpace has become a popular distribution vector for drive-by downloads and other exploits. And in a place where "U are soooooooo hot!!!" passes for wit, MySpace isn't doing much to elevate the level of social discourse."

Thanks PC World!
Top 25 Worst Websites

photoshop

you have to say it "fewtewshope" in a New Zealand accent. I toured with a band from there called Pacifier and they were talking about how the guy from Saliva was way fatter in person and whenever they'd see him on a magazine they'd say "its fewtewshope" "they haed to dew samthin' tew maake heem maach thinnah . They used fewtewshope"

anyway, speaking of fewtewshope. I had my class last night. We learned how to select and quick mask. And how to copy a selected object and put it into another picture. this is pretty basic shit. anyway, she gave us two pics to work with. one horribly grainy photo of an hourglass, and a horribly grainy low contrast image of the Hong Kong skyline.

we were supposed to take the hourglass out of its background and put it into the city. well, that was too basic, and everyone surely would be doing the same shit so i changed it up.
if you click it, it gets a little bigger. If you look closely, i put the city in the hourglass and on the card thingy. The guy next to me was watching me and having his mind blown. Again, as with my other classes there's the few retards that take up all of classtime asking "wait, how did you just zoom?" ZOOM? youre not allowed to ask how to zoom! Jesus H. Monte Crisco, Batman, we have some dullards on our hands. I'm not the greatest at photoshop but i've been using it for so long i know little things here and there that help me do cool shit. and one of those things is HOW TO ZOOM. I'm hoping by the end of this class, and then onto the advanced class I will learn more stuff to help me out.

the next part of the project is to just use any images and make a collage. yeee. this will be fun.

the most disturbing thing i've ever seen

a conversation...
me: when will filmmakers realise that sex and gore dont make you unique or shocking anymore? i guess i need more substance in my bitter old age. once you've seen men lining up to shit in a womans mouth you really cant go back.
rita: Goddamn
me: yea, a band we toured with made us watch a real German Schitza video on thier tourbus our last day on tour with them. i thought it was an urban myth. Two of the guys in thier band thought we'd like it as much as they did. I could see why maybe they'd get off on that...the chick was hot, and naked.. she just had a variety of mens shit falling on her face.
rita: that's very strange
me: yea, i've seen some crazy stuff tho on the internets. let me tell you about the most disturbing thing i've ever seen. It still haunts me to this day
rita: oh no
me: oh yes. when i worked at the web design place, we had a super fast T3 line, so my coworker Erik would send me stuff all day he downloaded from some video/napster type thing. I think he got off on the thrill of getting away with downloading teh pron on teh internets. usually it was just regular porn. or the occasional chick getting fucked by a pig, or a chick getting 2 gallons of horse jiz blown on her face. this one. the one that is burned into the things-I-want-to-forget-but-cant part of my brain, wasnt even porn. it was a crudly filmed asian girl under bad lighting. Like flourescent kitchen light or a dim dining room chandalere. She looked maybe 10-15. She was sitting low in a chair at a dinner table, in front of a fancy soup serving thing. she looked like she was drugged or something.. in a daze staring at the bowl. She would put her hand in her mouth and make herself puke into the bowl. her eyes were all watering from gagging. i could almost imagine the smell. she did this about 4 times into the bowl..
rita: (reading, bracing myself)
me: then she sat there all fucked up from drugs and puking staring at the bowl .. or into space. she reaches into the bowl and starts sifting through the ooze. . and eventually pulls out a chunk. you can see the bile and mucous stringing off her hand and the chunk... she looks at it like she's wondering what it is... then she puts it into her mouth.. then finds and eats another chunk.
rita: (running for the toilet)
me: im watching this with complete awe and disgust at my desk at work.
me: its not over
rita: Jesus . . . stop!
me: then she puts both hands around this bowl, which i forgot to mention sits almost as high as the middle of her face.. she is small.. she has to reach up and into this gilded silver serving bowl to get the chunks... so, now she puts both hands around it, lifts it up and starts to drink out of it.. thats when the video ends.
rita: Thank God
me: like i said.. it still haunts me
me: its probably on youtube
rita: I am not going to look for it
rita: God
me: I almost want to find it so i can blog this.
rita: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
me: ha ha
rita: (begging you not to)

art class booty

here's some of the shit i've been doing in my art class. The first is the composition and value balance assignment. i didnt take a photo of it, but this was drawn from a black white and grey collage of cut out paper.

this is some of my comments i got on it. i got an A- . pffft! its understandable.. all the things she pointed out i totally agree with.

this is the egg thing i was talking about. we had to draw an egg.. the hardest part for me was moving. the shadows are so sensitive to your perspective it was frustrating to have to stay looking at it exactly the same way. plus whenever i'd sketch or erase the egg would wobble and move. I'm taking a photo of my subject next time. screw this live model shit. the first is smooth rendering.
this one is the invented texture.
there it is.. my arty class crap.

