Against the wind

The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searching
Searching for shelter again and again...

-Bob Seger

Horrible Bosses

Just an FYI, Horrible Bosses was hilarious.

That is all.

Justice Not Served?

"It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, “whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,” and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever." -John Adams

The Compact Disc killed music

OK, well maybe not completely, but I would argue it hastened the demise of the traditional record label. The Compact Disc itself is not entirely to blame, but the digitization of music that began with the compact disc is the primary culprit in my eyes. Without the CD, you don't have iPods or Napster, or iTunes, etc.
But in reality, this post isn't going to be about the death of music, but more about the rebirth of vinyl.

I was reading an interesting post written by Tommy Shaw of Styx fame, called "Tommy Shaw's Vinyl Ritual" (read it here if you'd like http://thecomet.com/posts/exclusive_blog_tommy_shaws_vinyl_ritual) and I was struck by this statement:

"Sitting back listening to music playing ambiently in a room with all its acoustic artifacts, knowing that in a few minutes you’ll be gently reminded by that subtle little popping sound to flip the disc to the other side if you wish to hear the whole thing, means you have to be involved. "

I come to realize that music is just (mostly) relegated into the background of my life now, where in the past it was such a focus. I don't know if it's a phase, or a lack of (or perhaps a lack of exposure to) good quality new music, but TS is certainly right. Every time I break out the vinyl, I'm a lot more focused on the music. Maybe it's because I have to put forth the effort to actually find the record, take the record out of the sleeve and fire up the stereo, as opposed to say setting the ipod to random, or jumping onto youtube while surfing the net.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a vinyl snob who rails on about the inadequacies of mp3 files, and how they would rather listen to cats knock over trash cans. Heck I have an ipod full of tunes (though more and more I listen to podcasts instead of music in the car), and I had a wall full of CD's (which have now been banished into 4 giant cd folders) to go along with my collection of vinyl. I guess maybe I'm saying that it's nice to slow down a bit from a hectic life, and enjoy the soft crackle of classic vinyl...

Phew, that was a close one, Thanks Mach!

$25 for a USB Dongle sized PC

From the article:
Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25.

For $25, I'd pick one of these up in a heartbeat.

I just can't...

...get this song out of my head. And everytime I hear it, I like it a little more...

Goodbye Wall-o-Tunes

Killed in the name of progress...
Before:
















After:

OK I Lied... One more post :)

Bin Laden

From Sports Illustrated writer Peter King:
"Smarter people than I will write today about what it means. I don't have anything deep on that, other than this: We kept our word. We said we were going after bin Laden and wouldn't stop until we found him. It took a decade, but we did it, and I'm so proud of the men and women who have done their part to defend our country and find bin Laden."

I think that pretty much covers it.

Story time

Y'all pull up a chair, uncle JC's gonna talk about his childhood

When I was a teenager I had a job working for Burger King. One night, one of the night deposits comes up mysteriously missing. The night manager at the time mentions to the cops something about hearing that I know the combination to the safe (which I didn't) and that I had just bought a ring for my girlfriend (which I had)
So the cop comes out to interview me and my parents, asks us where I was that night (at home, and the parents confirmed it) Asked my parents if they had ever known me to sneak out of the house at night (they had, they were light sleepers) and if they were sure I didn't sneak out that night (they were)

So the cop asks my parents if he could set up an interview with me down at the station. They agree, and I go to the station where the cop start the hardcore interrogation. Tells me it would be better for everyone if I just admitted that I did it, and all that crap, and the he proceeds to tell me how this whole thing went down, in his eyes...

According to his "story", I get up at about 2:00 in the morning and sneak out a bedroom window. Before I went to bed I disabled the automatic garage door opener, so I could manually open the garage door, as it would be quieter, and my parents wouldn't hear it. Then I proceeded to push the car out of the garage, and out into the street, by myself without anyone hearing (oh and did I mention it was pouring rain that night?) After I got a ways down the street, I started the car and drove to Burger King.
To open the doors, which of course were locked, I had borrowed the keys from a manager while I was working, and pressed an imprint of the door key into clay, which I proceeded to take to a locksmith friend of mine who took that clay imprint and manufactured a key for me. I somehow managed to not trigger the alarm that was set (he never really explained how I managed that) and proceeded into the office where I opened the safe with the combination that I paid someone to give me. I then closed the safe, left the store without triggering the alarm, or leaving fingerprints on the safe, locked the doors and drove back home. When I got home I shut off the car again in the street, and pushed it back into the garage (the car was backed into the garage, and our driveway had a pretty significant hill to it) Then I closed the garage, and climbed back in the window to my room...All without leaving any sort of a trace, or waking up my parents.