Save the Guttster!

When John Travolta's career was coming to a sad, sad end and he was making movies like Look Who's Talking, a young film maker took a chance by casting him as his main character in a violent but comedic look into the world of criminals. The Movie Pulp Fiction, Travolta's next movie immediatly after Look Who's Talkings dismal sequel, Look Who's Talking Now propelled him to new heights. His career was essentially reborn and with only a couple notable hickups (Battlefield Earth, Scientology) he's still going strong as a leading actor in Hollywood. Similarly to Travolta another actor who had seen success fall to the wayside in the eve of the 20th century is Steve Guttenberg.

Now, Steve had a nice career with hits like Cocoon, Short Circuit, and the unforgettable Police Academy Movies. Even mushy tales like Three Men and Baby were a success. But then something happened.. getting snubbed from Short Circuit 2 and Three Men and a Little Lady not doing so well left him doing made for TV movies and bit parts here and there. Only if he could get the kind of opportunity Travolta had.

Where is Steve's Pulp Fiction? Where is his night in shining celluloid? ... where is his Quinten Tarentino? According to his IMDB page he has two movies in post production. Could these be his ticket to new found fame? One is called, Making Change. with the tagline "Sometimes it's easier to try to change the world....than yourself " sounds promising, not much in the co-star department but you never know. who the hell was Samuel Jackson before Pulp Fiction?..thats right, a crack head in some ghetto movie. so, you never know. The next movie is one im really excited about. its what seems to be a remake of the original Police Academy. the cast list shows all the same actors returning to their original roles.. somehow i dont know if the years have been nice to most of these actors. but, you never know.

here's to hoping Steve Guttenberg finds his path back into the heart of Hollywood. win one for the Gutster!

CLUNG! CLUNG!

I've been hooked on, of all things, Law and Order CI and SVU are good too. i watch all of them. Its not like CSI. I was hooked on that too but NY and Miami suck balls. It seems like you can watch Law & Order pretty much 24 hours a day if you know what channels to go to. Its on like USA, TBS, and CBS and i think a couple others.. so I just flip around whenever i get home and its on. and on all night so i cant fucking sleep. I never watched it when it first came out and never really cared about it until about 2 weeks ago. now im addicted the shit. Most of the episodes deal with evidence and what can and cant be used in court. Or something the cops did to get the evidence or confession that makes in inadmissable in court. now that shit pisses me off. You have a Judge saying "yep, that video and DNA and his confession totally prove he did it. I believe he did it. but i cant allow it in the trial" WHAAAT!?? there should be some clause in the law that allows shit like that to be let in for specail circumstances. anyway, so now I'm fully bitter about our legal system and this morning i hear that that bitch that locked her kid in the basement so the crazy fucking dog wouldnt kill him. and the dog ends up killing him had a hung jury.... how do you hang on something like that? anyway, they decided to NOT have another trial beacause the figure it will just be another hung jury. WTF is that about? first of all what did the prosecution fuck up so bad that they couldnt convict this bitch?

http://www.examiner.com/a-202439~Jury_deadlocks_in_S_F__dog_mauling_case.html

anyway, I've been watching Law & Order so much that im noticing recycled actors playing different parts. last night this druggie kid was a son of rich parents who got viciously murdered. and 2 episodes later played a Army soldier accused of killing a TV journalist. also, which was the best Ice T played some thug pimp that gets killed and now he's one of the main cops in SVU i think.

ok that was my rant. i gotta go Law & Order is probably on.

what the hell am i here for?

So last night i had my art class and my AutoCad class again. Art was cool, we curtiqued our composition and value balance project. No one really had anything bad to say about mine, but the teacher used mine as an example of how turning an abstract piece can totally change how it looks. Mine looked better turned 90 degrees. so i turned it in that way. a lot of people in that class really suck at drawing. wow is all i gotta say.. (Jimbo, thats a wow moment "WOW these people suck") For the most part tho, the morons in my classes are starting to shut the fuck up and realise they are idiots. all but these two guys in my AutoCad class. They sit next to each other now. like a force of stupid hoping together they will be smarter. you'll hear more about that later...

Then we had to bring in Eggs. yes, eggs. hard boiled eggs to draw. we didnt have time to draw eggs so we just stared at them for 40 minutes. and looked at projected slides of shitty egg drawings...that gave me a headache. ugh. so on wednesday I'll be drawing an egg. paying close attention to the different values of grey and their relationship to shadow and highlight. i'll bring some excedrin.

then i had my AutoCad class. ugh. Seriously people need to learn how to use windows before they go and take a class for a pretty advanced program like AutoCad. I winced inside when the instructor asked if we had any questions from last week. As i was saying before, this one guy... man... this one guy was frustrated because he still couldnt figure out "the copy thing" and his partner in crime kept seconding his questions "yea I was wondering about that too" DUDE.. if you cant copy and paste something from one file to another get the fuck out!! youre wasting all of our time. The second guy in this dynamic duo of dumb (alliteration!) likes to ask questions that are so irrellavant and assinine that it confuses the teacher. She tries to answer it and confuses the rest of the class. its fucking annoying.
Eventually we got through the lecture and the lab portion of our lesson. I started talking to the instructor about Autocad and how I could figure out other 3-D programs but AutoCad was harder for me to understand. She asked "if you know inventor [an autocad compatible 3D program] why do you want to learn Autocad?" she had a point, you can totally make autocad files from a 3D inventor file. A process which has become more standard in the industry... she went on to say "The industry is starting to pretty much phase out 2-D programs like Autocad now anyway. I dont even know why we teach it here still" UGGHHH!! whaat? what the hell am i here for?

I think i'll finish this semester and take what i learned and apply it to the 3D end of what i do. After what she said it just seems pointless to keep going.

sorry, to bore you with my stupid life, but isnt that what blogs are for?

My 9-11 story

It was Fall of 2001 and my band had just secured a demo deal with Madonna's record label, Maverick Records. A few weeks prior a rep from that company came to see us at one of our local shows. At that time my band was at the top of its popularity locally and we had a really good turnout. The rep was the guy who discovered the band Disturbed who was, and still is a pretty popular metal band from Chicago. The deal we got furnished us the opportunity to record a demo in Chicago with the producer that recorded all of Disturbed's music, Johnny K that would be listened to personally by the president of Maverick Records. This was the big break we had been waiting for. The weeks leading up to our visit to Chicago we rehearsed the songs we thought were our best and just started counting the days.

The counting was over. Our bags were packed, our flights all arranged and our songs were as tight as they could be. The night before we all tried to just get a good nights sleep for our big day. Earlier than I had liked, my phone rang the next morning. It was my good friend and photographer of many shows, Justin. I answered the phone and before I could rant about how early it was he said "you're not going to Chicago today" why not, what are you talking about? "turn on the TV... We're under attack" WHAT? ! Shut up man, we have our plane tickets and everything.. What the hell are you talking about? My girlfriend Meg is waking up and asking what is going on. justin continues, "no dude, they bombed the world trade center in NY" Meg turned on the TV .. I just stared with my mouth open.. Oh my god what the fuck is going on. Questions and emotions filled me, just as almost everyone experiencing this at this moment. Then, the other plane hit and I remember the news people confirming that this indeed wasn't some accident. It was an attack. As if anyone had real doubt, hope maybe, but not doubt that this was anything other than what it really was. After the reality of it all sank in, and they started talking about grounding flights I remembered I had a flight today. The chance of my life to get a real studio demo for a label just got cancelled. I heard the TV news guy say something about pieces falling off the buildings and I looked... The first tower fell.. INSANITY.. Me and Meg are just in complete awe. Then the second one falls... How could this happen?!?! Immediately conspiracy theories popped into our heads "bush probably did this" we both agreed. But why? Still worried about our flight, I called the rest of my band members who were still dealing with what they just saw on TV... We called our manager. We scrambled to the Hotwire.com site to confirm that they would not refund our tickets... There was no clause in the agreement about terrorist attacks... We were frantic. What the hell do we do? On the TV, they were showing cheering crowds in Pakistan or somewhere, burning American flags and celebrating. whhaaat? I was like.. Why don't we fucking bomb those motherfuckers.. Look they're happy.. THEY did it.