And that was the believable story to this cop... somehow the story that the Night Manager had a drug problem and needed some extra cash to score was just so ridiculous, but this 17 year old kid having James Bond/MacGyver type skills is the theory they were going with...

Oh and the motive of my amazing evil villainous crime? I had just bought an "engagement ring" for my girlfriend at the time, and the following night after this amazing caper, went to pick it up with the cash I stole (Which if I remember right was about $1500 or so) I calmly explained to the cop, that I had bought a ring, but it was purchased a few weeks before that, and I had paid the paltry sum of about $100 or so. I even showed him the receipt for the item, which apparently wasn't good enough, as he tracked her down at her job and demanded to see her ring. Well nobody is going to mistake a $100 ring for a $1500 ring, so I figured it was over at that point... nope, they still made me go in and take a lie detector test (which I of course passed)

The point of this excessively long story... The simplest explanation is usually the correct one, well that and people love to create drama where there is none.

I know, I know... great story, bro! every word of it is true though.

Smoke

"Don't ever take a puff on a cigarette, because once you do, it's going to haunt you for the rest of your life."

Thing is, I love to smoke. I've smoked on and off since I was about 15 or so, and quit for about the millionth time last August. It's so true.
It's to the point where I was starting to have health problems... of course I have no idea if those health problems had anything to do with smoking or not, but it sure seems coincidental that they have gone away since I quit.
It's always been a part of my life... back in the day hanging out at the mall (back when you were allowed to smoke in the mall) going to seedy arcades, driving around town, or going to the local cruise. Hanging out in the garage playing in a band. Going to the bars, and having a few drinks and a smoke. Hell there's even a video of me out there lighting up the "first smoke of the new millennium" at midnight on 1/1/2000. I can't even imagine what college would have been like without my Marlboro Light Menthols, hell our dorm room and apartment was always obscured in a cloud of smoke. I used to sit for hours, playing Command and Conquer, and chain smoking.
Point being, I love to smoke. I haven't had a cigarette since August, yet every warm spring day, I feel the urge pulling me outside... go enjoy the weather, and while your at it, enjoy a nice smooth Marlboro.
Then again, I'm not really sure what my point is... maybe just lamenting that there is no such thing as a safe cigarette, as much as I wish there was. And maybe it isn't the smokes at all, but the memories that seem to have floated away like the vapor trail of a solitary cigarette in the evening.

When I grow up I want to be Mitch Allan

August 1990

Just as the sun starts to fade for the evening, the first headlights start to pull up in the big field at the end of my street. I take a look out my back window and smile. It’s getting close to 8:00, time to get going. Hours of work went into washing and waxing my ragtop for tonight, but I wanted it to look just right. For tonight, I hoped, wouldn’t be just any night. A gentle buzz of nervous excitement was in the air, maybe it was just the noise from people who were already there, maybe it was just me.
As I pull the top down off my jeep, I can hear the laughter coming from the field. Yup, it was time to go party. Kicking on the four by four, I proceed to pull into the field. It’s still a little muddy from the rain last week, but mostly dry. There wasn’t nearly enough to destroy my earlier labors, so I was relieved. By the time I pulled up to a chorus of hellos the sun had already retired for the night, replaced by the orange glow of the harvest moon. It seems like more people showed up tonight than ever, perhaps because we all know that summer will be over soon, and we’re all going our separate ways. Some are off to work, others to colleges in strange places with names foreign to me. Me, I am not really sure where I am going, hell I don’t even know where I have been for the past 4 years.
But there’s no reason to worry about that tonight. Tonight there’s beer to be drank, and women to be loved, and sins to be committed. Tomorrow will come when it does. Wandering from car to car, I hear people talking about their dreams, where they’re going, what they want to do, and who they want in their backseat. I’m sure some of them will get it too.
Going over to the bed of Tommy's pickup, I climb in and crack open a beer. We talk for a while, about the same old shit, and what pretty girl is walking by. We ask each other where we went wrong, and how we screwed up, and how to fix it, but mostly we just tip back a few cold ones. Growing tired of this, I work my way back to my convertible and sit down on the hood, waiting. A few of my friends drop over for a quick chat on their way to someone else, but mostly I am alone. And I am okay with that. The amber glow of my radio, the stars in the sky and some one timer singing a song about love that’s gone wrong is my entire world right now. I grab another beer and feel the beginnings of intoxication set in, but that’s fine. I am not going anywhere until the last headlights have left to their own private pilgrimage. Leaning back on my windshield I look up at the sky and look up at the stars. The sky is so clear; it looks like I could see a billion stars tonight. The warm breeze blows through my hair, and another song plays on the radio. Amanda comes over to me and gives me companionship for a while.
“Counting stars again?” she asks, “ You always were a dreamer.”
With a gentle kiss on the cheek, she says goodbye, off to pursue her own dreams. And I am alone again. Alone with just the stars, the radio and my thoughts. And that is OK with me.