By the next day, after reeling from all that transpired we found out finally that Hotwire is refunding tickets because of the tragedy. Without a flight tho, we still needed to get to Chicago. We wouldn't let some terrorists stop us from our chance at getting a record deal. We did what any self respecting band would do. We rented a minivan, loaded it with luggage and band equipment kissed our loved ones goodbye and drove! We drove like the wind. Nonstop minivan from Martinez to Chicago.

On the drive out there we were constantly reminded of the events from the day before. Every car on the road had an American flag on it. Every house, every storefront all had the full 2 page American flag that the newspaper printed in that days issue. It was pretty crazy. We even got some cheap Chinese made flags to put on the minivan. You could really see how unified the country was at that time. And you could defiantly see the reality of the flights being grounded. No planes anywhere.. And if you did see a plane you questioned it and got a little scared. There were a lot more rental cars and people driving. When we stopped in Cheyenne Wyoming for dinner we started talking about the Matrix sequel which was in production and that it was being filmed back home in Alameda. At this time a family had been seated near us and the father got up and corrected us on some fact we were curious about as h e walked by. He was gone before we could ask how he knew but his wife told us. "He's a director in Hollywood" cool, has he done anything we would have heard of? "he just finished American Pie 2..." And something else but I cant remember. Anyway, they were in that shitty little dinner place because they too, were driving across the country back to LA. We chit chatted about 9-11, and bragged that we were on our way to do a demo with a famous producer. 2 up and comers in the entertainment industry having no business in that little Italian restaurant brought together by a tragedy.

We finally made it to Chicago. It was amazing.. I had never been further than Reno and now I'm in Chicago, having just experienced "the Heartland" first hand. As we got closer to Chicago the first thing you see is the Sears Tower, realizing that now its the tallest building in America. We got a little worried that it would be the next target. We didn't get to go to the top and see the observation deck because it was, of course, closed because of the attack. There were these little reminders everywhere. Even tho we were there chasing our dream to be rockstars, it was overshadowed by what had happened. I'm trying not to say "9/11" because at that point, on 9-13, it wasn't a phrase people used yet. It was still just the other day to us.

One of the reminders which hit home with us was when Johnny got a letter from a record company colleague about songs that radio stations were pulling because of the attacks... "Anything referring to death, airplanes, buildings, bombs, fire..... "
etc etc etc... The list of songs included the obvious, "let the bodies hit the floor" by Drowning Pool and other heavy metal songs similar to that.. And the not so obvious "Benny and the jets" by Elton John and other songs by unthreatening artists with similar songs with "jets" or "plane" or "fire" in the title. It was ridiculous and our first taste of the powers that be stripping us of our rights and freedoms in the name of "the war on terrorism" Next came the Patriot act.

Jumping a few months ahead, my band ended up not signing with Maverick due to them not giving us an actual contract to sign. We gave them 2 weeks to listen to the demo. We paid for the trip out to Chicago but Johnny liked what we recorded so much, he was so confident we'd get a deal, he waived his fees and said to pay him when we got signed. With our confidence from that, at an all time high we took that demo and shopped it to every Major Label. Jump to November 2001, after months of schmoozing, showcasing for labels in LA we wake up the day we fly to NY to Showcase for Island records to find out that a plane crashed in NY. Not again! Our flight wasnt cancelled but delayed a few hours while they determined it wasnt connected to terrorism, by now we're just pissed because those damn terroists are keeping us from getting a record deal. We joked that it was a plot to keep us down. We arrive in NY, play for Island records and through an odd turn of events, we end up the next day in a NY high rise meeting with the head of rock music at Columbia records. Midway through our meeting we get on the subject of September 11th and he shows us a photo of him and his son on a boat in NY harbor with the twin towers in the background. He tells us that the picture was taken on Sept. 9th and continues to share with us how he remembers that day. It was interesting to get NewYorkers perspective. It really hit us pretty hard never really thinking about how regular people, not directly effected by it, but who were in NY dealt with it all.

Jumping even further now. Its been a couple years, we have recorded our album and are out on tour. We've been so caught up in our success and living the dream it sort of took us out of reality. We knew that there was a war, we knew there was shit going on but we kind of didn't think about it. I remember one day in like Iowa or something at a truckstop diner looking up at a TV showing war news and saying jokingly "so, did we win yet?" but the hardened down home USA patrons of the esablishment didn't think it was funny. I never felt so small in my life. And it sort of put everything back into perspective for me. The war was real and people were still very patriotic and concerned with what was going on.

Jump further yet, present day 5 years later... My band has broken up, I work 7-3 back at the job I left to become a rockstar and I find myself addicted to progressive talk radio. The war is STILL going on and we haven't caught binladen and Bush got REelected! There is SO much SHIT.

that's my 9-11 story. 5 fucking years.. What the fuck are we doing in Iraq? Hezbollah, Israel, Iran, Syria... Katrina .. Ugh..

My new band has a show on Sept. 30th at the pound if you wanna go.

Alvar Hanso Dharma Video!

this explains a lot about the Dharma project.


its part of the Lost Experience internet game, which is supposed to be a seperate entity from the show, but i have a hunch the losties will watch this at some point next season.

Too Much of a Good Thing

when i was a kid I got a swiss army knife. it was one of the smaller ones with 2 blades and a toothpick and tweezers in the side. I, like most kids from my generation thought this was the coolest idea ever. then my friend's big brother totally trumped mine with one of those larger ones that had a screwdriver, a magnifying glass and that blade with numbers on it, that i think was for fishing. we would all sit around and imagine what the "ultimate swiss army knife" would have on it. well, imagine no more. i give you, the "Giant Knife"

as Popular Science put it... "Who doesn’t need a cigar cutter next to a bicycle chain rivet setter next to a golf divot repair tool? Wenger is on to something with this everyman’s gadget. It wouldn’t be a knife, though, without a blade, so Wenger put seven in the line-up. And it wouldn’t be Swiss Army unless it came with tweezers and a toothpick. (They’re included, too.)

From DailyPlacebo.com
What the hell. This monstrosity is called the "Giant Knife" I can't imagine how they ever devised such an intricate moniker. It lists the 85 tools included on the linked page, head over if you're at all intrigued. I noticed that the last 2 entries were "key ring" and "second key ring" really? I don't consider the first one a tool, and you guys have two. Looks like they really wanted to get to a nice round 85. Buying bone tickled yet? (mine neither)

Keep in mind that it weighs 2 lbs 11 oz, costs $1200 and has to be individually ordered for production. I guess the company wasn't sure if they'd sell 3 of these or 8. Just imagine trying to use a socket wrench with 85 other tools attached to the handle. COME ON!

I love that guy! if you get the chance read Daily Placebo daily for your daily dose. if you read the word "daily" a bunch of times in a row it starts to look like its spelled wrong.


anyway, here's the Popular Science page on it, it lists all 85 (83 with 2 keyrings) items. Dennis Pireta, from Wenger assures us, “The knife is a brute, but don’t worry, it has a key ring so you can carry it on a belt loop." nice. thanks Dennis, I was worried.

the fire is burnt out

i need gatorade or something. When I was offered this Art show I was all juiced and it lit a fire under my ass to paint paint paint art & paint. but now that its over, I feel like my art juices were sucked dry by a lesbian vampire. I havent really had any inspiration. Maybe I never really had real inspiration and i was painting for the sake of having shit to hang in the gallery. I'd never had an art show before so Im not sure if this is normal or not. I even bought more plaques and have a broken hunk of skateboard to paint on but I have no desire to bust out my paints.

maybe its school. Maybe I feel like i need to finish this semester and see what i learn before i venture into any new art.

maybe im just a pussy and need to shut up and paint. Give me the power Bob!

rent-a-baby.com

i still dont belive she's real.

Ironicly, Stingrays can sting

...stabbed in the heart, and youre to blame. you give stingray appreciation a bad name.
(sung to the tune of Bon Jovi's hit, "You give love a bad name")

your crazy ass will be missed Crocodile Hunter.
Steve Irwin: 1962-2006

thanks isaac

he came and took pics of my show. he rules.

isaac- mydumbluck.com