Summer 1995
“So then the taxidermist says, Lady I don’t ask questions, I just stuff ‘em”

This brilliant outburst, the punch line of a much less funny joke comes out of the back seat of my 4X4 followed by a chorus of overexcited stoner laughter. I might be a little more disgusted myself had I not been so stoned, I thought it as funny as everyone else. Mike was infamous for his little quips that would be looked at with massive confusion by anyone other than the most devout stoner. Aside from that we were voyaging to the stoner equivalent of the “Rocky Horror Picture show”, the annual midnight showing of the Alan Parker/ Pink Floyd Masterpiece “The Wall.” Of course cramming 6 people into a convertible Geo Tracker makes for an already amusing situation reminiscent of the 1960’s VW Beetle attempts at cramming as many people into a small space as possible. Add to that some choice bud, and a six pack of Zima (Pussy, I know, but there were three ladies present who refused to drink beer), and a fun time is about to be had by all. So as we pull into the theater, we notice an unusual prevalence of bacon present in the parking lot. Funny that every other year the midnight showing of The Wall was the choicest place to get a contact buzz if you were short on dope, that damn place was smokier than a seedy biker bar, but of course filled with less carcinogens. However I had a gut feeling that this year would be a little different. So we eighty-sixed the weed, and each of us with a Zima in tow headed in toward the movie.
Good thing we ditched the pot, cause the abundance of Smokey the Bear was even more present inside than out. I guess the local Law enforcement actually figured out what the movie was about, and decided to do a little preliminary investigating of their own. Either that or their confiscated weed supply was running a little low, and they were looking to score some. Now don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for cops, and I don’t want to sound like a bacon basher here. In fact, one of my best friends is a cop, and that’s the actual truth, not just something like what racist people say to hide their racism. However, I must admit that there are several members of the local law enforcement community who are not exactly on the up and up, so to say. And I, a time or two, have had my share of run ins with said local law enforcement, which was not a positive experience for myself and did not add to the credibility in my opinion of the occupation of Law Enforcement. Why don’t we just say there are good cops and bad cops and leave it at that. I would hate to stereotype in the dedicated members of the police department who were at my house in thirty seconds when my father almost choked to death.
As I was saying, there was an incredible police presence there, which made things quite uncomfortable, not like there was a strip search or anything, but you kind of didn’t want to look too stoned around all of these cops. Of course I look quite stoned even when I am sober, so I probably really looked stoned. After making our way into the place, we did our usual routine of buying medium cokes, and promptly emptying them out in the bathroom. Unfortunately this time, there was a Cop sitting in the john watching everyone. Damn I guess you can’t even spark up in the can. So we get to our seats, and there’s cops walking up and down the aisles! I mean this was too much like George Orwell 1984 big brother shit going on here. And one major problem arose upon filling our theater cups with the Zima. What the hell are we gonna do with the bottles? I mean shit, it was tough enough filling the cups with cops breathing down your neck, almost like a high school teacher trying to keep you from cheating, now what the hell do we do with six empty Zima bottles. With all the cops outside, hell there’s probably a roadblock waiting for us to leave. So no dice on taking these things out with us. A brilliant idea flashes in my head, roll the bottles down under the seats.
“Don’t you think the cops will hear the noise from the bottles rolling on the concrete”, Mike asked me, a little confused.
“Not if you wait until the movie starts and the music is crankin.” I responded with a grin.

So the lights fade, and the music begins, building to a loud crescendo, as I tap Mike in the shoulder, hold up the bottle and send it rolling down to the front of the theater. Mike taps Jaime on the shoulder and does the same with his bottle. The music builds to a fever pitch, as "...In The Flesh" is coming toward it's climax, and Jaime holds up his bottle and prepares to send it rolling down the aisle, while Mike and I are frantically waving at him and saying stop. Jaime lets the bottle go just as the music stops, and the theater is immersed in dead silence, followed by…
…Tink…tink chink…tink…tink…chink…
A slight chuckle permeates through the theater, while the Cop/Ushers wander around frantically trying to figure out where that noise was coming from.
….ca chink…tink..tink…tink….
Jesus how far was this thing going to roll?
…Tink Tink CRASH!…
At this point the whole theater is pretty much cracking up, and Jaime’s face is so red it’s like a beacon in the dark theater. Of course being stoned out of our minds, the rest of us are laughing so hard, we practically fell out of the seats. One of the friendly neighborhood peace officers comes over to see what the ruckus is about.

“Could you describe the ruckus?” I quote.

“Alright, What seems to be so funny here?” The officer quips.

Mike chimes in, “so the taxidermist says, Officer I don’t ask questions, I just stuff em”